“It's very nice of you to be interested in me. You are much more

interested than I am--and it's a compliment, a great compliment. I think

you are very loyal--if I can call it loyalty--if you'll let me call it

that. I like my work here; I'm perfectly happy doing it. It was hard

at first. I knew absolutely nothing of housekeeping and managing

things when I came here. I had to work--to learn book-keeping

and accounts--cooking--building--carpentering--stock-raising--oh,

everything. I had to feel that I knew very nearly as much about

everything as the people who were to do what I told them. And of course

that was quite true; but it wasn't at all easy. It has taken me eight

years to get as far as I am now. And I could go on for years more.

There's nobody on the place whom I can't manage: they all like me. I'm

quite comfortable--if I can be let alone.”

... Speaking so, she believed it. But, thinking it over she was driven

to explain herself.

“People seem to think that girls--that women--care for nothing but

one thing--being married, I mean. I'm sure that's a mistake. One gets

interested, one may get absorbed--and then there's a difficulty. For

it's very true, I think, that unless we care for the one thing, and that

thing only, we don't care for it at all. At least, that is how I

feel about it. I have got lots of interests in life--all these things

here--management of things. I don't want Nevile--or to be married.

I don't want anything of the sort; I can't be bothered. I cared

once--frightfully; but now I don't care. All that was long ago; at the

beginning--eight years ago. Now it's done with, I only want to be let

alone--to do my work here. It doesn't seem to me much to ask; but--” ...

It was then that she looked at him, and was beyond the power of his

sounding. She grew vehement, full of still, passionless rage. She was

like a goddess pronouncing a decree; she was final.

“I don't want to marry Nevile. It bores me. And he doesn't want me,

really. He thinks he does, because he thinks that he can't have me any

other way. But he would be miserable, and so should I. It seems to me

impossible. You can't put life into dead things. When he came back

here the other day he had been away a year: a year and ten days. He had

written to me twice--”

Chevenix interrupted. “Excuse me,” he said. “How many times had you

written to him?” He had guessed at pique; but he was wrong.

She replied slowly. “I forwarded his letters. I hadn't written at all.”

Her simplicity! Chevenix allowed her to go on.

“The thing--all that it began with--was over. I felt that. I showed him

that the first evening he was here. He has never spoken to me again--of

that sort of thing, and I don't think he ever will. He doesn't

understand being refused anything. I suppose he never has been before in

his life.”

“Weren't you, perhaps, a little bit short?” he hazarded; and she

considered the possibility.

“No, I don't think so. I wasn't more abrupt than he was--after a year.”

She paused. “He threw out her death--Mrs. Ingram's death--” she

forced herself to the name--“quite casually, as if he had been saying,

'By-the-by, the Rector's coming to dine.' If he had wanted me, do you

think he would have put it like that?”

“Nevile,” said Chevenix, “would put anything--like anything. He's that

sort, you know. He'd take for granted that you understood lots of things

which he couldn't express. But I will say this for Nevile. He's not

petty. He's fairly large-minded. For instance, I'll bet you what you

like he didn't mind your not writing to him--or reproach you with it.”

She opened her eyes. “Of course he didn't. He was perfectly happy. He

told me he had been idiotically happy. He knew I was here, because

I forwarded his letters--and that was all he cared about. I was here

for--when he chose. I assure you he didn't want me at all until I showed

him that he couldn't have me.”

“But he did, you know,” said Chevenix; “he does. He was sure of you all

through, from the beginning, as you say. That's why he didn't write or

expect letters from you. He nattered himself that he was secure. Poor

old Nevile!” He felt sorry now for Ingram. She was really adamantine.

She arose, with matches in her hand, knelt before the fire and kindled

it. She blew into it with her mouth, and watched the climbing flames. “I

don't think you need pity Nevile, really,” she said. “He will always be

happy. But I am going to be made unhappy.” She proclaimed her fate as

a fact in which she had no concern at all. Chevenix rose and paced the

room.

“Well, you know--I must be allowed to say--your happiness is so

entirely in your own hands. It's difficult--I've no right to suggest--to

interfere in any way. I'm nothing at all, of course--”

“You are my friend, I hope,” she said, watching the young fire--still on

her knees before it, worshipping it, as it seemed. Chevenix expanded his

chest.

“You make me very proud. I thank you for that. Yes, I am your friend.

That's why I risk your friendship by asking you something. You won't

answer me unless you choose, of course. But--come now, Sancie, is there,

might there be--somebody else?”

She looked round at him from where she knelt. Her hands were opened to

the fire; her face was warmed by its glow; it was the pure face of a

seraph. “No. There's nobody at all--now.”

He was again standing before the little photograph of the nymph

thigh-deep in water. That seemed to attract him; but he heard her “now,”

and started. “I take your word for it, absolutely. But, seeing what you

felt for Nevile in the beginning, I should have thought--in any ordinary

case--there must have been a tender spot--unless, of course, you had

changed your mind--for reasons--”

She got up from her knees, and stood, leaning by the mantelpiece. Her

low voice stirred him strangely.

“There are reasons. The spot, as you call it, is so tender that it's

raw.”

“Good Lord,” said Chevenix. “What do you mean?”

She was full of her reasons, evidently. Rumours of them, so to say,

drove over her eyes, showed cloudily and angrily there. Her beautiful

mouth looked cruel--as if she saw death and took joy in it. “I think he

is horrible,” she said. “I think he is like a beast. He doesn't love me

at all until he comes here--and then he expects me--Oh, don't ask me

to talk about it.” She stopped her tongue, but not her thought. That

thronged the gates of her lips. She hesitated, fighting the entry; but

the words came, shocked and dreadful. “He wants me, to ravage me--like a

beast.”

Chevenix began to stammer. “Oh, I say, you mustn't--Oh, don't talk like

that--”

The door opened, and Ingram came in.

He looked from one to the other, sharply. “Hulloa,” he said. “What are

you two about in here?”

Sanchia looked at the fire, and put her foot close to it, to be warmed.

“Tea-party,” said Chevenix. “That's it, Nevile.” He nodded sagely at

his host, and saw his brow clear. Ingram shut the door and came into the

room, to a chair. “That's all right,” he said. “I hope it was a livelier

one than mine. That old Devereux was on her high-stepper. I'm sick of

being trampled. I thought, though, that you had been having words. You

looked like it.”

Sanchia said, smiling in her queer way, “Oh, dear no. Mr. Chevenix is

much too kind for that. He's been talking very nicely to me. He's been

charming.”

“Oh, come, Sancie--” cried the brisk young man, quite recovered.

Ingram, in a stare, said, “Yes, Sancie, you may trust him. He's a friend

of ours.”

“I do trust him,” she said.

Chevenix said, “I shall go out on that. I declare my innings. Good-bye,

you two. I'll go and pacify the Devereux.” He hoped against hope that he

might have warmed her.

Ingram, when they were alone, threw himself back in his chair, crossed

one leg, and clasped the thin ankle of it. He had finely-made, narrow

feet, and was proud of his ankles. Sanchia was now again kneeling before

the fire.

“Quite right to have a fire,” he said. “It's falling in cold. There'll

be a frost. What was Chevenix saying about me?”

She had been prepared. “Nothing but good. He's your friend, as you

said.”

“I said 'our friend,' my dear.”

She looked at him. “Yes, certainly. He's my friend, too.”

“I hope he'll prove so. Upon my soul, I do.” He remained silent for a

time. Then he leaned forward suddenly, and held out his arms.

“Oh, Sancie,” he said, his voice trembling. “Love me.”

She looked at him with wide, searching, earnest eyes. They seemed to

search, not him, but her own soul. They explored the void, seeking for a

sign, a vestige, a wreck; but found nothing.

“I can't,” she said. Her voice was frayed. “The thing is quite dead.”

Ingram flushed deeply, but sat on, biting his lip, frowning, staring at

the young, mounting fire, which she, stooping over it, cherished with

her breath and quick hands.

VII

Ingram, at supper in his private room, had his elbows on the table, and

spoke between his fists to Chevenix, let into these mysteries for the

first time.

“I ought not to complain, you'll say, and in my heart of hearts I don't,

because I'm a reasonable man, and know that you don't make a row about

sunstroke or lightning-shocks. We call 'em the Act of God, and rule 'em

out in insurance offices. No, no, I see what I've let myself in for.

I've been away too much; she's got sick of it. I shall have to work at

it--to bring her round. By God, and she's worth it. She's a wonder.”

“Pity,” said Chevenix, “you've only just found it out.”

Ingram frowned, and waxing in rage, stared at his friend as if he had

never known him. “You don't know what you're talking about. Why, she

adored me. I was never more in love with a woman in my life than I was

with Sancie.”

Chevenix tilted back his chair. “Oh, you had it pretty badly--at the

time. The trouble with you is that you are such a chap for accepting

things. You're like a hall-porter in a Swiss hotel. You take things for

granted. Do nothing--hold out your hand--and get your perks. Perks! Why,

they ain't perks at all. They're bounty--what you get from a girl like

Sancie.”

All this Ingram took as his due--as due, that is, to a man of passion

and reasonable desires. He fell into a reverie. “Yes, yes, I know. She

was devilish fond of me.”

Chevenix gritted his teeth, but Ingram went on. “It was a false

position, I know, and I never ought to have looked at her twice. But she

was awfully queer or awfully deep--one never knew which. Why, when

we got thick together--always meeting out, always reading poetry and

philosophy--Shelley, Dante, Keats (I forget half their names now)--I

take my oath I hadn't a suspicion that she was getting to like me, in

that sort of way, as we call it. She made all the difference in the

world to me, I can tell you. You know what I was doing after Claire

bolted with that swine: killing time and killing myself--that's what I

was doing. It was like going into church out of the sun to hear her at

her poetry, and see her. Oh, a lovely girl she was!”

“She's a lovelier woman than you and I are fit to look at,” said

Chevenix, “if you ask me.”

“Damn you, I know all about that. D'you think I want telling, now that

I can't get her? Well, then I found out what was the matter with me--and

then we cleared the air.”

“Who had stuffed it up to begin with?” Chevenix murmured; but Ingram

ignored him.

“I told her the whole thing--”

“After she had found it out!” cried Chevenix with energy. “Let's have

cards on the table. I told Vicky all about it at a dance--and Vicky told

her.”

“I told her,” Ingram said, “that I was in love with her, and promised to

behave--and so I should have, only--”

“Only you didn't, old chap.”

“She loved me--there was no stopping it then. The thing was done. Mind

you, her people knew it all, too.”

“The mother always was a fool,” Chevenix agreed. “And she liked you.”

