But it passed; the spirit left him, and again he was miserable,

wretched, penitent. He was that sort of man, a traitor to his wife, to

his friends, to everything that was decent. He was walking furiously,

his hair was blown by the wind, his eyes stared in front of him, and the

early dusk of a grey day began to creep about his feet.

It all came to this. Was there one ethical code for the world, or must

individuals make each their law for their individual case?

There were certain obvious things, such as doing harm to your

neighbours, lying, cruelty, that was bad for the community and so must

be forbidden to the individual; but take an instance of something in

which you harmed no one, did indeed harm yourself by denying it, was

that a sin even if the general law forbade it? What were a man’s

instincts for? Why was he placed so carefully in the midst of his

wonderful adventurous life if he were forbidden to know anything of it?

Why these mists? This line of marble foam far below him? This hard black

edge of the rocks against the sky? It was all strong, remorseless,

inevitable; and he by this namby-pamby kind of virtue was going contrary

to nature.

He let the wind beat about his face as he watched the mists in great

waves and with encircling arms sweep about the cove. There came to him

as he watched, suddenly, some lines from end of “To Paradise.” He could

not remember them exactly, but they had been something like this:

To Tressiter, as to every other human being, there had come

suddenly his time of revelation, his moment in which he was to

see without any assistance from tradition, without any reference

to things or persons of the past. He beheld suddenly with the

vision of some one new-born, and through his brain and body into

the locked recesses of his soul there passed the elemental

passions and movements of the world that had swayed creation

from the beginning. The great volume of the winds, the tireless

beating of waves upon countless shores, the silent waters of

innumerable rivers, the shining flanks of a thousand cattle upon

moorlands that stretch without horizon to the end of time—it

was these things rather than any little acts of civilisation

that some few hundred years had seen that chimed now with the

new life that was his. He had never seen before, he had never

known before. He saw now with unprejudiced eyes, he knew now

with a knowledge that discounted all man-made laws and went,

like a child, back to Mother Earth. . . . But with this new

knowledge came also its dangers. Because some laws seemed now of

none effect it did not mean that there must be no laws at all.

That way was shipwreck. Only, out of this new strength, this new

clarity of vision, he must make his strength, his restraint, his

discipline for himself, and so pass, a new man, down the other

side of the hill. . . . This is the “middle-age” that comes to

every man. It has nothing to do with years, but it is the great

Rubicon of life. . . .

And so Lester. Fine talk and big words, and a little ludicrous, perhaps,

if one knew what Lester was, but there was something in it. Oh! yes!

there was something in it!

And now this time, this “middle-age,” had come upon him.

He found that his steps had led him back again to the little church

where he had been already that day. He thought that it might be a good

place to sit and think things out, quiet and retired and in shelter, if

the rain came on again.

The dusk was creeping down the little lane, so that the depths of it

were hidden and black; but above the dark clumps of trees the sky had

begun to break into the faintest, palest blue. Some bird rejoiced at

this return of colour and was singing in the heart of the lane; from the

earth rose the sweet clean smell that the rain leaves. From behind the

little blue windows of the church shone a pale yellow light, of the same

pallor as the faint blue of the sky, seeming in some intimate, friendly

way, to re-echo it. The body of the church stood out grey-white against

the surrounding mists. It seemed to Maradick (and this showed the way

that he now credited everything with vitality) to be bending forward a

little and listening to the very distant beating of the sea; its windows

were golden eyes.

The lights seemed to prophesy company, and so he was surprised, on

pushing the door softly back and entering, to find that there was no one

there. But there were two large candles on the altar, and they waved

towards him a little with the draught from the door as though to greet

him. The church seemed larger now in the half light. The great box-like

family pew was lost in the dark corners by the walls; it seemed to

stretch away into infinite space. The other seats had an air of

conscious waiting for some ceremony. On one of them was still an open

prayer-book, open at the marriage service, that had been left there that

afternoon. And at the sight of it the memories of Tony and Janet came

back to him with a rush, so that they seemed to be there with him.

Already it seemed a very, very long time since they had gone, another

lifetime almost. And now, as he thought of it, perhaps, after all, it

was better that they had gone like that.

He thought over the whole affair from the beginning. The first evening

in Treliss, that first night when he had quarrelled with her, and then

there had been Tony. That dated the change in him. But he could not

remember when he had first noticed anything in her. There had been the

picnic, the evening in their room when he had nearly lost control of

himself and shaken her. . . . Yes, it was after that. That placed it.

Well, then, it was only, after all, because he had shown himself firm,

because, for once, he had made her afraid of him. Because, too, no

doubt, she had noticed that people paid him attention. For the first

time in their married life he had become “somebody,” and that perhaps

had opened her eyes. But then there had been that curious moment the

other night when she had spoken to him. That had been extraordinarily

unpleasant. He could feel again his uncomfortable sensation of

helplessness, of not in the least knowing how to deal with her. That was

the new Mrs. Maradick. He had therefore some one quite new to reckon

with.

And then he saw suddenly, there in the church, the right thing to do. It

was to go back. To go back to Epsom, to go back to his wife, to go back

to the girls. He saw that she, Mrs. Maradick, in her own way, had been

touched by the Admonitus Locorum—not that he put it that way; he called

it the “rum place” or “the absurd town.” She was going to try (she had

herself told him so) to be better, more obliging. He could see her now,

sitting there on the end of the bed, looking at him so pathetically.

The shadows gathered about the church, creeping along the floor and

blotting out the blue light from the windows, and only there was a glow

by the altar where the candles seemed to increase in size, and their

light, like a feathery golden mist, hung in circles until it lost itself

in the dusky roof.

But he stared in front of him, seeing simply the two women, one on each

side of him. He had forgotten everything else. They stood there waiting

for him to make his choice. It was the parting of the ways.

And then suddenly he fell asleep. He did not know that his eyes closed;

he seemed to be still stupidly staring at the two candles and the rings

that they made, and the way that the altar seemed to slope down in front

of him like the dim grey side of a hill. And it was a hill. He could see

it stretch in front of him, up into the air, until the heights of it

were lost. At the foot of the hill ran a stream, blue in the half-light,

and in front of the stream a green plain stretching to his feet. Along

the stream were great banks of rushes, green and brown, and away to the

right and left were brown cliffs running sheer down into the sea.

And then in his dream he suddenly realised that he had seen the place

before. He knew that beyond the plain there should be a high white road

leading to a town, that below the cliffs there was a cove with a white

sandy bay; he knew the place.

And people approached. He could not see their faces, and they seemed in

that half light in which the blue hills and the blue river mingled in

the grey of the dusk to be shadows such as a light casts on a screen.

They were singing very softly and moving slowly across the plain. Then

they passed away and there was silence again, only a little wind went

rustling down the hill and the rushes all quivered for an instant. Then

the rushes were parted, and a face looked out from between them and

looked at Maradick and smiled. And Maradick recognised the smile. He had

seen it for the first time in a public-house, thick with smoke, noisy

with drinking and laughter. He could see it all again; the little man in

brown suddenly at his table, and then that delightful charming laugh

unlike anything else in the world—Morelli.

But this figure was naked, his feet were goats’ feet and on his head

were horns; his body was brown and hairy and in his hand was a pipe. He

began to play and slowly the shadowy figures came back again and

gathered about him. They began to dance to his playing moving slowly in

the half-light so that at times they seemed only mist; and a little moon

like a golden eye came out and watched them and touched the tops of the

blue hills with flame.

Maradick woke. His head had slipped forward on to the seat in front of

him. He suddenly felt dreadfully tired; every limb in his body seemed to

ache, but he was cold and the seat was very hard.

Then he was suddenly aware that there was some one else in the church.

Over by the altar some one was kneeling, and very faintly there came to

him the words of a prayer. “Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be

Thy name. . . . Thy will be done, . . . as it is in Heaven. . . . lead

us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil. . . .” It was the old

clergyman, the old clergyman with the white beard.

Maradick sat motionless in his seat. He made no movement, but he was

praying, praying furiously. He was praying to no God that had a name,

but to the powers of all honour, of all charity, of all goodness.

Love was the ultimate test, the test of everything. He knew now, with a

clearness that seemed to dismiss all the shadows that had lingered for

days about him, that he had never loved Mrs. Lester. It was the cry of

sensuality, the call of the beast; it was lust.

“Deliver us from evil.” He said it again and again, his hands clenched,

his eyes staring, gazing at the altar. The powers of evil seemed to be

all about him; he felt that if he did not cling with all his strength to

that prayer, he was lost. The vision of Mrs. Lester returned to him. She

seemed to get between him and the old man at the altar. He tried to look

beyond her, but she was there, appealing, holding out her arms to him.

Then she was nearer to him, quite close, he could feel her breath on his

cheek; and then again, with all the moral force that was in him, he

pushed her away.

Then he seemed to lie for a long time in a strange lassitude. He was

still sitting forward with his hands pressed tightly together, his eyes

fixed on the altar, but his brain seemed to have ceased to work. He had

that sensation of suddenly standing outside and above himself. He saw

Maradick sitting there, he saw the dusky church and the dim gold light

over the altar, and outside the sweep of the plain and the dark plunging

sea; and he was above and beyond it all. He wondered a little that that

man could be so troubled about so small an affair. He wondered and then

pitied him. What a perspective he must have, poor thing, to fancy that

his struggles were of so vast an importance.

He saw him as a baby, a boy, a man—stolid, stupid self-centred,

ignorant. Oh! so dull a soul! such a lump of clay, just filling space as

a wall fills it; but no use, with no share at all in the music that was

on every side of him.

And then, because for an instant the flame has descended upon him and

his eyes have been opened, he rushes at once to take refuge in his body.

He is afraid of his soul, the light of it hurts him, he cowers in his

dark corner groping for his food, wanting his sensuality to be

satisfied; and the little spark that has been kindled is nearly out, in

a moment it will be gone, because he did not know what to do with it,

and the last state of that man is worse than the first.

And slowly he came back to himself. The candles had been extinguished.

The church was quite dark. Only a star shone through the little window

and some late bird was singing. He gathered himself together. It must be

late and he must see Morelli. He stumbled out of the church.

He knew as he faced the wind and the night air that in some obscure way,

as yet only very vaguely realised, he had won the moral victory over

himself. He had no doubt about what he must do; he had no doubt at all

about the kind of life that he must lead afterwards. He saw that he had

been given something very precious to keep—his _vie sacré_, as it

were—and he knew that everyone had this _vie sacré_ somewhere, that it

was something that they never talked about, something that they kept

very closely hidden, and that it was when they had soiled it, or hurt

it, or even perhaps for a time lost it, that they were unhappy and saw

life miserably and distrusted their fellow beings. He had never had it

before; but he had got it now, his precious golden box, and it would

make all life a new thing.

