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diff --git a/58897-0.txt b/58897-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..61ce044 --- /dev/null +++ b/58897-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4334 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58897 *** + + + + + + + + + + + + + +THE MASTER OF ST. BENEDICT'S + + + THE MASTER OF ST. BENEDICT'S + +BY ALAN St. AUBYN + +AUTHOR OF 'A FELLOW OF TRINITY,' 'THE JUNIOR DEAN,' 'THE OLD MAID'S +SWEETHEART,' 'MODEST LITTLE SARA,' ETC. + +[Illustration] + +IN TWO VOLUMES + +VOL. I. + +London CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1893 + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOL. I. + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. FULL OF DAYS, RICHES, AND HONOUR 1 + + II. DICK'S LITTLE DAUGHTER 17 + + III. ONLY A FRESHER 34 + + IV. PAMELA GWATKIN 53 + + V. AFTER CHAPEL 72 + + VI. BEHIND THE SCREEN 88 + + VII. LUCY'S SECRET 102 + + VIII. WATTLES 113 + + IX. A WOMAN'S PARLIAMENT 136 + + X. 'THAT CONFOUNDED CUCUMBER!' 148 + + XI. IN THE FELLOWS' GARDEN 163 + + XII. AN UGLY FALL 180 + + XIII. SLIPPING AWAY 192 + + XIV. WYATT EDGELL 207 + + + + +THE + +MASTER OF ST. BENEDICT'S + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +FULL OF DAYS, RICHES, AND HONOUR. + + +The Master of St. Benedict's had got as much out of life as most +men. His had been a longer life than is allotted to many men--it had +exceeded four score. + +There had been room in these eight decades for all the things that +men desire: for ambition, for wealth, for the world's favour, for +success--well-earned success--and for love. There had also been +distinction, and the soft, delightful voice of praise had not been +silent. + +The success and the distinction had come early in life, and the love +had come late. In the nature of things it could not have come earlier. +It came in time to crown the rest of the good gifts that Providence had +poured into the lap of the Master of St. Benedict's. It had been his +already for twenty years, and it was his still. Surely we are right in +saying that he had got as much out of life as most men? + +He had begun life on a bleak Yorkshire moor, following the plough over +his father's fields. A kindly North Riding vicar, noting the boy's +taste for reading, and his inaptitude for the drudgery of the farm, had +placed him at his own cost at the grammar school of the adjoining town. +With a small scholarship the Yorkshire ploughboy came up to Cambridge. +He came up with a very few loose coins in the pocket of his homely-cut +clothes, and with a broad North-country dialect as barbarous as the cut +of his coat. + +He was the butt of all the witty men of St. Benedict's during his +freshman's year. He was the subject of all the rough practical jokes +which undergraduates in old days were wont to play upon impecunious +youths who had the audacity to elbow them out of the highest places in +the examinations. + +He had survived the practical jokes, and he had stayed 'up' when +the witty men had gone 'down.' He had won the highest honours of +his year, and in due course he had been promoted to a college +Fellowship. Everything had come in delightful sequence: honour, riches, +distinction, love. It had all fallen out exactly as he would have had +it to fall out. He might have liked the love to have come earlier--he +had waited for it forty years: it came at sixty, and he had enjoyed it +for over twenty years! + +When Anthony Rae had come up to Cambridge, a poor scholar from a +country grammar school, he had set before himself two things that +seemed at the time equally impossible. He had set before himself the +winning of a high place, perhaps the highest, among the great scholars +of his great University, and he had also set before himself--in his +secret heart--the hope of winning, to share this distinction with him, +the daughter of the kind friend who had paved the way to distinction +and honour. + +He had achieved both these things--the dearest wishes of his heart--but +he had to serve a longer apprenticeship than most men. He had to wait +forty years. + +Rachel Thorne was worth waiting for. She was a child when he went away +to college; she had run down to the Vicarage gate after him on that +memorable morning to wish him 'good luck,' and she had stood watching +him until a turn of the road hid him from her eyes. + +She had watched for him turning that corner many times since. She had +met him at the gate of the dear old Yorkshire Vicarage when he came +back, term after term, a modest undergraduate blushing beneath his +well-earned honours, with the eager question on her lips: 'What great +things, have you done this term, Anthony?' + +She always expected him to do great things, and he justified her faith +in him. Perhaps her girlish faith had more to do with his success than +he dreamed of. It was his beacon through all his lonely hours, and it +had led him onward to distinction and honour. + +She was brown-haired and fresh-cheeked when he went away; she was a +middle-aged woman, with silver streaks in her brown hair, when he came +back and asked her to share with him the honours he had won. + +She waited for him through all the long years of his Fellowship--sad +years when fortune had left her and sorrow had baptized her--sad +friendless years, growing older, and grayer, and sick with waiting. But +the reward had come at last, and her tranquil face had regained its +cheerfulness, and was 'no longer wan and dree.' + +It was a fitting crown to a scholarly life, this mellow, mature +love--this gracious presence pervading the closing decades of his +brilliant career. + +Rachel Rae had been mistress of St. Benedict's over twenty years when +our story opens. She had presided over the graceful hospitalities of +the Master's lodge in her kindly, gracious way for twenty years. She +had no daughter to share this delightful duty with her--she had married +too late in life--but a niece of the Master's had been an inmate of the +lodge for fifteen years or more, and filled a daughter's place. + +Mary Rae was a daughter of a younger brother of Dr. Rae's, and had been +educated above the station in which she had been born by her uncle's +liberality. Anthony Rae in his prosperity had not neglected his humble +kinsfolk. He had done as much for them as lay in his power. He had +educated the younger branches, and provided for the declining years +of the elders. He had kept his two maiden sisters, one an invalid, in +comfort and affluence. He had paid the mortgage off the farm and passed +it over unembarrassed by debt to his elder brother. He had taken that +brother's grandson and given him an education at his own University, +and in due time had arranged for him to be presented with a college +living. It was not a rich living: it was the only one that fell vacant +when Richard Rae most wanted it, and he had accepted it gladly. He had +married upon it, and brought up a family, six children, of whom one +only was now living, a girl child, with whom this story has to do. + +The old Master of St. Benedict's had aged perceptibly within the +last few years. He was already in his second childhood. His strength +had become enfeebled and his memory impaired. He could not walk +down the long gallery of the lodge now or across the grass in the +Fellows' garden without assistance; he could not remember the things +of yesterday or of last week, but the crabbed characters of his old +Semitic manuscripts were still as familiar to him as ever. He had lost +a great deal since that stroke of paralysis five years ago, but he had +not lost all. He remembered his old friends, and he could pore over his +old books, but he was dependent upon his womankind for many things--for +most things. + +Mary Rae opened his letters and conducted his correspondence. She +had conducted it so long that she knew more about the college than +the Master. She transacted all the college business that had to be +transacted in the lodge, and when any public function required the +Master's presence in the Senate House Mary Rae took him up to the +door on her arm and brought him back. It was also rumoured that she +instructed him how to vote. + +She was assisted in her responsible duties by the Senior Tutor of St. +Benedict's, who would in the natural course of things succeed to the +office of Master when it should fall vacant. + +Mary Rae was a handsome woman well on in the thirties. She was a woman +who could not help looking handsome at any age, and the few gray hairs +that had put in an appearance in the smooth brown bands drawn back +from her broad forehead only added a new dignity to her mature beauty. +Perhaps the Senior Tutor thought that they supplied the only touch +lacking to make Mary Rae a perfect and ideal mistress of a college +lodge. + +It was whispered in the combination room, where the old Fellows met +after their Hall dinner, and discussed the affairs of the college over +their walnuts and their wine, that when the Master received his last +preferment she would not have to pack up her small belongings and leave +the lodge. + +It was one morning early in the Lent term that Mary Rae sat at +breakfast in the cheerful bow-windowed room of the lodge. The Doctor's +wife still presided over the breakfast table. She was younger than +the Doctor, and had worn better. She was still active and cheerful--a +bright, gentle, patient old soul, ever watchful and considerate for his +comfort, and anticipating his every want. + +While Mrs. Rae poured out the Master's tea, Mary Rae buttered the +Master's toast and read his letters. There were not many letters this +morning, but there was one with a black seal that lay uppermost. The +writing was unfamiliar, and before opening it Mary glanced at the +postmark. + +'A letter from Dick, uncle,' she said across the table. She had to +speak in rather a high key, as the Doctor was a little deaf, and some +days he was deafer than usual. + +'What does Dick say, my dear?' he said, smiling at her across the toast +she had buttered for him. His voice was not very strong, but there was +no North-country burr in it now--a kind, mellow old voice, courteous +and gentle in tone, with a quaver in it now and then. 'I have not heard +from your uncle Dick for a long time. I am very glad he has written +now. I cannot remember when I last heard from him.' + +'It is not from Uncle Dick,' said Mary, opening the letter; 'it is from +his son--at least, his grandson--Cousin Dick, of Thorpe Regis. Don't +you remember, uncle?' + +'Ye--es, my dear; and what does Dick say?' + +Mary read the letter in silence, and looked across the table with a +shade of anxiety on her face. + +'It is not Cousin Dick who writes; the letter is from his daughter; he +had only one daughter--Lucy, little Lucy. You remember her, uncle?' + +Mary Rae was evidently speaking to gain time, and the shade of anxiety +deepened on her face as she spoke. + +'Ye--es, I remember, my dear. Lucy was her mother's name; she was +called after her mother. What has Lucy got to say about Dick?' + +'She has not much to say, uncle; she is writing in great distress. Her +father has died, almost suddenly. He was preaching a week ago, and now +he is dead. The poor child is writing in great trouble.' + +'Dick dead!' the old man repeated with a bewildered air, and putting +down his cup with a shaking hand. 'Dick dead, did you say? He was not +so many years older than I, and always hale and strong. I ought to have +gone first. There were only three of us, and Dick was the eldest.' + +'It isn't your brother, Anthony, that is dead; he died long ago, dear. +It is his grandson, little Dick--Dickie you used to call him. You +had him up here, and he took his degree, and you gave him a college +living. You remember little Dickie, Anthony?' + +His wife's voice recalled his wandering thoughts. + +'Yes, yes, my dear; certainly, I remember little Dick very well. He +took a second class; he ought to have done better. He disappointed me. +I had no son of my own to come after me, and I should have liked my +brother Dick's son--grandson, to be sure--to have done well. He did his +best, no doubt; but he disappointed me. If he had done better, he might +have got a Fellowship. So Dickie is dead, you say, my dear?' + +'Yes, uncle; and he has left poor little Lucy unprovided for. She has +written to ask you what she ought to do. She wants to go out as a +governess--a nursery governess.' + +'A nursery governess? Dick's little girl a nursery governess! No, my +dear, that will never do. Tell her to come here; there's plenty of +room in the lodge for Dick's little girl. Write to her at once, Mary, +and tell her as soon--as soon as the funeral is over--her father's +funeral--poor little girl!--to come to the lodge. What do you say, +Rachel?' + +'I wish we could spare Mary to go to her,' the Master's wife said, +wiping her eyes. 'Someone ought to fetch her away at once, as soon--as +soon as it is all over. I think Mary ought to go to her.' + +The Senior Tutor met the Master's niece in the court as he was coming +away from a lecture during the morning, and she told him all about the +letter her uncle had received and the death of his nephew, or, rather, +his grand-nephew. + +'You remember my cousin Dick?' she said; 'he was my second cousin. I am +a generation older than he,' and she smiled at the admission. She was +not the least ashamed of her age. + +The Senior Tutor smiled too; he was thinking how well she wore her +years, how her age, or the signs of it, her gray hairs and the lines on +her face, became her. She would grow handsomer with the years, he told +himself as he stood talking to her in the spring sunshine, and her face +would grow finer as time went by: it was a fine face already; it could +never by any chance grow plain. He had watched a great many faces grow +old in his time--old, and lined, and soured--but he had never seen any +face grow finer with the years like this woman's face had grown. + +'Yes,' he said, 'I remember your cousin, Richard Rae, very well; he was +one of my pupils. He disappointed me, and he disappointed your uncle; +he ought to have taken a first class. He went into the Church, and we +gave him a college living, I remember--a very small living--and he +married, I believe, directly after.' + +'He married, and he had a large family and a sickly wife, and very +small means. It must have been a hard struggle for him, poor Dick! He +lost his wife, and his children died one after the other; there is only +one left. And now he is dead, and the girl is left quite alone.' + +'Oh, it is a girl,' said the Tutor in a tone of disappointment; 'if it +had been a boy we could have done something with him here.' + +'Yes,' said Mary, with a sigh; 'pity it's a girl; it would have been +so much easier if it had been a boy. She must come here, of course; +there is nowhere else for her to go.' + +'What will you do with her when she comes?' + +The Senior Tutor looked grave; the question had come into his head as +he stood speaking to Mary, what should he do with this girl of Cousin +Dick's when he occupied the Master's place? Of course Mary would stay, +and Mrs. Rae--he could not separate the old woman from her niece during +her few declining years; she would certainly remain an inmate of the +lodge; but this girl? he could not make the college lodge an asylum for +all the female members of the Rae family. + +It was an idiotic question to arise; he was ashamed of it the next +moment. + +'I think you ought to go to Thorpe Regis,' he said, 'and be with your +poor young cousin at this trying time. I will look after the Master +while you are away, if that will make the going easier.' + +'Ye--es,' said Mary slowly, 'it will make it easier. You really think I +ought to go?' + +There was a hesitation in her tone he could not but note; he put it +down at once to her reluctance to leave the old Master. + +'Most certainly you ought to go,' he said promptly. 'I will come over +to the lodge every day. I will fill your place as far as I can. You are +not afraid to leave the Master with me?' + +'Oh, no, no! I am sure you will do all, more than all, that I do for +him. I was not thinking about him. You are quite sure it is right to +bring this girl back here? She is very young, not twenty, and--and she +may be----' + +'She may be attractive,' said the Senior Tutor with a laugh, 'and turn +all our heads. I think, in spite of her attractions, her place is here +with you and under her uncle's roof. We must protect ourselves against +the wiles of this siren. We must not wear our hearts on our sleeves for +Cousin Dick's little daughter to peck at.' + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +DICK'S LITTLE DAUGHTER. + + +The Senior Tutor need have been under no apprehension for the men +of St. Benedict's. They had no occasion to cover up their sleeves +with their academical gowns. Cousin Dick's little daughter showed no +inclination to peck at their too susceptible hearts, whether they wore +them skewered on to their sleeves or out of sight in their accustomed +places. + +Lucy Rae was too full of her recent loss, the great sorrow that had +fallen upon her and swept away all her household gods, to have a +thought to spare for the undergraduates of St. Benedict's. + +It had almost swept away all her moorings, too, but not quite; she +still clung tenaciously to one idea--it was all she had left of the +old life to cling to: she still desired to be a governess. + +It was not a very ambitious idea. She wanted to be independent, and +earn her own living in the only way that was open to her. She accepted +the shelter of the Master's lodge thankfully, but she had no idea of +settling down in the dependent position of a poor relation. When she +had recovered from this shock, and the horizon cleared, she would find +something to do, she told herself, and go away. + +She was a soft, shy little thing to be so independent. She only looked +like a girl to be kissed and petted and comforted; she didn't look at +all fit to stand in the front of the battle. + +She talked over her prospects--her little, humble prospects--with her +cousin Mary a few days after her arrival at the lodge. Mary was sitting +at the Master's writing-table in the library of the lodge--she was +writing some letters on college business--and Lucy was sewing in the +window. + +It was a big gloomy room, and it was not at all a cheerful place for +girls to sit in on a chilly spring afternoon. There was a fire burning +in the old-fashioned grate behind the brass fire-guard--there were wire +guards to all the fires at the lodge since that last seizure of the +Master's--but it had burnt low; Mary, who was sitting near it, had been +too occupied to notice it, and Lucy's mind was full of her prospects. + +There had been no sound in the room for some time but the scratching +of Mary's pen as it travelled over the paper, and Lucy sewed on in +silence. She didn't like sewing, and she put down her work two or three +times and yawned or looked out of the window. The window looked out +into the Fellows' garden. The sun was shining on the lawn beneath, +which was already green with the new green of the year, and the +crocuses were aflame in the borders, and the primroses were in bloom. + +An old Fellow was hobbling slowly and painfully round the garden--a +bent, drooping figure in a particularly shabby coat and a tall silk +hat of a bygone date. He was lame, Lucy remarked, and dragged one leg +behind him. He had a long, lean, sallow face with deep eye-sockets, and +his hair was long and gray--it didn't look as if it had been cut for +years. Lucy wondered vaguely at seeing this shabby old cripple in the +grounds of the lodge; if she had seen him anywhere else she would have +taken him for a tramp. He had been a Senior Wrangler in his day, and +had taken a double-first; perhaps he was paying the penalty. + +'I am very dull company, child,' Mary said, as she blotted her last +letter and pushed the writing materials aside. 'I have left you to your +thoughts for a whole hour, and we have sat the fire out. What have you +been thinking about, Lucy, all this time?' + +'Oh, the old thing,' said Lucy, looking up from her work. 'I have been +thinking what I can do.' + +'Well, and what conclusion have you come to?' + +'There is but one conclusion--that--that I can do nothing!' + +The work dropped from the girl's fingers, and her eyes overflowed. She +had wanted an excuse for weeping for the last hour, and now she had got +it. + +'Oh yes, you can,' Mary said cheerfully; 'the case is not quite so bad +as that. You can sew, for one thing. See how nicely you are sewing that +frill!' + +'I hate sewing! And I shall never wear that frill when I have hemmed +it! I can only do useless trumpery things!' + +Lucy let the poor little bit of white frilling she had been hemming +fall to the ground, and she got up and began to walk up and down the +room. + +Mary watched her in silence. It was not the first time her young +cousin had shown impatience, but it was the first time she had shown +temper--just a little bit of temper. + +Mary had praised her in the wrong place: she was hurt and angry at this +learned, superior cousin implying, with her misplaced praise, that she +was only fit to do work--mere woman's work! + +It was an unusual sound, that rapid pacing to and fro of impatient +feet, in that scholarly room. The Master tottered feebly across the +floor; the Master's wife moved with slow dignity; Mary walked quietly, +with soft, firm footsteps that awoke no echoes. The floor creaked +audibly beneath Lucy's rapid, impatient steps; the old boards that had +echoed to the slow tread of scholars for so many, many years, shook and +trembled--actually trembled--beneath the light impatient footsteps of +Cousin Dick's little daughter. + +The colour that that useless sewing had taken out of Lucy's cheek had +come back, and her gray eyes were eager and shining beneath her tears. + +Mary watched her pacing the room with a smile half of pity, half +amused, as she sat at the Master's table. Perhaps she understood the +mood. She may have been impatient herself years ago; she had nothing +to be impatient for now. Everything was happening as it should do; and +when a change came--well, her position would not be materially altered. + +'I am sure you can do a great many useful things, dear,' she said +presently, when Lucy's little bit of temper had had time to cool. 'You +could not have kept your father's house so long, and done the work +of the parish, without being able to do more useful things than most +girls.' + +'I don't mean that kind of usefulness; anyone can do housekeeping +and potter about a parish. I hated parish work! I never took the +least interest in it; no one could have done it worse than I did. +I hated--oh, no one knows how I hated--those Bands of Hope, and +Sunday-schools, and mothers' meetings, and visiting dreadful old men +and women who would insist upon telling me all about their unpleasant +complaints!' + +Mary looked grave. She was accustomed to hear a great deal about old +people's complaints, though she did not do any district visiting. + +'Really,' she said gravely, 'most girls like these things! They are +over now, and done with, and you will begin afresh. Tell me what you +would like to do.' + +'Like!' Lucy held her breath as she spoke, and her cheeks grew +crimson. 'Oh, I should like to be a scholar, Cousin Mary!' + +Mary looked at the girl with a kind of pity in her eyes. She had +seen a good many scholars in her time, men and women; some of them +were as eager once as this girl--eager and impatient with feverish +haste to climb the hill of learning; they were hollow-eyed now, and +narrow-chested, and their cheeks were sunken and sallow, and some +limped like the old scholar in the Fellows' garden--that is, those who +had lasted to the end; but some had turned back in time and regained +their youth: most likely this girl would turn back. + +'You would like to go to a woman's college?' + +'I should love to go! I shouldn't mind whether it were Newnham or +Girton, whichever uncle thought best. If I could only have three years +at a woman's college, I should be provided for for life. I should want +nothing further. I should be able to make my own way. Oh, Mary, do you +think he will let me go?' + +She was very much in earnest. She had stopped running up and down the +room in that ridiculous manner. She was standing beside the table with +both her hands pressed down upon it and her little lithe figure bending +eagerly forward. Her eyes were shining, and her cheeks glowing, and her +lips parted. She looked exactly as if she were making a speech. + +The door opened as she was standing there, and the Senior Tutor came +in. He shook hands with Mary, and he nodded across the table to Lucy. +He thought he had interrupted a scene. + +'I saw the Master as I came up,' he said, speaking to Mary; 'he had +just finished his nap. He asked me to tell you that he was quite ready +to take a turn in the garden, if you would put on your hat. I think you +should go at once to catch the sunshine. You'll get it on the broad +walk if you go now.' + +Mary rose at once. + +'It is lucky I have finished my work,' she said, glancing down at the +little pile of letters, sealed and stamped ready for the post, that lay +on the table. 