“I know she did. I took care of that.”

“Not a bit of it, my boy,” the other objected. “That's just what you

didn't do. She liked you because she thought you didn't care a curse

whether she liked you or not.”

Ingram raised his eyebrows at such _naivete_. “That's what I mean, of

course. So it went on all that summer. We used to shake when we met

each other, and be speechless. By heavens, what a time that was! Do you

remember the tea-party?”

Chevenix blinked. “I wasn't there; but I remember what happened

afterwards. The poor child--as white as a sheet--and every hand lifted

against her. By God, Nevile, what girls--mere chits--will go through!”

“I know,” said Ingram dreamily. “Isn't it awful?” Chevenix looked at

him. He was quite serious. What can you do with such a man as this?

“They left us alone in the room, you know,” Ingram continued. “Vicky

went out last and left us in there--and the whole place was charged with

electricity. You could feel it, smell it, hear it crackling all about.

My heart going like a drum; my ears buzzing with it all. I hadn't been

able to speak when they spoke to me. I don't know what the devil they

must have thought of me--and I didn't care a damn. And over across the

tea-table, on a low chair--there she sat--my girl! Her eyes downcast,

her mouth adroop.” He shut his eyes for a moment. “And Vicky went out,

and left us there!”

“You had it badly, old chap,” Chevenix said. “Go slow. Take your time.

Or chuck it, if you'd rather.”

Ingram appeared not to hear him; he was staring at the tablecloth, at

his two hands locked in front of him, and at his knuckles white under

the strain.

“I don't know how long I stood gaping at the window, I don't indeed.

I could feel her sitting shaking in her chair; but neither of us said

anything. Somebody came to take the tea out--and then I turned and

looked at her; and she turned and looked at me. Something drew me--set

me on the move. It was all over with me then. I went straight across the

room to her; I stood above her, I stooped and took her hands. I don't

know what I said: she looked at me all the time in a strange, clear way.

She got up--I was beside her, and took her. Not a word said. I had her

lips. Honey of flowers! Her soul came forth from them: new wine. Oh,

God! I thought so, anyhow. And so did she. Chevenix, she meant giving.”

Chevenix nodded shortly. He believed that. Ingram had covered his eyes.

He drained a glass before he went on with his account. “I suppose you

know the rest as well as I do. I never had the details out of her. One

of them--that Mrs. King--Philippa, it was--came slam into the room;

and what was there to do? I stuck it as long as I could--until I was

practically kicked out. The mother came back and turned me out. I had to

leave her to brave them all--and I never saw her again until I found out

where she was in London.”

“Don't you trouble to tell me all that part,” said Chevenix frowning at

him. “I know more about that than you do. I was in it. My head, how they

treated her! What I never did understand, you know, was how you found

out where she was.”

Ingram smiled. His memories now amused him. He looked straight at his

friend. “I'll tell you that. It was rather neat. You remember that chap

Senhouse--loafing kind of artist? Anarchist, gypsy-looking chap, who

wore no hat?”

Chevenix opened his eyes. “By George, I do!”

Ingram nodded. “She thought no end of him. He took her affair with me

very much to heart.”

“As well he might,” said Chevenix. “I fancy that you were the only

person who took it easy.”

“Sancie used to tell him everything,” Ingram went on, “and she told

him all the trouble. She'd been turned adrift with fifty pounds to her

name.”

“Not quite so bad as that,” Chevenix put in. “They locked her up with an

aunt, and she bolted.”

“Same thing,” said Ingram. “Well, this chap Senhouse comes here one day

in a mighty hurry--turns up at breakfast, and makes a row. Wants me to

swear I'll divorce and marry Sancie. Says he thinks I'm a blackguard and

all that, but that, on the whole, I'd better marry her. Refuses to give

me her address, all the same. We had a row, I remember, because he began

to tell me what he thought about her. The man was a bore, you know.”

Chevenix screwed up one leg. “All men are, if they're sweet on your

sweetheart, I suppose. He was worth fifty of you, all the same--but go

on.”

Ingram laughed. “I set my wits against his,” he said, “and found out

that he'd come straight from seeing her--in London. That was good enough

for me. I got rid of Master Senhouse, and went off to town. He had no

promises out of _me_, you may believe.”

Chevenix felt very sick, and looked it. “The less you say about your

promises, my good chap, the better I'll take it.” But Ingram by now had

got back to his holier reminiscences:--

“I hunted for her high and low for three months--advertised, turned

on detectives, I had even dared her friends' eyes and their cold

shoulders--couldn't hear anything ... I was walking in hell for three

months....

“Then, one day, I met her--in Chancery Lane. Of all squalid places on

earth--there....”

“I'd been to my lawyer's, in Lincoln's Inn. I'd settled money on her--in

case anything happened to me while I was abroad. I was going to travel,

because I'd given it up. And then I met her. Chancery Lane!

“I was passing some school or another--Commercial Academy--book-keeping,

shorthand, typewriting--that sort of place; a lot of ogling, giggling

girls, and boys after 'em, came tumbling down the steps--all sun-bonnets

and fluffy hair; and down the steps she came, too--Sanchia came--like a

princess. She was in white, my dear man--as fresh and dainty as a rose,

I remember. Daisies round a broad-brimmed straw: some books under her

arm. The sun was on her, lit the gold in her hair. She looked neither

right nor left, spoke to no one, had no one with her, or after her. She

was never showy. You had to know her well to see how lovely she was. She

never showed off well, and was always silent in company. Oh, but what a

girl!

“When she saw me she flushed all over, and stood. She stood on the last

step, and looked at me. Looked at me straight, as if she waited. I went

directly to her, and took her hand. She let me. I couldn't speak sense.

I said, 'You!' and she said, 'I knew I should see you like this.' It

sounded all right. I never questioned it.” ... He stared, then broke

out. “Good God, Bill! To think of her then--and to see her now! She

won't look at me! I don't exist.” He plunged his face between his hands,

and rocked himself about. Chevenix watched him without a word. Suddenly

he lifted his pinched face, and complained bitterly.

“I can't understand it--I don't know what's changed her. Why, it's awful

to make a chap suffer like this!” He stared about him. “Why, Bill,” he

said, hushing down his voice, “is she going to drop me, d'you think--let

me go to the devil?”

Chevenix rose and stood with his back to the fire. “I'll trouble you not

to whine, Nevile; I've got something to say to all this tale of yours.

I've got to ask you a thing or two. When you found her, now; and when

you knew all that she'd gone through--a child like that! You brought her

up here--hey?”

Without shifting his head to face his cross-examination, Ingram answered

between his hands--“No, I didn't. She wouldn't budge from her school

till she'd finished her course. I courted her for a month. It took me

all that to make her listen to reason.”

“Reason!” Chevenix rated him. “You call it reason!”

“It was what _she_ called it--not I,” said Ingram from between his

fists. Then he looked up. “She refused the idea of going abroad. Said

she wasn't at all afraid of people talking. Said she wanted to work for

me. Must be doing something, she said. I tell you, it was her idea

from the beginning. And I do say, myself, that it was reasonable.” He

searched for agreement in his friend's face, but got none. “It suited

better,” he said presently, with indifference. “It suited better--in

every way. I had to be here.”

“Why had you to be here, man?” Chevenix raised his voice. “What the

devil did it matter to you, having her, where you were?”

“It mattered a lot. I like this place. It's mine. I've got duties up

here. I'm a magistrate and all that.”

Chevenix was now very hot. “Magistrate be damned. Do you mean to tell

me that you profess to love a woman, and turn her into a servant because

you want to try poachers? And you talk about the sun in her hair! And

then--upon my soul, Ingram, you sicken me.”

“You fool,” said Ingram. “I tell you it was her own idea. She loves the

place. She loves it a lot more than she does me. It's been a continual

joy to her. Why, where would she have been while I was in India--all

that year--if she hadn't had all this in her hands? You don't know what

you're talking about.”

His voice rang down his scorn. Chevenix began to stammer.

“You're hopeless, Nevile, utterly hopeless. Every word you say gives up

your case. What's it to do with you whether she likes it or not? I'm not

talking of her, but of you. You silly ass, don't you see where you are?

You fall in love with a woman and make her your head housemaid. Then you

say, Oh, but she likes it. It's not what she likes we're talking about;

it's what you can bring yourself to do with her. Wait a bit now. There's

more to it. You play about here, there, and all over the shop. Off

you go for three months at a time, sky-larking, shooting antelope,

pigeon-shooting, polo, and whatever. She sits here and minds the

gardeners--she whom you saw with the sun in her hair! Year in, year out

it goes on. Now here you are back from India. Good. You leave her for

a year, and write to her twice--then you say, Why, where would she have

been if she hadn't had something to do? The sun in her hair, hey? Love,

my good chap! You don't know how to spell the word. You ought not to

touch her shoe-string. You're not fit. By Gad, sir, and now I remember

something! And it's the truth, it's the bitter, naked, grinning truth.”

He did remember something. He saw her curled-back lip--he saw her fierce

resentful eyes. He heard her say it: “I think he is like a beast. He

wants to ravage me--like a beast.” “You've been judged, Nevile,” he

said. “You've done for yourself. And now I'll go to bed.”

Ingram's face was very cloudy. He looked for a moment like quarrelling.

“Do you mean to leave me like this?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Chevenix, “I do. I don't want to stop and hear you protest

that you intend to marry her. Marry her! Why, man, if you'd meant to

marry her, you'd have posted home express from Marseilles the moment

you heard that you could do it. But no! You've got her there--in cap and

apron--she'll keep. You know she's here--you have your fling. And you

stop three days in Paris, and drop it to her casually, when you please,

that you're a free man. Yes, by George, I do mean to leave you like

this. You're best alone, by George. Good-night to you.”

He went smartly away; but he had worked himself into a shaking fit,

could not have slept to save his life. A cigar at the open window was

inevitable.

He leaned far into the night. It was densely dark, and had been raining.

Soft scud drifted over his face; clouds in loose solution drenched the

earth. He smoked fiercely, inhaling great draughts and driving them

out into the fog. Being no thinker, his sensations took no body, but

he broke out now and again with pishes and pshaws, or scornfully--“Old

Nevile--hungry devil, what? Stalking about like a beast. Oh, she was

right, she was right. Pish! And there's an end of it.”

He was aware of softly moving feet below--a measured tread. He listened

and heard them beyond dispute. “Nevile!” he said, “like a beast, padding

about his place.” He listened on, grimly amused. Let him pad and rage.

But he was to be startled. A voice hailed him, not Ingram's. “Beg your

pardon, sir.”

