At Dover, even John Faber dreamed a dream and did not hesitate to speak

of it to Trevelle. Sleeping lightly because of the bitter cold, he

imagined that the Channel had become but a lake of black ice in which

great ships were embedded, and that far and wide over the unbroken

surface went the sledges of the adventurous. Driven to imitate the

leaders in this fair emprise, he himself embarked also upon an ice-ship

presently, and went out into the night over that very silver streak

which had been the salvation of England during the centuries. The white

cliffs behind him disappeared anon in the mist; a great silence fell all

about; he passed an ice-yacht moving before the lightest breeze, and she

was but a shadow picture. Ultima Thule and the frozen wastes were here.

It was a dream of the darkness, and it carried him many miles from the

English shore; he perceived that the coastwise lights blazed out as

usual, and he could discern in the far distance the magnificent beams

from Cape Grisnez and nearer to them the splendid message of the

Forelands. A phantom light upon his own ship was powerful enough to cut

a golden path over the frozen sea and show him its wonders and its

solitudes. Here where great steamers went westward to the Americas,

eastward to the city's ports; here where many thousands crossed daily at

the bidding of many interests; here a man might stand alone and hear no

other sounds than that of the freshening winds of eventide or the

groaning of the ice when the sea refuses its harbourage. A weird, wild

scene, stupendous in its suggestion, an hour of Nature's transcendent

victory. And yet but a dream of his sleep, after all.

II

Such was the vision which reality supported but ill.

There was ice in the southern harbours, but there had been ice there

before, and nothing but the imagination of discerning journalists had

bridged the peaceful seas and put upon the frozen way the armies of the

invader. Faber perceived immediately that a few of his ice-dredges from

Charleston could undo any mischief that Nature had done, and he sent a

cable to America there and then, as a sop to the fears of the timorous

rather than a measure of real necessity.

It was odd how, through it all, this man whose name was known to so few

Englishmen had become the arbiter of the nation's destiny. He held the

bulk of the wheat which could be shipped from the West if the men who

loaded the ships were willing; with him lay that "Yes" or "No" which

should unlock the gates and bid a starving population enter the

granaries. Once in his younger days he had heard a preacher who took for

his text the words, "Sell that thou hast," and he remembered how that

this man had declared the need of an all-embracing sacrifice once in the

course of every life. The words haunted him, and could not be stilled.

He had become as a King or Emperor of old time who could make war or end

it by a word. Irony reminded him that he was an apostle of war, and that

a sentiment which would deride it had no place in his creed. Why, and

for whom, should he beggar himself to serve this people? His financial

empire would come down with a crash if he surrendered now--he believed

that he would never surrender, and yet he sent a compromising cable to

America that day.

This was just before Trevelle and he returned to London through a

country which seemed to have no other thoughts than the pleasures of the

frost. Everywhere the villages kept carnival upon the ice with merriment

and music and the pageantry of snows.

To Faber this seemed a wonderful trait in the national character, and

not to be met by Trevelle's cheery reminiscence of the gladiatorial

salute. These people had not saluted the frost because they believed

that they were about to die, but because they thought that the national

intellect would enable them to live. It had been the same during the

Boer War and far back during the Crimea. Beneath the veil of tribulation

lay the enduring faith that the nation would emerge, purified by the

ordeal and greater for the knowledge of its own strength.

"You see yourselves worrying through, and that's all you care about," he

said, as the morning train carried them to London, and the daily papers

were strewn about him like the monstrous leaves of an unhealthy plant:

"the skin of this nation is the thickest on the globe, and perhaps its

most wonderful asset. When you do get into a panic, you show it chiefly

in the smoking-room or over the dinner-table. This time you've the

biggest chunk to chew I can remember, and yet you are only beginning to

see how big it is. The mob is teaching you something, and you'll learn

more."

He took up a journal from the seat, and passing it over to Trevelle,

indicated some immense headlines.

"See, here! the crowd has burned down your Temple, and is asking for

another to keep 'em warm. That's British right through, I guess, and

something to go on with. It's just what a man should expect when he

turns philanthropist on his own account. You give them what they want,

and they are mad because they want it. It's a pretty story, and you

should read it. It will certainly interest you."

Trevelle took up the paper and read the report to the last line.

Yesterday at five o'clock, an enormous rabble had surrounded the factory

by Leman Street, and there being no one in charge who could deal with

them, the hooligans had set the place on fire and burned it to the

ground. From that they had gone on to other pleasantries, chiefly

connected with the philanthropic agencies in the East End. A mission had

been burned at Stepney; a boys' institute at Bethnal Green. There was

hardly a baker's shop in the locality which had not been looted, while

some of the larger stores were but shattered ruins. The report added

that a vast horde of ruffians, numbering at least two hundred thousand

men, was then marching upon Pall Mall, and that troops were being

hurried to London. It was altogether the most sensational affair since

the beginning of the frost.

"Poor little Gabrielle!" said Trevelle, thinking first of the woman.

"I'm glad she wasn't there. This will be an awful blow to her!"

"Not if she's got the common sense I credit her with. Women's ideals are

not readily shaken, and Miss Silvester has some big ones, which are

permanent. I'll see her to-day, and we'll know what's to be done. Tell

her as much when we get to London."

"If there is any London left to get to----"

"Oh! there'll be a nook and corner somewhere. Your fellows have a genius

for dealing with mobs. I would back the police in London against all the

riff-raff east of St. Paul's. But they'll do some mischief, none the

less--and even this may not help us for the moment. Do you guess what's

in that cable, Mr. Trevelle--why, how should you? And yet it might mean

more to your people to-day than ten million sovereigns, counted out on

the floor of Westminster Hall!"

He held up the familiar dirty paper upon which the Post Office writes

the most momentous of messages, and then showed his companion that it

had come from Queenstown.

"The men on my side have given in," he said, adding nothing of his own

act in that great matter, "the steamers will be sailing inside

twenty-four hours. It's a race, sir, between me and the worst side of

your nation. And I guess I'll win."

"If you do," said Trevelle earnestly, "there is nothing our government

can do to repay the debt."

"Unless they teach the people the lesson of it; do you think it is

nothing to an American to see this great country at the mercy of the

first food panic which overtakes her? I tell you, it is as much to my

countrymen as to yours. Teach them that they have a precious possession

in this island kingdom, and you are doing a great work. I shall be a

proud man to have a hand in it----"

"You certainly will have that. It's a lesson we all need. I don't think

I could have repeated it myself, but for these weeks. Now, I know--and

the man who knows can never forget."

He fell to silence upon it, and regarding the drear country from the

blurred window, perceived a barren field and a drift of snow falling

from a sullen sky. Yet sore afflicted as she was, he remembered that

this was Mother England, and that he and countless others had been but

ungrateful sons in the days of her glory.

Would it be otherwise when the shadows had passed?

Ah! who could tell?

BOOK IV

MERELY MEN AND WOMEN

CHAPTER I

AFTER THE DEBACLE

I

Gabrielle was at her club in Burlington Gardens when the news of the

riot in Stepney was brought by her father. She determined to go back at

once that she might know the worst.

"How can they say such things?" she protested while a footman helped her

on with her furs, and her father watched her humbly, as latterly it was

his wont to do. "Why! everything is going so well, father. I had a

perfect ovation this morning; it was nearly half an hour before I could

get away from the people. Why should they have done this?"

Silvester said that he could not tell her. All that he knew he had

learned by the mouth of a messenger, who had been dispatched headlong

from Stepney and came panting with the news.

"You should not have listened to Mr. Faber, my dear. He is an American,

and he does not understand our people. The ticket idea was quite wrong.

It led to many jealousies, and now to this. The people think there is a

great store of bread in Leman Street, and that it is being given only to

our friends. I am sorry the story got abroad, very sorry! Charity cannot

discriminate in such times as these."

He would have gone on to preach quite a little sermon to the hall porter

and the footmen, who told each other afterward that the young lady gave

it to him "'ot"--but Gabrielle, amazed and chagrined beyond all

experience, immediately ordered them to get a taxi and drive without any

delay to Stepney. It was then about seven o'clock of the evening; a

bitter cold night with a wraith of snow in the air. The West End seemed

entirely deserted at such an hour--even the music-halls had no queues at

their doors, while the theatrical managers complained dolefully of their

financial sorrows. London had awakened to the truth of the situation at

last, and London was frightened. Even the unobservant Silvester could

realise the omens of menace, and say that the city was in peril.

"I don't know what it means," he told Gabrielle, as they drove, "but I

passed a regiment of cavalry as I came here, and it was going toward

Oxford Circus. Do you notice how many police there are about, and

mounted police? There is hardly a shop in the West End which is not

boarded up. Perhaps they are wise--this has taught them what lies on the

other side of Aldgate, and it is a lesson they should have learned a

long time ago. My own opinion is that we are upon the brink of a

revolution; though, of course, I would not say as much to any of these

newspaper people!"

"If you think it, father, why not say it? Surely the day has gone by for

the old foolish ideas. The government has left the people to starve, and

must take the consequences. We have done our best, but we are not

policemen. I feel tempted to go back to Hampstead and having nothing

more to do with it. Think of the ingratitude, the shame of it all--and

we have worked so hard!"

"You should not have listened to Mr. Faber, my dear; I said as much at

the beginning. He is very ignorant of English people; it was a mistake

to listen to him."

"You didn't think that on the steamer, father, when we came over from

America. You were his bravest advocate; you called him one of the

world's geniuses, I remember it."

Silvester admitted it.

"I hoped much from him. If we could have won him, it would have been the

greatest victory in the cause of peace we have ever achieved. I fear now

he must be called our evil genius. He has undoubtedly sold all those

rifles to Germany, and that is to say that we shall have the old foolish

scares again and very soon. A man like that is a terrible instrument of

mischief. I think we shall have to dissociate ourselves from him

altogether when the little girl is well enough to leave us."

Gabrielle sighed as though all these things had become a burden on her

mind. An innate sympathy for John Faber prevented her saying what

otherwise it would have been a truth to say. How much he could have done

for them had he chosen to do it! His money would have helped them so--an

inconsequent thought, for her charities had never wanted money.

"He was certainly wrong about the tickets," she admitted. "I know Mr.

Trevelle thought so, but he gave way. If it is really true that he is

keeping bread from the people to serve his own ends, nothing bad enough

can be said about it, but I want to know that it is true. It has been

very unkind of him to do nothing for us when he might have done so much.

My opinion of him is greatly changed; I do not think he is really our

friend."

Silvester was quite of that opinion also.

"He made us such extravagant promises. A house in the West End,

motors--every luxury. I really thought he was quite serious when I left

Ragusa. Sir Jules Achon did not wish us to go. He knows these people; he

thought I was ill-advised to give up Yonkers for such vague promises. I

wish I had listened to him now; he is still on those delightful waters,

far away from all this. We should have been with him but for our foolish

generosity."

Gabrielle avoided the difficult subject. She must have been a little

ashamed of it when she remembered the gifts John Faber had lavished upon

them already and the concern he displayed for Maryska. The conversation,

indeed, carried her back to a somewhat commonplace reality from which

she had emerged to win this temporary triumph as a ministering angel in

the East End. And now they had burned her Temple and the idol was cast

down. Her father would send Maryska away, and they must return to the

old humdrum life. John Faber and his riches would pass as a ship of the

night. Harry Lassett and the dead leaves of a withered passion remained.