'Poor little Lucy here was telling me about her plans. +If you can spare time, Mr. Colville, sit down and talk them over with +her, and advise her what she ought to do, while I am in the garden.' + +The Senior Tutor could spare time; and after he had opened the door for +Mary, he came back to the window that overlooked the garden and sat +down. + +He did not belong to the old school of Cambridge Dons. He belonged +to that newer school that came in a quarter of a century ago with +athletics. He was not lean and hollow-eyed, and wrinkled and yellow, +like a musty old parchment, and he hadn't a stoop in his shoulders, +and he didn't drag one of his legs behind him. He had rowed 'five' +in his college boat, and his shoulders were as square now as ever. +His shoulders were square, and his forehead was square, and his +iron-gray hair was closely cut--it was only iron-gray still--and he had +tremendous bushy eyebrows that, Lucy thought, made him look like an +ogre, and that frightened the undergraduates dreadfully, and close-cut +iron-gray whiskers, and a big red throat like a bull. His throat had +not always been red; he had been mild-looking enough in his youth; +but he was now a portly, pompous Don of middle age, with a florid +countenance and fierce aspect. + +'Well,' he said in his easy, patronizing way, as if he were speaking to +a freshman who had just come up, 'and what do you propose to do, Miss +Lucy?' + +The colour went out of the girl's cheeks, and the long eyelashes +drooped over her eager eyes, and her pretty little slender figure grew +limp, and she didn't look the least like making a speech now. + +'I am sure I don't know,' she said meekly, and she went back and sat on +her old seat in the window on the opposite side to the Senior Tutor. It +was a big bay-window, and there was a table between them littered with +pamphlets and manuscripts in Semitic languages. The girl tossed them +over as she sat there with a gesture of impatience. They were sealed +books to her. + +'What were you discussing with your cousin Ma--ry when I came in?' + +He lingered over the name, and prolonged the last syllable. He seemed +loath to let it go. + +'I was telling her that I should like to go to a woman's college--to +Newnham or Girton.' + +'Exactly.' + +The Tutor nodded his head. He was listening to the girl, but he was +looking out of the window. + +'No one is educated now--no woman--who does not go to Newnham, or +Girton, or Oxford. No one has any chance of success in teaching who +has not taken a place in a Tripos or done something in a University +examination.' + +The Senior Tutor was smiling, but he was only giving her half his +attention. + +'And what Tripos do you propose to take?' he asked in his bland, +superior, lecture-room manner. + +'I? Oh, I don't think I shall ever be clever enough to take a Tripos; +but I might learn something--a little. I might learn enough to pass +the--the--Little----' + +'The Little-go?' suggested the Tutor; 'or, more properly speaking, the +"Previous."' + +'Yes; papa used to talk about the Little-go. He had dreadful difficulty +in passing it. I should be quite satisfied if I could pass the +Little-go.' + +'I don't think you will find any difficulty in passing it,' he said. 'I +do not remember that your father had any special difficulty; I was his +tutor. He disappointed me in the Tripos. With his great gifts he ought +to have done better.' + +It was Lucy's turn to smile now, and to sigh. + +'Poor papa!' she said; 'there was a reason for his failure. Perhaps you +did not know.' + +'No; I knew of no reason.' + +'He had just met my mother, and--and he was in love. She got between +him and his mathematics; he could think of nothing but my mother. Oh, +if you had known her, you would not have wondered.' + +The Senior Tutor looked across the table with a new interest in his +eyes at the sweet downcast face. If her mother had been like her, he +didn't wonder at poor Richard Rae getting only a second class in his +Tripos. + +'Are you quite sure that you will not fail from the same cause? are you +sure that at the momentous time you will not do like your father--that +you will not fall in love?' + +'No--o,' said Lucy gravely; 'I don't think I shall fall in love. I +don't think Girton girls do very often.' + +'They do sometimes. They generally end by marrying their coaches.' + +Lucy looked shocked. + +'They can't _all_ marry their coaches.' + +'No, not all--only the weak ones. The superior minds never sink to the +low level of matrimony.' + +Lucy was quite sure he was laughing at her. + +'I am not likely to need a coach,' she said stiffly; 'I shall never +be clever enough to take a Tripos. I shall be content to pass +the--the--the "Previous."' + +She was going to say 'Little-go,' but she remembered he had called it +the 'Previous,' and she checked herself in time. + +'We shall see. You will have to begin with the "Previous" in any case. +You need not take it all at once: there are three parts; you can take +them at different times.' + +'I should prefer to take them all at once.' + +'But if you are going no farther, if you are going to stop at the +"Previous," why should you be in such a hurry to get it over?' + +'I don't know. It might be as well to get it over; but I have to get +into Girton or Newnham first; I don't know that they will have me; and +I have to get my uncle's consent.' + +She hadn't fallen naturally into the custom of the lodge of calling Dr. +Rae 'the Master' yet. It came easier to say 'uncle.' + +'There will be an entrance examination,' the Tutor said, looking out +of window and watching the Master walking in the garden below leaning +on Mary's arm. 'I believe it is nearly as stiff as the "Previous" and +takes in the same subjects. You will have to pass an examination +before you can become a student at either college.' + +'Do you know what the subjects are?' she asked eagerly; 'could +you--could you get me the papers?' + +He hardly heard her; his heart was out in that wet garden with Mary. +How very indiscreet of the Master at his age to walk over the damp +grass! He was actually sitting down on the bench under the walnut-tree. +Lucy followed the direction of the Tutor's eyes, but she only saw the +Master sitting in the sunshine. A tall, lean figure bent with age, with +white, silvery hair falling over the velvet collar of his coat, and +his rugged, worn old face turned up to the sun. The figure of the old +scholar sitting on the old bench in the sunshine beneath the branches +of the old, old tree, where he had sat in sunshine and in shade, oh, so +many, many years, had no poetry for her. She only wondered, as she saw +him sitting there, lifting his dim eyes to the sinking sun, whether he +would let her go to Newnham. + +The Senior Tutor didn't see any poetry in the situation, either. He was +sure the old Master was catching a dreadful cold; and he was wondering +whether Mary had changed her slippers. + +'Could you get me a copy of the papers set at the last examination?' +Lucy asked meekly. + +'Yes, oh yes,' he said absently; 'I'll try to remember; but I think I +must go down now and bring the Master in: I am sure he is taking cold.' + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ONLY A FRESHER. + + +It was rather hard work to persuade the old Master of St. Benedict's +that Lucy ought to go to Newnham. He belonged to the old school--he was +almost the last left of that school--that did not believe very much in +women. He believed in a girl learning to sew, and to spell, and play a +little air on the piano--he was very fond of 'Annie Laurie,' he could +listen to it by the hour; he went so far, indeed, as the three R's in a +woman's education--and he stopped there. + +He had no sympathy whatever in the movement for the higher education +of Women--spelt with a big W. He had voted consistently all his +life against women being admitted to any of the privileges of the +University, against their being allowed to take degrees; he had even +voted against their being 'placed.' He regarded every concession made +to the weaker sex as a step towards that dreadful time when a female +Vice-Chancellor will confer degrees in the Senate House, and a lady +D.D. will occupy the University pulpit. + +With these views, and with his prejudices growing stronger rather +than weaker with the years, it was no wonder that Mary Rae had great +difficulty in reconciling the Master to the idea of Lucy becoming a +student of Newnham. + +He had to look at the question all round, from every point of view, +and he had to talk it over a great many times. Sometimes he talked it +over with himself after dinner, when he woke up from his nap, or didn't +quite wake up; and sometimes he talked it over with his nieces. + +'I don't think your father would approve of it, my dear,' he said one +day when he was talking 'it' over with Lucy. 'He was a plain man, he +hadn't the advantages of education that I had; but he had what served +him just as well, he had common-sense. He knew what was wanted in a +woman. A woman, he used to say, ought to be able to milk, and make +butter, and bring up a family. Dick's wife could do all these, and her +poultry was noted in all the country round.' + +Lucy sighed. She had no ambition to make butter and bring up a family, +and she had a distinct aversion to poultry. She hated cocks and hens +and broods of yellow downy chickens. She remembered how they used +always to be getting into the Vicarage garden and digging up her +flower-seeds. + +'I am afraid I couldn't get my living by making butter, uncle,' she +said meekly, 'or milking cows.' + +She never could remember to say 'Master,' like everybody else. + +'No, my dear, no; I suppose not. Some girls have the knack of it, and +some women, I've heard my mother say, may churn for hours and the +butter will refuse to come. Dick's wife, your mother, my dear----' + +'Great-grandmother,' murmured Lucy almost inaudibly. The Master hated +to be contradicted, and he was always telling her that these far-off +ancestors were her father and mother, this humble ploughman and his +homely wife. There had been two generations of culture between, and +Lucy had quite forgotten, until her uncle reminded her, that her +great-grandmother used to carry her eggs and her butter to market. The +worst of it was he used to tell everybody it was her mother. + +'Yes, yes,' the Master repeated testily; 'my memory is not what it was. +But it does not much matter which. She was a good woman; she did her +duty here; she brought up a long family--nine children--and she has +gone to her reward. She did not know a word of Greek or Latin, and she +only knew enough mathematics to reckon up the price of eggs; but if she +had gone to Girton or Newnham she could not have done more. She did +her duty here; after all, that is the great thing, my dear. There is +nothing else that will bring comfort at the last.' + +It was a delightful reflection. It comforted the old scholar who had +done his duty in this place for over sixty years, who had done it +so well that by common consent men called him Master; but it didn't +comfort Lucy at all. She was quite prepared to do her duty, only she +wanted to do it in her own way. + +There were other difficulties in the way of Lucy going to Newnham +beside the Master's prejudices. There was a dreadful ordeal to be gone +through before those sacred portals would be opened to admit her. + +There was the entrance examination. The Senior Tutor was as good as +his word; he brought Lucy over the very next day, not only the papers +set at the last 'Previous' examination, but a copy of the last Newnham +entrance papers. The next examination was to take place in March, and +it was now the middle of February, and there were only a few weeks to +prepare for it. + +Lucy looked hurriedly through the papers while the Tutor stood by, and +he saw her face fall and the pretty April colour, which was Lucy's +especial charm, go out of her cheeks. + +'They are stiffer than you thought,' he said. + +He couldn't help putting a little feeling into his voice; he couldn't +help being sorry for the girl. He could see she was dreadfully +disappointed. + +'I did not think they would be so hard,' she said, with something like +a sob, and striving to keep back the tears; 'I had no idea that so much +was required.' + +Her voice was scarcely steady, and she finished up with a little +wail--she couldn't keep it out of her voice--and she laid the papers +down. + +'You don't think you can do them?' + +'No, I am sure I can't.' + +'Not if you work hard--very hard?--you have three weeks before you--not +if I help you?' + +'You! Oh, Mr. Colville!' + +The colour leaped back into her face, and her eyes brightened. She was +quite trembling with eagerness. + +'If you think with three weeks' hard work you can get through, I will +help you,' he said. + +It was something new to the Senior Tutor to have a pupil so eager and +willing. The eyes of the undergraduates of St. Benedict's were not +accustomed to brighten or their cheeks to flush when he proposed to +give them a few hours' extra coaching. + +'I am sure I can!' she said eagerly; 'and--and you are sure, Mr. +Colville, you will not mind the trouble? I am a very slow learner, but +I will do my best, my very best.' + +'I am sure you will,' he said; and then he noticed that little helpless +quivering about her lips that touched him with quite a new sensation. +He had never seen Mary's lips quiver. 'It will be no trouble,' the +Tutor said softly in quite a different voice; he even noticed the +difference himself, with a strange sense of wonder. 'I shall be very +glad to be of use to you.' + +He had often been of use to Mary. She always consulted him about the +college business; she made use of him every day; but his voice had +never faltered nor his cheek grown warm when he had offered to help +her with the Master's correspondence. + +Lucy began her work the next day. She turned out from the little +shabby box she had brought with her to the lodge some well-thumbed +old school-books. Small as the box was, it contained all her personal +belongings, and the books were at the bottom of the box. + +Like Jacob, she had come into a strange land with very little personal +impedimenta. It could all, everything, be stuffed into one small box, +and the books were at the bottom. The books were shabby, like the box. +They had belonged to her father, and she had read them with him. + +There were his old Virgil and Xenophon, and a dilapidated Euclid with +all the riders missing, and an old-fashioned Algebra. There had been +newer editions since Richard Rae had used these in his college days +more than twenty years ago. There had been delightful editions full +of notes, and directing-posts along the royal road to a classical +education; but Lucy had been plodding along the old, rough, dusty way. + +The Senior Tutor smiled as he turned over these old books. They brought +back to him the old days twenty years ago, the hopes and dreams +of those early days, and the familiar faces. The dreams had been +realized--at least, some of them--but the familiar faces had faded with +the years, and the hopes--what could a man hope for beyond being Master +of his college? Nevertheless, the Senior Tutor sighed. The sight of +these old books had carried him a long way back. + +'I think we can find some newer editions than these,' he said, smiling. + +He not only found some newer, but he found the very newest. He found +delightful books that smoothed away all the difficulties and made stony +places plain. There will be a royal road to learning by-and-by. The +road is getting smoother every day, and the way is getting shorter--a +short, straight, macadamized road that one can travel over without any +jolting or sudden pulls-up. + +Old scholars who remember the dear old rough road, and the stony ways, +and the hills of difficulty they had to climb, sigh when they look +back. There is no time now, in these hurrying days, to toil over stones +and climb unnecessary heights. The new ways are so much better than the +old; but the old men, if they were to begin again, would go the old +way, the dear old way, with all its difficulties. They will still tell +you the old ways are best. + +Lucy Rae was not a scholar yet, though the desire of her heart was to +be one--a perfect Hypatia--and the new royal road was exactly what she +wanted. + +She made such rapid progress by means of these short-cuts and easy +paths the Senior Tutor led her through that she was quite ready for +that dreaded entrance examination when it came. She did as well in it +as the girls who had been working for it for years. + +There was nothing now to prevent her becoming a student of Newnham. +Cousin Mary had talked the old Master over and smoothed away all the +difficulties. She had wrung from him an unwilling consent. The Senior +Tutor had done his part, too, in overcoming the Master's prejudices. +He had backed Mary up in the most loyal manner; no girl could have had +better advocates. When the Doctor had urged that there had been no +precedent in his family of girls construing Latin and Greek when they +ought to be making butter and carrying their eggs to market, the Tutor +had reminded him that neither had there been a precedent in all the +generations of the Raes of one of their number being the Master of a +college. + +He, on his part, had set up a precedent, and Dick's little daughter was +going to set up another--perhaps a more astonishing precedent. + +Lucy Rae went up to Newnham the next term. She ought to have waited +until October, when the academical year commences, but she was much too +anxious to begin at once. She couldn't wait till October. + +She had taken a little draught of the divine nectar, and she was +thirsting to drink deeply, ever so deeply--deeper than any woman had +ever drunk yet. She was going to do very big things, and she couldn't +afford to lose a minute. She would gain a whole term's work if she went +up now, she would get in ten terms' work instead of nine, like the men, +for her Tripos. She would get a whole term's start of them. + +With this thirst upon her, and this emulation stirring in her heart, +Lucy packed her little box and carried it up to Newnham. She did not +exactly carry it in her arms like a housemaid going to a new place. +It was not far to carry it, and for the weight of it she might have +carried it easily, but girls do not generally go to Newnham carrying +a bandbox, or a bundle tied up in a coloured pocket-handkerchief, and +with two out-at-elbow little brothers lagging behind carrying a shabby +box between them. Lucy, alas! had not two out-at-elbow little brothers, +and she had respect for the feelings of Newnham, so she drove up to the +door of Newe Hall in a hansom, with her modest little box on the roof. + +She thought it was the happiest, the proudest day of her life, this +first day at Newnham. She had been looking forward to it for weeks. She +had lain awake all the night before picturing what it would be like, +and it was not the least like anything she had pictured. + +She had pictured sunshine and a blue sky, and the lilacs in the hedge +budding, and the daffodils blowing beneath the windows. It was the +middle of April, and she had a right to expect these things; it was +very little to expect. + +It had been raining cheerfully all the morning, and it was raining +still when the hansom drew up at the gate of St. Benedict's; it +couldn't draw up at the door of the lodge, because college lodges are +cut off from the outside world by cloistered courts, and even royalty, +when it visits the master of a college, has to leave its carriage at +the gate and perform the rest of the journey on foot. + +Lucy met Mr. Colville in the cloisters as she was hurrying through, and +he put her into the hansom, and he told the man where to drive, and +quite a crowd of undergraduates, who had come up early in the term, +stood round the gate watching her drive away. + +It was quite a new thing, a girl going from St. Benedict's to +Newnham. It was the newest thing under the sun. No daughter, niece or +granddaughter of any Master of St. Benedict's had ever driven from +those gates before to Newnham. + +Perhaps when there is a mixed University, and a female president at the +lodge, they will not have to go so far; they may find rooms beneath the +same roof. + +Who shall say? + +Lucy couldn't have driven away with more depressing surroundings. The +sky couldn't have been grayer, and the trees were shivering overhead, +and the hedges were dripping, and there was a nasty mist settling down +over everything. She forgot all about the lilacs and the daffodils she +had been picturing as she stood, a forlorn little black figure, in the +big, cheerless vestibule of Newe Hall, paying the driver of the hansom. +There was no one at Newnham to receive her, no one to show her to her +room, only a housemaid, who went away directly she reached the door. +She didn't even open the door of the room; she only pointed to it and +went away in another direction. + +It was a little bare room, it couldn't have been barer. There was +a couch that served for a bed, a bureau with some drawers beneath, +a table, a couple of chairs, and a thinly disguised washstand with +imperfect crockery; and that was all. Unless, indeed, a chintz curtain +drawn across a corner of the room for hanging gowns behind could be +called a wardrobe. + +There was no fire, and the barred windows were steaming and blurred +with the mist outside, and the raw spring afternoon was closing in. + +Lucy shivered and looked round the desolate room. She didn't know what +she was expected to do next, or how she was to begin this new life. She +was a member of the University now, she told herself with bated breath; +she was really a female undergraduate, and she had got to begin as +undergraduates began. + +Should she begin with lighting the fire? While she was debating this +point, and drawing off her gloves, a girl came in. She had left the +door open so that anyone passing could look in and see her standing +there, and the girl passing by looked in and saw her, and something in +her attitude touched her, and she came in. Perhaps it was her black +frock and her white face. + +'Can I do anything for you?' she said. She didn't throw any sympathy +into her voice; they never do at Newnham. 'I've got a kettle boiling if +you'd like some water, or'--looking round the bare room and seeing that +Lucy's things were not unpacked--'perhaps you'd rather have some tea.' + +'Ye--es,' Lucy said quite thankfully; 'I would rather have some tea, +please.' + +'Then come into my room.' + +Lucy followed the girl, a solid-looking girl with no profile to speak +of, and a turned-up nose and violent red hair. She had not to follow +her far, only across the passage. + +There was a card slipped into a frame in the door of the room, and the +name of the occupant was written on it--'Stubbs.' + +'That's my name,' said the girl, pointing to it; 'Maria +Stubbs--Capability Stubbs they call me. I suppose you are a fresher?' + +'Yes,' said Lucy, 'I'm a fresher; I've only just come up. My name is +Rae--Lucy Rae.' + +'Not a bad name; but you won't have any use for it here. They'll call +you Lucifer most likely; they don't call anybody by their right name +here.' + +Maria Stubbs' room was unlike most Newnham rooms. It was distinctly +utilitarian. There was nothing æsthetic about it. The most prominent +thing in it was a bookshelf full of books, and there was a cabinet in +one corner with a lot of narrow drawers, which Lucy found out after +were crammed with specimens. A bright fire was burning in the little +tiled grate, and a cloth was spread, and some tea-things were laid on +the flap of the bureau, which was let down for the purpose, and there +were some cakes in one of the pigeon-holes. + +'Take off your hat and sit down,' said Maria, drawing a low chair to +the fire; 'there's nothing to hurry for, they won't bring in your +things for a long time; they never hurry themselves at Newnham.' + +'I don't think I ought to take off my things until I've seen someone,' +said Lucy. 'There's Miss Wrayburne I certainly ought to see. Perhaps +she doesn't know I'm here.' + +The girl laughed--or cackled, rather; there wasn't the least fun in her +laugh. + +'Perhaps not,' she said, as she busied herself about making the tea; +'and I don't think it would make any difference if she did. You don't +think the Dons are running about the college all day long shaking hands +with the girls? You'll see Miss Wrayburne at the "High" at dinner, and +she'll say "How d'ye do?" and smile--she always smiles--and that's all.' + +'I didn't know,' Lucy said humbly. 'I'm only a fresher, you see; I +shall know better soon. But it struck me as a very chilling reception.' + +Miss Stubbs cackled in her unfeeling way. + +'Chilling! that's lovely! You've come to the wrong place if you expect +any warmth at Newnham, or sympathy either. It would be nothing better +than a big girls' school if we were always "How-d'ye-doing" and shaking +hands with each other--we should get to _kissing_ soon! Thank goodness +there is no spooning here! We are barely civil to each other; and we +make a point of ignoring everybody if we meet 'em out-of-doors. I hope +you won't, on the strength of this tea, nod to me if you happen to run +against me in the street, because I shan't notice you.' + +'No,' said Lucy, 'I certainly won't nod to you.' She didn't say it at +all humbly, but she drank Miss Stubbs' tea. It was very good tea for +Newnham. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +PAMELA GWATKIN. + + +Lucy saw the Principal, as Miss Stubbs had said, at dinner. She came +into the hall rather late, and took her seat at the High table. + +It is necessary to spell it with a capital H, as it is distinctly a +proper noun, and in Newnham parlance, like the tables in men's colleges +where the Dons eat their dinners, it is known as the 'High.' + +Miss Wrayburne came in rather late, after the rest were seated, and +took her place at the head of the 'High,' and then followed a moment's +interval for grace, and then the murmur of tongues began--a low, +distinctly female murmur, and occasionally a laugh--a little low laugh. +There was a good deal of talk to-day, as everybody had come up fresh, +and the atmosphere of the vacation was still about them, and nobody +had begun work yet. They would unpack their books by-and-by, and then +everything would be changed. + +Lucy did not know a soul in the place, except Maria Stubbs, and she sat +at another table. She sat quite at the other end of the room, and never +once looked Lucy's way, and brushed by her in the corridor as if she +had never seen her before. + +'She needn't be afraid I shall notice her, the horrid red-haired +thing!' Lucy said to herself with quite unnecessary warmth, when Maria +looked the other way. 