CHAPTER XV

"The Rector will be back, sir, direckly. I was to I tell you so

pertickler. They had 'im out to a man in the Row, who's been drinkin'

days, and was goin' on shockin'--his wife was afraid to stop in the

house. But he won't be long, sir."

And Anne, very stiff and on her dignity, relieved one of the two

armchairs of its habitual burden of books, gave it a dusting with her

apron, and offered it to the visitor. It was evident that she regarded

his presence with entire disfavour, but was prepared to treat him with

prudence for the master's sake. Her devotion to Meynell had made her

shrewd; she perfectly understood who were his enemies, and who his

friends.

Barron, with a sharp sense of annoyance that he should be kept waiting,

merely because a drunken miner happened to be beating his wife, coldly

accepted her civilities, and took up a copy of the _Times_ which was

lying on the table. But when Anne had retired, he dropped the newspaper,

and began with a rather ugly curiosity to examine the room. He walked

round the walls, looking at the books, raising his eyebrows at the rows

of paper-bound German volumes, and peering closely into the titles of the

English ones. Then his attention was caught by a wall-map, in which a

number of small flags attached to pins were sticking. It was an outline

map of England, apparently sketched by Meynell himself, as the notes and

letterings were in his handwriting. It was labelled "Branches of the

Reform League." All over England the little flags bristled, thicker here,

and thinner there, but making a goodly show on the whole. Barron's face

lengthened as he pondered the map.

Then he passed by the laden writing-table. On it lay an open copy of the

_Modernist_, with a half-written "leader" of Meynell's between the

sheets. Beside it was a copy of Thomas à Kempis, and Father Tyrrell's

posthumous book, in which a great soul, like a breaking wave, had foamed

itself away; a volume of Sanday, another of Harnack, into the open cover

of which the Rector had apparently just pinned an extract from a Church

paper. Barron involuntarily stooped to read it. It ran:

"This is no time for giving up the Athanasian Creed. The moment when the

sewage of continental unbelief is pouring into England is not the moment

for banishing to a museum a screen that was erected to guard the

sanctuary."

Beneath it, in Meynell's writing:

"A gem, not to be lost! The muddle of the metaphor, the corruption of the

style, everything is symbolic. In a preceding paragraph the writer makes

an attack on Harnack, who is described as 'notorious for opposing' the

doctrines of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. That history has a

right to its say on so-called historical events never seems to have

occurred to this gentleman; still less that there is a mystical and

sacred element in all truth, all the advancing knowledge of mankind,

including historical knowledge, and that therefore his responsibility,

his moral and spiritual risk even, in disbelieving Harnack, is probably

infinitely greater than Harnack's in dealing historically with the Birth

Stories. The fact is the whole onus is now on the orthodox side. It is

not we that are on our defence; but they."

Barron raised himself with a flushed cheek, and a stiffened mouth.

Meynell's note had removed his last scruples. It was necessary to deal

drastically with a clergyman who could write such things.

A step outside. The sleeping dogs on the doorstep sprang up and noisily

greeted their master. Meynell shut them out, to their great disgust, and

came hurriedly toward the study.

Barron, as he saw him in the doorway, drew back with an exclamation. The

Rector's dress and hair were dishevelled and awry, and his face--pale,

drawn, and damp with perspiration--showed that he had just come through a

personal struggle.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Barron. But that fellow,

Pinches--you remember?--the new blacksmith--has been drinking for nearly

a week, and went quite mad this morning. We just prevented him from

killing his wife, but it was a tough business. I'll go and wash and

change my coat, if you will allow me."

So he went away, and Barron had a few more minutes in which to meditate

on the room and its owner. When at last Meynell came back, and settled

himself in the chair opposite to his visitor, with a quiet "Now I am

quite at your service," Barron found himself overtaken with a curious and

unwelcome hesitation. The signs--a slightly strained look, a quickened

breathing--that Meynell still bore upon him of a physical wrestle,

combined perhaps with a moral victory, suddenly seemed, even in Barron's

own eyes, to dwarf what he had to say--to make a poor mean thing out of

his story. And Meynell's shining eyes, divided between close attention to

the man before him and some recent and disturbing recollections in which

Barron had no share, reinforced the impression.

But he recaptured himself quickly. After all, it was at once a charitable

and a high-judicial part that he had come to play. He gathered his

dignity about him, resenting the momentary disturbance of it.

"I am come to-day, Mr. Meynell, on a very unpleasant errand."

The formal "Mr." marked the complete breach in their once friendly

relations. Meynell made a slight inclination.

"Then I hope you will tell it me as quickly as may be. Does it concern

yourself, or me? Maurice, I hope, is doing well?"

Barron winced. It seemed to him an offence on the Rector's part that

Meynell's tone should subtly though quite innocently remind him of days

when he had been thankful to accept a strong man's help in dealing with

the escapades of a vicious lad.

"He is doing excellently, thank you--except that his health is not all I

could wish. My business to-day," he continued, slowly--"concerns a woman,

formerly of this village, whom I happened by a strange accident to see

just after her return to it--"

"You are speaking of Judith Sabin?" interrupted Meynell.

"I am. You were of course aware that I had seen her?"

"Naturally--from the inquest. Well?"

The quiet, interrogative tone seemed to Barron an impertinence. With a

suddenly heightened colour he struck straight--violently--for the heart

of the thing.

"She told me a lamentable story--and she was led to tell it me by

seeing--and identifying--yourself--as you were standing with a lady in

the road outside the cottage."

"Identifying me?" repeated Meynell, with a slight accent of astonishment.

"That I think is hardly possible. For Judith Sabin had never seen me."

"You were not perhaps aware of it--but she had seen you."

Meynell shook his head.

"She was mistaken--or you are. However, that doesn't matter. I gather you

wish to consult me about something that Judith Sabin communicated to

you?"

"I do. But the story she told me turns very closely on her identification

of yourself; and therefore it does matter," said Barron, with emphasis.

A puzzled look passed again over Meynell's face. But he said nothing. His

attitude, coldly expectant, demanded the story.

Barron told it--once more. He repeated Judith Sabin's narrative in the

straightened, rearranged form he had now given to it, postponing,

however, any further mention of Meynell's relation to it till a last

dramatic moment.

He did not find his task so easy on this occasion. There was something in

the personality of the man sitting opposite to him which seemed to make a

narrative that had passed muster elsewhere sound here a mere vulgar

impertinence, the wanton intrusion of a common man on things sacredly and

justly covered from sight.

He laboured through it, however, while Meynell sat with bent head,

looking at the floor, making no sign whatever. And at last the speaker

arrived at the incident of the Grenoble visitor.

