Meanwhile things went on in an outwardly even and uneventful course.

Innocent worked steadily to fulfil certain contracts into which she had

entered with the publishers who were eager to obtain as much of her

work as she could give them,--but she had lost heart, and her once

soaring ambition was like a poor bird that had been clumsily shot at,

and had fallen to the ground with a broken wing. What she had dreamed

of as greatness, now seemed vain and futile. The "Amadis de Jocelin" of

the sixteenth century had taught her to love literature--to believe in

it as the refiner of thought and expression, and to use it as a charm

to inspire the mind and uplift the soul,--but the Amadis de Jocelyn of

the twentieth had no such lessons to teach. Utterly lacking in

reverence for great thinkers, he dismissed the finest passages of

poetry or prose from his consideration with light scorn as "purple

patches," borrowing that hackneyed phrase from the lower walks of the

press,--the most inspired writers, both of ancient and modern times,

came equally under the careless lash of his derision,--so that

Innocent, utterly bewildered by his sweeping denunciation of many

brilliant and famous authors, shrank into her wounded self with pain,

humiliation and keen disappointment, feeling that there was certainly

no chance for her to appeal to him in any way through the thoughts she

cherished and expressed with truth and fervour to a listening world.

That world listened--but HE did not!--therefore the world seemed

worthless and its praise mere mockery. She had no vanity to support

her,--she was not "strong-minded" enough to oppose her own

individuality to that of the man she loved. And so she began to droop a

little,--her bright and ardent spirit sank like a sinking flame,--much

to the concern of Miss Leigh, who watched her with a jealous tenderness

of love beyond all expression. The child of Pierce Armitage, lawfully

or unlawfully begotten, was now to her the one joy of existence,--the

link that fastened her more closely to life,--and she worried herself

secretly over the evident listlessness, fatigue and depression of the

girl who had so lately been the very embodiment of happiness. But she

did not like to ask questions,--she knew that Innocent had a very

resolute mind of her own, and that if she elected to remain silent on

any subject whatsoever, nothing, not even the most affectionate appeal,

would induce her to speak.

"You will not let her come to any harm, Pierce!" murmured the old lady

prayerfully one day, standing before the portrait of her former and

faithless lover--"You will step in if danger threatens her!--yes, I am

sure you will! You will guide and help her again as you have guided and

helped her before. For I believe you brought her to me, Pierce!--yes, I

am sure you did! In that other world where you are, you have learned

how much I loved you long ago!--how much I love you now!--and how I

love your child for your sake as well as for her own! All wrongs and

mistakes are forgiven and forgotten, Pierce! and when we meet again we

shall understand!"

And with her little trembling worn hands she set a rose, just opening

its deep red heart-bud into flower, in a crystal vase beside the

portrait as a kind of votive offering, with something of the same

superstitious feeling that induces a devout Roman Catholic to burn a

candle before a favourite saint, in the belief that the spirit of the

dead man heard her words and would respond to them.

Just at this time, Innocent went about a good deal among the few

friends who had learned to know her well and to love her accordingly.

Lord Blythe was still away, having prolonged his tour in order to enjoy

the beauty of the Italian lakes in autumn. Summer in England was

practically over, but the weather was fine and warm still, and

country-house parties, especially in Scotland, were the order of the

day. The "social swim" was subsiding, and what are called "notable"

people were beginning to leave town. Once or twice, infected by the

general exodus, Innocent thought of going down to Briar Farm just for a

few days as a surprise to Priscilla--but a feeling for Robin held her

back. It would be needless unkindness to again vex his mind with the

pain of a hopeless passion. So she paid a few casual visits here and

there, chiefly at houses where Amadis de Jocelyn was also one of the

invited guests. She was made the centre of a considerable amount of

adulation, which did not move her to any sort of self-satisfaction,

because in the background of her thoughts there was always the light

jest and smile of her lover, who laughed at praise, except, be it here

said, when it was awarded to himself. Then he did not laugh--he assumed

a playful humility which, being admirably acted, almost passed for

modesty. But if by chance he had to listen to any praise of "Ena

Armitage" as author or woman, he changed the subject as soon as he

could conveniently do so without brusquerie. And very gradually it

dawned upon her that he took no pride in her work or in the position

she had won, and that he was more reluctant than glad to hear her

praised. He seemed to prefer she should be unnoticed, save by himself,

and more or less submissive to his will. Had she been worldly-wise, she

would by every action have moved a silent protest against this, his

particular form of sex-dominance, but she was of too loving a nature to

dispute any right of command he chose to assume. Other men, younger and

far higher in place and position than Jocelyn, admired her, and made

such advances as they dared, finding her very coldness attractive,

united as it was to such sweetness of manner as few could resist, but

they had no chance with her. Once or twice some of her women friends

had sounded her on the subject of love and lovers, and she had put

aside all their questions with a smile. "Love is not to be talked

about," she had said--"It is like God, served best in silence."

But by scarcely perceptible degrees, busy rumour got hold of a thread

or two of the clue leading to the labyrinth of her mystery,--people

nodded mysteriously at each other and began to whisper

suggestions--suggestions which certainly did not go very far, but just

floated in the air like bits of thistledown.

"She is having her portrait painted, isn't she?"

"Yes--by that man with the queer name--Amadis de Jocelyn."

"Has she given him the commission?"

"Oh no! I believe not. He's painting it for the French Salon."

"Oh!"

Then there would follow a silence, with an exchange of smiles all

round. And presently the talk would begin again.

"Will it be a 'case,' do you think?"

"A 'case'? You mean a marriage? Oh dear no! Jocelyn isn't a marrying

man."

"Isn't she a little--er--well!--a little taken with him?"

"Perhaps! Very likely! Clever women are always fools on one point--if

not on several!"

"And he? Isn't he very attentive?"

"Not more so than he has been and is to dozens of other women. He's too

clever to show her any special attention--it might compromise him. He's

a man that takes care of Number One!"

So the gossip ran,--and only Jocelyn himself caught wind of it

sufficiently to set him thinking. His "affaire de coeur" had gone far

enough,--and he realised that the time had come for him to beat a

retreat. But how to do it? The position was delicate and difficult. If

Innocent had been an ordinary type of woman, vain and selfish, fond of

frivolities and delighting in new conquests, his task would have been

easy,--but with a girl who believed in love as the ultimatum of all

good, and who trusted her lover with implicit faith as next in order of

worship to God, what was to be done?

"We talk a vast amount of sentimental rubbish about women being pure

and faithful!" he soliloquised--"But when they ARE pure and faithful we

are more bored with them than if they were the worst women in town!"

He had however one subject of congratulation for which he

metaphorically patted himself on the back as being "a good boy"--he had

not gone to such extremes in his love-affair as could result in what is

usually called "trouble" for the girl. He had left her unscathed, save

in a moral and spiritual sense. The sweet body, with its delicate

wavering tints of white and rose was as the unspoilt sheath of a

lily-bud,--no one could guess that within the sheath the lily itself

was blighted and slowly withering. One may question whether it is not a

more cruel thing to seduce the soul than the body,--to crush all the

fine faiths and happy illusions of a fair mind and leave them scorched

by a devastating fire whose traces shall never be obliterated. Amadis

de Jocelyn would have laughed his gayest and most ironical laugh at the

bare possibility of such havoc being wrought by the passion of love

alone.

"What's the use of loving or remembering anything?" he would

exclaim--"One loves--one tires of love!--and by-and-by one forgets that

love ever existed. I look forward to the time when my memory shall

dwell chiefly on the agreeable entremets of life--a good dinner--a

choice cigar! These things never bother you afterwards,--unless you

eat too much or smoke too much,--then you have headache and

indigestion--distinctly your own fault! But if you love a woman for a

time and tire of her afterwards she always bothers you!--reminding you

of the days when you 'once' loved her with persistent and dreadful

monotony! I believe in forgetting,--and 'letting go.'"

With these sentiments, which were the true outcome of his real self, it

was not and never would be possible for him to conceive that with

certain high and ultra-sensitive natures love is a greater necessity

than life itself, and that if they are deprived of the glory they have

been led to imagine they possessed, nothing can make compensation for

what to them is eternal loss, coupled with eternal sorrow.

Meanwhile Innocent's portrait on which he had worked for a considerable

time was nearly completed. It was one of the best things he had ever

done, and he contemplated it with a pleasant thrill of artistic

triumph, forgetting the "woman" entirely in satisfied consideration of

the "subject." As a portrait he realised that it would be the crown of

the next year's Salon, bearing comparison with any work of the greater

modern masters. He was however a trifle perplexed, and not altogether

pleased at the expression, which, entirely away from his will and

intention, had insensibly thrown a shadow of sadness on the face,--it

had come there apparently of itself, unbidden. He had been particularly

proud of his success in the drawing of the girl's extremely sensitive

mouth, for he had, as he thought, caught the fleeting sweetness of the

smile which was one of her greatest charms,--but now, despite his

pains, that smile seemed to lose itself in the sorrow and pathos of an

unspoken reproach, which, though enthralling and appealing to the

beholder as the look of the famous "Mona Lisa," had fastened itself as

it were on the canvas without the painter's act or consent. He was

annoyed at this, yet dared not touch it in any attempt to alter what

asserted itself as convincingly finished,--for the picture was a fine

work of art and he realised that it would add to his renown.

"I shall not name it as the portrait of a living woman," he said to

himself--"I shall call it simply--'Innocent.'"

As he thought this, the subject of the painting herself entered the

studio. He turned at the sound of the door opening, and caught a

strange new impression of her,--an impression that moved him to a touch

of something like fear. Was she going to be tiresome, he

wondered?--would she make him a "scene"--or do something odd as women

generally did when their feelings escaped control? Her face was very

pale--her eyes startlingly bright,--and the graceful white summer frock

she wore, with soft old lace falling about it, a costume completed in

perfection by a picturesque Leghorn hat bound with black velvet and

adorned with a cluster of pale roses, made her a study worthy the brush

of many a greater artist than Amadis de Jocelyn. His quick eye noted

every detail of her dainty dress and fair looks as he went to meet her

and took her in his arms. She clung to him for a moment--and he felt

her tremble.

"What's the matter?" he asked, with unconscious sharpness--"Is anything

wrong?"

She put him away from her tenderly and looked up smiling--but there was

a sparkling dew in her eyes.

"No, my Amadis! Nothing wrong!"

He heaved a quick sigh of relief.

"Thank heaven! You looked at me as if you had a grievance--all women

have grievances--but they should keep them to themselves."

She gave the slightest little shrug of her shoulders; then went and sat

on the highest step of the familiar dais where she had posed for her

picture, and waited a moment. He did not at once come to sit beside her

as he had so often done--he stood opposite his easel, looking at her

portrait but not at her.

"I have no grievance," she said then, making an effort to steady her

voice, which trembled despite herself--"And if I had I should not vex

you with it. But--when you can quite spare the time I should like a

quiet little talk with you."

He looked round at her with a kind smile.

"Just what I want to have with you! 'Les beaux esprits se

rencontrent'--and we both want exactly the same thing! Dear little

girl, how sensible you are! Of course we must talk--about the future."

A lovely radiance lit up her face.

"That is what I thought you would wish," she said--"Now that the

portrait is finished."

"Well,--all but a touch or two," he rejoined--"I shall ask a few people

to come here and see it before it leaves London. Then it must be

property packed in readiness for Paris before--before I go--"

Her eyes opened in sudden terrified wonderment.

"Before you go--where?"

He laughed a little awkwardly.

"Oh--only a short journey--on business--I will explain when we have our

talk out--not now--in a day or two--"

He left the easel, and coming to where she sat, lifted her in his arms

and folded her close to his breast.

"You sweet soul!" he murmured--"You little Innocent! You are so pretty

to-day!--you madden me--"

He unfastened her hat and put it aside,--then drawing her closer,

showered quick eager kisses on her lips, eyes and warm soft neck. He

felt her heart beating wildly and her whole body trembling under his

gust of passion.

"You love me--you truly love me?" she questioned, between little sighs

of pleasure--"Tell me!--are you sure?"

"Am I not proving it?" he answered--"Does a man behave like this if he

does not love?"

