“No,” he said, “there was nothing to imagine. It was just as I told you.

Nothing happened. But I know now that there’s something in what the

chaps in the town said. I believe in devils now. But my God,

Maradick”—he clutched the other’s arm—“Janet’s down there. It isn’t

for myself I care. He can do what he likes to me. But it’s _her_, we

must get her away or there’s no knowing. . . . I didn’t sleep a wink

last night, thinking what he might be doing to her. He may carry her

away somewhere, where one can’t get at her; or he may do—God knows. But

that’s what he said last night, just that! that she wasn’t for me or for

anyone, that she was _never_ for anyone—that he would keep her.” Tony

broke off.

“I’m silly with it all, I think,” he said, “it’s swung me off my balance

a bit. One can’t think; but it would be the most enormous help if you’d

go and see. It’s the uncertainty that’s so awful. If I could just know

that it’s all right . . . and meanwhile I’m thinking out plans. It’s all

got to happen jolly soon now. I’ll talk when you come back. It’s most

awfully decent of you. . . .”

Maradick left him pacing the paths with his head down and his hands

clenched behind his back.

He found Morelli sitting quietly with Janet and Miss Minns in the

garden. They had had tea out there, and the tea-things glittered and

sparkled in the sun. It would have been difficult to imagine anything

more peaceful. The high dark red brick of the garden walls gave soft

velvet shadows to the lawn; the huge tree in the corner flung a vast

shade over the beds and paths; rooks swung slowly above their heads

through the blue spacious silence of the summer evening; the air was

heavy with the scent of the flowers.

Morelli came forward and greeted Maradick almost eagerly. “What! Have

you had tea? Sure! We can easily have some more made, you know. Come and

sit down. Have a cigar—a pipe? Right. I wondered when you were going to

honour us again. But we had young Gale in yesterday evening for quite a

long time.”

Janet, with a smile of apology, went indoors. Miss Minns was knitting at

a distance. This was obviously the right moment to begin, but the words

would not come. It all seemed so absurd in this delicious garden with

the silence and the peace, and, for want of a better word, the sanity of

it all; all the things that Maradick had been thinking, Tony’s story and

the fantastic scene in the market-place last night, that and the ideas

that had sprung from it, were all so out of line now. People weren’t

melodramatic like that, only one had at times a kind of mood that

induced one to think things, absurd things.

But Morelli seemed to be waiting for Maradick to speak. He sat gravely

back in his chair watching him. It was almost, Maradick thought, as

though he knew what he had come there for. It was natural enough that

Morelli should expect him, but he had not imagined precisely that kind

of quiet waiting for him. He had to clear all the other ideas that he

had had, all the kind of picture that he had come with, out of his head.

It was a different kind of thing, this sheltered, softly coloured garden

with its deep shadows and high reds and browns against the blue of the

sky. It was not, most emphatically it was not, melodrama.

The uncomfortable thought that the quiet eyes and grave mouth had

guessed all this precipitated Maradick suddenly into speech. The peace

and silence of the garden seemed to mark his words with a kind of

indecency. He hurried and stumbled over his sentences.

“Yes, you know,” he said. “I thought I’d just come in and see you—well,

about young Gale. He told me—I met him—he gave me to understand—that

he was here last night.” Maradick felt almost ashamed.

“Yes,” said Morelli, smiling a little, “we had some considerable talk.”

“Well, he told me, that he had said something to you about your

daughter. You must forgive me if you think that I’m intrusive at all.”

Morelli waved a deprecating hand.

“But of course I’m a friend of the boy’s, very fond of him. He tells me

that he spoke about your daughter. He loves Miss Morelli.”

Maradick stopped abruptly.

“Yes,” said Morelli gently, “he did speak to me about Janet. But of

course you must look on it as I do; two such children. Mind you, I like

the boy, I liked him from the first. He’s the sort of young Englishman

that we can’t have too much of, you know. My girl wouldn’t be likely to

find a better, and I think she likes him. But of course they’re too

young, both of them. You must feel as I do.”

Could this be the mysterious terror who had frightened Tony out of his

wits? This gentle, smiling, brown-faced little man lying back there so

placidly in his chair with his eyes half closed? It was impossible on

the face of it. Absurd! And perhaps, after all, who knew whether it

wouldn’t be better to wait? If Morelli really felt like that about it

and was prepared eventually to encourage the idea; and then after all

Janet might be introduced gradually to the family. They would see, even

Sir Richard must see at last, what a really fine girl she was, fine in

every way. He saw her as she had stood up to meet him as he stepped

across the lawn, slim, straight, her throat rising like a white stem of

some splendid flower, her clear dark eyes pools of light.

Oh! they must see if you gave them time. And, after all, this was rather

carrying the matter with a high hand, this eloping and the rest!

The garden had a soothing, restful effect upon him, so that he began to

be sleepy. The high red walls rose about him on every side, the great

tree flung its shadow like a cloud across, and the pleasant little man

smiled at him with gentle eyes.

“Oh yes, of course, they are very young.”

“And then there’s another thing,” went on Morelli. “I don’t know, of

course, but I should say that young Gale’s parents have something else

in view for him in the way of marriage. They’re not likely to take some

one of whom they really know nothing at all. . . . They’ll want,

naturally enough, I admit, something more.” He paused for a moment, then

he smiled. “But perhaps you could tell me,” he said.

Maradick had again the sensation that the man knew perfectly well about

the whole affair, about the Gales and Alice and Tony, and even perhaps

about himself. He also felt that whatever he could say would be of no

use at all; that Morelli was merely playing with him, as a cat plays

with a mouse.

Meanwhile he had nothing to say.

“Well, you see,” he began awkwardly, “as a matter of fact, they haven’t

had the opportunity—the chance, so to speak, of knowing—of meeting

Miss Morelli yet. When they do——”

“They’ve been here,” broke in Morelli quietly, “some weeks now. Lady

Gale could have called, I suppose, if she had been interested. But I

gather that Gale hasn’t told her; hasn’t, indeed, told any of them. You

see,” he added almost apologetically, “she is my only child; she has no

mother; and I must, in a way, see to these things.”

Maradick agreed. There was really nothing to be said. It was perfectly

true that the Gales didn’t want Janet, wouldn’t, in fact, hear of her.

The whole affair seemed to lose a great deal of its immediate urgency in

this quiet and restful place, and the fact that Morelli was himself so

quiet and restful was another motive for waiting. The girl was in no

danger; and, strangely enough, Maradick seemed to have lost for the

first time since he had known Morelli the sense of uneasy distrust that

he had had for the man; he was even rather ashamed of himself for having

had it at all.

“Well,” he said slowly, “you don’t object to things being as they are

for a time. I’m sure Tony will see it sensibly, and perhaps Miss Morelli

might meet Lady Gale. It would be a pity, don’t you think, to put a stop

altogether to the acquaintance?”

“Ah yes,” said Morelli, “certainly. We’ll say no more about it for the

present. It was very pleasant as it was. As I told you, I like young

Gale; and who knows?—perhaps one day——”

Maradick sat back in his chair and looked up lazily at the sky. It was

all very pleasant and comfortable here in this delicious old garden; let

the matter rest.

And then Morelli proved himself a most delightful companion. He seemed

to have been everywhere and to have seen everything. And it was not only

knowledge. He put things so charmingly; he had a thousand ways of

looking at things, a thousand ways of showing them off, so that you saw

them from new points of view, and the world was an amusing, entertaining

treasure-house of wonders.

The minutes slipped by; the sun went down the sky, the shadow of the

tree spread farther and farther across the lawn, the pinks and roses lay

in bunches of red and pink and yellow against the dark background of the

wall.

Maradick got up to go and Morelli walked with him, his hat set back, his

hands in his pockets. As they entered the house he said, “Ah, by the

way, there was that Spanish sword that I promised to show you. It’s a

fine thing and of some value; I’ll bring it down.”

He disappeared up the stairs.

Suddenly Janet was at Maradick’s elbow. He had not seen her coming, but

she looked round with quick, startled eyes. Her white dress shone

against the dark corners of the hall. He saw, too, that her face was

very white and there were dark lines under her eyes; to his surprise she

put her hand on his arm, she spoke in a whisper.

“Mr. Maradick, please,” she said, “I must speak to you. There is only a

minute. Please listen, it’s dreadfully important. Tony says you want to

help us. There isn’t anyone else;” she spoke in little gasps and her

hand was at her throat as though she found it difficult to breathe. “I

must get away somehow, at once, I don’t know what will happen if I

don’t. You don’t know father, and I can’t explain now, but I’m terribly

frightened; and he will suddenly—I can see it coming.” She was nearly

hysterical; he could feel her whole body trembling. “Tony said something

yesterday that made father dreadfully angry. Tony ought not to have

come; anything might happen when father’s like that. If you can’t help

me I will run away; but you _must_ help.”

She grew calmer but still spoke very rapidly, still throwing frightened

glances at the stairs. “Listen; on the twenty-seventh—that’s

Thursday—father’s going away. He’s going to Pendragon for the whole

day; it was arranged long ago. He was to have taken me, but he has

decided not to; I heard him tell Miss Minns—I——”

But suddenly she was gone again, as quietly as she had come. He saw now

that there had been a door behind her leading to some room. He looked up

and saw that Morelli was coming downstairs carrying the sword. Five

minutes afterwards he had left the house.

It had all happened so suddenly, so fantastically, that it was some

minutes before he could straighten it out. First he had the impression

of her, very young, very frightened, very beautiful. But there was no

question of the reality of her terror. All the feelings of danger that

he had had with Tony last night came crowding back now. It was true

then? It hadn’t only been Tony’s imagination. After all, Janet must

know. She hadn’t lived with her father all those years without knowing

more about it than he, Maradick, possibly could. She wouldn’t have been

likely to have taken the risk of seeing him like that if there was

nothing in it, if there was only the mere ordinary domestic quarrel in

it. But above all, there was the terror in her eyes; that he had seen.

He could not, he must not, leave her then. There was danger threatening

her somewhere. The whole business had entirely changed from his original

conception of it. It had been, at first, merely the love affair of a boy

and girl, and he, from a pleasant sense of romance and a comfortable

conviction that it was all good for his middle-aged solidity, had had

his share in it. But now it had become suddenly a serious and most

urgent affair, perhaps even a matter of life and of death.

He turned, as he had turned before, to Punch. There was no time to lose,

and he was the man to see about it; he must find him at once.

The lights were coming out in the town as he passed through the streets;

there were not many people about, and the twilight was lingering in the

air so that all the colours of the sky and the houses and the white

stretches of pavement had a faint pure light. The sky was the very

tenderest blue, and the last gleam from the setting sun still lingered

about the dark peaks and pinnacles of the houses.

He was soon on the outskirts of the town, and at last he trod the white

high road. At the farther turn were Punch’s lodgings. There was a full

round globe of a moon, and below him he could hear the distant beating

of the sea.

Some one was walking rapidly behind him; he turned round, and to his

astonishment saw, as the man came up to him, that it was the very person

for whom he was looking.

“Ah! that’s splendid, Garrick,” he said, “I was just coming for you. I’m

a bit worried and I want your advice.”