“Hulloa!” he cried. “Who are you, my man?”

“Glyde, sir. Is all well?”

“What do you mean, Glyde? What are you doing?”

“I was passing, sir, to my houses. I heard voices, and I wondered--”

“Oh!” he laughed. “You thought there was a scrap, did you? It's all

right, Glyde. I and the master were having a talk. Nothing for you to

worry about. I shared his lonely meal. Don't you be disturbed.”

“No, no, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Chevenix called to him when he was at some distance. “I say, Glyde.”

“Yes, sir?”

“You can go to bed. It's all right.”

“Thank you, sir. Good-night.”

He chuckled as he undressed. “Rum fish, Glyde. Watch and ward, what?

Watching his shield. Bless her, she's got friends, then.” He

considered for a while, flicking the glowing end of his cigar. “That

chap--Senhouse--Jack Senhouse. I wonder what's become of him.”

VIII

The discrepancies of an unfortunate party caused no disturbance to the

staff of Wanless Hall. Sanchia, whatever her private cares--and they

seemed less than those of other people on her account--suffered nothing

to interfere with her housekeeping. Ingram might rage for her in vain,

Chevenix agonise, or quarrel with his host and friend, Mrs. Devereux

disapprove to the point of keeping her room; but Sanchia, with front

serene, moved from office-table to kitchen, to the garden, to the

home-farm, interviewed Mrs. Benson, consulted with the stockman,

pored--her head close to Clyde's--over seed-pans and melon borders,

was keenly interested, judicial, reflective, pleading, coaxing by

turns--seemed, in fact, not to have a perplexity in her fair head. Her

health was superb, she never had an ache nor failed of an appetite. To

see her sitting in the stable-yard on a sunny morning, her lap full of

nozzling fox-hound pups, was to have a vision of Artemis Eileithyia. So,

it seemed, the grave mother-hound, erect on haunches, with wise ears,

and sidelong eyes showing the white, knew her certainly to be. Beside

and over her stood Frodsham of the stables, and his underlings, firmly

her friends.

She looked up, beaming. “Oh, Frodsham; aren't they sweet? One of them

tries to suck my finger. What are you going to call them? I do hope you

mean to keep them all.”

“I doubt they're too many for the old bitch, Miss Percival. She'll not

feed the lot of them. We'll be wise to duck the latest cast.”

“Oh, no,--please. I'll feed it--I will, really. I couldn't let you drown

it. Now, what are their names to be?”

“There's Melpomeen, Miss Percival, and Melody, and Melchior, and

Melchizedek. That's for the bitches.”

She quizzed him. “No, Frodsham, really that won't do. I'm not quite sure

about Melchizedek; but Melchior was a man--he was a king--a king of the

East. And I believe Melchizedek was an angel.”

Frodsham rubbed his chin. “May be you are right, Miss Percival. An

angel, was he now? Wings to him? 'Tis a name for a bird, then. If

we kept the hawks the old Squire used to love--there's a name for a

peregrine! Melchizedek--a fair mouthful.”

“A Priest for ever,” mused Jacobs, a wizened elder, the kennel man, who

yet bowed to the coachman in his own yard. “We may put him among the

dogs, I believe. We've Proteus, and Prophet; but no Priest.”

Frodsham looked to Sanchia for direction, ignoring Jacobs. She flashed

him a name. “Melisande, Frodsham. Call her Melisande, and save her life;

and she shall be mine. I'll look after her. Please do.” He owned to the

spell of her eyes, of the sun upon her hair. “Melisande she shall be,

Miss Percival, and your own,” he said. “The Missus shall rear her if the

old bitch won't. She's had six of her own, and knows what it is.”

Regretfully, one by one, she put the striving blind things down; then

rose and went her way into the gardens about the house. Slowly through

the kitchen gardens she passed. Glyde, thinning walled peach-trees,

saw her, felt her go. She shed her benediction upon him--“Good morning,

Struan,”--and went on. He watched her for a while, then turned fiercely

to his affair. Through dense shrubberies, over drenched lawns her way

was; it led her to the lily-pond, which lay hidden within rhododendron

walls, with a narrow cincture of grass path all about it. Dark-brown,

still and translucent like an onyx it lay before her. It was her haunt

of election when she was troubled, as now she was, when she gave herself

time to remember it.

She stood, her hands clasped before her, close to the water's brim, and

looked over the shining surface. She had never yet squarely faced her

difficulties. Her sceptre was slipping from her; her realm, usurped at

first, hers by sufferance first, but then by love of them she ruled,

could hold her but a little while more. The shadow of coming eclipse

made her eyes grow sombre. Doubt of the unknown made lax her lips.

If Nevile's wife, with all her sins clotted on her, was dead, what

was she herself going to do, or allow to be done? She had yielded to

love--her first love and her last; but that had been long ago. Love, the

fire, the trembling and the music in her heart; pride, the trust, the

loyalty, the bliss of service; the wonder, the swooning, the glory like

a sun upon her--all gone, burned out, or worked out. Why, how long had

it lasted her? Her lips stretched to a bleak smile to think of it. Three

months joy in herself, three months joy of him; then work, incessant and

absorbing; and then the growth of a new pride, the pride of mind (for

she found that she had a brain), and of a new love--for she found that

she loved the creatures more than man. Education indeed! To draw from

a child caught unawares the force and the brooding love of an

Earth-Goddess.

In the beginning, she could have told herself (but never did), she was

to be pitied, not blamed. Reticent among her free-speaking sisters, shy,

what the maids call “a deep one,” rarely a talker, keeping always her

own counsel, she had first been moved to utter herself by the extreme

carelessness of Ingram whether she did so or not. The blame--if it is

to be laid--must be upon her mother when she, knowing Ingram's story of

miserable marriage and separation, allowed the man to continue a friend

of the house, be much with her girl, and unfold himself under her

clear young eyes. What she was about--that masterful, self-absorbed

woman--there's no saying. It was always supposed that, with five

beautiful daughters to market, she had pushed Welbore Percival--Thomas

Welbore Percival, East India merchant of The Poultry--into lavish

entertainment of his friends and acquaintance. Ingram, a squire and son

of squires, was perhaps a shade above her degree; she may have required

him to give a tone. This, considering that wretched marriage of his--a

month's engagement in defiance of head-shaking, a blazing Hanover Square

wedding, a year's bickering, one month's acrimony (done by letter) and

Ingram's unquenchable hatred of the woman--this, I say, you may well

doubt. But I can give no other explanation. He came, he talked in his

high-voiced, querulous, bitter-humoured way, he saw and sought the grave

young Sanchia, and he won her pitying heart directly he had engrossed

her watching eyes.

She was a girl intensely interested in a hundred dawning things, to whom

love had come late. Until she was near twenty you would have thought her

sexless. Senhouse, her poetical friend and teacher--her only friend, her

only confidant--had dubbed her Artemis; and it may well have been his

adoring service of her pure flame which first turned it inwards, to

scorch her heart. All that she had learned of this scholar gypsy she

poured out as balm over the stricken Ingram, who swallowed it and her

together. Then the truth about him was blared upon her suddenly, and she

found that he was to be pitied. Guileless victim of a hateful woman

as she believed him then, she found that she held a store of balm. She

pitied him deeply, she opened, she poured out her treasure. Enthusiasm

for the saving work captained her thereafter; nothing would turn her

from her purpose. Ingram was to be saved by love: she gave him all.

To do him justice, a young man born to possess and command, he did his

best to repair what was beyond repair. He told her the truth unasked by

her; he confessed that he loved her, and owned that he had no business

to do it. Nearness, circumstance, brooding on that which was true of

both of them and must not be uttered by either, did the rest. Upon

that evening in the drawing-room when they found themselves alone,

each trembling under the god, they simply drifted together, and without

effort to resist, mingled their natures through the lips. Discovery,

earthquake and eclipse, her mother's chill rage, her father's tears,

her sisters' dismay; all this and more she endured. She passioned like

a young martyr. She admitted the facts without comment, and accepted the

consequences without a falter. They might have whelmed a greater

heart than hers; turned on to the town as she was to all intent, at

two-and-twenty, a girl with the face and figure of a goddess, with

fifty pounds between her and the devil. They might have sent her, at the

least, weeping and trembling into Ingram's arms. But they did not. She

was of finer clay. She took a lodging in Pimlico, and, to fit herself

for employment, went to school. The commercial course which she chose

was the shortest possible, but all that she felt she could afford. “My

dear young lady, we can only promise you a smattering--really no more

for the money.” “It must start me,” said Sanchia, and began. There was

a month more to run when Ingram found her, and, glad as she was of

him, doting and doted upon, in the first flood of youth and love, she

persisted in it, finished it out, and got her diploma for what it was

worth, before, as he put it, she would listen to reason.

It sounded extremely reasonable to him what he then proposed; and also

to her, though Chevenix scorned its propounder. As Ingram put it to her,

it attracted her newborn pride of knowledge. She was to flesh her steel,

so to speak, in reality: in plainer words, she, with her smattering of

accounts, was to manage a great house, an army of servants, possibly an

estate. Excessively in love as she was, with all the music of it in her

untried ears, she knew already in herself that her mind must have other

food than her heart's rapture. I think, indeed, that she would have

declined him altogether if he had proposed nothing more tangible to her

than perpetual honeymoon. That was what Senhouse would certainly have

proposed to her--she saw that in every look of his, and read it in

every line he sent her; but that had never attracted her. She had

given Senhouse her confidence, but not her heart. Ingram's proposals,

therefore, pleased her. She had not a sweet enough tooth, nor the taste

for flattery which the other involved. She was entirely without vanity.

Therefore, however little honourable and however much a lover of his

ease Ingram may have shown himself in making them, his reasonable

proposals were gratefully received. It was he who suggested, but she

who took the lead. She began immediately to plan her new career--was

perfectly business-like. Ingram was to leave London at once, and go to

Wanless--to his duties of the bench, his delights of the field, cares

of the farm. He was to announce to his househould his intention of

“settling down”; and he was to announce the advent of a housekeeper. In

this very outset of his bliss he must needs do as she bade him. He

went, and made her ways as smooth as they could be made. Her rooms

were assigned to her; her duties mapped out, the exact range of her

authority. Her wages were fixed, to be paid quarterly. She would take

nothing else from him--no jewellery (she wore nothing but simple things,

which had been given her by her parents or sisters--amber, a string of

cowries, an agate heart, a bangle or two), no frocks. She was to have

two hundred a year, and throughout her time to this present she had no

more, and kept herself exquisitely upon it, with a sense of what was

due to him, to herself, and to her position, which was admirable,

unhesitating, and never at fault. In due time she arrived and entered

upon her career. That which was unlawful seemed now justified; the

secret intimacy, the wedded amity, the giving, which was the dearest

gain she had. Discretion, on her side unsleeping, on his the more

effective because he never seemed to have any, secured them. There was

no open scandal among the neighbours; whatever the household may have

suspected, very little was said. Within a year her servants were her

slaves. The Rector, it is true, reproached her for not going to church.

