“Under any other circumstances--had Madame Didier, I mean, m_Anne Page

reported gossip or hearsay, I should immediately have come to you for

an explanation, and I should have accepted your bare word against what

might to others appear grave suspicion. But unfortunately, as I said,

her evidence is incontrovertible. I have seen letters. In short, to

put it plainly, Miss Page, to ask for an explanation from you would be

the merest farce. It therefore becomes my painful duty----”

“An explanation of what?” asked Anne, turning to him with a deliberate

movement, and again the Vicar fidgeted under her gaze.

“Of--of--a mode of life which proves you to have been unworthy of the

position you have held in our midst.”

The Vicar gathered himself together; it was time for the peroration,

and from force of habit his voice grew full and deep. He reminded

himself vigorously of the sanctity of the home, the preservation of the

family, and in sonorous tones continued----

“You have been loved and trusted by pure and innocent women. You have

been esteemed as a friend by myself, as well as by many another upright

and honourable man. And I say it with pain, you have deceived us. My

own child has made you her confidante----”

Anne rose, and the stream of the Vicar’s eloquence suddenly ran dry.

There was a moment’s silence, during which he felt a prey to greater

and more paralyzing nervousness than he had experienced since the

preaching of his first sermon.

The pause was broken by the opening of the door, and the appearance of

Burks with a letter on a tray.

“This is sent down from the Vicarage, ma’am,” she said, addressing her

mistress, “and the maid says will Mr. Carfax kindly read it at once.”

She handed the tray to the Vicar, who took the letter, and with a

murmured apology, broke the envelope. A note from his wife dropped out

first. He picked it up, and hurriedly glanced through its contents.

“_I am wild with anxiety. I send you the enclosed, which has

just come from Mrs. Lovell, so that you may read it while you

are with Miss Page. She may perhaps be able to throw some light

upon the matter. At any rate, ask her advice. She is so good

and wise._”

The Vicar snatched up the other letter, which mechanically, in a dazed

voice, he began to read aloud.

“_MY DEAR MARY_,

“_I hasten to tell you, though I fear too late, of something

I have just heard about your dear Sylvia. She has signed a

contract to go to America with a theatrical travelling company,

and I am told that she has already sailed. The manager I

understand to be a man of bad character, as indeed he must be

to induce a girl to leave England without her parents’ consent.

This has come to my knowledge in a roundabout way through a

chorus girl who happens to be related to my maid. I should have

telegraphed, but Simpkins has just showed me the announcement

of the company’s departure from Liverpool, and in that case a

telegram is useless._

“_All my sympathy, dear. In haste_,

“_Your affectionate_

“_LAURA LOVELL_.”

Mr. Carfax dropped the letter.

In the waning light, Anne saw that his face was white.

“You must have known of this!” he broke out fiercely. “You must have

known, I say!”

Anne moved swiftly to his side, and laid her hand on his arm.

“It’s all right,” she whispered hurriedly. “I _did_ know. I stopped it.

Sylvia is quite safe, at Carlisle House. If I had guessed that such

news would reach you, I would have told you at once. I was going to

tell you when you came in. But you put it out of my head,” she added

simply.

The Vicar’s colour had not returned. He stood mopping his forehead

slowly with his handkerchief, his face working so painfully that Anne,

her eyes full of tears, turned away.

She opened her writing-table, and rang the bell.

“What are you going to do?” stammered her companion.

“Send a note to your wife. I can’t bear to think of her anxiety.”

“True,” murmured the Vicar. “You are very kind. It’s like you--to think

of everything,” he added, still in a dazed voice.

He began to pace the room with uneven steps.

“If the maid has gone, run up as quickly as you can to the Vicarage

with this note,” said Anne, sealing the envelope, as Burks entered.

“She’s still here, ma’am.”

“Then give it to her, and tell her to go _at once_, please, Burks. It’s

important. Don’t keep her a moment longer talking.”

The maid disappeared, and Anne lighted the candles on the mantelpiece,

quietly, one by one.

“You need have no anxiety,” she said without looking at the Vicar.

“Sylvia has been very imprudent, but she realizes it, and is sorry.

