CHAPTER 15

At night she had recourse to the little bottle, but this time it was

less efficacious. Again and again she woke from terrifying dreams,

wearied utterly, unable to rest, and longing for the dawn. Soon after

daybreak she arose and dressed; then, as there was yet no sound of

movement in the house, she laid her aching head upon the pillow again,

and once more fell into a troubled sleep. The usual call aroused her;

she went to the door and bade the servant bring her some tea and the

morning paper as soon as it was delivered.

In a few minutes the tea and the newspaper were both brought. First she

glanced at the paragraphs relating to the Wimbledon tragedy; there was

nothing added to yesterday's news except that the inquest would be held

this morning. Then she looked eagerly for the report of her recital,

and found it only after much searching, barely a dozen lines, which

spoke of her as 'a lady of some artistic promise', said that much

allowance must be made for her natural nervousness, and passed on to

the other performers, who were unreservedly praised. Anger and

despondency struggled within her as she read the lines over and over

again. Nervous! Why, the one marvellous thing was her absolute conquest

of nervousness. She saw the hand of an enemy. Felix Dymes had warned

her of the envy she must look for in certain quarters, and here

appeared the first instance of it. But the post would bring other

papers.

It brought half a dozen and a number of letters. At the sound of the

knock, Alma hurried downstairs, seized upon her budget, and returned to

the bedroom. Yes; as it happened, she had seen the least favourable

notice first of all. The other papers devoted more space to her (though

less than she had expected), and harmonised in their tone of

compliment; one went so far as to congratulate those who were present

on 'an occasion of undoubted importance'. Another found some fault with

her choice of pieces, but hoped soon to hear her again, for her 'claims

to more than ordinary attention' were 'indubitable'. There was a

certain lack of 'breadth', opined one critic; but 'natural

nervousness', &c. Promise, promise--all agreed that her 'promise' was

quite exceptional.

Tremulous from these lines of print, she turned to the letters, and

here was full-fed with flattery. 'Your most brilliant debut'--'How

shall we thank you for such an artistic treat?'--'Oh, your divine

rendering of,' &c.--'You have taken your place, at once and _sans

phrase_, in the very front rank of violinists.' She smiled once more,

and lost a little of her cadaverous hue. Felix Dymes, scribbling late,

repeated things that he had heard since the afternoon. He added: 'I'm

afraid you'll be awfully upset about your friends the Carnabys. It's

very unfortunate this should have happened just now. But cheer up, and

let me see you as soon as possible. Great things to come!'

She went down to breakfast with shaking limbs, scarce able to hold up

her head as she sat through the meal. Harvey ran his eye over the

papers, but said nothing, and kept looking anxiously at her. She could

not touch food; on rising from table she felt a giddiness which obliged

her to hold the chair for support. At her husband's beckoning she

followed him into the library.

'Hadn't you better go back to bed?'

'I shall lie down a little. But perhaps if I could get out----'

'No, that you won't. And if you feel no better by afternoon I shall

send for the doctor.'

'You see what the papers say----?'

'Yes.'

'Wouldn't it be graceful to own that you are surprised?'

'We'll talk about that when you look less like a corpse. Would you like

me to send any message to Mrs. Carnaby?'

Alma shook her head.

'I'll write--today or tomorrow--there's no hurry----'

'No hurry?' said Rolfe, surprised by something in her tone. 'What do

you mean by that?'

'Are you going to see Mr. Carnaby?' was her answer.

'I don't know where to find him, unless I go to the inquest.'

'I had rather you stayed here today,' said Alma; 'I feel far from well.'

'Yes, I shall stay. But I ought to let him hear from me. Best, perhaps,

if I send a telegram to his place.'

The morning passed miserably enough. Alma went to her bedroom and lay

there for an hour or two, then she strayed to the nursery and sat a

while with Hugh and his governess. At luncheon she had no more appetite

than at breakfast, though for very faintness her body could scarce

support itself. After the meal Harvey went out to procure the earliest

evening papers, and on his way he called at the doctor's house. Not

till about five o'clock was a report of the Wimbledon inquest

obtainable. Having read it, Harvey took the paper home, where he

arrived just as the doctor drove up to the door.

Alma was again lying down; her eyes showed that she had shed tears. On

Harvey's saying that the doctor was in the house, she answered briefly

that she would see him. The result of the interview was made known to

Rolfe. Nervous collapse; care and quiet; excitement of any kind to be

avoided; the patient better in bed for a few days, to obtain complete

rest. Avoidance of excitement was the most difficult of all things for

Alma at present. Newspapers could not be kept from her; she waited

eagerly for the report of the inquest.

'Carnaby tells an astonishing story,' said Rolfe, as he sat down by her

when the doctor was gone.

'Let me read it for myself.'

She did so with every sign of agitation; but on laying the paper aside

she seemed to become quieter. After a short silence a word or two fell

from her.

'So Sibyl was at Weymouth.'

Harvey communed with his thoughts, which were anything but pleasant. He

did not doubt the truth of Hugh Carnaby's narrative, but he had a

gloomy conviction that, whether Hugh knew it or not, an essential part

of the drama lay unrevealed.

'Will they find that woman, do you think?' were Alma's next words.

'It doesn't seem very likely.'

'What is the punishment for manslaughter?'

'That depends. The case will go for trial, and--in the meantime----'

'What?' asked Alma, raising herself.

'The woman _may_ be found.'

There was another silence. Then Alma asked----

'Do you think I ought to write to Sibyl?'

'No,' he answered decisively. 'You must write to no one. Put it all out

of your mind as much as possible.'

'Shall you see Mr. Carnaby?'

'Only if he sends for me.'

And this was just what happened. Admitted to bail by the magistrate,

Hugh presently sent a note from Oxford and Cambridge Mansions, asking

his friend to see him there. Harvey did not let Alma know of it. He

found some difficulty in getting away from home for a couple of hours,

so anxious had she become to keep him within call, and, when he of

necessity went out, to be informed of his movements. He attributed this

to her morbid condition; for, in truth, Alma was very ill. She could

take only the lightest food, and in the smallest quantities; she fell

repeatedly into fits of silent weeping; she had lost all strength, and

her flesh had begun to waste. On this same day Harvey heard that Mrs

Frothingham was making ready to come, and the news relieved him.

On reaching the Carnabys', he was admitted by the same servant whose

behaviour had excited his suspicions a day or two ago. Without a word

she conducted him to Hugh's room.

'Well, old man,' said the familiar voice, though in the tone of one who

is afraid of being overheard, 'it has come to this, you see. You're not

surprised? What else could be expected of a fellow like me, sooner or

later?'

His face had the marks of sleeplessness; his hand was hot. He pressed

Harvey into a chair, and stood before him, making an obvious effort to

look and speak courageously.

'It never struck me before how devilish awkward it is for a man in his

own home when he gets into a public scrape--I mean the servants. One

has to sit under them, as usual, you know, and feel their eyes boring

into one's back. Did you ever think of it?'

'How long have you to wait?' asked Rolfe.

'Only a fortnight. But there may be bother about that woman. I wish to

God they could catch her!'

Harvey made no reply, and his eyes wandered. In a moment he became

aware that Hugh was looking at him with peculiar intentness.

'I wish I could do anything for you, Carnaby.'

'You can,' replied the other, with emphasis, his face growing stern.

'What is it?'

'Get rid of that ugly thought I see you have in your mind.'

Hugh's voice, though still cautious, had risen a little; he spoke with

severity that was almost harshness. Their eyes met.

'What ugly thought?'

'Don't be dishonest with me, Rolfe. It's a queer-sounding tale, and

you're not the only man, I warrant, who thinks there's something behind

it. But I tell you there isn't--or nothing that concerns _me_.' He

paused for an instant. 'I shouldn't have dared to tell it, but for my

wife. Yes, my wife,' he repeated vehemently. 'It was Sibyl forced me to

tell the truth. Rather than have _her_ mixed up in such a thing as

this, I would have told any lie, at whatever cost to myself; but she

wouldn't let me. And she was right; I see now that she was, though it a

been hard enough, I tell you, to think of what people might be

saying--damn them! Don't you be one, Rolfe. My wife is as pure and

innocent as any woman living. I tell you that. I ask you to believe

that; and it's the one thing, the only thing, you can do for me.'

His voice quivered, and he half-choked upon the passionate words.

Moved, though not to conviction, Harvey made the only possible reply.

'I believe you; and if ever I have the chance I will repeat what you

say.'

'Very well. But there's something else. I don't ask you to see anything

of Sibyl, or to let your wife see her; it will be much better not. I

don't know whether she will stay here, or in London at all; but she

will see as few people as possible. Don't think it necessary to write

to her; don't let your wife write. If we all live through it--and come

out again on the other side--things may be all right again; but I don't

look forward to anything. All I can think of now is that I've killed a

man who was a good friend to me, and have darkened all the rest of

Sibyl's life. And I only wish someone had knocked my brains out ten

years ago, when nobody would have missed such a blackguard and ruffian.'

'Is it on your wife's account, or on ours that you want us to keep

apart?' asked Rolfe gravely.

'Both, my dear fellow,' was the equally grave reply. 'I'm saying only

what I mean; it's no time for humbug now. Think it over, and you'll see

I'm right.'

'Alma won't see any one just yet awhile,' said Harvey. 'She has made

herself ill, of course.'

'Ill? How?'

'The concert, and the frenzy that went before it.'

'The concert----.' Carnaby touched his forehead. 'I remember. If I were

you, Rolfe----'

'Well?'

'I don't want to take advantage of my position and be impertinent but

do you think that kind of thing will do her any good in the end?'

'It's going to stop,' replied Harvey, with a meaning nod.

'I'm glad to hear you say so--very glad. Just stick to that. You're

more civilised than I am, and you'll know how to go about that kind of

thing as a man should.'

'I mean to try.'

'She is not seriously ill, I hope?' Hugh inquired, after reflecting for

a moment.

'Oh, the nerves--breakdown--nothing dangerous, I believe.'

'Life ought to be easy enough for you, Rolfe,' said the other. 'You're

at home here.'