“I’m a bit worried too, sir, as a matter of fact,” said Punch, “but if

there’s anything I can do——”

Maradick saw now that the man was very different from his usual cheerful

self. He was looking anxious, and his eyes were staring down the road as

though he were expecting to see something.

“What’s the matter?” said Maradick.

“Well, it’s the dog,” said Punch, “Toby, you know. He’s missing, been

gone all the afternoon. Not that there’s very much in that in the

ordinary way. He often goes off by ’imself. ’E knows the neighbourhood

as well as I do; besides, the people round ’ere know him and know his

mind. But I’m uneasy this time. It’s foolish, perhaps, but when a man’s

got only one thing in the world——” He stopped.

“But why should you be uneasy?” said Maradick. The loss of a dog seemed

a very small thing compared with his own affairs.

“Well, as a matter of fact, it’s Morelli.” The lines of Punch’s mouth

grew hard. “’E’s owed me a grudge ever since I spoke to ’im plain about

them animals. And ’e knows that I know a good bit, too. He passed me in

the market-place two days back, and stopped for an instant and looked at

the dog. To them that don’t know Morelli that’s nothing; but for them

that do—’e’d think nothing of having his bit of revenge. And it’s late

now, and the dog’s not home.” The little man looked at Maradick almost

piteously, as though he wanted to be reassured.

“Oh, I expect it’s all right,” said Maradick. “Anyhow, I’ll come along

with you and we can talk as we go.”

In a few words he explained what had happened that afternoon.

Punch stopped for a moment in the road and stared into Maradick’s face.

“Get ’er away, sir,” he said, “whatever you do, get ’er away. I know the

girl; she wouldn’t have spoken to you like that unless there was

something very much the matter. And I know the man; there’s nothing ’e’d

stop at when ’e’s roused.”

“But why,” said Maradick, “if he feels like this about it did he let

them go about together? He helped them in every way. He seemed to love

to have Tony there. I can’t understand it.”

“Ah, sir, if you take Morelli as an ordinary man you won’t understand

’im. But ’e’s a kind of survival. ’E loves to be cruel, as they did in

the beginning of things when they didn’t know any better. It’s true.

I’ve seen it once or twice in my life. It’s a lust like any other lust,

so that your body quivers with the pleasure of it. But there’s more in

it than that. You see ’e wants to have young things about ’im. ’E’s

always been like that; will play with kittens and birds and puppies, and

then p’r’aps, on a sudden, kill them. That’s why he took to young Gale,

because of ’is youth. And ’e liked to watch them together; but now, when

young Gale comes and talks of marriage, why, that means that they both

leave ’im and ’e can’t play with them any more, so ’e’ll kill them

instead. Take ’er away, sir, take ’er away.”

They were out now upon the moor that ran between the woods and the sea;

the world was perfectly still save for the distant bleating of some

sheep and the monotonous tramp of the waves on the shore far below them.

There was no sign of any other human being; the moon flung a white

unnatural light about the place.

Punch walked with his eyes darting from side to side; every now and

again he whistled, but there was no answering bark.

“It may seem a bit absurd to you, sir,” Punch said almost

apologetically, “to be fussing this way about a dog, but ’e’s more to me

than I could ever explain. If I hadn’t got ’im to talk to and have about

at nights and kind o’ smile at when you’re wanting company the world

would be another kind of place.”

Maradick tried to fix his mind on Punch’s words, but the ghostliness of

the place and the hour seemed to hang round him so that he could not

think of anything, but only wanted to get back to lights and company.

Every now and again he turned round because he fancied that he heard

steps. Their feet sank into the soft soil and then stumbled over tufts

of grass. Faint mists swept up from the sea and shadowed the moon.

Behind them the lights of the town twinkled like the watching eye of

some mysterious enemy. A bird rose in front of them with shrill

protesting cries, and whirled, screaming, into the skies.

Punch seemed to be talking to himself. “Toby, boy, where are you? Toby,

old dog. You know your master and you wouldn’t hide from your master.

It’s time to be getting home, Toby. Time for bed, old boy. Damn the dog,

why don’t ’e come? Toby, old boy!”

Every few minutes he started as though he saw it, and he would run

forward a few paces and then stop. And indeed, in the gathering and

shifting mist that went and came and took form and shape, there might

have been a thousand white dogs wandering, an army of dogs, passing

silently, mysteriously across the moor.

“Toby, old boy, it’s time to be getting back. ’E was that used to the

place you couldn’t imagine ’is being lost anywhere round about. ’E was

that cunning . . .”

But the army of dogs passed silently by, curving with their silent feet

in and out of the mists. One new dog had joined their ranks. He fell in

at the rear and went by with the others; but his master did not see

them.

Suddenly the mists broke and the moon shone out across the moor like a

flame. The moon leapt into the light. A little to the right on a raised

piece of ground lay something white.

The army of dogs had vanished. The woods, the moor, the sea, were bathed

in white colour.

Punch ran forward with a cry; he was down on his knees and his arms were

round the dog’s body.

He bent down, and for a moment there was perfect silence, only, in a far

distant field, some sheep was crying. Then he looked up.

The tears were rolling down his face; he lifted his hand and brushed

them back. “It’s Toby. My dog! ’E’s been killed. Something’s torn

’im. . . .”

He bent down and picked it up and held it in his arms. “Toby, old dog,

it’s time to go back. It’s all right; ’e hasn’t hurt you, old boy. It’s

all right.” He broke off. “Curse him,” he said, “curse him! ’E did it—I

know his marks—I’ll kill ’im for it.” His hands fell down to his side.

“Toby, old dog! Toby. . . .”

The moon crept back again behind the mist. In the shadow the man sat

nursing the dog in his arms.

Far below him sounded the sea.

PART III

THE TOWER

CHAPTER XVI

MRS. LESTER, TOO, WOULD LIKE IT TO BE THE TWENTY-SEVENTH

BUT MARADICK IS AFRAID OF THE DEVIL

On Monday the 24th the weather broke. Cold winds swept up from the sea,

mists twisted and turned about the hotel, the rain beat in torrents

against the panes. In all the rooms there were fires, and it seemed

impossible that, only the day before, there should have been a burning,

dazzling sun.

It was after lunch, and Lady Gale and Tony were sitting over the fire in

the drawing-room. Tony had been obviously not himself during these last

few days, and his mother felt that her silence could last a very little

time longer. However, matters were at length approaching a crisis.

Things must decide themselves one way or the other in a day or two, for

Sir Richard had, at lunch, announced his intention of departing on

Saturday the 29th; that is, they had the inside of a week, and then

Treliss, thank Heaven, would be left behind. Surely nothing very much

could happen in a week.

Her earlier feeling, that above all she did not want Tony to miss this

girl if she were the right one for him, had yielded now to a kind of

panic. All that she could think of now was to get him away. There was a

look in his eyes that she had never seen in his face before. It was a

look that aged him, that robbed him altogether of that delightful youth

and vitality that had been his surprising, his charming gift! But there

was more than a look of weariness and distress, there was positive

fright there!

She watched him when he was in the room with her, and she had seen him

suddenly start and tremble, fling back his head as though he expected to

find some one behind him. He, her boy Tony, who had never been afraid of

anyone or anything. And then, too, she had seen a new look of

determination in his mouth and eyes during these last days. His mind was

made up to something, but to what she was too afraid to think!

She must get him away, and she had heard her husband’s decision about

Saturday with tremendous relief. She had watched Tony’s face at the

announcement. But it had not changed at all; only, for a moment he had

looked quickly across at Maradick; it had apparently not startled him.

His indifference frightened her. If he was taking it so calmly then he

must have decided on something that this date could not affect, on

something probably before the date? But what could he do before

Saturday? She seemed to miss altogether the obvious thing that he could

do.

But it had been seldom enough that she had had him to herself during

these last weeks, and now she snatched eagerly at her opportunity. She

sat on one side of the fire, one hand up to shield her face, her rings

glittering in the firelight; her brown dress stood out against the white

tiles of the fireplace and her beautiful snow-white hair crowned her

head gloriously.

Tony sat at her feet, one hand in hers. He stared straight before him

into the fire. She had noticed during these last three days a delightful

tenderness towards her. His attitude to her had always been charming,

courteous, affectionate and yet companionable; but now he seemed to want

to do everything that he could to show her that he loved her. And yet

though she valued and treasured this it also frightened her. It was a

little as though he were preparing for some departure, at any rate some

change, that might hurt her.

Well, they were going at the end of the week, only a few more days.

He took her fingers and stroked them. His hand stopped at the wedding

ring and he passed his thumb across it.

“I say, mother,” he looked up in her face with a little laugh, “I

suppose you’d say that you’d rather lose anything in the world than

that.”

“Yes, dear, it’s very precious;” but she sighed.

“I suppose it is. It must be ripping having something that is just yours

and nobody else’s, that you simply don’t share with anyone. It must be

ripping having somebody that belongs to you and that you belong to; just

you two.”

“Yes, But that ring means more to me than that. It means you and Rupert

as well as your father. It means all those hours when you screamed and

kicked, and the day when you began to talk, and the first adventurous

hours when you tried to cross the nursery floor. And yes, a thousand

things besides.”

“Dear old mater,” he said softly. “It’s been just ripping having you.

You’ve always understood so splendidly. Some chaps’ mothers I’ve seen,

and they don’t know their sons in the very least. They do all the things

that are most likely to drive them wild, and they never seem to be able

to give them a bit what they want.”

“Yes, but it works both ways,” she answered. “A son’s got to try and

understand his mother too. It’s no use their leaving it all to her, you

know.”

“No, of course not.” Then he turned his body round and looked her in the

face. “But you do understand so splendidly. You always have understood.

You see, you trust a fellow.” Then he added quickly, “You’re trusting me

now, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she answered, looking at him steadily, “perfectly. Only, just

these last few days, perhaps I’ve been a little tiny bit worried. You

haven’t been looking happy, and then I’m always worried; it’s so seldom

that you’re not all right.”

“But you’d rather not know—what’s going on, I mean. It’s all right,

perfectly right, and if it wasn’t—if it wasn’t right for you, I mean,

as well as for me—I wouldn’t go on with it for a moment. Only it’s

dreadfully important.”

“Yes, dear, I know. And if Mr. Maradick knows about it——”

“He’s a brick, isn’t he?” Tony interrupted eagerly. “You know, so few

middle-aged men can understand the point of view of a chap who’s only

about twenty-five. They are either fatherly and patronising or

schoolmasterly and bossing, or kind of wise and beneficent; but

Maradick’s most awfully young really, and yet he’s wise too. He’s a

ripper.”

He stopped. They neither of them spoke for some minutes. “It will be

quite all right, mother,” he said, “very soon. Just now things are a

little difficult, but we’ll pull through.”

He got up and stood looking down at her. “You are a brick to trust me

and not to ask,” he said. “It would make things so awfully difficult if

you asked.” He bent down and kissed her. “It’s a bit of luck having

you,” he said.

