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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..389239f --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #54247 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54247) diff --git a/old/54247-8.txt b/old/54247-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5828ac2..0000000 --- a/old/54247-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,13873 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Beyond These Voices, by M. E. Braddon - -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: Beyond These Voices - -Author: M. E. Braddon - -Release Date: February 27, 2017 [EBook #54247] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEYOND THESE VOICES *** - - - - -Produced by David Edwards, Christopher Wright, and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. - - - THE FILIBUSTERS CUTCLIFFE HYNE - THE ROYAL END HENRY HARLAND - MOLLIE'S PRINCE ROSA N. CAREY - BY RIGHT OF SWORD A. W. MARCHMONT - THE MAYORESS'S WOOING MRS. BAILLIE SAUNDERS - THE THIEF OF VIRTUE EDEN PHILLPOTTS - A LONELY LITTLE LADY DOLF WYLLARDE - THE STUMBLING BLOCK JUSTUS MILES FORMAN - TWO IMPOSTORS AND TINKER DOROTHEA CONYERS - PARK LANE PERCY WHITE - - - HUTCHINSON & CO.'S - 7d. COPYRIGHT NOVELS. - -[Illustration: "I could hear her stifled sobs as she lay on the -floor."--_p. 318._] - - - - - BEYOND - THESE VOICES - - By - M. E. BRADDON - - London - HUTCHINSON & CO. - Paternoster Row - - - - -"BEYOND THESE VOICES" - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -Lady Felicia Disbrowe was supposed to condescend when she married -Captain Cunningham of the first Life--since, although his people lived -on their own land, and were handsomely recorded in Burke, there was -no record of them before the Conquest, nor even on the muster-roll of -those who fought and died for the Angevin Kings. Captain Cunningham -was handsome and fashionable, but not rich; and when he had the bad -luck to get himself killed in an Egyptian campaign, he left his widow -with an only daughter seven years old, her pension, and a settlement -that brought her about six hundred a year, half of which came from the -Disbrowes, while the other half was the rental of three or four small -farms in Somersetshire. It will be seen therefore that for a person who -considered herself essentially _grande dame_, and to whom all degrading -economies must be impossible, Lady Felicia's position was not enviable. - -As the seven-year-old orphan grew in grace and beauty to sweet -seventeen, Lady Felicia began to consider her daughter her chief -asset. So lovely a creature must command the admiration of the richest -bachelors in the marriage-market. She would have her choice of opulent -lovers. There would be no cruel necessity for forcing a marriage with -vulgar wealth or drivelling age. She would have her adorers among the -best, the fortunate, the well-bred, the young and handsome. Nor was -Lady Felicia mistaken in her forecast. When Cara came out under the -auspices of her aunt, Lady Okehampton, she made a success that realised -her mother's fondest dreams. Youth, rank, and wealth were at her feet. -There was no question of riches raked out of the gutter. She had but -to say the sweet little monosyllable "yes," and one of the best born -and best-looking men in London, and town and country houses, yacht and -opera box, would be hers; and her mother would cease to be "poor Lady -Felicia." - -Unhappily, before Lord Walford had time to offer her all these -advantages, Cara had fallen in love with somebody else, and that -somebody was no other than Lancelot Davis, the poet, just then the -petted darling of dowagers, and of young married women whose daughters -were in the nursery, and who had therefore no fear of his fascinating -personality. Unfortunately for Lady Felicia, her head was too high -in the air for her to take note of the literary stars who shone at -luncheon parties, and even when her daughter praised the young poet, -and tried to interest her mother in his latest book, Lady Felicia took -no alarm. It was only in the beginning of their acquaintance that Cara -talked of the poet to her unresponsive mother. By the time she had -known him twenty days of that heavenly June, he was far too sacred -to be talked about to an unsympathetic listener. It was only to her -dearest and only bosom friend, who was also in love with the adorable -Lancelot, that Cara liked to talk of him, and to her she discoursed -romantic nonsense that would have covered reams of foolscap, had it -been written. - -"Lancelot!" she said in low, thrilling tones. "Even his name is a poem." - -Everything about him was a poem for Cara. His boots, his tie, his cane, -and especially his hair, which he took a poet's privilege of wearing -longer than fashion justified. - -Though educated at the Stationers' School, and unacquainted with either -'Varsity, nobody ever said of Mr. Davis that he was "not a gentleman." -That scathing, irrevocable sentence, with the cruel emphasis upon the -negative, had not been pronounced upon the man who wrote "The New -Ariadne," a work of genius which scared the lowly-minded country vicar, -his father, and set his pious mother praying, with trembling and tears, -that the eyes of her beloved son might be opened, and that he might -repent of using the talents God had given him in the service of Satan. - -Lancelot Davis had made up for the lack of 'Varsity training by -strenuous self-culture. He was passionate, exalted, transcendental, -more Swinburne than Swinburne, steeped in Dante and Victor Hugo, -stuffed almost to choking with Musset, Baudelaire, and Verlaine; he was -young, handsome, or rather beautiful, too beautiful for a man--Paris, -Leander, the Sun God--anything you like; and, at the time of his -wooing, his pockets were full of the proceeds of a book that had made a -sensation--and he was the rage. - -Were not these things enough to fire the imagination and win the heart -of a girl of eighteen, half-educated, undisciplined, the daughter of a -shallow-brained mother, who had never taken the trouble to understand -her, or taken account of the romantic yearnings in the mind of -eighteen? If Lady Felicia had cultivated her daughter's mind half as -strenuously as she had cultivated her person, the girl would have not -been so ready to fall in love with her poet. But the girl's home life -had been an arid waste, and the mother's conversation had been one long -repining against the Fate that had made her "poor Lady Felicia," and -had deprived her of all the things that are needed to make life worth -living. - -Lancelot Davis opened the gates of an enchanted land in which money -counted for nothing, where there was no animosity against the ultra -rich, no perpetual talk of debts and difficulties, no moaning over -the hardship of doing without things that luckier people could enjoy -in abundance. He let her into that lovely world where the imagination -rules supreme. He introduced her to other poets, the gods of that -enchanted land--Browning, Tennyson, Shelley, Byron. She bowed down -before these mighty spirits, but thought Lancelot Davis greater than -the greatest of them. - -There was nothing mean or underhand about her poet's conduct. He lost -no time in offering himself to Lady Felicia. He was not a pauper; he -was not ill born; and he was thought to have a brilliant future before -him. His suit was supported by some of "poor Felicia's" oldest and -best friends; but Lady Felicia received his addresses with coldness -and scarcely concealed contempt; and she told her daughter that while -she had committed an unpardonable sin when she refused Lord Walford, -were she to insist upon marrying Mr. Davis, it would be a heart-broken -mother's duty to cast her off for ever. - -"I never could forgive you, Cara," she said, and she never did. - -Cara walked out of the Weymouth Street lodgings early one morning, -before Lady Felicia had rung for her meagre breakfast of chocolate -and toast. She carried her dressing-bag to the corner of the street, -where Davis was waiting in a hansom. Her trunk, with all that was -most needful of her wardrobe, had been despatched to the station over -night, labelled for the Continental Express. There was plenty of time -to be married before the registrar, and to be at Victoria, ready for -the train that was to carry them on the first stage of that wonderful -journey which begins in the smoke and grime of South London and ends -under the Italian sky. - - * * * * * - -They went from the registrar's office straight to the Lake of Como, and -lived between Bellagio and Venice for four years, years of ineffable -bliss, at the end of which sweet summer-time of love and life--for it -seemed never winter--the girl-wife died, leaving her young husband -heart-broken, with an only child, a daughter three years old, an -incarnation of romantic love and romantic beauty. - -When he carried off Lady Felicia's daughter, the poet was at the top of -his vogue, and his vogue lasted for just those four years of supreme -happiness. - -Nothing that he wrote after his wife's death had the old passion -or the old music. His genius died with his wife. Heart-broken and -disappointed, he became a consumptive, and died of an open-air cure, -leaving piteous letters to Lady Felicia and his wife's other relations, -imploring them to take care of his daughter. She would have the -copyright of his five volumes of verse, and two successful tragedies, -for her portion; so she was not altogether without means. - -Lady Felicia's heart was not all stone; there was a vulnerable spot -upon which the serpent's tooth had fastened. Obstinate, proud, and -selfish, she had never faltered in her unforgiving attitude towards the -runaway daughter; but when there came the sudden news of Cara's death, -a blow for which the Spartan mother was utterly unprepared, an agony -of remorse disturbed the self-satisfied calm of a mind which thought -itself justified in resenting injury. - -Perhaps she had pictured to herself a day upon which Cara would have -come back to her and sued for pardon, and she would have softened, -and taken the prodigal daughter to her heart. One of the girl's -worst crimes had been that she had not knelt and wept and entreated -to be forgiven, before she took that desperate, immodest, and even -vulgar, step of a marriage before the registrar. She had shown herself -heartless as a daughter, and how could she expect softness in her -mother? But she was dead. She had passed beyond the possibility of -pardon or love. That vague dream of reconciliation could never be -realised. If there had been anything wrong in Lady Felicia's behaviour -as a parent, that wrong could never be righted. Never more would she -see the lovely face that was to have brought prosperity and happiness -for them both; never more would she hear the sweet voice which the -fashionable Italian master had trained to such perfection. The French -ballads, and Jensen's setting of Heine, came out of the caverns of -memory as Lady Felicia sat, poor and lonely, in a lodging-house -drawing-room, on the borderland of West-End London, the last "possible" -street, before W. became N.W. - -"_Ninon, que fait tu de la vie?_" Memory brought back every tone of the -fresh young voice. Lady Felicia could hardly believe that there was -no one singing, that the room was empty of human life, except her own -fatigued existence. - -That last year of remorseful memories softened her, and she accepted -the charge that Lancelot Davis left her. He lived just long enough -in his bleak hospital on a Gloucestershire hill-top to read his -mother-in-law's letter: - - "Send the little girl to me. I will be kinder to her than I was to her - mother." - -Society, and especially Cara's other relations, said that poor Felicia -had been quite admirable in taking the sole charge of the orphan. -There was no attempt to foist the little girl upon aunts and cousins; -and, considering poor Felicia's state of genteel pauperism, always in -lodgings, her behaviour was worthy of all praise. - -The grandchild brought back the memory of the daughter's childhood, -and Lady Felicia almost felt as if she was again a young widow, full -of care for her only child. So far as her narrow means permitted she -made the little girl happy, and she found her own dreary existence -brightened by that young life. - -That calm and monotonous existence with Grannie was not the kind of -life that childhood yearns for, and there were long stretches of -time in which little Veronica had only her picture-books and fancy -needlework to amuse her--after the cheap morning governess had -departed, and the day's tasks were done. At least Grannie did not -torture the orphan with over-education. A little French, a little -easy music, a little English history, occupied the morning hours, -and then Vera was free to read what books she liked to choose out of -Grannie's blameless and meagre library. Lady Felicia's nomadic life -had not allowed the accumulation of literature, but the few books she -carried about with her were of the best, Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, -Byron. Her trunks had room only for the Immortals, and as soon as Vera -could read them, and long before she could understand them, those dear -books were familiar to her. The pictures helped her to understand, and -she was never tired of looking at them. Sometimes Grannie would read -Shakespeare to her, the ghostly scenes in _Hamlet_, which thrilled -her, or passages and scenes from the _Tempest_, or _Midsummer Night's -Dream_, which Vera thought divine. She had no playfellows, and hardly -knew how to play; but in her lonely life imagination filled the space -that the frolics and gambols of exuberant spirits occupy in the life -of the normal child. Those few great novels which she read over and -over again peopled her world, a world of beautiful images that she -had all to herself, and of which her fancy never wearied--Amy Robsart -and Leicester, the Scottish Knight, the generous Saracen, the heroic -dog, Paul Dombey and his devoted sister, David Copperfield and his -child-wife. These were the companions of the long silent afternoons, -when Grannie was taking her siesta in seclusion upstairs, and when -Vera had the drawing-room to herself. No visitors intruded on those -long afternoons; for Lady Felicia's card gave the world to know that -the first and fifteenth of May, June, and July, were the only days on -which she was accessible to the friends and acquaintances who had not -utterly forgotten "poor Felicia's" existence. - -It was a life of monotony against which an older girl would have -revolted; but childhood is submissive, and accepts its environment -as something inevitable, so Vera made no protest against Fate. But -there was one golden season in her young life, one heavenly summer -holiday in the West Country, when her aunt, Lady Okehampton, happening -to call upon Lady Felicia, was moved to compassion at sight of the -little girl, pale and languid, as she sat in the corner of the unlovely -drawing-room, with an open book on her lap. - -"This hot weather makes London odious," said Lady Okehampton. "We are -all leaving much earlier than usual. I suppose you and the little girl -are soon going into the country?" - -"No, I shan't move till the end of October, when we go to Brighton, -as usual. I have had invitations to nice places, the Helstons, the -Heronmoors; but I can't take that child, and I can't leave her." - -"Poor little girl. Does she never see gardens and meadows? Brighton is -only London with a little less smoke, and a strip of grey water that -one takes on trust for the sea. Wouldn't you like a country holiday, -Veronica? What a name!" - -"She is always called Vera. Her father was a poet----" - -"Lancelot Davis, yes, I remember him!" - -"And he gave her that absurd name because the Italian hills were purple -and white with the flower when she was born." - -"Rather a nice idea. Well, Vera, if Grannie likes, you shall come to -Disbrowe with your cousins, and you shall have a real country holiday, -and come back to Grannie in September with rosy cheeks and bright eyes." - -Oh, never-to-be-forgotten golden days, in which the child of eleven -found herself among a flock of young cousins in a rural paradise where -she first knew the rapture of loving birds and beasts. She adored them -all, from the gold and silver pheasants in the aviary to the great, -slow wagon horses on the home farm, and the shooting dogs. - -Among the children of the house, and more masterful in his behaviour -than any of them, there was an Eton boy of sixteen, who was not a -Disbrowe, although he claimed cousinship in a minor degree. He was a -Disbrowe on the Distaff side, he told Vera, a distinction which he had -to explain to her. He was Claude Rutherford, and he belonged to the -Yorkshire Rutherfords, who had been Roman Catholic from the beginning -of history, with which they claimed to be coeval. He was in the upper -sixth at Eton, and was going to Oxford in a year or two, and from -Oxford into the Army. He was a clever boy, old for his years, quoted -Omar Khayyam in season and out of season, and was already tired of many -things that boys are fond of. - -But, superior as this young person might be, he behaved with something -more than cousinly kindness to the little girl from London, whose -pitiful story Lady Okehampton had expounded to him. He was familiar -with the poetry of Lancelot Davis, whose lyrics had a flavour of Omar; -and he was pleased to patronise the departed poet's daughter. - -He took Vera about the home farm, and the stables, and introduced -her to the assemblage of living creatures that made Disbrowe Park so -enchanting. He taught her to ride the barb that had been his favourite -mount four years earlier. He seemed ages older than Vera; and he -condescended to her and protected her, and would not allow his cousins -to tease her, although their vastly superior education tempted them to -make fun of the little girl who had only two hours a day from a Miss -Walker, and to whom the whole world of science was dark. What a change -was that large life at Disbrowe, the picnics and excursions, the little -dances after dinner, the run with the otter-hounds on dewy mornings, -the rustic races and sports, the thrilling jaunts with Cousin Claude in -his dinghy, over those blue-green West Country waves, a life so full -of variety and delight that the pleasures of the day ran over into the -dreams of night, and sleep was a round of adventure and excitement! -What a change from the slow walk in Regent's Park, or along the -sea-front at Brighton, beside Grannie's Bath chair, or the afternoon -drive between Hove and Kemp Town, in a hired landau! - -She thought of poor Grannie, who was not invited to Disbrowe, and was -sorry to think of her lingering in the dull London lodging, when all -her friends had gone off to their cures in Germany and Austria, and -while it was still too early to migrate to the brighter rooms on the -Marine Parade. - -These happy days at Disbrowe were the first and last of their kind, -for though Lady Okehampton promised to invite her the following year, -there were hindrances to the keeping of that promise, and she saw -Disbrowe Park no more. Life in London and Brighton continued with -what the average girl would have called a ghastly monotony, till Vera -was sixteen, when Lady Felicia, after a bronchial attack of unusual -severity, was told that Brighton was no longer good enough for her -winters, and if she wished to see any more Decembers, she must migrate -to sunnier regions in the autumn. Cannes or Mentone were suggested. -Grannie smiled a bitter smile at the mention of Cannes. She had stayed -there with her husband at the beginning of their wedded life, when she -was young and beautiful, and when Captain Cunningham was handsome and -reckless. They had been among the gayest, and the best received, and -had tasted all that Cannes could give of pleasure; but they had spent a -year's income in five weeks, and had felt themselves paupers among the -millionaire shipbuilders and exotic Hebrews. - -Lady Felicia decided on San Marco, a picturesque little spot on the -Italian Riviera, which had been only a fishing village till within the -last ten years, when an English doctor had "discovered" it, and two or -three hotels had been built to accommodate the patients he sent there. -The sea-front was sheltered from every pernicious wind, and the sea was -unpolluted by the drainage of a town. Peasant proprietors grew their -carnations all along the shore, close to the sandy beach, and the olive -woods that clothed the sheltering hill were carpeted with violets and -narcissus. - -Lady Felicia described San Marco as a paradise; but her friends told -her that there was absolutely no society, and that she would be bored -to death. - -"You will meet nobody but invalids, dreadful people in Bath chairs!" -one of her rich friends told her, a purse-proud matron who owned a -villa at Cannes, and considered no other place "possible" from Spezzia -to Marseilles. - -"I shall be in a Bath chair myself," replied Lady Felicia. "I want -quiet and economy, and not society. At Vera's age it is best that there -should be no talk of dances and high jinks." - -Mrs. Montagu Watson smiled, and shrugged her shoulders. "Girls have -their own opinions about life nowadays," she said. "I don't think -Theodora or Margaret would put up with San Marco, although they are -still in the school-room. They want fine clothes and smart carriages to -look at, when they trudge with their governess." - -"Vera is more unsophisticated than your girls. She will be quite happy -reading Scott or Dickens in a garden by the sea. I mean to keep her as -fresh as I can till I hand her over to one of her aunts to be brought -out." - -"She is a sweet, dreamy child," said Mrs. Watson, who became -deferential at the mere mention of countesses, "and I dare say she is -going to be pretty." - -"I have no doubt about that," said Lady Felicia. - - * * * * * - -They went to San Marco early in November, and found the hotel and the -sea-front the abode of desolation, so far as people went. The habitual -invalids had not yet arrived, and the weather was at its worst. The -four cosmopolitan shops that spread their trivial wares to tempt the -English visitor, and which gave a touch of colour and gaiety to the -poor little street, were not to open till December. There were only the -shabby little butcher, baker, and grocer, who supplied the wants of the -natives. - -Vera delighted in the scenery, but she found a sense of dulness -creeping over her, in the midst of all that loveliness of mountain and -shore. - -Everything seemed deadly still, a calm that weighed upon the spirits. -Her grandmother had caught cold on the journey, and the English doctor -had to be summoned in the morning after their arrival. - -He was their first acquaintance in San Marco, and was the most popular -inhabitant in that quiet settlement. Old ladies talked of him as -"chatty" and "so obliging"; but objected to him on the ground of too -frequent visits, which made it perilous to call him in for any small -ailment, whereby he was sometimes called in too late for an illness -which was graver than the patient suspected. - -Dr. Wilmot was essentially a snob, but the amiable kind of snob, fussy, -obliging, benevolent, and with a childlike worship of rank for its -own sake. He was delighted to find a Lady Felicia at the Hôtel des -Anglais--where even a courtesy title was rare, and where for the most -part a City Knight's widow took the _pas_ of all the other inmates. - -Dr. Wilmot told Lady Felicia that she had chosen the very best spot on -the Riviera for her bronchial trouble, and that the longer she stayed -at San Marco the better she would like the place. - -The bronchial trouble was mitigated, but not conquered; and from this -time Lady Felicia claimed all the indulgences of a confirmed invalid; -while Vera's position became that of an assistant nurse, subordinate -always to Grannie's devoted maid, a sturdy North Country woman of -eight-and-forty, who had been in Lady Felicia's service from her -eighteenth year, and who could talk to Vera of her mother, as she -remembered her, in those long-ago days before the runaway marriage -which was supposed to have broken Grannie's heart. Vera had no idea of -shirking the duties imposed upon her. She walked to the market to buy -flowers for Lady Felicia's sitting-room, and she cut and snipped them -and petted them to keep them alive for a week; she dusted the books and -photographs, and the priceless morsels of Chelsea and Dresden china, -which Grannie carried about with her, and which gave a _cachet_ to the -shabby second-floor _salon_. She went on all Grannie's errands; she -walked beside her Bath chair, and read her to sleep in the drowsy, -windless afternoons, when the casements were wide open, and the sea -looked like a stagnant pond. It was a dismal life for a girl on the -edge of womanhood--a girl who had little to look back upon and nothing -to look forward to. It seemed to Vera sometimes as if she had never -lived, and as if she were never going to live. - -Grannie talked of the same things day after day; indeed, her -conversation suggested a talking-machine, for one always knew what -was coming. The talk was for the most part a long lament over all the -things that had gone amiss in Grannie's life. The follies and mistakes -of other people: father, uncles and aunts, husband, daughter; the -wrong-headedness and self-will of others that had meant shipwreck for -Grannie. Vera listened meekly, and could not say much in excuse for -the sins of these dead people, of whose lives and characters she knew -only what Grannie had told her. For her mother she did plead, at the -risk of offending Grannie. She knew the history of the girl's love for -her poet-lover; for she had it all in her father's exquisite verse; a -story poem in which every phase of that romantic love lived in colour -and light. Vera could feel the young hearts beating, as she hung over -pages that were to her as sacred as Holy Writ. - -Grannie's bronchitis and Grannie's memories of past wrongs did not make -for cheerfulness; and even the loveliness of that Italian shore in the -celestial light of an Italian spring was not enough for the joy of -life. There is a profound melancholy that comes down upon the soul in -the monotony of a beautiful scene--where there is nothing besides that -scenic beauty--a monotony that weighs heavier than ugliness. A dull -street in Bloomsbury would have been hardly more oppressive than the -afternoon stillness of San Marco, when Grannie had fallen asleep in her -nest of silken cushions, and Vera had her one little walk alone--up and -down, up and down the poor scrap of promenade with its scanty row of -palms, tall and straggling, crowned with a spare tuft of leaves, and a -bunch of dates that never came to maturity. - -Companionless and hopeless, Vera paced the promenade, and looked over -the tideless sea. - -The only changes in the days were the alternations of Grannie's health, -the days when she was better, and the days when she was worse, and when -Dr. Wilmot came twice--dreary days, on which Vera had to go down to the -table d'hôte alone, and to run the gauntlet of all the other visitors, -who surrounded her in the hall, obtrusively sympathetic, and wanting -to know the fullest particulars of Lady Felicia's bronchial trouble, -and what Dr. Wilmot thought of it. They told her it must be very dull -for her to be always with an invalid, and they tried to lure her into -the public drawing-room, where she might join in a round game, or even -make a fourth at bridge; or, if there were a conjuror that evening, the -elderly widows and spinsters almost insisted upon her stopping to see -the performance. - -"No, thank you, I mustn't stay. Grannie wants me," she would answer -quietly; and after she had run upstairs, there would be a chorus of -disapproval of Lady Felicia's want of consideration in depriving the -sweet child of every little pleasure within her reach. - -Vera had no yearning for the gaieties of the hotel drawing-room, or the -conjuror's entertainment; but she had a feeling of hopeless loneliness, -which even her favourite books could not overcome. If she had been free -to roam about the olive woods, to climb the hills, and get nearer the -blue sky, she might have been almost happy; but Grannie was exacting, -and Vera had never more than an hour's freedom at a time. The hills, -and the rustic shrines that shone dazzling white against the soft blue -heaven, were impossible for her. Exploration or adventure was out of -the question. She might sit in the garden where the pepper trees and -palms were dust-laden and shabby; or she might pace the promenade, -where Grannie and Martha Lidcott, Grannie's maid, could see her from -the _salon_ windows on the second floor. - -On the promenade she was safe and needed no chaperon. The hardiest -and most audacious of prowling cads would not have dared to follow or -address her under the glare of all those hotel windows, and within -sound of shrill female voices and flying tennis balls. On the promenade -she had all the hotel for her chaperon. Grannie asked her the same -questions every evening when she came in to dress for the seven o'clock -dinner. Had she enjoyed her walk? and was it not a delicious evening? -And then Grannie would tell her what a privilege it was to be young, -and able to walk, instead of being a helpless invalid in a Bath chair. - -Vera wondered sometimes whether the privilege of youth, with the long -blank vista of years lying in front of it, were an unmixed blessing. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -It was the middle of February, and all the little gardens that lay like -a fringe along the edge of the olive woods had become one vivid pink -with peach blossoms, while the dull grey earth under the peach trees -was spread with the purple and red of anemones. San Marco was looking -its loveliest, blue sea and blue sky, cypresses rising up, like dark -green obelisks, among the grey olives, and even the hotel garden was -made beautiful by roses that hung in garlands from tree to tree, and -daffodils that made a golden belt round the dusty grass. - -Vera went to the dining-room alone at the luncheon hour on this -heavenly morning, a loneliness to which she was now accustomed, as -Grannie's delicate and scanty meal was now served to her habitually -in her _salon_. Fortified by Dr. Wilmot, who was an authority at the -"Anglais," Lady Felicia had interviewed the landlord, and had insisted -upon this amenity without extra charge. - -The hotel seemed in a strange commotion as Vera went downstairs. -Chambermaids with brooms and dusters were running up and down the -corridor on the first floor. Doors that were usually shut were all -wide open to the soft spring breezes. Furniture was being carried from -one room to another, and other furniture, that looked new, was being -brought upstairs from the hall. Carpets and curtains were being shaken -in the garden at the back of the hotel, and dust was being blown in -through the open window on the landing. - -Vera wondered, but had not to wonder long; for at the luncheon table -everybody was talking about the upheaval, and its cause, and a torrent -of rambling chatter, in which widows and spinsters were almost shrill -with excitement, gradually resolved itself into these plain facts. - -An Italian financier, Signor Mario Provana, the richest man in Rome, -and one of the richest men in London, which, of course, meant a great -deal more, was bringing his daughter to the hotel, a daughter in -delicate health, sent by her doctors to the most eligible spot along -the Western Ligura. - -The poor dear girl was in a very bad way, the old ladies told each -other, threatened with consumption. She had two nurses besides her -governess and maid, and the whole of the first floor had been taken by -Signor Provana, to the annoyance of Lady Sutherland Jones, quite the -most important inmate of the hotel, who had been made to exchange her -first-floor bedroom for an apartment on the second floor, which Signor -Canincio, the landlord, declared to be superior in every particular, as -well as one lire less _per diem_. - -"I should have thought your husband would have hesitated before putting -one of his best customers to inconvenience for a party who drops from -the skies, and may never come here again," Lady Jones complained to the -landlord's English wife, who was, if anything, more plausible than her -Italian husband. - -The Holloway builder's widow was uncertain in her aspirates, more -especially when discomposed by a sense of injury. - -Madame Canincio pleaded that they could not afford to turn away good -fortune in the person of a Roman millionaire, who took a whole floor, -and would have all his meals served in his private _salle à manger_, -the extra charge for which indulgence would come to almost as much -as her ladyship's "_arrangement_"; for Lady Sutherland Jones, albeit -supposed to be wealthy, was not liberal. Her late husband had been -knighted, after the opening by a Royal Princess of a vast pile of -workmen's dwellings, paid for by an American philanthropist, and -neither husband nor wife had achieved that shibboleth of gentility, the -letter "h." - -Vera heard all about Signor Provana, and his daughter, next morning -from Dr. Wilmot, who was more elated at the letting of the first floor -to that great man than she had ever seen him by any other circumstance -in the quiet life of San Marco. - -"I consider the place made from this hour," said the doctor, rubbing -his well-shaped white hands in a prophetic rapture. "There will be -paragraphs in all the Roman papers, and it will be my business to see -that they get into the _New York Herald_. We must boom our pretty -little San Marco, my dear Lady Felicia. Your coming here was good luck, -for we want our English aristocracy to take us up--but all over the -world Mario Provana's is a name to conjure with; and if his daughter -can recover her health here, we shall make San Marco as big as San Remo -before we are many years older. It was my wife's delicate chest that -brought me here, and I have been rewarded by the beauty of the place -and, I think I may venture to say, the influential position that I have -obtained here." - -He might have added that his villa and garden cost him about half the -rent he would have had to pay in San Remo or Mentone, while a clever -manager like Mrs. Wilmot could make a superior figure in San Marco on -economical terms. - -"How old is the girl?" Lady Felicia asked languidly. - -"Between fifteen and sixteen, I believe. She will be a nice companion -for Miss Davis." - -"I do so hope we may be friends," Vera said eagerly. In a hotel where -almost everybody was elderly, the idea of a girl friend was delightful. - -Lady Felicia, who had been very severe in her warnings against -hotel-acquaintance, answered blandly, though with a touch of -condescension. - -"If the girl is really nice, and has been well brought up, I should see -no objections to Vera's knowing her." - -"Thank you, Grannie," cried Vera. "She is sure to be nice!" - -"Signor Provana's daughter cannot fail to be nice," protested the -doctor. - -Lady Felicia was dubious. - -"An Italian!" she said. "She may be precocious--artful--of doubtful -morality." - -"Signor Provana's daughter! Impossible!" - -Nothing happened to stir the stagnant pool of life at San Marco during -the next day and the day after that. Vera asked Madame Canincio when -Signor Provana and his daughter were expected, but could obtain no -precise information. The rooms were ready. Madame Canincio showed -Vera the _salon_, which she had seen in its spacious emptiness, with -the shabby hotel furniture, but to which Signor Provana's additions -had given an air of splendour. Sofas and easy chairs had been sent -from Genoa, velvet curtains and _portières_, bronze lamps, and silver -candlesticks, Persian carpets, everything that makes for comfort and -luxury; and the bedroom for the young lady had been even more carefully -prepared; but, beside her own graceful pillared bedstead, with its lace -mosquito curtains, was the narrow bed for the night-nurse, which gave -its sad indication of illness. - -The flowers were ready in the vases, filling the _salon_ with perfume. - -"I believe they will be here before sunset," Madame Canincio told Vera. -"We are waiting for a telegram to order dinner. The _chef_ is in an -agony of anxiety. First impressions go for so much, and no doubt Signor -Provana is a _gourmet_." - -Vera heard no more that day, but the maid who brought the early -breakfast told her that the great man and his daughter had arrived -at five o'clock on the previous afternoon. Vera went to the flower -market in a fever of expectation, bought her cheap supply of red and -purple anemones, her poor little bunch of Parma violets and branches -of mimosa, thinking of the luxury of tuberoses and camellias in the -Provana _salon_, but she thought much more of the sick girl, and the -father's love, exemplified in all that forethought and preparation. For -youth in vigorous health there is always a melancholy interest in youth -that is doomed to die, and Vera's heart ached with sympathy for the -consumptive girl, for whom a father's wealth might do everything except -spin out the weak thread of life. - -She heard voices in the hotel garden, as she went up the sloping -carriage drive, with her flower basket on her arm; and at a bend in the -avenue of pepper trees and palms she stopped with a start, surprised at -the gaiety of the scene, which made the shabby hotel garden seem a new -place. - -The dusty expanse of scanty grass which passed for a lawn, where -nothing gayer than aloes and orange trees had flourished, was now alive -with colour. A girl in a smart white cloth frock and a large white hat -was sitting in a blue and gold wicker chair, a girl all brightness and -vitality, as it seemed to Vera; where she had expected to see a languid -invalid reclining among a heap of pillows, a wasted hand drooping -inertly, too feeble to hold a book. - -This girl's aspect was of life, not of sickness and coming death. -Her eyes were darkest brown, large and brilliant, with long black -lashes that intensified their darkness, intensified also by the marked -contrast of hair that was almost flaxen, parted on her forehead, -and hanging in a single thick plait that fell below her waist, and -was tied with a blue ribbon. Three spaniels, one King Charles, and -two Blenheims, jumped and barked about her chair, and increased the -colour and gaiety of her surroundings by their frivolous decorations -of silver bells and blue ribbons; and, as if this were not enough of -colour, gaudy draperies of Italian printed cotton were flung upon the -unoccupied chairs, and covered a wicker table, while, as the highest -note in this scale of colour, a superb crimson and green cockatoo, -with a tail of majestic length, screamed and fluttered on his perch, -and responded not too amiably to the attentions of Dr. Wilmot, who was -trying to scratch himself into the bird's favour. - -The doctor desisted from his "Pretty Pollyings" on perceiving Vera. -"Ah, Miss Davis, that's lucky. Do stop a minute with Grannie's flowers. -I want to introduce you to Mademoiselle di Provana." - -The "di" was the embellishment of Dr. Wilmot, who could not imagine -wealth and importance without nobility, but the financier called -himself Provana _tout court_. - -Vera murmured something about being "charmed," put down her basket -on the nearest chair, and went eagerly towards the fair girl with -the dark, lustrous eyes, who held out a dazzling white hand, smiling -delightedly. - -"I am so glad to find you here. Dr. Veelmot"--she stumbled a little -over the name, otherwise her English was almost perfect; "Dr. Vilmot -told me you were English, and about my own age, and that we ought to be -good friends. I am so glad you are English. I have talked much English -with my governess, but I want a companion of my own age. I have had no -girl friend since I left the Convent three year ago. Dr Vilmot tell me -your father was a poet. That is lovely, lovely. My father is a great -man, but he is not a poet, though he loves Dante." - -"My little girl is an enthusiast, and something of a dreamer," said a -deep, grave voice, and a large, tall figure came into view suddenly -from behind a four-leaved Japanese screen that had been placed at the -back of the invalid's chair, to guard her from an occasional breath of -cold wind that testified to the fact that, although all things had the -glory of June, the month was February. - -Vera was startled by a voice which seemed different from any other -voice she had ever heard--so grave, so deep, with such a tone of solemn -music; and yet voice and enunciation were quite natural; there was -nothing to suggest pose or affectation. - -The speaker stood by his daughter's chair, an almost alarming figure -in that garden of ragged pepper trees, shabby palms, and sunshine--the -sun dominating the picture. He was considerably over six feet, with -broad shoulders, long arms, and large hands, very plainly clothed in -his iron-grey tweed suit, which almost matched his iron-grey hair. He -was not handsome, though he had a commanding brow and his head was -splendidly poised on those splendid shoulders. Vera told herself that -he was not aristocratic--indeed, she feared that there was something -almost plebeian in his appearance that might offend Grannie, who, -having had to do without money, was a fierce stickler for race. - -While Vera was thinking about him, Signor Provana was talking to his -daughter, and the voice that had so impressed her at the first hearing, -became infinitely beautiful as it softened with infinite love. - -What must it be to a girl to be loved so fondly by that great strong -man? Vera had known no such love since her poet father's death. - -She took up her basket of flowers, and then lingered shyly, not knowing -whether she ought to go at once, or stay and make conversation; but -Giulia settled the question. - -"Oh, please don't run away," she said. "Don't go without making -friends with my family. Let me introduce Miss Thompson," indicating -a comfortable, light-haired person sitting near her, absorbed in -Sudermann's last novel, "and look at my three spaniels, Jane Seymour, -Anne Boleyn, and Catherine Parr. I called them after your wicked King -Henry's wives. I hope you revel in history. It is my favourite study." - -She stooped to pat the spaniels, who all wanted to clamber on her -knees at once. Even under the full cloth skirt and silk petticoat Vera -could not help seeing that the knees were sharp and bony. By this time -she had discovered the too slender form under the pretty white frock, -and the hectic bloom on the oval cheek. She knew the meaning of that -settled melancholy in Signor Provana's dark grey eyes--eyes that seemed -made rather for command than for softness. - -She caressed the sparkling black-and-tan Anne Boleyn, and stroked the -long silken ears of the Blenheims, Jane and Catherine, and allowed -them to jump on her lap and explore her face with their affectionate -tongues. Jane Seymour was the favourite, Giulia told her, the dearest -dear, a most sensible person, and sensitive to a fault. Vera admired -the cockatoo, and answered all Giulia's questions about San Marco, and -the drives to old mountain towns and villages, old watch-towers and old -churches--drives which Vera knew only from the talk of the widows and -spinsters who had urged her to persuade Grannie to hire a carriage and -take her to see all the interesting things to be seen in an afternoon's -drive. - -"Grannie is not strong enough for long drives," Vera had told them. -They smiled significantly at each other when she had gone. - -"Poor child! I'm afraid it's Grannie's purse that isn't strong enough," -said the leading light in the little community. - -"I believe they're reg'lar church mice for poverty, in spite of the -airs my lady gives herself," said Lady Jones. "If it was me, and money -was an objick, I wouldn't pretend to be exclusive, and waste ten lire -a day on a _salon_. I don't mind poverty, and I don't mind pride--but -pride and poverty together is more than I can stand." - -The other ladies agreed. Pride was a vice that could only be allowed -where there was wealth to sustain it. Only one timid spinster objected. - -"Lady Felicia was a Disbrowe," she said meekly, "and the Disbrowes are -one of the oldest families in England." - - * * * * * - -Vera had to promise to take tea with the Signorina at five o'clock that -afternoon before Giulia would let her go. - -"I am not allowed to put my nose out of doors after tea," Giulia said, -not in a complaining tone, but with light laughter. "People are so -absurd about me, especially this person," putting her hand in her -father's and smiling up at him, "just because of my winter cough--as if -almost everybody has not a winter cough. Promise! _A riverderci, cara_ -Signorina." - -Vera promised, and this time she was allowed to go. - -Mario Provana went with her, and carried her basket. - -He did not say a word till they had passed beyond the belt of pepper -trees that screened the lawn, and then he began to walk very slowly, -and looked earnestly at Vera. - -"I know you are going to be kind to my girl," he said, and his low, -grave voice sounded mournful as a funeral bell. "Dr. Wilmot has told me -of your devotion to your grandmother and how sweet and sympathetic you -are. You can see how the case stands. You can see by how frail a thread -I hold the creature who is dearer to me than all this world besides." - -"Oh, but I hope the Signorina will gain health and strength at San -Marco," Vera answered earnestly. "She does not look like an invalid! -And she is so bright and gay." - -"She has never known sorrow. She is never to know sorrow. She is to -be happy till her last breath. That is my business in life. Sorrow -is never to touch her. But I do not deceive myself. I have never -cheated myself with a moment of hope since I saw Death's seal upon -her forehead. In my dreams sometimes I have seen her saved; but in -my waking hours, never. As I have watched her passing stage by stage -through the phases of a mortal illness, I watched her mother ten years -ago through the same stages of the same disease. Doctors said: Take her -to this place or to that--to Sicily, to the Tyrol, to the Engadine, -to India--to the Transvaal. For four years I was a wanderer upon this -earth, a wanderer without hope then, as I am a wanderer without hope -now. I have business interests that I dare not utterly neglect, because -they involve the fortunes of other people. I brought my daughter here, -because I am within easy reach of Rome. I ought to be in London." - -He had walked with Vera beyond the door of the hotel. He stopped -suddenly, and apologised. - -"I would not have saddened you by talking of my grief, if I did not -know that you are full of sympathy for my sweet girl. I want you -to understand her, and to be kind to her, and above all to give no -indication of fear or regret. You expected to find a self-conscious -invalid, hopeless and helpless, with the shadow of death brooding -over her--and you find a light-hearted girl, able to enjoy all that -is lovely in a world where she looks forward to a long and happy -life. That gaiety of heart, that high courage and unshaken hope, are -symptomatic of the fatal malady which killed my wife, and which is -killing her daughter." - -"But is there really, really no hope of saving her?" cried Vera, with -her eyes full of tears. - -"There is none. All that science can do, all that the beauty of the -world can do, has been done. I can do nothing but love her, and keep -her happy. Help me to do that, Miss Davis, and you will have the -heartfelt gratitude of a man to whom Fate has been cruel." - -"My heart went out to your daughter the moment I saw her," Vera said, -with a sob. "I was interested in her beforehand, from what Dr. Wilmot -told us--but she is so amiable, so beautiful. One look made me love -her. I will do all I can--all--all--but it is so little!" - -"No, it is a great deal. Your youth, your sweetness, make you the -companion she longs for. She has friends of her own age in Rome, -but they are girls just entering Society, self-absorbed, frivolous, -caring for nothing but gaiety. I doubt if they have ever added to -her happiness. She wanted an English friend; and if you will be that -friend, she will give you love for love. Forgive me for detaining you -so long. I will call upon Lady Felicia this afternoon, if she will -allow me--or perhaps I had better wait until she has been so good as to -call upon my daughter. I know that English ladies are particular about -details!" - -Vera dared not say that Grannie was not particular, since she had heard -her discuss some trivial lapse of etiquette, involving depreciation of -her own dignity, for the space of an afternoon. Clever girls who live -with grandmothers have to bear these things. - -Signor Provana carried her basket upstairs for her, and only left her -on the second-floor landing, with a thoroughly British shake-hands. He -was the most English foreigner Vera had ever met. - -She had to give Grannie a minute account of all that had happened, -and Grannie was particularly amiable, and warmly interested in -Miss Provana's charm, and Mr. Provana's pathetic affection for his -consumptive daughter. - -"They are evidently nobodies, from a social point of view," Lady -Felicia remarked, with the pride of a long line of Disbrowes in the -turn of her head towards the open window, as if dismissing a subject -too unimportant for her consideration; "but I dare say the man's wealth -gives him a kind of position in Rome, and even in London." - -Vera told her that Signor Provana wished to call upon her, but would -not venture to do so till she had been so kind as to call upon his -daughter. This was soothing. - -"I see he has not lived in London for nothing!" she said. "I will call -on Miss Provana this afternoon. You must help to dress me. Lidcott has -no taste." - -On this Vera was bold enough to say she had accepted an invitation to -take tea with the invalid, without waiting to consult Grannie. - -"You did quite right. Great indulgence must be given to a sick child. -In that case I will defer my visit till tea-time, and we will go -together. I want to be friendly, rather than ceremonious." - -Vera was delighted to find Grannie unusually accommodating, and that -none of those unreasonable objections and unforeseen scruples to which -Grannie was subject were to interfere with her pleasure in Giulia's -society. - -Pleasure? Must it not be pleasure too closely allied with pain, now -that she knew the girl she was so ready to love had the fatal sign -of early death upon her beauty? But at Vera's age it is natural to -hope--even in the face of doom. - -"She may improve in this place. Her health may take a sudden turn for -the better. God may spare her, after all, for the poor father's sake. -At least I know what I have to do--to try with all my might to make her -happy." - - * * * * * - -A footman in a sober but handsome livery was hovering in the corridor -when lady Felicia arrived, supported by Vera's arm, and by a cane with -a long tortoiseshell crook like the Baroness Bernstein's, an amount of -support which was rather a matter of state than of necessity. - -Lady Felicia had put on her favourite velvet gown and point-lace -collar for the occasion. She had always two or three velvet gowns in -her wardrobe, and declared that Genoa velvet was the only wear for -high-bred poverty--as it looked expensive and never wore out. - -The footman flung open the tall door of Signor Canincio's best _salon_, -and announced the ladies. - -The Provana _salon_ was startling in its afternoon glory. The three -long windows were open to the sunshine, which in most people's rooms -would have been excluded at this hour. The balcony was full of choice -flowers in turquoise and celadon vases from Vallauris. The luxury of -satin pillows overflowing sofas and arm-chairs, the Dresden cups and -saucers, and silver urn and tea-tray, the three dogs running about with -their ribbons and bells, the gaudy cockatoo screaming on his perch, -Giulia's blue silk tea-gown, and Miss Thompson's mauve cashmere, all -lighted to splendour by the glory of the western sky, made a confusion -of colour that almost blinded Lady Felicia. - -Provana received her with grave courtesy, and led her to his daughter's -sofa. She bent over Giulia with an affectionate greeting, and then, -sinking into the arm-chair to which Provana led her, begged somewhat -piteously that the sunshine might be moderated a little, a request that -Provana hastened to obey, closing the heavy Venetian shutters with his -own hands. - -"Giulia and I are too fond of our sun-bath," he said, "and we are apt -to forget that everybody does not like being dazzled." - -"I came to San Marco for the sun, and it is seldom that I get enough; -but your _salon_ is just a little dazzling." "And your dogs are more -than a little intrusive," Lady Felicia would have liked to add, the -spaniels having taken a fancy to her tortoiseshell cane and velvet -skirt. One had jumped upon her lap, and the other two were disputing -possession of her cane. Serviceable Miss Thompson was quick to the -rescue, carried off the dogs, and restored the cane to its place by -the visitor's chair, while Provana brought an olive-wood table to Lady -Felicia's elbow, and stood ready to bring her tea-cup. - -"I hope you are pleased with San Marco," said Grannie, not soaring -above the normal conversation in the hotel. - -"We think it quite delightful so far," Provana replied, and Vera -noticed that he never expressed an opinion without including his -daughter. It was always "We," or "Giulia and I," and there was -generally a glance in Giulia's direction which emphasised the reference -to her. - -"I love--love--love the place already," cried Giulia, who had beckoned -Vera to her sofa, and was holding her hand. "Most of all because I have -found this sweet friend here. You will let us be friends, won't you, -_cara_ Grannie?" - -"_Carissima mia!_" murmured her father reprovingly. - -"Please don't let us be ceremonious in this desert island of a place," -said Lady Felicia, with a graciousness that was new to Vera. "I like -to be called Grannie, and I can be Grannie to the Signorina as well as -to this girl of my own flesh and blood. You can hardly doubt, Signor -Provana, that it is pleasant for me to find that my poor Vera has now a -sweet girl friend in this hotel, where we have lived three months and -hardly made an acquaintance, much less a friend." - -"But it has been your own fault, Grannie!" interposed Vera, who was -essentially truthful. "People really tried to be kind to us when we -were strangers." - -"If you mean that some of the people were odiously pushing and -officious, I cannot contradict you!" replied the descendant of the -Disbrowes, with ineffable scorn. - -But Grannie was not scornful in her demeanour towards the Roman -financier. To him, and to Giulia, she was Grannie in her most urbane -and sympathetic mood. She was charmed to find him so much of an -Englishman. - -"My mother was English to the core of her heart. She was the daughter -of a colonial merchant, whose offices were in Mincing Lane, and his -home in Lavender Sweep. I am told there is no such thing as Lavender -Sweep now," Provana went on regretfully, "but when I was a boy, my -grandfather's garden was in the country, and there were gardens all -about it." - -"And fields of lavender," said Giulia. "Oh, do say that there were -fields of lavender!" - -"No, the lavender fields had gone far away into Kent. Only the name was -left; and now there are streets of shabby houses, and shops, and not a -vestige of garden." - -Encouraged by Lady Felicia's urbanity, Signor Provana went on to tell -her that he was plebeian on both sides, and that all there was of -nobility about him belonged to Giulia. - -"My wife came of one of the noblest families in Italy," he said, "and -when we want to tease Giulia, we call her Contessina, a title to which -she has a right, but which always makes her angry." - -"I don't want to be better than my father!" Giulia cried eagerly. -"If he is not a noble, he comes of a line of good and gifted men. My -grandfather's name is revered in Rome, and his charitable works remain -behind him, to show that if he was one of the cleverest Roman citizens, -he had a heart as fine as his brain. _That_ is the noblest kind of -nobility--_non è vero_, Grannie?" - -Grannie smiled assent, and entertained a poor opinion of Giulia's -intellect. A shallow creature, spoilt by overmuch indulgence, and -inclined to presume. The two girls were sitting in the sun by an open -window, a long way off. They had their own table, and Miss Thompson -waited upon them with assiduity. Grannie had been warned that there was -to be no doleful talk, no thinly-disguised pity for the consumptive -girl. All was to be as bright as the room full of flowers and the -untempered sunshine. - -Provana told Lady Felicia that he had ordered a landau from Genoa, -which had arrived that afternoon. - -"The horses are strong, and used to hill work, and there is an -extra pair for difficult roads," he said. "Giulia and I mean to see -everything interesting that can be seen between breakfast and sundown. -Of course we must be indoors before sunset. Everybody must in this -treacherous climate. I hope Miss Davis may be allowed to go with us -sometimes, indeed often!" - -"Always, _Padre mio_, always!" cried Giulia from her distant sofa. She -had begun to listen when her father talked of the carriage. "Vera is to -come with us always. You will let her come, won't you, _cara_ Grannie?" - -"Please don't ask her," Vera said dutifully. "That would be deserting -Grannie. She likes me to read to her in the afternoon." - -"She shall enjoy your hospitality now and then, Signorina, and I will -do without my afternoon novel. But you would soon tire of her if she -were with you often." - -"Tire of her! Impossible! Why, I don't even tire of Miss Thompson!" -Giulia said naïvely. - -"Please let Miss Davis come with us whenever you can spare her," -Provana said, when he took leave of Lady Felicia at the foot of the -stairs leading to her upper floor. "You see how charmed my daughter is -at having found an English friend; and I think you must understand how -anxious I am to make her happy." - -Lady Felicia was all sympathy, and placed her granddaughter at the -Signorina's disposal. If this man was of plebeian origin, he had a -certain personal dignity that impressed her; nor was she unaffected by -his importance in that mysterious world of which she knew so little, -the world of boundless wealth. - -When she arrived, somewhat breathless, in the shabby second-floor -_salon_, she sank into her chair with an impatient movement, and -breathed a fretful sigh. - -"Think of this great coarse man, with his balcony of flowers, and four -horses to his landau," she exclaimed disdainfully. "These Provanas -absolutely exude gold!" - -"Oh, Grannie, he is not the least bit purse-proud or vulgar," Vera -protested. "You must see that he has only one desire in life, to make -his daughter happy, and to prolong her life. I hope God will be good to -that poor father, and spare that sweet girl." - -"The girl is nice enough, and they will make this place pleasant for -you. Extra horses for the hills! And I have not been able to afford a -one-horse fly!" - -"It is hard for you, Grannie dear; but we have been quite comfortable, -and you have been better than you were at Brighton last year." - -"Yes, I have been better, but it is the same story everywhere--the -same pinching and watching lest the end of the quarter should find me -penniless." - -Lady Felicia resented narrow means, as a personal affront from -Providence. - -Signor Provana lost no time in returning Grannie's visit. He appeared -at three o'clock on the following day, bringing his daughter, and -a basket of flowers that had arrived that morning from Genoa, the -resources of San Marco not going beyond carnations, roses and anemones. - -"I fear you must have found the stairs rather tiring," Lady Felicia -said, when she had welcomed Giulia. - -"Not a bit. I rather like stairs. You see I came in my carriage," and -it was explained that Giulia had an invalid chair on which her father -and the footman carried her up and down stairs. - -"Of course I could walk up and down just like other people," Giulia -said lightly; "but this foolish father of mine won't let me. I feel -as if I were the Princess Badroulbadore, coming from the bath in her -palanquin; only there is no Aladdin to fall in love with me." - -"Aladdin will come in good time," said Lady Felicia. - -"I don't want him. I want no one but Papa. When I was three years old I -used to think I should marry Papa as soon as I grew up; and now I know -I can't, it makes no difference--I don't want anybody else." - -An engagement was made for the next day. They were to start at eleven -o'clock for the Roman Amphitheatre near Ventimiglia, looking at the old -churches and palm groves of Bordighera on their way. It would be a long -drive, but there were no alarming hills. Lady Felicia was invited, but -was far too much an invalid to accept. There was no making a secret -of Grannie's bad health. Her bronchial trouble was the staple of her -conversation. - -And now a new life began for Vera, a life that would have been all joy -but for the shadow that went with them everywhere, like a cloud that -follows the traveller through a smiling sky--that shadow of doom which -the victim saw not, but which those who loved her could not forget. -The shadow made a bond of sympathy between Mario Provana and Vera. The -consciousness of that sad secret never left them, and many confidential -words and looks drew them closer together in the course of those long -days in lovely places--where Giulia was always the gayest of the little -party, and eager in her enjoyment of everything that was beautiful or -interesting, from a group of peasant children with whom she stopped to -talk, to the remains of a Roman citadel that took her fancy back to the -Cæsars. The chief care of father, governess, and friend, was to prevent -her doing too much. Nothing in her own consciousness warned her how -soon languor and fatigue followed on exertion and excitement. - -Miss Thompson was always ready with a supporting arm, always tactful -in cutting short any little bit of exploration that might tire her -charge. She was one of those admirable women who seem born to teach and -cherish fragile girlhood. People almost thought she must have been born -middle-aged. It was unthinkable that she herself had been young, and -had required to be taught and cared for. She was highly accomplished, -and the things she knew were known so thoroughly, that one might -suppose all those dates and dry historical details had been born with -her, ready pigeon-holed in her brain. - -Signor Provana treated her with unvarying respect, and always referred -any doubtful question in history or science to Miss Thompson. - -But her most valuable gift was a disposition of unvarying placidity. -Nobody had ever seen Lucy Thompson out of temper. The most irritating -of pupils had never been able to put her in a passion. She stood on one -side, as it were, while a minx misbehaved herself. Her aloofness was -her only reproof, and one that was almost always efficacious. - -With Giulia Provana that placid temper had never been put to the proof. -Giulia had a sweet nature, was quick to learn, and had a yearning for -knowledge that was pathetic when one thought how brief must be her use -for earthly wisdom; and, what was better, she loved her governess. -Miss Thompson had a pleasant time in Signor Provana's household; moving -from one lovely scene to another, or in Rome sharing all the pleasures -that the most enchanting of cities could afford. Plays, operas, -concerts, races, afternoon parties in noble houses. - -From the day his daughter's health began to fail, and the appearance -of lung trouble made the future full of fear, Signor Provana made up -his mind that her life should never be the common lot of invalids. -However few the years she had to live, however inevitable that she was -to die in early youth--the years that were hers should not be treated -as a long illness. The horrible monotony of sick rooms should never be -hers. It should be the business of everybody about her to keep the dark -secret of decay. Her trained nurses were not to be called nurses, but -maids, and were to wear no hospital uniform. Everything about her was -to be gay and fair to look upon--a luxury of colour and light. And she -was to enjoy every amusement that was possible for her without actual -risk. Into that brief life all the best things that earth can give were -to be crowded. She was to know the cleverest and most agreeable people. -She was to read the best books, to hear the most exquisite music, to -see the finest pictures, the most gifted actors. Nothing famous or -beautiful was to be kept from her. From the first note of warning -this had been Giulia's education; and Miss Thompson's chief duty had -been to read the best books of the best writers to an intelligent and -sympathetic pupil. There had been no dull lessons, no long exercises in -the grammar of various tongues--Giulia's education after her fifteenth -birthday had been literature, in the best sense of that sometimes -ill-used word. Signor Provana's system had been so far successful that -his daughter had lived much longer than the specialists had expected, -and her girlhood had been utterly happy. But the shadow was always in -the background of their lives, and wherever he went with his idolised -child there was always the fear that he might leave her among the -flowers and the palm groves that filled her with joyous surprise on -their arrival, and go back to his workaday life lonely and desolate. - -Vera was astonished at the things Giulia knew, and was sorely ashamed -of her own ignorance. For the first time in her life she had come -into close association with cultivated minds--with people whose -conversation, though without pedantry, was full of allusions to books -that she had never read, and knowledge that she had never heard of. To -know Giulia and her governess was a liberal education; and Vera showed -a quickness in absorbing knowledge that interested her new friends, and -made them eager to help her. - -The world of poetry lay open and untrodden before this daughter of a -poet. - -The idea of her friend's parentage fascinated Giulia. - -"Does she not look like a poet's daughter?" she asked her father, and -Provana assented with smiling interest. - -"All Giulia's geese are swans," he said; "but I believe she has found a -real swan this time." - -Vera's shyness wore off after two or three excursions in that ideal -spring-time. The weather had been exceptionally mild this season, and -there had been no unkind skies or cruel mistral to gainsay Dr. Wilmot's -praise of San Marco. It might almost seem as if Provana had been able -to buy sunshine as well as other luxuries. Day after day the friendly -little company of four set out upon some new excursion, to spots whose -very name seemed a poem. To Santa Croce, to Dolce Aqua, to Finalmarina, -to Colla, the little white town among the mountains, where there were -a church and a picture gallery, or by the Roman Road to the Tower of -Mostaccini, on a high plateau crowned with fir trees, with its view -over sea and shore, valley and wood, and far-off horizon; a place for a -picnic luncheon, and an afternoon of delicious idleness. To Vera such -days were unspeakably sweet. Could it be strange that she loved the -girl who had begun by loving her, and who was her first girl friend? -If she was not so impulsive as Giulia, she was as sensitive and as -sympathetic, and Giulia's sad history had interested her before they -met. - -As friendship ripened in the familiarity of daily companionship, her -interest in Giulia's father grew stronger day by day. His devotion -to his daughter was the most beautiful thing she had ever known. He -was the first man with whom she had ever lived in easy intimacy--for -the uncles by blood or by marriage in whose houses she had been a -visitor had always held her at arm's length, and her shyness had been -increased by their coldness. The only creature of that superior sex -with whom she had ever been at her ease was her young cousin, Claude -Rutherford. He had been kind to her, and with him she had been happy; -but that friendship was of a long time ago--ages and ages, it seemed -to her, when she conjured up a vision of delicious days in the Park, -hairbreadth escapes in Claude's dinghy, and thrilling rides on his -Arabian pony. - -Vera noticed that Signor Provana did not often join in the animated -conversation which Giulia and her governess kept up untiringly during -their morning drives. He was silent for the most part, and always -meditative. His dark grey eyes seemed to be seeing things that were far -away. - -"You see Papa sitting opposite us, _cara_," said Giulia; "but you -must not think he is really with us. He is in London, or in Paris, -negotiating a loan that may mean war. He has to provide the sinews of -war sometimes; and I tell him he is responsible for the lives of men. -His thoughts are a thousand miles away, and he doesn't hear a word of -our foolish talk. _Non è vero, Padre?_" - -He looked at her with his fond parental smile. "I hear something like -the songs of birds," he said; "and it helps me to think. Go on talking, -_anima mia_. I like the sound, if I miss the sense." - -"I have been telling Vera about Browning. She knows nothing of -Browning, though she is a poet's daughter. Is not that dreadful?" - -"I have had only Grannie's books, and she does not think there has been -an English poet since Byron. We are birds of passage, and Grannie has -only her poor little travelling library--but it has always seemed to -me that Byron and my father were enough. I have never wearied of their -poetry." - -"Oh, but we shall widen your horizon," said Giulia; "You shall read all -my books, and you must lend me your father's poems." - -"I shall be very glad if you will read some of my favourites." - -"All, all! When I admire I am insatiable." - -Giulia was generally silent on their homeward journeys, wearied by the -day's pleasure, in spite of the watchful care that had spared her every -exertion. When the carriage had to stop at the foot of some grassy -hill, at the top of which they were to take their picnic luncheon, or -from which some vaunted view was to be seen, Provana would take his -daughter in his arms and carry her up the slope--and once when Vera -watched him coming slowly down such a hill with the tender form held -by one strong arm, and the fair head nestling on his shoulder, she was -reminded of that Divine Figure of the Shepherd carrying a lamb, the -pathetic symbol of superhuman love. Her eyes filled with tears as she -looked at him, holding the frail girl with such tender solicitude, -walking with such care; and in the homeward drive, when Giulia was -reclining among her pillows with closed eyes, Vera saw the profound -melancholy in the father's face, and realised the effort and agony of -every day in which he had to maintain an appearance of cheerfulness. -These pilgrimages to exquisite scenes, under a smiling sky, were to -him a kind of martyrdom, knowing all that lay before him, counting the -hours that remained before the inevitable parting. - -Vera knew what was coming. Dr. Wilmot had told her that the end could -not be far off. The most famous physician in Rome had come to San Marco -one afternoon. Passing through on his way to a patient at Nice, Provana -had told his daughter, and coming casually to take his luncheon at the -hotel--and the great man had confirmed Wilmot's worst augury. The end -was near. - -But even after this Giulia rallied, and the picnics in romantic places -were gayer than ever, though Dr. Wilmot went with them, armed with -restoratives for his patient, and pretending to be frivolous. - -It was on the morning after a jaunt that had seamed especially -delightful to Giulia that Lidcott came into Vera's room, with a dismal -countenance, yet a sort of lugubrious satisfaction in being the first -to impart melancholy news. - -"I'm afraid it's all over with your poor young friend, Miss. She was -taken suddenly bad at ten o'clock last night--with an hæmorrhage. -Dr. Wilmot was here all night. I saw the day-nurse for a minute just -now, as she was taking up her own breakfast tray--they're always -short-handed in this house, Signor Canincio being that mean--and the -nurse says her young lady's a little better this morning--but she'll -never leave her bed again. She's quite sensible, and she doesn't think -she's dangerously ill, even now, and all her thought is to prevent -her father worrying about her. Worrying! Nurse says he sits near her -bedroom door, with his face hidden in his hands, listening and waiting, -as still as if he were made of stone." - -"Would they let me see her?" Vera asked. - -"I think not, Miss. She's to be kept very quiet, and not to be allowed -to speak." - -Vera went down to the corridor, directly she was dressed, and sat -there, near the _salon_ doors, waiting patiently, on the chance of -seeing one of the nurses, or Miss Thompson. She would not thrust -herself upon Signor Provana's sorrow even by so much as an inquiry or a -message; but she liked to wait at his door--to be near if Giulia wanted -her. They had been like sisters, in these few weeks that seemed so long -a space in her life; and she felt as if she were losing a sister. - -She had been sitting there nearly an hour when Signor Provana came out -with a packet of letters for the post. He had been obliged to answer -the business letters of the morning. The machinery of his life could -not be stopped for an hour, for any reason, not even if his only child -were dying. There was a look in his face that froze Vera's heart. What -the nurse had said of him was true. He was like a man turned to stone. - -He took no notice of Vera. He did not see her, though he passed close -to her, as he went downstairs to post his letters--a matter too -important to be trusted to a servant. - -Vera was standing at the end of the corridor when he came back, and -this time he saw her, and stopped to speak. "Ah, Miss Davis, the hour I -have foreseen for a long time has come. I have thought of it every day -of my life, and I have dreamt of it a hundred times; but the reality is -worse than my worst dream." - -He was passing her, and turned back. - -"We dare not let her speak--every breath is precious. To-day she must -see no one but her nurse--not even me; but if she should be a shade -better to-morrow, will you come to her? I know she will want to see -you." - -"I will come at any hour, night or day. I hope you know how dearly I -love her," Vera answered, and then broke down completely and sobbed -aloud. - -When she uncovered her face Provana was gone, and she went slowly -back to the upper floor, where Grannie was waiting for her to -sympathise with her indignation at certain offensive--or supposed to be -offensive--remarks in the letters of a sister-in-law, a niece, and a -dear friend. - -"But indeed, dear Grannie, _that_ could not be meant unkindly," urged -Vera; for this offender was her favourite aunt, Lady Okehampton, who -had been kind to her. - -"Not meant? What could it mean but a sneer at my poverty?" - -"I know Aunt Mildred wouldn't knowingly wound you." - -"Don't contradict, Vera. I know my nephew's wife--a snob to the tip of -her nails. She feels sure San Marco must be just the place for us--'so -pretty and so quiet, and so inexpensive.' She _dared_ not say cheap. -And she does not wonder that I have stayed longer than I talked about -staying when I left London." - -Lady Felicia had remained in the dull Hôtel des Anglais six weeks -beyond her original idea--six weeks longer than the London doctor had -insisted upon; she had stayed into the celestial light of an Italian -April, to the delight of Vera, who had thus enjoyed a new life with -her new friend. She was not frivolous in her attachments, or ready -to fall in love with new faces; but, in sober truth, she had never -before had the chance of such a friendship--a girl of her own age, -highly cultivated, attractive, and sympathetically eager to give her -the affection of a sister. It would have been too cruel if Grannie's -predetermination to leave Italy in the first week of March had cut -short that lovely friendship. - -Happily Grannie had found out that March in London might be more -perilous for her bronchial tubes than December; and had made a good -bargain with the rapacious Canincio, since several of his spinsters and -widows were leaving him. - -It was the third day after Giulia's fatal attack that Miss Thompson -came to the upper floor to summon Vera to the sick room. - -"The dear child has been pining to see you ever since yesterday -morning, when she rallied a little. She has written your name on her -slate again and again, but the doctor was afraid she would excite -herself, and perhaps try to talk. She has promised to be quite calm, -and not to speak--and you must be very, very quiet, dear, and make no -fuss. You can just sit by her bedside for a little while and hold her -hand; but above all you must not cry--any agitation might be fatal." - -"Is there no hope--no hope?" Vera asked piteously. - -"No, my dear. It is a question of hours." - -Giulia's room was so full of flowers that it looked already like a -_chapelle ardente_. Sinking slowly, surely, down into the darkness of -the grave, she was still surrounded with brightness and beauty. Windows -and shutters were open to the sky and the sun, and the blue plane of -the sea showed far away melting into the purple horizon. Her three -dogs were on the bed, Jane Seymour nestling against her arm, the other -two lying at her feet. They were transformed creatures. No impetuous -barking or restless jumping about. The wistful eyes gazed at the face -they loved, the silken ears drooped over the silken coverlet, the -fringed paws lay still. The dogs knew. - -Giulia gazed at her friend with those too-brilliant eyes, and touched -her lips with a pale and wasted hand, as a sign that she must not -speak, and then she wrote on her slate eagerly: - -"I have wanted to see you so long, so long, and now this may be the -last time. I did not know I was so ill, but I know now. Oh, who will -care take of my father when he is old; who will love him as I have -done? I thought I should always be there, always his dearest friend. -You must be his friend, Vera. He will be fond of you for my sake. You -will find my place by and by." - -"Never, darling. No one can fill your place," Vera said, in a quiet -voice, full of calm tenderness. - -A strange, suppressed sound, half sigh, half sob, startled her, and -looking at the window she saw Signor Provana sitting on the balcony, -motionless and watchful. - -Again Giulia's tremulous hand wrote: - -"Don't go till they send you away. Sit by me, and let me look at you. -Oh, what happy days we have had--among the lovely hills. You will think -of me in years to come, when you are in Italy." - -"Always, always, I shall think of you and remember you, wherever I am. -And now I won't talk any more, but I will stay till Miss Thompson takes -me away." - -Miss Thompson came very soon, and Vera bent over the dying girl and -kissed the cold brow. - -"_A riverderci, Carissima_; I shall come again when Miss Thompson -fetches me." - -She left the bedside with that word of hope, the luminous eyes -following her to the door. The dogs did not stir, nor the figure in -the balcony. Miss Thompson and the nurse sat silent and motionless. A -stillness so intense seemed strange in a sunlit room, gay with flowers. - -It was late next morning when Vera fell into a troubled sleep, filled -with cruel dreams--dreams that mocked her with visions of Giulia well -and joyous--in one of those romantic scenes where they had been happy -together, in hours that were so bright that Vera had forgotten the -shadow that followed them. - -Lidcott came with the morning tea, and there was a letter on the tray. - -"From the foreign gentleman," said Lidcott, who had never attempted -Signor Provana's name. - -Vera tore open the envelope, and looked wonderingly at the page, where -nothing in the strong, stern penmanship indicated sorrow and agitation. - -"My girl is at rest," he wrote. "She knew very little acute suffering, -only three days and nights of weariness. She gave me her good-bye kiss -after three o'clock this morning, and the light faded out of the eyes -that have been my guiding stars. To make her happy is what I have lived -for, since I knew that I was to lose her on this side of my grave. If -prayer could reverse the Omnipotent's decree, mine would have been the -mortal disease, and I should have gone down to death leaving her in -this beautiful world, lovely and full of life. - -"You have been very kind, and have helped me to make these last weeks -happy for her. I shall never forget you, and never cease to feel -grateful for your sweetness and sympathy. When she knew that she was -dying she begged me to lay her at rest in this place where she had been -so happy. Those were the words she wrote upon her slate when she was -dying, her last words, the last effort of her ebbing life, and I shall -obey her. You will go with us to the cemetery to-morrow morning, I -hope, though you are not of our Church." - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -The sky over a funeral should be low and grey, with a soft, fine rain -falling, and no ray of sunshine to mock the mourners' gloom; but over -Giulia Provana's funeral train the sky was a vault of unclouded blue, -reflected on the blue of the tideless sea, and olive woods and lemon -groves were steeped in sunlight. It was one of those mornings such as -Giulia had enjoyed with her utmost power of enjoyment, the kind of -morning on which the pretty soprano voice had burst into song, from -irrepressible gladness--brief song that ended in breathlessness. - -The cemetery of San Marco was a white-walled garden between the sea and -the hill-side, where the lemon trees and old, grey olives were broken -here and there by a cypress that rose, a tall shaft of darkness, out of -the silvery grey. - -Never till to-day had those dark obelisks suggested anything to Vera -but the beauty of contrast--a note that gave dignity to monotonous -olive woods; but to-day the cypresses were symbols of parting and -death. Their shadow would fall across Giulia's grave in the sunlight -and in the moonlight. Vera would remember them, and visualise them -when she was far away from the place where she had known and loved -Signor Provana's daughter. She was thinking this, as she stood beside -Grannie's chair by the gate of the cemetery--watching the funeral -procession. There were no carriages. The priest and acolytes walked -in front of the bier. The white velvet pall was covered with white -flowers, and behind the coffin, with slow and steady step, followed -Provana, an imposing figure, tall and massive, with head erect; calm, -but deadly pale. - -Miss Thompson, the two nurses, and Giulia's Italian maid followed, -carrying baskets of violets; and Lady Felicia, who had left her chair -as the priest and white-robed acolytes came in view, walked feebly -behind them, with Vera by her side. They, too, had brought their -tribute of flowers, roses white and red, roses which were now plentiful -at San Marco. - -It had been a surprise to Vera that Lady Felicia should insist upon -getting up before nine o'clock to attend the funeral; she who had -contrived to absent herself from all such ceremonies, even when an old -friend was to be laid at rest, on the ground that her dear Jane, or her -dear Lucy, could sleep no better at Highgate or Kensal Green because -her friend risked rheumatism or bronchitis on her account. - -"The poor dear herself would not have wished it," Lady Felicia always -remarked on such occasions, as she wrote her apology to the nearest -relation of the deceased. Yet for Signor Provana's daughter, almost a -stranger, Grannie had put herself, or at least Lidcott, to infinite -trouble in arranging a mourning toilette. - -The Roman rites were simple and pathetic; and throughout the ceremony -Signor Provana bore himself with the same pale dignity. He stood at the -head of the open grave, and watched the rain of violets and roses, nor -did his hand tremble when he dropped one perfect white rose upon the -white coffin, the last of all the flowers, the symbol of the pure life -that was ended in that cruel grave. - -It was only when the earth began to fall thud after thud upon the -flowers that his fortitude failed. He turned from the grave suddenly, -and walked towards the gate before the priest had finished his office, -and Vera did not see him again till she was walking beside Grannie's -chair, on their way back to the hotel, when he overtook them. - -"I want to say good-bye to you and your granddaughter, Lady Felicia," -he said in his grave, calm voice, the voice that was so much more -attractive than his person. "I shall leave San Marco by the afternoon -train, and I shall go straight through to London." - -"So soon?" exclaimed Grannie, with a look of disappointment. "Would it -not be better to rest for a few days in this quiet place?" - -"I could not rest at San Marco. It is the end of a journey that has -lasted three years. I shall never lie down to rest in San Marco till I -lie down yonder, beside my girl." - -He looked towards the cemetery gate with a strange longing in his eyes, -as if his heart were yearning for that last sleep in the shadow of the -cypresses. - -"Good-bye," he said, clasping Grannie's hand, and then Vena's. "I shall -never forget," he said, earnestly. "Never, never." He walked away -quickly towards the hotel, and Lidcott went on with her mistress's -chair. - -"A queer kind of man," said Lady Felicia. "I don't understand him. He -ought to have shown a little more gratitude for your kindness to his -daughter." - -"There is no reason for gratitude. I have never had such happy days -as those I spent with Giulia, while I could forget that she was to be -taken from me." - -"Oh, indeed," said Lady Felicia in an aggrieved voice. "You are vastly -polite to me." - -"Dear Grannie, of course I have been happy with you, and you have been -very kind to me." - -Grannie kept her offended air till they were in their sitting-room, -when a sudden interest was awakened by the appearance of a sealed -packet on her table. At the first glance it looked like a jeweller's -parcel, but a nearer view showed that it was somewhat carelessly packed -in writing-paper, and that the large red seal bore the monogram "M. P." - -Grannie's taper fingers--bent a little with the suppressed gout that -seems natural to the eighth decade--trembled with excitement, as she -tore off the thin paper and discovered a red morocco jewel-case, -heart-shaped. - -While Lady Felicia was opening the case--a rather difficult matter, as -the metal spring was strong and her fingers were weak--Vera picked up -an open letter that had fallen out of the parcel. - -"From Signor Provana," she said, and she read the brief note aloud, -without waiting for Grannie's permission. - - "DEAR LADY FELICIA,--I hope you will let your granddaughter wear this - trinket in memory of my daughter. It was Giulia's own choice of a - souvenir for a friend she loved. A friendship of two months may seem - short to you and me; but it was long in that brief life. - - "Yours faithfully, - "PROVANA." - -The lid was open and the red light of diamonds flashed in the shaft of -sunshine from the narrow slit in the Venetian shutters. - -"You are a lucky girl, Vera," said Grannie approvingly, as she turned -the heart-shaped locket about in the slanting sun-rays, unconsciously -producing Newton's prism. "I know something about diamonds. That centre -stone is splendid. Hunt and Roskell would not sell a diamond heart as -good as this under three hundred pounds." - -Vera's only comment was to burst out crying. - -"For a commercial magnate, Signor Provana is a superior person," said -Lady Felicia. "I hope we may see more of him. If he had given me time, -I should have asked him to call upon me in London." - -"Oh, Grannie, you could not! It would have been dreadful to talk about -visiting to a man in such deep grief." - -"I am not likely to do anything unseemly," Grannie replied with her -accustomed dignity. "I ought to have asked the man to call." - - * * * * * - -Everybody was leaving the South, and San Marco had the dejected air -that the loveliest place will assume when people are going away. For -Vera San Marco seemed dead after the death of her friend; and, while -she grieved incessantly for Giulia, she was surprised to find how -much she missed Giulia's father. It seemed to her that some powerful -sustaining presence had been taken out of her life. His strength had -made her feel strong. He had been with them always, in those long -Spring days that were warm and vivid as an English July. He had talked -very little; but he had been interested in his daughter's talk, and -even in Vera's. He had come to their assistance sometimes in their -discussions, with grave philosophy or hard facts. He seemed to possess -universal knowledge; but he was not romantic or poetical. He smiled at -Giulia's flights of fancy, those voyages in cloud-land that charmed -Vera. He was always interested, always sympathetic; and the grave, -beautiful voice and the calm, slow smile were not to be forgotten by -Vera, now that he had gone out of her life. - -"It is all like a long dream, beautiful, but oh, so sad," Vera said to -Grannie, who was more sympathetic than usual upon this subject. - -"It has been an interesting experience for you, which one could never -have hoped for in such an hotel as this," she said. "Dr. Wilmot tells -me that Signor Provana has a house in Portland Place--the largest in -the street, where he used to entertain the best people in his wife's -time. Her rank and beauty gave distinction to his money; so I can -believe Wilmot that he was by way of being a personage in London." - -Lidcott was packing the trunks, and the Bath chair, while Grannie -talked. The luggage, except the trunk with Grannie's best velvet gown, -and a frock or two for Vera, and the absolute needs of daily life, was -to go by _Petite Vitesse_, which meant being so long without it, that -old familiar things would seem new and strange when the trunks came to -be unpacked. - -The long journey was dull--Grannie and Lidcott having a curious -capacity for creating dullness. It was their atmosphere, and went -with them everywhere. The change from summer sunshine to the grey sky -and drizzling rain of an English April was a sad surprise; and the -lodging-house in the street off Portland Place seemed the abode of -gloom. It was the London season, and carriages and motor-cars were -rolling up and down the handsome street in which Signor Provana's house -had been described as the largest. Vera looked at all the houses as the -cab drove past them, trying to find the superlative in size; but there -was no time for counting windows or calculating space. - -The lodging-house drawing-room, albeit better furnished than Canincio's -second-floor _salon_, looked unutterably dreary; for the miniatures -and books, and old china, that were wont to redeem the commonness of -things, were creeping along the shores of the Rhone or mewed up in an -obscure station, and though flowers were cheap in the street-sellers' -baskets, not a blossom brightened the dingy drawing-room. - -"How odious this house looks," said Lady Felicia, while she scanned the -cards in a cheap china dish, and read the pencilled messages upon some -of them. "I see your Aunt Mildred and your Aunt Olivia have called, -surprised not to find us. But not a word from Lady Helstone, though I -know she is in town. She was always heartless and selfish--but as she -is the one I rely on for taking you about, we shall have to be civil to -her." - -"Poor dear Grannie, I really don't want to be taken out. I don't care -a scrap about Society--and, above all, I don't want to cost you -money for clothes, and I couldn't go to parties without all sorts of -expensive things." - -"Don't talk nonsense, Vera. I am used to scraping and pinching. It -will only mean pinching a little harder. But there's time enough to -settle all that before you are eighteen. Of course, you will have to be -launched, if you are ever to marry--unless you want to sneak off to a -registry office with the first scribbler you meet." - -"Oh, Grannie," cried Vera, and walked out of the room in a sad silence, -which made Grannie rather sorry for herself--as a poor old woman who -was being trampled upon by everybody. - -The long hot journey had tired her limbs and her nerves, and this damp, -grey London, this shabby lodging-house had been too irritating for -placid endurance. Somebody must suffer; and Lidcott, that sturdy child -of the West Riding, was apt to retaliate. - -Vera was perfectly sincere in her indifference to that grand event -of "coming out," which had always been held before her by Grannie as -the crown of girlhood, the crisis upon which all a young person's -future depended, the opening of a gate into the paradise of youth, -the paradise of dances and dinners, treats of every kind, where -beauty was to be surrounded with a circle of admirers, among whom -there would be at least one--the eligible, the rich, the inexpressive -he--who could lift her at once to the _summum bonum_, whether in -Carlton House Terrace, or Park Lane, whether titled or untitled---but -rich--rich--_ricconaccio_. - -No, Vera had no eager desire for crowds of well-dressed people--for -music and lights and dancing, and those things that she had heard -the young cousins, still in the school-room, talk about with rapture -and longing. The joys she longed for, while the slow spring and the -fierce hot summer went by in the dull side street and the lodging-house -drawing-room, were woods and streams, and rural joys of all kinds, -such as she had known in that one happy summer of her childhood, for -slow rides in leafy glades, in and out of sunshine and shadow, for -the sound of a waterfall on moonlit nights, for young companions like -the cousin who was once so kind--for many more books, and spacious -rooms, and portraits of historic people--beautiful women--valiant -soldiers--looking at her from a panelled wall. These were the things -she wanted, and the want of which made life dreary. - -In that long summer and autumn she often thought of the girl who was -lying between the olive woods and the tideless sea; and, meditating on -that short life, she could but compare it with her own, and wonder at -the difference. - -Is was not the difference that wealth made--but the difference that -love made, that filled her with wonder as she recalled all that Giulia -had told her of her childhood and girlhood. - -She looked back at her own fatherless years--remembering but as a dream -the father whom she had last seen on her birthday, when she was three -years old--and when a woman in whose rustic cottage she had been living -for what seemed a long time, took her to the nursing home where the -fading poet was lying on a sofa in a garden. It was to be her birthday -treat to visit "poor Papa, who would be sure to have something pretty -for her." But the poet had no birthday gift for his only child. He had -been too ill to think much about anything but his own weakness and -pain. He had not remembered his little girl's third anniversary. He -could only give her kisses, and sighs and tears; and she clung to him -fondly, and said again and again: "Poor Papa, poor Papa!" - -Kind Mrs. Humphries, of the pretty rose-covered cottage, had told her -that Papa was ill, and had taught her to pray for him. - -"Please God, bless poor Papa, and make him well again." - -The prayer was not answered, and that spectral face, beautiful even on -the brink of the grave, was all she could remember of a father. - -And then had come the long, slow years with Grannie, who had been -kind after her lights, but who required the subjugation of almost all -childish impulses and inclinations. Long years in which Vera had to -amuse herself in silence, and play no games that involved running about -a room, or disturbing things. She had been surrounded by things that -she must not touch; and her rare toys, the occasional gifts of aunts -and cousins, were objects of reprobation if they were ever left on a -chair or a table where they could offend Grannie's eye. The winter -season, when there was only one habitable room, was terrible; for then -Grannie was always there, and to play was impossible. She could only -sit on a hassock in her favourite corner and look at old story books, -too painfully familiar; and if she began to sing or to talk to herself, -there came a reproachful murmur from Grannie's sofa: "My dear child, do -you think I have no nerves?" - -The summer was better, for she could play in the second-floor bedroom, -which she shared with Lidcott, a room with three windows upon which -the sun beat fiercely, but where she could talk to her dolls, and sing -them to sleep, and do anything except run about, as she had always to -remember that every step would beat like a hammer upon poor Grannie's -head. - -And in these years Giulia, who was within a few months of her own -age, was being indulged with everything that could make the bliss of -childhood, in the loveliest country in the world, and then, as she grew -into a thinking, reasonable being, she had been her father's dearest -companion, his distraction after the dull round of business, his -choicest recreation, his unfailing delight. It was worth while to die -young after such a childhood, Vera thought. - -Grannie's winter in Italy had been a success, and she had a summer -unspoiled by bronchial trouble. She wore her velvet gowns and her -diamond earrings very often, and had her hair dressed in the latest -fashion, with diamond combs gleaming amidst the silvery white, and was -quite a splendid Lady Felicia at the friendly dinners and small and -early parties to which she accepted invitations from her nieces and -very old friends. She had been reproached with burying herself alive, -but this year her health was better, and she was going out a little -more; chiefly on Vera's account, who was now seventeen, and must really -make her début next season. Her nieces told her that Vera was pretty -enough to make a sensation, or at any rate to have offers. - -"If she does, I suppose she will refuse the best of them, as her mother -did," Lady Felicia said bitterly; "but whatever happens I shall not -interfere. If she chooses to fall in love with the first detrimental -who proposes to her, I won't forbid the banns." - -Perhaps there was more of the serpent than the dove in this protest -from Lady Felicia. In long hours of brooding over an irrevocable past -it may have been borne in upon her that if she had not harped so much, -and so severely, upon the necessity of marrying for money, her daughter -might not have been so determined to marry for love. - -The aunts who praised Vera did not forget to add that she would never -be as handsome as her mother. - -"She may 'furnish,' as the grooms call it," said Lady Helstone, who -rode to hounds and bred her hunters; "but she will never be a striking -beauty. She won't take away the men's breath when she comes into -a ballroom. I'm afraid it may be the detrimentals, the poets, and -æsthetes, and impressionist painters, who will rave about her. She is -ethereal--she is poetical--and in spite of the man Davis she looks -thoroughbred to the points of her shoes. After all, she may make a -really good match, and make things much more comfortable for you by and -by, poor dear Auntie." - -"I shall never be a dependent upon my granddaughter's husband," Grannie -retorted, with an offended blush. "The pittance which has sufficed for -me since my own husband's death, and which has enabled me to keep out -of debt, will last me to the end. I require nobody's assistance--and as -I have never found blood-relations eager to help me, I should certainly -expect nothing from a grandson-in-law; if there is such a thing." - - * * * * * - -Vera felt a sudden thrill when Lady Felicia told her that they were to -winter at San Marco. She hardly knew whether the thrill was of pleasure -or of pain. The place would be full of melancholy thoughts. Giulia's -grave would be the one significant point in the landscape; but the -long parade, with its shabby date palms and ragged pepper trees, could -never again be as dull and grey and heartbreakingly monotonous as it -had been a year ago; for now San Marco was peopled with the shadows of -things that had once been lovely and dear. Now all that beauty which -had once been far away and unknown had been made familiar in the long -drives in the big, luxurious carriage drawn by gay and eager horses, -whose work seemed joy--and the al fresco luncheons on the summit of -romantic hills, with all the glory of the Western Ligura laid out below -them like an enchanter's carpet, and the semi-Moorish cities, and Roman -ruins of circus and citadel, the white cathedrals--remote among the -mountains, yet alive with priests and nuns and picturesque villagers, -and the sound of bells and swinging of censers--San Marco no longer -meant only that level walk above the sluggish sea. It meant historical -Italy. Her feelings about the place had altered utterly after the -coming of the Provanas, and her mind was full of her lost friend -when she alighted at the door of the Hôtel des Anglais, where Madame -Canincio was waiting to receive honoured guests. - -Inmates who stopped till the very end of the season, and who came again -next year, were worthy of highest honour (albeit they paid the minimum -second-floor _pension_; and though Canincio had audaciously declared -that he lost money by the _arrangement_). Lady Felicia was a distinct -asset, were it only for keeping the Cit's wife, Lady Jones, in her -place. - -Vera looked sadly along the spacious corridor, that had been so bright -with flowers during the Provana occupation. - -"Have you nice people on your first floor, Madame Canincio?" she asked. - -"Alas, no, Mademoiselle. Our noble floor is empty. If we had six third -floors and ten fourth floors, we could let every room--but for the -first floor there is no one. Rich people do not come to San Marco. They -want gambling-tables and pigeon-shooting, or the vulgarity of Nice." - -"I suppose you have heard nothing of Signor Provana since he left?" - -"Nothing, Mademoiselle, except that he is in Rome, and one of the -greatest men there. And he was so simple and plain in his ways, and -always so kind and courteous. He wanted so little for himself, and -never once found fault with our chef, who, good as he is, must have -been inferior to his own." - -"I hope your chef did not give him risotto or chopped-up liver, or -macaroni three times a week for luncheon," Lady Felicia said, sourly. - -It was not till Grannie had been read to sleep that Vera was free to go -where she liked. She had done her morning's work in the flower market, -and at the so-called circulating library, where the Tauchnitz novels of -the year before last were to be found by the explorer, stagnating on -dusty shelves. This morning duty had to be done hurriedly, as Grannie -liked to see the flower-vases filled, and a novel on her sofa-table -when she emerged from her bedroom, ready to begin her monotonous day. -Vera was secretary as well as reader, and had to write long letters to -her aunts, at Grannie's dictation; letters which were not pleasant to -her to write on account of the sense of injury and general discontent -which was the _Leit-Motiv_ running through them. In the beginning of -her secretaryship she had sometimes ventured a mild remonstrance, such -as, "Oh, Grannie, I don't think you ought to say that. I know Aunt -Olivia is very fond of you," or "Aunt Mildred is very affectionate, -and would be the last to neglect you." Whereupon Lady Felicia had told -her that if she presumed to express an opinion, the letters should be -written by Lidcott. - -"Her spelling is as eccentric as the Paston letters; but I would rather -put up with that than with your impertinence." - -It was rather late in the afternoon before the drowsy Tauchnitz novel -produced its soporific effect upon Grannie, though Vera had been -reading in a semi-slumber; but at last the withered eyelids fell, and -the grey head lay back upon the down pillow, and Vera might beckon -to Lidcott, who crept in from the bedroom, with her work-basket, and -seated herself by the open window most remote from Grannie, leaving -Vera free to go out for her afternoon walk; only till five o'clock, -when she must be at home to pour out Grannie's tea. - -A church clock struck as she left the hotel garden, the garden where -she had often sat with Giulia, who used to breakfast on the lawn, and -only leave the garden to go to the carriage--spending as much of her -life as possible under the blue sky. - -All show of brightness had vanished from the stretch of thin grass and -the ragged pepper trees--no pretty chairs or bright Italian draperies, -no gaudy-plumaged cockatoo, or be-ribboned Blenheims. All was desolate, -and tears clouded Vera's eyes, as she paused to look at the place where -she had been happy. - -"How could I ever forget that she was going to die?" she wondered. - -"It was she herself who made me forget. She was so full of joy--so -much alive--that I never really believed she was dying. I could not -believe; I never did believe, till she was lying speechless, with death -in her face." - -She was going to the cemetery, to her friend's grave. It was almost as -if she were going to Giulia. She could not believe the bright spirit -was quenched, although the lovely form had passed into everlasting -darkness. Somewhere between earth and heaven that happy soul was -conscious of the beauty of the world she had loved, and of the love -that had been given to her--somewhere, not utterly beyond the reach -of those who loved her, that sweet spirit was floating--not dead, but -emancipated. - -Miss Thompson had told her of the heroic fortitude behind that -light-hearted gaiety which had been Giulia's special charm. Although -she was sustained by the unconsciousness of her doom, which goes so -often with pulmonary disease, she had not been exempt from suffering. -The sleepless night, the wearying cough, breathlessness, pain, -exhaustion, fever, had all been borne with a sublime patience; and her -only thought when the tardy morning stole at last upon the seeming -endless night--had been of her father. He was never to be told she had -slept badly--or had not slept at all--and it was her own cheerful voice -that answered his inquiry as he stood at the half-open door: "Pretty -well, _Padre mio, si, si_; not a bad night--a pretty good night--very -good, upon the whole." No hint of the weariness, the suffering, of -those long hours--and the nurse, though unwilling, had to indulge -her, and allow the anxious father to be deceived. After all, as Miss -Thompson said, a detail like that could not matter. He knew. - -Remembering this, it seemed to Vera that Giulia's death meant -emancipation--a blessed escape from the mortal frame that was fraught -with suffering, to the freedom of the immortal spirit, winged for its -flight to higher horizons, a being with new capacities, new joys--yet -not unremembering those beloved on earth, nay, with a higher power to -love the clay-bound creatures it had loved when it was clay. - -In Vera's reverence for her father's genius, there had been much of the -child's unquestioning faith in something it has been told to admire, -for a considerable part of Lancelet Davis's poetry, and that which -his review book showed to have been most appreciated by his critics, -soared far beyond the limits of Vera's understanding. There were -verses which she recited to herself again and again, with a delight -in their music--verses where the words followed each other with an -entrancing melodiousness--but for whose meaning she sought in vain. -A Runic rhyme would have been as clear. She had repeated them dumbly -in the dead hours of the night. Mellifluous lines that had a soothing -charm. Lines that rose and fell like the waves of the sea; and lines -drawn out in a slow monotony like the long, level stretch of wind-swept -marshes--visions of white temples and strange goddesses; but they were -shapeless as dreams to Vera--a confusion of lovely images without one -distinct idea. - -There were others of his poems that she understood and loved; the -poems that the critics had mourned over as a disappointment, a falling -away from the promise of a splendid career. There was his story of -his courtship and wedded life, which Vera thought better than "Maud," -written during his three happy years; and there was a poem called -"Afterwards," written after her mother's death, which she thought -better than "In Memoriam," a poem in which, after descending to the -darkness of the grave, the poet soared to the gate of heaven, and told -how where there is great love there is no such thing as death. The -bond of love is also the bond of the dead and the living. Those who -love with intensity cannot be parted. The spirit returns from behind -the veil, and soul meets soul. Not in the crowded city--not within -the sound of foolish voices, not amidst people or things that are of -the earth earthy--but in the quiet graveyard, in the shadowy gloom of -the forest, in lonely places by the starlit sea, or in the silence of -sleepless nights, that other half of the soul is near, and, though -there is neither voice nor touch, the beloved presence is felt, and the -message of consolation is heard. - -It was with her father's poem in her hand that Vera went to the -white-walled enclosure under the hill, where the silver-grey of the -olive woods shivered in the faint wind that could not stir a fibre of -the cypress. - -She had no trouble in finding Giulia's resting-place, for the picture -of the spring morning when she had stood beside the open grave was in -her mind, as if the funeral had been yesterday. It was at the farther -end of the cemetery, in a little solitude guarded by a triangle of -cypresses that marked the end of the enclosure, a spot where the ground -rose considerably above the level of the larger space. Upon this higher -level the massive marble tomb--so severely simple, so dazzling in its -whiteness--dominated the lower plane, where memorial devices of every -shape and form, Gothic cross, and broken column, winged angel, inverted -torch, and Grecian urn, seemed poor and trivial by comparison. - -It was a massive, oblong tomb without device or symbol, and only an -artist would have been conscious of the delicate workmanship with which -every member of the unobtrusive mouldings had been executed. There was -no elaborate ornament, only a Doric simplicity, and the perfection of -finely finished work. - -The same simplicity marked the brief inscription on the level slab. - -"Giulia, the only child of Mario Provana." This--with the date of birth -and death---was all. No record of parental love, nothing for the world -to know, except that a father's one ewe lamb had lived and died. - -A yew hedge, breast high, made a quadrangular enclosure which isolated -Giulia's resting-place--a cemetery within a cemetery--and, at the end -facing Genoa and the morning sun, there was a broad marble bench, and -here Vera sat for nearly an hour, reading her father's poem, the work -of his last year, written after the hand of death had touched him. - -It was an hour of pensive thought, and as she pondered over pages where -every line was familiar, it seemed to her that Giulia's spirit could -not be remote from the friend whose sudden tears fell on the page, -where some deeper melancholy in the verse brought last year's sorrow -back with the force of a new grief. - -The sun was low when she left the cemetery, and the shiver that comes -with sundown chilled her as she hurried back to the hotel, more than -five minutes late for Grannie's tea. But the following afternoon, and -the day after that, she went back to the Roman bench, and sat there -till sunset, with the green cloth volume that had grown shabby with -much use, and her memory of Giulia, for her only companions. After -this she went there every afternoon, sometimes with "Afterwards," -sometimes with a volume of Byron or Shelley. The sense of dullness -and monotony that had depressed her in her walk up and down the parade -under the palm trees seldom came upon her in this silent enclosure, -where the yew hedge--that only wealth could have attained in so brief -a time--screened her from observation. She sometimes heard the voices -of tourists admiring the monuments, or reading the epitaphs, in the -cemetery; but it was rarely that anyone looked in at the opening in the -green quadrangle where she sat. - -It was more than a fortnight after her first visit to this mournful -solitude when for the first time Vera was startled by the sound of -approaching footsteps, and looking up she saw the tall form of Mario -Provana, standing in the golden sunset. She rose as he came towards -her, and gave him her hand, a hand so slender that it seemed to -disappear in the broad palm and strong fingers that clasped it. - -"I was told that you were in San Marco," he said; "but I never thought -I should find you here. Then you have not forgotten?" - -"I shall never forget. I come here every afternoon with my father's -book--the poem he wrote when he knew that he was dying." - -"May I sit by your side for a few minutes? I should like to see your -father's book. I have not forgotten that he was a poet. Since you told -me that, it has seemed as if I ought to have known beforehand. You look -like a poet's child. I suppose everybody who saw Miranda for the first -time, without having seen Prospero, ought to have known that her father -was a magician." - -His tone was grave and thoughtful, and his speech hardly sounded like a -compliment. There was no air of gallantry to alarm her. - -He took the shabby little volume from her hand, and turned the pages -slowly, pausing to read a few lines, here and there. - -"'Part the first, Thanatos, Part the second, Eros.' From darkness -to light," he said, in the deep, grave voice which was her most -distinctive impression of Mario Provana. "He believed in the victory -of spirit over flesh. He was a poet; and faith is easy where the -imagination is strong. Tennyson knew that all religion, all peace of -mind, hung upon that one vital question--the Afterwards--the other -world that is to give us back lost love, lost youth, lost genius, lost -joy. I am not a religious man, Vera; indeed, to the Church of Rome I -count as an infidel, because I cannot subject my mind to the outward -forms and conventions which seem to me no more than the dry husks of -spiritual things. But I am more of a Pantheist than an infidel--my -gospel is the gospel of Christ--my faith is the faith of Spinoza." - -And then, after a silence, he said: - -"I called you Vera just now. Do you mind? My daughter loved you as if -you had been her sister. May I call you by your pretty Christian name?" - -"Pray do. I'm sure Grannie won't mind," Vera answered naïvely. - -"We will ask Grannie's permission," he said, with a grave smile. "If -you will allow me to walk back to the 'Anglais' with you, I will call -on Lady Felicia this afternoon, and we can get that small matter -settled." - -He talked to her as if she had been a child; and the difference between -his forty years and her seventeen made the fatherly tone seem natural. - -He walked slowly round the tomb, lingering beside it now and then, -and leaning his hand on the marble slab while he stood with bent head -looking at the inscription, in a pause that seemed long; and then he -rejoined Vera, and they left the cemetery together. - -"You are not out yet, I think," he said, when they had walked a little -way. "I read a paragraph in a London paper to the effect that Lady -Felicia Cunningham's granddaughter, Miss Veronica Davis, the daughter -of the poet whose early death had been a loss to literature, was to be -presented next season." - -"It is so foolish of them to write like that, as if I were a person of -importance; when Grannie is so poor that it will be cruel to let her -spend a quarter's income upon a Court dress and party frocks--and I -don't care a scrap about parties or the Court." - -"What a singular young lady you must be. I doubt if I could find your -parallel in London or Rome. If you don't care for society, what are the -things that make your idea of happiness?" - -"Beautiful places, and the sea, books and music, and Shakespeare's -plays," she answered quite simply. "I saw Henry Irving in 'Hamlet,' -when I was twelve years old. It was my birthday, and my kindest aunt -took me to her box at the Lyceum. I have never forgotten that night." - -"You admired the actor?" - -"I admired Hamlet. I never remembered that he was an actor," she -answered, while her eyes brightened, and her cheek flushed with -enthusiasm. "But when someone told me suddenly that Sir Henry Irving -was dead, I felt as if one great joy had gone out of the world. I saw -Browning once--at an afternoon party at my aunt's; and she took me to -him as he stood among a group of young people, talking and laughing, -and told him who my father was; and he was too kind for words, and -patted my head, and stooped and asked me to kiss him. I knew nothing -about poetry then, not even about my father's, but now when I read -Browning, I always recall the noble face and the silvery hair, and I am -heart-broken when I think that he is dead, and that I shall never see -him again." - -She stopped, blushing at her own audacity, and surprised at finding -herself talking as she had never talked to Grannie, but as she had -often talked to Provana's daughter. - -Lady Felicia received the unexpected visitor with exceeding -graciousness, and showed a friendly interest in Signor Provana's -doings. She hoped he was going to spend some time at San Marco. - -"I have a selfish interest in the question," she said, with her urbane -smile, "for at present Dr. Wilmot is the only person in the place who -has intelligence enough to make conversation possible. This poor child -and I come back to the 'Anglais' to find the same obese widow, the same -pinched spinsters with wisps of faded hair scraped over their poor -heads, too conscientious to put their trust in Lichtenstein. There is -one poor creature who would be almost pretty if she knew how to put on -her clothes and would treat herself to a wig." - -Lady Felicia prattled gaily, not considering it her duty to put on a -mournful air and remind Provana of his bereavement. It was half a year -ago--and it was better taste to ignore the melancholy past. Vera busied -herself at the tea-table, providing for all Grannie's wants before she -gave the guest his tea. He looked colossal as he stood beside the small -wicker tea-table, and the fragile figure of the girl sitting there, in -her dark blue serge frock, a frock two years old, from a cheap tailor. - -Lady Felicia had a convenient theory, that the intrinsic value -of clothes hardly mattered. It was the putting on that was the -consequence; and this philosophy, severely instilled into Vera's -growing mind, had certainly resulted in an exquisite neatness that went -some way to prove the truth of the theory. - -In answer to friendly inquiries, Signor Provana told Lady Felicia that -he was staying at the "Metropole," and might possibly take another week -of quiet rest before he went back to Rome, where he was to spend the -winter. - -"Rome and London are my two counting-houses," he said; "and I have to -divide my life between the two cities, with an occasional fortnight in -New York, where I have offices, and an American partner." - -"How you must hate London after Rome," said Vera. - -"You know Rome?" - -"Only in books--Byron--and Corinne." - -"Corinne sounds very old-fashioned," Grannie apologised, "but Vera has -been brought up by an old woman, and has had to put up with an old -woman's books. Vera and I can just afford to live, but we can't afford -to buy things we don't want." - -Vera blushed hotly at this remark. She thought Grannie talked too much -about her poverty. It seemed quite as bad form as if Signor Provana had -expatiated upon his wealth. - -Nothing could exceed Grannie's graciousness. Yes, of course, Provana -was to call the child Vera. "Miss Davis" would be absurdly formal. - -"Even if Davis were not such a horribly commonplace name," added -Grannie, at which Vera protested that she had never been ashamed of her -father's name. - -"An utterly ridiculous name for a poet!" And then Grannie went on to -lament that Signor Provana should think of going back to Rome in a -week. "But in that case I hope you will be charitable, and take tea -with me every afternoon." - -She said "with me," not "with us"--ignoring the child. - -Her hours were so long and so dull, she complained, and she loved -conversation; to hear about, and talk about, everything that was going -on in the world; the political and the social, the scientific and the -literary world. Art, letters, everything interested her; and she had -only such driblets of news as Dr. Wilmot could bring her. - -"The man is fairly intelligent, but oh, so narrow," she complained. - -"It will be an act of real benevolence if you will drop in at -tea-time," urged Grannie, when Provana was taking leave. - -He promised to be benevolent, to take tea with Grannie every afternoon, -if so dull a person's company could give her any pleasure. He knew no -one at San Marco, wanted to know no one. He had come there only to be -near his daughter for a little while, just a short spell of thought and -rest. - -"If I had been a good Catholic, I should have gone into retreat at the -nearest monastery," he said; "but my religion is too vague and shadowy -for such discipline; so I just wander about among the woods and hills, -and think, and remember." - -The profound melancholy with which those words were spoken convinced -Grannie that, although his sorrow was half a year old, it was still an -absorbing grief, and that she must be prepared to take him seriously. - -Vera felt a certain shyness about going to the spot where so many of -her afternoons had been spent. Signor Provana might be there before -her, and she would seem to intrude upon his sorrow. He had told them -why he had come to San Marco. He must want to be alone with sad -thoughts and cherished memories. - -She took last year's dull walk on the parade, and met several of her -hotel acquaintances, one of whom, no less a personage than Lady Jones, -stopped to talk. - -"I hear you had a visitor yesterday afternoon," she said; "the Italian -millionaire. Miss Mason saw him leave the hotel after dark. He must -have stopped with her ladyship quite a long time." - -Lady Jones always talked of Grannie as her ladyship. - -"I hope he has got over the loss of his daughter." - -"In six months!" cried Vera. "How could you suppose such a thing!" - -"Men's grief never lasts very long, not even a widower's," said Lady -Jones; "and I've always noticed that the more a widower wants to throw -himself into his wife's grave at the funeral, the sooner he begins to -think about marrying again. And from the fuss Signor Provana made over -his daughter, I should have expected six months would have been long -enough to make him forget her." - -"I don't think he is that kind of man," Vera said gravely, trying to -move away; but Lady Jones detained her. - -"What's your hurry?" she asked. "You must find it awfully dull walking -alone every afternoon." - -"I rather like being alone--if I can have a book," Vera answered, -glancing at the little volume under her arm, and thinking how far the -charm of solitude surpassed Lady Jones's conversation. - -"Well, I'll walk a little way with you," said that lady, with -exasperating patronage. "I don't like to see a young girl leading such -a dull life. Why don't you never come down to the drawing-room of an -evening?" - -"I don't want to leave Grannie." - -"You'd find us quite gay after your solitary salong. Two bridge tables, -and besique, and sometimes even games, How, when, and where, and -Consequences." - -"I hate cards, and I like books better than society," Vera answered -frankly. - -"Well, you are an oddity. But you seem to have a high opinion of this -Italian gentleman." - -"No one could help liking Signor Provana after seeing him with his -daughter--and I was a good deal with them." - -"Yes, driving out with them on all the most expensive excursions. They -quite took you up, didn't they? And it must have been very nice for you -to go about in such a luxurious way after being cooped up with Gran'ma." - -"They were very kind." - -"He's a fine-looking man," said Lady Jones thoughtfully. "Not what -anyone could call handsome; but a fine figure, and carries himself -well. I suppose he has been in the Army. Most of these foreigners have -to do a bit of soldiering in their young days." - -They were at the end of the parade, and Vera stopped, and held out her -hand to her insistent companion. - -"Aren't you coming back?" asked Lady Jones. - -"Not yet. I shall sit here and read for a little while." - -"Don't you go and get a chill and make her ladyship angry with you. -She won't like Dr. Wilmot's coming every day, or twice a day if he can -find an excuse for it--as he did when I had my influenzer. But, of -course, he knew I could afford to pay him. Well, O revore, dear," and -the portly form that had been blocking out the western glow over the -promontory of Bordighera slowly removed itself. - -Vera was not destined to be alone that afternoon. She had not read -three pages when a tall figure came between her and the light, and she -rose hastily to acknowledge Signor Provana's greeting. - -"It is too near sunset for you to be sitting there," he said. "Will you -walk a little way with me--until five o'clock?" - -Vera shut her book, and they walked on slowly and in silence to the -gate of the cemetery, and still in silence till they stood by the white -tomb. - -There were flowers lying upon the slab, choice flowers, in their first -freshness; and Vera thought that Provana had laid them there that -afternoon. - -They stood beside the tomb for some minutes, till the chapel clock -struck the quarter before five, and no word was spoken till they were -going back to the gate. Then Provana began to talk of his daughter, -opening his heart to the girl she had loved. - -He talked of her childhood, of her education, the bright, eager mind -that made learning a delight, the keen interest in all that was most -worthy to be admired, the innate appreciation of all that was best in -literature and art, her love of music, and of the beautiful in all -things. He was sure of Vera's sympathy, and that certainty made it easy -to talk of his girl, whose name had rarely passed his lips in the long -half-year of mourning. - -"I have never talked of her since Miss Thompson left me," he said; -"there was no one who would understand or care. There were friends who -were kind and would have pitied me; but I could not endure their pity. -It was easier to stand alone, and keep an iron wall between my heart -and the world. But you were her companion in those last weeks; you are -of her own age; you seem a part of herself, as if you were really her -sister, left behind to mourn her, almost as I do." - -After this confidence he made no more apologies for the sad note in -all his conversation, as he and Vera loitered in the place of graves, -or walked in the lemon orchards and olive woods on the hill-side above -the cemetery. It became a settled thing for them to walk together every -afternoon in the half-hour before Lady Felicia's tea-time; and as the -week that Provana had talked of drew near its close, their rambles -took a wider range, always with Grannie's approval, and they visited -the white towns on the hills where they had been with Giulia and her -governess in the golden spring-time. It was rapture to Vera to tread -the narrow mule-paths, winding through wood and orchard, to walk with -light, quick feet through scenes where everything was beautiful and -romantic; to visit wayside shrines, and humble chapels hidden in the -silver grey of the century-old trees, or to talk to the country women -tramping homeward, carrying their baskets of the ripe black fruit. -Provana helped her in her talk with the women, and contrived that -they should understand her shy little discourse, the broken words and -stumbling sentences. - -Lady Felicia, usually so severe a stickler for etiquette, was curiously -lax at San Marco, and could see nothing strange or unseemly in these -unchaperoned rambles with the Roman financier, who, as she observed to -Dr. Wilmot, was so obviously correct in all his ideas, to say nothing -of his being almost old enough to be Vera's grandfather. - -"Say father," said the doctor, smiling. "But you are perfectly right in -your appreciation of Provana. He is a man of the highest character, and -you may very well waive all conventionality where he is concerned." - -Signor Provana did not leave San Marco at the end of the week. He -stayed from day to day; but he was always going to-morrow. - -As time went by he and Vera found a world of ideas and experiences to -talk about. In the confidence that grew with every hill-side ramble, -with every half-hour spent among ruined convents or Roman remains, -they became licensed egotists, and talked of themselves and their own -feelings with unconscious self-absorption. - -Led on from trifles to speak of vital things, Provana told Vera the -story of his unloved youth, motherless before his sixth birthday, and -soon under the subjection of a stepmother who disliked him. - -"I was an ugly boy," he said, "and her only child was as beautiful as -the Belvedere Apollo, a creature to be worshipped, and I was made to -feel the contrast. I had inherited my English mother's plain features -and plain ways. I had none of the graces that make children adorable. -My father was not unkind, but he was indifferent, and left me to -servants, or later to my tutor, a German, middle-aged, learned, and -severely practical, a man to whom affection and emotion were unknown -quantities. It was always kept before me that I was to succeed to a -great business, to the certainty of wealth, and the paramount purpose -of my education was to make me a money-spinning machine. - -"My brother's death in the flower of boyhood hardened my father's -heart against me; and the indifference to which I had resigned myself -became undisguised dislike. I lived in a frozen atmosphere; and of -sheer necessity had to devote all my energies to the barren ambition of -the man whose task in life is to sustain and augment the fortune that -others have created. That is where the emptiness of my career comes in, -Vera. A fortune inherited from those who have gone before him can give -no dignity to a man's life. He is no better than a clerk, succeeding to -a stool in a counting-house. For a man who has laboured and invented, -who has lived through long, slow years of hardship and self-denial, -who has endured the world's contempt, and persevered in the teeth of -disappointment, over such a man's career success may shed a golden -glory. He is a conqueror who has fought and won, and may be proud even -of a triumph that brings him nothing but money. But I could have no -pride in a career that was mapped out for me before I was born. All I -can ever be proud of is that personally caring nothing for riches, I -have been a conscientious worker, and have done what I was expected to -do." - -He told Vera how his own unloved childhood had been in his mind when -his wife died, and he took his motherless girl to his heart, and, while -she sobbed against his breast, swore dumbly that she should never know -the need of a mother's love; and that which had begun as a duty became -afterwards the dominating purpose of his life--the thing for which he -lived. - -"There had been a time after her mother's death when my heart was -frozen, and that sweet child's presence was something that called for -fortitude rather than affection, but that lovely nature soon prevailed -even over grief, and my daughter crept into my desolate heart, my -consolation and my joy." - -In those quiet walks these two mortals, so far apart in age, in -experiences, and in mental tendencies, became curiously intimate, -telling each other almost everything that could be told about two -dissimilar existences, each interested in vivid pictures of an unknown -world, the child's monotonous life with an old woman, her glimpses -of more joyous houses, the young cousin, the Arab pony and family of -dogs--the old English garden, steeped in the August sunshine; and again -of the dull upstairs-room in London, and the solitary hours of silent -play, in which childish fancies had to serve instead of playfellows, -the doll that was almost alive, the toy train that travelled to -fairyland, the old, old stories in the ragged books, "Cinderella" and -the "Forty Thieves." Provana listened to these naïve revelations as if -they had been the childish experiences of a Newton or a Shakespeare, -while Vera hung enthralled upon his memories of the liberation of -Italy, the tempestuous years of revolt and battle, Victor Emanuel, -Garibaldi, Cavour, the giant of thought and will-power, whose bold -policy had made a great kingdom. - -Afternoon tea in Lady Felicia's _salon_ had become an institution in -that week which spun itself out to fifteen days, and tea-time generally -lasted for an hour and a half, since Grannie wanted to hear everything -that Signor Provana had heard or read of the world of action since -yesterday. As a dweller in London for nearly half his life, he was as -keenly interested and as instructed in English politics, literature, -science, and art as any Englishman Grannie had ever known; and she -seemed to feel an inexhaustible interest in his conversation. She was -intelligent, and often said good things; so this appreciation must -needs be flattering, and Provana was naturally gratified. Flowers and -Tauchnitz novels were almost daily tributes to Grannie; but no tribute -was offered to Vera, no tribute except the tender watchfulness of dark -grey eyes, eyes that followed the fragile figure as she moved about the -room, or went in and out through the window in the desultory half-hour -when her duties at the tea-table were finished. She left him to devote -himself to Grannie in this half-hour, and showed how much milder -was her interest in the talk of the political world, and people of -importance in London, than in Provana's personal reminiscences. It was -his life that had interested her, not the lives of other people. - -They had come to the evening before his last day at San Marco. He must -be on his way to Rome the day after to-morrow--that was inevitable. - -"I should like to take Vera a little farther afield to-morrow, Lady -Felicia," Provana said, as he took up his hat to go. "She has never -seen the Chocolate Mills, though the way to them is one of the most -picturesque within range. One must ride or walk. There is no carriage -road; but if you will let Vera come with me to-morrow afternoon, I -will bring the surest-footed donkey in San Marco, and his owner for -our guide. I shall go on foot. The walk will be nothing for me; but it -would be too tiring for your granddaughter." - -Lady Felicia hesitated, but only enough to make her consent seem the -more gracious. - -"The poor child has been pining to see the Chocolate Mills; but for me -it was impossible," she concluded. - -"We must start soon after your luncheon; and if you can give me time -for a little conversation before we go, I shall be greatly obliged," -Signor Provana said, with a curious gravity. - -Vera wondered what he could have to say to Grannie that needed to be -arranged for beforehand. She felt a thrill of horror at the idea that -Lady Felicia's frequent reference to her small means might have given -him a wrong impression, and that he was going to offer to lend her -money. - -"You must allow that I have not let _les convenances_ stand in the way -of your enjoyment of Signor Provana's society," Lady Felicia said, -with her kindest smile, when the visitor had gone. "There are very -few men--even of his age--whom I could permit you to walk about with, -even in such a half-civilised place as San Marco; but Provana is an -exceptional man, a person whom scandal could never touch." - -"And I think you like being with him," Grannie said, after a long -pause, in which she had reclined in her most reposeful attitude, -smiling at the after-glow above Bordighera. - -It was not that fine promontory only, but all life and the world that -Lady Felicia saw before her bathed in golden light. - -Certainly Grannie had been curiously indulgent, curiously heedless -of conventionalities, and curiously forgetful of the ways of the -world in which she had lived from youth upward, when she thought that -because San Marco was a quiet little place that had never basked in -the sunlight of fashion, there would be no ill-natured talk about her -granddaughter's _tête-à-tête_ rambles with the Roman millionaire. - -To say that people had talked--the season visitors at the "Anglais," -the spinsters and widows, the invalid parsons and their wives, who -were mostly languishing for something to talk about--to say that these -had talked about Vera and her millionaire would not have described the -situation. They had talked of nothing else; and the talk had grown more -and more animated and exciting with every day that witnessed another -audacious sauntering to the cemetery, or ascent of a mule-path through -the wood. Spinsters, whose thin legs had seldom carried them beyond the -parade, adipose widows, whose scantness of breath made the gentlest -ascent labour and trouble, took a sudden interest in the little white -chapels and shrines among the olives, and happened to meet Provana and -Vera returning from the hill, which made something to whisper about -with one's next neighbour at dinner, and was at least an agreeable -change from the daily grumbling about the bill of fare. - -"Veal again! and as stringy as ever.--Yes, I came face to face with -them. He stalked past me in his gloomy way; and she did not even blush, -but just said, good afternoon, as bold as brass." - -"How Lady Felicia can be so utterly regardless of etiquette!" - -"Oh, it's just like the rest of the smart set. They think they can defy -the universe; and it's a surprise to them when they find themselves in -the divorce court!" - -"I don't believe Lady Felicia was ever in the smart set. You have to -be rich for that. I put her down as poor and proud, and those sort are -generally ultra-particular." - -"I believe she's playing a deep game," said the spinster, and then the -two friends looked down the long, narrow table to the corner where Vera -sat, silent and thoughtful, pale in her black evening frock. - -"Do you think her so remarkably pretty?" asked the spinster, following -on a discussion in the drawing-room after luncheon, when the parsons -had expressed their admiration of Vera's delicate beauty. - -"Far from it," answered the plethoric widow. "You may call her -ethereal," which one of the parsons had done; "I call her half-starved. -She has no complexion and no figure, and looks as if she had never had -enough to eat." - - * * * * * - -It mattered little to Lady Felicia next day--after a quarter of an -hour's grave conversation with Signor Provana, or to Vera, putting on -her hat in the sunny little front room, and hearing the donkey's bells -jingling in the garden below; it mattered really nothing to either -grandmother or granddaughter what the world, as represented by the -table d'hôte of the "Anglais," might think of them. Lady Felicia lay -back among her pillows, smiling at the sea and the far-off hills as -she had never smiled before; for, indeed, that lovely coast had taken -a new colour under a new light--not the light that never was on sea or -land, but the more mundane light of prosperity, a smiling future in -which there should be no more the year in year out effort to keep up -appearances upon inadequate means. - -And yet that smiling future depended upon a girl's whim, and at a word -from Vera that cloud-built castle might vanish into thin air. - -"She could never be such an idiot as to refuse him," mused Grannie, -disposed to be sanguine; "and, what is better, I believe she is really -in love with him. After all, he is her first admirer, and that goes for -a good deal. I was in love with an archbishop of seventy when I was -fifteen; and I remember him now as quite the most delightful man I ever -met." - - * * * * * - -Provana was walking about the garden, while the surest-footed donkey -in San Marco shook his bells and pawed up the loose gravel with the -forefoot of impatience, lazily watched by his owner, a sun-baked lad of -nineteen. - -There were several pairs of eyes on the watch at various windows when -Vera came tripping out in her neat blue riding-skirt and sailor hat. It -was her kit for the riding-school near Bryanston Square, where Grannie -had given her a season's lessons, lest she should grow up without the -young lady's indispensable accomplishment of sitting straight on a -horse, and going over a fence without swinging out of her saddle. - -She had brought a handful of sugar for the donkey, and he had to be -fed and patted and talked about before Signor Provana was allowed to -take the slender foot in his broad hand while she sprang lightly to the -saddle; and then the little company moved away, Vera on her great grey -donkey, bells jingling, red and blue tassels flying, Provana walking -beside her, and the sunburnt youth at the donkey's head, ready to hold -the bridle when they came to the narrow hill-tracks. - -"Do they take that lad with them to play propriety?" asked the sourest -of all the spinsters, with a malevolent giggle--a question which nobody -answered--while the two parsons agreed that little Miss Davis looked -prettier than ever in her riding clothes. - -Provana walked for a long time in absolute silence, while Vera prattled -with the donkey-driver, exchanging scraps of Italian and insisting upon -the donkey's biography. - -"How did he call himself?" "Sancho." "Was he called after Don -Quixote's Sancho?" "_Perdona, Signorina--Non so_." "How old was he? -Was he always good? Was he always kindly treated?" His driver assured -her that the beast lived in a land of milk and honey, and seldom felt -the sting of a whip, to emphasise which assurance his driver gave a -sounding whack on Sancho's broad back. The only comfort was that the -back was broad and the animal seemed well fed. - -"I would not have let you ride a starveling," Provana said; "but these -people to whom God has given the loveliest land on earth have waited -for the sons of the North to teach them common humanity." - -After this he walked on in silence till they were far away from the -"Anglais," slowly climbing a stony ascent that called upon all Sancho's -sure-footedness and the guide's care. - -Suddenly, in the silence of the wood, where the light fell like golden -rain between the silver-grey leaves, Provana laid his hand on Vera's, -and said in a low voice: - -"I feel as if you and I were going to the end of the world together; -but in half an hour we shall be at the mill, and after that there will -be the short down-hill journey home, and Grannie's tea-table, and the -glory of my last day will be over." - -Vera looked at him wonderingly in a shy silence. The words seemed -to mean more than anything he had ever said before. His tone had an -underlying seriousness that was melancholy, and almost intense. - -They did not give much time to the mill and the processes of -chocolate-making. The picturesque gorge, the waterfall leaping from -crag to crag, the blue plane of sunlit sea, and the pale grey glimmer -on the purple horizon that was said to be Corsica--these were the -things they had come to look at, and they looked in silence, as if -spell-bound. - -"Let us sit here and talk of ourselves, while Tomaso gives Sancho a -rest and a mouthful of oats," Provana said; and he and Vera seated -themselves on a stony bank above the waterfall, while Tomaso and Sancho -retired to a distance of twenty yards, where a bend in the path hid -donkey and driver. - -It was not usual for Provana to be silent when they two were alone -together. There always seemed too much that he wanted to say in the -short space of time; but now the minutes went by, seeming long to Vera -in the unusual silence, which she broke at last by asking him, "Were -you ever in Corsica?" - -"Often; but we won't talk of that, Vera," taking her hand suddenly. "I -have a question to ask you, and the longer I think about it, the more -difficult it will seem--a question that means my future existence. I -can't wait for eloquent speech. I have no words to-day. Vera, will you -be my wife?" - -She looked at him as if she thought he was joking. - -"Yes, it has come to that. My happiness depends upon a girl of -eighteen, who thinks that such an offer must be a jest--something to -laugh at when she tells Grannie how foolish Signor Provana was this -afternoon. For me it is life or death. In all those days that we -were together last year never a thought of love came into my mind. -I watched the two faces side by side, and wondered which was the -lovelier, but my mind was too full of sorrow for any other feeling than -gratitude to the girl who helped to make those last days happy for my -dearest. She was my dearest, the only creature I had cared for since -her mother's death. There was no room in my heart for anything but the -father's despairing affection for the child he was soon to lose. It -was when I met you by my darling's grave that your face came back to -me with a strange flash of joy, unexpected, incomprehensible. I had -thought of you seldom in the half year that had parted us; yet in that -moment it seemed to me that I had been longing for you all the time. -And the next day, and the next, with every hour that we were together, -with every time I looked into your sweet face, the more I realised that -the happiness of all my days to come depended upon you. My love did not -expand like a flower creeping slowly through dull earth into beauty and -light. It rose like a flame, instantaneous, unquenchable. - -"Will you make me happy, Vera? Will you trust your life to me? Answer, -love, can you trust me?" - -Her murmured "Yes" was the nearest thing to silence; but he heard it, -and she was folded in his arms, and felt with a sudden thrill what it -was to be loved with all the strength of a man's passionate heart. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -Shadows of a November twilight are gathering in the two great -drawing-rooms of the largest house in Portland Place, rooms that -have the grandeur of space, and a certain gloomy splendour that has -nothing in common with the caprices and elegances of a modern London -drawing-room. The furniture is large and massive. There are tables in -Florentine mosaic; cabinets of ebony inlaid with ivory; dower-chests -painted by Paul Veronese or his pupils; the richness of arts that are -dead; walls hung with Italian tapestry, the work of cloistered nuns -whose fingers have been lying in the dust for three centuries; silver -lamps suggestive of mortuary chapels. - -"I love the Provana drawing-rooms because they are romantic, and I hate -them because they give me the horrors," little Lady Susan Amphlett told -people. - -Romantic was one of her pet words. Her vocabulary was made up of pet -words, a jargon of divers tongues, and she used them without mercy. -She was very small, very whimsical and pretty, as neat and dainty as -a Dresden shepherdess; but she got upon some people's nerves, and was -occasionally accused of posing, though she was actually as spontaneous -as a tropical parasite in a South American forest, a little egotist, -who thought, spoke, and acted only on the impulse of the moment, and -whose mind had no room for the idea of an external world, except as -its people and scenery were of consequence to herself. The people she -did not know or care about were non-existent. Romantic was her word -for Madame Provana. She adored Madame Provana, with whom she had some -thin thread of affinity, the kind of distant connection that pervades -the peerage, and makes it perilous for an outsider to talk of any -recent scandal in high life, lest he should fall upon a cousin of the -delinquent's. - -"Vera and I are connections. Her grandmother was a Disbrowe," Lady -Susan told people. "But it is not on that account I adore her. I love -her because she is romantic; and so few of the people one knows are -romantic." - -If asked where the romance came in, Susan was ready with her reasons. - -"Can there be anything more romantic than the idea of a lovely, -ethereal creature, who looks as if a zephyr might blow her off her -feet, married to an ugly giant whose sole thought and business in this -life is to heap up riches, a man who cares for nothing but money, whose -brain is a ledger, and whose heart is a cheque-book? Can anything be -more romantic, when one considers the woman she is and the man he is, -and that they absolutely dote upon each other?" - -"Provana may dote," someone would say; "but I question the lady's -feelings. That an impassioned Italian should be fond of a pretty woman, -young enough to be his daughter, and whom he married without a penny -for the sake of her sweet looks, all the world can understand. But -that Madame Provana worships her money-merchant is another story." - -"Did not Desdemona dote upon Othello?" cried Susan. "At least Provana -is not black, and adoration such as his would melt a statue. To be -worshipped by a case-hardened money-dealer, a man who trades in -millions, and holds the sinews of war when nations are spoiling for -a fight, a man who is a greater master of finance than half the -Chancellors of the Exchequer who have helped to make history! To see -how he worships that child-wife of his! It is absolutely pathetic." - -"Pathetic" was the pretty Susie's word for Mario Provana. She used the -adjective at the slightest provocation. "You are absolute pathetic," -she said, when he brought his wife a necklet of priceless cat's -eyes set with brilliants, and handed her the velvet case across the -tea-table as carelessly as if it had been a box of bonbons. - -He was pathetic, _impayable_, _stupendo_, all the big adjectives in -little Lady Susie's vocabulary. - -Susan Amphlett was Susie, or Lady Susie, for everybody who knew her -socially; and for a good many people who had never seen her little -_minois chiffoné_ nearer than in a photograph. People who spelled -over the society papers in their snug suburban drawing-rooms, and -loved to follow the flight of those migratory birds, the Mr. and Mrs. -Willies and Jimmies, and Lady Bettys and Lord Tommys, who were always -flitting from branch to branch, in the only world that seemed worth -living in, when one read the Society papers--those shining-surfaced, -richly-illustrated sixpennies, which brought the flavour of that other -world across the muffin dishes and savoury sandwiches of suburban -tea-tables. - -Mr. Amphlett was something in the City! Or that was his description -when people wanted to describe him. He was briefly described as -"rolling," and yet a pauper, if you weighed him against that mountain -of gold, Mario Provana, the international money-dealer. - -"If ever Provana goes under, half Europe will have to go under with -him," Susie's cousin, Claude Rutherford, ex-guardsman, ex-traveller, -ex-artist, ex-lion-shooter, said, when he discussed the great financier -with inquisitive outsiders. - -Claude was in the Portland Place drawing-room this afternoon, lounging -against the mantelpiece, near the lamp-lit tea-tables, at one of which -Madame Provana presided, his tall, slender figure half lost in a -deepening gloom, above that island of bright light made by the lamps on -the tea-table. - -It was easy for Claude to be lost in shadow, since there was so -little of him to lose. Euclid's definition of a line, length without -breadth, was his description; but his slender figure was a line that -showed race in every inch. His scientific acquaintance called him -a crystallisation. "Everything that was ever in the Disbrowes and -the Rutherfords, good or bad, he has in its quintessence," the poet -Eustace Lyon said of him. "Whatever the worst of the Rutherfords or the -Disbrowes, from King Stephen downwards, ever did, Claude is capable of -doing. Whatever the best of them ever accomplished he could do, if he -had a mind to." - - * * * * * - -Unhappily, Claude had a mind to do nothing more with his life than -lounge through it in placid idleness. He had done so much with -life, that it seemed to him that the inconsiderable remnant at his -disposal was not enough for action, and so nothing mattered. He had -been a soldier, and had seen active service, not without a certain -distinction. He had hunted lions and shot harmless elephants, with -still more distinction; indeed, in the exploring, lion-annihilating -line he had made himself almost a celebrity. He had painted and -exhibited pictures that had pleased the public and the critics, and -had been told that he might excel in the world of art; but though he -loved art, he had not tried to excel. The success of a season satisfied -him. Nothing pleased or interested him long. He had no staying power. -He painted occasionally to distract himself, but in an amateurish way, -and he no longer exhibited. His pictures had not work enough in them -to be shown; and, indeed, rarely went beyond the impression of an -hour; but the impression was vivid and vigorous, and always suggested -how much the painter might have done, if he had cared. He had not -long passed the third milestone on the road of life; but he had left -off caring for things before his thirtieth birthday. Languor, light -sarcasm, and unfailing good temper, were among the qualities that had -made him everybody's favourite young man, the very first a smart -hostess thought of when she was counting heads for a dinner-party. -One incentive that has helped some indolent young men to success was -wanting in this case. He was not obliged to earn his daily bread. The -Rutherfords had coal-mines on the Scottish border, and were rich enough -to provide for indolent scions of the family tree. - -Six or seven years ago, before he left the Army, Claude Rutherford had -been an arbiter of fashion among the men of his age. In those days -he had taken the business of his outer clothing more seriously than -the cultivation of a mind in which fancy had ever predominated over -thought; and in those days that element of fancy had entered even into -his transactions with tailor and bootmaker, and he had allowed himself -some flights of imagination in form and colour. Of all the names given -to golden youth the old-fashioned name of "exquisite" was the one that -fitted Captain Rutherford. It seemed to have been invented for him. He -was exquisite in everything, in his habiliments and his surroundings, -in speech, and manner, in every detail of his butterfly life. But when -he left the Grenadiers--to the infinite regret of his brother officers, -who were all his fast friends--he flung foppery from him as it were a -cast-off garment; and from the time he worked seriously at his easel, -and began to exhibit his pictures, he had become remarkable for the -careless grace of clothes that were scrupulously unoriginal, and in the -rear rather than in the van of fashion, the sleeves and coat-tails and -checks and stripes of the year before last. But he was still exquisite. -The grace and the charm were in his own slender form, and not in the -stuff that clothed him. - -He was not handsome. He was not like David, ruddy and fair to see. He -had very little colour, and his pale grey eyes were only brilliant -in moments of mirth or strong feeling. He had a long, thin nose, and -thin, flexible lips, and his mouth, which was supposed to be the -Disbrowe mouth, and a speciality of that ancient race, was strong in -character and expressiveness. His hair was light brown, with a natural -wave in that small portion which modern barbers allow to remain on the -masculine head. A rippling line above his brow indicated that Claude -Rutherford might have been as curly as Absalom if he had let his hair -grow. - -In the afternoon shadows that small head and slim form contrasted -curiously with the spacious brow of the tall and commanding figure -at the other end of the mantelpiece, the imposing presence of Father -Cyprian Hammond, at that time a famous personage in London society, the -morals and manners whereof he had of late made it his chief business -to satirise and denounce. But the people of pleasure and leisure, the -butterflies and humming-birds of the world, the creatures of light and -colour, have a keen relish for reproof and denunciation, though they -may wince under the lash of irony. For them anything is better than not -being talked about. - -It had been asked of Father Cyprian why he, who was so scathing a -critic of the follies and general worthlessness of the idle rich, was -yet not infrequently to be met in their houses. - -"If I did not go among my flock, I could not put my finger upon the -festering spot," he said. "I am a student of humanity. If Lord Avebury -could devote his days to watching bees and wasps, do you wonder that I -am interested in watching my fellow-creatures? A professional beauty -affords a nobler scope for observation than a queen bee; a gambler on -the stock exchange offers more points of interest than the industrious -ant. If insects are wonderful, is not the man or the woman who hazards -eternal bliss for the trivial pleasures of a London season a creature -infinitely more incomprehensible? And if, while I watch and listen, I -can discover where these creatures are assailable, if I can find some -penetrable spot in their armour of pride, I may be able to preach to -them with better chance of being heard." - -Father Cyprian was a conspicuous figure in that crowd of pretty -women and "nice boys." Tall, even among guardsmen, he held himself -like a soldier. He had a fair complexion, light brown hair, and blue -eyes. A Saxon of the finest Saxon type, and coming of a family whose -genealogical tree had put forth its earliest branches before the -Heptarchy. It was the consciousness of superior race, perhaps, that -made his fashionable flock tolerant of his stinging denunciation and -unmeasured scorn of vice and folly in high places. Everything relating -to him was superior. His vestments were superb, his chapel was a thing -of beauty. The genius of a Bossuet would hardly have persuaded that -world of the successful rich to listen to a withering analysis of its -vices and pettinesses from the lips of some little Irish priest, reared -in a hovel and nourished on potatoes and potheen; but it bowed the neck -before Father Cyprian's good birth and grand manner. - -Anglicans who met him in society, mostly in the houses of the powerful -or the rich, talked of him as a worldling; but his own flock knew -better. They knew that wherever the brilliant Jesuit might be seen, -however light his manner or trivial his conversation, one deeply-seated -purpose was at the back of his mind, the making of proselytes, the -aggrandisement of his Church, that Invincible, Indestructible, -Incomparable, Supreme, and Unquestionable Power, to which he had given -the service and the devotion of his whole being. If he went much among -statesmen and rulers it was because his Church wanted influence; -if he cultivated the friendship of millionaires it was because his -Church wanted money. For himself he wanted nothing, for he had been -born to independence; and though he had given much of his fortune to -the necessities of his Order, his income was still ample for the only -scheme of life that was possible for him. He was not a man who could -have lived in sordid surroundings, though he could go down into the -nethermost depths of East-End poverty, and give his days and nights to -carrying the lamp of Faith into dark places. He had a refinement of -sense that would have made squalor, or even shabby-genteel ugliness, -unbearable; and he had an ardent and artistic imagination which made -some touch of beauty in his surroundings as needful to him as fresh air -and cold water. - -The attention of both these men, the priest and the man-about-town, -was concentrated upon the lady of the house, who, just at this moment, -was taking very little notice of either of them. She was surrounded by -the smartest and prettiest women in the room, chief amongst them Lady -Susan Amphlett, who was always to be found near Vera at these friendly -tea-parties. - -Vera let Lady Susan and the other women do almost all the talking. She -sat looking straight before her, dreamily silent, amidst the animated -chatter about trivialities that had ceased to interest her. - -She was still as delicately slender as she had been six years ago -at San Marco, when the parsons had called her ethereal, and the -spinsters had called her half-starved; but those six years had made a -transformation, and she was not the same Vera. - -She had tasted of the Tree of Knowledge. She had enjoyed all the -amusements and excitements that great cities can give to rich and -beautiful women. She had been flattered and followed in Rome and Paris -and London, had been written about in the _New York Herald_, and had -been the fashion everywhere; a person whom not to know was to confess -oneself as knowing nobody and going nowhere. Indeed, it was a kind of -confession of outsiderism not to be able to talk of Madame Provana as -"Vera." - -She had accepted the position with a kind of languid acquiescence, -taking all things for granted, after the first year, when everything -amused her. In this sixth year of marriage, and wealth without limit, -she was tired of everything, except the society of authors and painters -and actors and musicians--the people who appealed to her imagination. -She had inherited from her father the yearning for things that earth -cannot give--the _au delà_, the light that never was on sea or land. -"The glory and the dream." - -She admired and respected Father Cyprian Hammond, and she liked him -to talk to her, though she could divine that steadfast purpose at the -back of his head, the determination to bring her into the Papal fold. -She argued with him from her Anglican standpoint, and pleaded for that -_via media_ that might reconcile old things with new; and she felt -the weakness of her struggle against that skilled dialectician; but -she refused to be converted. Half the pleasure of her intimacy with -this Eagle of Monk Street would be lost if she surrendered, and had to -exchange the struggle for the attitude of passive submission. - -His arguments sometimes went near to convincing her; but the Faith he -offered did not satisfy those vague longings for the something beyond. -It was too simple, too matter-of-fact to arrest her imagination. It -offered little more than she had already in the ritual of her own -Church. The change did not seem worth while. - -She looked up suddenly in the midst of the silvery treble talk about -theatres and frocks. - -"Claude, do you ever keep a promise?" she asked. - -"Always, I hope." - -"You promised to bring Mr. Symeon to see me." - -"Did I?" - -"Indeed you did. Ages ago." - -"Ages?" - -"Well, nearly three weeks. It was at the Helstones' dinner." - -"Three weeks. Mr. Symeon is not at the call of the first comer." - -There was a little cry from the women, who had left off talking in -order to listen. - -"He calls Madame Provana the first comer!" exclaimed the youngest and -pertest of the circle. - -"I call myself the first comer where Symeon is concerned. I am not -one of his initiated. I belong to the outer herd of wretches who eat -butcher's meat and attach importance to dinner. Mr. Symeon condescends -when he gives me half an hour of a life that is spent mostly in the -clouds." - -"I would give worlds to know him," said Lady Susan. "I have taken his -quarterly, _The Unseen_, from the beginning, His articles upon the -spiritual life are adorable, but I am not conceited enough to pretend -to understand him." - -"If people understood him, he would be less admired," said Rutherford. - -"What does he do?" asked the youngest and flippantest. "I am always -hearing of Mr. Symeon and his spook magazine; but what does he do? -Is it thought-reading, slate-writing, materialisation? Does he float -up to the ceiling, as Home did? My Grannie swears she saw him, yes, -positively floating, in that large house by the Marble Arch." - -"Mr. Symeon does nothing," replied Claude. "He is the high priest of -the Transcendental. He talks." - -"How disappointing!" - -"Most people find that enough." - -"They are bored?" - -"No; they are fascinated. Mr. Symeon is more magnetic than Gladstone -was. He must have stolen those green eyes of his from a mermaid. His -disciples get nothing but his eyes and his talk; and they believe in -him as Orientals believe in Buddha. I have heard people say he _is_ -Buddha--Gautama's latest incarnation." - -"That's rather lovely!" exclaimed Miss Flippant. "I would give worlds -to see him." - -"We'll excuse you the worlds, even if you owned them," said Claude in -his lazy voice. "You may see him within the next ten minutes, unless he -is a promise-breaker. I had not forgotten your commands, Vera. I spent -half a day in hunting Symeon, and did not leave him till he promised to -come to tea with you. I believe tea is the most material refreshment he -takes." - -"You are ever so much better than I thought you," said Vera, with one -look up at Rutherford, before she turned to gaze at the distant door, -heedless of the talk that went on round her, until after some minutes a -servant announced "Mr. Symeon." - -Claude Rutherford left his station by the mantelpiece and went to meet -the visitor. - -The spacious rooms were mostly in shadow by this time, all the lamps -being so tempered by artistic shades in sea-green silk that they gave -faint patches of colour rather than light, and some people started at -the sound of Mr. Symeon's name, almost as if they had seen a ghost. - -It was a name that all cultured people knew, even when they did not -know the man. Francis Symeon was a leader in the spiritual world, -and there were no depths in the mysteries of occultism, from ancient -Egypt to modern India, that he had not sounded. He was the editor and -proprietor of _The Unseen_, a quarterly magazine, to which only the -most advanced thinkers were allowed to contribute--a magazine which -the subscriber opened with a thrill of anticipation, wondering what -new revelation of the "life beyond" he was to find in those shining, -hot-pressed pages, where the matter was often more dazzling than the -gloss on the paper. - -Vera watched with eager interest and a faint flush of pleasure as -Rutherford and Symeon came through the shadows towards her. - -"You see I have kept my promise, and here is Mr. Symeon, to answer some -of those far-reaching questions with which you often bewilder my poor -brain." - -Vera left her table, where there had come a sudden lull in the soprano -voices as Mr. Symeon drew near--a pause in the discussion of frocks -and hats in the new comedy at the St. James's. She stood up to talk to -Mr. Symeon, telling him how she had been reading the last number of -_The Unseen_, and more especially his own contribution, an essay on the -other life, as understood by Tennyson and Browning. - -In that half-light which makes all beautiful things more beautiful, -she had a spirit look, and might have seemed the materialisation of -Mr. Symeon's thought, as she stood before him, fragile and slender, -with glimmering lamplight on her cloud of brown hair, and on the simple -white gown, of some transparent fabric, loosely draped over satin that -flashed through its fleecy whiteness. Her only ornament was a necklace -of _aqua marina_ in a Tiffany setting. - -"She wears that thing when she wants to look like a mermaid," Miss Pert -whispered to her pal. - -"No; she wears it to remind us that she has some of the finest jewels -in London, and that she despises them," said the pal, who had reached -that critical age which is described as "getting on," and was inclined -to take a sour view of a young woman who had married millions. - -Symeon and Vera talked for some time, she with a suppressed -eagerness--earnest, almost impassioned; Symeon grave and reserved, yet -obviously interested. - -"We cannot talk of these things in a crowd," he said. "If I had known -you had a party----" - -"It is not a party. People come every afternoon in the winter, when -there is not much for them to do; but if you will be so kind as to come -early some day, at three o'clock, for instance, I will not be at home -to anybody, unless it were Claude, who loves to hear you talk." - -"I will come to-morrow," said Symeon; and then, with briefest adieu, -he walked slowly through the crowd, acknowledging the greetings of a -few intimates with a distant bend of his iron-grey head, and walking -amongst the pretty faces and smart frocks as he might have done through -so many sparrows pecking on a lawn. - -Lady Susan came to Vera, excited and eager. - -"Why didn't you keep him? I wanted you to introduce him to me. I -have been pining to know him. I read every line of his Review. He is -wonderful! I believe he has secrets that ward off age. You must ask me -to meet him--at luncheon--a party of four, with Claude. Claude has been -horrid about him." - -"I value his friendship too much to introduce him to Tom, Dick, and -Harry," said Claude. "Vera and he are elective affinities." - - * * * * * - -Father Cyprian and Claude Rutherford left the house together. - -"May I walk with you as far as your lodgings?" Claude asked. - -"By all means, and come in with me, if you can. It is early yet, and I -have long wanted a talk with you." - -"Serious?" - -"Yes, even serious. When one cares as much for a young man as I do for -you, there is always room for seriousness. You look alarmed, but there -is no occasion. I don't preach long sermons, especially not to young -men." - -They walked to the end of the street in silence. They were old friends; -and though Claude was the most lax among Papists, Cyprian Hammond had -never lost hope of bringing him back to the fold. He was emotional and -imaginative, and he had a heart. Sooner or later there would come a day -when he would want the utmost the Church could do for him. - -"You can't wonder if I am a little afraid," Claude said presently. -"There has been some hard hitting from your pulpit within the last -year." - -"You have heard my moralities--I won't call them sermons?" - -"Yes, I have heard; but I doubt if I have enjoyed your diatribes as -much as the other sinners, especially the women of your flock. They -love to be told they are a shade worse than Semiramis, if you will only -imply that they are as fascinating as Cleopatra." - -"Poor worms," said the priest with a long-drawn sigh. "They are such -very poor creatures. Even their sins are petty." - -"Would you prefer them if they were poisoners, like the Borgia?" - -"No; but I might despise them less. And I should have more hope of -their repentance. These creatures don't know they are sinners. They -gamble, they squander their husbands' fortunes, shipwreck their sons' -inheritance; and when the domestic ship goes down they are injured -innocents, surprised to find that 'things are so expensive.' I have -talked with them--not in the confessional--and I have sounded the -shallows of their silly minds--there are no depths, unless it were a -depth of self-love. They come to Mass, and sit fanning themselves and -sniffing eau-de-Cologne, while I expostulate with them and try to turn -their thoughts into new channels. And then they get tired of the creed -in which they were brought up; tired of hearing hard things, and of -tasting wormwood instead of honey." - -"Is modern London so like Babylon?" - -"I doubt if the city with a hundred gates was much worse. And -your substitutes for the Church you have deserted--your Christian -Science, Pragmatism, Humanism, your letters from the dead, your -philanthropy--expressed in oranges and buns for workhouse children, and -in fashionable bazaars; charities that overlap each other and pauperise -more than they relieve; and all for want of that one tremendous Central -Power that could harmonise every effort, bring every man and woman's -work into line and rule. In the history of God's chosen people, the one -unpardonable sin was the worship of strange gods. Their Creator knew -that religion was the only basis of conduct, and that the worshippers -of evil gods must themselves become infamous. But this is the age of -strange gods. You all have your groves and high places, your Baal and -Astarte, your Kali or your Siva, your shrines upon mountain tops and -under green trees, your Buddha, your Nietzsche, your Spinoza, your -Comte. You run after the teachers of fantastic things, the high priests -of materialism. You worship anywhere but in your church; you believe -anything but the faith of your forefathers." - -They were at Father Cyprian's door by this time, in one of those wide -streets west of Portland Place, and north of the world of fashion. -Streets that may still be described as quiet, save for the ceaseless -roar of traffic in the Marylebone Road, a sound diminished by distance, -the ebb and flow of life in an artery of the great city. It was in a -street parallel with this that the great Cardinal who defied the law of -England had lived and died half a century before. - -They had been walking slowly through the thickening mist of a fine -November evening, a grey vapour, across which street lamps and lighted -windows glimmered in faint flashes of gold, an atmosphere that Claude -Rutherford loved, all the more, perhaps, because he had never been able -to satisfy himself in painting it. - -"What is the good of trying, when one must always fall short of -Turner?" he had said to himself in those younger and more eager days -when he still tried to do things. - -Father Cyprian had talked with a kind of suppressed passion as they -walked through solitary streets, and now he laughed lightly, as he -turned the key in his door. - -"You have had the sermon after all," he said. - -"It didn't touch me. I am not an extravagant, bridge-playing woman, and -I worship no strange god." - -"I shall touch you presently; your withers are not unwrung." - -"Suppose I say good night and give you the slip." - -"You won't do that. I was your father's friend." - -That was enough. Claude bent his head a little, as if at a sacred name, -and followed the priest up the uncarpeted stone staircase to a large -room on the first floor--the conventional London drawing-room, with its -three long windows and chilling white linen blinds. - -But, except the shape of the room and the white blinds, there was -nothing to offend the eye that looked for beauty. The floor was cheaply -covered with sea-blue felt, which echoed the colouring of the sea-blue -walls, and the central space was occupied by a massive knee-hole desk -of ebony, inlaid with ivory, evidently of Italian workmanship, and -picturesque enough to please without being a _chef d'oeuvre_. There -were only two objects of art in the spacious room, but each was supreme -after its kind. A carved ivory crucifix of considerable size, mounted -on black velvet, was centred on the wall facing the windows; and over -the marble mantelpiece there hung a Holy Family by Fra Angelico. These, -which were exquisite, were the only ornaments that Father Cyprian had -given himself, in his ten years' residence in this house, where this -spacious sitting-room, with a large bedroom for himself and a small -room for his servant, comprised all his accommodation. - -Six high-backed arm-chairs, covered with old stamped leather, and a -massive gate-legged table, black with age, on which he dined, completed -his furniture. To some visitors the sparsely-furnished room might -have seemed cold and cheerless; but there was an air of repose in -its simplicity that satisfied the artistic mind. It looked like a -room designed for prayer and meditation; not a room for study, for -the one bookcase, with its neat range of theological works, would not -have sufficed for the poorest student. It looked like a room meant -for solitude and thought, and for only the most serious, the most -confidential conversation. - -"I have always a sense of rest when I come into this room," Rutherford -said, while Father Cyprian was lighting the candles in a bronze -candelabrum on his desk. - -"You should come here oftener, Claude. You might make a retreat here -once or twice a week. Sit on the bank for a few hours, and let that -tumultuous river of modern life go by you, while you think of the land -where there is no tumult, only a divine repose, or an agony of regret. -When did you make your last confession, Claude?" - -"I have a bad memory, Father. Don't tax it too severely." - -The priest was not to be satisfied by a flippant answer. He pressed the -question with authority. - -"What have I to confess? An empty, dissatisfied soul, a useless life; -no positive wickedness, only negative worthlessness. I am not an -infidel," Claude added eagerly. "If I were an unbeliever, I would not -presume to claim your friendship. I should think it an insolence to -cross your threshold. I have been slack, I have fallen into a languid -acceptance of my own shortcomings." - -"You have fallen in love with another man's wife," said the priest -gravely. "That is the name of your sin." - -The thin face paled ever so slightly, but there was no indignant -protest; indeed, the head drooped a little, as if the sinner had -whispered _mea culpa_. - -"I have never made love to her," he said in a low voice. "But I am -human, and can't help loving her." - -"You can help going to her house. You can help hanging over her as she -sits among her friends. When it comes to making love the Rubicon is -passed, and the chances of retreat are as one in fifty. You are on the -downward slope, Claude. Every time you enter that house you go there at -the hazard of your soul." - -"She has so few real friends. She is alone among a crowd. She and I -were friends as children, or at least when she was a child. I should -be a cur if I kept away from her, when she needs my friendship, just -because of the risk to myself. I am too fond of her ever to hazard a -situation that would mean danger for her. I know how much a woman in -her position has to lose. She is not the kind of woman who could pass -through the furnace of the divorce court, and hold up her head and be -happy afterwards. She is a creature of spirit, not of flesh. Passion -would never make amends to her for shame." - -"Yet, knowing this, you make yourself her intimate companion!" - -"I shall never betray myself. She will never know what you know. For -her I am a feather-brained amateur of life; interested in many things, -caring for nothing, a saunterer through the world, without much heart, -and without any serious purpose. She often scolds me for my frivolity." - -"I admit that she has a certain childlike innocence which might keep -her unconscious of your feelings, till the fatal moment in which -you will fling principle, prudence, honour to the winds and declare -yourself her lover----" - -"That moment will never come. The day I feel myself in danger I -shall leave her for ever. In the meantime, if I am essential to her -happiness, I shall stop." - -"How can you be essential? She has crowds of friends, and a husband who -adores her." - -"A husband of fifty years of age, grave, silent, with his mind -concentrated upon international finance; a man who is thinking of -another Turkish loan while he sits opposite her, with his stony eyes -fixed upon space--a man whose brain is a calculating machine and his -heart a handful of ashes." - -"Has she complained of him?" - -"Never; but things have leaked out. She was not eighteen--little more -than a child--when she married him. She gave herself to him in a -romantic impulse, admiring his force of character, her heart touched -by his affection for a dying daughter. To be so loved by that strong -nature seemed to her enough for happiness. But that was six years ago, -and she has lived six years in the world. The romance has gone out of -her love. What can she have in common with such a man?" - -"The bond of marriage--his love, and her sense of duty," answered the -priest. - -"She has a keen sense of a wife's duty: she preaches sermons upon her -husband's goodness of heart, his fine character; and she ends with a -sigh, and regrets that for some mysterious reason she has not been able -to make him happy." - -"She is too rich and too much indulged, and she is without a saving -creed. Poor child, I would give much to save her from herself and from -you." - -"Don't be afraid of me, Father. Men of my stamp may be trusted. We -are too feather-brained to be intense, even in sin. Good night. I -hear the jingle of glass and silver, and I think it must be near your -dinner-time. Good night!" - -The priest gave him his hand, but not his blessing. That was withheld -for a better moment. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -When a woman's imagination, still young and ardent, begins to find -the things of earth as Hamlet found them, "weary, flat, stale, -and unprofitable," it is only natural that she should turn with a -longing mind to the life that earth cannot give, the something unseen -and mysterious that certain gifted individuals have attributed to -themselves the power of seeing. Vera, after six years of marriage, six -years of unlimited wealth and unconscious self-indulgence, had begun to -discover that most things were stale, and some things weary, and all -things unprofitable; and then, to a mind steeped in modern poetry and -modern romance, and the modern music that always means something more -than mere combinations of harmonious sounds, there had come a yearning -for the higher life, the transcendental life that only the elect can -realise, and only the earth-weary can ardently desire. - -Francis Symeon was the philosopher to whom she turned with -unquestioning faith; for even those who had spoken lightly of his -creed and of his reasoning faculty had admitted that the man was -essentially sincere, and that the faith he offered his followers was -for him as impregnable as the rock of Holy Scripture. - -He was announced on the following day as the clock in Vera's -morning-room struck three, a punctuality so exceptional as to seem -almost uncanny, when compared with the vague sense of time in the rest -of her acquaintance. She received him in a room where there was no -fear of interruption--her sanctuary, more library than boudoir, where -the books she loved, her poets and novelists and philosophers, in the -bindings she had herself invented, filled her book-cases, alternating -with black-and-white portraits of the gods of her idolatry--Browning, -Tennyson, Byron, Scott, de Musset, Heine, Henry Irving, Gounod. Only -the dead had place there--the dead musician, the dead poet, the dead -actor. It was death that made them beloved and longed for. They had -gone from her reach for ever; and it was this sense of something for -ever lost that made them adorable. - -Mr. Symeon looked round the walls with evident admiration. - -"I see you prefer the faces of the noble dead to water-colour sketches -and majolica plates," he said. "Divine books, divine faces, those are -the best companions a woman can have." - -"I spend a good deal of my life in this room," Vera answered. "I have -no children. I suppose if I had I should spend most of my time with -them. I should not have to choose my companions among the dead." - -"You have chosen them among the living," Mr. Symeon answered in a -voice that thrilled her. "Do you think that Tennyson is dead? He who -knew that the whole question of religion hinges upon the after life: -immortality or a godless universe. Or Browning, who has gone to the -very core of religion, whose magnificent mind grasped the highest and -deepest in Divine love and Divine power? Such spirits are unquenchable. -This rag of mortality upon which they hang must lie in the dust, but -for the elect death is only the release of the immaterial from the -material, the escape of the butterfly from the worm. You have the -assurance from the lips of Christ: God is the God of the living; and -for those whose existence on earth is only the apprenticeship to -immortality, there is no such thing as death." - -This was the chief article in Mr. Symeon's creed; hinted at, but not -formally stated in his contributions to the magazine which he edited. -He claimed immortality only for the elect--for those in whom the spirit -predominated over the flesh. To Vera there was no new idea in his -exposition of faith. She had a feeling that she had always known this, -from the time she stood beside Shelley's grave in the shadow of the -Roman Cenotaph, and that other grave under the hill, the resting-place -of Shelley's Adonais. The thought of corruption had been far from her -mind, albeit she knew that the heart of one poet and the wasted form -of the other were lying in the darkness below those spring flowers on -which her tears were falling, and it was no surprise to her to hear a -serious man of sixty years of age declare his faith in the unbroken -chain of life. - -"I saw that you were not one of those who scoff at transcendental -truths," Mr. Symeon said, after a few moments' silence. "I read in your -eyes last night that you are one of us in spirit, though you may know -nothing of our creed. You must join our society." - -"Your society?" - -"Yes, Madame Provana. We are a company of friends in the world of sense -and in the world of spirit. The majority of us have crossed the river. -As corporal substance they have ceased to be; their dwelling is in the -starlit spaces beyond Acheron. For the common herd they are dead; but -for us they are as vividly alive as they were when they walked among -the vulgar living, and wore life's vesture of clay. They are nearer -to us since they have passed the gulf, and we understand them as we -never could while they wore the livery of earth. They are our close -companions. The veil that parted us is rent, and we see them face to -face." - -Vera listened in silence, and the grave, slow speech went on without a -break. - -"We have our meetings. We discuss the great problems, the everlasting -mysteries; we press forward to the higher life. We are not afraid -of being foolish, romantic, illogical. We are prepared for contempt -and incredulity from the outside world; but for us, whose minds have -received the light from those other minds, who have been consoled in -our sorrows, strengthened in our faith by those influencing souls, -there is nothing more difficult in our creed than in that of Newman, -who saw behind each form of material beauty the light, the flower, the -living presence of an angel. The spirits of the illustrious dead are -our angels; and our communion with them is the joy of our lives. We -call ourselves simply Us. Our chosen poets, philosophers, painters, -musicians, even the great actors of the past, those ardent spirits in -whom genius was unquenchable by death, men and women whose minds were -fire, and their corporal existence of no account in the forces of their -being: those who have lived by the spirit and not by the flesh--all -these are of our company. These are the influencing souls who are -our companions in the silence and seclusion of our lives. Not by the -trumpery expedient of an alphabet rapped out upon a table, or by the -writing of an unguided pencil; but by the communion of spirit with -spirit, we feel those other minds in converse with our own. They teach, -they exhort, they uplift us to their spirit world, sometimes in hours -of meditation, and sometimes in the closer communion of dreams." - -"Are their voices heard--do they speak to you?" Vera asked, deeply -moved, her own voice trembling a little. - -"Only in dreams. Speech is material, and belongs to the earthly -machine. It is not from lip to ear, but from mind to mind that the -message comes." - -"And do they appear to you? Do you see them as they were on earth?" -Vera asked. - -The November twilight had filled the room with shadow, and the face -of the spiritualist, the sharply-cut features, and hollow cheeks, and -luminous grey-green eyes, looked like the face of a ghost. - -"Only in dreams is it given to us to look upon the disembodied great. -We feel, and we know! That is enough. But in some rare cases--where the -earthly vesture has worn to its thinnest tissue--where death has set -its seal upon the living, to one so divested of mortal attributes, so -marked for the spirit world, the vision may be granted. Such an one may -see." - -"You have known...?" faltered Vera. - -"Yes, I knew such a case. In the final hour of an ebbing life the chain -of wedded love that death had broken was reunited, and the wife died -with her last long gaze turned to the vision of her husband. Her last -word was 'reunited!'" - -Vera was strangely impressed. It was not easy for the unbelieving to -make a mock of Mr. Symeon's creed. The force of his convictions, the -ideas that he had cultivated and brooded upon for the larger part of -his life, had so possessed the man, that even scoffers were sometimes -moved by his absolute sincerity, and found themselves, as it were -unawares, treating his theories almost seriously. For Vera, in whom -imagination was the greater part of mind, there was no inclination to -scoff, but rather a most earnest desire that the spiritualist's creed -might be justified by her own experience, that it might be granted to -her to sit in the melancholy solitude of that room, with a volume of -Browning on her lap, and to feel that the poet was near her, that an -invisible spirit was breathing enlightenment into her mind, as she read -the dying words of the beloved apostle in "A Death in the Desert," -which had been to her as a new gospel--and to know that when she raised -her eyes to the portrait on the wall, it was not the dead, but the -living upon whom she looked. - -This was involved in the creed of her Church--the Communion of Saints. - -Were not the gifted, who had lived free from all the grossness of clay, -from the taint of earthly sin, worthy to be numbered among the saints, -and like them gifted with perpetual life, perpetual fellowship with the -faithful who adored them? - -When he left the great, silent house Mr. Symeon knew that he had made -a proselyte. Though Vera had said little, it was impossible to mistake -the fervour with which she had welcomed his revelation of the spirit -world. Here was a mind in want of new interests, a heart yearning for -something that the world could not give. - -She sat by the dying fire, in the gathering darkness, long after her -visitor had left her. Yes, this had been her need of late--something to -think of, something to wish for. Her life--so over full of the things -that women desire, pomp and luxury, troops of friends, jewels and fine -clothes, the "too much" that money always brings with it--had vacant -spaces, and hours of vague depression, in which the sense of loneliness -became an aching pain. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -Mario Provana's wife was the fashion. The prestige for which some women -strive and labour for years, spending themselves and their husband's -fortunes in the strenuous endeavour, and having to confess themselves -failures at last, had been won by Vera without an effort. Her husband's -wealth had done much; her youth, and the something rare and exceptional -in her beauty, had done more; but the Disbrowes had done the most of -all. With such material--a triple millionaire's wife in the first bloom -of her loveliness--the work had been easy; but no one could deny that -the Disbrowes had worked, and might fairly congratulate themselves, as -well as their fair young cousin, (first, second, or third, as the case -might be) upon the result of their tactful efforts. All Disbrowes were -supposed to have tact, just as they had arched insteps, and long, lean -hands. It was as much a mark of their race. - -From the day of Vera's return from her long Italian honeymoon she found -herself walled round and protected by her mother's kindred. They came -from all the points of the compass. Lord Okehampton from his park in -North Devon, Lady Balgowrie from her castle in Aberdeenshire, Lady -Helstone from the Land's End. They came unbidden, and overflowing with -affection, but much too tactful to be vulgarly demonstrative. - -"Poor Lady Felicia's foolish pride kept us all at a distance," they -told Vera; "but now that you are emancipated, and your own mistress, I -hope you will let us be useful." - -From countesses down to hard-up spinsters, they all said the same -thing, and no one could accuse them of "gush." They all announced -themselves as worldlings, pure and simple, and they made no professions. - -"You have made a great match, my dear," said Lady Helstone, "and you -have a great career before you, if you are careful in the choice of -your friends. That is the essential point. One black sheep among your -flock might spoil all your chances. There are men about town that my -husband calls 'oilers'--they were called tigers when my mother was -young--and one of those in a new woman's visiting list can wreck her. -The creatures are intolerably pushing, and don't rest till they can -pose as _cavaliere servente_ or at least as _l'ami de la maison_." - -Vera welcomed this army of blood relations with amiability, but without -enthusiasm. She was ready to love that one kind lady who had given -her the only happy holiday of her childhood, under whose hospitable -roof she had known Claude Rutherford; but the countesses who had been -unaware of her existence while she was a dependant upon "poor Lady -Felicia," could have no claim upon her affection. Yet they and their -belongings were all pleasant people; and in that large and splendid -house which was to be her home in London, she found that people were -wanted. - -The emptiness of those spacious rooms, during the long hours when her -husband was at his offices in the City, soon became appalling; and she -was glad of the lively aunts and cousins, and their following, who -transformed her drawing-rooms into a parrot house, both for noise and -brilliant colour, to say nothing of the aquiline beaks that prevailed -among the dowagers and elderly bachelors. Once established as her -relations--the distance of some of the cousinship being ignored--they -came as often as Vera cared to ask them, and they brought all the -people whom Vera ought to know, the poets, and novelists, and -playwrights, who were all dying to know the daughter of Lancelot Davis, -that delightful poet whom everybody loved and nobody envied. His fame -had increased since he had gone into the ground; and his shade was now -crowned with that belated fame which is the aureole of the dead. They -brought the newest painting people, and the fashionable actors and -actresses, English or American, as well as that useful following of -"nice boys," who are as necessary in every drawing-room as occasional -chairs, or tables to hold tea-cups. - -Instigated by the Disbrowes, and with Mario Provana's approval, Vera -soon began that grand business of entertaining, to which a triple -millionaire's wife should indubitably devote the greater part of her -time, talent, and energy. Countesses and countess-dowagers gave their -mornings to her, advising whom she should invite, and how she should -entertain. They instructed her in the table of precedence as solemnly -as if it had been the Church Catechism, showed her how, in some rare -concatenation, a rule might be broken, as a past master of harmony -might, on occasion, allow himself the use of consecutive fifths. - -They were never tired of extending Madame Provana's knowledge of life -as it is lived in the London that is bounded on the south by Queen -Anne's Gate and by Portland Place on the north. They called it opening -her mind--and praised her for the intelligence with which she mastered -the social problems. - -Her husband was pleased to see her admired and cherished, above all to -see her happy; yet he could not but feel some touch of disappointment -when he looked back upon those quiet afternoons in the olive woods at -San Marco, and the tea-parties of three in Lady Felicia's sitting-room, -and remembered how he had thought he was marrying a friendless and -unappreciated girl, who would be all the world to him, and for whom he -must be all the world, in a long future of wedded love. - -He thought he was marrying a friendless orphan, whose divine -inheritance was poetry and beauty; and he found that he had married the -Disbrowes. - -They were all terribly friendly. They never hinted at his inferior -social status, his vulgar level as a tradesman, only trading in money -instead of goods. They behaved as if, by marrying their cousin, he -had become a Disbrowe. Lady Helstone, Lady Balgowrie, Lord and Lady -Okehampton treated him with affection without _arrière pensée_. The -most that Okehampton, as a man of the world, wanted from the great -financier was his advice about the investment of his paltry surplus, -so trifling an amount that he blushed to allude to the desire in such -exalted company. - -But now a time had come when Vera needed no counsel from the Disbrowes, -and when she was beginning to treat those social obligations -about which she, as a tyro, had laboured diligently, with a royal -carelessness. Her aunts complained that she had grown casual, and that -she had even gone very near offending some of their particular friends, -people whom to have on her visiting list ought to have been the crown -of her life. - -Vera apologised. - -"I know far too many people," she said; "my house is becoming a -caravanserai." - -She said "my house" unconsciously--with the deep-seated knowledge that -all those splendid rooms and the splendid crowds that filled them meant -very little in her husband's life. - -Six years of the "too much" had changed Lady Felicia's granddaughter. -The things that money can buy had ceased to charm; the people whom in -her first season she had thought it a privilege to know had sunk into -the dismal category of bores. Almost everybody was a bore; except a few -men of letters, who had known her father, or who loved his verses. For -those she had always a welcome; and she was proud when they told her -that she was her father's daughter. Her eyes, her voice were his, these -enthusiasts told her. She was a creature of fire and light, as he was. - -After three or four years of pleasure in trivial things, she had -grown disdainful of all delights, except those of the mind and the -imagination. The opera, or the theatre when Shakespeare was acted, -always charmed her, but for the olla podrida of music and nonsense -that most people cared for she had nothing but scorn. She never missed -a fine concert or a picture show, but she broke half her engagements -to evening parties, or appeared for a quarter of an hour and vanished -before her hostess had time to introduce the new arrivals, American or -continental, who were dying to know her. - -The general impression was that she gave herself airs: but they were -airs that harmonised with her fragile beauty, the something ethereal -that distinguished her from other women. - -"If any stout, florid creature were to behave like Madame Provana, she -would be cut dead," people told Vera's familiar friend, Lady Susan -Amphlett. - -Lady Susan pleaded her friend's frail constitution as an excuse for -casual behaviour. - -"She is all nerves, and suffers agonies from ennui. Her father was -consumptive, and her mother was a fragile creature who faded away after -three years of a happy married life. It was a marriage of romance and -beauty. Davis and his wife were both lovely; but they had no stamina. -Vera has no stamina." - -Lady Felicia had been lying more than a year in the family vault -in Warwickshire. Her last years had been the most prosperous and -comfortable years of her life, and the vision of the future that -had smiled upon her in the golden light above the jutting cliff of -Bordighera had been amply realised by the unmeasured liberality of her -granddaughter's husband. Before Vera's honeymoon was over, the shabby -lodgings in the dull, unlovely street had been exchanged for a spacious -flat in a red brick sky-scraper overlooking Regent's Park. Large -windows, lofty ceilings, a southern aspect, and the very newest note in -decoration and upholstery had replaced the sunless drawing-room and the -Philistine walnut furniture, and for those last years the Disbrowe clan -ceased to talk of Captain Cunningham's widow as poor Lady Felicia. What -more could any woman want of wealth, than to be able to draw upon the -purse of a triple millionaire? As everything in Lady Felicia's former -surroundings, her shifting camp of nearly twenty years, had been marked -with the broad arrow of poverty, every detail of this richly feathered -nest of her old age bore the stamp of riches; and the Disbrowes, who -knew the price of things, could see that Mario Provana had treated his -wife's relation with princely generosity. - -Once more Lady Felicia's diamonds, those last relics of her youth, to -which she had held through all her necessitous years, were to be met in -the houses of the fashionable and the great; and Lady Felicia herself, -in a sumptuous velvet gown, silvery hair dressed by a fashionable -artist, emerged from retirement in a perfect state of preservation, -having the advantage by a decade of giddy dowagers who had never missed -a season. - -The giddy dowagers looked at her through their _face à main_, and -laughed about Lady Felicia's "resurrection." - -"She looks as if she had been kept in cotton-wool and put to bed at ten -o'clock every night," they said. - -Grannie enjoyed that Indian summer of her life, and was grateful. - -"You have married a prince," she told Vera, "and if you ever slight him -or behave badly, you will deserve to come to a bad end." - -Vera protested that she knew her husband's value, and was not -ungrateful. - -"I want to make him happy," she said. - -"That is easy enough," retorted Grannie. "You have only to love him as -he deserves to be loved." - -"Was that so easy?" Vera wondered sadly. - -It seemed to her that, by no fault of hers, there had come a difference -in her relations with her husband. He was always kind to her, but he -was farther from her than in the first year--the Italian year--which, -to look back upon, was still the happiest of her married life. He was -absorbed in a business that needed strenuous labour and unflagging -care. He had told her that it was not his own interests alone that he -had to guard; but the interests of other people. There were thousands -of helpless people who would suffer by his loss of fortune, or his loss -of prestige. The pinnacle upon which the house of Provana stood was the -strong rock of a multitude. A certain anxiety was therefore inevitable -throughout his business life. He could never be the holiday husband, -sharing all a wife's trivial pleasures, interested in all the nothings -that make the sum of an idle woman's existence. - -Vera accepted the inevitable, and it was only when she began to think -the best people rather boring, that she discovered how the distance -had widened between herself and her husband. Without a dissentient -word, without a single angry look, they had come to be one of those -essentially modern couples whose loveless unions Father Cyprian -deplored. - -She thought the blame was with Mario Provana. He had ceased to care for -her. Just as she had grown weary of her troops of friends, her husband -had wearied of the wife he had chosen after a week's courtship. - -"He thought he was in love, but he could not really have cared for me," -she told herself. "His heart was empty and desolate after the loss of -his daughter, and he took me because I was young and had been Giulia's -friend." - -This was how Vera reasoned, sitting in her lonely sanctuary, while on -the other side of the wall there was a man of mature age, a man with -a proud temper and a passionate heart, a man who had endured slights -in his youth, whose first marriage had ended in disappointment, the -crushing discovery that the beautiful girl who had been given to him -by a noble and needy father had sacrificed her inclinations for the -sake of her family, and had never loved him. She had been faithful, and -she had endured his love. That was all. And in those last years, when -disease had laid a withering hand upon her beauty, and when the world -seemed far off, and when only her husband's love stood between her and -death, she had learnt the value of a good man's devotion, and had loved -him a little in return. He had suffered the disillusions of that first -union. Yet again, after many years, he had staked his happiness upon -a single chance, and had taken a girl of eighteen to his heart, in a -state of exaltation that was more like a dream than sober reality. He -had lavished upon this unsophisticated girl all the force of strong -feelings long held in check. At last, at last, in the maturity of -manhood, the love that had been denied to his youth was being given -to him in full measure. He could not doubt that she loved him. That -innocent, unconscious love, trusting as the love of children, revealed -itself in tones and looks that he could not mistake. Before he asked -her to be his wife he was sure that she loved him; but after six years -of marriage he was no longer sure of anything, except that his wife was -the fashion, and that her Disbrowe relations were innumerable. He was -sure of nothing about this girl whom he had clasped to his breast in a -rapture of triumphant love, on the hill above the Mediterranean. Year -after year of their married life had carried her farther away from him. -Who could say precisely what made the separation? He only knew that the -years which should have tightened the bond had loosened it; and that he -could no longer recognise his child-wife of their Roman honeymoon in -the fragile _ennuyée_ whom Society had chosen to adore. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -"Well, now your whim has been gratified, I should like to know what -you think of Francis Symeon?" Claude Rutherford asked, as he put down -his hat in Vera's sanctum, the day after her conference with the high -priest of occultism. - -The question was his only greeting. He slipped into the low and -spacious chair by the hearth, and seemed to lose himself in it, while -he waited for a reply. He had the air of being perfectly at home in -the room, with no idea that he could possibly be unwelcome. He came -and went in Madame Provana's house with a lazy insouciance that many -people would have taken for indifference. Only the skilled reader of -men would have detected the hidden fire under that outward serenity -of the attractive man, who flirts with any attractive woman of his -acquaintance, and cares for none. - -"I think he is wonderful." - -"And you believe in him?" - -"Yes, I believe in him, because his ideas only give form and substance -to the thoughts that have haunted me ever since I began to think." - -"Grisly thoughts?" - -"No, Claude; happy thoughts. When I first read my father's poetry and -began to think about him--in my dull grey room in Grannie's lodgings--I -had a feeling that he was near me. He was there; but behind the veil. -When I read 'In Memoriam' the feeling grew stronger, and I knew that -death is not the end of love. There was nothing that shocked or -startled me in what Mr. Symeon told me yesterday." - -"About 'Us,' the spiritual club, in which the dead and the living -are members on the same footing? The club that elects, or selects, -Confucius or Browning one day, and Lady Fanny Ransom--mad Lady Fanny as -they call her--the next?" - -"I saw nothing to ridicule in a companionship of lofty minds. But you -know more about the society than I do. Perhaps you are a member?" - -Claude answered first with a light gay laugh, and then in his most -languid voice. - -"Not I! I am of the earth earthy, sensual, sinful. If I went to one of -their meetings I should have to go disguised as a poodle. Lady Fanny -owns a fine Russian, that has a look of Mephisto, though I believe he -is purely canine." - -"Tell me all you know about their meetings." - -"Imagine a Quakers' meeting, with the female members in Parisian -frocks and hats--a large room at the back of Symeon's chambers in the -'Albany.' It was once a fashionable editor's library, smelling of -Russia leather, and gay with Zansdorf's bindings--but it is now the -abode of shadow, 'where glowing embers through the room, teach light -to counterfeit a gloom.' And there the congregation sits in melancholy -silence, till somebody, Lady Fanny or another, begins to say things -that have been borne in upon her from Shakespeare or Browning, or -Marlowe or Schopenhauer; or her favourite bishop, if she is pious. -They wait for inspiration as the Quakers do. I am told Lady F. is -tremendous. She is strong upon politics, and is frankly socialistic; -she has communications from Karl Marx and Fourier, George Eliot and -Comte. Her inspiration takes the widest range, and moves her to the -wildest speech; but she is greatly admired. They never have a blank day -when she is there." - -"I should like to hear her. I know she is eccentric; but she is -immensely clever, and she seems to have read everything worth reading, -in half a dozen languages." - -"She crams her expansive brain with the best books; but I am told she -occasionally puts them in upside down, and the author's views came out -topsy-turvy. You are of imagination all compact, Vera; but I should be -sorry to see you lapsing into Fannytude." - -"You scoff at everything. There is nothing serious for you in this -world or the next." - -"Which next world? There are so many. Symeon's for instance, and Father -Hammond's. What could be more diverse than those? I have thought very -little about the undiscovered country. But you must not say I am not -serious about something in this world." - -"I cannot imagine what that something is." - -"I hope you will never know. If fact, you are never to know." - -His earnestness startled her. When a man's dominant note is persiflage -any touch of grave feeling is impressive. Vera was silent--and they sat -opposite each other for a few moments, she watching the rise and fall -of a blue flame in the heap of logs, he watching her face as the blue -light flashed upon it for an instant and then left it dark. - -It was a face worth watching. She had her mermaid look this evening, -and her eyes--ordinarily dark grey--looked as green as her sea-water -necklace. - -"How is Provana?" he asked at last; an automatic question, indicating -faintest interest in the answer. - -"Oh, he is very well; but I am afraid he is worried. He stays longer in -the City than he used to stay, and he is very grave and silent when we -dine alone." - -"What would you do if the great house of Provana were to go down like a -scuttled ship? Would you stick to a bankrupt husband--renounce London -and all its pomps and vanities--give up this wilderness of a house and -all the splendid things in it?" - -"Can you suppose the loss of money would change my feeling for him? If -you can think that you must think I married him because he was rich." - -"And didn't you?" - -"I hate you for the question. When Mario asked me to be his wife I had -not a thought of his wealth. I knew that he was a good man, and I was -proud of his love." - -"But you were not in love with him?" - -"I don't know what you mean. I loved him for his noble character. I was -proud of his love." - -"That is not being in love, Vera. A woman who is in love does not care -a jot for her lover's character. She loves him all the better, perhaps, -because he is a scoundrel--the last of the last--the off-scouring. -There were women in Rome who doted upon Cæsar Borgia; women who knew -that he was a poisoner--take my word for it. You liked Provana because -he was your first lover, and you were tired of a year in year out -_tête-à-tête_ with Grannie." - -"You know nothing about it. If he were to lose his fortune to-morrow I -think I should be rather glad. We could live in Italy. Poverty would -bring us nearer together--as we were in our honeymoon year. We should -have plenty to live upon with my settlement." - -She rose and moved towards the door. - -"It is nearly five, and there will be people coming," she said. - -The door opened as she spoke, and Lady Susan Amphlett looked in. - -"Aren't you coming, Vera? There is a mob already, and people want their -tea. What are you two talking about, _entre chien et loup_? You look as -weird as Mr. Symeon, Claude." - -"We were talking of Symeon, when Vera began to worry about the people -downstairs, who are not half so interesting." - -"I should think not. Mr. Symeon is thrilling. To know him is like what -it must have been to be intimate with Simon Forman or Dr. Dee. I would -give worlds to belong to his society. It is quite the smart thing to -do. The members give themselves no end of airs in a quiet way." - -Lady Susan would have stood in the doorway talking in her crisp and -rapid way for a quarter of an hour, oblivious of the people in the -drawing-room; but Vera slipped a hand through her arm, and they went -downstairs together, Susan talking all the way. - -"Fanny Ransom has just come in, with her girl--not out yet, but ages -old in knowing what she oughtn't to know. How can a woman like Fanny, -eaten up with spiritualism, look after a daughter? They say she went to -Paris last winter on purpose to attend a Black Mass." - -"The not-out daughter?" asked Claude. - -"No, the mother; but she told the girl all about it, and the minx raves -about the devil--and says she would rather be initiated than presented -next year." - -"Lady Fanny had better take care, or she will be expelled from Us. I -don't think Symeon would approve of the Black Mass. His philosophy is -all light. Light and darkness are his good and evil." - -Claude spoke in an undertone, as they were in the room by this time, -but he ran small risk of being overheard in a place where everybody -seemed to be talking and nobody listening. - -Lady Fanny was the centre of a group, her large brown eyes flashing, -her voice the loudest, a tall, commanding figure in a black and gold -gown, and a black beaver hat with long ostrich feathers and a diamond -buckle, a hat that suggested Rupert of the Rhine rather than a modern -matron. - -Her girl stood a little way off, with three other not-outs, listening -to her mother's "balderdash" with unsuppressed mockery. - -"Isn't she too killing?" this dutiful child exclaimed, in a rapture -of contemptuous amusement, and then she and her satellites bounced -down upon the most luxurious ottoman within reach, and employed -themselves in disparaging criticism of the company generally--their -dress, demeanour, and social status, with much whispering and -giggling--happily unobserved by grown-ups, who all had their own -interesting subjects to talk about. - -Lady Fanny was deserted in favour of Vera, who, at the tea-table, -became the focus of everybody's attention. At the beginning she had -taken a childish pleasure in pouring out tea for her friends, rejoicing -in the exquisite china, the old-world silver, glittering in the blue -light of the spirit lamps, the flowers, and beauteous surroundings; -so different from the scanty treasures of shabby-gentility--the -dinted silver, worn thin with long use, the relics of a Swansea -tea-service with many a crack and rivet--to which her youth had been -restricted. She performed the office automatically nowadays, oppressed -with the languor that hangs over those who are tired of everything, -most especially the luxury and beauty they once longed for. One can -understand that in the reign of our Hanoverian kings it was just this -state of mind which made the wits and beauties eager for a window over -against Newgate--to see a row of murdering pirates hanging against the -morning sky. Nothing could be too ghastly or grim for exhausted souls -in want of a sensation. - -The afternoon droppers-in had long become a weariness to Madame -Provana, yet as her fashion had depended much upon her accessibility, -she could not shut her door upon people who considered themselves -obliging when they used her drawing-room as a rather superior club. - -Claude Rutherford slipped out of the room imperceptibly, eluding the -people who wanted to talk to him with the agility of a vanishing -harlequin. He had another visit to pay before his evening engagements, -an almost daily visit. - -There was just one person in the world for whom he, who had left -off caring for people or things, was known to care very much. In -expatiating upon the blemishes in an agreeable young man's character, -people often concluded with: - -"But he is a model son. He adores that old woman in Palace Place." - -It was to the old woman in Palace Place that Claude was going this -November afternoon, and walking briskly through the clear, cold grey, -he knew as well what the old woman was doing as if he had been gifted -with second sight. - -She was sitting in her large, low chair, with her table and exquisite -little tea-service--his gift--at her elbow, and with her eyes fixed on -the dial of the Sèvres clock on the mantelpiece, while her heart beat -in time to the ticking of the seconds, and he knew that if he were but -ten minutes later than usual those minutes were long enough for the -maternal mind to visualise every form of accident that can happen to a -young man about town. - -Nobody talked of "poor Mrs. Rutherford," or pitied her widowed -solitude, as they had pitied Lady Felicia. The fact that she had her -own house in a fashionable quarter, and a handsome income, made all the -difference. - -The house was not spacious, but it was old--an Adams house--and one of -the prettiest in London, for whatever had been done to it, after Adams, -had been done with taste and discretion. Much of the furniture was of -the same date as the house, and all that was more recent was precious -after its kind, and had been bought when precious things were easier -to buy than they are now. And Mrs. Rutherford was as perfect as her -surroundings--a slim, pale woman, dressed in black, and wearing the -same widow's cap which she had put on in sorrow and anguish fifteen -years before--and which harmonised well with the long oval face -and banded brown hair, lightly streaked with grey. She was a quiet -person, and entertained few visitors except those of her own blood, or -connections by marriage; but the name of those being legion, nobody -called her inhospitable. Altogether she was a mother whom no well-bred -son need be ashamed of loving. - -Once, upon his friend saying something to this effect, Claude had -turned upon the man fiercely: - -"I should have loved her as well if she had been a beggar in the -streets, and had hung about the doors of public-houses with me in -her arms. To me she is not Mrs. Rutherford, but just the sweetest, -tenderest mother on this earth--and she would have been the same if -Fate had made her a beggar." - -"You believe that in your fantastic fits--but you know it ain't true," -said his friend. - - * * * * * - -Mrs. Rutherford looked up with a radiant face when her son entered the -room. She had heard his light step on the stair. He had a latchkey, and -there was no other sound to announce his coming. - -"Am I late, mother?" - -"It is eight minutes past five." - -"And you have been watching the clock instead of taking your tea." - -The butler entered with the tea-pot as he spoke, having made the tea -immediately upon hearing the hall door open. - -"What have you been doing with yourself this afternoon, dearest?" Mrs. -Rutherford asked, looking up at him fondly, as he stood with his back -to the mantelpiece, looking down at her. - -"Loafing as usual. I looked in at the New Gallery--their winter show -began to-day--half a dozen grand things--the rest _croûtes_." - -"And then?" she asked gently, seeming sure there would be something -else. - -"Then I walked up Regent Street--it was a fine bracing afternoon--from -the Gallery to the 'Langham,' and along Portland Place." - -"And you had tea with Vera Provana?" - -"No--not tea. There is no tea worth tasting out of this room. There was -a mob as usual at the Provanas'--and I slipped away." - -"Was Signor Provana there?" - -"Not he. He was last heard of in Vienna. But I believe he is coming -home next week." - -"An unsatisfactory husband for a young thing like Vera," said Mrs. -Rutherford, with a faint cloud on her thoughtful face. - -Claude knew that look of vague trouble. It was often on his mother's -forehead when she spoke of Vera. - -"I don't think women ought to call him unsatisfactory. He is the most -indulgent husband I know. He adores his wife, and she reigns like a -queen in that great house of his--and in their Roman villa." - -"That kind of indulgence is a dangerous thing for a young -woman--especially if she is capricious and full of strange fancies." - -"Poor little Vera. You don't seem to have a high opinion of her." - -"I don't want to be unkind. She has passed through an ordeal that -only a woman of high principles and strong brain can pass without -deterioration. A girlhood of poverty and deprivation, under close -surveillance, and a married life of inordinate luxury and liberty. She -was married at eighteen, remember, Claude--before her character could -be formed. Nor was Lady Felicia the person to lay the foundation of -a fine character. One ought not to speak ill of the dead--but poor -Felicia was sadly trivial and worldly-minded." - -"_Madre mia_, what a sermon. If you think poor little Vera is in -danger, why don't you contrive to see a little more of her? She would -love to have you for a real friend. She has a host of acquaintances, -but not too many friends. Susan Amphlett is devoted to her; but Lady -Susie is not a tower of strength." - -"I believe they suit each other. They are both feather-headed, and both -_poseuses_." - -At this Claude fired, and was almost fierce. - -"Vera is no _poseuse_," he said. "She is utterly without -self-consciousness. I don't think she knows that she is lovely, in -spite of the Society papers. Fortunately she has no time to read them. -She is too absorbed in her poets--Browning, Shakespeare, Dante. I doubt -if she reads a page of prose in a day." - -"And is not that a pose? Her idea is to be different from other -women--a creature of imagination--in the world, but not of it. That is -what people say of Madame Provana.--So charming! So different! - -"She can't help what people say, any more than she can help looking -more like Undine than a woman whose clothes come from the Rue de la -Paix." - -Mrs. Rutherford let the subject drop. She did not want to bring -unhappiness into the sweetest hour of her life, the hour her son -gave her; and she knew she could not talk of Vera without the risk -of unhappiness. He who was the joy of her life was also the cause of -much sorrow; but from the day he left the Army, under some kind of -cloud, never fully understood, but divined, by his mother, she had -never let him know what a disappointment his broken career had been to -her. She was a soldier's daughter, and a soldier's widow; and to be -distinguished as a leader of men was to her mind almost the only way to -greatness. - -Yet she had smiled when this cherished son had made light of military -fame, and told her he would rather be another Millais than another -Arthur Wellesley. She had expressed no regret, a few years later, when -he told her that art was of all professions the most hateful--and that -he did not mean to follow up the flashy success of his early pictures. - -"They might make me an Associate next year, if my work was a little -better," he told her; "but I am not good enough to hit the public taste -two years running. It was the subject or the devilry in my picture that -caught on. I might never catch on again--and I'm sick of it all--the -critics, the dealers, and the whole brotherhood of art." - -There again his road in life came to a dead stop; but this time it -was not a wicked woman's form that barred the vista, and shut out the -Temple of Fame. As he had missed being a great soldier, he was to -miss being a famous painter, though the men who knew, the men who had -already arrived, had told his mother that a brilliant career might -have been his, if he had chosen to work for it; to work, not by fits -and starts, like a fine gentleman in a picturesque painting-room, but -as Reynolds had worked, and Etty, and Wilkie, when he sat on the floor -painting, with his own legs for his subject. - -Again, after trying her powers of persuasion, and trying to fire his -ambition, Mrs. Rutherford had resigned herself to disappointment, and -had been neither reproachful nor lugubrious. - -She was an ambitious woman, and her son had disappointed her ambition. -She was a deeply religious woman, and she saw her son indifferent to -his religion, if not an unbeliever; and she never persecuted him with -tears and remonstrances, only on rare occasions, and with the utmost -delicacy, pleading the urgency of a strong faith in the midst of a -faithless generation, and the deadly risk the man runs who neglects the -sacraments of his Church. - -Although she did not often approach this subject in her talk with -Claude, it was not the less a subject of anxious thought; and she -relied on the influence of her old and devoted friend, Father Cyprian -Hammond, rather than her own, for the saving of her son's soul. - -If a good woman's prayers could have guarded his path and kept him from -temptation, Claude Rutherford would have walked between guardian angels. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -While Claude Rutherford's peril was a subject of troubled thought -for his mother and her friend and father confessor, Cyprian Hammond, -no friendly voice had breathed words of warning into Vera's ear; nor -had she any consciousness that warning was needed, or that danger -threatened. - -Claude was a part of her life. From the day when she had met him -for the first time after her marriage, at a luncheon party at Lady -Okehampton's, and they two had sat talking in the embrasure of a -window, recalling delicious memories of her childhood's one happy -holiday--the ponies, the dogs, the gardens, the woods, the beach and -sea--all the joy his kindness had created for her in that verdant -paradise, upon that summer sea--from that happy hour when they had sat, -talking, talking, talking, while Lady Okehampton waited with growing -displeasure for an unpunctual dowager duchess, she had felt that this -kinsman of hers belonged to her, that to him she might look as the -guide, philosopher, and friend, indispensable to the happiness of every -woman whose husband is occupied with serious interests and has a mind -above trivialities. - -There was nothing too trivial for Claude to understand and discuss with -interest. The merest nothing would command his serious thought, if it -were something that interested Vera; nor was any flight of her fancy -too wild or too high for him. From the colour of a frock or the shape -of a hat, to the most oracular utterance of Zarathustra, she could -command his attention and counsel. He came and went in her house like -the idle wind; and his entrances and exits were no more considered than -the wind. When her particular friends asked her whether she had seen -Mr. Rutherford lately, she would shrug her shoulders and smile. - -"My cousin Claude? Yes, he was here yesterday. I see him almost every -day. If he has nothing better to do he comes in after his morning ride, -and sometimes stays for luncheon." - -People were not unkind; but as years went on the situation was taken -for granted, and there were quiet smiles, gently significant, when -Madame Provana and her cousin were talked about. Their relations were -accepted as one of those open secrets, not to know which is not to be -in Society. - -Lady Susan did her best to establish the scandal by telling people that -Vera and Claude had been brought up together, or almost, and that their -attachment was the most innocent and prettiest thing imaginable--"like -Paul and Virginia"--a classic which Lady Susan had never read. The -"almost" was necessary, as most people knew that Vera had been brought -up with Lady Felicia, in furnished lodgings, and had hardly had a -second frock to her back, to say nothing of being underfed, which early -privation was the cause of the pale slenderness that some people called -"ethereal." - -Lady Susan's friends, furthermore, being well up in Burke, were -satirical about the link of kindred between third or fifth cousins. - -Yet on the whole there was indulgence; and when Vera went on a -week-end visit to the seats of the mighty she generally found Mr. -Rutherford one of the party; which was hardly a cause for wonder, since -he was of the stuff of which week-end parties are made. - -Vera was more than innocent. She was unconscious of anything particular -in her friendship for this friend of her childhood. What could be more -natural than that she should love to talk of that one blissful interval -in her dull existence--the solitary oasis in the desert of genteel -poverty? Only then had she known the beauty of woods and gardens; only -then had she known what summer could mean to the emancipated child: the -rapture of riding over dancing waves in a cockle-shell of a boat, with -the warm wind blowing her hair and the sea-gulls flashing their white -wings overhead, the adorable birds whose name was legion. To talk of -those young days, and to feel again as she had felt then, was a delight -which only Claude could give her; and the more hollow and unsatisfying -the things that money could buy became to her, the more she loved to -sit with her locked hands upon her knee and talk of that unforgotten -holiday. - -"Do you remember that evening I asked you to row me out to the setting -sun, right into the great golden ball, and you said you would, and you -went too far, and we were out till after dark, and everybody was first -frightened and then angry?" - -All their talk began with "Do you remember?" His memory was better than -hers, and he recalled adventures and moments that she had forgotten. -One day he brought her a little sketch on thick cardboard, roughly -painted in oils, one of his early bits of impressionism before he had -studied art, a little girl in a short white frock, with hair flying -about her head, cheeks like roses, and the blue of the sea in her eyes. - -"What a funny child. You didn't mean that for me?" - -"For no one else. I have dozens of such daubs. You remember how I -used to sit on a rock and paint while you were looking for shells or -worrying the jelly-fish." - -"Poor things. I wanted to see them move. I hope they have no feelings. -Yes, you used to sit and paint; and I thought you disagreeable because -you would not play with me." - -Beyond these pictures of the past they had inexhaustible subjects -for talk. There was a whole world of literature, the literature of -decadence, in which Vera had to be initiated, and Claude was a past -master in that particular phase of intellectual life. Baudelaire, -Verlaine, Nietzsche, the literature of pessimism, and the literature of -despair, that rebellion against law, human and divine, which Shelley -began, and which had been a dominant note among young poets since the -"Revolt of Islam" filled romantic minds with wonder and a vague delight. - -Imperceptibly, naturally, and in no manner wrongfully, as it seemed -to Vera, Claude Rutherford's society had become essential to her -happiness. She accepted the fact as placidly, and with as complete -confidence in him and in herself, as if such a friendship between an -idle young man and an imaginative young woman had never been known -to end in shame and sorrow. She had lived in the world half a dozen -years, and had known of many social tragedies; but as these had not -touched any friend she valued, and as she was not a scandal-lover, -those dark stories of husbands betrayed and nurseries abandoned had -never deeply impressed her, and had been speedily forgotten. Nobody, -not even Lady Susie, who was a _mauvaise langue_, had ever hinted at -impropriety in her association with her cousin. Signor Provana saw him -come and go, and asked no questions. That stern and lofty nature was -of the kind that is not easily jealous. Had there been no Iago, Cassio -might have come and gone freely in the noble Moor's household, and no -shadow of fear would have darkened that great love. Vera's husband was -a disappointed man. His dream of a young and loving wife who would -make up to him for all that he had missed in boyhood and youth had -melted into thin air. He was sensitive and proud, and the memory of -his unloved childhood and of his first wife's indifference was never -absent from his mind when he considered his relations with his second -wife. He thought of his age, he saw his stern, rough features in the -glass, and a faint touch of coldness, the fretful weariness of an -over-indulged girl, was taken for aversion, and all his pride and all -his force of character rose up against the creature he loved too well -to judge wisely. It was he who built the wall that parted them; it was -his gloomy distrust of himself rather than of Vera that made the gulf -between them. - -Let her be happy in her own way. He had sworn to make her happy: and -if it was her nature to delight in trivial things, if the aimless -existence of a rich man's sultana was her idea of bliss, she should -reign sole mistress of a harem which he would never enter while he -believed himself unwelcome there. Vera accepted this gradual drifting -apart as something inevitable, for which she was not to blame. The -strong man's impassioned love, which had appealed to the romantic side -of her character, had languished and died with the passing years. -She brooded on the change with sorrowful wonder before she became -accustomed to the idea that the lover who had taken her to his heart -with a cry of ineffable rapture had ceased to exist in the grave man -of business, whose preoccupied manner and absent gaze, as of one -looking at things far away, chilled her when she sat opposite him on -those rare occasions when they dined _tête-à-tête_--occasions when the -dinner-table was only a glittering spot in the dark spaciousness of the -room, a world of shadows, where the footmen moved like ghosts in the -area between the table and the far-off sideboard. They had been married -six years; but Vera thought sadly that her husband looked twenty years -older than the companion by whose side she had climbed the mule-paths, -through the lemon orchards and olive woods of San Marco, the man whose -conversation had always interested her, her first friend, her first -lover. - -She accepted the change as inevitable, having been taught by the wives -of her acquaintance to believe that marriage was the death of love, and -as gradually as she learned to dispense with her husband's society, -so guiltlessly, because unconsciously, she came to depend upon Claude -Rutherford for sympathy and companionship. - -She did not know that she loved him, though she knew that the day when -they did not meet seemed a long-drawn-out weariness, and that when the -evening shadows came, they brought a sense of desolation and a strange -lassitude, as of one weighed down by intolerable burdens. - -All occupations and all amusements were burdens if Claude was not -sharing them--Society the heaviest of all. Far easier to endure the -dreary day in the solitude of her den, with the faces of her beloved -dead looking at her, than among empty-headed people, who could only -talk of what other empty-headed people were doing, or were going to -do, with that light spice of malice which makes other people's mistakes -and misfortunes so piquant and interesting. - -Claude Rutherford had become a part of her life, and life was -meaningless without him: a fatal stage in the downhill path, but it -was a long time before her awakened conscience gave the first note of -warning. - -Then--waking in the first faint flush of a summer dawn, after a night -of troubled sleep and feverish dreams--a night succeeding one of those -dismal days that she had been obliged to endure without the sight -of the familiar face, the glad, gay call of the familiar voice, the -sound of the light footstep on the stairs--she told herself for the -first time, with unutterable horror, that this man was dearer to her -than he ought to be--dearer than her husband, dearer than her peace -of mind, dearer than all this world held for her and all the next -world promised. Oh, the wickedness of it! the shame, the horror! To be -false to him--the man who had put his strong arms round her and lifted -her out of the dismal swamp of shabby gentility and taken her to his -generous heart; the man who trusted her with unquestioning faith, who -had never by word or look betrayed the faintest doubt of her truth and -purity. - -No lovers' word had been spoken, no lovers' lips had met; yet as she -rose from that uneasy bed, and paced the spacious room in fever and -agitation, a ghostly figure, with bare feet and streaming hair, and -long white draperies, she felt as if she were steeped to the lips in -dishonour--a monster of ingratitude and treachery. - -And then she began the struggle that most women make--even the weaker -souls--when they feel the downward path sloping under their feet, and -know that the pit of shame lies at the bottom of it, though they cannot -see it yet--the impotent struggle in which all the odds are against -them, their environment, every circumstance of their lives, their -friends, the nearest and dearest even, to whom they cannot cry aloud -and say: "Don't you see that I am fighting the tempter, don't you see -that I am half way down the hill and am trying to make a stand, that -I am over the edge of the cliff, and am hanging to the bushes with -bleeding, lacerated hands in the desperate endeavour to keep myself -from falling? Have you neither eyes nor understanding that you don't -try to help me?" Rarely is any friendly hand stretched out to help the -woman who sees her danger and tries to escape her doom. Acquaintances -look on and smile. These open secrets are accepted as a part of the -scheme of the universe, a particular phase of existence that doesn't -matter as long as the chief actors are happy. The wife, her familiar -friend, her complaisant or indifferent husband, are smiled upon by a -society of men and women who know their world and take it for what it -is worth. Only when the actors begin to play their parts badly, and -when the open secret becomes an open scandal, does Society cease to be -kind. - -Vera did not think of Society in that tragic hour of an awakened -conscience. That which would have been the first thought with most -women had no place in her mind. It was of her sin that she thought--the -sin of inconstancy, of ingratitude, of faithlessness. Had she crossed -the border line, and qualified herself for the Divorce Court, she could -not have thought of herself with deeper contrition. - -To love this other man better than she loved her husband; to long for -his coming; to be happy when he was with her, and miserable when he was -away; there was the sin. - -But no word of love had been spoken. There was time for repentance. -He did not know that she loved him. Although, looking back, and -recalling words and tones of his, she could not doubt that he loved -her, she could hope that no word of hers had revealed the passion whose -development had been gradual and imperceptible as the growth of the -leaf buds in early spring, which no eye marks till they flash into life -in the first warmth of April. - -Her friendship with this man, who was of her kindred, the companion -of the only happy days of her childhood, had seemed as natural as it -would have been to attach herself to a brother from whom she had long -been separated. She had welcomed him with a childish eagerness, she had -trusted him with a childish belief in the perfection of the creature -who is kind. She had admired him--comparing him with all the other -young men she knew, and finding him infinitely above them. His very -weakness had appealed to her. All that was wanting in his character -made him more likable, since compassion and regret mingled with her -liking. To be so clever, so gifted by nature, and to have done nothing -with nature's gifts--to be doomed to go down to death leaving his -name written in water--to die, having finished nothing but his _beaux -jours_: people who liked him best talked of him as a young man with a -_beau passé_. Shoulders were shrugged, and smiles were sad, when his -painter friends discussed him. - -"We thought he was going to do great things in art, and he has done -nothing." - -Soldiers who remembered him before he left the Army lamented the loss -of a man who was made for a soldier. - -There had been trouble--trouble about a woman that had made him -exchange to a line regiment--and then the war being over, and the -chance of active service remote, disgust had come upon him, and he had -done with soldiering. - -Vera had seen the shoulders shrugged, and had heard the deprecating -criticism of this kinsman of hers, and had been all the kinder to him -because Fate had been cruel. - -She had tried to fire him with new hope; she had been ambitious for -him; had steeped herself in art books, and spent her mornings in -picture galleries, in order that she might be able to talk to him. She -had implored him to go back to his work, to paint better pictures than -he had painted when critics prophesied a future from his work. - -"I am too old," he said. - -"Nonsense. You have wasted a few years, but you will have to work -harder and buy back your lost time. Quentin Matsys did not begin to -paint till he was older than you." - -"There were giants in those days. Compared with such men I am an -invertebrate pigmy." - -"Oh, if you loved art you would not be content to live without the joy -of it." - -"Yes, that's what people who look at pictures think--the joy of -painting a thing like that. The man who paints knows when the disgust -comes in and the joy goes out. He knows the sense of failure, the -disappointment, the longing to fling his half-finished picture on the -floor and perform the devil's dance upon it, as Müller used to do." - -And then, one day, as they were going round a picture gallery together, -he said: - -"Well, Vera, I have been meditating on your lecture; and I am going to -paint another picture--the last, perhaps." - -"No, it won't be the last." - -"I am going to paint your portrait. After all that sermonising you -can't refuse to sit to me." - -"I won't refuse--unless Mario should object." - -"How should he object? He will be in New York, or Madrid, or -Constantinople, most likely, while I am painting you. I am nothing if -not an impressionist, so it mustn't be a long business." - -"I shall love sitting to you. To see you at work----" - -"Yes, to see me earning my bread in the sweat of my brow, like the -day-labourer, will be a novelty. I shouldn't want to be paid for the -picture, but I dare say Provana would insist upon my taking a fee, -and as he counts in thousands, it would be a handsome one. No, Vera, -don't blush! I won't take money for my daub. You shall give it to the -Canine Defence League. It shall be a labour of love; a concession to a -sermonising cousin. I shall paint your portrait, just to convince you -that I can't paint, and that the life I am wasting is worth nothing." - -Thus in light talk and laughter the plan was made that brought them -into a closer intimacy than they had known before, and although Claude -Rutherford was an impressionist, that portrait was three months upon -the easel which he had rigged up in Vera's morning-room. - -"I want to paint you in the room where you live; not with a marble -pillar and a crimson curtain for a background." - -The sittings went on at irregular intervals, in a style that was at -once sauntering and spasmodic, all through that season. Signor Provana -looked in now and then, stood watching the painter at work for five or -ten minutes, criticised, and made a sudden exit, driven away by Lady -Susan's shrill chatter. - -But Lady Susan was not always there; and there were more tranquil -hours, when Vera sat in her half-reclining attitude on a low sofa -spread with a tiger skin, fanning herself with a great fan of peacock's -feathers, and gazing at the pictures on the wall with dreaming eyes: -hours in which the painter and his subject talked by fits and -starts--with silent pauses. - -After all the pains that had been taken, the picture was a failure. -The painter hated it, Provana frankly disapproved; and in the haggard, -large-eyed siren smiling over the edge of the fan, Vera could not -recognise the face she saw in the glass. - -"I have been much too long over the thing," Claude told Provana, with -slow and languid speech, half indifference, half disgust; "and it is a -dismal failure. But I shall do better next time, if Vera will let me -make a rapid sketch of her, when the daffodils are in bloom, and we -shall be week-ending at Marlow Chase. I could make a picture of her -on the hill above the house, in the yellow afternoon light, and among -the yellow flowers. I am an open-air painter if I am anything; but I -had almost forgotten how to set a palette. I shall work in a friend's -studio in the autumn, and I may do better next year." - -Vera urged him to persevere in this good intention, and not to mind his -failure. - -"I mind nothing," he said. "I have had three happy months. I mind -nothing while you are kind, and forgive me for having put you to a lot -of trouble, with this atrocious daub for the outcome of it all." - -Privileged people only were allowed to see the daub; but those, -although supposed to be few, in the end proved to be many. Critics were -among them, and Mr. Rutherford was too shrewd not to discover that -every connoisseur had a little hole to pick in the portrait, and that -when all the little holes were put together there was nothing left. - -And this picture, so poor a thing as it was, made the beginning of that -open secret, which everybody knew long before the awakening of Vera's -conscience, and while Mario Provana saw nothing to suspect or to fear -in his wife's intimacy with her cousin. - -But now, with the awakening of conscience, began the fight against -Fate, the fight of the weak against the strong, the woman against -the man, innocent youth against an experienced lover. She was -single-hearted and pure in intention, counting happiness as thistledown -against gold, when weighed against her honour as a wife; but she -entered the lists without knowing the strength of her opponent, the -passive force of a weak man's selfishness. The main purpose of her -life was henceforward to release herself from the web that had been -woven so easily, so imperceptibly; first a careless association between -two people whose likings and ideas were in harmony; then friendship, -confidence, sympathy; and then unavowed love; love that made the days -desolate when the lovers were not together. He had been too frequent -and too dear a companion. He had become the master of her life, and it -was for her to release herself from that unholy bondage. She had to -learn to live without him. - -It needed more than common cleverness and tact to bring about a change -in their manner of life, without making a direct appeal to Rutherford's -honour and telling him that their friendship had become a danger. To do -this would be to tell him that she loved him, to confess her weakness, -before he had passed the border line that divides the friend from the -lover. No, she could make no appeal to the man whose smouldering fires -she feared to kindle into flame. She knew that he loved her, and that -he had made her love him. She had to escape from the web that he had -woven round her; and she had, if possible, to set herself free without -his knowing the strength of her purpose, or the desperate nature of the -struggle. - -All the chances were against her. She could not forbid him the house -without an open scandal. As he had come and gone in the last four -years, he must still be free to come and go. She could only avoid those -familiar hours--hours that had been so dear--by living in a perpetual -restlessness, always finding some engagement away from home. - -It was weary work, but she persevered, and enlisted all the Disbrowes -in her cause, unconscious that they were being made use of. She -accepted every invitation, lent herself to everybody's fads, -philanthropic or otherwise; listened to the same fiddlers and singers -day after day, in drawing-rooms and among people that she knew by -heart; or stood with aching head under a ten-guinea hat, selling -programmes at amateur theatricals. - -She contracted a closer alliance with Lady Susan Amphlett, and planned -excursions: a day at Windsor, a day at Dorking, at Guildford, to -rummage in furniture shops, at Greenwich to see the Nelson relics, to -Richmond and Hampton, even to Kew Gardens. Lady Susan was almost worn -out by these simple pleasures; but as she professed, and sincerely, an -absolute _culte_ for Vera Provana, she held out bravely. - -These excursions were fairly successful, and as Vera took care that no -one should know where she and her friend were going--not even Susan -herself till they were on the road--it was not possible for Claude to -follow her. It was otherwise in the houses of her friends, where she -was always meeting him, and where it was essential that she should not -seem to avoid him, least of all to let him see that she was so doing. - -She greeted him always with the old friendliness--a little more -cousinly than it had been of late; and she showed a matronly interest -in his health and occupations, as if she had been an aunt rather than a -cousin. - -"It is quite delightful to meet you here this afternoon," he told her, -in a ducal house where guinea tickets for a charity concert seemed -cheap to the outside public. "You are to be met anywhere and everywhere -except in your own house. I have called so often that I have taken a -disgust for your knockers. When I am dead I believe those lions' heads -will be found engraven on my heart, like Queen Mary's Calais." - -It was only natural that, with the awakening of conscience, there -should come the thought of those two first years of her married life, -when her husband's love had made an atmosphere of happiness around her, -when she had cared for no other companion, needed no other friend; -those blessed years before Claude Rutherford's pale, clear-cut face, -and low, seductive voice had become a part of her life, essential to -her peace. The change of feeling, the growing regard for this man, -had come about so gradually, with a growth so slow and imperceptible, -that she tried in vain to analyse her feelings in those four years -of careless intimacy, and to trace the process by which an innocent -friendship had changed to a guilty love. When had the fatal change -begun? She could not tell. It was only when she felt the misery of -one long day of parting that she knew her sin. The husband had become -a stranger, the friend had become the other half of her soul. He had -called her by that sweet name sometimes, but with so playful a tone -that the impassioned phrase had not scared her. It was one of many -lightly spoken phrases that she had heard as carelessly as they were -uttered. - -And now, looking back at the last two years, she told herself that it -was her husband's fault that she had leant on Claude for sympathy, -her husband's fault that they had been too much together. For some -reason that she had never fathomed, Mario Provana had held himself -aloof from the old domestic intimacy. It was not only that his business -engagements necessitated his absence from home several times in the -course of the year, and on occasion for a considerable period. He had -business in Russia, and in Austria, and he had crossed the Atlantic -twice in the last year, the affairs of his New York house calling for -special attention in a disturbed state of American finance. These -frequent absences alone were sufficient to weaken the marriage bond; -but in the last year he had given his wife very little of his society -when they were under the same roof. - -"You have hosts of friends," he said one day when she reproached him -for keeping aloof, "people who share your tastes and can be amused -by the things that amuse you. I bring back a tired brain after my -continental journeys, and am still more tired after New York. I should -make a wretched companion for a young wife, a beautiful butterfly who -was born to shine among all the other butterflies." - -"I am nearly as tired as you are after your business journeys, Mario," -she said. "I shall be very glad when we can go back to Rome." - -"But you will have other butterflies there, and a good many of the same -that flutter about you here," he answered. - -"We will shut our doors upon them and live quietly." - -"Like Darby and Joan--old Darby and young Joan. No, Vera, we won't try -that. You weren't made for the part." - -She had been too proud to say more. If he was tired of her--if he had -ceased to care for her, she would not ask him why. - -But now, in her desperate need, sick to death of those aimless -excursions and unamusing amusements with Lady Susan, and of the dire -necessity of keeping away from her own house, to flutter from party to -party, almost sure of meeting Claude wherever she went, she turned in -her extremity to her natural protector, and tried to find shelter in -the love that ought to be her strong rock. - -Her husband had been on the Continent, moving from city to city, for -the greater part of the June month in which she had been making her -poor little fight against Fate--trying to cure herself of Claude -Rutherford, as if he had been a bad habit, like drink or drugs. And -then one morning, when she was beginning the day dejectedly, tired of -yesterday, hopeless of to-morrow, a telegram from Paris told her to -expect her husband at seven o'clock that evening. - -Her heart beat gladly, as at the coming of a deliverer. - -She was not afraid of meeting him. She longed for his coming, as the -one friend who might save her from an influence that she feared. - -The face she saw in the glass while her maid was dressing her hair -almost startled her. There were dark marks under the eyes, and the -cheeks were hollow and deadly pale. The black gauze dinner-gown she had -chosen would accentuate her pallor; but it was nearly seven o'clock, -and there was no time for any change in her toilet. She paced the great -empty rooms in sun and shadow, listening to every sound in the street, -and wondering if her husband would see the sickening change that -sickening thoughts had made in her face, and question her too closely. - -She heard the hall door open, and then the familiar footstep, rapid, -strong, and yet light, very different from the footfall of obese middle -age; the step of a man whose active life and energetic temperament had -kept him young. - -She met him on the threshold of the drawing-room. - -"I am so glad you have come home," she said, holding up her face for -his kiss. - -He kissed her, but without enthusiasm. - -"I am glad you are glad," he said, "but can that mean that you have -missed me? From your letters I thought you and Lady Susan were having -rather a gay time." - -"I was rushing about with her and going to parties, partly because I -missed you." - -"Partly, and the other part of it was because you like parties and are -dull at home, I suppose, unless you have your house full." - -"Oh, I am sick of it all, Mario," she said, with a sort of passionate -energy that made him believe her, "and I would live quite a different -life if you were not away so often, and if I were not thrown too much -on my own resources." - -"My dear Vera, this is a new development," he said gravely, sitting -down beside her, and looking at her with eyes that troubled her, as if -they could see too much of the mind behind her face. "You are looking -thin and white. Has anything happened while I have been away, anything -to make you unhappy?" - -"No!" she exclaimed with tremendous emphasis, for she felt as if he -were going to wrest her secret from her. "What could happen? But I -suppose there must come a time in every woman's life when she has had -enough of what the world calls pleasure, when the charm goes out of -amusements that repeat themselves year after year; and when one begins -to understand the emptiness of a life, occupied only with futilities, -when one begins to tire of running after every new thing, actors, -dancers, singers, and all the rest of them. I have had enough of that -life, Mario; and I want you to help me to do something better with the -liberty and the wealth you have given me." - -"Do you want a mission?" he asked with a faint smile. "That is what -women seem to want nowadays." - -"No, Mario. I want to be happy with you. Your business engagements take -you so much away from home, that our lives must be sometimes divided; -but not always--we need not be always living a divided life, as we have -been in the last three years." - -A crimson flush swept across her face as she spoke, remembering that -these were the years in which Claude Rutherford's influence had grown -from a careless comradeship to an absorbing intimacy. - -Her husband looked at her in silence for a few moments; and his grave -smile had now a touch of irony. - -"Has it dawned upon you at last?" he asked. "Have you discovered that -we have been living apart; that we have been man and wife only in name?" - -"It was not my fault, Mario. It was you who kept aloof." - -"Not till I saw repulsion--not till I saw aversion." - -"No, no--never, never, never! I have never forgotten your -goodness--never forgotten all I owe you." - -They had been sitting side by side on the spacious Louis Quatorze sofa, -his hand upon her shoulder; but at her last words he started to his -feet with a cry of pain. - -"Yes, that is it--you recognise an obligation. I have given you a fine -house, fine clothes, fine friends--and you think you ought to repay me -for them by pretending to love me. Vera, that is all over. There must -be no more pretending. I can bear a good deal, but I could not bear -that. I told you something of my past life before we were married; but -I doubt if I told you all its bitterness--all the blind egotism of my -marriage, the cruel awakening from a dream of mutual love--to discover -that my wife had married me because I could give her the things she -wanted, and that love was out of the question. I compared myself with -other men, and saw the difference; and as I had missed the love of a -mother, so I had to do without the love of a wife. I was not made to -win a woman's love--no, not even a mother's. This was why my affection -for my daughter was something more than the common love of fathers. She -was the first who loved me--and she will be the last." - -"Mario, you are too cruel! Have I not loved you?" - -"Yes--perhaps for a little while. You gave me a year of infinite -happiness--our honeymoon year. That ought to be enough. I have no right -to ask for more--but let there be no talk of gratitude--if I cannot -have love I will have nothing." - -"You have been so cold, so silent and reserved, so changed. I thought -you were tired of me." - -"Tired of you? Poor child! How should you know the measureless love in -the heart of a man of my life-history? When I took you in my arms in -the evening sunshine, I gave you all that was best and strongest in my -nature--boundless love and boundless trust. All my life-history went -for nothing in that hour. I did not ask myself if I was the kind of man -to win the heart of a girl. I did not think of my five-and-forty years -or my forbidding face. I gave myself up to that delicious dream. I had -found the girl who could love me, the divine girl, youth and innocence -incarnate. Think what it was after a year of happiness to be awakened -by a look, and to know that I had again been fooled, and that if in the -first surprise of my passionate love you had almost loved me, that love -was dead." - -"No, no," she sobbed; and then she hid her streaming eyes upon his -breast, and wound her arms about his neck, clinging to the husband in -whom she found her only shelter. - -Was it some curious instinct of the flesh, or some power of telepathy, -that told him not to take these tears and wild embrace for tokens of a -wife's love? - -"My dearest girl," he said with infinite gentleness, as he loosened -the clinging arms and lifted the hidden face, "if this distress means -sorrow for having unwittingly deceived me, for having taken a man's -heart and not been able to give him love for love, there need be -no more tears. The fault was mine, the mistake was mine. You must -not suffer for it. To me you will always be unspeakably sweet and -dear--whether I think of you as a wife, or as the girl my daughter -loved--and whom I learned to love in those sad days when the shadow of -death went with us in the spring sunshine. Yes, Vera, you will always -be dear--my dearest on this earth. But there must be no pretending, -nothing false. Think of me as your friend and protector, the one friend -whom you can always trust, your rock of defence against all the dangers -and delusions of a wicked world. Trust me, dearest, and never keep a -secret from me. Be true to yourself, keep your honour stainless, your -purity of mind unclouded by evil associations. Let no breath of calumny -soil your name. Rise superior to the ruck of your friends, and have no -dealings with the lost women whose guilt Society chooses to ignore. I -ask no more than this, my beloved girl, in return for measureless love -and implicit faith." - -He was holding both her hands, looking at her with searching eyes; -those clear grey eyes under a brow of power. - -"Can you promise as much as this, Vera? - -"Yes." - -"With heart and mind?" - -"With heart and mind." - -"And you will never take the liberty I give you for a letter of -license?" - -"No, no, no. But I don't ask for liberty. I want to belong to you, to -be sheltered by you." - -"You shall have the shelter, if you need it; but be true to yourself, -and you will need no defender. A woman's safest armour is her own -purity. And again, my love," with a return of the slightly ironical -smile, "never was a woman better guarded than you are while you are -fringed round by Disbrowes, protected at every point by your mother's -clan, people at once well born and well bred, with no taint of -Bohemianism, unless indeed it may lurk in your _poco curante_ cousin, -the young painter who made such a lamentable failure of your portrait." - -She felt as if every vestige of colour was fading out of her face, and -that even her lips must be deadly white. They were so parched that when -she tried to shape some trivial reply the power of speech seemed gone. -She felt the dry lips moving; but no sound came. - -This was the end of her appeal to the husband whose love might have -saved her. Their relations were changed from that hour. He was not -again the lover-husband of their honeymoon years; but he was no longer -cold and reserved, he no longer held her at a distance. He was kind and -sympathetic. - -He interested himself in her occupations and amusements, the books she -read and the people she saw. He was with her at the opera, where Claude -Rutherford sometimes came to them and sat through an act or two in the -darkness at the back of the box. He was infinitely kind and tender; but -it was the tenderness of a father, or a benevolent uncle, rather than -of a husband. He held rigidly to that which he had told her. There was -to be no make-believe in their relations. - -If she was not happy, she was at peace for some time after her -husband's home-coming--a period in which they were more together than -they had ever been since those first years of their married life. She -tried to be happy, tried to forget the time in which Claude Rutherford -had been her daily companion, the time when she planned no pleasure -that he was not to share, and had no opinions about people or places, -or books or art, that she did not take from him: loving the things he -loved, hating the things he hated; as if they had been two bodies moved -by one mind. She tried not to feel an aching void for want of him; she -tried not to think him cruel for coming to her house so seldom, and -tried to be sorry that they met so often in the houses of her friends. - -The time came when the awakened conscience was lulled to sleep, and -when her husband's society began to jar upon her strained nerves. She -had invoked him as a defence against the enemy; and now she longed for -the enemy, and had ceased to be grateful to the defender. - -The rampart of defence was soon to fall. A financial crisis was -threatened, and Signor Provana was wanted at his office in New York. -He told his wife that he might be able to come back to London in a -fortnight, allowing ten days for the double passage, and four for his -business; but if things were troublesome in America he might be a good -deal longer. - -"I shall try to be home in time to take you to Marienbad," he told her. -"But if I am not here, Lady Okehampton will take you, and you can get -Lady Susan to go with you and keep you in good spirits. I had a talk -with your aunt last night, and she promised to take you under her wing." - -"I don't want to be under anybody's wing; and Aunt Mildred will bore me -to death if I see much of her at Marienbad." - -"Oh, you will have your favourite Susie for amusement, and your aunt to -see that she doesn't lead you into mischief. Lady Susan is a shade too -adventurous for my taste." - -This idea of Marienbad was a new thing. A certain nervous irritability -had been growing upon Vera of late, and her husband had been puzzled -and uneasy, and had called in a nerve specialist recommended by Lady -Okehampton, one of those new lights whom everybody believe in for a -few seasons. After a quiet talk with Vera, that grave authority had -suggested a rest cure, the living death of six weeks in a nursing home; -and on this being vehemently protested against by the patient, had -offered Marienbad as an alternative. - -Provana had been startled by this sudden change in his wife's temper, -from extreme gentleness and an evident desire to please him, to a kind -of febrile impatience and irritability; and remembering her curious -agitation on the evening of his home-coming, her pallid cheeks and -passionate tears, he had an uneasy feeling that these strange moods had -a common source, and that there was something mysterious and unhappy -that it was his business to discover before he left her. - -He came to her room early on the day of his departure, so early that -she had only just left her bedroom, and was still wearing the loose -white muslin gown in which she had breakfasted. - -She was sitting on her low sofa in a listless attitude, looking at the -faces on the wall--Browning, Shelley, Byron--the faces of the inspired -dead who were more alive than the uninspired living; but at her -husband's entrance she started to her feet and went to meet him. - -"You are not going yet," she exclaimed. "I thought the boat-train did -not leave till the afternoon." - -"It does not; but I must give the interval to business. I have come to -bid you good-bye." - -"I am very sorry you are obliged to go," she said. - -"For God's sake do not lie to me. For pity's sake let there be no -pretending." - -He took both her hands and drew her to him, looking at her with an -imploring earnestness. - -"I have trusted you as men seldom trust their wives," he said. "I -thought I had done you a great wrong when I took you in the first bloom -of your young beauty and made you my own; cutting you off for ever -from the love of a young lover, and all the passion and romance of -youth. Considering this, I tried to make amends by giving you perfect -freedom, freedom to live your own life among your own friends, freedom -for everything that could make a woman happy, except that romantic love -which you renounced when you accepted me as your husband. I believed -in you, Vera, I believed in your truth and purity as I believe in God. -I could never have reconciled myself to the life we have led in this -house if it were not for my invincible faith in your truth. But within -this month that faith has been shaken. Your eyes have lost the old -look--the lovely look through which truth shone like a light. There is -something unhappy, something mysterious. There is a secret--and I must -know that secret before I leave you." - -Her face changed to a look of stone as he watched her. - -It was no time for tears. It was time for a superhuman effort at -repression, to hold every feeling in check, to make her nerves iron. - -There was defiance in her tone when she spoke, after a silence that -seemed long. - -"There is no secret." - -"Then why are you unhappy?" - -"I am not unhappy. I have a fit of low spirits now and then, a feeling -of physical depression, for which there is no reason; or perhaps my -idle, useless life, and the luxury in which I live, may be the reason." - -"It is something more than low spirits. You are nervous and irritable -and you have a frightened look sometimes, a look that frightens me. -Oh, Vera, for God's sake be frank with me. Trust me half as much as -I have trusted you. Trust me as a daughter might trust her father, -knowing his measureless love, and knowing that with that love there -would be measureless pity. Trust me, my beloved girl, throw your burden -upon me, and you shall find the strength of a man's love, and the -self-abnegation that goes with it." - -"I have no secret, no mystery; I mean to be worthy of your trust. I -mean to be true to myself. If you doubt me let me go to America with -you. Keep me with you." - -His face lighted as she spoke, and then he looked thoughtfully at the -fragile form, the delicate features, the ethereal beauty that seemed to -have so frail a hold on life. - -"No, you are not the stuff for sea voyages, and the storm and stress -of New York. If we went there together I should have to leave you too -much alone among strangers. I shall have an anxious time there; but it -shall not be a long time. If possible, I shall be here to take you to -Marienbad, and in the meantime you must live quietly, and do what your -doctor tells you. He is to see you next week, remember." - -He held her to his heart, with stronger feeling than he had shown for -a long time, and gave her his good-bye kiss. She flung herself on her -knees as the door closed behind him. - -"God help me to be true to him in heart and mind." - -That was the prayer she breathed mutely, while her tears fell thick and -fast upon her clasped hands. - -He was gone, the unloved husband, and she had to face the peril of -the undeclared lover. She felt helpless and forsaken, and she sat -for a long time in listless misery; and then, looking up at the -pictures on the wall, she tried to realise that silent companionship, -the souls of the illustrious dead--tried to believe that she was not -alone in her dejection, that in the silence of her lonely room there -was the sympathy and understanding of souls over whom death has no -more dominion, and whose pity was more profound than any earth-bound -creature could give her. - -She thought of Francis Symeon, and of those meetings of which he -had told her. Nothing had come of her interview with him. Claude -Rutherford's light laughter had blown away her belief in the -high-priest of the spiritual world; and she had thought no more of the -creed that had appealed so strongly to her imagination. - -Now, when life seemed a barren waste, her thoughts turned to the -philosophic visionary who had so gravely expounded his dream. -Everything in her material world harassed and distressed her, and she -turned to the spiritual life to escape from reality. - -She wrote urgently to Mr. Symeon, telling him that she was unhappy, and -asking to be admitted to the society of which he had told her. She had -not to wait long for an answer. Symeon called upon her that afternoon, -and was with her for more than an hour, full of kindness and sympathy; -sympathy that scared her, for it seemed as if those strange eyes must -be reading the depths of her inner consciousness, and all the disgust -of life and vague longing that were interwoven with her thoughts of -Claude Rutherford. - -It was to escape those thoughts--to dissever herself from that haunting -image, that she pleaded for admission to the shadow world. - -"Bring me in communion with the great minds that are above earthly -passions," would be her prayer, could she have spoken freely; but she -sat in a thoughtful silence, soothed by the spiritualist's exposition -of that dream-world, which was to him more real than the solid earth -upon which he had to live--a reluctant participator in the life of the -vulgar herd. - -"The mass of mankind, who have no joys that are not sensual, and -who live only in the present moment, have nothing but ridicule and -disbelief for the faith that makes even this sordid material world -beautiful for us, who see in earthly things the image of things -supernal," he said, with that accent of sincerity, that intense -conviction, which had made scoffers cease from scoffing under the -influence of his personality, however they might ridicule him in his -absence. - -Everyone had to admit that, though the creed might be absurd, the man -was wonderful. - -There was to be a meeting of "Us" at his chambers on the following -afternoon, and Symeon begged Vera to come. - -"You may find only thought and silence," he said, "a company of friends -absorbed in meditation, but without any message from the other world; -or you may hear words that burn, the voices of disembodied genius. In -any case, while you are with us you will be away from the dust and -traffic of the material world." - -Yes, she would go, she was only too glad to be allowed to be among his -disciples. - -"I want to escape," she told him. "I am tired of my futile life--so -tired." - -"I thought you would have joined us long ago," he said, as he took -leave, "but I think I know the influence that held you back." - -The hot blood rushed into her face, the red fire of conscious guilt -that always came at the thought of Claude Rutherford. She had never -minimised her sin. It was sin to have made him essential to her -happiness, to have lost interest in all the rest of her life, to have -given him her heart and mind. - -"I think the psychological moment has come," continued Symeon's slow, -grave voice, "and that you should now become one of us. You have -drained the cup of this trivial life, and have found its bitterness. -Our religion is our faith in the After-life. We have the faith that -looks through death. The orthodox Christian talks of the life beyond; -and we must give him credit for sometimes thinking of it--but does -he realise it? Is it near him? Does he look through death to the -Spirit-world beyond? Does he realise the After-life as Christ realised -it when He talked with His disciples?" - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -The meeting in Mr. Symeon's library lasted all through the summer -afternoon, till the edge of evening. The large and gloomy room was -darkened by Venetian shutters, nearly closed over open windows. There -was air, and the ceaseless sound of traffic; but the summer sun was -excluded, and figures were seen dimly, as if they belonged to the -shadow world. - -Among those indistinct forms Vera recognised people she knew, people -she would never have expected to find in a society of mystics: a -statesman, a poet, three popular novelists, and half a dozen of the -idlest women of her acquaintance, two of whom were the heroines -of romantic stories, women over whose future friends watched and -prophesied with the keen interest that centres in a domestic situation -where catastrophe seems imminent. - -Vera wondered, seeing these two. Had they come, like her, for a refuge -from the tragedy of life? They had not come for an escape from sin; -for, if their friends were to be believed, the border line had been -passed long ago. - -An hour of silence, broken now and then by deep breathing, as of -agitation, and sometimes by a stifled sob, and then a flood of words, -speech that was eloquent enough to seem inspired, speech that might -have come from him who wrote "Christmas Eve," and "Easter Day," and -"A Death in the Desert," the speech of a believer in all that is -most divine in the promise of a future life. And after that burst -of impassioned utterance there were other speakers, men and women, -the men strong in faith, strong in the gift of tongues, possessed by -the higher mind that spoke through organs of common clay; the women -semi-hysterical, romantic, eloquent with remembered poetry. But in men -and women alike there was sincerity, an intense belief in that close -contact of disembodied mind, sincerity that carried conviction to an -imaginative neophyte like Vera Provana. - -Suddenly from the stillness there came a voice more thrilling than any -Vera had heard in that long _séance_, a voice that was not altogether -unfamiliar, but with a note more intense, more poignant than she knew. -Gleaming through the shadows, she saw eyes that flashed green light, -and a long, thin face of marble pallor, in which she knew the face of -Lady Fanny Ransom. - -And now came the most startling speech that had been heard that -afternoon--the passionate advocacy of Free Love--love released from the -dominion of law, the bonds of custom, the fear of the world; love as in -Shelley's wildest dreams, but more transcendental than in the dreams of -poets; the love of spirit for spirit, soul for soul, "pure to pure"--as -Milton imagined the love of angels. All the grossness of earth was -eliminated from that rarefied atmosphere in which Francis Symeon's -disciples had their being. Their first and indispensable qualification -was to have liberated thought and feeling from the dominion of the -senses. While still wearing the husk of the flesh, they were to be -spirits; and not till they had become spirits were they capable of -communion with those radiant beings whose earthly vesture had been -annihilated by death. - -To Vera there was an awful beauty in those echoes of great minds; and -her faith was strong in the belief that among this little company of -aspiring mortals there hovered the spirits of the illustrious dead. She -left Mr. Symeon's room with those others, who dispersed in absolute -silence, as good people leave a church, with no recognition of each -other, stealing away as from a service of unusual solemnity. They did -not even look at each other, nor did they take leave of Mr. Symeon, who -stood by one of the shuttered windows, gravely watching as his guests -departed. - -It was past seven, and the sun was low, as Vera went to her carriage, -which was waiting for her in Burlington Gardens. She was stepping into -it, when a too familiar voice startled her. She had been too deep in -thought to see Claude Rutherford waiting for her at the gate of the -"Albany." - -"Send your carriage home, Vera, and walk through the Green Park with -me. You must want fresh air after the gloom of Symeon's Egyptian -temple." - -"No, no. I am going straight home." - -"Indeed you are not," and without further argument he took upon himself -to give the order to the footman. - -"Your mistress will walk home." - -She would have resisted; but it was not easy to dispute with a man who -had a way of taking things for granted, especially those things he -wanted. It would have been easier to contend against energy, or even -brute force, than against that nonchalant self-assurance of an amiable -idler, who sauntered through life, getting his own way by a passive -resistance of all opposing circumstances. - -"I have been waiting nearly two hours," he said. "It would be hard if -you couldn't give me half an hour before your dinner. I know you never -dine before half-past eight." - -"But I have to be punctual. Aunt Mildred is coming to dinner, and Susie -Amphlett." - -"It has only just struck seven. You shall be home before eight, and I -suppose you can dress in half an hour." - -"I won't risk not being in the drawing-room when Aunt Mildred comes." - -"Lady Okehampton is a terror, I admit. You shall be home in good time, -child. But I must have something for my two hours." - -"How absurd of you to wait," she said lightly. "And how did you know I -was at Mr. Symeon's?" - -They were going through the "Albany" to Piccadilly. She had recovered -from the shock of his appearance, and was able to speak with the old -trivial air, the tone of comradeship, an easy friendliness, without -the possibility of deeper feeling. It had seemed so natural before -the consciousness of sin; and it had been so sweet. This evening, as -she walked by his side, she began to think that they might still be -comrades and friends, without the shadow of fear; that her agony of -awakened conscience had been foolish and hysterical, imaginary sin, -like the self-accusation of some demented nun. - -"How did I know? Well, after calling at your house repeatedly, only -to be told you were not at home, I lost my temper, and determined to -find out where you were--at least for this one afternoon, when I knew -of no high jinks in the houses of your friends; and so, having asked -an impertinent question or two of your butler, I found that Symeon had -been with you yesterday, and guessed that you might be at his occult -assembly this afternoon. I had heard a whisper of such an assembly more -than a week ago--so you see the process of discovery was not difficult." - -"But why take so much trouble?" - -"Why? Because you have treated me very badly, and I don't mean to put -up with that kind of treatment. If it comes to why, I have my own -'why' to ask--a why that I must have answered. What ignorant sin have -I committed that it should be 'Darwaza band' when I call in Portland -Place? What has become of our cousinship; our memory of childish -pleasures, the sea, the woods, the heather; the pony that ran away with -you, while I stood with my blood frozen, telling myself, 'If he kills -her I shall throw myself over the cliff'? What has become of our past, -Vera? Is blood to be no thicker than water? Is the bond of our childish -affection to go for nothing? Is it because I am a failure that you have -cut me?" - -"I have not cut you, Claude. How can you say such a thing?" - -"Have you not? Then I know nothing of the cutting process. To be always -out when I call--to take infinite trouble to avoid me when we meet in -other people's houses! The cut direct was never more stony-hearted and -remorseless." - -"You must not fancy things," she said lightly. - -They were in the Green Park by this time, the quiet Green Park, whence -nursemaids and children had vanished, and where even loafers were few -at this hour between afternoon and evening. - -She spoke lightly, and there was a lightness at her heart that was -new. It was sweet to be with him--sweet to be walking at his side on -the old familiar terms, friends, companions, comrades, as of old. His -careless speech, his supreme ease of manner, seemed to have broken a -spell. She looked back and thought of her troubled conscience, and all -the scheming and distress of the last two months, and she felt as if -she had awakened from a fever dream, from a dreary interval of delirium -and hysteria. What danger could there be in such a friendship? What had -tragedy to do with Claude Rutherford? This airy trifler, this saunterer -through life, was not of the stuff of which lovers are made. He was a -man whom all women liked; but he was not the man whom a woman calls her -Fate, and who cannot be her friend without being her destroyer. How -could she ever have feared him? He was of her own blood. His respect -for her race--the race to which he belonged--would hold him in check, -even if there were no other restraining influences. The burden of fear -was lifted; and her spirits rose to a girlish lightness, as she walked -by her cousin's side with swift footsteps, listening to his playful -reproaches, his facetious bewailing of his worthlessness. From this -time forward she would treat him as a brother. She would never again -think it possible that words of love, unholy words, could fall from his -lips. No such word had ever been spoken; and was it not shameful in her -to have feared him--to imagine him a lover while he had always shown -himself her loyal kinsman? In this new and happy hour she forgot that -it was her own heart that had sounded the alarm--that it was because -she loved him, not because he loved her, that she had resolved upon -ruling him out of her life. - -Perhaps this evening, after the glamour of Mr. Symeon's assembly, she -was "fey." This sudden rush of gladness, this ecstasy of reunion with -the friend from whom she had compassed heaven and earth to hold herself -aloof, seemed more than the gladness of common day. She trod on air; -and when they pulled up suddenly at Hyde Park Comer, it was a surprise -to find that they had not been walking towards Portland Place. - -"We must make for Stanhope Gate and cross Grosvenor Square and Bond -Street," Claude said gaily. "We have come a long way round, but a walk -is a walk, and I have no doubt we both wanted one. Perhaps you would -prefer a cab." - -"No, I like walking, if there is time." - -"Plenty of time. You walk like Atalanta, if that young person ever -condescended to anything but a run." - -"Do you remember our walks in the woods, and the afternoon we lost our -way and could not get home for the nursery tea?" - -"You mean when I lost my way, and you had to tramp the shoes off your -dear little feet. Brave little minx, I shall never forget how plucky -you were, and how you kept back the tears when your lips quivered with -pain." - -Once launched upon reminiscences of that golden summer there was no -gap in their talk till the lions' heads were frowning at them on the -threshold of Vera's home. - -She was flushed with her walk, and the colour in cheeks that were -generally pale gave a new brightness to her eyes. That long talk of -her childish days had taken her out of her present life. She was a -child again, happy in the present moment, without the wisdom that looks -before and after. - -"Good-bye," said Claude; and then, pausing, with his hand on the moody -lion, "if you had some vague idea of asking me to dinner, it would -be a kindness to give shape to the notion, for I shan't get a dinner -anywhere else. My mother is in the country, and a solitary meal at a -restaurant is worse than a funeral." - -Vera hesitated, with a faint blush, not being able utterly to forget -her determination to keep Claude Rutherford out of her daily life. - -"Lady Okehampton expects to find me alone," she said. - -"But you have Susie Amphlett?" - -"Susie invited herself." - -"As I am doing. Three women! What a funereal feast; as bad as -Domitian's black banquet. Your aunt dotes upon me, and so does Susan. -You will score by having secured me. You can say I threw over a long -engagement for the sake of meeting them. I dare say there is some -solemn dinner invitation stuck in my chimney glass. I often forget such -things." - -The doors were flung open, and the suave man in black and his liveried -lieutenants awaited their mistress's entrance. - -"_A ce soir_," said Claude, as he hailed a prowling hansom; and he was -seated in it, smiling at her with lifted hat, before Vera had time to -answer him. - -"Mr. Rutherford will dine here this evening," she told the butler. - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -Vera was walking up and down her drawing-room at twenty minutes past -eight, dressed in one of those filmy white evening gowns with which her -wardrobe was always supplied, one of her mermaid frocks, as Lady Susan -called them. This one was all gauzy whiteness, with something green and -glittering that flashed out of the whiteness now and then, to match the -emerald circlet in her cloudy hair. - -The tender carnation that had come from her walk was still in her -cheeks, still giving unusual brightness to her eyes. - -She had been happy; she had put away dark thoughts. Life was gay and -glad once again, glad and gay as it had always been when she and Claude -were together. A load had been lifted from her heart, the vulgar terror -of the conventional wife, who could not imagine friendship without sin. -The things that she had heard that afternoon had given a new meaning to -life, had lifted her thoughts and feelings from the commonplace to the -transcendental; to the sphere in which there was no such thing as sin, -where there were only darkness and light, where the senses had no power -over the soul that dwelt in communion with souls released from earth. -She no longer feared a lover in the friend she had chosen out of the -common herd. - -Lady Okehampton sailed into the drawing-room as the silvery chime of an -Italian clock told the half-hour. Her expansive person, clad in amber -satin, glowed like the setting sun, and her smiling face radiated good -nature. - -She put up her long glass to look at Vera, being somewhat short-sighted -physically as well as morally. - -"My dear child, you are looking worlds better than when I last saw you. -You were such a wreck at Lady Mohun's ball; looked as if you ought to -have been in bed, doing a rest cure--a ghost in a diamond tiara. I find -that when a woman is looking ill diamonds always make her look worse; -but to-night you are charming. That emerald bandeau suits you better -than the thing you wore at the ball. You haven't the aquiline profile -that can carry off an all-round crown." - -Claude and Lady Susan came in together. - -"My car nearly collided with his taxi," said Lady Susie, when she had -embraced her friend; "but I was very glad to see a man at your door. -From what you said this morning, I expected a hen-party. Now a big -hen-party is capital fun; but for three women to sit at meat alone! The -idea opens an immeasurable vista of boredom. I always feel as if I must -draw the butler into the conversation, and bandy an occasional joke -with the footmen. No doubt they could be immensely funny if one would -let them." - -"It was an after-thought," said Claude. "Vera took fright at the -eleventh hour, and admitted the serpent into her paradise." - -"No doubt Adam and Eve were dull--a perpetual _tête-à-tête_, tempered -by tame lions, must soon have palled; but at least it was better than -three women, yawning in each other's faces, after exhausting the latest -scandal." - -"I think the early dinner in 'Paradise Lost' quite the dullest meal -on record," said Claude. "To begin with, it was vegetarian and -non-alcoholic. A man and his wife--the wife waiting at table--and one -prosy guest monologuing from the eggs to the apples." - -"There is no mention of eggs. I don't think they had anything so -comfortable as a poultry yard in Eden; no buff Orpingtons, or white -Wyandottes, only eagles and nightingales," said Susie, and at this -moment the butler announced dinner in a confidential murmur, as if it -were a State secret. He was neither stout nor elderly; but in his tall -slimness and grave countenance there was a dignity that would have -reduced the most emancipated of matrons to good behaviour. - -"I should never dare to draw _him_ into the conversation," whispered -Susie, as Claude offered his arm to Lady Okehampton. "Nothing would -tempt that perfect creature to a breach of etiquette." - -The hen-dinner, relieved by one man, was charming. Not too long a -dinner; for one of the discoveries of this easy-going century is that -people don't want to sit for an hour and a half steeping themselves -in the savour of expensive food, while solemn men in plush and silk -stockings stalk behind their back in an endless procession, carrying -dishes whose contents are coldly glanced at and coldly refused. The -dinner was short, but perfect: too short for the talk, which was gay -and animated from start to finish. - -Lady Susan and Mr. Rutherford were the talkers, Vera and her aunt only -coming in occasionally: Lady Okehampton with a comfortable common-sense -that was meant to keep the rodomontade within bounds. - -Claude was an omnivorous reader, and had always a new set of anecdotes -and epigrams with which to keep the talk alive, anecdotes so brief and -sparkling that he seemed to flash them across the table like pistol -shots. French, German, or Italian, his accent was faultless, and his -enunciation clear as that of the most finished comedian; while in the -give and take of friendly chaff with such an interlocutor as Lady -Susan, he was a past master. - -Vera did not talk much, but she looked radiant, the lovely embodiment -of youth and gladness. Her light laughter rang clear above Susan's, -after Claude's most successful stories. Once only during that gay -repast was a graver note sounded, and it came from the most frivolous -of the party, from Susie Amphlett, who had one particular aversion, -which she sometimes enlarged upon with a morbid interest. - -Age was Susan's bugbear. - -"I think of it when I wake in the night, like Camilla, in 'Great -Expectations,'" she said, looking round the table with frightened eyes, -as if she were seeing ghosts. - -The grapes and peaches had been handed, and it was the confidential -quarter of an hour after the servants had gone. - -"I don't like to give myself away before a butler," Susie said, as -the door closed on the last of the silk stockings. "Footmen are -non-existent: one doesn't stop to consider whether they are matter, or -only electricity; but a butler is a person and can think--perhaps a -socialistic satirist, seething with silent scorn for his mistress and -her friends." - -"And no doubt an esteemed contributor to one of the Society Papers," -said Claude. - -"I am not afraid of Democracy, nor the English adaptation of the -French Revolution, though I feel sure it is coming," continued Lady -Susan, planting her elbow on the table in an expansive mood. "I am -afraid of nothing except growing old. That one terror swallows up all -trivial fears. They might take my money, they might steep me in poverty -to the lips, and if I could keep youth and good looks, I should hardly -mind." - -Again she looked at the others appealingly, like a child that is afraid -of Red Riding-hood's wolf. - -"Age is such a hideous disease--the one incurable malady. And we must -all have it. We are all growing old; even you, Vera, though you have -not begun to think about it. I didn't till I was thirty. As we sit -at this table and laugh and amuse ourselves, the sands are falling, -falling, falling--they never stop! Glad or sorry, that horrible disease -goes on, till the symptoms suddenly become acute--grey hair, wrinkles, -gout." - -"But are there not some mild pleasures left in the years that bring the -philosophic mind?" asked Claude. - -"Does that mean when one is eighty? At eighty one might easily be -philosophic. Everything would be over and done with. One would be like -old Lord Tyrawly, who said he was dead, though people did not know it." - -"Some of the most delightful people I have known were old, and even -very old," said Claude, "but they didn't mind. That's the secret of -eternal youth, my dear Susie--not to mind: to wear the best wig you can -buy, and not to pretend it is your own hair: to wear pretty clothes, -especially suited to your years, sumptuous velvet and more sumptuous -fur, like a portrait of an old lady by Velasquez: never to brag of your -age, but never to be ashamed of it. The last phase may be the best -phase, if one has the philosophic mind." - -"Oh, you," exclaimed Susan scornfully, "you are like Chesterfield. You -will have your good manners till your last death-bed visitor has been -given a chair. A fine manner is the only thing that time can't touch." - -Vera saw her aunt looking bored, and smiled the signal for moving. - -"Half a cigarette, and I shall follow," said Claude, as he opened the -door for the trio, "unless I am distinctly forbidden." - -"Why should we forbid you? You are an artist, and you know more about -frocks and hats than we do, after years of laborious study," said Lady -Susan, and then, with her arm through Vera's as they went slowly up the -broad staircase, with steps so shallow that people accustomed to small -houses were in danger of falling over them, "Isn't he incomparable?" -she exclaimed. "There never was such a delightful failure." - -"Poor Claude," sighed Lady Okehampton. "I suppose it is only the men -who fail in everything who have time to be agreeable. If a young man -has a great ambition, and is thinking of his career, he is generally -a bear. Claude has wasted all his chances in life, and can afford to -waste his time." - -"It was a pity he left the Army," said Susan. "He looked lovely in his -uniform. I remember him as he flashed past me in a hansom, one summer -morning after a levée, a vision of beauty." - -"It was a pity he got himself entrapped by a bad woman," said Lady -Okehampton with a sigh. - -"His Colonel's second wife," put in Lady Susan. "Isn't it always the -elderly Colonel's second wife?" - -Lady Okehampton gave another sigh. - -"It was a disgraceful story," she murmured. "Let us try to forget all -about it." - -Vera had flushed and paled while they were talking. - -"But tell me about it, Aunt Mildred," she said, with a kind of angry -eagerness. "Where was the disgrace, more than in all such cases? A -wicked woman, a foolish young man--very young, wasn't he?" - -"Not five and twenty." - -"Where was the disgrace?" - -"Don't excite yourself, child. Duplicity--an old man's heart -broken--Isn't that enough? An elopement or not an elopement; something -horrid that happened after a regimental ball. I know nothing of the -details, for it all took place while the regiment was in India, which -only shows that Kipling's stories are true to life. The husband would -not divorce her--which was a blessing--or Claude would have had to -marry her. He spoilt his career by the intrigue; but marriage would -have been worse." - -Vera's heart was beating violently when Claude sauntered into the room -presently, and made his leisurely way to the sofa where she was sitting -aloof from the other two, who had just entered upon an animated -discussion of the last fashionable nerve-specialist and his methods. - -"What has made you so pale?" Claude asked, as he seated himself by -Vera's side. "Was our walk through the streets too much for you? I -should never forgive myself if----" - -"You have nothing to be sorry for. The walk was delightful. My aunt and -Susie have been talking of unpleasant things." - -"What kind of things?" - -"Of your leaving the Army. You have never told me why you threw up your -career." - -"My career! There was not much to lose. The Boer War was over; my -regiment was in India all the time, and I never had a look in. Oh, they -have been telling you an ugly story about your poor friend; and it will -be 'The door is shut' again, I suppose." - -"Why did not you tell me of your past life? I have told you everything -about mine." - -"Because you had only nice innocent things to tell. My story would not -bear telling--and why should you want to know?" - -"There should not be a wall between friends--such friends as we have -been--like brother and sister." - -"Do brothers tell old love stories? Stale, barren stories of loves that -are dead?" - -"Perhaps not. I oughtn't to have spoken about it. Come and talk to Aunt -Mildred. Her carriage has been announced, and she'll be huffed if we -don't go to her." - -Claude followed meekly, and in five minutes Lady Okehampton had -forgotten that it was eleven o'clock, and that her horses had been -waiting half an hour. He had a curious power of making women pleased -with themselves, and with him. He always flattered them; but his -flattery was so discreet and subtle as to be imperceptible. It was -rather his evident delight in being with them and talking to them that -pleased, than anything that he said. - -"Come to River Mead for next Sunday. It will be my last week-end party -before we go to Scotland," Lady Okehampton said to him before she bade -good night. "Vera and Susan are coming. We shall be a small party, and -there will be plenty of bridge." - -Claude accepted the invitation as he took Lady Okehampton to her -carriage. - -"I wish Provana were not so much away from his wife," she said. "It is -a very difficult position for Vera." - -"Vera is not _la première venue_. She knows how to take care of -herself." - -"That's what they always say about women; but is it true in her case? -She is very young, and rather simple, and knows very little of the -world." - -"Not after six years as the wife of a financial Croesus?" murmured -Claude, while he arranged the matron's voluminous mantle over her -shoulders as carefully as if the outside atmosphere had been arctic. - -He knew that the drift of her speech had been by way of warning for -him. Dear, inconsistent soul! It was so like her to invite him to spend -three days with her niece in the _sans gêne_ of a riverside villa, and -five minutes afterwards to sound a note of warning. - -He walked along the lamp-lit streets with the light foot of triumphant -love. Vera's pale distress and unwise questioning had set his heart -beating with the presage of victory. Poor child! For his acute -perceptions, the heart of a woman had seldom been a mystery, and this -woman's heart was easier to read than most. Poor child! She had been -trying to live without him. She had fought her poor little battle, -with more of resolution and of courage than he would have expected -from a creature so tender. She had kept him out of her life for a long -time--time that had seemed an eternity for him, in his longing for -her; and then, at a word, at a smile, at the touch of his hand, she -had yielded, and had let him see that to be with him was to be happy, -and that nothing else mattered. Light love had been his portion in the -light years of youth; but this was no light love. He had sacrificed -his career for the sake of a woman; but the sacrifice had been forced -upon him, and it had killed his love. But now he was prepared for any -sacrifice--for the sacrifice of life-long exile, and strained means. -He thought of a home in a summer isle of the great southern ocean, -like Stevenson's; or, if gaiety were better, in some romantic city of -Spanish America. There were paradises enough in the world, there would -be no one to point the finger of scorn, where "Society" was a word of -no meaning. - -He would carry his love to the world's end, beyond the reach of shame. -Nothing mattered but Vera. Yes, there was one who mattered. His mother! -But to-night he could not even think of her, or if he thought of her -it was to tell himself that if Provana divorced his wife, and he and -Vera were married, his mother would be reconciled to the inevitable. -Her religion would be a stumbling block. To her mind such a marriage -would be no marriage. To-night he could not reason, he would not see -obstacles in his path. Vera's pale looks and anxious questions had been -a confession of love, a forecast of surrender; and in the tumult of his -thoughts there was no room for hesitation or for fear. - -He thought of his love now as duty. It was his duty to rescue this dear -girl from a loveless union with a hard man of business, old enough to -be her father, from splendours and luxuries that had become as dust and -ashes. He had known for a long time that she cared for him; but he had -never reckoned the strength of her attachment. Only this afternoon, in -her radiant happiness, as they walked through the unromantic streets; -only in her pale distress to-night, as she questioned him, had he -discovered his power: and now there seemed to be but one possible -issue--a new life for them both. - -His mother's absence from London was an inexpressible relief to him. -How could he have met the tender questioning of the eyes that watched -over his life, and had learned how to read his mind from the time -when thought began? How could he have hidden the leaping, passionate -thoughts, the sense of a crisis in his fate, the ardent expectation, -the dream of joy, the fever and excitement in the mind of a man who is -making his plan of a new life, a life of exquisite happiness? - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -It was Saturday, and they were at River Mead--one of those ideal places -that seem to have been raised along the upper Thames by an enchanter's -wand rather than by the vulgar arts of architect and builder, so -exquisitely do they harmonise with the landscape that enshrines them. - -No hideous chimney, no mammoth reservoir, no thriving metropolitan High -Street, defiled the neighbourhood of River Mead. All around was rustic -peace. Green meadows and blue waters, amidst which there lay gardens -that had taken a century to make--grass walks between yew hedges, and -labyrinths of roses; and in the distance purple woods that melted into -a purple horizon. It was a place that people always thought of as -steeped in golden sunlight; but not even in the glory of a midsummer -afternoon was River Mead quite as lovely as on such a night as this, -when Claude and Vera strolled slowly along the river path, in the -silver light of a great round moon, hung in the blue deep of a sky -without a cloud. - -The magic of night and moonshine was upon everything; the mystery -of light and shadow gave a charm to things that were commonplace by -day--to the white balustrade in front of the drawing-rooms, to the -flight of steps and the marble vases, above which the lighted windows -shone golden, the gaudy yellow light of indoor lamps shamed by the -white glory of the moon. - -The windows were all open, and the voices of the card-players travelled -far in the clear air--they could even hear the light sound of their -cards, manipulated by a dexterous hand. Everybody was playing bridge, -everybody was absorbed in the game, winning or losing, happy or -unhappy, but absorbed--except these two. Everybody except these two, -who had been missing since ten o'clock; and the great stable clock had -sounded its twelve slow, sonorous strokes half an hour ago. They had -not been wanted. The tables were all full. Two or three of the players -had looked round the room once or twice, and, noting their absence, had -exchanged the quiet smile, the almost imperceptible elevation of arched -eyebrows, with which, in a highly civilised community, characters can -be killed. For Lady Okehampton--she who had more than once sounded the -note of warning, and who should have been on the alert to see danger -signals--from the moment the tables were opened and the players seated, -the world of men and women outside that charmed space--where cards -fluttered lightly upon smooth green cloth, four eager faces watching -them as they fell--had ceased to exist. She was not a stupid woman; -but she had a mind that moved slowly, and she could not think of two -serious things at once. For her bridge was a serious thing; and from -tea-time on Saturday till this Sunday midnight bridge had occupied all -her thoughts, to the exclusion of every other consideration. Smiles -might be exchanged and eyebrows raised when, on Sunday morning, Claude -Rutherford carried off her niece two miles up the river to a village -church, which by his account was a gem in early Gothic that was worth -more than the two miles' sculling a light skiff against the current; -but Lady Okehampton was too absorbed even to wonder whether there was -anything not quite correct in the excursion. Why should not people want -to see the old church at Allersley? It was one of the lions of the -neighbourhood, and counted among the attractions of River Mead. - -Lady Okehampton's cards on Saturday night had seemed to be dealt to her -by a malignant fiend, an invisible devil guiding the smooth white hands -of human dealers. She had lain awake till the Sunday morning bells were -ringing for the early service to which good people were going, fresh -and light of foot, with minds at ease. She had tossed and turned in -her sumptuous bed in a feverish unrest, playing her miserable hands -over and over again, with the restless blood in her brain going round -and round like a mill wheel, or plunging backwards and forwards like -a piston rod. There had been no time to think of Vera and Claude. She -could think only of Sunday evening, and of her chance of revenge. It -was not that she minded her money losses, which were despicable when -reckoned against the price of Okehampton's autumn sport. Two thousand -pounds for a grouse moor and a salmon river--an outlay of which he -talked as lightly as if it were a new hat. The money was nothing. He -would give as much for an Irish setter as she lost in an evening. But -the vexation and humiliation of a long evening's bad luck were too much -for nerves that had been strained to snapping point by many seasons -of experimental treatment, all over Europe; and the mistress of River -Mead had left her visitors to amuse themselves at their own sweet will, -until dinner-time on Sunday evening, while their hostess slept in her -easy-chair by the open window of her morning-room, soothed by the -lullaby of the stream running down the weir, and sweet airs from a -garden of roses, such roses as only grow in a riverside garden. - -The choice of amusements or occupations after luncheon on this Sunday -afternoon was somewhat limited. Two girls and their youthful admirers -played a four-handed game of croquet. A middle-aged spinster, who had -been suspected of tricky play on Saturday, trudged a mile and a quarter -to the little town where there was a church so old-fashioned as to -provide a substantial afternoon service for adult worshippers. Most -of the masculine guests wrote letters, or read Sunday papers in the -billiard-room, or slumbered in basket chairs on the river lawn. Vera -and Claude did nothing out of the common in strolling up the hill to -the wood, where they lost themselves during the lazy two hours between -the end of a leisurely luncheon and the appearance of tea-tables in -the shady drawing-room. Coming back a little tired after her idle -afternoon, Vera sat on a sofa in the darkest corner of the spacious -room, by the side of a comfortable matron, an old friend of her aunt's, -with whom she exchanged amiable truisms, and mild opinions upon books, -plays and sermons--a kind of talk that demanded neither thought nor -effort, while Claude sat among a distant group, bored to death, but -smiling and courteous. - -After tea there was the garden till dressing time. Everybody was in -the garden, so it was only natural that these two should be sauntering -in lanes of roses, exchanging light talk with other saunterers, and -lingering a little at the crossing of the ways, where the slow drip of -a fountain made a coolness in the sultry evening, or stopping at an -opening in the flowery rampart, to look across the blue water towards -the grey old tower, and listen to the pensive music of church bells. - -These two had been alone all day, without interference or espial from -chaperon Aunt, unconscious of observation, if they were observed, alone -in this little world of summer verdure and sunlit water; as much alone -as in a pathless wilderness. All that long summer day they had been -alone, talking, talking, talking, as only lovers talk; and now, at -midnight, they were still alone in the garden that was changed in the -moonlight, changed from the warm glow of colour to the silvery paleness -and mysterious shadow, in which the prolific clusters of the Félicité -pérpétuelle looked like the ghosts of roses. - -If it were sin to love, the sin had been sinned; from the hour in which -he had drawn the confession of her love from the lips that he kissed -for the first time. - -She had tried to hold him off--tried to keep those lips unprofaned by -the kiss of guilt. They were alone in the wood on the hill that fatal -Sunday afternoon, safe only for the moment, since the woodland path was -a favourite walk with visitors at River Mead. But he had drawn her from -the footpath into the shade of great beech trees, and they were alone. -He had kissed her, and she had submitted to the guilty kiss, and she -knew that she was lost. - -Did she love him? She whispered yes. With all her heart and soul? Yes. -Could she be happy if he left her for ever? No, no, no. Could she give -up all the world for him, as he would for her? The lips that he had -kissed were too tremulous for speech. She hid her face upon his breast, -and was dumb. - -"The die is cast," he said in a low, grave voice, "and now we have only -to think of our future." - -"Our future?" Henceforth they were one; united by a bond as strong as -if they had been married before the high altar in Westminster Abbey, -with all the best people in London looking on and approving the bond. -Nothing else could matter now. They belonged to each other. He was to -command, and she was to obey. It was almost as if, in the moment of -her confession, her personal entity had ceased. In all those hours -of delicious intimacy, in fond imaginings of their future life, the -thought of her husband had never come between her and her lover--and -to-night, when she thought of Mario Provana, it was only to tell -herself that he had long ceased to care for her, and that it would not -hurt him if she were to vanish out of his life. - -Provana had been gone more than fourteen days, and his cabled messages -told her of delays and difficulties. The financial crisis was more -serious than he had anticipated, and he would have to see it out. He -had sent her several messages, but only one letter--a kind letter, -such as an uncle might have written to a niece; but it seemed to her -there was no love in it, not even such love as he had lavished on his -daughter. There was nothing left of the love that had wrapped her -round like summer sunlight, the strong man's love that had made her so -proud of having been chosen by him, so tranquil in the assurance of a -happiness that nothing could change. - -The change had come before they had lived a year in that great, gloomy -London house, when she had been less than two years a wife. - -It was after parting with Claude in the garden, and creeping quietly -up to her room in the second hour of the new day, while doors were -beginning to open and voices to sound as the card-players bade -good-night; it was in the stillness of the pretty guest-chamber that -Vera began to think of Mario Provana, and the impassioned love that had -ended in a frozen aloofness. - -He had said, "Let there be no pretending." Could he have told her more -absolutely that his love was dead, and that no charm of sweetness in -her could make it live again? She had made her poor little attempt to -win him back; and it had failed. What more was left but to be happy in -her own way? - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - -The season was dying hard. Lady Leominster's ball, at the great old -house at Fulham, was the last flash of an expiring fire. The Houses -of Parliament had closed their historic doors. The walls of the Royal -Academy had been stripped of their masterpieces, and empty themselves, -looked down upon dusty emptiness. All the best theatres were shut; -London was practically empty. The few thousand lingerers in a -wilderness of deserted streets bewailed the inanity of the daily Press. -There was nothing in the morning papers; and the evening papers were -worse, since they were obliged to echo the morning nothingness. - -The people who never read books were longing for something startling in -those indispensable papers, were it even a declaration of war. Suddenly -their longing was satisfied. The morning papers were devoured with -eagerness. The evening paper was waited for with feverish expectancy. -All of a sudden the great army of the brainless found themselves with -something to think about, something to talk about, something upon which -to build up hypotheses, to which, once built, they adhered with a -fierce persistency. - -There had been a murder. A murder in the heart of London, in one of the -fine houses of the West End; not one of the finest, for, after all, -spacious and splendid as the house might be, it was not like Berkeley -or Devonshire, Lansdowne or Stafford. It was only one in a row of -spacious houses, the house of a foreign financier, a man who dealt in -millions, and who was himself the owner of millions. - -Mario Provana had been murdered in his own house--shot through the -heart by an unknown assassin, who had done his work well enough -to leave no clue to his identity. Speculation might rove at will, -theory and hypothesis might run riot. Here was endless talk for -dinner-tables--inexhaustible copy for the newspaper. - -A man of great wealth, of exalted position in the world of -finance--finance, not commerce. Here was no dealer in commodities, no -manufacturer of cocoa, or sugar, or reels of cotton, but a man who -dealt in the world's wealth, and could make peace or war by opening or -closing his money-bags. - -People who had never seen the great man's face in the flesh were just -as keenly interested in the circumstances of his death as the people -who had dined at his table and had known him as intimately as such -men ever are known. A rough print of his photograph was in every -halfpenny paper, and the likeness of his beautiful young wife was -travestied in some of them. Pictures of the house in Portland Place, -front and back view, were in all the papers. Columns of picturesque -reporting described the man and the house, the beautiful young -wife, the sumptuous furniture, the numerous household, the splendid -entertainments which had made the house famous for the last six or -seven years. - -And for the murdered man himself, no details were omitted. Interviews -were invented, in which, during the last year, Signor Provana had -expounded his opinions and views of that sphere of life in which he -exercised so vast an influence--his ideas political, his tastes in art -and literature, music, and the drama. Minute descriptions of his person -were given in the same glowing style. The picturesque reporter made -the dead man alive again for the million readers who were panting for -details that would help them to strengthen their own pet theory or to -crush an opponent. - -Thousands of sensation-hunters went to Portland Place to look at the -house that held that dreadful mystery of a life untimely cut short -by the hand of a murderer. Loafers stood on the pavement and gazed -and gazed, as if their hungry eyes would have pierced dead walls and -darkened windows. The loafers knew that the house was in charge of the -police, and that a vigilant watch was being kept there. They wondered -whether the lovely young wife was in the house. They pictured her -weeping alone in one of those darkened rooms; yet were inclined to -think that her friends would have insisted on her leaving that house of -gloom, and would have carried her off to some less terrible place for -rest and comfort. - -The first idea was the correct one. Vera was lying in that spacious -bed-chamber behind three windows on the second floor, where ivy-leaved -geraniums were falling in showers of pale pink blossom from the -flower-boxes. She was lying on the vast Italian bed, lying like a stone -figure, while Susan Amphlett sat by the bed, and wept and sighed, -with intervals of vague, consoling speech, till, finding that speech -elicited no reply, and indeed seemed unheard, she had at last, in sheer -vacuity of mind, to take refuge in the first book within reach of her -hand. - -It was one among many small volumes on a table by the bed--Omar Kháyyam. - -"Oh, what a dreary book," thought Susie, who was beginning to feel her -office of consoler something of a burden. - -She had hated entering that dreadful house, as she always called it -in her thoughts, since she had heard of the murder; and now to be -sitting there in that deadly silence, in that grey light from shrouded -windows, to be sitting there with the knowledge that only a little -way off, in another darkened room at the back of the dreadful house, -there lay death in its most appalling form, was a kind of martyrdom -for which Susie was unprepared, and which she was not constituted to -suffer calmly or lightly. As she had hated old age, so, with a deeper -hate, she hated death. To hear of it, to be forced to think of it, was -agonising; and to visualise the horror lying so near her, a murdered -man in his bloodstained shroud, made her start up from her easy chair -and begin to roam about the room in restlessness and fear. - -She lifted the edge of a blind and peered into the street. - -The sight of the people staring up at the house was comforting. They -were alive. There were people standing in the road, looking up with -widened eyes, so absorbed in what they saw, or wanted to see, that they -ran a risk of sudden annihilation from a motor-car, and skipped off to -the opposite pavement, there to content themselves with a more distant -view. - -"There never was such a murder," Susie said to herself. "I think every -soul in town must have come to look at this horrid house since eleven -o'clock this morning." - -It was now past three, in a dull, sultry afternoon. Susie spent all -the intervening hours in the silent room in the dreadful house. She -was sorry for her friend; but she was still more sorry for herself. -All those hours of silent horror, without any luncheon, and no good -done! What was the use of sitting by the bed where a woman lay dumb and -motionless, unconsoled by affectionate murmurs from a bosom friend, -apparently unconscious that the friend was there. - -Lady Susan called in Hanover Square on her way home, and ordered a -black frock, lustreless silk that would stand alone, with a shimmer -of sequins flashing through crêpe: not this week's fashion, nor -last week's, but the fashion of the week after next. The style that -was coming; not the style that had come. This was her one agreeable -half-hour in all that dismal day. - -"I may be dining with Vera next week, and it will be only kind to wear -mourning," Susan told herself, as she ordered the gown. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - -Mrs. Provana's French maid was the first witness at the coroner's -inquest. The first question she had to answer was as to when she had -last seen Mr. Provana alive; and the same question was put to all -succeeding witnesses. The answer in each case was the same. Neither any -member of the household, nor the confidential clerk from the City, had -seen the deceased after he left London on his journey to New York. It -was Louison Dupuis, Mrs. Provana's maid, who had discovered the dead -man lying on the floor of his dressing-room, close against the door of -communication with her mistress's bedroom. Hers had been the first foot -on the principal staircase that morning. No other servant was licensed -to tread those stairs in the routine of their servitude. The rooms they -slept in, and the stairs by which they went up and down, were at the -back of the house, remote from the principal staircase. - -Mademoiselle Louison looked scared, and trembled a little as she told -her dreadful story. It was her duty to carry Madame her tea at seven -o'clock. Madame desired to be called at that hour, even when she had -come home from a party after midnight. The witness stated that the -still-room maid had the tray ready for her at ten minutes to seven, and -that she went up the staircase of service with it to the second floor, -and through the _palier_ outside Madame's room, and thence through the -open doorway of Monsieur's _cabinet de toilette_. She saw a figure -lying with the face downward. She had reason to believe that Monsieur -Provana was in America. Nothing had been said in the household of his -expected return: yet she knew at the first glance that the man lying -there was her master. He was a man of imposing figure, not easily -mistaken. The horror of it had unnerved her, and she had rushed down -the great staircase to the hall, where two of the footmen were opening -windows and arranging the furniture. She told them what she had seen, -and one of them went to fetch Mr. Sedgewick, the butler. - -Her evidence was given in a semi-hysterical and somewhat disjointed -manner, with occasional use of French words for familiar things; but -the coroner had been patient with her--as an important witness, being -the first who had cognisance that murder had been done in the night -silence. - -Alfred Sedgewick, the butler, was a very different -witness--self-possessed and ready, eager to express his opinion, and -having to be held with a tight hand. - -He described, with studious particularity, how on leaving his room -on that morning, having just finished dressing, and having been kept -waiting for his shaving water, he had run against Ma'mselle, who was -rushing along the passage in a frantic manner, pale as death, and with -eyes starting out of her head. A young person who was apt to excite -herself about trifles, and who on this occasion seemed absolutely -demented. - -On hearing Ma'mselle's statement, given in so distracted a manner that -only a person of superior intelligence could find out what she meant, -he had immediately sent one of the footmen to the police office, to -fetch a capable officer. It was no case for the first constable called -in from the street. - -He, Sedgewick, had then gone upstairs with another of the men, and had -found the dead body lying, as Ma'mselle had stated, against the door -of communication with Mrs. Provana's bedroom. The face was hidden, -but he had not an instant's doubt as to the dead man's identity, for, -apart from the commanding figure, the left hand was visible, on which -the witness observed an old Italian ring that his master always wore. -He had touched the hand, and found it was the hand of death; yet, in -the circumstances, he had considered it his duty to telephone for the -doctor. The room in which the body lay was used by his master as a -dressing-room; but it was also used by him as a study, and there was a -large office desk in front of one of the windows, at which Mr. Provana -sometimes sat writing late into the night. There was also a safe in -which his master was supposed to keep important papers, and possibly -cash. It was not a large safe, but it was of exceptional strength, and -of the most modern and costly make. This safe was open when the police -took possession of the room, after the removal of the body under the -doctor's superintendence. There were no signs of disorder in the room, -except that the pistol case on the desk was open, and both pistols were -lying on the floor, one near the hand of the deceased, the other near -the desk. The safe had not been forced open. The key was in the door, -one of three small keys on a steel ring engraved with Signor Provana's -name and address. His master always carried these keys in one of his -pockets. - -"When was Madame Provana informed of her husband's death?" - -"Not until half-past eight o'clock, when Lady Okehampton came. Mrs. -Manby, the housekeeper, went in a cab to Berkeley Square to tell her -ladyship what had happened, and Lady Okehampton came to the house in -the cab with Mrs. Manby." - -"Had not Mrs. Provana been awakened by the sounds of voices and -footsteps on the landing?" - -"No. Everything had been done with the utmost quiet. There had been no -talking above a whisper. His mistress had been at the ball at Fulham -Park, and had not come home till three o'clock, and she was still -sleeping when Lady Okehampton went into her room." - -The doctor was the next witness. - -The medical evidence did not take long. In answer to the coroner, the -doctor stated that he was in the habit of attending the household, and -had been summoned by telephone immediately on the discovery of the -tragedy. The body was lying facing the door between the two rooms, and -at no great distance from it. It was semi-prone on its left side, the -arms extended from the body, but flexed. A loaded pistol lay close to -the fingers of the right hand. Life was extinct. Blood had trickled -from a wound in the back of the head and formed a pool on the floor. -The direction of the trickle from wound to floor was vertical. There -were no other blood-stains. - -A further examination demonstrated that the wound was due to a bullet; -that the bullet had entered the head horizontally and penetrated the -brain. The bullet was found to fit a pistol lying in the room, recently -discharged, evidently companion to the one already mentioned. Both -fitted a case found on a table in front of the window. - -The witness was of opinion, - -1. That death was due to shock from bullet wound. - -2. That death had been almost instantaneous, and had taken place within -three hours of the time when the witness examined the body. - -3. That the wound was not self-inflicted nor accidental; but that the -shot had been deliberately fired and at no great distance. The person -who fired the shot was probably somewhat taller than the deceased. - -Upon this Sedgewick, the butler, was recalled, and there followed an -exhaustive interrogation as to the arrangements on the ground floor -of the house. A plan had been made of the doors and passages on this -floor, the great double doors of ceremony opening into the hall, the -tradesmen's door, and another door communicating with the stables, -which were almost as spacious in that old London house as in a country -mansion of some importance. At the back of the hall there was a wide -stone corridor leading to the door opening on the stable-yard, and -other passages to pantry, plate room, lamp room, and the menservants' -bedrooms, which were all on the ground floor. - -He valeted his master when he was at home, but he did not travel with -him. Mr. Provana required very little personal attendance. He had -always been aware that his master kept loaded pistols in the case on -his desk. He understood that there was a large amount of valuable -property in that room, where the deceased used often to sit writing -late at night, with open windows in summer-time, when Mrs. Provana was -at evening parties. - -The pistols were in charge of the police on a table in court, -old-fashioned duelling pistols, choice specimens of Italian workmanship. - -The door at the end of the corridor was often used by Mr. Provana, -and one of the keys on the ring before mentioned was the latch-key -belonging to this door. He was in the habit of walking to the City, -and he used this door every morning, passing the stables on his way. -He was very fond of his horses, and he often went into the stables, or -had the horses brought out, to look at them. The stable-yard opened -into Chilton Street. This door, communicating with the well-guarded -stable-yard, was fastened with a latch lock and heavy bolts; but the -bolts were not often used, and Sedgewick said that it was by this door -his master must have entered the house on the night of the murder, as -the doors in Portland Place had been bolted and chained at ten minutes -past three o'clock, after Mrs. Provana came home. - -The coroner, with the plan of the rooms before him, pointed to that -occupied by Sedgewick. - -"Was it possible for a stranger to have entered the house after or -before your master without your hearing the opening of the door or his -footsteps in the passage?" - -Sedgewick concluded that it was possible, since the thing must have -happened. He was ordinarily a particularly light sleeper. Was there -ever a servant who confessed to being anything else? He had been to a -theatre that evening, and may have slept sounder than usual. - -"Did none of the other men hear anything?" - -John, footman, had heard the dog bark. - -John was duly sworn, and stated that he had been awakened by hearing -the dog, an Irish terrier, and he had sat up in bed and listened; but -the dog had given only that one bark, by which he, John, concluded that -the animal, which slept on a mat outside his room, had been dreaming. -Interrogated as to time, he had heard the hall clock strike five not -very long after the dog barked. It might be a quarter of an hour, or it -might be half an hour. - -On this followed the interrogation of stable servants, as to the gates -opening into Chilton Street, the result of which showed that the stable -gates had not been locked that morning. It was broad daylight when the -grooms finished their work and turned in for a morning sleep. The last -of the stable servants to retire had heard the clocks strike four as he -went to his bedroom. - -Mrs. Provana was there to answer all further questions concerning -herself. - -She stood up by the table, facing the coroner. She stood there, an -exquisite figure, slender and erect, her countenance and her attitude -sublime in composure, grace and refinement in every line. - -The few of her friends who had found their way into the court, and who -were standing discreetly in the background, Mr. Symeon, Mr. Amphlett -and Lady Susan, Father Cyprian Hammond, Claude Rutherford, Eustace -Lyon, the poet--these admired and wondered. - -With no vestige of colour in cheek or lip, with eyes that had grown -larger in the new horror of her life, yet unutterably calm, with not -one passing tremor in the low voice, and with not one instant of -hesitation, she answered the coroner's questions. - -"At what time had she fallen asleep after her return from Fulham Park?" - -"It must have been past four o'clock." - -"Was your maid in attendance upon you when you went to bed?" - -"No, I have never allowed my maid to sit up for me after a late party." - -"Are you a heavy sleeper?" - -"Not usually; but I was very tired that night." - -Eustace Lyon noticed that she spoke of "that night," the night before -last, as if it had been ages ago. The fact appealed to his imagination -as a poet. He remarked afterwards that it is only poets who perceive -such subtle indications. - -"Did you hear nothing between six and half-past eight o'clock?" - -"Nothing." - -A plan of the upper floor was lying in front of the coroner, and he was -studying the position of the rooms. - -"The room in which the shot was fired has a door communicating with -your bedroom?" - -"Yes." - -"Was that door shut?" - -"It is always shut." - -"Shut, but not locked?" - -"No, it was not locked." - -The poet and Mr. Symeon looked at each other as she made this answer, -with unalterable composure. - -The coroner was an elderly man, a doctor--grave always, but especially -so on this occasion, for this was an exceptional case, and appealed -to him in an exceptional manner. The murder was even more mysterious -than terrible; and he was at once touched and mystified by the unshaken -composure of this young woman, who had been awakened from her morning -sleep to be told that her husband had been murdered within a few yards -of the room where she had been sleeping, full of happy dreams, perhaps, -after the pleasant excitement of a dance. - -Except for a strained look in the large grey eyes, there was nothing in -her aspect to indicate the ordeal through which she had passed within -the last two days. - -"Isn't she simply wonderful?" murmured Susan Amphlett in the ear of -Mr. Symeon, who was standing by her chair. "She has been like that -ever since." There was no need to say since what. "I was with her all -yesterday; but it was not a bit of use. She has turned to stone. Not a -tear, not a cry; only that dreadful look in her eyes, as if she were -seeing him murdered. It would have been a relief to hear her scream, or -burst into a flood of tears." - -"That kind of woman does neither," said Symeon. "She is a grand soul, -not a bundle of nerves. She has force and courage; and she knows that -death does not matter." - -The coroner treated this witness with the utmost respect, but he -did not spare her. A crime so extraordinary demanded a severe -investigation, and searching questions had to be asked. - -Had Mr. Provana a quarrel with anybody, either in his social or -business relations? Did the witness know of any incident in her -husband's life--in England or in Italy--which might suggest a motive -for the crime? - -The answer to both questions was a negative. - -"But he might have had a secret enemy without your knowledge?" - -"It is possible. He would not have told me anything that would have -made me anxious or unhappy." - -For the first time there was a faint tremor in her voice as she said -this; and the poet whispered three words in Lady Susan's ear--"She -loved him!" - -Asked whether she expected her husband's return, she replied that she -had received no cablegram naming the steamer by which he was to return. -She had received letters and cablegrams, but none within the last six -days before his death. Asked whether they were on good terms when he -left England, she replied that there had never been a difference of any -kind between them. - -She refused to be seated during this ordeal, and stood facing her -questioner till he had asked his last question; and when Lady -Okehampton came to her, wanting to lead her away, she insisted upon -remaining near the end of the table, where the witnesses came one -after another to give their evidence. - -The coroner heard those low, distinct words, "I want to hear -everything," and he noted how she stood there, watching and listening -to the end of the inquiry, regardless of her aunt's endeavour to get -her away from the spot. - -A confidential clerk from Mr. Provana's office in Lombard Street was -able to give an account of the safe in his principal's dressing-room, -as he had often been in the room, occupied in examining documents with -his employer, and in taking shorthand notes for letters to be written -in Lombard Street. He had examined the contents of this safe after the -murder. The door had been opened with Mr. Provana's private key, which -he always carried about him. Certain securities were missing, but the -valuables abstracted were of a much less amount than might have been -taken by anyone acquainted with the nature of the papers the safe -contained, and able to use his knowledge to advantage. Two parcels of -foreign bonds were missing, the present value of which would be about -six thousand pounds. The witness had an inventory of everything in this -safe, and he had found all other parcels intact, although the contents -of the drawers and shelves had been greatly disturbed, and the papers -thrown about, as if by some person in haste. - -"Would these bonds be easily convertible into cash?" - -"They are bonds to bearer, and there would be no difficulty of -disposing of them at their value." - -The inquiry was adjourned. Vera was surrounded by her friends, Lady -Okehampton, Lady Susan, Mr. Symeon, and Claude Rutherford. Even Eustace -Lyon ventured to approach her. - -"Forgive me for intruding at such a moment," he said, almost breathless -with excitement. "I feel that I must speak. You were sublime! Symeon is -right. You are spirit and not clay. It needs something more than flesh -and blood to go through what you have endured to-day." - -She looked at him with the same strained look in her eyes with which -she had looked at the coroner; a look of surprise, as if, in the midst -of a dream, she had been startled by a living voice. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - -Vera insisted on going back to the house of death, although her aunt -and Susan Amphlett were equally urgent in trying to take her home with -them. - -"Why should you make a martyr of yourself?" Susie urged in her vehement -way. "You can do him no good. He will not know. All the dead want is -silence and darkness, and to be mourned by those they love. You will -mourn for him just as sincerely in my dainty spare room in Green Street -as in that wilderness of empty rooms where he lies." - -"Yes, I shall mourn for him," said Vera in low, measured tones. "I -shall mourn for him all my life." - -"No, no, _chérie_," murmured Susan confidentially, as they moved -towards the door. "You will always be sorry for his quite too dreadful -death, and you will remember all his goodness and absolute devotion to -you. But you have your own life before you. You are not like some poor -old thing, who feels that life is done with when she is left a widow; -nothing to look forward to but charity bazaars and pug dogs. Remember -how young you are, child! Almost on the threshold of life. You don't -know how I envy you when I think I am such ages older. You are going to -be immensely rich; and by and by you will marry someone you can adore, -as poor Provana adored you: and whatever you do, Vera, don't wait till -you are fat and elderly, and then marry a boy, as I've known a widow -do--out of respect for a first husband." - -Susan felt that she had now hit upon the right note, and was really a -consoler; but nothing she could say had any effect upon her friend. - -"I am going home," she said. "The house is dreadful; but I would rather -be there than anywhere else." - -She had only the same answer for her aunt, when urged to stay at -Berkeley Square, "at least until all this troublesome business of the -inquest is over." - -"I can't think why the coroner could not have finished to-day," Lady -Okehampton said to her husband at dinner that evening. "They had -the doctor's evidence, and the servants', and the clerk's; all the -circumstances were made clear, every detail of the poor thing's death -was gone into. What more could be wanted?" - -"Only one detail. To find the murderer. If ever I were to be murdered -I hope the inquiry would address itself more to the man who did it -than to the way in which it was done; and that the coroner would stick -to his work till he found the fellow who killed me. If he didn't, I -believe I should walk at midnight, like Hamlet's father." - - * * * * * - -Claude Rutherford was among the friends who surrounded Vera as she -left the court. His mother was with him, an unexpected figure in such -a scene; and while her son said no word, Mrs. Rutherford murmured the -gentle assurance of her sympathy. She had held herself aloof from Vera -for a long time, disapproving of an intimacy in which she saw danger -for her son, and discredit for Mario Provana's wife; but she came to -this dismal court to-day moved by divine compassion for the fragile -creature who had become the central figure in so awful a tragedy. - -For the first time since she had entered the court, Vera's strained -eyeballs clouded with tears, and the hand which Mrs. Rutherford held -with a friendly pressure trembled violently. That unnatural calm of -the last two hours had given way in the surprise of this meeting. Her -carriage was waiting for her, and she stepped into it too quickly for -Claude to help her; he could only stand among the others to see her -driven away. - -"It was more than good of you to come to this dreadful place," he told -his mother, as they walked towards Piccadilly. - -"I would do anything to help her, if it were possible. She has not made -the best use of her life, so far. Perhaps she has only gone with the -stream, like the herd of modern women, who seem to have neither heart -nor conscience. But this tragedy was a terrible awakening, and no one -can help being sorry for her." - -"The ruck of her friends will not be sorry. They will only chatter -about her husband's death, and discuss the amount of her fortune -as his widow. You are right, mother. They have neither heart nor -conscience. They care for nothing, hope for nothing, except to be -better dressed and dine out oftener than other women." - -He spoke with unusual bitterness, and his mother looked at him -anxiously. All the marks of a too feverish life showed upon his -delicate countenance in the clear light of summer. He had never counted -among handsome men; but a face so sensitive was more interesting than -the beauty of line and colour, and people who knew Claude Rutherford -knew that the sensitive face was the outward evidence of a highly -emotional nature. - -"You are looking so tired and worn, Claude," his mother said anxiously. - -"Oh, this ghastly business has been a shock for me as well as for her. -I was with her at the Fulham House ball the night before. We were -waltzing in a mob of dancers, sitting out among tropical flowers, -laughing together in the noise and laughter and foolish talk in the -supper-room. Such diamonds; such bare shoulders and enamelled faces. -It was half-past two when I took her to her carriage, and a blackbird -was whistling in the avenue. Everybody was pretending to be happy; and -she went alone to that great, gloomy house, to be awakened a few hours -later to be told that her husband had been murdered." - -"What could have been the motive for such a murder?" - -"Plunder. What else? Of course, it was known that he kept valuables in -that safe." - -"How was it that he came home so unexpectedly?" - -"Heaven knows. Perhaps he wanted to give his wife a surprise--a grim -joke in such a husband; and the result was grimmer than he could have -anticipated." There was a savage bitterness in his tone that shocked -the tender-hearted woman. - -"Don't speak of it like that, Claude. It is too dreadful to think of. -He was a devoted husband, from all that I have heard; only too blindly -indulgent, letting his wife lead the wretched, empty-headed existence -that can spoil even a good woman." - -They were at Mrs. Rutherford's door by this time, and she asked her son -to give her a few minutes more before he went away. - -"As long as you like," he said. "I am at a loose end. My usual -diversions are out of the question; and all manner of work is -impossible." - -"You must go away, Claude. You are too sensitive, too warm-hearted to -get over this business easily. You ought to leave London for a long -time." - -And then, with her hand on his shoulder, looking up at him with tearful -solicitude, she enlarged upon that source of consolation to which a -woman of deep religious convictions turns instinctively in the time -of trouble. She reminded him of his happy and innocent boyhood, the -unquestioning faith of those early years, before the leaven of doubt -had entered his mind, before the Christian youth had become the trifler -and cynic. - -He listened in silence, with downcast eyes, and then, tenderly kissing -her, he said gently: - -"Yes, perhaps there lies the cure. I must go back to those tranquil -days. I must leave this hateful town. Yes, mother, I mean to go -away--for a long time. I shall take your advice. If you see Father -Hammond I should like you to tell him about this talk of ours." - -"Why not go to him at once and make your confession? You would feel -happier afterwards." - -"I have not come to that yet. I mean to have a talk with him later. _A -riverdervi, Madre mia._" - -"Where are you going?" - -"I don't know. To my rooms, most likely. I have letters to write." - -He was gone before she could question him further. That business -of letter-writing was the most arduous work he knew. Since he had -"chucked" art, his days had no more strenuous employment; his life was -the over-occupied existence of a man of pleasure. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - -Lord Okehampton, discussing the financier's fate in a _tête-à-tête_ -dinner with his wife, was only one among a multitude who were thinking -of the Provana murder. There is nothing that English men and women -enjoy more than the crime which they call "a really good murder." They -will import sensation cases from America or the colonies, and will try -to feel as keenly interested in a murder in New York or Melbourne as in -a London tragedy. But the keen relish is lacking where the crime has -been done afar off. It is impossible to realise the scene in unfamiliar -surroundings. The sense of nearness, of the street or the countryside -we know, is a strong factor in the interest of the story. To the man -who knows his Paris thoroughly a Parisian crime may appeal; but to the -woman who buys frocks in the Rue de la Paix, and hats on the Boulevard -des Italiens, the most diabolical murder in the Marais, or on the -heights of Belleville, seems tame. - -Thus the murder of a millionaire in the midst of the rich man's London -was a crime that set every sensation-seeker theorising and arguing. -Every man is at heart a Sherlock Holmes, while every woman thinks -herself a criminal investigator by instinct; and the theories worked -out and expounded over tea-tables, and maintained with a red-hot -intensity, were various and startling. The most sanguinary murder is -a poor thing if people know how and by whom it was done. Mystery is -essential in a crime that is to occupy the mind of the public. The -murder in the great house in Portland Place had all the elements of -enduring success--wealth, beauty, secrecy, and that Italian flavour -which offered poignant possibilities of jealousy or revenge, or perhaps -a life-long vendetta, as the motive of the crime. - -The inquiry in the coroner's court dragged slowly towards an -indeterminate and unsatisfactory close, being adjourned at long -intervals to give the police time to make discoveries. - -So far the police had made no discoveries, and the daily Press was -beginning to be angry with the Criminal Investigation Department; and -to make uncivil comparisons between the home article and the same thing -in France and Germany. In the meantime the newspapers found subject for -occasional paragraphs, though they had no new facts to communicate. So -long as the inquest went on, picturesque reporters found a spacious -field for their pen in the descriptions of witnesses and spectators -in the coroner's court; the spectators being mostly women of some -fashion, and more or less famous in the world of art and letters. The -stage, also, had been represented among that morbidly curious crowd; -popular actresses coming to study the appearance and demeanour of the -young widow, whose marble calm in the witness box had been written and -talked about. But in spite of searching and patient inquiry, the murder -in Portland Place remained an insoluble mystery, a standing reproach -against Scotland Yard. - -While the man in the street and the daily papers he battens upon -were expatiating upon the supineness and incompetency of the -Criminal Investigation Department, the chief of that department was -not idle. Scotland Yard is not greatly in favour of the offering -of rewards for the apprehension of criminals. Scotland Yard has an -idea that such offers do more harm than good, and prefers to rely -upon the intelligence of its officials; and on that spontaneous and -disinterested help which is often afforded by outsiders. - -But after the man in the street had expended much wonder and -indignation upon the fact that no reward had as yet been offered by the -murdered man's widow or family, the Disbrowes had taken upon themselves -to arouse Vera to a proper sense of her position and responsibilities. -Among Provana's friends and allies in the City--the great semi-oriental -banking house of Messrs. Zeba and Zalmunna, with whom he had been -closely associated, and other firms almost as distinguished--there was -also a feeling that strong measures were required, and some wonderment -that the widow had as yet done nothing. - -Lady Okehampton, who had been in Portland Place nearly every -day--although not always allowed to see her niece--took the matter in -hand, as spokeswoman for the Disbrowes, and told Vera that she must -offer a reward for the apprehension of her husband's murderer. - -"It ought to have been done before how," she said, "but you have been -so lost in grief, that I have been afraid to talk of poor Provana; -however, as time goes on people must think it extraordinary that you -can let things slide; especially after that splendid will which makes -you the richest woman in London." - -The splendid will, executed in the first year of her marriage, left -Vera residuary legatee, after a long list of legacies, which although -generous, did not absorb more than a sixth of Mario Provana's estate. -If not actually the richest woman in London--a fact not easily to be -ascertained--Vera was at least rich enough to support that reputation. - -She gave a little moan of anguish when her aunt spoke of the will, -and replied, with averted face, that her uncle was to do whatever he -thought right. - -Before darkness came down the police stations of London exhibited -bills, offering a thousand pounds for information leading to the -discovery of the murderer, and the man in the street was a little -easier in his mind. - -In the meantime Scotland Yard was pursuing its own course, and one -of the most experienced and intelligent members of the force had the -Provana affair in hand, and was actually established in Portland Place, -where he was explained to the household as a picture-restorer, who had -been engaged by Mr. Provana shortly before he left England, to examine -and restore certain pictures among those somewhat depressing examples -of the early Italian school which gave gloom to the too spacious -dining-room. - -It might seem strange that work of this kind, ordered by the dead -man, should be carried out at such a time; but Mr. James Japp, of -the Criminal Investigation Department, had a power of impersonation -which rarely failed him in the most critical circumstances; and having -assumed the role of artistic man-of-all-work, he omitted no detail that -could impress and convince the house servants, among whom he hoped to -put his hand upon the murderer. Plausible, friendly, and altogether an -acquisition in that low-spirited household, Mr. Japp, alias Johnson, -was soon upon terms of cordial friendship with butler and housekeeper, -while he was genially patronising to the four stalwart footmen, and by -no means stand-offish to the coachman and his underlings, who sometimes -crept into the servants' hall in the gloaming to talk over the last -paragraph upon the mystery in Portland Place. For them the mystery was -meat and drink. They hung upon it with a morbid tenacity, never tired -of re-stating the same facts, and going over the same arguments, and -doing battle, each for his own solution of the ghastly problem. For -these Mr. Johnson, artist and picture-restorer, was a godsend. - -The man was so delightfully innocent in the ways and workings of -criminals. He showed the simple faith of a child when listening with -avidity to Mr. Sedgewick's views, and allowed himself to be browbeaten -by the coachman. He would turn the drift of the talk aside at a most -interesting point to relate his early aspirations as a student, and -his dismal failure as an artist, and how he had been driven from the -painting of colossal historical pictures to the humbler art of the -varnisher and restorer, working for a daily wage. He would tell stories -of his early struggles that evolved laughter and good-natured scorn. - -He had a room allotted to him for his work, one of those rooms opening -out of the long passage that led to Mr. Provana's private door, that -door by which he and his murderer must have entered the house on the -fatal night. Mr. Johnson had examined the door with studious attention, -confessing to a morbid interest in the details of crime, co-existent -with a curious ignorance of the law of the land. The nature and methods -of a coroner's court had to be explained to him, condescendingly, by -Mr. Sedgewick, when the Provana murder was under discussion. - -He had his room for his artistic work, where he installed himself with -three of the largest pictures from the dining-room, his bottles of -oil and varnish, and his stock of brushes, and where he insisted upon -being undisturbed. He was of a nervous temperament, and could not bear -to have his work looked at. He talked of his progress from day to day, -expatiating upon the dangers of blue mould, the horrors of asphaltum -and other pernicious mediums, and the superiority of the old painters, -who ground their own colours; but no one, not even Mr. Sedgewick, was -allowed to see him at work. - -He was altogether a superior person, yet it was something of a surprise -to the household that he should be admitted every evening to an -interview with Mrs. Provana, who received him in the great, lonely -drawing-room, where he remained with her for about a quarter of an -hour, giving an account of his day's work. - -This privilege was explained by Mr. Johnson as a natural result of the -lady's interest in art, and the value she set upon pictures which it -appeared were especial favourites with her husband. - -"At the rate he goes at it, I don't fancy he can have much progress to -report," remarked Mr. Sedgewick, "for I don't believe he works a solid -hour a day at those pictures. He takes things a bit too easily, to my -mind. He knows he's got a soft job, and he means to make it last as -long as the missus will let him. He's got his head pretty well screwed -on, has our friend Johnson; and he knows when he's in for a good thing. -And he's got a tongue that would talk over a special commissioner of -income tax; so no doubt he makes Mrs. Provana believe that he works -heavens hard at fetching up the colour in the Frau Angelicas." - -"I shall think something of his work if he can do anything to brighten -up those Salvini Roses, which are about the dismallest pictures I -ever saw in a gentleman's dining-room," the housekeeper remarked with -conviction. - -Mr. Johnson was a desultory worker. He told his friends in the -household that he worked like a tiger while he was at it, but your real -artist was ever fitful in his toil. It was in the artistic temperament -to be desultory. He would emerge from his den after an hour or so, in a -canvas apron so stained with oil, and so sticky with varnish, that none -could doubt his industry. He was eminently sociable. He couldn't get on -without company and conversation. The four young footmen afforded him -inexhaustible amusement. - -"The oldest of 'em ain't over twenty-five," he said, "but every one of -'em is a character in his way. Now I love studying character. There's -no book, no, nor no illustrated magazine, you can give me that I enjoy -as I do human nature. Give me the human document, and leave your mouldy -old books for mouldy old scholars. Every one of those four lads is a -romance, if you know how to read him." - -This taste, which Mr. Sedgewick and Mrs. Manby thought low, led Mr. -Johnson to consort in the friendliest way with the four youths in -question. He had not been in the house a fortnight before he knew -all about them; their sweethearts; their ambitions; their tastes for -pleasure, and their craving for gain. Even the odd man, a creature -whom the _élite_ of the household esteemed as hardly human--a savage -without a livery, by whom it was a hardship to be waited on at one's -meals--was not without interest for Johnson. While he delighted in Mr. -Sedgewick's company, and was proud to spend an evening with him at his -club, he shocked everybody by taking the old man to a music hall, and -giving him supper after the entertainment. - -"I think you're all too hard upon Andrew," he said. "I find him -distinctly human." - -With the ladies of the household he was at once friendly and gallant. -He aired his little stock of French with Ma'mselle, and took her for -evening walks in Regent's Park, which to dwellers north of Langham -Place is "the Park." He bought her little gifts, and took her to the -theatre. He played dummy whist with Mrs. Manby, who was sadly behind -the age, and could not abide bridge; and the result of all this -friendly intercourse, which had kept the establishment in good spirits -during a period of gloom, culminated one evening, when he told Mrs. -Provana that his residence under her roof had only a negative result, -and that he had exhausted all the means in his power without arriving -at any clue to the murderer of her husband. - -"It has been a great disappointment to me, Madam," said Mr. Japp, -standing before Vera, with his hat in his hand, serious and subdued in -manner and bearing. The change from the sociable and trivial Johnson to -the business-like and thoughtful Japp showed a remarkable power in the -assumption of character. - -"It has been the most disappointing case I have been engaged in for a -long time. I came into this house assured that I should put my hand -upon the guilty party under this roof. Every circumstance indicated -that the crime had been committed by someone inside the house. The -idea of an outsider seemed incredible. That a house with such a staff -of servants--with five men and an Irish terrier sleeping on the ground -floor--could have been entered by a burglar seemed out of the question. -Mr. Provana being known to keep large sums of money in one shape and -another in the safe in his private room, and no doubt being also known -to carry the keys of that safe upon his person, there was a sufficient -inducement for robbery; while it is our common experience that any -man bold enough to attempt robbery on a large scale is not the man -to shrink from murder, when his own skin is in danger. My theory was -that one of your men servants had been waiting for his opportunity -during Mr. Provana's absence in America; that he had provided himself -with implements for forcing the lock of the safe, perhaps with the -aid of an outside accomplice, and that, by a strange coincidence, he -had stumbled upon the night of his master's unexpected return, and -had been surprised at the beginning of his work. There are scratches -on the polished steel about the lock of the safe that might be made -by one of those graduated wedges which burglars use. I thought that, -being surprised by Mr. Provana's entrance, he snatched up one of the -pistols from the case on the table--which he might have examined -previously--and fired within narrow range, as Mr. Provana was about to -open the door of your room, without having seen him; that he took the -keys from Mr. Provana's pocket after he fell, unlocked the safe, and -abstracted the two parcels of bonds which are missing. The disordered -state of the safe, and the keys left in the lock, indicate that -everything was done in extreme haste. This was my theory before I came -into your house, Madam; but after nearly five weeks' careful study of -every individual under this roof, I have reluctantly arrived at the -conclusion that nobody in your household is in it, either as principal -or accomplice, before or after the fact. I think it is in an old play -that the remark has been made that 'Murder will out,' also that 'Blood -will have blood.' Both remarks are perfectly correct; but there is -another remark that might have been made with even greater truth, and -that is 'Money will out.' You can't hide money--at least the average -criminal can't. That's where he gives himself away. He can't keep -his plunder to himself--the money burns--it burns--he must spend it. -Some spend it on drink; some, begging your pardon, Madam--spend it on -ladies; some, the weakest of the lot, spend it on clothes and hansom -cabs; but spend they must. There's not one of those four young men -that could keep five or six thou' in his pocket and not give himself -away--somehow or somewhere. Nor yet Mr. Sedgewick, fine gentleman and -philosopher as he is--nor yet even the odd man. Being a poor creature, -he'd have melted those securities with the first low fence he could -hear of, and would have been on the drink night after night, till he -got the horrors and gave himself up to the police. I've been looking -for the money, Madam, and finding no trace of _that_, I know I've not -come within range of the party we want. We must look outside, Madam, -and we may have to look a long way off. If the possessor of those bonds -is an old hand, he is not likely to turn them into money anywhere in -this City; for though they are bonds to bearer, a transaction of that -kind must leave some trace. I feel the humiliation of my failure, -Madam, and I have no doubt you are disappointed." - -Vera looked up at him with melancholy eyes, pale, hollow-cheeked, a -sombre figure in the severest mourning that the Maison de Deuil near -the Madeleine could supply, and French mourning knows no compromise. - -"Disappointed," she repeated slowly in a low, tired voice, and then, to -Mr. Japp's surprise and almost horror, she said, "I don't think it much -matters whether the wretched creature who killed him is discovered or -not. It can make no difference to _him_ lying at rest, beyond all pain -and sorrow, that his murderer is hidden somewhere out of reach of the -law, and may escape the agony of a shameful death." - -The horror in her widening eyes as she said these words showed that -her imagination could realise the horror of the scaffold. "However he -may escape human law," she went on, in the same slow, dull tones, "he -must carry his punishment with him to the grave. He can never know one -peaceful hour. He can never know the comfort of dreamless sleep. He -will be a haunted man." - -"Excuse me for differing with you, Madam, but you don't know what stuff -the criminal classes are made of. _They_ don't mind. One more or less -sent to kingdom come don't prey upon _their_ nerves. Where are they -found, as a rule, when they do get nicked? Why at a theatre or in a -music-hall, or at the Derby--and generally in ladies' society. The -things you read of in novels, conscience, remorse, Banquo's ghost, -don't trouble _them_." - -Mr. Japp apologised for having expressed himself so freely, and -stood for a few minutes fingering the brim of his hat, waiting for -Mrs. Provana to speak. Her speech just now had been a surprise to -him, for never had he met with so silent a lady. Night after night -she had listened hungrily to his statement of his day's progress, -his suspicions, his glimpses of light, now seeming full of promise, -and anon delusive. She had listened with keen attention; but she -had expressed no opinion, and had asked no questions. And now for -him--the accomplished Criminal Investigator, the man who had worked -at the science of detection as superior persons work at the higher -mathematics--to hear this lady say that the discovery of her husband's -murderer did not matter, that, for her part, he might go about the -world a free man, with nothing worse than a mind full of scorpions and -a sleepless bed, seemed too monstrous for comprehension. She, to whom -the murdered man had left millions, not to hunger for the ignominious -death of his murderer! - -"It must be Christian Science," thought Mr. Japp, as he packed his -portmanteau. "Nothing less can account for it." - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - -Everybody in the Red Book had left London. The West End was a desert, -and the shrill summons of the telephone was heard no more in Mayfair. -Nobody, unless it were the caretaker, was being asked to luncheon or -dinner, and the only tea-parties were in the basement, where the late -lettuce had not yet given place to the early muffin. Only people with -urgent and onerous business were to be found in London. Lord Okehampton -was shooting grouse, and Lady Okehampton ought to have been doing an -after-cure in Switzerland; but "the sad state of my poor niece after -her husband's ghastly death, and the legal business connected with her -colossal inheritance, make it impossible for me to leave town. Much as -I need a complete change, I must stay here, while that poor child wants -me." - -This was what Lady Okehampton wrote from her deserted house in Berkeley -Square, to numerous friends, with more or less variation of phrase. - -Vera's health was now the most pressing question. She had taken her -bereavement with a dumb, self-contained grief, that is the most morbid -and the most perilous kind of sorrow; the sorrow that kills. When -questioned, pressingly but tenderly, by her aunt, she always replied in -the same unresponsive manner. There was nothing the matter with her. Of -course, as Aunt Mildred said, the shock had been terrible; but no doubt -she would get over it in time. People always get over things. She only -wanted to be left to herself. She was quite strong enough to bear her -burden. No, she was not eating her heart out in solitude. It was best -for her to be alone. - -"You are more than kind, Aunt Mildred, and so is Susan Amphlett; but I -am better sitting quietly and thinking out my life." - -"But, my poor child, you are perishing visibly--just wasting away. I -would rather see you in floods of tears, hysterical even, than in this -hopeless state." - -"What is the use of making a fuss? If tears could bring my husband -back and make life what it was before his death, I would drown myself -in tears. But nothing can change the past. That is what makes life -terrible. The things we have done are done for ever." - -Lady Okehampton trembled, first for her niece's life, and next for -her sanity. And here was this stupendous fortune left to Vera for her -life, and to her children after her--her children by the husband who -was dead--but, in default of such children, to be divided among a horde -of Italian relations--third and fourth cousins, people for whom Mario -Provana might not have cared twopence--and among Roman charitable -institutions--sure to be badly managed, Lady Okehampton thought. - -It seemed to her that if Vera were to die, that stupendous wealth, -which while she possessed it must be a factor in the position of the -Disbrowes, would be absolutely thrown to the dogs. To divide that mass -of riches into eights, and twelfths, and sixteenths, was in a manner -to murder it. All its power and prestige would be gone, frittered -away among insignificant people, who might be better off without it, -as it would put a stop to laudable ambition and enterprise, and might -ultimately be the cause of unmitigated harm. - -"It is so sad to think there were no children," sighed Lady Okehampton -into the ears of various confidential friends. "The dear man made this -will shortly after his marriage, and evidently built upon having an -heir--he was so absolutely devoted to my niece. I know it was a bitter -disappointment for him," concluded the chieftainess of the Disbrowes, -to whom Mario Provana had said no word of his inmost feelings upon that -or any other subject. - -Strange indeed would it have been for that strong hand to lift the -curtain from that proud heart. Courteous, generous, chivalrous, he -might be to the whole clan of Disbrowes. He might scatter his gold -among them with a careless hand; but to scatter the secrets of his -lonely life among that frivolous herd was impossible to the man who had -endured a mother's dislike, a father's neglect, and the disillusions of -a _mariage de convenance_, without one hour of self-betrayal. - -Vera was childless, and on her frail thread of life hung Mario -Provana's millions. - -Lady Okehampton told herself this in the watches of the night, and told -herself that something must be done. It was all very well for Vera -to declare that there was nothing the matter with her, while it was -visible to the naked eye that the poor child was fading away, in an -atrophy of mind and body. - -"She will either die or go mad," said Lady Okehampton, and the -alternative offered visions of a _conseil de famille_, doctors' -certificates, and that rabble of fourth and fifth cousins tearing their -prey. - -Long and confidential talks with Mrs. Manby, the housekeeper, and -Louison, the maid, had revealed the desperate state of their mistress's -health. - -"No, my lady, she doesn't complain," asserted Mrs Manby. "I'm afraid -it's all the worse because she won't complain. But she can't sleep, -and she can't eat. Sedgewick knows what her meals are like: just -pretending, that's all; and Louison says that, go into her mistress's -room when she will, in the middle of the night or in the early morning, -she's always lying awake, sometimes reading, sometimes staring at the -sky above the window sash, but asleep--never! And it isn't for want of -taking things, for she has tried every drug you can put a name to." - -"Does the doctor prescribe them?" - -"He used to send her things, in the first few weeks after--the -funeral. But she made him believe that she was quite well, and was -sleeping and eating as usual, and he left off coming. And then Lady -Susan Amphlett brought her tabloids--always the newest thing out. But -they've never done her any good. It's the mind that's wrong, my lady." - -"She was absolutely devoted to Mr. Provana," sighed Lady Okehampton. - -"No doubt, my lady." - -"And she can't get over her loss." - -"No, my lady." - -Susan Amphlett was of Aunt Mildred's opinion. Something must be done, -and it must be done quickly, before any of those Roman cousins could -appear upon the scene, prying and questioning, and hinting at a -commission of lunacy. Things had come to a perilous pass, when Mrs. -Manby, the housekeeper, could talk of her mistress's mind as the seat -of the mischief. People who go out of their minds seldom take a long -time about it, Lady Susan urged. "It's generally touch and go." - -Lady Okehampton waited for no permission, but marched into her niece's -room one dark September afternoon with the fashionable nerve specialist -at her heels, the bland elderly physician from Cavendish Square, whom -nobody in Mayfair had even heard of till he had entered upon his -seventh decade, and who had languished at the wrong end of Harley -Street for a quarter of a century, before the great world had made the -remarkable discovery that he was the one man in London who could cure -one of everything. - -He was kind and sensible, and really clever; but the great world loved -him most because he had all the new names for old diseases at the -tip of his tongue, and had the delightful manner which implied that -the patient to whom he was talking was the one patient whose life he -considered worth saving. - -"He really does think about you when he's feeling your pulse," said a -dowager. "He ain't totting up last night's winnings at bridge all the -time. He does really think, don't you know." - -Dr. Selwyn Tower, as he held Vera's wasted wrist in his broad, soft -hand, looked as serious as if the fate of a nation were at stake. -Indeed, he had been told that millions were in jeopardy, and in the -modern mind the destinies of big fortunes are as serious as the rise -and fall of peoples. - -The physician asked no troublesome questions; but he contrived to keep -Vera in conversation--on indifferent subjects--for about a quarter of -an hour, her aunt joining in occasionally with sympathetic nothings; -and by the end of that time he had made up his mind about the case, -or at least about his immediate treatment of the case. He might have -thoughts that went deeper and farther--but those could be held in -abeyance. The thing to be done was to save this fragile form, which was -obviously perishing. - -A rest cure--nothing else would be of any use--an uncompromising rest -cure. Six weeks of solitary confinement in the care of a resident -doctor and a couple of highly trained nurses. - -Lady Okehampton anticipated a struggle, remembering how resolutely Vera -had resisted this line of treatment three months before; but her niece -surprised her by offering no vehement opposition. - -"There is absolutely nothing the matter with me," she said, "but if it -will please you, Aunt Mildred, I will do as Dr. Tower advises." - -"Nothing the matter! And you neither eat nor sleep! Is that nothing?" - -"Who told you that I can't sleep?" - -"My dear lady, your eyes tell us only too plainly. Insomnia has -unmistakable symptoms," said the doctor. - -"Yes, it is true," Vera answered wearily. "I seem to have lost the -faculty of sleep. It is a habit one soon loses. I lie staring at the -daylight, and wondering what it is like to lose count of time." - -And then, after a little more doctor's talk, soothing, and rather -meaningless, she asked abruptly: - -"What time of year is it?" - -"Dear child," exclaimed Lady Okehampton, "can you ask?" - -"Oh, I have left off writing letters and reading newspapers, and I -forget dates. I know the days are getting shorter, because the dawn is -so long coming when I lie awake." - -"We are in the middle of September," said the doctor, "a charming -month for country air--neither too hot nor too cold--the golden mean." - -"And in six weeks it will be the end of October, and I can go to Rome -for the winter!" - -"You could not do better. We shall build up your constitution in those -six weeks. You will be another woman when you leave Sussex." - -"But, my dearest Vera," protested her aunt, "you can never think of a -winter alone in that enormous villa. You will die of ennui." - -"No, no, Aunt Mildred, I love Rome. The very atmosphere of the place is -life to me. I am not afraid of being alone." - -Dr. Tower shot a significant look at her ladyship, which silenced -remonstrance, and no more was said. - -Two days later Vera found herself on a windy hill in Sussex, under -the dominion of the house-doctor and two nurses, and almost as much -exposed to the elements as King Lear on the heights near Dover. An -eider-down coverlet and a hot-water bottle made the only difference. -Lady Okehampton, having sacrificed her own cure to her niece's, went -with a mind at ease to join her husband in Yorkshire; an arrangement -almost without precedent in their domestic annals. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - -Father Cyprian Hammond returned to his comfortable rooms in the -north-west region one rainy autumn evening after a long day in the -dreariest abodes of East London. He was almost worn out by the bodily -fatigue of tramping those dismal streets with one of his friends -and allies, a priest from the Cathedral at Moorfields; and by the -mental strain that comes from facing the inscrutable problem of human -suffering--the mystery of sorrow and pain, inevitable, unceasing, -beyond man's power to help or cure. - -He had visited the poor in great hospitals where every detail -testified to the beneficence of the rich; yet he knew that the comfort -and cleanliness of the hospital must needs accentuate the dirt and -squalor of the slum to which the patient must return. - -He sank into his armchair, with a sigh of relief, and was sorry to hear -of a visitor, who had called twice that afternoon and would call again -after nine o'clock. - -"Did he leave his card?" - -Yes, the card was there on the table. - -"Mr. Claude Rutherford." - -Father Cyprian had not seen Claude since the opening day of that -inquest which had been so often adjourned, only to close in an open -verdict, and a mystery still unsolved. He had not seen Claude; but he -had seen Mrs. Rutherford more than once in that quiet month when life -in West End London seems to come to a stand-still. She had talked about -her son as she talked only to him, opening her heart to the friend -who knew all its secrets, the best and the worst of her. Hitherto she -had never failed to find him interested and sympathetic; but in those -recent interviews it had seemed to her as if the close friend of long -years had changed; as if he was talking to her from a distance; as if -some mysterious barrier had arisen between them. - -She had told him of that conversation with her son, in which he had -promised to confide in this old and trusted friend. That had happened -more than a month ago, and the confidence had not yet come. Perhaps it -was coming to-night. - -"I will see Mr. Rutherford at whatever time he calls," Father Cyprian -told his servant. - -His dinner was short and temperate, but not ill-cooked or ill-served. -He drank barley water, but the jug that held it was of old cut-glass, -picked up at a broker's shop in a back street for seven shillings, and -worth as many pounds. His silver was old family plate, his napery of -the finest. - -It was past nine when Claude Rutherford appeared, and the first thing -Father Cyprian observed was that he was physically exhausted. He -dropped into a chair with a long sigh of fatigue, and it was three or -four minutes before he was able to speak. - -"I knew you would have finished your Spartan dinner by this time," he -said, "but I hope I am not spoiling your evening." - -"You ought to know that I have nothing better to do with my evening -than to talk with anybody who wants me," answered the priest in the -low, grave voice that was like the sound of Hollmann's bow in an adagio -passage, "and I think you must want me, or you would not come to this -house a third time. What have you been doing since six o'clock? You -look horribly fagged." - -"I have been to Hampstead. It is a fine night, and I wanted a walk." - -"You have walked too far. You are ill, Claude." - -"A little under the weather. The modern complaint, neuritis, and its -concomitant, insomnia." - -"You ought to go to one of my neighbours in Harley Street." - -"No. I want you--the physician of souls. This corporal frame of mine -will mend itself when I get out of London; a thousand miles or so. Do -you remember the night we walked home together from Portland Place? You -pressed me very hard that evening. You tried to bring me back to the -fold--but the time had not come." - -"And now the time has come?" questioned the priest, pushing aside the -book that he had been reading, and bending forward to look into a page -of human life, bringing his searching eyes nearer to the haggard face -in front of him. - -"Yes, the time has come." - -"What is the matter?" - -"Oh, only the old disease--in a more acute phase. The disgust of -life--satiety, weariness of the world outside me, loathing of the world -inside; the old disease in a virulent form. I want you to help me to -the cure. It must be heroic treatment. Half measures will be no use. -I want you to help me to enter one of the orders that mean death to -the world. Dominicans, Benedictines, La Trappe, anything you like; the -harder the rule the better it may be for my soul." - -"This is strangely sudden." - -"Perhaps it is an inspiration. But no, my dear friend, it is not -sudden. The complaint is chronic, and has been growing upon me for -the last ten years, ever since I found that I was a failure. That -discovery is a crisis in a man's life. He looks inside himself one -day, and finds that the fire has gone out. It must all come to that. -Life, mind, heart, all are contained in that central fire which is the -soul of a man. While the fire burns he has hope, he has ambitions, he -has a future; when the fire goes out, he has nothing but the past; the -memory of things that were sweet and things that were bitter; nothing -but memory to live upon in all the years that are to come: and he may -live to be ninety, a haunted man! I have done with the world, Father -Cyprian. Am I to walk about like a dead man for ten or twenty or thirty -years? I have done with the world. I want to give the rest of my life -to the God you and my mother believe in." - -"You would not want to do that if you were not a believer." - -"I was reared in the true faith. Yes, I believe. Help thou mine -unbelief." - -"I will help you with all my heart; but I do not think you are of the -stuff that Benedictine monks are made of; and it is a foolish thing -to put your hand to the plough, unless you have the force of mind to -finish your furrow." - -"I will finish my furrow." - -"And break your mother's heart, perhaps. Your love is all she has in -this life, except her religion." - -"Her religion is no less a force than her love. My neglect of my duties -has been a grief to her. She has never ceased to remonstrate with me, -to remind me of my boyish ardour, my days of implicit faith." - -"She wants to see you return to the faith, and the obedience, of those -days; but it would distress her if you took a step that would mean -separation from her." - -"That would be inconsistent, after all her sermons." - -"Women are apt to be inconsistent--even the best of them." - -"In any case, even if my mother should object, which I think unlikely, -I have made up my mind. I had time to commune with my soul in that -three hours' walk through the darkness. I came to you this night fully -resolved not to ask your advice as to the step, but your help in taking -it. Where can I go? To whom can I submit myself?" - -"Frankly, Claude, I am too much in the dark to help you. Come to me at -my church to-morrow morning after mass, with your mind more at rest, -and make your confession. Let me see into the bottom of your heart. I -cannot talk to a man behind a mask. I can say nothing till I know all." - -"No, I cannot do that. I must have time. I want solitude and a cell. -I want to shake off the husk of the world I have lived in too long. I -want to be done with earthly desires. I shall have a new mind when I am -in my woollen gown." - -"Alas, Claude, I doubt, I doubt. Do you remember all we talked about -when you were last in this room--a long time ago?" - -"Yes, I remember." - -"You remember how I tried to awaken you to the danger of your relations -with Mario Provana's wife." - -"Those are things a man does not forget." - -"You denied the danger; but you did not deny your love. You gave me -your assurance, not as to a priest, but between man and man, that no -evil should ever come of that love." - -"Yes, I remember. I was not afraid of myself. I belong to the great -army of triflers and dilettanti--I am not of the stuff that passionate -lovers are made of." - -"But now Death has intervened, and the situation is changed. Two years -hence you might marry your cousin without shame to either, without -disrespect to the dead. Are you capable of renouncing that hope by -burying yourself in a cloister? Are you equal to the sacrifice? Would -there be no looking back, no repentance?" - -"I shall never marry my cousin Vera." - -"Because she does not love you? Is that the reason?" - -"No need to enter into details, or to count the cost. I have made up my -mind. For once in my life I have a purpose and a will." - -"You seem in earnest." - -The words came slowly, like a spoken doubt, and the priest's searching -eyes were on the pale face in front of him. The countenance where the -refinement of race--a long line of well-born men and women, showed in -every lineament. - -"This sudden resolve of yours is inexplicable," the priest continued -in a troubled voice, after a silence that seemed long. "It is not in -your temperament or your manner of life, since you came into a man's -inheritance, to cut yourself off from all that makes life pleasant to a -young man with talent, attractiveness, and independence. I would give -much to know your reason for such a step." - -"Haven't I told you, my dear friend? _Welt Schmerz._ Isn't that enough?" - -"No, it is not enough. _Welt Schmerz_ is the chronic disease of a -decadent age. If every sufferer from _Welt Schmerz_ were to turn monk, -this world would be a monastery. It is a phase in every man's life--or -a pose. I know it is not that with you. There is something behind, -Claude--something at the back of your mind. Something that you must -tell me, before I can be of any real help to you. But you are your -mother's son, and were you steeped in sin, I would do my uttermost to -help you. Come to me the day after to-morrow. I shall have had time to -think over your case, and you will be in a better mood for considering -the situation: to surrender this worldly life and all it holds is not a -light thing that a man should do in a fit of the blues, a man still on -the sunward side of forty. I, who have entered my seventh decade, have -no yearnings for a woollen gown." - -"I have made up my mind," Claude repeated, in a dull, dead voice, the -voice of an obstinate man. "Good night." - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - - -The six weeks' captivity on the hill in Sussex had been a success, and -Vera was able to leave England before the first November fog descended -upon Portland Place. She was in Rome, in the city where she had spent -the happiest period of her life--the time in which she had first known -what it meant for a woman to be adored, and lovely, and immeasurably -rich. There she had first known the power of wealth and the influence -of beauty; for her husband's position and her own attractions had -assured her an immediate social success, and had made her a star in -Roman society during her first season, while, over and above all other -graces, she had the charm of novelty. But it was not the memory of -social triumphs or of gratified vanity that was with her as she sat -alone in the too spacious saloon, or roamed with languid step through -other rooms as spacious and as lonely. - -Sympathy had flowed in upon her from all her Roman acquaintances, and -acquaintances of divers nationalities, the birds of passage, American, -French, Spanish, German. Cards and little notes had descended upon the -villa like a summer hailstorm; and she had responded with civility, but -with no uncertain tone. Her mourning was to be a long mourning; and her -seclusion was to be absolute. She had come to live a solitary life in -her villa and gardens, to wander among ruins and steep herself in the -poetry of the city. She had come not to the Rome of the present, but -to the Rome of the past. This was how she explained her life to the -officious people who wanted to force distractions upon her; and who in -secret were already hatching matrimonial schemes by which the Provana -millions might be made to infuse new life into princely races that were -perishing in financial atrophy. - -The Villa Provana was on high ground, beyond the Porta del Popolo, and -the view from the gardens commanded the roofs and towers and cupolas of -the city, and the dominating mass of the great basilica, which dwarfs -all other monuments, and reduces papal Rome, with its heterogeneous -roofs and turrets, steeples and obelisks, to a mere foreground for that -one stupendous dome. - -Day after day, in those short winter afternoons, Vera stood on the -terrace in front of the villa, leaning languidly against the marble -balustrade, and watching the evening mists rising slowly over the city, -and the grey of the great dome gradually deepening to purple, while -the golden light in the west grew more intense, and orange changed to -crimson. - -She was never tired of gazing at that incomparable prospect. How often -in her honeymoon year she had stood there, with Mario Provana at her -side, questioning him with a childish delight, and making him point -out and explain every tower and every cupola, the classic, the papal, -the old and the new; churches, palaces, public buildings, municipal -and royal, picture-galleries, museums, fountains! It was there, as an -idolised young wife, with her husband's strong arm supporting her, as -she leant against him, in the pleasant fatigue after a day of pleasure, -that she had learnt to know Rome, and that she had discovered how -dearly the hard man of business loved the city of his birth. It was -there he had told her what Victor Emanuel and Cavour--the soldier and -the statesman--had done for Italy; and how that which had been but a -geographical expression, a patchwork of petty states--for the most part -under foreign rulers--had become the name of a great nation in the van -of progress. - -She thought of him now, evening after evening, in the unbroken silence -and solitude of the long terrace on the crown of the hill, and only a -little lower than the terrace on the Pincio. She looked backward across -the arid desert of her five years of society under Disbrowe influences, -five years of life that seemed worthless and joyless compared with that -year of a happiness she had almost forgotten, till her husband's death -carried all her thoughts back to the past: to the time when she had -given him love for love; to the days that she could think of without -remorse. - -"Oh, God, if I had died at the end of that year, what a happy life mine -would have been!" - -She thought of the tomb on the Campagna, the splendid monument of a -husband's love, near which she had sat in her carriage with Mario to -watch the gathering of a gay crowd, and the flash of red coats against -the clear blue of a December day, the hounds trotting lightly in front -of huntsman and whip, the women in their short habits, patent-leather -boots flashing against new saddles; men on well-bred hunters; the whole -picture so modern and so trivial against the fortress tomb with its -mystery of a distant past--only a name to suggest the story of two -lives. - -"If I had only died then," she thought. - -To have ended her life in that year of gladness, innocent, beloved, -while all her world was lovely in the freshness of life's morning. To -have died then, before the blight of disillusion or the taint of sinful -thought had touched her, to have passed out of the world, beloved and -worthy of love, and to have been laid to rest in the cemetery at San -Marco, beside her girl friend. Ah, what a happy destiny! And now what -was to be her doom? A cold breath touched her as she leaned over the -balustrade, with her hands clasped over her eyes, a cold breath that -thrilled her and made her tremble. It was only the cooler wind of -evening, breathing across the gathering shadows, but it startled her by -the suggestion of a human presence. - -She rose from the marble bench where she had been sitting since the sun -began to sink behind the umbrella pines on a hill in the distance, and -while the far-reaching level of the Campagna began to look like the -blue waters of a sea in the lessening light, and walked slowly back -to the villa, by the long terrace, and under a pergola where the last -roses showered their petals upon her as she passed. - -The lamps were lighted in the saloon, and logs were burning in the -vast fireplace at the end of the room, a distant glow and brightness, -a pleasing spot of colour in a melancholy picture, but of not much -avail for warmth in a room of fifty feet by twenty-five, with a ceiling -twenty feet high. But the comfort of the villa was not dependent upon -smouldering olive logs or spluttering pine-cones. There was a hot-water -system, the most expensive and the best, for supplying all those -palatial rooms with an equable and enervating atmosphere. - -There was a letter lying on Vera's book-table, a table that always -stood by her armchair at one side of the monumental chimneypiece. This -spot was her own, her island in that ocean of space. This chair was -large enough to absorb her, and when she was sitting in it, the room -looked empty, and a servant had to come near her table before he could -be sure she was there. - -She took up the letter, and looked at the address wonderingly. It -had not come by post. There was something familiar in the writing. -It reminded her of Claude's; and then, in a moment, she remembered. -The letter was from Mrs. Rutherford. Little notes had been exchanged -between them in past years, notes of invitation from Vera, replies, -mostly courteous refusals, from the elder lady. - -Mrs. Rutherford must be in Rome. Strange! Had she, too, come to winter -there? - - "MY DEAR VERA, - - "I hear you are at your villa, living in seclusion and refusing all - visits; but I think you will make an exception for me, as it is - vital for me to see you. I am in great trouble, and I want your - help--badly. I shall call on you at noon to-morrow. Pray do not shut - your door against me. - - "Yours affectionately, - "MAGDALEN RUTHERFORD." - -The address was of one of the smaller and quieter hotels in the great -city, a house unknown to the tourist, English or American: a house -patronised only by what are called "nice people." - -Trouble! What could be Mrs. Rutherford's trouble? Had she anything in -this world to be glad or sorry about, except her son? - -The letter gave Vera a night of agitation and feverish dreams, and she -spent the hour before noon pacing up and down the great room, deadly -pale in the dense blackness of her long crape gown. - -It was not five minutes past the hour when Mrs. Rutherford was -announced. She, too, was pale, and she, too, wore black, but not -mourning. - -"You are kind to let me see you," she said, clasping Vera's hand. - -"How could I refuse? I am so sorry you are in trouble. Is it--" her -voice became tremulous, "is it anything about Claude? Is he ill?" - -"No, he is not ill, unless it is in mind. But the trouble is about him, -a new and unexpected trouble. A thunderbolt!" - -The terror in Vera's face startled her. She thought the frail figure -would drop at her feet in a dead faint, and she caught her by the arm. - -"I think you may help me. You and he were great friends, pals, Susan -Amphlett called you." - -"Yes, we were pals. He was so good to me at Disbrowe, years and years -ago." - -"Yes, I know. He has often talked of that time. Well, you were great -friends; and a young man will sometimes open his mind more to a woman -friend than he will to his mother. Did Claude ever talk to you of his -Church, of his remorse for his neglect of his religion, of his wanting -to give up the world, to end a useless life in a monastery?" - -"Never." - -"I thought not. It is a sudden caprice; there is no real strength of -purpose in it. He is disgusted and disappointed. He has made a failure -of his life, and he is angry with, himself, and sick to death of -Society. Such a man cannot go on being trivial for ever. A life without -purpose can but end in disgust. My poor child, you are shivering, and -can hardly stand. Let us go nearer the fire. Sit down, and let us talk -quietly--and be kind, and bear with a foolish old woman, who sees the -joy of her life slipping away from her." - -The visitor's quick eye had noticed the great armchair and book-table -by the hearth, and knew that it was Vera's place. She led her there, -made her sit down, and took a chair by her side. - -"Now we shall be warm and comfortable, and can look my trouble in the -face." - -"Tell me all about it," Vera said quietly, with her hand in Mrs. -Rutherford's. - -The wave of agitation had passed. She spoke slowly, but her voice was -no longer tremulous. - -"I dare say, if you have ever thought of me in the past, you have given -me credit for being a strong-minded woman." - -"Claude has told me of your strength of will--the right kind of -strength." - -"And now I have to confess myself to you, as weak, unstable, -inconsistent; caring for my son's love for me more than I care for his -eternal welfare." - -"No, no, I can never believe that." - -"But you will believe it when I tell you that he has taken the first -step towards separating himself for ever from this sinful world, and -giving the rest of his life to God; and that I am here in this city, -here pleading with you, to try to change his purpose and win him back -to the world." - -"Oh!" said Vera, with a faint cry. "Has he made up his mind?" - -"He thinks he has. But oh, what shall I do without him? It is -horrible, selfish, unworthy; but I can only think of myself and my own -desolate old age. Only a few years more, perhaps, only a few years -of solitude and mourning; but my mind and heart rise in rebellion -against Fate. I cannot bear my life without him. Again and again I -have urged him to remember the faith in which he was reared; I have -tried to awaken him to the call of the Church; I have begged Father -Hammond to use his influence to rekindle the fervour of religion that -made my son's boyish mind so lovely: and now when he has gone beyond -my prayers, and wants to renounce this sinful world, I am a weak, -miserable woman, and my despairing cry is to call him back to the life -he has grown weary of. Do you not despise me, Vera?" - -"No, no. I can understand. It is natural for a mother to feel as you -feel; but, all the same, I think if he has made up his mind to retire -into a monastery, it is your duty to let him go. Think what it is for a -man to spend his last years in reconciling himself with God. Think of -the peace that may come with self-sacrifice. Think what it is to escape -out of this sinful world--into a place of silence and prayer, and to -know that one's sins are forgiven." - -"He has no sins that need the sacrifice of half a life. He has been -the dearest of sons, the kindest of friends, honourable, generous, -straightforward. Why should he shut himself in a monastery to find -forgiveness for trivial sins, and neglect of religious forms? He can -lead a new and better life in the world of action, where he can be of -use to his fellow-men. Even Father Hammond has never advised him to -turn monk. He can worship God, and lead the Christian life, without -renouncing all that is lovely in the world God made for us." - -Vera listened with a steadfast face, and her tones were calm and -decided when she replied. - -"Dear Mrs. Rutherford, the heart knoweth its own bitterness. I think, -the better you love your son the less you should come between him and a -resolve that must give him peace, if it can never give him happiness." - -For the first time since Mrs. Rutherford had been with her, Vera's -eyes filled with tears, tears that overflowed and streamed down the -colourless cheeks, and that it needed all her strength to check. - -"You surprise me," the elder woman cried passionately, flinging away -the hand that she had been holding. "You surprise me. I came to you for -sympathy, sure that I should find it, believing that you cared for my -son almost as much as I care for him. You were his chosen friend--he -devoted half his days to you. The closeness of your friendship made -malicious people say shameful things, and has given me many an unhappy -hour; and now, at this crisis of his life, when he is bent upon burying -himself alive in a monastery--entering some severe order, for whose -rule of hardship and deprivation he is utterly unfit, a kind of life -that will break his heart and bring him to an early grave--you preach -to me of his finding peace in those dreary walls--peace--as if he were -the worst of sinners." - -"No, no, you don't understand me. Father Hammond has told me about -the monastic life--the Benedictines, La Trappe. He has told me what -happiness has been found in that life of solitude and prayer by those -who have renounced the world." - -"Was it you who inspired this extraordinary resolve?" - -"_I?_ No, indeed. I knew nothing of it till you told me." - -"What? He could take such a step without consulting you, without -confiding in you--his closest friend?" - -"Was it likely that he would tell me, if he did not tell his mother?" - -"He told me nothing till he had come here; to make a retreat in a -monastery; to give himself time for meditation and thought, before he -took any decisive step. He is here in Rome, and has been here for some -time. My first knowledge of his decision was a letter he sent me from -here. Such an unsatisfactory letter, giving no adequate reason for his -resolve, only vague words about his weariness of life and the world." - -"What else could he say? That must always be the reason. One gets tired -of everything--and then one turns to God--and a life of prayer seems -best. It is death in life; but it may mean peace." - -"Vera, I was never more shocked and disappointed. I thought you loved -him when love was sin. I thought you loved him at the peril of your -soul; and now, when a terrible calamity has left you free to do what -you like with the rest of your life, now, when however deeply you may -mourn for your husband's awful death, and grieve over any sins of -omission in your married life, yet there must needs be the far-off -thought of years to come, when without self-reproach, you may give -yourself to a lover who in years and temperament would be your natural -companion----" - -"There has been no such thought in my mind," Vera said coldly. "I shall -never cease to mourn for Mario Provana's death. I have nothing else in -the world to live for." - -"My poor girl. It is only natural that you should feel like that. I -did wrong to speak of the future. You have passed through a horrible -ordeal, and it may be long before you can forget. But you are too kind -not to be sorry for a mother who is threatened with the loss of all -that she has of joy and comfort in this world." - -"I am very sorry for you," Vera said, with a mechanical air, as if her -thoughts were far away. - -"Then you will help me?" Mrs. Rutherford cried eagerly. - -"How can I help you?" - -"You can appeal to my son. You may have more influence over him than -I. I believe you have more influence," with a touch of bitterness. -"However indifferent you may be, and may have always been to him, I -know that he was devoted to you, that you could have led him, if you -had cared to lead him. And he will listen to you now, he will have pity -upon me, if you plead for me, if you tell him what it is for a mother -to part with the son of nearly forty years' cherishing, who represents -all her life on earth, past, present, and to come. I cannot live -without him, Vera. I thought that I was strong in faith, and patience, -and resignation, till this trouble came upon me. I thought that I was a -religious woman; but now I know that the God I worshipped was of clay, -and that when I prayed and tried to lift my thoughts to Heaven it was -only of my son that I thought, only for his welfare that I prayed. -Help me, Vera, if you have a heart that can love and sympathise with -another's love. Plead with him, tell him how few the years are for a -woman of my age; and that there will be time enough for him to bury -himself alive in a monastery when I am at rest. His dedication of those -later years will not be less precious in the sight of God, because he -has deferred the sacrifice for his mother's sake." - -"I cannot think that he will listen to me, if he has not yielded to -you; I know he loves you dearly." - -"He did love me--never was there a better son. But he changed all at -once. It was as if something had broken his life. But I think you can -melt his heart. He will understand my grief better when it is brought -home to him by another. I am to see him to-morrow afternoon, and I -shall be allowed to take you with me. Will you come?" - -The entreaty was so insistent, so agonising, that Vera could only bend -her head in mute acquiescence. - -Mrs. Rutherford threw her arms round the frail figure and strained it -to her breast. - -"My dearest girl, I knew you would have pity upon me. I will call for -you to-morrow at half-past two. The house is on the hill, beyond the -Medici Villa--a lovely spot--but to me, though it is only a place of -probation, it seems like a grave. Vera!" with a sudden passion, "if -I thought that this step were for his happiness, I believe I could -submit; but when I parted with him last week his face was the face of -despair. How changed, oh, my God, how changed!" - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - - -Mrs. Rutherford and Vera drove to the hill behind the Medici Villa in -the golden light of a Roman November, when the gardens on the height -were glowing with foliage that seemed made of fire, and only cypress -and ilex showed dark against that splendour of red and amber; but to -those two women all that beauty of autumn colour, and purple distances, -of fairy-like gardens, and flashing fountains, was part of a world that -was dead. The metaphysician's idea of the universe as an emanation of -the individual mind is so far borne out by experience, that in a great -grief the universe ceases to exist. - -The room to which one of the brotherhood led them faced the western sky -and was full of golden light when the two women entered. - -It was a room that had once been splendid; but of all its splendour -nothing was left but vast space, and the blurred and faded outlines of -a fresco upon the ceiling. - -The two women stood within the doorway looking to the other end of the -room, where a solitary figure was sitting, huddled in a large armchair, -in front of a fireplace that looked like an open tomb, where a little -heap of smouldering logs upon a spacious hearth seemed a hollow mockery -of a fire meant for warmth. That crouching form with contracted -shoulders, and wasted hands stretched above the feeble fire-glow--could -that be Claude Rutherford? - -Vera shivered in the chillness of the dismal scene, where even the vast -window, and the golden west, could not relieve the sense of cold and -gloom. - -Yes, it was Claude! He started to his feet as Mrs. Rutherford moved -slowly along the intervening space. He looked beyond her, surprised at -the second figure, and then, with one brief word to his mother, hurried -past her and came to Vera. - -He clasped her hands, he drew her towards the window, drew her into -the golden light, where she stood transfigured, like the Madonna in a -picture by Fra Angelico, glorious and all gold. - -He looked at her as a traveller who had been dying of thirst in a -desert might look at a fountain of clear water. - -It was a long, long look, in which it seemed as if he were drinking -the beauty of the face he looked at, as if, in those moments, he tried -to satisfy the yearning of days and nights of severance. It seemed as -if he could never cease to look; as if he could never let her go. Then -suddenly he dropped her hand, and turned from her to his mother, who -was standing a little way off. - -"Why have you done this?" he asked vehemently. - -"Because you would not listen to me. No prayers, no tears of mine would -move you. I was breaking my heart, and I thought she might prevail when -I failed; I knew her influence over you, and that she might move you." - -"It was a cruel thing to do. I knew she was in Rome, that we were -breathing the same air. The thought of her was with me by day and -night. Yet I was rock. I made myself iron, I clung to the cross, like -the saints of old time, who had all been sinners. Vera, why have you -come between me and my God?" - -"I could not see your mother so unhappy and refuse to do what she -asked. Oh, Claude, forget that I came here. Forget that we have ever -clasped hands since--since you resolve to separate yourself from the -world. I will not come between you and the saving of your soul." - -"Vera," Mrs. Rutherford cried passionately, "have you no compassion for -me? Is this how you help me?" - -"You know that I refused, that I did not want to see him. I ought never -to have come. But it is over. We shall never meet again, Claude. This -is the last--the very last." - -"Heartless girl. Have you no thought of my grief?" urged the mother. - -"No, not when I think of him. If you can come between him and his hope -of heaven--I cannot." She turned and walked quickly to the door without -another word. Mrs. Rutherford cast one despairing look at her son, -before she followed the vanishing figure, muttering, "Cruel, cruel, a -heart of stone!" - -No words were exchanged between the two women as they left the -monastery, conducted by the monk, who had waited for them in the stony -corridor at the top of the broad marble stairs. He let them out of -the heavy iron-lined door, into the neglected garden, where a long -row of cypresses showed dark against a saffron sky. The greater part -of the garden had been utilised for growing vegetables, upon which -the brotherhood for the most part subsisted. Huge orange-red pumpkins -sprawled among beds of kale, and patches of Indian corn were golden -amidst the rusty green of artichokes gone to seed. - -It was a melancholy place, and the aspect of it sent an icy chill -through Mrs. Rutherford's heart as she thought of that light, airy -temperament which had been her son's most delightful gift, the -gay insouciance, the joyous outlook that had made him everybody's -favourite. He the jester, the trifler, for whom life was always -play-time, he to be shut within those frozen walls, immured in a living -grave! It was maddening even to think of it. She had talked to him of -his religious duties. Oh, God, was it her old woman's preaching that -had brought him to this living death? - -Vera bade her good-bye at the gate, saying that she would rather walk -than drive, and left Mrs. Rutherford to return to her hotel alone. - -"I wonder which of us two is the more unhappy?" she thought. "Why do I -wonder? What is her misery measured against mine?" - -For Claude a night of fever followed that impassioned meeting, a night -of sleeplessness and semi-delirium. For the first time since he had -been a visitor in that house of gloom he got up at two o'clock and -went to the chapel, where the monks met for prayer and meditation at -that hour. As a probationer making his retreat he was not subject to -the severe rules of the order, and he need not leave his bed till -four o'clock unless he chose. This night he went to the dimly-lighted -chapel, and knelt on the chill stone, for respite from agonising -thoughts, from the insidious whispers of the tempter. This night he -went into the House of God to escape from the dominion of Satan. - -Hitherto he had borne his time of probation with a stoical submission. -He had sought no relaxation of the rule for penitents on the threshold. -He had lain upon the narrow bed and shivered in the chilly room, and -risen in the winter dark, to lie down again sleepless, at an hour when -a little while ago his night of pleasure would have been still at full -tide. He had submitted to the repellent fare, the vegetables cooked -in half rancid oil, coarse bread and gritty coffee. He, who had been -always a creature of delicate habits, accustomed to the uttermost -refinement in every detail of daily life--his food, his toilet, his -surroundings. - -He had shrunk from no burden that was laid upon him, earnestly intent -upon keeping his promise to Father Hammond. He was to spend six weeks -in this place of silence and prayer, and at the end of that time he -was to make his confession to the Superior, and to make his communion. -Then would follow the slow stages of preparation for the final act, -which would admit him to the brotherhood, and shut the door of the -world upon all the rest of his life. He had learnt to think of that -awful change with a stoic's resignation. He had brought himself to a -Roman temper. He thought with indifference of the world which he was to -renounce. He had done with it. This had been the state of his mind as -he shivered over the smouldering olive logs. This iron calm, and his -stony contempt for life, had been his till that moment of ecstasy when -the woman he loved stood before him, a vision of ethereal beauty in the -light of the setting sun. - -Why had she come there? Why? The penitential days and nights, the -stoic's iron resolve, all were gone in one breath from those sweet -lips, faint and pale, but ineffably beautiful. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - - -It was a little less than three weeks after the meeting in the house of -silence; but to Vera the interval seemed an endless procession of slow, -grey days and fevered nights--nights of intolerable length, in which -she listened to the beating of the blood against her skull, now slow -and rhythmical, now tempestuous and irregular--endless nights in which -sleep seemed the most unlikely thing that could happen, a miracle for -which she had left off hoping. In all that time she had heard no more -of Mrs. Rutherford, though the daily chronicle that kept note of every -stranger in Rome still printed her name among the inmates of the Hotel -Marguerita. - -She was angry and unforgiving. Unhappy mother! Unhappy son! - -Two pairs of horses had to be exercised daily, but Vera had no orders -for the stables. That monotonous parade in the Pincio, which every -other woman of means in Rome made a part of her daily life, had no -attraction for Signor Provana's widow. The villa gardens, funereal in -their winter foliage of ilex and arbutus, sufficed for relief from -the long hours within four walls. Wrapped in her sable coat, with the -wind blowing upon her uncovered head, she paced the long terraces for -hours on end, or sat like a statue on the marble bench that had been -dug out of the ruins of imperial baths. But though she spent half her -days in the gardens she took no interest in them. She never stopped to -watch the gardeners at work upon the flower-beds, never questioned them -about their preparations for the spring. Thousands of bulbs were being -planted daily, but she never wanted to learn what resurrection of vivid -colour would come from those brown balls which the men were dropping -into the earth. She walked about like a corpse alive! The men almost -shrank from her as she passed them, as if they had seen a ghost. - -She could never forget that last meeting with her lover. The last--the -very last. She sat with her arms folded on the marble balustrade, and -her head resting on the folded arms, with her face hidden from the -clear, cold light of a December afternoon. - -Her gaze was turned inward; and it was only with that inward gaze that -she saw things distinctly. The outside world was blurred and dim, but -the pictures memory made were vivid. - -She saw Claude's agonised look, saw the melancholy eyes gazing at her: -the yearning love, the despairing renunciation. - -Mrs. Rutherford had called her cruel, but was not the cruelty far -greater that submitted her to that heart-rending ordeal? - -To sit brooding thus, with her arms upon the cold marble, had been -so much a habit with her of late, that in these melancholy reveries -she had often lost count of time, till the sound of some convent bell -startled her as it told the lateness of the hour, or till the creeping -cold of sundown awoke her with a shiver. In that city of the Church -there were many bells--all with their particular call to prayer, and -she could have told the progress of the day and night without the help -of a clock. Now it was the bell of the Trinità del Monte, for the -office of Benediction, distant and silvery sweet in the clear air. It -was a warning to go back to the house--yet she did not stir. Solitude -here, with the cold wind blowing upon her, and the twitter of birds -among the branches, was better than the atmosphere of those silent -rooms. - -She raised her head at the sound of a footstep, not the leisurely tread -of one of the gardeners, heavy and slow. This step was light and rapid, -so rapid that before she had time to wonder, it had stopped close -beside her, and two strong arms were holding her, and quick, sobbing -breath was fluttering her hair. - -"Don't be frightened! Vera, my angel, my beloved!" - -She tried to release herself, tried to stand upright, but the -passionate arms held her to the passionate heart. - -"Claude, are you mad?" - -"No. Madness is over. Sanity has come back. I am yours again, my -beloved, yours as I was that night--before a great horror parted us. -I am all your own--your lover--your husband, whatever you will. The -miserable slave you saw in the monastery is dead. I am yours, and only -yours. I have no separate existence. I want no other heaven! Heaven is -here, in your arms. Nothing else matters." - -"My God! Have you left the monastery!" - -"For ever. I bore it till last night--but that was a night of hell. I -told the Superior this morning that I was not of the stuff that makes a -martyr or a monk. He was horrified. To him I seemed a son of the devil. -Well, I will worship Satan sooner than lose you. I am your lover, -Vera--nothing else in this sublunary world. 'We'll jump the life to -come.'" - -She clung to him in the ecstasy of reunion, and their lips met in a -kiss more tragic than Francesca's and Paolo's, for their guilt was yet -to come; while with Vera and her lover guilt had been consummated. - -Presently, with a sudden revulsion, she snatched herself from his arms, -and stood looking at him reproachfully. - -"Oh, my dearest, why did you not stand firm? Think how little this poor -life of ours means compared with that which comes after." - -"I leave the after-life to the illuminated--to Symeon and his -following. I want nothing but the woman I love. Here or hereafter, for -me there is nothing else. Vera, forget that I ever tried to forsake -you--that I ever set my soul's ransom above my thoughts of you. It -was a short madness, a cowardly endeavour. Forget it all, as I shall -from this hour. Here are you and I--in this little world which is the -only one we know--with just a few more years of youth and love. Let -us make the most of them; and when the fire of life dies down, when -these fierce heart-throbs are over, we will give our fading years to -penitence and prayer." - -This is what happens when a man of Claude Rutherford's temperament puts -his hand to the plough. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - - -Just two years after the sudden close of Mr. Rutherford's retreat -there was a quiet wedding in Father Hammond's chapel--a bride without -bridesmaids, a marriage without music, a bride in a pale grey gown and -a black hat, with just a sprinkling of the Disbrowe clan to keep her in -countenance. Three stately aunts, Lady Okehampton being by far the most -human of the three, and their three noble husbands, with Lady Susan -Amphlett, vivacious as ever, and immensely pleased with her friend. - -From a conversational point of view she had been living upon this -marriage all through the little season of November fog and small -dinner-parties at restaurants or at home. She knew so much more than -anybody else, and what she knew was what everybody wanted to know. She -discussed the subject at Ritz's, at Claridge's, at the Savoy, at the -Carlton, and seemed to have something fresh to say at each place of -entertainment. There was more variety in her information than even in -the _hors d'oeuvres_, which rise in a crescendo of novelty in unison -with the newness of the hotel. - -People wondered they had not married sooner, since, of course, -everybody knew it must end in marriage. - -Susie shrugged her pretty shoulders, and flashed her diamond necklace -at the company. - -"The sweet thing is _exaltée_. She is one of Francis Symeon's flock; -and she thought respect for her husband obliged her to wait two years. -She only left off her mourning last week." - -"But considering that she was carrying on with Rutherford years before -Provana's death?" - -"You none of you understand her. Their friendship was purely platonic. -She and I were like sisters, and I was in and out of her house just as -Claude was. There never was a more innocent attachment. I used to call -them Paul and Virginia." - -"I should think Paolo and Francesca would be more like it," murmured -one of the company. - -Susie shook her fan at him. - -"You men will never believe in a virtuous friendship. However, there -they are--absolutely devoted to each other. They will be the happiest -couple in London, and they mean to entertain a great deal." - -"Then I hope they are on the look-out for a pearl among chefs. People -won't go to Portland Place to eat second-rate dinners." - -"Provana's dinners were admirable, and his wines the finest in London." - -Then there came the question of settlements. How much of her millions -had Mrs. Provana settled upon Rutherford? - -"I don't think there has been any settlement." - -"The more fool he," muttered a matter-of-fact guardsman. "What's the -use of marrying a rich woman if you don't get some of the stuff?" - -"Don't I tell you they are like Paul and Virginia?" said Susie. - - * * * * * - -The Provana murder had died out long before this as a source of -interest and wonder. It had flourished and faded like a successful -novel, or a play that takes the town by storm one year and is forgotten -the year after. The Provana mystery had gone to the dust-heap of old -things. Slowly and gradually people had resigned themselves to the -knowledge that this murder must take its place among the long list of -crimes that are never to be punished by the law. - -Romantic people clung to their private solutions of the tragical -enigma. These were as sure of the identity of the murderer as if they -had seen him red-handed. The quiet marriage in the Roman Catholic -chapel revived the interest in the half-forgotten crime, and Lady Susan -had the additional kudos of a close association with the event. - -"Vera and I were together at Lady Fulham's ball within two or three -hours of that poor fellow's death," she told her friends at a Savoy -supper-table. "I never saw her look so lovely, in one of her mermaid -frocks, and a necklace and girdle of single diamonds that flashed like -water-drops. Other people's jewels looked vulgar compared with hers. -She was in wonderful spirits, stayed late, and danced all the after -supper waltzes. She was fey." - -"Rutherford was there, of course?" said someone. - -"Of course," echoed Susan; "why shouldn't he be there? Everybody was -there." - -"But everybody couldn't waltz or sit out with Madame Provana all the -evening, as I heard he did," remarked a middle-aged matron, fixing -Susan with her long-handled eyeglass. - -"Why shouldn't they waltz? They are cousins, and have always been -pals, and they waltz divinely. To watch them is to understand what -Shakespeare meant by the poetry of motion. Everything Vera does is a -poem. Every frock she wears shows that she is a poet's daughter. And -now they are married, and are going to be utterly happy," concluded -Susie with conviction. - -The world in general does not relish that idea of idyllic -happiness--especially in the case of multi-millionaires. It is -consoling--when one is not a millionaire--to think of some small -counterbalance to that overweening good luck, some little rift within -the lute. - -A cynic, as cold and sour as the aspic he was eating, shrugged his -shoulders. - -"If I had a daughter I was fond of, I don't think I would trust the -chances of her happiness to Claude Rutherford," he said quietly. - -"Claude is quite adorable," said a fourteen-stone widow, whose opulent -shoulders and triple necklaces had been the central point of the public -gaze at the theatre that evening. - -"Much too adorable to make one woman happy. A man of that kind has to -spread himself. It must be diffused light, not the concentrated glow -of the domestic hearth," said the cynic, smiling at the bubbles in his -glass. - -Everybody found something to say about Vera and her husband. Certainly -their behaviour since Provana's death had been exemplary. They had -never been seen about together, at home or abroad. The house in -Portland Place had been closed, and the widow had lived in Italy, -a recluse, seeing no one. Half the time had been spent by Claude -Rutherford in Africa, hunting big game with a famous sportsman. The -other half in well-known studios in Antwerp and Paris. He had thrown -off his lazy, dilettante habits, and had gone in for art with a curious -renewal of energy. The man was altered somehow. His old acquaintance -discovered a change in him: a change for the better, most likely, -though they did not all think so. - -And now he had attained the summit of mortal bliss, as possible to a -man of nine-and-thirty, who had wasted the morning of life. He had won -a lovely woman whom he was supposed to adore, and whose wealth ought to -be inexhaustible. - -"However hard he tries, I don't see how he can run through such a -fortune as that," his friends said. - -"That kind of quiet, unpretentious man has often a marvellous faculty -for getting rid of money," said another; "it oozes out of his pockets -without the labour of spending. Rutherford is sure to gamble. A man of -that temperament is too idle to find excitement for himself. He wants -it ready-made--at the baccarat table, or on the turf." - -"Well, it will last him a few years, at the worst, and then he can go -into the Charter-house." - -The idea of Claude Rutherford going to bed at ten o'clock in the -Charter-house made everybody laugh. - - * * * * * - -The long interval of mourning and probation, of melancholy solitude on -Vera's part, and of forced occupation on Claude's, was over: and they -two, who in thought and feeling had been long one, were now united in -that closer bond which only death or sin can sever. In the intensity of -that union it seemed to them as if they had never lived asunder, as if -all of their existence that had gone before were no more than a long, -dull dream, the grey monotony of life that was less than life, hard and -mechanical even in its so-called pleasures. - -"I never lived till now," she told him, when she was folded to his -heart, in their sumptuous alcove in the great room in Venice, in an -hotel that had been a palace, an alcove surrounded with a balustrade, a -bed that had been made for a king. "I never lived till now--for now I -know that nothing can part us. We belong to each other till death." - -"If it were now to die 'twere now to be most happy," he murmured in a -low, impassioned voice that soothed her like music. - -"And the past is dead," she whispered. - -"The past is dead." - -The voice that echoed her words had changed. - -The winter moonlight sent a flood of cold light across the shining -floor, and the glow of burning logs on the hearth glimmered redly under -the sculptured arch of the Byzantine fireplace. It was a wonderful room -in a wonderful city. Vera had never been in Venice till this night, -when she stepped from the station quay into the black boat that was to -bring them to the hotel, man and maid and luggage following in a second -gondola. To most travellers so arriving, Venice must needs seem a dream -city; but to Vera all life had been a dream since she had stood before -the altar and heard Father Hammond's grave voice pronounce the words -that made her Claude's wife. - -She had chosen Venice for their honeymoon, because it was the one -famous city in her beloved Italy in which she had never been with -Provana. - -"It will be all new and strange," she told Claude, and then came the -unspoken thought. "He will not be there." - -He had been with her in Rome, almost an inseparable companion, until -she had grown accustomed to the thought that he must be with her -always, wherever she went, an inseparable shadow; but with her marriage -the bond that held her to the past was broken, the shadow was lifted. -She was young again; young and thoughtless, living in the exquisite -hour, almost as happy as she had been when she was an impulsive, -light-hearted child of eleven, leaping on to her cousin's knee, and -nestling with her arms round his neck, while they watched the waves -racing towards the rock where they were sitting, she rather hoping that -the waters would rise round them and swallow them. That blue brightness -could hardly mean death. They would only become part of the sea--merman -and mermaid, children of the ocean. How much better than to return to -the dull lodgings, and Lidcott's harsh dominion! - -That solitude of two in the loveliest city in Europe seemed altogether -of the stuff that dreams are made of. They kept no count of the days -and hours. They made no plan for to-morrow. They wandered along the -_calle_, and in and out of the churches, in a desultory and casual -way, looking at pictures and statues without any precise knowledge -of what they were seeing--only a dreamy delight in things that were -beautiful themselves, and which awakened ideas of beauty. They spent -idle days in their gondola going from island to island, musing among -the historic arches of Torcello, or sauntering along the sands of -the Lido. The winter was mild even in England, and here soft air and -sunshine suggested April rather than December. It was a delicious -world, and in the seclusion of a gondola, or in the half-light of a -church, they seemed to have this lovely world all to themselves. There -were very few strangers in Venice at this season, and the residents had -something more to do than to wander about the narrow _calle_, or loiter -and look at things in the churches, or the Doge's Palace. These two -were learning Venice by heart in those leisurely saunterings, a little -listless sometimes, as of people whose lives had come to a dead stop. - -They never talked of the past, or only of that remote past when Vera -was a child, the time of childish happiness by the blue waves and dark -cliffs of North Devon. They talked very little of the future. Their -talk was of themselves, and of their love. They read Byron and Shelley -and Browning, and De Musset. They drank deep of the poetry that Venice -had inspired, until every stone in the City of Dreams seemed enchanted, -and every noble old mansion, given over perhaps now to commerce, -glass-blowers, and dealers in bric-à-brac, seemed a fairy palace. - -They drained the cup of life and love. Claude forgot that he had ever -thought of the woollen gown and the hempen girdle; Vera forgot that -she had ever seen him, haggard and hollow-eyed, crouching over the -smouldering olive logs in the monastery on the Roman hill. - -Early on their wedding journey, leaning against the side of the boat, -hand locked in hand, they had sworn to each other that all the past -should be forgotten. Come what, come might, in unknown Fate, they would -never remember. - -And now they were going back to London in the gay spring season, and -Lady Susan Amphlett had another innings. It was delicious to be moving -about in a world where everybody wanted to know things that only she -could tell them. - -"And are they really going to live in the house in Portland Place?" - -"Really, really. Where could they get such rooms, such air and space? -And that old Italian furniture is priceless. There is nothing better -in the Doria Palace. It took the Provana family more than a century to -collect it--even with their wealth." - -"Well, when I saw the painters at work outside I thought the house -must have been sold. This world seems full of strange people. How Vera -can reconcile herself to life in that house passes my comprehension. -I could understand her keeping the furniture; but to live inside -those four walls. I should fancy they were closing in upon me, like a -mediæval torture chamber." - -"Vera is all poetry and imagination, but she is not morbid." - -"Vera knows that we are in the midst of the unseen, and that our dead -are always near us," said a thrilling voice, and Lady Fanny Ransom's -dark eyes flashed across the table. "The house can make no difference -to her. If she loved her first husband she has not lost him." - -"Nice for her, but not so pleasant for her second," murmured a -matter-of-fact K.C. - -"She was utterly devoted to poor Provana," protested Susie, "but it was -the reverent looking-up kind of love that an innocent girl feels for -a man old enough to be her father. She has told me the story of their -courtship--so sweet--like Paul and Virginia." - -"A middle-aged Paul! I thought Rutherford was the hero of the Paul and -Virginia chapter of her history." - -"Oh, well, they were little lovers as children, and Vera and Claude are -the most ideal couple that ever the world has seen. They are going to -entertain in a sumptuous style. Their house will be the most popular in -London." - -"In spite of its being the scene of an unsolved mystery and -undiscovered crime. That's the worst of it," said sour middle-age in a -garnet necklace. "For my part, I could never sleep a wink in that awful -house." - -"Ah, but you'll be able to eat and drink in it," remarked Mr. -Hortentius, K.C., dryly. "We shall all dine there, if the dinners are -as good as they were in poor Provana's time." - -Poor Provana! That was his epitaph in the world. On the marble tomb at -San Marco, to which the dead man had been carried--in remembrance of a -desire expressed in those distant days when he and Vera wandered in the -olive woods--there was nothing but his name, and one word: "Re-united." - -Vera had been too ill and too much under the dominion of Lady -Okehampton to make the dismal journey with her dead; but she had gone -from Rome to San Marco, and had spent a melancholy hour in the secluded -corner where the cypress cast its long shadow on Guilia's tomb. - -She had stood by the tomb in a kind of stupor, hardly conscious of -the present, lost in a long dream of the past, living again through -those bright April days, with father and daughter, and hearing again -the ineffable tenderness in Mario Provana's voice, as he talked to his -dying child. What an abyss of time since those sad, sweet days! And now -there was nothing left but a name-- - - MARIO PROVANA - ---here, and in certain hospitals in London and Rome, where there were -wards or beds established in memory of Mario Provana. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - - -Mrs. Rutherford was the fashion in that first year of her second -marriage, just as she had been in her London début as Madame Provana. -It seemed as if one of the fairies at her christening had given her -that inexpressible charm which captivates the crowd, that elusive, -indescribable attractiveness which for want of a better name people -have agreed to call magnetism. Vera Rutherford was a magnetic woman. -Mr. Symeon went about telling people that she had psychic attributes -which removed her worlds away from the normal woman, and Miranda, the -only, the inimitable dressmaker, told her patronesses that it was a -delight to work for Mrs. Rutherford, not because she was rich enough -to pay for the wildest flights in millinery, but because her pale, -ethereal beauty lent itself to all that was daring and original in the -dress-designer's art. "People preach to me about Mrs. Montressor's -lovely colouring, and what a joy it must be to invent frocks for her; -but those pink and white beauties are difficult," said the dressmaker. -"They require much study. A _nuance_, just the faintest _nuance_ on -the wrong side, and your pink and white woman looks vulgar. A wrong -shade of blue and the peach complexion becomes purple, but with Mrs. -Rutherford's alabaster skin every scheme of colour is possible." - -Mrs. Rutherford was a social success, just as Madame Provana had been. -Her entertainments were as frequent and as sumptuous as in the old -days, when Mario Provana stalked like a stranger through crowded rooms -where hardly one face in twenty afforded him a moment's interest. The -entertainments were as sumptuous, but they were more original. The tone -was lighter, and gilded youth from the Embassies found the house more -amusing. - -"Vera is ten years younger since her second marriage," Lady Susie told -people; "Claude aids and abets her in everything frivolous. She used -to be just a little too dreamy--Oh, you may call it 'side,' but that -it never was. But she is certainly more sociable now; more eagerly -interested in the things that interest other people. Claude has made -her forget that she is a poet's daughter. She is as keen as mustard -about their house and racing stables at Newmarket. She goes to all the -big cricket matches with him, things she never thought of in Provana's -time. They are not like commonplace husband and wife, but like boy and -girl lovers, pleased with everything. I don't wonder Mr. Symeon thinks -she has degenerated. He says she is losing her other-world look, and is -fast becoming a mere mortal." - -"And as a mere mortal I hope she won't allow Rutherford to spend all -her money," said Susie's confidant, an iron-grey bachelor of fifty, who -spent the greater part of his life sitting in pretty women's pockets. -"A racing stud is a pretty deep pit for gold at the best; but a man -who has married a triple millionaire's widow may safely allow himself -one hobby. Rutherford goes in for too many things: his dirigible -balloons and his aeroplane, his racing cars and his motor launches: his -Ostend holiday, where people say he is hardly ever out of the gambling -rooms. Your friend had better keep an eye on her pass-book." - -"Vera!" cried Susie, with uplifted eyebrows. "Vera look at a pass-book!" - -"As a banker's widow she might be supposed to know that there are such -financial thermometers. She must have learnt something of business from -Provana." - -"She never took the slightest interest in his business, and he was far -too noble to degrade her by talking of money." - -"A pity," said the bachelor; "when a woman's husband is a great -financier he may want to talk about money; and his wife ought to be -interested in things that are of vital concern for him." - -"That's a counsel of perfection," said Susie, "and very few women rise -to it. All I have ever known about my husband is that he is interested -in railways and insurance companies and things, and that when any of -them are going wrong I'd better not talk of my dressmaker's bills, or -let him see my pass-book." - -"Then you know what a pass-book is." - -"I have to," sighed Susie, "for my normal state is an overdrawn -account. I think the letters n.e. and n.s. are quite the horridest in -the alphabet." - -"Yet you never ask a friend to help you out of a fix?" - -"Not much; when it comes to that I shall make a mistake in measuring -my dose of chloral, and it will be 'poor Susan Amphlett, death by -misadventure'!" - -Susan, who had never had adventures or "affairs" of her own, was a kind -of modern representative of the chorus in a Greek play, and was always -explaining people, more especially her bosom friends, of whom Vera was -the dearest. She was really fond of Vera, and there was no _arrière -pensée_ of envy and malice in her explanations. Her intense interest -in other people may perhaps be attributed to the fact that she hardly -ever opened a book--not even the novel of the season--and that her -knowledge of public events was derived solely from the talk at luncheon -tables. - -Certainly it might be admitted, even by the malicious, that Claude and -Vera were an ideal couple. They outraged all modern custom in spending -the greater part of their lives in close companionship; he originating -all their amusements, and she keenly interested in everything he -originated. - -They were happy, and they were continually telling each other how -happy. They always went back to the childish days at Disbrowe. - -"I feel as if all that ever happened after that was blotted out," Vera -whispered, one sunlit afternoon, as they sat side by side among silken -cushions on the motor launch, while all the glory of the upper Thames -moved past them; "all between those summer days and these seems vague -and dim: even the long years with poor Grannie. The wailing about want -of money, the moaning over the things we had to do without, the people -she hated because they were rich; all those years and the years that -came after have gone down into the gulf of forgotten things. A dark -curtain, like a pall, has fallen upon the past; and we are living in -the present. We love each other, and we are together. That is enough, -Claude, is it not? That is enough." - -"That is enough," he echoed, smiling up at her from his lower level -among the pillows. That heap of down pillows and his lounging attitude -among them seemed to epitomise the man and his life. "All the same, I -want Sinbad the Second to win the Leger." - -"Ah, you always laugh at me," she cried, with a vexed air. "You can -never be serious." - -"No, I can't," he answered, with a darkening brow, and a voice that was -as heavy as lead. - -They were living upon the rapture of a consummated love: which is -something like a rich man living upon his capital. There comes a time -when he begins to ask himself how long it will last. - -They had loved each other for years; first unconsciously, with a -divine innocence, at least on the woman's part, then consciously, and -with a vague sense of sin; and then, all obstacles being removed, -triumphantly; assured of the long future, in which nothing could part -them. - -She repeated this often--in impassioned moments. "Nothing can part us. -Whatever Fate may bring we shall be together. There can be no more -parting." - -He was not given to serious thoughts. He never had been. His one -irresistible charm had been his careless enjoyment of the present hour, -and indifference to all that might come after. He had never considered -the ultimate result of any action in his life. He left the Army with no -more thought than he left off a soiled glove! He threw up a painter's -art, and all its chances of delight and fame, the moment he found -discouragement and difficulty. He hated difficult things; he hated hard -work; he hated giving up anything he liked. His haunting idea of evil -was the dread of being bored. - -Once Vera found herself making an involuntary comparison between the -dead man and the living. - -If Claude had had a dying daughter whom he loved, could he have watched -her sink into her grave, and kept the secret of his sorrow, and smiled -at her while his heart was breaking? She knew he could not. He was a -creature of light and variable moods, of sunshine and fine weather. She -had loved him for his lightness. He had brought her relief from ennui -whenever he crossed her threshold; he had brought her gladness and gay -thoughts, as a man brings a bunch of June roses to his sweetheart. -And now that the past was done with, and that she was his for ever, -they were to be always glad and gay. There was to be no gloom in their -atmosphere, no long, dull pause in life to give time for dark thoughts. - -"Everybody has something to be sorry for," Vera told Susan Amphlett; -"that's why people's existence is a perpetual rush. Niagara can have -no time to think--but imagine, if nature were alive, what long aching -thoughts there might be under the bosom of a great, smooth lake." - -"You know, my darling Vera, I generally think everything you do -is perfect," Susan answered, more sensibly than her wont, "but, I -sometimes fear that you and Claude are burning the candle at both -ends. You are too much alive. You seem to be running a race with time. -Neither your health nor your beauty can last at the pace you are -going." - -"I'll take my chance of that. There is one thing that I dread more than -being ill and growing ugly." - -"What is that?" - -"Living to be old." - -"What, you've caught my fear?" - -"I dread the long, slow years--the long, slow days and sleepless -nights--old people sleep very little--in which there is nothing but -thought, an endless-web of miserable thoughts, going slowly round and -round, never stopping, never changing. That's what I am afraid of, -Susie." - -"Strange for you to be afraid of anything," her friend said -thoughtfully. "I think you are the most courageous woman I ever heard -of--as brave as Joan of Arc, or Charlotte Corday." - -"Why?" - -"Because you are not afraid to live in this house." - -"Why not? What does the house matter?" - -"It must make you think sometimes," faltered Susan. - -"I won't think! But if I were to think of the past, the house would -make no difference. My thoughts would be the same in Mexico--or at the -North Pole. I have heard of people who go to the end of the earth to -forget things, but I should never do that. I should know that memory -would go with me." - - * * * * * - -For three seasons in London, for three winters in Rome, the pace went -on, and was accelerated rather than slackened with the passing of -the years. Claude Rutherford won the Blue Ribbon of the turf, with -Sinbad the Second, and was equally fortunate with his boat at Cowes. -If he did not cross the Channel or fly from London to Liverpool, he -did at least make sundry costly excursions in the air, which kept his -name in the daily papers, and made his wife miserable, till, aviation -having resulted in boredom, he promised to content himself with the -substantial earth. After those three years this boy and girl couple -began to discover that they had done everything brilliant and exciting -that there was to be done; and the fever called living began to pall. - -And now Susan Amphlett told people that Vera was killing herself, and -that her husband, though as passionately in love with her as ever he -had been, was selfish and thoughtless, and was spending her money, and -ruining her health, with the extravagances and agitations of a racing -stable that was on a scale he ought never to have allowed himself. - -"After all, it is her money," said Susan, "and it's bad form on his -part to be so reckless." - -"But as she has only a life interest in Provana's millions, and as her -trustees are some of the sharpest business men in London, Rutherford -can't do her much harm," said masculine common-sense, while feminine -malice was lifting its shoulders and eyebrows with doleful prognostics. - -"Well, I suppose the money is all right," said Chorus, still inclined -to be tragic; "it's her health I'm afraid of. She's losing her high -spirits, her joy in everything, and she is getting out of touch with -her husband. She could hardly give him a smile when Blue Rose won the -Oaks. She sat in a corner of her box, looking the other way, while -that lovely animal was coming down the hill neck and neck with the -favourite, at a moment when any other woman would have been simply -frantic." - -"She is not of the stuff that racing men's wives are made of," -said Eustace Lyon, the poet. "No doubt she was worlds away--in -dreamland--and did not even know whose mare the bookies and the mob -were cheering." - -"She was not like that two years ago," said Chorus. "She and Claude -were in such perfect sympathy that it was impossible for either of them -to have a joy that the other did not share. It was a case of two souls -with but a single thought." - -"I can quite believe that, for I never gave C. R. credit for thinking," -replied the poet. - - * * * * * - -Satiety had come. It came in a day. The fatal day that comes to all the -favoured and the fortunate, and which never comes to the poor and the -unlucky. That evil at least is spared to Nature's stepchildren. They -never have too much of anything, except debt and difficulty. They never -yawn in each other's faces, and ask themselves where they can go for -the summer. They never turn over the leaves of a Continental Bradshaw -and complain that they are tired of everywhere. - -It is the people who can go everywhere and have everything who find -the wide earth a garden run to seed, and feel the dust of the desert -in their mouths as they talk of the pleasure places that the herd long -for. This time had come for Vera, at the end of her third season as -Claude Rutherford's wife. He, the gay and the insouciant, was careless -still, but it was a new kind of carelessness: the carelessness that -comes from hating everything that an exhausted life can give. - -They had fallen into the fashion of their friends of late, and were -more like the normal semi-detached couple than the boy and girl lovers -upon whose bliss Lady Susan had loved to expatiate. - -When the Goodwood week came round in this third year with the -inexorable regularity that one finds in the events of the season, Vera -declared that she had had enough of Goodwood and would never go there -again. - -"Of course, that won't prevent your being there," she said. - -"Well, not exactly, when I have Iseult of Ireland in two races." - -"Yes, of course, you must be there. I forgot." - -"You seem always to forget my horses nowadays. Yet you were once so -keen about them." - -"They were very interesting at first, poor, sweet things, but the -fonder I was of them, the more cruel it seemed to race them." - -"You'd like them kept to look at, eh?" - -"I should like to sit with them in their boxes, and feed them with -sugar, and make them lie down with their heads in my lap." - -"A Lady Rarey!" - -"I sometimes long for a paradise of animals, some lovely pastoral -valley with a silver stream winding through the deep grass, where I -might live among beautiful innocent creatures--sheep, and deer, and -Jersey cows, and great calm, cream-coloured oxen from the Campagna. -Creatures that can lie in the sun and bask, knowing nothing of the -past, feeling nothing but the warmth and beauty of the world; and where -I myself should have lost the faculty of thought." - -"That's a queer fancy." - -"I have many queer fancies. They come to me in my dreams." - -"You'd much better come to Goodwood. All the world will be there, and -you'd like to see Iseult win. Haven't you enough frocks? Is that the -reason for not coming?" - -"I have too many frocks, some that I have never worn." - -"Hansel them at Lady Waterbury's. You'll be the prettiest woman there." - -"It's dear of you to say that"--her eyes clouded as she spoke--"but I -can't go. I'm so tired of it all, Claude, so tired!" - -"Do you suppose I am never tired of things? Sick, sick to death! but I -know that to be happy one must keep moving. That's a law of human life. -You'd better come, Vera. You'll be moped to extinction alone." - -"I don't mind loneliness, and I shall have Susan part of the time, and -there will be a meeting in the Albany." - -"De gustibus? Well, if you prefer Symeon and his spooks to a racecourse -in an old English park, there's nothing more to be said." He stooped to -kiss the pale forehead before he sauntered out of the room, yawning as -he went. He had always a tired air; but it had verily become a law of -his being to keep moving. - -"Nemesis is like the policeman on night duty," he used to say. "She -won't let us lie in the dust and sleep. We must trudge on." - -Trudging from one costly pleasure to another might not suggest hardship -to the loafer on the Embankment, but to a self-indulgent worldling who -has drained the cup of life to the dregs, that necessity of going on -drinking when there are only dregs to drink may seem hard to bear. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - - -Vera told her husband that she did not mind solitude; yet it was a face -of ashen whiteness that he left behind when he shut the door of her -dressing-room, after his hurried and cheerful good-bye on the first day -of the Goodwood meeting. - -He was driving his sixty horse-power Daimler to Goodwood, steering for -himself, while the chauffeur sat behind ready for road repairs, or to -give a hand in carrying a corpse to the nearest hospital. - -The speed limit was naturally disregarded, as the thing that Claude -wanted was excitement, the hazards of the road as they sped past hamlet -and farm, followed by the long, white dust-cloud that flashed across -the landscape like the fiery tail of a comet, while startled villagers -gaped, and wondered if a car had passed. Peril was the zest that made -the journey worth doing: to feel that his hand upon the wheel held life -at his disposal, and that any awkward turn in the road might bring him -sudden death. - -He was gone, and Vera was alone in the gloomy London house--so much -more gloomy than the vast halls and galleries of the Roman villa, -where colossal windows let in vast spaces of blue sky. Here the -heavily-draped sashes admitted only a slit of sunshine, tempered by -London smoke. - -She was alone, but she told herself that solitude did not matter. It -was not solitude that weighed upon her spirits as she roamed from room -to room in the emptiness and silence. It was the sense of _not_ being -alone that weighed upon her. It was the consciousness of a silent -presence--the invisible third who had come between her and her husband -of late--who had come back into her life. In the noontide of her love, -while passion reigned supreme, and the man she loved filled her world, -the shadow had been lifted from her path. She had seen all old things -dimly--dazzled by the glory of her life's sun. She had remembered -nothing, except her childish bliss with the boy who was to be her fate. -Her life began and ended in her husband; as it had begun and ended -in Claude Rutherford when he was only her friend and companion, the -light-hearted companion, whose presence meant happiness. - -In the first two years of her second marriage she had been completely -absorbed in that transcendent love, and in the ceaseless round of -pleasures and excitements that her husband contrived for her, filling -her days and nights with emotional moments, with little social triumphs -and trivial ambitions. - -Satiety came in an hour--or it may be that it came so slowly and so -gradually that there was an hour when Vera awoke to the consciousness -that she was tired of everything, that the earth with all its changing -loveliness, its surprises of mountain and lake, wood and river, -was but a sterile promontory, and the blue vault above Como only a -pestilent congregation of vapours. The suddenness of the revelation was -startling; but the not uncommon malady that afflicted the Prince of -Denmark had been eating her heart for a long time before she was aware -of its hold upon her. And with the coming of satiety, the distaste -for amusement, the distrust of love, came the shadow. Memory that had -been lulled asleep by the magic philtre of passion, awakened and was -alive again. She roamed the great, silent house, haunting with a morbid -preference those rooms that were particularly associated with the dead -man, that range of spacious rooms on the ground floor where nothing had -been altered since Mario Provana lived in them: his library, and the -severe, official-looking sitting-room adjoining, where he was often -closeted with his partners and allies, his head clerks and managers, -his business visitors from Vienna, Rome, Berlin, Madrid, New York. - -When the drawing-rooms had been transformed by a gayer style of -decoration, more in harmony with Vera's frivolous entertainments, -Claude had been urgent that these ground-floor rooms should be -refurnished, and every trace of their severe, business-like aspect done -away with and even certain priceless old masters that Provana had been -proud of despatched with ruthless haste to Christie's sale room; but to -his astonishment Vera had told him that nothing was to be changed in -the rooms her husband had occupied--that all things touched or valued -by him were to be sacred. - -For this reason, while approving Claude's plan of colour for the walls -and draperies and carpets in the drawing-rooms, she had insisted upon -retaining the Italian cabinets of ebony and ivory, and the Florentine -mosaic tables, the things that had been collected all over Italy a -century ago, in the beginning of the Provana riches. - -And now, solitary and dejected, she moved restlessly from room to -room. Sometimes standing before one of the bookcases in the library, -looking along the titles of books that she had learnt to love, in those -far-off days before she had been launched by the Disbrowes--a frail -cockle-shell, spinning round and round in the Society whirlpool--while -she and her husband were still unfashionable enough to sit together -in the autumn twilight, or to spend _tête-à-tête_ evenings in this -solemn-looking room. His mind was with her there to-day, in the July -sunshine, as it had been in those evenings of the past, while he was -a living man. His remembered speech was in her ears to-day, grave and -earnest, telling her the things she loved to hear, widening her view of -life, opening the gate to new knowledge, the knowledge of authors she -had never heard of, the story of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and -poets, whose names had been only names till he made them living people, -people to be admired and loved. He had taught her to comprehend and -love Dante to appreciate the verse of Carducci, the prose of Manzoni. -He had taught her to revere Cavour, to adore St. Francis of Assisi, -to weep for Savonarola and Giordano Bruno. He had made Italy a land -of genius and valour, a land alive from the Alps to the Adriatic with -heroic memories. He had made her know and love the history of his -country, almost as he himself loved it. - -And now his spirit filled the room in which the man had lived. His -shadow had come into the house that had been his, and had taken -possession of the place and of the atmosphere. Whatever might still -remain of the undisciplined love, the passion of unreasoning youth, -that she had given to her second husband, she could never again release -herself from that first marriage tie. It was the bond of death. - -She went into the dining-room when luncheon was announced, carrying -a volume of Browning, and made some pretence of eating, with the book -open by the side of her plate, a proceeding upon which the butler -expatiated somewhat severely that afternoon as he lingered over tea in -the housekeeper's comfortable parlour. - -"I don't know what's come over the Missus," he said, as he took an -unwelcome "stranger" out of his second cup, and parenthetically, "This -tea isn't what it was, Mrs. Manby. She don't eat enough for a tomtit, -let alone a sparrow--and she's falling back into that dreamy way she -was in when Provana was in America, and for a long time before that, -as you may remember; that time when it was always not at home to Mr. -Rutherford." - -"She was trying to break with him," said Mrs. Manby. "I give her credit -for that." - -"So you may, but that kind of trying was never known to answer, when -once they've begun to carry on," remarked Mr. Sedgewick; "I've watched -too many such cases not to know the inevitability of them," he added, -having picked up the modern jargon, more or less incorrectly. - - * * * * * - -The long day wore on to the melancholy twilight, and Vera was dreading -the appearance of her maid to remind her that it was time to dress -for her solitary dinner. She had talked lightly of having Lady Susan -at her disposal, but she knew that her friend was at that very hour -contributing to the vivacity of one of the smartest of the Goodwood -house-parties, and would be so engaged till the end of the week. She -had thought, in her weariness of the mill-round, that solitude would be -better than the Society that had long become distasteful; but she found -that, in the melancholy hour between dog and wolf, the shadows in a -London house were full of fear, vague and shapeless fear, an oppression -that had neither form nor name, and that was infinitely worse than any -materialisation. She was standing by the window in her morning-room -looking down into the grey emptiness of the wide carriage way, where -no carriages were passing, and on pavements where unfashionable -pedestrians were moving quickly through a drizzling rain, when a -servant announced Father Hammond. - -"Can you forgive me for calling at such an unorthodox time? I happened -to be passing your door, and as I have called several times at the -right hour and not found you, I thought I would try the wrong hour." - -"No hour can be wrong that brings you," she said in a low voice, as -she gave him her hand; and the words sounded more sincere than such -speeches usually are. - -"I am glad to hear you say as much, and I believe you. In the whirlpool -of frivolity a few serious moments may have the charm of contrast." - -"I have done with the whirlpool." - -"Tired of it? After only three years? There are some of my flock who -have been going round in the same witches' dance for a quarter of a -century, and are still in the crowd on the Brocken. I can but think you -have made the pace too fast since your second marriage, or perhaps it -is your husband who has made the pace." - -"You must not think that. We both like the same things. We are -companions now as we were when I was a child at Disbrowe Park, and when -we were so happy together." - -Her eyes filled with tears. Oh, how far away that time of innocent -gladness seemed, as she looked back! What an abyss yawned between then -and now. - -"I have distressed you," the priest said gently, taking her hand. - -"No, no, but it is always painful to look back." - -Father Hammond drew her towards the sofa by the open window, and seated -himself at her side. - -"Let us have a real friendly talk now I have been so lucky as to find -you alone," he said. "I am glad--very glad--that you are tired of the -whirlpool, for to be tired of a bad kind of life is the beginning -of a better kind of life. You know what I think of modern Society, -especially in its feminine aspect, and how I have grieved over the -women who were made for better things than the witches' dance. We have -talked of these things in your first husband's lifetime, but then -I thought you were taking your frivolous pleasures with a careless -indifference that showed your heart was not engaged in them, and that -you had a mind for higher things. Even your dabbling with Mr. Symeon's -quasi-supernatural philosophy was a sign of superiority. His disciples -are not the basest or most empty-headed among worldlings, though they -keep touch with the world. In those days you know I had hopes of you, -but since you have been Claude Rutherford's wife, I have seen you -given up to an insatiate love of pleasure, a headlong pursuit of every -new thing, the more extravagant and the more dangerous the more hotly -pursued by you and your husband; so that it has become a byword, 'If -the thing is to cost a fortune, and to risk a life, the Rutherfords -will be in it.'" - -"Claude is impetuous, easily caught by novelty," she said -deprecatingly, with lowered eyelids. - -"He was not always so impetuous, rather a loiterer, indifferent to all -strenuous pleasures, delighting in all that is best in literature, -and worshipping all that is best in art, though too idle to achieve -excellence even in the art he loved. But since his marriage--and -forgive me if I say since his command of your wealth--he has changed -and degenerated." - -"You are not complimentary to his wife," Vera said, with a faint laugh. - -"I am too much in earnest to be polite, but it is not your influence -that has done harm, it is your money--that fatal gold which has changed -the whole aspect of Society within the last thirty years, a change -that will continue from bad to worse as long as diamond mines and gold -mines are productive, and the inheritors of great names can smile at -the vulgarity of millionaires who 'do them well' and will give the open -hand of friendship to a host who to-morrow may be branded as a thief -What does it matter, if the thief has bought Lord Somebody's estate, -and shooting that is among the best in England?" - -"Well, it is all done with now, as far as I am concerned," Vera said -wearily. "I used to go everywhere Claude liked to go. People laughed -at us for being inseparable; but I am sick to death of it all, and now -he must go to the fine houses alone. No doubt he will be all the more -welcome." - -"Perhaps; but I did not come to talk of trivialities or to echo -hackneyed diatribes against a state of things so corrupt and evil that -its vices have become the staple of every preacher's discourses, cleric -or layman. I want to talk about you and your husband, not about the -world you live in. Since you have done with the whirlpool, there is -nothing to keep you from better influences. Will you let mine be the -hand to lead you along the passive way of light and love, the way that -leads to pardon and peace?" - -Vera turned from him, trying to hide her agitation, but the feelings he -had awakened were too strong, and she let her head fall upon the arm of -the sofa, and gave herself up to a passion of tears. - -"Pardon?" she gasped, amidst her sobs; "you know I need pardon?" - -"We all need pity and pardon. No man's life is spotless, and the life -you and Claude have been living is a life of sin--aimless, sensual, -godless. I have had a wide experience of men, I have known the best and -the worst, and have seen the strange transmutations that may take place -in a man, under certain influences--how the sinner may become a saint, -and the saint fall into an abyss of sin--but I have never seen changes -so sudden and so inexplicable as those I have seen in your husband, -whom I have known, and I think I may say I have loved, from the time -when he began to have a will and a mind." - -"I hope you do not blame me for his having left the monastery and come -back to the world." - -"How can I blame you when his mother was the active agent? She is a -good woman, though a weak one, where her affections are engaged. She -was perfectly frank with me. She told me how you had refused to use -your influence to keep her son in the world, and she loved you because -she thought it was his love for you that made him abandon his purpose. -She rejoiced in his marriage, but I doubt if she has been any more -edified than I have been in watching the life you and her son have -been leading since then. No, I do not blame you for Claude's sudden -breakdown, but I deeply deplore that he should have turned back, since -I know that his resolution to have done with the world was a right -one--astounding as it seemed to me when I first heard of it. I urged -him against a step for which I thought him utterly unprepared. I did -not believe in his vocation, but after-consideration made me take a -different view of his case. I knew that such a man would never have -contemplated such a renunciation without so strong a reason that it was -my duty to encourage him in his sacrifice of the world rather than to -hold him back. I will say something more than this, Mrs. Rutherford, -I will tell you that if it was to make his peace with God that your -husband entered the Roman monastery, he lost all hope of peace when he -left it, and he will never know rest for his heart and his conscience -until he returns to the path that leads to the cloister." - -"Claude is happy enough," Vera answered lightly. "He has so many -occupations and interests. He is not as tired of things as I am. But no -doubt I shall have to go on giving parties now and then, on Claude's -account. He is not tired of the maelstrom, and it would not please him -for me to drop out altogether, and to be talked about as eccentric, or -'not quite right.'" - -She spoke with a weariness that moved the priest to pity. And then he -spoke to her--as he had sometimes spoken in the past--words that were -profoundly earnest, even eloquent, for what highly-educated man, or -even what uneducated man, can miss being eloquent when his faith is -deeply rooted and sincere, and his feelings are strongly moved? - -He offered her the shelter of the Church, the only armour of defence -against the weariness and wickedness of life. He would have led her -in the passive way of light and love. He offered her the only certain -cure for that _Welt-Schmerz_ of which her husband had complained when -he wanted to end his life in a cloister. He had pleaded with her before -to-day, had tried to win her, years ago, when the pleasures of life had -still something of their first freshness. He had tried vainly then, -and his efforts were as vain now. She answered him coldly, almost -mechanically. Yes; it was true that she was tired of everything, as -Claude had been years ago, before their marriage, as he would be again -perhaps by and by. But the Church could not help her. If she were to -become a Roman Catholic it would only be in order to escape from the -world--to do as Claude had wished to do, and make an end of a life that -had lost all savour. But until she was prepared to take the veil she -would remain as she was--a believer, but not in formulas--a believer, -in the after-life and in the influencing minds, the purified souls that -had crossed the river. - -"I see you prefer Mr. Symeon's religion of the day before yesterday to -that of the saints and martyrs of two thousand years," Cyprian Hammond -said in his coldest tones, as he rose to leave her. "You are as dark a -mystery as your husband is. God help you both, for I fear I cannot." - -The grey darkness of a wet summer night was in the room as Vera rose to -ring the bell and switch on the lamps. The clear white light showed her -face drawn and pale, but very calm. - -She held out both her hands to the priest. - -"Forgive me," she said; "the day may come when I shall ask you to open -the convent door for me; but I am not ready yet." - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - - -The Goodwood of that year was a brilliant meeting. The winners were the -horses that all the smart people wanted to win. The weather, with the -exception of that first rainy twilight, was perfect, and all the smart -frocks and hats spread themselves and unfolded their beauty to the sun, -like flowers in a garden by the Lake of Como. - -Among the owners of winning horses Mr. Rutherford was conspicuous. - -"You rich people are always lucky," said his friends. "You never buy -duffers, and you can afford to pay for talent. I don't suppose you make -much by your luck, but you have the glory of it." - -The house in which Claude Rutherford was staying was one of the -smartest houses between Goodwood and Brighton, a house where there -were always to be found clever men and handsome women--musical people -and painting people, and even acting people--people who could sing and -people who could talk; women who shone by the splendour of physical -beauty, and women whose audacious wit made the delight of princes. It -was a house in which cards were a secondary consideration, but where -stakes were high and hours were late. - -Lady Waterbury, the hostess, expressed poignant disappointment at -Vera's non-arrival. - -"My poor little wife is completely run down," Claude told her. "She -was a rag this morning, and it would have been cruel to persuade her -to come with me, though I hated leaving her in London at this dismal -fag-end of the season. I thought her pal, Susan Amphlett, would have -spent most of the week with her, but I hear Lady Susie is at the -Saxemundhams'." - -"Do you suppose Susie would miss a Goodwood--no, not for friendship," -exclaimed Sir Joseph, the jovial host, one of the last of the private -bankers of London, coming of a family so long established in wealth -that he could look down upon new money. "Well, there is one of our -beauties ruled out. I don't know what we should do if we hadn't secured -Mrs. Bellenden." - -"It was just as well to ask her this year," said his wife, with pinched -lips, "though it was Sir Joseph's idea, not mine. I doubt if the best -people will care about meeting her next season." - -"What has Mrs. Bellenden done to risk her future status?" Claude asked, -and then, with his cynical smile. "Certainly she has committed the -unforgivable sin of being the handsomest woman in London, which is -quite enough to set all the other women against her." - -"It isn't her beauty that is the crime, but the use she makes of it. -She has made more than one wife I know unhappy." - -"And yet you ask her to your house?" - -"Sir Joseph invites her. I only write the letter. So far she is just -possible; but if I have any knowledge of character, she will be quite -impossible before long." - -"Let us make the most of her while her good days last," Claude said, -laughing. "I should like to make a sketch of her before the brand of -infamy is on her forehead. I have met her often, but my wife and she -have not become allies; and if she is a snare for husbands and a peril -for wives, it's rather lucky that Vera is not with me, for after a week -in this delightful house they must have become pals." - -"I don't think proximity would make two such women friends," Lady -Waterbury replied severely. "Again, if I am any judge of character, I -should say that Vera and Mrs. Bellenden must be utterly unsympathetic." - -"My wife and I have a friendly compact," said Sir Joseph. "She may -invite as many dowdy nieces and boring aunts as she likes, provided she -asks no troublesome questions about the pretty women I want her to ask, -and gives my nominees the best rooms." - -"Poor Aunt Sophia had a mere dog-hole last Christmas," sighed Lady -Waterbury. - -"Well, didn't she bring her dog?" - -"Poor darling; she never goes anywhere without Ponto: and, of course, -she is a shade tiresome, and it is rather sweet of Joe to put up with -her. Mrs. Bellenden may pass this time." - -"Did I hear somebody talking of me?" cried a crystal clear voice, and -a woman as lovely as a midsummer dawn came with swift step across the -velvet turf towards the stone bench where Claude Rutherford and his -host and hostess were seated. - -They had strolled into the Italian garden, after an abundant tea that -had welcomed the first batch of guests, a meal at which Mrs. Bellenden -had not appeared, preferring to take tea in her dressing-room, while -she watched her maid unpack, and planned the week's campaign; the exact -occasion for every frock and hat being thought out as carefully as -the general in command of an army might consider the position of his -forces. It was to be a visit of five days and evenings, and none of -those expensive garments which the maid was shaking out and smoothing -down with lightly caressing fingers, was to be worn twice. All those -forces had to be reviewed. Not a silk stocking not a satin slipper -must be reported missing. Silken petticoats that rustled aggressively; -petticoats of muslin and lace that were as soft and noiseless as the -snow whose whiteness they imitated; fans, jewels, everything must be -put away in perfect condition, ready for a lady who sometimes left -herself the shortest possible time for an elaborate toilette, and yet -always contrived to appear with faultless finish. - -And this evening, as she came sailing across the garden, having changed -her travelling clothes for a mauve muslin frock of such adorable -simplicity that a curate's wife might have tried to copy it with the -aid of a seamstress at eighteenpence a day, she was a vision of beauty -that any hostess might have been proud to number among her guests. - -She took her seat between Sir Joseph and his wife with careless grace, -and held out her hand to Claude Rutherford without looking at him. - -"Lady Waterbury told me that you and Mrs. Rutherford were to be here," -she said. "Is she resting after her journey?" - -"I am sorry to say she was not able to come with me." - -"Not ill, I hope?" - -"Not well enough for another Goodwood." - -"The race weeks come round so quickly as one gets old," sighed Mrs. -Bellenden. "There seems hardly breathing time between the Two Thousand -and the Leger--and while one is thinking about where to go for the -winter, another year has begun and people are motoring to Newmarket for -the Craven." - -"The story of our lives from year to year is rather like a -merry-go-round in a fair, but Mrs. Bellenden is too young to feel the -rush." - -"Too young! I feel old, ages old. As old as Rider Haggard's Ayesha when -the spell was broken and the enchantress changed to a hag. But I am -sadly disappointed at not meeting your wife," she went on, turning the -wonderful eyes that people talked about with full power upon Claude. -"I wanted to meet her in a nice friendly house. We have only met in -crowds, and I believe she rather hates me." - -"How can you imagine anything so impossible?" - -"At any rate, she has given me no sign of liking, while I admire her -intensely. Francis Symeon has talked to me about her. I have had so -much of the world, the flesh, and the devil, that I want to know -something of a lady whom he calls one of his beautiful souls." - -Upon this Mr. Rutherford had to say something polite, a something which -implied that his wife would be charmed to see more of the lovely Mrs. -Bellenden. - -People talked of Mrs. Bellenden's beauty to her face. It was one of the -things which her own sex registered against her as a mark of bad style. -She might be ever so handsome, other women admitted, but she was the -worst possible style. A circus rider, promoted from the sawdust to a -Mayfair drawing-room, could hardly have been worse. - - * * * * * - -It was not long since this woman had burst upon the world of London--a -revelation of physical loveliness. - - Then felt they, like some watcher of the skies, - When a new planet swims into his ken. - -There are planets and planets, as there are skies and skies. Assuredly -neither Uranus nor Neptune created a greater ferment in the world of -the wise than was made by Mrs. Bellenden's first season in the world of -the foolish. - -The phrase "professional beauty" had been exploded, as vulgar and -stale, but the type remained under new names. - -Mrs. Bellenden was simply the new beauty; invited everywhere; the star -of every fashionable week-end party, every smart dance or dinner. -Afternoon or evening--to hear divine music or to play ridiculous games; -to be instructed about radium, or to lose money and temper at bridge, -there could be no party really successful without Mrs. Bellenden. - -Men looked round the flower-garden of picture hats with a disappointed -air if her eyes did not flash lovely lightning from under one of them. -Impetuous youths made a bee-line for her, and threaded the crowd with -relentless elbows, calmly ignoring their loves of last season and the -season before last. - -"Men are absolute idiots about that woman," the last seasons told each -other. "No one has a look in where she is." - -Mrs. Bellenden was a young widow, a widow of two years' widowhood, the -first of which it was whispered she had spent in a private lunatic -asylum. - -"That's where she got her complexion," said Malice. "It was just as -good as a year's rest in a nursing home." - -"And a strait-waistcoat. That's where she got her figure," said Envy. - -She was now six-and-twenty, a widow, living in a small house in a -narrow street like the neck of a bottle, between Park Lane and South -Audley Street, with an income of two thousand a year, but popularly -reputed to be spending at least five thousand. Her reputation in her -first season had been unassailed, but she was rather taken upon trust, -on the strength of the houses where she was met, than by reason of -any exact knowledge that people had of her character and environment. -Good-natured friends declared that she was thoroughbred. A creature -with such exquisite hands and feet, and such a patrician turn of the -swan-like throat, could hardly have come out of the gutter; and her -husband had belonged to one of the oldest families in Wessex. So in -that first season, except among her rivals in the beauty show, the -general tone about her was approval. - -Then, in her second year as the lovely widow, things began to leak out, -unpleasant things--as to the men she knew, and the money she spent, -the hours she kept in that snug little house in Brown Street; the -places at which she was seen in London and Paris, chiefly in Paris, -where people pretended that she had a _pied-à-terre_ in the new quarter -beyond St. Geneviève. People talked, but nothing was positively stated, -except that she did curious things, and was beginning to be regarded -somewhat shyly by prudish hostesses. She still went to a great many -houses--smart houses and rich houses; but not quite the best houses, -not the houses that can give a _cachet_, and stop the mouth of slander. - -She gave little luncheons, little dinners, little suppers, in the -little street out of Park Lane, and her lamp-lit drawing-room used -to shine across the street in the small hours, as a token that there -were talk and laughter and cards and music in the gay little room for -_tout le monde_, or at least for her particular _monde_. She had a fine -contralto voice, and sang French and Spanish ballads delightfully, -could breathe such fire and passion into a song that the merest -doggerel seemed inspired. - -But before this second season was over there were a few people in -London who had dreadful things to say about Mrs. Bellenden, and who -said them with infinite cruelty; people for whose belongings--son or -daughter, foolish youth or confiding young wife--this lovely widow had -been a scourge. - -Looking at the radiant being people did not always remember, and -some people did not know, the tragedy of her youth. She had been a -good woman once, quite good, a model wife. She had married, before -her eighteenth birthday, a husband she adored. A creature of intense -vitality, made of fire and light, sense and not mind, love with her -had been a flame; unwise, unreasoning, exacting; love without thought; -wildly adoring, wildly jealous. A word, a look given to another woman -set her raging; and it was after one of the fierce quarrels that her -jealous temper made only too frequent that her husband--handsome, gay, -in the flower of his youth--left her without the goodbye kiss, for his -last ride. He was brought back to her in the winter twilight, without a -word of warning, killed at the last ditch in a point-to-point race, a -race that was always remembered as the finest of many seasons; perhaps -all the more vividly remembered because of that tragedy just before the -finish, when Jim Bellenden broke his neck. - -For some time after that dreadful night Kate Bellenden was under -restraint; and then, after nearly a year, in which none but near -relations had seen her or had even known where she was, she came back -to the world; not quite sane, and desperately wicked. That small brain -of hers had not been large enough to hold a great grief. Satan had -taken possession of a mind that had never been rightly balanced. - -"I have done with love," she told her _âme damnée_. She had always her -shadow and confidante, upon whom she lavished gifts and indulgences. "I -can never love anybody after _him_: but I like to be loved, and I like -to make it hard for my lovers." - -And then, in still wickeder moods, she would say, "I like to steal a -woman's husband, or to cut in between an engaged girl and the man she -is to marry. I like to make another woman as desolate as I was after -Jim was killed, but I can't make her quite as miserable. I am not -Death. But," with a little exulting laugh, "I am almost as bad." - -There were people--a mother, a sister, or a wife--here and there in the -crowd we call Society, who thought Mrs. Bellenden worse than Death; -people who knew the fortunes she had wasted, the houses she had ruined, -the hearts she had broken, the careers she had blighted, and the souls -that had been lost for her. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - - -Finding Claude Rutherford the most agreeable person in a house full of -people, Mrs. Bellenden took possession of him on the first evening--not -with any obvious devices or allurements, but coolly and calmly, -just as she possessed herself of the most becoming arm-chair in the -drawing-room, with such an air of distinct appropriation that other -women avoided it. - -"You seem to be the only amusing person here," she said, as he came to -her side after dinner. "Isn't it strange that in so small a party there -should be such a prodigious amount of dullness?" - -"Have you sampled all the people? There is Mr. Fitzallan over there, -talking to Lady Waterbury, a musical genius, who sets Shakespeare's -sonnets and Heine's ballads deliciously, and sings them delightfully. -You can't call him dull." - -"Not while he is singing--but I have heard all his songs." - -"Ask him to sing presently, and you will find he has brought a new -batch. Then there is Eustace Lyon, the poet." - -Mrs. Bellenden smiled. - -"Do you know what they say of him?" she asked. - -"Who can remember half the things people say of a genius who lays -himself out to be talked about?" - -"People are impertinent enough to say that he invented _me_." - -"That is to make him equal to Jove, nay, superior, for it was only -incarnate wisdom--not surpassing beauty--that came from the brain of -the Thunderer." - -"I believe he did rave about me the year before last, when I set up -house in London--went about talking idiotically--called me 'a soothing -gem,' and a hundred other ridiculous names." - -"But you didn't mind? You bear no malice." - -"No, he and I are always chums. I rather liked being advertised." - -"Gratis?" - -"Of course. I treat him rather worse than my butler, but I admire his -genius, and I let him sit on the carpet and read his poems to me, -before they go to the printer." - -The poet joined them presently, stalking across the room, a tall, slim -figure, with a pale, lank face and long hair. - -The composer joined the group five minutes afterwards, and Mrs. -Bellenden, having appropriated the only interesting men in the party, -sank farther back in her deep chair, slowly fanning herself with her -large white ostrich fan, and, as it were, withdrawing her beauty from -circulation. - -Other women might affect a little fan, but Kate Bellenden knew the -value of a large one, when there is a perfect arm with a hoop of -Brazilian diamonds to be displayed. - -"I am only one of three," Claude said later in the week, when one of -the men chaffed him about Mrs. Bellenden's favours. "She is a _tête de -linotte_, and at her best in a quartette. One would soon come to the -end of one's resources as an amusing person in a _tête-à-tête_." - -He told himself that this peerless beauty might soon become a bore; -and he thought how much peerless loveliness there must have been -in the Royal Preacher's palace at the very time he was writing -Ecclesiastes: but all the same he found that Mrs. Bellenden's -conversation--empty-headed as it might be--gave a gusto to his days -and nights during that Goodwood week. Their trivial talk was pleasant -from its very foolishness. It was conversation without disturbing -thought. There were no flashlights of memory to bring sudden sadness. A -good deal of their talk was sheer nonsense--of no more value than the -dialogue in a musical comedy--but it was a relief to talk nonsense, to -laugh at bad puns, and to ridicule the serious side of life. Claude -gave himself up to the mood of the moment, and was at his best: the -irresponsible trifler, the mocker at solemn things, who had once been -the desire of every hostess; the light, airy jester, to keep the table -in a roar, the insidious flirt and flatterer, to amuse women after -dinner. - -People told each other that Rutherford was quite in his old form. -He had become horribly _blasé_ and _distrait_ of late, as if all the -sparkle had gone out of him under the weight of his wife's gold. - -"I don't believe a millionaire can be happy," said the poet. -"Rutherford has been deteriorating ever since his marriage. He rushes -about doing things; racing, ballooning, flying, acting, hunting, -shooting; perpetual motion without gaiety. He was twice the man when he -was loafing about the world on fifteen hundred a year." - -"He is one of those men whom marriage always spoils," replied the -painter. "A chameleon soul that ought never to have worn fetters. To -chain such a creature to a wife is as bad as caging a skylark. If he -can't soar, he can't sing." - -"I take it he will soon be out of the cage. He has done two years of -the married lover's business, and we shall see him presently as the -emancipated husband." - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - - -Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford were to winter in Rome, but there was the -autumn still to be disposed of. Neither of them wanted Marienbad. They -knew the place inside out, and hated it; and after wasting half an hour -at the breakfast-table turning over a Continental Bradshaw, they had -only arrived more certainly at the conviction that they were tired of -everywhere. - -The whole system of continental travelling was weariness and monotony: -the race to Dover through the freshness of morning, the race across -sunlit waves to Calais, the hurried luncheon in the station, and the -three hours' run to Paris, the huge Gare du Nord, with its turmoil of -blue blouses and loaded barrows; the long drive to the hotel, and the -early start in the Rapide for the South: or the Engadine express, with -the night journey through pine woods, and the rather weary awakening -at Lucerne, and then on to Locarno and the great lake. It had been -delicious while it was new, and while it was new for these two to be -together, wedded and inseparable for evermore. But all the tracks that -had been new were old now; and though they were lovers still, something -had come between them that darkened love. - -"Tyrol, Engadine, Courmayeur? No," said Vera, throwing Bradshaw aside. -"No, no, no. The hotels are all alike, and they make the scenery seem -the same. If one could be adventurous, if one could stop at strange -inns, where one need never hear an English voice, it would be better. -But it is always the same hotel, the same rooms, and the same waiters, -and the same food." - -"A little better or a little worse; generally worse," assented Claude. - -"I have had a letter from Aunt Mildred this morning. She wants us to -spend August at Disbrowe." - -"Would you like it?" he asked. - -"Like it?" she echoed, with her eyes clouding, and a catch in her -voice; and then she started up from her seat and came to her husband, -and put her hand upon his shoulder. - -"I think we have been getting rather modern of late, Claude," she said -in a low voice, "rather semi-detached. Disbrowe would bring us nearer -together again. We should remember the old days." - -"Disbrowe, by all means, then," he answered gaily. - -"We must never drift apart, Claude," she went on earnestly, with -something of tragedy in her voice, which trembled a little as she crept -closer to him. "Remember, we have nothing but our love, nothing else -between us and despair." - -"Don't be tragic, Vera," he said quickly. "Disbrowe, by all means. -Let us play at being boy and girl again. Let us do daring things on -Okehampton's twopenny-halfpenny yacht, and ride horses that other -people are afraid to handle. Let us put fire into the embers of the -past. I suppose your aunt will have a few amusing people. It won't be -the vicar and his wife and sister-in-law every night, and the curate at -luncheon every other day." - -"She will have all sorts and conditions, but that doesn't matter. I -want to be with you in the place where we were so happy." - -"You want to fall in love with me again? Well, it was time," he said, -half gaily and half sadly; but with always the air of a man who means -to take life easily. - -August was August that year, and Disbrowe was at its best. The great -red cliffs, the azure and emerald sea had the colour and the glory that -had made North Devon fairyland for the child Vera in her one blissful -summer. - -Other children, as they grew up, had a succession of delicious summers -to look back upon, and could make comparisons, and wonder which was -happiest; but Vera had only one season of surpassing joy to remember. -She remembered it now, and contrived to draw a thick curtain over all -other memories. - -Aunt Mildred was full of compliments. - -"This air evidently suits you, child," she said, when her niece had -been with her a week. "You look ten years younger than when I saw you -last in London." - - * * * * * - -These two who had begun to be tired of each other were lovers -again--and even memory was kind--even memory, the slow torture of -thoughtful minds. They recalled the joys of fifteen years ago; and the -joys of to-day were almost the same. Instead of the thirteen two barb -there were half a dozen hunters--thoroughbreds of fine quality, the -disappointments of Claude's racing stud--instead of the dinghy there -was Okehampton's forty-ton cutter, a rakish craft that had begun life -at Cowes, another disappointment. There was the sea, and there was the -moorland, and there were the patches of wood on the skirts of the park, -that had seemed boundless forests to Vera in her twelfth year. Her -twelfth year? She remembered Claude's affected contempt for her youth. - -"Why, you are only a dozen--and not a round dozen, only eleven and a -half. No wonder your cousins in the school-room look down upon you. If -there were still a nursery, you would be there, sitting on a high chair -at tea, your cheeks smeared with jam, and a bib tied under your chin." - -She remembered all his foolish speeches now, and what serious insults -they had seemed to her, or to the child that she had once been--that -innocent child whose identity with herself was so hard to believe. - -They were happy again, they were lovers again. Here they could say to -each other, "Do you remember?" Here memory was a gentle nymph, and not -an avenging fury. - -For Vera, who had hunted with her husband every year since their -marriage, a season at Grantham, a season in the Shires, and two winters -in the Campagna, it might seem a small thing to ride with Claude and a -handful of squireens and farmers rattling up the cubs in the woods, yet -she found it pleasant to rise before the dawn, and creep through the -silent house and out into the crisp morning air, and to spring on to a -horse that seemed to skim the ground in an ecstasy of motion. Flying -could hardly be better than to sit on this light, leaping creature, and -see the dewy wood rush by, and the startled rabbits flash across the -path; or to be lifted into the air as the thoroughbred stood on end at -the whirr and rush of a pheasant. - -A discarded racer was scarcely the best mount for pottering about -after the cubs; but the pursuit of pleasure, that was always a synonym -for excitement, had made Vera a fine horsewoman, and she loved the -surprises that a light-hearted four-year-old can give his rider; and -when the last cub had been slaughtered, to gratify Mr. Somebody's -hounds, Claude and Vera had to ride to please their horses, and there -was a spice of danger in the tearing gallop across great stretches -of pasture, where the green sward sloped upward or downward to the -crumbling edge of the red cliffs, and where they saw the wide, blue -floor of the sea, and the dim outline of the Welsh coast. - -One morning, when they were riding shoulder to shoulder, at a wilder -pace than usual, and when Vera's horse was doing his best to get -absolute possession of his bridle, she turned with a light laugh to her -husband. - -"Isn't this delicious?" she asked breathlessly, thrilled by the -freshness of the air and the rapture of the pace. "Would you mind if we -were not able to stop them on this side of the sea?" - -"Would I mind?" he echoed, looking at her with his careless smile, -the smile in which there was often a touch of mockery. "Not I, my -love. It wouldn't be half a bad end, to finish one's last ride in a -headlong plunge over the cliff--to know none of the gruesome details of -dissolution--nothing but a sense of being hurled through bright air, -forty fathoms deep into bright water. All the same, I don't mean these -brutes to have their own way," he concluded in his most matter-of-fact -tone, with his hand upon Ganymede's bridle. - -They turned their horses, and trotted quietly home, Vera pale and -somewhat shaken by the excitement of the long gallop. They were near -the end of their country holiday, and they were to part at the end of -the week, Claude to spend a fortnight at Newmarket, Vera to start alone -for Italy, stopping here and there for a few days, on her way to her -Roman villa, where Claude was to join her, bringing his hunters with -him, not these light thoroughbreds, but horses of coarser quality and -more experience, fitter for the rough work of the Campagna. - -It had been Vera's own fancy to revisit familiar places in Italy. -Claude had been urgent with her to abandon the idea, but she would not -listen to him. - -"I want to see San Marco, where I lived so long with Grannie; when we -were poor and shabby--such a humdrum life. I sometimes wonder how I -could bear it?" - -"Poor child! It was hard lines for you. But why conjure up the memory -of things that were sad? Looking back is always a mistake. Looking back -at the old worn-out things, going back to long-trodden paths! Nobody -can afford to do that. _Plus ultra_ is my motto. In Rome there will be -plenty for us to do. We must make our third winter more astounding than -either of the other two. I know lots of people who are to be there, all -sorts of big pots, pretty women, scribblers, painters, soldiers. You -will have to invent new features for your evenings, new combinations of -all kinds, and you must cultivate the new lights. When the season is -over people must go about saying that Mrs. Rutherford has made Rome." - -Vera looked at her husband curiously. How shallow he was, after all, -how trivial! There were moments when her heart felt frozen, dreadful -moments of disenchantment in which the man she had loved seemed to -change and become a stranger; moments when she asked herself with a -sudden wonder why she had ever loved him. - -These were but flashes of disillusion. A touch of tenderness, a thought -of all they had been to each other, and her bitter need of his love, -made her again his slave. From the hour when he surrendered his chance -of redemption, and came to her in her Roman garden, came to claim her -with passionate words of love, he had been something more than her -lover and her husband. He had been her master, ruling her life even in -its trivialities, with a mind so shallow that it could find delight in -details, leading and directing her in an existence where there was to -be no room for thought. - -He had planned their days at Disbrowe so that there should be no margin -for ennui. When they were not riding they were on the yacht racing -round the coast to Boscastle or Padstow: or they were playing tennis or -croquet with the house-party, creating an atmosphere of excitement. - -They parted at Disbrowe, Claude leaving for Newmarket; and they were -not to meet till November, when he was to find Vera established in the -Roman villa. All gaiety and excitement seemed to have left her with -him, and Aunt Mildred remarked the change. - -"You ought to have gone to Newmarket with your husband," she said, -"though I have always thought it a horrid place for women, a place -where they think of nothing but horses, and talk nothing but racing -slang, and are as full of their bets as professional book-makers. I -hate horsey women; but you and Claude are such a romantic couple, that -it seems a pity you should ever be separated." - -"Romance cannot last for ever, my dear aunt. We have been married -nearly three years. It is time we became like other people. I have -just your feeling about Newmarket. I was keen about the stud for the -first year or two, petting the horses, and watching their gallops in -the early mornings; and then it began to seem childish to care so much -about them; and whether they won or lost it was the same thing over and -over again. The trainer and his boys said just the same things about -every success and every defeat. The crack jockeys were all the same, -and I hardly knew one from another. I still love the horses for their -own sake; and I am miserable if any of them are sold into bondage. But -I am sick to death of the whole business." - -There was a fortnight to spare before Vera was to start for Italy, and -Lady Okehampton wanted her to stay at Disbrowe till a day or two before -she left England. - -"Portland Place will be awfully _triste_," she said; "I cannot see why -you should go and bury yourself alive there for a fortnight." - -Vera pleaded preparations--clothes to order for the winter. - -"Surely not in London, when you can stop in Paris and get all you want." - -There were other things to be done, arrangements to be made, Vera -told her aunt. A certain portion of the staff was to start for Rome, -by direct and rapid journeying, while she, with only her maid and a -footman, was to travel by easy stages along the Riviera. - -Lady Okehampton was rather melancholy in the last hour she and her -niece spent together in her morning-room. - -"I'm afraid the pace at which you and Claude are taking life must wear -you out before long," she said. "You are never quiet; always rushing -from one thing to another; even here, where I wanted you to come for -absolute rest, just to dawdle about the gardens, and doze in a hammock -all the afternoon, with a quiet evening's bridge. But you have given -yourself no more rest here than in London. Okehampton told me the way -you tore about on those ungovernable horses, miles and miles away over -the moor, while other people were jogging after the hounds, or waiting -about in the lanes. He said it was not cubbing, but skylarking; and the -skipper complained that Mr. Rutherford insisted on sailing the yacht -in the teeth of a dangerous gale. 'He's the generousest gentleman I've -ever been out with,' old Peter said, 'but he's the recklessest; and I -wouldn't give twopence for his chance of making old bones.'" - -"Poor old Peter," sighed Vera. "We often had a squabble with him--what -he called a stand-further. He's a conscientious old dear, and a fine -sailor; but he would never have found the shortest way to India." - -"You wanted rest, Vera; but instead of resting, you have done all the -most tiring things you could invent for yourself." - -"Claude is the inventor, not I. And it is good for me to be tired; to -lie down with weary limbs and fall into a dreamless sleep or into a -sleep where the dreams are sweet, and bring back lost things." - -"I should not say all this, if I were not anxious about your health," -Aunt Mildred continued gravely. "You look well and brilliant at night, -but your morning face sometimes frightens me; and you are woefully -thin, a mere shadow. It is all very well for people to call you -ethereal, but I don't want to see you wasting away." - -"There is nothing the matter. I was always thin. I have a little cough -that sometimes worries me at night, but that has been much better since -I came here." - -"You ought to take care of your health, Vera. You have a great -responsibility." - -"How do you mean?" - -"Have you ever thought of those who have to come after you? Do you ever -consider that your splendid fortune dies with you, and that your power -to help those members of our family who need help--alas, too many of -them--depends upon your enjoying a long life." - -"My dear aunt, I cannot promise to spin out a tedious existence in -order to find money for poor relations." - -"That remark is not quite nice from you, Vera. You yourself began life -as a poor relation." - -"I have not forgotten, and I have given my needy cousins a good deal of -money since I have been rich; and, of course, I shall go on doing so." - -"As your aunt, and the most attached of all your own people, I must ask -a delicate question, Vera. Have you made your will?" - -Lady Okehampton asked this question with such a thrilling awfulness, -that it sounded like a sentence of death. - -"No, aunt. Why should I make a will? I have nothing to leave. You know -I have only a life interest in the Provana estate." - -"Nothing to leave! But your accumulations? Your surplus income?" - -"I don't think I can have any surplus. Claude and I have spent money -freely, at home and abroad; and I have given large sums for the -foundation of a hospital in Rome, in memory of Mario and his daughter. -Claude manages everything for me. I have never asked him whether there -was any money left at the end of the year." - -"And of that colossal income--which you have enjoyed for five -years--you have nothing left? It is horrible to think of. What mad -waste, what incredible extravagance there must have been. You ought -not to have left everything in Claude's hands. Such a careless, -happy-go-lucky fellow ought never to have had the sole management of -your immense income. It would make Signor Provana turn in his grave to -know that his wealth has been wasted." - -"He would not care. We never cared for money." - -"Nothing left at the year's end, nothing of that stupendous wealth! It -is monstrous!" - -"Don't agitate yourself, dear Aunt Mildred. There may have been a -surplus every year. I never asked Claude whether there was or not. But -I shall always be rich enough to help my poor relations." - -There was no time for further remonstrance. Aunt Mildred parted from -her niece with more sighs than kisses, though those were many. - -She perused the sweet, pale face with earnest scrutiny, for she thought -she saw the mark of doom on the forehead where the lines were deeper -than they should have been on the sunny side of thirty. She remembered -the short-lived mother, the consumptive father. - - * * * * * - -Vera sat in a corner of the reserved compartment and read Browning's -"Christmas Eve" all though the swift journey from the red cliffs of -North Devon and the wide, blue sky to the grey dullness of a London -twilight. It was a poem which she read again and again, which she knew -by heart. It lifted her out of herself. She felt as if she were out -in the winter darkness on the wind-swept common, as if her hands were -clutching the edge of the Divine raiment. Was not that sublime vision -something more than a dream in a stuffy Methodist chapel? - -Were there not moments in life when earth touched heaven, when Divine -compassion was something more real than the words in a book; when -Christ the Redeemer came within reach of the sinner, and when Faith -became certainty? Nothing less than this, nothing but the assurance of -a Living God, could lift the despairing soul out of the abyss. - -The house to which she was returning was a house of fear, and in spite -of all she had said to her aunt, she knew that there was no necessity -for her return. The rich man's widow had nothing to do that a telegram -to her housekeeper would not have done for her. But the house drew her -somehow. She had a morbid longing to be there, alone in the silence and -emptiness of unused rooms, without Claude, whose presence jarred in -rooms where another figure was still master. - -She found all things in perfect order, no speck of dust in the -rooms on the ground floor, her morning-room brilliant with Japanese -chrysanthemums. She went to the library after her solitary dinner. The -evening was cold, and fires were burning in all the rooms. She drew a -low chair to the hearth, and sat brooding over the smouldering cedar -logs, perhaps one of the loneliest women in London; and yet not quite -alone, since nothing that had happened in her futile life of the last -years had shaken her belief in Mr. Symeon's creed, and she felt that -the dead were near her. - -Giulia, who had loved her, Giulia, the happy soul who had known neither -sin nor sorrow, the yearning of unsatisfied love, or the seething fires -of guilty passion. Giulia's gentle spirit had been with her of late, -the spirit of her only girl friend, and she had lived over again the -tranquil hours at San Marco, the talk of books that had opened a new -world to her, Giulia having read so much and she so little. Father and -daughter had opened the gates of that new world for her. It was from -them that the poet's daughter had learnt to understand and love all -that is highest in the poetry of the world. - -"If Giulia had lived," she thought to-night, as she crouched over the -lonely hearth, sitting in that low chair in which she used to sit, -as it were, at her husband's feet, sometimes in the dreamy twilight -letting her drooping head rest upon his knee, while his hand hovered -caressingly over the blonde hair. - -Had Giulia lived, would everything have been different? Would Mario -have loved and married her, and would they three have lived in a -trinity of love? It seemed to her that Giulia would have been a -hallowing influence. They two would have been like sisters, loving and -understanding the man who loved them both. No cloud of jealousy could -have come between them; all would have been sympathy and understanding. -That wall of separation which had risen up between her and her husband -would never have been. Neither pride on her part nor distrust upon his -part would have killed love. Giulia would have sympathised with both; -and her love would have kept them united. - -She mused long upon the life that might have been, the life without -a cloud. She thought with longing of the girl who had died sinless, -in the morning of an unsullied life. Was not such a life, wrapped -round with love, and free from the shadow of sin--such a death, before -satiety had come to change the gold to dross--the happiest fate that -God could give to His chosen? - -"And to think that I was sorry for her, that I pitied her for being -taken from such a beautiful world, from such a devoted father. How -could I know that Death was the only security from sin?" - -She sat long in that melancholy reverie, only rousing herself and -taking up a book from the table at her side, when she heard the door -opening, and a servant came in to put fresh logs on the fire. - -She told the man that her maid, Louison, was not to sit up for her. -Nobody was to sit up. She would not be going upstairs for some time. -She wanted nothing, and she would switch off the lights. - -In a house lighted by electricity the lights were of very little -consequence. The footman took elaborate pains with the fire, piling -up the logs, and arranging the large brass guard that fenced the -hearth, and then retired with ghostly step to remote regions, where -his fellows were lingering over the supper-table, some of them talking -of the journey to Rome, and those who were to remain in charge of the -house complaining of the dullness of a long winter, and the low figure -of board wages, which had remained more or less stationary, while -everything else was going up by leaps and bounds. - -"I'd leap and bound you, if I had my way," said Mr. Sedgewick; "a pack -of lazy trash. If I were Mr. Rutherford, I should put a policeman and -a bull dog into the house, and lock it up till next May. You that are -left have a deal too soft a time, while we that go have to work like -galley slaves. Three parties a week, and a pack of Italian savages to -keep up to the mark; fellows who are more used to daggers and stilettos -than to soap and water, better for a brigand's cave than a high-class -pantry, and who think nothing of quarrelling and threatening to murder -each other in the middle of a dinner-party. There's no sense in a mixed -staff. My pantry was a regular pandemonium last Christmas, and I wished -myself back in sooty old London." - -Mrs. Manby was to stay in Portland Place, mistress of the silent house, -with one footman, two housemaids to sweep and dust, and a kitchen wench -to cook for her. She had saved money, and was independent and even -haughty. - -"When I go to Italy it will be to the Riviera, for my health, and I -shall go as a lady," she told Sedgewick, who, notwithstanding his -abhorrence of Roman footmen, liked his winter in Rome, as a period that -afforded better pickings than even a London season, Italian tradesmen -being more amenable than London purveyors, who had been harassed and -bound of late by grandmotherly legislation. - -Supper had been finished in "hall" and housekeeper's parlour long -before Vera left the library. It was after midnight when a sudden -shivering, a vague horror of the silence came upon her, and she rose -from her low chair in front of the dying fire and began to wander from -room to room. The last of the logs had dropped into grey ashes in the -library, and all other fires had gone out. The formal room, with large, -official-looking chairs and severe office desk, where Mario Provana had -received formal visitors, was the abode of gloom in this dead hour of -the night: and yet it was not empty. The sound of the dead man's voice -was in the room, the voice of command--so strong, so stern in those -grave discussions which Vera had often overheard through the half-open -door of the library, in the days when she had shared her husband's -life--before fashion and Disbrowes had parted them. - -His image was in the room, the massive figure, the commanding height, -the broad shoulders, a little bent, as if with the weight of the noble -head they had to carry. He was standing in front of his desk, facing -those other men with the grave look she knew so well--courteous, -serious, resolute--and then slowly, with a movement of weariness at the -conclusion of an interview, he sank into the spacious arm-chair. She -saw him to-night as she had seen him often, watching through the open -door, while she was waiting for the business people to go, and for him -to join her for their afternoon drive. - -What ages ago--those tranquil days in which they had driven together -in the summer afternoons--not the dull circuit of the Park, but to -Hampton Court, or Wimbledon, or Richmond, or Esher, escaping from the -suburban flower-gardens to green fields and rural commons, glimpses -of woodland even, in the country about Claremont. Their airings were -no swift rushes in thirty horse-power car, but a leisurely progress -behind a pair of priceless horses, with time for seeing wild roses and -honeysuckle in the hedges, the dogs and children on rustic paths, and -the peace of cottage gardens. - -She remembered how those tranquil afternoons had become impossible, by -reason of her perpetual engagements; and how quietly Mario Provana had -submitted to the change in her way of life, the succession of futile -pleasures, the hurry and excitement. - -"I want you to be happy," he told her, when she made a feeble apology -for not having an afternoon at his service. - -"You are young, and you must enjoy your youth. Things that seem trivial -and joyless to me are new and sweet to you. Be happy, love. I have -plenty of use for my time." - -That was in the beginning of their drifting apart. Looking back -to-night she could but wonder as she remembered how gradually, how -imperceptibly that drifting apart had gone on; until she awoke one day -to find that she and her husband were estranged. He was kind, had only -an indulgent smile for the folly of her life, but the happy union of -their first wedded years was over and done with. In Lady Susan's brief -phrase, "They had become like other people." - -And now she and Claude Rutherford had drifted apart, and were like -other people. The reunion of a few weeks at Disbrowe was but a flash of -summer across the gathering gloom of their lives. - -"He can be happy," she thought, brooding in the night silence. "He -cares for so many things. I care for nothing but the things that are -gone." - -And then, while the clock of All Souls struck that solemn single stroke -which has even a more awful note than the twelve strokes of midnight, -she thought of her dead--all her dead. Her poets, Tennyson, Browning, -Swinburne--men who had lived while she was living, and one by one had -vanished--of the great tragic actor whose genius had thrilled her -childish heart--of all that company of the great who had died long -before she was born--and it seemed to her in her dejection as if the -earth were an empty desert, in which nothing great or beautiful was -left. They had all gone through the dark gates of death--across the -wild that no man knows. Her poet father, her lovely young mother, -phantoms of beauty, distant and dim, evanescent shadows in the memory -of a child. Yet, if Francis Symeon's creed were true, they were not -gone for ever. They had not gone across the wild to dark distances -beyond the reach of human thought. They were only emancipated. The -worm had cast its earthly husk, and the spirit had spread its wings. -Released from the laws of space and time, the all-understanding mind of -the dead could be in sympathy with the elect among the living. - -With Us, the elect, who have renounced the joys of sense, and lived -only to cultivate the pleasures of the mind: for us the poets we -worship still live, the minds that have been the light and leading of -our minds are our companions and friends. We need no salaried medium's -_abracadabra_ to summon them, no weary waiting round a table in a -darkened room, disturbed by suspicions of trickery. They come to us -uncalled, as we sit alone in the gloaming, or wander alone over the -desolate down, or by the long sea-shore. The poem we read is suddenly -illuminated with the soul of the poet: the printed page becomes a -message from the immortal mind. - -To-night, in that silent hour, it was only of the dead Vera thought, as -she wandered from room to room in the house of fear, shrinking from the -prospect of the long, sleepless hours, weary yet restless. Restlessness -made her wander into regions that were almost strange. - -She drew aside a heavy curtain, and pushed open a crimson cloth door -that led from the hall of ceremony to those inferior regions common to -servants and tradesmen--the long stone passage, with doors right and -left, the passage that ended at the door into the stable-yard, the door -by which Mario Provana had entered on the night of his death. - -Rarely had her foot trodden the stone pavement, yet every detail of -the place--the form of the doors, the white ceiling, the unlovely drab -walls had been burnt into her brain. - -A single electric lamp gave the kind of light that is more awful than -darkness. She heard clocks ticking: one that sounded solemn and slow, -as if it were some awful mechanism that was measuring the fate of men; -one with a thin and hurried beat, like the pulse of fever; she heard -the heavy breathing of more than one sleeper; and presently, in front -of the yard door, she came upon the watch dog, the Irish terrier, Boroo. - -He was lying asleep on a rug in front of the door, and her light step -upon the stone had not roused him. It was only when she was close to -his rug that he started up and gave a low, muffled bark, and sniffed at -the skirt of her dress, and being assured that she was to be trusted, -sprang up with his fore-feet upon her hip and licked her hands. - -She stooped over him and stroked his rough head, and let him nestle -close against her, and then she knelt down beside him and put her arms -round him and fondled him as he had never been fondled before by so -beautiful and delicate a creature. From those long thoughts of a world -peopled by the dead, the spontaneous love of this warm, living creature -touched her curiously. There was comfort in contact with anything so -full of life; and she laid her cold cheek against the dog's black nose, -called him by his name, and made him her friend for ever. - -"Poor old dog, all alone in this cold place. Come upstairs with me; -come, Boroo." - -The house dog needed no second invitation. He kept close to her -trailing silken skirt as she moved slowly through the hall, switching -off lights as she went, and so by the stately staircase to the second -floor. - -The fire in her morning-room had been made up at a late hour by -Louison, who was now accustomed to her mistress's nocturnal habits; -and the logs were bright on the hearth, and brightly reflected on the -hedge-sparrow-egg blue of the tiled fireplace. - -The terrier looked round the room with approval. Till this night he had -seen nothing finer than Mrs. Manby's parlour, where--when occasionally -suffered to lie in front of the fire--he had always to be on his best -behaviour. But in Vera's room he made himself at once at home, jumped -on and off the prettiest chairs, rioted among the silken pillows on the -sofa, looking at her with questioning eyes all the time, to see what -liberties he might take, and finally stretched his yellow-red body at -full length in the glow and warmth of the hearth, wagging a lazy tail -with ineffable bliss. - -Vera seated herself in a low chair near him, and stooped now and then -to pat the broad, flat head. He was a big dog of his kind; and though -intended only for the humblest service, to rank with kitchen and -scullery-maids and under-footmen, he was naturally, in that opulent -household, a well-bred animal of an unimpeachable pedigree. His parents -and grandparents had been prize-winners, and his blood might have -entitled him to a higher place than the run of the servants' hall and -stables and a mat in a stone passage. But whatever his inherited merits -or personal charms, Vera's sudden liking for him had nothing to do with -his race or character. It was the chill desolation of the silent hour, -the freezing horror of the empty house, that had made her heart soften, -and her tears fall, at the contact of this warm, living creature in the -world of the dead. It was almost as if she had lost her way in one of -the Roman catacombs, and had met this friendly animal among the dead of -a thousand years, and in the horror of impenetrable darkness. - -"You are my dog now, Boroo," she told the terrier, and the small, -bright, dark eyes looked up at her with a light that expressed perfect -understanding, while the pointed ears quivered with delight. He -followed her to the threshold of her bedroom, where she showed him -a White, fleecy rug on which he was to sleep, outside her door. He -threw himself upon his back, with his four legs in the air, protesting -himself her slave; and from that hour he worshipped her, and followed -her about her house in abject devotion. - -He went with her to Italy. Of course, there would be difficulties about -his return to England; but canine quarantine might be ameliorated for a -rich man's dog. He became her companion and friend; and it was strange -how much he meant in her life. Strange, very strange; for in all the -years of folly and self-indulgence she had never given herself a canine -favourite. She had seen almost every one of her friends more or less -absurdly devoted to some small creature--Griffon, Manchester terrier, -Pekinese, Japanese, King Charles, Pomeranian--dogs whose merits seemed -in an inverse ratio to their size--or the slaves to some more dignified -animal, poodle or chow. She had seen this canine slavery, and had -wondered, with a touch of scorn; and now, in the stately spaciousness -of the Roman villa, she found herself listening for the patter of the -Irish terrier's feet upon the marble floors, and rejoicing when he came -bounding across the room, to lay his head upon her knee and express -unutterable affection with the exuberance of a rough, hairy tail. - -The clue to the mystery came to her suddenly as she sat musing in the -firelight, with Boroo stretched at her feet. - -She had wanted this dog. She had wanted some warm-hearted creature -to love her, and to be loved by her. It had been the vacant house of -her life that called for an inhabitant. She had awakened from her -fever-dream of happiness, to find herself alone, utterly alone, in a -world of which she was weary. Claude Rutherford was of no more account -to her. The thing that had happened was something worse than drifting -apart. Gradually and imperceptibly the distance between them had -widened, until she had begun to ask herself if she had ever loved him. - -Boroo went with his mistress on the long journey to San Marco, and -behaved with an admirable discretion at the big hotel at Marseilles, -where, though he would have liked to try conclusions with a stalwart -_dogue de Bordeaux_ that he met in one of the long corridors, he -contented himself with a passing growl as he crept after Vera to his -post outside her room. All things were strange to him in these first -continental experiences; but he bore all things with sublime restraint, -concentrating all his brain-power and all his emotional force on the -one supreme duty of guarding the lovely lady who had adopted him. - -At the Hôtel des Anglais Mrs. Rutherford was received with rapture, -and the spacious suite on the first floor was, as it were, laid at her -feet. She would, of course, occupy those rooms, and no other; the rooms -where Signor Provana and his sweet young daughter had lived. Signor -Canincio ignored the fact that the sweet young daughter had also died -there. - -No. Mrs. Rutherford would have the rooms in which she had lived with -her grandmother. - -"I want our old rooms, please," she said. - -"The rooms in which you were so happy--where you spent two winters with -the illustrious Lady Felicia." - -Signor Canincio at once perceived how natural it was for Madame to -prefer those rooms. Everything should be made ready immediately. His -season had not yet begun; but his hotel would be full to overflowing in -December, when he expected many of Madame's old friends to settle down -for the winter. Vera smiled as she remembered those "old friends" with -whom she had never been friendly; the sour spinsters and widows who -had always resented Lady Felicia's determination to deny herself the -advantage of their society. - -It was the dead season of the year. The late lingering roses on the -walls had a sodden look, the pepper trees drooped disconsolately, and a -curtain of grey mist hung over the parade, where Vera had walked, alone -and dejected, before the coming of Giulia and her father. The hills -where they had driven looked farther away in the shadowy atmosphere. -There was no gleaming whiteness on the distant mountains. All was grey -and melancholy--and in unison with her thoughts of the dead. She had -come there to look upon her husband's grave. She had been prostrate -and helpless at the time of his burial, and had only just been capable -of arousing herself from a state of apathy, to insist that he should -be carried back to the country of his birth, and should lie beside his -daughter in the shadow of the cypresses, between the sea and the olive -woods. - -Even in that agonising time the picture of that familiar spot had been -in her mind as she gave her instructions; and she had seen the marble -tomb in its green enclosure, and the tall trees standing deeply black -against the pale gold of the sky, as on that evening when Mario Provana -had found her sitting by his daughter's tomb. He must lie there, she -told his partner, nowhere else; no, not even in Rome, where his family -had their stately sepulchre. It was under the marble tomb he had made -for his idolised child that he must rest. - -And now, in the dull grey November, she stood once more beside the -marble and read the lines that had been graven under Giulia's brief -epitaph. "Also in memory of Mario Provana, her father, who died in -London, on July the thirteenth, 19--, in the fifty-seventh year of his -age." And below this one word--"Re-united." - -She stayed long in the green enclosure, her dog coming back to her -after much exploration of the wood above, where he had startled and -scattered any animal life that he could find there, and the seashore -below, where he stirred the tideless waves by the vehemence of his -plunges; and then she went for a long ramble in the familiar paths -where she had walked with Provana in those sunny afternoons, before the -ride to the chocolate mills. She stayed nearly a week at San Marco, -repeating the same process every day; first a lingering visit to the -grave, and then a long, lonely walk in the paths she had trodden with -the man whom she had thought of only as her friend's father, until by -an imperceptible progress he had made himself the one close friend -of her life. She took pains to find the very paths they had trodden -together, the humble shrines or chapels they had looked at, the rocks -where they had sat down to rest. - -When she had first spoken of revisiting San Marco Claude had done his -uttermost to dissuade her. "Don't be morbid," he had said more than -once. "Your mind has a fatal leaning that way. You ought to fight -against it." - -Yes, she knew that she was morbid, that she had taken to brooding upon -melancholy memories, that she was cultivating sadness. Alone in the -olive wood, watching the evening light change and fade, and the shadows -steal slowly from the valley and the sea, while memory recalled words -that had been spoken in that narrow pathway, among those grey old -trees in the light and shade of evenings that seemed ages ago, she had -a feeling that was almost happiness. It was a memory of happiness so -vivid that it seemed the thing itself. - -She had been very happy in those tranquil evenings. She knew now that -she had begun to love Mario Provana many days before his impassioned -avowal had taken her by storm. His eloquence, his power of thought and -feeling, had made life and the world new. She "saw Othello's visage -in his mind." His rugged features and his eight-and-forty years were -forgotten in the charm of his conversation and the rare music of his -voice. The world of the scholar, of the thinker, and the poet, had -been an unknown world to the girl of eighteen, whose poor little bit -of flimsy education had been limited to the morning hours of a Miss -Greenhow at a guinea a week. He opened the gate of that divine world -and led her in, and they walked there together; he charmed by her -freshness and _naïveté_, she dazzled by his wealth of knowledge and his -power of imagination. Not even her poet father could have had a wider -knowledge of books, or a greater power of thought, she told herself; -which was a concession to friendship, as she had hitherto put her -father in the front rank of those who know. - -She looked back at those innocent hours, when he who was so soon to be -her husband was only thought of as her first friend. - -She looked back to hours that seemed to her to have been the happiest -in all her life. Yes, the happiest; for happiness is sunshine and calm -weather, not fever and storm. There were other hours more romantic and -more thrilling, but agonising to remember--sensual, devilish. Those -hours in the woods had been serene and pure, and she had walked there -with the heart of a child. - -How kind he had been, how kind! It was the kindness in the low, grave -voice that had made its music: only the kindness of a friend of -mature years interested in her youth and ignorance, only a grave and -thoughtful friend, liking her because she had been loved by his dead -daughter. That is what she had thought of him for the greater part of -those quiet hours. Yet now and then she had been startled by a sudden -suggestion. She did not know, but she felt that he was her lover. - - * * * * * - -It was in vain that Signor Canincio pressed her to occupy his _piano -nobile_ as the only part of his hostel worthy of her. She insisted on -the old rooms, the _salon_ that had been growing shabbier and shabbier -in the years of her absence, and which had never been redecorated. -There were the same faded cupids flying about the ceiling, where many a -crack in the plaster testified to an occasional earthquake; and there -was the same shabby paper on the walls. Nothing had been altered, -nothing had been removed. Vera went out upon the balcony and looked -down at the little town, and the distant ridge where the walls of a -monastery rose white against the grey November sky. Everything was the -same. She had wanted to come back. It was a morbid fancy, perhaps, like -many of her fancies. She knew that she was morbid. She wanted to steep -herself in the memories of the time before she was Mario Provana's -wife; the time when she knew that he loved her, and was proud of his -love. - -She walked up and down the room, touching things gently as she passed -them, as if those poor old pieces of furniture, with their white paint -and worn gilding, were a part of her history. This was the table where -she had sat making tea, a slow process, while Mario stood beside her, -watching her, as she watched the blue flame under Granny's old silver -kettle, the George-the-Second silver that gave a grace to the cheap -_salon_. Lady Felicia had kept her old silver--light and thin with much -use--as resolutely as she had kept her diamonds. - -"If ever I were forced to part with those poor things of mine I should -feel myself no better than the charwoman who comes here to scrub -floors," she told Lady Okehampton, and that kind lady, who was taking -tea with "poor Lady Felicia," in her London lodgings, had approved a -sentiment so worthy of a Disbrowe. - -Vera paced the room slowly in the thickening light: sometimes standing -by the open window, listening to footsteps on the parade, and the talk -of the women from the olive woods, tramping bravely homeward with -heavy baskets on their heads, baskets of little black olives for the -oil mills that dotted the steep sides of the gorge through which the -tempestuous little river went brawling down to the sluggish sea. - -And then she went back into the shadows, and slowly, slowly, paced all -the length of the room, thinking of those evenings when she had made -tea for the Roman financier. - -The shadows gathered momentarily and the shapes of all things became -vague and dim. There was Granny's sofa, and Granny was sitting there -among her silken pillows. She could see the pale, thin face, and the -frail figure wrapped in a China crape shawl. The white shawl had always -had a ghostly look in a dimly lighted room. - -She went over to the sofa and felt the empty corner where Granny used -to sit. No, she was not there. The sofa was a bare, hard object, with -nothing phantasmal about it. There were no silken cushions. Those -amenities had been Lady Felicia's private property, travelling to and -fro by _petite vitesse_. There was no one on the sofa, and that dark -form, the tall figure near the tea-table, was nothing but shadow. It -vanished as she came near and there was only empty space, with the -white table shining in the faint light from the open window. - -"Nothing but shadow," she thought, "like my life. There is nothing left -of that but shadow." - -"How happy I must have been, when I lived in this room, how happy! But -I did not know it. How sweetly I used to sleep, and what dear dreams -I dreamt. I was only seventeen in our first winter, and I was a good -girl. Looking back I cannot remember that I had ever done wrong. I was -always obedient to Granny, and I tried hard to please her, and to care -for her when she was ill. I always spoke the truth. The truth? Why -should I have been afraid of truth in those days? There was no merit in -fearless truth. But the difference, the difference!" - -It seemed so strange now that she had not been happier. To be young and -without sin: to believe in God and to love Christ. Was not that enough -for happiness? - -The room was almost dark before she rang for lamps. In that southern -paradise the shutting of windows must precede the entrance of lighted -lamps; and one is apt to prolong the time _entre chien et loup_. - -The darkness fostered those morbid feelings that she had indulged of -late. She thought of Francis Symeon, and his belief in the communion of -the living and the dead. - -Her husband might be near her as she crept about in the darkness. She -might _know_ that he was there; but she was not to hope for any visible -sign of his presence. - -To see was reserved for the elect; and for them only when the earthly -tabernacle was near its end, when the veil between life and death had -worn thin. _Then_ only, and for the choicest spirits only, would that -thin veil be rent asunder and the dead reveal themselves to the living, -in a divine anticipation of immortality. - -"Not for all, not for those who have loved earthly things and lived the -sensual life, not for them the afterlife of reunion and felicity." - -"Not for me--never for me." She fell on her knees by Granny's sofa, -and bowed her head upon her folded arms and prayed--a wild and fervent -prayer--a distracted appeal for mercy to One Who knew, and could pity. -Such a prayer as might have trembled on the Magdalen's pale lips while, -with bent head and hidden countenance, she washed the Redeemer's feet -with her tears. - -The spell that was woven of silence and shadow was broken suddenly -by the opening of the door and the tumultuous entrance of the Irish -terrier, followed by Louison, who saw only darkness and an empty room. - -"Mais où donc est Madame?" she exclaimed. - -Boroo had found his mistress by something keener than the sense of -sight, and had pushed his cold, black nose against her cheek, despite -of the bowed head, and leapt about her as she rose to her feet, just in -time to hide all signs of agitation as Signor Canincio's odd man, in a -loose red jacket, looking like a reformed bandit, brought in a pair of -lamps and flooded the room with light. - -Louison rushed to shut the windows and exclude _cette affreuse bête le -moustique_, from whose attentions she herself had suffered. - -"Mais, madame, pourquoi ne pas sonner? Vous voilà sans lumière, sans -feu, et les fenêtres grandes ouvertes. Accendere, donc," to the odd -man, "apportez legno, molto legno, et faire un bon fuoco, presto, -subito, tout de suite." - -It may be that this noisy solicitude was meant to cover a certain -want of attention to her mistress; Ma'mselle having lingered over -the tea-table in the couriers' room, where a dearth of couriers at -this dead season was atoned for by the presence of Signor Canincio -and his English wife, she dispensing the weakest possible tea, with -condescending kindness, and wife and husband both alert to hear -anything that Louison would tell them about her mistress, while the -animated gestures and expressive eyes of the host testified to his -admiration for _la belle Française_, an admiration that was made more -agreeable to Louison from the consuming jealousy which she saw depicted -in the countenance of the travelling footman, whose inferior status -ought to have excluded him from that table. But Louison knew that -Canincio's hotel had always been what Mr. Sedgewick called _une affaire -d'un seul cheval_. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - - -The Roman villa was a fairy palace of light and flowers, and its long -range of windows flashed across the blue vapours of the December night, -and might have been noticed as a golden glory in the far distance by -solitary watchers in the monasteries on the Aventine hill. - -It was Vera's first reception; and all that there was of Roman rank and -beauty, all that there was of transatlantic wealth and cosmopolitan -talent in the most wonderful city in the world had assembled in prompt -response to her card of invitation. - - "Mrs. Claude Rutherford, at home, 9 to 12. Music. - - "The Villa Provana." - -The financier's palace still bore the stamp of mercantile riches. -Claude had urged his wife to give the splendid house a splendid name; -so that, in the ever-changing society of the Italian capital, the -source of all that splendour might be forgotten; but he had urged in -vain. - -"It was his father's house, and it was my home with _him_," she said, -with a strange look--the look that Claude feared. "While I live it -shall never have any other name." - -"You are the first woman I ever knew with such a cult of the dismal," -he said. "Most widows wish to forget." - -"Most widows _can_ forget," she answered. - -He turned and left her at the word; and she heard him singing _sotto -voce_ as he went along the corridor, "La donna e mobile." - -"At least _I_ do not change," she thought. - -This had happened in their first winter in Rome--a mere flash of -melancholy--soon forgotten in those wild days when the pace was -fastest, and when life went by in a hurricane of fashionable -pleasures. Visiting and entertaining, opera and theatre and -race-course; a rush to Naples to hear a wonderful tenor; to Milan to -see the new dancer at the Scala; something new and fatiguing for every -week and every day. They were both calmer now, and it may be that both -were tired, though it was only Vera who talked openly of weariness. - -To-night she was looking lovely; but a Russian savant, who was among -the most illustrious of her guests, whispered to his neighbour as she -passed them, "_She_ will not live her hundred and forty years." - -"I am afraid it is a question of months rather than years," replied his -friend, a famous Roman doctor. - -Something there was in the radiant face, pale, but full of light and -life, in which the eye of an expert read auguries of evil; but to the -elegant mob circulating through those sumptuous rooms Mrs. Rutherford -was still beautiful with the bloom of health. Her pallor was of a -transparent fairness, more brilliant than other women's carnations. -The popular American painter had made one of his most startling hits, -two years before, by his exquisite rendering of that rare beauty, the -alabaster pallor, the dreaming eyes, blue-grey, or blue with a touch of -green. He had caught her "mermaid look"; and his most fervent admirers, -looking at the portrait in the Academy crowd, declared that the colour -in those mysterious eyes changed as they looked. The portrait was the -sensation of the year. Her eyes changed, and she seemed to be moving -out of the canvas, said the superior critics; and the herd went about -parroting them. She had her far-away look to-night, as she stood near -the doorway in the Rubens room, the first of the long suite; and though -she had a gracious greeting for everybody, those who admired her most -had a strange fancy that she was only the lovely semblance or outer -shell of a woman, whose actual self was worlds away. - -There was nothing dreamy or far-away about Claude Rutherford to-night. -He was a man whose nature it was to live only in the present, and -to live every moment of his life. To-night, in these splendid -surroundings, in this crowd of the noble and the celebrated, he felt -as one who has conquered Fate, and has the world at his feet. He was -a universal favourite. The hearts of women softened at his smile; and -even men liked him for his careless gaiety. - -"Always jolly and friendly, and without a scrap of side." - -That was what they said of him. To have the spending of the Provana -millions and to be without side, seemed a virtue above all praise. -People liked him better than his ethereal wife. She was charming, but -elusive. That other-world look of hers repelled would-be admirers, and -even chilled her friends. - -The Amphletts had arrived at the villa on a long visit, just in time -for Vera's first party; and Lady Susan was floating about the rooms in -an ecstasy of admiration. She had never seen them in Mario Provana's -time, and though she had been invited by Vera more than once in the -last three years, this was her first visit. - -Her tiresome husband had preferred Northamptonshire, and she had not -been modern enough to leave him; and now he had been only lured a -thousand miles from the Pytchley by the promise of hunting on the -Campagna. - -"At last Vera is in her proper environment," Lady Susan told a young -attache, who had been among the intimates in London. "She was out of -her proper setting in Portland Place. Nothing less beautiful than this -palace is in harmony with her irresistible charm. Other women have -beauty, don't you know; Mrs. Bellenden, _par exemple_." - -"Mrs. Bellenden is an eye-opener," murmured the diplomat. - -"Yes, I know what you are thinking, the handsomest woman in Europe, and -all that kind of thing; but utterly without charm. Even we women admire -her, just as we admire a huge La France rose, or a golden pheasant, -or a bunch of grapes as big as plovers' eggs, with the purple bloom -upon them; the perfection of physical beauty. But the light behind -the painted window, the secret, the charm is not in it. Beauty and to -spare, but nothing more." - -Mrs. Bellenden sailed past them on the arm of the English Ambassador -while Susie expatiated. - -It was her first appearance in Roman society, and she was the sensation -of the evening. - -A form as perfect as the Venus of the Capitol, a face of commanding -beauty, a toilette of studied simplicity, a gown of dark green velvet, -without a vestige of trimming, the _dêcolletage_ audacious, and for -ornament an emerald necklace in a Tiffany setting, which even among -hereditary jewels challenged admiration, just a row of single emeralds -clasping a throat of Parian marble. - -Mrs. Bellenden had the men at her feet; from Ambassadors to callow -striplings, new to Rome and to diplomacy, sprigs of good family, -who were hardly allowed to do more than seal letters, or index a -letter-book. All these courted her as if she had been royal; but the -women who had known her in London kept themselves aloof somehow, except -the American women, who praised and patronised her, or would have -patronised, but for something in those dark violet eyes that stopped -them. - -"It isn't safe to say sarcastic things to a woman with eyes like hers," -they told each other. "It would be as safe to try to take a rise out of -a crouching tiger, or to put a cobra's back up, for larks." - -Lady Susan was about the only woman of position who talked to Mrs. -Bellenden; but Susie loved notorieties of all kinds, and had never kept -aloof from speckled peaches, if the peaches were otherwise interesting. - -"I call Bellenden a remarkable personality," she told Claude, whom -she contrived to buttonhole for five minutes in the corridor after -supper. "A rural parson's daughter, brought up on cabbages and the -tithe pig. A woman who has spent a year in a lunatic asylum, and yet -has brains enough to set the world at defiance. You will see she'll be -a duchess--a pucker English duchess--before she has finished." - -"She is more than worthy of the strawberry leaves; but I don't see -where the pucker duke is to come from. Her only chance would be a -fledgling, who had never crossed the Atlantic." - - * * * * * - -If her own sex persisted in a certain aloofness, Mrs. Bellenden had her -court, and could afford to do without them. In the picture gallery, -after supper, she was the centre of a circle, and her rich voice and -joyous laughter sounded above all other voices in the after-midnight -hour, when the crowd had thinned and most of the great ladies had gone -away. - -Susie watched that group from a distance, and wondered when Mrs. -Bellenden was going to break through the ring of her worshippers and -make her way to the Rubens room, where the mistress of the house was -waiting to bid the last of her guests good-night. - -The first hour after midnight was wearing on, and Susan Amphlett, who -had eaten two suppers, each with an amusing escort, was beginning to -feel that she had had enough of the party and would like to be having -her hair brushed in the solitude of her palatial bedroom. But she -wanted to see the last of Mrs. Bellenden, if not the last of the party; -and she kept her cicisbeo hanging on, and pretended to be interested -in the pictures, while she furtively observed the proceedings of the -notorious beauty. She was making the men laugh. That was the spell she -was weaving over the group who stood entranced around her. Light talk -that raised lighter laughter: that was her after-midnight glamour. She -had been grave and dignified as she moved through the rooms by the side -of the Ambassador. But now, encircled by a ring of "nice boys," she was -frankly Bohemian, and amused herself by amusing them, with splendid -disregard of conventionalities. Reckless mirth sparkled in her eyes; -uproarious laughter followed upon her speech. Whatever she was saying, -however foolish, however outrageous, it was simply enchanting to the -men who heard her; and in the heart of the ring Claude Rutherford was -standing close beside the lovely freelance, hanging upon her words, -joyous, irresponsible as herself. The spell was broken at last, or -the fairy laid down her wand, and allowed Claude to escort her to her -hostess, who just touched her offered hand with light finger-tips; and -thence to the outer vestibule, an octagon room where the white marble -faces of Olympian deities, who were immortal because they had never -lived, looked with calm scorn upon the flushed cheeks and haggard -eyes of men and women too eager to drain the cup of sensuous life. -Claude and Mrs. Bellenden stood side by side in the winter moonlight -while they waited for carriage after carriage to roll away, before a -miniature brougham of neatest build came to the edge of the crimson -carpet. They had had plenty of time for whispered talk while they -waited, but there had been no more laughter, rather a subdued and -almost whispered interchange of confidential speech; and the last word -as he stood by the brougham door was "to-morrow." - -Lady Susan and Vera went up the great staircase together, Susie with -her usual demonstrative affection, her arm interwoven with her friend's. - -"Your party has been glorious, darling!" she began. "I see now that -it is the house that makes the glory and the dream. Your parties in -Portland Place were just as good, as parties, but oh, the difference! -Instead of the vulgar crush upon the staircase, and the three -overcrowded drawing-rooms, immense for London--this luxury of space, -this gorgeous succession of rooms, so numerous that it makes one giddy -to count them. Vera, I see now that it is only vast space that can give -grandeur. The bricks and stone in your London house would have made a -street in Mayfair; but it is a hovel compared with this. And to think -of that good-for-nothing cousin of mine leaving a bachelor's diggings -in St. James's to be lord of this palace. There never was such luck!" - -"I don't think Claude cares very much for the villa, or for Rome," Vera -answered coldly. "He prefers London and Newmarket." - -"That's what men are made of. They don't care for houses or for -furniture. They only care for horses and dogs, and other women," -assented Susan lightly. - -They were at the door of Vera's rooms by this time, but Susie's -entwining arms still held her. - -"Do let me come in for a _cause_." - -"I'm very tired." - -"Only five minutes." - -"Oh, as long as you like. I may as well sit up and talk as lie down, -and think." - -"What, are you as bad a sleeper as ever?" - -"I have lost the knack of sleep. But I suppose I sleep enough, as I am -alive. Some people talk as if three or four sleepless nights would kill -them; but Sir Andrew Clarke let Gladstone lie awake seven nights before -he would give him an opiate." - -"But you will lose your beauty--worse than losing your life. You looked -lovely to-night--too lovely, too much like an exquisite phantom. And -now, my sweet Vera, don't be angry if I touch upon a delicate--no, an -indelicate subject. You must never let Mrs. Bellenden enter your house -again." - -"Indeed, Susie! But why?" - -"Because she is simply too outrageous!" - -"Do you mean too handsome, too attractive?" - -"I mean she is absolutely disreputable. If you had seen her in the -picture gallery, with a crowd of men round her--your husband among -them--laughing immoderately, as men only laugh when outrageous things -are being said!" - -"And was she saying the outrageous things?" - -"Undoubtedly. I watched her from a distance, while I pretended to be -looking at the pictures. Vera, I don't want to worry you, but that -woman is dangerous!" - -"Dangerous?" - -"Yes, like the Lurlei and people of that class. She is the very woman -Solomon described in Proverbs--and _he_ knew. She is a danger for you, -Vera, a danger for your peace of mind. She is a wicked enchantress, an -enemy to all happy wives; and she is trying to steal your husband." - -"I am not afraid.". - -"But you ought to be afraid. Roger and I are not a romantic couple; but -if I saw him too attentive to such a woman as Mrs. B. I should--well, -Vera, I should take measures. Remember, the woman is the danger. It -doesn't matter how much a man flirts, as long as he flirts with the -harmless woman. You really should take measures." - -"That is not in my line, Susie. When my husband has left off caring for -me I shall know it, and that will be the end." - -Susan looked at her with anxious scrutiny. - -"I'm afraid you are leaving off caring for him," she said rather sadly. - -"Never mind, dear. The sands are running through the glass, whether we -are glad or sorry, and the end of the hour will come." - -"Don't!" cried Susie, wincing as if she had been hit. - -"Good night, dear, I am very tired." - -"Yes, that's what it means!" Susie kissed her effusively. "Your nerves -are worn to snapping point, you poor, pale thing. Good night." - -Vera was on the Palatine Hill next morning before Lady Susan had -left her sumptuous bed, a vast expanse of embroidered linen and down -pillows, under a canopy of satin and gold. Painted cherubim looked down -upon her from the white satin dome, cherubs or cupids, she was not -sure to which order the rosy cheeks and winged shoulders belonged. - -"They must be cupids," she decided at last. "They have too many legs -for cherubim." - -Vera was wandering among the vestiges of Imperial Rome with the dog -Boroo for company. She liked to roam about these weedy pathways, among -the dust of a hundred palaces, in the clear, sunlit morning, at an hour -when no tourist's foot had passed the gate. - -The custodians knew her as a frequent visitor, and left her free -to wander among the ruins as she pleased, without guidance or -interference. They had been inclined at first to question the Irish -terrier's right to the same licence, but a sweet smile and a ten-lire -note made them oblivious of his existence. He might have been some -phantom hound of mediæval legend, passing the gate unseen. Simply clad -in black cloth, a skirt short enough for easy walking, a loose coat -that left her figure undefined, and a neat little hat muffled in a -grey gauze veil through which her face showed vaguely, Vera was able -to walk about the great city in the morning hours without attracting -much notice. Among some few of the shopkeepers and fly drivers who had -observed her repeated passage along particular streets, she was known -as the lady with the dog. In her wanderings beyond the gates, in places -where there were still rural lanes and cottagers' gardens, she would -sometimes stop to talk to the children who clustered round her and -received the shower of baiocchi which she scattered among them with -tumultuous gratitude, kissing the hem of her gown, and calling down the -blessings of the Holy Mother on "_la bella Signora, e il caro cane_," -Boroo coming in for his share of blessings. - -They were lovely children some of them, with their great Italian eyes, -and they would be sunning themselves on the steps of the Trinità del -Monte by and by, when the spring came, waiting to attract the attention -of a painter on the look-out for ideal infancy; wicked little wretches, -as keen for coin as any Hebrew babe of old in the long-vanished Ghetto, -dirty, and free, and happy; but they struck a sad note in Vera's -memory, recalling her honeymoon year in Rome, and how fondly Mario -Provana had hoped for a child to sanctify the bond of marriage, and -to fill the empty place that Giulia's death had left in his heart. -A year ago Vera had been killing thought in ceaseless movement, in -ephemeral pleasures that left no time for memory or regret, but since -the coming of satiety she had found that to think or to regret was less -intolerable than to live a life of spurious gaiety, to laugh with a -leaden heart, and to pretend to be amused by pleasures that sickened -her. Here she found a better cure for painful thought, in a city whose -abiding beauty was interwoven with associations that appealed to her -imagination, and lifted her out of the petty life of to-day into the -life of the heroic past. In Rome she could forget herself, and all that -made the sum of her existence. She wandered in a world of beautiful -dreams. The dust she trod upon was mingled with the blood of heroes and -of saints. - -She had seen all that was noblest in the city with Mario Provana for -her guide, he for whom every street and every church was peopled with -the spirits of the mighty dead, from the colossal dome that roofed the -tomb of the warrior king who made modern Italy, to the vault where St. -Peter and St. Paul had lain in darkness and in chains. - -She had seen and understood all these things with Mario at her side, -enchanted by her keen interest in his beloved city, and delighted to -point out and explain every detail. - -For Mario every out-of-the-way corner of Rome had its charm--for Claude -Rome meant nothing but the afternoon drive along the Corso, and the -bi-weekly meet of hounds on the Appian Way. Everything else was a bore. -It was the Palatine where she and Mario had returned oftenest and -lingered longest, for it seemed the sum of all that was grandest in the -story of Rome, or, rather, it was Rome. How often she had stood by her -husband's side on this noble terrace, gazing at the circle of hills, -and recalling an age when this spot was the centre of the civilised -earth! Here were the ruins of a forgotten world; and the palaces of -Caligula and Nero seemed to belong to modern history, as compared with -the rude remains of a city that had perished before the War-God's twins -had hung at their fierce foster-mother's breast. Every foot of ground -had its traditions of ineffable grandeur, and was peopled with ghosts. -They stood upon the ashes of palaces more splendid and more costly than -the mind of the multi-millionaire of to-day had ever conceived--the -palaces of poets and statesmen, of Rome's greatest orators, and of -her most successful generals; of Emperors whose brief reign made but -half a page of history, ending in the inevitable murder; of beautiful -women with whom poison was the natural resource in a difficulty; of -gladiators elevated into demi-gods; of mothers who killed their sons, -and sons who killed their mothers; and of all those hundred palaces, -and that strange dream of glory and of crime there was nothing left but -ruined walls, and the dust in which the fool's parsley and the wild -parsnip grew rank and high. - -Amidst those memories of two thousand years ago, Vera felt as if life -were so brief and petty a thing, such a mere moment in the infinity of -time, that no individual story, no single existence, with its single -grief, no wrong done, could be a thing to lament or to brood over. -Nothing seemed to matter, when one remembered how all this greatness -had come and gone like a ray of sunshine on a wall, the light and the -glory of a moment. - -And what of those grander lives, the Christian martyrs, the men who -fought with beasts, and gave their bodies to be burned, the women who -went with tranquil brow and steadfast eyes to meet a death of horror, -rather than deny the new truth that had come into their lives? - -There were other, darker memories in her solitary wanderings. She -returned sometimes to the hill behind the Villa Medici. She lingered -in the dusty road outside the Benedictine monastery, and peered -through the iron gate, gazing into the desolate garden, where only the -utilitarian portion was cared for, and where shrubs, grass, and the -sparse winter flowers languished in neglect, where the gloomy cypresses -stood darkly out against the mouldering plaster on the wall; the prison -gate, within which she had seen her lover sitting by the dying fire, a -melancholy figure, with brooding eyes that refused to look at her. - -"It would have been better for us both if he had stayed there," she -thought. "If we had been true to ourselves we should have parted at -the door of his prison for ever. It would have been better for us -both--better and happier. The cloister for him and for me. A few years -of silence and solitude. A few years of penitential pain; and then the -open gate, and the Good Shepherd's welcome to the lost sheep." - -Yes, it would have been better. No pure and abiding joy had come to -her from her union with her lover. They had loved each other with -a love that had filled the cup of life in the first years of their -marriage; they had loved each other, but it had been with a passion -that needed the stimulus of an unceasing change of pleasures to keep it -alive; and when the pleasures grew stale, and there were no more new -things or new places left in the world, their love had languished in -the grey atmosphere of thought. - -She knew that her love for Claude Rutherford was dead. The third year -of wedlock had killed it. She looked back and remembered what he had -once been to her. She saw the picture of her past go by, a vivid -panorama lit by a lurid light--from the July midnight in the rose -garden by the river, to the November evening in Rome, when he had -come back to her from his living grave--and she had fallen upon his -breast, and let him set the seal of a fatal love upon her lips--the -seal that had made her his in the rose garden, and had fixed her fate -for ever. This later kiss was more fatal; for it meant the hope of -heaven renounced, and a soul abandoned to the sinner's doom. For her -part, at least, love had died. Slowly, imperceptibly, from day to day, -from hour to hour, the glamour had faded, the light had gone. Slowly -and reluctantly she had awakened to the knowledge of her husband's -shallow nature, and had found how little there was for her to love -and honour below that airy pleasantness which had exercised so potent -a charm, from the hour when she met and remembered the friend of her -childhood, until the night of the ball, when he had whispered his -plan for their future as they spun round in their last waltz. All had -shown the lightness of the sunny nature that charmed her. Even in -talking of the desperate step they were going to take he had seemed -hardly serious. His confidence was so strong in the future. Just one -resolute act--a little unpleasantness, perhaps; and then emancipation, -and a life of unalloyed happiness--"the world forgetting, by the world -forgot"--themselves the only world that was worth thinking about. - -And it was to this shallow nature that she had given her love and her -life; for she could see nothing in life outside that fatal love. As -that perished, she felt that she must die with it. There was nothing -left--no child--no "forward looking hopes." - -But there was the memory of the past! In her lonely walks about -the environs of Rome, the past was with her. She was always looking -back. She could not tread those paths without remembering who had -trodden them with her when the wonder of Rome was new. The man who -was her companion, then the strong man, the man of high thoughts and -decisive action, the thinker and the worker. The man of grave and -quiet manners, who could yet be terrible when the fire below that -calm surface was kindled. She had seen that he could be terrible. -One episode in their happy honeymoon life had always remained in her -memory, when at a crowded railway station he had been separated from -her for a few moments in the throng and had found her shrinking in -terror from the insolence of a vulgar dandy. She had never forgotten -the white anger in Mario Provana's face as he took the scared wretch by -the collar and flung him towards the edge of the platform. She never -could forget the rage in that dark face, and it had come back to her -in after years in visions of unspeakable horror. He who was so kind -could be so terrible. So kind! Now in her lonely wanderings it was -of his kindness she thought most, his fond indulgence in those days -when he had made the world new for her, days when she had looked back -at her long apprenticeship to poverty--the daily lesson in the noble -art of keeping up appearances, and Grannie's monotonous wailings over -cruel destiny--and wondered if this idolised wife could be the same -creature as the penniless girl in the shabby lodgings. She knew now -that the devoted husband of that happy year was the man who was worthy -of something more than gratitude and obedience, something more than -duty, worthy of the best and truest love that a good woman could feel -for a good man. This was the noble lover. Wherever she went in that -city of great memories the shadow of the past went with her. He was -always there--she heard his voice, and the thoughts and feelings of -years ago were more real than the consciousness of to-day. Forgotten -things had come back. The fever-dream had ended: and in the cold light -of an awakened conscience she knew and understood the noble friend and -companion she had slighted and lost. - - * * * * * - -Lady Susan was a somewhat exacting visitor; but it was years since -she had seen the inside of a dining-room before luncheon, so Vera's -mornings were her own. The half-past twelve o'clock _déjeuner_ even -appeared painfully early to Susie, though she contrived to be present -at that luxurious meal, where there were often amusing droppers-in, -lads from the embassies, soldiers in picturesque uniforms, literary -people and artistic people, mostly Americans, people whom Susie could -not afford to miss. - -Vera's mornings were her own, but she was obliged to do the afternoon -drive in the Pincio gardens and along the Corso with Lady Susan, and -after the drive she could creep away for an hour to her too-spacious -saloon where all the gods and goddesses of Olympus looked down upon her -from the tapestry, and sit and dream in the gloaming--or brood over a -new novel by Matilda Seraio, her reading-lamp making a speck of light -in a world of shadows. - -Here, by the red log-fire, where the pine-cones hissed and sputtered, -the Irish terrier was her happy companion, laying his head upon her -knee, or thrusting his black nose into her hand, now and then, to show -her that there was somebody who loved her, and only refraining from -leaping on her lap by the good manners inculcated in his puppyhood by -an accomplished canine educator. - -Sometimes she would throw down her book, snatch up a fur coat from -the sofa where it lay, and go out through the glass door that opened -into the gardens; and then, with Boroo bounding and leaping round her, -letting off volleys of joyful barks, she would run to the lonely garden -at the back of the villa, where there was a long terrace on a ridge -of high ground shaded with umbrella pines, and with a statue here and -there in a niche cut in the wall of century-old ilex. - -The solitary walk with her dog in a dark garden always had a quieting -effect upon her nerves--like the morning ramble in the outskirts of -Rome. To be alone, to be able to think, soothed her. The life without -thought was done with. Now to think was to be consoled. Even memories -that brought tears had comfort in them. - -"What can I do for him but remember him and regret him?" she thought. -"It is my only atonement. If what Francis Symeon told me is true and -the dead are near us, he knows and understands. He knows, and he -forgives." - -Sad, sweet thoughts, that came with a rush of tears! - -These quiet hours helped her to bear the evening gaieties, the evening -splendours. She went everywhere that Claude wanted her to go, gave as -many parties as he liked, _déjeuners_, dinners, suppers after opera or -theatre, anything. Her gold was poured out like water. The Newmarket -horses were running in the Roman races; the Leicestershire hunters -were ridden to death on the Campagna. Claude Rutherford was more -talked about, and more admired, than any young man in Rome. He laughed -sometimes, remembering the old books, and told them he was like Julius -Cæsar in his adolescence, a "harmless trifler." Claude Rutherford was -happy; and he thought that his wife was happy also. Certainly she had -been happy at Disbrowe less than half a year ago; and there had been -nothing since then to distress her. The long rambles of which Susan -told him, the evening seclusion, meant nothing. No doubt she was -morbid; she had always been morbid. If she had a grief of any kind she -loved to brood upon it. - -"What grief can she have?" Susan asked. "There never was such a perfect -life. She has everything." - -"I don't know. We have no children. She may long for a child." - -"Do _you_ feel the want of children?" Susan asked bluntly. - -"Yes. I should have liked a child. Our houses are silent--infernally -silent. A house without children seems under a curse, somehow." - -Susan looked at him with open-eyed wonder. This trivial cousin of -hers, who seemed to live only for ephemeral delights, this man to sigh -for offspring, to want his futile career echoed by a son. He who was -neither soldier nor senator, who had no rag of reputation to bequeath: -what should he want with an heir? And to want childish voices in his -home--to complain of loneliness! He who was never alone! - -Mrs. Bellenden had not been invited to the Villa Provana after the -night when Susie had made her protest, nor had Claude urged his wife to -invite her. Mrs. Bellenden had begun to be talked about in Rome very -much as she had been talked about in London. The noblest of the Roman -palaces had not opened their Cyclopean doors to her. There were certain -afternoons when all that was most distinguished in Roman Society -crossed those noble thresholds, as by right--went in and came out -again, not much happier or richer in ideas, perhaps, for the visit, but -just a shade more conscious of superiority. - -Mrs. Bellenden, driving up and down the Corso, saw the carriages -waiting, and scowled at them as she went by. Mrs. Bellenden was not -_bien vue_ in Rome. The painters and sculptors raved about her, and -she had to give sittings--for head and bust--to several of them. She -was one man's Juno, and another man's Helen of Troy. Her portrait, by -a famous American painter, was to be the rage at next year's picture -show. If to be worshipped for her beauty could satisfy a woman, Mrs. -Bellenden might have been content; but she was not. - -Her exclusion from those three or four monumental palaces made her feel -herself an outsider; and she bristled with fury when no more cards of -invitation came from the Villa Provana. - -"I suppose that white rag of a woman is jealous," she thought; but she -had just so much womanly pride left in her as to refrain from asking -Claude Rutherford why his wife ignored her. - -Lady Susan had not even spoken of Mrs. Bellenden after the night when -she had delivered herself of a friendly warning. But although she did -not talk to Vera of the siren, she had plenty to say to other people -about her, and plenty to hear. - -"I hope that foolish cousin of mine is not carrying on with that odious -woman," she had said tentatively to more than one great lady. - -"Why, my dear creature, everybody knows that he is making an idiot of -himself about her. She is riding his hunters to death; and she made an -exhibition of herself at the races last Sunday when one of Rutherford's -horses won by half a length, putting her arms round the winner's neck -and shaking hands with the jockey. The King and Queen and all the -Quirinal party were looking at her. She is the kind of woman who always -advertises an intrigue. After all, I believe she is not half so bad as -people think her; only she can't keep an affair quiet. She must always -play to the gallery." - -Susie shook her head, with a sigh that was almost a groan. - -"Oh, my poor Vera, so sweet, so pure, so ethereal." - -"That's where it is, my dear," said her friend. "Men don't care for -those ethereal women--long. Women hold men by their vices, not by their -virtues." - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - - -It was the end of February, and the Roman villa was soon to be left -to cobwebs and custodians. The Piazza d'Ispagnia and the broad steps -of the Trinità were alive with spring flowers, and the air had the -soft sweetness of an English April on the verge of May. White lilac -and Maréchal Niel roses were in all the shops; bright yellow jonquils, -and red and blue anemones, filled the baskets of rustic hawkers at the -street corners. Rome's innumerable fountains plashed and sparkled in -the sun; and Rome's delicious atmosphere, at once soft, caressing, and -inspiriting, made the heart glad. - -The carnival was over, and the season was waning. Lady Susan Amphlett -was never tired of telling people that she had had the best time she -had ever had in her life--excursions to Naples, Florence, and all the -cities of Tuscany; motor drives to every place worth seeing within -fifty miles of Rome; a midnight party with fireworks in the Baths -of Caracalla; a dance by torchlight, and a champagne supper, in the -Colosseum. In this latter festivity the strangeness of the scene had -been too exciting, and the revel had almost degenerated into an orgy. - -"My cousin is simply wonderful at inventing things," Susie, playing her -accustomed part of chorus, told people, "and he gets permissions and -privileges that no one else would dare ask for." - -The end had come. To-morrow's meet at the tomb of Cecilia Metella was -the last of the season; and Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford were to start for -London on the following day--a long journey in a _lit-salon_, with the -monotony of dinner-wagon meals to make the journey odious. - -"If one could only take a box of bath buns and _foie-gras_ sandwiches!" -sighed Susie. "With those and my tea basket I should be utterly happy; -but the same insipid omelette, and the same tough chicken and endive -salad, for eight and forty hours! _Quelle corvée!_" - -It was the last morning, a lovely morning. Sunshine was flooding the -great rooms, and making even the tapestried walls look gay. Susan, for -once in her life, came down to breakfast, in a black satin _négligé_, -with a valenciennes cap that made her look enchanting. - -"I wanted to see Claude in pink--Roman pink," she said, looking at the -slim, tall figure in Leicestershire clothes. "You ought always to wear -those clothes," said Susie, clapping her hands, as at the reception of -a favourite actor. "They make you bewilderingly beautiful. Now I know -why you are so keen on hunting." - -"Do you think any man cares how his coat is cut, or who made his boots, -when he may be dead at the bottom of a ditch before the end of the -run?" Claude said, laughing. "Some of the best days I have had have -been in rat-catcher clothes." - -He was radiant with pleasant expectations. He could do without -Leicestershire hedges, and hundred-acre fields, and all the perfection -of English fox-hunting. To-day the Campagna would be good enough--with -its rough ground and yawning chasms, wider and deeper than the worst of -the Somersetshire rhines. The Campagna would be good enough. He was in -high spirits, and he was singing a wicked little French song as his man -buckled on his spurs, a little song that Gavroche and his companions of -the Paris gutters had been singing all the winter. - - * * * * * - -Lady Susan drove to the meet in one of the Provana carriages, picking -up a couple of lively American friends on her way. Vera excused herself -from going with her friend, and went off for a ramble with the Irish -terrier, much to Susie's disgust. - -"You like that rough-haired beast's company better than mine," she -complained. - -"Only when I want to be alone with memories and dreams." - -"You are growing too horridly morbid, Vera. I am afraid you have taken -up religion. It's very sweet of you, darling, but it's the way to lose -your husband. Religion is the one thing a husband won't put up with. He -hates it worse than a bad cook." - -"No, I have not taken up religion." - -"Then it's spiritualism, which is just as bad. It is all Mr. Symeon's -doing. You live in a world of ghosts." - -"There are ghosts that one loves. But there will be no ghosts where I -shall be walking to-day. Only wild flowers and spring sunshine." - -She watched Susan take her seat in the carriage--a vision of coquettish -prettiness and expensive clothes. Susan's husband had gone back to -London and Newmarket some time since, not being able to "stick" Rome -after the Craven meeting. He had enjoyed some good runs with the Roman -pack, and he had been shown St. Peter's and the Colosseum, and had -played bridge with famous American players at Claude Rutherford's club; -so what more was there for him to do? - -Vera and her dog went to the Campagna by a roundabout way that avoided -that noble road between the tombs of the mighty, by which the hunting -men and their followers would go. She roamed in rural lanes, where -violets and wild hyacinths were scenting the warm air, and sat in a -solitary nook, musing over a volume of Carducci, while Boroo hunted the -hedge and scratched the bank, in a wild quest of the rats that haunted -his dreams as he sprawled on the Persian prayer-rug before the fire. - -It was late afternoon when Vera left the quiet lane and turned into the -dusty road that led to the tomb of Cecilia Metella; lingering on her -way to admire a team of those magnificent fawn-coloured and cream-white -oxen, whose beauty always went to her heart. She recalled Carducci's -lovely sonnet, "Il Bove," those exquisite lines which Giulia Provana -had repeated to her as they drove along the rural roads near San Marco, -and which she learned from her friend's lips before she had ever seen a -printed page of the Italian's verse. - -All signs of horse and hound had disappeared before she came to -Cecilia's tomb; there were no people in carriages, no loitering -peasants or British bicyclists, waiting about on the chance of a -ringing run, which would bring pack and field sweeping round the wide -plain in sight of the starting-point. There was no one--only the vast -expanse of greyish-green herbage, with here and there a heap of ruins -that had been a palace or a tomb, and here and there a red-capped -shepherd and his flock. Vera strolled along the grass, taking no heed -of vehicles or foot-passengers on the higher level of the Appian Way. -She had her time chiefly engaged in keeping Boroo to heel, where only -duty could keep him, instinct and a passionate inclination urging him -to make a raid on the sheep. Distance would have been as nothing. He -would have crossed the expanse of rugged ground in a flash, if Vera's -frown and Vera's threatening voice had not subjugated that which, next -to fighting, was a master passion. - -She was absorbed in her endeavour to keep the faithful beast under -control, when the sound of laughter on the road above made her come to -a sudden stop, and look, and listen. - -She knew the laugh. It had once been music in her ears. That frank, -joyous laugh, the ripple of gladness that defied the Fates, had once -been an element in the glamour that cast its spell over her life. But -now the laugh jarred: there was a false note in the music. - -A woman was riding at Claude's bridle-hand; their horses walking -slowly, close together; and he was leaning over her to listen and to -talk; his hand was on her saddle, and their heads were very near, as he -bent to speak and to listen. Vera could hear their voices in the clear -air of a Roman sundown; but not the words that they were speaking. One -thing only was plain, that after each scrap of talk there came that -ripple of joyous laughter from the man; and then, after a little more -talk, with heads still closer, the boisterous mirth of a reckless woman. - -The woman was Mrs. Bellenden. What other rider after those Roman hounds -had a figure like hers, the exquisite lines, the curves of bust and -throat that the sculptors were talking about? - -The woman was Mrs. Bellenden, in one of her amusing moods. That was her -charm, as Susan Amphlett had explained it to Vera. She made men laugh. - -"That is her secret," said Susan; "she remembers all the stories her -madcap husband told her when she was young and they shocked her. She -dishes them up with a spice of her own, and she makes men laugh. She -can keep them dangling for a year and hold them at arm's length; while -a mere beauty would bore them after a month, unless she came to terms. -That's her secret. But, of course, it comes to the same in the end. -Such a woman's affairs must have the inevitable conclusion. Her pigeons -last longer in the plucking, and she gets more feathers out of them. -You had better look after your husband before he goes too far!" - -Nothing had moved Vera from her placid acceptance of fate. "I suppose -my husband must amuse himself with a flirtation now and then, when his -racing stable begins to pall," she said. - -"Vera, you and Claude are drifting apart," exclaimed Susie, with a -horrified air. - -It was a gruesome discovery for Chorus, who had gone about the world -singing the praises of this ideal couple--these exquisite married -lovers--and talking about Eden and Arcadia. - -Vera smiled an enigmatic smile. - -Drifting apart! No, it was not drifting apart. It was a cleft as wide -and deep as one of those yawning chasms on the Campagna, that the -sportsmen boasted of jumping with their Northamptonshire hunters. - -This was Vera's last day in Rome. They started on the homeward journey -next morning, but instead of travelling with her husband by the Paris -express, she took it into her head to linger on the way. She stopped at -Pisa, she stopped at Porto Fino, she stopped at Genoa; and last of all, -she stopped at San Marco to look at Mario Provana's grave. - -"I may never see Italy again," she said, when Susan tried to dissuade -her. "I have a presentiment that I shall never see this dear land any -more." - -"For my part I should not be sorry if I knew I was never coming back to -the villa," her husband answered. "It is too big for a house to live -in. It must soon fall to the fate of other Roman palaces, and become -one of the sights of the city; to be shown for two lire a head to Dr. -Lunn and his fellow-travellers." - -Vera had her way. In this respect she and her husband were essentially -modern. They never interfered with each other's caprices. He travelled -by the Paris express, and stayed at the Ritz just long enough to see -the latest impropriety at the Palais Royal, and it happened curiously -that Mrs. Bellenden was travelling by the same train on the same day, -stopping at the same hotel, attended by a young lady who would have -been faultless as a _dame de compagnie_ except for a chronic neuralgia, -which often compelled her to isolate herself in her hotel bedroom. Vera -went along the lovely coast with Susie, who declared herself delighted -to escape the monotony of the dinner-wagon, and to see some of the most -delicious spots in Italy with her dearest Vee, to which monosyllable -friendship had reduced Vera's name. In an age that has substituted the -telegraph and the telephone for the art of letter-writing, it is well -that names should be reduced to the minimum, and that our favourite -politician should be "Joe," our greatest general "Bobs," and our -dearest friend M. or N. rather than Margherita or Naomi. - -Vera showed Lady Susan all the things that were best worth seeing in -Genoa and the neighbourhood, and they lingered at Porto Fino, and other -lovely nooks along that undulating coastline; garden villages dipping -their edges into the blue water, and flushed with the pink glory of -blossoming peach trees, raining light petals upon the young grass. It -was the loveliest season of the Italian spring; and all along their way -the world was glad with flowers. They missed nothing but the birds that -were making grey old England glad before the flowers, but which here -had been sacrificed to the young Italian's idea of sport. - -There was only one spot to which Vera went alone, and that was Mario -Provana's grave. Happily, Susan had forgotten that he was buried at San -Marco; and she wondered that Vera should have arranged to break the -journey and stop a night at a place where there was absolutely nothing -to see. - -Certainly it was not very far from Genoa; but a slow train and a -headache made the journey seem an eternity to the impatient Susan, -and when San Marco came she was very glad of her dinner and bed, and -to have her hair taken down, after it had been hurting her all the -way, and to no end, as she was utterly indifferent to the opinion of a -couple of natives, the provincial Italian being no more to her than a -red-skinned son of the Five Nations or a New Zealander. - -Vera was able to spend an hour in the yew tree enclosure in the morning -freshness, between six and seven. She had telegraphed her order for a -hundred white roses to the San Marco florist the day before, and the -flowers were ready for her in a light, spacious basket, in the hall of -the hotel, when she came downstairs in the dim sunrise. - -"It is the last time," she said to herself, as she covered the great -marble slab with her roses, and stooped to lay cold lips on the cold -stone. "Giulia--Mario," she murmured tenderly, with lingering lips. - -"I am not afraid," she said to herself. "I know that he has forgiven -me." - -Maid and footman and luggage went by the morning train; and half an -hour after Vera and her friend left San Marco, in a carriage that was -to take them to Ventimiglia. By this means they had the drive in the -morning sunshine, and escaped the long wait at the frontier, only -entering the dismal station five minutes before their train left Italy. - -They spent that night in Marseilles, where Susan Amphlett insisted -upon seeing the Cannebière by lamplight; and they were in Paris on the -following evening, and in London the next day. - -"And now you are going to begin a splendid season," said Susie, "in -this dear old house. The rooms look mere pigeon-holes after your Roman -villa; but there's no place like London. And I really think Claude is -right. The Villa Provana is much too big, and just a wee bit eerie. It -suggests ghosts, if one does not see them. One of those sweet young -Bersaglieri told me that your husband's father made a man fight a duel -to the death with him in one of those weird upper rooms; and that the -stamping of their feet and the rattle of their rapiers is heard at a -quarter past two on every fifteenth of November. When I heard the story -I felt rather glad I did not come to you till December. Aren't you -pleased to be home, Vera, in these cosy drawing-rooms?" - -Everything in life is a question of contrast, and after the Villa -Provana the drawing-room in Portland Place, with its five long windows -and perspective of other drawing-rooms through a curtained archway, -looked as snug as a suburban parlour. - -"Aren't you glad to be home?" persisted Susan. - -"No, Susie. I would rather have spent the rest of my life in Italy." - -"Oh, I suppose you prefer the climate. You are one of those people who -care about the state of the sky. I don't. I like people, and shops, -and theatres, and the opera at Covent Garden. Milan or Naples may be -the proper place for music; but we get all the best singers. Don't -think me ungrateful, Vera. I revelled in Rome. A place where one can -go, from buying gloves and fans in the Corso, to gloating over the -circus where the Christian martyrs fought with lions, must be full of -charm for anybody with a mind. Rome made a student of me. I read two -historical primers, and a novel of Marion Crawford's; besides dipping -into Augustus Hare's delightful books. I haven't been so studious -since I attended the Cambridge extension lectures, with my poor old -governess, who used to amuse us by going to sleep, and giving herself -away by nodding. Her poor old bonnet used to waggle till it made even -the lecturer laugh." - -Susie went off to join Mr. Amphlett in Northamptonshire; but she was -to establish herself at the little house in Green Street directly -after Easter, and then she and her dearest Vee must spend their lives -together. - -Vera was not sorry to speed the parting guest. She had had rather too -much of Susie in that month of Rome; for though she had lived her own -life, in a great measure, there was always the sense that Susie was -there, and that she ought to give more of her time to her friend. - -She had suffered one grief in coming to London, for on landing at Dover -she had to part with the Irish terrier, who was led off by a famous -dog-doctor's subordinate, to spend six months in isolation, which -was to be made as pleasant to him as such imprisonment could be made -to an intelligent dog, warmly attached to a mistress who had raised -him from the canine to the human by her companionship. Boroo was to -pass six months in quarantine before he could stretch himself on the -prayer-rug at his mistress's feet, and roll upon his back in an ecstasy -of contentment. Boroo might be made comfortable in the retreat, as one -of the favourites of fortune; but Boroo would not be happy without -his mistress, and the first telephonic communication from the canine -hotel informed Mrs. Rutherford that her faithful friend had refused -food and was very restless. The functionary who gave this information -assured her that this was only a passing phase in dog-life, and that -the terrier would be happier next day. And the account next day was -comparatively cheerful; the terrier had eaten a little sheep's head and -was livelier. Vera hated the law which deprived her of the only friend -who had comforted her in hours of deepest dejection. The dog's welcome -after every parting, the dog's abounding love, had given a new zest to -life. Was there any other love left her now quite as real as this? Her -husband, her enthusiastic friend Susan, all the train of affectionate -aunts and cousins--the girl cousins who came to her to relate their -love affairs; the baby cousins who kissed her when their nurses told -them, holding up cherry lips, and smiling with sweet blue eyes--three -generations of Disbrowes! Was there one among them all whose love she -could believe in as she could in her Irish terrier? - -Six months without Boroo! It was a dreary time to think of. Boroo was -the only creature who could take her mind away from herself and her -life's history. He had given her the beatitude of loving and being -loved, without romance--without passion--without looking before or -after: and, realising the difference this dumb creature made, she could -but think with melancholy longing of what a child would have meant in -her life. - - * * * * * - -And now began the familiar round in the familiar house, with the -Disbrowes gathering strong as of old to help and to suggest--to bring -to Vera's parties the few great people who had not yet discovered that -a Mrs. Rutherford whose wealth had come out of the City could be so -particularly attractive, or could give parties that had always a touch -of originality that made them worth one's while. These mighty ones told -each other that it was the absence of conventionality that made Vera's -house so agreeable; while Lady Susan, still playing her part of Chorus, -told the mighty ones that it was because her cousin was a poet's -daughter, and made an atmosphere of poetry round her. - -"Vera lives in a world of dreams," she said, "and we are all dreamers, -though the horrid everyday world comes between us and our fairest -visions. I think that's why we love her." - -A Princess of the blood royal happened to meet Vera at this time, and -became one of her most ardent admirers, lunching or dining in Portland -Place at least once a week, and visiting Mrs. Rutherford in her opera -box. She had heard of the Roman villa and the Roman parties. - -"I shall spend next January in Rome on purpose to see more of you," -she said, upon which Claude, who was present, begged that her Royal -Highness would make the Villa Provana her home whenever she came to -the Eternal City; an invitation which her Royal Highness graciously -promised to remember. - -"My sweet girl, you are on the crest of the wave," Lady Okehampton told -her niece. "You were never so much the fashion as this year. You ought -to be proud of your social success." - -"I wish I had my dog out of quarantine," was all Vera said. - -"Get another dog--a Pekinese lion; ever so much smarter than your rough -brute." - - * * * * * - -The season wore through somehow in perpetual gaieties which the wife -hated, but which were essential to the husband's well-being. He had all -the racing world, and never missed an important meeting; but when there -was no racing he wanted dinner-parties, or crowded evenings, abroad or -at home. Later there would be Cowes, where he had a new yacht just out -of the builder's yard, waiting to beat every boat in the Channel. - -He did not often look at his wife's visiting list, being content to -give her the names of the men who were to be asked to her dinners, -taking it for granted that they would be asked. Every evening party -was more or less an _omnium gatherum_; and about these he asked no -questions--but more than once, between March and June, he had suggested -that Mrs. Bellenden should be invited to dinner--to some smallish -semi-literary and artistic dinner--and this suggestion being ignored, -he had advised her being included in one of the big dinner-parties, -where the mighty ones had been bidden to meet the royal Princess. - -"I don't think that would do," Vera answered coldly. - -"You forget that Mrs. Bellenden is one of the handsomest women in -London," Claude answered with some touch of temper, "and that people -like to meet a well-known beauty." - -"I'm afraid Mrs. Bellenden is rather too well known. You had better -give a dinner at 'Claridge's' or the 'Ritz,' Claude, and let Susan do -hostess for you. Susie would enjoy it." - -"I suppose it will come to that," said Claude. "I'll take one of your -Wagner nights--when I know you'll be happy." - - * * * * * - -Lady Susan having warned her friend against the siren, was not so -disloyal as to play hostess at a Bohemian dinner. - -"No, Claude," she said when the idea was mooted. "I have never been -prudish, but I draw the line at Mrs. Bellenden." - -Her cousin shrugged his shoulders, and left the room with a snatch of a -French _chanson_, which was his most forcible expression of temper. The -light tenor voice, the gay French verse, harmonised with the nature in -which there were no depths. - -Goodwood was once more imminent, and Cowes was in the near future, when -Vera sent out cards for her last evening party, which would be one -of the last of the season, on the eve of the exodus of smart London. -The Princess Hermione was to be at the party--and this royal lady -was like that more famous heroine of the nursery, who rode her white -horse to Banbury Cross in a musical ride; for, like that famous lady, -the Princess expected to have music wherever she went, music, and of -the best, for the royal Hermione was a connoisseur, and herself no -mean performer on the violoncello. A famous baritone and an equally -famous mezzo-soprano were to sing during the evening, in the inner -drawing-room, not in a formal way with programmes and rout seats, for -people to be packed in rows, to sit there from start to finish till, -in our elegant twentieth-century English, they were "fed up" with -squalling. - -Everything was to be informal; and the people who did not want music -would have space enough in the larger rooms and on the staircase to -babble and to flirt as they chose; while that inner drawing-room would -be, as it were, a sanctuary for the elect, a temple of the god of -harmony. - -Vera stood at the door of the larger drawing-room receiving her -guests, from ten to half-past, when the Princess Hermione, who had just -arrived, put her arm through her hostess's and asked eagerly: - -"Did you get him?" Signor Pergolesi, the baritone, understood. - -"Yes, ma'am, he is in the little drawing-room with Madame Rondolana, -waiting to sing to you!" - -"Take me there this moment, Vera!" and hooked by the royal arm in a -crumpled glove, Vera led the Princess and her lady-in-waiting through -the babbling crowd to the sanctuary where the elect were beginning to -bore each other while they waited for the first song. - -Herr Mainz was at the piano ready to accompany the two singers -whose engagement he had negotiated. At all concerts of this clever -gentleman's arranging it seemed to some people as if the artists were -puppets, and that he pulled the string that set them going all through -the performance. To-night, however, there was to be less string-pulling -and more _sans façon_, or rather it was Princess Hermione who was to -pull the string. - -She certainly lost no time in telling Madame Rondolana what she wanted -her to sing, and she kept that brilliant vocalist rolling out song -after song in the rich abundance of a mezzo-soprano that nothing could -tire. She sang song after song, at the Princess's nod; Italian, German, -Swedish, nay, even English, with an ease that testified to power -without limit. The baritone looked and listened with languid interest, -not offended, for he knew that his turn would come, and that when once -the Princess started him she would never let him leave off. He sat -near the piano in an easy attitude; not listening, but turning his -thoughts inward, and making up his mind as to what songs he would sing. -Wagner? Yes. Bizet? Yes, but in any case "Die beiden Grenadiere" as a -finish--and then those massive folding doors, that were shutting out -the babblers, should be flung wide open, and he would sing to the whole -of the company. _He_ could stop their talking--those two grenadiers -were infallible. - -"Viz dat song I alvays knock zaim in ze Ole Ken' Road," he used to tell -his friends. - -At eleven o'clock there came a kind of subtle sense of something -wanting, even beyond that exquisite music; and Lady Okehampton -whispered to her niece that it was time the Princess went to supper, -and that Claude must take her downstairs. Vera went in search of him. -The crowd in the biggest drawing-room had thinned, and she was able to -look for her husband--but without success; and she went through the -other rooms to the spacious landing, in which direction most people -were drifting, and there she met a perturbed spirit in the form of -Susan Amphlett. - -"What's the matter, Susie? Is there anything wrong?" - -"Wrong!" cried Susie. "I call it simply disgusting. How could you be -such a fool?" - -"What have I done?" - -"To ask that horrid woman, and with your Princess for the guest of the -evening! She ain't prudish; but I fancy she'll think it a bit steep to -find herself rubbing shoulders with Mrs. Bellenden." - -"I have not invited Mrs. Bellenden." - -"Someone else has, then. Or else she has come like the lady at Cannes, -_invitée ou non_." - -"Is Mrs. Bellenden here?" - -"Yes, in the supper-room, in a mob of admirers. Claude took her down to -supper." - -"That's rather tiresome," Vera answered quietly, "for he ought to take -the Princess, and I can't keep her waiting. Do be kind, Susie, and go -and tell him he must come to the music-room this minute. The Princess -ought to have gone down before anybody, and now you say there's a mob." - -"A perfect bear-garden of greedy beasts. I don't believe there'll be -an ortolan left by the time she comes. Anyhow, I'll make it hot for -Claude!" and Susie hurried off, elbowing a desperate way through the -crowd on the stairs. "Mon dieu, quel four!" she muttered. - -Vera went back to the sanctuary, impounding her uncle Okehampton on the -way, in case she found the friendly Hermione indisposed to wait for her -host. - -She found her Princess with a dark and angry brow, standing near the -door, whispering to her attendant lady. She had the look of a Princess -who had been "almost waiting," and who did not like the sensation. -She heard that Mr. Rutherford was making his way through the crowd to -attend upon her, with an air of supreme indifference. - -"Lord Okehampton is one of my old friends," she said, and took his -offered arm without looking at Vera. "Mr. Rutherford can bring -Pauline," she said, as they moved away. - -Pauline was the lady-in-waiting, a colourless spinster of -seven-and-thirty, who loved everything the Princess loved, and hated -everything she hated, and who dressed like the Princess, only much -worse. - -Lord Okehampton made himself vastly agreeable, and the mob, seeing the -royal brow under the tiara, made way for the couple, and there was a -table found for the royal lady in an agreeable position, and there were -ortolans and peaches without stint; but when Claude came presently with -the Honourable Pauline he received a snub so unmistakable that he was -glad to carry his Honourable companion to the remotest corner of the -room, where he gave her a sumptuous supper, and had the consolation of -her sympathy. - -"The Princess has a heart of gold," she told him, "but her temper is -dreadful sometimes, and life is rather difficult with her." - -"Not quite a bed of roses," said Claude. - -"It would be ungrateful of me to call it a bed of stinging-nettles," -said Pauline, "because as there are five of us at home, all unmarried, -I have to do something; and the Princess is wonderfully kind, and then -she is so clever and accomplished. She does everything well; but music -is her passion." - -"That's how I made my mistake," said Claude. "I thought her enjoyment -of her own particular baritone would have lasted longer, and that I -should have been in attendance before she was inclined to move." - -"The Princess has a good appetite," said Pauline, discussing her fourth -ortolan, "and one really does get very hungry at an evening party. -Music is so exhausting. I hope that dear Pergolesi and Madame Rondolana -are having something." - -"Our good friend Mainz will take care of that." - -"Apropos," said Pauline. "There is a lady here I am rather curious -about. We passed her on the stairs. Mrs. Bellenden. Gloriously -handsome, and all that; but frankly, Mr. Rutherford, I was just a wee, -wee bit surprised to see her in your wife's house, especially to meet -the Princess. I hardly like to speak of such things; but has she not -been just a little talked about lately? Of course, I know she went -everywhere two years ago; but just lately people have said things; and -one has not run against her at the best houses." - -"Of course she has been talked about," answered Claude, with his frank -laugh. "Meteors are talked about. A woman so exceptionally beautiful -is like Halley's Comet. People are sure to talk about her; and the -ill-natured talkers will make scandal about her. Poor Mrs. Bellenden! -Quite a harmless person, I assure you; open-hearted, generous, -impulsive--a trifle imprudent, perhaps, as these impulsive women always -are." - -The lady-in-waiting had supped too well to be ill-natured. - -"I am so glad you have told me. I shall tell the Princess that there -is no foundation for any of the stories we have heard about poor Mrs. -Bellenden," she said, as they left the supper-room. - -The sanctuary was full of people when Lord Okehampton took the Princess -back, after a leisurely supper, during which they had talked over old -friends and things that had happened a dozen years ago, when Okehampton -was Master of the Horse. The Princess had recovered her temper, and was -ready to enjoy her favourite Pergolesi; but Vera, who had not left the -music-room, looked white and weary; and the kindly Hermione chid her -for not having followed her to the supper-room. All the best people -were now gathered in the inner drawing-room; some for the Princess, -and some for the baritone; and only the royal chair was vacant when -the royal lady reappeared. Pergolesi chuckled at the thought that -Rondolana had lavished her octave and a half of perfection on the -chosen few; while he had all the finest tiaras, and the largest display -of shoulders and diamonds for his audience. - -Hermione beckoned him to her side, and they discussed what songs he -should sing; she ordering, but he making her order what he wanted and -had made up his mind about. - -"I should like to finish viz 'Die beiden Grenadiere,'" he said in his -broken English. "I think it is one of your favourites, ma'am?" - -"Je l'adore." - -Song after song was received with enthusiasm. Herr Mainz played a -brilliant "Mazourka de Salon," while the baritone rested and whispered -with the Princess, and when the silvery chimes of an Italian eight-day -clock announced midnight, the great doors were thrown open and -Pergolesi hurled his splendid voice upon the crowd in the outer room. - -A phrase or two, and the babble of three hundred voices had become -silence; and when the song was done the crowd melted away, still in -comparative stillness, while Vera stood on the landing to see them -pass, as if she were holding a review. No one wanted to begin talking -after that stupendous song. People had stayed later than they intended, -till it was too late to go on to other, and perhaps better, houses. -The Princess had gone out by a second staircase, which had been kept -clear for her, with Pergolesi and Okehampton to escort her downstairs, -and Claude Rutherford to put her into her carriage. She went off in a -charming mood, but could not refrain from a stab at the last. - -"Your wife's party has been perfect," she said, "but the company just a -little mixed. I suspect you of having introduced the Bohemian element, -in the shape of that handsome lady whom everybody has been talking -about." - -There were lingerers after that, and the party was not over till one -o'clock. The last guest strolled into the pale grey night as Big Ben -tolled the first hour of day. Claude followed his wife up the broad -staircase, where the heated atmosphere was heavy with the scent of arum -lilies, and the daturas that hung their white bells in all the corners. -She was moving slowly, tired and languid after the long evening, and -she never looked back. He followed her to the door of her room; but -she stopped upon the threshold, turned and faced him, ashy pale in her -white gown, like a ghost. - -"Good-bye," she said, with a face of stone. - -"Vera, for God's sake! What's the matter?" - -"Good-bye," she repeated, and, as he moved towards her, she drew back -suddenly, so quickly that he was unprepared for the movement, and shut -the door in his face. - -He heard the key turning in the lock, shrugged his shoulders, and -walked slowly along the gallery to his own room, not the room that had -been Mario Provana's dressing-room. - -"Some ass has been telling her things," he muttered to himself. - -And then he thought of Mrs. Bellenden's appearance that night, in a -gown of gold tissue, and a diamond tiara. She had been too insolently -splendid in her overweening beauty, too tremendous, too suggestive of -Cleopatra at Actium, a woman who lived upon the ruin of men. - -What wife, who cared for her husband, could help being angry if she saw -him near such a creature? - -And he had been near her all the night. He had whispered with her in -corners, hung over her perfumed shoulders, followed her close as her -shadow, sat with her in a nest of tropical flowers in the balcony, -instead of moving about among his guests. - -He had taken her down to the supper-room, first among the first, -neglecting duchesses and a princess of the blood royal for her sake. -No doubt that malicious little wretch Susan Amphlett had been watching -him, and had reported all his misdoings to Vera. - -"What does it matter?" he said to himself. "My life was growing -unbearable. The gloom was closing round me like a funeral pall. Kate -was my only refuge. I have never been in love with her; but she stops -me from thinking." - -That was the secret. Mrs. Bellenden had been his Nepenthe, when the -common round of pleasures had lost their power to make him forget. - -Mrs. Bellenden was like strong drink, like opium or hashish. She -killed thought. She filled the vacant spaces in his life--the Stygian -swamps where black thoughts wandered in space, like angry devils. Her -exactions, her quarrels, their partings and reunions, the agitations -and turmoil of her existence, had filled his life. When he banged the -hall door of the bijou house in Brown Street behind him after one of -their stormy farewells he knew that he would go back to her in a week. -He tramped the adjacent Park across and across, along and along, in a -fury, and thanked God that he had done with "that harpy"; but he knew -that he would have to go back to the harpy, to be reconciled again, -with oaths and kisses and tears, and to quarrel again, and to obey -her orders, and go here or there as she made him. The most degrading -slavery to a wicked woman was better than the great silent house and -the horror that inhabited it. - -His wife had her consolations, nay, even her hysterical delights. -She could shut herself in her white temple with the spirits of her -worshipped dead. She heard voices. Death now hardly counted with her, -neither Death nor Time. Saint Francis of Assisi was as near her as -Robert Browning. Shakespeare was no more remote than Henry Irving. She -was mad. - -The emptiness, the silence, the gloom, were killing him. If there had -been children, all might have been different. The past would have -been forgotten in those new and forward-looking lives. His sons and -daughters would not have let him remember past things. And Vera would -not have had time for morbid thoughts, for nursing dark memories. Her -children would have made her forget. - -He had some kind of explanation with her on the day after the party, -and made some feeble kind of apology. But she was cold and dumb; she -expressed no anger, neither complained nor reproached him; she shed no -tears. She stood before him in her white silence, still beautiful, but -with a pale, unearthly beauty that chilled his heart. All the force of -the old love swept back upon him; and his heart ached with a passion of -pity and regret. He seized her by the shoulders--so frail, so wasted, -since last year--and looked at her with despairing eyes. "Vera, you -are killing yourself by inches. What can I do? What can I do for you? -Shall we go away? Ever so far away? to new worlds--to places where the -stupendous phenomena of Nature, and the things that men have made, will -take us out of ourselves? There are things in this world so tremendous -that they can kill thought. The Zambesi, the Aztec cities of Mexico, -the great Wall of China." - -"You are very good," she answered, coldly but not unkindly--rather with -a weary indifference, as of a soul too tired to feel or think. "I am -quite contented here. My life in this house suits me as well as any -life could." - -"In this house?" he cried. - -"Yes, in this house. I am not alone here. But I don't want to keep you -here if the house makes you unhappy. You had better go away, Claude; go -anywhere you like, as you like. I shall not complain." - -"Are you giving me a letter of license?" he asked, with a harsh laugh. -"Is your love quite dead?" - -"Everything is dead," she answered. - -He could get no more from her, and he left her in anger. - -"You had better divorce me and marry Francis Symeon," he said, "and -cultivate spookism together." - -The natural sequel to a scene like that was a little dinner at -Claridge's with Mrs. Bellenden, and an evening at the silliest musical -comedy to be seen and heard in London. - -His wife had given him a letter of license. She had ceased to love him. -He made himself so disagreeable to Mrs. Bellenden by dinner-time that -the meal was eaten in sullen silence; and the Magnum of Veuve Pommeroy -was hardly enough for two, for when Mrs. Bellenden was in a rage her -glass had to be filled very often, and the waiters at the smart hotels -knew her ways. The waiters worshipped her. "She tips as handsome as she -tipples," had been said of her by one of them. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX - - -Everything was dead. That had been Vera's answer when Claude asked -despairingly if love was dead. The words were in her mind now as she -stood alone in the room where her poets, and her actors, and her -philosophers, looked at her from the white walls, and where the sound -of the great hall door closing heavily as her husband shut it behind -him was still in her ears. - -Had he gone for ever? Was it indeed the end? Could love that had begun -in ecstasy close in this grey calm? She felt neither sorrow nor anger. -Everything was dead. She stood among the ruins of her life, feeling -as a child might feel when the house she has built of cards shatters -suddenly and falls at her feet. Everything was over. She had no thought -of building another house; no desire to patch up a broken life and -begin again. Perhaps her husband loved her still, and it was the gloom -of this haunted house that had driven him to seek distraction in a -baser love. It was her fault, perhaps, and she ought to be sorry for -him. Poor Claude! She remembered his gaiety. The airy mockery that -had enchanted her, the quick wit that had struck fire and light out -of dull things. She remembered the joyous nature, the light laughter, -the inexhaustible energy which made difficult things--in the way of -sport--seem easy. Yes, they had been happy, utterly happy in the life -of the moment, shutting out every thought that was irksome, every -memory that hurt. And it was all over and dead, and she had nothing -left but the shadows in this room, the dead faces, the words of those -who were not. That scriptural phrase had always moved her. "He was not." - -Her afternoons in Mr. Symeon's library had been all she had cared -for in the season that was ending. She had gone wherever her husband -asked her to go, and had given the entertainments he wanted her to -give; but through all that brilliant summer she had gone about like "a -corpse alive." That dreary simile had been in her mind sometimes when -she thought of herself, sitting in her victoria, dressed as only the -well-bred English woman with unlimited money can be dressed, lovely in -her fragile fairness, admired and talked about. She had gone about, and -held her own, in a quiet way, among crowds of clever men and women, and -her life had seemed to her like the end of a long dream. Her only vital -interest had been in the voices she heard in Francis Symeon's shadowy -room. Those voices were of living men and women; but the words were the -words of the dead. - -She was not utterly unhappy. The past was past, and she had left off -grieving over it, for now she had a transcendent hope in the near -future--the hope of death. She would soon have passed the river that -they had passed, Giulia and her father. The gate through which they had -gone to a higher stage in the upward path of life would open for her; -and no matter by what slow ascent, no matter with what feeble steps, -she would climb the mountain up which they had gone, those emancipated -spirits. - -She had known for a long time that she was marked for death. She had no -specific ailment, but in this last season she had felt her vanishing -life, felt the painless ebb of vitality, and had measured, by a flight -of stairs, by a pathway in the Park, where she walked sometimes in the -early morning, the waning strength of limbs and heart. The dreadful -sleeplessness of the first year of her widowhood had returned; and her -nights were almost entirely spent in thought and reading, her brain -never resting, her heart seldom quiet. - -Although she looked forward to death as release, she could not escape -the boredom of medical treatment. Lady Okehampton, whose daughters -were all married, and wanted nothing from parental affection--except -to be allowed to go their own way, and not to be obliged to invite -Mummy to their choicest parties--devoted herself more and more to her -favourite niece, who wasn't actually her niece, but only a first cousin -once removed. Since, in those last days at Disbrowe, she had seen the -mark of death on Vera's pale forehead, Aunt Mildred, who was really -a warm-hearted woman, had interested herself keenly in the vanishing -life, and had made unremitting efforts to combat the enemy. - -"She has simply wasted her life since her second marriage," she said. -"She has wasted her life as recklessly as Claude has wasted her money; -but she shan't die without my making an effort to save her, even if I -have to take every specialist in London to Portland Place." - -"You'd better take her to the specialists," said his lordship. "It -would save your time and her money." - -"As if money mattered!" - -"You could telephone for appointments, and do the whole of Grosvenor -Street and Savile Row in a morning, with a good taxi." - -"A taxi--when my niece has two superb Daimlers--no. By the by, the last -Claude showed me is an S.C.A.T." - -"Poor Provana!" sighed Okehampton. "To think that nothing could induce -him to buy a motor car, although he was a man to whom moments are -money. It was one of his few eccentricities to worship his horses." - -"He might have been here now if he had not been quite so fussy about -his horses," sighed her ladyship. - -"What do you mean?" - -"He might not have used the door between the house and the stables--the -door by which he and his murderer came into the house on that awful -night." - -"True," assented her husband, "it was an infernally unlucky door, and I -suppose if poor little Vera dies they'll carry her out that way to be -cremated." - -"Okehampton, you are too bad! Whoever said she was to be cremated?" - -"Nobody. But it's the modern way, isn't it? And, of course, everything -would be up-to-date." - -"How can you be so heartless, and how can you use that odious -expression 'up-to-date'?" - -"Well, I hope the poor girl will be warned in time, and live to make -old bones; but she didn't look like it at her last party. You'd better -give her husband a good wigging. It will be more useful than calling in -the specialists." - -"I am utterly disgusted with Claude. He is throwing her money out of -windows, and behaving atrociously into the bargain." - -"I suppose you mean Mrs. Bellenden. Well, my dear, that was bound to -come. Vera has been too much in the clouds for the last year. From what -Susan Amphlett told me of her way of life in Rome, she was bound to -lose her husband. No man can stomach neglect from a wife; unless all -the other women neglect him. And Claude Rutherford is not a negligible -quantity." - -Lady Okehampton had tried her hand upon her young kinsman before this -colloquy with her lord, and had found him hopeless. He turned the point -of her lectures with a jest. He was light as vanity. He protested that -his wife was alone to blame. He adored her, and thought no other woman -upon this planet her equal in charm and beauty; but since she had taken -up with Symeon and his spooks, she had surrounded herself with an -atmosphere of sadness that would send the most devoted husband to the -primrose path, in sheer revolt against the gloom of his home. - -"We are poor creatures," he said, "and we have to be amused." - -Once only in the course of numerous "wiggings" did Claude show anything -like strong feeling, and then emotion came in a tempest that scared his -mild kinswoman. - -She had talked to him about his wife's health. - -"Vera is absolutely wasting away," she said. "Something must be done, -or she will not live till the end of the year." - -"No, no, no," he cried. "My God, what do you mean? Is that to be the -end? Is death to take her from me and leave me in this black world -alone? You have no right to say such a thing! By what authority? Who -has told you that she is in failing health? I see her every day. She -never complains." - -"You must be blind if you don't see the change in her." - -"I don't believe there is anything seriously wrong. She is as lovely as -ever. No, I don't believe it. You are cruel to come here and frighten -me. She is all I have in the world, all, all! Do you understand?" His -head drooped suddenly upon the table by which he was sitting, and she -heard his hoarse sobs tearing his throat and chest, and saw his long, -thin fingers writhing among his hair, the boyish auburn hair with a -glint of gold in it that foolish women had praised. - -"There is no need for despair, Claude. I only wanted to awaken you to -the seriousness of the case. We shall save her, in spite of herself. I -see you are still fond of her, and yet----" - -"And yet I have been a brute, a senseless, idiotic beast. But that's -all over, Lady Okehampton. Love her! I would lie outside her door, -like that dog of hers, all through the long night only to get a smile -and a touch of her hand in the morning. Love her! I loved her for -five patient years, loved her passionately, and kept myself in check, -and behaved like an elder brother. I, the man no woman could trust. -Love her! The picture of her childish prettiness at Disbrowe was in -my memory when I was going to the devil at Simla. You don't know what -men are made of. You only know the model English gentleman, like your -husband." - -"Okehampton has never given me any trouble, except in his young days, -when he used to ride dangerous horses. I know I have been exceptionally -fortunate in my husband; and, of course, I know that modern husbands -and wives are utterly unlike us; but I must say that your behaviour at -your wife's last party was inexcusable. The dear Princess was sadly -huffed; and I doubt if Vera will ever get her to her house again." - -"I don't think Vera will try." - -"But she ought to try. The Princess Hermione has been perfectly sweet -about her." - -"Vera doesn't care. That's her worst symptom, that I know of. She has -left off caring about things." - -"And that is a very bad symptom," said Lady Okehampton. "When -Chagford's wife showed signs of it, I bundled her off to a nursing -home for six weeks, and she came out of it just in time for Ascot, and -as keen as mustard, as Chagford said in his vulgar way. She had been -dieted, and massaged, and not allowed to see anyone but her nurses; and -she was quite cured of not caring. She romped with her children, and -ate jam pudding like one of them." - -"Ah, you see there were children," sighed Claude. "There was something -for her to come back to." - -"Vera and you ought to have had a family. It is very disappointing," -said Aunt Mildred, and the tone implied that when she said -"disappointing" she meant "reprehensible." - -"Never mind," she went on presently, in a more hopeful tone, "don't be -down-hearted, Claude. If doctors can cure her, she shall be another -woman before the end of the year." - -"You love doctors much better than I do," said Claude, grasping her -hands. "Find the man who can cure her and I will worship him." - - * * * * * - -After this Vera entered upon a wide acquaintance with the fashionable -specialists: the man who was invincible in treatment of lung trouble; -the only authority upon cardiac disorders; the man who knew more about -the nervous system than any other physician in Europe; the man who -had given his life to the study of the digestive organs; the hypnotic -doctor, and the mesmerist; and finally, as a condescension, the -all-round or common-sense man who might be consulted about anything, -and sometimes, as it were by rule of thumb, succeeded where the -specialists had failed. - -These gentlemen came to Portland Place at irregular intervals through -the month of August, Vera resolutely refusing to leave London in that -impossible month, and Lady Okehampton again sacrificing her annual -cure to the care of her niece, as she had done in the year of Mario -Provana's unhappy death. - -Lady Okehampton having made this sacrifice, almost the greatest which -a woman of her age and position could make, naturally allowed herself -some slight compensation in fussiness. She talked about her niece's -health to boring point with her familiar friends, with the result of -booking the name and address of some infallible specialist, hitherto -unknown to her; and this accounted for the spasmodic appearance of -a new consultant once or twice a week, in Vera's morning-room, all -through that impossible month, in which the doctors themselves were -panting for escape from London, to shoot grouse in Scotland, or do -their own cures in Bohemia, after a season of hard dining. Vera was -curiously submissive to these frequent ordeals. She answered any -questions that the great man asked her; but she never volunteered -information about herself, and she always made light of her ailments. -The admission of a little worrying cough that was at its worst at -night, a slight palpitation of the heart after going upstairs, was all -that could be obtained from her by the most subtle questionings; but -lungs and heart told their own story, without words. - -She smiled when the nerve specialist asked her if she slept well, and -again when he suggested certain harmless opiates which would ensure -beneficent slumber. She had taken them all. She had exhausted Susan -Amphlett's pharmacopoeia, which contained all these specifics, and -others not so harmless. - -When one physician after another--for on this they were all -agreed--told her that she ought not to be in London in this sultry, -depressing weather, while each advised his pet health resort, she -smiled sweetly, and said she meant to remain in London till November, -when she would go back to Rome. - -"I am fond of this house," she said, "and the London air suits me." - -"London air is very good air," answered Dr. Selwyn Tower, who -understood her better than the various new lights, "but not in August -and September. If you are to be in Rome in November, why not spend the -interval in Italy, at Varese, for instance, a charming spot, with every -advantage?" - -No. Vera was not to be persuaded. - -"I like the quiet of this home after the season. All I want is rest and -silence," she said, and Dr. Selwyn Tower shot a despairing glance at -Lady Okehampton. - -"Your niece is absolutely charming; but as obstinate as a mule," he -told her, when they had their conference in one of the drawing-rooms. -All the doors and _portières_ were open, and the doctor looked at the -long vista of splendid emptiness with a faint shudder. - -"It is a fine house, but a little depressing," he murmured. - -"I call it positively uncanny; but that is all in my niece's line. She -is dreadfully morbid. I am glad there was no occultism or Christian -Science when I was young." - -At these words Christian Science the famous consultant shuddered worse -than at sight of the empty rooms. - -"If your sweet niece is _that_ way inclined we can do nothing for her," -he said. - -"No, thank Heaven, that is not one of her fads." - -And then the fashionable physician gave his opinion of the case, -or just so much of his opinion as he thought it good to give to an -affectionate but not over wise aunt. - -He found that the patient's strength was at a very low ebb. She had -been wasting her resources, living upon her capital, refusing herself -the rest that was essential for so fragile a form, so sensitive a -temperament, and so over-active a brain. Lady Okehampton had told -him of the gaieties, the rush from place to place, from amusement to -amusement, the everlasting entertaining and being entertained; and he -talked as if he had been there, watching and taking notes, all through -that wild career. He was not going to extinguish hope; so he kept up a -cheerful tone throughout the conference. There was nothing heroic in -the treatment required. Rest, and a soothing regimen. Not much walking, -but a great deal of fresh air, Drives in her open carriage to rural -suburbs, if she should insist on remaining in London; a little quiet -society; the utmost care as to diet, and constant medical supervision. -He would be glad to confer with Mrs. Rutherford's regular medical man -before he left London; and he hoped, on his return in three or four -weeks, to find a marked improvement. - -This was all. When questioned as to lung trouble, he said that there -was trouble, but he saw no fatal indications. Yes, there was heart -weakness; but nothing that might not be modified by care. - -Simple as she was, Lady Okehampton did not feel altogether assured by -all this bland talk, and the sound of the doctor's carriage wheels, -as they rolled away from the door, recalled the moaning of the winter -waves under the red cliffs at Disbrowe. - -She repeated the specialist's diplomatic utterances to Claude, who did -not seem to attach much importance to medical opinion. - -"All doctors talk alike," he said. "I don't think Vera's is a case for -the faculty. You remember what Macbeth said to his physician?" - -Lady Okehampton did not remember; but she gave a sigh of assent that -answered as well. - -"I'm afraid Vera's is a rooted sorrow, and, God help me! _I_ cannot -pluck it from her memory. We had better leave her alone. We can do -nothing more for her. We can't make her happy." - -"Claude, this is too dreadful. Are we to let her die?" cried Aunt -Mildred, with something like an elderly shriek. - -"Is death so great an evil? At least it means rest, and there are some -of us who can get rest no other way." - -"Claude, it is positively dreadful to hear you talk like that, as if -you cared for nothing in this life." - -"I don't." - -And then Lady Okehampton took him in hand severely, and talked to -him as a good woman, but as a Philistine of the Philistines, would -naturally talk on such an occasion; and after remonstrating with him -for his want of religious feeling, and even proper affection, went -on to reproaching him for spending his wife's money, squandering her -magnificent fortune with a reckless wastefulness that might end in -reducing her to beggary. - -"No fear of that, Aunt Mildred. No doubt I have thrown money out of -windows. Money has never been a serious consideration with Vera and -me. We should have been quite as happy when we started on our Venetian -honeymoon if we had had only just enough to pay for our tourists' -tickets and our gondola, just enough for the gondola and a cheap hotel. -Money could buy us nothing that we cared for. Later, when I knew what -her income was, I spent with a free hand; but there's a good deal of -spending in a hundred thousand a year----" - -Lady Okehampton shivered, and stirred in her seat uneasily. That -colossal income, and nothing done for the needy members of her -husband's illustrious house! - -"I wanted to amuse myself and to amuse my wife, and amusements are -costly nowadays; so the money has run out pretty fast, but there has -always been a handsome surplus. I see Mr. Zabulon, the banker, one -of my wife's trustees, two or three times a year, and he has never -complained. Vera's charities are immense; so there is really nothing -for you to moan about, Lady Okehampton." - -"Nothing," cried Vera's aunt, with uplifted hands. "Was there ever -anyone so feather-headed, so feckless? Can you forget that when your -wife dies her fortune dies with her?" - -"No. But when she dies, I shall have done with all that money can buy. -I shall be able to pension the old stable hands, and provide for my -dogs, out of my fifteen hundred a year; and I can give my trainer half -a dozen cracks that will make him comfortable for life." - -"You are very considerate about your stable and kennels. I wonder if -you have ever considered Vera's obligations to those who come after -her." - -"If you mean the Roman cater-cousins I certainly have not." - -"Provana's heirs? Why, of course not! They will be inordinately rich -when that splendid fortune is chopped up among them. No, Claude, if -you had a proper family feeling, which to my mind is an essential -element in the Christian life, you would have thought of our herd of -poor relations. Nicholas Disbrowe, dying by inches in an East Anglian -Vicarage, and not daring to winter in the South, for want of means; or -poor Lady Rosalba, who is no better off than Vera's grandmother, and -doesn't make half as good a fight as poor Lady Felicia did; or Mary -Disbrowe Jones, who married so wretchedly, and is selling blouses in a -shabby street in Pimlico----" - -"I think Vera has done a lot for all of 'em. I know she sent the -Reverend Nicholas a thousand pounds last winter, when his wife wrote -her a doleful letter; and she gave her blouse-making cousin two hundred -and fifty pounds last week, to save her from bankruptcy. Consider them, -forsooth! Do you suppose they don't ask to be considered? Every man -jack of them, down to the remotest connection by marriage. They are -as eloquent with the pen as professional begging-letter writers. They -blister their papers with tears. And Vera never refuses. She does not -know how." - -"Oh, I know she is generous. A thousand to that worthy man in the -Fens was handsome; but that kind of casual help won't provide for the -future; and when our poor dear is gone there will be nothing. May that -sad day be long, long off; but in the meantime she ought to invest her -surplus income, and leave it to those who want it most and would use -it best. You may be sure I have no personal feeling; but the best of -us are not too well off, and if there should come the general election -that we are threatened with, I doubt if Chagford will be able to stand -for North Devon. The ballot has made bribery more audacious and more -expensive than ever. I am told three half crowns is the least the -wretches will take. They will ride a candidate's motor to death, and -then go and vote for his opponent." - -"Let Chagford talk to my wife, if there's a dissolution," said Claude, -with a half-smothered yawn that expressed weariness and disgust. - -"Vera is always kind," sighed Lady Okehampton dolefully; but she -refrained from suggesting that, when the dissolution came, Vera might -not be there. - -This was Aunt Mildred's last attack upon Claude Rutherford. He took -matters into his own hands after this, and no longer depended upon -accounts of his wife's health at second hand. He took all information -upon that subject from Dr. Selwyn Tower, who had a great reputation at -that period, and whom he was inclined to trust. - -The physician was more frank with the husband than he had been with the -aunt, though even yet he said nothing to extinguish hope. He told Mr. -Rutherford that it would have been better for his wife to winter in the -South, or by way of experiment to try a short winter in the Engadine, -coming down to Ragaz before the snow melted; but as the dear lady -seemed strangely bent upon staying in her own house, it would be safer -to indulge her fancy. Lungs and heart were only a question of weakness. -The mind was of serious consequence; and everything must be done to -check the tendency to melancholia. - -"If we can make her happy, we shall be able to deal with the lung -trouble," said the physician. "Open air and good spirits might work a -miracle." - -Dr. Tower naturally inquired as to parental history, and was somewhat -disheartened on hearing that the dear lady's father and mother had -died young, the former of galloping consumption, during an open-air -cure; yet even this did not induce him to pronounce sentence of death. -Nor did he allow Mrs. Rutherford to suppose herself a desperate case, -though he insisted on having a trained nurse, and of the best, in -attendance upon his patient, as well as the maid Louison. - -The French girl might be all that Mrs. Rutherford could require, he -admitted, when Vera told him she wanted no one else. - -"But you must allow me what I want," pleaded Dr. Tower with his most -ingratiating air. "My treatment is of the mildest--nothing heroic or -troublesome about it--but I must be sure that it is followed. I must -have someone about you who is responsible to _me_. My nurse shall not -be allowed to bore you. If she is intrusive or disagreeable to you, you -can telephone to me; and she shall be superseded within the hour." - -Vera submitted. Her indifference to most things, even to those that -concerned herself, was one of her symptoms which made Dr. Tower uneasy. - -"This woman will never help to cure herself," he thought, as he drove -away, with that far-off look in Vera's face impressed upon his mind. -"She does not want to get well. She is not absolutely unhappy--only -indifferent. Something must have gone wrong in her life. Yet her -husband does not seem a bad sort." - -She was not unhappy. She had been allowed to take her own way, and to -live as she wished to live--in the silence and peace of the spacious -house, where the business of entertaining seemed to be at an end for -ever. Whatever had been amiss in the life that was ebbing away seemed -hardly to matter, now that she was drawing near the other life. Her -husband came and went, and spend a good deal of his time in her room, -talking with her, or reading to her, when she was too tired to talk. -There had been nothing said of his offence against her; no utterance -of that other woman's name. They were friends again, and could talk of -the things that they loved--literature, music, art; of Henry Irving's -Hamlet; of Millais and Browning, both of whom she had seen at Aunt -Mildred's house in her childhood, and whose faces she remembered; of -books new and old. They were as friendly and sympathetic as they had -been in Mario Provana's lifetime, before the dawn of love. It was as -if they were still at the same platonic stage. All that had come after -was like a lurid dream from which they had awakened. Tristram was again -the true knight. Iseult was sinless. - -All that was best in Claude Rutherford was in the ascendant during -these long, slow weeks of silent sorrow, in which he knew that the -man with the scythe was at the door, that nothing money could buy or -love devise could save the woman he loved. He had broken finally with -that other woman: finally, for the fiery cup had lost its intoxicating -power, and the end had been a vulgar quarrel about money. Whatever was -to happen to him, he was safe from that siren's spells. - -All his natural sweetness, his sympathy and charm, were for Vera, in -those quiet weeks of September and October, when there was nobody in -London, and the chariot wheels rolled no more in the broad roadway. He -was at his best in his wife's white morning-room, where the faces of -the immortals looked down upon him, and where he was kind even to the -dog she loved--the Irish terrier, brought home after his half-year's -quarantine--who stretched his strong limbs and rough, red-brown body -against her satin slippers, as she lay on her sofa, a fragile figure, -shadowy in her loose white gown. - -All that was best in this man, the tenderness, the sympathy, was in -evidence now; a failure no doubt, trivial and shallow, incapable of -deep feeling, perhaps, but a sweet, lovable nature; a nature that had -made women love him whether he wanted their love or not. - -"It is very good of you to give me so much of your time," Vera said one -day, slipping her thin little hand into his, which was almost as thin. -"Invalids are wretched company, and I don't want you to have too much -of this dull room." - -"I do not find it dull--and it is no duller for me than for you." - -"It is never dull for me. I have my faces. _They_ are always company." - -"Your faces--You mean those portraits?" - -"Byron, Scott, Browning. Yes, they are always company. I have looked -at them till they are alive. I have read Walter Scott's journals -and Byron's letters till I know them as well as if they had been my -intimate friends when they were alive. I know Browning's letters by -heart; those sweet letters to the sweet wife. Shakespeare is different. -It is so sad that there are no familiar records. One can only think of -him as the poet and the creator; genius that touches the supernatural." - -"I don't think it matters how little you know of the man, his -deer-stalking or his tardy marriage, as long as you don't think there -was no Shakespeare, and that the noblest poetry this world ever saw was -written by the skunk who gave away his friend," said her husband. - -"Bacon! Horrible!" - -On one quiet evening, when Claude had been with her since his solitary -dinner, she said softly: - -"I sometimes forget all the years, and think you are just the same -Cousin Claude who took pity on me at Disbrowe, when I was so shy that -other people's kindness only made me miserable. Till you came I used -to creep into any corner with a book, rather than mix with my Disbrowe -cousins, who were so dreadfully grand and clever." - -"Precocious geniuses, Mrs. Somervilles in the bud, who matured into two -of the most commonplace women I know, and almost as ignorant as Susan -Amphlett," said Claude. - -"But you must not give me so much of your time, Claude," she said -gently. - -"I love to be with you; but I may slip away for the Cambridgeshire?" he -said, the trivial side of his character coming to the surface. - -She did not even ask if he were personally interested in the race. -There had been a time when she knew every horse he owned, and made -most of them her friends, rejoicing in their beauty as creatures whom -she would have liked to keep for pets, rather than to expose them to -the ordeal of the turf; albeit she had followed their fortunes, and -speculated upon their chances, almost as keenly interested as her -husband. But now they had become things without shape or meaning, like -all the rest of the outside world. - -"You need not be afraid of leaving me," she said. "I have this good -friend to keep me company," smoothing Boroo's rough coat with her soft -hand. - -"I wish my mother were still in town. She would come to you every day." - -"She is very good, but she and I have never been really friends. I know -she would be kind; but she would talk of painful things. I don't want -to remember. I want to look forward." - -"Yes," he answered in a low voice, bending over her, and pressing his -lips on the pale brow. "There must be no looking back." - -It was the first time he had kissed her since the night of the concert. -She looked up at him with a sad, sweet smile, and held his hand in hers -for a moment. - -"Susan must come to you every day to keep you in good spirits," he said. - -"No, Claude, Susie doesn't like sick people. She sits by my side and -chatters and chatters, telling me all the scandals she thinks will -interest me; but I can hear the effort she is making. Her tongue does -not run on as it used before I was ill; and once when she saw a spot -of blood on my handkerchief she nearly fainted. I don't want too much -of Susie. Mr. Symeon will come and talk to me sometimes; and his talk -always does me good." - -"I wish I could think so. I hate leaving you in London. You ought to -have gone to Disbrowe, as your aunt wished. You would have done better -in that soft air." - -"No. I should be better nowhere than in this silent house. If I cannot -be in Rome there is nowhere else where I should like to be. I want -space and silence, and no going and coming of people who mean to be -kind and who bore me to death. I want no fussing and talking about me. -I can put up with my nurse, because she is quiet and does her work like -a machine." - -Rome? Yes, in the November afternoons when the world outside her -windows was hidden in grey fog, she longed for the beautiful city, -the place of life and light, the city of fountains, full of the sound -of rushing water. The dull greyness of London oppressed her, when she -thought of the long garden walks in their solemn stillness, the cypress -and ilex, the statues gleaming ghostly in the dusk against the dark -walls of laurel and arbutus, the broad terrace with its massive marble -balustrade, on which she had leant for hours in melancholy meditation, -thinking, thinking, thinking, as the multitude of church towers and the -great dome in the hollow below her changed from grey to purple, as the -golden light died in the west and the young moon rose above the fading -crimson of the afterglow. - -It was sad to think that she would never see that divine city again, -and all that she had loved in Italy: Cadenabbia, where her honeymoon -had begun, to the sound of rippling water, as the boats crept by in the -darkness, to the music of guitars and Italian voices, singing in the -light of coloured lanterns, while the cosmopolitan crowd clustered in -the narrow space between the hotel and the lake. - - * * * * * - -Susan Amphlett came nearly every day, and insisted upon being admitted. -She had come to London for a week, just to buy frocks for a winter -round of visits. - -"But much more to see you, my dearest," she said, and then she recited -the houses to which she was going, and her reason for going to them, -which seemed to be anything rather than any regard for the people she -was visiting. She talked of herself as if she had been a star actress. - -"I am touring in the shires this winter," she said. "I did Hants and -Dorset last year, and was bored to extinction. Roger is happy in any -hole if he can be riding to hounds every day, and he had the Blackmoor -Vale and the North Hants within his reach most of the time; while I was -excruciated by a pack of women who talked of nothing but their good -works or their bridge, and they were such poor players that the good -works were less boring than the bridge talk. 'Dear Lady Sue, would you -call no trumps if?'--and would you do this and t'other? questions that -babies in the nursery might ask over their toy cards." - -Then came a long account of the frocks that were being made for the -shires, and the scarlet top-coat to be worn with a grey habit, which -Roger hated. - -"I think he would like me in an early-Victorian get up, with the edge -of my habit touching my horse's fetlocks, a large white muslin collar, -and a low beaver hat with a long feather. Those early-Victorian collars -cost two or three pounds apiece, my Grannie told me, and those poor -wretches who never changed their clothes till dinner, wore them all -day long; and yet they talk of _our_ extravagance; as if nobody paid -anything for clothes in those days." - -And then, when the houses to which she was going, and the clothes she -was to wear, and her quarrels with her husband and her maid had been -discussed at length, Susan began to talk about her friend. - -"Lady O. told me how ill you had been, _ma mie_, and of your curious -whim about this house. She says Selwyn Tower would have liked you to -go to the Transvaal, and told her that two or three months in that -delicious climate would make you a strong woman; but finding you set -upon stopping in your own house he gave way, as your illness is chiefly -a question of nerves. It is a comfort to know that, _n'est-ce pas, mein -Schatz?_" - -"Yes, of course it is a comfort. I suppose, with nothing amiss but -one's nerves, one might live to be ninety." - -"True, dearest, quite ninety," Susan answered, shuddering. - -Susan Amphlett was out of her element in a sick room. The mere thought -that the friend she was talking to was marked for death seemed to -freeze her blood. Her own hand grew as cold as the cold hand she was -holding. She could not be bright and pleasant with Death in sight. - -As she sat with Vera in the library that had been Provana's favourite -room she felt as if there were someone standing behind the door of that -inner room, a door that had been left ajar. There was someone waiting -there whose unseen presence made her dumb. Someone! Not Provana--but -another and more terrible shape. - -"Vera," she burst out at last, "why do you sit in this horrid room -instead of in your sweet white den, with Byron and Browning and all -your dear people?" - -"I like this room better, now that my thoughts have gone backward." - -"What can you mean by thoughts going backward?" - -"Now that I know time is measured for me, so much and no more; I like -to live over the days that are gone. It spins out my life to live the -dead years over again. This is the room Mario loved. His books are on -those shelves, the books that opened a new world for me: the Italian -historians, the Italian poets. In the first year of our life in this -house, before I was the fashion, we used to sit here of an evening, -long evenings, from nine till midnight, talking, talking, talking, or -Mario reading to me. He was a banker, and a dealer in money; but he -read poetry exquisitely." - -"Vera!" Susan ejaculated suddenly, and sat staring. - -"What's the matter?" - -"I believe you loved Provana better than ever you have loved Claude." - -"I don't know," Vera said dreamily. - -She had been talking in a dreamy way, as if she were hardly conscious -that anyone was listening to her. - -"Perhaps you never were really in love with your second husband?" - -"Yes. I loved him too much--and," after a perceptible pause, "not -enough." - -"Darling, I can't make you out." - -"I am not worth making out." - -"One thing I must tell you, Vera, even at the risk of agitating you. It -is all over with that woman." - -"Which woman?" - -"Which? Mrs. Bellenden. There has never been so much as a whisper about -any other since your marriage." - -"Oh, it is all over? I thought so." - -"Vera, what indifference! You might be talking of somebody in Mars. -Yes, dear, it is quite at an end. They had a desperate quarrel; quite -the worst of many frightful rows. There was furniture smashed, I -believe--Sèvres and things--and now she has consoled herself." - -"Really?" - -"A German Prince. One of the German attachés told me he would marry her -if he dared. Well, sweet, I must be trudging. I'm dining out, one of -those nice little winter dinners that I love. You must make haste and -get quite, quite well." - -This was what Susie always said to a sick friend, even when the friend -was moribund. The "quite, quite" had such a cheering sound. - -"By the by, Lady O. told me you have had the Princess Hermione?" - -"Yes, she came to see me two or three times when she was passing -through town." - -"That must have cheered you immensely. She is devoted to you, quite -raves about you, I hear, in the highest circles. Get well, dear, and -give a party for her when she is next in town." - -Susie kissed her and patted her hair, and suppressed a shiver at the -cold brow that her lips touched. It felt like the brow of death. -Yet Vera's eyes were bright, and there was a rosy bloom on the thin -cheek. Susan was glad when she had got herself out of the house and -was walking fast through the cheerful streets. But she was sincerely -attached to her friend. - -"I shall be fit for nothing this evening," she told herself sadly; but -she was at least fit for her part of Chorus, and entertained the little -dinner-party with a picturesque description of her fading friend, dying -slowly in that house of measureless wealth. - -"Her income dies with her," she explained, "and though I suppose a -few pennies have been saved out of a hundred thousand a year, and my -cousin will get all that's left, he will be a pauper in a year or two, -I daresay." - -On this the company speculated upon how much might be left; and all -were agreed that there was a good deal of spending in a hundred -thousand, while one of the middle-aged men went so far as to make -a rough calculation of the Rutherfords' expenditure in those five -years of expensive pleasures; but even after reckoning the dances -and dinner-giving, the yachts and balloons, the racing stable, and a -certain amount of losses on the turf and at cards, they did not bring -the annual outlay above eighty thousand, whereupon a dowager looked -round with a smile, and said: - -"You haven't reckoned Mrs. Bellenden." - -"True. Now you mention her, I take it there would be no surplus." - -And then that remarkable lady and her German Prince were discussed -at full length--dissected rather than discussed; for when a woman is -remarkable for her beauty, and has spent three or four fortunes, and -is in a fair way of spending another, there is a great deal of amusing -talk to be got out of her. - - - - -CHAPTER XXX - - -After Susan Amphlett's disappearance the house in Portland Place was -given over to silence and solitude. Lady Okehampton was at Disbrowe, -where she was on duty as a model grandmother, her daughters liking -their children to spend the early winter in the ancestral home, where -there were Exmoor ponies in abundance, and plenty of clever grooms to -teach the "dear kiddies" to ride, and a superannuated governess of the -"good old soul" or "dear old thing" order, to keep their young minds -from rusting and coach them for their next "exam.," whether in music or -science. - -Lady Okehampton was established in her country house till Christmas; -and Claude had turf engagements and shooting engagements enough to -occupy him nearly as long. He had been reluctant to leave his wife; -but once away from the silent house, he had all manner of distractions -to prolong his absence; and while Newmarket was full of life and -anticipations for next year, the house in which he had left Vera was -a place of gloom, that haunted him in troubled dreams and made the -thought of return horrible. - -He wrote to her more than once, entreating her to let him take her to -Cannes or Nice. She could have nurses and invalid carriages to make the -journey possible, and her health would be renewed in the sunshine. But -his wife's answer was always to the same effect: - -"I am at peace. Let me be." - -And then he fell back upon his stables and his racing friends; or his -shooting in Suffolk; or on cards: any thing to stop that horror of -retrospective thought, which had been like a disease with him of late -years. - - * * * * * - -Vera was at peace. She had no trivial visitors, was not obliged to -listen to futile chatter about other people's affairs. Dr. Tower came -three or four times a week, unwilling to confide so precious a life -to his "watch-dog," the general practitioner, and was cheerful and -sympathetic. She had two hospital nurses now--one always on guard, day -and night. She could no longer maintain her struggle for independence, -for she too often needed a helping arm to support her as she went up -and down the long corridors, or toiled slowly up the spacious staircase -that had once been alive with the finest people in London, but where -now the slender figure in a soft silk gown and white fur boa, with the -nurse in cap and uniform, moved in a ghostly silence. - -Father Cyprian Hammond came to see her sometimes, and sat long and -talked delightfully; but he, who was past master in the art of making -proselytes, could get no nearer the mind of this woman than he had got -a year before. Whatever her burden was, she would not open her heart to -him. Whatever her sense of sin, she would not ask him for absolution. -It was in vain that he told her what his Church could do for a -penitent--the ineffable power possessed by that one Holy and Infallible -Church to heal the wounded heart and to bring the strayed lamb back to -the Shepherd's arms. - -"Try to think of yourself in the wilderness and that divine Shepherd -seeking for you," said the priest gently. - -But Father Cyprian, with all his gifts, could not win her to confide -in him. It was only to Francis Symeon, the spiritualist, that she ever -spoke of the thoughts that filled her mind, as she sat alone in the -room that had been her husband's, dreaming over one of the books he -had loved. Her intimacy with Francis Symeon had grown closer since the -world outside that quiet room had closed upon her for ever, since he -knew and she knew that the transition from the known to the unknown -life was very near. He had told her the story of his own sorrows, the -tragedy of love and death that had made him a mystic and a dreamer, -whose hopes and convictions the world scoffed at. - -Life had given him all the things he desired, and last, best gift -of all, the love of a perfect woman, who alone could make that life -complete for himself and for others, lifting him for ever above the -sphere of sensual joys and worthless ambitions. It was she who had -taught him to look beyond the present life, and to consider the beauty -of the world no more than a screen that concealed the glory of diviner -worlds, hidden from them only while they were moving along their -earthly pilgrimage, always looking beyond, always dreaming of something -better. - -The day came, without an hour's warning, when he was to be told that -her pilgrimage was nearly done. The after-life was calling her. The -divine companions were beckoning. - -All that there had been of high enthusiasm and scorn of life left him -in that moment. He was as weak and helpless as a mother with her only -child, her infant child threatened by death. The dreamer was no more a -dreamer; and only the earthly lover remained, he who was to have been -her husband. He hung upon moments, he listened to every failing breath, -he counted time by her ebbing strength and the opinions of doctors. He -lived only to watch and to listen beside her sofa, or in the curtained -twilight of her sick room, when the pretty garden-parlour was no longer -possible. Wherever she was carried in the vain pursuit of life he went -with her. The time of alternating hope and dread lasted nearly a year. - -"It was our union," he told Vera. "It was my only marriage. As I sat -day after day with her hand clasped in mine I knew that this was all -I could ever know of marriage or of woman's love. From the day of her -death I had done with the world; and all the rest of my days were given -up to searching for those who had gone--for those who were in her -world, not in mine. I have waited at the door, as your dog waits when -he cannot see you, and as he believes that you are there, on the other -side, so I believe and know that she is near me; and my days have known -no other business or interest than my patient search into the books of -all ages and nations that help the science of the future life, and the -society of those people whom you have met in my rooms, and who think -and feel as I do. I am a rich man, but I only use money for the relief -of distress; and I have allowed myself no luxury or indulgence beyond -my books, and the rooms that are large enough to hold them and me." - - * * * * * - -The hospital nurse sat in the adjoining room, with the door ajar. -So far, and so far only, was the patient allowed the privilege of -solitude. Someone must be always there, within hearing. When she had a -visitor the door might be shut, but not otherwise. - -"There must be something very dreadful the matter with me," she said -when Dr. Tower insisted upon this point. - -"No, my dear lady, there is nothing dreadful in a tired heart; but I -don't want you to faint without anybody at hand to look after you." - -Vera assured him that she was not likely to faint, and made mock of his -care. - -He had been very insistent upon certain points in his treatment, which -he arranged with the general practitioner who had attended her for -minor ailments in earlier days, when she was rarely in need of medical -care. He would not allow her to go up and down stairs any longer. That -ordeal must be at an end until she was stronger. He had the dining-room -made into a bedroom for her use. All the gloomy old pictures and -colossal furniture had been removed, and the walls were hung with -delicate chintz, while the choicest things in her rooms upstairs had -been brought down to make this ground-floor apartment pleasant for -her--a room that smiled as it had never smiled before, even on those -gala nights when a flood of light shone upon the splendour of Georgian -silver, and Venetian glass, and diamonds, and fashionable women. - -"You are taking far too much trouble about me," Vera said, when first -she saw this transformation. - -"We only want to save you trouble. The ascent to the second floor of -this lofty house is almost Alpine. I wonder you never established an -electric lift." - -"I never minded running up and down stairs." - -She remembered the first years after her second marriage, the years -of trivial pleasures and hurry and excitement, and with how light a -step she had gone up and down that stately staircase, to give herself -over to her Parisian maid, and to have her smart toilet of the morning -changed for the still smarter clothes of the afternoon, while she -submitted impatiently, with a mind full of worthless things: the -fashion of her gown, the shape of her last new hat. That rush from one -amusement to another--endless hours without pause--had been like the -morphia maniac's needle. It had killed thought. - -All that was left of life now was thought, or rather memory; for of -late thought and memory were one. - -Her doctors might do what they liked with her, so long as they let her -stay in the silent house, and did not take away her dog. - -Since his return from captivity the terrier had hung about her with a -love more devoted even than before their separation. He watched her as -only a dog can watch the creature it loves. He would not let her out -of his sight. He could not forget how he had been kept away from her; -and he lived in fear of another parting. If he were not lying at her -feet, or nestling against the soft folds of her gown, he was sitting at -the door of her room, the door that hid her from him; the cruel door -that kept him from her immediate presence. He lay at her bedroom door -all night, and rushed in, with the first entrance of nurse or maid -in the morning, to greet her with hairy paws upon her coverlet, and -irresistible canine kisses upon her cheek. This was the best love that -remained to her; the love that had no after-thought, and left no sting. -She had provided a friend for him in days when she would be no longer -there. Francis Symeon had promised to take him, and love him, and give -him a happy old age and a gentle sleep when he was weary. - -As the winter days shortened she grew perceptibly weaker, and the tired -heart felt as if its work in this world must be nearly done. - -Mr. Symeon came every day, and stayed for a long time, a quiet figure -sitting in the low armchair by the wood fire, sometimes in silence that -was restful for the invalid, though she loved to hear him talk; for his -thoughts were not of this narrow life and its trumpery pleasures and -eating cares, but of the land beyond the veil. - -"Do you believe they think of us, sometimes, those who have gone -beyond?" Vera asked in her low, sweet voice, as they sat in the winter -gloaming. - -"I believe they think of us often--always, if they have loved us much." - -"I had a friend whom I offended, cruelly, dreadfully," she said -slowly, as if with an effort, "and he died before I had even begun to -be sorry. And when he was dead and I knew that his spirit was there, -among the shadows, near me, I was afraid, horribly afraid. I could -only think of his anger, never of the possibility of his forgiveness. -For a long, long time I was afraid that I should see him. I could -imagine the dreadful anger in his face. His face and form were always -there, in the background of my life; and I was afraid of being alone, -afraid of silence and darkness and all lonely places; so I gave myself -up to society, and the amusements and distractions of brainless -people, without ever really caring for them--only to escape thought. -But I could not stop my brain from thinking. Thought went on like a -relentless iron mill grinding, grinding, grinding the same dead husks -by day and night; and the friend whose love I had wounded was always -there. And then there came a time when I sickened of everything upon -earth--society, splendour, music, pictures, even mountains and lakes -and forests, and all the beauty of the world. All things had become -loathsome, and I wandered about with a restless spirit in my brain that -would not leave me in peace. Then, slowly, slowly, the faint, sweet -sense of peace came back--the angry face was gone--and the face that -looked at me out of the shadows was only sad--and then the time came -when I felt that the dead had changed towards me in that dim world -you have taught me to understand, and that there was pardon and pity -in the great heart I had wounded; and one day the burden was lifted -from my soul, and I knew that I was forgiven. Now tell me, my kind -friend, was this hallucination, was it just the outcome of my brooding -thoughts, dwelling perpetually upon the same subject, or was the spirit -of my dead friend really in touch with mine? Was it by his strong will -reaching across the barrier of death that the assurance of forgiveness -had come to my soul, or was I the dupe of my own imagination, my own -longing for pardon?" - -"No, you were not deceived. It is for such as you that the veil is -sometimes lifted, the creatures in whom mind is more than flesh, the -elect of human clay. I told you as much as that years ago when you -first talked to me of the world we all believe in, we who meet together -and wait for the voices out of the shadows, the wisdom and the faith -that cannot die, the voices of the influencing minds. No, my sweet -friend, have neither fear nor doubt. The sense of pity and pardon that -has come into your soul is a message from the friend you loved. - - "Would the happy spirit descend - From the realms of light or song, - Should I fear to greet my friend - Or to say 'Forgive the wrong'? - -Believe that you are forgiven; you can know no more than that until -you have passed the river, until the gate of a happier world has been -opened." - -"And then I shall be with him again, where they neither marry nor are -given in marriage, but where they are as the angels of God in heaven?" - -"That is the reunion to which we all look forward; that is the faith -that looks through death." - -There was a long interval of silence, and then she said slowly: - -"If I could see him with these bodily eyes, see him as I see you -looking at me in the firelight, I should be sure that the dream is not -a dream." - -"You have been privileged to understand the mind of your dead friend; -to know that he is near you. That should be enough. Only to the rarest -natures is it given to see. You questioned me about this possibility -of vision once before; and I told you that I had known of one instance -when the eyes of the living beheld the dead, in the last moments of -earthly life." - -"I do not think those moments are far off for me, my friend," Vera said -softly. - -Francis Symeon, in whose philosophy death was emancipation, did not -say the kind of thing that Susan Amphlett would have said in the -circumstances. She no doubt would have told Vera that she was talking -nonsense, and that she was "going to get quite, quite well, and live -for years and years and years, and have a real good time." - -Mr. Symeon took her attenuated hand in his friendly grasp, and sat by -her for some time in silence before he bade her his calm adieu, patted -the dog, nestling against her knees, and went quietly out of the room -and out of the house. He did not think that he would ever again be -sitting in the firelight in that room, hearing the low sad voice. He -knew that he had shut the door upon a life that was measured by moments. - -Three days after that Vera was unwontedly restless. There had been a -long telegram from her husband in the morning, announcing his return -for that night. He had finished all his business with his trainer, -engaged the jockeys who were to ride for him next year, and he was -coming back to London--he did not say "coming home"--heartily sick of -Newmarket, and his Suffolk shooting, and the friends who had been with -him. - -"Why do we do these things and call them pleasures?" He ended the -message with that question, as with a moral. - -"Poor Claude!" sighed his wife, as she folded the thin slips of paper -and laid them among her books; and then she thought: - -"How much happier for him if he had stayed with the Benedictines!" - - * * * * * - -The days wore on, such slow days. The nurses were more and more -attentive, horribly attentive. There were three of them now. Two were -always about her, while the third slept. She had left off asking -questions. Dr. Tower came every morning, and sat with her quietly for a -quarter of an hour, and patted and praised her dog, and told her scraps -of the day's news, and was kind; but she heard him without interest, as -if without understanding. She had what Susie called her mermaid gaze, -as one who saw only things far away, across a vast ocean. She never -questioned him now, and made no allusion to the third young woman in -uniform, who had come upon the scene so quietly that she looked like a -double of one of the others, a trick of the optic nerves rather than -another person. - -She had the nurses almost always near her; and that other sentinel, the -terrier, was there always. There was no "almost" where his affection -was concerned. As she grew weaker and moved with feebler steps he moved -nearer her. She talked to him sometimes, to the nurses never, though -she was gracious to them in her mute fashion, and understood that they -liked her and were sorry for her. - -One quiet, grey evening, the closing in of a day that had been -curiously mild for an English December--a day that brought back the -still, sad atmosphere of mid-winter at San Marco--she had an unusual -respite from her watchers. It was tea-time, and they were sitting -longer than usual over the low fire in the room beyond the library, -with the door ajar--no lights switched on, no sound of laughter or loud -voices--just two well-behaved young women whispering together in the -firelight. - -She was alone, moving slowly along the corridor. She had been wandering -about for some time, with a restlessness that had increased in a -painful degree of late, the dog creeping close against her skirt, -until, all in a moment, when she bent down to speak to him, he slunk -away from her and crawled under the dark archway that opened into the -deeper darkness of the hall, as Vera entered through the open door of -the library. - - * * * * * - -At last it had come--the thing she had been waiting for. It was no -surprise when the dream she had been dreaming night after night became -a reality. A shiver ran through her, as if the warm blood in her -veins had turned to ice-cold water; but it was awe, not horror, that -thrilled her. Night after night she had awakened from a vision of Mario -Provana, from the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand, the glad, -vivid sense that all that was past was a dream, that he was alive, -and that she belonged to him and him only, as before the coming of -trouble. She had awakened night after night, in the faint flicker of -the shrouded lamp, when the room was full of shadows. She had awakened -to disappointment and desolation. That had been the surprise--not this. -There was neither doubt nor wonder now, as she stood on the threshold -of the dim room, and saw Provana sitting by the hearth in the chair -where he used to sit, calm, motionless, like a statue of domestic -peace, the creator and defender of the home, the master, sitting silent -by the hearth-fire that wedded love had made sacred. The dull red of -that fading fire, and the pale grey of evening outside the uncurtained -windows, made the only light in the room; but there was light enough -for her to see every line in the face, the face of power, where every -line told of force, unalterable purpose, indomitable courage. - -The grey eyes looked at her, steel bright under the projecting brow. -Kind eyes, that told her of his love, a love that Fate could not change -nor diminish. Not Death, not Sin! - -For these first moments she believed he had come back to her, that -he had escaped the bonds of Death. She did not ask what miracle had -brought him there, but she believed in his miraculous return. The blood -ran swift and warm in her veins again. Her heart beat with a passionate -joy. She stretched out her arms to him, trying to speak fond words of -welcome; but her tremulous lips could give no sound. The muscles of her -throat seemed paralysed. - -She was yearning to tell him of her love--that she had sinned and -repented; that he was the first--must always be the first--in her -affection. - -Her limbs failed her with a sudden collapse, and she sank on her knees -by a large, high-backed arm-chair that stood near the door, and clung -to the arm of it, with both her hands, struggling against the numbness -that was creeping over her senses. She kept her eyes upon the face--the -face of all her dreams, of all her sorrow--the face she had loved and -regretted. For moments her widely opened eyes gazed steadily--then cold -drops broke out upon her forehead, her limbs shook, and her eyelids -drooped--only for an instant. - -She lifted them, and he was gone. There was nothing but the empty -chair--his chair in the quiet domestic evenings, before Mario Provana's -house became the fashion, before the Disbrowes gave the law to his -wife's existence. - -That was the last she saw before the lifting of the veil. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI - - -Chorus was at work again; not at a London dinner-table this time, but -in the easier atmosphere of a North Riding manor house, which men left -in the morning to shoot grouse, and came back to in the evening to -gossip with their womenkind, in the cheerful light of an oak-panelled -dining-room. - -Chorus was wearing black, quite the prettiest thing in complimentary -mourning, which all her friends assured her suited her to perfection -and took ten years off her age. Susan Amphlett had received that kind -of compliment too often of late. She thought people were beginning to -lay a disagreeable stress upon the passage of time in relation to her -personal appearance. - -"I doubt if I shall ever wear anything but black for the rest of my -poor little life," she said tearfully. "That darling and I were like -sisters. And that she should have died when I was in Scotland, hundreds -of miles away from her!" - -"It must have been sudden?" - -"Heart failure. No one was with her. She had three hospital nurses to -look after her, but she died alone in a dark room, while two of them -were dawdling over their tea, and the third was in bed. The dog whined, -and they went to look for her. She was lying in a huddled heap on the -carpet, near the open door, and that poor, faithful beast was standing -by her, whining piteously." - -"Where was Rutherford?" - -"At Newmarket, of course, the only place where he has been happy for a -long time, settling up next year's campaign, who was to ride for him, -and so on." - -"What had become of the devoted husband you used to tell us about?" - -"Does anything last in this decadent age? There never was a more -romantic couple than that sweet creature and my cousin Claude three -years ago. Their marriage was a poem, everything about their lives -was full of poetry, their house was the most popular in London, their -chef quite the best. They were all sweetness and light; the most -brilliant example of what youth, and cleverness, and good looks, and -unlimited money can do. But the Goodwood before last changed all that. -Vera was ennuied and run down--the two things go together, don't you -know--and broke her engagement to stay with the Waterburys for the race -week. Claude went there without her. You all know the sequel, so why -recapitulate? Nothing was ever the same after that." - -"Was there an inquest?" asked the host. - -"Thank Heaven that wasn't necessary. Her doctor had been seeing her -every morning, and knew she might go off at any moment. Heart failure. -She was buried in Italy, at a dull little place on the Riviera, in the -grave with her first husband and his daughter. Her own wish. She was -all poetry to the last, a poet's daughter." - -From the tragedy of Mrs. Rutherford's early death, the conversation -somehow took a retrospective cast, and people talked of the murder that -had happened a long time before. It is curious how long the interest -in a murder may survive if the murderer has not been discovered. There -always remains something to wonder about. After nearly half a dozen -years the Provana murder could still bear discussion. People's pet -theories seemed as fresh as ever, and were discussed with as much -animation; while those people who had theories which they would die -rather than divulge, were the most interesting of all the theorists, -for they could be driven to ground with close questioning, as in the -familiar game of "clumps," until they made a resolute stand, and -refused to say another word upon the subject. - -"I dare say it is quite horrid of me to think what I think," said one -vivacious lady, "and you would hate me if I were to tell you." - -"Give us the chance at any rate. It will be a new sensation for you to -be hated." - -"One thing at least I may say. It has always been a mystery to me how -those two people could bear to live in that house." - -"Oh, but you cannot bar a fine house, and your own property, because -your husband has been unlucky enough to get himself murdered in it." - -Here Chorus, who had sat disapproving and even angry while her friends -were discussing the murder, chipped in suddenly. - -"You don't know Vera," she said. "Her memory of Provana was an absolute -_culte_, and she loved the house for his sake." - -"It's a pity she kept her worship for the husband's memory," said -somebody. "For the state of things between her and Rutherford for some -years was an open secret. Everybody knew all about it." - -"Nobody knew Vera as I knew her. She had no more of common earth in her -composition than if she had been a sylph. People might as well talk -scandal about Undine." - -The men of the world who were present, and the women who knew nearly -as much of life, smiled and shrugged their shoulders. - -"Well, it is all ancient history," said a bland worldling, with smooth, -white hair and a smooth, elderly voice. "The romantic friendship, the -murder, the marriage with the romantic friend. _Tout lasse, tout casse, -tout passe._ Nothing can matter to anybody now." - -"Nothing except who killed Signor Provana," said the lady who had -declared she would sooner die than tell anybody her theory of the -murder. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII - - -Father Cyprian Hammond sat alone in the winter gloaming after a hard -day's work in his parish, which was a large one, covering several of -those obscure little slums that lie hidden behind handsome streets in -north-western London. The table had been cleared after his short and -simple dinner, and he was half reclining in his deep arm-chair while -Sabatier's "Life of St. Francis of Assisi" lay open on the table under -the candles that made only a spot of light in the lofty room. It was -one of the books which he opened often on an evening of fatigue and -depression. The "Life" or the "Fioretti" were books that rested his -brain and soothed his spirits. - -He lay back in his chair with his eyes closed, not asleep, but resting, -and listening with a kind of sensuous pleasure to the light fall of -wood ashes on the hearth. His winter fire of old ship logs was one of -the few luxuries he allowed himself. - -"I told you I would see no one to-night," he said, as his servant came -into the room. - -"It is Mr. Rutherford, Father, only just back from Italy. He said he -was sure you would see him." - -"Very good, I will see Mr. Rutherford. You can light the lamp. Come in, -Claude," he called to the figure standing outside the door. - -Claude came into the room, while the servant lighted a standard lamp -of considerable power, that shone full upon a face from which all -natural carnation had changed to an ashen greyness, the face of a man -in the last stage of a bad illness. - -"You look dead-beat," said the priest, as they clasped hands. "You have -been travelling night and day, I suppose." - -"I came straight from her grave, from their grave. She lies in the -cemetery at San Marco, beside her husband and his daughter, the girl -who loved her, and whose love brought those two together." - -"It was her wish, I conclude." - -"There was a letter found--a letter written half a year ago, at the -beginning of her illness, in which she begged that I would lay her -there--in his grave--nowhere else. It was he that she loved best, -always, always. Her real, her only perfect love was for him." - -"May that absolve her of her sins. I would have done much, striven long -and late to bring her into the fold, if she would have let me, but she -would not. Well, she shall not want for an intercessor while I live and -pray." - -And then, looking up at his visitor, who stood before him, a tragical -figure in the bright, hard light of the lamp, his face haggard and wan -against the rich darkness of his sable collar: - -"Sit down, Claude," he said gently, in a tone of ineffable compassion, -the voice that day by day had spoken to sorrow and to sin. "I see you -have come to tell me your troubles. Take off that heavy coat and draw -your chair to the fire, and open your heart to me, unless indeed you -will come to my confessional to-morrow and let me hear you there. I -would much rather you did that." - -"_Selon les règles._ No! Be kind, Father, and let me talk to you here. -I will keep nothing back this time. There shall be no more secrets--no -surprises. I have come to the end of my book. She is dead, and I have -nothing left to care about--nothing left to hide. There is not a joy -this world can offer to man for which I would hold up a finger now she -is gone." - -"What do you want me to do for you?" - -"What you did for me six years ago. Open the gate of a refuge where a -sinner may hide the remnant of a worthless life, where I may spend the -last dregs in the cup, drop by drop, where I may die day by day, on my -knees, in penitential prayer." - -"I opened that gate. You were safe in such a refuge; and you broke out -again and came back to the world, twenty times worse than you were -before. The life you have been leading since you married Provana's -widow is about the most worthless, the most abject life that a -reasonable being could lead, the life of empty pleasure, of sensuality -and self-indulgence, a life that debases the man himself, and corrupts -and ruins his associates." - -"I had to forget. If all that the world calls pleasure could have been -distilled into one little drug that would have blotted out remembrance, -I should have wanted no more race-horses, no more racing yachts, no -more flying-machines, no more cards or dice, only that one little drug. -Father, when I stood before you six years ago in this room, a miserable -wretch, I had to keep my secret for her sake. I have nothing to hide -now. It was I who killed Mario Provana." - -"I knew." - -"You knew?" - -"Yes, I knew that night as much as I know now. I knew the guilt you -wanted to hide in a cloister. I knew your sin and your remorse; but I -doubted your perseverance; a doubt that was too speedily justified by -the event." - -"It was the fatal course my mother took. She brought Vera to the place -where I thought that I and my sin were buried. I did not yield without -a struggle; in long days of depression, in long nights of fever, I -wrestled with Satan for my soul. I called upon my manhood, my honour, -my will-power, and I even thought that I had conquered; and then, in an -instant, my passionate heart gave way, and I walked out of that house -of rest, a fallen spirit. But, oh, the rapture of the moment when I -held her in my arms, and told her that I renounced all--the hope of -heaven, the certainty of peace--for her love." - -"Oh, the pity of it, my unhappy Claude!" - -"You ask me no questions, Father?" - -"To what end? You are not in the confessional. There may be details -that would in some degree mitigate your guilt; but murder is a heinous -sin, and I fear in your case it had been led up to by guilt almost -as dark, the spoiling of a pure woman's soul. If the murder was not -deliberate you cannot urge the same excuse for the sin of seduction, -that sin which includes every abomination--hypocrisy, the falsehood -that betrays a trusting fellow-creature, the calculating cruelty that -sets a man's strength of will against a woman's yielding love." - -"No, no, no. Father, have you forgotten those two lost souls Dante -saw, driven through the malignant air; they who had stained the earth -with blood? Sorrow and sin had been theirs; but Francesca's lover was -not a deliberate seducer, and even in that world of pain the love that -linked those two who never could be parted more was no base or selfish -passion. No man ever fought a harder battle than I fought for her sake. -I loved her when we were boy and girl together, when she was a child, a -lovely, innocent child, who gave me her heart in that happy morning of -life, who had been shut out from all the affection that makes childhood -beautiful, the caresses, the praise of an adoring mother, the love of -father, brothers, sisters. She had known nothing better than the tepid -kindness of a peevish old woman, and she gave her heart to me in the -first joyous days of her life, I taught her what youth and happiness -meant; and that spring-time of our lives was never forgotten. Vera was -the romance of my boyhood. I carried her image in my heart for all the -years in which we were strangers; and when Fate brought us together -again our hearts went out to each other, as if the years had never -parted us, as if she had been still as unconscious of passion as the -child who clambered on my knee and flung her arms round my neck on the -rocks at Disbrowe." - -"But with a certain difference," said the priest. "She was Mario -Provana's wife." - -"I did not forget that. I told myself that I need never forget it. She -was the centre of a selfish clan, who meant to run her for all she was -worth. I knew to what account the Disbrowes would turn a millionaire -cousin; and I took upon myself to stand between her and a herd of -cold-hearted relations, who only valued her as a counter in the social -game. Except Susan Amphlett, who is a fool, and Lady Okehampton, who is -not much wiser, there was not one of the crew that had a spark of real -regard for her." - -"And you thought your affection was pure enough to save her from all -the pitfalls of Society." - -"I thought that I was strong enough to take a brother's place. I had -lived my life; I had been a failure. I had sinned, and paid forfeit -for my sin. I thought I had done with passionate feeling; and that -I could trust myself as fully as Vera trusted me, in her absolute -unconsciousness of danger. I was deceived. The fire still burned in the -grey ashes of a wasted life, and the time came when it burst into flame -and consumed us." - -"You were with her that night when Provana came home unexpectedly?" - -"I was with her. No matter how that came about. The die had been cast -weeks before, when she and I were at the Okehamptons' river villa. -We were alone there as if we had been in a wood, and our secret was -told and our promise was exchanged. Nothing was to matter any more -in our lives except our love. We were to go to the other side of the -world and cruise about in the South Seas till we found an island, as -Stevenson did, a paradise of love and peace, to end our days in. The -yacht was waiting for us at Plymouth, manned and found for an ocean -voyage--almost as fine a vessel as the _Gloriana_. We were to start -by an early train that morning. I wrung a promise from her at Lady -Fulham's ball; and we met a few hours earlier than we had intended." - -"And he found you together, and you killed him?" - -"It was her life or his. We faced each other at the door of his -dressing-room. The other door was open and the lights were on. I saw -death in his face as he stood for a moment looking into her room, the -white, dumb rage that means bloodshed. He gave me only one contemptuous -glance as he dashed past me to the desk where his pistol case was ready -for him. He had the pistol in his hand and had cocked it in what had -seemed an instant, and was on his way to her room while I snatched the -second pistol from the case. For me he could bide his time. For her, -doom was to be swift. I think I read him right even in those fierce -moments. His fury was measured by the love he had given her. His foot -was on the threshold when I fired. I could hear her stifled sobs as she -lay on the floor, where she had fallen at the sound of his footsteps -on the landing, half unconscious, in her agony of shame. She told me -afterwards that strange lights were in her eyes, a roar of waters in -her ears. She was lying in a world of red light." - -"Well, what do you want of me now?" - -"Open the door of my cell, the Benedictines, the Carthusians, La -Trappe--in France or Spain, any order where the rule is iron, and where -my days will be short. I have lived the sinner's life, and it has not -brought me happiness. Let me live the saint's life, and see if it can -bring me peace. I am not a much blacker sinner than some of the fathers -of your Church who wear the aureole. Let the rest of my life be one -long act of expiation, one dark night of penitential prayer." - -"My dear Claude, my son, all shall be done for you. The path of peace -shall be made smooth; but this time there must be no turning back." - -"To what should I come back? The light of my life has gone out." - - - - -EPILOGUE - - -A month later, when Christmas was over, and the people who had done -with their guns, and did not mean hunting, were making a little season -in London on their way to Egypt or the Riviera, Lady Susan Amphlett as -Chorus was in her best form at cosy dinners. - -"_Now_ will you believe that Claude Rutherford was a devoted husband, -and that he broke his heart when his wife died?" she asked triumphantly. - -"I believe that he was nearly as much of a crank as his pretty wife. -She was a disciple of Francis Symeon, and he was under Father Hammond's -thumb. The dark room in the Albany, or a cell in La Trappe! There's not -much difference." - -"From a racing stable to a cloister is a bit of a leap in the dark." - -"Claude was always a bold rider. I've seen him skylarking over a hedge, -on his way home, without knowing where he was to land." - -"I think he is rather lucky to land in a cloister," said the lady who -had refused to tell people her theory of the Provana murder. "But I -wonder what they think of it all in Scotland Yard!" - - -THE END - - -_Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey._ - - - * * * * * - -Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. - -Obvious printer's errors corrected. - -Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as -possible, including obsolete and variant spellings, non-standard -punctuation, inconsistently hyphenated words, and other inconsistencies. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Beyond These Voices, by M. E. 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E. Braddon - -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: Beyond These Voices - -Author: M. E. Braddon - -Release Date: February 27, 2017 [EBook #54247] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEYOND THESE VOICES *** - - - - -Produced by David Edwards, Christopher Wright, and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<p class="ph3">UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME.</p> - - -<table summary="Book List"> -<tr> -<td class="tdl">THE FILIBUSTERS</td> -<td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">Cutcliffe Hyne</span></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdl">THE ROYAL END</td> -<td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">Henry Harland</span></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdl">MOLLIE'S PRINCE</td> -<td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">Rosa N. Carey</span></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdl">BY RIGHT OF SWORD</td> -<td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">A. W. Marchmont</span></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdl">THE MAYORESS'S WOOING</td> -<td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Baillie Saunders</span></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdl">THE THIEF OF VIRTUE</td> -<td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">Eden Phillpotts</span></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdl">A LONELY LITTLE LADY</td> -<td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">Dolf Wyllarde</span></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdl">THE STUMBLING BLOCK</td> -<td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">Justus Miles Forman</span></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdl">TWO IMPOSTORS AND TINKER</td> -<td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">Dorothea Conyers</span></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdl">PARK LANE</td> -<td class="tdr"><span class="smcap">Percy White</span></td> -</tr> -</table> - -<p class="ph3 mb4"> -HUTCHINSON & CO.'S<br /> -7d. COPYRIGHT NOVELS. -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/frontis.jpg" alt="Frontispiece showing one man firing a pistol at another man while a woman lies on the floor" /> -<p class="caption">"I could hear her stifled sobs as she lay on the floor."—<i>p. 318.</i></p> -</div> -</div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/titlepage.jpg" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h1> -BEYOND<br /> -THESE VOICES</h1> - -<p class="ph4">By</p> -<p class="ph2">M. E. BRADDON</p> - -<p class="mt4 ph5">London<br /> -HUTCHINSON & CO.<br /> -Paternoster Row</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph2">"BEYOND THESE VOICES"</p> -</div> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Lady Felicia Disbrowe was supposed to condescend -when she married Captain Cunningham of the first Life—since, -although his people lived on their own land, and -were handsomely recorded in Burke, there was no record -of them before the Conquest, nor even on the muster-roll -of those who fought and died for the Angevin Kings. -Captain Cunningham was handsome and fashionable, -but not rich; and when he had the bad luck to get himself -killed in an Egyptian campaign, he left his widow with -an only daughter seven years old, her pension, and a settlement -that brought her about six hundred a year, half -of which came from the Disbrowes, while the other half -was the rental of three or four small farms in Somersetshire. -It will be seen therefore that for a person who -considered herself essentially <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grande dame</i>, and to whom -all degrading economies must be impossible, Lady Felicia's -position was not enviable.</p> - -<p>As the seven-year-old orphan grew in grace and beauty -to sweet seventeen, Lady Felicia began to consider her -daughter her chief asset. So lovely a creature must command -the admiration of the richest bachelors in the -marriage-market. She would have her choice of opulent -lovers. There would be no cruel necessity for forcing a -marriage with vulgar wealth or drivelling age. She would -have her adorers among the best, the fortunate, the well-bred, -the young and handsome. Nor was Lady Felicia -mistaken in her forecast. When Cara came out under -the auspices of her aunt, Lady Okehampton, she made a -success that realised her mother's fondest dreams.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> -Youth, rank, and wealth were at her feet. There was no -question of riches raked out of the gutter. She had but -to say the sweet little monosyllable "yes," and one of -the best born and best-looking men in London, and town -and country houses, yacht and opera box, would be hers; -and her mother would cease to be "poor Lady Felicia."</p> - -<p>Unhappily, before Lord Walford had time to offer her -all these advantages, Cara had fallen in love with somebody -else, and that somebody was no other than Lancelot -Davis, the poet, just then the petted darling of dowagers, -and of young married women whose daughters were in -the nursery, and who had therefore no fear of his fascinating -personality. Unfortunately for Lady Felicia, her head -was too high in the air for her to take note of the literary -stars who shone at luncheon parties, and even when her -daughter praised the young poet, and tried to interest her -mother in his latest book, Lady Felicia took no alarm. -It was only in the beginning of their acquaintance that -Cara talked of the poet to her unresponsive mother. -By the time she had known him twenty days of that -heavenly June, he was far too sacred to be talked about -to an unsympathetic listener. It was only to her dearest -and only bosom friend, who was also in love with the -adorable Lancelot, that Cara liked to talk of him, and to -her she discoursed romantic nonsense that would have -covered reams of foolscap, had it been written.</p> - -<p>"Lancelot!" she said in low, thrilling tones. "Even -his name is a poem."</p> - -<p>Everything about him was a poem for Cara. His -boots, his tie, his cane, and especially his hair, which he -took a poet's privilege of wearing longer than fashion -justified.</p> - -<p>Though educated at the Stationers' School, and unacquainted -with either 'Varsity, nobody ever said of Mr. -Davis that he was "not a gentleman." That scathing, -irrevocable sentence, with the cruel emphasis upon the -negative, had not been pronounced upon the man who -wrote "The New Ariadne," a work of genius which scared -the lowly-minded country vicar, his father, and set his -pious mother praying, with trembling and tears, that the -eyes of her beloved son might be opened, and that he -might repent of using the talents God had given him in -the service of Satan.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> - -<p>Lancelot Davis had made up for the lack of 'Varsity -training by strenuous self-culture. He was passionate, -exalted, transcendental, more Swinburne than Swinburne, -steeped in Dante and Victor Hugo, stuffed almost to choking -with Musset, Baudelaire, and Verlaine; he was young, -handsome, or rather beautiful, too beautiful for a man—Paris, -Leander, the Sun God—anything you like; and, -at the time of his wooing, his pockets were full of the -proceeds of a book that had made a sensation—and he was -the rage.</p> - -<p>Were not these things enough to fire the imagination -and win the heart of a girl of eighteen, half-educated, undisciplined, -the daughter of a shallow-brained mother, who -had never taken the trouble to understand her, or taken -account of the romantic yearnings in the mind of eighteen? -If Lady Felicia had cultivated her daughter's mind half as -strenuously as she had cultivated her person, the girl -would have not been so ready to fall in love with her poet. -But the girl's home life had been an arid waste, and the -mother's conversation had been one long repining against -the Fate that had made her "poor Lady Felicia," and -had deprived her of all the things that are needed to make -life worth living.</p> - -<p>Lancelot Davis opened the gates of an enchanted land in -which money counted for nothing, where there was no -animosity against the ultra rich, no perpetual talk of debts -and difficulties, no moaning over the hardship of doing -without things that luckier people could enjoy in abundance. -He let her into that lovely world where the imagination -rules supreme. He introduced her to other poets, the -gods of that enchanted land—Browning, Tennyson, -Shelley, Byron. She bowed down before these mighty -spirits, but thought Lancelot Davis greater than the -greatest of them.</p> - -<p>There was nothing mean or underhand about her poet's -conduct. He lost no time in offering himself to Lady -Felicia. He was not a pauper; he was not ill born; and -he was thought to have a brilliant future before him. -His suit was supported by some of "poor Felicia's" oldest -and best friends; but Lady Felicia received his addresses -with coldness and scarcely concealed contempt; and she -told her daughter that while she had committed an unpardonable -sin when she refused Lord Walford, were she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> -to insist upon marrying Mr. Davis, it would be a heart-broken -mother's duty to cast her off for ever.</p> - -<p>"I never could forgive you, Cara," she said, and she -never did.</p> - -<p>Cara walked out of the Weymouth Street lodgings early -one morning, before Lady Felicia had rung for her meagre -breakfast of chocolate and toast. She carried her dressing-bag -to the corner of the street, where Davis was waiting -in a hansom. Her trunk, with all that was most needful of -her wardrobe, had been despatched to the station over -night, labelled for the Continental Express. There was -plenty of time to be married before the registrar, and to be -at Victoria, ready for the train that was to carry them -on the first stage of that wonderful journey which begins -in the smoke and grime of South London and ends under -the Italian sky.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They went from the registrar's office straight to the -Lake of Como, and lived between Bellagio and Venice for -four years, years of ineffable bliss, at the end of which -sweet summer-time of love and life—for it seemed never -winter—the girl-wife died, leaving her young husband -heart-broken, with an only child, a daughter three years -old, an incarnation of romantic love and romantic -beauty.</p> - -<p>When he carried off Lady Felicia's daughter, the poet -was at the top of his vogue, and his vogue lasted for just -those four years of supreme happiness.</p> - -<p>Nothing that he wrote after his wife's death had the old -passion or the old music. His genius died with his wife. -Heart-broken and disappointed, he became a consumptive, -and died of an open-air cure, leaving piteous letters to Lady -Felicia and his wife's other relations, imploring them to -take care of his daughter. She would have the copyright -of his five volumes of verse, and two successful tragedies, -for her portion; so she was not altogether without means.</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia's heart was not all stone; there was a -vulnerable spot upon which the serpent's tooth had -fastened. Obstinate, proud, and selfish, she had never -faltered in her unforgiving attitude towards the runaway -daughter; but when there came the sudden news of Cara's -death, a blow for which the Spartan mother was utterly -unprepared, an agony of remorse disturbed the self-satisfied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -calm of a mind which thought itself justified in resenting -injury.</p> - -<p>Perhaps she had pictured to herself a day upon which -Cara would have come back to her and sued for pardon, -and she would have softened, and taken the prodigal -daughter to her heart. One of the girl's worst crimes had -been that she had not knelt and wept and entreated to be -forgiven, before she took that desperate, immodest, and -even vulgar, step of a marriage before the registrar. She -had shown herself heartless as a daughter, and how could -she expect softness in her mother? But she was dead. -She had passed beyond the possibility of pardon or love. -That vague dream of reconciliation could never be realised. -If there had been anything wrong in Lady Felicia's -behaviour as a parent, that wrong could never be righted. -Never more would she see the lovely face that was to -have brought prosperity and happiness for them both; -never more would she hear the sweet voice which the -fashionable Italian master had trained to such perfection. -The French ballads, and Jensen's setting of Heine, came -out of the caverns of memory as Lady Felicia sat, poor -and lonely, in a lodging-house drawing-room, on the -borderland of West-End London, the last "possible" -street, before W. became N.W.</p> - -<p>"<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ninon, que fait tu de la vie?</i>" Memory brought back -every tone of the fresh young voice. Lady Felicia could -hardly believe that there was no one singing, that the -room was empty of human life, except her own fatigued -existence.</p> - -<p>That last year of remorseful memories softened her, and -she accepted the charge that Lancelot Davis left her. -He lived just long enough in his bleak hospital on a -Gloucestershire hill-top to read his mother-in-law's letter:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>"Send the little girl to me. I will be kinder to her than -I was to her mother."</p></div> - -<p>Society, and especially Cara's other relations, said that -poor Felicia had been quite admirable in taking the sole -charge of the orphan. There was no attempt to foist the -little girl upon aunts and cousins; and, considering poor -Felicia's state of genteel pauperism, always in lodgings, -her behaviour was worthy of all praise.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p> - -<p>The grandchild brought back the memory of the -daughter's childhood, and Lady Felicia almost felt as if -she was again a young widow, full of care for her only -child. So far as her narrow means permitted she made the -little girl happy, and she found her own dreary existence -brightened by that young life.</p> - -<p>That calm and monotonous existence with Grannie -was not the kind of life that childhood yearns for, and -there were long stretches of time in which little Veronica -had only her picture-books and fancy needlework to amuse -her—after the cheap morning governess had departed, -and the day's tasks were done. At least Grannie did not -torture the orphan with over-education. A little French, -a little easy music, a little English history, occupied the -morning hours, and then Vera was free to read what books -she liked to choose out of Grannie's blameless and meagre -library. Lady Felicia's nomadic life had not allowed -the accumulation of literature, but the few books she -carried about with her were of the best, Scott, Thackeray, -Dickens, Byron. Her trunks had room only for the -Immortals, and as soon as Vera could read them, and long -before she could understand them, those dear books were -familiar to her. The pictures helped her to understand, -and she was never tired of looking at them. Sometimes -Grannie would read Shakespeare to her, the ghostly scenes -in <cite>Hamlet</cite>, which thrilled her, or passages and scenes from -the <cite>Tempest</cite>, or <cite>Midsummer Night's Dream</cite>, which Vera -thought divine. She had no playfellows, and hardly knew -how to play; but in her lonely life imagination filled the -space that the frolics and gambols of exuberant spirits -occupy in the life of the normal child. Those few great -novels which she read over and over again peopled her -world, a world of beautiful images that she had all to -herself, and of which her fancy never wearied—Amy -Robsart and Leicester, the Scottish Knight, the generous -Saracen, the heroic dog, Paul Dombey and his devoted -sister, David Copperfield and his child-wife. These were -the companions of the long silent afternoons, when Grannie -was taking her siesta in seclusion upstairs, and when Vera -had the drawing-room to herself. No visitors intruded on -those long afternoons; for Lady Felicia's card gave the -world to know that the first and fifteenth of May, June, -and July, were the only days on which she was accessible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -to the friends and acquaintances who had not utterly -forgotten "poor Felicia's" existence.</p> - -<p>It was a life of monotony against which an older girl -would have revolted; but childhood is submissive, and -accepts its environment as something inevitable, so Vera -made no protest against Fate. But there was one golden -season in her young life, one heavenly summer holiday in -the West Country, when her aunt, Lady Okehampton, -happening to call upon Lady Felicia, was moved to compassion -at sight of the little girl, pale and languid, as she -sat in the corner of the unlovely drawing-room, with an -open book on her lap.</p> - -<p>"This hot weather makes London odious," said Lady -Okehampton. "We are all leaving much earlier than -usual. I suppose you and the little girl are soon going -into the country?"</p> - -<p>"No, I shan't move till the end of October, when we go -to Brighton, as usual. I have had invitations to nice -places, the Helstons, the Heronmoors; but I can't take -that child, and I can't leave her."</p> - -<p>"Poor little girl. Does she never see gardens and -meadows? Brighton is only London with a little less -smoke, and a strip of grey water that one takes on trust for -the sea. Wouldn't you like a country holiday, Veronica? -What a name!"</p> - -<p>"She is always called Vera. Her father was a poet——"</p> - -<p>"Lancelot Davis, yes, I remember him!"</p> - -<p>"And he gave her that absurd name because the Italian -hills were purple and white with the flower when she was -born."</p> - -<p>"Rather a nice idea. Well, Vera, if Grannie likes, you -shall come to Disbrowe with your cousins, and you shall -have a real country holiday, and come back to Grannie in -September with rosy cheeks and bright eyes."</p> - -<p>Oh, never-to-be-forgotten golden days, in which the -child of eleven found herself among a flock of young cousins -in a rural paradise where she first knew the rapture of -loving birds and beasts. She adored them all, from the -gold and silver pheasants in the aviary to the great, slow -wagon horses on the home farm, and the shooting dogs.</p> - -<p>Among the children of the house, and more masterful in -his behaviour than any of them, there was an Eton boy of -sixteen, who was not a Disbrowe, although he claimed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -cousinship in a minor degree. He was a Disbrowe on the -Distaff side, he told Vera, a distinction which he had to -explain to her. He was Claude Rutherford, and he -belonged to the Yorkshire Rutherfords, who had been -Roman Catholic from the beginning of history, with which -they claimed to be coeval. He was in the upper sixth at -Eton, and was going to Oxford in a year or two, and from -Oxford into the Army. He was a clever boy, old for his -years, quoted Omar Khayyam in season and out of season, -and was already tired of many things that boys are fond of.</p> - -<p>But, superior as this young person might be, he behaved -with something more than cousinly kindness to the little -girl from London, whose pitiful story Lady Okehampton -had expounded to him. He was familiar with the poetry -of Lancelot Davis, whose lyrics had a flavour of Omar; and -he was pleased to patronise the departed poet's daughter.</p> - -<p>He took Vera about the home farm, and the stables, and -introduced her to the assemblage of living creatures that -made Disbrowe Park so enchanting. He taught her to -ride the barb that had been his favourite mount four -years earlier. He seemed ages older than Vera; and he -condescended to her and protected her, and would not -allow his cousins to tease her, although their vastly -superior education tempted them to make fun of the -little girl who had only two hours a day from a Miss Walker, -and to whom the whole world of science was dark. What -a change was that large life at Disbrowe, the picnics and -excursions, the little dances after dinner, the run with the -otter-hounds on dewy mornings, the rustic races and -sports, the thrilling jaunts with Cousin Claude in his dinghy, -over those blue-green West Country waves, a life so full -of variety and delight that the pleasures of the day ran -over into the dreams of night, and sleep was a round of -adventure and excitement! What a change from the slow -walk in Regent's Park, or along the sea-front at Brighton, -beside Grannie's Bath chair, or the afternoon drive between -Hove and Kemp Town, in a hired landau!</p> - -<p>She thought of poor Grannie, who was not invited to -Disbrowe, and was sorry to think of her lingering in the -dull London lodging, when all her friends had gone off -to their cures in Germany and Austria, and while it was -still too early to migrate to the brighter rooms on the -Marine Parade.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p> - -<p>These happy days at Disbrowe were the first and last -of their kind, for though Lady Okehampton promised to -invite her the following year, there were hindrances to the -keeping of that promise, and she saw Disbrowe Park no -more. Life in London and Brighton continued with what -the average girl would have called a ghastly monotony, -till Vera was sixteen, when Lady Felicia, after a bronchial -attack of unusual severity, was told that Brighton was -no longer good enough for her winters, and if she wished to -see any more Decembers, she must migrate to sunnier -regions in the autumn. Cannes or Mentone were suggested. -Grannie smiled a bitter smile at the mention of Cannes. -She had stayed there with her husband at the beginning -of their wedded life, when she was young and beautiful, -and when Captain Cunningham was handsome and reckless. -They had been among the gayest, and the best received, and -had tasted all that Cannes could give of pleasure; but they -had spent a year's income in five weeks, and had felt themselves -paupers among the millionaire shipbuilders and -exotic Hebrews.