But there was still his body. He had never felt so strong in his life

before; the blood raced through his veins, he felt as though he would

like to strip himself naked and fight and battle with anything furious

and strong.

His sense of weariness had left him; he felt that he must have some vent

for his strength immediately or he would commit some crime. For a few

minutes he stood there and let the wind blow about his forehead. The

storm had passed away. The sky was a very dark blue, and the stars had a

wind-blown, misty look, as they often have after a storm. Their gold

light was a little watery, as though they had all been dipped in some

mysterious lake somewhere in the hills of heaven before they were out in

the sky. In spite of the wind there was a great silence, and the bird on

some dark wind-bent tree continued to sing. The trees on either side of

the lane rose, dark walls, against the sky. Then in the distance there

were cries, at first vague and incoherent, almost uncanny, and then,

coming down the lane, he heard the bleating of innumerable sheep. They

passed him, their bodies mysteriously white against the dark hedges;

they pressed upon each other and their cries came curiously to him,

hitting the silence as a ball hits a board; there were very many of them

and their feet pattered away into distance. They seemed to him like all

the confused and dark thoughts that had surrounded him all these weeks,

but that he had now driven away. His head was extraordinarily clear; he

felt as though he had come out of a long sleep.

The lights were beginning to come out in the town as he entered it. It

must be, he thought, about eight o’clock, and Morelli had probably

returned from Truro. It had not occurred to him until now to think of

what he was going to say to Morelli. After all, there wasn’t really very

much to say, simply that his daughter was gone and that she would never

come back again, and that he, Maradick, had helped her to go. It hadn’t

occurred to him until now to consider how Morelli would probably take

his share in it. He wouldn’t like it, of course; there would probably be

some unpleasantness.

And then Morelli was undoubtedly a queer person. Tony was a very healthy

normal boy, not at all given to unnecessary terror, but he had been

frightened by Morelli. And then there were a host of little things, none

of them amounting to anything in themselves, but taken together—oh yes!

the man was queer.

The street was quite empty; the lamplighter had not yet reached that

part of the town and the top of the hill was lost in darkness. Maradick

found the bell and rang it, and even as he did so a curious feeling of

uneasiness began to creep over him. He, suddenly and quite

unconsciously, wanted to run away. He began to imagine that there was

something waiting for him on the other side of the door, and when it

actually opened and showed him only Lucy, the little maid-of-all-work,

he almost started with surprise.

“No, sir; they’re all out. I don’t know when Miss Janet will be back,

I’m sure. I’m expecting the master any moment, sir.” She seemed,

Maradick thought, a little frightened. “I don’t know, I’m sure, sir,

about Miss Janet; she said nothing about dinner, sir. I’ve been alone.”

She stopped and twisted her apron in her hands.

Maradick looked down the street, then he turned back and looked past her

into the hall. “Mr. Morelli told me that he would be back about now,” he

said; “I promised to wait.”

She stood aside to let him enter the hall. She was obviously relieved

that there was some one else in the house. She was even inclined to be a

little confidential. “That kitchen,” she said and stopped.

“Yes?” he said, standing in the hall and looking at her.

“Well, it fairly gives you the creeps. Being alone all day down in the

basement too. . . .” There was a little choke in her voice and her face

was very white in the darkness. She was quite a child and not very tidy;

pathetic, Maradick thought.

“Well,” he said, “your master will be back in a minute.”

“Yes, sir, and it’s all dark, sir. I’ll light the lamp upstairs.”

She led the way with a candle. He followed her up the stairs, and his

uneasiness seemed to increase with every step that he took. He had a

strange consciousness that Morelli had really returned and that he was

waiting for him somewhere in the darkness. The stairs curved, and he

could see the very faint light of the higher landing above him; the

candle that the girl carried flung their two heads on to the wall,

gigantic, absurd. His hair seemed to stand up in the shadow like a

forest and his nose was hooked like an elephant’s trunk.

She lit the lamp in the sitting-room and then stood with the candle by

the door.

“I suppose you couldn’t tell me, sir,” she said timidly, “when Miss

Janet is likely—what time she’ll be in?”

“Your master will probably be able to tell you,” said Maradick.

Lucy was inclined for conversation. “It’s funny, sir,” she said, “what

difference Miss Janet makes about the house, comin’ in and goin’ out.

You couldn’t want a better mistress; but if it weren’t for ’er . . . I

must be seein’ to things downstairs.” She hurried away.

The room was quiet save for the ticking of the clock. The little blue

tiles of the fireplace shone under the lamp, the china plates round the

wall made eyes at him.

He was sitting straight up in his chair listening. The uneasiness that

he had felt at first would soon, if he did not keep it in check, grow

into terror. There was no reason, no cause that he could in the least

define, but he felt as though things were happening outside the door. He

didn’t know what sort of things, but he fancied that by listening very

hard he could hear soft footsteps, whispers, and a noise like the

rustling of carpets. The ticking of the clock grew louder and louder,

and to forget it he flung up the window so that he could hear the noises

of the town. But there weren’t any noises; only, very far away, some cat

was howling. The night was now very dark; the stars seemed to have

disappeared; the wind made the lamp flare. He closed the window.

At the same moment the door opened and he saw Morelli standing there

smiling at him. It was the same charming smile, the trusting, confiding

laugh of a child; the merry twinkle in the eyes, taking the whole world

as a delightful, delicious joke.

“Why, Maradick!” He seemed surprised, and came forward holding out his

hand. “I’m delighted! I hope you haven’t been waiting long. But why is

Janet not entertaining you? She’s only upstairs, I expect. I’ll call

her.” He moved back towards the door.

“Miss Morelli isn’t in,” Maradick said slowly. He was standing up and

resting one hand on the table.

“Not in?”

“No. Your servant told me so.”

He wanted to say more. He wanted to give his message at once and go, but

his tongue seemed tied. He sat down, leaning both his arms on the table.

Morelli laughed. “Oh well, I expect she’s out with Minns

somewhere—walking, I suppose. They’re often late; but we’ll wait supper

a little if you don’t mind. We’ll give them ten minutes. Well, how’s

young Gale?”

Seeing him like this, it was almost impossible to reconcile him with all

the absurdly uncouth ideas that Maradick had had of him. But the uncanny

feeling of there being some one outside the door was still with him; he

had a foolish impulse to ask Morelli to open it.

Then he leant across the table and looked Morelli in the face.

“That’s what I came to tell you. Young Gale has gone.”

“Gone? What, with his people? I’m sorry. I liked him.”

“No. Not with his people. He was married to your daughter at two o’clock

this afternoon. They have gone to London.”

There was absolute silence. Morelli didn’t move. He was sitting now on

the opposite side of the table facing Maradick.

“My daughter has gone to London with Gale?” he said very slowly. The

smile had died away from his face and his eyes were filled with tears.

“Yes. They were married to-day. They have gone to London.”

“Janet!” He called her name softly as though she were in the next room.

“Janet!” He waited as though he expected an answer, and then suddenly he

burst into tears. His head fell forward between his arms on to the

table; his shoulders shook.

Maradick watched him. It was the most desolate thing in the world; he

felt the most utter cad. If it had been possible he would have, at that

moment, brought Janet and Tony back by main force.

“I say,” he muttered, “I’m awfully sorry.” He stopped. There was nothing

to say.

Then suddenly Morelli looked up. The tears seemed to have vanished, but

his eyes were shining with extraordinary brilliance. His hands, with

their long white fingers, were bending over the table; his upper lip

seemed to have curled back like the mouth of a dog.

He looked at Maradick very intently.

“You saw them married?”

“Yes.”

“You saw them leave for London?”

“Yes.”

“You have helped them all this time?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I thought that they ought to marry; I was fond of both of them. I

wanted them to marry.”

“And now I will kill you.”

He said it without moving; his face seemed to grow more like a beast’s

at every moment. His hands stretched across the table; the long fingers

were like snakes.

“I must go.” Maradick got up. Panic was about him again. He felt that he

ought to make some kind of defence of what he had done, but the words

would not come.

“You will see, afterwards, that what I did was best. It was really the

best. We will talk again about it, when you feel calmer.”

He moved towards the door; but Morelli was coming towards him with his

head thrust forward, his back a little bent, his hands hanging, curved,

in mid-air, and he was smiling.

“I am going to kill you, here and now,” he said. “It is not a very

terrible affair. It will not be very long. You can’t escape; but it is

not because you have done this or that, it is not for anything that you

have done. It is only because you are so stupid, so dreadfully stupid.

There are others like you, and I hate you all, you fools. You do not

understand anything—what I am or who I am, or the world—nothing.”

Maradick said nothing. The terror that had once seized Tony was about

him now like a cloud; the thing that was approaching him was not a man,

but something impure, unclean. It was exactly as though he were being

slowly let down into a dungeon full of creeping snakes.

His breath was coming with difficulty. He felt stifled.

“You must let me out,” he gasped.

“Oh no, I will throw you out, later. Now, you are here. That boy

understood a little, and that girl too. They were young, they were

alive, they were part of me; I loved to have them about me. Do you

suppose that I care whether they are married; what is that to me? But

they are gone. You with your blundering, you fat fool, you have done

that; and now I will play with you.”

Maradick, suddenly feeling that if he did not move soon he would be

unable to move at all, stumbled for the door. In an instant Morelli was

upon him. His hand hung for an instant above Maradick like a whip in the

air, then it fastened on his arm. It passed up to Maradick’s neck; his

other hand was round his waist, his head was flung back.

Then curiously, with the touch of the other man’s hand Maradick’s

strength returned. He was himself again; his muscles grew taut and firm.

He knew at once that it was a case of life and death. The other man’s

fingers seemed to grip his neck like steel; already they were pressing

into the flesh. He shot out his arm and caught Morelli’s neck, but it

was like gripping iron, his hand seemed to slip away. Then Morelli’s

hand suddenly dug into Maradick’s shoulder-bone. It turned about there

like a gimlet. Suddenly something seemed to give, and a hot burning pain

twisted inside his flesh as an animal twists in its burrow. They swayed

backwards and forwards in the middle of the room. Maradick pushed the

other body slowly back and, with a crash, it met the table. The thing

fell, and the lamp flamed for an instant to the ceiling and then was on

the floor in a thousand pieces.

When the lamp fell the darkness seemed to leap like a wall out of the

ground. It fell all about them; it pressed upon them, and the floor

heaved to and fro.

