But for these things they went through their first day in silence, like

people who respect each other's grief too profoundly for any speech.

In the evening they sat together in the drawing-room. There was nothing

more to do.

Then he spoke. He asked to see Peggy. His voice was so low that she did

not hear him.

"What did you say, Walter?"

He had to say it again. "Where is she? Can I see her?"

His voice was still low, and it was thick and uncertain, but this time

she understood.

"In Edie's room," she said. "Nanna has the key."

She did not go with him.

When he came back to her she was still cold and torpid. He could

understand that her grief had frozen her.

At night she parted from him without a word.

So the days went on.

Sometimes he would sit in the study by himself for a little while. His

racked nerves were soothed by solitude. Then he would think of the woman

upstairs in the drawing-room, sitting alone. And he would go to her. She

did not send him away. She did not leave him. She did nothing. She said

nothing.

He began to be afraid. It would do her good, he said to himself, if she

could cry. He wondered whether it was wise to leave her to her terrible

torpor; whether he ought to speak to her. But he could not.

Yet she was kind to him for all her coldness. Once, when his grief was

heaviest upon him, he thought she looked at him with anxiety, with pity.

She came to him once, where he sat downstairs, alone. But though she

came to him, she still kept him from her. And she would not go with him

into the room where Peggy lay.

Now and then he wondered if she knew. He was not certain. He put the

thought away from him. He was sure that for nearly three years she had

not known anything. She had not known anything as long as she had had the

child, when her knowing would not, he thought, have mattered half so

much. It would be horrible if she knew now. And yet sometimes her eyes

seemed to say to him: "Why not now? When nothing matters."

On the night before the funeral, the night they closed the coffin, he

came to her where she sat upstairs alone. He put his hand on her shoulder

and spoke her name. She shrank from him with a low cry. And again he

wondered if she knew.

The day after the funeral she told him that she was going away for a

month with Mrs. Gardner.

He said he was glad to hear it. It would do her good. It was the best

thing she could do.

He had meant to take her away himself. She knew it. Yet she had arranged

to go with Mrs. Gardner.

Then he was certain that she knew.

She went, with Mrs. Gardner, the next day. He and Dr. Gardner saw them

off at the station. He thanked Mrs. Gardner for her kindness, wondering

if she knew. The little woman had tears in her eyes. She pressed his hand

and tried to speak to him, and broke down. He gathered that, whatever

Anne knew, her friend knew nothing.

The doctor was inscrutable. He might or he might not know. If he did,

he would keep his knowledge to himself. They walked together from the

station, and the doctor talked about the weather and the municipal

elections.

Anne was to be away a month. Majendie wrote to her every week and

received, every week, a precise, formal little letter in reply. She told

him, every week, of an improvement in her own health, and appeared

solicitous for his.

While she was away, he saw a great deal of the Hannays and of Gorst. When

he was not with the Hannays, Gorst was with him. Gorst was punctilious,

but a little shy in his inquiries for Mrs. Majendie. The Hannays made no

allusion to her beyond what decency demanded. They evidently regarded her

as a painful subject.

About a week before the day fixed for Anne's return, the firm of Hannay &

Majendie had occasion to consult its solicitor about a mortgage on some

office buildings. Price was excited and assiduous. Excited and assiduous,

Hannay thought, beyond all proportion to the trivial affair. Hannay

noticed that Price took a peculiar and almost morbid interest in the

junior partner. His manner set Hannay thinking. It suggested the legal

instinct scenting the divorce-court from afar.

He spoke of it to Mrs. Hannay.

"Do you think she knows?" said Mrs. Hannay.

"Of course she does. Or why should she leave him, at a time when most

people stick to each other if they've never stuck before?"

"Do you think she'll try for a separation?"

"No, I don't."

"I do," said Mrs. Hannay. "Now that the dear little girl's gone."

"Not she. She won't let him off as easily as all that. She'll think of

the other woman. And she'll live with him and punish him for ever."

He paused pondering. Then he delivered himself of that which was within

him, his idea of Anne.

"I always said she was a she-dog in the manger."

CHAPTER XXXV

Anne was not expected home before the middle of November. She wrote to

her husband, fixing Saturday for the day of her return.

Majendie, therefore, was surprised to find her luggage in the hall when

he entered the house at six o'clock on Friday evening. Nanna had

evidently been waiting for the sound of his latchkey. She hurried to

intercept him.

"The mistress has come home, sir," she said.

"Has she? I hope you've got things comfortable for her."

"Yes, sir. We had a telegram this afternoon. She said she would like to

see you in the study, sir, as soon as you came in."

He went at once into the study. Anne was sitting there in her chair by

the hearth. Her hat and jacket were thrown on the writing-table that

stood near in the middle of the room. She rose as he came in, but made no

advance to meet him. He stood still for a moment by the closed door, and

they held each other with their eyes.

"I didn't expect you till to-morrow."

"I sent a telegram," she said.

"If you'd sent it to the office I'd have met you."

"I didn't want anybody to meet me."

He felt that her words had some reference to their loss, and to the

sadness of her home-coming. A sigh broke from him; but he was unaware

that he had sighed.

He sat down, not in his accustomed seat by the hearth, opposite to hers,

but in a nearer chair by the writing-table. He saw that she had been

writing letters. He pushed them away and turned his chair round so as to

face her. His heart ached looking at her.

There were deep lines on her forehead; and she was very pale, even her

small close mouth had no colour in it. She kept her sad eyes half hidden

under their drooping lids. Her lips were tightly compressed, her narrow

nostrils white and pinched. It was a face in which all the doors of life

were closing; where the inner life went on tensely, secretly, behind the

closing doors.

"Well," he said, "I'm very glad you've come back."

"Walter--have you any idea why I went away?"

"Why you went? Obviously, it was the best thing you could do."

"It was the only thing I could do. And I am glad I did it. My mind has

become clearer."

"_I_ see. I thought it would."

"It would not have been clear if I had stayed."

"No," he said vaguely, "of course it wouldn't."

"I've seen," she continued, "that there is nothing for me but to come

back. It is the right thing."

"Did you doubt it?"

"Yes. I even doubted whether it were possible--whether, in the

circumstances, I could bear to come back, to stay--"

"Do you mean--to--the house?"

"No. I mean--to you."

He turned away. "I understand," he said. "So it came to that?"

"Yes. It came to that. I've been here three hours; and up to the last

hour, I was not sure whether I would not pack the rest of my things and

go away. I had written a letter to you. There it is, under your arm."

"Am I to read it?"

"Yes."

He turned his back on her, and read the letter.

"I see. You say here you want a separation. If you want it you shall have

it. But hadn't you better hear what I have to say, _first_?"

"I've come back for that. What have you to say?"

He bowed his head upon his breast.

"Not very much, I'm afraid. Except that I'm sorry--and ashamed of

myself--and--I ask your forgiveness. What more can I say?"

"What more indeed? I'm to understand, then, that everything I was told is

true?"

"It _was_ true."

"And is not now?"

"No. Whoever told you, omitted to tell you that."

"You mean you have given up living with this woman?"

"Yes. If you call it living with her."

"You have given it up--for how long?"

"About five weeks." His voice was almost inaudible.

She winced. Five weeks back brought her to the date of Peggy's death.

"I dare say," she said. "You could hardly--have done less in the

circumstances."

"Anne," he said. "I gave it up--I broke it off--before that. I--I broke

with her that morning--before I heard."

"You were away that night."

"I was not with her."

"Well--And it was going on, all the time, for three years before that?"

"Yes."

"Ever since your sister's death?"

He did not answer.

"Ever since Edie died," she repeated, as if to herself rather than to

him.

"Not quite. Why don't you say--since you sent me away?"

"When did I ever send you away?"

"That night. When I came to you."

She remembered.

"Then? Walter, that is unforgivable. To bring up a little thing like

that--"

"You call it a little thing? A little thing?"

"I had forgotten it. And for you to remember it all these years--and to

cast it up against me--_now_--"

"I haven't cast anything up against you."

"You implied you held me responsible for your sin."

"I don't hold you responsible for anything. Not even for that."

Her face never changed. She did not take in the meaning of his emphasis.

He continued. "And, if you want your separation, you shall have it.

Though I did hope that you might consider that six years was about enough

of it."

"I did want it. But I do not want it now. When I wrote that letter I had

forgotten my promise."

"You shall have your promise back again if you want it. I shall not hold

you to it, or to anything, if you'd rather not."

"I can never have my promise back--I made it to Edie."

"To Edie?"

"Yes. A short time before she died."

His face brightened.

"What did you promise her?" he said softly.

"That I would never leave you."

"Did she make you promise not to?"

"No. It did not occur to her that I could leave you. She did not think it

possible."

"But _you_ did?"

"I thought it possible--yes."

"Even then. There was no reason then. I had given you no cause."

"I did not know that."

"Do you mean that you suspected me--then?"

"I never accused you, Walter, even in my thoughts."

"You suspected?"

"I didn't know."

"And--afterwards--did you suspect anything?"

"No. I never suspected anything--afterwards."

"I see. You suspected me when you had no cause. And when I gave you cause

you suspected nothing. I must say you are a very extraordinary woman."

"I didn't know," she answered.

"Who told you? Or must I not ask that?"

"I cannot tell you. I would rather not. I was not told much. And there

are some things that I have a right to know."

"Well--"

"Who is this woman?--the girl you've been living with?"

"I've no right to tell you--that. Why do you want to know? It's all

over."

"I must know, Walter. I have a reason."

"Can you give me your reason?"

"Yes. I want to help her."

"You would--really--help her?"

"If I can. It is my duty."

"It isn't in the least your duty."

"And I want to help you. That also is my duty. I want to undo, as far as

possible, the consequences of your sin. We cannot let the girl suffer."