"I naturally find this a very disagreeable task," he said, pausing a

moment. He got, however, no help from Meynell, who was dumb; and he

presently resumed--"Judith Sabin saw the gentleman who came distinctly.

She felt perfectly certain in her own mind as to his relation to Miss

Puttenham and the child; and she was certain also, when she saw you and

Miss Puttenham standing in the road, while I was with her that--"

Meynell looked up, slightly frowning, awaiting the conclusion of the

sentence--

--"that she saw--the same man again!"

Barron's naturally ruddy colour had faded a little; his eyes blinked. He

drew his coat forward over his knee, and put it back again nervously.

Meynell's face was at first blank, or bewildered. Then a light of

understanding shot through it. He fell back in his chair with an odd

smile.

"So _that_--is what you have in your mind?"

Barron coughed a little. He was angrily conscious of an anxiety and

misgiving he had not expected. He made all the greater effort to recover

what seemed to him the proper tone.

"It is all most sad--most lamentable. But I had, you perceive, the

positive statement of a woman who should have known the facts first-hand,

if any one did. Owing to her physical state, it was impossible to

cross-examine her, and her sudden death made it impossible to refer her

to you. I had to consider what I should do--"

"Why should you have done anything--" said Meynell dryly, raising his

eyes--"but forget as quickly as possible a story you had no means of

verifying, and which bore its absurdity on the face of it?"

Barron allowed himself a slight and melancholy smile.

"I admit of course--at once--that I could not verify it. As to its _prima

facie_ absurdity, I desire to say nothing offensive to you, but there

have been many curious circumstances connected with your relation to

the Fox-Wilton family which have given rise before now to gossip in this

neighbourhood. I could not but perceive that the story told me threw

light upon them. The remarkable language of Sir Ralph's will, the

position of Miss Hester in the Fox-Wilton family, your relation to

her--and to--to Miss Puttenham."

Meynell's composure became a matter of some difficulty, but he maintained

it.

"What was there abnormal--or suspicious--in any of these circumstances?"

he asked, his eyes fixed intently on his visitor.

"I see no purpose to be gained by going into them on this occasion," said

Barron, with all the dignity he could bring to bear. "For the unfortunate

thing is--the thing which obliged me whether I would or no--and you will

see from the dates that I have hesitated a long time--to bring Judith

Sabin's statement to your notice--is that she seems to have talked to

some one else in the neighbourhood before she died, besides myself. Her

son declares that she saw no one. I have questioned him; of course

without revealing my object. But she must have done so. And whoever it

was has begun to write anonymous letters--repeating the story--in full

detail--_with_ the identification--that I have just given you."

"Anonymous letters?" repeated Meynell, raising himself sharply. "To

whom?"

"Dawes, the colliery manager, received the first."

"To whom did he communicate it?"

"To myself--and by his wish, and in the spirit of entire friendliness to

you, I consulted your friend and supporter, Mr. Flaxman."

Meynell raised his eyebrows.

"Flaxman? You thought yourself justified?"

"It was surely better to take so difficult a matter to a friend of yours,

rather than to an enemy."

Meynell smiled--but not agreeably.

"Any one else?"

"I have heard this morning on my way here that Miss Nairn has received a

copy."

"Miss Nairn? That means the village."

"She is a gossipping woman," said Barron.

Meynell pondered. He got up and began to pace the room--coming presently

to an abrupt pause in front of his visitor.

"This story then is now all over the village--will soon be all over the

diocese. Now--what was your object in yourself bringing it to me?"

"I thought it right to inform you--to give you warning--perhaps also to

suggest to you that a retreat from your present position--"

"I see--you thought it a means of bringing pressure to bear upon me?--you

propose, in short, that I should throw up the sponge, and resign my

living?"

"Unless, of course, you can vindicate yourself publicly."

Barron to his annoyance could not keep his hand which held a glove from

shaking a little. The wrestle between their personalities was rapidly

growing in intensity.

"Unless I bring an action, you mean--against any one spreading the story?

No--I shall not bring an action--I shall _not_ bring an action!" Meynell

repeated, with emphasis.

"In that case--I suggest--it might be better to meet the wishes of your

Bishop, and so avoid further publicity."

"By resigning my living?"

"Precisely. The scandal would then drop of itself. For Miss Puttenham's

sake alone you must, I think, desire to stop its development."

Meynell flushed hotly. He took another turn up the room--while Barron sat

silent, looking straight before him.

"I shall not take action"--Meynell resumed--"and I shall not dream of

retreating from my position here. Judith Sabin's story is untrue. She did

not see me at Grenoble and I am not the father of Hester Fox-Wilton. As

to anything else, I am not at liberty to discuss other people's affairs,

and I shall not answer any questions whatever on the subject."

The two men surveyed each other.

"Your Bishop could surely demand your confidence," said Barron coldly.

"If he does, it will be for me to consider."

A silence. Barron looked round for his stick. Meynell stood motionless,

his hands in his baggy pockets, his eyes on Barron. Lightings of thought

and will seemed to pass through his face. As Barron rose, he began to

speak.

"I have no doubt you think yourself justified in taking the line

you clearly do take in this matter. I can hardly imagine that you

really believe the story you say you got from Judith Sabin--which you

took to Flaxman--and have, I suppose, discussed with Dawes. I am

convinced--forgive me if I speak plainly--that you cannot and do not

believe anything so preposterous--or at any rate you would not believe it

in other circumstances. As it is, you take it up as a weapon. You think,

no doubt, that everything is fair in controversy as in war. Of course the

thing has been done again and again. If you cannot defeat a man in fair

fight, the next best thing is to blacken his character. We see that

everywhere--in politics--in the church--in private life. This story _may_

serve you; I don't think it will ultimately, but it may serve you for a

time. All I can say is, I would rather be the man to suffer from it than

the man to gain from it!"

Barron took up his hat. "I cannot be surprised that you receive me in

this manner," he said, with all the steadiness he could muster. "But as

you cannot deal with this very serious report in the ordinary way, either

by process of law, or by frank explanation to your friends--"

"My 'friends'!" interjected Meynell.

"--Let me urge you at least to explain matters to your diocesan. You

cannot distrust either the Bishop's discretion, or his good will. If he

were satisfied, we no doubt should be the same."

Meynell shook his head.

"Not if I know anything of the _odium theologicum!_ Besides, the Miss

Nairns of this world pay small attention to bishops. By the way--I forgot

to ask--you can tell me nothing on the subject of the writer of the

anonymous letters?--you have not identified him?"

"Not in the least. We are all at sea."

"You don't happen to have one about you?"