They had turned round and round, so that Maradick was confused and could

not remember where the door was. Then the other man’s hand was pressing

on his throat so that he was already beginning to be stifled; then he

felt that he was dizzy. He was swimming on a sea, lights flashed in and

out of the darkness; the window made a grey square, and through this

there seemed to creep innumerable green lizards—small with burning

eyes; they crawled over the floor towards him. He began to whimper, “No,

Morelli, please . . . my God . . . my God!” His shoulder burnt like

fire; his brain began to reel so that he fancied that there were many

people there crushing him. Then he knew that Morelli was slowly pressing

him back. One hand was about his neck, but the other had crept in

through his shirt and had touched the skin. Maradick felt the fingers

pressing over his chest. Then the fingers began to pinch. They caught

the flesh and seemed to tear it; it was like knives. All his body was on

fire. Then the fingers seemed to be all over his limbs. They crept down

to his hip, his thigh. They bit into his flesh, and then he knew that

Morelli was pressing some nerve in his hip and pushing it from the

socket. At that moment he himself became aware, for the first time, of

Morelli’s body. He pressed against his chest and his fingers had torn

the man’s clothes away. Morelli’s chest was hairy like an animal’s and

cold as marble. He was sweating in every pore, but Morelli was icy cold.

He dug his nails into the flesh, but they seemed to slip away. His arm

was right round Morelli’s body; the cold flesh slipped and shrunk

beneath his touch. His mouth was against Morelli’s neck. He had a sudden

wild impulse to bite. He was becoming a wild beast. . . .

Then Morelli seemed to encircle the whole of him. Every part of his body

was touched by those horrible fingers—his arms, his neck; it was as

though he were being bitten to death. Then he felt in his neck teeth;

something was biting him. . . .

He screamed again and again, but only a hoarse murmur seemed to come

from his lips. He was still struggling, but he was going; the room

seemed full of animals. They were biting him, tearing him; and then

again he could feel the soft fingers stealing about his body.

A curious feeling of sleepiness stole over him. The pain in his shoulder

and his arm was so terrible that he wanted to die; his body twitched

with a fresh spasm of pain. Things—he did not know what they were—were

creeping up his legs; soon they would be at his chest.

He knew that they were both naked to the waist. He could feel the blood

trickling down his face and his arms. . . .

Tony was in the room! Yes, Tony. How was he there? Never mind! He would

help him! “Tony! Tony! They’re doing for me!” Tony was all over the

room. He pulled himself together, and suddenly fell against the knob of

the door. They fell against it together. He hit at the other’s naked

body, hit at it again and again. Strength seemed to pour back into his

body in a flood. He had been nearly on his knees, but now he was

pressing up again. He snatched at the hand about his neck and tore it

away. Again they were surging about the room. His hand was upon the

door. Morelli’s hands were about his and tried to drag it away, but he

clung. For an age they seemed to hang there, panting, heaving,

clutching.

Then he had turned it. The door flew open and his foot lunged out behind

him. He kicked with all his force, but he touched nothing. There was

nothing there.

He looked back. The door was open. There was a grey light over the room.

Something was muttering, making a noise like a dog over a bone. He could

hear the ticking of the clock through the open door; it struck nine.

There was perfect stillness; no one was near him.

Then silently, trembling in every limb, he crept down the stairs. In a

moment he was in the street.

CHAPTER XIX

NIGHT OF THE TWENTY-SEVENTH—MARADICK AND

MRS. LESTER

But the gods had not yet done with his night.

As the sharp night air met him he realised that his clothes were torn

apart and that his chest was bare. He pulled his shirt about him again,

stupidly made movements with his hand as though he would brush back the

hair from his eyes, and then found that it was blood that was trickling

from a wound in his forehead.

That seemed to touch something in him, so that he suddenly leaned

against the wall and, with his head in his arm, began to cry. There was

no reason really why he should cry; in fact, he didn’t want to cry—it

was like a woman to cry. He repeated it stupidly to himself, “like a

woman, like a woman. . . .”

Then he began slowly to fling himself together, as it were; to pick up

the bits and to feel that he, Maradick, still existed as a personal

identity. He pulled his clothes about him and looked at the dark house.

It was absolutely silent; there were no lights anywhere. What had

happened? Was Morelli looking at him now from some dark corner, watching

him from behind some black window?

And then, as his head grew cooler under the influence of the night air,

another thought came to him. What was the little parlour-maid doing?

What would happen to her, shut up all night in that house alone with

that . . .? Ought he to go back? He could see her cowering, down in the

basement somewhere, having heard probably the noise of the crashing

lamp, terrified, waiting for Morelli to find her. Yes, he ought to go

back. Then he knew that nothing, nothing in the world—no duty and no

claim, no person, no power—could drive him back into that house again.

He looked back on it afterwards as one of the most shameful things in

his life, that he had not gone back to see what had happened to the

girl; but he could not go, nothing would make him. It was not anything

physical that he might have to face. If it had been ordinary normal

odds—a “scrap,” as he would call it—then he would have faced it

without hesitation. But there was something about that struggle upstairs

that made him sick; it was something unreal, unclean, indecent. It had

been abnormal, and all that there had been in it had not been the actual

struggle, the blows and wounds, but something about it that must be

undefined, unnamed: the “air,” the “atmosphere” of the thing, the sudden

throwing down of the decent curtain that veils this world from others.

But he couldn’t analyse it like that now. He only felt horribly sick at

the thought of it, and his one urgent idea was to get away, far, far

away, from the house and all that it contained.

The night was very dark; no one would see him. He must get back to the

hotel and slip up to his room and try and make himself decent. He turned

slowly up the hill.

Then, as his thoughts became clearer, he was conscious of a kind of

exultation at its being over. So much more than the actual struggle

seemed to be over; it swept away all the hazy moral fog that he had been

in during the last weeks. In casting off Morelli, in flinging him from

him physically as well as morally, he seemed to have flung away all that

belonged to him—the wildness, the hot blood, the unrest that had come

to him! He wondered whether after all Morelli had not had a great deal

to do with it. There were more things in it all than he could ever hope

to understand.

And then, on top of it all, came an overwhelming sensation of weariness.

He went tottering up the hill with his eyes almost closed. Tired! He had

never felt so tired in his life before. He was already indifferent to

everything that had happened. If only he might just lie down for a

minute and close his eyes; if only he hadn’t got this horrible hill to

climb! It would be easier to lie down there in the hedge somewhere and

go to sleep. He considered the advisability of doing so. He really did

not care what happened to him. And then the thought came to him that

Morelli was coming up the hill after him; Morelli was waiting probably

until he _did_ fall asleep, and then he would be upon him. Those fingers

would steal about his body again, there would be that biting pain. He

struggled along. No, he must not stop.

At last he was in the hotel garden. He could hear voices and laughter

from behind closed doors, but there seemed to be no one in the hall. He

stumbled up the stairs to his room and met no one on the way. His bath

seemed to him the most wonderful thing that he had ever had. It was

steaming hot, and he lay absolutely motionless with his eyes closed

letting his brain very slowly settle itself. It was like a coloured

puzzle that had been shaken to pieces and scattered; now, of their own

initiative, all the little squares and corners seemed to come together

again. He was able to think sanely and soberly once more, and, above

all, that terrible sensation of having about him something unreal was

leaving him. He began to smile now at the things that he had imagined

about Morelli. The man had been angry at his helping Janet to run

away—that was natural enough; he was, of course, hot-tempered—that was

the foreign blood in him. Thank God, the world wasn’t an odd place

really. One fancied things, of course, when one was run down or excited,

but those silly ideas didn’t last long if a man was sensible.

He found that the damage wasn’t very serious. There were bruises, of

course, and nasty scratches, but it didn’t amount to very much. As he

climbed out of the bath, and stretched his limbs and felt the muscles of

his arms, he was conscious of an enormous relief. It was all over; he

was right again once more. And then suddenly in a flash he remembered

Mrs. Lester.

Well, that was over, of course. But to-night was Thursday. He had

promised to see her. He must have one last talk, just to tell her that

there must be nothing more of the kind. As he slowly dressed, delighting

in the cool of clean linen, he tried to imagine what he would say; but

he was tired, so dreadfully tired! He couldn’t think; he really couldn’t

see her to-night. Besides, it was most absolutely over, all of it. He

had gone through it all in the church that afternoon. He belonged to his

wife now, altogether; he was going to show her what he could be now that

he understood everything so much better; and she was going to try too,

she had promised him in that funny way the other night.

But he was so tired; he couldn’t think connectedly. They all got mixed

up, Morelli and Mrs. Lester, Tony and his wife. He stood, trying with

trembling fingers to fasten his collar. The damned stud! how it twisted

about! When he had got its silly head one way and was slipping the

collar over it, then suddenly it slipped round the other way and left

his fingers aching.

Oh! he supposed he must see her. After all, it was better to have it out

now and settle it, settle it once and for ever. These women—beastly

nuisance. Damn the stud!

He had considered the question of telling the family and had decided to

leave it until the morning. He was much too tired to face them all now

with their questions and anger and expostulation. Oh! he’d had enough of

that, poor man!

Besides, there wouldn’t be any anxiety until the morning. Tony was so

often late, and although Sir Richard would probably fume and scold at

his cutting dinner again, still, he’d done it so often. No, Lady Gale

was really the question. If she worried, if she were going to spend an

anxious night thinking about it, then he ought to go and tell her at

once. But she probably had a pretty good idea about the way things had

gone. She would not be any more anxious now than she had been during all

these last weeks, and he really felt, just now, physically incapable of

telling her. No, he wouldn’t see any of them yet. He would go up to the

room of the minstrels and think what he was to do. He always seemed to

be able to think better up there.

But Mrs. Lester! What was he to do about her? He felt now simply

antagonism. He hated her, the very thought of her! What was he doing

with that kind of thing? Why couldn’t he have left her alone?

A kind of fury seized him at the thought of her! He shook his fist at

the ceiling and scowled at the looking-glass; then he went wearily to

the room. But it was dark, and he was frightened now by the dark. He

stood on the threshold scarcely daring to enter. Then with trembling

fingers he felt for the matches and lit the two candles. But even then

the light that they cast was so uncertain, they left so many corners

dark, and then there were such strange grey lights under the gallery

that he wasn’t at all happy. Lord! what a state his nerves were in!

He was afraid lest he should go to sleep, and then anything might

happen. He faced the grey square of the window with shrinking eyes; it

was through there that the green lizards . . .

He would have liked to have crossed the room to prevent the window from

rattling if he’d had the courage, but the sound of his steps on the

floor frightened him. He remembered his early enthusiasm about the room.

Well, that was a long, long time ago. Not long in hours, he knew, but in

experience! It was another lifetime!

It was the tower that he wanted. He could see it now, in the

market-place, so strong and quiet and grey! That was the kind of thing

for him to have in his mind: rest and strength. Drowsing away in his

chair—the candles flinging lions and tigers on the wall, the old brown

of the gallery sparkling and shining under the uneven light—the tower

seemed to come to him through all the black intervening space of night.