She deprecated his indignation, but didn't go.

Up to the day when we first met with her, her garden-hat in her hand,

reading her telegram by the garden window, she had been eight years

governor of Wanless--and for nearly two of those years alone. For the

first two or three of them Ingram, revelling in his snug ease, with

little to do but devise things--alterations, extensions, ventures into

farming, and the like, which it was her delight to execute--never

left the county, hardly cared to leave the estate. He entertained very

sparingly: Chevenix came once or twice, his own brother, Maxwell

Ingram; there were some other dinner-parties to the countryside,

hunt-breakfasts, once a hunt-ball, at none of which ceremonies did she

appear. He endured these wearinesses, shrugging them away as soon as he

could, to hasten from a dinner of dry toast and knives and forks to his

room--the Master's room--where supper, Sanchia, sweet intimacy awaited

him. He spent thus by far the cleanliest and most sane years of his

wayward life. She soothed, amused, stimulated him at once. He taught her

all he knew of country-lore, gave her, as they say, “the hang” of

landed estate; he learned by teaching, and might have become a wholesome

gentleman.

But domestic business called him to London presently. He went, and

was away three months, with lawyers, fierce threatenings from Claire,

intermediaries, friends of both parties, and the rest of them. He was

worried, flurried, put into a rage; exploded, put himself a thousand

times in the wrong; finally, he came back to Wanless embittered and

restless. He came back to find himself welcome, but not excessively

so. At least he thought not. His extensions, suggested in that first

wonderful time--a range of glass-houses, new heating apparatus,

acetylene gas installations, were well advanced. Sanchia's brows were

often knit over estimates, specifications, and bills. He had to pay for

novelties from which the salt had evaporated; he was never very fond

of paying, and now, it seemed, he wasn't very fond of what he had to

pay for. Sanchia was kind to him, but there was a difference. She was

as happy as the day was long, always at work, outdoors or in, had not a

moment for him (business apart) until the very end of the day, when

(at eleven or so) she dressed with care and went to him at his supper.

Sanchia was perfectly happy; but he was not.

He stayed six months that year--from April to September; but then

went to Scotland, deer-stalking, shooting pheasants. He was back for

Christmas and brought a houseful of guests--all men. Again she welcomed

him, again she was kind. He was now a little blunted to the fine shades

of love, took his happiness as it happened to come, and could rub his

hands over the household blessing she was. By-and-by, at the end of

her fourth year, she took over the gardens as well as the house, was

accepted by Mr. Menzies as his liege-lady and by young Clyde as much

more than that. The estate-management, home-farm, woods, tenancies, were

given up to her at the end of the fifth year, just before Ingram sailed

for West Africa on a shooting expedition. By that time he had grown to

depend upon her entirely for everything. She was become the faithful

well-tried wife of standing, which in a man of Ingram's bone means

that nothing remained of love but entire confidence and occasional

gratification. After this, he left her for long periods together; for

the whole of the eighth year he was abroad, “idiotically happy,” as he

had told her.

During all this time no intercourse with her family--except those

furtive letters from her adoring old father, which were pitiful to

her, because they could not be answered as he would have had them; and

nothing from her friend of the Open, who had at last got himself a mate.

It seemed that she had made a clean break, and that nothing of what had

made her dawning life sweet and sane was to mingle with the sweetness

and sanity which she had brought into Wanless. And then--after eight

years--she caught herself looking back. And now--here was an end of the

dream.

If you are to ask me what had changed her regard for Ingram during that

solitary year, so that she received him at the end of it as she did,

I don't know that I can tell you. Slowly discovery--of herself, of

him--came to her, slowly combustible stuff was heaped within her; it

slowly kindled, and smouldered long. No doubt he himself blew it into

clear flame by his let-drop news of Claire's death. She had not known

that: she never read the newspaper, having neither time for the world's

affairs nor interest in them. Suddenly, by that, she was offended;

suddenly saw him as he really was, always had been, and always must be.

Suddenly, also, she saw herself, as brimming with life, energy to live

and to make live, at the end of her music-time. The folds fell from her

eyes, she could see Ingram as a man, squalid. Nay, more: she could now

see him as a beast, ravening. Thereupon he gave her horror, so that she

dared not look back upon her hours of blindness.

Perhaps he had offended her by his silence--his two letters, which she

had neither invited nor answered. That can hardly account for it,

since she had not written to him of her own initiative. Their parting

certainly had been discrepant: the clinging and wistfulness had been

hers, though she had uttered nothing of complaint or misgiving. But

perhaps he had been too gay and nonchalant, a little too much the

husband secure. For a week she had shivered at her loneliness; then she

had plunged anew into the flood of affairs, and had come out, as from

a cold bath, braced and tingling. Round went the wheels of Wanless.

The house was new-papered, painted, carpeted; every month brought new

wonders to the garden. Under Glyde's tuition, seeing with his eyes,

watching with his tensity of vision, she had come closely into Nature's

arms. Perhaps she was unwise with the young man: the fact is she never

stopped to consider him. She liked him and his queer, secret, passionate

ways. She took a royal line of her own. She required much of him, and if

he made much of it, she didn't know it. She dreamed no harm to him or to

herself. Her absorption in the business of the moment, or the needs,

was so manifest that not even the maids, who saw her frequently with the

youth, could have thought harm for a second. It was just Miss Percival

all over--as “keen as mustard.” Perhaps it was as much under Glyde's

fostering as any other nurture that she came, during that year alone, to

love the earth so well that she could appraise the worth of human love.

I don't know. It was a critical year for her.

As she was anything but a fool, there's no doubt that she came, before

the end of that year, to know what was the matter with Glyde. She had

had experience--of herself and another--and he was utterly incapable

of concealing his feelings. Of course she knew what was the matter with

him, and was tenderly and quietly amused. She approached him gradually,

let herself play elder sister, and let him play what he chose, within

severe limits, never overstepped by him, never unwatched by herself.

He was a passionate, sensitive, inarticulate creature, narrow-faced,

sharp-eyed, scowling and thin. He always looked cold, mostly angry,

and never seemed contented, even when his plants flowered themselves to

death to please him.

A woman, any woman, knowing that a man covets her possession, stores her

knowledge, exults in it in secret. It is a fund, a store against lean

years or wry ones. You can see it throned sedately in her eyes, when she

is with him, however much she may feel his absurdity or presumption. So

it was with Sanchia. She was fully conscious of Struan's preposterous

state, strictly the elder sister, never the patroness, for were they not

bond-slaves both? She patronised nobody at Wanless, yet, with a steady

eye for distances, kept a perfect length, varying with each oncomer.

With Mr. Menzies, lord of the gardens, so far on she came; with

Frodsham, master of horse and hound, so far; with the engineer so far;

with Minnie nearer; nearest of all with Mrs. Benson: her attitude to

the stout woman was that of favourite pupil to a family governess of

immemorial service. She could wheedle Mrs. Benson, and often did. The

elder sister attitude was kept for young Glyde; she admonished, scolded,

preached to him high doctrine of duty and honour; there was something

benignant, a sort of pitying care shed from above. To him she may have

been like Cynthia, stooping to the dreamer on Latmos. Whether she knew

that, she must have known a good deal. She knew, for instance, that he

kept vigil; for she had met him at night, as you have been told. She

knew where to find him. Nothing had ever passed between them, of course,

of her relations with the Master. I don't think that she was aware of

his sentry-go under the windows--first under Ingram's, then under hers.

I am sure she was not, or he would have heard of it in plain terms, have

seen her eyes grow hard, and her mouth stretch to bleakness. She was

capable of royal, cold rage when she was offended. But that he hated

Ingram must have been plain to her.

And now, as she stood at gaze, lonely and pensive by the black pond, she

saw that it was over, her busy life. She was at the end of her tether,

must lose her power and the sense of it. She was to begin the world

again, starting with her fifty pounds, and without that which had made

it a pride before. With a little shiver of self-pity, a half-sigh and a

tightening of the lips, she accepted her fate. That was her way.

She regretted nothing, asked neither for mercy nor allowance. What she

had done, she had done; if it was to be done with, she could not help

that; she must go her way. Never for an instant did it enter her head

that she could marry Ingram. Nothing that he had urged, or Chevenix

counselled, made the smallest difference to her. She did not love Nevile

any more; he was horrible to her: enough of that. Whatever her fate was

to be, she would accept it: she chose it so. Without reasoning it out,

that was final for her. She had always had _sic volo_ for her final

cause. _Stet pro ratione voluntas._ Marriage, even nominal marriage,

with Nevile was the accursed thing: none of it. And why? Because she

chose it so.

This was very sublime. I sing, or Mr. Senhouse sings, a Goddess in her

own Right. That is to be observed, or we fail. Persons have existed, and

do yet exist, who are law unto themselves, deliberate choosers of their

fate, deliberate allies of Atropos with the shears, who go what seems to

us, shivering on the brink of things, a bright and bloodstained way,

and furrow deeply into life, because it must be so, because so they will

have it. Great ones of time, a Caesar or so, a Catherine, a Buonaparte,

come handily to mind, who, wreaking countless woes, wrought evenly their

own. And since greatness is a relative term, and time an abstraction of

the mind, in their company, says Mr. Senhouse, was Sanchia Percival,

and in her blue-clouded eyes was to be discerned seated, like a captain,

foreknowledge of her own fate, and will to choose it. But, as for Mr.

Senhouse himself, at this time of envisaging of ways I don't believe

that he entered her head. Small blame to her, either, seeing that the

man, having renounced her, or failed of her, as you please, had taken up

with his Mrs. Germain, and found her to be a Fact, as I have related.

But to do wrong or right, the prerogative of choice: she arrogated that.

So, I think, if the sister of the Far-Darter had ever stepped aside from

the path of her lonely delight--as some have it she did on Latmos--she

would have done it without shame. It would have been her pleasure and

her choice; she would never change countenance or have to breast the

flood of colour. It must be hers to take up or discard an empire, or

a Nevile Ingram of Wanless Hall. So, in her degree, did Sanchia

Percival--of the stuff of goddesses.

