She cried that night in bed, squeezing her head into the pillow so that

no one should hear her. She seemed to have lost all her pluck. She must

do something, but what? She did not know how to deal with people. If

they were kind and friendly there were so many things that she could

do, but this silent creeping away from her paralysed her. She

remembered how she had said to Katherine: "No one can make me unhappy

if I do not wish it to be." Now she did not dare to think how unhappy

she was. She knew that they all thought her strange and odd, and she

felt that strangeness creeping upon her. She MUST be odd if many people

thought her so. She became terribly self-conscious, wondering whether

her words and movements were strange.

She was often so tired that she could not drag one foot after another.

A few weeks before Christmas something happened. A terrible thing,

perhaps--but she was delivered by it ...

She was sitting one afternoon a few weeks before Christmas in the

drawing-room alone with Grace. It was her "At Home" day, a Friday

afternoon. Grace was knitting a grey stocking, a long one that curled

on her lap. She knitted badly, clumsily, twisting her fingers into odd

shapes and muddling her needles. Now and then she would look up as

though she meant to talk, and then remembering that it was Maggie who

was opposite to her she would purse her lips and look down again. The

fire hummed and sputtered, the clock ticked, and Grace breathed in

heavy despairing pants over the difficulties of her work. The door

opened and the little maid, her eyes nervously wandering towards Grace,

murmured, "Mr. Cardinal, mum."

The next thing of which Maggie was conscious was Uncle Mathew standing

clumsily just inside the door shifting his bowler hat between his two

hands.

The relief of seeing him was so great that she jumped up and ran

towards him crying, "Oh, Uncle Mathew! I'm so glad! At last!"

He dropped his bowler in giving her his hand. She noticed at once that

he was looking very unhappy and had terribly run to seed.

He was badly shaved, his blue suit was shabby and soiled. He was

fatter, and his whole body was flabby and uncared for. Maggie saw at

once that he had been drinking, not very much, but enough to make him a

little uncertain on his feet and unsteady in his gaze. Maggie, when she

saw him, felt nothing but a rush of pity and desire to protect him.

Very strangely she felt the similarity between him and herself. Nobody

wanted either of them--they must just love one another because there

was no one else to love them.

She was aware then that Grace had risen and was standing looking at

them both.

She turned round to her saying, "Grace, this is my uncle. You've heard

me speak of him, haven't you? He was very kind to me when I was a

little girl ... Uncle, this is my sister-in-law, Miss Trenchard."

Uncle Mathew smiled and, rather unsteadily, came forward; he caught her

hand in both his damp, hot ones. "Very pleased to meet you, Miss

Trenchard. I know you've been very good to my little Maggie; at least

when I say 'my little Maggie' she's not mine any longer. She belongs to

your brother now, doesn't she? Of course she does. I hope you're well."

Maggie realised then the terrified distress in Grace's eyes. The grey

stocking had fallen to the ground, and Grace stared at Uncle Mathew in

a kind of fascinated horror. She realised of course at once that he was

what she would call "tipsy." He was not "tipsy," but nevertheless

"tipsy" enough for Grace. Maggie saw her take in every detail of his

appearance--his unshaven cheeks, the wisps of hair over the bald top of

his head, the spots on his waistcoat, the mud on his boots, and again

as she watched Grace make this summary, love and protection for that

unhappy man filled her heart. For unhappy he was! She saw at once that

he had had a long slide downhill since his last visit to her. He was

frightened--frightened immediately now of Grace and the room and the

physical world--but frightened also behind these things at some spectre

all his own. Grace sat down and tried to recover herself. She began to

talk in her society voice. Maggie knew that she was praying, over and

over again, with a monotony possible only to the very stupid, that

there would be no callers that afternoon.

"And so you know Glebeshire, Mr. Cardinal! Fancy! I've never been

there--never been there in my life. Fancy that! Although so many of my

relations live there. I once nearly went down, one wet Christmas, and I

was going to stay with my aunt, but something happened to prevent me. I

think I caught a cold at the time. I can't quite remember. But fancy

you knowing Glebeshire so well!"

All this came out in a voice that might have issued from a gramophone,

so little did it represent Grace's real feelings or emotions. Maggie

knew so well that inside her head these exclamations were rising and

falling: "What a horrible man! What a dreadful man! Maggie's uncle!

We're lost if any one calls! Oh! I do hope no one calls!"

It was obvious meanwhile that Mathew was urgently wishing for a moment

alone with Maggie. He looked at her with pleading eyes, and once he

winked towards Grace. He talked on, however, running some of his words

into one another and paying very little attention to anything that

Grace might say: "No, I haven't seen my little niece, Miss Trenchard,

for a long time--didn't like to interfere, in a way. Thought she'd ask

for me when she wanted me. We've always been the greatest friends. I'm

a bachelor, you see--never married. Not that I'd like you to fancy that

I've no interest in the other sex, far from it, but I'm a wanderer by

nature. A wife in every port, perhaps. Well, who knows? But one's

lonely at times, one is indeed. A pretty tidy little place you've got

here. Yes, you have--with a garden too."

Paul came in, and Maggie saw him start as Mathew's stout figure

surprised him. She felt then a rush of hostility against Paul. It was

as though, at every point, she must run in fiercely to defend her uncle.

Meanwhile Grace's worst fears were realised. The little maid announced

Miss Purves and Mrs. Maxse. A terrible half-hour followed. Miss Purves,

as soon as she understood that this strange man was Mrs. Trenchard's

uncle, was all eager excitement, and Uncle Mathew, bewildered by so

many strangers, confused by a little unsteadiness in his legs that

would have been nothing had he not been in a small room crowded with

furniture, finally clasped Mrs. Maxse by the shoulder in his endeavour

to save himself from tumbling over the little table that held the cakes

and bread-and-butter. His hot, heavy hand pressed into Mrs. Maxse's

flesh, and Mrs. Maxse, terrified indeed, screamed.

He began to apologise, and in his agitation jerked Miss Purves' cup of

tea from the table on to the floor.

After that he realised that it would be better for him to go. He began

elaborate apologies. Paul saw him to the door. He gripped Paul by the

hand. "I'm delighted to have met you," he said in full hearing of the

trembling ladies. "You've given me such a good time. Give my little

Maggie a good time too. She's not looking over well. Send her up to

London to stay with me for a bit."

Maggie saw him to the gate. In the middle of the little drive he

stopped, turning towards her, leaning his hands heavily upon her.

"Maggie dear," he said, "I'm in a bad way, a very bad way. You won't

desert me?"

"Of course I won't," she answered. "I may want your help in a week or

two."

He looked dismally about him, at the thick, dull laurel bushes and the

heavy, grey sky. "I don't like this place, Maggie," he said, "and all

those women. It's religion again, and it's worse than that Chapel. You

don't seem to be able to get away from religion. You're not happy, my

dear."

"Yes, I am," she answered firmly.

"No, you're not. And I'm not. But it will be all right in the end, I've

no doubt. You'll never desert me, Maggie."

"I'll never desert you," Maggie answered.

He bent down and kissed her, his breath whisky-laden. She kissed him

eagerly, tenderly. For a moment she felt that she would go with him,

just as she was, and leave them all.

"Uncle," she said, "you understand how it is, don't you? We'd have

asked you to stay if we'd known."

"Oh, that's all right." He looked at her mysteriously. "That new

sister-in-law of yours was shocked with me. They wouldn't have me in

the house. I saw that. And I only had one glass at the station. I'm not

much of a man in society now. That's the trouble ... But next time I'll

come down and just send you a line and you'll come to see me in my own

little place--won't you? I'm in the devil of a mess, Maggie, that's the

truth, and I don't know how to get out of it. I've been a bit of a

fool, I have."

She saw the look of terror in his eye again.

"Would some money--" she suggested.

"Oh, I'm afraid it's past five pounds now, my dear." He sighed heavily.

"Well, I must be getting along. You'll catch your death of cold

standing out here. We ought to have been together all this time, you

know. It would have been better for both of us."

He kissed her again and left her. She slowly returned into the house.

Curiously, he had made her happier by his visit. Her pluck returned.

She needed it. Grace was now stirred by the most active of all her

passions--fear.

Nevertheless Grace and Paul behaved very well. Maggie understood the

shock that visit must have given them. She watched Grace imagining the

excited stories that would flow from the lips of Miss Purves and Mrs.

Maxse. She was determined, however, that Grace and Paul should not

suffer in silence--and Uncle Mathew must be vindicated.

At supper that night she plunged:

"Uncle Mathew's been very ill," she began, "for a long time now. He

wasn't himself this afternoon, I'm afraid. He was very upset at some

news that he'd just had. And then meeting so many strangers at once--"

Maggie saw that Grace avoided her eyes.

"I don't think we'll discuss it, Maggie, if you don't mind. Mr.

Cardinal was strange in his behaviour, certainly. It was a pity that

Miss Purves came. But it's better not to discuss it."

"I don't agree," said Maggie. "If you think that I'm ashamed of Uncle

Mathew you're quite wrong. He's very unhappy and lonely--" She felt her

voice tremble. "He hasn't got any one to look after him--"

Grace's hand was trembling as she nervously crumbled her bread. Still

without looking at Maggie she said:

"By the way, you did the church flowers this morning didn't you, eh?"

Maggie turned white and, as always on these occasions, her heart

thumped, leaping, as it seemed, into the very palms of her hands.

"But it was to-morrow--" she began.

"You remember that I told you three days ago that it was to be this

morning instead of the usual Thursday because of the Morgans' wedding."

"Oh, Grace, I'm so sorry! I had remembered, I had indeed, and then Lucy

suddenly having that chill--."

Paul struck in. "Really, Maggie, that's too bad. No flowers to-morrow?

Those others were quite dead yesterday. I noticed at evensong ...

Really, really. And the Morgans' wedding!"

Maggie sat there, trembling.

"I'm very sorry," she said, almost whispering. Why did fate play

against her? Why, when she might have fought the Uncle Mathew battle

victoriously, had Grace suddenly been given this weapon with which to

strike?

"I'll go and do them now," she said. "I can take those flowers out of

the drawing-room."

"It's done," Grace slowly savouring her triumph. "I did them myself

this afternoon."

"Then you should have told me that!" Maggie burst out. "It's not fair

making me miserable just for your own fun. You don't know how you hurt,

Grace. You're cruel, you're cruel!"

She had a horrible fear lest she should burst into tears. To save that

terrible disaster she jumped up and ran out of the room, hearing behind

her Paul's admonitory "Maggie, Maggie!"

It is to be expected that Mrs. Maxse and Miss Purves made the most of

their story. The Rector's wife and a drunken uncle! No, it was too good

to be true ... but it was true, nevertheless. Christmas passed and the

horrible damp January days arrived. Skeaton was a dripping covering of

emptiness--hollow, shallow, deserted. Every tree, Maggie thought,

dripped twice as much as any other tree in Europe. It remained for

Caroline Purdie to complete the situation. One morning at breakfast the

story burst upon Maggie's ears. Grace was too deeply moved and excited

to remember her hostility. She poured out the tale.

It appeared that for many many months Caroline had not been the wife

she should have been. No; there had been a young man, a Mr. Bennett

from London. The whole town had had its suspicions, had raised its

pointing finger, had peeped and peered and whimpered. The only person

who had noticed nothing was Mr. Purdie himself. He must, of course,

have seen that his house was filled with noisy young men and noisier

young women; he must have realised that his bills were high, that

champagne was drunk and cards were played, and that his wife's attire

was fantastically gorgeous. At any rate, if he noticed these things he

said nothing. He was a dull, silent, slow-thinking man, people said.

Then one day he went up to London or rather, in the manner of the best

modern problem play, he pretended to go, returned abruptly, and

discovered Caroline in the arms of Mr. Bennett.

He flung Mr. Bennett out of the bedroom window, breaking his leg and

his nose, and that was why every one knew the story. What he said to

Caroline was uncertain. He did not, however, pack her off, as Miss

Purves said he should have done, but rather kept her in the big ugly

house, just as he had done before, only now without the young men, the

young women, the champagne and the flowers.

"I must go and see her," said Maggie when she heard this story.

Grace turned the strange pale yellow that was her colour when she was

disturbed.

"Maggie," she said, "I warn you that if you go to see this abandoned

woman you will be insulting Paul and myself before the whole town."

"She is my friend," said Maggie.

"She is a wicked woman," said Grace, breathing very heavily, "and

you're a wicked woman if you go to see her. You have already made Paul

miserable."