"Oh," she said at last, "how vain is all we do! How vain, how hopeless!

We are just like ants crawling about the earth and trying to set

ourselves up for gods. We talk of peace and war, of good and evil, of

what we shall accomplish and what we have done, and then down comes the

great flat foot of circumstance and out we go. I lose the power even to

hope sometimes. Why should we not let things drift? Who is the better

for our work?"

Her father would not agree to that.

"Every stone cast into the lake of the world's ills is an asset in

humanity's balance sheet," he said. "You have cast many, Gabrielle, and

will add to the number. Look out there at those poor people. Is it all

vain when you remember how many of their kind you have succoured? This

American hardness is no good influence; I wish we could shake it off

forever. Indeed, it were better so."

"We shall do that," she said quietly. "Mr. Faber will not be many days

in England when the frost will let him get away."

He remained silent. They had passed Charing Cross, and now their way was

blocked by a vast torchlight procession of women, debouching upon the

Strand from the neighbourhood of the Old Kent Road. It was a sorry

spectacle, for here were young and old, white-haired women with their

backs bent toward the earth which soon would receive them; drabs in rags

who flaunted their tattered beauty in the face of every male; quiet

workers whose children were starving in garrets; women from mean streets

who had never begged in all their lives; children who wondered if the

end of the world had come. Headed by a lank harridan who wore a crimson

shawl and carried an immense torch, these miserables tramped stolidly

toward the West End, seeking God knows what relief from the shuttered

houses. And after them went a dozen mounted policemen, good-humoured,

chubby-cheeked fellows, who had never wanted bread and were never out of

patience with others less fortunate.

A thousand expressions were to be read upon the faces of this haggard

crew, and not a little fine determination. Here would be a woman reeling

in drink; yonder a young mother hardly strong enough to walk the

streets. There were sluts and shapely girls, creatures of a shabby

finery, and hopeless woebegone figures of an unchanging poverty. From

time to time wistful glances would be cast up at the lighted windows of

the houses as though succour might be cast down thence. All moved with

rapid, shuffling steps, an orderly concourse which concealed the forces

of disorder. By here and there, some of the younger members broke into a

mournful song, which was checked at intervals to permit of the exchange

of coarse wit with the passers-by on the pavements. The whole throng

seemed driven relentlessly on toward a nameless goal which must break

their hope when at last they reached it.

"Isn't it dreadful to see them?" said Gabrielle when the last of the

procession had passed by and traffic in the Strand was resumed once

more. "This sort of thing affects me terribly; it makes me feel sorry

that there are women in the world at all. Think of the children of such

creatures! What can we hope for them?"

"It is the children for whom we must work," rejoined the father. "I

should think of England with despair if it were not for the children."

Worthy man! Despair had always been among the wares in his basket; and

yet, how often had this unhappy British people gone laughing by with

never a thought for him or his melancholy gospel?

II

The menace of the streets was not less when the women had passed by and

the traffic flowed again.

London was full of wild mobs that night; of savage men and men made

savage by hunger, and they were drifted to and fro upon the shifting

seas of authority and stranded on many a relentless shore. There was

riot, too, and upon riot, pillage and the incendiary. Now for the first

time since the winter set in, hunger drove even the orderly to the West

in the wild search for the food the East could not give them. Long

through the dark hours, in Bond Street, in Piccadilly, by Hyde Park,

away in the remotest suburbs, sleepers were awakened to listen fearfully

to the tramp of feet and the hoarse voices of the multitudes. Those who

had the curiosity to look from their windows beheld a sky quivering with

light, a glorious iridescence above many a flaming building the rioters

had fired. It was the beginning of the end, men said; a visitation of

Almighty God against which all were impotent. Who shall wonder that

those whose faith was sure prayed for the salvation of their country in

that hour of her need?

There were enormous crowds about Aldgate, and the taxi containing

Gabrielle and her father made but slow headway. When at last it entered

Leman Street, they perceived in an instant the whole extent of the

disaster; and so irreparable it seemed that the girl's pride broke down

utterly, and she shed bitter tears of shame and grief. How she had

worked for these people! What a heroine they had made of her! This very

morning there had been a kind of triumphal procession from the old

Temple to the new. She had been followed by a vast concourse of thankful

people, who cheered her as she went; while the bishop had addressed the

throngs from the doors of the mission, and spoken of the "noble lady,"

whose services to them had been priceless. This was just eight hours

ago, and now there were but reddening ashes where the workers had stood

to give the children bread.

The cab made its way to the doors of the wrecked building and an

inspector of police received them. The few who had been admitted within

the barriers were evidently ashamed of what had been done, but quite

unable to apologise for it. The inspector put it down to the hooligans.

"We breed too many of them in these days, sir," he said, "the country

finds it out when there's hard times, and God knows they're hard enough

now. It must have been set afire after Mr. Gedding had locked it up for

the day. There were flames as tall as chimneys coming out of the roof

when I was called."

This was a man who took tragedy as a matter of course, and would have

used the same words if St. Paul's had been burned. When asked if the

incendiary were taken, he replied that he was not, but that acting upon

"information received," he hoped to make an arrest before morning. His

anxiety for the "young lady" was real, and he advised that she should

return immediately to her home.

"Now that there's this spirit abroad, I'll answer for nothing at all,"

he said; "you'd be better the other side of Aldgate, and that's certain.

There's nothing but a pack of foreign cut-throats in the streets

to-night, and no man is safe. Just you take my advice, sir, and come

back in the morning, when they've had time to cool awhile. This is no

place for the young lady, whatever it may be for us."

Silvester agreed with him, but he found it impossible to influence

Gabrielle. She seemed strangely moved by the melancholy glamour of the

scene; by the savage figures shadowed in the after-glow; by the

reddening skeleton of the Temple which stood up so proudly a few hours

ago. To-morrow there would be but a pit of ashes, where to-day a

sacrifice had been offered to the nation. She suffered profoundly when

she surveyed this wreck of her handiwork, and it seemed to her that her

work among the people was done.

"Let us go on to the old Temple," she said with what resignation she

could command, "if they have burned that also, then I will return with

you, father, for I can do nothing more."

Silvester disliked the idea of it. He would have been pleased enough to

have been back in his little study at Hampstead, where he might have

composed a sermon upon "ingratitude," as an obstacle; but he had long

been schooled to obedience when his daughter commanded, and so they

re-entered the cab and drove to the old Temple. A silent multitude

watched them as they went, but none cheered. The bitter cold night

either sent people to their houses, where they might shiver upon heaps

of rags, or it drove them to the open street where many a huge fire had

been kindled that the outcasts might warm themselves. Hereabouts you

would often see a whole family lying upon a filthy pallet of straw, and

so huddled together for warmth that it had the appearance of some

fearsome animal which had crawled from the darkness to the light. The

shadows gave pictures more terrible, husbanding the dying and the dead.

Starvation abetted the rigour of the winter. Nature waged war here in

these silent alleys, and no sound attended her stealthy victories, which

were multitudinous.

In London beyond "the gate" there were other anxieties, but these poor

people knew nothing of them. War and its menace: the chimera of fabled

foes crossing the black ice in endless columns; cannon rumbling where

ships had sailed; England no longer an island, her ramparts of blue

waters gathered up; her gates thrown open to any who would affront

her--if the West End discussed all this covertly and as though afraid,

the East knew nothing of it. Here the danger was not of to-morrow, but

of to-night! The peril, ever present, fell upon them now at the bidding

of the natural law. For the first time since the outcasts of the world

had found sanctuary beyond Aldgate, their city of refuge had been unable

to feed them. And now hunger bade them go forth to the land of promise,

so near, so rich in all they needed. Shall we wonder that starving mobs

gathered in every square; that the courts were full of desperadoes with

murder in their eyes; that even the honest would listen and admit that

this or that might be done?

Upon the other side were the police and the soldiers, many thousands

hidden prudently from the eyes of the mobs. If the Government could do

little to feed these people, it could, at least, protect the people who

were fed for the time being, at any rate. Commanded by the "man of

iron," the cavalry were marched hither and thither, but always to form a

cordon about the dangerous areas. Special drafts of constables came from

the distant suburbs to overawe poor devils whose greatest crime was

their hunger. Stepney was besieged by authority, fearful that men would

go out to get the children bread, and ashamed that bread should be

withheld. Here had Nature's war become one of a civil people, paying a

debt they long had owed to their exacting creditors, "Want of

Forethought and Economy." The sword of a foreign enemy would have been

the lesser peril--it was evident enough now to everyone!

Through such scenes, by the dark and dangerous streets, went Gabrielle

to the ancient Temple. She found it occupied by busy missionaries, who

knew neither night nor day while the work of mercy must go on. In and

out they went as they returned from some mean house, or set off for

another. Dawn found them still at work, the terrible dawn when the

country waited for the verdict in Nature's court, and even the dullest

had come to know that this was an island kingdom.

III

Faber and Trevelle reached Stepney early on the morning of the following

day. Gabrielle was still at the Temple and while she had expected the

visit of the resistless "inspiration," as she had come to call Trevelle,

John Faber's advent was unlooked for.

"We heard you were burned out, and came along at once," he said, in the

best of humours. "I guess you'll want all the masons you've got, Miss

Silvester, and want 'em on time. That old factory should take five days

to put up if you go the right way about it. If it were me, I'd leave it

where it is, and make 'em toe the line among the ashes. That would teach

them to behave themselves next time. You can't burn the house that's

been burned already, and if they want to warm themselves, coal is

cheaper. Say, write that upon what's left of the door, and you'll have

the laugh on them, sure!"

She was chagrined at the tone of it, but none the less, she seemed to

understand that he wished her well.

"If we rebuild, where is the money to come from?" she asked him,

helplessly. "And what is the good of it if there is no bread to give the

people? My father says the end is coming. What have we to hope for if

that is the case?"

"You have to hope for many things, my dear young lady--the weather for

one of them. Your good father is a little premature, maybe, and is prone

to believe what the newspapers tell him. The end is coming sure enough.

It's not the end he looks for by a long way."

He glanced at Trevelle, and they smiled together. There had been great

news from Queenstown that morning. Why should they withhold it from her?

"The fact is," said Trevelle, "the strike in America is over and the

wheat ships are sailing. You read your evening paper to-night and see

what it says. We have brains amongst us and they are busy. That's what

we've been asking for all along, in peace or war, not the dreamers but

the brains. And we've got 'em, Miss Silvester, we've got 'em!"

He snapped his fingers, an habitual gesture, and seemed thereby to imply

that he, Rupert Trevelle, had laid down a doctrine which henceforth must

be the salvation of the British people. Gabrielle, however, heard him a

little coldly though she was full of wonder.

"I did not think you were so interested in this matter," she said. And

then, "Will you, please, tell me why the men in Liverpool are striking

still?" When the scientific exposition had left her more in doubt than

ever, she asked of her work once more. "Then it is no good going on here

if the wheat will come in," she said; "our task will be finished then,

will it not, Mr. Faber?" He shook his head at that and told her of his

fears.