IX

Mrs. Devereux having departed as impressively as might be expected of a

lady with a sense of injury, there was little for Chevenix to do but to

follow her; for whereas Mrs. Devereux considered herself badly treated

by both parties in the house, the young man had to own that he had

quarrelled with his host. “I laid for Nevile,” he told Sanchia, “and

he don't let me forget it, either. He don't like commentators on his

text--never did. So he's making Wanless too hot to hold me.”

Sanchia, with rueful eyes, feared that this was her fault. “I'm very

sorry,” she said. “On all accounts I'm very sorry. I shall miss you. It

was nice to see you again.”

“See me again,” cried Chevenix, “as soon as you please; but not

here--unless you feel you can make up your mind to settle down, as we

call it.”

She shook her head. “I don't think I can. I think it might be wicked--as

things are.”

Chevenix raised his eyebrows. “That's you all over, my dear. Other

people's Right is your Wrong. Why question the decrees of the police?

They tell you that you may do what you please when you're married, but

not before. But you won't have that. Of course, if you can't swallow

Nevile, you can't--and there's an end of it. Only,” he added, “there

_must_ be an end of it. You're in a false position--now.”

“According to you I always was,” said the candid young lady, and made

him change countenance. She shirked nothing.

“I did think so once; we all did, you know. Even your bare-footed

friend, What's-his-name--”

“Mr. Senhouse.”

“Beg your pardon. Mr. Senhouse, of course. Well, he didn't take it

sitting down, so to speak. Did he now?”

She considered. Her eyes grew gentle over the remembrances which this

name always called up. “He knew that I was right. Oh, yes. I'm sure of

that. But he was frightened. He lost his nerve because--”

“Because it was you, my dear,” said Chevenix briskly. She owned soberly

to that.

“I shall see your people when I get to town,” he told her. “I shall make

a point of seeing Vicky and your governor. And if I could drop in upon

Senhouse, by George, I'd risk it. You don't know where he is just now, I

suppose?”

“He was in the Black Forest when I last heard from him,” she said, “and

was going to the Caucasus--to collect plants. That was a long time ago.

Three years, I should think. He doesn't write now. He's married, you

know.”

“Married?” he repeated, with open eyes. “I never knew that.”

“He married a Mrs. Germain--a widow.”

Chevenix stared, then slapped his leg. “Then that accounts for it!

Didn't I tell you I met him when I went out to Brindisi to see Nevile

off--met him on a steamer, with a pretty woman? That was Mrs. G.--_his_

pretty woman. Good Lord, how rum!” He laughed, staring. Then, “What

on earth did he do that for? She's not his sort. And I gave myself

away--confoundedly--to each of 'em in turn. You'll never believe it, but

I told _him_ that she'd always been in love with Tristram Duplessis,

and then I gave _her_ to understand what had been the matter with old

Senhouse.” He exploded, then grew mighty serious. “That's rather a bore.

I was counting on him, you know. I thought you might want him.”

Sanchia made no reply. About the corners of her mouth there lurked the

hint of a smile, which her wistful eyes belied. Chevenix watched her,

but could make nothing of it.

“He was a rum 'un,” he continued. “The first time I saw him after you

came up here, was when I ran against him by chance in Norfolk somewhere.

Spread abroad he was--in flannels--all his things strewn about. He had a

little fire going, and a little pot on it. Doing a job of tinkering, he

said, to oblige a lady. There was the lady, too, if you please, sitting

on a bank, smoking a clay. She had a beard, and an old wide-awake on her

head. Senhouse introduced me, I remember. He told me he was on his way

North--Wastwater, I think. A planting job up there--or something. Rum

chap that! Oh, one of the very rummest! He asked me a lot about you.

I didn't know how much he knew, so I went very pussy. The chap was as

sharp as a needle. Spotted me. He said, 'My dear sir, I don't ask you

what she is doing or where she is. I ask you if she is well.' Then I

told him a lot--about you, and Nevile, and all this business. I let out,

I tell you. I was fairly deep in the thing--you know that I felt pretty

badly, because it was my fault that you ever knew Nevile at all. Don't

you suppose I've ever forgiven myself that, Sancie; never you suppose

it. No, no.”

He was much moved. She, by a sudden impulse, put out her hand to him. He

wrung it, and said, “Thanks, Sancie; thanks, my dear.”

After a wrestling bout, he went on: “Do you know what that fellow said

to me? I should like you to know it. Mind you, he was yours, body and

soul, then--whatever he may be now. I think he's yours still, for

that matter--but _then!_ He never concealed it--so far as I know--from

anybody. Now, listen to me.” He heard me out, never said anything till

I'd done. Then he looked out over the marshes into the weather, and

he said, “No harm ever came to a good woman. I shall see her again,

crowned. Now, what do you say to that? Queer, isn't it?”

Sanchia blushed deeply and bent her head. Chevenix marked her confusion,

and varied his tone to suit the case. He became practical. “Now, what'll

he say about this new state of affairs, do you suppose?”

She lifted her head. “He will think me in the right.”

Chevenix shrugged. “There's going to be trouble,” he believed. “There's

bound to be, just on that account. Nevile can be a brute when he's in

the wrong, and knows it.”

Sanchia squared her jaw for trouble.

“He wants you back, you know, awfully--because you won't come. And

the more he wants you the less he'll say so. That's the pride of

the cobbler's dog. If he's uncomfortable, he'll scratch until he's

comfortable again. And he says, 'If you can't get the best take the next

best'; and runs about with Mrs. Wilmot at his heels, and is bored all

the time. That's Nevile all over.” His eyes grew rounder. “You'll have

to go, you know.”

She admitted that. “Yes, I must.” Then she sighed. “I don't want to go.

There's such a lot to be done here.”

“Yes, yes, my dear,” said Chevenix with some irritation. “No doubt there

is. But you can't afford it.”

He stammered out his next. “I should like to say, Sancie, that there's

nobody on earth I respect--for whom I have more respect than for you. I

don't understand your point of view--don't pretend to. But I know a fine

thing when I see it. I'm not much of a chap, I know--no brains, and all

that--simple, rotten chap, I know; but if we're not going to be friends

I shall be unhappy.”

“We are, I hope,” she said, smiling kindly at him. She gave him her

hand.

“Right, Sancie. Look here,” he said sternly. “I'll punch Nevile's head

for you, if you like.”

“I shouldn't like it at all,” she assured him.

“We're old acquaintance, you know. He'd take it from me better than from

anyone else--like Senhouse.”

“Mr. Senhouse would never touch him,” she was sure. He dropped in

Chevenix's estimation immediately.

“Quaker, eh? I didn't know that.”

Sanchia explained. “He can't be changed in those sort of things. He

would only use force against wild beasts.”

“Well,” cried Chevenix, “what do you think Nevile's going to be? My

advice to you is to get out as soon as you can. And when you're in town,

command me.” They parted firm friends.

Mrs. Wilmot remained, against her inmost judgment, against her maid

Purcell's clear advice, for one more day. The night of Chevenix's

departure she was there, and on the morrow was to be conveyed to the

Trenchards', across the county. Wanless had her steadily in its score

pair of eyes for twenty-four hours, as Purcell, her maid, had foreseen.

“You are doing a strange thing, ma'am, permit me to say.” Purcell was an

elderly spinster, who only required her own permission to say what she

pleased. “You will be watched and reported. I suppose I am not in the

servants' hall for nothing.” Mrs. Wilmot said feebly that she supposed

she was there for meals. Purcell stiffened her wiry neck. “Meals, ma'am!

In the best houses there's a second table. The butler may be there,

and perhaps the valet. The lady's maid, of course. But where there's no

lady, one may put up with the cook, though the cook in such houses

is rarely a female. But the housekeeper here! A Miss Percival! Dines

alone--or is said to--and the cook sits at the head of our table. This

is no house for you, ma'am.”

The lady gave a little cry and hoisted a white shoulder. “Oh, Purcell,

you are hurting me dreadfully. Do be more gentle with me. You are

tearing my hair out by handfuls. What can it matter to you where

Miss--where the housekeeper dines?”

“Ho,” said Purcell, “little or nothing--to me, ma'am. I cannot help

my thoughts. But I keep them to myself. Not one word in this

house--downstairs--of Miss Percival. Not one word. They keep their

mouths shut, I promise you, and their eyes open. But what you will, you

will. As for Mr. Ingram, the less I say the better.”

“Much the better,” said Mrs. Wilmot, fretfully wriggling under the comb.

That fine afternoon--April budding into May--this lady listened to

Ingram in the garden. Of all sounds in the world the sweetest music

for her ear was made by a man's voice embroidering the theme--_“You are

lovely, you are cruel, I die.”_ Ingram's descant on the golden phrase

was querulous, after his manner. He took his lover's smarts, as one must

suppose them, hardly. As thus: _“You are lovely_--but what's that to me,

if I can't touch you? You sting my eyes, you inflame, you wound--or I

think you do; here am I, tied by the leg to a dead woman--for dead to me

she is, the she-cat Sanchia--looking at you because I can't help myself.

You are soft and lax, you purr when I stroke you; I could make a pet of

you. Was ever a man of property and station in such a case?”

_“You are cruel_--because, though I could put out my hand and take you,

yet you expect me to do it. That's all over, for me. I've done that sort

of thing--Sanchia knows. Now I must trouble you to advance. I'm sick

of life on these terms: you could make life worth living. I must really

trouble you: sorry to seem languid, but I _am_ languid. You, with your

fine sensibilities, ought to be the first to feel that; but no: you

wait, looking exquisite, with eyes like blue-black water, and a mouth,

a mouth like a flower. You soft gossamer beauty, I could crush you where

you hover; but you won't come and be crushed. Certainly, you are cruel.”

_I die._ He avoided that. It was absurd. She thought for one moment that

he hinted it when he said, shrugging off his ranges of hot-house--“Good

of their kind, I fancy. But what good are they to me--a solitary beggar?

I never go into 'em, you know. I thought I should take an interest when

I had 'em put up. It looked like it--But now! who cares whether I go

into 'em or not? Who cares whether I live or die?” There had been a

pathetic ring there.

She had murmured a gentle rebuke; her eyes had brimmed, reproaching

him. It was then that he had taken her hand, at the going-out from the

fig-house. “Ruth,” he had said, “my kind, pretty Ruth.” Then he stooped

his head and kissed her. Through three pairs of doors Glyde, in the

peachhouse, had seen the act, and paused in his spraying. It was over

in a minute. The pair strolled away and passed out of the walled-garden.

