"If I were a younger woman, Richard Farquharson is a man I should fall

head over ears in love with," announced Lady Wereminster, pausing at

Evelyn's door on the way to her bedroom. "I mean no disrespect to

Wereminster, of course; than whom it would be difficult to conceive a

more opposite type. But the man sweeps one off one's feet, by sheer

force of vitality and power. The guileless maiden of my time--it's a

type that no longer exists, my dear; the birth of the twentieth century

killed it--would have been vanquished at first sight, and suffered from

vapours for a week. I suppose you have taken him under your wing,

Evelyn? I noticed his political godfather making overtures to you in a

recess. Well, you have a _protege_ who'll do you credit this time. Not

like some of your lame dogs, who only used their mended limbs to kick

you later. No, it's no use hushing me down, Evelyn. Other people have

eyes and ears beside yourself, you know. Don't you remember making

everybody's life unbearable until you'd secured an important colonial

appointment for the husband of some impossible woman who looked like a

suffragette and lived in the suburbs? After she'd spent the extra three

hundred a year for twelve months or so she began abusing you because you

hadn't got them an appointment in England instead. And there was

another woman, who had twins or triplets, or something tiresome and

embarrassing. You sold your best lace to provide the unprovided guest

with the requirements of decency, and then the mother complained that

the things you gave her had been bought at Peter Jones's instead of

Steinmann's."

Evelyn laughed.

"Come now, you're the last person to preach. Your house has always been

known to be the refuge of the socially destitute."

"One has to pay for one's title even if it's an old one," said Lady

Wereminster. "It tacks on about thirty per cent. on the price of a yard

of ribbon and lessens your income from five hundred a year upwards in

charitable demands. But about Richard Farquharson. I believe that

man's made of the right stuff, Evelyn."

She laid her hand on the younger woman's arm with a sudden access of

gravity.

"My dear, I'm an old woman, and in my heart of hearts I'm as troubled

for my country as though she were my child. All about me are signs of

decay. I see young people spending twice as much a week on pleasure as

their parents would have spent on the necessities of life in a year; I

see every principle I was taught in childhood violated and outraged.

Private betrayals, political treason, public indifference, contempt of

religion, lightness in marriage are everywhere. Signs of the times,

Wereminster says. It breaks his heart like mine. I was brought up to

rank honour and truth and sincerity as everyday virtues, and marriage a

church ceremony so solemn that it made one weep. I think we need some

national upheaval or shock to make us realize how we've sunk morally."

"A strong man in politics, for instance, to take us by our shoulders and

give us a good shaking?"

"Exactly. And that's just what Richard Farquharson would enjoy doing!

The man will make history, my dear, or I'm no judge of character."

"I'm glad you've made friends with Mrs. Brand," said Creagh. It was

past midnight, but he and Beadon had agreed to walk with Farquharson and

Calvert so far as the village inn. "She's a woman of wide interests and

sound common sense. By the way, she asked me if I knew any details of

how Mr. Farquharson arranged that island scheme for you. She said I was

not to press you if you had any objection to telling her."

"It's a long story," Calvert said slowly. "Farquharson never will speak

of it. I think he went through worse things than I knew even. To start

with, he had to go disguised to the bazaar, a thing not one Englishman

out of a dozen could have carried through successfully, even with his

knowledge of Arabic."

"He tossed the whole thing off to-night in a phrase when I spoke to him

about it--said circumstances played into his hands, and it was merely a

question of watching and waiting."

"There was a fairly complicated plot involved," said Calvert dryly. "To

make you understand what happened I ought to explain something of the

actual geographical situation. Taorna, you may know, is the chief of a

group of islands that a good many Powers have coveted in their

day--Turkish, Muscatian, Persian, even Portuguese. She was known to be

a prize, her pearl fisheries only needed to be adequately worked on

modern lines to bring in a big revenue. The Shah of Persia had had his

eyes on that fishery for some time, and had planted secret agents very

intelligently amongst the inland tribes of the Shiite sects. They sowed

discontent and dissension--and we reaped the benefit."

Calvert stopped to light his cigar.

"Let the two others get on ahead a bit. Farquharson hates to hear me

tell this story. Well, the island is divided into two parties; one

being pro-Sheikh Aba, the other pro-Shah Omar. The Persians based their

claim on the fact that, centuries before, Taorna had been an appanage of

the Persian crown, under a certain race of kings."

"There were, in fact, the makings of a revolution, which you

successfully turned to your own ends?" Creagh suggested, smiling.

"To England's eventually, I hope. Mind you, the scheme was

Farquharson's. He began by sending a man to communicate with the

British Consul at Benuni. Benuni is a port on the western coast of

Persia. A British political resident lives there under the protection

of a few gunboats. Sailors are always ready for a fight, as you know;

it's a pleasant variation from the day's work. The Shiite revolution

was timed to take place on Thursday night at ten o'clock. The palace

was to be rushed and the Sheikh taken off to await the Shah's decision

concerning which especial form of lingering death his end was intended

to take. The Shah's claimant was, of course, to be immediately

installed in place of the deposed ruler."

"And then----?"

"By ten o'clock on that same Thursday night the muzzles of two British

gunboats were pointing at the mouth of Zut harbour, ready to protect my

interests." There was a twinkle in Calvert's eyes, but his voice was

preternaturally solemn. "Farquharson had been forced to represent, of

course, that my person was in peril. You can count on the British

Navy's disinclination to inquire unreasonably into the precise cause of

these little affairs. I fear that the Commanders of those gunboats,

young lieutenants both, gathered from the wording of Farquharson's

appeal that my actual purchase of the island had taken place a few hours

before it actually had; in his hurry he omitted to mention the exact

time of the transaction." Creagh chuckled. "It was the death-blow of

the plot. Half the population made for the shore, to see what the

gunboats meant, and what Power they represented. And simultaneously, in

the courtyard of the palace, Aba and his chiefs proclaimed that in view

of the fact that the British had discovered a plot against his life, he

had placed himself under their protection. Only a question or two was

asked. The gunboats answered them."

"But I don't see----"

"Farquharson had interviewed the Sheikh first, of course," said Calvert

simply. "He had made his way into the private apartments, every inch of

the way to which was guarded. How he did it I don't know. Even by day

only the members of the immediate household were allowed to approach

within praying distance of the burying-place of his ancestors, where he

had ensconced himself. I know Farquharson only reached him at the peril

of his own life. He said the old man was quite reasonable under sheer

stress of terror, and delighted to accept four lakhs of rupees for the

transfer of the island. I told you he was old, and, luckily for us, his

sons were lepers. I gave him his summer palace for his own use and that

of the heirs immediate of his body in their lifetime. They were not to

go beyond the walls without a permit for fear of insurrection. Aba was

possibly the more amenable because he was frightened out of such wits as

he still possessed at the thought of being killed in the same way that

he had killed so many others."

"The three men actually were sent to prison then?" asked Creagh.

"Call it free accommodation in an hotel, it sounds better," Farquharson

corrected blandly. He had caught the last words as the men approached.

"I take it that a liberal supply of palm-oil greased your way through

those closed doors," said Creagh, turning.

Farquharson laughed.

"Oh, I had luck all through. I lighted upon the most useful drug in the

bazaar, an excellent remedy for sleeplessness."

"I should like to hear more about your doings, Mr. Farquharson," said

Beadon curiously.

"They're worth hearing." Creagh's tone was hearty. "He ran a great

risk, but it was to some purpose. You and I know how useful Mr. Calvert

has been to us, Beadon; how often his munificent gifts have helped the

nation through tight places when our own exchequer has run dry. I'm

sure he would be the first to acknowledge that he owes much of his

fortune to Mr. Farquharson's help."

Calvert nodded approvingly. Things were panning out as he hoped. He

appreciated Creagh's praise, but his eyes were fixed on Beadon--the man

who, politically speaking, held Farquharson's future in his hand.

And for the moment Beadon was silent. Then--

"What did you yourself get out of it all?" he asked abruptly. "At first

I was under the impression that you were Calvert's secretary, but some

one told me to-night that you held an even more important post."

Calvert laid his hand affectionately upon the young man's shoulder.

"He is Administrator of Taorna," he said; "our report will be published

in a few days. You will see then that the appointment is no sinecure.

I think I may say that we work the resources of our island to the

uttermost; we challenge you to make the fullest inquiries into our

methods and criticize them fairly. Japan took thirty years to grow;

we've taken ten. Even the present Government knows what our trade is:

we have been useful to England already. We have our own fleet and our

own Army, our own line of steamers for transport, our Chamber of

Commerce and Council. Farquharson is the power behind all these; he

holds them in the hollow of his hand. He works, I pay." A new note

came into Calvert's voice, a note of gravity. "I have made him ruler

over a few things already; at my death--God willing--I mean to leave him

in a position where he may rule many things."

Creagh and Beadon walked away in silence. It was not until they had

reached the lodge gates that the former spoke.

"Well, what have you decided to do for him?"

Beadon smiled.

"That's just like you! So you take my belief for granted, eh? Well,

you're right. One might not like him, but one must believe in him.

That impassive, implacable type of man always gets on. Look at his chin!

But one can't decide these things in a hurry. There's the Blue Book to

be looked through first.

"Oh, if it only depends on the Blue Book"--Creagh shrugged his

shoulders--"that's right enough. I read the proofs this morning."

*CHAPTER V*

"... A bar was broken between

Life and life ...

In spite of the mortal screen."--BROWNING.

An American's advice to Farquharson at this particular juncture of his

career would have been to "make things hum." The phrase itself is

vulgar enough, but, employed with discretion, American methods have

something in their favour. Farquharson, for one, knew their value. He

brought infinite tact to bear upon his capture of London; to have

captured London is, luckily for the nation, still to have captured the

world.

He started well, of course. He had come at an effective moment, and his

coming was judiciously pioneered. Then, too, he had the right influence

to back him, and an amazing personality. It was impossible to ignore or

be indifferent to him; he set too big forces in motion. Among the

leaders of society he awoke, indeed, something like enthusiasm, and the

plastic mob followed. Commercial enterprise has not yet robbed us of

our love of the romantic, and there was something essentially romantic

about Farquharson's past.

"The man takes one back to Scherazade and her thousand and one tales,"

Lady Wereminster decided. "He's unique. If he were to disappear before

your eyes on a magic carpet, or turn your inferior electro-plate into

solid gold, or vice versa, at an afternoon call, it wouldn't surprise

you in the least. And yet he is utterly without pose. Then the man's

voice! Well, Gladstone could talk about nothing for a solid hour or

two, and make you think you were overflowing with knowledge until you

analyzed what he had told you in cold blood. I believe this man could

go on talking half the night, and hypnotize you into believing the most

incredible facts."

That Lady Wereminster should take up any new-comer so warmly was in

itself a proof of Farquharson's success. Hare rallied her on the

subject.

"You've a positive _flair_ for him. How long will it last?"

Lady Wereminster shrugged her shoulders.

"One must be in the fashion; his name is everywhere, like Odol

advertisements."

Things had, indeed, opened out amazingly for the new-comer. Public

curiosity was awakened, and public curiosity is another way of spelling

success. Then, too, the political horizon was uniformly dull.

Farquharson's doings were a positive godsend to the Press. The Stock

Exchange was soon alive to his importance; Taorman bonds went up in

leaps and bounds two days after his arrival.

Beadon, coming to visit him one morning and finding him at work with his

secretary upon a mail from which he had separated a pile of invitation

cards, glanced from them to him dubiously. Even distinguished people

were anxious to be the first to exploit this man of the future; social

charity, which popularizes your entertainments with no commensurate

demands upon your purse-strings, is just as much sought after in Park

Lane as in South Kensington.

"Feeling rather helpless, eh?"

Farquharson pointed despairingly at the invitations.

"Shall I accept or refuse the lot wholesale?" Beadon frowned.