"It will be a slow business. I advise you to stand by yet awhile. If we

get the cargoes slowly, as we shall have to do, the price of wheat will

still stand high, and that's no good to these people at all. Take my

advice and go on with what you are doing. The country owes you

something, sure, and it is just beginning to find that out. Did you see

your pictures in the halfpenny illustrateds, this morning? I like those

fine; I've got 'em here somewhere, and I mean to keep 'em."

Trevelle thought it wise to move away at this point, and they were left

together in the great bare hall of the Temple, whither the people would

soon be flocking for bread. A winter sun shone cold and clear through

the wide window above them; then voices echoed strangely beneath the

vault as though they were tricked by a mutual self-restraint to an

artificiality of tone foreign to them. This man had come to love this

woman passionately, and he was about to go to his own country, never to

return.

"Oh!" she cried, surprised and delighted when she beheld the pictures,

"what a dreadful guy they have made me! Now, don't you think this sort

of thing ought to be stopped?" He shook his head as though she had

disappointed him.

"I never knew a woman yet whose picture was in a newspaper who didn't

say they had guyed her. The thing seems well enough to me, and I must

keep it for a better. Say, now, you know, I'm going away the first mail

that sails. Will you give me a better portrait or must I take this one?"

Her spirit fell though she did not dare to tell him why. He was going,

and the building her hope had raised must come crashing down. With this

was her feeling that in some way he had failed her in the critical

hours. There were men who cried out upon his astuteness, made manifest

in the hour of crisis, but she had never heeded them.

"If you really think that you will remember my name when you are in New

York again----" Her hesitation was the complement of the obvious, and he

smiled again.

"It will be a new name. Let's hear how it sounds. Mrs. Harry Lassett!

Well, I don't like the sound of it overmuch, but I suppose it's not my

say. The wedding, I think, is for next month, is it not?"

"For the week before Lent. You will not build me a Temple now; it would

be a mockery!"

"Why, as to that, if it's a Temple for brains, I don't know that we

mightn't build it after all. That's what your country needs, Miss

Gabrielle. All the brains at work to educate the people. Sentiment will

carry you a very little way upon the road. Let your Temple go up to the

men with brains."

"Ah!" she said, "I think we are all beginning to understand that. Even

my father says that universal peace will be won by the intellect not by

the heart of the nation. You will see him before you go, of course?"

"I shall try to; it will be a misfortune for me if I do not."

"And Maryska?"

"Ah, there you get me into harbour at once. I've been thinking over what

Mr. Trevelle has told me about your difficulties, and I guess I'd better

see you out of them by taking Maryska to New York. Does that seem to you

a wise thing to do?"

Her face became very pale, her thoughts seemed distant when she said:

"Quite wise; she will never be well in England."

"Or happy?"

"Ah, who can say just what happiness is?"

"True enough," he replied. "We look up and down the street for it, and

sometimes it is on our own doorsteps all the time. We say that we were

happy yesterday, and talk of happy days to come when to-day may be the

happiest of our lives. Some of us are not born for that ticket, and it's

human nature which shuts us out from it. Who knows, you and I may be

among the number."

"An auspicious thing to say, remembering that I am to be married next

month."

"Pardon me, I should not have said it. It's like one of your Lord

Salisbury's 'blazing indiscretions.' You are taking the line which your

welfare dictates that you shall take. You have thought this out for some

years, I don't doubt, and you say, there is just one man in the whole

world for you. Well, that's a bid for happiness any way. I'll put a

motto to it when I cable you on your wedding day."

He held out his hand, and she took it. Their eyes met, and he knew that

he read her story.

"The Temple," he said; "I guess you'll want me to help you open that. If

you do, I'll come."

"Shall I write to Charleston?"

"Yes, to Maryska de Paleologue, who is going to keep house for me."

Her hand fell from his and she said no more. The doors of the Temple

were already open that the hungry might enter in.

CHAPTER II

THE SHADOW IS LIFTED

I

When a woman has drifted into an engagement imposed upon her by years of

friendship, it is rare that she has the courage to break the bonds,

however irksome she may find them.

Gabrielle knew that she was drifting into this marriage with Harry

Lassett, and yet her will was paralysed. The baser appeal had passed as

a menacing wave upon a strange sea, and all that was left was the

troubled waters of the seemingly inevitable. Her love-making had been so

many hours of a dead passion, which no pretence could reanimate. She had

posed as the fond mistress of a man whom her coldness gradually repelled

until his pride revolted. Held in his arms, treated still as the child,

kissed upon her lips, all her sentiment appealed to by his ardour, she

tried to say that this was her destiny, beyond which she might not look.

Hundreds had drifted as she into that desert of the waters where no tide

of life emerges nor harbours of a man's love are to be found. She had

been tricked by circumstance, and delusion must be paid for by the

years.

Be it said that this was chiefly an aftermath of the busy weeks. While

the shadow lay upon England, the fame of her work had blinded her to the

true meaning of the promise Harry Lassett had won from her in an

irresponsible hour. Swiftly, upon the tide of the national misfortune,

she had risen to notoriety; been applauded in the public press and named

as a heroine for her work at Stepney. When that work was ended; when

England awoke one day to the thunders of a thanksgiving more real than

any in her story, then she learned for the first time by what means her

triumph had been won, and whose hand had guided her through the

darkness.

The letter came from Paris, one of the very first the mails brought in.

Well she remembered afterwards how that there had been a bruit of the

passing of the frost many days before the deliverance came. Crowds who

had learned to say that the American engineer, John Faber, had been the

master mind during the terrible weeks; that his were the wheat ships now

coming into the ports; that his genius and his money had accomplished

miracles--these crowds heard with new hope of his promise that the

weather was breaking, and the end at hand. Waiting patiently during the

momentous hours, London slept one night through a bitter frost to awake

next day to a warm south wind and a burning sunshine. Never shone sun so

kindly upon a people which mourned its heritage. The oldest became as

children in that hour of deliverance. The church bells rang for a peace,

not with men, but with God.

The island home! God, what it had meant to them all in the past! And

they had dwelt in ignorance; blind to their possession; regardless of

the good sea which sheltered them; of the ramparts which were their

salvation. Now, as in a flash, they perceived the truth: the gifts were

returned to them; the meanest knew that he was free. In a frenzy which

the circumstances may have justified, men took train for the seaports

and watched the passing of the ice. They stood upon the high cliffs and

beheld the sun shining upon the open waters; lakes of golden light at

the heart of the ocean--a widening girdle of security their country had

put on. The loftiest imagination could not soar to the true heights of

this revelation, or embrace it wholly in the earlier hours. The dullest

were dumb for very fear that the Almighty would but trick them after

all.

In London, it was as though the whole people took one great breath

together. Just as upon the conclusion of a peace, the church bells were

rung and the City illuminated. Vast crowds poured from the houses, and

gave themselves up to the most childish manifestations of joy. There

were scenes to disgrace the story; scenes to lift it to great nobility.

But yesterday, it had seemed to some of these revellers that they were

no longer the inhabitants of an island which the strongest power would

hesitate to assail. All the tradition and glory of the kingdom had gone

out of it--to return in a twinkling at the passing of the frost.

Gabrielle could hear the church bells ringing in Hampstead, but the

theme of their chime was less to her than the letter which Eva Achon had

written to her from Paris--a girlish, gossiping letter, full of

inconsequential chatter about absurd people, and ending ever upon the

tonic chord of the masculine scale. Eva's Odyssey had been full of

event, but she had returned to Paris as a maiden Helen, torn by

imagination only from the phantom bridegroom of her dreams.

Incidentally, and as though it had to do with a fair in a remote

country, she spoke of the great strike and of the man whose name was

upon every tongue.

"My father thinks very highly of Mr. John Faber," she wrote. "He would

very much like to work with him. I wrote to Rupert Trevelle about it,

but he seems too busy to remember me now. It was so like an American to

spend all that money on charity and leave the people to think he was a

scoundrel. The truth came out from Mr. Morris, who made what he called a

'great story' and sent it to America. I am sending you the cutting from

the _New York Herald_--it has also been in the English _Times_, I think.

All the English people here are gone mad to know Mr. Faber now--they say

he is one of the cleverest men in the world, and one of the kindest. All

the same, my father says his brains are better than his money, and when

you come to think of it, I suppose that must always be the case. Even

he, rich as he is, could do little for that poor artist, Louis de

Paleologue, and now there comes the news from Montey that Claudine's

_fiancé_ has been terribly hurt at the aviation meeting there, and is

hardly expected to live. So you see, dearest Gabrielle, his money seems

to bring ill-luck to everyone; but when he works, there is no one like

him. If only he would help father, how much he could do for the world!

But, I suppose, he is going back to America, and we shall see him no

more.

"And that reminds me. Isn't it provoking how many people we never see

any more! I have had a delicious flirtation here with a fair man whose

name I don't know. We passed each other on the stairs of the hotel

nearly every morning, and one day I dropped my bag, and he picked it up

and spoke to me. I was frightened to ask anyone who he was, and I never

saw him in the _salle à manger_, but he used to pass me on the

stairs--oh, quite six or seven times a day after that; and we had such a

jolly time. Then, suddenly, he went away, never said a word to me or

wrote any letter. I shall never see him any more--_mais tout bien ou

rien_, if it were always to be on the stairs, I am glad that he is

gone."

II

A tinkling gong called Gabrielle to lunch, and she found her father

alone in the dining-room. A mutual question as to Maryska's whereabouts

revealed the fact that she had not been seen since breakfast and that

none of the servants had news of her. Once or twice before, when Harry

Lassett had been cajoled into some wild excursion, Maryska had spent

most of the day out of doors; but both Silvester and his daughter seemed

to think that this was not such an occasion, and they were troubled

accordingly.

"I really fear that it is time that Mr. Faber took charge of her,"

Silvester said, as he sat down wearily. "She is very self-willed, and we

have no hold over her. Would Harry be responsible for this, do you

think?"

"How can he be? Is he not at Brighton? I hardly think that even he would

keep the child out without a word to us."

Silvester looked at her shrewdly. That "even he" suggested a train of

thought which had been forced upon him more than once latterly.

"Do you think it is wise for Harry to take her out at all, Gabrielle?"

he asked. "We treat her as a child, but is she one really? I hope our

confidence is not misplaced. We should incur a very grave responsibility

if it were."

Gabrielle did not like Maryska, and was hardly one to conceal her

prejudices.

"We should never have consented to receive her, father. It was all done

in such a hurry; I think we were the victims of our own good nature. Who

is she? Where does she come from? A gipsy girl, perhaps, and one who

dislikes our country, and us. It was sentiment upon Mr. Faber's

part--altruism at our expense. Of course, he talks of taking her

ultimately to New York. But is he likely to do that? Do you believe

that?"

"I must believe it or say that he has not written the truth. There was a

letter from him this morning--you will find it on my study table. He

wishes us to keep her at least for a time and until he can make some

provision for her in America. It will be possible for him to sail

to-day, he thinks, if Sir Jules Achon arrives from Cherbourg. He appears

to want to see Sir Jules very much before he goes."