It grew and grew, until it stood beyond the window, great grey and white

stone, towering to the sky, filling the world; that and the sea alone in

all creation.

He was nearly asleep, his head forward on his chest, his arms hanging

loosely over the sides of the chair, when he heard the door creak.

He started up in sudden alarm. The candles did not fling their circle of

light as far as the door—_that_ was in darkness, a black square darker

than the rest of the world; and then as his eyes stared at it he saw

that there was a figure outlined against it, a grey, shadowy figure.

In a whisper he stammered, “Who is that?”

Then she came forward into the circle of the candles—Mrs. Lester! Mrs.

Lester in her blue silk dress cut very low, Mrs. Lester with diamonds in

her hair and a very bright red in her cheeks, Mrs. Lester looking at him

timidly, almost terrified, bending a little forward to stare at him.

“Ah! it’s you!” He could hear her breath of relief. “I didn’t know, I

thought it might be!” She stood staring at him, a little smile hovering

on her lips, uncertainly, as though it were not sure whether it ought to

be there.

“Ah! it’s you!”

He stood up and faced her, leaning heavily with one hand on the chair.

He wanted to tell her to go away; that he was tired and wasn’t really up

to talking—the morning would be better. But he couldn’t speak. He could

do nothing but stand there and stare at her stupidly.

Then at last, in a voice that did not seem his own at all, he said,

“Won’t you sit down?” She laughed, leaning forward a little with both

hands on the green baize table, looking at him.

“You don’t mind, do you? If you do, I’ll go at once. But it’s our last

evening. We may not see much of each other again, and I’d like you to

understand me.” Then she sat down in a chair by the table, her dress

rustling like a sea about her. The candle light fell on it and her, and

behind her the room was dark.

But Maradick sat with his head hidden by his hand. He did not want to

look at her, he did not want to speak to her. Already the fascination of

her presence was beginning to steal over him again. It had been easy

enough whilst she had been away to say that he did not care. But now the

scent, violets, that she used came very delicately across the floor to

him. He seemed to catch the blue of her dress with the corner of his eye

even though he was not looking at her. She filled the room; the vision

that he had had of the tower slipped back into the night, giving place

to the new one. He tapped his foot impatiently on the floor. Why could

she not have left him alone? He didn’t want any more struggles. He

simply wasn’t up to it, he was so horribly tired. Anything was better

than a struggle.

He spoke in a low voice without raising his eyes. “Wasn’t it—isn’t

it—rather risky to come here—like this, now?” After all, how absurd it

was! What heaps of plays he had seen with their third act just like

this. It was all shadowy, fantastic—the woman, the place. He wanted to

sleep.

She laughed. “Risky? Why, no. Fred’s in London. Nobody else is likely to

bother. But Jim, what’s the matter? What’s happened? Why are you

suddenly like this? Don’t you think it’s a little unkind on our last

evening, the last chance that we shall get of talking? I don’t want to

be a nuisance or a worry——” She paused with a pathetic little catch in

her voice, and she let her hand fall sharply on to the silk of her

dress.

He tried to pull himself together, to realise the place and the woman

and the whole situation. After all, it was his fault that she was there,

and he couldn’t behave like a cad after arranging to meet her; and she

had been awfully nice during these weeks.

“No, please.” He raised his eyes at last and looked at her. “I’m tired,

beastly tired; or I was until you came. Don’t think me rude, but I’ve

had an awfully exhausting day, really awfully exhausting. But of course

I want to talk.”

She was looking so charmingly pretty. Her colour, her beautiful

shoulders, the way that her dress rose and fell with her breathing—a

little hurriedly, but so evenly, like the rise and fall of some very

gentle music.

He smiled at her and she smiled back. “There, I knew that you wouldn’t

be cross, really; and it is our last time, isn’t it? And I have got a

whole lot of things that I want to say to you.”

“Yes,” he said, and he leaned back in his chair again, but he did not

take his eyes off her face.

“Well, you know, for a long time I wondered whether I would come or not;

I couldn’t make up my mind. You see, I’d seen nothing of you at all

during these last days, nothing at all. Perhaps it was just as well.

Anyhow, you had other things to do; and that is, I suppose, the

difference between us. With women, sentiment, romance, call it what you

like, is everything. It is life; but with you men it is only a little

bit, one amongst a lot of other things. Oh! I know. I found that out

long ago without waiting for anyone to tell me. But now, perhaps, you’ve

brought it home to me in a way that I hadn’t realised before.”

He was going to interrupt her, but she stopped him.

“No, don’t think that I’m complaining about it. It’s perfectly natural.

I know—other men are like that. It’s only that I had thought that you

were a little different, not quite like the rest; that you had seen it

as something precious, valuable. . . .”

And so he had, of course he had. Why, it had made all the difference in

his life. It was all very well his thinking, as he had that afternoon,

that it was Tony or the place or Punch, one odd thing or another that

had made him think like that, but, as a matter of fact, it was Mrs.

Lester, and no one else. She had shown him all of it.

“No, you mustn’t think that of me,” he said; “I have taken it very

seriously indeed.” He wanted to say more, but his head was so heavy that

he couldn’t think, and he stopped.

Meanwhile she was wondering at her own position. She had come to him

that evening in a state of pique. All day she had determined that she

would not go. That was to be the end of an amusing little episode. And

after all, he was only a great stupid hulk of a thing. He could crush

her in his arms, but then so could any coalheaver. And she had got such

a nice letter from Fred, the dear, that morning. He had missed her even

during the day that he had been away. Oh yes! she wouldn’t see any more

of Mr. Maradick!

But she would like to have just a word alone with him. She expected to

see him at teatime. But no; Sir Richard and Rupert had seen him at the

station and he had said that he was following them back. But no; well,

then, at dinner. Neither Tony nor he were at dinner.

Oh well! he couldn’t care very much about her if he could stay away

during the whole of their last day together! She was well out of it all.

She read Fred’s letter a great many times and kissed it. Then directly

after dinner—they were _so_ dull downstairs, everyone seemed to have

the acutest depression and kept on wondering where Tony was—she went to

her room and started writing a long, long letter to her “little pet of a

Fredikins”; at least it was going to be a long, long letter, and then

somehow it would not go on.

Mr. Maradick was a beast. If he thought that he could just play fast and

loose with women like that, do just what he liked with them, he was

mightily mistaken. She flung down her pen. The room was stifling! She

went to her window and opened it; she leaned out. Ah! how cool and

refreshing the night air was. There was somebody in the distance playing

something. It sounded like a flute or a pipe. How nice and romantic! She

closed the window. After all, where was he? He must be somewhere all

this time. She must speak to him just once before she went away. She

must, even though it were only to tell him . . . Then she remembered

that dusty, empty room upstairs. He had told her that he often went up

there.

And so she came. That was the whole history of it. She hadn’t, when she

came into the room, the very least idea of anything that she was going

to do or say. Only that it was romantic, and that she had an

extraordinarily urgent desire to be crushed once more in those very

strong arms.

“I have taken it very seriously indeed.” He wondered, as he said it to

her, what it was, exactly, that he had taken seriously. The “it” was

very much more than simply Mrs. Lester; he saw that very clearly. She

was only the expression of a kind of mood that he had been in during

these last weeks, a kind of genuine atmosphere that she stood for, just

as some quite simple and commonplace thing—a chair, a picture, a vase

of flowers—sometimes stands for a great experience or emotion. And

then—his head was clearer now; that led him to see further still.

He suddenly grasped that she wasn’t really for him a woman at all, that,

indeed, she never had been. He hadn’t thought of her as the woman, the

personal character and identity that he wanted, but simply as a sort of

emotional climax to the experiences that he had been having; any other

woman, he now suddenly saw, would have done just as well. And then, the

crisis being over, the emotional situation being changed, the woman

would remain; that would be the hell of it!

And that led him—all this in the swift interval before she answered

him—to wonder whether she, too, had been wanting him also, not as a

man, not as James Maradick, but simply as a cap to fit the mood that she

was in: any man would fit as well. If that were the case with her as

well as with him what a future they were spared by his suddenly seeing

as clearly as he did. If that were not so, then the whole thing bristled

with difficulties; but that was what he must set himself to find out,

now, at once.

Then, in her next speech, he saw two things quite clearly—that she was

determined, come what might, to have her way about to-night at any rate,

and to go to any lengths to obtain it. She might not have been

determined when she came into the room, but she was determined now.

She leant forward in her chair towards him, her cheeks were a little

redder, her breath was coming a little faster.

“Jim, I know you meant it seriously. I know you mean it seriously now.

But there isn’t much time; and after all, there isn’t much to say. We’ve

arranged it all before. We were to have this night, weren’t we, and

then, afterwards, we’d arrange to go abroad or something. Here we are,

two modern people, you and I, looking at the thing squarely. All our

lives we’ve lived stupidly, dully, comfortably. There’s never been

anything in the very least to disturb us. And now suddenly this romance

has come. Are we, just because of stupid laws that stupid people made

hundreds of years ago, to miss the chance of our lives? Jim!”

She put one hand across towards him and touched his knee.

But he, looking her steadily in the face, spoke without moving.

“Wait,” he said. “Stop. I want to ask you a question. Do you love

me—really, I mean? So that you would go with me to-morrow to Timbuctoo,

anywhere?”

For an instant she lowered her eyes, then she said vehemently, eagerly,

“Of course, of course I do. You know—Jim, how can you ask? Haven’t I

shown it by coming here?”

But that was exactly what she hadn’t done. Her coming there showed the

opposite, if anything; and indeed, at once, in a way that she had

answered him, he had seen the truth. She might think, at that moment,

quite honestly that she loved him, but really what she wanted was not

the man at all, but the expression, the emotion, call it what you will.

And he saw, too, exactly what the after-results would be. They would

both of them in the morning postpone immediate action. They would wait a

few weeks. She would return to her husband; for a little, perhaps, they

would write. And then gradually they would forget. She would begin to

look on it as an incident, a “romantic hour”; she would probably sigh

with relief at the thought of all the ennui and boredom that she had

avoided by not running away with him. He, too, would begin to regard it

lightly, would put it down to that queer place, to anything and

everything, even perhaps to Morelli; and then—well, it’s no use in

crying over spilt milk, and there’s no harm done after all—and so on,

until at last it would be forgotten altogether. And so “the

unforgiveable sin” would have been committed, “the unforgiveable sin,”

not because they had broken social laws and conventions, but because

they had acted without love—the unforgiveable sin of lust of the flesh

for the sake of the flesh alone.

After her answer to his question she paused for a moment, and he said

nothing; then she went on again: “Of course, you know I care, with all

my heart and soul.” She said the last three words with a little gasp,

and both her hands pressed tightly together. She had moved her chair

closer to his, and now both her hands were on his knee and her face was

raised to his.

