"Of ... of ... what would you like?"

"Nay ... 'appen ah 'm best wi'oot," James decided, a great mantle of

modesty falling over him at this suggestion of choice.

"Not if you want one, you 're not," Pam said.

Her fingers were burning, and her heart was dreading the opening of the

bag. Was there? Was n't there? Was there? Was n't there? She put her

hand to her side again. James only thought she slackened the grip of

her belt.

"Ah could do wi' un," he admitted reluctantly, "so far as that gans."

"Milk ... would you like?" Pam suggested.

"Nay ... ah mun't mix 'em," he declared oracularly, and licked his

parched lips with a smack of apprehension.

"Mix what?" Pam asked.

"Ah 've 'ad one ... o' t' road," he explained. "Bud 'appen yon barril

's thruff by noo. She wor drawin' a bit thick last time ye asked me."

"Ye 're best wi'oot, Jaames Maskill," came the voice of Emma Morland,

from the interior of the Post Office, "... this time o' mornin'."

"Ay, ah think ah 'm, mebbe," said the postman, plunging hands into his

pockets and screwing up his mouth for a broken-hearted whistle.

"Gie 'im a glass o' lemonade," said the voice again. "'E can 'ave that

an' welcome."

"Will you have a glass of lemonade?" asked Pam.

"Ay, ah 'm willin', if it suits ye," the postman acknowledged.

A hand appeared at the inner door holding a lemonade bottle and a thick

tumbler (the latter looking as though it had once held marmalade in

Fussitter's window), and a second hand, when Pam had possessed herself

of these, held forth a boxwood lemonade opener.

The postman drew forth the effervescing liquid thirstily into his

profounds, with his red chin mounting up step by step as though it were

going upstairs, and a great fizzling sound from within as if he were a

red-hot man, and let the glass rest on inverted end upon his lips for a

space, to make sure it had yielded its last drop, and set it down on the

counter with a great breathed "Ah!" of appreciation, holding his mouth

open while the sparkles needled his inside.

"Noo let 's away," he said, "... or we s'll be 'avin' old Tankard

prawtestin' us to Goovinment agen."

He said this because Pam had already opened the bag and was sorting the

letters with quick, nervous fingers. Those for James Maskill's district

went to the right hand of her; those for her own to the left. Her heart

began to beat furiously. Now the impulse seized her to spread out all

these letters over the counter and to furrow with both hands among them

for the letter she feared to find. She knew by an instinct so strong

that she never for a moment questioned it, what characteristics the

fatal letter would possess. In her mind's eye she saw, with such

clearness that her actual eye could scarcely add aught to the

confirmation, the thin foreign envelope, the green stamps, the familiar

superscription. She went cold and she went hot. Her ears burned, and

there were strange noises opening inside them like whistles and

hummings, as though in protest to the insupportable outer silence, the

imperturbable calm of the Post Office. But the postman was watching

her, and the postmaster from his high deal stool. It seemed as though

they were all three silently concentrated upon the appearance of that

fatal missive. Her emotions hastened, delayed, evaded, shuffled,

ceased; but before these two onlookers her fingers went on regularly as

clockwork.

Right, left. Right, right, right.

Left, left.

Right....

Left....

James Maskill, watching her, thought she hesitated there for an almost

inappreciable moment, as though she had detected her fingers in

blundering, and expected to see her transfer the letter from her own

pile to his. But she had not blundered. No, no; she had not blundered.

The distribution of the envelopes went on again apace, as though she

were dealing hands from Fate's pack. Left, right; left, right; left,

left, left. She allotted the last letter, and pushed James Maskill's

budget towards him across the counter with a heroic smile, enough to

make his eyes water. It was the smile such as a dying martyr might

bequeath to those she loved, and by whom she had been loved. All was

death and the coldness of it underneath, but at times like these death,

coming from within, drives out the soul from its earthly tenement, and

as it lingers on the threshold of the flesh before departing, the flesh

is glorified. Many smiles had Pam given the postman in his time ... but

this one clung to him--so far as anything seemed to him--that she might

almost love him. That smile accompanied James Maskill throughout his

morning's round. Ullbrig, looking beneath its blinds and through its

muslin curtains, and out of the cool, gauze-protected windows of its

dairies at the toiling figure of the postman--hot, perspiring, and

dusty--could have little imagined that he was the carnal receptacle of a

smile; that he held Pam's last look enclosed in his secretive body as

though it had been the precious pearl and he the rugged oyster. But so

it was. He scarcely noticed the shining of the outer sun, to such extent

did the internal brightness light him.

And meanwhile, while James Maskill fed his heart upon that one smile and

thought what a treasury of bliss it would mean to possess the possessor

of it, the possessor walked along, a miserable bankrupt of happiness.

Scarcely another smile remained to her. She had given him that one, but

it was about her very last. Under the broad brown strap of her

letter-bag she strode, with her lips locked and her soul as far away

from her eyes as though the body were a house in the hands of the

bailiffs; the key elsewhere; the occupants dispersed. For all the sun

beat upon the red poppies in her hat till the straw cracked again and

planted burning kisses on her neck, she was almost cold, from her feet

in their black cotton-silk stockings upward. Once or twice even, she

could have shivered for a thought. And the burden of the bag! Strange

that one letter should make such a difference.

All about her the harvest was in full swing; the reapers whirling from

seen and unseen quarters like the chirruping of grasshoppers. The

morning's mist was quite absorbed; the scene was as clear and detailed

as one of those colored Swiss photographs, with a blue sky, showing

perhaps here and there a little buoyant white cloud floating cool and

motionless in it, like ice in wine. Towards Garthston way the moving

sails of the self-binder beat the air above the hedges. Half a dozen

fields distant a pair of red braces, crossed over a calico shirt, struck

out clear and distinct as though the whole formed a banner. Now and

again she heard "Helloes," and looking, saw remote figures hailing her

through their trumpeted hands. When she raised her own hand in response

they made semaphores with the twisted bands of straw or shook rakes in

the blue air. It was not many harvest fields that would have liked Pam

to pass along the road without noticing them. From their side of the

picture they saw the scarlet poppies dancing lightheartedly on their

errand, and took the friendly uplifting of the girl's arm for token of

the smile they never doubted would be there. If they could but have

seen the smile of their blissful imagination at close quarters--a mere

strained drawing back of the lips--as significant of pain as of

pleasure, it would have furnished them with ample material for their

harvest-field converse.

Ah, yes. She was very sick and wretched and unhappy. All the natural

spring was out of her step. She wanted to walk flat-footed, with both

her hands hanging and her chin down; but by sheer resolve she held her

head high, and broke the dull concussion of her step with that lissom

responsiveness of toe which was now the vanished inheritance of her

happiness. She did not want to meet him ... this morning. She did not

feel equal to it. She prayed, as she walked, that she might have this

one good favor bestowed upon her in her trouble: the blessed privilege

of avoiding him. Without the culminating straw to her sorrow, the

letter in her bag, she could have met him ... perhaps ... with some

amount of courage and confidence. But now ... to have to be the bearer

of what she bore ... and repeat all the history of her misery in this

summarised form; to give him the letter ... be witness while he read it

even; hear him tell her definitely that he must go ... that all was

over! Oh, no, no, no! It was too much for her to sustain. And she did

n't want to break down before him again. She did n't want to degrade

herself in his sight. It was one thing to shed tears at a sudden

intelligence ... but it was another to be always shedding them. If she

showed tears again ... he would suspect her. Had he been another girl

she could have wept her weep out upon his shoulder. That was admissible

between girls. But because he was a man ... she could not weep. There

were no friendships possible between men and women; it was love or

nothing. She must just let her heart break--if only it would--in

silence and solitude.

All in thinking upon her trouble, her step, accommodating itself

spontaneously to the mental retardation of her progress, grew slower and

slower. The nearer she came to Cliff Wrangham, the more time she needed

to prepare herself. If possible she must try and slip round through the

Dixon's paddock, cut across the stackgarth, and leave the letter with

one of the twins--if only she could come upon them--without being seen.

They would be sure to be somewhere about. Then she tested her stratagem

by all sorts of contingencies. Suppose Miss Bates came upon her

instead, and asked her to wait ... for any letters in return. Suppose

... he was out in the lane ... waiting anxiously for the very letter she

so feared delivering. She might leave it at Stamway's, and ask

Stamway's if they 'd let Arthur drop across the fields with it ... as

she was in a hurry to get back. And she would give Arthur a penny.

And now her step was slowed almost to a standstill. George Middleway

even could have run her down. All the activity was up above; there was

none left for her legs. Already she was past the halfway house in the

little elbow of road before you get first sight of Stamway's. It is a

part enclosed; except from the immediate fields, which were untenanted,

she could n't be seen here in the pursuit of wasting Government time.

The next turn would bring her into sight again; she would be under the

eyes of Stamway's; Dixon's would be able to follow her progress

henceforward, all but a yard here or a yard there, to the paddock stile.

Before she came into public view again ... she ought to think; she ought

to make sure. And one cannot think, standing erect in the roadway like

a scarecrow. It looks suspicious, even to the suspicious eye of

self--that at these times suspects everything. Instinctively she drew

into the shelter of a hospitable gateway. There, at least, she could

profess for her own satisfaction that she had succumbed to the midday

lassitude; was listening to the music of the reapers, with her arm over

the rail and her foot on one of the lower bars.

Was the past a dream? ... or the present? Had the Spawer ever been? ...

or was he ever going? Which was easier to realise? The joyousness of

then or the misery of now? Should she wake up to discover that all her

unhappiness was a nightmare, that there was no question of the Spawer's

going, no dread of a letter? She dipped her hand, almost unconsciously,

into the bag to see if, perchance, the whole affair was an unsubstantial

fabric of fancy.

Ah, no! No fancy; no fancy. She had not wakened yet. There were the

two letters at the bottom of the bag; the one for Stamway, the other ...

it came out with her hand. She had not wilfully drawn it, but it seemed

to cling to her fingers. Oh yes, how well she knew its motley of stamps

and postmarks; how well the superscription in that familiar feminine

hand. She held it before her eyes, and gazed at the writing as though

she would have wrested the invisible scribe out of it; called up the

astral body of the girl who, in these shapely lines, and all innocently

and unknowingly, had dealt her happiness such an irreparable blow. Who

was she? Where did she live? When, where, and how had he met her? Did

she love music? Had he taught her? Had he taught her French? Was she

beautiful? Ah, she was sure to be. And a lady. That would be a

fashionable way of affixing the stamps. And young. Rich too, perhaps.

She must be, for poor people could not afford to spend long holidays in

foreign places like this. Assuredly the writer of these words did not

tramp the country roads with a bag over her shoulder for six shillings a

week.

Something white and moving grew into the corner of her unconscious eye

as she gazed in absorption upon the fatal envelope--a cow or a horse or

a sheep or a cloud, over the hedge line.

But no; it was not a cow. It was too erect for a cow; too tall for a

sheep; too progressive for a cloud. There was a patch of color about it

too, somewhere. Cows did not wear ribbons, or sheep or clouds.

It was a figure; the figure of a man; a man in white; a man in

flannels--the Spawer.

All at once her dormant consciousness awoke with a start to his

imminence, as though her eye had been giving no warning of his approach

all this while. She turned round, and a great spreading sickness of

guilt took hold of her. Her blood seemed rushing all ways, like an

anthill in confusion. The hand with the letter dropped suddenly, as

though it were a wounded wing. It was the right hand that held it now,

and the bag was on her left side. Had he seen her? Could she pass it

into the bag without notice. He was horribly near ... and looking at

her. Her heart pitched downward like a foundering vessel into the

trough of her fear.

Into the pocket at the back of her her guilty hand crept, trembling and

craven, and lay there, in its thief's refuge, burning unbearably like

the firebrand of her infamy.

*CHAPTER XXIV*

The hot sunlight about the Post Office was savory with the smell of

Yorkshire pudding--you might have almost imagined that it was the house

itself a-cooking--when Pam returned, beneath the sling of the empty

letter-bag.