"That is untrue," Maggie said fiercely. "It is I that have been

miserable. Not that it hasn't been my own fault. I should never have

married Paul."

"No, you should not," said Grace, breathing as though she had been

running very hard. "And for that I was partly to blame. But fancy what

you've done since you've been with us! Just fancy! It's terrible ...

never a greater mistake ... never, never."

Maggie tossed her head. "Well, if it was a mistake," she said, "the end

of pretending has come at last. I've been trying for nearly two years

now to go your way and Paul's. I can't do it. I can't alter myself.

I've tried, and I can't. It's no use. Grace, we'd never get on. I see

it's been hopeless from the first. But you shan't make Paul hate me.

You've been trying your hardest, but you shan't succeed. I know that

I'm stupid and careless, but it's no use my pretending to be good and

quiet and obedient. I'm not good. I'm not quiet. I'm not obedient. I'm

going to be myself now. I'm going to have the friends I want and do the

things I want."

Grace moved back as though she thought that Maggie were going to strike

her.

"You're wicked," she said. "What about those letters in your drawer?

You've never loved Paul."

"So you've been opening my drawers?" said Maggie. "You're worse than I,

Grace. I never opened any one's drawers nor read letters I shouldn't.

But it doesn't matter. There's nothing I want to hide. Paul knows all

about it. I'm not ashamed."

"No, you're not," Grace's eyes were large with terror. "You're ashamed

at nothing. You've made every one in the place laugh at us. You've

ruined Paul's life here--yes, you have. But you don't care. Do you

think I mind for myself? But I love Paul, and I've looked after him all

his life, and he was happy until you came--yes, he was. You've made us

all laughed at. You're bad all through, Maggie, and the laws of the

Church aren't anything to you at all."

There was a pause. Maggie, a little calmer, realised Grace, who had

sunk into a chair. She saw that stout middle-aged woman with the flat

expressionless face and the dull eyes. She saw the flabby hands

nervously trembling, and she longed suddenly to be kind and

affectionate.

"Oh, Grace," she cried. "I know I've been everything I shouldn't, only

don't you see I can't give up my friends? And I told Paul before we

married that I'd loved some one else and wasn't religious. But perhaps

it isn't too late. Let's be friends. I'll try harder than ever before--"

Then she saw, in the way that Grace shrank back, her eyes staring with

the glazed fascination that a bird has for a snake, that there was more

than dislike and jealousy here, there was the wild unreasoning fear

that a child has for the dark.

"Am I like that?" was her own instinctive shuddering thought. Then,

almost running, she rushed up to her bedroom.

CHAPTER VII

DEATH OF AUNT ANNE

Maggie, after that flight, faced her empty room with a sense of horror.

Was there, truly, then, something awful about her? The child (for she

was indeed nothing more) looked into her glass, standing on tip-toe

that she might peer sufficiently and saw her face, pale, with its large

dark eyes rimmed by the close-clipped hair. Was she then awful? First

her father, then her aunts, then the Warlocks, now Grace and Paul--not

only dislike but fright, terror, alarm!

Her loneliness crushed her in that half-hour as it had never crushed

her since that day at Borhedden. She broke down altogether, kneeling by

the bed and her head in her pillow sobbing: "Oh, Martin, I want you!

Martin, I want you so!"

When she was calmer she thought of going down to Paul and making

another appeal to him, but she knew that such an appeal could only end

in his asking her to change herself, begging her to be more polite to

Grace, more careful and less forgetful, and of course to give up such

people as the Toms and Caroline, and then there would come, after it

all, the question as to whether she intended to behave better to

himself, whether she would be more loving, more ... Oh no! she could

not, she could not, she could not!

She saw the impossibility of it so plainly that it was a relief to her

and she washed her face and brushed her hair and plucked up courage to

regard herself normally once more. "I'm not different," she said to the

looking-glass. "There's no reason for Grace to make faces." She saw

that the breach between herself and Grace had become irreparable, and

that whatever else happened in the future at least it was certain that

they would never be friends again.

She went downstairs prepared to do battle ...

Next morning she paid her visit to Caroline. It was a strange affair.

The girl was sitting alone in her over-gorgeous house, her hands on her

lap, looking out of the window, an unusual position for her to be in.

Caroline was at first very stiff and haughty, expecting that Maggie had

come to scold her. "I just looked in to sec how you were," said Maggie.

"You might have come before," answered Caroline. "It's years since

you've been near me."

"I didn't like all those people you had in your house," said Maggie. "I

like it better now there's no one in it."

That was not, perhaps, very tactful of her. Caroline flushed.

"I could have them all here now if I wanted to ask them," she answered

angrily.

"Well, I'm very glad you'd rather be without them," said Maggie. "They

weren't worthy of you, Caroline."

"Oh! What's the use going on talking like this!" Caroline broke out.

"Of course you've heard all about everything. Every one has. I can't

put my nose outside the door without them all peering at me. I hate

them all--all of them--and the place too, and every one in it."

"I expect you do--" said Maggie sympathetically.

"Nasty cats! As though they'd never done anything wrong all their days.

It was mostly Alfred's fault too. What does he expect when he leaves me

all alone here week after week eating one's heart out. One must do

something with one's time. Just like all men! At first there's nothing

too good for you, then when they get used to it they can't be bothered

about anything. I wonder what a man thinks married life is? Then to

listen to Alfred, you'd think we were still living in the days of the

Good Queen Victoria--you would indeed. Wouldn't let me go up to London

alone! There's a nice thing for you. And all because he did let me go

once and I meant to stay with mother and mother was away. So I had to

sleep at a hotel. Why shouldn't I sleep at a hotel! I'm not a baby. And

now he keeps me here like a prisoner. Just as though I were in jail."

"Is he unkind to you?" asked Maggie.

"No, he isn't. It's his horrible kindness I can't stand. He won't

divorce me, he won't let me go away, he just keeps me here and is so

kind and patient that I could kill him. I shall one day. I know I

shall." She stood for a moment, pouting and looking out of the window.

Then suddenly she turned and, flinging her arms around Maggie, burst

into tears.

"Oh, Maggie! I'm so miserable ... I'm so miserable, Maggie! Why did I

ever come here? Why did I ever marry? I was so happy at home with

mother."

Maggie comforted her, persuading her that all would soon be well, that

people very quickly forgot their little pieces of scandal, and that so

long as she did not run away or do anything really desperate all would

come right. Maggie discovered that Caroline had escaped from her crisis

with an increased respect and even affection for her husband. She was

afraid of him, and was the sort of woman who must be afraid of her

husband before her married life can settle into any kind of security.

"And I thought you'd altogether abandoned me!" she ended.

"I wasn't coming while all those people were about," said Maggie.

"You darling!" cried Caroline, kissing her. "Just the same as you used

to be. I was angry I can tell you when month after month went by and

you never came near me. I used to tell people when they asked me that

you were odd. 'She's not a bit like other people,' I would say; 'not a

bit and it's no use expecting her to be. She's always been queer. I

used to know her in London.' They do think you odd here, darling. They

do indeed. No one understands you. So odd for a clergyman's wife. Well,

so you are, aren't you? I always tell them you had no bringing up."

Caroline in fact very quickly recovered her flow. As soon as she found

that Maggie was not shocked she reasserted her old superiority. Before

the visit was over she had rather despised Maggie for not being

shocked. At Maggie's departure, however, she was very loving.

"You will come soon again, darling, won't you? It's no use asking you

to dinner because, of course, your husband won't come. But look in any

afternoon--or we might go for a drive in the motor. Good-bye--good-bye."

Maggie, on her return, found Grace looking at the mid-day post in the

hall. She always did this in a very short-sighted way, taking up the

letters one by one, holding each very close to her eyes, and sniffing

at it as though she were trying to read through the envelope. This

always irritated Maggie, although her own letters were not very many.

To-night, when she heard the hall door open, she turned and dropped the

letters, giving that especial creaking little gasp that she always did

when she was startled.

"Oh, it's you, Maggie, is it? Where've you been?"

"I've been to see Mrs. Purdie," Maggie said defiantly.

Grace paused as though she were going to speak, then turned on her

heel. But just as she reached the sitting-room door she said, breathing

heavily:

"There's a telegram for you there."

Maggie saw it lying on the table. She picked it up and hesitated. A

wild beating of the heart told her that it must be from Martin. She

didn't know what told her this except that now for so long she had been

expecting to see a telegram lying in just this way on the table,

waiting for her. She took it up with a hand that trembled. She tore it

open and read:

"Come at once. Your aunt dying. Wishes to see you. Magnus."

No need to ask which aunt. When one aunt was mentioned it was Aunt

Anne--of course. Oh, poor Aunt Anne! Maggie longed for her, longed to

be with her, longed to be kind to her, longed to comfort her. And Mr.

Magnus and Martha and Aunt Elizabeth and the cat--she must go at once,

she must catch a train after luncheon.

She went impetuously into her husband's study.

"Oh, Paul!" she cried. "Aunt Anne's dying, and I must go to her at

once."

Paul was sitting in his old armchair before the fire; he was wearing

faded brown slippers that flapped at his heels; his white hair was

tangled; his legs were crossed, the fat broad thighs pressing out

against the shiny black cloth of his trousers. He was chuckling over an

instalment of Anthony Trollope's "Brown Jones and Robinson" in a very

ancient Cornhill.

He looked up, "Maggie, you know it's my

sermon-morning--interruptions--" He had dropped the Cornhill, but not

fast enough to hide it from her.

She looked around at the dirty untidiness of the study. "It's all my

fault, this," she thought. "I should have kept him clean and neat and

keen on his work. I haven't. I've failed."

Then her next thought was: "Grace wouldn't let me--"

The study, in fact, was more untidy than ever, the pictures were back

in their places whence Maggie had once removed them.

Husband and wife looked at one another. If she felt: "I've not managed

my duty," he felt perhaps: "What a child she is after all!" But between

them there was the gulf of their past experience.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said, yawning. "Is she an old lady?"

"No, she's not," said Maggie, breathing very quickly. "I love her very

much. I've been thinking, Paul, I've not been good about my relations

all this time. I ought to have seen them more. I must go up to London

at once."

"If your aunt's bad and wants you, I suppose you must," he answered. He

got up and came over to her. He kissed her suddenly.

"You'll be wanting some money," he said. "Don't be long away. I'll miss

you."

She caught the 2.30 train. It seemed very strange to her to be sitting

in it alone after the many months when she had been always either with

Grace or Paul. An odd sense of adventure surrounded her, and she felt

as though she were now at last approaching the climax to which the slow

events of the last two years had been leading. When she had been a

little girl one of the few interesting books in the house had been The

Mysteries of Udulpho. She could see the romance now, with its four

dumpy volumes, the F's so confusingly like S's, the faded print, and

the yellowing page.

She could remember little enough of it, but there had been one scene

near the beginning of the story when the heroine, Emily, looking for

something in the dusk, had noticed some lines pencilled on the

wainscot; these mysterious pencilled lines had been the beginning of

all her troubles, and Maggie, as a small girl, had approached sometimes

in the evening dusk the walls of her attic to see whether there too

verses had been scribbled. Now, obscure in the corner of her carriage,

she felt as though the telegram had been a pencilled message presaging

some great event that would shortly change her life.

It was a dark and gloomy day, misty with a gale of wind that blew the

smoke into curls and eddies against the sky. There seemed to be a roar

about the vast London station that threatened her personally, but she

beat down her fears, found a taxi, and gave the driver the

well-remembered address.

As they drove along she felt how much older, how much older she was

then than when she was last in London. Then she had been ignorant of

all life and the world, now she felt that she was an old, old woman

with an infinite knowledge of marriage and men and women and the way

they lived. She looked upon her aunts and indeed all that world that

had surrounded the Chapel as something infinitely childish, and for

that reason rather sweet and touching. She could be kind and friendly

even to Amy Warlock she thought. She wished that she had some excuse so

that she might stay in London a week or two. She felt that she could

stretch her limbs and breathe again now that she was out of Grace's

sight.

And she would find out Uncle Mathew's address and pay him a surprise

visit ... She laughed in the cab and felt gay and light-hearted until

she remembered the cause of her visit. Poor, poor Aunt Anne! Oh, she

did hope that she would be well enough to recognise her and to show

pleasure at seeing her. The cab had stopped in the well-remembered

street before the same old secret-looking house. Nothing seemed to have

changed, and the sight of it all brought Martin back to her with so

fierce a pang that for a moment breath seemed to leave her body. It was

just near here, only a few steps away, that he had suddenly appeared,

as though from the very paving-stones, when she had been with Uncle

Mathew, and then had gone to supper with him. It was from this door

that he had run on that last desperate day. She looked up at the

windows; the blinds were not down; her aunt was yet alive; she paid the

taxi and rang the bell.