But as soon as he had left the room his face was serious again. He

passed Mrs. Lester on the stairs and smiled and hurried on. It was all

very well; she was there, of course, real enough and all that sort of

thing, but she simply didn’t count for him at that moment, she didn’t

exist, really, any more than the hotel or the garden did. Nothing

existed except that house in the town with Janet somewhere in it waiting

for him to set her free.

That was the one point on which his eyes were now fixed. In his earlier

days it had, perhaps, been one of his failings—that he had run rather

too eagerly after too many interests, finding in everything so immediate

an excitement that he forgot the purpose of yesterday in the purpose of

to-day. It had always been the matter with him that he had too many

irons in the fire. Life was so full and such fun!—that had been the

excuse. _Now_ it was deadly earnest.

But it was the first time that the world had so resolved into one single

point for him. He was already years older; these last days had made him

that, the uncertainties, the indecisions, the fluctuating enthusiasms,

the passing from wonder to wonder. All these had solidified into one

thing, and one thing only—Janet, how to get her out, how to marry her,

how to have her for always; the rest of the world was in shadow.

To-day was Monday; Tuesday, Wednesday, and then Thursday, Thursday the

27th. That was the day on which everything must be done. He was thinking

it all out, they had got that one chance. If they missed it Morelli

would be back, and for ever. They must not miss it.

But he was perfectly calm about it. His agitation seemed curiously to

have left him. He was cold and stern and absolutely collected. He and

Maradick were going to pull it through.

He could not find Maradick. He searched for him in the dining-room, the

passages, the billiard-room.

No. The servants hadn’t seen him. Mrs. Maradick was with Mrs. Lawrence

in one of the drawing-rooms; no, they hadn’t see him, he had disappeared

after lunch.

Mrs. Maradick smiled. “Find Mrs. Lester” was the advice that she would

have given him. She went back to her novel with tightly closed mouth and

refused to talk to Mrs. Lawrence.

And then Tony suddenly remembered. Of course, he would be up in that old

room where he so often went, the room with the gallery. Tony found him

there.

The rain was beating furiously against the panes, and there was a very

dismal light that struggled across the floor and lost itself hopelessly

in the dark corners under the gallery. Maradick was sitting close up

against the window, reading in the rather feeble light. He looked up

when he saw Tony and put his book down.

“Ah, Tony, I was coming down to find you; Sir Richard’s decision at

lunch pretty well settles things, doesn’t it? We must move at once.”

He looked up at the boy and saw the age in his face.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re going to pull it through all right.”

“Oh, I’m not worrying,” Tony answered shortly. “It’s too damned serious,

and besides, there’s no time.” He paused as though he were collecting

his thoughts, and then he went on. “Look here, I’ve thought it all out.

I’ve been able to write to Janet and have had several letters from her.

She’s plucky, my word, you can’t think! Anyhow, that beast’s all right

for the moment, it seems, only he keeps looking at her as though he was

meaning to do something, and she’s terribly frightened, poor little

girl. But he’s going on Thursday all right, and that’s when we’ve got to

do the trick.”

“Yes,” said Maradick. “I’m absolutely at your service.” Their positions

had changed. Tony was taking the lead.

“Yes,” said Tony, very solemnly and speaking rather quickly. “It’s all

got to be Thursday. I want you to go off this afternoon, if you don’t

very much mind, to that parson I was telling you of—the parson at

Tremnan. He knows me and he’s a real sportsman. He must do the trick.

You can tell him, 1.30 Thursday. Then there’s the licence to be got.

I’ll see to that. I’ve been here three weeks now, so that’s all right.

Then it only remains to think about that, I’m going to get ’em—the

family, I mean—to go for an expedition on Thursday. Mother will

understand if I ask her, and that will get them out of the way. Then we

just take a cab, you and I and Janet and Miss Minns.”

“Miss Minns?” broke in Maradick.

“Yes,” said Tony, still very seriously. “The poor woman’s frightened out

of her life, and Janet’s taken her into her confidence. We’re going to

take her away with us. She’s going to live with us. That’ll be all

right. She’s got more sense than you think. Well, we four drive out to

the church and there the thing’s done. Then we get back and catch the

three o’clock up to town. Then off to Paris that same night; and there

you are!”

He stopped and looked at Maradick for a moment.

“The only thing,” he said, “is about you.”

“About me?” Maradick looked up, smiling.

“Yes. What are we going to do about you? Of course you can come off with

us, too, if you like, but then there’s your wife and the girls. You

couldn’t do that very well, I suppose?”

“No,” said Maradick, “I couldn’t.”

“Well, but, you know, if you’re left, why then, everybody’s got you, so

to speak—Morelli, my people, everybody. There’s only you to turn on;

you’ll have a pretty rotten time. It isn’t fair. And even now, you know,

if you’d rather get out of it I expect I’ll manage.”

Maradick said nothing.

“I hadn’t really seen how damned selfish it all was until just now. I

asked you to come and didn’t see it really a bit, what it would all lead

to, I mean, and especially for you.”

Maradick looked up, laughing.

“My dear boy, do you suppose I, at any rate, haven’t seen? Why, from the

beginning, from that first night of all when we talked about it, I was

responsible; responsible to your mother at any rate, and she’s the only

person who really matters. As to Morelli, he can do nothing. When I see

a girl look as Janet looked the other night, why, then it was time some

steps were taken by somebody to get her away.”

He put his hand on Tony’s arm. “And besides, whatever happened to me, do

you suppose that I could ever cease to be grateful for all that you’ve

done for me, your being with me, your showing me a new kind of life

altogether? I’d be a bit of a cur if I wasn’t ready to help you after

that. Nothing that I can do can quite repay you.”

“That’s all right, then,” said Tony. He was a little impatient, just

then, of Maradick’s approach to sentiment. It was off the mark; it

hadn’t anything at all to do with Janet, and besides, it was all rot,

anyway, to talk about all that he’d done. He’d done nothing. But he

didn’t, in the least, want to be ungracious. “But that’s most awfully

good of you, really, and I don’t suppose, as a matter of fact, they’ll

do very much. They can’t, anyhow. I’m over age, and I shan’t have to go

to the governor for money. Besides, it will be all right in a week or

two. The governor’s like that; I know him, and once the thing’s over

he’ll get over it, because he loathes things being uncomfortable;

besides, mother will manage him. Anyhow, are you sure you don’t mind

going off to the parson? I’d come, too, but I think it would be safer

for me on the whole to hang round here this afternoon.”

No, Maradick didn’t mind. Maradick would like to go; Maradick would do

anything. And, as a matter of fact, he wanted to get out and away—away

from the house and the people in it, where he could think undisturbed.

He left Tony and started down to the town. His brain was still on fire

with his meeting with Mrs. Lester on the evening before. During these

last three days they had had very few opportunities of meeting, but the

affair had nevertheless advanced with extraordinary rapidity. Then, last

night, he had been alone with her, after dinner, in the garden. It had

been terribly hot and oppressive, a prelude to the storm that came a few

hours later.

There was not a breath of wind; the world might have been of carved

stone, so motionless was it. He had had her in his arms; her hands had

crept round his neck and had pulled his head down until it rested on her

breast. He had been on fire—the world had been on fire—and he had

poured into her ear, in fierce hurried words, passion such as it seemed

to him no man had ever known before. He had told her the old, old

arguments; things that seemed to him absolutely new and fresh. Their

marriages had been, both of them, absurd. They had been joined, each of

them, to persons who did not understand them, people who did not even

care to understand them. After all, what were marriage vows? A few words

spoken hurriedly when they could not possibly tell whether there was

even a chance of their being able to keep them.

They were not meant to keep them. They had made their mistake, and now

they must pay for it; but it was better to break with those bonds now,

to have done with them once and for all, than to go on for ever in

hypercritical mockery, pretending what they could not feel, acting a lie

before God and man.

But now, if they could escape now, away from this stupid country with

its stupid conventions, away to some place where they would be happy

together for ever until death . . . and so on, and so on; and the leaves

and the paths and the dark sky were held together, motionless, by the

iron hand of God.

And then some one had in a moment interrupted them; some fool from the

hotel. Maradick’s fingers itched to be about his throat. “What a close

night! Yes, a storm must be coming up. They’d heard very distant

thunder; how solemn the sea sounded . . .” and so they had gone into the

hotel.

The rain had ceased. The streets stretched in dreary wet lines before

him, the skies were leaden grey; from some room the discordant jingle of

a piano came down to him, a cart bumped past him through the mud and

dirt.

And then suddenly the tower in the market-place sprung upon him. It was

literally that, a definite springing out from all the depths of greyness

and squalor behind it to meet him. On shining days, when the sky was

very blue and the new smart hotel opposite glittered in all its

splendour, the tower put on its most sombre cloak of grey and hid

itself.

That was no time or place for it when other things could look so

brilliant, but now, in the absolutely deserted market-place, when the

cobbles glittered in the wet and the windows, like so many stupid eyes,

gave back the dead colour of the sky, it took its rightful place.

It seemed to be the one thing that mattered, with its square and sturdy

strength, its solidity that bid defiance to all the winds and rains of

the world. Puddles lay about its feet and grey windy clouds tugged at

its head, but it stood confidently resolute, while the red hotel

opposite shrunk back, with its tawdry glitter damped and torn and

dishevelled.

So Maradick stood alone in the market-place and looked at it, and

suddenly realised it as a symbol. He might have his room from which he

looked out and saw the world, and he held it to be good; Tony had shown

him that. He might have his freedom, so that he might step out and take

the wonderful things that he had seen; Punch had shown him that. But he

must also have—oh! he saw it so clearly—his strength, the character to

deal with it all, the resolution to carve his own actions rather than to

let his actions carve him; and the tower had shown him that!

As he looked at it, he almost bowed his head before it. Foolish to make

so much of an old thing like that! Sentimental and emotional with no

atom of common-sense in it, but it had come out to meet him just when he

wanted it most. It needed all his resolution to persuade himself that it

had not a life of its own, that it did not know, like some old, sober,

experienced friend, what danger he was running.

He passed out into the country. Although the rain had ceased and the

grass was scenting the air with the new fragrance that the storm had

given it, the sky was dark and overcast, grey clouds like Valkyries

rushed furiously before the wind, and the sea, through the mist, broke

into armies of white horses. As far as the eye could reach they kept

charging into the grey dun-coloured air and fell back to give way to

other furious riders.

The mist crept forward like live things, twisting and turning, forming

into pillars and clouds, and then rent by the screaming wind into a

thousand tatters.

The road was at a high level, and he could see the coast for some miles

bending round until it reached the headland; a line of white foam

stretched, with hard and clear outline, from point to point. This was a

new Cornwall to him, this grey mysterious thing, hinting at so much,

with a force and power almost terrible in its ominous disregard of human

individuality. He had thought that the right light for Cornwall was on a

day of gold and blue, now he knew that he had not seen half the wonder

and fascination; it was here, with this crawling foam, the sharp rocks,

the screaming wind and the turning, twisting mist, that she was rightly

to be seen.

The wind tore at his coat and beat him about the face. It was incredible

that only yesterday there should have been heat and silence and dazzling

colour. He pressed forward.