"Ah, yes!" And she looked up with a wild piteousness in her sweet

eyes--"A man will behave like this to any woman!"

He loosened his clasp of her, astonished--then laughed.

"Where did you learn that?" he asked--"Who told you men were so

volatile?"

"No one!"--and her caressing arms fell away from him--"My Amadis, you

find it pleasant to kiss and to embrace me for the moment--but perhaps

not always will you care! Love--real love is different--"

"What do YOU mean by love?" he asked still smiling.

She sighed.

"I can hardly tell you," she said--"But one thing I DO know--love would

never hurt or wrong the thing it loved! Words, kisses, embraces--they

are just the sweet outflow of a great deep!--but love is above and

beyond all these, like an angel living with God!"

He was silent.

She came up to him and laid her little hand timidly on his arm.

"It is time we were quite sure of that angel, my Amadis!" she said--"We

ARE sure--but--"

He looked her full and quietly in the eyes.

"Yes, child!" he answered--"It is time! But I cannot talk about angels

or anything else just now--it is growing late in the afternoon and you

must not stay here too long. Come to-morrow or next day, and we'll

consult together as to what is best to be done for your happiness--"

"For yours!" she interposed, gently.

He smiled, curiously.

"Very well! As you will! For mine!"

CHAPTER X

Lord Blythe stood at the open window of his sitting-room in the Grand

Hotel at Bellaggio--a window opening out to a broad balcony and

commanding one of the most enchanting views of the lake and mountains

ever created by Divine Beneficence for the delight of man. The heavenly

scene, warm with rich tints of morning in Italy, glowed like a jewel in

the sun: picturesque boats with little red and blue awnings rocked at

the edge of the calm lake, in charge of their bronzed and red-capped

boatmen, waiting for hire,--the air was full of fragrance, and every

visible thing appealed to beauty-loving eyes with exquisite and

irresistible charm. His attention, however, had wandered far from the

enjoyable prospect,--he was reading and re-reading a letter he had just

received from Miss Leigh, in which certain passages occurred which

caused him some uneasiness. On leaving England he had asked her to

write regularly, giving him all the news of Innocent, and she had

readily undertaken what to her was a pleasing duty. His thoughts were

constantly with the little house in Kensington, where the young

daughter of his dead friend worked so patiently to bring forth the

fruits of her genius and live independently by their results, and his

intense sympathy for the difficult position in which she had been

placed through no fault of her own and the courage with which she had

surmounted it, was fast deepening into affection. He rather encouraged

this sentiment in himself with the latent hope that possibly when he

returned to England she might still be persuaded to accept the position

he was so ready to offer her--that of daughter to him and heiress,--and

just now he was troubled by an evident anxiety which betrayed itself in

Miss Leigh's letter--anxiety which she plainly did her best to conceal,

but which nevertheless made itself apparent.

"The dear child works incessantly," she wrote, "but she is very quiet

and seems easily tired. She is not as bright as she used to be, and

looks very pale, so that I fear she is doing too much, though she says

she is perfectly well and happy. We had a call from Mr. John Harrington

the other afternoon--I think you know him--and he seemed quite to think

with me that she is over-working herself. He suggested that I should

persuade her to go for a change somewhere, either with me or with other

friends. I wonder if you would care for us to join you at the Italian

Lakes? If you would I might be able to manage it. I have not mentioned

the idea to her yet, as I know she is finishing some work--but she

tells me it will all be done in a few days, and that then she will take

a rest. I hope she will, for I'm sure she needs it."

Another part of the letter ran as follows:--

"I rather hesitate to mention it, but I think so many prolonged

sittings for her portrait to that painter with the strange name, Amadis

de Jocelyn, have rather tired her out. The picture is finished now, and

I and a few friends went to see it the other day. It is a most

beautiful portrait, but very sad!--and it is wonderful how the likeness

of her father as he was in his young days comes out in her face! She

and Mr. de Jocelyn are very intimate friends--and some people say he is

in love with her! Perhaps he may be!--but I do hope she is not in love

with HIM!"

Lord Blythe took off his spectacles, folded up the letter and put it in

his pocket. Then he looked out towards the lake and the charming

picture it presented. How delightful it would be to see Innocent in one

of those dainty boats scattered about near the water's edge, revelling

with all the keenness of a bright, imaginative temperament in the

natural loveliness around her! Young, and with the promise of a

brilliant career opening out before her, happiness seemed ready and

waiting to bless and to adorn the life of the little deserted girl who,

left alone in the world, had nevertheless managed to win the world's

hearing through the name she had made for herself--yet now--yes!--now

there was the cruel suggestion of a shadow--an ugly darkness like a

black cloud, blotting the fairness of a blue sky,--and Blythe felt an

uncomfortable sense of premonition and wrong as the thought of Amadis

de Jocelyn came into his head and stayed there. What was he that he

should creep into the unspoiled sphere of a woman's opening life? A

painter, something of a genius in his line, but erratic and unstable in

his character,--known more or less for several "affairs of gallantry"

which had slipped off his easy conscience like water off a duck's

back,--not a highly cultured man by any means, because ignorant of many

of the finer things in art and letters, and without any positively

assured position. Yet, undoubtedly a man of strong physical magnetism

and charm--fascinating in his manner, especially on first acquaintance,

and capable of overthrowing many a stronger citadel than the tender

heart of a sensitive girl like Innocent, who by a most curious

mischance had been associated all her life with the romance of his

medieval name and lineage.

"Yes--of course she must come out here," Blythe decided, after a few

minutes' cogitation. "I'll send a wire to Miss Leigh this morning and

follow it up by a letter to the child herself, urging her to join me.

The change and distraction will perhaps save her from too much

association with Jocelyn,--I do not trust that man--never have trusted

him! Poor little girl! She shall not have her spirit broken if I can

help it."

He stayed yet another few minutes at the open window, and taking out a

cigar from his case began to light it. While doing this his eye was

suddenly caught by the picturesque, well-knit figure of a man sitting

easily on a step near the clustering boats gathered close to the

hotel's special landing place. He was apparently one of the many

road-side artists one meets everywhere about the Italian Lakes, ready

to paint a sunset or moonlight on Como or Maggiore on commission at

short notice for a few francs. He was not young--his white hair and

grizzled moustache marked the unpleasing passage of resistless

time,--yet there was something lissom and graceful about him that

suggested a kind of youth in age. His attire consisted of much worn

brown trousers and a loose white shirt kept in place by a red

belt,--his shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, displaying thin

brown muscular arms, expressive of energy, and he wore a battered brown

hat which might once have been of the so-called "Homburg" shape, but

which now resembled nothing ever seen in the way of ordinary head-gear.

He was busily engaged in sketching a view of the lake and the opposite

mountains, evidently to the order of some fashionably dressed women who

stood near him watching the rapid and sure movements of his brush--he

had his box of water-colours beside him, and smiled and talked as he

worked. Lord Blythe watched him with lively interest, while enjoying

the first whiffs of his lately lit cigar.

"A clever chap, evidently!" he thought. "These Italians are all artists

and poets at heart. When those women have finished with him I'll get

him to do a sketch for me to send to Innocent--just to show her the

loveliness of the place. She'll be delighted! and it may tempt her to

come here."

He waited a few minutes longer, till he saw the artist hand over the

completed drawing to his lady patrons, one of whom paid him with a

handful of silver coin. Something in the bearing and attitude of the

man as he rose from the step where he had been seated and lifted his

shapeless brown hat to his customers in courteous acknowledgment of

their favours as they left him, struck Blythe with an odd sense of

familiarity.

"I must have seen him somewhere before," he thought. "In Venice,

perhaps--or Florence--these fellows are like gipsies, they wander about

everywhere."

He sauntered out of the Hotel into the garden and from the garden down

to the landing-place, where he slowly approached the artist, who was

standing with his back towards him, slipping his lately earned francs

into his trouser pocket. Several sample drawings were set up in view

beside him,--lovely little studies of lake and mountain which would

have done honour to many a Royal Academician, and Blythe paused,

looking at these with wonder and admiration before speaking, unaware

that the artist had taken a backward glance at him of swift and more or

less startled recognition.

"You are an admirable painter, my friend!" he said, at last--speaking

in Italian of which he was a master. "Your drawings are worth much more

than you are asking for them. Will you do one specially for me?"

"I've done a good many for you in my time, Blythe!" was the

half-laughing answer, given in perfect English. "But I don't mind doing

another."

And he turned round, pushing his cap off his brows, and showing a

wonderfully handsome face, worn with years and privation, but fine and

noble-featured and full of the unquenchable light which is given by an

indomitable and enduring spirit.

Lord Blythe staggered back and caught at the handrail of the landing

steps to save himself from falling.

"My God!" he gasped. "You! You, of all men in the world! You!--you,

Pierce Armitage!"

And he stared wildly, his brain swimming,--his pulses beating

hammer-strokes--was it--could it be possible? The artist in brown

trousers and white shirt straightened himself, and instinctively sought

to assume a less tramp-like appearance, looking at his former friend

meanwhile with a half-glad, half-doubtful air.

"Well, well, Dick!" he said, after a moment's pause--"Don't take it

badly that you find me pursuing my profession in this peripatetic

style! It's a nice life--better than being a pavement artist in

Pimlico! You mustn't be afraid! I'm not going to claim acquaintance

with you before the public eye--you, a peer of the realm, Dick! No, no!

I won't shame you..."

"Shame me!" Blythe sprang forward and caught his hand in a close warm

grip. "Never say that, Pierce! You know me better! Thank God you are

here--alive!--thank God I have met you!--"

He stopped, too overcome to say another word, and wrung the hand he

held with unconscious fervour, tears springing to his eyes. The two

looked full at each other, and Armitage smiled a little confusedly.

"Why, Dick!" he began,--then turning his head quickly he glanced up at

the clear blue sky to hide and to master his own emotion--"I believe we

feel like a couple of sentimental undergrads still, Dick in spite of

age and infirmities!"

He laughed forcedly, while Blythe, at last releasing his hand, took him

by the arm, regardless of the curious observation of some of the hotel

guests who were strolling about the garden and terraces.

"Come with me, Pierce," he said, in hurried nervous accents--"I have

news for you--such news as you cannot guess or imagine. Put away all

those drawings and come inside the hotel--to my room--" "What? In this

guise?" and Armitage shook his head--"My dear fellow, your enthusiasm

is running away with you! Besides--there is some one else to consider--"

"Some one else? Whom do you mean?" demanded Blythe with visible

impatience.

Armitage hesitated.

"Your wife," he said, at last.

Blythe looked him steadily in the eyes.

"My wife is dead."

"Dead!" Armitage loosened his arm from the other's hold, and stood

inert as though he had received a numbing blow. "Dead! When did she

die?"

In a few words Blythe told him.

Armitage heard in silence. Mechanically he began to collect his

drawings and put them in a portfolio. His face was pale under its

sun-browned tint,--his expression almost tragic. Lord Blythe watched

him for a moment, moved by strong heart-beats of affection and

compassion.

"Pierce," he then said, in a low tone--"I know everything!"

Armitage turned on him sharply.

"You--you know?--What?--How?--"

"She--Maude--told me all," said Blythe, gently--"And I think--your

wrong to her--was not so blameworthy as her wrong to you! But I have

something to tell you of one whose wrong is greater than hers or

yours--one who is Innocent!"

He emphasised the name, and Armitage started as though struck with a

whip.

"Innocent!" he muttered--"The child--yes!--but I couldn't make enough

to send money for it after a while--I paid as long as I could--"

He trembled,--his fine eyes had a strained look of anguish in them.

"Not dead too?" he said--"Surely not--the people at the farm had a good

name--they would not be cruel to a child--"

Blythe gripped him by the arm.

"Come," he said--"We cannot talk here--there are too many people

about--I must have you to myself. Never mind your appearance--many an

R. A. cuts a worse figure than you do for the sake of 'pose'! You are

entirely picturesque"--and he relieved his pent-up feelings by a

laugh--"And there's nothing strange in your coming to my room to see

the particular view I want from my windows."