On other mornings she would take her way in through the two-fold

Governmental door; announce her arrival in musical pleasantry to the

postmaster in his little shoemakery; hang up the flabby letter-bag on

its peg behind the counter; pop in upon Emma Morland, if she were at

work in the trying-on room, to commend her diligence or express surprise

at the amount of the work achieved, or ask in what way she could be of

assistance; give a look into the little clean kitchen to feel the pulse

of the oven, and proffer herself for some kind service to her

aunt-by-courtesy, as red as boiled beetroot, and fitting her clothes as

tightly as if she 'd been a bladder set before the hot grate. But this

morning the girl made no parade of arrival. She drew nearer to the

house by the shadow of its walls, and let herself meekly in through the

spick-and-span household door--white painted, with fashionable brass

knob and knocker--that gives entrance between the twelve-paned parlor

window beyond the scraper and the smaller eight-paned window of Miss

Morland's trying-on room, whose austere starched curtains (drawn in

primly at the pit of the stomachs with pink sashes to reveal the

polished oak cover of the sewing-machine, and sundry dress fabrics in

course of construction, casually displayed) always proclaimed any

particularly sacred rite of disrobement proceeding within its sanctuary

by being discreetly pinned.

Whereat, though man's religious fibres might be stirred to their utmost,

it was useless his stopping to spell out the familiar capitals of Emma's

card with all the earnestness of the anxious (and short-sighted)

inquirer after Truth.

Up to her bedroom she stole, a soft-toed figure, by the best Sunday

staircase, with white holland over the carpet. If she were dead they

would bring her down this staircase in her coffin. She wished she were

dead. She was dead in all but the flesh--and in truth she looked but

the phantom of her former self--but the ghost of the girl that had gone

out this morning. All the color was struck out of her blanched cheeks

as though a hand had smitten them white, and no blood returned to

reproach the blow. Her eyes were fixed in front of her whichever way she

walked; it seemed something horrible had been stamped upon them and set

over them for seal. Her lips were hard and rigid; wax-work lips,

artificially colored, upon a wax-work mouth. It looked as if such a

mouth could never open in speech; it was a mold, a cast, struck off the

face of grief. Slowly, but very surely, the old Pam was being squeezed

out of her bodily habitation. As a house in the hands of new tenantry

loses its old outward characteristics and takes on new features of

blinds and curtains and window-palms, so this body of Pam's in the hands

of its new possessor was beginning gradually to display evidences of the

invisible occupant that, hidden behind its walls, wrung fingers and

wept, and spent its moments in the torturing austerities of

self-examination and penance.

... Once in her bedroom, the hardness fell off the girl's face as though

it had been stucco; the hidden occupant came to her trembling lips,

looked out of her eyes, gazed forth upon the outer world, as an escaped

prisoner might, full of horror of his position, and dreading every

moment the summons that should announce his discovery. But there were no

tears this time. Tears are but the petty cash of woman's trouble

account; the noisy silver and copper, which make a great jingle, are

parted with and never missed. Pam's trouble was no longer in silver and

copper, not in gold even. It was in silent bank-notes. All the tears

in the world could not liquidate such a liability. One might as well

attempt to compound with a handful of irate creditors out of the loose

coin at the bottom of one's pocket. Besides, it was not sorrow now, it

was horror. In trouble women weep; but in horror they stare with open

eyes, for fear the thing dreaded may come upon them when they are

unaware. So children, who rain tears at a dog by day, will lie abed

silent at night, with their great, dry eyes fixed upon the darkness, and

fear to cry or close them. Tears, scalding tears, were all about the

hot lashes of the girl's eyes; but into her eyes themselves they did not

enter. Like a thief she had stolen round her own door; like a thief she

pressed it to, with a hand over its sneck, and shot the little catch

under the lock; like a thief she listened--she, who had feared nothing

before but herself and her own conscience; feared everything now.

The big grandfather's clock downstairs went "Br-r-r-r-r!" It was a way

he had; he meant nothing by it; but it sent the girl's hand to her bosom

this morning as though she had heard in the sound the announcement of

her whereabouts to the world at large. Now she strained her ears for

the sounds of feet, the calling of her own name, the approach of

pursuers ... but there came none. Only down below were audible the

muffled intermittent click click click of Emma's industrious machine;

the tapping of the shoemaker's hammer; the sound of the little kitchen

poker thrust energetically through the bars of the grate to rouse the

sleepy fire to its duty by Mrs. Morland; the clash of saucepan lids and

the jangle of a pail. Satisfied that her entrance had been unobserved,

and that the clock's warning had been in vain, she unslung the post-bag

from her shoulder and hung it over the foot of the bed; removed her hat

of red poppies, and laid it on the chest of drawers.

What had she come for? For a moment even she herself seemed scarcely to

know, standing by the bedside with dangling head as though she had been

some wild driven creature fleeing for refuge, of which now, in

possession, she knew not to make what use. Then as she stood, her right

hand crept round to the back of her, found the entrance to her pocket,

burrowed its way out of sight into its depths like a mole; delved there

for a while, lay still, and came forth into the open, dragging its

prize--something white and square and unsubstantial, that crackled

resentfully under the holding. An envelope; a letter.

In the stillness of death the girl held this helpless prey of her

fingers under gaze and stared at it. She did not read. It was no act

of curiosity. It was the horror-struck stare of a face that had been

seeking confirmation of its guilt and found it. She did not look at

details of writing or of the address; she fastened her great eyes upon

the thing in gross--the four inches by three of her everlasting

turpitude. She had not given it to him. Into her pocket it had gone;

in her pocket it had stayed. She had stolen it. She was a thief; a

thief; a thief!

On her soft, clean bed she threw herself and lay face downwards, without

a tear. In her grief, as in everything else that she did, she was

beautiful. Her light dress of print gathered under her and wound about

her body as she rolled, and outlined the supple firmness of her figure

with something of gusto in the task. In abandonment there seemed no

bones in it; it was supple as a salmon; as lissom as a wand cf green

lancewood. Backward or forward, this way, that way, it looked as though

you might have bent it and broken nothing--not even its heart. Her

ankles, dear indices to a fascinating volume, so sleek and tight and

flexible, lost nothing by their encasement in black cotton-silk; into

the little soft leather Sunday shoes her feet fitted like a hand into a

glove; press your thumb and finger anywhere and the leather would gently

resist you. Poor little shoes, that had walked so happily in their time,

how very still and lifeless they lay now, side by side on the white

counterpane, with their soles still fresh and lemon-colored, turned

pathetically towards the foot-rail. This burden at least is too heavy

for you, little patient smugglers. And little arms that had swung so

blithely; how resistless you are now. Many lovers have sought to be

enfolded within them in their time, but you have repulsed them all. Now

is come a lover whom you cannot repulse. They shall clasp him,

unresisting, and he shall enter them. Shame is your lover. He has been

in your waking dreams all this night past, seen dimly and distorted.

Now you have him face to face. Lie still in his arms and be mute before

the hot caress of his kisses. Your Gingers and your James Maskills, your

doctors, your parsons, your schoolmasters, your Jevons, and your

Steggisons have sought you in the flesh, but this lover has found you

through the spirit. Now that the spirit is surrendered the flesh lies

prone enough.

Poor beautiful flesh. Even Shame's kisses cannot corrupt the beauty of

it. In this moment of its weakness and surrender, if the Spawer could

but be witness of you, it is probable (only you do not know it) that

your defeat would gain you the victory. For the weakness of a woman is

her strength, and to see beauty so overthrown, by a lover less relenting

than himself, rouses a man's best instincts of honor and protecting

chivalry.

But the Spawer is three good miles away, and cannot enter damsels'

bedrooms as the sun does. Perhaps, as human nature is constituted, it

is well. If you cried on him he could not hear you, and with that label

of your guilt between your fingers, though you knew he could hear you,

you dared not cry.

Poor child! Poor child! So young, so beautiful, and so wicked! So

dreadfully, horribly wicked!

To say that she thought would be to convey a wrong impression of her

state. Thought, like her eyes, was wide open, but it did not think--any

more than her eyes saw. It stared--stared fixedly, without blinking, at

the consciousness of her great wickedness.

Dreadful images passed over the darkened curtain of life, like the

pictures of a magic-lantern.

In Sproutgreen a poor girl had taken some clothes that did not belong to

her. Only a bodice (very much worn), an old skirt, a vest or two (she

was badly off for vests), and some stockings. She had not meant to take

them, she said ... but all the same she had taken them, and they had

sent her to prison.

That picture showed on Pam's screen too.

She had not meant to take it. No, no; but she had taken it. Why should

n't she be sent to prison? Why should the one poor girl be made to

suffer and she go free?

A man in Hunmouth had stolen a leg of mutton from a butcher's shop when

the butcher's back was all but turned. If he 'd only waited a moment

longer or set off a moment sooner all would have been well. But his

wife was starving and he was in a hurry. He wanted the mutton ... it

was noble of him to risk himself for a dying wife. But the law

recognises no nobility in theft, and sent him to prison.

That picture showed on Pam's mind too.

She was n't starving; there was no excuse for her, even of pity. She

had stolen something she did n't want. She was a thief, unworthy to

receive the weight of honest people's eyes. Looks now, the lightest of

them, smiles and glances, were all insufferable burdens deposited upon

the bowed shoulders of her shame.

Poor girl! poor, unhappy girl! Wrong from first to last. Seeing the

world upside down. Cast forth from the cool leafy oasis of hope into

the burning desert of despair. If she could have taken but one peep

into the man's heart the rain of blessed relief would have fallen in

abundance; she would have kissed that dread letter for token of her

forgiveness; would have risen, smiling in glory, like the sun through

April clouds.

But she could not see. These two souls, surcharged with their vapors of

unshed trouble, that only needed to come together to combine and pour

forth all their misery in one great shower of gladness and

rejoicing--these two souls lay asunder.

While the girl stared dumbly into the blackness of her pillow, the man

gazed with the vacant stare of a harmless idiot over Dixon's first gate.

If his state had been hopeless before, he told himself, it seemed doubly

hopeless now.

To be sentimental by moonlight was one thing, but for a man ostensibly

in the marriage-bespoke department to manoeuvre a wide-awake girl into

the laneways of emotion was a very different thing indeed. All their

yesterday's sentimentalism was so much trade discount knocked off their

relations; he was at cost price now, and something under. The whole

time of their interview this morning she was unmistakably trying to

shake him off; had been inventing urgent reasons why she must be getting

back; had n't a word to say for herself beyond transparent excuses to

get away; could n't say what she was going to be doing this afternoon;

could n't say what she was going to be doing to-night; could n't say

whether she should see him to-morrow; could n't say, apparently, whether

she 'd ever see him again; had almost torn herself away from him in the

end. What was he to think? What was he to say? What was he to do?

He was a sick man now, and no mistake. His very internals tormented

him, as though he were a storm-tossed, drifting ship, and he saw land

and the girl receding from him hopelessly on the horizon. How to reach

her? How to get back to her? How still to save himself?

Alas, during these moments of wounded love and pride, for the Other One!

*CHAPTER XXV*

In one swift headlong descent of crime Pam had suddenly arrived at the

awful pitch of robbing Her Majesty's mail.

She had vague terrorised notions of the penal code and the shameful

penalty of her crime, but her horror for what the world would inflict

upon her, to ease its conscience of the various offences it commits

itself, was exceeded by the horror with which self regarded self. And

she had horror, too, of the unutterable horror that would prevail in

this house, so still and peaceful at present, supposing her crime were

brought home to her and exposed. She saw the awe-struck face of the

postmaster, sitting with his mouth open and empty of words under the

incredible calamity of her shame; she saw Emma Morland looking at her,

part in anger, part in unbelief, part in compassion; she saw James

Maskill obstinately refusing to meet her eye, and pretending to whistle

in shocked abstraction; she saw her one act extended and dramatised to

its very close at Sproutgreen Court-house, as clearly as though her soul

were a theater, luridly lighted, and she were sitting in the pit ... a

horrified, helpless, untearful spectator of her own downfall.

All suddenly the course of the drama was disturbed. There was a sound of

doors downstairs; voices mixed in question and answer. She held her

breath and listened. Her heart gave a great bump and seemed to stop

altogether. So vivid was her conception of her crime that her mind

accepted these noises as indisputable notification of its detection.