His thought now was that he was glad Mrs. Maradick did not know. Until

this morning he had not considered her at all. After all, she had given

him a bad twenty years of it, and she had no right to complain. Other

men did it with far less excuse.

But there had been something when she had met him at breakfast this

morning that he had not understood. She had been almost submissive. She

had spoken to him at breakfast as she had never spoken to him in their

married life before. She had been gentle, had told Annie not to jingle

her teaspoon because it worried father, and had inquired almost timidly

what were his plans for the day.

He had felt yesterday that he rather wanted her to see that Mrs. Lester

was fond of him; she had driven it into him so often that he was only

accepted by people as her husband, that he had no value in himself at

all except as a payer of bills. She had even chaffed him about certain

ladies of whom she had ironically suggested that he was enamoured. And

so it had seemed in its way something of a triumph to show her that he

wasn’t merely a figurehead, a person of no importance; that there was

somebody who found him attractive, several people, indeed. But now he

was ashamed. He had scarcely known how to answer her when she had spoken

to him so gently. Was she too under influence of the place?

In fact, he did not know what he was going to do. He was tired, worn

out; he would not think of it at all. He would see how things turned

out.

The character of the day had changed. The mists were still on the sea,

but behind them now was the shining of the sun, only as a faint light

vaguely discerned, but the water seemed to heave gently as though some

giant had felt the coming of the sun and was hurrying to meet it.

The light was held back by a wall of mist, but in places it seemed to be

about to break through, and the floor of the sea shone with all the

colours of mother of pearl.

The little church stood back from the cliff; it stood as though it had

faced a thousand years of storm and rain, as an animal stands with its

feet planted wide and its ears well back ready for attack. Its little

tower was square and its stone was of weather-beaten grey, only the

little windows with deep blue glass caught the haze from the sea and

shone like eyes through the stone and across the grass.

The little rectory stood on the other side of the road. It also was

minute and absolutely exposed to the elements; here lived the Rev. Mark

Anstey, aged eighty-two, quite alone except for the company of five

dogs, six cats, three pigeons, a parrot, two tame rabbits, a hedgehog

and a great many frogs, these last in a pond near by.

When Maradick came up the road he saw the old man standing in his garden

watching the sea. The mist had been drawn back, as a veil is drawn back

by a mysterious hand, until it lay only on the horizon. The sea was

still grey, but it hinted, as it were, at wonderful colours. You fancied

that you could see blue and gold and purple, and yet when you looked

again it was still grey. It was as though a sheet of grey gauze had been

stretched over a wonderful glittering floor and the colours shone

through.

The old man was a magnificent figure of enormous height. He had a great

white beard that fell almost to his waist and his snow-white hair had no

covering. Three of his dogs were at his side and the five cats sat in a

row on his doorstep. He was standing with his hands behind his back and

his head up as though to catch the wind.

Maradick introduced himself and stated his errand. The old man shook him

warmly by the hand.

“Ah, yes; come in, won’t you? Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Maradick.

Come into my study and I’ll just take down details.”

His voice was as clear as a bell, and his eyes, blue as the sea, looked

him through and through.

“Here, this is my room. Bit of a mess, isn’t it? But a bachelor can’t

help that, you know; besides, I like a mess, always did.”

Whatever it was, it was the right kind of mess. The fireplace was of

bright blue tiles; there were books, mostly, it seemed, theological,

fishing tackle cumbered one corner, guns another, a writing-desk took up

a good deal of the room. The old man filled the place. He really was

enormous, and he had a habit of snapping his fingers with a sharp,

clicking noise like the report of a pistol. Two deerhounds were lying by

the fireplace, and these came to meet him, putting their noses into his

hands.

“Ah, ha! Hum—where are we? Oh! yes! Sit down, Mr. Maradick, won’t you?

Oh, clear those things off the chair—yes—let me see! Anthony

Gale—Janet Morelli—what? Morelli? How do you spell it? What?

M-o-r-e—oh! yes, thanks! Thursday—1.30. Yes, I know the boy; going to

be married, is he? Well, that’s a good thing—can’t start breeding too

young—improves the race—fill the country with children. Married

yourself, Mr. Maradick? Ah! that’s good.”

Maradick wondered whether the name, Morelli, would seem familiar to him,

but he had obviously never heard it before. “We don’t have many weddings

up in this church here, nowadays. They don’t come this way much. Just

the people down at the cove, you know. . . . Have some tea—oh, yes! you

must have some tea.”

He rang the bell and a small boy with a very old face came and received

orders. “Remarkable thing, you know,” said Mr. Anstey when the boy had

gone out again. “That boy’s twenty-three. You wouldn’t think it, now,

would you? But it’s true. Stopped growing, but he’s a good boy; rings

the bell in the church, and digs in the garden and all the rest of it.

We’ll have tea outside. It’s warm enough and it’s going to be fine, I

think. Besides, I always must have my eyes on the sea if it’s possible.”

They had tea in the little porch over the door; the honeysuckle was

still in flower and there were still roses in the beds, a mass of red

hollyhocks at the farther end of the garden stood out against the sky.

The old man talked of Tony.

“Yes, I’ve met him several times; a splendid boy, a friend of Garrick’s

who’s brought him up here. Ah, you know Garrick?”

Yes, Maradick knew Garrick.

“Well, there’s a man! God made that man all right, even though he isn’t

often inside a church. He worships in his own kind way, you know, as

most of us do, if you only look into it. God’s more tolerant than most

of us parsons, I can tell you, and understands people a lot better, too.

Not that we parsons aren’t a pretty good lot on the whole, but we’re a

bit apt to have our eyes fixed on our little differences and our creeds

and our little quarrels when we ought to be having our eyes on the sky.

Ah, if I could get a few of those gentlemen who are quarrelling there up

in London and just set them here in this garden in rows with that to

look at!” He waved his hand at the sea.

The hill bent at the end of the garden and disappeared, and beyond the

bend there was nothing but the sea. The blue was beginning to steal into

it in little lakes and rivers of colour.

“That’s God’s work, you know; take your atheist and show him that.”

He talked about Tony.

“A nice boy, if ever there was one. But what’s this about marriage?

Well, I suppose I mustn’t ask questions. You’re a friend of his and

you’re looking after him. But that’s a boy who’ll never go wrong; I’d

trust any woman to him.”

Soon Maradick got up to go. This man had impressed him strangely; he had

got that thing that Tony and Punch had got, but he had used it in the

right way. There was not only the sentiment, the emotion of the view,

there was the strength of the tower as well.

Maradick left him standing gazing at the sea. His figure seemed to fill

the sky.

On his way back the sky grew clearer, and although the sun was never

actually to be seen its light was felt in the air and over the sea.

There was a freshness about everything around him. The sheaves on the

hills, the grass waving on the moor, the sheep clustered in their pens,

the hard white clean lines of the road surrounded him with new life. He

felt suddenly as though he had been standing during these last days in a

dark, close room with the walls pressing about him and no air.

And yet he knew, as he neared the town, that the fascination, the

temptation was beginning to steal about him again. As the door of the

hotel closed round him, the tower, the clear colours of the land and

sky, the man standing gazing at the sea—these things were already

fading away from him.

He had nearly finished dressing when his wife came into his room. She

talked a little, but had obviously nothing very much to say. He was

suddenly conscious that he avoided looking at her. He busied himself

over his tie, his shirt; it was not, he told himself angrily, that he

was ashamed of facing her. After all, why should he be? All that he had

done was to kiss another woman, and most men had done that in their

time. He was no saint and, for that matter, neither was she. Nobody was

a saint; but he was uncomfortable, most certainly uncomfortable. Looking

into the glass as he brushed his hair, he caught sight of her staring at

him in a strange way, as though she were trying to make up her mind

about something.

Puzzled—puzzled—puzzled about what? Perhaps it was just possible that

she too was just discovering that she had missed something in all these

years. Perhaps she too was suddenly wondering whether she had got

everything from life that she wanted; perhaps her mind was groping back

to days when there did seem to be other things, when there were, most

obviously, other people who had found something that she had never even

searched for.

The thought touched him strangely. After all, what if there was a chance

of starting again? Lord! what a fool he was to talk like that! Didn’t he

know that in another two hours’ time he would be with the other woman,

his pulses beating to a riotous tune that she, his wife, could never

teach him; you couldn’t cure the faults, the mistakes, the omissions of

twenty years in three weeks.

Dinner that night was of the pleasantest. Tony was at his very best. He

seemed to have recovered all his lost spirits. That white, tense look

had left his face, the strain had gone out of his eyes; even the waiters

could not keep back their smiles at his laughter.

They discussed the hour of departure and Tony did not turn a hair. Mrs.

Lester glanced for an instant at Maradick, but that was all.

“I’m afraid I shall have to go up on Thursday night,” said Lester.

“One’s publishers, you know, need continual looking after, and if I

don’t see them on Friday morning it may be some time before I get a

chance again. But I’ll leave my wife in your hands, Lady Gale. I know

she’ll be safe enough.”

“Oh! we’ll look after her, Lester,” said Tony, laughing; “won’t we,

Milly? We’ll look after you all the time. I’ll constitute myself your

special knight-errant, Milly. You shall want for nothing so long as I am

there.”

“Thank you, Tony,” said Mrs. Lester.

It was a fine enough night for them all to go into the garden, and very

soon Maradick and Mrs. Lester were alone. It was all about him once

again, the perfume that she used, the rustle of her dress, the way that

her hair brushed his cheek. But behind it, in spite of himself, he saw

his wife’s face in the mirror, he saw Tony, he saw the tower, and he

felt the wind about his body.

She bent over him and put her arms about his neck; but he put them back.

“No,” he said almost roughly, “we’ve got to talk; this kind of thing

must be settled one way or the other.”

“Please, don’t be cross.” Her voice was very gentle; he could feel her

breath on his cheek. “Ah, if you knew what I’d been suffering all day,

waiting for you, looking forward, aching for these minutes; no, you

mustn’t be cruel to me now.”

But he stared in front of him, looking into the black depths of the

trees that surrounded them on every side.

“No, there’s more in it than I thought. What are we going to do? What’s

going to happen afterwards? Don’t you see, we must be sensible about

it?”

“No,” she said, holding his hand. “There is no time for that. We can be

sensible afterwards. Didn’t you hear at dinner? Fred is going away on

Thursday night; we have that, at any rate.”

“No,” he said, roughly breaking away from her, “we must not.”

But she pressed up against him. Her arm passed slowly round his neck and

her fingers touched, for a moment, his cheek. “No; listen. Don’t you see

what will happen if we don’t take it? All our lives we’ll know that

we’ve missed it. There’s something that we might have had—some life,

some experience. At any rate we had lived once, out of our stuffy lives,

our stupid, dull humdrum. Oh! I tell you, you mustn’t miss it! You’ll

always regret, you’ll always regret!”

Her whole body was pressed against his. He tried to push her away with

his hand. For a moment he thought that he saw Tony watching him and then

turning away, sadly, scornfully. And then it swept over him like a wave.

He crushed her in his arms; for some minutes the world had stopped. Then

again he let her go.