'I wouldn't notice her for the world!' + +There were quite half a dozen tables between her and Maria, long narrow +tables, with some half-dozen girls at each--girls who ignored everybody +else except their own set, and talked across a stranger as if she were +a dummy. + +They talked across Lucy, and she listened to their talk with a red spot +burning on her cheeks and her heart beating. She had not much appetite +for the dinner, and she got up from the table with a strange choking +sensation that brought the tears smarting to her eyes. She took some +comfort in the thought that some day she would talk across a fresher. +Her turn would come some day; and while her mind was occupied with this +agreeable reflection Miss Wrayburne smiled at her, and said: + +'How do you do?' + +'How do you do?' may mean a great deal, or it may mean nothing. It +didn't mean very much from Miss Wrayburne's lips, and the smile that +accompanied it meant less. If it had been a whole smile, or a smile +meant entirely for Lucy, there might have been something in it; but it +was only the fag-end of a smile that had already been distributed over +half a dozen girls. + +Lucy accepted it meekly; and with those red spots burning on her cheeks +and a choky feeling in her throat she went back to her room--her little +desolate, bare room. She felt so utterly miserable and lonely on this +wretched first night that she sat down on the side of her bed and had +a little weep. Everything was so different to what she had expected; +all her castles had been so rudely thrown down. + +And then, while she was weeping these foolish tears, she remembered +a little curate--a weak-minded young man with red hair; perhaps Miss +Stubbs had recalled him--who had once asked her to be his wife. She +had refused him indignantly. What girl in her senses would accept a +curate with red hair and one hundred and fifty pounds a year? She was +not sure, if he had come to her now as she sat in that dismal room, +feeling so utterly lonely and miserable, that she would have given him +the same answer. She wanted a little love so much; and he loved her +in spite of his red hair. She was not so certain, after all, that the +higher education of women is quite the best thing--the thing most to +be desired in the world. There are other things--she had not thought +of them till now, as she sat weeping at the edge of the bed--that make +up a woman's life: love, religion, duty, ministering to the wants of +others; but love chiefly. She was not sure, after all, if this was not +the _summum bonum_ of a woman's life. + +Lucy was so utterly miserable as she sat there weeping that, if the +red-haired curate had come to her at that weak moment, she would have +thrown over all her ambitions, she would have given up the higher +education altogether, and she would have gone away with him to that +poor little moorland cottage, and pinched, and pared, and slaved for +him, as dear women before her have pinched and slaved for those they +love ever since the world began. + +While she was still thinking of the curate, and the tears were +dropping into her lap, there was a knock at the door, and someone came +in. Lucy started guiltily, and hurriedly wiped her eyes. It was not +the red-headed curate. It was a girl--to be more correct, a woman. +Everybody is a woman at Newnham. A second-year girl, who had called +to see if she could help her to unpack her things and get her room in +order. + +It wasn't a formal 'call.' Calls at Newnham are usually made after ten +p.m., when work is supposed to be over and one is yearning for bed. +The second-year girl was a little bit of a thing--smaller than Lucy. A +girl who looked as if she had shrunk--as if she had once been round, +and plump, and bright-eyed, and soft-cheeked, and red-lipped as a girl +ought to be at twenty. She was none of these things now. She was lean +and angular; her eyes were dull, her lips were pale, and her cheeks had +lost all their youthful roundness and rosiness, if they had ever had +any. The roundness had gone into her figure, her back was quite round, +her shoulders were bent and stooping, and her chest was narrow and flat +like a board. + +She had been at Newnham two years, and she was twenty now, and wore +glasses, but, alas! not 'sweet and twenty.' She looked exactly like a +girl who had used up all her brains. + +'I think you have made a mistake,' she said, as she knelt upon the +ground unpacking Lucy's books, 'in taking Classics. You should take the +Natural Science Tripos. Classics are a thing of the past. They are +quite worn out. They will be superseded altogether shortly. Soon--very +soon--Latin and Greek will not be compulsory in the examinations; we +shall have more useful subjects. Life is so short--so very short' (she +was just twenty)--'that we have no time for learning things that will +not help us in the rush. Life is getting more of a rush every day, and +Science is the only thing that can help us forward. There is no knowing +where Science will lead us!' + +She clasped her hands, and gasped at the bare thought of it. + +'No,' said Lucy, in a low-spirited way. + +She hadn't the least interest where Science was going to lead the girl +on the floor--it wasn't likely to lead her very far--but she did object +to see her pet Classics turned out of the box in that scornful way. + +'You will learn all this trash,' the girl continued, opening the pages +of Lucy's Euripides and letting the leaves drop through her fingers as +if they were not of very much account, 'and you will pore over these +rubbishy stories of a quite barbarous age--stories and fables and +metamorphoses that, if they were written at the present time, would +lay the writer open to a prosecution for perverting the public morals. +You will soak your mind with all this nonsense and impurity, and you +will think that you have attained culture. Oh, to think how girls waste +their lives!' + +'I'm sure Classics are ever so much nicer than Natural Science,' Lucy +said with some spirit. 'Look at the dreadful subjects you have to +study! and to sit side by side with men in lecture-rooms, and listen to +lectures on things most women would blush to speak of! Oh, I wouldn't +be a Natural Science student for the world!' + +The atmosphere of Newnham was beginning to tell. A few hours ago Lucy +was as meek as a mouse, and if anyone had slapped her on one cheek she +would have been quite ready to offer the other. Now she had plucked up +sufficient spirit to defend her choice of a Tripos. + +If Newnham doesn't do anything else for a girl, it teaches her to take +her own part. + +Lucy didn't learn the lesson all at once. It takes a long time to +learn, when one has been brought up in the old-fashioned way, to +consider other people first and to think of self last. It would never +do to practise such a foolish doctrine at a college for women. There is +only one person to consider--self, self, self! + +Lucy had a great deal to unlearn when she came to Newnham, and a great +deal to learn; and she did not learn it all at once. She had always had +somebody else to consider first, and now it was ever Number One. Oh, +that horrid Number One! + +Everybody called upon her in Newe Hall the first week, and some of the +girls from the other Halls called later on. The girls at Newe called +generally after ten o'clock at night, when she was too sleepy to talk +to them, and they went away and voted her 'stupid,' and took no further +trouble about her. + +Among the girls who called upon Lucy when she was nearly asleep, and +went away and voted her stupid, was Pamela Gwatkin, a girl who was much +looked up to and worshipped at Newnham. It was no wonder Pamela thought +her stupid. She was the leader of the most advanced set in the college, +and held opinions that would make one's hair stand on end. + +There will be a good many Pamela Gwatkins by-and-by, when there +are more Newnhams and the world is ripe for them. They will quite +revolutionize society. + +They will not be misunderstood like the Greek women of old. Nobody will +question their morals because they seek to lead and teach men. Men will +be quite willing to be taught by them. It will no longer be a shame for +a woman to speak or preach in public. There will be nothing to debar +them from taking orders. + +Women have proved long ago that they can reach beyond such heights of +scholarship as are demanded from a candidate for ordination. But women +of Pamela Gwatkin's order will not go into the pulpit--their demands +will be even more audacious. + +Lucy hadn't any opinions in particular, she was only a fresher; but +she was such a poor-spirited creature that she went with the herd and +worshipped the very ground that Pamela Gwatkin walked upon. + +She hadn't even the excuse of a nodding acquaintance with her after +that unlucky call--she only caught glimpses of her at a distant table +at Hall, or met her by chance in the library, or ran against her in the +streets, coming and going from lectures, when Pamela looked over her +head in her superior way and ignored her completely. + +She could very well look over Lucy's head, for she stood six feet in +her shoes--they had rather high heels. A tall, fair girl, not plump +or round by any means, nor rosy-cheeked--she was not a milkmaid; she +was an advanced thinker--but lithe, and elastic, and dignified--very +dignified. + +Lucy thought she had never seen anyone so dignified in her life as +Pamela on the night of the first debate of the term at Newnham. + +She opened the debate on this particular evening--it happened to be +some question of woman's rights which she was always advocating--and +she spoke for half an hour without a single pause or hitch. + +Some people confess that they cannot bear to hear a woman speak; that +when a woman stands up to speak in public it always gives them the +sensation of cold water running down their backs. No one who listened +to Pamela Gwatkin would have this uncomfortable sensation for a moment. +It seemed as if she had been made to stand up in public; as if Nature +had intended her for a female orator, and had given her the voice--the +clear, penetrating, resonant voice--the quiet, assured manner, the +full, free flow of words, without which no woman may attempt to stand +on a public platform. + +Pamela Gwatkin had all these rare gifts, and she had opinions--very +advanced opinions--on every subject under the sun--religion, morals, +science, philosophy--nothing came amiss to her. When women are +admitted into Parliament she will probably represent an important +constituency, perhaps the University. + +Lucy, looking down from the gallery above, listened breathlessly, and +when the debate was over watched her sailing down the hall in her pale +violet gown, with the soft folds of her train gliding noiselessly after +her. They didn't rustle and sweep like the frills and furbelows of the +other girl, who came _frou-frouing_ down the room, pencil in hand, +counting the votes. She might have spared her pains; of course, every +girl in her senses voted with Pamela. + +There was a dance as usual after the debate, and the unique spectacle +of fifty female couples spinning round untainted by the arm of man. +Pamela Gwatkin danced as well as she spoke, but she didn't put any +enthusiasm into it. She took it as the least troublesome way of +taking exercise, but she didn't put any spirit into it. She didn't +smile once all the evening, except in a weary, disdainful way when +her partner broke down or fell out of the ring. She never broke down +or fell out herself, and when she had tired out one girl she took up +another. Lucy remarked that she always chose small girls--the smallest +girls she could find--and that they were invariably 'gentlemen.' +Lucy was wondering how ever they could drag her round, when, to her +consternation, Pamela stopped in front of her. + +She had worn out all the other small girls in the room, and she had +to fall back upon Lucy. The silly little thing stood up in quite a +flutter. If a Royal Highness had asked her to dance she could not have +been more flattered. Of course, she would take 'gentleman'! She told +the most outrageous fibs, and said she preferred being 'gentleman;' she +always chose it when she had the chance. + +After she had dragged Pamela round until she was fit to faint, and +had ascertained how hard her whalebones were, and how regular her +breathing, and that her favourite perfume was heliotrope, and that +dancing with a goddess whose chin was on a level with the top of her +head was not all pure bliss, she had her reward. + +Annabel Crewe, the Natural Science girl, asked her to 'cocoa' after +the dancing was over, and here she met Pamela. It was Lucy's first +experience of a Newnham 'cocoa.' There was quite a spread on Annabel +Crewe's little writing-table--sweets and cakes and fruit, and cups +brimming over with the nectar of Newnham. + +Pamela Gwatkin came in last; there was a crowd of girls in the room +when she came in, filling it quite up, and occupying all the chairs and +the ottoman and both sides of the bed. There was an art covering thrown +over the bed embroidered with dragons, and a cushion with an impossible +monster with a flaming tail; nobody but a Newnham girl would have +dreamed it was a bed. + +Lucy was occupying a low cushiony-chair--the nicest chair in the +room--and she got up directly Pamela came in and gave it up to her. She +accepted it in her superior way, and flopped down into it as if it +were in the order of things for everyone to make place for her. Then +that wretched little sycophant, Lucy, waited upon her in her servile +way, as if she were nothing short of a Royal Princess. She brought her +her cocoa, and sweets, and cakes, and fruit. She positively snatched +them from the other girls to offer them to Pamela, and be snubbed for +her pains. She hadn't the spirit of a mouse. + +Everybody was talking at once, and there was such a clatter of tongues +that Lucy couldn't have heard the goddess speak if she had deigned to +speak to her. She did deign just before the party broke up. + +Lucy hadn't anywhere to sit, and she was tired out with dragging Pamela +round, and she had found an idiotic three-legged milking-stool, and she +was trying to sit upon it. It was an objectionable stool; in the first +place, it had been painted with yellow buttercups, and varnished before +the paint was dry. It was not dry yet, and it stuck to Lucy's black +gown and left a proof impression of the buttercups on the back. In +the second place, the legs hadn't been stuck in firmly, and it wobbled +under her weight and threatened to collapse every moment. Lucy sat in +fear and trembling, trying to look as if she were quite comfortable and +used to wobbling, and while she sat the goddess spoke: + +'I have a brother at St. Benedict's,' she said; 'I dare say you know +him; he is in his third year.' + +Lucy murmured that she hadn't that pleasure; she didn't know any +undergraduates. + +'No, I suppose not,' Pamela said wearily--she generally spoke wearily, +as if commonplace subjects were beneath her. 'They are an uninteresting +class; only Eric is so quixotic; he does such absurd things that I +should not have thought he could have been anywhere long without being +known and laughed at.' + +'Really!' said Lucy, in rather a shocked voice; she didn't know what +else to say. + +'It was one of his absurdities to come up here as an undergraduate. +He had qualified--fully qualified--for another profession. He was a +doctor, and when he had passed all his examinations, after seven years' +work, he threw it all up. He found out that he had missed his right +vocation. He had some absurd notion that he was specially called for +the Church--that the Church couldn't do without him--and so he has come +up here.' + +Pamela spoke scornfully, with her thin upper lip curling, and just a +suspicion of pink in her face--her beautiful worn, weary face. + +'Perhaps he has done right,' said Lucy. 'A man ought never to go into +the Church unless he feels that he is called. Papa might have been +Senior Wrangler, but he felt his vocation was the Church. He gave up +everything for it, and----' 'And mamma' she was going to say, but she +looked at Pamela and stopped short. + +'It would be all very well if the Church were going to last,' she said +wearily; 'but it isn't. Everybody knows that it isn't. Nobody but women +and children believe in it now. Its methods are all exploded; its +teaching is preposterous; it has had its day, like other beliefs, and +now a new day is dawning. Oh, it was ridiculous of Eric to go into the +Church just as it was falling to pieces!' + +Lucy was past expressing an opinion. The milking-stool had collapsed. +The three idiotic legs had all gone different ways; it had fallen quite +to pieces, like the Church was going to, and Lucy was seated on the +floor. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +AFTER CHAPEL. + + +The day succeeding the debate was Sunday, and Lucy went over to St. +Benedict's to morning chapel. + +She was so glad to go. It was quite a relief to get outside Newnham +and shake from her skirts the atmosphere of so much learning. It was a +distinct relief to take her place in the stalls of St. Benedict's and +look down upon the men who took life so much more easily. + +She was only just in time for the college chapel. The bell was going +as she crossed the court, and the men were hurrying in in their white +surplices. They were all smiling and debonair. There wasn't a single +cloud on the brow of one of them, except the cloud of last night's +tobacco. They were lusty and strong and fresh-coloured, and some of +them had frames like giants; and they came across the court with a +swinging stride, and health and life and vigour in every movement. Men +take things so much more easily than women. + +The choir and the Master came in directly after Lucy had taken her +seat. The Master looked across his wife and Mary, who sat between them, +and nodded to Lucy. + +'Very glad to see you, my dear,' he said in quite an audible voice. + +It was a longer service than usual at St. Benedict's on Sunday +mornings. The Master read the Litany, and he took a long time in +reading it, and Lucy had plenty of opportunity of looking among the men +for Pamela Gwatkin's brother. + +He was a twin brother, she had learned from Annabel Crewe, who knew all +about Pamela, and therefore he ought to be exactly like her. Tall and +fair and thin-lipped, with clear, steady eyes--blue ought to be the +colour, or gray, she was not sure which; but she could not mistake the +profile. There could be no doubt about that clear-cut face, without an +ounce of superfluous flesh upon it. + +Lucy looked at the men eagerly one after the other; she looked at +every man in the chapel. The Senior Tutor from his stall on the other +side saw her looking down at the men. She didn't look at him, and he +wondered at the change in her. Her eyes were not wont to rove over the +faces of the men sitting below in that eager way; they might have all +been sticks and stones for the notice Lucy had hitherto vouchsafed them. + +Was this the outcome of a week at Newnham? Had she seen so much--so +very, very much--of women in her new developments that she was +thirsting for the sight of man? + +Cousin Mary saw her looking down at the undergraduates in the seat +below, too, and sighed. She remembered the time when she used to look +across the benches. She had seen so many generations of undergraduates +come and go in fifteen years. She may have looked more than once in all +that time to see if among them there was that one face that was to be +her beacon through life; she had ceased to look for it now. + +Lucy had decided before she left the chapel that the man in the third +row near the top was Pamela's brother. A tall man with a thin, fair, +fresh-coloured face and firm lips--a capable face, a face quite worthy +of the brother of Pamela Gwatkin. + +Lucy watched the men file out of chapel, and the man in the last seat +of the last row naturally came out last. She refused to go into the +lodge with Mary. She let the old Master and his wife toddle off down +the cloisters together, and she stood holding Mary back and begging her +to wait 'just a minute.' + +The man in the back seat came out at last and took off his cap to the +Master's nieces as he passed. + +'There!' said Lucy breathlessly, 'this is the man I waited for. Is he +Eric Gwatkin?' + +'Eric Gwatkin!' Mary repeated impatiently; she objected to being kept +standing in the court watching the men come out of chapel; she could +see them every day--twice a day if she liked--and she had seen them for +fifteen years. 'Eric Gwatkin?' she repeated. 'The man who has just come +out is Wyatt Edgell, the best man of the year. He will take a very high +place in the Tripos--perhaps the highest--and Eric Gwatkin is only a +Poll man. He is taking the theological Special, I believe, and I dare +say he will be plucked.' + +'Oh, I am sure there is some mistake!' Lucy said hotly; 'Pamela's +brother never could be plucked. She is awfully clever, and--and he is a +twin.' + +Cousin Mary didn't take the least interest in Pamela's brother; even +the fact of his being a twin didn't move her. She went into the lodge +and looked after the table that was spread for lunch. She altered the +arrangement of the flowers, and put some finishing touches to it, and +Lucy stood beside the window that overlooked the court watching her. + +She couldn't help pitying Mary for being interested in such small +things, for being taken up with such petty cares. She had lived in the +midst of culture for fifteen years, and yet she could potter about that +dinner-table and be absorbed in the arrangement of the flowers. + +'I am very glad to see you, my dear,' the old Master said to Lucy when +she had dutifully kissed him and whispered to her aunt how well he was +looking--the sure key to that dear, kind, simple heart was to tell +her how well the Master was looking. It would be a sad day when those +welcome words could no longer be said. + +'And how is the Greek getting on, my dear? Who would have thought of my +brother Dick's daughter learning Greek? She didn't get the taste for it +from her father, for he was no scholar. He was good only for his own +work, none better. There was not a man in the parish who could drive +a straighter furrow than my brother Dick, and his wife was famous for +her poultry. I remember her carrying her butter and eggs to market. She +had the corner stall in the old butter market, my dear. I mind the +very spot.' + +'It was my grandmother, or great-grandmother, rather,' said Lucy, +feebly trying to set him right. 'Mamma never kept a stall in the butter +market.' + +'Never mind which it was,' said the Senior Tutor, who had just come in, +and was shaking hands with Lucy; 'a generation or two doesn't matter.' + +It didn't matter to him, who knew all the homely details of the +Master's humble history; but suppose he were to go maundering about +that stall in the butter market to Pamela Gwatkin, it would be all over +Newnham that it was Lucy's mother, and that Lucy herself used to milk +the cows. With such a pedigree there was no excuse for her tumbling off +a milking-stool. + +If Lucy hadn't been so full of her own concerns that she had no eyes +for others, she would have seen the reason for Cousin Mary's anxiety +about the dinner-table. The Senior Tutor was coming to dinner. + +The lunch, or rather the dinner--for it was a real dinner; except on +state occasions, the old Master dined in the middle of the day--was +spread in the dining-room of the lodge--an old, old room panelled up +to the ceiling with dark oak, with a delightful carved frieze running +round the top, and a big oriel window with diamond panes and stained +glass coats-of-arms of the old Masters who had occupied the lodge since +it was first built, centuries ago. + +There were portraits of some of them in their scarlet gowns on the +walls, looking down upon them as they sat at meat. It was a ghostly +company, so many old Masters, and soon there would be another to hang +among them. He was painted already, and hanging in the gallery outside; +he would come in here soon, and take his place, not at the table, but +on the walls with the rest. + +Perhaps the Senior Tutor was thinking of that not far-off time as he +lay back in his chair glancing up at the dingy old walls that wanted +beeswaxing dreadfully. There would be plenty for him to do when his +time came. There had been nothing done here for years. He would have to +go right through the house; he hardly knew where he should begin. + +And then Lucy broke in upon his pleasant reverie, and asked him about +Eric Gwatkin. + +'Gwatkin?' said the Tutor absently. He was just considering whether he +should have the oak varnished or beeswaxed. 'Ye--e--s; he's going in +for his Special, but I don't think he'll get through.' + +'Only his Special!' Lucy hadn't got through her Little-go yet, but she +regarded the Special from the Newnham standpoint. No woman has ever +yet descended so low as a Special. 