Majendie was moved by her charity. He had not looked for charity from

Anne.

"If you will give me her name, and tell me where to find her, I will see

that she is provided for."

"She is provided for."

"How?"

"I am keeping on the house for her."

Anne's face flushed.

"What house?"

"A farm, out in the country."

"That house is yours? You were living with her there?"

"Yes."

Her face hardened. She was thinking of her dead child, who was to have

gone into the country to get strong.

He was tortured by the same thought. Maggie, his mistress, had grown fat

and rosy in the pure air of Holderness. Peggy had died in Scale.

In her bitterness she turned on him.

"And what guarantee have I that you will not go to her again?"

"My word. Isn't that sufficient?"

"I don't know, Walter. It would have been once. It isn't now. What proof

have I of your honour?"

"My--"

"I beg your pardon. I forgot. A man's honour and a woman's honour are two

very different things."

"They are both things that are usually taken for granted, and not

mentioned."

"I will try to take it for granted. You must forgive my having mentioned

it. There is one thing I must know. Has she--that woman--any children?"

"She has none."

Up till that moment, the examination had been conducted with the coolness

of intense constraint. But for her one burst of feeling, Anne had

sustained her tone of business-like inquiry, her manner of the woman of

committees. Now, as she asked her question, her voice shook with the

beating of her heart. Majendie, as he answered, heard her draw a long,

deep breath of relief.

"And you propose to keep on this house for her?" she said calmly.

"Yes. She has settled in there, and she will be well looked after."

"Who will look after her?"

"The Pearsons. They're people I can trust."

"And, besides the house, I suppose you will give her money?"

"I _must_ make her a small allowance."

"That is a very unwise arrangement. Whatever help is given her had much

better come from me."

"From _you_?"

"From a woman. It will be the best safeguard for the girl."

He saw her drift and smiled.

"Am I to understand that you propose to rescue her?"

"It's my duty--my work."

"Your work?"

"You may not realise it; but that is the work I've been doing for the

last three years. I am doubly responsible for a girl who has suffered

through my husband's fault."

"What do you want to do with her?"

"I want, if possible, to reclaim her."

He smiled again.

"Do you realise what sort of girl she is?"

"I'm afraid, Walter, she is what you have made her."

"And so you want to reclaim her?"

"I do, indeed."

"You couldn't reclaim her."

"She is very young, isn't she?"

"N--no--She's eight--and--twenty."

"I thought she was a young girl. But, if she's as old as that--and bad--"

"Bad? Bad?"

He rose and looked down on her in anger.

"She's good. You don't know what you're talking about. She isn't a lady,

but she's as gentle and as modest as you are yourself. She's sweet, and

kind, and loving. She's the most unworldly and unselfish creature I ever

met. All the time I've known her she never did a selfish thing. She was

absolutely devoted. She'd have stripped herself bare of everything she

possessed if it would have done me any good. Why, the very thing you

blame the poor little soul for, only proves that she hadn't a thought

for herself. It would have been better for her if she'd had. And you talk

of 'reclaiming' a woman like that! You want to turn your preposterous

committee on to her, to decide whether she's good enough to be taken and

shut up in one of your beastly institutions! No. On the whole, I think

she'll be better off if you leave her to me."

"Say at once that you think I'd better leave you to her, since you think

her perfect."

"She _was_ perfect to me. She gave me all she had to give. She couldn't

very well do more."

"You mean she helped you to sin. So, of course, you condone her sin."

"I should be an utter brute if I didn't stand up for her, shouldn't I?"

"Yes." She admitted it. "I suppose you feel that you must defend her. Can

you defend yourself, Walter?"

He was silent.

"I'm not going to remind you of your sin against your wife. _That_ you

would think nothing of. What have you to say for your sin against her?"

"My sin against her was not caring for her. _You_ needn't call me to

account for it."

"I am to believe that you did not care for her?"

"I never cared for her. I took everything from her and gave her nothing,

and I left her like a brute."

"Why did you go to her if you did not care for her?"

"I went to her because I cared for my wife. And I left her for the same

reason. And she knew it."

"Do you really expect me to believe that you left me for another woman,

because you cared for me?"

"For no earthly reason except that."

"You deceived me--you lived in deliberate sin with this woman for three

years--and now you come back to me, because, I suppose, you are tired of

her--and I am to believe that you cared for me!"

"I don't expect you to believe it. It's the fact, all the same. I

wouldn't have left you if I hadn't been hopelessly in love with you. You

mayn't know it, and I don't suppose you'd understand it if you did, but

that was the trouble. It was the trouble all along, ever since I married

you. I know I've been unfaithful to you, but I never loved any one but

you. Consider how we've been living, you and I, for the last six

years--can you say that I put another woman in your place?"

She looked at him with her sad, uncomprehending eyes; her hands made a

hopeless, helpless gesture.

"You know what you have done," she said presently. "And you know that it

was wrong."

"Yes, it was wrong. But the whole thing was wrong. Wrong from the

beginning. How are we going to make it right?"

"I don't know, Walter. We must do our best."

"Yes, but what are we going to do? What are you going to do?"

"I have told you that I am not going to leave you."

"We are to go on, then, as we did before?"

"Yes--as far as possible."

"Then," he said, "we shall still be all wrong. Can't you see it? Can't

you see _now_ that it's all wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

"Our life. Yours and mine. Are you going to begin again like that?"

"Does it rest with me?"

"Yes. It rests with you, I think. You say we must make the best of it.

What is your notion of the best?"

"I don't know, Walter."

"I _must_ know. You say you'll take me back--you'll never leave me. What

are you taking me back to? Not to that old misery? It wasn't only bad for

me, dear. It was bad for both of us."

She sighed, and her sigh shuddered to a sob in her throat. The sound went

to his heart and stirred in it a passion of pity.

"God knows," he said, "I'd live with you on any terms. And I'll keep

straight. You needn't be afraid. Only--See here. There's no reason why

you shouldn't take me back. I wouldn't ask you to if I'd left off caring

for you. But it wasn't there I went wrong. I can't explain about Maggie.

You wouldn't understand. But, if you'd only try to, we might get along.

There's nothing that I won't do for you to make up--"

"You can do nothing. There are things that cannot be made up for."

"I know--I know. But still--we mightn't be so unhappy--perhaps, in

time--And if we had children--"

"Never," she cried sharply, "never!"

He had not stirred in his chair where he sat bowed and dejected. But she

drew back, flinching.

"I see," he said. "Then you do not forgive me."

"If you had come to me, and told me of your temptation--of your

sin--three years ago, I would have forgiven you then. I would have taken

you back. I cannot now. Not willingly, not with the feeling that I ought

to have."

She spoke humbly, gently, as if aware that she was giving him pain. Her

face was averted. He said nothing; and she turned and faced him.

"Of course you can compel me," she said. "You can compel me to anything."

"I have never compelled you, as you know."

"I know. I know you have been good in that way."

"Good? Is that your only notion of goodness?"

"Good to me, Walter. Yes. You were very good. I do not say that I will

not go back to you; but if I do, you must understand plainly, that it

will be for one reason only. Because I desire to save you from yourself.

To save some other woman, perhaps--"

"You can let the other woman take care of herself. As for me, I

appreciate your generosity, but I decline to be saved on those terms.

I'm fastidious about a few things, and that's one of them. What you are

trying to tell me is that you do not care for me."

She lifted her face. "Walter, I have never in all my life deceived you. I

do not care for you. Not in that way."

He smiled. "Well, I'll be content so long as you care for me in any

way--your way. I think your way's a mistake; but I won't insist on that.

I'll do my best to adapt my way to yours, that's all."

Her face was very still. Under their deep lids her eyes brooded, as if

trying to see the truth inside herself.

"No--no," she moaned. "I haven't told you the truth. I believe there

is _no_ way in which I can care for you again. Or--well--I can care

perhaps--I'm caring now--but--"

"I see. You do not love me."

She shook her head. "No. I know what love is, and--I do not love you."

"If you don't love me, of course there's nothing more to be said."

"Yes, there is. There's one thing that I have kept from you."

"Well," he said, "you may as well let me have it. There's no good keeping

things from me."

"I had meant to spare you."

At that he laughed. "Oh, don't spare me."

She still hesitated.

"What is it?"

She spoke low.

"If you had been here--that night--Peggy would not have died."

He drew a quick breath. "What makes you think that?" he said quietly.

"She overstrained her heart with crying. As you know. She was crying for

you. And you were not there. Nothing would make her believe that you were

not dead."

She saw the muscles of his face contract with sudden pain.

He looked at her gravely. The look expressed his large male contempt for

her woman's cruelty; also a certain luminous compassion.

"Why have you told me this?" he said.

"I've told you, because I think the thought of it may restrain you when

nothing else will."

"I see. You mean to say, you believe I killed her?"

Anne closed her eyes.

CHAPTER XXXVI

He did not know whether he believed what she had said, nor whether she

believed it herself, neither could he understand her motive in saying it.

At intervals he was profoundly sorry for her. Pity for her loosened, from

time to time, the grip of his own pain. He told himself that she must

have gone through intolerable days and nights of misery before she could

bring herself to say a thing like that. Her grief excused her. But he

knew that, if he had been in her place, she in his, he the saint and she

the sinner, and that, if he had known her through her sin to be

responsible for the child's death, there was no misery on earth that

could have made him charge her with it.

Further than that he could not understand her. The suddenness and cruelty

of the blow had brutalised his imagination.

He got up and stretched himself, to shake off the oppression that weighed

on him like an unwholesome sleep. As he rose he felt a queer feeling in

his head, a giddiness, a sense of obstruction in his brain. He went into

the dining-room, and poured himself out a small quantity of whiskey,

measuring it with the accuracy of abstemious habit. The dose had become

necessary since his nerves had been unhinged by worry and the shock of

Peggy's death. This time he drank it almost undiluted.