“Then you would go away with me to-morrow anywhere?”

“Yes, of course,” she answered, now without any hesitation.

“You know that you would lose your good name, your life at home, your

friends, most of them? Everything that has made life worth living to

you?”

“Yes—I love you.”

“And then there is your husband. He has been very good to you. He has

never given you the least cause of complaint. He’s been awfully decent

to you.”

“Oh! he doesn’t care. It’s you, Jim; I love you heart and soul.”

But he knew through it all that she didn’t: the very repetition of the

phrase showed that. She was trying, he knew, to persuade herself that

she did because of the immediate pleasure that it would bring her. She

wasn’t consciously insincere, but he shrank back in his chair from her

touch, because he was not sure what he would do if he let her remain

there.

He put her hands aside firmly. “No, you mustn’t. Look here, I’ve

something to tell you. I know you’ll think me an awful cad, but I must

be straight with you. I’ve found out something. I’ve been thinking all

these days, and, you know, I don’t love you as I thought I did. Not in

the fine way that I imagined; I don’t even love you as I love my wife.

It is only sensual, all of it. It’s your body that I want, not you. That

sounds horrible, doesn’t it? I know, I’m ashamed, but it’s true.”

His voice sank into a whisper. He expected her to turn on him with

scorn, loathing, hatred. Perhaps she would even make a scene. Well, that

was better, at any rate, than going on with it. He might just save his

soul and hers in time. But he did not dare to look at her. He was

ashamed to raise his eyes. And then, to his amazement, he felt her hand

on his knee again. Her face was very close to his and she was speaking

very softly.

“Well—perhaps—dear, that other kind of love will come. That’s really

only one part of it. That other love cannot come at once.”

He turned his eyes to her. She was looking at him, smiling.

“But you don’t understand, you can’t?”

“Yes, I understand.”

Then something savage in him began to stir. He caught her hands in his

fiercely, roughly.

“No, you can’t. I tell you I don’t love you at all. Not as a decent man

loves a decent woman. A few weeks ago I thought that I had found my

soul. I saw things differently; it was a new world, and I thought that

you had shown it me. But it was not really you at all. It isn’t I that

you care for, it’s your husband, and we are both being led by the

devil—here—now!”

“Ah!” she said, drawing back a little. “I thought you were braver than

that. You do care for all the old conventional things after all, ‘the

sanctity of the marriage tie,’ and all the rest of it. I thought that we

had settled all that.”

“No,” he answered her. “It isn’t the conventions that I care for, but

it’s our souls, yours and mine. If we loved each other it would be a

different thing; but I’ve found out there’s something more than

thrilling at another person’s touch—that isn’t enough. I don’t love

you; we must end it.”

“No!” She had knelt down by his chair and had suddenly taken both his

hands in hers, and was kissing them again and again. “No, Jim, we must

have to-night. Never mind about the rest. I want you—now. Take me.”

Her arms were about him. Her head was on his chest. Her fascination

began to steal about him again. His blood began to riot. After all, what

were all these casuistries, this talk about the soul? Anyone could talk,

it was living that mattered. He began to press her hands; his head was

swimming.

Then suddenly a curious thing happened. The room seemed to disappear.

Mrs. Maradick was sitting on the edge of her bed looking at him. He

could see the pathetic bend of her head as she looked at him. He felt

once again, as he had felt in Morelli’s room, as though there were

devils about him.

He was tired again, dog-tired; in a moment he was going to yield. Both

women were with him again. Beyond the window was the night, the dark

hedges, the white road, the tower, grey and cold with the shadow lying

at its feet and moving with the moon as the waves move on the shore.

For a moment the fire seized him. He felt nothing but her body—the

pressure, the warmth of it. His fingers grated a little on the silk of

her dress.

There was perfect silence, and he thought that he could hear, beyond the

beating of their hearts, the sounds of the night—the rustle of the

trees, the monotonous drip of water, the mysterious distant playing of

the flute that he had heard before. His hands were crushing her. In

another moment he would have bent and covered her face, her body, with

kisses; then, like the coming of a breeze after a parching stillness,

the time was past.

He got up and gently put her hands away. He walked across the room and

looked out at the stars, the moon, the light on the misty trees.

He had won his victory.

His voice was quite quiet when he spoke to her.

“You had better, we had both better go to bed. It must never happen, to

either of us, because it isn’t good enough. I’m not the sort of man,

you’re not the sort of woman, that that does for; you know that you

don’t really love me.”

She had risen too, and now stood by the door, her head hanging a little,

her hands limply by her side. Then she gave a hard little laugh.

“I’ve rather given myself away,” she said harshly. “Only, don’t you

think it would have been kinder, honester, to have said this a week

ago?”

“I don’t try to excuse myself,” he said quietly. “I’ve been pretty

rotten, but that’s no reason——” He stopped abruptly.

She clenched her hands, and then suddenly flung up her head and looked

at him across the room furiously.

“Good night, Mr. Maradick,” she said, and was gone.

CHAPTER XX

MARADICK TELLS THE FAMILY, HAS BREAKFAST WITH HIS

WIFE, AND SAYS GOOD-BYE TO SOME FRIENDS

But he did not sleep.

Perhaps it was because his fatigue lay upon him like a heavy burden, so

that to close his eyes was as though he allowed a great weight to fall

upon him and crush him. His fatigue hung above him like a dark ominous

cloud; it seemed indeed so ominous that he was afraid of it. At the

moment when sleep seemed to come to him he would pull himself back with

a jerk, he was afraid of his dreams.

Towards about four o’clock in the morning he fell into confused slumber.

Shapes, people—Tony, Morelli, Mrs. Lester, his wife, Epsom, London—it

was all vague, misty, and, in some incoherent way, terrifying. He wanted

to wake, he tried to force himself to wake, but his eyes refused to

open, they seemed to be glued together. The main impression that he got

was of saying farewell to some one, or rather to a great many people. It

was as though he were going away to a distant land, somewhere from which

he felt that he would never return. But when he approached these figures

to say good-bye they would disappear or melt into some one else.

About half-past six he awoke and lay tranquilly watching the light fill

the windows and creep slowly, mysteriously, across the floor. His dreams

had left him, but in spite of his weariness when he had gone to bed and

the poor sleep that he had had he was not tired. He had a sensation of

relief, of having completed something and, which was of more importance,

of having got rid of it. A definite period in his life seemed to be

ended, marked off. He had something of the feeling that Christian had

when his pack left him. All the emotions, the struggles, the confusions

of the last weeks were over, finished. He didn’t regret them; he

welcomed them because of the things that they had taught him, but he did

not want them back again. It was almost like coming through an illness.

He knew that it was going to be a difficult day. There were all sorts of

explanations, all kinds of “settling up.” But he regarded it all very

peacefully. It did not really matter; the questions had all been

answered, the difficulties all resolved.

At half-past seven he got up quietly, had his bath and dressed. When he

came back into the bedroom he found that his wife was still asleep. He

watched her, with her head resting on her hand and her hair lying in a

dark cloud on the pillow. As he stood above her a great feeling of

tenderness swept over him. That was quite new; he had never thought of

her tenderly before. Emmy Maradick wasn’t the sort of person that you

did think of tenderly. Probably no one had ever thought of her in that

way before.

But now—things had all changed so in these last weeks. There were two

Emmy Maradicks. That was his great discovery, just of course as there

were two James Maradicks.

He hadn’t any illusion about it. He didn’t in the least expect that the

old Emmy Maradick would suddenly disappear and never come out again.

That, of course, was absurd, things didn’t happen so quickly. But now

that he knew that the other one, the recent mysterious one that he had

seen the shadow of ever so faintly, was there, everything would be

different. And it would grow, it would grow, just as this new soul of

his own was going to grow.

Whilst he looked at her she awoke, looked at him for a moment without

realisation, and then gave a little cry: “Oh! Is it late?”

“No, dear, just eight. I’ll be back for breakfast at quarter to nine.”

In her eyes was again that wondering pathetic little question. As an

answer he bent down and kissed her tenderly. He had not kissed her like

that for hundreds of years. As he bent down to her her hands suddenly

closed furiously about him. For a moment she held him, then she let him

go. As he left the room his heart was beating tumultuously.

And so he went downstairs to face the music, as he told himself.

He knocked on the Gales’ sitting-room door and some one said “Come in.”

He drew a deep breath of relief when he saw that Lady Gale was in there

alone.

“Ah! that’s good!”

She was sitting by the window with her head towards him. She seemed to

him—it was partly the grey silk dress that she wore and partly her

wonderful crown of white hair—unsubstantial, as though she might fade

away out of the window at any moment.

He had even a feeling that he ought to clutch at her, hold her, to

prevent her from disappearing. Then he saw the dark lines under her eyes

and her lack of colour; she was looking terribly tired.

“Ah, I am ashamed; I ought to have told you last night.”

She gave him her hand and smiled.

“No, it’s all right; it’s probably better as it is. I won’t deny that I

was anxious, of course, that was natural. But I was hoping that you

would come in now, before my husband comes in. I nearly sent a note up

to you to ask you to come down.”

Her charming kindness to him moved him strangely. Oh! she was a

wonderful person.

“Dear Lady,” he said, “that’s like you. Not to be furious with me, I

mean. But of course that’s what I’m here for now, to face things. I

expect it and I deserve it; I was left for that.”

“Left?” she said, looking at him. He saw that her hand moved ever so

quickly across her lap and then back again.

“Yes. Of course Tony’s gone. He was married yesterday afternoon at two

o’clock at the little church out on the hill. The girl’s name is Janet

Morelli. She is nineteen. They are now in Paris; but he gave me this

letter for you.”

He handed her the letter that Tony had given to him on the way up to the

station.

She did not say anything to him, but took the letter quickly and tore it

open. She read it twice and then handed it to him and waited for him to

read it. It ran:—

Dearest and most wonderful of Mothers,

By the time that you get this I shall be in Paris and Janet will

be my wife. Janet Morelli is her name, and you will simply love

her when you see her. Do you remember telling me once that

whatever happened I was to marry the right person? Well,

suddenly I saw her one night like Juliet looking out of a

window, and there was never any question again; isn’t it

wonderful? But, of course, you know if I had told you the

governor would have had to know, and then there would simply

have been the dickens of a rumpus and I’d have got kicked out or

something, and no one would have been a bit the better and it

would have been most awfully difficult for you. And so I kept it

dark and told Maradick to. Of course the governor will be sick

at first, but as you didn’t know anything about it he can’t say

anything to you, and that’s all that matters. Because, of

course, Maradick can look after himself, and doesn’t, as a

matter of fact, ever mind in the least what anyone says to him.