'His sister is one of the cleverest +girls at Newnham. She has already taken a first in one Tripos, and now +she is working for another. She is sure to take a double-first. He is +her twin brother, and I'm sure she expects great things of him.' + +'Then I'm very sorry for Miss Gwatkin,' the Tutor said with a laugh. +'If he gets through it's as much as he will do.' + +He declined to have anything more to say about Pamela's unpromising +brother; and he talked to Lucy until the ladies left the table about +her life at Newnham, and the progress she was making with her work. + +The old Master did not sit long over his wine; it had come to one glass +now after dinner--one glass of that old, old wine that had already lain +a dozen years in the darkness of the college cellar when he had come +up a raw scholar to St. Benedict's. It did him quite as much good as a +dozen glasses of a less generous vintage. It brought a warm flush into +his wrinkled cheeks, and a light into his dim eyes, and stirred the +slow blood circling round his heart, and it sent him to sleep to dream +again of the old time, and to win afresh the laurels of his youth. +While the Master sat nodding in his big chair on one side of the wide +fireplace, where a fire was still burning, and his faithful partner sat +nodding on the other side, Lucy slipped out of the room. + +She was only going to the old study to find some books, but she had to +pass through the picture-gallery to reach it. The gallery of the lodge +of St. Benedict's was very much like the galleries of most college +lodges, only it was narrower--a long, low, narrow old room extending +the length of one side of the cloistered court. It had been built +when the cloisters beneath had been built, and it had suffered few +changes since. The walls were panelled to the ceiling with oak, and +it was lighted with deep, old-fashioned bay-windows; not particularly +well lighted, as the diamond panes were darkened with painted arms of +founders and benefactors, and old, dead and forgotten Fellows. The +walls of the long gallery were hung with portraits from end to end. +They began in the right-hand corner by the door in the fourteenth +century--flat, angular, awful presentments of men and women whose +names are household words in Cambridge, and they went on and on until +it seemed that they would never cease. The walls were so full that it +would be difficult to find room for another Fellow. + +Lucy paused on her way to the study, and looked round with quite a new +feeling on these old painted faces. They represented something to her +to-day that they had not represented before. + +She began dimly to understand what had made Cambridge the power it +is in the land. It was these still faces looking down from the walls +who had built up this great Cambridge. It was the men, after all, the +patient men of old, whose toil had accomplished so much; and now the +women were entering into their labours. + +There were not many portraits at Newnham; it was only in its infancy. +There would be plenty by-and-by. Lucy ran over in her mind the women +whose portraits would hang upon those white walls between the windows. +She could not in that brief retrospect think of any who were doing such +great work that they would earn that distinction, only Pamela Gwatkin. +She was sure Pamela would one day hang on the walls. She would be an +old woman then, most likely, a lean, wrinkled, hard-visaged old woman, +with gray hair and spectacles, and she would have a big book beside +her--a book she had written or explained--and she would wear--what +would she wear? + +She would have gone quite bald by that time, like the old Fellows +on the walls; her head would be bald and shining. She would wear it +covered, of course, with--with a scholar's cap, with a long tassel +depending over her nose, or a velvet Doctor's cap, which would be more +becoming, and she would wear a scarlet Doctor's gown and hood. The +picture would look lovely on the white walls of Newnham. + +Lucy had just settled to her satisfaction how Pamela Gwatkin was to be +handed down by a future Herkomer to another generation, when the Senior +Tutor entered the gallery. + +He, too, had been thinking. He hadn't been paying any attention to what +Mary Rae had been talking about while the Master took his after-dinner +nap; his thoughts were with Lucy in the gallery. He had watched her +narrowly at dinner, and he had detected a change in her. He was used +to watching men, and now he had begun to watch women. He remarked +that her eyes were no longer soft; they were hard and eager, and had a +hunted look in them. He knew the look; he had seen it in boys come up +fresh from school--not brilliant boys from the sixth form of big public +schools, but frank, fresh-faced fellows who had come up from country +parsonages. He had seen the look on their faces when the work was new +to them and the strain had begun to tell upon them. They lost it after +a term or two when they bossed their lectures, and drifted away with +the stream, or broke down, and went back to the country parsonages, and +never came up again. + +He had seen this hunted look on boys' faces, but he had never seen it +on a girl's face before. He wasn't sure if it wouldn't be well to take +Lucy away before she broke down. She would never want the mathematics +she was getting up with such labour for the Little-go; she would be +able to add up the butcher's book quite as well without. As the future +mistress of the lodge--it had really come to that; he had ceased to +think about Mary, and he had almost unconsciously put Lucy in her +place--he would have liked her to have the prestige of Newnham, and, +considering her humble antecedents, it was quite as well that she +should win her spurs. She had pluck enough, if her strength would only +hold out. She was a brave little thing; he had never seen a girl so +brave. The Little-go examinations would soon be over, and then, if the +result was satisfactory, he would speak. She would have quite culture +enough after the Little-go--quite enough to condone even the stall in +the butter market. + +'I think you had better let me coach you for the exam.,' he said, as +they talked about her mathematics; 'for the Additionals, at any rate, +you'll find the dynamics and the statics rather stiff.' + +'Ye--es,' Lucy said with a sigh; 'they are dreadfully stiff.' + +'When will you come to me? Will you come here, or shall I come up to +Newnham?' + +'Oh no, no! It would never do to come to Newnham!' + +Lucy turned quite pale at the suggestion. + +'You have male lecturers,' said the college Don with a laugh. 'The +difference would be that I should only be lecturing one girl instead of +six.' + +'I'm sure it wouldn't do; I'm sure Miss Wrayburne would object. I would +rather, if you don't mind, come to you,' Lucy said meekly. + +'Come, by all means. You had better come to my rooms; there will be +less interruption than at the lodge. I can give you four hours a week, +but it must be in the afternoon. When will you begin?' + +Lucy was quite ready to begin at once. She settled to go to the Tutor's +rooms the very next day. She didn't even think of consulting Cousin +Mary about the arrangement, or the Master, or the Master's wife. She +had already made a distinct advance; she had decided for herself; she +had engaged a University coach, and arranged to spend four hours a week +alone with him in his college rooms. The woman of the future could not +do more. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +BEHIND THE SCREEN. + + +Lucy went to her coach the next day. She ought to have known her +way about a college staircase by this time, but she had never yet +penetrated beyond the outer courts. She had never ventured up those +mysterious stairways sacred to gyps, bed-makers and gownsmen. + +A great many gownsmen must have climbed the stairs that led to Mr. +Colville's rooms before her; they had left their marks here, if they +had left them nowhere else in the annals of the University. Mr. +Colville's rooms were in the oldest part of the college, and his +staircase was as narrow and steep and dark as any lover of mediæval +architecture could desire. + +It was so dark that when Lucy reached the first landing she didn't see +where to go; there was a passage in front of her and doors on either +side. Instead of looking at the names painted over the doors, she went +down the passage and knocked at the door at the end. + +There are several ways of knocking at a door, but there is only one way +of knocking at a college door if one expects to be heard. A timid rap +with the knuckles is wasted effort; the knob of an umbrella, or the +handle of a walking-stick, or any other form of bludgeon one happens +to have at hand, is more effective; or a succession of well-delivered +blows with a fist, or the body falling heavily against the door, have +been known to attract the attention of persons within the room; but +Lucy had recourse to none of these devices. She knocked feebly with +her gloved hand on the door and waited. She was sure it was the right +landing. She had read the directions painted on the door-post at the +foot of the staircase: + + FIRST FLOOR--MR. COLVILLE. + +She knocked again presently; and then, as nobody answered, she went +in. The Senior Tutor was expecting her; it was surely right to go in. +She thought she heard voices as she opened the door--at least a voice, +a voice that had a familiar ring in it; she heard it clearer when she +opened the first door; there was an outer oak, as usual to a college +room. Lucy opened both doors and went in. She went quite into the room, +and closed the door--there was a screen before the door--before she saw +the occupants of the room. + +What she saw didn't exactly make her hair stand on end, but she gave +a little cry. She couldn't help crying out. On the couch behind the +screen a man was lying, with the blood flowing from a wound in his +throat, and on his knees beside him was a man praying. + +The man who was praying stopped and looked up at the sound of that +startled cry, and saw Lucy standing in the middle of the floor. He got +up from his knees, and with a gesture of silence went behind the screen +and fastened the two doors. + +'I am glad you are come,' he said, going back to Lucy. 'I did not know +the doors were open. You must be sure to keep them fastened. We don't +want the authorities to know of this, and the Senior Tutor has the next +rooms. You must be sure not to let him suspect anything. If you can do +what is necessary for Edgell by day, I will sit up with him at night. +It is not a bad wound; I don't think it is at all serious.' + +Lucy stood frightened and speechless. What did the man mean? Did he +take her for a nurse? + +'I am afraid there is some mistake,' she said in a low voice; she +couldn't keep from shaking. 'I--I thought this was Mr. Colville's room.' + +Then a light seemed to break in upon the man, and he looked at Lucy +with a quick, startled glance. + +'Oh!' he said, 'I thought you were the nurse. I beg your pardon. +There--there has been an accident here; our friend has not been quite +himself--he has been over-working--and--and this has happened. Thank +God it is no worse! It might have been fatal; a mere hair's breadth +and it would have been fatal. We are anxious to keep it from the +authorities. It would be very serious for him if it were known. It +would ruin him for life. May we ask you to keep the chance knowledge of +this most deplorable occurrence secret?' + +What could Lucy say? Clearly it was her duty as the Master's niece to +go straight to the lodge and acquaint him with the state of affairs. It +was her duty to summon Mr. Colville without a moment's loss of time; he +was only separated from the scene of this tragedy by a narrow passage. + +Of course, the man lying bleeding there ought to have a doctor and a +nurse, and his friends should be telegraphed for, and the whole college +ought to be thrown into a commotion. Suppose the man were to die, what +would her feelings be if she were _particeps criminis_ in this dreadful +secret? + +All these things flashed through Lucy's mind as she stood there looking +at the man on the couch. She knew him now; it was the man who had taken +his hat off to her as he came out of chapel. + +It was the man that Cousin Mary said was going to take a very high +place in the Tripos, perhaps the highest. It was Wyatt Edgell. + +She made up her mind in a moment. + +'Yes,' she said, 'I will keep your secret. But I cannot go away from +here and leave you like this. There is something I can do. I am used to +nursing and sickness; tell me what I can do.' + +She had torn off her gloves and thrown down her books, and was kneeling +beside the couch where the man lay, wiping away the blood that was +trickling beneath the bandage, and dropping down over his chest. + +There was so much she could do that a woman could best do, and the man +with his hand on the wrist of the patient stood by and watched her +while she did it. + +'You know something about medicine?' she said. + +'I have been a doctor. I have spent seven years in acquiring a +knowledge of surgery--seven years out of my life--but it has not been +wasted if I have been the means of saving him;' and he nodded towards +the bed. + +'And you think you have saved him?' + +Where had she heard this man's voice before, and where had she seen his +eyes? She was asking herself this question as she was speaking to him. + +'Yes, I think he is saved. He will do very well with careful nursing. +One of the men has a sister at Addenbroke's, and he has gone to fetch +her. I thought she had come when I saw you standing there. She will +certainly be here presently. I don't think we need detain you.' + +'I shall not go till she comes,' Lucy said with such decision that she +quite frightened herself. 'I shall certainly stay here as long as I can +be of any use.' + +She had been of a good deal of use already. She had removed all traces +of the dreadful deed; she had washed up every stain that could be +washed away, and she had covered up the rest. She had fetched a pillow +and some coverings from the adjoining room, and straightened the +couch, and anyone coming into the room and seeing the man lying there +with a white handkerchief over his throat, and the quilt drawn up over +his chest, would not have dreamed of the ghastly sight beneath. + +He looked as he lay there as if he had broken down in the middle of +his work, and had thrown himself down there in a sudden attack of +faintness. His face was dreadfully white, as white as the coverlet, and +he was breathing hard, and there was a strange faint odour Lucy noticed +as she bent over him. He was not sensible, but once he opened his eyes +and looked at her with a strange, far-away look in them that haunted +her for days. + +They were beautiful eyes, tender and dreamy as a woman's, with a depth +in them Lucy had never seen in any eyes before. But then she had not +been accustomed to look into young men's eyes. She could not remember +bending over a man before and seeing herself reflected in his eyes. + +Perhaps it was the novelty of the situation that moved her. Having done +all, everything she could do, she settled herself down in a chair by +the head of the bed and began to weep. + +The man was nothing to her, she had never heard his name till +yesterday, and here she was sitting by his side weeping for him as if +she had known him all her life. + +The man who stood by let her tears fall unchecked. + +'I don't think you will disturb him,' he said with a smile; 'I have +given him an anodyne. Nobody could tell what he would do if he were +left to himself, so I have made things sure by quieting him for a time. +Pray have your cry out if it does you any good.' + +He evidently knew something of girls. There is nothing like a little +weep for soothing the nerves. + +While Lucy was availing herself of her woman's privilege, he turned +down the coverlet and examined the bandages; the blood was trickling +down beneath them, thick and black where it had congealed, and a paler +streak behind. + +'It's broken out again,' he said quietly. 'I think there must be a +stitch. Can you help me?' + +If Lucy had been told an hour ago that she could have stood by and +assisted as the man sewed up that gaping wound, and never by word or +look betrayed faintness or alarm, she would not have believed it. + +It was the little weep that did it. + +'I think it will do now,' said the man, drawing up the coverlet over +his work. 'There is only one thing we can do more for the poor fellow, +and that is commit him to God. Will you kneel down beside him while we +ask His blessing on the means that we have used? Remember, when two or +three are gathered together--we are two, and--and I am sure his mother +is here with us.' + +Lucy knelt down beside the couch while the man prayed aloud. + +He talked to God as he knelt there as one who knew Him as a Friend of +old. He made no preamble in entering this solemn Presence Chamber, but +went straight up to the throne with his petition, and laid the poor, +blind, suffering soul at the foot of the Cross. + +Lucy had been brought up in the bosom of the Church; she had heard +prayers read every morning and evening of her life, and she had never +missed being in her place on Sundays. She had heard her father read the +prayers hundreds of times, and she had heard, oh, so many sermons, but +she had never heard a man pray like this. + +It was heart speaking to heart; it was the spirit of man speaking to +the Spirit of God. + +While he was still speaking the door, or doors, rather, opened, and +someone came in. He did not stop or get up from his knees, but went on +wrestling for the blessing that he sought. + +Lucy felt dreadfully guilty kneeling there. She heard the door +open, and people--distinctly people--come in; and she had an awful +overwhelming sense of guiltiness, as if she had been consenting to a +murder. She was afraid to get up; she expected to see the Senior Tutor +standing there and her cousin Mary. She didn't at all know why she +expected Mary. + +She was almost afraid to look up when she rose from her knees, and she +felt herself shaking all over. But it was not Mary, and it was not the +Tutor. It was a man that Lucy had often seen in the courts below, and +he had a girl in a nurse's dress with him. + +He looked over to Lucy in some alarm, and took off his cap. + +'It's all right,' said the other. 'You didn't lock the door after you, +old man, when you went out, and this lady found her way in--at least, +God showed her the way in. If she hadn't come at the right moment it +would have gone hard with our friend here. I am glad you have brought +your sister. And now,' he said, turning to Lucy, 'we need not detain +you any longer. This lady will stay with us, I hope, till late; and I +shall sit up with him to-night. To-morrow, I hope, the worst will be +over.' + +'I hope so,' Lucy said with a sob she couldn't choke down--she hadn't +the heart to say any more. + +'I am sure you will respect our secret,' the man said, as Lucy was +drawing on her gloves. + +She didn't answer him; she only looked at him, and she saw the blood +flush up under his skin. She remembered somebody else's cheeks she had +seen flush in the same way--not a man's. + +'I beg your pardon,' he said humbly. + +Lucy was so angry with him for doubting her that she did not see his +proffered hand; she drew her gloves on hurriedly, and picked up her +books and went out into the passage, but she beckoned the nurse to +follow her. + +'I don't think the man's going to get better,' she said in a hurried +whisper. 'It's like consenting to a murder to let him lie there and +die; but _I_ am not going to tell. I think his mother ought to know. I +think someone ought to write and tell her that he is ill--dying!' + +The nurse shook her head. + +'It would kill her!' she said. 'She has such faith in her son--her +beautiful son! He is such a noble, splendid fellow! Oh, it is a +dreadful pity!' + +'Why did he do it?' + +'Why? Oh, don't you know?' + +'No----' + +The door of the room opened as they were speaking, and the nurse's +brother beckoned her to come in. + +'Come to me to-morrow morning at Addenbroke's,' she said. 'Ask for +Nurse Brannan;' and then she went into the room and shut the door. + +Lucy crept guiltily down the stairs. She quite shivered as she passed +the Tutor's door: she would not have encountered him for the world. She +didn't feel safe until she had got outside the college gate, and then +she ran all the way back to Newnham. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +LUCY'S SECRET. + + +Lucy felt dreadfully guilty all through that wretched evening. If she +had assisted in a murder she couldn't have felt worse. + +She had no appetite for dinner, and when she went back to her room, +what was still more unusual, she had no appetite for her work. A +Newnham girl is a gourmand where work is concerned; she may leave her +meals untasted, but that terrible craving within creates an appetite +that is akin to ravenous where work is concerned. When that craving +ceases she goes down--or breaks down. + +It had ceased quite suddenly with Lucy; she hated the very thought +of work; she loathed with an unutterable loathing the sight of those +mathematical books she had brought back from St. Benedict's. She +shrank from them with a dreadful sense of faintness and sickness when +she attempted to open them. They smelt of blood, or else she fancied +they did. + +The air was full of fancies. It was a stormy night, and the wind was +wailing round her corner of the building, and every now and then a +sharp blast of driving rain would strike upon her window. She heard the +rain distinctly dropping down the pane like tears, and she fancied--oh, +it was a dreadful fancy!--that it was drops of blood. + +She bore it in that lonely room as long as she could, and then she got +up and went out into the passage. The lights were out, and the place +was quite still; everybody had gone to bed. Dark and deserted as the +corridor was, it was not so lonely as her own room. There were girls +sleeping behind every one of those closed doors. She heard them--for +the ventilators of most were open--breathing audibly, and some were +moaning in their sleep. + +Lucy walked up and down the long corridor; her feet were bare, and she +had thrown nothing over her shoulders. Cousin Mary would have scolded +her dreadfully if she had seen her, with her white garments trailing on +the stone floor. + +She never thought of the draughts or the cold stones; she only thought +of getting away from that everlasting drip, drip of the window-pane, +that brought the scene of the afternoon so vividly before her. She was +nervous and overwrought, and she was burdened with a secret she ought +never to have bound herself to keep. + +Wild horses shouldn't tear it from her, she told herself, as she paced +up and down that draughty passage. Whatever happened, she would be +true to her word. It would be hard if a girl couldn't be trusted as +well as a man. What was the use of coming to Newnham if gossip and +emptiness--the habits of the slave--still had dominion over her? + +It was all very fine and high-sounding; but she would have given the +world to have told somebody, to have eased her overburdened mind and +poured out the dreadful story on some soft feminine, sympathetic bosom. + +And then, while she was telling herself all these fine things, and +repeating Lord Tennyson's nice verses about that open fountain that was +to wash away all those silly human things and make woman perfect--quite +perfect--a strange thing happened. + +She heard the voice of the man praying. He was praying now; she heard +him quite distinctly, but she could not catch the words. She was quite +sure it was the voice; it had sunk down so deep into her ears that she +could never forget it. Lucy paused in the darkness and listened. The +voice came from a room at the door of which she was standing. She had +no idea, in the darkness, whose room it was; she was only sure--quite +sure--of the voice. + +An overpowering desire to see the speaker--perhaps to get her +release--seized her, and she opened the door of the room. + +There was no man there praying; there was only a girl sitting reading +by the light of a shaded lamp, and she was reading aloud. It was +Pamela Gwatkin, and she was reading a Greek play. + +Lucy went a few paces into the room and stood there as if spellbound, +listening to the girlish voice, in low solemn accents, mouthing the +rhythmic Greek. She didn't read it as if it were Wordsworth, or Cowper, +or Keats, or even Tennyson; she mouthed it; and the noble words, +falling in noble cadence, brought back the voice of the man wrestling +with God for his friend. + +Pamela heard the door open, and she looked up. She didn't divide the +shuddering night with a shrill-edged shriek, and bring all Newnham +about her, as she might have done at the sight of the white-robed +figure standing in the doorway. She thought it was a girl walking in +her sleep, and she got up softly and went towards her. + +For a moment, as she came forward, she saw the figure swaying in +the doorway, and as she came nearer Lucy tottered forward with her +arms out-stretched like one walking in a dream, and fell upon her +bosom--literally fell, with her clinging arms around her, and her head +pillowed on Pamela's bosom. + +'Oh, it is Eric Gwatkin!' she sobbed, 'it is Eric Gwatkin!' + +Pamela got her over to the couch--it was a bed now, not a couch; the +serge rug had been removed, and a snowy coverlet was in its place, +and a real pillow, not a sham roundabout bolster covered with an +embroidered dragon. + +Pamela Gwatkin laid the girl down on her own bed and covered her up. +She was shaking dreadfully, and her hands and feet were like ice, and +she was sobbing hysterically. + +When Pamela had covered her up, she shut the door of the room; it +was no good making a scene and arousing everybody, because a girl--a +little weak-minded fresher--had broken down under the strain and got +hysterical. All girls get hysterical at times, only the stronger ones +lock the door and wrestle with the enemy in secret. + +'Oh, Eric Gwatkin!' moaned the girl on the bed. 