'It depends what you mean by "here". I'm at home in England, no doubt;

but it's very uncertain whether I shall hold out in London. You know

that we're going west to Gunnersbury. That's on the child's account; I

want him to go to school with a friend of ours. If we can live there

quietly and sanely, well and good; if the whirlpool begins to drag us

in again--then I have another idea.'

'The whirlpool!' muttered Carnaby, with a broken laugh. 'It's got hold

of _me_, and I'm going down, old man--and it looks black as hell.'

'We shall see the sunlight again together,' replied Rolfe, with forced

cheerfulness.

'You think so? I wish I could believe it.'

In less than half an hour Harvey was back at the station, waiting for

his train. He suffered pangs of self-rebuke; it seemed to him that he

ought to have found some better way, in word or deed, for manifesting

the sympathy of true friendship. He had betrayed a doubt which must for

ever affect Hugh's feeling towards him. But this was his lot in life,

to blunder amid trying circumstances, to prove unequal to every grave

call upon him. He tried vainly to see what else he could have done, yet

felt that another man would have faced the situation to better purpose.

One resolve, at all events, he had brought out of it: Hugh Carnaby's

reference to Alma declared the common-sense view of a difficulty which

ought to be no difficulty at all, and put an end to vacillation. But in

return for this friendly service he had rendered nothing, save a few

half-hearted words of encouragement. Rolfe saw himself in a mean,

dispiriting light.

On the next day Mrs. Frothingham arrived at Pinner, and Harvey's

anxieties were lightened. The good, capable woman never showed to such

advantage as in a sick-room; scarcely had she entered the house when

Alma's state began to improve. They remarked that Alma showed no great

concern on Sibyl's account, but was seemingly preoccupied with thought

of Carnaby himself. This being the case, it was with solicitude that

Harvey and Mrs. Frothingham awaited the result of Hugh's trial for

manslaughter. Redgrave's housekeeper could not be found; the

self-accused man stood or fell by his own testimony; nothing was

submitted to the court beyond the fact of Redgrave's death, and Hugh

Carnaby's explanation of how it came about. Nothing of direct evidence;

indirect, in the shape of witness to character, was abundantly

forthcoming, and from 'people of importance. But the victim also was a

person of importance, and justice no doubt felt that, under whatever

provocation, such a man must not be slain with impunity. It sentenced

the homicide to a term of two years' imprisonment, without hard labour.

Alma heard the sentence with little emotion. Soon after she fell into a

deeper and more refreshing sleep than any she had known since her

illness began.

'It is the end of suspense,' said Mrs. Frothingham.

'No doubt,' Harvey assented.

A few days more and Mrs. Frothingham took Alma away into Hampshire.

Little Hugh went with them, his mother strongly desiring it. As for

Rolfe, he escaped to Greystone, to spend a week with Basil Morton

before facing the miseries of the removal from Pinner to Gunnersbury.

Part the Third

CHAPTER 1

The house had stood for a century and a half, and for eighty years had

been inhabited by Mortons. Of its neighbours in the elm-bordered road,

one or two were yet older; all had reached the age of mellowness.

'Sicut umbra praeterit dies'--so ran the motto of the dial set between

porch and eaves; to Harvey Rolfe the kindliest of all greetings,

welcoming him to such tranquillity as he knew not how to find elsewhere.

It was in the town, yet nothing town-like. No sooty smother hung above

the house-tops and smirched the garden leafage; no tramp of crowds, no

clatter of hot-wheel traffic, sounded from the streets hard by. But at

hours familiar, bidding to task or pleasure or repose, the music of the

grey belfries floated overhead; a voice from the old time, an

admonition of mortality in strains sweet to the ear of childhood.

Harvey had but to listen, and the days of long ago came back to him.

Above all, when at evening rang the curfew. Stealing apart to a bowered

corner of the garden, he dreamed himself into the vanished years, when

curfew-time was bed-time, and a hand with gentle touch led him from his

play to that long sweet slumber which is the child's new birth.

Basil Morton was one of three brothers, the youngest. His father, a

corn-factor, assenting readily to his early inclination for the Church,

sent him from Greystone Grammar-School to Cambridge, where Basil passed

creditably through the routine, but in no way distinguished himself.

Having taken his degree, he felt less assured of a clerical vocation,

and thought that the law might perhaps be more suitable to him. Whilst

he thus wavered, his father died, and the young man found that he had

to depend upon himself for anything more than the barest livelihood. He

decided, after all, for business, and became a partner with his eldest

brother, handling corn as his father and his grandfather had done

before him. At eight and twenty he married, and a few years afterwards

the elder Morton's death left him to pursue commerce at his own

discretion. Latterly the business had not been very lucrative, nor was

Basil the man to make it so; but he went steadily on in the old tracks,

satisfied with an income which kept him free from care.

'I like my trade,' he said once to Harvey Rolfe; 'it's clean and sweet

and useful. The Socialist would revile me as a middleman; but society

can't do without me just yet, and I ask no more than I fairly earn. I

like turning over a sample of grain; I like the touch of it, and the

smell of it. It brings me near to the good old Mother Earth, and makes

me feel human.'

His house was spacious, well built, comfortable. The furniture, in

great part, was the same his parents had used; solid mahogany, not so

beautiful as furniture may be made, but serviceable, if need be, for

another fifty years. He had a library of several thousand volumes,

slowly and prudently collected, representing a liberal interest in all

travail of the mind, and a special taste for the things of classical

antiquity. Basil Morton was no scholar in the modern sense, but might

well have been described by the old phrase which links scholar with

gentleman. He lived by trade, but trade did not affect his life. The

day's work over, he turned, with no feeling of incongruity, to a page

of Thucydides, of Tacitus, or to those less familiar authors who

lighted his favourite wanderings through the ruins of the Roman Empire.

Better grounded for such studies than Harvey Rolfe, he pursued them

with a steadier devotion and with all the advantages of domestic peace.

In his mental habits, in his turns of speech, there appeared perhaps a

leaning to pedantry; but it was the most amiable of faults, and any

danger that might have lurked in it was most happily balanced and

corrected by the practical virtues of his life's companion.

Mrs. Morton had the beauty of perfect health, of health mental and

physical. To describe her face as homely was to pay it the highest

compliment, for its smile was the true light of home, that never

failed. _Filia generosi_, daughter of a house that bred gentlewomen,

though its ability to dower them had declined in these latter days, she

conceived her duty as wife and mother after the old fashion, and was so

fortunate as to find no obstacle in circumstance. She rose early; she

slept early; and her day was full of manifold activity. Four children

she had borne--the eldest a boy now in his twelfth year, the youngest a

baby girl; and it seemed to her no merit that in these little ones she

saw the end and reason of her being. Into her pure and healthy mind had

never entered a thought at conflict with motherhood. Her breasts were

the fountain of life; her babies clung to them, and grew large of limb.

From her they learnt to speak; from her they learnt the names of trees

and flowers and all things beautiful around them; learnt, too, less by

precept than from fair example, the sweetness and sincerity wherewith

such mothers, and such alone, can endow their offspring. Later she was

their instructress in a more formal sense; for this also she held to be

her duty, up to the point where other teaching became needful. By

method and good-will she found time for everything, ruling her house

and ordering her life so admirably, that to those who saw her only in

hours of leisure she seemed to be at leisure always. She would have

felt it an impossible thing to abandon her children to the care of

servants; reluctantly she left them even for an hour or two when other

claims which could not be neglected called her forth. In play-time they

desired no better companion, for she was a child herself in gaiety of

heart and lissom sportiveness. No prettier sight could be seen at

Greystone than when, on a summer afternoon, they all drove in the pony

carriage to call on friends, or out into the country. Nowadays it was

often her eldest boy who held the reins, a bright-eyed, well-built lad,

a pupil at the old Grammar-School, where he used the desk at which his

father had sat before him. Whatever fault of boyhood showed itself in

Harry Morton, he knew not the common temptation to be ashamed of his

mother, or to flout her love.

For holiday they never crossed the sea. Morton himself had been but

once abroad, and that in the year before his father's death, when he

was trying to make up his mind what profession he should take up; he

then saw something of France and of Italy. Talking with travelled

friends, he was wont to praise himself in humorous vein for the sober

fixity of his life, and to quote, in that mellow tone which gave such

charm to his talk, the line from Claudian, '_Erret et extremos alter

scrutetur Iberos_; for he had several friends to whom a Latin or a

Greek quotation was no stumbling-block. Certain of his college

companions, men who had come to hold a place in the world's eye, were

glad to turn aside from beaten tracks and smoke a pipe at Greystone

with Basil Morton--the quaint fellow who at a casual glance might pass

for a Philistine, but was indeed something quite other. His wife had

never left her native island. 'I will go abroad,' she said, 'when my

boys can take me.' And that might not be long hence; for Harry, who

loved no book so much as the atlas, abounded in schemes of travel, and

had already mapped the grand tour on which the whole family was to set

forth when he stood headboy at the Grammar-School.

In this household Harvey Rolfe knew himself a welcome guest, and never

had he been so glad as now to pass from the noisy world into the calm

which always fell about him under his friend's roof. The miseries

through which he had gone were troubling his health, and health

disordered naturally reacted upon his mind, so that, owing to a gloomy

excitement of the imagination, for several nights he had hardly slept.

No sooner had he lain down in darkness than every form of mortal

anguish beset his thoughts, passing before him as though some hand

unfolded a pictured scroll of life's terrors. He seemed never before to

have realised the infinitude of human suffering. Hour after hour, with

brief intervals of semi-oblivion, from which his mind awoke in nameless

horror, he travelled from land to land, from age to age; at one moment

picturing some dread incident of a thousand years ago; the next,

beholding with intolerable vividness some scene of agony reported in

the day's newspaper. Doubtless it came of his constant brooding on

Redgrave's death and Hugh Carnaby's punishment. For the first time,

tragedy had been brought near to him, and he marvelled at the

indifference with which men habitually live in a world where tragedy is

every hour's occurrence.

He told himself that this was merely a morbid condition of the brain,

but could not bring himself to believe it. On the contrary, what he now

saw and felt was the simple truth of things, obscured by everyday

conditions of active life. And that History which he loved to

read--what was it but the lurid record of woes unutterable? How could

he find pleasure in keeping his eyes fixed on century after century of

ever-repeated torment--war, pestilence, tyranny; the stake, the

dungeon; tortures of infinite device, cruelties inconceivable? He would

close his books, and try to forget all they had taught him.