He felt better. The stimulant had jogged something in his brain and

cleared it.

He went back into the study and began to think. He remained thinking for

some time, consecutively, and with great lucidity. He asked himself what

he was to do now, and he saw clearly that he could do nothing. If Anne

had been a passionate woman, hurling her words in a fury of fierce grief,

he would have thought no more of it. If she had been the tender, tearful

sort, dropping words in a weak, helpless misery, he would have thought

no more of it. He could imagine poor little Maggie saying a thing like

that, not knowing what she said. If it had been poor little Maggie he

could have drawn her to him and comforted her, and reasoned with her till

he had made her see the senselessness of her idea. Maggie would have

listened to reason--his reason. Anne never would.

She had been cold and slow, and implacably deliberate. It was not blind

instinct, but illuminated reason that had told her what to say and when

to say it. Nothing he could ever do or say would make her take back her

words. And if she took back her words, her thought would remain

indestructible. She would never give it up; she would never approach him

without it; she would never forget that it was there. It would always

rise up between them, unburied, unappeased.

His brain swam and clouded again. He went again to the dining-room and

drank more whiskey. Kate was in the dining-room and she saw him drinking.

He saw Kate looking at him; but he didn't care. He was past caring for

what anybody might think of him.

His brain was clearer than ever now. He realised Anne's omnipotence to

harm him. He saw the hard, imperishable divinity in her. His wife was a

spiritual woman. He had not always known what that meant. But he knew

now; and now for the first time in his life he judged her. For the first

time in his life his heart rose in a savage revolt against her power.

His head grew hot. The air of the study was stifling. He opened the

window and went out into the cool, dark garden. He paced up and down,

heedless of where he trod, trampling the flowerless plants down into

their black beds. At the end of the path a little circle of white stones

glimmered in the dark. That was Peggy's garden.

An agony of love and grief shook him as he thought of the dead child.

He thought, with his hot brain, of Anne, and his anger flared like hate.

It was through the child that she had always struck him. She was a fool

to refuse to have more children, to sacrifice her boundless opportunities

to strike.

There was a light in the upper window. He thought of Maggie, walking up

and down in the back alley behind the garden, watching the lights of his

house burning to the dawn. The little thing had loved him. She had given

him all she had to give; and he had given her nothing. He had compelled

her to live childless; and he had cast her off. She had been sacrificed

to his passion, and to his wife's coldness.

Up there he could see Anne's large shadow moving on the lighted

window-blind. She was dressing for dinner.

Kate was standing on the step, looking for him. As he came to the study

window he saw Nanna behind her, going out of the room. His servants had

been watching him. Kate was frightened. Her voice fluttered in her throat

as she told him dinner was served.

He sat opposite his wife, with the little oblong table between them.

Twice, sometimes three times a day, as long as they both lived, they

would have to sit like that, separated, hostile, horribly conscious of

each other.

Anne talked about the Gardners, and he stared at her stupidly, with eyes

that were like heavy burning balls under his aching forehead. He ate

little and drank a good deal. Half an hour after dinner he followed her

to the drawing-room, dazed, not knowing clearly where he went.

Anne was seated at her writing-table. The place was strewn with papers.

She was absorbed in the business of her committee, working off five weeks

of correspondence in arrears.

He lay on the sofa and dozed, and she took no notice of him. He left the

room, and she did not hear him go out.

He went to the Hannays. They were out. He went on to the Ransomes and

found them there. He found Canon Wharton there, too, drinking whiskey and

soda.

"Here's Wallie," some one said. Mrs. Hannay (it _was_ Mrs. Hannay) gave a

cry of delight, and made a little rush at him which confused him. Ransome

poured out more whiskey, and gave it to him and to the Canon. The Canon

drank peg for peg with them, while he eyed Majendie austerely. He used to

drink peg for peg with Lawson Hannay, in the days when Hannay drank; now

he drank peg for peg with Majendie, eyeing him austerely.

Then the Hannays came between them. They closed round Majendie and hemmed

him in a corner, and kept him there talking to him. He had no clear idea

what they were saying or what he was saying to them; but their voices

were kind and they soothed him. Dick Ransome brought him more whiskey. He

refused it. He had a sort of idea that he had had enough, rather more, in

fact, than was quite good for him; and ladies were in the room. Ransome

pressed him, and Lawson Hannay said something to Ransome; he couldn't

tell what. He was getting drowsy and disinclined to answer when people

spoke to him. He wished they would let him alone.

Lawson Hannay put his hand on his shoulder, and said, "Come along with

us, Wallie," and he wished Lawson Hannay would let him alone. Mrs. Hannay

came and stooped over him and whispered things in his ear, and he tried

to rouse himself so far as to stare into her face and try to understand

what she was saying.

She was saying, "Wallie, get up--Come with us, Wallie, dear." And she

laid her hand on his arm. He took her hand in his, and pressed it, and

let it drop.

Then Ransome said, "Why can't you let the poor chap alone? Let him stay

if he likes."

That was what he wanted. Ransome knew what he wanted--to be let alone.

He didn't see the Hannays go. The only thing he saw distinctly was the

Canon's large grey face, and the eyes in it fixed unpleasantly on him. He

wished the Canon would let him alone.

He was getting really _too_ sleepy. He would have to rouse himself

presently and go. With a tremendous effort he dragged himself up and

went. Ransome walked with him to the club and left him there.

The club-room was in an hotel opposite the pier. He could get a bedroom

there for the night; and when the night was over he would be able to

think what he would do. He couldn't go back to Prior Street as he was. He

was too sleepy to know very much about it, but he knew that. He knew,

too, that something had happened which might make it impossible for him

to go back at all.

Ransome had told the manager of the hotel to take care of him. Every now

and then the manager came and looked at him; and then the drowsiness

lifted from his brain with a jerk, and he knew that something horrible

had happened. That was why they kept on looking at him.

At last he dragged himself to his room. He rang the bell and ordered

more whiskey. This time he drank, not for lucidity, but for blessed

drunkenness, for kind sleep and pitiful oblivion.

He slept on far into the morning and woke with a headache. At twelve

Hannay and Ransome called for him. It was a fine warm day with a

southerly wind blowing and sails on the river. Ransome's yacht lay off

the pier, with Mrs. Ransome in it. The sails were going up in Ransome's

yacht. Hannay's yacht rocked beside it. Dick took Majendie by the arm.

Dick, outside in the morning light, looked paler and puffier than ever,

but his eyes were kind. He had an idea. Dick's idea was that Majendie

should run up with him and Mrs. Ransome to Scarby for the week-end.

Hannay looked troubled as Dick unfolded his idea.

"I wouldn't go, old man," said he, "with that head of yours."

Dick stared. "Head? Just the thing for his head," said Dick. "It'll do

him all the good in the world."

Hannay took Dick aside. "No, it won't. It won't do him any good at all."

"I say, you know, I don't know what you're driving at, but you might let

the poor chap have a little peace. Come along, Majendie."

Majendie sent a telegram to Prior Street and went.

The wind blew away his headache and put its own strong, violent, gusty

life into him. He felt agreeably excited as he paced the slanting deck.

He stayed there in the wind.

Downstairs in the cabin the Ransomes were quarrelling.

"What on earth," said she, "possessed you to bring him?"

"And why not?"

"Because of Sarah."

"What's she got to do with it?"

"Well, you don't want them to meet again, do you?"

Dick made his face a puffy blank. "Why the devil shouldn't they?" said

he.

"Well, you know the trouble he's had with his wife already about Sarah."

"It wasn't about Sarah. It was another woman altogether!"

"I know that. But she was the beginning of it."

"Let her be the end of it, then. If you're thinking of _him_. The sooner

that wife of his gets a separation the better it'll be for him."

"And you want my sister to be mixed up in _that_?"

Mrs. Ransome began to cry.

"She can't be mixed up in it. He's past caring for Sarah, poor old girl."

"She isn't past caring for him. She isn't past anything," sobbed Mrs.

Ransome.

"Don't be a fool, Topsy. There isn't any harm in poor old Toodles.

Majendie's a jolly sight safer with Toodles, I can tell you, than he is

with that wife of his."

"Has she come home, then?"

"She came yesterday afternoon. You saw what he was like last night. If

I'd left him to himself this morning he'd have drunk himself into a fit.

When a sober--a fantastically sober man does that--"

"What does it mean?"

"It generally means that he's in a pretty bad way. And," added Dick

pensively, "they call poor Toodles a dangerous woman."

All night the yacht lay in Scarby harbour.

CHAPTER XXXVII

It was nine o'clock on Sunday evening. Majendie was in Scarby, in the

hotel on the little grey parade, where he and Anne had stayed on their

honeymoon.

Lady Cayley was with him. She was with him in the sitting-room which had

been his and Anne's. They were by themselves. The Ransomes were dining

with friends in another quarter of the town. He had accepted Sarah's

invitation to dine with her alone.

The Ransomes had tried to drag him away, and he had refused to go with

them. He had very nearly quarrelled with the Ransomes. They had been

irritating him all day, till he had been atrociously rude to them. He had

told Ransome to go to a place where, as Ransome had remarked, he could

hardly have taken Mrs. Ransome. Then he had explained gently that he had

had enough knocking about for one day, that his head ached abominably,

and that he wished they would leave him alone. It was all he wanted. Then

they had left him alone, with Sarah. He was glad to be with her. She was

the only person who seemed to understand that all he wanted was to be let

alone.