“Ah!” she said, smiling and touching her dress with her fingers. “You

are dreadfully strong. I did not know how strong. But I like it. And now

Thursday night will be ours; glorious, wonderful, never to be forgotten.

I must go. They’ll be wondering. You’d better not come back with me.

Good-night, darling!” She bent down, kissed him and disappeared.

But he sat there, his hands gripping his knees.

What sort of scum was he? He, a man?

_This_ then was the fine new thing that Tony and Punch had shown him.

_This_ the kind of world! _This_ the great experience. Life!

_No._ With all his soul he knew that it was not; with all his soul he

knew that the devil and all his angels were pressing about his

path—laughing, laughing.

And the moon rose behind the trees and the stars danced between the

branches.

CHAPTER XVII

MORNING AND AFTERNOON OF THE TWENTY-SEVENTH—TONY,

MARADICK, JANET, AND MISS MINNS HAVE A RIDE

AFTER THE WEDDING

But Mrs. Lester had not the courage of her convictions. Those

convictions were based very largely on an audacious standing up against

Providence, although she herself would never have seen it in that light.

In each of her “affairs” she went breathlessly forward, as it were on

tiptoe, with eyes staring and heart beating; wondering what would be the

dangers, gasping at possibly startling adventures.

But the real thing had never met her before. The two or three men who

had been concerned in her other experiences had understood quite as well

as she did that it was only a game, _pour passer le temps_, and a very

pleasant way of passing it too. But this man was taking it very

differently. It was no game at all to him; he did not look as though he

could play a game if he wanted to. But it was not Maradick who

frightened her; it was herself. She had never gone so far as this

before, and now as she undressed she was suddenly terribly frightened.

Her face seemed white and ghostly in the mirror, and in a sudden panic,

she turned on all the lights. Then the blaze frightened her and she

turned them all out again, all save the one over the mirror.

She sat gazing into it, and all the dark corners of the room seemed to

gather round her like living things; only her white face stared out of

the glass. If Fred hadn’t been so horribly humdrum, if she hadn’t known

so thoroughly every inch of him, every little trick that he had, every

kind of point of view that he ever had about anything, then this never

would have happened. Because, really, he had been a very good husband to

her, and she was really fond of him; when one came to think of it, he

had been much better than a good many husbands she had known. She leaned

back in her chair and looked at herself.

It had once been more than mere fondness, it had been quite exciting;

she smiled, reminiscences crowded about her . . . dear old Fred!

But she pulled herself up with a jerk. That, after all, wasn’t the

point; the point, the thing that mattered, was Thursday night. Out there

in the garden, when he had held her like that, a great lawlessness had

come upon her. It was almost as though some new spirit had entered into

her and was showing her things, was teaching her emotions that she had

never been shown or learnt before. And, at that moment, it had seemed to

her the one thing worth having.

She had never lived before. Life was to be counted by moments, those few

golden moments that the good gods gave to one, and if one didn’t take

them, then and there, when they were offered, why then, one had never

lived at all, one might as well never have been born.

But now, as she sat there alone in her room, she was realising another

thing—that those moments had their consequences. What were they going

to do afterwards? What would Maradick do? What, above all, would her own

attitude to Fred be? She began, very slowly, to realise the truth, that

the great laws are above creeds and all dogmas because they are made

from man’s necessities, not from his superstitions. What was she going

to do?

She knew quite well what she would do if she were left there alone on

Thursday night, and at the sudden thought of it she switched off the

light and plunged the room into darkness. She lay in bed waiting for

Fred to come up. She felt suddenly very unprotected. She would ask him

to take her with him on Thursday, she would make some excuse; he would

probably be glad.

She heard him undressing in the next room. He was whistling softly to

himself; he stumbled over something and said “Damn.” She heard him

gargle as he brushed his teeth. He hummed a song of the moment, “I

wouldn’t go home in the dark”; and then she heard him stepping across

the carpet towards the bed, softly lest he should wake her. He got into

bed and grunted with satisfaction as he curled up into the sheets; his

toe touched her foot and she shivered suddenly because it was cold.

“Hullo, old girl,” he said, “still awake?”

She didn’t answer. Then she turned slowly round towards him.

“Fred,” she said, “I think I’ll come away with you on Thursday after

all.” But, as she said it to him, she was suddenly afraid of his

suspecting something. He would want to know the reason. “It’s not,” she

added hurriedly, “that I’m not perfectly happy here. I’m enjoying it

awfully, it’s delightful; but, after all, there isn’t very much point in

my staying here. I don’t want to after you’re gone.”

But he was sleepy. He yawned.

“I’m awfully tired, dear. We’ll talk about it to-morrow. But anyhow, I

don’t quite see the point. You won’t want to be pottering about London

with me. I’m only up there for business—these beastly publishers,” he

yawned again. “You’d be bored, you know; much better stay here with Lady

Gale. Besides, it’s all arranged.” His voice died off into a sleepy

murmur.

But the terror seemed to gather about her in the darkness. She saw with

amazing vision. She did not want to be left; she must not be left.

She put her hand on his arm.

“Fred, please—it’s important; I don’t want to stay.”

And then she was suddenly frightened. She had said too much. He would

want to know why she didn’t want to stay. But he lay there silently. She

was afraid that he would go to sleep. She knew that when the morning

came things would seem different. She knew that she would persuade

herself that there was no immediate hurry. She would leave things to

settle themselves; and then. Oh! well! there would be no question as to

how things would go! She saw, with absolute clearness that this was the

moment that was granted her. If she could only persuade him to take her

now, then she would have that at any rate afterwards to hold herself

back. She would not want to go back on her word again. Her only feeling

now was that Fred was so safe. The thought of the evening, the garden,

Maradick, filled her now with unreasoning terror; she was in a panic

lest this minute, this opportunity, should leave her.

She turned towards him and shook his arm.

“Fred, just keep awake for a minute; really it’s important. Really, I

want to go away with you, on Thursday, not to stay on. I don’t like the

place. I shan’t a bit mind being in London, it will be rather fun; there

are lots of people I want to see. Besides, it’s only a day or two after

all.”

But he laughed sleepily.

“What’s all the fuss, old girl? I’m simply damned tired; I am, really.

We’ll talk about it to-morrow. But anyhow, you’d better stay; it’s all

arranged, and Lady Gale will think it rather funny.”

His voice trailed off. For a moment there was silence and she heard his

breathing. He was asleep.

She listened furiously. Oh, well, if he didn’t care more than that! If

he couldn’t keep awake longer than that! She dug her nails into her

hand. There it was; he could go to sleep when she was in torture. He

didn’t care; the other man! Her mind flew back to the evening again. Ah!

he would not have gone off to sleep! He would have listened—listened.

But she lay for hours staring into the darkness, listening to the man’s

even breathing.

* * * * *

But there had been another example of “any wife to any husband,” that

must, for a moment, have its record.

Maradick feared, on coming into his room, that his wife was not yet in

bed. She was sitting in front of her glass brushing her hair. She must

have seen him in the mirror, but she did not move. She looked very

young, almost like a little doll; as she sat there he had again the

curious feeling of pathos that he had known at breakfast. Absurd! Emmy

Maradick was the last person about whom anyone need be pathetic, but

nevertheless the feeling was there. He got into bed without a word. She

went on silently combing her hair. It got on his nerves; he couldn’t

take his eyes off her. He turned his eyes away towards the wall, but

slowly they turned back again, back to the silent white figure in the

centre of the room by the shining glass.

He suddenly wanted to scream, to shout something at her like “Speak, you

devil!” or “don’t go on saying nothing, you mummy, sitting still like

that.”

At last he did speak.

“You’re late, Emmy,” he said, “I thought you’d have been in bed.” His

voice was very gentle. If only she would stop moving that brush up and

down with its almost mechanical precision! She put the brush slowly down

on the table and turned towards him.

“Yes,” she said, “I was waiting for you, really, until you came up.”

He was suddenly convinced that she knew; she had probably known all

about it from the first. She was such a clever little woman, there were

very few things that she didn’t know. He waited stupidly, dully. He

wondered what she was going to say, what she was going to propose that

they should do.

But having got so far, she seemed to have nothing more to say. She

stared at the glass with wide, fixed eyes; her cheeks were flushed, and

her fingers played nervously with the things on the dressing-table.

“Well,” he said at last, “what is it?”

Then, to his intense surprise, she got up and came slowly towards him;

she sat on the edge of the bed whilst he watched her, wondering, amazed.

He had never seen her like that before, and his intense curiosity at her

condition killed, for a moment, the eagerness with which he would

discover how much she knew. But her manner of taking it was surely very

strange.

Temper, fury, passion, even hate, that he could understand, and that,

knowing her, he would have expected, but this strange dreamy quiet

frightened him. He caught the bed-clothes in his hands and twisted them;

then he asked again: “Well, what is it?” But when she did at last speak

she did not look at him, but stared in front of her. It was the

strangest thing in the world to see her sitting there, speaking like

that; and he had a feeling, not to be explained, that she wasn’t there

at all really, that it was some one else, even, possibly, some strange

thing that his actions of these last few days had suddenly called

forth—called forth, that was, to punish him. He shrunk back on to his

pillows.

“Well,” her voice just went on, “it isn’t that I’ve really anything to

say; you’ll think me silly, and I’m sure I don’t want to keep you when

you want to go to sleep. But it isn’t often that we have anything very

much to say to one another; it isn’t, at any rate, very often here.

We’ve hardly, you know, talked at all since we’ve been here.

“But these last few days I’ve been thinking, realising perhaps, that

it’s been my fault all these years that things haven’t been

happier. . . . I don’t think I’d thought about anyone except

myself. . . . In some sort of way I hadn’t considered you at all; I

don’t quite know why.”

She paused as though she expected him to say something, but he made no

sound.

Then she went on: “I suppose you’ll think it foolish of me, but I feel

as though everything has been different from the moment that we came

here, from the moment that we came to Treliss; you have been quite

different, and I am sorry if I have been so disagreeable, and I’m going

to try, going to try to be pleasanter.”

She brought it out with a jerk, as though she were speaking under

impulse, as though something was making her speak.

And he didn’t know what to say; he could say nothing—his only emotion

that he was angry with her, almost furious, because she had spoken like

that. It was too bad of her, just then, after all these years. There

had, at any rate, been some justification before, or, at least, he had

tried to persuade himself that there was, in his relations with Mrs.

Lester. He had been driven by neglect, lack of sympathy, and all the

rest of it; and now, suddenly, that had been taken away from under his

feet. Oh! it was too bad.

And then his suspicions were aroused again. It was so unlike her to

behave like that. Perhaps she was only behaving like this in order to

find out, to sound him, as it were. Oh, yes! it was a clever move; but

he couldn’t say anything to her, the words refused to come.

She waited, a little pathetically, there on the bed, for him to speak;

and then as nothing came, still without looking at him, she said quietly

“Good-night,” and stepped softly across the room.

He heard her switch the light off, the bed-clothes rustled for a moment,

and then there was silence.