Thus persuaded, Armitage gathered his drawings and painting materials

together, and followed his friend, who quickly led the way into the

Hotel. The gorgeously liveried hall-porter nodded familiarly to the

artist, whom he had seen for several seasons selling his work on the

landing, and made a good-natured comment on his "luck" in having

secured the patronage of a rich English "Milor," but otherwise little

notice was taken of the incongruous couple as they passed up the stairs

to "Milor's" private rooms on the first floor, where, as soon as they

entered, Blythe shut and locked the door.

"Now, Pierce, I have you!" he said, affectionately taking him by the

shoulders and pushing him towards a chair. "Why, in heaven's name, did

you never let me know you were alive? Everyone thought you were dead

years and years ago!"

Armitage sat down, and taking off his cap, passed his hand through his

thick crop of silvery hair.

"I spread that report myself," he said. "I wanted to get out of it

all--to give up!--to forget that such a place as London existed. I was

sick to death of it!--of its conventions, and vile hypocrisies--its

'bounders' in art as in everything else!--besides, I should have been

in the way--Maude was tired of me--"

He broke off, with an abstracted look.

"You know all about it, you say?" he went on after a pause--"She told

you--"

"She told me the night she died," answered Blythe quietly--"After a

silence of nearly twenty years!"

Armitage gave a short, sharp sigh. "Women are strange creatures!" he

said. "I don't think they know when they are loved. I loved her--much

more than she knew,--she seemed to me the most beautiful thing on

earth!--and when she asked me to run away with her--"

"She asked you?"

"Yes--of course! Do you think I would have taken her against her own

wish and will? She suggested and planned the whole thing--and I was mad

for her at the time--even now those weeks we passed together seem to me

the only real living of my life! I thought she loved me as I loved

her--and if she had married me, as I begged her to do, I believe I

should have done something as a painter,--something great, I mean. But

she got tired of my 'art-jargon,' as she called it--and she couldn't

bear the idea of having to rough it a bit before I could hope to make

any large amount of money. Then I was disappointed--and I told her

so--and SHE was disappointed, and she told ME so--and we

quarrelled--but when I heard a child was to be born, I urged her again

to marry me--"

"And she refused?" interposed Blythe.

"She refused. She said she intended to make a rich marriage and live in

luxury. And she declared that if I ever loved her at all, the only way

to prove it was to get rid of the child. I don't think she would have

cared if I had been brute enough to kill it."

Blythe gave a gesture of horror.

"Don't say that, man! Don't think it!"

Armitage sighed.

"Well, I can't help it, Blythe! Some women go callous when they've had

their fling. Maude was like that. She didn't care for me any more,--she

saw nothing in front of her but embarrassment and trouble if her affair

with me was found out--and as it was all in my hands I did the best I

could think of,--took the child away and placed it with kind country

folks--and removed myself from England and out of Maude's way

altogether. The year after I came abroad I heard she had married

you,--rather an unkind turn of fate, you being my oldest friend! and

this was what made me resolve to 'die'--that is, to be reported dead,

so that she might have no misgivings about me or my turning up

unexpectedly to cause you any annoyance. I determined to lose myself

and my name too--no one knows me here as Pierce Armitage,--I'm Pietro

Corri for all the English amateur art-lovers in Italy!"

He laughed rather bitterly.

"I think I lost a good deal more than myself and my name!" he went on.

"I believe if I had stayed in England I should have won something of a

reputation. But--you see, I really loved Maude--in a stupid man's way

of love,--I didn't want to worry her or remind her of her phase of

youthful madness with me--or cause scandal to her in any way--"

"But did you ever think of the child?" interrupted Blythe, suddenly.

Armitage looked up.

"Think of it? Of course I did! The place where I left it was called

Briar Farm,--a wonderful old sixteenth-century house--I made a drawing

of it once when the apple-blossom was out--and the owner of it, known

as Farmer Jocelyn, had a wonderful reputation in the neighbourhood for

integrity and kindness. I left the child with him--one stormy night in

autumn--saying I would come back for it--of course I never did--but for

twelve years I sent money for it from different places in Europe--and

before I left England I told Maude where it was, in case she ever

wanted to see it--not that such an idea would ever occur to her! I

thought the probabilities were that the farmer, having no children of

his own, would be likely to adopt the one left on his hands, and that

she would grow up a happy, healthy country lass, without a care, and

marry some good, sound, simple rustic fellow. But you know everything,

I suppose!--or so your looks imply. Is the child alive?"

Lord Blythe held up his hand.

"Now, Pierce, it is my turn," he said--"Your share in the story I

already knew in part--but one thing you have not told me--one wrong you

have not confessed."

"Oh, there are a thousand wrongs I have committed," said Armitage, with

a slight, weary gesture. "Life and love have both disappointed me--and

I suppose when that sort of thing happens a man goes more or less to

the dogs--"

"Life and love have disappointed a good many folks," said

Blythe--"Women perhaps more than men. And one woman especially, who

hardly merited disappointment--one who loved you very truly,

Pierce!--have you any idea who it is I mean?"

Armitage moved restlessly,--a slight flush coloured his face.

"You mean Lavinia Leigh?" he said--"Yes--I behaved like a cad. I know

it! But--I could not help myself. Maude drew me on with her lovely eyes

and smile! And to think she is dead!--all that beauty in the

grave!--cold and mouldering!" He covered his eyes with one hand, and a

visible tremor shook him. "Somehow I have always fancied her as young

as ever and endowed with a sort of earthly immortality! She was so

bright, so imperious, so queen-like! You ask me why I did not let you

know I was living? Blythe, I would have died in very truth by my own

hand rather than trouble her peace in her married life with you!" He

paused--then glanced up at his friend, with the wan flicker of a

smile--"And--do you know Lavinia Leigh?"

"I do," answered Blythe--"I know and honour her! And--your daughter is

with her now!"

Armitage sprang up.

"My daughter! With Lavinia! No!--impossible--incredible!--"

"Sit down again, Pierce," and Lord Blythe himself drew up a chair close

to Armitage--"Sit down and be patient! You know the lines--'There's a

divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will'? Divinity

has worked in strange ways with you, Pierce!--and still more strangely

with your child. Will you listen while I tell you all?"

Armitage sank into his chair,--his hands trembled--he was greatly

agitated,--and his eyes were fixed on his friend's face in an eager

passion of appeal.

"I will listen as if you were an angel speaking, Dick!" he said. "Let

me know the worst!--or the best--of everything!"

And Blythe, in a low quiet voice, thrilled in its every accent by the

affection and sympathy of his honest spirit, told him the whole story

of Innocent--of her sweetness and prettiness--of her grace and

genius--of the sudden and brilliant fame she had won as "Ena

Armitage"--of the brief and bitter knowledge she had been given of her

mother--of her strange chance in going straight to the house of Miss

Leigh when she travelled alone and unguided from the country to

London--and lastly of his own admiration for her courage and

independence, and his desire to adopt her as a daughter in order to

leave her his fortune.

"But now you have turned up, Pierce, I resign my hopes in that

direction!" he concluded, with a smile. "You are her father!--and you

may well be proud of such a daughter! And there is a duty staring you

in the face--a duty towards her which, when once performed, will

release her from a good deal of pain and perplexity--you know what it

is?"

"Rather!" and Armitage rose and began pacing to and fro--"To

acknowledge and legalise her as my child! I can do this now--and I

will! I can declare she was born in wedlock, now Maude is dead--for no

one will ever know. The real identity of her mother"--he paused and

came up to Blythe, resting his hands on his shoulders--"the real

identity of her mother is and shall ever be OUR secret!"

There was a pause. Then Armitage's mellow musical voice again broke the

silence.

"I can never thank you, Blythe!" he said--"You blessed old man as you

are! You seem to me like a god disguised in a tweed suit! You have

changed life for me altogether! I must cease to be a wandering scamp on

the face of the earth!--I must try to be worthy of my fair and famous

daughter! How strange it seems! Little Innocent!--the poor baby I left

to the mercies of a farm-yard training!--for her I must become

respectable! I think I'll even try to paint a great picture, so that

she isn't ashamed of her Dad! What do you say? Will you help me?"

He laughed,--but there were great tears in his eyes. They clasped hands

silently.

Then Lord Blythe spoke in a light tone.

"I'll wire to Miss Leigh this morning," he said. "I'll ask her to come

out here with Innocent as soon as possible. I won't break the news of

YOU to them yet--it would quite overpower Miss Leigh--it might almost

kill her--"

"Why, how?" asked Armitage.

"With joy!" answered Blythe. "Hers is a faithful soul!"

He waited a moment--then went on:

"I'll prepare the way cautiously in a letter--it would never do to

blurt the whole thing out at once. I'll tell Innocent I have a very

great and delightful surprise awaiting her--"

"Oh, very great and delightful indeed!" echoed Armitage with a sad

little laugh. "The discovery of a tramp father with only a couple of

shirts to his back and a handful of francs in his pocket!"

"My dear chap, what does that matter?" and Blythe gave him a light

friendly blow on the shoulder. "We can put all these exterior matters

right in no time. Trust me!--Are we not old friends? You have come back

from death, as it seems, just when your child may need you--she DOES

need you--every young girl needs some protector in this world,

especially when her name has become famous, and a matter of public talk

and curiosity. Ah! I can already see her joy when she throws her arms

around your neck and says 'My father!' I would gladly change places

with you for that one exquisite moment!"

They stayed together all that day and night. Lord Blythe sent his wire

to Miss Leigh, and wrote his letter,--then both men settled down, as it

were, to wait. Armitage went off for two days to Milan, and returned

transformed in dress, looking the very beau-ideal of an handsome

Englishman,--and the people at Bellaggio who had known him as the

wandering landscape painter "Pietro Corri" failed to recognise him now

in his true self.

"Yes," said Blythe again, with the fine unselfishness which was part of

his nature, when at the end of one of their many conversations

concerning Innocent, he had gone over every detail he could think of

which related to her life and literary success--"When she comes she

will give you all her heart, Pierce! She will be proud and glad,--she

will think of no one but her beloved father! She is like that! She is

full of an unspent love--you will possess it all!"

And in his honest joy for the joy of others, he never once thought of

Amadis de Jocelyn.

CHAPTER XI

It was a gusty September afternoon in London, and autumn had given some

unpleasing signs of its early presence in the yellow leaves that flew

whirling over the grass in Kensington Gardens and other open spaces

where trees spread their kind boughs to the rough and chilly wind. A

pretty little elm in Miss Leigh's tiny garden was clothed in gold

instead of green, and shook its glittering foliage down with every

breath of air like fairy coins minted from the sky. Innocent, leaning

from her study window, watched the falling brightness with an unwilling

sense of pain and foreboding.

"Summer is over, I'm afraid!" she sighed--"Such a wonderful summer it

has been for me!--the summer of my life--the summer of my love! Oh,

dear summer, stay just a little longer!"

And the verse of a song, sung so often as to have become hackneyed,

rang in her ears--

"Falling leaf and fading tree, Lines of white in a sullen sea, Shadows

rising on you and me--The swallows are making them ready to fly,

Wheeling out on a windy sky: Good-bye, Summer! Good-bye, good-bye!"

She shivered, and closed the window. She was dressed for going out, and

her little motor-brougham waited for her below. Miss Leigh had gone to

lunch and to spend the afternoon with some old friends residing out of

town,--an unusual and wonderful thing for her to do, as she seldom

accepted invitations now where Innocent was not concerned,--but the

people who had asked her were venerable folk who could not by the laws

of nature be expected to live very much longer, and as they had known

Lavinia Leigh from girlhood she considered it somewhat of a duty to go

and see them when, as in this instance, they earnestly desired it.

Moreover she knew Innocent had her own numerous engagements and was

never concerned at being left alone--especially on this particular

afternoon when she had an appointment with her publishers,--and another

appointment afterwards, of which she said nothing, even to herself. She

had taken more than usual pains with her attire, and looked her

sweetest in a soft dove-coloured silk gown gathered about her slight

figure in cunning folds of exquisite line and drapery, while the tender

gold of her hair shone like ripening corn from under the curved brim of

a graceful "picture" hat of black velvet, adorned with one drooping

pale grey plume. A small knot of roses nestled among the delicate lace

on her bodice, and the diamond dove-pendant Lord Blythe had given her

sparkled like a frozen sunbeam against the ivory whiteness of her

throat. She glanced at herself in the mirror with a smile,--wondering

if "he" would be pleased with her appearance,--"he" had been what is

called "difficult" of late, finding fault with some of the very points

of her special way of dress which he had once eagerly admired. But she

attributed his capricious humour to fatigue and irritability from

"over-strain"--that convenient ailment which is now-a-days brought in

as a disguise for mere want of control and bad temper. "He has been

working so hard to finish his portrait of me!" she thought,

tenderly--"Poor fellow!--he must have got quite tired of looking at my

face!"