"A difficult question. A secretary can't help you here; very few people

could. It doesn't do to go everywhere; it lessens your value. And you

can't afford to waste a moment's time upon unnecessary people. No, the

Press is no guide. In the _Morning Post_ you'll find long accounts of

functions you mustn't dream of being seen at." He took up four or five

invitations haphazard, glancing at the names. "Merrimans, Churchleighs,

Halliways--what impertinence! You must refuse all those. I'll tell you

who could help you--Mrs. Brand. She's a great friend of Creagh's; you

met her at his house, I think. Put yourself in her hands--you can't do

better. She's a good woman, always ready to help. Give her the whole

bundle and take her advice implicitly."

It was the second time that the idea had been mooted to Farquharson.

He sat for a moment idly after Beadon had left, pondering. This would

be the first occasion on which he had ever appealed to a woman for help.

More, indeed, almost the first time that he had been brought into

intimate companionship with one. To know a woman well you must see her

in her home, surrounded by her individual accessories, the little

personal touches which are so sure a guide to character. And he wanted

to know Evelyn better, to trace the exact extent of her resemblance to

the portrait at Glune, which in the days of his worst loneliness he had

re-christened as his "Bride of Dreams."

He motored down to West Kensington that very afternoon, and found Mrs.

Brand in and alone. He went directly to the point, as was his habit; her

slight hesitation in accepting surprised and even slightly piqued him.

People were usually proud to do small services for him.

They met again next day by arrangement; he found her work practical and

business-like, and she was quick in decision like himself. It was the

first of many visits.

Little by little Calvert dropped out of the fray; having put his man in

the arena, he could trust him to hold his own against any opponent. He

was beginning to feel his age. But now at last he seemed on the verge

of reaping his reward for many yeas' toil and struggle. Farquharson had

saved him from going to the grave a disappointed man. For Calvert had

loved Cummings like a son, and the lad's change of front had dealt his

uncle the sharpest blow of his life. The Roman Catholic priesthood was,

in Calvert's view, a network of intrigue and deception, the betrayal of

a man's heritage of freedom; he looked upon Cummings as an enemy of the

State.

Calvert's interest had been purely impersonal at first; courage is after

all instinctive, and may spring as easily from love of adventure as from

nobler motives. "The crowded hour of life" is no real test of

character. But Farquharson won him in spite of himself. He outstripped

Cummings in a stride. Farquharson was born to give orders, Cummings to

obey them. Calvert found himself erecting a pedestal for the one, while

for the other he had made a home.

Calvert watched the growth of Farquharson's friendship with Mrs. Brand

with openly expressed delight. Farquharson needed softening. The

situation might have proved a trifle awkward in some cases, but Brand

was a mere nonentity--an asp whose sting had been drawn long ago. Some

years before a matter of a somewhat shady business transaction had

brought the two men together; Brand had presumed on his distant

connection with Calvert to use his name, and had been at once repudiated

by the elder man. By now he had probably forgotten the incident. There

had doubtless been many transactions of a like nature in Brand's career.

To Evelyn, these daily meetings with Farquharson were the fulfilment of

a great ambition. She had wanted this ideal companionship all her life;

the real "give and take" from which alone happy marriages are formed, if

men and women would but realize the fact. It seemed to Evelyn that to

be useful to such a man as Farquharson, to be at hand whenever he wanted

her, and away when her presence might have been a distraction, to listen

and understand his aims while keeping her independent judgment, to share

the undramatic part of his work and leave him the substantial success,

was a task any woman might be proud of. She threw herself with absolute

ardour into his most minute interests and schemes; after a time he

trusted her even with the outline of plans which had not yet taken

tangible shape, recognizing the value of her quick perceptions and

sincerity.

"You limit my acquaintances, but you yourself know far too many people,"

said Farquharson one day abruptly. "They make claims upon you and you

give in to them. When I left you the other day there were four people

waiting in the dining-room, pensioners, claimants, I don't know what

they were, but they annoyed me. You are a woman who could do something

if you set your mind to it. If these good folks want sympathy, let them

go to an idle or frivolous person who can afford to spend on them the

time you should devote to better things. Every one should have a set

purpose in life; trivial claims and small anxieties distract one in

spite of oneself."

"What set purpose can there be in the life of an ordinary woman of no

especial talent?" said Evelyn. "Only women of genius have real lives of

their own. Most of us are like poor little Alice--'part of the Red

King's dream'--or some one else's. If I died to-morrow, some of my

friends would canonize me and the rest forget. As far as acquaintances

go, one divides them into two sets: those one likes to know, and those

who like to know one. I am nice to the first because I want to be, and

nice to the second because I ought. I am not applying the rule to you,

of course--what is selfishness in a woman is singleness of purpose in a

man, remember."

Farquharson frowned.

"Leave cynicism to others. By the way, we haven't looked at my morning

letters yet."

At the Wereminsters' dinner party a week later, Farquharson was paired

off with Dora Beadon, encased as usual in her unyielding armour of

self-esteem. It was a compliment for which he was not perhaps

sufficiently grateful. He always found Miss Beadon dull, but to-night

she harassed him with a stream of impertinent questions intended to show

sympathy: "Why on earth don't you do this? Haven't you really done the

other? Everybody says----" and so forth.

"One hears of you on all sides," she said archly. "Oh, we all know about

these little West Kensington visits of yours; there will be quite a

scandal if you don't take care. I suppose you'll think we're all

dreadful gossips, but you can't expect charming women to talk nothing

but politics all day, can you? Personally, I always think a man wants a

thorough change when he comes home. Suppose he's in an office, for

instance, why, the last thing in the world he should do when he gets

back is to talk over troublesome business with his wife."

"I've heard a good many unsympathetic and incapable wives urge that as

an excuse for obvious neglect," said Farquharson dryly.

"Well, I know I never let my father say a word about politics or

anything he's really interested in--it's ever so much better for him to

hear what I've been doing all day," said Dora, defending herself.

"Salt, please."

Miss Beadon reddened slightly and tried another tack.

"You lazy person, there is some on your left. You've got an ally worth

having in Evelyn Brand, by the bye. Father says he has never known even

her work so hard. She's rather an extraordinary person too, you know.

She can make any one do anything she wants. Well, I suppose one

shouldn't say it"--she laughed consciously--"but pretty women generally

can, can't they?"

"Mrs. Brand's power doesn't depend on mere looks," said Farquharson

shortly. Across the table, as he spoke, he met the full look of her

animated face, too pale for perfect beauty to-night, yet glowing with

what, had he been a man whose mind lent itself readily to religious

thoughts, he would have called the light of the spirit.

There were other far prettier women present; there were many more

notable in the world's eyes. He looked with distaste at his colourless

companion--her name would be published in the papers to-morrow and

Evelyn's omitted. Yet scarcely one topic of conversation was broached

that night at table, of which Mrs. Brand had not some special

knowledge--knowledge so eminently marketable that, had it been in her

husband's possession, the little West Kensington flat might soon have

been exchanged for more congenial quarters.

"Fancy your not admiring her," Miss Beadon rattled on, delighted.

"She's certainly very white to-night, and of course her features never

were good. But if one's fond of a person their looks make little or no

difference to one. Love is the only permanent beauty doctor, I think."

Miss Beadon always gave out her platitudes with the triumph of one

throwing a searchlight on a gloomy corner.

"Don't you agree with me?" she asked coquettishly, mentally determining

to bombard Meavy with the same phrase later.

"Love's a subject I know nothing of, I'm afraid," said Farquharson

impatiently. Yet he paid Dora Beadon the tribute of remembering one of

the many hints she had let fall. What she implied was true; he did

already owe Evelyn a big debt of gratitude. The hours she had spent in

his service, the letters she had written, the advice she had given on

social matters, even the parties she had planned, the expense to which

she had been put, her sympathy--he had taken it all for granted, as

though she were his wife and it his due.

Thinking it over later, he was aghast at his own lack of consideration.

Then, characteristically, he made the best of things. Woman was made

for man after all. Was it Joubert or some other French philosopher who

said one should choose for a wife only such a woman as he would choose

for a friend were she a man?

A wife! The word, coming so readily to his lips, startled him. A wife

... a helpmate and companion, the tenderest of mistresses, and best of

friends. For a moment he saw a vision, a picture of what his life might

be with such a woman....

Such thoughts were not for him. Abruptly leaning out of the motor, he

hailed a passer-by, a mere casual acquaintance, who was delighted to be

recognized. He even drove on to the man's rooms in an access of quite

unusual cordiality.

The little interruption dispersed the vision. But it came back to him,

as dreams will, when he turned on the light in his empty room and stood

for a moment absently by the table laden with its mass of documents and

official pamphlets. It looked bare and cold--not right, somehow.

Wife! He tried to close the door of his heart upon the thought in vain.

He said Evelyn's name aloud, and smiled as he re-christened her.

"Evelyn--that would do for the world. To me she must always be Eve, the

first woman."

He drew a long breath, and set to work. The rough draft of accounts in

connection with a native industry he was opening out in Taorna had to be

checked and examined before dawn.

*CHAPTER VI*

"Those who want to lead must never hesitate about sacrificing their

friends."--LORD BEACONSFIELD.

Miss Beadon returned from the Wereminsters' dinner party even more than

usually self-satisfied. The Prime Minister himself had had a chat with

her, while as for Farquharson, he was constantly at her side. Another

conquest, she supposed--one worth considering this time, for Farquharson

was in his way a _parti_.

After all, as nominal housekeeper to her father, life had little more to

offer her. Even the best servants like a change of place occasionally!

The wife of an important man gets more attention than his daughter. And

some important post would doubtless fall to Farquharson's share ere

long. Dora had only to mention the matter to her father, to let fall a

few of those ready tears which so quickly subjugate a man's will and

reason, to get her way later, when there was a change of Government.

Her father was notoriously--she flattered herself most men

were--indulgent where her wishes were concerned.

Miss Beadon blissfully believed that all her acquaintances who had done

well in life, owed the position to her patronage. "So and so would

never have got that post by himself. Why, I had to beard the Prime

Minister in his den and do my poor little best to get round him before

he consented," she would say, in reference to some coveted appointment

which obvious merit, or a signed note from Beadon, had procured.

Outsiders, recognizing her vanity and her father's weakness, played up

to both because the game paid so well. If to make Miss Beadon believe

she was the _deus ex machina_ of all social and political events was to

secure her father as ally, it was worth while to frame a few extravagant

compliments, and spend half-an-hour or so, which might have been more

amusingly employed, in her company.

Miss Beadon fell a very easy prey to the schemes of intriguing mothers.

She was besieged with requests for recommendations by indolent young men

who had no qualifications for any opening which demanded work. At

public meetings she was invariably pursued by wives of provincial

town-clerks eager to advance their husbands' opportunities; she

plaintively complained that at bazaars her stall was the rest-house of

nervous mothers with marriageable daughters, who reckoned on Miss

Beadon's philanthropy to procure them coveted invitations. Bred in the

atmosphere of favour, and herself totally unable to tell good from bad,

Dora distributed smilingly innumerable small acts of favour, of which

either her father, or some minister anxious to please him, ultimately

paid the cost. Miss Beadon had the credit of a good action, which was

all that mattered so far as she was concerned. One questions if the

Holy Father grants his indulgences with as much inward satisfaction as

did Dora.

The night after the Wereminsters' dinner party, the Beadons and some

others had been invited by Hare to meet at his rooms and hear a famous

scientist lecture on radium. Functions like these bored Dora

inexpressibly, but to-night her maid was closeted with her for over two

hours before she succeeded in pleasing her dictatorial mistress. For

Farquharson was to be present, and Miss Beadon had always laid to heart

the adage that attractive clothes complete a man's subjugation.

So Felice, who had been kept up until the small hours of the previous

morning, was made to arrange and unpick, to drape and re-drape, to alter

and exchange article upon article of Dora's attire.

"Mademoiselle est ravissante!" she cried at length, with the easy lie of

the Latin races, as, the task completed, Miss Beadon surveyed her

reflection in the mirror with a satisfied smile. From crown to foot she

represented wealth, and yet how simple was the whole costume! The dress

itself was suitable only for a _debutante_ in her first youth--Dora

always dressed twenty years younger than her looks--but her jewels were

worth a fortune.