She had arranged with me to come home and tell you all about it, as

soon as I had first spoken to you. She seemed to think that I might

have some--some little influence. But I must now leave her to tell

her own story. I only want you to understand that she’s safe. I went

to my solicitor about the matter, and as she is under age, he had no

difficulty in settling the whole affair.”

“But--this man?” demanded Mr. Carfax in an unsteady voice. “The man

Mrs. Lovell mentions?”

For the first time she glanced at him, and saw the fear in his eyes.

“Be quite easy. Sylvia had no idea of any evil intention on the man’s

part. She is only utterly ignorant and inexperienced. She is one of the

pure and innocent women you mentioned just now.”

Her voice was gentle, and had not a trace of bitterness.

The Vicar continued for a moment his perambulation of the room.

Then he stopped abruptly and raised his head.

“Thank you,” he said in a husky tone. “I owe you a debt I can never

repay. I----” he hesitated painfully. “I wish to God----” he broke out

again, and again paused. She looked at him steadily.

All the pompous self-importance had died out of his face; all the

arrogance of the priest who denounces the sinner. His was the very

human face of a man still gasping with relief from deadly fear, still

unable to believe that the threatened danger is over. And with this

expression of scarcely assured safety there was mingled real sorrow, a

look of real affection for the woman to whom he owed his escape from a

crushing blow.

“You spoke of an explanation,” said Anne in a low voice. “A moment ago

I should have asked you to leave me, because of the manner in which you

spoke of it.

“Now I have changed my mind, and I think I should like to give you an

explanation--_my_ explanation.”

She was still standing, still looking at him steadily.

“You were kind enough to say that people here had loved and trusted me.

I am glad if that is the case--very glad.” She waited a moment.

“If as you say they have been good enough to give me their love and

confidence, it is because I have understood them; because they have

never been afraid to tell me their inmost thoughts. Well, you will not

believe me, perhaps,--that power of understanding would never have been

mine but for the ‘mode of life’ to which you have alluded.

“Twenty years ago, Mr. Carfax, I was a self-doubting, colourless woman.

My youth, as I thought, was past. It had brought me nothing. No love,

no human experience, no joys, no very deep sorrows even. Nothing but

the grey hopeless depression of a woman who has never taken her part

in the world, who has always stood outside, who knows nothing of life;

the sort of woman who ignorant to begin with, grows narrower and more

prejudiced as the years pass, till at last in the bitter sense of the

word, she is an old maid by nature, useless as a friend, helpless as

a comforter, of no account in a world of men and women she cannot

understand.

“Well, before that happened to me, before I was old in heart at least,

I met a man who loved me, and whom I loved. I might have married him.

I chose _not_ to marry him, because----” She smiled a little. “I need

not trouble you with my reasons. They seemed good reasons to me, and I

have never regretted them. I lived with him for three years. The memory

of those three years has lasted with me to this day, and has made me a

woman so proud and happy that if my deep content has overflowed, and

reached the lives of others, it is no credit to me. I simply can’t

help caring for people, because by the mercy of Heaven, I have loved

and been loved. Nothing else, for me at least, would have made that

understanding and caring possible. Not the money that came to me, nor

the opportunities it afforded for what is called ‘doing good.’ It was

a change in _me_, that was needed, a personal experience of loving

and suffering. Well! I have loved and I have suffered, and now I

_understand_.

“That’s my little story. It’s a story I would not have told you ten

minutes ago. But--well, you made me feel just now that you were human.

“Don’t imagine you see before you the sinner that repenteth. She has

never repented. She never will repent, though it’s an old white-haired

woman who is talking--to a man years younger than herself!”

Her eyes met his, and beneath their smiling gaze, half wise, half

whimsical, the Vicar dropped his own, and reddened like a school-boy.

The gentle reproof, implied rather than spoken, went home.

Suddenly, in the presence of this dignified gracious woman, he felt raw

and awkward, very young, more than a little ashamed. He was confused

moreover, with the sense that there existed possibly whole realms of

experience which no code of morals he had ever preached seemed adequate

to cover.

Here was a woman who certainly possessed the fairest of the Christian

virtues. She was gentle, tolerant, generous (with a twinge of

compunction he realized how great a part the anticipated loss of her

donations had played in his reflections during the walk from the

Vicarage to Fairholme Court). She was patient, longsuffering,--the

Vicar ran through the whole gamut of spiritual gifts, and acknowledged

her richly endowed.