She glanced round her study to see that everything was in order--and

then took up a neatly tied parcel of manuscript--her third

book--completed. She had a fancy--one of many, equally harmless,--that

she would like to deliver it herself to the publishers rather than send

it by post, on this day of all days, when plans for the future were to

be discussed with her lover and everything settled for their mutual

happiness. Her heart grew light with joyous anticipation as she ran

downstairs and nodded smilingly at the maid Rachel, who stood ready at

the door to open it for her passing.

"If Miss Leigh comes home before I do, tell her I will not be long,"

she said, as she stepped into her brougham and was whirled away. At the

office of her publishers she was expected and received with eager

homage. The head of the firm took the precious packet of manuscript

from her hand with a smile of entire satisfaction.

"You are up to your promised time, Miss Armitage!" he said,

kindly--"And you must have worked very hard. I hope you'll give

yourself a good long rest now?"

She laughed, lightly.

"Oh, well!--perhaps!" she answered--"If I feel I can afford it! I want

to work while I'm young--not to rest. But I think Miss Leigh would like

a change--and if she does I'll take her wherever she wishes to go. She

is so kind to me!--I can never do enough for her!"

The publisher looked at her sweet, thoughtful face curiously.

"Do you never think of yourself?" he asked--"Must you always plan some

pleasure for others?"

She glanced at him in quick surprise.

"Why, of course!" she replied--"Pleasure for others is the only

pleasure possible to me. I assure you I'm quite selfish!--I'm greedy

for the happiness of those I love--and if they can't or won't be happy

I'm perfectly miserable!"

He smiled,--and when she left, escorted her himself out of his office

to her brougham with a kind friendliness that touched her.

"You won't let me call you a brilliant author," he said, as he shook

hands with her--"Perhaps it will please you better if I say you are a

true woman!"

Her eyes flashed up a bright gratitude,--she waved her hand in

parting--as the brougham glided off. And never to his dying day did

that publisher and man of hard business detail forget the radiance of

the face that smiled at him that afternoon,--a face of light and youth

and loveliness, as full of hope and faith as the face of a pictured

angel kneeling at the feet of the Madonna with heaven's own glory

encircling it in gold.

The quick little motor-brougham seemed unusually slow-going that

afternoon. Innocent, with her full happy heart and young pulsing blood,

grew impatient with its tardy progress, yet, as a matter of fact, it

travelled along at its most rapid speed. The well-known by-street near

Holland Park was reached at last, and while the brougham went off to an

accustomed retired corner chosen by the chauffeur to await her

pleasure, she pushed open the gate of the small garden leading to the

back entrance of Jocelyn's studio--a garden now looking rather damp and

dreary, strewn as it was with wet masses of fallen leaves. It was

beginning to rain--and she ran swiftly along the path to the familiar

door which she opened with her private key. Jocelyn was working at his

easel--he heard the turn of the lock and looked round. She entered,

smiling--but he did not at once go and meet her. He was finishing off

some special touch of colour over which he bent with assiduous

care,--and she was far too unselfishly interested in his work to

disturb him at what seemed to be an anxious moment. So she waited.

Presently he spoke, with a certain irritability in his tone.

"Are you there? I wish you would come forward where I can see you!"

She laughed--a pretty rippling laugh of kindly amusement.

"Amadis! If you are a true Knight, it is you who should turn round and

look at me for yourself!"

"But I am busy," he said, with the same sharpness of voice--"Surely you

see that?"

She made no answer, but moved quietly to a position where she stood

facing him at about an arm's length. Never had she made a prettier

picture than in that attitude of charming hesitation, with a tender

little smile on her pretty mouth and a wistful light in her eyes. He

laid down his palette and brushes.

"I must give up work for to-day," he said--and going to her he took her

in his arms--"You are too great an attraction for me to resist!" He

kissed her lightly, as he would have kissed a child. "You are very

fascinating this afternoon! Are you bent on some new conquest?"

She gave him a sweet look.

"Why will you talk nonsense, my Amadis!" she said--"You know I never

wish for 'conquests' as you call them,--I only want you! Nothing but

you!"

With his arm about her he drew her to a corner of the studio, half

curtained, where there was a double settee or couch, comfortably

cushioned, and here he sat down still holding her in his embrace.

"You only want me!--Nothing but me!" he repeated, softly--"Dear little

Innocent!--Ah!--But I fear I am just what you cannot have!"

She smiled, not understanding.

"What do you mean?" she asked--"You always play with me! Are you not

all mine as I am all yours?"

He was silent. Then he slowly withdrew his arm from her waist.

"Now, child," he said--"listen to me and be good and sensible! You know

this cannot go on."

She lifted her eyes trustfully to his face.

"What cannot go on?" she queried, as softly as though the question were

a caress.

He moved restlessly.

"Why--this--this love-making, of ours! We mustn't give ourselves over

to sentiment--we must be normal and practical. We must look the thing

squarely in the face and settle on some course that will be best and

wisest for us both--"

She trembled a little. Something cold and terrifying began to creep

through her blood.

"Yes--I know," she faltered, nervously--"You said--you said we would

arrange everything together to-day."

"True! So I did! Well, I will!" He drew closer to her and took her

little hand in his own. "You see, dear, we can't live on the heights of

ecstasy for ever" and he smiled,--a forced, ugly smile--"We've had a

very happy time together, haven't we?"--and he was conscious of a

certain nervousness as he felt her soft little body press against him

in answer--"But the time has come for us to think of other

things--other interests--your career,--my future--"

She looked up at him in sudden alarm.

"Amadis!" she said--"What is it? You frighten me!--you speak so

strangely! What do you mean?"

"Now if you are unreasonable I shall go away!" he said, with sudden

harshness, dropping her hand--"I shall leave you here by yourself

without another word!"

She turned deathly pale--then flushed a faint crimson--a sense of giddy

faintness overcame her,--she put up her hands to her head tremblingly,

and loosening her hat took it off as though its weight oppressed her.

"I--I am not unreasonable, Amadis," she faltered--"only--I don't

understand--"

"Well, you ought to understand," he answered, heatedly--"A clever

little woman like you who writes books should not want any explanation.

You ought to be able to grasp the whole position at a glance!"

Her breath came and went quickly--she tried to smile.

"I'm afraid I'm very stupid then," she answered, gently--"For I can

only see that you seem angry with me for nothing."

He took her hand again.

"Dear little goose, I am not angry," he said--"If you were to make me a

'scene' I SHOULD be angry--very angry! But you won't do that, will you?

It would upset my nerves. And you are such a wise, independent little

person that I feel quite safe with you. Well, now let us talk

sensibly,--I've a great deal to tell you. In the first place, I'm going

to Algiers."

Her lips were dry and stiff, but she managed to ask--

"When?"

"Oh, any time!--to-morrow... next day--before the week is over,

certainly. There are some fine subjects out there that I want to

paint--and I feel I could do good work--"

Her hand in his contracted a little,--she instinctively withdrew it...

then she heard herself speaking as though it were someone else a long

way off.

"When are you coming back?"

"Ah!--That's my own affair!" he answered carelessly--"In the spring

perhaps,--perhaps not for a year or two--"

"Amadis!"

The name sprang from her lips like the cry of an animal wounded to

death. She rose suddenly from his side and stood facing him, swaying

slightly like a reed in a cruel wind.

"Well!" he rejoined--"You say 'Amadis' as though it hurt you! What now?"

"Do you mean," she said, faintly--"by--what--you--say,--do you

mean--that we are--to part?"

The strained agony in her eyes compelled him to turn his own away. He

got up from the settee and left her where she stood.

"We must part sooner or later," he answered, lightly--"surely you know

that?"

"Surely I know that!" she repeated, with a bewildered look,--then

running to him, she caught his arm--"Amadis! Amadis! You don't mean

it!--say you don't mean it!--You can't mean it, if you love me! ... Oh,

my dearest!--if you love me! ..."

She stopped, half choked by a throbbing ache in her throat,--and

tottered against him as though about to fall. Alarmed at this he caught

her round the waist to support her.

"Of course I love you!" he said, hurriedly--"When you are good and

reasonable!--not when you behave like this! If I DON'T love you, it

will be quite your own fault--"

"My own fault?" she murmured, sobbingly--"My own fault? Amadis! What

have I done?"

"What have you done? It's what you are doing that matters! Giving way

to temper and making me uncomfortable! Do you call that 'love'?"

She dropped her hand from his arm and drew herself away from him. She

was trembling from head to foot.

"Please--please don't misunderstand me!" she stammered, like a

frightened child--"I--I have no temper! I--I--feel nothing--I only want

to please you--to know what you wish--"

She broke off--her eyes, lifted to his, had a strange, wild stare, but

he was too absorbed in his own particular and personal difficulty to

notice this. He went on, speaking rapidly--

"If you want to please me you will first of all be perfectly normal,"

he said--"Make up your mind to be calm and good-natured. I cannot stand

an emotional woman all tantrums and tears. I like good sense and good

manners. You ought to have both, with all the books you have read--"

She gave a sudden low laugh, empty of mirth.

"Books!" she echoed--and raising her arms above her head she let them

drop again at her sides with a gesture of utter abandonment. "Ah yes!

Books! Books by the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!"

Her hair was ruffled and fell about her face,--her cheeks had flamed

into a feverish red. The tragic beauty of her expression annoyed him.

"Your hair is coming down," he said, with a coldly critical

smile--"You look like a Bacchante!"

She paid no attention to this remark. She was apparently talking to

herself.

"Books!" she said again--"Such sweet love-letters and poems by the

Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!"

He grew impatient.

"You're a silly child!" he said--"Are you going to listen to me or not?"

She gazed at him with an almost awful directness.

"I am listening!" she answered.

"Well, don't be melodramatic while you listen!" he retorted--"Be

normal!"

She was silent, still gazing fixedly at him.

He turned his eyes away, and taking up one of his brushes, dipped it in

colour and made a great pretence of working in a bit of sky on his

canvas.

"You see, dear child," he resumed, with an unctuous air of patient

kindness--"your ideas of love and mine are totally different. You want

to live in a paradise of romance and tenderness--I want nothing of the

sort. Of course, with a sweet caressable creature like you it's very

pleasant to indulge in a little folly for a time,--and we've had quite

four months of the 'divine rapture' as the poets call it,--four months

is a long time for any rapture to last! You have--yes!--you have amused

me!--and I've made you happy--given you something to think about

besides scribbling and publishing--yes--I'm sure I have made you

happy--and,--what is much more to my credit--I have taken care of you

and left you unharmed. Think of that! Day after day I have had you here

entirely in my power!--and yet--and yet"--here he turned his cold blue

eyes upon her with an under-gleam of mockery in their steely

light--"you are still--Innocent!"

She did not move--she scarcely seemed to breathe.

"That is why I told you it would be a good thing for you if you

accepted Lord Blythe's offer,--in his great position he would be able

to marry you well to some rich fellow with a title"--he went on,

easily. "Now I am not a marrying man. Domestic bliss would not suit me.

I have sometimes thought it would hardly suit YOU!"

She stirred slightly, as though some invisible creature had touched

her, and held up one little trembling hand.

"Stop!" she said, and her voice though faint was clear and steady--"Do

you think--can you imagine that I am of so low and common a nature as

to marry any man, after--" She paused, struggling with herself.

"After what?" he queried, smilingly.

She shuddered, as with keenest cold.

"After your kisses!" she answered--"After your embraces which have held

me away from everything save you!--After your caresses--oh God!--after

all this,--do you think I would shame my body and perjure my soul by

giving myself to another man?"

He almost laughed at her saintly idea of a lover's chastity.

"Every woman would!" he declared--"And I'm sure every woman does!"