Glyde, who had turned very white, compressed his lips and went back to

his work--like a machine. Presently a light step made him start,

look guardedly up, watch and wait. Sanchia, bare-headed, fresh and

_debonnaire_, came in, like a stream of west wind. Her eyes beamed

her health and pleasure. “Oh, Struan,” she said, “do come and see the

_Susianas_. They are on the very point of opening. Do come. There's

nobody about. They've gone down to the river.”

He could not face her, knowing what he knew. But he could not resist her

either. “I'll come,” he said, and followed her.

She went gaily and eagerly. “You've never done so well with them as this

year. I counted a dozen. Huge! I felt rather miserable this morning;

I've been worried rather. I thought I would just see what they would

do for me. They made me feel ashamed of myself. Their strength, their

contentedness--just to grow, and be strong and well! Nothing more.

What else ought we to want? Food--the sun--strength to grow! Isn't

that enough?” She was echoing Senhouse here, and felt an added glow to

remember it. He had been much in her thoughts since her last exchange

with Chevenix.

Out of the warm brown soil, sheltered by the eaves, the iris clump made

a brave show. Its leaves like grey scimitars, its great flower-stems

like spears. Stiffly they reared, erect, smooth, well-rounded, and each

was crowned with the swollen bud of promise. She displayed them proudly,

she counted them, made him check her counting. She glowed over them,

fascinated by their virile pride. Struan watched her more than her

treasures. He was pale still, and bit his lip; had nothing to say.

She knelt and took one of the great stalks tenderly in her hand. A kind

of rapture, was upon her, a mystic's ecstasy. She passed her closed hand

up and down, feeling the stiff smoothness: she clasped and pressed the

bursting bud. “Feel it, Struan, feel it,” she said. “It's alive.” He

turned, shaking, away.

“They say,” she went on, caressing the bud, “that this is really the

Lily of the Annunciation. It's a symbol, I've read. Gabriel held one in

his hand when he stood before Our Lady. Did you know that?”

Glyde broke out. “Don't. Don't. Come away. I must speak to

you--quickly--if I dare. Come away from here.”

He spoke fiercely, meaning what he said. Grave, sobered, she rose

and followed him. He drew her after him to the yew-tree walk, to the

enclosure at its end, where the leaden Faun capered and grinned. There

he faced her.

“You must leave this place,” he said shortly. She looked to the ground.

“I know,” she replied in a low voice.

“Every moment you stop here insults you, puts shame upon you. Shame! And

on you! It's not bearable. It's not to be suffered. I'll not suffer it

for one.”

At this she lifted her head and reproved him by a look. It was mild,

queenly mild, but not weak. Remote from him and his world, it said, “I

can't hear you.”

He understood it so. “Who says I may not speak to you? Who else is to

speak to you if I don't? How can you bear yourself and speak nothing?

Is it natural?” He seemed on the point of angry tears; with a gesture

infinitely kind she bore with him. Her hand just touched his arm.

“Dear Struan,” she said, “I know how nice you mean to be to me; I

am very grateful to you. Of course I am going away. I have brought

everything on myself, and must bear the consequences by myself. But I

have been happy here, lately, and shall be most unhappy to go. I have so

many friends here.” Then, after looking at him, reflecting, she added,

“Of course I know that you care.”

“Care!” he cried out, scornfully. “Do you think that I've watched you,

in and out, for three years without caring? Do you think that I have

schooled myself to put up with--with him--without caring? And when I

thought that he was coming back here to--to prove himself an honourable

man--I thanked the Lord. Yes, I did that. I was ready to go when I knew

he was coming back for that. I told you I would go--and I meant it.

I should have cut my heart out and left it here, and gone away--clean

away, glorifying and praising God. But--oh, it's hideous, hideous! You

are discarded--you! Cast off--you! Peerless as you are--you! Oh, my

Saviour, what's this?” He broke away, and sobbed. He dashed his arm over

his eyes in a rage with himself. She was very gentle with him now.

She put her hand on his shoulder, and though he shook it off, put it

there again. “You hurt me, Struan, really. If you are my friend, you

shouldn't doubt me. I don't feel about it as you do, you know.”

He lifted his head at the challenge. “Then you should,” he said. “Dog

that he is. He's insulting you. He had better have died than do as he

does. Damn him, he shall pay for it.” She shook her head, smiling rather

dismally.

“I can't talk to you any more if you don't understand why I can't talk

to you,” she said. “There are things which friends cannot do for each

other--which we have to do alone.”

The lad gasped and made a step towards her. He could not control

himself--he shook.

“Not you--never you. I'll die for you--and you know it.” She looked at

him full, then left him.

Mrs. Wilmot stayed for the better part of a week longer than she had

intended, and then, perceiving by subtle but unmistakeable signs that

she would wiselier go, went. To Wanless that had been a week of

strain; the air was charged with trouble. One could not have pointed to

anything--it was beyond the range of weathercock or glass; but everybody

felt it. Sanchia, graver than she was wont to be, pushed herself sharply

from duty to duty, and avoided sympathy by a dry manner. Or she was

obtuse, affecting a foolish interest in trivialities. She never went

into the garden, and saw nothing of young Glyde. Mrs. Benson, glooming

thunder from her brows, Minnie with scare in her russet eyes turned

Purcell's feasts into fasts. The wiry tire-woman, to do her justice,

was as uncomfortable as any of them; but loyalty spurred her to feats

of endurance undreamed of by any but servants. They, in a world of their

own, where speech is rare, and skins rarer, where everything must be

done by glances and hints, are perhaps more aware of themselves than

any other children of men. They are for ever judging their betters; how

shall they escape from judgment of each other? Judge not, says the Book;

but if you pry for vice, what can you be yourself but a prying-ground?

So Purcell agonised, and felt her very vitals under the hooks. The case

was past praying for. She suffered and was dumb.

At last the delicate beauty, seeing Adonis faint in the chase--for

Ingram, as a lover, was languid and gloomy--was helped into her lacy

draperies, helped into the carriage, driven to the station; and Ingram,

on horseback, rode by her side. He helped her into the train, stored her

with magazines, kissed her mouth, revolted at her tears, and returned

sulkily, with hard-rimmed eyes, at a foot's pace to his halls. Midway

of the carriage-drive, instinctively, he tightened the rein; for Glyde

stepped out of the undergrowth some ten paces ahead, and stood, waiting

for him. He was dressed, not for the garden (in shirt-sleeves and

baize), but in his blacks, and had a soft felt hat on his head,

basin-shaped, with the brim over his eyes. “Now what the devil does that

chap want, play-acting here?” was Ingram's enquiry of the Universe.

Glyde, as the horse drew level, came within touch of his flank, and told

Ingram that he wished to speak with him.

“Eh?” said Ingram; and then, “oh, what a nuisance.” He felt himself

injured. “Well, what is it, Glyde?”

Glyde said, “I wish to give notice, if you please.” The manner of

address was curt and offensive.

“Oh, do you?” Ingram said. “Well, then, you had better do it in the

proper way. See Miss Percival about it, will you?” He pressed his knees

in as if to continue his way.

Glyde, however, stood by the horse's head.

“I have seen Miss Percival about it, Mr. Ingram,” he said. “I saw her--a

week ago. And now I've got to see you about it.”

Ingram looked at him sharply--a sudden stiffening of the spine; spine

stiff and eyes sharp, acting together. What he saw made him the more

alert.

“What on earth do you mean?” he asked.

“I'll tell you,” said Glyde. “I'm free of your service from this minute,

so I'll tell you. I say that you are a damned scoundrel, and that you

know it.” A concentration of many grudges, kept very still, as by white

heat, characterised this remarkable speech.

Ingram blenched. “By George, my man,” he said, “you'll have to make that

good.”

Glyde said, “And I will. You have behaved, you are behaving, like a dog

in this house; and you're to take a dog's wages.”

Ingram jumped in his saddle, rose in his stirrups. “By God,” he said,

“by God--” but he said no more.

Glyde sprang up at him where he stood above his saddle, unseated--sprang

up at him, took him by the shoulders and then dropping, pulled him off

his horse. The freed animal, startled, kicked out, shook his head, and

cantered gaily homewards. Glyde, having Ingram on the ground, took him

by the collar of his jacket and belaboured him with his open hand. He

cuffed him like a schoolboy, boxed him about the ears and face, shook

him well, and then cast him into the young bracken of his own avenue.

“There's for you, seducer,” he said; and that done, he walked steadily

up the road towards the lodge gates.

Ingram, on his feet, in a rage which was the most manly he could have

suffered, went after him at a run, and caught him up. “You blackguard,”

he said, and panted. “Turn and fight with me.”

Glyde stopped. “I'll not fight with you, Ingram,” was his measured

reply, “because I've that in me which would kill you. No mercy for you

there. You can go as you please; you can send me to gaol or not; but you

shan't get me hanged. I've something to do with my life--as much of it

as you leave me; and I want it.” As Ingram glared at him, crimson now,

with bulging eyes and teeth at lips, the other went on. “I'm going no

farther to-day than my lodging. Your police will find me there when you

send 'em. I shan't fight them, because I can't afford it; and I shan't

fight you, dog that you are, for the same reason.” Ingram cursed, and

sprang at him, but Glyde stiffened his arm and held him off. Master was

no match for man, and felt no better for the knowledge of that. It did

serve, however, to bring him to his senses. He saw that he was making an

ass of himself.

“You'll hear more of this,” he said, and turned and walked rapidly back

to the house.

Mortification inflamed his rage; his furious walking blew into it

a sense of incurable injury. Injury, shocked pride, and animal heat

altogether made a devil of him. He went directly to his own room, and

rang the bell. “Send Miss Percival to me,” he told Minnie, “at once.”

Then he waited for her, with a face like a rat.

XI

She might have gathered warning from Minnie's panting summons, but had

been busy over her accounts and had noticed nothing amiss.

“He wants you, Miss Percival! Don't go!” She had scarcely heard.

She said, “Who wants me? Mr. Ingram? I'll come;” and though the maid

stammered, “I wouldn't, oh, I wouldn't,” had gone.

The face he showed her from his bureau, where he sat huddled over a

litter of papers, prepared her instantly for crisis; snarling, white and

wicked, yet it had tragedy in it--as if he knew that he had himself to

reckon with beyond all.

For some time he seemed not to see her, though he looked at her. He sat

glooming, like a man dumb in high fever, working his lower jaw, screwing

and unscrewing his hands. Afterwards she believed that he had been

groping for the cruellest thing he could say, and was goaded into what

he did say by the sense that he could find nothing.

“So that was your work? Your choice way! To set one of my own servants

to club me.”

She looked at him blankly; but her face glowed with sudden fire. “I

haven't the least notion what you mean. Who has clubbed you?”