* * * * *

And these next two days were torture to him, the most horrible days that

he had ever known. Partly they were horrible because of the general

consciousness that something was going to happen. Lady Gale, in

obedience to Tony, had arranged a picnic for Thursday, but “for ladies

only. You see, Mr. Lester is leaving in the afternoon, and my husband

and Rupert talk of going with him as far as Truro; my husband has some

relations there. And really, I know you and Tony would rather go off on

your own, Mr. Maradick. It would be too boring for you. We’re only going

to sit in the sun, you know, and talk!”

It was understood that Mr. Maradick had, as a matter of fact, fixed up

something. Yes, he had promised his day to Tony, it being one of the

last that they would have together. They would probably go for a sail.

He would like to have come. He enjoyed the last, &c., &c.

But this was quite enough to “do” the trick. What a picnic! Imagine!

With everyone acutely conscious that there was something “going on” just

over the hill, something that, for Lady Gale, at any rate, meant almost

life and death. Thursday began to loom very large indeed. What would

everyone be doing and thinking on Friday? Still more vital a question,

_where_ would everyone be on Friday?

But at any rate he could picture them: the ladies—Lady Gale, Alice Du

Cane, Mrs. Lester, his wife, even poor Mrs. Lawrence—sitting there, on

the edge of the hill, silent, alert, listening.

What a picnic!

But their alertness, or rather their terrible eagerness to avoid seeming

alert, horrified him. They seemed to pursue him, all five of them,

during those two dreadful days with questioning glances; only his wife,

by her curious patient intentness, as though she were waiting for the

crisis to come, frightened him most of all. The more he thought of her

strange behaviour the less he understood her. It was all so utterly

unlike her. And it was not as though she had altered at all in other

ways. He had heard her talking to other people, he had watched her

scolding the girls, and it was the same sharp, shrill voice, the same

fierce assumption that the person she was with must necessarily be

trying to “get” at her; no, she was the same Emmy Maradick as far as the

rest of the world was concerned. But, with him, she was some one

altogether new, some one he had never seen before; and always, through

it all, that strange look of wonder and surprise. He often knew that her

eyes were upon him when he was talking to some one else; when he talked

to her himself her eyes avoided him.

And then Mrs. Lester, too, was so strange. During the whole of Tuesday

she avoided him altogether. He had a few minutes with her at teatime,

but there were other people there, and she seemed anxious to get away

from him, to put the room between them. And seeing her like this, his

passion grew. He felt that whatever happened, whatever the disaster, he

must have her, once at least, in his arms again. The memories of their

other meetings lashed him like whips. He pictured it again, the

darkness, the movement of the trees, the touch of her cheek against his

hand; and then he would feel that his wife was looking at him from

somewhere across the room. He could feel her eyes, like little gimlets,

twisting, turning into his back. And then other moods would come, and

the blackest despair. He was this kind of man, this sort of scoundrel;

he remembered once that there had been a man at Epsom who had run away

with a married woman, a man who had been rather a friend of his. He

remembered what he had said to him, the kind of way that he had looked

at him, poor, rotten creature; and now what was he?

But he could not go; he could not move. He was under a spell. When he

thought of Mrs. Lester his blood would begin to race again. He told

himself that it was the sign of his freedom, the natural consequences of

the new life that had come to him; and then suddenly he would see that

moment when his wife, sitting forlornly on his bed, had spoken to him.

And then on Wednesday there was a moment when Mrs. Lester was herself

again. It was only a moment, an instant after dinner. Their lips met; he

spoke of Thursday and she smiled at him, then the others had come upon

them. For an hour or two he was on fire, then he crept miserably, like a

thief, to the room of the minstrels and sat wretchedly, hour after hour,

looking at the stars.

The day would soon dawn! Thursday! The crisis, as it seemed to him, of

the whole of his life. He saw the morn draw faint shadows across the

earth, he saw all the black trees move like a falling wall against the

stars, he felt the wind with the odour of earth and sea brush his cheek,

as he waited for the day to come.

He knew now that it was to be no light thing; it was to be a battle, the

fiercest that he had ever waged. Two forces were fighting over him, and

one of them, before the next night had passed, would win the day. No

Good and Evil? No God and Devil? No Heaven and Hell? Why, there they

were before his very eyes; the two camps and the field between! And so

Thursday dawned!

But it came with grey mists and driving rain. The sea was hidden; only

the tops of the trees in the garden stood disconsolately dripping above

the fog.

Everyone came down shivering to breakfast, and disappointments that

seemed unjust on ordinary days were now perfectly unbearable. If there

were no letters, one was left out in the cold, if there were a lot, they

were sure to be bills. It was certain to be smoked haddock when that was

the one thing above all others that you loathed; and, of course, there

were numbers of little draughts that crept like mice about your feet and

wandered like spiders about your hair.

But one thing was perfectly obvious, and that was, that of course there

could be no picnic. To have five ladies sitting desolately alone on the

top of the hill, bursting with curiosity, was melancholy enough; but to

have them sitting there in driving rain was utterly impossible.

Nevertheless some people intended to venture out. Sir Richard and

Rupert—mainly, it seemed, to show their contempt of so plebeian a thing

as rain—were still determined on Truro.

Tony also was going to tramp it with Maradick.

“Where are you going?” This from Sir Richard, who had just decided that

his third egg was as bad as the two that he had already eaten.

“Oh! I don’t know!” said Tony lazily, “over the hills and far away, I

expect. That’s the whole fun of the thing—not knowing. Isn’t it,

Maradick?”

“It is,” said Maradick.

He showed no signs of a bad night. He was eating a very hearty

breakfast.

“But you must have some idea where you are going,” persisted Sir

Richard, gloomily sniffing at his egg.

“Well, I expect we’ll start out towards that old church,” said Tony.

“You know, the one on the cliff; then we’ll strike inland, I expect.

Don’t you think so, Maradick?”

“Yes,” said Maradick.

There was no doubt at all that the five ladies were extremely glad that

there was to be no picnic. Mrs. Lawrence meant to have a really cosy day

reading by the fire one of those most delightful stories of Miss

Braddon. She was enormously interested in the literature of the early

eighties; anything later than that rather frightened her.

“We can have a really cosy day,” said Mrs. Lester.

“Yes, we shall have quite a comfortable time,” said Mrs. Lawrence.

“It is so nice having an excuse for a fire,” said Lady Gale.

“I do love it when one can have a fire without being ashamed, don’t

you?” said Mrs. Lawrence.

Mrs. Maradick gathered her two girls about her and they disappeared.

Slowly the clock stole towards half-past eleven, when the first move was

to be made. Mr. Lester had left quite early. He said good-bye to

Maradick with great cordiality.

“Mind you come and see us, often. It’s been delightful meeting you.

There’s still plenty to talk about.”

He said good-bye to his wife with his usual rather casual geniality.

“Good-bye, old girl. Send me a line. Hope this weather clears off”—and

he was gone.

She had been standing by the hall door. As the trap moved down the drive

she suddenly made a step forward as though she would go out into the

rain after him and call him back. Then she stopped. She was standing on

the first step in front of the door; the mist swept about her.

Lady Gale called from the hall: “Come in, dear, you’ll get soaking wet.”

She turned and came back.

To Tony, as he watched the hands of the clock creep round, it seemed

perfectly incredible that the whole adventure should simply consist in

quietly walking out of the door. It ought to begin, at any rate, with

something finer than that, with an escape, something that needed secrecy

and mystery. It was so strange that he was simply going to walk down and

take Janet; it was, after all, a very ordinary affair.

At quarter-past eleven he found his mother alone in her room.

He came up to her and kissed her. “I’m going off with Maradick now,” he

said.

“Yes,” she answered, looking him in the eyes.

“You know I’m in for an adventure, mother?”

“Yes, dear.”

“You trust me, don’t you?”

“Of course, dear, perfectly.”

“You shall know all about it to-morrow.”

“When you like, dear,” she answered. She placed her arms on his

shoulders, and held him back and looked him in the face. Then she

touched his head with her hands and said softly—

“You mustn’t let anything or anyone come between us, Tony?”

“Never, mother,” he answered. Then suddenly he came very close to her,

put his arms round her and kissed her again and again.

“God bless you, old boy,” she said, and let him go.

When he had closed the door behind him she began to cry, but when Mrs.

Lester found her quarter of an hour later there were no signs of tears.

Maradick and Tony, as half-past eleven struck from the clock at the top

of the stairs, went down the steps of the hotel.

As they came out into the garden the mists and rain swam all about them

and closed them in. The wind beat their faces, caught their coats and

lashed them against their legs, and went scrambling away round the

corners of the hill.

“My word! what a day!” shouted Tony. “Here’s a day for a wedding!” He

was tremendously excited. He even thought that he liked this wind and

rain, it helped on the adventure; and then, too, there would be less

people about, but it would be a stormy drive to the church.

They secured a cab in the market-place. But such a cab; was there ever

another like it? It stood, for no especial reason it seemed, there in

front of the tower, with the rain whirling round it, the wind beating at

the horse’s legs and playing fantastic tricks with the driver’s cape,

which flew about his head up and down like an angry bird. He was the

very oldest aged man Time had ever seen; his beard, a speckly grey, fell

raggedly down on to his chest, his eyes were bleared and nearly closed,

his nose, swollen to double its natural size, was purple in colour, and

when he opened his mouth there was visible an enormous tooth, but one

only.

His hands trembled with ague as he clutched the reins and addressed his

miserable beast. The horse was a pitiful scarecrow; its ribs, like a

bent towel-rack, almost pierced the skin; its eye was melancholy but

patient. The cab itself moved as though at any moment it would fall to

pieces. The sides of the carriage were dusty, and the wheels were thick

with mud; at every movement the windows screamed and rattled and shook

with age—the cabman, the four-wheeler and the horse lurched together

from side to side.

However, there was really nothing else. Time was precious, and it

certainly couldn’t be wasted in going round to the cab-stand at the

other end of the town. On a fine day there would have been a whole row

of them in the market-place, but in weather like this they sought better

shelter.

The wind whistled across the cobbles; the rain fell with such force that

it hit the stones and leaped up again. The aged man was murmuring to

himself the same words again and again. “Eh! Lor! how the rain comes

down; it’s terrible bad for the beasts.” The tower frowned down on them

all.

Tony jumped in, there was nothing else to be done; it rattled across the

square.

Tony was laughing. It all seemed to him to add to the excitement. “Do

you know,” he said, “James Stephens’s poem? It hits it off exactly;” and

he quoted:

“The driver rubbed at his nettly chin,

With a huge, loose forefinger, crooked and black,

And his wobbly violent lips sucked in,

And puffed out again and hung down slack:

One fang shone through his lop-sided smile,

In his little pouched eye flickered years of guile.

And the horse, poor beast, it was ribbed and forked,

And its ears hung down, and its eyes were old,

And its knees were knuckly, and as we talked

It swung the stiff neck that could scarcely hold

Its big, skinny head up—then I stepped in

And the driver climbed to his seat with a grin.

Only this old boy couldn’t climb if he were paid for it. I wonder how he

gets up to his box in the morning. I expect they lift him, you know; his

old wife and the children and the grandchildren—a kind of ceremony.”