She looked straight before her into vacancy.

"I am not 'every woman,'" she said, slowly--"I am only one unhappy

girl!"

He was still dabbing colour on his canvas, but now threw down his brush

and came to her.

"Dear child, why be tragic?" he said--"Life is such a pleasant thing

and holds so much for both of us! I shall always love you--if you're

good!" and he laughed, pleasantly--"and you can always love ME--if you

like! But I cannot marry you--I have never thought of such a thing!

Marriage would not suit me at all. I know, of course, what YOU would

like. You would like a grand wedding with lots of millinery and

presents, and then a honeymoon at your old Briar Farm--in fact, I

daresay you'd like to buy Briar Farm and imprison me there for life,

along with the dust and ashes of my ancestor's long-lost brother--but I

shouldn't like it! No, child!--not even you, attractive as you are,

could turn me into a Farmer Jocelyn!"

He tried to take her in his arms, but she drew herself back from him.

"You speak truly," she said, in a measured, lifeless tone--"Nothing

could turn you into a Farmer Jocelyn. For he was an honest man!"

He winced as though a whip had struck him, and an ugly frown darkened

his features.

"He would not have hurt a dog that trusted him," she went on in the

same monotonous way--"He would not have betrayed a soul that loved him!"

All at once the unnatural rigidity of her face broke up into piteous,

terrible weeping, and she flung herself at his feet.

"Amadis, Amadis!" she cried. "It is not--it cannot be you who are so

cruel!--no, no!--it is some devil that speaks to me--not you, not you,

my love, my heart! Oh, say it isn't true!--say it isn't true! Have

mercy--mercy! I love you, I love you! You are all my life!--I cannot

live without you! Amadis!"

Vexed and frightened for himself at her sudden wild abandonment of

grief, he stooped, and gripping her by the arm tried to draw her up

from the floor.

"Be quiet!" he said, roughly--"I will not have a scandal here in my

studio! You'll bring my man-servant up in a moment with your stupid

noise! I'm ashamed of you!--screaming and crying like a virago! If you

make this row I shall go away!"

"Oh, no, no, no!--do not go away!" she moaned, sobbingly--"Have some

little pity! Do not leave me, Amadis! Is everything forgotten so soon?

Think for a moment what you have said to me!--what you have been to me!

I thought you loved me, dear!--yes, I thought you loved me!--you told

me so!" And she held up her little hands to him folded as in prayer,

the tears raining down her cheeks--"But if for some fault of mine you

do not love me any more, kill me now--here--just where I am!--kill me,

Amadis!--or tell me to go away and kill myself--I will obey you!--but

don't--don't send me into the empty darkness of life again all alone!

Oh, no, no! Let me die rather than that!--you would not think unkindly

of me if I were dead!"

He took her uplifted hands in his own--he began to be "artistically"

interested,--with the same sort of interest Nero might have felt while

watching the effects of some new poison on a tortured slave,--and a

slight, very slight sense of regret and remorse tugged at his tough

heart-strings.

"I should think of you exactly as I do now," he said, resolutely--"If

you were to kill yourself I should not pity you in the least! I should

say that though you were a bit of a clever woman, you were much more of

a fool! So you would gain nothing that way! You see, I'm sane and

sensible--you are not. You are excited and hysterical--and don't know

what you are talking about. Yes, child!--that's the fact!" He patted

the hands he held consolingly, and then let them go. "I wish you'd get

up from the floor and be reasonable! The position is quite simple and

clear. We've had an ideal time of it together--but isn't it Shakespeare

who says 'These violent delights have violent ends'? My work calls me

to Algiers--yours keeps you in London--therefore we must part--but we

shall meet again--some day--I hope..."

She slowly rose to her feet,--her sobbing ceased.

"Then--you never loved me?" she said--"It was all a lie?"

"I never lie," he answered, coldly--"I loved you--for the time being.

You amused me."

"And for your 'amusement' you have ruined me?"

"Ruined you?" He turned upon her in indignant protest--"You must be

mad! You have been as safe with me as in the arms of your mother--"

At this she laughed,--a shrill little laugh with tears submerging it.

"You may laugh, but it is true!" he went on, in a righteously aggrieved

tone--"I have done you no harm,--on the contrary, you have to thank me

for a great deal of happiness--"

She gave a tragic gesture of eloquent despair.

"Oh, yes, I have to thank you!" she said, and her voice now vibrated

with intense and passionate sorrow--"I have to thank you for so

much--for so very much indeed! You have been so kind and good! Yes! And

you have never thought of yourself or your own pleasure at all--but

only of me! And I have been as safe with you as in my mother's arms,

... yes!--you have been quite as careful of me as she was!" And a wan

smile flitted over her agonised face--"All this I have to thank you

for!--but you have ruined me just the same--not my body, but my soul!"

He looked at her,--she returned his gaze unflinchingly with eyes that

glowed like burning stars--and he thought she was, as he put it to

himself, "calming down." He laughed, a little uneasily.

"Soul is an unknown quantity," he said--"It doesn't count."

She seemed not to hear him.

"You have ruined my soul!" she repeated steadily--"You have stolen it

from God--you have made it all your own--for your 'amusement'! What

remainder of life have you left to me? Nothing! I have no hope, no

faith, no power to work--no ambition to fulfil--no dreams to realise!

You gave me love--as I thought!--and I lived; you take love from me,

and I die!"

He bent his eyes upon her with a kind, almost condescending

gentleness,--his personal vanity was immense, and the utter humiliation

of her love for him flattered the deep sense he had of his own value.

"Dear little goose, you will not die!" he said--"For heaven's sake have

done with all this sentimental talk!--I am not a man who can tolerate

it. You are such a pleasant creature when you are cheerful and

self-possessed,--so bright and clever and companionable--and there is

no reason why we shouldn't make love to each other again as often as we

like,--but change and novelty are good for both of us. Come!--kiss

me!--be a good child--and let us part friends!"

He approached her,--there was a smile on his lips--a smile in which

lurked a suspicion of mockery as well as victorious self-satisfaction.

She saw it--and swiftly there came swooping over her brain the horrible

realisation of the truth--that it was all over!--that never, never

again would she be able to dwell on the amorous looks and words and

love-phrases of HER "Amadis de Jocelyn!"--that no happy future was in

store for her with him--that he had no interest whatever in her

cherished memories of Briar Farm, and that he would never care to

accept the right of dwelling there even if she secured it for

him,--moreover, that he viewed her very work with indifference, and had

no concern as to her name or fame--so that everything--every pretty

fancy, every radiant hope, every happy possibility was at an end. Life

stretched before her dreary as the dreariest desert--for her, whose

nature was to love but once, there was no gleam of light in all the

world's cruel darkness! A red mist swam before her eyes--black clouds

seemed descending upon her and whirling round about her--she looked

wildly from right to left, as though seeking to escape from some

invisible pursuer. Startled at her expression Jocelyn tried to hold

her--but she shook him off. She made a few unsteady steps along the

floor.

"What is it?" he said--"Innocent--don't stare like that!"

She smiled strangely and nodded at him--she was fingering the plant of

marguerite daisies that stood in its accustomed place between the easel

and the wall. She plucked a flower and began hurriedly stripping off

its petals.

"'Il m'aime--un peu!--beaucoup--passionement--pas du tout!' Pas du

tout!" she cried--"Amadis! Amadis de Jocelyn! You hear what it says?

Pas du tout! You promised it should never come to that!--but it has

come!"

She threw away the stripped flower, ... there was a quick hot throbbing

behind her temples--she put up her hands--then all suddenly a sharp

involuntary scream broke from her lips. He sprang towards her to seize

and silence her--she stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth.

"I'm sorry!" she panted--"Forgive!--I couldn't help

it!--Amadis--Amadis!--"

And she flung herself against his breast. Her eyes, large and

feverishly brilliant, searched his face for any sign of tenderness, and

searched in vain.

"Say it isn't true!" she whispered--"Amadis--oh my love, say it isn't

true!" Her little hands caressed him--she drew his head down towards

her and her pleading kiss touched his lips. "Say that you didn't really

mean it!--that you love me still--Amadis!--you could not be cruel!--you

will not break my heart!--"

But he was too angry to be pitiful. Her scream had infuriated him--he

thought it would alarm the street, bring up the servant, and give rise

to all sorts of scandal in which he might be implicated, and he roughly

loosened her clinging arms from his neck and pushed her from him.

"Break your heart!" he exclaimed, bitterly--"I wish I could break your

temper! You behave like a madwoman; I shall go away to my room! When I

come back I expect to find you calm, and reasonable--or else, gone!

Remember!"

She stood gazing at him as though petrified. He swung past her rapidly,

and opening the principal door of the studio passed through it and

disappeared. She ran to it--tried to open it--it was locked on the

other side. She was alone.

She looked about her bewildered, like a child that has lost its way.

She saw her pretty little velvet hat on the settee where she had left

it, and in a trembling hurry she put it on--then paused. Going on

tip-toe to the easel, she looked vaguely at her own portrait and smiled.

"You must be good and reasonable!" she said, waving her hand to

it--"When you have lost every thing in the world, you must be calm! You

mustn't think of love any more!--that's only a fancy!--you mustn't--no,

you mustn't have any fancies or your dove will fly away! You are

holding it to your heart just now--and it seems quite safe--but it will

fly away presently--yes!--it will fly away!"

She lifted the painter's palette and looked curiously at it,--then took

up the brush, moist with colour, which Jocelyn had lately used. Softly

she kissed its handle and laid it down again. Then she waited, with a

puzzled air, and listened. There was no sound. Another moment, and she

moved noiselessly, almost creepingly to the little private door by

which she had always entered the studio, and unlocking it, slipped out

leaving the key in the lock. It was raining heavily, but she was not

conscious of this,--she had no very clear idea what she was doing.

There was a curious calm upon her,--a kind of cold assertiveness, like

that of a dying person who has strength enough to ask for some dear

friend's presence before departing from life. She walked steadily to

the place where her motor-brougham waited for her, and entered it. The

chauffeur looked at her for orders.

"To Paddington Station," she said--"I am going out of town. Stop at the

first telegraph office on your way."

The man touched his hat. He thought she seemed very ill, but it was his

place to obey instructions, not to proffer sympathy. At the telegraph

office she got out, moving like one in a dream and sent a wire to Miss

Leigh.

"Am staying with friends out of town. Don't wait up for me."

Back to the brougham she went, still in a dream-like apathy, and at

Paddington dismissed the chauffeur.

"If I want you in the morning, I will let you know," she said, with

matter-of-fact composure, and turning, was lost at once in the crowd of

passengers pouring into the station.

The man was for a moment puzzled by the paleness of her face and the

wildness of her eyes, but like most of his class, made little effort to

think beyond the likelihood of everything being "all right to-morrow,"

and went his way.

Meanwhile Miss Leigh had returned to her house to find it bereft of its

living sunshine. There were two telegrams awaiting her,--one from Lord

Blythe, urging her to start at once with Innocent for Italy--the other

from Innocent herself, which alarmed her by its unusual purport. In all

the time she had lived with her "god-mother" the girl had never stayed

away a night, and that she was doing so now worried and perplexed the

old lady to an acute degree of nervous anxiety. John Harrington

happened to call that evening, and on hearing what had occurred, became

equally anxious with herself, and, moved by some curious instinct,

went, on his way home, to Jocelyn's studio to ascertain if Innocent had

been there that afternoon. But he knocked and rang at the door in

vain,--all was dark and silent. Amadis de Jocelyn was a wise man in his

generation. When he had returned to confront Innocent again and find

her, as he had suggested, either recovered from her "temper" and "calm

and reasonable"--or else "gone"--he had rejoiced to see that she had

accepted the latter alternative. There was no trace of her save the

unlocked private door of the studio, which he now locked, putting the

key in his pocket. He gave a long breath of relief--a sort of "Thank

God that's over!"--and arranged his affairs of both art and business

with such dispatch as to leave for Paris in peace and comfort by the

night boat-train.