Barron hesitated and fumbled, and at last produced from his breast-pocket

the letter to Dawes, which he had again borrowed from its owner that

morning. Meynell put it into a drawer of his writing-table without

looking at it.

The two men moved toward the door.

"As to any appeal to you on behalf of a delicate and helpless

lady--" said Meynell, betraying emotion for the first time--"that I

suppose is useless. But when one remembers her deeds of kindness in this

village, her quiet and irreproachable life amongst us all these years,

one would have thought that any one bearing the Christian name would have

come to me as the Rector of this village on one errand only--to consult

how best to protect her from the spread of a cruel and preposterous

story! You--I gather--propose to make use of it in the interests of your

own Church party."

Barron straightened himself, resenting at once what seemed to him the

intrusion of the pastoral note.

"I am heartily sorry for her"--he said coldly. "Naturally it is the women

who suffer in these things. But of course you are right--though you put

the matter from your own point of view--in assuming that I regard this as

no ordinary scandal. I am not at liberty to treat it as such. The honour

concerned--is the honour of the Church. To show the intimate connection

of creed and life may be a painful--it is also an imperative duty!"

He threw back his head with a passion which, as Meynell clearly

recognized, was not without its touch of dignity.

Meynell stepped back.

"We have talked enough, I think. You will of course take the course that

seems to you best, and I shall take mine. I bid you good day."

* * * * *

From the study window Meynell watched the disappearing figure of his

adversary. The day was wet, and the funereal garden outside was dank with

rain. The half-dead trees had shed such leaves as they had been able to

put forth, and behind them was a ragged sky of scudding cloud.

In Meynell's soul there was a dull sense of catastrophe. In Barron's

presence he had borne himself as a wronged man should; but he knew very

well that a sinister thing had happened, and that for him, perhaps,

to-morrow might never be as yesterday.

What was passing in the village at that moment? His quick visualizing

power showed him the groups in the various bar parlours, discussing the

Scandal, dividing it up into succulent morsels, serving it up with every

variety of personal comment, idle or malicious; amplyfying, exaggerating,

completing. He saw the neat and plausible spinster from whose cruel hands

he had rescued a little dumb, wild-eyed child, reduced by ill-treatment

to skin and bone--he saw her gloating over the anonymous letter, putting

two and two maliciously together, whispering here, denouncing there. He

seemed to be actually present in the most disreputable public-house of

the village, a house he had all but succeeded in closing at the preceding

licensing sessions. How natural, human, inevitable, would be the coarse,

venomous talk--the inferences--the gibes!

There would be good men and true of course, his personal friends in the

village, the members of his Parish Council, who would suffer, and stand

firm. The postponed meeting of the Council, for the acceptance of the new

Liturgy, was to be held the day after his return from Paris. To them he

would speak--so far as he could; yes, to them he would speak! Then his

thought spread to the diocese. Charges of this kind spread with

extraordinary rapidity. Whoever was writing the anonymous letters had

probably not confined himself to two or three. Meynell prepared himself

for the discovery of the much wider diffusion.

He moved back to his writing-table, and took the letter from the drawer.

Its ingenuity, its knowledge of local circumstance, astonished him as he

read. He had expected something of a vulgarer and rougher type. The

handwriting was clearly disguised, and there was a certain amount of

intermittent bad spelling, which might very easily be a disguise also.

But whoever wrote it was acquainted with the Fox-Wilton family, with

their habits and his own, as well as with the terms of Sir Ralph's will,

so far as--mainly he believed through the careless talk of the elder

Fox-Wilton girls--it had become a source of gossip in the village. The

writer of it could not be far away. Was it a man or a woman? Meynell

examined the handwriting carefully. He had a vague impression that he had

seen something like it before, but could not remember where or in what

connection.

He put it back in his drawer, and as he did so his eyes fell upon his

half-written article for the _Modernist _and on the piles of

correspondence beside it. A sense of bitter helplessness overcame him, a

pang not for himself so much as for his cause. He realized the inevitable

effect of the story in the diocese, weighted, as it would be, with all

the colourable and suspicious circumstances that could undoubtedly be

adduced in support of it; its effect also beyond the diocese, through

the Movement of which he was the life and guiding spirit; through

England--where his name was rapidly becoming a battle-cry.

And what could he do to meet it? Almost nothing! The story indeed as a

whole could be sharply and categorically denied, because it involved a

fundamental falsehood. He was not the father of Hester Fox-Wilton.

But simple denial was all that was open to him. He could neither explain,

nor could he challenge inquiry. His mouth was shut. He had made no formal

vow of secrecy to any one. He was free to confide in whom he would. But

all that was tender, pitiful, chivalrous in his soul stood up and

promised for him, as he stood looking out into the October rain, that for

no personal--yes!--and for no public advantage--would he trifle with what

he had regarded for eighteen years as a trust, laid upon him by the dying

words of a man he had loved, and enforced more and more sharply with time

by the constant appeal of a woman's life--its dumb pain, the paradox of

its frail strength, its shrinking courage. That life had depended upon

him during the worst crisis of its fate as its spiritual guide. He had

toward Alice Puttenham the feeling of the "director," as the saints have

understood it; and toward her story something of the responsibility of a

priest toward a confession. To reveal it in his own interest was simply

impossible. If the Movement rejected him--it must reject him.

"Not so will I fight for thee, my God!--not so!" he said to himself in

great anguish of mind.

It was true indeed that at some future time Alice Puttenham's poor secret

must be told--to a specified person, with her consent, and by the express

direction of that honest, blundering man, her brother-in-law, whose life,

sorely against his will, had been burdened with it. But the

indiscriminate admission of the truth, after the lapse of years, would,

he believed, simply bring back the old despair, and paralyze what had

always been a frail vitality. And as to Hester, the sudden divulgence of

it might easily upset the unstable balance in her of mind and nerve and

drive her at once into some madness. He _must_ protect them, if he could.

Could he? He pondered it.

At any moment one of these letters might reach Alice. What if this had

already happened? Supposing it had, he might not be able to prevent her

from doing what would place the part played toward her by himself in its

true light. She would probably insist upon his taking legal action, and

allowing her to make her statement in court.

The thought of this was so odious to him that he promptly put it from

him. He should assume that she knew nothing; though as a practical man he

was well aware that she could not long remain ignorant; certainly not if

she continued to live in Upcote. Then, it was a question probably of days

or hours. Her presence in the cottage, when once the village was in full

possession of the slander, would be a perpetual provocation. One way or

another the truth must penetrate to her.