They were being flung about all this time like peas in a bladder, and

Tony had to talk at the top of his voice to make himself heard. “Anyhow

he’ll get us there all right, I expect. My word, what rain! I say, you

know, I can’t in the very least realise it. It seems most frightfully

exciting, but it’s all so easy, in a kind of way. You see I haven’t even

had to have a bag or anything, because there’ll be heaps of time to stop

in town and get things. And to-morrow morning to see the sun rise over

Paris, with Janet!”

His eyes were on fire with excitement. But to Maradick this weather,

this cab, seemed horrible, almost ominous. He was flung against the side

of the window, then against Tony, then back again. He had lost his

breath.

But he had realised something else suddenly; he wondered how he could

have been so foolish as not to have seen it before, and that was, that

this would be probably, indeed almost certainly, the last time that he

would have Tony to himself. The things that the boy had been to him

during these weeks beat in his head like bells, reminding him. Why, the

boy had been everything to him! And now he saw suddenly that he had, in

reality, been nothing at all to the boy. Tony’s eyes were set on the

adventure—the great adventure of life. Maradick, and others like him,

might be amusing on the way; were of course, “good sorts,” but they

could be left, they must be left if one were to get on, and there were

others, plenty of others.

And so, in that bumping cab, Maradick suddenly realised his age. To be

“at forty” as the years go was nothing, years did not count, but to be

“at forty” in the way that he now saw it was the great dividing line in

life. He now saw that it wasn’t for him any more to join with those who

were “making life,” that was for the young, and they would have neither

time nor patience to wait for his slower steps; he must be content to

play his part in other people’s adventures, to act the observer, the

onlooker. Those young people might tell him that they cared, that they

wanted him, but they would soon forget, they would soon pass on until

they too were “at forty,” and, reluctantly, unwillingly, must move over

to the other camp.

He turned to Tony.

“I say, boy,” he said almost roughly, “this is the last bit that we

shall have together; alone, I mean. I say, don’t forget me altogether

afterwards. I want to come and see you.”

“Forget you!” Tony laughed. “Why never! I!”

But then suddenly the aged man and his coach bumped them together and

then flung them apart and then bumped them again so that no more words

were possible. The cab had turned the corner. The house, with its

crooked door, was before them.

In the hall there were lights; underneath the stairs there was a lamp

and against the wall opposite the door there were candles. In the middle

of the hall Janet was standing waiting; she was dressed in some dark

blue stuff and a little round dark blue hat, beneath it her hair shone

gloriously. She held a bag in her hand and a small cloak over her arm.

Tony came forward with a stride and she stepped a little way to meet

him. Then he caught her in his arms, and her head went back a little so

that the light of the lamp caught her hair and flung a halo around it.

Miss Minns was in the background in a state of quite natural agitation.

It was all very quiet and restrained. There seemed to Maradick to fall a

very beautiful silence for a moment about them. The light, the colour,

everything centred round those two, and the world stood still. Then Tony

let go and she came forward to Maradick.

She held out her hand and he took it in his, and he, suddenly, moved by

some strange impulse, bent down and kissed it. She let it lie there for

a moment and then drew it back, smiling.

“It’s splendid of you, Mr. Maradick,” she said; “without you I don’t

know what we’d have done, Tony and I.”

And then she turned round to Tony and kissed him again. There was

another pause, and indeed the two children seemed perfectly ready to

stand like that for the rest of the day. Something practical must be

done.

“I think we ought to be making a move,” said Maradick. “The cab’s

waiting outside and the train has to be caught, you know.”

“Why, of course.” Janet broke away from Tony. “How silly we are! I’m so

sorry, Miss Minns, have you got the bag with the toothbrush? It’s all

we’ve got, you know, because we can buy things in Paris. Oh! Paris!”

She drew a breath and stood there, her eyes staring, her hands on her

hips, her head flung back. It really was amazing the way that she was

taking it. There was no doubt or alarm at the possible consequences of

so daring a step. It must be, Maradick thought, her ignorance of all

that life must mean to her now, all the difference that it would have

once this day was over, that saved her from fear.

And yet there was knowledge as well as courage in her eyes, she was not

altogether ignorant.

Miss Minns came forward, Miss Minns in an amazing bonnet. It was such an

amazing bonnet that Miss Minns must positively have made it herself; it

was shaped like a square loaf and little jet beads rang little bells on

it as she moved. She was in a perfect tremble of excitement, and the

whole affair sent her mind back to the one other romantic incident in

her life—the one and only love affair. But the really amazing discovery

was that romance wasn’t over for her yet, that she was permitted to take

part in a real “affair,” to see it through from start to finish. She was

quivering with excitement.

They all got into the cab.

It was a very silent drive to the church. The rain had almost stopped.

It only beat every now and again, a little doubtfully, against the

window and then went, with a little whirl of wind, streaming away.

The cab went slowly, and, although it lurched from side to side and

every now and again pitched forward, as though it would fall on its

head, they were not shaken about very badly. Janet leaned back against

Tony, and he had his arm round her. They neither of them spoke at all,

but his fingers moved very lightly over her hand and then to her cheek,

and then back to her hand again.

As they got on to the top of the hill and started along the white road

to the church the wind from the sea met them and swept about them. Great

dark clouds, humped like camels, raced across the sky; the trees by the

roadside, gnarled and knotted, waved scraggy arms like so many witches.

Miss Minns’s only remark as they neared the church was, “I must say I

should have liked a little bit of orange-blossom.”

“We’ll get that in Paris,” said Tony.

The aged man was told to wait with his coach until they all came out of

church again. He seemed to be quite prepared to wait until the day of

doom if necessary. He stared drearily in front of him at the sea. To his

mind, it was all a very bad business.

Soon they were all in the church, the clergyman with the flowing beard,

his elderly boy, acting as a kind of verger and general factotum, Miss

Minns, Maradick, and there, by the altar rails, Tony and Janet.

It was a very tiny church indeed, and most of the room was taken up by

an enormous box-like pew that had once been used by “The Family”; now it

was a mass of cobwebs. Two candles had been lighted by the altar and

they flung a fitful, uncertain glow about the place and long twisting

shadows on the wall. On the altar itself was a large bowl of white

chrysanthemums, and always for the rest of his life the sight of

chrysanthemums brought back that scene to Maradick’s memory: the blazing

candles, the priest with his great white beard, the tiny, dusty church,

Miss Minns and her bonnet, Tony splendidly erect, a smile in his eyes,

and Janet with her hair and her blue serge dress and her glance every

now and again at Tony to see whether he were still there.

And so, there, and in a few minutes, they were married.

For an instant some little wind blew along the floor, stirred the dust

and caught the candles. They flared into a blaze, and out of the shadows

there leapt the dazzling white of the chrysanthemums, the gold of

Janet’s hair, and the blue of the little stained-glass windows. The rain

had begun again and was beating furiously at the panes; they could hear

it running in little streams and rivers down the hill past the church.

Maradick hid his head in his hands for an instant before he turned away.

He did not exactly want to pray, he had not got anyone to pray to, but

he felt again now, as he had felt before in the room of the minstrels,

that there was something there, with him in the place—touching him,

Good and Evil? God and the Devil? Yes, they were there, and he did not

dare to raise his eyes.

Then at last he looked up again and in the shock of the sudden light the

candles seemed to swing like golden lamps before him and the altar was a

throne, and, before it, the boy and girl.

And then, again, they were all in the old man’s study, amongst his

fishing-rods and dogs and books.

He laid both his hands on Tony’s shoulders before he said good-bye. Tony

looked up into his face and smiled.

And the old man said: “I think that you will be very happy, both of you.

But take one word of advice from some one who has lived in the world a

very long time and knows something of it, even though he has dwelt in

only an obscure corner of it. My dear, keep your Charity. That is all

that I would say to you. You have it now; keep it as your dearest

possession. Judge no one; you do not know what trouble has been theirs,

what temptation, and there will be flowers even in the dreariest piece

of ground if only we sow the seed. And remember that there are many very

lonely people in the world. Give them some of your vitality and

happiness and you will do well.”

Miss Minns, who had been sniffing through the most of the service, very

nearly broke down altogether at this point. And then suddenly some one

remembered the time.

It was Tony. “My word, it’s half-past two. And the train’s quarter-past

three. Everything’s up if we miss it. We must be off; we’ll only just do

it as it is.”

They found the aged man sitting in a pool of water on the box. Water

dripped from the legs of the trembling horse. The raindrops, as though

possessed of a devil, leaped off the roof of the cab like peas from a

catapult.

Tony tried to impress the driver with the fact that there was no time to

lose, but he only shook his head dolefully. They moved slowly round the

corner.

Then there began the most wonderful drive that man or horse had ever

known.

At first they moved slowly. The road was, by this time, thick with mud,

and there were little trenches of water on both sides. They bumped along

this for a little way. And then suddenly the aged man became seized, as

it were, by a devil. They were on the top of the hill; the wind blew

right across him, the rain lashed him to the skin. Suddenly he lifted up

his voice and sang. It was the sailor’s chanty that Maradick had heard

on the first day of his coming to Treliss; but now, through the closed

windows of the cab, it seemed to reach them in a shrill scream, like

some gull above their heads in the storm.

Wild exultation entered into the heart of the ancient man. He seemed to

be seized by the Furies. He lashed his horse wildly, the beast with all

its cranky legs and heaving ribs, darted madly forward, and the rain

came down in torrents.

The ancient man might have seemed, had there been a watcher to note, the

very spirit of the moor. His eyes were staring, his arms were raised

aloft; and so they went, bumping, jolting, tumbling along the white

road.

Inside the cab there was confusion. At the first movement Miss Minns had

been flung violently into Maradick’s lap. At first he clutched her

wildly. The bugles on her bonnet hit him sharply in the eyes, the nose,

the chin. She pinched his arm in the excitement of the moment. Then she

recovered herself.

“Oh! Mr. Maradick!” she began, “I——” but, in a second, she was seized

again and hurled against the door, so that Tony had to clutch her by the

skirt lest the boards should give and she should be hurled out into the

road. But the pace of the cab grew faster and faster. They were now all

four of them hurled violently from one side of the vehicle to the other.

First forward, then backwards, then on both sides at once, then all in a

tangled heap together in the middle; and the ancient man on the top of

the box, the water dripping from his hat in a torrent, screamed his

song.

Then terror suddenly entered into them all. It seemed to strike them all

at the same moment that there was danger. Maradick suddenly was afraid.

He was bruised, his collar was torn, he ached in every limb. He had a

curious impulse to seize Miss Minns and tear her to pieces, he was wild

with rage that she should be allowed to hit and strike him like that. He

began to mutter furiously. And the others felt it too. Janet was nearly

in tears; she clung to Tony and murmured, “Oh! stop him! stop him!”

And Tony, too. He cried, “We must get out of this! We must get out of

this!” and he dragged furiously at the windows, but they would not move;

and then his hand broke through the pane, and it began to bleed, there

was blood on the floor of the carriage.

And they did not know that it was the place that was casting them out.