"Then Maryska remains, father?"

"For the present, yes."

"And that is the last we are to see of our friend? Well, our castles

come tumbling down, at any rate. We have been his builders, but he

leaves us a wretched house. I think you would be wiser to go to

Yonkers."

"I think so, too--when you and Harry are married."

"Need Harry and I enter into the matter? I am thinking all the time of

the way these clever men make less clever people their dupes. Sometimes

I say that what I need to make a success of my life is the help of a man

of genius. I felt it every day when Mr. Faber was here. It was to stand

upon a rock and laugh when the sea flowed all around. And you need it

too, father. Think of all that good men might do in the world if they

had brains such as his behind them. He preaches all his sermons from

that text. Brains will save the people, the country, even religion. I am

sick of sentiment; it accomplishes nothing. We have meetings and

speakers, and conferences and discussions, and the world just goes

laughing by, like a boy who passes the open door of a schoolroom. What

have we done since we left America? How have we helped our great cause?

You know what the answer must be. We have done less than nothing, while

a stranger has made our people think and learn."

He was much taken aback by her outburst, and a little at a loss. A man

of high ideals, he knew how hopeless was the task of uplifting the

people, and yet hope and endeavour were the breath of life to him.

"Oh," he said, "I won't say that we have done nothing. This dreadful

winter is just what has been needed to make the people think. A reaction

will follow, and we shall go to them with a message of peace they cannot

resist. I am sure the truth will come home to all now. It will be easy

to say that God Almighty did not create mankind for the shambles. What

astonishes me, Gabrielle, is that in this twentieth century it should be

necessary to preach such a doctrine at all. When you consider what

universal peace would mean in every home in the country, what it would

do for the poorest, how it would help the children, I am altogether at a

loss. The thing is an incredible anachronism giving the lie direct to

Christ and His gospel. And we are powerless to cope with it; we seem to

address those whose hearts are of stone."

"Then why do you address them? That is just what Mr. Faber asks. Why not

turn to those who can lead the people? If the great names of Europe and

America were behind you, the millennium would come. I myself would hope

more from two such men as Sir Jules Achon and John Faber than from all

the sermons in the world. But I have become a very practical person,

father. I think sometimes I am growing terribly masculine."

"You always used to be, Gabrielle. I remember when you were the greatest

tomboy in Hampstead. That, by the way, was before your engagement to

Harry. Do you know, my dear girl, I wonder sometimes if marriage is your

destiny at all."

"If not marriage, what then, father?"

"Public work. The practice of the ideas you have just been pleading to

me."

Gabrielle shook her head. She spoke with little restraint, and in a way

that astonished him altogether.

"I don't agree with you. I believe in my heart that I am destined to

love and marriage. If it is not so, I may do something mad some day.

Sometimes I long to get away from all this; but it must be with a man

who can lead me. I shall never marry Harry--I wonder that I have not

told him so before. Perhaps I should have done so had it not been for

these awful weeks. Do you know, father, that I find life in opposition

to every convention you have taught me since I was a child? There are no

fairy godmothers in the world. Our guardian angels might be gamblers who

throw us headlong into the stream and make wagers about our condition

when we come out. We have to decide the most momentous questions when we

are still babies and understand nothing about them. In the end it comes

just to what Mr. Faber says, our brains make or mar us; and neither you

nor I have any brains to speak of. Let us leave it there, father. I am

growing really anxious about the child, and must know the truth. If she

is not with the Bensons, I don't know where she is."

He assented, moved to some real anxiety by her obvious alarm. They wrote

a note and dispatched it to the house of their friends the Bensons, who

had shown much kindness to Maryska, but the afternoon had merged into

evening before any answer was brought to them.

CHAPTER III

THE MARIGOLDS TO THE SUN

I

Maryska had been out and about London with Harry Lassett upon more than

one occasion, and this had been to the knowledge and with the approval

both of Silvester and of Gabrielle. Both had known Harry for many years,

and he had become almost as the son of the house. Their own duties

carried them so much abroad during the terrible days that they were well

content when the young man did what he could to amuse the child during

the long hours; and they used to hear of the mutual escapades with the

interest they would have bestowed upon two children come home from

school and eager for the holidays.

Here their trust went out wholly upon their own plane of honor and

convention. The boy had been to a public school and to Cambridge. He was

of a type which three hundred years of a great tradition have moulded

finally and left as a corner-stone of the national society. A firm faith

in the blessings of domestic freedom had always been characteristic of

Silvester's teaching. Trust your sons, and they will not fail you, he

had said.

But, if he knew that Harry had taken Maryska to such places as a young

woman of her age (and one who was a stranger to the City) might visit,

he would have been astounded and dismayed had he known that she had gone

to Harry's lodgings, and latterly had made a practice of visiting him

there. This was concealed by both as a secret between them of which no

whisper must be heard. It was the first scene of an act of drama

speedily to follow. Maryska would never forget that day. They had been

to Madame Tussaud's, where a wretched group of people were sheltered

from the cold, and tried to forget the shadow which lay upon the City.

Returning towards five o'clock, Maryska had told him that she knew the

truth about England at last, and that it was the arctic land of which

her dead father had told her.

"They come here in little ships," she said, "and it is to find _le Pôle

Nord_. There was a café of that name in Dijon, and once when we were

very poor I danced there and got money for him. He beat me when he found

it out, and that night I hated him, and went back to dance once more.

That is what a girl should do when a man beats her! Ah! I shall run away

from you yet, _bête sauvage_."

He laughed in a great boyish way, and drew her arm the tighter within

his own. How good it seemed to have these bright eyes looking up into

his own, to hear the little savage prattling, and to know that she was

happy. Though the kingdom of England had perished that night, these two

would not have cared a scudo. The eternal voice of youth called them,

and they bent to it as "marigolds to the sun."

"Do you think I shall beat you, Maryska? Is that in your head? You are a

rum little devil, I must say!"

She took it rather as a compliment.

"I do not know what you will do when you are angry. The English are

difficult to understand. I think they are afraid of women. Mr. Silvester

runs away when I stamp my foot. I have heard him shut his door when I

come down the stairs. _Bon Dieu!_ what a cat of a man--and he is a

priest, and the people do not know that he is afraid of women! Shall we

go to your lodgings, Harry--shall I make you some coffee there? It will

be ripping,--and they would be so angry if they knew. Let us hurry on,

for it is late--to your lodgings, I say."

He was a good deal taken aback, and argued with her while she trotted by

his side; all her strength returned, all her youth triumphant. To his

rooms! That was a new proposition, to be sure. And what would Gabrielle

say if she knew of it?

"Look here, Maryska, people will talk if you come to my lodgings!"

"Will they not talk if I stop away?"

"They'll say rotten things. I shouldn't like to have them said about

you."

"But, Harry, do you always live alone in your rooms?"

"I don't take ladies there, Maryska."

She was amazed.

"It is not wicked to be with you in the street, then, but wicked in your

rooms. _Ecco!_ what a country! And all the people are frozen and the

wind eats them up, and they are so frightened of us they lock us out of

their lodgings. How _he_ would have laughed! Why, all the ladies in

Ragusa came to his room, and he would sing and laugh all day. It was not

wicked there! He would not have done it when I was with him, if it had

been."

He tried to tell her that countries have different customs, and that

what is done in the south may not be done in the north with impunity.

But she was wholly unconvinced, and the spice of daring being added to

the dish of her thoughts, she led him insensibly towards Holly Place and

not towards Well Walk as they approached Hampstead.

"Just to see what this wicked place is like, Harry. Surely, I may stand

at your door and see you go in? They will not punish me, these horrid

English, for that. Oh, yes, I shall stand at your door and see you go

in, and you will give me some wine. Do you know that we have nothing but

syrup at the Silvesters'? Oh, _mon pauvre_! it is all ice inside as well

as out. I go thirsty all day--there was wine always when _he_ was alive,

and now there is none! I shall wait upon your doorway until you give me

a little wine, Harry."

This idea pleased her very much, and she danced and sang her way through

the silent streets upon it. Even the searching cold of the early night

did not affright her, nor those suggestions of loneliness and isolation

which usually attended her journey northward. She was going to see

Harry's rooms and to drink some wine when she got there! The fact that

he had nothing but good Scotch whisky did not enter into her

calculations.

As for Harry, the proposal annoyed him at the beginning, but grew upon

his sympathies as they went. He tried to follow her logic, and to think

that it would be absurd to treat her otherwise than as a child. What

harm could there be after all, and was not her view of it safer than his

own? The Silvesters were too busy looking after impossible people in the

East End to do their duty by this little exile. What forbade him to

treat her as a sister? Upon this there came tumbling many a picture of

that bewitching apparition as sympathy could frame it. What a riot she

would make in his puny lodging! And how good it would be to watch her

swinging her shapely legs on the edge of his pet arm-chair! She filled

the whole house with visions already.

They marched up Heath Street forlorn, wind-swept, and deserted, and came

at last to his door. He remembered how easily she took possession of the

place, marching here and there as though she were its mistress--setting

this or that in order instantly; tidying his desk; looking reproachfully

upon his joyous negligence. When a lean landlady asked her genially if

she would take a little tea, she answered immediately, "No; you are to

go to the café for the wine, Mr. Harry will give you the money!"

And Harry gave it, as though it was the best of jokes, and one in which

he must now play his part.

II

The first of many visits--how soon it was forgotten, that others more

intimate should be remembered!

She came almost every day during the final week of the tribulation, and

would sit with him, smoking his cigarettes and drinking his claret as

though his house had been a café! He discovered that she had many

talents, was a rare dancer of the wild, uncouth dances of the East, and

could draw with a wonderful sense of portraiture. Her pictures of

Silvester should have gone to _Punch_, but her portraits of Gabrielle

were full of feeling. One day, when she had been sitting upon the arm of

his chair, using his broad back for an easel, she asked him, à propos

nothing at all, if he were in love, and when he looked at her astonished

she seemed insistent.

"Are you in love with her, Harry? Why do you not answer me?"

"Why, you know that I am. Aren't we going to be married, little Gipsy?"

She put the pencil down and laid her head quietly upon his shoulder.

"I shall never believe it; you do not love her--she is nothing to you."

"Oh, come, Gipsy! What do you know about it?"

She sighed, but did not raise her head.

"If you loved Gabrielle Silvester you would not let me come to this

house."

"Why not, Gipsy?"

"Because I love you, Harry."

So there it was, in a flash, and both her arms were about his neck and

her lips hot upon his own. She loved him and had no shame in the avowal.

Destiny gave him to her. The little wild girl who came God knew whence,

was not this her haven at last? She entered into her heritage fiercely

as one who would not be dispossessed.

Of course, Harry treated it as a good joke, or perhaps attempted so to

treat it. He could not resist her kisses and made no effort to do so;

but when she had calmed down a little and he had pulled her on to his

knees so that he could look deep into her black eyes, he said:

"We mustn't tell Gabrielle about this; we mustn't say a word just yet,

Gipsy."

She thought about it, pulling at the button of his vest.