An idea occurred to him. Paris! So far he had insisted on going himself

with Hester to Paris because of his haunting feeling of responsibility

toward the girl, and his resolve to see with his own eyes the household

in which he was placing her. But suppose he made excuses? The burden of

work upon him was excuse enough for any man. Suppose he sent Alice in his

stead, and so contrived as to keep her in or near Paris for a while? Then

Edith Fox-Wilton would of course have the forwarding of her sister's

correspondence, and might, it seemed to him, take the responsibility of

intercepting whatever might inform or alarm her.

Not much prospect of doing so indefinitely!--that he plainly saw. But to

gain time was an immense thing; to prevent her from taking at once

Quixotic steps. He knew that in health she had never been the same since

the episode of Judith's return and death. She seemed suddenly to have

faded and drooped, as though poisoned by some constant terror.

He stood lost in thought a little longer by his writing-table. Then his

hand felt slowly for a parcel in brown paper that lay there.

He drew it toward him and undid the wrappings. Inside it was a little

volume of recent poems of which he had spoken to Mary Elsmere on their

moonlit walk through the park. He had promised to lend her his copy, and

he meant to have left it at the cottage that afternoon. Now he

lingeringly removed the brown paper, and walking to the bookcase, he

replaced the volume.

He sat down to write to Alice Puttenham, and to scribble a note to Lady

Fox-Wilton asking her to see him as soon as possible. Then Anne forced

some luncheon on him, and he had barely finished it when a step outside

made itself heard. He looked up and saw Hugh Flaxman.

"Come in!" said the Rector, opening the front door himself. "You are very

welcome."

Flaxman grasped--and pressed--the proffered hand, looking at Meynell the

while with hesitating interrogation. He guessed from the Rector's face

that the errand on which he came had been anticipated.

Meynell led him into the study and shut the door.

"I have just had Barron here," he said, turning abruptly, after he had

pushed a chair toward his guest. "He told me he had shown one of these

precious documents to you." He held up the anonymous letter.

Flaxman took it, glanced it over in silence and returned it.

"I can only forgive him for doing it when I reflect that I may

thereby--perhaps--be enabled to be of some little use to you. Barron

knows what I think of him, and of the business."

"Oh! for him it is a weapon--like any other. Though to do him justice

he might not have used it, but for the other mysterious person in the

case--the writer of these letters. You know--" he straightened himself

vehemently--"that I can say nothing--except that the story is untrue?"

"And of course I shall ask you nothing. I have spent twenty-four hours in

arguing with myself as to whether I should come to you at all. Finally I

decided you might blame me if I did not. You may not be aware of the

letter to my sister-in-law?"

Meynell's start was evident.

"To Mrs. Elsmere?"

"She brought it to us on Friday, before the party. It was, I think,

identical with this letter"--he pointed to the Dawes envelope--"except

for a few references to the part Mrs. Elsmere had played in helping the

families of those poor fellows who were killed in the cage-accident."

"And Miss Elsmere?" said Meynell in a tone that wavered in spite of

himself. He sat with his head bent and his eyes on the floor.

"Knows, of course, nothing whatever about it," said Flaxman hastily. "Now

will you give us your orders? A strong denial of the truth of the story,

and a refusal to discuss it at all--with any one--that I think is what

you wish?"

Meynell assented.

"In the village, I shall deal with it at the Reform meeting on Thursday

night." Then he rose. "Are you going to Forkéd Pond?"

"I was on my way there."

"I will go with you. If Mrs. Elsmere is free, I should like to have some

conversation with her."

They started together through a dripping world on which the skies had but

just ceased to rain. On his way through the park Meynell took off his hat

and walked bareheaded through the mist, evidently feeling it a physical

relief to let the chill, moist air beat freely on brow and temples.

Flaxman could not help watching him occasionally--the forehead with its

deep vertical furrow, the rugged face, stamped and lined everywhere by

travail of mind and body, and the nobility of the large grizzled head. In

the voluminous cloak--of an antiquity against which Anne protested in

vain--which was his favourite garb on wet days, he might have been a

friar of the early time, bound on a preaching tour. The spiritual,

evangelic note in the personality became--so Flaxman thought--ever more

conspicuous. And yet he walked to-day in very evident trouble, without,

however, allowing to this trouble any spoken expression whatever.

As they neared the Forkéd Pond enclosure, Meynell suddenly paused.

"I had forgotten--I must go first to Sandford--where indeed I am

expected."

"Sandford? I trust there is no fresh anxiety?"

"There _is_ anxiety," said Meynell briefly.

Flaxman expressed an unfeigned sympathy.

"What is Miss Hester doing to-day?"

"Packing, I hope. She goes to-morrow."

"And you--are going to interview this fellow?" asked Flaxman reluctantly.

"I have done it already--and must now do it again. This time I am going

to threaten."

"With anything to go upon?"

"Yes. I hope at last to be able to get some grip on him; though no doubt

my chances are not improved since yesterday," said Meynell, with a grim

shadow of a smile, "supposing that anybody from Upcote has been

gossipping at Sandford. It does not exactly add to one's moral influence

to be regarded as a Pharisaical humbug."

"I wish I could take the business off your shoulders!" said Flaxman,

heartily.

Meynell gave him a slight, grateful look. They walked on briskly to the

high road, Flaxman accompanying his friend so far. There they parted, and

Hugh returned slowly to the cottage by the water, Meynell promising to

join him there within an hour.

BOOK III

CATHARINE

"Such was my mother's way, learnt from Thee in the school of the heart,

where Thou art Master."

CHAPTER XVI

In the little drawing-room at Forkéd Pond Catharine and Mary Elsmere were

sitting at work. Mary was embroidering a curtain in a flowing Venetian

pattern--with a handful of withered leaves lying beside her to which she

occasionally matched her silks. Catharine was knitting. Outside the rain

was howling through the trees; the windows streamed with it. But within,

the bright wood-fire threw a pleasant glow over the simple room, and the

figures of the two ladies. Mary's trim jacket and skirt of prune-coloured

serge, with its white blouse fitting daintily to throat and wrist, seemed

by its neatness to emphasize the rebellious masses and the fare colour of

her hair. She knew that her hair was beautiful, and it gave her a

pleasure she could not help, though she belonged to that type of

Englishwoman, not yet nearly so uncommon as modern newspapers and books

would have us believe, who think as little as they can of personal

adornment and their own appearance, in the interests of some hidden ideal

that "haunts them like a passion; of which even the most innocent vanity

seems to make them unworthy."

In these feelings and instincts she was, of course, her mother's

daughter. Catharine Elsmere's black dress of some plain woollen stuff

could not have been plainer, and she wore the straight collar and cuffs,

and--on her nearly white hair--the simple cap of her widowhood. But the

spiritual beauty which had always been hers was hers still. One might

guess that she, too, knew it; that in her efforts to save persons in sin

or suffering she must have known what it was worth to her; what the gift

of lovely line and presence is worth to any human being. But if she had

been made to feel this--passingly, involuntarily--she had certainly

shrunk from feeling it.