Tonight he spoke of it, as he sat with Morton after everyone else had

gone to bed. They had talked of Hugh Carnaby (each divining in the

other a suspicion they were careful not to avow), and their mood led

naturally to interchange of thoughts on grave subjects.

'Everyone knows that state of mind, more or less,' said Morton, in his

dreamy voice--a voice good for the nerves. 'It comes generally when

one's stomach is out of order. You wake at half-past two in the

morning, and suffer infernally from the blackest pessimism. It's

morbid--yes; but for all that it may be a glimpse of the truth. Health

and good spirits, just as likely as not, are the deceptive condition.'

'Exactly. But for the power of deceiving ourselves, we couldn't live at

all. It's not a question of theory, but of fact.'

'I fought it out with myself,' said Basil, after a sip of whisky, 'at

the time of my "exodus from Houndsditch". There's a point in the life

of every man who has brains, when it becomes a possibility that he may

kill himself. Most of us have it early, but it depends on

circumstances. I was like Johnson's friend: be as philosophical as I

might, cheerfulness kept breaking in. And at last I let cheerfulness

have its way. As far as I know'--he gurgled a laugh--'Schopenhauer did

the same.'

Harvey puffed at his pipe before answering.

'Yes; and I suppose we may call that intellectual maturity. It's bad

for a man when he _can't_ mature--which is my case. I seem to be as far

from it as ever. Seriously, I should think few men ever had so slow a

development. I don't stagnate: there's always movement; but--putting

aside the religious question--my stage at present is yours of twenty

years ago. Yet, not even that; for you started better than I did. You

were never a selfish lout--a half-baked blackguard----'

'Nor you either, my dear fellow.'

'But I was! I've got along fairly well in self-knowledge; I can follow

my course in the past clearly enough. If I had my rights, I should live

to about a hundred and twenty, and go on ripening to the end. That

would be a fair proportion. It's confoundedly hard to think that I'm a

good deal past the middle of life, yet morally and intellectually am

only beginning it.'

'It only means, Rolfe, that we others have a pretty solid conceit of

ourselves.--Listen! "We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master

Shallow." I don't apply the name to you; but you'll be none the worse

for a good night's sleep. Let us be off.'

Harvey slept much better than of late. There was an air of comfort in

this guest-chamber which lulled the mind. Not that the appointments

were more luxurious than in his own bedroom, for Morton had neither the

means nor the desire to equip his house with perfections of modern

upholstery; but every detail manifested a care and taste and delicacy

found only in homes which are homes indeed, and not mere

dwelling-places fitted up chiefly for display. Harvey thought of the

happiness of children who are born, and live through all their

childhood, in such an atmosphere as this. Then he thought of his own

child, who had in truth no home at all. A house in Wales--a house at

Pinner--a house at Gunnersbury--presently a house somewhere else. He

had heard people defend this nomad life--why, he himself, before his

marriage, had smiled at the old-fashioned stability represented by such

families as the Mortons; had talked of 'getting into ruts', of

'mouldering', and so on. He saw it from another point of view now, and

if the choice were between rut and whirlpool----

When he awoke, and lay looking at the sunlit blind, in the stillness of

early morning he heard a sound always delightful, always soothing, that

of scythe and whetstone; then the long steady sweep of the blade

through garden grass. Morton, old stick-in-the-mud, would not let his

gardener use a mowing machine, the scythe was good enough for him; and

Harvey, recalled to the summer mornings of more than thirty years ago,

blessed him for his pig-headedness.

But another sound he missed, one he would have heard even more gladly.

Waking thus at Pinner (always about six o'clock), he had been wont to

hear the voice of his little boy, singing. Possibly this was a doubtful

pleasure to Miss Smith, in whose room Hughie slept; but, to her credit,

she had never bidden the child keep quiet. And there he lay, singing to

himself, a song without words; singing like a little bird at dawn; a

voice of innocent happiness, greeting the new day. Hughie was far off;

and in a strange room, with other children, he would not sing. But

Harvey heard his voice--the odd little bursts of melody, the liquid

rise and fall, which set to tune, no doubt, some childish fancy, some

fairy tale, some glad anticipation. Hughie lived in the golden age. A

year or two more, and the best of life would be over with him; for

boyhood is but a leaden time compared with the borderland between it

and infancy; and manhood--the curse of sex developed----

It was a merry breakfast-table. The children's sprightly talk, their

mother's excellent spirits, and Morton's dry jokes with one and all,

made Harvey feel ashamed of the rather glum habit which generally kept

him mute at the first meal of the day. Alma, too, was seldom in the

mood for breakfast conversation; so that, between them, they imposed

silence upon Hughie and Miss Smith. One might have thought that the

postman had brought some ill news, depressing the household. Yet things

were not wont to be so bad in Wales; at that time, the day, as a rule,

began cheerfully enough. Their life had darkened in the shadow of

London; just when, for the child's sake, everything should have been

made as bright as possible. And he saw little hope of change for the

better. It did not depend upon him. The note of family life is struck

by the house-mistress, and Alma seemed fallen so far from her better

self that he could only look forward with anxiety to new developments

of her character.

'School?' he exclaimed, when Harry, with satchel over shoulder, came to

bid him good morning. 'I wish I could go in your place! It's just

thirty-one years since I left the old Grammar-School.'

The boy did not marvel at this. He would not have done so if the years

had been sixty-one; for Mr. Rolfe seemed to him an old man, very much

older than his own father.

As usual when at Greystone, Harvey took his first walk to the spots

associated with his childhood. He walked alone, for Morton had gone to

business until midday. On the outskirts of the town, in no very

pleasant situation, stood the house where he was born; new buildings

had risen round about it, and the present tenants seemed to be

undesirable people, who neglected the garden and were careless about

their window curtains. Here he had lived until he was ten years

old--till the death of his father. His mother died long before that; he

just, and only just, remembered her. He knew from others that she was a

gentle, thoughtful woman, always in poor health; the birth of her

second child, a girl, led to a lingering illness, and soon came the

end. To her place as mistress of the house succeeded Harvey's aunt, his

father's sister. No one could have been kinder to the children, but

Harvey, for some reason yet obscure to him, always disliked her. Whom,

indeed, did he not dislike, of those set over him? He recalled his

perpetual rebellion against her authority from the first day to the

last. What an unruly cub! And his father's anger when he chanced to

overhear some boyish insolence--alas! alas!

For he saw so little of his father. Mr. Rolfe's work as a railway

engineer kept him chiefly abroad; he was sometimes absent for twelve

months at a time. Only in the last half-year of his life did he remain

constantly at home, and that because he was dying. Having contracted a

fever in Spain, he came back to recruit; but his constitution had

suffered from many hardships, and now gave way. To the last day (though

he was ten years old) Harvey never dreamt of what was about to happen.

Self-absorbed in a degree unusual even with boys, he feared his father,

but had not learnt to love him. And now, looking back, he saw only too

well why the anxious parent treated him with severity more often than

with gentleness and good humour. A boy such as he must have given sore

trouble to a father on his death-bed.

When it was too late, too late by many a year, he mourned the loss

which had only startled him, which had seemed hardly a loss at all,

rather an emancipation. As a man of thirty, he knew his father much

better than when living with him day after day. Faults he could

perceive, some of them inherited in his own character; but there

remained the memory of a man whom he could admire and love--whom he did

admire and love more sincerely and profoundly the older he grew. And he

held it the supreme misfortune of his life that, in those early years

which count so much towards the future, he had been so rarely under his

father's influence.

Inevitable, it seemed. Yet only so, perhaps, because even a good and

conscientious man may fail to understand the obligation under which he

lies towards his offspring.

He and his sister Amy passed into the guardianship of Dr Harvey, Mr

Rolfe's old friend, the boy's godfather, who had done his best to

soothe the mind of the dying man with regard to his children's future.

There were no pecuniary difficulties; the children's education was

provided for, and on coming of age each would have about two thousand

pounds. Dr Harvey, a large-hearted, bright-witted Irishman, with no

youngsters of his own, speedily decided that the boy must be sent away

to a boarding-school, to have some of the self-will knocked out of him.

Amy continued to live with her aunt for two years more; then the good

woman died, and the Doctor took Amy into his own house, which became

Harvey's home during holidays.

The ivy-covered house, in the best residential street of Greystone.

Harvey paused before it. On the railings hung a brass plate with

another name; the good old Doctor had been in his grave for many a year.

What wonder that he never liked the boy? Harvey, so far as anyone could

perceive, had no affection, no good feeling, no youthful freshness or

simplicity of heart; moreover, he exhibited precocious arrogance,

supported by an obstinacy which had not even the grace of quickening

into fieriness; he was often a braggart, and could not be trusted to

tell the truth where his self-esteem was ever so little concerned. How

unutterably the Harvey Rolfe of today despised himself at the age of

fifteen or so! Even at that amorphous age, a more loutish, ungainly boy

could scarcely have been found. Bashfulness cost him horrid torments,

of course exasperating his conceit. He hated girls; he scorned women.

Among his school-fellows he made a bad choice of comrades. Though

muscular and of tolerable health, he was physically, as well as

morally, a coward. Games and sports had I no attraction for him; he

shut himself up in rooms, and read a great deal, yet even this, it

seemed, not without an eye to winning admiration.

Brains he had--brains undeniably; but for a long time there was the

greatest doubt as to what use he could make of them. Harvey remembered

the day when it was settled that he should study medicine. He resolved

upon it merely because he had chanced to hear the Doctor say that he

was not cut out for _that_.

He saw himself at twenty, a lank, ungainly youth, with a disagreeable

complexion and a struggling moustache. He was a student at Guy's; he

had 'diggings'; he tasted the joy of independence. As is the way with

young men of turbid passions and indifferent breeding, he rapidly

signalised his independence by plunging into sordid slavery. A

miserable time to think of; a wilderness of riot, folly, and shame. Yet

it seemed to him that he was enjoying life. Among the rowdy set of his

fellow-students he shone with a certain superiority. His contempt of

money, and his large way of talking about it, conveyed the impression

that abundant means awaited him. He gave away coin as readily as he

spent it on himself; not so much in a true spirit of generosity (though

his character had gleams of it), as because he dreaded above all things

the appearance of niggardliness and the suspicion of a shallow purse.

Then came the memorable interview with his guardian on his twenty-first

birthday. Harvey flinched and grew hot in thinking of it. What an

ungrateful cur! What a self-sufficient young idiot! The Doctor had

borne so kindly with his follies and vices, had taken so much trouble

for his good, was it not the man's right and duty to speak grave words

of counsel on such an occasion as this? But to counsel Mr. Harvey Rolfe

was to be guilty of gross impertinence. With lofty spirit the young

gentleman proclaimed that he must no longer be treated as a school-boy!

Whereupon the Doctor lost his temper, and spoke with a particularly

strong Hibernian accent--spoke words which to this moment stung the

hearer's memory. He saw himself marching from the room--that room

yonder, on the ground-floor. It was some small consolation to remember

that he had been drinking steadily for a week before that happened.

Indeed, he could recall no scene quite so discreditable throughout the

course of his insensate youth.

Well, he had something like two thousand pounds. Whether he had looked

for more or less he hardly knew, or whether he had looked for anything

at all. At one-and-twenty he was the merest child in matters of the

world. Surely something must have arrested the natural development of

his common-sense. Even in another ten years he was scarcely on a level,

as regards practical intelligence, with the ordinary lad who is leaving

school.

He at once threw up his medical studies, which had grown hateful to

him. He took his first taste of foreign travel. He extended his reading

and his knowledge of languages. And insensibly a couple of years went

by.

The possession of money had done him good. It clarified his passions,

or tended that way. A self-respect, which differed appreciably from

what he had formerly understood by that term, began to guard him

against grossness; together with it there developed in him a new social

pride which made him desire the acquaintance of well-bred people.

Though he had no longer any communication with the good old Doctor, Amy

frequently wrote to him, and in one of her letters she begged him to

call on a family in London, one of whose younger members lived at

Greystone and was Amy's friend. After much delay, he overcame his

bashfulness, and called upon the worthy people--tailored as became a

gentleman at large. The acquaintance led to others; in a short time he

was on pleasant terms with several well-to-do families. He might have

suspected--but at the time, of course, did not--that Dr Harvey's kindly

influence had something to do with his reception in these houses.

Self-centred, but painfully self-distrustful, he struggled to overcome

his natural defects of manner. Possibly with some success; for did not

Lily Burton, who at first so piqued him by her critical smile, come to

show him tolerance, friendliness, gracious interest?

Lily Burton!--how emptily, how foolishly the name tinkled out of that

empty and foolish past! Yet what a power it had over him when he was

three and twenty! Of all the savage epithets which he afterwards

attached to its owner, probably she merited a few. She was a flirt, at

all events. She drew him on, played upon his emotions, found him, no

doubt, excellent fun; and at last, when he was imbecile enough to

declare himself, to talk of marriage, Lily, raising the drollest eyes,

quietly wished to know what his prospects were.

The intolerable shame of it, even now! But he laughed, mocking at his

dead self.

His mind's eye beheld the strange being a year later. Still in good

clothes, but unhealthy, and at his last half-crown; four and twenty,

travelled, and possessed of the elements of culture, he had only just

begun to realise the fact that men labour for their daily bread. Was it

the peculiar intensity of his egoism that so long blinded him to common

anxieties? Even as the last coins slipped between his fingers, he knew

only a vaguely irritable apprehension. Did he imagine the world would

beg for the honour of feeding and clothing Mr. Harvey Rolfe?

It came back to him, his first experience of hunger--so very different

a thing from appetite. He saw the miserable bedroom where he sat on a

rainy day. He smelt the pawnshop. His heart sank again under the weight

of awful solitude. Then, his illness; the letter he wrote to Amy; her

visit to him; the help she brought. But she could not persuade him to

go back with her to Greystone to face the Doctor. Her money was a loan;

he would bestir himself and find occupation. For a wonder, it was

found--the place at the Emigration Agency; and so, for a good many

years, the notable Mr. Harvey Rolfe sank into a life of obscure routine.

Again and again his sister Amy besought him to visit Greystone. Dr

Harvey was breaking up; would he not see the kind old man once more?

Yes, he assured himself that he would; but he took his time about it,

and Dr Harvey, who at threescore and ten could not be expected to wait

upon a young man's convenience, one day very quietly died. To Amy

Rolfe, who had become as a daughter to him, he left the larger part of

his possessions, an income of nine hundred a year. Not long after this,

Harvey met his sister, and was astonished to find her looking thin,

pale, spiritless. What did it mean? Why did she gaze at him so sadly?

Come, come, he cried, she had been leading an unnatural life,

cloistered, cheerless. Now that she was independent, she must enjoy

herself, see the world! Brave words; and braver still those in which he

replied to Amy's entreaty that he would share her wealth. Not he,

indeed! If, as she said, the Doctor meant and hoped it, why did he not

make that plain in his will? Not a penny would he take. He had all he

wanted. And he seemed to himself the most magnanimous of men.

Amy lived on at Greystone; amid friends, to be sure, but silent,

melancholy; and he, the brother whom she loved, could spare her only a

day or two once a year, when he chattered his idle self-conceit. Anyone

else would have taken trouble to inquire the cause of her pallor, her

sadness. He, forsooth, had to learn with astonishment, at last, that

she wished to see him--on her deathbed.

He had often thought of her, and kindly. But he knew her not at all,

took no interest in her existence. She, on the other hand, had

treasured every miserable little letter his idleness vouchsafed; she

had hoped so for his future, ever believing in him. When Amy lay dead,

he saw the sheet of paper on which she had written the few lines

necessary to endow him with all she left--everything 'to my dear

brother'. What words could have reproached him so keenly?

His steps turned to the churchyard, where on a plain upright stone he

read the names of his mother, of his father. Amy's grave was hard by.

He, too, if he had his wish, would some day rest here; and here his own

son would stand, and read his name, and think of him. Ah, but with no

such remorse and self-contempt! That was inconceivable. The tenderness

which dimmed his eyes would have changed to misery had he dreamed it

possible that his own boy could palter so ignobly with the

opportunities of life.

Upon these deep emotions intruded the thought of Alma. Intruded; for he

neither sought nor welcomed his wife's companionship at such a moment,

and he was disturbed by a perception of the little claim she had to be

present with him in spirit. He could no longer pretend to himself that

he loved Alma; whatever the right name for his complex of

feelings--interest, regard, admiration, sexual attachment--assuredly it

must be another word than that sacred to the memory of his parents, to

the desires and hopes centring in his child. For all that, he had no

sense of a hopeless discord in his wedded life; he suffered from no

disillusion, with its attendant bitterness. From this he was saved by

the fact, easy at length to recognise, that in wooing Alma he had

obeyed no dictate of the nobler passion; here, too, as at every other

crisis of life, he had acted on motives which would not bear analysis,

so large was the alloy of mere temperament, of weak concession to

circumstance. Rather than complain that Alma fell short of the ideal in

wifehood, should he not marvel, and be grateful that their marriage

might still be called a happy one? Happiness in marriage is a term of

such vague application: Basil Morton, one in ten thousand, might call

himself happy; even so, all things considered, must the husband who

finds it _just_ possible to endure the contiguity of his wife. Midway

between these extremes of the definition stood Harvey's measure of

matrimonial bliss. He saw that he had no right to grumble.

He saw, moreover, and reflected constantly upon it in these days, how

largely he was himself to blame for the peril of estrangement which

threatened his life with Alma. Meaning well, and thinking himself a

pattern of marital wisdom, he had behaved, as usual, with gross lack of

discretion. The question now was, could he mend the harm that he had

done? Love did not enter into the matter; his difficulty called for

common-sense--for rational methods in behaviour towards a wife whom he

could still respect, and who was closely bound to him by common

interest in their child.

He looked up, and had pleasure once more in the sunny sky. After all,

he, even he, had not committed the most woeful of all blunders; though

it was a mystery how he had escaped it. The crown of his feeble, futile

career should, in all fitness, have been marriage with a woman worse

than himself. And not on his own account did he thank protecting

fortune. One lesson, if one only, he had truly learnt from nature: it

bade him forget all personal disquietude, in joy that he was not guilty

of that crime of crimes, the begetting of children by a worthless

mother.

CHAPTER 2

Mrs. Morton felt a lively interest in Mrs. Rolfe's musical enterprise,

and would have liked to talk about it, but she suspected that the topic

was not very agreeable to her guest. In writing to Morton, Harvey had

just mentioned the matter, and that was all. On the second day of his

visit, when he felt much better, and saw things in a less troubled

light, he wished to remove the impression that he regarded Alma's

proceedings with sullen disapproval; so he took the opportunity of

being alone with his hostess, and talked to her of the great venture

with all the good humour he could command. Mrs. Morton had seen two

notices of Alma's debut; both were so favourable that she imagined them

the augury of a brilliant career.

'I doubt that,' said Harvey; 'and I'm not sure that it's desirable. She

has made herself miserably ill, you see. Excitement is the worst

possible thing for her. And then there's the whole question of whether

professional life is right and good for a married woman. How do you

think about it?'

The lady instanced cases that naturally presented themselves. She

seemed to have no prejudice. Mrs. Rolfe appeared to her a person of

artistic temper; but health was of the first importance; and then----

Harvey waited; but only a thoughtful smile completed the remark.

'What other consideration had you in mind?'

'Only a commonplace--that a married woman would, of course, be guided

by her husband's wish.'

'You think that equivalent to reason and the will of God?' said Harvey

jocosely.

'If we need appeal to solemn sanction.'

Rolfe was reminded, not unpleasantly, that he spoke with a woman to

whom 'the will of God' was something more than a facetious phrase.

'I beg your pardon; let us say reason alone. But is it reasonable for

the artist to sacrifice herself because she happens to have married an

everyday man?'

Mrs. Morton shook her head and laughed.

'If only one know what is meant by the everyday man! My private view of

him is rather flattering, perhaps. I'm inclined to think him, on the

whole, not inferior to the everyday woman; and _she_--she isn't a bad

sort of creature, if fairly treated. I don't think the everyday man

will go very far wrong, as a rule, in the treatment of his wife.'

'You really believe that?' asked Harvey, with a serious smile.

'Why, is it such a heresy?'

'I should rather have thought so. One is so accustomed to hear the

other view I mean, it's in the air. Don't think I'm asking your

sympathy. I have always wished Alma to act on her own judgment; she has

been left quite free to do so. But if the results seem worse than

doubtful, then comes the difficulty.'

'To be settled, surely, like all other difficulties between sensible

people.'

Mrs. Morton's faith was of enviable simplicity. She knew, as a matter

of fact, that husbands and wives often found their difficulties

insuperable; but why this should be so, seemed to her one of the dark

and mournful enigmas of life. It implied such a lack not only of good

sense, but of right feeling. In her own experience she had met with no

doubt, no worry, which did not yield to tact, or generous endeavour,

or, at worst, to the creed by which she lived. One solicitude, and one

only, continued to affect her as wife and mother; that it could not

overcome her happy temper was due to the hope perpetually inspired by

her husband's love--a hope inseparable from her profoundest

convictions. She and Morton differed in religious views, and there had

come a grave moment when she asked whether it would be possible to

educate her children in her own belief without putting a distance

between them and their father. The doubt had disappeared, thanks to

Morton's breadth of view, or facility of conscience; there remained the

trouble in which it had originated, but she solaced herself with the

fond assurance that this also would vanish as time went on. In the same

mood of kindly serenity she regarded the lives of her friends, always

hoping for the best, and finding it hard to understand that anyone

could deliberately act with unkindness, unreasonableness, or any other

quality opposed to the common good.

Rolfe had no desire of talking further about his private affairs. He

had made up his mind on the points at issue, and needed no counsel, but

the spirit of Mrs. Morton's conversation helped him to think

tranquilly. The great danger was that he might make things worse by his

way of regarding them. Most unluckily, Alma's illness had become

connected in his imagination with the tragedy of the Carnabys; he could

not keep the things apart. Hugh Carnaby's miserable doom, and the dark

surmises attaching to his wife, doubtless had their part in bringing

about a nervous crisis; why could he not recognise this as perfectly

natural, and dismiss the matter? In spite of all reasoning, Alma's

image ever and again appeared to him shadowed by the gloom which

involved her friend--or the woman who _was_ her friend. He knew it (or

believed it) to be the merest illusion of his perturbed mind; for no

fact, how trivial soever, had suggested to him that Alma knew more of

the circumstances of Redgrave's death than she seemed to know. On the

one hand, he was glad that Alma and Sibyl no longer cared to meet; on

the other, he could not understand what had caused this cessation of

their friendship, and he puzzled over it. But these idle fancies would

pass away; they were already less troublesome. A long country walk with

Morton, during which they conversed only of things intellectual, did

him much good. Not long ago Morton had had a visit from an old

Cambridge friend, a man who had devoted himself to the study of a

certain short period of English history, and hoped, some ten years

hence, to produce an authoritative work on the subject.

'There's a man I envy!' cried Rolfe, when he had listened to Basil's

humorous description of the enthusiast. 'It's exactly what I should

like to do myself.'

'What prevents you?'

'Idleness--irresolution--the feeling that the best of my life is over.

I have never been seriously a student, and it's too late to begin now.

But if I were ten years younger, I would make myself master of

something. What's the use of reading only to forget? In my time I have

gone through no small library of historical books--and it's all a mist

on the mind's horizon. That comes of reading without method, without a

purpose. The time I have given to it would have made me a pundit, if I

had gone to work reasonably.'

'Isn't my case the same?' exclaimed Morton. 'What do I care! I enjoyed

my reading and my knowledge at the time, and that's all I ever

expected.'

'Very well--though you misrepresent yourself. But for me it isn't

enough. I want to know something as well as it can be known. Purely for

my own satisfaction; the thought of "doing something" doesn't come in

at all. I was looking at your county histories this morning, and I felt

a huge longing to give the rest of my life to some little bit of

England, a county, or even a town, and exhaust the possibilities of

knowledge within those limits. Why, Greystone here--it has an

interesting history, even in relation to England at large; and what a

delight there would be in following it out, doggedly,

invincibly--making it one's single subject--grubbing after it in

muniment-rooms and libraries--learning by heart every stone of the old

town--dying at last with the consolation that nobody could teach one

anything more about it!'

'I know the mood,' said Morton, laughing.

'I'm narrowing down,' pursued Harvey. 'Once I had tremendous

visions--dreamt of holding half a dozen civilisations in the hollow of

my hand. I came back from the East in a fury to learn the Oriental

languages--made a start, you know, with Arabic. I dropped one nation

after another, always drawing nearer home. The Latin races were to

suffice me. Then early France, especially in its relations with

England;--Normandy, Anjou. Then early England, especially in its

relations with France. The end will be a county, or a town--nay,

possibly a building. Why not devote one's self to the history of a

market-cross? It would be respectable, I tell you. Thoroughness is all.'

When they were alone in the library at night, Morton spoke of his

eldest boy, expressing some anxiety about him.

'The rascal will have to earn his living--and how? There's time, I

suppose, but it begins to fidget me. He won't handle corn--I'm clear as

to that. At his age, of course, all lads talk about voyages and so on,

but Harry seems cut out for a larger sphere than Greystone. I shan't

balk him. I'd rather he hadn't anything to do with fighting--still,

that's a weakness.'

'We think of sending Wager's lad into the navy,' said Rolfe, when he

had mused awhile. 'Of course, he'll have to make his own way.'

'Best thing you can do, no doubt. And what about his little sister?'

'That's more troublesome. It's awkward that she's a relative of Mrs

Abbott. Otherwise, I should have proposed to train her for a cook.'

'Do you mean it?'

'Why not? She isn't a girl of any promise. What better thing for her,

and for the community, than to make her a good cook? They're rare

enough, Heaven knows. What's the use of letting her grow up with ideas

of gentility, which in her case would mean nothing but uselessness? She

must support herself, sooner or later, and it won't be with her brains.

I've seriously thought of making that suggestion to Mrs. Abbott. Ten

years hence, a sensible woman cook will demand her own price, and be a

good deal more respected than a dressmaker or a she-clerk. The stomach

is very powerful in bringing people to common-sense. When all the

bricklayers' daughters are giving piano lessons, and it's next to

impossible to get any servant except a lady's-maid, we shall see women

of leisure develop a surprising interest in the boiling of potatoes.'

Morton admitted the force of these arguments.

'What would you wish your own boy to be?' he asked presently.

'Anything old-fashioned, unadventurous, happily obscure; a country

parson, perhaps, best of all.'

'I understand. I've had the same thoughts. But one Ii to get over that

kind of thing. It won't do to be afraid of life--nor of death either.'

'And there's the difficulty of education,' said Rolfe. 'If I followed

my instincts, I should make the boy unfit for anything but the

quietest, obscurest life. I should make him hate a street, and love the

fields. I should teach him to despise every form of ambition; to shrink

from every kind of pleasure, but the simplest and purest; to think of

life as a long day's ramble, and death as the quiet sleep that comes at

the end of it. I should like him not to marry--never to feel the need

of it; or if marry he must, to have no children. That's my real wish;

and if I tried to carry it out, the chances are that I should do him an

intolerable wrong. For fear of it, I must give him into the hands of

other people; I must see him grow into habits and thoughts which will

cause me perpetual uneasiness; I must watch him drift further and

further away from my own ideal of life, till at length, perhaps, there

is scarce a possibility of sympathy between us.'

'Morbid--all morbid,' remarked the listener.

'I don't know. It may only mean that one sees too clearly the root

facts of existence. I have another mood (less frequent) in which I try

to persuade myself that I don't care much about the child; that his

future doesn't really concern me at all. Why should it? He's just one

of the millions of human beings who come and go. A hundred years

hence--what of him and of me? What can it matter how he lived and how

he died? The best kind of education would be that which hardened his

skin and blunted his sympathies. What right have I to make him

sensitive? The thing is, to get through life with as little suffering

as possible. What monstrous folly to teach him to wince and cry out at

the sufferings of other people! Won't he have enough of his own before

he has done? Yet that's what we shall aim at--to cultivate his

sympathetic emotions, so that the death of a bird shall make him sad,

and the sight of human distress wring his heart. Real kindness would

try to make of him a healthy ruffian, with just enough conscience to

keep him from crime.'

'Theory for theory, I prefer this,' said Morton. 'To a certain extent I

try to act upon it.'

'You do?'

'Just because I know that my own tendency is to over-softness. I have

sometimes surprised my wife by bidding Harry disregard things that

appealed to his pity. You remember what old Hobbes says: "_Homo malus,

puer robustus_"? There was more truth in it in his day than in ours.

It's natural for a boy to be a good deal of a savage, but our

civilisation is doing its best to change that. Why, not long ago the

lad asked me whether fishing wasn't cruel. He evidently felt that it

was, and so do I; but I couldn't say so. I laughed it off, and told him

that a fish diet was excellent for the brains!'

'I hope I may have as much courage,' said Harvey.

'Life is a compromise, my dear fellow. If the world at large would

suddenly come round to a cultivation of the amiable virtues--well and

good. But there's no hope of it. As it is, our little crabs must grow

their hard shell, or they've no chance.'

'What about progress? In educating children, we are making the new

world.'

Morton assented.

'But there's no hurry. The growth must be gradual--will be, whether we

intend it or not. The fact is, I try not to think overmuch about my

children. It remains a doubt, you know, whether education has any

influence worth speaking of.'

'To me,' said Harvey, 'the doubt seems absurd. In my own case, I know,

a good system of training would have made an enormous difference.

Practically, I was left to train myself, and a nice job I made of it.

Do you remember how I used to talk about children before I had one? I

have thought it was the talk of a fool; but, perhaps, after all, it had

more sanity than my views nowadays.'

'_Medio tutissimus_,' murmured Basil.

'And what about your girls?' asked the other, when they had smoked in

silence. 'Is the difficulty greater or less?'

'From my point of view, less. For one thing, I can leave them entirely

in the hands of their mother; if they resemble her, they won't do

amiss. And there's no bother about work in life; they will have enough

to live upon--just enough. Of course, they may want to go out into the

world. I shall neither hinder nor encourage. I had rather they stayed

at home.'

'Don't lose sight of the possibility that by when they are grown up

there may be no such thing as "home". The word is dying out.'

Morton's pedantry led him again to murmur Latin----

'_Multa renascentur quoe jam cecidere_.'

'You're the happiest man I know, or ever shall know,' said Rolfe, with

more feeling than he cared to exhibit.

'Don't make me think about Croesus, King of Lydia. On the whole,

happiness means health, and health comes of occupation. In one point I

agree with you about yourself: it would have been better if someone had

found the right kind of work for you, and made you stick to it.

By-the-bye, how does your friend, the photographic man, get on?'

'Not at all badly. Did I tell you I had put money into it? I go there a

good deal, and pretend to do something.'

'Why pretend? Couldn't you find a regular job there for a few hours

every day?'

'I dare say I could. It'll be easier to get backwards and forwards from

Gunnersbury. How would you like,' he added, with a laugh, 'to live at

Gunnersbury?'

'What does it matter where one lives? I have something of a prejudice

against Hoxton or Bermondsey; but I think I could get along in most

other places. Gunnersbury is rather pleasant, I thought. Isn't it quite

near to Kew and Richmond?'

'Do those names attract you?'

'They have a certain charm for the rustic ear.'

'It's all one to me. Hughie will go to school, and make friends with

other children. You see, he's had no chance of it yet. We know a

hundred people or so, but have no intimates. Is there such a thing as

intimacy of families in London? I'm inclined to think not. Here, you go

into each other's houses without fuss and sham; you know each other,

and trust each other. In London there's no such comfort, at all events

for educated people. If you have a friend, he lives miles away; before

his children and yours can meet, they must travel for an hour and a

half by bus and underground.'

'I suppose it _must_ be London?' interrupted Morton.

'I'm afraid so,' Harvey replied absently, and his friend said no more.

He had meant this visit to be of three days at most; but time slipped

by so pleasantly that a week was gone before he could resolve on

departure. Most of the mornings he spent in rambles alone,

rediscovering many a spot in the country round which had been familiar

to him as a boy, but which he had never cared to seek in his

revisitings of Greystone hitherto. One day, as he followed the windings

of a sluggish stream, he saw flowers of arrowhead, white flowers with

crimson centre, floating by the bank, and remembered that he had once

plucked them here when on a walk with his father, who held him the

while, lest he should stretch too far and fall in. To reach them now,

he lay down upon the grassy brink; and in that moment there returned to

him, with exquisite vividness, the mind, the senses, of childhood; once

more he knew the child's pleasure in contact with earth, and his hand

grasped hard at the sweet-smelling turf as though to keep hold upon the

past thus fleetingly recovered. It was gone--no doubt, for ever; a last

glimpse vouchsafed to him of life's beginning as he set his face

towards the end. Then came a thought of joy. The keen sensations which

he himself had lost were his child's inheritance. Somewhere in the

fields, this summer morning, Hughie was delighting in the scent, the

touch, of earth, young amid a world where all was new. The stereotyped

phrase about parents living again in their children became a reality

and a source of deep content. So does a man repeat the experience of

the race, and with each step onward live into the meaning of some old

word that he has but idly echoed.

On the day before he left, a letter reached him from Alma. He had felt

surprise at not hearing sooner from her; but Alma's words explained the

delay.

'I have been thinking a great deal,' she wrote, 'and I want to tell you

of my thoughts. Don't imagine they are mere fancies, the result of

ill-health. I feel all but well again, and have a perfectly clear head.

And perhaps it is better that I should write what I have to say,

instead of speaking it. In this way I oblige you to hear me out. I

don't mean that you are in the habit of interrupting me, but perhaps

you would if I began to talk as I am going to write.

'Why can't we stay at Pinner?

'There, that shall have a line to itself. Take breath, and now listen

again. I dislike the thought of removing to Gunnersbury--really and

seriously I dislike it. You know I haven't given you this kind of

trouble before; when we left Wales I was quite willing to have stayed

on if you had wished it--wasn't I? Forgive me, then, for springing this

upon you after all your arrangements are made; I could not do it if I

did not feel that our happiness (not mine only) is concerned. Would it

be possible to cancel your agreement with the Gunnersbury man? If not,

couldn't you sublet, with little or no loss? The Pinner house isn't let

yet--is it? Do let us stay where we are. I think it is the first

serious request I ever made of you, and I think you will see that I

have some right to make it.

'I had rather, much rather, that Hughie did not go to Mrs. Abbott's

school. Don't get angry and call me foolish. What I mean is, that I

would rather teach him myself. In your opinion I have neglected him,

and I confess that you are right. There now! I shall give up my music;

at all events, I shall not play again in public. I have shown what I

could do, and that's enough. You don't like it--though you have never

tried to show me _why_--and again I feel that you are right. A

professional life for me would mean, I see it now, the loss of things

more precious. I will give it up, and live quietly at home. I will have

regular hours for teaching Hughie. If you prefer it, Pauline shall go,

and I will take charge of him altogether. If I do this, what need for

us to remove? The house is more comfortable than the new one at

Gunnersbury; we are accustomed to it; and by being farther from London

I shall have less temptation to gad about. I know exactly what I am

promising, and I feel I _can_ do it, now that my mind is made up.

'Need I fear a refusal? I can't think so. Give the matter your best

thought, and see whether there are not several reasons on my side. But,

please, answer as soon as you can, for I shall be in suspense till I

hear from you.

Alma signed herself 'Yours ever affectionately', but Harvey could find

no trace of affection in the letter. It astonished and annoyed him. Of

course, it could have but one explanation; Alma might as well have

saved herself trouble by writing, in a line or two, that she disliked

Mrs. Abbott, and could not bear that the child should be taught by her.

He read through the pages again, and grew angry. What right had she to

make such a request as this, and in the tone of a demand? Twice in the

letter she asserted that she _had_ a right, asserted it as if with some

mysterious reference. Had he sat down immediately to reply, Harvey

would have written briefly forcibly; for, putting aside other grounds

of irritation, there is nothing a man dislikes more than being called

upon at last moment to upset elaborate and troublesome arrangements.

But he was obliged to postpone his answer for a few hours, and in the

meantime he grew more tolerant of Alma's feelings. Had her objection

come earlier, accompanied by the same proposals, he would have been

inclined to listen; but things had gone too far. He wrote, quite

good-temperedly, but without shadow of wavering. There was nothing

sudden, he pointed out, in the step he was about to take; Alma had

known it for months, and had acquiesced in it. As for her music, he

quite agreed with her that she would find it better in every way to

abandon thoughts of a public career; and the fact of Hughie's going to

school for two or three hours a day would in no wise interfere with her

wish to see more of him. What her precise meaning was in saying that

she had some 'right' to make this request, he declared himself unable

to discover. Was it a reproach? If so, his conscience afforded him no

light, and he hoped Alma would explain the words in a letter to him at

Pinner.

This correspondence clouded his last evening at Greystone. He was glad

that some acquaintances of Morton's came, and stayed late; sitting

alone with his friend, he would have been tempted to talk of Alma, and

he felt that silence was better just now.

By a train soon after breakfast next morning, he left the old town,

dearer to him each time that he beheld it, and travelled slowly to the

main-line junction, whence again he travelled slowly to Peterborough.

There the express caught him up, and flung him into roaring London

again. Before going to Pinner, he wished to see Cecil Morphew, for he

had an idea to communicate--a suggestion for the extending of business

by opening correspondence with out of the way towns, such as Greystone.

On reaching the shop in Westminster Bridge Road, he found that Morphew

also had a communication to make, and of a more exciting nature.

CHAPTER 3

Morphew was engaged upstairs with the secretary of an Amateur

Photographic Society. Waiting for this person's departure, Rolfe talked

with the shopman--a capable fellow, aged about thirty, whose heart was

in the business; he looked at a new hand-camera, which seemed likely to

have a good sale, and heard encouraging reports of things in general.

Then Morphew came down, escorting his visitor. As soon as he was free,

he grasped Harvey by the arm, and whispered eagerly that he had

something to tell him. They went upstairs together, into a room

furnished as an office, hung about with many framed photographs.

'He's dead!' exclaimed Cecil--'he's dead!'

A name was needless. Only one man's death could be the cause of such

excitement in Morphew, and it had been so long awaited that the event

had no touch of solemnity. Yet Harvey perceived that his friend's

exultation was not unmixed with disquietude.

'Yesterday morning, early. I heard it by chance. Of course, she hasn't

written to me, but no doubt I shall hear in a few days. I walked about

near the house for hours last night--like an idiot. The thing seemed

impossible; I had to keep reminding myself, by looking at the windows,

that it was true. Eight years--think of that! Eight years' misery, due

to that fellow's snobbishness!'

In Harvey's mind the story had a somewhat different aspect. He knew

nothing personally of this Mr. Winter, who might indeed be an

incarnation of snobbery; on the other hand, Cecil Morphew had his

defects, and even to a liberal-minded parent might not recommend

himself as a son-in-law. Then again, the young lady herself, now about

six and twenty, must surely have been influenced by some other motive

than respect for her parents' wishes, in thus protracting her

engagement with a lover who had a secure, though modest, income. Was it

not conceivable that she inherited something of the paternal spirit?

or, at all events, that her feelings had not quite the warmth that

Morphew imagined?

'I'm glad it's over,' he replied cordially. 'Now begins a new life for

you.'

'But eight years--eight years of waiting----'

'Hang it, what is your age? Thirty! Why, you're only just old enough.

No man ought to marry before thirty.'

Morphew interrupted vehemently.

'That's all rot! Excuse me; I can't help it. A man ought to marry when

he's urged to it by his nature, and as soon as he finds the right

woman. If I had married eight years ago----.' He broke off with an

angry gesture, misery in his eyes. 'You don't believe that humbug,

Rolfe; you repeat it just to console me. There's little consolation, I

can assure you. I was two and twenty; she, nineteen. Mature man and

woman; and we longed for each other. Nothing but harm could come of

waiting year after year, wretched both of us.'

'I confess,' said Harvey, 'I don't quite see why she waited after

twenty-one.'

'Because she is a good, gentle girl, and could not bear to make her

father and mother unhappy. The blame is all theirs--mean, shallow,

grovelling souls!'

'What about her mother now?'

'Oh, she was never so obstinate as the old jackass. She'll have little

enough to live upon, and we shall soon arrange things with her somehow.

Is it credible that human beings can be so senseless? For years now,

their means have been growing less and less, just because the snobbish

idiot _would_ keep up appearances. If he had lived a little longer, the

widow would have had practically no income at all. Of course, she

shared in the folly, and I'm only sorry she won't suffer more for it.

They didn't enjoy their lives--never have done. They lived in miserable

slavery to the opinion of their fellow-snobs. You remember that story

about the flowers at their silver wedding: two hundred pounds--just

because Mrs. Somebody spent as much--when they couldn't really afford

two hundred shillings. And they groaned over it--he and she--like

people with the stomachache. Why, the old fool died of nothing else; he

was worn out by the fear of having to go into a smaller house.'

Harvey would have liked to put a question: was it possible that the

daughter of such people could be endowed with virtues such as become

the wife of a comparatively poor man? But he had to ask it merely in

his own thoughts. Before long, no doubt, he would meet the lady herself

and appease his curiosity.

Whilst they were talking, there came a knock at the door; the shopman

announced two ladies, who wished to inquire about some photographic

printing.

'Will you see them, Rolfe?' asked Cecil. 'I don't feel like it--indeed

I don't. You'll be able to tell them all they want.'

Harvey found himself equal to the occasion, and was glad of it; he

needed occupation of some kind to keep his thoughts from an unpleasant

subject. After another talk with Morphew, in which they stuck to

business, he set off homeward.

Here news awaited him. On his arrival all seemed well; Ruth opened the

door, answered his greeting in her quiet, respectful way, and at once

brought tea to the study. When he rang to have the things taken away,

Ruth again appeared, and he saw now that she had something unusual to

say.

'I didn't like to trouble you the first thing, sir,' she began--'but

Sarah left yesterday without giving any notice; and I think it's

perhaps as well she did, sir. I've heard some things about her not at

all nice.'

'We must find someone else, then,' replied Harvey. 'It's lucky she

didn't go at a less convenient time. Was there some unpleasantness

between you?'

'I had warned her, for her own good, sir, that was all. And there's

something else I had perhaps better tell you now, sir.' Her voice, with

its pleasant Welsh accent, faltered ominously. 'I'm very sorry indeed

to say it, sir, but I shall be obliged to leave as soon as Mrs. Rolfe

can spare me.'

Harvey was overwhelmed. He looked upon Ruth as a permanent member of

the household. She had made herself indispensable; to her was owing the

freedom from domestic harassment which Alma had always enjoyed--a most

exceptional blessing, yet regarded, after all this time, as a matter of

course. The departure of Ruth meant conflict with ordinary servants, in

which Alma would assuredly be worsted. At this critical moment of their

life, scarcely could anything more disastrous have happened. Seeing her

master's consternation, Ruth was sore troubled, and hastened to explain

herself.

'My brother's wife has just died, sir, and left him with three young

children, and there's no one else can be of help to him but me. He

wanted me to come at once, but, of course, I told him I couldn't do

that. No one can be sorry for his wife's death; she was such a poor,

silly, complaining, useless creature; he hasn't had a quiet day since

he married her. She belonged to Liverpool, and there they were married,

and when he brought her to Carnarvon I said to myself as soon as I saw

her that _she_ wouldn't be much use to a working-man. She began the

very first day to complain and to grumble, and she's gone on with it

ever since. When I was there in my last holiday I really wondered how

he bore his life. There's many women of that kind, sir, but I never

knew one as bad as her--never. Everything was too much trouble for her,

and she didn't know how to do a thing in the house. I didn't mean to

trouble you with such things, sir. I only told you just to show why I

don't feel I can refuse to go and help him, and try to give him a

little peace and quiet. He's a hard-working man, and the children

aren't very healthy, and I'm sure I don't know how he'd manage----'

'You have no choice, Ruth, I see. Well, we must hope to find some one

in your place--_but_----'

Just as he shook his head, the house-bell rang, and Ruth withdrew to

answer it. In a minute or two the study door opened again. Harvey

looked up and saw Alma.

'I was obliged to come,' she said, approaching him, as he rose in

astonishment. 'I thought at first of asking you to come on to

Basingstoke, but we can talk better here.'

No sign of pleasure in their meeting passed between them. On Harvey's

face lingered something of the disturbance caused by Ruth's

communication, and Alma understood it as due to her unexpected arrival;

the smile with which she had entered died away, and she stood like a

stranger doubtful of her reception.

'Was it necessary to talk?' asked Rolfe, pushing forward a chair, and

doing his best to show good humour.

'Yes--after your reply to my letter this morning,' she answered coldly.

'Well, you must have some tea first. This is cold. Won't you go and

take your things off, and I'll tell Ruth. By-the-bye, we re in

confusion.'

He sketched the position of things; but Alma heard without interest.

'It can't be helped,' was her absent reply. 'There are plenty of

servants.'

Fresh tea was brought, and after a brief absence Alma sat down to it.

Her health had improved during the past week, but she looked tired from

the journey, and was glad to lean back in her chair. For some minutes

neither of them spoke. Harvey had never seen an expression on Alma's

features which was so like hostility; it moved him to serious

resentment. It is common enough for people who have been several years

wedded to feel exasperation in each other's presence, but for Rolfe the

experience was quite new, and so extremely disagreeable, that his

pulses throbbed with violence, and his mouth grew dry. He determined to

utter not a word until Alma began conversation. This she did at length,

with painful effort.

'I think your answer to me was very unkind.'

'I didn't mean it so.'

'You simply said that you wouldn't do as I wished.'

'Not that I wouldn't, but that it was impossible. And I showed you the

reasons--though I should have thought it superfluous.'

Alma waited a moment, then asked----

'Is this house let?'

'I don't know. I suppose not.'

'Then there is no reason whatever why we shouldn't stay here.'

'There is every reason why we shouldn't stay here. Every arrangement

has been made for our leaving--everything fully talked over. What has

made you change your mind?'

'I haven't really changed my mind. I always disliked the idea of going

to Gunnersbury, and you must have seen that I did; but I was so much

occupied with--with other things; and, as I have told you, I didn't

feel quite the same about my position as I do now.'

She expressed herself awkwardly, growing very nervous. At the first

sign of distress in her, Harvey was able to change his tone.

'Things are going horribly wrong somehow, Alma. There's only one way

out of it. Just say in honest words what you mean. Why do you dislike

the thought of our moving?'

'I told you in my letter,' she answered, somewhat acridly.

'There was no explanation. You said something I couldn't understand,

about having a _right_ to ask me to stay here.'

She glanced at him with incredulous disdain.

'If you don't understand, I can't put it into plainer words.'

'Well now, let _me_ put the whole matter into plainer words than I have

liked to use.' Rolfe spoke deliberately, and not unkindly, though he

was tempted to give way to wrath at what he imagined a display of

ignoble and groundless jealousy. 'All along I have allowed you to take

your own course. No, I mustn't say "allowed", the word is inapplicable;

I never claimed the right to dictate to you. We agreed that this was

the way for rational husband and wife. It seemed to us that I had no

more right to rule over you than you to lay down the law for me. Using

your freedom, you chose to live the life of an artist--that is to say,

you troubled yourself as little as possible about home and family. I am

not complaining--not a bit of it. The thing was an experiment, to be

sure; but I have held to the conditions, watched their working.

Latterly I began to see that they didn't work well, and it appears that

you agree with me. This is how matters stand; or rather, this is how

they stood until, for some mysterious reason, you seemed to grow

unfriendly. The reason is altogether mysterious; I leave you to explain

it. From my point of view, the failure of our experiment is simple and

natural enough. Though I had only myself to blame, I have felt for a

long time that you were in an utterly false position. Now you begin to

see things in the same light. Well and good; why can't we start afresh?

The only obstacle is your unfriendly feeling. Give me an opportunity of

removing it. I hate to be on ill terms with you; it seems monstrous,

unaccountable. It puts us on a level with married folk in a London

lodging-house. Is it necessary to sink quite so low?'

Alma listened with trembling intensity, and seemed at first unable to

reply. Her agitation provoked Harvey more than it appealed to his pity.

'If you can't do as I wish,' she said at length, with an endeavour to

speak calmly, 'I see no use in making any change in my own life. There

will be no need of me. I shall make arrangements to go on with my

professional career.'

Harvey's features for a moment set themselves in combativeness, but as

quickly they relaxed, and showed an ambiguous smile.

'No need of you--and Ruth going to leave us?'

'There oughtn't to be any difficulty in finding someone just as good.'

'Perhaps there ought not to be; but we may thank our stars if we find

anyone half as trustworthy. The chances are that a dozen will come and

go before we settle down again. I don't enjoy that prospect, and I

shall want a good deal of help from you in bearing the discomfort.'

'What kind of help? Of course, I shall see that the house goes on as

usual.'

'Then it's quite certain you will have no time left for a "professional

career".'

'If I understand you, you mean that you don't wish me to have any time

for it.'

Harvey still smiled, though he could not conceal his nervousness.

'I'm afraid it comes to that.'

So little had Alma expected such a declaration, that she gazed at him

in frank surprise.

'Then you are going to oppose me in everything?'

'I hope not. In that case we should do much better to say good-bye.'

The new tone perplexed her, and a puzzled interest mingled with the

lofty displeasure of her look.

'Please let us understand each other.' She spoke with demonstrative

calmness. 'Are we talking on equal terms, or is it master and servant?'

'Husband and wife, Alma, that's all.'

'With a new meaning in the words.'

'No; a very old one. I won't say the oldest, for I believe there was a

time when primitive woman had the making of man in every sense, and

somehow knocked a few ideas into his head; but that was very long ago.'