Brand, arriving at the party with his wife rather late in the evening,

noticed them at once and took in their significance.

"You have excelled even yourself to-night," he said, adopting the tone

of solemn fervour in which a very pious Catholic speaks of relics.

"Better not say such things, perhaps, but circumstances are sometimes

too strong for one. Yours is a regal power, Miss Beadon, yet you

dispense your favours with quite exquisite simplicity."

Dora looked up, surprised. Up to the present she had found little in

common with Brand; now she began to think she had misjudged him.

"Oh, well, it's always nice to help one's friends," she said, awkwardly

fingering her fan. "Evelyn does it too, doesn't she? She and Mr.

Farquharson are quite inseparable, I hear."

"Oh, Evelyn----" Brand shrugged his shoulder, and, obeying the

invitation of her gesture, seated himself deferentially beside her.

"What of that? Compare her years to yours, my dear young lady. Why,

she's like a mother to Farquharson. I dare say they are really about

the same age, but Evelyn's hard life makes her appear many years his

senior. Now you, young and fresh----" He paused and sighed. "Ah,

Richard Farquharson's a lucky fellow in more ways than one," he said

daringly.

"I can't think what you mean. How quite absurd of you!" giggled Miss

Beadon.

"You must really ask the Brands to dine next week, father," she

announced a little later. "We've all been mistaken in Mr. Brand, I'm

sure; there's ever so much more in him than one would think. We had a

most interesting talk together just now. And I'm rather sorry for him,

too. I'm afraid dear Evelyn doesn't make him happy. She's such an

icicle, and from what he said to me just now I'm sure he's a man of

extraordinarily deep feelings. There's nothing sadder, dear, is there,

than to see a woman sow sympathy broadcast as Evelyn does, and yet not

spare a grain of it for her husband?"

Easy indifference to the faults and failings of ourselves and our

personal friends carry a man unscathed through many a social dilemma,

but there are certain obvious misdemeanours to which he cannot well be

blind. Sin--if it be but brave in face of danger--does not actually

alienate us as mere meanness does. Love in itself, for instance, glows

with so white a flame that its reflection lights the face of any woman

who has given herself for love alone. Such a one hangs hourly upon the

cross of wounded honour, crowding more sacrifices for her lover into a

day than most of us can compass in a lifetime. But women who lie for

the sake of lying, who secure confidences by base means to sell or

betray them at the first prick of jealousy, and men who run up gambling

debts and leave their womenkind to pay them, are on a different level.

They return, like dogs, to their vomit, and the stench is surely foul in

the nostril of God and man alike.

Yet even for these allowance is made--so prone is society to condone the

faults of its immediate circle, if the men are good-natured enough to

entertain dull dowagers at dinner parties, and the women in question

have large enough balances at their bankers' to give large sums in

public charity or to found philanthropic annuities. A witty raconteur,

Brand's eye for detail, and memory for those trifles which sum up many

of life's minor comforts, had stood him in good stead for some years.

Luckily for him, they failed him only when he could count upon his

wife's popularity to keep him in the position he had once held unaided.

Some men "drop out or go under" without wincing; Brand was not of the

number. His hold upon his social niche, such as it was, was insecure

enough, at best; he meant to grasp it, to which end he laid successful

siege to Dora Beadon.

He was no coward; he faced facts unflinchingly when alone. Only a fool

makes the same mistake twice in life, the wise man turns mistakes to his

own ends. He knew well enough where he had gone wrong.... Handicapped

at the outset, he had still won some prizes early in his career. The

first years of his social life were eminently successful; he played a

good hand at whist, and learned the knack of paying compliments

discreetly. He made himself indispensable to the type of person anxious

to give parties, but unluckily a trifle hazy as to how the actual

invitations should be worded. He dabbled tentatively in stocks and

shares, with singular good fortune, as it appeared to those who did not

know his methods, paying part of his way by taking boys abroad at the

request of their parents. After a time it became known amongst his

friends that "Brand was a good fellow, always ready with a pony when you

needed one!"--at sixty per cent. interest, and the amount doubled if the

day of reckoning brought no cheque. His influence grew; amongst those

who had not borrowed from him he began to be quoted as a man to apply to

when you were in difficulties of any doubtful nature, one who would help

you pleasantly to evade the consequences of almost any imaginable

action. Oh yes, Brand, too, had been a favourite in his day.

But night falls suddenly upon tropical days; it had so fallen upon

Brand's.

He dated his ill-luck to the hour of meeting Cummings. Yet he had never

paid more attention to the development of any scheme. At the beginning

everything seemed to play into his hands. His idea, of course, was

ultimately to oust Cummings from his position as Calvert's heir, and

afterwards very delicately to insinuate himself into the vacant place.

He manoeuvred Cummings through the open door of the Catholic Church with

quite consummate skill--no female convert could have thrown herself into

the task with greater ardour. From thence to the priesthood, after

Calvert's indignant repudiation of Cummings and his creed, was an easy,

and obviously a final, step. But the sincerity of Cummings' detachment

had lifted him to heights which Brand could never realize. Never for

one moment did he regret his vocation, his only sorrow being at his

relations' pain and the withdrawal of his uncle's trust. Actual

financial loss affected him not at all. The priest's eyes now were as

clear and steady as when, a boy, he had stood upon the Glune road,

nervously trying to match his untried blade of argument against the

older man's skilled weapons. His smile, when it came, illumined his

whole face. If it were possible--yet how could it be possible?--Brand

might have thought him happy in his life.

So much for the scheme; Calvert himself upset its fulfilment. Rumours

of Brand's treatment of his sisters had reached the older man, and on

the single occasion when, in the past, Brand and he had come across each

other, he taxed him openly with having done to death two innocent women.

More than this. He accused him of having cleverly engineered Cummings

into "that hotbed of lying and deception, the Roman Church." He stated

facts so clearly that the pose of outraged honour and hurt

susceptibility, with which Brand at first met his attack, broke down

completely. The very setting of the interview was undignified. It took

place in the hall, with butler and footman within hearing.

"There's a notice up, inside, no dogs admitted," said Calvert grimly.

Advancing years weakened convictions; Brand always hoped that with

increasing age Calvert's opinions might change. But with Farquharson's

entry into Taorna, the last hope died. It was doubly unfortunate for

Brand that, at this period, his name should often have been mentioned in

connection with a notorious case where there was a strong inference of

blackmail, even if it could not actually be proved.

Oh, those hysterical women, with their love of keeping letters!

All this took place some years before Brand's marriage. He went abroad

again until the storm blew over. This rumour, at least, had never

reached Evelyn. Had others, he wondered? In all such matters she was

so strictly rigid; he often wondered if her uncompromising views of sin

were the result of temperament or convent education. Uncompromising to

sin, that is to say--not to the sinner. His wife seemed to separate

action from actor. The sin itself was loathsome, repulsive--it made her

shrink. The sinner was wounded, and for him she had healing balms and

ointments. But where another woman would have slurred over the cause of

the hurt, she spoke of it confidently by name, confronting adultery or

theft as she would any other mortal combat.

"We talk of Magersfontein and Colenso," she said once. "If we'd met sin

on another kind of battle-field and been defeated, why should we be

ashamed to call the battle-field by its own name?"

That Evelyn was original her husband conceded--at times he even took a

certain pride in her looks and ways. They were useful. But her

attitude to him personally was unendurable. She had never loved him, of

course--such a man does not ask for love; he would not have recognized

it had he found it. On the other hand, he had never claimed anything

from her to which she had not made instant response so far as she was

able. She had swept his floors and cooked for him, in their poorer

days, like the docile wife of any village labourer; she had mended his

reputation as well as his clothes, Hare once said, chuckling. When he

was ill she nursed him; when he was well she stayed with him or left him

as he wished. But day by day the wall that separated them grew higher;

he had married a pliable child, who had become a woman in an hour.

If he spoke of it at all--which was seldom, for, try as he would, he

could find no tangible ground for complaint--it was only to rail at her

religion.

"Those damned priests and directors are behind this pose of yours. I'll

break it down, as well as you, before I've done with you."

In an access of fury one day he dragged from her bedroom wall a Delia

Robbia plaque of the Madonna and Child, before which a lamp was burning,

and flung it to the ground.

Evelyn was smiling when he turned to her.

"Do you think one's faith depends on such things?" she asked, carefully

gathering up the broken pieces. "They're quite immaterial. Your

lover's picture is in your heart, whether you have his photograph or

not. I'm sorry you broke this, it is one of the few valuable things we

have. You may break or burn every outward needless symbol that I have,

if you choose--I'll put them away if you dislike them. What you do or

what you don't do doesn't touch anything in me. You killed my love long

ago, and as for faith--that's just between myself and God."

She blew out the lamp, when he cursed her, and it was never lighted

again.

Points of view such as these were indescribably irritating. In his

excuse it must be admitted that with increasing years Brand's physical

health had grown worse; long paroxysms of pain often seized him when he

was alone. Once he had been man enough to fight against his

irritability; he tended it now, watering it with his sense of ill-usage,

and kept its fruits for his wife. Her unshaken calm, her peace, her air

of quiet rest and strength when he was nervous and suffering, tried him

beyond words; there were times when he could have stopped short at

nothing to wreck her control, to subdue the unconquerable spirit that

passed through the mines and tunnels of the world, as though the way was

lit by an enduring light. The idea grew to an obsession. He himself

was powerless to hurt her; he must act through some one else. Life had

been unfair to him throughout; it had marred him first, then broken him.

Well, it should mar and break her too.

And if in the fall some other enemy could be made to suffer too, so much

the better ... some one to whom the gods had been lavish, as in the case

of Richard Farquharson.

Farquharson was drawn to Evelyn, Evelyn was drawn to Farquharson; there

was no doubt of that. And Miss Beadon meant to marry Farquharson, and,

by herself, would never accomplish her purpose. Why, there were all the

elements of a successful comedy in view if Brand could only teach the

puppets their parts.

An opportunity came shortly. A few days later, as Brand was sitting in

his little smoking-room, where the best, the most comfortable chairs and

sofas were collected, he heard his wife's knock at the door.

He glanced at the open letter in her hand through half-closed eyes as

she approached.

She held it out for him to read.

"Mr. Calvert's chauffeur has just brought this. The Bedfords have lent

him their box at the opera to-night; the Beadons are going, and he wants

us too. The man is waiting for an answer. We're free, of course, but

you don't care for Wagner opera, do you?"

Brand took the letter and read it with unusual deliberation.

"'_Tristan and Isolde_, and please be in your place a quarter of an hour

before the orchestra strikes up. We are a party of six,'" he quoted

slowly. "That means Calvert, Beadon, Miss Dora, you and I and

Farquharson, I suppose."

"Am I to refuse or accept?" asked Evelyn. "You look very tired to-night.

Are you up to going?"

"I'm right enough," said Brand. "I think--I'm sure, in fact, it will

amuse me, although, perhaps, that wasn't exactly the intention of the

composer."

He looked at her from head to foot critically, then fumbled in his

waistcoat pocket and drew out a sovereign.

"Get some flowers to wear--malmaison carnations for choice, if the

neighbourhood can produce them. The colour suits you. This is the

first invitation Calvert has ever given me, it mustn't be the last.

Remember, I rely upon you to do all you can in that direction. Wear

white to-night by the bye, you're one of the few women who can; and if

the carnations fail, get roses of the same shade."

"Thank you," said Evelyn, lingering still. So sudden, so complete a

change of manner made her vaguely uneasy. Brand never gave her money

without expecting its full value back in kind.

"Give yourself plenty of time to dress, Evelyn. I want you to look your

best. It's really an occasion."

He was still smiling as she closed the door.

*CHAPTER VII*

"Je connais trop tard quel est l'essential!"--E. ROSTAND.

"Oh, my dear, I'm so glad you've come to look after me," said Miss

Beadon; "I was getting quite embarrassed amongst this tribe of men."

She tried to pull Evelyn playfully down beside her as she spoke into the

vacant seat she had kept between herself and her father, but Calvert

interposed.