We’ll go to Paris directly afterwards, and then come back and

live in Chelsea, I expect. I’m going to write like anything; but

in any case, you know, it won’t matter, because I’ve got that

four hundred a year and we can manage easily on that. The

governor will soon get over it, and I know that he’ll simply

love Janet really. Nobody could help it.

And oh! mother dear, I’m so happy. I didn’t know one could be so

happy; and that’s what you wanted, didn’t you? And I love you

all the more because of it, you and Janet. Send me just a line

to the Hôtel Lincoln, Rue de Montagne, Paris, to say that you

forgive me. Janet sends her love. Please send her yours.

Ever your loving son,

Tony.

PS.—Maradick has been simply ripping. He’s the most splendid

man that ever lived. I simply don’t know what we’d have done

without him.

There was silence for a minute or two. Then she said softly, “Dear old

Tony. Tell me about the girl.”

“She’s splendid. There’s no question at all about her being the right

thing. I’ve seen a lot of her, and there’s really no question at all.

She’s seen nothing of the world and has lived down here all her life.

She’s simply devoted to Tony.”

“And her people?”

“There is only her father. He’s a queer man. She’s well away from him. I

don’t think he cares a bit about her, really. They’re a good old family,

I believe. Italians originally, of course. The father has a good deal of

the foreigner in him, but the girl’s absolutely English.”

There was another pause, and then she looked up and took his hand.

“I can’t thank you enough. You’ve done absolutely the right thing. There

was nothing else but to carry it through with a boy of Tony’s

temperament. I’m glad, gladder than I can tell you. But of course my

husband will take it rather unpleasantly at first. He had ideas about

Tony’s marrying, and he would have done anything he could to have

prevented its happening like this. But now that it has happened, now

that there’s nothing to be done but to accept it, I think it will soon

be all right. But perhaps you had better tell him now at once, and get

it over. He will be here in a minute.”

At that instant they came in—Sir Richard, Rupert, Alice Du Cane, and

Mrs. Lester.

It was obvious at once that Sir Richard was angry. Rupert was amused and

a little bored. Alice was excited, and Mrs. Lester tired and white under

the eyes.

“What’s this?” said Sir Richard, coming forward. “They tell me that Tony

hasn’t been in all night. That he’s gone or something.”

Then he caught sight of Maradick.

“Ha! Maradick—Morning! Do you happen to know where the boy is?”

Maradick thought that he could discern through the old man’s anger a

very real anxiety, but it was a difficult moment.

Lady Gale spoke. “Mr. Maradick has just been telling me——” she began.

“Perhaps Alice and I——” said Mrs. Lester, and moved back to the door.

Then Maradick took hold of things.

“No, please don’t go. There’s nothing that anyone needn’t know, nothing.

I have just been telling Lady Gale, Sir Richard, that your son was

married yesterday at two o’clock at the little church outside the town,

to a Miss Janet Morelli. They are now in Paris.”

There was silence. No one spoke or moved. The situation hung entirely

between Sir Richard and Maradick. Lady Gale’s eyes were all for her

husband; the way that he took it would make a difference to the rest of

their married lives.

Sir Richard breathed heavily. His face went suddenly very white. Then in

a low voice he said—

“Married? Yesterday?” He seemed to be collecting his thoughts, trying to

keep down the ungovernable passion that in a moment would overwhelm him.

For a moment he swallowed it. Holding himself very straight he looked

Maradick in the face.

“And why has my dutiful son left the burden of this message to you?”

“Because I have, from the beginning, been concerned in the affair. I

have known about it from the first. I was witness of their marriage

yesterday, and I saw them off at the station.”

Sir Richard began to breathe heavily. The colour came back in a flood to

his cheeks. His eyes were red. He stepped forward with his fist

uplifted, but Rupert put a hand on his arm and his fist fell to his

side. He could not speak coherently.

“You—you—you”; and then “You dared? What the devil have you to do with

my boy? With us? With our affairs? What the devil is it to do with you?

You—you—damn you, sir—my boy—married to anybody, and because a——”

Rupert again put his hand on his father’s arm and his words lingered in

mid-air.

Then he turned to his wife.

“You—did you know about this—did you know that this was going on?”

Then Maradick saw how wise she had been in her decision to keep the

whole affair away from her. It was a turning-point.

If she had been privy to it, Maradick saw, Sir Richard would never

forgive her. It would have remained always as a hopeless, impassable

barrier between them. It would have hit at the man’s tenderest, softest

place, his conceit. He might forgive her anything but that.

And so it was a tremendous clearing of the air when she raised her eyes

to her husband’s and said, without hesitation, “No, Richard. Of course

not. I knew nothing until just now when Mr. Maradick told me.”

Sir Richard turned back from her to Maradick.

“And so, sir, you see fit, do you, sir, to interfere in matters in which

you have no concern. You come between son and father, do you? You——”

But again he stopped. Maradick said nothing. There was nothing at all to

say. It was obvious that the actual affair, Tony’s elopement, had not,

as yet, penetrated to Sir Richard’s brain. The only thing that he could

grasp at present was that some one—anyone—had dared to step in and

meddle with the Gales. Some one had had the dastardly impertinence to

think that he was on a level with the Gales, some one had dared to put

his plebeian and rude fingers into a Gale pie. Such a thing had never

happened before.

Words couldn’t deal with it.

He looked as though in another moment he would have a fit. He was

trembling, quivering in every limb. Then, in a voice that could scarcely

be heard, he said, “My God, I’ll have the law of you for this.”

He turned round and, without looking at anyone, left the room.

There was silence.

Rupert said “My word!” and whistled. No one else said anything.

And, in this interval of silence, Maradick almost, to his own rather

curious surprise, entirely outside the whole affair, was amused rather

than bothered by the way they all took it, although “they,” as a matter

of strict accuracy, almost immediately resolved itself down to Mrs.

Lester. Lady Gale had shown him, long ago, her point of view; Sir

Richard and Rupert could have only, with their limited conventions, one

possible opinion; Alice Du Cane would probably be glad for Tony’s sake

and so be indirectly grateful; but Mrs. Lester! why, it would be, he saw

in a flash, the most splendid bolstering up of the way that she was

already beginning to look on last night’s affair. He could see her, in a

day or two, making his interference with the “Gale pie” on all fours

with his own brutal attack on her immaculate virtues. It would be all of

a piece in a short time, with the perverted imagination that she would

set to play on their own “little” situation. It would be a kind of

rose-coloured veil that she might fling over the whole proceeding. “The

man who can behave in that kind of way to the Gales is just the kind of

man who would, so horribly and brutally, insult a defenceless woman.”

He saw in her eyes already the beginning of the picture. In a few days

the painting would be complete. But this was all as a side issue. His

business, as far as these people were concerned, was over.

Without looking at anyone, he too left the room.

It had been difficult, but after he had had Lady Gale’s assurance the

rest didn’t matter. Of course the old man was bound to take it like

that, but he would probably soon see it differently. And at any rate, as

far as he, Maradick, was concerned, that—Sir Richard’s attitude to him

personally—didn’t matter in the very least.

But all that affair seemed, indeed, now of secondary importance. The

first and only vital matter now was his relations with his wife.

Everything must turn to that. Her clasp of his hand had touched him

infinitely, profoundly. For the first time in their married lives she

wanted him. Sir Richard, Mrs. Lester, even Tony, seemed small,

insignificant in comparison with that.

But he must tell her everything—he saw that. All about Mrs. Lester,

everything—otherwise they would never start clear.

She was just finishing her dressing when he came into her room. She

turned quickly from her dressing-table towards him.

“I’m just ready,” she said.

“Wait a minute,” he answered her. “Before we go in to the girls there’s

something, several things, that I want to say.”

His great clumsy body moved across the floor, and he sat down hastily in

a chair by the dressing-table.

She watched him anxiously with her sharp little eyes. “Yes,” she said,

“only hurry up. I’m hungry.”

“Well, there are two things really,” he answered slowly. “Things you’ve

got to know.”

She noticed one point, that he didn’t apologise in advance as he would

have done three weeks ago. There were no apologies now, only a stolid

determination to get through with it.

“First, it’s about young Tony Gale. I’ve just been telling his family.

He married a girl yesterday and ran off to Paris with her. You can bet

the family are pleased.”

Mrs. Maradick was excited. “Not really! Really eloped? That Gale boy!

How splendid! A real elopement! Of course one could see that something

was up. His being out so much, and so on; I knew. But just fancy! Really

doing it! Won’t old Sir Richard——!”

Her eyes were sparkling. The romance of it had obviously touched her, it

was very nearly as though one had eloped oneself, knowing the boy and

everything!

Then he added, “I had to tell them. You see, I’ve known about it all the

time, been in it, so to speak. Helped them to arrange it and so on, and

Sir Richard had a word or two to say to me just now about it.”

“So _that’s_ what you’ve been doing all this time. _That’s_ your

secret!” She was just as pleased as she could be. “That’s what’s changed

you. Of course! One might have guessed!”

But behind her excitement and pleasure he detected also, he thought, a

note of disappointment that puzzled him. What had she thought that he

had been doing?

“I have just been telling them—the Gales. Sir Richard was considerably

annoyed.”

“Of course—hateful old man—of course he’d mind; hurt his pride.” Mrs.

Maradick had clasped her hands round her knees and was swinging a little

foot. “But you stood up to them. I wish I’d seen you.”

But he hurried on. That was, after all, quite unimportant compared with

the main thing that he had to say to her. He wondered how she would take

it. The new idea that he had of her, the new way that he saw her, was

beginning to be so precious to him, that he couldn’t bear to think that

he might, after all, suddenly lose it. He could see her, after his

telling her, return to the old, sharp, biting satire. There would be the

old wrangles, the old furious quarrels; for a moment at the thought of

it he hesitated. Perhaps, after all, it were better not to tell her. The

episode was ended. There would never be a recrudescence of it, and there

was no reason why she should know. But something hurried him on; he must

tell her, it was the decent thing to do.

“But there’s another thing that I must tell you, that I ought to tell

you. I don’t know even that I’m ashamed of it. I believe that I would go

through it all again if I could learn as much. But it’s all over,

absolutely over. I’ve fancied for the last fortnight that I was in love

with Mrs. Lester. I’ve kissed her and she’s kissed me. You needn’t be

afraid. That’s all that happened, and I’ll never kiss her again. But

there it is!”

He flung it at her for her to take it or leave it. He hadn’t the

remotest idea what she would say or do. Judging by his past knowledge of

her, he expected her to storm. But it was a test of the new Mrs.

Maradick as to whether, indeed, it had been all his imagination about

there being any new Mrs. Maradick at all.

There was silence. He didn’t look at her; and then, suddenly, to his

utter amazement she broke into peals of laughter. He couldn’t believe

his ears. Laughing! Well, women were simply incomprehensible! He stared

at her.

“Why, my dear!” she said at last, “of course I’ve seen it all the time.