Could it be that there were other paths to the Kingdom of Heaven than

the strait way and the narrow gate that alone were said to lead to

salvation?

The very useful brain of Mr. Carfax, unaccustomed to be exercised in

unusual directions, began to feel the strain, and its possessor wisely

took the hint, and abandoned the fatiguing labour of original research.

In any case Miss Page was a charming woman, and by however amazing

process the result had been achieved, a good one also.

He looked at her, and with a sudden frank movement, held out his hand.

“Forgive me,” he said simply. “You--you have shown me I had no right to

judge. I beg your pardon.”

Anne put her hand into his with a very sweet smile.

“My dear friend,” she replied, “you must do what you think right, and

Dymfield will not be behind the judgment of most of the world in this

matter. You know I love the place, but I can’t stay here when the

people no longer look upon me as a friend. Well, the world is wide, and

fortunately for me I’m not a poor woman.”

“You mustn’t leave us! You won’t leave us!” begged the Vicar.

“There will be no occasion. The position is unchanged. The only two

people who know anything of--of the matter, are your friends. Even

if through malice or carelessness a breath of scandal should reach

others, surely you can trust us to treat the rumour with the----” He

hesitated.

“With the contempt it doesn’t deserve?” suggested Anne gently.

Greatly to his surprise, and somewhat to his horror, the Reverend

George Carfax was betrayed into an answering smile.

He hastened to efface it, but the deed was done.

“And Sylvia?” asked Anne tentatively. “I wanted her to stay with me for

a few days. You have only to say if you would rather she did not, and I

won’t ask her.”

“If after all the trouble she has given you, Sylvia will be welcome, I

can answer for her delight,” returned Mr. Carfax promptly.

Anne put out her hand with an impulsive gesture.

“You are quite a dear!” she observed, and her sudden smile still

further illuminated the dusky corners of the Vicar’s strictly limited

imagination.

The entrance of Burks with the tea-things gave him a moment to recover

from the shock of a series of mental and emotional upheavals to which

he was unaccustomed.

“You will stay, of course?” begged Anne. “My note to your wife was

quite explicit,” she added. “She won’t be anxious now.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Carfax. “I want to hear particulars about Sylvia,

and I feel I should be all the better for a cup of tea.”

Five minutes later, Mrs. Carfax entered a room bright with fire and

candle-light, in which her husband sat comfortably ensconced in an

arm-chair opposite to Miss Page, who was passing him hot cakes of a

delicious crispness.

Anne went quickly across the room.

“It’s quite right. Don’t worry,” she hastened to say, as she kissed her

visitor. “I’m just telling your husband all about it.”

“Sylvia must come home!” declared her mother, after Anne’s recital.

Her hand was still trembling as she put down her tea-cup. “She’s not

fit to be left alone in a great wicked city. I always _said_ to George

it was madness to let her go away from us!”

“It’s so difficult to get women to take broad views,” complained the

Vicar, turning to Anne, “it requires the masculine mind, free from

prejudice and indifferent to common opinion, to see the wider outlook.”

Anne laid her hand on his wife’s arm.

“Dear Mrs. Carfax, do let her finish her training,” she urged. “The

child acknowledges her foolishness. I quite agree that she ought not

to be alone, and before you came in, I was suggesting a plan to your

husband.

“Let her go to my brother and his wife. They lost their little girl

some years ago, and Alice has always longed for a daughter. She’s such

a nice kind little woman, and she would treat Sylvia as her own child.

I spoke to her of the possibility of this, before I left London, and

she was delighted with the idea.”

“It would be a splendid thing for her, Mary, if it can be arranged.

It’s so like Miss Page to have thought of such a plan.”

Mrs. Carfax hesitated.

“We must think about it. I wouldn’t give my consent for her to go

anywhere else. But if it’s a case of _your_ relations, dear, it’s

different. I should feel safe and happy about her, of course. We must

talk about it, George.”

Anne leant back against her sofa cushions with a satisfied expression.

When her visitors rose to go, she followed them to the door.