The door was opened by Martha, who seemed infinitely older and more

wrinkled than on the last occasion, her old face was yellow like drawn

parchment and her thin grey hairs were pasted back over her old skull;

she was wearing black mittens.

"Miss Maggie!" and there was a real welcome in her voice. Maggie was

drawn into the dark little hall that smelt of cracknel biscuits and

lamp oil, there was the green baize door, and then suddenly the shrill

cry of the parrot, and then, out of the dark, the fiery eyes of Thomas

the cat.

"Oh, Miss Maggie!" said Martha. "Or I suppose I should say 'Mrs.' now.

It's a long, long time ..."

"Yes, it is," said Maggie. "How is my aunt?"

"If she lives through the night they'll be surprised," Martha answered,

wheezing and sighing. "Yes, the doctor says--' If Miss Cardinal sees

morning,' he says--" Then as Maggie hesitated at the bottom of the

staircase. "If you'd go straight to the drawing-room, Miss, Mum, Mr.

Magnus is waiting tea for you there."

Maggie went up, past the Armed Men into the old room. She could have

kissed all the things for their old remembered intimacy and

friendliness, the pictures, the books, the old faded carpet, the

fire-screen, the chairs and wall-papers. There, too, was Mr. Magnus,

looking just as he used to look, with his spectacles and his projecting

ears, his timid smile and apologetic voice. He did seem for a moment

afraid of her, then her boyish air, her unfeigned pleasure and

happiness at being back there again, and a certain childish awkwardness

with which she shook hands and sat herself behind the little tea-table

reassured him:

"You're not changed at all," he told her. "Isn't that dreadful?" she

said; "when all the way in the cab I've been telling myself how utterly

different I am."

"I suppose you feel older?" he asked her.

"Older! Why, centuries!"

"You don't look a day," he said, smiling at her.

"That's my short hair," she answered, smiling back at him, "and not

being able to wear my clothes like a grown woman. It's a fact that I

can't get used to long skirts, and in Skeaton it's bad form to cross

your knees. I try and remember--" she sighed. "The truth is I forget

everything just as I used to."

"How is Aunt?" she asked him. He looked very grave, and behind his

smiles and welcome to her she saw that he was a tired and even

exhausted man.

"They don't think she can live through the night," he answered her,

"but, thank God, she's out of all pain and will never suffer any more.

She's tranquil in her mind too, and the one thing she wanted to put her

quiet was to see you. She's been worrying about you for months. Why

didn't you come up to see us all this time, Maggie? That wasn't kind of

you."

"No, it wasn't," said Maggie. "But I didn't dare."

"Didn't dare?" he asked, astonished.

"No, there were things all this would have reminded me of too badly. It

wasn't safe to be reminded of them."

"Haven't you been happy, then, there?" he asked her almost in a whisper.

"Oh, I don't know," she didn't look up at him. "I made a mistake in

doing it. It was my fault, not theirs. No, I haven't been happy if you

want to know. And I shan't be. There's no chance. It's all wrong; they

all hate me. I seem to them odd, mad, like a witch they used to burn in

the old days. And I can't alter myself. And I don't want to."

It was amazing what good it did her to bring all this out. She had said

none of it to any one before.

"Oh dear, oh dear," sighed Mr. Magnus. "I hadn't known. I thought it

was all going so well. But don't tell your aunt this. When she asks

you, say you're very, very happy and it's all going perfectly. She must

die at peace. Will you, my dear, will you?"

His almost trembling anxiety touched her.

"Why, dear Mr. Magnus, of course I will. And I am happy now that I'm

back with all of you. All I want is for people to be fond of me, you

know, but there's something in me--" She jumped up and stood in front

of him. "Mr. Magnus! You're wise, you write books, you know all about

things, tell me--tell me the absolute truth. Am I odd, am I queer, am I

like a witch that ought to be burnt at the stake?"

He was deeply touched. He put his hands on her shoulders, then suddenly

drew her to him and kissed her.

"I don't find you odd, my dear, but then, God forgive me, I'm odd

myself. We're all rather odd in this house, I'm afraid. But don't you

worry, Maggie. You're worth a wagon-load of ordinary people."

She drew slowly away. She sighed.

"I wish Paul and Grace only thought so," she said.

They had a quiet little tea together; Maggie was longing to ask Mr.

Magnus questions about himself, but she didn't dare to do so. He

wrapped himself in a reserved friendly melancholy which she could not

penetrate. He looked so much older, so much more faded, as though the

heat and fire had gradually stolen away from him and left him only the

grey ghost of what he had been.

"Are you writing any books, Mr. Magnus?" she asked him.

"Any books?" he answered smiling. "Surely one would be enough, my dear.

I have one half-finished as a matter of fact, but it's not

satisfactory. If it weren't for the bread and butter I don't think I'd

ever tackle it again. Or rather the bread, I should say. It's precious

little butter it brings in."

"What's it called?" she asked.

"'The Toad in the Hole,'" he said.

"What a funny name! What does it mean?"

"I don't know." He shook his head. "It meant something when I began it,

but the meaning doesn't seem important now."

In a little while he left her, saying: "Now if I were you I'd take a

little nap, and later on I'll wake you and we'll go and see your aunt."

She slept, lying back in the blue armchair in front of the fire, with

only the leaping flames as light to the room. Strange and dim but

unspeakably sweet were her dreams. It seemed that she had escaped for

ever from Paul and Grace and Skeaton, and that in some strange way

Martin was back with her again, the same old Martin, with his laugh and

the light in his eyes and his rough red face. He had come into the

room--he was standing by the door looking at her; she ran to him, her

hands stretched out, cries of joy on her lips, but oven as she reached

him there was a cry through the house: "Your Aunt Anne is dead! Your

Aunt Anne is dead!" and all the bells began to toll, and she was in the

Chapel again and great crowds surged past her. Aunt Anne's bier borne

on high above them all. She cried aloud, and woke to find Mr. Magnus

standing at her side; one glance at him told her that he was in

terrible distress.

"You must come at once," he said. "Your aunt may have only a few

minutes to live."

She followed him, still only half-awake, rubbing her eyes with her

knuckles, and feeling as though she were continuing that episode when

Martha had led her at the dead of night into her aunt's bedroom.

The chill of the passages however woke her fully, and then her one

longing and desire was that Aunt Anne should be conscious enough to

recognise her and be aware of her love for her.

The close room, with its smell of medicines and eau-de-Cologne and its

strange breathless hush, frightened her just as it had done once

before. She saw again the religious picture, the bleeding Christ and

the crucifix, the high white bed, the dim windows and the little table

with the bottles and the glasses. It was all as it had been before. Her

terror grew. She felt as though no power could drag her to that bed.

Something lurked there, something horrible and unclean, that would

spring upon her and hold her down with its claws ...

"Maggie!" said the clear faint voice that she knew so well. Her terror

left her. She did not notice Aunt Elizabeth, who was seated close to

the bed, nor Mr. Magnus, nor the nurse, nor the doctor. She went

forward unafraid.

"Doctor, would you mind ..." the voice went on. "Three minutes alone

with my niece ..." The doctor, a stout red-faced man, said something,

the figures, all shadowy in the dim light, withdrew.

Maggie was aware of nothing except that there was something of the

utmost urgency that she must say. She came close to the bed, found a

chair there, sat down and bent forward. There her aunt was lying, the

black hair in a dark shadow across the pillow, the face white and

sharp, and the eyes burning with a fierce far-seeing light.

They had the intense gaze of a blind man to whom sight has suddenly

been given: he cries "I see! I see!" stretching out his arms towards

the sun, the trees, the rich green fields. She turned her head and put

both her hands about Maggie's; she smiled.

Maggie said, "Oh, Aunt Anne, do you feel bad?"

"No dear. I'm in no pain at all. Now that you've come I'm quite happy.

It was my one anxiety." Her voice was very faint, so that Maggie had to

lean forward to catch the words.

"You'll have thought me unkind all this time," said Maggie, "not to

have come, but it hasn't been unkindness. Many times I've wanted, but

there seemed to be so much to do that it wasn't RIGHT to come away."

"Are you happy, dear?" Aunt Anne said in her ghostly whisper.

"Very, very happy," said Maggie, remembering what Mr. Magnus had said

to her.

Aunt Anne sighed. "Ah, that's good. It was my one worry that you

mightn't be happy. I was all wrong about you, Maggie, trying to push

you my way instead of letting you go your own. I should have waited for

God to show His direction. But I was impatient--and if you were

unhappy--" She broke off and for a moment Maggie thought that she would

speak no more. She lay there, with her eyes closed, like a waxen image.

She went on again: "I've always loved you, Maggie, from the very first,

but I was so impatient for you to come to God. I thought He would

reveal Himself and you not be ready. He did reveal Himself, but not as

I had thought. He came that night and took Mr. Warlock with Him--that

was true, Maggie, that night. All true--All true. God will show you His

way. It will be revealed to you. Heaven and its glories. God and His

dear Son ..."

She stopped again and lay with her eyes closed.

Maggie timidly, at last, said:

"Aunt Anne, I want you to forgive me for all my wickedness. I didn't

mean to be wicked, but I just couldn't say my feelings out loud. I was

shy of them somehow. I still am, perhaps. Maybe I always will be. But I

just want to say that I know now how good you were to me all that time

and I'm grateful from my heart."

"You'll get better won't you, Aunt Anne, and then I'll come often? I'm

shy to say my feelings, but I love you. Aunt Anne, for what you've been

to me."

She stopped. There was a deathly stillness in the chamber. The lamp had

sunk low and the fire was a gold cavern. Dusk stole on stealthy feet

from wall to wall. Aunt Anne did not, it seemed, breathe. Her hands had

dropped from Maggie's and her arms lay straight upon the sheet. Her

eyes were closed.

Suddenly she whispered:

"Dear Maggie ... Maggie ... My Lord and my God ... My Master ..."

Then very faintly: "The Lord is my Shepherd ... My Shepherd ... He

shall lead me forth ... beside the pastures ... my rod and my staff ...

The Lord ..."

She gave a little sigh and her head rolled to one side.

Maggie, with a startled fear, was suddenly conscious that she was alone

in the room. She went to the door and called for the doctor. As they

gathered about the bed the caverns of the fire fell with the sharp

sound of a closing door.

Next morning Maggie wrote to Paul telling him that her aunt was dead,

that the funeral would be in two days' time, and that she would stay in

London until that was over. She had not very much time just then to

think of the house and the dead woman in it, because on the

breakfast-table there was this letter for her.

23 CROMWELL RD., KENSINGTON, March 12, 1912.

DEAR MRS. TRENCHARD,

I hear that you have come to London to visit your aunt. I have been

hoping for some time past to have an opportunity of seeing you. I am

sure that you will have no wish at all to see me; at the same time I do

beg you to give me half an hour at the above address. Five o'clock

to-morrow would be a good time. Please ask for Miss Warlock.

Believe me, Yours faithfully, AMY WARLOCK.

Maggie stared at the signature, then, with a thickly beating heart,

decided that of course she would go. She was not afraid but--Martin's

sister! What would come of it? The house was strangely silent; Aunt

Elizabeth sniffed into her handkerchief a good deal; Mr. Magnus, his

face strained with a look of intense fatigue, went out about some

business. The blinds of the house wore down and all the rooms were

bathed in a green twilight.

About quarter past four Maggie went down into the Strand and found a

cab. She gave the address and off they went. Sitting in the corner of

the cab she seemed to be an entirely passive spectator of events that

were being played before her. She knew, remotely, that Aunt Anne's

death had deeply affected her, that coming back to the old house had

deeply affected her, and that this interview with Amy Warlock might

simply fasten on her the fate that she had for many months now seen in

front of her. She could not escape; and she did not want to escape.

They found the house, a very grimy looking one, in the interminable

Cromwell Road. Maggie rang a jangling bell, and the door was ultimately

opened by a woman with sleeves turned up at the elbows and a dirty

apron.

"Is Miss Warlock at home?" The woman sniffed.

"I expect so," she said. "Most times she is. What name?"

"Mrs. Trenchard," Maggie said.

She was admitted into a hall that smelt of food and seemed in the

half-light to be full of umbrellas. The woman went upstairs, but soon

returned to say that Miss Warlock would see the lady. Maggie found that

in the sitting-room the gas was dimly burning. There was the usual

lodging-house furniture, and on a faded red sofa near the fire old Mrs.