Of course I have, or nearly all the time. You don’t suppose that I go

about with my eyes shut, do you? Because I don’t, I can tell you. Of

course I hated it at the time. I was jealous, jealous as anything. First

time I’ve been jealous of you since we were married; I hated that Mrs.

Lester anyhow. Cat! But it was an eye-opener, I can tell you. But

there’ve been lots of things happening since we’ve been here, and that’s

only one of them. And I’m jolly glad. I like women to like you. I’ve

liked the people down here making up to you, and then you’ve been

different too.”

Then she crossed over to his chair and suddenly put her arm around his

neck. Her voice lowered. “I’ve fallen in love with you while we’ve been

down here, for the first time since we’ve been married. I don’t know

why, quite. It started with your being so beastly and keeping it up. You

always used to give way before whenever I said anything to you, but

you’ve kept your end up like anything since you’ve been here. And then

it was the people liking you better than they liked me. And then it was

Mrs. Lester, my being jealous of her. And it was even more than those

things—something in the air. I don’t know, but I’m seeing things

differently. I’ve been a poor sort of wife most of the time, I expect; I

didn’t see it before, but I’m going to be different. I could kiss your

Mrs. Lester, although I do hate her.”

Then when he kissed her she thought how big he was. She hadn’t sat with

her arms round him and his great muscles round her since the honeymoon,

and even then she had been thinking about her trousseau.

And breakfast was quite an extraordinary meal. The girls were amazed.

They had never seen their father in this kind of mood before. They had

always rather cautiously disliked him, as far as they’d had any feeling

for him at all, but their attitude had in the main been negative. But

now, here he was joking, telling funny stories, and mother laughing.

Cutting the tops off their eggs too, and paying them quite a lot of

attention.

He found the meal delightful, too, although he realised that there was

still a good deal of the old Mrs. Maradick left. Her voice was as shrill

as ever; she was just as cross with Annie for spreading her butter with

an eye to self-indulgence rather than economy. She was still as crude

and vulgar in her opinion of things and people.

But he didn’t see it any longer in the same way. The knowledge that

there was really the other Mrs. Maradick there all the time waiting for

him to develop, encourage her, made the things that had grated on him at

one time so harshly now a matter of very small moment. He was even

tender about them. It was a good thing that they’d both got their

faults, a very fortunate thing.

“Now, Annie, there you go, slopping your tea into your saucer like that,

and now it’ll drop all over your dress. Why _can’t_ you be more

careful?”

“Yes, but mother, it was so full.”

“I say,” this from Maradick, “what do you think of our all having this

afternoon down on the beach or somewhere? Tea and things; just

ourselves. After all, it’s our last day, and it’s quite fine and warm.

No more rain.”

Everyone thought it splendid. Annie, under this glorious new state of

things, even found time and courage to show her father her last French

exercise with only three mistakes. The scene was domestic for the next

half-hour.

Then he left them. He wanted to go and make his farewell to the place;

this would be the last opportunity that he would have.

He didn’t expect to see the Gales again. After all, there was nothing

more for him to say. They had Tony’s address. It only remained for Sir

Richard to get over it as quickly as he could. Lady Gale would probably

manage that. He would like to have spoken to her once more, but really

it was as well that he shouldn’t. He would write to her.

He discovered before he left the house that another part of the affair

was over altogether. As he reached the bottom of the stairs Mrs. Lester

crossed the hall, and, for a moment, they faced each other. She looked

through him, past him, as though she had never seen him before. Her eyes

were hard as steel and as cold. They passed each other silently.

He was not surprised; he had thought that that was the way that she

would probably take it. Probably with the morning had come fierce

resentment at his attitude and fiery shame at her own. How she could!

That would be her immediate thought, and then, very soon after that, it

would be that she hadn’t at all. He had led her on. And then in a week’s

time it would probably be virtuous resistance against the persuasions of

an odious sensualist. Of course she would never forgive him.

He passed out into the air.

As he went down the hill to the town it struck him that the strange

emotional atmosphere that had been about them during these weeks seemed

to have gone with the going of Tony. It might be only coincidence, of

course, but undoubtedly the boy’s presence had had something to do with

it all. And then his imagination carried him still further. It was

fantastic, of course, but his struggle with Morelli seemed to have put

an end to the sort of influence that the man had been having. Because he

had had an influence undoubtedly. And now to-day Morelli didn’t seem to

go for anything at all.

And then it might be, too, that they had all at last got used to the

place; it was no longer a fresh thing, but something that they had taken

into their brains, their blood. Anyhow, that theory of Lester’s about

places and people in conjunction having such influence, such power, was

interesting. But, evolve what theories he might, of one thing he was

certain. There had been a struggle, a tremendous straggle. They had all

been concerned in it a little, but it had been his immediate affair.

He turned down the high road towards the town. The day was a “china”

day; everything was of the faintest, palest colours, delicate with the

delicacy of thin silk, of gossamer lace washed by the rain, as it were,

until it was all a symphony of grey and white and a very tender blue. It

was a day of hard outlines. The white bulging clouds that lay against

the sky were clouds of porcelain; the dark black row of trees that

bordered the road stood out from the background as though they had been

carved in iron; the ridge of back-lying hills ran like the edge of a

sheet of grey paper against the blue; the sea itself seemed to fling

marble waves upon a marble shore.

He thought, as he paused before he passed into the town, that he had

never seen the sea as it was to-day. Although it was so still and seemed

to make no sound at all, every kind of light, like colours caught

struggling in a net, seemed to be in it. Mother of pearl was the nearest

approach to the beauty of it, but that was very far away. There was gold

and pink and grey, and the faintest creamy yellow, and the most delicate

greens, and sometimes even a dark edge of black; but it never could be

said that this or that colour were there, because it changed as soon as

one looked at it and melted into something else; and far away beyond the

curving beach the black rocks plunged into the blue, and seemed to plant

their feet there and then to raise them a little as the sea retreated.

He passed through the market-place and saluted the tower for the last

time. There were very few people about and he could make his adieux in

privacy. He would never forget it, its grey and white stone, its

immovable strength and superiority to all the rest of its surroundings.

He fancied that it smiled farewell to him as he stood there. It seemed

to say: “You can forget me if you like; but don’t forget what I’ve

taught you—that there’s a spirit and a courage and a meaning in us all

if you’ll look for it. Good-bye; try and be more sensible and see a

little farther than most of your silly fellow-creatures.” Oh yes! there

was contempt in it too, as it stood there with its white shoulders

raised so proudly against the sky.

He tenderly passed his hand over some of the rough grey stones in a

lingering farewell. Probably he’d been worth something to the tower in

an obscure sort of way. He believed enough in its real existence to

think it not fantastic that it should recognise his appreciation of it

and be glad.

His next farewell was to Punch.

He climbed the little man’s dark stairs with some misgiving. He ought to

have been in there more just lately, especially after the poor man

losing his dog. He owed a great deal to Punch; some people might have

found his continual philosophising tiresome, but to Maradick its

sincerity and the very wide and unusual experience behind it gave the

words a value and authority.

He found Punch sitting on his bed trying to teach the new dog some of

the things that it had to learn. He jumped up when he saw Maradick, and

his face was all smiles.

“Why, I’m that glad to see you,” he said, “I’d been hopin’ you’d come in

before you were off altogether. Yes, this is the new dog. It ain’t much

of a beast, only a mongrel, but I didn’t want too fine a dog after Toby;

it looks like comparison, in a way, and I’m thinkin’ it might ’urt ’im,

wherever ’e is, if ’e knew that there was this new one takin’ ’is place

altogether.”

The new one certainly wasn’t very much of a beast, but it seemed to have

an enormous affection for its master and a quite pathetic eagerness to

learn.

“But come and sit down, sir. Never mind them shirts, I’ll chuck ’em on

the floor. No, my boy, we’ve had enough teachin’ for the moment. ’E’s

got an astonishin’ appetite for learnin’, that dog, but only a limited

intelligence.”

Maradick could see that Punch didn’t want to say any more about Toby, so

he asked no questions, but he could see that he felt the loss terribly.

“Well, Garrick,” he said, “I’ve come to say good-bye. We all go back

to-morrow, and, on the whole, I don’t know that I’m sorry. Things have

happened here a bit too fast for my liking, and I’m glad to get out of

it with my life, so to speak.”

Punch, looked at him a moment, and then he said: “What’s happened about

young Gale, sir? There are all sorts of stories afloat this morning.”

Maradick told him everything.

“Well, that’s all for the best. I’m damned glad of it. That girl’s well

away, and they’ll make the prettiest married couple for many a mile.

They’ll be happy enough. And now, you see for yourself that I wasn’t so

far out about Morelli after all.”

Maradick thought for a moment and then he said: “But look here, Garrick,

if Morelli’s what you say, if, after all, there’s something supernatural

about him, he must have known that those two were going to run away;

well, if he knew and minded so much, why didn’t he stop them?”

“I’m not saying that he did know,” said Punch slowly, “and I’m not

saying that he wanted to stop them. Morelli’s not a man, nor anything

real at all. ’E’s just a kind of vessel through which emotions pass, if

you understand me. The reason, in a way, that ’e expresses Nature is

because nothing stays with him. ’E’s cruel, ’e’s loving, ’e’s sad, ’e’s

happy, just like Nature, because the wind blows, or the rivers run, or

the rains fall. ’E’s got influence over everything human because ’e

isn’t ’uman ’imself. ’E isn’t a person at all, ’e’s just an influence, a

current of atmosphere in a man’s form.

“There are things, believe me, sir, all about this world that take shape

one day like this and another day like that, but they have no soul, no

personal identity, that is, because they have no beginning or end, no

destiny or conclusion, any more than the winds or the sea. And you look

out for yourself when that’s near you—it’s mighty dangerous.”

Maradick said nothing. Punch went on—

“You can’t see these things in cities, or in places where you’re for

ever doing things. You’ve got to have your mind like an empty room and

your eyes must be blind and your ears must be closed, and then, slowly,

you’ll begin to hear and see.”

Maradick shook his head. “No, I don’t understand,” he said. “And when I

get back to my regular work again I shall begin to think it’s all

bunkum. But I do know that I’ve been near something that I’ve never

touched before. There’s something in the place that’s changed us all for

a moment. We’ll all go back and be all the same again; but things can’t

ever be quite the same again for me, thank God.”

Punch knocked out his pipe against the heel of his boot.

“Man,” he said suddenly, “if you’d just come with me and walk the lanes

and the hills I’d show you things. You’d begin to understand.” He

gripped Maradick’s arm. “Come with me,” he said, “leave all your stupid

life; let me show you the real things. It’s not worth dying with your

eyes shut.”

For a moment something in Maradick responded. For a wild instant he

thought that he would say yes. Then he shook his head.