'I can't keep it any +longer; I must tell!' + +'What have you got to do with Eric Gwatkin?' Pamela asked severely. +'I am sure he is nothing to you; he is never likely to be anything to +anybody.' + +'Oh yes, he is! He is everything to--to Wyatt Edgell. He has saved his +life. Oh, you don't know what he is to him!' + +'Saved his life? What are you talking about? What has Wyatt Edgell got +to do with you, and with Eric?' + +'_He sewed it up_--the wound--the dreadful gaping wound!' + +Lucy covered her eyes with her hands to shut out the dreadful sight, +and she was trembling so dreadfully that the bed shook with her. +Clearly the girl was in a fever, and her mind was wandering. The name +of Wyatt Edgell was familiar to Pamela; it was familiar to everybody in +Cambridge. He was the coming Senior Wrangler. What could Eric have to +do with him--poor Eric, who was grinding for his 'Special'? + +'What wound?' said Pamela impatiently; 'and who sewed it up?' + +'Eric sewed it up, and I helped him. I drew the edges together, while +he put the needle in the quivering flesh. Oh, it was horrible!' + +Lucy sank back on the couch, and her lips grew pale, and her cheeks +gray, and Pamela thought she was going to faint. She hadn't got +anything but eau-de-Cologne to give her--not a nip of brandy for the +world; not even a pocket flask is allowed at Newnham. She went to the +water-jug and poured out some water in a basin, and dabbed it over the +girl's face and hands, and made her own bed streaming. Perhaps there +was something in the girl's story, after all! She couldn't have dreamed +these hideous details. + +'Where was the wound? how had he hurt himself?' she asked presently. + +'He had cut his throat.' + +Pamela let the basin of water she was holding fall on the floor. She +didn't scream as any less well-regulated mind would have done, but she +let the basin slip out of her hands, and the water made a dreadful mess +on the floor. + +'Cut his throat?' she repeated faintly--she was nearly as white as +Lucy--'and Eric----' + +'Eric sewed it up.' + +'Is--is he dead?' + +She asked the question hoarsely, in a voice Lucy couldn't have +recognised for Pamela's, but she was past noticing voices. + +'No--o; Eric has asked God to give him back his life, that he may begin +it afresh.' + +'What use is that?' said Pamela bitterly. + +'I am sure God heard him--we were praying for him when the nurse came +in. He was asking that the nurse might be sent quickly, and she came +while the words were on his lips.' + +'Of course the nurse would be sent; you can get a nurse at any moment +from Addenbroke's without praying for one.' + +'Oh, you don't understand!' Lucy moaned; 'you don't know the worst. It +had to be done secretly: no one must know. It would ruin him for life +if it were known.' + +'You don't mean that they haven't told anyone? that they are trying to +hush it up, and not let the tutors know?' + +Lucy moaned. + +'Oh, what folly is this! I am sure Eric is at the bottom of it.' + +'Yes; it was Eric made me promise I wouldn't tell, and I have told +you,' Lucy murmured helplessly. + +'Of course you have told me. Having told me so much, you must tell me +all--you must keep nothing back.' + +And so Lucy sat up in the bed with her arms round Pamela--she couldn't +have told her without having something to cling to--and told her her +wretched little story, and how she had pledged herself to keep this +young man's secret. + +'What do you think I ought to do?' she asked weakly, when the recital +was finished. + +'Do?' said Pamela, but she didn't answer the girl's question. She +disengaged herself from her clinging arms, and she paced up and down +the room, her feet dabbling in the water on the floor. She stopped +presently in her walk, her chin up, and her face set with the light of +a high resolve upon it towards the light that was breaking in at the +east window; she might have been reciting that Greek play. 'Do?' she +repeated, and her face was hard and cold and tired. The old weary look +had come back to it--no wonder; it was three o'clock in the morning. +'Do? Why, go to bed, of course!' + +She refused to say another word about Lucy's secret. She helped her +back to her room, and put her to bed, and tucked her in, and drew back +the curtains, that the light of the new day might drive away the ghosts +of the night. + +Pamela did all this without speaking a word; but when she got to the +door of Lucy's room she stopped and looked back. She could see from the +tremulous motion of the clothes that the girl was weeping, and she went +over to the bed and put her cool lips to Lucy's forehead. + +'Good-night, dear!' she said softly. 'I think you have behaved +beautifully!' + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +WATTLES. + + +As soon as she could get away from Newnham the next morning, Lucy went +to Addenbroke's to see Nurse Brannan. She couldn't get away very early; +there was a mathematical lecture at nine o'clock that wasn't over till +eleven, and she had to plod, plod through those weary diagrams while +her mind was far away. Oh, how she hated those problems and riders, +and all the dreary, dreary round! She made one or two futile little +diagrams on her paper, and then she rubbed them out again, and sat +staring at the blackboard, and watching the perplexing white lines come +and go while her mind was far away. She was calculating what would +happen if the man had died in the night. + +'What would they do with the body? Would Eric Gwatkin expect her to +keep the secret, and assist, perhaps, at some mysterious obsequies?' It +was with a distinct feeling of relief she saw the duster sweep over the +blackboard and wipe all those cabalistic characters away. It was like +wiping out the record of her guilt. + +Lucy shook off the dust and gloom of the lecture-room and ran off to +Addenbroke's. She really could run a good part of the way. She went +across the Fens, as less frequented, and giving her space to breathe +and think. It was such a blue day, and the fresh green of the year was +over the low-lying fields, and the chestnut-tree by the bridge was +budding, and the pollard willows that marked the winding course of the +river were sallow-gray in the sunshine, and the daisies were in bloom. +Lucy walked over quite a carpet of flowers; she crushed the little +tender pink buds remorselessly under her feet in her hurry to get to +Addenbroke's. + +She had never been to the hospital before, and she was rather afraid +to go in when she got there. There were a lot of people coming out with +newly-bandaged limbs and white faces, and some children were carried +in in their mothers' arms. There were people of all ages, men and +women, and little children all with that sad patience on their faces +which is born of suffering. Lucy was so sorry for the people. She had +no idea her heart was still tender; she had rather prided herself on +its growing cold and hard like Maria Stubbs and the rest of the Stoics +of Newnham. There was a tired-looking woman coming up the path with a +puny little creature in her arms, with, oh! such a white, white face. +Its eyes were open, and it was smiling a wan little smile up into the +mother's face, and she was crooning over it; she was a poor, weakly +thing, and she carried it as if even its light weight were too much for +her. Lucy turned to look after the sickly mother and the sickly child, +and she noticed the child's arm--a lean, puny little arm--had escaped +from the shawl in which it was wrapped, and was feebly embracing the +mother's waist. + +The sight of that small clinging hand brought a rush of tears to her +eyes. There was compensation even here; there was something here +between that sickly mother and child--there wasn't much to show for +it, only a crooning voice and a wan smile and a little wasted clinging +hand--that would last longer than the Stoics, that would last 'to and +through the Doomsday fire.' + +Strangely softened by this every-day sight, Lucy crept up the wide +stone staircase to find Nurse Brannan. She looked so lost that a man +going up, a medical student, asked her where she was going, and took +her to the ward where Miss Brannan was nurse. + +'I am afraid the doctors are going their rounds,' he said, as he looked +in at the door, 'but I will take you into Miss Brannan's room, and you +can wait there.' + +He led Lucy through the ward--a large, delightful chamber, well lighted +and cheerful, and with quite a bank of tall palms and ferns on a table +near the door, an oasis of verdure for tired eyes to feast upon. + +Lucy saw all this at a glance, and she saw also a group of men round +a bed, and the nurses standing near, and she crept softly into Nurse +Brannan's room. + +She had time before the nurse came to her to see what a nurse's room +was like. It was a tiny bit of a room partitioned off the ward, and it +seemed all walls and ceiling. There was a little floor room, however, +and a big window that went nearly up to the ceiling. + +It was not unlike a room in a woman's college, only that there were +texts on the walls, and there are no texts on the walls of the Stoics. + +The occupant of the room must have understood Latin and Greek, for +there were texts in both these languages. There was one text only in +our common tongue, and that was over the mantelpiece. It was not an +illuminated text, and it had no lovely floral border. It was written in +plain, bold characters in black and white: 'Inasmuch as ye do it unto +the least of these My brethren, ye do it unto Me.' + +Lucy couldn't keep her eyes off those familiar words which she read now +in a new light. There wasn't much else in the room to look at. There +was a bed that was a couch by day; it was a bed still, though it was +past eleven o'clock; Nurse Brannan had evidently not long risen from +it. The room was in the disorder of the early morning, and the day +arrangements did not yet prevail. It was as untidy as a nurse's room +well could be: the breakfast things were still on the table, and the +demure little bonnet and cloak looked as if they had hastily been taken +off and thrown on the bed, and a pair of outdoor shoes were lying in +the middle of the floor. + +While Lucy was still noticing these details Nurse Brannan came in. + +She was a little bit of a nurse, with pink cheeks and steady blue eyes +and fluffy hair. She was not at all a formidable person. + +Lucy ran up to her when she came in, and took both her hands. She +couldn't ask the question that was on her lips, she was moved out of +all sense and reason. The anxieties of the night and the mathematics +of the morning, and the lean little encircling arm had moved her +strangely, and now she was hardly master of herself. + +Nurse Brannan shook her head. + +'He is no better,' she said. + +She didn't say it at all sadly. She was so used to such things--to +sickness and suffering and death--it didn't move her in the least. + +'I have just come back from St. Benedict's, and there is no +improvement. He has had a dreadful night. They thought at one time of +calling up the Tutor.' + +'And they have not told him yet?' Lucy asked, pale to the lips. 'Are +they going to let him die?' + +'They have not told him; they have not told anyone in the college; but +I don't know about letting him die.' + +'You think he'll get over it? Oh, do you really think it possible with +that--that dreadful wound he can get better?' + +Only talking about the wound made Lucy sick and faint. She was made of +very poor stuff. She would have been no good at Addenbroke's. + +Nurse Brannan smiled. + +'The wound is nothing,' she said: 'it is not at all serious. He will +get better if he is well watched, and they protect him from himself. +When the attack passes off he will not be much the worse--only it may +occur again at any time.' + +'The attack?' Lucy said feebly; she was quite at sea as to Nurse +Brannan's meaning. + +'Oh, you didn't know he did it in a fit of delirium tremens. This is +the second time he has had an attack, and he has attempted his life +both times. His friends ought to take him away and put him under +restraint.' + +Lucy didn't know what delirium tremens meant; happily she had been +spared all her life from such miserable knowledge. She vaguely knew it +was a 'possession' of some kind, an awful 'possession' like that which +used to seize the men of old. + +'You think the fit will pass?' she said. + +'Oh yes; there is no reason why it shouldn't pass, and then the less +they say to him about it the better. It would be well if he never knew; +but the scar will remain, they cannot cover up that. There is no reason +why he shouldn't be well enough to take his Tripos and go "down." The +best thing that can happen to him will be to "go down."' + +'Go down'--he looked very much more like going 'up,' Lucy thought, +as she recalled the white face on the pillow; but she was immensely +relieved by the nurse's assurance. + +'And you have seen him this morning?' she said. + +'Yes; I ran over for a minute directly I got up. I was not up till +late. A woman was dying in the ward, and I stayed with her till she +died. She did not die till daylight, and then I lay down for a few +hours; and I had just time to snatch some breakfast and run over to St. +Benedict's before the doctors came their rounds. I was only just back +in time. I had to throw my things down and put on my slippers--I hadn't +even time to put my cap straight. They were waiting for me in the ward +when I came back. Oh dear! what a mess I left my room in!' + +Her pretty plaited nurse's cap, that ought to be worn in the most +demure fashion, that ought to be as straight as those lines of that +detestable blackboard, was all awry, was positively jaunty, and her +fluffy hair was quite outrageous. She didn't look the least like a +real, staid nurse who is called upon to face death at any moment, and +is always doing dreadful disagreeable things. She might have been +playing at nursing, only her eyes were steady, and her lips had a great +calm about them; they didn't quiver, and tremble, and curl, and ripple +with laughter, like other girls. + +Lucy was almost angry with her for the cool, not to say unfeeling, way +in which she spoke of these dread realities--death and suffering. 'She +has no heart!' she said to herself as she went back over the Fens to +Newnham. 'Nurses are so used to pain that they have no sympathy. I +wouldn't be a nurse for the world!' Then she remembered the words over +the mantelpiece: 'Inasmuch----.' Was this the secret of that little +fluffy, girlish nurse's hardness and endurance? + +They don't do very much for other people at Newnham; and they do +nothing for each other. They positively ignore each other. Perhaps +this is owing to culture--the higher culture--and it hadn't reached +Addenbroke's yet. + +Lucy had written to the Tutor of St. Benedict's when she got back the +previous day, excusing herself, in an incoherent fashion, for not +keeping her appointment, and promising to come to his rooms at the same +hour the next day. + +She knew her way quite well this time, and she was five minutes before +the hour she had appointed. The Senior Tutor's door was closed, and the +way was quite clear. There was not a soul on the staircase; there was +not a soul in the passage. Lucy could not resist the desire to knock at +that closed door at the end of the passage, and find out for herself +how the man was. She hadn't much faith in that thick-skinned little +nurse; she would see for herself. + +She knocked at the door at the end of the passage in her futile way, +but of course nobody answered. If she had wasted all her strength +upon it, it would have been the same thing, as the inmates of that +mysterious room only gave admittance to privileged individuals upon +preconcerted signals. + +Lucy hadn't got the secret of that 'Open sesame,' and she was turning +away. She hadn't got to the end of the passage, when the door really +did open and someone came out. It was the bed-maker with a tray. +Somebody had been having a meal, and she was carrying the débris away. +Lucy stopped her at the end of the passage, and the two women stood +looking at each other--the bed-maker suspiciously, and Lucy eagerly. +There was no mistaking the anxious eagerness in Lucy's eyes. + +'How is he?' she asked, more with her eyes than her lips, and she +laid her detaining hand on the woman's arm. There must have been some +Freemasonry in the touch, for the bed-maker softened, and the look of +suspicion gave place to one of pity. + +'He's quieter,' she said in a whisper, drawing Lucy back into the +passage, out of sight of the Tutor's door; 'but he's been orful bad all +the morning. As much as two of 'em could do to keep him in bed. It's a +sad pity, miss, and such a nice gentleman--there isn't his fellow in +the college!' + +The bed-maker sniffed; she would have wept, no doubt, but she held a +tray, and it would have been inconvenient, so she sniffed instead, and +regarded Lucy with a watery eye. She evidently thought Lucy was his +sweetheart. + +Lucy took a coin from her slender purse and laid it on the tray. She +didn't give it to anybody in particular, she only laid it on the tray, +and the bed-maker curtsied. + +'Will you ask Mr. Gwatkin if I may come in?' she said--'the lady who +was with him yesterday.' + +She didn't give her name, but the woman knew her quite well--every +bed-maker in St. Benedict's knew her. She wasn't the least surprised +at the Master's niece taking an interest in one of her gentlemen--the +nicest gentleman in the college. She had a tender spot in her withered +bosom, under that rusty old shawl, and she was quite flustered at an +_affaire de coeur_ on her staircase. + +She toddled back, tray and all, and by a preconcerted signal the door +was opened, and she said a few words to someone inside, and then Eric +Gwatkin came out into the passage and led Lucy in and closed the doors +behind her. + +He was looking dreadfully tired, she thought, and there were quite deep +lines on his face; he seemed to have aged since yesterday. Perhaps it +was with want of sleep, but Lucy put it down at once to his guilty +conscience. She was feeling old herself, years older than yesterday. + +'He has had a very bad night,' Eric Gwatkin said, speaking in a low +voice and with his lips twitching, 'such a night as I pray God I may +never witness again. You were not praying for us last night. You did +not pray for him--for me--when you went away.' + +Lucy bowed her head; she remembered she had not prayed for these men. +What were they to her that she should pray for them? + +She had been walking about the passages and frightening Pamela out of +her wits instead, when she ought to have been on her knees. + +The screen had been moved since yesterday; it had been drawn nearer the +bed, so that the middle of the room where they were standing was left +clear. + +'He does not like to see anyone whispering,' Eric explained; 'he is +very suspicious, and the least thing excites him.' + +'You were alone with him all night?' Lucy asked, with a perceptible +quiver in her voice; 'you have been up two nights.' + +'That doesn't matter,' he said, 'I shall have all the strength I need; +but last night he was very violent, and--and I thought I should have to +call Mr. Colville. It was a great temptation--I could hardly resist +it.' + +'Oh, why didn't you?' said Lucy. 'Why do you take all this +responsibility upon yourself?' + +Eric Gwatkin smiled. His smile was not the least like Pamela's. Lucy +couldn't help thinking, as she stood there, how it would change +Pamela's face and take the weariness out of it if she had that smile. + +'I don't mind the responsibility,' he said, 'or the anxiety, if I can +save him. It would be worse than death to him to have it known. Oh, I +think you must go home and pray that he may be brought through this, +and may be kept for the future. He will need all our prayers.' + +'What on earth are you whispering about, Wattles? I wish you would +speak so that a fellow can hear what you are saying.' + +The voice came from behind the screen--an impatient voice, not weak by +any means. + +'All right, old man; Miss Rae has come to ask how you are. He saw you +yesterday,' he said, turning to Lucy and speaking in a lower voice; +'he remembered you quite well.' + +'It's awfully good of you,' Wyatt Edgell said as Lucy came from behind +the screen; 'I'm afraid we don't look like receiving visitors. Old +Wattles here insists upon making a mess.' + +He was lying back on the pillow with a wet bandage round his head, and +a basin of lotion and some rags on a chair beside the bed. His shirt +was torn open as if in a struggle, and his chest was bare. There was +a scarf round his throat, a large silk scarf striped with the colours +of his college that concealed whatever was beneath. Lying there with +his head thrown back and those wet bandages, and his chest open--his +splendid manly chest with all the muscles exposed--he looked like a +man stricken down with fever, or some head trouble; no one would have +guessed what the scarf thrown so loosely around his neck concealed. + +'I am so glad you are better,' said Lucy softly, coming over to the bed +and bending over him; 'you ought to get well soon, you have got such a +good nurse.' + +'Old Wattles, yes; he's very well, only he persists in keeping me in +such a mess.' + +He took the bandages off his head as he spoke, and rolled them up into +a ball, and flung them to the other end of the room, where they rolled +under a heavy piece of furniture, and Wattles, or Gwatkin rather, had +to go on his knees and fish them out. + +'There!' he said, 'that will give Wattles an excuse for going on his +knees. He has been going on his knees all night. He would be a good +fellow if he weren't always preaching and praying.' + +He rolled his head impatiently on one side, and flung the pillow after +the bandages, and Lucy, looking down upon him, saw a dark light in his +eyes she had never seen in any eyes before. It wasn't exactly terror, +but it was disgust and loathing and impatience. + +'I beg your pardon,' he said, 'but there was a creature on that--a +toad. I hate toads!' He shuddered as he spoke, and his eyes followed +the direction of the pillow. 'It's there now! I wish Wattles would put +it outside. It's been here all night.' + +Gwatkin took up the pillow and shook it, and appeared to take something +off it, and opened the window and made a gesture as if he had thrown +the thing into the court below. + +'There, old man,' he said reassuringly, 'it's gone now. It can't +trouble you any more.' + +And then he brought back the pillow, and Lucy put it under the poor +fellow's head while he supported it, and she arranged it and smoothed +it as only a woman's hand can arrange a pillow. + +When she had done this, she put on the wet bandages afresh and bathed +his head, and as she bathed it the dark light seemed to fade out of his +eyes. + +'You are very good,' he said with a sigh; 'you have exorcised that +hideous little beast. It is gone now'--and he looked round the room +fearfully--'quite gone.' + +'Thank God!' said Gwatkin. 'Your visit has done some good, Miss Rae, if +it has dispelled that hideous nightmare that has been pursuing him all +night. I think he will sleep now.' + +'I'm sure you ought to sleep yourself,' Lucy said, as she suddenly +remembered the time and began dragging on her gloves. 'It is quite +gone,' she said to Edgell, bending down over the bed; 'I am going to +pick it up as I go out and carry it away.' + +Having told this little fib, she went out, and Gwatkin closed the two +doors after her. + +She had to tell another fib or two when she went into the Tutor's room. +He had been waiting for her exactly fifteen minutes, and he had waited +an hour the day before. + +She was absent and distrait all through the lesson; she was thinking +about the man in the next room, and the creature she had promised to +pick up in the court. + +The Senior Tutor had never coached such an unpromising pupil. She would +never get through her Little-go, he told himself--never, never. She +would get plucked to a certainty. + +Oh, it would never do for the future Mistress of St. Benedict's to be +plucked! + +He debated with himself while he was bending over her, and remarking +what a dainty little profile it was, and how the little rings of +chestnut hair clustered on her forehead, and how clear, how deliciously +transparent, was the carnation tint of her cheek, and the shapely curve +of her throat--such a little throat he could clasp it with his hand--he +debated with himself, as he remarked these quite every-day things that +no man in his senses except an old bachelor Fellow of a college would +have noticed, whether it would not be better to settle the thing at +once, and stop all this unprofitable work. + +If Lucy knew what was before her, she would have other opportunities of +fitting herself for her high position besides poring over mathematics, +for which she clearly had no vocation. + +'I'm afraid you find the work rather hard,' he said with a preliminary +'H'm' and 'Ah' to clear his throat. He didn't know exactly how to +begin. What comes by nature at thirty is uncommonly hard at sixty. It +is like going in again for a hurdle-race, or taking the high jump. He +could have done it easily years ago, but he couldn't do it now. He +stopped with that preliminary 'Ah.' + +'Yes,' said Lucy, 'it is not very easy, but I am going to work eight +hours a day. It is more than a month to the exam.; if I work very hard +eight hours every day, I think I may manage it.' + +Eight hours a day for a whole month! She was so much in earnest; and +when she lifted her little pale drooping face to his, with just a +suspicion of a tear on her eyelashes, he was really sorry for her. He +was very near taking her in his arms and kissing away that fugitive +tear and settling the matter--he was never nearer in his life. + +Perhaps it was the best thing he could have done, but he missed the +chance, and Lucy picked up her books and began to talk about the work +she was to prepare for the next lesson. + +'I wouldn't work eight hours a day,' he said; 'you will get through +easier than that. I would give an extra two hours to tennis.' + +He had never given a man this advice--perhaps it was not needed. He +watched her, out of his window, cross the court. She did not happen to +pick up the thing by the way as she had promised. Her step was less +elastic, he noticed, than it used to be, and her face was paler--paler +and thinner. She would never, never be young again, and life would +never open afresh. There is only one young life, one time of roses, one +sweet blossoming time, and it was just a question in the Tutor's mind, +as he watched Lucy cross the court, whether the loss of this were worth +all the mathematics in the world. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +A WOMAN'S PARLIAMENT. + + +Lucy saw Pamela Gwatkin once only during the day, and that was at +dinner. She only caught a far-off glimpse of her at the High table. +Pamela very often sat at the 'High' among the Dons. The younger Dons +were very fond of her: her opinions kept pace with theirs--they were +very advanced opinions--and sometimes they outran them. She would be a +Don herself some day, and she would be a pioneer in quite a new school +of thought. + +Lucy watched her with a feeling of awe as she sat among those great +minds eating gooseberry pie--Lucy wouldn't have sat there for the +world. The presence of so much learning would have taken away +her appetite. The presence of the Master of St. Benedict's at the +dinner-table never took away her appetite, but the dear old thing +never talked above her head. He was very fond of recalling those +old days, as he sat at meat, when Dick--not Lucy's father, but her +great-grandfather--used to drive a team afield, and his good wife kept +the stall in the butter market. + +But the President and the Dons of 'Newe' never discussed such +commonplace topics. They talked of literature, philosophy, science, +with a fine breadth of handling which is peculiar to a woman's college. +Pamela Gwatkin was in her right place among them. + +There was the weekly political meeting held after Hall--a little +miniature House of Commons--where the affairs of the nation were +discussed, a foretaste of what will be by-and-by, when things are +rearranged. + +When the House took its seat at nine o'clock, Lucy found herself in +the Opposition, and a long way off from the benches occupied by the +Government of the country. + +Lucy only represented an insignificant little borough that nobody else +would stoop to represent. She had a little freehold in it--her only +freehold--six feet of earth beneath the east window of her father's +church at Thorpe Regis. Most people have a freehold of this sort, but +it does not always give them a voice in the affairs of the nation. Lucy +was returned unopposed on the strength of her little freehold, and as +her views, if she had any, were not at all advanced, she found herself +in the minority. + +Pamela Gwatkin, or, as the girls called her, Newnham Assurance, was +the Leader of the House, and Annabel Crewe Secretary for the Colonies, +and Capability Stubbs had been unanimously elected Chancellor of the +Exchequer; every girl that was worth anything had a place in the +Cabinet. + +Lucy hadn't much interest in the business that was going on, and she +took out her knitting and turned the heel of a sock while the great +affairs of the State were being discussed. + +It was quite clear from what she did gather from the speeches on the +Ministerial side that the country had been misgoverned long enough by +the feeble race of men. It was quite time there was a change. A great +deal of time had been lost; ages had been lost in the history of the +world. Men had been first in the field; women took a longer time to +ripen. They had ripened now; they were quite, quite ripe; they were +ready for the change. + +Oh, it was beautiful to hear the girls speak! There is an idea among +narrow-minded people that debating societies encourage volubility of +speech. Perhaps they do among men, and the practice of public speaking +is apt to make them too loquacious, too apt to air their elementary +knowledge and crude information in senseless verbiage. But garrulity is +not the sin of the students of colleges for women. They not only know +a great deal more than men know, but they have the delightful gift of +ready and accurate language. They do not haggle and hesitate, and 'H'm' +and 'Ah,' and have that dreadful difficulty in finding words that even +prevails in a real House of Commons. + +It was remarkable to see with what ease the Newnham girls handled +those topics which old-fashioned legislators have been puzzling over +Session after Session. There was a certain fine breadth in their way of +handling them that would have taken a Conservative Leader's (the Leader +of a real House of Commons) breath away. + +It didn't take anybody's breath away in the Ladies' Parliament. +Everybody knitted and listened unmoved, and when eleven o'clock came +two very important Bills that had been brought forward from last +Session were advanced a stage. + +There was an exciting division before the House separated, that +resulted in an overwhelming majority for the motion, 'That the Legal +Profession and the Church be thrown open to women.' + +That foolish little Lucy voted in the minority; there were not a dozen +girls in Newnham who showed such a poor spirit, and of these five, it +was rumoured, were engaged to curates. + +The girls ran off to their rooms when the sitting of the House was +ended in the highest possible spirits. Some of them sang snatches of +songs, and some caught each other round the waist and waltzed madly +down corridors. The thing was practically settled. The Bar and the +Church opened vistas, immense vistas, for every sort of talent, and +especially for the kind of talent that Newnham produced. + +There would have to be more colleges for women--Newnham and Girton +could not turn out nearly enough--there would have to be a great many +Newnhams. Some girls, no doubt, sat down at once and began to prepare +a sermon, and others took down Blackstone and began seriously to study +law. + +Lucy went back to her room alone. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, +though she 'kept' next door, wouldn't take the slightest notice of her. +She had lighted her lamp, and was just thinking what she would give for +a cup of tea, when someone knocked at her door. It wasn't a girl with a +cup of tea, as she hoped it might be--the Chancellor of the Exchequer, +with all her fine airs, generally brought her in a cup of tea before +she went to bed, and sometimes she condescended to sit down for five +minutes and discuss the burning questions of the day. It was not the +Chancellor of the Exchequer--it was a far greater person--it was the +Leader of the House. + +'Well?' she said, when she came in and had shut the door after +her--'well?' + +She had come in so suddenly, and Lucy's mind was so full of the motion +of the evening--this Parliamentary business was quite a new thing to +her, and she had taken it _au serieux_--that she could not collect +herself sufficiently to think what Pamela meant. Her mind was so full +of the lady curates and the female barristers that she looked up at the +Leader of the House in bewilderment. + +'Well,' said Pamela impatiently, 'how is he? I saw by your face at Hall +that he was not dead. Is he going to get well?' + +Then Lucy remembered all about it. + +'Oh dear!' she said, 'how could I have forgotten! Yes, he is going to +get well, I think. He will owe his life if he does to Eric. Oh, Eric +has been lovely!' + +'Eric has done no more than anyone else would have done,' Pamela said +coldly; 'no more than a woman would have done if a woman had been in +his place.' + +'I don't think a woman _could_ have done what Eric has done,' Lucy said. + +She was thinking of those stitches he had put in, and how he had +struggled with the poor fellow all night, and how he had been watching +and praying beside him for two whole nights and days. + +Nurse Brannan would have done as much as most women, but she would not +have done all this. + +'Oh, you don't know what women can do!' Pamela said, with a little curl +of her lip. Her lips were so thin and so hard--such crisp lips that +they couldn't help curling. 'You are only a fresher; when you have been +here three years you will have found out what a woman can do. He would +never have cut his throat if a woman had been near him.' + +'No,' said Lucy eagerly, 'I am sure he wouldn't--not if a woman he +loved had been near. Oh dear! you should have seen the wistfulness in +his poor eyes when I put the wet bandage on his head! It was enough to +melt one's heart. Eric says he will be sure to do it again--at least, +that we must never leave off praying for him. I am sure that there is +only one thing that can save him from doing it again.' + +'Only one thing?' Pamela repeated, with just an inflection of scorn in +her voice. 'And what is this panacea for his wickedness and folly? What +is this fine thing that is to save him from himself?' + +'Don't speak of it so lightly; it is not a little thing!' + +There were tears in Lucy's voice as she spoke, and in her eyes. She +had the picture before her of the strong man, with his beautiful +bare chest, and his splendid frame, and those wistful eyes, and the +loathing and the dread with which he shrank from the creature on his +pillow. The pity of it was strong upon her, and she was deeply moved. + +'A great love would save him--the love of a good woman. He would do a +great thing for a woman he loved; he would make any sacrifice. I don't +think anything else would save him.' + +The Leader of the House of Commons turned from white to pink. Lucy +might have been talking about her. She wore a very pretty white gown +of some soft silky stuff, and it was folded across the bosom, and +the folds heaved up and down as Lucy spoke, as if she were breathing +heavily. + +'Perhaps he has done this for a woman's sake,' she said bitterly. 'Men +are such fools! they will do anything for a woman's sake--not always a +worthy woman.' + +'I am sure he has not!' said Lucy hotly. 'He has been working too +hard, and he has broken down. I heard at the lodge that he was working +ten hours a day; that he was certain to come out first. Oh, you don't +know how they are building upon him at St. Benedict's! It isn't a +woman--it's overwork.' + +Pamela smiled. + +'You are a capital champion, my dear, only don't suffer yourself to get +too much interested in this foolish young man; it will interfere with +your work. You must not make a mistake and let pity drift into--love.' + +She made a little pause before the word, and the colour came again into +her cheeks. She looked ever so much prettier talking about pity--and +love--than she did speaking on those troublesome Bills that had already +occupied the time of two Sessions. + +'Oh, he is never likely to love me!' said Lucy. 'He could only love his +equal; no one else would have any influence over him. He would only +love a queen among women.' + +'Perhaps he has found his queen already. Most men have before they are +twenty-three.' + +The colour went out of the girl's face, and the cold light came back +into her eyes, and her lips, that a moment before were tremulous and +tender, were hard and firm. + +'I wouldn't go too often to Mr. Edgell's rooms, if I were you, dear,' +she said when she went away. 'The authorities would make a fuss if +they heard of it. We are not supposed, you know, to visit a man's room +without a chaperon. I don't think it would do to take a chaperon there. +If you have any more interest in him, I will find out for you how he is +going on from Eric.' + +'Thank you,' said Lucy warmly; 'I can find out for myself. I can hear +all about the St. Benedict's men at the lodge.' + +She was quite frightened at herself for speaking in that way to the +Prime Minister. She had got into the way now, since she had been at +Newnham, of taking her own part; she was beginning to have no respect +for dignities. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +'THAT CONFOUNDED CUCUMBER!' + + +Lucy didn't go to Wyatt Edgell's room again. She caught sight of the +friendly bed-maker once or twice on the staircase when she went to Mr. +Colville's room to be coached in mathematics, and she held a little +whispered conference with her on the stairs. + +Edgell was better: he was up again and at work--working very hard, the +woman said (and bed-makers know something about work). He was 'going on +as quiet and as steady as any gentleman on the staircase.' This verdict +from such a quarter was as good as a college testimonial. + +When there is a mixed University, and a lady President at the lodge, +and a female Vice-Chancellor, and the affairs of the Senate are +conducted by dowagers, bed-makers will no doubt be required to sign +college testimonials. + +The first time Lucy saw Wyatt Edgell after that day when she put the +wet bandage round his head, and promised to pick up the dreadful thing +Eric had thrown out of window, and carry it away with her, was at the +college chapel. + +It was a fortnight after the day when she had picked him out from +among all the men of St. Benedict's as Pamela Gwatkin's brother. He +was sitting in the same place, and he was very little changed; he was +paler, Lucy thought, and he was muffled up round the throat for that +warm May day. She couldn't help looking at him. Her eyes would wander +over to the bench where he sat, do what she would to keep them fixed in +quite an opposite direction. + +The Master took such a long time over the Litany that morning. He had +read it for so many years in that college chapel, Sunday after Sunday, +but he had never read it so slowly as he was reading it to-day. The +men yawned and fidgeted as he read, and the old fellows in the stalls +opposite looked across with grave, questioning eyes--they would have to +elect another Master shortly--and the women-folk kneeling by his side +looked up anxiously; but Lucy's eyes had wandered again to the end seat +on the last bench, while her lips were murmuring: + +'"That it may please Thee to raise up them that fall, and finally to +beat down Satan under our feet."' + +Wyatt Edgell looked up while she was praying for him--she was +distinctly praying for him, she had prayed this very prayer for him +every night and morning since Eric had told her how he needed her +prayers--and their eyes met. + +Lucy was covered with confusion. She was quite sure in that swift +momentary glance that he had read her inmost thoughts. She was ashamed +that he should know that she had been praying all this time that he +should be strengthened and comforted and helped and picked up again +when he fell, and that the enemy should be beaten down under his feet. +She never looked at that end of the chapel again all the rest of the +service. + +It was over at last--the long, long Litany and the slow, faltering +prayers: the men need not have been so restless, they would not hear +them much longer. The old walls would echo another voice soon, and the +feeble lips would be repeating another Litany elsewhere. + +The old college chapel was full of echoes and shadows; there would be +another shadow shortly, and the echo of a tremulous, quavering voice +would join those other ancient echoes in the roof. It was a dark, +gloomy old chapel; it had been built for hundreds of years, and it was +full of old memories. Every bench and stall and desk had a memory of +its own, stretching back, far back, into quite early ages--memories +of old Masters and Fellows and scholars and undergraduates who had +worshipped there through, oh! so many generations. + +There was a musty smell of old Masters rising up from the vaults +beneath and pervading the chapel, and in the ante-chapel beyond there +were monuments on the walls, and brasses--quite lovely old brasses--on +the pavement, and great hideous tombs of long dead and gone Masters +and Fellows. It was touching to see how they were forgotten after a +generation or two; how even their very tomb-stones were hidden away in +a corner, and covered up with organ pipes. There was the marble effigy +of an old, old Master, whose learning and virtues were recited in a +long Latin epitaph on an elaborate tablet hidden away behind the organ. + +Everyone had forgotten him years ago, and his old monument was in the +way, and so they had covered it up. Music is so much more delightful +than old memories. They will all be swept away soon, and a new chapel +will be built. There will be no old memories and old ghosts and old +storied windows, no decaying woodwork or musty odour of old Masters. It +will all be fresh and bright and sweet-smelling and shiny as new paint +and varnish can make it, and there will be a new organ with electric +stops. It will be dark and shadowy no longer; the old echoes and the +old ghosts will all be scared away--they will vanish quite away in the +blaze of the new electric lamps with which the chapel will be lighted. + +Lucy vanished out of the college chapel almost as rapidly as the ghosts +will by-and-by. She did not linger in the cloisters to-day. She hurried +back to the lodge, and left Cousin Mary and the Master's wife to toddle +back beside the Master. + +'How do you think your uncle looks to-day, my dear?' the old lady asked +Lucy when they had got him safely back to the lodge, and had put him in +his great armchair, and given him some wine. + +There was a shade of anxiety in her voice as she asked the question. +Lucy hadn't seen the Master for a week, so she might have been expected +to notice any change in him. + +'Oh, I think he looks lovely, aunt! He walked back from chapel quite +strong.' + +Mrs. Rae shook her head; she was not quite convinced. + +'There were two of us supporting him, my dear, one on either side, and +I thought he leant rather heavily.' + +He had nearly crushed the poor little soul into the ground; she could +not have supported his weight a dozen steps more. + +'Perhaps you are not so strong yourself to-day, auntie dear; you are +looking pale. Most likely the weakness is yours, and you are not so +well able to bear his weight. He always leans heavily; I often wonder +how you and Mary can keep him up!' + +'Perhaps so, my dear. I hope it may be so!' But still the cloud on the +dear old face did not quite vanish. 'I fancied that his reading in +chapel was slower to-day than usual--that his voice was weak. Did you +notice it?' + +'Oh yes; I noticed that he read lovely! I never heard him read so well +as he read to-day.' + +'You really think so? I am very glad! The fault must be in me. I don't +think I am quite so strong to-day--I can't expect to be at my age; but +I am very glad there is nothing unusual the matter with the Master. You +would have been quite sure to have noticed it, my dear, if there had +been, as you haven't seen him for a week.' + +She kissed that mendacious little Lucy and tottered out of the room. +She was very feeble to-day--perhaps the Master's weight had been too +much for her; but there was quite a glad smile on her patient face. She +was so happy, the brave old soul, to feel that the weakness was hers, +not his. + +Wyatt Edgell went back straight from chapel to his own rooms. He met +Eric coming out of chapel, and they went back together. + +'Where have I seen that girl before?' he asked Eric when they got back +to the room. + +'Oh, you've often seen her in chapel. She's the Master's niece, or +grand-niece, or something of the kind,' said Eric evasively. + +But the other was not so easily put off. + +'I have seen her somewhere else, besides in chapel,' he said +thoughtfully. 'I've seen her in this room. I've seen her beside my bed. +Good heavens! Wattles, you didn't let that girl in--when--when----' + +'When you weren't quite yourself, old man,' said Eric cheerfully, +filling up the gap. 'What on earth should the Master's niece come in +here for? Be reasonable, and don't ask such foolish things!' + +'Foolish or not, I'll be hanged if I didn't see her in this room, +standing where you stand now! You may as well tell the truth, Wattles. +You may as well say you called her in and showed her the spectacle!' + +He was a very determined-looking young man, and he didn't look like one +to be trifled with, as he stood with his back to the empty fireplace, +leaning against the mantelpiece, and his great hands stuck down well in +his pockets. + +'Dear old man, you may take my word for it: I did not call her in; I +should as soon have thought of calling the Master in!' + +'I wish to Heaven you had called the Master in--I should have known the +worst then; but for this girl to see me--in--in that state!' + +He paused and groaned, and two upright lines came out on his forehead. + +'You take too much for granted, old man,' said the other; but he +couldn't put any heartiness into his voice. 'Haven't I told you +that not a soul in the college but Brannan and myself came into the +room--while--while you were ill?' + +'Yes,' said the other moodily--'not a soul in the college; but this +girl from Newnham came in. I'll swear it! I saw it in her eyes.' + +It was no use Eric pretending. Edgell was not in a mood to be trifled +with. He was a great big, determined fellow. He could have taken Eric +up and flung him to the other end of the room with the same ease with +which he had flung the pillow. + +'Go on,' he said moodily; 'go on, and tell me all about it. Tell me why +this girl came in, and the spectacle she saw. Let me know exactly the +degradation to which I have sunk!' + +There was no help for it. Eric had to tell him all about Lucy's +visit--Lucy's second visit; he didn't say anything about the first. How +could he tell the poor fellow that she had come in at that dreadful +time; that it was her hands that had wiped up all the traces of +his crime; that it was she who had helped him when he had put those +stitches in that gaping wound in his throat! + +Eric told him quite enough. His head had fallen forward on his breast, +and he looked a picture of despondency. A despondent giant of six +feet, with a great broad chest, and big muscular limbs, and a splendid +head splendidly set on a splendid full white throat--it was muffled up +now, but it was as white and shapely as a woman's beneath the crisp, +close-cut whisker curling down below the cheek. His chin and his great +square jaw were close-shaven, but there was a thin, slight, crisp +moustache on his upper lip, and his short hair curled crisply at the +edges. He wore it parted in the middle, not very neatly parted, and +tossed back off his forehead. Everything about him denoted strength and +courage--such a man could not be despondent long. + +'Then she knows the worst,' he said--'the very worst. There is nothing +else she has got to learn about me. There is only one thing to be +done, Wattles, with a girl who knows so much about me: I must marry +her. You must introduce me again, old man, and I shall make her an +offer, and--and she will marry me.' + +His gloom and depression had quite gone, and he was smiling again. He +was a delightful fellow when he smiled. Not a man in the college could +resist that delightful smile; it disarmed the wrath of all the Dons, +and it won the hearts of bed-makers. + +'Marry her!' said Eric, turning quite pale. 'Dear old man, don't be +in such a hurry. Think it over. She isn't the sort of woman for you, +Edgell.' + +Wyatt Edgell laughed. His laugh was a full-blown edition of his smile; +but Gwatkin looked serious. + +'Perhaps you'll tell me, Wattles, what is the sort of woman for me.' + +'Oh, I wouldn't pretend to say; only, old man, don't trifle with this +poor little thing. She's the sort of girl to break her heart for a man. +I wouldn't break her heart if I were you.' + +'Perhaps she'll break mine,' said Edgell dryly; and then he sat down +and ate his lunch which the bed-maker had already spread out on the +table. + +It was a very nice college lunch. It was not tinned beef, or brawn, or +tongue, or any questionable dainty that had been soldered up a year +or two in a metal case. It was a lovely head and shoulders of salmon, +and it had been judiciously pickled, and there was cucumber cut up +in a dish--little delicate flakes of cucumber which Edgell ate with +the healthy returning appetite of a man who had long been denied this +delicacy. + +The salmon was followed by a chicken and a ham, to which he also +applied himself with the same zest. The edge was quite taken off his +appetite, when Eric pushed these things aside and set a jelly just +freshly turned out of a mould before him. + +'I don't want any of that stuff,' he said, and he pushed over his glass +in the direction of the claret. + +'I don't think I'd take any more, old man,' said Eric; 'you've already +had four glasses. I wouldn't have any more. Have a soda?' + +'I'll be hanged if I do!' said the other doggedly, 'unless you put +some brandy in it. I must have a nip of brandy, Wattles. I'm sure that +cucumber has disagreed with me. I haven't had any cucumber for an age, +and it never did agree with me.' + +Eric got up and unlocked a cupboard, and took out a liqueur-bottle more +than half full of brandy, and poured a small--a very small--quantity +into a glass, and filled it up with seltzer-water. + +He had put the bottle back into the cupboard and the key into his +pocket, and was putting on his gown to go out. He always took a service +somewhere in the country, or did some open-air preaching on Sunday +afternoons, and he was in a hurry to get away. + +'I wish you'd leave that key behind you, Wattles,' Edgell called out +when he got to the door. 'That confounded cucumber or the pickled +salmon has disagreed with me. I may want the key before you come back.' + +Eric took the key out of his pocket reluctantly and laid it on the +mantelpiece. + +'You'll be careful, old man,' he said; 'you'll be sure to be careful. +Remember----' + +'Shut up!' said the other angrily. 