All the world was astir about the stolen letter. The policeman was

there; the machinery of the law was in motion. They were come to take

her. They would all be waiting for her below. She saw them in a

blinding group, with the stragglers beyond, about the Post Office door;

children flattening their noses and sticking their tongues grotesquely

against the panes for a sight inside; licking their fingers and drawing

slimy tracks over the glass. And then she heard her name uttered--that

hateful name that was become now as a second word for sin. The sound of

it sent a shudder through her to the soles of her lemon-colored shoes.

"Pam...." It was Emma Morland's voice that called her. "Pam! Are ye

there?"

Instinctively she clutched the tell-tale letter in her hand and

scrambled off the bed. Her first thought was for the little

dressing-table. She pulled up the looking-glass (ah, that was no liar);

rubbed her cheeks with her hands to try and soften their haggardness;

smoothed her hair rapidly; shook out her skirts, and passed on trembling

legs to the door. Her name met her a second time as she opened it, from

a few steps further up the stairs, and more urgently uttered.

"Pam! ... Are ye there?"

Her mouth was dry; her lips felt cracked like crust; her tongue a piece

of red flannel, but her voice might have been less unsteady--as it might

also have been louder--when she answered.

"I 'm here," she said, and with an effort to divert suspicion and appear

unconcerned; "... do you want me, Emma?"

A guilty person would never ask: "... do you want me?" A guilty person

would know too well, and not dare to risk the question. Don't you

understand? Cunning, you see, was coming to her help--now that she was

enlisted in the devil's own army. When the crime is once committed,

when we have taken the infernal shilling and the devil is sure of us, he

does not stint his soldiers with the armament of craft.

"Did n't ye 'ear me callin' of ye?" Miss Morland inquired, with some

sharpness of reproof at having been kept at the occupation.

"... I can't have done," said Pam. "... Have you been calling long?"

"Ah 've been callin' loud enough, onny road," Miss Morland protested.

"What 's gotten ye upstairs?"

Pam's fingers tightened their hold of the letter in her pocket.

"... I 've been..."--she cast a beseeching look around the room for

inspiration; the devil furnished her at once--"washing myself."

"Goodness wi' ye! En't ye washed yersen once this mornin'?"

"I 've been ... having another. It 's so hot outside."

"Ye mud be a mucky un bi t' way ye stan' i' need o' soap an' watter. Ye

do nowt else, a think. Come down wi' ye noo an' set dinner things, will

ye? It 's about time."

Only that! Not detection; not discovery and shame. Only to lay the

dinner things. And she had been paying for that moment with all the

horror and heart-burning and trembling of knees for the real shame

itself. What prodigality of terror! What an outrageous price to pay,

for a mere worthless alarm!

Now it seemed to her her body was turned to glass. Every thought within

her she felt must be visible through its transparent covering, as though

she had been but a shop-window for the display of her delinquencies.

Down at the bottom of her pocket, smothered beneath her handkerchief,

and her hand most frequently over that, lay the object of her crime.

She dared not turn her back for long lest they should see it through her

clothing. If it had been buried under the red flags of the kitchen

their eyes would have been drawn to it and found it. They had lynx

eyes, of a sudden, all of them. They pricked her through and through

with strange test-glances, as though they were trying the flesh of a

pigeon with a fork. When she put her hand to her pocket to reassure

herself, at some horrid suspicion, that the letter was still there ...

their eyes taxed the action and charged her at once, seeming to say:

"Ah! ... what 's that? Did something crinkle?"

Even the handkerchief, in which she had placed her trust to hold down

and choke the evidence of her guilt, narrowly missed betraying her

outright into the hands of her enemies. It was after dinner. They were

all rising from the table, and for some reason, Pam could not say

why--unless it was that she felt some concentrated look upon her from

behind and wished to perform a trifling act of unconcern to divert

suspicion--but all at once she found herself with the handkerchief in

her hand, and heard, at the very moment that her own fear shot like a

dart through her breast, the keen voice of Emma:

"See-ye; what's that ye 've dropped o' floor? A letter bi t' looks on

it."

In a flash Pam spun round upon the white square upon the red tiles. The

schoolmaster had already perceived it, and come forward to relieve her

of the necessity for stooping; his hand was outstretched when she

turned, but she almost flung herself in front of him and snatched the

letter from under his fingers. It was a dreadful display of distrust

and suspicion. Her breath came and went, between shame for her act and

terror for the alternative, while she stood before him, thrusting the

letter into the pocket at the back of her, with a face like a flaming

scarlet poppy, and a breast rising and falling, as though he had been

seeking to wrest the missive from her. As for Emma Morland, accustomed

as she was growing to novel demonstrations of the girl's character, this

present act so eclipsed all previous records, and ran so counter to

everything that experience had ever taught her of Pam, that she gasped

in audible amazement. The schoolmaster, on his side, awkwardly

placed--as one whose undesired services seem to savor of

meddlesomeness--flushed up to the high roots of his hair, and then

slowly, very, very slowly, commenced to whiten all over till his face,

his lips, his neck even seemed turned, like Lot's wife, into salt.

If Pam had but allowed him to return the letter, it is quite probable

that he might have had the good feeling to raise it from the floor and

hand it to her with his eyes upon hers, as a guarantee of good faith.

On the other hand, it was equally probable that he might not. In any

case, the risk would have been truly a heavy one to run. But now, though

Pam had saved herself from open detection, it was only at the cost of a

suspicion that henceforth would keep its wide eye upon her every action.

Love is a terrible detective; it has no conscience; knows no more than a

criminal to discern between right and wrong. Everything that it does it

does for love. The things done are nothing. The thing done for is all.

Back into Pam's pocket went the accursed germ of crime and misery which

she must hug so closely--though she would have given her unhappy soul to

be rid of it.

But there was no safety in her pocket now; all her confidence in a

personal possession fled from her. Her hand seemed sewn into her dress,

by its anxiety to keep assured of the letter's safety. For everything

that she did with her right hand she did half a dozen with her left.

And even that tried to betray her.

"What 'a ye done at yersen?" Miss Morland asked her tartly, when she saw

her collecting the glasses lamely off the table with the left hand, and

the other one missing. "... 'A ye cutten yer finger?"

"No...."

Pain jerked it quickly into use and showed desperate activity with it.

Also, she cast a fearful look over her elbow, lest she should see the

condemnatory square of white lying on the floor at the back of her,

blinking maliciously at her discomposure. The letter seemed, in her

imagination, suddenly instinct with the diabolical desire to work her

ruin. She could no longer trust it about her. Up to her room she betook

herself at the first favorable opportunity--which was the first that

Emma's back happened to be turned. In the low, long drawer of the

wardrobe, deep beneath confidential articles of personal attirement, she

buried it in the furthermost corner, as far as arm could reach. Then

she squeezed the drawer to again noiselessly, and standing back, applied

her gaze in terrible assiduity to see whether the wardrobe showed any

outward and visible signs of having been tampered with for improper

purposes. There was nothing suspicious that she could discover. The

knobs spun wickedly, and winked at her in devilish confraternity:

"Aha, not a word. Trust us. We know; we know!"

The afternoon drew on with a humming and a droning, and a buzzing and a

whirring, and a tick-tacking and a hammering, all mixed up sleepily

together in thick sunlight, like the flies in Fussitter's golden syrup.

The postmaster slept on his little bench in the shoemakery, with his

head back against the wall, and his mouth open like the letter-box

outside, and Ginger Gatheredge's left boot between his knees, sole

upward, and a hammer in one hand and the other thrown out empty--with

the sort of mute, supplicating gesture towards the inexorable that one

associates with rent-day. Mrs. Morland had slipped out to Mrs.

Fussitter's, and would be back in a minute--without committing herself

to say which. Emma was in the trying-on room, with her mouth all pinned

up; there must have been, at one moment, a dozen tucks in at least. The

schoolmaster was in the second kitchen. Pam was in the first. She knew

where he was; her ears were alert to every sound in the house, but she

did not know that he was keeping guard over her with a terrible check of

concentration and listening apprehension. She was frightened he might

be going to seek a conversation with her, but she need have no fear of

this had she only known. He was as frightened of such a meeting--for

different reasons--as she. Suspicion was consuming him again in

silence, like the old former flame of his love. He dared not trust

himself to words; he could only listen. Only desired to listen and keep

always near her. He trusted her no more than if she 'd been a declared

pickpocket. Love without any foundation of faith is a terrible thing,

and his love was a terrible thing. He had loved her before as he would

have loved an angel; his own unworthiness alone had made him fear for

the getting of her. Now he loved her no less--deeper, indeed--but it

was the love for a beautiful and treacherous syren. His love was as

unworthy as he believed hers to be. He knew not to what extent she

would practise her deadly deceptions, and in holding himself prepared

for any, his mind outstepped them all. He opened a book--it was a volume

of Batty's hymns--and laid it on the table to be ready as an excuse,

should any be needed. And there he sat, with the flat of his face

strained towards the kitchen beyond, where he heard the girl astir.

For a while, so far as Pam was concerned, in her solitary occupancy of

the kitchen, she was free from actual alarms. Only her mind troubled

her; asking her how she was going to repair this great wrong that she

had done--for she had no wilful intention of retaining the letter. All

her mind was concentrated upon the hazy means of its safe delivery. All

her fears were lest shame of discovery should fall upon her before she

could make redress. And these fears were not groundless. The task of

redress seemed more difficult as she looked at it. In the first place,

the letter bore the date of its Hunmouth stamping conspicuously on its

face. Had the Ullbrig office had the stamping of its own letters, how

easy it would have been to re-stamp over the old postmark. But coming

and going, all the letters were stamped in Hunmouth. Oh, why had n't

Government trusted them with the stamping of their own? So much better

it would have been--so much better. Yet since there was no possibility

of altering the tell-tale postmark, what was to be done? If she took

the letter as it was ... he might remark the date, remember having come

upon her when she was reading something, remember having seen her put

something hurriedly into her pocket, remember her confusion when he

asked whether there was any letter for him ... piece it all together and

learn that she 'd robbed him.

And till he got this letter ... he would stay at Cliff Wrangham.

And there might be other things in it besides.

Money, for instance. Notes that She wanted him to put into the bank for

her. That made Pam feel very ill. Notes--bank-notes! Those would mean

transportation ... or something, for life, would n't they? The kitchen

felt of a sudden so small and hot and cell-like that she could bear it

no longer. She slipped out feverishly into the garden. There, among

the potatoes and cabbages she made a turn or two, but it was such an

unusual thing for her to do, and she was so afraid lest its strangeness

might set other eyes to industry concerning her altered state, that the

fear that had driven her out drove her in again. Back she came from

under the burning sun into the stewpot of a kitchen. And there, all at

once, she heard a horrible sound from overhead that stunned her

intelligence like a cruel box on the ears. The next moment she was

racing up the little twisted staircase with the horrid stealth and the

concentrated purpose of a tigress. To her bedroom she fled on swift,

noiseless feet; crouched by the door for a moment to make sure, and

prepare her spring, and pounced in terrible silence upon the curved

figure of the postmaster's daughter, on her knees by the fatal drawer of

the wardrobe.

*CHAPTER XXVI*

"What are you doing there?" she panted breathlessly.

"Lawks, lass." The figure of Miss Morland sprang upward like a startled

Jack-in-the-box and caught at the open drawer to prevent an

overbalancement on to her back. "What a start ye gied me, comin' in on

a body like that. Y' ought to 'ad more sense. Ah thought ye wor far

enough."

"You have ... no right here," Pam said, desperately trying to justify

her entrance. "This is my room. You have no right in my room. What

are you doing in that drawer? You ought to have ... asked my

permission."

For a moment Miss Morland's face was a kaleidoscope of conflicting

emotions. Her mind apparently was in such rapid progress that her words

could n't descend, like passengers at the door of a railway carriage,

until the train had sufficiently slowed up.

"Oh, mah wod!" she ejaculated, rising to her feet at length in rare

display of dudgeon, and wiping the unworthy lint of Pam's carpet off her

knees as though it were contamination. "Things is come tiv a pretty

state when ah 've to ask ye whether ye 've ganned an' putten mah red

petticawt i' your drawer by mistake. Mah wod, they 'ave an' all. Ye

mud think a body wanted to rob ye. What 's come tiv ye?"