</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia decided on San Marco, a picturesque little -spot on the Italian Riviera, which had been only a fishing -village till within the last ten years, when an English doctor -had "discovered" it, and two or three hotels had been built -to accommodate the patients he sent there. The sea-front -was sheltered from every pernicious wind, and the -sea was unpolluted by the drainage of a town. Peasant -proprietors grew their carnations all along the shore, -close to the sandy beach, and the olive woods that clothed -the sheltering hill were carpeted with violets and narcissus.</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia described San Marco as a paradise; but -her friends told her that there was absolutely no society, -and that she would be bored to death.</p> - -<p>"You will meet nobody but invalids, dreadful people in -Bath chairs!" one of her rich friends told her, a purse-proud -matron who owned a villa at Cannes, and considered -no other place "possible" from Spezzia to Marseilles.</p> - -<p>"I shall be in a Bath chair myself," replied Lady Felicia. -"I want quiet and economy, and not society. At Vera's -age it is best that there should be no talk of dances and -high jinks."</p> - -<p>Mrs. Montagu Watson smiled, and shrugged her shoulders. -"Girls have their own opinions about life nowadays,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -she said. "I don't think Theodora or Margaret would put -up with San Marco, although they are still in the school-room. -They want fine clothes and smart carriages to look -at, when they trudge with their governess."</p> - -<p>"Vera is more unsophisticated than your girls. She -will be quite happy reading Scott or Dickens in a garden -by the sea. I mean to keep her as fresh as I can till I -hand her over to one of her aunts to be brought out."</p> - -<p>"She is a sweet, dreamy child," said Mrs. Watson, who -became deferential at the mere mention of countesses, -"and I dare say she is going to be pretty."</p> - -<p>"I have no doubt about that," said Lady Felicia.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They went to San Marco early in November, and found -the hotel and the sea-front the abode of desolation, so far -as people went. The habitual invalids had not yet arrived, -and the weather was at its worst. The four cosmopolitan -shops that spread their trivial wares to tempt the English -visitor, and which gave a touch of colour and gaiety to -the poor little street, were not to open till December. -There were only the shabby little butcher, baker, and -grocer, who supplied the wants of the natives.</p> - -<p>Vera delighted in the scenery, but she found a sense -of dulness creeping over her, in the midst of all that loveliness -of mountain and shore.</p> - -<p>Everything seemed deadly still, a calm that weighed -upon the spirits. Her grandmother had caught cold on -the journey, and the English doctor had to be summoned -in the morning after their arrival.</p> - -<p>He was their first acquaintance in San Marco, and was -the most popular inhabitant in that quiet settlement. -Old ladies talked of him as "chatty" and "so obliging"; -but objected to him on the ground of too frequent visits, -which made it perilous to call him in for any small ailment, -whereby he was sometimes called in too late for an illness -which was graver than the patient suspected.</p> - -<p>Dr. Wilmot was essentially a snob, but the amiable kind -of snob, fussy, obliging, benevolent, and with a childlike -worship of rank for its own sake. He was delighted to -find a Lady Felicia at the Hôtel des Anglais—where even -a courtesy title was rare, and where for the most part a -City Knight's widow took the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pas</i> of all the other inmates.</p> - -<p>Dr. Wilmot told Lady Felicia that she had chosen the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -very best spot on the Riviera for her bronchial trouble, -and that the longer she stayed at San Marco the better -she would like the place.</p> - -<p>The bronchial trouble was mitigated, but not conquered; -and from this time Lady Felicia claimed all the indulgences -of a confirmed invalid; while Vera's position became that -of an assistant nurse, subordinate always to Grannie's -devoted maid, a sturdy North Country woman of eight-and-forty, -who had been in Lady Felicia's service from -her eighteenth year, and who could talk to Vera of her -mother, as she remembered her, in those long-ago days -before the runaway marriage which was supposed to have -broken Grannie's heart. Vera had no idea of shirking the -duties imposed upon her. She walked to the market to -buy flowers for Lady Felicia's sitting-room, and she cut -and snipped them and petted them to keep them alive for a -week; she dusted the books and photographs, and the -priceless morsels of Chelsea and Dresden china, which -Grannie carried about with her, and which gave a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cachet</i> -to the shabby second-floor <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i>. She went on all Grannie's -errands; she walked beside her Bath chair, and read her -to sleep in the drowsy, windless afternoons, when the casements -were wide open, and the sea looked like a stagnant -pond. It was a dismal life for a girl on the edge of womanhood—a -girl who had little to look back upon and nothing -to look forward to. It seemed to Vera sometimes as -if she had never lived, and as if she were never going -to live.</p> - -<p>Grannie talked of the same things day after day; indeed, -her conversation suggested a talking-machine, for one -always knew what was coming. The talk was for the -most part a long lament over all the things that had gone -amiss in Grannie's life. The follies and mistakes of other -people: father, uncles and aunts, husband, daughter; -the wrong-headedness and self-will of others that had -meant shipwreck for Grannie. Vera listened meekly, and -could not say much in excuse for the sins of these dead -people, of whose lives and characters she knew only what -Grannie had told her. For her mother she did plead, -at the risk of offending Grannie. She knew the history -of the girl's love for her poet-lover; for she had it all -in her father's exquisite verse; a story poem in which every -phase of that romantic love lived in colour and light.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -Vera could feel the young hearts beating, as she hung -over pages that were to her as sacred as Holy Writ.</p> - -<p>Grannie's bronchitis and Grannie's memories of past -wrongs did not make for cheerfulness; and even the loveliness -of that Italian shore in the celestial light of an -Italian spring was not enough for the joy of life. There -is a profound melancholy that comes down upon the soul -in the monotony of a beautiful scene—where there is -nothing besides that scenic beauty—a monotony that -weighs heavier than ugliness. A dull street in Bloomsbury -would have been hardly more oppressive than the afternoon -stillness of San Marco, when Grannie had fallen asleep -in her nest of silken cushions, and Vera had her one little -walk alone—up and down, up and down the poor scrap of -promenade with its scanty row of palms, tall and straggling, -crowned with a spare tuft of leaves, and a bunch of dates -that never came to maturity.</p> - -<p>Companionless and hopeless, Vera paced the promenade, -and looked over the tideless sea.</p> - -<p>The only changes in the days were the alternations of -Grannie's health, the days when she was better, and the -days when she was worse, and when Dr. Wilmot came -twice—dreary days, on which Vera had to go down to the -table d'hôte alone, and to run the gauntlet of all the other -visitors, who surrounded her in the hall, obtrusively -sympathetic, and wanting to know the fullest particulars of -Lady Felicia's bronchial trouble, and what Dr. Wilmot -thought of it. They told her it must be very dull for her -to be always with an invalid, and they tried to lure her -into the public drawing-room, where she might join in a -round game, or even make a fourth at bridge; or, if there -were a conjuror that evening, the elderly widows and -spinsters almost insisted upon her stopping to see the -performance.</p> - -<p>"No, thank you, I mustn't stay. Grannie wants me," -she would answer quietly; and after she had run upstairs, -there would be a chorus of disapproval of Lady Felicia's -want of consideration in depriving the sweet child of every -little pleasure within her reach.</p> - -<p>Vera had no yearning for the gaieties of the hotel drawing-room, -or the conjuror's entertainment; but she had a -feeling of hopeless loneliness, which even her favourite -books could not overcome. If she had been free to roam<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -about the olive woods, to climb the hills, and get nearer -the blue sky, she might have been almost happy; but -Grannie was exacting, and Vera had never more than an -hour's freedom at a time. The hills, and the rustic -shrines that shone dazzling white against the soft blue -heaven, were impossible for her. Exploration or adventure -was out of the question. She might sit in the garden -where the pepper trees and palms were dust-laden and -shabby; or she might pace the promenade, where Grannie -and Martha Lidcott, Grannie's maid, could see her from -the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i> windows on the second floor.</p> - -<p>On the promenade she was safe and needed no chaperon. -The hardiest and most audacious of prowling cads would -not have dared to follow or address her under the glare -of all those hotel windows, and within sound of shrill female -voices and flying tennis balls. On the promenade she had -all the hotel for her chaperon. Grannie asked her the same -questions every evening when she came in to dress for the -seven o'clock dinner. Had she enjoyed her walk? and -was it not a delicious evening? And then Grannie would -tell her what a privilege it was to be young, and able to -walk, instead of being a helpless invalid in a Bath chair.</p> - -<p>Vera wondered sometimes whether the privilege of youth, -with the long blank vista of years lying in front of it, -were an unmixed blessing.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> -</div> - - -<p>It was the middle of February, and all the little gardens -that lay like a fringe along the edge of the olive woods -had become one vivid pink with peach blossoms, while the -dull grey earth under the peach trees was spread with the -purple and red of anemones. San Marco was looking its -loveliest, blue sea and blue sky, cypresses rising up, like -dark green obelisks, among the grey olives, and even the -hotel garden was made beautiful by roses that hung in -garlands from tree to tree, and daffodils that made a -golden belt round the dusty grass.</p> - -<p>Vera went to the dining-room alone at the luncheon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -hour on this heavenly morning, a loneliness to which she -was now accustomed, as Grannie's delicate and scanty -meal was now served to her habitually in her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i>. -Fortified by Dr. Wilmot, who was an authority at the -"Anglais," Lady Felicia had interviewed the landlord, -and had insisted upon this amenity without extra charge.</p> - -<p>The hotel seemed in a strange commotion as Vera went -downstairs. Chambermaids with brooms and dusters were -running up and down the corridor on the first floor. Doors -that were usually shut were all wide open to the soft spring -breezes. Furniture was being carried from one room to -another, and other furniture, that looked new, was being -brought upstairs from the hall. Carpets and curtains were -being shaken in the garden at the back of the hotel, and -dust was being blown in through the open window on the -landing.</p> - -<p>Vera wondered, but had not to wonder long; for at the -luncheon table everybody was talking about the upheaval, -and its cause, and a torrent of rambling chatter, in which -widows and spinsters were almost shrill with excitement, -gradually resolved itself into these plain facts.</p> - -<p>An Italian financier, Signor Mario Provana, the richest -man in Rome, and one of the richest men in London, which, -of course, meant a great deal more, was bringing his -daughter to the hotel, a daughter in delicate health, sent -by her doctors to the most eligible spot along the Western -Ligura.</p> - -<p>The poor dear girl was in a very bad way, the old ladies -told each other, threatened with consumption. She had -two nurses besides her governess and maid, and the whole -of the first floor had been taken by Signor Provana, to the -annoyance of Lady Sutherland Jones, quite the most important -inmate of the hotel, who had been made to exchange -her first-floor bedroom for an apartment on the second -floor, which Signor Canincio, the landlord, declared to be -superior in every particular, as well as one lire less <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">per -diem</i>.</p> - -<p>"I should have thought your husband would have -hesitated before putting one of his best customers to inconvenience -for a party who drops from the skies, and -may never come here again," Lady Jones complained to -the landlord's English wife, who was, if anything, more -plausible than her Italian husband.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p> - -<p>The Holloway builder's widow was uncertain in her -aspirates, more especially when discomposed by a sense -of injury.</p> - -<p>Madame Canincio pleaded that they could not afford -to turn away good fortune in the person of a Roman -millionaire, who took a whole floor, and would have all -his meals served in his private <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salle à manger</i>, the extra -charge for which indulgence would come to almost as -much as her ladyship's "<em>arrangement</em>"; for Lady Sutherland -Jones, albeit supposed to be wealthy, was not liberal. -Her late husband had been knighted, after the opening by -a Royal Princess of a vast pile of workmen's dwellings, -paid for by an American philanthropist, and neither -husband nor wife had achieved that shibboleth of gentility, -the letter "h."</p> - -<p>Vera heard all about Signor Provana, and his daughter, -next morning from Dr. Wilmot, who was more elated at the -letting of the first floor to that great man than she had ever -seen him by any other circumstance in the quiet life of -San Marco.</p> - -<p>"I consider the place made from this hour," said the -doctor, rubbing his well-shaped white hands in a prophetic -rapture. "There will be paragraphs in all the Roman -papers, and it will be my business to see that they get -into the <cite>New York Herald</cite>. We must boom our pretty -little San Marco, my dear Lady Felicia. Your coming here -was good luck, for we want our English aristocracy to take -us up—but all over the world Mario Provana's is a name -to conjure with; and if his daughter can recover her health -here, we shall make San Marco as big as San Remo before -we are many years older. It was my wife's delicate chest -that brought me here, and I have been rewarded by the -beauty of the place and, I think I may venture to say, the -influential position that I have obtained here."</p> - -<p>He might have added that his villa and garden cost him -about half the rent he would have had to pay in San Remo -or Mentone, while a clever manager like Mrs. Wilmot -could make a superior figure in San Marco on economical -terms.</p> - -<p>"How old is the girl?" Lady Felicia asked languidly.</p> - -<p>"Between fifteen and sixteen, I believe. She will be a -nice companion for Miss Davis."</p> - -<p>"I do so hope we may be friends," Vera said eagerly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -In a hotel where almost everybody was elderly, the idea -of a girl friend was delightful.</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia, who had been very severe in her warnings -against hotel-acquaintance, answered blandly, though -with a touch of condescension.</p> - -<p>"If the girl is really nice, and has been well brought -up, I should see no objections to Vera's knowing her."</p> - -<p>"Thank you, Grannie," cried Vera. "She is sure to be -nice!"</p> - -<p>"Signor Provana's daughter cannot fail to be nice," -protested the doctor.</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia was dubious.</p> - -<p>"An Italian!" she said. "She may be precocious—artful—of -doubtful morality."</p> - -<p>"Signor Provana's daughter! Impossible!"</p> - -<p>Nothing happened to stir the stagnant pool of life at -San Marco during the next day and the day after that. -Vera asked Madame Canincio when Signor Provana and -his daughter were expected, but could obtain no precise -information. The rooms were ready. Madame Canincio -showed Vera the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i>, which she had seen in its spacious -emptiness, with the shabby hotel furniture, but to which -Signor Provana's additions had given an air of splendour. -Sofas and easy chairs had been sent from Genoa, velvet -curtains and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">portières</i>, bronze lamps, and silver candlesticks, -Persian carpets, everything that makes for comfort -and luxury; and the bedroom for the young lady had been -even more carefully prepared; but, beside her own graceful -pillared bedstead, with its lace mosquito curtains, was -the narrow bed for the night-nurse, which gave its sad -indication of illness.</p> - -<p>The flowers were ready in the vases, filling the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i> -with perfume.</p> - -<p>"I believe they will be here before sunset," Madame -Canincio told Vera. "We are waiting for a telegram to -order dinner. The <em>chef</em> is in an agony of anxiety. First -impressions go for so much, and no doubt Signor Provana -is a <em>gourmet</em>."</p> - -<p>Vera heard no more that day, but the maid who brought -the early breakfast told her that the great man and his -daughter had arrived at five o'clock on the previous afternoon. -Vera went to the flower market in a fever of expectation, -bought her cheap supply of red and purple<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -anemones, her poor little bunch of Parma violets and -branches of mimosa, thinking of the luxury of tuberoses -and camellias in the Provana <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i>, but she thought much -more of the sick girl, and the father's love, exemplified -in all that forethought and preparation. For youth in -vigorous health there is always a melancholy interest -in youth that is doomed to die, and Vera's heart ached -with sympathy for the consumptive girl, for whom a father's -wealth might do everything except spin out the weak thread -of life.</p> - -<p>She heard voices in the hotel garden, as she went up -the sloping carriage drive, with her flower basket on her -arm; and at a bend in the avenue of pepper trees and -palms she stopped with a start, surprised at the gaiety of -the scene, which made the shabby hotel garden seem a -new place.</p> - -<p>The dusty expanse of scanty grass which passed for a -lawn, where nothing gayer than aloes and orange trees had -flourished, was now alive with colour. A girl in a smart -white cloth frock and a large white hat was sitting in a -blue and gold wicker chair, a girl all brightness and vitality, -as it seemed to Vera; where she had expected to see a -languid invalid reclining among a heap of pillows, a wasted -hand drooping inertly, too feeble to hold a book.</p> - -<p>This girl's aspect was of life, not of sickness and coming -death. Her eyes were darkest brown, large and brilliant, -with long black lashes that intensified their darkness, intensified -also by the marked contrast of hair that was almost -flaxen, parted on her forehead, and hanging in a single -thick plait that fell below her waist, and was tied with a -blue ribbon. Three spaniels, one King Charles, and two -Blenheims, jumped and barked about her chair, and increased -the colour and gaiety of her surroundings by their -frivolous decorations of silver bells and blue ribbons; -and, as if this were not enough of colour, gaudy draperies -of Italian printed cotton were flung upon the unoccupied -chairs, and covered a wicker table, while, as the highest -note in this scale of colour, a superb crimson and green -cockatoo, with a tail of majestic length, screamed and -fluttered on his perch, and responded not too amiably to the -attentions of Dr. Wilmot, who was trying to scratch himself -into the bird's favour.</p> - -<p>The doctor desisted from his "Pretty Pollyings" on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -perceiving Vera. "Ah, Miss Davis, that's lucky. Do -stop a minute with Grannie's flowers. I want to introduce -you to Mademoiselle di Provana."</p> - -<p>The "di" was the embellishment of Dr. Wilmot, who -could not imagine wealth and importance without nobility, -but the financier called himself Provana <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tout court</i>.</p> - -<p>Vera murmured something about being "charmed," -put down her basket on the nearest chair, and went eagerly -towards the fair girl with the dark, lustrous eyes, who held -out a dazzling white hand, smiling delightedly.</p> - -<p>"I am so glad to find you here. Dr. Veelmot"—she -stumbled a little over the name, otherwise her English -was almost perfect; "Dr. Vilmot told me you were -English, and about my own age, and that we ought to be -good friends. I am so glad you are English. I have -talked much English with my governess, but I want a -companion of my own age. I have had no girl friend since -I left the Convent three year ago. Dr Vilmot tell me -your father was a poet. That is lovely, lovely. My father -is a great man, but he is not a poet, though he loves Dante."</p> - -<p>"My little girl is an enthusiast, and something of a -dreamer," said a deep, grave voice, and a large, tall figure -came into view suddenly from behind a four-leaved Japanese -screen that had been placed at the back of the invalid's -chair, to guard her from an occasional breath of cold -wind that testified to the fact that, although all things -had the glory of June, the month was February.</p> - -<p>Vera was startled by a voice which seemed different from -any other voice she had ever heard—so grave, so deep, with -such a tone of solemn music; and yet voice and enunciation -were quite natural; there was nothing to suggest pose or -affectation.</p> - -<p>The speaker stood by his daughter's chair, an almost -alarming figure in that garden of ragged pepper trees, -shabby palms, and sunshine—the sun dominating the -picture. He was considerably over six feet, with broad -shoulders, long arms, and large hands, very plainly clothed -in his iron-grey tweed suit, which almost matched his -iron-grey hair. He was not handsome, though he had a -commanding brow and his head was splendidly poised on -those splendid shoulders. Vera told herself that he was -not aristocratic—indeed, she feared that there was something -almost plebeian in his appearance that might offend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -Grannie, who, having had to do without money, was a -fierce stickler for race.</p> - -<p>While Vera was thinking about him, Signor Provana -was talking to his daughter, and the voice that had so -impressed her at the first hearing, became infinitely -beautiful as it softened with infinite love.</p> - -<p>What must it be to a girl to be loved so fondly by that -great strong man? Vera had known no such love since -her poet father's death.</p> - -<p>She took up her basket of flowers, and then lingered -shyly, not knowing whether she ought to go at once, or -stay and make conversation; but Giulia settled the -question.</p> - -<p>"Oh, please don't run away," she said. "Don't go -without making friends with my family. Let me introduce -Miss Thompson," indicating a comfortable, light-haired -person sitting near her, absorbed in Sudermann's last -novel, "and look at my three spaniels, Jane Seymour, -Anne Boleyn, and Catherine Parr. I called them after -your wicked King Henry's wives. I hope you revel in -history. It is my favourite study."</p> - -<p>She stooped to pat the spaniels, who all wanted to -clamber on her knees at once. Even under the full cloth -skirt and silk petticoat Vera could not help seeing that the -knees were sharp and bony. By this time she had discovered -the too slender form under the pretty white frock, -and the hectic bloom on the oval cheek. She knew the -meaning of that settled melancholy in Signor Provana's -dark grey eyes—eyes that seemed made rather for command -than for softness.</p> - -<p>She caressed the sparkling black-and-tan Anne Boleyn, -and stroked the long silken ears of the Blenheims, Jane -and Catherine, and allowed them to jump on her lap and -explore her face with their affectionate tongues. Jane -Seymour was the favourite, Giulia told her, the dearest -dear, a most sensible person, and sensitive to a fault. -Vera admired the cockatoo, and answered all Giulia's -questions about San Marco, and the drives to old mountain -towns and villages, old watch-towers and old churches—drives -which Vera knew only from the talk of the widows -and spinsters who had urged her to persuade Grannie to -hire a carriage and take her to see all the interesting things -to be seen in an afternoon's drive.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Grannie is not strong enough for long drives," Vera -had told them. They smiled significantly at each other -when she had gone.</p> - -<p>"Poor child! I'm afraid it's Grannie's purse that isn't -strong enough," said the leading light in the little community.</p> - -<p>"I believe they're reg'lar church mice for poverty, in -spite of the airs my lady gives herself," said Lady Jones. -"If it was me, and money was an objick, I wouldn't pretend -to be exclusive, and waste ten lire a day on a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i>. -I don't mind poverty, and I don't mind pride—but pride -and poverty together is more than I can stand."</p> - -<p>The other ladies agreed. Pride was a vice that could -only be allowed where there was wealth to sustain it. -Only one timid spinster objected.</p> - -<p>"Lady Felicia was a Disbrowe," she said meekly, "and -the Disbrowes are one of the oldest families in England."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Vera had to promise to take tea with the Signorina at -five o'clock that afternoon before Giulia would let her go.</p> - -<p>"I am not allowed to put my nose out of doors after -tea," Giulia said, not in a complaining tone, but with -light laughter. "People are so absurd about me, -especially this person," putting her hand in her father's -and smiling up at him, "just because of my winter cough—as -if almost everybody has not a winter cough. Promise! -<i lang="it" xml:lang="it">A riverderci, cara</i> Signorina."</p> - -<p>Vera promised, and this time she was allowed to go.</p> - -<p>Mario Provana went with her, and carried her basket.</p> - -<p>He did not say a word till they had passed beyond the -belt of pepper trees that screened the lawn, and then he -began to walk very slowly, and looked earnestly at Vera.</p> - -<p>"I know you are going to be kind to my girl," he said, -and his low, grave voice sounded mournful as a funeral -bell. "Dr. Wilmot has told me of your devotion to your -grandmother and how sweet and sympathetic you are. -You can see how the case stands. You can see by how -frail a thread I hold the creature who is dearer to me than -all this world besides."</p> - -<p>"Oh, but I hope the Signorina will gain health and -strength at San Marco," Vera answered earnestly. "She -does not look like an invalid! And she is so bright and -gay."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> - -<p>"She has never known sorrow. She is never to know -sorrow. She is to be happy till her last breath. That is -my business in life. Sorrow is never to touch her. But -I do not deceive myself. I have never cheated myself -with a moment of hope since I saw Death's seal upon her -forehead. In my dreams sometimes I have seen her saved; -but in my waking hours, never. As I have watched her -passing stage by stage through the phases of a mortal -illness, I watched her mother ten years ago through the -same stages of the same disease. Doctors said: Take -her to this place or to that—to Sicily, to the Tyrol, to -the Engadine, to India—to the Transvaal. For four years -I was a wanderer upon this earth, a wanderer without hope -then, as I am a wanderer without hope now. I have -business interests that I dare not utterly neglect, because -they involve the fortunes of other people. I brought -my daughter here, because I am within easy reach of -Rome. I ought to be in London."</p> - -<p>He had walked with Vera beyond the door of the hotel. -He stopped suddenly, and apologised.</p> - -<p>"I would not have saddened you by talking of my grief, -if I did not know that you are full of sympathy for my -sweet girl. I want you to understand her, and to be kind -to her, and above all to give no indication of fear or regret. -You expected to find a self-conscious invalid, hopeless -and helpless, with the shadow of death brooding over her—and -you find a light-hearted girl, able to enjoy all that -is lovely in a world where she looks forward to a long -and happy life. That gaiety of heart, that high courage -and unshaken hope, are symptomatic of the fatal malady -which killed my wife, and which is killing her daughter."</p> - -<p>"But is there really, really no hope of saving her?" -cried Vera, with her eyes full of tears.</p> - -<p>"There is none. All that science can do, all that the -beauty of the world can do, has been done. I can do -nothing but love her, and keep her happy. Help me to do -that, Miss Davis, and you will have the heartfelt gratitude -of a man to whom Fate has been cruel."</p> - -<p>"My heart went out to your daughter the moment I -saw her," Vera said, with a sob. "I was interested in -her beforehand, from what Dr. Wilmot told us—but she -is so amiable, so beautiful. One look made me love her. -I will do all I can—all—all—but it is so little!"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p> - -<p>"No, it is a great deal. Your youth, your sweetness, -make you the companion she longs for. She has friends -of her own age in Rome, but they are girls just entering -Society, self-absorbed, frivolous, caring for nothing but -gaiety. I doubt if they have ever added to her happiness. -She wanted an English friend; and if you will be that -friend, she will give you love for love. Forgive me for -detaining you so long. I will call upon Lady Felicia this -afternoon, if she will allow me—or perhaps I had better -wait until she has been so good as to call upon my -daughter. I know that English ladies are particular -about details!"</p> - -<p>Vera dared not say that Grannie was not particular, -since she had heard her discuss some trivial lapse of -etiquette, involving depreciation of her own dignity, for -the space of an afternoon. Clever girls who live with -grandmothers have to bear these things.</p> - -<p>Signor Provana carried her basket upstairs for her, and -only left her on the second-floor landing, with a thoroughly -British shake-hands. He was the most English foreigner -Vera had ever met.</p> - -<p>She had to give Grannie a minute account of all that -had happened, and Grannie was particularly amiable, -and warmly interested in Miss Provana's charm, and Mr. -Provana's pathetic affection for his consumptive daughter.</p> - -<p>"They are evidently nobodies, from a social point of -view," Lady Felicia remarked, with the pride of a long -line of Disbrowes in the turn of her head towards the open -window, as if dismissing a subject too unimportant for -her consideration; "but I dare say the man's wealth -gives him a kind of position in Rome, and even in -London."</p> - -<p>Vera told her that Signor Provana wished to call upon -her, but would not venture to do so till she had been so -kind as to call upon his daughter. This was soothing.</p> - -<p>"I see he has not lived in London for nothing!" she -said. "I will call on Miss Provana this afternoon. You -must help to dress me. Lidcott has no taste."</p> - -<p>On this Vera was bold enough to say she had accepted -an invitation to take tea with the invalid, without waiting -to consult Grannie.</p> - -<p>"You did quite right. Great indulgence must be given -to a sick child. In that case I will defer my visit till tea-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>time, -and we will go together. I want to be friendly, -rather than ceremonious."</p> - -<p>Vera was delighted to find Grannie unusually accommodating, -and that none of those unreasonable objections -and unforeseen scruples to which Grannie was subject -were to interfere with her pleasure in Giulia's society.</p> - -<p>Pleasure? Must it not be pleasure too closely allied -with pain, now that she knew the girl she was so ready to -love had the fatal sign of early death upon her beauty? -But at Vera's age it is natural to hope—even in the face -of doom.</p> - -<p>"She may improve in this place. Her health may take -a sudden turn for the better. God may spare her, after -all, for the poor father's sake. At least I know what I -have to do—to try with all my might to make her happy."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>A footman in a sober but handsome livery was hovering -in the corridor when lady Felicia arrived, supported by -Vera's arm, and by a cane with a long tortoiseshell crook -like the Baroness Bernstein's, an amount of support which -was rather a matter of state than of necessity.</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia had put on her favourite velvet gown and -point-lace collar for the occasion. She had always two -or three velvet gowns in her wardrobe, and declared that -Genoa velvet was the only wear for high-bred poverty—as -it looked expensive and never wore out.</p> - -<p>The footman flung open the tall door of Signor -Canincio's best <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i>, and announced the ladies.</p> - -<p>The Provana <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i> was startling in its afternoon glory. -The three long windows were open to the sunshine, which -in most people's rooms would have been excluded at this -hour. The balcony was full of choice flowers in turquoise -and celadon vases from Vallauris. The luxury of -satin pillows overflowing sofas and arm-chairs, the Dresden -cups and saucers, and silver urn and tea-tray, the three -dogs running about with their ribbons and bells, the gaudy -cockatoo screaming on his perch, Giulia's blue silk tea-gown, -and Miss Thompson's mauve cashmere, all lighted -to splendour by the glory of the western sky, made a confusion -of colour that almost blinded Lady Felicia.</p> - -<p>Provana received her with grave courtesy, and led her -to his daughter's sofa. She bent over Giulia with an -affectionate greeting, and then, sinking into the arm-chair<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -to which Provana led her, begged somewhat piteously -that the sunshine might be moderated a little, a request -that Provana hastened to obey, closing the heavy Venetian -shutters with his own hands.</p> - -<p>"Giulia and I are too fond of our sun-bath," he said, -"and we are apt to forget that everybody does not like -being dazzled."</p> - -<p>"I came to San Marco for the sun, and it is seldom -that I get enough; but your <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i> is just a little dazzling." -"And your dogs are more than a little intrusive," Lady -Felicia would have liked to add, the spaniels having taken -a fancy to her tortoiseshell cane and velvet skirt. One -had jumped upon her lap, and the other two were disputing -possession of her cane. Serviceable Miss Thompson was -quick to the rescue, carried off the dogs, and restored the -cane to its place by the visitor's chair, while Provana -brought an olive-wood table to Lady Felicia's elbow, -and stood ready to bring her tea-cup.</p> - -<p>"I hope you are pleased with San Marco," said Grannie, -not soaring above the normal conversation in the hotel.</p> - -<p>"We think it quite delightful so far," Provana replied, -and Vera noticed that he never expressed an opinion -without including his daughter. It was always "We," or -"Giulia and I," and there was generally a glance in Giulia's -direction which emphasised the reference to her.</p> - -<p>"I love—love—love the place already," cried Giulia, -who had beckoned Vera to her sofa, and was holding her -hand. "Most of all because I have found this sweet -friend here. You will let us be friends, won't you, <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">cara</i> -Grannie?"</p> - -<p>"<i lang="it" xml:lang="it">Carissima mia!</i>" murmured her father reprovingly.</p> - -<p>"Please don't let us be ceremonious in this desert island -of a place," said Lady Felicia, with a graciousness that -was new to Vera. "I like to be called Grannie, and I can -be Grannie to the Signorina as well as to this girl of my -own flesh and blood. You can hardly doubt, Signor -Provana, that it is pleasant for me to find that my poor -Vera has now a sweet girl friend in this hotel, where we -have lived three months and hardly made an acquaintance, -much less a friend."</p> - -<p>"But it has been your own fault, Grannie!" interposed -Vera, who was essentially truthful. "People really tried -to be kind to us when we were strangers."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> - -<p>"If you mean that some of the people were odiously -pushing and officious, I cannot contradict you!" replied -the descendant of the Disbrowes, with ineffable scorn.</p> - -<p>But Grannie was not scornful in her demeanour towards -the Roman financier. To him, and to Giulia, she was -Grannie in her most urbane and sympathetic mood. -She was charmed to find him so much of an Englishman.</p> - -<p>"My mother was English to the core of her heart. She -was the daughter of a colonial merchant, whose offices -were in Mincing Lane, and his home in Lavender Sweep. -I am told there is no such thing as Lavender Sweep now," -Provana went on regretfully, "but when I was a boy, my -grandfather's garden was in the country, and there were -gardens all about it."</p> - -<p>"And fields of lavender," said Giulia. "Oh, do say -that there were fields of lavender!"</p> - -<p>"No, the lavender fields had gone far away into Kent. -Only the name was left; and now there are streets -of shabby houses, and shops, and not a vestige of -garden."</p> - -<p>Encouraged by Lady Felicia's urbanity, Signor Provana -went on to tell her that he was plebeian on both sides, and -that all there was of nobility about him belonged to -Giulia.</p> - -<p>"My wife came of one of the noblest families in Italy," -he said, "and when we want to tease Giulia, we call her -Contessina, a title to which she has a right, but which always -makes her angry."</p> - -<p>"I don't want to be better than my father!" Giulia cried -eagerly. "If he is not a noble, he comes of a line of good -and gifted men. My grandfather's name is revered in -Rome, and his charitable works remain behind him, to -show that if he was one of the cleverest Roman citizens, -he had a heart as fine as his brain. <em>That</em> is the noblest -kind of nobility—<i lang="it" xml:lang="it">non è vero</i>, Grannie?"</p> - -<p>Grannie smiled assent, and entertained a poor opinion -of Giulia's intellect. A shallow creature, spoilt by overmuch -indulgence, and inclined to presume. The two -girls were sitting in the sun by an open window, a long -way off. They had their own table, and Miss Thompson -waited upon them with assiduity. Grannie had been -warned that there was to be no doleful talk, no thinly-disguised -pity for the consumptive girl. All was to be as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -bright as the room full of flowers and the untempered -sunshine.</p> - -<p>Provana told Lady Felicia that he had ordered a landau -from Genoa, which had arrived that afternoon.</p> - -<p>"The horses are strong, and used to hill work, and -there is an extra pair for difficult roads," he said. "Giulia -and I mean to see everything interesting that can be -seen between breakfast and sundown. Of course we must -be indoors before sunset. Everybody must in this -treacherous climate. I hope Miss Davis may be allowed -to go with us sometimes, indeed often!"</p> - -<p>"Always, <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">Padre mio</i>, always!" cried Giulia from her -distant sofa. She had begun to listen when her father -talked of the carriage. "Vera is to come with us always. -You will let her come, won't you, <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">cara</i> Grannie?"</p> - -<p>"Please don't ask her," Vera said dutifully. "That -would be deserting Grannie. She likes me to read to her -in the afternoon."</p> - -<p>"She shall enjoy your hospitality now and then, -Signorina, and I will do without my afternoon novel. -But you would soon tire of her if she were with you often."</p> - -<p>"Tire of her! Impossible! Why, I don't even tire of -Miss Thompson!" Giulia said naïvely.</p> - -<p>"Please let Miss Davis come with us whenever you -can spare her," Provana said, when he took leave of Lady -Felicia at the foot of the stairs leading to her upper floor. -"You see how charmed my daughter is at having found -an English friend; and I think you must understand -how anxious I am to make her happy."</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia was all sympathy, and placed her granddaughter -at the Signorina's disposal. If this man was of -plebeian origin, he had a certain personal dignity that -impressed her; nor was she unaffected by his importance -in that mysterious world of which she knew so little, the -world of boundless wealth.</p> - -<p>When she arrived, somewhat breathless, in the shabby -second-floor <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i>, she sank into her chair with an impatient -movement, and breathed a fretful sigh.</p> - -<p>"Think of this great coarse man, with his balcony of -flowers, and four horses to his landau," she exclaimed -disdainfully. "These Provanas absolutely exude gold!"</p> - -<p>"Oh, Grannie, he is not the least bit purse-proud or -vulgar," Vera protested. "You must see that he has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -only one desire in life, to make his daughter happy, and -to prolong her life. I hope God will be good to that poor -father, and spare that sweet girl."</p> - -<p>"The girl is nice enough, and they will make this place -pleasant for you. Extra horses for the hills! And I -have not been able to afford a one-horse fly!"</p> - -<p>"It is hard for you, Grannie dear; but we have been -quite comfortable, and you have been better than you -were at Brighton last year."</p> - -<p>"Yes, I have been better, but it is the same story -everywhere—the same pinching and watching lest the -end of the quarter should find me penniless."</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia resented narrow means, as a personal -affront from Providence.</p> - -<p>Signor Provana lost no time in returning Grannie's -visit. He appeared at three o'clock on the following day, -bringing his daughter, and a basket of flowers that had -arrived that morning from Genoa, the resources of San -Marco not going beyond carnations, roses and anemones.</p> - -<p>"I fear you must have found the stairs rather tiring," -Lady Felicia said, when she had welcomed Giulia.</p> - -<p>"Not a bit. I rather like stairs. You see I came in -my carriage," and it was explained that Giulia had an -invalid chair on which her father and the footman carried -her up and down stairs.</p> - -<p>"Of course I could walk up and down just like other -people," Giulia said lightly; "but this foolish father of -mine won't let me. I feel as if I were the Princess Badroulbadore, -coming from the bath in her palanquin; only -there is no Aladdin to fall in love with me."</p> - -<p>"Aladdin will come in good time," said Lady Felicia.</p> - -<p>"I don't want him. I want no one but Papa. When -I was three years old I used to think I should marry Papa -as soon as I grew up; and now I know I can't, it makes -no difference—I don't want anybody else."</p> - -<p>An engagement was made for the next day. They were -to start at eleven o'clock for the Roman Amphitheatre -near Ventimiglia, looking at the old churches and palm -groves of Bordighera on their way. It would be a long -drive, but there were no alarming hills. Lady Felicia -was invited, but was far too much an invalid to accept. -There was no making a secret of Grannie's bad health. -Her bronchial trouble was the staple of her conversation.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p> - -<p>And now a new life began for Vera, a life that would -have been all joy but for the shadow that went with them -everywhere, like a cloud that follows the traveller through -a smiling sky—that shadow of doom which the victim saw -not, but which those who loved her could not forget. The -shadow made a bond of sympathy between Mario Provana -and Vera. The consciousness of that sad secret never left -them, and many confidential words and looks drew them -closer together in the course of those long days in lovely -places—where Giulia was always the gayest of the little -party, and eager in her enjoyment of everything that was -beautiful or interesting, from a group of peasant children -with whom she stopped to talk, to the remains of a Roman -citadel that took her fancy back to the Cæsars. The chief -care of father, governess, and friend, was to prevent her -doing too much. Nothing in her own consciousness warned -her how soon languor and fatigue followed on exertion and -excitement.</p> - -<p>Miss Thompson was always ready with a supporting arm, -always tactful in cutting short any little bit of exploration -that might tire her charge. She was one of those admirable -women who seem born to teach and cherish fragile girlhood. -People almost thought she must have been born -middle-aged. It was unthinkable that she herself had been -young, and had required to be taught and cared for. She -was highly accomplished, and the things she knew were -known so thoroughly, that one might suppose all those -dates and dry historical details had been born with her, -ready pigeon-holed in her brain.</p> - -<p>Signor Provana treated her with unvarying respect, and -always referred any doubtful question in history or science -to Miss Thompson.</p> - -<p>But her most valuable gift was a disposition of unvarying -placidity. Nobody had ever seen Lucy Thompson out of -temper. The most irritating of pupils had never been able -to put her in a passion. She stood on one side, as it were, -while a minx misbehaved herself. Her aloofness was -her only reproof, and one that was almost always -efficacious.</p> - -<p>With Giulia Provana that placid temper had never been -put to the proof. Giulia had a sweet nature, was quick to -learn, and had a yearning for knowledge that was pathetic -when one thought how brief must be her use for earthly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -wisdom; and, what was better, she loved her governess. -Miss Thompson had a pleasant time in Signor Provana's -household; moving from one lovely scene to another, or -in Rome sharing all the pleasures that the most enchanting -of cities could afford. Plays, operas, concerts, races, -afternoon parties in noble houses.</p> - -<p>From the day his daughter's health began to fail, and -the appearance of lung trouble made the future full of fear, -Signor Provana made up his mind that her life should -never be the common lot of invalids. However few the -years she had to live, however inevitable that she was to -die in early youth—the years that were hers should not be -treated as a long illness. The horrible monotony of sick -rooms should never be hers. It should be the business of -everybody about her to keep the dark secret of decay. -Her trained nurses were not to be called nurses, but maids, -and were to wear no hospital uniform. Everything about -her was to be gay and fair to look upon—a luxury of -colour and light. And she was to enjoy every amusement -that was possible for her without actual risk. Into that -brief life all the best things that earth can give were to be -crowded. She was to know the cleverest and most agreeable -people. She was to read the best books, to hear the -most exquisite music, to see the finest pictures, the most -gifted actors. Nothing famous or beautiful was to be -kept from her. From the first note of warning this had -been Giulia's education; and Miss Thompson's chief -duty had been to read the best books of the best writers to -an intelligent and sympathetic pupil. There had been no -dull lessons, no long exercises in the grammar of various -tongues—Giulia's education after her fifteenth birthday -had been literature, in the best sense of that sometimes -ill-used word. Signor Provana's system had been so -far successful that his daughter had lived much longer -than the specialists had expected, and her girlhood had -been utterly happy. But the shadow was always in the -background of their lives, and wherever he went with his -idolised child there was always the fear that he might -leave her among the flowers and the palm groves that -filled her with joyous surprise on their arrival, and go back -to his workaday life lonely and desolate.</p> - -<p>Vera was astonished at the things Giulia knew, and was -sorely ashamed of her own ignorance. For the first time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -in her life she had come into close association with cultivated -minds—with people whose conversation, though -without pedantry, was full of allusions to books that she -had never read, and knowledge that she had never heard of. -To know Giulia and her governess was a liberal education; -and Vera showed a quickness in absorbing knowledge -that interested her new friends, and made them eager to -help her.</p> - -<p>The world of poetry lay open and untrodden before this -daughter of a poet.</p> - -<p>The idea of her friend's parentage fascinated Giulia.</p> - -<p>"Does she not look like a poet's daughter?" she -asked her father, and Provana assented with smiling -interest.</p> - -<p>"All Giulia's geese are swans," he said; "but I believe -she has found a real swan this time."</p> - -<p>Vera's shyness wore off after two or three excursions in -that ideal spring-time. The weather had been exceptionally -mild this season, and there had been no unkind -skies or cruel mistral to gainsay Dr. Wilmot's praise of -San Marco. It might almost seem as if Provana had been -able to buy sunshine as well as other luxuries. Day after -day the friendly little company of four set out upon some -new excursion, to spots whose very name seemed a poem. -To Santa Croce, to Dolce Aqua, to Finalmarina, to Colla, -the little white town among the mountains, where there -were a church and a picture gallery, or by the Roman Road -to the Tower of Mostaccini, on a high plateau crowned -with fir trees, with its view over sea and shore, valley and -wood, and far-off horizon; a place for a picnic luncheon, -and an afternoon of delicious idleness. To Vera such -days were unspeakably sweet. Could it be strange that -she loved the girl who had begun by loving her, and who -was her first girl friend? If she was not so impulsive as -Giulia, she was as sensitive and as sympathetic, and Giulia's -sad history had interested her before they met.</p> - -<p>As friendship ripened in the familiarity of daily companionship, -her interest in Giulia's father grew stronger -day by day. His devotion to his daughter was the most -beautiful thing she had ever known. He was the first -man with whom she had ever lived in easy intimacy—for -the uncles by blood or by marriage in whose houses she had -been a visitor had always held her at arm's length, and her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -shyness had been increased by their coldness. The only -creature of that superior sex with whom she had ever been -at her ease was her young cousin, Claude Rutherford. -He had been kind to her, and with him she had been happy; -but that friendship was of a long time ago—ages and ages, -it seemed to her, when she conjured up a vision of delicious -days in the Park, hairbreadth escapes in Claude's dinghy, -and thrilling rides on his Arabian pony.</p> - -<p>Vera noticed that Signor Provana did not often join in -the animated conversation which Giulia and her governess -kept up untiringly during their morning drives. He was -silent for the most part, and always meditative. His dark -grey eyes seemed to be seeing things that were far away.</p> - -<p>"You see Papa sitting opposite us, <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">cara</i>," said Giulia; -"but you must not think he is really with us. He is in -London, or in Paris, negotiating a loan that may mean -war. He has to provide the sinews of war sometimes; -and I tell him he is responsible for the lives of men. His -thoughts are a thousand miles away, and he doesn't hear -a word of our foolish talk. <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">Non è vero, Padre?</i>"</p> - -<p>He looked at her with his fond parental smile. "I hear -something like the songs of birds," he said; "and it -helps me to think. Go on talking, <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">anima mia</i>. I like the -sound, if I miss the sense."</p> - -<p>"I have been telling Vera about Browning. She knows -nothing of Browning, though she is a poet's daughter. -Is not that dreadful?"</p> - -<p>"I have had only Grannie's books, and she does not -think there has been an English poet since Byron. We -are birds of passage, and Grannie has only her poor little -travelling library—but it has always seemed to me that -Byron and my father were enough. I have never wearied -of their poetry."</p> - -<p>"Oh, but we shall widen your horizon," said Giulia; -"You shall read all my books, and you must lend me your -father's poems."</p> - -<p>"I shall be very glad if you will read some of my favourites."</p> - -<p>"All, all! When I admire I am insatiable."</p> - -<p>Giulia was generally silent on their homeward journeys, -wearied by the day's pleasure, in spite of the watchful care -that had spared her every exertion. When the carriage had -to stop at the foot of some grassy hill, at the top of which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -they were to take their picnic luncheon, or from which -some vaunted view was to be seen, Provana would take his -daughter in his arms and carry her up the slope—and once -when Vera watched him coming slowly down such a hill -with the tender form held by one strong arm, and the fair -head nestling on his shoulder, she was reminded of that -Divine Figure of the Shepherd carrying a lamb, the -pathetic symbol of superhuman love. Her eyes filled with -tears as she looked at him, holding the frail girl with such -tender solicitude, walking with such care; and in the -homeward drive, when Giulia was reclining among her -pillows with closed eyes, Vera saw the profound melancholy -in the father's face, and realised the effort and agony of -every day in which he had to maintain an appearance of -cheerfulness. These pilgrimages to exquisite scenes, under -a smiling sky, were to him a kind of martyrdom, knowing -all that lay before him, counting the hours that remained -before the inevitable parting.</p> - -<p>Vera knew what was coming. Dr. Wilmot had told her -that the end could not be far off. The most famous -physician in Rome had come to San Marco one afternoon. -Passing through on his way to a patient at Nice, Provana -had told his daughter, and coming casually to take his -luncheon at the hotel—and the great man had confirmed -Wilmot's worst augury. The end was near.</p> - -<p>But even after this Giulia rallied, and the picnics in -romantic places were gayer than ever, though Dr. Wilmot -went with them, armed with restoratives for his patient, -and pretending to be frivolous.</p> - -<p>It was on the morning after a jaunt that had seamed -especially delightful to Giulia that Lidcott came into Vera's -room, with a dismal countenance, yet a sort of lugubrious -satisfaction in being the first to impart melancholy news.</p> - -<p>"I'm afraid it's all over with your poor young friend, -Miss. She was taken suddenly bad at ten o'clock last -night—with an hæmorrhage. Dr. Wilmot was here all -night. I saw the day-nurse for a minute just now, as she -was taking up her own breakfast tray—they're always -short-handed in this house, Signor Canincio being that -mean—and the nurse says her young lady's a little better -this morning—but she'll never leave her bed again. She's -quite sensible, and she doesn't think she's dangerously ill, -even now, and all her thought is to prevent her father<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -worrying about her. Worrying! Nurse says he sits near -her bedroom door, with his face hidden in his hands, -listening and waiting, as still as if he were made of -stone."</p> - -<p>"Would they let me see her?" Vera asked.</p> - -<p>"I think not, Miss. She's to be kept very quiet, and -not to be allowed to speak."</p> - -<p>Vera went down to the corridor, directly she was dressed, -and sat there, near the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i> doors, waiting patiently, on -the chance of seeing one of the nurses, or Miss Thompson. -She would not thrust herself upon Signor Provana's sorrow -even by so much as an inquiry or a message; but she liked -to wait at his door—to be near if Giulia wanted her. They -had been like sisters, in these few weeks that seemed so -long a space in her life; and she felt as if she were losing a -sister.</p> - -<p>She had been sitting there nearly an hour when Signor -Provana came out with a packet of letters for the post. -He had been obliged to answer the business letters of the -morning. The machinery of his life could not be stopped -for an hour, for any reason, not even if his only child were -dying. There was a look in his face that froze Vera's -heart. What the nurse had said of him was true. He -was like a man turned to stone.</p> - -<p>He took no notice of Vera. He did not see her, though -he passed close to her, as he went downstairs to post his -letters—a matter too important to be trusted to a servant.</p> - -<p>Vera was standing at the end of the corridor when he -came back, and this time he saw her, and stopped to speak. -"Ah, Miss Davis, the hour I have foreseen for a long time -has come. I have thought of it every day of my life, -and I have dreamt of it a hundred times; but the reality -is worse than my worst dream."</p> - -<p>He was passing her, and turned back.</p> - -<p>"We dare not let her speak—every breath is precious. -To-day she must see no one but her nurse—not even me; -but if she should be a shade better to-morrow, will you -come to her? I know she will want to see you."</p> - -<p>"I will come at any hour, night or day. I hope you -know how dearly I love her," Vera answered, and then -broke down completely and sobbed aloud.</p> - -<p>When she uncovered her face Provana was gone, and she -went slowly back to the upper floor, where Grannie was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -waiting for her to sympathise with her indignation at -certain offensive—or supposed to be offensive—remarks -in the letters of a sister-in-law, a niece, and a dear friend.</p> - -<p>"But indeed, dear Grannie, <em>that</em> could not be meant -unkindly," urged Vera; for this offender was her favourite -aunt, Lady Okehampton, who had been kind to her.</p> - -<p>"Not meant? What could it mean but a sneer at my -poverty?"</p> - -<p>"I know Aunt Mildred wouldn't knowingly wound -you."</p> - -<p>"Don't contradict, Vera. I know my nephew's wife—a -snob to the tip of her nails. She feels sure San Marco -must be just the place for us—'so pretty and so quiet, and -so inexpensive.' She <em>dared</em> not say cheap. And she -does not wonder that I have stayed longer than I talked -about staying when I left London."</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia had remained in the dull Hôtel des Anglais -six weeks beyond her original idea—six weeks longer than -the London doctor had insisted upon; she had stayed -into the celestial light of an Italian April, to the delight of -Vera, who had thus enjoyed a new life with her new friend. -She was not frivolous in her attachments, or ready to fall -in love with new faces; but, in sober truth, she had never -before had the chance of such a friendship—a girl of her -own age, highly cultivated, attractive, and sympathetically -eager to give her the affection of a sister. It would have -been too cruel if Grannie's predetermination to leave -Italy in the first week of March had cut short that lovely -friendship.</p> - -<p>Happily Grannie had found out that March in London -might be more perilous for her bronchial tubes than -December; and had made a good bargain with the -rapacious Canincio, since several of his spinsters and -widows were leaving him.</p> - -<p>It was the third day after Giulia's fatal attack that -Miss Thompson came to the upper floor to summon Vera -to the sick room.</p> - -<p>"The dear child has been pining to see you ever since -yesterday morning, when she rallied a little. She has -written your name on her slate again and again, but the -doctor was afraid she would excite herself, and perhaps -try to talk. She has promised to be quite calm, and not -to speak—and you must be very, very quiet, dear, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -make no fuss. You can just sit by her bedside for a little -while and hold her hand; but above all you must not cry—any -agitation might be fatal."</p> - -<p>"Is there no hope—no hope?" Vera asked piteously.</p> - -<p>"No, my dear. It is a question of hours."</p> - -<p>Giulia's room was so full of flowers that it looked already -like a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chapelle ardente</i>. Sinking slowly, surely, down into -the darkness of the grave, she was still surrounded with -brightness and beauty. Windows and shutters were open -to the sky and the sun, and the blue plane of the sea showed -far away melting into the purple horizon. Her three dogs -were on the bed, Jane Seymour nestling against her arm, -the other two lying at her feet. They were transformed -creatures. No impetuous barking or restless jumping -about. The wistful eyes gazed at the face they loved, -the silken ears drooped over the silken coverlet, the fringed -paws lay still. The dogs knew.</p> - -<p>Giulia gazed at her friend with those too-brilliant eyes, -and touched her lips with a pale and wasted hand, as a -sign that she must not speak, and then she wrote on her -slate eagerly:</p> - -<p>"I have wanted to see you so long, so long, and now -this may be the last time. I did not know I was so ill, -but I know now. Oh, who will care take of my father -when he is old; who will love him as I have done? I -thought I should always be there, always his dearest friend. -You must be his friend, Vera. He will be fond of you -for my sake. You will find my place by and by."</p> - -<p>"Never, darling. No one can fill your place," Vera -said, in a quiet voice, full of calm tenderness.</p> - -<p>A strange, suppressed sound, half sigh, half sob, startled -her, and looking at the window she saw Signor Provana -sitting on the balcony, motionless and watchful.</p> - -<p>Again Giulia's tremulous hand wrote:</p> - -<p>"Don't go till they send you away. Sit by me, and let -me look at you. Oh, what happy days we have had—among -the lovely hills. You will think of me in years to -come, when you are in Italy."</p> - -<p>"Always, always, I shall think of you and remember -you, wherever I am. And now I won't talk any more, -but I will stay till Miss Thompson takes me away."</p> - -<p>Miss Thompson came very soon, and Vera bent over the -dying girl and kissed the cold brow.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> - -<p>"<i lang="it" xml:lang="it">A riverderci, Carissima</i>; I shall come again when -Miss Thompson fetches me."</p> - -<p>She left the bedside with that word of hope, the -luminous eyes following her to the door. The dogs did not -stir, nor the figure in the balcony. Miss Thompson and -the nurse sat silent and motionless. A stillness so intense -seemed strange in a sunlit room, gay with flowers.</p> - -<p>It was late next morning when Vera fell into a troubled -sleep, filled with cruel dreams—dreams that mocked her -with visions of Giulia well and joyous—in one of those -romantic scenes where they had been happy together, in -hours that were so bright that Vera had forgotten the -shadow that followed them.</p> - -<p>Lidcott came with the morning tea, and there was a -letter on the tray.</p> - -<p>"From the foreign gentleman," said Lidcott, who had -never attempted Signor Provana's name.</p> - -<p>Vera tore open the envelope, and looked wonderingly at -the page, where nothing in the strong, stern penmanship -indicated sorrow and agitation.</p> - -<p>"My girl is at rest," he wrote. "She knew very little -acute suffering, only three days and nights of weariness. -She gave me her good-bye kiss after three o'clock this -morning, and the light faded out of the eyes that have been -my guiding stars. To make her happy is what I have lived -for, since I knew that I was to lose her on this side of my -grave. If prayer could reverse the Omnipotent's decree, -mine would have been the mortal disease, and I should -have gone down to death leaving her in this beautiful -world, lovely and full of life.</p> - -<p>"You have been very kind, and have helped me to -make these last weeks happy for her. I shall never forget -you, and never cease to feel grateful for your sweetness -and sympathy. When she knew that she was dying she -begged me to lay her at rest in this place where she had -been so happy. Those were the words she wrote upon -her slate when she was dying, her last words, the last effort -of her ebbing life, and I shall obey her. You will go with -us to the cemetery to-morrow morning, I hope, though -you are not of our Church."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The sky over a funeral should be low and grey, with a -soft, fine rain falling, and no ray of sunshine to mock -the mourners' gloom; but over Giulia Provana's funeral -train the sky was a vault of unclouded blue, reflected on -the blue of the tideless sea, and olive woods and lemon -groves were steeped in sunlight. It was one of those -mornings such as Giulia had enjoyed with her utmost -power of enjoyment, the kind of morning on which the -pretty soprano voice had burst into song, from irrepressible -gladness—brief song that ended in breathlessness.</p> - -<p>The cemetery of San Marco was a white-walled garden -between the sea and the hill-side, where the lemon trees -and old, grey olives were broken here and there by a cypress -that rose, a tall shaft of darkness, out of the silvery grey.</p> - -<p>Never till to-day had those dark obelisks suggested -anything to Vera but the beauty of contrast—a note that -gave dignity to monotonous olive woods; but to-day the -cypresses were symbols of parting and death. Their -shadow would fall across Giulia's grave in the sunlight and -in the moonlight. Vera would remember them, and -visualise them when she was far away from the place where -she had known and loved Signor Provana's daughter. -She was thinking this, as she stood beside Grannie's chair -by the gate of the cemetery—watching the funeral procession. -There were no carriages. The priest and acolytes -walked in front of the bier. The white velvet pall was -covered with white flowers, and behind the coffin, with -slow and steady step, followed Provana, an imposing figure, -tall and massive, with head erect; calm, but deadly -pale.</p> - -<p>Miss Thompson, the two nurses, and Giulia's Italian -maid followed, carrying baskets of violets; and Lady -Felicia, who had left her chair as the priest and white-robed -acolytes came in view, walked feebly behind them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -with Vera by her side. They, too, had brought their -tribute of flowers, roses white and red, roses which were now -plentiful at San Marco.</p> - -<p>It had been a surprise to Vera that Lady Felicia should -insist upon getting up before nine o'clock to attend the -funeral; she who had contrived to absent herself from all -such ceremonies, even when an old friend was to be laid -at rest, on the ground that her dear Jane, or her dear Lucy, -could sleep no better at Highgate or Kensal Green because -her friend risked rheumatism or bronchitis on her account.</p> - -<p>"The poor dear herself would not have wished it," Lady -Felicia always remarked on such occasions, as she wrote her -apology to the nearest relation of the deceased. Yet for -Signor Provana's daughter, almost a stranger, Grannie -had put herself, or at least Lidcott, to infinite trouble in -arranging a mourning toilette.</p> - -<p>The Roman rites were simple and pathetic; and throughout -the ceremony Signor Provana bore himself with the -same pale dignity. He stood at the head of the open -grave, and watched the rain of violets and roses, nor did -his hand tremble when he dropped one perfect white rose -upon the white coffin, the last of all the flowers, the symbol -of the pure life that was ended in that cruel grave.</p> - -<p>It was only when the earth began to fall thud after -thud upon the flowers that his fortitude failed. He turned -from the grave suddenly, and walked towards the gate -before the priest had finished his office, and Vera did not -see him again till she was walking beside Grannie's chair, on -their way back to the hotel, when he overtook them.</p> - -<p>"I want to say good-bye to you and your granddaughter, -Lady Felicia," he said in his grave, calm voice, the voice -that was so much more attractive than his person. "I -shall leave San Marco by the afternoon train, and I shall -go straight through to London."</p> - -<p>"So soon?" exclaimed Grannie, with a look of disappointment. -"Would it not be better to rest for a few -days in this quiet place?"</p> - -<p>"I could not rest at San Marco. It is the end of a journey -that has lasted three years. I shall never lie down to rest -in San Marco till I lie down yonder, beside my girl."</p> - -<p>He looked towards the cemetery gate with a strange -longing in his eyes, as if his heart were yearning for that -last sleep in the shadow of the cypresses.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Good-bye," he said, clasping Grannie's hand, and then -Vena's. "I shall never forget," he said, earnestly. -"Never, never." He walked away quickly towards the -hotel, and Lidcott went on with her mistress's chair.</p> - -<p>"A queer kind of man," said Lady Felicia. "I don't -understand him. He ought to have shown a little more -gratitude for your kindness to his daughter."</p> - -<p>"There is no reason for gratitude. I have never had -such happy days as those I spent with Giulia, while I could -forget that she was to be taken from me."</p> - -<p>"Oh, indeed," said Lady Felicia in an aggrieved voice. -"You are vastly polite to me."</p> - -<p>"Dear Grannie, of course I have been happy with you, -and you have been very kind to me."</p> - -<p>Grannie kept her offended air till they were in their -sitting-room, when a sudden interest was awakened by -the appearance of a sealed packet on her table. At the -first glance it looked like a jeweller's parcel, but a nearer -view showed that it was somewhat carelessly packed in -writing-paper, and that the large red seal bore the monogram -"M. P."</p> - -<p>Grannie's taper fingers—bent a little with the suppressed -gout that seems natural to the eighth decade—trembled -with excitement, as she tore off the thin paper and discovered -a red morocco jewel-case, heart-shaped.</p> - -<p>While Lady Felicia was opening the case—a rather -difficult matter, as the metal spring was strong and her -fingers were weak—Vera picked up an open letter that had -fallen out of the parcel.</p> - -<p>"From Signor Provana," she said, and she read the -brief note aloud, without waiting for Grannie's permission.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Lady Felicia</span>,—I hope you will let your granddaughter - wear this trinket in memory of my daughter. - It was Giulia's own choice of a souvenir for a friend she - loved. A friendship of two months may seem short to - you and me; but it was long in that brief life.</p> - - <p class="indent">"Yours faithfully,</p> - <p class="indentmore">"<span class="smcap">Provana</span>."</p> -</div> - -<p>The lid was open and the red light of diamonds flashed -in the shaft of sunshine from the narrow slit in the Venetian -shutters.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p> - -<p>"You are a lucky girl, Vera," said Grannie approvingly, -as she turned the heart-shaped locket about in the slanting -sun-rays, unconsciously producing Newton's prism. "I -know something about diamonds. That centre stone is -splendid. Hunt and Roskell would not sell a diamond -heart as good as this under three hundred pounds."</p> - -<p>Vera's only comment was to burst out crying.</p> - -<p>"For a commercial magnate, Signor Provana is a -superior person," said Lady Felicia. "I hope we may see -more of him. If he had given me time, I should have -asked him to call upon me in London."</p> - -<p>"Oh, Grannie, you could not! It would have been -dreadful to talk about visiting to a man in such deep -grief."</p> - -<p>"I am not likely to do anything unseemly," Grannie -replied with her accustomed dignity. "I ought to have -asked the man to call."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Everybody was leaving the South, and San Marco had -the dejected air that the loveliest place will assume when -people are going away. For Vera San Marco seemed dead -after the death of her friend; and, while she grieved incessantly -for Giulia, she was surprised to find how much -she missed Giulia's father. It seemed to her that some -powerful sustaining presence had been taken out of her -life. His strength had made her feel strong. He had been -with them always, in those long Spring days that were warm -and vivid as an English July. He had talked very little; -but he had been interested in his daughter's talk, and even -in Vera's. He had come to their assistance sometimes -in their discussions, with grave philosophy or hard facts. -He seemed to possess universal knowledge; but he was not -romantic or poetical. He smiled at Giulia's flights of -fancy, those voyages in cloud-land that charmed Vera. -He was always interested, always sympathetic; and the -grave, beautiful voice and the calm, slow smile were not -to be forgotten by Vera, now that he had gone out of her -life.</p> - -<p>"It is all like a long dream, beautiful, but oh, so sad," -Vera said to Grannie, who was more sympathetic than -usual upon this subject.</p> - -<p>"It has been an interesting experience for you, which one -could never have hoped for in such an hotel as this," she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -said. "Dr. Wilmot tells me that Signor Provana has a -house in Portland Place—the largest in the street, where -he used to entertain the best people in his wife's time. Her -rank and beauty gave distinction to his money; so I can -believe Wilmot that he was by way of being a personage -in London."</p> - -<p>Lidcott was packing the trunks, and the Bath chair, -while Grannie talked. The luggage, except the trunk with -Grannie's best velvet gown, and a frock or two for Vera, -and the absolute needs of daily life, was to go by <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Petite -Vitesse</i>, which meant being so long without it, that old -familiar things would seem new and strange when the -trunks came to be unpacked.</p> - -<p>The long journey was dull—Grannie and Lidcott having -a curious capacity for creating dullness. It was their -atmosphere, and went with them everywhere. The change -from summer sunshine to the grey sky and drizzling rain -of an English April was a sad surprise; and the lodging-house -in the street off Portland Place seemed the abode -of gloom. It was the London season, and carriages and -motor-cars were rolling up and down the handsome street -in which Signor Provana's house had been described as the -largest. Vera looked at all the houses as the cab drove -past them, trying to find the superlative in size; but there -was no time for counting windows or calculating space.</p> - -<p>The lodging-house drawing-room, albeit better furnished -than Canincio's second-floor <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i>, looked unutterably -dreary; for the miniatures and books, and old china, -that were wont to redeem the commonness of things, -were creeping along the shores of the Rhone or mewed up in -an obscure station, and though flowers were cheap in the -street-sellers' baskets, not a blossom brightened the dingy -drawing-room.</p> - -<p>"How odious this house looks," said Lady Felicia, while -she scanned the cards in a cheap china dish, and read the -pencilled messages upon some of them. "I see your -Aunt Mildred and your Aunt Olivia have called, surprised -not to find us. But not a word from Lady Helstone, though -I know she is in town. She was always heartless and -selfish—but as she is the one I rely on for taking you about, -we shall have to be civil to her."</p> - -<p>"Poor dear Grannie, I really don't want to be taken -out. I don't care a scrap about Society—and, above all,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -I don't want to cost you money for clothes, and I couldn't -go to parties without all sorts of expensive things."</p> - -<p>"Don't talk nonsense, Vera. I am used to scraping and -pinching. It will only mean pinching a little harder. -But there's time enough to settle all that before you are -eighteen. Of course, you will have to be launched, if you -are ever to marry—unless you want to sneak off to a -registry office with the first scribbler you meet."</p> - -<p>"Oh, Grannie," cried Vera, and walked out of the room -in a sad silence, which made Grannie rather sorry for herself—as -a poor old woman who was being trampled upon -by everybody.</p> - -<p>The long hot journey had tired her limbs and her nerves, -and this damp, grey London, this shabby lodging-house had -been too irritating for placid endurance. Somebody must -suffer; and Lidcott, that sturdy child of the West Riding, -was apt to retaliate.</p> - -<p>Vera was perfectly sincere in her indifference to that -grand event of "coming out," which had always been held -before her by Grannie as the crown of girlhood, the crisis -upon which all a young person's future depended, the -opening of a gate into the paradise of youth, the paradise -of dances and dinners, treats of every kind, where beauty -was to be surrounded with a circle of admirers, among -whom there would be at least one—the eligible, the rich, -the inexpressive he—who could lift her at once to the -<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">summum bonum</i>, whether in Carlton House Terrace, or -Park Lane, whether titled or untitled—-but rich—rich—<i lang="it" xml:lang="it">ricconaccio</i>.</p> - -<p>No, Vera had no eager desire for crowds of well-dressed -people—for music and lights and dancing, and those things -that she had heard the young cousins, still in the school-room, -talk about with rapture and longing. The joys she -longed for, while the slow spring and the fierce hot summer -went by in the dull side street and the lodging-house -drawing-room, were woods and streams, and rural joys -of all kinds, such as she had known in that one happy -summer of her childhood, for slow rides in leafy glades, in -and out of sunshine and shadow, for the sound of a waterfall -on moonlit nights, for young companions like the cousin -who was once so kind—for many more books, and spacious -rooms, and portraits of historic people—beautiful women—valiant -soldiers—looking at her from a panelled wall.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -These were the things she wanted, and the want of which -made life dreary.</p> - -<p>In that long summer and autumn she often thought of -the girl who was lying between the olive woods and the -tideless sea; and, meditating on that short life, she could -but compare it with her own, and wonder at the difference.</p> - -<p>Is was not the difference that wealth made—but the -difference that love made, that filled her with wonder as she -recalled all that Giulia had told her of her childhood and -girlhood.</p> - -<p>She looked back at her own fatherless years—remembering -but as a dream the father whom she had last seen on -her birthday, when she was three years old—and when a -woman in whose rustic cottage she had been living for -what seemed a long time, took her to the nursing home -where the fading poet was lying on a sofa in a garden. -It was to be her birthday treat to visit "poor Papa, who -would be sure to have something pretty for her." But the -poet had no birthday gift for his only child. He had been -too ill to think much about anything but his own weakness -and pain. He had not remembered his little girl's third -anniversary. He could only give her kisses, and sighs and -tears; and she clung to him fondly, and said again and -again: "Poor Papa, poor Papa!"</p> - -<p>Kind Mrs. Humphries, of the pretty rose-covered cottage, -had told her that Papa was ill, and had taught her to -pray for him.</p> - -<p>"Please God, bless poor Papa, and make him well -again."</p> - -<p>The prayer was not answered, and that spectral face, -beautiful even on the brink of the grave, was all she could -remember of a father.</p> - -<p>And then had come the long, slow years with Grannie, -who had been kind after her lights, but who required the -subjugation of almost all childish impulses and inclinations. -Long years in which Vera had to amuse herself in silence, -and play no games that involved running about a room, -or disturbing things. She had been surrounded by things -that she must not touch; and her rare toys, the occasional -gifts of aunts and cousins, were objects of reprobation if -they were ever left on a chair or a table where they could -offend Grannie's eye. The winter season, when there was -only one habitable room, was terrible; for then Grannie<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -was always there, and to play was impossible. She could -only sit on a hassock in her favourite corner and look at old -story books, too painfully familiar; and if she began to -sing or to talk to herself, there came a reproachful murmur -from Grannie's sofa: "My dear child, do you think I -have no nerves?"</p> - -<p>The summer was better, for she could play in the second-floor -bedroom, which she shared with Lidcott, a room with -three windows upon which the sun beat fiercely, but where -she could talk to her dolls, and sing them to sleep, and do -anything except run about, as she had always to remember -that every step would beat like a hammer upon poor -Grannie's head.</p> - -<p>And in these years Giulia, who was within a few months -of her own age, was being indulged with everything that -could make the bliss of childhood, in the loveliest country -in the world, and then, as she grew into a thinking, reasonable -being, she had been her father's dearest companion, -his distraction after the dull round of business, his choicest -recreation, his unfailing delight. It was worth while to -die young after such a childhood, Vera thought.</p> - -<p>Grannie's winter in Italy had been a success, and she -had a summer unspoiled by bronchial trouble. She wore -her velvet gowns and her diamond earrings very often, and -had her hair dressed in the latest fashion, with diamond -combs gleaming amidst the silvery white, and was quite a -splendid Lady Felicia at the friendly dinners and small -and early parties to which she accepted invitations from -her nieces and very old friends. She had been reproached -with burying herself alive, but this year her health was -better, and she was going out a little more; chiefly on -Vera's account, who was now seventeen, and must really -make her début next season. Her nieces told her that -Vera was pretty enough to make a sensation, or at any rate -to have offers.</p> - -<p>"If she does, I suppose she will refuse the best of them, -as her mother did," Lady Felicia said bitterly; "but whatever -happens I shall not interfere. If she chooses to -fall in love with the first detrimental who proposes to her, -I won't forbid the banns."</p> - -<p>Perhaps there was more of the serpent than the dove in -this protest from Lady Felicia. In long hours of brooding -over an irrevocable past it may have been borne in upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -her that if she had not harped so much, and so severely, -upon the necessity of marrying for money, her daughter -might not have been so determined to marry for love.</p> - -<p>The aunts who praised Vera did not forget to add that -she would never be as handsome as her mother.</p> - -<p>"She may 'furnish,' as the grooms call it," said Lady -Helstone, who rode to hounds and bred her hunters; "but -she will never be a striking beauty. She won't take away -the men's breath when she comes into a ballroom. I'm -afraid it may be the detrimentals, the poets, and æsthetes, -and impressionist painters, who will rave about her. She -is ethereal—she is poetical—and in spite of the man Davis -she looks thoroughbred to the points of her shoes. After -all, she may make a really good match, and make things -much more comfortable for you by and by, poor dear -Auntie."</p> - -<p>"I shall never be a dependent upon my granddaughter's -husband," Grannie retorted, with an offended blush. "The -pittance which has sufficed for me since my own husband's -death, and which has enabled me to keep out of debt, -will last me to the end. I require nobody's assistance—and -as I have never found blood-relations eager to help -me, I should certainly expect nothing from a grandson-in-law; -if there is such a thing."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Vera felt a sudden thrill when Lady Felicia told her -that they were to winter at San Marco. She hardly knew -whether the thrill was of pleasure or of pain. The place -would be full of melancholy thoughts. Giulia's grave would -be the one significant point in the landscape; but the -long parade, with its shabby date palms and ragged pepper -trees, could never again be as dull and grey and heartbreakingly -monotonous as it had been a year ago; for now -San Marco was peopled with the shadows of things that -had once been lovely and dear. Now all that beauty which -had once been far away and unknown had been made -familiar in the long drives in the big, luxurious carriage -drawn by gay and eager horses, whose work seemed joy—and -the al fresco luncheons on the summit of romantic -hills, with all the glory of the Western Ligura laid out -below them like an enchanter's carpet, and the semi-Moorish -cities, and Roman ruins of circus and citadel, the white -cathedrals—remote among the mountains, yet alive with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -priests and nuns and picturesque villagers, and the sound -of bells and swinging of censers—San Marco no longer -meant only that level walk above the sluggish sea. It meant -historical Italy. Her feelings about the place had altered -utterly after the coming of the Provanas, and her mind -was full of her lost friend when she alighted at the door of -the Hôtel des Anglais, where Madame Canincio was waiting -to receive honoured guests.</p> - -<p>Inmates who stopped till the very end of the season, and -who came again next year, were worthy of highest honour -(albeit they paid the minimum second-floor <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">pension</i>; and -though Canincio had audaciously declared that he lost -money by the <em>arrangement</em>). Lady Felicia was a distinct -asset, were it only for keeping the Cit's wife, Lady Jones, -in her place.</p> - -<p>Vera looked sadly along the spacious corridor, that -had been so bright with flowers during the Provana -occupation.</p> - -<p>"Have you nice people on your first floor, Madame -Canincio?" she asked.</p> - -<p>"Alas, no, Mademoiselle. Our noble floor is empty. If -we had six third floors and ten fourth floors, we could -let every room—but for the first floor there is no one. -Rich people do not come to San Marco. They want -gambling-tables and pigeon-shooting, or the vulgarity of -Nice."</p> - -<p>"I suppose you have heard nothing of Signor Provana -since he left?"</p> - -<p>"Nothing, Mademoiselle, except that he is in Rome, -and one of the greatest men there. And he was so simple -and plain in his ways, and always so kind and courteous. -He wanted so little for himself, and never once found -fault with our chef, who, good as he is, must have been -inferior to his own."</p> - -<p>"I hope your chef did not give him risotto or chopped-up -liver, or macaroni three times a week for luncheon," -Lady Felicia said, sourly.</p> - -<p>It was not till Grannie had been read to sleep that Vera -was free to go where she liked. She had done her morning's -work in the flower market, and at the so-called circulating -library, where the Tauchnitz novels of the year before -last were to be found by the explorer, stagnating on dusty -shelves. This morning duty had to be done hurriedly, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -Grannie liked to see the flower-vases filled, and a novel -on her sofa-table when she emerged from her bedroom, -ready to begin her monotonous day. Vera was secretary -as well as reader, and had to write long letters to her aunts, -at Grannie's dictation; letters which were not pleasant -to her to write on account of the sense of injury and general -discontent which was the <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Leit-Motiv</i> running through -them. In the beginning of her secretaryship she had -sometimes ventured a mild remonstrance, such as, "Oh, -Grannie, I don't think you ought to say that. I know -Aunt Olivia is very fond of you," or "Aunt Mildred is -very affectionate, and would be the last to neglect you." -Whereupon Lady Felicia had told her that if she presumed -to express an opinion, the letters should be written by -Lidcott.</p> - -<p>"Her spelling is as eccentric as the Paston letters; -but I would rather put up with that than with your -impertinence."</p> - -<p>It was rather late in the afternoon before the drowsy -Tauchnitz novel produced its soporific effect upon Grannie, -though Vera had been reading in a semi-slumber; but at -last the withered eyelids fell, and the grey head lay back -upon the down pillow, and Vera might beckon to Lidcott, -who crept in from the bedroom, with her work-basket, -and seated herself by the open window most remote from -Grannie, leaving Vera free to go out for her afternoon -walk; only till five o'clock, when she must be at home to -pour out Grannie's tea.</p> - -<p>A church clock struck as she left the hotel garden, the -garden where she had often sat with Giulia, who used to -breakfast on the lawn, and only leave the garden to go -to the carriage—spending as much of her life as possible -under the blue sky.</p> - -<p>All show of brightness had vanished from the stretch of -thin grass and the ragged pepper trees—no pretty chairs -or bright Italian draperies, no gaudy-plumaged cockatoo, -or be-ribboned Blenheims. All was desolate, and tears -clouded Vera's eyes, as she paused to look at the place -where she had been happy.</p> - -<p>"How could I ever forget that she was going to die?" -she wondered.</p> - -<p>"It was she herself who made me forget. She was so -full of joy—so much alive—that I never really believed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -she was dying. I could not believe; I never did believe, -till she was lying speechless, with death in her face."</p> - -<p>She was going to the cemetery, to her friend's grave. It -was almost as if she were going to Giulia. She could not -believe the bright spirit was quenched, although the -lovely form had passed into everlasting darkness. Somewhere -between earth and heaven that happy soul was -conscious of the beauty of the world she had loved, and of -the love that had been given to her—somewhere, not -utterly beyond the reach of those who loved her, that -sweet spirit was floating—not dead, but emancipated.</p> - -<p>Miss Thompson had told her of the heroic fortitude -behind that light-hearted gaiety which had been Giulia's -special charm. Although she was sustained by the unconsciousness -of her doom, which goes so often with -pulmonary disease, she had not been exempt from -suffering. The sleepless night, the wearying cough, -breathlessness, pain, exhaustion, fever, had all been -borne with a sublime patience; and her only thought -when the tardy morning stole at last upon the seeming -endless night—had been of her father. He was never -to be told she had slept badly—or had not slept at all—and -it was her own cheerful voice that answered his inquiry -as he stood at the half-open door: "Pretty well, <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">Padre -mio, si, si</i>; not a bad night—a pretty good night—very -good, upon the whole." No hint of the weariness, the -suffering, of those long hours—and the nurse, though -unwilling, had to indulge her, and allow the anxious -father to be deceived. After all, as Miss Thompson -said, a detail like that could not matter. He knew.</p> - -<p>Remembering this, it seemed to Vera that Giulia's -death meant emancipation—a blessed escape from the -mortal frame that was fraught with suffering, to the -freedom of the immortal spirit, winged for its flight to -higher horizons, a being with new capacities, new joys—yet -not unremembering those beloved on earth, nay, with -a higher power to love the clay-bound creatures it had loved -when it was clay.</p> - -<p>In Vera's reverence for her father's genius, there had -been much of the child's unquestioning faith in something -it has been told to admire, for a considerable part -of Lancelet Davis's poetry, and that which his review book -showed to have been most appreciated by his critics,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -soared far beyond the limits of Vera's understanding. -There were verses which she recited to herself again and -again, with a delight in their music—verses where the -words followed each other with an entrancing melodiousness—but -for whose meaning she sought in vain. A Runic -rhyme would have been as clear. She had repeated them -dumbly in the dead hours of the night. Mellifluous lines -that had a soothing charm. Lines that rose and fell like -the waves of the sea; and lines drawn out in a slow -monotony like the long, level stretch of wind-swept -marshes—visions of white temples and strange goddesses; -but they were shapeless as dreams to Vera—a confusion -of lovely images without one distinct idea.</p> - -<p>There were others of his poems that she understood -and loved; the poems that the critics had mourned over -as a disappointment, a falling away from the promise of -a splendid career. There was his story of his courtship -and wedded life, which Vera thought better than "Maud," -written during his three happy years; and there was a -poem called "Afterwards," written after her mother's -death, which she thought better than "In Memoriam," -a poem in which, after descending to the darkness of the -grave, the poet soared to the gate of heaven, and told -how where there is great love there is no such thing as -death. The bond of love is also the bond of the dead and -the living. Those who love with intensity cannot be -parted. The spirit returns from behind the veil, and -soul meets soul. Not in the crowded city—not within -the sound of foolish voices, not amidst people or things -that are of the earth earthy—but in the quiet graveyard, -in the shadowy gloom of the forest, in lonely places by -the starlit sea, or in the silence of sleepless nights, that -other half of the soul is near, and, though there is neither -voice nor touch, the beloved presence is felt, and the -message of consolation is heard.</p> - -<p>It was with her father's poem in her hand that Vera -went to the white-walled enclosure under the hill, where -the silver-grey of the olive woods shivered in the faint -wind that could not stir a fibre of the cypress.</p> - -<p>She had no trouble in finding Giulia's resting-place, -for the picture of the spring morning when she had stood -beside the open grave was in her mind, as if the funeral -had been yesterday. It was at the farther end of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -cemetery, in a little solitude guarded by a triangle of -cypresses that marked the end of the enclosure, a spot -where the ground rose considerably above the level of -the larger space. Upon this higher level the massive -marble tomb—so severely simple, so dazzling in its whiteness—dominated -the lower plane, where memorial devices -of every shape and form, Gothic cross, and broken column, -winged angel, inverted torch, and Grecian urn, seemed -poor and trivial by comparison.</p> - -<p>It was a massive, oblong tomb without device or symbol, -and only an artist would have been conscious of the -delicate workmanship with which every member of the -unobtrusive mouldings had been executed. There was -no elaborate ornament, only a Doric simplicity, and the -perfection of finely finished work.</p> - -<p>The same simplicity marked the brief inscription on -the level slab.</p> - -<p>"Giulia, the only child of Mario Provana." This—with -the date of birth and death—-was all. No record of -parental love, nothing for the world to know, except that -a father's one ewe lamb had lived and died.</p> - -<p>A yew hedge, breast high, made a quadrangular -enclosure which isolated Giulia's resting-place—a cemetery -within a cemetery—and, at the end facing Genoa and -the morning sun, there was a broad marble bench, and -here Vera sat for nearly an hour, reading her father's -poem, the work of his last year, written after the hand -of death had touched him.</p> - -<p>It was an hour of pensive thought, and as she pondered -over pages where every line was familiar, it seemed to -her that Giulia's spirit could not be remote from the -friend whose sudden tears fell on the page, where some -deeper melancholy in the verse brought last year's sorrow -back with the force of a new grief.</p> - -<p>The sun was low when she left the cemetery, and the -shiver that comes with sundown chilled her as she hurried -back to the hotel, more than five minutes late for Grannie's -tea. But the following afternoon, and the day after -that, she went back to the Roman bench, and sat there -till sunset, with the green cloth volume that had grown -shabby with much use, and her memory of Giulia, for -her only companions. After this she went there every -afternoon, sometimes with "Afterwards," sometimes with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -a volume of Byron or Shelley. The sense of dullness and -monotony that had depressed her in her walk up and -down the parade under the palm trees seldom came upon -her in this silent enclosure, where the yew hedge—that -only wealth could have attained in so brief a time—screened -her from observation. She sometimes heard -the voices of tourists admiring the monuments, or reading -the epitaphs, in the cemetery; but it was rarely that -anyone looked in at the opening in the green quadrangle -where she sat.</p> - -<p>It was more than a fortnight after her first visit to -this mournful solitude when for the first time Vera was -startled by the sound of approaching footsteps, and looking -up she saw the tall form of Mario Provana, standing in -the golden sunset. She rose as he came towards her, -and gave him her hand, a hand so slender that it seemed -to disappear in the broad palm and strong fingers that -clasped it.</p> - -<p>"I was told that you were in San Marco," he said; -"but I never thought I should find you here. Then -you have not forgotten?"</p> - -<p>"I shall never forget. I come here every afternoon -with my father's book—the poem he wrote when he knew -that he was dying."</p> - -<p>"May I sit by your side for a few minutes? I should -like to see your father's book. I have not forgotten that -he was a poet. Since you told me that, it has seemed -as if I ought to have known beforehand. You look like -a poet's child. I suppose everybody who saw Miranda -for the first time, without having seen Prospero, ought to -have known that her father was a magician."</p> - -<p>His tone was grave and thoughtful, and his speech -hardly sounded like a compliment. There was no air of -gallantry to alarm her.</p> - -<p>He took the shabby little volume from her hand, and -turned the pages slowly, pausing to read a few lines, here -and there.</p> - -<p>"'Part the first, Thanatos, Part the second, Eros.' -From darkness to light," he said, in the deep, grave voice -which was her most distinctive impression of Mario Provana. -"He believed in the victory of spirit over flesh. -He was a poet; and faith is easy where the imagination -is strong. Tennyson knew that all religion, all peace of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -mind, hung upon that one vital question—the Afterwards—the -other world that is to give us back lost love, lost -youth, lost genius, lost joy. I am not a religious man, -Vera; indeed, to the Church of Rome I count as an -infidel, because I cannot subject my mind to the outward -forms and conventions which seem to me no more than -the dry husks of spiritual things. But I am more of a -Pantheist than an infidel—my gospel is the gospel of -Christ—my faith is the faith of Spinoza."</p> - -<p>And then, after a silence, he said:</p> - -<p>"I called you Vera just now. Do you mind? My -daughter loved you as if you had been her sister. May -I call you by your pretty Christian name?"</p> - -<p>"Pray do. I'm sure Grannie won't mind," Vera -answered naïvely.</p> - -<p>"We will ask Grannie's permission," he said, with a -grave smile. "If you will allow me to walk back to the -'Anglais' with you, I will call on Lady Felicia this -afternoon, and we can get that small matter settled."</p> - -<p>He talked to her as if she had been a child; and the -difference between his forty years and her seventeen made -the fatherly tone seem natural.</p> - -<p>He walked slowly round the tomb, lingering beside it -now and then, and leaning his hand on the marble slab -while he stood with bent head looking at the inscription, -in a pause that seemed long; and then he rejoined Vera, -and they left the cemetery together.</p> - -<p>"You are not out yet, I think," he said, when they had -walked a little way. "I read a paragraph in a London -paper to the effect that Lady Felicia Cunningham's granddaughter, -Miss Veronica Davis, the daughter of the poet -whose early death had been a loss to literature, was to be -presented next season."</p> - -<p>"It is so foolish of them to write like that, as if I were -a person of importance; when Grannie is so poor that -it will be cruel to let her spend a quarter's income upon -a Court dress and party frocks—and I don't care a scrap -about parties or the Court."</p> - -<p>"What a singular young lady you must be. I doubt -if I could find your parallel in London or Rome. If you -don't care for society, what are the things that make -your idea of happiness?"</p> - -<p>"Beautiful places, and the sea, books and music, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -Shakespeare's plays," she answered quite simply. "I -saw Henry Irving in 'Hamlet,' when I was twelve years -old. It was my birthday, and my kindest aunt took me -to her box at the Lyceum. I have never forgotten that -night."</p> - -<p>"You admired the actor?"</p> - -<p>"I admired Hamlet. I never remembered that he was -an actor," she answered, while her eyes brightened, and -her cheek flushed with enthusiasm. "But when someone -told me suddenly that Sir Henry Irving was dead, I -felt as if one great joy had gone out of the world. I saw -Browning once—at an afternoon party at my aunt's; -and she took me to him as he stood among a group of -young people, talking and laughing, and told him who -my father was; and he was too kind for words, and patted -my head, and stooped and asked me to kiss him. I knew -nothing about poetry then, not even about my father's, -but now when I read Browning, I always recall the noble -face and the silvery hair, and I am heart-broken when -I think that he is dead, and that I shall never see him -again."</p> - -<p>She stopped, blushing at her own audacity, and surprised -at finding herself talking as she had never talked to -Grannie, but as she had often talked to Provana's daughter.</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia received the unexpected visitor with -exceeding graciousness, and showed a friendly interest in -Signor Provana's doings. She hoped he was going to -spend some time at San Marco.</p> - -<p>"I have a selfish interest in the question," she said, with -her urbane smile, "for at present Dr. Wilmot is the only -person in the place who has intelligence enough to make -conversation possible. This poor child and I come back -to the 'Anglais' to find the same obese widow, the -same pinched spinsters with wisps of faded hair scraped -over their poor heads, too conscientious to put their trust -in Lichtenstein. There is one poor creature who would -be almost pretty if she knew how to put on her clothes -and would treat herself to a wig."</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia prattled gaily, not considering it her duty -to put on a mournful air and remind Provana of his bereavement. -It was half a year ago—and it was better -taste to ignore the melancholy past. Vera busied herself -at the tea-table, providing for all Grannie's wants before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -she gave the guest his tea. He looked colossal as he stood -beside the small wicker tea-table, and the fragile figure of -the girl sitting there, in her dark blue serge frock, a frock -two years old, from a cheap tailor.</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia had a convenient theory, that the intrinsic -value of clothes hardly mattered. It was the putting on -that was the consequence; and this philosophy, severely -instilled into Vera's growing mind, had certainly resulted -in an exquisite neatness that went some way to prove -the truth of the theory.</p> - -<p>In answer to friendly inquiries, Signor Provana told -Lady Felicia that he was staying at the "Metropole," -and might possibly take another week of quiet rest before -he went back to Rome, where he was to spend the winter.</p> - -<p>"Rome and London are my two counting-houses," -he said; "and I have to divide my life between the two -cities, with an occasional fortnight in New York, where -I have offices, and an American partner."</p> - -<p>"How you must hate London after Rome," said Vera.</p> - -<p>"You know Rome?"</p> - -<p>"Only in books—Byron—and Corinne."</p> - -<p>"Corinne sounds very old-fashioned," Grannie -apologised, "but Vera has been brought up by an old -woman, and has had to put up with an old woman's books. -Vera and I can just afford to live, but we can't afford to -buy things we don't want."</p> - -<p>Vera blushed hotly at this remark. She thought -Grannie talked too much about her poverty. It seemed -quite as bad form as if Signor Provana had expatiated -upon his wealth.</p> - -<p>Nothing could exceed Grannie's graciousness. Yes, of -course, Provana was to call the child Vera. "Miss -Davis" would be absurdly formal.</p> - -<p>"Even if Davis were not such a horribly commonplace -name," added Grannie, at which Vera protested that she -had never been ashamed of her father's name.</p> - -<p>"An utterly ridiculous name for a poet!" And then -Grannie went on to lament that Signor Provana should -think of going back to Rome in a week. "But in that -case I hope you will be charitable, and take tea with me -every afternoon."</p> - -<p>She said "with me," not "with us"—ignoring the child.</p> - -<p>Her hours were so long and so dull, she complained, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -she loved conversation; to hear about, and talk about, -everything that was going on in the world; the political -and the social, the scientific and the literary world. Art, -letters, everything interested her; and she had only such -driblets of news as Dr. Wilmot could bring her.</p> - -<p>"The man is fairly intelligent, but oh, so narrow," she -complained.</p> - -<p>"It will be an act of real benevolence if you will drop in -at tea-time," urged Grannie, when Provana was taking -leave.</p> - -<p>He promised to be benevolent, to take tea with Grannie -every afternoon, if so dull a person's company could give -her any pleasure. He knew no one at San Marco, wanted -to know no one. He had come there only to be near his -daughter for a little while, just a short spell of thought and -rest.</p> - -<p>"If I had been a good Catholic, I should have gone into -retreat at the nearest monastery," he said; "but my -religion is too vague and shadowy for such discipline; -so I just wander about among the woods and hills, and -think, and remember."</p> - -<p>The profound melancholy with which those words were -spoken convinced Grannie that, although his sorrow was -half a year old, it was still an absorbing grief, and that -she must be prepared to take him seriously.</p> - -<p>Vera felt a certain shyness about going to the spot where -so many of her afternoons had been spent. Signor Provana -might be there before her, and she would seem to intrude -upon his sorrow. He had told them why he had come -to San Marco. He must want to be alone with sad thoughts -and cherished memories.</p> - -<p>She took last year's dull walk on the parade, and met -several of her hotel acquaintances, one of whom, no less -a personage than Lady Jones, stopped to talk.</p> - -<p>"I hear you had a visitor yesterday afternoon," she -said; "the Italian millionaire. Miss Mason saw him -leave the hotel after dark. He must have stopped with -her ladyship quite a long time."</p> - -<p>Lady Jones always talked of Grannie as her ladyship.</p> - -<p>"I hope he has got over the loss of his daughter."</p> - -<p>"In six months!" cried Vera. "How could you suppose -such a thing!"</p> - -<p>"Men's grief never lasts very long, not even a widower's,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> -said Lady Jones; "and I've always noticed that the -more a widower wants to throw himself into his wife's grave -at the funeral, the sooner he begins to think about marrying -again. And from the fuss Signor Provana made over his -daughter, I should have expected six months would have -been long enough to make him forget her."</p> - -<p>"I don't think he is that kind of man," Vera said gravely, -trying to move away; but Lady Jones detained her.</p> - -<p>"What's your hurry?" she asked. "You must find -it awfully dull walking alone every afternoon."</p> - -<p>"I rather like being alone—if I can have a book," -Vera answered, glancing at the little volume under her -arm, and thinking how far the charm of solitude surpassed -Lady Jones's conversation.</p> - -<p>"Well, I'll walk a little way with you," said that lady, -with exasperating patronage. "I don't like to see a young -girl leading such a dull life. Why don't you never come -down to the drawing-room of an evening?"</p> - -<p>"I don't want to leave Grannie."</p> - -<p>"You'd find us quite gay after your solitary salong. -Two bridge tables, and besique, and sometimes even games, -How, when, and where, and Consequences."</p> - -<p>"I hate cards, and I like books better than society," -Vera answered frankly.</p> - -<p>"Well, you are an oddity. But you seem to have a -high opinion of this Italian gentleman."</p> - -<p>"No one could help liking Signor Provana after seeing -him with his daughter—and I was a good deal with -them."</p> - -<p>"Yes, driving out with them on all the most expensive -excursions. They quite took you up, didn't they? And it -must have been very nice for you to go about in such a -luxurious way after being cooped up with Gran'ma."</p> - -<p>"They were very kind."</p> - -<p>"He's a fine-looking man," said Lady Jones thoughtfully. -"Not what anyone could call handsome; but a -fine figure, and carries himself well. I suppose he has -been in the Army. Most of these foreigners have to do -a bit of soldiering in their young days."</p> - -<p>They were at the end of the parade, and Vera stopped, -and held out her hand to her insistent companion.</p> - -<p>"Aren't you coming back?" asked Lady Jones.</p> - -<p>"Not yet. I shall sit here and read for a little while."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Don't you go and get a chill and make her ladyship -angry with you. She won't like Dr. Wilmot's coming every -day, or twice a day if he can find an excuse for it—as he -did when I had my influenzer. But, of course, he knew -I could afford to pay him. Well, O revore, dear," and the -portly form that had been blocking out the western glow -over the promontory of Bordighera slowly removed itself.</p> - -<p>Vera was not destined to be alone that afternoon. She -had not read three pages when a tall figure came between -her and the light, and she rose hastily to acknowledge -Signor Provana's greeting.</p> - -<p>"It is too near sunset for you to be sitting there," he -said. "Will you walk a little way with me—until five -o'clock?"</p> - -<p>Vera shut her book, and they walked on slowly and in -silence to the gate of the cemetery, and still in silence till -they stood by the white tomb.</p> - -<p>There were flowers lying upon the slab, choice flowers, -in their first freshness; and Vera thought that Provana -had laid them there that afternoon.</p> - -<p>They stood beside the tomb for some minutes, till the -chapel clock struck the quarter before five, and no word -was spoken till they were going back to the gate. Then -Provana began to talk of his daughter, opening his heart -to the girl she had loved.</p> - -<p>He talked of her childhood, of her education, the bright, -eager mind that made learning a delight, the keen interest -in all that was most worthy to be admired, the innate -appreciation of all that was best in literature and art, -her love of music, and of the beautiful in all things. He -was sure of Vera's sympathy, and that certainty made it -easy to talk of his girl, whose name had rarely passed his -lips in the long half-year of mourning.</p> - -<p>"I have never talked of her since Miss Thompson left -me," he said; "there was no one who would understand -or care. There were friends who were kind and would have -pitied me; but I could not endure their pity. It was easier -to stand alone, and keep an iron wall between my heart -and the world. But you were her companion in those last -weeks; you are of her own age; you seem a part of herself, -as if you were really her sister, left behind to mourn her, -almost as I do."</p> - -<p>After this confidence he made no more apologies for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -sad note in all his conversation, as he and Vera loitered -in the place of graves, or walked in the lemon orchards -and olive woods on the hill-side above the cemetery. It -became a settled thing for them to walk together every -afternoon in the half-hour before Lady Felicia's tea-time; -and as the week that Provana had talked of drew near its -close, their rambles took a wider range, always with -Grannie's approval, and they visited the white towns on the -hills where they had been with Giulia and her governess -in the golden spring-time. It was rapture to Vera to -tread the narrow mule-paths, winding through wood and -orchard, to walk with light, quick feet through scenes -where everything was beautiful and romantic; to visit -wayside shrines, and humble chapels hidden in the silver -grey of the century-old trees, or to talk to the country -women tramping homeward, carrying their baskets of the -ripe black fruit. Provana helped her in her talk with the -women, and contrived that they should understand her -shy little discourse, the broken words and stumbling -sentences.</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia, usually so severe a stickler for etiquette, -was curiously lax at San Marco, and could see nothing -strange or unseemly in these unchaperoned rambles with -the Roman financier, who, as she observed to Dr. Wilmot, -was so obviously correct in all his ideas, to say nothing of -his being almost old enough to be Vera's grandfather.</p> - -<p>"Say father," said the doctor, smiling. "But you are -perfectly right in your appreciation of Provana. He is a -man of the highest character, and you may very well -waive all conventionality where he is concerned."</p> - -<p>Signor Provana did not leave San Marco at the end of -the week. He stayed from day to day; but he was always -going to-morrow.</p> - -<p>As time went by he and Vera found a world of ideas and -experiences to talk about. In the confidence that grew -with every hill-side ramble, with every half-hour spent -among ruined convents or Roman remains, they became -licensed egotists, and talked of themselves and their own -feelings with unconscious self-absorption.</p> - -<p>Led on from trifles to speak of vital things, Provana told -Vera the story of his unloved youth, motherless before his -sixth birthday, and soon under the subjection of a stepmother -who disliked him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I was an ugly boy," he said, "and her only child was -as beautiful as the Belvedere Apollo, a creature to be -worshipped, and I was made to feel the contrast. I had -inherited my English mother's plain features and plain -ways. I had none of the graces that make children -adorable. My father was not unkind, but he was indifferent, -and left me to servants, or later to my tutor, a -German, middle-aged, learned, and severely practical, -a man to whom affection and emotion were unknown -quantities. It was always kept before me that I was to -succeed to a great business, to the certainty of wealth, and -the paramount purpose of my education was to make me -a money-spinning machine.</p> - -<p>"My brother's death in the flower of boyhood hardened -my father's heart against me; and the indifference to -which I had resigned myself became undisguised dislike. -I lived in a frozen atmosphere; and of sheer necessity had -to devote all my energies to the barren ambition of the -man whose task in life is to sustain and augment the fortune -that others have created. That is where the emptiness -of my career comes in, Vera. A fortune inherited from -those who have gone before him can give no dignity to a -man's life. He is no better than a clerk, succeeding to a -stool in a counting-house. For a man who has laboured -and invented, who has lived through long, slow years of -hardship and self-denial, who has endured the world's -contempt, and persevered in the teeth of disappointment, -over such a man's career success may shed a golden glory. -He is a conqueror who has fought and won, and may be -proud even of a triumph that brings him nothing but money. -But I could have no pride in a career that was mapped out -for me before I was born. All I can ever be proud of is that -personally caring nothing for riches, I have been a conscientious -worker, and have done what I was expected -to do."</p> - -<p>He told Vera how his own unloved childhood had been -in his mind when his wife died, and he took his motherless -girl to his heart, and, while she sobbed against his breast, -swore dumbly that she should never know the need of a -mother's love; and that which had begun as a duty became -afterwards the dominating purpose of his life—the thing -for which he lived.</p> - -<p>"There had been a time after her mother's death when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -my heart was frozen, and that sweet child's presence was -something that called for fortitude rather than affection, -but that lovely nature soon prevailed even over grief, and -my daughter crept into my desolate heart, my consolation -and my joy."</p> - -<p>In those quiet walks these two mortals, so far apart in -age, in experiences, and in mental tendencies, became -curiously intimate, telling each other almost everything -that could be told about two dissimilar existences, each -interested in vivid pictures of an unknown world, the -child's monotonous life with an old woman, her glimpses -of more joyous houses, the young cousin, the Arab pony and -family of dogs—the old English garden, steeped in the -August sunshine; and again of the dull upstairs-room in -London, and the solitary hours of silent play, in which -childish fancies had to serve instead of playfellows, the -doll that was almost alive, the toy train that travelled to -fairyland, the old, old stories in the ragged books, -"Cinderella" and the "Forty Thieves." Provana listened -to these naïve revelations as if they had been the childish -experiences of a Newton or a Shakespeare, while Vera hung -enthralled upon his memories of the liberation of Italy, the -tempestuous years of revolt and battle, Victor Emanuel, -Garibaldi, Cavour, the giant of thought and will-power, -whose bold policy had made a great kingdom.</p> - -<p>Afternoon tea in Lady Felicia's <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i> had become an institution -in that week which spun itself out to fifteen days, -and tea-time generally lasted for an hour and a half, since -Grannie wanted to hear everything that Signor Provana -had heard or read of the world of action since yesterday. -As a dweller in London for nearly half his life, he was as -keenly interested and as instructed in English politics, -literature, science, and art as any Englishman Grannie -had ever known; and she seemed to feel an inexhaustible -interest in his conversation. She was intelligent, and -often said good things; so this appreciation must needs -be flattering, and Provana was naturally gratified. Flowers -and Tauchnitz novels were almost daily tributes to -Grannie; but no tribute was offered to Vera, no tribute -except the tender watchfulness of dark grey eyes, eyes -that followed the fragile figure as she moved about the -room, or went in and out through the window in the -desultory half-hour when her duties at the tea-table were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -finished. She left him to devote himself to Grannie in -this half-hour, and showed how much milder was her -interest in the talk of the political world, and people of -importance in London, than in Provana's personal reminiscences. -It was his life that had interested her, not the -lives of other people.</p> - -<p>They had come to the evening before his last day at San -Marco. He must be on his way to Rome the day after -to-morrow—that was inevitable.</p> - -<p>"I should like to take Vera a little farther afield to-morrow, -Lady Felicia," Provana said, as he took up his -hat to go. "She has never seen the Chocolate Mills, -though the way to them is one of the most picturesque -within range. One must ride or walk. There is no -carriage road; but if you will let Vera come with me -to-morrow afternoon, I will bring the surest-footed donkey -in San Marco, and his owner for our guide. I shall go -on foot. The walk will be nothing for me; but it would be -too tiring for your granddaughter."</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia hesitated, but only enough to make her -consent seem the more gracious.</p> - -<p>"The poor child has been pining to see the Chocolate -Mills; but for me it was impossible," she concluded.</p> - -<p>"We must start soon after your luncheon; and if you -can give me time for a little conversation before we go, I -shall be greatly obliged," Signor Provana said, with a -curious gravity.</p> - -<p>Vera wondered what he could have to say to Grannie -that needed to be arranged for beforehand. She felt a -thrill of horror at the idea that Lady Felicia's frequent -reference to her small means might have given him a -wrong impression, and that he was going to offer to lend -her money.</p> - -<p>"You must allow that I have not let <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">les convenances</i> -stand in the way of your enjoyment of Signor Provana's -society," Lady Felicia said, with her kindest smile, when -the visitor had gone. "There are very few men—even -of his age—whom I could permit you to walk about with, -even in such a half-civilised place as San Marco; but -Provana is an exceptional man, a person whom scandal -could never touch."</p> - -<p>"And I think you like being with him," Grannie said, -after a long pause, in which she had reclined in her most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -reposeful attitude, smiling at the after-glow above Bordighera.</p> - -<p>It was not that fine promontory only, but all life and -the world that Lady Felicia saw before her bathed in -golden light.</p> - -<p>Certainly Grannie had been curiously indulgent, curiously -heedless of conventionalities, and curiously forgetful of the -ways of the world in which she had lived from youth -upward, when she thought that because San Marco was -a quiet little place that had never basked in the sunlight of -fashion, there would be no ill-natured talk about her -granddaughter's <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i> rambles with the Roman -millionaire.</p> - -<p>To say that people had talked—the season visitors at -the "Anglais," the spinsters and widows, the invalid -parsons and their wives, who were mostly languishing for -something to talk about—to say that these had talked about -Vera and her millionaire would not have described the -situation. They had talked of nothing else; and the talk -had grown more and more animated and exciting with every -day that witnessed another audacious sauntering to the -cemetery, or ascent of a mule-path through the wood. -Spinsters, whose thin legs had seldom carried them beyond -the parade, adipose widows, whose scantness of breath -made the gentlest ascent labour and trouble, took a sudden -interest in the little white chapels and shrines among the -olives, and happened to meet Provana and Vera returning -from the hill, which made something to whisper about -with one's next neighbour at dinner, and was at least an -agreeable change from the daily grumbling about the bill -of fare.</p> - -<p>"Veal again! and as stringy as ever.—Yes, I came face -to face with them. He stalked past me in his gloomy way; -and she did not even blush, but just said, good afternoon, -as bold as brass."</p> - -<p>"How Lady Felicia can be so utterly regardless of -etiquette!"</p> - -<p>"Oh, it's just like the rest of the smart set. They -think they can defy the universe; and it's a surprise to -them when they find themselves in the divorce court!"</p> - -<p>"I don't believe Lady Felicia was ever in the smart set. -You have to be rich for that. I put her down as poor and -proud, and those sort are generally ultra-particular."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I believe she's playing a deep game," said the spinster, -and then the two friends looked down the long, narrow -table to the corner where Vera sat, silent and thoughtful, -pale in her black evening frock.</p> - -<p>"Do you think her so remarkably pretty?" asked the -spinster, following on a discussion in the drawing-room -after luncheon, when the parsons had expressed their -admiration of Vera's delicate beauty.</p> - -<p>"Far from it," answered the plethoric widow. "You -may call her ethereal," which one of the parsons had -done; "I call her half-starved. She has no complexion -and no figure, and looks as if she had never had enough to -eat."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It mattered little to Lady Felicia next day—after a -quarter of an hour's grave conversation with Signor Provana, -or to Vera, putting on her hat in the sunny little -front room, and hearing the donkey's bells jingling in the -garden below; it mattered really nothing to either grandmother -or granddaughter what the world, as represented -by the table d'hôte of the "Anglais," might think of -them. Lady Felicia lay back among her pillows, smiling -at the sea and the far-off hills as she had never smiled before; -for, indeed, that lovely coast had taken a new colour under -a new light—not the light that never was on sea or land, -but the more mundane light of prosperity, a smiling future -in which there should be no more the year in year out -effort to keep up appearances upon inadequate means.</p> - -<p>And yet that smiling future depended upon a girl's -whim, and at a word from Vera that cloud-built castle -might vanish into thin air.</p> - -<p>"She could never be such an idiot as to refuse him," -mused Grannie, disposed to be sanguine; "and, what is -better, I believe she is really in love with him. After all, -he is her first admirer, and that goes for a good deal. I -was in love with an archbishop of seventy when I was -fifteen; and I remember him now as quite the most delightful -man I ever met."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Provana was walking about the garden, while the surest-footed -donkey in San Marco shook his bells and pawed up -the loose gravel with the forefoot of impatience, lazily -watched by his owner, a sun-baked lad of nineteen.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p> - -<p>There were several pairs of eyes on the watch at various -windows when Vera came tripping out in her neat blue -riding-skirt and sailor hat. It was her kit for the riding-school -near Bryanston Square, where Grannie had given -her a season's lessons, lest she should grow up without the -young lady's indispensable accomplishment of sitting -straight on a horse, and going over a fence without swinging -out of her saddle.</p> - -<p>She had brought a handful of sugar for the donkey, and -he had to be fed and patted and talked about before Signor -Provana was allowed to take the slender foot in his broad -hand while she sprang lightly to the saddle; and then the -little company moved away, Vera on her great grey donkey, -bells jingling, red and blue tassels flying, Provana walking -beside her, and the sunburnt youth at the donkey's head, -ready to hold the bridle when they came to the narrow -hill-tracks.</p> - -<p>"Do they take that lad with them to play propriety?" -asked the sourest of all the spinsters, with a malevolent -giggle—a question which nobody answered—while the two -parsons agreed that little Miss Davis looked prettier than -ever in her riding clothes.</p> - -<p>Provana walked for a long time in absolute silence, -while Vera prattled with the donkey-driver, exchanging -scraps of Italian and insisting upon the donkey's biography.</p> - -<p>"How did he call himself?" " Sancho." "Was he -called after Don Quixote's Sancho?" "<i lang="it" xml:lang="it">Perdona, Signorina—Non -so</i>." "How old was he? Was he always -good? Was he always kindly treated?" His driver -assured her that the beast lived in a land of milk and -honey, and seldom felt the sting of a whip, to emphasise -which assurance his driver gave a sounding whack on -Sancho's broad back. The only comfort was that the back -was broad and the animal seemed well fed.</p> - -<p>"I would not have let you ride a starveling," Provana -said; "but these people to whom God has given the -loveliest land on earth have waited for the sons of the -North to teach them common humanity."</p> - -<p>After this he walked on in silence till they were far away -from the "Anglais," slowly climbing a stony ascent that -called upon all Sancho's sure-footedness and the guide's -care.</p> - -<p>Suddenly, in the silence of the wood, where the light<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -fell like golden rain between the silver-grey leaves, Provana -laid his hand on Vera's, and said in a low voice:</p> - -<p>"I feel as if you and I were going to the end of the world -together; but in half an hour we shall be at the mill, and -after that there will be the short down-hill journey home, -and Grannie's tea-table, and the glory of my last day will -be over."</p> - -<p>Vera looked at him wonderingly in a shy silence. The -words seemed to mean more than anything he had ever -said before. His tone had an underlying seriousness that -was melancholy, and almost intense.</p> - -<p>They did not give much time to the mill and the processes -of chocolate-making. The picturesque gorge, the -waterfall leaping from crag to crag, the blue plane of sunlit -sea, and the pale grey glimmer on the purple horizon that -was said to be Corsica—these were the things they had -come to look at, and they looked in silence, as if spell-bound.</p> - -<p>"Let us sit here and talk of ourselves, while Tomaso -gives Sancho a rest and a mouthful of oats," Provana said; -and he and Vera seated themselves on a stony bank above -the waterfall, while Tomaso and Sancho retired to a -distance of twenty yards, where a bend in the path hid -donkey and driver.</p> - -<p>It was not usual for Provana to be silent when they two -were alone together. There always seemed too much that -he wanted to say in the short space of time; but now the -minutes went by, seeming long to Vera in the unusual -silence, which she broke at last by asking him, "Were you -ever in Corsica?"</p> - -<p>"Often; but we won't talk of that, Vera," taking her -hand suddenly. "I have a question to ask you, and the -longer I think about it, the more difficult it will seem—a -question that means my future existence. I can't wait for -eloquent speech. I have no words to-day. Vera, will you -be my wife?"</p> - -<p>She looked at him as if she thought he was joking.</p> - -<p>"Yes, it has come to that. My happiness depends upon -a girl of eighteen, who thinks that such an offer must be a -jest—something to laugh at when she tells Grannie how -foolish Signor Provana was this afternoon. For me it is -life or death. In all those days that we were together last -year never a thought of love came into my mind. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -watched the two faces side by side, and wondered which -was the lovelier, but my mind was too full of sorrow for any -other feeling than gratitude to the girl who helped to make -those last days happy for my dearest. She was my -dearest, the only creature I had cared for since her mother's -death. There was no room in my heart for anything but -the father's despairing affection for the child he was soon -to lose. It was when I met you by my darling's grave -that your face came back to me with a strange flash of joy, -unexpected, incomprehensible. I had thought of you -seldom in the half year that had parted us; yet in that -moment it seemed to me that I had been longing for you -all the time. And the next day, and the next, with every -hour that we were together, with every time I looked into -your sweet face, the more I realised that the happiness of -all my days to come depended upon you. My love did -not expand like a flower creeping slowly through dull -earth into beauty and light. It rose like a flame, instantaneous, -unquenchable.</p> - -<p>"Will you make me happy, Vera? Will you trust your -life to me? Answer, love, can you trust me?"</p> - -<p>Her murmured "Yes" was the nearest thing to silence; -but he heard it, and she was folded in his arms, and felt -with a sudden thrill what it was to be loved with all the -strength of a man's passionate heart.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Shadows of a November twilight are gathering in the -two great drawing-rooms of the largest house in Portland -Place, rooms that have the grandeur of space, and a -certain gloomy splendour that has nothing in common with -the caprices and elegances of a modern London drawing-room. -The furniture is large and massive. There are -tables in Florentine mosaic; cabinets of ebony inlaid with -ivory; dower-chests painted by Paul Veronese or his -pupils; the richness of arts that are dead; walls hung with -Italian tapestry, the work of cloistered nuns whose fingers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -have been lying in the dust for three centuries; silver -lamps suggestive of mortuary chapels.</p> - -<p>"I love the Provana drawing-rooms because they are -romantic, and I hate them because they give me the -horrors," little Lady Susan Amphlett told people.</p> - -<p>Romantic was one of her pet words. Her vocabulary -was made up of pet words, a jargon of divers tongues, and -she used them without mercy. She was very small, very -whimsical and pretty, as neat and dainty as a Dresden -shepherdess; but she got upon some people's nerves, and -was occasionally accused of posing, though she was actually -as spontaneous as a tropical parasite in a South American -forest, a little egotist, who thought, spoke, and acted only -on the impulse of the moment, and whose mind had no -room for the idea of an external world, except as its people -and scenery were of consequence to herself. The people -she did not know or care about were non-existent. -Romantic was her word for Madame Provana. She adored -Madame Provana, with whom she had some thin thread -of affinity, the kind of distant connection that pervades -the peerage, and makes it perilous for an outsider to talk -of any recent scandal in high life, lest he should fall upon a -cousin of the delinquent's.</p> - -<p>"Vera and I are connections. Her grandmother was a -Disbrowe," Lady Susan told people. "But it is not on -that account I adore her. I love her because she is -romantic; and so few of the people one knows are -romantic."</p> - -<p>If asked where the romance came in, Susan was ready -with her reasons.</p> - -<p>"Can there be anything more romantic than the idea of -a lovely, ethereal creature, who looks as if a zephyr might -blow her off her feet, married to an ugly giant whose sole -thought and business in this life is to heap up riches, a man -who cares for nothing but money, whose brain is a ledger, -and whose heart is a cheque-book? Can anything be more -romantic, when one considers the woman she is and the -man he is, and that they absolutely dote upon each other?"</p> - -<p>"Provana may dote," someone would say; "but I -question the lady's feelings. That an impassioned Italian -should be fond of a pretty woman, young enough to be his -daughter, and whom he married without a penny for the -sake of her sweet looks, all the world can understand.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -But that Madame Provana worships her money-merchant -is another story."</p> - -<p>"Did not Desdemona dote upon Othello?" cried Susan. -"At least Provana is not black, and adoration such as -his would melt a statue. To be worshipped by a case-hardened -money-dealer, a man who trades in millions, -and holds the sinews of war when nations are spoiling for -a fight, a man who is a greater master of finance than half -the Chancellors of the Exchequer who have helped to make -history! To see how he worships that child-wife of his! -It is absolutely pathetic."</p> - -<p>"Pathetic" was the pretty Susie's word for Mario -Provana. She used the adjective at the slightest provocation. -"You are absolute pathetic," she said, when -he brought his wife a necklet of priceless cat's eyes set -with brilliants, and handed her the velvet case across the -tea-table as carelessly as if it had been a box of bonbons.</p> - -<p>He was pathetic, <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">impayable</i>, <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">stupendo</i>, all the big adjectives -in little Lady Susie's vocabulary.</p> - -<p>Susan Amphlett was Susie, or Lady Susie, for everybody -who knew her socially; and for a good many people who -had never seen her little <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">minois chiffoné</i> nearer than in a -photograph. People who spelled over the society papers -in their snug suburban drawing-rooms, and loved to follow -the flight of those migratory birds, the Mr. and Mrs. Willies -and Jimmies, and Lady Bettys and Lord Tommys, who -were always flitting from branch to branch, in the only -world that seemed worth living in, when one read the -Society papers—those shining-surfaced, richly-illustrated -sixpennies, which brought the flavour of that other world -across the muffin dishes and savoury sandwiches of suburban -tea-tables.</p> - -<p>Mr. Amphlett was something in the City! Or that was -his description when people wanted to describe him. He -was briefly described as "rolling," and yet a pauper, if you -weighed him against that mountain of gold, Mario Provana, -the international money-dealer.</p> - -<p>"If ever Provana goes under, half Europe will have to -go under with him," Susie's cousin, Claude Rutherford, -ex-guardsman, ex-traveller, ex-artist, ex-lion-shooter, said, -when he discussed the great financier with inquisitive outsiders.</p> - -<p>Claude was in the Portland Place drawing-room this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -afternoon, lounging against the mantelpiece, near the -lamp-lit tea-tables, at one of which Madame Provana presided, -his tall, slender figure half lost in a deepening -gloom, above that island of bright light made by the -lamps on the tea-table.</p> - -<p>It was easy for Claude to be lost in shadow, since there -was so little of him to lose. Euclid's definition of a line, -length without breadth, was his description; but his -slender figure was a line that showed race in every inch. -His scientific acquaintance called him a crystallisation. -"Everything that was ever in the Disbrowes and the -Rutherfords, good or bad, he has in its quintessence," the -poet Eustace Lyon said of him. "Whatever the worst of -the Rutherfords or the Disbrowes, from King Stephen -downwards, ever did, Claude is capable of doing. Whatever -the best of them ever accomplished he could do, if -he had a mind to."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Unhappily, Claude had a mind to do nothing more with -his life than lounge through it in placid idleness. He had -done so much with life, that it seemed to him that the -inconsiderable remnant at his disposal was not enough -for action, and so nothing mattered. He had been a -soldier, and had seen active service, not without a certain -distinction. He had hunted lions and shot harmless -elephants, with still more distinction; indeed, in the exploring, -lion-annihilating line he had made himself almost a -celebrity. He had painted and exhibited pictures that had -pleased the public and the critics, and had been told that -he might excel in the world of art; but though he loved -art, he had not tried to excel. The success of a season -satisfied him. Nothing pleased or interested him long. -He had no staying power. He painted occasionally to -distract himself, but in an amateurish way, and he no longer -exhibited. His pictures had not work enough in them -to be shown; and, indeed, rarely went beyond the impression -of an hour; but the impression was vivid and -vigorous, and always suggested how much the painter -might have done, if he had cared. He had not long passed -the third milestone on the road of life; but he had left off -caring for things before his thirtieth birthday. Languor, -light sarcasm, and unfailing good temper, were among -the qualities that had made him everybody's favourite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -young man, the very first a smart hostess thought of when -she was counting heads for a dinner-party. One incentive -that has helped some indolent young men to success was -wanting in this case. He was not obliged to earn his -daily bread. The Rutherfords had coal-mines on the -Scottish border, and were rich enough to provide for -indolent scions of the family tree.</p> - -<p>Six or seven years ago, before he left the Army, -Claude Rutherford had been an arbiter of fashion -among the men of his age. In those days he had taken -the business of his outer clothing more seriously than -the cultivation of a mind in which fancy had ever -predominated over thought; and in those days that -element of fancy had entered even into his transactions -with tailor and bootmaker, and he had allowed himself -some flights of imagination in form and colour. Of all the -names given to golden youth the old-fashioned name of -"exquisite" was the one that fitted Captain Rutherford. -It seemed to have been invented for him. He was exquisite -in everything, in his habiliments and his surroundings, -in speech, and manner, in every detail of his butterfly -life. But when he left the Grenadiers—to the infinite -regret of his brother officers, who were all his fast friends—he -flung foppery from him as it were a cast-off garment; -and from the time he worked seriously at his easel, and -began to exhibit his pictures, he had become remarkable -for the careless grace of clothes that were scrupulously -unoriginal, and in the rear rather than in the van of -fashion, the sleeves and coat-tails and checks and stripes -of the year before last. But he was still exquisite. The -grace and the charm were in his own slender form, and not -in the stuff that clothed him.</p> - -<p>He was not handsome. He was not like David, ruddy -and fair to see. He had very little colour, and his pale -grey eyes were only brilliant in moments of mirth or strong -feeling. He had a long, thin nose, and thin, flexible lips, -and his mouth, which was supposed to be the Disbrowe -mouth, and a speciality of that ancient race, was strong in -character and expressiveness. His hair was light brown, -with a natural wave in that small portion which modern -barbers allow to remain on the masculine head. A rippling -line above his brow indicated that Claude Rutherford might -have been as curly as Absalom if he had let his hair grow.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> - -<p>In the afternoon shadows that small head and slim form -contrasted curiously with the spacious brow of the tall and -commanding figure at the other end of the mantelpiece, the -imposing presence of Father Cyprian Hammond, at that -time a famous personage in London society, the morals -and manners whereof he had of late made it his chief -business to satirise and denounce. But the people of -pleasure and leisure, the butterflies and humming-birds of -the world, the creatures of light and colour, have a keen -relish for reproof and denunciation, though they may -wince under the lash of irony. For them anything is -better than not being talked about.</p> - -<p>It had been asked of Father Cyprian why he, who was -so scathing a critic of the follies and general worthlessness -of the idle rich, was yet not infrequently to be met in their -houses.</p> - -<p>"If I did not go among my flock, I could not put my -finger upon the festering spot," he said. "I am a student -of humanity. If Lord Avebury could devote his days to -watching bees and wasps, do you wonder that I am interested -in watching my fellow-creatures? A professional -beauty affords a nobler scope for observation than a queen -bee; a gambler on the stock exchange offers more points -of interest than the industrious ant. If insects are wonderful, -is not the man or the woman who hazards eternal bliss -for the trivial pleasures of a London season a creature infinitely -more incomprehensible? And if, while I watch -and listen, I can discover where these creatures are assailable, -if I can find some penetrable spot in their armour -of pride, I may be able to preach to them with better -chance of being heard."</p> - -<p>Father Cyprian was a conspicuous figure in that crowd -of pretty women and "nice boys." Tall, even among -guardsmen, he held himself like a soldier. He had a fair -complexion, light brown hair, and blue eyes. A Saxon of -the finest Saxon type, and coming of a family whose -genealogical tree had put forth its earliest branches before -the Heptarchy. It was the consciousness of superior race, -perhaps, that made his fashionable flock tolerant of his -stinging denunciation and unmeasured scorn of vice and -folly in high places. Everything relating to him was -superior. His vestments were superb, his chapel was a -thing of beauty. The genius of a Bossuet would hardly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -have persuaded that world of the successful rich to listen -to a withering analysis of its vices and pettinesses from -the lips of some little Irish priest, reared in a hovel and -nourished on potatoes and potheen; but it bowed the -neck before Father Cyprian's good birth and grand -manner.</p> - -<p>Anglicans who met him in society, mostly in the houses -of the powerful or the rich, talked of him as a worldling; -but his own flock knew better. They knew that wherever -the brilliant Jesuit might be seen, however light his manner -or trivial his conversation, one deeply-seated purpose was -at the back of his mind, the making of proselytes, the -aggrandisement of his Church, that Invincible, Indestructible, -Incomparable, Supreme, and Unquestionable Power, -to which he had given the service and the devotion of his -whole being. If he went much among statesmen and rulers -it was because his Church wanted influence; if he cultivated -the friendship of millionaires it was because his -Church wanted money. For himself he wanted nothing, -for he had been born to independence; and though he -had given much of his fortune to the necessities of his -Order, his income was still ample for the only scheme of -life that was possible for him. He was not a man who -could have lived in sordid surroundings, though he could -go down into the nethermost depths of East-End poverty, -and give his days and nights to carrying the lamp of Faith -into dark places. He had a refinement of sense that -would have made squalor, or even shabby-genteel ugliness, -unbearable; and he had an ardent and artistic imagination -which made some touch of beauty in his surroundings as -needful to him as fresh air and cold water.</p> - -<p>The attention of both these men, the priest and the man-about-town, -was concentrated upon the lady of the house, -who, just at this moment, was taking very little notice of -either of them. She was surrounded by the smartest and -prettiest women in the room, chief amongst them Lady -Susan Amphlett, who was always to be found near Vera -at these friendly tea-parties.</p> - -<p>Vera let Lady Susan and the other women do almost all -the talking. She sat looking straight before her, dreamily -silent, amidst the animated chatter about trivialities that -had ceased to interest her.</p> - -<p>She was still as delicately slender as she had been six<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -years ago at San Marco, when the parsons had called her -ethereal, and the spinsters had called her half-starved; -but those six years had made a transformation, and she -was not the same Vera.</p> - -<p>She had tasted of the Tree of Knowledge. She had -enjoyed all the amusements and excitements that great -cities can give to rich and beautiful women. She had -been flattered and followed in Rome and Paris and London, -had been written about in the <cite>New York Herald</cite>, and had -been the fashion everywhere; a person whom not to -know was to confess oneself as knowing nobody and going -nowhere. Indeed, it was a kind of confession of outsiderism -not to be able to talk of Madame Provana as -"Vera."</p> - -<p>She had accepted the position with a kind of languid -acquiescence, taking all things for granted, after the first -year, when everything amused her. In this sixth year of -marriage, and wealth without limit, she was tired of everything, -except the society of authors and painters and -actors and musicians—the people who appealed to her -imagination. She had inherited from her father the yearning -for things that earth cannot give—the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">au delà</i>, the light -that never was on sea or land. "The glory and the -dream."</p> - -<p>She admired and respected Father Cyprian Hammond, -and she liked him to talk to her, though she could divine -that steadfast purpose at the back of his head, the determination -to bring her into the Papal fold. She argued -with him from her Anglican standpoint, and pleaded for -that <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">via media</i> that might reconcile old things with new; -and she felt the weakness of her struggle against that -skilled dialectician; but she refused to be converted. -Half the pleasure of her intimacy with this Eagle of Monk -Street would be lost if she surrendered, and had to exchange -the struggle for the attitude of passive submission.</p> - -<p>His arguments sometimes went near to convincing her; -but the Faith he offered did not satisfy those vague longings -for the something beyond. It was too simple, too matter-of-fact -to arrest her imagination. It offered little more -than she had already in the ritual of her own Church. -The change did not seem worth while.</p> - -<p>She looked up suddenly in the midst of the silvery treble -talk about theatres and frocks.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Claude, do you ever keep a promise?" she asked.</p> - -<p>"Always, I hope."</p> - -<p>"You promised to bring Mr. Symeon to see me."</p> - -<p>"Did I?"</p> - -<p>"Indeed you did. Ages ago."</p> - -<p>"Ages?"</p> - -<p>"Well, nearly three weeks. It was at the Helstones' -dinner."</p> - -<p>"Three weeks. Mr. Symeon is not at the call of the -first comer."</p> - -<p>There was a little cry from the women, who had left off -talking in order to listen.</p> - -<p>"He calls Madame Provana the first comer!" exclaimed -the youngest and pertest of the circle.</p> - -<p>"I call myself the first comer where Symeon is concerned. -I am not one of his initiated. I belong to the -outer herd of wretches who eat butcher's meat and attach -importance to dinner. Mr. Symeon condescends when he -gives me half an hour of a life that is spent mostly in the -clouds."</p> - -<p>"I would give worlds to know him," said Lady Susan. -"I have taken his quarterly, <cite>The Unseen</cite>, from the -beginning, His articles upon the spiritual life are adorable, -but I am not conceited enough to pretend to understand -him."</p> - -<p>"If people understood him, he would be less admired," -said Rutherford.</p> - -<p>"What does he do?" asked the youngest and flippantest. -"I am always hearing of Mr. Symeon and his spook magazine; -but what does he do? Is it thought-reading, slate-writing, -materialisation? Does he float up to the -ceiling, as Home did? My Grannie swears she saw him, -yes, positively floating, in that large house by the Marble -Arch."</p> - -<p>"Mr. Symeon does nothing," replied Claude. "He is -the high priest of the Transcendental. He talks."</p> - -<p>"How disappointing!"</p> - -<p>"Most people find that enough."</p> - -<p>"They are bored?"</p> - -<p>"No; they are fascinated. Mr. Symeon is more -magnetic than Gladstone was. He must have stolen those -green eyes of his from a mermaid. His disciples get nothing -but his eyes and his talk; and they believe in him as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -Orientals believe in Buddha. I have heard people say -he <em>is</em> Buddha—Gautama's latest incarnation."</p> - -<p>"That's rather lovely!" exclaimed Miss Flippant. "I -would give worlds to see him."</p> - -<p>"We'll excuse you the worlds, even if you owned them," -said Claude in his lazy voice. "You may see him within -the next ten minutes, unless he is a promise-breaker. I had -not forgotten your commands, Vera. I spent half a -day in hunting Symeon, and did not leave him till he -promised to come to tea with you. I believe tea is the -most material refreshment he takes."</p> - -<p>"You are ever so much better than I thought you," -said Vera, with one look up at Rutherford, before she -turned to gaze at the distant door, heedless of the talk -that went on round her, until after some minutes a servant -announced "Mr. Symeon."</p> - -<p>Claude Rutherford left his station by the mantelpiece -and went to meet the visitor.</p> - -<p>The spacious rooms were mostly in shadow by this time, -all the lamps being so tempered by artistic shades in sea-green -silk that they gave faint patches of colour rather -than light, and some people started at the sound of Mr. -Symeon's name, almost as if they had seen a ghost.</p> - -<p>It was a name that all cultured people knew, even when -they did not know the man. Francis Symeon was a leader -in the spiritual world, and there were no depths in the -mysteries of occultism, from ancient Egypt to modern -India, that he had not sounded. He was the editor and -proprietor of <cite>The Unseen</cite>, a quarterly magazine, to which -only the most advanced thinkers were allowed to contribute—a -magazine which the subscriber opened with a thrill -of anticipation, wondering what new revelation of the -"life beyond" he was to find in those shining, hot-pressed -pages, where the matter was often more dazzling than -the gloss on the paper.</p> - -<p>Vera watched with eager interest and a faint flush -of pleasure as Rutherford and Symeon came through the -shadows towards her.</p> - -<p>"You see I have kept my promise, and here is Mr. -Symeon, to answer some of those far-reaching questions -with which you often bewilder my poor brain."</p> - -<p>Vera left her table, where there had come a sudden lull -in the soprano voices as Mr. Symeon drew near—a pause in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -the discussion of frocks and hats in the new comedy at -the St. James's. She stood up to talk to Mr. Symeon, -telling him how she had been reading the last number of -<cite>The Unseen</cite>, and more especially his own contribution, -an essay on the other life, as understood by Tennyson and -Browning.</p> - -<p>In that half-light which makes all beautiful things more -beautiful, she had a spirit look, and might have seemed -the materialisation of Mr. Symeon's thought, as she stood -before him, fragile and slender, with glimmering lamplight -on her cloud of brown hair, and on the simple white gown, -of some transparent fabric, loosely draped over satin -that flashed through its fleecy whiteness. Her only -ornament was a necklace of <em>aqua marina</em> in a Tiffany -setting.</p> - -<p>"She wears that thing when she wants to look like a -mermaid," Miss Pert whispered to her pal.</p> - -<p>"No; she wears it to remind us that she has some of -the finest jewels in London, and that she despises them," -said the pal, who had reached that critical age which is -described as "getting on," and was inclined to take a sour -view of a young woman who had married millions.</p> - -<p>Symeon and Vera talked for some time, she with -a suppressed eagerness—earnest, almost impassioned; -Symeon grave and reserved, yet obviously interested.</p> - -<p>"We cannot talk of these things in a crowd," he said. -"If I had known you had a party——"</p> - -<p>"It is not a party. People come every afternoon in -the winter, when there is not much for them to do; but -if you will be so kind as to come early some day, at three -o'clock, for instance, I will not be at home to anybody, -unless it were Claude, who loves to hear you talk."</p> - -<p>"I will come to-morrow," said Symeon; and then, -with briefest adieu, he walked slowly through the crowd, -acknowledging the greetings of a few intimates with a -distant bend of his iron-grey head, and walking amongst the -pretty faces and smart frocks as he might have done -through so many sparrows pecking on a lawn.</p> - -<p>Lady Susan came to Vera, excited and eager.</p> - -<p>"Why didn't you keep him? I wanted you to introduce -him to me. I have been pining to know him. I -read every line of his Review. He is wonderful! I -believe he has secrets that ward off age. You must ask<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -me to meet him—at luncheon—a party of four, with -Claude. Claude has been horrid about him."</p> - -<p>"I value his friendship too much to introduce him to -Tom, Dick, and Harry," said Claude. "Vera and he are -elective affinities."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Father Cyprian and Claude Rutherford left the house -together.</p> - -<p>"May I walk with you as far as your lodgings?" Claude -asked.</p> - -<p>"By all means, and come in with me, if you can. It is -early yet, and I have long wanted a talk with you."</p> - -<p>"Serious?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, even serious. When one cares as much for a -young man as I do for you, there is always room for -seriousness. You look alarmed, but there is no occasion. -I don't preach long sermons, especially not to young men."</p> - -<p>They walked to the end of the street in silence. They -were old friends; and though Claude was the most lax -among Papists, Cyprian Hammond had never lost hope -of bringing him back to the fold. He was emotional and -imaginative, and he had a heart. Sooner or later there -would come a day when he would want the utmost the -Church could do for him.</p> - -<p>"You can't wonder if I am a little afraid," Claude said -presently. "There has been some hard hitting from your -pulpit within the last year."</p> - -<p>"You have heard my moralities—I won't call them -sermons?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, I have heard; but I doubt if I have enjoyed -your diatribes as much as the other sinners, especially the -women of your flock. They love to be told they are a -shade worse than Semiramis, if you will only imply that -they are as fascinating as Cleopatra."</p> - -<p>"Poor worms," said the priest with a long-drawn sigh. -"They are such very poor creatures. Even their sins -are petty."</p> - -<p>"Would you prefer them if they were poisoners, like -the Borgia?"</p> - -<p>"No; but I might despise them less. And I should -have more hope of their repentance. These creatures -don't know they are sinners. They gamble, they squander -their husbands' fortunes, shipwreck their sons' inheritance;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -and when the domestic ship goes down they are injured -innocents, surprised to find that 'things are so expensive.' -I have talked with them—not in the confessional—and -I have sounded the shallows of their silly minds—there -are no depths, unless it were a depth of self-love. They -come to Mass, and sit fanning themselves and sniffing -eau-de-Cologne, while I expostulate with them and try -to turn their thoughts into new channels. And then -they get tired of the creed in which they were brought -up; tired of hearing hard things, and of tasting wormwood -instead of honey."</p> - -<p>"Is modern London so like Babylon?"</p> - -<p>"I doubt if the city with a hundred gates was much -worse. And your substitutes for the Church you have -deserted—your Christian Science, Pragmatism, Humanism, -your letters from the dead, your philanthropy—expressed -in oranges and buns for workhouse children, and in fashionable -bazaars; charities that overlap each other and -pauperise more than they relieve; and all for want of -that one tremendous Central Power that could harmonise -every effort, bring every man and woman's work into line -and rule. In the history of God's chosen people, the one -unpardonable sin was the worship of strange gods. Their -Creator knew that religion was the only basis of conduct, -and that the worshippers of evil gods must themselves become -infamous. But this is the age of strange gods. You -all have your groves and high places, your Baal and Astarte, -your Kali or your Siva, your shrines upon mountain tops -and under green trees, your Buddha, your Nietzsche, your -Spinoza, your Comte. You run after the teachers of -fantastic things, the high priests of materialism. You -worship anywhere but in your church; you believe anything -but the faith of your forefathers."</p> - -<p>They were at Father Cyprian's door by this time, in one -of those wide streets west of Portland Place, and north of -the world of fashion. Streets that may still be described -as quiet, save for the ceaseless roar of traffic in the Marylebone -Road, a sound diminished by distance, the ebb and -flow of life in an artery of the great city. It was in a street -parallel with this that the great Cardinal who defied the -law of England had lived and died half a century before.</p> - -<p>They had been walking slowly through the thickening -mist of a fine November evening, a grey vapour, across which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -street lamps and lighted windows glimmered in faint -flashes of gold, an atmosphere that Claude Rutherford -loved, all the more, perhaps, because he had never been -able to satisfy himself in painting it.</p> - -<p>"What is the good of trying, when one must always fall -short of Turner?" he had said to himself in those younger -and more eager days when he still tried to do things.</p> - -<p>Father Cyprian had talked with a kind of suppressed -passion as they walked through solitary streets, and now -he laughed lightly, as he turned the key in his door.</p> - -<p>"You have had the sermon after all," he said.</p> - -<p>"It didn't touch me. I am not an extravagant, bridge-playing -woman, and I worship no strange god."</p> - -<p>"I shall touch you presently; your withers are not -unwrung."</p> - -<p>"Suppose I say good night and give you the slip."</p> - -<p>"You won't do that. I was your father's friend."</p> - -<p>That was enough. Claude bent his head a little, as if -at a sacred name, and followed the priest up the uncarpeted -stone staircase to a large room on the first floor—the -conventional London drawing-room, with its three -long windows and chilling white linen blinds.</p> - -<p>But, except the shape of the room and the white blinds, -there was nothing to offend the eye that looked for beauty. -The floor was cheaply covered with sea-blue felt, which -echoed the colouring of the sea-blue walls, and the central -space was occupied by a massive knee-hole desk of ebony, -inlaid with ivory, evidently of Italian workmanship, and -picturesque enough to please without being a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chef d'œuvre</i>. -There were only two objects of art in the spacious room, but -each was supreme after its kind. A carved ivory crucifix -of considerable size, mounted on black velvet, was centred -on the wall facing the windows; and over the marble -mantelpiece there hung a Holy Family by Fra Angelico. -These, which were exquisite, were the only ornaments -that Father Cyprian had given himself, in his ten years' -residence in this house, where this spacious sitting-room, -with a large bedroom for himself and a small room for his -servant, comprised all his accommodation.</p> - -<p>Six high-backed arm-chairs, covered with old stamped -leather, and a massive gate-legged table, black with age, -on which he dined, completed his furniture. To some -visitors the sparsely-furnished room might have seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -cold and cheerless; but there was an air of repose in its -simplicity that satisfied the artistic mind. It looked like -a room designed for prayer and meditation; not a room -for study, for the one bookcase, with its neat range of -theological works, would not have sufficed for the poorest -student. It looked like a room meant for solitude and -thought, and for only the most serious, the most confidential -conversation.</p> - -<p>"I have always a sense of rest when I come into this -room," Rutherford said, while Father Cyprian was lighting -the candles in a bronze candelabrum on his desk.</p> - -<p>"You should come here oftener, Claude. You might -make a retreat here once or twice a week. Sit on the bank -for a few hours, and let that tumultuous river of modern -life go by you, while you think of the land where there -is no tumult, only a divine repose, or an agony of regret. -When did you make your last confession, Claude?"</p> - -<p>"I have a bad memory, Father. Don't tax it too -severely."</p> - -<p>The priest was not to be satisfied by a flippant answer. -He pressed the question with authority.</p> - -<p>"What have I to confess? An empty, dissatisfied -soul, a useless life; no positive wickedness, only negative -worthlessness. I am not an infidel," Claude added -eagerly. "If I were an unbeliever, I would not presume -to claim your friendship. I should think it an insolence -to cross your threshold. I have been slack, I have fallen -into a languid acceptance of my own shortcomings."</p> - -<p>"You have fallen in love with another man's wife," -said the priest gravely. "That is the name of your -sin."</p> - -<p>The thin face paled ever so slightly, but there was no -indignant protest; indeed, the head drooped a little, as -if the sinner had whispered <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">mea culpa</i>.</p> - -<p>"I have never made love to her," he said in a low voice. -"But I am human, and can't help loving her."</p> - -<p>"You can help going to her house. You can help -hanging over her as she sits among her friends. When it -comes to making love the Rubicon is passed, and the -chances of retreat are as one in fifty. You are on the -downward slope, Claude. Every time you enter that -house you go there at the hazard of your soul."</p> - -<p>"She has so few real friends. She is alone among a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -crowd. She and I were friends as children, or at least -when she was a child. I should be a cur if I kept away -from her, when she needs my friendship, just because of -the risk to myself. I am too fond of her ever to hazard a -situation that would mean danger for her. I know how -much a woman in her position has to lose. She is not the -kind of woman who could pass through the furnace of the -divorce court, and hold up her head and be happy afterwards. -She is a creature of spirit, not of flesh. Passion -would never make amends to her for shame."</p> - -<p>"Yet, knowing this, you make yourself her intimate -companion!"</p> - -<p>"I shall never betray myself. She will never know what -you know. For her I am a feather-brained amateur of -life; interested in many things, caring for nothing, a -saunterer through the world, without much heart, and -without any serious purpose. She often scolds me for my -frivolity."</p> - -<p>"I admit that she has a certain childlike innocence -which might keep her unconscious of your feelings, till -the fatal moment in which you will fling principle, prudence, -honour to the winds and declare yourself her lover——"</p> - -<p>"That moment will never come. The day I feel myself -in danger I shall leave her for ever. In the meantime, if I -am essential to her happiness, I shall stop."</p> - -<p>"How can you be essential? She has crowds of friends, -and a husband who adores her."</p> - -<p>"A husband of fifty years of age, grave, silent, with his -mind concentrated upon international finance; a man -who is thinking of another Turkish loan while he sits -opposite her, with his stony eyes fixed upon space—a -man whose brain is a calculating machine and his heart -a handful of ashes."</p> - -<p>"Has she complained of him?"</p> - -<p>"Never; but things have leaked out. She was not -eighteen—little more than a child—when she married him. -She gave herself to him in a romantic impulse, admiring -his force of character, her heart touched by his affection -for a dying daughter. To be so loved by that strong -nature seemed to her enough for happiness. But that -was six years ago, and she has lived six years in the world. -The romance has gone out of her love. What can she -have in common with such a man?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p> - -<p>"The bond of marriage—his love, and her sense of -duty," answered the priest.</p> - -<p>"She has a keen sense of a wife's duty: she preaches -sermons upon her husband's goodness of heart, his fine -character; and she ends with a sigh, and regrets that for -some mysterious reason she has not been able to make him -happy."</p> - -<p>"She is too rich and too much indulged, and she is -without a saving creed. Poor child, I would give much -to save her from herself and from you."</p> - -<p>"Don't be afraid of me, Father. Men of my stamp -may be trusted. We are too feather-brained to be intense, -even in sin. Good night. I hear the jingle of glass and -silver, and I think it must be near your dinner-time. -Good night!"</p> - -<p>The priest gave him his hand, but not his blessing. That -was withheld for a better moment.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> -</div> - - -<p>When a woman's imagination, still young and ardent, -begins to find the things of earth as Hamlet found them, -"weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable," it is only natural -that she should turn with a longing mind to the life that -earth cannot give, the something unseen and mysterious -that certain gifted individuals have attributed to themselves -the power of seeing. Vera, after six years of -marriage, six years of unlimited wealth and unconscious -self-indulgence, had begun to discover that most things -were stale, and some things weary, and all things unprofitable; -and then, to a mind steeped in modern poetry -and modern romance, and the modern music that always -means something more than mere combinations of -harmonious sounds, there had come a yearning for the -higher life, the transcendental life that only the elect -can realise, and only the earth-weary can ardently desire.</p> - -<p>Francis Symeon was the philosopher to whom she -turned with unquestioning faith; for even those who had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -spoken lightly of his creed and of his reasoning faculty -had admitted that the man was essentially sincere, and -that the faith he offered his followers was for him as -impregnable as the rock of Holy Scripture.</p> - -<p>He was announced on the following day as the clock in -Vera's morning-room struck three, a punctuality so exceptional -as to seem almost uncanny, when compared with -the vague sense of time in the rest of her acquaintance. -She received him in a room where there was no fear of -interruption—her sanctuary, more library than boudoir, -where the books she loved, her poets and novelists and -philosophers, in the bindings she had herself invented, -filled her book-cases, alternating with black-and-white -portraits of the gods of her idolatry—Browning, Tennyson, -Byron, Scott, de Musset, Heine, Henry Irving, Gounod. -Only the dead had place there—the dead musician, the -dead poet, the dead actor. It was death that made them -beloved and longed for. They had gone from her reach -for ever; and it was this sense of something for ever lost -that made them adorable.</p> - -<p>Mr. Symeon looked round the walls with evident admiration.</p> - -<p>"I see you prefer the faces of the noble dead to water-colour -sketches and majolica plates," he said. "Divine -books, divine faces, those are the best companions a woman -can have."</p> - -<p>"I spend a good deal of my life in this room," Vera -answered. "I have no children. I suppose if I had I -should spend most of my time with them. I should not -have to choose my companions among the dead."</p> - -<p>"You have chosen them among the living," Mr. Symeon -answered in a voice that thrilled her. "Do you think that -Tennyson is dead? He who knew that the whole question -of religion hinges upon the after life: immortality or -a godless universe. Or Browning, who has gone to the -very core of religion, whose magnificent mind grasped -the highest and deepest in Divine love and Divine power? -Such spirits are unquenchable. This rag of mortality -upon which they hang must lie in the dust, but for the -elect death is only the release of the immaterial from the -material, the escape of the butterfly from the worm. -You have the assurance from the lips of Christ: God is -the God of the living; and for those whose existence on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -earth is only the apprenticeship to immortality, there is -no such thing as death."</p> - -<p>This was the chief article in Mr. Symeon's creed; hinted -at, but not formally stated in his contributions to the -magazine which he edited. He claimed immortality only -for the elect—for those in whom the spirit predominated -over the flesh. To Vera there was no new idea in his -exposition of faith. She had a feeling that she had always -known this, from the time she stood beside Shelley's -grave in the shadow of the Roman Cenotaph, and that other -grave under the hill, the resting-place of Shelley's Adonais. -The thought of corruption had been far from her mind, -albeit she knew that the heart of one poet and the wasted -form of the other were lying in the darkness below those -spring flowers on which her tears were falling, and it -was no surprise to her to hear a serious man of sixty years -of age declare his faith in the unbroken chain of life.</p> - -<p>"I saw that you were not one of those who scoff at -transcendental truths," Mr. Symeon said, after a few -moments' silence. "I read in your eyes last night that -you are one of us in spirit, though you may know nothing -of our creed. You must join our society."</p> - -<p>"Your society?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, Madame Provana. We are a company of friends -in the world of sense and in the world of spirit. The -majority of us have crossed the river. As corporal -substance they have ceased to be; their dwelling is in -the starlit spaces beyond Acheron. For the common herd -they are dead; but for us they are as vividly alive as -they were when they walked among the vulgar living, -and wore life's vesture of clay. They are nearer to us -since they have passed the gulf, and we understand them -as we never could while they wore the livery of earth. -They are our close companions. The veil that parted us -is rent, and we see them face to face."</p> - -<p>Vera listened in silence, and the grave, slow speech -went on without a break.</p> - -<p>"We have our meetings. We discuss the great -problems, the everlasting mysteries; we press forward -to the higher life. We are not afraid of being foolish, -romantic, illogical. We are prepared for contempt and -incredulity from the outside world; but for us, whose -minds have received the light from those other minds,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -who have been consoled in our sorrows, strengthened in -our faith by those influencing souls, there is nothing more -difficult in our creed than in that of Newman, who saw -behind each form of material beauty the light, the flower, -the living presence of an angel. The spirits of the -illustrious dead are our angels; and our communion with -them is the joy of our lives. We call ourselves simply -Us. Our chosen poets, philosophers, painters, musicians, -even the great actors of the past, those ardent spirits -in whom genius was unquenchable by death, men and -women whose minds were fire, and their corporal existence -of no account in the forces of their being: those who have -lived by the spirit and not by the flesh—all these are of -our company. These are the influencing souls who are our -companions in the silence and seclusion of our lives. Not -by the trumpery expedient of an alphabet rapped out -upon a table, or by the writing of an unguided pencil; -but by the communion of spirit with spirit, we feel those -other minds in converse with our own. They teach, -they exhort, they uplift us to their spirit world, sometimes -in hours of meditation, and sometimes in the closer communion -of dreams."