Mary put her embroidery away, made up the fire, and sat down on a stool

at her mother's feet.

"Darling, how many socks have you knitted since we came here? Enough to

stock a shop?"

"On the contrary. I have been very idle," laughed Catharine, putting her

knitting away. "How long is it? Four months?" she sighed.

"It _has_ done you good?--yes, it has!" Mary looked at her closely.

"Then why don't you let me go back to my work?--tyrant!" said Catharine,

stroking the red-gold hair.

"Because the doctor said 'March'--and you sha'n't be allowed to put your

feet in London a day earlier," said Mary, laying her head on Catharine's

knee. "You needn't grumble. Next week you'll have your fells and your

becks--as much Westmoreland as ever you want. Only ten days more here,"

and this time it was Mary who sighed, deeply, unconsciously.

The face above her changed--unseen by Mary.

"You've liked being here?"

"Yes--very much."

"It's a dear little house, and the woods are beautiful."

"Yes. And--I've made a new friend."

"You like Miss Puttenham so much?"

"More than anybody I have seen for years," said Mary, raising herself and

speaking with energy; "but, oh dear, I wish I could do something for

her!"

Catharine moved uneasily.

"Do what?"

"Comfort her--help her--make her tell me what's the matter."

"You think she's unhappy?"

Mary propped her chin on her hand, and looked into the fire.

"I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a week's--a

day's--happiness--in her life?"

[Illustration: "'I wonder whether she's ever had any real joy--a

week's--a day's--happiness--in her life?'"]

She said it musingly but intensely. Catharine did not know how to answer

her. All the day long, and a good deal of the night, she had been

debating with herself what to do--toward Mary. Mary was no longer a

child. She was a woman, of nearly six and twenty, strong in character,

and accustomed of late to go with her mother into many of the dark places

of London life. The betrayal--which could not be hidden from her--of a

young servant girl in their employ, the year before, and the fierce

tenderness with which Mary had thrown herself into the saving of the girl

and her child, had brought about--Catharine knew it--a great deepening

and overshadowing of her youth. Catharine had in some ways regretted it

bitterly; for she belonged to that older generation which believed--and

were amply justified in believing--that it is well for the young to be

ignorant, so long as they can be ignorant, of the ugly and tragic things

of sex. It was not that her Mary seemed to her in the smallest degree

besmirched by the experience she had passed through; that any bloom had

been shaken from the flower. Far from it. It was rather that some touch

of careless joy was gone forever from her child's life; and how that

may hurt a mother, only those know who have wept in secret hours over the

first ebbing of youth in a young face.

So that she received Mary's outburst in silence. For she said to herself

that she could have no right to reveal Alice Puttenham's secret, even to

Mary. That cruel tongues should at that moment be making free with it

burnt like a constant smart in Catharine's mind. Was the poor thing

herself aware of it?--could it be kept from her? If not, Mary must

know--would know--sooner or later. "But for me to tell her without

permission"--thought Catharine firmly--"would not be right--or just.

Besides, I know nothing--directly."

As to the other and profounder difficulty involved, Catharine wavered

perpetually between two different poles of feeling. The incidents of the

preceding weeks had made it plain that her resistance to Meynell's

influence with Mary had strangely and suddenly broken down. Owing to an

experience of which she had not yet spoken to Mary, her inner will had

given way. She saw with painful clearness what was coming; she was blind

to none of the signs of advancing love; and she felt herself powerless.

An intimation had been given her--so it seemed to her--to which she

submitted. Her submission had cost her tears often, at night, when

there was no one to see. And yet it had brought her also a strange

happiness--like all such yieldings of soul.

But if she had yielded, if there was in her a reluctant practical

certainty that Mary would some day be Meynell's wife, then her

conscience, which was that of a woman who had passionately loved her

husband, began to ask: "Ought she not to be standing by him in this

trouble? If we keep it all from her, and he suffers and perhaps breaks

down, when she might have sustained him, will she not reproach us? Should

I not have bitterly reproached any one who had kept me from helping

Robert in such a case?"

A state of mind, it will be seen, into which there entered not a trace of

ordinary calculations. It did not occur to her that Mary might be injured

in the world's eyes by publicly linking herself with a man under a cloud.

Catharine, whose temptation to "scruple" in the religious sense was

constant and tormenting, who recoiled in horror from what to others were

the merest venial offences, in this connection asked one thing only.

Where Barron had argued that an unbeliever must necessarily have a carnal

mind, Catharine had simply assured herself at once by an unfailing

instinct that the mind was noble and the temper pure. In those matters

she was not to be deceived; she knew.

That being so, and if her own passionate objections to the marriage were

to be put aside, then she could only judge for Mary as she would judge

for herself. _Not_ to love--_not_ to comfort--could there be--for

Love--any greater wound, any greater privation? She shrank, in a kind of

terror, from inflicting it on Mary--Mary, unconscious and unknowing.

... The soft chatter of the fire, the plashing of the rain, filled the

room with the atmosphere of reverie. Catharine's thoughts passed from her

obligations toward Mary to grapple anxiously with those she might be

under toward Meynell himself. The mere possession of the anonymous

letter--and Flaxman had not given her leave to destroy it--weighed upon

her conscience. It seemed to her she ought not to possess it; and she had

been only half convinced by Flaxman's arguments for delay. She was

rapidly coming to the belief that it should have been handed instantly to

the Rector.

A step outside.

"Uncle Hugh!" said Mary, springing up. "I'll go and see if there are any

scones for tea!" And she vanished into the kitchen, while Catharine

admitted her brother-in-law.

"Meynell is to join me here in an hour or so," he said, as he followed

her into the little sitting-room. Catharine closed the door, and looked

at him anxiously. He lowered his voice.

"Barron called on him this morning--had only just gone when I arrived.

Meynell has seen the letter to Dawes. I informed him of the letter to

you, and I think he would like to have some talk with you."

Catharine's face showed her relief.

"Oh, I am glad--I am _glad_ he knows!"--she said, with emphasis. "We were

wrong to delay."

"He told me nothing--and I asked nothing. But, of course, what the

situation implies is unfortunately clear enough!--no need to talk of it.

He won't and he can't vindicate himself, except by a simple denial. At

any ordinary time that would be enough. But now--with all the hot feeling

there is on the other subject--and the natural desire to discredit

him--" Flaxman shrugged his shoulders despondently. "Rose's maid--you

know the dear old thing she is--came to her last night, in utter distress

about the talk in the village. There was a journalist here, a reporter

from one of the papers that have been opposing Meynell most actively--"

"They are quite right to oppose him," interrupted Catharine quickly. Her

face had stiffened.