Even now, with that fatal drawer thrown open, and the signs of rummaging

visible about the surface, Pam dared not retreat from her standpoint.

(Oh, my Heaven! it was n't her standpoint at all. She had n't made it.

Had n't wished it. Up till now Emma had had the run of this room

unchallenged. But Pam was but a poor, unresisting tool in the hands of

her terror.) She dared not give Emma permission to continue the search.

She dared not say she was sorry. She dared not abate one jot or tittle

of her loathsome simulated indignation. She could n't breathe until

that drawer was safely shut.

"If you had asked me..." she began.

"Ah don't want to ask ye nowt," Miss Morland said contemptuously. "Ye

tell me nowt bud lies."

Pam's lip quivered with fear and reproach. How much did Emma suspect?

How much did she know? How much had she seen?

"You have no right ... to say that, I think, Emma," she protested.

It was less a protest than a tremulous feeler, to sound the depths of

Emma's knowledge. But she quaked for results.

"No, ah en't," Miss Morland acquiesced, with the terrible force of

agreement that means so much dissent. "Ah s'd think ye was just comin'

upstairs to get yersen washed again, when ye dropped o' me."

"I will look for the petticoat ... if you wish," Pam offered humbly.

"But I don't think it 's here. Which one did you say it was, Emma?"

"Ah did n't say it was onny un," Miss Morland declared, repudiating the

olive branch. "Ah don't want ye to look for owt. Ah 'll do wi'oot

petticawt sin' ah 'm not fit to be trusted. Ay, an' ye need n't trust

me. Ah don't trust you. Ah know very well ye 're agate o' seummut ye

'd for shame to be fun' [found] out in. Where 's waiter ye washed i'

this mornin' before dinner? An' 'oo's been liggin' [lying] o' t' bed?

Cat, ah s'd think. Folks is n't blind if ye think they are.... Noo,

get yersen washed agen. Ah 'm about tired o' ye."

At which Miss Morland slammed to the drawer peremptorily with her knee,

and flounced past Pam in a fine show of injured pride and indignation.

And Pam never questioned the justice of her wrath. Emma was right to be

angry. Pam had treated her shamefully, shamefully, shamefully. Oh,

never did she think in the hours of her happiness that she would ever

have come to treat Emma like this. To suspect her; to approach upon her

by stealth; to use harsh words to her; to offend her so needlessly and

so cruelly.

All the same, as soon as the feet of the postmaster's daughter had

departed downstairs, telling the tale of their indignation loudly to

every step on the way and banging it into the door at the bottom, the

girl dropped on her knees, opened the drawer anew, and commenced to

examine the depth and nature of Emma's exploration. Heart, soul, and

body, suspicion now was eating her up piecemeal. With the lapse of her

own trust she trusted nobody. Carefully she turned up the articles one

by one, to see how far signs of recent disturbance extended. Thank

goodness, they were mainly at the top. She sent her wriggling right arm

to that furthermost corner at the bottom of the drawer, and the letter

was there; there (relief and reawakened misery) flat as she had laid it.

But this incident had shaken Pam's nerve. Her faith in the room was

shattered, and in agony of spirit she cast her eyes about on all sides

of her to decide where now she could best deposit this horrid

possession. Thoughts of sewing it into a little flannel band and

wearing it across her breast occurred to her. But all sorts of dreadful

things might happen. She might fall; she might faint; some sudden

accident might overtake her; she might drop down dead even, or dying;

willing hands might tear open her dress-body and exhume this frightful

secret from its shallow grave. To such an extent did she foresee

disaster of this sort, that the mere wearing of the letter seemed a

courting of it. It was like shaking her fist in the face of Providence.

And then of a sudden she bethought herself. In the front parlor

downstairs was a little inlaid brass and mother-of-pearl writing-desk

that Father Mostyn had given her. Once she had made regular use of it

for such small writing as she had, but now never. It had become

elevated from an article of use to an article of household adornment;

one of those penates--ornamental fetiches, with which all rustic parlors

abound. To open it almost was an act of profanity, except for Pam. Pam

had one or two little treasures of a personal nature that she was

guarding zealously, and the household law could be stretched a point to

allow her a sight of these possessions from time to time, so long as she

did not abuse the privilege. True, there was no key--but then, respect

of sacred tradition was as good as any key. Nobody had ever looked into

the desk but Pam since its sanctification. Why should they look now?

Down to the front parlor she worked her way, disguising the directness

of her journey with the cunningest side errands, doublings and

confusings of her tracks.

It was but the work of a moment to open the desk, but quick as she was

about it the door of the second kitchen, that led out into the passage,

opened in the meanwhile, and she heard the schoolmaster emerge. There

was no time to dwell upon the details of the letter's concealment.

Between the two leaves of the desk she thrust it, pushed the desk back

into its place, reinstated the china shepherdess on its polished top,

and picking up the crystal letter-weight, with the vivid picture of

Southport in colors beneath its great magnifying eye, engrossed herself

in the examination of this--her scarlet neck and burning ears turned

resolutely towards the doorway.

For some moments, standing silent, a statue of guilt surprised, with her

heart turning somersaults inside her and her voice miles away had it

been called upon--she almost believed that the schoolmaster had entered

the parlor. It seemed she was conscious of his presence advancing

behind her; could feel his eyes boring through and through her like live

coal. So tense was her feeling, and so imperative the summons of that

unseen gaze, that in sheer self-defence she was constrained to lay down

the letter-weight and turn round quaveringly to meet her accuser.

But there was none to meet. The room was empty of any but herself. For

all she knew, the whole circumstance--from the opening of the kitchen

door to the schoolmaster's entrance--was a mere fabrication of her

tortured nerves. And now she would have liked to bring forth the desk

anew and do her hiding over again more thoroughly, but she dared not,

lest she might be disturbed in real fact. Minutes she waited there,

with her hand on her bosom, listening for the selection of a moment that

should seem propitious. "Now," she kept urging herself; and "now,"

"now," "now!"

But whenever she extended an arm some warning voice within her cried:

"Wait ... what was that?" At times it was but the creaking of her own

corset; the straining of her leather belt; the rustle of her dress. But

it always arrested her short of her intention; it always seemed that the

house woke into movement the minute she sought to revise her work.

And last of all, when she had wasted enough favorable moments for the

doing of her work twenty times over, she grew frightened that this

continued propitiousness of circumstance was too good--like summer

weather--to last. Every moment now must see its break-up and

dissolution; every moment added to her risk. And in this she was right.

Of a sudden the sewing-machine stopped with a premonitory abruptness,

and she heard its owner astir. With a haunting sense of dejection and

misery for what she had failed to accomplish, Pam whipped from the room

back to the little clean kitchen.

And the moment after that, her chances for this time present were

ruthlessly snatched away from her. The postmaster awoke to find his

neck and his left arm and both his legs asleep, and something wrong with

his swallowing apparatus, and became very busy all at once on his little

bench. Mrs. Morland came bustling back from Fussitter's and said, "Good

gracious! yon clock 's nivver right." Not that she doubted for a moment

that it was, but as a kind of reproof to Time for having slipped away

from her this afternoon, and got home so much in advance of her.

And Emma Morland emerged from her trying-on room, and came into the

little clean kitchen, apparently searching for something, and resolutely

keeping her gaze clear of Pam. Pam knew at once what she wanted. It

was not anything that eye could see or hands could lay hold of; not pins

or petticoats or needles or darning thread. It was counsel and advice,

locked up so securely in Pam's own delinquent body, and because of her

conduct this afternoon, the girl for very shame and contrition dared not

offer to give it. She besought Emma's eye with a pathetic, supplicating

look to be asked some favor, however slight, by which she might hope to

work back her slow way into Emma's good graces, but that eye knew its

business to a hair's-breadth, and went doggedly about it without

stumbling into the least collision.

Last of all:

"Do you ... want me, Emma?" Pam asked, in an almost inaudible voice of

sorrow and repentance.

"Eh?" said Emma sharply, turning as though she had not rightly heard,

and could not imagine what possible subject should lead Pam to address

her. "Did ye say owt?"

"Do you want me, Emma?" Pam begged again humbly.

She would have liked to throw herself at Emma's feet and pluck the hem

of Emma's skirt, and cling there till Emma poured upon her the

benedictory grace of forgiveness.

"What sewd ah want ye for?" Emma asked incomprehendingly. "Naw; ah can

do wi'oot ye, thanks."

No; she could do without her, thanks. She who had been so glad to have

Pam's help and assistance in the past; who had never done a stitch on

her own account without discussing it first with Pam, and whom Pam had

always loved to help, could do without Pam now. Pam was no longer

necessary to her; was no longer worthy to render assistance. No longer,

for very shame, would she be able to enter Emma's little trying-on room,

and know the happiness of helping; no longer be able to enter Emma's own

heart and talk with her as to a sister.

It was all ended. The lights of life were dropping out one by one like

the lights of Hunmouth when you drive away from it along the roadway by

night. Into the great darkness of shame she was journeying; it seemed

all the old landmarks were being left behind her. In a strange land she

would soon find herself. She was on its borders now--but a twist of the

road, and her old life would be for ever lost to her.

And then suddenly a vivid flash of resolution shot out and pierced her

darkness with golden purpose, like a shaft of sunlight into the dense

heart of a thicket. Why should she go on suffering like this? Why

should she go on bearing her shameful burden of secrecy and silence

round all these tortuous paths and byways of indecision? If she had an

aching tooth, would she tramp through the wet and the wind in ceaseless

rounds, of which the dentist was the fixed centre? This very night she

would take the letter up to the Cliff and leave it at Dixon's. Let him

think of her as he would. It was better to bear honorable open pain

than ignominious secret torture. The simplicity of the resolve came

upon her like a revelation. To think she could have been beating about

the threshold of this decision so long without the courage to enter.

But that is always the way. When the pain of the tooth first takes us

we submit to its suffering. It is only when it has broken our spirit

that we are driven on weak legs to the fatal brass plate, and bemoan the

many hours of wasted anguish that might have been saved had we made use

of the true light when it first illuminated us.

Alas! Pam was not at the dentist's yet, and there was still more

suffering for her in that aching molar of crime.

*CHAPTER XXVII*

Soon all was abustle at the Post Office in preparation for the departing

mail. The kettle commenced to throb upon the red embers of the little

kitchen fire, and pushing out a blithe volume of steam through its

pursed lips, appeared to be whistling light-heartedly at the immediate

prospect of the cup that cheers. From the second kitchen came the

melodious clink of the cups and saucers and tea-spoons; gladsome

tea-table music, heard at four o'clock on a hot summer's day, with its

queer cracked thirds and minor intervals and faulty diatonics. James

Maskill rattled up to the Post Office door again, over the great round

cobbles, and tying the reins up into a loop, stimulated hot and dusty

letter-bringers to frantic final efforts with fierce cries that he was

on the point of departure.

"Noo then, ye need n't gie ower runnin' if ah 'm to tek it."

"Ah s'd sit down, if I was you, an' watch me gan."

"Ay, theer, ye 'll 'ave to mek use o' yer legs."

"Noo, ah 'm just away an' all, so ye know."

Whereupon, at Pam's invitation, he retired to partake of a cup of

smoking tea on the Post Office counter--that reappeared immediately upon

his forehead in the form of globules--and doubling up plum-bread and

butter by laying it flat on his great outstretched palm and closing his

hand upon it, slipped it down his mouth cornerwise, as easily as posting

a letter. Every now and then he gave his tea-cup a vigorous stir to

shake up the sugar in it, and darting to the door of the Post Office,

scanned the street up and down for distant letter-bearers on its

horizon.

"Noo then," he cried out at Ding Jackson, lurking onward from afar.

"'Ow much longer div ye think ah s'll wait for ye?"

"Ah don't know, an' ah don't care," Dingwall Jackson responded

irreverently.

"Don't ye?" shouted the postman, with sudden ire.

"Naw," Ding Jackson shouted back at him, going better. "Ah 've no

letters."

"Ay, bud ye 'll know if ah get 'old on ye," James Maskill cried

threateningly, shaking a doubled fist like a great red brick at him, and

as heavy. "An' ye 'll care too. Ye dommed saucy young divvle."