While his wife was being helped into her goloshes by Burks, outside in

the hall, the Vicar lingered a moment to hold her hand in a tight grasp.

“I can never thank you enough,” he murmured. “You are the best woman I

ever met,” he added, looking her straight in the face.

Anne flushed a little; there were tears in her eyes.

“Good-bye,” she said. “I shall look forward to having Sylvia here next

week.”

* * * * *

When the hall door had closed, she drew a deep breath of exhaustion and

relief.

She had won peace with honour. She knew it, and was thankful. But she

was glad to be alone.

She walked round the room, bending over the pots of lilies of the

valley, touching the waxen bells of the hyacinths with gentle fingers.

They had been grown for her home-coming, and they welcomed her

delicately. She stirred the fire to a brighter blaze, and smiled to see

its glow spreading to the furthest corner of the room.

Never had her home seemed so sweet, so inviting, so restful.

“It would have broken my heart to leave it!” she thought with sudden

conviction.

She looked at the bookcases filled with books all the more precious,

because for three months she had not touched them.

Finally she reached for a volume on one of the upper shelves, and

taking it to the sofa, turned to a poem she loved.

“_Mère des souvenirs, maîtresse des maîtresses,

O toi, tous mes plaisirs! O toi, tous mes devoirs!

Tu te rappelleras la beauté des caresses,

La douceur du foyer et le charme des soirs,

Mère des souvenirs, maîtresse des maîtresses!_

“_Les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon,

Et les soirs au balcon, voilés de vapeurs roses.

Que ton sein m’était doux! que ton cœur m’était bon!

Nous avons dit souvent d’impérissables choses,

Les soirs illuminés par l’ardeur du charbon._”

Anne let the book slip into her lap. “_Nous avons dit souvent

d’impérissables choses_,” she repeated softly.

It was of these “imperishable things” she was thinking, the things of

the spirit, that persist when as with her the desire of the flesh

is dead, and the lust of the eyes. The imperishable things that last

into the evening of life, when the stars come out, and ever nearer and

nearer draw the “murmurs and scents of the infinite sea.”

XXIII

It was two years before François Fontenelle re-visited Fairholme Court.

Again it was June, and Anne had taken him to the garden, full of pride

to show him her roses in the height of their beauty.

They strolled round its paths talking of a thousand things, and finally

sat down under the arch, over which there poured a cascade of snowy

bloom. The table in front of the bench was littered with papers, which

François began idly to examine.

“_The New Thought!_” he exclaimed, holding up one of the leaflets

between his finger and thumb. “What on earth are _you_ doing with this

latter day product?”

Anne laughed. “A strenuous young thing who is spending her holiday in

the village brought a heap of papers this morning, and begged me to

read them. She said it was scandalous that such an intelligent woman

as I appeared to her, should be ignorant of the ‘movement,’” she added

demurely.

“Whatever the modern young woman lacks, it isn’t cheek,” he returned.

“Well! What do you think of the ‘no property’ idea in the eternally

boring sex question? Let me see, there are to be state babies, aren’t

there? Have state lovers been suggested yet, or is that a figment of my

imagination?”

Anne sighed. “Perhaps I’m too old for it,” she said. “I know I don’t

understand it. It all seems to me so terribly business-like, and I was

never a business woman.”

François laughed. “I should as soon expect one of these roses to start

company promoting.”

“One thing I feel quite sure about,” she went on, drawing her lace

shawl round her shoulders. “The men and women who write some of these

letters have never loved.”

“Love has gone out of fashion in England, and the new wisdom has taken

its place,” observed François. “Its professors are gentlemen who live

on grape nuts, and are occupied municipally. They don’t believe in

love, partly because a diet of grape nuts is not conducive to the

emotion, partly because they are afraid of disagreeing with Mr. Bernard

Shaw. You have saved me from belonging to the latter class, but only as

a brand is snatched from the burning.”

“The simile is ill-chosen,” declared Anne serenely. “There’s no

fire about any of the new doctrines. They are all eminently cool,

calculating and dull. Dull as ditch-water, and quite as appetizing.”

François smiled. “You are a very old-fashioned woman, Anne,” he

declared, “and the sight of these things near you is absurd, and even

indecent.”