"Perfectly! But you see the temptation?"

Catharine admitted it. She stood by the window looking out into the rain.

And as she did so she became aware of a figure--the slight figure of a

woman--walking fast toward the cottage along the narrow grass causeway

that ran between the two ponds. On either side of the woman the autumn

trees swayed and bent under the rising storm, and every now and then a

mist of scudding leaves almost effaced her. She seemed to be breathlessly

struggling with the wind as she sped onward, and in her whole aspect

there was an indescribable forlornness and terror.

Catharine peered into the rain....

"Hugh!"--She turned swiftly to her brother-in-law--"There is some one

coming to see me. Will you go?"--she pointed to the garden door on the

farther side of the drawing-room--"and will you take Mary? Go round to

the back. You know the old summer-house at the end of the wood-walk. We

have often sheltered there from rain. Or there's the keeper's cottage a

little farther on. I know Mary wanted to go there this afternoon. Please,

dear Hugh!"

He looked at her in astonishment. Then through the large French window he

too saw the advancing form. In an instant he had disappeared by the

garden door. Catharine went into the hall, opened the door of the kitchen

and beckoned to Mary, who was standing there with their little maid.

"Don't come back just yet, darling!" she said in her ear--"Get your

things on, and go with Uncle Hugh. I want to be alone."

Mary stepped back bewildered, and Catharine shut her in. Then she went

back to the hall, just as a bell rang faintly.

"Is Mrs. Elsmere--"

Then as the visitor saw Catharine herself standing in the open doorway,

she said with broken breath: "Can I come in--can I see you?"

Catharine drew her in.

* * * * *

"Dear Miss Puttenham!--how tired you are--and how wet! Let me take the

cloak off."

And as she drew off the soaked waterproof, Catharine felt the trembling

of the slight frame beneath.

"Come and sit by the fire," she said tenderly.

Alice sank into the chair that was offered her, her eyes fixed on

Catharine. Every feature in the delicate oval face was pinched and drawn.

The struggle with wild weather had drained the lips and the cheeks of

colour, and her brown hair under her serge cap fell limply about her

small ears and neck. She was an image not so much of grief as of some

unendurable distress.

Catharine began to chafe her hands--but Alice stopped her--

"I am not cold--oh no, I'm not cold. Dear Mrs. Elsmere! You must think it

so strange of me to come to you in this way. But I am in trouble--such

great trouble--and I don't know what to do. Then I thought I'd come to

you. You--you always seem to me so kind--you won't despise--or repulse

me--I know you won't!"

Her voice sank to a whisper. Catharine took the two icy hands in her warm

grasp.

"Tell me if there is anything I can do to help you."

"I--I want to tell you. You may be angry--because I've been Mary's

friend--when I'd no right. I'm not what you think. I--I have a

secret--or--I had. And now it's discovered--and I don't know what I shall

do--it's so awful--so awful!"

Her head dropped on the chair behind her--and her eyes closed. Catharine,

kneeling beside her, bent forward and kissed her.

"Won't you tell me?" she said, gently.

Alice was silent a moment. Then she suddenly opened her eyes--and spoke

in a whisper.

"I--I was never married. But Hester Fox-Wilton's--my child!"

The tears came streaming from her eyes. They stood in Catharine's.

"You poor thing!" said Catharine brokenly, and raising one of the cold

hands, she pressed it to her lips.

But Alice suddenly raised herself.

"You knew!"--she said--"You knew!" And her eyes, full of fear, stared

into Catharine's. Then as Catharine did not speak immediately she went on

with growing agitation, "You've heard--what everybody's saying? Oh! I

don't know how I can face it. I often thought it would come--some time.

And ever since that woman--since Judith--came home--it's been a

nightmare. For I felt certain she'd come home because she was angry with

us--and that she'd said something--before she died. Then nothing

happened--and I've tried to think--lately--it was all right. But last

night--"

She paused for self-control. Catharine was alarmed by her state--by its

anguish, its excitement. It required an effort of her whole being before

the sufferer could recover voice and breath, before she hurried on,

holding Catharine's hands, and looking piteously into her face.

"Last night a woman came to see me--an old servant of mine who's nursed

me sometimes--when I've been ill. She loves me--she's good to me. And she

came to tell me what people were saying in the village--how there were

letters going round, about me--and Hester--how everybody knew--and they

were talking in the public-houses. She thought I ought to know--she

cried--and wanted me to deny it. And of course I denied it--I was fierce

to her--but it's true!"

She paused a moment, her pale lips moving soundlessly, unconsciously.

"I--I'll tell you about that presently. But the awful thing was--she said

people were saying--that the Rector--that Mr. Meynell--was Hester's

father--and Judith Sabin had told Mr. Barron so before her death. And

they declared the Bishop would make him resign--and give up his living.

It would be such a scandal, she said--it might even break up the League.

And it would ruin Mr. Meynell, so people thought. Of course there were

many people who were angry--who didn't believe a word--but this woman who

told me was astonished that so many _did_ believe.... So then I thought

all night--what I should do. And this morning I went to Edith, my sister,

and told her. And she went into hysterics, and said she always knew I

should bring disgrace on them in the end--and her life had been a burden

to her for eighteen years--oh! that's what she says to me so often!

But the strange thing was she wanted to make me promise I would say

nothing--not a word. We were to go abroad, and the thing would die away.

And then--"

She withdrew her hands from Catharine, and rising to her feet she

pressed the damp hair back from her face, and began to pace the

room--unconsciously--still talking.

"I asked her what was to happen about Richard--about the Rector. I said

he must bring an action, and I would give evidence--it must all come out.

And then she fell upon me--and said I was an ungrateful wretch. My sin

had spoilt her life--and Ralph's. They had done all they could--and now

the publicity--if I insisted--would disgrace them all--and ruin the

girls' chances of marrying, and I don't know what besides. But if I held

my tongue--we could go away for a time--it would be forgotten, and nobody

out of Upcote need ever hear of it. People would never believe such a

thing of Richard Meynell. Of course he would deny it--and of course his

word would be taken. But to bring out the whole story in a law-court--"

She paused beside Catharine, wringing her hands, gathering up as it were

her whole strength to pour it--slowly, deliberately--into the words that

followed:

"But I--will run no risk of ruining Richard Meynell! As for me--what does

it matter what happens to me! And darling Hester!--we could keep it from

her--we would! She and I could live abroad. And I don't see how it could

disgrace Edith and the girls--people would only say she and Ralph had

been very good to me. But Richard Meynell!--with these trials coming

on--and all the excitement about him--there'll be ever so many who would

be wild to believe it! They won't care how absurd it is--they'll want

to _crush_ him! And he--he'll _never_ say a word for himself--to

explain--never! Because he couldn't without telling all my story. And

that--do you suppose Richard Meynell would ever do _that_?--to any poor

human soul that had trusted him?"