CHAPTER XII

That evening the fitful and gusty wind increased to a gale which swept

the land with devastating force, breaking down or uprooting great trees

that had withstood the storms of centuries, and torrential rain fell,

laying whole tracts of country under water. All round the coast the sea

was lashed into a tossing tumult, the waves rolling in like great green

walls of water streaked with angry white as though flashed with

lightning, and the weather reports made the usual matter-of-fact

statement that "Cross-Channel steamers made rough passages." Winds and

waves, however, had no disturbing effect on the mental or physical

balance of Amadis de Jocelyn, who, wrapped in a comfortable fur-lined

overcoat, sat in a sheltered corner on the deck of the Calais boat,

smoking a good cigar and congratulating himself on the ease with which

he had slipped out of what threatened to have been a very unpleasant

and embarrassing entanglement.

"If she were an ordinary sort of girl it wouldn't matter so much," he

thought--"She would be practical, with sufficient vanity not to

care,--she would see more comedy than tragedy in the whole thing. But

with her romantic ideas about love, and her name in everybody's mouth,

I might have got into the devil's own mess! I wonder where she went to

when she left the studio? Straight home, I suppose, to Miss

Leigh,--will she tell Miss Leigh? No--I think not!--she's not likely to

tell anybody. She'll keep it all to herself. She's a silly little

fool!--but she's--she's loyal!"

Yes, she was loyal! Of that there could be no manner of doubt. Callous

and easy-going man of the world as he had ever been and ever would be,

the steadfast truth and tender devotion of the poor child moved him to

a faint sense of shamed admiration. On the inky blackness of the night

he saw her face, floating like a vision,--her little uplifted, praying

hands,--he heard her voice, piteously sweet, crying "Amadis! Amadis!

Say you didn't mean it!--say it isn't true!--I thought you loved me,

dear!--you told me so!"

The waves hissed round the rolling steamer, and every now and again

white tongues of foam darted at him from the crests of the heaving

waters, yet amid all the shattering roar and turbulence of the storm,

he could not get the sound of that pleading voice out of his ears.

"Silly little fool!" he repeated over and over again with inward

vexation--"Nothing could be more absurd than her way of looking at life

as though it was only made for love! Yet--she suited her name!--she was

really the most 'innocent' creature I have ever known! And--and--she

loved me!"

The sea and the wind shrieked at him as the vessel plunged heavily on

her difficult way--his nerves, cool as they were, seemed to himself on

edge: and at certain moments during that Channel passage he felt a pang

of remorse and pity for the young life on which he had cast an

ineffaceable shadow,--a life instinct with truth, beauty, and

brightness, just opening out as it were into the bloom of fulfilled

promise. He had not "betrayed" her in the world's vulgar sense of

betrayal,--he had not wronged her body--but he had done far worse,--he

had robbed her of her peace of mind. Little by little he had stolen

from the flower of her life its honey of sweet content,--he had checked

the active impulses of her ambition, and as they soared upwards like

bright birds to the sun, had brought them down, to the ground, slain

with a mere word of light mockery,--he had led her to judge all things

of no value save himself,--and when he had attained to this end he had

destroyed her last dream of happiness by voluntarily proving his own

insincerity and worthlessness.

"It has all been her own fault," he mused, trying to excuse and to

console himself--"She fell into my arms as easily as a ripe peach falls

at a touch--that childish fancy about 'Amadis de Jocelin' did the

trick! Curious!--very curious that a sixteenth-century member of my own

family tree should be mixed up in my affair with this girl! Of course

she'll say nothing,--there's nothing to say! We've kept our secret very

well, and except for a few playful suggestions and hints dropped here

and there, nobody knows we were in love with each other. Then--she's

got her work to do,--it isn't as if she were an idle woman without an

occupation,--and she'll think it down and live it down. Of course she

will! I'm worrying myself quite needlessly! It will be all right. And

as she doesn't go to her Briar Farm now, I daresay she'll even forget

her fetish of a knight, the 'Sieur Amadis de Jocelin'!"

He laughed idly, amused as he always had been at the romantic ideal she

had made of the old French knight who had so strangely turned out to be

the brother of his own far-away ancestor,--and then, on landing at

Calais, was soon absorbed in numerous other thoughts and interests, and

gradually dismissed the whole subject from his mind. After all, for him

it was only one "little affair" out of at least a dozen or more, which

from time to time had served to entertain him and provide a certain

stimulus for his artistic emotions.

The storm had it all its own way in the fair English country,--sweeping

in from the sea it tore over hill and dale with haste and fury, working

terrible havoc among the luxuriant autumnal foliage and bringing down

whirling wet showers of gold and crimson leaves. Round Briar Farm it

raged all day long, tearing away from the walls one giant branch of the

old "Glory" rose and snapping it off at its stem. Robin Clifford,

coming home from the fields in the late afternoon, saw the fallen bough

covered with a scented splendour of late roses, and lifting it tenderly

carried it into the house, thinking somewhat sadly that in the old days

Innocent would have been grieved had she seen such havoc made. Setting

it in a big brown jar full of water, he put it in the entrance hall

where its shoots reached nearly to the ceiling, and Priscilla Priday

exclaimed at the sight of it--

"Eh, eh, is the old rose-tree broken, Mister Robin! That's never

happened before in all the time I've been 'ere! I don't like the looks

of it!--no, Mister Robin, I don't!"

"It's only one of the bigger branches," answered Robin soothingly. "The

rose-tree itself is all right--I don't think any storm can hurt

that--it's too deeply rooted. This was certainly a very fine branch,

but it must have got loosened by the wind."

Even as he spoke a fierce gust swept over the old house with a sound

like a scream of wrath and agony, and a furious torrent of rain emptied

itself as though from a cloud-burst, half drowning the flower-beds and

for the moment making a pool of the court-yard. Priscilla hurried to

see that all the windows were shut and the doors well barred, and when

evening closed in the picturesque gables of the roof were but a black

blur in the almost incessant whirl of rain.

As the night deepened the storm grew worse, and the howling of the wind

through the cracks and crannies of the ancient building was like the

noise of wild animals clamouring for food. Priscilla and Robin Clifford

sat together in the kitchen,--the most comfortable apartment to be in

on such an unkind night of elemental uproar. It had become more or less

their living-room since Innocent's departure, for Robin could not bear

to sit in the "best parlour," as it was called, now that there was no

one to share its old-world charm and comfort with him,--and when

Priscilla's work was done, and everything was cleared and the other

servants gone to their beds, he preferred to bring his book and pipe

into the kitchen, and sit in an old cushioned arm-chair on one side of

the fire-place, while Priscilla sat on the other, mending the

house-linen, both of them talking at intervals of the past, and of the

happy and unthinking days when Farmer Jocelyn had been alive and well,

and when Innocent was like a fairy child flitting over the meadows with

her light and joyous movements, her brown-gold hair flying loose like a

trail of sunbeams on the wind, her face blossoming into rose-and-white

loveliness as a flower blossoms on its slender stem,--her voice

carrying sweet cadences through the air and making music wherever it

rang. Latterly, however, they had not spoken so much of her,--the fame

of her genius and the sudden leap she had made into a position of

public note and brilliancy had somewhat scared the simple soul of

Priscilla, who felt that the child she had reared from infancy had been

taken by some strange and not to be contested fate away, far out of her

reach,--while Robin--whose experiences at Oxford had taught him that

persons of his own sex attaining to even a mild literary celebrity were

apt to become somewhat "touch-me-not" characters--almost persuaded

himself that perhaps Innocent, sweet and ideally simple of nature as he

had ever known her to be, might, under the influence of her rapid

success and prosperity, change a little (and such change, he thought,

would be surely natural!)--if only just as much as would lessen by ever

so slight a degree her former romantic passion for the home of her

childhood. And,--lurking sometimes at the back of all his thoughts

there crept the suggestive shadow of "Amadis de Jocelyn,"--not the

French Knight of old, but the French painter, of whom she had told him

and of whose very existence he had a strange and secret distrust.

On this turbulent night the old kitchen looked very peaceful and

home-like,--the open fire burned brightly, flashing its flame-light

against the ceiling's huge oak beams--everything was swept clean and

polished to the utmost point of perfection,--and the table on which

Robin rested the book he was reading was covered with a tapestried

cloth, embroidered in many colours, dark and bright contrasted

cunningly, with an effect that was soothing and restful to the eyes. In

the centre there was placed a quaintly shaped jar of old brown lustre

which held a full tall bunch of golden-rod and deep wine-coloured

dahlias,--a posy expressing autumn with a greater sense of gain than

loss. Robin was reading with exemplary patience and considerable

difficulty one of the old French poetry books belonging to the "Sieur

Amadis de Jocelin," and Priscilla's small glittering needle flew in and

out the open-work stitchery of a linen pillow-slip she was mending as

deftly as any embroideress of Tudor times. Over the old, crabbed yet

delicately fine writing of the "Sieur" whose influence on Innocent's

young mind had been so pronounced and absolute, and in Robin's opinion

so malign, he pored studiously, slowly mastering the meaning of the

verses, though written in a language he had never cared to study. He

was conscious of a certain suave sweetness and melancholy in the swing

of the lines, though they did not appeal to him very forcibly.

"En un cruel orage

On me laisse perir;

En courant au naufrage

Je vois chacun me plaindre et mil me secourir,

Felicite passee

Qui ne peux revenir

Tourment de ma pensee

Que n'ai-je en te perdant perdu le souvenir!

Le sort, plein d'injustice

M'ayant enfin rendu

Ce reste un pur supplice,

Je serais plus heureux si j'avais tout perdu!"

A sudden swoop of the wind shook the very rafters of the house as

though some great bird had grasped it with beak and talons, and

Priscilla stopped her swift needle, drawing it out to its full length

of linen thread and holding it there. A strange puzzled look was on her

face--she seemed to be listening intently. Presently, taking off her

spectacles, she laid them down, and spoke in a half whisper:

"Mister Robin! Robin, my dear!"

He looked up, surprised at the grave wistfulness and wonder of her old

eyes.

"Yes, Priscilla?"

"I'm thinkin' my time is drawin' short, dear lad!" she said,

slowly--"I've got a call, an' I'll not be much longer here! That's a

warnin' for me--"

"A warning? Priscilla, what do you mean?"

Drawing in her needle and thread, she pricked it through the linen she

held and looked full at him.

"Didn't ye hear it?" she asked.

A sudden chill crept through the young man's blood,--there was

something so wan and mournful in her expression.

"Dear Priscilla, you are dreaming! Hear what?"

She lifted one brown wrinkled hand with a gesture of attention.

"The crying of the child!" she answered--"Crying, crying, crying!

Crying for me!"

Robin held his breath and listened. The wind had for the moment

lessened in violence, and its booming roar had dropped to a moaning

sigh. Now and again there was a pause that was almost silence, and

during one of these intervals he fancied--but surely it was only

fancy!--that he actually did hear a faint human cry. He looked at

Priscilla questioningly and in doubt,--she met his eyes with a fixed

and solemn resignation in her own.

"It's as I tell you," she said--"My time has come! It's for me the

child is calling--just as she used to call whenever she wanted

anything."

Robin rose slowly and moved a step or two towards the door. The storm

was gathering fresh force, and heavy rain pattered against the windows

making a continuous steely sound like the clashing of swords. Straining

his ears to close attention, he waited,--and all at once as he stood in

suspense and something of fear, a plaintive sobbing wail crept thinly

above the noise of the wind.

"Priscilla! ... Priscilla!" There was no mistaking the human voice this

time--and Priscilla got up from where she sat, though trembling so much

that she had to lean one hand on the table to steady herself.

"Ye heard THAT, surely!" she said.

Robin answered her by a look. His heart beat thickly,--an awful fear

beset him, paralysing his energies. Was Innocent dead? Was that pitiful

wail the voice of her departed spirit crying at the door of her

childhood's home?

"Priscilla! ... Oh, Priscilla!"

The old woman straightened her bent figure and lifted her head.

"Mister Robin, I must answer that call!" she said--"Storm or rain,

we've no right to sit here with the child's voice crying and the old

house shut and barred against her! We must open the door!"