His eyes flickered. “Glyde. Your friend. You seek your champions all

about, it seems. You make things snug for yourself. It's master or man

with you--it's all one.”

He spluttered his venom broadcast. She held up her head. “Are you

insulting me?” He wheeled round full in his chair.

“Is it possible to insult you?”

At that she lowered her panoply of fire, and grew still. “I see that you

are. I can't allow that.”

He foamed. “Bullies in your hire. Now I see what Bill Chevenix was

after. And Glyde-faugh! who else?”

She watched him steadily without fear or disgust. His words held no

meaning for her. “I think you must be mad,” she said. “It will be better

if I go.”

He scoffed at her. “Better! You are right.” He rose in his place.

“You'll go to-day.”

Sanchia regarded him deeply, almost curiously, as if he had been a

plant, interesting for its rarity.

“Naturally,” she said, and left him in his staring fit.

The ordered little realm of Wanless went on its diurnal course. Luncheon

was served at two by a trembling parlour-maid; the coffee was set in

the hall, the cigar-box, the spirit-flame. Frodsham came for orders, Mr.

Menzies reported Glyde absent without leave. These things were done by

rote: yet the whole house knew the facts. Sanchia, dining in the middle

of the day, plied her knife and fork with composure. It was her way to

face facts once for all, tussle with them, gain or lose, and be done

with them. She had been angry with Glyde, but now could think of him as

“poor Struan,” Punchinello in a rustic comedy. Of Ingram, deliberately,

she thought nothing. It had been necessary to survey her feelings of

eight years ago, to make a sour face of disgust over them, before she

could shake them out of her head. Now they were gone, and he with them:

the world, with May beginning, was too sweet a place for such vermin to

fester in. She had swept and ridded herself, rinsed her mouth with pure

water, and now could sit to her dinner and review her plans.

But the storm burst over Wanless, at half-past four. Minnie came into

her room, breathless, Mrs. Benson stertorous in her traces.

Minnie wailed, “Oh, Miss, oh, Miss Sanchia, oh, dear Miss Percival,

what's going to become of us? Struan's beaten the Master, and the

Sergeant's here!”

“Apes and tigers”--Mrs. Benson tolled like a bell. “Apes and tigers.

What says the Book?”

Sanchia let them run, so the distorted tale was pieced together. At

a quarter to twelve--it must have been that, because Emma heard the

stableclock chime the half-hour--Struan was seen in his blacks. He came

out of the wood-house, an ashplant in his hand. “Apes and tigers, apes

and tigers,” from Mrs. Benson--his face was dreadful to see. Who said

so? Who saw him? Not Minnie, for sure. It was Bella the laundrymaid--she

saw him from the window, and had a turn. The window was open. “Why,

Struan,” she said--but he told her to shut mouth and eyes. “The less

you see, and know,” he said, “the better for you.” Poor Struan, with his

tragedy airs! Bella told that to Minnie, and that she would never forget

it to her dying day. It turned the beer in her stomach, she said--and

now she was lying down. As he went out of the yard, a cloud came over

the sun, and Bella felt the chill. She had the goose-flesh all up

her back. That, they say, betokens a person walking over your grave.

Somewhere in England we all have our grave-ground lying green under

turf. It awaits the spade and the hour. In the morning it is green and

groweth up--this was Mrs. Benson's piece, but Minnie had the rest of the

stage.

The saddle-horse came flinging into the yard at one o'clock--no later.

That's certain, because Frodsham was at his after-dinner pipe--or should

have been: instead of which he came running in after him. Just about

that time, or maybe a little before, Mr. Menzies had been asking for

Struan? Where was he? Did anyone ever see such a wastrel? No man's

account, he called him. Mrs. Benson tolled her apes and tigers all.

It was Minnie had seen the Master when the bell pealed. She had gone

with her heart in her mouth--and oh, his collar and tie! His red ear!

She had never seen anything like his face, and never must again on this

side of the tomb. Wicked, oh, wicked! He showed his teeth. His face

was as white as a clout. His voice was like a nutmeg-grater. “Miss

Percival--here--at once.” It was all he said. She did her bidding, for

servants must--but her heart bled for Miss Percival, and she felt

like fainting at any minute when she waited at luncheon. He drank

brandy--jerked his head towards the sideboard when he wanted more. Never

said a word. And how he ate, wrenching at his food! Fit to choke him.

How she had lived through the luncheon she didn't know at all. But that

Struan, that quiet in an ordinary way, should have dared--with a stick

in his violent hand! And the Sergeant ready for his warrant--stiff in

the hall.

“A villain has got his deserts,” boomed Mrs. Benson. “My dear, you're

going, it seems, and I with you. This is no place for a young lady--no,

nor ever was, God be good! I know my place, to all parties; but I know

that better--and now it's come upon us like a thief in the night. Well,

well, well--my pretty young lady! Old women must put up with what

they get, we all know--but not murderers in gentlemen's seats: no,

nor beastly doings in and out of doors. I shall go, my dear, when you

go--ah, me! When the wicked man ... but he's got his deserts. What! a

widower--with duty and pleasure before him, combined for once, and no

thanks to him!--to dally with a French doll--movable eyes and separate

teeth and all--when he might have gone on his knees to a splendid young

lady! And I'd have kept him there to say his prayers, which he's never

done before, not since his mother died, poor old gentlewoman, worn out

by the gnashings of a tiresome, God-Almighty, wicked old man, and a slip

of sin who nothing was too good for. Not in this world, no! But it will

be made up to him in the next, by the unquenchable worm--as he'll find

out when he tries his 'down, dog' tricks; his 'drop that, will you?'

None of that down there in the fire. What says the Book? My dear, my

dear,” and she took the girl in her arms with a fine look about her of

Niobe amid arrows, “I've a bosom for your head and a roof to shelter us

both, and we'll see what we shall see. There's castles and towers for

the great oneyers and their minions; but mine is in the Fulham Road, my

dear; my own property out of a building society that does business for

the widow and the orphan--makes it their special line, as I understand,

and have treated me squarely throughout--that I will say. Yes, yes, and

I'll tend you fairly, will Sarah Benson, widowed mother of a graceless

son, who can feel for her poor dead mistress, mother of a worse. My

lamb, you shall want for nothing.”

Fast in a good pair of arms, Sanchia snuggled and smiled. She patted

Mrs. Benson's cheek, and put up her lips to her. Minnie, like a thawing

icepack, ran rivers of water.

“You _are_ good to me,” she said; “you _are_ sweet to me. I don't mind

anything when I can be sure of such friends. But you mustn't leave,

you know. Really, you ought not. I shan't forget you, be sure of that,

whether you stay or go.”

Mrs. Benson crooned over her, “Oh, you're not one that forgets, my

precious, with your golden heart. And there's more than me will find it

out.” She wiped her spectacles, breathing on the glasses, and Sanchia

shook out her plumage, escaped from the nest. Ingram, without knocking,

came into the room.

His rage was now cold and keen. He took in conspiracy with one glance at

the three.

He spoke to Minnie. “I have been ringing for twenty minutes. The brandy

in my room, and some soda-water. At once.” Scared Minnie fled. Then he

turned half to Sanchia, but didn't look at her.

“I understood you were leaving this afternoon. You had better order a

fly. There's the telephone.” He held out an envelope. “I think that you

will find this correct.”

Sanchia was at her bureau. “Put it on the table, please,” she said,

without turning; and while Ingram hovered, Mrs. Benson heaving like the

sea, gathered into a combing wave and, breaking, swallowed him up.

“Money-ah! You come with money to a lady of the land! Offer me money,

Mr. Ingram, if you dare. Your bread I've eaten, having baked it, and

your father's bread, and not choked yet, though each mouthful might be

my last. By every word out of the mouth of God, says the Book; and what

shall He say of you? I've watched for this, I've seen it coming. You

keep long accounts, but there's One keeps longer--and in His head, as

we read. To breaking mother's heart so much, to scandal of matrimony so

much--and to perjury and dirty devices, wicked dalliance, so much. When

she came here--this fine young lady, so fresh and sweet--I wailed. I

shook my fist at you, Mr. Ingram; 'I know what this means,' I said, 'a

false tongue and a young heart.' And I waited, I tell you--for I could

do nothing else. She could have come to me at any hour of any day and

welcome; and I'd have told her, 'He's bad--he's rotten at the heart.

He'll tire of you--neglect you--trick you--and cast you out.' But she

was too proud for that; she bore it all, and not a word. And she did

your work as never before, not in your time, nor your father's time; and

made friends of the poor, and kept her place--sweetly and smoothly it

was done. And you on your travels with foreign women--”

Ingram now emerged from the flood. “Are you mad?” he said. A dreadful

calm came over Mrs. Benson, succeeding the tempest.

“'I am not mad, most noble Festus,'” she said; “but I am mother of a

graceless son, and will not be cook to another. I leave your service

from this hour. Your dinner is a-making, and Emma is a steady worker.”

She turned to Sanchia. “The best vegetable-hand I ever had under me,

Miss Percival, and I've had a score.” One further cut at Ingram she

allowed herself. “I would not take a penny piece of your money now, not

to save my darling from the lions.”

“You won't get it, you know,” said Ingram. “But you've had lots of 'em.”

She braved that truth.

“And earned them, Mr. Ingram, as you know, better than I do.”

Ingram, ignoring her, observed quietly to Sanchia, “The sooner the

better, I think.”

That was the manner of his farewell.

It was not the way she would have chosen to leave; but she reasoned with

herself, as she packed her belongings, that it was probably the best

way. It gave no time and little inclination for sentiment. Now, it was

almost certain that had a term been ahead of her, whose end could be

felt nearing, there would have been good-byes, last interviews, and last

interviews but one, which are apt to be more poignant than those of the

last moment of all. Even as it was there were threatenings of emotion.

Wanless was stirred deeply. Mr. Menzies brought in a nosegay, and

grasped her hand. “You will be sorely missed here, Miss Percival, sorely

missed. Less said's the sooner mended, but you're a true young lady,

greatly to be deplored.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Menzies,” she had said, “and thank you a thousand times

for--”

“They are from my own plot of ground,” said the grizzled gardener, and

looked away. She had his tulips in her hand, and now buried her face in

them.

“Then I love them all the better,” she told him; and put in a word for

Struan. “Be kind to him when you see him again--please do.”

Mr. Menzies became far-sighted. He had very blue eyes. “Ahem!” he said,

in his Scotch fashion. “He'll not be here again, I doubt. He'll be away,

the headstrong young man.” But he warmed to it. “Ay,” he said, “ay, Miss

Percival. For your sake I'll listen to what he has to tell me.” She felt

that she must be content with that. Each servant in degree must be dealt

with, and Minnie comforted in her place. She was all for going that

night; but had a mother and four sisters in Doncaster--all at home.