"Gie ower sweerin'," cried Ding Jackson, as loudly as he could. He

almost twisted his interior in the effort to publish the postman's

offence throughout Ullbrig. "Feythur, James Maskill 's sweerin' at me."

"Ay, ye sewd try an' curb your tongue, Jaames," the postmaster

counselled him as he scowled back to his teacup. "It's a 'asty member

wi' all on us, an' stan's i' need o' bridlin'."

"Ah 'll bridle 'im," said James morosely, stirring up the sugar again,

this time like the dregs of discord. "... When ah get 'im. An' ah know

very well where ah can leet of 'im" [alight on him].

At other times this wicked conduct of James's would have grieved and

disappointed Pam, particularly in the face of his recent struggles and

improvements, but to-day she felt no right to be grieved. Indeed, this

sin seemed so inconsiderable by the side of her own that she envied the

postman his comparative state of sinlessness. To call somebody a

"devil" (which Ding Jackson undoubtedly was, at any time that you used

the appellation to him; morning, noon, or night), what was that? But to

steal something from somebody who 'd been your best friend. To be a

thief. She knew by her sorrows what that was. And James Maskill had

been reproved and shamed and corrected for the one, while she, for the

other--that could have sent her to prison and shamed her before Ullbrig

for ever--she was here, acting the saintly hypocrite.

Oh, no! Whatever James Maskill did now she could never reprove him.

The very worst that his temper could do would always be above that level

to which, through her sheer sinful tendency, she had sunk. James would

never steal. James would never be a thief. From that hour forth she

looked up to James Maskill with a new-born reverence and respect, as to

one whose life was pure and hallowed.

"Thank ye," said the hallowed one, thrusting the cup and saucer and

plate through the kitchen door, and holding them there until he should

feel himself relieved of them.

"You 're very welcome, James," Pam answered him, in the softest voice

that was left to her. Even her voice, it seemed, was becoming hard and

sinful and metallic in these days, to match her soul. "Will you have

any more?"

"No, ah s'll 'a my tea when ah get back," the hallowed one responded;

and in a lower tone, according to custom: "Is there owt 'at ah can do

for ye o' my way?"

Dear, faithful, honest, good-hearted fellow! How he loved her, Pam told

herself bitterly. How he trusted her, vile character that she was. How

his goodness ought to stimulate and strengthen her own, and draw her

back, if so might be, to the old paths she had trodden once.

"No, thank you, James," she said after a pause--in which James only

imagined she was trying to think of something.

"Not to-night?" said the hallowed one.

"Not to-night ... thank you," Pam told him.

If a kiss would have been any good to him ... and he 'd asked for it, he

would have got it then. Poor James! Lost a kiss because he never

dreamed of thinking it would be there, or asking on the off chance.

"Ah 'm still ... tryin' my best," he assured Pam, round the door-post.

"Ah 'm not same man ah was, bud that d ... Dingwall, ah mean, gets

better o' me yet. Ah know ah s'll not be right while ah 've fetched 'im

a bat across 'is lugs. Nor 'e won't, saucy young ... sod. Bud ah 've

not gidden up tryin'."

He had not given up trying. And she--was she trying?

Oh, James, James, James! After many days you are bringing back her

soul's bread to her. Pray that she feed upon it and be strong. She

needs it.

"Good-neet," said James.

"Good-night, James," said Pam.

The postman raised his voice.

"Good-neet, Emma."

"Good-neet, Jaames Maskill," Emma responded.

"Good-neet, Missis Morland."

"Good-neet, Jim lad."

"Good-neet, agen," James said to the postmaster.

"Neet, James. Ye 'll 'ev another nice jonney," the postmaster told him.

"Ay, neet 's about best part o' day, noo," James responded.

He took up the bag, and lingering, cast one extra "Good-neet" over his

shoulder towards the door-post once more, in his second and softer

voice. It did n't seem for anybody in particular, but more as though he

had it to spare, and might as well leave it at the Post Office as

anywhere. Pam's voice, however, registered acceptance of it from

within, with the grateful inflection for a very welcome gift.

"Ay, good-neet," said the postman, giving her another forthwith; and

after hesitating on the impulse of a third, hardened his mouth, swung

the bag off the counter by its narrow neck, lunged out into the lurid

sunlight, pulled the cart down to meet him, sprang into his place, said

"Gee" and "Kt," and was round the brewer's corner in a twinkling,

leaving golden clouds behind him.

And as soon as tea was over and the things were cleared, and the house

commenced to slip into its peaceful evening mood, she set her plans in

motion for the carrying out of her resolve. Viewing the recent

discredit into which her washing had fallen with Miss Morland, it

required all her nerve to brace herself for a visit of this nature to

the bright bedroom overlooking the garden; but stealing a moment when

Emma was absent, she did it, changed her light dress for a darker of

navy blue, and descended, prepared to receive all Emma's scorn now that

it could no longer deter her from her intention. But Emma was nowhere

visible when she reached ground-floor again; her accumulated reserves of

meekness and charity had been vainly stored. And now her first object

was to secure the letter. She reconnoitred the rooms once more, with

the end that she might possess herself of it, and hold it in readiness

for the first suitable moment that might offer her a chance of departure

without being seen. Such departure would not be yet, of course. It

would not be till the dusk was well fallen, and the moon on the rise.

Until that time there was always the fear of coming into collision with

the Spawer about Dixon's farmstead. Above all, she must avoid that.

And meanwhile, the letter must be in her keeping against all chance that

the one moment most favorable to departure in all other respects should

be the least favorable for the procurement of the letter itself.

To her consternation and dismay, she found that the parlor, though she

had imagined it to be unoccupied when she listened outside the door, was

held in the hands of the schoolmaster. He was seated, reading deeply at

the round table, with his elbows on the edge and his hands over his

ears, when she wavered upon the threshold. This first frustration cast a

terrible shadow over her. She did not know where to go to keep vigil.

If she dallied too openly about the house, there was ever the dread that

it might involve her awkwardly with one member or other, and rob her of

her chance a second time, just at the very moment that the schoolmaster

should leave the coast clear. Apparently he had not heard her push the

half-open door and stop dead upon the outer mat, for he had never raised

his head. Dejected and anxious, she stole back to the little kitchen

and twisted her knuckles by the window, watching the slowly deepening

sky--so reflective of her own sinking gloom. From here the postmaster's

approaching steps drove her into the second kitchen. From the second

kitchen the sound of Emma Morland, humming a hymn-tune severely through

her tightened lips, and advancing by the passage door, drove her back

again, and--as Emma still pushed her advance--up the corkscrew staircase

for the second time this night.

"Where 's Pam?" Miss Morland inquired acutely of the postmaster, when

she entered--not that she was in active pursuit or need of her, but that

the girl's absences now were always a source of suspicious inquiry and

speculation.

"En't ye seed 'er?" the postmaster asked innocently. "She 's nobbut just

this moment come oot o' kitchen an' ganned upstairs."

"Ay, to wash 'ersen, ah' s'd think," Miss Morland reflected shrewdly to

herself. "Ah 'd gie seummut to know what lass 's after."

At that moment, if it could have been revealed to her, the lass was

after listening at the top of the staircase with a twisted ear to their

solicitudes concerning her whereabouts. Once upon a time, she told

herself while she did it, she would never have listened to anything that

anybody said, whether she had been the subject of it or not. But now,

listening seemed part of her natural defence; she listened with no

interest in the thing heard, except only as a means for her own

intelligence and safety. At the first sound of words her suspicious ear

was up like a cat's at the chattering of birds.

From her place at the head of the twisted stairs she was driven into her

bedroom once more by Mrs. Morland. Then, when calm had been restored to

the recently ruffled atmosphere of the post house, and it was possible

to probe by ear to the uttermost corners of it, she slipped out a

cautious head, chose her moment, and stole down by the Sunday staircase.

Very gently she pressed upon the parlor door with her cushioned fingers

... very gently ... gently, gently, just so that she ... gently ...

gently ... could catch a glimpse.

Ah!

The treacherous door had cracked, all at once, like a walnut-shell under

her boot-heel. She was halfway up the stairs again in a trice; holding

her palpitating heart and listening terribly over the bannisters for the

sounds that should proclaim discovery of her attempt. But none came.

Baffled, goaded with desire, half-crying with fear of her enterprise's

failure, and yet unable to cry because she lacked the tears to cry with,

being only able to pull painful faces; desperate to achieve her purpose

and terrified with her own desperation, she was up and down the

staircase after this a dozen times; back into her bedroom, listening at

the head of the corkscrew stairs; holding her ear to every point of the

compass. But never dared she essay entrance of the parlor. That door,

just ajar on its hinges, held her more effectually at bay than had it

been bolted with great bolts and locked and barred. Dusky night

descended, the time was getting ripe for her purpose ... and still she

lacked the letter.

Then the greater terror out-terrorised the lesser. Fear of what the

consequences might be should she not achieve her purpose to-night drove

her downstairs for the last time, and into the parlor. With an air of

reckless innocence that pretends it has nothing to be afraid or ashamed

of, she pulled the door wide and strode into the room. In the

simulation of guiltlessness her bearing for the moment was almost

defiant, as though she were braced for going into some hated presence.

And indeed, for all the assuring silence of the parlor, she advanced

with the full expectation of seeing the schoolmaster's figure looming

forth from the table, with his hands to his ears and his back to her, as

he had been on her first arrival. But no black shadow interposed itself

between her and the window; the chair was empty; the room was void.

Gone all this while.... And she in her terror had been letting the

precious moments slip through her fingers like water. Her heart, in

spite of the misery of her lost opportunities, gave a great bound of

exultation when it found the way of its purpose clear.

She sprang across the room and laid hold of the desk. The pleasure of

feeling it in her possession again after all her dividing anguish; this

union of purpose with opportunity; this path unto righteousness--were

more glorious than untold riches. Tremulously she deposed the china

shepherdess, and opening the desk thrust in her feverish fingers.

And then, all of a sudden, her heart seemed to stand still. A great

sinking, swaying sickness seized her.

The letter was not there.

*CHAPTER XXVIII*

The letter was not there.

Like a wild animal bereft of its young, when the first shock of

discovery had had its way with her, she set herself with both hands to

rummage the contents of the desk, as though sheer frenzy of desperation

alone could restore to her that which was lost. Scarcely even did she

regard the objects that her delving brought to the surface, but dug and

tore at them all with a blind, consuming energy that revealed the

unreasoning horror of her mind; turning and returning and overturning;

now above, now below; selecting each thing seemingly with the prefixed

idea to reject.

It was not there. The letter that all her life and honor hung upon,

that she had thought to place there with her own hands, was not there.

It was gone. There did not remain a trace of it. On the floor, upon

her hand and knees, she sought distractedly, stroking the carpet with

passionate solicitude to deliver her the letter that was not hers--as

though it were a great, rough-coated beast that she was coaxing.

And there, on her hands and knees, the schoolmaster came upon her.

Through the thick walls of her engrossment she never heard him; care she

had thrown to the winds.

Still groping and coaxing, and peering over the floor in the fast

gathering dusk, she saw for the first time the shadow that watched her.

It said no word at the moment of her rising. Slowly and tremblingly she

rose upward, like a faint exhalation, a phantom. Had she continued her

vaporous ascent through the ceiling, and through the bedroom ceiling

above that, and through the red-tiled roof, and forth into the great

eternity of dissolution and nothingness, it would scarcely have been out

of keeping with the strange slow spirituality of her rising. All the

passionate heat of her search cooled before that presence; her body,

that had been so assiduous in its enterprise, froze suddenly to ice; the

very life seemed to have been smitten out of her, and her rising but the

last muscular relaxation of a body from which the soul had fled.

"Are you ... looking for something?" the shadow asked her, after a

terrible moment's silence, when the girl's guilty heart seemed trying to

cry aloud and betray her.

It was the old schoolmaster's voice that uttered the question; the

tight, hoarse whisper that seemed to strangle his throat in the

utterance like a drawn cord. And it was the old schoolmaster's figure

that waited upon her answer; the remorseless, condemnatory figure with

its hands to its collar, that always, whatever she did, threw her in the

wrong. All their intervening relations seemed cut out and done away

with. They were back again, splicing their lives at the point where

these had broken off on that memorable night in the kitchen. He was

above her once more, on the great high judgment seat, and she ... down

here--a poor, frail, inconsequential sinner--struggled and wrestled in

the bondage of silence before him.