"I want Mrs. Brand next me, Miss Beadon. We've business to talk over."

He lowered his voice. "I'm going to plunge into things as usual.

Farquharson and I have just been discussing his plan of campaign.

You've worked wonders for him already; I'm trusting to you to

concentrate your influence at this critical moment. He's been seen and

felt already, but he's not actually been heard in public. Now I know

you've great influence with Beadon----"

Farquharson, entering the box at that moment; overheard the last

sentence, and came straight to Mrs. Brand.

"Is my chief worrying you again on my behalf?"

"I refuse to be drawn by that lure," Evelyn laughed lightly. "Don't be

ridiculous. I haven't done a single thing for you as yet. Mr.

Calvert's right, you know; you ought to speak soon in public. It's the

only way to touch the man with the vote, the great uneducated majority.

Why, I've seen two or three thousand people at the Albert Hall

absolutely swaying to one man's words. Oh, oratory is the power of

powers. To play on your audience like an instrument--there's nothing so

telling. When _The Ambassador_ was being acted at the St. James's

Theatre, the manager used to let me go behind and listen in the wings.

The big scene was the one between Violet Vanbrugh and Fay Davis, you

know, and Violet Vanbrugh had certain words to say--I've forgotten the

actual phrase--which always either warmed the house to frenzy or left it

cold. I used to stand with my eyes shut waiting for that speech--one

became in time so sensitive to the atmosphere of the house as to know

before it was given exactly how it would be received. I've never heard

you speak; but I know just how the world's going to take your speech

when you make one."

"Yet I haven't done much in that line," said Farquharson. "The plain

audience I'm accustomed to is quite different to critical London. Our

whole system in Taorna is different to your system here, of course. We

can't afford to have wastrels in our Assembly. The people elect their

Council from amongst men who've been proved to have the island's

interest at heart. And then each man has his own right of judgment.

When an appeal comes before us, we vote according to our individual

opinion, not according to party. The President has the casting vote.

We put men on their honour, as it were; we don't necessarily oppose

because we belong to the Opposition, nor do we change our opinions

unanimously because we're afraid to face a general election. If at any

time during his tenure of office a minister is found to have failed in

his duty according to the opinion of a quorum of his colleagues, he has

to come before a sort of political court-martial."

"I'm afraid our methods here are less straightforward," said Evelyn. "I

know of at least one by-election where an inefficient candidate was

pulled through solely because his canvassers said he had a sick wife

whose death would be hastened if he didn't get the seat."

"As a matter of fact he hadn't lived with her for years, and neither of

them took the least interest in the other, but his agent waxed

positively hysterical over the sentimental aspect of the case. Had

there been universal suffrage I've no doubt that the wife would have

plumped her vote for the rival candidate," said Beadon. "By the bye,

Farquharson, you're in favour of Tariff Reform, of course. Mrs. Brand

asked me the other day to persuade you to speak for us at our monster

meeting at the Albert Hall next Monday. You would be in good company;

we have a fine show of speakers."

"Delighted, of course," said Farquharson impassively. "It begins at

eight o'clock, doesn't it?" He took out his note-book.

Brand eagerly interposed.

"Mr. Calvert has just promised to dine with us that evening. Will you

come too? Lady Wereminster always invites my wife to her box; Lord

Meavy and Lord Creagh are coming too. We shall have to feed at an

unearthly hour, but perhaps you won't mind that under the

circumstances."

"Thanks very much, I shall be delighted," said Farquharson again.

Evelyn, amazed, leant back in her seat and whispered to her husband

under cover of her fan.

"I didn't know that they were coming. When did you ask them?"

Brand bent down, adjusting his opera-glasses.

"Don't give yourself away. The others will be glad enough to come if

Calvert and Farquharson do. Once capture the coming man and others will

follow. You must help me, Evelyn; it means everything to me to have it

known Calvert visits us."

"Of course I'll do my best. Oh, hush!" said Evelyn. The orchestra had

begun playing the first notes of that exquisite prelude to _Tristan and

Isolde_ which, _motif_ by _motif_, leads from the first confession of

love by way of desire and magic and mystery to the deliverance of death.

Wagner opera was to Farquharson a new experience. He had come that night

in a cynical enough mood. The darkness that enfolded the great assembly

in its mantle, the hush and tension under which it laboured, listening

without movement, rather as one corporate body than as a crowd of

separate entities, struck him at first as a mere pose. But presently

the power and strength and pathos of the music carried him away as it

carried others. This was real flesh and blood; impatience, ardour,

glory, the very song of the sea, transport and passion, blending with

underlying chords of human sorrow--each in turn rang true.

And as he listened old memories came thronging back, memories at once

exquisite and painful. For now the sufferings of his childhood spread

before him like an allegory whose language his mature eyes could read;

they had been encrusted for years with the ice of bitterness. But here,

under Evelyn's influence, the ice had melted. He detached himself, the

man, from the sturdy boyish figure which had flinched and wavered, but

yet never given way, and saw how the fire of manhood had been kindled by

those hours of stress. Wind and rain, storm and torrent, had formed his

character, and mountain fastnesses had been his playground. The whole

story of his childhood was a preparation for the battle he was fighting

now. His ceaseless combats with men and things, even the mimic raids

and sorties he had made as a child upon invisible foes, had stood him in

good stead later when struggle was as infallibly his portion as it is

the portion of certain men to sleep beside the hearth.

But if life for him was a battle-field, it was no less a battle-field

for the woman at his side. His foes were worthy opponents, men of

strength who brought their artillery to bear upon his little stronghold;

hers were mere thieves of the night, but both came armed with weapons

that drew blood.

Apart in body, separated from each other by every natural barrier, the

wheel of the potter, whose toil is endless, had shaped the rough clay of

these two human beings from very similar moulds. The voice of the great

religion to which Evelyn belonged has its unworthy exponents; it is not

always in a convent that the purest souls are reared. "_Factus obediens

usque ad mortem crucis_," is sometimes chanted solemnly by those who

betray unconsciously the souls of others; who impose little straws of

restrictions upon backs already bent to breaking by God's unswerving

laws. Should a Catholic sin, the fault is shrieked from the housetops,

so high a standard is demanded of man or woman who subscribes to that

high faith.

Yet the limits of Catholicism and the limits of Calvinism--apart as they

seem--can touch. The bigot of the one may be as the bigot of the other.

The gospel of detachment had been preached to Evelyn until, for a short

time, she let herself drift upon the waters of submission, and since

habitual and unquestioning obedience must crush in time the strongest

spirit, yielded in the matter of marriage to the direction of her

stepmother and father as she would have yielded to that of a spiritual

adviser. Now, too late, she knew that for this retribution would be

exacted hourly, for God strikes--not as men do, at the mere twigs and

blossoms of human frailty, but at the very roots of being.

Unconsciously the thoughts of the man and woman in the box moved on

converging lines and met, as the music below swayed onward and upward in

Tristan and Isolde's exquisite duet.

"_Isolde_. So stuerben wir,

Um ungetrennt--

_Tristan_. Ewig einig--

_Isolde_. Ohne End'--

_Tristan_. Ohn' Erwachen--

_Isolde_. Ohne Bangen--

_Tristan_. Namenlos

In Leib' umfangen--

_Isolde_. Ganz uns selbst gegeben,

Der Liebe nur zu leben?"

The spell of the music, rising to that passionate climax of the love

song in the second act where Night the Revealer points the way of human

transport to culminate in the superb Song of Death, broke the earthly

barriers of speculation, and two souls in the audience called to each

other as before the judgment seat and became temporarily one. Such

things have been since the world came out of chaos, and will be until it

returns again to the void. There is but one mate for each man and woman

in the world, and until they recognize the fact and learn with patience

to await that note of absolute conviction which is the one infallible

guide to happiness, marriages will fail as they fail now, and the Church

will give its empty blessing to those ill-assorted pairs whom God for

ever leaves unblessed.

"... Traut allein,

Ewig heim....

Du Isolde,

Tristan ich,

Nicht mehr Tristan,

Nicht Isolde....

Endloss ewig

Ein-bewusst:

Heiss ergluehter Brust

Hochste Leibes-Lust!"

"I always wish that the music of _Peer Gynt_ could have been written by

Wagner," said Evelyn. "Think what he would have made of Anitas' last

words: and the magic of the Troll Kingdom, and the great scene, as eerie

in its way as the Brocken scene in _Faust_--don't you really know it?

Towards the end of the play, just before he meets the Button-Moulder,

Peer Gynt, the failure, is standing alone on the moor with charred trees

and desolation all about him. Mist has risen, and all the world is full

of little voices. Tiny thread balls sweep before him--they are the

thoughts he should have followed. Dewdrops fall--his unshed tears;

withered leaves drift to and fro in his path and dazzle him--watchwords

he should have spoken; broken straws lie at his feet--an epitome of his

life. It's all so like one's own life, void and valueless. And yet

things started well enough. The very trees flowered, the dewdrops were

like gold in the sunshine, and one heard pleasant voices in the woods,

as a child."

"I've been thinking of my childhood too to-night," said Farquharson.

"My love for Glune has been with me through everything. Out in Taorna,

that night I was waiting in the Place of Sepulchres, I had a dream--a

vision, if you like to call it so--and Glune stood before me, as brave,

as broken, as courageous as of old. I could see the gorse in bloom and

the peewits circling round and round, and Dan waiting patiently as he

always waited.... I shall never forget the day that dog died

mercifully, it was in my arms. The man who made this music must have

been through heaven and hell too in his day. Glune has been through

both, and so have most of us Farquharsons."

"I sent my soul through the Invisible,

Some letters of that after-life to spell;

And by and by my soul return'd to me

And answer'd, 'I myself am Heaven and Hell,'"

Evelyn quoted below her breath.

"Oh, aren't those lovely words?" broke in Dora Beadon, impatient at

having been left so long to the companionship of Calvert and her father.

"Rossetti's, aren't they? Oh, Omar Khayyam, is it? Well, he's much the

same. One of my _attaches_, a student at the Academy, promised to set

them to music for me."

"Miss Beadon is a great devotee of music," said Brand gravely; "she has

a pianola and three gramophones."

Evelyn laughed.

"Dora dislikes musical people as much as I do. We spread the gramophone

story to frighten them away, don't we, Dora?"

"I shouldn't mind them so much if they were only clean," said Miss

Beadon. "Or if they wore better clothes! There's always a ready-made

thirty-shilling-the-suit look about them, don't you think, Mr.

Farquharson? By the way, Evelyn, you mustn't annex Mr. Farquharson any

longer; I really insist upon his coming over here for the last act."

Calvert's eyes and Brand's met for once in the intimacy of mutual

amusement. Dora Beadon was laying her snares a trifle flagrantly.

Well, Richard might do worse, Calvert thought. With so uncompromising a

face and figure Miss Beadon should certainly be a docile wife, and she

had money and position. Calvert had seen many brilliant matches fail,

two stars outshining one another and falling into oblivion. He looked

with awakened interest at the girl; the shadow of the box was kind to

her, and her pleasure at having drawn Farquharson from Evelyn had given

her for once an almost intelligent expression. He smiled benignly and

drew Evelyn's attention to the pair, with a genial little nod of

approval.

It was only at parting that Farquharson got an opportunity of speaking

again to Mrs. Brand.

Then--"I owe the Albert Hall Meeting to you?" he said, with meaning.

"It's another debt. No, don't deny it; you help every one. What was

said of Madame Recamier is true of you, '_Elle etait pour ses amis la

soeur de charite de lour peines, de leur frailtes, el meme un peu de

leur fautes._'"

*CHAPTER VIII*

"The Sacraments are seven--Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion,

Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Order, Matrimony.... Each has its own

particular office: all give grace; but besides ordinary graces, they are

intended to bestow the special grace which may be required to meet

particular wants."--BISHOP BAGSHAWE.

"A lady to see you, sir."

"Oh, bother!" Cummings took the card impatiently, and then gave a

startled exclamation. "Tell her I'll see her in half-a-minute."