Would Miss Sanchia forgive her, and accept of this Prayer-book? Miss

Sanchia would; kissed her, and did.

In the carriage drive she told Mrs. Benson of her immediate intention.

“I must say good-bye to Struan. We will stop at his cottage on the way.

There's plenty of time.”

Mrs. Benson was strongly against it, but rather showed her mind than

declared it. Mischief enough had been done through that youth--and in

him, she doubted. Better let him alone. Are you to countenance violent

hands? Raised against them in authority? Then where's authority? Where

are Principalities and Powers? Much as she contemned Ingram, she was on

his side against Struan any day. On the other hand, Sanchia was, in

a manner, her guest, and could not be spoken to plainly about it. She

could only shake her head.

“He's better alone, Miss Percival, alone with his devil. While the fit's

on him, let 'em fight it out. And what can he be--to the likes of you?”

“He's always been a friend of mine,” she said. “He's been very foolish,

very wicked; he had no business whatever to do as he did--to put me in

the wrong. I'm angry with him, and he will see that I am. But--” Mrs.

Benson knew the force of that “but.” It had brought the young lady to

Wanless.

Yet Mrs. Benson might have triumphed if she would. Sanchia, at the

cottage door, was met by the anxious tenant of it with whom Struan

lodged. “He's not here, Miss,” she was told, and then, “oh, Miss,

they've took him away. The Sergeant's come for him and took him. And we

hear--” There had been no stopping her, but by Sanchia's way.

She walked into the cottage and put up her veil. She showed a pale, sad

face. “How dreadful! I must write a note. Will you let me write here,

and leave it with you--to give him when he comes?”

She wrote in pencil, “My dear Struan, I am very sorry. You made me

angry, but I'm sorry now. I came to say Good-bye, as I am going away.

Mrs. Benson is with me. See Mr. Menzies when you can. He has promised to

help you, and, of course, I will too, if I can.--Yours always, S. J. P.”

With the fold of the envelope to her tongue she paused, reflective. Then

she took the note out again, read it over, and ran her pencil through

the last two letters of her signature. And taking two Parma violets from

the knot at her breast--a recent gift from Wanless--she put them within

the paper. Thus she did deliberately--as the Fates would have her.

Addressing “Mr. S. Clyde, by Mrs. Broughton,” she gave her letter in

charge. “Be sure to give it him when he comes back,” she said. Then she

and her protector were driven to the station.

There was a full bench, a crowded court when the accused was brought in.

The hush that preceded him and the buzz when he stood up made Ingram set

his teeth. The reporters, with racing pen, cleared the ground. Thus the

world might read of “The Squire of Wanless, every inch a soldier,”

in one journal, and of “Nevile Ingram, Esquire, of Wanless Hall,” in

another. There are no politics in police reports, but broadcloth

is respectable. The prisoner was described as “Struan Glyde, 23, a

sickly-looking young man, who exhibited symptoms of nervousness.” It was

allowed that he spoke “firmly but respectfully to the Bench,” but, on

the other hand, “to the complainant he showed considerable animosity,

and more than once had to be reproved by the Chairman.” The proceedings

were short. “At the close there was a demonstration, which was

immediately checked by the police.”

Glyde, in fact, was revealed as a narrow-faced young man, slim and

olive-complexioned, having light, intent eyes, and very long eyelashes.

Nervous he undoubtedly was; he twitched, he blinked, he swallowed. He

looked effeminate to one judge. Another said of him to his neighbour,

“As hardy as a hawk.” A newspaper called him “puny,” a rival “as

tough as whip-cord.” It depended upon your reading of him--whether by

externals or not. He had a quiet, fierce way with him, a glare, the look

of a bird of prey. He was very self-possessed. All the papers observed

it.

Ingram, playing his privilege to the last ounce, told his tale to his

brother-magistrates, shortly, but with considerable effect. He had had

occasion to dismiss a servant, and the prisoner had taken upon himself

to resent it. Yes--in answer to a question--a female servant. Prisoner

had attacked him in his own carriage-drive, had pulled him out of the

saddle before he knew what he was about, and had beaten him while on

the ground. He had no witnesses. There had been none. His voice, as he

chopped out his phrases, was dry, his tone impartial. He took no sides,

stated the facts. He spoke to the Chairman--even when he replied to the

question which made him, for a moment, take breath; and he never once

looked at the accused.

The Bench consulted together. Old Mr. Bazalguet, the Chairman, leaned

far back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling, while two younger

justices whispered to each other across his portly person, peering

sideways at Ingram, who showed them his smooth head and folded arms.

Colonel Vero, the fourth of the tribunal, was drawing angels on his

blotting paper. Then they settled themselves, one of them with a shrug,

and Sergeant Weeks told of the arrest. Accused had declined to make

a statement, but had spoken certain words to his landlady, one Mrs.

Broughton, to the effect that what was to come was “nothing” to what

had been done. He had left in her charge papers, which the Sergeant had

afterwards examined, and now had in his care. This had led to a brief

interlude.

Mr. Bazalguet had caught the words. “Papers? What papers?” he asked.

“Newspapers?”

“No, sir,” said Sergeant Weeks. “They were writings. Poetry and the

like--and foreign tongues.” The bench sat up, and now Glyde had the

hawk-look in his light eyes. Ingram stifled a yawn, and impressed the

Bench.

Mr. Bazalguet, inclining his head to either side, enquired only with his

eyebrows. Did we want these papers? Should we, perhaps, for form's sake

examine them? Mr. Max Fortnaby was of opinion that we should. As they

were handed up, the prisoner, who had been wetting his lips, said

plainly, “There's nothing in them about this business,” and was reproved

by Sergeant Weeks.

A formidable pile of MS. was passed up by the Clerk, whose deprecating

glances were not lost upon the Chairman. But Mr. Max Fortnaby cut open

the budget in the midst, and peered in.

_“janua vel domina penitus crudelior ipsa”_--he read. It was a footnote.

He lifted his eyebrows--then his eyes upon the accused.

“Propertius? You know Latin?”

“I know some, sir.”

He returned to the MS., then again to Glyde.

“You are a bit of a poet, I see.”

“Yes, sir. I hope so.”

“If it leads you to battery, my young friend--” was his private comment.

To Mr. Bazalguet he whispered, “The fellow's got scholarship. We might

give these back, I think.” Mr. Bazalguet was only too happy, and Glyde

saw his offspring returned. Sergeant Weeks, safe in Mr. Fortnaby's good

opinion, scrupulously wrapped and tied them. Mr. Fortnaby said, “Let

them go back to his landlady,” and caught the prisoner's eye.

It was now time to ask him whether he had anything to say. Glyde,

perfectly master of himself, said that he pleaded Guilty, but would like

to put a few questions. The Chairman, biting the tips of his fingers,

nodded; and Mr. Fortnaby watched him.

Facing Ingram, who looked always to the Chairman, Glyde asked--“Did you

dismiss your servant, as you put it, before I met you, or afterwards?”

All eyes flew from Glyde to Ingram.

“Actually, afterwards,” it was explained. “But the thing was understood

before.”

“By whom?”

“By me,” said Ingram, “and--” He stopped there. A very interesting

struggle, momentary, and done in silence, took place. Glyde was daring

Ingram to bring in Sanchia's name, and Ingram could not do it.

“And--?” said Glyde. “And by whom?”

Ingram paused, biting his lips. He was pale. He took a long breath, and

then said, “And by you, I have no doubt.”

“Thank you,” Glyde said. Then he began again. “Did you ask me to fight

with you?”

“I believe I did.”

“And I refused?”

“Yes,” said Ingram, “you did.”

“Did I say that I didn't fight with dogs?” Ingram smiled at the

Chairman.

“You did not.”

“I say so now,” said Glyde, and stirred the Court. Mr. Bazalguet

interfered.

“You mustn't talk like that, Glyde. We can't have it, you know.” Colonel

Vero added, “Certainly not,” and stretched his long legs out.

Glyde recovered himself, and begged pardon. He was told that he might go

on, in reason, but declined. “Thank you, sir. I think I'll leave it so.

I own to what I did.”

He was told that he could be dealt with summarily, or sent for trial.

“I'll take it from you, gentlemen,” he said, and settled himself

reposefully. The Bench drew together, with the Clerk intervening.

Mr. Bazalguet, double-chinned and comfortable squire, was disturbed

by this case. What troubled him was that Ingram had not been

straightforward. What was this dismissal of a servant? He knew, and

therefore he asked the question. Fortnaby knew also, but didn't intend

to say. Everybody, indeed, knew. Romance appeals to us all in diverse

ways; and it was actually romance which settled Clyde's romantic affair.

Fortnaby, Maximilian Fortnaby, had been a schoolmaster, had succeeded

to an estate at forty, and retired. He, with his keen face and trim

whiskers, leaning his head on his hand, thus spoke in undertones, and

carried the day. “The case is clear. The young man's taught himself

tongues, and has poetry. He's been taught other things, too, and has

got some of them wrongly. One thing he ought to learn is that to relieve

your feelings is not the way to help the oppressed. He's set himself up

for a champion, and tongues have got to work. I should give him three

months.” Mr. Bazalguet looked at the Clerk, who said it was a bad case.

Mr. Ingram was a magistrate and--the maximum was two years. The third

magistrate saw his way to impressing himself,--“Make it six months,” he

said. The Chairman agreed with him, until Colonel Vero said, “I should

give him a year.” That shocked him. “It'll take a long time for it to

blow over, you know,” he whispered to Fortnaby, who smiled and shrugged.

“I don't suppose six will hurt him. He'll be able to write after a bit.”

“Ingram will go abroad, you know,” said Mr. Bazalguet. “Did you happen

to know the--party?” Fortnaby looked up quickly. “I? Oh, dear no. But I

gather that the less we say the better. It was not an ordinary servant.”

Mr. Weir, the third magistrate, said, “A lady, I hear;” but his

colleagues ignored him. Then they all sat up, and the Clerk sank into

the well.

“Clyde,” said Mr. Bazalguet, “you will have to go to prison for three

months, with hard labour. I hope this will be a warning to you. I do

indeed.”

The prisoner was removed amid murmurs. There was some cheering outside

the court--at which Ingram grimly smiled. But he was very pale, and

did not leave the Sessions house until late in the afternoon. Old Mr.

Bazalguet was very cool with him after court. He grunted when they

met in the hall. “You go abroad?” he asked him. Ingram said, it was

probable.