“No, David, my friend,” he answered. “That’s not my life. There’s my

wife, and there are others. That’s my line. But it will all be different

now. I shan’t forget.”

Punch smiled. “Well, perhaps you’re right. You’ve got your duty. But

just remember that it isn’t only children we men and women are

begetting. We’re creating all the time. Every time that you laugh at a

thought, every time that you’re glad, every time that you’re seeing

beauty and saying so, every time that you think it’s better to be decent

than not, better to be merry than sad, you’re creating. You’re

increasing the happy population of the world. Young Gale was that, and

now you’ve found it too. That’s religion; it’s obvious enough. Plenty of

other folks have said the same, but precious few have done it.”

Then, as they said good-bye, he said—

“And remember that I’m there if you want me. I’ll always come. I’m

always ready. All winter I’m in London. You’ll find me in the corner by

the National Gallery, almost opposite the Garrick Theatre, with my show,

most nights; I’m your friend always.”

And Maradick knew as he went down the dark stairs that that would not be

the last that he would see of him.

He climbed, for the last time, up the hill that ran above the sea. Its

hard white line ran below him to the town, and above him across the moor

through the little green wood that fringed the hill. For a moment his

figure, black and tiny, was outlined against the sky. There was a wind

up here and it swept around his feet.

Far below him the sea lay like a blue stone, hard and sharply chiselled.

Behind him the white road curved like a ribbon above him, and around him

was the delicate bending hollow of the sky.

For a moment he stood there, a tiny doll of a man.

The wind whistled past him laughing. Three white clouds sailed

majestically above his head. The hard black body of the wood watched him

tolerantly.

He passed again down the white road.

CHAPTER XXI

SIX LETTERS

Mrs. Maradick to Miss Crowdet.

The Elms, Epsom.

_October 17._

My dearest Louie,

I’ve been meaning to write all this week, but so many things

have accumulated since we’ve been away that there’s simply not

been a minute to write a decent letter. No, Treliss wasn’t very

nice this time. You know, dear, the delightful people that were

there last year? Well, there were none of them this year at all

except that Mrs. Lawrence, who really got on my nerves to such

an extent!

There were some people called Gale we saw something of—Lady and

Sir Richard Gale. I must say I thought them rather bad form, but

Jim liked them; and then their boy eloped with a girl from the

town, which made it rather thrilling, especially as Sir Richard

was simply furious with Jim because he thought that he’d had

something to do with it. And you can’t imagine how improved dear

old Jim is with it all, really quite another man, and so amusing

when he likes; and people quite ran after him there, you

wouldn’t have believed it. There was a horrid woman, a Mrs.

Lester, who would have gone to any lengths, I really believe,

only, of course, Jim wasn’t having any. I always said that he

could be awfully amusing if he liked and really nice, and he’s

been going out quite a lot since we’ve been back and everybody’s

noticed the difference.

And what do you think? We may be leaving Epsom! I know it’ll be

simply hateful leaving you, dear, but it’ll only be London, you

know, and you can come up whenever you like and stay just as

long as you please, and we’ll be awfully glad. But Epsom is a

little slow, and what Jim says is quite true—why not be either

town or country? It’s what I’ve always said, you know, and

perhaps we’ll have a little cottage somewhere as well.

By the way, dear, as you are in town I wish you’d just look in

at Harrod’s and see about those patterns. Two and elevenpence is

much too much, and if the ones at two and sixpence aren’t good

enough you might ask for another sort!

Do come and see us soon. I might come up for a matinée some day

soon. Write and let me know.

Your loving

Emmy.

To Anthony Gale, Esq.,

20 Tryon Square,

Chelsea, S.W.

My dear Boy,

I was very glad to get your letter this morning. You’ve been

amazingly quick about settling in, but then I expect that

Janet’s an excellent manager. I’ll be delighted to come to

dinner next Wednesday night, and shall look forward enormously

to seeing you both and the kind of home that you have. I can’t

tell you what a relief it is to me to hear that you are both so

happy. Of course I knew that you would be and always, I hope,

will be, but the responsibility on my part was rather great and

I wanted to hear that it was all right. I’m so glad that your

mother likes Janet so much. I knew that they would get on, and I

hope that very soon your father will come as well and make

everything all right in that direction. We’re all quite settled

down here again now; well, not quite. Treliss has left its mark

on both of us, and we’re even thinking—don’t jump out of your

chair with excitement—of coming up to London to live. A little

wider life will suit both of us better now, I think. Nothing is

settled yet, but I’m going to look about for a house.

Treliss did rather a lot for all of us, didn’t it? It all seems

a little incredible, really; but you’ve got Janet to show you

that it’s real enough, and I’ve got, well, quite a lot of

things, so that it can’t have been all a dream.

Well until Wednesday. Then I’ll hear all the news.

My affection to Janet.

Your friend,

James Maradick.

To James Maradick,

The Elms, Epsom.

20 Tryon Square,

Chelsea, S.W.

_October 25, 1909_.

My dear Maradick,

Hurray! I’m so glad that you can come on Wednesday, but I’m just

wild with joy that you are really coming to live in London.

Hurray again! Only you must, you positively must come to live in

Chelsea. It’s the only possible place. Everybody who is worth

knowing lives here, including a nice intelligent young couple

called Anthony and Janet Gale. The house—our house—is simply

ripping. All white and distempered by your humble servant; and

Janet’s been simply wonderful. There’s nothing she can’t do, and

everybody all over the place loves her. We haven’t had a word

from her father, so I don’t suppose that he’s going to take any

more trouble in that direction, but I heard from Garrick the

other day—you remember Punch—and he says that he saw him not

long ago sitting on the shore and piping to the waves with a

happy smile on his face. Isn’t he rum?

The Minns is here and enjoying herself like anything. She’s

bought a new bonnet and looks no end—my eye! And what do you

think? Who should turn up this morning but the governor! Looking

awfully cross at first, but he couldn’t stand against Janet; and

he went away as pleased as anything, and says we must have a

better sideboard in the dining-room, and he’s going to give us

one. Isn’t that ripping? The writing’s getting on. I met a

fellow at tea the other day, Randall, he’s editor of the _New

Monthly_; he was a bit slick up, but quite decent, and now he’s

taken one of my things, and I’ve had quite a lot of reviewing.

Well, good-bye, old chap. You know that Janet and I would rather

have you here than anyone else in the world, except the mater,

of course. We owe you everything. Buck up and come here to live.

Love from Janet.

Your affect.

Tony.

To Lady Gale,

12 Park Lane, W.

Rossholm,

Nr. Dartford, Kent,

_October 25_.

My Dear,

This is only a hurried little scrawl to say that Fred and I are

going to be up in town for a night next week and should awfully

like to see you if it’s possible. Fred’s dining that night with

some silly old writer, so if I might just come in and have a

crumb with you I’d be awfully glad. Fred and I have both decided

that we didn’t like Treliss a bit this year and we’re never

going there again. If it hadn’t been for you I simply don’t know

what we’d have done. There’s something about the place.

Fred felt it too, only he thought it was indigestion. And then

the people! I know you rather liked those Maradick people. But I

thought the man perfectly awful. Of course one had to be polite,

but, my dear, I really don’t think he’s very nice, not quite the

sort of man—oh well! you know! Not that I’d say anything

against him for the world, but there’s really no knowing how far

one can go with a man of that kind. But of course I scarcely saw

anything of them.

How is Tony? I hear that they’ve settled in Chelsea. Is Sir

Richard reconciled? You must tell me everything when we meet.

Fred—he is such a pet just now—sends regards.

Ever

Your loving

Milly.

To James Maradick, Esq.,

The Elms, Epsom.

12 Park Lane, W.

_October 21_.

Dear Mr. Maradick,

I’ve been wanting to write to you for some days, but so many

things crowd about one in London, and even now I’ve only got a

moment. But I thought that you would like to know that both my

husband and myself have been to see Tony in Chelsea and that we

think Janet perfectly charming. My husband was conquered by her

at once; one simply cannot help loving her. She is no fool

either. She is managing that house splendidly, and has got a

good deal more common-sense than Tony has.

Of course now you’ll say that we ought to have shown her to Sir

Richard at once if he’s got to like her so much. But that isn’t

so. I’m quite sure that he would never have allowed the marriage

if there’d been a chance of it’s being prevented. But now he’s

making the best of it, and it’s easy enough when it’s Janet.

I think he feels still sore at your having “interfered,” as he

calls it, but that will soon wear off and then you must come and

see us. Alice Du Cane is staying with us. She has been so much

improved lately, much more human; she’s really a charming girl.

And meanwhile, how can I thank you enough for all that you have

I done? I feel as though I owed you everything. It won’t bear

talking or writing about, but I am more grateful than I can ever

say.

But keep an eye on Tony. He is devoted to you. He is still very

young, and you can do such a lot for him.

Please remember me to your wife.

I am,

Yours very sincerely,

Lucy Gale.

To James Maradick, Esq.,

The Elms, Epsom.

On the road to Ashbourne,

Derbyshire.

11 a.m.

I’m sitting under a hedge with this bit of paper on my knee;

dirty you’ll be thinking it, but I find that waiting for paper

means no letter at all, and so it’s got to be written when the

moment’s there. I’m tramping north—amongst the lakes I’m making

for. It’s fine weather and a hard white road, and the show’s

been going strong these last days. There’s a purple line of

hills behind me, and a sky that’ll take a lot of poet’s talking

to glorify it, and a little pond at the turn of the road that’s

bluer than blue-bells.

The new dog’s none so stupid as I thought him; not that he’s

Toby, but he’s got a sense of humour on him that’s more than a

basketful of intelligence. Last night I was in a fine inn with a

merry company. I wish that you could have heard the talking, but

you’ll have been dining with your napkin on your knee and a soft

carpet at your feet. There was a fine fellow last night that had

seen the devil last week walking on the high ridge that goes

towards Raddlestone.

Maybe it was Morelli; like enough. He’s often round that way.

I’m thinking of you often, and I’ll be back in London, November.

I’d like to have you out here, with stars instead of chimney

pots and a red light where the sun’s setting.

I’ll write again from the North.

Yours very faithfully,

David Garrick.

CHAPTER XXII

THE PLACE

It is twilight. The cove is sinking with its colours into the evening

mists. The sea is creeping very gently over the sand, that shines a

little with the wet marks that the retreating tide has left.

The rocks, the hills, the town, rise behind the grey mysterious floor

that stretches without limit into infinite distance in black walls

sharply outlined against the night blue of the sky.

There is only one star. Some sheep are crying in a fold.

A cold wind passes like a thief over the sand. The sea creeps back

relentlessly, ominously . . . eternally.

the end

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Spelling errors have been corrected but all British spellings have been

retained.