"I?" She spoke in an unsteady voice, all blown to pieces with short

breaths, as though she had been running fast and far. "No, no! Only

something that I ... that I ... I thought I 'd dropped. Nothing at all

... thank you. It does n't matter."

She wanted to pass him quickly on the strength of that denial--a lie on

the face of itself--and get away somewhere, to her bedroom again, before

he could question her further; but he stood there without moving, as he

had stood in the moonlight, and she dared not advance. She had the fear

within her that he might yield her no place.

"You ... will not find it on the floor," he told her.

"I don't ... know what you mean," she found strength to say--but only

just.

"The letter," he answered. "You are looking for a letter."

In dead silence, like an executioner's axe, the charge fell, and seemed

to sever her anguished head of evasion at one sharp blow from its

trembling trunk. She had no power for struggling now; her life of

tortured anticipation and mental activity was at an end. It was only a

poor, soulless, quivering girl's body that the schoolmaster had in front

of him. He might bend and bruise it as he listed; it should show him no

resistance.

"It was a letter you were looking for," he taxed her again, his voice

gaining severity, it seemed, from her admissive silence, as though he

meant forcing her to confess with her lips what she had hoped to let her

silence say for her.

"... Have you ... got it?" she inquired, in a dry, empty whisper.

Had she spoken the words with a hollow reed under her lips the tone

would have been no more empty.

"It is safe," he said.

And something in the malicious utterance, something significant of

exultation for a victory unfairly come by, revealed to the girl in a

flash, when, and by what abominable means, it had come into the man's

possession.

"You took it," she cried at him, flinging the accusation into his face

as though it were a glove from the hand of outraged honor. "You stole

it out of my desk!" With all the rapid process of moral despoliation

that had been at work upon her during these latter days, and with all

the resultant complaisance for crime, the old indignation rose up strong

in her against the idea of a mean, petty theft like this. It seemed she

might never have sinned or known sin herself, so clear and righteous was

her moral eye become of a sudden. "You thief!" she threw at the man.

"Coward and thief!"

He made no attempt to resent or defend himself against these puny

javelins of her anger. Possession of the letter was so impregnable a

position that he could afford to let her expend her ammunition

fruitlessly against the walls of his silence.

"And if I did take it?" he asked her merely, in tones of gathering

assurance.

"It was not yours to take," she panted at him. "It does not belong to

you. Give it me back. You have no right to it."

"It belongs to neither of us," he said, yet without anger. With such a

power as this letter in his pocket gave him, he had no need of anger.

And of justification he sought none. "My right is as much as yours ...

and I am prepared to stand by it. Call me a thief if you like; mere

names won't hurt me ... your own harsh treatment has hardened me too

much for that. We are both of us thieves."

"... I was going to take it back to-night..." the girl protested, part

in asseveration of her innocence, part in supplication that he should

restore her the letter.

"Perhaps you were," he said, with a callous indifference to her

intentions that boded ill for his own. Apparently he was little

concerned with the girl's atonement or questions of restitution. "But I

have something ... to say to you first. We cannot talk here. Put on

your hat ... we will go outside."

His assumption of authority and dominion roused the last red cinders of

the girl's independence. Now that her back was to the wall and further

retreat was impossible, the energy, hitherto dribbling away in futile

skirmishes, accumulated itself in frontal activity. She was

shamed--bitterly, horribly shamed--but even shame has its pride.

"Give me the letter..." she said doggedly, and held out her hand.

"Put on your hat..." he told her. "We will talk about that outside."

"I will not go with you. Give me the letter first. If you give me the

letter I will go."

"You shall have the letter back ... in good time. Not now. If you

speak so loudly they will hear us. Put on your hat."

"I will not put on my hat."

"... I think you will."

"When will you give me back the letter?"

"When ... we have come to an understanding."

The word "understanding" tolled out across the dreary wastes of her

consciousness like a death-bell.

"... Will you give it me to-night?"

"We can discuss that."

"Give it me now ... and I will go with you."

"No; I cannot give it you now. You have had your way ... in other

things. I must have mine, for once, in this. Put on your hat."

She would have gone on her knees to anyone else in the world that should

have obtained this dominion over her, but before this man, no. To beg

of him, her shame was ashamed. Knowing what he had been wanting of her

all these months--what he was wanting of her now--she dared not plead

for a single concession; dared not put herself under the yoke of one

small favor. Doubly she was at a disadvantage before him. All her

wiles of womanhood; all her tears; all her soft persuasions; her

clasping of hands; her dove-like wooing with the voice ... all that dear

pedlar's basket of feminine graces to win the hearts and minds of man

must be left undisplayed. To this man, of all men on earth, she must not

plead.

"If I will not put on my hat?" she said.

She dared not bind herself in direct negation to the refusal, but she

suggested the act--drawing pride for it indirectly--with the twofold

intention of expressing a contemplated resolve she was far from feeling,

and of arriving at some knowledge of the degree to which the man was

prepared to push his ill-gotten power.

"But you will," he said.

There was something so black about the insinuation--as though he himself

were anxious to save her the sight of what might be in store for her if

she persisted--that she dared hazard no second contingency. They

remained for a second or two in silence, and the slow melting of her

obstinacy into consent was as palpable during these moments as the

melting away of a fragment of ice on a fishmonger's slab. No other word

passed between them then. Very quietly the schoolmaster opened the door

and stood by the wall while the girl slid by him, cowed and trembling.

The postmaster, sitting on the high Governmental stool in the Post

Office, with his back to the window and his newspaper held up above his

head to catch the last red reflection from the darkening sky, staring

upward at the crowded firmament of print through his great glasses as

though he were star-gazing, heard the front door close, and looking over

the ribbed glass screen into the roadway, saw Pam and the schoolmaster

pass together in the direction of the brewer's corner.

"Emma," said he, putting his head in at Miss Morland's door next moment;

and more urgently still, not discerning her there at first in the dusk:

"Emma lass, are ye theer?"

"Ay, ah seed 'em," said the severe voice of his daughter. "Div ye want

lamp noo?"

*CHAPTER XXIX*

That same night the Ullbrig chimes were as clear to hear at Cliff

Wrangham as though they 'd rung in Dixon's stackgarth, and Dixon shook

his head.

"Yon 's a bad sound," said he dubiously. "Ah 'm jealous we s'll be

gettin' some rain before morn."

And while all Ullbrig slept (save two), and all Cliff Wrangham (save

one), a great, black, umbrella-shaped cloud pushed up its head into the

sky above where the sun had sunk, like a mammoth mushroom. Soon there

were no stars left behind Ullbrig church for the tower to show against;

half the sky was black as ink and the mushroom still growing. Out of

the advancing darkness came wafts of cool, wet wind that shook the

sleeping, windows and casements gently, as though to awaken them to

preparation, and bid them: "Be ready--we are coming." And almost while

their breath was whispering the warning, the first rain drop spat

sideways against the Spawer's window, and after that the second and a

third and a fourth. And thenceforward, through the hours till

daybreak--that never broke at all--the silence seethed with the

steadfast downpouring of rain.

All over the country-side this night there would be white faces peering

out through the streaming wet windows, for your farmer is a light

sleeper where his crops are at stake; and men's low, calamitous voices

heard discussing the swift change in their prospects; and stocking-feet

stirring muffled about boarded floors; and bedsteads creaking as

occupants sit up in them, and roll out with sudden-roused anxiety or

throw themselves flat again in the despondency that knows too well to

need any ocular confirmation of its fears; and the sounds of masters,

calling urgently upon men by name in the great attic above, to inquire

whether this, that, or the other had been safely done last night before

turning in.

For three days the rain fell, almost without intermission. At times, for

variation, great big-bellied clouds of white mist rolled over the land

from the sea, and hid it, and rolled away again. They heard the booming

of the minute-gun from Farnborough, and the hoot of passing steamers.

More than once, during these three days, the Spawer extended his

excursions--with fitful energy of action--right beyond the confines of

Dixon's farm, and showed a set face of purpose towards Ullbrig. But it

was all mere moonshine. The thought of his advent in Ullbrig village,

with his streaming mackintosh and soaking cap and be-muddied boots,

deterred him from his folly in time. And whenever he turned back it was

always with a certain consolatory pious pain of renunciation, as though

he had just got the better of a great temptation, and had gained a

victory instead of losing one.

*CHAPTER XXX*

Early on the morning of the fourth day, which was a Saturday, Barclay

was sighted in his spring cart, driving down to Ullbrig to catch

Tankard's 'bus; the farm lad sat by his side to hold up the great gig

umbrella, with cylindrical slashes in its cover, through which a cow

could have jumped, and two or three of its complete ribs showing.

Dixon, standing at the pump in his white waterproof and leggings, his

corn-sack headgear, and his six-penny telescope, as though he 'd been a

skipper, and Barclay's cart (with miniature waves of water curling off

at its wheels) an apparently friendly craft, hailed him as the farm lad

consigned to his master the care of the umbrella, and clambered down to

throw open the lane gate.

"Noo then."

"Noo then," said Barclay in turn, showing his face, and waving the reins

at him with the right hand.

"Ye 're not cuttin' owt to-day, it seems?" Dixon inquired jocularly.

"Nay, ah 'm waitin' while it ripens a bit. Ah thought ye 'd 'a been

agate leadin' yours by noo."

"Ay," said Dixon, "... 'appen we may if rain dizz n't lift. We mud as

well 'ave it damp as dry, ah think. 'Ow diz it suit ye noo, this

tee-tawtal weather?"

"Nay, it dizz n't fall t' be no wuss nor it is. That 's 'ow it suits

me," Barclay responded. "It 's no use stayin' i' 'oose, watchin' crops

waste. Ah 'm away to Oommuth."

"To buy a bit o' band, ah 's think?" Dixon hazarded, with an internal

twinkle.

"Ay, a bit o' band 'll not come amiss i' 'arvest time."

"Don't loss it o' yer way back, onny road," Dixon charged him. "Shall

ye come wi' Tankard?"

"Ay," said Barclay oracularly. "Gen ah don't come later, ah shall."

... And drove away in the sloppy channel of the lane, with the clash of

the gate behind him for farewell.

The farm lad, returning after a while in sole charge of the cart, with

the umbrella totally inverted over him, using one of its rents as a

window, held further parley with Dixon at close quarters by the same

gate--that Dixon opened for him to save a dismount--concerning his

master's departure, and the world in general. The conversation

brightened Dixon's face as it proceeded, and sent him back to the house

with a sparkle in his eye, as though he 'd been asked to pronounce

judgment on a glass of XXX, and could say "Proper stuff this!" with all

his heart.

"Noo, ah 've gotten to larn seummut ti morn, onny road," he announced to

the household assembled in the big kitchen, from whose window the stack

of faces had been interestedly observant of this second conversation.

And in response to the very general inquiry: "What 'a ye larnt, then?"

answered with another: "What div ye think?"

"What sewd we think, an' all?" Miss Bates demanded rebelliously. "Folks

like me 'as no time to think."

"Nay, they 'd do better if they did," Dixon assented, with his

imperturbable geniality.

"Ay, or they 'd do less, 'appen," Miss Bates snapped at him.

"Ah don't know i' what way," Dixon decided amiably. "Noo, div ye gie it

up? Ah bet ye weean't guess, onny on ye."

"Sun 's shinin' i' Oolbrig, 'appen," Arny suggested.

"Feythur Mostyn 's gannin' to slart [daub] a sup o' paint ower t' front

of 'is 'oose," Jeff said.

"Nay, ye 'll none on ye get gain [near] 'and it," Dixon said, not

desiring, however, to give them too much rope, lest they might. "It 's

a weddin'."

"Ay, an' ah know 'oo's it is!" Miss Bates cried, emerging suddenly at

the open door of her rebellious silence, to demonstrate the superiority

of her intelligence, and shaking it at him as though it were a broom.

"It 's Pam's, an' she 's gannin' to marry schoolmester."

"Ay, that 's right enough," Dixon said, with the perceptible reluctance

of admission that would have wished the news--or Miss Bates' guess--to

have been otherwise, particularly in view of her triumphant: "Ah knowed

very well."