He could not speak--but he obeyed her gesture, and went quickly out of

the kitchen into the adjacent hall,--there he unbarred and unlocked the

massive old entrance door and threw it open. A sheet of rain flung

itself in his face, and the wind was so furious that for a moment he

could scarcely stand. Then, recovering himself, he peered into the

darkness and could see nothing,--till all at once he became vaguely

aware of a small dark object crouching in one corner of the deep porch

like a frightened animal or a lost child. He stooped and touched it--it

was wet and clammy--he grasped it more firmly, and it moved under his

hand shudderingly and lifted itself, turning a white face up to the

light that streamed out from the hall--a face wan and death-like, but

still the face he had ever thought the sweetest in the world--the face

of Innocent! With a loud cry of mingled terror and rapture, he caught

her up and held her to his heart.

"Innocent!--My little love!--Innocent!"

She made no answer--no sort of resistance. Her little body hung heavily

in his arms--her head drooped helplessly against his shoulder.

"Priscilla!" he called--"Priscilla!"

Priscilla was already beside him--she had hurried into the hall

directly she heard his exclamation of fear and amazement, and now as

she saw him carrying the forlorn little burden tenderly along she threw

up her hands with a piteous, almost despairing gesture.

"God save us all!--It's the child herself!" she exclaimed--"Mercy on

the poor lamb!--what can have happened to her?--she's half drowned with

rain!"

As quickly as Robin's strong arms could bear her, she was carried

gently into the kitchen and laid in Robin's own deep arm-chair by the

fire. Roused to immediate practical service and with all her

superstitious terrors at an end, old Priscilla took off a soaked little

velvet hat and began to unfasten a wet mass of soft silk that clung

round the fragile little figure.

"Go and bar the door fast, Mister Robin, my dear!" she said, looking up

at the young man's pale, agonised face,--"We don't want any one comin'

in here to see the child in trouble!--besides, the wind's enough to

scare a body to death! Poor lamb, poor lamb!--where she can have come

from the good Lord only knows! It's for all the world like the night

when she was left here, long ago! Lock and bar the door, dearie, and

get me some of that precious old wine out of the cupboard in the best

parlour." Here her active fingers came upon the glittering diamond

pendant in the shape of a dove that hung by its slender gold chain

round Innocent's neck. She unclasped it, looking at it

wonderingly--then she handed it to Robin who regarded it with sombre,

grudging eyes. Was it a love-gift?--and from whom?

"And while you're about helping me," went on Priscilla--"you might go

to the child's room and fetch me that old white woolly gown she used to

wear--it's warm and soft, and we'll put it on her and wrap her in a

blanket when she comes to herself. She'll be all right presently."

Like a man in a moving dream he obeyed, and while he went on his

errands Priscilla managed to get off some of the dripping garments

which clung to the girl's slight form as closely as the wrappings of a

shroud. Chafing the small icy hands, she smoothed the drenched fair

hair, loosening its pins and combs, and spreading it out to dry,

murmuring fond words of motherly pity and tenderness while the tears

trickled slowly down her furrowed cheeks.

"My poor baby!--my pretty child!" she murmured--"What has broken her

like this?--The world's been too rough for her--I misdoubt me if her

fancies about love an' the like o' that nonsense aren't in the

mischief,--but praise the Lord that's brought her home again, an' if so

be it pleases Him we'll keep her home!"

As she thought this, Innocent suddenly opened her eyes. Beautiful, wild

eyes that stared at her wonderingly without recognition.

"Amadis!" The voice was thin and faint, but exquisitely tender.

"Amadis! How kind you are! Ah, yes!--at last!--I was sure you did not

mean to be cruel--I knew you would come back and be good to me again!

My Amadis!--You ARE good!--you could not be anything else but good and

true!" She laughed weakly and went on more rapidly--"It is

raining--yes! Oh, yes--raining very much!--such a cold, sharp rain!

I've walked quite a long way--but I felt I must come back to you,

Amadis!--just to ask you once more to say a kind word-to kiss me..."

She closed her eyes again and her head fell back on the pillow of the

chair in which she lay. Priscilla's heart sank.

"She doesn't know what she's talking about, poor lamb!" she

thought,--"Just wandering and off her head!--and fancying things about

that old French knight again!"

Here Robin entered, and stood a moment, lost in a maze of enchanted

misery at the sight of the pitiful little half-disrobed figure in the

chair, till Priscilla took the white garment he had been sent to fetch

out of his passive hand.

"There, dear lad, don't look like that!" she said. "Go, and come back

in a few minutes with the wine--we'll be ready for you then. Cheer

up!--she's opened her pretty eyes once--she'll open them again directly

and smile at you!"

He moved away slowly with an aching heart, and a tightness in his

throat that impelled him to cry like a woman. Innocent!--little

Innocent!--she who had once been all brightness and gaiety,--was this

desolate, half-dying, stricken creature the same girl? Ah, no! Not the

same! Never the same any more! Some numbing blow had smitten her,--some

withering fire had swept over her, and she was no longer what she once

had been. This he felt by a lover's intuition,--intuition keener and

surer than all positive knowledge; and not the faintest hope stirred

within him that she would ever shake off the trance of that

death-in-life into which she had been plunged by some as yet unknown

disaster--unknown to him, yet dimly guessed. Meanwhile Priscilla's

loving task was soon done, and Innocent was clothed, warm and dry, in

one of the old hand-woven woollen gowns she had been accustomed to wear

in former days, and a thick blanket was wrapped cosily round her. She

was still more or less unconscious, but the reviving heat gradually

penetrated her body, and she began to sigh and move restlessly. She

opened her eyes again and fixed them on the bright fire. Robin came in

with the glass of wine, and Priscilla held it to her lips, forcing her

to swallow a few drops.

The strong cordial started a little pulse of warmth in her failing

blood, and she made an effort to sit up. She looked vaguely round

her,--then her wandering gaze fixed itself on Priscilla's anxious old

face, and a faint smile, more pitiful than tears, trembled on her lips.

"Priscilla!" she said--"I believe it is Priscilla I Oh, dear Priscilla!

I called you but you would not hear or answer me!"

"Oh, my lamb, I heard ye right enough!"--and Priscilla fondled and

warmed the girl's passive hands--"But I couldn't think it was

yourself--I thought I was dreaming--"

"So did I!" she answered feebly--"I thought I was dreaming...yes!--I

have been dreaming such a long, long time! All dreams! I have walked

through the rain--it was very dark and the wind was cold and cruel--but

I walked on and on--I don't know how I came--but I wanted to get home

to Briar Farm--do you know Briar Farm?"

Stricken to the soul by the look of the wistful eyes expressing a mind

in chaos, Priscilla answered gently--"You're in Briar Farm now,

dearie!--Surely you know you are! This is your own old home--don't you

know it?--don't you remember the old kitchen?--of course you do! There,

there!--look up and see!"

She lifted her head and gazed about her in a lost way.

"No!" she murmured--"I wish I could believe it, but I cannot. I believe

nothing now. It is all strange to me--I have lost the way home, and I

shall never find it--never--never!" Here she suddenly pointed to Robin

standing aloof in utter misery.

"Who is that?" she asked.

Irresistibly impelled by love, fear, and pity, he came and knelt beside

her.

"It's Robin!" he said--"Dear Innocent, don't you know me?"

She touched his hair with one little hand, smiling like a pleased child.

"Robin?" she queried--"Oh, no!--you cannot be Robin--he is ever so many

miles away!" She looked at him curiously,--then laughed, a cold,

mirthless little laugh. "I thought for a moment you might be

Amadis--his hair is like yours, thick and soft--you know him, of

course--he is the great painter, Amadis de Jocelyn--all the world has

heard of him! He went out just now and shut the door and locked it--but

he will come back--yes!--he will come back!"

Robin heard and understood--the whole explanation of her misery

suddenly flashed on his mind, and inwardly he cursed the man who had

wreaked such havoc on her trusting soul. All at once she sprang up with

a wild cry.

"He will come back--he must come back! Amadis!--Amadis!--you will not

leave me all alone?--No, no, you cannot be so cruel!" She stretched out

her arms as though to embrace some invisible treasure in the

air--"Priscilla! ... Priscilla!" Then as Priscilla took her gently

round the waist and tried to calm her she began to laugh again. "The

old motto!--you remember it?--the motto of the Sieur Amadis de

Jocelin!--'Mon coeur me soutien!' You know what it means--'My heart

sustains me.' Yes--and you know why his heart is so strong? Because it

is made of stone! A stone heart can sustain anything!--it is hard and

firm and cold--no rain, no tears can soften it!--no flowers ever grow

on it--it does not beat--it feels nothing--nothing!"--and her hands

dropped wearily at her sides. "It is not like MY heart! my heart burns

and aches--it is a foolish heart, and my brain is a foolish brain--I

cannot think with it--it is all dark and confused! And I have no one to

help me--I am all alone in the world!"

"Innocent!" cried Robin passionately--"Oh, my love, my darling!--try to

recall your dear wandering mind! You are here in the old home you used

to love so well--you are not alone--you never shall be alone any more.

I am with you to love you and take care of you--I have loved you

always--I shall love you till I die!"

She looked at him with a sudden smile.

"Robin!--It is Robin!--you poor boy! You always talked like that!--but

you must not love me,--I have no love to give you--I would make you

happy if I could, but I cannot!"

A violent shudder as of icy cold shook her limbs--she stretched out her

hands pitifully.

"Would you take me somewhere to sleep?" she murmured--"I am very tired!

And when he comes you will wake me--I will not keep him a moment

waiting! Tell him I am quite well--and that I knew he did not mean to

be unkind--"

Her voice broke--she tottered and nearly fell. Robin caught her in his

arms and laid her gently back in the chair, where she seemed to lapse

into unconsciousness. He turned a white, desperate face on Priscilla.

"What is to be done?" he asked,--"Shall I go for the doctor?"

Priscilla shook her head.

"The doctor would be no use," she answered--"She's just fairly worn out

and wants rest. Her little room is ready,--I've kept it aired, and the

bed made warm and cosy ever since she went away--lest she should ever

come back sudden like... could you carry her up, d'ye think? She'll be

better in her bed--and she would come to herself quicker."

Gently and with infinite tenderness he lifted the girl as though she

were a baby and carried her lightly up the broad oak staircase,

Priscilla leading the way--and soon they brought her into her own room,

unchanged since she had occupied it, and kept by Priscilla's loving and

half superstitious care ready for her return at any moment. Laying her

down on her little bed, Robin left her, though hardly able to tear

himself away, and going downstairs again he flung himself into a chair

and wept like a child for the ruin and wreck of the fair young life

which might have been the joy and sunshine of his days!

"Amadis de Jocelyn!" he muttered--"A curse on him! Why should the

founder of this house bring evil on us?--Rising up like a ghost to

overshadow us and spoil our happiness?--Let the house perish and all

its traditions if it must be so, rather than that she should

suffer!--for she is innocent!"

Yes--she was quite innocent,--the little "base-born" intruder on the

unbroken line and history of the Jocelyns!--and yet--it was with a kind

of horror that the memory of that unbroken line and history recurred to

him. Was there--could there be anything real in the long prevalent idea

that if the direct line of the Jocelyns were broken, the peace and

prosperity so long attendant on the old farm would be at an end? He put

the thought away with a sense of anger.

"No, no! She could only bring joy wherever she went--no matter who her

parents were, or how she was born, my poor little one!--she has

suffered for no fault at all of her own!"

He listened to the dying clamour of the storm--the wind still careered

round the house, making a noise like the beating wings of a great bird,

but the rain was ceasing and there was a deeper sense of quiet. An

approaching step startled him--he looked up and saw Priscilla. She

smiled encouragingly.

"Cheer up, Mister Robin!" she said. ... "She is much better--she knows

where she is now, bless her heart!--and she's glad to be at home. Let

her alone--and if she 'as a good sleep she'll be a'most herself again

in the morning. I'll leave my bedroom door open all night--an' I'll be

lookin' in at 'er when she doesn't know it, watchin' her lovin' like

for all I'm worth! ... so don't ye worry, my lad!--there's a good God

in Heaven an' it'll all come right!"

Robin took her rough work-worn hands and clasped them in his own.

"Bless you, you dear woman!" he said, huskily. "Do you really think so?

Will she be herself again?--our own dear little Innocent?"