"Do you wish to love me in secret, Harry?" she asked presently. He

laughed again at that, and said it would be a good joke.

"Gabrielle will never marry me; I know that, Gipsy. She's gone on your

American friend, and is too proud to tell him so. Our affair was all a

mistake. Time will put that right, and then you and I will be free.

Let's keep it secret, and have the laugh of them all. Will you do that,

Maryska?"

Her eyes were wide open; she made an effort to understand.

"You do not forbid me to love you, Harry?"

"Certainly not; aren't we pals?"

"I may come here just when I like?"

"As long as Silvester doesn't get mad about it."

She thought upon this, but half satisfied.

"Will you take me to Paris some day? I want so much to go to Paris.

There is life there--life, life, life! One sits in the door of the hotel

and sees all the world. These English people make me hate them, but I

love the French as my father did. They said in Paris that he was a great

artist; I know it was true. He could have compelled all the world to say

so if he had not been so idle. There were whole weeks in Ragusa when he

lay in bed; sometimes we had no food in the house; then he would paint,

and I would go with the picture to the Jew with the beard and bring the

money home. That night was always a _festa_. It was better in Paris,

where he had many friends who would come and say, 'Work, beast!' and he

would laugh at them and take up his brushes. You know that he was a

prince in his own country, Harry? Once when he was very ill, he told me

so and gave me some papers. That was at San Gimignano--oh! so many years

ago. When he got better he took them away again, and we travelled and

travelled, just like two gipsies, together upon the lonely white roads.

At last we reached Granada, where there is a mountain with gipsies,

running in and out of their holes like the rabbits in the forest. We

lived with them a month and he painted many pictures; then we took ship

and went to Italy, and he was so ill that I knew we should never go over

the white roads together again. Ah, dear God! what a life I have led!

and now you--you are the only one in all the world, Harry."

She hid her face from him and put her arms about his neck again. Her

passionate story moved him strangely and seemed to set her in a new

aspect before him. Was it possible that this waif was what the dead

artist had proclaimed her to be? Beneath all the sorry veneer of the

_Wanderjahre_, would he find at last the grains of nobility and of a

precious birthright? That would mean very much to a man of his

temperament; to one whose whole career had taught him to esteem these

things. The mystery of it all fascinated him strangely--she frightened

him in such moods as this.

He did not promise to take her to Paris, but, comforting her with fair

words, they went round together to Well Walk and he saw Gabrielle for a

few brief moments. The talk between them was quite commonplace, but, as

often before, the name of John Faber quickly crept into it. Harry turned

his heel upon that, and went back to Holly Place in high dudgeon.

"Good God!" he said. "That man again!"

Why did she not tell him frankly that her ambition lay here and would

not be rebuffed?

III

He had been very proud of Gabrielle in the old days, and was proud still

in a vain boyish way. He knew that she was a beautiful woman, and could

suffer chagrin when he admitted that the measure of her intellect was

far beyond his own. A sportsman and little else, all this cant of

movements and causes and social creeds stirred him to ebullitions of

temper of which he was secretly ashamed. Nothing but the influence of

years forbade him to say that both of them had made a great mistake, and

that he must end it. He resolved to do so after Maryska's avowal, but

his courage was not responsive. He could not bring himself to what must

seem in Gabrielle's eyes but a vulgar affront upon her loyalty--and so

the days drifted. In the end he made up his mind to leave London for a

week or so and trust to new scenes for inspiration.

By all accounts John Faber was about to sail from England, and, having

altered his plans at the last moment, Maryska had been left with the

Silvesters--to her great grief but not to Gabrielle's dissatisfaction.

Harry knew little of the circumstances, for his friends at Hampstead

were secretive, and latterly had become unaccountably vague in all their

plans. That John Faber's departure was a great disappointment to them

Harry guessed, though his vanity suffered by the admission. He knew now

that things must come to a head between Gabrielle and himself directly

he returned to London, and the very fact kept him in Brighton. It would

have been good to be alone but for his longing after Maryska. He missed

her every minute of the day--there was hardly an hour from dawn to dark

when her image did not arise before him and her black eyes look into his

own.

Brighton had always interested him in the old time, but he found it

insupportably dull during this brief and almost penitential vacation.

His club, one of the "brainiest" in the country, as he used to boast

elsewhere, was filled by earnest men who could discuss nothing but the

passing of the frost and the danger which the country had escaped almost

miraculously. Standing upon the breezy front, where a warm south wind

rattled the windows of the old houses, it seemed impossible to believe

that a man might have picked ice from that very shore but a few short

weeks ago. Now Brighton was as ever a compound of stones and stucco; of

square lawns and of wide windows as methodical; of a tumbling sea, and

elderly gentlemen in weird waistcoats to gaze upon it.

All these had plans for their country's salvation, and few of them did

not mention the name of John Faber at some time or other. Harry would

sit in the corner with the old priest, Father Healy, and listen

contemptuously to the talk of one who, as he said, had earned

immortality by cornering the wheat market and then giving away a few

sacks for the sake of making a splash! When the kindly old priest would

say, "Come, come! he has done very much more than that," the good

sportsman admitted that perhaps he had; but he would invariably round it

off by saying, "Well, he's gone now, anyway!" and would ask upon that:

"What are we going to do to help ourselves; that's what I want to know?"

It opened fine possibilities of debate in which many joined. The

militant section had but one panacea: "We must prepare for war!"

Civilians, equally confident, harped upon a system of national

granaries, and asked what imbecility of the national intellect had

prevented us building them before? "Provisions against a siege," they

said.

The priest was almost alone in desiring that a siege should be made

impossible.

"Build granaries of goodwill, as John Faber has advised you," he said.

"Let the builders be your best intellects. There is no other surety!"

Harry liked the doctrine, but had not the wit to support it with

success. He was constantly depressed, and even the cheery spirits in the

billiard-room could do little for him. The futility of his flight and

the cowardice of it became apparent as the days rolled by. Why had he

left London and what was he doing in this place? Was not Maryska alone,

and was she the one to be left safely to her own devices? He began to be

afraid for her, and to say that he must return. His courage shrank from

the ordeal, but his desire would face it.

And that was the state of things when, without any warning at all, "the

little gipsy" came to Brighton, and, presenting herself immediately at

his rooms, declared with conviction her intention not to depart

therefrom without her lover.

CHAPTER IV

SURRENDER AND AFTERWARDS

I

She looked very tired; there were deep black lines beneath her eyes, and

her dress was muddy. Incidentally she told him that she had walked from

the station--a feminine coup to deceive possible adversaries, and one

greatly to her liking.

Harry occupied a bedroom and a sitting-room in that Boulevard St.

Germain of Brighton, Oriental Terrace, opposite the club. The

sitting-room had a window, from where you could see the pier if your

neck were long enough; the bedroom was dark and gloomy, and suggestive

of the monastic habit. Neither apartment had any ornament to speak

of--the pictures wounded the gentlest critic; the chairs were

mid-Victorian and covered in leather. Yet when Maryska came, he would

have sworn that this was a house of Arcady. One wild question he put to

her: one loud word of remonstrance which brought the tears to her eyes.

Then she was in his arms, her heart beating like a frightened bird's,

all her nerves quivering when her lips sought his own.

"Maryska, what have you done?"

She snatched her hat from her tousled hair, and threw it on the shabby

sofa. Squatting upon the corner of the table, her luggage in her hand,

she tried to tell as well as laughter and tears would permit.

"It was after breakfast--Gabrielle had gone down to the church to see

the organist. I ran out with all my money in my purse, and went round to

Holly Place. She would not tell me where you were until I frightened

her--_Dieu de mon âme_, what a woman she was! But I stamped my foot, and

I said the things he used to say, and then she wrote it down for me. At

the bottom of the wide hill I saw the _voiturier_, and called him. When

I said that it was to Brighton, he laughed--the _gamin_ that he was! But

I was angry once more and I got into the carriage, and I would not get

out again. That seemed to please him. He said that he would vote for

women, and he took me to the _gare_. I did not know that you must go by

the railway to Brighton, and he laughed when I asked him--but the

_facteur_ was there, and he said I was on time. So I came right

along--and _ecco_, I am here! Are you glad that is so, _bête sauvage_?

Are you not pleased that I have come to you?"

He had not an idea what to say to her. The world seemed to be turned

upside down in an instant. There was no such town as Brighton in all the

kingdom. How the sun shone into that gloomy room! What diamonds of light

were everywhere! He had come suddenly to the palace of his dreams and

the mistress of it was here. And yet his talk must be a commonplace. The

whys and wherefores would not stand aside even in an hour pregnant of

such wonders.

"Do you mean to say you bolted, Maryska--just biffed off without a word

to anyone? My hat! what will the Silvesters say? What shall we tell them

when we go back?"

She swung a little bonnet by the strings and shrugged her shoulders

determinedly.

"Do you suppose I am going back to that house? _Jamais de ma vie_--I am

here, and I shall stay. If you do not want me, please say so. I have

money and I shall do very well. It is there, and you can count it; the

American is my friend, and he has given me money always. So, you see, I

do not wish you to work for me; and when the money is all spent, I will

go out to the cafés and they will let me dance. Then we shall do very

well, you and I, Harry, but not in such an apartment as this. _Dio di mi

alma!_ was there ever so dreadful a lodging? And you have lived here

three whole days as the woman told me! Three days in such a

house--_madre mia_, what a life! But now we shall go away to the hotel

until the money is spent. Say that we shall go, and make me happy, for

you know that I could not live here. Will you not say it, Harry--please,

at once?"

She put her arms about his neck again and kissed him, while her round

eyes looked deeply into his own. He was her lover, and all her creed,

learned in the nomad's church, taught her that she was sacred to him and

he to her. Upon his side was the swift realisation that he must play the

game. He would take her back to London immediately. There was no

alternative.

"I'd say anything I could to please you, Maryska, but don't you see that

we must think of what other people will say? Why, we're not even

engaged, little Gipsy, and if we went to a hotel together, all the

idiots we know would shout at us. I can't have that for your sake. If we

were married, it would be different. Let's go to London at once, and

tell the Silvesters what we mean to do. Now, don't you see, it's the

very best thing we can do?"

She did not see, but sat there, a rueful picture, with fifty golden

sovereigns on the table beside her and all her worldly possessions in a

little unopened parcel. A terrible fear of the return to the gloomy

house in Hampstead consumed her. Her eyes filled with tears.

"I will never go back," she said coldly; "if you do not want me, Harry,

I will go where no one shall ever see me again. If you love me, why

cannot you marry me? I am ready to go to the priest this instant. _He_

said it was all d----d palaver, but I do not refuse to go because of

that. Take me now, and I will be your little gipsy wife. Do you not wish

it, Harry?"

Of course he wished it, and yet what should he say to her? Being a mere

man and knowing something of such a nature as this, her threat had a

meaning he did not dare to ignore. What if she refused to go to London

with him? Would people blame him? He heard already the horrible malice

of those who would declare that he had decoyed her from her home. The

world, so far as it concerned him, would say that he was a scoundrel;

his whole life had taught him to care for such censure when the greater

issues were at stake. Oh! she had put him in a pretty fix; and yet he

loved her and had discovered that he could not leave her though ten

thousand railed upon him.