"'Oo telt ye she was, though?" Jeff demanded of his father, with

Thomasine unbelief.

"Barclay lad, just noo."

"An' where did 'e get it fro'?"

"Nay, 'e 'd gotten it off too well for me to ask 'im owt o' that. 'E

telt me it wor ower village 'at schoolmester 'ad asked Pam to 'ave 'im,

an' she 'd ta'en 'im. Ah 'm not sure schoolmester 'issen 'ad n't telt a

goodish few."

"Ay, 'e 'll want to tell 'em an' all," Miss Bates agreed gustily. "'E

's been after 'er long enough. Mah wod! Ah 'd 'a seed 'er somewhere

before ah 'd 'a looked at 'er twice, all time she 's been snuffin' 'er

nose at me. They want giein' marriage, both on 'em. Ah sewd 'a 'ad to

be asked a good few times before ah 'd tek up wi' a man same as yon--old

enough to be my feythur, very nigh."

"Ay, it teks all sorts to mek a wuld," Dixon pronounced drily. "We s'll

see what sort on a man teks up wi' you, 'appen."

"'Appen," said Miss Bates, with great reservoirs of meaning wisdom

dammed up behind the accent of that word. And then, not finding quite

sufficient satisfaction in this inflectional superiority, could not

resist the temptation to cry out: "Bud 'e 'll 'ave to be different fro'

be yon sort of a man, onny road."

"When 's weddin'?" Arny asked.

"Nay, ah can't tell ye owt more, wi'oot mekkin' it up," Dixon said.

"Pick what there is for yersens. Ah lay, ye 'll manage to fin' seummut

fresh in it." And looking towards the mid-parlor door: "'As 'e come

doon yet?" he inquired.

"Ay, a goodish bit sin'," Miss Bates said. "Bud ah thought it was women

'at did all gossipin'!" she declaimed angrily, seeing the blessed

standard of intelligence-bearer thus being wrenched from her grasp and

carried into the Spawer's breakfast-table by another. And raising her

voice more loudly as the figure of Dixon disappeared from the kitchen on

its coveted errand: "Ay, ye can talk aboot women talkin', mah wod! Ye

can an' all. Bud what aboot a man's tongue 'at must needs gan off as

soon as it 's gotten to know seummut, an' tell it to ivverybody? Ah 'd

for shame to show mysen so throng wi' other people's news!" And thus

commencing to whip up the top of indignation within her, till it hummed

loudly and threateningly, found an effective lodgment for her hand all

of a sudden on the side of Lewis's cheek. "Put yer mucky fingers

gain-'and that bacon, if ye dare!"

So the Spawer was not the only one to whom the news of Pam's engagement

came as a blow, only he lacked Lewis's privilege of crying for it.

*CHAPTER XXXI*

Sunday morning opened out scowlingly, with an angry watery look that saw

no pleasure in anything. There was no rain, but there were great black

clouds heaped up in the sky, every one containing a thunderstorm, if not

a couple. Such clouds they were as you can make for yourselves by

dipping a thumb in ink and smearing circularly over paper. Between the

superimposed piles of them at times, as they rifted, the cold grey light

poured down upon the level landscape below like pailfuls of water. The

chill drops still spangled everywhere from the recent rain. Every bird

that flew out of the hedges scattered diamonds in its passage. The

grass was bowed down beneath its watery burden, drop upon drop was

strung on the bended blades. The trailing porch of flowering tea hung

weightily over the door, ready to discharge its accumulated wetness down

any neck that passed under. On all the window-sills were long,

tremulous watery rows of jewels. The whitewashed walls of the house

were soaked and mottled; everywhere about the path and laneways were

great pools of gathered water, shivering under the breath that blew over

them now and again, in apprehension of more.

A very day, indeed, for hot coffee, odorous ham, and smoking

mushrooms--as all these ministrants to the stomach's comfort on the

Spawer's breakfast-table there are--but the Spawer only looks at them in

staring disregard.

This last blow about Pam has struck him so suddenly and so forcefully

that he can only keep feeling himself over, and wonder what bones are

broken, and how many. His pride, he knows, has suffered a nasty shock.

All along he has been reckoning upon the girl as though she were an

actual possession, to be left or taken at his own sweet will; a fixed

star in the firmament. And lo! now he finds she is very much of a

planet, with a path of her own, that has swum into his ken and swum out

again, leaving the astronomer stuck in the mud with his telescope to his

eye, a pitiable object of miscalculation.

And by turns he is incredulous and despairing, and hopeful and indignant

and irate. She is not going to be married. It is a lie. There is no

truth in it. She is going to be married. The shadow-man, the

moonlight, the parting, her avoidance of him--all point to the truth of

it.

Pam was marrying a pair of bell-bottomed trousers and a shabby morning

coat. Horrible! horrible!

Oh, the sting was bitter! The disappointment supreme. Even his love for

the girl was so steeped in the sense of humiliation and of grief that

she should have fallen to such extent below the standard of his

measurement, that at times almost he failed to tell whether he really

loved her any longer, or was possessed only of pity.

He could n't believe it. On his soul, he could n't believe it. He knew

it was true, but he could n't believe it. On Sunday morning, wet or

fine, he must go to Ullbrig and learn the truth. Father Mostyn would be

sure to know and tell him.

And meanwhile he had to garb himself with the extra scrupulousness of

attire for covering his torn pride. Now that he was humbled he must be

very proud. He must show no tell-tale flinchings. He must laugh with

the lazy, half-contemptuous humor, as though this little rustic world

... Morbleu! ... this little pasture of bucolic clods ... this fallow

field of earthen intelligences ... you understand? ... this pitiable

place called Ullbrig, meant no more to him in serious reality than Jarge

Yenery's straw hat. If this thing were so, as he knew and dared not

believe ... it should be buried in his bosom and heaped under a thousand

simulations of indifference. Neither the girl nor any in Ullbrig should

have the gratification of knowing that he had ever acted to her as other

than the friend.

*CHAPTER XXXII*

It lacked yet some minutes to service time when the Spawer passed up the

path to church. In the porch old Obadiah Beestman, with a bell-rope in

one hand and a bell-rope in the other, and his right foot slung in the

noose of a third, was still ringing his dismal ding, dang, dong, as the

Spawer entered. Obadiah is also clerk and sexton too, and is shrewdly

suspected by his Reverence of Nonconformist proclivities into the

bargain.

He nodded solemn greeting to the Spawer as the Spawer arrived--the

ringing of the bells being to Obadiah as much a part of the morning's

devotion as the Prayers and Litany--if not more--and told him, "Onny on

'em to left 'and." By which he meant that the Spawer was at liberty to

occupy any pew that caught his fancy, without fear of trespassing upon

rights or being disturbed. Not a soul, so far, was in church. The

Spawer picked his favorite pew, with its faded green cushion and family

of hassocks--the grand patriarch standing a foot and a half high, and

sloped for the knees to rest on without unnecessary bending; with others

of various shapes and sizes, down to the baby sawdust-stuffed buffet, no

bigger than a bath bun. Once upon a time, some God-fearing household of

the Established Faith had come here week by week to worship, and brought

these hassocks to kneel upon, and this cushion for ease in sitting, and

had died or gone away, while the tokens of their devotions were lapsed

into possession of the church. In his old right-hand corner, with his

shoulders fitted into the angle of the high pew-back and side, he sat

and turned over the books within reach; hymns, ancient and modern,

commencing at page twenty; prayer-books, decorated with rude designs of

the human body, with poems against theft, and so much inscribed with

names of ownership that the nine points of law and possession were

merged in them quite; some small, some large; all clammy and smelling of

the vault. Up and down the woodwork of the pew, and the hymn-books, and

the green cushions, were the glistening tracks of lethargic but

progress-making snails. All over the damp walls of the church they ran

too, like luminous hieroglyphics of death and decay; and over the mural

tablet in marble to the memory of Francis Shuttlewell Drayman, one time

vicar, who served God in this church faithfully for forty-nine years,

and was given rest as a reward for his labors on February 19, 1799.

Also Hannah, wife of the above, who departed this life in search of her

beloved husband, August 5, 1804.

As the Spawer sits and ponders over these things, trying to assimilate

them by a sort of spontaneous process with his own state--and find one

common key which shall fit all the varied wards of the locks of

life--the worshippers begin to assemble. Mrs. Hesketh, holding her

youngest by the hand and piloting it (whether a boy or a girl does not

exactly make itself apparent to a superficial observation) up the aisle

in front of her, at the manifest peril of falling over it, and trying by

jerks of the arm to shake its stare off the Spawer, which, however,

requires a stronger arm. They disappear into a pew somewhere under the

lectern, where much sibilant whispering begins to issue immediately upon

their incarceration, as though they were cooking something; and every

second the big forehead of the infant, surmounted by its sailor hat,

shows itself as far as the eyebrows over the pew back and goes down

suddenly, as though its supports had been sundered. Old Mary Bateman

shivers up the aisle too, on the far third-class side, with her brown

charity shawl drawn tightly over her shoulders and clasped into the pit

of her stomach by invisible hands wrapped up in it, as though she were

cold and hungry, and the pinched, alms-house look of humility about the

lips of her bowed face befitting a pauper. Being entirely dependent for

everything in life upon the mercy of God, and having a very proper value

and appreciation of it--which is too infrequently the case with people

able to earn their own living--she has long since discarded pride as an

unmeaning and useless appanage, and walks humbly before the Lord and her

fellow-beings (if they will kindly pardon the liberty of her calling

them such) as the devoutest Christian might desire. At Sacrament she

will wait until the last lip has left the cup, and only presume to

approach the table when sought out and summoned there by the priestly

forefinger. And after death she will go underground in a nice deal

coffin, as being cheaper and more perishable, so that she may the sooner

mix her dust with the soil and make room for somebody else when the time

requires. After her comes Mrs. Makewell, who deems it advisable to show

herself occasionally beneath the priestly eye, as a reminder that she is

still able to go out charing ("God be praised, your Rivrence") at

eighteenpence a day, with her beer; also as a midwife when requested;

and will give his Reverence judicious samples of her bronchitis during

pauses in the service, knowing that his Reverence hears every cough and

scrape and clearing, and bestows port wine upon the worthy. While she

is trying to fasten herself into her pew there are sounds of a massive

sneck being lifted somewhere round the chancel where the vestry is, and

the scuffle of loose boots that are too big for the control of the feet

that don't fit them echoing over a flagged floor. This, the Spawer

knows by experience, is the choir. He even sees them peering round from

the far end of the choir stalls and pushing each other out into the

chancel, and hears the strident hiss of much whispering, which at closer

quarters would resolve itself into:

"See-ye! Old Moother Bateman! old Moother Bateman!" with an

unpublishable effusion upon the subject of this unfortunate from the pen

(or the lips, as he would n't know what to do with a pen if he had it)

of the Ullbrig bard. "Gie ower shovin', ye young divvle." "Look at

Spawer fro' Dixon's, like a stuffed monkey in a menagerie." "Let 's

chuck a pay [pea] at 'im."

The sound of the massive latch resounding acutely through the empty

building a second time puts a death-like stop to the chancel activity,

and an august step heard passing over the flagstones in lonely majesty

of silence announces beyond all doubt that his Reverence has arrived.

At the same moment the Spawer, with a strange, nervous fluttering about

his heart--as though he were about to face some great audience in his

musical capacity--hears the whispering echo of light footsteps going up

the winding stairs of stone from the door in the porch to the organ

loft. If he had been a gargoyle, or a sculptured effigy of Peter, his

ears would have heard that tread, and known the maker of it. Every step

of the way he followed her progress. Now she had two more left, and

then the loft door. The two were taken, and the loft door creaked on

its hinges. She was in the church and behind him. By an instinct as

unerring as that which guides a homing bird he felt, with a painful

throbbing of the throat, the fact of his recognition. He knew, almost

as well as if he had been looking at the scene from some high point of

vantage--higher even than the girl's--that she was gazing down upon him

from the organ loft. And with this consciousness was poured into him

from a vial more bitter the knowledge of her sudden start; the

constrained tightening of her lips; the light suddenly extinguished in

her eye at sight of him; all her being standing still like a human

apostrophe and saying:

"He here!"