Warlock was lying. Maggie could not see her very clearly in the

half-light, but there was something about her immobility and the

stiffness of her head (decorated as of old with its frilly white cap)

that reminded one of a figure made out of wax. Maggie turned to find

Amy Warlock standing close to her.

"Mrs. Thurston--" Maggie began, hesitating.

"You may not know," said Amy Warlock, "that I have retained my maiden

name. Sit down, won't you? It is good of you to have come."

The voice was a little more genial than it had been in the old days.

Nevertheless this was still the old Amy Warlock, stiff, masculine,

impenetrable.

"I hope your aunt is better," she said.

"My aunt is dead," answered Maggie.

"Dear me, I'm sorry to hear that. She was a good woman and did many

kind actions in her time."

There was something very unpleasant about that room, with the yellow

light, the hissing gas, and the immobile figure on the sofa. Maggie

looked in the direction of old Mrs. Warlock.

"You needn't mind mother," said Amy Warlock. "For some time now she's

been completely paralysed. She can't speak or move. But she likes to be

downstairs, to see the world a bit. It's sad after the way that she

used to enjoy life. Father's death was a great shock to her."

It was sad. Maggie remembered how fond she had been of her food. Like a

waxen image! Like a waxen image! The whole room was ghoulish and

unnatural.

"I've asked you to come and see me, Mrs. Trenchard," continued Miss

Warlock, "not because we can have any wish to meet, I am sure. We have

never liked one another. But I have something on my conscience, and I

may not have another opportunity of speaking to you. I don't suppose

you have heard that very shortly I intend to enter a nunnery at

Roehampton."

"And your mother?" asked Maggie.

"Mother will go into a Home," answered Miss Warlock.

There was a strange little sound from the sofa like a rat nibbling

behind the wainscot.

"I must tell you," said Miss Warlock, speaking apparently with some

difficulty, "that I have done you a wrong. Shortly after my father's

death my brother wrote to you from Paris."

"Wrote to me?" repeated Maggie.

"Yes--wrote to you through me. I destroyed the letters. He wrote then

five times in rather swift succession. I destroyed all the letters."

Maggie said nothing.

"I destroyed the letters," continued Amy Warlock, "because I did not

wish you and my brother to come together. I did not wish you to, simply

out of hatred for you both. I thought that my brother killed my

father--whom--whom--I loved. I knew that the one human being whom

Martin had ever loved beside his father was yourself. He did love you,

Mrs. Trenchard, more truly than I had believed it in his power to love

any one. I think you could have made him happy--therefore I did not

wish you to meet again."

There was a pause. Maggie said at last:

"Were there no other letters?"

"Yes," said Miss Warlock. "One this summer. For more than a year there

was nothing; then this summer, a little one. I destroyed that too."

"What did it say?" asked Maggie.

"It said that the woman to whom he had been married was dead. He said

that if you didn't answer this letter he would understand that you

would not want to hear from him any more. He had been very ill."

"Where did he write that?"

"In Paris."

"And where is he now?"

"I don't know. I have heard from him no more."

Maggie got up and stood, her head raised as though listening for

something.

"You've been very cruel, Miss Warlock," she said.

"Perhaps I have," said Miss Warlock. "But you cannot judge until you

know with what reason I hated my brother. It is a very old story.

However, now I hate no one. I will not apologise for what I have done.

I do not want your forgiveness. I had to absolve my conscience."

"And you have no idea where he is now?"

"I have no idea. He may be dead for all I know."

Maggie shivered. "If you have any more information you will give it me?"

"I will give it you."

"This is my address." Maggie gave her a card.

They said good-day, looking for one moment, face to face, eye to eye.

Then Maggie turned and went. Her eyes were dim so that she stumbled on

the stairs. In the street she walked, caring nothing of her direction,

seeing only Martin.

CHAPTER VIII

DEATH OF UNCLE MATHEW

Grace, during the days that Maggie was in London, regained something of

her old tranquillity. It was wonderful to her to be able to potter

about the house once more mistress of all that she surveyed and

protected from every watching eye. She had had, from her very earliest

years, a horror of being what she called "overlooked."

She had a habit of stopping, when she had climbed halfway upstairs, of

suddenly jerking her head round to see whether any one were looking at

her. You would have sworn, had you seen her, that she was deeply

engaged upon some nefarious and underhand plot; yet it was not so-she

was simply going to dust some of her hideous china treasures in her

bedroom.

Always after breakfast there was this pleasant ritual. She would plod

all round the house, duster in hand, picking things up, giving them a

little flick and putting them back again, patting treasures that she

especially loved, sighing heavily with satisfaction at the pleasant

sight of all her possessions tranquilly in their right places. As she

looked around the ugly sitting-room and saw the red glazed pots with

the ferns, the faded football-groups, the worsted mats and the china

shepherdesses, a rich warm feeling rose in her heart and filled her

whole body. It was like a fine meal to a hungry man: every morning at

half-past nine she was hungry in this fashion, and every morning by

eleven o'clock she was satisfied. Her thick body thus promenaded the

house; she was like a stolid policeman in female attire, going his

rounds to see that all was well. From room to room she went, pausing to

pant for breath on the stairs, stumbling always because of her short

sight at the three dark little steps just outside Paul's bedroom,

always sitting down on her bed "to take a breath" and to get a full

gaze at the crucifix of bright yellow wood, that hung just under her

mother's picture. Tramp, tramp, tramp round the house she went.

It was incredible how deeply Maggie had interfered with this ritual.

She had certainly not intended to do so. After that first effort to

change certain things in the house she had retired from the battle, had

completely capitulated. Nevertheless she had interfered with all

Grace's movements and, as the terror of her grew, it seemed to pervade

every nook and corner of the house, so that Grace felt that she could

go nowhere without that invasion. Oh, how she resented it, and how

afraid she was! After Paul and Maggie returned from that summer holiday

she saw that Paul too felt Maggie's strangeness. To Grace, from the

beginning of that autumn, every movement and gesture of Maggie's was

strange. The oddity of her appearance, her ignorance of everything that

seemed to Grace to be life, her strange, half-mocking, half-wondering

attitude to the Church and its affairs ("like a heathen in Central

Africa"), her dislike of the Maxses and the Pynsents and her liking for

the Toms and Caroline Purdie, her odd silences and still odder

speeches, all these things increased the atmosphere that separated her

from the rest of the world.

Then came the day when Grace, dusting in Maggie's bedroom, discovered

the bundle of letters. She read them, read them with shame at her own

dishonesty and anger at Maggie for making her dishonest. To her virgin

ignorance the passion in them spoke of illicit love and the grossest

immorality. Her heart burnt with a strange mingling of envy, jealousy,

loneliness, shame, and eagerness to know more ...

Then came Uncle Mathew's visit; then Caroline Purdie's disgrace. The

count was fully charged. Maggie, that strange girl found in the heart

of London's darkness, alone, without friends or parents, was a witch, a

devilish, potion-dealing witch, who might, at any time, fly through the

night-sky on a broom-stick as surely as any mediaeval old hag. These

visions might be exaggerated for many human beings, not so for Grace.

Having no imagination she was soaked in superstition. She clung to a

few simple pictures, and was exposed to every terror that those

pictures could supply.

Maggie now haunted her day and night. Everywhere she could feel

Maggie's eyes piercing her. A thousand times an hour she looked up to

see whether Maggie were not there in the room watching her. She hated

her now with terror that was partly fear for her own safety, partly

love and jealousy for Paul, partly outraged modesty and tradition,

partly sheer panic.

She had, as yet, said very little to Paul. She waited the right moment.

Maggie's absence showed her how deep and devastating this fear had

been. She saw that it embraced the whole life of Paul and herself in

Skeaton. She had grown fond of Skeaton; she was a woman who would

inevitably care for anything when she had become thoroughly accustomed

to its ways and was assured that it would do her no harm.

She liked the shops and the woods, the sand and the sea. Above all, she

adored the Church. During a large part of every day she was there,

pottering about, talking to the caretaker, poking her nose into the

hymn-books to see whether the choir-boys had drawn pictures in them,

rubbing the brasses, making tidy the vestry. The house too she loved,

and the garden and the bottles on the wall. She might have known that

she was not popular in the place, she cannot have failed to realise

that she had no woman friend and that she was seldom invited to dinner.

This did not matter to her. Her affections--and they were very real and

genuine--were all for her brother. Had she Paul she wanted no one else.

That was enough.

And now it might be that they would have to leave the place. Already

the talk about Maggie was intolerable. Grace heard it on every side.

After Mathew Cardinal's visit the talk rose to a shriek. Grace knew

that those sudden silences on her entrance into the room meant lively

and excited discussion. "How terrible for the poor rector!" "Such an

odd girl--taken out of the slums." "Yes, quite drunk. He knocked Mrs.

Maxse down." "Oh I assure you that she went to see Caroline Purdie the

very day after. She did indeed ..."

Yes. Grace knew all about it. Unless things changed Paul would have to

go. His life was ruined by this girl.

Nevertheless for a whole happy week the world seemed to sink back into

its old accustomed apathy. The very house seemed to take on its old

atmosphere. Paul came out of his study and went about paying calls.

That hour, from six to seven, when he was at home to his parishioners

seemed once again to be crowded with anxious old women and men out of

work and girls in trouble. He took Grace with him on his rounds. Every

one was very friendly. Grace was able to reassume some of her old

importance.

Her old flow of conversation--checked recently by the sense of Maggie's

strangeness--returned to her. In the morning she would stand by her

brother's study-table, duster in hand, and pour out her heart.

"You know, Paul, it's all very well, you may say what you like, but if

Mrs. Maxse thinks she's going to have the whole of that second pew

she's mistaken. It's only for a week or two that she's got the

Broadbents staying with her, and I know what she's after. Just fancy!

What she wants is to put the Broadbents in that second seat the two

Sundays they're here and then stick to it after they're gone. Just

fancy what Miss Beats and Miss Hopwood will feel about it! What I mean

is that they've had that seat for nearly eight years and now to be

turned out! But I assure you, Paul, from what Linda Maxse said to me

yesterday I believe she intends that, I do indeed. She thinks Miss

Beats and Miss Hopwood will get used to sitting somewhere else after

two Sundays. 'I'm sure they won't mind--poor old things,' she said only

yesterday. 'Poor old things.' Just fancy! Why, Mary Beats is very

little older than I. You'll have to put your foot down about it, you

will, indeed, Paul. Yes, you will. Give Linda Maxse an inch and she

takes a mile, I always said--and this is just the kind of thing ..."

So happily Grace ran on and Paul looked up from his desk at her,

digging his fingers into his white hair, smiling at her in just the old

confidential way that he used to have before Maggie came.

She revived, too, her old habit of talking to herself. This had always

been an immense relief to her--it had helped her to feel reassurance.

Lately she had felt that Maggie was overhearing her and was laughing at

her; this had checked her and made her suspicious. Now as she began to

mount the stairs she would murmur to herself: "It might be better to

tell Jenny to go to Bartletts. After all, it's quicker that way, and

she'll be able to tell the boy to bring the things back. She needn't

wait. All the same she's stupid, she'll make a muddle of it as likely

as not. And Womball's boy is livelier than Bartletts'. That's something

after all. But if she goes out at two-thirty she'll never be back by

four--unless she went by Smith's lane of course--she might do that ...

Oh, dear, these stairs are a trial ... yes, she might do that, and

then she'd only be an hour altogether. I'll suggest that ..."

Her murmur was a cheerful monotonous sound accompanying her as she

went. She would stop and rub the side of her nose with her thumb,

considering. In the house, when there was no fear of callers, she wore

large loose slippers that tap-tapped as she went. In the evenings she

sat in Paul's study all amongst the Cornhills, The Temple Bars, and The

Bible Concordances. They were very cosy and happy, and she talked

incessantly. For some reason she did not dare to ask him whether he

were not happier now that Maggie was away. She did not dare. There was

not the complete confidence that there had been. Paul was strange a

little, bewitched by Maggie's strangeness ... There was something there

that Grace did not understand. So she said nothing, but she tried to

convey to him, in the peculiar warmth of her good-night kiss, what she

felt.