</p> - -<p>"Are their voices heard—do they speak to you?" Vera -asked, deeply moved, her own voice trembling a little.</p> - -<p>"Only in dreams. Speech is material, and belongs to -the earthly machine. It is not from lip to ear, but from -mind to mind that the message comes."</p> - -<p>"And do they appear to you? Do you see them as -they were on earth?" Vera asked.</p> - -<p>The November twilight had filled the room with -shadow, and the face of the spiritualist, the sharply-cut -features, and hollow cheeks, and luminous grey-green -eyes, looked like the face of a ghost.</p> - -<p>"Only in dreams is it given to us to look upon the -disembodied great. We feel, and we know! That is -enough. But in some rare cases—where the earthly -vesture has worn to its thinnest tissue—where death has -set its seal upon the living, to one so divested of mortal -attributes, so marked for the spirit world, the vision may -be granted. Such an one may see."</p> - -<p>"You have known ...?" faltered Vera.</p> - -<p>"Yes, I knew such a case. In the final hour of an -ebbing life the chain of wedded love that death had broken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -was reunited, and the wife died with her last long gaze -turned to the vision of her husband. Her last word was -'reunited!'"</p> - -<p>Vera was strangely impressed. It was not easy for -the unbelieving to make a mock of Mr. Symeon's creed. -The force of his convictions, the ideas that he had cultivated -and brooded upon for the larger part of his life, -had so possessed the man, that even scoffers were sometimes -moved by his absolute sincerity, and found themselves, -as it were unawares, treating his theories almost seriously. -For Vera, in whom imagination was the greater part of -mind, there was no inclination to scoff, but rather a most -earnest desire that the spiritualist's creed might be justified -by her own experience, that it might be granted to her -to sit in the melancholy solitude of that room, with a -volume of Browning on her lap, and to feel that the poet -was near her, that an invisible spirit was breathing -enlightenment into her mind, as she read the dying words -of the beloved apostle in "A Death in the Desert," which -had been to her as a new gospel—and to know that when -she raised her eyes to the portrait on the wall, it was not -the dead, but the living upon whom she looked.</p> - -<p>This was involved in the creed of her Church—the -Communion of Saints.</p> - -<p>Were not the gifted, who had lived free from all the -grossness of clay, from the taint of earthly sin, worthy to -be numbered among the saints, and like them gifted with -perpetual life, perpetual fellowship with the faithful who -adored them?</p> - -<p>When he left the great, silent house Mr. Symeon knew -that he had made a proselyte. Though Vera had said -little, it was impossible to mistake the fervour with which -she had welcomed his revelation of the spirit world. Here -was a mind in want of new interests, a heart yearning for -something that the world could not give.</p> - -<p>She sat by the dying fire, in the gathering darkness, -long after her visitor had left her. Yes, this had been -her need of late—something to think of, something to -wish for. Her life—so over full of the things that women -desire, pomp and luxury, troops of friends, jewels and -fine clothes, the "too much" that money always brings -with it—had vacant spaces, and hours of vague depression, -in which the sense of loneliness became an aching pain.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Mario Provana's wife was the fashion. The prestige -for which some women strive and labour for years, -spending themselves and their husband's fortunes in the -strenuous endeavour, and having to confess themselves -failures at last, had been won by Vera without an effort. -Her husband's wealth had done much; her youth, and -the something rare and exceptional in her beauty, had -done more; but the Disbrowes had done the most of all. -With such material—a triple millionaire's wife in the first -bloom of her loveliness—the work had been easy; but -no one could deny that the Disbrowes had worked, and -might fairly congratulate themselves, as well as their -fair young cousin, (first, second, or third, as the case -might be) upon the result of their tactful efforts. All -Disbrowes were supposed to have tact, just as they had -arched insteps, and long, lean hands. It was as much -a mark of their race.</p> - -<p>From the day of Vera's return from her long Italian -honeymoon she found herself walled round and protected -by her mother's kindred. They came from all the points -of the compass. Lord Okehampton from his park in -North Devon, Lady Balgowrie from her castle in Aberdeenshire, -Lady Helstone from the Land's End. They came -unbidden, and overflowing with affection, but much too -tactful to be vulgarly demonstrative.</p> - -<p>"Poor Lady Felicia's foolish pride kept us all at a -distance," they told Vera; "but now that you are -emancipated, and your own mistress, I hope you will -let us be useful."</p> - -<p>From countesses down to hard-up spinsters, they all -said the same thing, and no one could accuse them of -"gush." They all announced themselves as worldlings, -pure and simple, and they made no professions.</p> - -<p>"You have made a great match, my dear," said Lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -Helstone, "and you have a great career before you, if -you are careful in the choice of your friends. That is the -essential point. One black sheep among your flock might -spoil all your chances. There are men about town that -my husband calls 'oilers'—they were called tigers when -my mother was young—and one of those in a new woman's -visiting list can wreck her. The creatures are intolerably -pushing, and don't rest till they can pose as <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">cavaliere -servente</i> or at least as <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">l'ami de la maison</i>."</p> - -<p>Vera welcomed this army of blood relations with amiability, -but without enthusiasm. She was ready to love -that one kind lady who had given her the only happy -holiday of her childhood, under whose hospitable roof -she had known Claude Rutherford; but the countesses -who had been unaware of her existence while she was a -dependant upon "poor Lady Felicia," could have no claim -upon her affection. Yet they and their belongings were -all pleasant people; and in that large and splendid house -which was to be her home in London, she found that -people were wanted.</p> - -<p>The emptiness of those spacious rooms, during the -long hours when her husband was at his offices in the -City, soon became appalling; and she was glad of the -lively aunts and cousins, and their following, who transformed -her drawing-rooms into a parrot house, both for -noise and brilliant colour, to say nothing of the aquiline -beaks that prevailed among the dowagers and elderly -bachelors. Once established as her relations—the distance -of some of the cousinship being ignored—they came as -often as Vera cared to ask them, and they brought all -the people whom Vera ought to know, the poets, and -novelists, and playwrights, who were all dying to know -the daughter of Lancelot Davis, that delightful poet -whom everybody loved and nobody envied. His fame -had increased since he had gone into the ground; and -his shade was now crowned with that belated fame which -is the aureole of the dead. They brought the newest -painting people, and the fashionable actors and actresses, -English or American, as well as that useful following of -"nice boys," who are as necessary in every drawing-room -as occasional chairs, or tables to hold tea-cups.</p> - -<p>Instigated by the Disbrowes, and with Mario Provana's -approval, Vera soon began that grand business of enter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>taining, -to which a triple millionaire's wife should indubitably -devote the greater part of her time, talent, and -energy. Countesses and countess-dowagers gave their -mornings to her, advising whom she should invite, and -how she should entertain. They instructed her in the -table of precedence as solemnly as if it had been the Church -Catechism, showed her how, in some rare concatenation, -a rule might be broken, as a past master of harmony -might, on occasion, allow himself the use of consecutive -fifths.</p> - -<p>They were never tired of extending Madame Provana's -knowledge of life as it is lived in the London that is -bounded on the south by Queen Anne's Gate and by -Portland Place on the north. They called it opening her -mind—and praised her for the intelligence with which -she mastered the social problems.</p> - -<p>Her husband was pleased to see her admired and -cherished, above all to see her happy; yet he could not -but feel some touch of disappointment when he looked -back upon those quiet afternoons in the olive woods at -San Marco, and the tea-parties of three in Lady Felicia's -sitting-room, and remembered how he had thought he -was marrying a friendless and unappreciated girl, who -would be all the world to him, and for whom he must be -all the world, in a long future of wedded love.</p> - -<p>He thought he was marrying a friendless orphan, whose -divine inheritance was poetry and beauty; and he found -that he had married the Disbrowes.</p> - -<p>They were all terribly friendly. They never hinted at -his inferior social status, his vulgar level as a tradesman, -only trading in money instead of goods. They behaved -as if, by marrying their cousin, he had become a Disbrowe. -Lady Helstone, Lady Balgowrie, Lord and Lady Okehampton -treated him with affection without <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">arrière -pensée</i>. The most that Okehampton, as a man of the -world, wanted from the great financier was his advice -about the investment of his paltry surplus, so trifling an -amount that he blushed to allude to the desire in such -exalted company.</p> - -<p>But now a time had come when Vera needed no counsel -from the Disbrowes, and when she was beginning to treat -those social obligations about which she, as a tyro, had -laboured diligently, with a royal carelessness. Her aunts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -complained that she had grown casual, and that she had -even gone very near offending some of their particular -friends, people whom to have on her visiting list ought to -have been the crown of her life.</p> - -<p>Vera apologised.</p> - -<p>"I know far too many people," she said; "my house is -becoming a caravanserai."</p> - -<p>She said "my house" unconsciously—with the deep-seated -knowledge that all those splendid rooms and the -splendid crowds that filled them meant very little in her -husband's life.</p> - -<p>Six years of the "too much" had changed Lady -Felicia's granddaughter. The things that money can buy -had ceased to charm; the people whom in her first season -she had thought it a privilege to know had sunk into the -dismal category of bores. Almost everybody was a bore; -except a few men of letters, who had known her father, -or who loved his verses. For those she had always a -welcome; and she was proud when they told her that -she was her father's daughter. Her eyes, her voice were -his, these enthusiasts told her. She was a creature of -fire and light, as he was.</p> - -<p>After three or four years of pleasure in trivial things, -she had grown disdainful of all delights, except those of -the mind and the imagination. The opera, or the theatre -when Shakespeare was acted, always charmed her, but -for the olla podrida of music and nonsense that most -people cared for she had nothing but scorn. She never -missed a fine concert or a picture show, but she broke -half her engagements to evening parties, or appeared for -a quarter of an hour and vanished before her hostess had -time to introduce the new arrivals, American or continental, -who were dying to know her.</p> - -<p>The general impression was that she gave herself airs: -but they were airs that harmonised with her fragile beauty, -the something ethereal that distinguished her from other -women.</p> - -<p>"If any stout, florid creature were to behave like Madame -Provana, she would be cut dead," people told Vera's familiar -friend, Lady Susan Amphlett.</p> - -<p>Lady Susan pleaded her friend's frail constitution as -an excuse for casual behaviour.</p> - -<p>"She is all nerves, and suffers agonies from ennui. Her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -father was consumptive, and her mother was a fragile -creature who faded away after three years of a happy -married life. It was a marriage of romance and beauty. -Davis and his wife were both lovely; but they had no -stamina. Vera has no stamina."</p> - -<p>Lady Felicia had been lying more than a year in the -family vault in Warwickshire. Her last years had been -the most prosperous and comfortable years of her life, and -the vision of the future that had smiled upon her in the -golden light above the jutting cliff of Bordighera had been -amply realised by the unmeasured liberality of her granddaughter's -husband. Before Vera's honeymoon was over, -the shabby lodgings in the dull, unlovely street had been -exchanged for a spacious flat in a red brick sky-scraper -overlooking Regent's Park. Large windows, lofty ceilings, -a southern aspect, and the very newest note in decoration -and upholstery had replaced the sunless drawing-room -and the Philistine walnut furniture, and for those last -years the Disbrowe clan ceased to talk of Captain Cunningham's -widow as poor Lady Felicia. What more could -any woman want of wealth, than to be able to draw upon -the purse of a triple millionaire? As everything in -Lady Felicia's former surroundings, her shifting camp -of nearly twenty years, had been marked with the broad -arrow of poverty, every detail of this richly feathered -nest of her old age bore the stamp of riches; and the -Disbrowes, who knew the price of things, could see that -Mario Provana had treated his wife's relation with princely -generosity.</p> - -<p>Once more Lady Felicia's diamonds, those last relics -of her youth, to which she had held through all her -necessitous years, were to be met in the houses of the -fashionable and the great; and Lady Felicia herself, in a -sumptuous velvet gown, silvery hair dressed by a fashionable -artist, emerged from retirement in a perfect state -of preservation, having the advantage by a decade of -giddy dowagers who had never missed a season.</p> - -<p>The giddy dowagers looked at her through their <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">face -à main</i>, and laughed about Lady Felicia's "resurrection."</p> - -<p>"She looks as if she had been kept in cotton-wool and -put to bed at ten o'clock every night," they said.</p> - -<p>Grannie enjoyed that Indian summer of her life, and -was grateful.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p> - -<p>"You have married a prince," she told Vera, "and if -you ever slight him or behave badly, you will deserve -to come to a bad end."</p> - -<p>Vera protested that she knew her husband's value, and -was not ungrateful.</p> - -<p>"I want to make him happy," she said.</p> - -<p>"That is easy enough," retorted Grannie. "You -have only to love him as he deserves to be loved."</p> - -<p>"Was that so easy?" Vera wondered sadly.</p> - -<p>It seemed to her that, by no fault of hers, there had -come a difference in her relations with her husband. He -was always kind to her, but he was farther from her than -in the first year—the Italian year—which, to look back -upon, was still the happiest of her married life. He was -absorbed in a business that needed strenuous labour and -unflagging care. He had told her that it was not his -own interests alone that he had to guard; but the interests -of other people. There were thousands of helpless people -who would suffer by his loss of fortune, or his loss of prestige. -The pinnacle upon which the house of Provana stood was -the strong rock of a multitude. A certain anxiety was -therefore inevitable throughout his business life. He could -never be the holiday husband, sharing all a wife's trivial -pleasures, interested in all the nothings that make the -sum of an idle woman's existence.</p> - -<p>Vera accepted the inevitable, and it was only when -she began to think the best people rather boring, that -she discovered how the distance had widened between -herself and her husband. Without a dissentient word, -without a single angry look, they had come to be one of -those essentially modern couples whose loveless unions -Father Cyprian deplored.</p> - -<p>She thought the blame was with Mario Provana. He -had ceased to care for her. Just as she had grown weary -of her troops of friends, her husband had wearied of the -wife he had chosen after a week's courtship.</p> - -<p>"He thought he was in love, but he could not really -have cared for me," she told herself. "His heart was -empty and desolate after the loss of his daughter, and he -took me because I was young and had been Giulia's -friend."</p> - -<p>This was how Vera reasoned, sitting in her lonely -sanctuary, while on the other side of the wall there was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -man of mature age, a man with a proud temper and a -passionate heart, a man who had endured slights in his -youth, whose first marriage had ended in disappointment, -the crushing discovery that the beautiful girl who had been -given to him by a noble and needy father had sacrificed -her inclinations for the sake of her family, and had never -loved him. She had been faithful, and she had endured his -love. That was all. And in those last years, when disease -had laid a withering hand upon her beauty, and when the -world seemed far off, and when only her husband's love -stood between her and death, she had learnt the value of -a good man's devotion, and had loved him a little in return. -He had suffered the disillusions of that first union. Yet -again, after many years, he had staked his happiness upon -a single chance, and had taken a girl of eighteen to his -heart, in a state of exaltation that was more like a dream -than sober reality. He had lavished upon this unsophisticated -girl all the force of strong feelings long held in check. -At last, at last, in the maturity of manhood, the love that -had been denied to his youth was being given to him in -full measure. He could not doubt that she loved him. -That innocent, unconscious love, trusting as the love of -children, revealed itself in tones and looks that he could -not mistake. Before he asked her to be his wife he was -sure that she loved him; but after six years of marriage -he was no longer sure of anything, except that his wife -was the fashion, and that her Disbrowe relations were -innumerable. He was sure of nothing about this girl -whom he had clasped to his breast in a rapture of triumphant -love, on the hill above the Mediterranean. Year after -year of their married life had carried her farther away from -him. Who could say precisely what made the separation? -He only knew that the years which should have tightened -the bond had loosened it; and that he could no longer -recognise his child-wife of their Roman honeymoon in the -fragile <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennuyée</i> whom Society had chosen to adore.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> -</div> - - -<p>"Well, now your whim has been gratified, I should like -to know what you think of Francis Symeon?" Claude -Rutherford asked, as he put down his hat in Vera's -sanctum, the day after her conference with the high priest -of occultism.</p> - -<p>The question was his only greeting. He slipped into the -low and spacious chair by the hearth, and seemed to lose -himself in it, while he waited for a reply. He had the -air of being perfectly at home in the room, with no idea -that he could possibly be unwelcome. He came and -went in Madame Provana's house with a lazy insouciance -that many people would have taken for indifference. Only -the skilled reader of men would have detected the hidden -fire under that outward serenity of the attractive man, -who flirts with any attractive woman of his acquaintance, -and cares for none.</p> - -<p>"I think he is wonderful."</p> - -<p>"And you believe in him?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, I believe in him, because his ideas only give form -and substance to the thoughts that have haunted me ever -since I began to think."</p> - -<p>"Grisly thoughts?"</p> - -<p>"No, Claude; happy thoughts. When I first read my -father's poetry and began to think about him—in my dull -grey room in Grannie's lodgings—I had a feeling that he -was near me. He was there; but behind the veil. When -I read 'In Memoriam' the feeling grew stronger, and I -knew that death is not the end of love. There was nothing -that shocked or startled me in what Mr. Symeon told me -yesterday."</p> - -<p>"About 'Us,' the spiritual club, in which the dead and -the living are members on the same footing? The club -that elects, or selects, Confucius or Browning one day, -and Lady Fanny Ransom—mad Lady Fanny as they -call her—the next?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I saw nothing to ridicule in a companionship of lofty -minds. But you know more about the society than I -do. Perhaps you are a member?"</p> - -<p>Claude answered first with a light gay laugh, and then -in his most languid voice.</p> - -<p>"Not I! I am of the earth earthy, sensual, sinful. If -I went to one of their meetings I should have to go disguised -as a poodle. Lady Fanny owns a fine Russian, -that has a look of Mephisto, though I believe he is purely -canine."</p> - -<p>"Tell me all you know about their meetings."</p> - -<p>"Imagine a Quakers' meeting, with the female members -in Parisian frocks and hats—a large room at the back of -Symeon's chambers in the 'Albany.' It was once a -fashionable editor's library, smelling of Russia leather, -and gay with Zansdorf's bindings—but it is now the -abode of shadow, 'where glowing embers through the -room, teach light to counterfeit a gloom.' And there the -congregation sits in melancholy silence, till somebody, -Lady Fanny or another, begins to say things that have -been borne in upon her from Shakespeare or Browning, or -Marlowe or Schopenhauer; or her favourite bishop, if -she is pious. They wait for inspiration as the Quakers do. -I am told Lady F. is tremendous. She is strong upon -politics, and is frankly socialistic; she has communications -from Karl Marx and Fourier, George Eliot and Comte. -Her inspiration takes the widest range, and moves her to -the wildest speech; but she is greatly admired. They -never have a blank day when she is there."</p> - -<p>"I should like to hear her. I know she is eccentric; -but she is immensely clever, and she seems to have -read everything worth reading, in half a dozen languages."</p> - -<p>"She crams her expansive brain with the best books; -but I am told she occasionally puts them in upside down, -and the author's views came out topsy-turvy. You are of -imagination all compact, Vera; but I should be sorry -to see you lapsing into Fannytude."</p> - -<p>"You scoff at everything. There is nothing serious -for you in this world or the next."</p> - -<p>"Which next world? There are so many. Symeon's -for instance, and Father Hammond's. What could be -more diverse than those? I have thought very little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -about the undiscovered country. But you must not say -I am not serious about something in this world."</p> - -<p>"I cannot imagine what that something is."</p> - -<p>"I hope you will never know. If fact, you are never to -know."</p> - -<p>His earnestness startled her. When a man's dominant -note is persiflage any touch of grave feeling is impressive. -Vera was silent—and they sat opposite each other for a -few moments, she watching the rise and fall of a blue flame -in the heap of logs, he watching her face as the blue light -flashed upon it for an instant and then left it dark.</p> - -<p>It was a face worth watching. She had her mermaid -look this evening, and her eyes—ordinarily dark grey—looked -as green as her sea-water necklace.</p> - -<p>"How is Provana?" he asked at last; an automatic -question, indicating faintest interest in the answer.</p> - -<p>"Oh, he is very well; but I am afraid he is worried. -He stays longer in the City than he used to stay, and he -is very grave and silent when we dine alone."</p> - -<p>"What would you do if the great house of Provana -were to go down like a scuttled ship? Would you stick -to a bankrupt husband—renounce London and all its -pomps and vanities—give up this wilderness of a house -and all the splendid things in it?"</p> - -<p>"Can you suppose the loss of money would change my -feeling for him? If you can think that you must think I -married him because he was rich."</p> - -<p>"And didn't you?"</p> - -<p>"I hate you for the question. When Mario asked me -to be his wife I had not a thought of his wealth. I knew -that he was a good man, and I was proud of his love."</p> - -<p>"But you were not in love with him?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know what you mean. I loved him for his -noble character. I was proud of his love."</p> - -<p>"That is not being in love, Vera. A woman who is in -love does not care a jot for her lover's character. She -loves him all the better, perhaps, because he is a scoundrel—the -last of the last—the off-scouring. There were -women in Rome who doted upon Cæsar Borgia; women -who knew that he was a poisoner—take my word for it. -You liked Provana because he was your first lover, and -you were tired of a year in year out <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i> with -Grannie."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p> - -<p>"You know nothing about it. If he were to lose his -fortune to-morrow I think I should be rather glad. We -could live in Italy. Poverty would bring us nearer together—as -we were in our honeymoon year. We should -have plenty to live upon with my settlement."</p> - -<p>She rose and moved towards the door.</p> - -<p>"It is nearly five, and there will be people coming," -she said.</p> - -<p>The door opened as she spoke, and Lady Susan Amphlett -looked in.</p> - -<p>"Aren't you coming, Vera? There is a mob already, -and people want their tea. What are you two talking -about, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">entre chien et loup</i>? You look as weird as Mr. -Symeon, Claude."</p> - -<p>"We were talking of Symeon, when Vera began to -worry about the people downstairs, who are not half so -interesting."</p> - -<p>"I should think not. Mr. Symeon is thrilling. To -know him is like what it must have been to be intimate -with Simon Forman or Dr. Dee. I would give worlds to -belong to his society. It is quite the smart thing to do. -The members give themselves no end of airs in a quiet -way."</p> - -<p>Lady Susan would have stood in the doorway talking -in her crisp and rapid way for a quarter of an hour, oblivious -of the people in the drawing-room; but Vera slipped a -hand through her arm, and they went downstairs together, -Susan talking all the way.</p> - -<p>"Fanny Ransom has just come in, with her girl—not -out yet, but ages old in knowing what she oughtn't to -know. How can a woman like Fanny, eaten up with -spiritualism, look after a daughter? They say she went -to Paris last winter on purpose to attend a Black Mass."</p> - -<p>"The not-out daughter?" asked Claude.</p> - -<p>"No, the mother; but she told the girl all about it, -and the minx raves about the devil—and says she would -rather be initiated than presented next year."</p> - -<p>"Lady Fanny had better take care, or she will be expelled -from Us. I don't think Symeon would approve -of the Black Mass. His philosophy is all light. Light and -darkness are his good and evil."</p> - -<p>Claude spoke in an undertone, as they were in the room -by this time, but he ran small risk of being overheard in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> -place where everybody seemed to be talking and nobody -listening.</p> - -<p>Lady Fanny was the centre of a group, her large brown -eyes flashing, her voice the loudest, a tall, commanding -figure in a black and gold gown, and a black beaver hat -with long ostrich feathers and a diamond buckle, a hat that -suggested Rupert of the Rhine rather than a modern -matron.</p> - -<p>Her girl stood a little way off, with three other not-outs, -listening to her mother's "balderdash" with unsuppressed -mockery.</p> - -<p>"Isn't she too killing?" this dutiful child exclaimed, -in a rapture of contemptuous amusement, and then she -and her satellites bounced down upon the most luxurious -ottoman within reach, and employed themselves in disparaging -criticism of the company generally—their dress, -demeanour, and social status, with much whispering and -giggling—happily unobserved by grown-ups, who all had -their own interesting subjects to talk about.</p> - -<p>Lady Fanny was deserted in favour of Vera, who, at -the tea-table, became the focus of everybody's attention. -At the beginning she had taken a childish pleasure in -pouring out tea for her friends, rejoicing in the exquisite -china, the old-world silver, glittering in the blue light of -the spirit lamps, the flowers, and beauteous surroundings; -so different from the scanty treasures of shabby-gentility—the -dinted silver, worn thin with long use, the relics of a -Swansea tea-service with many a crack and rivet—to -which her youth had been restricted. She performed the -office automatically nowadays, oppressed with the languor -that hangs over those who are tired of everything, most -especially the luxury and beauty they once longed for. -One can understand that in the reign of our Hanoverian -kings it was just this state of mind which made the wits -and beauties eager for a window over against Newgate—to -see a row of murdering pirates hanging against the -morning sky. Nothing could be too ghastly or grim for -exhausted souls in want of a sensation.</p> - -<p>The afternoon droppers-in had long become a weariness -to Madame Provana, yet as her fashion had depended -much upon her accessibility, she could not shut her door -upon people who considered themselves obliging when they -used her drawing-room as a rather superior club.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p> - -<p>Claude Rutherford slipped out of the room imperceptibly, -eluding the people who wanted to talk to him -with the agility of a vanishing harlequin. He had another -visit to pay before his evening engagements, an almost -daily visit.</p> - -<p>There was just one person in the world for whom he, -who had left off caring for people or things, was known to -care very much. In expatiating upon the blemishes -in an agreeable young man's character, people often concluded -with:</p> - -<p>"But he is a model son. He adores that old woman -in Palace Place."</p> - -<p>It was to the old woman in Palace Place that Claude -was going this November afternoon, and walking briskly -through the clear, cold grey, he knew as well what the old -woman was doing as if he had been gifted with second -sight.</p> - -<p>She was sitting in her large, low chair, with her table -and exquisite little tea-service—his gift—at her elbow, -and with her eyes fixed on the dial of the Sèvres clock on -the mantelpiece, while her heart beat in time to the ticking -of the seconds, and he knew that if he were but ten minutes -later than usual those minutes were long enough for the -maternal mind to visualise every form of accident that -can happen to a young man about town.</p> - -<p>Nobody talked of "poor Mrs. Rutherford," or pitied -her widowed solitude, as they had pitied Lady Felicia. -The fact that she had her own house in a fashionable -quarter, and a handsome income, made all the difference.</p> - -<p>The house was not spacious, but it was old—an Adams -house—and one of the prettiest in London, for whatever -had been done to it, after Adams, had been done with -taste and discretion. Much of the furniture was of the -same date as the house, and all that was more recent was -precious after its kind, and had been bought when precious -things were easier to buy than they are now. And Mrs. -Rutherford was as perfect as her surroundings—a slim, -pale woman, dressed in black, and wearing the same -widow's cap which she had put on in sorrow and anguish -fifteen years before—and which harmonised well with the -long oval face and banded brown hair, lightly streaked -with grey. She was a quiet person, and entertained few -visitors except those of her own blood, or connections by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -marriage; but the name of those being legion, nobody -called her inhospitable. Altogether she was a -mother whom no well-bred son need be ashamed of -loving.</p> - -<p>Once, upon his friend saying something to this effect, -Claude had turned upon the man fiercely:</p> - -<p>"I should have loved her as well if she had been a -beggar in the streets, and had hung about the doors of -public-houses with me in her arms. To me she is not -Mrs. Rutherford, but just the sweetest, tenderest mother -on this earth—and she would have been the same if Fate -had made her a beggar."</p> - -<p>"You believe that in your fantastic fits—but you know -it ain't true," said his friend.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Mrs. Rutherford looked up with a radiant face when -her son entered the room. She had heard his light step -on the stair. He had a latchkey, and there was no other -sound to announce his coming.</p> - -<p>"Am I late, mother?"</p> - -<p>"It is eight minutes past five."</p> - -<p>"And you have been watching the clock instead of -taking your tea."</p> - -<p>The butler entered with the tea-pot as he spoke, having -made the tea immediately upon hearing the hall door -open.</p> - -<p>"What have you been doing with yourself this afternoon, -dearest?" Mrs. Rutherford asked, looking up at him -fondly, as he stood with his back to the mantelpiece, -looking down at her.</p> - -<p>"Loafing as usual. I looked in at the New Gallery—their -winter show began to-day—half a dozen grand things—the -rest <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">croûtes</i>."</p> - -<p>"And then?" she asked gently, seeming sure there -would be something else.</p> - -<p>"Then I walked up Regent Street—it was a fine bracing -afternoon—from the Gallery to the 'Langham,' and -along Portland Place."</p> - -<p>"And you had tea with Vera Provana?"</p> - -<p>"No—not tea. There is no tea worth tasting out of -this room. There was a mob as usual at the Provanas'—and -I slipped away."</p> - -<p>"Was Signor Provana there?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Not he. He was last heard of in Vienna. But I -believe he is coming home next week."</p> - -<p>"An unsatisfactory husband for a young thing like -Vera," said Mrs. Rutherford, with a faint cloud on her -thoughtful face.</p> - -<p>Claude knew that look of vague trouble. It was often -on his mother's forehead when she spoke of Vera.</p> - -<p>"I don't think women ought to call him unsatisfactory. -He is the most indulgent husband I know. He adores his -wife, and she reigns like a queen in that great house of his—and -in their Roman villa."</p> - -<p>"That kind of indulgence is a dangerous thing for a -young woman—especially if she is capricious and full of -strange fancies."</p> - -<p>"Poor little Vera. You don't seem to have a high -opinion of her."</p> - -<p>"I don't want to be unkind. She has passed through -an ordeal that only a woman of high principles and strong -brain can pass without deterioration. A girlhood of -poverty and deprivation, under close surveillance, and a -married life of inordinate luxury and liberty. She was -married at eighteen, remember, Claude—before her -character could be formed. Nor was Lady Felicia the -person to lay the foundation of a fine character. One -ought not to speak ill of the dead—but poor Felicia was -sadly trivial and worldly-minded."</p> - -<p>"<i lang="it" xml:lang="it">Madre mia</i>, what a sermon. If you think poor little -Vera is in danger, why don't you contrive to see a little -more of her? She would love to have you for a real -friend. She has a host of acquaintances, but not too -many friends. Susan Amphlett is devoted to her; but -Lady Susie is not a tower of strength."</p> - -<p>"I believe they suit each other. They are both feather-headed, -and both <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">poseuses</i>."</p> - -<p>At this Claude fired, and was almost fierce.</p> - -<p>"Vera is no <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">poseuse</i>," he said. "She is utterly without -self-consciousness. I don't think she knows that she is -lovely, in spite of the Society papers. Fortunately she -has no time to read them. She is too absorbed in her -poets—Browning, Shakespeare, Dante. I doubt if she -reads a page of prose in a day."</p> - -<p>"And is not that a pose? Her idea is to be different -from other women—a creature of imagination—in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -world, but not of it. That is what people say of Madame -Provana.—So charming! So different!</p> - -<p>"She can't help what people say, any more than she -can help looking more like Undine than a woman whose -clothes come from the Rue de la Paix."</p> - -<p>Mrs. Rutherford let the subject drop. She did not -want to bring unhappiness into the sweetest hour of her -life, the hour her son gave her; and she knew she could -not talk of Vera without the risk of unhappiness. He -who was the joy of her life was also the cause of much -sorrow; but from the day he left the Army, under some -kind of cloud, never fully understood, but divined, by his -mother, she had never let him know what a disappointment -his broken career had been to her. She was a soldier's -daughter, and a soldier's widow; and to be distinguished -as a leader of men was to her mind almost the only way -to greatness.</p> - -<p>Yet she had smiled when this cherished son had made -light of military fame, and told her he would rather be -another Millais than another Arthur Wellesley. She had -expressed no regret, a few years later, when he told her -that art was of all professions the most hateful—and that -he did not mean to follow up the flashy success of his -early pictures.</p> - -<p>"They might make me an Associate next year, if my -work was a little better," he told her; "but I am not -good enough to hit the public taste two years running. -It was the subject or the devilry in my picture that caught -on. I might never catch on again—and I'm sick of it all—the -critics, the dealers, and the whole brotherhood of -art."</p> - -<p>There again his road in life came to a dead stop; but -this time it was not a wicked woman's form that barred -the vista, and shut out the Temple of Fame. As he had -missed being a great soldier, he was to miss being a famous -painter, though the men who knew, the men who had -already arrived, had told his mother that a brilliant -career might have been his, if he had chosen to work for -it; to work, not by fits and starts, like a fine gentleman in -a picturesque painting-room, but as Reynolds had worked, -and Etty, and Wilkie, when he sat on the floor painting, -with his own legs for his subject.</p> - -<p>Again, after trying her powers of persuasion, and trying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -to fire his ambition, Mrs. Rutherford had resigned herself -to disappointment, and had been neither reproachful nor -lugubrious.</p> - -<p>She was an ambitious woman, and her son had disappointed -her ambition. She was a deeply religious -woman, and she saw her son indifferent to his religion, -if not an unbeliever; and she never persecuted him with -tears and remonstrances, only on rare occasions, and -with the utmost delicacy, pleading the urgency of a strong -faith in the midst of a faithless generation, and the deadly -risk the man runs who neglects the sacraments of his -Church.</p> - -<p>Although she did not often approach this subject in her -talk with Claude, it was not the less a subject of anxious -thought; and she relied on the influence of her old and -devoted friend, Father Cyprian Hammond, rather than -her own, for the saving of her son's soul.</p> - -<p>If a good woman's prayers could have guarded his path -and kept him from temptation, Claude Rutherford would -have walked between guardian angels.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> -</div> - - -<p>While Claude Rutherford's peril was a subject of -troubled thought for his mother and her friend and father -confessor, Cyprian Hammond, no friendly voice had -breathed words of warning into Vera's ear; nor had -she any consciousness that warning was needed, or that -danger threatened.</p> - -<p>Claude was a part of her life. From the day when she -had met him for the first time after her marriage, at a -luncheon party at Lady Okehampton's, and they two had -sat talking in the embrasure of a window, recalling delicious -memories of her childhood's one happy holiday—the ponies, -the dogs, the gardens, the woods, the beach and sea—all the -joy his kindness had created for her in that verdant -paradise, upon that summer sea—from that happy hour -when they had sat, talking, talking, talking, while Lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -Okehampton waited with growing displeasure for an unpunctual -dowager duchess, she had felt that this kinsman of -hers belonged to her, that to him she might look as the -guide, philosopher, and friend, indispensable to the happiness -of every woman whose husband is occupied with -serious interests and has a mind above trivialities.</p> - -<p>There was nothing too trivial for Claude to understand -and discuss with interest. The merest nothing would -command his serious thought, if it were something that -interested Vera; nor was any flight of her fancy too wild -or too high for him. From the colour of a frock or the -shape of a hat, to the most oracular utterance of Zarathustra, -she could command his attention and counsel. -He came and went in her house like the idle wind; and -his entrances and exits were no more considered than the -wind. When her particular friends asked her whether -she had seen Mr. Rutherford lately, she would shrug her -shoulders and smile.</p> - -<p>"My cousin Claude? Yes, he was here yesterday. I -see him almost every day. If he has nothing better to do -he comes in after his morning ride, and sometimes stays -for luncheon."</p> - -<p>People were not unkind; but as years went on the -situation was taken for granted, and there were quiet -smiles, gently significant, when Madame Provana and -her cousin were talked about. Their relations were accepted -as one of those open secrets, not to know which is -not to be in Society.</p> - -<p>Lady Susan did her best to establish the scandal by -telling people that Vera and Claude had been brought up -together, or almost, and that their attachment was the -most innocent and prettiest thing imaginable—"like -Paul and Virginia"—a classic which Lady Susan had -never read. The "almost" was necessary, as most -people knew that Vera had been brought up with Lady -Felicia, in furnished lodgings, and had hardly had a second -frock to her back, to say nothing of being underfed, which -early privation was the cause of the pale slenderness that -some people called "ethereal."</p> - -<p>Lady Susan's friends, furthermore, being well up in -Burke, were satirical about the link of kindred between -third or fifth cousins.</p> - -<p>Yet on the whole there was indulgence; and when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -Vera went on a week-end visit to the seats of the mighty -she generally found Mr. Rutherford one of the party; -which was hardly a cause for wonder, since he was of the -stuff of which week-end parties are made.</p> - -<p>Vera was more than innocent. She was unconscious of -anything particular in her friendship for this friend of her -childhood. What could be more natural than that she -should love to talk of that one blissful interval in her dull -existence—the solitary oasis in the desert of genteel -poverty? Only then had she known the beauty of woods -and gardens; only then had she known what summer -could mean to the emancipated child: the rapture of -riding over dancing waves in a cockle-shell of a boat, -with the warm wind blowing her hair and the sea-gulls -flashing their white wings overhead, the adorable birds -whose name was legion. To talk of those young days, -and to feel again as she had felt then, was a delight which -only Claude could give her; and the more hollow and -unsatisfying the things that money could buy became to -her, the more she loved to sit with her locked hands upon -her knee and talk of that unforgotten holiday.</p> - -<p>"Do you remember that evening I asked you to row me -out to the setting sun, right into the great golden ball, -and you said you would, and you went too far, and we were -out till after dark, and everybody was first frightened -and then angry?"</p> - -<p>All their talk began with "Do you remember?" His -memory was better than hers, and he recalled adventures -and moments that she had forgotten. One day he brought -her a little sketch on thick cardboard, roughly painted in -oils, one of his early bits of impressionism before he had -studied art, a little girl in a short white frock, with hair -flying about her head, cheeks like roses, and the blue of -the sea in her eyes.</p> - -<p>"What a funny child. You didn't mean that for me?"</p> - -<p>"For no one else. I have dozens of such daubs. You -remember how I used to sit on a rock and paint while you -were looking for shells or worrying the jelly-fish."</p> - -<p>"Poor things. I wanted to see them move. I hope -they have no feelings. Yes, you used to sit and paint; -and I thought you disagreeable because you would not -play with me."</p> - -<p>Beyond these pictures of the past they had inexhaustible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -subjects for talk. There was a whole world of literature, -the literature of decadence, in which Vera had to be -initiated, and Claude was a past master in that particular -phase of intellectual life. Baudelaire, Verlaine, Nietzsche, -the literature of pessimism, and the literature of despair, -that rebellion against law, human and divine, which -Shelley began, and which had been a dominant note among -young poets since the "Revolt of Islam" filled romantic -minds with wonder and a vague delight.</p> - -<p>Imperceptibly, naturally, and in no manner wrongfully, -as it seemed to Vera, Claude Rutherford's society had -become essential to her happiness. She accepted the fact -as placidly, and with as complete confidence in him and in -herself, as if such a friendship between an idle young man -and an imaginative young woman had never been known -to end in shame and sorrow. She had lived in the world -half a dozen years, and had known of many social tragedies; -but as these had not touched any friend she -valued, and as she was not a scandal-lover, those dark -stories of husbands betrayed and nurseries abandoned -had never deeply impressed her, and had been speedily -forgotten. Nobody, not even Lady Susie, who was a -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mauvaise langue</i>, had ever hinted at impropriety in her -association with her cousin. Signor Provana saw him -come and go, and asked no questions. That stern and -lofty nature was of the kind that is not easily jealous. -Had there been no Iago, Cassio might have come and gone -freely in the noble Moor's household, and no shadow of -fear would have darkened that great love. Vera's husband -was a disappointed man. His dream of a young and loving -wife who would make up to him for all that he had missed -in boyhood and youth had melted into thin air. He was -sensitive and proud, and the memory of his unloved -childhood and of his first wife's indifference was never -absent from his mind when he considered his relations with -his second wife. He thought of his age, he saw his stern, -rough features in the glass, and a faint touch of coldness, -the fretful weariness of an over-indulged girl, was taken -for aversion, and all his pride and all his force of character -rose up against the creature he loved too well to judge -wisely. It was he who built the wall that parted them; -it was his gloomy distrust of himself rather than of Vera -that made the gulf between them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p> - -<p>Let her be happy in her own way. He had sworn to -make her happy: and if it was her nature to delight in -trivial things, if the aimless existence of a rich man's -sultana was her idea of bliss, she should reign sole mistress -of a harem which he would never enter while he believed -himself unwelcome there. Vera accepted this gradual -drifting apart as something inevitable, for which she was -not to blame. The strong man's impassioned love, which -had appealed to the romantic side of her character, had -languished and died with the passing years. She brooded -on the change with sorrowful wonder before she became -accustomed to the idea that the lover who had taken her -to his heart with a cry of ineffable rapture had ceased to -exist in the grave man of business, whose preoccupied -manner and absent gaze, as of one looking at things far -away, chilled her when she sat opposite him on those -rare occasions when they dined <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i>—occasions when -the dinner-table was only a glittering spot in the dark -spaciousness of the room, a world of shadows, where the -footmen moved like ghosts in the area between the table -and the far-off sideboard. They had been married six -years; but Vera thought sadly that her husband looked -twenty years older than the companion by whose side -she had climbed the mule-paths, through the lemon -orchards and olive woods of San Marco, the man whose -conversation had always interested her, her first friend, -her first lover.</p> - -<p>She accepted the change as inevitable, having been -taught by the wives of her acquaintance to believe that -marriage was the death of love, and as gradually as she -learned to dispense with her husband's society, so guiltlessly, -because unconsciously, she came to depend upon -Claude Rutherford for sympathy and companionship.</p> - -<p>She did not know that she loved him, though she knew -that the day when they did not meet seemed a long-drawn-out -weariness, and that when the evening shadows came, -they brought a sense of desolation and a strange lassitude, -as of one weighed down by intolerable burdens.</p> - -<p>All occupations and all amusements were burdens if -Claude was not sharing them—Society the heaviest of all. -Far easier to endure the dreary day in the solitude of her -den, with the faces of her beloved dead looking at her, -than among empty-headed people, who could only talk<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -of what other empty-headed people were doing, or were -going to do, with that light spice of malice which makes -other people's mistakes and misfortunes so piquant and -interesting.</p> - -<p>Claude Rutherford had become a part of her life, and -life was meaningless without him: a fatal stage in the -downhill path, but it was a long time before her awakened -conscience gave the first note of warning.</p> - -<p>Then—waking in the first faint flush of a summer dawn, -after a night of troubled sleep and feverish dreams—a -night succeeding one of those dismal days that she had -been obliged to endure without the sight of the familiar -face, the glad, gay call of the familiar voice, the sound of -the light footstep on the stairs—she told herself for the -first time, with unutterable horror, that this man was -dearer to her than he ought to be—dearer than her husband, -dearer than her peace of mind, dearer than all this world -held for her and all the next world promised. Oh, the -wickedness of it! the shame, the horror! To be false to -him—the man who had put his strong arms round her -and lifted her out of the dismal swamp of shabby gentility -and taken her to his generous heart; the man who trusted -her with unquestioning faith, who had never by word or -look betrayed the faintest doubt of her truth and purity.</p> - -<p>No lovers' word had been spoken, no lovers' lips had -met; yet as she rose from that uneasy bed, and paced -the spacious room in fever and agitation, a ghostly figure, -with bare feet and streaming hair, and long white -draperies, she felt as if she were steeped to the lips in -dishonour—a monster of ingratitude and treachery.</p> - -<p>And then she began the struggle that most women -make—even the weaker souls—when they feel the downward -path sloping under their feet, and know that the -pit of shame lies at the bottom of it, though they cannot -see it yet—the impotent struggle in which all the odds -are against them, their environment, every circumstance -of their lives, their friends, the nearest and dearest even, -to whom they cannot cry aloud and say: "Don't you see -that I am fighting the tempter, don't you see that I am -half way down the hill and am trying to make a stand, -that I am over the edge of the cliff, and am hanging to -the bushes with bleeding, lacerated hands in the desperate -endeavour to keep myself from falling? Have you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -neither eyes nor understanding that you don't try to -help me?" Rarely is any friendly hand stretched out -to help the woman who sees her danger and tries to escape -her doom. Acquaintances look on and smile. These -open secrets are accepted as a part of the scheme of the -universe, a particular phase of existence that doesn't -matter as long as the chief actors are happy. The wife, -her familiar friend, her complaisant or indifferent husband, -are smiled upon by a society of men and women who -know their world and take it for what it is worth. Only -when the actors begin to play their parts badly, and when -the open secret becomes an open scandal, does Society -cease to be kind.</p> - -<p>Vera did not think of Society in that tragic hour of an -awakened conscience. That which would have been the -first thought with most women had no place in her mind. -It was of her sin that she thought—the sin of inconstancy, -of ingratitude, of faithlessness. Had she crossed the -border line, and qualified herself for the Divorce Court, -she could not have thought of herself with deeper contrition.</p> - -<p>To love this other man better than she loved her -husband; to long for his coming; to be happy when -he was with her, and miserable when he was away; there -was the sin.</p> - -<p>But no word of love had been spoken. There was -time for repentance. He did not know that she loved -him. Although, looking back, and recalling words and -tones of his, she could not doubt that he loved her, she -could hope that no word of hers had revealed the passion -whose development had been gradual and imperceptible -as the growth of the leaf buds in early spring, which no -eye marks till they flash into life in the first warmth of -April.</p> - -<p>Her friendship with this man, who was of her kindred, -the companion of the only happy days of her childhood, -had seemed as natural as it would have been to attach -herself to a brother from whom she had long been -separated. She had welcomed him with a childish -eagerness, she had trusted him with a childish belief in -the perfection of the creature who is kind. She had -admired him—comparing him with all the other young -men she knew, and finding him infinitely above them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -His very weakness had appealed to her. All that was -wanting in his character made him more likable, since -compassion and regret mingled with her liking. To be -so clever, so gifted by nature, and to have done nothing -with nature's gifts—to be doomed to go down to death -leaving his name written in water—to die, having finished -nothing but his <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">beaux jours</i>: people who liked him best -talked of him as a young man with a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">beau passé</i>. Shoulders -were shrugged, and smiles were sad, when his painter -friends discussed him.</p> - -<p>"We thought he was going to do great things in art, -and he has done nothing."</p> - -<p>Soldiers who remembered him before he left the Army -lamented the loss of a man who was made for a soldier.</p> - -<p>There had been trouble—trouble about a woman that -had made him exchange to a line regiment—and then -the war being over, and the chance of active service remote, -disgust had come upon him, and he had done with soldiering.</p> - -<p>Vera had seen the shoulders shrugged, and had heard -the deprecating criticism of this kinsman of hers, and had -been all the kinder to him because Fate had been cruel.</p> - -<p>She had tried to fire him with new hope; she had been -ambitious for him; had steeped herself in art books, and -spent her mornings in picture galleries, in order that she -might be able to talk to him. She had implored him to -go back to his work, to paint better pictures than he had -painted when critics prophesied a future from his work.</p> - -<p>"I am too old," he said.</p> - -<p>"Nonsense. You have wasted a few years, but you -will have to work harder and buy back your lost time. -Quentin Matsys did not begin to paint till he was older -than you."</p> - -<p>"There were giants in those days. Compared with -such men I am an invertebrate pigmy."</p> - -<p>"Oh, if you loved art you would not be content to live -without the joy of it."</p> - -<p>"Yes, that's what people who look at pictures think—the -joy of painting a thing like that. The man who paints -knows when the disgust comes in and the joy goes out. -He knows the sense of failure, the disappointment, the -longing to fling his half-finished picture on the floor and -perform the devil's dance upon it, as Müller used to do."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p> - -<p>And then, one day, as they were going round a picture -gallery together, he said:</p> - -<p>"Well, Vera, I have been meditating on your lecture; -and I am going to paint another picture—the last, -perhaps."</p> - -<p>"No, it won't be the last."</p> - -<p>"I am going to paint your portrait. After all that -sermonising you can't refuse to sit to me."</p> - -<p>"I won't refuse—unless Mario should object."</p> - -<p>"How should he object? He will be in New York, or -Madrid, or Constantinople, most likely, while I am -painting you. I am nothing if not an impressionist, so -it mustn't be a long business."</p> - -<p>"I shall love sitting to you. To see you at work——"</p> - -<p>"Yes, to see me earning my bread in the sweat of my -brow, like the day-labourer, will be a novelty. I shouldn't -want to be paid for the picture, but I dare say Provana -would insist upon my taking a fee, and as he counts in -thousands, it would be a handsome one. No, Vera, don't -blush! I won't take money for my daub. You shall -give it to the Canine Defence League. It shall be a labour -of love; a concession to a sermonising cousin. I shall -paint your portrait, just to convince you that I can't -paint, and that the life I am wasting is worth nothing."</p> - -<p>Thus in light talk and laughter the plan was made that -brought them into a closer intimacy than they had known -before, and although Claude Rutherford was an impressionist, -that portrait was three months upon the easel -which he had rigged up in Vera's morning-room.</p> - -<p>"I want to paint you in the room where you live; not -with a marble pillar and a crimson curtain for a background."</p> - -<p>The sittings went on at irregular intervals, in a style -that was at once sauntering and spasmodic, all through -that season. Signor Provana looked in now and then, -stood watching the painter at work for five or ten minutes, -criticised, and made a sudden exit, driven away by Lady -Susan's shrill chatter.</p> - -<p>But Lady Susan was not always there; and there were -more tranquil hours, when Vera sat in her half-reclining -attitude on a low sofa spread with a tiger skin, fanning -herself with a great fan of peacock's feathers, and gazing -at the pictures on the wall with dreaming eyes: hours in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -which the painter and his subject talked by fits and starts—with -silent pauses.</p> - -<p>After all the pains that had been taken, the picture was -a failure. The painter hated it, Provana frankly disapproved; -and in the haggard, large-eyed siren smiling -over the edge of the fan, Vera could not recognise the -face she saw in the glass.</p> - -<p>"I have been much too long over the thing," Claude -told Provana, with slow and languid speech, half indifference, -half disgust; "and it is a dismal failure. But -I shall do better next time, if Vera will let me make a -rapid sketch of her, when the daffodils are in bloom, and -we shall be week-ending at Marlow Chase. I could make -a picture of her on the hill above the house, in the yellow -afternoon light, and among the yellow flowers. I am an -open-air painter if I am anything; but I had almost -forgotten how to set a palette. I shall work in a -friend's studio in the autumn, and I may do better next -year."</p> - -<p>Vera urged him to persevere in this good intention, -and not to mind his failure.</p> - -<p>"I mind nothing," he said. "I have had three happy -months. I mind nothing while you are kind, and forgive -me for having put you to a lot of trouble, with this -atrocious daub for the outcome of it all."</p> - -<p>Privileged people only were allowed to see the daub; -but those, although supposed to be few, in the end proved -to be many. Critics were among them, and Mr. Rutherford -was too shrewd not to discover that every connoisseur -had a little hole to pick in the portrait, and that when all -the little holes were put together there was nothing left.</p> - -<p>And this picture, so poor a thing as it was, made the -beginning of that open secret, which everybody knew -long before the awakening of Vera's conscience, and while -Mario Provana saw nothing to suspect or to fear in his -wife's intimacy with her cousin.</p> - -<p>But now, with the awakening of conscience, began the -fight against Fate, the fight of the weak against the -strong, the woman against the man, innocent youth against -an experienced lover. She was single-hearted and pure -in intention, counting happiness as thistledown against -gold, when weighed against her honour as a wife; but -she entered the lists without knowing the strength of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -opponent, the passive force of a weak man's selfishness. -The main purpose of her life was henceforward to release -herself from the web that had been woven so easily, so -imperceptibly; first a careless association between two -people whose likings and ideas were in harmony; then -friendship, confidence, sympathy; and then unavowed -love; love that made the days desolate when the lovers -were not together. He had been too frequent and too -dear a companion. He had become the master of her -life, and it was for her to release herself from that unholy -bondage. She had to learn to live without him.</p> - -<p>It needed more than common cleverness and tact to -bring about a change in their manner of life, without -making a direct appeal to Rutherford's honour and -telling him that their friendship had become a danger. -To do this would be to tell him that she loved him, to -confess her weakness, before he had passed the border -line that divides the friend from the lover. No, she could -make no appeal to the man whose smouldering fires she -feared to kindle into flame. She knew that he loved her, -and that he had made her love him. She had to escape -from the web that he had woven round her; and she had, -if possible, to set herself free without his knowing the -strength of her purpose, or the desperate nature of the -struggle.</p> - -<p>All the chances were against her. She could not forbid -him the house without an open scandal. As he had come -and gone in the last four years, he must still be free to -come and go. She could only avoid those familiar hours—hours -that had been so dear—by living in a perpetual -restlessness, always finding some engagement away from -home.</p> - -<p>It was weary work, but she persevered, and enlisted all -the Disbrowes in her cause, unconscious that they were -being made use of. She accepted every invitation, lent -herself to everybody's fads, philanthropic or otherwise; -listened to the same fiddlers and singers day after day, -in drawing-rooms and among people that she knew by -heart; or stood with aching head under a ten-guinea hat, -selling programmes at amateur theatricals.</p> - -<p>She contracted a closer alliance with Lady Susan -Amphlett, and planned excursions: a day at Windsor, -a day at Dorking, at Guildford, to rummage in furniture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -shops, at Greenwich to see the Nelson relics, to Richmond -and Hampton, even to Kew Gardens. Lady Susan was -almost worn out by these simple pleasures; but as she -professed, and sincerely, an absolute <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">culte</i> for Vera Provana, -she held out bravely.</p> - -<p>These excursions were fairly successful, and as Vera -took care that no one should know where she and her -friend were going—not even Susan herself till they were -on the road—it was not possible for Claude to follow -her. It was otherwise in the houses of her friends, where -she was always meeting him, and where it was essential -that she should not seem to avoid him, least of all to let -him see that she was so doing.</p> - -<p>She greeted him always with the old friendliness—a -little more cousinly than it had been of late; and she -showed a matronly interest in his health and occupations, -as if she had been an aunt rather than a cousin.</p> - -<p>"It is quite delightful to meet you here this afternoon," -he told her, in a ducal house where guinea tickets for a -charity concert seemed cheap to the outside public. "You -are to be met anywhere and everywhere except in your -own house. I have called so often that I have taken -a disgust for your knockers. When I am dead I believe -those lions' heads will be found engraven on my heart, -like Queen Mary's Calais."</p> - -<p>It was only natural that, with the awakening of conscience, -there should come the thought of those two first -years of her married life, when her husband's love had -made an atmosphere of happiness around her, when she -had cared for no other companion, needed no other friend; -those blessed years before Claude Rutherford's pale, -clear-cut face, and low, seductive voice had become a part -of her life, essential to her peace. The change of feeling, -the growing regard for this man, had come about so -gradually, with a growth so slow and imperceptible, that -she tried in vain to analyse her feelings in those four years -of careless intimacy, and to trace the process by which -an innocent friendship had changed to a guilty love. -When had the fatal change begun? She could not tell. -It was only when she felt the misery of one long day of -parting that she knew her sin. The husband had become -a stranger, the friend had become the other half of her -soul. He had called her by that sweet name sometimes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -but with so playful a tone that the impassioned phrase -had not scared her. It was one of many lightly spoken -phrases that she had heard as carelessly as they were -uttered.</p> - -<p>And now, looking back at the last two years, she told -herself that it was her husband's fault that she had leant -on Claude for sympathy, her husband's fault that they -had been too much together. For some reason that she -had never fathomed, Mario Provana had held himself -aloof from the old domestic intimacy. It was not only -that his business engagements necessitated his absence -from home several times in the course of the year, and -on occasion for a considerable period. He had business -in Russia, and in Austria, and he had crossed the Atlantic -twice in the last year, the affairs of his New York house -calling for special attention in a disturbed state of American -finance. These frequent absences alone were sufficient -to weaken the marriage bond; but in the last year he -had given his wife very little of his society when they were -under the same roof.</p> - -<p>"You have hosts of friends," he said one day when she -reproached him for keeping aloof, "people who share -your tastes and can be amused by the things that amuse -you. I bring back a tired brain after my continental -journeys, and am still more tired after New York. I -should make a wretched companion for a young wife, -a beautiful butterfly who was born to shine among all -the other butterflies."</p> - -<p>"I am nearly as tired as you are after your business -journeys, Mario," she said. "I shall be very glad when -we can go back to Rome."</p> - -<p>"But you will have other butterflies there, and a good -many of the same that flutter about you here," he answered.</p> - -<p>"We will shut our doors upon them and live quietly."</p> - -<p>"Like Darby and Joan—old Darby and young Joan. -No, Vera, we won't try that. You weren't made for the -part."</p> - -<p>She had been too proud to say more. If he was tired of -her—if he had ceased to care for her, she would not ask -him why.</p> - -<p>But now, in her desperate need, sick to death of those -aimless excursions and unamusing amusements with -Lady Susan, and of the dire necessity of keeping away from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -her own house, to flutter from party to party, almost -sure of meeting Claude wherever she went, she turned in -her extremity to her natural protector, and tried to find -shelter in the love that ought to be her strong rock.</p> - -<p>Her husband had been on the Continent, moving from -city to city, for the greater part of the June month in -which she had been making her poor little fight against -Fate—trying to cure herself of Claude Rutherford, as if -he had been a bad habit, like drink or drugs. And then -one morning, when she was beginning the day dejectedly, -tired of yesterday, hopeless of to-morrow, a telegram -from Paris told her to expect her husband at seven o'clock -that evening.</p> - -<p>Her heart beat gladly, as at the coming of a deliverer.</p> - -<p>She was not afraid of meeting him. She longed for his -coming, as the one friend who might save her from an -influence that she feared.</p> - -<p>The face she saw in the glass while her maid was dressing -her hair almost startled her. There were dark marks -under the eyes, and the cheeks were hollow and deadly -pale. The black gauze dinner-gown she had chosen would -accentuate her pallor; but it was nearly seven o'clock, -and there was no time for any change in her toilet. She -paced the great empty rooms in sun and shadow, listening -to every sound in the street, and wondering if her husband -would see the sickening change that sickening thoughts -had made in her face, and question her too closely.</p> - -<p>She heard the hall door open, and then the familiar -footstep, rapid, strong, and yet light, very different from -the footfall of obese middle age; the step of a man whose -active life and energetic temperament had kept him -young.</p> - -<p>She met him on the threshold of the drawing-room.</p> - -<p>"I am so glad you have come home," she said, holding -up her face for his kiss.</p> - -<p>He kissed her, but without enthusiasm.</p> - -<p>"I am glad you are glad," he said, "but can that -mean that you have missed me? From your letters -I thought you and Lady Susan were having rather a gay -time."</p> - -<p>"I was rushing about with her and going to parties, -partly because I missed you."</p> - -<p>"Partly, and the other part of it was because you like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -parties and are dull at home, I suppose, unless you have -your house full."</p> - -<p>"Oh, I am sick of it all, Mario," she said, with a sort -of passionate energy that made him believe her, "and I -would live quite a different life if you were not away so -often, and if I were not thrown too much on my own -resources."</p> - -<p>"My dear Vera, this is a new development," he said -gravely, sitting down beside her, and looking at her with -eyes that troubled her, as if they could see too much of -the mind behind her face. "You are looking thin and -white. Has anything happened while I have been away, -anything to make you unhappy?"</p> - -<p>"No!" she exclaimed with tremendous emphasis, for -she felt as if he were going to wrest her secret from her. -"What could happen? But I suppose there must come -a time in every woman's life when she has had enough of -what the world calls pleasure, when the charm goes out -of amusements that repeat themselves year after year; -and when one begins to understand the emptiness of a -life, occupied only with futilities, when one begins to tire -of running after every new thing, actors, dancers, singers, -and all the rest of them. I have had enough of that -life, Mario; and I want you to help me to do something -better with the liberty and the wealth you have given me."</p> - -<p>"Do you want a mission?" he asked with a faint -smile. "That is what women seem to want nowadays."</p> - -<p>"No, Mario. I want to be happy with you. Your -business engagements take you so much away from home, -that our lives must be sometimes divided; but not always—we -need not be always living a divided life, as we have -been in the last three years."</p> - -<p>A crimson flush swept across her face as she spoke, -remembering that these were the years in which Claude -Rutherford's influence had grown from a careless comradeship -to an absorbing intimacy.</p> - -<p>Her husband looked at her in silence for a few moments; -and his grave smile had now a touch of irony.</p> - -<p>"Has it dawned upon you at last?" he asked. "Have -you discovered that we have been living apart; that we -have been man and wife only in name?"</p> - -<p>"It was not my fault, Mario. It was you who kept -aloof."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Not till I saw repulsion—not till I saw aversion."</p> - -<p>"No, no—never, never, never! I have never forgotten -your goodness—never forgotten all I owe you."</p> - -<p>They had been sitting side by side on the spacious Louis -Quatorze sofa, his hand upon her shoulder; but at her -last words he started to his feet with a cry of pain.</p> - -<p>"Yes, that is it—you recognise an obligation. I have -given you a fine house, fine clothes, fine friends—and you -think you ought to repay me for them by pretending to -love me. Vera, that is all over. There must be no more -pretending. I can bear a good deal, but I could not bear -that. I told you something of my past life before we -were married; but I doubt if I told you all its bitterness—all -the blind egotism of my marriage, the cruel awakening -from a dream of mutual love—to discover that my wife -had married me because I could give her the things she -wanted, and that love was out of the question. I compared -myself with other men, and saw the difference; and -as I had missed the love of a mother, so I had to do without -the love of a wife. I was not made to win a woman's love—no, -not even a mother's. This was why my affection -for my daughter was something more than the common -love of fathers. She was the first who loved me—and she -will be the last."</p> - -<p>"Mario, you are too cruel! Have I not loved you?"</p> - -<p>"Yes—perhaps for a little while. You gave me a year -of infinite happiness—our honeymoon year. That ought -to be enough. I have no right to ask for more—but let -there be no talk of gratitude—if I cannot have love I will -have nothing."</p> - -<p>"You have been so cold, so silent and reserved, so -changed. I thought you were tired of me."</p> - -<p>"Tired of you? Poor child! How should you know -the measureless love in the heart of a man of my life-history? -When I took you in my arms in the evening -sunshine, I gave you all that was best and strongest in -my nature—boundless love and boundless trust. All my -life-history went for nothing in that hour. I did not ask -myself if I was the kind of man to win the heart of a girl. -I did not think of my five-and-forty years or my forbidding -face. I gave myself up to that delicious dream. I had -found the girl who could love me, the divine girl, youth -and innocence incarnate. Think what it was after a year<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -of happiness to be awakened by a look, and to know that -I had again been fooled, and that if in the first surprise -of my passionate love you had almost loved me, that love -was dead."</p> - -<p>"No, no," she sobbed; and then she hid her streaming -eyes upon his breast, and wound her arms about his neck, -clinging to the husband in whom she found her only -shelter.</p> - -<p>Was it some curious instinct of the flesh, or some power -of telepathy, that told him not to take these tears and wild -embrace for tokens of a wife's love?</p> - -<p>"My dearest girl," he said with infinite gentleness, as -he loosened the clinging arms and lifted the hidden face, -"if this distress means sorrow for having unwittingly -deceived me, for having taken a man's heart and not been -able to give him love for love, there need be no more tears. -The fault was mine, the mistake was mine. You must not -suffer for it. To me you will always be unspeakably -sweet and dear—whether I think of you as a wife, or as -the girl my daughter loved—and whom I learned to love -in those sad days when the shadow of death went with -us in the spring sunshine. Yes, Vera, you will always -be dear—my dearest on this earth. But there must be no -pretending, nothing false. Think of me as your friend -and protector, the one friend whom you can always trust, -your rock of defence against all the dangers and delusions -of a wicked world. Trust me, dearest, and never keep a -secret from me. Be true to yourself, keep your honour -stainless, your purity of mind unclouded by evil associations. -Let no breath of calumny soil your name. Rise -superior to the ruck of your friends, and have no dealings -with the lost women whose guilt Society chooses to ignore. -I ask no more than this, my beloved girl, in return for -measureless love and implicit faith."</p> - -<p>He was holding both her hands, looking at her with -searching eyes; those clear grey eyes under a brow of -power.</p> - -<p>"Can you promise as much as this, Vera?</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"With heart and mind?"</p> - -<p>"With heart and mind."</p> - -<p>"And you will never take the liberty I give you for a -letter of license?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p> - -<p>"No, no, no. But I don't ask for liberty. I want to -belong to you, to be sheltered by you."</p> - -<p>"You shall have the shelter, if you need it; but be -true to yourself, and you will need no defender. A woman's -safest armour is her own purity. And again, my love," -with a return of the slightly ironical smile, "never was -a woman better guarded than you are while you are fringed -round by Disbrowes, protected at every point by your -mother's clan, people at once well born and well bred, -with no taint of Bohemianism, unless indeed it may lurk -in your <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">poco curante</i> cousin, the young painter who made -such a lamentable failure of your portrait."</p> - -<p>She felt as if every vestige of colour was fading out of -her face, and that even her lips must be deadly white. -They were so parched that when she tried to shape some -trivial reply the power of speech seemed gone. She felt -the dry lips moving; but no sound came.</p> - -<p>This was the end of her appeal to the husband whose -love might have saved her. Their relations were changed -from that hour. He was not again the lover-husband of -their honeymoon years; but he was no longer cold and -reserved, he no longer held her at a distance. He was -kind and sympathetic.</p> - -<p>He interested himself in her occupations and amusements, -the books she read and the people she saw. He -was with her at the opera, where Claude Rutherford -sometimes came to them and sat through an act or two -in the darkness at the back of the box. He was infinitely -kind and tender; but it was the tenderness of a father, -or a benevolent uncle, rather than of a husband. He held -rigidly to that which he had told her. There was to be no -make-believe in their relations.</p> - -<p>If she was not happy, she was at peace for some time -after her husband's home-coming—a period in which -they were more together than they had ever been since -those first years of their married life. She tried to be happy, -tried to forget the time in which Claude Rutherford had -been her daily companion, the time when she planned no -pleasure that he was not to share, and had no opinions -about people or places, or books or art, that she did not -take from him: loving the things he loved, hating the -things he hated; as if they had been two bodies moved -by one mind. She tried not to feel an aching void for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -want of him; she tried not to think him cruel for coming -to her house so seldom, and tried to be sorry that they -met so often in the houses of her friends.</p> - -<p>The time came when the awakened conscience was -lulled to sleep, and when her husband's society began to -jar upon her strained nerves. She had invoked him as a -defence against the enemy; and now she longed for the -enemy, and had ceased to be grateful to the defender.</p> - -<p>The rampart of defence was soon to fall. A financial -crisis was threatened, and Signor Provana was wanted -at his office in New York. He told his wife that he might -be able to come back to London in a fortnight, allowing -ten days for the double passage, and four for his business; -but if things were troublesome in America he might be -a good deal longer.</p> - -<p>"I shall try to be home in time to take you to Marienbad," -he told her. "But if I am not here, Lady Okehampton -will take you, and you can get Lady Susan to -go with you and keep you in good spirits. I had a talk -with your aunt last night, and she promised to take you -under her wing."</p> - -<p>"I don't want to be under anybody's wing; and Aunt -Mildred will bore me to death if I see much of her at -Marienbad."</p> - -<p>"Oh, you will have your favourite Susie for amusement, -and your aunt to see that she doesn't lead you into mischief. -Lady Susan is a shade too adventurous for my -taste."</p> - -<p>This idea of Marienbad was a new thing. A certain -nervous irritability had been growing upon Vera of late, -and her husband had been puzzled and uneasy, and had -called in a nerve specialist recommended by Lady Okehampton, -one of those new lights whom everybody believe -in for a few seasons. After a quiet talk with Vera, that -grave authority had suggested a rest cure, the living death -of six weeks in a nursing home; and on this being vehemently -protested against by the patient, had offered -Marienbad as an alternative.</p> - -<p>Provana had been startled by this sudden change in -his wife's temper, from extreme gentleness and an evident -desire to please him, to a kind of febrile impatience and -irritability; and remembering her curious agitation on -the evening of his home-coming, her pallid cheeks and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -passionate tears, he had an uneasy feeling that these -strange moods had a common source, and that there was -something mysterious and unhappy that it was his business -to discover before he left her.</p> - -<p>He came to her room early on the day of his departure, -so early that she had only just left her bedroom, and was -still wearing the loose white muslin gown in which she -had breakfasted.</p> - -<p>She was sitting on her low sofa in a listless attitude, -looking at the faces on the wall—Browning, Shelley, -Byron—the faces of the inspired dead who were more -alive than the uninspired living; but at her husband's -entrance she started to her feet and went to meet him.</p> - -<p>"You are not going yet," she exclaimed. "I thought -the boat-train did not leave till the afternoon."</p> - -<p>"It does not; but I must give the interval to business. -I have come to bid you good-bye."</p> - -<p>"I am very sorry you are obliged to go," she said.</p> - -<p>"For God's sake do not lie to me. For pity's sake let -there be no pretending."</p> - -<p>He took both her hands and drew her to him, looking at -her with an imploring earnestness.</p> - -<p>"I have trusted you as men seldom trust their wives," -he said. "I thought I had done you a great wrong when -I took you in the first bloom of your young beauty and -made you my own; cutting you off for ever from the love -of a young lover, and all the passion and romance of youth. -Considering this, I tried to make amends by giving you -perfect freedom, freedom to live your own life among your -own friends, freedom for everything that could make a -woman happy, except that romantic love which you -renounced when you accepted me as your husband. I -believed in you, Vera, I believed in your truth and purity -as I believe in God. I could never have reconciled myself -to the life we have led in this house if it were not for my -invincible faith in your truth. But within this month -that faith has been shaken. Your eyes have lost the old -look—the lovely look through which truth shone like a -light. There is something unhappy, something mysterious. -There is a secret—and I must know that secret before I -leave you."</p> - -<p>Her face changed to a look of stone as he watched her.</p> - -<p>It was no time for tears. It was time for a superhuman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -effort at repression, to hold every feeling in check, to make -her nerves iron.</p> - -<p>There was defiance in her tone when she spoke, after a -silence that seemed long.</p> - -<p>"There is no secret."</p> - -<p>"Then why are you unhappy?"</p> - -<p>"I am not unhappy. I have a fit of low spirits now -and then, a feeling of physical depression, for which there -is no reason; or perhaps my idle, useless life, and the -luxury in which I live, may be the reason."</p> - -<p>"It is something more than low spirits. You are -nervous and irritable and you have a frightened look -sometimes, a look that frightens me. Oh, Vera, for God's -sake be frank with me. Trust me half as much as I have -trusted you. Trust me as a daughter might trust her -father, knowing his measureless love, and knowing that -with that love there would be measureless pity. Trust -me, my beloved girl, throw your burden upon me, and -you shall find the strength of a man's love, and the self-abnegation -that goes with it."</p> - -<p>"I have no secret, no mystery; I mean to be worthy of -your trust. I mean to be true to myself. If you doubt -me let me go to America with you. Keep me with you."</p> - -<p>His face lighted as she spoke, and then he looked thoughtfully -at the fragile form, the delicate features, the ethereal -beauty that seemed to have so frail a hold on life.</p> - -<p>"No, you are not the stuff for sea voyages, and the -storm and stress of New York. If we went there together -I should have to leave you too much alone among strangers. -I shall have an anxious time there; but it shall not be -a long time. If possible, I shall be here to take you to -Marienbad, and in the meantime you must live quietly, -and do what your doctor tells you. He is to see you next -week, remember."</p> - -<p>He held her to his heart, with stronger feeling than he -had shown for a long time, and gave her his good-bye -kiss. She flung herself on her knees as the door closed -behind him.</p> - -<p>"God help me to be true to him in heart and mind."</p> - -<p>That was the prayer she breathed mutely, while her -tears fell thick and fast upon her clasped hands.</p> - -<p>He was gone, the unloved husband, and she had to face -the peril of the undeclared lover. She felt helpless and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -forsaken, and she sat for a long time in listless misery; -and then, looking up at the pictures on the wall, she tried -to realise that silent companionship, the souls of the -illustrious dead—tried to believe that she was not alone in -her dejection, that in the silence of her lonely room there -was the sympathy and understanding of souls over whom -death has no more dominion, and whose pity was more -profound than any earth-bound creature could give her.</p> - -<p>She thought of Francis Symeon, and of those meetings -of which he had told her. Nothing had come of her interview -with him. Claude Rutherford's light laughter had -blown away her belief in the high-priest of the spiritual -world; and she had thought no more of the creed that -had appealed so strongly to her imagination.</p> - -<p>Now, when life seemed a barren waste, her thoughts -turned to the philosophic visionary who had so gravely -expounded his dream. Everything in her material world -harassed and distressed her, and she turned to the spiritual -life to escape from reality.</p> - -<p>She wrote urgently to Mr. Symeon, telling him that she -was unhappy, and asking to be admitted to the society -of which he had told her. She had not to wait long for -an answer. Symeon called upon her that afternoon, and -was with her for more than an hour, full of kindness and -sympathy; sympathy that scared her, for it seemed as -if those strange eyes must be reading the depths of her -inner consciousness, and all the disgust of life and vague -longing that were interwoven with her thoughts of Claude -Rutherford.</p> - -<p>It was to escape those thoughts—to dissever herself from -that haunting image, that she pleaded for admission -to the shadow world.</p> - -<p>"Bring me in communion with the great minds that -are above earthly passions," would be her prayer, could she -have spoken freely; but she sat in a thoughtful silence, -soothed by the spiritualist's exposition of that dream-world, -which was to him more real than the solid earth -upon which he had to live—a reluctant participator in -the life of the vulgar herd.</p> - -<p>"The mass of mankind, who have no joys that are not -sensual, and who live only in the present moment, have -nothing but ridicule and disbelief for the faith that makes -even this sordid material world beautiful for us, who see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> -in earthly things the image of things supernal," he said, -with that accent of sincerity, that intense conviction, -which had made scoffers cease from scoffing under the -influence of his personality, however they might ridicule -him in his absence.</p> - -<p>Everyone had to admit that, though the creed might be -absurd, the man was wonderful.</p> - -<p>There was to be a meeting of "Us" at his chambers -on the following afternoon, and Symeon begged Vera to -come.</p> - -<p>"You may find only thought and silence," he said, -"a company of friends absorbed in meditation, but without -any message from the other world; or you may hear -words that burn, the voices of disembodied genius. In -any case, while you are with us you will be away from the -dust and traffic of the material world."</p> - -<p>Yes, she would go, she was only too glad to be allowed -to be among his disciples.</p> - -<p>"I want to escape," she told him. "I am tired of my -futile life—so tired."</p> - -<p>"I thought you would have joined us long ago," he -said, as he took leave, "but I think I know the influence -that held you back."</p> - -<p>The hot blood rushed into her face, the red fire of conscious -guilt that always came at the thought of Claude -Rutherford. She had never minimised her sin. It was -sin to have made him essential to her happiness, to have -lost interest in all the rest of her life, to have given him her -heart and mind.</p> - -<p>"I think the psychological moment has come," continued -Symeon's slow, grave voice, "and that you should now -become one of us. You have drained the cup of this -trivial life, and have found its bitterness. Our religion -is our faith in the After-life. We have the faith that -looks through death. The orthodox Christian talks of -the life beyond; and we must give him credit for sometimes -thinking of it—but does he realise it? Is it near him? -Does he look through death to the Spirit-world beyond? -Does he realise the After-life as Christ realised it when -He talked with His disciples?"</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The meeting in Mr. Symeon's library lasted all through -the summer afternoon, till the edge of evening. The -large and gloomy room was darkened by Venetian shutters, -nearly closed over open windows. There was air, and the -ceaseless sound of traffic; but the summer sun was excluded, -and figures were seen dimly, as if they belonged -to the shadow world.</p> - -<p>Among those indistinct forms Vera recognised people -she knew, people she would never have expected to find -in a society of mystics: a statesman, a poet, three popular -novelists, and half a dozen of the idlest women of her -acquaintance, two of whom were the heroines of romantic -stories, women over whose future friends watched and -prophesied with the keen interest that centres in a domestic -situation where catastrophe seems imminent.</p> - -<p>Vera wondered, seeing these two. Had they come, like -her, for a refuge from the tragedy of life? They had not -come for an escape from sin; for, if their friends were to -be believed, the border line had been passed long ago.</p> - -<p>An hour of silence, broken now and then by deep -breathing, as of agitation, and sometimes by a stifled sob, -and then a flood of words, speech that was eloquent enough -to seem inspired, speech that might have come from him -who wrote "Christmas Eve," and "Easter Day," and -"A Death in the Desert," the speech of a believer in all -that is most divine in the promise of a future life. And -after that burst of impassioned utterance there were other -speakers, men and women, the men strong in faith, strong -in the gift of tongues, possessed by the higher mind that -spoke through organs of common clay; the women semi-hysterical, -romantic, eloquent with remembered poetry. -But in men and women alike there was sincerity, an intense -belief in that close contact of disembodied mind, sincerity -that carried conviction to an imaginative neophyte like -Vera Provana.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p> - -<p>Suddenly from the stillness there came a voice more -thrilling than any Vera had heard in that long <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">séance</i>, a -voice that was not altogether unfamiliar, but with a note -more intense, more poignant than she knew. Gleaming -through the shadows, she saw eyes that flashed green -light, and a long, thin face of marble pallor, in which she -knew the face of Lady Fanny Ransom.</p> - -<p>And now came the most startling speech that had been -heard that afternoon—the passionate advocacy of Free -Love—love released from the dominion of law, the bonds -of custom, the fear of the world; love as in Shelley's -wildest dreams, but more transcendental than in the -dreams of poets; the love of spirit for spirit, soul for -soul, "pure to pure"—as Milton imagined the love of -angels. All the grossness of earth was eliminated from -that rarefied atmosphere in which Francis Symeon's -disciples had their being. Their first and indispensable -qualification was to have liberated thought and feeling -from the dominion of the senses. While still wearing the -husk of the flesh, they were to be spirits; and not till -they had become spirits were they capable of communion -with those radiant beings whose earthly vesture had been -annihilated by death.</p> - -<p>To Vera there was an awful beauty in those echoes of -great minds; and her faith was strong in the belief that -among this little company of aspiring mortals there hovered -the spirits of the illustrious dead. She left Mr. Symeon's -room with those others, who dispersed in absolute silence, as -good people leave a church, with no recognition of each -other, stealing away as from a service of unusual solemnity. -They did not even look at each other, nor did they take -leave of Mr. Symeon, who stood by one of the shuttered -windows, gravely watching as his guests departed.</p> - -<p>It was past seven, and the sun was low, as Vera went -to her carriage, which was waiting for her in Burlington -Gardens. She was stepping into it, when a too familiar voice -startled her. She had been too deep in thought to see -Claude Rutherford waiting for her at the gate of the -"Albany."</p> - -<p>"Send your carriage home, Vera, and walk through -the Green Park with me. You must want fresh air after -the gloom of Symeon's Egyptian temple."</p> - -<p>"No, no. I am going straight home."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Indeed you are not," and without further argument -he took upon himself to give the order to the footman.</p> - -<p>"Your mistress will walk home."</p> - -<p>She would have resisted; but it was not easy to dispute -with a man who had a way of taking things for granted, -especially those things he wanted. It would have been -easier to contend against energy, or even brute force, than -against that nonchalant self-assurance of an amiable -idler, who sauntered through life, getting his own way by -a passive resistance of all opposing circumstances.</p> - -<p>"I have been waiting nearly two hours," he said. "It -would be hard if you couldn't give me half an hour before -your dinner. I know you never dine before half-past -eight."</p> - -<p>"But I have to be punctual. Aunt Mildred is coming -to dinner, and Susie Amphlett."</p> - -<p>"It has only just struck seven. You shall be home -before eight, and I suppose you can dress in half an hour."</p> - -<p>"I won't risk not being in the drawing-room when -Aunt Mildred comes."</p> - -<p>"Lady Okehampton is a terror, I admit. You shall be -home in good time, child. But I must have something for -my two hours."</p> - -<p>"How absurd of you to wait," she said lightly. "And -how did you know I was at Mr. Symeon's?"</p> - -<p>They were going through the "Albany" to Piccadilly. -She had recovered from the shock of his appearance, and -was able to speak with the old trivial air, the tone of -comradeship, an easy friendliness, without the possibility -of deeper feeling. It had seemed so natural before the -consciousness of sin; and it had been so sweet. This -evening, as she walked by his side, she began to think -that they might still be comrades and friends, without -the shadow of fear; that her agony of awakened conscience -had been foolish and hysterical, imaginary sin, like -the self-accusation of some demented nun.</p> - -<p>"How did I know? Well, after calling at your house -repeatedly, only to be told you were not at home, I lost -my temper, and determined to find out where you were—at -least for this one afternoon, when I knew of no high -jinks in the houses of your friends; and so, having asked -an impertinent question or two of your butler, I found that -Symeon had been with you yesterday, and guessed that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -you might be at his occult assembly this afternoon. I had -heard a whisper of such an assembly more than a week -ago—so you see the process of discovery was not difficult."</p> - -<p>"But why take so much trouble?"</p> - -<p>"Why? Because you have treated me very badly, and -I don't mean to put up with that kind of treatment. If it -comes to why, I have my own 'why' to ask—a why that -I must have answered. What ignorant sin have I committed -that it should be 'Darwaza band' when I call in -Portland Place? What has become of our cousinship; -our memory of childish pleasures, the sea, the woods, the -heather; the pony that ran away with you, while I stood -with my blood frozen, telling myself, 'If he kills her I shall -throw myself over the cliff'? What has become of our -past, Vera? Is blood to be no thicker than water? Is -the bond of our childish affection to go for nothing? Is it -because I am a failure that you have cut me?"</p> - -<p>"I have not cut you, Claude. How can you say such -a thing?"</p> - -<p>"Have you not? Then I know nothing of the cutting -process. To be always out when I call—to take infinite -trouble to avoid me when we meet in other people's houses! -The cut direct was never more stony-hearted and remorseless."</p> - -<p>"You must not fancy things," she said lightly.</p> - -<p>They were in the Green Park by this time, the quiet -Green Park, whence nursemaids and children had vanished, -and where even loafers were few at this hour between -afternoon and evening.</p> - -<p>She spoke lightly, and there was a lightness at her -heart that was new. It was sweet to be with him—sweet -to be walking at his side on the old familiar terms, friends, -companions, comrades, as of old. His careless speech, his -supreme ease of manner, seemed to have broken a spell. -She looked back and thought of her troubled conscience, -and all the scheming and distress of the last two months, -and she felt as if she had awakened from a fever dream, -from a dreary interval of delirium and hysteria. What -danger could there be in such a friendship? What had -tragedy to do with Claude Rutherford? This airy trifler, -this saunterer through life, was not of the stuff of which -lovers are made. He was a man whom all women liked; -but he was not the man whom a woman calls her Fate,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -and who cannot be her friend without being her destroyer. -How could she ever have feared him? He was of her -own blood. His respect for her race—the race to which he -belonged—would hold him in check, even if there were -no other restraining influences. The burden of fear was -lifted; and her spirits rose to a girlish lightness, as she -walked by her cousin's side with swift footsteps, listening -to his playful reproaches, his facetious bewailing of his -worthlessness. From this time forward she would treat -him as a brother. She would never again think it possible -that words of love, unholy words, could fall from his lips. -No such word had ever been spoken; and was it not -shameful in her to have feared him—to imagine him a -lover while he had always shown himself her loyal kinsman? -In this new and happy hour she forgot that it was her -own heart that had sounded the alarm—that it was because -she loved him, not because he loved her, that she had -resolved upon ruling him out of her life.</p> - -<p>Perhaps this evening, after the glamour of Mr. Symeon's -assembly, she was "fey." This sudden rush of gladness, -this ecstasy of reunion with the friend from whom she had -compassed heaven and earth to hold herself aloof, seemed -more than the gladness of common day. She trod on air; -and when they pulled up suddenly at Hyde Park Comer, -it was a surprise to find that they had not been walking -towards Portland Place.</p> - -<p>"We must make for Stanhope Gate and cross Grosvenor -Square and Bond Street," Claude said gaily. "We have -come a long way round, but a walk is a walk, and I have -no doubt we both wanted one. Perhaps you would -prefer a cab."</p> - -<p>"No, I like walking, if there is time."</p> - -<p>"Plenty of time. You walk like Atalanta, if that young -person ever condescended to anything but a run."</p> - -<p>"Do you remember our walks in the woods, and the -afternoon we lost our way and could not get home for the -nursery tea?"</p> - -<p>"You mean when I lost my way, and you had to tramp -the shoes off your dear little feet. Brave little minx, I -shall never forget how plucky you were, and how you -kept back the tears when your lips quivered with -pain."</p> - -<p>Once launched upon reminiscences of that golden summer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> -there was no gap in their talk till the lions' heads were -frowning at them on the threshold of Vera's home.</p> - -<p>She was flushed with her walk, and the colour in cheeks -that were generally pale gave a new brightness to her eyes. -That long talk of her childish days had taken her out -of her present life. She was a child again, happy in the -present moment, without the wisdom that looks before -and after.</p> - -<p>"Good-bye," said Claude; and then, pausing, with his -hand on the moody lion, "if you had some vague idea of -asking me to dinner, it would be a kindness to give shape -to the notion, for I shan't get a dinner anywhere else. -My mother is in the country, and a solitary meal at a -restaurant is worse than a funeral."</p> - -<p>Vera hesitated, with a faint blush, not being able utterly -to forget her determination to keep Claude Rutherford out -of her daily life.</p> - -<p>"Lady Okehampton expects to find me alone," she -said.</p> - -<p>"But you have Susie Amphlett?"</p> - -<p>"Susie invited herself."</p> - -<p>"As I am doing. Three women! What a funereal -feast; as bad as Domitian's black banquet. Your aunt -dotes upon me, and so does Susan. You will score by -having secured me. You can say I threw over a long -engagement for the sake of meeting them. I dare say -there is some solemn dinner invitation stuck in my chimney -glass. I often forget such things."</p> - -<p>The doors were flung open, and the suave man in black -and his liveried lieutenants awaited their mistress's -entrance.</p> - -<p>"<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">A ce soir</i>," said Claude, as he hailed a prowling hansom; -and he was seated in it, smiling at her with lifted hat, -before Vera had time to answer him.</p> - -<p>"Mr. Rutherford will dine here this evening," she told -the butler.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Vera was walking up and down her drawing-room at twenty -minutes past eight, dressed in one of those filmy white -evening gowns with which her wardrobe was always -supplied, one of her mermaid frocks, as Lady Susan called -them. This one was all gauzy whiteness, with something -green and glittering that flashed out of the whiteness now -and then, to match the emerald circlet in her cloudy hair.</p> - -<p>The tender carnation that had come from her walk was -still in her cheeks, still giving unusual brightness to her -eyes.</p> - -<p>She had been happy; she had put away dark thoughts. -Life was gay and glad once again, glad and gay as it had -always been when she and Claude were together. A load -had been lifted from her heart, the vulgar terror of the -conventional wife, who could not imagine friendship without -sin. The things that she had heard that afternoon had -given a new meaning to life, had lifted her thoughts and -feelings from the commonplace to the transcendental; -to the sphere in which there was no such thing as sin, -where there were only darkness and light, where the senses -had no power over the soul that dwelt in communion with -souls released from earth. She no longer feared a lover -in the friend she had chosen out of the common herd.</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton sailed into the drawing-room as the -silvery chime of an Italian clock told the half-hour. Her -expansive person, clad in amber satin, glowed like the -setting sun, and her smiling face radiated good nature.</p> - -<p>She put up her long glass to look at Vera, being somewhat -short-sighted physically as well as morally.</p> - -<p>"My dear child, you are looking worlds better than -when I last saw you. You were such a wreck at Lady -Mohun's ball; looked as if you ought to have been in -bed, doing a rest cure—a ghost in a diamond tiara. I -find that when a woman is looking ill diamonds always -make her look worse; but to-night you are charming.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -That emerald bandeau suits you better than the thing you -wore at the ball. You haven't the aquiline profile that -can carry off an all-round crown."</p> - -<p>Claude and Lady Susan came in together.</p> - -<p>"My car nearly collided with his taxi," said Lady Susie, -when she had embraced her friend; "but I was very glad -to see a man at your door. From what you said this -morning, I expected a hen-party. Now a big hen-party -is capital fun; but for three women to sit at meat alone! -The idea opens an immeasurable vista of boredom. I -always feel as if I must draw the butler into the conversation, -and bandy an occasional joke with the footmen. No -doubt they could be immensely funny if one would let -them."</p> - -<p>"It was an after-thought," said Claude. "Vera took -fright at the eleventh hour, and admitted the serpent into -her paradise."</p> - -<p>"No doubt Adam and Eve were dull—a perpetual -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i>, tempered by tame lions, must soon have palled; -but at least it was better than three women, yawning in -each other's faces, after exhausting the latest scandal."</p> - -<p>"I think the early dinner in 'Paradise Lost' quite the -dullest meal on record," said Claude. "To begin with, -it was vegetarian and non-alcoholic. A man and his wife—the -wife waiting at table—and one prosy guest monologuing -from the eggs to the apples."</p> - -<p>"There is no mention of eggs. I don't think they -had anything so comfortable as a poultry yard in Eden; -no buff Orpingtons, or white Wyandottes, only eagles and -nightingales," said Susie, and at this moment the butler -announced dinner in a confidential murmur, as if it were a -State secret. He was neither stout nor elderly; but in his -tall slimness and grave countenance there was a dignity -that would have reduced the most emancipated of matrons -to good behaviour.</p> - -<p>"I should never dare to draw <em>him</em> into the conversation," -whispered Susie, as Claude offered his arm to Lady Okehampton. -"Nothing would tempt that perfect creature -to a breach of etiquette."</p> - -<p>The hen-dinner, relieved by one man, was charming. -Not too long a dinner; for one of the discoveries of this -easy-going century is that people don't want to sit for -an hour and a half steeping themselves in the savour<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -of expensive food, while solemn men in plush and silk -stockings stalk behind their back in an endless procession, -carrying dishes whose contents are coldly glanced at -and coldly refused. The dinner was short, but perfect: -too short for the talk, which was gay and animated from -start to finish.</p> - -<p>Lady Susan and Mr. Rutherford were the talkers, Vera -and her aunt only coming in occasionally: Lady Okehampton -with a comfortable common-sense that was -meant to keep the rodomontade within bounds.</p> - -<p>Claude was an omnivorous reader, and had always a new -set of anecdotes and epigrams with which to keep the talk -alive, anecdotes so brief and sparkling that he seemed -to flash them across the table like pistol shots. French, -German, or Italian, his accent was faultless, and his -enunciation clear as that of the most finished comedian; -while in the give and take of friendly chaff with such an -interlocutor as Lady Susan, he was a past master.</p> - -<p>Vera did not talk much, but she looked radiant, the -lovely embodiment of youth and gladness. Her light -laughter rang clear above Susan's, after Claude's most -successful stories. Once only during that gay repast was -a graver note sounded, and it came from the most frivolous -of the party, from Susie Amphlett, who had one particular -aversion, which she sometimes enlarged upon with a -morbid interest.</p> - -<p>Age was Susan's bugbear.</p> - -<p>"I think of it when I wake in the night, like Camilla, -in 'Great Expectations,'" she said, looking round the -table with frightened eyes, as if she were seeing ghosts.</p> - -<p>The grapes and peaches had been handed, and it was -the confidential quarter of an hour after the servants had -gone.</p> - -<p>"I don't like to give myself away before a butler," -Susie said, as the door closed on the last of the silk -stockings. "Footmen are non-existent: one doesn't stop -to consider whether they are matter, or only electricity; -but a butler is a person and can think—perhaps a -socialistic satirist, seething with silent scorn for his -mistress and her friends."</p> - -<p>"And no doubt an esteemed contributor to one of the -Society Papers," said Claude.</p> - -<p>"I am not afraid of Democracy, nor the English adapta<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>tion -of the French Revolution, though I feel sure it is -coming," continued Lady Susan, planting her elbow on the -table in an expansive mood. "I am afraid of nothing -except growing old. That one terror swallows up all -trivial fears. They might take my money, they might -steep me in poverty to the lips, and if I could keep youth -and good looks, I should hardly mind."</p> - -<p>Again she looked at the others appealingly, like a child -that is afraid of Red Riding-hood's wolf.</p> - -<p>"Age is such a hideous disease—the one incurable -malady. And we must all have it. We are all growing -old; even you, Vera, though you have not begun to -think about it. I didn't till I was thirty. As we sit at -this table and laugh and amuse ourselves, the sands are -falling, falling, falling—they never stop! Glad or sorry, -that horrible disease goes on, till the symptoms suddenly -become acute—grey hair, wrinkles, gout."</p> - -<p>"But are there not some mild pleasures left in the years -that bring the philosophic mind?" asked Claude.</p> - -<p>"Does that mean when one is eighty? At eighty one -might easily be philosophic. Everything would be over -and done with. One would be like old Lord Tyrawly, -who said he was dead, though people did not know it."</p> - -<p>"Some of the most delightful people I have known -were old, and even very old," said Claude, "but they -didn't mind. That's the secret of eternal youth, my dear -Susie—not to mind: to wear the best wig you can buy, and -not to pretend it is your own hair: to wear pretty clothes, -especially suited to your years, sumptuous velvet and -more sumptuous fur, like a portrait of an old lady by -Velasquez: never to brag of your age, but never to be -ashamed of it. The last phase may be the best phase, -if one has the philosophic mind."</p> - -<p>"Oh, you," exclaimed Susan scornfully, "you are like -Chesterfield. You will have your good manners till your -last death-bed visitor has been given a chair. A fine -manner is the only thing that time can't touch."</p> - -<p>Vera saw her aunt looking bored, and smiled the signal -for moving.</p> - -<p>"Half a cigarette, and I shall follow," said Claude, -as he opened the door for the trio, "unless I am distinctly -forbidden."</p> - -<p>"Why should we forbid you? You are an artist, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -you know more about frocks and hats than we do, after -years of laborious study," said Lady Susan, and then, -with her arm through Vera's as they went slowly up the -broad staircase, with steps so shallow that people accustomed -to small houses were in danger of falling over them, -"Isn't he incomparable?" she exclaimed. "There never -was such a delightful failure."</p> - -<p>"Poor Claude," sighed Lady Okehampton. "I suppose -it is only the men who fail in everything who have time to -be agreeable. If a young man has a great ambition, and -is thinking of his career, he is generally a bear. Claude -has wasted all his chances in life, and can afford to waste -his time."</p> - -<p>"It was a pity he left the Army," said Susan. "He -looked lovely in his uniform. I remember him as he -flashed past me in a hansom, one summer morning after -a levée, a vision of beauty."</p> - -<p>"It was a pity he got himself entrapped by a bad -woman," said Lady Okehampton with a sigh.</p> - -<p>"His Colonel's second wife," put in Lady Susan. "Isn't -it always the elderly Colonel's second wife?"</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton gave another sigh.</p> - -<p>"It was a disgraceful story," she murmured. "Let us -try to forget all about it."</p> - -<p>Vera had flushed and paled while they were talking.</p> - -<p>"But tell me about it, Aunt Mildred," she said, with a -kind of angry eagerness. "Where was the disgrace, more -than in all such cases? A wicked woman, a foolish young -man—very young, wasn't he?"</p> - -<p>"Not five and twenty."</p> - -<p>"Where was the disgrace?"</p> - -<p>"Don't excite yourself, child. Duplicity—an old man's -heart broken—Isn't that enough? An elopement or not -an elopement; something horrid that happened after a -regimental ball. I know nothing of the details, for it all -took place while the regiment was in India, which only -shows that Kipling's stories are true to life. The husband -would not divorce her—which was a blessing—or Claude -would have had to marry her. He spoilt his career by the -intrigue; but marriage would have been worse."</p> - -<p>Vera's heart was beating violently when Claude sauntered -into the room presently, and made his leisurely way to the -sofa where she was sitting aloof from the other two, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> -had just entered upon an animated discussion of the last -fashionable nerve-specialist and his methods.</p> - -<p>"What has made you so pale?" Claude asked, as he -seated himself by Vera's side. "Was our walk through -the streets too much for you? I should never forgive -myself if——"</p> - -<p>"You have nothing to be sorry for. The walk was -delightful. My aunt and Susie have been talking of -unpleasant things."</p> - -<p>"What kind of things?"</p> - -<p>"Of your leaving the Army. You have never told me -why you threw up your career."</p> - -<p>"My career! There was not much to lose. The Boer -War was over; my regiment was in India all the time, and -I never had a look in. Oh, they have been telling you an -ugly story about your poor friend; and it will be 'The -door is shut' again, I suppose."</p> - -<p>"Why did not you tell me of your past life? I have -told you everything about mine."</p> - -<p>"Because you had only nice innocent things to tell. -My story would not bear telling—and why should you -want to know?"</p> - -<p>"There should not be a wall between friends—such -friends as we have been—like brother and sister."</p> - -<p>"Do brothers tell old love stories? Stale, barren stories -of loves that are dead?"</p> - -<p>"Perhaps not. I oughtn't to have spoken about it. -Come and talk to Aunt Mildred. Her carriage has been -announced, and she'll be huffed if we don't go to -her."</p> - -<p>Claude followed meekly, and in five minutes Lady -Okehampton had forgotten that it was eleven o'clock, and -that her horses had been waiting half an hour. He had a -curious power of making women pleased with themselves, -and with him. He always flattered them; but his flattery -was so discreet and subtle as to be imperceptible. It was -rather his evident delight in being with them and talking -to them that pleased, than anything that he said.</p> - -<p>"Come to River Mead for next Sunday. It will be my -last week-end party before we go to Scotland," Lady -Okehampton said to him before she bade good night. -"Vera and Susan are coming. We shall be a small party, -and there will be plenty of bridge."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p> - -<p>Claude accepted the invitation as he took Lady Okehampton -to her carriage.</p> - -<p>"I wish Provana were not so much away from his wife," -she said. "It is a very difficult position for Vera."</p> - -<p>"Vera is not <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">la première venue</i>. She knows how to take -care of herself."</p> - -<p>"That's what they always say about women; but is it -true in her case? She is very young, and rather simple, -and knows very little of the world."</p> - -<p>"Not after six years as the wife of a financial Crœsus?" -murmured Claude, while he arranged the matron's voluminous -mantle over her shoulders as carefully as if the outside -atmosphere had been arctic.</p> - -<p>He knew that the drift of her speech had been by way -of warning for him. Dear, inconsistent soul! It was so -like her to invite him to spend three days with her niece -in the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">sans gêne</i> of a riverside villa, and five minutes -afterwards to sound a note of warning.</p> - -<p>He walked along the lamp-lit streets with the light foot -of triumphant love. Vera's pale distress and unwise -questioning had set his heart beating with the presage -of victory. Poor child! For his acute perceptions, the -heart of a woman had seldom been a mystery, and this -woman's heart was easier to read than most. Poor child! -She had been trying to live without him. She had fought -her poor little battle, with more of resolution and of courage -than he would have expected from a creature so tender. -She had kept him out of her life for a long time—time that -had seemed an eternity for him, in his longing for her; -and then, at a word, at a smile, at the touch of his hand, -she had yielded, and had let him see that to be with him -was to be happy, and that nothing else mattered. Light -love had been his portion in the light years of youth; but -this was no light love. He had sacrificed his career for -the sake of a woman; but the sacrifice had been forced -upon him, and it had killed his love. But now he was -prepared for any sacrifice—for the sacrifice of life-long -exile, and strained means. He thought of a home in a -summer isle of the great southern ocean, like Stevenson's; -or, if gaiety were better, in some romantic city of Spanish -America. There were paradises enough in the world, -there would be no one to point the finger of scorn, where -"Society" was a word of no meaning.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p> - -<p>He would carry his love to the world's end, beyond -the reach of shame. Nothing mattered but Vera. Yes, -there was one who mattered. His mother! But to-night -he could not even think of her, or if he thought of her it -was to tell himself that if Provana divorced his wife, -and he and Vera were married, his mother would be -reconciled to the inevitable. Her religion would be a -stumbling block. To her mind such a marriage would be -no marriage. To-night he could not reason, he would not -see obstacles in his path. Vera's pale looks and anxious -questions had been a confession of love, a forecast of -surrender; and in the tumult of his thoughts there was -no room for hesitation or for fear.</p> - -<p>He thought of his love now as duty. It was his duty -to rescue this dear girl from a loveless union with a hard -man of business, old enough to be her father, from splendours -and luxuries that had become as dust and ashes. -He had known for a long time that she cared for him; -but he had never reckoned the strength of her attachment. -Only this afternoon, in her radiant happiness, as they -walked through the unromantic streets; only in her pale -distress to-night, as she questioned him, had he discovered -his power: and now there seemed to be but one -possible issue—a new life for them both.</p> - -<p>His mother's absence from London was an inexpressible -relief to him. How could he have met the tender questioning -of the eyes that watched over his life, and had learned -how to read his mind from the time when thought began? -How could he have hidden the leaping, passionate thoughts, -the sense of a crisis in his fate, the ardent expectation, -the dream of joy, the fever and excitement in the mind -of a man who is making his plan of a new life, a life of -exquisite happiness?</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> -</div> - - -<p>It was Saturday, and they were at River Mead—one -of those ideal places that seem to have been raised along -the upper Thames by an enchanter's wand rather than by -the vulgar arts of architect and builder, so exquisitely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -do they harmonise with the landscape that enshrines -them.</p> - -<p>No hideous chimney, no mammoth reservoir, no thriving -metropolitan High Street, defiled the neighbourhood of -River Mead. All around was rustic peace. Green meadows -and blue waters, amidst which there lay gardens that had -taken a century to make—grass walks between yew -hedges, and labyrinths of roses; and in the distance -purple woods that melted into a purple horizon. It was -a place that people always thought of as steeped in golden -sunlight; but not even in the glory of a midsummer -afternoon was River Mead quite as lovely as on such a -night as this, when Claude and Vera strolled slowly -along the river path, in the silver light of a great round -moon, hung in the blue deep of a sky without a -cloud.</p> - -<p>The magic of night and moonshine was upon everything; -the mystery of light and shadow gave a charm to things -that were commonplace by day—to the white balustrade -in front of the drawing-rooms, to the flight of steps and -the marble vases, above which the lighted windows shone -golden, the gaudy yellow light of indoor lamps shamed -by the white glory of the moon.</p> - -<p>The windows were all open, and the voices of the card-players -travelled far in the clear air—they could even hear -the light sound of their cards, manipulated by a dexterous -hand. Everybody was playing bridge, everybody was -absorbed in the game, winning or losing, happy or unhappy, -but absorbed—except these two. Everybody -except these two, who had been missing since ten o'clock; -and the great stable clock had sounded its twelve slow, -sonorous strokes half an hour ago. They had not been -wanted. The tables were all full. Two or three of the -players had looked round the room once or twice, and, -noting their absence, had exchanged the quiet smile, the -almost imperceptible elevation of arched eyebrows, with -which, in a highly civilised community, characters can be -killed. For Lady Okehampton—she who had more than -once sounded the note of warning, and who should have -been on the alert to see danger signals—from the moment -the tables were opened and the players seated, the world of -men and women outside that charmed space—where cards -fluttered lightly upon smooth green cloth, four eager faces<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -watching them as they fell—had ceased to exist. She -was not a stupid woman; but she had a mind that -moved slowly, and she could not think of two serious -things at once. For her bridge was a serious thing; and -from tea-time on Saturday till this Sunday midnight -bridge had occupied all her thoughts, to the exclusion of -every other consideration. Smiles might be exchanged -and eyebrows raised when, on Sunday morning, Claude -Rutherford carried off her niece two miles up the river to -a village church, which by his account was a gem in early -Gothic that was worth more than the two miles' sculling -a light skiff against the current; but Lady Okehampton -was too absorbed even to wonder whether there was anything -not quite correct in the excursion. Why should not -people want to see the old church at Allersley? It was -one of the lions of the neighbourhood, and counted among -the attractions of River Mead.</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton's cards on Saturday night had -seemed to be dealt to her by a malignant fiend, an invisible -devil guiding the smooth white hands of human -dealers. She had lain awake till the Sunday morning bells -were ringing for the early service to which good people -were going, fresh and light of foot, with minds at ease. -She had tossed and turned in her sumptuous bed in a -feverish unrest, playing her miserable hands over and over -again, with the restless blood in her brain going round and -round like a mill wheel, or plunging backwards and forwards -like a piston rod. There had been no time to think of Vera -and Claude. She could think only of Sunday evening, and -of her chance of revenge. It was not that she minded her -money losses, which were despicable when reckoned against -the price of Okehampton's autumn sport. Two thousand -pounds for a grouse moor and a salmon river—an outlay -of which he talked as lightly as if it were a new hat. The -money was nothing. He would give as much for an Irish -setter as she lost in an evening. But the vexation and -humiliation of a long evening's bad luck were too much for -nerves that had been strained to snapping point by many -seasons of experimental treatment, all over Europe; and -the mistress of River Mead had left her visitors to amuse -themselves at their own sweet will, until dinner-time on -Sunday evening, while their hostess slept in her easy-chair -by the open window of her morning-room, soothed by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -lullaby of the stream running down the weir, and sweet -airs from a garden of roses, such roses as only grow in a -riverside garden.</p> - -<p>The choice of amusements or occupations after luncheon -on this Sunday afternoon was somewhat limited. Two -girls and their youthful admirers played a four-handed -game of croquet. A middle-aged spinster, who had been -suspected of tricky play on Saturday, trudged a mile and a -quarter to the little town where there was a church so old-fashioned -as to provide a substantial afternoon service -for adult worshippers. Most of the masculine guests wrote -letters, or read Sunday papers in the billiard-room, or -slumbered in basket chairs on the river lawn. Vera and -Claude did nothing out of the common in strolling up the -hill to the wood, where they lost themselves during the lazy -two hours between the end of a leisurely luncheon and the -appearance of tea-tables in the shady drawing-room. -Coming back a little tired after her idle afternoon, Vera -sat on a sofa in the darkest corner of the spacious room, -by the side of a comfortable matron, an old friend of -her aunt's, with whom she exchanged amiable truisms, -and mild opinions upon books, plays and sermons—a -kind of talk that demanded neither thought nor effort, -while Claude sat among a distant group, bored to death, -but smiling and courteous.</p> - -<p>After tea there was the garden till dressing time. Everybody -was in the garden, so it was only natural that these -two should be sauntering in lanes of roses, exchanging -light talk with other saunterers, and lingering a little -at the crossing of the ways, where the slow drip of a -fountain made a coolness in the sultry evening, or stopping -at an opening in the flowery rampart, to look across the -blue water towards the grey old tower, and listen to the -pensive music of church bells.</p> - -<p>These two had been alone all day, without interference -or espial from chaperon Aunt, unconscious of observation, -if they were observed, alone in this little world of summer -verdure and sunlit water; as much alone as in a pathless -wilderness. All that long summer day they had been -alone, talking, talking, talking, as only lovers talk; and -now, at midnight, they were still alone in the garden that -was changed in the moonlight, changed from the warm -glow of colour to the silvery paleness and mysterious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -shadow, in which the prolific clusters of the Félicité pérpétuelle -looked like the ghosts of roses.</p> - -<p>If it were sin to love, the sin had been sinned; from -the hour in which he had drawn the confession of her -love from the lips that he kissed for the first time.</p> - -<p>She had tried to hold him off—tried to keep those lips -unprofaned by the kiss of guilt. They were alone in the -wood on the hill that fatal Sunday afternoon, safe only -for the moment, since the woodland path was a favourite -walk with visitors at River Mead. But he had drawn her -from the footpath into the shade of great beech trees, and -they were alone. He had kissed her, and she had submitted -to the guilty kiss, and she knew that she was lost.</p> - -<p>Did she love him? She whispered yes. With all her -heart and soul? Yes. Could she be happy if he left -her for ever? No, no, no. Could she give up all the -world for him, as he would for her? The lips that he -had kissed were too tremulous for speech. She hid her -face upon his breast, and was dumb.</p> - -<p>"The die is cast," he said in a low, grave voice, "and -now we have only to think of our future."</p> - -<p>"Our future?" Henceforth they were one; united -by a bond as strong as if they had been married before -the high altar in Westminster Abbey, with all the best -people in London looking on and approving the bond. -Nothing else could matter now. They belonged to each -other. He was to command, and she was to obey. It -was almost as if, in the moment of her confession, her -personal entity had ceased. In all those hours of delicious -intimacy, in fond imaginings of their future life, the thought -of her husband had never come between her and her -lover—and to-night, when she thought of Mario Provana, -it was only to tell herself that he had long ceased to care -for her, and that it would not hurt him if she were to -vanish out of his life.</p> - -<p>Provana had been gone more than fourteen days, and -his cabled messages told her of delays and difficulties. -The financial crisis was more serious than he had anticipated, -and he would have to see it out. He had sent her -several messages, but only one letter—a kind letter, such -as an uncle might have written to a niece; but it seemed -to her there was no love in it, not even such love as he -had lavished on his daughter. There was nothing left<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -of the love that had wrapped her round like summer -sunlight, the strong man's love that had made her so -proud of having been chosen by him, so tranquil in the -assurance of a happiness that nothing could change.</p> - -<p>The change had come before they had lived a year in -that great, gloomy London house, when she had been -less than two years a wife.</p> - -<p>It was after parting with Claude in the garden, and -creeping quietly up to her room in the second hour of the -new day, while doors were beginning to open and voices to -sound as the card-players bade good-night; it was in the -stillness of the pretty guest-chamber that Vera began to -think of Mario Provana, and the impassioned love that -had ended in a frozen aloofness.</p> - -<p>He had said, "Let there be no pretending." Could he -have told her more absolutely that his love was dead, and -that no charm of sweetness in her could make it live again? -She had made her poor little attempt to win him back; -and it had failed. What more was left but to be happy -in her own way?</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The season was dying hard. Lady Leominster's ball, -at the great old house at Fulham, was the last flash of -an expiring fire. The Houses of Parliament had closed -their historic doors. The walls of the Royal Academy had -been stripped of their masterpieces, and empty themselves, -looked down upon dusty emptiness. All the best -theatres were shut; London was practically empty. The -few thousand lingerers in a wilderness of deserted streets -bewailed the inanity of the daily Press. There was nothing -in the morning papers; and the evening papers were -worse, since they were obliged to echo the morning -nothingness.</p> - -<p>The people who never read books were longing for -something startling in those indispensable papers, were it -even a declaration of war. Suddenly their longing was -satisfied. The morning papers were devoured with eager<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>ness. -The evening paper was waited for with feverish -expectancy. All of a sudden the great army of the -brainless found themselves with something to think about, -something to talk about, something upon which to build -up hypotheses, to which, once built, they adhered with -a fierce persistency.</p> - -<p>There had been a murder. A murder in the heart of -London, in one of the fine houses of the West End; not -one of the finest, for, after all, spacious and splendid as -the house might be, it was not like Berkeley or Devonshire, -Lansdowne or Stafford. It was only one in a row of -spacious houses, the house of a foreign financier, a man -who dealt in millions, and who was himself the owner of -millions.</p> - -<p>Mario Provana had been murdered in his own house—shot -through the heart by an unknown assassin, who had -done his work well enough to leave no clue to his identity. -Speculation might rove at will, theory and hypothesis -might run riot. Here was endless talk for dinner-tables—inexhaustible -copy for the newspaper.</p> - -<p>A man of great wealth, of exalted position in the world -of finance—finance, not commerce. Here was no dealer -in commodities, no manufacturer of cocoa, or sugar, or -reels of cotton, but a man who dealt in the world's wealth, -and could make peace or war by opening or closing his -money-bags.</p> - -<p>People who had never seen the great man's face in the -flesh were just as keenly interested in the circumstances of -his death as the people who had dined at his table and -had known him as intimately as such men ever are known. -A rough print of his photograph was in every halfpenny -paper, and the likeness of his beautiful young wife was -travestied in some of them. Pictures of the house in -Portland Place, front and back view, were in all the papers. -Columns of picturesque reporting described the man and -the house, the beautiful young wife, the sumptuous -furniture, the numerous household, the splendid entertainments -which had made the house famous for the last six -or seven years.</p> - -<p>And for the murdered man himself, no details were -omitted. Interviews were invented, in which, during the -last year, Signor Provana had expounded his opinions -and views of that sphere of life in which he exercised so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -vast an influence—his ideas political, his tastes in art -and literature, music, and the drama. Minute descriptions -of his person were given in the same glowing style. The -picturesque reporter made the dead man alive again for -the million readers who were panting for details that would -help them to strengthen their own pet theory or to crush -an opponent.</p> - -<p>Thousands of sensation-hunters went to Portland Place -to look at the house that held that dreadful mystery -of a life untimely cut short by the hand of a murderer. -Loafers stood on the pavement and gazed and gazed, as -if their hungry eyes would have pierced dead walls and -darkened windows. The loafers knew that the house -was in charge of the police, and that a vigilant watch was -being kept there. They wondered whether the lovely -young wife was in the house. They pictured her weeping -alone in one of those darkened rooms; yet were inclined -to think that her friends would have insisted on her -leaving that house of gloom, and would have carried her -off to some less terrible place for rest and comfort.</p> - -<p>The first idea was the correct one. Vera was lying in -that spacious bed-chamber behind three windows on the -second floor, where ivy-leaved geraniums were falling in -showers of pale pink blossom from the flower-boxes. She -was lying on the vast Italian bed, lying like a stone figure, -while Susan Amphlett sat by the bed, and wept and -sighed, with intervals of vague, consoling speech, till, -finding that speech elicited no reply, and indeed seemed -unheard, she had at last, in sheer vacuity of mind, to take -refuge in the first book within reach of her hand.</p> - -<p>It was one among many small volumes on a table by -the bed—Omar Kháyyam.</p> - -<p>"Oh, what a dreary book," thought Susie, who was -beginning to feel her office of consoler something of a -burden.</p> - -<p>She had hated entering that dreadful house, as she -always called it in her thoughts, since she had heard of -the murder; and now to be sitting there in that deadly -silence, in that grey light from shrouded windows, to be -sitting there with the knowledge that only a little way -off, in another darkened room at the back of the dreadful -house, there lay death in its most appalling form, was -a kind of martyrdom for which Susie was unprepared,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -and which she was not constituted to suffer calmly or -lightly. As she had hated old age, so, with a deeper -hate, she hated death. To hear of it, to be forced to think -of it, was agonising; and to visualise the horror lying -so near her, a murdered man in his bloodstained shroud, -made her start up from her easy chair and begin to roam -about the room in restlessness and fear.</p> - -<p>She lifted the edge of a blind and peered into the street.</p> - -<p>The sight of the people staring up at the house was -comforting. They were alive. There were people standing -in the road, looking up with widened eyes, so absorbed -in what they saw, or wanted to see, that they ran a risk -of sudden annihilation from a motor-car, and skipped -off to the opposite pavement, there to content themselves -with a more distant view.</p> - -<p>"There never was such a murder," Susie said to herself. -"I think every soul in town must have come to look at -this horrid house since eleven o'clock this morning."</p> - -<p>It was now past three, in a dull, sultry afternoon. Susie -spent all the intervening hours in the silent room in the -dreadful house. She was sorry for her friend; but she -was still more sorry for herself. All those hours of silent -horror, without any luncheon, and no good done! What -was the use of sitting by the bed where a woman lay -dumb and motionless, unconsoled by affectionate murmurs -from a bosom friend, apparently unconscious that the -friend was there.</p> - -<p>Lady Susan called in Hanover Square on her way home, -and ordered a black frock, lustreless silk that would stand -alone, with a shimmer of sequins flashing through crêpe: -not this week's fashion, nor last week's, but the fashion -of the week after next. The style that was coming; not -the style that had come. This was her one agreeable -half-hour in all that dismal day.</p> - -<p>"I may be dining with Vera next week, and it will be -only kind to wear mourning," Susan told herself, as she -ordered the gown.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Mrs. Provana's French maid was the first witness at -the coroner's inquest. The first question she had to -answer was as to when she had last seen Mr. Provana -alive; and the same question was put to all succeeding -witnesses. The answer in each case was the same. Neither -any member of the household, nor the confidential clerk -from the City, had seen the deceased after he left London -on his journey to New York. It was Louison Dupuis, -Mrs. Provana's maid, who had discovered the dead man -lying on the floor of his dressing-room, close against the -door of communication with her mistress's bedroom. -Hers had been the first foot on the principal staircase -that morning. No other servant was licensed to tread -those stairs in the routine of their servitude. The rooms -they slept in, and the stairs by which they went up and -down, were at the back of the house, remote from the -principal staircase.</p> - -<p>Mademoiselle Louison looked scared, and trembled a -little as she told her dreadful story. It was her duty to -carry Madame her tea at seven o'clock. Madame desired -to be called at that hour, even when she had come home -from a party after midnight. The witness stated that -the still-room maid had the tray ready for her at ten -minutes to seven, and that she went up the staircase of -service with it to the second floor, and through the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">palier</i> -outside Madame's room, and thence through the open -doorway of Monsieur's <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cabinet de toilette</i>. She saw a -figure lying with the face downward. She had reason to -believe that Monsieur Provana was in America. Nothing -had been said in the household of his expected return: -yet she knew at the first glance that the man lying there -was her master. He was a man of imposing figure, not -easily mistaken. The horror of it had unnerved her, and -she had rushed down the great staircase to the hall, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -two of the footmen were opening windows and arranging -the furniture. She told them what she had seen, and one -of them went to fetch Mr. Sedgewick, the butler.</p> - -<p>Her evidence was given in a semi-hysterical and somewhat -disjointed manner, with occasional use of French -words for familiar things; but the coroner had been -patient with her—as an important witness, being the -first who had cognisance that murder had been done in -the night silence.</p> - -<p>Alfred Sedgewick, the butler, was a very different -witness—self-possessed and ready, eager to express his -opinion, and having to be held with a tight hand.</p> - -<p>He described, with studious particularity, how on -leaving his room on that morning, having just finished -dressing, and having been kept waiting for his shaving -water, he had run against Ma'mselle, who was rushing -along the passage in a frantic manner, pale as death, and -with eyes starting out of her head. A young person -who was apt to excite herself about trifles, and who on -this occasion seemed absolutely demented.</p> - -<p>On hearing Ma'mselle's statement, given in so distracted -a manner that only a person of superior intelligence could -find out what she meant, he had immediately sent one of -the footmen to the police office, to fetch a capable officer. -It was no case for the first constable called in from the street.</p> - -<p>He, Sedgewick, had then gone upstairs with another -of the men, and had found the dead body lying, as Ma'mselle -had stated, against the door of communication with Mrs. -Provana's bedroom. The face was hidden, but he had -not an instant's doubt as to the dead man's identity, for, -apart from the commanding figure, the left hand was -visible, on which the witness observed an old Italian -ring that his master always wore. He had touched the -hand, and found it was the hand of death; yet, in the -circumstances, he had considered it his duty to telephone -for the doctor. The room in which the body lay was -used by his master as a dressing-room; but it was also -used by him as a study, and there was a large office desk -in front of one of the windows, at which Mr. Provana -sometimes sat writing late into the night. There was also -a safe in which his master was supposed to keep important -papers, and possibly cash. It was not a large safe, but -it was of exceptional strength, and of the most modern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -and costly make. This safe was open when the police -took possession of the room, after the removal of the -body under the doctor's superintendence. There were -no signs of disorder in the room, except that the pistol -case on the desk was open, and both pistols were lying -on the floor, one near the hand of the deceased, the other -near the desk. The safe had not been forced open. The -key was in the door, one of three small keys on a steel -ring engraved with Signor Provana's name and address. -His master always carried these keys in one of his pockets.</p> - -<p>"When was Madame Provana informed of her husband's -death?"</p> - -<p>"Not until half-past eight o'clock, when Lady Okehampton -came. Mrs. Manby, the housekeeper, went in -a cab to Berkeley Square to tell her ladyship what had -happened, and Lady Okehampton came to the house in -the cab with Mrs. Manby."</p> - -<p>"Had not Mrs. Provana been awakened by the sounds -of voices and footsteps on the landing?"</p> - -<p>"No. Everything had been done with the utmost -quiet. There had been no talking above a whisper. His -mistress had been at the ball at Fulham Park, and had -not come home till three o'clock, and she was still sleeping -when Lady Okehampton went into her room."</p> - -<p>The doctor was the next witness.</p> - -<p>The medical evidence did not take long. In answer -to the coroner, the doctor stated that he was in the habit -of attending the household, and had been summoned -by telephone immediately on the discovery of the tragedy. -The body was lying facing the door between the two -rooms, and at no great distance from it. It was semi-prone -on its left side, the arms extended from the body, -but flexed. A loaded pistol lay close to the fingers of -the right hand. Life was extinct. Blood had trickled -from a wound in the back of the head and formed a pool -on the floor. The direction of the trickle from wound to -floor was vertical. There were no other blood-stains.</p> - -<p>A further examination demonstrated that the wound -was due to a bullet; that the bullet had entered the head -horizontally and penetrated the brain. The bullet was -found to fit a pistol lying in the room, recently discharged, -evidently companion to the one already mentioned. Both -fitted a case found on a table in front of the window.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> - -<p>The witness was of opinion,</p> - -<p>1. That death was due to shock from bullet wound.</p> - -<p>2. That death had been almost instantaneous, and -had taken place within three hours of the time when the -witness examined the body.</p> - -<p>3. That the wound was not self-inflicted nor accidental; -but that the shot had been deliberately fired and at no -great distance. The person who fired the shot was probably -somewhat taller than the deceased.</p> - -<p>Upon this Sedgewick, the butler, was recalled, and -there followed an exhaustive interrogation as to the -arrangements on the ground floor of the house. A plan -had been made of the doors and passages on this floor, -the great double doors of ceremony opening into the hall, -the tradesmen's door, and another door communicating -with the stables, which were almost as spacious in that -old London house as in a country mansion of some importance. -At the back of the hall there was a wide stone -corridor leading to the door opening on the stable-yard, -and other passages to pantry, plate room, lamp room, and -the menservants' bedrooms, which were all on the ground -floor.</p> - -<p>He valeted his master when he was at home, but he did -not travel with him. Mr. Provana required very little -personal attendance. He had always been aware that his -master kept loaded pistols in the case on his desk. He -understood that there was a large amount of valuable -property in that room, where the deceased used often to -sit writing late at night, with open windows in summer-time, -when Mrs. Provana was at evening parties.</p> - -<p>The pistols were in charge of the police on a table in -court, old-fashioned duelling pistols, choice specimens of -Italian workmanship.</p> - -<p>The door at the end of the corridor was often used by -Mr. Provana, and one of the keys on the ring before mentioned -was the latch-key belonging to this door. He was -in the habit of walking to the City, and he used this door -every morning, passing the stables on his way. He was -very fond of his horses, and he often went into the stables, -or had the horses brought out, to look at them. The stable-yard -opened into Chilton Street. This door, communicating -with the well-guarded stable-yard, was fastened -with a latch lock and heavy bolts; but the bolts were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -not often used, and Sedgewick said that it was by this -door his master must have entered the house on the night -of the murder, as the doors in Portland Place had been -bolted and chained at ten minutes past three o'clock, -after Mrs. Provana came home.</p> - -<p>The coroner, with the plan of the rooms before him, -pointed to that occupied by Sedgewick.</p> - -<p>"Was it possible for a stranger to have entered the -house after or before your master without your hearing -the opening of the door or his footsteps in the passage?"</p> - -<p>Sedgewick concluded that it was possible, since the -thing must have happened. He was ordinarily a particularly -light sleeper. Was there ever a servant who confessed -to being anything else? He had been to a theatre -that evening, and may have slept sounder than usual.</p> - -<p>"Did none of the other men hear anything?"</p> - -<p>John, footman, had heard the dog bark.</p> - -<p>John was duly sworn, and stated that he had been -awakened by hearing the dog, an Irish terrier, and he had -sat up in bed and listened; but the dog had given only -that one bark, by which he, John, concluded that the -animal, which slept on a mat outside his room, had been -dreaming. Interrogated as to time, he had heard the -hall clock strike five not very long after the dog barked. -It might be a quarter of an hour, or it might be half an hour.</p> - -<p>On this followed the interrogation of stable servants, -as to the gates opening into Chilton Street, the result of -which showed that the stable gates had not been locked -that morning. It was broad daylight when the grooms -finished their work and turned in for a morning sleep. -The last of the stable servants to retire had heard the -clocks strike four as he went to his bedroom.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Provana was there to answer all further questions -concerning herself.</p> - -<p>She stood up by the table, facing the coroner. She -stood there, an exquisite figure, slender and erect, her -countenance and her attitude sublime in composure, -grace and refinement in every line.</p> - -<p>The few of her friends who had found their way into the -court, and who were standing discreetly in the background, -Mr. Symeon, Mr. Amphlett and Lady Susan, Father -Cyprian Hammond, Claude Rutherford, Eustace Lyon, -the poet—these admired and wondered.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p> - -<p>With no vestige of colour in cheek or lip, with eyes -that had grown larger in the new horror of her life, yet -unutterably calm, with not one passing tremor in the low -voice, and with not one instant of hesitation, she answered -the coroner's questions.</p> - -<p>"At what time had she fallen asleep after her return from -Fulham Park?"</p> - -<p>"It must have been past four o'clock."</p> - -<p>"Was your maid in attendance upon you when you went -to bed?"</p> - -<p>"No, I have never allowed my maid to sit up for me -after a late party."</p> - -<p>"Are you a heavy sleeper?"</p> - -<p>"Not usually; but I was very tired that night."</p> - -<p>Eustace Lyon noticed that she spoke of "that night," -the night before last, as if it had been ages ago. The fact -appealed to his imagination as a poet. He remarked -afterwards that it is only poets who perceive such subtle -indications.</p> - -<p>"Did you hear nothing between six and half-past eight -o'clock?"</p> - -<p>"Nothing."</p> - -<p>A plan of the upper floor was lying in front of the -coroner, and he was studying the position of the rooms.</p> - -<p>"The room in which the shot was fired has a door -communicating with your bedroom?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"Was that door shut?"</p> - -<p>"It is always shut."</p> - -<p>"Shut, but not locked?"</p> - -<p>"No, it was not locked."</p> - -<p>The poet and Mr. Symeon looked at each other as she -made this answer, with unalterable composure.</p> - -<p>The coroner was an elderly man, a doctor—grave always, -but especially so on this occasion, for this was an exceptional -case, and appealed to him in an exceptional manner. -The murder was even more mysterious than terrible; -and he was at once touched and mystified by the unshaken -composure of this young woman, who had been awakened -from her morning sleep to be told that her husband had -been murdered within a few yards of the room where she -had been sleeping, full of happy dreams, perhaps, after -the pleasant excitement of a dance.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p> - -<p>Except for a strained look in the large grey eyes, there -was nothing in her aspect to indicate the ordeal through -which she had passed within the last two days.</p> - -<p>"Isn't she simply wonderful?" murmured Susan -Amphlett in the ear of Mr. Symeon, who was standing -by her chair. "She has been like that ever since." There -was no need to say since what. "I was with her all -yesterday; but it was not a bit of use. She has turned -to stone. Not a tear, not a cry; only that dreadful look -in her eyes, as if she were seeing him murdered. It would -have been a relief to hear her scream, or burst into a flood -of tears."</p> - -<p>"That kind of woman does neither," said Symeon. -"She is a grand soul, not a bundle of nerves. She has -force and courage; and she knows that death does not -matter."</p> - -<p>The coroner treated this witness with the utmost respect, -but he did not spare her. A crime so extraordinary -demanded a severe investigation, and searching questions -had to be asked.</p> - -<p>Had Mr. Provana a quarrel with anybody, either in -his social or business relations? Did the witness know -of any incident in her husband's life—in England or -in Italy—which might suggest a motive for the crime?</p> - -<p>The answer to both questions was a negative.</p> - -<p>"But he might have had a secret enemy without your -knowledge?"</p> - -<p>"It is possible. He would not have told me anything -that would have made me anxious or unhappy."</p> - -<p>For the first time there was a faint tremor in her voice -as she said this; and the poet whispered three words in -Lady Susan's ear—"She loved him!"</p> - -<p>Asked whether she expected her husband's return, she -replied that she had received no cablegram naming the -steamer by which he was to return. She had received -letters and cablegrams, but none within the last six days -before his death. Asked whether they were on good terms -when he left England, she replied that there had never -been a difference of any kind between them.</p> - -<p>She refused to be seated during this ordeal, and stood -facing her questioner till he had asked his last question; -and when Lady Okehampton came to her, wanting to lead -her away, she insisted upon remaining near the end of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> -table, where the witnesses came one after another to give -their evidence.</p> - -<p>The coroner heard those low, distinct words, "I want -to hear everything," and he noted how she stood there, -watching and listening to the end of the inquiry, regardless -of her aunt's endeavour to get her away from the spot.</p> - -<p>A confidential clerk from Mr. Provana's office in Lombard -Street was able to give an account of the safe in his principal's -dressing-room, as he had often been in the room, -occupied in examining documents with his employer, and -in taking shorthand notes for letters to be written in Lombard -Street. He had examined the contents of this safe -after the murder. The door had been opened with Mr. -Provana's private key, which he always carried about -him. Certain securities were missing, but the valuables -abstracted were of a much less amount than might have -been taken by anyone acquainted with the nature of -the papers the safe contained, and able to use his knowledge -to advantage. Two parcels of foreign bonds were -missing, the present value of which would be about six -thousand pounds. The witness had an inventory of -everything in this safe, and he had found all other parcels -intact, although the contents of the drawers and shelves -had been greatly disturbed, and the papers thrown about, -as if by some person in haste.</p> - -<p>"Would these bonds be easily convertible into cash?"</p> - -<p>"They are bonds to bearer, and there would be no -difficulty of disposing of them at their value."</p> - -<p>The inquiry was adjourned. Vera was surrounded by -her friends, Lady Okehampton, Lady Susan, Mr. Symeon, -and Claude Rutherford. Even Eustace Lyon ventured to -approach her.</p> - -<p>"Forgive me for intruding at such a moment," he said, -almost breathless with excitement. "I feel that I must -speak. You were sublime! Symeon is right. You are -spirit and not clay. It needs something more than flesh -and blood to go through what you have endured to-day."</p> - -<p>She looked at him with the same strained look in her -eyes with which she had looked at the coroner; a look of -surprise, as if, in the midst of a dream, she had been -startled by a living voice.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Vera insisted on going back to the house of death, -although her aunt and Susan Amphlett were equally -urgent in trying to take her home with them.</p> - -<p>"Why should you make a martyr of yourself?" Susie -urged in her vehement way. "You can do him no good. -He will not know. All the dead want is silence and darkness, -and to be mourned by those they love. You will -mourn for him just as sincerely in my dainty spare room -in Green Street as in that wilderness of empty rooms where -he lies."</p> - -<p>"Yes, I shall mourn for him," said Vera in low, measured -tones. "I shall mourn for him all my life."</p> - -<p>"No, no, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chérie</i>," murmured Susan confidentially, as -they moved towards the door. "You will always be sorry -for his quite too dreadful death, and you will remember -all his goodness and absolute devotion to you. But you -have your own life before you. You are not like some -poor old thing, who feels that life is done with when she is -left a widow; nothing to look forward to but charity -bazaars and pug dogs. Remember how young you are, -child! Almost on the threshold of life. You don't know -how I envy you when I think I am such ages older. You -are going to be immensely rich; and by and by you will -marry someone you can adore, as poor Provana adored -you: and whatever you do, Vera, don't wait till you -are fat and elderly, and then marry a boy, as I've known a -widow do—out of respect for a first husband."</p> - -<p>Susan felt that she had now hit upon the right note, and -was really a consoler; but nothing she could say had any -effect upon her friend.</p> - -<p>"I am going home," she said. "The house is dreadful; -but I would rather be there than anywhere else."</p> - -<p>She had only the same answer for her aunt, when urged -to stay at Berkeley Square, "at least until all this troublesome -business of the inquest is over."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I can't think why the coroner could not have finished -to-day," Lady Okehampton said to her husband at dinner -that evening. "They had the doctor's evidence, and the -servants', and the clerk's; all the circumstances were -made clear, every detail of the poor thing's death was -gone into. What more could be wanted?"</p> - -<p>"Only one detail. To find the murderer. If ever I were -to be murdered I hope the inquiry would address itself -more to the man who did it than to the way in which it -was done; and that the coroner would stick to his work -till he found the fellow who killed me. If he didn't, I -believe I should walk at midnight, like Hamlet's father."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Claude Rutherford was among the friends who surrounded -Vera as she left the court. His mother was with -him, an unexpected figure in such a scene; and while her -son said no word, Mrs. Rutherford murmured the gentle -assurance of her sympathy. She had held herself aloof -from Vera for a long time, disapproving of an intimacy -in which she saw danger for her son, and discredit for -Mario Provana's wife; but she came to this dismal -court to-day moved by divine compassion for the fragile -creature who had become the central figure in so awful a -tragedy.</p> - -<p>For the first time since she had entered the court, -Vera's strained eyeballs clouded with tears, and the hand -which Mrs. Rutherford held with a friendly pressure -trembled violently. That unnatural calm of the last -two hours had given way in the surprise of this meeting. -Her carriage was waiting for her, and she stepped into -it too quickly for Claude to help her; he could only stand -among the others to see her driven away.</p> - -<p>"It was more than good of you to come to this dreadful -place," he told his mother, as they walked towards Piccadilly.</p> - -<p>"I would do anything to help her, if it were possible. -She has not made the best use of her life, so far. Perhaps -she has only gone with the stream, like the herd of modern -women, who seem to have neither heart nor conscience. -But this tragedy was a terrible awakening, and no one can -help being sorry for her."</p> - -<p>"The ruck of her friends will not be sorry. They will -only chatter about her husband's death, and discuss the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -amount of her fortune as his widow. You are right, -mother. They have neither heart nor conscience. They -care for nothing, hope for nothing, except to be better -dressed and dine out oftener than other women."</p> - -<p>He spoke with unusual bitterness, and his mother -looked at him anxiously. All the marks of a too feverish -life showed upon his delicate countenance in the clear -light of summer. He had never counted among handsome -men; but a face so sensitive was more interesting than -the beauty of line and colour, and people who knew Claude -Rutherford knew that the sensitive face was the outward -evidence of a highly emotional nature.</p> - -<p>"You are looking so tired and worn, Claude," his mother -said anxiously.</p> - -<p>"Oh, this ghastly business has been a shock for me as -well as for her. I was with her at the Fulham House ball -the night before. We were waltzing in a mob of dancers, -sitting out among tropical flowers, laughing together in -the noise and laughter and foolish talk in the supper-room. -Such diamonds; such bare shoulders and enamelled faces. -It was half-past two when I took her to her carriage, and -a blackbird was whistling in the avenue. Everybody -was pretending to be happy; and she went alone to -that great, gloomy house, to be awakened a few hours later -to be told that her husband had been murdered."</p> - -<p>"What could have been the motive for such a murder?"</p> - -<p>"Plunder. What else? Of course, it was known that -he kept valuables in that safe."</p> - -<p>"How was it that he came home so unexpectedly?"</p> - -<p>"Heaven knows. Perhaps he wanted to give his wife -a surprise—a grim joke in such a husband; and the -result was grimmer than he could have anticipated." -There was a savage bitterness in his tone that shocked -the tender-hearted woman.</p> - -<p>"Don't speak of it like that, Claude. It is too dreadful -to think of. He was a devoted husband, from all that -I have heard; only too blindly indulgent, letting his -wife lead the wretched, empty-headed existence that can -spoil even a good woman."</p> - -<p>They were at Mrs. Rutherford's door by this time, and -she asked her son to give her a few minutes more before -he went away.</p> - -<p>"As long as you like," he said. "I am at a loose end.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -My usual diversions are out of the question; and all -manner of work is impossible."</p> - -<p>"You must go away, Claude. You are too sensitive, -too warm-hearted to get over this business easily. You -ought to leave London for a long time."</p> - -<p>And then, with her hand on his shoulder, looking up at -him with tearful solicitude, she enlarged upon that source -of consolation to which a woman of deep religious convictions -turns instinctively in the time of trouble. She -reminded him of his happy and innocent boyhood, the -unquestioning faith of those early years, before the leaven -of doubt had entered his mind, before the Christian youth -had become the trifler and cynic.</p> - -<p>He listened in silence, with downcast eyes, and then, -tenderly kissing her, he said gently:</p> - -<p>"Yes, perhaps there lies the cure. I must go back to -those tranquil days. I must leave this hateful town. -Yes, mother, I mean to go away—for a long time. I -shall take your advice. If you see Father Hammond -I should like you to tell him about this talk of ours."</p> - -<p>"Why not go to him at once and make your confession? -You would feel happier afterwards."</p> - -<p>"I have not come to that yet. I mean to have a talk -with him later. <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">A riverdervi, Madre mia.</i>"</p> - -<p>"Where are you going?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know. To my rooms, most likely. I have -letters to write."</p> - -<p>He was gone before she could question him further. -That business of letter-writing was the most arduous -work he knew. Since he had "chucked" art, his days -had no more strenuous employment; his life was the -over-occupied existence of a man of pleasure.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Lord Okehampton, discussing the financier's fate in -a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i> dinner with his wife, was only one among a -multitude who were thinking of the Provana murder. -There is nothing that English men and women enjoy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> -more than the crime which they call "a really good -murder." They will import sensation cases from America -or the colonies, and will try to feel as keenly interested -in a murder in New York or Melbourne as in a London -tragedy. But the keen relish is lacking where the crime -has been done afar off. It is impossible to realise the -scene in unfamiliar surroundings. The sense of nearness, -of the street or the countryside we know, is a strong -factor in the interest of the story. To the man who -knows his Paris thoroughly a Parisian crime may appeal; -but to the woman who buys frocks in the Rue de la Paix, -and hats on the Boulevard des Italiens, the most diabolical -murder in the Marais, or on the heights of Belleville, -seems tame.</p> - -<p>Thus the murder of a millionaire in the midst of the -rich man's London was a crime that set every sensation-seeker -theorising and arguing. Every man is at heart a -Sherlock Holmes, while every woman thinks herself a -criminal investigator by instinct; and the theories worked -out and expounded over tea-tables, and maintained with -a red-hot intensity, were various and startling. The most -sanguinary murder is a poor thing if people know how -and by whom it was done. Mystery is essential in a crime -that is to occupy the mind of the public. The murder -in the great house in Portland Place had all the elements -of enduring success—wealth, beauty, secrecy, and that -Italian flavour which offered poignant possibilities of -jealousy or revenge, or perhaps a life-long vendetta, as -the motive of the crime.</p> - -<p>The inquiry in the coroner's court dragged slowly -towards an indeterminate and unsatisfactory close, being -adjourned at long intervals to give the police time to make -discoveries.</p> - -<p>So far the police had made no discoveries, and the daily -Press was beginning to be angry with the Criminal -Investigation Department; and to make uncivil comparisons -between the home article and the same thing in -France and Germany. In the meantime the newspapers -found subject for occasional paragraphs, though they had -no new facts to communicate. So long as the inquest went -on, picturesque reporters found a spacious field for their -pen in the descriptions of witnesses and spectators in the -coroner's court; the spectators being mostly women of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> -some fashion, and more or less famous in the world of art -and letters. The stage, also, had been represented among -that morbidly curious crowd; popular actresses coming -to study the appearance and demeanour of the young -widow, whose marble calm in the witness box had been -written and talked about. But in spite of searching and -patient inquiry, the murder in Portland Place remained -an insoluble mystery, a standing reproach against Scotland -Yard.</p> - -<p>While the man in the street and the daily papers he -battens upon were expatiating upon the supineness and -incompetency of the Criminal Investigation Department, -the chief of that department was not idle. Scotland -Yard is not greatly in favour of the offering of rewards -for the apprehension of criminals. Scotland Yard has an -idea that such offers do more harm than good, and prefers -to rely upon the intelligence of its officials; and on that -spontaneous and disinterested help which is often afforded -by outsiders.</p> - -<p>But after the man in the street had expended much -wonder and indignation upon the fact that no reward -had as yet been offered by the murdered man's widow or -family, the Disbrowes had taken upon themselves to -arouse Vera to a proper sense of her position and responsibilities. -Among Provana's friends and allies in the -City—the great semi-oriental banking house of Messrs. -Zeba and Zalmunna, with whom he had been closely -associated, and other firms almost as distinguished—there -was also a feeling that strong measures were -required, and some wonderment that the widow had as -yet done nothing.</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton, who had been in Portland Place -nearly every day—although not always allowed to see -her niece—took the matter in hand, as spokeswoman -for the Disbrowes, and told Vera that she must offer a -reward for the apprehension of her husband's murderer.</p> - -<p>"It ought to have been done before how," she said, -"but you have been so lost in grief, that I have been -afraid to talk of poor Provana; however, as time goes on -people must think it extraordinary that you can let things -slide; especially after that splendid will which makes -you the richest woman in London."</p> - -<p>The splendid will, executed in the first year of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -marriage, left Vera residuary legatee, after a long list of -legacies, which although generous, did not absorb more -than a sixth of Mario Provana's estate. If not actually -the richest woman in London—a fact not easily to be -ascertained—Vera was at least rich enough to support -that reputation.</p> - -<p>She gave a little moan of anguish when her aunt spoke -of the will, and replied, with averted face, that her uncle -was to do whatever he thought right.</p> - -<p>Before darkness came down the police stations of -London exhibited bills, offering a thousand pounds for -information leading to the discovery of the murderer, -and the man in the street was a little easier in his mind.</p> - -<p>In the meantime Scotland Yard was pursuing its own -course, and one of the most experienced and intelligent -members of the force had the Provana affair in hand, -and was actually established in Portland Place, where he -was explained to the household as a picture-restorer, -who had been engaged by Mr. Provana shortly before -he left England, to examine and restore certain pictures -among those somewhat depressing examples of the early -Italian school which gave gloom to the too spacious -dining-room.</p> - -<p>It might seem strange that work of this kind, ordered -by the dead man, should be carried out at such a time; -but Mr. James Japp, of the Criminal Investigation Department, -had a power of impersonation which rarely failed -him in the most critical circumstances; and having -assumed the role of artistic man-of-all-work, he omitted -no detail that could impress and convince the house -servants, among whom he hoped to put his hand upon -the murderer. Plausible, friendly, and altogether an -acquisition in that low-spirited household, Mr. Japp, alias -Johnson, was soon upon terms of cordial friendship with -butler and housekeeper, while he was genially patronising -to the four stalwart footmen, and by no means stand-offish -to the coachman and his underlings, who sometimes -crept into the servants' hall in the gloaming to talk over -the last paragraph upon the mystery in Portland Place. -For them the mystery was meat and drink. They hung -upon it with a morbid tenacity, never tired of re-stating -the same facts, and going over the same arguments, and -doing battle, each for his own solution of the ghastly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> -problem. For these Mr. Johnson, artist and picture-restorer, -was a godsend.</p> - -<p>The man was so delightfully innocent in the ways and -workings of criminals. He showed the simple faith of a -child when listening with avidity to Mr. Sedgewick's -views, and allowed himself to be browbeaten by the -coachman. He would turn the drift of the talk aside at -a most interesting point to relate his early aspirations -as a student, and his dismal failure as an artist, and how -he had been driven from the painting of colossal historical -pictures to the humbler art of the varnisher and restorer, -working for a daily wage. He would tell stories of his -early struggles that evolved laughter and good-natured -scorn.</p> - -<p>He had a room allotted to him for his work, one of -those rooms opening out of the long passage that led to -Mr. Provana's private door, that door by which he and -his murderer must have entered the house on the fatal -night. Mr. Johnson had examined the door with studious -attention, confessing to a morbid interest in the details -of crime, co-existent with a curious ignorance of the law -of the land. The nature and methods of a coroner's -court had to be explained to him, condescendingly, by -Mr. Sedgewick, when the Provana murder was under -discussion.</p> - -<p>He had his room for his artistic work, where he installed -himself with three of the largest pictures from the dining-room, -his bottles of oil and varnish, and his stock of -brushes, and where he insisted upon being undisturbed. -He was of a nervous temperament, and could not bear -to have his work looked at. He talked of his progress -from day to day, expatiating upon the dangers of blue -mould, the horrors of asphaltum and other pernicious -mediums, and the superiority of the old painters, who -ground their own colours; but no one, not even Mr. -Sedgewick, was allowed to see him at work.</p> - -<p>He was altogether a superior person, yet it was something -of a surprise to the household that he should be -admitted every evening to an interview with Mrs. Provana, -who received him in the great, lonely drawing-room, where -he remained with her for about a quarter of an hour, -giving an account of his day's work.