The sight of Evelyn's card revived old memories; he smiled, absently

fingering it for a moment before entering the little sitting-room. It

was years since he had seen her. He remembered her as an undisciplined

child; a small person with ideals which were never realized, an odd

mixture of dreams and contradictions. Knowing Brand and Brand's

capabilities as he did, no one was more surprised than Cummings at the

marriage.

Partly for love of the cause, partly to kill thought, he had done the

work of ten in his district, until at last his health gave way

completely. A stray bishop paying pastoral visits in the neighbourhood

took him in hand, and summarily ordered him away at a moment's notice on

a sea-voyage and six months' leave. Medical opinions at home were

slightly alarming; on his arrival in London he was packed off to

Brighton within twenty-four hours.

As he opened the door of the little sitting-room he thought at first

that it was the old unchanged Evelyn of childhood who greeted him so

warmly. But to read men's souls is part of the priestly office, and

there was something in her air of enforced gaiety which made him look at

her more closely.

"You dear!" she said, holding his hands in hers as if they were a source

of strength. "Isn't this a nice surprise? Lord Creagh offered to drive

me down, and I couldn't resist the chance of routing you out."

"You are just one of the few people I wanted to see," said Cummings.

"One of my last remaining links with the past. I won't have another

soul admitted while you're here. You'll let me smoke, won't you? I

want to hear about everything and everybody. I'm going to have my say

first, yours comes later. If you talk as much as you used, I shan't get

a look in when once you've started."

She became more at ease as he spoke. He pulled an arm-chair up to the

empty grate, and wedged a shiny black horse-hair cushion at her back.

"Now begin about home, please. Is my mother's complexion still like a

Greuze? How absolutely lovely she was once! Some one told me that my

father had sold his hunters and taken to driving out in a governess car

behind a fat pony. Surely that isn't true--they've not lost money, have

they?"

"He is very changed," said Evelyn, hesitating. "He has become a total

abstainer. Don't look so aghast, Jack; I believe in a way it suits him.

A year ago he had a stroke which shook his nerves a good deal, and your

mother is a chronic invalid, you know. She was thrown from the box-seat

of a coach at the four-in-hand meet three years ago. We think some sort

of vertigo must have seized her."

She looked pityingly at the bent form of the man beside her.

"We can't always be young, dear Jack," she said, with her eyes full of

pain. "I always think the most obvious compensation of old age is its

inability to feel, as we younger people do. The blows which fall on old

people scarcely seem to shake their serenity. But they shatter us. Oh

yes, it must be nice to be old. Your parents are marvellous considering

all they have gone through. And, you see, you were their life, their

all, and they won't let themselves be happy in your peace. Oh, my dear

boy, don't look like that; things will come right in time--at least

that's what I'm always telling other people," she added, faltering a

little.

Cummings walked up and down the room for a moment or two before

answering.

"_Pone, Domini, custodian ori meo...._ Yes, we say those things to

others, but they don't always convince us. There are times when

horrible spiritual dryness grips you, and you grope for days and weeks

in absolute darkness, knowing that you yourself have raised the veil

between you and the light."

"Sacrifice and death--somebody said those were the only terms on which

the God of life has made life to exist," said Evelyn softly. "The

French talk of the soul's secret garden as though it were a place of

promise and perfume. I always think one's secret garden is Gethsemane.

And sweat broke out even on Christ's brow in Gethsemane, you know. 'All

bound together with one chain of darkness, and to themselves more

grievous than the darkness.'"

"But the saints had a very great light," said Cummings. He shook his

head back with a characteristic little gesture of decision. "Do you

know what it is, Evelyn, suddenly, for no reason, when you are saying

the same prayers in the same way, kneeling on the same step, practising

the same austerities, whatever they may be, neither more nor less, to

have your hardness break down and your heart like a little child's

again? That has come before; it will, it must, come again."

Evelyn sighed wearily.

"It seems to me that sometimes one believes with one's heart and

sometimes with one's head. I suppose the best of all is when the two

work together. One can plant flowers in other people's gardens even when

they won't flourish in one's own back yard. It's the same principle as

telling a rosary. After you've hammered out half-a-dozen Pater and a

hundred or so Aves, they begin to take some meaning, don't they? 'Vain

repetitions' have their comfort after all. I heard such a nice story

the other day about two dear Evangelical old ladies. At seventy-five and

eighty, foreseeing the near approach of death, they began to take

lessons on the harp, because they thought the knowledge could be turned

to account later on in Paradise.

"Oh, delicious!" said Cummings. He pulled the blind up, so that the

light fell more fully on Evelyn's face. "I've finished whining. Now

tell me how the world has been treating you for the last few years."

Evelyn moved away restlessly to the window.

"What a nasty mean trick to let in that glare. You used to tease me as a

child," she said from the back of the room. "What made you take these

stuffy rooms, Jack? They're very ugly and uncomfortable."

"I didn't anticipate the visits of my female friends," said Cummings.

"Come here, Evelyn; be a good girl and--you know the rest. No, I'm not

chaffing now--you're bothered, aren't you?"

"I rather wish I hadn't come, Grand Inquisitor," said Evelyn. "Well,

put down those glasses then; they worry me." She came and stood behind

his chair. "Things are so horribly mixed up, Jack. One thinks perhaps

it's--dangerous to go to a special place and see a special person--and

then some one who has the right compels one to. Do you think what St.

Philip Neri said about the way of escape was true?"

"Ungrammatical--but fairly concise for a woman. By the bye, I always

gave St. Paul the credit of the remark you quote," said Cummings, his

eyes twinkling.

"I wasn't thinking of that obvious text," said Evelyn triumphantly.

"Capecelatro says what I mean--'Paradise was not made for cowards.' St.

Philip always told one to face foes visible and invisible, as you know.

But"--she bowed her head--"there was one particular temptation he told

us to fly from the moment we recognized even the barest shadow of

possibility of its coming near us."

There was a little pause.

"Yes?"

"Oh, I can look you in the face," said Evelyn hurriedly, coming forward.

"It's not quite a temptation, Jack. A shadow, rather, that I'm flung

against."

"But a substantial shadow."

"I'm shut up in the room with it," said Evelyn. "I believe I'm

exaggerating. The whole thing may just be a senseless scruple, or

vanity, and yet----"

"A cloud no bigger than a man's hand on the horizon," said Cummings

softly.

Evelyn sat down.

"I suppose I'd better tell you all about it. I believe I meant to from

the first. And yet there's nothing really to tell. You remember when I

was a child I always wanted to be in everything--at the head of it, as a

rule. Well, I honestly have been able to help one or two people

since--it's the old childish vanity again, perhaps. There's one special

person I've met often, and been a little--only a very little--useful to;

everything has combined to bring us together, interest, ambition,

sympathy. You see, the man doesn't trust women, but he trusts me--vanity

again, I suppose you'll say. Sometimes I make excuses; I say not at

home, and then he goes away." She stopped for a moment. "Then a note

comes from his great friend, asking some little favour, saying that only

I can do for him the special thing that is just wanted at the moment,

and so it all begins again. The man's a hard man naturally, and I want

to soften him. He's more gentle than he was, and kinder. He doesn't

believe in anything; that's another point. I wish he could meet you, or

some one like you who has fought battles and found faith. I can't talk

about those things--I never have; I don't think born Catholics often do;

we're lazier, perhaps, than converts. But he guesses what it all means

to me, I fancy."

Cummings waited.

"I feel like a rat in a cage sometimes," said Evelyn passionately. "I

gnaw a bar of my cage and make a passage, and then I'm put into another

cage with stronger bars and told to stay there."

"Come to the light," said Cummings. "Yes, I thought so. You're

overwrought and overdone. Well, I say to you as I should say to any

other woman, 'Go away.' Remember the accommodation muscles of one's

soul need rest just like those of one's eyes. Their focus gets strained

too. And there's another point." He hesitated for a moment. This was

hard to say under the circumstances, knowing Brand as he did.

"Something about marriage. Remember that marriage garments have to be

fitted like any others; they don't always suit at the first trial or the

last; but, unlike other clothes, you may neither sell them nor give them

away."

He turned away. His window opened on to a narrow side-street; a hawker

selling decayed vegetables and flowers was calling his wares a few doors

away. Children, playing hop-scotch on the pavement below, wrangled and

screamed over the game. From the Western Road came the jar and clatter

of motor omnibuses. Everything was noisy and turbulent.

"So I'm to go away," Evelyn said at last, blankly, drawing a deep

breath. "That's your decision. Well, I suppose you're right. The real

country must be very sweet now. Late the other night, coming back from

Weybridge, we stopped by the bridge to hear the nightingales in the

woods, just about midnight. I know a tiny cottage where I can go quite

by myself and be rural. There's a farm near which is kept by the

kindest, fattest woman I've ever seen--just like a very amiable

porpoise. She has cows and poultry, and once she let me try to milk a

cow. It took me a quarter of an hour even to get the bottom of the pail

damp. Suppose I go there later, Jack? There's a big meeting at the

Albert Hall next week, which I've absolutely promised to do some work

for, and go to."

"Take your cottage, by all means, but please have mercy on the cows,"

said Cummings. "You'll get off as soon as you can, won't you?"

They stood for a moment looking at each other--friends whose paths might

probably never cross again. Then Evelyn went out with bent head.

Cummings watched her go. When she was out of sight he made the sign of

the cross and sat down wearily in his chair.

*CHAPTER IX*

"A woman wishes and believes; a man wills and achieves. The wish of the

woman ripens into a faith; the will of the man hardens into a fact."--J.

S. BLACKIE.

From floor to ceiling the Albert Hall, which normally contains ten

thousand people, was packed to overflowing.

Tickets for the great Tariff Reform Demonstration had been begged,

borrowed and bargained for; it was said that a newly made peer had given

a hundred guineas for a box. Orderly files of subdued men and

women--the prevailing characteristics of an English crowd are melancholy

and dejection--stretched spirally like a huge serpent, outside each

separate door, awaiting the remote chance of returned seats. Hawkers

had pursued them to the edge of the barrier, chaffing them and harassing

them with a motley row of wares--gaudy painted flags and ribbon badges,

highly coloured and totally unreliable programmes of the evening's

performance, printed on coarse handkerchiefs, Japanese fans and cheap

scent, photographs of the leading members of the League, postcard views

of their homes and pets, sticks of chocolate, strips of gay-coloured

tissue papers tied together with string and known to the initiated as

"ticklers." It was a typical crowd except for its magnitude: street

loafer, cab-runner, British workman, bank clerk and wide-eyed child who

never stopped eating oranges, the suburban man of business with his

family, the socialist reformer whose personal habits made his immediate

neighbourhood unwholesome, the cynic who complained aloud of his own

special wrongs and the evils of the Empire, the people's orator who

swelled with importance and big words, and spoke with patronage of the

King--all were there.

The night was still young, and the policemen, still good-natured, bore

with patience the ceaseless effort of the crowd to break down the

barriers. Again and again they piloted such privileged beings as had

tickets through the seething, jostling lines of massed humanity; no easy

matter, in view of momentarily increasing numbers. Good-natured still,

they bore the banter and abuse of the great army of the ticketless as

the crowd swayed to and fro with love of excitement, that strange

passion for "seeing things"--from however uncomfortable a

position--which stirs most human breasts.

"London may have its ten men or its million on the brink of absolute

starvation, but while the half-penny papers exist, it can count upon a

given number of spectators wasting hour after hour of idleness outside

any public building where an important function is in progress," said

Lady Wereminster, arriving early.

Inside the hall itself, the brilliant gas-jets lit a brilliant throng.

The gallery was packed so closely as to suggest a probable need of the

nursing sisters and ambulances outside--now and again a solitary figure

in the background, man or woman, was lifted upon the shoulders of the

person in front to catch a momentary glimpse of the hall below. But

nearly everywhere, spaces accustomed to hold one as a rule held two on

this occasion; in the body of the hall whole extra rows of stalls were

added. The padded arm-chairs in the boxes had been taken out and cane

seats substituted, and in the larger boxes so many as twenty or thirty

people were assembled. Amongst these were some of the most notable and

distinguished men in England. Statesmen, diplomats, men who had helped

to uphold or save their country, bishops, admirals, generals, explorers,

war-correspondents, critics, leaders of society and commerce. Many

women were in evening dress; some wore jewels. Lady Wereminster was

holding a reception afterwards to meet the chief speakers of the Tariff

Reform League.