The colour had rushed back into her cheeks; she held herself erect,

transfigured by the emotion that possessed her. Catharine looked at her

in doubt--trouble--amazement. And then, her pure sense divined

something--dimly--of what the full history of this soul had been; and her

heart melted. She put out her hands and drew the speaker down again into

the seat beside her.

"I think you'll have to let him decide that for you. He's a strong

man--and a wise man. He'll judge what's right. And I ought to warn you

that he'll be here probably--very soon. He wanted to see me."

Alice opened her startled eyes.

"About this? To see you? I don't understand."

"I had one of these letters--these wicked letters," said Catharine

reluctantly.

Alice shrank and trembled. "It's terrible!"--her voice was scarcely to be

heard. "Who is it hates me so?--or Richard?"

There was silence a moment. And in the pause the stress and tumult of

nature without, the beating of the wind, and the plashing of the rain,

seemed to be rushing headlong through the little room. But neither

Catharine nor Alice was aware of it, except in so far as it played

obscurely on Alice's tortured nerves, fevering and goading them the more.

Catharine's gaze was bent on her companion; her mind was full of projects

of help, which were also prayers; moments in that ceaseless dialogue with

a Greater than itself, which makes the life of the Christian. And it was

as though, by some secret influence, her prayers worked on Alice; for

presently she turned in order that she might look straight into the face

beside her.

"I'd like to tell you"--she said faintly--"oh--I'd like to tell you!"

"Tell me anything you will."

"It was when I was so young--just eighteen--like Hester. Oh! but you

don't know about Neville--no one does now. People seem all to have

forgotten him. But he came into his property here--the Abbey--the old

Abbey--just when I was growing up. I saw him here first--but only once or

twice. Then we met in Scotland. I was staying at a house near his

shooting. And we fell in love. Oh, I knew he was married!--I can never

say that I didn't know, even at the beginning. But his wife was so cruel

to him--he was very, very unhappy. She couldn't understand him--or make

allowances for him--she despised him, and wouldn't live with him. He was

miserable--and so was I. My father and mother were dead! I had to live

with Ralph and Edith; and they always made me feel that I was in their

way. It wasn't their fault!--I _was_ in the way. And then Neville came.

He was so handsome, and so clever--so winning and dear--he could do

everything. I was staying with some old cousins in Rossshire, who used to

ask me now and then. There were no young people in the house. My cousins

were quite kind to me, but I spent a great deal of time alone--and

Neville and I got into a way of meeting--in lonely places--on the moors.

No one found out. He taught me everything I ever knew, almost. He gave me

books--and read to me. He was sorry for me--and at last--he loved me! And

we never looked ahead. Then--in one week--everything happened together. I

had to go home. He talked of going to Sandford, and implored me still to

meet him. And I thought how Ralph and Edith would watch us, and spy upon

us, and I implored him never to go to Sandford when I was at Upcote. We

must meet at other places. And he agreed. Then the day came for me to go

south. I travelled by myself--and he rode twenty miles to a junction

station and joined me. Then we travelled all day together."

Her voice failed her. She pressed her thin hands together under the onset

of memory, and that old conquered anguish which in spite of all the life

that had been lived since still smouldered amid the roots of being.

"I may tell you?" she said at last, with a piteous look. Catharine bent

over her.

"Anything that will help you. Only remember I don't ask or expect you to

say anything."

"I ought"--said Alice miserably--"I ought--because of Mary."

Catharine was silent. She only pressed the hand she held. Alice resumed:

"It was a day that decided all my life. We were so wretched. We thought

we could never meet again--it seemed as though we were both--with every

station we passed--coming nearer to something like death--something worse

than death. Then--before we got to Euston--I couldn't bear it--I--I gave

way. We sent a telegram from Euston to Edith that I was going to stay

with a school friend in Cornwall--and that night we crossed to Paris--"

She covered her face with her hands a moment; then went on more calmly:

"You'll guess all the rest. I was a fortnight with him in Paris. Then I

went home. In a few weeks Edith guessed--and so did Judith Sabin, who was

Edith's maid. Edith made me tell her everything. She and Ralph were

nearly beside themselves. They were very strict in those days; Ralph was

a great Evangelical, and used to speak at the May meetings. All his party

looked up to him so--and consulted him. It was a fearful blow to him. But

Edith thought of what to do--and she made him agree. We went abroad, she

and I--with Judith. It was given out that Edith was delicate, and must

have a year away. We stopped about in little mountain places--and Hester

was born at Grenoble. And then for the last and only time, they let

Neville come to see me--"

Her voice sank. She could only go on in a whisper.

"Three weeks later he was drowned on the Donegal coast. It was called an

accident--but it wasn't. He had hoped and hoped to get his wife to

divorce him--and make amends. And when Mrs. Flood's--his wife's--final

letter came--she was a Catholic and nothing would induce her--he just

took his boat out in a storm, and never came back--"

The story lost itself in a long sobbing sigh that came from the depths of

life. When she spoke again it was with more strength:

"But he had written the night before to Richard--Richard Meynell. You

know he was the Rector's uncle, though he was only seven years older? I

had never seen Richard then. But I had often heard of him from Neville.

Neville had taken a great fancy to him a year or two before, when Richard

was still at college, and Neville was in the Guards. They used to talk of

religion and philosophy. Neville was a great reader always--and they

became great friends. So on his last night he wrote to Richard, telling

him everything, and asking him to be kind to me--and Hester. And

Richard--who had just been appointed to the living here--came out to

the Riviera, and brought me the letter--and the little book that was in

his pocket--when they found him. So you see ..."

She spoke with fluttering colour and voice, as though to find words at

all were a matter of infinite difficulty:

"You see that was how Richard came to take an interest in us--in Hester

and me--how he came to be the friend too of Ralph and Edith. Poor

Ralph!--Ralph was often hard to me, but he meant kindly--he would never

have got through at all but for Richard. If Richard was away for a week,

he used to fret. That was eighteen years ago--and I too should never have

had any peace--any comfort in life again--but for Richard. He found

somebody to live with me abroad for those first years, and then, when I

came back to Upcote, he made Ralph and Edith consent to my living in that

little house by myself--with my chaperon. He would have preferred--indeed

he urged it--that I should go on living abroad. But there was

Hester!--and I knew by that time that none of them had the least bit of

love for her!--she was a burden to them all. I couldn't leave her to

them--I _couldn't!_... Oh! they were terrible, those years!" And again

she caught Catharine's hands and held them tight. "You see, I was so

young--not much over twenty--and nobody suspected anything. Nobody in the

world knew anything--except Judith Sabin, who was in America, and _she_

never knew who Hester's father was--and my own people--and Richard!