Then Maggie returned. She came back in her black clothes and with her

pale face. Her aunt had died. She was more alone even than before. She

was very quiet, and agreed to everything that Grace said. Nevertheless,

although she agreed, she was more antagonistic than she had been. She

had now something that intensely preoccupied her. Grace could see that

she was always thinking about something that had nothing to do with

Skeaton or Paul or the house. She was more absent-minded than ever,

forgot everything, liked best to sit in her bedroom all alone.

"Oh, she's mad!" said Grace. "She's really mad! Just fancy if she

should go right off her head!" Grace was now so desperately frightened

that she lay awake at night, sweating, listening to every sound. "If

she should come and murder me one night," she thought. Another thought

she had was: "It's just as though she sees some one all the time who

isn't there."

Then came 13th March, that dreadful day that would be never forgotten

by Grace so long as she lived. During the whole of the past week

Skeaton had been delivered up to a tempest of wind and rain. The High

Street, emptied of human beings, had glittered and swayed under the

sweeping storm. The Skeaton sea, possessing suddenly a life of its own,

had stormed upon the Skeaton promenade, and worried and lashed and

soaked that hideous structure to within an inch of its unnatural life.

Behind the town the woods had swayed and creaked, funeral black against

the grey thick sky. Across the folds the rain fell in slanting sheets

with the sibilant hiss of relentless power and resolve.

After luncheon, on this day the 13th, Maggie disappeared into the upper

part of the house and Grace settled down on the drawing-room sofa to a

nice little nap. She fell asleep to the comforting patter of rain upon

the windows and the howling of the storm down the chimney. She dreamt,

as she often did, about food.

She was awakened, with a sudden start, by a sense of apprehension. This

happened to her now so often that there was nothing strange in it, but

she jumped up, with beating heart, from the sofa, crying out: "What's

happened? What's the matter?"

She realised that the room had grown darker since she fell asleep, and

although it was early still there was a sort of grey twilight that

stood out against a deeper dusk in the garden beyond.

"What is it?" she said again, and then saw that Jenny, the maid, was

standing in the doorway.

"Well, Jenny?" she asked, trying to recover some of her dignity.

"It's a man, mum," said the little girl. (Grace had got her cheap from

an orphanage.) "A gentleman, mum. He's asking for Mrs. Trenchard. 'E

give me 'is card. Oh, mum, 'e is wet too!"

She had scarcely finished, and Grace had only taken the card, when

Mathew Cardinal came forward out of the hall. He was a dim and

mysterious figure in that half-light, but Grace could see that he was

more battered and shabby than on his last visit. His coat collar was

turned up. She could only very vaguely see his face, but it seemed to

her strangely white when before it had been so grossly red.

She was struck by his immobility. Partly perhaps because she had been

roused from sleep and was yet neither clear nor resolved, he seemed to

her some nightmare figure. This was the man who was responsible for all

the trouble and scandal, this was the man who threatened to drive Paul

and herself from her home, this was the blackguard who had not known

how to behave in decent society. But behind that was the terror of the

mystery that enveloped Maggie--the girl's uncle, the man who had shared

in her strange earlier life, and made her what she now was. As he stood

there, motionless, silent, the water dripping from his clothes, Grace

was as frightened as though he had already offered her personal

violence or held a pistol to her head.

"What do you want?" she asked hoarsely, stepping back to the sofa.

Jenny had left the room.

"I want to see my niece," he answered, still without moving. She

recognised then, strangely, in his voice a terror akin to her own. He

also was afraid of something. Of what? It was not that his voice shook

or that his tongue faltered. But he was terrified ... She could feel

his heart thumping behind the words.

"I'm sorry," she said. "You can't see her. She's upstairs resting."

She did not know whence the resolution had come that he was not, in any

case, to see Maggie; she did not know what catastrophe she anticipated

from their meeting. She was simply resolved, as though acting under the

blind orders of some other power, that Maggie should not see him and

that he should leave the house at once.

"I must see her," he said, and the desperate urgency in his voice would

have touched any one less terrified than Grace. "I must."

"I'm sorry," she answered. The fear in his voice seemed now to give her

superiority over him. "It's impossible."

"Oh no," he said. "If she's here it can't be impossible. She'd want to

see me. We have things ... I must ... You don't understand, Miss

Trenchard."

"I only know," said Grace, "that after what occurred on your last visit

here, Mr. Cardinal, Maggie said that she would never see you again."

"That's a lie!" he said.

She made no answer. Then at last he said pitifully:

"She didn't really say that, did she?"

"Yes. I'm sorry. But you can understand after what occurred--"

He came suddenly forward, the water trickling from him on to the carpet.

"You swear that's true?"

She could see now his face and realised that he was, indeed,

desperate--breathless as though he had been running from some one.

"Yes, that's true," she answered.

"Maggie said that."

"Those were Maggie's words."

"Oh, well, I'm done ..." He turned away from her as though her

announcement had settled something about which he had been in doubt.

"It isn't like Maggie ... But still she hasn't written. She saw I was

hard up last time. All I deserve ... All I deserve." He turned round to

Grace again. "I can't quite believe it, Miss Trenchard. It doesn't

sound like Maggie, but perhaps you've influenced her ... That's likely.

If she should change her mind I'm at the 'Sea Dog.' Not much of a

place. Quiet though. Yes, well. You might tell her not to bother. I'm

finished, you see, Miss Trenchard. Yes, down. You'll be glad to hear

it, I've no doubt. Well, I mustn't stay talking. I wish Maggie were

happier though. She isn't happy, is she?"

The question was so abrupt that Grace was startled.

"I should hope so--Mr. Cardinal," she said.

"Oh, no, she isn't. I know. Always this religion she gets into. If it

isn't one sort it's another. But she's a good girl. Don't you forget

that. Well, I must be going. Good day. Good day."

He was actually gone, leaving a little pool of water on the carpet

behind him. Grace sat down on the sofa again. What a horrible man! What

a horrible man! But she had been wrong to say that about Maggie. Yes,

she had. But he had taken her by surprise. Oh dear! How her heart was

beating! And how strange he had looked. She could scarcely breathe. She

sat there lost in stupefied wonder. At last tea came in, and with it

Paul and Maggie. Grace felt ashamed and frightened. Why was Maggie

always making her do things of which she was ashamed? It was as though

the girl had power over her ... absurd, of course. Nevertheless, as she

poured out the tea she was haunted by that man's eyes. Yes, he had

undoubtedly been very unhappy. Yes, in great trouble.

Maggie sat quietly there. Paul was preoccupied with a letter that must,

he had decided, be written to The Church Times. It was a letter about

Churchwardens and their growing independence. He finished his tea

hurriedly, but before he left the room, looking at Maggie rather

wistfully, suddenly he bent down and kissed her. She glanced up at him,

smiling.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Grace?" she asked.

Then, as it were without her own desire, Grace was compelled to speak.

"There's something I ought to tell you--" she began awkwardly. Then she

stopped. Maggie was troubled. She knew that when Grace was

uncomfortable every one else was uncomfortable.

"What have I done now?" she said rather sharply.

"It's nothing that you've done," answered Grace also sharply. "I'm sure

I don't know, Maggie, why you should always think that I'm scolding

you. No, I don't indeed. It's nothing that you've done. Your uncle came

to see you this afternoon."

"Uncle Mathew?" Maggie jumped up from her chair. "Came here?"

"Yes."

"And wanted to see me? Oh, Grace, why didn't you tell me?"

"I have told you ... There's nothing to make a fuss about, Maggie.

Really, you needn't look like that--as though I were always doing

something wrong. I only did it for your sake."

"For my sake? But why? I wanted to see him. I was trying to see him in

London. Oh, Grace, what did he say?"

"What did he say? Well, fancy! As though I could remember. He said he'd

come to see you, and when I said he couldn't, he went away again."

"Said he couldn't? But why couldn't he?"

"Really, Maggie, your tone is extraordinary. Fancy what Paul would say

if he heard you. He wouldn't like it, I'm sure. I said that after the

way he'd behaved last time he came here you didn't want to see him

again."

"You said that? Oh, Grace! How did you dare!" "Now, Maggie, don't you

look like that. I've done nothing, I'm sure."

"Did you say that I'd said that I didn't want to see him again?"

Grace shrank back behind the tea-things.

"Yes, I did ... Maggie, you frighten me."

"I hope I do ... You're wicked, you're wicked. Yes, you are. Where is

he now?"

"He's at the 'Sea Dog.' That dirty public house on the sea-front--near

Tunstalls--Where are you going?"

"I'm going to him of course." Maggie turned and looked at Grace. Grace

was fascinated as a rabbit is by a snake. The two women stared at one

another.

"How strange you are, Grace," Maggie said. "You seem to like to be

cruel!" Then she went out. When the door was closed Grace found "that

she was all in a perspiration." Her hand trembled so that when she

tried to pour herself another cup of tea--just to fortify herself--she

poured it into the saucer. And the tea was cold--no use now.

When she rose at last to go in and seek consolation from Paul her knees

were trembling so that she staggered across the floor. This couldn't go

on. No, it could not. To be frightened in one's own house! Absurd ...

Really the girl had looked terrible ... Murder ... That's what it had

looked like. Something must be done.

Murmuring aloud to herself again and again "Something must be done" as

she crossed the hall, she walked slowly, her hand to her heart,

ponderously, as though she were walking in the dark. Then, as soon as

she had opened the study door she began, before she could see her

brother: "Oh, Paul, I'm so frightened. It's Maggie. She's very angry.

Fancy what she said."

Maggie meanwhile had gone straight up to her bedroom and found her

black hat and her waterproof. Her one thought now was lest he should

have caught the five o'clock train and gone back to London. Oh! how

hurt he would be with her, how terribly hurt! The thought of the pain

and loneliness that he would feel distressed her so bitterly that she

could scarcely put on her hat, she was so eager to run and find him.

She felt, at the thought of his fruitless journey through the rain, the

tenderest affection for him, maternal and loving, so that she wanted to

have him with her at once and to see him in warm clothes beside the

fire, drinking whisky if he liked, and she would give him all the money

she possessed.

She had still touched very little of her own three hundred pounds. He

should have as much of that as he liked. The death of Aunt Anne had

shown her how few people in the world there were for her to love. After

all, the aunts and Uncle Mathew had needed her as no one else had done.

She made little plans; she would, perhaps, go back with him to London

for a little time. There was, after all, no reason why she should

remain in this horrible place for ever. And Paul now seemed not to care

whether she went or stayed.

She ran out into the wind and the rain. She was surprised by the force

and fury of it. It would take time and strength to battle down the High

Street. Poor Uncle Mathew! To walk all the way in the rain and then to

be told that she would not see him! She could imagine him turning away

down the drive, bitterly disappointed ...

Probably he had come to borrow money, and she had promised that she

would not fail him. When she reached the High Street she was soaked.

She felt the water dripping down her neck and in her boots. At the

corner of the High Street by the bookseller's she was forced to pause,

so fiercely did the wind beat up from the Otterson Road, that runs

openly to the sea. Maggie had not even in Glebeshire known so furious a

day and hour when the winds tossed and raged but never broke into real

storm. It was the more surprising. She had to pause for a moment to

remember where Turnstall's the butcher was, then, suddenly recalling

it, she turned off the High Street and found her way to the mean

streets that ran behind the Promenade. Still she met no one. It might

have been a town abandoned by all human life and given over to the wind

and rain and the approaching absorption of the sea. It was now dark and

the lamp at the end of the street blew gustily and with an uncertain

flare.

Maggie found Turnstall's, its shop lit and Mr. Turnstall himself, stout

and red-faced, behind his bloody counter. She went in and asked him

where "The Sea Dog" might be. He explained to her that it was close at

hand, on the right, looking over the Promenade. She found it at last

because it had an old-fashioned creaking wooden sign with a blue sailor

painted on it. Timidly she stepped into the dark uneven passage. To the

right of her she could see a deserted room with wooden trestles and a

table. The bar must be near because she could hear voices and the

clinking of glasses, but, in spite of those sounds the house seemed

very dead. Through the walls and rooms she could hear the pounding beat

of the sea. She walked to the end of the passage and there found an old

wrinkled man in riding breeches and a brightly-coloured check shirt.

"Can you tell me where a gentleman, Mr. Cardinal, is staying?" she

asked.

He was obviously very deaf; she had to shout. She repeated her

question, adding. "He came from London to-day."

A stout middle-aged woman appeared. "What is it?" she asked. "The old

man's stone deaf. He can't hear at all."

"I was wondering," said Maggie, "whether you could tell me where I

could find a Mr. Cardinal. He came down from London to-day and is

staying here."

"Cardinal ... Cardinal?" The woman thought, scratching her head. "Was

it Caldwell you meant?"