"Don't you understand, Gipsy," he protested in despair, "these things

cannot be done just like that? I'm going to marry you, and no one alive

shall stop me. But I can't do it in five minutes. We shall have to get a

licence and swear we've lived in Brighton heaven knows how long. Then

there's the church people to see--and, of course, the Silvesters must

know. It would be shabby to keep them in the dark. My dearest, why do

you cry? Don't you see I can't make it different just because I love

you? Won't you understand?"

She looked up at him through her tears.

"You do love me, Harry?"

"More than anything on earth, little Gipsy. So help me God! it's true. I

couldn't leave you now if I wanted to. Put your arms round my neck and

tell me you believe it. There, just like that--and don't say another

word about going away, or I don't know what will happen to you."

He pulled her on to his knees and held her close to him. She had twenty

schemes in her head, but the one she liked best was the suggestion that

her fifty pounds would bribe the priest to an immediate ceremony. For

herself, the thing was of little account. _He_ had taught her that it

did not matter as long as a man loved a woman, and beyond that was a

knowledge of the world almost terrible in its savage conceptions of

right and wrong.

"In my country," she said naïvely, "we go away to the hills when we are

in love, and no one thinks we have done wrong. I have seen dreadful

things, Harry; I saw them at Ranovica when 'the boss' went there with my

father. Oh! do not think I am the simple baby that you English like

their wives to be. The world was very unkind to him and to me.

Sometimes, for many days together we have slept at the hotel of the

Belle Étoile, and he would sell our clothes for bread. Once, at

Perpignan, we were put in prison, and I did not see him for a week. It

was there he met a fellow-countryman who bought us from the judge and

took us to Scutari. His relations were great people, but he would never

ask anything of them, he was too proud. Some day, when you and I are

rich, we will go to Bukharest and tell them who we are. Perhaps we will

walk all the way, as he and I did from Dijon to Nîmes, when the money

was gone. Dear heart! what a walk it was, and all the acacias were

blooming and the scent of the hay in the fields and the white farms at

night--and, yes, the old abbé who was so gentle and good. He called me

'little daughter'--it was near Valence, and I know that if you and I had

gone to him, he would have married us. Perhaps, if you cannot bribe the

priest here, we will take the steamer and go now. Oh, how good it will

be in the warm hay when the sun shines! And we could get money at the

cafés and perhaps in Bukharest; it would be true what he told me, and

his friends would be a little kind. Will you not take me, Harry? Shall

we not go to the sun together, away from this dreadful country? Oh, how

happy I would be! How my life would be changed if you would go. Dearest,

will you not do it when Maryska asks you?"

She pressed her hot cheek upon his hand and held his hands as though she

never would release them. If her confessions startled him, he perceived

in them an acquaintanceship with life and its realities far surpassing

his own. He had led a humdrum existence enough apart from his cricket;

but here was one who could lift the veil of romance as no story-book had

done. The word pictures of the joyous life moved him strangely by their

suggestions of a freedom which was all-embracing; of a garden of love

whereon the sun would ever shine! And from that, it was like him to

tumble suddenly to realities and to remember the loaves and the fishes.

She must be very hungry, he thought. What course more obvious than to

take her to the hotel, and to give her some food?

"By Jove! I forgot all about it," he cried, lifting her on to her feet,

and so snatching at her hat. "We'll go to the Metropole and have some

grub, Gipsy! Aren't you hungry, little wild cat? Don't you think you

could eat me? Come along, then. It will be time to talk about all this

afterwards. We can wire the Silvesters as we go; let 'em do what they

like, Gipsy. I shan't part with you now; never again, I swear."

She shook her head, and was but half satisfied. The kindly minister of

the gospel stood to her for an ogre who would make light of the Belle

Étoile, but much of that ancient office beginning with "Dearly beloved,"

and ending with the ecclesiastical blessing.

II

Gordon Silvester was a man who had lived forty-five years of his life

without excitements, and had then been plunged into them headlong.

It was a great thing for a man, whose only diversion hitherto had been

the weekly disputations with the deacons or the quarterly disagreement

with the organist, to find himself suddenly upon public platforms, cheek

by jowl with the great men of the world, who pleaded for the supreme

blessing which could come upon humanity, the blessing of peace. The

notoriety had fallen to the plodding minister after many years, and

henceforth he had been up to his eyes in the papers, the pamphlets and

other paraphernalia of the pacific propaganda. The _réclame_ of it all

delighted him. He became almost a hustler, and was at war with every

whisper which deplored the ancient habit and the paths of ease.

There were many worries, to be sure. Bishops would send mere archdeacons

to his meetings. His letters to the Press were shockingly mutilated. He

had the suspicion that certain worldly millionaires merely considered

him a pawn in the game, and were quite unwilling to admit that Hampstead

was the hub of the universe. Upon this, came the gradual conviction that

his daughter, Gabrielle, was the real agent of much of the fame that he

won, and that his meetings were a success or a failure in just such a

measure as she chose to make them. If this had been the case before the

great tribulation, he found the position even more intolerable when the

danger was past. All England spoke now of fact and not of theory. The

demand for brains to save the nation from another panic was universal.

Men said that arbitration had become as much a necessity as vaccination.

You could not starve thirty-seven millions because the frontier of a

swamp must be delimited or a possible mine in a bog be possessed! The

phantoms of the living death had hovered over the country during the

terrible weeks and the lesson had been learned. But for that

master-mind--the mind of the great American, whom destiny had sent in

the critical hour--the end of all things had come! It was supererogatory

now to preach mere platitudes from ancient platforms.

So Silvester fell a little to the background and suffered an unmerited

obscurity. The common ills of the domestic life cropped up again, and

must be doctored. He had to pay rents, rates and taxes, and to remember

that Gabrielle was about to marry a boy whose income, at the best, could

not be more than five hundred a year. And she might have done so well!

Some recollection of his old time ambition upon the steamer filled him

with vain regrets now that John Faber had left England. The compensation

was a cheque for £5,000, to be employed to Maryska's benefit until she

should set out for New York. Meanwhile she was to remain at Hampstead to

learn all that Silvester could teach her of the social amenities and the

elemental faith. An unstable patronage, to be sure, but very

characteristic of that restless brain. Silvester paid the cheque into

his bank, and declared he would do his best. Three days afterward he

knew that he could do nothing at all.

III

Harry sent the telegram from the General Post Office at Brighton at

half-past two exactly. It was laconic, and evaded the issue somewhat

cleverly.

"Maryska is at the Metropole Hotel at Brighton with me. All well. Return

as soon as possible."

He had written it when fortified by the child's black eyes, and some

excellent Rudesheim she had insisted upon drinking. It was all up

between Gabrielle and him--it had been all up long ago, and well enough

for both of them that it should be. She would marry the American and

spend his money like one o'clock! Harry was sure of this, though he had

some qualms when he remembered that Faber had sailed from Southampton

and intimated very plainly that the date of his return was distant.

It was wonderful how frankly he and Maryska discussed this very matter.

The daughter of Louis de Paleologue knew little of the sacrament of

marriage but a great deal of the sociology of the studio. Her doctrine

recognised the passion and the pathos of love, but the bonds it inspired

were personal, and had little to do with the priest. If a man did not

love a woman, he left her and sought another. There were neither scenes

nor scruples. Sometimes the woman would rage fearfully for a day, but

her anger soon passed and calm fell. In this case she did not think

there would be any anger, and she was right. There was merely

humiliation.

Verily a heavy blow fell upon that little house in Hampstead when the

telegram came. It was so like Gordon Silvester with his large faith in

human nature, and his habit of making a fetish of a public school

education; so like him to believe it all mere high spirits and to

declare that the pair of them would be home to dinner. Gabrielle knew

the truth from that moment. The ship that drifted upon the ocean of a

"boy and girl" infatuation had come to harbour. She would not hide it

either from her father or herself, whatever the cost to her pride.

"I expected nothing less!" she said to Silvester, when he ran into her

boudoir with the telegram and tried to make a jest of it. "It was in the

child's blood. We cannot be responsible."

Silvester threw himself into an arm-chair, and began to swing a leg as

was his habit.

"Responsible for what? Don't you see it's a childish freak? Of course,

they ought not to have done it. I must cut down all this liberty now

that Faber has gone. She's to give me an account of her day, and no

going out at all unless you or I know. Really, it's too bad of Harry!"

Gabrielle went to the window, still holding the telegram in her hand.

Her lips quivered, but she spoke apparently without emotion.

"At least, he will behave honourably," she said. "I have no fear upon

that point. He will marry her at once, father; he cannot do less."

Silvester laid back his head upon the cushion and surveyed a ceiling not

ill-painted by a one-time zealous amateur.

"Marriage is a great institution, my dear; I don't find it a fitting

subject for jest."

"Oh, my God!" she said, wheeling about and facing him so suddenly that

he sat bolt upright. "Don't you see what it means? Has it not been going

on under our very eyes? And you talk of a 'boy and girl' escapade! I

tell you they are madly in love. She sees no one else when he is

there--he cannot take his eyes off her. Why, they are married already

for all I know--or you care," she added with almost savage emphasis.

The outburst frightened a man by no means blessed with much pluck where

women were concerned. Silvester turned as white as a sheet. It was as

though a pit had been opened at his feet, and he had looked in to see

enormities.

"You don't mean to tell me--God forbid!" he gasped. "You don't mean to

tell me that this is sin, Gabrielle? You don't think that, surely?"

"I don't know what to think," she said in despair. "It is our business

to act at once. You must go to Brighton. What will Mr. Faber say if you

don't? Telegraph to Southampton in case the yacht has not sailed. Have

we no responsibilities? Oh! don't you see? It's madness, madness! And

it's our fault. Both of us are to blame. We have just gone our own ways

and left them to themselves. What else could have come of it when they

were lovers?"

He stood before her utterly abashed.

"My dearest girl," he said, "I will go to Brighton at once."

And then he said:

"But it's of you I should be thinking. God bless you, Gabrielle!"

IV

He left by the half-past four o'clock train from Victoria, and did not

return that night. When he was gone, Gabrielle shut herself up in her

own room, and asked herself what new thing had come into her life.

A turn of fortune had cast her down from the heights to the old abyss of

the suburban monotonies; and now it had put this affront upon her. She

perceived already what sport the teacup brigade would make of it, and

how her pride must suffer just because of the very littleness of her

surroundings. All Hampstead would point the finger at her, and there

would be kind friends in abundance to offer their sympathies. Thus had

her destiny punished the brief hours of an infatuation for which her

youth had been responsible. As others, she had known a day when she had

desired the love of man and had desired it passionately. Thus had she

come to be the betrothed of one who had never loved her, and for this

she must repay.

She had thrown aside much, to be sure, to fall upon such a penalty. John

Faber would have made her his wife could she have escaped the meshes of

a net she herself had tied. He would have lifted her above all these

sordid creeds of a puny society to the heights of freedom and of

opportunity. She believed that she could have risen with him and upheld

a position his money would have won for them. She saw herself the

mistress of a splendid house; heard her name in high places; believed

that she was born to rule and not to serve. And opportunity had passed

her by for this. The man who would have ennobled her had sailed for

America, and she did not believe he would return. In any case, she did

not dare to think of him now. As she had sown, so must she reap.

