diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/62469-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/62469-0.txt | 13573 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 13573 deletions
diff --git a/old/62469-0.txt b/old/62469-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index cd893f1..0000000 --- a/old/62469-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,13573 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sundered Streams, by Reginald Farrer - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Sundered Streams - The History of a Memory That Had No Full Stops - -Author: Reginald Farrer - -Release Date: June 24, 2020 [EBook #62469] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SUNDERED STREAMS *** - - - - -Produced by Demian Katz, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net -(Images courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University -(http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) - - - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes: - -Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_), and text -enclosed by equal signs is in bold (=bold=). - -Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end. - - * * * * * - - - - -THE SUNDERED STREAMS - - - THE HISTORY OF A MEMORY THAT HAD NO FULL STOPS - - BY REGINALD FARRER - - AUTHOR OF ‘THE GARDEN OF ASIA,’ ‘THE HOUSE OF SHADOWS,’ ETC. - - ‘Shōshi no kukai hétori nashi: Sodé no furi-awasé mo tashō no en.’ - - [There is no shore to the bitter Sea of Birth-and-Death: even the - touching of sleeves in passing is the result of some connection in a - former life.] - - LONDON - EDWARD ARNOLD - 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, BOND STREET, W. - 1907 - - [_All rights reserved_] - - * * * * * - -TO ‘MILADI’ - -ALICE, COUNTESS OF BECTIVE - - * * * * * - -THE SUNDERED STREAMS - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -The English language, flexible and rich though it be, lacks words -in which to convey the subtler social distinctions. We have had -to go abroad for ‘nouveau-riche’ and ‘parvenu,’ to say nothing -of ‘Philistia,’ ‘Bohemia,’ the ‘demi-monde,’ and all the other -geographical names that we have taken from the atlas of the human -world to describe some small corner in our own little parish. But, as -our civilization grows more and more complex, so does our borrowed -vocabulary grow less and less adequate, until nowadays we find not a -few fine differences in our microcosm which no word of our own or of -any other nation avails to identify. The ‘Arrived’ and the ‘New-rich’ -are familiar figures, but what of those many families who suddenly -become wealthy and prominent after many generations of well-bred -obscurity? They cannot fairly be described as ‘nouveau-riche’ or -‘parvenu’; they have been there all the time, though not in evidence; -to brand them with the stigma of novelty would be manifestly unfair. -They have antiquity without importance--a vast difference, in the -eyes of social astronomers, between them and the blazing stars of -wealth that so suddenly emerge from the black night of genealogical -non-existence. As well compare a dazzling meteor, here and gone in a -flash, with a genuine star which, after æons of inconspicuousness, -abruptly swells into a luminary of the first magnitude. To describe -such fixed lights in our English hemisphere a new word must first be -coined in another language, and then borrowed. Such people are not -‘nouveau-riche’; they are ‘renrichis.’ And to this class belonged the -Dadds of Darnley-on-Downe--that obscure dynasty from which it is now -necessary to show the gradual genesis, through many quiet generations, -of Kingston Darnley, its apostate offspring. - -Among soft Kentish meadows sleeps the little metropolis of -Darnley-on-Downe. It lies on the grassy plain like a neat poached egg -on a vast green plate, and, over all, the blue vault of heaven makes -a domed lid. The Downe meanders placidly at the foot of its gardens, -and comfortable little Georgian houses speak of agelong ease and -decent leisure. Darnley-on-Downe has no local peer, no local palace; -rank and fashion, therefore, are represented only by these dignified -dwellings of red brick, each enclosed in shrubberies of rose and laurel -and lilac, each tenanted by some family well known for generations in -Darnley-on-Downe. - -As Cranford was, as Highbury was, so also was Darnley-on-Downe--placid, -happy and exclusive, intolerant of all new-comers and of all change. -Mrs. John succeeded Mrs. Joshua, and Mr. Reuben Mr. James; and no -outsider was ever permitted to disturb the orderly dynasties that so -long had ruled in the little town. Crowns fell, but the serenity of -Darnley-on-Downe remained unruffled, and the collapse of the Corsican -ogre took no higher rank in general conversation than the misdoings -of Mrs. Blessing’s Matilda, or the strange theft of Miss Minna Dadd’s -Leghorns. So, talking only to themselves, and only of themselves, the -aristocracy of Darnley-on-Downe passed inconspicuously from the nursery -to the grave, through the leisurely old days when the peace of the -country contrasted so strongly with the restless misery of the great -cities, and, in the absence of halfpenny morning papers, only rare -rumours filtered down into the provinces of a young Queen gradually -making her seat secure on a dishonoured and endangered throne. - -Nowadays Cranford, probably, plays pit, and motors hoot beneath the -walls of Donwell Abbey. Nowadays clash and clangour fill the one main -street of Darnley-on-Downe, and the Georgian houses are being swept -away to make room for glassy palaces of art-nouveau design. But, in -the days when Fortune swooped so suddenly on the Dadds, only peace and -slumber haunted the Market Place and St. Eldred’s. - -Clean, humble, small, and quiet, the cottages and shops of the -working-classes lined the broad pavement, with here a neat bank fronted -by Corinthian pilasters, and there a rambling, wide-mouthed inn, -haunted by loafing dogs and ostlers full of leisure. Then came the -church, solid and unassuming, very essence made visible of that orderly -if unimpassioned spirit that then possessed the Church of England. -Under its shadow, flanked by tall clipped obelisks of yew, squatted the -solid square of the vicarage, with green lawn and beds of roses leading -down to the wicket that opened on the roadway. And beyond this again -began a wide, ancient avenue of limes, fragrant and tranquil, on whose -either side stretched that series of red-brick houses in which the -Upper Ten of Darnley-on-Downe discreetly led its days, and formed an -aristocracy no less rigid, no less zealous for birth and tradition than -that higher world called ‘county,’ with which it had nothing to do, and -yet so much in common. St. Eldred’s was the name of this provincial -faubourg, and the wayfarer, passing down its green length, might divine -its exclusive character from the lack of any invidious distinction -made between the houses. The identity of each was kept sacred for the -elect, and the outsider was to know nothing. In our own assertive time -each gate would bear a curly Gothic title--‘Chatsworth,’ ‘Arundel,’ -‘Sandringham’ would gratify our loyal eyes. In those days Mrs. Blessing -knew Miss Dadd’s house, and Miss Dadd knew Mrs. Blessing’s. This -knowledge was held to be amply sufficient, and it was even felt that -to share it with the unprivileged world at large would be profane and -vulgar. Thus the unguided stranger would have travelled uninstructed -past gateway after gateway, past trim red wall after trim red wall, -without being able to attribute any definite personality to the dweller -in each cloistered precinct. And therefore he must necessarily have -passed on his way without gathering any idea of the extent to which the -Dadds dominated St. Eldred’s. - -All the dwellers in these houses lived in a small way, and all of them -drew their incomes from some retail trade. ‘County’ people, from their -own high circle, contemplating these lesser worlds, would never have -guessed the intense and silent arrogance with which, in turn, these -lesser worlds looked down on the struggling aspirants from beneath, on -the new and unknown persons who painfully fought to win a footing in -St. Eldred’s. But, in the close ring of this aristocracy, the Dadds -were certainly the ruling dynasty. Had the wayfarer been privileged -with a guide, he would have learned that every fourth house in St. -Eldred’s enshrined a Dadd or the relation of a Dadd. Here dwelt Mrs. -Reuben Dadd; yonder Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Dadd; and, not a stone’s-throw -farther, was the house of the Misses Adelaide and Minna Dadd. As -for the head of the family, Mr. Dadd, with his consort, dwelt in a -stout-pillared edifice which even an uninstructed stranger must have -seen to be the residence of a presiding Power. - -The Dadds permeated social life in Darnley-on-Downe. They were -everywhere, had married into every family, had accorded brides to every -neighbouring house of repute, had come at last to be, as it were, the -very incarnation of decency and proper pride in Darnley-on-Downe. They -were no richer than their neighbours, but in those days wealth gave no -precedence, and the Dadds had a prestige which their fellow-nobles in -St. Eldred’s lacked. For the Dadds owned land, and, though St. Eldred’s -made no attempt to connect itself with the world of landowners and -county families, yet a vague aroma of grandeur still clung to the one -family in its midst that might be said to verge on the territorial -class. The glory of the Dadds was a big freehold farm beyond the town, -where they had been established from time immemorial, honourably -obscure from the days of Henry the Eighth. St. Eldred’s, accordingly, -cherishing its own pedigrees and antiquities, as it did, with as -fervent a passion as any Austrian noble, yet by tacit consent accorded -supremacy to this landowning family in its midst. - -The Dadds by now had gone down, alas, in the world; however, St. -Eldred’s never dreamed of making worldly prosperity a criterion for -approval. St. Eldred’s lived, itself, in a penurious prosperity or -a prosperous poverty; wealth, being unattainable, was held to be -undesirable as well as rather vulgar, and the fading income of the -Dadds only set the seal on their title to general admiration. The -farm was still theirs indeed, but its yield was less and lessening. -All through the good old Protection days their corn had brought high -prices; but, unfortunately, the cost of living had grown even higher -in proportion, until the Dadds found themselves forced to renounce -agricultural hopes, leave the farm fallow, and plunge into small trade. -From this they made a fair livelihood, and were able to support their -regal position in the world of St. Eldred’s. So they lived, married, -ruled, and died, till never a house in St. Eldred’s but was kin to the -royal family of Dadd. - -James Dadd after James Dadd contentedly took up his sceptre, swayed it -during his time, and laid it by. Their clan, like all others in St. -Eldred’s, was magnificently complacent in contemplation of its own -position. No Dadd was ever heard to aspire to more giddy worlds, no -Dadd was ever known to show any hankerings after wilder flights, after -new courses, after original thought or action of any kind. In a young -member of the family, in a collateral, the weight of his elders would -immediately have crushed out such sparks of discontent; as for the head -of the dynasty, so surrounded was the ruling Dadd by now with uncles, -cousins, and aunts, not to mention dowagers of bygone sovereigns, that -it would have been as easy for him to revolt as for a Pope to make -headway against the College of Cardinals. Such, then, was the decorous -state of affairs, when suddenly a most astonishing thing happened. - -The railway mania was sweeping over England. Counties were being opened -up, and landowners being driven crazy with hysterical apprehensions -of ruin, and opposition to every threatened change. At first all -these commotions left the quiet waters of St. Eldred’s unruffled. But -eventually a railway company came sniffing round the ancestral but -profitless farm of the Dadds, and, somehow, during the negotiations, -it was discovered that those barren acres covered a coal-field of -exuberant richness. - -It was not to be expected that this new fact should bring about any -sudden alteration in the feeling of St. Eldred’s towards the Dadds. -Only a mild flutter agitated for a while the red-brick houses. Then it -was felt that the acquisition of wealth by the Dadds was very right -and proper. Wealth was only vulgar when in new and plebeian hands. A -Dadd could be trusted to avoid giving offence, a Dadd would never be -ostentatious, nor presume to change his mode of life. So, undeterred by -any disapproval from their peers, the ruling Dadds proceeded quietly -to develop their new possibilities. What those possibilities were no -one had the audacity or the grandeur of mind to compute. Unsuspected, -unrealized, volumes of money rolled ceaselessly in to the account of -the mine-owners, while they, in their innocence, continued unperturbed -in the old simple ways, never caring to dream that their new wealth -could do more for them than add, at most, a parlourmaid. - -It was some years before even this grand addition was made to their -scale of living, and then it was only when the sudden death of -James Dadd the Eighth had left the family sceptre in the hands of a -queen-regent. The widow ruled for her son (now, at a tender age, raised -to the rank of James Dadd the Ninth), and hardly had she grasped the -reins of power than she began to show signs of wishing to use the -abundant resources which had now been accumulating for fifteen years -or more. Her ambitions were not approved, and the extra parlourmaid -was only condoned as an indulgence for the sorrows of widowhood. But -from that moment a little rift began to widen between the reigning -Dadds and Darnley-on-Downe. The money began insensibly to come between -the rulers and the ruled. It was inevitable that it should. An -income--even an unspent income--of fifteen thousand a year cannot long -live on terms of perfect friendly equality with incomes of several -hundred or so. The richer, sooner or later, condescends; the poorer, -sooner or later, grudges. Thus it was in Darnley-on-Downe. Even the -suspicion that Mrs. Dadd had ‘notions’--that she would have liked a -landau, and had conceived thoughts of sending her sons to Eton--caused -a certain vigilant enmity to exasperate the keenness with which her -every action was watched and weighed by her council of relatives. The -slightest sign of ambition was soon marked as a treason to the clan. -All the Dadd connections, all the Dadd collaterals, all the dowagers -and younger branches of the Dadds made common cause with St. Eldred’s, -and joined in the general suspicion with which the conduct of Mrs. Dadd -was viewed. The widow found herself unable to carry out the smallest -extravagance. Very innocent and trifling were the few indulgences that -she had hoped for, but even these were put beyond her reach by the -decree of her relatives, by that incorruptible synod over which even -a Dadd queen-regent had no more power than a doge of Venice over his -Council of Ten. Nor was her submission able to redeem her popularity. -The very fact of having once had ‘notions’ was enough to mark her out -for ever as a traitor to the Constitution of St. Eldred’s. She was no -longer quite ‘one of themselves.’ The excommunication was pronounced -by those terrible princesses, the Misses Adelaide and Minna Dadd, and -no one was found to question its justice as it thundered across the -tea-table. - -Inquiries were made into her remote ancestry, and it was soon found -that, though by birth an unblemished Blessing, yet she had inherited -the sinister tendencies of a Messiter great-great-great-grandmother, -whom history convicted of eccentricities that went the length of -reading her Bible in French. From such a tainted spring what purity -could be expected? The situation was summed up by the Misses Adelaide -and Minna Dadd. The stream cannot rise higher than its source, was -their stern pronouncement. A regretful loyalty, a disapproving -adherence now marked the family’s attitude towards her--a loyalty, an -adherence as faithful but as disapproving as ever a virtuous believer -in Divine right can have felt for a drunken and profligate Pretender, -or a patriotic Catholic for Queen Elizabeth. - -So far, it is true, her eldest son, James Dadd the Ninth, seemed a -model of Dadd virtues. He had made no open move towards ostentation and -prodigality. His younger brother Robert, however, was the incarnate -tragedy of St. Eldred’s, the incarnate accusation of Mrs. Dadd’s -regency. Briefly, this ulcer of St. Eldred’s must be skimmed; Robert -Dadd had run away from home, and when next heard of, many years later, -was understood to be in Japan, and to have become a Mormon or a -Buddhist, or a disciple of whatever religion rules in those benighted -parts. Never again was his name heard in St. Eldred’s, but the Messiter -great-great-great-grandmother was held accountable for such a strange, -terrible aberration--the first break in the impeccable succession -of the Dadds. There was yet another child--a daughter--but she was -ten years younger than her brothers, and could not as yet prove, in -her own person, the corrupt heredity of her mother. However, she was -already watched with care, and every tearing of her pinafore was held -symptomatic of inherited depravity. - -James Dadd the Ninth came at last to his own, and his unhappy mother, -crushed by years of disapproval, sank, unregretted, to the grave. And -hardly had St. Eldred’s consigned her decently to the tomb, than James -Dadd gave abundant proof of the evil spirit that all his relatives -had long suspected. He left Darnley-on-Downe. He shut up the family -house; he travelled; he began timidly to live on a scale that drove -St. Eldred’s dizzy with horrified astonishment. Thanks to his mother’s -economy, he was now extremely rich, and bit by bit began to realize the -extent of his opportunities. But, though St. Eldred’s shook its head -over him, though the Misses Adelaide and Minna Dadd refused to read -the papers any longer, for fear of finding his iniquities chronicled, -James Dadd remained the true son of his fathers. Wealth could not -make him wealthy; it takes a generation at least to make the genuine -spendthrift, to ingraft the joy and the splendour of purchasing. James -Dadd remained nervous, awkward, bourgeois in his uneasy enjoyment of -his money. Assertive one moment, he was uneasy and parsimonious the -next, always self-conscious, always troubled by the disapproval of the -only world he really knew--the world that had made him and written its -signature large across the face of his personality. Wherever he went, -he carried St. Eldred’s, and heard the mild but tremendous tones of the -Misses Adelaide and Minna Dadd among the arches of the Colosseum as in -the silences of the Desert. Sometimes he defied the voices, sometimes -he quailed before them, but escape them he never could. He was out of -his sphere; they told him so. He had cast off his own world, and could -enter no other. - -Often in his travels he met other men on similar errands of pleasure, -young men and old, sons of country squires or illustrious families. In -most cases they had not a quarter of his income, but they seemed to -have the careless knack of getting more pleasure out of half a crown -than he could ever buy with a five-pound note. Poor as they might be, -generations of spending ancestors had left them the secret of spending -easily, gaily, serenely, of letting money flow unperceived between -their fingers, of securing a double return for their outlay through -their very indifference as to whether they ever got any return at -all. This was the whole distinction between himself and them. Actual -superiority of birth and breeding they had none, though their forbears -might be more prominent than his. But centuries of inconspicuousness -disqualify a man for the conspicuous position conferred by sudden -wealth, and James Dadd, for all his long pedigree, was far less fitted -for his new place in life than many a grandson of some successful -politician or lawyer, who might number, perhaps, two generations to -James Dadd’s twenty, but made up for this lack of quantity by the -eminence of the father and grandfather whose high and hard-won position -he had painlessly inherited. - -So James Dadd, misplaced and ill at ease, passed thus through life -with occasional spasmodic attempts at the assumption of a defiant -self-complacency. He knew that he was an outcast from St. Eldred’s. -Even if he would, he could never now return to the red-brick house -of his early years. In the flesh, perhaps, he might, but his spirit -could never again be admitted within its doors, could never again be -admitted to intimacy by the spirit of St. Eldred’s. Rashly he had cut -himself off from his own people, and must henceforth face the fact. -Nor, though either diffident or vehement in the spending of his money, -could he really contemplate returning to the life of Darnley-on-Downe. -He had tasted of headier joys--tasted awkwardly, perhaps, and -incompletely, but even so the small-beer on which St. Eldred’s had -reared him must for evermore be insipid to his palate. Though now he -never heard from his brother Robert, he sympathized with his revolt, -and resolved that he, too, could never again have any part in the -life of Darnley-on-Downe. And at this point, just after the one brief -tragic flash of romance that broke into his life, he came across Lady -Kirk-Hammerton. - -Lady Kirk-Hammerton was the sonless widow of a second-rate Lord -Chancellor. Devoid of wealth or breeding, she and her husband had had -recourse to blatancy to emphasize their value. Now that he was dead -she redoubled the intensity of her methods, and soon acquired that -notoriety which she considered synonymous with fame. Bereft of her -husband, there was no reason why people should ever take notice of her -again, unless her demeanour forced them to do so. Therefore she set -herself heroically to the task of making her existence conspicuous in -the eye of the world, with such success that, with the best resolve, -nobody could succeed in ignoring her. Physically and metaphorically, -she shouted her way from place to place, and her conversation blazed -no less obtrusively than her gowns. As for a foil, she felt that her -brilliancy needed none, and therefore had no reason for tolerating her -daughter’s incorrigible respectability. With the more joy, therefore, -did she fall upon James Dadd at Naples, and hurl him, not unwilling, -into the company of her undesirable offspring. - -But if the daughter emphasized the mother’s mature and vehement charms, -so did the mother’s overwhelming presence show up the pale grace of -the daughter. Lady Adela Vayne-Kingston was pretty, shrinking, mild, -domestic--the very type that, in happier circumstances, would have -been most dear to St. Eldred’s. She hated her mother’s loud voice -and louder manners; her one hope was to marry someone obscure and -gentle, who would remove her from the burning atmosphere of Lady -Kirk-Hammerton, in whose train, since her girlhood, she had been -dragged hither and thither, never protesting, but always reluctant. -James Dadd, for his part, found in Lady Adela a reminiscence of his -old home-life. She seemed to him the ghost of peaceful St. Eldred’s, -with an added touch of worldly experience and travelled charm. Her -character, far from repeating her mother’s, harked back to some -obscure ancestress, probably in domestic service, and was so meek -and placid as to be the very incarnation of all that James Dadd had -been brought up to love and respect. On the other hand, this same -gentleness of temperament, which St. Eldred’s considered the hall-mark -of good breeding, was believed by Lady Kirk-Hammerton to be especially -distasteful to those high circles after which she hankered; and she -had long, therefore, been eagerly seeking a chance to be rid of -the daughter whom her best efforts had failed to render brazen and -clamorous. Her delight, accordingly, surpassed all bounds, when at the -end of a week’s acquaintance, James Dadd proposed to Lady Adela, and -was thankfully accepted. - -Though the Misses Adelaide and Minna Dadd had ceased to subscribe to -‘the Paper,’ they yet had their recognised channels for the reception -of news. For the butcher conveyed the events of the world to their -cook, and she, in turn, laid edited selections before her mistresses. -In this way was brought to their notice the approaching marriage -between ‘James Dadd, Esq., of Darnley-on-Downe, and the Lady Adela -Vayne-Kingston, daughter of the late Earl of Kirk-Hammerton.’ - -That afternoon was hurriedly convened a great meeting of the Dadd -family to consider this announcement. Unmixed disapproval filled -every bosom in the tribe. The engagement was held equivalent to the -abdication of James Dadd from the headship of his race. In two ways -the proposed marriage was disliked. It was thoroughly unsuitable to a -Dadd; it was thoroughly unworthy of a Dadd. Lady Adela was at once too -high and too low to be a fair match of James Dadd. Accident had given -her a titular position superior to her lover’s, while her birth was in -every way disastrously inferior to his own. Even St. Eldred’s had heard -something of Lady Kirk-Hammerton, and it was impossible to imagine that -her daughter could, by any stretch of courtesy, be called a lady in the -true sense of the word. All the Dadd pride of birth rose up against -the thought of connection with a girl without a grandfather--a girl, -too, whom uninstructed sections of the world might dare to consider her -husband’s social superior. It was felt that James Dadd had inflicted -a crowning insult on his family in thus threatening to misally it. -Mrs. John, Mrs. Reuben, Mrs. Joshua, coincided in the opinion firmly -announced by the Misses Adelaide and Minna Dadd; the young Johns, -Reubens, and Joshuas, dissented in nothing; only the peccant James’s -sister, now a girl of promising beauty, held her own counsel, and -decided to write congratulations to her brother and his destined -bride. For in her, too, the blood of great-great-great-grandmother -Messiter was at its fell work; her soul longed for change and variety -and gaiety; and all these things she saw attainable through James’s -marriage with the daughter of that notorious Lady Kirk-Hammerton. - -But she was too wise to make her heresy public; and the condemnation -of James’s choice was passed without protest by the assembled council. -An ultimatum was drafted by the Misses Adelaide and Minna Dadd, and -would have been dispatched on the morrow, with the approval of all, had -not the morrow brought news that destroyed every hope of reconciliation -with the traitor. It was announced that, with royal permission, James -Dadd, of Darnley-on-Downe, would in future be known as James Darnley. -St. Eldred’s gasped at the wickedness of this public repudiation. - -In point of fact it was Lady Adela, gentle and winning, whose vitality -had stirred to a great effort, under great pressure, and had risen -to urge upon her lover this change of name. She pointed out that to -ask a girl to become Lady Adela Dadd was to exact a sacrifice as far -beyond mortal power to grant as beyond mortal justice to demand. James -Dadd, recognising that he could never hope to be reincluded in the -clan whose nominal sovereign he still was, found himself inclined -to consider Lady Adela’s plea in a favourable spirit. Together they -decided to adopt the more euphonious name of Darnley, and James Dadd -hastened to make his decision public, that thus he might at once be -finally cut off from any remonstrances or embassies of his family. He -judged the temper of St. Eldred’s rightly. His announcement was taken -as an irremediable declaration of war. His name was never mentioned -again in Darnley-on-Downe, except as that of one deservedly dead and -unregretted. The sceptre passed into the capable hands of Mr. and -Mrs. Reuben Dadd, and by silent consent it was agreed that no infant -henceforth should bear the dishonoured names of James or Robert. Only -James Dadd’s young sister remained hopefully loyal to his memory, and -when, a year later, the redoubled severity of the Misses Adelaide -and Minna Dadd alone betrayed their secret knowledge that a son had -been born to Mr. and Lady Adela Darnley, the one acknowledgment -of the event that reached the outlaw from Darnley-on-Downe was a -surreptitiously-posted letter of his sister’s. If anything could have -aggravated the wrath of the Misses Adelaide and Minna Dadd it would -have been the knowledge that the infant, that their own great nephew, -had been christened, not James, but Kingston. - -Kingston Darnley, indeed! There was a name for a child! You cannot make -a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, said the Misses Adelaide and Minna -Dadd; and they were universally felt to have expressed the situation in -all its bearings. And thus, from years of corrupting wealth and secret -disloyalty, was generated the culminating disgrace of the Dadds, in -Kingston Darnley. Kingston Darnley! - -Why, why had great-great-great-grandfather Blessing married a Messiter -of eccentric tendencies? And what a curse is money! Better decorum and -a competence than stalled peacocks and a marriage with the daughters of -Heth! It became the fashion in St. Eldred’s to affect, by contrast, a -greater poverty than the circumstances of anyone necessitated. To give -two cakes at tea became vulgar, and the Misses Adelaide and Minna Dadd -took to going to church with only one Prayer Book between them. Nothing -could have induced St. Eldred’s to confess that it knew anything of the -Darnleys, and the various steps in Lady Adela’s progress were sternly -ignored by a watchful world. Even when Mr. and Lady Adela Darnley -entertained a Princess for some charitable function, the only comment -made in St. Eldred’s was the tacit one involved in the simultaneous -retirement to bed of the Misses Adelaide and Minna Dadd. Another -outcast, however, was soon added to James and Robert--another topic for -the silence of St. Eldred’s. For, after some secret correspondence, -James Darnley’s sister eloped from the care of her aunts, and was next -heard of under the wing of her brother’s wife in London. Within a -year she had married a stockbroker of abundant wealth. The lips of St. -Eldred’s snapped on this fulfilment of the disasters brought about by -great-great-great-grandmother Messiter. The old dynasty of Dadd was -ended in Darnley-on-Downe. The main royal line was wiped out, and the -Reuben Dadds reigned in its stead. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -The new-made Darnleys, James and his sister, were triumphantly ushered -into the upper world by Lady Adela, whose father’s rise, whose mother’s -persistence, had won at last a reluctant toleration from her betters. -Accustomed from her birth to live on terms of acquaintance with more -or less interesting or conspicuous people, Lady Adela had developed -something of that native air and ease which James Dadd had never been -able to acquire in all his long exile from his own social hemisphere. -Nor did James Dadd, transformed into James Darnley, ever succeed in -fitting himself perfectly to his altered conditions. His wife, besides -loving him devotedly, if placidly, did all she could to acclimatize -him; she made him buy a vast new house on the Yorkshire moors; she -filled it with people, she made her husband play the squire; but to the -last this man of many descents remained less adaptable, less congenial -to his new environment than many a versatile Hebrew whom twenty years -of unlimited wealth transform into what is nowadays considered a very -tolerable imitation of an English gentleman--especially as seen on the -stage. Among people who talked of money and diseases with a freedom -that struck him as indecent, James Darnley, brought up to think both -topics unmentionable, remained timid and uncomfortable to the end of -his days, and when at last a combination of dyspepsia and a Primrose -League banquet caused him to retire from a world in which he had always -been a stranger, even Lady Adela felt that he was somehow set free -from a long bondage. Gentle in her grief as in all her other emotions, -she resigned herself to becoming crapes, and found new pleasure in the -guardianship of her son Kingston, now turned eleven. - -But if James Darnley, first of his line, died a failure, -far otherwise was it with his sister. In her the blood of -great-great-great-grandmother Messiter must have seethed and boiled -with concentrated virulence, for she took to her new life with a zeal -that left nothing to be desired, and soon dropped behind her all trace -and all memory of Darnley-on-Downe. Her manners, from the first, were -forward and easy; her ambition was to be considered a woman of fashion, -and she carried to its accomplishment a temperament entirely devoid -of bashfulness or indecision. Mr. Mimburn, her wealthy stockbroker -husband, soon shrank into mere cheque-signing obscurity beside the -flaming figure of his wife. Her remarks were quoted, her gowns -described; she became at last, in those far-off days, a precursor of -that modern type of woman who is perfectly virtuous, except in dress, -manners, and mind. Nothing would have horrified her more than illicit -proposals, except the accusation of being shocked by them; nothing have -more appalled her than an attack on her virtue, except the suspicion -that she had any. - -Her gossip always made a point of flirting round impropriety, and she -was at pains to damn her own flawless character by arch implications. -She had cultivated French, and now was a walking chronicle of the -demi-monde, as well as a living picture of its most prominent -inhabitants. A passport to her friendship was the possession of a past, -and she hastened to attribute amorous adventures to all her dearest -friends on any foundation or none. The foundation did not matter; the -point was that the suggestion glorified them in her eyes; part of her -admiration for Lady Adela arose from the fact that she suspected that -saintly woman of having ‘consoled herself’ during the lifetime of the -late James Darnley. Mrs. Mimburn’s knowledge of her sister-in-law’s -untried and incorruptible virtue was never allowed to interfere with -this romantic possibility; in the face of all probability, in the face -of all evidence, she must imagine some such episode in any career that -touched her own, or else immediately cease to take any interest in -it. So far had she travelled from the mental chastity that ruled in -Darnley-on-Downe. - -So, between mother and aunt, the young Kingston Darnley journeyed -through boyhood to maturity. Lady Adela was an ideal parent, and -discharged her maternal duties with a gentle ease that made her -son’s progress altogether pleasant. She was one of the cushion-women -whose numbers nowadays are yearly diminishing. Without initiative, -without any clearness of mind, she had the placid receptivity that -often accompanies such a temperament. The lack of colour in her own -character made it harmonious and restful as a background to more -vivid personalities. Therefore, without effort or desire on her part, -she attracted confidence. She was good to lean on; she listened -well--though often without hearing, and always without understanding. -But her sweet acquiescence gave everyone the idea of being fully -comprehended, and her incapacity for independent action added to her -value as a recipient of confidences. She could be trusted to say little -and do less; and the large majority who, in making confession, only -desire a sympathetic listener, felt that Lady Adela was an altogether -soft and comfortable personality to repose against. What more could be -required? The faithful adviser frequently gives much less, and is, as -a rule, much less valued than the imperturbable Lady Adelas of life. -Kingston Darnley was universally held to be highly fortunate in his -mother, and, by the time he came of age, as he had neither married an -actress nor gone to ruin on the turf, her skill in managing him was -considered marvellous, and even beyond what might reasonably have been -expected. - -‘I assure you, La-la, considering what young men are nowadays, I do -think you have done wonders,’ said Mrs. Mimburn, who had called to -congratulate her sister-in-law on the latest triumph achieved by her -diplomacy. - -‘Kingston is the dearest child,’ acknowledged Lady Adela, deprecating -undue flattery of her own genius. ‘One only needs to guide him. He is -all obedience. I have never attempted to drive him, Minnie.’ - -Mrs. Mimburn tossed her head. Her name was always a sore point. She -had suffered heavily in the matter at the hands of her parents, who -had christened her Minna Adelaide, after her great-aunts of formidable -memory, the Misses Adelaide and Minna Dadd. Understanding that such -names were a grievous handicap to any runner in the race of fashion, -and desirous, too, of obliterating all traces of Darnley-on-Downe, Mrs. -Mimburn did the best she could to remedy the disaster by resolutely -calling herself ‘Minne-Adélaïde.’ This Gallicism Lady Adela could never -bring herself to remember, and embittered the life of her sister-in-law -by calling her Min or Minnie when in a good temper, or plain Minna on -the very rare occasions when she happened to be in not so good a one. - -‘Well,’ tartly replied Mrs. Mimburn, with another toss of her plumed -head, ‘I think you have been wise, La-la. But you need not be too -sure of Kingston. There isn’t any reason to believe, La-la, that even -_your_ son is not made of flesh and blood. Such stories one hears! And -a mother is the last person a boy could think of confiding in. Depend -upon it, you don’t know everything. Boys don’t let their mothers marry -them off at Kingston’s age unless there is a reason for it. Dear me! -of course not; everyone loves a little bit of freedom,’ concluded Mrs. -Mimburn, filling her voice with the suggestion of a wicked past. - -Lady Adela had the happy knack of never hearing anything that -displeased her. The process of years had brought her a sweet serenity -that nothing could ruffle. Whatever happened Lady Adela smiled. - -‘Dear boy,’ she answered reflectively, without any symptom of having -noticed her sister-in-law’s remarks, ‘dear, dear boy! he has always -been as free as air. And he has been so good about the engagement. Min, -you know, five-and-twenty is such a charming age for a man to settle. -If one waits longer the nice girls of one’s own age have all got -married off, and one has to put up with an elderly one, or a widow, or -something dreadful like that.’ - -‘Or something even worse,’ supplemented Mrs. Mimburn, with a smile of -worldly knowledge. She was looking most typical that afternoon. She was -a little round dark woman, with deep, luscious eyes, and more black -hair than Nature had provided. Her gown was of brown velvet, adorned -with an incalculable number of ruckings, tuckings, ruchings, quillings, -flutings, flouncings, rosettes, and insertions. Her parasol lost its -outline in a foam of scarlet, and her brown tricorne hat, with its one -enormous geranium-coloured plume, was worn at an audacious tilt, in -exact imitation of that assumed by Marie de Lorraine in the second -act of ‘Mélanges du Divorce.’ That gorgeous lady, whose notoriety -almost passed into fame, was Mrs. Mimburn’s favourite model. She had -constituted herself the especial chronicler of Marie de Lorraine, -copied her clothes devotedly, bought every scent and powder that bore -her name, and collected her anecdotes, apocryphal or unpublishable, -with as much enthusiasm as a pious Pope accumulates relics. While -the hat recalled ‘Mélanges du Divorce,’ the parasol to-day was based -on that in ‘Infidèle,’ the gown was collated from two that appeared -in ‘Messalineries,’ the tippet’s prototype had figured in ‘Autour de -Mitylène,’ and the Parisian pearls that twined round Mrs. Mimburn’s -throat had been specially copied from the historic necklace which her -heroine had extracted from Prince Henri de Valois, to the general -scandal of Europe. Even in the matter of cosmetics Mrs. Mimburn was -faithful to her model, and her rich complexion glowed like a plum -behind its bloom through a skin-tight mask of Blanc de Perle ‘Marie,’ -while her ruby lips owed their flamboyancy of tint to the Vermeil de -Lorraine. - -Lady Adela looked at her across the tea-table with a kind smile. She -felt that her sister-in-law added colour to the room. Lady Adela was -one of those women whose habitations have a certain cool tonelessness -that matches their own character, and, like their disposition, suits -with any tint that may be introduced. Her boudoir was nondescript and -mild in scheme; pale, sweet flowers stood here and there in transparent -glasses, and the summer light flowed in, pale and ghostly, through -the lowered white silk blinds. Entrenched behind china and silver, -Lady Adela seemed the incarnation of the room’s spirit; she also had -the same indefinable pale sweetness. Her gown was grey, her abundant -beautiful hair snow-white, her features were filled with a gentle -complacency. Altogether she irresistibly called to mind an old white -rabbit--a very soft, very fluffy, very reverend and lovable old white -rabbit. - -‘Dear Min,’ she said at last, ‘you have no notion what a comfort this -engagement is to me.’ - -Again Mrs. Mimburn bridled. Why could La-la never realize the -difference between Min and Minne? - -‘Ah, _ma chère_,’ she replied, ‘indeed, it must be. And you certainly -have done wonders. It is not every mother who can say that her son has -never given her an hour’s anxiety in his life, and ended up by marrying -the very first girl that she picked out for him.’ - -‘Never an hour’s anxiety,’ repeated her sister-in-law, always -behindhand in a conversation. ‘No, dear Min; I can truly say that ever -since Kingston had diphtheria at school he has never given me another -hour’s anxiety. And they said afterwards that that was only some other -kind of sore throat. But it was quite as alarming at the time, I -remember. Anyhow, since then the dear boy has been everything I could -wish.’ - -‘It makes him sound terribly dull,’ commented Mrs. Mimburn. ‘Now, I -like a boy to be a little bit naughty myself--a--well, a _bêtise_ now -and then, you know.’ - -‘There is nothing of _that_ kind about my son, Minna,’ protested Lady -Adela in a momentary spasm of dignity. Mrs. Mimburn, as in duty bound, -had, of course, suspicions that her nephew was not all he had the -tact to seem. But she was anxious to hear details of his engagement, -and therefore waived the question of young men’s iniquity, which she -was usually inclined to treat with a wealth of illustrations and many -anecdotes from the career of Marie de Lorraine. - -‘But tell me about Gundred Mortimer, La-la,’ she said. ‘I have never -met her. What is she like?’ - -Lady Adela warmed into the expression of a more positive enthusiasm -than she usually showed. - -‘Min,’ she answered, ‘Gundred is absolutely the dearest of creatures. -Everything that is nice. I really feel that I have quite found a -daughter--thoroughly well brought up, and charming manners, and truly -religious, which is such a great thing nowadays. Not at all forward or -fashionable, but just a steady, old-fashioned, good girl. I am sure you -will love her, Min.’ - -Mrs. Mimburn began, on the contrary, to conceive a strong dislike for -the future Mrs. Darnley--a dislike tempered only by the hope that she -might be found to have had a mystery in her life. - -‘Quite a bread-and-butter miss,’ she tittered. - -‘Do have some more, Min,’ pleaded Lady Adela, with apparent -irrelevance, exercising her usual happy power of ignoring unfavourable -comment. ‘Yes, nothing could be luckier in every way. She is the -very wife I should have chosen for dear Kingston. She will make him -perfectly happy. And now, Min, I do really feel that my work is -finished. It has been a great responsibility, you know, having sole -charge of a son all these years. There are so many dangers. Mercifully, -he has always had confidence in me, and I have been able to keep him -away from everything undesirable. But, of course, as time goes on, one -gets to feel more and more anxious. You can say what you like, but it -isn’t always easy to understand young men. Even a mother’s sympathy -finds it difficult sometimes.’ - -Mrs. Mimburn had a very terse answer to the riddle of young-manhood. -Human nature presented no mysteries to her mind; woman was the solution -of them all. She sniffed knowingly. - -‘I think _I_ could manage it, La-la,’ she replied. ‘However, you are -marrying off Kingston, and that is the great thing. I suppose he is -very much in love?’ - -‘Oh, very, very, even before I suggested it. And she adores him, of -course. I saw that long ago. But dear Kingston is so simple and good, -he had no idea until I told him.’ - -‘And he proposed--when? Yesterday?’ - -‘After lunch, dear Min. I asked Gundred on purpose, and we had some -really delightful Caviare biscuits. And then I managed to leave them in -the drawing-room--and--and--it came off, dear Min. I am so pleased.’ - -‘What does Mr. Mortimer say, La-la?’ - -‘Naturally he is charmed, Minna. What should he be? Besides, nobody -cares much what Mr. Mortimer says. But his dear aunt, Lady Agnes, is -quite on our side. In fact, you may imagine that she and I talked it -all out between us.’ - -Mrs. Mimburn laughed. - -‘What an obedient boy Kingston must be,’ she said. ‘Had he nothing to -say in the matter?’ - -‘Kingston trusts to his mother to know best,’ answered Lady Adela with -gentle dignity. ‘Gundred is altogether pretty and good and sweet, so -what more could he want? Besides, as I pointed out to him--and he quite -understood--such a marriage will be a great help to him in his career, -when he finds one.’ - -‘But Mr. Mortimer is very silly, surely,’ protested Mrs. Mimburn. ‘How -can he be a help to anyone?’ - -‘One shouldn’t be harsh,’ replied Lady Adela, ‘and I am sure when he -succeeds to the dukedom nobody will think him as foolish as they do -now.’ - -Mrs. Mimburn was still in a carping mood. - -‘The Duke himself is actually an imbecile, isn’t he?’ she asked. ‘How -dreadful to marry into a family where there is madness, La-la! A mad, -ga-ga--great-uncle, isn’t it? Yes. Poor Gundred!’ - -However, Lady Adela refused, as always, to take any but a hopeful view. - -‘Well,’ she said, ‘we must trust that it will all be for the best. -And there is a little insanity in my own family, too, Min, so that -will make us quite quits, won’t it? No; the only thing I do regret is -that dear Gundred has not got more relations. You see, Lady Agnes has -never married, and Gundred is an only child herself, so that really -poor Kingston will hardly have got so many nice new connections as I -could have wished. There was an Isabel Mortimer, I am told, an aunt of -Gundred’s, but they don’t talk about her. She married a New Zealander, -or something dreadful, and went out there and died. I forget if she -left any children, but of course it can’t matter whether she did or -not.’ - -Mrs. Mimburn scented romance, and immediately became more friendly -towards the match. - -‘Ah, well, poor thing!’ she said. ‘We all have our temptations. I -should be the last to blame anybody. Life teaches one to understand, -La-la. It’s not Miss Gundred’s fault. Probably it runs in the -blood. These things do. You know Marie de Lorraine’s mother used to -drink methylated spirits, and they say she herself can never act -unless--well, dear me, these things are very odd, aren’t they?’ - -Lady Adela was not listening; she rarely did listen to anyone, and -never to Mrs. Mimburn. ‘Yes,’ she said, returning on her tracks. -‘I spoke to dear Kingston quite plainly. I told him that such an -opportunity would never come in his way again. And after all, it is -something to make a good marriage nowadays. And I said to him how -delighted I should be if he would take it. He was so nice about it. -I am sure he had been in love with Gundred all the while. I know he -used to say how pretty and sweet she was. Anyhow, he made no sort of -difficulty, and they will be married at the end of the season.’ - -‘What an anxiety off your mind!’ cried Mrs. Mimburn, giggling archly. - -‘Yes,’ replied Lady Adela gravely. ‘One wants one’s son to settle down; -and, of course, one likes cleverness well enough in other people, but -in one’s own children one can really have too much of it. When it came -to Kingston’s telling me he thought it wrong to shoot grouse, I knew -it was time to see him safely married. Grouse are so truly excellent. -It always happens, I am sure. If a young man does not marry early in -life he becomes clever, and gets into every kind of uncomfortable fad. -But Gundred will prevent and cure all that, I am quite sure. She is so -religious and good, dear Min, as I told you; she will have no patience -with humanitarianism and all those dreadful fashionable crazes. Humble -and simple and devout, Min--just the wife that dear Kingston wants. -I have never been really anxious about him, I need not say, but I -certainly was beginning to think it time he fell into the hands of some -nice sensible girl or other.’ - -Mental aberrations never interested Mrs. Mimburn. Her curiosity was -confined to the vagaries of the flesh. - -‘Oh, well,’ she said, ‘that will wear off, you know, all that nonsense. -You may be thankful it was nothing worse. Most young men--ah, well! One -must be grateful that Kingston never got into the clutches of Marie de -Lorraine, for instance. She is such a terror. Even her garters, you -know, diamonds and pearls. Oh, dear me, how delightful life would be, -wouldn’t it, if one didn’t have to be good?’ - -‘Men,’ continued Lady Adela in a ruminant manner, ‘are always a little -puzzling at the best of times. Even if they seem perfectly satisfactory -in every way they are quite liable to break out sometimes into most -extraordinary freaks. One can never tell. Though dear Kingston is as -quiet as anyone could possibly be, I do feel that it is satisfactory to -get him settled so nicely.’ - -‘As you say,’ admitted Mrs. Mimburn knowingly, ‘one can never tell. -The strangest things one hears! Quite old men, too--so very funny! -There was Lord Bennington; they say he wanted to run away with Marie de -Lorraine--seventy, if he is a day, La-la, and eight grandchildren. Dear -me, yes; one can never prophesy what a man will do. Only be ever so -little polite to one, and the next minute--well, I suppose it is human -nature, after all.’ She sighed coyly, as one whose virtue is for ever -being besieged. - -‘Even my own dear husband,’ continued Lady Adela, ‘the best and most -devoted of men, had had his moments of madness--really, one can call -it nothing else, can one, Min? You remember how good and orderly James -always was? Nothing seemed able to excite him, and though I am sure he -loved me most warmly, still--well, it wasn’t at all _public_, Minnie. -And yet, you know, there was a Frenchwoman, or something dreadful like -that, whom James quite lost his head over, so I am told, before he -met me. Perfectly crazy, they say he was, and when she was drowned he -wanted to commit suicide. Now, could anything sound more unbelievable, -Min?’ - -‘I have heard about it,’ replied Mrs. Mimburn; ‘one of those ridiculous -affairs I was talking of. Poor, sober, straightforward, stodgy, -bourgeois James, and some terrible creature with padded hips and a -French walk. That is just what happens. Your nonconformist, your decent -provincial, always gets caught by the most brazen _horizontale_. James -was absolutely idiotic about it, so people told me--met her--now, where -did he meet her?--anyway, he suddenly made himself more absurd than -a schoolboy--and I could tell you stories of _them_, La-la--fell in -love with her at first sight, and talked the most amazing nonsense you -can imagine. She was his affinity, if you please, the other half of -his soul, the lost love of a century ago. And all this from sober old -James. She must have been a shameless creature, too--but they always -are, _ces dames_; for she seems to have met him--well, quite half-way, -and encouraged his monstrous craze. And then she was most mercifully -drowned, and after a week of sheer madness, James calmed down into his -right mind again, and was only too glad to marry a nice quiet girl like -you, La-la. Now, that just shows. If there ever was a person whom one -would have thought perfectly safe from a passion like that, the person -was our decent, beef-eating James. But no, one can never count on a -man. Nine out of ten of the men we marry, however placid and devoted -they may be, have had some dreadful insane romance in their lives, -La-la. One knows what it is to be a man’s romance one’s self, and, dear -me, it’s not by any means the same thing as being a man’s wife!’ - -‘Such a sad, dreadful story,’ commented Lady Adela comfortably, taking -no notice of Mrs. Mimburn’s artful, question-courting sighs. ‘And to -think of its happening to James, too. Do you know, Min, he always wore -black for that woman on the twentieth of July. So stuffy of him, in the -hot weather!’ - -‘Oh, my dear La-la, trust a man always to _afficher_ himself in the -most ridiculous way he can.’ - -‘Minna, do you think Kingston is at all like his father?’ - -‘My dear La-la, all men are alike. Let us trust that Kingston’s -marriage will prevent him from playing the fool like that, though.’ - -‘Minnie, do you know Kingston sometimes seems to me so like his -father that I am almost frightened. And yet he is quite different, -which makes it all the odder. Somehow, his father seems to look over -Kingston’s shoulder at me from time to time, and every now and then I -hear poor James’s voice distinctly in something Kingston says. And yet -they are two quite different people. Isn’t it uncanny? I take quinine -for it, Minnie. And I know dear James is safe in heaven, of course, but -yet I can never quite help feeling that the father and son are the same -in some mysterious way. And that is so uncomfortable, Min. One does -like to think that people are really dead when they have been buried. -It seems so much more proper, somehow.’ - -Exhausted by her effort of subtlety, Lady Adela sighed and poured more -water into the teapot. Meanwhile Mrs. Mimburn was growing impatient. - -‘Well, dear La-la,’ she said, ‘Kingston is just a man. That’s all the -likeness there is between him and his father. It is the male element -you feel in both. No woman can help feeling it--_voilà ce qui donne -les frissons_. And now, La-la, I seem to have been a perfect age, and, -really, I ought to be going on. Do you think Kingston and Gundred are -likely to be in soon? Because I did want to see her, and it is getting -so late that I can hardly spare more than another minute or two.’ - -Lady Adela looked helplessly at the clock. - -‘The play surely must be over by now,’ she answered. ‘Do wait, Minnie. -They will be here any time now.’ - -‘What has he taken her to this afternoon?’ - -‘“La Tosca.” It sounds a very dreadful sort of play, and not at all one -to take a nice girl to. But dear Kingston has always been interested -in literature and things like that, so I suppose he wants to interest -dear Gundred in them, too. There are such pretty books nowadays; I -never can see what people want with clever ones. However, I do think -Gundred will cure dear Kingston. She has the sweetest, simplest tastes. -We agree in everything.... Ah, there they are,’ broke off Lady Adela -in tones of triumph, as if the return of the lovers were a personal -achievement of her own. Mrs. Mimburn rose, diffusing an eddy of Peau de -Marie as she did so. - -‘Just a moment,’ she announced, ‘and then I must fly. I must, indeed.’ -She gathered herself into a welcoming posture, picturesquely assumed -the parasol, and stood with protruded hips to watch the opening of the -door and the entrance of her nephew’s future wife. - -Miss Mortimer had clearly no false bashfulness about confronting and -challenging the approval of her future husband’s family. Sedately -and collectedly she came into the room, greeted Lady Adela, and then -underwent the introduction to Mrs. Mimburn. Her lover followed close -upon her track--tall, fair, handsome, radiant, his manner filled with -proprietary joy. - -Miss Mortimer might be recognised at first glance as the very fine -flower of that type which, after all, even Lady Adela only copied. From -head to foot her appearance and bearing proclaimed that she belonged to -a class that had ruled unquestioned for many generations. She was very -neat, placid, clear-cut in dress, build, and demeanour, an elegant, -tiny figure, unalterably, coldly perfect in every detail. Everything -about her was exactly as it should be, from the elaborate neatness of -her pale golden hair to the nice grace with which she accepted Mrs. -Mimburn. Her manners, her smile, were consciously faultless, and she -radiated the impression of imperturbable good breeding. She was, in -fact, a crisp and charming specimen of that type which develops later -into neat-featured peeresses with royalty fringes, violet toques, -and short cloaks of sable or mink. It was easy to see how she had -attracted Lady Adela. The two women had ease, gentleness, placidity -in common. But there the resemblance stopped. Miss Mortimer’s mind -was as definite, as clear, as simple as her appearance; she had none -of that soft vagueness which characterized Lady Adela; her decisions -were as swift and firm as their expression was gentle and well bred; -one could divine in her the immovable obstinacy of one who is never -violent or angry, but always unchangeably certain that he is right. As -she smiled upon Mrs. Mimburn’s congratulatory fondlings, she conceived -an instantaneous dislike for that over-decorated woman, and had no -difficulty in feeling sure that her disapproval was righteous. - -‘Call me Minne,’ Mrs. Mimburn was saying effusively, gladly conscious -that she was making a highly favour-impression on the bride-elect. -‘Always remember to call me Minne.’ - -Mrs. Mimburn had never allowed her nephew to emphasize her age by -calling her aunt, and saw no reason for delaying to make the situation -clear to her prospective niece. - -‘So kind,’ murmured Gundred, smiling into Mrs. Mimburn’s eyes, and -noticing the heavy rings of bistre that enhanced their charms. Then she -turned to Lady Adela. - -‘Just one cup of tea, dear Lady Adela, if I may? And then, really, -I must be getting home. Kingston and I have been having the most -delightful afternoon, but papa will be thinking I have been run over, -or something terrible. And I sent the carriage home, too.’ - -Lady Adela poured her out a cup of tea, and Kingston Darnley offered it -to her with due devotion. - -‘No, dear, no sugar,’ said Gundred gently, repulsing his offer. ‘You -forget, I never take sugar.’ His ardour was such that he persisted in -plying her with all good things; hers was such that she expected him -to remember minutely all her preferences and dislikes. Accordingly, her -clear, sweet voice conveyed a hint of reproach. - -‘And have you enjoyed the play, dear?’ asked Lady Adela. - -‘Very wonderful,’ replied Gundred. ‘But so painful, Lady Adela. I -cannot see why they should want to perform such painful things. There -is so much beauty in life--yes? So why should we look at the ugly -things?’ - -‘It’s all in the day’s work,’ suggested Kingston Darnley. ‘Beauty as -well as ugliness. One has to face both in life.’ - -‘But beauty can never be ugly,’ answered Gundred, ‘and art only deals -with beauty----’ Her calm tones carried the conviction of perfect -certitude, and flattened out the conversation like a steam-roller. - -She was too pretty, however, for such syllogisms to be as daunting -as they might have been from the lips of a plainer woman. Kingston -contemplated the speaker with a pleasure that obliterated all close -consideration of the thing spoken. - -‘I like a play with plenty of passion in it,’ announced Mrs. Mimburn. -‘English plays are so absurdly mealy-mouthed. These things exist, and, -really, the whole of life is wonderfully interesting. And yet English -writers leave out the most exciting half of everything. Why, for my own -part, as soon as I have read the _haut goût_ parts in a book, I take no -further interest in the story.’ - -‘It is all a matter of taste, I suppose--yes?’ answered Gundred, her -cold tone implying that it was a matter of good taste and bad, and that -on the point her own was as good as Mrs. Mimburn’s was bad. - -‘Some women like to pretend that they are not flesh and blood,’ began -Mrs. Mimburn. - -Clearly, sweetly, decisively, Gundred interposed. - -‘Dear Lady Adela,’ she said, ‘really, you make the very best tea that -anyone could imagine. And it is such a rare art nowadays. But, do you -know, I must not stay another minute. Poor papa will be getting quite -anxious. Kingston dear, you may get me a hansom if you like, but I -cannot let you come with me. Your mother will almost forget she ever -had a son. You must stay with her and tell her about that dreadful -play.’ - -‘Look here, do let me come with you,’ pleaded Kingston. ‘I hardly feel -to have seen you at all to-day. I want to talk to you.’ - -‘Dear boy,’ smiled Gundred, ‘you have just had three and a half hours -of my company.’ - -‘In a stuffy theatre, with four hundred people looking on the whole -time. Besides, one can’t talk--_really_ talk, in a theatre. It isn’t -really being together, sitting side by side in the stalls. One might as -well be with one’s grandmother, for all one is able to say. There are -ever so many things I haven’t had a chance of saying to you. Take me -home with you, Gundred, and let me dine with you.’ - -Gundred shook her head. ‘Impossible, dear,’ she answered decidedly. ‘We -have got people coming, and it would put the table out. You may run in -to lunch to-morrow, though. And now, may he ring for a hansom, Lady -Adela?’ - -But at this point Mrs. Mimburn intervened with an urgent plea that -Gundred should let herself be driven home in Mrs. Mimburn’s carriage. - -‘Now, do, dearest Gundred,’ pleaded Mrs. Mimburn, nerving herself to -the inevitable audacity of calling the new niece by her Christian name. -Then she fetched her breath in a gasp of relief, and went on. ‘Our -horses go like the wind, and you will be home in a flash--an _éclair_, -a positive _éclair_.’ - -To Gundred’s British mind the word merely suggested confectionery, -and the proposal, as emanating from Mrs. Mimburn, was altogether -distasteful. She smiled a cordial refusal. But Mrs. Mimburn pressed her -point. - -‘We must really see something of each other, dear,’ she went on, ‘now -we are to be relations. A cosy little drive together, now, don’t say -no. I shall be quite offended if you do.’ Mrs. Mimburn persisted until -Gundred saw that there was no hope of being able decently to decline -the offer. - -‘You are so kind,’ she said. ‘Well, if you are really sure it will not -be taking you out of your way? Kingston, dear, may I have my parasol?’ - -He told her he had left it outside the door. - -‘Where?’ asked Gundred. ‘Come and show me.’ Together they slipped out -of the room, leaving Mrs. Mimburn making her farewells to Lady Adela, -and exchanging comments. - -‘But look here,’ protested Kingston, as they stood on the landing, ‘why -am I not to see you again till to-morrow? Why shouldn’t I dine with -you? Confound the table, you know.’ - -‘Hush,’ said Gundred, but not sternly. ‘It really would put the -table out. And papa is so particular. Besides’--she faltered for a -moment--‘besides, Kingston dear, I--I don’t want you to see too much -of me before we are married. You might--you might get tired of me, you -see.’ She raised her eyes and looked full into his. In the smiling -depths of her gaze might have been seen the whole truth. Sedate, -restrained, correct, she loved her choice with a passion that no one -was allowed to guess from the cool suavity of her usual demeanour. -Only in stolen flashes of privacy such as this was even Kingston -permitted to realize his triumph. Gundred lived, as a rule, in public; -every gesture, every inflection, was calculated to satisfy that -pervasive invisible arbiter whose approval confirms its object’s title -to ‘good form.’ Few and brief were the moments in which she consented -to be, in body and spirit, alone with her lover. And rarely had he -time to grasp the concession, before the blessed instant passed and -Gundred slipped back into her cool, normal self, hastily evasive, as -if frightened of her own self-revelation. So it was now. He heard her -murmured words on the cool, dim landing, saw the look in her eyes, and -realized her meaning. But as he caught at her hands, and broke into -a hot protest, the mask flew back on to the girl’s face again. She -reclaimed her hands and busied herself in putting on her gloves. It -was the polite, public Gundred that stood before him. To his contrast -with her public self, so self-contained and orderly, was due half the -sweetness and the charm of that shy wood-nymph soul that only allowed -itself to peep out at him so timidly and rarely. He saw that the moment -was over. - -‘You are so demonstrative,’ said Gundred calmly. ‘And putting on one’s -gloves is a serious matter. One cannot do two things at once. And, oh, -dear me! I have never said good-bye to your mother.’ - -She slipped quickly back into the drawing-room before he could stop -her, and, as he remained outside, playing disconcertedly with the -tassel of her parasol, he heard the well-known clear level tones -taking a daughterly farewell of Lady Adela. Then Mrs. Mimburn emerged -in such a roaring surf of silk petticoats that other sounds became -indistinguishable. She squeezed her nephew’s hand. - -‘A thousand congratulations,’ she whispered. ‘Charming, charming! Just -the sort of girl that pays for marrying. You will wake her up. She -will be quite a different creature when you have been married a little -while. I know that sleeping-beauty type of girl.’ - -Mrs. Mimburn smiled darkly upon him, and put a world of knowledge into -her glance. But she had not time to say more, for Gundred now appeared, -and the two women descended the stairs, exchanging civilities. Kingston -followed, to see them safely tucked into Mrs. Mimburn’s elaborate -victoria. - -‘Lunch to-morrow; don’t forget,’ said Gundred, as a last reminder. Then -the carriage drove off, and Kingston went upstairs again to his mother. - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -To love is by no means necessarily to understand, and Kingston Darnley, -as Nature and life had moulded him, was a very different character from -Kingston Darnley as his mother’s vague mind imagined him. In point of -fact she, good woman, knew little of her son but his face, though, -with the splendid intrepidity of the benevolent stupid, she claimed -an intimate acquaintance with every detail of his being. Her complete -ignorance was due to no conscious process on either side; he as little -dreamt of concealing anything from her as she of ignoring any quality -in him. But time had taught Kingston that whether he confided in his -mother or not, she was just as wise after the revelation as before, -being totally devoid of any power to understand what she was shown, or, -indeed, to realize that she was being shown anything at all. - -Kingston Darnley soon learned to lead his own life without reference -to his mother; to help by listening was her province; to help by -comprehending was beyond the capacities of her nature. So Lady Adela -was left to dwell serene in the world of her own happy little kindly -fancies, while the facts of life went by her in a roar, without ever -being able to capture her notice. She felt that never had mother -been more loving or more beloved; that never had son been more loyal -and devoted; her parental eye was fixed unerringly on her child, -and she knew his nature down to the uttermost convolutions of its -smallest eccentricity. Did she ever forget that he disliked the smell -of onions? Had she ever failed to notice and deplore his coldness -towards her favourite clergy? And had she not succeeded in the last, -noblest, highest ambition of a mother’s life--that of imposing upon -him a thoroughly nice and suitable bride? And he, for his part, had -never rebelled, never repined, never objected, not even to the bride. -Accordingly, Lady Adela felt proudly secure that she understood her -son in every fibre of his being. So she smiled upon him with perfect -unintelligence, and gave nightly thanks to the Powers that had so -gifted her with the perfect tact of motherhood. - -Kingston Darnley at one-and-twenty had found himself a great deal -older than his years. His contemporaries were mere children. He had -lived the sheltered life at his mother’s side, until at last came the -belated time when she reluctantly permitted him to go to Oxford without -her shielding company. General opinion--even that of her son--seemed -opposed to Lady Adela’s plan of taking lodgings in Holywell Street, and -thence keeping a mother’s eye upon her child. And to popular opinion -Lady Adela accordingly yielded. She never made more than a mild and -flabby resistance, and could always be induced by opposition to give up -her most cherished plots with a smile. But until Kingston, alone and -undefended, set off one sad October evening from Paddington, he had -never been allowed outside the sphere of his mother’s presence--one can -hardly say of his mother’s influence--for any influence that Lady Adela -may ever have had must always have been merely that of kindly, null -proximity. - -However, reared by carefully-selected tutors in the gentle but stifling -atmosphere of a widow’s house, the mind of Kingston Darnley had shot -into premature and unsuspected growth. Intelligence he would always -have had, but his training forced it into early development. And, -as the growing pains of the mind are always painful as those of the -body--especially if experienced too soon or too keenly--so Kingston -suffered from the unseasonable expansion of his thoughts, and his -discomfort was increased, no less than its cause, by the fact of his -essential loneliness. He had no one to speak to. On the first mention -of an idea, Lady Adela confidently diagnosed the need of pills; and any -perception of inequalities in this best of all possible worlds must be -treated by the purer air of Brighton or Bournemouth. - -So Kingston was driven in upon himself, and, by the time he came of -age, had ardently discovered all the paradoxes that more fortunate -people come to in due time at twenty-five or so, and then are able to -take as platitudes. The injustice of wealth, the iniquities of sport, -of religion, of land-tenure--all these crimes Kingston Darnley felt to -be his own particular revelation, and they fermented in his mind until -he had few thoughts in common with his fellows. They, meanwhile, went -placidly on their way, and when Kingston arrived at Oxford, he found -himself a stranger and misplaced among the men of his own years. He -was filled at first with a gnawing, cavilling discontent that arose -as much from idleness and opulence as from too rapid and unhealthy -growth. They, for their part, were honest, jolly fellows, who looked on -discontent as an uncomfortable and ‘bad-form’ thing, to be strenuously -frowned and jeered out of their circle. To enjoy what came, without -analysis, was their scheme, and they resented being asked to inquire -into the reasonableness and the morality of their enjoyment. At -one-and-twenty no really sane creature wants to think. The time for -thought comes later, when the first ardours of action are passing. - -Kingston Darnley, though he had far too much sense and geniality to -preach or impose his ideas on anyone, was felt to be always suggesting -questions, never to be accepting the joy of the moment, in a properly -acquiescent, youthful manner. And nothing is more annoying to the -hedonist, of whatever age, than the companionship of someone who seems -to be examining the sources of his joy. It may be that no joys can -stand the test of reason, and the hedonist’s dislike of the sceptic may -gain its intensity from the hedonist’s own unacknowledged realization -of the fact. Even when Kingston got drunk his tone of mind seemed -analytical, far removed from the frank, bellowing joyousness of the -more healthy enthusiasts round him. They sat about in the Quad and -howled, or beat baths beneath the windows of the junior Dean; Kingston, -anxious to please, howled and beat baths with the best. But, whereas -the ebullition was pure nature and joy of living with them, with him -it was always an assumption, a pose, no matter how carefully assumed -and disguised. And the consciousness of this was no less galling to -him than to them. All felt ill at ease, disconcerted, disillusioned -by his presence. His well-intentioned hilarity seemed somehow to turn -the gold of their pleasure to brass, to strike a jarring note in -the chorale of enjoyment they were playing so whole-heartedly. So, -though never unpopular, Kingston Darnley was isolated. His own set in -the college did not want to be bothered with the iniquitous why and -wherefore of the game-laws, or the manifest impossibility of miracles; -and the other sets to whom he would have brought these discoveries in -glad pride had grown accustomed to them long ago, and for many years -had looked on them as the buried foundation-stones of all reasoning. So -that Kingston fell between two stools, and must needs keep company with -his ideas until the passing of time should bring him level with the -contemporaries over whom his training had given him such an unhealthy -and fictitious advantage. - -In any case it is hardly likely that he could ever have taken any -really intimate part in Oxford life. Training or no training, his -mind had that inquiring tone so fatal to unreflecting hilarity. He -was too much interested--in the wrong things, too, and in the wrong -way--in people, in causes, in problems. The men who should have been -his friends were concerned almost entirely with the joy of living and -the avoidance of all unnecessary work. And how is the son of a widow, -reared at home decorously, without other boys to riot and tumble -with--how is he to have any personal enthusiasm for the joy of living, -as understood by healthier, normal men of his own age? Nor is the -precocious cleverness of the unquiet mind any real test of ability. Few -of Kingston Darnley’s contemporaries but had as good an intelligence -as his. Their brains, however, developed naturally along the natural -path. In twenty years he had lived hurriedly through five-and-twenty -of feverish mental development; their five-and-twentieth year--of mind -no less than of body--still lay well ahead of them. By the time he -and they would be thirty they might all, perhaps, be contemporaries -together. The unhealthy, straggling shoots of his forced growth would -have been blighted down to a level with theirs, sturdy and natural; -and by the time they came to consider the game-laws and the gospels, -they would bring a ripe and genial intelligence to bear on such -points, neither thinking nor talking in excess, but letting profitless -points of doctrine slide, for the sake of hitting on a sane and decent -scheme of living, such as can best be attained by the average sensible -gentleman’s compromise between abstract justice and sound, everyday -behaviour. - -And Kingston himself would find, in the course of years, that the rubs -and jars of life would bring his point of view to the same pitch as -theirs, and would perceive that thought is a frivolous and profitless -indulgence of the idle mind, as compared with the more fruitful -achievement of an honest man’s daily duty, along the lines of obvious, -rough-cast morality. Meanwhile, however, though without conscious -arrogance, he realized his isolation, and viewed it alternately with -pride and regret. On the whole, as self-satisfaction is the postulate -of all human life, the pride predominated, and he carried unconsciously -through Oxford the idea of being a chosen candlestick for spiritual -light. - -Other feelings, too, contributed to his sense of loneliness. Birth and -wealth had given him caste; but custom had not yet trained him to it. -From the middle-class, staid traditions of Darnley-on-Downe he had -inherited several hereditary tendencies that not the most determined -efforts could eradicate. He was conscious of them; they annoyed him, -they disconcerted him by making him feel more than ever that he did -not match his surroundings, and this mortifying consciousness was -unsupported by any such heroic glamour as that which attended the -independence of his sceptical spirit. He knew that he was not careless -enough in the spending of money. Spend it he did, freely and eagerly; -but he always knew what it had bought, and his mind kept accounts -long after he had fiercely broken himself away from the spell of -pass-books and schedules. This was not as it should be. Money, to be -spent correctly, should be scattered loosely, and the spender should -have as little idea as possible of the way in which it has gone. Only -thus can a well-bred indifference to finance be attained. The ideal of -his contemporaries was to be perpetually in debt, and never to have -anything whatever to show for all that had been spent. On four hundred -or four hundred and fifty a year right-minded people might attain to -complete destitution, bare rooms, shabby clothes, and a perpetual -assumption of bankruptcy. One very popular man even achieved the result -on six hundred. This was a rare triumph of extravagance, however, and -a reasonable ambition would confine itself to a complete ignorance as -to all outgoings. And this Kingston Darnley could never acquire. The -ghost of his father stirred in him, demanding a solid recollection -of every purchase. He bought the best, bought it and lavished it -freely. But he never could rid himself of the knowledge that it was -the best, and thus a faint suspicion of ostentatiousness hovered over -all his entertainments, and the happy, slovenly wastefulness with -which his contemporaries ran into debt for atrocious port or uneatable -dinners could never be reached by a man with his finical instinct for -perfection. This lack of carelessness, either as to quantity of pounds -spent or quality of things purchased, stigmatized its owner for ever as -an outsider--not to mention the fact that he invariably paid money down -for all he bought. His wealth might as fairly have been blamed for this -vice, perhaps; nevertheless, a hatred for debt was one of Kingston’s -most inalienable legacies from Darnley-on-Downe, and, had he not been -able to pay cash for the best, he would certainly have remained content -to buy the worst. And this, again, was a suspicious trait in the eyes -of his contemporaries, who, though quite happy to buy the worst, -always made it their pride to run up bills for it that would have been -exorbitant had they been ordering the best. - -These small hereditary feelings set James Darnley’s son apart from -his contemporaries, and it only required the remains of middle-class -prudishness to achieve his isolation. Kingston found it impossible, in -spite of habit and effort, to acquire the easy personal _sans-gêne_, -the tripping, untrammelled tongue of his contemporaries. He did his -best; listened genially, accumulated anecdotes and retailed them among -his friends; but always heavily, never as to the manner born. His -friends held the free, frank language only possible to the perfectly -cleanly mind, naked and unashamed; he, for his part, was always uneasy -in his nudity, and took his share in the talk with that consciousness -of impropriety that doubles impropriety. The Dadd respectability -still hampered its rebellious descendant, and prevented him from -ever entering into perfect harmony with that world where decency is -a matter of conduct, not by any means of language. On this point his -aunt Minne-Adélaïde had certainly the advantage. But the woman is -proverbially more adaptable than the man. - -Still isolated, then, at home and abroad, Kingston came down at last -from Oxford at twenty-four, a character untried, unformed, unground by -any real contact with the mills of life. An inordinate sensitiveness to -impressions, an excessive personal daintiness, were the marks of his -nature at that time, so far as a friend could discern it. For the rest, -very pleasant of look and temper, friendly, honest, and no more selfish -than a good-looking young fellow of four-and-twenty has every right to -be. Lady Adela was delighted to receive him under her wing once more, -and noticed with joy the subsidence of some of his more tumultuous -ideas into tranquillity. She had a fearful notion that everyone left -Oxford ‘a roaring atheist,’ and it was a great joy to her that Kingston -completely disproved this fallacy, not only by accompanying her to -church, but also by carrying her hymn-book. She devoted herself to -exploiting her son, and he, not finding rebellion necessary for his -pleasure, allowed himself to be guided wherever his mother wished. - -Rich and handsome in high degree, he began to find London a -very pleasant and companionable place, without the ostentatious -thoughtlessness of Oxford, or the frank intellectual apathy of his -home. In point of fact, London began to do for him what neither home -nor Oxford had succeeded in doing. Gradually he grew down to his own -level, his edges were rubbed off, his generous, exaggerated ideas -dwindled to their proper place in the perspective of life. He realized -that to live well and beautifully it is not necessary to be for ever -examining the foundations of action; that life is simple and enjoyable -for those who prefer living it to discussing it; that justice, -while august and unattainable in the abstract, and astonishingly -contradictory in its precepts, is yet, in the concrete, very easily -discerned and followed in this workaday sphere by plain-minded people -whose eyes are fixed, not on the stars in high heaven, but on their -reflection in the muddy ways of the world. He ceased to nourish -fantastic theories against the hanging of murderesses, conceived the -possibility of good in vivisection, and began at last to contemplate -a Piccadilly midnight with the not unkindly stoicism of a man of the -world. Inwardly, as he often told himself, his ideas remained the same, -but their outward manifestation grew calmer and more ordinary. When he -met his Oxford friends he found that he was much more in sympathy with -their way of taking life as a matter of course. - -Meanwhile Lady Adela was bent on seeing him safely married. This, she -considered, was the easiest and most desirable way of protecting him -against all the wicked possibilities that lie in wait for a young man. -To save him from the contamination of many women by tying him tight -to one, before he had had time to look about and make his choice, -seemed to her a very prudent, not to say holy, course. So she paraded -desirable damsels before him, and held amicable counsel with mothers -not at all averse from an alliance with Kingston Darnley’s wealth. -The mothers and Lady Adela worked and manœuvred with Machiavellian -cunning; needless to say, their designs would have been plain to a -sucking child; and, equally needless to say, Kingston, pleased and -flattered, lent himself more or less amiably to their strategy, with a -guilelessness that quite reassured them as to his ignorance of their -purposes. - -But that very blamelessness of her son’s which Lady Adela wished -to safeguard was the ruin of her plan. For, as a matter of fact, -Lady Adela, by an accident of fate, rather than by any perspicacity -of intellect, was right in holding the mother’s usual superstition -of her son’s purity. Kingston Darnley, emotional and fastidious of -temperament, impressionable rather than passionate, curious and -idealistic, had hitherto not gone the way of all flesh. He had avoided -‘experiences’; and experiences had never sought him out. The sense -of personal decency remained strong upon him, and its strength was -reinforced by his old theories of morality, and by his strong tendency -towards mental, rather than physical passion. So he remained a -spectator in the great sexual battle of life. - -And this onlooker attitude is not endearing even to the most holy and -maidenly of women. Women require to feel that a man is a man--that is, -they require to feel the thrill of his virility in the deep fibres of -their consciousness--to have their interest caught and held by the -proximity of the dominating male. It is only to the depraved woman -that the saint is of personal interest; and, even then, her interest -is depraved as her nature. The normal girl--though she has not the -faintest understanding what her wishes mean--needs to feel the possible -conqueror in the man she is talking to--at least, if he is to rouse her -curiosity and grow in her acquaintance. And this mysterious thrill, -of the man triumphant, Kingston was utterly unable to communicate. -Therefore his friendships with women were almost wholly impersonal. He -had none of that love-making power which experiences confer; had no -idea of how the blood is stirred and defiance stimulated; no gift for -that bold expression of physical approval which is so dear to even the -best of women. Women had to ask him if their frocks were pretty, and -if he liked their hats; even then his answers never went the fervent -lengths that their questions had been meant to open up. - -His flirtations were abstract, platonic, unearthly--all that a mother -considers most unprofitable, though perilous. The artist, indeed, -can be a sensualist; but the artistic spirit and the sensual have no -real relationship. What attracts the one repels the other, and it is -only within the fierce energetic soul of genius that the two can be -reconciled. Kingston Darnley, without genius, had the artist spirit. -And the artist spirit was for ever showing him fresh superficial -blemishes in the offered maidens--blemishes whose deterrent force his -animalism was not powerful enough to overcome. This one had hands that -didn’t match; that one perpetually wore lace mittens; a third had a -nose that perspired at dances; or an irritating cackle that revealed -a golden tooth. One and all, he liked them--even loved them--in so -far as their minds were clear, pleasant, friendly, lovable. But to be -loved for her mind is the last thing that a well-looking young woman -requires. And when he thought of marrying them, when he considered the -prospect of living for ever with a perspiring nose or a mittened hand, -Kingston revolted at the idea, no matter how precious the soul that -owned the nose or the mitten. - -It may be imagined, then, that, whatever his relations with older, -plainer women, settled in life, he was neither popular nor at ease -with the marriageable maidens provided by his mother. In vague -dissatisfaction with his home, he was even anxious to marry and settle -down with some sympathetic, adorable woman--but always that accursed -prosaic aspect of the case came uppermost, and repelled him in horror -from the plan. - -Only once had he ever felt what he hoped might be the premonitory -thrill of a really great passion--a passion such as might tide him over -the more difficult questions involved. In this hope he had nurtured -young love; and as love in so many lucky people is a matter of habit -and determination, he had seemed soon to be in a fair way to success. -The girl, too, showed signs of approval, and everything appeared so -prosperous that Lady Adela gave hearty thanks and put half a crown -into the plate, feeling that Heaven had earned more than its customary -shilling. And then one day he had sat with the girl and her aunt in -Kensington Gardens. And the cruel glare of daylight had shown him a -fine colony of down on her nose, and the places whence and where her -maid had transferred a rosette to hide a stain on her gown. All was -over. The girl was everything delightful; but the idea of being bound -eternally to a potentially bearded nose was impossible. Kingston could -no longer bear the thought of marrying, and told his mother that his -hope had proved fallacious. Heaven only got sixpence the next Sunday; -and, even so, it was in coppers. - -It was shortly after this episode that Heaven, bearing no malice, had -thrown Lady Adela into the track of Lady Agnes Mortimer. Lady Agnes -was a single woman of small means, and an eccentricity that passed all -bounds. However, she was something of a personage, by virtue of her -name as well as of her character, and the great-niece whom she was -trying to marry might do very well for Kingston Darnley. So thought -Lady Adela, pondering the many eligible qualities of the girl who -would one day be daughter to a Duke of March and Brakelond, and who, -besides, had so many qualities that endearingly resembled her own--at -least, so far as kindness, devotion, sweetness, and piety went. She -brought her son, accordingly, into contact with Miss Mortimer, and was -surreptitiously overjoyed to find him obediently disposed. As for Lady -Agnes, she contemplated with equanimity the introduction of the Darnley -wealth into the impoverished House of Mortimer, and tried to soften -down her asperities lest the match should be impeded. - -The House of March and Brakelond no longer loomed so large in the -public eye as once it had, and as Gundred still felt it should. The -reigning Duke was an imbecile, uncomfortably poor and very aged. There -was no Duchess, no near relations, nothing to give prominence or -interest even to the daughter of the heir-apparent. Gundred Mortimer -attracted little notice in London, keeping house parsimoniously for her -father in Russell Square, and going out on the rather shabby arm of -Lady Agnes. Lady Agnes was accepted because her eccentricities made -her so incalculable as to be amusing; but Gundred was soon found to -be almost depressingly normal and correct. There were scores of more -naturally noticeable girls in London; Miss Mortimer, as Miss Mortimer, -had no sort of personal importance, whatever power and dignity -Fate might see fit to bestow at some later date on ‘Lady Gundred.’ -Nicely mannered, nicely minded, nicely dressed, Miss Mortimer was an -inconspicuous, if pleasant, figure in the crowd, and the elevation of -her father to the dukedom seemed so remote that there was no according -her any advance on her face-value. Had the prospect of finding her -mistress and deputy Duchess at Brakelond only been more actual or -imminent, then the world might have lent Miss Mortimer credit and -respect on the reversion; but Mr. Mortimer and his daughter had been -Mr. and Miss Mortimer for so many years now that no one found it easy -to think of them as prospective ‘Duke of March and Brakelond’ and ‘Lady -Gundred.’ Whenever anyone thought now of the Mortimers, it was always -of the old--incredibly old--imbecile, dying eternally at Brakelond -among his parrots. - -Nor was Mr. Mortimer himself of a commanding character, fit to capture -that popular interest which his daughter’s quiet neatness had been -unable to attach. Mr. Mortimer, son of the late Lord Roger, and -heir-apparent to his uncle, must always, whatever his position, have -been a nonentity, not only from his poverty, but from his silliness. -Mr. Mortimer was strangely, unbelievably silly. He was merely silly. -He was silly in the wrong way. He neither shocked people nor amused -them. Even his daughter realized that he was silly, and felt no -grievance with the world for ignoring him. The world had, at one time, -done its best to encourage a coming Duke. But the long delay in the -succession, coupled with Mr. Mortimer’s overwhelming foolishness, had -gradually worn off the patience of even the most far-sighted; and now -his daughter went about inconspicuously with her great-aunt, while her -father stayed unregretted at home, and presumed on his prospects in a -placid, most-comfortable-chair-assuming way. - -Gentle, neat, polite, Miss Mortimer, in her heart of hearts, resented -the indifference with which the world seemed to treat the future -mistress of Brakelond. And this resentment, demure and calm as it -was, did not make her more attractive or approachable to the men -from whom she would have liked to claim attention as her right. She -stiffened herself into a rigid piety, and by contrast with the gay, -attractive girls around her, made herself defiantly dull and godly in -demeanour, pluming herself the while on her unfaltering maintenance -of old-fashioned piety in degenerate days. And as soon as the men -discovered that, in her way, she was mildly sulking at them for not -making more of her, they ceased their efforts to make anything at all, -and took refuge with the hundreds of other bright, pleasant girls -who had twice Miss Mortimer’s charm and none of her prospects or -pretensions. - -It was strange that Gundred, delightfully pretty in her cool way, -serene, beautifully mannered, could exert no compelling force on her -surroundings. That she wished to claim attention was the sign of her -weakness; for those who can command attention never take the trouble of -asking for it. But Gundred’s mind was always secluded, self-centred, -reserved. She never gave out any light or warmth. She accepted, -absorbed, received with gracious dignity; she never had the power of -radiating any return of friendly feeling, any comforting geniality of -human sympathy. As a talker she was gently frigid, sweetly insipid -in her way of avoiding all topics of general interest, and, while -restricting the conversation to her own concerns, of restricting it -entirely to such of those as were most obvious and least interesting -to the world at large. The weather, as it affected her plans; the -visits that she paid, the churches she attended, and the cooks that -she engaged; such were the subjects on which she pellucidly discoursed -in the prettiest of voices, with the most pleasant of smiles; to the -unutterable weariness of some partner who wanted a little more vitality -in the conversation. - -Nor was she more successful as a listener. Even during the most -thrilling recitals her eye might be seen wandering towards the next -comer, or her mind guessed to be wondering whether she had not -accorded the speaker enough of her attention. Men soon ceased to -tell her anything of value, and followed her own example of talking -amiably but saying nothing. Lady Agnes was beginning to despair of her -great-niece’s prospects when Kingston Darnley was ushered into the -lists by his mother. - -He came, he saw, he conquered. Idle-looking, tall and fair, beautiful -in build and feature, he could not but command personal admiration; -while in mind, keenly active, riotously fanciful, he was the last man -in the world to conciliate Miss Mortimer’s approval, and, therefore, -the first to captivate her attention. To her prim and maidenly habits -of thought he was seductive in his lazy twinkling moods, seductive in -his moments of emotion, seductive in those ebullitions of ridiculous -gaiety that Gundred knew to be so disorderly and unconventional, yet -reluctantly felt to be so delightful. Hitherto men had either bored her -or been bored by her, had always failed to penetrate the closed garden -of her attention; Kingston Darnley now came swinging carelessly into -the sacred enclosure, and paid her the compelling compliment of making -her believe herself brilliant and amusing. - -Often it happens that the staid and decorous, hard as iron in their -disapproval of all frivolity, are suddenly and completely melted by -someone frivolous beyond their uttermost possibilities of disapproval. -One is liable to love one’s opposites, if those opposites be -sufficiently opposed. Only a little less different herself, and Gundred -might have disliked Kingston Darnley; but he was so madly divergent -from all her ideals that the very sharpness of the contrast drove her -to capitulate rapidly and completely. She even ceased to claim his -attention; she began to beg for it. - -Her training had collaborated with her nature in guarding her from -self-betrayal. Her manners continued gentle, guarded, suavely frigid -as before. But Lady Adela, with the eye of a hopeful mother, pierced -the disguise of Gundred’s feelings, and lost no time in proclaiming -the discovery to her son. Kingston Darnley, for his part, was strongly -attracted by Gundred. To his fastidious temperament she never offered -a jarring note. She was always crisp and cool; always deliberate and -graceful; her hair was never disordered, nor her hat crooked, nor her -stockings ill-gartered. At all points she was unalterably serene, -impeccable and satisfying. Emotionally, too, she gave him what he -wanted. He needed no ardent, unbalanced temper in his wife. He needed -just that gracious acquiescence which Miss Mortimer supplied. She was -restful in all her ways, her mind was thoroughly well-mannered, and her -smiling calm assured him of a sympathetic nature. As he laid his ideas -before her he was enraptured to see how sweetly, how reasonably she -listened, and found full agreement in her cool grey-blue eyes, behind -which, in reality, her inattentive brain was admiring the tact of his -tie. But, whatever her secret thoughts, she never revealed them, -and those cool, grey-blue eyes had been trained to express decorous -attention; therefore Kingston Darnley soon realized that in Miss -Mortimer he had found that perfect conjunction of ideal soul with ideal -body in the quest for which his five-and-twenty years had hitherto been -vainly spent. - -That his feeling was not a great passion he sometimes felt--that it -was not even commensurate with the passion which he had sometimes -found himself forced half-incredulously to divine behind the chill -fires of Gundred’s eyes. But his experience with the lady of the downy -nose had daunted him and disillusioned him; with the knowledge of wide -experience he now knew that a great passion falls to the lot of very -few, and that it is well to take the good the gods provide. Failing -the Supramundane Mate to whom all idealists look with longing, he -would compromise with a woman in every respect charming, alluring, -delightful--a woman of temperate mood, a woman of neat and faultless -style in body and mind, a woman, in short, who could be trusted never -to clash with any of life’s harmonies or discords. - -Her name, too, tragic and glorious, fired that curiosity of man to -possess something rare and old and precious. Of Brakelond he only -thought as a fit setting for Gundred’s mystic charm. For Gundred’s -serene correctness, so prosaically pleasing in a London drawing-room, -became ‘mystic charm’ when associated in the mind of her idealizing -lover with the long oaken galleries of Brakelond. And Gundred, for -her part, considered the possible glories of position and power -only as gifts to confer on her radiant, ridiculous captor. She did -what she decently could to please and captivate Kingston, deployed -cunning little unsuspected wiles of dress and manner; brightened her -garments and her ways; achieved at last that miracle only possible to -a first-rate woman, of being gay without becoming skittish. Little -need had she of wiles. Her gentle flawlessness satisfied Kingston -Darnley completely; and at his time of life, after his experience, he -knew enough to be humbly content with satisfaction, asking no more of -life, and expecting much less. What folly to let a plump chicken escape -from the hand on the chance of a Phœnix flying out of the bush at some -far-distant date! Better give thanks that the chicken is at least -plump. Kingston Darnley gave thanks accordingly, and dawdled along the -happy path that leads to proposal. - -He could only see perfection everywhere. If Gundred was sometimes -unresponsive, that was surely her cold and lovely maidenliness. If -her acquiescent sweetness lacked salt at times, and seemed to promise -biliousness, the criticism showed, in itself, a bilious bachelor -for whose ailment that sweetness had been especially prescribed by -Fate. If Gundred’s answers sometimes seemed remote, inadequate, -half-hearted, that was but the effort of a loyal soul struggling to -get into perfect stride with his, and neglecting the interests of the -present for the sake of the future. As he looked and listened, her -unruffled pleasantness destroyed for his emotions the grosser terrors -of marriage, and yet gifted them with a strange, appealing fascination. -Carried away by his approval, he proposed at last, and was placidly -accepted by a heart resolutely dissembling its delight. Lady Adela -heard the news with joy, and a pound was not too much for Heaven next -Sunday. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -‘My dear,’ said Kingston Darnley to his mother one afternoon, ‘being in -love is the strangest thing.’ - -Long habit had taught him to indulge in soliloquy under the mask -of a dialogue with his mother. She allowed him to talk, and never -interrupted the flow of his self-communings by any sudden sign of -understanding them. Few people are more comfortable to confide in than -those who can always be safely reckoned on to understand nothing of -what is said to them. Lady Adela laid down her knitting and beamed -lovingly at her son over her spectacles. - -‘A strange and blessed thing,’ she answered in her soft tones. - -‘I wonder,’ continued her son, ‘whether everybody feels alike. More or -less, I suppose--although everyone thinks that he has the secret all to -himself.’ - -‘Love is sent, sooner or later, to everyone,’ replied Lady Adela. - -‘But how do people know that it is the right love?’ questioned -Kingston. Then he went on, without waiting for the irrelevant answer -which his mother would surely provide. ‘Uncertainty is a deadly thing. -And the worst of it is that everyone who really wants to find happiness -must always be uncertain as to the way. Only those who don’t care can -ever be perfectly, securely certain.’ - -‘True love is always unmistakable,’ replied his mother, who, in her -time, had married the late James Dadd from a feeling that anything -would be preferable to prolonged existence with Lady Kirk-Hammerton. - -‘Yes; but it must have different manifestations. I remember when Tom -Clifford was engaged to that Menzies girl he couldn’t bear her out of -his sight, never let any other man have half a dozen words with her. -Now, I don’t mind who Gundred talks to, or what she says--not a scrap. -And--well, it’s always a joy to see her, of course--everyone must feel -that--but I haven’t any wish to go about all day at the end of her -hat-ribbon. Is that because I am cold-blooded, or is it the proper -normal thing to feel?’ - -‘My dear boy is so full of chivalry,’ answered Lady Adela with -affectionate vagueness. ‘No nice girl would like to be too much -monopolized. It is hardly delicate.’ - -‘One had a sort of notion,’ continued Kingston, unregarding, ‘that -love-making was more of a desperate flesh-and-blood affair. I suppose -the real thing is more ethereal than the everlasting philanderings that -one reads about. Heaven knows, they are earthly enough.’ - -‘Marriages are made in heaven,’ replied his mother reverentially. - -‘And love is made on earth, I gather--at least, love of the novelist’s -sort. Certainly marriage is happier in every way--calmer, less -discomposing, more orderly and decent and--and--abstract, as it were. -I cannot imagine anyone not loving Gundred. She appeals to everything -that is best in one. And the crowning mercy of it all is that she -never gives one thrills of any kind, never rouses any primitive, -prosaic emotions. She is always just what one expects--gentle and -charming and satisfactory--and nothing else. There is no intoxication -about her. And, really, you know, that is a relief. One had imagined -that love--love in the completest sense--was a kind of celestial -drunkenness. It is a tremendous relief to find that it is only a quiet -temperance drink after all--the Water of Life, as it were. I don’t -think either my head or my stomach care very much for intoxicants.’ - -‘Your dear father was just the same,’ replied Lady Adela calmly; ‘two -glasses of port never failed to upset him. Some people’s interiors -are so sensitive. If one is in the least troubled that way, it is -far better never to touch stimulants. Or peppermint, they say, does -wonders.’ - -‘One has wrestled through loves of different kinds,’ said Kingston, -securely continuing his soliloquy, ‘and it is certainly a blessed -surprise to find that the real thing is placid and satisfying. The -hunger and thirst of passion are fierce and dreadful--it never seemed -likely that perfect happiness could be found in the mere appeasing of -them. I am sure I much prefer the lasting, tranquil completeness of an -emotion to the feverish clamour of an appetite. And that, after all, -is what most people seem to mean by love. I have always rather hated -violence and brutal manifestations. They seem a little vulgar, very -crude and indecent, very unworthy of our higher emotional powers.’ - -‘My boy is so full of nice feeling,’ said Lady Adela; ‘violence is a -terrible thing. I remember I once saw a dog run over by a tram. I have -never forgotten it.’ - -‘One feels a certain something solid and eternal about real love,’ went -on her son, contentedly talking to himself aloud under pretence of -addressing his mother. ‘It is a huge level tract of feeling, stretching -out into the immensities, without anything to break the enormous -flat surface of it. It goes on for ever and ever, without valleys or -pinnacles, or rough places of any kind. And surely that is better -than perpetually scrambling up peaks and falling off them again, into -abysses. Real love is not a mountain track; it is a solid turnpike road -with a smooth, sound surface. One’s life jogs along it imperceptibly, -and one’s attention need not be kept fixed on the driving to see where -one is going. With Gundred I feel that I am with someone whom I have -known for ages in the past, and whom I shall continue to know for ages -in the future, without jars or disconnections. There is something -monumental, something filling about the sensation. People who find the -hot rough-and-tumble pandemian love enough for them would think the -real heavenly feeling stodgy and perhaps--well, perhaps even a little -dull. It does lack diversity somehow. It offers repletion without -any sauces to appetise. But, then, I suppose the immensities must of -necessity seem monotonous to our small, jigging intelligences.’ - -‘I am sure, Kingston,’ said Lady Adela with conviction, ‘that no one -could have a better intelligence than you. It is quite something to be -thankful for.’ - -‘Now, Gundred, for instance--very often with her I have a shut-out -feeling of getting no further, of finding locked doors and stone walls. -Sometimes I have nothing that I want to say to her, and sometimes -she has nothing that she wants to say to me. Sometimes she does not -understand what I mean, sometimes we seem to be talking different -languages, without any real wish to make ourselves intelligible. When -we have said that we love each other there is nothing much left for us -to say. And isn’t that exactly as it should be? The love is the only -thing that matters, after all. One does not marry for the conversation, -but for the love. Other people can give one the conversation. No; one -has to look forward over the whole field of life--it is not only the -present amusement that matters. What is very amusing and delightful -for half an hour would be quite intolerable to put up with for fifty -years of marriage life. _Marrons glacés_ and caviare sandwiches are -excellent in their way, but, when everything is said and done, bread is -the real staple of existence. The primitive passionate lover is trying -to make half an hour’s surfeit of sweets and savouries supply the -place of all healthy meals through all the years to come; it is only -the idealist who sets himself calmly down to a long indefinite course -of bread-and-butter. There can be no doubt that the bread-and-butter -regime is the saner and the more blessed and the more refined of the -two. But, of course, if one simply lives from hand to mouth and from -hour to hour, the bread-and-butter scheme _is_ apt to look a little -dull by comparison with frequent snacks of indigestible, exciting -dainties. However, thank Heaven, I have got what is best for me--and -sense enough to recognise the fact. If Gundred sometimes fails to feed -me up with pretty fancies from hour to hour, she is laying up for me a -supply of satisfying bread-and-butter for the rest of our lives. And -one’s whole life is obviously more important than any given half-hour -of it.’ - -‘Yes,’ replied Lady Adela after a pause, ‘but one must be careful about -bread-and-butter. Too much is apt to make one stout. I quite agree with -dear Gundred, though, as to plain food being the most satisfactory -in the long run. I read the other day a very nice book, in which the -characters sat down to “a plain but perfectly-cooked meal.” Now, that -struck me as expressing so exactly what one wants.’ - -‘My dear,’ said her son abruptly, ‘what did my father and you talk -about when you were engaged?’ - -Lady Adela, who had expected from her son the soothing accompaniment of -another monologue to the music of her knitting, started at his abrupt -question, lost count of her stitches, then looked vaguely up at last, -her lips moving in a vain effort to recover her place in the row. - -‘What did we talk about?’ she repeated. Then she blushed faintly. The -distant past was transfigured with romance. - -‘Dear boy,’ she resumed in hushed, reverent tones. ‘The engagement is -the sweetest time in a woman’s life. The loveliest things your poor -dear father gave me. We were at Naples, you know, and one gets the most -charming corals there, and mosaics, and brooches carved out of lava. I -have got them all. And then your poor dear father and I used to go out -on to the terrace in the evening and look at the sunset and Vesuvius, -and the steamers coming into the bay. He used to take my hand, and we -stood there, saying nothing. There was nothing to say, dear. We both -felt too much. One does not want to talk. And sometimes he--he would -give me a kiss. And all the time--well, there was nothing else in the -world, somehow, but just ourselves. We were quite alone. We should have -been quite alone, even in a crowd.’ - -‘Ah, that is just exactly different with Gundred and me. We are never -alone. We should not be alone in the wilderness. Gundred seems to -live her life before an invisible audience of hundreds of people. -That is why one can never get near her real self; there is always the -consciousness of the audience restraining her.’ - -Lady Adela, however, was lost in roseate reminiscence. - -‘So well I remember,’ she went on, ‘how the evening used to get darker -and darker as we stood on the terrace, and the smell of dinner used to -float up to us so deliciously from the ground-floor. Your poor dear -father adored the Neapolitan cookery, and we used to talk of how we -would have someone who could do _risotto_ when we were married and -settled down. But none of our cooks ever could. Dear me, and the lights -in the bay, and the warm, quiet darkness of it all, and just us two, -alone in the world.’ - -The sweet and innocent sentimentality of Lady Adela had succeeded in -draping the usual beautiful gauze of romance across an episode which, -in its time, had been marked by plain and practical precision. As ivy, -in the course of years, grows over the bare stone of a ruin, so does -romance cover over the hard bare facts of a woman’s past. No matter how -stark and cold it may have been, yet, if her nature be loving and soft, -its softness will subdue and transfigure the roughnesses of many crude -bygone days. By this time Lady Adela believed in her romantic marriage -as firmly as she believed in her vicar and her Sovereign. - -‘So delightful it was to be with your poor dear father,’ she went on; -‘he was the kindest and most thoughtful of men. He always saw that I -had a footstool and a corner seat, and the sun nicely shaded off my -eyes. He used to come and sit by me, too, while I was sketching, and -read aloud to me until we both fell asleep. I have never liked any one -else to read aloud to me since. Mamma was very bustling and worldly, -and I was not at all happy with her. But when your poor dear father -came and found me, the whole of my life was changed. He was the fairy -prince that came to rescue me.’ - -‘But you told me once, my dear, that my father had once cared very much -for someone else.’ - -‘The world, dear boy, abounds in the most dreadful women. And, indeed, -why God made so many women at all--and most of them so plain--nobody -has ever yet been able to tell me. There was a horrid creature who -made your poor dear father think he was in love with her, as they call -it. But, of course, he was nothing of the kind. For as soon as she -was safely drowned and out of the way, he forgot all about her, and -came and married me, and no two people were ever happier together in -the world than he and I. Ours was a case of true love, dear boy, if -ever there was one. And I am certain yours will be the same. It is my -earnest prayer, dear, and my sure hope. Gundred is the most thoroughly -nice, good girl.’ - -‘And it would not matter if a shade of dullness sometimes seemed to -fall between us?’ - -By this time Lady Adela was, for a wonder, awake to the purport of her -son’s questionings. Her excursion into the past had brought her back -refreshed into the present. - -‘Kingston, dear,’ she answered, ‘what else would you expect from a -really nice-minded girl? She is not a married woman yet. The time has -not yet come for her to enter fully into your life, or you into hers. -Remember how your poor dear father and I used to sit silent together -for hours, never saying a word.’ - -‘Yes; but you did not feel the want of words. I think we sometimes -almost do. That makes all the difference.’ - -‘Words will come, dear--words and all other blessings in their time. -Gundred will be the greatest help and comfort to you in your life, and -I am sure you love each other tenderly.’ - -Kingston suddenly began to feel the difficulties of the dialogue. To -confide is all very well and comfortable, so long as the confidant is -not listening or understanding. The moment he shows signs of noticing -what is said, the mortifying indelicacy of the proceeding becomes -plain. Finding his mother unwontedly awake to his remarks, Kingston’s -sensitiveness drew in its horns. - -‘Oh, thanks, my dear,’ he said lightly. ‘I am sure everything will turn -out for the best. I am the luckiest fellow alive, and don’t suppose I -forget it.’ - -‘Some people always touch wood,’ said Lady Adela meditatively, ‘when -they say a thing like that. Such a silly superstition. But, still, -there may be something in it.’ She rapped the tea-table firmly. - -Mother and son had been so absorbed in their dialogue that they had -not heard the hall door bell ring. Suddenly the door opened, and Miss -Mortimer was announced. Fresh, crisp, pleasant as ever, Gundred entered -the room and kissed her future mother-in-law. - -‘Dear Lady Adela,’ she said, ‘I felt I must come round and see how you -were. This heat--so ridiculously trying for a climate like ours.’ Then -she turned to Kingston. ‘And Kingston,’ she added; ‘how is he?’ - -‘Poor gentleman,’ replied her lover tragically. ‘Mr. Darnley has been -quite on his last legs lately. But he recovered miraculously all of a -sudden, as soon as he saw Mapleton showing somebody into the room.’ - -‘You really do talk the most shocking rubbish,’ said Gundred sensibly, -but without disapproving sternness. ‘Lady Adela, why do you let -Kingston talk such rubbish?’ - -‘My mother,’ replied Kingston, intercepting the mild remonstrance of -Lady Adela’s reply, ‘brought me up to speak the truth, the whole truth, -and nothing but the truth. You asked me about the state of my feelings, -and I gave you a truthful reply. Behold! Your coming has taught me, -for the ninety-ninth time, that life is worth living. Sit down and I -will ring for tea. My dear, surely it is tea-time? Gundred has clearly -come here simply and solely to get a cup of tea. With me she will have -nothing to say. It is tea she wants. She pants for it, like the hart -for cooling brooks.’ - -‘Hush!’ said Gundred; ‘don’t talk like that. It’s irreverent. But, -indeed, Lady Adela, I certainly should be delighted if you would let me -stay and have some tea with you. I lunched with Aunt Agnes, and she -gave me a lunch of unimaginable nastiness, so that now I feel as if I -had not eaten for days.’ - -‘You poor darling!’ cried Lady Adela with pitying indignation; ‘that is -always the way. Wait, and I will order you something really nice. Look -after Gundred, Kingston dear, while I go and interview Tessington about -to-night. I have been wanting to see her all the afternoon, and I can -just as well have her up to the dining-room.’ - -Having thus tactfully explained her departure, Lady Adela left the -lovers alone. A silence fell. - -‘What are you thinking of?’ asked Gundred at last. - -‘I am wondering,’ replied Kingston, ‘what, precisely, is going on -behind those inscrutable eyes of yours--what thoughts are playing about -behind that cool white forehead of yours. And the worst of it is that I -can never find out. You will never let me in of your own accord; and if -I took an axe and forced my way in I should only find a mess of blood -and bone.’ - -‘Don’t be horrid,’ said Gundred, shuddering. ‘I am sure I tell you -everything I think. I hide nothing from you.’ - -‘Perhaps not, you well-mannered Sphinx. But you reveal nothing. Nothing -about you gives any index to your thoughts. You are too fearfully and -wonderfully trained. I have seen you suffering agonies of boredom with -a smile; I have seen you suffering torments of cold and discomfort -with the sweetest blandness. No one can ever guess what a person like -that is really thinking. For all I know, you may, at this very moment, -be remarking a smut on my nose or a blemish on my character. Your -behaviour gives no clue.’ - -‘But, Kingston dear,’ protested Gundred, moved by this denunciation, -‘you would not have a rude and boorish wife, I am sure. And you know I -have no fault to find with you. I think I have shown that--yes?’ - -‘With really rude people one knows where one is. Their amiability means -true friendship and true approval. With your suave, elegant, charming -sort smiles may mean anything or nothing. One never knows where one -is. “Mind you come again soon,” you tell me, ever so pleasantly. And -the very instant before you have said exactly the same thing, in the -same cordial inflection, with the same inviting smile, to some woman -whom I know you intensely dislike, and only allow inside the house on -sufferance. Now, what am I to think?’ - -Gundred began to feel quite distressed. - -‘But, Kingston,’ she cried, ‘one must be civil. One simply must. Why do -you attack me like this? What have I done?’ - -‘You are such a beautiful little icicle,’ answered her lover. ‘Will you -never thaw? You are an icicle inside an iron safe. How can one get at -you to thaw you?’ - -‘How utterly absurd you are, Kingston! Haven’t I given you the key? -Besides--oh, I’m not an icicle; I’m not a bit of an icicle. Only--well, -what is it you want?’ - -‘Be quite, quite honest for a minute, Gundred. Strip your soul stark, -and tell me whether you love me.’ - -‘Oh, don’t hold my hands like that. It’s so hot....’ - -‘You are always cool, my dear--a capital refrigerator you are.’ - -‘Kingston, you are unkind this afternoon.’ - -‘Well, what about my answer? Do you really love me, Gundred?’ - -Gundred still shirked the inquisition, though secretly she enjoyed it. - -‘I am engaged to you,’ she answered. - -‘That is the muffled up, overdressed sort of thing you always say,’ -replied Kingston. ‘Give me the bare, naked truth. Do you truly love me, -Gundred?’ - -She turned upon him with a flash of inspiration. - -‘You would never ask me such a question if you weren’t sure of your -answer already,’ she cried. - -‘Perhaps not, but give it me all the same. It’s not enough to know a -thing; one wants to be told it sometimes.’ - -‘Oh, that is just like a silly woman--never believing a man cares for -her unless he goes on telling her so twice a minute. Oh, Kingston, -don’t let us be so childish. These things don’t need to be talked -about. I hate talking about them. It isn’t decent. The more one feels -the less one should say. Only kitchen-maids chatter about their love -affairs, and wear their hearts on their sleeves.’ - -‘Anyhow, that’s better than wearing it in someone else’s pocket, as so -many others do.... Gundred, does your soul never take off its stays? -Does it always live in public, on view, in full Court dress and train -and feathers?’ - -‘Kingston--dear Kingston, I think you must be a little bilious. I am -not always in public. Here I am alone with you--yes?’ - -‘Alone? Oh dear, no! You are always acting, always posing to half a -hundred people in the room whom I can’t see. They prevent you from ever -speaking honestly to me, as I speak to you. They dictate the way you -walk, the chair you sit in, every word and action of your day.’ - -‘I don’t understand you, Kingston. A woman has so much more to think -of than a man in some ways. Surely ... you know by now that I--well, -that I do care for you. You mustn’t ask me to be always saying so. -You wouldn’t like it if I did. Do be reasonable. One has to behave -decently--yes? Our points of view are so different. It seems to me -that I tell you far too much--sometimes I think I am shameless and -horrid--and yet you--you think me cold and unsatisfactory.’ - -‘Can’t you realize how a man starves for a little warmth, Gundred?’ - -‘I hate to think of men like that; I am sure you are not one of them. -Anyhow, I hope we shall never condescend to their horrid level. You are -engaged to me, Kingston, and that ought to be quite enough.... It is -for me.’ - -She glanced at him with gleaming eyes. He heard the cool, level tone, -and missed the gleam. He sighed. - -‘And some people have thought _me_ cold and fish-blooded,’ he thought, -in a spasm of irritation. But clearly it was useless to dash himself -against the firm rock of Gundred’s placidity. - -‘You are almost as impersonal as one of those Buddhist saints that my -Uncle Robert has lived with,’ he replied. ‘You make one feel cold.’ - -Gundred, resolved in her attitude, would take no notice of his renewed -attack. ‘Your Uncle Robert,’ she said, ‘have I heard of him? Oh yes; he -is that brother of your father’s who ran away to Japan so many years -ago and became a Buddhist himself, poor man, didn’t he? Will he ever -come back to England?’ - -‘Not if he’s as wise as he sounds. His life out there seems to be -almost perfect contentment.’ - -‘How strange that is--yes? Well, I have got odd relations, too, in -out-of-the-way corners of the world, you know. There’s poor papa’s -sister, Isabel Darrell, away in Australia, with a daughter. I really -rather hope they will never come home. Colonial relations are apt -to be so truly dreadful. And now, Kingston dear, what I came to see -you about to-day is this. Have you any very strong ideas as to the -honeymoon? Because papa and Uncle Henry and Aunt Agnes are all very -anxious that we should go to Brakelond. And I do think there is -something rather nice in the idea. After all, I suppose it will be -our place some day, and our children’s after us. In a way it is my -wedding-present to you. Don’t you think we might begin our married -life there? Uncle Henry won’t be in our way at all. He is kept in a -wing right apart from the rest of the Castle, and the building is so -enormous that you might put up twenty people there, and no one need -have any notion that there was anyone in the place besides himself.’ - -‘Yes,’ replied Kingston, warming to the prospect; ‘it sounds a -delightful plan. I was wondering when we could go to Brakelond. Hugh -Frazer did say something about lending us his place, but I can easily -explain. Luckily, all my Dadd relations are out of the reckoning, so -there is no one to claim any tiresome rights. By all means let us go to -Brakelond. It must be the most gorgeous old place. Haven’t they still -got the room where Queen Isabel sat and worked?’ - -‘Yes, horrid woman!’ said Gundred tersely. ‘I don’t like to talk about -her. I can scarcely believe she was my ancestress.’ - -‘But splendid, Gundred--splendid and tragic and romantic.’ - -Gundred’s firm, pale lips tightened into a line of disapproval. - -‘I never can see why wicked people are especially splendid or tragic or -romantic,’ she said. ‘Goodness is so much nicer--yes?’ - -‘Perhaps it is,’ replied Kingston, after a pause, ‘but not always so -interesting.’ - -‘One has no wish to be interested in anything that is not pure and -beautiful and good,’ announced Gundred, with an air of virtuous -finality. - -‘Oh, well, we’ll go there, anyhow,’ answered Kingston, shying away from -the imminent argument, ‘and have no end of a mystic splendid time. -We’ll sit about all day, and forget the world, and read novels to each -other.’ - -‘Not novels, dear,’ said Gundred gently; ‘sensible books--yes?’ - -Kingston shrugged his shoulders. Clearly the conversation had run -into one of its frequent culs-de-sac, and there was no continuing it. -Gundred was impregnable to all assaults of the picturesque, and adamant -to all new opinions or suggestions. Over Kingston was coming that -bruised and daunted feeling to which, sooner or later, his meetings -with her seemed invariably to lead. She held him at arm’s length, -baffled him, rebuffed him, deliberately kept herself a stranger from -his ardours, his intimacy. Each dialogue of theirs seemed to resolve -itself inevitably into a futile if friendly discussion of topics -indifferent. Of course this offered all the richer promise for the long -years of coming matrimony, but meanwhile Gundred’s maidenly reserve -turned the preliminary canter of courtship into a jog over rather arid -and sterile ground. When Lady Adela tardily returned to the room, -in the wake of tea, she found the lovers canvassing the _Academy_. -Gundred, however, was so perfectly certain that her choice was sound -and holy that the conversation was unfruitful if amiable. Lady Adela -joined it, and it easily admitted a third voice. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -Brakelond had the impassive mouldering grandeur of a great house that -has outlived the troubled hours of its glory, and settled into a -lethargic contemplation of its past. From very far away its castellated -mass could be seen dominating the country from the steep wooded hill -on which it perched. On three sides the forest flowed down in ample -splendid folds, a cloak of emerald in spring, and, in autumn, cloth of -gold. And along the fourth side the crag dropped away sheer into the -western sea. Seen from afar, the Castle on its pinnacle had a remote -and fairy-like effect, as if, indeed, the scene had been of Camelot or -Broceliaunde. Into the clear blue of the sky pricked the soft sapphire -masses of the Castle, the looming great Drum Tower, and the smaller, -indistinguishable turrets; while, below, fell smooth and swift the -dim violet of the woodland, like a misty drapery of colour. Over the -country ran other lesser ranges, clothed in younger, neater woodlands; -but the great building on its eminence ruled supreme, and the forest -round the skirts of its hill was the very fairy-haunted forest of old -romance. Among those gnarled trunks, in those green eternal twilights -of the thicket, might Merlin still lie sleeping, or King Mark, -a-hunting, yet hap on Tristram of Lyonesse. And far overhead, the crown -of the country, rose the mystic walls of a Castle that might have held -the fair Iseult or Morgan the Sorceress, a great drowsy splendour of -stone, willingly cut off from the rush and turmoil of to-day, dreaming -for ever, in complacent calm, of that hot and glorious life that it had -long ceased to live. - -As an old illustrious man or woman carries always the consciousness -and the glamour of his achievement, no matter into what feebleness or -decrepitude old age may have brought him, so buildings that are not of -yesterday carry always the haunting sense of their past, and achieve a -tranquil pride in desolation and the world’s oblivion, for ever beyond -the reach of any smug, inglorious new country-house, all red-brick and -sham Elizabethan gables. - -The country-house has telephones and electric light and all the latest -devices of luxury; the old castle has matted corridors and inadequate -lamps, and a general air of shabbiness. But that shabbiness is more -beautiful and well-bred than all the clamorous elegancies of the -other; the comparison is between some old and splendid lady, poor, -dowdy, and forgotten in the clacking crowd of tongues, but serene in -her impregnable charm, the incarnation of all that is finest in the -traditions of a thousand years--and some scented, powdered woman of -to-day, frilled, curled, decorated with all the lavish and assertive -ornaments by which novelty seeks uneasily to impose its fancied -supremacy over antiquity--a woman of loud tones, loud colours, loud -movements, in her own person a great braying band of jingles from the -latest edition of that comic opera which is such a creature’s London -life. - -Only the self-sufficient--in fact, only those who are perfectly calm -and indifferent to the general suffrage, secure in their unalterable, -unselfconscious certainty of breeding--can afford to ignore the tricks -and trappings on which the less fortunate have to rely for notice. -Only the well-bred can afford to be dowdy; only the well-bred can -afford to ignore the Peau d’Espagne or the Violette des Bois which -may happen to be in fashion, and trust for their triumph only to the -faint, unanalyzed fragrance of beauty and nobility that accompanies -them inseparably from birth to death, without effort or expense of -theirs. And as a modern building, decked out in modern old oak, and -fussy with stolen ornaments from bygone times, must always base its -claim to admiration on the self-advertisement of its luxuries, so -some old collapsing turret, the haunt of dead Queens, the chosen home -of sad beautiful memories, needs no adornment, no advertisement to -reinforce its calm and unconscious right to our worship. Brakelond, -old, gorgeous, forgotten Brakelond, was too proud to trick itself out -for popular applause, too quiet in its self-centred pride to allure the -vulgar; it challenged reverence by right divine, and held the attention -without desire to do so. - -All this of Brakelond far away, throned on the undulating horizon of -misty woodland. It was a sapphire crown on a pinnacle of the world’s -rim. It did not flop and flounder along its hill, like Windsor; -rather, it held itself bravely, concisely, on its seat, with something -of Belvoir’s distant majesty. But Belvoir is as generous as it is -beautiful, offering itself to the world’s admiration; Brakelond, on the -contrary, was governed by a grimly selfish passion of seclusion, severe -and rigid. It kept aloof as if it had indeed been some magic Castle -of Lyonesse, and none was permitted to approach beyond the outermost -borders of the forest precincts. Lonely, menacing, fearful, Brakelond -frowned away the approach of all new-comers. The spirit of its owner -haunted it, insisted on inviolable privacy. - -For, from the great dominating Drum Tower flew perpetually the flag -that told of an old man, brainless, dribbling, dreadful, dying for ever -by slow inches in his high, drug-scented rooms. Around him ceaselessly -screeched the parrots whose bright colours were the one consciousness -of his life, whose poignant yellings made the one music capable of -penetrating to his ears. Their clamour drove his attendants frantic, -but the old Duke, immobile, log-like, gave no sign of discomfort, gave -no sign at all of life or its energies. He seemed dead, had seemed -dead for many years; his existence tottered on a breathless poise that -a hair’s touch might send swinging over the border-line of death; but -that poise was firm and even; nothing shook it; nothing, in the cool -unbroken lethargy of his days, could agitate the balance that rested -so unwaveringly on such a razor’s edge of insecurity. So the parrots -daily rent heaven with their screams, and amid the infernal din the -aged wizard of the fairy castle, shut away from all the world by a -barrier of stout walls and locked gates and impassable centuries, lay -and awaited his end, a creature long since wiped out of life, having -no part in to-day or to-morrow, but already one with the innumerable -yesterdays of the dead. - -Into this haunt of sad mystery did Gundred bring her husband for their -honeymoon. So stern and tragic a setting for the bright, modern drama -of their lives had something stimulating about the abruptness of its -contrast. Happiness, after all, could build beneath the eaves of -that immemorial tragedy, and the flower of joy spring gaily from the -crevices of that citadel whose mortar was tears and blood and the bones -of innumerable generations, crushed and mangled. Kingston and Gundred -took their pleasure lightly amid the surrounding atmosphere, and, in -the labyrinthine vastness of the building soon lost all consciousness -of that secluded presence, high up in the remote wing where the parrots -made their song in the undiscerning ears of the dead that could not die. - -The main bulk of the Castle was old--some of it very old. On one -projecting spur of rock that overhung the sea a hundred feet and -more below, stood the most ancient relic of all--a suite of little -wooden-panelled rooms, low, many-cornered, slippery-floored, with -strange turns and steps between them. This wing was cut off from the -rest of the Castle, which towered over it from behind like a crouched -monster. It was connected only by one small corridor, and held a -rough primeval chapel which dated from days before any other stone of -Brakelond, and was given by tradition as a place of assignation between -Tristram and Iseult. This fragment of myth made visible seemed to be no -part of the building, but a precious jewel of the past extruded from -its enormous fabric. - -The body of the building, too, contained ancient, history-haunted -corners. A series of rooms was credited to the design and the -occupation of Queen Isabel. Here the She-Wolf of France, old Queen -Jezebel, had dwelt with the lover whom she nearly seated on the throne -of England. A traditional portrait of her still gazed out across the -rooms she had owned, a stiff daub on a wooden panel, giving the fierce, -tight-lipped stare of the adventuress, high-boned, pink-cheeked, -archaic in drawing, angular, convincing in its very primitiveness of -workmanship--jewelled and furred there and here in dimmed patches -of colour that had once been crudely brilliant. Brakelond had been -the scene of Queen Isabel’s highest fortunes. Her ghost still seemed -to hold the high halls of her prosperity, her pitiless spirit -dominated that wing which owed its life to her. This was her true -burial-place--rather than Castle Rising, where at last, after all the -changes of her eventful life, she died, old, fat, monstrous, honoured -in dishonour, incredibly wealthy, the first millionaire of Europe. - -Dark and dusty were the windings of the Castle corridors--dark and -dusty as the winding paths of Mortimer and Isabel. The building had -been put together from time to time, added to, built on to, with no -thought of conformity, of harmony, of convenience. It was rather a -congeries of Castles than one unanimous edifice. From far off it was -seen as a single fabric; within its walls the daunted visitor could -gain comfort from noticing its many discordancies, the innumerable -violent breaks in the continuity of its development. There was no -complete rhythm in the building’s design; part clashed with part, and -in the jarring conflict of tastes and periods the enchantment which -distance had lent was shattered by the sudden onslaughts of criticism. -Here jutted out a Georgian wing, solid and stiff, but ill-attuned -to the austere majesty of the great Drum Tower. There, a Duke of -the eighteenth century, a friend of Pope and Lady Mary, had erected -a Chinese pagoda, that perked impertinently up with its fantastic, -saucy eaves among the stalwart turrets that had frowned on Edward of -York, and given vain shelter to Marguerite of Anjou. Then, again, -another Duke, contemporary of George the Glorious, had appended to -the Elizabethan front of the Castle a small but accurate copy of the -Brighton Pavilion. Its wriggling cupolas, its fluted minarets, shone -white with plaster, and its main plantation of bulbs, like gigantic -onions, bulged and swelled beneath an oriel whence the Virgin Queen had -watched a masque. - -Each inhabited portion of the Castle, too, was of a style violently -and even deliberately discordant with the severe and uninhabitable -splendours of the Drum Tower and the old Keep. These contained huge, -gloomy rooms, with infinitesimal windows, that looked out, for the -most part, on sunless little courtyards, mere wells of darkness, made -by the addition of new buildings to the old. Here, in these big, stark -halls, were mouldering arrangements of armour, or acres of dingy -pictures, bloated Flemish boors, dubious angular Madonnas, riotous -female nudities, all hidden from the world by a merciful veil of dirt. -The stone floors were inadequately disguised with worn matting, and at -night one feeble, smoky lamp was allotted for the illumination of each -apartment. A proud neglect, an almost arrogant ostentation of poverty -and discomfort, reigned supreme. - -The inhabited wings of the Castle were different in effect, though -similar in scheme. Rows of bare barrack-like rooms lined the -corridors--hung with glaring chintzes, and furnished with chairs of rep -and horsehair. Their ornaments were meagre as their blankets, and their -large windows threw a merciless glare of daylight on their serviceable -sterling ugliness. Each had a square of carpet from which the pattern -had long been trodden out and through in patches; each had cupboards -and washstand of light grained wood; each was coldly spacious, airy, -cheerless, and inhospitable. Most loud of all the discords that many -generations of bad architects had contributed to the original of Queen -Isabel’s castle was the high white wing where the old Duke lay dying. -An Early Victorian Duchess had made this addition; it was big and -bald and bare, faced with white stucco and adorned with modern-Gothic -pinnacles. It grew out like a monstrous polyp from the side of a -gracious little Jacobean pavilion, and dominated the main entrance with -its stalwart blatancy. To crown all, the same Duchess had built on to -the great Drum Tower a _porte-cochère_ on the model of the Erechtheion, -and had holystoned the Drum Tower itself of a pale and repellent -buttermilk blue. - -Of all this accumulated history Gundred was, as it were, the sum and -incarnation. The Castle, village of unconnected houses though it was in -reality, yet had a collective personality of its own, even as a crowd -of unrelated human beings has a collective personality beyond and -above that of a mere aggregation of units. And she, its daughter and -heiress, was also its result. It is written that neither man nor woman -can ever escape from his or her traditions. The traditions are the -character, and we are the reincarnated spirits of very many dead ages. -As sunlight brings out all manner of unguessed possibilities from the -innocent blank photographic plate, so the influence of Brakelond on the -last child of its history must bring out in her nature new moods and -unguessed colours of mind that had lain dormant in the undistinguishing -atmosphere of London. And thus Brakelond could not but set a -distinction between Kingston and Gundred. Between the flaming memories -of Brakelond and the long, quiet, eventless story of Darnley-on-Downe -there must always be a great and significant difference. Gundred, -gentle, unimpassioned, mild and calm, was yet the daughter of fighting -centuries, of men and women who had lived, suffered, loved and died -magnificently, flamboyantly, full in the eye of the world. She was the -daughter of a ruling race. - -And he, emotional, energetic, ambitious, was sprung from an -interminable line of sterling, honest mediocrities. Great glories, -great sorrows had avoided Darnley-on-Downe; the crashing crises in the -House of Mortimer had no parallel in the long unchronicled history of -the Dadds. No more than his wife could he escape from his traditions. -And those traditions, well-bred, decent, honest though they were, yet -were not the traditions of a ruling race. Inconspicuousness was their -keynote. And Kingston found himself an alien in the citadel of the -dead Mortimers. Their ghosts, insolent, gorgeous, tyrannous, looked -down with contempt on the colourless shadows of all the sober Dadds. -Those ghosts had ruled, in their great day, over counties of Dadds, -over legions of good honest gentlemen of coat-armour who had been -glad and proud to take service under the banner of the Mortimers. The -House of March, perpetually struggling for sovereignty, had drawn to -its service squires and knights innumerable from all the counties that -it ruled. And the sense of feudal over-lordship was strong in the -inherited blood of the Mortimers, even to the uttermost generation. -Those others, those lesser people, noble and gentle, were but small and -insignificant in the eyes of men and women who had violently swayed the -destinies of England. They were loyal subjects, those others, perhaps, -but equals and allies never. And now a man of the obscure order was -lawful possessor of the last Mortimer. Queens and the sons of Kings -had been, in old days, the mates of Brakelond; and the Castle seemed -as if it could never accustom itself to the formal ownership, even to -the presence, of one who might in former years have been squire or -feudatory, indeed, to some Lord or Lady of March, but who could never, -in the wildest upheaval of King Henry’s time, have hoped to become the -master of a Mortimer. - -Gundred had given her whole heart to her husband. But now, in the -shadow of all her ancient selves, something began to thrill in her -veins that was more than the mere pride of part-proprietorship in -a splendid and historic house. An old house, soaked in all the -personalities of a thousand bygone years, must needs retain the flavour -and fragrance of them; and on one who in his own person resumes the -lives of twenty generations, the compelling influence of his home, the -scene and material of all those lives that throb again in his, must -necessarily be so dominant that insensibly he takes the colour of the -past by which he is surrounded. If this was so in the case of Kingston, -hampered and controlled by all the decent ancestors that had lived -and died unnoticeably in Darnley-on-Downe, it was likely that the -effect would be far more obvious in the case of one whose own character -was so neutral as Gundred’s, and whose ancestors were so terrific -and blazing as the Mortimers. From every flagstone, from every wall, -pressed out upon Gundred the influence of some masterful forefather; -and in her quiet nature here and there a secret nerve or fibre, latent -hitherto, and unsuspected, recognised the call of the soul in which -it once had formed a part, and thrilled to life again. At Brakelond -Gundred insensibly took the lead. It was she that decided to settle -in the little ancient wooden wing that jutted away from the main mass -of the Castle out upon the spur of cliff by the Chapel of King Mark. -Her gentle manner grew more and more imbued with sovereignty, and her -husband found himself now amused and now rebuffed by Gundred’s obvious -sense of being at home. Away in London she might be anyone in general, -or no one in particular, concealed her family pride in the Mortimers, -was able to give her zeal for morality full sway in the condemnation -of Queen Isabel. But at Brakelond her own individuality was swamped. -Half reluctantly at first, but soon openly and even proudly, she began -to contemplate the career of the wicked Queen, and exalted her with -faint damnation that soon passed into positive sympathy. She spent her -days unfolding to her husband all the nooks and secrets of the Castle. -And, whereas normally she was a person of the most sensitive and -neat-minded righteousness, hating fierce crimes, frigidly abominating -love-intrigues, here in Brakelond her sense of right and wrong was -in abeyance, and at times she canvassed old bloodstained stories -with an unmoral calm, and a manner that admitted a not uncomplacent -participation in their horrors. - -To Kingston it became a relief to hear her retailing the legends of -her house. The honeymoon, in its undiluted intimacy, may well become -a strain. However much two people may have to say to each other, the -knowledge that there is absolutely no one else at hand to speak to may -well impart that itch of rebellion which most people experience when -bowed under the yoke of necessity. Not to be able to do a thing often -brings the wish to do it; a wish which, without the prohibition, might -never have occurred. So an enforced duet may occasion faint hankerings -after an occasional trio. - -In a honeymoon, too, after the first emotional stress and glory are -over, a revulsion well may threaten--a revulsion to which ardent -lovers are more liable than those couples who have married on lower -calmer levels, and who, having never risen to great ecstatic heights, -can never, therefore, fall to the emotionalist’s profound abysses -of languor and depression. And, if two people shut up together in -a lighthouse, with the hope of some day parting, develop insane, -irrelevant furies against each other’s ways, how much greater danger -of disillusionment must there be for a man and woman forced into -minute prolonged contemplation of one another, with no reasonable -hope of any release on this side of the grave. The most passionate -love leaps over crimes and vices in the loved object; but stumbles at -times over a personal habit, a veil ill-tied, a faulty taste in hats. -The Ideal is a high and holy empyrean where love can range unfettered -and unimperilled; the kingdom of daily life is a lumpy and uneven -territory where the winged feet of emotion are apt to trip over some -mean, unlooked-for obstacle. And the honeymoon is a time for complete -revelation of personal as well of spiritual peculiarities, in which -the veil of mystery is finally torn away from the nude reality of two -people’s lives. - -Kingston and Gundred began insensibly to enter on that period of -prosaic exploration which lies between the mystic raptures of the -first hours and the later harmonies of settled married life. The -day of blind passion seemed over. Gundred found herself commenting -inwardly on Kingston’s habits; the smell of tobacco was no longer so -precious to her as in the days when it stood for part of an enthralling -enigma; his ways were untidy, he dropped the newspapers on the floor -and never picked them up, he wrote his letters at odd times instead -of setting aside a definite hour for correspondence; he was never in -really good time for meals. And then he had mannerisms which, in the -dual solitude, began to prey upon his wife. He sometimes walked up -and down the room like a bear in a cage, until she wanted to scream; -when he sat quiet, he occasionally kept up a maddening succession of -little rhythmical taps with his feet; and, above all, he was given -to whistling. Then in mind, though altogether precious, of course, -and adorable, he had certain flaws. His religious views were clearly -lax, his moral attitude was not strenuous, he was too eager, too -inquisitive, for Gundred’s intelligence, which preferred to hold on -firmly, with the unswerving trust of the dutiful pupil, to everything -it had received at second-hand. She took life for granted, considered -the scheme of things very admirable, and her own position in it more -admirable still. Nothing was to be questioned. Therefore Kingston’s -habit, divined or expressed, of accepting nothing without examination, -made his wife feel worried and restless, as if her mind had mated with -an earthquake. Finally, as the days went by, Kingston dissatisfied her -inmost desires by gradually relaxing the amorous enthusiasm of their -first married days. It is usually the man who first wearies of conjugal -outbursts--men having other business in life, and women, under the -old primeval dispensation, none. And Gundred’s discontent was the more -exasperating that she was secretly ashamed of it, and had far too much -personal pride, far too strong a sense of decorum, to express it. As -Kingston grew less and less demonstrative in his affection, Gundred -revenged herself at once on him and on her own feelings by stiffening -herself into an added primness of factitious maidenhood, by which she -had the power of holding herself aloof from her nearest and dearest, -as well as of repelling that very sense of intimacy that her own most -secret soul desired. Her soul was of those that render themselves to no -subduing warmth of love, but, whatever the fate of the body, must be -violated, if possible, and taken by assault. - -Kingston, for his part, found that marriage had not dissipated or -broken the spiritual barrier between himself and Gundred. Her citadel -was still locked against him, inexpugnable, not to be captured by -any guile or violence. There were still great heavy gaps in their -conversation, great tracts of desert country across which their souls -were incapable of taking hands. The calm beatitude that Kingston -had foreseen began to reveal itself a state of something not unlike -sterility, diversified with moments of irritation when he skirmished -round the stone walls of Gundred’s guarded mind, and only succeeded in -bruising himself, no matter how furiously he attacked. She could not be -led, forced, cajoled, kissed, harried, or bullied into understanding. A -sense of hopelessness sometimes seized him before the sweet indomitable -obstinacy of her mind. It was at once so hard that no blow could make -an impression, and so soft that no blow could strike home. Unlike Anne -Elliot in all else, her manners--of mind and body alike--‘were as -consciously right as they were invariably gentle.’ That invariable, -gentle consciousness of rectitude was cruelly trying to the restless, -questioning, agile temper of her husband. He longed to stir up its -provoking serenity, to stick pins into its lethargic mass. But nothing, -no effort of his, could move it, shake it, upset that tranquil -self-complacence. It was like grappling with a phantom in a nightmare. -Neither men nor angels could ever turn Gundred Darnley from an opinion -or a habit. She knew that her outer and her inner woman alike were both -thoroughly, faultlessly dressed, in the best-fitting, most suitable -garments, and no jot or tittle would she alter of her physical or -mental trimmings. Neat, not gaudy, was her equipment, and, secure of -perfection, she could not conceive the possibility of any improvement. - -That was another thing--her neatness was something inhuman, something -almost appalling. She always put everything back in its place, always -folded up the papers and laid them down tidily on the table when she -had finished them, always devoted the hour after breakfast and after -tea to the writing of letters, was always dressed and ready exactly a -minute before the gong sounded. Neat, neat, heartlessly neat, were all -her proceedings, from the way she docketed her ideas to the way she -buttoned her boots and did her hair. True it was, indeed, that the maid -was responsible for these details, but she, too, had evidently been -mastered by Gundred’s devastating tidiness. Never a thought mislaid, -never a curl misplaced, never too much or too little of anything, no -excess, no enthusiasm, no hot outbursts, nothing but a serenely equable -development, as cruel and crushing in its steady, remorseless movements -as the advance of a steam-roller. If she sat, she sat with perfect -correctness: feet in the proper position, hands folded in her lap, -or prettily occupied with some pretty piece of work. If she walked, -it was crisply, concisely, without softness or undulations, erect, -well-modulated, and poised in the certainty of faultlessness. And the -very qualities that had so appealed to Kingston’s fastidiousness a -month before, now became a terror when he contemplated a lifetime’s -endurance of them. To see Gundred ruffled, muddy, untidy, would have -been as great a joy to him as water in the wilderness; but no wind ever -tumbled the orderly daintiness of her hair, no gale ever pushed her hat -out of place, no mud ever dared adhere to her brilliant little boots. -Never tired, never angry, never out of looks, Gundred was also never -buoyant, never ecstatic, never radiant, and the bland sweet monotony of -her threatened to become as maddening to her husband as the incessant -repetition of one level, unvarying note. - -One or two small habits she had, too, which exasperated him at times. -She was fond, for one thing among others, of talking about God in a -frequent, casual way that he found intolerable in its assumption of -intimacy, and in its cheapening of the soul’s most private thoughts. -God’s, to Gundred, was the biggest name on her visiting-list, and she -displayed it with a pride that people quite devoid of terrestrial -vulgarity sometimes think it allowable to display when talking of their -acquaintance in celestial circles. Her soul had a tinge of supramundane -snobbishness, and though, on earth, she would not have thanked a -Queen for a kiss, she took a gentle satisfaction in emphasizing her -possession of the Almighty’s approving friendship. She conceived heaven -as an enormously magnified and everlasting Court-concert, where only -the “nicest” people were admitted, and where she herself was not only -to have the entrée, but to be in the very heart of the royal set. - -She had, besides, a way of appending an interrogative ‘yes’ to every -other sentence, which, by degrees, drove her husband to distraction. He -found himself looking ahead for it along the conversation as one looks -ahead for the next telegraph-pole on a slow journey. And as surely -as the telegraph-pole that ‘yes’ would come, maddening him with the -certainty of its reiteration. - -Brakelond, accordingly, was a relief to both husband and wife--how -great a relief they neither of them knew. They could take refuge from -themselves among the ghosts of the dead Mortimers. Gundred almost grew -excited as she repeated the stories of her people, and the spirits of -the dead seemed to fill her veins with some of the blood she apparently -lacked. A stark thorny tree it was, to have borne, at the last, so -mild and white a bud as she. Always in opposition, always ambitious, -always unscrupulous, maniacs in persecution, in martyrdom, in love, the -Mortimers had risen and fallen, tempestuously fighting, up and down -the steps of the throne. Ruined with Queen Isabel, they had survived -only to fall again before the House of York. With the Tudors their -glory towered once more, until a characteristically ambitious attempt -to marry the Queen of Scots had destroyed the March of the time. Then, -after a few years of comparative quiet, they had risen conspicuous -as the only great house that had sided with the country against King -Charles. This unpopular piece of patriotism forced the Mortimers into -discreet seclusion through Restoration days, until a new opportunity of -manifesting it arrived with the Great Revolution. The House of March, -always especially patriotic when patriotism involved enmity to the -Crown, had had a narrow escape of ruin at the time of King Monmouth’s -disaster, and, for its safety, the Prince of Orange did not land a -day too soon. His coming, however, with the comparative loyalty -that followed, and its resultant dukedom, had established March and -Brakelond in that period of slow prosperity which had led on through -two centuries of gradual inanition to its present effete or atrophied -state. It seemed as if the furious old Castle and the furious old race -that owned it could not live fully nor thrive without that atmosphere -of violence in which they had so often gloried and agonized together. -Peace--slackening, corroding, monotonous--was fatal to the vitality of -the Mortimers. - -But, despite the obvious influence exerted by the Castle on the -individuality of Gundred, Kingston could not but be struck again and -again by the contrast between his pin-neat, impeccable wife, orderly -in mind, body, desires, and the many riotous scarlet lives that she -summed up in her own neutral-tinted nature. Always turbulent, always -passionate, impatient of rule, loving and hating without limit or -bond of reason, breathing the air of battle from birth to death, and -flagging in the close air of peace, the Mortimers were a strange race -to end thus, in a woman to whom peace, order, reason, limit were the -very conditions of her being. As she talked to him of her people, -Kingston noticed the small, flickering flames of vitality that leapt -up in her nature out of the dead past. Here and there in her utterance -from time to time some bygone tyrant dictated an inflection, some dead -Queen contributed a thought. Kingston heard these voices so distinctly, -noticed so clearly the occurrence of each foreign thought that twanged -abruptly in the music of Gundred’s voice, like the sudden throb of a -harp across a piano’s level ripplings, that it seemed to him at last as -if, at moments, she were the mere mouthpiece of ghosts. For a vanishing -instant, now and then, her lips spoke what her mind had not conceived, -what her heart had not sanctioned. She was possessed by a fragment of -the life that had gone before. But was this all? Robbers and wantons -that they were in their lawless splendour, had the Mortimers given -their descendant nothing beyond these fragmentary reminiscences? Was -there in her, far down under the orderly, decorous placidity of her -surface, no stirring possibility of those old primitive passions, of -those fierce blood-lusts or those religious frenzies, that should have -come with the very fabric of her life out of the buried long-ago? The -question was strangely interesting, in the bizarre contrast between the -neat, methodical thing she was, and the wild daughter of the past that, -by some freak of fortune, she might perhaps again become. Kingston -watched her keenly, hoping that some day, sooner or later, might raise -again the hidden depths of her nature, and reveal, in a tempest of -passion, the frantic possibilities of the Mortimers. The idea was -inconceivable, monstrous, grotesque; but attractive as a romantic -paradox. As with most paradoxes, deep down in his heart he utterly -disbelieved it. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -Kingston Darnley, as usual, was late for breakfast. He had loitered -pleasantly over his toilet, relieving the repellent prose of the -process by frequent intervals of poetic rest at the open window. The -little old diamond-paned casement of his dressing-room was open, and -the crooked oak-panelled apartment was flooded with morning sunlight. -Very far below, against the feet of the cliff beneath, the blue and -gold of the clear water came lapping in friendship, and its lazy -utterance rose faint and thin to the listener through the virginal -clarity of the air. The day was not yet old enough for the haze and -stress of heat: all was still clean and fresh from the cool sweetness -of the night and the unclouded dawn. To the uttermost horizon spread -the level floor of the sea, a glory of scent and colour, gleaming, -vital, incredibly buoyant and young for all its uncounted æons of life. -Again and again Kingston stayed to dally with the enormous loveliness -of life, leaning from the window whence he might have dropped a pebble -straight into the purple ripples a hundred feet and more below, where -they played leisurely at hide-and-seek among the rocks under the cliff. - -It was indeed a morning to be up and alive--a morning to be naked in -the naked embrace of the world. As the hours go by, the world, no -less than man, puts on its clothes. Clouds and shadows and haze come -up to cover the strong free limbs of the earth. It is only in the -short space after sunrise in some still morning that the world stands -out pure and glorious in its nudity--vivid, stainless, triumphant as -the white flawlessness of the young Apollo newly risen out of the -dark, formless void. The upspringing day is our emblem of youth fresh -from slumber--beautiful, ardent, splendid in the clear glory of his -build--before he makes haste to hide himself in the sombre, ugly -trappings of convention. Kingston was in no haste to take that leap of -many centuries that separates man, as Nature set him forth, from the -clothed, shapeless dummy that man has made himself. - -From the adjoining room his wife recalled him again and again to the -flight of time. She was never to be distracted from her duties by any -beauty or ugliness of the outer world. Had the Last Day dawned in -fire, Gundred would have duly finished having her hair done before -confronting it. There is a time for everything, she says, and all -reasonable people know that the time for looking at landscapes is -after lunch, while taking one’s afternoon drive, before going home -to tea and the second post. Then, at the proper moment, ecstasies are -allowable, and even suitable. But every minute of the day has its -task, and nothing can be plainer than that dressing-time is the time -to dress. Kingston, however, whistled idly at his desultory work, and -dawdled as if the whole forthcoming week were vacant. He loved the -young tenderness of the sunlight, and drew great breaths of life at -the open window. Overhead, and far away to the right, stretched along -the cliff a mighty, menacing shaft of darkness, the shadow of the huge -Castle behind. But this little old wing, on its spur of rock, jutted -so boldly out from the main mass of the building that all here was -radiance. Gundred, too, enjoyed the sun, but did not allow his ardours -to distract her from her duties. She had the white blinds pulled down, -and her toilet was cheered merely by a subdued consciousness of the -warmth outside. Then, when all was carefully and properly accomplished, -she made her way down twisting steps, and along a strip of corridor, to -the end of the wing, where the last two rooms on this ground-floor were -portioned off as dining-room and sitting-room. The whole arrangement -was quaint enough to please her, but neither so inconvenient nor so -unusual as to offend her sense of what was becoming. It was better than -living, sitting and dining, in the grim, mouldering halls of the Drum -Tower, or in the bald, chintz-hung rooms of the modern wings. - -The unexpected booming of the gong roused Kingston to a sense of -time. With an effort he tore himself from his ecstatic contemplation, -and compressed the remainder of his toilet into half a dozen crowded -moments. Then, flurried, and filled with the feeling that he ought to -be apologetic, he hurried towards the dining-room. - -He found his wife seated at the breakfast-table, decapitating a boiled -egg with her usual crisp neatness, which always suggested that she was -doing the egg a favour in making it an example of exactly how an egg -should be eaten. She was a lesson to the world. And he felt that she -knew it. - -She, for her part, noticed immediately that his tie was under one ear, -that it was exceedingly ill-knotted, and that it was the wrong sort of -tie for that particular collar. - -‘I thought I would begin, darling,’ said Gundred. ‘I did not know when -you would appear. Such a lovely morning--yes?’ - -Here, also, she had shown her appreciation of its loveliness by having -all the blinds drawn down. A muffled white radiance was all that she -allowed to reach her from outside. - -Kingston, meanwhile, had been collecting letters and papers from the -sideboard. - -‘Letters for you, my dear,’ he said; ‘three.’ - -‘Leave them there, darling, will you? I never look at my letters till -after breakfast. It is so nice to make a habit of everything--yes?’ - -Her husband, returning to the table, helped himself and sat down. For -a time the meal went forward in silence. Then he looked across at -his wife with intense approval. In the softened light Gundred looked -wonderfully pretty. The table was bare--a piece of oak too beautiful -to hide--and beyond its dark surface, where silver, glass, and white -china gleamed and glittered, Gundred’s head and shoulders rose in soft -relief against a very old painted panel on the further wall, a dim, -dingy portrait of King Henry the Seventh. Before her on the table stood -a bowl of pink and salmon-coloured sweet-peas. In the dim, primeval -room, in the quiet mellowed glow, she struck a note of exquisite -modernity. The curled gold of her hair, the small clear features, the -inconspicuously perfect gown harmonized, in the very audacity of their -contrast, with the ripened antiquity that surrounded her. She touched -another octave. From head to foot there was nothing about her to find -fault with. And, against such a background, her charm was seen more -whole and successful than in a garish setting of modern furniture and -other, showier women. - -‘By Jove!’ said Kingston, ‘you do look extraordinary cool and -beautiful, Gundred. How do you manage it? I don’t believe you could -ever grow old!’ - -Gundred was pleased. Such comments had been growing too rare. But she -was one of those women who repel what they most desire, whether from -motives of mortification or allurement, it would at first sight be hard -to decide. - -‘Nonsense, Kingston dear!’ she said; ‘one gets older every day. You -must really not try to make me vain.’ - -‘Never,’ replied her husband, ‘have I seen anyone who gave me the same -perfect feeling of satisfaction that you do. You always look as if you -had just come out of the smartest bandbox that was ever made. One can’t -realize that it’s all taken to pieces again every night.’ - -‘Don’t, dear,’ said Gundred. ‘You are always so exaggerated. I am so -glad I look nice, but it is only a matter of taking pains. Anybody can -be neat--yes?’ - -‘I couldn’t. If it weren’t for Andrews, I should always have odd socks -and boots, I am sure I should. I believe I am capable of wearing an -up-and-down collar in the evening if it was put out for me. What would -you do if I did, Gundred--divorce me on the spot?’ - -‘Darling, don’t talk so lightly about such a dreadful subject. God has -joined us together, and of course I should not think of divorcing you -if you came down to dinner in an up-and-down collar. It would be very -wrong of me. But, oh, Kingston dear, I do hope you never will. It is so -easy to be tidy. Your tie is all crooked this morning, dear.’ - -Her husband whistled instead of answering, as he helped himself to cold -ham. A man may let a woman mend his morals or his mind, but he would -rather suffer any reasonable torture than have it suspected that she -meddles with his clothes. - -When Kingston returned to the table Gundred was ready with a renewed -supply of tea. ‘Nice and fresh and hot,’ she advertised. ‘Let me -give you another cup.’ She poured out for each, adding cream in fair -quantity to her own, and lavishly to her husband’s. This was a habitual -little silent proof of her love for him, and had no reference to the -fact that he particularly disliked cream in his tea. As for herself, -she expected Kingston always to remember and respect her avoidance of -sugar. But then his tastes were wrong, while hers were right. For he -was Kingston, a man: and she was Gundred, a good wife. - -‘You’ve put cream in,’ protested Kingston, wrying his mouth at the -taste. - -‘Have I, dear? I’m so sorry. Take my cup instead. I have not touched -it.’ - -She gave her cup a rapid final stir to make the cream disappear amid -the tea, then handed it to him, and watched complacently while he drank -it without any further complaint. She imagined that he was deceived, -and felt herself happily embarked on that career of small benevolent -falsehoods which make so necessary a part of the good wife’s success. -She foresaw innumerable ways of cheating him for his own good, of -making him eat veal in disguise, of teaching him to like rabbit by -serving it up as chicken cream. As a matter of fact he fully realized -what she had done, but knew that it was useless to make a protest. -He had learnt by now in a fortnight that all opposition to Gundred’s -ideas was unprofitable. She had a firm notion that cream was good for -him. Therefore cream he was evidently doomed to have, for the sake of -domestic peace--and in quantities, too, as generous as the love that -poured them out. Gundred had the bland pertinacity of the martyr, -combined with the imperturbable self-complacence of the Pharisee. -Before her gentle, inexorable determinations all hostile resolves were -as the stone which an incessant drip of water permeates and dissolves. - -Kingston swallowed his polluted tea as quickly as possible; then, -breakfast being over, began to think of the day’s news. He offered his -wife a paper. - -‘Letters first, thank you, dear,’ said Gundred, seating herself -concisely on a small, stiff-backed settle. She always preferred hard -and rigid furniture to the cushions and softnesses that nowadays -prevail. She felt them more virtuous, more decent, more suitable. She -turned towards her husband. ‘Take the arm-chair, dear,’ she said. - -There was but one in the room that had any pretensions to comfort. -Kingston, finding that Gundred was determined to remain where she was, -settled himself in it with his papers. - -‘Kingston, dear,’ pleaded his wife suddenly, ‘you won’t leave the -papers all anyhow on the floor, will you? It’s so untidy--yes?’ - -For answer he softly whistled a snatch, then, growing absorbed in the -news, began abstractedly to drum a small rhythm on the oaken floor. -Gundred bore it for a moment. Then a combined instinct of martyrdom and -love rebellious stirred her to action. She rose and picked up a small -cushion that happened to be on the settle, a bony little unyielding -square, prickly and stiff with embroideries that tradition attributed -to Queen Elizabeth. - -‘A cushion, darling,’ said Gundred in level tones, standing behind his -chair. ‘Move your back--sit up a little, and let me arrange it for you.’ - -Her utterance, her action, were characteristic of her nature. The -utterance decorous, cold, impassive, the action springing from an -unresting love. Neither from her words nor from their inflection could -Kingston have guessed the warmth of the affection that beamed out of -her eyes as she stood looking down at the back of his neck with an -ardour which she would have been utterly ashamed to show to his face. -Only by such attentions as these, valuable as symptoms of her concealed -devotion, could Kingston ever make a guess at her feelings. - -‘Thank you, dearest,’ he replied gratefully, shifting himself so as -to admit the insertion of Queen Elizabeth’s uncomfortable comfort. It -harassed him, its adamantine corners cut into his ribs and the small -of his back, but as an emblem of his wife’s tenderness he endured and -welcomed it. What she zealously concealed from him in word she was -perpetually anxious to reveal vicariously by such actions as these. -‘Thanks awfully,’ he repeated, then twisted round, so as to get a -glimpse of Gundred’s face. Instantly the light faded out of her eyes, -and all she allowed him to see was a decent wifely expression of -solicitude. He never divined that any other had been there. - -But suddenly she permitted herself a word of self-betrayal. - -‘I always want you to be comfortable, dear,’ she said. The words were -cool and coolly spoken, but under them lay the warmth of Gundred’s -secret nature. - -Kingston, fired by such an advance, rose and swung round. He caught his -wife’s two hands--those charming hands that were never hot or cold. - -‘I owe you something for that,’ he said, and kissed her twice. - -Very gently Gundred drew herself away. Her heart was afire with -gratification, but she felt that every consideration of decency, -economy, and pride compelled her to conceal it. To be made cheap was -the last horror that her mind could imagine; and all outward displays -seemed to level her with kitchen-maids and factory-girls. - -‘Don’t be so boisterous, darling,’ she remonstrated, while her heart -longed to thank him for what he had done, and beg him to do it again. -In the daytime, however, the invisible audience before whom she lived -forbade these manifestations; only under the cover of darkness could -she feel them permissible. ‘It is too early in the day,’ said Gundred, -patting into place a curl that had never been out of it. - -Not for the first time Kingston sighed and found himself baffled by -his wife’s perpetual assumption of virginity. Beyond the reach of -all allowed caresses, her soul remained untouched, immaculate. The -bloodless chastity of temperament that invested this last of Queen -Isabel’s offspring was for ever a barrier between man and wife. And -neither Kingston nor Gundred had any doubt as to whether the barrier -were natural or artificial. Both believed it an essential part of -Gundred’s nature. If Gundred herself ever doubted, she stifled the -doubt as ill-bred, repulsive, almost irreligious. - -‘Ice-house!’ cried Kingston. ‘One may kiss your lips, but the real you -is far away beyond the reach of kisses.’ - -Gundred knew that this was not true, longed to deny it, yet was glad -that her husband thought it. She was taking a shamefaced, almost -fierce delight in the dialogue. For once her correct coldness had -proved a challenge. Too often she had grieved that the low temperature -of her behaviour was passing unregretted, unnoticed, and was even -beginning to lower the temperature of her lover. Cold she still wished -to be, for pride and decorum, yet without paying any of the penalties. -The personal intimacy that one aspect of marriage enforces only the -more impelled her soul, for the sake of its stiff self-respect, to take -refuge in all possible mental reservations and seclusions, by way of -indemnifying itself and justifying itself for the other candours into -which Nature had driven her, not unwilling, indeed, but always feeling -that she ought to be unwilling. Gundred’s temperament was civilized -very far below the surface, and the rough facts of life never ceased -to strike her as monstrous and barbaric. And most barbarous of all was -her own surprised acquiescence. She could only recapture her vanishing -dignity by emphasizing at every possible moment the immaculate -maidenhood of her mind. This was at once her revenge on Nature, and -on herself for loving what Nature sent. But her husband could not -understand these subtleties; no clue was given him to the labyrinth of -Gundred’s hidden emotions; he took her at her face-value, and imagined -her as deeply, incurably frigid as was the manner that she thought -proper to assume. - -He stood before her, still holding her hands, gazing hotly into the -depths of her cool eyes. But now they gave him no answering light. -Shallow, clear, and cold, they met his own without a tremor. No soul -looked out of them. - -‘The real you,’ he repeated at last, after a long pause--‘the real you. -Where is it, I wonder? Or is there any such thing? I thought once I -could thaw you, but one can’t thaw an icicle unless one can get near -it.’ - -The passion of his speech pleased her no less than the success -of her own decorous hypocrisy. Now evidently she was winning the -demonstrations for which she secretly hungered, and without any -sacrifice of her pudicity. - -She drew her hands away. - -‘Let me go, dear,’ she said, with mild decision. ‘You make me feel -hot and rumpled. If you want to kiss me--well, I suppose I am your -wife--yes?’ - -The tacit invitation, the unexpressed desire, were too successfully -concealed by the decorous dullness of her tone. He read into it -annoyance and disgust. Abruptly the flame of his mood was extinguished. -He dropped her hands, so suddenly that they, not expecting any such -desertion, hung limp and disappointed for a moment in the air. - -‘Sorry to have bothered you,’ he said. ‘I suppose I am too rough.’ - -Without another word he subsided again into his chair, and fell to -reading the paper. Gundred retired to her settle, feeling how glad -she ought to feel thus triumphantly to have vindicated her sense of -decency. But her satisfaction was hollow; her soul had received a -shock when her hands had been so suddenly dropped--a nasty jarring -shock such as one receives in a dream, stepping into vacancy where -one had expected solid ground. Her hands fell slowly to her sides, -cheated, frustrated; then set languidly about opening her letters, as -if diverted from their proper use. It was a minute or two before she -could concentrate her attention. In her turn she experienced something -of that snubbed, humiliated sensation which she had so often inflicted -on her husband. Then good training conquered personal disappointment, -and she began to read. In an instant her attention was chained. - -‘Kingston,’ she cried, looking up, ‘here is a letter from Isabel -Darrell, of all people in the world. She wants to pay us a visit. Why, -I declare,’ she added, ‘Isabel writes from London. I must say she loses -no time.’ - -‘Isabel Darrell?’ questioned Kingston. ‘Who is she, and what does -she want with us--especially now, when we are supposed to be on our -honeymoon?’ - -‘My cousin,’ Gundred reminded him. ‘Her mother was my father’s sister, -Isabel Mortimer. Don’t you remember, I told you about her? Poor Aunt -Isabel! She married a dreadful man who came over from Australia or New -Zealand, and took her back there, and led her a most terrible life, I -am afraid. Aunt Isabel died three years ago, and now her husband seems -to have died, too, and the daughter has come to England to see her own -people. We shall have to have her here, Kingston. I must write at once. -I’ll let her have a line by this morning’s post. But I do wish Aunt -Agnes ever wrote letters: we ought to have heard of Isabel’s arrival at -least a week ago. We must certainly send for her at once.’ - -Gundred wanted her husband to protest against this sacrifice of their -privacy, perhaps to forbid it. If he had done so, she would have -resisted his objections, and eventually have made a wifely virtue of -yielding to them. But the best of people are not without their small -ungenerosities, and Kingston Darnley was in a mood to punish his wife -for her obstinate chilliness. If their privacy were to give no real -intimacy, it might just as well cease. - -‘Capital!’ said Kingston. ‘We want someone to liven us up a bit. Write -to your cousin and tell her to come here at once. She’ll be someone for -you to talk to.’ - -‘Won’t she--yes?’ assented Gundred, wounded indeed, but quite -successful in concealing the fact. ‘Poor thing! I will send her a -wire. She can be here by dinner-time. How odd of her, though, to think -one likes being interrupted on one’s honeymoon! Do you suppose they do -that kind of thing in the colonies?’ - -‘Oh, I don’t know. I dare say she heard we had been here for more than -a fortnight, and thought we must have had about enough of it.’ - -‘Well, it will be very nice. Would you like to see her letter?’ - -‘I don’t mind,’ answered Kingston indifferently. In the circumstances -wild horses would not have forced him to confess how much he resented -the invasion. Not even to himself would he confess it. But already he -had conceived a keen dislike for his cousin, Isabel Darrell. - -‘Quite an odd letter,’ commented Gundred; ‘not at all like anyone -else’s. My poor aunt was always strange and eccentric--evidently Isabel -takes after her mother.’ - -‘Let me see,’ said Kingston, in the hope of finding something to feed -his feeling for Isabel Darrell. - -Gundred handed him the letter. It was written in a large, flamboyant -hand, on large flamboyant paper; twirls and flourishes abounded, and -the signature was written with a sprawling arrogance that might have -done credit to a second-rate actress. - - ‘DEAR MY COUSIN,’ it began, - - ‘I have come to England at last, to enter the bosom of my family. - My father, to the relief of everybody, has entered Abraham’s. Don’t - think me flippant, but one cannot always mourn, not even for the - worst of parents. Meanwhile, here am I in London, buying frocks so - as not to disgrace my family. When can I come to you? As soon as - you like. A wire will fetch me. I understand that your honeymoon is - nearly over, so I don’t suppose a casual third will be much of a - nuisance by now. And, anyhow, I have nowhere else to go. I am dying - to see Brakelond, too, and the ducal great-uncle. Aunt Agnes and I - have had quite enough of each other in a week, but she has been doing - her duty nobly by the returned prodigal. Really, she is too weird for - words. I believe she thinks New Zealand is the capital of Australia, - or else the other way round. - - ‘Your affectionate and only cousin, - ‘ISABEL DARRELL, OF THE MORTIMERS.’ - -Kingston found himself amply justified in his dislike. Underbred, loud, -vulgar, evidently Isabel Darrell was a very undesirable specimen of the -colonial. Her clashing presence would teach him anew to appreciate the -quiet perfection of Gundred. He returned the letter with a laugh. - -‘So very odd--yes?’ said Gundred; ‘just like her poor dear mother. -Aunt Isabel was just the same--so flaunting, and independent, and -unconventional. Isabel must be the oddest girl.’ - -‘She sounds a shocking bounder,’ said Kingston. - -‘She is my cousin, dear,’ said Gundred, very gently, after a slight -pause. The emphasis was slight but unmistakable. Another pause followed. - -‘And when are we to expect that sacrosanct person, your cousin?’ -inquired Kingston, who knew nothing of that calm loyalty which people -of Gundred’s sort display towards even the most despised and detested -of their relations when they come up for discussion in the presence of -anyone unconnected with ‘the family.’ - -‘Isabel? Ring, dear, for Murchison, and I will send a wire. She will -have time to catch the midday train, and we shall have her here in good -time to dress for dinner. But of course she won’t be able to see poor -Uncle Henry.’ - -Kingston rang, feeling himself powerless to avert the coming of this -discordant, pestilent alien, and Murchison was duly entrusted with -the telegram. As soon as it had gone both Kingston and Gundred began -to feel injured, and by common consent forbore to say another word -about Isabel Darrell. Gundred felt herself aggrieved that her husband -should so readily and with such apparent gladness have consented to the -invasion of a stranger; Kingston felt himself aggrieved that Gundred -should so gladly and with such apparent readiness have suggested the -importation of a third person. Each thought the other bored with the -honeymoon; neither was, but the one from offended pride, and the other -from conscientious delicacy considered it a duty to make the pretence; -and, each concealing his feeling strictly from the other, husband and -wife drew deliberately apart to make room for the figure of Isabel -Darrell between them. - -The day drifted by in colourless talk, and the fine splendour of the -morning grew clouded with a leaden haze. Kingston and Gundred sat out -the hours in the small close garden that was shut in by the Castle. -Their own little oaken wing jutted away ahead of them, but the line -of the cliff, before it ran out in that unexpected spur, was enclosed -by three old towers of the building, and here, in the square levelled -space, looking straight over the boundless sea, with a battlemented -wall of windows behind, and the Drum Tower glooming high over it in -the background, had been made the only patch of garden that existed -to give light and life to the grey mountain of masonry. The little -flowery patch, gay with sweet-peas and roses, seemed as discordant -with the Castle as a bow of ribbon on the brow of a precipice. It was -frivolous, impertinent, saucy in its defiance of the stern greyness -that it adorned. The only fit colours to relieve the sombre majesty -of Brakelond were those of blood and fire, not those of grass and -flowers. But the contradiction was so flagrant as to be fascinating, -and the lovers took daily joy in this little impudent oasis. - -However, their unuttered thoughts of the new-comer dominated every -remark they made, and it was a relief when evening drew near, and -each minute brought nearer and nearer the abrupt termination of their -solitude. Isabel had telegraphed her joy at being permitted to come, -and her intention to do so immediately. Orders were given to prepare -for her, and she was expected to arrive in time to dress for dinner. -When, therefore, the carriage returned empty from the station, six -miles away, after having kept dinner waiting for half an hour, both -Kingston and Gundred felt their grievances redoubled. Kingston saw -how right he had been to detest the very notion of this disorderly -stranger, and Gundred realized more than ever how slack and neglectful -of her husband it had been not to forbid the importation of such a -disconcerting element into their ordered tranquillity. Meanwhile a -telegram arrived, explaining that Isabel had lost her train, had -taken a ‘special,’ and hoped to arrive in an hour or so. Again the -carriage was sent, and, after another tedious interval of expectation -the lovers were told that its lights could be seen returning up the -hill. To ease the arrival of a shy, desolate colonial Gundred decided -to receive her in the great hall itself. Accordingly, at the news, -Kingston and Gundred passed on through the dim, gaunt passages of -outwork and bastion until they found themselves at last in the heart -of the big Drum Tower. The hall was a vast flagged expanse, walled -in by high, dusty glooms, into whose recesses no light of any feeble -lamp or lantern could penetrate. Grime and weary antiquity seemed to -permeate it, and the air was close and heavy with a scent of mouldered -greatness. Kingston, as he went, began insensibly to play a game with -himself. He picked out the names of four moods, to be repeated to -himself, one for each flag on which he trod; and his fate, his whole -attitude to Isabel was to be foretold by the paving-stone on which his -foot should rest at the instant of the new-comer’s alighting. His fancy -was taken from the game which children play with their cherry-stones, -and the moods he chose were ‘Love, Hate, Fear, Contempt.’ In turn he -repeated them as he stepped from flag to flag, careful always never to -set his foot on any boundary line. ‘Love, Hate, Fear, Contempt,’ he -murmured inwardly from stone to stone, while Gundred walked briskly -at his side, her clear mind a hundred years removed from any such -silly infantile fantasies. Now they were drawing near the huge, gaping -doorway. There were not so many of the great squares left to tread, and -the jingling approach of the carriage could be more and more clearly -heard. Kingston’s heart began to beat with the artificial excitement -of his game. ‘Love, Hate, Fear, Contempt....’ The carriage had driven -up.... ‘Love, Hate, Fear, Contempt....’ He lingered, hoping that the -stranger would alight appropriately on the word ‘Contempt.’ In vain. -There was some delay. Perforce he must advance to the three or four -remaining flag-stones. Quickly, to get it over without danger, he -hurried with a long stride on to the stone that meant ‘Love,’ eager to -leap to the next. But the unconscious Isabel was quicker. As his foot -was set on ‘Love,’ Isabel jumped untidily from the carriage. Kingston -laughed internally. ‘So much for fate,’ he thought; then, calmed again, -he advanced with Gundred to meet the stranger. In the flickering light, -among the draughts that swirled in the high cavern of darkness, his -first impression was of a limp, floppy hat, bulged, overtrodden boots, -and a deplorable draggled tippet. Greetings were hurriedly exchanged, -and Kingston felt justified of all his hostile forebodings. Awkward, -shapeless, inopportune, tawdry,--‘Contempt’ or ‘Hate’ should certainly -have been his footing with regard to Isabel Darrell. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -It was not till the three had arrived in the oaken parlour of the old -chapel wing that Kingston could pause to take stock of the new-comer, -and revise his first impression. Revise it? It needed only to be -amplified, many new details to be added to the first rough sketch -of his dislike, fresh lines and shades to be stippled in on the -displeasing portrait. - -Gundred was one of the comparatively few Englishwomen whose hat always -looks as if it had grown with her hair, and forms an integral part of -her head as Nature made it. Isabel, on the other hand, was one of the -vast majority whose hat sits on their hair awkwardly, like a stranger, -with no suggestion of anything more than an accidental and reluctant -relationship painfully achieved with pins. And it was a bad hat, -too--formless, flabby, large and slatternly in its lines. It made no -pretence at being straight, but flapped and floundered distressingly -as she walked. Clearly Isabel was one of those women who can never -keep a hat straight. Regiments of daggers and skewers cannot prevent -them from giving the impression of living perpetually in a gale. Their -headgear is aimless, uncongenial, offering a perpetual suggestion -of irrelevance. And, as the hat is symptomatic of the woman, the -rest of Isabel fulfilled the dire promise of her headgear--immense, -shapeless, foolishly waved and undulated, of limp, coarse black straw, -with the big bow of cheap satin that did not seem to belong to it, -but to be stuck on casually with one of the protrusive, jetty pins -that ironically pretended to keep it fixed, and, with it, sagged from -side to side in a futile and disconsolately impudent manner. Isabel, -throughout, was flimsy, loose, and flaccid in design. Nothing about -her seemed to be in any relationship to herself or to any other detail -of her dress: her attire was a mere careless aggregation of unsuitable -elements, as depressing in its feeble slovenliness as a party of -ill-assorted people. Her gown dragged and trailed around her here -and there, suggesting that she daily tied it on anew with tapes, and -secured the more salient points with safety-pins. It was not a gown--no -homogeneous creation of any sane mind. It had none of a real gown’s -individuality; it was a mere haphazard covering. Then her boots: again, -as she sat in the settle, the lamplight caught their toes: they were -both wrinkled and bulgy, an ingenious prodigy of the incorrect. As -Kingston watched them in the little oaken room, the lamplight seemed to -concentrate its efforts on their shapeless points: they held his gaze -as if by mesmerism, and seemed to swell monstrously and waver gigantic -in the gloom, till the world was swallowed up in those amorphous lumps. - -It was some time before Kingston could turn his attention from the -clothes to the woman that they so disastrously symbolized. Here, too, -he met at every point with a violation of all his favourite canons. -Isabel Darrell was evidently as untidy as her garments. Her figure -was long and elastic. Only a certain arrogant untidiness of carriage -could save her from the reproach of lankiness. She walked with a free -unconventional swing from the hips, with a sort of bounding spring -that might have been more pleasantly noteworthy had it not set her hat -mopping and mowing afresh at every step. At every step it jauntily -jumped, up and down, and from right to left, until the attention was -concentrated on its antics rather than on any beauties that might have -been found in the gait which compelled them. Very different indeed was -the barbaric looseness of Isabel’s movement from the neat and civilized -precision of Gundred’s every motion. That she wore no stays was very -evident, and the flapping freedom of her legs suggested that her nature -had been built for breeches rather than for petticoats. - -Her face, when you came to look at it, was not, perhaps, quite so -terrible as might have been expected. In fact, Kingston found it rather -disappointing in its possibilities. He consoled himself by noticing -that the mouth was ridiculously wide, revealing, too, a glimpse of -gold; but, still, it was an eager, mobile mouth, full of energetic -vitality. Gundred’s pretty, definite lips invariably preserved their -proper lines; but Isabel’s had smiles and flashes of feeling that -kept no limits and obeyed no conventions. Agile, too, and expressive -beyond due bounds, they had a gleaming redness that was put to shame -by the decent pallor of her cousin’s. Her face was irregular, uneven, -unconventional, yet not without a certain heady and unlawful charm. -Like her mouth, it was so very much alive. It did not seem, as did -Gundred’s, to be a moulded mask, but to be the woman’s very own naked -soul. The claim of her birth was clear in the strangely delicate beauty -of her ears--the only part of her that could ever, by any possibility, -be called neat or dainty--and in the firm, fine curves of her nose and -upper lip. The nose especially, swift and decided in its line, carried -high and defiant, had the long thin nostrils, sensitive, fierce, cruel -in their lifted curve, that one sees in the conspicuous women of old -ferocious days. Kingston and Gundred had seen them in the face of -Isabel the Queen. - -As for the rest of her character, a student might have found traces -of uncontrolled personality in her broad forehead, heavy along -the supraciliary ridge, and in the deep set of her eyes. The eyes -themselves were big and ardent, of that grey-green whose precise -tone can never be actually discerned. Golden at one time, emerald -at another, they are always vivid, blazing, inscrutable. And over -all hung in a dense cloud the heavy obscurity of her hair. Black as -darkness it was, long, straight, and utterly impatient of restraint. -Its arrangement was of a piece with Miss Darrell’s whole accoutrement. -Evidently she was content with twirling it into a rough lump, poking -it here, pinning it inadequately there. At every point it burst its -bonds: loose coils and ropes were dropping and trailing unreproved; -each movement, each jump of the hat, set free a fresh strand. Miss -Darrell clearly counted on the hat’s pressure to preserve at least some -semblance of order; but that unhappy adornment was powerless to exert -any influence; it jigged and jolted as the hair dictated, and the mass -on the top of her head hopped happily in a unanimous heap as she went, -carrying the hat unresisting to its sway. - -Meanwhile Gundred was pouring forth a stream of pleasantness. Her -gentle voice ran on in an orderly melody, expounding the joy that she -and Kingston felt in welcoming a kinswoman to Brakelond. And, as she -spoke, not a detail of her cousin’s untidiness escaped her eye. But -the pitying disapproval that she felt found no hint of expression in -her voice. Tone and manner remained calm, dispassionate, colourless -as ever. Isabel, for her part, had no such nice polish, and made no -attempt to conceal her excitement. Her eye roved, her head went eagerly -from side to side, scanning her surroundings. When Gundred paused, she -interposed some quick question, some keen remark on what she saw. But -to her cousin’s formal little speeches she was evidently not attending. -Her manners were careless as her dress. - -Kingston, taking no part in the dialogue, devoted himself to watchful -criticism of the enemy. He noticed how the smile flickered and -flashed across her eager face, and how the fine nostrils thrilled -and contracted now and again with enthusiasm. Those nostrils, he -felt, were well known. Where had he seen them? He did not remember -the face of the She-Wolf Queen, but, as he looked at that of Isabel, -stronger and stronger grew his impression that it was no stranger. His -hostile feelings grew and deepened. The face, the manner, the charm -of Isabel made some vehement, inexplicable claim upon him; and in his -resistance to so unreasonable a call, his attitude stiffened itself -into a determined enmity. There could be nothing appealing or desirable -about this sloppy, disorderly creature, yet he felt the beginning--was -it the beginning or the renewal?--of a paradoxical fascination that -contradicted his own most cherished sense of what was admirable. He -looked again at Gundred, and strenuously admired her neat, cool beauty, -the perfection of her appointments, her gestures, her inflections, her -expressions. Nothing was wrong there; no criticism could be made: it -was all just right; there was the admirable, incarnate. - -Thence, his judgment reinforced, his gaze swept back to Isabel. There -it was all just wrong: criticism could run riot; there, incarnate, -was the second-rate. Second-rate? Blind instinct protested, and -pointed the way to a discovery. Isabel was not second-rate. By every -rule she should have been, but second-rate she was not. Strangely, -unaccountably not. The rules in this case seemed to have collapsed. -There, at all events, was everything that normally makes up the -second-rate--cheapness, tawdriness, untidiness. But these items could -not be added up to make the expected total. He hated his consciousness -that in her was something--something that he recognised almost as an -old friend--character, enthusiasm, whatever it was, that exempted her -from ordinary rules. And, as he chafed against himself for not being -able to pass the whole-hearted condemnation that his fastidiousness -clamoured for, so he doubly chafed against the mystery in her that -imposed so illogical, so unreasonable a limitation on his judgment, -and forced him to feel, in what all the laws of taste denounced, a -monstrous, fantastic fascination that defied analysis and resistance. - -‘So nice,’ he heard Gundred saying; ‘and then you will go with us to -Ivescar, I hope--our place in Yorkshire. I have never been there yet, -of course, so you and I will have great fun exploring it--yes?’ - -‘Too glorious for words!’ cried Isabel irrelevantly, her eyes roaming -eagerly from wall to wall of the little low room. ‘I have never dreamt -of a fairy-palace like this. That panelling! Oh, it’s too precious. -And the beautiful dim dustiness of it all! One feels as if one -were trespassing on the domain of ghosts. These tiny, crazy, oaken -parlours--they must be simply soaked with memories.’ - -‘Nice little rooms--yes?’ said Gundred complacently, contriving to -reprove such undisciplined enthusiasm by the very gentleness with -which she accepted it. ‘Dusty’ did not seem to her at all a fitting -compliment to pay the oldest wing of Brakelond. She was certain that -the housemaids discharged their duty perfectly. - -‘Nice!’ cried Isabel ardently; ‘what a ridiculous word! They are the -haunt of dead centuries. Don’t you feel either primeval or irreverent -every time you drink a cup of tea here?’ - -‘Oh no,’ replied Gundred mildly. ‘I hope I should never have such -dreadful feelings anywhere, and the rooms are really quite convenient. -The only thing is that they are so cut off from the rest of the Castle. -You’ll see to-morrow. This wing stands right away from the rest of the -building, on a spur of rock that drops straight into the sea. They are -all wood, these rooms--the oldest part of Brakelond.’ - -‘I know I thought I had walked miles before we got here,’ replied -Isabel--‘miles, through the most fascinating dreadful dark halls and -passages, just like the dim labyrinths in a Maeterlinck Castle.’ - -‘Yes,’ answered Gundred; ‘it takes the servants quite a time to answer -the bell; and if one didn’t use hot irons in the urn it would be cold -before it got to us. And what one would do if anybody fainted or -anything I simply can’t imagine. There is just one long passage leading -to these rooms, and all the servants are ever so far away in the -Georgian part.’ - -‘Well,’ said Isabel, ‘you can make this your last resort. When the -Castle is carried by invaders or catches fire, you can run out here, -and shut yourselves up on your little promontory, and nobody will ever -be able to get at you again.’ - -‘This wouldn’t be at all a good place if the Castle took fire,’ said -Gundred--‘built of wood, and no other way out. But everything is very -safe, I am truly thankful to say. Our great-uncle Henry saw to all that -before he was taken poorly.’ - -For a moment she was the Mortimer, talking to a Mortimer, and leaving -her husband outside the conversation. He, for his part, did not notice -the recurrence of that little, proudly conscious yet unconscious -inflection in her voice. He was too much absorbed in watching Isabel. -The returned colonial was even more obviously the daughter of Brakelond -than was Gundred. The vividness of her personality was in full -harmony with the stern old building to which Gundred’s nature only -occasionally chimed in tune. Isabel was the contemporary of Brakelond. -The contrast between the two women was that between a jungle and a -Dutch garden--between a passionate, loose-petalled rose and a decorous, -shapely lily. And, though the lily had its place in the pleasance -of Brakelond, though the Dutch garden might be thrust into its vast -scheme, yet the true frame of the Castle was the untamable wildness -of the forest, its most inevitable ornament the glowing ardour of the -rose. In the long list of all who had been March and Brakelond here and -there a lily-life occurred, it is true; but the rose, flaming, riotous, -red, must always stand for the fittest emblem of the Mortimers. - -Suddenly Isabel turned upon Kingston, growing conscious of his -attention. - -‘Why do you stare at me?’ she asked. ‘Have we met each other before?’ - -Kingston doubted; a sense of renewed acquaintance was very strong upon -him. ‘No,’ he replied; ‘we have never met before. I don’t see how we -can ever have met before.’ - -‘Surely not, dear--no?’ added Gundred. - -‘I believe,’ said Isabel abruptly, ‘that one has met everyone in the -world before, and that every now and then one remembers something here -and there. Your husband and I have probably met in a dream, or--perhaps -we loved or hated each other thousands of years ago, or our ancestors -did, which is the same thing.’ - -‘Oh, I don’t believe that,’ answered Gundred, gentle, but shocked. -‘That’s evolution, isn’t it? A horrid idea--yes?’ - -Kingston, meanwhile, with stern loyalty, forced himself to compare the -neat and ladylike blankness of Gundred’s mind with the uncontrolled -wanderings of her cousin’s. He himself might have much the same ideas -as Isabel, but how much more restful and proper for a woman to abide by -conventional views. So he denied his own feelings, and disliked more -than ever the untidy apostle who seemed to have a mind as restless as -his own. - -Isabel began developing her theme excitedly--talked of the innumerable -ghosts of Brakelond, of inherited memories, previous existences, and -the impossibility of supposing that life begins abruptly at birth -and ends at death. No friend, at the best of times, to abstract -discussions, Gundred had the orderly-minded wife’s intense dislike of -such a display in the mouth of another, and an unmarried, woman. In a -man it was permissible, if regrettable; in a wife it was reprehensible -and unwomanly, though not utterly unpardonable; but in a mere maiden it -was a dishonour to her sex, a brazen revolution, a discarding of that -spiritual chastity which makes the really nice girl’s mind a closed and -cloistered garden, impossible of access. Accordingly she made haste to -nip the conversation. - -‘You must be so tired,’ said Gundred, rising suddenly from her chair. -‘I am sure you will be glad to go to bed--yes?’ - -Isabel was one of the people whom a long journey animates and inspires. -Quite careless as to smuts, dishevelled locks, and crooked hats, she -was at her best in that weary hour of arrival which makes other women -rush to looking-glasses. However, Gundred’s tones clearly conveyed -the impression that etiquette, if not common politeness, demanded -agreement with her statement. Isabel admitted that she was tired -accordingly, and allowed herself to be guided to her room. - -Kingston and Gundred grew closer thenceforth. The warmth of their -first married days seemed to have returned. Kingston, in the ardour -with which he regarded his wife, was secretly indemnifying her for -that obstinate folly in his own heart which refused to condemn the -new-comer absolutely. He took countervailing pains to emphasize his -love and admiration for Gundred. And she, realizing that he loved her -more keenly, thanks to the comparison with Isabel, yielded to her own -heart’s desire, passed from acquiescence to reciprocation, and was -delighted to find how successfully she emerged from the comparison, and -shone by the side of ragged, reckless Isabel. If Kingston could not -divine, or dared not divine, the deep current of emotion that underlay -his actions, how much less could such a subtlety be expected of his -wife? She noticed with joy that Isabel was in every way the foil best -calculated to show off her own perfections. She rejoiced to find that -her husband was as keen-eyed as herself for the edifying contrast, -and, though already conceiving a disapproving distrust of Isabel, -believed so strongly that her presence would assure the continuation -of Kingston’s renewed warmth that she decided to prolong her cousin’s -visit to the uttermost. - -Her motives in making the suggestion were also her husband’s in -accepting them. He was glad to find himself so appreciating that nice -precision of Gundred’s which he had been beginning to find monotonous; -and, when she suggested that Isabel should more or less make a home -with them till she married, he let himself believe that her presence -would perpetually fire his admiration for Gundred, and fell gladly in -with his wife’s benevolent design. - -‘Poor darling,’ said Gundred; ‘she wants forming so. It will be -quite like training a child. I never saw anyone who was so--so--just -_any_how--yes?’ - -‘A bit all over the place, certainly. Well, she couldn’t do better than -copy you. And you might give her a hat or two. But not that one you -wore in the garden this afternoon.’ - -‘Did you like it, dear?’ - -‘Most awfully. It made one feel so cool and summery.’ - -‘How nice of you to notice my hats, dear! No other woman’s husband does -that.’ - -‘I always notice everything you wear. Every line of you, every bow and -ribbon. But I can’t always tell you what I think of you. You won’t -often let me. You hold one at arm’s length, and make one think one’s -self silly and childish. If you knew how much one loved every detail of -you, you wouldn’t make one feel such a violent ass every time one tries -to express what one feels.’ - -‘But I don’t want to make you feel an idiot, Kingston darling. It is -sweet to hear you say how much you--care about me. It seems to make -my whole life seem warm and comfortable. Never leave off feeling as -you do. I think I am always glad to know you feel like that, and -I--well, I do enjoy hearing you tell me so from time to time. But in -the daylight, somehow, it seems undignified and--a little common, to -exchange rhapsodies. And yet I love to think the rhapsodies are there. -And--don’t you find it makes them more precious to keep them rare--yes?’ - -To Kingston a feeling unexpressed was apt, sooner or later, to -degenerate into atrophy. But in the warmth of the moment he entered -into Gundred’s point of view. Her reserves seemed beautiful and well -bred by the side of his deliberate recollection of Isabel and her -leaping, uncontrolled enthusiasms. - -‘Perhaps you are right, you exquisite thing,’ he answered. ‘But now and -then you ought to let me speak. I must tell you now and then, in word -as well as in deed, that you are the most exquisite thing in the world, -the most dainty, the most well-finished, the most adorable thing in -the whole world. Altogether without a fault or a blemish you are, like -a clear polished jewel; one is for ever seeing a fresh facet of your -perfection.’ - -‘Oh, Kingston, you really mustn’t say such things. It can’t be right. I -am sure you are flattering me.’ - -‘Ah, that is your usual answer. You always cut me short whenever I try -to tell you what I feel for you. You make love seem silly and indecent. -You are always trying to nip it in the bud.’ - -Gundred hesitated. Then she smiled. ‘Well, Kingston dear,’ she said, -‘I have not had to nip it in the bud so often lately--no? You have not -given me the chance so very often.’ - -‘One gets tired of being rebuffed and chilled and made to feel a -demonstrative, tiresome fool.’ - -‘Not tiresome, darling. And, Kingston, whatever I say, you--you--well, -you need not always pay _quite_ so much attention to it, need you? One -sometimes says a thing because one ought to, not because one means -it--yes? I don’t think I am always quite such a chilly fish as you seem -to imagine. You must not always judge by what one says. I--well, I love -everything you say and do, dear. Don’t ever leave off because you think -I don’t approve. I do, Kingston, whatever I may say--I approve, because -it is you. Only you must not expect me to say so in the daytime, with -the sun showing up everything, and servants all over the place. I -hardly like to say it, even here in the dark, with nobody to see. It -seems to put me into your power too much.’ - -‘Into my power! Well, I am in yours. That is what marriage is. I am -between your hands--between those wonderful little cool hands of yours, -Gundred. What will you do with me? Crumple me up and throw me away, or -drop me on the rocks, as if I were a toad? That is what your civilized -daytime manner seems to threaten every now and then. Or will you keep -me safe, and stroke my fur the right way, and keep me warm?’ - -‘I like to hear that my stupid hands can do such wonderful things. Do -you really admire my hands, Kingston dear?’ - -‘They are just carved ivory fresh from the hands of God. There is -nothing human or hot or earthly about them. They are fresh and calm, -and without spot or frailty. They are the most lovely hands that ever -woman had.’ - -‘Prettier than poor Isabel’s--no?’ - -‘Poor Isabel? With her hands like a pair of boxing-gloves? Don’t let -us talk about great floppy Isabel now. It is only you I want to talk -about. You are the only person in the world.’ - -‘Oh, you mustn’t be so unkind about poor Cousin Isabel,’ protested -Gundred, purring with unconscious pleasure. ‘You must remember she did -not make herself. And think how tiresome it would be if there were -nobody different from me in the whole world. It takes all sorts to make -a world, dear, yes?’ - -‘No, it doesn’t, wonder-lady. The whole world is nothing but a huge -infinite room of mirrors, reflecting you, always and everywhere. -Hundreds, thousands, millions of you, that is what I see in the world. -How can I make you believe me?’ - -To make one’s self believe one’s own statements is, unfortunately, -a far easier task than to make other people believe them. However, -Gundred’s mind asked nothing better than to be convinced, and the -roseate state of her rapture was far above analysis and metaphysics. - -‘I am sure you would not say such a thing if you did not mean it, -dear,’ she said. ‘It is a beautiful thought of yours. But you must -not grudge poor Isabel a home with us until she marries. After all, -whatever her shortcomings, poor darling, she _is_ my cousin. And so it -won’t be long before she marries. It’s not as if she were just nobody -in particular.’ - -Kingston, convinced that the presence of Isabel reinforced his -admiration for Gundred, made no opposition. - -‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose it will make much difference to us. -She is not the kind of woman who is likely to come between husband and -wife.’ He laughed. - -‘I am certain she is not, poor darling!’ assented Gundred. ‘We must -try to pull her into shape and teach her better,’ she added, with -meditative earnestness, as if coming between husband and wife were the -especial object of a woman’s life and training. ‘And yet, I believe -there are men who admire that sort of girl, Kingston. I never can -understand a man liking a woman who cannot put on a hat properly, but -everybody says they do. I remember Mary Capplethwaite; she was neater -than a new pin, with her hair most beautifully done, and the sweetest -little face. But that did not prevent her husband from running away -with Mildred Gunston, who always looked as if she had been left out -all night in the wind and the rain. Of course, dear Mary may have got -a little monotonous, but, still, I do think it is a great thing to be -tidy and nice--yes?’ - -‘That is all a man asks of a woman,’ answered Kingston. ‘And one might -ask it for ever of your cousin Isabel, and never get it, I imagine. One -knows that type of woman so well. The idea is that inferior clothes -show a superior soul. The poor things believe that they reveal the -beauty, and the freedom, and the preciousness of their individuality -by neglecting everything that makes the ordinary woman desirable. They -think they are above using the means that no really clever woman ever -disdains. They are the half-baked, the half-clever, the weak, feeble -copies of the strong-minded, strong-souled creatures they imitate and -think they are. One meets them at Oxford; the place swarms with them. -They sham genius by means of untidiness. Half of them are tailor-made -and half of them are æsthetic--in blue plush sleeves and moulting -terra-cotta-coloured plumes, or in short skirts and boat-shaped hats -with a cock’s feather on one side. How well I know it; and that is your -Cousin Isabel.’ - -‘You really mustn’t dislike the poor darling so dreadfully, dear. We -must make her happy with us. But I am so glad that you agree with me -about that kind of woman. I never can see why one’s hair should not be -properly done, however clever one is--yes? _I_ have never wanted to be -dishevelled or slovenly. We must gradually get poor Isabel into the way -of thinking about her appearance a little more. After all, she ought -to look at least well-bred, dear, and even now she has one or two good -features.’ - -But Kingston would not agree. He grew forcible on the new-comer’s -imperfections, and would allow her no saving grace of line or carriage. -She was all wrong. He insisted on the fact, proved it again and again, -revelled in it, and turned it to the glorification of his wife. -Gundred, for her part, made a weak defence; without quite knowing -it, she drew joy and sustenance from her husband’s condemnation of -her cousin. It seemed an earnest of his love’s ardour. So she merely -palliated Isabel’s faults, and was more glad to challenge admiration -for herself by their discovery than sorry that such blemishes should be -brought to light. Sweetly and lovingly did she encourage her husband’s -criticisms with her mild protests. Her line was to admit her cousin’s -shortcomings, but to declare that she loved her notwithstanding. Thus -she preserved the full delight of the comparison, while at the same -time preserving also the proper loyalty of a Mortimer for a Mortimer. -But her daylight dignity had melted; the loyalty of a Mortimer was felt -to be now subordinate to that of a wife. Gundred had the happy power of -making a virtue of everything she did, no matter what inconsistencies -her actions might seem to involve. Husband and wife continued to make -love over the faults of their cousin, and it was decided with joy -that the woman whose weaknesses could be turned to such delectable -account must on no account be allowed to deprive them of her company. -Isabel was to live with them, to go with them to Ivescar, to serve as -a perpetual whetstone for Kingston’s admiration of Gundred. Some day -she would undoubtedly marry, but meanwhile Gundred’s kindness should -achieve the double end of giving her cousin a home and turning her -cousin’s existence to a profitable purpose. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -The next morning Isabel was as late as Kingston. Gundred condoned the -offence on the score of fatigue, but Kingston regarded it with that -severity we always show to our own pet faults when we meet them in -people we dislike. Daylight added nothing and softened nothing in -his first impressions as to his wife’s cousin. Still untidy, still -disorderly, still ebullient, Isabel was as reprehensible as ever in -all she did and said, and Kingston’s irritation grew as he noticed -how often she said what he would have said himself, how she caught -his own flying thoughts while Gundred’s mind was still loitering in -their track, or busy with the teapot; how unable his instinct still -was to endorse the opinion of his reason that Isabel was altogether -unworthy of notice. Without seeming to, without caring to, she claimed -his notice, insisted on it, held it; and as the day went by, he found -himself looking at her again and again with reluctant interest. Each -time he forced himself to notice a loose strand of hair, a brooch -unfastened, a hook and eye gone wrong; but not the most strenuous -disapproval of details could kill his angry curiosity as to the -personality of which they made part. As she talked, her wide mouth, -with its scarlet lips, flickered and flashed at every feeling, and her -great eyes blazed at him, now green, now grey, now gold, till the white -was visible all round, and he felt himself bound in the magnetism of -their stare. Isabel had accepted Gundred’s proposal with equanimity. -Yes, she would make a part of their household gladly, until such -time, she said, as she married or eloped. What Gundred had meant--at -least, in part--as a favour done to the poor colonial cousin, the -poor colonial cousin accepted with the high calm of perfect equality, -easily, gracefully, and without a second thought or any emphasis of -gratitude. Gundred felt that her cousin’s manner of receiving favours -lacked something; she made them seem mere services; and her words, -too, sounded flippant and offhand to Gundred, who clung to small -politenesses and the proper observances of courtesy. - -They were sitting out, all three, in the small square garden. The day -was sultry and mysterious, with curling heavy masses of white and -fawn-coloured cloud towering high over the rim of a pallid sea. Behind, -the mass of the Castle was of a bronzy-rose in the strange light, -dreamlike and splendid. In bed and border no flower stirred, and the -scent of roses rose straight into the leaden air like so many spires -of faint invisible smoke. They sat looking out towards the edge of the -world, the unwavering dim line of water that stretched beyond the old -wing of King Mark’s Chapel. Above all the rest of the Castle Isabel -loved to look at that old haphazard rickle of rooms, that crazy hive of -long-dead activities, which stood out from the rest of the building on -its defiant promontory over the sea. It was a little barnacle, growing -off the hulk of Brakelond, and attached only by the slender stalk of -one narrow passage, at whose outer end was its cluster of buildings, -the low squat chapel, then the rooms where Kingston, Gundred, and -Isabel had their dwelling, and, above, a second story, a series of low -rooms at present uninhabited. - -‘Ivescar?’ said Isabel. ‘Ivescar--oh yes, thank you very much, Gundred. -I shall be ever so pleased to go to Ivescar. Oh, those little rooms of -ours are too delicious for words. And there’s no ivy too; that would -make them conventional. I love them. I don’t think the Castle does, -though. They seem too proud to belong to it. They keep themselves to -themselves. The ghosts are happier there than in the big tower. My room -was simply crammed with them, Gundred. All last night they hovered -about.’ - -‘You don’t say so!’ exclaimed Gundred. ‘How dreadfully inconvenient! -I do hope they did not keep you awake, dear. Do you really believe in -them? Surely not--no? One believes that God would never allow such -things. Anyhow, we must be very careful not to let the servants hear -about them, or all the housemaids will be giving notice. But I was -talking about Ivescar. We thought of going there in quite a few days -now. The summer is getting on, and Kingston wants to show me to all -our people there--tenants and so forth. One feels it rather one’s -duty--yes?’ - -‘Ivescar?’ repeated Isabel; ‘I don’t think I am very much interested in -Ivescar, am I? Of course, I am looking forward to going there. But it -cannot be anything like this. And I belong here. I am sure I do. It is -not anything like this, Gundred?’ - -‘Oh, dear me, no, of course not. There isn’t anything like this -anywhere. Ivescar is just a nice modern place, large and comfortable, -but quite modern. I haven’t been there yet, but Kingston has told -me all about it. His father bought it, estate and all, when he -married--didn’t he, Kingston?’ - -‘Yes,’ replied her husband; ‘he chose a county as far away as possible -from all his own people in Kent. They quarrelled with him when he -married, and now none of them will have anything to do with us. So he -thought when it came to settling down as a landed proprietor and all -the rest of it--my mother’s pet fancy, that was--that he would go right -away to the other corner of England. So now our own family, the Dadds, -are still sitting in Darnley-on-Downe, watching the coal-pits that -support the head of the clan at the other end of the country. It is a -quaint irony.’ - -‘Haven’t you any exciting possibilities among your relations?’ asked -Isabel, turning to him. ‘They sound a little stodgy, to say nothing of -the fact that they have all cut you.’ - -‘Well, there is a mystery, I believe. An uncle, a brother of my -father’s, who ran away to Japan, and is now a Buddhist Abbot or Bishop, -or something of the kind. But for all the excitement one is ever likely -to get out of him, he might as well never have been born. He is twelve -thousand miles away, and we shall probably never set eyes on him again.’ - -Gundred looked a little pained, and made haste to divert the -conversation from this irreligious topic, just as Isabel was about to -burst out into enthusiastic curiosity. - -‘So Mr. Darnley bought this delightful estate in Yorkshire, and there -is no use thinking of unpleasant things in the past. Nothing could -sound nicer than Ivescar. Describe it, Kingston.’ - -‘Oh, well, it sits right up among the fells and moors, just under one -of the big mountains, in a tiny little bare glen all of its own. It -is a stern, splendid country, very large and stiff and barren, up at -Ivescar, and then, down below, there is a great fat valley, all smooth -and smiling, that rolls away westward to the sea. There are jolly -rivers and waterfalls all about in the hills, too, and wonderful caves -and crevasses and pitfalls. It’s quite unlike anything else in England, -and it grows on one in the most extraordinary way. There is something -very primeval and mysterious about it.’ - -‘And capital shooting,’ added Gundred. ‘Such nice moors, they tell -me, Isabel. We will go up and have lunch with the guns as often as we -can--yes?’ - -‘Yes, the moors are gorgeous,’ said Kingston. ‘I don’t shoot myself; I -have given it up. But the moors are certainly gorgeous. One can lose -one’s self on them for hours, and probably fall into potholes and -things.’ - -‘Oh, you must take up your shooting again, dear,’ protested Gundred, -who had the usual tender-hearted woman’s ambition that her husband -should destroy innocent lives as lavishly and enthusiastically and -successfully as fashion demands. ‘You must certainly take it up again. -I do think it such a good thing for a man to have some interest in -life, don’t you, Isabel--something for him to do in the country--yes?’ - -Isabel abruptly let this uninteresting development of the conversation -lapse unanswered. - -‘The country does sound attractive,’ she conceded, turning eager eyes -on Kingston. ‘And you talk of it as if you belonged there. But you -don’t, of course.’ - -‘No, but my dear mother has spent so many years pretending to that -the pretence is second nature by now. Dear mother! it used to be the -funniest thing in the world to see her playing at the Old Established -Family. It was her great ambition, and she drilled my poor father day -and night into acting the squire. By now I verily believe she has -persuaded herself that we have been settled at Ivescar for half a dozen -centuries at least. She goes about among the tenants with the most -splendid air of having known them all, and all their families, since -the days of Edward the Confessor. There’s nothing so genuine as a good -imitation--except that the good imitation is generally too good, and -overdoes itself.’ - -‘Well,’ said Isabel, ‘you have fired me with a longing for the -mountains and the caves and waterfalls. But what is the house itself -like?’ - -At this point Gundred caught them up again. She had dropped out of the -dialogue in a twinge of decorous annoyance at the cavalier way in which -Isabel had ignored her opening on sport and shelved the conversation. - -‘A very nice house, Kingston tells me,’ she put in. ‘Built about a -hundred years ago. Very comfortable and convenient.’ - -‘Ah, I know,’ interrupted Isabel. ‘That tells me everything. All -of the best Early-Victorian Tudor. Everything solid and handsome -and expensive, with a picture of your husband’s father in the -hall, life-size, carrying a gun and a dead rabbit. I can imagine -Ivescar--just a house--just a thing with doors and roofs and -windows--simply a place to live in. Now, this, this’--she waved her -hands comprehensively--‘this isn’t a place to live in. It’s a place -that lives on people. Here it’s the people that are subordinate to -the building. At Ivescar nobody cares about the house except for the -people. The house only exists to keep their feet warm, and send them up -their dinner all cosy and hot from the kitchen. Yes, Ivescar is a place -to live in, and this is a place to die in. One can’t imagine one’s self -dying in an ordinary house. Death is too big a thing to come under its -nice squatty ceilings. One feels the whole thing would fly in flinders; -Death would lift the roof off, and burst the walls, if he came in. He -is so large. But one could die here, and the setting would not be a bit -mean or unsuited to the drama. Any nice, carpety, cushiony building -does to live in; one wants a really-truly house to die in--a place -where one can receive the Great Visitor without feeling cramped or -undignified or cheap. Imagine dying in a chintz bedroom, with enamelled -tin baths and foot-pans and hot-water cans.’ - -‘Lots of people do,’ protested Kingston. ‘I suppose they have the -Elizabethan feeling that the play is more important than its setting.’ - -‘Oh, but they don’t die at all,’ cried Isabel. ‘Very few people are -great and holy enough to die. Nine people out of ten just change -shapes and go on again. You can tell that by the fuss they make. One -always fusses more when one harries about at a junction than when one -arrives at a terminus. Most people, when they come to die, are simply -getting out of one train and into another on their journey. Arriving -at the end is a much more simple solemn business. That is what I mean -by dying. And for that one needs a splendid stage. It is a far leap -into Nirvana, and if one is to make it, one wants a good take-off, -a running jump from a strong springy board, with nothing to trammel -one and lessen one’s movements. To hop along into another mean little -manifestation, as most people do, requires very little outside help. -It is hardly more than a shuffle from one bed to another. One does not -want any spring-board for that.’ - -‘I expect,’ said Kingston, ‘that a vast number of quiet good people -reach Nirvana without big jumps or spring-boards, or anything of the -sort. They go on living obscure, kindly lives, and then, at the end of -everything, they just gently slip away and cease, and enter Nirvana -without any splash at all.’ - -‘Ah, those are the people who go on the great journey without luggage. -But the average person takes any amount of packages and parcels with -him, all kinds of fears and fusses and hopes and terrors. And the -reason why he makes such a to-do whenever he has to change trains or -carriages is because he is so afraid he may leave one of the precious -bundles behind. He thinks they are his individuality, just as a decent -woman thinks that her clothes are hers. In fact, scarcely anyone -can conceive an idea of himself without his trappings. And so, all -along the Great Railway, you have people wailing and shrinking at the -thought of death. They know, in their heart of hearts, that at each -change they leave one or two of the bundles behind--a fear or a hate -or a habit--and they cannot understand that they can continue to be -themselves without the bundles. They think, as I said, that the bundles -are an essential part of themselves; whereas it is not till one has -gradually shed all one’s bundles that one can hope to arrive, one’s -own real unhampered self, at the Terminus. It is only the Self that is -meant to arrive, not the bundles. They are the common property of all, -like clothes and rugs and umbrellas, but each man’s self is a lone, -isolated thing.’ - -She spoke with her usual fire, urgently, with hands lavishly waved, and -blazing eyes. Gundred, quite out of the talk, left behind in the lower -world, looked on with bewildered disapproval. - -‘Travelling is a great trouble--yes?’ she hazarded. ‘I always have as -little luggage as possible.’ - -Kingston dropped back into Gundred’s world with a crash. He had been -interested and uplifted on the wings of his cousin’s fantasies. He -could meet her flying in that empyrean of ideas. He loved the vague, -dim regions of her thought. Gundred, without clipping his wings, kept -him tethered to her own perch. Happily she clucked and hopped with him -in the glittering cage--a hen-soul yoked with a restless hawk’s. Now, -out of the free air beyond, had appeared a second hawk, and insensibly -Kingston’s wings began to flutter uneasily for a flight. - -‘Yes,’ he said rather savagely, answering an unspoken question. ‘No -wonder poor Gundred can’t understand such mists and inanities. Have you -any idea what you mean, Isabel?’ - -His irritation was all against Gundred’s inadequacy. It showed her -almost in an inferior light. Characteristically, though, he diverted -his annoyance to the score of his cousin’s mysticism, and unburdened on -her the feelings that his wife had engendered. - -‘Idea?’ replied Isabel scornfully. ‘No; why should I? If anyone ever -stopped to think what their words really meant, and refused to speak -until they had found out, why, no one would ever open their lips -again. Man sends the words, and Heaven, we trust, sends the meaning. -I have vague notions of a meaning very far away above and beyond all -the harassing futilities of language, beyond the domain of grammar and -derivations and split infinitives and metaphors and things. But of -course one can’t hit it; one can only aim at it. One shoots off into -the clouds in the hope of sometimes winging a truth. There’s no use -sitting and aiming, aiming, aiming; one has to up with the gun of one’s -mind and blaze away. Nine times out of ten one misses dead, but bit by -bit one gets practice, just as in earthly shooting, until at last one -has attained a good average level of success, though I am afraid till -the end of the chapter one only wings Truth, never gets it fair and -square in the heart.’ - -‘Shall we go in and have tea--yes?’ said Gundred, with gentle dignity, -into which was mixed a fine proportion of reproof. She rose and moved -towards the door. Isabel looked after her. - -‘I have shocked Gundred,’ she said candidly and callously. ‘I suppose -I was bound to. She is too fascinating and pretty for words, but I -don’t feel, somehow, as if her soul and mine were really cousins. I’m -sorry if I have hurt her. It is all my fault. One is such a fool. One -gets interested in an idea, and off one goes at score, and nothing else -matters in the world but the hunting of it down. You are like that, -too, though you are pretending hard not to be. Why do you? Are you -trying to match Gundred? You’ll never be able to, you know.’ - -She looked up at him, laughing. Her face had a radiant, exasperating -vitality. In that moment he disliked her more even for what she had -than for what she lacked. - -‘Don’t see how you can possibly tell that,’ he said, standing over her, -with his hand on the back of his wife’s chair; ‘and I don’t see that it -matters--to you, at all events.’ - -‘A perfect match,’ continued Isabel, pursuing her thought with no -attention to Kingston--‘a perfect match--I suppose it is when neither -husband nor wife is a match for the other. No, it doesn’t matter a bit. -Only I am interested. I always am. I have only just arrived from the -back of beyond, and yet I feel as if I had known you both--known you, -at least, for half a dozen centuries. I can see all sorts of odd things -in your mind--things that you have no idea of. You are quite naked to -me as I look at you.’ - -Kingston conceived an instant red desire to shake and maltreat this -insolent barbarian. - -‘Are you coming in to tea?’ he asked, turning away as if to leave her. - -Isabel sat up in the long garden chair in which she had been lounging. - -‘Stop,’ she said. - -Angrily, against his will, he stopped and turned towards her. Her voice -compelled him. Unknown voices were answering her in his heart. - -‘Well?’ he asked, trying to mitigate the animosity that surged within -him, no less at her demeanour than at the power she exerted. - -‘Don’t be so angry with me,’ she replied; ‘or don’t be angrier than you -can help. I am a moral hooligan; I am quite irresponsible. So you need -not think me more odious than I am. Honestly I mean no harm. But one -must amuse one’s self.’ - -‘Necessarily by annoying everyone else?’ asked Kingston as amiably as -he could. - -‘I don’t mean to,’ said Isabel; ‘nobody ever cared less about annoying -people than I do.’ She rose swiftly, with a certain lithe splendour of -movement. ‘Listen,’ she said in a new voice of seriousness, her eyes -on a level with his: ‘I have an impulse. I will tell you the truth, as -far as I can. Perhaps you think that what I say and do is simply bad -manners and sheer native offensiveness. It isn’t that. It is that I -don’t care--neither what happens, nor what I say, nor what anyone else -in all the world may say or think or do. I don’t care a damn. Not a -single solitary. I never have. And, of course, that simplifies conduct -immensely, though I admit it may make one a little trying to live with -at times. Do you understand?’ - -She spoke calmly, indifferently. But in every word she spoke he -could hear the note of a perfect pride, of a pride so intense as -to be quite careless, quite impersonal, quite unself-conscious. It -was true that she did not care. But her indifference was based on -no obtrusive conceit, on no selfish ill-breeding, no instinct for -flamboyance and advertisement. It was the deep base of her nature, -a serene impermeability to other people’s opinion, and Gundred had -something of the same quality; but Gundred was indifferent because her -pride made her feel superior to all the world. The pride of Isabel was -that higher, more terrific pride which leaps beyond a mere comparison -of one’s self with others, and is simply an all-absorbing sense of -individuality. Whether Isabel was superior to others she never cared -to stop and consider; all she cared for was the thought that she was -she and they were they. The comparison was still there, but implicit, -subconscious, tacit. Her personality defied criticism by ignoring it. -Kingston suddenly found the serene audacity of her attitude a challenge -to his interest. - -To wake feeling in such a Stylites of egoism, to win her praise or her -condemnation, would be a task more piquant to a professed emotionalist -than any seduction to a sensualist. To seduce the mind of Isabel, to -draw it down from its heights, and force it to feel, fear, or hate--at -least, to abandon its indifferentism, there was a test of skill. Had -the indifference been a pose, the task would have been cheap, lacking -in adventure. That it was mere undecorated nature was at once the -defender’s great strength and the besieger’s strong attraction. It -challenged arrogantly, irresistibly. Then Kingston remembered how much -he disliked his cousin, and refused to hear the call. Strenuously he -shut his ears to it, and gave her appeal a colourless answer. - -‘In some ways,’ he said, ‘I suppose it is as well not to care what -people think or say. But the position is always an ungraceful one, and -is certain ruin to one’s hopes of popularity. However, if you don’t -care, of course, popularity does not matter to you, either one way or -the other.’ - -‘No,’ said Isabel; ‘one demands it, and expects it. And if one doesn’t -get it as one’s right, one refuses to accept it as anyone’s favour. -And obviously the lack of it can make no real difference. How can -unpopularity affect one’s opinion of one’s self? And that is the only -thing in the world that really does matter. By that alone one rises or -falls, is glorified or condemned.’ She spoke quietly and carelessly, as -much to herself as to him or the world at large. Just so, in such cool, -insolently indifferent tones might Queen Isabel have discussed her own -attitude from a dispassionate external point of view. - -‘Incidentally,’ replied Kingston, ‘one runs the risk of giving any -amount of pain to any number of inoffensive people.’ - -‘Now you are trying to make me feel a brute,’ answered Isabel. ‘But -it is no good. If they are hurt, it is their own fault. Pain always -implies some weakness in the person who suffers it. And you can’t make -one person responsible for the inherent weaknesses of another, just -because his action has stirred certain hidden symptoms to life. You -might just as well scold me if I gave a tea-party, and somebody with -advanced consumption got a cold at it, and died off. The disease was -in him, not in me or my tea-party. And moral suffering is the symptom -of a sort of moral phthisis. Only the diseased can suffer. So, as -long as my actions are sane and healthy in themselves, you must not -call them names if they happen to stumble on weak spots and corns in -other people’s natures. I never knew the corns were there. I simply -went my way. Everyone has a right to. Everyone must. And one is only -responsible to one’s self, and only responsible for one’s self. So much -for your accusation of hurting other people.’ - -‘I never heard anything so callous in my life. If you were as bad as -your words you would be a perfect fiend. But, mercifully, everyone in -the world is better than their words, and worse than their thoughts.’ - -‘Ah! you are a sentimentalist, Kingston. I am a realist.’ - -‘Everyone thinks himself that. The only difference between the -sentimentalist and the realist is that the sentimentalist’s reality is -warm and beautiful, while the realist’s is glacial and hideous. And -they are neither of them real realities, either. The real reality has -something of both, and a great deal more than either or both together. -Each view is only a glimpse of the great whole.’ - -‘Yes; that’s not a bad idea. However old one may grow or think one’s -self, one remains astonishingly much of a baby in the face of the -immensities. I suppose to take any point of view is childish. One ought -to take them all together, all at once--be a drunkard and a teetotaler -and a bishop and a butcher and a thief and a saint all at one moment in -one’s own person. That is the only way to get the perfect knowledge. -And that, I suppose, is what the idea of God is. To understand -everything by being everything. However, as that is so, I don’t think -one need be ashamed of being a baby with lop-sided, partial, babyish -views and fanaticisms.’ - -‘Perhaps not. But you seemed to be proud of it. There is a great -difference between being proud and not being ashamed.’ - -‘Yes, Kingston, there is. And I admit it. And I give in. And I am -defeated. And I want my tea. And I will try to behave prettily. And be -an altruist with the tea-cake instead of an individualist.’ - -Concessions occasionally mollify. But Isabel made hers so abruptly, -so flippantly that it seemed as if she threw up the battle not -conscientiously, but because she no longer thought it worth the trouble -of fighting. Irritation swept over Kingston at being thus cheated -like a child--played with, flouted, and put by as soon as the game -had begun to weary the older player. His little victory lost all its -satisfaction. He attributed his exasperation entirely to the impudent -frivolity of Isabel and not at all to any underlying eagerness and -enjoyment that he might have been beginning to develop in the dialogue. -Outraged reasonableness swelled his demeanour as he turned in silence -and led the way towards the Castle. Suddenly he felt a hand on his arm. - -‘Do be friends,’ said Isabel softly and earnestly. ‘We have been -friends for such ages in the past, I expect, that it would be a pity to -begin badly in the present. I am only a barbarian, not a venomous toad. -So do be friends.’ - -‘Do you really want to be?’ asked Kingston abruptly. - -‘Yes,’ said Isabel--‘yes,’ she repeated slowly, as if surprised at -herself. - -‘Soberly and seriously?’ inquired her cousin. ‘I mean, is it a thing -you honestly want? I thought you cared about nobody’s opinion.’ - -‘I didn’t,’ she answered, ‘and I don’t. And yet just this I do care -for. I want you to be friends with me. In my heart I am friends with -you already--greater friends than I could ever have believed. Why -should I be, why should I want to be? I have no idea. Well, what do you -say?’ - -‘Yes, if you will,’ replied Kingston. ‘Why shouldn’t we be friends? We -count as cousins.’ - -‘You don’t like me yet, of course,’ said Isabel calmly. ‘But, then, -nobody does at first. All I want is that you shouldn’t be hostile and -stick out bristles and resist. The rest will come.’ - -Kingston’s consciousness was in a whirl. He knew that he thoroughly -disliked this saucer-eyed, eager creature. Everything she said and did -aroused in him pulses of animosity so keen as to be almost physical. -On the other hand, in some strange way, she allured, fascinated, -excited him. She led his instincts captive, while his judgment went -charging down upon her undaunted. Irritating though she might be, she -was neither stodgy nor boring. His mind seemed to pringle under her -influence, fiercely yet thrillingly, like a numb, constricted limb -awakening from its sleep. Compared to Gundred, she was as brandy to -milk. Of course Kingston loved the milk and loathed the brandy. But -loathsome though it might be, he could not deny that the brandy was -more potent, more stirring, more exciting than the milk. Since the -brandy was forcing itself into his cup, there was no need to throw it -roughly away; he might sip, under protest, now and then, without danger -of contracting any disloyal craving for brandy instead of milk. - -‘Very well,’ he said; ‘let us be friends, Isabel. One can’t control -one’s love or liking. But everything comes to those who wait. So we -will be friends.’ - -His candour pleased her. - -‘Control?’ she said. ‘Our feelings control _us_, if they are real -feelings. The only real feelings are those that are uncontrollable.’ - -‘I am the son of many generations of unreal feelings then. There are no -love stories in my quiet family--at least, only one, and that was a mad -freak.’ - -‘There are no others in mine,’ said Isabel, ‘except hate stories, -perhaps. And I suppose they are the same thing, only turned wrong way -out.’ - -‘I believe that real love is quite calm and level, you know,’ explained -Kingston. ‘Your great blazing stories are built of passion, not of -love. A big love is very quiet, and goes on peacefully from day to day, -almost monotonous in its imperceptible development.’ - -‘It sounds too like the kingdom of heaven to be very satisfactory on -earth,’ said Isabel. - -‘Anyhow,’ replied Kingston, hotly defending what nobody had attacked; -‘I say that the happy concert of lives and marriages--ideal lives and -marriages--is based on tranquil harmonies, not on melodramatic chords.’ - -Isabel smiled quietly. ‘Why are we talking about love?’ she asked. ‘It -was friendship we were settling on.’ - -He made no reply, and they entered the Castle. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -The friendship between Kingston and Isabel did not progress apace. -Its development was jerky, uneven, unsatisfactory. Kingston was at -once restrained and spurred on by resentment. He resented the fact of -the friendship, was perpetually reluctant, suspicious, filled with a -strange, alert uneasiness. Isabel, for her part, found the relation -less careless and smooth than her friendships usually were. It brought -an usually poignant satisfaction, and, in revenge, an unusually -poignant feeling of strain and annoyance at Kingston’s refusal to -meet her half-way. Normally she should not have cared a straw--by all -her rules she did not care a straw--yet, none the less, the guarded -hostility with which he met her advances stimulated and exasperated her -to the point of defiance. - -The two women did not find, as their acquaintance grew, that any -intimacy ripened between them. Gundred retained her desire to keep -Isabel by her side as a foil, but not even the ardour that the -contrast was to keep alive in Kingston could quite reconcile her to -the mental eccentricities and untidinesses of Isabel. In Gundred’s -mind nothing was ever disorderly or misplaced; second-hand ideas lay -neatly labelled in rows; the chaos of Isabel’s thoughts, her incessant -flurry of pursuit after some wild notion or other, her ransackings -of her intellectual store to find some lost fancy, to run down some -far-fetched theory, were so many evidences, to Gundred, of her cousin’s -unmethodical, ill-balanced nature. All thought, to Gundred, was clear, -simple, obvious; she never entertained any opinion that had not been -sanctioned by fashion and much previous use; she could not imagine why -anyone should accept new notions, much less go wild-goose-chasing them -up and down the cloudy domain of ideas. What had been thought before -by wise, good teachers was quite good enough for her; to want more, to -ask questions, to test ‘truths’ by reason, seemed forward, ill-bred, -and unwomanly. She put down all Isabel’s vagaries of mind to her -disastrous colonial education, and believed at first that a few weeks’ -association with ‘nice people’--the nice people being, in the context, -herself--would cure her cousin of such vagabond tendencies. So by -smiles and indifference she repressed Isabel’s ebullitions; and when -she found that her conduct had no effect beyond excluding herself from -the conversation, she resigned herself calmly to the inevitable. - -Irritated at first by Isabel’s mental jumps and flights, Gundred, -after her attempts at repression had failed, grew tired and bored, -made no effort to follow her cousin’s mental movements, and, with a -mildly reproving air which nobody noticed, stood graciously aloof from -Isabel’s dialogues with Kingston. She let them talk, and, by way of -tacitly rebuking her cousin, ostentatiously ceased to take any interest -in what they said. - -With Kingston, as was inevitable, this course insensibly began to -shift her relationship. As the days went by, he talked more and more -to Isabel, until by degrees she became insensibly the target for -everything he said. Imperceptibly he grew to ignore his wife, thanks to -the attitude that she assumed. However, she was perfectly, increasingly -happy. For, as his intellectual intimacy with Isabel advanced, he grew -more and more the warm lover of his wife. And she, the apparently cold -and ethereal, by the irony of her own limitations, came at last to base -the triumph of her wifehood on the strength of her husband’s embraces. -His raptures, his compliments, his kisses, grew in number and ardour; -she had her heart’s desire. No thought of jealousy could ever have -approached her; for intellectual intimacy she had no taste, no wish. -As long as she had Kingston’s arms, Isabel was perfectly welcome to a -monopoly of his tongue. She, Gundred, was his wife, and nothing could -alter the glory of that. She triumphed in the successful development of -their relations. - -That men like to chatter and overflow and sweat off in talk the -superfluous energy of their minds she knew to be an accepted fact. -Some women are born for men to talk to, but the ultimate triumph -belongs to the wife, the woman who orders the man’s dinner, sees to -his comforts, has him for her property at bed and board. As long as -his body remains faithful and loyal, who cares where his undisciplined -mind may go roving from hour to hour? So Gundred was glad to compound -for Kingston’s increasing affection by welcoming the distractions in -which his mind indulged, and even, in the rare moments when she could -divert her attention from her own bliss, was vaguely sorry for Isabel, -reduced to so poor and undignified a rôle as that of wash-pot to the -intellectual offscourings of a married man. But Isabel, after all, -had brought the humiliation on herself, and Gundred soon returned -to the contemplation of the mastery which she had established over -her husband’s affection by providing him with someone to talk to. -Wifely tact, she felt, had been splendidly justified. She never -stopped to consider that the means by which she had achieved her end -in themselves betrayed the disastrous weakness of her position. Her -idea of temptation was limited to physical allurements; husbands, she -knew, were only led away by bad, beautiful women, never by untidy, -talkative ones. Her position was absolutely safe and dominant; the more -freely her husband’s mind was allowed to wander and kick up its heels, -the more securely was her husband’s body bound in the bonds of its -allegiance. Infidelity is only a matter of the flesh. Without physical -desire there can be no adultery. - -So passed the remaining days of their stay at Brakelond. Then the three -removed to Ivescar, and, with the setting, the colour of the whole -drama changed. Human life and death was the keynote of Brakelond; -its Castle seemed built and mortared with the tears and tragedies of -innumerable generations. Every stone was permeated with the history -of ten thousand men and women, who, through eight centuries, had -brought to bear upon the building the fire and fury of their individual -existences. Outside the walls rolled down the skirt of forest, and -below lay the sea; but forest and sea were subordinate in the scheme, -decorations and embroideries on the main theme. And the main theme was -the incessant human note that resounded in every detail of the old -tragic Castle. - -At Ivescar, on the other hand, man was a new-comer, an accident, -a thing irrelevant and even incongruous. High up in its narrow -mountain-valley lay the house, amid a plantation of stunted, wind-swept -pines. It had the air of having been put there, not of having grown. -Brakelond had sprung and waxed from the rock it stood on; it was the -last crowning development of the land it dominated. Ivescar was an -artificial product, unrelated to the soil, the work of alien brains and -alien natures. Twenty centuries might pass over it without bringing it -into any closer kindred with its surroundings, without softening the -raw, crude note of novelty that it would always strike among the solemn -eternal hills. It was a large sandstone building, of the most solid -Early-Victorian Tudor design, as Isabel’s instinct had foretold. In the -middle rose a big square tower, finished off with a stone lacework of -circles and spikes. It had a flagstaff, a cupola with a bell in it, and -a huge conservatory that had been put there because it was expensive to -set up, and now remained there because it would be expensive to remove. -On three sides of it stretched a bare lawn, and on the fourth its -less honourable quarters were shrouded in sparse plantation, created -at great outlay, with much difficulty and no success. The one level -space of ground in the glen had been picked out, all its irregularities -trimmed away, and the pretence of a park elaborately maintained under -the mountain-slopes that rose stark and stern on either side. A little -river struggled down from the end of the valley, and found its way -among stones and mosses through the young woodland. Where it passed -within sight of the house, at the other side of the flat lawn, it had -been civilized and sedulously constrained into decorum. Its banks had -been widened, made uniform and flat. Dammed at one end, it had been -made to stretch out into a square shallow lake, whose grey and steely -surface reflected the staring yellow of the house against the grey -hills and sky behind, with a dreariness impossible to conceive. Coarse, -rank grasses grew along its margin, and its shoals, malodorous and -muddy, were abristle with melancholy rushes. - -Behind and on either side of Ivescar rose the fells--steep slopes of -grass and scree, carrying up to the white precipices that hemmed the -little valley in. High above these again, but out of sight, rose the -mass of the great mountains, each standing on its plinth of limestone. -Here and there the line of a wall betrayed the existence of humanity, -but otherwise, except for the house in its artificial wood, with its -artificial lawn and lake, the landscape utterly ignored the world -of men. It was grand, primeval, solitary, remote from all the small -mortal concerns of life. As it had been since the dawn of history, -so it remained to-day. Peoples had come and gone, dynasties towered -and crashed; but the little glen under the shadow of the Simonstone -had wrought out its own fate untroubled by the clatter and tinkle of -collapsing empires. Silent and serene as it stood, the finger of man -had never scarred its tranquillity, the voice of man had never broken -into the current of its dream. And yet, in the midst of this immortal -solitude, the fancy of a rich manufacturer had planted this insolent -mushroom of a house, this brazen assertion of a fact which the hills -had always chosen to ignore, though Celt and Saxon, Dane and Norman had -vainly striven to enforce it on their consciousness, as they fought -out their ephemeral fights across the flanks of Ravensber, or made -their settlement on the flat crown of the Simonstone. The valley and -the mountains had taken their unruffled course. Had the house been -less clamorous, the assault on their notice less insistent, they might -in time have come to assimilate the signs and the presence of man. A -quieter dwelling might insensibly have melted into their scheme, have -been merged into the vast individuality of the hills. But Ivescar was -too flaunting, too blatant, too eternally new. It compelled attention, -was an unceasing penny-whistle across the great harmony of silence. -And so, unable to make Ivescar one with themselves, the mountains -took the only other course, refusing all compromise, and forced the -incongruity of the building upon the world’s notice, by the blank -contempt with which they ignored it. Their unnoticing disdain made -its yellow stones, its pretentious tower appear even more undignified -than ever, emphasizing every detail of their parvenu richness, their -uneasy vulgarity. Man at Brakelond was the dominant note of Castle and -country; here the note was an isolated discord. Man was nothing, his -works an offence, amid the enormous loneliness of the fells. - -Gundred, however, found herself warmly approving of Ivescar. True, the -country just round was “dreadfully black and barren, very ugly and -uncultivated”; but the house was roomy, airy, warm, comfortable, quite -suitable and pleasant in every way. It would hold plenty of people, and -had been built with an eye to the convenience of house-parties. Carpets -and curtains and cushions were all opulent and softly luxurious. They -compared well, to her taste, with the bare floors, the flags, the -worn matting of Brakelond. She resolved on a few improvements, but, on -the whole, was very well satisfied. A building produced by one mind -may, perhaps, have a less complicated personality, a simpler sense of -unity, than one built up by the varying tastes of twenty succeeding -generations. Ivescar was plain and direct in scheme. There was a good -collection of pictures, bought, all together, by James Darnley from -the previous owner, who had accumulated them because he imagined it a -suitable thing to do; otherwise Ivescar was tormented by no ambitions -whatever, artistic or dramatic. It only aimed, with a good-humoured -whole-heartedness, at being altogether comfortable. Gundred entered -into its spirit, and in an environment so congenial her abandonment -of all attempt to share in conversation with Kingston and Isabel -became at once more complete and less noticeable. She passed into -entire absorption in the details of daily life, lost any wish to be -in touch with intellectual life, took the colour of her surroundings -so perfectly that neither she herself nor the others realized how -completely she had withdrawn from their company. - -As for Isabel, the exasperating vividness of the woman leapt into more -violent relief than ever against the smug complacency of Ivescar. At -Brakelond Isabel had been a part of the place; her individuality had -toned in with all the other individualities that had gone to make up -Brakelond. As one organ note is inconspicuous among a crowd of other -organ notes, so Isabel’s nature had there been merged in a crowd of -other similar natures. Here, however, at Ivescar the organ note of -her personality sounded harsh and tremendous, almost terrifying, amid -the clacking babble of mediocrity for ever kept up by the house. Only -trifling, futile people had had part in the building and the life of -Ivescar; their influence had left the place a pleasant little chorus -of tinkling inanities; and, by contrast, the fierce song of Isabel’s -nature rose dominant, tyrannous, obliterating all the lesser voices -around. - -Kingston by degrees began to notice the disappearance of his wife and -the supremacy of her cousin in his mind. Occasionally he showed a -dim foreknowledge of the inevitable by brief spasms of anger against -Isabel, by fruitless attempts to carry Gundred with them in their -flights. But by now Gundred’s mental immobility had begun to be an -annoyance to him, and he was always glad to relinquish his efforts and -fall back into the familiar swing of dialogue with Isabel. The faint -air of greatness which for a time had been reflected on Gundred from -the walls of Brakelond had now faded utterly. She was swallowed up -in household details, could be seen meditating on ‘menus’ while the -most fantastic notions were flying swiftly between her husband and her -cousin. Her life was now consumed in coping with the cook; she was -completely happy in her task, and it was with growing readiness and -growing wrath that Kingston let her drop from his mental intimacy. -She filled up time by talks with her mother-in-law, who had a dower -house down the valley. The somewhat woolly mind of Lady Adela was very -congenial to Gundred, and her small, clear-cut nature found it both -harmonious and restful--like her own, though so utterly unlike. The two -women took refuge in each other; and Gundred, taken up by the house -and Lady Adela, would not have had the leisure, even had she had the -acumen, to remark how completely she was passing out of her husband’s -life. - -‘Is the house insured?’ asked Isabel one morning. Kingston and she were -sitting together under the long wall of the picture-gallery. - -‘I don’t know,’ he answered; ‘I always forget things like that. My -dear,’ he cried, calling to his mother, who had walked up across the -fields with her knitting, and now had established herself in one of the -cushioned window-seats close to Gundred, who was methodically checking -a Stores List--‘my dear, is the house insured?’ - -Lady Adela answered in the affirmative, and Gundred made haste to -clutch her share in a conversation that she could understand, by -swiftly affirming that, if not, it ought to be at once. - -‘Otherwise one feels it such a responsibility to live in a house--yes?’ -she added. - -‘I don’t like betting and gambling,’ replied Isabel, assuming a manner -of exaggerated rectitude. - -‘My dear!’ protested Lady Adela, looking mildly up at her over her -spectacles. If Lady Adela could dislike anyone, she disliked her -daughter-in-law’s new cousin. Deep in her heart she condemned Isabel as -strong-minded. Tiresome and strong-minded. - -‘It’s a gamble with Fate, you know,’ explained Isabel; ‘all insurance -is, of course--having a bet on with the Almighty that He won’t burn -down your house or throw your train off the rails.’ - -‘My dear!’ protested Lady Adela again. - -‘You have such strange fancies, Isabel,’ said Gundred coldly. ‘You -always think of things that no one else would think of.’ - -Clearly, as delivered in Gundred’s neat, precise tones, this was the -final expression of righteous disapproval. - -‘My feet must be extraordinarily small,’ said Isabel to Kingston. -‘I seem to be always putting them into it. They go into the most -incredibly tiny loopholes. I don’t believe I could walk across the lid -of a pepper-pot without putting my foot into it somehow.’ She stuck out -both her feet in front of her, and gazed at them dispassionately. - -The action may have been an instinctive appeal for admiration. The -feet, though large, were beautifully shaped, with a suggestion of -strength and swiftness in their lines. But Kingston angrily compelled -himself to notice that they overlapped their shoes, that one shoe had -lost its buckle, and that the stocking above each descended in wrinkles -that betrayed a weakness in the matter of suspenders. - -‘Cover them up,’ he said. ‘Mine eyes dazzle.’ - -‘They haven’t died young yet, though,’ replied Isabel, finishing the -quotation. ‘Perhaps they will, though--the feet, I mean.’ - -‘Why do you ask about insurance, Isabel?’ - -‘I was thinking that you might welsh the Powers that be, and burn the -house down, and get the money to build a decent one. This great garish -glassy palace is not a bit at home here among the hills. You want -something sombre and quiet and self-sufficient as they are--something -that will be at ease with them. This house of yours is about as much -at ease among the hills as a brewer’s wife having tea with half a -dozen Dowager-Empresses. You want a building that won’t be fussy and -assertive.’ - -‘Then want must be my master. You have the most placid way of -suggesting things. Do you always get what you want yourself, quite -irrespective of the means?’ - -‘What is the use of wanting things,’ said Isabel defiantly, ‘if one -doesn’t get them? One might as well never want them.’ - -‘But what about other people? If they object? If you can only win over -their dead bodies?’ - -‘Oh, they must look out for themselves. Every herring must hang by its -own tail. It is everybody’s business to get what they want. If they can -prevent me from doing as I wish, why, then they may; and if they can’t, -well, I romp in; and if they get in my way while I am doing it, why, -so much the worse for them. They go under.’ - -‘There’s your crude individualism again,’ protested Kingston. Then he -turned to his wife, determined to bring her into the dialogue. She was -soberly conversing with Lady Adela over the Stores List. - -‘Are you an individualist, Gundred?’ asked her husband. ‘Isabel’s a -terror; she has no respect for other people.’ - -Gundred finished her sentence calmly. - -‘Besides, they say that spotted ones are bad for the eyesight,’ she -concluded, then prepared to answer her husband. ‘What did you say, -dear? Of course one must respect other people, or how are other people -to do the same to us?’ - -Unlike Kingston, Isabel was inclined to resent her cousin’s invasion. - -‘Oh, Gundred doesn’t count,’ she cried. ‘Gundred’s a civilized woman. -Now, you and I are only pagans, Kingston.’ - -‘My dear, dear child,’ exclaimed Lady Adela, unspeakably distressed, -‘Kingston is nothing of the kind, I am sure!’ - -‘Don’t trouble about Isabel,’ explained Gundred. ‘She is always talking -nonsense--yes? Nobody ever cares what she says. Go on talking to -Kingston, Isabel, but really you must not interrupt us any more. We -have our duties, Kingston, and you idle people must not disturb us.... -Dear Lady Adela, do you really think we want a dozen of those common -table-cloths?’ - -Kingston and Isabel were silent for a moment, listening to Gundred’s -conversation with her mother-in-law. - -‘Well, I always believe it is best in the long run to get rather too -much than too little,’ replied Lady Adela, pondering the question. - -‘Besides,’ amended Gundred, with a more cheerful air, ‘they might -give one discount on a quantity.’ Nothing should induce her to waste -the superabundant Darnley wealth. She licked the tip of her pencil, -prepared to tick off table-clothes with a lavish hand. - -‘Would you say at eight and six each, or at nine shillings?’ she asked -anxiously, poising the pencil in indecision. - -‘Oh, for the servants, my dear, eight and six will be ample. They wear -out their things in no time. It is quite shameful that they should -be wanting new ones already. I got them a whole supply only the year -before last.’ - -Gundred cluck-clucked. - -‘Dear, dear,’ she said, ‘that Mrs. Bosket must really be a very -careless woman--yes? And she tells me that new sheets are wanted as -well--sheets and pillow-cases, dear mamma.’ - -‘My child, how truly dreadful!’ answered Lady Adela. ‘You must -certainly keep a close eye on Mrs. Bosket, though I do trust the poor -thing is honest.’ - -‘Oh, perfectly, and most obliging, but not equal to responsibility. -One so often finds that in a household. And it is so important to have -an efficient head--yes? I feel that one cannot safely leave her the -ordering of things like this, for instance. I have to do it myself.’ - -Had she had ten housekeepers--had she been the daughter of two -reigning sovereigns--Gundred would still have insisted on ordering the -table-cloths herself. It was her nature, but she made a virtue of her -nature’s necessity, and fell to weighing the comparative merits of -pillow-cases at half a crown and at three and six. Half a crown was -eventually fixed on. - -Isabel looked at Kingston. She saw that Gundred’s dialogue had -irritated him. Why his annoyance was so keen she hardly knew. He -himself would have been puzzled to account for it. Her eyes triumphed -as she watched him, and obviously rejoiced at the defeat of his effort -to pull Gundred into their talk. - -‘That’s all you are likely to get out of Gundred for an hour or two,’ -she murmured. - -‘Martha is a much more pleasant, useful person than tiresome, -head-in-the-air Mary,’ he flashed back at her resentfully. - -‘Especially to talk to,’ replied Isabel mildly. ‘As a matter of fact, -a man wants both sorts--a Martha-wife and a Mary-wife: the Martha-wife -to air the beds and order the dinner, and the Mary-wife to look at and -talk to. Most of the tragedies in history have arisen from a man’s -failure to get the two in one person. Lucky men have an aunt or a -sister, as well as a wife, to fill the second part; but generally a -man either has a Mary-wife who talks brilliantly, but feeds him on -cold mutton, or a Martha-wife who will order a good dinner, but can -only talk about the servants. And then he looks round for someone -to think about meals, while Mary discusses the soul; or to discuss -the soul while Martha is interviewing the cook. And then there are -complications. The whole system is wrong. People ought to be much freer -to get what they like.’ - -Kingston resented Isabel’s tranquil description of the Martha-wife. -It had nothing to do with any case they knew of. To talk about it was -silly impertinence. - -‘Individualism again,’ he answered. ‘You are an anarchist, Isabel, like -all egoists. Anarchy never pays in the long run.’ - -‘No,’ admitted Isabel, ‘one has to pay for it in the long run, of -course. But until the bill comes in one has a good time--quite worth -the price one has to give.... Ask the lady behind you. There is -a triumphant instance of the Mary-wife, and the egoist, and the -individualist, all in one. She died for it at last, but she had all she -wanted while she lived. That is me; I’ll die gladly, but I mean to have -all I want till then.’ - -Kingston turned to look at the picture to which Isabel pointed. From a -background as dark as her end there smiled out at him, enigmatically, -whimsically, the face, so much more prudish than passionate, of a woman -so much more passionate than prudish--the face of Anne, “Marquis” of -Pembroke, concubine and Queen. - -‘So there is your model,’ he answered her contemptuously. ‘Well, she -had her way, and her way led her to the block on Tower Green.’ - -‘Let it. What does that matter? It had led her first over the scarlet -cloth of a throne. The price was heavy, yes, but she always knew it -would be. I expect she was even glad to die at last, and have rest, and -be out of all her glorious, dreadful suspense. And the splendour she -bought was worth it. What do I care for the bill I may have to settle -some day? If I want a thing, that means I intend to have it. Do you -think a beggarly consideration of economy would stop me? Thank Heavens, -I am not a miser. Why, to haggle over Fate’s account would be like -Gundred wrestling for a twopenny discount off a pillow-case. No, Queen -Anne and I know better, don’t we, your Grace?’ - -Isabel rose and stared into the picture. The pursed lips, the sly, -slanting eyes beneath their demure lids, responded mysteriously to -her gaze. This was not the woman that Holbein drew in the last hours -of her tragedy, weary, worn, and haggard; this was the Queen of his -earlier paintings, as he and Lucas Cornelisz saw her in the radiance of -triumphant battle, the fierce adventuress-soul that, with nothing in -her favour--neither beauty nor position nor wealth--and with everything -against her in the fight--a kingdom, a wife, a Church--yet by sheer -force of brilliancy, courage, and charm, fought her way at last, -through the wreckage of a religion, to the throne of a Queen. - -‘Your Grace,’ said Isabel, ‘you and I are friends. You were a pagan -like me. What you wanted nothing could stop you from getting, neither -armies of enemies nor any silly dread of the price to pay at the end.’ - -‘I wish you joy of your friend,’ said Kingston, filled with -inexplicable hostility. ‘Ask her what she thought of it all at the -end; ask her what she felt that last night at Greenwich, when the -King had deserted her, when she was still treated as Queen by people -bowing and backing and saying “Your Grace” to her, who in their hearts -were all stealthy enemies from whom there was no escape (with bets -among themselves as to when her head would be off and a new Queen -crowned); when she had to be brave and royal among all those crowding -black, invisible dangers, under the descending shadow of the axe. -Don’t you think she wished then that she had not been such a pitiless -individualist? Don’t you think she wished then that she had been -allowed to live and die plain Lady Northumberland?’ - -‘Brave and royal you were, your Grace,’ cried Isabel to the picture. -‘You never regretted, did you? If you had, you would have been a poor -lath-and-plaster creature, unworthy of what you did. Your nerves gave -way for an hour or so. They had been at full stretch for three terrible -years of crowned suspense. So it was no wonder they snapped just for a -moment in your fall. But it was not death you were afraid of; it was -just the crash and the dying. You were a Queen at heart. You fought for -your life as a Queen, and in the end it was as a Queen you died. Nobody -else, not even in that strong, brutal time, died in such an exaltation -of gladness.’ - -‘An egoist should not be an idealist as well,’ protested Kingston. -‘You make too pompous a song about a peddling adventuress put -shamefully out of the way by a political job.’ - -‘Take care,’ cried Isabel. ‘When I knew her Grace, she was not a lady -to be spoken lightly of. Her enemies only killed her because they did -not dare to let her live. Even her worst enemies dreaded her cleverness -and her courage. And her dying words must have taken the skin off her -husband’s back when he heard them. The demure gentleness of them, the -vitriolic irony of them! You may have been “spiteful, flighty, and -undignified,” your Grace, but you were splendid, terrible, indomitable. -And you must have been marvellously charming when you chose, you plain, -prudish-looking creature with six fingers and the devil’s temper. -There’s a Mary-wife for you, to hold the interest and curiosity of -the King, while his poor good Martha of a Katherine was everlastingly -saying her beads and hemming shirts.’ - -‘My dear Isabel, I tell you that the song of history is “Pay, pay, -pay.” If you want to follow Anne Boleyn, you must follow her all along -the road.’ - -‘My dear Kingston, history may sing “Pay, pay, pay,” but it sings to -deaf ears when it tries to impose its twaddling threat on well-bred -souls. Only stupid, parvenu people ever think of reckoning up the cost -of anything beforehand. It’s the hall-mark of recent wealth to be -sparing of its pence. One does not bother about such things. One buys -first, and only asks the price when the time comes to pay the bill.’ - -‘And then the price may make you bankrupt.’ - -‘Oh no. Fate’s bills are paid in courage, and I hope one would never -be bankrupt of that. I think I shall always be able to settle up. One -plunges, like Queen Anne. Your Grace did not stop to haggle. You and -I go boldly forward, order what we want from the Stores of Life, and -don’t give a thought to discounts and reductions and Summer Sales. And -then, when the time comes, we fork up with a will, and pay out our -uttermost penny.’ - -For a moment Kingston did not answer her. He stood looking into the -secretive face of the Queen. Gundred’s voice broke the silence. - -‘I know where one can get them at two and six,’ she was heard remarking -in her clear, level tones. - -‘There’s Queen Katherine arranging the household,’ laughed Isabel, -with insolent regardless frankness, ‘and here is Queen Anne ordering a -crown across the counter of life. No discount asked, and only the best -required.’ - -Kingston looked at her with rage in his eyes. She was always saying -crude things like that--things that roused in him swift opposition -and dislike. Yet he remained helpless, as if bound by a spell. And -her indifference to everyone’s opinion was so profound, her scorn of -conventions so sincere that no reproach could be brought home to her. -She had no common standard for measurement by the rules of the world. -One might as well have attempted to reprove a savage for going naked, -or an Englishwoman for going clothed. - -‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I hope your bill will be as heavy as Queen -Anne’s; then we shall see how you behave when it comes to paying for -it.’ - -‘But perhaps I have not really decided what I shall order from the -shop-keeper?’ - -‘Oh, well, I neither know nor care,’ replied Kingston savagely. ‘And -you don’t seem to have the decent instincts of the real honest buyer, -either. From the anarchistic things you were saying a few minutes ago, -I should have thought you would have been a shop-lifter, pure and -simple, going in and stealing whatever you wanted, without a thought of -paying for it.’ - -This time he had touched her. She flushed. - -‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘When it comes to the big things of life, I am as -honest as the day. Love and hope and so on I should expect and intend -to pay the top price for--pay it thoroughly to the last farthing, -sooner or later. I am only an anarchist in little things. I might -steal for a fancy, and assert my individualism for a whim, but really, -really, Queen Anne hasn’t a thought of bilking when she orders her -crown. Whatever I buy I shall pay good money for, Kingston--pay it -ungrudgingly, if I have to die for it.’ - -Her earnest face, as she turned it to his, burning and eager, had a -strange fascination. He turned roughly away towards his wife. - -‘We are talking about Anne Boleyn,’ he cried, raising his voice to -penetrate Gundred’s attention--‘how she had her fun, and then paid the -money.’ - -‘And nine is twenty-one,’ answered Gundred, completing her sentence -in mechanical tones.... ‘What, dear? Oh yes, Anne Boleyn, poor little -thing! so dreadfully treated by her husband. The first martyr of the -Church of England.... And now, about prunes, mamma?’ - -Kingston, angry and disappointed, turned again to Isabel. Primly, -inscrutably, Queen Anne smiled down upon them from the wall. She had -heard about that martyrdom before. She knew better. She had been the -martyr of ambition, not of dogma; she sold her life for a crown, not -by any means for a faith. And she thought her martyrdom the grander. -In her passionate mysterious heart she pondered Isabel’s brave -declaration, and wondered whether the modern woman, too, would be -content to pay her debt, when the time should come, for the big things -she had ordered at the counter of Fate. Beneath the riddle of her -smile Kingston and Isabel fell once more a-talking, while across the -room Gundred was still ticking off groceries, and exchanging plans of -household economy with her mother-in-law. - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -‘Yes, very, very pretty,’ said Gundred approvingly. ‘No sugar, thank -you.’ - -Delicately, with neatly-lifted little finger, she raised her cup and -sipped. From top to toe she was the fine flower of deportment, and -her manner exhaled a mild consciousness of being the perfect model of -decorum for the country neighbour on whom she was conferring the honour -of a call. The afternoon being brilliantly fine, Lady Adela had wished -to take her daughter-in-law to call on some intimate friends of hers, -proprietors of a celebrated view, who lived on the other side of the -lowland valley that stretched beneath the glen of Ivescar. Gundred was -happy in the opportunity of exacting provincial approval, and, against -everyone’s wishes, including his own, Kingston had insisted that he -and Isabel should join the polite pilgrimage. Accordingly the landau -had duly sallied forth with its burden of four, and after more than an -hour’s drive through the soft country beneath the hills, had brought -them to their destination. Now, on the famous terrace of Blakebank, -Gundred sat full in the light of her hostess’s admiration, consuming -cakes and tea with her usual crisp yet ethereal daintiness. - -‘The lights on the hills!’ cried Mrs. Norreys ecstatically, anxious -that Mrs. Darnley should appreciate the full beauty of the prospect. - -‘Delightfully pretty,’ replied Gundred, casting a comprehensive glance -across the world. ‘One quite envies you, Mrs. Norreys. We have no -view like this at Ivescar. A charming place to have tea, out on this -terrace. Oh, thank you. How greedy I am!--yes? But this air makes one -so famished, and these little cakes of yours, so delightful.’ - -With a sweet smile Gundred accepted a second cake, and devoted her -whole attention to its decent consumption. - -In front of Blakebank the ground sloped away sharply to the river -far down below. Dense woodland filled the hollow in which the water -flowed, and rose again in a blue foaming mass on the farther side of -the valley. Thence the eye followed undulation after undulation of -meadow and copse, fields of soft green, plumed hedgerows, a placid -country full of opulent peace. The foreground of the picture was formed -by a strip of meadow beneath the terrace that dropped in a steep brow -towards the woods. Here the grass was hidden and gilded by a sheet of -buttercups, and the pure ardour of their gold was touched to a keener -fire by the shafts of sunlight that slanted across them. Beyond their -blaze lay the voluminous splendours of the woodland, dull and heavy in -sullen shadow. For the day had its sharp notes of contrast. The air -was leaden and lurid, dazzling, here and there, with a golden rain of -sunlight, and here and there, again, made sombre by thunderous masses -of cloud. Huge curling crags of purple and silver rolled and towered -above the world, and the sky was opalescent with a hundred shifting -colours. The landscape, drowsy and complacent, was transfigured into -something mystic and dreamy. From the poignant glory of gold in the -foreground the eye wandered on over the steamy blueness of the woods, -over the rippling waves of vaporous green and blue that filled the -valley, to where, seeming very far away across the glamour, the great -rampart of the hill-country lay high against the faint rosy lights of -the north. The lowering air, the sleepy, fantastic colours of the day, -seemed to remove things distant to another world, and the mountains, -dim, misty in shades of amethyst and azure, hardly appeared distinct -from the ranges of cloud amid which they faintly loomed. Far away, far -above the valleys, they lay in crests and billows of dreamland along -the border of a fairy world. Yet only six miles of comfortable peace -was all that lay between Gundred at her tea and those mysterious giants -in the haze. - -Full in the middle of that walled horizon, isolated on all sides, rose -the mass of the Simonstone, unrolling his apathetic splendour on the -ranges of lesser hills that formed his throne. In steep, precipitous -slopes his lines dropped abruptly to the western valley; to eastward -they trailed away in long, placid curves. The ranges of white limestone -that formed his pedestal shone dimly pink across the distance, and the -towering bulk of the mountain was lucent as a carved sapphire from -crown to base. His sheer stern western cliff, his flat summit, loomed -disdainfully over the sleepy valleys at his feet; and his presence, -serene and enormous, ruled the whole country with the inevitable weight -of its majesty. Steep glens in the range divided him from the heights -to either side; he stood out the conspicuous tyrant of the horizon. -Away to the right, over a range of smaller fells, the leonine head of -Ravensber stood up in secondary authority, and above the western cleft -where Ivescar incongruously squatted in the undiscoverable distance, -rose the slouching back of Carnmor. But of the trinity that dominated -the hill-country, Ravensber and Carnmor, the lesser and the greater, -were both subordinate to the imperious sweep of the Simonstone. Here, -from the terrace of Blakebank, in the complete contemplation of his -grandeur, might be perceived the full grotesqueness of the insolence -that had planted Ivescar beneath the sombre glory of his shadow. From -that parvenu house itself the blatancy of the contrast was not so -evident; for Carnmor and the Simonstone were both shut out from view -by the amphitheatre of white cliffs that closed in the glen, and gave -support to their dominating mass. But to Blakebank, far away, the whole -supremacy of the hills lay revealed in all its greatness, and their -empire seemed, in the mysterious clouded lights of rose and blue, -to belong to a world that had no knowledge of man or his evanescent -doings. Gundred, meanwhile, having finished her tea, began to think -of departure. She set to work delicately drawing on her gloves and -preparing her farewells. - -‘Such a long drive--yes?’ she said; ‘I am afraid we must really be -starting, Mrs. Norreys. My husband’s aunt is coming to us to-day, and -we ought to be home in time to receive her.’ - -The carriage was ordered, and the party stood exchanging compliments -and politenesses. - -‘Such a delightful day,’ said Gundred, ‘and a drive home in the evening -so charming in weather like this--yes?’ - -‘You will have a lovely view of the hills as you go home,’ replied Mrs. -Norreys. ‘You will have them in front of you all the way. Do notice the -sunset-lights; too exquisite they are.’ - -Long habit had developed in Mrs. Norreys a proprietary manner when she -talked of the distant hills that made the attraction of her terrace. -She spoke of them as a successful actor-manager might speak of a scene -that his own great skill has contrived and arranged. - -‘Charming, charming!’ answered Gundred, with the enthusiasm which -everyone thinks it a duty to manifest for landscape, though the true -intelligent passion is so rare and sacred. - -Then the carriage was announced, and the party from Ivescar embarked on -their homeward voyage. - -Kingston and Isabel had not contributed much to the gaiety of the -entertainment. They had been possessed with the delight that Gundred -had merely expressed. To them the beauty of the world as it lay -unfolded before them had been so vast and holy as to make all comment -obtrusive and irreverent. Kingston had felt the unspoken sympathy of -Isabel’s mood, and her silence had mitigated for a time the feverish -animosity with which he regarded her. As they drove home, there was -little conversation between the four. Now and then Lady Adela made -some remark on Mrs. Norreys’ kindness, her charm, the successful -blend of her tea. But even Gundred was feeling too serene for speech. -Everything combined to make her happy. Her gown was a perfect fit, the -evening was comfortable, and she was conscious of having given her -hostess a flawless model to copy--in manners, conversation, hair, and -hat. Of course she never doubted her faultlessness or felt a qualm, -but there were moments when its lovely perfection came upon her in a -compelling wave of pleasure. She sat in a rapture of satisfaction as -the carriage whirled her home through the quiet sunset. Tea and a good -digestion assisted the placidity of her mood, and the influences of the -atmosphere collaborated to make it complete. The twilight was pink and -sweet as Gundred’s own opinion of herself. Immovably tranquil, roseate -and mild, it had the fascination of a drowsy fairy tale. Cowslip and -bean and hawthorn sent her their tribute in wafts of fragrance. She -accepted everything as her due, and felt that all the world was showing -a very proper spirit in conspiring to do her honour. - -So their road led them up and down the gentle slopes that filled the -valley with ripples of green. Sleepy old farmsteads they passed, -nestling in dense knots of verdure, and villages with their brilliant -little strips of garden. The day’s work was over, and in the clear air -rose the song of peace and rest. Only far above, over the nearing mass -of the mountains, rose stormy ranges of cloud, flushed and splendid in -purple and gold. And so at last they had done with the broad lowland, -and the road set itself to mount up towards the high glen of their -destination. Now the country changed. Below lay the wooded, feathery -richness of copse and hedgerow, meadow and pasture. Stone walls began -to replace the hedges, stiff wiry moor-grass the lush growth of the -valleys; the framework of the earth was near the surface; the soil -became a thin stretched skin, no longer a warm soft coat of flesh; -here and there the film broke, and the limestone bones protruded. So -the road wound its way to the upper levels, and climbed at last to the -glen between the hills. Far ahead of them it streamed away up towards -Ivescar--an undulating stripe of whiteness. Above, to their right, -rose, stiff and stark, a wall of white rock, shutting out from sight -the mountain above. To their left lay the narrow desolation of the -defile, a stream meandering among sparse meadows, with here and there -a bare barn or a farm surrounded by a few wind-tormented trees. And -beyond these again, towered the farther wall of the valley, another -escarpment of long limestone cliffs, which could be seen rising tier -upon tier to the first brown and violet slopes of Carnmor. The road, -hugging the western precipice, commanded a full view of the valley’s -eastern rampart, but of the cliffs overhead revealed only the first -and lowest range. This, in the sunset-light, was radiantly pink, but -the sheer rocks across the stream, cut off from the light, were grey -and grim, rising up in bank upon bank towards the moors above. No -colour touched them, no softness made them lovable. Their inhospitable, -irreconcilable sternness foreshadowed the abomination of desolation, -and gave the valley a stony, lifeless melancholy that recalled the -land that once flowed with milk and honey, but is now a wilderness of -sterile stone. - -As the road led on up the narrowing pass, so the shadows deepened -across the way of the travellers. Suddenly, however, the western wall -of cliffs overhead, now no longer touched by the sun, dipped in an -abrupt cleft; and there, very far above them, hung the sheer western -face of Simonstone. Keen, precipitous, menacing, the mass of the -mountain impended suddenly over the valley, and the apparition was -almost terrifying in its unexpectedness. Another twenty yards, and the -lower ranges would once more conceal it from view; here, for a swift -moment, it revealed its over-lordship of the glen at its feet. Behind -and over its brow high volumes of cloud stood stationary, and in the -glow of evening the mountain and all the upper air was rich with a -glamour of amethyst and hot violet. - -Gundred was dominated by this revelation, and her powers of expression -rose to the emergency. - -‘Oh, look, how pretty!--yes?’ she cried, indicating the obvious with a -neat wave of her neat hand. - -Never had her gift for inadequacy burst upon her husband in such a -terrifying flash. For a moment he could not speak. - -‘Quite good,’ he answered at last, incapable of saying more to a woman -who would have been incapable of understanding it. - -Isabel remained silent. Her eyes were fixed. Then she put out her hand -in an eager gesture to stop the carriage. - -‘Stop them, Gundred,’ she cried; ‘I want to get out. I am going up -there into the glow and the glory. I am tired of this dull grey world. -Kingston, come with me. Let us go and be gods on the heights.’ - -Gundred saw consent in her husband’s eyes. The carriage was stopped. - -‘Well, don’t be late for dinner, darlings,’ she conditioned. ‘Remember, -Aunt Minna will be arriving. Do you really think you will have time?’ - -‘What does time matter!’ exclaimed Isabel rebelliously. ‘There is no -such thing.’ - -Kingston would have liked to go alone. Gundred had just succeeded in -irritating him, he felt, to the last point of endurance. Her bland -impenetrability was nothing short of tragic. Nothing could ever teach -her what to say and what to leave unsaid, for nothing could teach -her to feel. She had the sublime elephantine tactlessness of perfect -self-satisfaction. Her husband, for one wild moment, wanted to get away -from it all--from Gundred, level, monotonous, stodgy, yet unsatisfying; -from the dear good old mother who did not count, who never could -count; from Isabel, tormenting, tantalizing, odious Isabel. To be -alone, up there in the radiance, far above the world of desire and -dissatisfactions--that would be, at least for half an hour, rest and -relief. But he was to have none; Isabel was to come, emphasizing at -every point the exasperating perfections, the exasperating limitations -of his wife. With her usual primitive clumsiness, so utterly at -variance with Gundred’s well-drilled movements, Isabel flounced out of -the carriage, alighting with a jumping flop that brought down a coil -of hair and a shower of pins. Kingston noticed that, as usual, her -placket was open. He waited in silence till she should have finished -her untidy adjustments. - -Gundred repeated her injunction. - -‘Aunt Minna will be so surprised if you are not there in time to -receive her,’ she said. ‘Do be certain that you have time, darling.’ - -Kingston forced himself to speak. ‘Ivescar is just over the hill,’ he -said. ‘We shall be there as soon as you. It will be a short cut--up one -side of the Simonstone, and down the other. Are you ready, Isabel?’ - -Yes, Isabel had finished tucking up her skirt. It was a skirt as -inadequate for visiting as for mountaineering. And now she had bunched -it up on one side to give her legs full play, and its effect was not -only incongruous, but lumpy and lopsided. However, for such matters -Isabel cared nothing. She was ready. Without another word, Kingston -turned aside and opened a gate. Together they passed through into the -field bordering the road, on their way to the copse above, that sloped -up to the limestone cliff, and so led on to the heights overhead. -Gundred watched them go. A faint, a very faint ripple of doubt trembled -across the calm waters of her self-complacency. She had the strangest, -the most ridiculous, the most unheard-of feeling that in some way she -had not been at the height of the situation. In some way, she had a dim -instinct of having failed. As the carriage drove on, she suddenly found -herself feeling a little lonely, a little cold. - -Kingston and Isabel wrestled their way to the cliff’s top, and found -themselves on a flat floor of scar limestone that led straight away -to the long, swift slope of the mountain. As if arranged by mortal -hands, the blocks of white stone made a regular pavement, like the -wrecked foundation of some Cyclopean temple. Between each block was a -deep, dark rift, where ferns and lilies of the valley, and strange -flowers with white plumy spires flourished in the shelter where no -wind could ruffle them. Together the wanderers crossed the level, -leaping and balancing lightly from rock to rock. Then heather and -sedge began to break the even surface of the paving, and soon usurped -its place altogether. Thence, to the summit, was nothing but moor and -whortleberry, steep slopes of shale and grit. Kingston and Isabel -addressed themselves resolutely to the ascent. Steep and arduous as -it was, they had neither time for breath nor talking. They climbed -strenuously, silently, taking pride in each step that proved their -mastery over the earth by lifting them steadily higher, foot by foot, -on the flank of the mountain that had seemed at first too vast to be -conquered by any movements of so infinitesimal a creature as man. -Slowly but certainly they found themselves advancing up the stark -ladder of tussock and poised boulder. Each stone that they dislodged -rolled crashing into farther depths, and at last they found themselves -moving into the cold shadow of the clouds that evening seemed to be -drawing down upon the summit. The crown of the mountain was now beyond -their sight, cut off by the fierce angle of the slope; but they could -see that the upper air was still aglow with sunlight round it, though -the volumes of dark vapour seemed to be growing and darkening. Suddenly -the acclivity took a swifter line, then paused for a moment from its -labours. Surmounting it, they found that the ground lay for a few yards -in a gentler curve, and there beyond, straight above them, was the -summit, glorious and crimsoned. A last eager voiceless effort, and they -had attained it. Around them whistled and hurtled a sharp wind, and -before stretched away the round level plain of the hill’s crown. - -It was with a sigh of relief that the climbers rested and faced round -to see the extent of their conquest. The whole world far beneath them -was misty, ardent, gorgeous in the glamour of evening. Kingston and -Isabel made their way to the ruins of the old cairn that had sent -northward the news of many centuries. Among the scattered, rough-hewn -boulders they settled themselves for an interval of repose in -achievement. Behind them rose the ruined wall of the beacon tower that -had talked, in its day, of Queen Jane and Queen Mary, of the Armada’s -coming, and the passing of the Tudors. Before them, unrolled at their -feet like a map, two thousand feet below, was all the splendour of -the earth, phantasmal and glorified--tiny towns, and the worm-like -track of great rivers, the minute tessellation of meadows, and the dim -velvet of wide forests. The whole air, before them and beneath, was -a-tremble with motes of gold. Gold filled and pervaded the atmosphere, -confounding detail in a haze of glitter, and softening the great -dazzling stretches of the western sea into an imperial harmony with the -golden heaven and the golden earth. - -Kingston Darnley looked out across the glowing mystery beneath him. -Rest, profound and eternal, seemed to be enveloping him. In reality, -the very foundations of his nature were stirred and stirring. -Insensibly, through the heat and worry of the foregoing days, his life -had been growing ripe for a great upheaval. Slowly the tormenting -desires, the incessant, unacknowledged hunger, the uneasy, restless, -emotional uncertainty, the strenuous nourishment of artificial -feelings, had all combined to bring his restless unhappiness to a head. -Through unacknowledged storm and secret stress he had come at last -to that deceptive calm which precedes the breaking up of the soul’s -settled weather--the discharge of the soul’s accumulated electricity in -a devastating nerve-cyclone. To-day his endurance of himself and his -own forced contentment had touched its limit. Gundred had given him the -last least touch that was needed to destroy the perilous equilibrium -of his mood. Unconsciously he was waiting, in a breathless interval of -suspense, for the crash of thunder that was to precipitate the crisis, -and clear the air of all its unhealthy restraints. - -Suddenly as he lay there, with Isabel silent and watchful at his side, -the glory of the world shivered coldly and vanished. A black shadow -swooped over the mountain-top, and soon only the uttermost distance -retained the glimmer of gold. Down, down upon the old cairn sank, -like the portcullis of a fairy castle, a heavy curtain of darkness, -shutting out all that was left of the gleaming distance. The cloud was -upon them. And, as their gaze was fixed on the gloom descending from -above, no less abruptly, no less silently, in grey coils and whirling -streamers the mist curled up at them from beneath, rippling and foaming -over the rim of the mountain, as a devouring wave sweeps round an islet -and over its crown. In an instant the world was blotted out by the -white darkness. Uniform, monotonous, it obliterated everything. Only -the old cairn and a few yards of ground around it could now be seen. -Kingston and Isabel were cut off from the earth, set alone as Deucalion -and Pyrrha in a new sphere, one solid point amid a vast ocean of -chaos.... - -‘So much for the glory of life,’ said Isabel. - -Kingston rose. ‘I don’t like this,’ he replied. ‘It will be the very -mischief to get down again. Come and help me find a way.’ - -Together they moved away from the old cairn into the mist. As they -went it widened before them, revealing a few dim feet of distance, -then closed in again behind. Through the drifting pearly gloom objects -were strangely magnified, made mysterious, portentous; rocks became -monsters looming through the darkness, the level crown of the mountain, -shifting fantasy of vapour. The ground beneath their feet seemed to -swirl and shift with the movement of the fog, and, now that shape -and colour had vanished from the world, an enormous crushing silence -dominated the air. Faint and melting before their eyes stretched away -the few visible yards of the flat soil, covered with short sedges, -and, among the loose piles of grit, with a thick growth of little -mountain-sorrel, whose brilliant reds and yellows had been levelled -by the blank twilight into a sombre note, as of stale blood spilled -out among the stones. Then, beyond, the solid earth wavered away -into a phantom, revealing here and there a rock or a patch of grass, -uncertainly, evanescently, as a faint, half-guessed shape, as the mist -lightened or lowered. - -So they wandered carefully on across the plane of the summit, till -suddenly, ahead of them, grim and mysterious, rose a long grey barrier -fading to right and left in the profundities of darkness. It was the -old boundary wall of the summit, built by Celtic kings in the lost ages -when the hill-top was the last great British outpost in the north. -Humped, shapeless, an indistinguishable mound of stone, the old wall -remained intact, running round the plateau in a solid ring, unbroken -except at the point where the beacon tower stood. Knowing that outside -its precinct cliffs and pitfalls awaited the unwary, Kingston and -Isabel turned, and set themselves to follow it on its circuit, hoping -to find an outlet or a path. At one point they came on a small stone -chamber built into its bulk, but no sign of gateway or track could -they discover. Now they were crossing a bare part of the summit, a -wilderness of rocky wreckage. Here and there, at short intervals, great -rings and semicircles of half-buried stone could be divined in the -level of the soil, foundation-lines to show where the huts and palaces -of the Celtic kings had stood. Now they were but dim ridges, grown with -dwarf sedge and sorrel, through which roughly burst the gritstone bones -of their fabric. Adventurous climbers of the mountain had had their fun -of the rocks that former occupants had made their houses and defence. -Often the flat, hewn blocks had been lugged from their places by modern -hands, to be arranged in some riddle or motto. One ambitious tourist -had perpetrated a great design. Kingston and Isabel came suddenly upon -it. It stretched bravely across the earth, a device of big boulders, -carefully arranged. ‘I love you,’ it said to them, in its audacious, -solid letters. ‘I’ and ‘you’ at either end of the legend faded away -into the white obscurity beyond, and at their feet lay ‘love,’ -obtrusive, unconquerable, built of sound stones so square and firm as -to defy the enmities of time and weather. - -‘I love you,’ read Isabel slowly. - -Hitherto few words had passed. Words, in that blanched silence, seemed -futile and impertinent. There was in that vast loneliness of the mist -a sense of intimacy too close to be profaned by speech; man and woman -were alone, two halves of one primitive creature, in a primitive, -floating chaos, where nothing else, as yet, had taken shape. How could -such a drifting void hold anything so formal as speech? Speech belonged -to that forgotten world of things visible and tangible, that world -where other human beings lived, and there was light, sound, movement. -Here, in the level, immovable silence of the primeval twilight, -Kingston and Isabel found the intervening ages swept away. - -They had gone back into the dim time before the dawn of the world, when -there was nothing more than this poised existence, vague, voiceless, -pervasive. - -‘I love you,’ repeated Isabel, studying the tourist’s device--the -blatant modern cry breaking into the abysmal stillness of old chaos. - -Kingston, with an effort, tore himself from the white mist of fantasy -that had closed in upon his mind. The gloom suddenly held dangers; -they loomed ahead. He had a dim sense that something unseen was moving -towards him out of the swirling uncertainties around. - -‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘We shall have to stay here till the clouds -lift a bit. I simply can’t pretend to know my way. We should probably -wander half over the moors, and go on in a circle till we got -hopelessly lost or fell in a pothole. What a fool I was not to watch -the sky! However, if the worst comes to the worst, you can shelter in -that little shanty, and I don’t expect Gundred will be anxious; she -never is.’ - -‘Read what this creature has written,’ said Isabel. ‘It sounds better -in a man’s voice.’ - -Kingston looked down at the straggling stone letters at his foot. ‘I -love you,’ he read. Then he looked up at Isabel. - -She was facing him. The motto lay between them. Her face, against the -luminous pallor of the mist, was burning, aglow, filled with a strange -triumphant challenge. Suddenly, with an appalling crash of thunder, -the fantastic world in which he had lived so long shattered and broke -about his head. He saw the call in her eyes, understood it, answered to -it, helplessly as a bound slave. This was the one woman in the world. -He had known her since the beginning of time, been with her since the -creation; now at last she threw aside her veils, and stood before him, -no longer a stranger, but the lost part of his own soul--that lost part -for which he had so long been vainly seeking. Now, in an instant, he -recognised the cause of all his enmity, his unrest, his gnawing hunger, -the incessant angry cravings which had tormented him. Hitherto he had -not seen the truth; he had guessed it. And those guesses, painful, -secret, stifled--they had engendered all the throbbing hostility, all -the restless enmity with which he had regarded this half-recognised -intruder into his life. Now he knew her, now his heart heard the lost -language for which it had pined, now his soul stood complete again in -the acquisition of its lost part. - -Isabel saw that the answer to her call had come. At last she was known. -‘Old friend,’ she whispered, smiling into his eyes. - -‘You--you,’ he stammered. ‘And I did not understand. It is You. I have -never seen you before, Isabel, and yet--and yet I have known you all my -life.’ - -Suddenly she was clothed in glorious beauty from head to foot. From -head to foot she was altogether splendid and desirable. Every inch of -her called aloud for his worship. As the sooty kitchen-maid of the tale -strips off her rags and stands revealed a King’s golden daughter, so -now the accidents of Isabel’s disguise, the untidy hair, the shapeless -clothes, all passed out of Kingston’s consciousness. Henceforth she -stood far above such peddling criticism. The rules of his ordinary -taste could never apply again to this recovered spirit out of the dead -ages. She was his--his right, his property, his existence. She was -altogether without fault or blemish, the completion of himself. - -‘You are beautiful,’ he said in a low voice--‘you are beautiful, the -real Isabel. I never guessed what beauty was. It is you, Isabel. It has -always been you.’ Wonder at the miracle possessed him, tied his tongue, -gave him the pathetic little blundering gestures of the blind--of one -suddenly emerged from a lifetime’s black darkness into the blinding -glare of daylight. - -‘You have come to me at last,’ smiled Isabel. ‘I wondered when you -would. You have been trying not to wake.’ - -‘I have been holding my eyelids down,’ he answered. ‘I have been making -myself blind. It has been hell; Isabel ... Isabel!’ - -‘Yes,’ she replied--‘yes. You have been denying me ... you have been -denying yourself. It is Peter’s crime. Of course it was hell. But now -you have confessed the truth--the truth which was from the beginning.’ - -He stared at her--the man made perfect in full self-realization--at -her, the woman, whole and entire in her reunion with himself. Soul -imperiously cried to soul, and body to body. She had the unimaginable -beauty of the thing created by its lover, loved by its creator. Every -line and curve of her was perfected handiwork of his own rapture. The -loveliness that he saw in her, his own heart, his own flaming fancy -had planted there, had fashioned and worshipped as the lover always -fashions the idol that he worships. - -‘How is it,’ he said hoarsely--‘how is it you can be so beautiful, -Isabel? You are not beautiful. My eyes know you are not beautiful. And -yet my heart knows better. My heart knows there is nothing like your -beauty--nothing like it, Isabel, anywhere in the world. My soul is -twisted up in every part of you; there is something of me in every part -of you. Your hair, your skin, your eyes--they are me, Isabel; I have -given myself to make them. Can you understand it, Isabel? There isn’t -an inch of you in which the sinews and the nerves of myself have not -always been woven and twisted.’ - -‘Ah,’ she cried, answering his low tones with a deep burst of feeling. -‘We have been together through the worlds. We are not strangers. -That is what you mean. You have buried yourself in me, and I have -buried myself in you. We belong to each other. We have always belonged -together. There are only you and I in this white pale world. That is -what real lovers are. Alone--alone together for ever and ever and ever. -Nothing can ever break our solitude--nothing can put itself between -us--if only we are honest with ourselves. - -‘Isabel, what does it mean--this that we feel? What is it that we are?’ -he asked, whispering as if in the presence of a sacred mystery. - -‘Ourself,’ she answered triumphantly--‘ourself, awake, brought to -life, welded together again. We have come out of a hundred ages. Do -you suppose that we come together now for the first time? How do we -know each other, then? This that we feel is the song of many dead souls -calling in each of us to the many dead souls that have loved us in the -other. We have been bound together since first we met in the far-away -distance of things. Love is that. Love is never a new thing. Love is -the oldest thing in the world. It has lived through a hundred thousand -deaths of the body, and gathered strength and knowledge at every stage -of its journey. It’s a jewel of a hundred thousand memories crushed -together and crystallized into a pure sparkle of lights. It’s a chain -of a hundred thousand links, each heavier than the last, and more -golden. Kingston, the chain is round us and round us. Tie it tighter, -tighter, for ever and ever. We will live everlastingly in this land of -splendid bondage.’ - -‘Isabel, what is it the wise people of the East say?’ answered -Kingston, in the stupefaction of ecstasy. ‘They pledge themselves to -one another for half a dozen lives or more. Isabel, that is what you -mean. You and I are both bound together. We’ll plight our troth again -now, far ahead into the future. For a score of existences, Isabel. Our -love was not born a minute ago; it will not die to-morrow. It goes on -and on, whatever bodies it takes to clothe itself. Our love is the only -thing of us that goes on. And nothing can destroy it. It is ourselves. -You are mine, Isabel, and I am yours--you are me, and I, you, not only -now, in these shapes of ours, but through half a hundred more that -are not yet born, Isabel. Isabel, what do words and talking matter? -We cannot get away from each other; we are the same person. Now and -always, Isabel. But we will never lose ourselves again; we must always -recognise each other.’ - -‘Yes,’ she said, ‘again and again and again. For ever and always. You -have been trying to cut me, Kingston--_me_! trying to cut yourself.’ - -‘You are chained to me, Isabel, and I to you! I will never break the -chain at my end; you must never try to break it at yours.’ - -‘No; we are always the same person henceforth. Why, there is no bond. -We are too close together now even to be bound.’ - -She stood gazing at him, her eyes, her pose, her manner inspired with -conquest. The blank, sickening ferocity of passion seized him as he -answered her look. It caught him by the throat, swept him away in a -rapture of agony. To crush that beauty of hers, to mangle it, strangle -it, absorb it utterly in himself, became at once the one blinding, -obliterating need that filled his whole consciousness. An insatiable -thirst of her loveliness possessed him. The keen, flame-like delirium -of his desire was a devastating pain. His whole being moaned with -the aching torment of it. The sight of her, the thought of her, went -through him, pierced him, rent his innermost heart in twain. The -drunken glory of suffering that held him on the wheel of knives was a -frenzy very different from that placid repletion which had been his -ideal--how long ago?--of the great ideal passion. Now at last he knew -what passion was--the parching, gorgeous misery of it, the straining, -leaping martyrdom. The ancient secret madness that once had dwelt in -the orderly rooms of his father’s heart now stirred again in the son’s, -and bled once more, under the wounds of ecstasy, as once, for a wild -hour, it had bled long since at the hands of that ill-fated, forgotten -woman whose place was now usurped by Isabel. Kingston, his calmer self -destroyed by the red intoxication, moved towards his fate, vaguely, -blindly. - -‘Isabel--Isabel!’ he murmured with dry, cracking lips, groping hands -outstretched to take her. - -And Isabel welcomed his coming as the crown of life. She threw his arms -wide and waited, glowing and transfigured. - -The ghostly twilight of the mist was round her, behind her. The face it -revealed was fierce with joy, exquisite in its vividness. The dark hair -drifted round it, and the throat rose vivid and white from the low-cut -collar of her dress, thrown back splendidly, an ivory column. The neck -of her dress was fastened awry by a little brooch, whose diamonds -gleamed dully in the pale glooming. - -And in an instant the man’s flaming drunkenness had passed--passed -utterly, in a spasm of torment almost beyond his bearing. As sometimes -we are torn painfully, violently from the gay madness of a happy -dream by the sound of a bell or some other noise that penetrates to -our consciousness from the outer world beyond our vision, so now, in -the crisis of his passion, the sight of his wife’s brooch at Isabel’s -throat recalled Kingston Darnley, with a jarring crash, to the horrible -realities of life. Isabel, characteristically buttonless and pinless, -had borrowed it from Gundred to make good the deficiencies of her -blouse. His arms fell, the light of his eyes grew dull, and died. His -body stood motionless, and his spirit went down into the abyss of hell. - -Isabel saw the change, and at the sight her own glory sympathetically -faded. They had done with the heights. Now their feet were set on earth -again. - -‘Isabel--Isabel!’ he repeated. But the flame of his utterance had died -down into a grey dreariness. - -Isabel saw that her moment was passing. A horrible anxiety possessed -her. ‘What is it?’ she cried. ‘Kingston, what is it? What has come -between us?’ - -He pointed to the brooch. ‘Gundred,’ he answered--‘Gundred. We had -forgotten.’ He was suffering so acutely in the death of passion that -he could hardly make his words intelligible. The wrench was agonizing. -Passion was not dead, but his heart knew that it must die--that he -himself must be its executioner--must cast out the guest that was the -dearest part of himself--cast it out and cut the throat of it. He -desired still with all his soul, but knew that his desire must rest -for ever unfulfilled. He belonged to Gundred. He must face his own -responsibilities. - -Isabel could not hear what he said. But she shivered in the cold that -had fallen upon them. Without words she understood what it was that had -cut down the flower of his rapture in a moment, what drawn sword it was -that had suddenly thrust itself between them. She stood withered and -stricken with the shock, grown suddenly pale and old. - -Kingston was fighting down his pain, struggling with it, and gradually -bringing it into bounds. He was too clear-sighted to give himself any -hope. Had he been sprung of a more lawless stock, of men accustomed -to love where they chose, without consideration of morality, he might -have taken his pleasure as it came, and never given a thought to -self-reproach or duty. But as it was, bygone generations stirred again -in him, of men who had lived cleanly, decently, according to their -lights, avoiding the wild urgencies of passion. Law, custom, convention -had ingrained into them a respect for rule and restraint, and now their -latest descendant reaped in his own person the cruel reward of all -their virtues. To go further in the ghastly labyrinth was impossible. -Joy was unattainable. Only duty could be pursued. And for shirking that -there could be no excuse. - -Without a word he turned and walked away from that ill-omened motto -on the hill-top. Vaguely, with hands thrust down into his pockets, -he wandered on, crushing down the misery, the angry clamours of his -nature, and steeling himself violently to the preservation of what -remained possible to him of decency. For the sake of Gundred, of -himself, of Isabel--for the sake of his love and hers, he must at least -live as clean as might be. The struggle was a martyrdom, though, the -shock of self-mutilation a grinding, lancinating anguish. - -Isabel stood for a moment, then followed him across the flat ground. -She soon caught him up, and they advanced together in silence through -the driving mists. Suddenly, vague and ghostly, the old cairn rose -before them again, looming mountainous. When he had reached the stones -at its foot, Kingston threw himself down upon its steps with a heavy -gesture of lassitude. And still the silence ruled. - -‘Isabel,’ he said at last, in a dull, tired voice--‘Isabel, you must -forgive me if you can. I have been a beast. I must have been off my -head. I feel as if I had been drunk, and was only just beginning to -come to. Whatever rot I talked you must try and forget it, Isabel. I -can’t make out what the devil can have come over me!’ - -The woman gave him an angry, challenging glance. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I -won’t forget it. You spoke the truth. Why are you beginning to tell the -old weary lies again? Surely we have got beyond that.’ - -Her words, her defiant tone, caught his attention. - -‘You didn’t understand,’ he said. ‘I was a brute; there’s no more to -be said. Don’t try to say any more. Of course you can’t understand. My -God, what a damned muddle I have made of things!’ - -‘But of course I do understand, Kingston. Nothing can undo what you -have said. It didn’t need saying, and no amount of denials can ever -make it untrue.’ - -Kingston looked at her anxiously. - -‘Isabel,’ he said in a broken voice. ‘Do you realize what you are -saying? I was fool enough to tell you----’ - -‘What we both knew before in our heart of hearts,’ she interrupted -passionately. ‘And now we know each other. Oh yes, I understand you. -All of a sudden you have been overcome by some absurd qualm--some whim -or other. You think we are to be separated by some ridiculous fad.’ - -Amazement held him. This time he fixed his eyes on her and spoke -slowly, laboriously, as one speaks English to someone who can only -understand a foreign language. - -‘A fad!’ he repeated. ‘Hang it all, Isabel, is honour a fad, and -decency, and all the rest of it? One does what one can. Is it only a -whim?’ - -‘Yes,’ she answered violently. ‘It is only a whim. These artificial -scrupulosities of yours, they are just middle-class superstitions. You -belong to me, and I belong to you. We know that is true. Very well, -then; why should we deny in deed what we know to be true in fact. Oh, I -have no patience with such whims. Nothing can separate us; why should -we pretend to be separated by the fact that you have got what you call -a wife? I am your wife. You have no other. You can’t have another. -Your only duty is to me--to me and to yourself. All the rest is mere -romantic sentimental nonsense.’ - -His fastidiousness swung him back into a reaction of almost physical -repulsion as he contemplated her. The impossibility of making her -understand any honourable point of view was dreadful. He loathed her -with all his heart as she sat there trying to enforce her claim. And -yet he could not deny her claim, and, despite his shuddering disgust, -he loved her as much as ever, reluctantly, angrily, but with all the -secret unreasoned impulses of the bondage that held him. - -‘Isabel,’ he said, with forced gentleness, ‘can’t you even try to -understand? I am sorry. Yes; it is true what you say. We belong to each -other. Nothing can alter that. But I have given my word to someone -else, and I must--don’t you see?--having struck the bargain, I must -keep it. Make it a little easy for me, Isabel, though God knows I don’t -deserve it. But one wants to keep one’s self as clean as one can.’ - -‘I won’t make it easy for you,’ cried the other, beginning to realize -that he had entrenched himself behind a wall of determination. ‘Clean? -You won’t keep yourself clean by playing the hypocrite with Gundred.’ - -‘Ah, God! Poor Gundred! It is a dirty game I have played with her all -along. And yet I never knew. Before God, I never understood. I meant -to deal fairly, and I will deal fairly, too, as fairly as I can. The -mistake was mine, and I’ll pay for it--pay for it all alone. Don’t you -see, whatever happens, she must not suffer, Isabel. She--she has given -me all she had to give. So much for so little, Isabel. I must never -let her guess that I haven’t an equal love to give in return.’ - -‘As if she will not guess it every day and hour of her life! Do you -suppose you can deceive her?’ - -‘At least, I can give her a decent show in the eyes of the world,’ -replied Kingston, showing a really subtle knowledge of Gundred’s -temperament. ‘That will be better than nothing, any way. Oh, Isabel, -the whole affair is a damned horror. It’s all my fault. But we shan’t -make it any easier by letting ourselves go to pieces over it. The only -thing I can do now is to save myself from being any more of a brute -than I can help. Yes, I know we love each other; we shall always love -each other, worse luck. But we must spend the rest of our lives trying -to forget it. We must kill our knowledge, Isabel. It’s the best thing -we can do, damn it, for the best that is in us. I’ve made my mistake -and had my fling, and come my cropper; now I must stand the shot.’ - -‘It is not as if you could,’ cried Isabel--‘not as if you could pay -your debt by yourself. It falls on me, because I am a part of you. I -have to pay the heaviest price of all. I have done nothing; I have made -no mistake; and now I am to pay!’ - -He stared curiously at her excited face. - -‘We pay together, then,’ he said slowly, ‘and we pay a heavy price to -keep our love for each other untarnished. That is what it comes to. -I’ll pay anything not to tarnish my love for you, Isabel, my opinion -of you. It is all I have left. I must save that at any costs. And save -a--well, a little rag of my own decency, too. You are asking me--I hate -saying it, but it is true--you are asking me to dishonour both of us -by dishonouring my wife. I rate our love and ourselves a little higher -than that, Isabel.’ - -‘Oh, you are bloodless!’ she answered passionately--‘a bloodless -prig! There is nothing of the man in you. Have you _nothing_ in your -veins--no warmth, no life at all--that you can go on talking these -frigid fancies of yours? Where do you come from--what are you? What -are you made of? Can you feed your passions with these romantic -metaphysics? What’ll they give you? Will they warm you when you are -cold--with Gundred? Will they feed you, when you are starved--by -Gundred? Will they give you company, when you are alone--with Gundred? -Talk of your honour and mine! Our love is our honour. There is nothing -else in the world. Gundred is nothing; there is no such thing as -Gundred. I have blotted her out of existence!’ - -Never had the pagan egoism of Isabel been more terrifying, more -repulsive. Through his love he hated her as he watched the cruel swift -sneer of her nostrils as she talked of his wife. - -‘Have you no shred of pity?’ he asked quietly. ‘Think of Gundred. The -most damnable thing in the world has happened to her. She has given -herself--her whole self--and got nothing in exchange. Can’t you at -least let her have pity and respect? Poor little Gundred! I thought it -was a square bargain when I struck it. I thought I gave her all I had -to give. I swear I thought so. And yet all the time I belonged to you, -Isabel, and you to me. Don’t you see that the only thing we can do now -in common honesty is to spare Gundred all we can, and spare ourselves -the dishonour of cheating Gundred even more than we have already?’ - -But Isabel was beyond appeals, frankly barbarous and merciless. -‘Gundred took her risks. All women do when they marry,’ she said. ‘And -now she does not count any longer. What sort of man are you, to be -pining about Gundred when I am here by your side? Look at me--yes, -look, look--and see how long you can remember Gundred.’ - -She fixed his gaze with burning eyes. But he turned away his head and -refused to take up the challenge. - -‘I suppose it is your right,’ he answered, ‘to make everything as hard -for me as you can. I deserve it, I know. Oh yes, you blot out all -thought of everything but you, as soon as I look at you. You are the -only thing I can see in the world. And I won’t look at you, Isabel. -It is no use. Must I tell you again? I won’t stain the love we have -for each other by any further treacheries towards the duty we owe to -each other and my wife. Oh, Isabel, if you would only believe me, it -is because I love you so awfully, so damnably, that I cannot look at -you, or touch you. I love you too much. I ache in all my bones with -the love of you, and I love you too much and too well to satisfy my -love. Oh, don’t you understand? We could never forgive ourselves, never -feel clean again. Our love would have been spoiled, made filthy and -horrible with deception and mean lies and beastliness. It’s a sort -of responsibility we have, to keep it clean. We can’t kill it; it is -there, it always will be there. But, at least, we can prevent it from -turning us black and rotten. I’d sell my life, Isabel, to have our love -free and honourable--I would, Isabel.’ - -Isabel laughed. ‘Oh, this dry and tedious discussion!’ she cried. ‘How -many men would hair-split and quibble like this? Thank God, I have -blood in my veins! My people never cared where or whom or why they -loved. They took their pleasure where they found it. They were above -all laws but their own desires. No silly conventions and superstitions -ruled them. They were big, passionate men and women, with life in their -veins, not sawdust.’ - -‘Do you care nothing, absolutely nothing,’ he asked, ‘for--well, for -feeling that you have behaved as cleanly as you can? Nothing for -consequences? Nothing for anything but the pleasure of the moment?’ - -‘It is in my blood,’ repeated Isabel arrogantly, investing the crude -horror of her selfishness with a certain barbaric grandeur. ‘You know -how I hate these huckstering considerations of yours. My self-respect -is involved in getting what I want. Defeat is my only shame. And -consequences--who cares for them? I know,’ she went on, giving the -quotation with proud defiance--‘“I know that about this time there is -a prophecy that a Queen of England is to be burned, but I care nothing -if I be she, so that I have and hold the love of the King.” The love of -my King I have and I hold; what does the rest signify? I told you Queen -Anne and I were cousins.’ - -‘How I wish,’ he said--‘oh, how I wish to God I could make you -understand what I feel. I feel the most contemptible beast on the -earth; you alone can help me to win back a little of what I have lost. -If only you would make it easier for me, Isabel--if only you would make -it easier for me, by believing how ghastly hard it is.’ - -‘Yes; hard, hard, hard,’ said Isabel--‘hard I believe it is,’ she -repeated, meeting the anguish and the struggle of his gaze. ‘And I -want to make it harder. I want to make it impossible. Find yourself, -Kingston--know yourself. Don’t go on tormenting us both with scruples -and neurotic nonsense.’ - -He rose and stared down at her with furious eyes. ‘You are pitiless,’ -he said--‘altogether horrible and evil. There’s no decency or -civilization in you. You are as fierce as a savage. As I listen to you -I hate you; every fibre in me hates and dreads you.’ - -Isabel rose also and faced him. ‘And when you look at me?’ she asked. - -‘When I look at you,’ he groaned--‘when I look at you, every fibre of -me longs for you and cries out for you. And yet I swear I hate you, -Isabel.’ - -‘Go on hating me, then, like that,’ answered Isabel triumphantly. ‘You -have conquered me now. I feel that I cannot get near you again. For I -know what that hatred means. And some day I shall win. I am bound to. -You belong to me. You _are_ me. You recognised that a few minutes ago. -But now you are a fool. You refuse your happiness. Well, one day I -shall bring you to it again.’ - -‘Let me go, Isabel,’ he pleaded. ‘Let us try to do the little best -we can, you and I. Don’t make our lives more difficult or shameful -than they need be. Oh yes, I know that you have everything in your -power--too well I know it.’ - -He spoke wearily in a low, broken voice that seemed to foreshadow the -end of his resistance. As his weakness grew manifest Isabel’s strength -grew greater. - -‘There is no escape from me,’ she said. ‘Remember I am yourself. And -I shall always be there at your side, in your house, waiting, waiting -till you wake up again from this foolish dream.’ - -His struggle had suddenly collapsed into the helplessness of fatigue. -Even at this defiance of hers he made no sign of revolt. ‘Oh, God,’ he -said, ‘how can I get rid of you? What chance am I to have? But it is no -use talking. One can’t talk the same language as you--one can’t talk in -the same century. It is hopeless, I know. Your ideas are as savage as -Queen Isabel’s--you have got all that fearful barbarous selfishness of -hers, and one’s only chance of making you understand would be to talk -to you in the old French that she must have spoken.’ His voice trailed -off into silence. - -Isabel drew closer to him, and laid her hands softly on his arm. -‘Kingston----’ she began. - -He shook off her light touch, and looked her full in the face. His eyes -were blazing, and his manner had the restrained roughness of passion -held hard in leash. - -‘Isabel,’ he said, ‘if you touch me, I swear to God I love you so much -that I shall kill you--here and now, with my naked hands.’ - -She believed him, and was exalted by triumph. ‘Ah,’ she cried, ‘you do -love me. You are becoming a man at last. That would be a good death to -die.’ - -‘Body and soul of you,’ he went on fiercely, ‘hateful and glorious--I -might destroy them, mightn’t I, but never could I be rid of them. I -know there is no escape, Isabel. And now surely you can let me be. I am -bound to you now and for always. Isn’t that enough?’ - -Isabel smiled. ‘Enough,’ she cried. ‘It is everything; now or later, -what does it matter? I win. I win. Kingston,’ she added, dropping -indifferently from the heights of emotion to the plain lands of prose, -with something of that unconscious ease which one might have imagined -in the nature of a woman like Isabel the Queen, the very prose of whose -life was emotion, and whose emotion was so practical as to be daily -prose of her existence--‘ah, Kingston, I am tired. I am simply dropping -with weariness. Are we going to get down off this mountain to-night? -Because, if not, I must try to sleep in that hut we saw. And I know you -will not be able to run away from me.’ - -‘Sleep, by all means, if you can,’ he answered. ‘There is no going -down through this mist. Luckily the night will be fairly warm, and -by morning the clouds will have broken. But you will be hideously -uncomfortable, I am afraid.’ - -‘No,’ she replied; ‘I am naturally primitive. I have never minded -roughing it.’ - -Exhausted by their discord of wills, they now, by mutual consent, -talked coolly and indifferently, casting memory behind them. - -Kingston helped Isabel to find the hut, and did what he could to make -it habitable. Then, leaving her to get what rest she might, he returned -to his thorny vigil under the old beacon. The air was motionless, and -not ungenial in its temperature. Enveloped above and below in blank -darkness, he had the sensation of being balanced softly in space. The -calm, after the ardent misery of their dialogue, was inexpressibly -refreshing. He abandoned himself to its placid influences, and instead -of devoting the night to a thrashing out of all the many difficulties -that threatened his relations with Gundred and with Isabel, he let it -drift him away into the domain of peace. He hardly knew how completely -exhausted he had been, and it was with the surprise which always -attends us when we find ourselves doing prosaic things that seem at -variance with the high dramatic moments of life they follow, that at -last he found himself floating quietly off in sleep. - -Anguish was still there, deep down in his heart--a bruised feeling of -hunger and dissatisfaction, a great shame for himself, and a great pity -for his wife, as well as a firm resolve that she should not suffer. -But passion had dulled the edge of its own intensity; only dull aching -pains were left, rather than acute stabbing ones. Disappointment and -hopelessness possessed him in an inexorable but not agonizing grip. In -fact, he was too weary to feel the full weight of the yoke that was -laid upon him. Cradled in the great silence, his tired consciousness -sank at last to rest. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -When Kingston Darnley woke, the clouds had broken. Overhead was -the clear vault of stars; beneath, a vast flocculent sea of milky -whiteness. Already the eastern air was lightening with the first green -tremors of dawn, and the warm calm of the night was giving place to the -keen freshness of a new day. - -Kingston could rest no longer. He rose, and wandered to and fro across -the summit, thinking out the situation in which he had become involved. -A force too great for his resistance had swept him into its dominion; -so much was certain. The force was hateful, paradoxical, inexplicable. -But its grip was at his throat, and no struggles could extricate him. -The whole face of the world had suddenly changed; hidden things had -been made clear, and things which had once been thought precious and -sufficient were now shown in the light of this strange sunrise to be -altogether false and valueless. No reluctance, no blinking of facts, -no well-meant pretences, could alter the fact that life had suddenly -opened out before him, enormous, passionate, in all its scope, and -that, in the revelation the mountains of bygone days were dwarfed to -molehills. - -But these changes ruled only in the secret places of the heart. There -remained the practical aspect of things. In the depths of his soul he -now carried with him a knowledge of what was highest and most glorious -in life, but that knowledge must for ever be buried in the depths. His -own rash action, in the days before he had understood, before he had -been awaked, had put it eternally beyond his power to stretch out his -hands openly, and seize the happiness that his soul had found. Chains -of diamond might bind him now and for ever to this second self that he -had discovered; but chains of his own making, of his own riveting, made -him prisoner to another life, in the lower world of daily existence. -In the clear cold of the dawn the heats and tempests of his brain -seemed to grow calm; he saw more and more clearly into the future and -its possibilities; passion and its stress had given way to a cooler -appraisement of circumstances. His nature, emotional rather than -sensual, helped him to regain his balance. It was on the spiritual, -transcendental side of his feelings that he dwelt. - -This love of his for Isabel, this love which came from outside, which -had nothing to do with moral or æsthetic approval--it should be a -thing altogether high and holy. To keep it clear of contamination, to -sanctify it by restricting it to the loftiest regions of life--this -was the task that lay before him. The task might be difficult. Isabel -might try to increase the difficulty of it. But he would gather -strength from the very difficulty of his position, the very intensity -of his passion, which, by the sheer weight of it, must lay so great a -responsibility upon him as his soul must needs rise to bear. For the -heavier the weight, the easier it is to endure; the soul braces itself -sternly, deliberately, to the labour, and carries off the burden of a -crushing load more triumphantly than the straws which daily life and -little desires impose--the straws which seem of no account, and for -which, therefore, the soul makes no preparation, stiffens no muscles to -sustain. Against a lapse Kingston felt himself defended as much by the -solemn ecstasy with which he had come to accept the fact of his passion -as by his sense of the redoubled duty which it made him owe to the -other life that he had innocently involved. - -Tragic affection possessed him as he thought of Gundred;--Gundred, -giving her all--that all which now appeared so little; Gundred, whose -greatest gift had now become inadequate, yet must never be slighted -or discarded. In a moment he saw the vast distance that now separated -him from his wife. Had they ever, in reality, been close together? -Now, without conscious treachery on either hand, time had removed -them very far away from each other. He understood what impulse it was -that had lately been making him try to pull her back into his life, -and realized how completely she had passed out of it. There was no -fault in her--at least, no other fault than a limitation of nature. -How he himself could have escaped the penalty of his own character he -could not see. The crisis of remorse was passing. He had committed no -deliberate sin against his wife. What had come about had come about -through no volition of his. If he loved Isabel that love was something -outside himself--something that he could not kill, though he might -duly cage it and control it. To cage it and control it accordingly -was all that remained for him to do. Infidelity, treachery, adultery -of the flesh would be an unpardonable treason to his love and his -loyalty; the adultery of the heart is a thing instinctive, inevitable, -committed sooner or later by many blameless men and women. This, the -most important of human treasons, stands for ever beyond the reach of -human restraint. No judge can analyze it, no jury weigh it; it can be -valued by no damages, absolved by no divorce. The marriage of heart -with heart is a matter outside the reach of law; the world and its laws -are only concerned with external and visible manifestations. Let the -outward life be clean and seemly; but nothing can govern the impulses -of the inner secret life. Its movements can only be prevented from -reacting shamefully on daily demeanour; they can never be measured, -foretold, forbidden. Kingston knew that his heart was faithless to his -wife--knew that, in reality, it had never been pledged to her at all. -Her heart to his, perhaps; but he had pledged her nothing, he found, -but his approval, his affection, his respect. All the more reason, -then, that, having bought so much of her, and for coin so innocently -false, he should pay his debt to the uttermost farthing in the only -money he had to pay. Respect, affection, approval, all that he had -pledged and promised--these should be paid without grudge or chicane, -and the very completeness and honesty of these tributes must atone as -far as possible for the cruel fact that he had no more to give her. -In the fullness of his tribute to Gundred he must find at once the -redemption of his own self-respect, the safeguarding of her happiness, -and the glorification of this love of his, that might sink so low, and -might be made to rise so high. - -The whole air, vibrating with cold intensity, was now of a poignant -emerald. In the East it grew keener and keener from moment to moment. -Beneath, at his feet, through the milky sea of cloud, the heavy -presence of the lowlands began to pierce, and grew from mere darkness -into dim husky purples. Against the fierce green of the dawn a few -clouds stood out fiercely black against the pure sky. The deep abysmal -blue of the night was flying westward, retreating, fading, passing. -Now it looked wan and worn; the faint stars staled and grew sickly as -morning lamps. Slowly, very slowly, the world began to stir, to reveal -itself far down in the valleys and distances. Detail had not yet been -delivered of chaos, but gradually the separate existence of hill and -hollow showed itself in flat masses of obscurity. And then the tones -began to change, to grow sharper, more real. In the first dawn outlines -had been clear and hard, the blackness dense and without modification. -Against the pale horizon moorland and mountain had stood out hard and -stark, as if cut from cardboard. Now the haze of atmosphere began to -clothe the new-born world in glamour, faint, mysterious, phantasmal. -Along the eastern rim of the darkness stretched the swooping profile -of Ravensber, like a lion couchant, flushing now, from a thing grey, -cold, and dead, to a living mass of opal. Diaphanous, vague, uniform in -colour against the pulsing vividness behind, the far-off mountain came -nearer, its azure and amethyst grew every moment keener. At its feet -the lower hills still lay dim and indistinguishable, but to them also -life was returning; and as the great leonine shape above took warmer -and warmer shades, from the first vaporous dimness of opaque blue to -the splendours of a transparent jewel, so the intervening fells grew -deeper in their tones of violet, more solid, more easily discernible -among the faint mists in which the dawn had vested them, and from which -they now began to separate themselves, while out of the vaporous films -of the sky long trails and volumes of cloud were beginning to condense. - -Emerald was now passing into topaz, and the rolling masses of distance -seemed every moment a shallower, greener blue. For the oldest and -most primeval of all colours is blue--that vast, profound sapphire of -midnight. But as darkness dies before the advance of dawn, each colour -recedes westward as its successor presses hard upon it out of the -East. Blue gives place insensibly to green--to green, faint at first -and tremulous, then growing swiftly more sharp to its note of greatest -pungency. And so, when the lucence of emerald is at its height, it -rises abruptly into yellow--a yellow very pure and thin, and coldly -pale. Blue has faded out altogether. The air has the vivid transparency -of a topaz. Quickly the clear light intensifies itself, and passes on -into richer, angrier tones of saffron and flame. Then, last of all, -crimson and scarlet appear, final heralds of the approaching day. - -Already, very far up in the shrill green of the zenith, a few feathered -clouds were growing pink. The Ravensber, now, was of a rosy blue, -and the sky behind it thrilled with gold. The air rippled cool with -increasing keenness, and the awakening earth seemed to await an -imminent summons. Gradually the details of the earth below could be -discerned in blocks of uncertain light and shadow. It seemed as if -the day were pausing on its road. The golden east grew increasingly -golden, and the green overhead grew pale and melted; but to eyes that -had watched the swift advance of the earlier stages this tantalizing -moment of suspense seemed interminable. The world now was purple and -azure; the Ravensber stood out no longer the phantom of a dream. Life -was growing plain and plainer. But still the poignant moment hovered -indecisively on its way. The path of the sun was barred with streaks of -cloud. Ashen grey and violet in the beginning, they had kindled at last -through wine colour to an ardent amethyst, and their lower surfaces -were edged with rose. As their fluffy masses mounted the sky, their -surfaces grew brighter, their purple warmer, till, high overhead, their -last faint drifts were now of a uniform glowing pink. Everything was -ready for the sun: the earth was clean and fresh from its sleep, the -air was vivid and clean and sparkling. - -When the last change came, it came with a blinding abruptness after its -delay. The fire of the clouds grew swiftly fiercer, their purple turned -to molten bronze, their edges broadened, became red, scarlet, flaming. -Kingston saw now the exact spot where the sun was to rise. Down in a -cleft of the hills, where far-off Ravensber tailed away into the first -slopes of Fell End, there lay the heart of the cloud-drift, and there -through its sombre curtains, the sun would have to break his way. -Crimson and scarlet dominated the world now, throbbing from horizon -to horizon. Splashes of infernal sanguine began to streak themselves -across the East, growing every moment in number and in violence. The -day was hurrying up in a leaping fury of splendour, and the path of the -sun was a ladder of flame, leading upwards from the ravelled veil of -darkness between the hills. And then, in a moment, the curtain of the -clouded East was gashed suddenly and rent asunder: the earth seemed -swept by a blast of blood and fire. The sun was up. Another instant, -and his awful globe had leapt free of the broken masses of bronze -beneath, and was mounting on its tyrannous way through heaven. - -Instantly before his glory all rival splendours faded. Scarlet, -crimson, gold, and orange paled and died in the glare of his presence. -The magical moment was passed. Clouds, mountains, and valleys were mere -clouds and mountains and valleys again; the transfiguring radiance was -dead. Only the air was still pervaded by the red glow. The world was -torn from dreams to reality again. Calm, clear, definite, it lay below, -stripped of mystery, a world of men and women, fears and desires, -eating and drinking. - -Kingston walked round to where the western edge of the mountain dropped -away to the fells far below. Beneath those, again, lay the narrow glen -where Ivescar stood. Between the Simonstone and Carnmor it cut its -way southward and then sloped down into the great valley beyond. The -Vale of Strathclyde stretched softly through the distance, very broad -and fertile, to the remote low hills that bounded it on the farther -side. From where he stood Kingston could see its whole course mapped -out before him, far away, clear and rosy in the fresh daylight. In -a swooping curve it flowed westward under the wall of the mountain -country, westward from its source away in the east, in the heart -of Yorkshire, out to where its last placid ripples passed into the -indistinguishable golden glory of the western sea. And there, beyond -the low cleft in the woodlands, where a faint smoky haze betrayed the -town of Lunemouth, the vast, flat glitter of the bay ran farther and -farther out, till it was merged in the bright opalescence of the sky, -against whose gleaming softness rolled northward, in dim sapphire, -the jutting ranges that passed up into the tangled mountain chaos of -Cumberland and Westmoreland. - -Trees, steeples, villages, stood up clear and vivid everywhere in the -valley beneath, remote and tiny in the depths; but where each river -coiled and writhed through woodland, there coiled and writhed across -the face of the earth a monstrous sleepy dragon of white vapour. Higher -up, again, in the narrower mountain valleys, wherever water flowed, -the runnels of its course were filled with a dense bellying mass like -pale smoke. From the hills behind, too, from the stern, deep-channelled -country of fell and moor, rolled down towards the lowlands of -Strathclyde great sluggish remoras of mist, blotting out each hollow in -a snowy void, and leaving only here and there a little islet of dark -rock or heather in the white swirling sea of their tide, as they lapped -and curled round the lesser hills below. As the sun grew stronger, -their volume momentarily ebbed and melted, but in the first moments -of day the glen of Ivescar brimmed over with their confused currents, -beneath the brow of the Simonstone, and as Kingston gazed down over the -edge, he looked into a blank and woolly vacancy. - -While he stood there Isabel approached. There was no more battle, no -more challenge in her air. Knowledge of the truth was enough for the -hour. In the cold clear purity of dawn the ardours and agonies of -passion could have no place. Kingston and she had found the great -secret of their common life; no more words were needed. - -Kingston turned to her. - -‘We may as well be starting down,’ he said. ‘It will be easy enough -now. I only hope Gundred has not been in a great state of anxiety. Did -you get any sleep?’ - -‘It was a bony bed,’ replied Isabel, ‘but I managed to rest quite -fairly. But I feel utterly tired and squashed. Do let us go home, and -get fed and cleaned and decent again.’ - -‘In a few minutes,’ said he, ‘we shall hardly be able to believe we -have ever been up here. This night will seem like fancy.’ - -‘Or else we shall feel that we have been up here all our lives, since -the very beginning of things. Kingston, I was angry with you, but you -have taken me up on to a mountain, and showed me more beautiful things -than I ever thought there were in the world. I have been thinking. -Perhaps I understand a little better now.’ - -He studied the calm radiance of her face. The sun fell full upon it, -gilded and glorifying. - -‘Yes, Isabel,’ he said, ‘we must do what we can. We must try to--to -honour ourselves. I am glad you begin to understand. After all, nothing -can take away the thought of what we have found together up here, -you and I. And we must not let that thought get spoiled, Isabel. How -pompous I sound, though!’ - -She sighed. ‘I am always running my head up against the walls of -life,’ she answered. ‘I think I do see now what a mistake I made. I -hurt myself and you. Oh, I shall never pretend to have conventional -morals like you, but I am beginning to understand that self-denial is -sometimes a splendid form of self-indulgence.’ - -The thrill of the new day, the glowing serenity of everything around -him had their influence on Kingston. His emotions reached calmer, -greater heights than before, above the reach of storms. His tongue was -loosened for a moment. - -‘We are above the world, Isabel,’ he said; ‘let us try to stay there.’ - -She looked at him, her smile touched with irony. - -‘And yet,’ she answered, ‘you are going to lead me down into the -valleys. Do you think one could always stay on the heights?’ - -‘At least we have been there once in our lives,’ he replied. ‘How many -people can honestly say that?’ - -‘The valley is full of clouds and mists,’ said Isabel, peering down. -‘Death and horrors may lie below us.’ - -‘We are going there together, Isabel. We shall always be together now. -We cannot help it, even if we wanted to. Nothing can release us from -each other.’ - -‘Not even the deaths and horrors?’ asked Isabel slowly. - -‘Why suppose that there will ever be any?’ - -‘Oh, I am cold and cramped, perhaps; I am frightened of things all of -a sudden. Even you and I will have each to go alone into the Valley of -the Shadow, Kingston. You will not be able to go with me there, not -even if we are to meet again on the other side. I am dreadfully afraid -of death and dying. Life has suddenly become more lovely than ever. I -love it and worship it. Come with me into life. But, even with you, -I don’t like passing out of this warmth down into the mists and cold -damps below there.’ - -‘They will have disappeared by the time we get on to the lower flats,’ -he answered. ‘Let us set off. They are thinning every minute.’ - -With a last look round the radiant plain of the hill-top, Isabel -followed him over the edge, and down the first steep slope. Instantly -they were out of the sunlight and the glow, in chill shadow as yet -untouched by the influences of day. Down and down they plunged towards -the mists beneath, while, far overhead now, the rosy beams of the -day shot out across the world, cut off from them as they went by the -intervening bulk of the mountain, sombre and stark. So they came -at last to the pavement of white limestone below, and stood on its -last, lowest ridge. Beneath them, grey, barren, inhospitable, lay -suddenly revealed the topmost end of the little valley, hemmed in by -its amphitheatre of cliffs. The mists were scattering now in desolate -wisps of vapour, and the air was cold and dank in the shadow of the -mountain behind. Through the torn veils of the white fog they could -see clearly down upon every detail of the glen--the shape of each poor -profitless field of brownish grass, enclosed by intersecting lines -of stone wall, with here and there an ash-tree or a hawthorn, weird, -tormented, witch-like, crouching eternally beneath the lash of the -wind, and shivering in its sparse, blighted garment of leaves. Just -below them rose the struggling stream, out of a stone slope thick -with nettles that dropped away steeply from the foot of the cliff; -it wandered homelessly through two or three grim meadows, where wiry -herbage battled with the white outcrop of stone, then passed through a -grated barrier into the domain of Ivescar. From the height of the cliff -Ivescar itself, house and plantation, seemed more impudently vulgar -than ever. The plantation filled the valley, glaringly artificial, -glaringly unsuccessful, a serried army of wretched dwarfish little -pines. And in the middle shone, steely and cold, the square expanse of -the lake, and by its side, isolated on the desert of lawn, the house -itself, dome, tower, pinnacles and all, raw, yellow, brutal in its -contented ugliness. - -Kingston and Isabel gazed down at it with distaste; then they -turned from the mournful glen, filled with chill shadow and sterile -discomfort, to look back at the mountain from which they had -descended. Very high overhead towered the imperious western face of -the Simonstone, and the whole mass was glowing now like a thing alive, -flushed with pulsing blood and vitality. From crown to base it was -kindled to an ardent and luminous crimson, at once sombre and gorgeous, -at once brilliant and terrible. Kingston and Isabel looked up at it -in silence for a moment, then plunged, without a word, down into the -bleakness of the stony valley. Another moment, and the mountain had -vanished from their sight. They were in the cold shade of the cliffs, -and the upper glories were hidden. So, still silent, they made their -way through the fields, through the elaborate iron gates of the park, -and into the pretentious deserts of Ivescar. - -Gundred had a quiet, practical spirit. When her husband and her cousin -had failed to reappear in time for dinner, she wasted no energy in -grief or anxiety, but came to the conclusion that they must have lost -their way, and either found some other haven, or, at all events, taken -the most prudent steps possible in the circumstances. It was never -in her calm nature to be harassed without good cause; she always -expected the best till she heard the worst, and gave everybody round -her credit for coolness and imperturbable sagacity equal to her own. -Accordingly on this occasion she made her husband’s apologies to Mrs. -Mimburn, dined without agitation, and slept the night through in -placid confidence that the wanderers would return with the morning. -Her perfect trust in Kingston’s sense precluded all anxiety as to his -welfare, and her perfect trust in his affection all anxiety as to his -absence. When at last Kingston and Isabel returned, Gundred received -them with a complete lack of fuss or excitement, but with proper -attention suited to their state. Warmed, washed, fed, they soon fell -again into the orderly course of the life that she had arranged. She -condoled with them on the misadventure that had kept them prisoners on -the hill-top, and troubled no more about the matter, as soon as she had -made certain that neither of them had contracted chills or colds. Very -tiresome she felt the misfortune to have been, but a thing that might -have happened to anyone, of no real lasting importance. - -Not so, however, moved the keen mind of Minne-Adélaïde. That astute -woman, ruffled by the inexplicable absence of her host, depressed by -the barbarism of the view from her window, and at all times prone to -the more passionate interpretation of life’s problems, set herself to -the careful watching of Kingston in his relations with this strange new -cousin of his wife’s. Mrs. Mimburn from the beginning was no friend to -Gundred. She could not but suspect that Gundred disapproved of her. No -persuasions could induce Gundred to call her ‘Minne.’ To Mrs. Mimburn’s -complete disgust, the new niece persisted in calling her ‘Aunt Minna.’ -Thus predisposed against her hostess, Minne-Adélaïde unfavourably -noted all Gundred’s limitations, her apparent coldness, her lack of -appetizing brilliancy, of appeal, of all the many attractions with -which a wise wife arms herself against the inevitable satiety of -marriage. In an evening’s space, Mrs. Mimburn became convinced that -Kingston must be dreadfully bored by this unsalted wife of his, with -her frigid little excellencies. She kept a sparkling eye wide open -for complications. When she heard that Kingston was on the hills -with a female cousin, she smiled in one corner of her mouth; when -time went by, and he was discovered to be spending the night with -her on a mountain, she smiled in both, and licked her lips with a -delightful foreboding of catastrophe. She welcomed her nephew with -perfunctory joy when he at last appeared, and devoted her keenest -attention to the examination of Isabel. And at once her experienced -glance discerned what it had taken Kingston weeks to discover, what -Gundred was still a long way from discovering. She saw that Isabel -was attractive--illogically, unreasonably so, but attractive all the -same--even unusually so. And Minne-Adélaïde knew that it is just these -illogically fascinating people who do the most harm, and establish -the most devastating tyranny over men’s roving tastes. ‘Aha!’ thought -Minne-Adélaïde. Time began to hang heavy on her hands, and she fell to -scanning the future with a hopeful anticipation. - -The days passed by in their usual lethargic orderliness. Nothing -happened, nothing seemed likely to happen. Kingston and Isabel were -rather better friends than before, perhaps, but Gundred was so clearly -satisfied with the situation that no perils appeared to threaten. -Minne-Adélaïde began to grow a little disappointed. Neither Kingston, -Isabel, nor Gundred gave her anything to be interested in. Their -behaviour continued merely amiable and ordinary. Perhaps Kingston had -grown more ardent in his treatment of Gundred, but Mrs. Mimburn was not -in a position to realize the fact. Certainly he grew daily more and -more affectionate; he pulled her perforce into every conversation, he -devoted himself to her comfort, he never allowed himself to be happy -out of her sight. - -As for Isabel, he and she had very little to say to each other in these -few ensuing days. What had happened had happened; it had given them a -blessed consciousness; there was no need to be putting it into words. -Exhausted by emotions, they were content to let themselves drift. -That the situation was terribly unsafe and precarious Kingston knew in -his heart. He realized that it could not long be continued. But for -the moment he acquiesced, and trusted that, before the strain broke in -catastrophe, Fate might provide some solution; and, meanwhile, there -was nothing for Minne-Adélaïde to get hold of. - -Mrs. Mimburn had made herself into one of those women who belong to the -town, and are quite out of place in the country. Her dress, her voice, -her every movement suggested the perpetual neighbourhood of shops, and -an habitual dependence on their resources. Paris and London spoke in -her, and she looked garish and inappropriate whenever she carried her -elaborate boots or her silk petticoats into the country. Her rustic -clothes and hats were never genuine. They overdid their effects, and -only succeeded in looking like those of an actress at a garden-party -on the stage. Mrs. Mimburn’s soul was as urbane as her body and its -appointments. She could not live or breathe for long in the country. A -nice suburban corner like Surrey might be all very well for a week-end -or so. It had a saving artificiality--motors and bridge-parties and -all kinds of gaieties seemed quite in place. One could wear decent -clothes, and yet be in the picture. A civilized landscape like that was -nothing more than a good _mise-en-scène_ for an added last act to the -“Drama of the Season.” Mrs. Mimburn could tolerate such an atmosphere -without beginning to sigh for Bond Street. But Ivescar, dumped in its -desolation, was nothing short of appalling. Minne-Adélaïde withered -and shrank. She bitterly regretted that curiosity had brought her -there. Nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to say: only clouds -and rocks to look at, and the rain for ever spotting one’s hat, and -midges biting one awfully through the openwork of one’s stockings, if -ever one went out on the lawn in a presentable shoe! Minne-Adélaïde -looked restlessly round for any possibilities of amusement. She felt -completely _dépaysée_, out of her world, an exile in a desert that made -her most brilliant gowns seem blatant and tawdry. She grew homesick, -feverish, overexcited by sheer weight of dullness. She would not go -away till she had well spied out the land. But in the meantime she must -have something to do--or die. - -‘So fascinating, your cousin,’ said Minne-Adélaïde one afternoon, -suddenly wearied of counting the raindrops on the window-pane. - -Gundred looked up from her needlework. - -‘Isabel is quite attractive,’ she replied, her tone implying, ever so -faintly, that it was a presumption of Mrs. Mimburn even to praise a -Mortimer. - -The two women sat alone in the picture-gallery, Kingston being gone on -some errand to his mother, and Isabel writing letters upstairs. Of late -days Gundred had begun to notice the increasing warmth of her husband’s -nature, and in some strange way his affection seemed to set her at a -distance from him instead of bringing him nearer. Though she had never -thought twice of his night on the mountain, yet the faint chill that -she had felt that evening had never since quite left her. She could -find no fault in their relations, could guess no limitation in himself -or her; yet now his love seemed to leave her outside his life. She -felt cold and lonely--quite without reason, she knew, but yet cold and -lonely she felt. Therefore she was more than usually on the defensive -against the impertinences of Minne-Adélaïde. - -Mrs. Mimburn noticed the implied snub. - -‘Dear Kingston has a lot to say to her,’ she went on viciously. ‘He -always has such a lively mind. He likes people with plenty of _élan_.’ - -‘Doesn’t he--yes?’ replied Gundred quietly, yet feeling the stab as -she would certainly not have felt it a fortnight ago. The skin of -her self-contentment was wearing thin. But she saw the other woman’s -intention to hurt, and brought all the resources of her pride to repel -the attack. ‘Isabel and my husband are the greatest friends,’ she went -on. ‘I am so glad of it. She can talk to him about so many things. -Sometimes she can amuse him better than I.’ - -Her whole splendid pride shone in the calm with which she made these -admissions. It was her crowning confession of faith in her husband. And -yet, as she made it, the confession hurt her. Deep down in some secret -place of her heart it touched a little hidden wound. - -Minne-Adélaïde saw only the rebuffing self-complacency of the speech, -and was spurred to angry indiscretion by her niece’s arrogant -tranquillity. ‘So wise you are, dear Gundred,’ she said, ‘to let them -go about so much together. Now so many young women ride their husbands -on the curb, and end by boring them to death. Not that your system has -not got its dangers, dear. I wonder you are never anxious. Men are men, -when all is said and done, and at your age you cannot be expected to -know the horrors they are capable of.’ - -Gundred gazed across at her husband’s aunt with cold grey eyes. - -‘You have probably been unfortunate in your experiences, Aunt Minna,’ -she replied. ‘Everything depends on the set in which one lives--yes?’ - -Mrs. Mimburn laughed--a high, giggling laugh, with a clever upward run -at the end. - -‘Nothing, my child--nothing,’ she replied. ‘All men are alike under the -skin.’ - -Gundred had a flash of cleverness. - -‘But the skin may be clean or dirty,’ she answered, ‘and that is what -makes the difference--yes?’ - -‘Life, my dear,’ said Minne-Adélaïde sententiously, ‘is a garden of -roses growing in manure. You cannot play about in that garden without -getting dirty. And men like the gardening work, and they don’t trouble -to put on gloves for it either. Life is a dirty affair, _ma petite_.’ -Minne-Adélaïde honestly thought so, though her own life had been -plain and clean in the most uninteresting degree, so far as its facts -went. Gundred looked at her with chilly distaste. She misunderstood -Mrs. Mimburn, thought her attitude genuine, instead of mere pose, and -disliked her accordingly. - -‘We shall never agree,’ she answered. ‘We see things very differently, -Aunt Minna. We have always known different sorts of people.’ - -Mrs. Mimburn bit her enamelled lip. ‘Well,’ she answered, ‘I am sure -I hope you will make a success of your life, dear Gundred. I do think -the experiment is a little risky, though. Isabel is really a little -dangerous, you know.’ - -‘Are you talking about my cousin?’ asked Gundred loftily. ‘Oh, please -don’t trouble. I think we understand each other.’ - -‘No woman understands any other woman when there is a man in the case,’ -replied Minne-Adélaïde. ‘Only misunderstandings happen _then_. We are -all cats together. One always has to be careful of other women.’ - -‘How kind of you--yes?’ said Gundred; ‘but there is really nothing to -warn us against.’ - -‘Oh, _ma chère_, of course not. Dear Kingston is the best husband in -the world. It is a pity, perhaps, he was not--well, a little more -_noceur_ before he married. That would make one feel so much more -secure of him as a husband. One has to remember, you see, that -marriage is not only a matter of--obvious things. It’s not a case of -having a man, but of holding him. A woman should always have reserves -and spices in her nature to keep her husband on the alert--ordinary -women, I mean. But you are so brave. You are trying to run a _ménage à -trois_ on quite original lines----’ - -‘My dear Aunt Minna, there isn’t any need to give me so much good -advice. I have no wish to interfere with my husband’s amusements.’ - -‘Not even to have any share in them? Now, that is so courageous. Of -course you don’t seem able to amuse Kingston as much as Isabel can. I -suppose you see that. He makes it plainer and plainer every day. Or -perhaps you simply don’t care for the trouble, and so you give him a -lively pretty creature to fill up the time with? So sweet of you. I -only trust he won’t fill up the time so well that he won’t have any -left for you. Men are so uncertain.’ - -This time Mrs. Mimburn had pierced Gundred’s armour. Her colour -deepened. ‘I should think it a silly insult to have any doubts of my -husband,’ she answered. ‘And--and--well, it’s not as if Isabel were -very extraordinarily beautiful.’ She regretted the lapse as soon as she -had committed it. But Minne-Adélaïde pounced mercilessly. - -‘Let me tell you,’ she said, ‘if Isabel is not exactly beautiful, she -is something much worse: _elle est pire_. She is fascinating. Now, mere -prettiness is apt to get very _fade_ and insipid after a time--the -monotony of marriage, you know. And if there is anyone so attractive -as Isabel anywhere near, a man is terribly ready to forget mere -prettiness.’ - -‘Perhaps, but a gentleman does not forget his duty,’ answered Gundred, -losing command of the situation for a moment. - -Minne-Adélaïde pursued her advantages accordingly. ‘Oh, well,’ she -laughed, ‘if one only wants to hold one’s husband by his duty! And even -a gentleman--what else is he but a man, as soon as his clothes are off? -And they do show the strangest forgetfulness at times. _I_ could tell -you stories.’ - -Gundred hated herself for permitting such a dialogue. Mrs. Mimburn -seemed to have entrapped her. - -‘Please don’t,’ she answered. ‘These things are not interesting.’ - -‘You see,’ went on Minne-Adélaïde, ‘if one lets one’s self slide out -of a man’s life, one is encouraging him to forget one--and to remember -other people, which is worse. Now you--of course one can’t always fill -one’s husband’s life, one can’t always talk to him, can one? Between -ourselves, now, one can’t always understand him. And she does, this -cousin of yours. And that may be all right, or, again, it may be all -wrong.’ - -Thus baited, Gundred grew furious. Her colour came and went, her -manner became neater, cooler, blander than ever. And yet she could say -so little. Mrs. Mimburn’s darts had found the weak spot that she was -hiding even from herself. Through all her anger at Minne-Adélaïde’s -insolence, the dialogue had for her a fearful, poignant interest that -forbade her to follow her own first angry instincts, and cut it off -with a snub. - -‘I think you are quite mistaken,’ she replied. ‘And, anyhow, I should -always be glad to see my husband being amused--no matter who it was by.’ - -‘Ah, you have the reckless unselfishness of the very young,’ answered -Minne-Adélaïde intolerably. ‘That has wrecked so many marriages. “Trust -nothing and nobody” ought to be one’s motto, and do all the amusing -that may be necessary one’s self. It is safest in the long run--if -one can do it, that is. However, you seem content to let someone else -do it, and all I say is that I hope no harm will come of it. But when -you want to take up your own position in your husband’s life again, you -may find that someone else has filled it while you were ordering dinner -and talking about the weather. It is even better, my dear, to bore your -husband than to let him find that he can be kept amused all day and -every day by someone else. I should get rid of the cousin, if I were -you.’ - -‘Yes?’ answered Gundred, gelid with wrath, yet, despite herself, -enthralled in Mrs. Mimburn’s dreadful foreshadowings. She began to have -some notion what it was that she had been finding unsatisfactory in -her relations with Kingston. He petted her more and more, but more and -more did he talk to Isabel, and his recent efforts to include Gundred -only revealed his inability to do so. This it was, this situation of -her own making, that had been giving her secret, unacknowledged qualms, -and feelings of vague hunger. The more proudly, then, did she revolt -against Mrs. Mimburn’s insinuations, and the vigour of her anger was -the measure of her inward conviction that the insinuations held some -truth. - -Minne-Adélaïde thought that she held Gundred helpless. She presumed on -her power, made reckless at once by boredom and by gratified spite. - -‘Oh, well,’ she pursued, ‘it may pay to leave your husband for ever -alone with Isabel. I can’t say. It wouldn’t pay with any other man or -any other woman. But, of course, your husband _may_ be an exception. -Most husbands are--to their wives--until the catastrophe. Now, if I -were you, I should want to know a great deal more about that night they -got lost on the hill together--or said they did. That sort of thing -isn’t done, you know. It wants a good deal of explaining.’ - -Confronted with the final insult, all Gundred’s pride, the best side of -her courage rallied to her aid. Her manner betrayed no agitation, paid -Mrs. Mimburn no compliment of excitement. Perfectly cool and level was -her voice as she looked up and answered: - -‘You seem to forget that we are not living in one of that dreadful -man’s plays,’ she said. ‘I should despise myself if ever I were capable -of having such thoughts of my husband or my cousin. As you said just -now, such things are not done--in the class I know, at all events.’ She -fixed a cool, contemptuous, grey stare on the astounded Minne-Adélaïde, -who suddenly had an unaccustomed feeling of getting the worst of it. - -Fluttered by this sudden revolt, Mrs. Mimburn made an effort to recover -lost ground. - -‘I am sorry you take it like that,’ she began. ‘Of course one does not -mean to accuse----’ - -‘We will talk of something else--yes?’ said Gundred very coolly, but -with complete decision. - -Minne-Adélaïde gasped. She considered her attitude towards life all -that was _chic_, up-to-date, and sound. She imagined that no man or -woman could ever spend the dark hours in each other’s neighbourhood -without the ultimate disaster, and piqued herself on the smart -knowledge of the world that discerned adultery in the most casual -compliments. Gundred’s sudden revolt was preposterous in its ignorance -of human nature, as well as supremely insolent in its offhand -condemnation of her own views. She completely lost her temper. - -‘Oh, well,’ she said, ‘one has to remember how little you know of -things, poor dear! Your innocence is really beautiful--if it weren’t so -pathetic. You will have a rude awakening one of these days. I am afraid -there can be no doubt that your husband has already----’ - -She broke off, daunted by the look in Gundred’s eyes. The immemorial -pride of the Mortimers gleamed and flashed in them. Gundred might have -been brought up to be calm, unemotional, well mannered, but she came -of a race that had never allowed itself to be baited by inferiors. And -almost everyone else in the world was an inferior. Gundred fixed a -chilling stare on Mrs. Mimburn’s excited face. ‘Be quiet, please,’ she -said; ‘I am afraid you are a very vulgar woman.’ - -All was over; Mrs. Mimburn was summed up and condemned in that one -placid sentence, so judicially delivered. She could make no appeal; for -the life of her, she could not even finish her remark. For the moment -she was dominated by the force that came from her rigidly decorous -enemy. - -Then in the silence, the door opened, and Kingston entered. Gundred -turned towards him with a happy smile. - -‘Isn’t it a pity,’ she said in pleasant, gentle tones. ‘Aunt Minna says -she must go back to London to-morrow. Nothing can persuade her to stay, -I find.’ - -Minne-Adélaïde stuttered and choked with wrath at this defeat. ‘Yes,’ -she said, purple through her powder--‘yes--yes, I must positively go -back to town--positively go back to town to-morrow.’ - -Gundred quietly resumed her work. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - -Minne-Adélaïde was gone, but her work remained. A week had passed, but -Gundred could never forget that dialogue. Still as far from her mind as -ever was any crude distrust of her husband. It was not in her nature -to have vulgar suspicions--to attribute to others that ugly baseness of -which she herself could never have been capable. But, none the less, -she grew vaguely fretted by Isabel’s presence, vaguely unhappy over -the interest that Kingston took in her cousin. The two were always -saying things that Gundred could not understand. Bit by bit she grew to -feel that even to be an efficient housekeeper and a nice, well-dressed -person is not always quite sufficient for a wife’s endowment. She made -spasmodic attempts to follow Isabel’s flights into the abstract, and -sometimes gave a book the preference over needlework. Her conversation -became ambitious, aiming at brilliancy, but only achieving flatulence. -She talked in capital letters, of high big words without definitions. -Her contributions to ethical debate were windy, wearisome, perpetually -circular and pointless. She saw that she could not attain to Isabel’s -fantastic lightness of touch; she tramped a heavy ring of argument, -and, being for ever unable to analyze her own meaning, was quite -incapable of conveying it to others. Never before had she found herself -inadequate. Now the conviction grew upon her that inadequate--at -least, in some directions--she certainly was. She took refuge in the -consciousness of her wedding-ring, and in the thought that impiety -would be involved in the sharing of much that her husband and Isabel -talked of. And for no possible consideration of earthly happiness would -Gundred have wished to share impiety. - -Kingston and Isabel noticed Gundred’s efforts to keep pace with -their conversations. On Isabel they had no effect. Isabel admitted -no consideration of Gundred to any place in her life. She lived -alone with Kingston, in a world of their own creation, and Gundred -had for her little, if any, real existence. On Kingston Gundred’s -manœuvres impressed the full ill-luck of the situation. He saw how -she was trying to come near him, and her struggles to do so only -emphasized the fact that she was far away. Her attempt had come -too late. Understanding now, as he did, the relation in which his -whole soul stood to Isabel’s, it became piteous to watch Gundred’s -efforts, and understand their futility. He redoubled the warmth of -his demonstrations, and, after the habit of men, tried to make up for -denying her what she wanted by lavishing upon her everything she did -not. Outward signs no longer satisfied her; she had awaked to the fact -that true marriage involves the exchange of something more, and that -something more it was not now in Kingston’s power to give her. He -was delightfully attentive, delightfully demonstrative; he picked up -cushions, placed footstools and pillows, fetched and carried with eager -docility; he complimented, praised, gave lip-worship and kisses and -embraces; but these vigorous manifestations were all so many simulacra -of the love that was lacking. Gundred insensibly came to realize the -lack, and Kingston’s well-meant attempts to dissemble it only had the -effect of forcing it on her attention. He gave her no cause to feel -lonely, was always at her side, always included her in the talk, never -allowed himself to be alone with Isabel. Yet lonely Gundred still -felt herself--shut out from something. By whose fault? The fault was -undiscoverable. - -Her husband’s attitude was negative and balanced. He threw all his -efforts into making good to Gundred the fraud that he had innocently -perpetrated. He had no need to look at Isabel, to talk to her, to -aggravate the trouble of Gundred’s position. To Kingston and Isabel -their secret glory was glory enough. He even shrank from the idea -of open friendship with the woman whom his heart loved. It was -enough--completely, triumphantly enough--that she should be there in -the same house with him, and that he should be for ever conscious of -her presence and her relationship to himself. That relationship might -have been profaned, spoiled, made common, had they allowed themselves -to indulge in talk, in rapture, in the perilous delights of intimacy. -As things were, it remained a lovely secret possession, a thing between -them both, silent and holy, not to be brought down to earth. The -earthly agonies had passed, or only recurred for fleeting moments. The -privilege of keeping sacred a feeling so absorbing was enough for the -glorification of the present. Morbid and perilous, the situation stood. -A month would probably have destroyed its frail balance. In the nature -of things it could not last. No sane lover could have contemplated its -lasting. But Kingston and Isabel had no plan. They lived from hour to -hour; they did not dare to look forward. Destiny would somehow loose -the knot of their relations. Silent love was enough for the moment. -Their emotions hung breathless on a delicate poise that would not -let them contemplate any to-morrow. Besides, such a transcendental -attitude, so dangerous, so unpractical, so deadly, left Kingston’s -nature free to pay consolatory court to Gundred. With all his external -nature he did homage to his wife, and concentrated his skill on paying -in full to Gundred the debt he owed. Exalted and fantastic, rather than -sensual and practical, his temperament made the task easier than it -might have been found by many better, more full-blooded men. To him it -became rather a fine martyrdom, in the successful achievement of which -lay not only purification, but even pleasure. In the mutilation of the -lower self for the sake of the higher he found a comfort so keen as to -be almost joy. - -Thus, in eager self-mortification, he humbled himself before Gundred, -and believed that she had no suspicion of any defaultings on his -side. He felt that he was giving her good measure, pressed down and -running over--though only of the second-best. That she guessed it to -be the second-best her husband had no notion; so subtle an instinct -would always have been beyond the prosaic Gundred whom he had known -and married. Now he knew her no longer; life had developed them along -different roads. So he continued in the confident hope that he was -giving her the perfect satisfaction to which she had the right, while -she, for her part, secretly chafed at his obvious efforts, grieved -that effort should be necessary, and exerted herself more and more to -enter his life again. And as for the future, that might look after -itself. Sufficient to the day was the marital duty of it. Marriage, -however, is a dead thing by the time it becomes a duty. Kingston had no -suspicion of this, but Gundred, suddenly outstripping him in the race -of intuitions, understood in her heart of hearts, and felt a mortal -chill. - -The habits of a lifetime, though, are not easily broken by emotional -gales; Gundred, for all her leaping excursions into the regions -frequented by Kingston and Isabel, retained her old, well-drilled -enthusiasm for domesticity. Hearts might break and sunder, but the -trained courage of Gundred saw no reason why soup, for that, should -grow tepid, or beds ill-aired. Whatever she might fear or suffer, -however much she might strain and agonize for real intimacy with her -husband, she could not have excused herself to herself for allowing -her attention to wander from his comfort or neglect his health. She -pursued the useful tenour of her way with a Spartan cheerfulness that -might have been even more splendid than it was had not long habit -so engrained in her the zeal of domestic services. She continued -overhauling the house, its resources, its supplies, its deficiencies. -Lady Adela having handed over to her the reins of government, she -assumed them with unfaltering grip. Soon she became the housekeeper’s -terror, and put to rout all the slack ease that had prevailed under -the ineffectual amiability of her mother-in-law’s rule. While one -side of her nature was battering for admittance into Kingston’s -life, the other, the older, larger side, was occupied in examining -store-cupboards, choosing wall-papers, pulling the house and its -appointments into shape once more. Many improvements must be made, -lighting remodelled, some of the worst horrors tactfully but decisively -obliterated. - -And at this point, some ten days after Kingston’s understanding with -Isabel, her inquiries brought Gundred face to face with the revelation -that the drains of Ivescar were of an Early Victorian Tudor design -no less pronounced than the style of its architecture. The discovery -filled her with consternation. Her husband had confessed the day -before to a sore throat. Diphtheria at once painted itself grimly on -her imagination. Their stay at Ivescar must immediately end. With a -strenuous exertion of character she swept Kingston and Isabel into -harmony with her own determination, and the next morning they fled -from Yorkshire. There was only one place for them to go to while the -sanitary inspectors got to work. The London house was impossible--a -desolation of painters and builders. They must return to Brakelond. -Accordingly to Brakelond Gundred carried her acquiescent flock, and -they took up their residence once again in the little wooden wing -that jutted out over the sea. And so three more days passed, drifting -Kingston and Isabel insensibly nearer to the inevitable catastrophe. In -their fantastic ecstasy they were heedless of peril. But without some -intervention of fate their path led downwards towards disaster, though -they might ignore or angrily deny the fact even to themselves or each -other. - -At Brakelond some of the old reflected strength came back to Gundred. -She became, once more, rather the châtelaine than the glorified -housekeeper. Her mind, less distracted by congenial cares, was able to -devote itself with all its might to what she called, to herself, the -recapture of her husband. She talked, claimed his attention, attempted -metaphysical flights. Her efforts aroused in him sad laughter, -irritation, and pity. They were tragically futile as ever--futile -in the very nature of the case, no less than in the limitations of -Gundred’s character. The situation drifted on and on. As for Isabel, -Gundred not only tried to copy her methods, but to monopolize her -company. She sat with her, took her for drives, kept her at her side as -much as possible, flattering herself all the time that her manœuvres -were imperceptible. Isabel, secure in her secret supremacy, allowed -herself to be captured, and, in the superficial victory of Gundred, -found an added joy in her own hidden amusement. - -‘A little drive this afternoon--yes?’ said Gundred, after lunch. -‘Wouldn’t it be nice? You will come with me, Isabel?’ - -Isabel assented. ‘At what time?’ she asked. - -‘Oh, four o’clock. I don’t want to go far. There is a woman I rather -wished to go and see. Dear Mary Restormel, Kingston, you have often -heard me speak of her. They have been friends of the family’s for I -couldn’t say how long.’ - -‘Shall I come with you?’ asked Kingston, not fancying the back seat of -the victoria, and hoping to be excused. - -‘Oh no, dear. You had better sit in the garden and make yourself -comfortable. We shall not be away long. Restormel is only about two -miles off across the valley. And we’ll take the new horse too. So I -expect we shall be home again in next to no time.’ - -‘What does one talk to Mrs. Restormel about?’ asked Isabel. - -‘Oh, I’ll do that,’ replied Gundred, not admitting, even to herself, -that her motive in taking Isabel was to prevent her from having -Kingston to herself that afternoon. ‘I really want to see her. She is -expecting a child in about a month, dear Mary Restormel. Such a mercy -if it is a son--not that it will make any difference, I am afraid, for -the place will certainly have to be sold as soon as poor Hugh Restormel -dies. Such a cruel pity--the sweetest little old place, Isabel. But the -Restormels are poorer than Church mice nowadays, and positively cannot -keep it going for another generation. You will simply love it, Isabel; -you will be able to wander in the garden and get lost.’ - -Expressing her joy at the prospect, Isabel made her escape to get ready. - -Kingston and Gundred were left together. - -‘You are quite sure you will not be lonely, Kingston,’ said Gundred, -after a pause. She spoke with a tinge of remorse in her voice, -reproaching herself with painful conscientiousness for her wish to -deprive him of amusing company. - -‘Oh no,’ he answered, not discerning her veiled apology, nor caring -to. ‘I shall get along quite happily.’ He no longer answered her as he -might have done in his first innocent friendliness, before Isabel had -been revealed to him. - -Gundred noticed the difference, with a subtlety for which he would not -have given her credit. - -‘It is so nice having Isabel with us--yes?’ she said, apologizing both -to himself and her. - -Her husband had long since ceased to criticize Isabel; now he warmed -honestly to her praise. - -‘She is splendid company,’ he replied. ‘Always full of interesting -things to say. Don’t you think she is very amusing, Gundred?’ - -‘Oh yes,’ answered Gundred with pathetic insincerity. ‘So bright and -witty and facetious. I often wish I could say all the clever things she -does. I am afraid I am much slower than she is, though. My brain does -not run along so readily. I am fonder of serious things.’ - -Her voice was touched with a faint wistfulness. Kingston hardly noticed -it. He saw an opportunity for a show of that ardour which she found so -unsatisfactory, and which he believed that she found so satisfying. - -‘She is one person, and you are another,’ he replied. ‘I would not have -you different, little lady, for anything in the world.’ - -This was pleasant and pretty. Gundred’s instincts found it blankly -empty and chilling. He meant to be so warm, but a month ago such an -advance as hers would have been very differently met. Then he had -thought her cold, had been for ever calling upon her to thaw. Now he -hardly appeared to notice whether she was warm or cold, despite his -manifestations of enthusiasm. Now it was he that was frozen, and she -might thaw, it seemed, in vain. Had her melting come too late? - -‘Wouldn’t you?’ she answered slowly. ‘Are you really sure you wouldn’t? -Kingston,’ she went on in a low voice, ‘I do so want to do and say what -you like.’ She hesitated and broke off, seeking piteously for words -that should salve her pride in its downfall. - -He could not understand that her seriousness demanded the tribute -of a serious answer in return. He gave her another of those easy -protestations which sounded so well, and yet, as she felt, meant so -little. - -‘You always do,’ he replied, ‘always and always. You can’t tell how -much pleasure you give us, Gundred.’ - -Against this geniality, so smooth, so superficial, she felt horribly -powerless. There seemed no way, any longer, of piercing to her -husband’s notice, of spurring him up to sincerity. And that casual ‘us’ -shut the door against her so finally. - -‘Ah,’ she answered in a tired tone, her smile tinged with tragedy. ‘You -say such delightful things. But I do feel I am not clever enough for -you.’ - -‘It is not cleverness one wants,’ he said. ‘It is just you. You, and -only you. You are exactly perfect. One doesn’t criticize and say you -are not this and that. You are just You.’ - -She knew that he no longer criticized. But what he thought loyalty -she felt to be lack of interest. The ardour of his words awoke now -no answering ardour of conviction in her mind. As for Kingston, an -emotion of pure pity stirred him. This charming, dear little woman, how -awfully much, after all, he owed her. He believed that he could only -pay his debt to her by redoubling the formal warmth of his words. The -more pitiable he found her, the more he intensified the eagerness of -compliment that was his atonement at once to her and to himself, that -eagerness which she found so void and cold. ‘Dear pretty lady,’ he -said, ‘you should never have foolish little doubts. Don’t you realize -that nobody’s husband was ever so happy in the world before?’ - -She knew it. And she feared that she counted for nothing in that -happiness of his. Her hands dropped, her voice grew chilly in its -hopelessness. ‘Such a comfort--yes?’ she answered. ‘I am glad you are -so happy, Kingston. I hoped you would be.’ - -Isabel came back into the room, and in a moment an animated -conversation was going forward. Gundred took her part bravely, speaking -wherever speech was possible, always falling short or wide of the -point, always on the edge of giving up the attempt, and always being -picked up by her husband, and pushed back again into the dialogue. Then -the carriage was announced, and she set off with Isabel to visit the -Restormels. - -Kingston sat in the garden, pondering the strange situation, hoping -that he was behaving fairly to all concerned, and believing that he -was. What could come of it all he had no idea. Poor Gundred, he admired -her, respected her, marvelled at her--did everything, in fact, but love -her. And that was now beyond his power. Love he could show, love no one -can force himself to feel. She no longer stirred any pulses of emotion -in him. She was a mere acquaintance--a pretty, charming, well-mannered -acquaintance, but nothing more. What could he do, except what he was -doing? To send Isabel away would be to find himself soon ceasing even -to tolerate his wife. Without Isabel his life would become vacant and -boring beyond conception. And it was not possible but that his boredom -would react unfavourably on his attitude towards Gundred. It was fairer -to all that Isabel should remain with them, easing off the tension -of the difficult situation. And in time everything would settle down -somehow, and the problem of existence would solve itself. He would not -look ahead. Ten days had passed in a dream of holy happiness. Why not -ten months, ten years, ten lustres? - -Meanwhile the return of the two women was strangely delayed. Tea-time -came and went without a sign of them. And then the agitating news -arrived that the new horse had emphasized his novelty by bolting on -the homeward way, and upsetting the carriage at the foot of the hill -leading up to the Castle. Gundred was unhurt, and soon appeared, pale -and shaken, but intrepid. As for Isabel, her leg had been badly broken. - -The next few hours passed in ceaseless bustle. Isabel, unconscious, was -carried up to the Castle. Doctors, nurses, medicaments were wired for. -Gundred’s courage came nobly to the fore. Despite the shock she herself -had sustained, she went calmly, self-denyingly, self-importantly about -her business. Kingston, who had seen nothing and suffered nothing of -the accident, was far less placid and level-headed than Gundred. The -sight of Isabel appalled him; Gundred firmly faced the responsibility, -had her brought to the oaken parlour at the end of the old wooden -wing, did all that could be done for her till the doctor arrived. When -Isabel returned to consciousness it was Gundred who watched over her, -comforted her, tried to mitigate her pain; Kingston could not bear to -contemplate the horror. Had the sufferer been a man, Kingston, perhaps, -might have confronted his groans more stolidly, though even so his -sympathetic, emotional temperament must always have been less fitted -than Gundred’s cool, unimaginative bravery, to cope with the manifold -uglinesses of physical suffering. - -At last, however, the telegrams began to bear fruit. The doctor -arrived, and matters showed signs of settling down into a more regular -train. The bone was duly set, Isabel made comfortable, and hope held -out of a speedy and prosperous recovery. A nurse came, and proved a -very capable and decisive young person, whose only weakness was for -looking-glasses. She was established in the empty upper rooms of the -old wooden wing, and gave nightly scandal to the Castle servants -by lighting all the candles she could get together, the better to -contemplate her charms and curl her hair. Except for this trick of -collecting so lavish an illumination and leaving it to take care of -itself while she went about her other businesses, she turned out both -pleasant and useful. Her charge soon grew to like her, and, within a -day or two of the accident, life at Brakelond was subsiding once more -into calm and comfort. Helpless Isabel lay in state in the little oaken -parlour, where Kingston and Gundred kept her company, hardly leaving -her alone from morning to night. There was even, as her recovery -satisfactorily advanced, a certain quiet charm about this invalid life. -Isabel incapable of movement was rather a softer, more human person -than Isabel insolent in perfect vitality and health. Kingston and -Gundred enjoyed sitting with her and talking to her. They took it in -turns to read aloud, and did everything they could to make the victim’s -imprisonment as bearable as possible. - -So the days went placidly by till, though she was as yet, of course, -unable to set foot to ground, the doctor promised that before long she -might expect to be getting about once more, without any ill-effects -from her accident. The nurse’s position, relieved by Gundred’s -assiduities, grew more and more formal, more and more of a sinecure. -She spent most of her time among the servants in the Castle, and her -own looking-glass saw less and less of her. There were her morning -duties and a few routine services to be discharged later, but in the -evening, when Isabel had dined, she could safely be left to the care -of Kingston and Gundred, while Nurse Molly, her fringe in perfection, -could go and delight the housekeeper’s room away in the Drum Tower. - -The conversations between the three over Isabel’s bedside took many -a strange turn. Gundred was never encouraged by either Kingston or -Isabel to feel any of her inability to take an adequate part. They -chatted of everything that interested them, and Gundred was compelled -to believe herself interested also. - -‘Now that the pain is over,’ said Isabel one night, ‘one wonders, -looking back, what it was all about--what it meant, what it really was.’ - -‘Oh, they always say a broken bone is dreadfully painful,’ replied -Gundred. ‘I have always heard so--yes? Dear Isabel, you bore it so -bravely.’ - -‘One has to worry through,’ rejoined Isabel. ‘But what I meant was, why -is the pain there? What makes a cracked bone produce all the unpleasant -effects it does on one’s consciousness. It sends all kinds of horrible -little burning, grinding, stabbing messages of spite to the brain. That -is what pain is. But what are all those little messages for? Why does -the beastly bone go on repeating itself so? If it only told the brain -once and for all that it was broken, that ought to be quite enough. I -hate a tautologous bone.’ - -‘Yes,’ said Kingston, ‘but it only goes on sending those messages when -your brain tries to disregard them. Your leg only hurt when you tried -to move it. Pain is simply the repeated warning of Nature.’ - -‘And the test of endurance--yes?’ put in Gundred. ‘Pain has the most -marvellously elevating effect.’ - -For a moment the conversation lapsed. They were sitting in the oaken -parlour after dinner. The hour was growing late, and soon Nurse Molly -might be expected to come and shut up Isabel for the night. However, -at present she was at the other end of the Castle, taking her pleasure -with the rest of the household, and the old wooden wing, with its -inhabitants, was left quite deserted. - -‘I don’t believe it,’ said Isabel. ‘Pain is absolutely horrible. -I am a coward about it. I loathe and dread it altogether. Pain and -death--dying, rather--are awful to me. I love being alive and warm in -the blessed world. Dissolution is ghastly. For nothing would I give up -the joy of living. Oh, agony is too horrible. It’s not a lesson so much -as a punishment. Oh yes, a punishment, even if it’s for something one -has done hundreds of years ago, before one was in this body at all.’ - -‘Oh, what a dreadful idea!’ cried Gundred, shocked--‘a terrible -unchristian idea!’ - -‘Not at all,’ contributed Kingston; ‘what about the blind man in the -Temple? They asked Christ, “Did this man sin, or his parents, that he -was born blind?” How could he have sinned, then, before he was born, -except in some other existence? And Christ passed the question. If He -had disbelieved the theory of reincarnation, He was quite capable of -saying so very definitely. But He did not. By His silence He implicitly -admitted its truth, instead of challenging it, and devoted Himself to -the healing of the blind man.’ - -‘So wonderfully hot it is in here to-night,’ said Gundred. - -‘I always feel,’ went on Isabel, ‘whenever I have a bad time, I am -paying for having enjoyed a too good one once in a wrong way. I expect -this broken leg of mine is the result of some selfish enjoyment of mine -in bygone days that I have forgotten. I had prepared this penalty for -myself in some mysterious way. For these things come automatically. -Touch a button--commit the tiniest, wee-est action, good or bad--and -years and years later, long after one has thought the action dead and -forgotten, something happens that shows it has been alive and steadily -working from the first hour to the last. Every littlest thing that -happens, pleasant or painful, can always be traced back, I expect, to -some cause, infinitely small and infinitely remote in the past, far, -far away beyond one’s recollection.’ - -‘Don’t you wonder,’ said Kingston, ‘what your actions of yesterday -and to-day will produce, and how long it will be before their effects -come down upon us? We shall probably have forgotten all about to-day -by then, but everything that we have done must bear some sort of fruit -some day or other, as you say. Your accident, for instance, will have -some effect upon us, and Nurse Molly must make some change in our -lives, sooner or later. If one cannot introduce a fresh action without -effect into our lives, still less can one introduce a fresh person. -Nurse Molly, with her marvellous fringe, will certainly bring some new -element with her into our lives. Now, what will it be, Isabel?’ - -Gundred saw a chance of being apposite. - -‘Talking of Nurse Molly,’ she said, ‘really, she must be terribly vain. -Morgan tells me she lights all the candles she can get together, and -then sits and looks at herself in the glass. The servants are perfectly -scandalized. And when she goes away from the room, she never dreams of -putting the candles out. She leaves them all burning quite happily, and -never thinks about them again. Such a sinful waste--yes? And she might -set these old wooden rooms on fire any day, by her carelessness.’ - -Isabel ignored her cousin’s intervention, and went back to the original -topic. ‘I hope,’ she said, ‘I have atoned for my wickedness of the past -with this broken leg of mine. What I want to do is to lay up for myself -a great fat store of merit, so as to go on getting happier and happier -in all the later stages of my existence.’ - -‘Yes, but before one can attain the perfect happiness,’ replied -Kingston, ‘remember that one has to lose the desire for it. After -ages and ages of purification, one leaves the last trace of desire -behind--even the desire for good. Then one becomes the perfect -knowledge which is the perfect peace.’ - -‘So dreadfully chilly it sounds--yes?’ said Gundred. - -‘Well, but the warmth of life is also the torment of life,’ replied -Kingston. ‘Desire may be as warm and pleasant as possible, but all -desire is sorrow. Without desire there is no disappointment, no -suffering, none of the horrible things in life that we all want to get -away from.’ - -‘Would one rather sacrifice desire for the sake of getting rid of -sorrow, or is desire so pleasant that one would put up with sorrow to -retain desire? I suppose desire is very painful and all the rest of it, -but it does make life wonderfully interesting, and one’s days would -be deadly lonely without it.... I don’t know that I want the perfect -peace, as yet, Kingston. Perhaps when my soul has grown a few centuries -older. At present all I want is to lay up for myself a supply of -happiness to go on with.’ - -‘You can only do that,’ he answered, ‘through -suffering--self-abnegations, martyrdoms, and all sorts of uncomfortable -strenuous virtues. By despising pain and bearing it for others, you may -attain to happiness. Not simply by sitting quiet and saying you want to -acquire merit. You must go through dreadful things cheerfully if you -hope to lay up merit.’ - -‘Nothing for nothing is the rule, evidently,’ said Isabel, ‘in morality -as well as in commerce. So tiresome, when everyone longs to get -bargains, and buy a pound’s worth for half a crown. But when happiness -comes to the hammer, it always fetches its full price, I suppose, in -whatever market you buy it.’ - -‘Well, Gundred, what do you think?’ asked Kingston. - -‘Talking of hammers,’ replied Gundred, ‘there are the strangest -thumpings going on upstairs. Don’t you hear? Hammerings and bumpings -and knockings. Do you think Nurse Molly can be nailing up pictures?’ - -‘Running pins into the fringe, I should think,’ replied Kingston, with -a touch of petulance. Certainly Nurse Molly was making the oddest -noise in her room overhead. In the silence that followed Kingston’s -suggestions her unmethodical clatterings could be distinctly heard. - -‘We must certainly ask her to be quiet--yes?’ said Gundred. Then she -rose and went to the window. ‘Why should it be so stifling in here?’ -she went on. ‘There is quite a gale outside. Only listen.’ She paused, -and the roar of a great rushing wind was clearly evident. - -‘The wind seems to get up very suddenly on these coasts,’ said Kingston. - -‘Oh yes,’ answered Gundred; ‘all in a minute. Especially so late in -the year. That is what makes the heat so extraordinary.’ She peered -curiously out into the darkness. ‘Why, Kingston,’ she exclaimed, -‘it is actually snowing. How perfectly astonishing! Quite a number -of snowflakes are falling. And Nurse Molly’s illumination is really -too scandalous; I can see it glowing quite far out into the night, -throbbing and flickering.’ She pulled back the catch, and threw the -little window wide. - -Instantly, from above, a long, keen shaft of pure flame curled swiftly -down into the room, licked round the casement like a dragon’s tongue, -and was gone again. Gundred had self-possession enough to close the -window, then she staggered back. The roaring sound overhead was louder -now than ever. - -‘The Castle is on fire,’ she remarked at last, after a heavy pause. -Suddenly she felt elated by her sagacity. ‘The Castle is on fire,’ she -repeated slowly. - -‘I think we had better get out of this,’ said Kingston. ‘It’s that -woman’s confounded candles upstairs. Ring the bell, Gundred, will you?’ - -He went to the door, and opened it. The passage, their one hope of -reaching the body of the Castle, was an impassable mass of flame at its -further end. Kingston came back into the room. Even now the full horror -of the situation had not struck him. - -‘I’m afraid we can’t escape that way,’ he said quietly. ‘The corridor -is ablaze.’ - -Gundred, meanwhile, was vigorously pulling at the bell; in the silence -that followed Kingston’s announcement she continued methodically at her -task, and the knob could be heard slapping again and again into its -socket as she released it. - -Kingston glanced from Gundred to Isabel. - -Isabel had said nothing hitherto. He waited poignantly to hear what she -would suggest. - -At last she spoke. Her voice was strained with agony and terror. - -‘And I--I cannot move,’ she said. ‘I am tied by the leg.’ - -Kingston turned furiously upon Gundred, who, in an access of vain -frenzy, was rending and tearing the bell. - -‘Leave off making that hideous row!’ he exclaimed. ‘What do you suppose -is the use of it? Do you imagine the servants will come through three -yards of fire to get us out?’ - -‘What are we to do?’ asked Gundred feebly. - -‘I’m hanged if I know,’ replied her husband. ‘We must do something, -that’s certain, and pretty quickly. These old rooms will burn like -tinder. There must be some way along outside.’ He looked out of the -farther window. Now the clamour of the fire was growing every moment -more insistent. The night air was aglow, and burning fragments were -dropping like meteors towards the sea beneath. - -‘Yes,’ said Kingston. ‘There is a little ledge of rock. One couldn’t -walk along it in the daytime, but we have no choice. Gundred, you will -have to do what you can. You will be able to get along quite safely, -if you go quickly and don’t think about it. And I must take charge of -Isabel. Isabel, I’m afraid it won’t be very good for your bad leg, but -I must carry you somehow. And there is no time to be lost.’ - -Then Gundred understood everything. In the midst of an orderly -comfortable life, it is not easy to understand that one is suddenly -hemmed in by inexorable death. But at last the facts of the situation -all burst in a shrieking pandemonium upon Gundred’s brain. She faced -round upon her husband, read his face, and knew suddenly what terrible -thing it was that he was thinking. In that awful moment of unveiled -sincerity she saw that she, his wife, came second in his consideration. -She was to get away as best she could. It was Isabel that mattered. The -slow secret fears of her life roared out into the open, swept down upon -her in a storm, and culminated. She clasped her hands for self-control, -as the world shook and tottered round her. Desperately she clutched -at her escaping senses; then, in a swirl, everything rushed together, -grew dark, vanished. She dropped her hands, gave a sharp, moaning cry, -and fainted. In the blank silence that followed her fall the voracious -bellowing of the fire drew closer and fiercer. - -‘My God!’ said Kingston, in the low tone of absolute terror, ‘what are -we to do now?’ He looked at Isabel. Between the two helpless women -he must make his choice. He must make it instantly, too. He could -not by any possibility save both. He looked again from Isabel to -Gundred. Isabel’s face, in that supreme hour, was white and wet with -anguish, but she said nothing. She saw too well what Gundred’s collapse -involved. Kingston still stood glancing from one to the other. He knew -which of the two his whole soul cried aloud to save; he knew also which -of the two his duty called on him to save. Love and duty were at last -impossible to reconcile. On the razor’s edge of agony his mind poised -and quivered through a pause that seemed to fill whole delirious hours, -yet was come and gone in a flash. Insensibly he was waiting to hear -Isabel pronounce his sentence and her own. All her passionate love of -life shone in her straining eyes. They implored him, called upon him, -cried violently to him for safety. And then, in an instant, Isabel’s -eyes were opened, and her soul rose triumphant on its wings. - -‘Your wife,’ she said, with dry lips, almost inaudibly. ‘Your wife. You -must save her. Go--go quickly--and then come back for me--if there is -time--oh God, come back for me quickly.’ - -All was over. He knew he must obey. Without a word, he turned and -gathered up the inanimate bundle that was Gundred. In feverish haste he -clambered with his burden through the window. Insatiably, terrifically, -the fire raged and ravened overhead. As he went he had a last glimpse -of Isabel, her face gleaming with fear, set in the strain of mortal -anxiety, her white hands clenched and writhing together on the quilt. -Then he was out in the darkness, with brands and lumps of burning -matter falling thick about his ears, drifting down into the night, -to sink at last, hissing, into the invisible sea below. Stumbling, -tottering, staggering, he dragged his load. How he ever reached safety -he could never have told. A hundred times it seemed as if he must fall. -But he struggled on vaguely, half-consciously, through a nightmare, -and found himself at last on sure ground, under the shelter of the old -Castle walls. Savagely he dropped his unconscious burden on a level -spot, then turned to rush back for Isabel. And, at that moment, before -his bloodshot eyes, the old wooden wing collapsed into a blazing hell -of fire--a vomiting pyramid of sparks and flame. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - -The soul passes in a moment from youth to manhood, through the iron -door of a great sorrow. Between past and present stands the bolted -portal, and the event of half an hour has set an eternal barrier -between the thing one is and the thing one was. Kingston Darnley, as -soon as his dazed brain began to understand what had happened, found -that he looked back at his past across the haze of fire as on a drama -played by strangers. Everything had changed; on that drama a curtain of -anguish had descended, and now, when it lifted, the scene had altered, -and the old actors had disappeared for ever. Kingston, no less than -Isabel, had passed through the furnace. Seared and burned and blackened -he emerged from it, changed beyond his own recognition, with passions -killed and passions kindled. Somehow, by some mysterious help, he had -struggled through the agony, and come out alive; but his consciousness -was dazed and bruised, his vitality crushed, his fiery interest in life -turned suddenly to the grey ashes of mere endurance. - -The days went by in a dreary dream. Kingston went mechanically about -his duties, and saw the figure of Gundred moving at his side like -something unreal and strange. There were inevitable activities for him -to carry through, and he discharged them steadfastly, with his numbed -mind fixed on other matters. As for Gundred, not having so suffered, -she found herself more alive to the matters in hand. There were -condolences, inquiries to answer, arrangements to be made, restorations -to be seen about. Gundred’s interest in the details of life could never -lie long dormant, and when the first shock had passed with two or three -days of intermittent tears, Gundred dried her eyes carefully, with a -due regard to their appearance, and began to pluck up her sense of -importance once more, thanking Heaven for her powers of self-control. - -The fire had confined itself to the old wooden wing and the chapel, -and had made no attempt to devour the stark stone walls of the Castle -itself. Gundred was deeply grateful for the forbearance thus manifested -by Heaven, and was soon immersed in plans for the rebuilding of the -ruins. Her husband, stupefied and calm, was not yet able to give her -any effectual help, and so on her unaided shoulders she triumphantly -supported all the responsibilities of the case. As time passed, and her -first outbreak of genuine sorrow was quelled by the flood of her new -activities, Gundred even began to enjoy the importance which events had -so abruptly conferred upon her. Suddenly she became more conspicuous in -the public eye than ever in her life before. The tragedy of Brakelond -challenged attention and pity up and down the length and breadth of -England. In horror, in picturesqueness, in romance, it possessed all -the titillating qualities best fitted to make it the talk of the -country. And Gundred became the central figure of the picture; sympathy -and admiration were concentrated on her; her courage, her coolness, -her grief, her rapid resumption of self-control, were made the daily -subject of laudation. Of her husband nobody knew much, or cared. Her -own name, her own position, made her the pivot of the drama, to say -nothing of all the other causes that had tended to obscure Kingston -since the catastrophe--his dazed acquiescence in events, his reluctance -to enter the world of new plans in which Gundred was moving so happily. -He sank into the background, and was alone with his sorrow. - -Gundred was busy with designs for the new stone wing that should -arise in place of the treacherous old wooden fire-trap, as soon as -the ruins should have been cleared away. Kingston could be moved by -nothing except the hope of finding Isabel’s relics. It was not till -the third day that his wish was fulfilled. Then, buried in the densest -chaos of débris, they found what remained of the dead. Gundred cried -bitterly over the tragic discovery, and then, dabbing her eyes, began -to meditate an epitaph that should compensate everyone for all that -had been suffered. Kingston faced the piteous remains in a stupor. He -could not have told what it was that he had expected the excavations to -reveal, but surely nothing so crude as this mere wreckage of mortality -that came to light. The fire had been merciless: a few fragments of -flaky bone, the blackened crust of a skull, from which the white teeth -gleamed horribly--this was all that it had left of Isabel. Kingston -could never have anticipated the raw ugliness of the revelation. It -stunned him anew. This black, bare globe was dreadful, filled with -dreadful thoughts and associations, a monstrous burlesque of love and -things lovely; its eyeless glare, its obtrusive grin, were ghastly -in their mockery of life’s beauties; the glitter of two gold-crowned -teeth in the lower jaw set the last fine edge on the horror, in their -ironical reminder of the daily life now destroyed for ever. And yet -this was Isabel--the real Isabel--or, rather, it was the earthly -emblem of her. That rounded shape had actually contained her, had -contained the hopes, the fears, the love that had gone to make up -Isabel. And now, where and what was Isabel? Only the outward form had -suffered; how could the mysterious secret passions that had been the -framework of her personality, how could they have any share in the -ruin that had fallen on the outward manifestation of Isabel? And yet, -without that outward manifestation, how could she still be Isabel? -Dimly, fantastically, he tried to figure her in another shape--as -another woman, as a man. The task was impossible. To his bounded human -outlook, the outward form was an integral part of the real Isabel. -Yet, now he was brought face to face with the obvious fact that, while -the outward form had been reduced to a thing of loathing and horror, -the real Isabel must still be in existence somewhere, incorrupt and -incorruptible. It was unthinkable that she should have suffered the -fate of her body. So he must perforce bring himself to realize that the -thing he loved had had no true connection with the hair, the skin, the -features that it had worn for a while. Hair and skin and features were -gone; but the beloved remained--out of sight, unrecognisable, remote; -yet, for all that, perfect and unalienated. Fire could not touch the -heart that was Isabel, the courage, the loyalty, the devotion that were -Isabel. They were still alive as ever. But where, in what far world, -how to be found again, and how to be known again when found? - -Kingston passed insensibly beyond the cheap materialism of orthodoxy. -He could not postulate an infinite gilded space where Isabel might -be eternally walking in her habit as she had lived on earth. This -invincible anthropomorphism, this obstinate survival of the savage -in us, by which we are all prone to imagine the dead as we saw them -in life, and familiar for ever by their earthly features, had now no -hold on Kingston. He knew that, whenever we may meet our dead again, -and wherever that may be, heart will call to heart, and soul be known -again to soul; but the features that we have known and loved, the -bones, the flesh, the softness, will all have passed long since into -other forms of life, merged in the huge kaleidoscope of the universe. -Perhaps, in circumstances less cogent, he might have conceived himself -as meeting the physical Isabel years hence in some glorified state, -yet recognisable to eyes that had known her on earth. The sight of -her relics, however, jarred him once and for all out of the puny, -materialistic dream. The blackened hideousness of them forced on his -attention the irrelevance of all physical forms. For a time they may be -everything, these forms and features; ultimately they go for nothing, -pass utterly, are dropped, discarded, alike by the love that wore -them and by the love that worshipped the spirit they clothed. No, he -had done for ever with the corporeal Isabel. Weaknesses and beauties -of shape were all destroyed, reduced to their native insignificance. -Yet Isabel remained. But he had lost her; she had passed beyond his -knowledge into dim places where, if ever she heard the cry of his soul -far off, she could not make him any answer. Now and then, perhaps, she -might call to him in return; in the whisper of the evening wind, in -the song of a bird; but never again in the accents he had known, from -the lips that he had watched; and, even so, she might call unceasingly -to the hungering ears of his soul, yet never be able to make them -understand whose voice it was that they heard. His deep certainty that -she still lived made the separation more paradoxical, more horrible -than ever to Kingston. To know that she was there, yet to call in vain; -never to see her, never to meet her, to be unable, through all his -days, to open up any means of communication with the thing he knew to -be still existing,--this was the ghastliest instance of Fate’s irony, -giving so much, yet making the gift so nugatory. - -Kingston began to feel that, after all, the bill sent in by the -gods had fallen more heavily on him than even on Isabel. Isabel had -passed through agony to glory. But he, he had another agony, longer -and more incurable than hers, though less poignant; and no glory to -compensate, at the end, for the gnawing persistence of his pain. -The grey, sad merit of doing his drudging duty by the world for two -or three more score of years--that, perhaps, lay before him; but a -chilling, colourless glory was this, at once harder and less rewarding -than the sudden flare of martyrdom through which Isabel had passed -upwards on her way. For upwards she had gone, leaving him henceforth -alone on the lower levels where they had first met. Isabel--selfish, -passionate, barbarous Isabel--in one whirling moment had leapt above -all the trammels of false desire and fear--had soared into the great -heights of selflessness, and left far beneath her the outworn husk -of her old struggling egoism. In that other state where she now went -radiant, it must be another Isabel that lived and moved--a purified -Isabel, stripped of many mean and selfish thoughts; an Isabel far -nearer than before to the ultimate radiance towards which the whole -world is inevitably tending through ages of slow purification. How -should he even be able to catch up lost ground and come level with this -glorified Isabel once more? And yet, again, without features--without -the well-remembered features of body (without so many of the mind’s -well-remembered features too)--how, even if chance should be given, was -he to recognise the soul that had once been one with his own? - -She had utterly outstripped him in the race. No test of his endurance -could equal that test of hers--no, not if he lived decently and -honestly all his days, doing the best he could with his duty through -the lagging years that probably lay ahead; why, that would be nothing -to compare with her ordeal, no such swift burning furnace as that -through which Isabel had passed, and from which she had emerged all -gold in the sunlight of her future. - -Because duty and honour had seemed to call, he had sacrificed the thing -he loved for the thing he had promised to love. Even in cold blood he -would still have done the thing--must have done it; any other course -would have been impossible, a treason, a horror. But the sacrifice had -been a rending of the heart; his whole soul was strained and bleeding -from the wrench--bleeding to death, he thought. And, while Isabel -had won freedom for herself, he had gained nothing but a lifetime’s -loneliness. Without any peddling notions of striking a bargain with the -gods, he could not but feel the sarcasm of their smile. He had sold his -life’s happiness--to buy a lifetime’s unhappiness and desolation. He -had done what was an agony to do, in order to obtain that which would -be a long agony to endure. So he looked angrily, contemptuously, on -the chilly duty and self-respect which was all that his martyrdom had -gained him. He hated them for what they had cost, and hated them the -more for his inmost knowledge that the purchase had been inevitable. -Life without Isabel! It seemed that his soul had never in all the ages -imagined the possibility of such a thing, yet now he was to envisage it -through every remaining day and hour of his existence. She was gone, -rising on strong wings towards heaven; he remained on earth, alone for -ever, he who had so helped her take her flight. - -So time dragged by, and insensibly the first agony of his loneliness -wore down into a calmer sorrow. Isabel’s bones were duly buried, and -honoured with a neat inscription devised by Gundred, and matters -gradually began to fall into a settled course once more. Kingston began -to return to ordinary life, and his private grief no longer claimed -his whole attention. Between himself and Gundred a barrier still rose, -but he grew able to give her his help, and, bit by bit, to share once -more in the superficial interest of her days. She, for her part, went -bravely on her way; with more courage and on a more difficult way than -she or anyone else suspected. The new wing was built; the new wing lost -its raw look of novelty; gradually Isabel and her end became to Gundred -little more than a vague if awful memory. She was not the kind of woman -whose nerves can be thrown permanently out of gear. Self-restraint -had been drilled into her blood through many generations, and she -made imperturbability the test-virtue of good breeding. Only once in -all her life had perfect coolness failed her, and that one momentary -lapse had been the immediate cause of Isabel’s death. For a long time -the knowledge of this was her secret cross. In her heart of hearts, -that last awful instant had showed her that Kingston loved Isabel, -that his care for his wife was mere loyalty. The sudden perception, -the combination of new terrors and responsibilities had been suddenly -too much for her endurance, already sapped and damaged by hidden -anxieties and by the shock of the accident. Not meaning to be selfish, -transported rather with the longing to be unselfish and give up her -own life that her husband might save Isabel’s, she had yet, in the -crisis, helplessly committed the final selfishness. She had killed -Isabel. Nothing at first could quite excuse her to herself. And she -knew that her husband must inevitably feel as she did. This was -the barrier between them--Gundred’s innocent guilt, and Kingston’s -answering knowledge that she, and she alone, had been the real cause of -Isabel’s death. Her weakness had cost him the happiness of his life. -How could he bring himself all at once to look on the poor woman with -a cordial eye? He could not but bear her a grudge--all the more bitter -that he realized how unintentional had been the cowardice that had -had such terrible results. He guessed, in his inmost consciousness, -that Gundred--cool, practical Gundred--would have wished to be no -less heroic than Isabel, would have wished to sacrifice her own life -to his happiness; and this instinct only aggravated his grudge, only -intensified in its first vigour his aching, bitter grief that the -sacrifice had not been achieved or made unnecessary by a brief exercise -of Gundred’s usual calm. Yes, the death of Isabel stood between them -for a while like a sword of fire. - -But Gundred was not a woman to suffer exaggerated scruples. Soon she -surmounted the shock, and Bellowes’ Hypophosphates enabled her to -triumph over morbid qualms. She reflected on the goodness and honesty -of her intentions, set remorse in the background, and ere long was -facing Kingston without any more such distressing reserves. He, -meanwhile, was also growing quieter and more sane in his views. After -all, no one was guilty. Everyone had acted for the best. Nature was -not to be blamed. He was too fond of his wife to go on condemning her -for an instant’s lapse. He saw the hysterical injustice of his grudge -against her, and in time succeeded in overcoming it. - -Though neither knew it, Isabel’s stormy intervention and terrible -exit had tided them over the difficult preparatory stage of wedlock. -Now that she was gone, they gradually settled down together in that -elastic bond of mutual tolerance which promises so well for permanent -peace. Neither any longer expected too much from the other. Kingston -grew to acquiesce in Gundred’s limitations, and rejoice in her -perfections, without feeling fretted by the one or satiated by the -other. He did not ask her to be an intellectual companion, to talk, -allure, amuse. She was always cool and pretty to look at, always cool -and pleasant in temper, an admirable hostess, housekeeper, and friend, -altogether level and satisfying as a companion. He had had enough of -vain searchings for the ideal. Nothing could divorce him from the -memory of Isabel. He carried it with him from day to day, shrined in -the depths of his heart, and through the placid duties and happinesses -of his life never ceased to worship that lost part of himself, and -yearn for its recovery. But on the surface he wore a face of perfect -contentment, and his marriage with Gundred soon subsided into a -whole-hearted alliance that was put to no strains, that stood the wear -and tear of intercourse, and was felt to be quite ideal by all that had -the privilege of watching it. And Gundred, now that the storm was over, -gave equal allowances to her husband. The time was gone by now for high -emotions and anguish. Her dim jealousy had vanished with its cause, and -she no longer pined for the perfect intimacy that her nature made it -impossible for her to attain. Instead of being in love with Kingston, -she was now devoted to him, served him loyally and piously, made it -her pride to keep him comfortable and contented. She divined in what -quarter her strength lay, and took pains to cultivate all the qualities -that gave her a hold on her husband. She learned life’s lesson, grew -accommodating instead of exacting, prayed for him instead of preaching -at him, and pressed upon his acceptance nothing that he did not want. -The years had worn down the sharp corners of their characters in the -mill of marriage, until at last their harmony was exact and without any -apparent possibility of discord. - -The years glided placidly by, bringing no more great or violent -developments into the lives of Kingston and Gundred. Five years after -the fire at Brakelond Gundred bore a son, but otherwise little occurred -to break the monotonous tenor of their days. Isabel, by now, was -almost forgotten. Only Kingston retained his faithful worship of her, -cherishing it secretly, far down under the loyal surface of his life, -feeling that justice allowed him at least so much of compensation. From -day to day he longed for her and listened unceasingly for some far-off -echo of her voice. It seemed almost as if she had never been, as if -she had left no relic of her existence in the world--except, perhaps, -by a quaint freak of fortune, in the life of that Mrs. Restormel to -whom Gundred had taken her on that fateful visit. For Mrs. Restormel, -overcome with the horror of the news from Brakelond, had been so -excited that her hour had come upon her unawares. Out of due time she -had been delivered of her child, and a boy had made his appearance -in the world only twelve hours after Isabel had quitted it. However, -the Restormel baby prospered and grew strong, was christened by the -family name of Ivor, and passed successfully through the vicissitudes -of childhood. Otherwise, as Kingston Darnley felt, Isabel had come and -gone, leaving no other trace in the world than that persistent image -which her life had established in his own soul. - -The restless heat of youth had died down in Kingston as in Gundred. His -son was growing from boyhood towards manhood. Unnoticed the years had -flowed away till almost a quarter of a century had rippled by since -the passing of Isabel. He himself was growing fixed and solid; grey -was developing itself in his heart as in his hair. Life was very level -and very comfortable and very pleasant. It was no longer stimulating. -As for Gundred, the years had less effect either on her nature or on -her appearance. She was one of the women who neither shrink nor swell -with age. She had not grown fat; she had not grown thin. Possibly -she had dried up a little. The freshness was gone from her features, -though not their neat prettiness. They had grown perhaps a trifle -wooden in their clear and rather hard perfection. Tiny lines had drawn -themselves here and there, especially round the mouth. Otherwise her -face had changed wonderfully little. The alteration was in its spirit -rather than in its form. It was still strangely young for its years, -but now it was far more decisive than before, older in experience, -more matronly, more righteous. All her points had intensified, and now -she had turned from a very pretty bride to a very pretty wife, full of -responsibilities well borne, of interests, charities, benevolence. Her -child, her schools, her households, her Primrose League gave abundance -of occupation to her life, and more and more for her growing sense of -excellence to feed on. From duty she never flinched or flagged; the -consciousness of such undeviating rectitude of practice gave her manner -a commanding air of self-confidence. Religion, too, tightened its hold -on her. The better she felt herself becoming, the more useful and -valuable, not only in herself, but as an example of conduct, the more -her intimacy with Celestial Persons grew. Priggishness, self-conceit, -as well as all the other grosser mental errors, were very far from the -well-balanced security of her nature. The worst that an enemy could -have said would be that she was a little slow to admit the possibility -of any limitations in herself. In earlier years she had already been -calmly self-confident. Time had only justified and reinforced the calm -as well as the self-confidence, so she went her methodical way, a model -for all matrons, and had, in the neat garden of her life, no disorderly -plots, no tangles, no weeds. It was a precise arrangement of well-kept -beds--everything in its place, and no profitable herb omitted. Her -husband wandered outside its borders, and roamed the shrubberies of -freedom. But Gundred found all that her nature ever needed to ask in -that daily round, that common task for which her character had been so -perfectly fitted by time and fate. - -Their life oscillated between London, Ivescar, and Brakelond. In -London Gundred had her factory girls, her hospitals, her educational -societies; at Brakelond there were the tenants to be looked after, the -Castle and all its immense organism to be managed, the Tory Candidate -to be upheld by threats of Gundred’s withdrawal of her custom from all -who should so far presume upon the Ballot as to oppose him. At Ivescar -there were farms, gardens, parishes to be controlled by Gundred’s -masterful eye. For a masterful eye it was. Kingston slid back into -himself, never regained his full vital energies, renounced interest -in his career, and yielded the reins of government into his wife’s -hands. As her sphere widened, and her power increased, Gundred’s -unquestionable majesty increased proportionately, until the habit of -ruling had grown so strong in her that no one would have presumed to -doubt the wisdom or cavil at the commands of that tranquil little -despot, whose voice was never raised in anger, whose orders never -admitted the possibility of dispute. She arranged the lives of all -around her with the serenest certainty, and indomitably shepherded -her army of dependents, factory girls, tenants, and servants along -the path of righteous happiness. As mistress she was a success; as a -hostess the same strenuous qualities, the same self-sufficiency brought -her the same success. She could never hold a room by her talk, but she -could now listen graciously, and disguise her complete inattention by -smiles. Clever people went willingly to her houses in London and the -country. Her well-dressed, pleasant presence made a becoming quiet -background for their conversation, and, as a housekeeper, she was -unsurpassed. She never rivalled their efforts, she never failed to make -them feel both clever and comfortable. A brilliant, ambitious woman -could never have won the popularity that Gundred’s calm indifference -achieved. If not gay, her set was clever and solid, nor did anyone ever -discern that it was only her well-bred stupidity that had had the gift -of gathering it round her by sheer force of apparent colourlessness and -calm. - -Gundred loved the power that her position had attained, and, as time -went by, Fate also was kind, and gave her that full measure of glory -which had been denied to her earlier years. London had ignored the -inconspicuous Miss Mortimer, unmarried, and slenderly portioned. But -London showed itself very amenable to the charms of Lady Gundred -Darnley, conspicuously wealthy, and with Brakelond as well as Ivescar -at her back. For the old Duke faded away at last, and Gundred’s father -reigned in his stead--a mild and inoffensive reign, which left all -real dominion to be exercised by his daughter. For the new Duke, like -his predecessor, had slid into a gentle imbecility, and now lived -at Brakelond in contented seclusion; Gundred occupied the house as -mistress, vigorously took up her father’s responsibilities, and was, -to all intents and purposes, the tenth reigning Duchess of March and -Brakelond. She never went in to dinner after a Marchioness without -feeling that such an order of precedence was altogether paradoxical and -out of joint. For was she not herself a Duchess in everything but name? - -Her constant energies overshadowed her husband in the public eye. By -the side of his energetic practical wife he spent a peaceful existence -very much alone, very little hampered by the more brilliant cares in -which Gundred took such pleasure. She could not push him into any -prominent position; he had lost, in an hour, all stir of ambition, and -preferred to live on in the company of his dreams and memories and -visions. Their son was his great delight, his most constant occupation. -Gundred was a trifle too multifariously busy, a trifle too excellent -to be a perfectly sympathetic mother. It was to his father that Jim -Darnley carried all his more interesting private matters for sympathy -and discussion. Kingston, as the years brought him increasing calm, -found his world growing narrower, till at last it held only his son -and his memory of that strange intoxicating passion which had ended on -so terrific a final note at Brakelond more than twenty years ago. His -heart still clung to the far-off thought of Isabel, and his life was -always in some mystical sense alert to catch news of her in the shadowy -lands where she might now be dwelling. - -Kingston could never bring himself to feel that Isabel--the real -Isabel, as distinct from the body she had worn--was dead; he knew that -she still lived, somewhere, somehow; he felt it in every fibre of his -life; every nerve vibrated with the knowledge that somewhere, in some -remote corner of the world, that lost half of himself was still alive. -As the years passed his ideas, instead of growing fainter, grew keener, -more fixed, more certain. He lived in mysterious expectation of a call, -the sound of a voice he should recognise, some hint that Isabel had -come back, that their paths through the world had crossed again. Sooner -or later the call would come; it was impossible that it should not. -He and Isabel were so close together; accidents like physical death -could not be any permanent barrier. As the time went by he grew more -and more sure that the call must come soon. Each day he hoped that the -sign might be shown to-morrow, and, deep in his heart, listened in -every conversation for the sound of Isabel’s voice, and looked in every -face for a memory of Isabel’s. Meanwhile he lived out his placid life, -friends with all, popular, suspected no longer of any eccentricities. -The gentle, managing woman at his side had never any notion that -her husband was cherishing such fantastic hopes. To her he had long -been, in reality, a stranger, a stranger very dearly loved, and very -faithfully looked after, but a stranger none the less, as are so many -of us to those who love us best. - -As for Isabel, if Gundred ever recalled her name now, it was with -a feeling of wrath that grew steadily towards hatred. Isabel stood -for the one moment in which Gundred had faltered, in which she had -not been sure of herself. Isabel was a painful memory, not only as -recalling that far-off period of unrest, but also as raking back -into recollection that one awful instant in which Gundred’s courage -had failed her--with results so disastrous for poor Isabel. Had the -results not been quite so disastrous for Isabel, Gundred could better -perhaps have borne the recollection. As it was, they convicted her -of inadequacy, and touched her secret pride in its tender point. She -pushed such horrid reflections far back in the most private cupboards -of her consciousness, and hated Isabel anew whenever accident compelled -her to open the locked doors and turn over those dreadful bones of her -one failure. - -But Gundred had great skill in ignoring all unwelcome topics; it was -very rarely that she remembered her cousin, and all the dim, remote -unpleasantnesses that Isabel represented. Her first year of married -life now loomed down upon her out of the distant past as a confused -nightmare-mirage of desert wanderings, from which her nice tact and -the favour of Heaven had brought her feet at last out into the Canaan -of prosperity, conjugal and social. The few brief sorrows of the past -assumed gigantic proportions in the haze of memory, and Isabel was -their incarnation. Gundred began to realise how directly Heaven had -intervened to relieve her of her cousin’s threatening presence, and, -though grateful for the service, it was to her credit that she retained -humanity enough to think the means adopted unnecessarily drastic. This -tenderness greatly elevated Gundred in her own eyes. She remonstrated -with Heaven--not acrimoniously, indeed, but with feeling, and devoted -many prayers to Isabel’s happiness in another world. But she rejoiced -over Isabel’s removal from this, and nothing could have given her -serenity a greater shock than any suspicion that her husband ever -remembered the dead woman with tenderness or longing. However, she was -protected from such perceptions as much by her own impermeability to -unwelcome truths as by her husband’s perpetual skill. - -He had not come so far through life, safeguarding his wife’s happiness -and trying to behave decently, only to undo all the good by allowing -her now to see that he regretted Isabel. The course of years had -taught him to keep a shut mouth on all his aspirations. His mind was -apparently thrown wide for Gundred, but Isabel’s shrine was hidden -in the very holiest of holies. As Gundred roamed through his mind’s -reception-rooms, comfortable and clean and neatly decorated, she never -had any suspicion of that locked room in the very heart of his soul’s -dwelling, where the memory of Isabel was for ever worshipped. Many of -us, indeed, there are that keep a secret shrine, but few of us suspect -its existence in anyone else’s life. Gundred was perfectly happy in her -monopoly of her husband, perfectly confident that she knew every corner -of his mind. He, for his part, gave thanks for the salutary blindness -which so often makes life tolerable, and continued to make his wife a -visitor in the heart whose tenant was still the dead woman--the dead -woman whom he daily expected to meet again, whom every hour brought -nearer to the renewal of contact with himself. He had done his duty, -played his part, abundantly paid Gundred all he owed and could; -affection, respect, loyalty--of all these he had never failed for one -moment to give her in good measure; the secret impulses of his love -could not be controlled like their formal manifestations; no one could -exact it; not one could expect it. His own inmost heart still yearned -and cried for the return of Isabel, that return in which every day made -him more firmly believe, more immediately look for. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - -For twenty years had Kingston Darnley awaited the call that was to come -to him from Isabel. He had made no effort to anticipate, or even to -summon, the voice that he desired. It seemed to him better, finer, more -loyal, to do nothing, to sit patient until the course of life should -bring him again into touch with what he had lost. At the appointed -moment the voice would reach him, and he would know it. But till that -time should come, his soul revolted against the notion of going out -into the devious byways of foolishness to call up the departed with -necromancy or any other prevailing fad. For all such illegitimate -dealings with the third-rate dead he had the strongest contempt; it -would be a profanity to attempt such proceedings in relation to Isabel; -wherever she was, she must be above those hireling spirits who go out -in attendance on séances and circles. So for many years he maintained -his resolution to be patient, and stiffened himself in disdain of cheap -and common spiritualistic methods. He had no idea that people of any -sense or breeding could find solace in futilities so apparent. Gundred -was his standard by whom he judged all other women’s pretensions; and -Gundred had, not so much a contempt as a rooted religious horror, -immitigable, medieval, of magic, palmistry, psychometry--all the many -names beneath which we disguise our curious longing to pry behind the -veil. The very notion of such things made Gundred so piously angry that -a certain reluctant, stifled belief could be guessed to underlie and -inspire her denunciations. Meanwhile, however, her attitude confirmed -Kingston in his, and he remained quiescent, until at last he came -across Mrs. Mercer-Laporte. - -Mrs. Mercer-Laporte was dining with Mrs. Mimburn when Kingston and -Gundred met her, having accepted their aunt’s invitation as a solemn -but displeasing bi-annual duty. Gundred made a point of never evading -it; Gundred made a point of never enjoying it. Minne-Adélaïde, however, -with the years, had grown less flagrant; but the change made her no -less odious than before to Gundred, for her love of the illicit had now -turned from matters of the flesh to the darker mysteries of occultism, -clairvoyance, ghost-raising. She had taken to frequenting circles, -to entertaining phantoms, to wearing weird, shapeless clothes, and -collecting round herself a crowd of people famous in the ‘psychic’ -world. And of these Mrs. Mercer-Laporte was the fine flower, the most -exalted, the most spiritual, the choicest in ways and manners. - -She was almost obtrusively lady-like, tall and pale, and mild and -bland, in long trailing draperies of blue. She had sweet anæmic -features, and a watery eye that suffused with tears on the slightest -occasion. Her hair was thin and sandy, coiled into a knob on the top -of her narrow head; her mouth was large, lax, emotional; her glances -soulful and celestial. She wore a quantity of mystical-looking chains -and necklaces that gleamed and jingled as she languished from place to -place with a certain priestly elegance. She fell to Kingston’s lot at -dinner, and during the first part of the meal he felt himself truly -unfortunate. At last, however, a chance word caught his attention and -held it. - -‘Ah, my dear Mr. Merrington,’ he heard her saying to her other -neighbour in high dulcet tones--‘dear, dear Mr. Merrington, believe me, -I have often had the sweetest converse with my dear dead.’ She sighed, -as if in rapture, while Mr. Merrington helped himself to a cutlet in -aspic. ‘They return to those that love them, Mr. Merrington,’ she went -on, as soon as the cutlet had been safely landed. ‘I never feel that -my dear ones have been lost. They are always near one--it only needs -a suitable medium to produce them. Oh, of course, I am not talking of -silly common séances. _Those_ spirits are people one would not wish to -have anything to do with; but, ah! the sweet and holy talks I have had -with my own beloved ones in suitable surroundings.’ - -At this point, seeing Mr. Merrington more favourably inclined towards -the cutlet than the conversation, Kingston thought he might be allowed -to take part in the talk. - -‘One always feels,’ he said, ‘that from all accounts the spirits that -return must be those of exceedingly weak-minded people. The messages -they make so much ado about conveying are invariably such rubbish.’ - -Mrs. Mercer-Laporte turned the watery gleam of her smile upon him. -‘What is matter?’ she asked hierophantically. ‘Ah, Mr. Darnley, what -does matter matter? Believe me, you have been unfortunate in the -spirits you have met. In the innumerable vibrations of the Universe -there are rays innumerable that permeate the Whole with their blessed -dew, and consume in their pure radiance all the coarser manifestations -of matter. You speak without that inward higher knowledge which makes -us one with the Infinite, in those far Universes where the Veil of -matter exists no longer, and the blessed dead are free and untrammelled -by any more cares of this vulgar flesh!’ Mrs. Mercer-Laporte stopped -to take breath, and in an abstraction allowed herself to be given an -artichoke. Then, while she was unconsciously devouring it, Kingston -took advantage of the pause in her oration to recall her to the -question that interested him. - -‘Then,’ he said, ‘soberly and without mistake, are you really sure that -we can ever converse with our own friends in other states of existence?’ - -But Mrs. Mercer-Laporte made a profession of irrelevance. In her world -it was the hall-mark of wisdom, the guarantee of occult knowledge to -which the profane crowd can never attain. She would not have lowered -her pretensions by sticking to the point. - -‘Go,’ she said majestically, waving an inspired fork, ‘go to dearest -Mr. Minch in Albany Road--49, Albany Road, Mr. Darnley; Albany Road in -Notting Hill, remember. Go to him, Mr. Darnley, and be made happy. How -all of us, bound down in this sphere of matter, how we leap and burn to -attain the higher levels through which for ever the blessed ones are -wandering on their angel wings! Ah, rapture, rapture, Mr. Darnley! Go, -go to Mr. Minch.’ - -Twaddling and silly as her utterances were, yet the woman was obviously -sincere. Kingston had never met the type before, and now he saw that -it was not quite so cheap and contemptible as he had always imagined. -Predisposed by his secret longings, he prepared to lend a favourable -ear, and the dulled sobriety of his middle-aged calm began to break up -unexpectedly into a St. Martin’s summer of youthful enthusiasm. - -‘What does Mr. Minch do?’ he asked. - -‘Do?’ replied Mrs. Mercer-Laporte. ‘He draws the pearl from the Secret -Lotus! He will tell you your heart’s desire. He will tell you of the -sweet spirits hovering round you. He can see them all easily, and the -colour of your own soul’s halo he will tell you too. Sometimes it is -pink and sometimes it is blue. Mine,’ she added with pride, ‘is purple. -No one but me has a purple halo, Mr. Darnley. But every one of us has a -colour of our own, and dear Mr. Minch sees them distinctly and clearly, -and tells you all about them, and about the dear spirits as well. And -then, if there is anyone among them, anyone in the precious company -of the invisible with whom you particularly wish to enter into sweet -converse, Mr. Darnley, you might go on to Mr. Muddock at Hindhead. -Mention my name, though, just to show that you have a reverend and -faithful spirit. Mr. Muddock has _the_ most marvellous powers. He is -more than a mere psychometrist. He can actually make the dead resume -the garb of flesh, Mr. Darnley!’ perorated Mrs. Mercer-Laporte with -awful solemnity. - -Suddenly Kingston’s resolve of twenty years weakened and broke. The -long odds were that this talk of spirits was the mere nonsense he -had always believed it. But still there could be no possible harm -in trying to find out. And if, in sober truth, Isabel were really -hovering on the edge of the other world, perpetually longing to enter -into communication with him again, how tragically foolish to neglect -the blessed opportunity because of any stupid materialistic qualm of -incredulity. After all, there might be something in it. In the avowed -belief that there was nothing, and the secret trust that there might -be a great deal, he resolved that he would go and see the wonderful -Mr. Minch. He intimated his decision to Mrs. Mercer-Laporte. The sibyl -showed much mystic rapture. - -‘Ah,’ she said, ‘sweet and holy, sweet and holy. The blessed ones are -waiting for you, Mr. Darnley, I feel convinced of it. I almost think I -see one near you now, but alas, I have not quite reached the percipient -plane as yet. But do go to dear Mr. Minch, and he will tell you her -name and all about her, and what she wants to say to you. I have had -the strangest, most marvellous experiences myself. My own sweet sister -Margaret is always hovering round me, Mr. Darnley. She died when she -was only six days old, and grew up in the spirit world. I recognised -her distinctly, as soon as dear Mr. Minch described her.... Golden -hair, he said, tall, blue eyes, high forehead, graceful figure. Then, -to make _quite_ sure, I said, “Does your name begin with M?” and Mr. -Minch asked the sweet spirit, and told me it said “Yes.” Then, of -course, I knew. “Margaret,” I cried--just like that--“is it Margaret?” -And it _was_ Margaret; she had come to tell me that I must go on -bravely, and everything would come right. Now, wasn’t that a holy, -happy experience, Mr. Darnley? Oh yes, you must go to Mr. Minch. Go -to-morrow night at eight. He has a public circle then, and crowds of -dear poor creatures go to him for help and comfort, and he heals them -all--not only people like you and me, Mr. Darnley, but all the poor -sweet cooks and housemaids.’ - -Kingston was not quite so strongly impressed as Mrs. Mercer-Laporte had -hoped by the reappearance of the somewhat immature sister Margaret. -Yet, though he derided himself for such weakness, he could no longer -resist the absurd temptation to put things to the test. He was quite -fixed in his determination to see Mr. Minch, if it were only to laugh -at him; and filled up the rest of the evening by cross-examining Mrs. -Mercer-Laporte on all the other pink and purple spirits by whom she was -apparently accompanied wherever she went. Gundred, who looked on the -entertainment as a tiresome duty, calling only for one’s second-best -gown, was surprised to see her husband so much amused and interested. -When he deliberately went across the room after dinner to sit once more -by Mrs. Mercer-Laporte, Gundred was quite startled by such a display -of enthusiasm. However, she quickly noticed that Mrs. Mercer-Laporte -had pink eyelids and a long bony neck; her astonishment subsided into -contemptuous tolerance, and then passed into a pious pity. She thought -how nice it was of Kingston to be so unnecessarily kind to the poor -thing, perhaps the weirdest of Aunt Minna’s weird collection of guests. -Gundred called back her attention to her own behaviour, and set herself -once more to giving an example of nice deportment to this mob of people -who clearly had no notion what decent clothes or manners might mean. - -The least touch destroys a delicate balance, and Mrs. Mercer-Laporte’s -rather watery personality it was that had the power, after so many -years of hesitation, to decide Kingston upon taking his long-delayed -plunge into spiritualistic circles. Little as he might think of -Mrs. Mercer-Laporte’s own rhapsodies, they forced upon his mind the -reflection that many good and presumably prudent people derive much -comfort and sustenance from occult manifestations. With all allowances -made for credulity, hysteria, and affectation there yet, it seemed to -him suddenly, must remain an irreducible minimum of fact about the -ghostly communications which make the consolation of so many sad, -lonely lives. The laws that govern life and death are, when all is said -and done, so dimly, so doubtfully known and guessed, that bold must be -he who dares, on the supposition of impossibility, to deny continued -existence and continued volition to the blessed dead. Who was to take -it upon himself to say confidently that they cannot return, for reasons -that we know not, under natural laws of which we have no more suspicion -than had the eighteenth century of those that give us electricity? -Seeing the incalculable nature of the soul, the impalpable, mysterious -substance of its being, the probabilities that physical death only -give it freedom were, on the whole, very great and worthy of respect. -Why obstinately mock, for the sake of a few frauds and charlatans, at -a deep belief, as old as humanity, which has been held, and is held -to this day, by many of the wisest and holiest among men? What claim -to wisdom has the stiff-necked attitude of mere negation, based on -nothing but ignorant prejudice and the sceptic’s baseless notion of -what may or may not be possible to a thing of whose being, and the -laws that control it, he knows no more than any enthusiastic believer -in apparitions? Why not, then, take the braver, more honest course of -inquiring for one’s self into the circumstances of the spirit-world? -In any case the inquiry could do no harm; either way, one would gain -certainty, instead of the present dreary and unprofitable doubt. And -if Isabel’s purified soul were, after all, by some merciful freak of -creation, still roaming the world in her lover’s neighbourhood, how -utterly, childishly silly not to ascertain the fact and profit by it, -in place of continuing deaf to that dear desired voice, out of puerile -prejudice and a preconceived notion that such things could not be. -Mrs. Mercer-Laporte’s enthusiasm had the effect of forcing all these -arguments on Kingston with new and irresistible force. He could hold -out no longer; his loneliness could afford to neglect no chances of -relief; he would try what consolation the Other World had to offer. - -At the very notion fresh interest in life began to animate him. Without -any weak cowardice or giving way he had yet, since the tragedy of -twenty years before, lost any personal interest in every-day life, -its bustle and ambitions. That career into which his mother had hoped -so vaguely to push him and support him by the influence of March and -Brakelond, had long since faded from the foreground of his mind. -When at last Lady Adela gently and imperceptibly passed away, she -left her son fairly settled into the position of his wife’s husband. -Concentrated on thoughts of that beautiful past, he never again plucked -up any enthusiasm for the present or the future. It was not that he -was afraid of them, that he had shrinkings or morbid tenderness; they -simply failed to interest him any more. He retired into that small -secret life of his own, and the world gradually came to look on Mr. -Darnley as the pleasant but unnoticeable appendage to Lady Gundred. -Comfortably vast as was his income, Brakelond, that insatiable old -monster, swallowed it all and gave no thanks. Despite his money, -therefore, Kingston soon unconsciously held that subtly meek and -subordinate place of a man whose wife it is that owns the estate and -the money. He had no wish to assert himself, and even at Ivescar it -was Gundred who now held the reins, and concentrated the general gaze -upon herself. Now and then she deplored to their friends her husband’s -apathy towards the Primrose League, but, on the whole, she had -everybody’s agreement when she talked of him as ‘perfectly happy in his -library among his books.’ “To be perfectly happy in one’s library among -one’s books” is the blessed euphemistic privilege of the obscure rich, -and Kingston acquiesced gratefully in his friends’ attitude towards -his remoteness from their life and the empty clamours that seemed to -fill it. Accustomed long since to his own quiet, inconspicuous path, it -was with a kindling of vitality, then, that he contemplated sallying -forth into the spirit world. It was a stirring of his old self, an -emancipation from the obsession of Gundred’s majesty. Half ashamed, -half excited, half contemptuous did Kingston set out to enter into -relations with the dead. - -Following Mrs. Mercer-Laporte’s recommendation he began with Mr. -Muddock. But Mr. Muddock turned out to be an illiterate and frowzy -prophet, too clearly calculated for the need of ‘poor sweet cooks and -housemaids’ to be of much assistance in the quests of better-educated -people. However, after a brief spasm of disgust, Kingston decided to -continue his enterprise, and gradually found himself involved in the -higher spiritualistic circles. At first he had to be content with -the ordinary hireling mediums, but as time went by, and his appetite -became whetted by the glimpses of apparent truth that he gathered here -and there amid thick and more or less palpable frauds, he began to -be aware that there existed, behind the common world of second-rate -believers, a sort of upper world in touch with the Beyond. To anyone -with money the lower sphere of materialization was open, and the -meetings of Mr. Muddock and his confrères were nightly crowded with -the lonely and the bereaved, eager for a moment’s conversation with -the lost beloved. But these interviews never satisfied Kingston, and, -as he began to discern the higher possibilities behind, he secretly -strained every nerve to enter that set of his own people which held, -or proclaimed that it held, genuine and constant communication with -those ‘that have passed over.’ The task was not altogether easy, and -had to be cautiously ensued, for fear of waking the suspicions and the -disapproval of Gundred. Kingston found himself despising himself for -the cowardice of such a course, until he realized that what he was -aiming at involved no sort of real disloyalty to Gundred, and that -any concealment he might practise was in the interest of her peace -and happiness. Satisfying himself obstinately with this rather jejune -and sophistical excuse, he pursued his way, and at last found himself -admitted to the upper section of the spiritualistic world. - -Here at last he met men and women of his own sort, men and women of -birth and breeding and intelligence, whom no cheap claptrap could -convince, no vulgar jugglery deceive. And yet these people, keen and -apparently sensible, believed passionately and whole-heartedly in -the manifestations they evoked. Their lives were ruled by ghostly -advice elicited at their meetings, their desolation consoled by almost -daily conversation with their beloved dead, their doubts turned into -certainty on all points by revelations from beyond the grave. They -claimed impartiality, and cultivated pure enthusiasm. And if the -tragedy of the pitiful, unholy quest had been bitterly heart-rending -among the illiterate and credulous crowds that haunted Mr. Muddock’s -circles, and sustained themselves with ‘demonstrations’ and aitchless -conversation with the inferior dead, far more so was it among these -people of Kingston’s own world, where devotion served as conviction, -and the anguish of longing was forced to masquerade as its own -fulfilment. It was indeed a poignant, tragic life in which Kingston now -found himself. Men and women, one and all, were gaunt and haggard of -soul with their insatiable hunger. Some of them seemed philosophers, -convinced that they were following on the track of a clear truth; -others were manifest saints, gentle sacred souls, hopefully worshipping -a Holy Grail of their own desire’s invention. Exalted, inspired, -rarefied, filled with an apparent serenity of devotion, their company -gave an impression of strange unearthly happiness, until the keen edge -of their underlying agony was seen piercing through the superficial -calm of their lives. The whole air round them was poisoned by loss and -the inability to bear it. Their souls lived in a fierce, unacknowledged -groping after the lost things they had loved. Men for vanished friends, -women for lovers and children long dead--each had some dreadful secret -craving, some inner infidelity towards the Eternal Mercy of life. -There were old polished men of their world, strong intellects sapped, -and keen eyes dulled in one direction only, by some hoarded passion -never to be parted with, not even for the sake of happiness and -peace and wisdom. There were beautiful white-haired women, sweet and -gracious with much sorrow in bygone years, tired with recollections, -and divorced from the heats of life, yet still held in a bitter -bondage, drugging their pain with this piteous, passionate cult for -the burden they had lost. Life and death had combined to offer them -calm and release from torment; but they would have none of any such -release--clung to the ghost of their dead torment, and redoubled it by -the zest with which they told themselves that they soothed it. - -Into this world of insatiable emotion Kingston threw himself -heartily--hopefully, too, seeing that the sincerity of his -fellow-worshippers left no room for doubt, and that their enthusiastic -belief seemed to give fair hope that it was justified. But soon he saw -the fearful tragedy that lay beneath their enthusiasm, and realized how -determined an illusion it was that they cultivated. He, too, no less -than they, yearned and groped, but his nature, cooler, perhaps, than -theirs, could not accept for pure gold of revelation the base ore of -hysteria and fanaticism that they unwittingly but obstinately imposed -upon themselves for truth. Their spirit-voices were nothing but the -frustrate echoes of their own cries, cast back to them across the great -gulf that separates the ignorant, unfaithful living from the free, -glorified dead. Sounds and sights floated thick in their midst--honest -sounds and sights, born of no trickery, indeed, but--though none dared -to own it--engendered by the frantic zeal of the searchers themselves. -They and none other supplied the words to which they listened in such -ecstatic awe; they and none other evoked those vanished tones, those -pale reflections of the well-beloved in which they took such comfort. -Their very sincerity, their very rapture, only made more terrible -the delusion on which they sustained themselves, the emptiness of -the phantoms with which they tried to fill the lives that their own -distrust had left to them desolate. Only want of faith can make death -a reality. These sad, starving people, having made reality out of the -shadow, now found themselves forced to create new shadows to exorcise -the old. They had allowed themselves to think that death had power -to sunder their loves, and now, after that first self-deception, the -need was fierce upon them to invent another to nullify the first, and -wipe out that death to which only their weak terrors had given an -objective existence. From the beginning to the end they were altogether -tragic--in their sorrow, in its cause, and in the means they took to -heal it. Kingston, as the meetings passed, found himself more and -more aloof from their consolations, more and more cold towards the -manifestations that made the comfort of their poor struggling days. - -It was not here, not amid these faint voices crying what the listeners -wanted to hear, not amid these dim ghosts of bygone passion that his -own still living, throbbing passion could hope to come once more into -contact with Isabel. He pitied his fellow-seekers, but he stood aloof -from them. Sorrowing for the intensity of their false joy, he could -gain from their cult no sustenance for his own hunger. His hunger was -not as theirs, and the beloved fallacies that supported them could -give no nourishment to him. He saw that their quest was false, their -methods a mere sop flung to their own desire. Gradually Kingston -withdrew himself from their company. The spiritualistic world, after -all, held no solid help or conviction for him. He passed away into -everyday life again, and went back to his quiet expectancy at Gundred’s -side. Sooner or later the wonderful thing would happen, sooner or later -the holy mystery of separation stand revealed, but no unlawful human -methods could avail to hurry the processes of God. They of little faith -might make for themselves a world of phantoms in which to worship a -phantom; he must persevere alone, waiting patiently for what was to -come. Gladly, if he could, would he have found satisfaction in the -hollow solace invented by his fellow-seekers, but as his nature, as -his more exalted perceptions, could not allow him any such makeshift -consolation, the sooner he quitted so unwholesome and unsatisfactory a -life the better. At least, he had the comfort of feeling that he had -left no method untried, had not neglected any possible chance. But -the alley into which he had strayed had been found blind, a short cut -towards the Great Nowhere. He must return into the broad, beaten track -of life, and go steadfastly forward, in confidence that somewhere, some -day, he should inevitably meet again his lost companion. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - - -‘Dear Jim,’ said Gundred, ‘how happy he sounds!’ She folded up her -son’s letter again, and put it deftly back into its envelope. He wrote -to her once a week without fail from school, a neat, colourless letter, -breathing duty and regard. To his father the boy wrote as the mood took -him--careless, untidy epistles about the topic of the moment. ‘Another -cup of tea, dear?’ she asked her husband, smiling at him across the -table. - -Kingston looked at her with the approval that her appearance never -failed to challenge. A crystalline perfection always hung about her, -a clear, precise faultlessness that was always cool and fresh and -pleasant. Age could do nothing against her. This morning, as for -a thousand mornings past, as she would be for a thousand mornings -to come, she was tranquil, exquisite, satisfactory. If she did not -actually sparkle, she was always in a serene glow of elegance, her -clear golden hair unalterably waved and curled, her garments refreshing -in their unobtrusive charm of cut and make, her hands well-kept, -white, delightful, flickering here and there from tea-caddy to -cream-jug with a charming, housewifely preoccupation. - -Kingston, with a vivid recollection of the sibylline untidiness that -haunted spiritualistic circles, brought a new appreciation to bear on -Gundred’s unchangeably well-bred calm of look and dress and manner. -She was very restful to be with. Pure milk, after all, certainly was -better, in the long run, than intoxicants. - -‘Thanks, dear,’ he replied, accepting a cup of tea into which Gundred -had dutifully poured the cream that he still hated as much as ever, but -which twenty years’ experience of her immitigable firmness had taught -him to accept without vain murmurings. ‘I think I will run down and see -Jim one of these days. You come with me?’ - -‘Well,’ replied his wife, ‘I have such a terrible lot to crowd into -these last few days before we leave town. The end of the Season is -such a rush, and one does dislike to leave anything undone. Besides, -you know, I think it is a pity to unsettle Jim, and I really do rather -dread the motor at this time of year. The dust is too truly horrible. -Nothing can keep it out of one’s hair, try as one will; and then poor -Morgan has such trouble getting it out again; and one ought always to -consider the servants when one can--yes?’ - -‘Very well, then; I will go down alone, to-day or to-morrow. Haven’t -you got some sort of show on here this afternoon?’ - -‘Yes, dear, a Mothers’ Educational Union Meeting. They wanted to hold -it here, and one feels that one should do what one can for others while -one is alive.’ - -‘Well, I don’t suppose I shall be missed or mourned,’ said her husband; -‘so I shall just slip quietly off, and take the motor down to Eton. You -can receive the mothers, and so on, without me to help you. And I can -have a good time with Jim.’ - -‘Dear little Jim!’ said Gundred, smiling affectionately. Her son was -fifteen, and rather unusually large for his age. But no size, no age -could ever have cured his mother of talking and thinking of him as a -little child. She had all the good woman’s utter, tragic inability to -understand that her child becomes a boy and a man. Her Jim was still -a baby. Of the real Jim she knew nothing whatever. Their relations -were sometimes strained already, and in the future the strain would -become fiercer and more unceasing, through Gundred’s idea of ruling -the adolescent Jim by ideas that applied to the only Jim she had ever -known--the kilted, white-frocked creature of the nursery, who had -passed out of existence at least ten years ago. - -‘Then that is settled,’ replied Kingston happily. ‘I’ll take Jim your -love, Gundred. Anything else to send him?’ - -The father was always giving the boy presents. Anything that took his -fancy he had a habit of buying for Jim. Gundred, no less affectionate, -considered such indulgence spoiling and undesirable. She did not think -it quite suitable to be so lavish, and her generosity was restricted to -the orthodox seasons of Christmas and the birthday. - -‘My love, of course, dear,’ she replied, with a momentary primming of -her lips; ‘and tell him how much I hope that he reads the little book I -gave him on his birthday. Say that he will find it the greatest help. I -myself have got the most wonderful comfort from it; the prayers seem to -suit one so perfectly, and the hymns for each day are so uplifting and -helpful.’ - -Kingston, secretly unsympathetic towards Gundred’s habit of collecting -small devotional works and showering them round upon her near -relations, glided hastily away from the topic. Sincerely pious and -devout herself, she made the common mistake of wishing to impose her -own precise form of devotion on everyone else, and could not conceive -it possible that any right-minded person should not derive as great a -benefit as she did from her little pietistic volumes. To her son, in -particular, she talked religion with that terrible intimate candour -which the good woman feels to be so natural, and the normal man feels -to be so horribly irreverent. From his mother, then, the boy shrank -and hid himself, outraged in all his most intimate feelings of decency -by the freedom with which she discoursed to him of God and Heaven and -Good, and half a hundred secret, private matters that nothing would -have induced him to discuss even with his dearest friend. - -Kingston ordered the motor, glad of an opportunity for escaping -Gundred’s evangelistic activities. She herself made a faint pretence at -deploring her inability to accompany him. - -‘I should so like to,’ she said; ‘but the mothers will expect me to -be here, of course, to receive them. It would be so shocking to play -them false. And the movement is such a good one. I never feel that one -is in the world solely for one’s own pleasure. One belongs to others, -and one’s highest joy should always be to do one’s duty by one’s -neighbours--yes?’ - -‘It is rather a nuisance at times, don’t you find?’ asked Kingston, -on whom his wife’s habit of uttering edifying little speeches on all -occasions never failed to have a slightly irritating effect, even after -twenty years’ experience of them. - -‘But one should not consider one’s self,’ answered Gundred correctly. -‘It is a terrible thing to be selfish. Besides, if God has given -one special advantages, one should be glad to make use of them to -make others happy. Houses and position and things like that are only -precious because one can turn them to the use of others--yes? I should -never like to think that I found my factory-girls and my mothers and my -curates a nuisance. I look upon them as part of my duty in life. And -duty is the truest pleasure.’ - -Kingston felt as if he were in a dream. How different was this -atmosphere of tranquil platitude from the feverish, restless world of -longing in which he had lately been so busy. His mind staggered at the -thought that this cool, deliberate Gundred could be of one blood with -the harried, lonely creatures who frequented the spirit-raiser’s in -desperate craving for lost loves and silenced voices. What kin was he -himself--he with his secret cult, his deep secret ambition, to this -placid woman, so secure in the intimacy of her God, so sedate in the -conscious enjoyment of all her duties? It was a grinning irony that -held them linked; in actual fact, they were mere acquaintances, knowing -nothing of each other, sympathizing in nothing, bound only by the soft -amicable bonds of custom and convenience. - -Breakfast was over. Gundred gathered up her letters in a tiny sheaf and -rose. ‘I must go and see Motherley,’ she said, ‘about the arrangements -for this afternoon. I think one ought to have iced coffee for the poor -things in this hot weather, don’t you?’ - -Gundred could never, in any possible circumstances of rank or -condition, have been induced to leave the reins of household management -in the hands of those who were paid to hold them. She was one of the -many women who are housekeepers from their birth. The exercise of -diligent economy was very dear to her heart, and she made a merit -of indulging herself in it, by insisting that she attended to such -matters only from a strong sense of duty. Kingston gave due weight to -her question as he pondered it. - -‘Yes,’ he said very gravely, ‘on the whole I really think you might -allow the mothers iced coffee.’ - -‘I am so glad you think so, dear,’ responded Gundred with an air of -relief. ‘One is so glad if ever one can give the poor things some -little extra pleasure. It is quite one of the compensations of one’s -life--yes?’ - -‘But, then--these mothers--are they paupers, or what?’ - -‘Oh, dear me, no! They are the most excellent creatures--quite rich and -comfortable, most of them. They generally live in Kensington or Campden -Hill, and they are all so much interested in children and education. -But, of course, they don’t often get inside a house like this, so that -one is anxious to do whatever one can to make it a delightful memory -for them. I have got myself such a charming frock, dear, to give them -another little enjoyment to remember afterwards. Really, you know, it -soon comes quite easy to think of others and forget one’s self. One -makes a habit of unselfishness--at least, one must try to, in one’s -own small way--and God is very good about helping them who try to help -themselves.’ - -Kingston did not take the trouble to endorse this sentiment, and -Gundred did not wait for him to do so. She knew it was too sound to -need any such endorsement--so obvious, indeed, that she had only thrown -it out in obedience to her unvarying custom of trying to improve her -husband whenever she could. - -‘Well,’ she went on, after a pause, ‘I must really go about my duties -now. One has so much to do. I don’t suppose I shall see you again, -dear, shall I, before you start? I hope you will have a delightful day. -Do take care of your poor eyes. And give my love to Jim, and tell him -always to change his boots when he comes in, and be sure to read his -Chapter morning and evening; he will find it such a help. And say how -we are looking forward to the holidays--yes?’ - -Kingston promised vaguely to give his wife’s messages. Then Gundred -passed on her way to interview the cook, and complete arrangements -for the effectual dazzling of the mothers from Kensington and Campden -Hill. Left alone, her husband took refuge for a moment or two in -dreamland. This life of his, orderly, decorous, colourless, with -Gundred superintending its details, and seeing that its food was good -and hot--this life of his was not a real life at all. It was a vapour, -a phantom, having no part in the true life of his soul. His body moved -on its appointed course from breakfast through the day to bed, bandying -banalities with its tongue, looking out on Gundred’s world with amiable -eyes; but he himself, the real man, belonged to a remoter world. In -strange, far-off lands he roamed, seeking that which for a time was -lost; the gorgeous, sombre mysteries of life and death were about his -head, shedding a glamour of ecstasy on the secret byway that he was -treading. How Gundred would stare, what pious sillinesses would she -not utter, if for a moment--if only for the smallest fragment of a -moment--her eyes could be unsealed to see the magic tangle of visions -in which her husband was wandering, all the while that his earthly -gaze was fixed on her, his earthly ears politely attentive to her -talk, his earthly stomach contentedly absorbing the food that she made -it her daily duty to provide. Dressed, brushed, washed, and fed, the -simulacrum of her husband passed through the world at her side, but the -thing she walked with was a changeling; the man she loved and looked -after was the mere shell of a stranger--of a stranger whose eyes were -fixed on the immensities, whose ears received her words as jargon in -a tongue unknown, whose whole life was passed in that world of reality -whose shadows now and then are cast across this life of ours that we -call real, in the glimpses of what we call a dream. Little, visible, -tangible, clear was the life that Gundred thought the true; vast, -illimitable, without end or beginning was that enormous infinite where -the soul of Kingston ceaselessly went seeking for the lost. - -‘By kind permission of the Lady Gundred Darnley, the Mothers’ -Educational Union--called for short the M.E.U.--held a most enjoyable -meeting at 53, Grosvenor Street. The hostess’s demeanour gave great -satisfaction, and her gown was held to shed real lustre on the -occasion. It was a wonderful arrangement in blue and mauve, and no -other woman of her age could have worn it; but the delicacy of her -colouring, the serene charm of her features, were only enhanced by it, -and the mothers from Kensington and Campden Hill spent a happy hour in -devising means of copying its most successful features. Meanwhile, an -American spinster, of world-wide renown but unappetizing appearance, -gave an interesting and exhaustive address on the proper upbringing -of children; and a Bishop’s wife in voluminous black brocade, with a -bonnet built of bluebells, brought up the rear with an account of how -her own darlings had been triumphantly reared on a system of perfect -freedom tempered by whippings administered officially by each other. -A discussion followed, in which old maids and childless widows vied -with the mothers in expounding the secrets of education. The Lady -Gundred Darnley herself contributed a brief but very pleasant little -allocution, in which she insisted on the efficacy of prayer, and -attributed her own success in dealing with her dear little son entirely -to her inculcation of sound religious principles.’ Gundred was at the -height of her glory; her graciousness was delightful, her condescension -so profound that neither she herself nor anyone else could guess that -it was condescension at all. When the meeting had concluded in a -volley of mutual compliments, and a unanimous vote of thanks had been -offered to their charming hostess, she shepherded the mothers down to -food with the sublimest cordiality. The iced coffee flowed like milk -and honey; tea was nothing accounted of, any more than was silver in -King Solomon’s time. Eclairs, sandwiches, and buns disappeared like -snow in summer; of every dish Gundred felt a calm confidence that each -mother present was eyeing it carefully with a view to imitation. Of all -life’s duties, Gundred perhaps best loved that of setting an example -to others. She felt that the Creator had specially ordained her for -that end, and was never so completely and conscientiously happy as when -possessed with the certainty that she was duly fulfilling His design. - -But at last the meeting began to melt away, and Gundred was left -alone in the large deserted room. Up and down among the little gilded -chairs she roamed, pondering with complacency the success of the -entertainment. In the course of her wanderings, she came into view of -the great mirror that filled the space between two of the windows. She -stood for a while in front of it, contemplating the perfections that it -reflected. From the crown of her head to the glistering point of her -shoe, she, ‘the Lady Gundred Darnley,’ the fastidious critic, had not -the smallest fault to find. Her gown was an inspiration, and its fit an -earthly manifestation of the ideal. - -‘Really,’ said Gundred to herself, ‘God has been very good to me -indeed. I declare I do not look a day over twenty-five. No one would -ever believe that I am forty. That is what comes of having a good -conscience, and being a little careful what one eats. And it is not -many women of five-and-twenty that could dare to wear a colour like -this. My figure is positively girlish, and my complexion--well, one -does not often see a better one, even among quite young girls.’ But at -this point her meditations were interrupted by the sound of a ringing -at the bell. She concluded that it must be some belated mother, who -would be politely turned away by the butler. So she gave no further -attention to the sound, but still stood admiring what the mirror -revealed, with both hands caressing the beautiful lines of her waist. -In this pleasant employment, however, she was startled by a discreet -cough behind her. She wheeled hastily round. - -A small elderly gentleman was approaching, ushered by the butler. -Gundred summoned her presence of mind to confront this unexpected -apparition. The butler, meanwhile, was murmuring an unintelligible -name. The visitor peered inquiringly up at her. For he was a very -minute personage, smaller even than his hostess; he had an air of -patient antiquity, and his thin neck poked forward till he had the look -of a very shrunken, very wise, very benevolent little old tortoise. -He was dressed, too, in the quaintest clothes, that somehow suggested -that they had been bought ready-made, and were mysteriously, strangely -inappropriate, seeming as if their present wearer were accustomed to -quite different garb, and only wore these clumsy reach-me-downs in -deference to European convention. He conveyed an impression of feeling -fettered and uncomfortable in them, of longing for freer and more -flowing vestments. - -Gundred assumed a smile of gracious interrogation. - -‘Mr. ----?’ - -‘You are Mr. Darnley’s wife?’ inquired the new-comer. - -‘I am Lady Gundred Darnley, yes. What can I----?’ - -‘I am your husband’s uncle,’ replied the stranger. ‘I have been in -Japan for many years.’ - -Gundred instantly flashed into recognition, and warmed into a less -defensive smile. She tried vehemently to remember all she had heard of -this semi-mythical uncle thus abruptly brought back into the land of -the living. - -‘Ah yes,’ she answered genially, ‘you have been there for a very long -time, I know. I quite envy you. Such a wonderful little people, the -Japanese--yes? And have you come to settle down at home again?’ - -‘My home,’ answered the little old man, in accents that betrayed a -certain loss of familiarity with the English language--‘my home is -still out there.’ He waved his hand vaguely, indicating the East. ‘But -I was brought over for some business. I had not meant to come here. My -kinship with your husband has been broken by fifty years of time, and -twelve thousand miles of space. Why should I think he could be anything -but a stranger? But lately I have heard him calling. There is something -that he wants, something that he wishes to know. I have heard him -incessantly calling. And so I came. Perhaps I can give him an answer. -Is he here, your husband?’ - -‘Something that my husband wants, something that he has been asking -for?’ repeated Gundred in a stupor. Kingston had no wishes that were -not also hers. His whole life, she knew, was an open book to her. And, -even if it had not been, how could this strange apparition have heard -her husband’s voice? For one wild moment Gundred imagined her husband -baying his ambitions to the moon, or ululating to the universe from -the middle of Grosvenor Square. Otherwise how could his voice have -penetrated to the ears of this mysterious old man? - -The visitor answered her unspoken thought. - -‘A wish,’ he said, speaking slowly in his faint, sad tones--‘a wish has -a life of its own. It has wings, and flies to all the four quarters -of the air. It only needs the opened eye to see it in its flight, the -opened ear to receive it. I have seen many strange things in the air. I -am a very old man now. And I heard your husband’s longing, and I came -to see if I could give him any help. I am on my way. I can only be here -an hour or two. Your husband will soon be here again. I may wait for -him?’ - -All Gundred’s inquiries could elicit no more definite information. The -old man merely repeated his statement, and asked to be allowed to await -Kingston’s return. Baffled, interested, acutely puzzled, Gundred must -needs leave the riddle of his mission unsolved, and take refuge in the -customary platitudes about the charm of Oriental life. And thus it -happened that when Kingston returned at last, dusty and hot, from his -expedition, he found his wife sitting amid the gilded disorder of the -drawing-room, engaged in a difficult dialogue with a stranger. - -That this was the long-lost uncle Kingston was soon brought to realize, -and heard with unmitigated amazement that the Abbot, or Bishop, or -whatever his rank might be, had come in answer to some imagined call. -The old man had a fantastic charm. His air of frail antiquity, the -wistfulness of his voice, the very incongruousness of his clothes -gave him a fascination not easy to describe. He was someone out of an -alien life, a visitor from the world beyond Kingston’s ken. A flavour -of mysterious knowledge hung about his wandering glances, his soft, -quiet, hesitating speech, his gentle, deprecatory manner; those misty -eyes of his had the wonder and the wisdom of eyes that have pierced -far into the hidden depths. His present surroundings, his present -garments had a sharp and crying inappropriateness, yet, though in -his air and build there was no obvious majesty, the comparison was -all to the disadvantage of the surroundings and the garments. Even -Gundred’s luxurious and splendid room seemed to grow tawdry and vulgar -by contrast with this unimposing little figure in its midst. The -manner of his irruption, too, into modern London life, as well as the -announcement of his equally abrupt departure, increased the air of -fantasy that hung round him. Flashing by out of another life, flashing -on into another life, this grotesque little old tortoise was to spare -them an hour on his road through the immensities. Kingston had no sense -of kinship as he talked with this new-found uncle--hardly, indeed, -any sense of talking with a fellow human being. The visitor was too -clearly a dweller in strange worlds, belonged, in all his words and -ways, too obviously to another sphere of existence. As for Gundred, her -faint horror at entertaining a confessed Buddhist was tempered by the -discovery that the Buddhist was an Abbot or a Bishop--at all events, -held some conspicuous position in the heathen hierarchy. And even a -heathen Bishop was clearly better than a heathen who was not a Bishop -of any kind. She soon, however, thought it necessary to vindicate her -superiority by attempting to convert the pagan prelate. After one -effort, brief though bold, she was forced to desist. Mild, shrinkingly -meek, the new uncle yet showed a certain confident command of spiritual -weapons too mighty for his niece’s resisting powers. - -‘Why, oh, why,’ said Gundred with seraphic sweetness, when the Bishop -had let drop some pleasant little sentiment--‘why are you not a -Christian, dear uncle? Surely you must love the truth--yes?’ - -Kingston felt hot with horror, but the visitor showed no discomposure -at this sudden outburst of proselytising energy. - -‘Yes,’ he replied, in a gentle, hesitating voice--‘yes, I love the -truth. We all love the truth when we see it, I think. But I love a -whole truth better than a half truth. When a man is reading the Book of -Life by the light of the sun, you would not expect him to go back and -read it in a cave by even the brightest of lamps? You have very bright -lamps; I have the sun.’ - -Gundred collected all her forces for a theological argument such as her -soul loved. - -‘But what is the point exactly of being a Buddhist, uncle?’ she -inquired, determined to fire the first shot. - -However, the Bishop had not broken his journey through space in order -to indulge in feminine polemics. He smiled demurely. - -‘For one thing, niece,’ he answered slowly, ‘we are not required -or permitted by our Faith to believe that two-thirds of the world -are doomed inevitably to burn in fire for all eternity--as you, I -understand, are bound to believe, by all your many different varieties -of Christianity. Now that, dear niece, would be, I am sure, a very -great comfort to your tender nature.’ - -Gundred was on the point of making a dignified rejoinder, to the effect -that one does not talk of such things, or think of them, but hopes for -the best. However, she felt a hostile influence compressing her words. -A strange force was over her, compelling silence. In another minute -she found that she could hold the field no longer. Wishing with all -her heart to stay, she yet found herself mysteriously forced to rise -and make her excuses. The uncle received her explanations gently, and -gave her thanks for the hospitable reception that she had extended to a -stranger. He would not see her again, for in a few moments he must be -on his way again. But though it might be long before they met again, -he would tender her his blessing. Accepting the tribute with graceful -reserve, Gundred passed reluctantly out of the room. - -Kingston faced round eagerly towards the visitor. What strange message -was it that had come to him through such unexpected lips? Was the whole -story a fairy-tale? How could his secret wishes and longings have -reached the notice of this stranger twelve thousand miles across the -sea? Surely the soul has no system of wireless telegraphy? Kingston -had a sudden uneasy recollection of telepathy, and the vast range of -possibilities that it opened up. He fell silent, awaiting his uncle’s -next word. - -The little old man sat huddled in his chair, gazing straight before -him. The withered claw-like hands were fastened one over the other; the -pale mysterious eyes were fixed on things very far away. - -‘Bound on the wheel,’ he said at last, ‘bound again and again on the -wheel of false desire.’ - -Kingston asked him what he meant. - -‘The fire of passion,’ replied the pale tired voice, ‘is a thing old as -all life. Because of some strong passion, born many ages since, you now -suffer the pangs of loss and separation. It is no new thing, this pain -of yours. It rests with you now, my son, whether you will carry it on -with you along the road, as you brought it with you into this stage of -your journey.’ - -Astonishment, intense and paralytic, possessed the younger man as these -evidences of insight into his own most secret feelings dropped so -prosaically, so unemotionally from the lips of this worn old wanderer. -But even astonishment yielded to the keen wonder aroused by the -possibility that the words revealed. He demanded further revelations -from his uncle. - -‘Over all the fields of existence the opened eye can wander,’ replied -the other. ‘I can see whence you have come, and in what dark places you -are now wandering. Because of the help that I hoped I could give you, I -have come here to-night. You are suffering the penalty of bygone folly, -you are chained in the bond of a bad Karma. You have loved something, -and you think now you have lost it. Worst of all, you long to recover -it, you long to rivet round you again the fetters of desire and sorrow. -Many and many are they that come to me, crying for the sound or the -touch of some beloved dead. Women calling across the abysses to their -dead children, their lovers, their husbands; men clamouring for reunion -with the women they have loved. This life of yours, too, here in the -West, is filled with the cry of those who seek what they have lost. -‘Give us back our dead,’ they say; ‘let us touch them, hear them, -speak to them again.’ In hopes of this evil miracle your churches are -crowded, your charlatans grow rich, your Heaven finds believers. A -place to meet the dead again! Weak and foolish, weak and foolish, not -to know that love is sorrow, and that the dead we loved stand for the -heaviest grief of our lives.’ - -‘But then,’ answered Kingston, ‘what is love? Why do we feel it, if it -is such a weak and foolish passion?’ - -‘What is love? It is the ghost of your own dead lives recalled to -life again. What are we but the agglomeration of innumerable previous -personalities? All our feelings are dim echoes of a hundred million -fragmentary feelings that have lived before in the innumerable dead, -who are dust of the ages. What is it that gives us the keen joy that we -take in some piece of music, in some corner of landscape? It is the -harmony of countless memories that are awakened in us out of all our -dead existences by the sound we hear, or the sight we see. Otherwise, -it could mean nothing to us, if this life were our first, if we had no -previous existence to build on. All life is memory made incarnate. All -love is a recognition.’ - -‘Then you are talking of reincarnation,’ answered Kingston; ‘what has -love to do with that?’ - -‘Reincarnation?’ said the other. ‘There is no such thing. Reincarnation -would mean that the same You goes on into body after body, like one -wine poured on from bottle into bottle. Think for a moment what it is -that is You. What is your true personality? Is it the thing that has -fears and foolish desires and dislikes? Or is it the secret higher -thing that stands behind the common everyday self of you? It is not -that everyday You which is indestructible. The You of your bodily loves -and hates dies with your body, should be wiped out utterly and vanish; -it is the real You that continues through all the ages, until at last -it is made one with the Radiance from which it sprang. Your wishes and -fears must not live after you; none of the many details that have gone -to the making of you survive, but only the total that they make up. On -the slate of life your qualities are set down and added together. Then -bodily death wipes out the items, and only the result of the addition -remains. That is Karma--the character you build up for yourself through -the ages. And yet, if you will, you can perpetuate in some degree the -evanescent passions of your earthly life. That is what so many long to -do. Immortality, to them, means an infinite prolongation of bodily and -emotional enjoyment. They cannot sunder their notion of heaven from -their idea of their own earthly personality. In heaven they think they -must carry their earthly tastes, their earthly limbs unaltered. They -imagine that without the limbs and the earthly tastes they will somehow -cease to be themselves. They believe that these limbs and those tastes -are themselves, and they want to enjoy them unchanged through eternity. -They do not understand that desire is sorrow, and that to carry on the -passions and the pleasures of earthly life is also to carry on the -agonies and disappointments of earthly life. But in perfect happiness -there can be no pain. Perfect happiness has no part in the earthly -passing personality of man, for in the corporeal pleasures of that -personality pain is always close at the side of pleasure. The Real Self -suffers no pain; only the phantom self it is that suffers; you, and -all like you, are forsaking the true for the false. You are seeking to -prolong the sorrow instead of taking the opportunity of release.’ - -‘But what release?’ - -‘Your chance is now with you; through many ages you had been firmly -bound on the wheel of desire, loving from life to life with a fire of -anguish that grew with feeding. For of all the phantom joys love is the -greatest and the most delusive. Love is an accumulation of memories -from bygone loves, increasing by indulgence, from life to life, until -at last the burden of pain is too great to be borne. You, Kingston, in -this present person of yours, have suffered the incarnation of a very -ancient deadly love. How else can you account for the mystic rapture, -the violent, inexplicable sense of recognition which makes the essence -of a tyrannous love? It is soul crying suddenly out to a soul loved -long since and lost. It is the meeting of two selves that have grown -together through a myriad years, separated by the gulfs of bodily -deaths, but always certain to meet again, drawn irresistibly together -by the clamour of mutual desire.’ - -‘Ah,’ replied Kingston, ‘if only one could be so certain of that -meeting again! But when, and where, and how?’ - -‘Unhappy question! You that have been freed are eager to enter again -into bondage. If that bondage is the keenest of all earthly pleasure, -yet recognise that it is the pleasure of the phantasmal bodily self. -It has no part with the perfect knowledge, except in so far as it is -divorced from the earthly self. And even in this world, though of all -pleasures the keenest, it is also of all agonies the keenest. You would -suffer the pains of hell, I know, to gain the joys of that fancied -heaven. Wisdom and clear sight have not come to you yet. You must make -yourself yet another hell of sorrow before you can hope to attain the -great emancipation. As it is, you do not even desire emancipation. -Emancipation sounds cheerless to you--lonely, sterile, monotonous. Yet -some day, at some point on your pilgrimage, desire will so fade in you -that you will be able to understand how it is that perfect peace knows -nothing of monotony, and that the agonies of passion do not prove that -its joys are real or holy or satisfactory.’ - -‘How do you mean--make my own hell?’ - -‘Hell is nothing more than the dominion of passion that we establish -over our lives--of passion and all the hellish torments that passion -engenders. We make our own hells by dwelling obstinately in the world -of false desire. If we felt the only true desire, the desire of those -things that are real, then there would at once be no more pain, and our -state would be heaven. Desire is hell. And that hell we build and stoke -and kindle for ourselves--go on kindling from life to life, in our -fancy that the fire we endure contains the ultimate pleasure our souls -can taste. It is no capricious Personality above that sends us anguish -and misery. Everything we suffer follows automatically from some action -of our own in this or some bygone phase that our marred memories can no -longer recall. Here in the West you do not understand how this can be, -though in your heart of hearts you know that it is. But in the older, -wiser East men have learned to train their recollection until it is -as easy to recall the sorrows of a bygone life as those of yesterday -or the day before; for time is a thing that has no real existence in -the infinite life of the soul. You, because of that old tie, knew the -woman, and loved her and lost her. Because of that fire of false desire -that you had fed in yourself for so many existences, you suffered anew -the hell of your own making--the hell of loss and loneliness. But kill -such false desires, and you kill the false miseries of this life that -men think real. You stand at a point where you might strike upwards -towards the heaven of peace; the curse of your love had nearly wrought -out its completion, and passed away. But by nourishing as you do the -fever of longing for the dead, you are binding yourself anew with the -chains that were beginning to weaken and drop.’ - -‘I don’t want to hear all this,’ replied Kingston impatiently. ‘If you -know so much, tell me when and where I shall be able to find what I -have lost. Shall I find it in this life? Shall I know it when I have -found it? Remember how it passed away from me. You seem to understand -all that happened, so tell me whether the change will affect our -knowledge of each other.’ - -‘In one tremendous moment the woman rose far above all the false -desires in which she had bred herself. She gave her life for the truth. -She sacrificed utterly that false self of hers which was the thing that -your false self had so loved through the ages. And for her great merit -it must be that she must reap great rewards,--not rewards apportioned -by a personal providence, but rewards that spring naturally out of -her action. She has shaken herself free of the links that bound her -to you. The Buddha enwombed in every mortal Karma has torn away many -of the veils that shrouded him in that woman’s heart. Because, in her -last moment she loved the true better than the false, and followed -rather the higher love that led upwards than the lower love which would -have kept her at your side--therefore she is released. The streams -are sundered at last on the rock of parting. That bondage of hers has -passed away--weak and erring and desirous, perhaps, she still may -be--faulty and human, but at least that one chain of desire which held -her is snapped and broken utterly. You go hunting for her through all -the fields of your earthly life, and she, in an instant, she was cured -of all vain longings. Therefore between you there is a gulf fixed for -ever. You, in the days of your meeting, will know her and desire her, -but she will not know you; she will be free of you for ever, and your -recognition will wake in her no answering recognition, and thus of her -merit will be doubled your damnation.’ - -‘I’ll take the risk of that,’ cried Kingston, wanting to smile at -these august fantasies; but the low, husky voice, the faint tremulous -manner filled with age and mystery and wisdom compelled his reverent -attention. ‘I don’t care whether she knows _me_ or not when we meet -again, so long as I know _her_. The sundered streams must meet again -somehow. As long as I feel that I have met her again, I can be -perfectly happy. That is all I ask.’ - -‘The soul lies to itself,’ answered the old man sadly. ‘Festering -sorrow you will have in this, and you know it. For all lust, whether -of the body or the soul, is sorrow. It cannot be otherwise, for sorrow -and lust are two words for the one great falsehood that pervades this -visible world of phantoms.’ - -‘Tell me,’ interrupted Kingston, jesting uneasily to hide his -earnestness, ‘as you have told me so much--can you tell me in what -shape I shall find her, if find her I ever shall? Surely what she did -will have brought her greater beauty than ever, if what you say is -true, that our rewards are automatically developed out of our actions? -As for knowing her, on your theory that all love is memory, of course -I shall know her, whether she has gone beyond knowing me herself or -not. I shall feel it in my blood when we meet again, overwhelmingly, -fiercely, as I suppose I must have known her from the first, when she -reappeared for a month or two in my life, twenty years ago. But can you -say what form the result of her beautiful actions will take this time? -Will she be a queen or a beggar?’ Kingston laughed, trying to lighten -the impression of his eagerness. But the old man sighed. - -‘Sorrow, thick and thick, are you calling down upon yourself,’ he said, -‘the bitterness of vain longing, doubled and redoubled. How can I tell -you when and where you may meet again? Wander from magic incantation -to incantation, strengthening your disappointment as you strengthen -your longing. And--at the end, that meeting which shall be only on one -side. Dread that reunion, dread that rediscovery of the lost. You will -not find the lost again; you will find only the new, more beautiful -thing into which her own beautiful action has transformed that which -seemed lost. For merit plays its part in change, inward and outward. -Through what endless trials had the holy lady Yasodhara to come before -her high spotless Karma brought her at last to the side of the Blessed -One Himself. Through all the ages she had lived on, ever higher and -holier, before she could attain the end. And why should that which -wore a woman’s shape continue still a woman, in its glorification? It -was the man’s courage that showed. Can you be certain that what she was -is not now a man--a man, perhaps, weak and earthly, but, after all, a -man, by virtue of that one instant in which all woman’s weaknesses died -in her, and only the bravery held firm. Life is freer, bolder, wider -for a man; should not the free, bold soul pass on into a more fitting -frame, where its opportunities will be greater and its trammels fewer? -But why look forward into the great darkness of desire? Her Karma may -even yet have dreadful sorrows to work out, yet from one sorrow, at -least, it is now free. But I had come to you to-night because, after -all my many years of life and much questioning, it has come to me to -see farther than many across the fields of life, and sometimes to hear -voices that other ears are not opened to hear. So I heard the crying -voice of your hunger growing fierce in its loneliness, and I saw its -sorrow deepening down the road of the future, and it seemed to me that -perhaps I might give you help in loosening the bonds that bind you to -the wheel of false desire. But now I know once more, as all life has -taught me, that it is given to none to help his neighbour. Heaven and -Hell we make for ourselves, sometimes thinking Hell is Heaven, and -Heaven Hell, and no man can unseal our eyes or divert our course. So -you must go on your way, Kingston, and I on mine, neither seeing what -the other sees, strangers speaking unintelligible tongues. And it -will be long before you see what I have grown to see. And yet, in the -distance of time, that day will come, and you will be healed of all -your sorrows. But now, in this life of yours, for a test and a hell and -a torment will be the gratification of your longing when it comes. As a -trial and a condemnation of you and yours will it come, suddenly, with -disaster and despair, and the possessing of it will bring an anguish -bitterer than any that has gone before, for that is the unchanging law -of Desire. So I have brought you my message and my vain warning. The -force of your craving will bring about its own accomplishment, as, -sooner or later, all longing must bring about its accomplishment, and, -at the same time, its penalty. For a terrible moment you will see your -wish made flesh again, then all will pass away into darkness, and your -last state, through your own action, will be worse than the first.’ - -Kingston might, in saner circumstances, have smiled at denunciations -so fantastic. But the little old man, so quiet yet so earnest, had a -strange inexplicable dominance. He might not be believed, but he must -at any rate be respected. In all he said there was a deep passion of -earnestness, wistful and solemn, that gave the wizened little figure -in the outrageous European clothes something of the prophet’s tragic -grandeur. Now, his mission being discharged, the visitor arose to start -once more on his way. Kingston, in the feeling that he had no real part -in this earthly world, could make no effort to detain him. Nor would -any effort have succeeded. As he had come, abruptly, unannounced, so he -would go, abruptly, without mitigating gradation of farewells. - -Gently he gave his hand to Kingston. - -‘Very far apart are we two,’ he said, with a whimsical smile of his -dried lips. ‘We speak in different languages, across a barrier of -worlds. Yet one day we shall draw together, and our hearts be made -kin again. And now I must go. Say good-bye for me to your wife. Out -of our passions we make whips for our own backs, and there are other -passions besides that of love for others. She too, your wife, must pay -the penalty that she has appointed for herself, and out of her fancied -strength shall come the great weakness that shall impose on her, and -you, and all, that punishment which wisdom would have helped you to -avoid. None is good but he who does not know it.’ - -Kingston was not paying close attention. His mind was fixed on the -hope thus made so definite, if perilous, of reunion with Isabel. He -foresaw a second meeting, a second recognition, even though it might -be one-sided. In the rapture of his hope he laughed at risks, and -would face all the vague punishments foretold by the old man without -a moment’s fear or hesitation, for the chance of setting eyes again, -for however short a time, on the love that he had lost. In that hour -the fires of youth flamed high in his heart, and he cared nothing what -bitter waters might quench them once more in the end. In a dream he -escorted the old man to the door, and watched him pass gently away -into the void from which he had so suddenly emerged. Into the crowd -of moving figures in the street the old man passed, and melted like -a phantom. It was with almost the feeling of having been asleep and -strangely dreamed that Kingston went back to the drawing-room, and -found himself once more in the prosaic calm world where Gundred sat -in a perpetual atmosphere of duty and terrestrial activities. When -she returned to her husband with many questions as to the Bishop’s -message, plans, and present whereabouts, Kingston could almost have -believed that the last hour had been wiped out of his life, or, rather, -had never formed a part of it. Her arrival made the whole episode so -remote and so fantastic to look back upon that he could scarcely feel -that it had really occurred at all. She was so practical, so busy, -so matter-of-fact; visions and abstractions could not breathe in her -neighbourhood, grew faint, vague, unreal, until the earthly life in -which she moved appeared to be the only one with which sensible people -could ever have to reckon. She had the not uncommon gift of making the -invisible seem non-existent. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - - -Kingston made haste to forget, as far as possible, the ominous -prophecies that had descended on him, and in a rush of final activities -the Season drew to an end. Gundred was beginning to turn her thoughts -towards Brakelond, and as soon as the Eton and Harrow match was over, -she decreed that they must take their flight thither. She had many -duties to discharge there in a very short time, for, after little -more than a fortnight, other duties would call them all northward to -Ivescar for the hecatombs of the Twelfth. Meanwhile at Brakelond there -was a new school to be opened, a Church Bazaar to be patronized, a -Primrose League Fête presided over, and a horrid Radical fishmonger -to be deprived of custom, with a stately autograph exposition of his -crimes by the Lady Gundred Darnley. There were also a few lighter -tasks, and especially a long-standing engagement to dine with the -Hoope-Arkwrights. The Hoope-Arkwrights were new people of great -wealth, who had bought the old house of the Restormels, beautified -it regardless of expense, and ever since had been angling for the -friendship of ‘the Castle.’ By Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright’s untiring -benevolence towards bazaars, Gundred had at last been brought to accept -an invitation to dine at Restormel. ‘Poor things,’ she said, ‘one -should always give pleasure when one can, and really it will be quite -enough to ask them to tea one day.’ Accordingly she had promised the -Hoope-Arkwrights the favour of her presence, and graciously arranged -her plans to fit in with the date of their festival. At the Eton and -Harrow she shone resplendent in her favourite shades of mauve, to the -devouring wrath of other mothers, who, in spite of artificial aids, -only succeeded in looking their full forty or fifty. She scanned the -gowns and yawned over the play, and paraded proudly about on the arm -of Jim, imagining him to be delighted with the occasion, rather than -in a cold sweat of horror at every moment, lest anyone else should -hear the comments that his mother sent forth in her cool penetrating -tones. Then, having discharged her duty by her son and the match, she -drove back to Grosvenor Street and turned her thoughts to departure. -Kingston would run down to Brakelond in the motor. Gundred enlarged -on her longing to accompany him, but declared that duty imperiously -called upon her to accompany the household by train, to see that the -journey was made satisfactorily, without any loss of luggage, or -extravagance, or indecorum of conduct. Accordingly, on the appointed -day, the Lady Gundred Darnley might have been seen amid pyramids of -parcels and stacks of trunks, taking her Hegira at the head of an army -of retainers. As for Kingston, he had yet another day or so in town, -and then must follow his wife down to the West so as not to disappoint -those ‘poor Hoope-Arkwright people’ of the glory that had been promised -them. - -The weather was settled, and he anticipated a successful run. He was -tired of London. There was heavy over him a sense of things about to -happen. Matters seemed coming to a head. What his foreboding meant he -could not tell; he had put the old uncle’s vague prophecies far away -at the back of his consciousness, and attributed the oppression that -crushed his spirits with a weight of impending catastrophe entirely to -the influences of the thunderous weather and the air of London, stale -and exhausted by the season. It was with relief that he got into the -car on a radiant morning, and set out on his flight from the sultry -city. - -But the day’s journey was not prosperously made. The roads were dusty, -the wind was baffling, the car went peevishly and ill. Panting heavily -along, the machine traversed the beautiful heaths and uplands that lie -to the west of London. Kingston had meant to break his journey far on -the way. It was necessary that he should arrive at Brakelond in good -time on the morrow, seeing that this festivity over which Gundred so -fussed was due to take place that evening. And so, the distance down -to the West being great, Kingston had planned to spend the necessarily -intervening night at Salisbury, so as to give himself ample time to -make the rest of the journey. However, after the long, unsatisfactory -day of delays, a downright catastrophe at last brought him to a -standstill, no farther advanced upon his pilgrimage than Basingstoke. -In that once placid but now assertive little metropolis, hallowed at -once by the memories of Mad Margaret and of Elizabeth Bennet, Kingston -found himself forced to make his rest that night. He gave orders for an -early start on the morrow, then wandered out from the grim desolation -peculiar to English country hotels into the streets and market-place. -Roaming from alley to alley, he contrasted old with new, and beneath -the walls of the old Assembly Rooms, bent his mind to see the famous -Ball where Darcy first sighted his destiny. Soon, within the old room -above, barnlike now and desolate, ghostly lights were shining, and the -tinkle of long-dead music was blending with the rhythmical tumult of -many feet. Brilliant and entrancing, Elizabeth came and went, up and -down the dance; Mary posed and minced, Kitty and Lydia were agog for -partners. As the stranger outside stood and recalled that immortal -scene, the visible world around him faded quickly away, and again -he understood how much more real may be that which has no earthly -existence than that which earthly hands may touch and earthly eyes -examine. Streets and walls of Basingstoke, hideous clock-tower and -town-hall--it was not that they were real; they were phantoms of an -ugly hour; reality, for evermore, was that little town which never was -and never will be, where dwelt those men and women that never lived on -earth, and yet must live eternally--those men and women so far more -vivid and lasting than the ghosts amid whom we live; those real men -and women whose voices must ring on perennially down the ages, giving -joy and satisfaction to generation after generation, until the English -language has passed with Nineveh and Babylon into the limbo of things -forgotten. - -Sombre hucksters, clerks, shopkeepers moved up and down the dingy -roadway. To Kingston, by now, they were but vapours; the street had -changed, and its population was of old friends, bright and clearly -recognised. Here strutted Wickham and Denny through the dusk, -red-coated and raffish, in attendance on the giggling Lydia; and -‘stuffy Uncle Phillips, breathing port wine,’ came lumbering paunchily -towards his doorway. Here, where a modern Emporium had faded away, -giving place to the neat-fronted little shop of bygone days, shone -the shoe-roses that were to dance at Netherfield, and the bonnet that -Lydia bought because it was ‘not so very ugly.’ Farther on, again, the -pretentious hotel where Kingston was to spend his night had melted into -vacancy. In its place stood the long, rambling inn, whitened, clean and -simple, with its pillared portico and its hospitable entrance. And -whose lumbering chariot was it that stood there at the door, whose high -turban and commanding beak loomed out of its deep, cavernous recesses? -Surely, surely there was Lady Catherine angrily demanding the road to -Longbourne, and insisting that the morrow’s weather must certainly be -fine? And now Mr. Bingley rode along on his black horse, blue coat -and all; Charlotte Lucas stepped briskly by on an errand; Darcy came -escorting the effusive Caroline to the shop; last of all appeared the -centre of the vision--the world, rather, where all those visions had -been born and made real--the deceptively meek and mild little maiden -with the twinkling eyes; the demure and inconspicuous spinster in -whom dwelt the keenest spirit that ever spoke in English, or looked -out for English ‘follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies.’ -Round-cheeked, prematurely capped, sedate, Miss Austen pattered on her -road. It was with a sudden cold shock that her passing called back -Kingston into the world of to-day. Gone again was the real Basingstoke -in a flash, and all the real people that had dwelt there--gone like -the sudden wreckage of a dream. Now there stretched before his eyes -only the crude and banal sordor of the prosaic modern town. Jude the -Obscure, and Sue, and beastly Arabella had violently usurped the place -of Bingley and Darcy and adorable Elizabeth. Everything was changed -to ugliness and squalor. Kingston, chilled and saddened, returned to -the hotel which once more stood on the site of that old inn where the -Misses Bennet had eaten their nuncheon. - -In the morning, when the time came for Kingston to set off once more on -his journey, even the bustling streets of to-day had a cheerfulness of -their own. The sun was shining brilliantly, the motor had recovered its -good humour, everything looked solid and practical and businesslike -and wholesome. The vision of the twilight had passed. Jane Austen was -once more dust of Winchester Cathedral, and the butchers and bakers -and grocers who stood by their shop-doors and counters were now the -sole occupants of the little town; the mystic walls had melted into -modern brick and stucco, the ghosts had faded back into the world -they came from. And yet, as Kingston went on his way, he knew that in -a hundred years or less the case would be reversed again, as he had -seen it reversed in the dusk of the previous evening. For ultimate -reality conquers ephemeral, apparent reality, and the butchers and the -bakers and the grocers would long since have passed away, and become -indistinguishable drift again of the earth, with no memory to say that -they had ever worn flesh at all; but Bingley and Darcy and Elizabeth -would still be there, eternally young, unforgotten and unforgettable. -For what death can touch the life invisible? Reality lives on for ever; -it is only the composite, the visible, the tangible, that can break up -in change, and pass, and disappear. The solid is the only phantom. - -On and on through the tranquil glory of the day and the country the -motor sped willingly upon its course, put to its highest pressure of -flight, that the whole distance might be accomplished in as little -time as might be. To-day it ungrudgingly gave its best energies to -travelling cheerfully, indefatigably, briskly. Through sleepy little -towns it hummed and whirred; along deep lanes, and under the shadow of -great ancient forests. Then by degrees the way became more open. The -road wound on, over stretch after stretch of purple moorland, dotted -here and there with sparse pines or hollies that had watched the -hunting of William the Norman; over vast tracts of heather and sedge, -over hill and valley of the wide country. By now the clear freshness -of morning had given way to the leaden glare of midday. The air was -thick and dull with heat, and banked clouds indistinguishably crowded -the dome of heaven, only occasionally permitting a pale sun to pierce -the haze. The sky had no longer any colour; an indeterminate brassy -heat pervaded it, and its farthest distance melted sullenly into the -livid profundities of the landscape, till there was no horizon, only -one vague vapour filling the uttermost parts of the world. - -Kingston drove on unregarding. The road was clear and uneventful; -his mind, released from the motorist’s incessant agony as to hens, -inexperienced dogs, defiant children, and deaf old women who abruptly -cross at corners, was left free to occupy itself with the wonder -suggested by his visit of the night before to shadowland. What, after -all, was this reality that all men think of? He himself, at once solid -and evanescent, of what was he built? Of what were all his neighbours -built? Where was the permanent element in them? Flesh and body and -bones must go; following the logical sequence, he saw that resemblances -must go, recognitions, and the consequent reintegration of bygone -personal passions. So far that mysterious old man from the East had -been right. These superficial passions belong to the superficial Self, -and must pass away when the superficial Self resolves itself once -more into the elements of which it had originally been composed; but -behind all this, above all this, there must needs be some immortal -part, some real Self that could recognise the eternal reality in the -creations of an old maid’s vanished brain, and understand that the -invisible has a very solid and a very vital existence. As he thought -the matter through, the sense of physical personality began to melt -away. Gradually he grew into comprehension of the fact that the He -of everyday life, the He that has wants, angers, hungers, thirst--the -He, in fact, that everyone imagines to be the enduring, everlasting -entity, that all men crave and agonize to believe immortal, has really, -in the everlasting truth of things, no genuine existence whatever. -The only He that could pass on into immortality was the mysterious -something behind, the indestructible Thought that could call the body -and all its manifestations into being, and then, when tired, dismiss -the body again into corruption and go forward on its road. Unable, of -course, fully to dissever his consciousness from the consciousness -of physical existence, his mind, in the absorbed immobility of his -limbs, found itself more and more nearly able to face the fact that -its personality had nothing to do with the earthly Kingston Darnley. -The earthly Kingston Darnley, the thing that wore clothes, and ate, -and drank, and was cold if naked, and cross if hungry, and angry -if denied its wishes--that was a mere accident, built of earthly -accidents like itself, no more capable of immortality than the food -it wanted or the clothes that made so large a part of what it called -its existence. As they, in an hour or a year, must dissolve and pass -back into their constituent elements so must that phantasmal Self of -his resolve itself, in the course of a few seasons more, into its -constituent elements again, and die for ever with the death of its own -desires. Only the inner, secret Self must go for ever forward upon the -upward way, untouched by all the shifting changes which that earthly, -ghostly Self might suffer. And Isabel, the lost thing for which he was -searching, what was she, and to which Self did she belong--the real -or the phantom Self? Was she the creation of his higher or his lower -desires? And if he was to find her, as now he felt a growing certainty -that he must, what would she be? Into what form would the splendour -of her last moment have transferred her? And now he began to remember -more vividly the old man’s warning. With what peril of agony and -disappointment was fraught his quest, its realization and attainment? -By the attainment of one’s keenest desire comes that anguish of -disappointment which is fierce in proportion to the fierceness of the -desires that called it into being. Desire, by satisfying itself, begets -desire, and so, with each fresh craving and its gratification, the -chain of suffering grows heavier and stronger, binding the soul more -and more fast prisoner in the bondage of pain. For a moment he saw this -clearly, understood that only in freedom from the hungers of the lower -self can spring that freedom from sorrow which is the ultimate end of -all human ambition, the goal of all humanity’s highest hopes, here and -in the hereafter. Then his vision clouded, and the lower self intruded -its presence once more. His mind dwelt on the achievement of his quest, -the long-delayed reunion with the thing that had been lost. Even had -he willed to escape, he remembered now that in a moment of what had -then been mere fantasy he had plighted his troth to Isabel far down the -future. Now, though she might perhaps be free, he was tightly bound--at -once by his pledge as by his desires. Perhaps, in so far as his -desires had forcibly purged themselves from grossness, the grossness -of his bondage might be softened. But a slave he needs must be to the -craving which he had so fomented by indulgence through so many desirous -years. A dim fear began to fall like a veil across the radiance of his -anticipation. Now he understood that reunion with Isabel could not be -quite what he had thought and longed for. There must be some change, -and with that change must come suffering. He had said, in the ardour of -his desideration, that he would take all risks of sorrow. Now he first -felt that the risks might well be heavy, and the sorrow sooner or later -inevitable. A sense of foreboding filled him. What he wanted that he -should have, and with his satisfaction must come that grief of dust and -ashes which always makes the gratification of one desire the prelude -of its yet bitterer successor, even as the drunkard’s satisfaction of -his craving only means the renewal of a redoubled, more insatiable -craving on the morrow. His desire should achieve its end, and with that -achievement find only the beginning of another desire and a keener -pain. A vague, mysterious fear of the path which he had set himself -to tread now dominated all his thoughts. It had seemed to lead into -such bright places. But now shadows lay thick across it, and its way -stretched down towards the abysses. He began to dread the road on which -he had so deliberately set his course ever since that violent sorrow of -twenty years before. He was suddenly afraid of that future for which he -had so long been craving, and shrank from the fulfilment of his longer, -eager quest. - -Without delay or misadventure, the motor covered the distances with -untiring appetite as fast as they unfolded themselves, further and -further into blue horizon after blue horizon. Brakelond was nearing; -Kingston might soon expect to see its mysterious mass dominating the -lesser hills and woods. There was now but one steep barrier of hills -to surmount--a slow, straight climb of three miles or more to the -summit of a ridge--and thence the road would drop straight over easy -declivities to the last brief levels that would still separate the -traveller from his destination. Already the hill stretched ahead of -Kingston. Before him, with the appalling directness of those eternal -Roman roads, the white ribbon stretched taut and stern, away and -away to the crown of the pass. Kingston set the motor to breast the -long rise with all its might, for there was no time to waste. His -calculations had run things very fine. He had only another hour or -so to get home, wash, dress, and be ready to accompany Gundred on -her mission of condescension. If he failed, he knew well the neat -reproaches that would meet him, the mild sighings, the pathetic -resignation so much harder to bear than any objurgations. He pushed the -motor to its utmost exertions. - -The acclivity was now climbing over open moorland. Away to right and -left fell the slopes of the hill towards the rich levels far beneath. -Evening was shedding its glamour over the country, and all the details -of the way were transfigured by the magic of twilight. Straight ahead, -over the edge of the pass, the sun was setting in a splendour of -scarlet that spread a solid beam of fire from pole to pole, beneath -the solid purple of the cloud-banks that rolled and towered up towards -the zenith. The air beneath was a-quiver with fire, and the earth -was kindled to a fierce and lucent tone of violet, hot, yet solemn, -mysterious, almost tragic in the breathless stillness of the evening. -Against the glare beyond, the climbing road shone cold and ghastly -under the unbroken cloud-masses overhead, grey as a rain-washed bone by -contrast with the amethyst of the earth and the sudden furious glory -of the sky. Leading up over darkness to that scarlet furnace in the -west, it might have been the very way to Hell. Terrible ghosts might -be mounting its straight, still stretch. As the motor gradually rolled -up its slopes, Kingston saw that there was indeed a wayfarer upon the -road. Far away as yet, hardly discernible, a black speck was nearing -the summit of the pass. A quick, fantastic terror suddenly seized -on Kingston; he shrank from overtaking the wanderer, from passing -him, from seeing his face. Even from afar that solitary figure had -a malign influence. It was some ominous and evil thing, that remote -point of darkness on the ghostly pallor of the road. The moments, as -they throbbed by, seemed big with terrible events about to be born. -A dreadful hush of expectation filled the world. And still the motor -climbed pitilessly, gaining on the pedestrian so far ahead. Kingston -encouraged his foolish instincts so as the better to laugh at them. It -was this strange evening that had given him such a start--this strange -evening, filled with an immemorial, awful loneliness. This light was -mysterious and haunting--the deep sombre purples of the moorland, the -grim, cold whiteness of the road--and then, at the end of the gloom, -that abrupt, ferocious glare beyond, that terrifying blaze of the -sunset between the two rims of darkness above and beneath. The whole -effect was unearthly, almost crushing. And the world seemed holding -its breath; nothing stirred, no leaf, no zephyr; the cry of no bird -could be discerned, and even the dry susurrence of the heather-bells -was stilled in the blank immobility of the atmosphere. And through the -uncanny hush the throbs and pantings of the motor broke obtrusively, -like the agonies of some great monster in travail, intensifying by -contrast the vast loneliness of the silence. And there, arriving at the -crown of the pass, moved on the one sign of life that occurred anywhere -in the desolate prospect. That sign of life added a strangely jarring, -menacing note. - -And then to Kingston’s cherished feelings of mystic awe was abruptly -added another. That figure far up on the grey road was no stranger. -He knew it well, had known it from time immemorial--known it and yet -feared it. The instinct came upon him with a crash, like the sudden -recognition of something dreadful that leaps into a nightmare. It -was no qualm; it was a certainty. He knew that when he should have -reached the summit of the ridge he would look back at the wayfarer’s -face and see--_what_, he could not tell, but something, at all events, -that he had known for years. The feeling grew on him, and grew and -grew, until at last a devouring curiosity annihilated his previous -dread. He abandoned himself to the influences of the wizard twilight, -and allowed himself to nurse these fantasies which daylight could not -have conceived, nor his daylight self been brought to tolerate. Now, -however, by the poised, watchful dusk, their power was strengthened and -made momentarily heavier. Overwhelming impulses of acquaintanceship -seized Kingston. Who could it be that had so enthralled his attention -even from afar? And now they were close upon the mystery. It wore a -man’s figure, lithe and tall, in a dark knickerbocker suit. Suddenly it -turned at the noise of their coming, and looked round. Kingston had one -instant of suspense, then fell headlong into an abyss of self-contempt. -He had so cosseted his absurdities that he had come at last to believe -in them. Why, this wanderer was simply a respectable young gentleman of -one-and-twenty or so, whom he had never set eyes on in his life before. -He was good-looking, too--brilliantly good-looking, with fine features, -a beautifully springy form, and splendid grey eyes, but a total -stranger none the less. Kingston felt a pang of disappointment; but -though on the surface he knew that he had never seen the boy before, -yet a dim instinct within him still obstinately insisted that this was -no first meeting. The instinct would not be cried down by perverse -facts; it clamoured for recognition, and gradually the former acute -feeling of curiosity and acquaintance began to rise again in Kingston. -He felt sure he must already have seen the boy somewhere, though he -could not recall a single feature. Probably he had caught a glimpse of -him in London, and his subconscious mind had photographed the glimpse -upon his memory. On a sudden irresistible impulse, he slowed the motor -on its course, and as he passed the wayfarer, leaned out towards him. - -‘We seem to be going the same way,’ he shouted above the outraged -bellowings of the machine. ‘Can’t I give you a lift?’ - -The other looked up in surprise. Seen at such close quarters, he was -more handsome than ever. - -‘Oh, thank you,’ he answered after a pause. ‘Thanks very much. But I am -very nearly at my destination.’ - -Refusal spoke clearly in his tones, and as he replied Kingston felt -again the same overpowering certainty that this was an acquaintance -of long standing. Everything seemed violently, vividly familiar, yet -nothing, no inflection, no feature, could he track down to its place -in his memory. Besides, if his instinct had been true, surely the -stranger must have shared it, and the offer of a lift would have led, -as it was intended to do, towards a mutual recognition. But the boy -evidently had no such feeling of acquaintance, and had declined the -suggestion without the faintest hint that he had ever seen the motorist -before. The whole coil must be a web of mere fancy. Kingston released -the machine, which bounded gladly on, leaving the wayfarer behind in -the shadow of the hill. Another instant, and they were on the summit. -A blinding glory dazzled Kingston’s eyes. The whole atmosphere was one -shimmering ripple of light. Beneath his feet, dim in the vibrating -gold, lay the last two miles of level and plain. Indistinguishable, -though close at hand among its woods, lay the redecorated house of -the Restormels, where he was to dine that evening. And there, beyond, -infinitely remote amid the vaporous radiance, rose Brakelond, far above -the world, silhouetted in shades of purple against the devastating -glare of the sunset. Wonderfully magical, wonderfully mystical in the -last fires of the evening, seemed that fantastic vision of the Castle, -fit haunt of old dead passions and splendours, the glowing casket of -half a thousand memories, gorgeous, palpitating, terrible. For an -instant he paused on the summit of the hill, gazing at that crown of -wonder against the flaming west; then he gave the straining motor its -head, and plunged downwards on the final stage of his journey. Soon, -as he approached it, the Castle lost its mystery, grew solid, looming, -earthly. Kingston suddenly realized that there, high up in her great -vaulted room, its Lady Gundred was sitting in front of her mirror, -having her hair done, and wondering whether her husband would arrive -in time for dinner. The motor rushed fiercely up the last steep stages -of the Castle hill, passed under the machicolated gateway, and came -noisily to rest in the shadow of the Erechtheion. Kingston, thoroughly -restored by now to prose and sanity, leaped hastily out, and went to -his room to get ready. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - - -Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright was a large, short woman, genial and comfortable, -always anxious to give pleasure and make herself popular. Her husband -had made a great deal of money some years since in ways that were -characterized by his friends as energetic, and by his enemies as -shady. However, nothing very definite had ever been said against him, -so that the charitable could avail themselves, uncontaminated, of his -wealth, and make a merit of their willingness to tolerate its owner. -In himself, he was a quiet and obscure little man, who left the -ordering of daily existence entirely in the hands of his wife; and she, -without vulgarity or snobbishness, had a passion for being liked, for -being surrounded by pleased, approving people. In the neighbourhood of -Brakelond she had already achieved general favour; she was everywhere -hailed as a ‘dear good woman’; the lavish appointments of the house, -the excellence of the cook and cellar, accomplished only less than -her own real kindliness, and the surrounding families all ended by -accepting the new-comer with a good grace, until at last only Brakelond -held itself aloof. And now even Brakelond was about to surrender. Mrs. -Hoope-Arkwright, however devoid of sycophantic feelings, could not but -feel that the occasion was a great one. Lady Gundred Darnley, virtual -Duchess of March and Brakelond, was very much the sovereign of the -county, no less by position than by choice, and her first ceremonial -appearance at the Hoope-Arkwright’s board was beyond question an event -of the highest importance. Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright had ordered her best -dinner, donned her best gown and her heartiest smile; she was genuinely -happy, and meant that the festival should be a complete success. -Gundred, at this moment driving towards the house in a blessed glow of -conscious benevolence, could not feel the favour of her visit more than -did Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright. - -‘Joe dear,’ said the gratified hostess to her husband, as they stood -together in the empty drawing-room before the arrival of their -guests--‘Joe dear, you will take Lady Gundred, of course. Remember -what an interest she has in the schools and Church bazaars. And don’t -talk about the Duke, whatever you do. She does not like it. There is -nothing--well, positively wrong with the poor Duke, but still, one says -as little about him as one can.’ - -Mr. Hoope-Arkwright promised obedience. His wife looked around her with -complacency, surveying all the rich perfections of the room. ‘I do -think she will find the place improved,’ she remarked. - -The Hoope-Arkwrights’ treatment of the old house that they had bought -from the ruined Restormels had been drastic, though reverent. They had -altered everything, and sternly pretended to have altered nothing, -after the habit of new-comers who have passed from the first crude -stage, of destruction, unto the second crude stage, of imitation. All -the old quaintnesses and beauties had been left, but they had all been -elaborated, done up, polished, painted, exaggerated, until they hardly -knew themselves, and wore the uneasy look of things that had been put -up yesterday for effect. The old house was now like the stage-setting -of an old house; everything wore the painful flamboyancy, the assertive -archaism of the theatre, neat, shining, obtrusive as a new pin. The -armoured figures on the stairs and in the long oaken hall now carried -electric lamps in their mailed fists, and this combination of practical -modern contrivance with respect for antiquity was not only typical of -all the other improvements but also a ceaseless matter of pride to -the new owners of Restormel. Their complacence and their contrivance -were equally characteristic. The same spirit pervaded the house and -made it spick and span, bristling with expensive conveniences from -attic to cellar. The long parlour in which Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright now -stood in expectation of her guests was a great low room panelled in -oak, with leaded casements of dim glass. At least, this is what it had -been. Now it had Art-Nouveau windows with cushioned seats, and a broad -white cornice, behind whose rim lurked electric lights in plutocratic -abundance, shedding a pale, diffused glare, as of a ghostly day. The -scene they shone on was no longer ancient, but ‘antique.’ - -Everything was overdone; everything was in that strenuous good taste -which is the worst taste of all. The oaken settles, so carved, so -polished, were blatantly unconvincing in their very eagerness to -convince; oaken tables here and there carried silver photograph-frames -and silver bowls of roses. In their devout attempt to preserve -inviolate the antiquity of the house, the Hoope-Arkwrights had scorned -the introduction of a carpet, and the expanse of the floor was now an -artificial skating-rink of parquet, so new and glossy that it might -have served as a mirror, over whose surface were scattered a few -desolate islets of rug that slid treacherously away beneath unwary -feet, carrying their victim in a helpless slide across the room. Under -the tables sat monstrous great green china cats, painted all over with -little roses in patterns and ribbons. Their emerald eyes of glass -glared grimly forth from each lair, and their presence added a neat -note of modern art to the pristine simplicity of the other decorations. - -As Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright gazed approvingly around, the door opened, and -two young men came in. One was short and pleasant and plump--clearly -the son of the house; the other was slender, tall, and dark, of -remarkable beauty, both of feature and build. His hostess welcomed him -warmly. - -‘I do hope you are not tired after that long walk, Mr. Restormel,’ she -said; ‘I am sure you will be glad of your dinner. The air does give -one an appetite, doesn’t it? I have only walked as far as the garden -to-day, but I declare I feel as famished as a wolf.’ - -The kind lady screwed up her comfortable features into fanciful -imitation of a famished wolf. The young man smiled. - -‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t often get tired with walking. And then think -what I had to look forward to at the end of it.’ - -Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright looked conscious for a moment. - -‘Ah yes,’ she replied with some feeling. ‘I am afraid we are dreadfully -thoughtless, Mr. Restormel. It must be dreadful for you to come back -here and find a lot of new people kicking about in your own house, as -it were; I do hope you’ll try not to think about it. When Jack told -me how he had met you at Oxford, and who you were, and all about you, -I declare I felt quite shy and uncomfortable at the thought of asking -you to pay us a visit. And to arrive just to-night, too, when we have -got a sort of little dinner-party too. I am sure you must find it very -trying.’ - -The handsome boy smiled down at her again. She was evidently in anxiety -that he should be happy and set at his ease, though her methods lacked -subtlety. He accepted her sympathy, but diverted her conversation. - -‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘we come and go, all of us, and it never does to -bother about what one cannot help. Anyhow, I am sure Restormel never -had jollier, kinder people in it than it has now. Tell me, Mrs. -Hoope-Arkwright, who is coming to dinner to-night?’ - -‘What, has not Jack told you?’ cried the hostess, with a little -inflection of pride, turning to her son. ‘Well, there are Sir Nigel -Pope and his new second wife, and the Martin Massingers with two -sisters, and the Archdeacon and Mrs. Widge, who are staying with them, -and the Lemmingtons, and the Goddards, and the Pooles--yes, and the -Darnleys--from Brakelond, you know, Lady Gundred and her husband.’ - -‘Oh, Lady Gundred. Of course I have heard all about them. My mother -used to see a good deal of her at one time, before the place was sold.’ - -‘Oh yes, how stupid I am! I am always forgetting that you know all the -people about far better than we do, though only by hearsay, most of -them. Yes, of course you know about dear Lady Gundred. You will be next -her at dinner, on the other side from my husband. What a comfort! You -will be able to talk to her about old times. I am afraid you will be -in starvation corner, by the way, Mr. Restormel, but I thought--even -before I remembered that you knew her--that you would not mind that if -you were next to dear Lady Gundred.’ - -‘You must remember,’ answered young Restormel, ‘that the place was sold -when I was only six months old, so I cannot feel that I have any very -intimate acquaintance with Lady Gundred. Tell me some more about her; -what is she like?’ - -‘The sweetest and best of women, Mr. Restormel. And so pretty. Quite -extraordinary, for she must be--what?--well over thirty, certainly, -and yet she looks quite like a young girl still. Fair, you know, with -a delightful complexion and lovely golden hair, and that kind of -beautiful little figure which never alters. Yes, she must certainly be -over thirty. She has got a son who can’t be less than fifteen. Jack, -surely Jim Darnley is quite fifteen?’ - -Young Hoope-Arkwright glanced up from the photograph-book with which he -was beguiling the time. - -‘What, Jim Darnley? Oh yes, fifteen, at least.’ - -‘There you are. And his mother looks like his sister still. He is the -dearest boy, Jim Darnley--the simplest, most unaffected creature. And, -of course, he will be Duke of March and Brakelond one of these days, -when his grandfather dies. They are sure to revive the title for him. -But he might be just anybody, and his mother the same. I have always -wondered why she does not make her husband take her own name. But no; -she is such a really good woman that she thinks a wife ought always -to stick to her husband’s name. That shows you what she is. And such -a worker of all good kind works, indefatigable among the poor and the -sick--for ever sending out soup and boots and blankets, you know. -Her life is quite made up of kindnesses. They very, very seldom dine -out, the Darnleys, in the country, so that you are lucky to meet them -here like this to-night. Her husband is a very nice man too. I am -sure you will like them both immensely. But of course she is the most -interesting of the two.’ - -At this point the other guests began to arrive, and Mrs. -Hoope-Arkwright was forced to abandon her dialogue with young -Restormel. She introduced him rather perfunctorily to one or two of the -new arrivals, taking pains to slur over his name until she should have -the opportunity of explaining his identity quietly to them at dinner -or afterwards; then she turned to her hospitable duties, and Jack -Hoope-Arkwright carried off his friend into one of the windows, where -they stood laughing and talking together while the guests gradually -gathered. Then, after a few moments, Ivor Restormel and his host came -back towards the hearth to look at some photograph or ornament that -stood on the primitive oak table that stood close by, and thus it was -that they were once more close at the hostess’s side when at last, in a -significant pause, the butler re-entered. His appearance suggested an -archbishop of sporting tendencies, and he evidently cultivated a nice -sense of drama. His voice boomed sonorous as he announced: - -‘Mr. and Lady Gundred Darnley.’ - -Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright moved forward a step or two. - -Minute but majestic, the Lady Gundred Darnley proceeded up the room, -panoplied in perfections, and giving exactly the proper amount of -smiles, of exactly the proper kind, in exactly the proper way, to all -the proper people. At her heels came Kingston, but nobody cared to -look twice at him. Lady Gundred was the star of the evening; as she -entered, she had the double consciousness of not only conferring great -pleasure, but of conferring it in the handsomest and most ungrudging -manner. For in the plenitude of her generosity she had decided that it -was her duty not to fob off poor, kind Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright’s dinner -with one of her second-best frocks; and now she reaped the reward of -her efforts in the general gaze of delight that greeted her appearance -in one of her smartest gowns, looking incredibly crisp and young in a -beautifully-built harmony of pale blue and pale gold. The frock set -the crown upon the favour of her coming. It was, indeed, very rarely -that the Darnleys dined out in the neighbourhood of Brakelond, and -therefore Gundred was the more ready to emphasize the approval that -her coming was to bestow on Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright in the eyes of all -the county. Dear woman, how good she had been about that bazaar! how -loyally she had turned away her Liberal gardeners! She well deserved -not only to be dined with, but to be dined with in one of one’s decent -gowns. And then one might ask her to tea at Brakelond, and show her -the pictures. Gundred showed herself sweet and kind in the highest -degree, as Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright made her welcome. Her manner always had -a tranquil friendliness and a grace so instinct with placidity that -only the most discerning could have discerned her underlying pride, -in her demeanour’s very negation of pride. Here and there, perhaps, -an acute onlooker might guess that her gentleness was founded on an -intense arrogance unsuspected even by its possessor, on a self-esteem -so tremendous as to have passed beyond all hint of self-assertion -into a Nirvana of apparent unself-consciousness. An ingenious friend -in London, indeed, had once said that, though Gundred’s manner and -signature unfailingly wore the proper style of ‘Gundred Darnley,’ yet -that, reading between the lines, both of manner and signature, one -could always see that it really ran, ‘Gundred March and Brakelond.’ -However, her pride was far too cardinal a point of doctrine to be -made the theme of declamation; Gundred never obtruded it, never -lowered its dignity by insisting on it, never allowed it to make her -offensive, except in minute and subtle ways. Now, as she pressed Mrs. -Hoope-Arkwright’s hand and commended her kindness, the hostess felt -that never had she met anyone so pleasant and cordial and delightfully -unaffected. - -Then Gundred raised her eyes and looked round her to see who else -might be in the room. She saw Sir Nigel, saw the Lemmingtons, saw the -Archdeacon and his wife; she was glad that Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright had -chosen such unexceptionable people to be witnesses of Brakelond’s -condescension. Then her gaze moved on. The next moment she saw somebody -whom instantly, inexplicably, she disliked as she had never before -disliked anyone at first sight. Cool and gracious, Gundred was the last -person in the world to feel unusual emotions; but now, as she looked -at a tall dark young man--a boy of about twenty, he seemed, remarkably -beautiful and attractive--her soul started proudly away in a flurry -of instinctive repulsion. He was unpleasant, that good-looking youth, -altogether unpleasant and odious. She had no notion why this feeling -swept so completely across her mood; it took entire possession of -her. Quickly she averted her eyes, and glanced round the uneventful -circle of the other guests. They, for their part, quite unsuspicious -of Lady Gundred’s sudden outburst of dislike, were concentrating their -admiration on the calm grace of her manner, so exquisitely civilized -and concise. Passions must always be very far from that serene -pleasantness of demeanour. And meanwhile Gundred was busy thinking how -displeasing that young man was, while with soft smiles she responded -to Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright’s compliments. But suddenly the hostess became -conscious of someone at her side. She turned towards the handsome dark -boy, and before Gundred could see what was to happen, had brought -him forward. ‘Let me introduce you to Lady Gundred Darnley,’ she -said. The young man made a motion as if to put out his hand. Gundred -instantly responded by taking that cruel revenge which is always in a -woman’s power on such occasions. She ignored the hand, gave a glacial -little smile and a glacial little bow. The young man seemed slightly -astonished at this chill, and his eyes met hers for a moment. They were -splendid eyes, those of his--cool, deep, grey, kindly. They glanced -with wonder into the ice of Gundred’s stare, and in that moment she -felt his gaze intolerable, saw things that she mysteriously hated -and dreaded in those grey depths. For once in her life Gundred’s -composure was faintly ruffled. She dropped her glance, and faintly -blushed with annoyance. This is what one got by being generous and -dining with presumptuous people like the Hoope-Arkwrights. Under her -calm, imperturbably smiling exterior Gundred was gravely annoyed. She -moved backwards, away from this unwelcome introduction. Her movement -produced a change in the arrangement of the crowd. Kingston stepped -forward, and came into sight of the tall, slender figure with which his -wife had seemed to be talking. Already he had had a strong conviction -that he knew the back; now that he saw the face, he recognised the -wayfarer whom he had passed on his road that afternoon. And once again, -tyrannous, overwhelming, came the certainty of old acquaintance. -Before, however, he could start a conversation, dinner was announced, -and Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright began to marshal her guests in procession. -Gundred hailed the release with joy, and passed out with gentle majesty -at the head of the cortège. - -What, then, was her indignation when, having settled herself at her -host’s right, delicately removed her gloves, unfolded her napkin, -untied the little bundle of pastry faggots that lay before her knotted -up with blue ribbon, she turned towards her other neighbour, and -discovered that he was no other than the strange, beautiful young man -for whom she had conceived so unusually sudden a dislike. She hated -strong emotions, and very rarely indulged them, but this one was beyond -her control--a matter of instinct. In the first flash of revelation, -she felt convinced that this beautiful boy was a corrupter of youth, a -contemner of religion, everything that was bad and horrible; she plumed -herself immediately on the nice discernment that enabled a Christian -woman to divine such things, and made a virtue of the hostility she -harboured. Talk to such a creature she would not. She turned quickly -upon her host, and initiated the usual introductory conversation on the -beauty of the table decorations. - -The dinner-table was of a piece with the rest of the restored house. -It was so aggressively old as to be obviously new. It was of that -ancient oak which is for ever modern; and, in deference to primitive -simplicity, it wore no cloth. Glass and silver gleamed down its long -narrow stretch, and in the middle ranged a hedge of roses and orchids -embowered in ferns. Electric light was not permitted to mar its -harmony with any suggestion of modernity. Candles in plain old silver -candlesticks illuminated the table and its guests, shedding a soft and -discreet glamour of pink from beneath their shades of crimson paper. -Gundred commented amiably on the beautiful effect attained. - -Mr. Hoope-Arkwright, who left such details to his wife and the -decorators, made what reply he could, and the conversation flowed -placidly along the lines that Gundred loved, developing in the way that -showed her social aptitudes at their best. - -‘My wife says that electric light does not do for a dinner-table,’ -explained Mr. Hoope-Arkwright. ‘Too harsh a light it sheds, she tells -me. I don’t understand such things myself, but everyone says the -candles and their pink shades are very becoming.’ - -‘Yes, indeed,’ replied Gundred; ‘one always likes a soft gentle light. -And so clever of dear Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright not to have a tablecloth. -All the glass and silver shows up so well. Such wonderful taste she -has.’ - -‘Well, I always like a tablecloth myself, you know--seems cleaner, -somehow; but Maggie says it is not the thing in a house like this.’ - -‘Such a delightful house--yes? And I do think you and dear Mrs. -Hoope-Arkwright have been so tactful about it--altering nothing, as it -were, and yet improving everything, and making it so comfortable. It -was very different in the poor Restormels’ time. I can remember what it -was like then.’ - -Mr. Hoope-Arkwright saw that she had not grasped her other neighbour’s -identity, and as personal explanations are not easy unless one has the -tact to shout them, so that their object may have no suspicion who is -meant, he preferred to turn the conversation into other channels. ‘Are -you fond of flowers, Lady Gundred?’ he asked. - -In such temperate dialogues Gundred particularly shone. She was -especially valuable in London for her power of flowing endlessly -and amiably on about matters which could never possibly interest or -stimulate anybody, or arouse difficulties of any sort. She was felt -to be a thoroughly safe guest. So Mr. Hoope-Arkwright’s question gave -her a most favourable opportunity for the display of her favourite -qualities, and she seized upon the topic with joy. - -‘Oh yes,’ she answered; ‘I have always been devoted to flowers. Such a -comfort they are--yes? Quiet friends, I always say. One could not live -without them.’ - -‘Roses, now--do you care particularly for roses?’ pursued Mr. -Hoope-Arkwright. - -‘Oh, the queen of flowers,’ she made haste to reply. ‘But, do you know, -I can never quite care for a rose that has no scent. There is something -unnatural about it--no? But these of yours are perfectly lovely, and -how sweet! Do you find the soil good for them here?’ - -‘Well, as to that I can hardly tell you. I leave such matters to my -wife and the gardener. But they are fine fellows, as you say.’ - -‘Quite like little pink cabbages--yes? Only so very, very beautiful, of -course. How one loves a rose! And they go so well with the orchids too. -So nice to be able to grow orchids.’ - -‘Yes, they do run into money, orchids do. You would be astonished at -the prices some of them fetch.’ - -Gundred thought this a vulgar ostentation, and assumed her mildly -pious air. ‘And I dare say, after all, not half so beautiful as many -a dear little flower of the hedgerows?’ she replied. ‘Money means so -little--yes? I often feel that one’s greatest pleasures are those which -cost us least. The lovely lights on the hills, the roseate hues of -early dawn--these are the joys which no money can buy. How thankful one -ought to be to Heaven for giving us all these healthy pleasures--yes?’ - -Neither Mr. Hoope-Arkwright nor Gundred herself had any exhaustive -experience of early dawn and its roseate hues. But the sentiment was -improving and laudable. The host, however, was inclined to be prosaic. - -‘Well,’ he answered, ‘one need not sniff at money, either, Lady -Gundred. Where would one be without it?’ - -‘Ah, where indeed?’ sighed Gundred; ‘and yet one never has enough. But -one always likes to feel that there is something higher than money, -Mr. Hoope-Arkwright--yes? Money can give you all these beautiful -flowers, and this delightful house, but can money give happiness, Mr. -Hoope-Arkwright?’ - -‘Anyway, money can give us most of the things that make up happiness.’ - -‘Not a tender, loving heart, Mr. Hoope-Arkwright. Not a childlike faith -and simplicity,’ replied Gundred pathetically. ‘And without these -what is life? Our only real happiness lies in doing what one can for -others. And that, I always feel, is the most real and precious use of -money--yes?’ - -Mr. Hoope-Arkwright’s most characteristic activities had hitherto -lain rather in doing others than in doing things for them. Also, he -had very different views on the use of money from those so correctly -enunciated by Gundred. So he preserved a discreet silence on the -point, and listened unprotesting while she proceeded to enlarge on -the more idyllically beautiful possibilities of life. He inserted ‘Ah -yes,’ and ‘Ah no,’ at intervals into the interstices of her remarks, -and cast about for an early opportunity of taking refuge with his -other neighbour. Mr. Hoope-Arkwright did not really share his wife’s -hospitable instincts, and he did not care two straws about Lady Gundred -Darnley--or, for that matter, about Lady Anybody Anything. ‘To do the -civil’ he saw to be his duty, but the moment that dinner was half -over and his duty duly discharged, he meant to indemnify himself for -his endurance of this dull, pretty woman and her boring platitudes by -having a good time with his other partner, Sir Nigel Pope’s second -wife, a young woman of a gay and kindred spirit. Accordingly, when the -roast peacock had arrived, he seized his moment with great promptitude. - -‘Now, that is what I call quite poetic,’ he exclaimed, when Gundred had -finished by saying that she thought a good, useful life was like some -fragrant flower. ‘What do you think, Lady Pope?’ - -Lady Pope made a prompt, flashing reply, and in another moment was -engaged in a warm duologue with her host; Gundred was left out in -the cold. She felt a certain annoyance at being dropped like this. -Her self-complacence would not, of course, let her know that she -had been dropped. She knew that she had been giving poor dear Mr. -Hoope-Arkwright one of the pleasantest half-hours of his life--a little -uplifting talk with a really refined woman--but still it was just a -trifle tiresome that he should have so very keen a sense of duty. -Evidently it was only the strictest sense of duty that had made him -change partners so precisely at the halfway house of the meal; but -Gundred would have been better pleased if he had not allowed his sense -of duty to be quite so minute and intrusive. Very proper and right, of -course, yet almost too scrupulously right and proper to be altogether -tactful. Then it suddenly occurred to her that she in turn ought to -talk to her horror on the other side. No, that she would not. Duty -and right themselves should not compel her. She stared stonily before -her, eating the peacock with wrathful and mincing precision. She would -hear no preliminaries on her right. She gazed straight out across the -table. Far off she saw her husband looking at her. Watchful interest -and curiosity filled his expression as he glanced from her neighbour -to herself. Perhaps he was wondering why she was not talking to him. -Duty clearly commanded her to. But for once in her life correct, -decorous Gundred would be deaf to the call which she usually heard -and obeyed so sedulously. She nibbled at a pastry faggot, and kept a -stern silence. Her neighbour made two attempts at conversation, but -she answered so coldly as to nip them both in the bud. Then, abruptly, -her attention was caught and riveted. The pink candle-shade in front -of her was tilting to one side, threatening every moment to take fire. -She looked anxiously round to her host for help, but he was by now -far too deeply engaged with Lady Pope. Gundred gazed in annoyance at -the paper shade. Surely it was beginning to smoulder? Ever since the -catastrophe at Brakelond Gundred had disliked fire hardly less than the -burned child, and now her untutored desires would have prompted her -to get up and move away. But she had the martyr-like courage of her -breeding and conventions. She sat there in suspense, smiling, calm, and -altogether smooth to look at. However, there was no need, after all, to -feel so helpless. She must inevitably appeal to the young man on her -right. Speech had become a necessity, though always a distasteful one. -Besides, after all, how absurd to let even so strong an instinct make -one uncivil! Gundred fought down her reluctance bravely, and turned to -her neighbour. - -‘Do you think,’ she asked firmly, though in a low, rather strained -voice, ‘that you could lower that shade a little? Do you see, I believe -it will catch fire in a moment--yes?’ - -No answer followed her appeal. In astonishment she repeated it, and -raised her eyes to her enemy’s face. She was astounded by what she saw -there. She herself had been put out, even alarmed for a minute by the -imminent fate of the candle-shade; but her neighbour’s gaze was fixed -on the point of peril in a set white pallor of pure terror. Never in -her life had she seen such an agony of dread on any human countenance. -The young man, so beautiful, so lithe, so strong, was a monstrous -coward. His face was rigid with fear, his eyes staring horribly. The -sight was indecent in its nude revelation of weakness. In an instant -all Gundred’s courage came back to her, and at the same moment her -hatred for her neighbour was mitigated by a cold ferocity of contempt. -He was still evil and hateful, but now he was contemptible also. He, -a man, to be so terrified of a little burning candle-shade! At that -same moment the shade tilted further, caught, and flamed. Gundred was -conscious that her neighbour’s hands clenched upon his chair in a -convulsive jerk of fright. Calmly, firmly she reached forth her arm, -and crushed the blazing paper into a blackened flake. Servants came -running to sweep up the ashes, and Mr. Hoope-Arkwright confounded -himself in apologies for his neglect. Gundred showed herself perfectly -amiable to her host, but on her other neighbour she would have no mercy. - -‘I saw it was going to catch,’ she said gently, ‘and I asked Mr.--this -gentleman, to put it out. But he cannot have heard me, I think.’ She -included both men in her remarks, and spoke in soft, far-reaching tones -that could not escape their attention. Mr. Hoope-Arkwright made some -polite rejoinder, gave her a few compliments, then went back to his -dialogue with Lady Pope. Gundred, reinstated in her own self-esteem, -turned to see what effect her cut had had upon the coward. Had he -winced beneath the lash? Yes, evidently he had. Gundred was justly -pleased. Heaven had made her the instrument of his well-merited -punishment. And now he was trying to make excuses. She would listen, so -as the better to slight them. She offered a coldly acquiescent air as -he began to speak. - -‘I am sorry,’ he said in a slow, hesitating voice, hardly yet restored -to equanimity. ‘I am afraid I heard you perfectly.’ - -Gundred would see no courage in the confession. It was mere effrontery. -‘Yes?’ she replied. There was a pause. ‘Yes?’ repeated Gundred cruelly, -demanding an answer. - -The young man went on, speaking with difficulty. Gundred felt a keen -joy in thus dragging the coward through a confession of his cowardice. -To be a man and a coward--that was not punishment enough. He should -also know what a woman thought of him. - -‘I ... well, the long and the short of it is, I can’t face fire,’ -continued the hesitating, painful voice. - -‘You would not make a good soldier--no?’ rejoined Gundred, with a -pinched little smile. - -‘Oh, in that way I hope I should be all right. It is flame and smoke -and burning that I cannot face. All my life I have had the fear. I -suppose everyone has a secret horror in their lives. Fire is mine. -I have suffered from it always. You don’t know what it is. It is -something far worse than fear. I am not really afraid of the fire. I -knew how ridiculously harmless that little burning shade would be, but -it was the fire, the flame that made me--well, made me almost sick with -a shrinking--a sort of supernatural repulsion that I cannot explain.’ - -‘How very unfortunate!’ answered Gundred, deliberately cool and -incredulous in tone. ‘It must be so very inconvenient--yes? People are -sadly apt to misunderstand, don’t you find?’ - -The young man, however, was a worm only in his tendency to turn. -He flushed, seeing clearly the hard malice of her mood. ‘Very few, -thank Heaven,’ he answered, ‘have ever had the opportunity of -misunderstanding. You have been especially unlucky, and so have I.’ - -‘Oh, don’t mention it,’ replied Gundred, politely demurring. - -‘I must, obviously,’ he went on. ‘You see, one bears one’s secret -horror, whatever it may be, quite alone, telling nobody about it. But -sometimes, once or twice in one’s life, some cursed accident drags it -to the surface, and the horror becomes too bad to bear, and an outsider -gets a glimpse of it. I have been unfortunate in the moment of my -accident, and in the person who saw it, and there is no more to be -said: that is all.’ - -The young man, the coward, the unmentionable, seemed actually to be -snubbing the brave, the serene, the faultless Lady Gundred Darnley. -This must instantly be put a stop to. - -‘One does not like to believe that any man can have a fear too bad to -bear--no?’ inquired Gundred, very gently and softly, as if asking for -the sake of information. - -The victim had clearly had enough of this persecution. ‘After all,’ he -said, ‘when one comes to think of it, I suppose you are yourself more -or less responsible for my fears, if anyone is.’ - -Gundred gave him a blank blue stare. - -‘I?’ she questioned in amazement, as if the very suggestion were an -insolent piece of irreverence. - -The young man was not abashed, however, and proceeded to make his -position good. - -‘You had a ghastly fire at Brakelond many years ago,’ he answered. -‘Somebody was burnt--a cousin of yours, I think. Well, that fire was a -great shock to my mother, and upset her dreadfully. I was the result, -and I am the incarnation of her terrors.’ - -Gundred hesitated in her enmity, and her manner changed. - -‘I beg your pardon,’ she said; ‘but I did not quite catch your name -before dinner. But from what you have just said, are you--surely you -must be----’ - -‘I am Ivor Restormel,’ said the enemy. ‘I was born about twelve hours -after your fire at Brakelond. So you cannot wonder that I carry the -traces of it in my life, as it were. And so, you see, I was right: you -are in some way responsible for my dread of fire. Wasn’t it a careless -servant who set light to the old wooden wing of Brakelond? Well, if it -had not been for that careless servant, I should not have had any dread -or shrinking from fire.’ - -‘Really,’ said Gundred, hardly heeding him, ‘this is wonderfully -interesting. Then you are poor dear Mary Restormel’s son? I used to -know your mother so well in the days before you were born. And then -the place was sold, of course, to these Hoope-Arkwrights, and I never -saw much of poor dear Mary again. But how very strange to meet you -here--yes?’ - -Gundred was always faithful to her traditions and her memories. The -stranger came immediately into the hallowed circle of Gundred’s own -class, and no longer suffered the condemnation of the outsider. In -her heart of hearts, Gundred, perhaps, would never surmount her first -mysterious sense of repulsion; but anger, disdain, reproof must at once -be very much modified in the case of a person who now stood revealed -as no longer an unhallowed, nameless member of the Hoope-Arkwright -world, but as poor dear Mary Restormel’s son, with the right divine to -Gundred’s sympathetic loyalty. Her strong and dutiful _esprit de corps_ -even prompted her to something resembling an apology. - -‘Of course I had no notion who you were,’ she said. ‘What you tell me -is a perfect explanation. How very dreadful for you, though! But I -quite understand your feeling--a simple instinct. Yet, of course, until -one knew who you were, it did seem a little strange--yes?’ - -Ivor Restormel had ceased to take much interest in the question. - -‘Oh, well,’ he said, ‘one is always meeting odd things in life. I only -wish I had escaped that particular oddity. However, I do all I can to -get the better of it, and in a way I have succeeded. I can face flame -more than I could, though it still gives me the same supernatural -creepy feeling. What I have suffered, too, in seeing women smoke is -more than I can express.’ - -‘Not at all a nice habit, I think,’ replied Gundred. ‘Somehow, it never -seems appropriate or ladylike--no?’ - -‘Oh, it is not _that_ I mind, but the possibilities are so horrible. A -man wears rough tweeds and things. No spark could settle on them. But -think of the innumerable frills and fluffs and films that a woman has -floating all round her nowadays. A chance spark, and the dropping of a -red cigarette-end, and--ah! it doesn’t bear thinking of.’ - -He broke off, shuddering, and Gundred could see that at the bare notion -of such a catastrophe the old white, shivering terror had laid hold -of him. She had heard before of these strange, inherited passions, -prenatal, ineradicable, but this was the first instance she had ever -met with, and it filled her with interest now that she realized that -its victim was a man of her own order, and as such, of course, not to -be classed in the common rank of cowards. Her subconscious fear and -dislike of Ivor Restormel still held their place in her mind, but they -had retired to the background of her thought for the moment, leaving -room for the curiosity that his identity and his idiosyncrasy aroused. - -‘So very dreadful,’ she murmured, ‘for your poor mother. I had not -realized that dear Mary had been so much upset by that awful fire. -You know, Mr. Restormel, I feel as if we were quite old friends, you -and I. As you say, I cannot help feeling, after all, that we have got -some of the responsibility to bear for the odd feelings that you have -inherited. You have had quite a distressing legacy from those old -wooden rooms at Brakelond--yes?’ - -Laudably, deliberately friendly, Gundred raised her neat smile to meet -Ivor Restormel’s gaze. He was looking at her full, with his deep grey -eyes, true and honest, and altogether pleasant. Yet, as she met their -glance, suddenly the instinctive hostility surged up into Gundred’s -mind with redoubled strength. Fear and dislike seized her. She could -not bear that glance, could not tolerate her neighbour’s presence. She -turned away her head with a sensation of almost terrified hostility. -What was this imperious repulsion that now held her--the first emotion -that had ever threatened to pass the limits of her self-control? She -could not understand it; never before had she felt anything even -remotely resembling this blind, paradoxical dislike. Perhaps, years -since, her bitter memories of Isabel had been tinged with the same -unreasoning horror, but those far-off qualms had been faint and -colourless compared with the vehement feeling now aroused in her by -this beautiful and harmless stranger. She stiffened herself to show -a firm front; self-contempt began to stir in her. Why, had it come -to this, that she, Lady Gundred Darnley, the model of deportment and -nice tact, now wished publicly to violate her own code, to be rude and -inconsiderate to a person who on all counts, as being unobjectionable, -a fellow-guest, and an equal, claimed her consideration and her -courtesy? Such a lapse could never be permitted. She must fight down -this folly, and be kind to Ivor Restormel through the rest of this -nightmare meal. Then she would leave the house as soon as she could, -and pray Heaven that she might never set eyes on him again. - -Ivor Restormel saw something strange in her manner, but took no heed. -He did not in the least care what Lady Gundred Darnley might choose to -think of him. He felt confident that he could in no way have offended -her; further than that his interest in her attitude did not go. The -secret dislikes of one’s acquaintances are incalculable. It is both -hopeless and useless to take such things into one’s consideration. One -can but watch one’s own behaviour to keep it clear of offence, and then -leave the rest to Providence. - -‘Brakelond must be wonderfully beautiful,’ continued Ivor Restormel, -amiably manufacturing conversation in the pause made by Gundred’s -sudden lapse into silence, ‘judging by the view of it from here. I -have never seen anything so fairy-like and splendid. I suppose you -have rebuilt the burnt part long ago? All wood, you say it was? Yes, I -have heard so much of that old wing that I feel as if I knew it well, -every step and winding of it. Ugh! what a ghastly death-trap!’ Again he -shuddered at his vivid recollections of a place he had never seen. - -Any criticism on her family or its possessions always roused Gundred to -polite animosity. Now the feeling came to her rescue, and armed her -against this dreadful young man who seemed so pleasant and innocuous. - -‘It was very interesting and wonderful,’ she answered reprovingly. -‘We all loved it. But, of course, wood is always rather a peril--yes? -Oak panelling is most delightful, but one cannot help feeling it a -responsibility.’ - -‘I hate the very idea of it,’ replied the other with fervour. ‘Why, -whenever I think of those wooden rooms at Brakelond, I can smell that -horrible cold, old, acrid smell of a burnt-out ruin--the horrible smell -of charred wood, which gets into one’s nostrils and one’s throat. -Sometimes in my life I have had to meet that smell, and whenever I get -a whiff of it, I always have a vision of the wing at Brakelond, all -wrecked and blackened and fallen in, haunted by the dreadful acid fumes -of stale fire and smoke.’ - -Gundred might have protested further against the quite uncalled-for -vigour of Ivor Restormel’s memory, but at that moment Mrs. -Hoope-Arkwright was making efforts to capture her attention from behind -a bower of odontoglossums. She smiled her acquiescence, made some -indifferent remark to her neighbour, and rose to head the departing -procession. Thank Heaven, the ordeal was over, and she had come out of -it safely, without any more loss of self-respect than was involved in -the conception of so incalculable an instinct of hostility. Gundred -felt her self-complacency returning. She knew that it does not matter -what sentiments one may entertain, so long as one gives no sign of -entertaining them. One’s private blemishes are one’s own private -concern alone, provided that one does not let one’s clothes slip down -and reveal them to the world. - -Her husband, meanwhile, at the other end of the table had proved -but a tame and uninteresting companion to Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright. His -attention throughout the meal had been fixed at every possible moment -on Gundred’s right-hand partner. For whole long minutes he scanned that -keen, handsome face. Where had he seen it before? Why did he find it so -very much more attractive than even its own intrinsic beauty warranted? -He stared at it, analyzed it, dissected its features. No, collectively -and separately they were quite new to him. He grew more and more -confident that he had never met the young fellow before; otherwise -he must have remembered him. It was not a face to be forgotten. No, -he had never seen it before. And yet the imperious conviction grew -and deepened in him that that face was worn by no stranger--that he -and the boy at the end of the table were in some mysterious way the -oldest of intimate friends. Many years before he had felt the same -passion of recognition when he at last understood what it was he felt -for Isabel; now the same haunting sense of old acquaintance returned -to him, and held him in a firm and inexorable grip. As soon as the -women had all left the room, he carried round his glass, and settled -himself decisively at Ivor Restormel’s side, thereby upsetting all the -post-prandial arrangements, which had been meant to make him the prey -of more interesting and conspicuous men among the guests. - -‘We met on the road this afternoon, I think,’ said Kingston; ‘or, -rather, I passed you. You refused to accept a lift.’ - -Ivor Restormel smiled back at him. - -‘It was awfully good of you,’ he replied. ‘I have never been offered a -lift by a motor before. But, you see, I was so close to Restormel, it -would hardly have been worth while.’ - -‘Are you staying here?’ inquired Kingston, more and more strongly drawn -to this new acquaintance. - -‘Yes; Jack Hoope-Arkwright is a great friend of mine. We are at Oxford -together. And, besides, I belong here in a sort of way. The place used -to be my people’s. I am Ivor Restormel.’ - -The name instantly brought back to Kingston’s mind that deadly accident -which had eventually been the secondary cause of Isabel’s death. He -shuddered. But the link of recollection thus forged seemed to bind -him more closely to young Restormel. The boy had an inexplicably -strong fascination. He was pleasant, he was good-looking, he was well -built; but there was something else. He was more attractive than all -these good qualities could have made him. Kingston took an increasing -pleasure in hearing him speak. - -‘I remember all about you,’ answered the older man. ‘My wife used to -know your mother well. It was my wife you have been sitting next to. -Perhaps she told you how she used to know your people.’ - -Kingston knew Gundred’s devoted loyalty to all old friends and -neighbours, and was anxious to impress Ivor Restormel’s identity upon -her, foreseeing that it would incline her favourably to his sudden plan -of seeing as much as possible of the young fellow. - -‘Yes, Lady Gundred soon recognised who I was. But I am afraid she was a -little disappointed in me. I think I could see it.’ - -Kingston was slightly alarmed. He knew Gundred’s prejudices of -old--soft and mild as milk; hard, ineluctable as iron. - -‘Oh, nonsense!’ he replied, with more anxiety than the occasion -appeared to warrant. ‘My wife is always a little cool and non-committal -when she meets people for the first time. You will soon get accustomed -to her.’ - -It never occurred to him that he was apparently explaining his wife, -more or less apologetically, to a total stranger. Ivor Restormel was -puzzled. His beauty had already made him many sudden friends, had -immensely helped him on his way through life, predisposing everyone in -his favour; but it had never yet kindled such a fire of zeal as seemed -to be developing in Mr. Darnley. He was inclined to be cautious in -acceptance, and during the rest of the meal gave careful, quiet answers -to Kingston’s advances. But Kingston had not the faintest interest -in the boy’s beauty, nor, precisely, in the boy himself. It was the -acquaintance, the old friend in him, that Kingston divined so keenly, -and was eager to investigate more fully. The vehement attraction that -he felt towards Ivor Restormel was something, so to speak, impersonal, -something quite unconnected with the boy’s pleasant manners or -agreeable face. It was an attraction towards something deep and hidden -in the young fellow’s personality, and the attraction grew stronger and -clearer with every minute of their dialogue. - -At last the time came to go into the drawing-room. The men rose, and -drifted in knots towards the door. Kingston, as he went, retained -possession of young Restormel, despite the evident anxiety of Mr. -Hoope-Arkwright and Sir Nigel to have a word with Lady Gundred’s -husband. - -‘Look here,’ he said. ‘How long are you staying with the -Hoope-Arkwrights? Come over to Brakelond, will you? Come over -to-morrow. I should like you to see the place.’ - -Ivor Restormel accepted the unexpected invitation with thanks. Jack -Hoope-Arkwright, following in their wake, wondered at the precipitate -friendliness of Mr. Darnley. Such sudden hospitality was by no means -in the traditions of Brakelond. A long preliminary purification -was generally necessary before Lady Gundred considered her friends -well tested enough to be invited to the Castle. And here was Ivor -Restormel, after half an hour’s acquaintance, not only asked, but -pressed to come, and to come as soon as possible. Times were changing -indeed. It had taken the Hoope-Arkwrights three years to know the -Darnleys, and eight to be dined with by them. - -The rest of the evening passed without event. Gundred, however, -gradually grew displeased with her surroundings. At first she had duly -been throned on the best sofa, and listened to in silent admiration -while she pronounced on the weather, the decadence of decorum in the -servants’ hall, and the proper management of cooks. But ere long Lady -Pope, whom, in her mind, Gundred characterized as a pushing young -person, had begun to cut in frivolously, irreverently, with jokes -and stories. Gundred, who had a faint instinct that all wit was more -or less vulgar, did her best to repress these interruptions; but her -efforts were vain, and soon even her devout hostess was listening and -laughing at Lady Pope’s sallies. Lady Gundred was left rather out of -the picture, and her authoritative comments on cooks began to lose -their hold on the general attention. Then when the men appeared it was -even worse. Lady Pope became the centre of a court; even those who -came to make their dutiful obeisance to Lady Gundred passed hastily -on, after a few pallid words about the weather, to join the cheerful -crowd round the younger woman. Then games were played, largely at Lady -Pope’s instigation; and Gundred, who would have disliked any proposal -that sprung from one whom she now felt herself compelled to regard, -however disdainfully, as a rival, had, further, personal reasons -for disapproving this development. For she sang; and she expected, -accordingly, to be asked to sing. Her music was waiting outside to be -fetched; it would have been obviously proper of Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright -to press her most important guest to perform. But apparently everyone -preferred the thoughtless gaiety of this unprofitable evening to -hearing Lady Gundred discoursing Chaminade in her neat and well-drilled -little flute of a voice, which, as her friends said in extenuation, was -so truly wonderful for a woman of forty. - -Finally, to add to all these annoyances, she saw her husband neglecting -everyone else in the room to talk to that young man for whom she -had conceived such a repulsion. She would rather, even, have seen -him spending the time in attendance on that forward Lady Pope. But -Kingston was so distressingly friendly. Actuated by many collaborating -motives, Gundred made haste to ask for her carriage, and showed every -sign of imminent departure, much to the distress of hospitable Mrs. -Hoope-Arkwright. Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright felt that the evening had not -been altogether satisfactory since dinner. Lady Pope had evidently -shone excessively; and the light of Lady Gundred Darnley had been -thereby most unjustly dimmed. It grew plain that Lady Gundred was a -little put out. Gaiety and dignity were hard to combine. Lady Pope -offered the gaiety; Lady Gundred the dignity. And the two ambitions -were irreconcilable; for it was already clear that Lady Gundred could -not amuse--certainly not while Lady Pope was of the party. Grievously -did Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright regret that she had infused the gay and -sparkling element of the young woman into what she had meant to be -the serene if soporific delights of a dinner made illustrious by the -presence of March and Brakelond. But it was now too late for regret, -and no entreaties could soften Lady Gundred’s determination to go. - -‘Thanks so much,’ said Gundred sweetly. ‘Such a delightful -evening. We have enjoyed ourselves so much. But we must -really think of the horses. Good-night, Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright. -Good-night--good-night--good-night.’ - -Scattering bows and farewell condescension like a queen, the Lady -Gundred Darnley moved towards the hall. Kingston obediently followed -her, and soon the door of the brougham was shut upon them, and they -were off. Gundred smoothed out her flounce with a certain pettishness -unusual to her calm temperament. - -‘A dreadful house,’ she said decisively, ‘so horribly rich and -new--and the most vulgar and trying people. One wonders how even the -Hoope-Arkwrights contrive to collect such a crew. Surely, Kingston, I -could not have heard you asking one of them to come to Brakelond? Just -as we were leaving. It must have been my fancy, of course.’ She was -sitting very upright, rigid with rectitude, her pale lips compressed, -her pale eyes gleaming scornfully. Kingston felt like a guilty child. - -‘Only young Restormel,’ he said. ‘You will like him, Gundred. I am sure -you will like him immensely. He is one of the most attractive people I -have ever met. After all, he is an old neighbour of yours, not like the -Hoope-Arkwrights and the rest of their friends. I made him promise to -come over to-morrow. And then, later on, he might come to stay with us -for a bit. I should like you to see more of him, Gundred. He will be -someone for you to help and befriend.’ - -A very long silence, leaden and ominous, filled the brougham. Then -Gundred spoke, in a bland, deliberate low voice. - -‘Really, Kingston,’ she said, ‘you are almost trying at times.’ - -Her husband felt himself annihilated. This, from Gundred, was very -heavy rebuke. He made no answer, and they drove on to Brakelond without -another word. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - - -Gundred, however, was too good a wife to make useless difficulties. As -her husband had invited this young man, this young man must clearly -be endured. After all, the visit would soon be over, and she herself -need not put in more than a bare appearance. To tell the truth, she -was not quite easy as to her own attitude in the matter. It could not -be altogether right to conceive such violent antipathies, and she was -painfully surprised to find herself entertaining such a feeling. She -told herself that there could be no smoke without fire, and that sooner -or later her infallible female instinct would be found justified. But -until it should be so found justified, she was far too conscientiously -good a woman to be happy in the indulgence of an unreasonable hatred. -Accordingly, she deliberately suppressed her annoyance, and made it her -penance to receive Ivor Restormel on the morrow with her usual quiet -grace. The effort brought its own reward; dislike him mysteriously, -instinctively, she still did and always would, but there was no longer -the uncomfortable vehemence about the feeling. She could tolerate him, -though she could not make him welcome. - -Ivor Restormel walked over in the afternoon. Gundred gave him tea -and then left him to her husband’s care, on the plea of a post to -catch. Kingston took his guest into the new wing that had been built -on the promontory after the fire, and proceeded to question him -and talk to him more exhaustively than had been possible the night -before amid the exigencies of a party, no matter how scandalously -disregarded. There was no beginning about their friendship, it seemed -to Kingston, no breaking of new ground. It was simply the picking up -of a dropped thread where it had fallen. The feeling was strange and -almost uncanny, the more so that it was evidently not shared by Ivor -Restormel. He received his host’s overtures with diffidence, seemed -ill at ease, at a loss to understand the warmth of his treatment. Mr. -Darnley was nothing more to him than a chance acquaintance of the night -before. As the dialogue went forward, too, the visitor’s uneasiness -became more and more marked. His face took on a strange look of strain -and anxiety; in his speech could be heard from time to time that note -of abstraction which can be heard in a voice whose owner is trying -hard to keep up a conversation, while his mind is fixed far away on -the contemplation of unpleasant private matters. Kingston watched -the expression of his guest’s eyes, the curious hunted fear that his -whole manner began to suggest, and again experienced more strongly -than ever the mysterious feeling of having seen that manner, that -strained expression, somewhere before. His memory must be playing him -the maddest tricks; for he could have sworn that this boy was well -known to him in every detail of face and disposition; yet by now it was -clearly proved--as clearly proved, at least, as anything in this world -could ever be--that the two had never met, and never even set eyes on -each other before. But Kingston still hoped against hope that a chance -discovery in the dialogue might reveal some hint or glimpse of a former -meeting, however brief, partial, trifling. Thus, and thus alone, could -his instinct be justified. - -But, as the conversation went forward, the visitor’s uneasiness grew -keener and more unsettling. At last it could no longer be controlled. - -‘I should awfully like to see some more of the Castle,’ he said. ‘You -said something last night about showing me the pictures.’ - -But the boy’s evident wish to move was too interesting to be gratified. -Kingston saw it, could not understand it, meant to understand it. - -‘Oh, there will be heaps of time,’ he replied. ‘You must come over -again some afternoon. But it takes at least a day to see the Castle -thoroughly. We may just as well stay here peacefully. Really, these are -the most comfortable rooms in the whole building, although they are -quite modern.’ - -‘Modern, are they?’ answered young Restormel. It was a silly answer, -and betrayed the inattention of his mind. For the rooms were too -obviously modern for any comment on the fact to be other than fatuous. - -‘Yes, they were only built about--yes, twenty years ago.’ - -Ivor Restormel leapt to his feet. His anxiety culminated, seemed -mysteriously confirmed. His eyes were filled with a horror he was -trying to conceal. ‘Surely,’ he stammered, ‘these are not the rooms -that were restored after the----’ - -‘After the fire? Yes. This was where the old wing stood.’ - -‘I thought so; I knew they must be,’ replied Ivor Restormel with forced -calm. ‘And they have not got rid of the smell yet. I noticed it as soon -as I got inside.’ - -‘The smell! What smell?’ asked his host, amused by this odd notion of -his visitor’s, and sniffing about for the aroma of dead rats. - -‘The smell of fire,’ said Ivor Restormel, speaking in a low voice, as -of a thing too dreadful to be talked of in normal tones. ‘The whole -place is full of the smell of fire. Don’t you notice it, Mr. Darnley? -I suppose nothing can be on fire now? No; it is the stale old smell of -a fire that has been out for a long time--the sharp, beastly smell of -charred wood and burnt stone. I know it so well.’ He shivered against -his will. - -Kingston was startled at this strange new development. He had heard -nothing of Ivor Restormel’s hidden horror. Gundred had disliked the -whole subject too much to tattle about it. Kingston was astounded -at the sudden fantastic anxiety of his guest, the perturbation of -his manners, his evident discomposure. So vivid was Ivor Restormel’s -apprehension that it even impressed itself on Kingston. The host -inhaled the air sharply. There was not the faintest suggestion of fire -or smoke. The room was sleepily fragrant with potpourri from the old -perforated jade censer on the corner table. Otherwise there was nothing -in the air. And yet it was evident that Ivor Restormel was dodging -some secret terror that was almost on the point of breaking covert and -declaring itself. - -‘You have got a most wonderful imagination,’ said Kingston at last. -‘There is no smell of fire here. On my word, there isn’t. There -couldn’t be. The fire was put out twenty years ago, hang it all! The -smell of it could not very well be hanging about here still.’ - -‘No; I suppose not,’ answered the other, obviously quite unconvinced. - -Then, lamely, hesitatingly, he explained the reasons why the memories -of the catastrophe at Brakelond had become so closely involved with his -own life, and what a troublesome legacy it had left him through the -shock that his mother had suffered. Kingston was more and more stirred. - -‘I never heard anything more extraordinary,’ he replied. ‘Suggestion, -I suppose it must be. And this room makes you feel uncomfortable even -now, I can see, and you manage to smell fire where there has been no -fire for twenty years. And yet you have no more recollections?’ - -‘Recollections? I don’t quite know what there could be for me to -recollect.’ - -‘Well, to tell you the truth, when I first saw you on the road, I had -a vague and yet a very strong feeling that you and I have met before, -and known each other quite well. I imagine that was all a mistake? See -if you can’t remember any previous meeting between us, though. It would -be interesting if you could, for my instinct was quite extraordinarily -clear on the point, though my memory seems to say accurately and -definitely that I had never seen your face till I passed you in the car -yesterday afternoon.’ - -Ivor Restormel shook his head positively, and made haste to answer in -the negative. The question did not interest him in the least. The one -feeling of which he was conscious was his tyrannous need of getting -away from those serene and pleasant modern rooms, which, to his excited -fancy, seemed full of horrid ghosts. - -‘No,’ he said. ‘I am pretty well certain we can never have met -before. I was brought up abroad, you see, by my mother, after they -sold Restormel. And the last two or three years I have been living -at Oxford. I have not been to London or anywhere where we could have -met. No--no.... I say, I am a most awful idiot to-day. I can’t imagine -what has come over me,’ he cried abruptly. ‘But this jolly room of -yours--well, it feels to me horribly uncanny. You say there is no fire, -and of course there isn’t; yet the smell is in my nostrils and my -throat all the time, choking and stifling me. Did you ever hear such -rot? Do you mind if we go out in the garden or somewhere? I’m not often -taken like this, please believe me. I have never felt anything like -this in my life. I told you how I hate and dread fire, though I have -never suffered from it; but nothing has ever given me such an awful -impression of fire as I feel here to-day.’ - -He had been standing ever since he rose from his chair, or walking -uneasily from end to end of the room. Now he stood in front of his -host, gazing at him with eyes which, for all his tongue’s pretence at -ease, were filled with a haunting dread. Kingston was deeply moved by -the spectacle of this fighting terror before him. The terror moved -his pity, the courage of its victim moved his admiration. And, behind -everything else lay the curiosity that this manifestation woke in him. -But he could no longer disregard his visitor’s eagerness to be gone -elsewhere. He rose from the window-seat. - -‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I cannot understand it. Yes, let us go, if you -wish. We might take a turn in the garden. I would not have brought you -in here if I had had the slightest idea that you feel like this. But -I never could have believed that such a stretch of imagination was -possible.’ Kingston broke off, studying the controlled fear in the -young man’s face. Then he abruptly began again. ‘Look here,’ he said, -‘do tell me exactly what it is you see and feel that gets on your -nerves so. I cannot understand it.’ - -Ivor Restormel glanced round the room. Under Gundred’s supervision it -had been rebuilt in a cool and placid modern style. Everything in it -was pretty, graceful, harmonious. The walls were panelled in white; -flowers were standing about in tall blue glasses. The big windows -admitted shafts of soft afternoon light through their drawn white -blinds, and the whole impression was one of fragrant, comfortable peace. - -But Ivor Restormel’s eyes saw something very different. - -After a pause he answered, huskily, in broken, difficult tones: - -‘You will think me more of an ass than you do already,’ he replied. -‘I suppose it must be my mother’s stories that account for it. But, -besides the awful smell of burning here, I seem to see a horrible -wreckage of charred ruins. Oh, I can see these walls and all the jolly -decorations. And yet, somehow, when I look again they are not there any -longer. There is only the shell of some other building, something all -fallen in and blistered and blackened with fire. Great heaps of ashes -and bleached rubbish are piled high between what is left of the walls. -The whole place is choking with the stale fumes of smoke. And the rooms -are open to the grey sky far overhead; and grey drifts of rain come -dashing in from time to time on the smouldering masses.’ - -Kingston watched his visitor’s face with an amazement that bereft him -of words. - -‘By God!’ he said slowly, wondering where his thoughts would lead him -in the next few minutes. ‘By God! you describe it exactly as if you had -been here twenty years ago.’ - -Ivor Restormel shook his head fiercely, as if trying to shake off some -horrid, persistent memory. - -‘I feel as if I had,’ he replied suddenly. ‘I feel just as if I had -been here twenty years ago, worse luck. The moment I came into the room -I saw it all. I felt--oh, well, I felt that I must have been here in -the ruins ever so long ago, and had the worst time here that anyone -ever had--as if I had been tied by the leg here, somehow, and pinned -down in damnable terror and pain.’ - -‘Come along out of it,’ said Kingston quietly, after a pause. He -dared not trust himself to say more. An idea had been born in his -brain--born, or called once more to life?--an idea so wild, so -fantastic, that he hardly dared to entertain it. And yet, in the -depths of his heart, he knew that it was the truth. In silence he led -the way towards the Castle, while his visitor tried to impress upon his -unheeding ears a dozen apologies for the gross and idiotic folly of -which his nerves had made him guilty. - -As soon as he was out of the fateful room all his self-possession -seemed to have returned, and he could not account for the sudden -vertigo of terror that had haunted him there. What had come over him -he could not imagine. Mr. Darnley must certainly think him the most -confounded idiot. What must Mr. Darnley think of anyone who could -let himself be made such a rude, mannerless idiot of by a sort of -hysterical schoolgirl qualm? The whole thing was too asinine for words. -He had no excuse to make. - -And all the time Mr. Darnley said nothing, heard nothing of his guest’s -protestations. This beautiful nervous boy had no interest for Kingston -Darnley; he did not care what he said or felt or looked like. But -the terror that haunted Ivor Restormel was not his; the mysterious -attraction that filled him was not his own. Somewhere, deep down in -his being, lived Something that had felt that terror, Something that -exercised that attraction over Kingston, Something that called to -Kingston as an old friend. And that Something, Kingston knew it, heard -it calling to him imperiously out of the eternal past. It was the -Something that had once carried the name and shape of Isabel. There was -no mistaking it. Now at last Kingston understood what it was that had -gripped him yesterday on the road, what inexplicable summons of old -friendship. The dead had come back to him after many years. But clothed -in alien flesh, forming part of a new personality, shut off from -recognition by the barriers of the body. For in this boy lived only -the one fragmentary recollection of the final catastrophe. Nothing -in Kingston’s soul, no call of ancient kinship, no appeal to bygone -pledges, could penetrate to the ears of that secret self. The dead had -come back, known to him, but incapable of knowing him again. How could -he wake memory in that changed thing which had returned, at once the -same, and yet so different, in its freedom from that bond which once -had made them one, and now, still as strong as ever in the hold it had -over himself, had broken and fallen away for ever from the other soul -it had gripped? Kingston looked at his visitor with a feeling that drew -near to hatred. This stranger held the thing he still loved. The body -and the shape of it was an irrelevant, a maddening accident; it was -the secret thing that Kingston called to, the secret thing that was -prevented from hearing by this new personality in which it had clothed -itself. Kingston felt a sharp grudge against Ivor Restormel, his body, -his brain, his beauty. That body, that brain, that beauty made the -locked casket that imprisoned the living dead. And yet, inasmuch as -Ivor Restormel was the shrine of that lost passion, he was, on the -other hand, ineffably precious and sacred. He could not be let go. -The boy himself was less than nothing; but what he held was more than -everything. - -Ivor Restormel thought his host justifiably offended, and tried to -mitigate the effect of his own silly rudeness. But his pleasant chatter -fell on unheeding ears, and he began to think that he had alienated Mr. -Darnley beyond reconciliation. And no wonder. Who could be expected to -put up with a puling idiot like that? Ivor Restormel mentally kicked -himself, and felt that he would gladly have vindicated his character by -returning into those haunted rooms. Without having any special wish to -please either of the Darnleys, he was one of those people who always -like to be popular, and grow faintly unhappy when they fail to make a -favourable impression. He did all he could to mollify his host, and was -distressed, though not surprised, to find all his efforts fall flat. -In ordinary circumstances he would not have minded so much; but now he -felt that he really owed Mr. Darnley some extra pleasantness, if only -to make up for having just made so egregious an ass of himself. He -tried his level best to set matters right; but for a long time he got -no answer--or at most an absent-minded monosyllable. Kingston was not -yet equal to conversing with this tiresome young interloper who had -come between himself and the dead, while, at the same time, revealing -at last to him the return of the lost. They walked in silence up and -down the garden together, while Gundred watched them from an upper -window, disliking the visitor as much as ever, and wondering when in -the world he would begin to think about going. - -‘Wanted to see the pictures, didn’t you?’ said Kingston abruptly at -last, cutting, regardless, into something that the other was saying. - -Ivor Restormel felt more and more out of place. Evidently he would do -well to say good-bye. However, he could not escape from this civility -of his host, however perfunctory. So he followed Kingston as he -strode into the Castle, paying no attention to the boy at his heels. -Gradually Kingston was beginning to recover his composure and face the -inevitable. This wonderful secret certainty of his must be cherished -and acted on, though already he began to taste something of the pain -that had been foretold him, from incessant yearning knowledge of a -thing that could not recognise him in turn, and could never recognise -him again. The door between them was of locked iron--a vain agony to -beat against. And yet it was not an agony that he could spare himself, -for, though the door was of locked iron for ever, yet behind it dwelt -the thing he had sought for so long. He saw now the irony of his fate. -But nothing could divert its course. Ivor Restormel found his host -growing calmer and more courteous again. Soon he was even cordial, -and the tension of the situation seemed at an end. The two men passed -through the picture-gallery, giving a share of attention to every -picture, though each, in reality, was busy with his own thoughts, Ivor -feeling the satisfaction of successful effort, and Kingston foreboding -the anguish of an effort that could never be successful. At last they -had gone the length of the gallery, and stood before the old panel of -Queen Isabel. - -‘Here is the She-wolf,’ said Kingston pleasantly. ‘Don’t you think she -looks her name? Isabel of France and England.’ - -The younger man laughed uneasily. - -‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘An evil lady, I suppose? It is curious what a -horror I have of the very name. Isabel--it seems to stand to me for -everything I hate most in the world, fire included. I must have some -beastly memory somewhere connected with the name of Isabel, but I -cannot lay my hands upon it.’ - -The little artless admission roused Kingston to the highest point of -excitement. He must penetrate to the secret haunt of that soul which -had such clear flashes of recognition. The task _must_ not be hopeless. -He turned almost savagely upon his guest. - -‘Restormel,’ he said, ‘what do you mean by that? For God’s sake, -think--think hard, and tell me what you mean by that. Think, man, -think.’ - -The vehemence of his attack, however, had no effect upon the younger -man. Kingston had hoped that by its sheer sudden intensity it must -inevitably strike a chord of memory, must inevitably rouse up the -sleeping soul with its cry of eagerness. But it failed--failed -utterly, and his mood fell back baffled. - -‘I’d tell you if I could,’ protested Ivor. ‘But, upon my soul, I can’t. -It is just another of my idiotic crazes. I wish I had not told you now. -It only makes one seem more of an ass than one did before. Anyhow, I -think I must be getting back to Restormel, Mr. Darnley. Thanks so much -for letting me come over. I have awfully enjoyed seeing the Castle. -Will you say good-bye for me to Lady Gundred?’ - -‘Look here,’ said Kingston, suddenly kindled to anxiety by this threat -of departure--‘look here. What are you going to do, Restormel, when you -leave the Hoope-Arkwrights? I mean, what are your plans in life?’ - -‘Mine? Oh, well, I hardly know. I have got to make some money somehow. -There isn’t a penny-piece for us to live on. I shall have to be a -clerk, or something of the kind, I imagine. My mother sent me to Oxford -because she wanted me to make my living by teaching. But it does not -seem that there is much chance of that nowadays. The world swarms with -tutors and masters.’ - -Kingston saw his chance. It was unthinkable that this recovered joy of -his life should be allowed to pass away again immediately, leaving him -in the darkness that he had endured for twenty years. He could not bear -the thought of parting with Ivor Restormel. The very notion was a pain. - -‘But look here,’ he said abruptly, ‘why not come to us and be my -secretary, and do tutor to my son Jim, perhaps, in the holidays? I am -sure we should all get on capitally together, and, honestly, I don’t -think that you could easily pick up anything much better. And we’d do -our best for you. What do you say?’ - -Ivor, confounded at this sudden proposition, the last thing that -he had expected after his behaviour of that afternoon, lost himself -in thanks and self-depreciation. Kingston would hear of no such -hesitations. - -‘We might just as well settle it now,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to -consider much, or think over--that is, if you really care to try this -kind of work. You know about us, and we know about you; and, so far as -we are concerned, I don’t see that anything could possibly have fallen -out more conveniently.’ - -‘But I--do you think I should be able to do what you want?’ asked Ivor -Restormel. ‘Remember, please, I have never attempted anything of the -sort before. You may not find me what you like, after all.’ - -‘One knows that sort of thing as well at the end of five minutes, very -often, as at the end of five years. I am quite certain that you are -exactly the sort of fellow we want. I knew it the first moment we met. -So don’t make any more difficulties or apologies, but just say that you -will come to us.’ - -‘But of course, if you really think--well, I shall be delighted, of -course.’ - -‘That’s right. And there’s no particular reason for putting things -off, is there? So come to us as soon as you can. To-morrow, or the day -after. You won’t want to stay much longer with those Hoope-Arkwright -people. And I should like you to get accustomed to us and the place -before we go off to my place in Yorkshire and our son Jim comes home.’ - -And so, after a few more faint demurrings, Ivor Restormel, bewildered -and dazed by the rapid development of events, found himself pledged -to take up his residence at Brakelond with the least possible delay. -Matters being thus settled to Kingston’s satisfaction, he allowed his -visitor to depart, and then began to brace himself to the task of -breaking his latest plan to Gundred. - -The good wife neither raves nor flouts. But, if she be good enough, -she has the power of being quite wonderfully disagreeable in a mild -and dutiful manner. Gundred had never countered Kingston with any -ill-bred vehemence, but by now he knew that on occasions she could don -a pious resignation inexpressibly hard to bear. Some such display, he -was afraid, might greet his announcement, for, to his experienced eye, -it was already plain that she did not approve of Ivor Restormel. Her -sweetness to him had had a certain glacial tone which Kingston well -knew. He anticipated that she might make difficulties. - -But events were moving too rapidly for Gundred’s orderly habit of mind. -She was too much taken aback when she heard the arrangement that her -husband had made to offer any coherent or valid opposition. A vague -passion of wrath possessed her, and her anger lost half its efficacy -with all its usual crushing calm. For Gundred, the imperturbably -gentle and correct, so far forgot herself as to combat Kingston’s -plan with violent obloquy. Never before had he seen her unreasonable, -or hysterically bellicose; and the unusual spectacle, so far from -compelling his sympathy, only hardened his decision by its contrast -with her usual well-regulated temper. Had a glimpse of the past been -vouchsafed to him, after all these years, that he should now forego the -agonizing joy of it, simply because his wife chose to abandon herself -to a groundless antipathy against a young man, a perfect stranger, -in whom she, of all people, could certainly not discern that inmost -inhabitant whose presence gave him so strong a claim on Kingston? No, -her foolishness justified him in disregarding her opposition. - -As for Gundred, she lost her head, lost it completely, in the complete -surprise that overwhelmed her. Imagining that a meal or so at Brakelond -would mark the extent of her husband’s ridiculous fancy for the boy -against whom her instinct so urgently warned her, she had been content -to allow matters their course, considering resistance unnecessary. And -now, while she acquiesced, matters had suddenly grown to such a pitch -that resistance was no longer possible. The situation had passed beyond -her control. At first she could hardly believe that Kingston really -meant to disregard her hostility. Hitherto, through all their married -life, husband and wife had never seriously clashed. A quiet tolerance -towards each other’s plans had marked their relations. In fact, neither -had really been sufficiently excited over the other’s actions ever -to make a fuss. They trusted each other, and lived in the amity of -confident indifference. Ideal as their union had been, though, it had -been the union of two parts, not fused, but cemented; now at last, -after twenty years, surged up the hot water of opposition, and in the -moment of trial the cement revealed itself by melting. At a touch the -two lives fell apart, and were separate once more. The revelation was a -shock to Gundred. - -‘Kingston,’ she cried, ‘I tell you, I distrust that young man. I cannot -think what you mean by proposing to have him in the house. The very -moment I set eyes on him I felt that there was something wrong about -him. A woman’s instinct is never mistaken, Kingston.’ - -‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous, Gundred,’ answered her husband. ‘Have you -anything definite to say? If so, say it, by all means, and we’ll think -no more of the matter. But if you have not, don’t dishonour yourself by -making scenes and abusing a young fellow of whom you know nothing but -what is perfectly good.’ - -‘And Jim?’ replied Gundred, taken at a disadvantage, and stripped in -an instant of the lovely calm that usually clothed her like a Paquin -frock--‘my Jim? Am I to see my only child, Kingston, handed over to -the company of a man against whom I have the very strongest feelings -of fear and horror? Kingston, I tell you I look on that young man with -positive fear and horror. Have I ever said anything like this before -about anyone else? Do you think I am mad enough and unchristian enough -to take prejudices like this without a reason? But it is stronger than -I am, this feeling. It is so strong that I feel it would be wicked to -disregard it. It is Heaven’s warning to us all. I know that it speaks -the truth, Kingston; don’t be so obstinate.’ - -Knowing in his secret heart what secret tie it was that bound him to -the occupant of Ivor Restormel’s personality, Kingston could not but -feel it strange and impressive that Gundred should have conceived so -violent and instinctive animosity against the young fellow. Could it -be a blind feeling of jealousy, recrudescent from the past? Anyhow, -it was the very devil and all of an inconvenience. And, as no sort -of wrong was meditated to Gundred, as no sort of wrong was possible, -Kingston saw clearly that her unreasonableness not only allowed him, -but enjoined him, in her own interests, to take a firm way of dealing -with these hysterical passions. Had she been cool and staid as usual, -he would have found the situation much more difficult to cope with; as -it was, her dishevelled zeal gave him the advantage, and enabled him to -assume the high position of one who has right and reason on his side. - -‘Hang it all, Gundred,’ he protested. ‘What a piece of work to make -about nothing! One would have thought you would have been only too -glad to help an old neighbour’s son. You are generally so keen to do -what you can for people. Do try and get over these absurd fancies. -Do you suppose I am not just as anxious as you are that Jim shall be -kept out of undesirable hands? Come, you don’t think me a fool, I hope? -You don’t imagine that I should pick out a scoundrel for a whim? I -tell you, I like this young fellow; I like him more than I can say. He -attracts me strongly; I am sure we shall find him a great addition.’ - -Gundred looked up at him with righteous wrath in her eyes. ‘He must -have bewitched you,’ she said, devoutly and sincerely. ‘The Forces of -Evil sometimes have the most awful power. Oh, Kingston, listen to me. -Be wise, and repent in time. Oh, I never thought it would come to this. -Why, _why_ did we ever dine with those dreadful people?’ - -‘Gundred, you are either hysterical or medieval. And in either case, -really one cannot argue with you. I have never seen you like this -before. Poor boy! can you soberly think him an emissary of the devil?’ -Kingston laughed. - -But Gundred, among many other antiquated notions in which she took -pride, retained a most steadfast belief in the bodily existence of -Satan. To be old-fashioned in manners, mind, morals--in everything -but clothes--was her especial glory. In London she claimed to be -conspicuous by her old-world excellencies. When she met, or heard--for -they did not frequent her set--of other Dukes’ wives and daughters -who were frivolous and freethinking and modern, Gundred took pride in -asserting the obvious fact that she was not as they, that she continued -to give a rare and beautiful example of pristine decorum to her order. -Her friends might find the spectacle dull, but they could never deny -that it was edifying. And among the old-fashioned adornments with -which she persisted in decking her habit of mind, her belief in the -Powers of evil, of witchcraft and possession, were given not the least -important place. She described herself complacently as an old-fashioned -Christian, and never passed a palmist’s placard in Bond Street without -feeling that the law ought to have more scruples about allowing a witch -to live. Now, accordingly, she primmed her lips fiercely at Kingston’s -scepticism. - -‘All I know is,’ she answered, ‘that these warnings are sent us for our -good, and that the Powers of Evil are for ever round us, seeking whom -they may devour. Kingston, will you, or will you not, pay attention to -what I say?’ - -By this time her truculent attitude had dissipated her husband’s last -lingering scruples. Looked at very minutely, very casuistically, -perhaps it was not perfectly fair to force upon Gundred someone -she disliked, simply because he himself desired to keep watch and -communion with the precious personality that dwelt within the object -of her hostility, and probably was the unknown cause of it. But -nothing of all this could Gundred possibly know, for one thing; and, -for another, her attitude had become so grotesquely exaggerated and -defiant that no husband of any sense or spirit could be justified in -giving way to it. Why, the situation was preposterous and transpontine -to an intolerable degree. His own sudden fantastic instinct had been -strange and grotesque enough, in all conscience; but Gundred’s fury of -opposition lent yet a further touch of grotesqueness which removed the -whole episode into the domain of mystical melodrama. Why, they might be -living in a novel of Lytton or Mortimer Collins, instead of in a very -comfortable and orderly present into which had suddenly flashed a gleam -of romance out of an equally comfortable and orderly past. Kingston -would not recognise his own instinct as anything abnormal, and was bent -on keeping all suggestion of the abnormal out of his human relations. -The prenatal memory, he knew, was not only a fact, but a fact--at any -rate, in the East, where memory and its training are better understood -than over here--of no uncommon occurrence. There was nothing strange -in the fact that in this boy of twenty, there should still be lurking -some fragmentary elements of the woman whose martyrdom and courage -he reincarnated. Kingston would not decorate the situation with any -romantic glamour; it was a plain, indisputable occurrence, and his -whole life should insist on treating it as a matter of course. In his -violent resolve to keep the young fellow close at hand there was no -sentiment, no idiotic feeling of attachment for the young man himself, -or any objectionable nonsense of that kind. The young fellow was of no -account at all. Kingston’s wish to secure his continued presence must -be put down simply prosaically, solely, to his recognition of the fact -that in the boy’s personality the lost Isabel sometimes spoke again, -and therefore his company was doubly and trebly desirable; but only for -what it conveyed, not in the least for what it was. And, all this being -so, Kingston was the more irritated by the instinctive knowledge of the -truth that Gundred’s absurd behaviour seemed to hint at, the more bent -on resenting it, ignoring it, and, by determination in his own way, -crushing out the signs of resistance that she was so vehemently showing. - -‘Oh, let’s have no more of this, Gundred,’ he exclaimed. ‘You do not -know what you are saying. I am exceedingly sorry to annoy you, but you -know you would despise yourself and me if I gave way to such ridiculous -nightmares. You will see things quite differently to-morrow. Do try and -look at the matter more sensibly.’ - -‘Man sends sense,’ cried Gundred, ‘and God sends instincts. Listen to -God, Kingston, or you will be sorry for it.’ - -He shrugged his shoulders cruelly. - -‘There is no coping with religious exaltation,’ he answered coldly, -with a weary feeling that this woman at his side was quite alien to him -in all her thoughts and ways. - -Gundred rose. ‘If that is what you call it,’ she replied, with more of -her habitual dignity, ‘I think there is no more to be said.’ - -‘I agree with you. There is nothing more to be said.’ - -‘And this young man, Ivor Restormel, he is to come here in a day or -two?’ - -‘Yes,’ answered Kingston. ‘I settled it all up with him this afternoon.’ - -‘And you absolutely refuse to give me what I ask for?’ went on Gundred, -returning now, after the heat of the conflict, to the impressive calm -of her usual manner. She was preparing a new attack. - -‘My dear Gundred,’ answered her husband, more gently now that he saw -her more amenable, and therefore more worthy of consideration, ‘I will -gladly spend the rest of my life doing what you wish, as long as you -ask me for things I can in decency do.’ - -‘Ah,’ replied Gundred, ‘that is what people always say. They will do -everything in the world to please one, except the only thing one asks -them for. _That_ is never reasonable or right.’ - -‘Well, it certainly was not in this case, now, was it, -Gundred--honestly, now, was it? You asked me to throw this wretched -young man over, to break my promise to him, to upset all his plans, to -cast him adrift again after I had offered him our help. And why? All -simply because you had been bored at the Hoope-Arkwrights’ tedious -dinner, and eaten something which disagreed with you, and made you look -on all the world with a bilious, peevish eye, and on your luckless -dinner-neighbour in particular. For that is what it all comes to, you -know; that is what your wonderful edifice of instincts and suspicions -and righteous qualms is founded on.’ - -‘Yes; you may sneer,’ answered Gundred coolly, regaining her supremacy -with her self-control. ‘It is always very easy to sneer. Well, I see -that you must have your way; you will not listen to me. Somehow, I feel -that there is something in the boy that stands between us--something -that has been between us, somehow, for a long time, though we did not -know it, and has now come to life again, or wakened up and set to work -moving us apart. That may be my fancy, perhaps. I know I am upset. I -am surprised and shocked. I expected better, happier things of you, -Kingston. But this I will say, that if you won’t listen to what you -call my foolish instincts, you will be very sorry for it some day. God -will certainly punish you for disregarding the clear message that He -sent you through me. And this obstinacy of yours will bring its own -penalty in time. I know it. I know what you are doing is altogether -wrong. And, as your wife, I shall put up with it. But day and night I -shall pray God to remove this dreadful thing from our home. I shall -pray that something may open your eyes.’ - -Kingston smiled uneasily, to disguise the impression that her appeal -was making on his mood. ‘My dear Gundred,’ he said. ‘Pray by all means. -The prayers of a good woman can never bring harm or pain.’ - -‘Not even if you love the harm? Not even if you are wedded to the -harm?’ asked Gundred. ‘Perhaps they might divorce you from the harm, -and then that separation might be painful.’ - -‘Oh, don’t talk as if you meant to put poison in poor Ivor Restormel’s -soup,’ cried Kingston, to relieve the tension of the situation. He did -not, however, in his own conscience feel altogether easy. The more bent -was he, therefore, on laughing down his wife’s denunciations. - -‘God chooses His own instruments for His own purposes,’ answered -Gundred earnestly. Then she rose, her demeanour filled with tranquil -decision, with a stern majesty of protest that stirred again a twinge -of remorse in her husband’s heart. Was it she that was foolish, or was -it he that was selfish? After all, no sort of harm was planned against -her, no disloyalty of any kind, no cooling of affection. If here and -there a boy’s chance words contained the spirit of a long-dead woman, -well, what was that to Gundred--especially as she could never know it? -And his indulgence in the secret pleasure of those words could give no -reasonable pain to her. And yet, so long as they did give her pain, did -it very much matter whether the pain were reasonable or not, as far as -the inflictor’s innocence or guilt was concerned? For what pain in the -world is reasonable, if one looks far into the causes and the future -of things? Kingston made haste to conclude that his actions could -not possibly be expected to have reference to any silly feelings of -Gundred’s that might engender pain in her, as the result of their own -incalculable developments. Perhaps he made himself too many excuses, -defended himself too vehemently, was in too great haste to declare -himself convinced by his own arguments. He accepted Gundred’s last -words without any symptom of yielding. - -And she who, up to the last moment, had never thought that her big guns -could be fired without effect, was left helpless, defeated, plunged in -the bathos of the situation. - -‘Good-night,’ she said, quietly disguising the black bruise that her -heart had sustained. - -Had Kingston suspected it, he might, perhaps, have softened. But -Gundred by now was once more the cool, self-righteous little faultless -person he had always known. Her serene rectitude of voice and manner -annoyed him. - -‘Good-night,’ he answered with equal coolness. Husband and wife -went to their several rooms, after the first real quarrel of their -married life. Innocently, ignorantly, Ivor Restormel had come between -them--or, rather, the Thing that lived again in him had stirred again, -as Gundred had divined, to intervene, as once before, between the two -stranger-souls who, in the flesh, were contented husband and wife. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - - -The interloper was established between Kingston and Gundred, and the -purely formal nature of their marriage might have been clear even -to themselves. They fell apart without wrench or difficulty, and on -Gundred a heavy sense of loneliness settled like a cloud. She it was -that suffered most from the separation, for she had not her husband’s -compensations. All these years she had lived in the happiness of what -she believed to be perfect intimacy with Kingston, sharing his hopes, -his wishes, his thoughts; now, in a flash, she was made to guess -that she had merely shared the outer aspects of his life, that the -fancied beautiful completeness of their union was merely the band of -tolerance strengthened through the long years by custom. Now that the -elasticity of the tie that bound them was put to too great a stretch, -it flew asunder, and, in the rebound, struck Gundred a stinging blow. -It was not, of course, to be expected of her that she should realize -the situation clearly, or face the true state of the case with any -perspicacious candour. All she felt was felt dimly, instinctively, -half-consciously; not even to herself would she admit what she felt, or -analyze the solitude that seemed gathering round her. But very vaguely, -in the introduction of Ivor Restormel, she understood that she herself -must somehow have failed--could not be quite all to her husband that -she had imagined herself, must at some point have fallen short of the -perfect wife’s proper performance. This uncomfortable perception, -which caught her in her tenderest spot, she made haste to burke and -bury in the depths of her consciousness. But its ghost occasionally -walked; and, though she did the best for herself by insisting daily -on her husband’s unjustifiable cruelty and the blackness of the -influences that had seduced him, yet she could never wholly escape -that faint instinct of failure which was the one thing that her -efficiency-worshipping nature most passionately dreaded. - -The days went by in a strain that was wholly absurd, but also -wholly unpleasant. Examining things in the light of healthy, normal -experience, Gundred could not even tell herself that she had a -grievance. She still feared and disliked the presence of Ivor -Restormel, with a fear which no reason could account for, but which no -reason could dispel. But in every way the boy was perfectly harmless -and even pleasant. Gundred, in her heart of hearts had expected that -her instinct would immediately be justified on closer acquaintance by -discovering that Ivor Restormel took drugs, or read French novels, or -had a tendency to gambling and kleptomania. She watched him carefully, -in public and in private, secretly and openly, hoping that some such -development might force her husband to recognise the soundness of her -intuitions, and get rid of the undesirable immigrant. However, none -of these idiosyncrasies could be brought to light, observe she never -so minutely. The boy was just an ordinary, nice, healthy boy; there -was nothing vague or mysterious or neurotic about him; his personality -had no strong colours anywhere, was altogether mild, unformed, healthy -in its growth. And yet Gundred, recognising all this, could not help -shrinking from him, shrinking from him more eagerly day by day, with -a vigour of feeling not by any means wholly attributable to her anger -against Kingston for disobeying her wishes in this matter. Among the -weak points of her character a lack of honesty could not always be -counted; she frankly acknowledged to herself that no fault could be -found with Ivor Restormel. Good, kind, companionable, nice-minded, he -appeared to be everything that she herself, by all the rules of her -code, should most warmly have liked and approved. This only made it the -odder, therefore, that she should feel against him so unconquerable a -secret dislike. Gundred almost felt as if it were not the boy himself -that she disliked, but some deep corner of his character which she -seemed to have known and dreaded for many years. She divined in him -a lurking enmity of which his own innocent and sunny nature was -altogether unconscious. But Gundred pulled herself up short at this -point, and refused to indulge in any such vain fantasies. People, it is -well known, do not contain these dual personalities; if Gundred dreaded -this boy, who, to all seeming, was everything sane and wholesome, her -feeling could have nothing to do with any nonsensical superstition, but -would certainly--if not sooner, then later--be disastrously shown to -have been founded on fact, by the discovery of its object’s carefully -hidden iniquity. Gundred, as the days went by, withdrew herself more -and more wholly from her husband’s life. Now she no longer took even a -formal share in it. She stood outside and watched for her opportunity -to strike at the intruder. That neither Kingston nor Gundred any -longer felt how completely they were removed from each other in itself -revealed the secret weakness which all these years had underlain the -smooth, firm surface of their relations. Each, it appeared, could do -perfectly well without the other, and only feel the separation as a -matter for indignant pride. - -The interloper, meanwhile, was quite unconscious of the hidden passions -that were seething round him. Ivor Restormel had a happy temperament -that only looked for the best in everything. Reasons and explanations -did not interest him, nor had he much subtlety to discern any animosity -that did not take the form of a blow in the eye. So long as he was not -made to enter the smoke-haunted rooms of Brakelond he was inclined -simply and wholly to enjoy himself. What it all meant he had no idea, -nor what he had done to attract so smooth and pleasant a life as -seemed to be opening out before him. Occasionally he had a very faint -suspicion that Lady Gundred, for some reason, did not entirely approve -of him. But, then, she was always so mild and remote in manner, so it -must only be his fancy; after all, he had done absolutely nothing to -annoy her; and, anyway, what was the good of bothering? So he took -the pleasures that the gods provided, without question or cavil, and -began to enjoy the surroundings to which he had been so suddenly, so -unexpectedly, transplanted. He had inherited a love of beauty, comfort, -calm; the change from a penurious life spent between a third-rate -Oxford college and a dingy little house in the Banbury Road, among -people no less distasteful than the lives they led--the change from -all this to the large serenity of Brakelond was restful and delicious -in the extreme. Here voices were never raised in queribund tones; -here all the little difficulties of life were kept in oblivion, and -existence went on oiled wheels along a gentle, placid course. Lady -Gundred might be a little chilly and undemonstrative, but, at any rate, -she was always smooth; she never fussed or grew peevish, was never -worried about the details of housekeeping. Ivor Restormel loved the -unquestioning quiet of his new life. As for his host, well, there he -was altogether baffled. - -Mr. Darnley seemed at once indifferent and enthusiastic about his new -secretary. At one moment he would talk eagerly, almost affectionately; -and then, again, he would be perfectly indefinite and tame in tone. -Ivor could not make it out at all; did Mr. Darnley like him or not? -Surely he must--surely he must even have taken a strange, violent -fancy to him. Otherwise, why should Mr. Darnley have made such rapid -advances; why should he have been so anxious to get him over to -Brakelond; why should he have been in such haste to offer him the -secretaryship, and so keen that he should take it? All these things -were proof of liking, if anything in the world could ever be. Yet Ivor -Restormel could never feel wholly satisfied, after all, that his host -had any personal feeling for him. In himself he even seemed to bore -Mr. Darnley. Ivor was quite acute enough to see before long that Mr. -Darnley took very little interest in him personally. And this made -the whole relation incalculably strange. Why saddle yourself, why go -out of your way to saddle yourself with a person for whom you do not -intrinsically care two straws? Ivor began to think that he even noticed -a certain animosity sometimes in his host’s attitude towards him. It -almost seemed as if by talking in his own person, of his own concerns, -that he was annoying and disappointing Mr. Darnley. What could this -mean? Mr. Darnley appeared to be always watching him, always listening -for some chance word from him. And then, all of a sudden, Mr. Darnley’s -interest would kindle and flame. Warmth would come into his manner, -and Ivor would get the sensation of being acutely liked. And then, -in a moment, perhaps, his talk would wander outside the range of its -listener’s interest. Mr. Darnley would shake his head with a sort of -desperate irritation, the light would die out of his eyes, and his -demeanour become cold, and sometimes even savage. Evidently the talker -must have somehow cheated him, must have ceased to say the things he -wished to hear. But what were those things? Ivor Restormel spurred -himself to unaccustomed subtlety; he disliked this sensation of being, -as it were, only spasmodically and vicariously cultivated. His face and -manners generally made him friends without difficulty; he was piqued by -their apparent failure to give him any victory over a man whom they had -seemed to lead so unresistingly captive at first sight. - -Ivor exerted himself to ensure Mr. Darnley’s approval, and carefully -marked the moments which held his employer’s enthusiasm and the -subjects that provoked it. Apparently, though, any talk of his own -life and ideas was of no interest, or very little, to Mr. Darnley. And -how can one capture people’s friendship if they are obviously bored -by everything that concerns one’s self? No; not quite everything. -Ivor soon found that any talk about his particular private weaknesses -was always sure to rouse Mr. Darnley to a subdued, secret fury of -eagerness. As soon as Ivor dropped any chance apologetic word about -the terrors that he had so strangely inherited, and as long as he -continued telling of them, so long, and so long only, did Mr. Darnley -seem to have an interest and a liking for him--an interest wonderfully -keen, a liking deep and strong. And then, if he took advantage of -this evident friendship to go on to other matters, then the evident -friendship would immediately chill off and vanish into an annoyed -indifference. Mr. Darnley could not be touched by conversation on any -other topic. But that one topic was always sure of the most instant -success; it had only to hint its presence in the dialogue for Mr. -Darnley’s whole zeal to leap to the alert. Mr. Darnley even seemed to -be always watching for its appearance, and, what was strange and even -exasperating, would put up with hours of Ivor’s conversation in the -obvious hope that sooner or later the one matter of interest would -crop up into the talk. It is annoying to find one’s company cherished -only for the sake of conversation on one particular subject, and Ivor -began deliberately to avoid the topic, as much from hurt vanity as from -personal pride. - -Then the situation developed even more oddly, for Mr. Darnley would -hardly let the boy out of his sight. He must be always at his side, -always putting up with what clearly failed to interest him, in the -persistent hope that as the delay grew longer and more wearisome, so -the reappearance of the one interesting topic must be coming nearer -and growing surer. He clung to Ivor’s company, although it plainly -had no intrinsic value for him, anxious not to lose a moment of it, -for fear the moment of true speech should come and pass without his -knowledge. Ivor, sweet-natured as he was, showed his resentment at the -topsy-turvy situation by talking persistently of things that concerned -himself, his daily life, or his employer’s. And it was even amusing, -had it not been rather humiliating, to notice how Mr. Darnley chafed -beneath the interminable ordeal, yet would not lose an instant of -it, lest in that instant the thing he was looking for so passionately -should poke its head up and vanish again unnoticed. But Ivor, for sheer -pride, would indulge him but seldom. Besides, it happened that the one -thing which Kingston wished to hear was also, naturally enough, the one -thing that Ivor least wished to tell. For the boy was acutely ashamed -of those idiotic instincts of terror with which his premature birth -had left him. The one thing worse than those terrors themselves was -the humiliation of acknowledging them. So he was doubly reluctant to -gratify the morbid curiosity of the older man. - -Kingston, in fact, was paying very heavily for the indulgence of -his long desire. The situation, to him, was one persistent agony of -expectation, always straining, always being disappointed. Now at last -he understood the punishment that he had earned. For, by his own wish, -he was doomed to call, and call for ever, to something that could -never hear. The dead was free, but the living was still bound, was -more tightly bound than ever in that bond of desire which is at once -the pet pleasure and the dreadful agony of all who enter it. And a -dreary agony it was; Isabel was there, within his reach almost, but for -ever beyond his reach. No cry could rouse her, no appeal restore her -personality to life. And yet, mysteriously but certainly, she was there -once more; once more clothed in flesh, once more gazing out of human -eyes and speaking with a human voice. Nevertheless, for all the good -he could have of his prayer’s gratification, she might still have been -dead bones and dust of the earth. For she could not hear him, could not -recognise him, and the irony of her deaf, blind presence at his side -was a torment far more keen than all the long years of her absence. He -ravened and battered against the iron wall of her unconsciousness, -and for ever was beaten back, sickened, bruised and bleeding from the -violence--the eternally fruitless violence--of his effort to stir her -recollection. Her memory slept for ever in the dead past; only the -immortal part of her still lived, and was incurably deaf to any human -call. She did not hear him, she could not hear him; never, never, all -down the ages could she hear him again. The irremediable separation was -only made more ghastly, more appalling, by the tantalizing proximity of -her. He could see her, hear her, know her well. And all the knowledge -was not only profitless, but an aggravation of his misery. He saw -now what a fool he had been to tie himself anew in the bondage of -desire; an eternal parting would have been far less painful, far less -maddeningly cruel, than this grim and nugatory reunion. - -Again and again he battled fiercely to win the recognition that he -knew in his heart of hearts to be for ever beyond his reach. He was -incessantly trying to lead Ivor Restormel into some discussion of his -secret terrors, hoping that so Isabel’s voice might speak once more, -and possibly, in time, Isabel’s self be aroused again. But the task was -hard, and Ivor reluctant to be made the mouthpiece of that inmost self -of his whose identity--whose very existence, even--he never suspected. -And then it was that Kingston found himself hating the boy. The boy -stood between himself and Isabel; for ever must stand between himself -and Isabel. And yet the boy contained the secret treasure--_was_, in -a worldly sense, the secret treasure; he could not have the one for a -neighbour without putting up with the presence of the other, without -keeping the boy for ever at his side, and tolerating endlessly the -revelations of the boy’s uninteresting personality. Kingston approved -of the young fellow well enough in himself; he was amiable, kind, -pleasant to look at and talk to. In ordinary circumstances Kingston -would have liked him and never thought twice about him. Now, however, -his liking was complicated by a resentment that at times deepened into -something like hate. The boy was keeping so much from him. It was not -the boy’s fault, of course, yet that did not make the situation any -easier to bear. He alternately liked and disliked him with a vigour for -which the boy’s own personality was entirely innocent. - -He was always laying traps for him, watching him, trying to stir up the -spirit that possessed him. Gladly would Kingston have pierced between -Ivor and the secret thing that inhabited him. The one he valued not -at all, or only as containing the other which he now valued above -everything in the world, for ever beyond his reach though it was. He -resented the boy’s body, his beauty, his young developing nature which, -sooner or later, might be expected to conquer those old dim memories -and achieve the ultimate death of the Isabel he had known those twenty -years before. If he could have set free the sleeping soul he would -gladly have seen its new body break up and die. He hated that new body, -which made so impermeable a wall between himself and the vanished thing -he had so vainly found again. He looked on Ivor Restormel as an unarmed -burglar might look on an impregnable safe in which lies the diamond -of his ambition. The safe is precious and desirable because of the -diamond inside, but, in so far as it makes the diamond impregnable, is -doubly detestable for the very fact that the diamond _is_ inside. And -in Kingston’s case the problem was even crueller; for the burglar may, -with long labour, break the safe and attain the diamond. Kingston, in -breaking the safe, would by the same action cause the diamond to vanish -once more. As things stood, the safety--at all events, the continued -proximity--of the diamond depended entirely on the continued security -and inviolate condition of the safe. - -He began soon, in his difficulty, to read up the countless Oriental -cases of prenatal memory. There, in the East, souls that have been -parted by bodily death are reunited in another shape, and know each -other and are happy. There the great facts of life, of that shadowy -fallacy that we call death, are clearly known and understood. But here -we are still driven by phantom fears, and troubled by that which has no -real existence except in our own weakened imaginations. Our memories -are too closely trammelled by false teaching, too little practised -and experienced, to pass intact across the blank interval of physical -death. At the best it is only an occasional glimpse we carry on into -another life, and even so those glimpses come but rarely, and fade as -our earthly life advances to maturity again. More people have these -glimpses, it is true, than ever dare to acknowledge them; but they are -little understood and never fairly made use of. It is to the East we -must go to see how little account the trained soul makes of physical -death. There, through innumerable ages, the light has been seen, and -memory has been educated from hour to hour and from day to day until -at last the soul finds it as easy to recall the events of a hundred -years ago as those of last night or this morning. Kingston studied the -many cases that the Eastern Gospel gives us, and which Western science -is just beginning to discern anew. Always he hoped against hope that -they would give him some key to unlock the house of memory. Yes, the -mortal body is just that--a house of memory, a jerry-built house at -best. But the lock is stern and stark. What key is there, what jemmy, -what crowbar, that can prevail on the lock that guards the house of -memories, can prevail, at least, without wrecking the house and letting -the memories go free once more? - -Kingston had no hope that he could find such a key. The old Eastern -stories showed the glorified free memory as the possession only of -the free glorified soul that has escaped the bondage of desire. When -desire has passed away, then the uncontaminated soul knows no barrier -of time or space. But in the kingdom of desire are all the burning -pains and limitations which desire provides to scourge its devotees -in the very moment of their seeming satisfaction. To eyes desirous, -life is narrowed to a thing of the moment; it is only from the high -places of enlightenment that the opened eye of the Real Self can wander -over all the fields of existence, and see the nullity of death, the -eternity of truth and holiness, from bodily life to bodily life, until -at last the great goal is gained. Kingston saw himself helpless now -in the grip of the passion he had invoked. Nothing could satisfy it, -nothing could release him from it. Nothing but the death of his body, -and even that release seemed now to his awakening intelligence to be -but problematical. He began to wonder what could be the end of this -fantastic tangle. Days went by, and he found himself more tightly -chained to the agony of his perpetual disappointment in Ivor Restormel, -more cruelly hungry for the satisfaction which lay for ever in his -sight and beyond his reach, more and more fiercely stung by the misery -that he himself had brought upon himself. - -He grew into a sense of drifting towards a catastrophe; the strain, -the torment could not be prolonged indefinitely without the sudden -snap of his endurance. Some thunderclap of fate must break up the -dreadful stagnation of this nightmare. As the time passed, and his -efforts brought him no nearer to fulfilment, made it increasingly plain -that he could never come any nearer to fulfilment, he felt the growing -imminence of doom. This companion who was no companion, his desire had -evoked It from the shadows, soon It must go back into the shadows from -which he had called It, having first accomplished fully the punishment -of his selfishness. He watched the human Ivor Restormel with a curious -consciousness of watching a thing unearthly, a thing moving amid -darkness towards a great darkness not so very far away. This boy, so -much alive, so content with life, was not in reality alive at all. He -was just a shadow, a faint film of personality, by comparison with the -old living thing that lurked in him. Vague and indeterminate as his own -character was, he was the penalty, made incarnate, of Kingston’s own -selfishness; he was the eidolon of the past projected into the present -in order to tantalize and damn the soul that had desired it. Built of -clouds, he must pass back ere long, swiftly, tragically into cloudland, -and that reality behind the clouds, that living fragment far down in -the shadowy personality of the boy, must pass onwards again on its -upward way--that strange immortal essence which once had been Isabel. -And this foreknowledge of the end, this sensation of drifting daily -more and more hurriedly towards something terrible, impelled him to -cherish with a more and more eager passion this presence that had been -vouchsafed to him, however incomplete, however unsatisfying he might -find it. - -Each hour brought him nearer now to the last that should ever be. -He bent himself sternly, in the lessening time that was his, to the -desperate task of awakening recollection in a soul where recollection -slept for ever. Less and less did he see or think of Ivor Restormel, -more and more ardently, more and more despairingly, of the thing that -dwelt in Ivor Restormel, the thing that soon must leave its habitation -to pass elsewhere again. He sought the boy’s presence more and more -persistently, would never spare him out of his sight, exacted more and -more of his conversation. And all the while he was caring less and -less for the boy, his words, or his utterance. Now that he had found -out what it was that had attracted him to the boy, he was ceasing to -see the boy himself at all, to hear his earthly voice. All Kingston’s -attention was fixed on the glimpses that he could hope to get of the -secret presence he divined, his ears were open only to those occasional -flashes of memory that spoke in Ivor Restormel out of that remote past -beyond the grave. He must make the dreadful most of the short time that -was left him. It was but little he could hope to make, but the time, he -felt, was running rapidly out towards its end. - -Gundred saw everything. Gundred understood nothing. That her husband -grew keener and keener to monopolize Ivor Restormel she saw, and -righteous anger became fiercer within her. That Kingston should so -slight her company as obviously and vehemently to prefer that of a -person against whom she had most solemnly warned him, was matter -enough and to spare for just wrath. Gundred grew colder and colder in -manner, lived more and more aloof, felt stronger and stronger in her -consciousness of justified dread. That Kingston clung every moment to -the side of his secretary she noticed; that, in reality, he did not -care two straws about his secretary she could hardly be expected to -discern. The plain and sufficing fact was that he never seemed happy, -never at his ease, unless Ivor Restormel were with him, and even then -he very rarely seemed perfectly satisfied either. Gundred saw that -there was something unusual and mysterious about this friendship -that in some ways scarcely seemed a friendship at all, yet made such -tremendous claims on time and company. - -Gundred, scanning the situation from her retirement, came deliberately -to the conclusion that Kingston’s evident infatuation was the result -of some malign influence. Nothing else could account for his restless -attraction towards Ivor Restormel, combined so frequently with obvious -boredom and annoyance when in his company; nothing could so completely -explain the apparent innocuousness of Ivor himself, as compared with -the instinct of repulsion that Gundred always felt towards him, and -felt more fanatically from day to day. Gundred knew that she was not -capable of unjust or disorderly feelings. And, if she disliked people, -it meant that they deserved to be disliked. And if no reason for such a -dislike could be discovered anywhere in Ivor Restormel’s personality, -well, that only made it more clear that Gundred’s infallible instinct -was founded on her perception in him of some evil supernatural -influence, possessing him and working through him. The idea grew -and fermented in her brain, and heroic remedies began to suggest -themselves. No one, in these dreadful latter days, could seriously -doubt that the Evil One was abroad. What more credible than that he -should have picked out for attack a soul like her husband’s, which -Gundred knew to be weak in doctrine, and saw to be not impeccable in -practice? Gundred grew in the certainty that, whether Ivor Restormel -knew it or no, he was filled with unhallowed powers that were exerting -a wicked force on the man whom he had so uncannily attracted from the -first. - -All her life’s course had led Gundred along placid, sunny ways, -and her nature, through those years, had revealed only the peace -and serenity of true refinement. And now, at last, at the touch of -this righteous jealousy, there began to stir in her the fierce old -blood of Queen Isabel, the stern harsh passions of the Mortimers. The -fanatic stirred in its long sleep, and Gundred felt herself inspired -to lead a domestic crusade against the Powers of Darkness. At any cost -her husband must be saved. In old days an Earl of March had, by his -laudable zeal in persecution, elicited commendatory letters from Queen -Mary. His spirit now awoke in Gundred, and she realized in herself the -strength to act mightily in a noble cause. - -In every way this undesirable intruder, who seemed so amiable and -pleasant and desirable, was having the most untoward effect on -Kingston’s mind and morals. Had he not caused a hitherto blameless and -obedient husband to revolt against his wife’s righteous dominion after -twenty years of harmony, and to cast her wishes defiantly beneath his -feet? And now it became obvious that Kingston was suffering in other -ways. She saw him to be a dabbler in things best left alone, in things -unhallowed, Satanic, dreadful. Of his attendance on spirit-circles -Gundred luckily knew nothing, otherwise, in her determination to be -old-fashioned by contrast with the hysterical occultism that now -obtains, she would probably have wished to call in an exorcist. But -even in his reading he had strayed into improper paths. The strangest -things he was now for ever studying--Eastern books and mystical -fantasies of the most unsettling description. The weirdest of these -he made a point of reading to Ivor Restormel, and Gundred, who -generally insisted on being by, noticed that he seemed to read eagerly, -challengingly, as if in momentary expectation that the matter would -elicit some answering flash of some kind or another from the boy. It -never did, and the readings, therefore, always broke off short with a -shrug of disappointment and even of disgust; but Gundred divined a soul -in peril from the very attempt he made. It was surely an incantation he -was practising, an invocation to the mysterious evil thing that haunted -Ivor Restormel. She presented a bold front to such dangers, and would -not be kept away from the readings. - -Kingston one Sunday evening seemed absorbed in his dubious books, -while Gundred sat at her knitting, an employment by which she piously -signalized the Sabbath. All through the week she did fine needlework, -but on Sunday she put away her embroideries and conscientiously knitted -comforters for the Deep-sea Fishermen. But suddenly Kingston looked -up from his page, and began to read in a curious tone of watchful -defiance, addressing his secretary, who was inoffensively engaged with -a newspaper. ‘Listen to this, Ivor,’ he began, ‘listen to this, and -tell me what you think of it.’ Gundred, in her observant silence, noted -that her opinion was not asked, and her wrath grew greater and more -righteous, chalking up yet another item to the Evil One’s account. -‘“Once upon a time,”’ read Kingston, ‘“many thousands of years ago, -there came a great Buddha to a city in India. He was a great and -glorious Buddha, but the time is so very far away now that even his -name has passed into Nirvana, and cannot be recalled. But all the -people in the city wrought their hardest to do him honour. From the -King and his nobles downward everyone gave his richest silks and rugs -to line the road of the Holy One’s arrival, and in all their land there -was not a widow or a little child so poor that they had not some bright -pebble or piece of cloth to do their small homage to the Incarnate -Perfection. Only one shepherd lad, from the jungle beyond, had nothing -to give. He was young and strong and very beautiful, and his whole -soul cried out in worship of the Buddha. The most splendid jewel in -the world, the most priceless tapestry and cloth of gold, he would not -have thought good enough for the honouring of the Holy One; and yet he -had nothing, no treasure, however humble, that he could throw beneath -the blessed feet. He, that would have given half the world, had not so -much as a handful of painted shells. So his heart was very heavy within -him, and sadly did he draw near to the city on the appointed day. And -on his road there met him a maiden, lovely and gracious, that wore in -her hair a flower. But this was such a flower as the boy had never seen -before. It was altogether radiant and heavenly, splendid beyond the -imagination of man to conceive. It grew in a cluster of seven blooms, -and the fragrance of it filled the jungle. If he could only have this -wonderful thing to offer to the Heavenly Visitor, then, indeed, thought -the boy, he would at least have done no dishonour to the Light that his -heart honoured above all else on earth. ‘Maiden,’ he said, ‘for what -price will you sell me the flower that you wear in your hair?’ And she -answered that for a very great price she would sell him two blossoms -from the cluster. And once again his heart was daunted, for the price -she asked was more than anything that he could hope to get together in -a long laborious life. He shook his head. ‘I had desired,’ he replied, -‘to do fitting honour to the Holy One, but I see now that that hope is -beyond me.’ Then the maiden took the blossom from her hair and held it -out towards him, for her eyes were opened. ‘My Lord,’ she answered to -the peasant lad, ‘my sight is unsealed, and I can see. Very many years -hence--a thousand years hence--I see that you, in the fullness of -time, even you yourself shall become a revealed Buddha here on earth. -Take this flower of mine, then, without money and without price, but -promise me only that in that far day I may stand at your right hand and -be near you in your glory.’ And the boy smiled and gave her his word. -So after all he had his offering to lay before the Blessed One, and -his heart was satisfied. And the maiden went her way through life, and -on through the many deaths that lay beyond. And he also, the peasant -lad, died in the ripeness of his age, and lived and died through many -generations, advancing always on the upward road. And at length the -time was accomplished, and the maiden’s prophecy fulfilled. For the -peasant lad became the Spotless One, the Buddha Sakhya-Muni, High and -Holy, altogether Blessed and Perfect, the Best Friend of All the World. -And in that day, the maiden found herself again, and came at last to -her reward. For she was the Lady Yasodhara, his wife, the first of all -the sacred women that trod the happy way and entered into light....”’ - -Kingston ceased, his voice filled with interrogation, pausing eagerly -for Ivor’s opinion, hoping against hope that that opinion might be more -illuminating than he felt it would be. Again and again had he tried to -kindle that dormant consciousness with scenes like this, always keenly -hoping that they would touch some chord of understanding far down in -the hidden depths of the boy’s dual personality. But the hope was never -to be fulfilled; he knew it was never to be fulfilled, yet each fresh -disappointment was sharper and more wounding than the last. Kingston -paused for a comment on the story. None came. After a pause he demanded -one. - -‘Well,’ he said, ‘what did you think of that, Ivor?’ - -The boy looked up; his attention, though formally yielded to -Kingston’s reading, had, in reality, been surreptitiously concentrated -on the sporting column of the paper he held in his hand. - -‘What did I think of it?’ he repeated a trifle vaguely. ‘Oh, not half -bad. Quite a decent bit of writing. But awful rot, sir, of course.’ - -Kingston vibrated with acute annoyance. Thus, for the thousandth time, -the gate of possibilities had been slammed brutally in his face by the -uninteresting shadowy, rudimentary soul that shared Ivor Restormel’s -body with that wonderful immortal dead. He gazed at the boy with -positive hatred in his eyes. In a spasm of irritation Kingston turned -towards his wife. - -‘And you, Gundred,’ he inquired, ‘what do you think of it? Evidently -Ivor hasn’t the faintest notion what it is all about. It says nothing -to him. Does it say anything to you?’ - -‘Very dreadful and unchristian,’ said Gundred firmly, but mildly. ‘I -wonder you can bear to read such things. I am sure it cannot be good -for Mr. Restormel to hear them.’ - -Kingston might talk if he pleased of ‘Ivor,’ Gundred pointed her -disapproval by adhering rigidly to the formal mode of address, -and would never accord her enemy the favour of any more friendly -appellation. - -‘Mr. Restormel,’ she repeated decisively, ‘could not be expected to see -anything in such irreverent nonsense.’ - -Kingston could not trust himself to answer her, nor to make any further -remark on the abysmal stupidity of the boy who stood so perpetually -between him and the memory of Isabel. Hurriedly turning over the pages, -he began to read that most wonderful scene in history, the second -meeting of the triumphant Buddha with Yasodhara his wife, after those -many years of parting and glorification. Both the world’s great Buddha -stories contain the tragedy of a woman; but the tale of the Indian -Princess, widowed through long earthly years of the man she loved, and -then, in the end, reunited with the Perfected Incarnation of Holiness, -is even more tremendous, if less physically poignant, than that of -the Mother who stood on Calvary. Mystical, majestic, splendid, is the -crowning moment in the life of Yasodhara, and Kingston read the words -that relate it with a passionate sense of the truth that they convey. -Then he fell silent. - -‘Very pretty, dear,’ said Gundred. ‘Would you pick up my wool for me? -Thanks. But I do think one might find something more profitable to read -on Sundays. I think one ought to make Sunday different somehow, from -other days, and not read novels and things like that. One should only -read _real_ things on Sundays--yes?’ - -She slipped into sight the volume with which she occasionally beguiled -the devout labours of her knitting. With a gentle little air of -excellence she laid it down again unostentatiously, but so that the -gilt lettering showed along its cover. It was the ‘Life of Bishop -Boffatt,’ by Three Nieces, with a ‘Foreword’ from Archdeacon Widge. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - - -All this clearly indicated that Gundred’s interference was urgently -needed in the cause of holiness. Day by day she watched the situation, -feeling more and more certain that her mission was the rescue of -her husband. He, meanwhile, bore hourly, with increasing pain, the -tantalizing torments of his paradoxical proximity to the thing he had -so long looked for and now had found in vain. Ivor Restormel wondered -at his good fortune, and only occasionally noticed the crochets of -Kingston and Gundred. Of the two, Gundred had by far the more tactful -temperament. Her dislike, now fast verging towards religious horror, -was not to be discerned except by an eye far more keen than Ivor -Restormel’s. A serene gravity, a cool calm were so much the dominant -characteristics of her nature that the exaggeration of her gravity, -the additional chill in her calm passed unnoticed by one so little -practised in observation. The restless eagerness of Kingston was more -plain and more distressing. Ivor Restormel sometimes wondered what -it was that he did or failed to do that so roused disappointment and -annoyance in this friend who never really seemed a friend, and yet had -gratuitously done so much for him. However, he was not of a temper to -let such matters oppress him. He put them behind him, and disregarded -any tension that he might ever be inclined to discern in his relations -with his employer or his employer’s wife. - -So the days passed unsatisfactorily by, until the time came for the -family’s removal to Ivescar. Deep in his heart Kingston had a dim hope -that the sight of Ivescar might once more rekindle a flash of memory -in the boy. It was with trembling anxiety that he watched the first -impressions that Ivor received from his first sight of the Yorkshire -moors. Would the veil lift again, for even the briefest glance from the -soul that dwelt behind? Brakelond had roused the sleeping personality -in the boy; surely it was only to be expected that Ivescar, where so -much had happened, could do no less? And Ivor gratified Kingston’s -hope up to a certain point--only, as before, in doing so to rouse a -keener desire. For from the first sight he instinctively loved the -mountain-country, entered into its charm, appreciated the solemn -majesty of it. He felt, he said, as if he had known it all his life, -as if he and the hills were friends of long standing. And Kingston, -hearing this, listened with quiet face but with a heart agonized in -suspense. The door seemed to be drawing ajar for a greater revelation. -The very next moment might bring some recognition. Kingston would not -admit to himself the hopelessness of his hope. Eagerly he waited for -what the boy might say next. And the door opened no further, but closed -again as fast as ever. Never again could that hidden consciousness -of Ivor’s wake to know itself. The expectation that it ever would -was groundless, tormenting, delusive as all the pleasures held out -by false desire. Kingston suffered more than ever, as each fresh -disappointment grew more painful than the last, though more and more -surely anticipated. The boy knew nothing; no veil could be lifted from -his eyes; he enjoyed his surroundings simply, boyishly, without any -sense of deep memories out of which they were built. - -And then, into the midst of these unhappy combinations was precipitated -the new element of Jim Darnley’s presence. Jim Darnley at fifteen was -unfeignedly glad to find a companion not so very much ahead of him in -years. Ivor Restormel was young for his age; Jim Darnley, as an only -son, was inclined to be older than his; and the instant fellowship -that was established between the two set the last seal on Gundred’s -righteous indignation. Kingston did not care whom or what the earthly -Ivor Restormel might care for, so long as his company might still hold -out hopes of glimpses from the past. Moreover, he was glad that Jim -should have a companion, and should, by taking so comfortable a fancy -to him, justify his father in the choice of a secretary. As a man, -and as a man already preoccupied with other matters, he had no sort -of inclination to be jealous of his son’s friendships. With Gundred, -however, the case was altogether different. She loved her only child -with the fierce and almost savage affection often felt by a woman who -cannot understand the object of that affection. Naturally the fact -was the last thing that she would allow her soul to face, but in the -jealousy with which she regarded all new factors in his life might be -read her unacknowledged fear that her intimacy with him might not be as -strong as she made a point of believing it to be. She was one of those -women who are by nature more mother than wife, and in the fullness of -uneventful years had insensibly come to transfer a good deal of her old -urgent passion for Kingston to the child that she had borne him. In -connection with Gundred, mild and cool, ferocity and passion are words -that sound oddly, and yet, under the suave mildness, the dispassionate -decorum of her manner, her feelings for her son had a certain definite -passion, and even ferocity. That the boy never knew it was the -misfortune of his mother’s training; she would not betray the fact of -her love, and had no thought that by so betraying it she might be able -to supplement, in his eyes, the deficiencies of her understanding. - -For Gundred was incapable of any true companionship with her son. He -admired her, he loved her distantly and diffidently, but he shrank -from her, and had nothing intimate or warm to say. That she was not -conscious of this flaw in their relation may be called the compensating -mercy of that weakness in herself which had developed that flaw. -She was by now almost entirely devoid of intuitive intelligence. -Or, rather, perhaps, she had so diligently trained herself that, in -the long course of time, she had drilled her mind out of any faint -tendency to perceive and analyze that it may ever have possessed. -Her sense of decency commanded her to live entirely on the surface of -things; prying into secret motives and feelings she considered vulgar -and indecent. Accordingly, if lip-kisses were properly exchanged, and -superficial affection reigned, she made a point of considering that -the soul-relations thus symbolized must be eminently satisfactory. -She looked no further than the symbol, and disliked the idea that -kisses and terms of endearment may, after all, not stand for the love -whose emblems they are--may even, at a pinch, be used to disguise the -lack of that love. And yet her hidden, shamefaced jealousy may be -taken to have been the last flickering phantom of the natural woman’s -insight into domestic relations. All his life she had grudged her son -his friendships, gently nipped them with the frost of her criticism, -sedulously taught him to find fault and be captious. - -The education had borne no fruit in Jim, except a bitter one for -Gundred. His nature was too warm and sunny to have any real communion -with his mother’s frosts, and as soon as he found that she always -had something coldly unpleasant to say of everyone he liked, he had -responded, not by discarding his friends, but by drawing farther and -farther away from his mother. With the merciless clear-sightedness of -the young, so vivid, if so limited, he had judged his mother by her own -precepts long since, and found her wanting. She endlessly preached the -loveliest morality, the tenderest forbearance towards all the world, -the most sedulous avoidance of harsh or censorious comment. And yet -she was always sure to pick some fatal flaw in all his friends, to -discover and expose some blemish, to insist on some fault or weakness. -And the very fact that her criticisms were always more or less just -militated, in the end, against her influence. For Jim found that he -liked his friends more than he disliked their failings, and, taking -their side accordingly, he gradually came to look upon his mother’s -unerring eye for other people’s shortcomings as the worst enemy of his -own happiness. Thus pitiably, by the exaggeration of her own virtues, -through the keenness of her own maternal love, Gundred laid up for -herself inevitable disappointment in regard to the one thing that her -heart desired, and innocently prepared for herself a dark version -of the mother’s tragedy. By now Jim had his friends and his life to -himself; outside that precinct, walled and guarded, stood his mother, -alone, too proud to admit that she stood outside, too wilfully blind to -see the unbroken wall that fronted her, and, in any case, too proud to -clamour for admittance. - -But the friendship that immediately arose between Jim and Ivor -Restormel was to Gundred as a sudden light of revelation, laying bare -the fact of her exclusion from her son’s life. Characteristically, even -to herself, she would not admit what she saw, but attributed the novel -pain to her anxiety for Jim’s welfare. That Jim should have friends of -his own age had been grudgingly conceded as an odious necessity, to be -cavilled at and snubbed, but impossible to deny. Now, however, that -the pernicious influence that had so mysteriously gripped her husband -threatened to enthral her son as well, Gundred told herself that all -her maternal duties, no less than her conjugal, commanded her to take -the field against the powers of darkness. Her jealousy masqueraded -as pure motherly zeal, and its very bitterness was masked from her -own sight by the disguise of duty. Her feeling, too, was intensified -by the failure of all her usual weapons to discredit Ivor Restormel -in the eyes of his new friend. Jim generally sat and answered her in -submissive affirmatives, while she gently dissected his friends and -pointed out how entirely unworthy they all were of approval, though -not, of course, of pity; now, however, he could not even give her -criticism the courtesy of apparent acquiescence. - -He rose up in defence of Ivor, instead of, as usual, listening -pleasantly and then going his own way undeterred--a course which long -experience had taught him was the wisest, especially as his mother -was quite unable to notice that her advice was disregarded, if only -her advice had been politely received. In vain she pointed out to him -that Ivor Restormel’s mind was cheap and crude; that his orthodoxy was -tepid, his manners unnecessarily enthusiastic, his whole deportment -lacking in finish and refinement. Jim could not listen in respectful -silence; he protested, he pleaded. He had become all of a sudden -disloyal and treacherous to his mother. Gundred regarded all opposition -from her son as unfilial, and could not conceive the possibility of his -having any right to hold an opinion at variance with hers. She claimed -to provide him with all his thoughts, henceforth and for ever, on the -ground of having in the distant past provided him with a body to hold -them. That her son was an individual she could never recognise, and on -the rare occasions of his overt revolt, felt the indignant astonishment -of Balaam when he discovered that his ass had a voice of its own. -Accordingly, if Jim now opposed her criticisms, it was only a treason -and a sin engendered in him by this evil spirit that had captured him, -and every word that he said in Ivor’s favour only served to deepen his -mother’s feeling that she was certainly called upon to rid her son and -her husband of this threatening danger that had already produced such -dire results in the disaffection of her nearest and dearest. - -‘I cannot have you running about the hills all day with Mr. Restormel, -dear,’ said Gundred blandly, but with decision. - -‘But why not, mother?’ protested Jim, who, in normal circumstances -would probably have said, ‘No, mother,’ and gone all the same, Gundred -never knowing. - -‘Because I say not, dear,’ replied Gundred inadequately. ‘You must -let mother be the best judge of your companions, dear. Mother knows -best--yes?’ - -‘I say, you know, I think it is awfully hard lines. Ivor is the best -fellow going. You don’t know him, mother.’ - -‘Don’t call him Ivor, Jim,’ reproved Gundred. ‘It is not respectful. He -is older than you. And that is another reason why I do not like to see -you wasting your time with him. He is not good company for you.’ - -‘Yes; but you always say that. What is there wrong with poor old Ivor?’ - -Having nothing definite to allege, Gundred, of course, found it -necessary to become sibylline and pompous. - -‘You must trust mother, dear,’ she answered. ‘There are many things you -are too young to know. It is enough for you to remember that mother -does not wish you to see too much of Mr. Restormel. You must avoid him -as much as possible--though, of course, without being rude and unkind.’ - -But Gundred’s solemn implication of mysterious knowledge had been -played off so frequently that it had long since lost its effect. Jim -knew well that it only concealed her invariable jealousy. - -‘No,’ he said; ‘I am awfully fond of old Ivor. I don’t see why I should -make myself nasty to him. Father likes him no end.’ - -This did not serve to mollify Gundred. - -‘You should always do what mother wishes, without asking questions,’ -she rejoined. ‘And what father may do is no concern of yours. Your -father may be taken in like everybody else. But you ought to think it a -privilege to obey your mother. Think of what you owe her--yes?’ - -Like many women, Gundred believed that, having engendered a child, -entirely without regard for that problematical child’s wishes, must -necessarily give her a lifelong claim on his gratitude. Like many -women, she insisted on the debt, everywhere and always, until, by -ceaseless demands, she had come near to exhausting the supply. -Accordingly the conference continued for a while, unsatisfactorily. -Jim for once had lost his grip on that lamentable diplomacy which -an unwise mother’s exactions so early engrain into her children. He -could no longer even acquiesce. He became warm in Ivor’s defence, -and, with every word, Gundred felt more certainly that his disloyalty -was the crime of the evil force that possessed him. That force must -unquestionably be combated and dispossessed. And soon she found that -she was incapable of coping with Jim. Worse, she could not even have -recourse to the secular arm in the person of her husband, for her -husband was equally under this incalculable diabolical sway. She grew -more angry in her demands as the demands were refused. And Jim, flushed -with opposition, verged on rudeness, would not be brought to promise -the abandonment of his new friend, and treated his mother’s ultimatum -with ominous cheerfulness. - -‘You would not like to have to choose between Mr. Restormel and -mother, would you--no?’ suggested Gundred with the supreme imprudence -of excitement. And this weapon, too, had lost its efficacy with too -frequent use. Jim had heard it too often now to retain any illusion as -to its dramatic value. - -He was very uncomfortable, though, as he answered: ‘Oh, rot, mother; -you know that is impossible. I wish you would not say such things. You -don’t want to make me out a beast to you, do you, just because I don’t -want to be a beast to Ivor? It’s all rot finding fault with him, you -know. He is a jolly good fellow, and father would not have got him here -if he had not liked him too. So he must be all right, anyway.’ - -With a fatal lack of tact, Gundred went off on a side issue, and began -protesting against the unnecessary crudeness of her son’s language--a -crudeness which she made haste to attribute to Ivor’s degrading -influence. - -‘Well,’ replied Jim, ‘if there is nothing else to say against poor old -Ivor than that! He isn’t the first person in the world who has said -“rot,” and I don’t imagine he will be the last.’ And on that hit he -rose and made his escape, despite his mother’s attempts to restrain him -with loving arms, and exact, by kisses, a more satisfactory termination -to the dialogue. - -Gundred was left alone, feeling solitude as she had very rarely felt -it in her life before. This intruder had destroyed the harmony of her -home, had blighted her relations with her submissive subjects, had -sapped loyalty, filial piety and honour in the hearts of all who owed -her duty. This influence was altogether evil, and must be defeated -without loss of another day. It was a blessed work this that Heaven -had appointed her to do, and it must be done briskly, whole-heartedly, -without any lookings-back from the plough, or weaknesses of any kind. -Gundred began to revolve measures, and plans at last grew definite in -her mind. She faced her course of action boldly. Ivor must be got rid -of--somehow, anyhow. _Qui veut la fin, veut les moyens._ - -And at this point she suddenly grew frightened. This road that she was -treading, into what grim and stony places would it lead her? Gundred, -for the first time in her life, began to feel afraid of herself. The -intense fire of the righteous passion that consumed her, well, it was -alarming, although it was so righteous. So righteous? A very faint -flicker of hesitation dawned in Gundred’s mind. _Was_ this passion of -hers so righteous? It was carrying her, she felt, toward actions that -sooner or later might be dark and dreadful; all the more important, -then, to make sure beforehand that it was an inspiration of Heaven, -not, by any chance, a temptation from Hell. Hitherto Gundred had never -doubted that the Almighty had created her for a shining instance of -the soul which is temptation-proof; now, however, she began to waver -in her belief that she, alone of mortal beings, was set above the -wiles of evil. After all, she was human; it was just barely imaginable -that this uplifting ardour that she felt might proceed from the -Powers of darkness rather than from those of light. That anger and -hatred are often laudable she knew well, but this anger and hatred -of hers were so devastating, so tyrannous that she could not, in all -candour, feel herself absolutely certain of their celestial origin. She -felt, as she pondered the matter, that she was indeed showing proper -conscientiousness, an almost unworthy tenderness towards that Amalekite -of an enemy; but the question was so important, so much hung on it, -that no labour could be wasted in making sure as to the rights and -wrongs of the case. - -After all, though, would the Almighty have allowed her to entertain -such passions if He had not meant her to indulge them? Yet even the -greatest saints had been tempted by the devil. Indeed, the greater the -saint the greater the temptation. The problem was nice, and required -careful weighing. In any other case she would readily have conceded -that such a passion might have been inspired without the connivance -of the Almighty; in her own she was so perfectly, though so humbly, -convinced that she lived and spoke as the mouthpiece of Heaven itself -that she could hardly conceive it possible but that any feeling she -nourished must, of necessity, be just and holy, through the very -fact that it was she, the Lady Gundred Darnley, who had engendered -and developed it. However, a pious doubt now besieged her, and she -dutifully cast about in her mind for means to solve this riddle that -her scrupulous sense of right had set before her. Until this was -decided, she felt that it would be unfair to proceed to extremities -even against Ivor Restormel. But how to decide it? - -Prayer, Gundred felt, was the only obvious method. The Almighty must -be asked to declare as to the sanctity of the crusade that she was -meditating. Gundred, filled with the consciousness of holiness, would, -nevertheless, go to Heaven to have that consciousness confirmed. In all -ways she was clean and blameless, worthy of the celestial attention. -She looked doubtfully for a moment at the little fair curls that lay -on her dressing-table. But after all, they could not really be called -a fraud on the Almighty, for were they not built up out of her own -hoarded combings? And, for the rest, there was no other spot of deceit -or frailty anywhere in her. So she knelt in confidence, and prayed. -If her hatred for Ivor Restormel were wicked, would God give a sign -by causing it to die immediately? On the other hand, if it continued -to thrive in her heart, she would take its persistence as a sign that -it was very pleasing in the sight of Heaven, and might be pursued to -its ultimate extremities. She laboured the point once more, so that -Heaven could not possibly fail to grasp it. If to-morrow she still -hated Ivor Restormel, she would understand that her hatred was pious -and profitable; if she should awake feeling filled with love and pity -for him, then she must believe that her previous inspiration had been a -temptation of the Evil One. Filled with a sense of imminent revelation, -Gundred went to bed, and could hardly sleep for anxiety as to the -morrow, and the sentiments that the morrow would show forth. - -It was late when she woke from tardy and troubled dreams. Over her soul -for a minute or two there brooded a heavy weight of mystery. Something -wonderful was immediately to happen. But for a moment she could not -discern what it was. Then she remembered her prayer, and fell to -scanning her morning’s feelings for its answer. The revelation was at -hand. But it would only burst upon her fully when she had come face to -face with her imagined enemy. In a ferment of anxiety she had herself -dressed, then hurried downstairs, her colour perceptibly heightened and -her demeanour almost ruffled by the tense anxiety of her expectation. -Into the morning-room she hastened, eager to find Ivor Restormel. There -he was; she paused upon the threshold watching him, and waiting for -the miraculous guidance that Heaven would certainly vouchsafe. Had her -feelings for him changed during the night? In a flash of satisfaction -the answer came, admitting no further question or cavil. - -For she hated him as much as ever. Yes, certainly as much as ever--even -more, perhaps. And nothing could so clearly prove, after her prayers, -that her hatred was pleasing to the Almighty. If it had been evil, -He would, of course, have annulled it, according to request. God -evidently meant her to hate Ivor Restormel, and to doubt any more -would be nothing short of wicked infidelity. Triumphant in perfect -satisfaction, in self-complacency restored and enhanced by this -prodigious proof of God’s approval, Gundred addressed herself quietly -to everyday life once more. Strengthened in her Heaven-sent attitude of -mind, she advanced towards the breakfast-table with an added majesty of -calm, and scattered greetings with a fair assumption of benevolence. -With the answer to her prayer a sense of rest had come upon her and -made it easier for her to be kind even to Ivor Restormel. She found the -others of her party busy discussing some new and interesting point. Jim -made haste to enlighten her. - -‘The Rovers are going down Long Kern this morning, mother,’ he -exclaimed. ‘And Ivor says he is going with them. I am awfully keen to -go, too. Don’t you think I might?’ - -Gundred instantly avenged herself for the suffering that her son’s -perverse disloyalty had been so long inflicting upon her. - -‘Most certainly not,’ she replied. ‘I have a perfect horror of such -places. You would not wish him to go, Kingston--no?’ - -‘There can’t be any danger,’ replied Kingston; ‘they will have -efficient ropes and things. And Weston says there are the most -wonderful caves at the bottom.’ - -‘Are you really going, Mr. Restormel?’ asked Gundred, without paying -further heed to Jim’s protests or Jim’s disappointment. She saw in a -second how brilliantly God had answered her prayers for help. Long Kern -was a small but deadly rift in the limestone of the hill above, which -dropped three hundred feet of narrow shaft sheer down to unfathomable -caverns below. Gundred saw clearly that the whole problem of her life -was to be solved by a miracle. For Heaven may make a miracle out of any -particularly happy coincidence. And what coincidence could possibly be -more happy, more miraculous than this? For God clearly meant to destroy -Ivor Restormel underground. - -Ivor, meanwhile, declared that he was eagerly looking forward to the -exploration. The Rovers, about a dozen of them, were to make the -descent at midday, and meant to stay in the caves down below until they -had unravelled, as far as possible, the labyrinth of their passages. As -for precautions and methods, they were to use rope-ladders and guiding -wires, so that no real risk of any sort could be anticipated. - -Gundred listened with a wise smile. She knew better. Ivor Restormel -might take as many precautions as he pleased; nothing could avail him -against the combined weight of Gundred’s prayers and Heaven’s attention -to them. This scheme of his was quite obviously the direct inspiration -of the Powers above, working in Ivor to his destruction, as they had -worked so many years ago for the fatal hardening of Pharaoh’s heart -in Egypt. Gundred blandly acquiesced, and lent an unusually pleasant -countenance to the young man’s exposition of his plans. As he was so -evidently doomed, she might fairly relax the righteousness of her wrath -against him. Even for one merciful moment she thought of interposing, -of saving Ivor’s life by deprecating his scheme. But the moment -passed--she saw how irreverent it would be to counter Heaven’s design. -And to oppose Ivor’s plan would necessarily be to oppose Heaven’s also. -So Gundred piously resigned everything into God’s hands, and stood -aside to let matters take their course. - -Jim, meanwhile, was pressing her with pleas that he also might be -allowed to join the party. His father, too, did not seem disinclined to -grant his request. Gundred returned briskly to the immediate present. -No, no; this complicating element must on no account be introduced. She -could trust Heaven to look after Ivor Restormel when once he was inside -Long Kern, but she was not at all inclined to trust It to discriminate -between the innocent and the guilty, when it came to arranging the -rock-fall or the sudden rush of water which she anticipated with a -certain holy complacency. All Ivor’s companions would almost certainly -perish with him. On no account, then, must her own precious child run -any risk of being included in the Evil One’s condemnation. She looked -at Jim, so eager, so young, so brilliant. - -There was nothing in the world her hidden nature loved so hungrily. -By comparison even her great love for Kingston was very much a matter -of pride and habit. But Jim was her own, of her own body, of her own -blood, the crowning achievement of her life, the visible evidence of -Heaven’s approval. In himself he was altogether lovely and delightful. -And beyond all that again, beyond his own personal qualities, he stood -to Gundred for the other thing she most venerated and cherished in the -world--the glory of March and Brakelond. When he grew up he was to -resume his mother’s name, and unite the resplendency of the Mortimers -with the money of the Darnleys; and then, when her father died, it -was an open secret that the dignities of the House would be revived -in the person of her son. Gundred felt that through her own wifely -and motherly virtues she had been privileged to support the banner of -March and Brakelond. It was because she had always been so humble, so -devout, that such an honour had been vouchsafed her, and her son was -doubly precious in her eyes, not only in himself, but as the Duke of -her own providing, who should continue, from his high place, to set an -example of Evangelical piety to the people of England. She shuddered -at the thought of allowing her jewel to run into danger, and made haste -to make it very certain to Jim that in no circumstances would he be -allowed to share Ivor’s descent of Long Kern. - -‘You don’t want to get wet and cold right down there in the horrid -dark--no?’ concluded Gundred ingratiatingly. - -‘But it won’t be wet,’ protested the boy. ‘Father has had the stream -dammed about two hundred yards above the hole. Otherwise they would not -have been able to go down at all. They would all have been drowned. The -water is very high just now, after the rain. But, as it is, it will be -quite dry down in the caves.’ - -But Gundred, strong in her private foresight of Heaven’s intentions, -could not be swayed from her decision. Kingston was forced into the -contest, and found himself compelled, for the sake of peace and -dignity, to endorse his wife’s prohibition. Jim subsided at last, -flushed with resentful disappointment. Gundred, meantime, was eating -her egg dispassionately, with her usual seraphic tranquillity, while -her heart was filled with strange, conflicting feelings. She looked -across at Ivor Restormel with secret curiosity. She knew that he was -doomed, and in the last moments could not stifle a certain pity which -struck her as being faintly irreligious and painfully human. But he -was so young and so beautiful, however evil and pernicious. To die -down there in the eternal darkness, caught like a rat in a trap by the -vengeance of Heaven, that was a pitiable fate. That it would assuredly -descend Gundred could no longer entertain a doubt, and, when she -remembered that it was her own prayers that had jogged Heaven into this -intervention, she felt a dim pricking of remorse. During the few hours -that remained she would be kind to the predestined victim. Ivor was -pleasantly surprised by the suavity with which Lady Gundred offered him -a second cup of tea. - -‘Do have some more,’ pleaded Gundred; ‘you will want to be properly -prepared for this wonderful expedition of yours. Shall I tell them to -make you up a little lunch?’ - -In her heart of hearts she knew that he would never need lunch on earth -again, and her economical temper grieved to think of the hard-boiled -eggs and the cress sandwiches that would be wasted if her offer were -accepted. But, as he could not be expected to know how profitless -Heaven intended to make any packets of lunch that she might provide, -she felt that the kindness must in common decency be offered. - -Ivor, however, replied that he hoped to be back at Ivescar in plenty -of time for tea, and that he would not trouble about food till then. -Gundred smiled and sighed to think how tragically he was mistaken. -Her feelings were firm and rigid. Long thought and long anxiety had -crystallized now into a mystic ecstasy of certainty. In the previous -weeks she had known sore vacillations and distresses. But now the -friendly Powers had made everything plain once more. Until this morning -she had felt a certain weakness and need of earthly counsel; as a sound -Evangelical Protestant, she had, of course, a proper pious horror of -the priesthood and the confessional; and yet there had been times when -she would have liked to pour forth her troubles to a fellow-creature. -Had she consulted a doctor rather than a priest, he might have told -her that an _idée fixe_ is not the healthiest companion for a woman of -self-contained and secret nature, and that the previous generations of -March and Brakelond, feeble-minded or eccentric, held out a special -prospect of disaster when such an _idée fixe_ was cherished by herself. -However, by now, the time for warnings and advice was past. Gundred -was fully possessed by the mania that had arisen so naturally from -her devout habits and her weak mind, wrought on by jealousy and by a -tyrannous consciousness of being herself the chosen of Heaven. Now she -faced what she foresaw to be the punishment of her enemy, with the cold -calm of Jael. She was glad that Heaven had taken the affair so promptly -into its own hands. - -Once before, her Celestial Ally, she remembered, had intervened by a -miracle to relieve her from the perilous presence of Isabel Darrell. -Now the same prodigy of favour was to be repeated in a different form, -and who was she to carp at the tender mercies of the Almighty? With -folded hands and placid heart she sat by to let matters take their -appointed way. Nothing in all the world would so utterly have horrified -her as the statement that she desired the death of Ivor Restormel. She -repeated to herself again and again that she wanted nothing of the -sort, but had perfect trust in the wisdom of the All-wise. She had no -desires of any kind; nothing but pure faith. And to wish for anyone’s -death, how very abominable and unchristian and unwomanly! Far, far from -her gentle mind was any such truculent passion; the utmost that she -would own to herself was that she would find it impossible to grieve -when Heaven had taken her enemy to its mercy. And, as for altering -the course of events, that was clearly out of the question. She could -only await what Heaven should send. She now forgot that she herself, -as it were, had given Heaven a nudge in the matter. She deliberately -disclaimed all responsibility, and plumed herself on the mildness and -resignation that her conduct showed. Stiff and calm in what by now was -nothing short of monomania, the unfortunate woman sat and smiled, as -her own damnation passed onwards to its accomplishment. - -Meanwhile, however, her husband was making a suggestion. She came back -out of her dream to hear it. - -‘Why shouldn’t you and I and Jim go up to Long Kern and watch them -go down?’ he said, anxious to indemnify Jim as far as possible for -the disappointment which his mother had inflicted. As soon as Gundred -understood the proposition she gasped. This seemed almost too heavy a -trial for her to bear. Then she suddenly understood that this was the -sanctifying sacrifice that Heaven demanded of her. She must stand by -and watch the fulfilment of her prayers so as to make the intervention -of Heaven complete and holy. She signified her assent. - -‘But we must be back in time for lunch, dear,’ she conditioned, living -her dual life as ever, one-half of her personality dwelling perpetually -in dining-rooms and drawing-rooms, while the other soared into the high -domains of religious frenzy. Then, breakfast being over, she rose and -went her way mechanically upon her household duties, pending the awful -consummation of her destiny, at which she was so soon to assist. - -At the appointed time she was ready for the start. The others were -waiting for her in the hall, and they proceeded silently up towards -the hills. Jim was too excited to talk much; a scheme that demanded -all his attention was budding in his brain; Gundred, by now, was -moving in a remote world far above earthly speech, in communion with -the invisible. Ivor himself vaguely discerned some strange exaltation -beneath the restraint of Gundred’s mood, and was reluctant to intrude -his conversation. And Kingston himself was so sick and tired of his -long struggle to achieve the impossible recognition that he had not the -heart nor the temper to say much to the perverse human individuality -that intervened so bitterly between him and the eternal memory it -contained. So they surmounted the long ridges of limestone, and came -out at last upon the stretches of moor above that undulated gently -upward towards the steep skirt of the Simonstone. The air that morning -was clean and pure, filled with a white light and a bracing virility -of tone; much rain had fallen in the last two days, and the atmosphere -was moist and brilliant in colouring; great snowy ranges of cloud -went sailing gloriously across the wet azure of Heaven, and the great -mountain above towered high overhead in soft masses of brown and -purplish green, while before them the moorland rolled away in waves -of rust-coloured velvet, to where it suddenly ceased, in a sharp line -that seemed the rim of the world, beneath which, far below, lay the -broad valley and the plain-lands. The surface of the fell had folds -and dimples and crests, but in the huge monotony of the expanse it -appeared a waved sea of colour. Down the little gullies ran here and -there a stream, riotous after the rains of over-night; here and there -in the levels lay a small peat-pool that glittered like a forgotten -silver shield among the sedges. And then they came at last to a deeper, -steeper cañon, which soon broke off in a blind hollow, ringed in by -precipitous banks of heather. And here it was that the stream which -filled the channel disappeared. Long Kern was impressive in its very -unimpressiveness. It was but a short and narrow slit between two masses -of flat white limestone, and across the orifice a fallen boulder made a -bridge. Hardly two yards intervened between the one lip and the other. -And in that space yawned a solid shaft of black night. Sheer down and -down fell the water that filled the chasm, three hundred feet and -more, to the rayless labyrinth of caverns that made the heart of the -mountain. Coming suddenly across this rift in the moorland one would -at first have thought it nothing, a drop, perhaps of a fathom or so. -It was terribly inconspicuous and prosaic. Then, stepping along the -rocky bridge that crossed it, one might be struck with a suggestion -of its possibilities, and, throwing a rock into the darkness, might -hear, after a long pause, the crashing rumble of its impact far below, -as it bounded and dashed from ledge to ledge and side to side of the -gulf, till it sent faintly up to the listener’s ear its last remote -thunderous echoes from the black lake three hundred feet below, where -the dim roar reverberated along the walls and ramifications of the -cavern. - -On the brink the party paused. Ordinarily the place was lonely and -desolate, but to-day there were signs of occupation and activities. -Beams were stretched across the narrow gulf, and coils of rope were -lying ready. The Rovers were scattered about, making their preparations -for the descent. They were a club of professional men from the -neighbouring large manufacturing towns, who amused themselves by -exploring the recesses of the caves that honeycombed the Simonstone. -On many previous occasions Kingston had made their efforts easier. -And to-day, for the exploration of Long Kern, he had given them -indispensable help by having the rain-swollen stream dammed off. The -bed of the river was now nearly dry, and the water diverted into -another channel. Otherwise, as Jim had said, the descent would have -been impossible. The Rovers were very grateful, accordingly, for this -spirited collaboration, and gave the Darnleys a warm welcome. To all -four they extended an offer to make the descent, and when it appeared -that Ivor Restormel was the only one who would accept their invitation, -they showed a little disappointment. With Jim especially they pled to -accompany them, tantalizing him cruelly, and were only made to desist -at last by the unequivocal firmness of Lady Gundred’s hostility -towards the proposal. And so they set about the last preparations. -Gaily talking and laughing among themselves, they proceeded to the -fastening of ropes and the final arrangements for the descent. - -Suddenly Gundred could bear the ordeal no longer. The matter-of-fact, -innocent cheerfulness of it all was too much for her, with her terrible -secret foreknowledge. She knew that Heaven had doomed every one of -those happy people, so as to make sure of Ivor Restormel. Of course, -he alone might fall, or strangle, or have a stone dropped on his head. -But, on the whole, it was far more likely, far more in accordance -with Scriptural precedent, that guilty and innocent should all perish -together. So much the worse for the innocent! Her mystic exaltation -did not go the length of protesting against their fatal plan at the -eleventh hour, but it was not quite firm and faithful enough to bear -the grim spectacle unmoved. She turned hastily and moved away up the -empty bed of the stream, leaving Jim and her husband to watch the -descent. From the bend in the river-bed she turned to take a last look -at her enemy. He was still chattering and smiling with his friends, -adapting the rope, adjusting satchels and packages. Kingston was saying -something at which they both laughed. Then Gundred, very sick and heavy -at heart, in spite of her sense of sacred ecstasy, turned the corner -and was out of sight of the pothole. - -Kingston eyed the narrow gulf of darkness with unspoken dread. Now, at -the last moment, he disliked Ivor’s determination to share the descent. -He hated the idea of watching the boy disappear into that night below. -It seemed too symbolic of that eternal night into which the restored -memory must one day pass again. And yet, the granting of his own -importunate desire, what had it brought him except the bitterness of a -yet fiercer, more insatiable desire? For a while he would even be glad -to have rest from his tormenting, baffling intimacy with the secret -thing that could never hear the cry of his voice. Let the boy go down, -then, into the darkness, carrying with him that wonderful mystical -thing that he enshrined. Kingston’s fingers were raw and bleeding, -his whole soul broken and agonized with long fruitless plucking and -battering at the locked doors of that shrine. Let it go, then, for -half an hour, and leave him at peace. As it had returned to him once -before, out of the greater darkness of the grave, so, in the course of -a few moments, it would come back to light again from the darkness of -the pit, and all his torments would be renewed, growing ever keener -and fiercer towards the dim end that he dared not try to foresee. The -knowledge of doom was black and heavy upon him as he watched the boy -preparing for his disappearance, and, in the concentration of his -bitter mood, he hardly heard the voice of Jim, now once more raised in -eager pleading to be allowed the joy of the descent. - -Gundred meanwhile was wandering on in a stupor, not thinking, not -daring to think. The whole of life seemed to her to be hanging in -suspense. The next half-hour was to vindicate her righteousness and -make dreadfully manifest the majesty of Heaven. Her brain oscillated -in coma, and she was no longer conscious of any pain or any feeling -at all. Everything passed from her mind except the actual physical -pleasure of the moment, the keen freshness of the air, the lovely -colours of life, the myriad little voices that haunted the world. Then -suddenly they were all merged in one vehement, rushing murmur. She -looked down. She had arrived at the dam that diverted the stream. - -A bank of turf and stones had been built, and against its barrier the -brown water surged and ravened angrily, in a froth of white bubbles -and spume, eager to take its old way down into the pothole and the -caverns below. Disappointed, however, of its hope, it must needs go -foaming and scolding along an unaccustomed course, over green grasses, -drenched and streaming in its current, and down a slope of rush and -sedge. Soothed unconsciously by its hum, Gundred sat down and idly -watched the raging swirl of the water. It was well that the stream had -been thus firmly held back and diverted, for a huge mass of water it -was that made it so turbulent. After two days’ rain on the Simonstone, -all the waters of the mountain were in flood, and the Long Kern should -naturally have been filled with a roaring spate. Suddenly Gundred’s -human consciousness was vaguely aware of an alteration. Something -seemed to be shifting, the noise of the fretted torrent changing its -note. Then she saw a filament of water percolating. As she watched, it -widened. The dam was not strong enough to bear the surging wrath behind -it. The dam was breaking; Gundred awoke with a violent start. She rose -and turned impulsively towards the pothole--on the point of running, of -shrieking a warning, of doing something helpful or human. Then, in an -instant, she understood that she could do nothing--understood what it -was that Heaven had achieved for her. Her prayer had been answered. She -must give thanks, and stand aside. - -Firmly, decidedly, with head carried high, and the fanatic’s mad light -in her eyes, Gundred turned away from the stream and walked swiftly -home across the moor. What came after was the work of Heaven. Heaven -must take full responsibility. Heaven had broken the dam; Heaven might -easily have ordained that the descent should not yet have commenced. -Gundred had done nothing. Heaven had done it all. She could only go -quietly home and trust in the wise mercies of Providence. In an hour or -so she would hear what had happened. - -But, though she did not know it, the strain on her endurance was -fearfully heavy. She found her mind perpetually wandering back to the -Long Kern, wondering in an agony whether the explorers had already -embarked on their adventure when that roaring volume of brown water -had swept thunderously down upon them--wondering whereabouts in -that perilous chasm it had caught them, what it must feel like to -be so suddenly, so fearfully battered out of life, and swept away -into the abysses of the Underworld. Her brain was a sickening chaos. -Fire and water, fire and water; the two great moments of her life -had come to her through fire and water. Through the roaring waters -of that broken dam she vaguely remembered the roaring fires of -Brakelond. Isabel--Isabel--in a way, had given her life for Gundred; -and Gundred?--Gundred, after many years, had, in a way, stood by and -watched the taking of other lives. Dimly, instinctively, she could not -refrain from comparing the two catastrophes, from feeling a blind, -illogical sense that they stood in some mystic relation to each other. -And so, alone, she came at last to Ivescar. - -Her training stood her in good stead, and enabled her to go -subconsciously through the routine duties of her day. She did not put -off lunch when her husband failed to return, but ate it in solitary -state, and heartily--recognising that it was always her duty to sustain -her body. Her soul, however, was very far away. In her inmost heart -she knew that Ivor Restormel was dead. She did not dare to face the -knowledge and understand it, but it was there, gnawing, persistent. -She steeled herself to bear the terrible news that Jim and Kingston -must soon be bringing back. And lunch must be kept hot for them. As the -hours went by and brought no certainty to end her growing suspense, the -pandemonium of clamouring voices in Gundred’s brain grew louder, more -confused, more frightening. She seemed on the very edge of something -very horrible--she, the favourite, the chosen, the glorified of Heaven. -Something very horrible was surging into sight. In another moment she -would see it. Terror--mysterious, ghastly--seized and gripped her. Then -in the silence she heard approaching footsteps. The Horror was at hand. -Gundred rose, pale and trembling, exerting all her forces, even in this -last moment, to preserve the outward decorum of her demeanour. The door -opened, and her husband came into the room. She stared at him in dumb -dread. For a moment he could command no words. In silence his eyes met -hers. His voice was low and husky and shattered, when at last he had -gathered strength to speak. - -‘Gundred,’ he whispered--‘Gundred....’ - -She interrupted him. Now, in the fulfilment of her destiny, a dreadful -courage flowed back to her. - -‘Something terrible has happened,’ she said; ‘tell me quickly.’ - -He was too busy with his own grief to notice that she seemed prepared -for what she was about to hear. - -‘The dam,’ he answered--‘the dam. It broke. It burst as soon as they -had gone down.’ - -Gundred clasped her hands tightly to prevent their trembling from being -observed. She spoke as if in a dream. - -‘And Ivor,’ she asked, unconsciously using the Christian name--‘Ivor, -is he safe?’ - -Kingston laughed bitterly. - -‘Safe?’ he cried--‘safe? Ivor is dead. They are all dead. I waited -till they had got the bodies up. The flood soon subsided, and the men -were able to get down and find the bodies. That is why I waited.’ - -Gundred moaned. The reality was more crushing than she had ever feared. -God had granted her desire, but in a terrific way, and its granting -brought her small joy. She almost ceased to feel holy. - -‘Oh, Kingston,’ she murmured.... ‘Kingston, how awful! Too shocking to -think of--too shocking to think of.’ She shook her head, covering her -eyes as if to shut out the vision of those wretched adventurers caught -and swept away by the flood which her prayers had loosed upon them. -In that moment she felt a murderess. And the sanctity of the murder -faded from her mind. Then she turned to the one spot of comfort in the -whole disaster. What a merciful interposition of Heaven it was that had -prevented her from allowing Jim to make the descent. That preservation -in itself showed the special favour of the Almighty. He had set her son -apart from the catastrophe that He had ordained. Her voice was calmer -as she uncovered her face and spoke again. - -‘And Jim?’ she asked. ‘What have you done with him? I do pray he did -not see this dreadful sight. Poor little Jim! What an awful shock it -would have been!’ Then she caught her husband’s eye, and paused in -sudden terror of what she saw there.... ‘Kingston?’ she cried. He could -give no answer. ‘Kingston?’ she repeated sharply, her voice rising to a -shrill note of anxiety. ‘Kingston, what is it?’ - -‘Jim went down with the others,’ said her husband in a low, colourless -tone. ‘He wanted so much to go. I said he might. Jim went down with the -others.’ - -Gundred gave a short cry. - -‘Then how did you succeed in saving him?’ she gasped. ‘How was it he -was not drowned with the others? Kingston, how did you succeed in -saving him?’ - -‘I did not,’ answered Kingston very quietly. ‘Jim is drowned. They are -bringing back his body now with the others.’ - -‘No,’ said Gundred, in a fearful stupefaction of calm--‘no, it is -not possible. Jim is not dead. God must have saved him. It is not -possible.’ Then her quiet cracked like glass. ‘Kingston,’ she screamed, -‘say it is not possible. Jim is safe.’ - -The father shook his head. ‘Jim is drowned,’ he repeated. ‘Drowned with -the others.’ - -A deadly silence fell between them. Gundred pressed both hands to her -head. The brain inside was a fiery wheel of agony, blinding her with -the coruscations of its anguish. Then at last her hands sank to her -sides and she looked up. Her face was fixed and ghastly, her voice -unnaturally stolid as she spoke. - -‘There!’ said Gundred very slowly and deliberately. ‘That is what comes -of disobeying one’s mother!’ Then she broke abruptly into peal on peal -of high laughter. Shrieking with horrible merriment, she fell back upon -the sofa, rocking to and fro in the convulsion of her madness. Kingston -dropped into a chair, and hid his head in his hands. It seemed as if -that fearful noise would never cease. And yet he could see nothing, -hear nothing. He was alone for ever in the black darkness. Everything -was gone. And still Gundred sat and laughed. - -THE END - -BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. - - * * * * * - -Telegrams: ‘Scholarly, London.’ - -41 and 43 Maddox Street, Bond Street, London, W., _January, 1907_. - -Mr. Edward Arnold’s List of New Books. - -MEMORIES. - -By MAJOR-GENERAL SIR OWEN TUDOR BURNE, G.C.I.E., K.C.S.I. - -_Demy 8vo. With Illustrations._ =15s. net.= - -Sir Owen Burne joined the 20th Regiment (now the Lancashire Fusiliers) -in 1855. He came in for the end of the Crimean War and served -throughout the Indian Mutiny, receiving two steps in rank for gallantry -in the field. Not long afterwards he became Military Secretary to the -Commander-in-Chief, Sir Hugh Rose. He was Private Secretary to Lord -Mayo until his assassination, and made a personal report on that tragic -event to the Queen. Later he became Secretary in the Political and -Secret Department of the India Office. He was also Private Secretary -to Lord Lytton, when Viceroy, and served ten years as a member of the -Council of India. - -An interesting chapter of Sir Owen’s reminiscences deals with the year -1873, when, as Political A.D.C. to the Secretary of State for India, -he assisted Sir Henry Rawlinson in taking charge of the Shah of Persia -during his visit to England. Copious extracts are given from His -Majesty’s diary, which has come into Sir Owen’s hands. - -The book is a lively record of a distinguished career, freely -interspersed with amusing stories, and illustrated with photographs of -some noteworthy groups. - -LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W. - - * * * * * - -SOME PROBLEMS OF EXISTENCE. - -By NORMAN PEARSON. - -_Demy 8vo._ =7s. 6d. net.= - -Dealing with such Problems of Existence as the origin of life, spirit -and matter, free will, determinism and morality, and the sense of sin, -Mr. Pearson lays down as postulates for a theory which philosophy and -religion may be able to accept, and which science need not reject--(1) -the existence of a Deity; (2) the immortality of man; and (3) a Divine -scheme of evolution of which we form part, and which, as expressing the -purpose of the Deity, proceeds under the sway of an inflexible order. -The author’s method is well calculated to appeal to the general reader, -though some of his conclusions as to the past and future of humanity -differ considerably from popularly received opinions on the subject. - - * * * * * - -SIX RADICAL THINKERS. - -By JOHN MACCUNN, LL.D., - -PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL. - -_Crown 8vo._ =6s. net.= - -These brilliant essays possess an exceptional interest at the present -moment when Liberal and Radical principles bulk so largely in the -political arena. The six main subjects of Professor MacCunn’s volume -are Bentham and his Philosophy of Reform, the Utilitarian Optimism -of John Stuart Mill, the Commercial Radicalism of Cobden, the -Anti-Democratic Radicalism of Thomas Carlyle, the Religious Radicalism -of Joseph Mazzini, and the Political Idealism of T. H. Green. - - * * * * * - -LETTERS FROM THE FAR EAST. - -By Sir CHARLES ELIOT, K.C.M.G., - -AUTHOR OF ‘TURKEY IN EUROPE,’ ‘THE EAST AFRICAN PROTECTORATE,’ ETC. - -_Demy 8vo. With Illustrations._ =8s. 6d. net.= - -This is an exceedingly interesting series of letters on the political -and social situation in India, China, Japan, and the Far East generally. - - * * * * * - -A PICNIC PARTY IN WILDEST AFRICA. - -By C. W. L. BULPETT. - -Being a Sketch of a Winter’s Trip to some of the Unknown Waters of the -Upper Nile. - -_Demy 8vo. With Illustrations and Map._ =12s. 6d. net.= - -The object of the expedition described in this book was to survey the -Musha and Boma plateaux, which lie between the River Akobo and Lake -Rudolf. It was organized by Mr. W. N. McMillan, an experienced American -traveller, and was remarkably successful, though the fact that one of -the caravans marched thirty-eight days on half-rations, largely through -a country flooded by incessant rain, shows that the excursion was very -far from being altogether a picnic. Mounts Ungwala and Naita were -ascended, and hundreds of square miles of previously unexplored country -were surveyed and mapped. The accounts of the abundance of game will -make the sportsman’s mouth water. - -A considerable amount of the description of scenery and life on the -Nile and Sobat is extracted from the journal of Mrs. McMillan, who -accompanied her husband. Many of the illustrations are from drawings -made on the spot by Mr. Jessen, cartographer of the expedition. - - * * * * * - -TIPPOO TIB. - -The Story of a Central African Despot. - -Narrated from his own accounts by Dr. HEINRICH BRODE. - -_Demy 8vo. With Portrait._ =10s. 6d. net.= - -In the course of a prolonged residence at Zanzibar as consular -representative of Germany, Dr. Brode became intimately acquainted with -the celebrated adventurer Tippoo Tib, and succeeded in inducing him -to write the story of his life. This he did, in Swaheli, using Arabic -characters, which Dr. Brode transcribed for translation into German. -The material thus supplied by Tippoo Tib has been expanded by Dr. Brode -into a remarkable picture of Africa before and during its transition -into the hands of the white man. - - * * * * * - -THE PRINCES OF ACHAIA AND THE CHRONICLES OF MOREA. - -A Study of Greece in the Middle Ages. - -By Sir RENNELL RODD, G.C.V.O., K.C.M.G., C.B., - -AUTHOR OF ‘CUSTOMS AND LORE OF MODERN GREECE,’ ‘FEDA, AND OTHER POEMS,’ -‘THE UNKNOWN MADONNA,’ ‘BALLADS OF THE FLEET,’ ETC. - -_2 Volumes. Demy 8vo. With Illustrations and Map._ =25s. net.= - -In this masterly work Sir Rennell Rodd deals with a curiously -interesting and fascinating subject which has never been treated of in -English, though a few scanty notices of the period may be found. It is -gratifying to know that the British School in Athens has of late turned -its attention to the Byzantine and Frankish remains in the Morea. -Meanwhile this book will fill a great blank in the historical knowledge -of most people. - - * * * * * - -THUCYDIDES MYTHISTORICUS. - -By F. M. CORNFORD, M.A., - -FELLOW AND LECTURER AT TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. - -_Demy 8vo._ =10s. 6d. net.= - -This is an important contribution to the study of Thucydides. Having -attributed the causes of the Peloponnesian War almost entirely to -commercial factors, Mr. Cornford shows how Thucydides, free from modern -ideas of causation, unfolds the tragedy of Athens, led by Fortune at -Pylos, by the Hybris and Infatuation of Cleon and Alcibiades, to the -Nemesis of Syracuse. The book will be found interesting by all students -of history. All passages from Greek authors are quoted in English in -the text, which can be understood without reference to the Greek in the -footnotes. - - * * * * * - -GREEK LIVES FROM PLUTARCH. - -Newly Translated by C. E. BYLES, B.A., - -FORMERLY EXHIBITIONER OF ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. - -_Crown 8vo. With Illustrations and Maps._ =1s. 6d.= - -This is an entirely new translation abridged from the Greek. Although -primarily intended for the use of schools, it should be found -acceptable by the general reader. - - * * * * * - -THE NEXT STREET BUT ONE. - -By M. LOANE, - -AUTHOR OF ‘THE QUEEN’S POOR.’ - -_Crown 8vo._ =6s.= - -Like its predecessor, this book is not only a mine of interesting and -amusing sketches of life among the poor, but, in its more serious -aspect, a remarkable and most valuable corrective of many widely -prevalent and erroneous views about the habits of thought and ethics of -the poorer classes. - - * * * * * - -A HUNTING CATECHISM. - -By COLONEL R. F. MEYSEY-THOMPSON, - -AUTHOR OF ‘REMINISCENCES OF THE COURSE, THE CAMP, AND THE CHASE,’ ‘A -FISHING CATECHISM,’ AND ‘A SHOOTING CATECHISM.’ - -_Foolscap 8vo._ =3s. 6d. net.= - -This, the third of Colonel Meysey-Thompson’s invaluable handbooks, -will appeal to hunting men as strongly as the previous volumes did to -lovers of rod and gun. The information given is absolutely practical, -the result of forty years’ experience, and is largely conveyed in the -form of Question and Answer. The arrangement is especially calculated -to facilitate easy reference. - - * * * * * - -AT THE WORKS. - -A Study of a North Country Town. - -By LADY BELL, - -AUTHOR OF ‘THE DEAN OF ST. PATRICK’S,’ ‘THE ARBITER,’ ETC., ETC. - -_Crown 8vo._ =6s.= - -In this little book Lady Bell has entered upon a new branch of -literature. It is not a novel, but a description of the industrial and -social condition of the ironworkers of the North Country. - - * * * * * - -INDIVIDUAL OWNERSHIP AND THE GROWTH OF MODERN CIVILIZATION. - -Being HENRI DE TOURVILLE’S ‘Histoire de la Formation Particulariste,’ -translated by M. G. LOCH. - -_Demy 8vo._ - -The articles which are here presented in the form of a volume were -contributed by the author to the French periodical _La Science Sociale_ -over a period of six years ending in February, 1903. His death occurred -within a few days of his completing the work. M. de Tourville, after -showing that the transformation of the communal into the particularist -family took place in Scandinavia, and was largely due to the peculiar -geographical character of the Western slope, traces the development of -modern Europe from the action of the particularist type of society upon -the fabric of Roman civilization. - - * * * * * - -MEMORIES OF THE MONTHS. - -FOURTH SERIES. - -By the Right Hon. Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, BART., F.R.S. - -_Large crown 8vo. With Photogravure Illustrations._ =7s. 6d.= - -This fresh instalment of Sir Herbert Maxwell’s delightful ‘Memories of -the Months’ will be welcomed by lovers of his descriptions of country -life. - - * * * * * - -NEW EDITION. - -LETTERS OF MARY SIBYLLA HOLLAND. - -Selected and Edited by her son, BERNARD HOLLAND. - -_Crown 8vo._ =7s. 6d. net.= - -To this, the third, edition of these attractive letters, Mr. Bernard -Holland has added a large number of new letters, which were not -included in the second edition, having been found or contributed since -the date of its publication. The book is now in its final and complete -form. - - * * * * * - -THE REMINISCENCES OF LADY DOROTHY NEVILL. - -Edited by her Son, RALPH NEVILL. - -_Demy 8vo. With Portrait._ =15s. net.= - -SIXTH IMPRESSION. - -There are very few persons living whose knowledge of English Society -is, literally, so extensive and peculiar as Lady Dorothy Nevill’s, -and fewer still whose recollections of a period extending from the -day of the postchaise to that of the motor-car are as graphic and -entertaining as hers. In the course of her life she has met almost -every distinguished representative of literature, politics and art, and -about many of them she has anecdotes to tell which have never before -been made public. She has much to say of her intimate friends of an -earlier day--Disraeli, the second Duke of Wellington, Bernal Osborne, -Lord Ellenborough, and a dozen others--while a multitude of more -modern personages pass in procession across her light-hearted pages. -A reproduction of a recent crayon portrait by M. Cayron is given as -frontispiece. - - * * * * * - -PERSONAL ADVENTURES AND ANECDOTES OF AN OLD OFFICER. - -By Colonel JAMES P. ROBERTSON, C.B. - -_Demy 8vo. With Portraits._ =12s. 6d. net.= - -The phrase ‘a charmed life’ is hackneyed, but it may be used with -peculiar appropriateness to describe Colonel Robertson’s military -career. ‘The history of my nose alone,’ says the cheery old soldier -in his Preface, ‘would fill a chapter,’ and, indeed, not only his -nose, but his whole body, seem to have spent their time in, at all -events, running a risk of being seriously damaged in every possible -way. The book, in fact, is simply full of fine confused fighting and -hair-breadth escapes. - -Joining the 31st Regiment in 1842, Colonel Robertson took part in -the Sutlej Campaign from Moodkee to Sobraon. He was in the Crimea, -and throughout the Mutiny he commanded a regiment of Light Cavalry, -doing repeatedly the most gallant service. The incidents of life in -Ireland and the Ionian Islands during the intervals of peace are worthy -of ‘Charles O’Malley,’ and are described with something of Lever’s -raciness of touch. - - * * * * * - -THE AFTERMATH OF WAR. - -An Account of the Repatriation of Boers and Natives in the Orange River -Colony. - -By G. B. BEAK. - -_Demy 8vo. With Illustrations and Map._ =12s. 6d. net.= - -The author, after serving nearly two and a half years in the South -African War, was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Orange River -Colony Repatriation Department, and subsequently Assistant Director -of Relief under the Government. His information is thus not only -first-hand but unique. The book is illustrated with some extremely -interesting photographs. - - ‘The book is sure to become a standard work, for it throws a flood - of light upon and solves many of the knotty questions of that - period which have agitated men’s minds at home and abroad.’--_Daily - Telegraph._ - - * * * * * - -PATROLLERS OF PALESTINE. - -By the REV. HASKETT SMITH, M.A., F.R.G.S. - -EDITOR OF ‘MURRAY’S HANDBOOK TO SYRIA AND PALESTINE,’ 1902; - -_Large crown 8vo. With Illustrations._ =10s. 6d.= - -The late Mr. Haskett Smith was a well-known authority on the Holy Land, -and in this book he personally conducts a typical party of English -tourists to some of the more important sites hallowed by tradition. - - ‘The reader is not only charmed by the pleasant experiences and the - interesting discussions of the pilgrims, but at the same time he - acquires a great deal of information which would otherwise have to be - sought in a combination of cyclopædia, “Speaker’s Commentary,” and - guide-book.’--_Tribune._ - - * * * * * - -POLITICAL CARICATURES, 1906. - -By Sir F. CARRUTHERS GOULD. - -_Super royal 4to._ =6s. net.= - -The change of Government, with the consequent variety of political -topics, very greatly enhances the attraction of this new volume of -cartoons by ‘Sir F. C. G.’ If the increased acerbity of political -relations is found to be slightly reflected in these later cartoons, -the many fresh and interesting studies are no less happily handled than -those produced under the Conservative régime. - - * * * * * - -NEW FICTION. - -_Crown 8vo._ =6s.= _each._ - - THE SUNDERED STREAMS. - By REGINALD FARRER, - AUTHOR OF ‘THE GARDEN OF ASIA’ AND ‘THE HOUSE OF SHADOWS.’ - - BENEDICT KAVANAGH. - By GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM, - AUTHOR OF ‘THE SEETHING POT’ AND ‘HYACINTH.’ - - THE GOLDEN HAWK. - By EDITH RICKERT, - AUTHOR OF ‘THE REAPER’ AND ‘FOLLY.’ - - FOURTH IMPRESSION. - THE LADY ON - THE DRAWINGROOM FLOOR. - By M. E. COLERIDGE. - - SECOND IMPRESSION. - THE MILLMASTER. - By C. HOLMES CAUTLEY. - - SECOND IMPRESSION. - QUICKSILVER AND FLAME. - By ST. JOHN LUCAS. - - SECOND IMPRESSION. - THE BASKET OF FATE. - By SIDNEY PICKERING. - - OCCASION’S FORELOCK. - By VIOLET A. SIMPSON. - - * * * * * - -ABYSSINIA OF TO-DAY. - -An Account of the First Mission sent by the American Government to the -King of Kings. - -By ROBERT P. SKINNER, - -COMMISSIONER TO ABYSSINIA, 1903-1904; AMERICAN CONSUL-GENERAL; FELLOW -OF THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY; SOCI DOU FELIBRIGE. - -_Demy 8vo. With numerous Illustrations and Map._ =12s. 6d. net.= - -The object of this American Mission to the Emperor Menelik was to -negotiate a commercial treaty. The Mission was extremely well received, -and the expedition appears to have been a complete success. The -picture drawn by Mr. Skinner of the Abyssinians and their ruler is an -exceedingly agreeable one; and his notes on this land of grave faces, -elaborate courtesy, classic tone, and Biblical civilization, its -history, politics, language, literature, religion, and trade, are full -of interest; there are also some valuable hints on the organization and -equipment of a caravan. - - * * * * * - -WESTERN TIBET AND THE BRITISH BORDERLAND. - -By CHARLES A. SHERRING, M.A., F.R.G.S., - -INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE; DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF ALMORA. - -_Royal 8vo. With Illustrations, Maps and Sketches._ =21s. net.= - -During the last few years Tibet, wrapped through the centuries in -mystery, has been effectively ‘opened up’ to the gaze of the Western -world, and already the reader has at his disposal an enormous mass of -information on the country and its inhabitants. But there is in Western -Tibet a region which is still comparatively little known, which is -especially sacred to the Hindu and Buddhist, and in which curious myths -and still more curious manners abound; and it is of this portion of the -British Borderland, its government, and the religion and customs of its -peoples, that Mr. Sherring writes. - -The book contains a thrilling account by Dr. T. G. Longstaff, M.B., -F.R.G.S., of an attempt to climb Gurla Mandhata, the highest mountain -in Western Tibet, with two Swiss guides. - - * * * * * - -LETTERS OF GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, D.C.L., LL.D., Hon. Fellow of Pembroke -College, Oxford. - -Arranged by his Daughter, LUCY CRUMP. - -_Demy 8vo. With Portraits._ =12s. 6d. net.= - -Dr. Birkbeck Hill’s ‘Letters’ form, with a few connecting links written -by his daughter, an autobiography whose charm lies in its intimate -portrayal of a character which was, in its curious intensity, at -once learned, tender, and humorous. He wrote as he talked, and his -talk was famous for its fund of anecdote, of humour, of deep poetic -feeling, of vigorous literary criticism, and no less vigorous political -sentiment. As an Oxford undergraduate, he was one of the founders, -together with Mr. Swinburne, Prof. A. V. Dicey, and Mr. James Bryce, -of the Old Mortality Club. He was intimately connected also with the -Pre-Raphaelites. At college, at home, on the Continent, or in America, -everywhere he writes with the pen of one who observes everything, and -who could fit all he saw that was new into his vast knowledge of the -past. His editions of ‘Boswell’s Johnson,’ of ‘Johnson’s Letters,’ and -‘The Lives of the Poets’ have passed into classical works. But that -his writings were not exclusively Johnsonian is abundantly shown by -such books as the Letters of Hume, Swift, General Gordon, and Rossetti, -as well as by his ‘Life of Sir Rowland Hill,’ his ‘History of Harvard -University,’ and various collections of essays. - - * * * * * - -LETTERS TO A GODCHILD ON THE CATECHISM AND CONFIRMATION. - -By ALICE GARDNER, - -ASSOCIATE AND LECTURER OF NEWNHAM COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; AUTHOR OF -‘FRIENDS OF THE OLDEN TIME,’ ‘THEODORE OF STUDIUM,’ ETC. - -_Foolscap 8vo._ =2s. 6d. net.= - -This series of actual Letters written to an actual Godchild on the -subject of Confirmation is intended for parents and teachers who either -feel that some of the instruction to be derived from the Catechism is -obscured by archaism of style and thought, or who desire something in -the way of a supplement to the Catechism. It is not intended to take -the place of works of formal religious instruction. - - * * * * * - -TRANSLATIONS INTO LATIN AND GREEK VERSE. - -By H. A. J. MUNRO, - -SOMETIME FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, AND PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE -UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. - -With a Prefatory Note by J. D. DUFF, - -FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. - -_Medium 8vo. With a Portrait._ =6s. net.= - -These translations were originally printed for private circulation -in the autumn of 1884, a few months before the author’s death. They -were never published, and for years past the price asked for the book -second-hand has been high. It has therefore been decided, with the -consent of Munro’s representatives, to reprint the work, so that those -who are interested in Latin Verse and in Munro may acquire a copy at a -reasonable price. - - * * * * * - -NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION. - -THE QUEEN’S POOR. - -Life as they find it in Town and Country. - -By M. LOANE. - -_Crown 8vo._ =3s. 6d.= - -Sir Arthur Clay, Bart., says of this book: ‘I have had a good deal of -experience of “relief” work, and I have never yet come across a book -upon the subject of the “poor” which shows such true insight and such -a grasp of reality in describing the life, habits, and mental attitude -of our poorer fellow-citizens.... The whole book is not only admirable -from a common-sense point of view, but it is extremely pleasant and -interesting to read, and has the great charm of humour.’ - - * * * * * - -NEW EDITION, ENTIRELY REWRITTEN. - -PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS. - -By C. LLOYD MORGAN, LL.D., F.R.S., - -PRINCIPAL OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, BRISTOL; AUTHOR OF ‘THE SPRINGS OF -CONDUCT,’ ‘HABIT AND INSTINCT,’ ETC. - -_Crown 8vo._ =4s. 6d.= - -For this edition, Professor Lloyd Morgan has entirely rewritten, and -very considerably enlarged, his well-known work on this important -subject. He has, in fact, practically made a new book of it. - - * * * * * - -MISREPRESENTATIVE WOMEN, AND OTHER VERSES. - -By HARRY GRAHAM, - -AUTHOR OF ‘RUTHLESS RHYMES FOR HEARTLESS HOMES,’ ‘BALLADS OF THE BOER -WAR,’ ‘MISREPRESENTATIVE MEN,’ ‘FISCAL BALLADS,’ ‘VERSE AND WORSE,’ ETC. - -_Foolscap 4to. With Illustrations by_ DAN SAYRE GROESBECK. =5s.= - -Admirers of Captain Graham’s ingenious and sarcastic verse will welcome -this fresh instalment, which contains, among the ‘other verses,’ a -number of ‘Poetic Paraphrases’ and ‘Open Letters’ to popular authors. - - * * * * * - -THE LAND OF PLAY. - -By MRS. GRAHAM WALLAS. - -_Crown 8vo. With Illustrations by Gilbert James._ =3s. 6d.= - -The four stories which make up this delightful children’s book are -entitled ‘Luck-Child,’ ‘The Princess and the Ordinary Little Girl,’ -‘Professor Green,’ and ‘A Position of Trust.’ - - * * * * * - -A SONG-GARDEN FOR CHILDREN. - -A Collection of Children’s Songs - -Adapted from the French and German by - -HARRY GRAHAM AND ROSA NEWMARCH. - -The Music Edited and Arranged by NORMAN O’NEILL. - -_Imperial 8vo. Paper._ =2s. 6d. net.= - -_Cloth, gilt top._ =4s. 6d. net.= - -This is a charming collection of forty-three French and German songs -for children translated and adapted by Capt. Graham and Mrs. Newmarch. -It includes nine songs arranged by J. Brahms for the children of Robert -and Clara Schumann. - - * * * * * - -A HANDBOOK OF SKIN DISEASES AND THEIR TREATMENT. - -By ARTHUR WHITFIELD, M.D. (LOND.), F.R.C.P., - -PROFESSOR OF DERMATOLOGY AT KING’S COLLEGE; PHYSICIAN TO THE SKIN -DEPARTMENTS, KING’S COLLEGE AND THE GREAT NORTHERN CENTRAL HOSPITALS. - -_Crown 8vo. With Illustrations._ =8s. 6d. net.= - -This book is designed especially to meet the needs of those who have -to treat the commoner skin diseases. While giving short descriptions -of the rarer forms, the chief attention is bestowed on those -more frequently met with. The diagnostic features of the various -eruptions are dealt with in detail, in order that they may give -help in determining the lines of treatment. The more recent work in -clinical pathology, both microscopical and chemical, is for the first -time brought into use in an English text-book. The book is freely -illustrated with original photographs. - - * * * * * - -THE CHEMICAL INVESTIGATION OF GASTRIC AND INTESTINAL DISEASES BY THE -AID OF TEST MEALS. - -By VAUGHAN HARLEY, M.D. EDIN., M.R.C.P., F.C.S., - -PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON; - -And FRANCIS GOODBODY, M.D. DUB., M.R.C.P., - -ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PATHOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, -LONDON. - -_Demy 8vo._ =8s. 6d. net.= - -This book opens with a description of the method of obtaining gastric -contents, and the estimation of the capacity of the stomach. The -various Test Meals employed in diagnosis are next described. The -macroscopical examination of the gastric contents and conclusions to -be drawn on inspection are discussed, and a short description of the -microscopical appearances follows. The chemical analysis of the gastric -contents is then given. The Organic Diseases of the Stomach are all -separately described, with specimen cases of analysis to illustrate -them. The Functional Diseases of the Stomach, which are more frequently -met with in ordinary practice than the Organic Diseases, are also very -fully given. The chemical methods employed in the investigation of -Intestinal Diseases are then described with great fulness, four types -of Test Meals being given. - - * * * * * - -A GUIDE TO DISEASES OF THE NOSE AND THROAT AND THEIR TREATMENT. - -By CHARLES ARTHUR PARKER, F.R.C.S. EDIN. - -_Demy 8vo. With 254 Illustrations._ =18s. net.= - -EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE. - -‘To acquire the necessary dexterity to examine a patient systematically -so as to overlook nothing, to recognise and put in its proper place the -particular pathological condition found, and finally, but chiefly, to -treat both the patient and the local abnormality successfully, seem to -me the three most important objects of a course of study at a special -hospital. This book, which is founded on lectures given at the Throat -Hospital with these objects in view, is now published in the hope of -helping those who are either attending or have attended a short course -of study at special departments or special Hospitals for Diseases of -the Throat and Nose....’ - - * * * * * - -THE DIAGNOSIS OF NERVOUS DISEASES. - -By PURVES STEWART, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P., - -PHYSICIAN TO OUT-PATIENTS AT THE WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL, AND JOINT -LECTURER ON MEDICINE IN THE MEDICAL SCHOOL; PHYSICIAN TO THE ROYAL -NATIONAL ORTHOPÆDIC HOSPITAL; ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN TO THE ITALIAN -HOSPITAL. - -_Demy 8vo. With Illustrations and Coloured Plates._ =15s. net.= - -This book, which is intended for the use of senior students and -practitioners, to supplement the ordinary text-books, discusses the -most modern methods of diagnosis of Diseases of the Nervous System. -The substance of the work, which is illustrated by original diagrams -and clinical photographs, nearly 200 in number, was originally -delivered in lecture form to students at the Westminster Hospital -and to certain post-graduate audiences in London and elsewhere. The -subject of Nervous Diseases is approached from the point of view of the -practical physician, and the diagnostic facts are illustrated, as far -as possible, by clinical cases. - - * * * * * - -MIDWIFERY FOR NURSES. - -By HENRY RUSSELL ANDREWS, M.D., B.SC. LOND., M.R.C.P. LOND., - -ASSISTANT OBSTETRIC PHYSICIAN AND LECTURER TO PUPIL MIDWIVES AT THE -LONDON HOSPITAL; EXAMINER TO THE CENTRAL MIDWIVES BOARD. - -_Crown 8vo. With Illustrations._ =4s. 6d. net.= - -This book is intended to supply the pupil midwife with all that is -necessary to meet the requirements of the Central Midwives Board, and -to be a practical handbook for the certificated midwife. - - * * * * * - -ALTERNATING CURRENTS. - -A Text-book for Students of Engineering. - -By C. G. LAMB, M.A., B.SC., - -CLARE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, - -ASSOCIATE MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTION OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS; ASSOCIATE -OF THE CITY AND GUILDS OF LONDON INSTITUTE. - -_Demy 8vo. With Illustrations._ =10s. 6d. net.= - -The scope of this book is intended to be such as to cover approximately -the range of reading in alternating current machinery and apparatus -considered by the author as desirable for a student of general -engineering in his last year--as, for example, a candidate for the -Mechanical Sciences Tripos at Cambridge. - - * * * * * - -A MANUAL OF HYDRAULICS. - -By R. BUSQUET, - -PROFESSOR À L’ÉCOLE INDUSTRIELLE DE LYON. - -Translated by A. H. PEAKE, M.A., - -DEMONSTRATOR IN MECHANISM AND APPLIED MECHANICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF -CAMBRIDGE. - -_Crown 8vo. With Illustrations._ =7s. 6d. net.= - -This work is a practical text-book of Applied Hydraulics, in which -complete technical theories and all useful calculations for the -erection of hydraulic plant are presented. It is not a purely -descriptive work designed merely for popular use, nor is it an abstruse -treatise suitable only for engineers versed in higher mathematics. The -book is well illustrated, and is full of Arithmetical Examples fully -worked out. In these examples, no knowledge is assumed beyond that of -simple arithmetic and the elements of geometry. - - * * * * * - -Transcriber’s Notes: - -Punctuation has been made consistent. - -Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in -the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have -been corrected. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sundered Streams, by Reginald Farrer - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SUNDERED STREAMS *** - -***** This file should be named 62469-0.txt or 62469-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/4/6/62469/ - -Produced by Demian Katz, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net -(Images courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University -(http://digital.library.villanova.edu/)) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - |