"Of course not, Miss," Susan answered, with a touch of indignation,

which I ignored.

"If you do go to-day," I added, "you won't mention Lord Ruddington's

name. But, Susan, if there has been anything between you and Gibson,

I'm bound to say that you have no right to trifle with him. It isn't

fair to him, or to yourself, or to Lord Ruddington; or even to me.

Perhaps it's still too soon for you to decide whether you will accept

Lord Ruddington; but it's high time for you to decide whether you will

drop Gibson. If you find you can't drop Gibson, the other matter will

settle itself. Be a good girl, and remember that the only way to be

happy is to do right. Only, for heaven's sake, don't prolong the agony.

I'm not going to grumble, Susan, but you must have seen that, although I

came to Sainte Veronique for peace and rest, I've had to spend nearly

three weeks worrying my head over people that want to marry you. It's

getting to be a bit tiresome."

"You've been awfully good to me, Miss," said Susan with all her usual

meekness. "I'll try."

I must stop. Here's Georgette with a litre of cider, and a crisp roll

three feet long, and a dish of _raie au beurre noir_.

_A quarter past two_.

Susan has just started down to the beach.

_Three o'clock_.

Susan didn't say anything before she went. While she was brushing my

hair--it had got all anyhow in the hammock after lunch--she hardly

uttered a word.

I have been thinking strange thoughts and wondering at some wonders.

What on earth can it be that has turned a china shepherdess like Susan

into a Helen of Troy? Why is she a storm-centre, a battlefield of

heroes? I have seen enough of the world to know that both Gibson and

Lord Ruddington are exceptional men. What is it in Susan that drives

them mad? Susan's is not a case of the Eternal Masculine basely

desiring lamb-like innocence and childish beauty. In her case the groom

is as good as the lord in native chivalry and honour.

Madame's magnificent old Empire cheval-glass reflected us full-length

while Susan was busy with my hair. In the autumnal light, and with the

background of bright hangings and bold furniture, we looked less like a

mere reflection in a mirror than like one of those vivid modern French

pictures. At first the feeling was uncanny; but, by degrees, this

full-coloured life-sized, gilt-framed portrait mastered me until I was

able to look at it as dispassionately as if it had been on a wall of the

Luxembourg. It was then I began to wonder at wonders and think thoughts.

One must not praise oneself up, even in one's diary. But one may, one

must, be sincere. And it is the simple truth, that the more I compared

the full-length portrait of Susan with the full-length portrait of

myself, the deeper and more inscrutable became the mysteries of life. I

looked at the two portrayed forms and the two portrayed faces as

critically and with as much detachment as if I had never seen the

originals in the real world.

Ruddington has seen Susan thrice. But he has seen me thrice also. He

says that I was with Susan every one of the three times. Perhaps Susan's

brushing jogged my wits; but, face to face with that double portrait, I

couldn't help being reminded of what I scolded Susan for saying this

morning. As a matter of purely speculative interest, as a curious human

problem, I couldn't help saying to myself: "He saw us both. Why didn't

he fall in love with me?"

To be immodestly candid, the only answer I could arrive at was: "I don't

know!"

Of course, what he says in his letter to Susan about shrinking from

making love to Miss Langley is absurd. It is merely a fanciful thought

after the event, a pretty conceit, a gossamer compliment partly to Susan

and mainly to himself. He fell wildly, instantly, irresistibly in love

with Susan because there is Something in Susan which gave him no choice.

He looked at me and was cold, because the Something has been left out.

Never before to-day have I looked at myself in a glass hungrily. But

to-day I peered with all the strength of my eyes into the confused

depths of the secret. It was no good. I cannot read the riddle.

I will write this page without reserve. It is no more my merit, my own

work, that I am beautiful than it would be my fault, my disgrace, if I

had been born ugly. I will call a spade a spade, and beauty beautiful.

So here goes.

If Susan is pretty, I am beautiful, and I am more beautiful than Susan

is pretty. If Susan is as graceful as a nymph, I am as noble as a

goddess. If Susan's blue eyes are as blue as the sky, my brown eyes are

deeper than the sea. If Susan is curds and cream, I am fire and snow. If

Susan can turn plain men into heroes, I ought to raise heroes into gods.

Yes. Although I have a hundred deformities of mind, a thousand

uglinesses of conduct and character, which I could help and for which I

am to blame, it is the plain truth that God chose to make me beautiful.

Has not every one told me so, as long as I can remember? But Heaven

knows that, although I have always felt glad, it has never made me

puffed up or vain. And I'm thankful it hasn't. If it had, this would

have been a bitter day for my pride. For, after all, Ruddington saw us

both; and he fell in love with Susan.

I can think of only one answer to the enigma, and I hope it isn't the

right one. I suspect that men of abundant manliness, like Lord

Ruddington and Gibson, instinctively seek for their opposites in the

shape of some passive, clinging femininity like Susan's. They demand

that the woman shall be pretty as well as clinging and passive and

feminine; because they know that they are brave, and that the brave

deserve the fair, I suspect that these strong characters find sweet

repose in a simple woman's characterlessness. Their eager spirits

recuperate in her placidity.

Conversely, a flabbier man rejoices in a strenuous, all-alive woman.

Take poor Alice. She is taller than I am; stronger, quicker, harder,

more self-willed. And I suppose that is why Hugh, in his humdrum way,

adores her, and is wretched when she's away, like a faithful hound.

If this be the sound theory, I shall never marry. How could I endure a

man weaker and pettier than myself? And yet the only kind of man I

could ever want ... won't ever want me!

I wish I hadn't begun to think these thoughts. Still more do I wish I

hadn't made them become clearer by writing them down. It makes the

world seem so mean and lean. There ought to be grander men than

Ruddington--men who would spurn honeyed sloth with dolls like Susan--men

who would exult at the challenge of a proud, high-spirited woman as

climbers exult at the white blaze of the Jungfrau, as hunters exult at

the roaring of a desert lion, as soldiers exult at the sight of a strong

city set on a hill. But, alas for this shrunken, sluggish,

poverty-stricken time, when I, poor I, who am so far short of being a

heroine, must begin to regard myself as a Brynhild doomed to virgin

sleep because the Siegfrieds are all too timid and too puny to leap

through the small fires of my will and my pride.

_Four o'clock_.

These worries have been too much for my nerves. I feel all overstrung,

as if a little thing would make me break down and cry.

For example, just now I went into Susan's room to make sure that she had

taken me out of her frame. I find that, instead of taking me out, she's

left me in, and taken out Ruddington. There I am, staring across the

hinges at an empty oval.

Last time I saw the frame it had both of us in it, and Susan's room was

warm and brilliant with floods of morning sunshine. But, just now, her

room was chill and dim. The paper background of the empty oval showed

up ghostly white.

I walked to the mantelpiece, and gazed at my own photograph. Instead of

looking like one half of a happy honeymoon couple, I looked like a

girl-widow staring at a shroud. Outside, in the sunless garden, a gust

of wind smote a leafy apple-branch against the window, like a slap of a

hand; and at the same moment a great dreariness, an utter loneliness,

fell like a blight, like a frost, like a black shadow, on my soul.

I have come back to my own room, where it is more cheerful. But I see

that I have written too much to-day in this book. Since sunrise this

morning I must have written two or three hours. No wonder I am morbid

and dumpy!

I swear an oath. Whatever happens, and whatever Susan may report, not

another word will I write to-day.

_Thursday morning, in the summer-house_.

I hate to think of yesterday. Hitherto I have hugged a fond belief that

my nerves were of steel. Yet the trivial shock of Gibson's chase,

coming on top of my early rising, bowled me over for the rest of the

day.

It is humiliating to read all the stuff I wrote in this book--the

feverish retrospects, prospects, introspects. After I had skimmed

through it this morning, I nearly vowed to lock it up and not write

another word until I am back in England. But, if I don't jot them in a

diary, I mix up dates so frightfully.

For example, I was trying the other night to remember the three days

when Ruddington saw me with Susan. While Alice was with me, I let this

book slide; and the result is I can't recall being with Susan once

except at the post-office; and Susan declares that Ruddington's

photograph isn't the least like the young man who stared at her in a

dark green suit.

I don't even remember where Susan was while he was feasting his eyes on

her through the pillars of the monument. Perhaps she sat behind Alice

and me. Or did she sit with the servants? It's tantalizing to think

that perhaps I've seen him, and perhaps stared back at him, and that

it's all slipped out of my mind.

So I sha'n't stop entering things in this journal. But I mean to enter

them more curtly.

Luckily there isn't much to write about Susan and Gibson, even if I were

disposed to write it. Susan didn't come back till half-past four.

Until after dinner she avoided the subject; and it was only when I was

mounting to a very early bed that I asked any questions.

"Well, Susan," I said, "and what have you done with poor Gibson?"

"I've sent him home, Miss."

"To England?"

"Oh no, Miss. To Grandpont."

"He had to go to Grandpont whether you sent him there or not," I said.

"But didn't you give him an answer?"

Susan had replied to my questions rapidly and defiantly; but, without

any warning, she sat down plump on the top stair with the candlestick in

her lap, and sobbed the plentifullest and heartiest sobs of all her many

sobbings since Ruddington wrote his first letter. Overwrought as I was,

I wonder that the unexpectedness and oddity of it did not drive me into

hysterical laughter. I controlled myself only by speaking to Susan

roughly.

"Get up, you silly creature!" I said. "Georgette will hear you, and

Madame! What's the matter?"

"Oh, Miss Gertrude," she sobbed, "I know I oughtn't to have said the

things to Gibson that I did say. I oughtn't, I know, I know!"

"Then what did you say them for?"

"It was all his fault, Miss, not mine. I oughtn't to have said the

things I did. But why did he say such bitter, cruel, awful things to

me?"

"I've no idea, Susan," I said, taking the candlestick from her lap and

leaving her to follow.

She did not appear till she had dried her eyes and regained some

composure. When she came into my room, her lips were set, and she did

not speak.

"Susan," I explained, "I was sorry to cut you short. But we mustn't

have scenes on the stairs. Besides, to-night I'm tired out. Gibson

upset me this morning. But I'm sorry if you've quarrelled."

Susan broke down again.

"I hate him, Miss," she cried with a stamp of her pretty foot. "I

sha'n't never forgive him for the things he's said to-day! I sha'n't

never speak to him again! Not a word, Miss. Not if I live to be a

thousand!"

At that I stopped her, and I don't know any more.

_Friday, three o'clock_.

Susan came to me in the summer-house this morning, and said firmly:

"Please, Miss, I've decided."

Certainly I am out of sorts. As she paused on the verge of her

announcement, my heart stood still. No doubt the strain and excitement

of these three weeks have sapped me and mined me, and Susan's and

Gibson's affairs have been so constantly present to my mind that I

suppose they have become affairs of my own. Anyhow, I felt myself

chilling ridiculously and going pale as Susan spoke.

"What have you decided?" I asked at last.

"I have decided," replied Susan in her most important manner, "that I

will keep company with his Lordship for a month. I mean, Miss, when

we're back at Traxelby."

"You'll take him for a month on trial?" I said, jesting feebly.

"Yes, Miss. I don't think I ought to be married to him till I'm sure I

can put up with him."

"Of course, Susan," I answered. "But that was settled all along. He

isn't expecting you at present to say that you will marry him. He

simply asks whether he may come in person and persuade you."

"Yes, Miss," said Susan, colouring charmingly. And after thirty seconds

she added, "Please, Miss Gertrude, I beg pardon, ... but when shall we

go back to Traxelby?"

The prospect vexed me suddenly and enormously. I foresaw myself enmeshed

for another month in ignominious arrangements for the comings and goings

of the Lord of the Towers to the lady's-maid at the Grange. The

presentiment of inevitable complications and humiliations on my very own

territory was too much for my patience, and I answered Susan sharply.

"Really, Susan," I said, "do try to understand that I must think about

myself a little as well as you! With all these worries, I feel as if

I've hardly had three clear days at Sainte Veronique all these three

weeks. You and Lord Ruddington might be the only people in the world!"

"I'm very sorry, Miss," said the bride-elect, completely penitent. "I

only asked, Miss, so that we could..."

"Could what?"

"Put it in the letter, Miss."

"Susan," I enquired, "how have you got on with your writing? This

letter will be very short. Don't you think you can manage it yourself?

Bring down my writing-case and your own pen, and see what you can do!"

"I'll try, Miss," she said, most deeply disappointed. And she went

away.

When she sat down again by my side I admit that Susan astonished me by

the speed and the tolerable skill with which she executed a

fully-addressed envelope. But my surprise had a short life. It seems

that Susan's handwriting exercises have been practically confined to the

scribing and rescribing, a hundred times, of the words "Lord Ruddington"

and "Ruddington Towers." But, when she sat face to face with a blank

sheet of note-paper, ideas, words, and penwomanship alike failed. Susan

sighed, moaned, squinted, wriggled, ate the penholder, pouted, and

finally adorned the middle of the paper with a big tear.

Doubtless it was my duty to transmit that sheet of paper, tear-drop and

all, to the Lord Ruddington so that he might frame it in gold and ivory

or treasure it in a casket of bejewelled silver. But I was quite

heartless this morning. I snatched the sheet away unkindly, crushed it

up profanely, and said:

"You're wasting paper, Susan, and what's worse, you're wasting time.

Can you do it or not?"

"No, Miss," whimpered Susan. Her shoulders began to heave, and she shed

two more big tears.

"Hand me my own pen, then," I said, less harshly, "and a clean sheet of

paper. You may come back in ten minutes to see if what I've written

will do."

"I know it will do, Miss," said Susan fervently. "All the letters you

write, Miss, are beautiful. I don't always understand them at first;

but when I think them over and over after they're posted----"

"Now, run along, Susan," I cut in. "I'll leave the letter inside this

case in my room. Your own envelope will do. Post it if you think it is

all right."

Here is the letter:

DEAR LORD RUDDINGTON,--Your question is: Do I consent to one or more

interviews between us on my return to England?

My answer is: Yes.

After we have met, one or the other or both of us may decide that it is

better we should not meet again. I repeat that you have read too much

into my letters, and that you have formed expectations concerning me

which are bound to be disappointed.

I think our meetings, like this correspondence, ought not to be oftener

than once a week, and that we ought to make up our minds once for all at

the end of a month. When our return-day is fixed, I must tell all that

is in my mind to Miss Langley, and must fall in with her wishes as to

the place and time of meeting. Probably she will prefer London to

Traxelby.

I hope to hear that you are well.--Yours very sincerely,

SUSAN BRIGGS.

I can't expect Susan to be over-pleased. To use her own old scared

phrase, it gives his lordship a chance of backing out. But it makes the

only arrangements that are fair and safe all round. Besides, if Susan

thinks it is too prudent and cold, she can easily warm it up by getting

Georgette to shove in an appropriate collection of sentimentiferous

flowers.

_Saturday night_.

This day have coffee'd, read _Les Chouans_, bathed, lunched, read more

_Chouans_, walked to the village, dined, read more _Chouans_, and am

just going to bed.

_Sunday night_.

There was a letter for Susan this morning, with the Grandpont postmark.

She regarded Gibson's waiting on the envelope with darkling brows, and

thrust the packet unopened into her pocket.

So far as Gibson is concerned, I am not exactly delighted with the

situation. He ought to go home. But I can't tell him so. When the new

Lady Ruddington begins her reign at the Towers, Gibson will hardly enjoy

life at the Grange. I shall feel his going very much. But I'm getting

used to Ruddington's wrecking. He's wrecked my holidays, he's stealing

Susan, and I suppose I must spend the autumn watching him smash up my

whole household. In any case, I mustn't command or persuade Gibson to

leave Grandpont so long as he thinks that a smattering of motor-mending

will help him in his next place.

I can't guess what the poor lad has written to Susan or how she is going

to take it. But love and hate, even the loves and hates of poor and

simple people, come home to me so vividly here at Sainte Veronique, that

I can't help feeling miserable over Gibson's trouble. With the undimmed

sun shining down from a cloudless heaven on the endless waters and the

immeasurable uplands, such elemental verities as love and life and death

seem to be at home.

It was to Berigny that I went for Mass. The cure spoke to me afterwards,

as I was sitting under the shadow of the Calvary. He is a simple soul;

but he talked with spirit and intelligence about his Church and his

country. I found him still smarting under the well-meant fussiness of

two old maids from Bournemouth who were at the Hotel du Dauphin last

month. It appears that they distributed Evangelical tracts in French,

wherein the present troubles of the Church in France were explained as a

divinely appointed punishment of Popery and as a divine call to the

French people to embrace Scriptural truth. The cure spoke with fine

scorn of that British sectarian animosity which hates the Pope ten times

worse than the Devil. And he confirmed what I had learned from the more

blatant Paris journals--that the so-called campaign against clericalism

is at heart a campaign against Christianity, and not only against

Christian dogma, but even against many ancient precepts of Christian

morals. More. He confirmed what I have myself read in the speeches of

deputies and even of Ministers--that the attack is not merely against

Christianity, but against the whole idea of supernatural religion, and

that it is avowedly an attempt to establish a lay state, a purely

secular community trained from childhood to believe that all religion is

superstition and that human science alone can teach men how to live and

die.

After the cure went home to break his fast, I still lingered in the

churchyard. A new plank-monument had been raised during the week over a

new tomb; and its jet-black letters on a snow-white ground reminded me

of the resolve I had made to offer a De Profundis for the faithful dead.

I found the place in my _paroissien_, and said the opening words aloud.

The sound of my own voice in that sunny field of death frightened me,

and I stopped. I began again, reading to myself. But it was of no use.

I couldn't go on.

When it comes to downright earnest, you can't skip from one religion to

another. Lost in a crowd one can coquet with another religion, tolerate

it, even enjoy its unfamiliar ancient ritual. But, with my De Profundis

it was different. I couldn't shed my Protestantism like an old cloak in

the twinkling of an eye.

Not that I felt, as I sat down again on the platform of the Calvary,

that praying for the dead was false doctrine and superstitious error. I

dared not say it was true; but still less dared I say that it was false.

I thought of the two old maids from Bournemouth, their half-knowledge,

their meddling; and I felt it would be, at the very least, an

unpardonable impertinence to offer doubting prayers for needs that I

could only half understand.

I ought to have remembered the Ancient Mariner; how, with a heart as dry

as dust, seven days, seven nights, he stood alone on a wide, wide sea

with Death; how, at last, he watched the water-snakes, coiling and

swimming, blue, glossy green, and velvet black, in the shadow of the

ship; how a spring of love gushed from his heart and he blessed them

unaware; and how, the self-same moment, he could pray.

With me it was the other way about. At Berigny this morning I began

with faith and ended with unfaith. I went to pray and came away to

doubt. Hardly had I clasped my book and resolved that it would be bad

taste to pray, before a shadow fell upon all things. The light of the

sun was broad and bright; but, within me, there grew a bleak wonder that

any one should be able to believe in God.

I mean the Christian's God, of course. If He is truly identical with

the eternal Cause of the universe and yet yearns for man's love and

worship, how can his heart be content that his right arm should hang

idle while puny unbelievers are closing his temples and muzzling his

messengers?

I looked along the wooded ravine where the beck chatters down to Sainte

Veronique, with Grandpont spire away to the right, and I thought of

Susan and Ruddington and Gibson. If God's delight is in the virtuous

happiness of men and women, why this hateful tangle? Perhaps it was a

blasphemous thought; but the tangle was so cruel, so useless, so

cunning, that it seemed to require an omnipotent Devil for its

explanation.

The cruelty of it brought tears to my eyes. I thought, for the first

time, of a coincidence that deepened the wrong. Susan, Ruddington, and

I--we are all orphans. As for Gibson, if he has parents it is fifteen

years since they made a sign. Each one of us robbed before we could

speak, or think, or remember, of a mother's care and love; and, for

compensation, Gibson cheated of love altogether, Susan beloved where she

cannot love. Ruddington loving with no love to answer.

I thought of myself. If the Christian's God is one with the Upholder of

all things, his was the lightning which struck the old Grange and slew

my father and mother as they slept. Where are they to-day? Are they

annihilated, body and soul--as dead as stones on the beach? Or do their

spirits wander wearily _in profundis_ bowed under the burden of new

sorrows, awful and unknown?

Yes. I thought of myself. Except grannie, who was fifty years my

senior, who has ever loved me dearly, whom have I ever dearly loved? No

one. Not even Alice, though we have been good chums.

I resolved on Thursday never again to think the thoughts I thought

before the glass. But thoughts will not be denied. In the churchyard

this morning, as I sprang up and paced among the graves, a hot, vast,

rebellious anger nearly drove me mad. To-day I knew that I was made for

love--for a love immense as the sea, ever-lasting as the hills, more

splendid than the sun. Why has it been written that love must pass me

by?

So I did not say a De Profundis. I know that God exists; but the depths

seemed too deep for him to pity and the heights too high for him to

hear. I clanged the churchyard gate behind me harshly; and it was in

vain that the jet-black letters on the snow-white plank of the new grave

whispered: "If you please."

_Monday_, 2.45 _p.m._

Susan is behaving strangely, and I don't like it.

There is a letter from Ruddington. When it arrived, Susan made no

secret of it; but she has neither shown it to me nor mentioned it,

although she has been with me all the morning.

In one sense I grant that it is Susan's letter, not mine, and that she

is under no obligation to let me read a line. But, in another sense, it

is as much mine as hers. The letters Ruddington writes are answers to

my letters, not Susan's. The Susan he thinks about and writes to is no

longer the palpable Susan with whom he fell in love at Traxelby. He has

a new Susan, a composite Susan, a Susan who never was and never will be,

a Susan idealized as much from my letters as from his recollections of

her face. If Susan, at last, feels competent to compose and write her

replies, well and good. But she should say so. To take back the whole

affair into her own hands without a word is rather cool. Not that I

care one jot about what Ruddington has written. But I do feel rather

sick about Susan's uncouthness. After the pains I've taken, it is so

monstrously ungrateful.

_Bed-time_.

Susan drifted down the garden path about three o'clock, and came to

anchor beside my chair. She began turning up the gravel with her toe.

"He wrote this morning, Miss," she said suddenly.

"I know, Susan," I said, "I saw the envelope."

Susan went on furrowing the gravel.

"Would you like to read it, Miss?" she asked.

"Perhaps there's no necessity," I answered a little stiffly. "Perhaps

you can manage the reply yourself."

"I wish you would read it, Miss," she said, after a very long pause.

"Where is it?"

"Upstairs, Miss."

"Then how can I read it?"

"Please, Miss," said Susan coyly. "I don't like to show it you. It's

so loving."

"Indeed," I said. "Then be sure you don't worry me with it unless you

find you can't answer it."

"Yes, Miss," said Susan.

She went back to the hotel with a clouded face.

The afternoon dragged. To tell the truth, I wanted to see his letter

immensely. Yet how could I? To have read it out of mere curiosity

would have been like peeping through a hedge at an unsuspecting pair of

sweethearts, or like eavesdropping behind some Lover's Seat. Still, it

was terribly tantalizing to have the door of the play-house slammed in

my face just as the piece was getting exciting. I tried to read, work,

walk about, write; but in vain. All I could do was to think, remember,

anticipate, dream, till I felt like the loneliest of lonely outcasts.

Ruddington's love-affair, which had been so silly and worrying and

tiresome, suddenly became as warm and homely, and bright and cosy as a

Christmas hearth; and I felt like a friendless orphan wandering outside

in the gloom and the cold.

By six o'clock, I was so deep in the dumps that I positively made some

sort of a weather-remark to the enormous, silent Frenchman who has been

here a week. I hadn't guessed that he was a mountain of shyness. At my

voice he jumped, flushed crimson, knocked over his wine, choked, and

nearly frightened me out of my wits before he could utter an

intelligible word. Georgette was sulky about the spilt claret; and,

from merely feeling solitary, I went on to the knowledge that I was

roundly hated. When I came up to my room, an hour ago, I found Susan had

left Ruddington's letter under my blotting-pad. Envelope and contents

were so flat and uncrumpled that I hardly think they have been cherished

next to Susan's wildly-beating heart. Ruddington says:

SUZANNE, ALL MINE,--As ever, I love, honour and obey. Take a month, if

you will, before you speak the word. But I have settled it with the

stars in their courses what the word must be. For ever, everywhere, you

are Suzanne, all mine.

In her neighbourly good-nature and excellent wisdom, Miss Langley may

choose for our meeting-place, Traxelby or London, or the Equator or the

North Pole, or Sainte Veronique or the New Moon, or the summit of Mont

Blanc or Ruddington Towers, or a coral island, or the Bottomless Pit, or

the top of the Monument, or any other square yard she pleases. So long

as Suzanne is there in the midst, the arid, scorching heat of the Sahara

will be Eve's garden refreshed and guarded by the four streams of

Paradise.

Suzanne has promised that she will come an inch to meet me. She shall

never turn back alone.

But let not Suzanne mistake this perfect confidence of mine for vanity.

I believe that Suzanne will run to be all mine, not because she gives

herself lightly (for where is there a prouder than Suzanne?) and not

because I am handsome, or desirable or magnetic. I am not magnetic, I

am not desirable, I am not handsome. No. I believe that Suzanne must

be all mine because I am all hers; because it is unthinkable that she

should come close to the blaze of such a love as mine without herself

taking fire.

Unless the Devil is torturing the world, such love as mine for Thee

implies, requires, compels an equal love of thine for Me.

What a Suzanne this is, who is all mine! When I recall her face as I saw

it in Traxelby church, what a wonderful, beautiful Suzanne! But, when I

read her letters, I cry again, with threefold gratitude: what a

beautiful, wonderful Suzanne! Her pride is as fine as the curl of a

rose leaf; but her sweetness, like the rose's perfume, hovers over it

all.

Not that Suzanne thinks that she has ever revealed herself in her

letters. She believes that she has veiled herself in veils of prudence

and reserve. But my eyes have found her out--have found her, more

beautiful for her dissembling, like a great bright star hiding in the

Milky Way.

Suzanne, it is no use hiding any longer. The hour has come for shining

out without a cloud between. Do not wait for our meeting. Write to me,

just once, without distrust of yourself or of me. I have obeyed, have I

not, in all things? Reward me at last. Pour out your heart, even if it

be a-brim with fears.

When she reads this, prudent Suzanne will be moved to answer that I am

taking too long and sudden a leap, and that I am skipping over two or

three seemly stages. She will say that she has written nothing which I

have the right to answer with a love-letter like this.

But this is not an answer to Suzanne's letter. It is an answer to her

flower.

RUDDINGTON

In a corner of the envelope I found something which his Lordship's

wonderful beautiful Susan has overlooked. It was a petal of a creamy

rose. Poor Ruddington! And to think that it is nobody's fault.

_Tuesday at sunrise_.

How can I write it?

Only because, if I write it not, my brain will turn, my heart will

break.

I love Ruddington.

For days and weeks I have lied to myself, I have lied to this book.

With my wits I have parried the truth; but in the heart of my heart,

ever since the day I took his portrait in my hand, I have known.

As I have looked for his writing by every post, I have known. As I have

read his letters, grave or gay, I have known. As I have sat replying, I

have known. Every hour of every day, by the sea, in the garden, in this

room, I have known.

When I saw his portrait facing mine, I knew. When I saw his place empty

in the frame, I knew----oh, how hungrily! And when I sat on Sunday,

bitter-hearted, under the Berigny Calvary, I knew.

Yet God knows how I have fought it, how I have held it down even out of

my own sight. And God knows how, according to my light, I have striven

to do my duty by Susan, and by Gibson, and by them all.

My poor wits are too weary. They can parry the truth's bright, cruel

thrusts no more.

So, before I tear this book into tatters and burn it till not a letter

of his name remains, once for all I will confess. I love Ruddington. I

fell asleep last night with his rose-leaf, my stolen rose-leaf, under my

pillow. I dreamed a dream of peace--a peace as sweet and strong as

death. I dreamed I was at rest within his arms. And I awoke in the

loneliness of the rainy daybreak, holding out my hands to him and

murmuring his name.

_Tuesday_, 2 _p.m._

I shall burn this book. But not to-day.

The world seems hushed, remote, unreal. To-day, I seem to belong, not to

Life, but all to Love and Death.

As soon as the sun had conquered the mist, we went down, Susan and I, to

bathe. The tide was high, with warm boisterous waves. Perhaps I went

out too far, or breasted the rude buffeting too long.

Without warning, my strength forsook me. I half swooned in the water.

The undertow drew my feet away from their hold on the ribbed sand, and,

at the same moment, a towering, craggy wave broke with a shattering

crash full over me.

Involuntarily, by the animal impulse of a creature clinging to life, I

raised a foolish cry which filled my mouth with water; I threw up

foolish hands, and straightway began to sink. But, instantly, calm and

self-control returned. The great waters were chanting in my ears. I

even opened my eyes and looked up through the green crystal at the

noon-day sun--a round, moon-like sun, mild and cool and kind.

I believed it was the end. Death was all round me and under me and over

me, like the sea. But I was not afraid. Till Death was near, I had not

dreamed that he could be so sweet. To sink down, down, down in his arms

was not a frightful descent into horror; it was a gentle settling into

unutterable peace.

But it was not to be. For the present I belong to Life, who is so

niggardly and cruel, not to Love who is so lavish, or to Death who is so

kind. Susan had seen me collapse; and when a thunderous wave swung me

towards her she plucked me from its grasp.

Susan does not know that Death has laid his lips on mine and that I have

looked into his pitiful eyes. She thinks I merely lost my footing, and

she knows nothing of the swoon. But she says I look ill and shaken; and

I do believe she has forgotten her own affairs in mine.

_At sunset_.

Susan won't let me leave my room. She has guessed that this morning's

affair was more serious than a mere swallowing of salt water, and she

insists that I am an invalid for the rest of the day.

Georgette has made a crackling wood-fire. The logs rest on quaint old

iron dogs and, in one sense, the blaze is cheerful. In another sense it

is depressing. The sun has set early, and these logs are the

funeral-pyre of summer.

Everybody is so kind. Georgette set a table between the hearth and the

window, and Madame has sent up such a _poulet en casserole_ as I have

never tasted before. Dupoirier chose out a Burgundy, dry and bold and

strong.

Now that I feel so much better, I know that I was ill. Before dinner, I

lay down on my bed and slept two unrestful hours. I dreamed that I was

climbing toilfully up a stony path between ruinous walls and close-grown

ancient thorns. I climbed in a light that was neither of the night nor

of the day: in the wan and chilly light of a moon-like sun such as I had

seen through the water. And, all the time I climbed, I knew that he was

near. Thrice I saw him through the briers, and once he called my name:

but he was always at the other side of the wall.

I dreamed much more. But though I couldn't help dreaming, I can help

recalling it all, I can keep writing it.

Yet what can I do if I don't write? I can't get to close grips with a

book. The end of _Les Chouans_ is too beautiful, too sorrowful, and

I've no one to talk to, save Susan. Susan has been an angel all day:

but I couldn't talk to her just now. I will go to bed.

_Midnight_.

The house is quiet as the grave.

I cannot sleep. Perhaps the fire was too restless and bright.

The room is so warm that I am sitting without even a dressing-gown, just

as I slipped out of bed. I have a plan of wooing sleep.

I am going to write to Ruddington. Not a reply on behalf of Susan. Not

a letter that will ever be posted. Not a letter that any eye save mine

shall ever see. Once, just this once, because I am sleepless, and

shaken, and worn, and unhappy, I will let myself go. For half an hour,

he shall be mine. His rose-leaf, my stolen rose-leaf, shall lie by my

hand. To-morrow ... the fire for what I write to-night. And for

me--to-morrow and all the morrows after it--no looking back to this

hour, no brooding, no idle regret, nothing save the quest of

forgetfulness.

This is what I write--the first and last love-letter of my life:

SAINT VERONICA'S,

_at dead of night_.

BELOVED,--You bid me write to you just once without distrust either of

myself or of you. You bid me pour out all my heart.

I obey. Once--this once--I will speak to you as I have never spoken

before, as I can never speak again.

You have seen me, in the flesh, three times, treading the solid ground,

breathing the summer air. Yet you do not love me. I have seen you only

in a portrait: and I love you as wildly, as eternally, as immeasurably

as you believe you love poor Susan. I know it all through my soul: and,

as you wrote in your first letter, there can never be any one in the

world for me save you.

Your portrait was the beginning. How I can have been near your own very

self those three times in England without turning to you as a flower

turns to the sun, without answering you as deep answers deep, I do not

know. Perhaps my heart did turn, my soul did answer. But, for my

consciousness, the portrait was the beginning. And what your portrait

began your letters have carried on.

You say that poor Susan's mind is even more beautiful and wonderful than

poor Susan's face. Alas, how cruelly you are deceived, how rudely you

must be awakened. But with Thee, beloved, it is thy mind that makes me

love Thee most. Although I have wandered only a few steps along its

margin, I know that a long lifetime would not suffice me to explore that

goodly land with its sunny fields, its merry brooks, its great deeps,

its peaks piercing the clouds of heaven.

Yes, Beloved, thy mind is beautiful and wonderful. And yet it has

deceived you. At the sight of a pretty face, you bent like a reed under

an immense infatuation which you think is love. It is the tragedy of

your life and mine, Beloved, that we, whom God made one for another,

must go our separate ways, you with your infatuation, I with my love.

Doubtless, before long, we shall meet. You will feel the delicacy of my

position, you will be considerate, grateful, kind. And I must sit and

smile and put you at your ease, while all the time my heart will be

crying: This is the man who should have loved me!

To-morrow all will be changed. This hour of self-revelation will belong

to the past, never to have a successor. But to-night I have let myself

go. If you were here at this moment, your infatuation should melt and

vanish before my love, like hoarfrost before a raging fire. You should

go down on your knees, you should prostrate yourself at my feet,

imploring pardon for your ignoble truancy and for your treason against

love. But I would make haste to forgive you, Beloved, and to raise you

up, and to throw myself against your heart into your arms.

I send you back your rose-leaf. It has lain by me as I have written,

and I will keep nothing to remind me of this hour. So I send it

back--not as it came, for it is heavy with a kiss.

The sand has run out in the glass. My hour is ended. When I have laid

down my pen, I shall weep. And, when I have wept, perchance I shall

sleep and love you dreaming as you will never love me waking. Farewell.

I laid down my pen five minutes ago. I take it up again to say that I

have not wept and that I cannot sleep.

What a letter I have written--what a slow-footed, cold-blooded,

low-pulsed, nerveless, schoolgirlish scribble! Will the fire be able to

burn it, I wonder, or will it put the fire out like an armful of damp

green boughs?

No, I can't sleep. My very contempt for what I have written has

awakened me in every fibre.

I am not ill now. I have never been so well before in my life. A

moment ago I looked at myself in the glass. The picture enchained me. I

stood with the torch-like brass candlestick held high. My uplifted arm

was bare as far as the deep lace at my elbow. My eyes shone, my hair

fell all about me, almost to my knees. In contrast, my feet were like

two lilies, my neck was like a swan's. And, as I gazed, another veil

was withdrawn from the mystery of life. By the light of the candle I saw

my own cheeks glow red, as it was revealed to me what it will mean to

live without love. What Fate denies me is not only communion with a

kindred spirit. I, too, am flesh and blood.

Let Susan and Ruddington thank their stars that I was brought up gently,

christianly, instead of wickedly, selfishly, in the passion-fraught air

of a worldly home. Let them thank their stars that the devil in me has

been laid, that the tigress in me has been tamed. If Ruddington were

here to-night, if Susan came running hither through that door, how small

a thing could sting me past control and rouse me to overwhelm them under

my proud anger and pitiless love! I could dash his china shepherdess

into a thousand pieces. I could compel him to forsake all and follow me

to the end of the world.

A memory rises up suddenly and makes me laugh bitterly. Susan at

Traxelby. How I smiled at her melodramatics when she knelt down in an

agony of fear and made me swear that I would not take him away from her!

But I have sworn, and I may not repent.

Enough, far more than enough, of this. It is mad, it is sickly, it is

contemptible. No more of it, to-night or ever. I will get back into

bed, and lie snug, and read till morning.

_Wednesday, noon: in bed_.

I feel bruised all over, strengthless, stunned. Susan woke me at ten

o'clock. _Les Chouans_ had fallen to the floor and the candle at my

bedside had burned down to its socket.

Susan says that she came in at seven with no less noise than usual. But

I was sleeping so soundly that she didn't like to wake me before ten.

While she was propping me up with pillows and pouring out the coffee, I

looked round the room and my heart stood still.

The letter to Ruddington was gone.

My cheeks turned whiter than the sheets. Susan caught me in her arms.

"Oh, Miss Gertrude, no, no!" she wailed, "I couldn't bear it."

She thought I was going to die. I opened my eyes and tried to speak.

But Susan wailed on.

"It's my fault, Miss, all mine. You're so good to me, Miss, I ought to

have known. I ought to have said, 'Don't bother about his lordship,

Miss, till you're well and strong.' But I didn't think. I'm too

selfish, Miss. Oh, Miss Gertrude, to think you were sitting up writing

and writing all that, and me snug and warm in bed!"

"Susan," I said feebly, asking the question in terror, "What have you

done with it?"

"It's gone, Miss," answered Susan, with the prompt heartiness of one who

breaks good news and administers consolation. "So you don't need to

worry your head about it any more."

"Gone?" I echoed, in a voice as thin as a ghost's.

"Yes, Miss. Madame was going to Grandpont in the omnibus. She asked me

if we had any letters for the early post. And oh, Miss Gertrude, it was

perfectly lovely! I can't never thank you enough. I couldn't

understand it all through; but it was so lovely, it made me cry."

I lay still with closed eyes. When Susan held the coffee to my lips, I

drank. When she drew away the extra pillows and settled the bedclothes

cosily round me, I did not resist. Indeed, I did not say another word.

Susan thinks I am asleep.

I ought to be up and doing. But doing what? I ought to be hot, angry,

ashamed, full of resolves and plans. But I am lying here, despite the

shocks and bruises, subdued, at rest, strangely imperturbable. Can it

be that I am happy because, while I have played fair with Susan, I have

been suffered once, just once, to speak in his ear and to send him a

rose-leaf with a kiss?

I have thought it all out. Did Susan sign the letter? Even if it has

gone without her name, it doesn't matter. He cannot guess that it is

mine.

At first I shuddered at recollecting the bits about "poor Susan." But,

again, it doesn't matter. He will take it that Susan has written "poor

Susan" instead of "I," just as he himself writes "prudent Suzanne"

instead of you.

He will read it to-morrow morning. It will puzzle him. But the task of

interpreting it will delight his fanciful, super-subtle mind. I can

predict his reading of the riddle. He will take it that Susan, in her

wonderful, beautiful soul, is comparing her angelic love with his very

human infatuation. He will picture her more exquisite and spiritual and

poetical than ever. But it is my kiss that he will cull from the

curling lip of that pale rose.

*BOOK IV*

*LA VILLA DE LA MER*

*BOOK IV*

_Thursday night_.

I am not Number 3 at Dupoirier's hotel any more. I am a householder;

and mistress, until Sunday morning, of the Villa de la Mer.

I am writing in my new bedroom. The French windows open on a broad

wooden balcony facing the sea. The furniture is brand new--as new as

the villa garden, with its glaring paths of chalk-chippings bordering an

oblong of wiry grass and lean, shivery shrubs.

If Ruddington rode into Derlingham, he would get the letter this

morning, about a quarter to ten. At half-past two a telegram arrived at

the Hotel du Dauphin, addressed to Susan. Happily, he had the tact to

hand it in at Miller's Bridge where Susan isn't known. Susan brought the

unopened message to me with a scared face. I took it, and this is what

I read aloud:--

TO MISS BRIGGS,

HOTEL DU DAUPHIN,

SAINTE VERONIQUE,

FRANCE.

I am crossing to-night, and shall reach Sainte Veronique to-morrow at 6

p.m.

RUDDINGTON.

Susan snatched the paper out of my hand with a cry of dismay.

"Oh, Miss!" she moaned, letting it fall on the grass, "whatever shall we

do?"

I was struck dumb.

"Whatever shall we do?" she cried again. "Oh, Miss Gertrude, he mustn't

come! I can't bear it. I must send him a telegram at once. I must!"

Too much staggered to answer, I looked at her blankly. She collapsed on

the rustic seat by my side, covered her face with her pretty new French

apron, and went off into an old-fashioned, uncontrollable fit of

weeping.

To the sound of her sobs, I tried to decide what course was best.

Susan's plan of an immediate telegram commanding him to stop at home

seemed good at first. But I glanced at his words again, and all doubt

vanished. I knew that Susan might as well tell to-morrow's sun not to

rise, to-morrow's tides not to flow, as tell Ruddington that to-morrow

he must not invade Sainte Veronique. Nor could I blame him, or wonder

at him. With such a letter as mine in his hand, I should have despised

him if he had not flown on the wings of the wind.

"Stop crying, Susan," I said. And, with a bitterness which she did not

understand, I added, "It is I who should be upset, not you."

"Yes, Miss, I know, Miss," sobbed Susan. "With you so ill and weak, it's

horrible, it's dreadful!"

"I don't mean that, Susan," I said. "But do you think I like his coming

here? First it was Gibson, and now it's Lord Ruddington."

She turned on me white with terror.

"I know, I know, oh, I know, Miss Gertrude!" she crooned, wringing her

hands. "What if Gibson meets him, Miss? They'll fight, and they'll

both be killed!"

"Don't talk nonsense," I said irritably; "if they killed each other, at

least we should have some peace. As for sending a telegram, what's the

good? He's made up his mind. Very likely he has started. If so, no

power on earth will turn him back again."

"Do you think, Miss----?" began Susan.

"Think what?"

"Your letter, Miss ... my letter. Do you think that perhaps it was too

... loving?"

"And what if it was?" I retorted. "He's got the letter by now, hasn't

he? He's got it, and it can't be altered."

Susan wept afresh.

"Oh, Miss!" she moaned. "If only we was at Traxelby I wouldn't mind.

But it's dreadful!"

A plan occurred to me.

"Wait here," I said, "while I go and speak to Madame."

Within a quarter of an hour it was all arranged. I told Madame that an

Englishman from the next parish to my own would arrive to-morrow night.

Madame is the pink of propriety; and she had nothing but approval for my

scheme of taking Susan and Georgette to the Villa de la Mer for the time

of Ruddington's stay. I took it upon myself to declare that the

newcomer will go away again on Sunday; and I am not sure that I shall

allow him to remain so long.

The Dupoiriers had made the villa beautifully sweet and clean in the

hope of attracting one more end-of-the-season tenant. There was hardly

anything that needed to be done. Madame has sent down a great hamper of

linen, and two baskets of provisions, and a pudgy little baby cask of

cider. And here we are.

Already the change has done me good. Sitting on the broad balcony,

between two tubs of bushy, bright-leaved euonymus, I am so near the sea

that, at the top of the tide, the spray kisses my cheeks. To come here

was an inspiration, every way. From a house of my own, I can manage

to-morrow's happenings. To be mistress of a house helps me to be once

more mistress of myself. These wholesome, hearty breezes will blow away

the morbid nightmares of yesterday and the days before. I mean to go

back to where I stood a week ago. That is to say, having done my duty

by Susan, I mean to stand aloof and look on at the last act of the

comedy.

All this afternoon I have been healthily awake, and now I am healthily

drowsy. To-night I shall be like a child in a cradle, with the big soft

sea cooing me to sleep.

_Friday morning_.

If ever I cross to Sainte Veronique again, I shall come to the Villa and

not to the hotel. Last year, I hated the sight of the Villa standing up

gaunt and shadeless, with raw red walls, and a cold muddy-blue slate

roof. But, once inside, you are cheerfuller than in the hotel.

There's another and a stronger reason. What was it that demoralized me

at the hotel and made me such an easy prey to mawkish fancies? It was

because I had nothing to do, nothing to supervise. The Villa is only a

big doll's-house; but its toy duties and its miniature responsibilities

have stiffened my backbone already.

I have settled everything about Ruddington. When he reaches the hotel,

he will find a note from Susan. I can't have him worrying us to-night.

He must cool his ardour till to-morrow. And he mustn't stay longer than

Sunday, Thirty-six hours of it will be a long enough ordeal for poor

Susan. All that is needed at this stage is that they should come face

to face, and, as Susan says, decide whether they can put up with one

another. If he stays more than one clear day, they'll be getting to

explanations and confidences, and it will all come out about my letters.

Unless there is mutual disenchantment (in which event Susan will send

him off at once) I will see him to-morrow, after lunch. As Susan's

guardian, I shall have to sit in state and give him a gracious audience,

while he shyly unfolds his tale of love and proves the honourableness of

his intentions.

I am glad that he is coming. It's far better to get it over at Sainte

Veronique than to have to go through it all at Traxelby. Besides, it's

better that I should meet him without any more delay. Distance and

mystery have lent enchantment to my view of him, and they are to blame

for my three silly nights and days. If there are any germs of

love-sickness still lurking in my veins, I expect a talk with him will

kill them. He will be unlike his portrait and far more unlike his

letters, he is just an ordinary male person, gone mad over a pretty

face. The only uncommon thing about him, is that his letters strive, by

an ecstatic _tour de force_, to lift an everyday masculine passion up to

supra-mundane regions. Through a sequence of galling accidents, I have

bolstered up his illusion. That is why, for a few days, there really

was a spiritual bond between us. But to-morrow will snap it. There is

sure to be a something. Perhaps he will have a weak voice. I could no

more endure him with a weak voice than I could endure Susan with a gruff

one. This is the note he will find awaiting him:--

You ought not to come here. But I received your telegram too late to

stop you.

I showed the telegram to Miss Langley and she was angry. Not angry

because you want me. Indeed, so soon as she is satisfied that all is as

it should be, she will help me as much as lies in her power. But she

was angry that you should come here.

I have promised to ask you, imperatively, not to remain after Sunday.

Until that day we shall be at the Villa de la Mer, a chalet about a mile

from here.

Do not try to see me to-night. I agree with Miss Langley that it will

be best if we meet to-morrow morning on the beach at eleven o'clock. I

shall expect you at the end of the path down from the hotel, where the

beck is lost in the shingle.

I can be with you for an hour. If we do not find that we are making a

mistake, Miss Langley will be glad to see you at the Villa at half-past

two.

S.B.

That is as far ahead as I mean to look. If Susan and he strike a

bargain at once, I may have to consider what unbendings I must make, and

what little honours I must render to-morrow night, and Sunday, to my

noble neighbour, and to my Lady Ruddington of the very near future.

I have kept faith with Gibson. To-morrow morning he will have a

discreet letter, telling him that the unknown is coming for a few hours:

that he is an honourable man; and that Gibson will best serve himself

and everybody else by keeping out of the way.

_Noon_.

Susan is alternately beaming and weeping like an April day.

Before she carried the note up to the hotel to leave it for Ruddington,

she was all bright excitement and chattering importance. We had quite a

gay quarter of an hour settling what she should wear on the beach. She

is going to meet him in her navy-blue serge which she has hardly worn,

with white gloves and quite a Parisian hat which she has taken over from

Georgette. It is of soft, fine, blue straw, made cocked-hat-shape, with

two downy, snow-white wings.

"What must I do, Miss, when he comes up to me?" she asked.

I didn't ask what she meant. Perhaps she thinks she ought to bob a

curtsy.

"You won't do anything," I answered. "He will come up saying he got your

note, or how good it is of you to come, or something like that. Don't

be too stiff. Hold out your hand simply and easily."

"I was wondering, Miss..." began Susan. But she cut herself short,

blushing violently.

"You were wondering...?" I echoed.

"I was wondering, Miss ... will he want to kiss me?"

I blushed with her.

"Really, Susan," I said, "you must look after yourself."

"My last letter was so loving, Miss," said Susan doggedly.

"It was, and it wasn't," I answered with cunning. "The point is this.

You've refused Gibson."

Susan winced. But I went on.

"You've refused Gibson. And you've made up your mind that you will

marry Lord Ruddington--if you like the look of him when you see him in

real life. It's your affair, Susan, not mine. But, as for kisses ...

well, surely, he won't offer them and you won't take them till you are

both decided what you are going to do."

"Then I'll tell him he mustn't, Miss," said dutiful Susan.

Later on, she asked:

"Please, Miss Gertrude, what will he say to me?"

"Dear me, Susan, I might be a witch. How do I know what he'll say to

you?"

She endured my sarcasm. But Susan still believes that I know

everything. It has never entered her head why I wrote that fatal

love-letter to Ruddington on Tuesday. She accepts it simply as one more

proof of my all-round efficiency. She wonders at it no more than she

wonders at my writing adequate letters to my solicitor, or banker, or to

a tenant. She thinks I know all about love, just as I know about law and

business--as part of a liberal education.

"I don't mean his very words, Miss," she said. "I mean, Miss, what will

he talk about?"

"For one thing," I replied, glad of the chance, "he'll talk about your

letters. And that's a point I want to mention. Some day a way will be

found of making a clean breast of everything. But, until I have seen

him, and he is safely back in England, you mustn't give him the faintest

shadow of a hint that any of those letters were mine. If you do,

there'll be such a muddle that I don't see how we can get out of it."

"I know, Miss, I know!" said Susan alarmed. "I sha'n't breathe a single

word."

"Don't be too confident," I answered, warming up to the business. "You

may find it hard work keeping it in. He's bound to say a lot of things

that you won't very well understand. For instance, take that letter I

wrote on Tuesday night--the loving one, as you call it--the one you

posted when I was ill. It's too late to scold you over it now, Susan;

but you oughtn't to have rushed it off. We could have written something

much more suitable."

"But it was lovely, Miss."

"It was a great deal too lovely," I said. "He'll say all kinds of

fanciful, clever, difficult things to you about it. My advice, Susan,

is this. Don't be stiff; but be shy. Don't go out of your depth in

talking to him. So long as he speaks about things you understand,

answer him freely. Be as natural and simple as you can. He'll like you

all the better. But, if he goes too deep, don't try to follow. Just

hold your tongue. If he bothers you and presses you, say you would

rather talk about it some other time."

"But he'll find me out some day, Miss," said Susan doubtfully.

"How do you know there's going to be a some day? Perhaps you won't like

him. If so, you'll part, and there's an end of it. The great thing,

Susan, is not to worry yourself into a fright. If you're scared and

nervous, you won't look nice. And if you don't look nice, he'll be far

more disappointed than if you're not clever. Now run up to the hotel

with this note."

She departed in good spirits, treading jauntily. But when she came back

she was limp, hopeless, tearful. It has called for all my strategy to

elude a scene. I'm so glad Georgette is here! She and Susan get on

together like a house on fire. Georgette is all ears and sympathy for

every word Susan says, though Susan might as well be talking Coptic

five-sixths of the time. At this minute they are laying the table under

the balcony, and Susan is in full flow with her tale of hopes and fears.

_Sunset_.

The gold is tarnishing in the sky, and a cold, bitter wind is blowing

from the sea.

It has struck six. He will be just arriving at Madame's.

The Villa is sunnier and freer than the hotel by day. But it is eerie

with the fall of night. I will have a fire and an extra lamp.

Oh that it were Monday morning, with it all over, and Ruddington gone!

How can I be sure that I have mother-wit, and force, and pride enough to

scrape through? What if the sight of him fans Tuesday's flame instead

of quenching the embers? What if I do truly love him, after all? What

if I break down while he is asking me for Susan?

This useless, restless, shameless pen of mine is my ruin. Why do I

never learn? Why did I not burn this book, days ago, to ashes? Even as

I have sat writing these so few lines, the truth has darted out of its

hiding-place. I can cheat myself no more.

God has marked me down to receive through my heart the sharpest, most

venomous arrow of His cruelty. I am the chosen vessel of His wrath. I

love Ruddington; and he is close at hand, while the light is dying out

of heaven, and I am so cold and lonely. He has sped over land and sea,

on fire with love: and the love is not for me.

The last of the red is gone from the sky. Twelve hours before

to-morrow's dawn. Twelve hours of sleepless darkness. Twelve hours of

solitary vigil to prepare me for meeting him to-morrow in the merry

sunlight, and for draining my cup of bitterness to its black dregs.

I could almost laugh--a laugh as hard as iron, as bitter as a black

frost. If there be saints in heaven I challenge them to look at me now.

Come, good people, I pray you of your charity: a De Profundis, if you

please!

_Seven o'clock_.

No need to wait for to-morrow. It is to be to-night. It is to be now.

I shall write this short page to steady my nerves, to rally my wits, to

cool my blood.

Something is in the wind. Twenty minutes ago, when I told Susan that I

should not need her again till dinner-time, she made pretence of tidying

the room, as I was staring into the fire. She did not know that she was

reflected in the glass.

I saw her stand stock still and gaze at my face with the gaze of one who

gazes for the last time. She could not have gazed at me more

desperately, if there had been a hangman waiting at the door to take one

of us away. Suddenly her cheeks shone with a drench of tears. She

covered her face with her hands, and stumbled through the doorway.

I was sick of scenes. And, with such an anguish as mine, I felt a

contempt for Susan's mere ups and downs. So I pretended not to see or

hear, and I didn't follow till ten minutes ago.

Susan is not in the house.

Georgette says she went out as soon as she came downstairs. She thinks

Susan has only gone for a breath of sea air before dinner.

It is outrageous, it is unendurable, it is wicked, it is cruel. They

are meeting now.

What note or what message did Susan leave this morning at the hotel?

Not mine! I am a fool, a simpleton, I have less sense than a little

child.

I can guess the place. It will be on the beach between here and the

beck. They are meeting now. He is holding her in his arms. She will be

like potter's clay in his hands. His ardent masterfulness will flick

aside her doubts and fears like grains of sand. Her wits will fly away

from her like chaff before the wind. There will be no Susan there save a

girlish form for him to hold, a burning face for him to kiss, and a

childish voice to tell him about me and my letters. And to-morrow----

Unendurable is the word. Endure it I will not. I refuse to be flouted,

and disobeyed, and made a fool of, and shamed.

Susan is my maid. I don't allow followers, whoever they may be. Or,

rather, I allow them in honest daylight, and at times appointed. Not on

the sly. Not in the dark.

I am going out.

_Some time or other_.

I am glad I did not burn this book. It shall stand as my golden legend.

The fire is still lively in the grate, and the two lamps are beaming

softly. I don't know whether it is Friday night or Saturday morning.

Saturday morning, I suppose. But no going to bed till all is written

down.

I stepped out of the Villa about a quarter past seven, and began

crunching westward along the stones. Rage and hatred were in my heart.

I almost understood those men and women who make haste on such errands

as mine, grasping pistols or cold steel. The wind was in my face, but I

bent into it and sped on. I was not cold. It made me glow to think how

I would burst upon them, cover them with shame, fling them apart,

humiliate them a thousand times more than they should ever humiliate me.

But rage and hatred did not last. Under the lee of a great black boat

drawn up on the shingle, I paused to take breath. It was warm and still

in that little patch of shelter, out of the nipping bluster of the wind.

While I was standing there, looking over the faintly gleaming water, a

black mantle of cloud fell away from the moon. The sea became a

far-spreading shimmer of silver. The little clouds sailed as curly and

white as feathers from a great sea-bird's breast across the soft blue

heaven. A single chime of the Berigny church bell fell from the

cliff--a single, silvery chime as if the moonlight had spoken.

At that holy call, I was born again. Rage and hatred had been strong,

but I had not rage enough or hatred enough to go on standing up

stubbornly against all that graciousness and beauty. It melted my heart

of stone; and I knew it for an impossibility that God should be

otherwise than beautiful and good. For a moment, Ruddington and Susan

receded from my mind. Or, rather, I thought of them only along with all

the millions of happy lovers upon whom the same sweet moon was smiling.

And I blessed them unaware.

My mind came back to my errand. And then I fought the battle. Along

the beach I could see the trees which shade the path; and, above the

swish of the small waves, I could hear the beck humming loudly in its

ravine. I was sure that they were there, under that green roof, close to

that music, in this moonlight made for love. The thought burnt me like

hot irons, and I could have cried aloud. Then the agony was over. I had

resolved to let them be, to leave them alone with their happiness. Rage

was tamed, hatred was changed to a sad, world-wide pity. But, as I

turned wearily back to the clouded east, I ached and tingled all over

like a beaten child.

At the first crunch of my foot on the pebbles as I turned round, some

one sprang towards me from the foot of the cliff.

I cried out in terror.

He faced me in the moonlight. We were only a step or two apart. It was

Ruddington.

We looked full at one another without speaking. And, as I looked, I knew

that, though he could not be mine in this world, I must be his for ever

and ever. Then the enormous whiteness of the cliff seemed to rock

before my eyes, and the humming of the beck swelled to thunder in my

ears. But he caught me before I fell.

"Susan!" he said softly in my ear. His voice was warmer and brighter

than gold, as he repeated: "Susan!"

I lay helpless in his arms. All strength had gone from me, just as it

had gone when I half swooned in the sea. I could not struggle. I could

only let myself sink more wholly against his heart, just as I had so

willingly sunk down, down, down through the cool green water to the

deep, strong peace of Death. But, though Death's caress had been sweet,

it was sweeter to rest against the warm heart of Love.

I don't know how long that perfect happiness endured before a stab of

anguish pierced me through. It seemed an hour; it may have been a

minute; perhaps it was less than half a second before full consciousness

returned. Then a voice within me cried shame. I remembered that,

although I had gazed at his face in the broad light of the moon, he had

only seen mine in the shadow. Bitterest of all, it was not my name he

had murmured in that voice brighter and warmer than gold. He had hailed

Susan. I was a cheat, a changeling, lying shameless in Susan's place.

I knew it. But, for a moment longer, I rested at peace in the soft nest

of his arms. With all the grey years of the future to be lived through

in loveless loneliness, I deliberately gave myself that one long moment.

As if he knew that the warmth and sweetness of it must last me all my

life long, he held me closer to his heart. I wished, then, that I could

have died.

Life, harsh Life, cried aloud. I called up some sudden strength and

tore myself free.

"I am not Susan," I said.

He gave the slightest cry, made the slightest retreat in the world.

Then, before I knew, he enfolded me once more.

"No," he said proudly. "Not Susan. Suzanne--_ma petite Suzanne_. But I

frightened her. She is trembling. Suzanne, forgive me! I must have

been mad to leap out upon you like that. But how could she walk along

the beach to-night and not expect me to be here?"

I heard him vaguely. He was too strong for me. My will, my moral

energy as well as my bodily strength, refused to return at my command.

I could hardly open my eyes to look up at the mild moon, so like the

cool, round sun which I had seen from under the water.

"Say you forgive me, Suzanne," he murmured. "You are angry with me for

coming to France. How could I wait, Suzanne, when you had confessed

that you love me?"

I wrenched myself roughly free. With a frenzied effort of will, I

rallied back all my allies of conventionality and of pride.

"You have made a mistake," I said curtly, stepping away two or three

paces. "I am not Susan."

This time he started violently. But he recovered himself in an instant

and came towards me with outstretched hands. I sprang back.

"Susan," he said gravely, "don't jest. For heaven's sake, not now.

This is some quaint fancy. You say you are not Susan, just as you said

my infatuation was not love. Forgive me, Susan; but this isn't a time

for subtleties. You love me; and you know I love you more than life.

Don't refine or jest now. This moment of our first meeting is too

great, too sacred. Let us be clear and simple, like the moon and the

sea."

"No!" I cried, as he advanced. "How dare you touch me again? It's all

a mistake. No doubt, this is Lord Ruddington. You are speaking to Miss

Langley."

His arms dropped to his side, and he fell back as if I had struck him in

the face. I steadied myself with one hand against the side of the boat.

It was a long time before he spoke.

"Miss Langley!" he said at last, in tones as cold and dull as lead.

"What can I say?" Then his voice quickened and brightened, and he

cried: "No, Susan, you shall elude me no more!"

"Stand back, please," I said icily and decisively. "There has been

enough of this. I understand you are to see Susan to-morrow, at eleven

o'clock."

Before I could move, he leapt to my side.

"Miss Langley," he said rapidly but firmly. "Miss Langley--if you are

truly Miss Langley--if this isn't some ill-timed joke--hear me for one

moment. Heaven knows I did not mean to insult you. But this is a

terrible thing. I have laid on you one indignity; but I beg you to

endure another. You have answered me from the shadow. I ask you--for

heaven's sake I implore you--to show me your face one moment in the

light."

He had pressed so near that his shoulder touched mine. I leaned against

the boat counting the cost. Had I the strength, to stand out sheer in

the pitiless light and biting air? To watch his face--its

lightning-flash of passionate eagerness, its following gloom of

disenchantment and chagrin? To listen to his stammering apologies? To

bestow pardons, revise arrangements? And, last of all, to stumble back

over the stones alone--I, who had just known the support of his breast?

Had I the strength? What if I should break down, as the light of love

died out of his eyes, and weep bitterly? But there was no choice. My

heart bled as I schooled myself once more to the haughtiness of

artificial pride, and I said:

"This is monstrous. But as you please."

He made way for me with old-fashioned reverence as I stepped out into

the moonshine. With all that was left of my shattered will, I strove to

offer for his scrutiny a face hardened by haughtiness, lips curling with

disdain, eyes alight with annoyance. But how could I hate him while I

loved him? How could my eyes, that were so hungry, stab him? And how

could my lips scorn him when they were aching to tell him all?

The eager lightning flashed in his face. But I waited in vain for the

dull thunder of despair, for the fall of the gloom. No, it was not

lightning. With my heart standing still, I saw that the light abode in

his eyes, that it waxed fuller and more radiant as he gazed intently

into mine. But suddenly, he quenched it.

"One second more," he commanded abruptly, dryly, almost harshly.

"Simply and literally, without any paradoxes or ruses whatever, are you

Susan?"

"I am not Susan," I said, beginning to turn away.

"Simply, and literally and truly, you are indeed Miss Langley?"

"I am Miss Langley."

Something chained me to the spot. I saw him go pale as death, and I

heard him groan in anguish:

"Then may God help us all!"

"What do you mean?" I demanded. We seemed to be so mysteriously one,

that the strength which deserted him passed into me. "Are you not

satisfied?" I added. "I must go."

In a flash, he was master again. He flung himself across my path.

"No!" he cried. "You shall not go! Some meddling idiot has deceived

me. There has been a horrible, an unspeakable mistake. Gertrude

Langley, it was you I met in Derlingham. It was you I watched in

Traxelby church. Gertrude Langley, it is you I love with my whole soul.

It is you, it is you, it is you! I shall not let you go!"

His words sang all round me like birds. My battle-worn, enfeebled

spirit reeled under such bursts of music, such flashes of glory. I made

one last agonizing effort to play the conventional part: to rebuke and

repel him, to parade amazement, shame, and a dishonest show of anger.

But he was too strong. He dominated me so, that I could not even pause

to marvel at the miracle, or to ask myself if it could be true. I could

only totter towards him in dumb, unconditional surrender, and burst into

a torrent of thankful tears.

This third time, he held me, not as he had held me before. Then, he had

strained me to him like a lover; now, he supported me gravely,

reverentially, as any man would support any woman who has half-fainted

away. But, by swift degrees, he guessed the truth. He held me closer,

he bent his lips to my ear, and he asked, with a grave wonder, in his

voice of gold:

"You do not mean ... this?"

"Yes," I whispered, with my eyes closed, "I mean ... this."

For two or three seconds we were content to have it so. Then his clasp

weakened. I knew what he meant, and I drew myself free.

"We forgot Susan," I said.

"Yes," he said slowly. "We forgot Susan."

He stood beside me in silence, looking at the sea. Then, without

warning, he broke out with terrible words of anger. Not to me. It was

as though he arraigned the universe and shook his fist at the stars.

"A thousand curses!" he cried; "a thousand curses on their heads who

have brought us all to this! It is not to be borne! It is a tangle of

fiends. Great God! To be loved by the two best women on earth, and

then, instead of happiness, to find it end in misery all round! It is

the work of devils! It is not to be borne!"

He remembered me at his side, and fought down his wrath. At last he

turned to me an ashen face, and began:

"There is much to say. Where will you sit down?"

"Nowhere," I answered. "No, do not touch me again. What there is to be

said ... say."

We stood an arm's-length apart on the stones, and he spoke:

"Gertrude Langley," he said, "for five weeks I have loved you, and there

is no woman in the world, save you, that I ever did love or ever shall.

But, through a string of ghastly blunders hardly to be explained or even

believed, I have loved you under another name, and amid wildly false

notions of your station. Be hurt at nothing I shall say. I believed, on

twofold testimony, that you were Susan, your maid. Do not be galled or

insulted till you have heard me out."

"You cannot insult me," I said. "Besides, I know all."

"No!" he cried, "you do not know. You know that I have written Susan

letters, that I have badgered her to marry me, that I have followed her

to Sainte Veronique, and that I am to set eyes upon her to-morrow. But,

listen. I will tell you what you do not know. You don't know that this

poor girl has a heart of gold, a soul of fire, a mind that is a fountain

of gems. Did you know that?"

"No," I said, "I did not."

He mistook my ghost of a smile. It stung him.

"Miss Langley," he said, "we have been wrong; you, and I, and all who

have been born, like you and me, to rank and wealth and leisure. Because

the novels are nearly all written round such lives as ours, we think

that the poor and the servile are without romance, without spirituality.

We are not quite sure that they have minds and hearts and souls of their

own. I say, we have been wrong. All Susan's few letters to me, save

one, have been shy and hurried. But--though I say it in the ears of the

only woman I can ever love--there isn't, there can't be in all the

world, a nobler mind than this poor Susan's, a sweeter heart, a purer

soul."

I did not answer. His calmness left him.

"You don't see, you won't see, you can't see!" he cried. "Why will you

make me put it into words? You are shutting your eyes to the tragedy of

it all. Gertrude Langley, what would you have me do?"

I was given some dim sense of the greatness of his soul. Almost

mechanically, I replied:

"I would have you do only what is right."

"God bless you for that!" he murmured, and took my hand. "Only what is

right! But, tell me, which is the right? I love you, and you love me.

When and where you saw me, where and when and why and how your love for

me began, I cannot guess. All that matters is ... you love me!

Beautiful Gertrude, answer me. You love me and I love you ... but which

way lies the right?"

"You mean," I said slowly, disengaging my hand, "that there is Susan?"

"Yes," he said gently. "There is Susan. Which way lies the right? For

all I know, I shall find Susan ugly, and she is a lady's-maid. But the

point is, I have forced her to love me, with such a love as I did not

expect to find in this world. Do not smile, do not imagine I think

myself handsome, or in the least adorable. But I have read her last

letter fifty times, and I know, if I draw back, if I tell Susan of this

cruel tangle, it will break her heart. No, do not interrupt me! In

such a case, I know how hard it is for you to believe that I am not mad.

Dearest, help me, for God's sake! It's hard enough, God knows!"

I ought to have thrust in words boldly, refusing to be denied. I ought

to have told him everything. But he silenced me with one gesture and

finished.

"Yet after all," he said, "what is there to discuss or to decide?

Haven't you told me already to do the right? And the right is ... to

keep faith with Susan. Oh, I know, I know!" he cried out bitterly, "it

will wound your heart, it will break mine. But, dearest, we have so

much. We have books, we have friends, we have a hundred occupations.

But this poor Susan--what has she? She has nothing, except love."

"If she has love," I said, "and we have all else in the world beside;

then Susan is rich and we are poor."

He turned away. When he looked at me again, he said:

"It is simply a choice which of us must be robbed of happiness, and

burdened with life-long sorrow, and filled with bitterness. You and I

are two, and Susan is one. They say minorities must suffer."

He smiled a sad smile, and watched me narrowly. And, at the same

moment, a coldness numbed my heart. While he had been extolling Susan,

I had drunk in his words deliciously, biding my time to laugh out

merrily and prick the shining bubble. But suddenly, all things stood

out in a different light. I remembered my oath to Susan at Traxelby. I

remembered that she had given up Gibson. I recalled, with anger, that

at this very moment she was prowling about to catch some secret glimpse

of her lover.

"Yes," he repeated. "Minorities suffer. It is the way of the world. I

renounce Susan, and what does it amount to? A mere lady's-maid sees me

break faith and drop her in favour of wealth and beauty. She loses her

faith in God and man. Possibly, she even has the bad taste to go and

die. Meanwhile I, having always had all I want, go and get a great deal

more. Natural, isn't it?"

He laughed a bitter laugh.

"Don't talk again like that," I said, as bitterly as he.

He was silent while I thought my thoughts. I knew full well in the

depths of my soul, that to suffer anything to thrust itself between him

and me, would be a crime and a blasphemy. Yet I knew it might come to

pass. If I told him all about Susan, all about Gibson, all about the

letters, he would still have only my word for it that she did not love

him in her own way. He would seek Susan to-morrow morning, as appointed,

to hear Susan's own words. And, under the glamour of his presence, what

might not Susan say?

But light blazed through my brain. I had found the key. I must go back

to the Villa. I must track Susan at all costs. I must tell her the

whole story of Ruddington's mistake. Probably she had already come back.

I turned to him and said:

"Why be ironical and bitter? You have spoken truly. You have to do

what is right."

He seized both my hands. To him it was the end.

"Gertrude," he said, "for the first and last time, my own Gertrude ...

so this is Good-bye! Our first meeting is our last. To-morrow ... after

it is over ... I shall go straight away. To-morrow is hers. But

to-night is ours. Beloved, this is not the end. There are more worlds

than this one--this world which some one has cursed for us. For ever, I

am all thine. But the waiting will be so long. Beloved, do not say that

I may not bid thee Good-bye!"

I restrained him gently, for my mind had clouded again with thronging

fears.

"No," I said; "let us not make the future harder by any weakness in the

present."

He bowed his head and obeyed. When he looked up, he said quietly:

"One practical point before I go. She will not ... I will not, ever be

at Ruddington Towers. Traxelby is your old home. The Towers shall be

shut up."

My eyes filled with tears.

"Beloved," I said softly, "good-bye."

I gave him my hand, and he held it to his lips. Then I broke from him

and fled home.

Georgette received me with a volley of outcries about the spoilt dinner.

"Where is Susan?" I asked.

"She is not come back," said Georgette, retreating towards the kitchen.

And then I saw that Georgette was in the secret.

"Georgette," I said peremptorily in French, "I insist that you tell me

this instant where Susan has gone."

Her brow darkened. She looked at me defiantly, and tossed her head.

"Come," I commanded, with a rap on the table. "I insist. This moment."

"Pardon, Madame," retorted Georgette with Republican spirit, "I am the

servant of Madame Dupoirier and the friend of Susan."

There was no time to argue. I shifted my ground, and coaxed.

"If you are the friend of Susan," I said, "you will answer at once.

Something very important has happened. We must find her at once."

Georgette hesitated suspiciously before she asked:

"Is it about the milord from England, Madame--the milord with all the

money?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" I said. "It is most important."

"Then he may take his money back again," said Georgette with a fine

flourish. "Susan, she will only marry for love. She has gone away."

"Gone away?" I echoed, sinking down on a chair.

"Yes, Madame. Susan said, if she didn't run away, the milord would make

her marry him."

"Georgette," I cried, springing up, "I give you my word that the milord

shall not mention marriage to Susan again. If you are her friend, tell

me where to find her. I swear that I am thinking only of her good."

Georgette was silent. The truth rushed in upon me. I said:

"She has run away with Gibson?"

"Yes, Madame," said Georgette tranquilly, "with Monsieur Geebson."

"Georgette!" I cried, "help me to find them, and I'll give you fifty

francs. No, don't pout. If I can stop them, Susan and Gibson will be

grateful to you as long as they live, on my word of honour."

At last Georgette said: "Susan went out too soon for fear that Madame

would stop her. She attends Monsieur Geebson at the bottom of the beck

at half-past eight."

I snatched a roll from the table and rushed out again to the beach.

Berigny clock struck eight. There would be six or seven minutes to

spare.

As I sped along, a sickening fear seized me. What if Ruddington and

Susan, by another of the ghastly mishaps which kept dogging us all

along, had run into one another on the beach?

No. As I neared the big boat, I saw him standing there alone. He

strode out to meet me eagerly and wonderingly.

"Why are you still here?" I asked.

"Where would you have me be?" he said. "I have always loved France. But

henceforth, France will mean for me just these few square yards of

shadow on the stones."

"You must not brood," I answered. "You talk as if you are never to be

happy any more."

"In some other world," he said, smiling sadly, "I mean to be happy with

You."

"Some other world?" I said. "Who knows that God may not reward you soon

in this?"

He turned to me with a start; but I did not let him speak.

"Have you eaten?" I asked.

"Not yet."

"How silly!" I said. "Nor have I. Come, eat bread with me. This wind

shall be the salt."

He took half the roll and smiled. But I could see that my high spirits

first jarred on him, and then troubled him.

"You are not well," he said. "You are over-wrought. You are excited.

Let me lead you home."

"No," I said. "I have not felt so well for years. I must go; but not

home. There is business to be done."

"Where?" he asked, startled.

"Along the beach."

"Then," he said firmly, "you do not go alone."

I considered for a moment. Then I looked him full in the face.

"If I allow you to come," I said, "will you promise to disappear when

you are told, and to come out when you are called, and not to speak till

I give you leave?"

He answered, "I promise."

I did not disdain his arm. Whatever befell new, he was mine, all mine.

The wind was in our faces, the moonbeams flashed on the water. Colour

came to my cheeks, and the breeze ruffled the hair which had gone so

long without Susan's brush and comb. As we stamped over the stones we

might have been a boy and a girl escaping on a frolic.

A few hundreds of yards from the beck we were able to climb the low

slope, and to pad along mutely over the grass. At the first brambles we

turned inland, and descended softly into the ravine. We pulled up

behind a high bush.

"Hush!" I whispered. "Not a sound. Don't move or speak till I give the

word."

Through the thin autumn foliage, by the pale light of the moon, we could

see a woman's figure across the beck. It was Susan, seated upon a

modest bag.

I did not explain to Ruddington. I did not even tell him who the woman

was. Two or three minutes passed; and then the silver chime of Berigny

proclaimed half-past eight.

Susan drew out her little handkerchief, and wiped away a tear. My heart

went out to her. There was no Gibson; and I began to hope our task would

be easy. But we heard a sudden sound of snapping branches and hurrying

feet; and Gibson broke through into the light. Susan jumped up to meet

him.

"Oh, Tom!" she wailed. "I began to think you wasn't coming."

Ruddington touched my hand.

"Oughtn't we to go away from here?" he whispered.

"No!" I whispered back, shaking my fist. "We oughtn't."

"I was out with a blooming car," explained Gibson. "Georgette brought

your letter at half-past three, but I didn't get it till seven."

"Thank goodness you wasn't away for the night!" exclaimed Susan

fervently.

"Well, I'm here, anyway," said Gibson. "Not that I expect it's going to

do me any good. You promised you'd settle me this week, on or off, one

way or another. I suppose you've only brought me here to give me the

chuck?"

Susan did not reply.

"What've you got there?" asked Gibson with a jump. He had caught sight

of Susan's bag.

"It's my things," said Susan. "Oh, Tom, I want you to take me away!"

"Take you away?" echoed Gibson, thunderstruck.

"Yes, yes, take me away! Now, this minute. Oh, Tom, don't say you

won't!"

"But where can I take you to?" asked astounded Gibson.

"To Granpong."

"Not me!" said Susan's gallant, with emphasis. "I suppose you think

that at a caffy-resterong you can do anything? Don't make no mistake.

They're the properest lot at Granpong that ever I struck in all my

natural. Why, just to think of Madum opening the door, and me bringing

in a young lady at midnight! Not me!"

"Oh, Tom, don't be such a beast!" moaned Susan. "The very idea! You

know quite well, you do, that I'd never go to the same house. I'd die

first. But, oh Tom, you must take me somewhere. We might go to the

clergyman's wife."

"They don't have no clergymen in France," said Gibson, with British

scorn; "only priests. And priests don't have no wives. But look here.

What do you want to be took away for? What's up?"

Susan was silent.

"It's some tiff with the Missis," said Gibson derisively; "that's what

it is. And I ain't going to be a party to it. Bet my feet the Missis

is in the right. Fact is, this toff"--Gibson paused, and repeated the

word with disdain--"this toff has given you swelled head. Not me! I

ain't going to take sides against the Missis just for the sake of him.

The old girl's always been too good to me."

The undress grammar and off-duty vocabulary of my two model domestics

opened my eyes wide and made my ears burn. As for Ruddington, he

touched my hand again, and I saw that his face was full of pain. He had

guessed that I was showing him Susan.

"We mustn't stay," he said.

"We must," I answered, stamping my foot on the grass. For Susan was

speaking.

"No, Tom, no," she moaned; "not the Missis! It isn't a tiff with the

Missis. Oh, it breaks my heart to think of it! To-night, just before I

ran away, she was sitting looking at the fire. She looked that sad and

lonely, I burst out crying; and if I hadn't run straight out of the

house, I wouldn't have come at all. No, no, no! Not the Missis."

"What the dooce is it, then?" asked Gibson.

"It's ... it's him!" blurted Susan, desperately.

"Him? Not ... not the toff?"

"Yes," groaned Susan, "the toff! He's coming. He wants to meet me,

here."

"Here? To-night?"

"No. To-morrow. Eleven o'clock. Oh, Tom, I can't bear it! Take me

away!"

Gibson emitted a long, low whistle. He took off his cap, crushed it up,

and put it on again. Then he ducked for Susan's bag and dropped it down

a few yards away, as if he wanted room. Last of all, he bent his head

till he could look straight into Susan's eyes.

"Susie," he said slowly, "you don't say you're going to give him up?"

He had dropped his vile pronunciation, and had strangely regained the

simple dignity with which he had spoken to me at Traxelby.

"Not that you're going to give him up?" he repeated.

"Yes, yes, yes!" said Susan. "I don't want him! I won't have him! I

can't bear him! Take me away!"

"And if I do," he asked intently, "can you bear me, Susie? Will you

have _me_?"

"Oh, Tom, of course I will!" she wailed, clinging to him with all her

might. And, suddenly raising herself on tiptoe, she gave him a

resounding rustic kiss.

Behind our bush we recoiled a little, both from them and from one

another.

"We will go," said Ruddington.

"We won't," I said, pinching his arm to keep him quiet. So we looked

away while Gibson returned the kiss, not once, or twice, or thrice.

"Susie," demanded Gibson at last, "what is his name? Who is he?"

"His name," proclaimed Susan, after an effective delay, "is Lord

Ruddington."

Gibson let her fall from his embrace like a stone. He sprang back a

man's length.

"Oh yes, of course," he said mockingly, when he had found his breath.

"Lord Ruddington, _alias_ the King of Spain, alias the Emperor of

Russia! Of course!"

"Honour bright, it's true!" said Susan indignantly. "If it isn't, may I

be struck down dead. His lordship fell over his head in love with me in

Traxelby church."

"Susie, this is true?" he demanded, striding up to her and speaking

fiercely. "This is true?"

"Don't go on silly," said Susan.

Gibson leaned against a tree and thought for some time. At last he

straightened himself up, and said, in low excited tones:

"Look here, Susie, this makes a difference. You don't think I'm going to

help you miss a chance like that? Haven't I always said you're fit to

be a duchess? No, Susie, it isn't good enough. D'ye think I'm going to

let you throw yourself away on a poor thirty-bob-a-week devil like me?"

"Oh don't, Tom, don't!" she pleaded, clinging to him again. "Don't! or

you'll make me change my mind."

"There isn't a finer gentleman in all England nor Lord Ruddington," said

Gibson.

"Oh don't!" wailed Susan again.

"What is the matter with him?" demanded Gibson. "It isn't his money.

No, nor his horses. Perhaps it's his looks?"

"We'd better be going!" I whispered to Ruddington, behind our bush.

"No, no," protested Susan, "it isn't his looks. When I put him in that

folding frame, facing Miss Langley, they looked lovely--just like

Royalty. No, it isn't his looks. I could put up with that."

"Then what is it you can't put up with?" asked Gibson searchingly.

She scraped the ground with her foot, as she used to scrape the garden

gravel, before she replied mysteriously:

"Tom, he's so funny. He's all twists and turns. It'd be like being

married to an eel. If he's the same as his letters, he'd make me all

giddy. When I read them, everything seems to begin turning and turning

round."

Gibson snorted impatiently. "With a thousand pound a week," he said

ironically, "you'll soon get used to that."

"Tom, don't, don't!" she cried. "How can you be so cruel? If you cared

about me as you said you did, you wouldn't let nobody have me but

you--not if it was the Prince of Wales crawling on his bended knees."

Gibson came more into the light. I could read in his face the

bitterness of his heart.

"Susie," he said, "what's the use of talking? If I take you away

to-night, you know you'll have to marry me, even if you change your mind

before to-morrow morning. Unless there's some good reason why you won't

marry Lord Ruddington, you'll repent of it when we're poor and when

we've to work hard for a living. You'll throw it in my teeth, and we

shall be worse'n a cat and a dog."

I was amazed at Gibson's paltriness; amazed and angry. But not for

long. All at once my groom drew himself up as grandly as a knight of

romance, and demanded:

"Susie, girl--isn't there a better reason?"

My maid was his equal.

"Yes, Tom, yes," she cried passionately. "There's a better reason. Oh,

Tom, I'm in love with you, and I always have been, though I've behaved

like a little Beast. And I couldn't never be in love with Lord

Ruddington if he was all made of gold. Take me away!"

"Why should I?" asked the radiant lover a minute afterwards, making a

descent into the practical. "If it's a bargain, what's the good of

running away from the Missis? We sha'n't find such a soft job or such a

good old girl again in a hurry. If we run away, she won't have us

back."

"But he's coming to-morrow," interrupted Susan in a panic.

"A jolly good thing too!" declared Gibson. "If you're going to give him

the push, the sooner the better. Let him come. Give him the straight

tip. In fact, I'm not sure," added Gibson meditatively, "that he

oughtn't to be made to part with a hundred pound for breach of promise.

Cheer up, and let 'em all come!"

"No, no!" cried Susan, terror-stricken. "If I see him, he'll turn me

round his little finger. I shall be too scared to say a word. I shall

be just like a stuck pig. Besides, he'll ask me about the letters."

"Letters?" echoed Gibson.

"Yes, the letters. Oh, Tom, I've been so wicked. When his first letter

came to Traxelby, I copied the answer out of an old book."

"You can go now ... if you want to!" I murmured to Ruddington, behind

our bush. But he only plucked at my hand, and held it as in a vice,

while he listened with all his ears. Susan talked on.

"That old book, with the covers off. But, when I showed it to Miss

Langley, she said it didn't sound right, and she wrote out a lovely

letter for me to copy, and----"

"Go ahead!" said Gibson.

"And--oh, Tom, I told a lie! I pretended I didn't know I was to copy it

out. I thought his Lordship would make fun of my writing and give me

up. So I posted it in ... in Miss Langley's writing."

"Lord love us!" put in Gibson, in tones of awe.

"Yes. And Miss Langley was dreadfully angry. But when we'd begun, we

had to go on I promised faithful that I would practise my writing; but I

didn't play fair."

"So the Missis has been helping him?" demanded Gibson with a blaze of

wrath. "The Missis wanted you to have him?"

"No, no! The Missis asked me..."

"Asked what?"

"She asked ... oh, Tom, she asked if I cared for you! And I told a lie,

and I said I didn't. Then she helped me. But she put it in all the

letters that he must wait, and that he mustn't come after me, and that

he mustn't persuade me, and that I wouldn't marry him unless I could be

in love with him. No, no, Tom. The Missis has been splendid!"

"What's he come for, then, if you told him he mustn't?" Gibson asked,

less angrily.

"I don't know. But Tom, Tom, don't wait here or we shall be caught.

Say Yes or No. Will you take me away?"

Gibson's answer came boldly;

"Yes!"

Later on, he added: "We will go back to England and be married at once."

"I have thirty pounds," said practical Susan. "It's in Derlingham

Post-office."

"I've only got nineteen pounds seven and six," said Gibson glumly.

"Mine's at Derlingham too. But what the dooce does it matter?" he burst

out, snatching her to him and challenging Fate with ringing pride.

"Susie girl, I've got _you_. You're the grandest girl God ever made.

It's all a lot of rot about those letters. You're giving him up all for

... me! Susie girl, if I've to slave my head off to do it, I'll make you

happy. If I don't, hell's too good for me. I'll go through water and

fire. Let's be off. We'll tell Maddum all about it, and she'll tell us

what to do. Where's the bag?"

They turned and stooped to find it. In a twinkling, I broke through the

bush, tripped over the stones, and stood on the other side of the beck.

"No," I cried. "You sha'n't go!"

Susan screamed as if she had seen a ghost, and tumbled cowering against

Gibson's broad chest. As for Gibson himself, after the first shock of

astonishment, he opposed to me a fearless front.

"Asking pardon, Ma'am," he said respectfully but firmly. "She shall."

"She sha'n't," I cried, more firmly still. "Susan, you shall not go."

"Asking pardon, Ma'am," said Gibson again. "We are not slaves. We

sha'n't never forget your kindness, Ma'am, and we don't hope to find the

like again. But you are speaking to Susan's husband, Ma'am, which isn't

the same as the groom. Susan's going with me."

"Gibson," I said, "not so fast. You talk as if I am against you both.

When have I ever done you wrong?"

"Done me wrong, Ma'am?" he said, harshly and with a darkening face.

"Begging pardon, you've done me wrong this very day. You've broke your

promise. He's coming tomorrow--and you didn't,----"

"I did," I said hastily. "It'll be at Grandpont in the morning. I

posted it to-day. Gibson, you say Susan will marry you. Susan, is it

true?"

"Yes, Miss," said Susan faintly. "It is true."

"Then," I said, "why run away? Lord Ruddington is answered. Susan

can't marry Gibson and Lord Ruddington too."

"You mean fair, Ma'am," replied Gibson, "and you wish us well. But you

are a young lady, Ma'am. Susan don't trust herself to meet him. And I

don't neither."

"Gibson, Susan," I asked, "what if I give you both my word that Lord

Ruddington will not ask Susan to marry him, and that he will never write

to her any more?"

"With due respects, Ma'am," Gibson answered, "don't pledge your word to

any such thing. I say it again, Ma'am, you are a young lady. He's a

man, and he's been about the world. If his Lordship's in love with

Susan, and if he's come all the way to Sinn Verrynick to ask her, he

won't be beat by the groom. You'll no more turn Lord Ruddington back

to-morrow, Ma'am, than you'll turn me and Susan back to-night. Susan,

let us go."

I stepped forward to seize her, but he waved me aside.

"Susan!" I cried. "Gibson! Listen! Let Susan come to me for one

minute. Something tremendous has happened to-night, and I am bound to

let her know it. Susan, come here. When you have heard it, you shall go

with Gibson or come home with me, just as you think best."

Before he could restrain her, she slipped from his grasp and ran to my

side. He followed. I threw my arm round her waist.

"If you please, Ma'am," said Gibson tensely, standing almost as close to

me as Susan, "there's going to be no more secrets. What's right to be

said at all can be said out loud."

I considered. Then I spoke out clearly and loudly.

"Very well. Have it so. But it would have been easier for Susan to

hear it alone. Susan, there has been some dreadful, horrible mistake.

It was not you, Susan, whom Lord Ruddington saw at Derlingham and in

Traxelby church. He was misinformed. He has never seen you in his life.

He does not want to marry you."

Susan stared at me, first, with a face as white as chalk. Then she

reddened like a rose, and moaned like one wounded, with a choking moan.

"No, Miss Gertrude, no!" she pleaded in anguish, "Don't say it wasn't

real. Don't say..."

"My poor Susan," I answered, "it wasn't real. But what does it matter?

You have given him up for Gibson."

"No," she cried, with a sudden burst of wild and terrible grief. "I

didn't, I didn't, I didn't! He wasn't mine to give."

I hesitated, wondering whether to tell her that Ruddington had indeed

been hers to give, because he was willing to sacrifice himself to the

end. But I decided not to try her poor wits any more.

"You are wrong, Susan," I said gently. "It's true he wasn't yours to

give. But you believed he was. It is all the same. Gibson, she gave

up money, and luxury, and a splendid name, all for you!"

"And, if you please, Ma'am," demanded Gibson, "how do we know all this

is true? If it wasn't Susan he saw in Derlingham, who was it? If he

didn't fall in love with Susan, who did he fall in love with? If he

doesn't want to marry Susan, who is it that he does want to marry? No,

Ma'am, I'm not taking any more risks. To-morrow, perhaps, we shall find

it's Susan after all."

I turned to beckon towards the high bush. But Ruddington was already

over the stones, I saw him and held my tongue. He came so quietly, so

masterfully, that I knew I had only to listen and look on.

"You are Susan?" he said kindly in her ear.

Susan looked up and gave a piercing shriek.

"It's him, it's him!" she screamed.

"Don't be afraid, Susan," he said gently. "Miss Langley has told you

that you have no more to fear. Some other day, you shall know all.

To-night, let me just tell you, on my honour, that it was not my fault.

If it had been my fault, I should never forgive myself for causing you

all this worry and pain. Depend on me to do all I can to make you and

Gibson happy. Tell me that you will try to forgive me."

"Oh, sir!" panted Susan.--"I mean, Your Lordship! So it wasn't never me

at all?"

"No. It was never you at all."

She began to weep.

"Oh, Your Lordship!" she gasped. "Then ... who ... who ... who was it?"

I caught my breath. Gibson bent forward to be sure that all was well.

Ruddington drew my free arm through his and smiled.

Susan stared at us with wide eyes.

"Oh, Miss Gertrude," she cried, with a great sob, "thank God!"

Both her warm arms were round my neck. Her soft girlish breast pressed

mine, and I could feel her true heart beating wildly with grief and joy.

Holding her to me as a mother holds a weeping child, I felt strangely

calm. I watched the moonlight dappling the ground under the tree. I

heard the sounds of the night: the stirring leaves, the far-off plash of

the waves, the soft croon of the wind, the swirl of the beck, and

loudest of all, my true-hearted Susan's sobs.

"Yes," I said softly. "Susan ... Gibson ... thank God! For to-night He

has been good to us all."

Then I too became as a little child. I broke down and sobbed in Susan's

warm embrace till a strong arm clasped me round and led me tenderly

away.

_Saturday morning, seven o'clock_.

A month to-day since we came to France! This morning is gay. The young

sunbeams are dancing on the sea, the air is soft, the sky is necked with

little white clouds like a blue bay alive with sails. I have been

standing on the balcony with my hair floating in the wind. Down on the

grass in the garden, three plump, pretty gulls are quite at home.

He prayed that he might come here early this morning, but I said No, not

till eleven--the time appointed!

How much there will be to ask, how much to tell! I don't understand yet

how the mistake was made. All I have worked out so far is that he saw

me three times with--Alice! The Derlingham know-alls, in a hurry to

answer his questions before he had fairly asked them, jumped to the

conclusion that he had seen me with Susan. It seems he inquired who was

the shorter one, the younger one, the prettier one: and both the

know-alls made haste to assure him (a courtly compliment, this, to poor

me!) that it was Susan--Susan Briggs, Miss Langley's maid. Then a dozen

things conspired, he says, to confirm him in his blunder, just as a

dozen things have conspired to drag me into this affair and to involve

me in it more and more.

He has no light yet on the puzzle of last Tuesday's letter. But he

loves me so much that I can tell him all: even to the showing of this

book. Perhaps he has kept a book of his own, who knows? If so, I shall

learn everything. But, somehow, I feel that the explanations on both

sides can wait. What does it matter which way the path has turned and

twisted through stones and thorns now that we have reached the goal at

last?

I told Susan not to call me till nine o'clock. But I mean to slip

downstairs softly; I have business at Berigny. There is reparation to

be made among those white graves where I slammed the gates of my heart.

And, amid the holy stillness of the morning, I am fain to chasten my

spirit in the Communion of Saints. For, on this day of my happiness, do

I not feel that grannie, and father and mother, and all who have ever

loved me, are yearning to me out of the depths that after all are not so

very deep and down from the heights that after all are not so very high?

So I will go forth, through the little yellow flowers and over the

sweet, crisp grass. I will go and sit in the sunshine, on the old steps

of the Calvary, while all that great love yearns out to me from the

unseen, fondling me and caressing me as with soft hands. I go to say my

De Profundis at last, and to breathe a prayer for this poor land, where

the fool hath said in his heart that there is no God.

THE END.