Something of an intolerable despair afflicted her now, and drove her to

silent tears. The stillness of the house, the measured chiming of the

church bells, the monotonous fall of footsteps upon the pavement, how

they all suggested the round of the insufferable days she must live! It

had been so different a month ago, when her name had been honoured and

her activities abundant. How full her life had been then, when many had

honoured her, and she had gone proudly in and out among the people. Such

an opportunity could not recur; and she reflected that it had been made

for her by one who had been willing that she should wear the laurel his

brains had won. He was on the Atlantic now, and all must seem but an

episode in his story.

Here, perchance, she did herself less than justice; for her aims had

been noble and her faith quite honest. She had desired the supreme gift

of peace upon earth, and much that she had done was the fruit of an

enthusiasm which had brought this very shame upon her. She would not

think of it now nor remember her sacrifice. Enough to say that the night

of her hopes had come down, and that the day would never dawn again.

So the long hours passed wearily. At eight o'clock there came a telegram

from her father in vague terms, but such as she had expected:

"Am doing all possible. Everything will be well. Shall not return yet.

Writing."

She crumpled the paper in her hand and fell to wondering what the

message meant. Had Silvester discovered such an escapade as his faith

discerned or something of which he would not speak? She knew not what to

think, but remembered her last words to him, that he should telegraph to

John Faber in case the yacht had not sailed.

In case it had not sailed!

Her face flushed and her heart beat faster when she repeated the words.

And yet, God knows, it could matter little to her whether the _Savannah_

was still in Southampton Water or had passed the Lizard Light upon its

way to the great Atlantic.

V

The lunch at the Metropole was altogether different from any lunch Harry

had eaten in all his life. It was as though something had transformed

Brighton in a twinkling, making of its commonplaces a paradise, and

melting its shadows in a rain of gold. Never had he realised what a town

it was: how bright, how inspiring, and how typical of a joyous life. And

this is to say that a pride of possession had come upon him so that he

walked proudly by Maryska's side--he who had known hundreds of pretty

girls, and had flirted with many of them. Now the recklessness of a

young passion took charge of the situation, and would not be denied. The

tears had passed from the child's face, and the sun shone down upon

them.

"We shall go to Paris to-night," she said triumphantly, "and afterwards

to Italy. _Bien entendu_, you do not wish to tease me any more, Harry.

It is all over, is it not--this gloomy England and all the sad people? I

shall never see them any more, shall I?"

He laughed loudly, so that many in the room turned their heads to look

at him.

"But, Maryska," he rejoined, "we're not married yet, my dear. How can I

take you to Italy when we are not married?"

She thought upon this, her pretty head poised upon her hand. For herself

that would have been no obstacle at all, for had not _he_ said that

marriage was something which the priests did to keep the wolf from the

door? Harry, however, must be considered, and for his sake she would

think about it.

"You shall pay the priest and he will marry us," she said at length.

"Show him the money and he will not turn us away. It is not necessary to

show him too much at the commencement. Afterwards you can put more upon

the table, and he will see it. That is what my father did when his

friend, the Abbé of Dijon, wished that I should be confirmed. He wanted

to paint a picture in the church there, and he said that it did not

matter a damn one way or the other. So, you see, it can be done, Harry;

and what you can do in Dijon, you can do in England. Go to the priest

and learn if I am not wise."

"Oh!" he cried, laughing as he raised his glass, "you are the last word

in originals, and that's sure! Don't you know that there are twenty

things to be done before people can be married in England? It's almost

easier to get hanged. No priest would marry us unless he had a license,

Maryska. I suppose I can get a special in two or three days, but we

shall want all that. Meanwhile, had you not really better go back to

Hampstead?"

Her spirits fell. The rose-bud of a mouth drooped pathetically. She did

not believe a word of it, and was driven to the thought that he

renounced her after all! Thus she came upon the borderland of a scene

even in the dining-room of the great hotel, while he shrank in despair

from the task of persuading her.

"I will never go back to Hampstead; I will throw myself into the sea

first!"

"Don't talk rot, Maryska. You know I want to do the best I can for you."

"Is it the best to send me away when I love you?"

"I'm not sending you away; I'm only keeping you out of the reach of

silly tongues."

"What do I care for them? What does it all matter if we love?"

"It won't matter for more than two or three days. After that, we'll go

to Italy."

"Then I shall stay in Brighton by your side until the permit arrives. I

will never go to Hampstead again, so help me God!"

"Oh, but you mustn't swear! Let's talk about it after lunch, dearest

girl. I want just to look at you and see you happy. Do you know you're

frightfully pretty, Maryska?"

She flushed with pleasure upon that. Many a man had called her pretty in

the old days; but she shrank from their words then, knowing well what

they meant.

"_He_ used to say that it would be so, if ever I loved a man. I have

been so lonely since he died, and that has made my face sad. Now it is

different. I do not mean to be sad any more. I shall go to Italy, and we

will laugh in the sun together. Cannot it be to-day, Harry? Here is the

sea, and there are the ships. Let us take one and sail away! We can

think of the priest in France, where there are many who will be glad of

our money. Will you not please me, _sauvage bête_? Then take me upon the

ship immediately."

He could not answer it. The problem became more embarrassing every hour,

and when lunch was done, and they were out on the parade together, it

began to seem beyond his wit altogether. Not for a kingdom would he have

brought tears to those bright eyes again. How prettily she babbled at

his side; how quick, how clever, how beautiful she was! A pride of

possession prevailed above all prudence, and drove him far from

considered resolutions. He was content to go, hand in hand with her--God

knew whither!

In the end, it all came back to the priest. Let them see the priest! He

knew but one priest in Brighton, and that was the excellent Father

Healy, with whom he had fraternised at his club. Divine inspiration. Let

them call upon him.

VI

Father Maurice Healy lived up at the back of the town in an old

windmill, skilfully transformed and built about so that it had become a

veritable bungalow, with more than one pleasant room and a little chapel

which his lady friends declared was too divine for words. He had been

smoking his afternoon cigar, when the amazing pair burst in upon him,

and never in all his life had he laid down good tobacco to listen to a

tale so wonderful!

"Ye'll have to wait," he said dryly. "I've no power to marry ye at all

as the State understands the term. Ye'll get a special licence, and then

come to me. 'Tis wise advice, my dear, that ye should go back to your

friends in London until things can be put straight. Make up your mind to

that. I'm no better off in securing you to legal marriage than any man

ye may stop in the street. Mr. Lassett knows that well, and he'll have

told ye as much."

Harry nodded his head in unison with the words as though this was just

the counsel he had expected. Maryska, thinking that she knew priests

well, clasped her precious bag firmly in both her little hands and

looked the enemy squarely in the face.

"We will pay you money," she said with much dignity. "I have ten pounds

here, and you shall have it. What you say does not matter to us at all.

We are not frightened of the judges, Harry and I. If you marry us

to-day, we shall go away to Italy, and the gendarmes will not find us.

He has said that I must go back to Hampstead, but I will never do so. I

will kill myself if you do not marry us. Harry knows that it is true,

and that is why we have come here. Perhaps, if you married us, he has

some money and will add it to mine. There are other priests, but we do

not wish to go to them. Oh, sir, will you not do it for those who love?

Will you not make us happy? It is nothing to me this ceremony, but to

him it is so much. And I have the money here; I will show it to you if

you wish."

She began to fumble with the bag while the good father and Harry

regarded her with an amazement beyond all words. Never had Maurice Healy

heard such an address or seen so pretty a bargainer in that little room.

And the horror of it all--her ignorance, her childish faith, her frank

confession! He was as clay in her hands already--and she, a heathen.

"But, my dear young lady, 'tis far from understanding ye are," he gasped

at length; "not a penny of your money would I be touching anyway. Don't

you see I can't marry ye because the law will not let me? 'Tis not me,

but the Parliament that has the making of it. Ye must take your money to

them."

Maryska looked at him almost with pity. Harry's appeal to her might as

well have been addressed to the stucco walls of the bungalow.

"I do not believe you," she said; "you have a little church there, and

you can say the words. The money will buy you many things that this poor

house is in need of. Please to marry us at once, and then we can go and

be happy. Oh, sir, if you knew what it was to love! But priests do not

know that; they have no hearts. You will let us sail to Italy without

your blessing, and will remember it afterwards. Is it kind of you to do

that when you think that you serve God?"

"But, my child, I will give ye my blessing freely; 'tis to marry you I

am unable."

"We do not care for that; nothing matters to us but our love. We go to

Italy to forget this dark country and its people. If you will not do as

we wish, we shall ask no other. Is it for religion to refuse us, father,

when we have come here as the Church would wish us to do?"

"God be good to me!" he cried in despair, "but I don't know what to say

to you, and that's the truth. I'll see your husband, my dear, and have a

talk to him. Will you come into the dining-room while I have a word with

ye, Mr. Lassett? 'Tis beyond all argument and reason--God knows it is."

She did not demur, and they went away, leaving her before a superb

crucifix, which seemed to speak of the country for which she sighed. The

argument between the good father and the equally good sportsman was both

long and at times explosive. "Nothing easier," said the priest, "than to

take her back to London and be married in three days' time." "Nothing

more impossible to do any such thing," urged Master Harry, who thought

that he knew the patient. She would never go to London, and if she were

left alone in an hotel at Brighton, he would not answer for her. Had she

been an Englishwoman, the whole situation would have been impossible.

But she was just a waif and stray from the wilds of Bohemia, and her

creed had been learned under the kindly stars. Would Father Healy take

charge of her until a licence could be got? The father said "No," most

emphatically; he would have no woman in the house. What, then, did he

suggest?

Of course, they were both very frightened of her, and they spoke in low

tones as though she might burst in and accuse them. Impossible to face

that little fury and declare, "There is nothing to be done." When Harry

suggested that common humanity would marry them and trust to the licence

afterwards, Father Healy asked, "Would ye have me in prison?" None the

less, both plainly perceived now that it must be done. A licence could

be obtained immediately, and the civil marriage celebrated at the office

of the registrar. The good father, vague about the law, followed Harry

back to the room with a protest on his lips. It was none of his

doing--and yet he did it after all. And Harry must swear solemnly, and

she must follow with her pledged word, not to leave Brighton until the

affair was made legal. Oh, the change in her when she knew the truth!

So they got the priest's blessing before the little altar in the

oratory, and when the brief ceremony was over, they went away together,

back to his rooms. But they were no longer gloomy rooms, for now the two

saw nothing but each other's eyes, and little it mattered to them that

the oleographs were mid-Victorian and that the mahogany chairs matched

them. Maryska had found the heart of a new world, and she dwelt there

for just two hours in good content until there came a knock upon the

door, and Gordon Silvester, tired, pale, and wonderfully earnest,

entered softly into their paradise and began to speak of men and cities.

"I have telegraphed to Mr. Faber," he said. "He must know immediately."

Maryska laughed in his face.

"He is on the sea," she said. "You will have to send the telegram which

flies."