</p> - -<p>This privilege was explained by Mr. Johnson as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -natural result of the lady's interest in art, and the value -she set upon pictures which it appeared were especial -favourites with her husband.</p> - -<p>"At the rate he goes at it, I don't fancy he can have -much progress to report," remarked Mr. Sedgewick, -"for I don't believe he works a solid hour a day at those -pictures. He takes things a bit too easily, to my mind. -He knows he's got a soft job, and he means to make it -last as long as the missus will let him. He's got his head -pretty well screwed on, has our friend Johnson; and he -knows when he's in for a good thing. And he's got a -tongue that would talk over a special commissioner of -income tax; so no doubt he makes Mrs. Provana believe -that he works heavens hard at fetching up the colour in -the Frau Angelicas."</p> - -<p>"I shall think something of his work if he can do anything -to brighten up those Salvini Roses, which are about -the dismallest pictures I ever saw in a gentleman's dining-room," -the housekeeper remarked with conviction.</p> - -<p>Mr. Johnson was a desultory worker. He told his -friends in the household that he worked like a tiger while -he was at it, but your real artist was ever fitful in his -toil. It was in the artistic temperament to be desultory. -He would emerge from his den after an hour or so, in -a canvas apron so stained with oil, and so sticky with -varnish, that none could doubt his industry. He was -eminently sociable. He couldn't get on without company -and conversation. The four young footmen afforded -him inexhaustible amusement.</p> - -<p>"The oldest of 'em ain't over twenty-five," he said, -"but every one of 'em is a character in his way. Now I -love studying character. There's no book, no, nor no -illustrated magazine, you can give me that I enjoy as I -do human nature. Give me the human document, and -leave your mouldy old books for mouldy old scholars. -Every one of those four lads is a romance, if you know -how to read him."</p> - -<p>This taste, which Mr. Sedgewick and Mrs. Manby -thought low, led Mr. Johnson to consort in the friendliest -way with the four youths in question. He had not been -in the house a fortnight before he knew all about them; -their sweethearts; their ambitions; their tastes for -pleasure, and their craving for gain. Even the odd man,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -a creature whom the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">élite</i> of the household esteemed as -hardly human—a savage without a livery, by whom it -was a hardship to be waited on at one's meals—was not -without interest for Johnson. While he delighted in -Mr. Sedgewick's company, and was proud to spend an -evening with him at his club, he shocked everybody by -taking the old man to a music hall, and giving him supper -after the entertainment.</p> - -<p>"I think you're all too hard upon Andrew," he said. -"I find him distinctly human."</p> - -<p>With the ladies of the household he was at once friendly -and gallant. He aired his little stock of French with -Ma'mselle, and took her for evening walks in Regent's -Park, which to dwellers north of Langham Place is "the -Park." He bought her little gifts, and took her to the -theatre. He played dummy whist with Mrs. Manby, -who was sadly behind the age, and could not abide bridge; -and the result of all this friendly intercourse, which had -kept the establishment in good spirits during a period -of gloom, culminated one evening, when he told Mrs. -Provana that his residence under her roof had only a -negative result, and that he had exhausted all the means -in his power without arriving at any clue to the murderer -of her husband.</p> - -<p>"It has been a great disappointment to me, Madam," -said Mr. Japp, standing before Vera, with his hat in his -hand, serious and subdued in manner and bearing. The -change from the sociable and trivial Johnson to the -business-like and thoughtful Japp showed a remarkable -power in the assumption of character.</p> - -<p>"It has been the most disappointing case I have been -engaged in for a long time. I came into this house assured -that I should put my hand upon the guilty party under -this roof. Every circumstance indicated that the crime -had been committed by someone inside the house. The -idea of an outsider seemed incredible. That a house with -such a staff of servants—with five men and an Irish terrier -sleeping on the ground floor—could have been entered by -a burglar seemed out of the question. Mr. Provana being -known to keep large sums of money in one shape and -another in the safe in his private room, and no doubt being -also known to carry the keys of that safe upon his person, -there was a sufficient inducement for robbery; while it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> -is our common experience that any man bold enough to -attempt robbery on a large scale is not the man to shrink -from murder, when his own skin is in danger. My theory -was that one of your men servants had been waiting for -his opportunity during Mr. Provana's absence in America; -that he had provided himself with implements for forcing -the lock of the safe, perhaps with the aid of an outside -accomplice, and that, by a strange coincidence, he had -stumbled upon the night of his master's unexpected -return, and had been surprised at the beginning of his -work. There are scratches on the polished steel about -the lock of the safe that might be made by one of those -graduated wedges which burglars use. I thought that, -being surprised by Mr. Provana's entrance, he snatched -up one of the pistols from the case on the table—which -he might have examined previously—and fired within -narrow range, as Mr. Provana was about to open the door -of your room, without having seen him; that he took -the keys from Mr. Provana's pocket after he fell, unlocked -the safe, and abstracted the two parcels of bonds which -are missing. The disordered state of the safe, and the -keys left in the lock, indicate that everything was done -in extreme haste. This was my theory before I came -into your house, Madam; but after nearly five weeks' -careful study of every individual under this roof, I have -reluctantly arrived at the conclusion that nobody in your -household is in it, either as principal or accomplice, before -or after the fact. I think it is in an old play that the -remark has been made that 'Murder will out,' also that -'Blood will have blood.' Both remarks are perfectly -correct; but there is another remark that might have -been made with even greater truth, and that is 'Money -will out.' You can't hide money—at least the average -criminal can't. That's where he gives himself away. -He can't keep his plunder to himself—the money burns—it -burns—he must spend it. Some spend it on drink; -some, begging your pardon, Madam—spend it on ladies; -some, the weakest of the lot, spend it on clothes and -hansom cabs; but spend they must. There's not one of -those four young men that could keep five or six thou' -in his pocket and not give himself away—somehow or -somewhere. Nor yet Mr. Sedgewick, fine gentleman -and philosopher as he is—nor yet even the odd man. Being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> -a poor creature, he'd have melted those securities with -the first low fence he could hear of, and would have been -on the drink night after night, till he got the horrors and -gave himself up to the police. I've been looking for the -money, Madam, and finding no trace of <em>that</em>, I know I've -not come within range of the party we want. We must -look outside, Madam, and we may have to look a long way -off. If the possessor of those bonds is an old hand, he is -not likely to turn them into money anywhere in this City; -for though they are bonds to bearer, a transaction of that -kind must leave some trace. I feel the humiliation of my -failure, Madam, and I have no doubt you are disappointed."</p> - -<p>Vera looked up at him with melancholy eyes, pale, -hollow-cheeked, a sombre figure in the severest mourning -that the Maison de Deuil near the Madeleine could supply, -and French mourning knows no compromise.</p> - -<p>"Disappointed," she repeated slowly in a low, tired -voice, and then, to Mr. Japp's surprise and almost horror, -she said, "I don't think it much matters whether the -wretched creature who killed him is discovered or not. -It can make no difference to <em>him</em> lying at rest, beyond -all pain and sorrow, that his murderer is hidden somewhere -out of reach of the law, and may escape the agony of a -shameful death."</p> - -<p>The horror in her widening eyes as she said these words -showed that her imagination could realise the horror -of the scaffold. "However he may escape human law," -she went on, in the same slow, dull tones, "he must carry -his punishment with him to the grave. He can never know -one peaceful hour. He can never know the comfort of -dreamless sleep. He will be a haunted man."</p> - -<p>"Excuse me for differing with you, Madam, but you -don't know what stuff the criminal classes are made of. -<em>They</em> don't mind. One more or less sent to kingdom -come don't prey upon <em>their</em> nerves. Where are they found, -as a rule, when they do get nicked? Why at a theatre or -in a music-hall, or at the Derby—and generally in ladies' -society. The things you read of in novels, conscience, -remorse, Banquo's ghost, don't trouble <em>them</em>."</p> - -<p>Mr. Japp apologised for having expressed himself so -freely, and stood for a few minutes fingering the brim -of his hat, waiting for Mrs. Provana to speak. Her speech -just now had been a surprise to him, for never had he met<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> -with so silent a lady. Night after night she had listened -hungrily to his statement of his day's progress, his suspicions, -his glimpses of light, now seeming full of promise, -and anon delusive. She had listened with keen attention; -but she had expressed no opinion, and had asked no -questions. And now for him—the accomplished Criminal -Investigator, the man who had worked at the science of -detection as superior persons work at the higher mathematics—to -hear this lady say that the discovery of her -husband's murderer did not matter, that, for her part, -he might go about the world a free man, with nothing -worse than a mind full of scorpions and a sleepless bed, -seemed too monstrous for comprehension. She, to whom -the murdered man had left millions, not to hunger for -the ignominious death of his murderer!</p> - -<p>"It must be Christian Science," thought Mr. Japp, as he -packed his portmanteau. "Nothing less can account for -it."</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Everybody in the Red Book had left London. The -West End was a desert, and the shrill summons of the -telephone was heard no more in Mayfair. Nobody, -unless it were the caretaker, was being asked to luncheon -or dinner, and the only tea-parties were in the basement, -where the late lettuce had not yet given place to the -early muffin. Only people with urgent and onerous -business were to be found in London. Lord Okehampton -was shooting grouse, and Lady Okehampton ought to -have been doing an after-cure in Switzerland; but "the -sad state of my poor niece after her husband's ghastly -death, and the legal business connected with her colossal -inheritance, make it impossible for me to leave town. -Much as I need a complete change, I must stay here, while -that poor child wants me."</p> - -<p>This was what Lady Okehampton wrote from her -deserted house in Berkeley Square, to numerous friends, -with more or less variation of phrase.</p> - -<p>Vera's health was now the most pressing question. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> -had taken her bereavement with a dumb, self-contained -grief, that is the most morbid and the most perilous kind -of sorrow; the sorrow that kills. When questioned, -pressingly but tenderly, by her aunt, she always replied -in the same unresponsive manner. There was nothing -the matter with her. Of course, as Aunt Mildred said, -the shock had been terrible; but no doubt she would get -over it in time. People always get over things. She -only wanted to be left to herself. She was quite strong -enough to bear her burden. No, she was not eating -her heart out in solitude. It was best for her to be alone.</p> - -<p>"You are more than kind, Aunt Mildred, and so is -Susan Amphlett; but I am better sitting quietly and -thinking out my life."</p> - -<p>"But, my poor child, you are perishing visibly—just -wasting away. I would rather see you in floods of tears, -hysterical even, than in this hopeless state."</p> - -<p>"What is the use of making a fuss? If tears could bring -my husband back and make life what it was before his -death, I would drown myself in tears. But nothing can -change the past. That is what makes life terrible. The -things we have done are done for ever."</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton trembled, first for her niece's life, -and next for her sanity. And here was this stupendous -fortune left to Vera for her life, and to her children after -her—her children by the husband who was dead—but, -in default of such children, to be divided among a -horde of Italian relations—third and fourth cousins, -people for whom Mario Provana might not have cared -twopence—and among Roman charitable institutions—sure -to be badly managed, Lady Okehampton thought.</p> - -<p>It seemed to her that if Vera were to die, that stupendous -wealth, which while she possessed it must be a factor in -the position of the Disbrowes, would be absolutely thrown -to the dogs. To divide that mass of riches into eights, -and twelfths, and sixteenths, was in a manner to murder -it. All its power and prestige would be gone, frittered -away among insignificant people, who might be better -off without it, as it would put a stop to laudable ambition -and enterprise, and might ultimately be the cause of -unmitigated harm.</p> - -<p>"It is so sad to think there were no children," sighed -Lady Okehampton into the ears of various confidential<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -friends. "The dear man made this will shortly after his -marriage, and evidently built upon having an heir—he -was so absolutely devoted to my niece. I know it was a -bitter disappointment for him," concluded the chieftainess -of the Disbrowes, to whom Mario Provana had said no -word of his inmost feelings upon that or any other subject.</p> - -<p>Strange indeed would it have been for that strong hand -to lift the curtain from that proud heart. Courteous, -generous, chivalrous, he might be to the whole clan of -Disbrowes. He might scatter his gold among them with -a careless hand; but to scatter the secrets of his lonely -life among that frivolous herd was impossible to the man -who had endured a mother's dislike, a father's neglect, -and the disillusions of a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mariage de convenance</i>, without -one hour of self-betrayal.</p> - -<p>Vera was childless, and on her frail thread of life hung -Mario Provana's millions.</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton told herself this in the watches of -the night, and told herself that something must be done. -It was all very well for Vera to declare that there was -nothing the matter with her, while it was visible to the -naked eye that the poor child was fading away, in an -atrophy of mind and body.</p> - -<p>"She will either die or go mad," said Lady Okehampton, -and the alternative offered visions of a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">conseil de famille</i>, -doctors' certificates, and that rabble of fourth and fifth -cousins tearing their prey.</p> - -<p>Long and confidential talks with Mrs. Manby, the housekeeper, -and Louison, the maid, had revealed the desperate -state of their mistress's health.</p> - -<p>"No, my lady, she doesn't complain," asserted Mrs -Manby. "I'm afraid it's all the worse because she won't -complain. But she can't sleep, and she can't eat. Sedgewick -knows what her meals are like: just pretending, -that's all; and Louison says that, go into her mistress's -room when she will, in the middle of the night or in the -early morning, she's always lying awake, sometimes -reading, sometimes staring at the sky above the window -sash, but asleep—never! And it isn't for want of taking -things, for she has tried every drug you can put a name -to."</p> - -<p>"Does the doctor prescribe them?"</p> - -<p>"He used to send her things, in the first few weeks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -after—the funeral. But she made him believe that she was -quite well, and was sleeping and eating as usual, and he -left off coming. And then Lady Susan Amphlett brought -her tabloids—always the newest thing out. But they've -never done her any good. It's the mind that's wrong, -my lady."</p> - - -<p>"She was absolutely devoted to Mr. Provana," sighed -Lady Okehampton.</p> - -<p>"No doubt, my lady."</p> - -<p>"And she can't get over her loss."</p> - -<p>"No, my lady."</p> - -<p>Susan Amphlett was of Aunt Mildred's opinion. Something -must be done, and it must be done quickly, before -any of those Roman cousins could appear upon the scene, -prying and questioning, and hinting at a commission of -lunacy. Things had come to a perilous pass, when Mrs. -Manby, the housekeeper, could talk of her mistress's -mind as the seat of the mischief. People who go out of -their minds seldom take a long time about it, Lady Susan -urged. "It's generally touch and go."</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton waited for no permission, but marched -into her niece's room one dark September afternoon with -the fashionable nerve specialist at her heels, the bland -elderly physician from Cavendish Square, whom nobody -in Mayfair had even heard of till he had entered upon his -seventh decade, and who had languished at the wrong -end of Harley Street for a quarter of a century, before the -great world had made the remarkable discovery that he -was the one man in London who could cure one of everything.</p> - -<p>He was kind and sensible, and really clever; but the -great world loved him most because he had all the new -names for old diseases at the tip of his tongue, and had -the delightful manner which implied that the patient -to whom he was talking was the one patient whose life -he considered worth saving.</p> - -<p>"He really does think about you when he's feeling your -pulse," said a dowager. "He ain't totting up last night's -winnings at bridge all the time. He does really think, -don't you know."</p> - -<p>Dr. Selwyn Tower, as he held Vera's wasted wrist in -his broad, soft hand, looked as serious as if the fate of a -nation were at stake. Indeed, he had been told that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> -millions were in jeopardy, and in the modern mind the -destinies of big fortunes are as serious as the rise and fall -of peoples.</p> - -<p>The physician asked no troublesome questions; but he -contrived to keep Vera in conversation—on indifferent -subjects—for about a quarter of an hour, her aunt joining -in occasionally with sympathetic nothings; and by the -end of that time he had made up his mind about the case, -or at least about his immediate treatment of the case. -He might have thoughts that went deeper and farther—but -those could be held in abeyance. The thing to be -done was to save this fragile form, which was obviously -perishing.</p> - -<p>A rest cure—nothing else would be of any use—an -uncompromising rest cure. Six weeks of solitary confinement -in the care of a resident doctor and a couple of -highly trained nurses.</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton anticipated a struggle, remembering -how resolutely Vera had resisted this line of treatment -three months before; but her niece surprised her by -offering no vehement opposition.</p> - -<p>"There is absolutely nothing the matter with me," she -said, "but if it will please you, Aunt Mildred, I will do as -Dr. Tower advises."</p> - -<p>"Nothing the matter! And you neither eat nor sleep! -Is that nothing?"</p> - -<p>"Who told you that I can't sleep?"</p> - -<p>"My dear lady, your eyes tell us only too plainly. -Insomnia has unmistakable symptoms," said the doctor.</p> - -<p>"Yes, it is true," Vera answered wearily. "I seem to -have lost the faculty of sleep. It is a habit one soon loses. -I lie staring at the daylight, and wondering what it is -like to lose count of time."</p> - -<p>And then, after a little more doctor's talk, soothing, -and rather meaningless, she asked abruptly:</p> - -<p>"What time of year is it?"</p> - -<p>"Dear child," exclaimed Lady Okehampton, "can you -ask?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, I have left off writing letters and reading newspapers, -and I forget dates. I know the days are getting -shorter, because the dawn is so long coming when I lie -awake."</p> - -<p>"We are in the middle of September," said the doctor,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> -"a charming month for country air—neither too hot nor -too cold—the golden mean."</p> - -<p>"And in six weeks it will be the end of October, and I -can go to Rome for the winter!"</p> - -<p>"You could not do better. We shall build up your -constitution in those six weeks. You will be another -woman when you leave Sussex."</p> - -<p>"But, my dearest Vera," protested her aunt, "you -can never think of a winter alone in that enormous villa. -You will die of ennui."</p> - -<p>"No, no, Aunt Mildred, I love Rome. The very atmosphere -of the place is life to me. I am not afraid of being -alone."</p> - -<p>Dr. Tower shot a significant look at her ladyship, which -silenced remonstrance, and no more was said.</p> - -<p>Two days later Vera found herself on a windy hill in -Sussex, under the dominion of the house-doctor and two -nurses, and almost as much exposed to the elements as -King Lear on the heights near Dover. An eider-down -coverlet and a hot-water bottle made the only difference. -Lady Okehampton, having sacrificed her own cure to her -niece's, went with a mind at ease to join her husband in -Yorkshire; an arrangement almost without precedent -in their domestic annals.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Father Cyprian Hammond returned to his comfortable -rooms in the north-west region one rainy autumn evening -after a long day in the dreariest abodes of East London. -He was almost worn out by the bodily fatigue of tramping -those dismal streets with one of his friends and allies, -a priest from the Cathedral at Moorfields; and by the -mental strain that comes from facing the inscrutable -problem of human suffering—the mystery of sorrow and -pain, inevitable, unceasing, beyond man's power to help -or cure.</p> - -<p>He had visited the poor in great hospitals where every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> -detail testified to the beneficence of the rich; yet he knew -that the comfort and cleanliness of the hospital must -needs accentuate the dirt and squalor of the slum to which -the patient must return.</p> - -<p>He sank into his armchair, with a sigh of relief, and was -sorry to hear of a visitor, who had called twice that afternoon -and would call again after nine o'clock.</p> - -<p>"Did he leave his card?"</p> - -<p>Yes, the card was there on the table.</p> - -<p>"Mr. Claude Rutherford."</p> - -<p>Father Cyprian had not seen Claude since the opening -day of that inquest which had been so often adjourned, -only to close in an open verdict, and a mystery still -unsolved. He had not seen Claude; but he had seen Mrs. -Rutherford more than once in that quiet month when life -in West End London seems to come to a stand-still. She -had talked about her son as she talked only to him, -opening her heart to the friend who knew all its secrets, -the best and the worst of her. Hitherto she had never -failed to find him interested and sympathetic; but in -those recent interviews it had seemed to her as if the close -friend of long years had changed; as if he was talking -to her from a distance; as if some mysterious barrier had -arisen between them.</p> - -<p>She had told him of that conversation with her son, -in which he had promised to confide in this old and trusted -friend. That had happened more than a month ago, and -the confidence had not yet come. Perhaps it was coming -to-night.</p> - -<p>"I will see Mr. Rutherford at whatever time he calls," -Father Cyprian told his servant.</p> - -<p>His dinner was short and temperate, but not ill-cooked -or ill-served. He drank barley water, but the jug that -held it was of old cut-glass, picked up at a broker's shop -in a back street for seven shillings, and worth as many -pounds. His silver was old family plate, his napery of -the finest.</p> - -<p>It was past nine when Claude Rutherford appeared, -and the first thing Father Cyprian observed was that he -was physically exhausted. He dropped into a chair with -a long sigh of fatigue, and it was three or four minutes -before he was able to speak.</p> - -<p>"I knew you would have finished your Spartan dinner<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> -by this time," he said, "but I hope I am not spoiling your -evening."</p> - -<p>"You ought to know that I have nothing better to do -with my evening than to talk with anybody who wants -me," answered the priest in the low, grave voice that was -like the sound of Hollmann's bow in an adagio passage, -"and I think you must want me, or you would not -come to this house a third time. What have you -been doing since six o'clock? You look horribly -fagged."</p> - -<p>"I have been to Hampstead. It is a fine night, and I -wanted a walk."</p> - -<p>"You have walked too far. You are ill, Claude."</p> - -<p>"A little under the weather. The modern complaint, -neuritis, and its concomitant, insomnia."</p> - -<p>"You ought to go to one of my neighbours in Harley -Street."</p> - -<p>"No. I want you—the physician of souls. This -corporal frame of mine will mend itself when I get out -of London; a thousand miles or so. Do you remember -the night we walked home together from Portland Place? -You pressed me very hard that evening. You tried to -bring me back to the fold—but the time had not come."</p> - -<p>"And now the time has come?" questioned the priest, -pushing aside the book that he had been reading, and -bending forward to look into a page of human life, bringing -his searching eyes nearer to the haggard face in front of -him.</p> - -<p>"Yes, the time has come."</p> - -<p>"What is the matter?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, only the old disease—in a more acute phase. The -disgust of life—satiety, weariness of the world outside me, -loathing of the world inside; the old disease in a virulent -form. I want you to help me to the cure. It must be -heroic treatment. Half measures will be no use. I want -you to help me to enter one of the orders that mean death -to the world. Dominicans, Benedictines, La Trappe, -anything you like; the harder the rule the better it may -be for my soul."</p> - -<p>"This is strangely sudden."</p> - -<p>"Perhaps it is an inspiration. But no, my dear friend, -it is not sudden. The complaint is chronic, and has been -growing upon me for the last ten years, ever since I found<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -that I was a failure. That discovery is a crisis in a man's -life. He looks inside himself one day, and finds that the -fire has gone out. It must all come to that. Life, mind, -heart, all are contained in that central fire which is the -soul of a man. While the fire burns he has hope, he has -ambitions, he has a future; when the fire goes out, he has -nothing but the past; the memory of things that were -sweet and things that were bitter; nothing but memory -to live upon in all the years that are to come: and he -may live to be ninety, a haunted man! I have done with -the world, Father Cyprian. Am I to walk about like a -dead man for ten or twenty or thirty years? I have -done with the world. I want to give the rest of my life -to the God you and my mother believe in."</p> - -<p>"You would not want to do that if you were not a -believer."</p> - -<p>"I was reared in the true faith. Yes, I believe. Help -thou mine unbelief."</p> - -<p>"I will help you with all my heart; but I do not think -you are of the stuff that Benedictine monks are made of; -and it is a foolish thing to put your hand to the plough, -unless you have the force of mind to finish your furrow."</p> - -<p>"I will finish my furrow."</p> - -<p>"And break your mother's heart, perhaps. Your love -is all she has in this life, except her religion."</p> - -<p>"Her religion is no less a force than her love. My -neglect of my duties has been a grief to her. She has -never ceased to remonstrate with me, to remind me of my -boyish ardour, my days of implicit faith."</p> - -<p>"She wants to see you return to the faith, and the -obedience, of those days; but it would distress her if you -took a step that would mean separation from her."</p> - -<p>"That would be inconsistent, after all her sermons."</p> - -<p>"Women are apt to be inconsistent—even the best of -them."</p> - -<p>"In any case, even if my mother should object, which -I think unlikely, I have made up my mind. I had time -to commune with my soul in that three hours' walk through -the darkness. I came to you this night fully resolved -not to ask your advice as to the step, but your help in -taking it. Where can I go? To whom can I submit -myself?"</p> - -<p>"Frankly, Claude, I am too much in the dark to help<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> -you. Come to me at my church to-morrow morning after -mass, with your mind more at rest, and make your confession. -Let me see into the bottom of your heart. I -cannot talk to a man behind a mask. I can say nothing -till I know all."</p> - -<p>"No, I cannot do that. I must have time. I want -solitude and a cell. I want to shake off the husk of the -world I have lived in too long. I want to be done with -earthly desires. I shall have a new mind when I am in -my woollen gown."</p> - -<p>"Alas, Claude, I doubt, I doubt. Do you remember -all we talked about when you were last in this room—a long -time ago?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, I remember."</p> - -<p>"You remember how I tried to awaken you to the -danger of your relations with Mario Provana's wife."</p> - -<p>"Those are things a man does not forget."</p> - -<p>"You denied the danger; but you did not deny your -love. You gave me your assurance, not as to a priest, -but between man and man, that no evil should ever come -of that love."</p> - -<p>"Yes, I remember. I was not afraid of myself. I -belong to the great army of triflers and dilettanti—I am -not of the stuff that passionate lovers are made of."</p> - -<p>"But now Death has intervened, and the situation is -changed. Two years hence you might marry your cousin -without shame to either, without disrespect to the dead. -Are you capable of renouncing that hope by burying -yourself in a cloister? Are you equal to the sacrifice? -Would there be no looking back, no repentance?"</p> - -<p>"I shall never marry my cousin Vera."</p> - -<p>"Because she does not love you? Is that the reason?"</p> - -<p>"No need to enter into details, or to count the cost. I -have made up my mind. For once in my life I have a -purpose and a will."</p> - -<p>"You seem in earnest."</p> - -<p>The words came slowly, like a spoken doubt, and the -priest's searching eyes were on the pale face in front of -him. The countenance where the refinement of race—a -long line of well-born men and women, showed in every -lineament.</p> - -<p>"This sudden resolve of yours is inexplicable," the -priest continued in a troubled voice, after a silence that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -seemed long. "It is not in your temperament or your -manner of life, since you came into a man's inheritance, -to cut yourself off from all that makes life pleasant to a -young man with talent, attractiveness, and independence. -I would give much to know your reason for such a step."</p> - -<p>"Haven't I told you, my dear friend? <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Welt Schmerz.</i> -Isn't that enough?"</p> - -<p>"No, it is not enough. <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Welt Schmerz</i> is the chronic -disease of a decadent age. If every sufferer from <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Welt -Schmerz</i> were to turn monk, this world would be a monastery. -It is a phase in every man's life—or a pose. I -know it is not that with you. There is something behind, -Claude—something at the back of your mind. Something -that you must tell me, before I can be of any real help to -you. But you are your mother's son, and were you steeped -in sin, I would do my uttermost to help you. Come to me -the day after to-morrow. I shall have had time to think -over your case, and you will be in a better mood for considering -the situation: to surrender this worldly life -and all it holds is not a light thing that a man should do -in a fit of the blues, a man still on the sunward side of -forty. I, who have entered my seventh decade, have no -yearnings for a woollen gown."</p> - -<p>"I have made up my mind," Claude repeated, in a dull, -dead voice, the voice of an obstinate man. "Good night."</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The six weeks' captivity on the hill in Sussex had been -a success, and Vera was able to leave England before the -first November fog descended upon Portland Place. She -was in Rome, in the city where she had spent the happiest -period of her life—the time in which she had first known -what it meant for a woman to be adored, and lovely, and -immeasurably rich. There she had first known the power -of wealth and the influence of beauty; for her husband's -position and her own attractions had assured her an -immediate social success, and had made her a star in -Roman society during her first season, while, over and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> -above all other graces, she had the charm of novelty. -But it was not the memory of social triumphs or of gratified -vanity that was with her as she sat alone in the too spacious -saloon, or roamed with languid step through other rooms -as spacious and as lonely.</p> - -<p>Sympathy had flowed in upon her from all her Roman -acquaintances, and acquaintances of divers nationalities, -the birds of passage, American, French, Spanish, German. -Cards and little notes had descended upon the villa like a -summer hailstorm; and she had responded with civility, -but with no uncertain tone. Her mourning was to be a -long mourning; and her seclusion was to be absolute. -She had come to live a solitary life in her villa and gardens, -to wander among ruins and steep herself in the poetry of -the city. She had come not to the Rome of the present, -but to the Rome of the past. This was how she explained -her life to the officious people who wanted to force distractions -upon her; and who in secret were already hatching -matrimonial schemes by which the Provana millions might -be made to infuse new life into princely races that were -perishing in financial atrophy.</p> - -<p>The Villa Provana was on high ground, beyond the -Porta del Popolo, and the view from the gardens commanded -the roofs and towers and cupolas of the city, and -the dominating mass of the great basilica, which dwarfs all -other monuments, and reduces papal Rome, with its -heterogeneous roofs and turrets, steeples and obelisks, to -a mere foreground for that one stupendous dome.</p> - -<p>Day after day, in those short winter afternoons, Vera -stood on the terrace in front of the villa, leaning languidly -against the marble balustrade, and watching the evening -mists rising slowly over the city, and the grey of the great -dome gradually deepening to purple, while the golden -light in the west grew more intense, and orange changed -to crimson.</p> - -<p>She was never tired of gazing at that incomparable -prospect. How often in her honeymoon year she had -stood there, with Mario Provana at her side, questioning -him with a childish delight, and making him point out and -explain every tower and every cupola, the classic, the -papal, the old and the new; churches, palaces, public -buildings, municipal and royal, picture-galleries, museums, -fountains! It was there, as an idolised young wife, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> -her husband's strong arm supporting her, as she leant -against him, in the pleasant fatigue after a day of pleasure, -that she had learnt to know Rome, and that she had discovered -how dearly the hard man of business loved the -city of his birth. It was there he had told her what Victor -Emanuel and Cavour—the soldier and the statesman—had -done for Italy; and how that which had been but a -geographical expression, a patchwork of petty states—for -the most part under foreign rulers—had become the -name of a great nation in the van of progress.</p> - -<p>She thought of him now, evening after evening, in the -unbroken silence and solitude of the long terrace on the -crown of the hill, and only a little lower than the terrace -on the Pincio. She looked backward across the arid -desert of her five years of society under Disbrowe influences, -five years of life that seemed worthless and joyless -compared with that year of a happiness she had almost -forgotten, till her husband's death carried all her thoughts -back to the past: to the time when she had given him -love for love; to the days that she could think of without -remorse.</p> - -<p>"Oh, God, if I had died at the end of that year, what -a happy life mine would have been!"</p> - -<p>She thought of the tomb on the Campagna, the splendid -monument of a husband's love, near which she had sat -in her carriage with Mario to watch the gathering of a -gay crowd, and the flash of red coats against the clear blue -of a December day, the hounds trotting lightly in front of -huntsman and whip, the women in their short habits, -patent-leather boots flashing against new saddles; men -on well-bred hunters; the whole picture so modern and -so trivial against the fortress tomb with its mystery of a -distant past—only a name to suggest the story of two -lives.</p> - -<p>"If I had only died then," she thought.</p> - -<p>To have ended her life in that year of gladness, innocent, -beloved, while all her world was lovely in the freshness -of life's morning. To have died then, before the blight -of disillusion or the taint of sinful thought had touched -her, to have passed out of the world, beloved and worthy -of love, and to have been laid to rest in the cemetery at -San Marco, beside her girl friend. Ah, what a happy -destiny! And now what was to be her doom? A cold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -breath touched her as she leaned over the balustrade, -with her hands clasped over her eyes, a cold breath that -thrilled her and made her tremble. It was only the cooler -wind of evening, breathing across the gathering shadows, -but it startled her by the suggestion of a human presence.</p> - -<p>She rose from the marble bench where she had been -sitting since the sun began to sink behind the umbrella -pines on a hill in the distance, and while the far-reaching -level of the Campagna began to look like the blue waters -of a sea in the lessening light, and walked slowly back to -the villa, by the long terrace, and under a pergola where -the last roses showered their petals upon her as she passed.</p> - -<p>The lamps were lighted in the saloon, and logs were -burning in the vast fireplace at the end of the room, a -distant glow and brightness, a pleasing spot of colour in a -melancholy picture, but of not much avail for warmth in -a room of fifty feet by twenty-five, with a ceiling twenty -feet high. But the comfort of the villa was not dependent -upon smouldering olive logs or spluttering pine-cones. -There was a hot-water system, the most expensive and the -best, for supplying all those palatial rooms with an -equable and enervating atmosphere.</p> - -<p>There was a letter lying on Vera's book-table, a table -that always stood by her armchair at one side of the monumental -chimneypiece. This spot was her own, her island -in that ocean of space. This chair was large enough to -absorb her, and when she was sitting in it, the room looked -empty, and a servant had to come near her table before he -could be sure she was there.</p> - -<p>She took up the letter, and looked at the address wonderingly. -It had not come by post. There was something -familiar in the writing. It reminded her of Claude's; and -then, in a moment, she remembered. The letter was from -Mrs. Rutherford. Little notes had been exchanged between -them in past years, notes of invitation from Vera, replies, -mostly courteous refusals, from the elder lady.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Rutherford must be in Rome. Strange! Had she, -too, come to winter there?</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - <p> - "<span class="smcap">My dear Vera</span>, - </p> - - <p>"I hear you are at your villa, living in seclusion - and refusing all visits; but I think you will make an - exception for me, as it is vital for me to see you. I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> - in great trouble, and I want your help—badly. I shall call - on you at noon to-morrow. Pray do not shut your door - against me.</p> - - <p class="indent">"Yours affectionately,</p> - <p class="indentmore">"<span class="smcap">Magdalen Rutherford</span>."</p> -</div> - -<p>The address was of one of the smaller and quieter hotels -in the great city, a house unknown to the tourist, English -or American: a house patronised only by what are called -"nice people."</p> - -<p>Trouble! What could be Mrs. Rutherford's trouble? -Had she anything in this world to be glad or sorry about, -except her son?</p> - -<p>The letter gave Vera a night of agitation and feverish -dreams, and she spent the hour before noon pacing up and -down the great room, deadly pale in the dense blackness -of her long crape gown.</p> - -<p>It was not five minutes past the hour when Mrs. Rutherford -was announced. She, too, was pale, and she, too, -wore black, but not mourning.</p> - -<p>"You are kind to let me see you," she said, clasping -Vera's hand.</p> - -<p>"How could I refuse? I am so sorry you are in trouble. -Is it—" her voice became tremulous, "is it anything -about Claude? Is he ill?"</p> - -<p>"No, he is not ill, unless it is in mind. But the trouble -is about him, a new and unexpected trouble. A thunderbolt!"</p> - -<p>The terror in Vera's face startled her. She thought the -frail figure would drop at her feet in a dead faint, and she -caught her by the arm.</p> - -<p>"I think you may help me. You and he were great -friends, pals, Susan Amphlett called you."</p> - -<p>"Yes, we were pals. He was so good to me at Disbrowe, -years and years ago."</p> - -<p>"Yes, I know. He has often talked of that time. -Well, you were great friends; and a young man will -sometimes open his mind more to a woman friend than -he will to his mother. Did Claude ever talk to you of -his Church, of his remorse for his neglect of his religion, -of his wanting to give up the world, to end a useless life -in a monastery?"</p> - -<p>"Never."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I thought not. It is a sudden caprice; there is no -real strength of purpose in it. He is disgusted and disappointed. -He has made a failure of his life, and he is -angry with, himself, and sick to death of Society. Such -a man cannot go on being trivial for ever. A life without -purpose can but end in disgust. My poor child, you are -shivering, and can hardly stand. Let us go nearer the -fire. Sit down, and let us talk quietly—and be kind, -and bear with a foolish old woman, who sees the joy of -her life slipping away from her."</p> - -<p>The visitor's quick eye had noticed the great armchair -and book-table by the hearth, and knew that it was Vera's -place. She led her there, made her sit down, and took a -chair by her side.</p> - -<p>"Now we shall be warm and comfortable, and can look -my trouble in the face."</p> - -<p>"Tell me all about it," Vera said quietly, with her hand -in Mrs. Rutherford's.</p> - -<p>The wave of agitation had passed. She spoke slowly, -but her voice was no longer tremulous.</p> - -<p>"I dare say, if you have ever thought of me in the past, -you have given me credit for being a strong-minded -woman."</p> - -<p>"Claude has told me of your strength of will—the -right kind of strength."</p> - -<p>"And now I have to confess myself to you, as weak, -unstable, inconsistent; caring for my son's love for me -more than I care for his eternal welfare."</p> - -<p>"No, no, I can never believe that."</p> - -<p>"But you will believe it when I tell you that he has -taken the first step towards separating himself for ever -from this sinful world, and giving the rest of his life to -God; and that I am here in this city, here pleading with -you, to try to change his purpose and win him back to the -world."</p> - -<p>"Oh!" said Vera, with a faint cry. "Has he made up -his mind?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p> - -<p>"He thinks he has. But oh, what shall I do without -him? It is horrible, selfish, unworthy; but I can only -think of myself and my own desolate old age. Only a few -years more, perhaps, only a few years of solitude and -mourning; but my mind and heart rise in rebellion against -Fate. I cannot bear my life without him. Again and -again I have urged him to remember the faith in which -he was reared; I have tried to awaken him to the call -of the Church; I have begged Father Hammond to use his -influence to rekindle the fervour of religion that made -my son's boyish mind so lovely: and now when he has gone -beyond my prayers, and wants to renounce this sinful -world, I am a weak, miserable woman, and my despairing -cry is to call him back to the life he has grown weary of. -Do you not despise me, Vera?"</p> - -<p>"No, no. I can understand. It is natural for a mother -to feel as you feel; but, all the same, I think if he has -made up his mind to retire into a monastery, it is your -duty to let him go. Think what it is for a man to spend -his last years in reconciling himself with God. Think of -the peace that may come with self-sacrifice. Think what -it is to escape out of this sinful world—into a place of -silence and prayer, and to know that one's sins are forgiven."</p> - -<p>"He has no sins that need the sacrifice of half a life. -He has been the dearest of sons, the kindest of friends, -honourable, generous, straightforward. Why should he -shut himself in a monastery to find forgiveness for trivial -sins, and neglect of religious forms? He can lead a new -and better life in the world of action, where he can be of -use to his fellow-men. Even Father Hammond has never -advised him to turn monk. He can worship God, and lead -the Christian life, without renouncing all that is lovely -in the world God made for us."</p> - -<p>Vera listened with a steadfast face, and her tones were -calm and decided when she replied.</p> - -<p>"Dear Mrs. Rutherford, the heart knoweth its own -bitterness. I think, the better you love your son the less -you should come between him and a resolve that must -give him peace, if it can never give him happiness."</p> - -<p>For the first time since Mrs. Rutherford had been with -her, Vera's eyes filled with tears, tears that overflowed -and streamed down the colourless cheeks, and that it -needed all her strength to check.</p> - -<p>"You surprise me," the elder woman cried passionately, -flinging away the hand that she had been holding. "You -surprise me. I came to you for sympathy, sure that I -should find it, believing that you cared for my son almost -as much as I care for him. You were his chosen friend—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>he -devoted half his days to you. The closeness of your -friendship made malicious people say shameful things, -and has given me many an unhappy hour; and now, -at this crisis of his life, when he is bent upon burying -himself alive in a monastery—entering some severe order, -for whose rule of hardship and deprivation he is utterly -unfit, a kind of life that will break his heart and bring -him to an early grave—you preach to me of his finding -peace in those dreary walls—peace—as if he were the -worst of sinners."</p> - -<p>"No, no, you don't understand me. Father Hammond -has told me about the monastic life—the Benedictines, -La Trappe. He has told me what happiness has been -found in that life of solitude and prayer by those who have -renounced the world."</p> - -<p>"Was it you who inspired this extraordinary resolve?"</p> - -<p>"<em>I?</em> No, indeed. I knew nothing of it till you told -me."</p> - -<p>"What? He could take such a step without consulting -you, without confiding in you—his closest friend?"</p> - -<p>"Was it likely that he would tell me, if he did not tell -his mother?"</p> - -<p>"He told me nothing till he had come here; to make -a retreat in a monastery; to give himself time for meditation -and thought, before he took any decisive step. He -is here in Rome, and has been here for some time. My -first knowledge of his decision was a letter he sent me from -here. Such an unsatisfactory letter, giving no adequate -reason for his resolve, only vague words about his weariness -of life and the world."</p> - -<p>"What else could he say? That must always be the -reason. One gets tired of everything—and then one turns -to God—and a life of prayer seems best. It is death in -life; but it may mean peace."</p> - -<p>"Vera, I was never more shocked and disappointed. I -thought you loved him when love was sin. I thought -you loved him at the peril of your soul; and now, when a -terrible calamity has left you free to do what you like -with the rest of your life, now, when however deeply you -may mourn for your husband's awful death, and grieve -over any sins of omission in your married life, yet there -must needs be the far-off thought of years to come, when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> -without self-reproach, you may give yourself to a lover -who in years and temperament would be your natural -companion——"</p> - -<p>"There has been no such thought in my mind," Vera -said coldly. "I shall never cease to mourn for Mario -Provana's death. I have nothing else in the world to live -for."</p> - -<p>"My poor girl. It is only natural that you should feel -like that. I did wrong to speak of the future. You have -passed through a horrible ordeal, and it may be -long before you can forget. But you are too kind -not to be sorry for a mother who is threatened with -the loss of all that she has of joy and comfort in this -world."</p> - -<p>"I am very sorry for you," Vera said, with a mechanical -air, as if her thoughts were far away.</p> - -<p>"Then you will help me?" Mrs. Rutherford cried -eagerly.</p> - -<p>"How can I help you?"</p> - -<p>"You can appeal to my son. You may have more -influence over him than I. I believe you have more -influence," with a touch of bitterness. "However indifferent -you may be, and may have always been to him, -I know that he was devoted to you, that you could have -led him, if you had cared to lead him. And he will listen -to you now, he will have pity upon me, if you plead for -me, if you tell him what it is for a mother to part with -the son of nearly forty years' cherishing, who represents -all her life on earth, past, present, and to come. I cannot -live without him, Vera. I thought that I was strong in -faith, and patience, and resignation, till this trouble came -upon me. I thought that I was a religious woman; but -now I know that the God I worshipped was of clay, and -that when I prayed and tried to lift my thoughts to Heaven -it was only of my son that I thought, only for his welfare -that I prayed. Help me, Vera, if you have a heart that -can love and sympathise with another's love. Plead -with him, tell him how few the years are for a woman of -my age; and that there will be time enough for him to bury -himself alive in a monastery when I am at rest. His -dedication of those later years will not be less precious in -the sight of God, because he has deferred the sacrifice for -his mother's sake."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I cannot think that he will listen to me, if he has -not yielded to you; I know he loves you dearly."</p> - -<p>"He did love me—never was there a better son. But -he changed all at once. It was as if something had broken -his life. But I think you can melt his heart. He will -understand my grief better when it is brought home to -him by another. I am to see him to-morrow afternoon, -and I shall be allowed to take you with me. Will you -come?"</p> - -<p>The entreaty was so insistent, so agonising, that Vera -could only bend her head in mute acquiescence.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Rutherford threw her arms round the frail figure -and strained it to her breast.</p> - -<p>"My dearest girl, I knew you would have pity upon me. -I will call for you to-morrow at half-past two. The house -is on the hill, beyond the Medici Villa—a lovely spot—but -to me, though it is only a place of probation, it seems -like a grave. Vera!" with a sudden passion, "if I thought -that this step were for his happiness, I believe I could -submit; but when I parted with him last week his face -was the face of despair. How changed, oh, my God, how -changed!"</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Mrs. Rutherford and Vera drove to the hill behind -the Medici Villa in the golden light of a Roman November, -when the gardens on the height were glowing with foliage -that seemed made of fire, and only cypress and ilex showed -dark against that splendour of red and amber; but to -those two women all that beauty of autumn colour, and -purple distances, of fairy-like gardens, and flashing fountains, -was part of a world that was dead. The metaphysician's -idea of the universe as an emanation of the -individual mind is so far borne out by experience, that in a -great grief the universe ceases to exist.</p> - -<p>The room to which one of the brotherhood led them -faced the western sky and was full of golden light when -the two women entered.</p> - -<p>It was a room that had once been splendid; but of all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> -its splendour nothing was left but vast space, and the -blurred and faded outlines of a fresco upon the ceiling.</p> - -<p>The two women stood within the doorway looking to -the other end of the room, where a solitary figure was -sitting, huddled in a large armchair, in front of a fireplace -that looked like an open tomb, where a little heap of -smouldering logs upon a spacious hearth seemed a hollow -mockery of a fire meant for warmth. That crouching form -with contracted shoulders, and wasted hands stretched -above the feeble fire-glow—could that be Claude Rutherford?</p> - -<p>Vera shivered in the chillness of the dismal scene, -where even the vast window, and the golden west, could -not relieve the sense of cold and gloom.</p> - -<p>Yes, it was Claude! He started to his feet as Mrs. -Rutherford moved slowly along the intervening space. -He looked beyond her, surprised at the second figure, and -then, with one brief word to his mother, hurried past her -and came to Vera.</p> - -<p>He clasped her hands, he drew her towards the window, -drew her into the golden light, where she stood transfigured, -like the Madonna in a picture by Fra Angelico, -glorious and all gold.</p> - -<p>He looked at her as a traveller who had been dying of -thirst in a desert might look at a fountain of clear water.</p> - -<p>It was a long, long look, in which it seemed as if he were -drinking the beauty of the face he looked at, as if, in those -moments, he tried to satisfy the yearning of days and -nights of severance. It seemed as if he could never cease -to look; as if he could never let her go. Then suddenly -he dropped her hand, and turned from her to his mother, -who was standing a little way off.</p> - -<p>"Why have you done this?" he asked vehemently.</p> - -<p>"Because you would not listen to me. No prayers, no -tears of mine would move you. I was breaking my heart, -and I thought she might prevail when I failed; I knew -her influence over you, and that she might move you."</p> - -<p>"It was a cruel thing to do. I knew she was in Rome, -that we were breathing the same air. The thought of her -was with me by day and night. Yet I was rock. I made -myself iron, I clung to the cross, like the saints of old time, -who had all been sinners. Vera, why have you come -between me and my God?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I could not see your mother so unhappy and refuse -to do what she asked. Oh, Claude, forget that I came here. -Forget that we have ever clasped hands since—since you -resolve to separate yourself from the world. I will not -come between you and the saving of your soul."</p> - -<p>"Vera," Mrs. Rutherford cried passionately, "have -you no compassion for me? Is this how you help -me?"</p> - -<p>"You know that I refused, that I did not want to see -him. I ought never to have come. But it is over. We -shall never meet again, Claude. This is the last—the -very last."</p> - -<p>"Heartless girl. Have you no thought of my grief?" -urged the mother.</p> - -<p>"No, not when I think of him. If you can come between -him and his hope of heaven—I cannot." She turned and -walked quickly to the door without another word. Mrs. -Rutherford cast one despairing look at her son, before she -followed the vanishing figure, muttering, "Cruel, cruel, a -heart of stone!"</p> - -<p>No words were exchanged between the two women as -they left the monastery, conducted by the monk, who had -waited for them in the stony corridor at the top of the -broad marble stairs. He let them out of the heavy iron-lined -door, into the neglected garden, where a long row of -cypresses showed dark against a saffron sky. The greater -part of the garden had been utilised for growing vegetables, -upon which the brotherhood for the most part subsisted. -Huge orange-red pumpkins sprawled among beds of kale, -and patches of Indian corn were golden amidst the rusty -green of artichokes gone to seed.</p> - -<p>It was a melancholy place, and the aspect of it sent an -icy chill through Mrs. Rutherford's heart as she thought of -that light, airy temperament which had been her son's -most delightful gift, the gay insouciance, the joyous -outlook that had made him everybody's favourite. He -the jester, the trifler, for whom life was always play-time, -he to be shut within those frozen walls, immured in a -living grave! It was maddening even to think of it. She -had talked to him of his religious duties. Oh, God, was -it her old woman's preaching that had brought him to -this living death?</p> - -<p>Vera bade her good-bye at the gate, saying that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -would rather walk than drive, and left Mrs. Rutherford -to return to her hotel alone.</p> - -<p>"I wonder which of us two is the more unhappy?" -she thought. "Why do I wonder? What is her misery -measured against mine?"</p> - -<p>For Claude a night of fever followed that impassioned -meeting, a night of sleeplessness and semi-delirium. For -the first time since he had been a visitor in that house of -gloom he got up at two o'clock and went to the chapel, -where the monks met for prayer and meditation at that -hour. As a probationer making his retreat he was not -subject to the severe rules of the order, and he need not -leave his bed till four o'clock unless he chose. This night -he went to the dimly-lighted chapel, and knelt on the -chill stone, for respite from agonising thoughts, from the -insidious whispers of the tempter. This night he went -into the House of God to escape from the dominion of -Satan.</p> - -<p>Hitherto he had borne his time of probation with a -stoical submission. He had sought no relaxation of the -rule for penitents on the threshold. He had lain upon the -narrow bed and shivered in the chilly room, and risen in -the winter dark, to lie down again sleepless, at an hour -when a little while ago his night of pleasure would have -been still at full tide. He had submitted to the repellent -fare, the vegetables cooked in half rancid oil, coarse -bread and gritty coffee. He, who had been always a -creature of delicate habits, accustomed to the uttermost -refinement in every detail of daily life—his food, his -toilet, his surroundings.</p> - -<p>He had shrunk from no burden that was laid upon him, -earnestly intent upon keeping his promise to Father -Hammond. He was to spend six weeks in this place of -silence and prayer, and at the end of that time he was to -make his confession to the Superior, and to make his -communion. Then would follow the slow stages of preparation -for the final act, which would admit him to the -brotherhood, and shut the door of the world upon all the -rest of his life. He had learnt to think of that awful -change with a stoic's resignation. He had brought himself -to a Roman temper. He thought with indifference of the -world which he was to renounce. He had done with it. -This had been the state of his mind as he shivered over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -the smouldering olive logs. This iron calm, and his stony -contempt for life, had been his till that moment of ecstasy -when the woman he loved stood before him, a vision of -ethereal beauty in the light of the setting sun.</p> - -<p>Why had she come there? Why? The penitential -days and nights, the stoic's iron resolve, all were gone in -one breath from those sweet lips, faint and pale, but -ineffably beautiful.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> -</div> - - -<p>It was a little less than three weeks after the meeting in -the house of silence; but to Vera the interval seemed -an endless procession of slow, grey days and fevered nights—nights -of intolerable length, in which she listened to the -beating of the blood against her skull, now slow and rhythmical, -now tempestuous and irregular—endless nights in -which sleep seemed the most unlikely thing that could -happen, a miracle for which she had left off hoping. In -all that time she had heard no more of Mrs. Rutherford, -though the daily chronicle that kept note of every stranger -in Rome still printed her name among the inmates of the -Hotel Marguerita.</p> - -<p>She was angry and unforgiving. Unhappy mother! -Unhappy son!</p> - -<p>Two pairs of horses had to be exercised daily, but Vera -had no orders for the stables. That monotonous parade -in the Pincio, which every other woman of means in Rome -made a part of her daily life, had no attraction for Signor -Provana's widow. The villa gardens, funereal in their -winter foliage of ilex and arbutus, sufficed for relief from -the long hours within four walls. Wrapped in her sable -coat, with the wind blowing upon her uncovered head, -she paced the long terraces for hours on end, or sat like a -statue on the marble bench that had been dug out of the -ruins of imperial baths. But though she spent half her -days in the gardens she took no interest in them. She -never stopped to watch the gardeners at work upon the -flower-beds, never questioned them about their prepara<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>tions -for the spring. Thousands of bulbs were being -planted daily, but she never wanted to learn what resurrection -of vivid colour would come from those brown balls -which the men were dropping into the earth. She walked -about like a corpse alive! The men almost shrank from -her as she passed them, as if they had seen a ghost.</p> - -<p>She could never forget that last meeting with her lover. -The last—the very last. She sat with her arms folded on -the marble balustrade, and her head resting on the folded -arms, with her face hidden from the clear, cold light of a -December afternoon.</p> - -<p>Her gaze was turned inward; and it was only with that -inward gaze that she saw things distinctly. The outside -world was blurred and dim, but the pictures memory -made were vivid.</p> - -<p>She saw Claude's agonised look, saw the melancholy -eyes gazing at her: the yearning love, the despairing -renunciation.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Rutherford had called her cruel, but was not the -cruelty far greater that submitted her to that heart-rending -ordeal?</p> - -<p>To sit brooding thus, with her arms upon the cold -marble, had been so much a habit with her of late, that in -these melancholy reveries she had often lost count of -time, till the sound of some convent bell startled her as it -told the lateness of the hour, or till the creeping cold of -sundown awoke her with a shiver. In that city of the -Church there were many bells—all with their particular -call to prayer, and she could have told the progress of the -day and night without the help of a clock. Now it was the -bell of the Trinità del Monte, for the office of Benediction, -distant and silvery sweet in the clear air. It was a warning -to go back to the house—yet she did not stir. Solitude -here, with the cold wind blowing upon her, and the twitter -of birds among the branches, was better than the atmosphere -of those silent rooms.</p> - -<p>She raised her head at the sound of a footstep, not the -leisurely tread of one of the gardeners, heavy and slow. -This step was light and rapid, so rapid that before she had -time to wonder, it had stopped close beside her, and two -strong arms were holding her, and quick, sobbing breath -was fluttering her hair.</p> - -<p>"Don't be frightened! Vera, my angel, my beloved!"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p> - -<p>She tried to release herself, tried to stand upright, but -the passionate arms held her to the passionate heart.</p> - -<p>"Claude, are you mad?"</p> - -<p>"No. Madness is over. Sanity has come back. I am -yours again, my beloved, yours as I was that night—before -a great horror parted us. I am all your own—your lover—your -husband, whatever you will. The miserable slave -you saw in the monastery is dead. I am yours, and only -yours. I have no separate existence. I want no other -heaven! Heaven is here, in your arms. Nothing else -matters."</p> - -<p>"My God! Have you left the monastery!"</p> - -<p>"For ever. I bore it till last night—but that was a -night of hell. I told the Superior this morning that I was -not of the stuff that makes a martyr or a monk. He was -horrified. To him I seemed a son of the devil. Well, I -will worship Satan sooner than lose you. I am your lover, -Vera—nothing else in this sublunary world. 'We'll -jump the life to come.'"</p> - -<p>She clung to him in the ecstasy of reunion, and their -lips met in a kiss more tragic than Francesca's and Paolo's, -for their guilt was yet to come; while with Vera and -her lover guilt had been consummated.</p> - -<p>Presently, with a sudden revulsion, she snatched herself -from his arms, and stood looking at him reproachfully.</p> - -<p>"Oh, my dearest, why did you not stand firm? Think -how little this poor life of ours means compared with that -which comes after."</p> - -<p>"I leave the after-life to the illuminated—to Symeon -and his following. I want nothing but the woman I love. -Here or hereafter, for me there is nothing else. Vera, -forget that I ever tried to forsake you—that I ever set my -soul's ransom above my thoughts of you. It was a short -madness, a cowardly endeavour. Forget it all, as I shall -from this hour. Here are you and I—in this little world -which is the only one we know—with just a few more -years of youth and love. Let us make the most of them; -and when the fire of life dies down, when these fierce -heart-throbs are over, we will give our fading years to -penitence and prayer."</p> - -<p>This is what happens when a man of Claude Rutherford's -temperament puts his hand to the plough.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Just two years after the sudden close of Mr. Rutherford's -retreat there was a quiet wedding in Father Hammond's -chapel—a bride without bridesmaids, a marriage -without music, a bride in a pale grey gown and a black -hat, with just a sprinkling of the Disbrowe clan to keep -her in countenance. Three stately aunts, Lady Okehampton -being by far the most human of the three, and -their three noble husbands, with Lady Susan Amphlett, -vivacious as ever, and immensely pleased with her friend.</p> - -<p>From a conversational point of view she had been living -upon this marriage all through the little season of November -fog and small dinner-parties at restaurants or at home. -She knew so much more than anybody else, and what she -knew was what everybody wanted to know. She discussed -the subject at Ritz's, at Claridge's, at the Savoy, -at the Carlton, and seemed to have something fresh to say -at each place of entertainment. There was more variety -in her information than even in the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">hors d'œuvres</i>, which -rise in a crescendo of novelty in unison with the newness -of the hotel.</p> - -<p>People wondered they had not married sooner, since, of -course, everybody knew it must end in marriage.</p> - -<p>Susie shrugged her pretty shoulders, and flashed her -diamond necklace at the company.</p> - -<p>"The sweet thing is <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">exaltée</i>. She is one of Francis -Symeon's flock; and she thought respect for her husband -obliged her to wait two years. She only left off her mourning -last week."</p> - -<p>"But considering that she was carrying on with Rutherford -years before Provana's death?"</p> - -<p>"You none of you understand her. Their friendship -was purely platonic. She and I were like sisters, and I -was in and out of her house just as Claude was. There -never was a more innocent attachment. I used to call -them Paul and Virginia."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I should think Paolo and Francesca would be more -like it," murmured one of the company.</p> - -<p>Susie shook her fan at him.</p> - -<p>"You men will never believe in a virtuous friendship. -However, there they are—absolutely devoted to each -other. They will be the happiest couple in London, and -they mean to entertain a great deal."</p> - -<p>"Then I hope they are on the look-out for a pearl among -chefs. People won't go to Portland Place to eat second-rate -dinners."</p> - -<p>"Provana's dinners were admirable, and his wines the -finest in London."</p> - -<p>Then there came the question of settlements. How -much of her millions had Mrs. Provana settled upon -Rutherford?</p> - -<p>"I don't think there has been any settlement."</p> - -<p>"The more fool he," muttered a matter-of-fact guardsman. -"What's the use of marrying a rich woman if you -don't get some of the stuff?"</p> - -<p>"Don't I tell you they are like Paul and Virginia?" -said Susie.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Provana murder had died out long before this as a -source of interest and wonder. It had flourished and -faded like a successful novel, or a play that takes the town -by storm one year and is forgotten the year after. The -Provana mystery had gone to the dust-heap of old things. -Slowly and gradually people had resigned themselves to -the knowledge that this murder must take its place among -the long list of crimes that are never to be punished by the -law.</p> - -<p>Romantic people clung to their private solutions of the -tragical enigma. These were as sure of the identity of the -murderer as if they had seen him red-handed. The quiet -marriage in the Roman Catholic chapel revived the interest -in the half-forgotten crime, and Lady Susan had the -additional kudos of a close association with the event.</p> - -<p>"Vera and I were together at Lady Fulham's ball -within two or three hours of that poor fellow's death," she -told her friends at a Savoy supper-table. "I never saw -her look so lovely, in one of her mermaid frocks, and a -necklace and girdle of single diamonds that flashed like -water-drops. Other people's jewels looked vulgar com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>pared -with hers. She was in wonderful spirits, stayed -late, and danced all the after supper waltzes. She was -fey."</p> - -<p>"Rutherford was there, of course?" said someone.</p> - -<p>"Of course," echoed Susan; "why shouldn't he be -there? Everybody was there."</p> - -<p>"But everybody couldn't waltz or sit out with Madame -Provana all the evening, as I heard he did," remarked a -middle-aged matron, fixing Susan with her long-handled -eyeglass.</p> - -<p>"Why shouldn't they waltz? They are cousins, and -have always been pals, and they waltz divinely. To watch -them is to understand what Shakespeare meant by the -poetry of motion. Everything Vera does is a poem. -Every frock she wears shows that she is a poet's daughter. -And now they are married, and are going to be utterly -happy," concluded Susie with conviction.</p> - -<p>The world in general does not relish that idea of idyllic -happiness—especially in the case of multi-millionaires. It -is consoling—when one is not a millionaire—to think of -some small counterbalance to that overweening good luck, -some little rift within the lute.</p> - -<p>A cynic, as cold and sour as the aspic he was eating, -shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p>"If I had a daughter I was fond of, I don't think I -would trust the chances of her happiness to Claude Rutherford," -he said quietly.</p> - -<p>"Claude is quite adorable," said a fourteen-stone widow, -whose opulent shoulders and triple necklaces had been -the central point of the public gaze at the theatre that -evening.</p> - -<p>"Much too adorable to make one woman happy. A -man of that kind has to spread himself. It must be -diffused light, not the concentrated glow of the domestic -hearth," said the cynic, smiling at the bubbles in his -glass.</p> - -<p>Everybody found something to say about Vera and her -husband. Certainly their behaviour since Provana's death -had been exemplary. They had never been seen about -together, at home or abroad. The house in Portland Place -had been closed, and the widow had lived in Italy, a recluse, -seeing no one. Half the time had been spent by Claude -Rutherford in Africa, hunting big game with a famous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> -sportsman. The other half in well-known studios in -Antwerp and Paris. He had thrown off his lazy, dilettante -habits, and had gone in for art with a curious renewal of -energy. The man was altered somehow. His old acquaintance -discovered a change in him: a change for the -better, most likely, though they did not all think so.</p> - -<p>And now he had attained the summit of mortal bliss, as -possible to a man of nine-and-thirty, who had wasted the -morning of life. He had won a lovely woman whom he -was supposed to adore, and whose wealth ought to be inexhaustible.</p> - -<p>"However hard he tries, I don't see how he can run -through such a fortune as that," his friends said.</p> - -<p>"That kind of quiet, unpretentious man has often a -marvellous faculty for getting rid of money," said another; -"it oozes out of his pockets without the labour of -spending. Rutherford is sure to gamble. A man of that -temperament is too idle to find excitement for himself. -He wants it ready-made—at the baccarat table, or on the -turf."</p> - -<p>"Well, it will last him a few years, at the worst, and -then he can go into the Charter-house."</p> - -<p>The idea of Claude Rutherford going to bed at ten -o'clock in the Charter-house made everybody laugh.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The long interval of mourning and probation, of melancholy -solitude on Vera's part, and of forced occupation on -Claude's, was over: and they two, who in thought and -feeling had been long one, were now united in that closer -bond which only death or sin can sever. In the intensity -of that union it seemed to them as if they had never lived -asunder, as if all of their existence that had gone before -were no more than a long, dull dream, the grey monotony -of life that was less than life, hard and mechanical even in -its so-called pleasures.</p> - -<p>"I never lived till now," she told him, when she was -folded to his heart, in their sumptuous alcove in the great -room in Venice, in an hotel that had been a palace, an -alcove surrounded with a balustrade, a bed that had been -made for a king. "I never lived till now—for now I know -that nothing can part us. We belong to each other till -death."</p> - -<p>"If it were now to die 'twere now to be most happy,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> -he murmured in a low, impassioned voice that soothed -her like music.</p> - -<p>"And the past is dead," she whispered.</p> - -<p>"The past is dead."</p> - -<p>The voice that echoed her words had changed.</p> - -<p>The winter moonlight sent a flood of cold light across -the shining floor, and the glow of burning logs on the -hearth glimmered redly under the sculptured arch of the -Byzantine fireplace. It was a wonderful room in a wonderful -city. Vera had never been in Venice till this night, -when she stepped from the station quay into the black -boat that was to bring them to the hotel, man and maid -and luggage following in a second gondola. To most -travellers so arriving, Venice must needs seem a dream -city; but to Vera all life had been a dream since she had -stood before the altar and heard Father Hammond's grave -voice pronounce the words that made her Claude's -wife.</p> - -<p>She had chosen Venice for their honeymoon, because it -was the one famous city in her beloved Italy in which she -had never been with Provana.</p> - -<p>"It will be all new and strange," she told Claude, and -then came the unspoken thought. "He will not be -there."</p> - -<p>He had been with her in Rome, almost an inseparable -companion, until she had grown accustomed to the thought -that he must be with her always, wherever she went, -an inseparable shadow; but with her marriage the bond -that held her to the past was broken, the shadow was -lifted. She was young again; young and thoughtless, living -in the exquisite hour, almost as happy as she had been -when she was an impulsive, light-hearted child of eleven, -leaping on to her cousin's knee, and nestling with her -arms round his neck, while they watched the waves racing -towards the rock where they were sitting, she rather -hoping that the waters would rise round them and swallow -them. That blue brightness could hardly mean death. -They would only become part of the sea—merman and -mermaid, children of the ocean. How much better than to -return to the dull lodgings, and Lidcott's harsh dominion!</p> - -<p>That solitude of two in the loveliest city in Europe -seemed altogether of the stuff that dreams are made of. -They kept no count of the days and hours. They made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> -no plan for to-morrow. They wandered along the <i lang="es" xml:lang="es">calle</i>, and -in and out of the churches, in a desultory and casual way, -looking at pictures and statues without any precise knowledge -of what they were seeing—only a dreamy delight -in things that were beautiful themselves, and which -awakened ideas of beauty. They spent idle days in their -gondola going from island to island, musing among the -historic arches of Torcello, or sauntering along the sands -of the Lido. The winter was mild even in England, and -here soft air and sunshine suggested April rather than -December. It was a delicious world, and in the seclusion -of a gondola, or in the half-light of a church, they seemed -to have this lovely world all to themselves. There were -very few strangers in Venice at this season, and the residents -had something more to do than to wander about the -narrow <i lang="es" xml:lang="es">calle</i>, or loiter and look at things in the churches, -or the Doge's Palace. These two were learning Venice -by heart in those leisurely saunterings, a little listless -sometimes, as of people whose lives had come to a dead -stop.</p> - -<p>They never talked of the past, or only of that remote -past when Vera was a child, the time of childish happiness -by the blue waves and dark cliffs of North Devon. They -talked very little of the future. Their talk was of themselves, -and of their love. They read Byron and Shelley -and Browning, and De Musset. They drank deep of the -poetry that Venice had inspired, until every stone in the -City of Dreams seemed enchanted, and every noble old -mansion, given over perhaps now to commerce, glass-blowers, -and dealers in bric-à-brac, seemed a fairy palace.</p> - -<p>They drained the cup of life and love. Claude forgot -that he had ever thought of the woollen gown and the -hempen girdle; Vera forgot that she had ever seen him, -haggard and hollow-eyed, crouching over the smouldering -olive logs in the monastery on the Roman hill.</p> - -<p>Early on their wedding journey, leaning against the -side of the boat, hand locked in hand, they had sworn to -each other that all the past should be forgotten. Come -what, come might, in unknown Fate, they would never -remember.</p> - -<p>And now they were going back to London in the gay -spring season, and Lady Susan Amphlett had another -innings. It was delicious to be moving about in a world<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> -where everybody wanted to know things that only she -could tell them.</p> - -<p>"And are they really going to live in the house in Portland -Place?"</p> - -<p>"Really, really. Where could they get such rooms, -such air and space? And that old Italian furniture is -priceless. There is nothing better in the Doria Palace. -It took the Provana family more than a century to collect -it—even with their wealth."</p> - -<p>"Well, when I saw the painters at work outside I -thought the house must have been sold. This world seems -full of strange people. How Vera can reconcile herself -to life in that house passes my comprehension. I could -understand her keeping the furniture; but to live inside -those four walls. I should fancy they were closing in -upon me, like a mediæval torture chamber."</p> - -<p>"Vera is all poetry and imagination, but she is not -morbid."</p> - -<p>"Vera knows that we are in the midst of the unseen, -and that our dead are always near us," said a thrilling -voice, and Lady Fanny Ransom's dark eyes flashed -across the table. "The house can make no difference -to her. If she loved her first husband she has not lost -him."</p> - -<p>"Nice for her, but not so pleasant for her second," -murmured a matter-of-fact K.C.</p> - -<p>"She was utterly devoted to poor Provana," protested -Susie, "but it was the reverent looking-up kind of love -that an innocent girl feels for a man old enough to be her -father. She has told me the story of their courtship—so -sweet—like Paul and Virginia."</p> - -<p>"A middle-aged Paul! I thought Rutherford was the -hero of the Paul and Virginia chapter of her history."</p> - -<p>"Oh, well, they were little lovers as children, and Vera -and Claude are the most ideal couple that ever the world -has seen. They are going to entertain in a sumptuous -style. Their house will be the most popular in London."</p> - -<p>"In spite of its being the scene of an unsolved mystery -and undiscovered crime. That's the worst of it," said -sour middle-age in a garnet necklace. "For my part, I -could never sleep a wink in that awful house."</p> - -<p>"Ah, but you'll be able to eat and drink in it," remarked -Mr. Hortentius, K.C., dryly. "We shall all dine there,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> -if the dinners are as good as they were in poor Provana's -time."</p> - -<p>Poor Provana! That was his epitaph in the world. On -the marble tomb at San Marco, to which the dead man -had been carried—in remembrance of a desire expressed -in those distant days when he and Vera wandered in the -olive woods—there was nothing but his name, and one -word: "Re-united."</p> - -<p>Vera had been too ill and too much under the dominion -of Lady Okehampton to make the dismal journey with -her dead; but she had gone from Rome to San Marco, -and had spent a melancholy hour in the secluded corner -where the cypress cast its long shadow on Guilia's -tomb.</p> - -<p>She had stood by the tomb in a kind of stupor, hardly -conscious of the present, lost in a long dream of the past, -living again through those bright April days, with father -and daughter, and hearing again the ineffable tenderness -in Mario Provana's voice, as he talked to his dying child. -What an abyss of time since those sad, sweet days! And -now there was nothing left but a name—</p> - -<p class="ph3"> -MARIO PROVANA -</p> - -<p>—here, and in certain hospitals in London and Rome, -where there were wards or beds established in memory -of Mario Provana.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Mrs. Rutherford was the fashion in that first year of -her second marriage, just as she had been in her London -début as Madame Provana. It seemed as if one of the -fairies at her christening had given her that inexpressible -charm which captivates the crowd, that elusive, indescribable -attractiveness which for want of a better -name people have agreed to call magnetism. Vera -Rutherford was a magnetic woman. Mr. Symeon went -about telling people that she had psychic attributes which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> -removed her worlds away from the normal woman, and -Miranda, the only, the inimitable dressmaker, told her -patronesses that it was a delight to work for Mrs. Rutherford, -not because she was rich enough to pay for the wildest -flights in millinery, but because her pale, ethereal beauty -lent itself to all that was daring and original in the dress-designer's -art. "People preach to me about Mrs. Montressor's -lovely colouring, and what a joy it must be to -invent frocks for her; but those pink and white beauties -are difficult," said the dressmaker. "They require much -study. A <em>nuance</em>, just the faintest <em>nuance</em> on the wrong -side, and your pink and white woman looks vulgar. A -wrong shade of blue and the peach complexion becomes -purple, but with Mrs. Rutherford's alabaster skin every -scheme of colour is possible."</p> - -<p>Mrs. Rutherford was a social success, just as Madame -Provana had been. Her entertainments were as frequent -and as sumptuous as in the old days, when Mario Provana -stalked like a stranger through crowded rooms where -hardly one face in twenty afforded him a moment's -interest. The entertainments were as sumptuous, but -they were more original. The tone was lighter, and -gilded youth from the Embassies found the house more -amusing.</p> - -<p>"Vera is ten years younger since her second marriage," -Lady Susie told people; "Claude aids and abets her in -everything frivolous. She used to be just a little too -dreamy—Oh, you may call it 'side,' but that it never -was. But she is certainly more sociable now; more -eagerly interested in the things that interest other people. -Claude has made her forget that she is a poet's daughter. -She is as keen as mustard about their house and racing -stables at Newmarket. She goes to all the big cricket -matches with him, things she never thought of in Provana's -time. They are not like commonplace husband and wife, -but like boy and girl lovers, pleased with everything. -I don't wonder Mr. Symeon thinks she has degenerated. -He says she is losing her other-world look, and is fast -becoming a mere mortal."</p> - -<p>"And as a mere mortal I hope she won't allow Rutherford -to spend all her money," said Susie's confidant, an -iron-grey bachelor of fifty, who spent the greater part of -his life sitting in pretty women's pockets. "A racing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> -stud is a pretty deep pit for gold at the best; but a man -who has married a triple millionaire's widow may safely -allow himself one hobby. Rutherford goes in for too -many things: his dirigible balloons and his aeroplane, -his racing cars and his motor launches: his Ostend holiday, -where people say he is hardly ever out of the gambling -rooms. Your friend had better keep an eye on her pass-book."</p> - -<p>"Vera!" cried Susie, with uplifted eyebrows. "Vera -look at a pass-book!"</p> - -<p>"As a banker's widow she might be supposed to know -that there are such financial thermometers. She must -have learnt something of business from Provana."</p> - -<p>"She never took the slightest interest in his business, -and he was far too noble to degrade her by talking of -money."</p> - -<p>"A pity," said the bachelor; "when a woman's husband -is a great financier he may want to talk about money; -and his wife ought to be interested in things that are of -vital concern for him."</p> - -<p>"That's a counsel of perfection," said Susie, "and very -few women rise to it. All I have ever known about my -husband is that he is interested in railways and insurance -companies and things, and that when any of them are -going wrong I'd better not talk of my dressmaker's bills, -or let him see my pass-book."</p> - -<p>"Then you know what a pass-book is."</p> - -<p>"I have to," sighed Susie, "for my normal state is an -overdrawn account. I think the letters n.e. and n.s. are -quite the horridest in the alphabet."</p> - -<p>"Yet you never ask a friend to help you out of a -fix?"</p> - -<p>"Not much; when it comes to that I shall make a -mistake in measuring my dose of chloral, and it will be -'poor Susan Amphlett, death by misadventure'!"</p> - -<p>Susan, who had never had adventures or "affairs" of -her own, was a kind of modern representative of the -chorus in a Greek play, and was always explaining people, -more especially her bosom friends, of whom Vera was the -dearest. She was really fond of Vera, and there was no -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">arrière pensée</i> of envy and malice in her explanations. -Her intense interest in other people may perhaps be -attributed to the fact that she hardly ever opened a book—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>not -even the novel of the season—and that her knowledge -of public events was derived solely from the talk at -luncheon tables.</p> - -<p>Certainly it might be admitted, even by the malicious, -that Claude and Vera were an ideal couple. They outraged -all modern custom in spending the greater part of their -lives in close companionship; he originating all their -amusements, and she keenly interested in everything he -originated.</p> - -<p>They were happy, and they were continually telling each -other how happy. They always went back to the -childish days at Disbrowe.</p> - -<p>"I feel as if all that ever happened after that was -blotted out," Vera whispered, one sunlit afternoon, as they -sat side by side among silken cushions on the motor -launch, while all the glory of the upper Thames moved -past them; "all between those summer days and these -seems vague and dim: even the long years with poor -Grannie. The wailing about want of money, the moaning -over the things we had to do without, the people she hated -because they were rich; all those years and the years -that came after have gone down into the gulf of forgotten -things. A dark curtain, like a pall, has fallen upon the -past; and we are living in the present. We love each -other, and we are together. That is enough, Claude, is -it not? That is enough."</p> - -<p>"That is enough," he echoed, smiling up at her from -his lower level among the pillows. That heap of down -pillows and his lounging attitude among them seemed to -epitomise the man and his life. "All the same, I want -Sinbad the Second to win the Leger."</p> - -<p>"Ah, you always laugh at me," she cried, with a vexed -air. "You can never be serious."</p> - -<p>"No, I can't," he answered, with a darkening brow, -and a voice that was as heavy as lead.</p> - -<p>They were living upon the rapture of a consummated -love: which is something like a rich man living upon his -capital. There comes a time when he begins to ask himself -how long it will last.</p> - -<p>They had loved each other for years; first unconsciously, -with a divine innocence, at least on the woman's -part, then consciously, and with a vague sense of sin; -and then, all obstacles being removed, triumphantly;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> -assured of the long future, in which nothing could part -them.</p> - -<p>She repeated this often—in impassioned moments. -"Nothing can part us. Whatever Fate may bring we -shall be together. There can be no more parting."</p> - -<p>He was not given to serious thoughts. He never had -been. His one irresistible charm had been his careless -enjoyment of the present hour, and indifference to all that -might come after. He had never considered the ultimate -result of any action in his life. He left the Army with no -more thought than he left off a soiled glove! He threw up -a painter's art, and all its chances of delight and fame, -the moment he found discouragement and difficulty. He -hated difficult things; he hated hard work; he hated -giving up anything he liked. His haunting idea of evil was -the dread of being bored.</p> - -<p>Once Vera found herself making an involuntary comparison -between the dead man and the living.</p> - -<p>If Claude had had a dying daughter whom he loved, -could he have watched her sink into her grave, and kept the -secret of his sorrow, and smiled at her while his heart was -breaking? She knew he could not. He was a creature of -light and variable moods, of sunshine and fine weather. -She had loved him for his lightness. He had brought her -relief from ennui whenever he crossed her threshold; he -had brought her gladness and gay thoughts, as a man -brings a bunch of June roses to his sweetheart. And now -that the past was done with, and that she was his for ever, -they were to be always glad and gay. There was to be no -gloom in their atmosphere, no long, dull pause in life to -give time for dark thoughts.</p> - -<p>"Everybody has something to be sorry for," Vera told -Susan Amphlett; "that's why people's existence is a perpetual -rush. Niagara can have no time to think—but -imagine, if nature were alive, what long aching thoughts -there might be under the bosom of a great, smooth lake."</p> - -<p>"You know, my darling Vera, I generally think -everything you do is perfect," Susan answered, more -sensibly than her wont, "but, I sometimes fear that you -and Claude are burning the candle at both ends. You are -too much alive. You seem to be running a race with -time. Neither your health nor your beauty can last at -the pace you are going."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I'll take my chance of that. There is one thing -that I dread more than being ill and growing ugly."</p> - -<p>"What is that?"</p> - -<p>"Living to be old."</p> - -<p>"What, you've caught my fear?"</p> - -<p>"I dread the long, slow years—the long, slow days and -sleepless nights—old people sleep very little—in which -there is nothing but thought, an endless-web of miserable -thoughts, going slowly round and round, never stopping, -never changing. That's what I am afraid of, -Susie."</p> - -<p>"Strange for you to be afraid of anything," her friend -said thoughtfully. "I think you are the most courageous -woman I ever heard of—as brave as Joan of Arc, or -Charlotte Corday."</p> - -<p>"Why?"</p> - -<p>"Because you are not afraid to live in this house."</p> - -<p>"Why not? What does the house matter?"</p> - -<p>"It must make you think sometimes," faltered -Susan.</p> - -<p>"I won't think! But if I were to think of the past, the -house would make no difference. My thoughts would be -the same in Mexico—or at the North Pole. I have heard -of people who go to the end of the earth to forget things, -but I should never do that. I should know that memory -would go with me."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>For three seasons in London, for three winters in Rome, -the pace went on, and was accelerated rather than slackened -with the passing of the years. Claude Rutherford -won the Blue Ribbon of the turf, with Sinbad the Second, -and was equally fortunate with his boat at Cowes. If he -did not cross the Channel or fly from London to Liverpool, -he did at least make sundry costly excursions in the air, -which kept his name in the daily papers, and made his -wife miserable, till, aviation having resulted in boredom, -he promised to content himself with the substantial earth. -After those three years this boy and girl couple began to -discover that they had done everything brilliant and -exciting that there was to be done; and the fever called -living began to pall.</p> - -<p>And now Susan Amphlett told people that Vera was -killing herself, and that her husband, though as passion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>ately -in love with her as ever he had been, was selfish and -thoughtless, and was spending her money, and ruining -her health, with the extravagances and agitations of a -racing stable that was on a scale he ought never to have -allowed himself.</p> - -<p>"After all, it is her money," said Susan, "and it's bad -form on his part to be so reckless."</p> - -<p>"But as she has only a life interest in Provana's millions, -and as her trustees are some of the sharpest business -men in London, Rutherford can't do her much harm," -said masculine common-sense, while feminine malice -was lifting its shoulders and eyebrows with doleful -prognostics.</p> - -<p>"Well, I suppose the money is all right," said Chorus, -still inclined to be tragic; "it's her health I'm afraid of. -She's losing her high spirits, her joy in everything, and -she is getting out of touch with her husband. She could -hardly give him a smile when Blue Rose won the Oaks. -She sat in a corner of her box, looking the other way, while -that lovely animal was coming down the hill neck and -neck with the favourite, at a moment when any other -woman would have been simply frantic."</p> - -<p>"She is not of the stuff that racing men's wives are -made of," said Eustace Lyon, the poet. "No doubt she -was worlds away—in dreamland—and did not even -know whose mare the bookies and the mob were -cheering."</p> - -<p>"She was not like that two years ago," said Chorus. -"She and Claude were in such perfect sympathy that it -was impossible for either of them to have a joy that the -other did not share. It was a case of two souls with but a -single thought."</p> - -<p>"I can quite believe that, for I never gave C. R. credit -for thinking," replied the poet.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Satiety had come. It came in a day. The fatal day that -comes to all the favoured and the fortunate, and which -never comes to the poor and the unlucky. That evil at -least is spared to Nature's stepchildren. They never have -too much of anything, except debt and difficulty. They -never yawn in each other's faces, and ask themselves where -they can go for the summer. They never turn over the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> -leaves of a Continental Bradshaw and complain that they -are tired of everywhere.</p> - -<p>It is the people who can go everywhere and have everything -who find the wide earth a garden run to seed, and -feel the dust of the desert in their mouths as they talk of -the pleasure places that the herd long for. This time had -come for Vera, at the end of her third season as Claude -Rutherford's wife. He, the gay and the insouciant, was -careless still, but it was a new kind of carelessness: the -carelessness that comes from hating everything that an -exhausted life can give.</p> - -<p>They had fallen into the fashion of their friends of late, -and were more like the normal semi-detached couple than -the boy and girl lovers upon whose bliss Lady Susan had -loved to expatiate.</p> - -<p>When the Goodwood week came round in this third year -with the inexorable regularity that one finds in the events -of the season, Vera declared that she had had enough of -Goodwood and would never go there again.</p> - -<p>"Of course, that won't prevent your being there," she -said.</p> - -<p>"Well, not exactly, when I have Iseult of Ireland in -two races."</p> - -<p>"Yes, of course, you must be there. I forgot."</p> - -<p>"You seem always to forget my horses nowadays. Yet -you were once so keen about them."</p> - -<p>"They were very interesting at first, poor, sweet things, -but the fonder I was of them, the more cruel it seemed to -race them."</p> - -<p>"You'd like them kept to look at, eh?"</p> - -<p>"I should like to sit with them in their boxes, and feed -them with sugar, and make them lie down with their heads -in my lap."</p> - -<p>"A Lady Rarey!"</p> - -<p>"I sometimes long for a paradise of animals, some -lovely pastoral valley with a silver stream winding through -the deep grass, where I might live among beautiful innocent -creatures—sheep, and deer, and Jersey cows, and great -calm, cream-coloured oxen from the Campagna. Creatures -that can lie in the sun and bask, knowing nothing of the -past, feeling nothing but the warmth and beauty of the -world; and where I myself should have lost the faculty of -thought."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p> - -<p>"That's a queer fancy."</p> - -<p>"I have many queer fancies. They come to me in my -dreams."</p> - -<p>"You'd much better come to Goodwood. All the world -will be there, and you'd like to see Iseult win. Haven't -you enough frocks? Is that the reason for not -coming?"</p> - -<p>"I have too many frocks, some that I have never -worn."</p> - -<p>"Hansel them at Lady Waterbury's. You'll be the -prettiest woman there."</p> - -<p>"It's dear of you to say that"—her eyes clouded as she -spoke—"but I can't go. I'm so tired of it all, Claude, -so tired!"</p> - -<p>"Do you suppose I am never tired of things? Sick, -sick to death! but I know that to be happy one must keep -moving. That's a law of human life. You'd better come, -Vera. You'll be moped to extinction alone."</p> - -<p>"I don't mind loneliness, and I shall have Susan -part of the time, and there will be a meeting in the -Albany."</p> - -<p>"De gustibus? Well, if you prefer Symeon and his -spooks to a racecourse in an old English park, there's -nothing more to be said." He stooped to kiss the pale -forehead before he sauntered out of the room, yawning as -he went. He had always a tired air; but it had verily -become a law of his being to keep moving.</p> - -<p>"Nemesis is like the policeman on night duty," he used -to say. "She won't let us lie in the dust and sleep. We -must trudge on."</p> - -<p>Trudging from one costly pleasure to another might not -suggest hardship to the loafer on the Embankment, but to -a self-indulgent worldling who has drained the cup of -life to the dregs, that necessity of going on drinking when -there are only dregs to drink may seem hard to bear.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Vera told her husband that she did not mind solitude; -yet it was a face of ashen whiteness that he left behind -when he shut the door of her dressing-room, after his -hurried and cheerful good-bye on the first day of the -Goodwood meeting.</p> - -<p>He was driving his sixty horse-power Daimler to Goodwood, -steering for himself, while the chauffeur sat behind -ready for road repairs, or to give a hand in carrying a -corpse to the nearest hospital.</p> - -<p>The speed limit was naturally disregarded, as the thing -that Claude wanted was excitement, the hazards of the -road as they sped past hamlet and farm, followed by the -long, white dust-cloud that flashed across the landscape -like the fiery tail of a comet, while startled villagers gaped, -and wondered if a car had passed. Peril was the zest that -made the journey worth doing: to feel that his hand upon -the wheel held life at his disposal, and that any awkward -turn in the road might bring him sudden death.</p> - -<p>He was gone, and Vera was alone in the gloomy London -house—so much more gloomy than the vast halls and -galleries of the Roman villa, where colossal windows let -in vast spaces of blue sky. Here the heavily-draped sashes -admitted only a slit of sunshine, tempered by London -smoke.</p> - -<p>She was alone, but she told herself that solitude did not -matter. It was not solitude that weighed upon her spirits -as she roamed from room to room in the emptiness and -silence. It was the sense of <em>not</em> being alone that weighed -upon her. It was the consciousness of a silent presence—the -invisible third who had come between her and her -husband of late—who had come back into her life. In the -noontide of her love, while passion reigned supreme, and -the man she loved filled her world, the shadow had been -lifted from her path. She had seen all old things dimly—dazzled -by the glory of her life's sun. She had remembered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> -nothing, except her childish bliss with the boy who was to -be her fate. Her life began and ended in her husband; -as it had begun and ended in Claude Rutherford when he -was only her friend and companion, the light-hearted -companion, whose presence meant happiness.</p> - -<p>In the first two years of her second marriage she had -been completely absorbed in that transcendent love, and -in the ceaseless round of pleasures and excitements that -her husband contrived for her, filling her days and nights -with emotional moments, with little social triumphs and -trivial ambitions.</p> - -<p>Satiety came in an hour—or it may be that it came so -slowly and so gradually that there was an hour when Vera -awoke to the consciousness that she was tired of everything, -that the earth with all its changing loveliness, its surprises -of mountain and lake, wood and river, was but a sterile -promontory, and the blue vault above Como only a pestilent -congregation of vapours. The suddenness of the -revelation was startling; but the not uncommon malady -that afflicted the Prince of Denmark had been eating her -heart for a long time before she was aware of its hold upon -her. And with the coming of satiety, the distaste for -amusement, the distrust of love, came the shadow. -Memory that had been lulled asleep by the magic philtre -of passion, awakened and was alive again. She roamed -the great, silent house, haunting with a morbid preference -those rooms that were particularly associated with the -dead man, that range of spacious rooms on the ground -floor where nothing had been altered since Mario Provana -lived in them: his library, and the severe, official-looking -sitting-room adjoining, where he was often closeted with -his partners and allies, his head clerks and managers, his -business visitors from Vienna, Rome, Berlin, Madrid, New -York.</p> - -<p>When the drawing-rooms had been transformed by a -gayer style of decoration, more in harmony with Vera's -frivolous entertainments, Claude had been urgent that -these ground-floor rooms should be refurnished, and every -trace of their severe, business-like aspect done away with -and even certain priceless old masters that Provana had -been proud of despatched with ruthless haste to Christie's -sale room; but to his astonishment Vera had told him -that nothing was to be changed in the rooms her husband<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> -had occupied—that all things touched or valued by him -were to be sacred.</p> - -<p>For this reason, while approving Claude's plan of colour -for the walls and draperies and carpets in the drawing-rooms, -she had insisted upon retaining the Italian cabinets -of ebony and ivory, and the Florentine mosaic tables, the -things that had been collected all over Italy a century ago, -in the beginning of the Provana riches.</p> - -<p>And now, solitary and dejected, she moved restlessly -from room to room. Sometimes standing before one of -the bookcases in the library, looking along the titles of -books that she had learnt to love, in those far-off days -before she had been launched by the Disbrowes—a frail -cockle-shell, spinning round and round in the Society -whirlpool—while she and her husband were still unfashionable -enough to sit together in the autumn twilight, or to -spend <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i> evenings in this solemn-looking room. -His mind was with her there to-day, in the July sunshine, -as it had been in those evenings of the past, while he was a -living man. His remembered speech was in her ears to-day, -grave and earnest, telling her the things she loved to -hear, widening her view of life, opening the gate to new -knowledge, the knowledge of authors she had never heard -of, the story of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and -poets, whose names had been only names till he made them -living people, people to be admired and loved. He had -taught her to comprehend and love Dante to appreciate -the verse of Carducci, the prose of Manzoni. He had -taught her to revere Cavour, to adore St. Francis of Assisi, -to weep for Savonarola and Giordano Bruno. He had made -Italy a land of genius and valour, a land alive from the -Alps to the Adriatic with heroic memories. He had made -her know and love the history of his country, almost as he -himself loved it.</p> - -<p>And now his spirit filled the room in which the man had -lived. His shadow had come into the house that had been -his, and had taken possession of the place and of the -atmosphere. Whatever might still remain of the undisciplined -love, the passion of unreasoning youth, that she -had given to her second husband, she could never again -release herself from that first marriage tie. It was the -bond of death.</p> - -<p>She went into the dining-room when luncheon was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> -announced, carrying a volume of Browning, and made -some pretence of eating, with the book open by the side of -her plate, a proceeding upon which the butler expatiated -somewhat severely that afternoon as he lingered over tea -in the housekeeper's comfortable parlour.</p> - -<p>"I don't know what's come over the Missus," he said, -as he took an unwelcome "stranger" out of his second -cup, and parenthetically, "This tea isn't what it was, Mrs. -Manby. She don't eat enough for a tomtit, let alone a -sparrow—and she's falling back into that dreamy way she -was in when Provana was in America, and for a long time -before that, as you may remember; that time when it was -always not at home to Mr. Rutherford."</p> - -<p>"She was trying to break with him," said Mrs. Manby. -"I give her credit for that."</p> - -<p>"So you may, but that kind of trying was never known -to answer, when once they've begun to carry on," remarked -Mr. Sedgewick; "I've watched too many such cases -not to know the inevitability of them," he added, having -picked up the modern jargon, more or less incorrectly.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The long day wore on to the melancholy twilight, and -Vera was dreading the appearance of her maid to remind -her that it was time to dress for her solitary dinner. She -had talked lightly of having Lady Susan at her disposal, -but she knew that her friend was at that very hour contributing -to the vivacity of one of the smartest of the -Goodwood house-parties, and would be so engaged till the -end of the week. She had thought, in her weariness of the -mill-round, that solitude would be better than the Society -that had long become distasteful; but she found that, in -the melancholy hour between dog and wolf, the shadows -in a London house were full of fear, vague and shapeless -fear, an oppression that had neither form nor name, and -that was infinitely worse than any materialisation. She -was standing by the window in her morning-room looking -down into the grey emptiness of the wide carriage way, -where no carriages were passing, and on pavements where -unfashionable pedestrians were moving quickly through a -drizzling rain, when a servant announced Father -Hammond.</p> - -<p>"Can you forgive me for calling at such an unorthodox -time? I happened to be passing your door, and as I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> -called several times at the right hour and not found you, -I thought I would try the wrong hour."</p> - -<p>"No hour can be wrong that brings you," she said in a -low voice, as she gave him her hand; and the words -sounded more sincere than such speeches usually are.</p> - -<p>"I am glad to hear you say as much, and I believe you. -In the whirlpool of frivolity a few serious moments may -have the charm of contrast."</p> - -<p>"I have done with the whirlpool."</p> - -<p>"Tired of it? After only three years? There are some -of my flock who have been going round in the same witches' -dance for a quarter of a century, and are still in the crowd -on the Brocken. I can but think you have made the -pace too fast since your second marriage, or perhaps it -is your husband who has made the pace."</p> - -<p>"You must not think that. We both like the same -things. We are companions now as we were when I was a -child at Disbrowe Park, and when we were so happy -together."</p> - -<p>Her eyes filled with tears. Oh, how far away that -time of innocent gladness seemed, as she looked back! -What an abyss yawned between then and now.</p> - -<p>"I have distressed you," the priest said gently, taking -her hand.</p> - -<p>"No, no, but it is always painful to look back."</p> - -<p>Father Hammond drew her towards the sofa by the -open window, and seated himself at her side.</p> - -<p>"Let us have a real friendly talk now I have been so -lucky as to find you alone," he said. "I am glad—very -glad—that you are tired of the whirlpool, for to be tired -of a bad kind of life is the beginning of a better kind of life. -You know what I think of modern Society, especially in -its feminine aspect, and how I have grieved over the -women who were made for better things than the witches' -dance. We have talked of these things in your first -husband's lifetime, but then I thought you were taking -your frivolous pleasures with a careless indifference that -showed your heart was not engaged in them, and that -you had a mind for higher things. Even your dabbling -with Mr. Symeon's quasi-supernatural philosophy was a -sign of superiority. His disciples are not the basest or -most empty-headed among worldlings, though they keep -touch with the world. In those days you know I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> -hopes of you, but since you have been Claude Rutherford's -wife, I have seen you given up to an insatiate love of -pleasure, a headlong pursuit of every new thing, the more -extravagant and the more dangerous the more hotly -pursued by you and your husband; so that it has become -a byword, 'If the thing is to cost a fortune, and to risk -a life, the Rutherfords will be in it.'"</p> - -<p>"Claude is impetuous, easily caught by novelty," she -said deprecatingly, with lowered eyelids.</p> - -<p>"He was not always so impetuous, rather a loiterer, -indifferent to all strenuous pleasures, delighting in all -that is best in literature, and worshipping all that is best -in art, though too idle to achieve excellence even in the -art he loved. But since his marriage—and forgive me if -I say since his command of your wealth—he has changed -and degenerated."</p> - -<p>"You are not complimentary to his wife," Vera said, -with a faint laugh.</p> - -<p>"I am too much in earnest to be polite, but it is not -your influence that has done harm, it is your money—that -fatal gold which has changed the whole aspect of -Society within the last thirty years, a change that will -continue from bad to worse as long as diamond mines and -gold mines are productive, and the inheritors of great -names can smile at the vulgarity of millionaires who -'do them well' and will give the open hand of friendship -to a host who to-morrow may be branded as a thief What -does it matter, if the thief has bought Lord Somebody's -estate, and shooting that is among the best in England?"</p> - -<p>"Well, it is all done with now, as far as I am concerned," -Vera said wearily. "I used to go everywhere Claude -liked to go. People laughed at us for being inseparable; -but I am sick to death of it all, and now he must go to -the fine houses alone. No doubt he will be all the more -welcome."</p> - -<p>"Perhaps; but I did not come to talk of trivialities -or to echo hackneyed diatribes against a state of things -so corrupt and evil that its vices have become the staple -of every preacher's discourses, cleric or layman. I want -to talk about you and your husband, not about the world -you live in. Since you have done with the whirlpool, -there is nothing to keep you from better influences. Will -you let mine be the hand to lead you along the passive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> -way of light and love, the way that leads to pardon and -peace?"</p> - -<p>Vera turned from him, trying to hide her agitation, but -the feelings he had awakened were too strong, and she -let her head fall upon the arm of the sofa, and gave herself -up to a passion of tears.</p> - -<p>"Pardon?" she gasped, amidst her sobs; "you know -I need pardon?"</p> - -<p>"We all need pity and pardon. No man's life is spotless, -and the life you and Claude have been living is a life of -sin—aimless, sensual, godless. I have had a wide experience -of men, I have known the best and the worst, and -have seen the strange transmutations that may take place -in a man, under certain influences—how the sinner may -become a saint, and the saint fall into an abyss of sin—but -I have never seen changes so sudden and so inexplicable -as those I have seen in your husband, whom I have known, -and I think I may say I have loved, from the time when -he began to have a will and a mind."</p> - -<p>"I hope you do not blame me for his having left the -monastery and come back to the world."</p> - -<p>"How can I blame you when his mother was the active -agent? She is a good woman, though a weak one, where -her affections are engaged. She was perfectly frank -with me. She told me how you had refused to use your -influence to keep her son in the world, and she loved you -because she thought it was his love for you that made -him abandon his purpose. She rejoiced in his marriage, -but I doubt if she has been any more edified than I have -been in watching the life you and her son have been -leading since then. No, I do not blame you for Claude's -sudden breakdown, but I deeply deplore that he should -have turned back, since I know that his resolution to have -done with the world was a right one—astounding as it -seemed to me when I first heard of it. I urged him against -a step for which I thought him utterly unprepared. I -did not believe in his vocation, but after-consideration -made me take a different view of his case. I knew that -such a man would never have contemplated such -a renunciation without so strong a reason that it was my -duty to encourage him in his sacrifice of the world rather -than to hold him back. I will say something more than -this, Mrs. Rutherford, I will tell you that if it was to make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> -his peace with God that your husband entered the Roman -monastery, he lost all hope of peace when he left it, and -he will never know rest for his heart and his conscience -until he returns to the path that leads to the cloister."</p> - -<p>"Claude is happy enough," Vera answered lightly. -"He has so many occupations and interests. He is not -as tired of things as I am. But no doubt I shall have -to go on giving parties now and then, on Claude's account. -He is not tired of the maelstrom, and it would not please -him for me to drop out altogether, and to be talked about -as eccentric, or 'not quite right.'"</p> - -<p>She spoke with a weariness that moved the priest to -pity. And then he spoke to her—as he had sometimes -spoken in the past—words that were profoundly earnest, -even eloquent, for what highly-educated man, or even -what uneducated man, can miss being eloquent when -his faith is deeply rooted and sincere, and his feelings are -strongly moved?</p> - -<p>He offered her the shelter of the Church, the only -armour of defence against the weariness and wickedness -of life. He would have led her in the passive way of light -and love. He offered her the only certain cure for that -<i lang="de" xml:lang="de">Welt-Schmerz</i> of which her husband had complained when -he wanted to end his life in a cloister. He had pleaded -with her before to-day, had tried to win her, years ago, -when the pleasures of life had still something of their -first freshness. He had tried vainly then, and his efforts -were as vain now. She answered him coldly, almost -mechanically. Yes; it was true that she was tired of -everything, as Claude had been years ago, before their -marriage, as he would be again perhaps by and by. But -the Church could not help her. If she were to become -a Roman Catholic it would only be in order to escape -from the world—to do as Claude had wished to do, and -make an end of a life that had lost all savour. But until -she was prepared to take the veil she would remain as -she was—a believer, but not in formulas—a believer, in -the after-life and in the influencing minds, the purified -souls that had crossed the river.</p> - -<p>"I see you prefer Mr. Symeon's religion of the day -before yesterday to that of the saints and martyrs of two -thousand years," Cyprian Hammond said in his coldest -tones, as he rose to leave her. "You are as dark a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> -mystery as your husband is. God help you both, for I -fear I cannot."</p> - -<p>The grey darkness of a wet summer night was in the -room as Vera rose to ring the bell and switch on the lamps. -The clear white light showed her face drawn and pale, -but very calm.</p> - -<p>She held out both her hands to the priest.</p> - -<p>"Forgive me," she said; "the day may come when -I shall ask you to open the convent door for me; but I -am not ready yet."</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The Goodwood of that year was a brilliant meeting. The -winners were the horses that all the smart people wanted -to win. The weather, with the exception of that first -rainy twilight, was perfect, and all the smart frocks and -hats spread themselves and unfolded their beauty to the -sun, like flowers in a garden by the Lake of Como.</p> - -<p>Among the owners of winning horses Mr. Rutherford -was conspicuous.</p> - -<p>"You rich people are always lucky," said his friends. -"You never buy duffers, and you can afford to pay for -talent. I don't suppose you make much by your luck, -but you have the glory of it."</p> - -<p>The house in which Claude Rutherford was staying was -one of the smartest houses between Goodwood and -Brighton, a house where there were always to be found -clever men and handsome women—musical people and -painting people, and even acting people—people who -could sing and people who could talk; women who shone -by the splendour of physical beauty, and women whose -audacious wit made the delight of princes. It was a -house in which cards were a secondary consideration, but -where stakes were high and hours were late.</p> - -<p>Lady Waterbury, the hostess, expressed poignant disappointment -at Vera's non-arrival.</p> - -<p>"My poor little wife is completely run down," Claude -told her. "She was a rag this morning, and it would -have been cruel to persuade her to come with me, though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> -I hated leaving her in London at this dismal fag-end -of the season. I thought her pal, Susan Amphlett, would -have spent most of the week with her, but I hear Lady -Susie is at the Saxemundhams'."</p> - -<p>"Do you suppose Susie would miss a Goodwood—no, -not for friendship," exclaimed Sir Joseph, the jovial host, -one of the last of the private bankers of London, coming -of a family so long established in wealth that he could -look down upon new money. "Well, there is one of our -beauties ruled out. I don't know what we should do if -we hadn't secured Mrs. Bellenden."</p> - -<p>"It was just as well to ask her this year," said his wife, -with pinched lips, "though it was Sir Joseph's idea, not -mine. I doubt if the best people will care about meeting -her next season."</p> - -<p>"What has Mrs. Bellenden done to risk her future -status?" Claude asked, and then, with his cynical smile. -"Certainly she has committed the unforgivable sin of -being the handsomest woman in London, which is quite -enough to set all the other women against her."</p> - -<p>"It isn't her beauty that is the crime, but the use she -makes of it. She has made more than one wife I know -unhappy."</p> - -<p>"And yet you ask her to your house?"</p> - -<p>"Sir Joseph invites her. I only write the letter. So -far she is just possible; but if I have any knowledge of -character, she will be quite impossible before long."</p> - -<p>"Let us make the most of her while her good days -last," Claude said, laughing. "I should like to make a -sketch of her before the brand of infamy is on her forehead. -I have met her often, but my wife and she have not become -allies; and if she is a snare for husbands and a peril for -wives, it's rather lucky that Vera is not with me, for after -a week in this delightful house they must have become pals."</p> - -<p>"I don't think proximity would make two such women -friends," Lady Waterbury replied severely. "Again, if -I am any judge of character, I should say that Vera and -Mrs. Bellenden must be utterly unsympathetic."</p> - -<p>"My wife and I have a friendly compact," said Sir -Joseph. "She may invite as many dowdy nieces and -boring aunts as she likes, provided she asks no troublesome -questions about the pretty women I want her to -ask, and gives my nominees the best rooms."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Poor Aunt Sophia had a mere dog-hole last Christmas," -sighed Lady Waterbury.</p> - -<p>"Well, didn't she bring her dog?"</p> - -<p>"Poor darling; she never goes anywhere without -Ponto: and, of course, she is a shade tiresome, and it is -rather sweet of Joe to put up with her. Mrs. Bellenden -may pass this time."</p> - -<p>"Did I hear somebody talking of me?" cried a crystal -clear voice, and a woman as lovely as a midsummer dawn -came with swift step across the velvet turf towards the -stone bench where Claude Rutherford and his host and -hostess were seated.</p> - -<p>They had strolled into the Italian garden, after an -abundant tea that had welcomed the first batch of guests, -a meal at which Mrs. Bellenden had not appeared, preferring -to take tea in her dressing-room, while she watched -her maid unpack, and planned the week's campaign; -the exact occasion for every frock and hat being thought -out as carefully as the general in command of an army -might consider the position of his forces. It was to be a -visit of five days and evenings, and none of those expensive -garments which the maid was shaking out and smoothing -down with lightly caressing fingers, was to be worn -twice. All those forces had to be reviewed. Not a silk -stocking not a satin slipper must be reported missing. -Silken petticoats that rustled aggressively; petticoats of -muslin and lace that were as soft and noiseless as the snow -whose whiteness they imitated; fans, jewels, everything -must be put away in perfect condition, ready for a lady -who sometimes left herself the shortest possible time for -an elaborate toilette, and yet always contrived to appear -with faultless finish.</p> - -<p>And this evening, as she came sailing across the garden, -having changed her travelling clothes for a mauve muslin -frock of such adorable simplicity that a curate's wife might -have tried to copy it with the aid of a seamstress at -eighteenpence a day, she was a vision of beauty that any -hostess might have been proud to number among her -guests.</p> - -<p>She took her seat between Sir Joseph and his wife with -careless grace, and held out her hand to Claude Rutherford -without looking at him.</p> - -<p>"Lady Waterbury told me that you and Mrs. Ruther<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>ford -were to be here," she said. "Is she resting after her -journey?"</p> - -<p>"I am sorry to say she was not able to come with me."</p> - -<p>"Not ill, I hope?"</p> - -<p>"Not well enough for another Goodwood."</p> - -<p>"The race weeks come round so quickly as one gets old," -sighed Mrs. Bellenden. "There seems hardly breathing -time between the Two Thousand and the Leger—and while -one is thinking about where to go for the winter, another -year has begun and people are motoring to Newmarket -for the Craven."</p> - -<p>"The story of our lives from year to year is rather like -a merry-go-round in a fair, but Mrs. Bellenden is too -young to feel the rush."</p> - -<p>"Too young! I feel old, ages old. As old as Rider -Haggard's Ayesha when the spell was broken and the -enchantress changed to a hag. But I am sadly disappointed -at not meeting your wife," she went on, turning -the wonderful eyes that people talked about with full -power upon Claude. "I wanted to meet her in a nice -friendly house. We have only met in crowds, and I believe -she rather hates me."</p> - -<p>"How can you imagine anything so impossible?"</p> - -<p>"At any rate, she has given me no sign of liking, while -I admire her intensely. Francis Symeon has talked to -me about her. I have had so much of the world, the -flesh, and the devil, that I want to know something of a -lady whom he calls one of his beautiful souls."</p> - -<p>Upon this Mr. Rutherford had to say something polite, -a something which implied that his wife would be charmed -to see more of the lovely Mrs. Bellenden.</p> - -<p>People talked of Mrs. Bellenden's beauty to her face. -It was one of the things which her own sex registered -against her as a mark of bad style. She might be ever -so handsome, other women admitted, but she was the -worst possible style. A circus rider, promoted from -the sawdust to a Mayfair drawing-room, could hardly -have been worse.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was not long since this woman had burst upon the -world of London—a revelation of physical loveliness.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Then felt they, like some watcher of the skies,</div> - <div class="verse">When a new planet swims into his ken.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p> -<p>There are planets and planets, as there are skies and -skies. Assuredly neither Uranus nor Neptune created a -greater ferment in the world of the wise than was made -by Mrs. Bellenden's first season in the world of the -foolish.</p> - -<p>The phrase "professional beauty" had been exploded, -as vulgar and stale, but the type remained under new -names.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Bellenden was simply the new beauty; invited -everywhere; the star of every fashionable week-end party, -every smart dance or dinner. Afternoon or evening—to -hear divine music or to play ridiculous games; to be -instructed about radium, or to lose money and temper at -bridge, there could be no party really successful without -Mrs. Bellenden.</p> - -<p>Men looked round the flower-garden of picture hats with -a disappointed air if her eyes did not flash lovely lightning -from under one of them. Impetuous youths made a -bee-line for her, and threaded the crowd with relentless -elbows, calmly ignoring their loves of last season and the -season before last.</p> - -<p>"Men are absolute idiots about that woman," the last -seasons told each other. "No one has a look in where -she is."</p> - -<p>Mrs. Bellenden was a young widow, a widow of two -years' widowhood, the first of which it was whispered she -had spent in a private lunatic asylum.</p> - -<p>"That's where she got her complexion," said Malice. -"It was just as good as a year's rest in a nursing -home."</p> - -<p>"And a strait-waistcoat. That's where she got her -figure," said Envy.</p> - -<p>She was now six-and-twenty, a widow, living in a small -house in a narrow street like the neck of a bottle, between -Park Lane and South Audley Street, with an income of -two thousand a year, but popularly reputed to be spending -at least five thousand. Her reputation in her first season -had been unassailed, but she was rather taken upon trust, -on the strength of the houses where she was met, than by -reason of any exact knowledge that people had of her -character and environment. Good-natured friends declared -that she was thoroughbred. A creature with such -exquisite hands and feet, and such a patrician turn of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> -swan-like throat, could hardly have come out of the -gutter; and her husband had belonged to one of the oldest -families in Wessex. So in that first season, except among -her rivals in the beauty show, the general tone about her -was approval.</p> - -<p>Then, in her second year as the lovely widow, things -began to leak out, unpleasant things—as to the men she -knew, and the money she spent, the hours she kept in that -snug little house in Brown Street; the places at which she -was seen in London and Paris, chiefly in Paris, where -people pretended that she had a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pied-à-terre</i> in the new -quarter beyond St. Geneviève. People talked, but nothing -was positively stated, except that she did curious -things, and was beginning to be regarded somewhat -shyly by prudish hostesses. She still went to a great -many houses—smart houses and rich houses; but not -quite the best houses, not the houses that can give a -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cachet</i>, and stop the mouth of slander.</p> - -<p>She gave little luncheons, little dinners, little suppers, -in the little street out of Park Lane, and her lamp-lit -drawing-room used to shine across the street in the small -hours, as a token that there were talk and laughter and -cards and music in the gay little room for <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tout le monde</i>, or -at least for her particular <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">monde</i>. She had a fine contralto -voice, and sang French and Spanish ballads delightfully, -could breathe such fire and passion into a song that the -merest doggerel seemed inspired.</p> - -<p>But before this second season was over there were a few -people in London who had dreadful things to say about -Mrs. Bellenden, and who said them with infinite cruelty; -people for whose belongings—son or daughter, foolish -youth or confiding young wife—this lovely widow had -been a scourge.</p> - -<p>Looking at the radiant being people did not always remember, -and some people did not know, the tragedy of her -youth. She had been a good woman once, quite good, a -model wife. She had married, before her eighteenth birthday, -a husband she adored. A creature of intense vitality, -made of fire and light, sense and not mind, love with her -had been a flame; unwise, unreasoning, exacting; love -without thought; wildly adoring, wildly jealous. A word, -a look given to another woman set her raging; and it -was after one of the fierce quarrels that her jealous temper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> -made only too frequent that her husband—handsome, -gay, in the flower of his youth—left her without the goodbye -kiss, for his last ride. He was brought back to her in -the winter twilight, without a word of warning, killed at -the last ditch in a point-to-point race, a race that was -always remembered as the finest of many seasons; perhaps -all the more vividly remembered because of that tragedy -just before the finish, when Jim Bellenden broke his -neck.</p> - -<p>For some time after that dreadful night Kate Bellenden -was under restraint; and then, after nearly a year, in -which none but near relations had seen her or had even -known where she was, she came back to the world; not -quite sane, and desperately wicked. That small brain of -hers had not been large enough to hold a great grief. -Satan had taken possession of a mind that had never been -rightly balanced.</p> - -<p>"I have done with love," she told her <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">âme damnée</i>. She -had always her shadow and confidante, upon whom she -lavished gifts and indulgences. "I can never love anybody -after <em>him</em>: but I like to be loved, and I like to make -it hard for my lovers."</p> - -<p>And then, in still wickeder moods, she would say, "I -like to steal a woman's husband, or to cut in between an -engaged girl and the man she is to marry. I like to make -another woman as desolate as I was after Jim was killed, -but I can't make her quite as miserable. I am not Death. -But," with a little exulting laugh, "I am almost as -bad."</p> - -<p>There were people—a mother, a sister, or a wife—here -and there in the crowd we call Society, who thought Mrs. -Bellenden worse than Death; people who knew the fortunes -she had wasted, the houses she had ruined, the -hearts she had broken, the careers she had blighted, and -the souls that had been lost for her.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Finding Claude Rutherford the most agreeable person -in a house full of people, Mrs. Bellenden took possession -of him on the first evening—not with any obvious devices -or allurements, but coolly and calmly, just as she possessed -herself of the most becoming arm-chair in the -drawing-room, with such an air of distinct appropriation -that other women avoided it.</p> - -<p>"You seem to be the only amusing person here," she -said, as he came to her side after dinner. "Isn't it strange -that in so small a party there should be such a prodigious -amount of dullness?"</p> - -<p>"Have you sampled all the people? There is Mr. Fitzallan -over there, talking to Lady Waterbury, a musical -genius, who sets Shakespeare's sonnets and Heine's ballads -deliciously, and sings them delightfully. You can't call -him dull."</p> - -<p>"Not while he is singing—but I have heard all his -songs."</p> - -<p>"Ask him to sing presently, and you will find he has -brought a new batch. Then there is Eustace Lyon, the -poet."</p> - -<p>Mrs. Bellenden smiled.</p> - -<p>"Do you know what they say of him?" she asked.</p> - -<p>"Who can remember half the things people say of a -genius who lays himself out to be talked about?"</p> - -<p>"People are impertinent enough to say that he invented -<em>me</em>."</p> - -<p>"That is to make him equal to Jove, nay, superior, for -it was only incarnate wisdom—not surpassing beauty—that -came from the brain of the Thunderer."</p> - -<p>"I believe he did rave about me the year before last, -when I set up house in London—went about talking -idiotically—called me 'a soothing gem,' and a hundred -other ridiculous names."</p> - -<p>"But you didn't mind? You bear no malice."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p> - -<p>"No, he and I are always chums. I rather liked being -advertised."</p> - -<p>"Gratis?"</p> - -<p>"Of course. I treat him rather worse than my butler, -but I admire his genius, and I let him sit on the carpet and -read his poems to me, before they go to the printer."</p> - -<p>The poet joined them presently, stalking across the -room, a tall, slim figure, with a pale, lank face and long -hair.</p> - -<p>The composer joined the group five minutes afterwards, -and Mrs. Bellenden, having appropriated the only interesting -men in the party, sank farther back in her deep -chair, slowly fanning herself with her large white ostrich -fan, and, as it were, withdrawing her beauty from -circulation.</p> - -<p>Other women might affect a little fan, but Kate Bellenden -knew the value of a large one, when there is a perfect -arm with a hoop of Brazilian diamonds to be displayed.</p> - -<p>"I am only one of three," Claude said later in the week, -when one of the men chaffed him about Mrs. Bellenden's -favours. "She is a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête de linotte</i>, and at her best in a -quartette. One would soon come to the end of one's -resources as an amusing person in a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i>."</p> - -<p>He told himself that this peerless beauty might soon -become a bore; and he thought how much peerless loveliness -there must have been in the Royal Preacher's palace -at the very time he was writing Ecclesiastes: but all the -same he found that Mrs. Bellenden's conversation—empty-headed -as it might be—gave a gusto to his days -and nights during that Goodwood week. Their trivial talk -was pleasant from its very foolishness. It was conversation -without disturbing thought. There were no flashlights -of memory to bring sudden sadness. A good deal of -their talk was sheer nonsense—of no more value than the -dialogue in a musical comedy—but it was a relief to talk -nonsense, to laugh at bad puns, and to ridicule the serious -side of life. Claude gave himself up to the mood of the -moment, and was at his best: the irresponsible trifler, -the mocker at solemn things, who had once been the -desire of every hostess; the light, airy jester, to keep the -table in a roar, the insidious flirt and flatterer, to amuse -women after dinner.</p> - -<p>People told each other that Rutherford was quite in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> -old form. He had become horribly <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">blasé</i> and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">distrait</i> of -late, as if all the sparkle had gone out of him under the -weight of his wife's gold.</p> - -<p>"I don't believe a millionaire can be happy," said the -poet. "Rutherford has been deteriorating ever since his -marriage. He rushes about doing things; racing, ballooning, -flying, acting, hunting, shooting; perpetual motion -without gaiety. He was twice the man when he was -loafing about the world on fifteen hundred a year."</p> - -<p>"He is one of those men whom marriage always spoils," -replied the painter. "A chameleon soul that ought never -to have worn fetters. To chain such a creature to a wife -is as bad as caging a skylark. If he can't soar, he can't -sing."</p> - -<p>"I take it he will soon be out of the cage. He has done -two years of the married lover's business, and we shall -see him presently as the emancipated husband."</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford were to winter in Rome, but -there was the autumn still to be disposed of. Neither -of them wanted Marienbad. They knew the place inside -out, and hated it; and after wasting half an hour at the -breakfast-table turning over a Continental Bradshaw, -they had only arrived more certainly at the conviction -that they were tired of everywhere.</p> - -<p>The whole system of continental travelling was weariness -and monotony: the race to Dover through the freshness -of morning, the race across sunlit waves to Calais, the -hurried luncheon in the station, and the three hours' run -to Paris, the huge Gare du Nord, with its turmoil of blue -blouses and loaded barrows; the long drive to the hotel, -and the early start in the Rapide for the South: or the -Engadine express, with the night journey through pine -woods, and the rather weary awakening at Lucerne, and -then on to Locarno and the great lake. It had been -delicious while it was new, and while it was new for these -two to be together, wedded and inseparable for evermore.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> -But all the tracks that had been new were old now; and -though they were lovers still, something had come between -them that darkened love.</p> - -<p>"Tyrol, Engadine, Courmayeur? No," said Vera, -throwing Bradshaw aside. "No, no, no. The hotels are -all alike, and they make the scenery seem the same. If -one could be adventurous, if one could stop at strange -inns, where one need never hear an English voice, it -would be better. But it is always the same hotel, the same -rooms, and the same waiters, and the same food."</p> - -<p>"A little better or a little worse; generally worse," -assented Claude.</p> - -<p>"I have had a letter from Aunt Mildred this morning. -She wants us to spend August at Disbrowe."</p> - -<p>"Would you like it?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"Like it?" she echoed, with her eyes clouding, and a -catch in her voice; and then she started up from her seat -and came to her husband, and put her hand upon his -shoulder.</p> - -<p>"I think we have been getting rather modern of late, -Claude," she said in a low voice, "rather semi-detached. -Disbrowe would bring us nearer together again. We -should remember the old days."</p> - -<p>"Disbrowe, by all means, then," he answered gaily.</p> - -<p>"We must never drift apart, Claude," she went on -earnestly, with something of tragedy in her voice, which -trembled a little as she crept closer to him. "Remember, -we have nothing but our love, nothing else between us -and despair."</p> - -<p>"Don't be tragic, Vera," he said quickly. "Disbrowe, -by all means. Let us play at being boy and girl again. -Let us do daring things on Okehampton's twopenny-halfpenny -yacht, and ride horses that other people are -afraid to handle. Let us put fire into the embers of the -past. I suppose your aunt will have a few amusing people. -It won't be the vicar and his wife and sister-in-law every -night, and the curate at luncheon every other day."</p> - -<p>"She will have all sorts and conditions, but that doesn't -matter. I want to be with you in the place where we were -so happy."</p> - -<p>"You want to fall in love with me again? Well, it -was time," he said, half gaily and half sadly; but with -always the air of a man who means to take life easily.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p> - -<p>August was August that year, and Disbrowe was at its -best. The great red cliffs, the azure and emerald sea had -the colour and the glory that had made North Devon -fairyland for the child Vera in her one blissful summer.</p> - -<p>Other children, as they grew up, had a succession of -delicious summers to look back upon, and could make -comparisons, and wonder which was happiest; but Vera -had only one season of surpassing joy to remember. She -remembered it now, and contrived to draw a thick curtain -over all other memories.</p> - -<p>Aunt Mildred was full of compliments.</p> - -<p>"This air evidently suits you, child," she said, when -her niece had been with her a week. "You look ten years -younger than when I saw you last in London."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>These two who had begun to be tired of each other were -lovers again—and even memory was kind—even memory, -the slow torture of thoughtful minds. They recalled the -joys of fifteen years ago; and the joys of to-day were -almost the same. Instead of the thirteen two barb there -were half a dozen hunters—thoroughbreds of fine quality, -the disappointments of Claude's racing stud—instead of -the dinghy there was Okehampton's forty-ton cutter, -a rakish craft that had begun life at Cowes, another -disappointment. There was the sea, and there was the -moorland, and there were the patches of wood on the -skirts of the park, that had seemed boundless forests to -Vera in her twelfth year. Her twelfth year? She remembered -Claude's affected contempt for her youth.</p> - -<p>"Why, you are only a dozen—and not a round dozen, only -eleven and a half. No wonder your cousins in the school-room -look down upon you. If there were still a nursery, -you would be there, sitting on a high chair at tea, your -cheeks smeared with jam, and a bib tied under your -chin."</p> - -<p>She remembered all his foolish speeches now, and what -serious insults they had seemed to her, or to the child that -she had once been—that innocent child whose identity -with herself was so hard to believe.</p> - -<p>They were happy again, they were lovers again. Here -they could say to each other, "Do you remember?" -Here memory was a gentle nymph, and not an avenging -fury.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p> - -<p>For Vera, who had hunted with her husband every year -since their marriage, a season at Grantham, a season in the -Shires, and two winters in the Campagna, it might seem -a small thing to ride with Claude and a handful of squireens -and farmers rattling up the cubs in the woods, yet she found -it pleasant to rise before the dawn, and creep through the -silent house and out into the crisp morning air, and to -spring on to a horse that seemed to skim the ground in -an ecstasy of motion. Flying could hardly be better than -to sit on this light, leaping creature, and see the dewy -wood rush by, and the startled rabbits flash across the -path; or to be lifted into the air as the thoroughbred -stood on end at the whirr and rush of a pheasant.</p> - -<p>A discarded racer was scarcely the best mount for -pottering about after the cubs; but the pursuit of pleasure, -that was always a synonym for excitement, had made -Vera a fine horsewoman, and she loved the surprises that -a light-hearted four-year-old can give his rider; and when -the last cub had been slaughtered, to gratify Mr. Somebody's -hounds, Claude and Vera had to ride to please their -horses, and there was a spice of danger in the tearing -gallop across great stretches of pasture, where the green -sward sloped upward or downward to the crumbling edge -of the red cliffs, and where they saw the wide, blue floor -of the sea, and the dim outline of the Welsh coast.</p> - -<p>One morning, when they were riding shoulder to shoulder, -at a wilder pace than usual, and when Vera's horse was -doing his best to get absolute possession of his bridle, she -turned with a light laugh to her husband.</p> - -<p>"Isn't this delicious?" she asked breathlessly, thrilled -by the freshness of the air and the rapture of the pace. -"Would you mind if we were not able to stop them on -this side of the sea?"</p> - -<p>"Would I mind?" he echoed, looking at her with his -careless smile, the smile in which there was often a touch -of mockery. "Not I, my love. It wouldn't be half a bad -end, to finish one's last ride in a headlong plunge over -the cliff—to know none of the gruesome details of dissolution—nothing -but a sense of being hurled through -bright air, forty fathoms deep into bright water. All the -same, I don't mean these brutes to have their own way," -he concluded in his most matter-of-fact tone, with his -hand upon Ganymede's bridle.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p> - -<p>They turned their horses, and trotted quietly home, -Vera pale and somewhat shaken by the excitement of the -long gallop. They were near the end of their country -holiday, and they were to part at the end of the week, -Claude to spend a fortnight at Newmarket, Vera to start -alone for Italy, stopping here and there for a few days, on -her way to her Roman villa, where Claude was to join her, -bringing his hunters with him, not these light thoroughbreds, -but horses of coarser quality and more experience, -fitter for the rough work of the Campagna.</p> - -<p>It had been Vera's own fancy to revisit familiar places -in Italy. Claude had been urgent with her to abandon -the idea, but she would not listen to him.</p> - -<p>"I want to see San Marco, where I lived so long with -Grannie; when we were poor and shabby—such a -humdrum life. I sometimes wonder how I could bear -it?"</p> - -<p>"Poor child! It was hard lines for you. But why -conjure up the memory of things that were sad? Looking -back is always a mistake. Looking back at the old worn-out -things, going back to long-trodden paths! Nobody can -afford to do that. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Plus ultra</i> is my motto. In Rome there -will be plenty for us to do. We must make our third -winter more astounding than either of the other two. -I know lots of people who are to be there, all sorts of big -pots, pretty women, scribblers, painters, soldiers. You -will have to invent new features for your evenings, new -combinations of all kinds, and you must cultivate the new -lights. When the season is over people must go about -saying that Mrs. Rutherford has made Rome."</p> - -<p>Vera looked at her husband curiously. How shallow he -was, after all, how trivial! There were moments when her -heart felt frozen, dreadful moments of disenchantment -in which the man she had loved seemed to change and -become a stranger; moments when she asked herself -with a sudden wonder why she had ever loved him.</p> - -<p>These were but flashes of disillusion. A touch of tenderness, -a thought of all they had been to each other, and -her bitter need of his love, made her again his slave. From -the hour when he surrendered his chance of redemption, -and came to her in her Roman garden, came to claim her -with passionate words of love, he had been something more -than her lover and her husband. He had been her master,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> -ruling her life even in its trivialities, with a mind so shallow -that it could find delight in details, leading and directing -her in an existence where there was to be no room for -thought.</p> - -<p>He had planned their days at Disbrowe so that there -should be no margin for ennui. When they were not -riding they were on the yacht racing round the coast to -Boscastle or Padstow: or they were playing tennis or -croquet with the house-party, creating an atmosphere of -excitement.</p> - -<p>They parted at Disbrowe, Claude leaving for Newmarket; -and they were not to meet till November, when he was -to find Vera established in the Roman villa. All gaiety -and excitement seemed to have left her with him, and -Aunt Mildred remarked the change.</p> - -<p>"You ought to have gone to Newmarket with your -husband," she said, "though I have always thought it a -horrid place for women, a place where they think of -nothing but horses, and talk nothing but racing slang, and -are as full of their bets as professional book-makers. I -hate horsey women; but you and Claude are such a -romantic couple, that it seems a pity you should ever -be separated."</p> - -<p>"Romance cannot last for ever, my dear aunt. We -have been married nearly three years. It is time we became -like other people. I have just your feeling about -Newmarket. I was keen about the stud for the first year -or two, petting the horses, and watching their gallops in -the early mornings; and then it began to seem childish -to care so much about them; and whether they won or -lost it was the same thing over and over again. The trainer -and his boys said just the same things about every success -and every defeat. The crack jockeys were all the same, -and I hardly knew one from another. I still love the -horses for their own sake; and I am miserable if any of -them are sold into bondage. But I am sick to death of -the whole business."</p> - -<p>There was a fortnight to spare before Vera was to start -for Italy, and Lady Okehampton wanted her to stay at -Disbrowe till a day or two before she left England.</p> - -<p>"Portland Place will be awfully <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">triste</i>," she said; "I -cannot see why you should go and bury yourself alive -there for a fortnight."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p> - -<p>Vera pleaded preparations—clothes to order for the -winter.</p> - -<p>"Surely not in London, when you can stop in Paris -and get all you want."</p> - -<p>There were other things to be done, arrangements to be -made, Vera told her aunt. A certain portion of the staff -was to start for Rome, by direct and rapid journeying, -while she, with only her maid and a footman, was to travel -by easy stages along the Riviera.</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton was rather melancholy in the last -hour she and her niece spent together in her morning-room.</p> - -<p>"I'm afraid the pace at which you and Claude are taking -life must wear you out before long," she said. "You are -never quiet; always rushing from one thing to another; -even here, where I wanted you to come for absolute rest, -just to dawdle about the gardens, and doze in a hammock -all the afternoon, with a quiet evening's bridge. But you -have given yourself no more rest here than in London. -Okehampton told me the way you tore about on those -ungovernable horses, miles and miles away over the moor, -while other people were jogging after the hounds, or waiting -about in the lanes. He said it was not cubbing, but skylarking; -and the skipper complained that Mr. Rutherford -insisted on sailing the yacht in the teeth of a dangerous -gale. 'He's the generousest gentleman I've ever been out -with,' old Peter said, 'but he's the recklessest; and I -wouldn't give twopence for his chance of making old -bones.'"</p> - -<p>"Poor old Peter," sighed Vera. "We often had a -squabble with him—what he called a stand-further. He's -a conscientious old dear, and a fine sailor; but he would -never have found the shortest way to India."</p> - -<p>"You wanted rest, Vera; but instead of resting, you -have done all the most tiring things you could invent for -yourself."</p> - -<p>"Claude is the inventor, not I. And it is good for me -to be tired; to lie down with weary limbs and fall into -a dreamless sleep or into a sleep where the dreams are -sweet, and bring back lost things."</p> - -<p>"I should not say all this, if I were not anxious about -your health," Aunt Mildred continued gravely. "You -look well and brilliant at night, but your morning face -sometimes frightens me; and you are woefully thin, a mere<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> -shadow. It is all very well for people to call you ethereal, -but I don't want to see you wasting away."</p> - -<p>"There is nothing the matter. I was always thin. I -have a little cough that sometimes worries me at night, -but that has been much better since I came here."</p> - -<p>"You ought to take care of your health, Vera. You -have a great responsibility."</p> - -<p>"How do you mean?"</p> - -<p>"Have you ever thought of those who have to come -after you? Do you ever consider that your splendid -fortune dies with you, and that your power to help those -members of our family who need help—alas, too many of -them—depends upon your enjoying a long life."</p> - -<p>"My dear aunt, I cannot promise to spin out a tedious -existence in order to find money for poor relations."</p> - -<p>"That remark is not quite nice from you, Vera. You -yourself began life as a poor relation."</p> - -<p>"I have not forgotten, and I have given my needy cousins -a good deal of money since I have been rich; and, of -course, I shall go on doing so."</p> - -<p>"As your aunt, and the most attached of all your own -people, I must ask a delicate question, Vera. Have you -made your will?"</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton asked this question with such a -thrilling awfulness, that it sounded like a sentence of -death.</p> - -<p>"No, aunt. Why should I make a will? I have nothing -to leave. You know I have only a life interest in the -Provana estate."</p> - -<p>"Nothing to leave! But your accumulations? Your -surplus income?"</p> - -<p>"I don't think I can have any surplus. Claude and I -have spent money freely, at home and abroad; and I have -given large sums for the foundation of a hospital in Rome, -in memory of Mario and his daughter. Claude manages -everything for me. I have never asked him whether there -was any money left at the end of the year."</p> - -<p>"And of that colossal income—which you have enjoyed -for five years—you have nothing left? It is horrible to -think of. What mad waste, what incredible extravagance -there must have been. You ought not to have left everything -in Claude's hands. Such a careless, happy-go-lucky -fellow ought never to have had the sole management of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> -your immense income. It would make Signor Provana -turn in his grave to know that his wealth has been -wasted."</p> - -<p>"He would not care. We never cared for money."</p> - -<p>"Nothing left at the year's end, nothing of that stupendous -wealth! It is monstrous!"</p> - -<p>"Don't agitate yourself, dear Aunt Mildred. There may -have been a surplus every year. I never asked Claude -whether there was or not. But I shall always be rich -enough to help my poor relations."</p> - -<p>There was no time for further remonstrance. Aunt -Mildred parted from her niece with more sighs than kisses, -though those were many.</p> - -<p>She perused the sweet, pale face with earnest scrutiny, -for she thought she saw the mark of doom on the forehead -where the lines were deeper than they should have been -on the sunny side of thirty. She remembered the short-lived -mother, the consumptive father.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Vera sat in a corner of the reserved compartment and -read Browning's "Christmas Eve" all though the swift -journey from the red cliffs of North Devon and the wide, -blue sky to the grey dullness of a London twilight. It was -a poem which she read again and again, which she knew -by heart. It lifted her out of herself. She felt as if she -were out in the winter darkness on the wind-swept common, -as if her hands were clutching the edge of the Divine -raiment. Was not that sublime vision something more -than a dream in a stuffy Methodist chapel?</p> - -<p>Were there not moments in life when earth touched -heaven, when Divine compassion was something more real -than the words in a book; when Christ the Redeemer -came within reach of the sinner, and when Faith became -certainty? Nothing less than this, nothing but the assurance -of a Living God, could lift the despairing soul out -of the abyss.</p> - -<p>The house to which she was returning was a house of -fear, and in spite of all she had said to her aunt, she knew -that there was no necessity for her return. The rich man's -widow had nothing to do that a telegram to her housekeeper -would not have done for her. But the house drew -her somehow. She had a morbid longing to be there, -alone in the silence and emptiness of unused rooms, without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> -Claude, whose presence jarred in rooms where another -figure was still master.</p> - -<p>She found all things in perfect order, no speck of dust in -the rooms on the ground floor, her morning-room brilliant -with Japanese chrysanthemums. She went to the library -after her solitary dinner. The evening was cold, and fires -were burning in all the rooms. She drew a low chair to -the hearth, and sat brooding over the smouldering cedar -logs, perhaps one of the loneliest women in London; and -yet not quite alone, since nothing that had happened in -her futile life of the last years had shaken her belief in -Mr. Symeon's creed, and she felt that the dead were near her.</p> - -<p>Giulia, who had loved her, Giulia, the happy soul who -had known neither sin nor sorrow, the yearning of unsatisfied -love, or the seething fires of guilty passion. -Giulia's gentle spirit had been with her of late, the spirit -of her only girl friend, and she had lived over again the -tranquil hours at San Marco, the talk of books that had -opened a new world to her, Giulia having read so much -and she so little. Father and daughter had opened the -gates of that new world for her. It was from them that -the poet's daughter had learnt to understand and love -all that is highest in the poetry of the world.</p> - -<p>"If Giulia had lived," she thought to-night, as she -crouched over the lonely hearth, sitting in that low chair -in which she used to sit, as it were, at her husband's feet, -sometimes in the dreamy twilight letting her drooping -head rest upon his knee, while his hand hovered caressingly -over the blonde hair.</p> - -<p>Had Giulia lived, would everything have been -different? Would Mario have loved and married her, -and would they three have lived in a trinity of love? -It seemed to her that Giulia would have been a hallowing -influence. They two would have been like sisters, -loving and understanding the man who loved them -both. No cloud of jealousy could have come between -them; all would have been sympathy and understanding. -That wall of separation which had risen up between her -and her husband would never have been. Neither pride -on her part nor distrust upon his part would have killed -love. Giulia would have sympathised with both; and -her love would have kept them united.</p> - -<p>She mused long upon the life that might have been, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> -life without a cloud. She thought with longing of the -girl who had died sinless, in the morning of an unsullied -life. Was not such a life, wrapped round with love, and -free from the shadow of sin—such a death, before satiety -had come to change the gold to dross—the happiest fate -that God could give to His chosen?</p> - -<p>"And to think that I was sorry for her, that I pitied her -for being taken from such a beautiful world, from such a -devoted father. How could I know that Death was the -only security from sin?"</p> - -<p>She sat long in that melancholy reverie, only rousing -herself and taking up a book from the table at her side, -when she heard the door opening, and a servant came in to -put fresh logs on the fire.</p> - -<p>She told the man that her maid, Louison, was not to -sit up for her. Nobody was to sit up. She would not be -going upstairs for some time. She wanted nothing, and -she would switch off the lights.</p> - -<p>In a house lighted by electricity the lights were of very -little consequence. The footman took elaborate pains -with the fire, piling up the logs, and arranging the large -brass guard that fenced the hearth, and then retired with -ghostly step to remote regions, where his fellows were -lingering over the supper-table, some of them talking -of the journey to Rome, and those who were to remain -in charge of the house complaining of the dullness of a -long winter, and the low figure of board wages, which -had remained more or less stationary, while everything -else was going up by leaps and bounds.</p> - -<p>"I'd leap and bound you, if I had my way," said Mr. -Sedgewick; "a pack of lazy trash. If I were Mr. Rutherford, -I should put a policeman and a bull dog into the -house, and lock it up till next May. You that are left have -a deal too soft a time, while we that go have to work like -galley slaves. Three parties a week, and a pack of Italian -savages to keep up to the mark; fellows who are more -used to daggers and stilettos than to soap and water, -better for a brigand's cave than a high-class pantry, and -who think nothing of quarrelling and threatening to -murder each other in the middle of a dinner-party. There's -no sense in a mixed staff. My pantry was a regular pandemonium -last Christmas, and I wished myself back in sooty -old London."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mrs. Manby was to stay in Portland Place, mistress of -the silent house, with one footman, two housemaids to -sweep and dust, and a kitchen wench to cook for her. She -had saved money, and was independent and even haughty.</p> - -<p>"When I go to Italy it will be to the Riviera, for my -health, and I shall go as a lady," she told Sedgewick, who, -notwithstanding his abhorrence of Roman footmen, liked -his winter in Rome, as a period that afforded better pickings -than even a London season, Italian tradesmen being -more amenable than London purveyors, who had been -harassed and bound of late by grandmotherly legislation.</p> - -<p>Supper had been finished in "hall" and housekeeper's -parlour long before Vera left the library. It was after -midnight when a sudden shivering, a vague horror of the -silence came upon her, and she rose from her low chair in -front of the dying fire and began to wander from room to -room. The last of the logs had dropped into grey ashes in -the library, and all other fires had gone out. The formal -room, with large, official-looking chairs and severe office -desk, where Mario Provana had received formal visitors, -was the abode of gloom in this dead hour of the night: -and yet it was not empty. The sound of the dead man's -voice was in the room, the voice of command—so strong, -so stern in those grave discussions which Vera had often -overheard through the half-open door of the library, in -the days when she had shared her husband's life—before -fashion and Disbrowes had parted them.</p> - -<p>His image was in the room, the massive figure, the commanding -height, the broad shoulders, a little bent, as if -with the weight of the noble head they had to carry. He -was standing in front of his desk, facing those other men -with the grave look she knew so well—courteous, serious, -resolute—and then slowly, with a movement of weariness -at the conclusion of an interview, he sank into the spacious -arm-chair. She saw him to-night as she had seen him -often, watching through the open door, while she was -waiting for the business people to go, and for him to join -her for their afternoon drive.</p> - -<p>What ages ago—those tranquil days in which they had -driven together in the summer afternoons—not the dull -circuit of the Park, but to Hampton Court, or Wimbledon, -or Richmond, or Esher, escaping from the suburban -flower-gardens to green fields and rural commons, glimpses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> -of woodland even, in the country about Claremont. Their -airings were no swift rushes in thirty horse-power car, -but a leisurely progress behind a pair of priceless horses, -with time for seeing wild roses and honeysuckle in the -hedges, the dogs and children on rustic paths, and the -peace of cottage gardens.</p> - -<p>She remembered how those tranquil afternoons had -become impossible, by reason of her perpetual engagements; -and how quietly Mario Provana had submitted -to the change in her way of life, the succession of futile -pleasures, the hurry and excitement.</p> - -<p>"I want you to be happy," he told her, when she made -a feeble apology for not having an afternoon at his service.</p> - -<p>"You are young, and you must enjoy your youth. Things -that seem trivial and joyless to me are new and sweet to -you. Be happy, love. I have plenty of use for my -time."</p> - -<p>That was in the beginning of their drifting apart. Looking -back to-night she could but wonder as she remembered -how gradually, how imperceptibly that drifting apart had -gone on; until she awoke one day to find that she and her -husband were estranged. He was kind, had only an indulgent -smile for the folly of her life, but the happy union of -their first wedded years was over and done with. In -Lady Susan's brief phrase, "They had become like other -people."</p> - -<p>And now she and Claude Rutherford had drifted apart, -and were like other people. The reunion of a few weeks -at Disbrowe was but a flash of summer across the gathering -gloom of their lives.</p> - -<p>"He can be happy," she thought, brooding in the night -silence. "He cares for so many things. I care for nothing -but the things that are gone."</p> - -<p>And then, while the clock of All Souls struck that -solemn single stroke which has even a more awful note -than the twelve strokes of midnight, she thought of her -dead—all her dead. Her poets, Tennyson, Browning, -Swinburne—men who had lived while she was living, and -one by one had vanished—of the great tragic actor whose -genius had thrilled her childish heart—of all that company -of the great who had died long before she was born—and -it seemed to her in her dejection as if the earth were an -empty desert, in which nothing great or beautiful was left.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> -They had all gone through the dark gates of death—across -the wild that no man knows. Her poet father, her -lovely young mother, phantoms of beauty, distant and -dim, evanescent shadows in the memory of a child. Yet, -if Francis Symeon's creed were true, they were not gone -for ever. They had not gone across the wild to dark distances -beyond the reach of human thought. They were -only emancipated. The worm had cast its earthly husk, -and the spirit had spread its wings. Released from the -laws of space and time, the all-understanding mind of -the dead could be in sympathy with the elect among the -living.</p> - -<p>With Us, the elect, who have renounced the joys of -sense, and lived only to cultivate the pleasures of the -mind: for us the poets we worship still live, the minds that -have been the light and leading of our minds are our companions -and friends. We need no salaried medium's -<em>abracadabra</em> to summon them, no weary waiting round a -table in a darkened room, disturbed by suspicions of -trickery. They come to us uncalled, as we sit alone in -the gloaming, or wander alone over the desolate down, or -by the long sea-shore. The poem we read is suddenly -illuminated with the soul of the poet: the printed page -becomes a message from the immortal mind.</p> - -<p>To-night, in that silent hour, it was only of the dead -Vera thought, as she wandered from room to room in the -house of fear, shrinking from the prospect of the long, -sleepless hours, weary yet restless. Restlessness made -her wander into regions that were almost strange.</p> - -<p>She drew aside a heavy curtain, and pushed open a -crimson cloth door that led from the hall of ceremony to -those inferior regions common to servants and tradesmen—the -long stone passage, with doors right and left, the -passage that ended at the door into the stable-yard, the -door by which Mario Provana had entered on the night of -his death.</p> - -<p>Rarely had her foot trodden the stone pavement, yet -every detail of the place—the form of the doors, the white -ceiling, the unlovely drab walls had been burnt into her -brain.</p> - -<p>A single electric lamp gave the kind of light that is more -awful than darkness. She heard clocks ticking: one that -sounded solemn and slow, as if it were some awful mechan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>ism -that was measuring the fate of men; one with a thin -and hurried beat, like the pulse of fever; she heard the -heavy breathing of more than one sleeper; and presently, -in front of the yard door, she came upon the watch dog, -the Irish terrier, Boroo.</p> - -<p>He was lying asleep on a rug in front of the door, and -her light step upon the stone had not roused him. It was -only when she was close to his rug that he started up and -gave a low, muffled bark, and sniffed at the skirt of her -dress, and being assured that she was to be trusted, sprang -up with his fore-feet upon her hip and licked her hands.</p> - -<p>She stooped over him and stroked his rough head, and -let him nestle close against her, and then she knelt down -beside him and put her arms round him and fondled him as -he had never been fondled before by so beautiful and -delicate a creature. From those long thoughts of a world -peopled by the dead, the spontaneous love of this warm, -living creature touched her curiously. There was comfort -in contact with anything so full of life; and she laid her -cold cheek against the dog's black nose, called him by his -name, and made him her friend for ever.</p> - -<p>"Poor old dog, all alone in this cold place. Come -upstairs with me; come, Boroo."</p> - -<p>The house dog needed no second invitation. He kept -close to her trailing silken skirt as she moved slowly through -the hall, switching off lights as she went, and so by the -stately staircase to the second floor.</p> - -<p>The fire in her morning-room had been made up at a -late hour by Louison, who was now accustomed to her -mistress's nocturnal habits; and the logs were bright on -the hearth, and brightly reflected on the hedge-sparrow-egg -blue of the tiled fireplace.</p> - -<p>The terrier looked round the room with approval. Till -this night he had seen nothing finer than Mrs. Manby's -parlour, where—when occasionally suffered to lie in front -of the fire—he had always to be on his best behaviour. -But in Vera's room he made himself at once at home, -jumped on and off the prettiest chairs, rioted among the -silken pillows on the sofa, looking at her with questioning -eyes all the time, to see what liberties he might take, and -finally stretched his yellow-red body at full length in the -glow and warmth of the hearth, wagging a lazy tail with -ineffable bliss.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p> - -<p>Vera seated herself in a low chair near him, and stooped -now and then to pat the broad, flat head. He was a big -dog of his kind; and though intended only for the humblest -service, to rank with kitchen and scullery-maids and -under-footmen, he was naturally, in that opulent household, -a well-bred animal of an unimpeachable pedigree. -His parents and grandparents had been prize-winners, -and his blood might have entitled him to a higher place -than the run of the servants' hall and stables and a mat -in a stone passage. But whatever his inherited merits or -personal charms, Vera's sudden liking for him had nothing -to do with his race or character. It was the chill desolation -of the silent hour, the freezing horror of the empty house, -that had made her heart soften, and her tears fall, at the -contact of this warm, living creature in the world of the -dead. It was almost as if she had lost her way in one of -the Roman catacombs, and had met this friendly animal -among the dead of a thousand years, and in the horror of -impenetrable darkness.</p> - -<p>"You are my dog now, Boroo," she told the terrier, -and the small, bright, dark eyes looked up at her with a -light that expressed perfect understanding, while the -pointed ears quivered with delight. He followed her to -the threshold of her bedroom, where she showed him a -White, fleecy rug on which he was to sleep, outside her -door. He threw himself upon his back, with his four legs -in the air, protesting himself her slave; and from that -hour he worshipped her, and followed her about her house -in abject devotion.</p> - -<p>He went with her to Italy. Of course, there would be -difficulties about his return to England; but canine -quarantine might be ameliorated for a rich man's dog. He -became her companion and friend; and it was strange -how much he meant in her life. Strange, very strange; -for in all the years of folly and self-indulgence she had -never given herself a canine favourite. She had seen -almost every one of her friends more or less absurdly -devoted to some small creature—Griffon, Manchester -terrier, Pekinese, Japanese, King Charles, Pomeranian—dogs -whose merits seemed in an inverse ratio to their size—or -the slaves to some more dignified animal, poodle or -chow. She had seen this canine slavery, and had wondered, -with a touch of scorn; and now, in the stately<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> -spaciousness of the Roman villa, she found herself listening -for the patter of the Irish terrier's feet upon the marble -floors, and rejoicing when he came bounding across the -room, to lay his head upon her knee and express unutterable -affection with the exuberance of a rough, hairy -tail.