'Do you think I'm such a fool?' + +Eric went out and shut the door. When he came back two hours later the +liqueur-bottle was on the table empty, and Edgell was breathing heavily +on the floor. + +It was all that confounded pickled salmon and cucumber! + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +IN THE FELLOWS' GARDEN. + + +That mendacious little Lucy, in spite of all her assurances to the +Master's wife, was a little anxious about the Master. He had not taken +his dinner with his usual appetite; he had scarcely eaten a morsel, and +he had not had his usual nap after. + +He had left half the wine in his glass, and he had got up from the +table earlier than usual; but he had not fallen asleep in his chair +after, as was his wont. He had sat talking to Lucy all the afternoon +about the old time. His memory was wonderfully clear about the things +that had happened, oh! so long ago--more than half a century before +she was born--and he talked to her about them as if they had happened +yesterday. + +He was always so glad to see Cousin Dick's little daughter; she brought +back the past to him, and seemed a link between the old far-off time +and the present. He recalled to-day his very earliest years, his first +remembrances. He recalled the time when his brother Dick carried him on +his shoulders to the fair. + +'It was Midsummer Fair, my dear,' he explained, 'and your father +left off work early; he was very fond of fairs, and junketings, and +wrestling matches. He liked bull-baiting, too. I mind the bull-ring +at the end of the village on a piece of waste ground; I dare say it +is there now. I've seen many a bull baited there in my day. There was +never a fair within ten miles but your father was there in his best, +with a flower in his button-hole--he always wore a flower in the +button-hole of his plum-coloured coat. I remember that coat well; it +had gilt buttons, and he wore a waistcoat to match, with two rows of +buttons on either side--it was the fashion then, my dear. He carried +me on his shoulder all the way to the fair; it was held on the green; +there was a large green in the middle of the village in those days, but +it is built over now; things have altered since then.' + +The old Master shook his head and sighed. He hated changes of any +kind; he would have liked the world to go on in the same old grooves +for ever. He was silent for some time, and his watchful women-folk +thought he was going to sleep--that he would have his after-dinner nap, +after all; but he was only thinking. Those old chambers of memory were +unlocked, and the old faces of his youth were crowding around him. + +'Yes,' he said presently, brightening up, 'your mother was there, too, +my dear. Dick met her in a dancing-booth. She wouldn't look at Dick at +first, she had so many sweethearts. She was a proud little thing, with +a spirit of her own; she nearly broke Dick's heart before he married +her, but she made him a good wife--a good wife and a good mother, and +always in her place in church, and bringing her children up to work and +to fear God. I don't know that women do more in these days when they +learn so many things.' + +Lucy couldn't help thinking of that motion in the House of Commons, +which was carried with such an overwhelming majority, that was to admit +women to practise at the Bar and in the Church, to say nothing of those +other learned professions that were already practically open. + +The old Master's views were very, very old-fashioned; the world had +made rapid strides while he had been sitting in his armchair and +reading his Sunday Litanies in that musty old college chapel. + +'Your father had a spirit of his own, too, my dear,' the old man +babbled on with quite surprising vigour--these old memories made him +quite young again; 'he wouldn't stay there to be slighted, with all the +neighbours looking on. He left your mother going round with a young +spark who had come down from London, and with me on his shoulder he +went through the fair. I mind the booths quite well, with the gilt +gingerbread, and the toys, and the trumpets, and the drums, and the +merry-go-rounds. There was a show with a fat woman--I have never +forgotten that fat woman. I have never seen anything like her since. +There was a dwarf there, too--the smallest dwarf that was ever seen. I +remember him strutting about the stage with his little sword; he wore +a sword, and a gold-laced coat, and a cocked hat. The fat lady took +his arm when the performance was over--she had to stoop down to do it, +and he had to stretch up. I shall never forget seeing them go off the +stage, arm-in-arm--the funniest sight I have ever seen--or how the +people in the show laughed and clapped their hands when the showman +made a ridiculous speech as they went out. "That's the way they go to +church every Sunday of their lives!" he said, pointing after them. I +believed him, if the crowd didn't, and for years after I used to watch +the church door to see them coming in; but I have never seen them +since.' + +Lucy was so anxious about the old Master that when she went for her +lesson to the Tutor's rooms the next day she could do nothing but talk +about him. + +The Tutor was anxious too, perhaps, in another way. He had noticed a +change in the Master, and he went over to the lodge with her as soon as +the lesson was over. + +The Master was very feeble to-day, but he was up, and downstairs, and +he was talking about going out into the garden. He was very fond of +the old Fellows' Garden, and the seat beneath the walnut-tree--a sunny +seat in the winter, a shady seat in the summer. It was shady now, but +the garden was full of sunshine; the lilacs were in bloom, and the +laburnums were a blaze of gold, and the thorn-tree was white with may. +It was the blossoming time of the year, and everything was at its prime. + +The Tutor took him out on his arm and sat him down on his old seat. He +noticed how heavily he leant upon him as he tottered feebly across the +grass. He would have crushed a woman with his weight. The Master's +wife came out too, and sat by his side, with his hand in hers, and +Lucy walked with the Tutor in the shady, winding paths beneath the +trees. The trees were all old and gnarled, and some had broken down +with age, and were propped up. The borders were full of old-fashioned +flowers--perennials that went down into the earth every winter, and +came up again every spring. There was nothing new here. + +The Senior Tutor, as he walked by Lucy's side, was thinking how he +should change all this by-and-by. He would cut down those useless old +trees, and he would have the turf rolled and laid out for tennis. +Nothing could be better for Lucy than tennis, and she could invite her +Newnham friends. Those old flower borders should be all dug up, and +some standard rose-trees planted. He would have nothing but first-rate +sorts, the very latest. He would do away with that vulgar cabbage +rose in the corner, and that poor, shabby little pale blush that hung +in clusters on the wall. It had hung there for so many years; it was +quite time it should be cleared away. It seemed a pity to lose time. +There were so many improvements to be made; it seemed a pity not to +begin now. + +Looking across the grass and the sunshine at the old stooping figure +under the walnut-tree--it was bent more than usual to-day--he could +not but feel that the time was not far off when it would be there no +longer. There was nothing pathetic in the sight to him. He had waited +for the place--the Master's place--so long. If he waited much longer he +would be feeble and old and white-haired, too. + +There is little pathos in the young. The sad realities of life touch +only those who know something about them. One must have suffered one's +self to have any sympathy with suffering. + +Lucy, looking across the sunshine, was touched, in spite of herself, at +the group under the walnut-tree. It didn't affect her as it affected +the Tutor. It would be no gain to her if the old Master were to die; it +would mean loss and change and being driven out again homeless into the +wide world. + +But it was not this consideration that moved her. She was touched +by the tender picture of the two brave, patient old souls sitting +hand-in-hand in that calm closing evening of their life. + +Here was a love that Lucy knew nothing about--a love that had weathered +all the storms of life, and was burning brightly at its close. Riches +and honour and learning were nothing to it. They were the Master's +still, but they were nothing beside love. He would leave these behind +him, but love would cling to him out of time. He wouldn't shake that +off when he shook off everything else. + +Lucy didn't put the idea into words, but it touched her; and then, +strangely enough, rose up before her the face of the man who had sat on +the last seat in the chapel and had caught her looking at him. It was +quite ridiculous to think of Wyatt Edgell at such a moment; there was +nothing here to remind her of him. + +There was an old disused greenhouse at the end of the Fellows' garden. +Nothing had grown in it for years. A neglected vine was dropping down +from the roof in one corner, and a great deal of the glass was broken, +and the woodwork was decayed and rotting. The Tutor shook the door as +he passed, and it opened, and he paused and looked in. + +'I think we must have this place rebuilt,' he said, thinking aloud. +'You would like a greenhouse. We must get some ferns and palms and +foliage plants. Do you like foliage plants?' + +'Not much,' Lucy said. She could not think what he meant by appealing +to her. 'I like flowers best. I don't care for leaves. I'm afraid my +taste is very vulgar. I like geraniums, and mignonette, and camellias; +I am very fond of camellias. We used to have some in our greenhouse at +home.' + +'You can keep as many as you like here,' he said. 'We will get all the +varieties there are, and you can have geraniums in flower all the year +round.' + +He shut the door, and they walked down the path together, while Lucy +wondered what he could mean. It would be scarcely worth while to do up +the old greenhouse and fill it with flowers when it was not likely she +would be there another spring to see it. + +In the long path they met Cousin Mary coming towards them. She looked +rather pale and worn in the sunshine, and she had on a most unbecoming +garden-hat. It had been hanging up in the hall all the winter; it might +have been hanging there for years, and it was battered out of all +shape. There was not a bed-maker in the college that would have worn it. + +The Tutor had never noticed before how gray her hair had grown, and +that there were crow's-feet round her eyes, and that her cheeks were +faded. She had not changed lately. She had looked like this for years, +getting a little grayer every year, and adding a line or two beneath +her eyes, but he had never noticed it before. He was very fond of her +still; he had the highest opinion of Mary Rae, but he was very glad +that Lucy had come in time--just in time--to save him from throwing +himself away. + +'Mr. Colville is going to have the old greenhouse done up, Mary,' Lucy +shouted to her when she was quite a dozen paces away. 'He's going to +have camellias and geraniums all the year round; but perhaps you don't +like camellias.' + +The Senior Tutor for once in his life blushed. It was not for Mary he +was going to have those geraniums in perennial bloom. + +'I don't think it's worth it,' said Mary bluntly--'at least, not for +us. We shall soon be going away.' And she looked in the direction of +the walnut-tree beneath which the old Master and his wife were still +sitting. + +'That should make no change,' the Tutor said awkwardly; 'the lodge +would be still your home.' + +He grew ridiculously red, and he did not dare to look Mary in the face. + +'We need not talk about that yet,' she said with a smile; 'the dear +Master is still with us. I came to ask you to help him in; he has sat +there long enough. He is not so strong to-day; I can't manage him +alone.' + +'I should think not!' said the Tutor, and he hurried off across the +grass and took the old Master back to the lodge. + +Lucy did not go in; she slipped through the garden-door into the court, +and hurried back to Newnham. She had promised to drink tea in a girl's +room, and she was already half an hour late. + +She went back by way of the Fens, and when she was near the bridge she +saw some figures she thought she knew crossing it, and they stopped +while she came up, and looked down into the water. + +It was Pamela Gwatkin and her brother, and there was another man with +him. She had never seen Pamela with her brother before, and she was +struck as she came up to them with the points of difference between +them. + +Being twins, they ought to have been exactly alike. Eric was short, and +Pamela was tall--tall and graceful and slender, as a girl ought to be, +with a proud, self-reliant bearing that is peculiar to the students +of a college for women. Eric was not only short, but he was stout, +and not at all graceful, and he had no bearing to speak of. He was an +awkward, well-meaning, commonplace fellow. There was nothing remarkable +about him whatever, except that he was Pamela's twin brother. This +in his case was a decided disadvantage--the ingredients hadn't been +properly mixed. All the masculine characteristics had gone to Pamela, +and the tender, endearing qualities to her brother. He saw Lucy come +tearing along across the Fen, and he took off his hat as she came up to +him. + +'You have met Eric before,' said Pamela, by way of introduction. + +She was looking very pink and white and cool as she stood there on the +bridge looking down into the dark shady water, and Lucy had run herself +into a fever, and was hot and flushed, and looking 'hideous,' as she +told herself. + +'Oh yes,' she panted--she was quite out of breath with running in the +hot sun--'I have met Mr. Gwatkin before.' + +She didn't see, until Pamela's brother introduced her, that the other +man leaning over the bridge was Wyatt Edgell. She was so flustered with +running, and so taken by surprise, that she blushed like a peony. + +She felt she was blushing furiously, and that Pamela, cool and critical +and self-possessed, was watching her. Oh, how she hated herself for not +being cool and dignified and self-possessed like other people! + +They walked back over the Fen and through the lane to Newnham in +couples, Lucy and Wyatt Edgell in front, Pamela and her brother behind. +Lucy would have given the world to have reversed the order, but the man +took his place by her side, and he wouldn't go away until he left her +at the gate of Newnham. + +'You have met me before, Miss Rae, as well as Gwatkin,' he said, as +he walked by Lucy's side. 'I believe he invited you in to see the +spectacle.' + +'He didn't invite me in at all,' Lucy said hotly; 'I came in. You were +very ill when I saw you; I did not expect you would get well so soon.' + +'No?' he said indifferently, 'I suppose not. It did not much matter +either way.' + +'It mattered a great deal!' she said sharply. She was very angry with +him for speaking in that absurd way--absurd and ungrateful--considering +what a trouble he had been to his friends. 'It mattered a great deal to +Mr. Gwatkin. Oh, you don't know how anxious he was about you! He saved +your life.' + +'Yes,' he said in his slow, indifferent way, flicking with his cane at +the nettles in the hedge; 'I believe he did. It was rather a pity he +should have taken so much trouble, but I suppose he liked it. I believe +he didn't get off his knees all one night. He's always glad of an +excuse for getting on his knees.' + +And then he laughed. It was such a delightful laugh that it ought to +have been infectious, but Lucy looked grave. + +'I suppose he was on his knees when you came in?' he said. + +'Yes,' said Lucy shortly, but she didn't tell him that she had knelt +down beside Eric and prayed that the life he valued so little might be +spared. She was very angry with him; she could only trust herself to +say 'Yes.' + +'Oh, he is a good fellow is Wattles, but he has his little crazes.' + +'He is a splendid fellow!' said Lucy warmly. + +She was ashamed of her warmth the moment after she had said it, but +they had reached the gate of Newnham by this time, and she was glad to +say 'Good-bye' and run away. She left him standing at the gate waiting +for the others to come up, while quite a dozen girls on the lawn were +looking at him and admiring him, and making up all sorts of fine +stories in their heads about him. + +If they had only known what Lucy knew about him they would have made up +a great deal more. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +AN UGLY FALL. + + +There was a row royal when Pamela got back to Newnham. She told Lucy +that her conduct was disgraceful, and that if it came to the ears of +the Dons she would be 'hauled.' + +There had been several girls 'hauled' lately for the same +offence--walking with an undergraduate to the very gate of the college. + +Lucy mildly suggested that she was not exactly alone, that Pamela and +her brother were with her, and that she herself, when she came up to +her on the bridge, was walking in the young man's society. + +'You forget that Eric was with me,' Pamela replied sharply. 'It makes +all the difference if you have a brother, or any male relative, with +you; but to be walking alone, tearing along at the rate you were, +and talking confidentially--anyone could see that you were talking +confidentially--dozens of girls have been sent down for less than that!' + +Lucy wasn't 'hauled,' and she wasn't 'sent down'; but Pamela behaved +like a bear to her for the remainder of the term. + +Lucy was so anxious about the Master that she went over to the lodge +the next day directly after lunch. Cousin Mary was out; she had left +him sitting in his chair taking his after-dinner nap as usual, and +she had gone out. He woke up directly Lucy came in, and began to +talk to her about her father and the old time. She was very glad +that she had not brought Pamela in with her, or any of the Newnham +girls, as she sometimes did. He would have told them that ridiculous +story that was running in his mind, how his brother Dick had met her +mother at a dancing-booth at the fair. He would have dwelt on all the +homely details of their humble history. It would have been all over +Newnham the next day that her father was a ploughman, and her mother +kept a stall in the butter-market. Annabel Crewe, who had a fine +taste for caricature, would have drawn delightful pictures of Lucy's +progenitors--a lovely old man in a smock-frock with straw round his +legs, and a milkmaid with her pail! + +She couldn't divert the Master's attention from this ridiculous topic. +He had forgotten all about the things that had happened in later years, +and had gone back in memory to the old familiar scenes and faces of his +youth. His eyes were brighter to-day, and he was more restless than +usual; he wanted to go out into the garden and sit in his accustomed +seat on the lawn. It was such a perfect May day that no wonder he +wanted to get out of that dark, gloomy old room, with the stuffy moreen +curtains over the windows, and the faded carpets, and the worm-eaten, +old-fashioned furniture, and the musty old books, into the sweet summer +sunshine, where everything was fresh and new. + +There was nothing dark and gloomy and oppressive out there in that +sweet leafy Fellows' garden. The lilacs were in their prime, pale +puce and white and purple, every delightful indescribable hue, and +the laburnum was dropping gold upon the grass. There was a cuckoo +somewhere, calling, and the thrushes were singing, and the blackbird's +note was still shrill and clear. It would soon be hoarse as a raven's, +and the thrush would be silent, and the cuckoo would have altered his +tune, and the lilac would have faded, and the gold of the gleaming, +down-dropping laburnums would have turned to gray--and--and he might +not be here to see it. If he wanted to enjoy the fleeting sunshine and +the flying blossoms of the year, there was no time like the present. + +The Master didn't exactly put it in this way, but he was impatient to +be out in the garden, in his old seat, and he wouldn't wait a minute +longer for anybody. + +If Mary wasn't there he would go without her. + +There are none so impatient as the old. The young have plenty of +time to spare--they have their life before them; but the old have not +a minute to lose. The Master went out as usual, leaning on the arm +that had supported him so many years, that had never failed him yet. +Mrs. Rae and Lucy took him out between them. He walked in his slow +accustomed way, leaning rather heavily on these two frail props until +he reached his seat beneath the walnut-tree, and here he ought to have +sat down. + +But he didn't sit down. He insisted on going farther; he insisted on +going down the path to the greenhouse. Mary had been saying something +about it, repeating what the Tutor had said yesterday about having +it done up and turned to some account, and the Master would not be +satisfied until he had seen it. He must be consulted about it; nothing +should be done in the gardens without his consent. He had been worrying +about it all night. + +He had got half-way down the path, when Lucy fancied he was beginning +to lean heavily, more heavily than she could bear, though she put out +all her strength. There was not a seat near, but she stopped and begged +the Master to rest awhile. He was so anxious to see the greenhouse +that he would not listen to her. He never thought of the women who +were being weighed down with his great weight. He was as eager and +determined as a child. + +'I am sure, aunt, you are not strong enough to keep him up,' Lucy said +in despair; she was getting really frightened. 'We must get someone to +help him back. Oh, if someone would only come in!' + +There was not a gardener in sight, and it was not likely that anyone +would come in. Nobody but the Fellows ever walked in that garden. + +The Master tottered on, feebler at every step; but he would not be kept +back, and the two frightened women held him up as well as they could. +He seemed to want more support every step he took; he was as feeble +and helpless as a child, but still he pressed on. Lucy was sure she +couldn't bear the strain a minute longer, and the dear old mistress was +straining with all her might to keep up with him. She was putting out +all her strength. It wasn't much to put out at the best, but she didn't +keep back a feather weight. Oh, if someone would only come! + +They came in sight of that wretched greenhouse at last, and here the +Master stopped. He didn't exactly stop, but he tottered forward, and +Lucy with a supreme effort kept him up, and with all his weight upon +her he swayed to and fro, and before she knew what was happening he had +slipped through her arms to the ground. He lay on the path, as he fell, +all of a heap. He had no power to help himself, and he lay panting and +breathing heavily as he had fallen, and the women stood beside him +wringing their hands. + +Lucy didn't stand beside him long. There was a door in the wall beside +the greenhouse that led out into one of the courts, and she flew over +to it. Fortunately the door was unlocked. Lucy looked eagerly round +the deserted court and raised her feeble cry for help. It was such a +feeble, piteous cry; it was like a wail. A man sitting reading at an +open window looked out at that strange sound, and Lucy called to him: +'Oh, come, come, do come!' + +The man didn't stay to ask what had happened; he was at Lucy's side +in another moment, and she took him in through the open door to where +the Master lay. It was Wyatt Edgell. A gyp coming across the court had +heard the cry for help, and between them they bore the Master back to +the lodge. + +When Mary Rae came in she found a little anxious group gathered round +him, and Wyatt Edgell was trying to reassure the frightened women. +Nothing very serious had happened. No bones were broken, but the Master +was very much shaken, and he was not quite himself. Wyatt Edgell stayed +with him until the doctor had come, and had ascertained that things +were not very bad--not so bad as they might have been--and had calmed +the fears of the women; and then Lucy was so shaken that he walked +back with her to Newnham. + +Lucy certainly would have been 'hauled' if the Dons had seen her +walking back leaning heavily on an undergraduate's arm. She would have +been invited to an interview with the authorities in the Principal's +room, and she would have received a caution, perhaps a reprimand, and +she would have been very lucky if nothing worse had happened. Lucy +forgot all about the Dons and Pamela's warning. She only thought about +that poor old man at the lodge. + +'I don't think he will ever get over this,' she said, or rather sobbed. +She was not herself at all. She was such a tearful, frightened little +Lucy. She was not in the least like a Stoic. + +'I am afraid not,' said Edgell. 'The Master has been failing for some +time. The men all remarked that he would never read the Litany again in +chapel.' + +'You think he is so bad as that?' Lucy said tearfully. + +'Yes, quite. Think of his age. His time must come some day, and he has +lived longer than most men. You could not expect him, in any case, to +live for many months longer.' + +'No,' said Lucy sadly; and then he saw the tears dropping down her pale +face. He could not believe she was weeping for that old, old man whose +time had come, and who was a stranger to her till yesterday. + +'What will you do when he is gone?' he asked abruptly. + +'Do? I don't know--I have not thought. I shall stay at Newnham, I +suppose, two years; I shall not be able to afford three; and then--and +then I shall go out as a governess.' + +'You shall never go out as a governess!' said Edgell with an oath. + +Lucy looked at him, frightened and bewildered; she couldn't think what +he meant, and then she broke down and began to cry. + +'Dear Miss Rae--Lucy!' he said, and then he stopped and looked at +the girl. He would have liked to take her in his arms, but there were +several Newnham girls all hurrying down the road, and they looked at +him, and they looked at Lucy. Some of them blushed, and some turned +pale, and all were shocked. It was a dreadful precedent. + +The atmosphere of Newnham revived Lucy, and she paused at the gate and +looked up into his face with a little white smile. + +'I am very stupid,' she said, 'but the Master frightened me so much, +and I am not quite myself.' + +He held her hand longer than he need have done, and he looked down into +the small white face with a smile of ownership and protection that was +quite new to Lucy. Nobody had ever looked in her eyes like that before, +and, instead of drawing her hand away, Lucy hung her head and blushed +like a poppy. + +'Shall I bring you word how the Master is the first thing in the +morning?' he said, still holding her hand; 'how early will you be out +in the lane if I come?' + +'Oh, as early as you like; seven o'clock!' + +And so Lucy made her first appointment to meet Wyatt Edgell. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +SLIPPING AWAY. + + +When Lucy went out into the road outside the gates of the college, +before seven o'clock the next morning, Wyatt Edgell was already there +waiting for her. It is a short, narrow road, or lane, and it leads to +nowhere, unless Selwyn College be considered anywhere. It has been the +privilege of the students of Selwyn to use this road as a shortcut to +their college, but it will not be their privilege much longer. + +The road is now the private property of the authorities of Newnham, +and a new wing connecting the old and the new halls will be built +across the road, and the jealous walls that shut out the grounds from +masculine eyes will be thrown down, and the old dusty lane will be +covered with smooth, green turf, and it will be a thoroughfare no +longer for the foot of man to pass over. + +Perhaps they will restore again the old fortifications. There was +a Roman camp here once, and a battle ditch running all the way to +Grantchester. Every inch of ground here is classic, and strewn with +remains of those old Romans who brought us all the gentler arts. +Perhaps they brought the Muses with them and planted them at Newnham? + +There was an old Roman dug up the other day, four feet beneath the +surface, a noble skeleton, six feet six in length. The whole earth +teems with ancient coins and pottery and Roman relics. They will have +to build a museum in the new wing to preserve the 'finds' that are +unearthed in digging its foundations. + +Lucy was quite indifferent to the Romans. She would rather, if she had +had the choice, have met one of their old ghosts in the lane than one +of the Dons of Newnham taking her morning walk. She looked fearfully up +and down the road when she got outside the gate, but there were only +some Selwyn men going down to the bathing sheds; there was not a girl +in sight. + +Wyatt Edgell was walking up and down the path flicking at the +sweetbriar hedge as he passed, and his eyes were looking down on the +ground. He was so lost in thought that he did not see Lucy till he +heard her little cry, and she ran to meet him. + +'Oh!' she cried, a little pale and breathless, 'how is the Master? Is +he worse this morning?' + +She augured badly from Edgell's downcast look. + +'Not worse,' he said; 'at least, I hope not worse, but I fear not +better. When I inquired at the lodge when the gates were opened at six +o'clock, they told me the Master had had a very disturbed night, that +he had not slept at all, but that he did not appear to be in any pain. +Your cousin has been up with him all night, and Mrs. Rae.' + +'I was sure she would not leave him,' said the girl, the tears filling +her eyes. She was thinking of the anguish in that kind old face when +the Master slipped through her feeble arms. 'I think I ought to go +over at once and relieve her; she must be worn out.' + +Lucy didn't stay to think. She walked back to St. Benedict's with the +undergraduate who had brought her the news; she didn't even stay to +fetch her gloves. She walked down by his side in the morning sunshine, +just as she had hurried out of her room, with a ridiculous little +tennis-cap on her head and her ungloved hands. Two Newnham girls who +were returning from an early--a very early--walk looked shocked, as +well they might be, and some rude Selwyn men whistled as they passed. +They were only jealous that she was not taking a morning walk with them. + +Lucy found the watchers still up when they reached the lodge. Mrs. Rae +would not be persuaded to lie down, and she was looking dreadfully +tired and worn out. She looked ten years older, Lucy thought, this +morning, and her poor face was as white as her hair. Mary looked pale, +too. Perhaps it was the air of that close room that was still darkened; +and there was a shade of anxiety under her eyes, but she would not own +to being tired. She could stay up a week, if necessary. + +The Master had fallen into a doze; but Lucy's light footstep or the +whisper of their voices reached him, and he woke up when she came in. +Lucy went over to him and laid her warm, moist hand on his, and the +touch seemed to revive him. + +'Is the milking over?' he asked, turning upon her his pale-blue eyes +with that strange brightness in them that is peculiar to the very old. +'I have heard the cows lowing all night for the calves. You have taken +the calves away?' + +'It is Lucy, uncle,' she said, stroking his hand softly--'little Lucy, +not Lucy's mother----' She was going to say 'grandmother,' but she +thought 'mother' would humour his fancy best. + +'Yes, yes: I know you, my dear. I have been watching for you all the +night. You must not go away again for so long; they don't understand me +here as you do. Where's Dick?' + +'He is gone, uncle,' she said softly. She did not like to say that he +was dead. + +'Gone? Where is he gone? He was here just now. Is he in the field or in +the barn? Send him to me when he comes in, my dear.' + +Lucy turned away pale and trembling. She could not bear it; he did not +recognise her in the least. + +The Tutor came in while she was there, and went over to the bed; but +the Master took him for Dick--the brother who had died fifty years ago. + +His eyes lighted up when the Tutor came in, and with a strange, eager +interest he asked him questions about the crops and the farm. All the +later associations of his life had quite faded from his memory, and he +had gone back to the scenes and faces of his youth. + +The Tutor turned away from the bed with a sigh. He had waited for this +half his life. He had looked forward so long as he could remember to +being Master of St. Benedict's, and now, when it seemed within his +grasp, he turned from it with a sigh. What was it, after all, this +shadow he was grasping? Wealth, honour, position, it would all slip +through his hands by-and-by, as it had slipped through the hands of the +old scholar on the bed: all, everything, that had taken a lifetime--a +long lifetime--to gain, would slip away, and there would be nothing +left but old memories. Everything would fail; and he would go back to +the old humble time, and the dear faces--if happily he had dear faces +to go back to. There would be nothing left--nothing that he could carry +away with him--but those old tender memories. + +The Tutor turned away from the bed and went out of the room. On the +landing outside he saw Lucy sitting in the window-seat weeping. The +tears were in his own eyes, and he could not trust himself to speak. He +went over, and took Lucy's hand, and drew her towards him. + +'Oh,' she murmured through her tears, 'he does not know me the least +bit. He thinks I am his brother Dick's wife.' + +'And he takes me for Dick,' said the Tutor, with an involuntary smile, +pressing the little warm hand he held. 'We shall all come to it, my +dear, some day--to the vanishing-point, where everything slips away +from us but the memories of our youth. Well for us at that time if we +have nothing but innocent memories of kindly deeds and loving faces--if +we have no regrets, no sorrow, no remorse! Perhaps it is the happiest +lot to have the slate wiped clean of all the storms and passions of +later years, and to go back at the last, and to take away with us only +the memory of the old innocent early days.' + +He was a good deal moved. He might have committed dreadful crimes +since the days of his innocent youth, instead of being a grave, sober, +reverend Tutor of a college. + +'You don't think he will ever be better?' Lucy sobbed. + +'I don't think, even if his life is prolonged, that his mind will ever +be clear again. I fear it has gone, quite gone. Perhaps it is better +so: he will pass away happier; he will have no regrets; he will leave +nothing behind.' + +Lucy sat sobbing in the window-seat. If she had been older she would +not have wept so freely: the young have so many tears to spare. + +'There is nothing to regret,' he said tenderly, bending over the hand +he still held. 'The dear Master has lived his life--a good life, and, I +think, a happy one--and he will exchange it for a better and a happier. +We have only to concern ourselves about those who are left--Mrs. Rae +and your cousin. They must stay with us, Lucy; they must make the lodge +their home. You must let them understand, dear'--here the Senior Tutor +really pressed Lucy's hand, that he had held all the time he had been +talking to her, and she had never once thought of drawing it away: he +would have taken her in his arms, but the servants were coming up and +down stairs--'you must let them quite understand,' he went on, 'that +their home is here with us. I am sure we shall do everything to make +them happy.' + +Lucy hadn't the least idea what he meant. + +She would have stayed at the lodge and taken her share of the nursing +night and day, but the Tutor would not hear of it. + +'You have got your work to do, my dear,' he said. He called her 'my +dear' now quite naturally. 'You have all your work cut out before you +to be ready for the examinations in June. You can't afford to risk +breaking down for the sake of doing work that any woman can do. A +trained nurse from Addenbroke's will do all, and more than all, you +three dear anxious women together.' + +He sent in a nurse from Addenbroke's during the morning, and Cousin +Mary and the Master's wife were turned out of the room. It was quite +time the Master's wife was turned out of the room, or there would have +been two to nurse instead of one. + +The nurse who had been sent from Addenbroke's Hospital to nurse the +Master was the little fluffy nurse that had been brought by her brother +to Wyatt Edgell's rooms after that miserable folly, and had kept his +secret. + +If Lucy didn't like trusting a foolish young man she knew nothing +about to this flighty nurse, she was much more unwilling to trust +this valuable life in her hands. She watched with mistrust, and a +certain dull glow of impatience, this little bit of a creature turn the +Master's wife out of the room, and reverse everything that had been +done under Cousin Mary's directions. + +The nurse from Addenbroke's pulled up the blinds and threw open the +windows, and let in the balmy air of the sweet May morning, that +everybody had been so anxious to keep out; and she threw off the heavy +quilts, and took away the pillows, and did everything according to the +latest fashion in nursing. If people do not choose to get well when all +this is done for them, it is their own fault, and not the fault of the +system. + +Before Lucy went back to Newnham she went into the little room--her own +room till she had left it for Newnham--where the Master's wife had gone +to lie down to rest. She had chosen this room because it was near the +Master's, and she would be within call. + +Lucy insisted on undressing her and putting her to bed, and perjuring +herself with fibs of the deepest dye to set her mind at rest. + +'I never thought he would go before me,' the dear old soul murmured, +when Lucy was undressing her. 'I always thought I should go first; and +it has been such a comfort to me to think that Mary could fill my place +so well. And now to think that he should be called away first!' + +'Who said he would go first?' Lucy said in her reassuring manner. 'He +is not at all likely to go before you, you poor dear! If you had been +yourself, he would not have fallen. You had no strength left, so he +slipped through your poor arms. You hadn't the strength of a baby. +Anyone can see how you have been failing lately, and you think it is +the Master.' + +'And you think it was my fault he fell--that the weakness was not in +him?' the poor trembling old creature asked eagerly. She was so anxious +to believe Lucy, and the faint colour flushed up under her white skin. + +'Of course it was. The doctor will not tell you it was, because he +doesn't want to frighten you. Anyone can see that you are much weaker +than the Master.' + +There really seemed some truth in what Lucy said. The Master's wife was +trembling all over like a leaf--she couldn't have got into bed without +Lucy's help; but she was trembling with joy. + +'God bless you, my dear!' she said, when the girl went away. 'You have +made me so happy!' + +Lucy went back to Newnham with a heavy heart. It seemed as if +everything were slipping away from her. It is so hard for the young to +realize the great change. She felt dimly that it was not far off--that +this was, indeed, the beginning of the end. Anyone could have seen that. + +But it was not the personal sorrow of it that moved her; there was a +deeper pathos than death in the fidelity of the dear woman who clung +to the old Master with a love stronger than death itself. She could +not but think of the look of relief on the old tired face as she walked +back to Newnham. + +The girls remarked that Lucy looked pale at Hall--that is, those who +took any interest in her. Pamela Gwatkin never looked her way. She sat +at the 'High,' among the Dons; she never condescended to look down the +hall to the table where the freshers sat. + +Capability Stubbs came into her room after Hall, as she sat trying +to work, and brought her in a cup of tea. The tea was very grateful +to Lucy's overwrought nerves: it was the only thing that was nice +about Miss Stubbs. Pamela Gwatkin had given her a cup of tea once or +twice, but it tasted of tooth-powder. She had packed the tea and the +tooth-powder in a biscuit-tin when she came up, and the lid had got off +the tooth-powder box, and it had got mixed up with the tea. It would +not have been political economy to have thrown it away. + +'Nice scandal you've been making in the college!' observed Miss Stubbs +cheerfully, as she handed Lucy the teacup. She had only brought a +teacup; she considered saucers superfluous, unless one happened to be +a kitten. + +'Scandal!' said Lucy, aghast. 'What scandal have I been making?' + +'Oh! it was rumoured you had eloped with a Selwyn man. Somebody saw you +going off.' + +'With a Selwyn man!' said Lucy with fine scorn. 'As if I should elope +with a Selwyn man! If it had been St. Benedict's it would have been +different.' + +'Or Hall?' suggested Miss Stubbs, who was rumoured to have a cousin at +Trinity Hall, or to know a girl who had. + +'Ye--es; even Hall would have been better. Who set the ball +rolling--Newnham Assurance?' + +Lucy was much too angry with Pamela to call her by her name. + +'No, it wasn't Assurance. She took the other side. She said if you were +going to run away with--with a man, you would have had the self-respect +to stop and put your gloves on first.' + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +WYATT EDGELL. + + +Late on the evening of the day when Lucy was supposed by the students +of Newnham to have eloped, the man she was said to have eloped with sat +working in his college-room. + +It was not a Selwyn man. The crest on the pocket of the blazer he was +wearing was the crest of St. Benedict's. It was nearly the eve of the +Mathematical Tripos; there were only a few days more, and, having lost +all the early part of the term, Wyatt Edgell was sitting down now at +the last minute to recover by a tremendous effort the ground he had +lost. He had always been sure of a first; he had never yet taken a +second class in any examination at school or college, and his name had +generally stood first in the lists. The authorities of St. Benedict's +had predicted that it would stand first now in the coming Tripos. + +There would have been no doubt about it but for that ugly +'accident'--he called it an 'accident'--in the beginning of the term. +He had not been himself since he came up this May term. He had been +moody and taciturn, and subject to fits of depression. He had given up +his wine-parties, and his club suppers and breakfasts, and he had shut +himself up in his rooms and sported his oak. Everybody, Tutors and all, +said he was working hard, and they 'let him alone'; but his bed-maker +knew better! Bed-makers know so much more about a man than anyone else. + +She fetched Gwatkin to him one morning, when she had come in and found +him lying on the floor in a fit of delirium tremens. They kept the +matter quiet between them and put him to bed, and the bed-maker gave +out to all the men on her staircase that 'he was a-readin' hisself to +death.' + +It was not a very bad attack--it was not the first, but Gwatkin didn't +know that at the time--there were no violent ravings, only mutterings +and depression--dreadful depression. Gwatkin and the bed-maker looked +after him during the morning, and towards noon he fell into a deep +sleep. It didn't seem at all likely that he would wake for hours. The +bed-maker had had some experience of such cases, and she knew that the +fever would take eight or ten hours' sleep to spend itself, and then +he would awake with shaking hands and a splitting headache, and have a +fine time of it for a week. + +Leaving him as she thought sleeping soundly, she went about her work. +She had to clear the tables of the other men on the staircase, but +before she went she took the precaution to fasten his oak, and to take +the key to Gwatkin's rooms. + +Gwatkin ran over as fast as he could to Edgell's rooms. He had given +such strict injunctions that he was not to be left alone on any +pretence. Run as fast as he could, he was only just in time. Had he +been a minute later he would have been too late. He took the razor +from the poor fellow's hand, and he bound up the wound he had made with +it as he best could without assistance. He had not the heart to call +for help, to reveal his miserable secret to the whole college. He did +for him as he would have wished others to have done for himself if he +had been in his place. He kept his secret. + +There was a man on his own staircase who had a sister a nurse at +Addenbroke's, and when he had done all he could for Edgell, and +fastened his arms down to the bed, Gwatkin ran across the court and +brought Brannan over. He had to let him into the secret; there was no +help for it. He saw exactly how matters stood. He was in his third +year, and it was not the first time that he had helped to cover up an +act of undergraduate folly. Brannan went away to fetch his sister. He +could promise her silence. Phyllis Brannan was as true as steel; but in +his haste and agitation he had left the outer oak open, and Lucy came +in. + +Wyatt Edgell's secret had been faithfully kept by these men and women. +Only one of them had committed a breach of trust--Lucy had told Pamela. +She couldn't help it, she explained, if she had had to die for it the +next day; but Pamela had held her tongue. Not a soul in the college +guessed his secret--his dreadful secret. Everybody looked up to him, +and praised him, and expected great things of him--everybody but his +bed-maker. + +She knew something about that last orgie. She had helped to put him to +bed, and she had cleared away the small sodas the next morning. She +smiled when she saw him settling down to work on the evening of the day +when he had brought Lucy to the lodge from Newnham. 'A lot of readin' +'e'll get through,' she said, shaking her head as she went down the +stairs with her basket under her shawl. ''E'll be under the table, I +reckon, when I come in in the mornin'.' + +Eric Gwatkin was doubtful about him, too. He was more anxious about +Edgell's Tripos than he was about his own Special. He couldn't rest +before he went to bed without coming over and seeing if he was all +right. He found his oak sported, and he had to knock a good many times +before Edgell would let him in. + +'Confound it----' he began, and then he saw Eric and stopped. 'Oh, it's +you, Wattles!' + +He didn't say it very graciously, and Eric was sorry he had disturbed +him. He really looked in working trim. He had thrown off his coat, and +he was sitting in his shirt-sleeves. He wore a flannel shirt, and the +collar was open and showed his white throat and chest, as it had showed +it that day when Lucy leaned over the bed and put on the wet bandage. +It showed, too, what it had not shown on that day, when a scarf was +thrown over the throat--an ugly scar extending for some inches beneath +the left ear. It was still purple and red and discoloured--a hideous +livid mark on the beautiful white skin. + +Eric shuddered when he saw it. The sight of it always made him shudder +to think what a near thing it was--what _might_ have been! He could +not understand how Edgell could bear to see it in the glass, could bear +to uncover it, that others coming in might see it. + +'I am sorry to disturb you, old man,' he said, looking round at the +work on the table, and the books lying open before Edgell. 'I only +looked round to see--if--if you were all right.' + +'To see if I had cut my throat again,' said Edgell calmly. + +There was a shade of bitterness in his voice, and his lips curled +slightly with amusement or scorn, or both. They were beautiful +clear-cut lips, full and tender as a woman's, and they had a way of +curving when he spoke. They never quivered, they curved; and his +nostrils dilated. It was a strong face, with a massive square jaw, but +it had these nervous tricks. + +'Very kind of you, Wattles,' he went on with a laugh; 'but I'm not +going to repeat that performance again--at least, not for the present. +I'm going in for my Trip--and--and I'm going to marry Miss Lucy.' + +Gwatkin's face fell. + +'I don't think this is a time to talk of marrying,' he said, with a +certain hesitation in his voice, and the cloud on his plain, homely +face deepening. 'The poor old Master is dying.' + +'So much the more reason to talk about it. Lucy will want a home. She +won't be able to stay up at Newnham, she tells me; she will have no one +but her cousin Mary when the Master is dead, and the old lady. I think +I shall ask her to-morrow. I should like her to feel that she will not +be left friendless when the end comes.' + +'I should wait till after the exam., if I were you. I shouldn't let +anything interfere with the exam. You will have all your life to marry +in.' + +Edgell lay back in his chair and laughed good-naturedly at his Mentor. + +'Anyone would think, Wattles, that you wanted to marry her yourself.' + +There was no occasion for that very common-place-looking young man to +blush so dreadfully. + +'I only meant to advise you for your good,' he said awkwardly, and then +he went over to the door and said good-night; but when he reached the +door, and he had the handle in his hand, he paused irresolutely, and +looked across the room at the man with the scar in his throat leaning +back in the chair. The scar was dreadfully visible in that light. It +seemed to have a charm for Gwatkin. He couldn't keep his eyes off it. + +'What's up?' said Edgell, seeing that he paused by the door. + +Eric came back to the table where Edgell was seated, and laid his hand +on his shoulder, a friendly, unmistakable grip. + +'Dear old man,' he said in a broken voice, and the other could see that +his foolish weak lips were quivering, 'you won't mind my speaking my +mind to you; you will forgive what I say?' + +'Fire away!' said Edgell; but he didn't look at Gwatkin, he looked at +the opposite wall. + +'Before you go any farther--before you ask Lucy Rae to marry you--pause +and consider----' + +'I've already considered,' Edgell interrupted impatiently, and with his +face still averted. + +'You have not considered everything. You have thought only of yourself. +You have not thought of her.' + +'I have thought of her!' + +'No, no; you have not thought of her in the way I mean. Bear with me, +dear fellow. God knows I am saying this for your sake and hers. You +have not thought of her as orphaned and friendless, having no one but +you in the world, being bound up in you, having all her happiness +dependent upon you. A little, tender, delicate creature, with no +spirit of her own, who would suffer, and break her heart, and never +complain----' + +'What would she have to complain of?' Edgell interrupted savagely. + +'God only knows!' + +'You--you think I shall go over the old thing again--that----' + +'Hush! For heaven's sake don't let us even suppose it! You haven't got +to consider yourself in this matter, you have to consider her. Do you +think it fair to ask her--to--to--forgive me, dear fellow--to ask her +to risk it?' + +Wyatt Edgell bowed his head. + +'You have no faith in me,' he said moodily, with his head upon his +breast and his brows knitted. + +'I have every faith in you, dear fellow; but I want you to think of +her. It is the chivalrous thing to do. Forgive me for saying it. Unless +you felt that you could make her happier than any other man in the +world--and--and ensure her happiness, you have no right to ask her to +marry you!' + +Eric Gwatkin was quite astonished at his own temerity--astonished and +frightened. He was a weak, nervous, emotional fellow; he couldn't +trust himself to say another word. His voice broke, and his eyes were +clouded, and he was afraid he had said too much, and with a grip of +Edgell's great muscular shoulder he went away and left him sitting in +his chair, with his head on his breast, and that ugly scar gleaming +like the dark blade of a knife across his white throat. + + +END OF VOL. I. + + +BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. + + +NEW LIBRARY NOVELS. + + + THE IVORY GATE. By Walter Besant, Author of 'All Sorts and + Conditions of Men,' etc. 3 vols. + + THE MARQUIS OF CARABAS. By Aaron Watson and Lillias + Wassermann. 3 vols. + + TRUST-MONEY. By William Westall. 3 vols. + + A FAMILY LIKENESS. By Mrs. B.M. Croker. 3 vols. + + THE MASTER OF ST. BENEDICT'S. By Alan St. Aubyn. 2 vols. + + MRS. JULIET. By Mrs. Alfred Hunt. 3 vols. + + BARBARA DERING. By Amélie Rives. 2 vols. + + GEOFFORY HAMILTON. By Edward H. Cooper. 2 vols. + + TREASON-FELONY. By John Hill. 2 vols. + + + London: CHATTO & WINDUS, 214, Piccadilly, W. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The master of St. Benedict's, Vol. 1 +(of 2), by Alan St. Aubyn + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58897 *** |