'If I could be sure of your real meaning----.' She made an irritated

gesture. 'How are we going to live? You speak of married people in

lodging-houses. I don't know much about them, happily, but I imagine

the husband talks something like this--though in more intelligible

language.'

'I dare say he does--poor man. He talks more plainly, because he has

never put himself in a false position--has never played foolishly with

the facts of life.'

Alma sat reflecting.

'Didn't I tell you in my letter,' she said at length, 'that I was quite

willing to make a change, on one condition?'

'An impossible condition.'

'You treat me very harshly. How have I deserved it? When I wrote that,

I really wished to please you. Of course, I knew you were dissatisfied

with me, and it made me dissatisfied with myself. I wrote in a way that

ought to have brought me a very different answer. Why do you behave as

if I were guilty of something--as if I had put myself at your mercy?

You never found fault with me--you even encouraged me to go on----'

Her choking voice made Harvey look at her in apprehension, and the look

stopped her just as she was growing hysterical.

'You are right about my letter,' he said, very gravely and quietly. 'It

ought to have been in a kinder tone. It would have been, but for those

words you won't explain.'

'You think it needs any explanation that I dislike the thought of

Hughie going to Mrs. Abbott's?'

'Indeed I do. I can't imagine a valid ground for your objection.'

There was a word on Alma's tongue, but her lips would not utter it. She

turned very pale under the mental conflict. Physical weakness, instead

of overcoming her spirit, excited it to a fresh effort of resistance.

'Then,' she said, rising from the chair, 'you are not only unkind to

me, but dishonest.'

Harvey flushed.

'You are making yourself ill again. We had far better not talk at all.'

'I came up for no other purpose. We have to settle everything.'

'As far as I am concerned, everything is settled.'

'Then I have no choice,' said Alma, with subdued passion. 'We shall

live as we have done. I shall accept any engagement that offers, in

London or the country, and regard music as my chief concern. You wished

it, and so it shall be.'

Rolfe hesitated. Believing that her illness was the real cause of this

commotion, he felt it his duty to use all possible forbearance; yet he

knew too well the danger of once more yielding, and at such a crisis.

The contest had declared itself--it was will against will; to decide it

by the exertion of his sane strength against Alma's hysteria might be

best even for the moment. He had wrought himself to the point of

unwonted energy, a state of body and mind difficult to recover if now

he suffered defeat. Alma, turning from him, seemed about to leave the

room.

'One moment----'

She looked round, carelessly attentive.

'That wouldn't be living as we have done. It would be an intolerable

state of things after this.'

'It's your own decision.'

'Far from it. I wouldn't put up with it for a day.'

'Then there's only one thing left: I must go and live by myself.'

'I couldn't stand that either, and wouldn't try.'

'I am no slave! I shall live where and how I choose.'

'When you have thought about it more calmly, your choice will be the

same as mine.'

Trembling violently, she backed away from him. Harvey thought she would

fall; he tried to hold her by the arm, but Alma shook him off, and in

the same moment regained her strength. She faced him with a new

defiance, which enabled her at last to speak the words hitherto

unutterable.

'How do you think I can bear to see Hughie with _those_ children?'

Rolfe stood in amaze. The suddenness of this reversion to another stage

of their argument enhanced his natural difficulty in understanding her.

'What children?'

'Those two--whatever their name may be.'

'Wager's boy and girl?'

'You call them so.'

'Are you going crazy? I _call_ them so?--what do you mean?'

A sudden misgiving appeared in Alma's eyes; she stared at him so

strangely that Harvey began to fear for her reason.

'What is it, dear? What have you been thinking? Tell me--speak like

yourself----'

'Why do you take so much interest in them?' she asked faintly.

'Heavens! You have suspected----? What _have_ you suspected?'

'They are your own. I have known it for a long time.'

Alarm notwithstanding, Rolfe was so struck by the absurdity of this

charge that he burst into stentorian laughter. Whilst he laughed, Alma

sank into a chair, powerless, tearful.

'I should much like to know,' exclaimed Harvey, laying a hand upon her,

'how you made that astounding discovery. Do you think they are like me?'

'The girl is--or I thought so.'

'After you had decided that she must be, no doubt.' Again he exploded

in laughter. 'And this is the meaning of it all? This is what you have

been fretting over? For how long?'

Alma brushed away her tears, but gave no answer.

'And if I am their father,' he pursued, with resolute mirthfulness,

'pray, who do you suppose their mother to be?'

Still Alma kept silence, her head bent.

'I'll warrant I can give you evidence against myself which you hadn't

discovered,' Rolfe went on--'awful and unanswerable evidence. It is I

who support those children, and pay for their education!--it is I, and

no other. See your darkest suspicion confirmed. If only you had known

this for certain!'

'Why, then, do you do it?' asked Alma, without raising her eyes.

'For a very foolish reason: there was no one else who could or would.'

'And why did you keep it a secret from me?'

'This is the blackest part of the whole gloomy affair,' he answered,

with burlesque gravity. 'It's in the depraved nature of men to keep

secrets from their wives, especially about money. To tell the truth,

I'm hanged if I know why I didn't tell you before our marriage. The

infamous step was taken not very long before, and I might as well have

made a clean breast of it. Has Mrs. Abbott never spoken to you about

her cousin, Wager's wife?'

'A word or two.'

'Which you took for artful fiction? You imagined she had plotted with

me to deceive you? What, in the name of commonsense, is your estimate

of Mrs. Abbott's character?'

Alma drew a deep breath, and looked up into her husband's face.

'Still--she knew you were keeping it from me, about the money.'

'She had no suspicion of it. She always wrote to me openly,

acknowledging the cheques. Would it gratify you to look through her

letters?'

'I believe you.'

'Not quite, I fancy. Look at me again and say it.'

He raised her head gently.

'Yes, I believe you--it was very silly.'

'It was. The only piece of downright feminine foolishness I ever knew

you guilty of. But when did it begin?'

Alma had become strangely quiet. She spoke in a low, tired voice, and

sat with head turned aside, resting against the back of the chair; her

face was expressionless, her eyelids drooped. Rolfe had to repeat his

question.

'I hardly know,' she replied. 'It must have been when my illness was

coming on.'

'So I should think. It was sheer frenzy. And now that it's over, have

you still any prejudice against Mrs. Abbott?'

'No.'

The syllable fell idly from her lips.

'You are tired, dear. All this sound and fury has been too much for

you. Lie down on the sofa till dinner-time.'

She allowed him to lead her across the room, and lay down as he wished.

To his kiss upon her forehead she made no response, but closed her eyes

and was very still. Harvey seated himself at his desk, and opened two

or three unimportant letters which had arrived this morning. To one of

them he wrote an answer. Turning presently to glance at Alma, he saw

that she had not stirred, and when he leaned towards her, the sound of

her breathing told him that she was asleep.

He meditated on Woman.

A quarter of an hour before dinner-time he left the room; on his

return, when the meal was ready, he found Alma still sleeping, and so

soundly that it seemed wrong to wake her. As rays of sunset had begun

to fall into the room, he drew the blind, then quietly went out, and

had dinner by himself.

At ten o'clock Alma still slept. Using a closely-shaded lamp, Harvey

sat in the room with her and read--or seemed to read; for ever and

again his eyes strayed to the still figure, and his thoughts wandered

over all he knew of Alma's life. He wished he knew more, that he might

better understand her. Of her childhood, her early maidenhood, what

conception had he? Yet he and she were _one_--so said the creeds. And

Harvey laughed to himself, a laugh more of melancholy than of derision.

The clock ticked on; it was near to eleven. Then Alma stirred, raised

herself, and looked towards the light.

'Harvey----? Have I been asleep so long?'

'Nearly five hours.'

'Oh! That was last night----'

'You mean, you had no sleep?'

'Didn't close my eyes.'

'And you feel better now?'

'Rather hungry.'

Rolfe laughed. He had seated himself on the couch by her and held her

in his arms.

'Why, then we'll have some supper--a cold fowl and a bottle of

Burgundy--a profligate supper, fit for such abandoned characters; and

over it you shall tell me how the world looked to you when you were ten

years old.'

CHAPTER 4

Alma returned to Basingstoke, and remained there until the new house

was ready for her reception. With the help of her country friends she

engaged two domestics, cook and housemaid, who were despatched to

Gunnersbury in advance; they had good 'characters', and might possibly

co-operate with their new mistress in her resolve to create an

admirable household. Into this ambition Alma had thrown herself with no

less fervour than that which carried her off to wild Wales five years

ago; but her aim was now strictly 'practical', she would have nothing

more to do with 'ideals'. She took lessons in domestic economy from the

good people at Basingstoke. Yes, she had found her way at last! Alma

saw it in the glow of a discovery, this calm, secure, and graceful

middle-way. She talked of it with an animation that surprised and

pleased her little circle down in Hampshire; those ladies had never

been able to illumine their everyday discharge of duty with such high

imaginative glory. In return for their humble lessons, Alma taught them

to admire themselves, to see in their place and functions a nobility

they had never suspected.

For a day or two after her arrival at Gunnersbury, Harvey thought that

he had never seen her look so well; certainly she had never shown the

possibilities of her character to such advantage. It seemed out of the

question that any trouble could ever again come between them. Only when

the excitement of novelty had subsided did he perceive that Alma was

far from having recovered her physical strength. A walk of a mile or

two exhausted her; she came home from an hour's exercise with Hughie

pale and tremulous; and of a morning it was often to be noticed that

she had not slept well. Without talking of it, Harvey planned the

holiday which Alma had declared would be quite needless this year; he

took a house in Norfolk for September. Before the day of departure,

Alma had something to tell him, which, by suggesting natural

explanation of her weakness, made him less uneasy. Remembering the

incident which had brought to a close their life in Wales, he saw with

pleasure that Alma no longer revolted against the common lot of woman.

Perhaps, indeed, the announcement she made to him was the cause of more

anxiety in his mind than in hers.

They took their servants with them, and left the house to a caretaker.

Pauline Smith, though somewhat against Harvey's judgment, had been

called upon to resign; Alma wished to have Hughie to herself, save

during his school hours; he slept in her room, and she tended him most

conscientiously. Harvey had asked whether she would like to invite any

one, but she preferred to be alone.