Yes; he was here. Miserable wretch that he was; he was here.

Into his shoulders he drew his neck; wedged his head down firmly, and

sat without moving in the corner of his pew. On other Sundays he would

have looked round at her and smiled his greeting upward. But not now.

He dared not risk any such greeting now, lest he should look to find the

girl's face turning from him. Without any shadow of doubt, their

alienation was complete. He who had been regarded as a friend at the

first was come to be regarded as a persecutor now. Even his presence

there this morning was a persecution to the girl; a menace to her. She

could trust him no longer. She suspected his intentions of dishonor,

and was striving to hold at arm's length a man who hung about the skirts

of her encouragement. He renewed his suspended breathing with a measure

of relief when he heard the sliding rattle of the manual doors, and knew

that her eyes were removed from him at last.

And then he knew that another figure had gone up to the organ loft with

the girl, and was contemplating him from on high; a silent, spectral

figure, whose flesh seemed constituted of pale moonlight; and whose garb

was the shadow of night.

*CHAPTER XXXIII*

"Ha! this is beautiful of you," his Reverence said, coming up to the

Spawer after the service and enfolding his hand in that warm, balmy,

beneficent softness of palm. "To come three miles on a morning like

this for the sake of worshipping in the true Faith. Beautiful!

beautiful! quite an example to our Ullbrig laggards, it 'll be talked

of. Ullbrig has only three yards to come ... and it does n't come

those, as you see. When Ullbrig comes, look for the Millennium or port

wine--generally port wine. There 's no mistaking the symptoms. Mrs.

So-and-So's liver 's no better. Put on your best black dress and go to

church this morning, Janie; a bottle of his reverence's port would do

her good. Take care and sit where he can see you and sing as loud as

you can. Show him how capitally you can find all your places, and don't

stare about you when he 's preaching. That 's our Ullbrig way. Go to

church to get something out of it if you can. 'His reverence gets paid

for preaching; we ought to get something for going. That 's only fair.'

See what his reverence the vicar 's to put up with in a place like this.

_Ex nihilo nihil fit_. That 's our motto; which, being rendered

according to Ullbrig theologians, means: Nothing done without good value

given for it in return. If Nonconformity had n't its tea-urns and its

bath buns it would n't hold sway over Ullbrig another twenty-four hours.

Plenty of hot tea and big bath buns, with plenty of flies and currants

in 'em; that 's the way to subjugate the heathen bucolic beast. Music's

no good--any more than the Church. We 're dogs with bad names to start

with, both of us. Musicians are unscrupulous, dissipated vagabonds,

such as you, that live by their wits, as everybody knows. Vicars of the

Established Church are children of Satan and prophets of Baal. We 're

both in the same boat. And," said he, picking up the dismembered

mortar-board from its place by the water-bottle, "this morning we shall

have to swim for it. You can't go back to Cliff Wrangham in the teeth

of a storm like this that 's brewing."

"It 's awfully good of you..." the Spawer began. "But really, I counted

the risks when I came. I 'm ready to take my chance."

"Ha! not a bit of it! not a bit of it!" his Reverence objected, lifting

up his forefinger. "You shall take your chance with me. It 'll be a

dry chance, if frugal. We don't get so many faithful here that we can

afford to treat them with indifference. Come along with you. We 'll

lock up and make a bolt for it. I daresay we can find something in the

larder to serve us in lieu of lunch if the storm sets in. And judging

by the sound of it"--a prolonged peal of thunder spread itself out above

them and shook the hollow fabric of the church to its uttermost

corner--"it 's going to be a stayer."

Together they made the round of the building, closing up all the swing

windows against the deluge that must inevitably come, and giving the

lock of the exterior vestry door two turns as the clerk had admonished

them, set the thick fibre mat close against the lower chink to oppose

any intrusive swill of water, and did what they thought best in such

cases as those where a diamond pane lacked in the leaded windows;

removing the hassocks from below, and spreading a mouldy cushion or two

to absorb the bulk of what wetness came through.

They had only just completed the last of their preparations when a vivid

streak of lightning flashed in the yellow, murky air like a knife-blade,

and seemed to rip up the great baggy canopy of water suspended above

them at one slice. A roar of enraged thunder followed the deadly

thrust, and the rain fell whizzing to earth next moment like arrows.

His Reverence gathered up his cassock in both hands as far as the knees,

and screwing up his mouth and aiming a way for himself with one eye

through the thick downpour to the Vicarage gate--but a dozen paces or so

from the porch--made a game dash for cover.

"Ha! capital! capital!" his Reverence was saying at the other side of

the close, bruised, blistered, and by this time rain-soaked door, wiping

the drops off his chin and nose-end, and running the handkerchief round

the inner rim of his Roman collar. "That 's one of the beauties of

living by your own porch. The elements have n't any terrors for you,"

and stamping his feet upon the flags to shake out the legs of his

trousers, where he had rucked them over his shoes, he led the way into

the sanctum sanctorum, so full for the Spawer with memories of by-gone

happiness.

A dual sense of gladness and sadness possessed him as he walked forward.

Here he was very close to, and here he was very far from, the spirit of

Pam. Out of every tile he trod on some brooding remembrance of the girl

rose up as though his foot had dislodged it; wound about him like the

sorrowing smoke from a funeral pyre and dissolved. In every corner of

the room they entered, the spirit of the girl seemed to linger. All

about the room were the visible tokens of the girl's presence--tokens so

acute that to each of them his mind's eye supplied the absent figure of

the girl as she had been at the actual moment of its accomplishment.

Here she was stooping to straighten the antimacassar of a chair; here

she was smoothing a cushion; here she was adjusting the objects on his

Reverence's writing-table.

And because the Spawer's heart was full of the girl, they did not touch

upon Pam first of all. Instead, they talked of the storm, of the

thunder, of the crops.

And all the while his Reverence was making excursions to various corners

of the storm-darkened room; opened the cupboard door and plunged his

hands with a rattle into a hidden knife basket; tried the blades on his

thumb, and sprang them critically against his palm for selection;

jingled amid silver forks, and counted them to his requirements, large

and small; brought forth glasses, tumblers and wine glasses, and

liqueur; then casters and bottled condiments; plates and napery, and

laying them on the far end of the big dining-table, cleared that space

near the window for their ultimate disposal.

"Let 's see ... one, two ... did I bring the forks? To be sure. What am

I thinking of? Capital! capital! I 've been so long in other people's

clover, you see, that I 'm forgetting how to graze on my own meagre

grassland. That 's better--and the salt. Well! and what 's the concerto

been doing all this time? Made headway, has it?"

He picked open a folded table-cloth by its two corners, and shook it out

of its stiff, snowy creasing.

The Spawer told him that he was afraid ... it had n't been doing much.

To tell the truth (that candid truth at which the Spawer was becoming

such an adept), the weather had corrupted him. First of all it had been

too fine ... and then it had been too wet. This rain had unsettled him.

It had washed out all his inspiration. He 'd only felt inclined to stick

his fingers in his pockets and shiver over fires. The keys were too

cold and damp. There was no warmth about them.

His Reverence gathered the cloth, and spread it over the table.

"Indeed? I suppose you 've not seen much of Pamela ... since I left?"

he asked casually.

The Spawer's heart hit him under the chin.

"Pam?" he replied, as though for the moment nothing had been further

than this girl from his thoughts. "Very little. Let 's see. One ...

no, twice, I believe. Yes; twice to speak to since you 've been away."

"Ha!" said his Reverence, and smoothed the cloth scrupulously down all

its creases and over the corners of the table.

What did that oracular "Ha!" mean? Did it mean that his Reverence knew

the whole history of those two times--or suspected it? ... or knew

nothing; suspected nothing? There are moments when an ambiguous

monosyllable is more potent than the wisest of words--and this was one

of them. The Spawer waited a little space, while his Reverence passed

his smooth palm backwards and forwards over the snowy surface, in the

hopes that he might add something to that unexplanatory "Ha!" But his

Reverence said nothing. He might have been waiting too.

"I 've heard, though..." the Spawer began, feeling the discomfort of

that monosyllable like a drop of cold water down his neck, and stopped

there suggestively.

"Ha!" His Reverence passed a concluding hand over the table-cloth, and

straightened himself with puckered mouth and portentous brows. "...

Unfortunately true. Unfortunately true. Yes."

"Unfortunately" true! The Vicar, then, was his ally.

"... At first," he said, professing suddenly that the destiny of two

drops, trickling slowly towards each other on the window-pane, was of

more moment to him than the matter of the girl, "... at first ... I

hardly believed it. I suppose, though ... you say there 's no mistake."

His Reverence shook his head, and passed over to the cupboard again.

"A very great mistake," he said, stooping on one knee and speaking into

the cavernous recesses of the shelves; and after a moment: "A very great

mistake," he said. "I 'm not surprised at your incredulity. Of course,

being ignorant of circumstances, you 've nothing but your judgment to

guide you--and plainly judgment would lead you to pronounce against such

a form of proceeding. Yes!" He raised himself from the floor with the

twisted face for a rheumatic twinge in his knee, and returned once more

to his table preparations. "I must admit that the girl has disappointed

me. Of course ... ever since the beginning--as Ullbrig will tell you if

you care to pay it the compliment of asking (which I don't suppose you

will)--this has been a contingency to reckon with. But I 'd hoped. You

see ... it 's different. Things latterly had looked so favorable. I

thought the musical experiment was likely to succeed. Ha! and the

French too. Yes, yes; the French too. It seemed to have stimulated the

girl to aspirations altogether beyond Ullbrig. I thought we 'd trained

her palate to require daintier food in every respect than Ullbrig could

give her. And then ... all at once ... to be beaten on the post. Of

course--" he drew attention to what followed with a quiet gesture, as

though it were really quite obvious enough without the superfluous

emphasis of pointing out--"... it would be quite possible for me to

forbid the thing--veto it completely and put a stop to it once for all.

But then..." he screwed up his mouth for a moment's reconsideration of

what such an act would effect, "for the present I have n't quite found

my justification for this extreme measure."

"He is ... a schoolmaster?" the Spawer hazarded.

"Exactly; our Ullbrig schoolmaster. A worthy enough man, no doubt, in

his own particular way--but it is n't the way I had in my mind for Pam.

I believe he excels somewhat in free-hand and rule of three. These are

his specialties. His father--if my memory serves me right--" here the

Vicar appeared to interrogate his memory through fringed lashes, "...

was a--ha!-small greengrocer and mixed provision dealer--Knaresbro' way,

I believe. Of course, under ordinary circumstances, I should have had

no alternative but to nip the whole affair in the bud; pack Pam away, if

need be, and arrange meanwhile for the fellow to be transplanted in some

peculiarly far and foreign soil. But as it is ... that seems an

unnecessary setting of the mills to grind without grist. If we stop this

marriage..." His eye roamed over the table, where knives and forks and

spoons and plates and glasses commenced to array themselves with a

semblance of order beneath his fingers. The Spawer's eye shifted, as a

meeting seemed imminent. "... Perhaps, when I 'm dead and gone, she may

contract a worse. Situated as she is, without friends or society, we

can't hope to place her in life as by right and reason she should be

placed. Perhaps, if one could only finance the girl, and secure

fashionable influence for her, and float her upon the social sea, she

might repay the investment cent for cent. But on the other hand ...

there 's always a fear. Knowing nothing of the temptations of society

life, she might fall to the first barrel like a lame pigeon. Besides,

the girl shows no hankerings after the flesh-pots. There 's not a pinch

of mundane salt in her nature. So why apply it with one's own fingers,

and spoil her in the seasoning? Ha! why indeed? Therefore, as things

stand, she must be sacrificed. This man wants her and she wants

him--more strongly than even I 'd supposed--and when all 's said and

done, we might only make worse of it if we tried to twist human nature

to our own preconcerted theories. At least, the fellow has no positive

vices--they are mostly negative. He is steady, sober, respectable; a

hard worker, likely--so far as one can foresee--to provide the girl with

a certain home for life. For an indefinite period they may remain at

Ullbrig, where--except for those inevitable little disturbances which we

may expect under conditions of matrimony--her existence will be but

slightly changed. Of course, she will have to relinquish her postal

duties, but her parochial work will suffer no modification.