"No," said Maggie. "Cardinal."

"I'll go and see." The woman disappeared, whilst the old man brushed

past Maggie as though she were a piece of furniture; he departed on

some secret purpose of his own.

"What a horrible place!" thought Maggie. "Uncle must be in a bad way if

he comes here. I never should sleep for the noise of the sea."

The woman returned. "Yes. 'E's here. No. 5. Come this afternoon. Up the

stairs and second door on the right."

The stairs to which she pointed offered a gulf of darkness. The woman

was gone. The noises from the bar had ceased. The only sound in the

place was the thundering of the sea, roaring, as it seemed, at the very

foot of the house.

Maggie climbed the stairs. Half-way up she was compelled to pause. The

darkness blinded her; she had lost the reflection from the lamp below

and, above her, there was no light at all. She advanced slowly, step by

step, feeling her way with a hand on the rickety bannisters. At the top

of the stair there was a gleam of light and, turning to the right, she

knocked on the second door. There was no answer and she knocked again.

Listening, the noise of the sea was now so violent that she fancied

that she might not have heard the answer so she turned the handle of

the door and pushed it open. She was met then by a gale of wind, a rush

of the sea that seemed as imminent as though she were on the shore

itself and a dim grey light that revealed nothing in the room to her

but only shapes and shadows.

She knew at once that the windows must be wide open; she could hear

some papers rustling and something on the wall tapped monotonously.

"Uncle Mathew!" she whispered, and then she called more loudly.

"Uncle Mathew! Uncle Mathew!"

There was no answer and suddenly a strange, quite unreasoning terror

caught her by the throat. It was all that she could do not to cry out

and run down to the gas-lit passage. She held herself there by sheer

force; the smell of the sea was now very strong; there was a tang of

rotten seaweed in it.

As she remained there she could see more clearly, but it seemed that

the room was full of some dim obscuring mist. She moved forward into

the room, knocked her knee against a table, and then as the panic

gained upon her called more loudly, "Uncle... Uncle. Are you in? Where

are you? It's I, Maggie."

"Oh well... of course he isn't here," she said to herself. "He's

downstairs." And yet, strangely, something seemed to persuade her that

he was there; it was as though he were maliciously hiding from her to

tease her.

Feeling her way cautiously, her hands before her face, she moved

forward to close the windows, thinking that she must shut out that

abominable sound of the sea and the stale stink of the seaweed. She was

suddenly caught by a sweep of rain that wetted her hair and face and

neck. She started back and touched a piece of damp cloth. She turned,

and there, very close to her but above her and staring over her head,

was Uncle Mathew's face. It was so close to her that she could have

touched it by putting up her hand. It was white-grey and she would not

have seen it at all had she not been very near to it.

She realised nothing, but she felt that her knees were trembling and

that she would fall if she did not steady herself. She put out her hand

and clutched damp heavy thick cloth, cloth that enwrapped as it seemed

some weighty substance like stone or brick.

She passed her hand upwards and suddenly the damp cloth gave way

beneath her fingers, sinking inwards against something soft and flabby.

She sprang away. She stood for one shuddering moment, then she screamed

again and again, shrieking and running, as it were for her life, out of

the room, down the passage. She could not find the staircase. Oh! she

could not find the staircase! She stood there, leaning against the damp

wall, crying: "Oh help! Help! Quickly!"

There were steps and voices, then the woman whom she had seen before

appeared at the turn of the stair holding a lamp.

"What is it?" she asked, raising the light high. Maggie did not answer,

only leaning there and staring down.

"You'd better come, Bill," the woman said. "There's something wrong up

'ere."

The woman came up the stairs followed by two men; they moved cautiously

as though, they expected to find something terrible round the next

corner.

"What is it?" said the woman again when she came up to Maggie. But

Maggie made no answer. They pushed past her and went into the room.

Maggie followed them. She saw the room obscured by mist; she heard some

whispering and fumbling, then a match was struck; there was a bead-like

flare followed suddenly by the flaming of a candle. In the quick light

the room was bright. Maggie saw her uncle hanging from some projection

in the rough ceiling. A chair was overturned at his feet. His body was

like a bag of old clothes, his big boots turning inwards towards one

another. His face was a dull grey and seemed cut off from the rest of

his body by the thick blue muffler that encircled his neck. He was

grinning at her; the tip of his tongue protruded at her between his

teeth. She noticed his hands that hung heavily like dead fish.

After that she knew no more save that the sea seemed to rush in a great

flood, with a sudden vindictive roar, into the room.

CHAPTER IX

SOUL OF PAUL

Nothing so horrible had ever happened to Paul before, nothing ...

He felt as though he had committed a murder; it was as though he

expected arrest and started at every knock on the door. Nothing so

horrible ...

It was, of course, in all the Skeaton papers. At the inquest it

appeared that Mathew Cardinal had imitated the signature of a

prosperous City friend; had he not chosen his own way out he would have

discovered the arduous delights of hard labour. But he had chosen

suicide and not "while of unsound mind." Yes, the uncle of the Rector's

wife ... Yes, The Rector's Wife's Uncle ... Yes, The Rector's Wife's

Uncle!

Sho discovered him, bumped right into him in the dark. What a queer

story--like a novel. Oh, but she had always been queer--Trenchard had

picked her up somewhere in a London slum; well, perhaps not a slum

exactly but something very like it. Why did he marry her? Perhaps he

had to. Who knows? These clergymen are sly dogs. Always the worst if

the truth were known ...

So it went on. For nine whole days (and nights) it was the only topic

in Skeaton. Paul caught the fringe of it. He had never known very much

about his fellow-beings. He had always taken the things that they said

to him as the true things, when they smiled he had thought that they

meant their smiles. And why not? ... since he always meant his. He had

always been too lazy to dislike people, and his digestion had been too

good and his ambition too slender to urge him towards spite and malice.

He had believed that he was on excellent terms with all the world.

Now that was changed. He was watched, he knew, with curious,

inquisitive, critical glances. Through no fault of his own he was

soiled and smirched. That hearty confident laugh of his must be

checked. He was afraid. Yes, he was afraid. He sat in his study and

trembled at the thought of meeting his congregation. He had done

nothing and yet his reputation was no longer clean. But he was afraid,

also, of something else. He saw, desperately against his will, the

central picture. He saw the body hanging in the dark room, Maggie

tumbling against it, the cries, the lights, the crowd ... He saw it

all, hour after hour. He was not an imaginative man, but it seemed to

him that he had actually been present at this scene. He had to attend

the inquest. That had been horrible. With all eyes upon him he stood up

and answered their detestable questions. He had trembled before those

eyes. Suddenly the self-confidence of all his life had left him. He had

stammered in his replies, his hands had trembled and he had been forced

to press them close to his sides. He had given his answers as though he

were a guilty man.

He came then slowly, in the silence of his study, to the consideration

of Grace and Maggie. This would kill Grace. She had altered, in a few

days, amazingly; she would meet nobody, but shut herself into her

bedroom. She would not see the servants. She looked at Paul as though

she, like the rest of the world, blamed him. Paul loved Grace. He had

not known before how much. They had been together all their lives and

he had taken her protection and care of him too much for granted. How

good she had been to him and for how many years! When they were happy

it seemed natural that she should look after him, but now, in the

middle of this scandal he saw that it should have been he who looked

after her. He had not looked after her. Of course, now they would have

to leave Skeaton and he knew what that departure would mean to Grace.

She was suspicious of new places and new people. Strange to think now

that almost the only person of whom she had not been suspicious was

Maggie.

Maggie! His mind slowly wheeled round to her. He rose from his chair

and began clumsily to parade the room. He walked up and down the study

as though with closed eyes, his large body bumping against corners of

tables and chairs. Maggie! He looked back, as of late he had often

done, to those days in his cousin's house in London. What had happened

to the Maggie whom he had known there?

He saw her again, so quiet, so ready to listen and learn, so modest,

and yet with a humour and sense of appreciation that had promised well

for the future. A child--an ignorant, charming, uneducated child, that

is what she had seemed. He admitted now that his heart, always too soft

and too gentle perhaps, had been touched beyond wisdom. She had seemed

to need just the protection and advice that he had been fitted to give

her. Then, as though in the darkness of the night, the change had been

made; from the moment of entering into Skeaton there had been a new

Maggie. He could not tell himself, because he was not a man clever at

psychology, in what the change consisted. Had he been pressed he would

have said perhaps that he had known the old Maggie intimately, that

nothing that she could say or do astonished him, but that this new

Maggie was altogether a stranger. Time had not altered that; with the

passing months he had known her less and less. Why, at their first

meeting long ago in Katherine's house he had known her better than he

knew her now. He traced the steps of their history in Skeaton; she had

eluded him always, never allowing him to hold her for more than a

moment, vanishing and appearing again, fantastic, in some strange

lighted distance, hurting him and disappointing him ... He stopped in

his walk, bewildered. He saw, with a sudden flash, that she had never

appeared so fascinating to him as when she had been strangest. He saw

it now at the moment when she seemed more darkly strange, more sinister

and dangerous than ever before.

He realised, too, at the same sharp moment the conflict in which he was

engaged. On the one side was all his life, his sloth and ease and

comfort, his religion, his good name, his easy intercourse with his

fellow-men, Grace, intellectual laziness, acceptance of things as they

most easily are, Skeaton, regular meals, good drainage, moral, physical

and spiritual, a good funeral and a favourable obituary in The Skeaton

Times. On the other hand unrest, ill-health, separation from Grace, an

elusive and never-to-be-satisfied pursuit, scandal and possible loss of

religion, unhappiness ... At least it was to his credit that he

realised the conflict; it is even further to his credit that he grasped

and admitted the hopelessness of it. He knew which way he would go;

even now he was tired with the thought of the struggle; he sank into

his shabby chair with a sigh of weariness; his hand stretched out

instinctively for an easy volume. But oh, Maggie! how strange and

fascinating at that moment she appeared to him, with her odd silences,

her flashes of startled surprise, her sense of being half the day in

another world, her kindness to him and then her sudden terror of him,

her ignorance and then the conviction that she gave suddenly to him

that she knew more than he would ever know, above all, the way that

some dark spirit deep down in him supported her wild rebellions, her

irreverences, her irreligion, her scorn of tradition. Oh! she was a

witch! Grace's word for her was right, but not Grace's sense of it. The

more Grace was shocked the more tempting to him the witch became. It

had seemed to him, that day in Katherine's drawing-room, so slight a

thing when she had said that she did not love him, he had no doubt but

that he could change that. How could a child, so raw and ignorant,

resist such a man? And yet she had resisted. That resistance had been

at the root of the trouble. Whichever way things went now, he was a

defeated man.

The door opened and Grace came in. Looking at her he realised that she

would never understand the struggle through which he had been

timorously wading, and saw that she was further away from him than she

had ever been before. He blamed her too. She had had no right to refuse

that man to Maggie. Had she allowed Maggie to see him none of this

might have occurred. The man was a forger and would, had he lived, have

gone to prison, but there would not then have been the same open

scandal. No, he blamed Grace. It might be that their old absolutely

confident intimacy would never be renewed. He felt cold and lonely. He

bent forward, putting some coal on the fire, breaking it up into a

cheerful blaze. Then he looked up at her, and his heart was touched.

She looked to-day an old woman. Her hair was untidy and her face was

dull grey in colour. Her eyes moved restlessly round the room,

wandering from picture to picture, from the mantelpiece to the chairs,

from the chairs to the book-shelves, as though she sought in the sight

of these well-remembered things some defence and security.

"Is your head better?" he asked her, not meeting her eyes, because the

dull pain in them disturbed him.

"Not much," she said. "It's very bad, my head. I've taken aspirin. I

didn't eat anything yesterday. Nothing at all except some bread and

milk, and very little of that ... I couldn't finish it. I felt I'd be

sick. I said to Emily, 'Emily, if I eat any more of that I'll be sick,'

and Emily advised me not to touch it. What I mean is that if I'd eaten

any more I'd have been really sick--at least that's what I felt like."

Her restless eyes came suddenly to a jerking pause as though some one

had caught and gripped them. She was suddenly dramatic. "Oh. Paul, what

are we going to do?" she cried.

Paul was irritated by that. He hated to be asked direct questions as to

policy.

"What do you mean what are we going to do?" he asked.

"Why, about this--about everything. We shall have to leave Skeaton, you

know. Fancy what people are saying!"

Suddenly, as though the thought of the scandal was too much for her,

her knees gave way and she flopped into a chair.