She had been with him all day. She had sat beside him on the deck of the

yacht as they cruised up and down the coast till sunset. Afterwards, when

the Ransomes' friends had trooped in, one after another, and filled the

sitting-room with insufferable sounds, she had taken him into a quiet

corner and kept him there. He had felt grateful to her for that.

She had been angelic to him during dinner. She had let him eat as little

and drink as much as he pleased. And she had hardly spoken to him. She

had wrapped him in a heavenly silence. Only from time to time, out of the

divine silence, her woman's voice had dropped between them, soothing and

pleasantly indistinct. He had been drinking hard all day. He had been

excited, intolerably excited; and she soothed him. He was aware of her

chiefly as a large, benignant presence, maternal and protecting.

His brain felt brittle, but extraordinarily clear, luminous, transparent,

the delicate centre of monstrous and destructive energies. It burned

behind his eyeballs like a fire. His eyes were hot with it, the pupils

strained, distended, gorged with light.

This monstrous brain of his originated nothing, but ideas presented to

it became monstrous, too. And their immensity roused no sense of the

incredible.

The table had been cleared of everything but coffee-cups, glasses, and

wine. They still sat facing each other. Sarah had her arms on the table,

propping her chin up with her clenched hands. Her head was tilted back

slightly, in a way that was familiar to him; so that she looked at him

from under the worn and wrinkled white lids of her eyes. And as she

looked at him she smiled slightly; and the smile was familiar, too.

And he sat opposite her, with his chin sunk on his breast. His bright,

dark, distended eyes seemed to strain upwards towards her, under the

weight of his flushed forehead.

"Well, Wallie," she said, "I didn't get married, you see, after all."

"Married--married? Why didn't you?"

"I never meant to. I only wanted you to think it."

"Why? Why did you want me to think it?"

He was no longer disinclined to talk. Though his brain lacked

spontaneity, it responded appropriately to suggestion.

"I didn't want you to think something else."

"What? What should I think?"

His voice was thick and rapid, his eyes burned.

"That you'd made a mess of my life, my dear."

"When did I make a mess of your life?"

"Never mind when. I _might_ have married, only I didn't. That's the

difference between me and you."

"And that's how I made a mess of your life, is it? I haven't made a

furious success of my own, have I?"

"I wouldn't have brought it up against you, if you had. The awful thing

was to stand by, and see you make a sinful muddle of it"

"A sinful muddle?"

"Yes. That's what it's been. A sinful muddle."

"Which is worse, d'you think, a sinful muddle? or a muddling sin?"

"Oh, don't ask me, my dear. I can't see any difference."

"My God--nor I!"

"There's no good talking. You're so obstinate, Wallie, that I believe, if

you could live your life over again, you'd do just the same."

"I would, probably. Just the same."

"There's nothing you'd alter?"

"Nothing. Except one thing."

"What thing?"

"Never mind what."

"I don't mind, if the one thing wasn't _me_--was it?"

He did not answer.

"Was it?" she insisted, turning the full blue blaze of her eyes on him.

He started. "Of course it wasn't. You don't suppose I'd have said so if

it had been, do you?"

"A-ah! So, if you could live your life over again, you wouldn't turn me

out of it? I didn't take up much room, did I? Only two years."

"Two years?"

"That was all. And you'd let me stay in for my two poor little years.

Well, that's something. It's a great deal. It's more than some women

get."

"Yes. More than some women get."

"Poor Wallie. I'm afraid you wouldn't live your life again."

"No. I wouldn't."

"I would. I'd live mine, horrors and all. Just for those two little

years. I say, if we'd keep each other in for those two years, we needn't

turn each other out now, need we?"

"Oh no, oh no."

His brain followed her lead, originating nothing.

"See here," she said, "if I come in--"

"Yes, yes," he said vaguely.

He was bending forward now, with his hands clasped on the table. She

stretched out her beautiful white arms and covered his hands with hers,

and held them. Her eyes were full-orbed, luminous, and tender. They held

him, too.

"I come in on my own terms, this time, not yours."

"Oh, of course."

"I mean I can't come in on the same terms as before. All that was over

nine years ago, when you married. You and I are older. We have had

experience. We've suffered horribly. We know."

"What do we know?"

She let go his hands.

"At least we know the limits--the lines we must draw. Fifteen years ago

we didn't know anything, either of us. We were innocents. You were an

innocent when you left me, when you married."

"When I married?"

"Yes, when you married. You were a blessed innocent, or you couldn't have

done it. You married a good woman."

"I know."

"So do I. Well, I've given one or two men a pretty bad time, but you may

write it on my tombstone that I never hurt another woman."

"Of course you haven't."

"And I'm not going to hurt your wife, remember."

"I'm stupid, I don't think I understand."

"Can't you understand that I'm not going to make trouble between you and

her?"

"Me? And her?"

"You and her. You've come back to me as my friend. We'll be better

friends if you understand that, whatever I let you do, dear, I'm not

going to let you make love to me."

She drew herself back and faced him with her resolution.

She knew the man with whom she had to deal. His soul must be off its

guard before she could have any power over his body. In presenting

herself as unattainable she would make herself desired. She would bring

him back.

She knew what fires he had passed through on his way to her. She saw that

she could not bring him back by playing poor, tender Maggie's part. She

could not move him by appearing as the woman she once was, by falling at

his feet as she had once fallen. This time, it was he who must fall at

hers.

Anne Majendie had held her empire, and had made herself for ever

desirable, by six years of systematic torturings and deceptions and

denials, by all the infidelities of the saint in love with her own

sanctity. The woman who was to bring him back now would have to borrow

for a moment a little of Anne Majendie's spiritual splendour. She saw by

his flaming face that she had suggested the thing she had forbidden.

"You think," said she, "there isn't any danger? I don't say there is. But

if there was, you'd never see it. You'd never think of it. You'd be up to

your neck in it before you knew where you were."

He moved impatiently. "At any rate I know where I am now."

"And I," said she, in response to his movement, "mean that you shall stay

there." She paused. "I know what you're thinking. You'd like to know what

right I have to say these things to you."

"Well--I'm awfully stupid--"

"I earned the right fifteen years ago. When a woman gives a man all she

has to give, and gets nothing, there are very few things she hasn't a

right to say to him."

"I've no doubt you earned your right."

"I'm not reproaching you, dear. I'm simply justifying the plainness of my

speech."

He stared at her, but he did not answer.

"Don't think me hard," said she. "I'm saying these things because I care

for you. Because--" She rose, and flung her arms out with a passionate

gesture towards him. "Oh, my dear--my heart aches for you so that I can't

bear it."

She came over to where he sat staring at her, staring half stupefied,

half inflamed. She stood beside him, and passed her hand lightly over his

hair.

"I only want to help you."

"You can't help me."

"I know I can't. I can only say hard things to you."

She stooped, and her lips swept his hair. For a moment love gave her back

her beauty and the enchantment of her youth; it illuminated the house of

flesh it dwelt in and inspired. And yet she could not reach him. His soul

was on its guard.

"You've come back," she whispered. "You've come back. But you never came

till you were driven. That's how I thought you'd come. When you were

driven. When there was nobody but me."

He heard her speaking, but her words had no significance that pierced his

thick and swift sensations.

"What have you done that you should have to pay so?"

"What have I done?"

"Or I?" she said.

He did not hear her. There was another sound in his ears.

Her voice ceased. Her eyes only called to him. He pushed back his chair

and laid his arms on the table, and bowed his head upon them, hiding his

face from her. She knelt down beside him. Her voice was like a warm wind

in his ears. He groaned. She drew a short sharp breath, and pressed her

shoulder to his shoulder, and her face to his hidden face.

At her touch he rose to his feet, violently sobered, loathing himself and

her. He felt his blood leap like a hot fountain to his brain. When she

clung he raged, and pushed her from him, not knowing what he did,

thrusting his hands out, cruelly, against her breasts, so that he wrung

from her a cry of pain and anger.

But when he would have gone from her his feet were loaded; they were

heavy weights binding him to the floor. He had a sensation of intolerable

sickness; then a pain beat like a hammer on one side of his head. He

staggered, and fell, headlong, at her feet.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Anne, left alone at her writing-table, had worked on far into Friday

night. The trouble in her was appeased by the answering of letters, the

sorting of papers, the bringing of order into confusion. She had always

had great practical ability; she had proved herself a good organiser,

expert in the business of societies and committees.

In her preoccupation she had not noticed that her husband had left the

house, and that he did not return to it.

In the morning, as she left her room, the old nurse came to her with a

grave face, and took her into Majendie's room. Nanna pointed out to her

that his bed had not been slept in. Anne's heart sank. Later on, the

telegram he sent explained his absence. She supposed that he had slept

at the Ransomes' or the Hannays', and she thought no more of it. The

business of the day again absorbed her.

In the afternoon Canon Wharton called on her. It was the recognised visit

of condolence, delayed till her return. In his manner with Mrs. Majendie

there was no sign of the adroit little man of the world who had drunk

whiskey with Mrs. Majendie's husband the night before. His manner was

reticent, reverential, not obtrusively tender. He abstained from all the

commonplaces of consolation. He did not speak of the dead child; but

reminded her of the greater maternal work that God had called upon her

to do, and told her that the children of many mothers would rise up and

call her blessed. He bade her believe that her life, which seemed to her

ended, had in reality only just begun. He said that, if great natures

were reserved for great sorrows, great afflictions, they were also

dedicated to great uses. Uses to which their sorrows were the unique and

perfect training.

He left her strengthened, uplifted, and consoled.

On Sunday morning she attended the service at All Souls. In the afternoon

she walked to the great flat cemetery of Scale, where Edith's and Peggy's

graves lay side by side. In the evening she went again to All Souls.

The church services were now the only link left between her soul and

God. She clung desperately to them, trying to recapture through these

consecrated public methods the peace that should have been her most

private personal possession.