Almost every opera-glass was focussed upon the central platform where

the Executive Committee sat with their friends, eight rows of them all

told, each member of whom was notable in his own line, and could be

recognized by the man in the street, even without the aid of the printed

programme. The entrance of many more immediately prominent than others

had been cheered, but, except when the organ pealed out its jubilant

marches or national songs, at intervals, during the assembling of the

meeting, the tension was so great that hardly a sound or movement broke

it.

Evelyn, leaning forward in her box, with quickened breath and leaping

pulses, wondered if, with the exception of the four great functions of

the century, a more impressive sight had ever been seen in England. For

like the Jubilee and Coronation and the passing of the quiet dead, this

was essentially a "one man's show."

Unmoved, and with absolute composure, the veteran leader made his

triumphal entry in the midst of men and women who had for once lost all

their national calm, whose senses were wrought up to the highest pitch

of almost frenzied welcome, whose enthusiasm echoed in cheers so loud

that the great building seemed to rock in sympathy. The storm of

feeling swept alike from stall to gallery in a wild rush of

gesticulation and movement, so that in every part of the house there was

a confused blur of white waving arms, of fluttering handkerchiefs and

lace scarves, of flags and banners floating triumphantly in welcome.

There is still a heartier ring in British cheers than in those of any

other nation, although they come but seldom.

The moment was over, men and women sat back in their places, physically

spent, and a gasp of relief came simultaneously from the hall. Much the

same note broke from the men who reached the summit of Dargai, with

ranks thinned and broken by the enemy's rolling stones and concentrated

fire; one hears such a sound sometimes from a woman who looks upon her

child for the first time. Then the audience began to settle down to its

practical work of the night.

There was a mighty rustling of papers while the agenda was examined by

some twenty thousand persons at the same moment.

The chairman's opening speech was brief. He left them, he said, to the

care of the man who had their interests at heart; a man whose aim was to

keep British factories in England, to give to her sons of the Colonies,

who had so lately fought and bled for her in South Africa, a preference

in trade above that offered to foreign nations whose secret ambition was

to lower our flag and dim our glory. He called upon "the man of the

evening" to speak; cheers followed. A moment later "the man of the

evening" was upon his feet.

His first words justified the presence of the great audience. One of

his hearers heard them with sickening dread. One by one, straight and

to the point, the telling phrases fell, delivered in a quiet voice that

carried even to the gallery, as fiery comments from that quarter

testified. As an Imperialist, Evelyn rejoiced; the speech was historic,

it would live: but as a woman, her heart fell, aware, as only the

sensitive are aware, of every point the great leader made and how he

made it.

What remote chance had Farquharson of making his mark to-night? The

ground was being cut under his feet. How hard to follow on an expert

speech like this, which seemed to say all that could be said, which

dealt sharply and subtly with every argument against Protection in a

voice that became ever the gentler and more penetrating after the

characteristic pause which, to one versed in the ways of public

speakers, invariably heralded some especially telling or sarcastic

phrase.

Farquharson was to second an important resolution which followed the

great Fiscal Reformer's speech, a resolution which Beadon was to

propose. The Leader of the Opposition had pleaded influenza as an excuse

for dealing with the subject very tersely, and leaving its actual

explanation to a man who, should he win his political spurs to-night,

would be his colleague in the House. He was giving Farquharson his

chance in every sense of the word for Evelyn's sake.

And now the long-looked-for moment had come, and she trembled. That

critical crowd! So eager to thrust at the one weak point in the armour

even of its own knights. How would Farquharson face it? He had told

her that he did not excel especially in public speaking; what if he

failed? And why--why did it matter so to her of all people?

Beadon could always be relied upon to amuse his audience. He did not

attempt to meet his leader on his own ground; the aim of his brief

speech seemed to be merely to lighten the tension which succeeded the

conclusion of the former speech, given in words of solemn warning,

rendered the more intense in view of the speaker's having appeared so

little in public of late years.

As the Leader of the Opposition took his seat a pleasurable flutter of

anticipation moved the audience. Like women at a bargain sale, they

eagerly watched the advent of the latest novelty. Hare, well to the

fore amongst the critics, raised his field-glasses towards the platform.

In the arena there was a little hum of expectation. Even the reporters

below the platform laid their fountain pens and pencils down to stare up

half in curiosity, half in interest, wondering what signs of nervousness

the administrator of a place which had never been heard of until ten

years ago would show as he rose to confront the largest concourse of

people he had addressed, amidst the perfunctory applause of a few

friends.

But there were no signs of nervousness to detect in Farquharson's

assured step as he moved forward or in the glance he flashed over the

hall. He had himself in hand from the first. So much Evelyn could see.

Not a movement, not a tremor betrayed his emotion, yet the emotion was

there, she knew. She knew that his heart beat to it; that, as before the

eyes of a drowning man, a vision of past and present opened before him

as he looked down upon the audience.

Evelyn caught her breath. Only once before had this wave of absolute

momentary unconsciousness swept over her, leaving behind a definite

physical sensation as though every drop of blood had ebbed from her body

and the little torch of life was flickering out. All was dark. For the

moment she heard nothing and saw nothing and could do nothing but pray.

All her remaining will seemed concentrated on one point, a frantic

appeal to God that this man, to whom it meant so much, and who had no

near kith or kin at hand to ask for him, should do his best, that the

crisis should prove no crisis at all, but triumph.

The wave of faintness passed; presently, out of a tangled confusion of

sound she distinguished the notes of a voice familiar and yet strange, a

voice whose magnetism seemed to have drawn every soul in the hall to one

central spot on the platform. Her tired brain righted itself by sheer

strength of will. She meant to notice every detail; next morning he

would expect her to know just what portions of his speech had told, how

the crowd had taken this and that dubious point. She called up every

faculty of criticism and judgment in view of his demand, weighing and

balancing, like an opponent, the new line Farquharson had taken, his

methods, his choice of language, his rare actions--not with those of the

average politician, not even with an acknowledged master of debate like

Beadon, but with the orator of the evening, the man who, since

Gladstone's death, had been known as the best speaker in the House of

Commons.

And as she listened her thoughts swept back to all that she had read of

other statesmen--Pitt, Burke, Peel, Palmerston, Bright, Cobden, Disraeli

and Gladstone--men whose names lived still in England, and would live

for ever. For Farquharson beat his leader. His was the real gift of

oratory, form combined with substance, a flow of eloquence and

imagination kept in check by reason--the Heaven-sent inspiration which

comes, perhaps, to half-a-dozen men within the century. His audience

did not applaud--applause would have interrupted. They listened

spell-bound, every thought given up to the quiet figure on the platform,

who made use neither of sensational phrase nor dramatic gesture, but

held them by sheer force of brain and personality, as he marshalled an

array of facts against which there seemed to be no appeal.

"The mantle of Elijah..." said Lady Wereminster below her breath. But

Evelyn did not answer. Through her opera-glasses she saw the tears of

pride on Calvert's cheeks and Creagh's delighted expression--"Wasn't I

right this time, you fellows?" she could almost hear him say. There was

a tender smile on Hare's face as he turned in Evelyn's direction and

nodded, bringing the palms of his hands together in noiseless applause

at the same time. And she saw more still. A wonderful light had leapt

in Farquharson's eyes as he bowed his acknowledgments; the light which,

having once seen, no woman can mistake, as he looked straight at her and

through her, as though laying his triumph at her feet.

There was a voice in her ear.

"Ex-cel-lent," whispered Brand. "You've done very well, my dear. I'll

make it worth your while." He stooped down and patted the disarranged

lace of her fichu with the air of a proprietor. "I saw that look.

There's not much I don't see, you know. But I'm an amenable husband,

and won't interfere; indeed, if you go on playing your hand as well as

you're playing it now, I shall have nothing to complain of. Whatever

happens, you are to keep in with Farquharson--do you hear? Whatever

happens, mind!"

Lady Wereminster looked down ruefully at her glove. She had herself in

hand again.

"Good gracious, look at that. Split right across, my dear, with all

this clapping. How my maid will scold me! She ran about all over

London for them, trying to match the colour of my gown, and in the end

we had to order them from Paris. As for that young man, he's wonderful.

The eighth wonder of the world--he must have escaped direct from

Ephesus. I only hope his head won't be turned after this. Why, Evelyn,

what's the matter?" She turned to a young King's messenger at her side.

"Here, help Mr. Brand to get his wife out of the box; she's fainting."

"Indeed, no; I've never fainted properly in all my life," said Evelyn.

But she went outside obediently, summoning wit and courage to her aid.

The air was cooler there, the platform hidden. She laughed and talked

with the others while Brand waited on her assiduously, the image of a

devoted husband, plying her in turn with smelling salts and scent, and

Dora Beadon's ever-ready fan.

But her thoughts were turbulent; the scruple was no scruple now, but

visible danger. A thousand dreads and terrors shaped themselves before

her, ghosts of the past, and newer and more terrible phantoms. How far

could she trust herself--how far trust him? Then, too, she had looked

into a man's heart that night--her husband's; even she, who forgave

much, would never forget what she had seen. Cummings was right, she must

go at once; escape for a time at least from the hideous knowledge of

what her husband was, more clearly defined now than ever before. And

meantime and afterwards she must go on living with him, must show

herself in public beside him as his possession, must return with him

that very night to West Kensington to share his bed and board. She must

suffer all, must bear all, insults, wrongs bodily and mental, bracing

will and spirit, nerving her frailty to meet such horrors as convention

called upon her to endure.

This was life, this was duty; this stern uncompromising Catholic ideal

of marriage, the Sacrament. It was not true, it was not true! Those

whom God had joined together were joined for all eternity, but what had

God had to do with her own and many another such marriage?

*CHAPTER X*

"Faith is required of thee ... not understanding."--THOMAS A KEMPIS.

Public praise does not always come to him who has legitimately earned

it. A man gives his life to extend the commercial resources of his

native town, and hears the devotion and sacrifice of some man of means

who has just presented a handsome donation to the fund openly acclaimed

at local meetings. By twelve o'clock next day the steps of No. 50

Carlton House Terrace were besieged by a crowd of district messengers

and telegraph boys with an array of communications for Miss Beadon.

Everybody believed her to be the one behind Farquharson's success of the

previous evening, and Dora was the last woman in the world to deny a

rumour so obviously to her advantage. Indeed, by the time she had

mastered the contents of all her numerous congratulations, she had

persuaded herself that the young man owed his appearance on the Albert

Hall platform to her, and to her alone.

And now she set to work seriously to weigh the pros and cons of the

situation. Miss Beadon, remember, was no longer a _debutante_. She

realized that her name had appeared sufficiently often in daily papers

with the same prefix. There is a limit to public credulity--it is

difficult to believe that one woman has refused every eligible suitor in

the marriage market. But Miss Beadon had still to find that convenient

person who would add to, instead of detracting from, her present

position.

Farquharson, who, virile and determined, had a fighting spirit and a

great capacity for work, seemed to solve the problem. Dora realized

that to gain her point she must lay siege to Farquharson before his

position was established. She had heard her father and other

ex-ministers talk openly of his talents; had heard the wildest

predictions of infatuated women taken seriously even by men like Hare

and Creagh.

If she were ever to hold him, the chain must be forged soon. But how to

deal with such a man? Dora had, of course, no doubt as to her personal

charms, but Farquharson was a misogynist. He had made as many enemies

as friends by his aloofness. So ordinary wiles and ruses would probably

leave him cold, and she must summon stronger forces to her aid. Her

father was naturally the trump-card in her hand; moral suasion or

dissuasion, in politics, is often a synonym of social blackmail.

Evelyn must be confided in, naturally,--one went to Evelyn for sympathy

as one went to Paquin for frocks--both supplied "the superior article."