"Well, let them say!" he answered vigorously. "Grace, you're making too

much of all this. You'll be ill if you aren't careful. Pull yourself

together." "Of course we've got to go," she answered. "If you think

that we can go on living here after all that's happened--"

"Well, why not?" he interrupted. "We haven't done anything. It's only--"

"I know what you're going to say." (It was one of Grace's most

irritating habits that she finished other people's sentences for them

in a way that they had not intended) "that if they look at it properly

they'll see that it wasn't our fault. But will they look at it

properly? Of course they won't. You know what cats they are. They're

only waiting for a chance. What I mean is that this is just the chance

they've been waiting for."

"How can you go on and every time you preach they'll be looking up at

you and saying 'There's a brother of a murderer'? Why, fancy what you'd

feel!"

Paul jumped in his chair. "What do you mean, Grace? The brother of a

murderer?"

"What else am I?" Grace began to warm her podgy hands. "It came out at

the inquest that I wouldn't see the man, didn't it? Maggie thinks me a

murderer. I see it in her eyes every time. What I mean to say, Paul,

is, What are you going to do about Maggie?"

Grace's voice changed at that question. It was as though that other

trouble of the scandal were nothing to her compared with this matter of

Maggie's presence. Paul turned and looked at her. She dropped her voice

to a whisper and went on:

"I won't stay with Maggie any more. No, no, no! You must choose, Paul,

between Maggie and me. What I mean is that it simply isn't safe in the

same house with her. You may not have noticed it yourself, but I've

seen it coming on a long time. I have indeed. She isn't right in her

head, and she hates me. She's always hated me. She'd like to do me an

injury. She follows me round the house. She's always watching me, and

now that she thinks that I killed her uncle it's worse. I'm not safe,

Paul, and that's the truth. She hides in my room behind the curtains

waiting for me. It's my safety you've got to consider. It's me or her.

I know she's your wife, but what I mean is that there'll be something

awful happening if you aren't careful."

Grace, as she spoke, was a woman in the very heart of a desperate

panic. Her whole body trembled; her face was transfixed as though she

saw Maggie standing in front of her there with a knife. No one looking

at her could deny that she was in mortal terror--no affectation here.

And Paul loved her. He came over to her and put his arm round her; she

caught hold of his hand, clutched it desperately. When he felt the

trembling of her body beneath his hand his love for her and protective

care of her overwhelmed him.

"Grace, dear, it's all right," he said. "You're exaggerating all this.

Maggie wouldn't hurt a fly--indeed, she wouldn't. She has her faults,

perhaps, but cruelty isn't one of them. You must remember that she's

had a bad time lately losing her aunt and then finding her uncle in

that horrible way. After all, she's only a child. I know that you two

haven't got on well together, and I daresay that it has been very

largely my fault; but you mustn't be frightened like that. No harm

shall come to you so long as I am alive--no harm whatever."

But she stared in front of her, like a woman in a dream, repeating--

"No, no, Paul. Either she goes or I go. She's your wife. She must stay.

Then I must go. I can't stand it; I can't indeed. I'm not sleeping; I'm

not indeed. It isn't fair to ask it. What I mean is that it isn't fair

to me."

Although he had known Grace for years he still believed her threats and

promises. "My sister's an obstinate woman," he would say, although had

he looked truly into his experience he must have seen that she changed

her mind more frequently by far than she changed her clothes. He

thought that now she meant what she said; indeed, on his own side he

really did not see how in the future Maggie and Grace could continue to

live in the same house. But, as Grace had said, he was married to

Maggie and therefore it was Grace that must go. Then when he confronted

the fact of Grace's departure he could not endure it. No, he could not.

Had Maggie been everything to him that she might have been, bad she

been his true wife, had she loved him, had she--oh! a thousand things

she might have been!--then perhaps life would be possible without

Grace. But now! ... at the thought of being alone for ever with Maggie

a strange passion, mingled of fascination and fear, affection and

sensuality, cowardice and excitement, pervaded him. What would their

life together be? Then he turned to Grace as the very rock of his

safety.

"Oh, Grace, you mustn't go--you mustn't think of going. Whatever should

I do without you?"

A dull flush of gratification coloured her cheeks.

"Either she goes or I," she repeated. "It can't go on. You must see

that it can't. Fancy what people must be thinking!"

As always, he postponed the issue. "We'll settle something. Don't you

worry, dear. You go and lie down. That's what you want--a thorough good

rest."

She plodded off. For himself he decided that fresh air was what he

needed. He went for a stroll. As soon as he was in the Charleston Road

that led to the High Street he was pleased with the day. Early spring;

mild, faint haze, trees dimly purple, a bird clucking, the whisper of

the sea stirring the warm puddles and rivulets across the damp dim

road. Warm, yes, warm and promising. Lent ... tiresome. Long services,

gloomy sermons. Rebuking people, scolding them--made them angry, did

them no good. Then Easter. That was better. Jolly hymns. "Christ is

risen! Christ is risen!" Jolly flowers--primroses, crocuses--(no, they

were earlier). They'll have forgotten about Maggie's uncle by then.

Live it down--that's the thing. Give them a good genial sermon this

Sunday. Show them he wasn't caring ... If only the women would get on

together. Women--women. How difficult they were! Yes, Sunday would be

difficult--facing them all. He knew what they'd be thinking. He wanted

to be jolly again. Jolly. That was the thing. Joking with Grace, jolly

even with Maggie. Jolly with his congregation. Jolly with God. Why

wasn't he left alone? Had been until Maggie came. Maggie like a stone

flung into a frosty pool! Broke everything up, simply because she was

unlike other people. He'd married her because he thought he could make

her into what he pleased. Well, it had been the other way. Oh, she was

queer, queer, queer.

He stopped, his large boots in a warm puddle. He felt the warm sun hot

through the damp mist. He wanted to take her into his arms, to hug her,

above all to feel her response. To feel her response, that was what,

for years now, he had been wanting, and never once had she responded.

Never once. She let him do as he pleased, but she was passive. She

didn't love him. Grace loved him, but how dull Grace was! Dull--it was

all dull! Grace was dull, Skeaton was dull, the church was dull--God

was dull! God? Where was God? He looked around. There was no God. To

what had he been praying all these years? He had not been praying. His

congregation had not been praying. They were all dead and God was dead

too.

He looked up and saw that his boots were in a puddle. He walked on. For

a moment, the mists of sloth and self-indulgence that had for years

obscured his vision had shifted and cleared, but even as he moved they

settled down and resolved themselves once more. The muscles of Paul's

soul were stiff with disuse. Training is a lengthy affair and a

tiresome business to the stout and middle-aged.

The hedges gave way to houses; he was in the High Street. He saw then,

plastered at intervals on the hoardings, strange phenomena. It was the

colour that first attracted him--a bright indecent pink with huge black

lettering. Because it was the offseason in Skeaton other announcements

were few. All the more prominent then the following:

THE KINGSCOTE BEETHEEN WILL HOLD A RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL IN THE TOWN

OF SKEATON-ON-SEA FROM APRIL 10 TO 16.-----SERVICES 10 A.M., 3 P.M.

SPECIAL SONG SERVICE, 7.30 P.M. DAILY All are Cordially Invited.

ADDRESSES BY REV. JOHN THURSTON. REV. WILLIAM CRASHAW. SISTER AVIES.

Paul stared at this placard with horror and disgust in his soul. For

the moment Maggie and Grace and all the scandal connected with them was

forgotten. This was terrible. By temperament, tradition, training, he

loathed and feared every phase of religion known to him as

"Methodistic." Under this term he included everything that was noisy,

demonstrative, ill-bred and melodramatic. Once when an undergraduate at

Cambridge he had gone to some meeting of the kind. There had been

impromptu prayers, ghastly pictures of hell-fire, appeals to the

undergraduates to save themselves at once lest it be too late,

confessions and appeals for mercy. The memory of that evening still

filled him with physical nausea. It was to him as though he had seen

some gross indecent act in public or witnessed some horrible cruelty.

Maggie had told him very little about the Chapel and its doings, and he

had shrunk from asking her any questions, but everything that was odd

and unusual in her behaviour he attributed to her months under that

influence. As he stared at the flaunting pink sheet he felt as though

it were a direct personal assault on himself and his church.

And yet he knew that he could do nothing. Once before there had been

something of the kind in Skeaton and he had tried with others to stop

it. He had failed utterly; the civic authorities in Skeaton seemed

almost to approve of these horrors. He looked at the thing once more

and then turned back towards home. Something must be done... Something

must be done ... but, as on so many earlier occasions in his life, he

could face no clear course of action.

That Saturday evening he tried to change his sermon. He had determined

to deliver a very fine address on "Brotherly Love" and then, most

fortunately, he had discovered a five-years' old sermon that would,

with a little adaptation, exactly fit the situation.

To-night he was sick of his adaptation. The sermon had not been a good

one at the first, and now it was a tattered thing of shreds and

patches. He tried to add to it some sentences about the approaching

"Revival." No sentences would come. What a horrible fortnight it had

been! He looked back upon his district visiting, his meetings, his

choir-practices with disgust. Something had come in between himself and

his people. Perhaps the relationship had never been very real? Founded

on jollity. An eagerness to accept anybody's mood for one's own if only

that meant jollity. What had he thought, standing in the puddle that

afternoon? That they were all dead, he and his congregation and God,

all dead together? He sank into his chair, picked up the Church Times,

and fell asleep.

Next morning as he walked into the choir this extraordinary impression

that his congregation was dead persisted. As he recited the

"Confession" he looked about him. There was Mr. Maxse, and there Miss

Purves. Every one was in his and her appointed place; old Colonel

Rideout with the purple gills not kneeling because of his gout; young

Edward Walter, heir to the sugar factory, not kneeling because he was

lazy; sporting Mr. Harper, whose golf handicap was +3, not kneeling

because to do so would spoil the crease of his trousers; old Mrs. Dean

with her bonnet and bugles, the worst gossip in Skeaton, her eyes

raised to heaven; the Quiller girls with their hard red colour and

their hard bright eyes; Mr. Fortinum, senior, with his County Council

stomach and his J.P. neck; the dear old Miss Fursleis who believed in

God and lived accordingly; young Captain Trent, who believed in his

moustache and lived accordingly ... Oh yes, there they all were--and

there, too, were Grace and Maggie kneeling side by side.

Maggie! His eyes rested upon her. Her face suddenly struck him as being

of extraordinary beauty. He had never thought her beautiful before;

very plain, of course. Every one knew that she was plain. But to-day

her face and profile had the simplicity, the purity, the courage of a

Madonna in one of the old pictures--or, rather, of one of those St.

John the Baptist boys gazing up into the face of the Christ--child as

it lay in its mother's arms. He finished the "Confession"

hurriedly--Maggie's face faded from his view; he saw now only a garden

of hats and heads, the bright varnished colour of the church around and

about them all.

He gave out the psalms; there was a rustle of leaves, and soon shrill,

untrained voices of the choir-boys were screaming the chant like a

number of baby steam-whistles in competition.

When he climbed into the pulpit he tried again to discover Maggie's

face as he had already seen it. He could not; it had been, perhaps, a

trick of light and, in any case, she was hidden now behind the stout

stolidity of Grace. He looked around at the other faces beneath him and

saw them settle themselves into their customary expressions of torpor,

vacuity and expectation. Very little expectation! They knew well

enough, by this time, the kind of thing to expect from him, the turn of

phrase, the rise and fall of the voice, the pause dramatic, the whisper

expostulatory, the thrust imperative, the smile seductive.

He had often been told, as a curate, that he was a wonderful preacher.

His round jolly face, his beaming smile, a certain dramatic gift, had

helped him. "He is so human," he had heard people say. For many years

he had lived on that phrase. For the first time in his life, this

morning he distrusted his gift. He was out of touch with them

all--because they were dead, killed by forms and repetitions and

monotony. "We're all dead, you know, and I'm dead too. Let's close the

doors and seal this church up. Our day is over." He said of course

nothing of the kind. His sermon was stupid, halting and ineffective.

"Naturally," as Colonel Rideout said over his port at lunch, "when a

feller's wife's uncle has just hung himself in public, so to speak, it

does take the wind out of you. He usen't to preach badly once. Got

stale. They all do."