For, all the time, now, she was depressed by a sense of separation from

the Unseen. She struggled for communion; she prostrated herself in

surrender, and was flung back upon herself, an outcast from the spiritual

world. She was alone in that alien place of earth where everything had

been taken from her. She almost rebelled against the cruelty of the

heavenly hand, that, having smitten her, withheld its healing. She had

still faith, but she had no joy nor comfort in her faith. Therefore she

occupied herself incessantly with works; appeasing, putting off the hours

that waited for her as their prey.

It was at night that her desolation found her most helpless. For then she

thought of her dead child and of the husband whom she regarded as worse

than dead.

She had one terrible consolation. She had once doubted the justice of her

attitude to him. Now she was sure. Her justification was complete.

She was sitting at work again early on Monday morning, in the

drawing-room that overlooked the street.

About ten o'clock she heard a cab drive up to the door.

She thought it was Majendie come back again, and she was surprised when

Kate came to her and told her that it was Mr. Hannay, and that he wished

to speak to her at once.

Hannay was downstairs, in the study; standing with his back to the

fireplace. He did not come forward to meet her. His rosy, sensual face

was curiously set. As she approached him, his loose lips moved and closed

again in a firm fold.

He pressed her hand without speaking. His heaviness and immobility

alarmed her.

"What is it?" she asked.

Her heart was like a wild whirlpool that sucked back her voice and

suffocated it.

"I've come with very bad news, Mrs. Majendie."

"Tell me," she whispered.

"Walter is ill--very dangerously ill."

"He is dead."

The words seemed to come from her without grief, without any feeling. She

felt nothing but a dull, dragging pain under her left breast, as if the

doors of her heart were closed and its chambers full to bursting.

"No. He is not dead."

Her heart beat again.

"He's dying, then."

"They don't know."

"Where is he?"

"At Scarby."

"Scarby? How much time have I?"

"There's a train at ten-twenty. Can you be ready in five--seven minutes?"

"Yes."

She rang the bell.

"Tell Kate where to send my things," she said as she left the room. Her

mind took possession of her, so that she did not waste a word of her

lips, or a single motion of her feet. She came back in five minutes,

ready to start.

"What is it?" she said as they drove to the station.

"Haemorrhage of the brain."

"The brain?"

"Apoplexy."

"Is he unconscious?"

"Yes."

She closed her eyes.

"He will not know me," she said.

Hannay was silent. She lay back and kept her eyes closed.

A van blocked the narrow street that led to the East Station. The driver

reined in his horse. She opened her eyes in terror.

"We shall miss the train--if we stop."

"No, no, we've plenty of time."

They waited.

"Oh, tell him to drive round the other way."

"We shall miss the train if we do _that_."

"Well, make that man in front move on. Make him turn--up there."

The van turned into a side street, and they drove on.

The Scarby train was drawn up along the platform. They had five minutes

before it started; but she hurried into the nearest compartment. They had

it to themselves.

The train moved on. It was a two hours' journey to Scarby.

A strong wind blew through the open window and she shivered. She had

brought no warm wrap with her. Hannay laid his overcoat over her knees

and about her body. His large hands moved gently, wrapping it close.

She thanked him and tried to smile. And when he saw her smile, Hannay was

sorry for the things he had thought and said of her. His voice when he

spoke to her vibrated tenderly. She resigned herself to his hands. Grief

made her passive now.

Hannay sank back in the far corner and left her to her grief. He covered

his eyes with his hands that he might not see her. Poor Hannay hoped

that, if he removed his painful presence, she would allow herself the

relief of tears.

But no tears fell from under her closed eyelids. Her soul was withdrawn

behind them into the darkness where the body's pang ceased, and there was

help. She started when the train stopped at Scarby Station.

As they stopped at the hotel there came upon her that reminiscence which

is foreknowledge and the sense of destiny.

A woman was coming down the staircase as they entered. She did not see

her at first. She would not have seen her at all if Hannay had not taken

her arm and drawn her aside into the shelter of a doorway. Then, as the

woman passed out, she saw that it was Lady Cayley.

She looked helplessly at Hannay. Her eyes said, "Where is he?" She

wondered where, in what room, she should find her husband.

She found him upstairs in the room that had been their bridal chamber. He

lay on their bridal bed, motionless and senseless. There was a deep flush

on one side of his face, one corner of his mouth was slightly drawn, and

one eyelid drooped. He was paralysed down his left side.

His lips moved mechanically as he breathed, and his breath came with a

deep grating sound. His left arm was stretched outside, upon the blanket.

A nurse stood at the head of the bed. She moved as Anne entered and gave

place to her. Anne put out her hand and touched his arm, caressing it.

The nurse said, "There has been no change." She lifted his arm by the

wrist and laid it in his wife's hand that she might see that he was

paralysed.

And Anne sat still by the bedside, staring at her husband's face, and

holding his heavy arm in her hand, as if she could thus help him to bear

the weight of it.

Hannay gave one look at her as she sat there. He said something to the

nurse and went out of the room. The woman followed him.

After they went Anne bowed her head and laid it on the pillow beside her

husband's, with her cheek against his cheek. She stayed so for a moment.

Then she lifted her head and looked about her. Her eyes took note of

trifles. She saw that the blankets were drawn straight over his body, as

if over the body of a dead man. The pillow-cases and the end of the

sheet, which was turned down over the blankets, were clean and

creaseless.

He could not move. He was paralysed. They had not told her that.

She saw that he wore a clean white nightshirt of coarse cotton. It must

have been lent by one of the people of the hotel. His illness must have

come upon him last night, when he was still up and dressed. They must

have carried him in here, and laid him in the clean bed. Everything about

him was very white and clean. She was glad.

She sat there till the nurse came back again. She had to move away from

him then. It hurt her to see the woman bending over his bed, looking at

him, to see, her hands touching him.

A bell rang somewhere in the hotel. Hannay came in and told her that

there was luncheon in the sitting-room. She shook her head. He put his

hand on her shoulder and spoke to her as if she had been a child. She

must eat, he said; she would be no good if she did not eat. She got up

and followed him. She ate and drank whatever he gave her. Then she went

back to her husband, and watched beside him while the nurse went to her

meal. The terrible thing was that she could do nothing for him. She could

only wait and watch. The nurse came back in half an hour, and they sat

there together, all the afternoon, one on each side of the bed, waiting

and watching.

Towards evening the doctor, who had come at midnight and in the morning,

came again. He looked at Anne keenly and kindly, and his manner seemed

to her to say that there was no hope. He made experiments. He brought

a lighted candle and held it to the patient's eyes, and said that the

pupils were still contracted. The nurse said nothing. She looked at Anne

and she looked at the doctor, and when he went away, she made a sign to

Anne to keep back while she followed him. Anne heard them talking

together in low voices outside the door, and her heart ached with fear

of what he would say to her presently.

He sent for her, and she came to him in the sitting-room. He said, "There

is no change." Her brain reeled and righted itself. She had thought he

was going to say "There is no hope."

"Will he get better?" she said.

"I cannot tell you."

The doctor seated himself and prepared to deal long and leisurely with

the case.

"It's impossible to say. He _may_ get better. He may even get well. But

I should do wrong if I let you hope too much for that."

"You can give _no_ hope?" she said, thinking that she uttered his real

thought.

"I don't say that. I only say that the chances are not--exclusively--in

favour of recovery."

"The chances?"

"Yes. The chances." The doctor looked at her, considering whether she

were a woman who could bear the truth. Her eyes assured him that she

could. "I don't say he won't recover. It's this way," said he. "There's

a clot somewhere on the brain. If it absorbs completely he may get

well--perfectly well."

"And if it does not absorb?"

"He may remain as he is, paralysed down the left side. The paralysis may

be only partial. He may recover the use of one limb and not the other.

But he will be paralysed. Partially or completely."

She pictured it.

"Ah--but," she said, laying hold on hope again, "he will not die?"

"Well--there may be further lesions--in which case--"

"He will die?"

"He may die. He may die any moment."

She accepted it, abandoning hope.

"Will there be any return of consciousness? Will he know me?"

"I'm afraid not. If consciousness returns we may begin to hope. As it

is, I don't want you to make up your mind to the worst. There are two

things in his favour. He has evidently a sound constitution. And he has

lived--up till now--Mr. Hannay tells me, a rather unusually temperate

life. That is so?"

"Yes. He was most abstemious. Always--always. Why?"

The doctor recalled his eyes from their examination of Mrs. Majendie's

face. It was evident that there were some truths which she could not

bear.

"My dear Mrs. Majendie, there is no _why_, of course. That is in his

favour. There seems to have been nothing in his previous history which

would predispose to the attack."

"Would a shock--predispose him?"

"A shock?"

"Any very strong emotion--"

"It might. Certainly. If it was recent. Mr. Hannay told me that he--that

you--had had a sudden bereavement. How long ago was that?"

"A month--nearly five weeks."

"Ah--so long ago as that? No, I think it would hardly be likely. If there

had been any recent violent emotion--"

"It would account for it?"

"Yes, yes, it might account for it."

"Thank you."

He was touched by her look of agony. "If there is anything else I can--"

"No. Thank you very much. That is all I wanted to know."

She went back into the sick-room. She stayed there all evening, and they

brought her food to her there. She stayed, watching for the sign of

consciousness that would give hope. But there was no sign.

The nurse went to bed at nine o'clock. Anne had insisted on sitting up

that night. Hannay slept in the next room, on a sofa, within call.