He swept them from the table.

“Go and fetch your Herrick, and read me how roses first came red, and

lilies white.”

“My lord shall be obeyed--another time,” said Anne laughing.

“How is Mrs. Dakin?” asked François suddenly, lighting a cigarette.

Anne was engaged in pushing the end of a trailing green branch through

one of the spaces in the lattice work.

“She and the baby, who is six weeks old to-day, are away on a visit to

her mother. She is very well, and exceedingly happy,” she added after a

moment spent in arranging the branch to her satisfaction.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

She turned to him. “I believe you are, François.”

“I’m also glad to hear she’s away, since because of that circumstance

presumably I was honoured with an invitation to-day.”

“Why haven’t I seen you for so long?” inquired Anne irrelevantly.

“I was afraid to come,” he said, looking at her with a smile.

“Why?”

“Oh, not because I dreaded a scene with you. Have you ever made a scene

in your life, Anne? You ought to have done it once at least, to prove

your affinity with the sex you adorn. But I don’t believe you ever

have. No. I was afraid of your eyes.”

“What’s the matter with my eyes?” she asked, with a smile concealed in

them.

“Anne Page, if you’re going to flirt with me I give you due warning

that I’m a poor weak man, and I can’t answer for the consequences.”

She laughed. “The baby is a darling, and I’m its godmother. They’ve

called her _Anne_.”

“They may, but they needn’t flatter themselves she’ll ever be as

attractive as Anne Page.”

“Her father already thinks her the most lovely creature in the

world--except his wife.”

“And how are all the other worthies? Still at your feet, I suppose?”

“They are all charming to me. My little friend Sylvia, the Vicar’s

daughter, sang at her first concert the other night, and had a

great success. The vicarage is standing on its head with pride, in

consequence.”

“And the pastoral life still amuses you?”

“Very much.”

“Wonderful woman!”

“Dear François, why not?” she asked. “You know I am a very simple

person.”

“Yes. Though you were once the queen of quite a brilliant salon.”

She was silent.

“When are you coming over to see your picture?”

“This autumn.” For a moment she paused. “You know my wishes, François?

I have left René’s pictures to the Luxembourg. The two we like

best--you know them--are to hang on either side of the portrait. It’s

in my will, of course.”

He smoked a moment without speaking.

“I wonder if he’ll come and look at them?” he said at last. “I think he

will, and you’ll smile at him out of the portrait.”

“I’m so glad he liked it,” she answered softly, after a long pause.

“He only saw it once. I never dared show it to him again. That’s why I

put it away.”

The birds had begun their evening song, and the garden rang with the

voices of blackbirds and thrushes.

“Well! I must get back to _The Chase_,” declared François, glancing at

his watch. “I shall be late for dinner as it is. This is good-bye till

September. Not a moment later mind, and then you will stay in Paris a

decent time?”

He looked at her, as she got up and stood for a moment embowered in the

roses, her lace shawl hanging from her arms, her figure still beautiful

and gracious.

“The gods have granted you the gift of eternal youth, Anne,” he

declared. “I want to paint another portrait.”

She laughed, and shook her head.

“There will be no more portraits,” she said.

* * * * *

She went with him as far as a little gate which gave upon the meadows,

through which a field path led to _The Chase_.

After he had gone she wandered into the lavender-garden, and in the

gathering summer twilight paced the path between the grey-green borders.

In the west, the sky was still flushed with sunset. The air, so quiet

that not a leaf trembled, was sweet with the scent of flowers.

Anne walked slowly, her mind occupied with pleasant trifles. She

decided that the lilies in the south border must this autumn be

divided. She must tell Davis to plant more daffodils in the orchard

under the apple trees. There was the village children’s treat to be

considered, and she must not forget to talk it over with the Vicar.

Suddenly she remembered that Dr. Dakin was coming in to smoke his pipe

and talk. Madge and the baby were returning on Thursday. He would

therefore be in excellent spirits.

The roses on the hedge round the sundial breathed a sweet strong

fragrance into the dusk.

Anne picked one of them, and tucked it into the front of her gown,

before she turned towards the house.

THE END

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

* * * * *

“Under any other circumstances--had Madame Didier, I mean, merely