</p> - -<p>The clue to the mystery came to her suddenly as she sat -musing in the firelight, with Boroo stretched at her feet.</p> - -<p>She had wanted this dog. She had wanted some warm-hearted -creature to love her, and to be loved by her. It -had been the vacant house of her life that called for an -inhabitant. She had awakened from her fever-dream of -happiness, to find herself alone, utterly alone, in a world -of which she was weary. Claude Rutherford was of no -more account to her. The thing that had happened was -something worse than drifting apart. Gradually and -imperceptibly the distance between them had widened, -until she had begun to ask herself if she had ever loved -him.</p> - -<p>Boroo went with his mistress on the long journey to San -Marco, and behaved with an admirable discretion at the -big hotel at Marseilles, where, though he would have liked -to try conclusions with a stalwart <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dogue de Bordeaux</i> that -he met in one of the long corridors, he contented himself -with a passing growl as he crept after Vera to his post -outside her room. All things were strange to him in these -first continental experiences; but he bore all things with -sublime restraint, concentrating all his brain-power and -all his emotional force on the one supreme duty of guarding -the lovely lady who had adopted him.</p> - -<p>At the Hôtel des Anglais Mrs. Rutherford was received -with rapture, and the spacious suite on the first floor was, -as it were, laid at her feet. She would, of course, occupy -those rooms, and no other; the rooms where Signor -Provana and his sweet young daughter had lived. Signor -Canincio ignored the fact that the sweet young daughter -had also died there.</p> - -<p>No. Mrs. Rutherford would have the rooms in which -she had lived with her grandmother.</p> - -<p>"I want our old rooms, please," she said.</p> - -<p>"The rooms in which you were so happy—where you -spent two winters with the illustrious Lady Felicia."</p> - -<p>Signor Canincio at once perceived how natural it wa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>s -for Madame to prefer those rooms. Everything should be -made ready immediately. His season had not yet begun; -but his hotel would be full to overflowing in December, -when he expected many of Madame's old friends to settle -down for the winter. Vera smiled as she remembered -those "old friends" with whom she had never been -friendly; the sour spinsters and widows who had always -resented Lady Felicia's determination to deny herself the -advantage of their society.</p> - -<p>It was the dead season of the year. The late lingering -roses on the walls had a sodden look, the pepper trees -drooped disconsolately, and a curtain of grey mist hung -over the parade, where Vera had walked, alone and -dejected, before the coming of Giulia and her father. The -hills where they had driven looked farther away in the -shadowy atmosphere. There was no gleaming whiteness on -the distant mountains. All was grey and melancholy—and -in unison with her thoughts of the dead. She had -come there to look upon her husband's grave. She had -been prostrate and helpless at the time of his burial, and -had only just been capable of arousing herself from a state -of apathy, to insist that he should be carried back to the -country of his birth, and should lie beside his daughter -in the shadow of the cypresses, between the sea and the -olive woods.</p> - -<p>Even in that agonising time the picture of that familiar -spot had been in her mind as she gave her instructions; -and she had seen the marble tomb in its green enclosure, -and the tall trees standing deeply black against the pale -gold of the sky, as on that evening when Mario Provana -had found her sitting by his daughter's tomb. He must lie -there, she told his partner, nowhere else; no, not even in -Rome, where his family had their stately sepulchre. It -was under the marble tomb he had made for his idolised -child that he must rest.</p> - -<p>And now, in the dull grey November, she stood once -more beside the marble and read the lines that had been -graven under Giulia's brief epitaph. "Also in memory of -Mario Provana, her father, who died in London, on July the -thirteenth, 19—, in the fifty-seventh year of his age." And -below this one word—"Re-united."</p> - -<p>She stayed long in the green enclosure, her dog coming -back to her after much exploration of the wood above,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> -where he had startled and scattered any animal life that -he could find there, and the seashore below, where he -stirred the tideless waves by the vehemence of his plunges; -and then she went for a long ramble in the familiar paths -where she had walked with Provana in those sunny afternoons, -before the ride to the chocolate mills. She stayed -nearly a week at San Marco, repeating the same process -every day; first a lingering visit to the grave, and then a -long, lonely walk in the paths she had trodden with the -man whom she had thought of only as her friend's father, -until by an imperceptible progress he had made himself -the one close friend of her life. She took pains to find the -very paths they had trodden together, the humble shrines -or chapels they had looked at, the rocks where they had -sat down to rest.</p> - -<p>When she had first spoken of revisiting San Marco -Claude had done his uttermost to dissuade her. "Don't -be morbid," he had said more than once. "Your mind -has a fatal leaning that way. You ought to fight against -it."</p> - -<p>Yes, she knew that she was morbid, that she had taken -to brooding upon melancholy memories, that she was -cultivating sadness. Alone in the olive wood, watching -the evening light change and fade, and the shadows steal -slowly from the valley and the sea, while memory recalled -words that had been spoken in that narrow pathway, -among those grey old trees in the light and shade of -evenings that seemed ages ago, she had a feeling that was -almost happiness. It was a memory of happiness so -vivid that it seemed the thing itself.</p> - -<p>She had been very happy in those tranquil evenings. -She knew now that she had begun to love Mario Provana -many days before his impassioned avowal had taken her -by storm. His eloquence, his power of thought and -feeling, had made life and the world new. She "saw -Othello's visage in his mind." His rugged features and -his eight-and-forty years were forgotten in the charm of -his conversation and the rare music of his voice. The -world of the scholar, of the thinker, and the poet, had -been an unknown world to the girl of eighteen, whose poor -little bit of flimsy education had been limited to the -morning hours of a Miss Greenhow at a guinea a week. -He opened the gate of that divine world and led her in,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> -and they walked there together; he charmed by her -freshness and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">naïveté</i>, she dazzled by his wealth of knowledge -and his power of imagination. Not even her poet -father could have had a wider knowledge of books, or a -greater power of thought, she told herself; which was a -concession to friendship, as she had hitherto put her father -in the front rank of those who know.</p> - -<p>She looked back at those innocent hours, when he who -was so soon to be her husband was only thought of as -her first friend.</p> - -<p>She looked back to hours that seemed to her to have been -the happiest in all her life. Yes, the happiest; for happiness -is sunshine and calm weather, not fever and storm. -There were other hours more romantic and more thrilling, -but agonising to remember—sensual, devilish. Those -hours in the woods had been serene and pure, and she -had walked there with the heart of a child.</p> - -<p>How kind he had been, how kind! It was the kindness -in the low, grave voice that had made its music: only the -kindness of a friend of mature years interested in her -youth and ignorance, only a grave and thoughtful friend, -liking her because she had been loved by his dead daughter. -That is what she had thought of him for the greater part -of those quiet hours. Yet now and then she had been -startled by a sudden suggestion. She did not know, but -she felt that he was her lover.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was in vain that Signor Canincio pressed her to occupy -his <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">piano nobile</i> as the only part of his hostel worthy of -her. She insisted on the old rooms, the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i> that had been -growing shabbier and shabbier in the years of her absence, -and which had never been redecorated. There were the -same faded cupids flying about the ceiling, where many -a crack in the plaster testified to an occasional earthquake; -and there was the same shabby paper on the walls. -Nothing had been altered, nothing had been removed. -Vera went out upon the balcony and looked down at the -little town, and the distant ridge where the walls of a -monastery rose white against the grey November sky. -Everything was the same. She had wanted to come back. -It was a morbid fancy, perhaps, like many of her fancies. -She knew that she was morbid. She wanted to steep -herself in the memories of the time before she was Mario<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> -Provana's wife; the time when she knew that he loved -her, and was proud of his love.</p> - -<p>She walked up and down the room, touching things -gently as she passed them, as if those poor old pieces of -furniture, with their white paint and worn gilding, were -a part of her history. This was the table where she had -sat making tea, a slow process, while Mario stood beside -her, watching her, as she watched the blue flame under -Granny's old silver kettle, the George-the-Second silver -that gave a grace to the cheap <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salon</i>. Lady Felicia had -kept her old silver—light and thin with much use—as -resolutely as she had kept her diamonds.</p> - -<p>"If ever I were forced to part with those poor things of -mine I should feel myself no better than the charwoman -who comes here to scrub floors," she told Lady Okehampton, -and that kind lady, who was taking tea with "poor -Lady Felicia," in her London lodgings, had approved a -sentiment so worthy of a Disbrowe.</p> - -<p>Vera paced the room slowly in the thickening light: -sometimes standing by the open window, listening to -footsteps on the parade, and the talk of the women from -the olive woods, tramping bravely homeward with heavy -baskets on their heads, baskets of little black olives for -the oil mills that dotted the steep sides of the gorge through -which the tempestuous little river went brawling down -to the sluggish sea.</p> - -<p>And then she went back into the shadows, and slowly, -slowly, paced all the length of the room, thinking of those -evenings when she had made tea for the Roman financier.</p> - -<p>The shadows gathered momentarily and the shapes of -all things became vague and dim. There was Granny's -sofa, and Granny was sitting there among her silken -pillows. She could see the pale, thin face, and the frail -figure wrapped in a China crape shawl. The white shawl -had always had a ghostly look in a dimly lighted room.</p> - -<p>She went over to the sofa and felt the empty corner -where Granny used to sit. No, she was not there. The -sofa was a bare, hard object, with nothing phantasmal -about it. There were no silken cushions. Those amenities -had been Lady Felicia's private property, travelling to and -fro by <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">petite vitesse</i>. There was no one on the sofa, and -that dark form, the tall figure near the tea-table, was -nothing but shadow. It vanished as she came near<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> -and there was only empty space, with the white table -shining in the faint light from the open window.</p> - -<p>"Nothing but shadow," she thought, "like my life. -There is nothing left of that but shadow."</p> - -<p>"How happy I must have been, when I lived in this -room, how happy! But I did not know it. How sweetly -I used to sleep, and what dear dreams I dreamt. I was -only seventeen in our first winter, and I was a good girl. -Looking back I cannot remember that I had ever done -wrong. I was always obedient to Granny, and I tried hard -to please her, and to care for her when she was ill. I always -spoke the truth. The truth? Why should I have been -afraid of truth in those days? There was no merit in -fearless truth. But the difference, the difference!"</p> - -<p>It seemed so strange now that she had not been happier. -To be young and without sin: to believe in God and to -love Christ. Was not that enough for happiness?</p> - -<p>The room was almost dark before she rang for lamps. -In that southern paradise the shutting of windows must -precede the entrance of lighted lamps; and one is apt to -prolong the time <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">entre chien et loup</i>.</p> - -<p>The darkness fostered those morbid feelings that she -had indulged of late. She thought of Francis Symeon, -and his belief in the communion of the living and the dead.</p> - -<p>Her husband might be near her as she crept about in -the darkness. She might <em>know</em> that he was there; but -she was not to hope for any visible sign of his presence.</p> - -<p>To see was reserved for the elect; and for them only -when the earthly tabernacle was near its end, when the -veil between life and death had worn thin. <em>Then</em> only, -and for the choicest spirits only, would that thin veil be -rent asunder and the dead reveal themselves to the living, -in a divine anticipation of immortality.</p> - -<p>"Not for all, not for those who have loved earthly -things and lived the sensual life, not for them the afterlife -of reunion and felicity."</p> - -<p>"Not for me—never for me." She fell on her knees by -Granny's sofa, and bowed her head upon her folded arms -and prayed—a wild and fervent prayer—a distracted -appeal for mercy to One Who knew, and could pity. Such -a prayer as might have trembled on the Magdalen's pale -lips while, with bent head and hidden countenance, she -washed the Redeemer's feet with her tears.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p> - -<p>The spell that was woven of silence and shadow was -broken suddenly by the opening of the door and the -tumultuous entrance of the Irish terrier, followed by -Louison, who saw only darkness and an empty room.</p> - -<p>"Mais où donc est Madame?" she exclaimed.</p> - -<p>Boroo had found his mistress by something keener than -the sense of sight, and had pushed his cold, black nose -against her cheek, despite of the bowed head, and leapt -about her as she rose to her feet, just in time to hide -all signs of agitation as Signor Canincio's odd man, in -a loose red jacket, looking like a reformed bandit, -brought in a pair of lamps and flooded the room with -light.</p> - -<p>Louison rushed to shut the windows and exclude <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cette -affreuse bête le moustique</i>, from whose attentions she -herself had suffered.</p> - -<p>"Mais, madame, pourquoi ne pas sonner? Vous voilà -sans lumière, sans feu, et les fenêtres grandes ouvertes. -Accendere, donc," to the odd man, "apportez legno, -molto legno, et faire un bon fuoco, presto, subito, tout -de suite."</p> - -<p>It may be that this noisy solicitude was meant to cover -a certain want of attention to her mistress; Ma'mselle -having lingered over the tea-table in the couriers' room, -where a dearth of couriers at this dead season was atoned -for by the presence of Signor Canincio and his English -wife, she dispensing the weakest possible tea, with condescending -kindness, and wife and husband both alert to -hear anything that Louison would tell them about her -mistress, while the animated gestures and expressive eyes -of the host testified to his admiration for <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">la belle Française</i>, -an admiration that was made more agreeable to Louison -from the consuming jealousy which she saw depicted in -the countenance of the travelling footman, whose inferior -status ought to have excluded him from that table. But -Louison knew that Canincio's hotel had always been what -Mr. Sedgewick called <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">une affaire d'un seul cheval</i>.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The Roman villa was a fairy palace of light and flowers, -and its long range of windows flashed across the blue -vapours of the December night, and might have been -noticed as a golden glory in the far distance by solitary -watchers in the monasteries on the Aventine hill.</p> - -<p>It was Vera's first reception; and all that there was of -Roman rank and beauty, all that there was of transatlantic -wealth and cosmopolitan talent in the most wonderful -city in the world had assembled in prompt response to her -card of invitation.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>"Mrs. Claude Rutherford, at home, 9 to 12. Music.</p> - -<p class="indentmore"> -"The Villa Provana." -</p> -</div> - -<p>The financier's palace still bore the stamp of mercantile -riches. Claude had urged his wife to give the splendid -house a splendid name; so that, in the ever-changing -society of the Italian capital, the source of all that splendour -might be forgotten; but he had urged in vain.</p> - -<p>"It was his father's house, and it was my home with -<em>him</em>," she said, with a strange look—the look that Claude -feared. "While I live it shall never have any other -name."</p> - -<p>"You are the first woman I ever knew with such a cult -of the dismal," he said. "Most widows wish to forget."</p> - -<p>"Most widows <em>can</em> forget," she answered.</p> - -<p>He turned and left her at the word; and she heard him -singing <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">sotto voce</i> as he went along the corridor, "La donna -e mobile."</p> - -<p>"At least <em>I</em> do not change," she thought.</p> - -<p>This had happened in their first winter in Rome—a -mere flash of melancholy—soon forgotten in those wild -days when the pace was fastest, and when life went by in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> -a hurricane of fashionable pleasures. Visiting and entertaining, -opera and theatre and race-course; a rush to -Naples to hear a wonderful tenor; to Milan to see the new -dancer at the Scala; something new and fatiguing for -every week and every day. They were both calmer now, -and it may be that both were tired, though it was only -Vera who talked openly of weariness.</p> - -<p>To-night she was looking lovely; but a Russian savant, -who was among the most illustrious of her guests, whispered -to his neighbour as she passed them, "<em>She</em> will not live -her hundred and forty years."</p> - -<p>"I am afraid it is a question of months rather than -years," replied his friend, a famous Roman doctor.</p> - -<p>Something there was in the radiant face, pale, but full -of light and life, in which the eye of an expert read auguries -of evil; but to the elegant mob circulating through -those sumptuous rooms Mrs. Rutherford was still beautiful -with the bloom of health. Her pallor was of a transparent -fairness, more brilliant than other women's carnations. -The popular American painter had made one of his most -startling hits, two years before, by his exquisite rendering -of that rare beauty, the alabaster pallor, the dreaming eyes, -blue-grey, or blue with a touch of green. He had caught -her "mermaid look"; and his most fervent admirers, -looking at the portrait in the Academy crowd, declared -that the colour in those mysterious eyes changed as they -looked. The portrait was the sensation of the year. Her -eyes changed, and she seemed to be moving out of the -canvas, said the superior critics; and the herd went about -parroting them. She had her far-away look to-night, as -she stood near the doorway in the Rubens room, the first -of the long suite; and though she had a gracious greeting -for everybody, those who admired her most had a strange -fancy that she was only the lovely semblance or outer -shell of a woman, whose actual self was worlds away.</p> - -<p>There was nothing dreamy or far-away about Claude -Rutherford to-night. He was a man whose nature it was -to live only in the present, and to live every moment of his -life. To-night, in these splendid surroundings, in this -crowd of the noble and the celebrated, he felt as one who -has conquered Fate, and has the world at his feet. He was -a universal favourite. The hearts of women softened at -his smile; and even men liked him for his careless gaiety.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Always jolly and friendly, and without a scrap of -side."</p> - -<p>That was what they said of him. To have the spending -of the Provana millions and to be without side, seemed -a virtue above all praise. People liked him better than his -ethereal wife. She was charming, but elusive. That other-world -look of hers repelled would-be admirers, and even -chilled her friends.</p> - -<p>The Amphletts had arrived at the villa on a long visit, -just in time for Vera's first party; and Lady Susan was -floating about the rooms in an ecstasy of admiration. She -had never seen them in Mario Provana's time, and though -she had been invited by Vera more than once in the last -three years, this was her first visit.</p> - -<p>Her tiresome husband had preferred Northamptonshire, -and she had not been modern enough to leave him; and -now he had been only lured a thousand miles from the -Pytchley by the promise of hunting on the Campagna.</p> - -<p>"At last Vera is in her proper environment," Lady -Susan told a young attache, who had been among the -intimates in London. "She was out of her proper setting -in Portland Place. Nothing less beautiful than this palace -is in harmony with her irresistible charm. Other women -have beauty, don't you know; Mrs. Bellenden, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">par -exemple</i>."</p> - -<p>"Mrs. Bellenden is an eye-opener," murmured the -diplomat.</p> - -<p>"Yes, I know what you are thinking, the handsomest -woman in Europe, and all that kind of thing; but utterly -without charm. Even we women admire her, just as we -admire a huge La France rose, or a golden pheasant, or a -bunch of grapes as big as plovers' eggs, with the purple -bloom upon them; the perfection of physical beauty. -But the light behind the painted window, the secret, the -charm is not in it. Beauty and to spare, but nothing more."</p> - -<p>Mrs. Bellenden sailed past them on the arm of the -English Ambassador while Susie expatiated.</p> - -<p>It was her first appearance in Roman society, and she -was the sensation of the evening.</p> - -<p>A form as perfect as the Venus of the Capitol, a face of -commanding beauty, a toilette of studied simplicity, a -gown of dark green velvet, without a vestige of trimming, -the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dêcolletage</i> audacious, and for ornament an emerald<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> -necklace in a Tiffany setting, which even among hereditary -jewels challenged admiration, just a row of single emeralds -clasping a throat of Parian marble.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Bellenden had the men at her feet; from Ambassadors -to callow striplings, new to Rome and to -diplomacy, sprigs of good family, who were hardly -allowed to do more than seal letters, or index a letter-book. -All these courted her as if she had been royal; but -the women who had known her in London kept themselves -aloof somehow, except the American women, who praised -and patronised her, or would have patronised, but for -something in those dark violet eyes that stopped them.</p> - -<p>"It isn't safe to say sarcastic things to a woman with -eyes like hers," they told each other. "It would be as -safe to try to take a rise out of a crouching tiger, or to -put a cobra's back up, for larks."</p> - -<p>Lady Susan was about the only woman of position who -talked to Mrs. Bellenden; but Susie loved notorieties of -all kinds, and had never kept aloof from speckled peaches, if -the peaches were otherwise interesting.</p> - -<p>"I call Bellenden a remarkable personality," she told -Claude, whom she contrived to buttonhole for five minutes -in the corridor after supper. "A rural parson's daughter, -brought up on cabbages and the tithe pig. A woman who -has spent a year in a lunatic asylum, and yet has brains -enough to set the world at defiance. You will see she'll -be a duchess—a pucker English duchess—before she has -finished."</p> - -<p>"She is more than worthy of the strawberry leaves; -but I don't see where the pucker duke is to come from. Her -only chance would be a fledgling, who had never crossed -the Atlantic."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>If her own sex persisted in a certain aloofness, Mrs. -Bellenden had her court, and could afford to do without -them. In the picture gallery, after supper, she was the -centre of a circle, and her rich voice and joyous laughter -sounded above all other voices in the after-midnight hour, -when the crowd had thinned and most of the great ladies -had gone away.</p> - -<p>Susie watched that group from a distance, and wondered -when Mrs. Bellenden was going to break through the ring -of her worshippers and make her way to the Rubens room,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> -where the mistress of the house was waiting to bid the -last of her guests good-night.</p> - -<p>The first hour after midnight was wearing on, and Susan -Amphlett, who had eaten two suppers, each with an -amusing escort, was beginning to feel that she had had -enough of the party and would like to be having her hair -brushed in the solitude of her palatial bedroom. But she -wanted to see the last of Mrs. Bellenden, if not the last of -the party; and she kept her cicisbeo hanging on, and -pretended to be interested in the pictures, while she furtively -observed the proceedings of the notorious beauty. -She was making the men laugh. That was the spell she -was weaving over the group who stood entranced around -her. Light talk that raised lighter laughter: that was her -after-midnight glamour. She had been grave and dignified -as she moved through the rooms by the side of the -Ambassador. But now, encircled by a ring of "nice boys," -she was frankly Bohemian, and amused herself by amusing -them, with splendid disregard of conventionalities. Reckless -mirth sparkled in her eyes; uproarious laughter -followed upon her speech. Whatever she was saying, -however foolish, however outrageous, it was simply enchanting -to the men who heard her; and in the heart of -the ring Claude Rutherford was standing close beside the -lovely freelance, hanging upon her words, joyous, irresponsible -as herself. The spell was broken at last, or the -fairy laid down her wand, and allowed Claude to escort -her to her hostess, who just touched her offered hand with -light finger-tips; and thence to the outer vestibule, an -octagon room where the white marble faces of Olympian -deities, who were immortal because they had never lived, -looked with calm scorn upon the flushed cheeks and -haggard eyes of men and women too eager to drain the -cup of sensuous life. Claude and Mrs. Bellenden stood -side by side in the winter moonlight while they waited for -carriage after carriage to roll away, before a miniature -brougham of neatest build came to the edge of the -crimson carpet. They had had plenty of time for -whispered talk while they waited, but there had been -no more laughter, rather a subdued and almost -whispered interchange of confidential speech; and the -last word as he stood by the brougham door was -"to-morrow."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> - -<p>Lady Susan and Vera went up the great staircase -together, Susie with her usual demonstrative affection, her -arm interwoven with her friend's.</p> - -<p>"Your party has been glorious, darling!" she began. -"I see now that it is the house that makes the glory and -the dream. Your parties in Portland Place were just as -good, as parties, but oh, the difference! Instead of the -vulgar crush upon the staircase, and the three overcrowded -drawing-rooms, immense for London—this luxury of space, -this gorgeous succession of rooms, so numerous that it -makes one giddy to count them. Vera, I see now that it -is only vast space that can give grandeur. The bricks -and stone in your London house would have made a street -in Mayfair; but it is a hovel compared with this. And -to think of that good-for-nothing cousin of mine leaving -a bachelor's diggings in St. James's to be lord of this -palace. There never was such luck!"</p> - -<p>"I don't think Claude cares very much for the villa, or -for Rome," Vera answered coldly. "He prefers London -and Newmarket."</p> - -<p>"That's what men are made of. They don't care for -houses or for furniture. They only care for horses and -dogs, and other women," assented Susan lightly.</p> - -<p>They were at the door of Vera's rooms by this time, but -Susie's entwining arms still held her.</p> - -<p>"Do let me come in for a <em>cause</em>."</p> - -<p>"I'm very tired."</p> - -<p>"Only five minutes."</p> - -<p>"Oh, as long as you like. I may as well sit up and talk -as lie down, and think."</p> - -<p>"What, are you as bad a sleeper as ever?"</p> - -<p>"I have lost the knack of sleep. But I suppose I sleep -enough, as I am alive. Some people talk as if three or -four sleepless nights would kill them; but Sir Andrew -Clarke let Gladstone lie awake seven nights before he -would give him an opiate."</p> - -<p>"But you will lose your beauty—worse than losing your -life. You looked lovely to-night—too lovely, too much -like an exquisite phantom. And now, my sweet Vera, -don't be angry if I touch upon a delicate—no, an indelicate -subject. You must never let Mrs. Bellenden enter your -house again."</p> - -<p>"Indeed, Susie! But why?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Because she is simply too outrageous!"</p> - -<p>"Do you mean too handsome, too attractive?"</p> - -<p>"I mean she is absolutely disreputable. If you had -seen her in the picture gallery, with a crowd of men round -her—your husband among them—laughing immoderately, -as men only laugh when outrageous things are -being said!"</p> - -<p>"And was she saying the outrageous things?"</p> - -<p>"Undoubtedly. I watched her from a distance, -while I pretended to be looking at the pictures. Vera, -I don't want to worry you, but that woman is -dangerous!"</p> - -<p>"Dangerous?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, like the Lurlei and people of that class. She is -the very woman Solomon described in Proverbs—and <em>he</em> -knew. She is a danger for you, Vera, a danger for your -peace of mind. She is a wicked enchantress, an enemy to -all happy wives; and she is trying to steal your husband."</p> - -<p>"I am not afraid.".</p> - -<p>"But you ought to be afraid. Roger and I are not a -romantic couple; but if I saw him too attentive to such -a woman as Mrs. B. I should—well, Vera, I should take -measures. Remember, the woman is the danger. It doesn't -matter how much a man flirts, as long as he flirts with the -harmless woman. You really should take measures."</p> - -<p>"That is not in my line, Susie. When my husband has -left off caring for me I shall know it, and that will be -the end."</p> - -<p>Susan looked at her with anxious scrutiny.</p> - -<p>"I'm afraid you are leaving off caring for him," she -said rather sadly.</p> - -<p>"Never mind, dear. The sands are running through the -glass, whether we are glad or sorry, and the end of the -hour will come."</p> - -<p>"Don't!" cried Susie, wincing as if she had been hit.</p> - -<p>"Good night, dear, I am very tired."</p> - -<p>"Yes, that's what it means!" Susie kissed her effusively. -"Your nerves are worn to snapping point, you -poor, pale thing. Good night."</p> - -<p>Vera was on the Palatine Hill next morning before Lady -Susan had left her sumptuous bed, a vast expanse of embroidered -linen and down pillows, under a canopy of satin -and gold. Painted cherubim looked down upon her from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> -the white satin dome, cherubs or cupids, she was not sure to -which order the rosy cheeks and winged shoulders belonged.</p> - -<p>"They must be cupids," she decided at last. "They -have too many legs for cherubim."</p> - -<p>Vera was wandering among the vestiges of Imperial -Rome with the dog Boroo for company. She liked to -roam about these weedy pathways, among the dust of a -hundred palaces, in the clear, sunlit morning, at an hour -when no tourist's foot had passed the gate.</p> - -<p>The custodians knew her as a frequent visitor, and left -her free to wander among the ruins as she pleased, without -guidance or interference. They had been inclined at first -to question the Irish terrier's right to the same licence, but -a sweet smile and a ten-lire note made them oblivious of -his existence. He might have been some phantom hound -of mediæval legend, passing the gate unseen. Simply clad -in black cloth, a skirt short enough for easy walking, a -loose coat that left her figure undefined, and a neat little -hat muffled in a grey gauze veil through which her face -showed vaguely, Vera was able to walk about the great -city in the morning hours without attracting much notice. -Among some few of the shopkeepers and fly drivers who -had observed her repeated passage along particular streets, -she was known as the lady with the dog. In her wanderings -beyond the gates, in places where there were still -rural lanes and cottagers' gardens, she would sometimes -stop to talk to the children who clustered round her and -received the shower of baiocchi which she scattered among -them with tumultuous gratitude, kissing the hem of her -gown, and calling down the blessings of the Holy Mother -on "<i lang="it" xml:lang="it">la bella Signora, e il caro cane</i>," Boroo coming in for -his share of blessings.</p> - -<p>They were lovely children some of them, with their -great Italian eyes, and they would be sunning themselves -on the steps of the Trinità del Monte by and by, when the -spring came, waiting to attract the attention of a painter -on the look-out for ideal infancy; wicked little wretches, -as keen for coin as any Hebrew babe of old in the long-vanished -Ghetto, dirty, and free, and happy; but they -struck a sad note in Vera's memory, recalling her honeymoon -year in Rome, and how fondly Mario Provana had -hoped for a child to sanctify the bond of marriage, and to -fill the empty place that Giulia's death had left in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> -heart. A year ago Vera had been killing thought in ceaseless -movement, in ephemeral pleasures that left no time -for memory or regret, but since the coming of satiety she -had found that to think or to regret was less intolerable -than to live a life of spurious gaiety, to laugh with a leaden -heart, and to pretend to be amused by pleasures that -sickened her. Here she found a better cure for painful -thought, in a city whose abiding beauty was interwoven -with associations that appealed to her imagination, and -lifted her out of the petty life of to-day into the life of the -heroic past. In Rome she could forget herself, and all that -made the sum of her existence. She wandered in a world -of beautiful dreams. The dust she trod upon was mingled -with the blood of heroes and of saints.</p> - -<p>She had seen all that was noblest in the city with Mario -Provana for her guide, he for whom every street and every -church was peopled with the spirits of the mighty dead, -from the colossal dome that roofed the tomb of the warrior -king who made modern Italy, to the vault where St. Peter -and St. Paul had lain in darkness and in chains.</p> - -<p>She had seen and understood all these things with Mario -at her side, enchanted by her keen interest in his beloved -city, and delighted to point out and explain every detail.</p> - -<p>For Mario every out-of-the-way corner of Rome had its -charm—for Claude Rome meant nothing but the afternoon -drive along the Corso, and the bi-weekly meet of hounds -on the Appian Way. Everything else was a bore. It was -the Palatine where she and Mario had returned oftenest -and lingered longest, for it seemed the sum of all that was -grandest in the story of Rome, or, rather, it was Rome. -How often she had stood by her husband's side on this -noble terrace, gazing at the circle of hills, and recalling an -age when this spot was the centre of the civilised earth! -Here were the ruins of a forgotten world; and the palaces -of Caligula and Nero seemed to belong to modern history, -as compared with the rude remains of a city that had -perished before the War-God's twins had hung at their -fierce foster-mother's breast. Every foot of ground had -its traditions of ineffable grandeur, and was peopled with -ghosts. They stood upon the ashes of palaces more -splendid and more costly than the mind of the multi-millionaire -of to-day had ever conceived—the palaces of -poets and statesmen, of Rome's greatest orators, and of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> -her most successful generals; of Emperors whose brief -reign made but half a page of history, ending in the inevitable -murder; of beautiful women with whom poison -was the natural resource in a difficulty; of gladiators -elevated into demi-gods; of mothers who killed their sons, -and sons who killed their mothers; and of all those hundred -palaces, and that strange dream of glory and of crime -there was nothing left but ruined walls, and the dust in -which the fool's parsley and the wild parsnip grew rank -and high.</p> - -<p>Amidst those memories of two thousand years ago, -Vera felt as if life were so brief and petty a thing, such a -mere moment in the infinity of time, that no individual -story, no single existence, with its single grief, no wrong -done, could be a thing to lament or to brood over. Nothing -seemed to matter, when one remembered how all this -greatness had come and gone like a ray of sunshine on a -wall, the light and the glory of a moment.</p> - -<p>And what of those grander lives, the Christian martyrs, -the men who fought with beasts, and gave their bodies to -be burned, the women who went with tranquil brow and -steadfast eyes to meet a death of horror, rather than deny -the new truth that had come into their lives?</p> - -<p>There were other, darker memories in her solitary wanderings. -She returned sometimes to the hill behind the -Villa Medici. She lingered in the dusty road outside the -Benedictine monastery, and peered through the iron gate, -gazing into the desolate garden, where only the utilitarian -portion was cared for, and where shrubs, grass, and the -sparse winter flowers languished in neglect, where the -gloomy cypresses stood darkly out against the mouldering -plaster on the wall; the prison gate, within which she had -seen her lover sitting by the dying fire, a melancholy -figure, with brooding eyes that refused to look at her.</p> - -<p>"It would have been better for us both if he had stayed -there," she thought. "If we had been true to ourselves we -should have parted at the door of his prison for ever. It -would have been better for us both—better and happier. -The cloister for him and for me. A few years of silence and -solitude. A few years of penitential pain; and then the -open gate, and the Good Shepherd's welcome to the lost -sheep."</p> - -<p>Yes, it would have been better. No pure and abiding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> -joy had come to her from her union with her lover. They -had loved each other with a love that had filled the cup of -life in the first years of their marriage; they had loved -each other, but it had been with a passion that needed -the stimulus of an unceasing change of pleasures to keep it -alive; and when the pleasures grew stale, and there were -no more new things or new places left in the world, their -love had languished in the grey atmosphere of thought.</p> - -<p>She knew that her love for Claude Rutherford was dead. -The third year of wedlock had killed it. She looked back -and remembered what he had once been to her. She saw -the picture of her past go by, a vivid panorama lit by a -lurid light—from the July midnight in the rose garden by -the river, to the November evening in Rome, when he had -come back to her from his living grave—and she had fallen -upon his breast, and let him set the seal of a fatal love upon -her lips—the seal that had made her his in the rose garden, -and had fixed her fate for ever. This later kiss was more -fatal; for it meant the hope of heaven renounced, and a -soul abandoned to the sinner's doom. For her part, at -least, love had died. Slowly, imperceptibly, from day to -day, from hour to hour, the glamour had faded, the light -had gone. Slowly and reluctantly she had awakened to -the knowledge of her husband's shallow nature, and had -found how little there was for her to love and honour -below that airy pleasantness which had exercised so potent -a charm, from the hour when she met and remembered the -friend of her childhood, until the night of the ball, when -he had whispered his plan for their future as they spun -round in their last waltz. All had shown the lightness of -the sunny nature that charmed her. Even in talking of -the desperate step they were going to take he had seemed -hardly serious. His confidence was so strong in the future. -Just one resolute act—a little unpleasantness, perhaps; -and then emancipation, and a life of unalloyed happiness—"the -world forgetting, by the world forgot"—themselves -the only world that was worth thinking about.</p> - -<p>And it was to this shallow nature that she had given her -love and her life; for she could see nothing in life outside -that fatal love. As that perished, she felt that she must -die with it. There was nothing left—no child—no "forward -looking hopes."</p> - -<p>But there was the memory of the past! In her lonely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> -walks about the environs of Rome, the past was with her. -She was always looking back. She could not tread those -paths without remembering who had trodden them with -her when the wonder of Rome was new. The man who -was her companion, then the strong man, the man of high -thoughts and decisive action, the thinker and the worker. -The man of grave and quiet manners, who could yet be -terrible when the fire below that calm surface was kindled. -She had seen that he could be terrible. One episode in -their happy honeymoon life had always remained in her -memory, when at a crowded railway station he had been -separated from her for a few moments in the throng and -had found her shrinking in terror from the insolence of a -vulgar dandy. She had never forgotten the white anger -in Mario Provana's face as he took the scared wretch by -the collar and flung him towards the edge of the platform. -She never could forget the rage in that dark face, and it -had come back to her in after years in visions of unspeakable -horror. He who was so kind could be so terrible. -So kind! Now in her lonely wanderings it was of his kindness -she thought most, his fond indulgence in those days -when he had made the world new for her, days when she -had looked back at her long apprenticeship to poverty—the -daily lesson in the noble art of keeping up appearances, -and Grannie's monotonous wailings over cruel destiny—and -wondered if this idolised wife could be the same creature -as the penniless girl in the shabby lodgings. She -knew now that the devoted husband of that happy -year was the man who was worthy of something more -than gratitude and obedience, something more than -duty, worthy of the best and truest love that a good -woman could feel for a good man. This was the noble -lover. Wherever she went in that city of great memories -the shadow of the past went with her. He was always -there—she heard his voice, and the thoughts and feelings -of years ago were more real than the consciousness of to-day. -Forgotten things had come back. The fever-dream -had ended: and in the cold light of an awakened conscience -she knew and understood the noble friend and companion -she had slighted and lost.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Lady Susan was a somewhat exacting visitor; but it -was years since she had seen the inside of a dining-room<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> -before luncheon, so Vera's mornings were her own. The -half-past twelve o'clock <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déjeuner</i> even appeared painfully -early to Susie, though she contrived to be present at that -luxurious meal, where there were often amusing droppers-in, -lads from the embassies, soldiers in picturesque uniforms, -literary people and artistic people, mostly Americans, -people whom Susie could not afford to miss.</p> - -<p>Vera's mornings were her own, but she was obliged to -do the afternoon drive in the Pincio gardens and along the -Corso with Lady Susan, and after the drive she could -creep away for an hour to her too-spacious saloon where -all the gods and goddesses of Olympus looked down upon -her from the tapestry, and sit and dream in the gloaming—or -brood over a new novel by Matilda Seraio, her reading-lamp -making a speck of light in a world of shadows.</p> - -<p>Here, by the red log-fire, where the pine-cones hissed -and sputtered, the Irish terrier was her happy companion, -laying his head upon her knee, or thrusting his black nose -into her hand, now and then, to show her that there was -somebody who loved her, and only refraining from leaping -on her lap by the good manners inculcated in his puppyhood -by an accomplished canine educator.</p> - -<p>Sometimes she would throw down her book, snatch up a -fur coat from the sofa where it lay, and go out through the -glass door that opened into the gardens; and then, with -Boroo bounding and leaping round her, letting off volleys -of joyful barks, she would run to the lonely garden at the -back of the villa, where there was a long terrace on a ridge -of high ground shaded with umbrella pines, and with a -statue here and there in a niche cut in the wall of century-old -ilex.</p> - -<p>The solitary walk with her dog in a dark garden always -had a quieting effect upon her nerves—like the morning -ramble in the outskirts of Rome. To be alone, to be able -to think, soothed her. The life without thought was done -with. Now to think was to be consoled. Even memories -that brought tears had comfort in them.</p> - -<p>"What can I do for him but remember him and regret -him?" she thought. "It is my only atonement. If what -Francis Symeon told me is true and the dead are near -us, he knows and understands. He knows, and he -forgives."</p> - -<p>Sad, sweet thoughts, that came with a rush of tears!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p> - -<p>These quiet hours helped her to bear the evening gaieties, -the evening splendours. She went everywhere that Claude -wanted her to go, gave as many parties as he liked, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déjeuners</i>, -dinners, suppers after opera or theatre, anything. -Her gold was poured out like water. The Newmarket -horses were running in the Roman races; the Leicestershire -hunters were ridden to death on the Campagna. -Claude Rutherford was more talked about, and more admired, -than any young man in Rome. He laughed sometimes, -remembering the old books, and told them he was -like Julius Cæsar in his adolescence, a "harmless trifler." -Claude Rutherford was happy; and he thought that his -wife was happy also. Certainly she had been happy at -Disbrowe less than half a year ago; and there had been -nothing since then to distress her. The long rambles of -which Susan told him, the evening seclusion, meant -nothing. No doubt she was morbid; she had always been -morbid. If she had a grief of any kind she loved to brood -upon it.</p> - -<p>"What grief can she have?" Susan asked. "There -never was such a perfect life. She has everything."</p> - -<p>"I don't know. We have no children. She may long -for a child."</p> - -<p>"Do <em>you</em> feel the want of children?" Susan asked -bluntly.</p> - -<p>"Yes. I should have liked a child. Our houses are -silent—infernally silent. A house without children seems -under a curse, somehow."</p> - -<p>Susan looked at him with open-eyed wonder. This -trivial cousin of hers, who seemed to live only for ephemeral -delights, this man to sigh for offspring, to want his futile -career echoed by a son. He who was neither soldier nor -senator, who had no rag of reputation to bequeath: what -should he want with an heir? And to want childish -voices in his home—to complain of loneliness! He who -was never alone!</p> - -<p>Mrs. Bellenden had not been invited to the Villa Provana -after the night when Susie had made her protest, nor had -Claude urged his wife to invite her. Mrs. Bellenden had -begun to be talked about in Rome very much as she had -been talked about in London. The noblest of the Roman -palaces had not opened their Cyclopean doors to her. -There were certain afternoons when all that was most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> -distinguished in Roman Society crossed those noble -thresholds, as by right—went in and came out again, not -much happier or richer in ideas, perhaps, for the visit, -but just a shade more conscious of superiority.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Bellenden, driving up and down the Corso, saw the -carriages waiting, and scowled at them as she went by. -Mrs. Bellenden was not <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bien vue</i> in Rome. The painters -and sculptors raved about her, and she had to give sittings—for -head and bust—to several of them. She was one -man's Juno, and another man's Helen of Troy. Her -portrait, by a famous American painter, was to be the rage -at next year's picture show. If to be worshipped for her -beauty could satisfy a woman, Mrs. Bellenden might have -been content; but she was not.</p> - -<p>Her exclusion from those three or four monumental -palaces made her feel herself an outsider; and she bristled -with fury when no more cards of invitation came from the -Villa Provana.</p> - -<p>"I suppose that white rag of a woman is jealous," she -thought; but she had just so much womanly pride left -in her as to refrain from asking Claude Rutherford why -his wife ignored her.</p> - -<p>Lady Susan had not even spoken of Mrs. Bellenden after -the night when she had delivered herself of a friendly -warning. But although she did not talk to Vera of the -siren, she had plenty to say to other people about her, -and plenty to hear.</p> - -<p>"I hope that foolish cousin of mine is not carrying on -with that odious woman," she had said tentatively to more -than one great lady.</p> - -<p>"Why, my dear creature, everybody knows that he is -making an idiot of himself about her. She is riding his -hunters to death; and she made an exhibition of herself -at the races last Sunday when one of Rutherford's horses -won by half a length, putting her arms round the winner's -neck and shaking hands with the jockey. The King and -Queen and all the Quirinal party were looking at her. She -is the kind of woman who always advertises an intrigue. -After all, I believe she is not half so bad as people think -her; only she can't keep an affair quiet. She must always -play to the gallery."</p> - -<p>Susie shook her head, with a sigh that was almost a -groan.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Oh, my poor Vera, so sweet, so pure, so ethereal."</p> - -<p>"That's where it is, my dear," said her friend. "Men -don't care for those ethereal women—long. Women hold -men by their vices, not by their virtues."</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> -</div> - - -<p>It was the end of February, and the Roman villa was -soon to be left to cobwebs and custodians. The Piazza -d'Ispagnia and the broad steps of the Trinità were alive -with spring flowers, and the air had the soft sweetness of -an English April on the verge of May. White lilac and -Maréchal Niel roses were in all the shops; bright yellow -jonquils, and red and blue anemones, filled the baskets -of rustic hawkers at the street corners. Rome's innumerable -fountains plashed and sparkled in the sun; and -Rome's delicious atmosphere, at once soft, caressing, and -inspiriting, made the heart glad.</p> - -<p>The carnival was over, and the season was waning. -Lady Susan Amphlett was never tired of telling people -that she had had the best time she had ever had in her -life—excursions to Naples, Florence, and all the cities of -Tuscany; motor drives to every place worth seeing within -fifty miles of Rome; a midnight party with fireworks -in the Baths of Caracalla; a dance by torchlight, and a -champagne supper, in the Colosseum. In this latter -festivity the strangeness of the scene had been too exciting, -and the revel had almost degenerated into an orgy.</p> - -<p>"My cousin is simply wonderful at inventing things," -Susie, playing her accustomed part of chorus, told people, -"and he gets permissions and privileges that no one else -would dare ask for."</p> - -<p>The end had come. To-morrow's meet at the tomb of -Cecilia Metella was the last of the season; and Mr. and -Mrs. Rutherford were to start for London on the following -day—a long journey in a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">lit-salon</i>, with the monotony of -dinner-wagon meals to make the journey odious.</p> - -<p>"If one could only take a box of bath buns and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">foie-gras</i> -sandwiches!" sighed Susie. "With those and my -tea basket I should be utterly happy; but the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> -insipid omelette, and the same tough chicken and endive -salad, for eight and forty hours! <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Quelle corvée!</i>"</p> - -<p>It was the last morning, a lovely morning. Sunshine -was flooding the great rooms, and making even the tapestried -walls look gay. Susan, for once in her life, came -down to breakfast, in a black satin <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">négligé</i>, with a valenciennes -cap that made her look enchanting.</p> - -<p>"I wanted to see Claude in pink—Roman pink," she -said, looking at the slim, tall figure in Leicestershire -clothes. "You ought always to wear those clothes," -said Susie, clapping her hands, as at the reception of a -favourite actor. "They make you bewilderingly beautiful. -Now I know why you are so keen on hunting."</p> - -<p>"Do you think any man cares how his coat is cut, or -who made his boots, when he may be dead at the bottom -of a ditch before the end of the run?" Claude said, laughing. -"Some of the best days I have had have been in rat-catcher -clothes."</p> - -<p>He was radiant with pleasant expectations. He could -do without Leicestershire hedges, and hundred-acre fields, -and all the perfection of English fox-hunting. To-day -the Campagna would be good enough—with its rough -ground and yawning chasms, wider and deeper than the -worst of the Somersetshire rhines. The Campagna would -be good enough. He was in high spirits, and he was -singing a wicked little French song as his man buckled -on his spurs, a little song that Gavroche and his companions -of the Paris gutters had been singing all the winter.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Lady Susan drove to the meet in one of the Provana -carriages, picking up a couple of lively American friends -on her way. Vera excused herself from going with her -friend, and went off for a ramble with the Irish terrier, -much to Susie's disgust.</p> - -<p>"You like that rough-haired beast's company better -than mine," she complained.</p> - -<p>"Only when I want to be alone with memories and -dreams."</p> - -<p>"You are growing too horridly morbid, Vera. I am -afraid you have taken up religion. It's very sweet of you, -darling, but it's the way to lose your husband. Religion -is the one thing a husband won't put up with. He hates -it worse than a bad cook."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p> - -<p>"No, I have not taken up religion."</p> - -<p>"Then it's spiritualism, which is just as bad. It is all -Mr. Symeon's doing. You live in a world of ghosts."</p> - -<p>"There are ghosts that one loves. But there will be -no ghosts where I shall be walking to-day. Only wild -flowers and spring sunshine."</p> - -<p>She watched Susan take her seat in the carriage—a -vision of coquettish prettiness and expensive clothes. -Susan's husband had gone back to London and Newmarket -some time since, not being able to "stick" Rome -after the Craven meeting. He had enjoyed some good -runs with the Roman pack, and he had been shown St. -Peter's and the Colosseum, and had played bridge with -famous American players at Claude Rutherford's club; -so what more was there for him to do?</p> - -<p>Vera and her dog went to the Campagna by a roundabout -way that avoided that noble road between the -tombs of the mighty, by which the hunting men and -their followers would go. She roamed in rural lanes, -where violets and wild hyacinths were scenting the warm -air, and sat in a solitary nook, musing over a volume of -Carducci, while Boroo hunted the hedge and scratched -the bank, in a wild quest of the rats that haunted his -dreams as he sprawled on the Persian prayer-rug before -the fire.</p> - -<p>It was late afternoon when Vera left the quiet lane and -turned into the dusty road that led to the tomb of Cecilia -Metella; lingering on her way to admire a team of those -magnificent fawn-coloured and cream-white oxen, whose -beauty always went to her heart. She recalled Carducci's -lovely sonnet, "Il Bove," those exquisite lines which -Giulia Provana had repeated to her as they drove along -the rural roads near San Marco, and which she learned -from her friend's lips before she had ever seen a printed -page of the Italian's verse.</p> - -<p>All signs of horse and hound had disappeared before -she came to Cecilia's tomb; there were no people in -carriages, no loitering peasants or British bicyclists, -waiting about on the chance of a ringing run, which would -bring pack and field sweeping round the wide plain in -sight of the starting-point. There was no one—only -the vast expanse of greyish-green herbage, with here and -there a heap of ruins that had been a palace or a tomb,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> -and here and there a red-capped shepherd and his flock. -Vera strolled along the grass, taking no heed of vehicles -or foot-passengers on the higher level of the Appian Way. -She had her time chiefly engaged in keeping Boroo to -heel, where only duty could keep him, instinct and a -passionate inclination urging him to make a raid on the -sheep. Distance would have been as nothing. He would -have crossed the expanse of rugged ground in a flash, -if Vera's frown and Vera's threatening voice had not -subjugated that which, next to fighting, was a master -passion.</p> - -<p>She was absorbed in her endeavour to keep the faithful -beast under control, when the sound of laughter on the -road above made her come to a sudden stop, and look, -and listen.</p> - -<p>She knew the laugh. It had once been music in her -ears. That frank, joyous laugh, the ripple of gladness -that defied the Fates, had once been an element in the -glamour that cast its spell over her life. But now the -laugh jarred: there was a false note in the music.</p> - -<p>A woman was riding at Claude's bridle-hand; their -horses walking slowly, close together; and he was leaning -over her to listen and to talk; his hand was on her saddle, -and their heads were very near, as he bent to speak and -to listen. Vera could hear their voices in the clear air -of a Roman sundown; but not the words that they were -speaking. One thing only was plain, that after each -scrap of talk there came that ripple of joyous laughter -from the man; and then, after a little more talk, with -heads still closer, the boisterous mirth of a reckless woman.</p> - -<p>The woman was Mrs. Bellenden. What other rider -after those Roman hounds had a figure like hers, the -exquisite lines, the curves of bust and throat that the -sculptors were talking about?</p> - -<p>The woman was Mrs. Bellenden, in one of her amusing -moods. That was her charm, as Susan Amphlett had -explained it to Vera. She made men laugh.</p> - -<p>"That is her secret," said Susan; "she remembers -all the stories her madcap husband told her when she was -young and they shocked her. She dishes them up with -a spice of her own, and she makes men laugh. She can -keep them dangling for a year and hold them at arm's -length; while a mere beauty would bore them after a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> -month, unless she came to terms. That's her secret. -But, of course, it comes to the same in the end. Such -a woman's affairs must have the inevitable conclusion. -Her pigeons last longer in the plucking, and she gets -more feathers out of them. You had better look after -your husband before he goes too far!"</p> - -<p>Nothing had moved Vera from her placid acceptance -of fate. "I suppose my husband must amuse himself -with a flirtation now and then, when his racing stable -begins to pall," she said.</p> - -<p>"Vera, you and Claude are drifting apart," exclaimed -Susie, with a horrified air.</p> - -<p>It was a gruesome discovery for Chorus, who had gone -about the world singing the praises of this ideal couple—these -exquisite married lovers—and talking about Eden -and Arcadia.</p> - -<p>Vera smiled an enigmatic smile.</p> - -<p>Drifting apart! No, it was not drifting apart. It was -a cleft as wide and deep as one of those yawning chasms -on the Campagna, that the sportsmen boasted of jumping -with their Northamptonshire hunters.</p> - -<p>This was Vera's last day in Rome. They started on -the homeward journey next morning, but instead of -travelling with her husband by the Paris express, she took -it into her head to linger on the way. She stopped at -Pisa, she stopped at Porto Fino, she stopped at Genoa; -and last of all, she stopped at San Marco to look at Mario -Provana's grave.</p> - -<p>"I may never see Italy again," she said, when Susan -tried to dissuade her. "I have a presentiment that I -shall never see this dear land any more."</p> - -<p>"For my part I should not be sorry if I knew I was -never coming back to the villa," her husband answered. -"It is too big for a house to live in. It must soon fall -to the fate of other Roman palaces, and become one of -the sights of the city; to be shown for two lire a head to -Dr. Lunn and his fellow-travellers."</p> - -<p>Vera had her way. In this respect she and her husband -were essentially modern. They never interfered with -each other's caprices. He travelled by the Paris express, -and stayed at the Ritz just long enough to see the latest -impropriety at the Palais Royal, and it happened curiously -that Mrs. Bellenden was travelling by the same train on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> -the same day, stopping at the same hotel, attended by -a young lady who would have been faultless as a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dame de -compagnie</i> except for a chronic neuralgia, which often -compelled her to isolate herself in her hotel bedroom. -Vera went along the lovely coast with Susie, who declared -herself delighted to escape the monotony of the dinner-wagon, -and to see some of the most delicious spots in -Italy with her dearest Vee, to which monosyllable friendship -had reduced Vera's name. In an age that has substituted -the telegraph and the telephone for the art of -letter-writing, it is well that names should be reduced to -the minimum, and that our favourite politician should -be "Joe," our greatest general "Bobs," and our dearest -friend M. or N. rather than Margherita or Naomi.</p> - -<p>Vera showed Lady Susan all the things that were best -worth seeing in Genoa and the neighbourhood, and they -lingered at Porto Fino, and other lovely nooks along -that undulating coastline; garden villages dipping their -edges into the blue water, and flushed with the pink glory -of blossoming peach trees, raining light petals upon the -young grass. It was the loveliest season of the Italian -spring; and all along their way the world was glad with -flowers. They missed nothing but the birds that were -making grey old England glad before the flowers, but -which here had been sacrificed to the young Italian's -idea of sport.</p> - -<p>There was only one spot to which Vera went alone, -and that was Mario Provana's grave. Happily, Susan had -forgotten that he was buried at San Marco; and she -wondered that Vera should have arranged to break the -journey and stop a night at a place where there was absolutely -nothing to see.</p> - -<p>Certainly it was not very far from Genoa; but a slow -train and a headache made the journey seem an eternity -to the impatient Susan, and when San Marco came she -was very glad of her dinner and bed, and to have her -hair taken down, after it had been hurting her all the -way, and to no end, as she was utterly indifferent to the -opinion of a couple of natives, the provincial Italian -being no more to her than a red-skinned son of the Five -Nations or a New Zealander.</p> - -<p>Vera was able to spend an hour in the yew tree enclosure -in the morning freshness, between six and seven. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> -had telegraphed her order for a hundred white roses to -the San Marco florist the day before, and the flowers were -ready for her in a light, spacious basket, in the hall of -the hotel, when she came downstairs in the dim sunrise.</p> - -<p>"It is the last time," she said to herself, as she covered -the great marble slab with her roses, and stooped to lay -cold lips on the cold stone. "Giulia—Mario," she murmured -tenderly, with lingering lips.</p> - -<p>"I am not afraid," she said to herself. "I know that -he has forgiven me."</p> - -<p>Maid and footman and luggage went by the morning -train; and half an hour after Vera and her friend left -San Marco, in a carriage that was to take them to Ventimiglia. -By this means they had the drive in the morning -sunshine, and escaped the long wait at the frontier, only -entering the dismal station five minutes before their -train left Italy.</p> - -<p>They spent that night in Marseilles, where Susan -Amphlett insisted upon seeing the Cannebière by lamplight; -and they were in Paris on the following evening, -and in London the next day.</p> - -<p>"And now you are going to begin a splendid season," -said Susie, "in this dear old house. The rooms look -mere pigeon-holes after your Roman villa; but there's -no place like London. And I really think Claude is right. -The Villa Provana is much too big, and just a wee bit -eerie. It suggests ghosts, if one does not see them. One -of those sweet young Bersaglieri told me that your -husband's father made a man fight a duel to the death -with him in one of those weird upper rooms; and that -the stamping of their feet and the rattle of their rapiers -is heard at a quarter past two on every fifteenth of -November. When I heard the story I felt rather glad I -did not come to you till December. Aren't you pleased -to be home, Vera, in these cosy drawing-rooms?"</p> - -<p>Everything in life is a question of contrast, and after -the Villa Provana the drawing-room in Portland Place, -with its five long windows and perspective of other -drawing-rooms through a curtained archway, looked as -snug as a suburban parlour.</p> - -<p>"Aren't you glad to be home?" persisted Susan.</p> - -<p>"No, Susie. I would rather have spent the rest of my -life in Italy."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Oh, I suppose you prefer the climate. You are one -of those people who care about the state of the sky. I -don't. I like people, and shops, and theatres, and the -opera at Covent Garden. Milan or Naples may be the -proper place for music; but we get all the best singers. -Don't think me ungrateful, Vera. I revelled in Rome. -A place where one can go, from buying gloves and fans -in the Corso, to gloating over the circus where the Christian -martyrs fought with lions, must be full of charm for anybody -with a mind. Rome made a student of me. I read -two historical primers, and a novel of Marion Crawford's; -besides dipping into Augustus Hare's delightful books. -I haven't been so studious since I attended the Cambridge -extension lectures, with my poor old governess, who -used to amuse us by going to sleep, and giving herself -away by nodding. Her poor old bonnet used to waggle -till it made even the lecturer laugh."</p> - -<p>Susie went off to join Mr. Amphlett in Northamptonshire; -but she was to establish herself at the little house -in Green Street directly after Easter, and then she and -her dearest Vee must spend their lives together.</p> - -<p>Vera was not sorry to speed the parting guest. She -had had rather too much of Susie in that month of Rome; -for though she had lived her own life, in a great measure, -there was always the sense that Susie was there, and that -she ought to give more of her time to her friend.</p> - -<p>She had suffered one grief in coming to London, for on -landing at Dover she had to part with the Irish terrier, -who was led off by a famous dog-doctor's subordinate, -to spend six months in isolation, which was to be made as -pleasant to him as such imprisonment could be made to -an intelligent dog, warmly attached to a mistress who -had raised him from the canine to the human by her -companionship. Boroo was to pass six months in -quarantine before he could stretch himself on the prayer-rug -at his mistress's feet, and roll upon his back in an -ecstasy of contentment. Boroo might be made comfortable -in the retreat, as one of the favourites of fortune; but -Boroo would not be happy without his mistress, and the -first telephonic communication from the canine hotel -informed Mrs. Rutherford that her faithful friend had -refused food and was very restless. The functionary -who gave this information assured her that this was only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> -a passing phase in dog-life, and that the terrier would be -happier next day. And the account next day was comparatively -cheerful; the terrier had eaten a little sheep's -head and was livelier. Vera hated the law which deprived -her of the only friend who had comforted her in hours -of deepest dejection. The dog's welcome after every -parting, the dog's abounding love, had given a new zest -to life. Was there any other love left her now quite as -real as this? Her husband, her enthusiastic friend Susan, -all the train of affectionate aunts and cousins—the girl -cousins who came to her to relate their love affairs; the -baby cousins who kissed her when their nurses told them, -holding up cherry lips, and smiling with sweet blue eyes—three -generations of Disbrowes! Was there one among -them all whose love she could believe in as she could in -her Irish terrier?</p> - -<p>Six months without Boroo! It was a dreary time to -think of. Boroo was the only creature who could take -her mind away from herself and her life's history. He -had given her the beatitude of loving and being loved, -without romance—without passion—without looking before -or after: and, realising the difference this dumb creature -made, she could but think with melancholy longing of -what a child would have meant in her life.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>And now began the familiar round in the familiar house, -with the Disbrowes gathering strong as of old to help -and to suggest—to bring to Vera's parties the few great -people who had not yet discovered that a Mrs. Rutherford -whose wealth had come out of the City could be so -particularly attractive, or could give parties that had -always a touch of originality that made them worth one's -while. These mighty ones told each other that it was -the absence of conventionality that made Vera's house -so agreeable; while Lady Susan, still playing her part -of Chorus, told the mighty ones that it was because her -cousin was a poet's daughter, and made an atmosphere -of poetry round her.</p> - -<p>"Vera lives in a world of dreams," she said, "and we -are all dreamers, though the horrid everyday world comes -between us and our fairest visions. I think that's why -we love her."</p> - -<p>A Princess of the blood royal happened to meet Vera at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> -this time, and became one of her most ardent admirers, -lunching or dining in Portland Place at least once a week, -and visiting Mrs. Rutherford in her opera box. She had -heard of the Roman villa and the Roman parties.</p> - -<p>"I shall spend next January in Rome on purpose to see -more of you," she said, upon which Claude, who was -present, begged that her Royal Highness would make the -Villa Provana her home whenever she came to the Eternal -City; an invitation which her Royal Highness graciously -promised to remember.</p> - -<p>"My sweet girl, you are on the crest of the wave," -Lady Okehampton told her niece. "You were never so -much the fashion as this year. You ought to be proud of -your social success."</p> - -<p>"I wish I had my dog out of quarantine," was all Vera -said.</p> - -<p>"Get another dog—a Pekinese lion; ever so much -smarter than your rough brute."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The season wore through somehow in perpetual gaieties -which the wife hated, but which were essential to the -husband's well-being. He had all the racing world, and -never missed an important meeting; but when there was -no racing he wanted dinner-parties, or crowded evenings, -abroad or at home. Later there would be Cowes, where he -had a new yacht just out of the builder's yard, waiting -to beat every boat in the Channel.</p> - -<p>He did not often look at his wife's visiting list, being -content to give her the names of the men who were to be -asked to her dinners, taking it for granted that they would -be asked. Every evening party was more or less an -<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">omnium gatherum</i>; and about these he asked no questions—but -more than once, between March and June, he had -suggested that Mrs. Bellenden should be invited to dinner—to -some smallish semi-literary and artistic dinner—and -this suggestion being ignored, he had advised her being -included in one of the big dinner-parties, where the mighty -ones had been bidden to meet the royal Princess.</p> - -<p>"I don't think that would do," Vera answered coldly.</p> - -<p>"You forget that Mrs. Bellenden is one of the handsomest -women in London," Claude answered with some -touch of temper, "and that people like to meet a well-known -beauty."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I'm afraid Mrs. Bellenden is rather too well known. -You had better give a dinner at 'Claridge's' or the 'Ritz,' -Claude, and let Susan do hostess for you. Susie would -enjoy it."</p> - -<p>"I suppose it will come to that," said Claude. "I'll -take one of your Wagner nights—when I know you'll be -happy."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Lady Susan having warned her friend against the siren, -was not so disloyal as to play hostess at a Bohemian -dinner.</p> - -<p>"No, Claude," she said when the idea was mooted. "I -have never been prudish, but I draw the line at Mrs. -Bellenden."</p> - -<p>Her cousin shrugged his shoulders, and left the room -with a snatch of a French <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chanson</i>, which was his most -forcible expression of temper. The light tenor voice, the -gay French verse, harmonised with the nature in which -there were no depths.</p> - -<p>Goodwood was once more imminent, and Cowes was in -the near future, when Vera sent out cards for her last -evening party, which would be one of the last of the -season, on the eve of the exodus of smart London. The -Princess Hermione was to be at the party—and this royal -lady was like that more famous heroine of the nursery, -who rode her white horse to Banbury Cross in a musical -ride; for, like that famous lady, the Princess expected -to have music wherever she went, music, and of the best, -for the royal Hermione was a connoisseur, and herself -no mean performer on the violoncello. A famous baritone -and an equally famous mezzo-soprano were to sing during -the evening, in the inner drawing-room, not in a formal -way with programmes and rout seats, for people to be -packed in rows, to sit there from start to finish till, in our -elegant twentieth-century English, they were "fed up" -with squalling.</p> - -<p>Everything was to be informal; and the people who -did not want music would have space enough in the larger -rooms and on the staircase to babble and to flirt as they -chose; while that inner drawing-room would be, as it -were, a sanctuary for the elect, a temple of the god of -harmony.</p> - -<p>Vera stood at the door of the larger drawing-room<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> -receiving her guests, from ten to half-past, when the -Princess Hermione, who had just arrived, put her arm -through her hostess's and asked eagerly:</p> - -<p>"Did you get him?" Signor Pergolesi, the baritone, -understood.</p> - -<p>"Yes, ma'am, he is in the little drawing-room with -Madame Rondolana, waiting to sing to you!"</p> - -<p>"Take me there this moment, Vera!" and hooked by -the royal arm in a crumpled glove, Vera led the Princess -and her lady-in-waiting through the babbling crowd to -the sanctuary where the elect were beginning to bore each -other while they waited for the first song.</p> - -<p>Herr Mainz was at the piano ready to accompany the -two singers whose engagement he had negotiated. At all -concerts of this clever gentleman's arranging it seemed to -some people as if the artists were puppets, and that he -pulled the string that set them going all through the performance. -To-night, however, there was to be less string-pulling -and more <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">sans façon</i>, or rather it was Princess -Hermione who was to pull the string.</p> - -<p>She certainly lost no time in telling Madame Rondolana -what she wanted her to sing, and she kept that brilliant -vocalist rolling out song after song in the rich abundance -of a mezzo-soprano that nothing could tire. She sang -song after song, at the Princess's nod; Italian, German, -Swedish, nay, even English, with an ease that testified to -power without limit. The baritone looked and listened -with languid interest, not offended, for he knew that his -turn would come, and that when once the Princess started -him she would never let him leave off. He sat near the -piano in an easy attitude; not listening, but turning his -thoughts inward, and making up his mind as to what songs -he would sing. Wagner? Yes. Bizet? Yes, but in -any case "Die beiden Grenadiere" as a finish—and then -those massive folding doors, that were shutting out the -babblers, should be flung wide open, and he would sing -to the whole of the company. <em>He</em> could stop their talking—those -two grenadiers were infallible.</p> - -<p>"Viz dat song I alvays knock zaim in ze Ole Ken' Road," -he used to tell his friends.</p> - -<p>At eleven o'clock there came a kind of subtle sense of -something wanting, even beyond that exquisite music; -and Lady Okehampton whispered to her niece that it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> -time the Princess went to supper, and that Claude must -take her downstairs. Vera went in search of him. The -crowd in the biggest drawing-room had thinned, and she -was able to look for her husband—but without success; -and she went through the other rooms to the spacious -landing, in which direction most people were drifting, and -there she met a perturbed spirit in the form of Susan -Amphlett.</p> - -<p>"What's the matter, Susie? Is there anything -wrong?"</p> - -<p>"Wrong!" cried Susie. "I call it simply disgusting. -How could you be such a fool?"</p> - -<p>"What have I done?"</p> - -<p>"To ask that horrid woman, and with your Princess for -the guest of the evening! She ain't prudish; but I -fancy she'll think it a bit steep to find herself rubbing -shoulders with Mrs. Bellenden."</p> - -<p>"I have not invited Mrs. Bellenden."</p> - -<p>"Someone else has, then. Or else she has come like the -lady at Cannes, <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">invitée ou non</i>."</p> - -<p>"Is Mrs. Bellenden here?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, in the supper-room, in a mob of admirers. Claude -took her down to supper."</p> - -<p>"That's rather tiresome," Vera answered quietly, "for -he ought to take the Princess, and I can't keep her waiting. -Do be kind, Susie, and go and tell him he must come to the -music-room this minute. The Princess ought to have -gone down before anybody, and now you say there's a -mob."</p> - -<p>"A perfect bear-garden of greedy beasts. I don't -believe there'll be an ortolan left by the time she comes. -Anyhow, I'll make it hot for Claude!" and Susie hurried -off, elbowing a desperate way through the crowd on the -stairs. "Mon dieu, quel four!" she muttered.</p> - -<p>Vera went back to the sanctuary, impounding her uncle -Okehampton on the way, in case she found the friendly -Hermione indisposed to wait for her host.</p> - -<p>She found her Princess with a dark and angry brow, -standing near the door, whispering to her attendant lady. -She had the look of a Princess who had been "almost -waiting," and who did not like the sensation. She heard -that Mr. Rutherford was making his way through the crowd -to attend upon her, with an air of supreme indifference.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Lord Okehampton is one of my old friends," she said, -and took his offered arm without looking at Vera. "Mr. -Rutherford can bring Pauline," she said, as they moved -away.</p> - -<p>Pauline was the lady-in-waiting, a colourless spinster of -seven-and-thirty, who loved everything the Princess loved, -and hated everything she hated, and who dressed like the -Princess, only much worse.</p> - -<p>Lord Okehampton made himself vastly agreeable, and -the mob, seeing the royal brow under the tiara, made way -for the couple, and there was a table found for the royal -lady in an agreeable position, and there were ortolans and -peaches without stint; but when Claude came presently -with the Honourable Pauline he received a snub so unmistakable -that he was glad to carry his Honourable companion -to the remotest corner of the room, where he gave -her a sumptuous supper, and had the consolation of her -sympathy.</p> - -<p>"The Princess has a heart of gold," she told him, "but -her temper is dreadful sometimes, and life is rather difficult -with her."</p> - -<p>"Not quite a bed of roses," said Claude.</p> - -<p>"It would be ungrateful of me to call it a bed of stinging-nettles," -said Pauline, "because as there are five of us at -home, all unmarried, I have to do something; and the -Princess is wonderfully kind, and then she is so clever and -accomplished. She does everything well; but music is -her passion."</p> - -<p>"That's how I made my mistake," said Claude. "I -thought her enjoyment of her own particular baritone -would have lasted longer, and that I should have been in -attendance before she was inclined to move."</p> - -<p>"The Princess has a good appetite," said Pauline, discussing -her fourth ortolan, "and one really does get very -hungry at an evening party. Music is so exhausting. I -hope that dear Pergolesi and Madame Rondolana are -having something."</p> - -<p>"Our good friend Mainz will take care of that."</p> - -<p>"Apropos," said Pauline. "There is a lady here I am -rather curious about. We passed her on the stairs. Mrs. -Bellenden. Gloriously handsome, and all that; but -frankly, Mr. Rutherford, I was just a wee, wee bit surprised -to see her in your wife's house, especially to meet the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> -Princess. I hardly like to speak of such things; but has -she not been just a little talked about lately? Of course, I -know she went everywhere two years ago; but just lately -people have said things; and one has not run against her -at the best houses."</p> - -<p>"Of course she has been talked about," answered Claude, -with his frank laugh. "Meteors are talked about. A -woman so exceptionally beautiful is like Halley's Comet. -People are sure to talk about her; and the ill-natured -talkers will make scandal about her. Poor Mrs. Bellenden! -Quite a harmless person, I assure you; open-hearted, -generous, impulsive—a trifle imprudent, perhaps, as -these impulsive women always are."</p> - -<p>The lady-in-waiting had supped too well to be ill-natured.</p> - -<p>"I am so glad you have told me. I shall tell the Princess -that there is no foundation for any of the stories we have -heard about poor Mrs. Bellenden," she said, as they left -the supper-room.</p> - -<p>The sanctuary was full of people when Lord Okehampton -took the Princess back, after a leisurely supper, during -which they had talked over old friends and things that had -happened a dozen years ago, when Okehampton was Master -of the Horse. The Princess had recovered her temper, and -was ready to enjoy her favourite Pergolesi; but Vera, who -had not left the music-room, looked white and weary; and -the kindly Hermione chid her for not having followed her -to the supper-room. All the best people were now -gathered in the inner drawing-room; some for the Princess, -and some for the baritone; and only the royal chair was -vacant when the royal lady reappeared. Pergolesi -chuckled at the thought that Rondolana had lavished her -octave and a half of perfection on the chosen few; while -he had all the finest tiaras, and the largest display of -shoulders and diamonds for his audience.</p> - -<p>Hermione beckoned him to her side, and they discussed -what songs he should sing; she ordering, but he making -her order what he wanted and had made up his mind -about.</p> - -<p>"I should like to finish viz 'Die beiden Grenadiere,'" he -said in his broken English. "I think it is one of your -favourites, ma'am?"</p> - -<p>"Je l'adore."</p> - -<p>Song after song was received with enthusiasm. Herr<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> -Mainz played a brilliant "Mazourka de Salon," while the -baritone rested and whispered with the Princess, and when -the silvery chimes of an Italian eight-day clock announced -midnight, the great doors were thrown open and Pergolesi -hurled his splendid voice upon the crowd in the -outer room.</p> - -<p>A phrase or two, and the babble of three hundred voices -had become silence; and when the song was done the -crowd melted away, still in comparative stillness, while -Vera stood on the landing to see them pass, as if she were -holding a review. No one wanted to begin talking after -that stupendous song. People had stayed later than they -intended, till it was too late to go on to other, and perhaps -better, houses. The Princess had gone out by a second -staircase, which had been kept clear for her, with Pergolesi -and Okehampton to escort her downstairs, and Claude -Rutherford to put her into her carriage. She went off in -a charming mood, but could not refrain from a stab at the -last.</p> - -<p>"Your wife's party has been perfect," she said, "but -the company just a little mixed. I suspect you of having -introduced the Bohemian element, in the shape of that -handsome lady whom everybody has been talking about."</p> - -<p>There were lingerers after that, and the party was not -over till one o'clock. The last guest strolled into the pale -grey night as Big Ben tolled the first hour of day. Claude -followed his wife up the broad staircase, where the heated -atmosphere was heavy with the scent of arum lilies, and -the daturas that hung their white bells in all the corners. -She was moving slowly, tired and languid after the long -evening, and she never looked back. He followed her to -the door of her room; but she stopped upon the threshold, -turned and faced him, ashy pale in her white gown, like a -ghost.</p> - -<p>"Good-bye," she said, with a face of stone.</p> - -<p>"Vera, for God's sake! What's the matter?"</p> - -<p>"Good-bye," she repeated, and, as he moved towards -her, she drew back suddenly, so quickly that he was unprepared -for the movement, and shut the door in his face.</p> - -<p>He heard the key turning in the lock, shrugged his -shoulders, and walked slowly along the gallery to his -own room, not the room that had been Mario Provana's -dressing-room.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Some ass has been telling her things," he muttered to -himself.</p> - -<p>And then he thought of Mrs. Bellenden's appearance that -night, in a gown of gold tissue, and a diamond tiara. She -had been too insolently splendid in her overweening beauty, -too tremendous, too suggestive of Cleopatra at Actium, a -woman who lived upon the ruin of men.</p> - -<p>What wife, who cared for her husband, could help being -angry if she saw him near such a creature?</p> - -<p>And he had been near her all the night. He had -whispered with her in corners, hung over her perfumed -shoulders, followed her close as her shadow, sat with her -in a nest of tropical flowers in the balcony, instead of -moving about among his guests.</p> - -<p>He had taken her down to the supper-room, first among -the first, neglecting duchesses and a princess of the blood -royal for her sake. No doubt that malicious little wretch -Susan Amphlett had been watching him, and had reported -all his misdoings to Vera.</p> - -<p>"What does it matter?" he said to himself. "My life -was growing unbearable. The gloom was closing round me -like a funeral pall. Kate was my only refuge. I have never -been in love with her; but she stops me from thinking."</p> - -<p>That was the secret. Mrs. Bellenden had been his -Nepenthe, when the common round of pleasures had lost -their power to make him forget.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Bellenden was like strong drink, like opium or -hashish. She killed thought. She filled the vacant spaces -in his life—the Stygian swamps where black thoughts -wandered in space, like angry devils. Her exactions, her -quarrels, their partings and reunions, the agitations and -turmoil of her existence, had filled his life. When he -banged the hall door of the bijou house in Brown Street -behind him after one of their stormy farewells he knew -that he would go back to her in a week. He tramped -the adjacent Park across and across, along and along, -in a fury, and thanked God that he had done with "that -harpy"; but he knew that he would have to go back to -the harpy, to be reconciled again, with oaths and kisses and -tears, and to quarrel again, and to obey her orders, and -go here or there as she made him. The most degrading -slavery to a wicked woman was better than the great -silent house and the horror that inhabited it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p> - -<p>His wife had her consolations, nay, even her hysterical -delights. She could shut herself in her white temple with -the spirits of her worshipped dead. She heard voices. -Death now hardly counted with her, neither Death nor -Time. Saint Francis of Assisi was as near her as Robert -Browning. Shakespeare was no more remote than Henry -Irving. She was mad.</p> - -<p>The emptiness, the silence, the gloom, were killing him. -If there had been children, all might have been different. -The past would have been forgotten in those new and -forward-looking lives. His sons and daughters would not -have let him remember past things. And Vera would not -have had time for morbid thoughts, for nursing dark -memories. Her children would have made her forget.</p> - -<p>He had some kind of explanation with her on the day -after the party, and made some feeble kind of apology. -But she was cold and dumb; she expressed no anger, -neither complained nor reproached him; she shed no -tears. She stood before him in her white silence, still -beautiful, but with a pale, unearthly beauty that chilled -his heart. All the force of the old love swept back upon -him; and his heart ached with a passion of pity and regret. -He seized her by the shoulders—so frail, so wasted, since -last year—and looked at her with despairing eyes. "Vera, -you are killing yourself by inches. What can I do? -What can I do for you? Shall we go away? Ever so -far away? to new worlds—to places where the stupendous -phenomena of Nature, and the things that men have made, -will take us out of ourselves? There are things in this -world so tremendous that they can kill thought. The -Zambesi, the Aztec cities of Mexico, the great Wall of -China."</p> - -<p>"You are very good," she answered, coldly but not -unkindly—rather with a weary indifference, as of a soul too -tired to feel or think. "I am quite contented here. My -life in this house suits me as well as any life could."</p> - -<p>"In this house?" he cried.</p> - -<p>"Yes, in this house. I am not alone here. But I don't -want to keep you here if the house makes you unhappy. -You had better go away, Claude; go anywhere you like, -as you like. I shall not complain."</p> - -<p>"Are you giving me a letter of license?" he asked, with -a harsh laugh. "Is your love quite dead?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Everything is dead," she answered.</p> - -<p>He could get no more from her, and he left her in anger.</p> - -<p>"You had better divorce me and marry Francis -Symeon," he said, "and cultivate spookism together."</p> - -<p>The natural sequel to a scene like that was a little dinner -at Claridge's with Mrs. Bellenden, and an evening at the -silliest musical comedy to be seen and heard in London.</p> - -<p>His wife had given him a letter of license. She had -ceased to love him. He made himself so disagreeable to -Mrs. Bellenden by dinner-time that the meal was eaten in -sullen silence; and the Magnum of Veuve Pommeroy was -hardly enough for two, for when Mrs. Bellenden was in a -rage her glass had to be filled very often, and the waiters at -the smart hotels knew her ways. The waiters worshipped -her. "She tips as handsome as she tipples," had been said -of her by one of them.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Everything was dead. That had been Vera's answer -when Claude asked despairingly if love was dead. The -words were in her mind now as she stood alone in the -room where her poets, and her actors, and her philosophers, -looked at her from the white walls, and where the sound -of the great hall door closing heavily as her husband shut -it behind him was still in her ears.</p> - -<p>Had he gone for ever? Was it indeed the end? Could -love that had begun in ecstasy close in this grey calm? -She felt neither sorrow nor anger. Everything was dead. -She stood among the ruins of her life, feeling as a child -might feel when the house she has built of cards shatters -suddenly and falls at her feet. Everything was over. She -had no thought of building another house; no desire to -patch up a broken life and begin again. Perhaps her -husband loved her still, and it was the gloom of this -haunted house that had driven him to seek distraction -in a baser love. It was her fault, perhaps, and she ought -to be sorry for him. Poor Claude! She remembered his -gaiety. The airy mockery that had enchanted her, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> -quick wit that had struck fire and light out of dull things. -She remembered the joyous nature, the light laughter, the -inexhaustible energy which made difficult things—in the -way of sport—seem easy. Yes, they had been happy, -utterly happy in the life of the moment, shutting out every -thought that was irksome, every memory that hurt. And -it was all over and dead, and she had nothing left but the -shadows in this room, the dead faces, the words of those -who were not. That scriptural phrase had always moved -her. "He was not."</p> - -<p>Her afternoons in Mr. Symeon's library had been all she -had cared for in the season that was ending. She had gone -wherever her husband asked her to go, and had given the -entertainments he wanted her to give; but through all -that brilliant summer she had gone about like "a corpse -alive." That dreary simile had been in her mind sometimes -when she thought of herself, sitting in her victoria, -dressed as only the well-bred English woman with unlimited -money can be dressed, lovely in her fragile fairness, -admired and talked about. She had gone about, and held -her own, in a quiet way, among crowds of clever men and -women, and her life had seemed to her like the end of a long -dream. Her only vital interest had been in the voices -she heard in Francis Symeon's shadowy room. Those -voices were of living men and women; but the words were -the words of the dead.</p> - -<p>She was not utterly unhappy. The past was past, and -she had left off grieving over it, for now she had a transcendent -hope in the near future—the hope of death. She -would soon have passed the river that they had passed, -Giulia and her father. The gate through which they had -gone to a higher stage in the upward path of life would -open for her; and no matter by what slow ascent, no -matter with what feeble steps, she would climb the mountain -up which they had gone, those emancipated spirits.</p> - -<p>She had known for a long time that she was marked for -death. She had no specific ailment, but in this last season -she had felt her vanishing life, felt the painless ebb of -vitality, and had measured, by a flight of stairs, by a -pathway in the Park, where she walked sometimes in the -early morning, the waning strength of limbs and heart. -The dreadful sleeplessness of the first year of her widowhood -had returned; and her nights were almost entirely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> -spent in thought and reading, her brain never resting, -her heart seldom quiet.</p> - -<p>Although she looked forward to death as release, she -could not escape the boredom of medical treatment. Lady -Okehampton, whose daughters were all married, and -wanted nothing from parental affection—except to be -allowed to go their own way, and not to be obliged to -invite Mummy to their choicest parties—devoted herself -more and more to her favourite niece, who wasn't actually -her niece, but only a first cousin once removed. Since, -in those last days at Disbrowe, she had seen the mark of -death on Vera's pale forehead, Aunt Mildred, who was -really a warm-hearted woman, had interested herself -keenly in the vanishing life, and had made unremitting -efforts to combat the enemy.</p> - -<p>"She has simply wasted her life since her second -marriage," she said. "She has wasted her life as recklessly -as Claude has wasted her money; but she shan't die -without my making an effort to save her, even if I have to -take every specialist in London to Portland Place."</p> - -<p>"You'd better take her to the specialists," said his -lordship. "It would save your time and her money."</p> - -<p>"As if money mattered!"</p> - -<p>"You could telephone for appointments, and do the -whole of Grosvenor Street and Savile Row in a morning, -with a good taxi."</p> - -<p>"A taxi—when my niece has two superb Daimlers—no. -By the by, the last Claude showed me is an S.C.A.T."</p> - -<p>"Poor Provana!" sighed Okehampton. "To think -that nothing could induce him to buy a motor car, although -he was a man to whom moments are money. It was one -of his few eccentricities to worship his horses."</p> - -<p>"He might have been here now if he had not been quite -so fussy about his horses," sighed her ladyship.</p> - -<p>"What do you mean?"</p> - -<p>"He might not have used the door between the house -and the stables—the door by which he and his murderer -came into the house on that awful night."</p> - -<p>"True," assented her husband, "it was an infernally -unlucky door, and I suppose if poor little Vera dies they'll -carry her out that way to be cremated."</p> - -<p>"Okehampton, you are too bad! Whoever said she -was to be cremated?"</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Nobody. But it's the modern way, isn't it? And, of -course, everything would be up-to-date."</p> - -<p>"How can you be so heartless, and how can you use -that odious expression 'up-to-date'?"</p> - -<p>"Well, I hope the poor girl will be warned in time, and -live to make old bones; but she didn't look like it -at her last party. You'd better give her husband a -good wigging. It will be more useful than calling in the -specialists."</p> - -<p>"I am utterly disgusted with Claude. He is throwing -her money out of windows, and behaving atrociously into -the bargain."</p> - -<p>"I suppose you mean Mrs. Bellenden. Well, my dear, -that was bound to come. Vera has been too much in the -clouds for the last year. From what Susan Amphlett told -me of her way of life in Rome, she was bound to lose her -husband. No man can stomach neglect from a wife; -unless all the other women neglect him. And Claude -Rutherford is not a negligible quantity."</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton had tried her hand upon her young -kinsman before this colloquy with her lord, and had -found him hopeless. He turned the point of her lectures -with a jest. He was light as vanity. He protested that -his wife was alone to blame. He adored her, and thought -no other woman upon this planet her equal in charm and -beauty; but since she had taken up with Symeon and his -spooks, she had surrounded herself with an atmosphere -of sadness that would send the most devoted husband to -the primrose path, in sheer revolt against the gloom of his -home.</p> - -<p>"We are poor creatures," he said, "and we have to be -amused."</p> - -<p>Once only in the course of numerous "wiggings" did -Claude show anything like strong feeling, and then emotion -came in a tempest that scared his mild kinswoman.</p> - -<p>She had talked to him about his wife's health.</p> - -<p>"Vera is absolutely wasting away," she said. "Something -must be done, or she will not live till the end of the -year."</p> - -<p>"No, no, no," he cried. "My God, what do you mean? -Is that to be the end? Is death to take her from me and -leave me in this black world alone? You have no right -to say such a thing! By what authority? Who has told<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> -you that she is in failing health? I see her every day. -She never complains."</p> - -<p>"You must be blind if you don't see the change in her."</p> - -<p>"I don't believe there is anything seriously wrong. -She is as lovely as ever. No, I don't believe it. You are -cruel to come here and frighten me. She is all I have in -the world, all, all! Do you understand?" His head -drooped suddenly upon the table by which he was sitting, -and she heard his hoarse sobs tearing his throat and chest, -and saw his long, thin fingers writhing among his hair, -the boyish auburn hair with a glint of gold in it that -foolish women had praised.</p> - -<p>"There is no need for despair, Claude. I only wanted -to awaken you to the seriousness of the case. We shall -save her, in spite of herself. I see you are still fond of her, -and yet——"</p> - -<p>"And yet I have been a brute, a senseless, idiotic beast. -But that's all over, Lady Okehampton. Love her! I -would lie outside her door, like that dog of hers, all through -the long night only to get a smile and a touch of her hand -in the morning. Love her! I loved her for five patient -years, loved her passionately, and kept myself in check, -and behaved like an elder brother. I, the man no woman -could trust. Love her! The picture of her childish -prettiness at Disbrowe was in my memory when I was -going to the devil at Simla. You don't know what men -are made of. You only know the model English gentleman, -like your husband."</p> - -<p>"Okehampton has never given me any trouble, except -in his young days, when he used to ride dangerous horses. -I know I have been exceptionally fortunate in my husband; -and, of course, I know that modern husbands and wives are -utterly unlike us; but I must say that your behaviour -at your wife's last party was inexcusable. The dear -Princess was sadly huffed; and I doubt if Vera will ever -get her to her house again."</p> - -<p>"I don't think Vera will try."</p> - -<p>"But she ought to try. The Princess Hermione has -been perfectly sweet about her."</p> - -<p>"Vera doesn't care. That's her worst symptom, that I -know of. She has left off caring about things."</p> - -<p>"And that is a very bad symptom," said Lady Okehampton. -"When Chagford's wife showed signs of it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> -I bundled her off to a nursing home for six weeks, and she -came out of it just in time for Ascot, and as keen as mustard, -as Chagford said in his vulgar way. She had been -dieted, and massaged, and not allowed to see anyone but -her nurses; and she was quite cured of not caring. She -romped with her children, and ate jam pudding like one -of them."</p> - -<p>"Ah, you see there were children," sighed Claude. -"There was something for her to come back to."</p> - -<p>"Vera and you ought to have had a family. It is very -disappointing," said Aunt Mildred, and the tone implied -that when she said "disappointing" she meant "reprehensible."</p> - -<p>"Never mind," she went on presently, in a more hopeful -tone, "don't be down-hearted, Claude. If doctors can -cure her, she shall be another woman before the end of the -year."</p> - -<p>"You love doctors much better than I do," said Claude, -grasping her hands. "Find the man who can cure her -and I will worship him."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>After this Vera entered upon a wide acquaintance with -the fashionable specialists: the man who was invincible -in treatment of lung trouble; the only authority upon -cardiac disorders; the man who knew more about the -nervous system than any other physician in Europe; the -man who had given his life to the study of the digestive -organs; the hypnotic doctor, and the mesmerist; and -finally, as a condescension, the all-round or common-sense -man who might be consulted about anything, and sometimes, -as it were by rule of thumb, succeeded where the -specialists had failed.</p> - -<p>These gentlemen came to Portland Place at irregular -intervals through the month of August, Vera resolutely -refusing to leave London in that impossible month, -and Lady Okehampton again sacrificing her annual -cure to the care of her niece, as she had done in the year -of Mario Provana's unhappy death.</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton having made this sacrifice, almost -the greatest which a woman of her age and position could -make, naturally allowed herself some slight compensation -in fussiness. She talked about her niece's health to boring -point with her familiar friends, with the result of booking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> -the name and address of some infallible specialist, hitherto -unknown to her; and this accounted for the spasmodic -appearance of a new consultant once or twice a week, -in Vera's morning-room, all through that impossible -month, in which the doctors themselves were panting -for escape from London, to shoot grouse in Scotland, or -do their own cures in Bohemia, after a season of hard -dining. Vera was curiously submissive to these frequent -ordeals. She answered any questions that the great man -asked her; but she never volunteered information about -herself, and she always made light of her ailments. The -admission of a little worrying cough that was at its worst -at night, a slight palpitation of the heart after going -upstairs, was all that could be obtained from her by the -most subtle questionings; but lungs and heart told their -own story, without words.</p> - -<p>She smiled when the nerve specialist asked her if she -slept well, and again when he suggested certain harmless -opiates which would ensure beneficent slumber. She had -taken them all. She had exhausted Susan Amphlett's -pharmacopœia, which contained all these specifics, and -others not so harmless.</p> - -<p>When one physician after another—for on this they were -all agreed—told her that she ought not to be in London in -this sultry, depressing weather, while each advised his pet -health resort, she smiled sweetly, and said she meant to -remain in London till November, when she would go back -to Rome.</p> - -<p>"I am fond of this house," she said, "and the London -air suits me."</p> - -<p>"London air is very good air," answered Dr. Selwyn -Tower, who understood her better than the various new -lights, "but not in August and September. If you are -to be in Rome in November, why not spend the interval -in Italy, at Varese, for instance, a charming spot, with -every advantage?"</p> - -<p>No. Vera was not to be persuaded.</p> - -<p>"I like the quiet of this home after the season. All I -want is rest and silence," she said, and Dr. Selwyn Tower -shot a despairing glance at Lady Okehampton.</p> - -<p>"Your niece is absolutely charming; but as obstinate -as a mule," he told her, when they had their conference -in one of the drawing-rooms. All the doors and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">portières</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> -were open, and the doctor looked at the long vista of -splendid emptiness with a faint shudder.</p> - -<p>"It is a fine house, but a little depressing," he murmured.</p> - -<p>"I call it positively uncanny; but that is all in my -niece's line. She is dreadfully morbid. I am glad there -was no occultism or Christian Science when I was young."</p> - -<p>At these words Christian Science the famous consultant -shuddered worse than at sight of the empty rooms.</p> - -<p>"If your sweet niece is <em>that</em> way inclined we can do -nothing for her," he said.</p> - -<p>"No, thank Heaven, that is not one of her fads."</p> - -<p>And then the fashionable physician gave his opinion of -the case, or just so much of his opinion as he thought -it good to give to an affectionate but not over wise aunt.</p> - -<p>He found that the patient's strength was at a very low -ebb. She had been wasting her resources, living upon -her capital, refusing herself the rest that was essential -for so fragile a form, so sensitive a temperament, and so -over-active a brain. Lady Okehampton had told him of -the gaieties, the rush from place to place, from amusement -to amusement, the everlasting entertaining and being -entertained; and he talked as if he had been there, watching -and taking notes, all through that wild career. He -was not going to extinguish hope; so he kept up a cheerful -tone throughout the conference. There was nothing -heroic in the treatment required. Rest, and a soothing -regimen. Not much walking, but a great deal of fresh air, -Drives in her open carriage to rural suburbs, if she should -insist on remaining in London; a little quiet society; -the utmost care as to diet, and constant medical supervision. -He would be glad to confer with Mrs. Rutherford's -regular medical man before he left London; and he hoped, -on his return in three or four weeks, to find a marked -improvement.</p> - -<p>This was all. When questioned as to lung trouble, he -said that there was trouble, but he saw no fatal indications. -Yes, there was heart weakness; but nothing that might -not be modified by care.</p> - -<p>Simple as she was, Lady Okehampton did not feel -altogether assured by all this bland talk, and the sound -of the doctor's carriage wheels, as they rolled away from -the door, recalled the moaning of the winter waves under -the red cliffs at Disbrowe.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span></p> - -<p>She repeated the specialist's diplomatic utterances to -Claude, who did not seem to attach much importance to -medical opinion.</p> - -<p>"All doctors talk alike," he said. "I don't think Vera's -is a case for the faculty. You remember what Macbeth -said to his physician?"</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton did not remember; but she gave a -sigh of assent that answered as well.</p> - -<p>"I'm afraid Vera's is a rooted sorrow, and, God help -me! <em>I</em> cannot pluck it from her memory. We had better -leave her alone. We can do nothing more for her. We -can't make her happy."</p> - -<p>"Claude, this is too dreadful. Are we to let her die?" -cried Aunt Mildred, with something like an elderly -shriek.</p> - -<p>"Is death so great an evil? At least it means rest, and -there are some of us who can get rest no other way."</p> - -<p>"Claude, it is positively dreadful to hear you talk like -that, as if you cared for nothing in this life."</p> - -<p>"I don't."</p> - -<p>And then Lady Okehampton took him in hand severely, -and talked to him as a good woman, but as a Philistine of -the Philistines, would naturally talk on such an occasion; -and after remonstrating with him for his want of religious -feeling, and even proper affection, went on to reproaching -him for spending his wife's money, squandering her -magnificent fortune with a reckless wastefulness that -might end in reducing her to beggary.</p> - -<p>"No fear of that, Aunt Mildred. No doubt I have -thrown money out of windows. Money has never been a -serious consideration with Vera and me. We should -have been quite as happy when we started on our Venetian -honeymoon if we had had only just enough to pay for our -tourists' tickets and our gondola, just enough for the -gondola and a cheap hotel. Money could buy us nothing -that we cared for. Later, when I knew what her income -was, I spent with a free hand; but there's a good deal of -spending in a hundred thousand a year——"</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton shivered, and stirred in her seat -uneasily. That colossal income, and nothing done for -the needy members of her husband's illustrious house!</p> - -<p>"I wanted to amuse myself and to amuse my wife, and -amusements are costly nowadays; so the money has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> -run out pretty fast, but there has always been a handsome -surplus. I see Mr. Zabulon, the banker, one of my wife's -trustees, two or three times a year, and he has never -complained. Vera's charities are immense; so there is -really nothing for you to moan about, Lady Okehampton."</p> - -<p>"Nothing," cried Vera's aunt, with uplifted hands. -"Was there ever anyone so feather-headed, so feckless? -Can you forget that when your wife dies her fortune dies -with her?"</p> - -<p>"No. But when she dies, I shall have done with all that -money can buy. I shall be able to pension the old stable -hands, and provide for my dogs, out of my fifteen hundred -a year; and I can give my trainer half a dozen cracks -that will make him comfortable for life."</p> - -<p>"You are very considerate about your stable and -kennels. I wonder if you have ever considered Vera's -obligations to those who come after her."</p> - -<p>"If you mean the Roman cater-cousins I certainly -have not."</p> - -<p>"Provana's heirs? Why, of course not! They will be -inordinately rich when that splendid fortune is chopped -up among them. No, Claude, if you had a proper family -feeling, which to my mind is an essential element in the -Christian life, you would have thought of our herd of -poor relations. Nicholas Disbrowe, dying by inches in an -East Anglian Vicarage, and not daring to winter in the -South, for want of means; or poor Lady Rosalba, who is -no better off than Vera's grandmother, and doesn't make -half as good a fight as poor Lady Felicia did; or Mary -Disbrowe Jones, who married so wretchedly, and is selling -blouses in a shabby street in Pimlico——"</p> - -<p>"I think Vera has done a lot for all of 'em. I know -she sent the Reverend Nicholas a thousand pounds last -winter, when his wife wrote her a doleful letter; and she -gave her blouse-making cousin two hundred and fifty -pounds last week, to save her from bankruptcy. Consider -them, forsooth! Do you suppose they don't ask to be -considered? Every man jack of them, down to the -remotest connection by marriage. They are as eloquent -with the pen as professional begging-letter writers. They -blister their papers with tears. And Vera never refuses. -She does not know how."</p> - -<p>"Oh, I know she is generous. A thousand to that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> -worthy man in the Fens was handsome; but that kind -of casual help won't provide for the future; and when -our poor dear is gone there will be nothing. May that sad -day be long, long off; but in the meantime she ought to -invest her surplus income, and leave it to those who want -it most and would use it best. You may be sure I have -no personal feeling; but the best of us are not too well -off, and if there should come the general election that we -are threatened with, I doubt if Chagford will be able to -stand for North Devon. The ballot has made bribery -more audacious and more expensive than ever. I am -told three half crowns is the least the wretches will take. -They will ride a candidate's motor to death, and then -go and vote for his opponent."</p> - -<p>"Let Chagford talk to my wife, if there's a dissolution," -said Claude, with a half-smothered yawn that expressed -weariness and disgust.</p> - -<p>"Vera is always kind," sighed Lady Okehampton -dolefully; but she refrained from suggesting that, when -the dissolution came, Vera might not be there.</p> - -<p>This was Aunt Mildred's last attack upon Claude Rutherford. -He took matters into his own hands after this, -and no longer depended upon accounts of his wife's health -at second hand. He took all information upon that -subject from Dr. Selwyn Tower, who had a great reputation -at that period, and whom he was inclined to trust.</p> - -<p>The physician was more frank with the husband than -he had been with the aunt, though even yet he said -nothing to extinguish hope. He told Mr. Rutherford -that it would have been better for his wife to winter in -the South, or by way of experiment to try a short winter -in the Engadine, coming down to Ragaz before the snow -melted; but as the dear lady seemed strangely bent upon -staying in her own house, it would be safer to indulge -her fancy. Lungs and heart were only a question of weakness. -The mind was of serious consequence; and everything -must be done to check the tendency to melancholia.</p> - -<p>"If we can make her happy, we shall be able to deal -with the lung trouble," said the physician. "Open air -and good spirits might work a miracle."</p> - -<p>Dr. Tower naturally inquired as to parental history, -and was somewhat disheartened on hearing that the dear -lady's father and mother had died young, the former of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> -galloping consumption, during an open-air cure; yet even -this did not induce him to pronounce sentence of death. -Nor did he allow Mrs. Rutherford to suppose herself a -desperate case, though he insisted on having a trained -nurse, and of the best, in attendance upon his patient, -as well as the maid Louison.</p> - -<p>The French girl might be all that Mrs. Rutherford could -require, he admitted, when Vera told him she wanted -no one else.</p> - -<p>"But you must allow me what I want," pleaded Dr. -Tower with his most ingratiating air. "My treatment -is of the mildest—nothing heroic or troublesome about -it—but I must be sure that it is followed. I must have -someone about you who is responsible to <em>me</em>. My nurse -shall not be allowed to bore you. If she is intrusive or -disagreeable to you, you can telephone to me; and she -shall be superseded within the hour."</p> - -<p>Vera submitted. Her indifference to most things, even -to those that concerned herself, was one of her symptoms -which made Dr. Tower uneasy.</p> - -<p>"This woman will never help to cure herself," he -thought, as he drove away, with that far-off look in Vera's -face impressed upon his mind. "She does not want to -get well. She is not absolutely unhappy—only indifferent. -Something must have gone wrong in her life. Yet her -husband does not seem a bad sort."</p> - -<p>She was not unhappy. She had been allowed to take -her own way, and to live as she wished to live—in the -silence and peace of the spacious house, where the business -of entertaining seemed to be at an end for ever. Whatever -had been amiss in the life that was ebbing away seemed -hardly to matter, now that she was drawing near the other -life. Her husband came and went, and spend a good deal -of his time in her room, talking with her, or reading to her, -when she was too tired to talk. There had been nothing -said of his offence against her; no utterance of that other -woman's name. They were friends again, and could -talk of the things that they loved—literature, music, art; -of Henry Irving's Hamlet; of Millais and Browning, -both of whom she had seen at Aunt Mildred's house in her -childhood, and whose faces she remembered; of books -new and old. They were as friendly and sympathetic -as they had been in Mario Provana's lifetime, before the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> -dawn of love. It was as if they were still at the same -platonic stage. All that had come after was like a lurid -dream from which they had awakened. Tristram was -again the true knight. Iseult was sinless.</p> - -<p>All that was best in Claude Rutherford was in the ascendant -during these long, slow weeks of silent sorrow, in -which he knew that the man with the scythe was at the -door, that nothing money could buy or love devise could -save the woman he loved. He had broken finally with -that other woman: finally, for the fiery cup had lost its -intoxicating power, and the end had been a vulgar quarrel -about money. Whatever was to happen to him, he was -safe from that siren's spells.</p> - -<p>All his natural sweetness, his sympathy and charm, -were for Vera, in those quiet weeks of September and -October, when there was nobody in London, and the -chariot wheels rolled no more in the broad roadway. He -was at his best in his wife's white morning-room, where -the faces of the immortals looked down upon him, and -where he was kind even to the dog she loved—the Irish -terrier, brought home after his half-year's quarantine—who -stretched his strong limbs and rough, red-brown body -against her satin slippers, as she lay on her sofa, a fragile -figure, shadowy in her loose white gown.</p> - -<p>All that was best in this man, the tenderness, the sympathy, -was in evidence now; a failure no doubt, trivial and -shallow, incapable of deep feeling, perhaps, but a sweet, -lovable nature; a nature that had made women love him -whether he wanted their love or not.</p> - -<p>"It is very good of you to give me so much of your time," -Vera said one day, slipping her thin little hand into his, -which was almost as thin. "Invalids are wretched -company, and I don't want you to have too much of -this dull room."</p> - -<p>"I do not find it dull—and it is no duller for me than -for you."</p> - -<p>"It is never dull for me. I have my faces. <em>They</em> are -always company."</p> - -<p>"Your faces—You mean those portraits?"</p> - -<p>"Byron, Scott, Browning. Yes, they are always -company. I have looked at them till they are alive. I -have read Walter Scott's journals and Byron's letters till -I know them as well as if they had been my intimate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> -friends when they were alive. I know Browning's letters -by heart; those sweet letters to the sweet wife. Shakespeare -is different. It is so sad that there are no familiar -records. One can only think of him as the poet and the -creator; genius that touches the supernatural."</p> - -<p>"I don't think it matters how little you know of the -man, his deer-stalking or his tardy marriage, as long as -you don't think there was no Shakespeare, and that -the noblest poetry this world ever saw was written -by the skunk who gave away his friend," said her -husband.</p> - -<p>"Bacon! Horrible!"</p> - -<p>On one quiet evening, when Claude had been with her -since his solitary dinner, she said softly:</p> - -<p>"I sometimes forget all the years, and think you are -just the same Cousin Claude who took pity on me at -Disbrowe, when I was so shy that other people's kindness -only made me miserable. Till you came I used to creep -into any corner with a book, rather than mix with my -Disbrowe cousins, who were so dreadfully grand and -clever."</p> - -<p>"Precocious geniuses, Mrs. Somervilles in the bud, -who matured into two of the most commonplace women -I know, and almost as ignorant as Susan Amphlett," said -Claude.</p> - -<p>"But you must not give me so much of your time, -Claude," she said gently.</p> - -<p>"I love to be with you; but I may slip away for the -Cambridgeshire?" he said, the trivial side of his character -coming to the surface.</p> - -<p>She did not even ask if he were personally interested in -the race. There had been a time when she knew every -horse he owned, and made most of them her friends, -rejoicing in their beauty as creatures whom she would have -liked to keep for pets, rather than to expose them to the -ordeal of the turf; albeit she had followed their fortunes, -and speculated upon their chances, almost as keenly -interested as her husband. But now they had become -things without shape or meaning, like all the rest of the -outside world.</p> - -<p>"You need not be afraid of leaving me," she said. -"I have this good friend to keep me company," smoothing -Boroo's rough coat with her soft hand.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span></p> - -<p>"I wish my mother were still in town. She would come -to you every day."</p> - -<p>"She is very good, but she and I have never been really -friends. I know she would be kind; but she would talk -of painful things. I don't want to remember. I want to -look forward."</p> - -<p>"Yes," he answered in a low voice, bending over her, -and pressing his lips on the pale brow. "There must be -no looking back."</p> - -<p>It was the first time he had kissed her since the night -of the concert. She looked up at him with a sad, sweet -smile, and held his hand in hers for a moment.</p> - -<p>"Susan must come to you every day to keep you in good -spirits," he said.</p> - -<p>"No, Claude, Susie doesn't like sick people. She sits -by my side and chatters and chatters, telling me all the -scandals she thinks will interest me; but I can hear the -effort she is making. Her tongue does not run on as it -used before I was ill; and once when she saw a spot of -blood on my handkerchief she nearly fainted. I don't -want too much of Susie. Mr. Symeon will come and -talk to me sometimes; and his talk always does me -good."</p> - -<p>"I wish I could think so. I hate leaving you in -London. You ought to have gone to Disbrowe, as your -aunt wished. You would have done better in that soft -air."</p> - -<p>"No. I should be better nowhere than in this silent -house. If I cannot be in Rome there is nowhere else -where I should like to be. I want space and silence, and -no going and coming of people who mean to be kind and -who bore me to death. I want no fussing and talking -about me. I can put up with my nurse, because she is -quiet and does her work like a machine."</p> - -<p>Rome? Yes, in the November afternoons when the -world outside her windows was hidden in grey fog, she -longed for the beautiful city, the place of life and light, -the city of fountains, full of the sound of rushing water. -The dull greyness of London oppressed her, when she -thought of the long garden walks in their solemn stillness, -the cypress and ilex, the statues gleaming ghostly in the -dusk against the dark walls of laurel and arbutus, the -broad terrace with its massive marble balustrade, on which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> -she had leant for hours in melancholy meditation, thinking, -thinking, thinking, as the multitude of church towers and -the great dome in the hollow below her changed from grey -to purple, as the golden light died in the west and the -young moon rose above the fading crimson of the afterglow.</p> - -<p>It was sad to think that she would never see that divine -city again, and all that she had loved in Italy: Cadenabbia, -where her honeymoon had begun, to the sound of rippling -water, as the boats crept by in the darkness, to the music -of guitars and Italian voices, singing in the light of coloured -lanterns, while the cosmopolitan crowd clustered in the -narrow space between the hotel and the lake.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Susan Amphlett came nearly every day, and insisted -upon being admitted. She had come to London for a week, -just to buy frocks for a winter round of visits.</p> - -<p>"But much more to see you, my dearest," she said, -and then she recited the houses to which she was going, -and her reason for going to them, which seemed to be -anything rather than any regard for the people she was -visiting. She talked of herself as if she had been a star -actress.</p> - -<p>"I am touring in the shires this winter," she said. -"I did Hants and Dorset last year, and was bored to -extinction. Roger is happy in any hole if he can be riding -to hounds every day, and he had the Blackmoor Vale and -the North Hants within his reach most of the time; while -I was excruciated by a pack of women who talked of -nothing but their good works or their bridge, and they were -such poor players that the good works were less boring -than the bridge talk. 'Dear Lady Sue, would you call -no trumps if?'—and would you do this and t'other? -questions that babies in the nursery might ask over their -toy cards."</p> - -<p>Then came a long account of the frocks that were being -made for the shires, and the scarlet top-coat to be worn -with a grey habit, which Roger hated.</p> - -<p>"I think he would like me in an early-Victorian get up, -with the edge of my habit touching my horse's fetlocks, -a large white muslin collar, and a low beaver hat with a long -feather. Those early-Victorian collars cost two or three -pounds apiece, my Grannie told me, and those poor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> -wretches who never changed their clothes till dinner, wore -them all day long; and yet they talk of <em>our</em> extravagance; -as if nobody paid anything for clothes in those days."</p> - -<p>And then, when the houses to which she was going, and -the clothes she was to wear, and her quarrels with her -husband and her maid had been discussed at length, -Susan began to talk about her friend.</p> - -<p>"Lady O. told me how ill you had been, <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">ma mie</i>, and -of your curious whim about this house. She says Selwyn -Tower would have liked you to go to the Transvaal, and -told her that two or three months in that delicious climate -would make you a strong woman; but finding you set upon -stopping in your own house he gave way, as your illness -is chiefly a question of nerves. It is a comfort to know that, -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">n'est-ce pas, mein Schatz?</i>"</p> - -<p>"Yes, of course it is a comfort. I suppose, with nothing -amiss but one's nerves, one might live to be ninety."</p> - -<p>"True, dearest, quite ninety," Susan answered, -shuddering.</p> - -<p>Susan Amphlett was out of her element in a sick room. -The mere thought that the friend she was talking to -was marked for death seemed to freeze her blood. Her -own hand grew as cold as the cold hand she was holding. -She could not be bright and pleasant with Death in -sight.</p> - -<p>As she sat with Vera in the library that had been Provana's -favourite room she felt as if there were someone -standing behind the door of that inner room, a door that -had been left ajar. There was someone waiting there -whose unseen presence made her dumb. Someone! Not -Provana—but another and more terrible shape.</p> - -<p>"Vera," she burst out at last, "why do you sit in -this horrid room instead of in your sweet white -den, with Byron and Browning and all your dear -people?"</p> - -<p>"I like this room better, now that my thoughts have -gone backward."</p> - -<p>"What can you mean by thoughts going backward?"</p> - -<p>"Now that I know time is measured for me, so much -and no more; I like to live over the days that are gone. -It spins out my life to live the dead years over again. This -is the room Mario loved. His books are on those shelves, -the books that opened a new world for me: the Italian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> -historians, the Italian poets. In the first year of our life -in this house, before I was the fashion, we used to sit here -of an evening, long evenings, from nine till midnight, -talking, talking, talking, or Mario reading to me. He was -a banker, and a dealer in money; but he read poetry -exquisitely."</p> - -<p>"Vera!" Susan ejaculated suddenly, and sat staring.</p> - -<p>"What's the matter?"</p> - -<p>"I believe you loved Provana better than ever you have -loved Claude."</p> - -<p>"I don't know," Vera said dreamily.</p> - -<p>She had been talking in a dreamy way, as if she were -hardly conscious that anyone was listening to her.</p> - -<p>"Perhaps you never were really in love with your -second husband?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. I loved him too much—and," after a perceptible -pause, "not enough."</p> - -<p>"Darling, I can't make you out."</p> - -<p>"I am not worth making out."</p> - -<p>"One thing I must tell you, Vera, even at the risk of -agitating you. It is all over with that woman."</p> - -<p>"Which woman?"</p> - -<p>"Which? Mrs. Bellenden. There has never been so -much as a whisper about any other since your marriage."</p> - -<p>"Oh, it is all over? I thought so."</p> - -<p>"Vera, what indifference! You might be talking of -somebody in Mars. Yes, dear, it is quite at an end. -They had a desperate quarrel; quite the worst of many -frightful rows. There was furniture smashed, I believe—Sèvres -and things—and now she has consoled herself."</p> - -<p>"Really?"</p> - -<p>"A German Prince. One of the German attachés told -me he would marry her if he dared. Well, sweet, I must -be trudging. I'm dining out, one of those nice little winter -dinners that I love. You must make haste and get quite, -quite well."</p> - -<p>This was what Susie always said to a sick friend, even -when the friend was moribund. The "quite, quite" -had such a cheering sound.</p> - -<p>"By the by, Lady O. told me you have had the Princess -Hermione?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, she came to see me two or three times when she -was passing through town."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span></p> - -<p>"That must have cheered you immensely. She is -devoted to you, quite raves about you, I hear, in the highest -circles. Get well, dear, and give a party for her when she -is next in town."</p> - -<p>Susie kissed her and patted her hair, and suppressed a -shiver at the cold brow that her lips touched. It felt like -the brow of death. Yet Vera's eyes were bright, and -there was a rosy bloom on the thin cheek. Susan was -glad when she had got herself out of the house and was -walking fast through the cheerful streets. But she was -sincerely attached to her friend.</p> - -<p>"I shall be fit for nothing this evening," she told herself -sadly; but she was at least fit for her part of Chorus, and -entertained the little dinner-party with a picturesque -description of her fading friend, dying slowly in that -house of measureless wealth.</p> - -<p>"Her income dies with her," she explained, "and though -I suppose a few pennies have been saved out of a hundred -thousand a year, and my cousin will get all that's left, -he will be a pauper in a year or two, I daresay."</p> - -<p>On this the company speculated upon how much might -be left; and all were agreed that there was a good deal of -spending in a hundred thousand, while one of the middle-aged -men went so far as to make a rough calculation of -the Rutherfords' expenditure in those five years of expensive -pleasures; but even after reckoning the dances -and dinner-giving, the yachts and balloons, the racing -stable, and a certain amount of losses on the turf and at -cards, they did not bring the annual outlay above eighty -thousand, whereupon a dowager looked round with a -smile, and said:</p> - -<p>"You haven't reckoned Mrs. Bellenden."</p> - -<p>"True. Now you mention her, I take it there would be -no surplus."</p> - -<p>And then that remarkable lady and her German Prince -were discussed at full length—dissected rather than -discussed; for when a woman is remarkable for her -beauty, and has spent three or four fortunes, and is in -a fair way of spending another, there is a great deal of -amusing talk to be got out of her.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2> -</div> - - -<p>After Susan Amphlett's disappearance the house in -Portland Place was given over to silence and solitude. -Lady Okehampton was at Disbrowe, where she was on -duty as a model grandmother, her daughters liking their -children to spend the early winter in the ancestral home, -where there were Exmoor ponies in abundance, and -plenty of clever grooms to teach the "dear kiddies" to -ride, and a superannuated governess of the "good old -soul" or "dear old thing" order, to keep their young -minds from rusting and coach them for their next -"exam.," whether in music or science.</p> - -<p>Lady Okehampton was established in her country house -till Christmas; and Claude had turf engagements and -shooting engagements enough to occupy him nearly as -long. He had been reluctant to leave his wife; but once -away from the silent house, he had all manner of distractions -to prolong his absence; and while Newmarket was -full of life and anticipations for next year, the house in -which he had left Vera was a place of gloom, that haunted -him in troubled dreams and made the thought of return -horrible.</p> - -<p>He wrote to her more than once, entreating her to let -him take her to Cannes or Nice. She could have nurses -and invalid carriages to make the journey possible, and -her health would be renewed in the sunshine. But his -wife's answer was always to the same effect:</p> - -<p>"I am at peace. Let me be."</p> - -<p>And then he fell back upon his stables and his racing -friends; or his shooting in Suffolk; or on cards: any -thing to stop that horror of retrospective thought, which -had been like a disease with him of late years.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Vera was at peace. She had no trivial visitors, was not -obliged to listen to futile chatter about other people's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> -affairs. Dr. Tower came three or four times a week, -unwilling to confide so precious a life to his "watch-dog," -the general practitioner, and was cheerful and -sympathetic. She had two hospital nurses now—one -always on guard, day and night. She could no longer -maintain her struggle for independence, for she too often -needed a helping arm to support her as she went up and -down the long corridors, or toiled slowly up the spacious -staircase that had once been alive with the finest people in -London, but where now the slender figure in a soft silk -gown and white fur boa, with the nurse in cap and uniform, -moved in a ghostly silence.</p> - -<p>Father Cyprian Hammond came to see her sometimes, -and sat long and talked delightfully; but he, who was -past master in the art of making proselytes, could get no -nearer the mind of this woman than he had got a year -before. Whatever her burden was, she would not open -her heart to him. Whatever her sense of sin, she would -not ask him for absolution. It was in vain that he told -her what his Church could do for a penitent—the ineffable -power possessed by that one Holy and Infallible -Church to heal the wounded heart and to bring the strayed -lamb back to the Shepherd's arms.</p> - -<p>"Try to think of yourself in the wilderness and that -divine Shepherd seeking for you," said the priest -gently.</p> - -<p>But Father Cyprian, with all his gifts, could not win her -to confide in him. It was only to Francis Symeon, the -spiritualist, that she ever spoke of the thoughts that filled -her mind, as she sat alone in the room that had been her -husband's, dreaming over one of the books he had loved. -Her intimacy with Francis Symeon had grown closer since -the world outside that quiet room had closed upon her -for ever, since he knew and she knew that the transition -from the known to the unknown life was very near. He -had told her the story of his own sorrows, the tragedy -of love and death that had made him a mystic and a -dreamer, whose hopes and convictions the world scoffed at.</p> - -<p>Life had given him all the things he desired, and last, -best gift of all, the love of a perfect woman, who alone could -make that life complete for himself and for others, lifting -him for ever above the sphere of sensual joys and worthless -ambitions. It was she who had taught him to look beyond<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> -the present life, and to consider the beauty of the world -no more than a screen that concealed the glory of diviner -worlds, hidden from them only while they were moving -along their earthly pilgrimage, always looking beyond, -always dreaming of something better.</p> - -<p>The day came, without an hour's warning, when he was -to be told that her pilgrimage was nearly done. The -after-life was calling her. The divine companions were -beckoning.</p> - -<p>All that there had been of high enthusiasm and scorn of -life left him in that moment. He was as weak and helpless -as a mother with her only child, her infant child threatened -by death. The dreamer was no more a dreamer; and -only the earthly lover remained, he who was to have been -her husband. He hung upon moments, he listened to every -failing breath, he counted time by her ebbing strength and -the opinions of doctors. He lived only to watch and to -listen beside her sofa, or in the curtained twilight of her -sick room, when the pretty garden-parlour was no longer -possible. Wherever she was carried in the vain pursuit -of life he went with her. The time of alternating hope -and dread lasted nearly a year.</p> - -<p>"It was our union," he told Vera. "It was my only -marriage. As I sat day after day with her hand clasped -in mine I knew that this was all I could ever know of -marriage or of woman's love. From the day of her death -I had done with the world; and all the rest of my days -were given up to searching for those who had gone—for -those who were in her world, not in mine. I have waited -at the door, as your dog waits when he cannot see you, -and as he believes that you are there, on the other side, -so I believe and know that she is near me; and my days -have known no other business or interest than my patient -search into the books of all ages and nations that help the -science of the future life, and the society of those people -whom you have met in my rooms, and who think and feel -as I do. I am a rich man, but I only use money for the -relief of distress; and I have allowed myself no luxury or -indulgence beyond my books, and the rooms that are -large enough to hold them and me."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The hospital nurse sat in the adjoining room, with the -door ajar. So far, and so far only, was the patient allowed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> -the privilege of solitude. Someone must be always there, -within hearing. When she had a visitor the door might -be shut, but not otherwise.</p> - -<p>"There must be something very dreadful the matter -with me," she said when Dr. Tower insisted upon this -point.</p> - -<p>"No, my dear lady, there is nothing dreadful in a tired -heart; but I don't want you to faint without anybody -at hand to look after you."</p> - -<p>Vera assured him that she was not likely to faint, and -made mock of his care.</p> - -<p>He had been very insistent upon certain points in his -treatment, which he arranged with the general practitioner -who had attended her for minor ailments in earlier days, -when she was rarely in need of medical care. He would -not allow her to go up and down stairs any longer. That -ordeal must be at an end until she was stronger. He had -the dining-room made into a bedroom for her use. All the -gloomy old pictures and colossal furniture had been -removed, and the walls were hung with delicate chintz, -while the choicest things in her rooms upstairs had been -brought down to make this ground-floor apartment -pleasant for her—a room that smiled as it had never -smiled before, even on those gala nights when a flood of -light shone upon the splendour of Georgian silver, and -Venetian glass, and diamonds, and fashionable women.</p> - -<p>"You are taking far too much trouble about me," Vera -said, when first she saw this transformation.</p> - -<p>"We only want to save you trouble. The ascent to the -second floor of this lofty house is almost Alpine. I wonder -you never established an electric lift."</p> - -<p>"I never minded running up and down stairs."</p> - -<p>She remembered the first years after her second marriage, -the years of trivial pleasures and hurry and excitement, -and with how light a step she had gone up and down -that stately staircase, to give herself over to her Parisian -maid, and to have her smart toilet of the morning changed -for the still smarter clothes of the afternoon, while she -submitted impatiently, with a mind full of worthless -things: the fashion of her gown, the shape of her last new -hat. That rush from one amusement to another—endless -hours without pause—had been like the morphia maniac's -needle. It had killed thought.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span></p> - -<p>All that was left of life now was thought, or rather -memory; for of late thought and memory were -one.</p> - -<p>Her doctors might do what they liked with her, so long -as they let her stay in the silent house, and did not take -away her dog.</p> - -<p>Since his return from captivity the terrier had hung -about her with a love more devoted even than before their -separation. He watched her as only a dog can watch the -creature it loves. He would not let her out of his sight. -He could not forget how he had been kept away from her; -and he lived in fear of another parting. If he were not -lying at her feet, or nestling against the soft folds of her -gown, he was sitting at the door of her room, the door that -hid her from him; the cruel door that kept him from her -immediate presence. He lay at her bedroom door all -night, and rushed in, with the first entrance of nurse or -maid in the morning, to greet her with hairy paws upon her -coverlet, and irresistible canine kisses upon her cheek. -This was the best love that remained to her; the love -that had no after-thought, and left no sting. She had -provided a friend for him in days when she would be no -longer there. Francis Symeon had promised to take him, -and love him, and give him a happy old age and a gentle -sleep when he was weary.</p> - -<p>As the winter days shortened she grew perceptibly -weaker, and the tired heart felt as if its work in this world -must be nearly done.</p> - -<p>Mr. Symeon came every day, and stayed for a long time, -a quiet figure sitting in the low armchair by the wood fire, -sometimes in silence that was restful for the invalid, -though she loved to hear him talk; for his thoughts were -not of this narrow life and its trumpery pleasures and -eating cares, but of the land beyond the veil.</p> - -<p>"Do you believe they think of us, sometimes, those who -have gone beyond?" Vera asked in her low, sweet voice, -as they sat in the winter gloaming.</p> - -<p>"I believe they think of us often—always, if they have -loved us much."</p> - -<p>"I had a friend whom I offended, cruelly, dreadfully," -she said slowly, as if with an effort, "and he died before I -had even begun to be sorry. And when he was dead and -I knew that his spirit was there, among the shadows, near<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> -me, I was afraid, horribly afraid. I could only think of his -anger, never of the possibility of his forgiveness. For a -long, long time I was afraid that I should see him. I -could imagine the dreadful anger in his face. His face and -form were always there, in the background of my life; -and I was afraid of being alone, afraid of silence and -darkness and all lonely places; so I gave myself up to -society, and the amusements and distractions of brainless -people, without ever really caring for them—only to -escape thought. But I could not stop my brain from -thinking. Thought went on like a relentless iron mill -grinding, grinding, grinding the same dead husks by day -and night; and the friend whose love I had wounded -was always there. And then there came a time when I -sickened of everything upon earth—society, splendour, -music, pictures, even mountains and lakes and forests, -and all the beauty of the world. All things had become -loathsome, and I wandered about with a restless spirit -in my brain that would not leave me in peace. Then, -slowly, slowly, the faint, sweet sense of peace came back—the -angry face was gone—and the face that looked at me -out of the shadows was only sad—and then the time came -when I felt that the dead had changed towards me in that -dim world you have taught me to understand, and that -there was pardon and pity in the great heart I had -wounded; and one day the burden was lifted from my -soul, and I knew that I was forgiven. Now tell me, my -kind friend, was this hallucination, was it just the outcome -of my brooding thoughts, dwelling perpetually -upon the same subject, or was the spirit of my dead -friend really in touch with mine? Was it by his -strong will reaching across the barrier of death that the -assurance of forgiveness had come to my soul, or was I -the dupe of my own imagination, my own longing for -pardon?"</p> - -<p>"No, you were not deceived. It is for such as you -that the veil is sometimes lifted, the creatures in whom -mind is more than flesh, the elect of human clay. I told -you as much as that years ago when you first talked to me -of the world we all believe in, we who meet together and -wait for the voices out of the shadows, the wisdom and the -faith that cannot die, the voices of the influencing minds. -No, my sweet friend, have neither fear nor doubt. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> -sense of pity and pardon that has come into your soul -is a message from the friend you loved.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">"Would the happy spirit descend</div> - <div class="verse indent2">From the realms of light or song,</div> - <div class="verse">Should I fear to greet my friend</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Or to say 'Forgive the wrong'?</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Believe that you are forgiven; you can know no more -than that until you have passed the river, until the gate -of a happier world has been opened."</p> - -<p>"And then I shall be with him again, where they neither -marry nor are given in marriage, but where they are as the -angels of God in heaven?"</p> - -<p>"That is the reunion to which we all look forward; -that is the faith that looks through death."</p> - -<p>There was a long interval of silence, and then she said -slowly:</p> - -<p>"If I could see him with these bodily eyes, see him as I -see you looking at me in the firelight, I should be sure that -the dream is not a dream."</p> - -<p>"You have been privileged to understand the mind of -your dead friend; to know that he is near you. That -should be enough. Only to the rarest natures is it given to -see. You questioned me about this possibility of vision -once before; and I told you that I had known of one -instance when the eyes of the living beheld the dead, in the -last moments of earthly life."</p> - -<p>"I do not think those moments are far off for me, my -friend," Vera said softly.</p> - -<p>Francis Symeon, in whose philosophy death was emancipation, -did not say the kind of thing that Susan Amphlett -would have said in the circumstances. She no doubt -would have told Vera that she was talking nonsense, and -that she was "going to get quite, quite well, and live -for years and years and years, and have a real good -time."</p> - -<p>Mr. Symeon took her attenuated hand in his friendly -grasp, and sat by her for some time in silence before he -bade her his calm adieu, patted the dog, nestling against -her knees, and went quietly out of the room and out of -the house. He did not think that he would ever again -be sitting in the firelight in that room, hearing the low<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> -sad voice. He knew that he had shut the door upon a life -that was measured by moments.</p> - -<p>Three days after that Vera was unwontedly restless. -There had been a long telegram from her husband in the -morning, announcing his return for that night. He had -finished all his business with his trainer, engaged the -jockeys who were to ride for him next year, and he was -coming back to London—he did not say "coming home"—heartily -sick of Newmarket, and his Suffolk shooting, -and the friends who had been with him.</p> - -<p>"Why do we do these things and call them pleasures?" -He ended the message with that question, as with a moral.</p> - -<p>"Poor Claude!" sighed his wife, as she folded the thin -slips of paper and laid them among her books; and then -she thought:</p> - -<p>"How much happier for him if he had stayed with the -Benedictines!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The days wore on, such slow days. The nurses were -more and more attentive, horribly attentive. There were -three of them now. Two were always about her, while -the third slept. She had left off asking questions. Dr. -Tower came every morning, and sat with her quietly for -a quarter of an hour, and patted and praised her dog, -and told her scraps of the day's news, and was kind; but -she heard him without interest, as if without understanding. -She had what Susie called her mermaid gaze, as one -who saw only things far away, across a vast ocean. She -never questioned him now, and made no allusion to the third -young woman in uniform, who had come upon the scene so -quietly that she looked like a double of one of the others, -a trick of the optic nerves rather than another person.</p> - -<p>She had the nurses almost always near her; and that -other sentinel, the terrier, was there always. There was -no "almost" where his affection was concerned. As she -grew weaker and moved with feebler steps he moved -nearer her. She talked to him sometimes, to the nurses -never, though she was gracious to them in her mute fashion, -and understood that they liked her and were sorry for her.</p> - -<p>One quiet, grey evening, the closing in of a day that had -been curiously mild for an English December—a day that -brought back the still, sad atmosphere of mid-winter at -San Marco—she had an unusual respite from her watchers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>. -It was tea-time, and they were sitting longer than usual -over the low fire in the room beyond the library, with the -door ajar—no lights switched on, no sound of laughter or -loud voices—just two well-behaved young women whispering -together in the firelight.</p> - -<p>She was alone, moving slowly along the corridor. She -had been wandering about for some time, with a restlessness -that had increased in a painful degree of late, the dog -creeping close against her skirt, until, all in a moment, -when she bent down to speak to him, he slunk away from -her and crawled under the dark archway that opened into -the deeper darkness of the hall, as Vera entered through -the open door of the library.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>At last it had come—the thing she had been waiting for. -It was no surprise when the dream she had been dreaming -night after night became a reality. A shiver ran through -her, as if the warm blood in her veins had turned to ice-cold -water; but it was awe, not horror, that thrilled her. -Night after night she had awakened from a vision of Mario -Provana, from the sound of his voice, the touch of his -hand, the glad, vivid sense that all that was past was a -dream, that he was alive, and that she belonged to him -and him only, as before the coming of trouble. She had -awakened night after night, in the faint flicker of the -shrouded lamp, when the room was full of shadows. She -had awakened to disappointment and desolation. That -had been the surprise—not this. There was neither doubt -nor wonder now, as she stood on the threshold of the dim -room, and saw Provana sitting by the hearth in the chair -where he used to sit, calm, motionless, like a statue of -domestic peace, the creator and defender of the home, -the master, sitting silent by the hearth-fire that wedded -love had made sacred. The dull red of that fading fire, -and the pale grey of evening outside the uncurtained -windows, made the only light in the room; but there was -light enough for her to see every line in the face, the face of -power, where every line told of force, unalterable purpose, -indomitable courage.</p> - -<p>The grey eyes looked at her, steel bright under the projecting -brow. Kind eyes, that told her of his love, a -love that Fate could not change nor diminish. Not -Death, not Sin!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span></p> - -<p>For these first moments she believed he had come back -to her, that he had escaped the bonds of Death. She did -not ask what miracle had brought him there, but she -believed in his miraculous return. The blood ran swift -and warm in her veins again. Her heart beat with a -passionate joy. She stretched out her arms to him, trying -to speak fond words of welcome; but her tremulous lips -could give no sound. The muscles of her throat seemed -paralysed.</p> - -<p>She was yearning to tell him of her love—that she had -sinned and repented; that he was the first—must always -be the first—in her affection.</p> - -<p>Her limbs failed her with a sudden collapse, and she -sank on her knees by a large, high-backed arm-chair that -stood near the door, and clung to the arm of it, with both -her hands, struggling against the numbness that was -creeping over her senses. She kept her eyes upon the face—the -face of all her dreams, of all her sorrow—the face -she had loved and regretted. For moments her widely -opened eyes gazed steadily—then cold drops broke out -upon her forehead, her limbs shook, and her eyelids -drooped—only for an instant.</p> - -<p>She lifted them, and he was gone. There was nothing -but the empty chair—his chair in the quiet domestic -evenings, before Mario Provana's house became the fashion, -before the Disbrowes gave the law to his wife's existence.</p> - -<p>That was the last she saw before the lifting of the veil.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Chorus was at work again; not at a London dinner-table -this time, but in the easier atmosphere of a North -Riding manor house, which men left in the morning to -shoot grouse, and came back to in the evening to gossip -with their womenkind, in the cheerful light of an oak-panelled -dining-room.</p> - -<p>Chorus was wearing black, quite the prettiest thing in -complimentary mourning, which all her friends assured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> -her suited her to perfection and took ten years off her age. -Susan Amphlett had received that kind of compliment -too often of late. She thought people were beginning to -lay a disagreeable stress upon the passage of time in -relation to her personal appearance.</p> - -<p>"I doubt if I shall ever wear anything but black for the -rest of my poor little life," she said tearfully. "That -darling and I were like sisters. And that she should have -died when I was in Scotland, hundreds of miles away from -her!"</p> - -<p>"It must have been sudden?"</p> - -<p>"Heart failure. No one was with her. She had three -hospital nurses to look after her, but she died alone in a -dark room, while two of them were dawdling over their -tea, and the third was in bed. The dog whined, and they -went to look for her. She was lying in a huddled heap on -the carpet, near the open door, and that poor, faithful -beast was standing by her, whining piteously."</p> - -<p>"Where was Rutherford?"</p> - -<p>"At Newmarket, of course, the only place where he has -been happy for a long time, settling up next year's campaign, -who was to ride for him, and so on."</p> - -<p>"What had become of the devoted husband you used -to tell us about?"</p> - -<p>"Does anything last in this decadent age? There never -was a more romantic couple than that sweet creature -and my cousin Claude three years ago. Their marriage -was a poem, everything about their lives was full of poetry, -their house was the most popular in London, their chef -quite the best. They were all sweetness and light; the -most brilliant example of what youth, and cleverness, and -good looks, and unlimited money can do. But the Goodwood -before last changed all that. Vera was ennuied -and run down—the two things go together, don't you -know—and broke her engagement to stay with the Waterburys -for the race week. Claude went there without her. -You all know the sequel, so why recapitulate? Nothing -was ever the same after that."</p> - -<p>"Was there an inquest?" asked the host.</p> - -<p>"Thank Heaven that wasn't necessary. Her doctor -had been seeing her every morning, and knew she might -go off at any moment. Heart failure. She was buried in -Italy, at a dull little place on the Riviera, in the grave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> -with her first husband and his daughter. Her own wish. -She was all poetry to the last, a poet's daughter."</p> - -<p>From the tragedy of Mrs. Rutherford's early death, -the conversation somehow took a retrospective cast, and -people talked of the murder that had happened a long time -before. It is curious how long the interest in a murder -may survive if the murderer has not been discovered. -There always remains something to wonder about. After -nearly half a dozen years the Provana murder could still -bear discussion. People's pet theories seemed as fresh as -ever, and were discussed with as much animation; while -those people who had theories which they would die rather -than divulge, were the most interesting of all the theorists, -for they could be driven to ground with close questioning, -as in the familiar game of "clumps," until they made a -resolute stand, and refused to say another word upon the -subject.</p> - -<p>"I dare say it is quite horrid of me to think what I -think," said one vivacious lady, "and you would hate me -if I were to tell you."</p> - -<p>"Give us the chance at any rate. It will be a new -sensation for you to be hated."</p> - -<p>"One thing at least I may say. It has always been a -mystery to me how those two people could bear to live in -that house."</p> - -<p>"Oh, but you cannot bar a fine house, and your own -property, because your husband has been unlucky enough -to get himself murdered in it."</p> - -<p>Here Chorus, who had sat disapproving and even angry -while her friends were discussing the murder, chipped in -suddenly.</p> - -<p>"You don't know Vera," she said. "Her memory of -Provana was an absolute <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">culte</i>, and she loved the house -for his sake."</p> - -<p>"It's a pity she kept her worship for the husband's -memory," said somebody. "For the state of things -between her and Rutherford for some years was an open -secret. Everybody knew all about it."</p> - -<p>"Nobody knew Vera as I knew her. She had no more -of common earth in her composition than if she had -been a sylph. People might as well talk scandal about -Undine."</p> - -<p>The men of the world who were present, and the women<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> -who knew nearly as much of life, smiled and shrugged -their shoulders.</p> - -<p>"Well, it is all ancient history," said a bland worldling, -with smooth, white hair and a smooth, elderly voice. "The -romantic friendship, the murder, the marriage with the -romantic friend. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe.</i> Nothing -can matter to anybody now."</p> - -<p>"Nothing except who killed Signor Provana," said the -lady who had declared she would sooner die than tell -anybody her theory of the murder.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> -</div> - - -<p>Father Cyprian Hammond sat alone in the winter -gloaming after a hard day's work in his parish, which -was a large one, covering several of those obscure little -slums that lie hidden behind handsome streets in north-western -London. The table had been cleared after his -short and simple dinner, and he was half reclining in his -deep arm-chair while Sabatier's "Life of St. Francis of -Assisi" lay open on the table under the candles that -made only a spot of light in the lofty room. It was one -of the books which he opened often on an evening of -fatigue and depression. The "Life" or the "Fioretti" -were books that rested his brain and soothed his spirits.</p> - -<p>He lay back in his chair with his eyes closed, not asleep, -but resting, and listening with a kind of sensuous pleasure -to the light fall of wood ashes on the hearth. His winter -fire of old ship logs was one of the few luxuries he allowed -himself.</p> - -<p>"I told you I would see no one to-night," he said, as his -servant came into the room.</p> - -<p>"It is Mr. Rutherford, Father, only just back from -Italy. He said he was sure you would see him."</p> - -<p>"Very good, I will see Mr. Rutherford. You can light -the lamp. Come in, Claude," he called to the figure -standing outside the door.</p> - -<p>Claude came into the room, while the servant lighted a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> -standard lamp of considerable power, that shone full upon -a face from which all natural carnation had changed to an -ashen greyness, the face of a man in the last stage of a bad -illness.</p> - -<p>"You look dead-beat," said the priest, as they clasped -hands. "You have been travelling night and day, I -suppose."</p> - -<p>"I came straight from her grave, from their grave. She -lies in the cemetery at San Marco, beside her husband and -his daughter, the girl who loved her, and whose love -brought those two together."</p> - -<p>"It was her wish, I conclude."</p> - -<p>"There was a letter found—a letter written half a year -ago, at the beginning of her illness, in which she begged -that I would lay her there—in his grave—nowhere else. -It was he that she loved best, always, always. Her real, -her only perfect love was for him."</p> - -<p>"May that absolve her of her sins. I would have done -much, striven long and late to bring her into the fold, if -she would have let me, but she would not. Well, she shall -not want for an intercessor while I live and pray."</p> - -<p>And then, looking up at his visitor, who stood before -him, a tragical figure in the bright, hard light of the lamp, -his face haggard and wan against the rich darkness of his -sable collar:</p> - -<p>"Sit down, Claude," he said gently, in a tone of ineffable -compassion, the voice that day by day had spoken to -sorrow and to sin. "I see you have come to tell me your -troubles. Take off that heavy coat and draw your chair -to the fire, and open your heart to me, unless indeed you -will come to my confessional to-morrow and let me hear -you there. I would much rather you did that."</p> - -<p>"<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Selon les règles.</i> No! Be kind, Father, and let me -talk to you here. I will keep nothing back this time. -There shall be no more secrets—no surprises. I have come -to the end of my book. She is dead, and I have nothing -left to care about—nothing left to hide. There is not a -joy this world can offer to man for which I would hold -up a finger now she is gone."</p> - -<p>"What do you want me to do for you?"</p> - -<p>"What you did for me six years ago. Open the gate -of a refuge where a sinner may hide the remnant of a -worthless life, where I may spend the last dregs in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> -cup, drop by drop, where I may die day by day, on my -knees, in penitential prayer."</p> - -<p>"I opened that gate. You were safe in such a refuge; -and you broke out again and came back to the world, -twenty times worse than you were before. The life you -have been leading since you married Provana's widow is -about the most worthless, the most abject life that a -reasonable being could lead, the life of empty pleasure, of -sensuality and self-indulgence, a life that debases the man -himself, and corrupts and ruins his associates."</p> - -<p>"I had to forget. If all that the world calls pleasure -could have been distilled into one little drug that would -have blotted out remembrance, I should have wanted no -more race-horses, no more racing yachts, no more flying-machines, -no more cards or dice, only that one little drug. -Father, when I stood before you six years ago in this -room, a miserable wretch, I had to keep my secret for her -sake. I have nothing to hide now. It was I who killed -Mario Provana."</p> - -<p>"I knew."</p> - -<p>"You knew?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, I knew that night as much as I know now. I -knew the guilt you wanted to hide in a cloister. I knew -your sin and your remorse; but I doubted your perseverance; -a doubt that was too speedily justified by the -event."</p> - -<p>"It was the fatal course my mother took. She brought -Vera to the place where I thought that I and my sin were -buried. I did not yield without a struggle; in long days -of depression, in long nights of fever, I wrestled with -Satan for my soul. I called upon my manhood, my -honour, my will-power, and I even thought that I had conquered; -and then, in an instant, my passionate heart gave -way, and I walked out of that house of rest, a fallen spirit. -But, oh, the rapture of the moment when I held her in -my arms, and told her that I renounced all—the hope of -heaven, the certainty of peace—for her love."</p> - -<p>"Oh, the pity of it, my unhappy Claude!"</p> - -<p>"You ask me no questions, Father?"</p> - -<p>"To what end? You are not in the confessional. -There may be details that would in some degree mitigate -your guilt; but murder is a heinous sin, and I fear in your -case it had been led up to by guilt almost as dark, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> -spoiling of a pure woman's soul. If the murder was -not deliberate you cannot urge the same excuse for the -sin of seduction, that sin which includes every abomination—hypocrisy, -the falsehood that betrays a trusting fellow-creature, -the calculating cruelty that sets a man's strength -of will against a woman's yielding love."</p> - -<p>"No, no, no. Father, have you forgotten those two -lost souls Dante saw, driven through the malignant air; -they who had stained the earth with blood? Sorrow and -sin had been theirs; but Francesca's lover was not a -deliberate seducer, and even in that world of pain the love -that linked those two who never could be parted more -was no base or selfish passion. No man ever fought a -harder battle than I fought for her sake. I loved her when -we were boy and girl together, when she was a child, a -lovely, innocent child, who gave me her heart in that happy -morning of life, who had been shut out from all the affection -that makes childhood beautiful, the caresses, the praise -of an adoring mother, the love of father, brothers, sisters. -She had known nothing better than the tepid kindness -of a peevish old woman, and she gave her heart to me in -the first joyous days of her life, I taught her what youth -and happiness meant; and that spring-time of our lives -was never forgotten. Vera was the romance of my boyhood. -I carried her image in my heart for all the years -in which we were strangers; and when Fate brought us -together again our hearts went out to each other, as if -the years had never parted us, as if she had been still as -unconscious of passion as the child who clambered on -my knee and flung her arms round my neck on the rocks -at Disbrowe."</p> - -<p>"But with a certain difference," said the priest. "She -was Mario Provana's wife."</p> - -<p>"I did not forget that. I told myself that I need never -forget it. She was the centre of a selfish clan, who meant -to run her for all she was worth. I knew to what account -the Disbrowes would turn a millionaire cousin; and I -took upon myself to stand between her and a herd of cold-hearted -relations, who only valued her as a counter in the -social game. Except Susan Amphlett, who is a fool, and -Lady Okehampton, who is not much wiser, there was not -one of the crew that had a spark of real regard for -her."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span></p> - -<p>"And you thought your affection was pure enough to -save her from all the pitfalls of Society."</p> - -<p>"I thought that I was strong enough to take a brother's -place. I had lived my life; I had been a failure. I had -sinned, and paid forfeit for my sin. I thought I had done -with passionate feeling; and that I could trust myself as -fully as Vera trusted me, in her absolute unconsciousness -of danger. I was deceived. The fire still burned in the -grey ashes of a wasted life, and the time came when it -burst into flame and consumed us."</p> - -<p>"You were with her that night when Provana came -home unexpectedly?"</p> - -<p>"I was with her. No matter how that came about. -The die had been cast weeks before, when she and I were -at the Okehamptons' river villa. We were alone there as -if we had been in a wood, and our secret was told and our -promise was exchanged. Nothing was to matter any more -in our lives except our love. We were to go to the other -side of the world and cruise about in the South Seas till -we found an island, as Stevenson did, a paradise of love -and peace, to end our days in. The yacht was waiting for -us at Plymouth, manned and found for an ocean voyage—almost -as fine a vessel as the <cite>Gloriana</cite>. We were to start -by an early train that morning. I wrung a promise from -her at Lady Fulham's ball; and we met a few hours -earlier than we had intended."</p> - -<p>"And he found you together, and you killed him?"</p> - -<p>"It was her life or his. We faced each other at the door -of his dressing-room. The other door was open and the -lights were on. I saw death in his face as he stood for a -moment looking into her room, the white, dumb rage that -means bloodshed. He gave me only one contemptuous -glance as he dashed past me to the desk where his pistol -case was ready for him. He had the pistol in his hand -and had cocked it in what had seemed an instant, and was -on his way to her room while I snatched the second pistol -from the case. For me he could bide his time. For her, -doom was to be swift. I think I read him right even in -those fierce moments. His fury was measured by the love -he had given her. His foot was on the threshold when I -fired. I could hear her stifled sobs as she lay on the floor, -where she had fallen at the sound of his footsteps on the -landing, half unconscious, in her agony of shame. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> -told me afterwards that strange lights were in her eyes, -a roar of waters in her ears. She was lying in a world of -red light."</p> - -<p>"Well, what do you want of me now?"</p> - -<p>"Open the door of my cell, the Benedictines, the Carthusians, -La Trappe—in France or Spain, any order where -the rule is iron, and where my days will be short. I have -lived the sinner's life, and it has not brought me happiness. -Let me live the saint's life, and see if it can bring me peace. -I am not a much blacker sinner than some of the fathers -of your Church who wear the aureole. Let the rest of -my life be one long act of expiation, one dark night of -penitential prayer."</p> - -<p>"My dear Claude, my son, all shall be done for you. -The path of peace shall be made smooth; but this time -there must be no turning back."</p> - -<p>"To what should I come back? The light of my life -has gone out."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span></p> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2>EPILOGUE</h2> -</div> - - -<p>A month later, when Christmas was over, and the people -who had done with their guns, and did not mean hunting, -were making a little season in London on their way to -Egypt or the Riviera, Lady Susan Amphlett as Chorus was -in her best form at cosy dinners.</p> - -<p>"<em>Now</em> will you believe that Claude Rutherford was a -devoted husband, and that he broke his heart when his -wife died?" she asked triumphantly.</p> - -<p>"I believe that he was nearly as much of a crank as his -pretty wife. She was a disciple of Francis Symeon, and he -was under Father Hammond's thumb. The dark room -in the Albany, or a cell in La Trappe! There's not much -difference."</p> - -<p>"From a racing stable to a cloister is a bit of a leap in -the dark."</p> - -<p>"Claude was always a bold rider. I've seen him skylarking -over a hedge, on his way home, without knowing -where he was to land."</p> - -<p>"I think he is rather lucky to land in a cloister," said -the lady who had refused to tell people her theory of the -Provana murder. "But I wonder what they think of it -all in Scotland Yard!"</p> - - -<p class="ph3 mt4">THE END</p> - - -<p class="center mb2"><i>Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey.</i> -</p> - -<div class='transnote'> - <h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> - - <p>Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully - as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings, non-standard - punctuation, inconsistently hyphenated words, and other inconsistencies.</p> - - <p>Obvious printer's errors corrected.</p> -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Beyond These Voices, by M. E. 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