When they had left her alone with her husband, she knelt down beside his

bedside and prayed. And as she knelt, with her bowed head near to that

body sleeping its strange and terrible sleep, she remembered nothing but

that she had once loved him; she was certain of nothing but that she

loved him still. His body was once more dear and sacred to her as in her

bridal hour. She did not ask herself whether it were paying the penalty

of its sin; her compassion had purged him of his sin. She had no memory

for the past. It seemed to her that all her life and all her suffering

were crowded into this one hour while she prayed that his soul might come

back and speak to her, and that his body might not die. The hour trampled

under it that other hour when she had knelt by the loathed bridal bed,

wrestling for her own spiritual life. She had no life of her own to pray

for now. She prayed only that he might live.

And though she knew not whether her prayer were answered she knew that it

was heard.

CHAPTER XXXIX

It was the evening of the third day. There was no change in Majendie.

Dr. Gardner had been sent for. He had come and gone. He had confirmed the

Scarby doctor's opinion, with a private leaning to the side of hope.

Hannay, who had waited to hear his verdict, was going back to Scale

early the next morning. Mrs. Majendie had been in her husband's room all

day, and he had seen little of her.

He was sitting alone by the fire after dinner, trying to read a paper,

when she came in. Her approach was so gentle that he was unaware of it

till she stood beside him. He started to his feet, mumbling an apology

for his bewilderment. He pulled up an arm-chair to the fire for her,

wandered uneasily about the room for a minute or two, and would have left

it, had she not called him back to her.

"Don't go, Mr. Hannay. I want to speak to you."

He turned, with an air of frustrated evasion, and remained, a supremely

uncomfortable presence.

"Have you time?" she asked.

"Plenty. All my time is at your disposal."

"You have been very kind--"

"My dear Mrs. Majendie--"

"I want you to be kinder still. I want you to tell me the truth."

"The truth--" Hannay tried to tighten his loose face into an expression

of judicial reserve.

"Yes, the truth. There's no kindness in keeping things from me."

"My dear Mrs. Majendie, I'm keeping nothing from you, I assure you. The

doctors have told me no more than they have told you."

"I know. It's not that."

"What is it that's troubling you?"

"Did you see Walter before he came here?"

"Yes."

"Did you see him on Friday night?"

"Yes."

"Was he perfectly well then?"

"Er--yes--he was well. Quite well."

Anne turned her sorrowful eyes upon him.

"No. There was something wrong. What was it?"

"If there was he didn't tell me."

"No. He wouldn't. Why did you hesitate just now?"

"Did I hesitate?"

"When I asked you if he was well."

"I thought you meant did I notice any signs of his illness coming on. I

didn't. But of course, as you know, he was very much shaken by---by your

little girl's death."

"You noticed that while I was away?"

"Y-es. But I certainly noticed it more on the night you were speaking

of."

"You would have said, then, that he must have received a severe shock?"

"Certainly--certainly I would."

Hannay responded quite cheerfully in his immense relief.

It was what they were all trying for, to make poor Mrs. Majendie believe

that her husband's illness was to be attributed solely to the shock of

the child's death.

"Do you think that shock could have had anything to do with his illness?"

"Of course I do. At least, I should say it was indirectly responsible for

it."

She put her hand up to hide her face. He saw that in some way

incomprehensible to him, so far from shielding her, he had struck a blow.

"Dr. Gardner told you that much," said he. He felt easier, somehow, in

halving the responsibility with Gardner.

"Yes. He told me that. But he had not seen him since October. You saw him

on Friday, the day I came home."

Hannay was confirmed in his suspicion that on Friday there had been a

scene. He now saw that Mrs. Majendie was tortured by the remembrance of

her part in it.

"Oh well," he said consolingly. "He hadn't been himself for a long time

before that."

"I know. I know. That only makes it worse."

She wept slowly, silently, then stopped suddenly and held herself in a

restraint that was ten times more pitiful to see. Hannay was unspeakably

distressed.

"Perhaps," said he, "if you could tell me what's on your mind, I might be

able to relieve you."

She shook her head.

"Come," he said kindly, "what is it, really? What do you imagine makes it

worse?"

"I said something to him that I didn't mean."

"Of course you did," said Hannay, smiling cheerfully. "We all say things

to each other that we don't mean. That wouldn't hurt him."

"But it did. I told him he was responsible for Peggy's death. I didn't

know what I was saying. I let him think he killed her."

"He wouldn't think it."

"He did. There was nothing else he could think. If he dies I shall have

killed him."

"You will have done nothing of the sort. He wouldn't think twice about

what a woman said in her anger or her grief. He wouldn't believe it. He's

got too much sense. You can put that idea out of your head for ever."

"I cannot put it out. I had to tell you--lest you should think--"

"Lest I should think--what?"

"That it was something else that caused his illness."

"But, my dear lady--it _was_ something else. I haven't a doubt about it."

"I know what you mean," she said quickly. "He had been drinking--poor

dear."

"How do you know that?"

"The doctor asked me. He asked me if he had been in the habit of taking

too much."

Hannay heaved a deep sigh of discomfort and disappointment.

"It's no good," said she, "trying to keep things from me. And there's

another thing that I must know."

"You're distressing yourself most needlessly. There is nothing more to

know."

"I know that woman was here. I do not know whether he came here to meet

her."

"Ah well--that I can assure you he did not."

"Still--he must have met her. She was here."

"How do you know that she was here?"

"You saw her yourself, coming out of the hotel. You were horrified, and

you pulled me back so that I shouldn't see her."

"There's nothing in that, nothing whatever."

"If you'd seen your own face, Mr. Hannay, you would have said there was

everything in it."

"My face, dear Mrs. Majendie, does not prove that they met. Or that there

was any reason why they shouldn't meet. It only proves my fear lest Lady

Cayley should stop and speak to you. A thing she wouldn't be very likely

to do if they had met--as you suppose."

"There is nothing that woman wouldn't do."

"She wouldn't do that. She wouldn't do that."

"I don't know."

"No. You don't know. So you're bound to give her the benefit of the

doubt. I advise you to do it. For your own peace of mind's sake. And for

your husband's sake."

"It was for his sake that I asked you for the truth. Because--"

"You wanted me to clear him?"

"Yes. Or to tell me if there is anything I should forgive."

"I can assure you he didn't come here to see Sarah Cayley. As to

forgiveness--you haven't got to forgive him that; and if you only

understood, you'd find that there was precious little you ever had to

forgive."

"If I only understood. You think I don't understand, even yet?"

"I'm sure you don't. You never did."

"I would give everything if I could understand now."

"Yes, if you could. But can you?"

"I've tried very hard. I've prayed to God to make me understand."

Poor Hannay was embarrassed at the name of God. He fell to contemplating

his waistcoat buttons in profound abstraction for a while. Then he spoke.

"Look here, Mrs. Majendie. Poor Walter always said you were much too good

for him. If you'll pardon my saying so, I never believed that until now.

Now, upon my soul, I do believe it. And I believe that's where the

trouble's been all along. There are things about a man that a woman like

you cannot understand. She doesn't try to understand them. She doesn't

want to. She'd die rather than know. So--well--the whole thing's wrapped

up in mystery, and she thinks it's something awful and iniquitous,

something incomprehensible."

"Yes. If she thinks about it at all."

"My dear lady, very often she thinks about it a great deal more than is

good for her, and she thinks wrong. She's bound to, being what she is.

Now, when an ordinary man marries that sort of woman there's certain to

be trouble."

He paused, pondering. "My wife's a dear, good, little woman," he said

presently; "she's the best little woman in the world for me; but I dare

say to outsiders, she's a very ordinary little woman. Well, you know, I

don't call myself a remarkably good man, even now, and I wasn't a good

man at all before she married me. D'you mind my talking about myself like

this?"

"No." She tried to keep herself sincere. "No. I don't think I do."

"You do, I'm afraid. I don't much like it myself. But, you see, I'm

trying to help you. You said you wanted to understand, didn't you?"

"Yes. I want to understand."

"Well, then, I'm not a good man, and your husband is. And yet, I'd no

more think of leaving my dear little wife for another woman than I would

of committing a murder. But, if she'd been 'too good' for me, there's

no knowing what I mightn't have done. D'you see?"

"I see. You're trying to tell me that it was my fault that my husband

left me."

"Your fault? No. It was hardly your _fault_, Mrs. Majendie."

He meditated. "There's another thing. You good women are apt to run away

with the idea that--that this sort of thing is so tremendously important

to us. It isn't. It isn't."

"Then why behave as if it were?"

"We don't. That's your mistake. Ten to one, when a man's once married

and happy, he doesn't think about it at all. Of course, if he isn't

happy--but, even then, he doesn't go thinking about it all day long. The

ordinary man doesn't. He's got other things to attend to--his business,

his profession, his religion, anything you like. Those are _the_

important things, the things he thinks about, the things that take up

his time."

"I see. I see. The woman doesn't count."

"Of course she counts. But she counts in another way. Bless you, the

woman may _be_ his religion, his superstition. In your husband's case it

certainly was so."

Her face quivered.

"Of course," he said, "what beats you is--how a man can love his wife

with his whole heart and soul, and yet be unfaithful to her."

"Yes. If I could understand that, I should understand everything. Once,

long ago, Walter said the same thing to me, and I couldn't understand."

"Well--well, it depends on what one calls unfaithfulness. Some men are

brutes, but we're not talking about them. We're talking about Walter."

"Yes. We're talking about Walter."

"And Walter is my dearest friend, so dear that I hardly know how to talk

to you about him."

"Try," she said.

"Well, I suppose I know more about him than anybody else. And I never

knew a man freer from any weakness for women. He was always so awfully

sorry for them, don't you know. Sarah Cayley could never have fastened

herself on him if he hadn't been sorry for her. No more could that

girl--Maggie Forrest."

"How did he come to know her?"

"Oh, some fellow he knew had behaved pretty badly to her, and Walter had

been paying for her keep, years before there was anything between them.

She got dependent on him, and he on her. We are pathetically dependent

creatures, Mrs. Majendie."

"What was she like?"

"She? Oh, a soft, simple, clinging little thing. And instead of shaking

her off, he let her cling. That's how it all began. Then, of course, the

rest followed. I'm not excusing him, mind you. Only--" Poor Hannay became

shy and unhappy. He hid his face in his hands and lifted it from them,

red, as if with shame. "The fact is," he said, "I'm a clumsy fellow, Mrs.

Majendie. I want to help you, but I'm afraid of hurting you."

"Nothing can hurt me now."

"Well--" He pondered again. "If you want to get down to the root of it,

it's as simple as hunger and thirst."

"Hunger and thirst," she murmured.

"It's what I've been trying to tell you. When you're not thirsty you

don't think about drinking. When you are thirsty, you do. When you're

driven mad with thirst, you think of nothing else. And sometimes--not

always--when you can't get clean water, you drink water that's--not

so clean. Though you may be very particular. Walter was--morally--the

most particular man I ever knew."

"I know. I know."

"Mind you, the more particular a man is, the thirstier he'll be. And

supposing he can never get a drop of water at home, and every time he

goes out, some kind person offers him a drink--can you blame him very

much if, some day, he takes it?"

"No," she said. She said it very low, and turned her face from him.

"Look here, Mrs. Majendie," he said, "you know _why_ I'm saying all

this."

"To help me," she said humbly.

"And to help him. Neither you nor I know whether he's going to live or

die. And I've told you all this so that, if he does die, you mayn't have

to judge him harshly, and if he doesn't die, you may feel that he's--he's

given back to you. D'you see?"

"Yes, I see," she said softly.

She saw that there were depths in this man that she had not suspected.

She had despised Lawson Hannay. She had detested him. She had thought him

coarse in grain, gross, unsufferably unspiritual. She had denied him any

existence in the world of desirable persons. She had refused to see any

good in him. She had wondered how Edith could tolerate him for an

instant. Now she knew.

She remembered that Edith was a proud woman, and that she had said that

her pride had had to go down in the dust before Lawson Hannay. And now

she, too, was humbled before him. He had beaten down all her pride. He

had been kind; but he had not spared her. He had not spared her; but the

gentlest woman could not have been more kind.

She rose and looked at him with a strange reverence and admiration.

"Whether he lives or dies," she said, "you will have given him back to

me."

She took up her third night's watch.

The nurse rose as she entered, gave her some directions, and went to her

own punctual sleep.

There was no change in the motionless body, in the drawn face, and in the

sightless eyes.

Anne sat by her husband's side and kept her hand upon his arm to feel the

life in it. She was consoled by contact, even while she told herself that

she had no right to touch him.

She knew what she had done to him. She had ruined him as surely as if she

had been a bad woman. He had loved her, and she had cast him from her,

and sent him to his sin. There was no humiliation and no pain that she

had spared him. Even the bad women sometimes spare. They have their pity

for the men they ruin; they have their poor, disastrous love. She had

been merciless where she owed most mercy.

Three people had tried to make her see it. Edith, who was a saint, and

that woman, who was a sinner; and Lawson Hannay. They had all taken the

same view of her. They had all told her the same thing.

She was a good woman, and her goodness had been her husband's ruin.

Of the three, Edith alone understood the true nature of the wrong she had

done him. The others had only seen one side of it, the material, tangible

side that weighed with them. Through her very goodness, she saw that that

was the least part of it; she knew that it had been the least part of it

with him.

Where she had wronged him most had been in the pitiless refusals of her

soul. And even there she had wronged him less by the things she had

refused to give than by the things that she had refused to take. There

were sanctities and charities, unspeakable tendernesses, holy and

half-spiritual things in him, that she had shut her eyes to. She had

shut her eyes that she might justify herself.

Her fault was there, in that perpetual justification and salvation of

herself; in her indestructible, implacable spiritual pride.

And she had shut her ears as she had shut her eyes. She had not listened

to her sister's voice, nor to her husband's voice, nor to her little

child's voice, nor to the voice of God in her own heart. Then, that she

might be humbled, she had had to take God's message from the persons

whom she had most detested and despised.

She had not loved well. And she saw now that men and women only counted

by their power of loving. She had despised and detested poor little Mrs.

Hannay; yet it might be that Mrs. Hannay was nearer to God than she had

been, by her share of that one godlike thing.

She, through her horror of one sin, had come to look upon flesh and

blood, on the dear human heart, and the sacred, mysterious human body, as

things repellent to her spirituality, fine only in their sacrifice to the

hungry, solitary flame. She had known nothing of their larger and diviner

uses, their secret and profound subservience to the flame. She had come

near to knowing through her motherhood, and yet she had not known.

And as she looked with anguish on the helpless body, shamed, and

humiliated, and destroyed by her, she realised that now she knew.

Edith's words came back to her, "Love is a provision for the soul's

redemption of the body. Or, may be, for the body's redemption of the

soul." She understood them now. She saw that Edith had spoken to her of

the miracle of miracles. She saw that the path of all spirits going

upward is by acceptance of that miracle. She, who had sinned the

spiritual sin, could find salvation only by that way.

It was there that she had been led, all the while, if she had but known

it. But she had turned aside, and had been sent back, over and over

again, to find the way. Now she had found it; and there could be no more

turning back.

She saw it all. She saw a purity greater than her own, a strong and

tender virtue, walking in the ways of earth and cleansing them. She saw

love as a divine spirit, going down into the courses of the blood and

into the chambers of the heart, moving mortal things to immortality.

She saw that there is no spirituality worthy of the name that has not

been proven in the house of flesh.

She had failed in spirituality. She had fixed the spiritual life away

from earth, beyond the ramparts. She saw that the spiritual life is here.

And more than this, she saw that in her husband's nature hidden deep down

under the perversities that bewildered and estranged her, there was a

sense of these things, of the sanctity of their life. She saw what they

might have made of it together; what she had actually made of it, and of

herself and him. She thought of his patience, his chivalry and

forbearance, and of his deep and tender love for her and for their child.

God had given him to her to love; and she had not loved him. God had

given her to him for his help and his protection; and she had not helped,

she had not protected him.

God had dealt justly with her. She had loved God; but God had rejected a

love that was owing to her husband. Looking back, she saw that she had

been nearest to God in the days when she had been nearest to her husband.

The days of her separation had been the days of her separation from God.

And she had not seen it.

All the love that was in her she had given to her child. Her child had

been born that she might see that the love which was given to her was

holy; and she had not seen it. So God had taken her child from her that

she might see.

And seeing that, she saw herself aright. That passion of motherhood was

not all the love that was in her. The love that was in her had sprung up,

full-grown, in a single night. And it had grown to the stature of the

diviner love she saw. And as she felt that great springing up of love,

with all its strong endurances and charities, she saw herself redeemed by

her husband's sin.

There she paused, trembling. It was a great and terrible mystery, that

the sin of his body should be the saving of her soul. And as she thought

of the price paid for her, she humbled herself once more in her shame.

She was no longer afraid that he would die. Something told her that he

would live, that he would be given back to her. She dared not think how.

He might be given back paralysed, helpless, and with a ruined mind. Her

punishment might be the continual reproach of his presence, her only

consolation the tending of the body she had tortured, humiliated, and

destroyed. She prayed God to be merciful and spare her that.

And on the morning of the fifth day Majendie woke from his terrible

sleep. He could see light. Towards evening his breathing softened and

grew soundless. And on the dawn of the sixth day he called her name,

"Nancy."

Then she knew that for a little time he would be given back to her. And,

as she nursed him, love in her moved with a new ardour and a new

surrender. For more than seven years her pulses had been proof against

his passion and his strength. Now, at the touch of his helpless body,

they stirred with a strange, adoring tenderness. But as yet she went

humbly, in her fear of the punishment that might be measured to her. She

told herself it was enough that he was aware of her, of her touch, of her

voice, of her face as it bent over him. She hushed the new-born hope in

her heart, lest its cry should wake the angel of the divine retribution.

Then, week by week, slowly, a little joy came to her, as she saw the

gradual return of power to the paralysed body and clearness to the

flooded brain. She wondered, when he would begin to remember, whether

her face would recall to him their last interview, her cruelty, her

repudiation.

At last she knew that he remembered. She dared not ask herself "How

much?" It was borne in on her that it was this way that her punishment

would come.

For, as he gradually recovered, his manner to her became more

constrained; notwithstanding his helpless dependence on her. He was shy

and humble; grateful for the things she did for him; grateful with a

heart-rending, pitiful surprise. It was as if he had looked to come back

to the heartless woman he had known, and was puzzled at finding another

woman in her place.

As the weeks wore on, and her hands had less to do for him, she felt that

his awakened spirit guarded itself from her, fenced itself more and more

with that inviolable constraint. And she bowed her head to the

punishment.

When he was well enough to be moved she took him to the south coast.

There he recovered power rapidly. By the end of February he showed no

trace of his terrible illness.

They were to return to Scale in the beginning of March.

Then, at their home-coming, she would know whether he remembered. There

would be things that they would have to say to each other.

Sometimes she thought that she could never say them; that her life was

secure only within some pure, charmed circle of inviolate silence; that

her wisdom lay in simply trusting him to understand her. She _could_

trust him. After all, she had been most marvellously "let off"; she had

not had to pay the extreme penalty; she had been allowed, oh, divinely

allowed, to prove her love for him. He could not doubt it now; it

possessed her, body and soul; it was manifest to him in her eyes, and

in her voice, and in the service of her hands.

And if he said nothing, surely it would mean that he, too, trusted her to

understand.