As Paul dismissed the congregation with the Blessing he felt that

everything was over. He was more completely miserable than he had ever

been. He had in fact never before been really miserable except when he

had the toothache. And now, also, the custom of years made it

impossible for him to be miserable for long. He had had no real talk

with Maggie since the inquest. Maggie came into his study that

afternoon. Their conversation was very quiet and undemonstrative; it

happened to be one of the most important conversations in both their

lives, and, often afterwards, Paul looked back to it, trying to retrace

in it the sentences and movements with which it had been built up. He

could never recover anything very much. He could see Maggie sitting in

a way that she had on the edge of her chair, looking at him and looking

also far beyond him. He knew afterwards that this was the last moment

in his life that he had any contact with her. Like a witch, like a

ghost, she had come into his life; like a witch, like a ghost, she went

out of it, leaving him, for the remainder of his days, a haunted man.

As he looked at her he realised that she had aged in this last

fortnight. Yes, that horrible affair had taken it out of her. She

seemed to have recovered self-control at some strange and unnatural

cost--as though she had taken some potion or drug.

She began by asking Grace's question:

"Paul, what are we going to do?"

But she did not irritate him as Grace had done. His one idea was to

help her; unfortunately he had himself thought out nothing clearly.

"Well, Maggie," he answered, smiling, "I thought you might help me

about that. I want your advice. I thought--well, as a matter of fact I

hadn't settled anything--but I thought that I might get a locum for a

month or two and we might go abroad for a trip perhaps. To Paris, or

Venice, or somewhere."

"And then come back?" she asked.

"For a time--yes--certainly," he answered.

"I don't think I can ever come back to Skeaton," she said in a whisper,

as though speaking to herself. He could see that she was controlling

herself and steadying her voice with the greatest difficulty. "Of

course I must come, Paul, if you want me to. It's been all my fault

from the very beginning----"

"Oh no," he broke in, "it hasn't."

"Yes, it has. I've just spoilt your life and Grace's. You were both

very happy until I came. I had no right to marry you when I didn't love

you. I didn't know then all I know now. But that's no excuse. I should

have known. I was younger than most girls are, though."

Paul said:

"But Maggie, you're not to blame yourself at all. I think if we were

somewhere else than Skeaton it would be easier. And now after what has

happened--"

Maggie broke in: "You couldn't leave Skeaton, Paul. You know you

couldn't. It would just break your heart. All the work of your life has

been here--everything you've ever done. And Grace too."

"No, no, you're wrong," said Paul vigorously. "A change is probably

what I need. I've been too long in the same place. Time goes so fast

that one doesn't realise. And for Grace, too, I expect a change will be

better."

"And do you think," said Maggie, "that Grace will ever live with me now

in the same house when she knows that I've driven you from Skeaton?

Grace is quite right. She's just to feel as she does about me."

"Then Grace must go," said Paul firmly, looking at Maggie and feeling

that the one thing that he needed was that she should be in his arms

and he kissing her. "Maggie, if we go away, you and I, right away from

all of this, perhaps then you can--you will--" he stopped.

She shook her head. "Never, Paul. Never. Do you know what I've seen

this last week? That I've left all those who really wanted me. My

aunts, very much they needed me, and I was selfish and wouldn't give

them what they wanted, and tried to escape from them. You and Grace

don't need me. Nobody wants anything here in Skeaton. You're all full.

It isn't my fault, Paul, but everything seems to me dead here. They

don't mean anything they say in Church, and the Church doesn't mean

anything either. The Chapel was wrong in London too, but it was more

right than the Church here is. I don't know what religion is or where

it is: I don't know anything now except that one ought to be with the

people who want one and not with the people who don't. Aunt wanted me

and I failed her. Uncle wanted me and I--I--I--"

She broke down, crying, her head in her arms. He went over to her and

put his arms around her. At his touch she shrank a little, and when he

felt that he went away from her and stood, silently, not knowing what

to do.

"Maggie, don't--don't, Maggie. I can't bear to hear you cry."

"I've done all wrong--I've done all wrong," she answered him. "I've

been wrong always."

His helplessness was intolerable. He knew that she would not allow him

to touch her. He went out closing the door softly behind him.

CHAPTER X

THE REVIVAL

Maggie cried for a little while, then, slowly recovering, realised that

she was alone in the room. She raised her head and listened; then she

dried her eyes and stood up, wondering what she should do next.

During the last week she had spent all her energy on one thing

alone--to keep back from her the picture of Uncle Mathew's death. That

at all costs she must not see. There it was, just behind her, hovering

with all its detail, at her elbow. All day and most of the night she

was conscious of it there, but she would not turn and look. Uncle

Mathew was dead--that was all that she must know. Aunt Anne was dead

too. Martin had written to her, and then, because she had not answered,

had abandoned her. Paul and Grace were to be driven out of Skeaton

because of her. Grace hated her; Paul would never love her unless she

in return would love him--and that she would never do because she loved

Martin. She was alone then.

She had made every one unhappy--Aunt Anne, Uncle Mathew, Paul, Grace;

the best thing that she could do now was to go away and hide herself

somewhere.

That, at least, she saw very clearly and she clung to it. If she went

away Paul and Grace need not leave Skeaton; soon they would forget her

and be happy once more as they had been before she came. But where

should she go? All her life she had depended upon her own

self-reliance, but now that had left her. She felt as though she could

not move unless there was some one somewhere who cared for her. But

there was no one. Katherine Mark. No, she certainly could never go

there again. Behind all this was the constant preoccupation that she

must not look, for an instant, at Uncle Mathew's death. If she did

everything would break ... She must not. She must not. She must not.

She went up to her bedroom, took from their box Martin's letters and

the ring with the three pearls, and the tattered programme. She sat on

her bed and turned them over and over. She was bewildered and scarcely

knew where she was. She repeated again and again: "I must go away at

once ... I must go away at once."

Then as though moved by some compelling force that she did not

recognise she fell on her knees beside the bed, crying: "Martin,

Martin, I want you. I don't know where you are but I must find you.

Martin, tell me where you are. I'll go to you anywhere. Martin, where

are you? Where are you?"

It may not have been a vocal cry; perhaps she made no sound, but she

waited, there on her knees, hearing very clearly the bells ringing for

evening service and seeing the evening sun steal across her carpet and

touch gently, the pictures on the wall. Gradually as she knelt there,

calm and reassurance came back to her. She felt as though he, somewhere

lost in the world, had heard her. She laid her cheek upon the quilt of

the bed and, for the first time since Uncle Mathew's death, her

thoughts worked in connected order, her courage returned to her, and

she saw the room and the sun and the trees beyond the window as real

objects, without the mist of terror and despair that had hitherto

surrounded her.

She rose from her knees as though she were withdrawing from a horrible

nightmare. She could remember nothing of the events of the last week

save her talk with Paul that afternoon. She could recall nothing of the

inquest, nor whether she had been to Church, nor any scene with Grace.

"So long as I'm alive and Martin's alive it's all right," she thought.

She knew that he was alive. She would find him. She put away the things

into the box again; she had not yet thought what she would do, but, in

some way, she had received during those few minutes in her room a

reassurance that she was not alone.

She went out into the spring dusk. She chose the road towards Barnham

Wood because it was lonely there and the hedges were thin; you could

feel the breath of the sea as it blew across the sparse fields. The

hush of an English Sunday evening enfolded the road, the wood, the

fields. The sun was very low and the saffron light penetrated the dark

lines of the hedges and hung like a curtain of misty gold before the

approaches to the wood. The red-brown fields rolled to the horizon and

lay, like a carpet, at the foot of the town huddled against the pale

sky.

She was near the wood, and could see the little dark twisted

cone-strewn paths that led into the purple depths, when a woman came

out of it towards her. She saw that it was Miss Toms. It seemed quite

natural to see her there because it was on this same road that she had

first met the lady and her brother. Miss Toms also did not seem at all

surprised. She shook Maggie warmly by the hand.

"You said that I wouldn't come often to see you," said Maggie.

"And it's been true. Things have been more difficult for me than I knew

at the time."

"That's all right," said Miss Toms.

"But I ought to tell you," said Maggie, "that although I haven't been

to see you, I've felt as though you and your brother were my friends,

more than any one in this place. And that's been a great help to me."

They started to walk down the road together.

"You've been in trouble," said Miss Toms. "Of course I've heard about

it. I would have liked to come and see you but I didn't know how your

sister-in-law would like it."

She put her arm through Maggie's.

"My dear," she said, "don't be discouraged. Because Skeaton is dead it

doesn't mean that all the world is. And remember this. The world's view

of any one is never the right one. I know that the world thinks my

brother's mad, but I know that he's a lot saner than most people. The

world thinks your uncle was a rascal, but if you can remember one good

thing he did you know he wasn't, and I'm sure you can remember many

good things."

"It isn't that," said Maggie. "It is that I seem to have done

everything wrong and made every one I had to do with unhappy."

"Nonsense," said Miss Toms. "I'm sure if they've been unhappy it's

their own fault. Isn't the evening air lovely? At times like these I

wonder that Skeaton can dare to exist. You'll come and see us one day,

won't you?"

"I think--I don't know," said Maggie; "I may be going away."

Miss Toms gave her a penetrating look.

"I daresay you're right. Skeaton's not the place for you. I saw that

the first time we met. Well, whatever you do, don't lose your pluck.

You're yourself, you know, and you're as good as anybody else. Don't

you forget that. Because a lot of people say a thing it doesn't mean

it's true, and because a set of idiots think a thing shocking it

doesn't mean that it's shocking. Think how wrong people have always

been about everything!"

They turned down a side lane and arrived in the High Street. The street

was very empty. In the fading light a large pink poster attracted

Maggie's attention. She went close to it and read the announcement of

the Revival services.

When she read the names of Thurston and Mr. Crashaw and Miss Avies it

seemed to her incredible, and then at the same time as something that

she had always expected.

"Oh," she cried, "it's coming here!" She was strangely startled as

though the sign of Thurston's name was strange forewarning.

"What's coming?" asked Miss Toms.

She read the notice.

"I don't know what you think," said Miss Toms, "but that kind of

thing's humbug if you ask me."

"Oh!" Maggie cried. "It's so strange. I knew those people in London. I

used to go to their services. And now they're coming here!"

She could not explain to Miss Toms the mysterious assurance that she

had of the way that her former world was drawing near to her again. She

could see now that never for a moment since her arrival in Skeaton had

it let her alone, slowly invading her, bit by bit driving in upon her,

forcing her to retire ...

It was quite dark now. Because it was Sunday evening the shops were

closed. Only behind some of the curtained windows dim lights burned.

Very clearly the sea could be heard breaking upon the shore. The last

note of the bell from the Methodist Chapel echoed across the roofs and

stones.

"Good-night," said Miss Toms.

"Good-night," said Maggie.

She turned back towards home hearing, as she went, Thurston's voice,

seeing beyond all the thick shadow of Martin's body, keeping pace with

her, as it seemed, step by step with her as she went.

She turned into the Rectory drive. She heard with a startled shiver the

long gate swing screaming behind her, she could smell very faintly the

leaves of the damp cold laurel bushes that pressed close in upon her.

It was as though some one were walking with her and whispering in her

ear: "They're coming! They're coming! They've got you! They've got you!"

She opened the hall door; the hall was all dark; some one was there.

Maggie gave a little cry. A match was struck and revealed the white

face of Grace. The two women stared at one another.

Grace had returned from Church; she was wearing her ugly black hat with

the red velvet.

"It's all right," said Maggie, "I've been for a walk."

"Oh--I didn't know," gasped Grace, still staring. "I thought--yes, of

course. Fancy, you've been for a walk!"

Still staring as though she could keep Maggie at bay only by the power

of her vision she backed on to Paul's study door, turned the handle,

and disappeared. The hall was in darkness again. Maggie stumbled her

way towards the staircase, then, seeing Grace's terrified eyes, filled

with a horror that she, Maggie Cardinal, should cause any one to look

at her like that, she ran clumsily upstairs, shutting herself into her

bedroom.

During the next fortnight the dominant element in the situation was

Grace's terror. Skeaton was already beginning to forget the story of

the suicide. Maggie was marked for ever now as "queer and strange," but

Paul was not blamed; he was rather, pitied and even liked the more. But

Grace could not forget. Maggie intended perhaps to murder her in

revenge for her uncle's death; well, then, she must be murdered ... She

would not leave her brother. She could not consider the future. She

knew that she could not live in the same house with Maggie for long,

but she would not go and Maggie would not go ... What was to happen?

Poor Grace, the tortures that she suffered during those weeks will not

be understood by persons with self-confidence and a hearty contempt for

superstition.

She paid the penalty now for the ghosts of her childhood--and no one

could help her.