They were going back to their cities, to their disciplined places, to

their streets and solemn houses, their inventions, their rails and lines

and ordered lives; and so the place would cast them out. It would have

its last wild game with them. The ancient man gave a last shrill scream

and was silent. The horse relapsed into a shamble; they were in the

dark, solemn streets. They climbed the hill to the station.

They began to straighten themselves, and already to forget that it had

been, in the least, terrible.

“After all,” said Tony, “it was probably a good thing that we came at

that pace. We might have missed the train.”

He helped Janet to tidy herself. Miss Minns was profuse in her

apologies: “Really, Mr. Maradick, I don’t know what you can have thought

of me. Really, it was most immodest; and I am afraid that I bumped you

rather awkwardly. It was most——”

But he stopped her and assured her that it was all right. He was

thinking, as they climbed the hill, that in another quarter of an hour

they would both be gone, gone out of his life altogether probably. There

would be nothing left for him beyond his explanations; his clearing up

of the bits, as it were, and Mrs. Lester. But he would not think of her

now; he put her resolutely from him for the moment. The thought of her

seemed desecration when these two children were with him—something as

pure and beautiful as anything that the world could show. He would think

of her afterwards, when they had gone.

But as he looked at them a great pang of envy cut him like a knife. Ah!

that was what life meant! To have some one to whom you were the chief

thing in the world, some one who was also the chief thing to you!

And he? Here, at forty, he had got nothing but a cheque book and a

decent tailor.

They got out of the cab.

It was ten minutes before the train left. It was there, waiting. Tony

went to get the tickets.

Janet suddenly put her hand on Maradick’s arm and looked up into his

face:

“Mr. Maradick,” she said, “I haven’t been able, I haven’t had a chance

to say very much to you about all that Tony and I owe you. But I feel

it; indeed, indeed I do. And I will never, never forget it. Wherever

Tony and I are there will always be a place for you if you want one. You

won’t forget that, will you?”

“No, indeed,” said Maradick, and he took her hand for a moment and

pressed it. Then suddenly his heart stopped beating. The station seemed

for a moment to be pressed together, so that the platform and the roof

met and the bookstall and the people dotted about disappeared

altogether.

Sir Richard and Rupert were walking slowly towards them down the

platform. There was no question about it at all. They had obviously just

arrived from Truro and Rupert was staring in his usual aimless fashion

in front of him. There was simply no time to lose. They were threatened

with disaster, for Tony had not come back from the ticket-office and

might tumble upon his father at any moment.

Maradick seized Janet by the arm and dragged her back into the

refreshment room. “Quick,” he said, “there isn’t a moment to

lose—Tony’s father. You and Miss Minns must get in by yourselves; trust

to luck!” In a moment she had grasped the situation. Her cheeks were a

little flushed, but she gave him a hurried smile and then joined Miss

Minns. Together they walked quietly down the platform and took their

seats in a first-class carriage at the other end of the train. Janet was

perfectly self-possessed as she passed Sir Richard. There was no

question that this distinguished-looking gentleman must be Tony’s

father, and she must have felt a very natural curiosity to see what he

looked like; she gave him one sharp glance and then bent down in what

was apparently an earnest conversation with Miss Minns.

Then Rupert saw Maradick. “Hullo! there’s Maradick!” He came forward

slowly; but he smiled a little in a rather weary manner. He liked

Maradick. “What a day! Yes, Truro had been awful! All sorts of dreadful

people dripping wet!”

Yes, Maradick had been a tramp in the rain with Tony. Tony was just

asking for a parcel that he was expecting; yes, they’d got very wet and

were quite ready for tea! Ah! there was Tony.

Maradick gazed at him in agony as he came out of the ticket office.

Would he give a start and flush with surprise when he saw them? Would he

look round vaguely and wildly for Janet? Would he turn tail and flee?

But he did none of these things. He walked towards them as though the

one thing that he had really expected to see, there on the platform, was

his father. There was a little smile at the corners of his mouth and his

eyes were shining especially brightly, but he sauntered quite casually

down the platform, as though he hadn’t the least idea that the train was

going off in another five minutes, and that Janet was close at hand

somewhere and might appear at any moment.

“Hullo, governor! Rupert! Who’d have thought of seeing you here? I

suppose the weather sent you back. Maradick and I have been getting

pretty soaked out there on the hill. But one thing is that it sends you

in to a fire with some relish. I’m after a rotten old parcel that Briggs

was sending me—some books. He says it ought to have come, but I can’t

get any news of it here. We’ll follow you up to the hotel to tea in a

minute.”

But Rupert seemed inclined to stay and chat. “Oh! we’ll come on with

you; we’re in no particular hurry, are we, governor? I say, that was a

damned pretty girl that passed just now; girl in blue. Did you see her,

Maradick?”

No, Maradick hadn’t seen her. In blue? No, he hadn’t noticed. The

situation was beginning to get on his nerves. He was far more agitated

than Tony. What were they to do? The guard was passing down the platform

looking at tickets. Doors were beginning to be banged. A great many

people were hurriedly giving a great many messages that had already been

given a great many times before. What was to be done? To his excited

fancy it almost seemed as though Sir Richard was perfectly aware of the

whole business. He thought his silence saturnine; surely there was a

malicious twinkle.

“Yes,” Rupert was saying, “there she was walking down Lemon Street,

dontcher know, with her waterproof thing flapping behind her in the most

_absurd_——” The doors were all banged; the guard looked down the line.

Suddenly Sir Richard moved. “I’m damned cold; wet things.” He nodded

curtly to Maradick. “See you later, Mr. Maradick.”

They moved slowly away; they turned the corner and at the same instant

the train began to move. Tony snatched at Maradick’s hand and then made

a wild leap across the platform. The train was moving quite fast now; he

made a clutch at one of the carriages. Two porters rushed forward

shouting, but he had the handle of the door. He flung it open; for a

sickening instant he stood swaying on the board; it seemed as though he

would be swept back. Then some one pulled him in. He lurched forward and

disappeared; the door was closed.

A lot of little papers rose in a little cloud of dust into the air. They

whirled to and fro. A little wind passed along the platform.

Maradick turned round and walked slowly away.

CHAPTER XVIII

AFTERNOON AND EVENING OF THE TWENTY-SEVENTH—MARADICK

GOES TO CHURCH AND AFTERWARDS PAYS A

VISIT TO MORELLI

As he came out of the station and looked at the little road that ran

down the hill, at the grey banks of cloud, at the white and grey valley

of the sea, he felt curiously, uncannily alone. It was as though he had

suddenly, through some unknown, mysterious agency been transported into

a new land, a country that no one ever found before. He walked the hill

with the cautious adventurous sense of surprise that some explorer might

have had; he was alone in the world of ghosts.

When he came to the bottom of the road he stopped and tried to collect

his thoughts. Where was he? What was he going to do? What were the

thoughts that were hovering, like birds of prey, about his head, waiting

for the moment of descent to come? He stood there quite stupidly, as

though his brain had been suddenly swept clear of all thought; it was an

empty, desolate room. Everything was empty, desolate. Two plane trees

waved mournfully; there were little puddles of rain-water at his feet

reflecting the dismal grey of the sky; a very old bent woman in a black

cloak hobbled slowly up the hill. Then suddenly his brain was alive

again, suddenly he knew. Tony was gone. Tony was gone and he must see

people and explain.

The thought of the explanations troubled him very little; none of those

other people really mattered. They couldn’t do very much; they could

only say things. No, they didn’t matter. He didn’t mind about them, or

indeed about anyone else in the world except Tony. He saw now a thousand

little things that Tony had done, ways that Tony had stood, things that

Tony had said, little tricks that he had; and now he had gone away.

Things could never be quite the same again. Tony had got some one else

now. Everyone had got some one else, some one who especially belonged to

them; he saw the world as a place where everyone—murderer, priest,

king, prostitute—had his companion, and only he, Maradick, was alone.

He had been rather proud of being alone before; he had rather liked to

feel that he was quite independent, that it didn’t matter if people died

or forgot, because he could get on as well by himself! What a fool he

had been! Why, that was simply the only thing worth having,

relationships with other people, intimacy, affection, giving anything

that you had to some one else, taking something in return from them. Oh!

he saw that now!

He had been walking vaguely, without thought or purpose. Now he saw that

his feet had led him back into the town and that he was in the

market-place, facing once more the town. He was determined not to go

back to the hotel until he had seen Morelli, and that he could not do

before the evening; but that would be the next thing. Meanwhile he would

walk—no matter where—but he would get on to the road, into the air,

and try and straighten out all the tangled state of things that his mind

was in.

For a moment he stood and looked at the tower. It gave him again that

sense of strength and comfort. He was, after all, not quite alone,

whilst the world was the place that it was. Stocks and stones had more

of a voice, more of a personal vital activity than most people knew. But

he knew! He had known ever since he came to this strange town, this

place where every tree and house and hill seemed to be alive.

And then, with the thought of the place, Mrs. Lester came back to him.

He had forgotten her when he was thinking of Tony. But now that Tony was

gone, now that that was, in a way, over, the other question suddenly

stepped forward. Mrs. Lester with her smile, her arms, the curve of her

neck, the scent that she used, the way that her eyes climbed, as it

were, slowly up to his just before she kissed him. . . . Mrs. Lester

. . . and it must be decided before to-night.

He started walking furiously, and soon he was out on the high road that

ran above the sea. The rain had stopped; the sun was not actually

shining, but there was a light through the heavy clouds as though it

were not very far away, and the glints of blue and gold, not actually

seen, but, as it were, trembling on the edge of visible appearance,

seemed to strike the air. Everything shone and glittered with the rain.

The green of trees and fields was so bright against the grey of sea and

sky that it was almost dazzling; its brightness was unnatural, even a

little cruel. And now he was caught up in the very heat of conflict. The

battle seemed suddenly to have burst upon him, as though there were in

reality two visible forces fighting for the possession of his soul. At

one moment he seemed calm, resolute; Tony, Janet, his wife (and this was

curious, because a few days before she would not have mattered at all),

Punch, the tower, all kinds of queer bits of things, impressions,

thoughts, and above all, a consciousness of some outside power fighting

for him—all these things determined him. He would see Mrs. Lester

to-night and would tell her that there must be nothing more; they should

be friends, good friends, but there must be no more of that dangerous

sentiment, one never knew where it might go. And after all, laws were

meant to be kept. A man wasn’t a man at all if he could injure a woman

in that sort of way. And then he had been Lester’s friend. How could he

dishonour his wife?

And then suddenly it came from the other side, fierce, hot, wild, so

that his heart began to beat furiously, his eyes were dim. He only saw

her, all the rest of the world was swept away. They should have this one

adventure, they _must_ have their one adventure. After all they were no

longer children. They had neither of them known what life was before;

let them live it now, their great experience. If they missed it now they

would regret it all their lives. They would look back on the things that

they might have done, the things that they might have known, and see

that they had passed it all simply because they had not been brave

enough, because they had been afraid of convention, of old musty laws

that had been made thousands of years ago for other people, people far

less civilised, people who needed rules. And then the thought of her

grew upon him—details, the sense of holding her, keeping her; and then,

for an instant, he was primitive, wild, so that he would have done

anything to seize her in the face of all the world.