"Of course she will!" and Priscilla blinked away the tears in her

eyes--"An' you'll mebbe win 'er yet!--The Lord's ways are ever

wonderful an' past findin' out--"

A clear voice calling from the staircase interrupted them.

"Priscilla! Robin!"

Running to answer the summons, they saw Innocent at the top of the

stairs, a little vision of pale, smiling sweetness, in her white wool

wrapper--her hair falling loose over her shoulders. She kissed her

hands to them.

"Only to say good-night!" she said,--"I know just where I am now!--it

was so foolish of me to forget! I am at home--and this is Briar

Farm--and I feel almost well and--happy! Robin!"

He sprang up the stairs and, kneeling, took one of her hands and kissed

it.

"That's my true knight!" she said. "Dear Robin! You deserve everything

good--and if it will give you joy I will marry you!"

"Marry me!" he cried, scarcely believing his ears--"Innocent! You

will?--Dearest little love, you will?"

She looked down upon him where he knelt, like some small compassionate

angel.

"Yes--I will!--To please you and Dad!--Tomorrow if you like! But you

must say good-night now and let me sleep!"

He kissed her hand again.

"Good-night, sweet!"

She started--and drew her hand away.

"He said that once,--and once--in a letter--he wrote it. It seemed to

me beautiful!--'Good-night, sweet!'" She waited as if to think a

moment, then--

"Good-night!" again she said--"Do not be anxious about me--I shall

sleep well! Good-night!"

She waved her hand once more, and disappeared like a little white

phantom in the dark corridor.

"Does she mean it, do you think?" asked Robin, turning eagerly to

Priscilla--"Will she marry me, after all?"

"I shouldn't wonder!" and the old woman nodded sagaciously--"Let her

sleep on it, lad!--an' you sleep on it, too!--The storm's nigh

over--an' mebbe our dark cloud 'as a silver lining!"

Half-an-hour later on she went to her own bed--and on the way thought

she would peep into Innocent's room and see how she fared--but the

door was locked. Vexed at her own lack of foresight in not possessing

herself of the key before the girl had been carried to her room, she

left her own door open that she might be ready in case of any call--and

for a long time she lay awake watchfully, thinking and wondering what

the next day would bring forth--till at last anxiety and bewilderment

of mind were overcome by sheer fatigue and she slept. Not so Robin

Clifford. Excited and full of new hope which he hardly dared breathe to

himself, he made no attempt to rest--but paced his room up and down, up

and down, like a restless animal in a cage, waiting with hardly

endurable impatience for the dawn. Thoughts chased each other in his

brain too quickly to evolve any practical order out of them,--he tried

to plan out what he would do with the coming day--how he would let the

farm people know that Innocent had returned--how he would send a

telegram to her friend Miss Leigh in London to say she was safe in her

old home--and then the recollection of her literary success swept over

his mind like a sort of cloud--her fame!--the celebrity she had won in

that wider world outside Briar Farm--was it fair or honest to her that

he should take advantage of her weak and half-distraught condition and

allow her to become his wife?--she, whose genius was already

acknowledged by a wide and discerning public, and who might be

considered as only at the beginning of a brilliant and prosperous

career?

"For, after all, I am only a farmer," he said--"And with the friends

she has made for herself she might marry any one! The best way for me

will be to give her time--time to recover from this--this terrible

trouble she seems to have on her mind--this curse of that fancy for

Amadis de Jocelyn!--by Heaven, I'd kill him without a minute's grace if

I had him in my power!"

Still pacing to and fro and thinking, he wore the slow hours away, and

at last the grey peep of a misty, silvery dawn peered through his

window. He threw the lattice open and leaned out--the scent of the wet

fields and trees after the night's storm was sweet and refreshing, and

copied his heated blood. He reviewed the whole situation with greater

calmness,--and decided that he must not be selfish enough to grasp at

the proffered joy of marriage with the only woman he had ever loved

unless he could be made sure that it would be for her own happiness.

"Just now she hardly knows what she is saying or doing," he mused,

sadly--"Some great disappointment has broken her spirit and she is

wounded and in pain,--but when she is quite herself and has mastered

her grief, she will see things in a different light--she will realise

the fame she has won,--the brilliant name she has made--yes!--she must

think of all this--she must not wrong herself or injure her position by

marrying me!"

The silver-grey dawn brightened steadily, and in the eastern sky long

folds of silky mist began to shred away in thin strips of delicate

vapour showing peeps of pale amber between,--fitful touches of faint

rose-colour flitted here and there against the gold,--and with a sense

of relief that the day was at last breaking and that the sky showed

promise of the sun, he left his room, and stepping noiselessly into the

outside corridor, listened. Priscilla's door was wide open--and as he

passed he looked in,--she was fast asleep. He could not hear a

sound,--and though he walked on cautious tip-toe along the little

passage which led to the room where Innocent slept and waited there a

minute or two, straining his ears for any little sigh, or sob, or

whisper, none came;--all was silent. Quietly he went downstairs, and,

opening the hall door, stepped out into the garden. Every shrub and

plant was dripping with wet--many were beaten down and broken by the

fury of the night's storm, and there was more desolation than beauty in

the usually well-ordered and carefully-tended garden. The confusion of

fallen flowers and trailing stems made a melancholy impression on his

mind,--at another time he would scarcely have heeded what was, after

all, only the natural havoc wrought by high winds and heavy rains,--but

this morning there seemed to be more than the usual ruin. He walked

slowly round to the front of the house--and there looked up at the

projecting lattice window of Innocent's room. It was wide open.

Surprised, he stopped underneath it and looked up, half expecting to

see her,--but only a filmy white curtain moved gently with the first

stirrings of the morning air. He stood a moment or two irresolute,

recalling the night when he had climbed up by the natural ladder of the

old wistaria and had heard her tell the plaintive little story of her

"base-born" condition, with tears in her eyes, and the pale moonshine

lighting up her face like the face of an angel in a dream.

"And she had written her first book already then!" he thought--"She had

all that genius in her and I never knew!"

A deeper brightness in the sky began to glow, and a light spread itself

over the land--the sun was rising. He looked towards the low hills in

the east, and saw the golden rim lifting itself like the edge of a cup

above the horizon,--and as it ascended higher and higher, some fleecy

white clouds rolled softly away from its glittering splendour, showing

glimpses of tenderest ethereal blue. A still and solemn beauty invested

all the visible scene,--a sacred peace--the peace of an obedient and

law-abiding nature wherein man alone creates strange discord. Robin

looked long and lovingly at the fair prospect,-the wide meadows, the

stately trees warmly tinted with autumnal glory, and thought--

"Could she be happier than here?--safe in the arms of love?--safe and

sheltered from all trouble in the home she once idolised?"

He would not answer his own inward query--and suddenly the fancy seized

him to call her by name, as he had called her on that moonlit night

long ago, and persuade her to look out on the familiar fields shining

in the sunlight of the morning.

"Innocent!"

There was no answer.

He called a little louder--

"Innocent!"

Still silence. A robin hopped out from the cover of wet leaves and

peered at him questioningly with its bold bright eye. Acting on an

irresistible impulse he set his foot on the gnarled root of the old

wistaria and started to climb to the window-sill. Three minutes

sufficed him to reach it--he looked into the little room,--the room

which had formerly been the study of the "Sieur Amadis de Jocelin"--and

there seated at the old oak table with her head bowed down upon her

hands and her hair covering her as with a veil, was Innocent. The

sunlight flashed brightly in upon her--and immediately above her the

golden beams traced out as with a pencil of light the arms of the old

French knight with the faded rose and blue of his shield and motto

illumining with curiously marked distinctness the words he himself had

carved beneath his own heraldic emblems:

"Who here seekynge Forgetfulness Did here fynde Peace!"

She was very strangely still,--and a cold fear suddenly caught at

Robin's heart and half choked his breath.

"Innocent!" he cried. Then, leaping into the room like a man in sudden

frenzy, he rushed towards that motionless little figure--threw his arms

about it--lifted it--caressed it...

"Innocent! Look at me! Speak to me!"

The fair head fell passively back against his shoulder with all its

wealth of rippling hair--the fragile form he clasped was helpless,

lifeless, breathless!--and with a great shuddering sob of agony, he

realised the full measure of his life's despair. Innocent was

dead!--and for her, as for the "Sieur Amadis," the quaint words shining

above her in the morning sunlight were aptly fitted--

"Who here seekynge Forgetfulness Did here fynde Peace!"

. . . . . . .

Many things in life come too late to be of rescue or service, and

justice is always tardy in arrival. Too late was Pierce Armitage, after

long years of absence, to give his innocent child the simple heritage

of a father's acknowledgment; he could but look upon her dead face and

lay flowers on her in her little coffin. The world heard of the sudden

death of the young and brilliant writer with a faintly curious

concern--but soon forgot that she had ever existed. No one knew, no one

guessed the story of her love for the French painter, Amadis de

Jocelyn--he was abroad at the time of her death, and only three persons

secretly connected him with the sorrow of her end--and these were Lord

Blythe, Miss Leigh and Robin Clifford. Yet even these said nothing,

restrained by the thought of casting the smallest scandal on the sweet

lustre of her name. And Amadis de Jocelyn himself?--had he no

regret?--no pity? If the truth must be told, he was more relieved than

pained,--more flattered than sorry! The girl had died for

him,--well!--that was more or less a pleasing result of his power! She

was a silly child--obsessed by a "fancy"--it was not his fault if he

could not live up to that "fancy"--he liked "facts." His picture of her

was the success of the Salon that year, and he was admired and

congratulated,--this was enough for him.

"One of your victims, Amadis?" asked a vivacious society woman he knew,

critically studying the portrait on the first day of its exhibition.

He nodded, smilingly.

"Really? And yet--Innocent?"

He nodded again.

"Very much so! She is dead!"

. . . . . . .

Sorrow and joy, strangely intermingled, divided the last years of life

for good Miss Leigh. The shock of the loss and death of the girl to

whom she had become profoundly attached, followed by the startling

discovery that her old lover Pierce Armitage was alive, proved almost

too much for her frail nerves--but her gratitude to God for the joy of

seeing the beloved face once again, and hearing the beloved voice, was

so touching and sincere that Armitage, smitten to the heart by the

story of her long fidelity and her tenderness for his forsaken

daughter, offered to marry her, earnestly praying her to let him share

life with her to the end. This she gently refused,--but for the rest of

her days she--with him and Lord Blythe--made a trio of friends,--a

compact of affection and true devotion such as is seldom known in this

work-a-day world. They were nearly always together,--and the memory of

Innocent, with her young life's little struggle against fate ending so

soon in disaster, was a link never to be broken save by death, which

breaks all.

L'ENVOI

A few evenings since, I who have written this true story of a young

girl's romantic fancy, passed by Briar Farm. The air was very still,

and a red sun was sinking in a wintry sky. The old Tudor farmhouse

looked beautiful in the clear half-frosty light--but the trees in the

old bye road were leafless, and though the courtyard gate stood open

there were no flowers to be seen beyond, and no doves flying to and fro

among the picturesque gables. I knew, as I walked slowly along, that

just a mile distant, in the small churchyard of the village, Innocent,

the "base-born" child of sorrow, lay asleep by her "Dad," the last of

the Jocelyns,--I knew also that not far off from their graves, the

mortal remains of the faithful Priscilla were also resting in

peace--and I felt, with a heavy sadness at my heart, that the fame of

the old house was wearing out and that presently its tradition, like

many legendary and romantic things, would soon be forgotten. But just

at the turn of a path, where a low stile gives access to the road, I

saw a man standing, his arms folded and leaning on the topmost bar of

the stile--a man neither old nor young, with a strong quiet face, and

almost snow-white hair--a man quite alone, whose attitude and bearing

expressed the very spirit of solitude. I knew him for the master of the

farm--a man greatly honoured throughout the neighbourhood for justice

and kindness to all whom he employed, but also a man stricken by a

great sorrow for which there can be no remedy.

"Will he never marry?" I thought,--but as I put the question to myself

I dismissed it almost as a blasphemy. For Robin Clifford is one of

those rarest souls among men who loves but once, and when love is lost

finds it not again. Except,--perhaps?--in a purer world than ours,

where our "fancies" may prove to have had a surer foundation than our

"facts."

THE END