CHAPTER V

TWO SHIPS UPON THE SEA

I

Faber had expected such a telegram; but he had not thought that it would

be so longed delayed.

He told Gabrielle once upon a time that she was drifting upon a tide

which would carry her to unhappy seas; but he himself had been doing the

same thing since his work in England was finished. This was a man who

had learned to love a woman, but was a very novice, none the less, in

all the arts of love.

Had it been a business affair, with what zeal would he not have plunged

into it? Being far from that, a situation in which the whole soul of the

man was at stake, he did as the woman had done--drifted upon the tide of

circumstance, and was content to wait.

Be sure that he had read the secret of Harry Lassett's passion for

Maryska almost at the beginning. Because of it, he left her in the

little house at Hampstead, and would have sailed to New York without

her. If Harry had the courage, he would cut the knot, and the treasure

ship would float upon a kindly stream to the harbour already prepared.

But would he have the courage? One excuse and another kept Faber at

Southampton, but the news did not come. The order to weigh anchor had

been given, and recalled a dozen times in as many days. The yacht would

have been in the Solent that very night, but for Gabrielle's

instructions to her father. "Telegraph Mr. Faber," she had said. He

received the message while he was writing to Sir Jules Achon in the

little cabin which served him for library, and there being no train to

serve his purpose, the fastest motor-car in Southampton was on the road

to Brighton within the hour.

It was half-past eleven when he reached Oriental Terrace, and five

minutes later when he burst in upon a dismal company. Having taken

possession of "the assets of respectability," Gordon Silvester had

refused to budge an inch; and having exhausted his homilies upon

"honour," "the married state," and the "scandal of the whole

proceeding," had fallen to a sullen silence. Harry and Maryska, no less

obstinate, declared their intention of remaining in Brighton until a

registrar had married them, and then of leaving for Paris immediately.

An appeal to the girl to consider her obligations toward John Faber met

with the characteristic answer that she recognised none. She was sorry

for this a little later on when Faber himself appeared just like a fairy

godfather to a scowling Cinderella. His coming gratified her vanity; his

dominant will never failed to subdue her. She remembered the hours they

had spent together upon the road to Ranovica and all they had meant to

her.

"Why, little girl, and what has been going on here, now--and Mr.

Lassett, too? I guess I'm on time for the party anyway. Will someone

just tell me what it's all about before we begin? Don't move, Mr.

Silvester. I'd have you all be comfortable and I'll light a cigar if

Miss Maryska doesn't mind. Now, will no one tell me the story?"

Maryska ran to him just like a child to a father. He was plump in an

arm-chair with her by his side before a man could have counted ten, and

she lit his cigar with a little hand which trembled while it held the

match.

"Harry and I are married!" she said, "you must not be very cross; _he_

would not have been. We went to the priest this afternoon--then that man

came, and will not go away! Will you send him away, please? We do not

want him here."

Even Silvester laughed at this; all the conventions went into the

melting-pot at the bidding of the child. It would have been impossible

for Melpomene herself to have resisted her. The minister puffed hard at

his pipe, and forgot her ingratitude. John Faber stroked her hair, and

said to himself that her love had changed her wonderfully.

"Why, my dear, that's not very kind to your good friend nor to me!" he

said gently enough. "Don't you think you might have told us something

about it all? Perhaps we should have been able to help you if you had

come to us. Was it right to keep us all in the dark like this?"

Of course, Harry blurted out that it was all his fault, and that she was

not to blame. There were three speaking at once presently, and all the

while Faber had Maryska's arms about his neck. They had not meant to do

it all--circumstances drove them; they thought that he had gone away. To

which was added the truly feminine dictum that they could not help

loving each other, and were not to blame. When Silvester obtained a

grasp of the situation, and declared that she must have known she was

doing wrong, Maryska responded that she did not care a d----n; which

finished the worthy pastor, and sent him in high dudgeon back to his

hotel. It was nearly midnight, and he feared that he would be locked

out!

When he was gone, Faber took Harry aside and had a long talk with him.

This was a very different affair, and set every nerve in the young man's

body tingling. To begin with, there was the charge upon the honour of

the man. Why had he not had it out with Gabrielle? A man who cannot talk

straight to a woman, whatever the circumstances, is worth very little in

the world. Then, what did he propose to do? To keep house and wife and

children upon his paltry three hundred a year? What selfishness was

that; what a confession of idleness and vain folly! He, Faber, would let

Maryska remain with no man who would not work himself for her, and bring

ambition to his task. Harry should have twelve months to justify

himself! If he needed capital, it was there--but he must prove his

worth. "Show me," said Faber, "that you earn five hundred pounds

honestly at the end of twelve months, and I will make it five thousand!"

Failing that, he swore very solemnly that he would have Maryska back

with him at Charleston, and defy the consequences. "She'll be glad to

come," he said; "she's just the kind to discover whether a man has grit

in him or no--and God help you, if you haven't."

To the little wife, his farewell was in a kindlier mood altogether. She

must know that she had a friend in him always; send for him whenever she

was in trouble. He would try to cross the Atlantic to see her sometimes;

the years were speeding, and he did not mean to work as hard as he had

done. He would have her always in his thoughts, his fellow traveller

upon the drear road of death. The present that he gave her brought the

hot blush to her cheeks. Oh, the days of joy it would buy in the south,

where the sun would shine upon her life. She kissed him again and again.

"_He_ will know that you have made me happy," she said.

He saw her last through the uncurtained window, showing her treasure to

Harry. The boy drew her close and kissed her. They were alone at last.

But John Faber returned immediately to Southampton, through a sleeping

country for which his genius had done much in the days of tribulation.

II

Sir Jules Achon's yacht was in dock when Faber awoke late next day, and

he learned with some surprise that it had reached the Solent yesterday,

and was anchored a little while in Portsmouth harbour, until, indeed,

Rupert Trevelle went aboard with news of the _Savannah_. Then Sir Jules

sailed for Southampton immediately, and so the master minds met at last,

each with his own story of the tremendous days. Faber thought the

baronet a little worn by his labours; but his zeal was unchanged, and he

still looked toward that goal of life where the peace of the world

should be won. The Tsar, he said, was still unwilling to come in; but he

had obtained much encouragement at the minor courts, especially those of

the south-east of Europe. For England herself, he had little hope in the

matter. The old imagination had failed his countrymen. The petty issues,

not the greater, were discussed in the market place.

"This should be a story of three kings," he said, "and they must

recreate the world. In your country, you have built an altar to humanity

which never can be cast down. We learn slowly in Europe, for we are

blinded by the glitter of ancient arms. In more material things, the

shopkeeping instinct is the foe of progress. When I can throw down the

commercial barriers, I can cast out war. The field is mighty, but the

labourers are few. If I were not already in my sixty-fourth year, I

would hope to see the noblest day in the story of man. As it is, I can

but sow and leave those who come after me to reap."

Faber said that none of them could hope to do more.

"We are up against the animal instinct, and that is as old as Eden. You

know my view. If peace is to be won for humanity, it will be by the

brains and the money of those who lead humanity. This country has had a

terrible fight, and everyone is crying out for this or that to be done.

I shouldn't wonder if it all ended in nothing being done. Men talk the

old platitudes the while they read their newspapers and ask what Germany

or Spain has the intention of doing. I don't blame the war party, for it

is its business to make war. God knows, I've seen enough of that to last

me a lifetime, and when I go back to New York, it will be to live on the

hill-top. But others will carry on my business, and it will have to be

carried on. The day when any European nation disarmed for reasons of

sentimentality would be the last day of its freedom. We must deal with

facts as they are; we cannot run ahead of the great company of men, for

assuredly we shall fall if we do."

Sir Jules was in accord with all this. He spoke fervently of what the

big men were doing. Andrew Carnegie and Taft and Bryce at Washington. An

atmosphere was being created, but he feared its artificiality. Commerce

was the key, he repeated; remove the commercial bias and the day was

won. For Faber's promise to become one of the presidents of the

Federation League, he was very grateful. "You have done much for this

country," he said; "your name will mean a great deal to me."

They fell afterwards to talking of their more domestic affairs. Sir

Jules said that his daughter Eva had gone to Winchester to lunch with a

friend, but he expected her to dinner. The same hesitation which had led

Faber to defer his departure upon so many recent occasions, now prompted

his acceptance of the suggestion that he should join the party, and he

went over to the _Savannah_ immediately to dress.

"I'll weigh to-morrow anyway," was his word at parting. "My skipper

doesn't like these waters in the dark, and I've got to consider him.

Eight o'clock, I think you said, Sir Jules? You'll be alone, of course?"

"My daughter and I; it will be a pleasure to both of us."

III

The night fell warm and murky with a soft and southerly breeze.

All the lanterns of the ships in Southampton Water shone clear and

steady as Faber paced the quarter-deck of the _Savannah_ until it should

be time to keep his appointment.

A month ago how different the scene had been--the frost everywhere; the

frightened people; the menace of a peril from which the bravest shrank.

Now this had become a scene of England's maritime habit--a scene wherein

the great steamers moved majestically, their sirens hooting, their crews

to be welcomed home or bidden God-speed, as the occasion demanded. In

the background were the red and green lamps of the railway, the busy

streets of the town, the coming and going of citizens whose day's work

was done. As a tempest drifting, the storm had passed. The ramparts

beloved of the nation had made of this again an island kingdom.

John Faber dwelt upon such thoughts for an instant, but anon they turned

to a woman. Would he leave England and seek no more to reason with

Gabrielle Silvester? Would he be justified in going to her in an hour of

some humiliation? He had no young man's impetuosity, no virile passion

of love which would break all barriers rudely. A real and generous

sentiment toward her, the belief that she was for him the one woman in

all the world had become a habit of his life. She would be the ornament

of any man's home. Her dignity, her wit, her womanliness--in what

precious jewels would he not set them if she had but come to him? And

all this might have been if Harry Lassett had had the courage to tell

her the truth and the little witch of Ragusa had been as other women.

Now, all had been put to the hazard. It might be that all was lost.

The boat came alongside at last, and he went aboard. It was very silent

all about him, and when he heard a woman's laugh, coming from the deck

of a ship, he wondered that it should seem to speak to him across the

waters. The _Savannah_ herself lay warped to the quay of the dock, but

they put a ladder down for him, and he climbed it slowly. A steward said

that Miss Achon was in the boudoir, and he went there--to see neither

Sir Jules nor his daughter, but another figure and one whose wide eyes

expressed all the hope and the fear of that tremendous encounter.

"But," cried Gabrielle, "Eva told me that you had sailed."

"Ah!" he said, refusing to release her hand, "she's not the first of

your sex who always tells the truth."

THE END

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Transcriber Notes:

Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.

Passages in bold were indicated by =equal signs=.

Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.

Throughout the document, the oe ligature was replaced with "oe".

Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the

speakers. Those words were retained as-is.

Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected

unless otherwise noted.

On page 42, a quotation mark was added after "harmony and peace,".

On page 96, a double quotation mark was added before the single

quotation mark in "'Don't".

On page 98, a single quotation mark after "go?" was replaced with a

double quotation mark.

On page 134, "could no nothing" was replaced with "could know nothing".