Evelyn, all the same, had done her best to commandeer Farquharson--Dora

supposed he pitied her. The Brands were so very badly off. There could

be no question of rivalry, of course, where Evelyn was concerned; nor

was Dora likely to be jealous. Even had Evelyn not been married and a

Catholic, one is not jealous of a woman who has to go through the season

with three frocks, and turn last winter's gowns, Miss Beadon mused.

Evelyn had a tiresome knack of pandering to men's vanity, though--or why

should they all combine to rave so idiotically about her?

Only the generous appreciate generosity. And gratitude is an ephemeral

bloom which flowers in too few gardens.

The capture of Farquharson--from a different aspect--was the object of

Brand's thoughts too. Eminently practical, he was the first to

acknowledge what a mistake he had made the night before. If he knew

Evelyn at all, she would avoid Farquharson for the future; religious

women were like that--they always ran off at a tangent when you tried to

pull them up. Somehow or other she must be conciliated; must be made to

meet the man again on some plea impossible to withstand.

Appeal to Evelyn's love of help and you won her at once. Unluckily, in

the present instance Farquharson seemed rather in the way of conferring

than of receiving favours. Other means must be used, as powerful, if

less obvious.

It was precisely at this crisis in his thoughts that, sauntering slowly

in the direction of Hyde Park Corner, Brand came face to face with Dora

Beadon.

Farquharson's pressure of work, which had been rapidly increasing for

the last few days, came to a climax on the morning after the Albert Hall

meeting. Acquaintances with whose name he was scarcely familiar

telegraphed congratulations; his friends thronged to his flat in relays.

The Taornian Council cabled a long code message; the Stock Exchange and

Wall Street felt the movement. His secretaries were kept so busily

employed that he was forced to send his valet with a handful of notes to

interview the representatives of the less important Press, who had been

found upon his doorstep with the morning milk.

But Farquharson was not openly exhilarated or depressed. He was too

sure of himself to be easily surprised. Last night his pulses had

beaten a trifle quicker, of course; conflict braced him. But it was the

pride of moving men, not doubt of his ability to move them, which

thrilled him. The Albert Hall meeting was a matter of course; a thing

he had worked for, and planned. Christmas Day falls on the 25th of

December; he was as certain of his success as that the festival would

not be altered.

Calvert, entering his room at the luncheon hour, found him cool and

collected, absolutely unruffled by events which might legitimately have

stirred him.

So busy was he that it was not until comparatively late in the afternoon

that he had time to think of Evelyn. Perhaps he took her rather for

granted, too. His faith, after all, was based on surer reasons than the

average man's trust; he had proved her loyalty and endurance more in a

month than most men would in a lifetime. From her alone of his friends

there was no morning greeting, but he was not disappointed. Even in

small matters it was impossible to mistake her. He was to dine that

evening at the Brands'; she would tell him then what she could scarcely

say in a letter.

The last few weeks had altered him more than he knew. Between him and

Calvert there was now a sympathy and tenderness which had never existed

in Taorna. Farquharson had been a machine then, a magnificent machine

which could be relied upon to produce the best work--nothing more. Now

he was human.

Too human, probably, he thought suddenly, realizing in a flash how his

work was tending to the moment when he would reach the Brands'. "Peace

after Toyle" was what Evelyn brought, absolute rest of mind and body. A

dangerous quality to come in contact with when it belonged to the wife

of one's neighbour.

For primitive man may be awakened in even the most hardened diplomatist.

And Farquharson was not naturally hard. Love of victory, too,

counts--the spirit which makes a man want to carry off the woman he

loves in face of danger, and put her before him on his horse and look

back laughing with bullets whizzing about them, and a precipice ahead,

for sheer love of devilry and adventure and desire to possess the thing

he wants.

To Evelyn, counting the hours till dawn, and saddened when dawn came

because it brought the parting of the ways, it seemed that life, so

broad and beautiful only yesterday, had narrowed again into the old grey

road without a turning. All that had made life so sweet lately must go

now: the little plans, the little projects to help Farquharson, their

daily meetings, ...; all that had brought colour into the monotonous

road, had made it fragrant and glowing--how fragrant, how glowing she

had never realized till now when she must make up her mind to stand

aside for evermore; hardest of all, perhaps, possibly to watch another

woman in her place.

For she could no longer cheat herself with half-truths, and talk of

vanity and imagination. Last night the very beating of her heart

betrayed her. In the strange inconsequence of memory, her mind went back

to five years before, when two Glasgow engineers, who were building a

temporary bridge at Comrie, talked slightingly in her presence of

"_little Highland burns_," when wise men of the neighbourhood told them

that their bridge was built too low, and that they had not allowed for

the rising of the floods. For those same little burns took counsel

together, biding their time, waiting until a night when all was still,

when they suddenly drew the forces of the mountain and swept down the

hillside in a mighty torrent, gathering strength as they went, carrying

all before them, undismayed, until at last they reached the temporary

bridge and tore it from its moorings, to play with it in mid-stream as

children play with a broken fragment of wood.

So love, once recognized, sweeps all before it, honour, loyalty, faith,

a torrent that nothing can withstand, nothing compel or alter but the

will of God....

A little book lay open on her writing-table, a frequent companion. It

had comforted her before; she wanted comfort now. She opened it at

random, and her eyes fell on these words--

"To be fully satisfied shall not be granted thee.... Be valiant in doing

as well as suffering things repugnant to nature.... Do that which is

against thy inclination and let alone that which thou art inclined to.

That which is pleasing to others shall go forward; that thou would'st

have shall not succeed. Others shall ask and shall succeed. Thou shalt

ask and not obtain."

"_Others shall ask and shall succeed_." That sounded like Farquharson.

"_Thou shalt ask and not obtain_." Was that herself--an omen of the

future?

She took up her pen to write a note postponing Farquharson's visit that

evening. For once she must run counter to her husband's interests; she

was in a mood to welcome even the physical roughness with which he was

wont to meet her failures to obey him. Just then he entered with a

letter, a pencilled note obviously scrawled with great rapidity upon a

visiting-card of Dora Beadon's, enclosed in an envelope.

"I met Miss Beadon just now in the street," Brand said. "She asked me

to give you this. She said it was very important, and that she wanted a

reply at once by wire."

He watched her closely as she read the letter.

It was short and to the point--

"DEAREST EVELYN,

"Will you help me? I have asked the one man in the world I want to meet

to dine with us to-night, and he has declined on the score of going to

you. Do not suggest putting him off--he will guess that I have asked

you. But will you have me too? You have often told me that I ought to

marry--well, I've met the one man in the world who could persuade me,

and I owe it all to you.

"Evelyn, you must! I count on you.

"D.B."

"She wants the answer now?" Evelyn repeated dazedly. She put her hand

to her head. Calvert's little gesture on the opera night came back to

her; a thousand trivial incidents which pointed the way to further

possibilities of intimacy between Dora and Farquharson.

"Here's a telegraph form," said Brand. He pushed it towards her,

tapping impatiently on the floor. "Well, what are you waiting for? I

thought you were a woman of decision."

"Miss Beadon wants to dine here to-night," said Evelyn slowly. The

words were wrung from her. Was this the solution of the problem? It

was so difficult to judge. She had not meant to see Farquharson again

before she left town, but now----

"You are to accept," said Brand, with his hand heavy on her shoulder.

"To accept--do you hear?"

He stood waiting as she wrote her answer, noticing the hesitating,

illegible scrawl, that was so utterly unlike Evelyn's usual firm hand.

"Miss Beadon, 50 Carlton House Terrace, Shall expect you to-night at

eight o'clock.--EVELYN."

"Good!" he said jubilantly. He took up his hat. "I'll take it myself.

Clever woman! We're getting thoroughly well in with the Beadons. Miss

Dora's a nice girl, too. What a match she'd be for a man who's starting

in his career. She'd get him to the top of the tree in half the time it

would take any one else."

He left the room whistling. Evelyn, alone, sat on idly at her table,

her hands resting upon the book of telegraph forms. Well, she had had

her day, a perfect one. No one could take that from her. But there was

to-morrow to face, and all the to-morrows still to come.

*CHAPTER XI*

"Whether you be men or women you will never do anything in the world

without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind--next to

honour."--J. L. ALLEN.

Lady Wereminster put up her lorgnette and looked round Evelyn's cheerful

little sitting-room at Bramley with intense dissatisfaction.

"Comfortable in its way, yes. But, my dear child, why on earth should

you come to such a dull place in the height of the season? You must

have had some reason for it. Illness, economy? You are not a woman of

moods to do things purposelessly or in a temper. And to go away and

leave no address too! I tell you every one's talking about it. The

charm of the country indeed! The world won't swallow that. It only

looks upon the country as a means of wearing a different set of smart

clothes, that's all. And you yourself have always waited until August

to go to the country until now.

"I wish you were not so reserved, Evelyn. You've made enemies, you know;

women like you always do. You know they say that in a successful play

an audience has to be taken into the author's confidence from the first

act. Well, the world's like an audience, and wants to know one's

secrets too. (It'll betray them at the first opportunity, but no

matter.) It doesn't understand you. It calls itself Christian, but it

sees Christian principles so seldom that when it comes across them it

suspects their probity at once. When it meets a person who helps others

for the sheer love of giving help, like you, it says, 'Hallo, there's

something behind this; I must set to work at once and rout it out!' And

on it switches its most powerful flashlight of envy and malice.

"Don't contradict me, my dear. When I was young I believed I knew

better than any one else, and now I'm sure of it. If I hadn't learnt

something of life by seventy-five, I should be a fool. You're quixotic,

and quixotry is out of date. Now-a-days we only take trouble because we

want to get on, to fill our pockets, or be advertised. Politics--art--we

try to excel in these because it will make people talk of us. As for

charity----! In nine cases out of ten charity is the refuge of the

uncharitable--the means by which elderly spinsters and widows of no

social importance foist themselves on the notice of a public which would

never have heard of them under any other circumstances, and delude

themselves in the belief that they are personages."

"I wish you'd have some lunch or something," said Evelyn blankly; "you'd

feel ever so much better then."

Lady Wereminster chuckled.

"A polite way of stopping my tongue, eh? But what I've said is for your

good, Evelyn, as unpleasant things always are in the view of the person

who says them. Every one's discussing this sudden flight of yours, and

the world can't talk about anything long without saying something

scandalous. And we all miss you so! Creagh's depressed, Wereminster's

so irritable that I can hardly face him at meal-times, and as for Dora

Beadon, she's more odious than ever."

"You dear old impostor, I've only been away a week!"

"A week, my dear--a day's enough to start a sensation in London, if it's

properly spread. You see, try as you will, you can't escape being a

personality. You're known, and you're watched. Must I speak plainer?

Well, then--when it happens that the motor of a very notorious personage

has been waiting outside your house day after day for six weeks or more,

and the visits suddenly cease and you run away into the country, the

world scents out a quarrel, and begins agitating itself as to the

meaning of it all."

"I care very little for the world's opinion," said Evelyn.

"No incense, please," said Lady Wereminster sharply. "Not care for the

world--a good-looking woman like you! Stuff and nonsense! You're

living in the twentieth century, not the sixteenth. People can't go and

stand on pillars like St. Simeon Stylites, and be comparatively

disregarded. The telephone has made that impossible. Why, if anybody

did such a thing now, within half-an-hour he would have a row of

Pressmen at his feet, expecting him to fall off."

"But I don't want to sit on a pillar or do anything remarkable," said

Evelyn. "I came here because I was tired out. I had a lot of work over

that Albert Hall meeting, you know. As for Mr. Farquharson, the one or

two things we did together are over now. One doesn't expect a future

Prime Minister to go on calling on insignificant people like ourselves

day after day."

"Umph!" Lady Wereminster looked her up and down critically. "The man's

not in Parliament yet, even. So you were tired out? And never let one

of your friends know? Is the air supposed to be especially good here,

by the bye?"