CHAPTER XL

They had come back. They had spent their first evening together in the

house in Prior Street. Anne had dreaded the return; for the house

remembered its sad secrets. She had dreaded it more on her husband's

account than on her own.

She had passed before him through the doorway of the study; and her heart

had ached as she thought that it was in that room that she had struck at

him and put him from her. As he entered, she had turned, and closed the

door behind them, and lifted her face to his and kissed him. He had

looked at her with his kind, sad smile, but he had said nothing. All that

evening they had sat by their hearth, silent as watchers by the dead.

From time to time she had been aware of his eyes resting on her in their

profound and tragic scrutiny. She had been reminded then of the things

that yet remained unsaid.

At night he had risen at her signal; and she had waited while he put the

light out; and he had followed her upstairs. At her door she had stopped,

and kissed him, and said good-night, and she had turned her head to look

after him as he went. Surely, she had thought, he will come back and

speak to me.

And now she was still waiting after her undressing. She said to herself,

"We have come home. But he will not come to me. He has nothing to say to

me. There is nothing that can be said. If I could only speak to him."

She longed to go to him, to kneel at his feet and beg him to forgive her

and take her back again, as if it had been she who had sinned. But she

could not.

She stood for a moment before the couch at the foot of the bed, ready to

slip off her long white dressing-gown. She paused. Her eyes rested on the

silver crucifix, the beloved symbol of redemption. She remembered how he

had given it to her. She had not understood him even then; but she

understood him now. She longed to tell him that she understood. But she

could not.

She turned suddenly as she heard his low knock at her door. She had been

afraid to hear it once; now it made her heart beat hard with longing and

another fear. He came in. He stood by the closed door, gazing at her with

the dumb look that she knew.

She went to meet him, with her hands out-stretched to him, her face

glowing.

"Oh, my dear," she said, "you've come back to me. You've come back."

He looked down on her with miserable eyes. She put her arms about him.

His face darkened and was stern to her. He held her by her arms and put

her from him, and she trembled in all her body, humiliated and rebuked.

"No. Not that," he said. "Not now. I can't ask you to take me back now."

"Need you ask me--now?"

"You don't understand," he said. "You don't know. Darling, you don't

know."

At the word of love she turned to him, beseeching him with her tender

eyes.

"Sit down," he said. "I want to talk to you."

She sat down on the couch, and made room for him beside her.

"I don't want," she said, "to know more than I do."

"I'm afraid you must know. When you do know you won't talk about taking

me back."

"I have taken you back."

"Not yet. I'd no business to come back at all, without telling you."

"Tell me, then," she said.

"I can't. I don't know how."

She put her hand on his.

"Don't," he said, "don't. I'd rather you didn't touch me."

She looked at him and smiled, and her smile cut him to the heart.

"Walter," she said, "are you afraid of me?"

"Yes."

"You needn't be."

"I am. I'm afraid of your goodness."

She smiled again.

"Do you think I'm good?"

"I know you are."

"You don't know how you're hurting me."

"I've always hurt you. And I'm going to hurt you more."

"You only hurt me when you talk about my goodness. I'm not good. I never

was. And I never can be, dear, if you're afraid of me. What is it that I

_must know_?"

His voice sank.

"I've been unfaithful to you. Again."

"With whom?" she whispered.

"I can't tell you. Only--it wasn't Maggie."

"When was it?"

"I think it was that Sunday--at Scarby."

"Why do you say you think?" she said gently. "Don't you know?"

"No. I don't know much about it. I didn't know what I was doing."

"You can't remember?"

"No. I can't remember."

"Then--are you sure you _were_--?"

"Yes. I think so. I don't know. That's the horrible part of it. I don't

know, I can't remember anything about it. I must have been drinking."

She took his hand in hers again. "Walter, dear, don't think about it.

Don't think it was possible. Just put it all out of your head and forget

about it."

"How can I when I don't know?" He rose. "See here--I oughtn't to look at

you--I oughtn't to touch you--I oughtn't to live with you, as long as I

don't know. You don't know, either."

"No," she said quietly. "I don't know. Does that matter so very much when

I understand?"

"Ah, if you could understand. But you never could."

"I do. Supposing I had known, do you think I should not have forgiven

you?"

"I'm certain you wouldn't. You couldn't. Not that."

"But," she said, "I did know."

His mouth twitched. His eyelids dropped before her gaze.

"At least," she said, "I thought--"

"You thought _that_?"

"Yes."

"What made you think it?"

"I saw her there."

"You saw her? You thought that, and yet--you would have let me come back

to you?"

"Yes. I thought that."

As he stood before her, shamed, and uncertain, and unhappy, the new

soul that had been born in her pleaded for him and assured her of his

innocence.

"But," she said again, "I do not think it now."

"You--you don't believe it?"

"No. I believe in you."

"You believe in me? After everything?"

"After everything."

"And you would have forgiven me that?"

"I did forgive you. I forgave you all the time I thought it. There's

nothing that I wouldn't forgive you now. You know it."

"I thought you might forgive me. But I never thought you'd let me come

back--after that."

"You haven't. You haven't. You never left me. It's I who have come back

to you."

"Nancy--" he whispered.

"It's I who need forgiveness. Forgive me. Forgive me."

"Forgive you? You?"

"Yes, me."

Her voice died and rose again, throbbing to her confession.

"I was unfaithful to you."

"You don't know what you're saying, dear. You couldn't have been

unfaithful to me."

"If I had been, would you have forgiven me?"

He looked at her a long time.

"Yes," he said simply.

"You could have forgiven me that?"

"I could have forgiven you anything."

She knew it. There was no limit to his chivalry, his charity. "Well," she

said, "you have worse things to forgive me."

"What have I to forgive?"

"Everything. If I had forgiven you in the beginning, you would not have

had to ask for forgiveness now."

"Perhaps not, Nancy. But that wasn't your fault."

"It was my fault. It was all my fault, from the beginning to the end."

"No, no."

"Yes, yes. Mr. Hannay knew that. He told me so."

"When?"

"At Scarby."

Majendie scowled as he cursed Hannay in his heart.

"He was a brute," he said, "to tell you that."

"He wasn't. He was kind. He knew."

"What did he know?"

"That I would rather think that I was bad than that you were."

"And would you?"

"Yes I would--now. Mr. Hannay spared me all he could. He didn't tell me

that if you had died at Scarby it would have been my fault. But it would

have been."

He groaned.

"Darling--you couldn't say that if you knew anything about it."

"I know all about it."

He shook his head.

"Listen, Walter. You've been unfaithful to me--once, years after I gave

you cause. I've been unfaithful to you ever since I married you. And your

unfaithfulness was nothing to mine. A woman once told me that. She said

you'd only broken one of your marriage vows, and I had broken all of

them, except one. It was true."

"Who said that to you?"

"Never mind who. It needed saying. It was true. I sinned against the

light. I knew what you were. You were good and you loved me. You were

unhappy through loving me, and I shut my eyes to it. I've done more harm

to you than that poor girl--Maggie. You would never have gone to her if I

hadn't driven you. You loved me."

"Yes, I loved you."

She turned to him again; and her eyes searched his for absolution. "I

didn't know what I was doing. I didn't understand."

"No. A woman doesn't, dear. Not when she's as good as you."

At that a sob shook her. In the passion of her abasement she had cast off

all her beautiful spiritual apparel. Now she would have laid down her

crown, her purity, at his feet.

"I thought I was so good. And I sinned against my husband more that he

ever sinned against me."

He took her hands and tried to draw her to him, but she broke away, and

slid to the floor and knelt there, bowing her head upon his knee. Her

hair fell, loosened, upon her shoulders, veiling her.

He stooped and raised her. His hand smoothed back the hair that hid her

face. Her eyes were closed.

Her drenched eyelids felt his lips upon them. They opened; and in her

eyes he saw love risen to immortality through mortal tears. She looked at

him, and she knew him as she knew her own soul.

The End

By MAY SINCLAIR

THE HELPMATE

_The Literary Digest_ says: "The novels of May Sinclair make waste paper

of most of the fiction of a season." This new story, the first written

since "The Divine Fire," will strengthen the author's reputation.

It has been serialized in _The Atlantic Monthly_, and _The New York Sun_

says of an early instalment:

"Miss Sinclair's new novel, 'The Helpmate,' is attracting much attention.

It is a miniature painting of delicacy and skill, reproducing few

characters in a small space, with fine sincerity,--the invalid sister,

the man with a past, and the wife with strict convictions. The riddle is

to find which one of the women is the helpmate. In the vital situation

thus far developed the sister is leading in the race."

As the plot develops the canvas is filled in with other characters as

finely drawn. The story grips the reader. Lovers of good literature and

of a good story will delight in its development.

THE DIVINE FIRE

The story of the regeneration of a London poet and the degeneration of a

London critic. 15th printing.

MARY MOSS in the _Atlantic Monthly_: "Certain it is that in all

our new fiction I have found nothing worthy to compare with 'The Divine

Fire,' nothing even remotely approaching the same class."

AUDREY CRAVEN

The story of a pretty little woman with the soul of a spoiled child, who

had a fatal fascination for most men.

_Literary Digest_: "Humor is of the spontaneous sort and rings true, and

the lancet of her wit and epigram, tho keen, is never cruel.... An author

whose novels may be said to make waste paper of most of the fiction of a

season."

SUPERSEDED

The story of two highly contrasted teachers in a girls' school.

_New York Sun_: "It makes one wonder if in future years the quiet little

English woman may not be recognized as a new Jane Austen."

THE TYSONS

(MR. AND MRS. NEVILL TYSON)

_Chicago Record-Herald_: "Maintains a clinging grip upon the

mind and senses, compelling one to acknowledge the author's

genius."