"It's the best in Sussex," said Evelyn promptly. "We are I don't know

how many hundred feet above the sea. There's no known disease we can't

cure in about ten minutes. Didn't you notice the russet-apple faces of

the village children as you came?"

"All I can say is you don't do the air credit," said Lady Wereminster;

"you're drawn and pale, and you've got deep lines under your eyes. And

your _protege_, by the way, has scarcely been heard in public since you

left. If you don't come back and look after him, people will say the

famous Albert Hall speech was his swan-song."

Evelyn laughed outright.

"What utter nonsense! My dear lady, there's nothing that man can't do.

If he's quiet now it's for a purpose. He means to show us we can't do

without him and so force our hands."

"Perhaps you're right," said Lady Wereminster slowly, proceeding once

more to enfold herself in a voluminous motor veil. "By the way, you

never asked me how I found out your hiding-place. Your husband gave me

your address--in the very strictest confidence. I'm not sure he hasn't

given it to other people too. I saw him standing in a corner last night

at the Beadons' party, with Mr. Farquharson; the future Prime Minister

wrote down something on his shirt-cuff as your husband left. It may

have been an appointment, I don't know." She turned briskly. "Well,

there's the motor. You won't change your mind and let me take you back?

Good-bye, then, wilful woman."

She was gone. And Evelyn, standing alone at the gate watching her out

of sight, found her voice at last and called, "Come back, come back,"

too late. She even ran a few steps in the direction that the motor had

taken before realizing the utter futility of her action.

Only one's thoughts can keep pace with a forty horse-power car!

Half-indignant, half-despairing, she repeated Lady Wereminster's words.

So the world was talking, was it? Well, it had no respect of persons.

She was blamed in good company. In days of old, a king's conduct was

supposed to be beyond reproach; now-a-days even his Majesty's actions

were occasionally called into question by the daily Press to whom he

gave the liberty which they thus abused. Surely an insignificant person

like herself could afford to let the world say what it would and bide

her time. For sooner or later evil tongues bring evil on themselves;

they carry their own corruption with them.

The poison of asps killed Cleopatra in her day. And souls and

reputations are alike easily slain. For herself it did not matter. But

Farquharson had his foot on the ladder of success. He was in the thick

of enemies; this, the outset of his campaign in England, was the

critical period. He must not be checked now, whatever happened.

Too late to repair it, she saw the mistake she had made. She had run

away like a frightened school-girl--run away from thoughts and fears and

memories which had only taken a stronger hold on her in the past week.

A little forethought--a hint of enforced economy to Lady Wereminster,

and she might have got some post as chaperon to a girl abroad, and let

her flat. There was her husband to be reckoned with, of course, but

with board and lodging paid for, she herself could have managed on very

little money, and long experience had shown her that Brand well paid was

Brand well satisfied.

In solitude, in contemplation, the heart sounds the depths of its own

bitterness. Solitude brings peace for the worker who has a task to

fulfil which its special conditions make imperative, or for the mystic,

already detached so far from earth that human longings can no longer

reach him. But in the restless and passionate spirit, it breeds new

restlessness and passion. Only the glare of the world can blot out

certain dreams and visions, only the hum of Vanity Fair stifle the voice

that calls in darkness.

Bareheaded, her hair stirred by the light breeze, hardly conscious of

where she was going, Evelyn walked on and on, looking neither to right

nor left. Dusk deepened and found her still searching aimlessly for

peace which had for ever escaped her. She had eaten nothing since

morning, and now it was nearly nine o'clock. Physically spent and

broken by the struggle, exhausted and fainting, she knew suddenly that

she could not walk a step further. There was an opening in the little

wood beyond which offered temporary shelter. She was making her way to

it, blindly groping in the darkness, when from behind she saw two great

lights sweep rapidly upon her, like an animal on its prey. She gave a

startled cry. The car slowed down; the man who was driving it got down.

It was Farquharson.

How did he guess who it was? Trembling, she turned to meet him. He lit

a match and held it in front of her, looking straight into her eyes as

it burned out. He was pale, and his mouth was set in the determined

lines she knew.

"So you thought you could escape me!" he said, laughing.

It seemed to Evelyn afterwards that years passed in the moment he held

her to him, stifling her fluttering cry with the torrent of his words.

"You ran away, did you? That was very cowardly, Eve. Didn't you know I

should move heaven and earth to find you? As a matter of fact, no

heroics were necessary; I asked Brand for your address last night and

got it at once." The explanation was so typical! "I have been trying

to get to you all day; I came here, in fact, two hours ago, but they

didn't know at the cottage where you had gone, so since then I've been

chasing you all over the county." He took her face in his hands; he

could not see its expression, but he felt her quiver. "I've learnt a

lot of things since I saw you last, Evelyn," he said, very gently. "You

can't go on living with your husband, that's one thing. I can't go on

living without you, that's another. Where are the matches?" He let go

of her to light up again; even in that moment it struck her how unlike

the things that happen in real life are to the scenes in books. His

eyes were alight with triumph; there was no tragedy here, only joy. He

asked no questions, he was sure of himself and sure of her, strong in

the hope of victory.

"Career--did I hear you say something about my career? Careers don't

depend upon conventional morality. Besides, it's only a question of

shifting the scene. If England won't have anything to do with us,

there's always Taorna, my own place with my own laws. Or if we want a

bigger field--America. They let one have the courage of one's own

opinions there."

He stopped. His eyes looked past her, on into the world he had never

seen where they could begin life together. The darkness hid his face or

she would at once have wept and rejoiced at its look of half-boyish

exaltation. He had had to wait and work and fight for things all his

life; but they had come to him. Unconsciously from childhood he had

waited and worked and fought for this--so surely it was his.

Voiceless still, she swayed in his slackened clasp, and he bent down,

wondering. His voice softened.

"Still nothing to say for yourself, Eve? Won't you even tell me that

you're glad? Try to understand. It's you who are living a lie, not I.

Real adultery is to live your life with the wrong man, as you are now.

You're made for me, and I for you. The world shan't dare to throw a

stone at you--I'll see to that. We'll win through everything, hands

down. Love's the fulfilling of the law. Sinning against it is the one

unpardonable crime. It's when a man does that, that he deserves the

hell to which he's probably already sent the woman who loves him."

"Wait," said Evelyn at last. "Let me think--I must think." She put out

her hand to warn him back. She was face to face with naked facts; it

had never been Farquharson's way to lie to those he trusted; he was not

lying now. There would be no concealment in his actions now or ever, so

far as she was concerned; he would take and keep her in view of the

world, because he thought she was his by right of love. So strong,

indeed, was he that he might even wrest a certain sympathy from the

world for his courage and daring.

His words had driven away her faintness; they were, after all, but the

echo of those she had already stifled in her own heart. Weakened and

unnerved by the day's fast, they sounded in her ear like a trumpet call.

Here, beside him, away from husband and friends and priests and

confessors, there swept before her a sudden glorious vision of they two

together defying the world and yet trampling upon it. Were they strong

enough to point the way, to sacrifice themselves openly and without

shame that the great truth behind his words might reach mankind and help

others, weaker than they, to see the exquisite sanctity of a tie that

would be to them for ever sacred?

But what of faith, what of religion? She might defy the world's

judgment, there was still God's to confront. Hell would be to bring

punishment on another; her own soul might go, but what if she plunged

his into everlasting fires? Suddenly Cummings' words came back to her;

the boy's words, not the priest's.

"You're not playing the game, Evelyn," he had said once, more gravely

than occasion seemed to warrant, when she had just successfully evaded

some trivial rule he had been at pains to teach her. "One must always

play the game in life, however trivial it may seem."

"_One must always play the game in life, however trivial it may seem_."

Perhaps she said the words aloud; she never knew. He started.

"My dear, my dear," she said, "I can't!" She hid her head on his

shoulder, not daring to face him. She heard him draw a deep breath, and

stand tense and rigid. She drew back. "You don't want heroics, nor do

I. I am not afraid of the world or you. You'd be good to me for ever,

and the best of our friends would be friends still, whatever happened.

As for you, you're too big a man for me to harm you here--your career, I

mean. But that's not all. There's God and there's eternity. They

frighten me, not for myself, but you."

"Eve----!"

She put out her hand again.

"Don't--don't dear, have some pity!" The anguish of her tone arrested

him midway to her. He stopped short, a man who had received a mortal

blow.

"No--never again. It will all be harder for you because you're a man

and I'm a woman," she said, "but you've got to get on without me, and

you will, you will! That's the beginning and the end of it. Oh, there's

not a spark of all your generosity to me that I don't love and worship.

And it will all be dreadful in the future. But it's just got to be....

And we must meet, too, ordinarily, in front of people and by ourselves,

as if to-day had never come to us, as if we'd made a mark and crossed it

from our lives. We shall do it, and get through--because we've got to,

because we're strong, because we love each other."

She heard the beating of his heart, she felt its pulses against her hand

as he drew her to him for a moment in spite of what she had said, in

voiceless pleading while they clung together, and she wondered, with a

little smile, if death would be more bitter.

Silence again. He understood he could not move her. Then darkness,

full and complete.

She heard him go from her, heavily; the car throbbed. Presently there

was a flash of light as it whirled past. It was well, perhaps, that he

did not see her look of dumb agony as she stood alone, shaking from head

to foot, straining her ears to hear the last echo of the car, making

herself ready to face the long walk back and the long life ahead.

*PART III*

*THE BETRAYAL*

"Iniquity shall bring all the earth to a desert, and wickedness ...

o'verthrow the thrones of the mighty."--_Wisdom_ (Douay Version).

*CHAPTER I*

"As for them whose heart walketh after their scandals, I will lay their

way upon their head, saith the Lord God."--ECCLESIASTICUS.

"Black thoughts breed black ills to those who think them." ... "Curses,

like chickens, come home to roost."--MRS. HODGSON BURNETT.

"After all," said Miss Beadon solemnly, "there's nothing like a man's

sympathy. Men are so much more helpful than women. With women, some

outside element always seems to spoil the completeness of sympathy.

Jealousy as a rule, of course. How much I've suffered from that no one

will ever know."

"So one would naturally imagine," said Brand gravely. "The gods have

been unusually kind to you, Miss Beadon."

Dora smiled consciously.

"Oh, I dare say I have as many disadvantages as other women really. Of

course I've come in contact with a great many interesting men, that's in

my favour; I always think experience broadens one's point of view. Most

women are so extraordinarily petty. Now look at Evelyn, even. I used

to think she was my best friend, but she hardly helps me now. Since

that night I dined at your house, and you guessed how matters stood with

Mr. Farquharson and me, and put things before me with such wonderful

delicacy and tact, she has never invited me once, unless I deliberately

asked her to do so. And he's such a busy man now--he has very little

time to come here. Besides, of course it's a little awkward when every

time a man dines with you the papers get hold of it. Now with Evelyn

it's different. The public eye isn't always upon her as it is upon me."

"No man worth calling a man would willingly compromise a woman he cared

for," said Brand.

He leant back in his chair and looked at Miss Beadon critically. Beadon

had married beneath him, of course; all the world guessed as much, and

Brand knew every detail of the story. Dora was pre-eminently her

mother's daughter; she had fallen an easy prey to Brand's flattery.

Little by little he had made himself indispensable to her for the last

few weeks. She consulted him now about her engagements and her gowns.

He had made her the means of paying off many an outlying score which had

rankled for years. Little by little, he told himself, his luck was

turning; he was regaining his old power and position. In time, if

things went on as well as they were doing, he would again become a force

to be reckoned with. If he could but obtain some permanent hold on Miss

Beadon, the conquest of a great portion of the social world would be

easy, and if he could but marry her to Farquharson----

But Farquharson himself was a stumbling-block in the plan. He had got

on, not slowly and surely as other men may, but in leaps and bounds.

Lady Wereminster declared that he had signed a bond with Satan. Brand

saw no way of pointing out how valuable an asset a charming and tactful

wife would be; for that matter neither adjective applied to Dora. The

two men seldom came in contact now; they had nothing in common, and

Farquharson's reserve and courtesy were more baffling than open

antagonism.