Richard taught me how to bear it--oh! not in words--for he never preached

to me--but by his life. I couldn't have lived at all--but for him. And

now you see--you see--how I am paying him back!"

And again, as the rush of emotion came upon her, she threw herself into a

wild pleading, as though the gray-haired woman beside her were thwarting

and opposing her.

"How can I let my story--my wretched story--ruin his life--and all his

work? I can't--I can't! I came to you because you won't look at it as

Edith does. You'll think of what's right--right to others. Last night I

thought one must die of--misery. I suppose people would call it shame. It

seemed to me I heard what they were all saying in the village--how they

were gloating over it--after all these years. It seemed to strip one of

all self-respect--all decency. And to-day I don't care about that! I care

only that Richard shouldn't suffer because of what he did for me--and

because of me. Oh! do help me, do advise me! Your look--your manner--have

often made me want to come and tell you"--her voice was broken now with

stifled sobs--"like a child--a child. Dear Mrs. Elsmere!--what ought I to

do?"

And she raised imploring eyes to the face beside her, so finely worn with

living and with human service.

"You must think first of Hester," said Catharine, with gentle steadiness,

putting her arm round the bent shoulders. "I am sure the Rector would

tell you that. She is your first--your sacredest duty."

Alice Puttenham shivered as though something in Catharine's tender voice

reproached her.

"Oh, I know--my poor Hester! My life has set hers all wrong. Wouldn't

it have been better to face it all from the beginning--to tell the

truth--wouldn't it?" She asked it piteously.

"It might have been. But the other way was chosen; and now to undo

it--publicly--affects not you only, but Hester. It mayn't be possible--it

mayn't be right."

"I must!--I must!" said Alice impetuously, and rising to her feet she

began to pace the room again with wild steps, her hands behind her, her

slender form drawn tensely to its height.

At that moment Catharine became aware of some one standing in the porch

just beyond the drawing-room of the tiny cottage.

"This may be Mr. Meynell." She rose to admit him.

Alice stood expectant. Her outward agitation disappeared. Some murmured

conversation passed between the two persons in the little hall. Then

Catharine came in again, followed by Meynell, who closed the door, and

stood looking sadly at the pale woman confronting him.

"So they haven't spared even you?" he said at last, in a voice bitterly

subdued. "But don't be too unhappy. It wants courage and wisdom on our

part. But it will all pass away."

He quietly pushed a chair toward Alice, and then took off his dripping

cloak, carried it into the passage outside, and returned.

"Don't go, Mrs. Elsmere," he said, as he perceived Catharine's

uncertainty. "Stay and help us, if you will."

Catharine submitted. She took her accustomed seat by the fire; Alice, or

the ghost of Alice, sat opposite to her, in Mary's chair, surrounded by

Mary's embroidery things; and Meynell was between them.

He looked from one to the other, and there was something in his aspect

which restrained Alice's agitation, and answered at once to some high

expectation in Catharine.

"I know, Mrs. Elsmere, that you have received one of the anonymous

letters that are being circulated in this neighbourhood, and I presume

also--from what I see--that Miss Puttenham has given you her confidence.

We must think calmly what is best to do. Now--the first person who must

be in all our minds--is Hester."

He bent forward, looking into Alice's face, without visible emotion;

rather with the air of peremptory common sense which had so often helped

her through the difficulties of her life.

She sat drooping, her head on her hand, making no sign.

"Let us remember these facts," he resumed. "Hester is in a critical state

of life and mind. She imagines herself to be in love with my cousin

Philip Meryon, a worthless man, without an ounce of conscience where

women are concerned, who, in my strong belief, is already married

under the ambiguities of Scotch law, though his wife, if she is his wife,

left him some years ago, detests him, and has never been acknowledged. I

have convinced him at last--this morning--that I mean to bring this home

to him. But that does not dispose of the thing--finally. Hester is in

danger--in danger from herself. She is at war with her family--with the

world. She believes nobody loves her--that she is and always has been a

pariah at home--and with her temperament she is in a mood for desperate

things. Tell her now that she is illegitimate--let your sister Edith go

talking to her about 'disgrace'--and there is no saying what will happen.

She will say--and think--that she has no responsibilities, and may do

what she pleases. There is no saying what she might do. We might have a

tragedy that none of us could prevent."

Alice lifted her head.

"I could go away with her," she said, imploringly. "I could watch over

her day and night. But let me put this thing straight now publicly.

Indeed--indeed, it is time."

"You mean you wish to bring an action? In that case you would have to

return to give evidence."

"Yes--for a short time. But that could be managed. She should never see

the English papers--I could promise that."

"And what is to prevent Philip Meryon telling her? At present he is

entirely ignorant of her parentage. I have convinced myself of that this

morning. He has no dealings with the people here, nor they with him.

What has been happening here has not reached him. And he is really off

to-night. We must, of course, always take the risk of his knowing, and of

his telling her. A libel action would convert that risk into a certainty.

Would it not simply forward whatever designs he may have on her--for I do

not believe for a moment he will abandon them--it will be a duel, rather,

between him and us--would it not actually forward his designs--to tell

her?"

Alice did not reply. She sat wringing her delicate hands in a silent

desperation; while Catharine opposite was lost in the bewilderment of the

situation--the insistence of the woman, the refusal of the man.

"My advice is this"--continued Meynell, still addressing Alice--"that you

should take her to Paris tomorrow in my stead, and should stay near her

for some months. Lady Fox-Wilton--whom I have just seen--she overtook me

driving on the Markborough road half an hour ago, and we had some

conversation--talks of taking a house at Tours for a year--an excellent

thing--for them all. We don't want her on the spot any longer--we don't

want any of them!" said the Rector, dismissing the Fox-Wilton family with

an emphatic gesture which probably represented what he had gone through

in the interview with Edith. ... "In that way the thing will soon die

down. There will be nobody here--nobody within reach--for the scoundrel

who is writing these letters to attack--except, of course, myself--and

I shall know how to deal with it. He will probably tire of the amusement.

Other people will be ashamed of having read the letters and believed

them. I even dare to hope that Mr. Barron--in time--may be ashamed."

Alice looked at him in tremulous despair.

"Nobody to attack!" she said--"nobody to attack! And you,

Richard--_you_?"

A dry smile flickered on his face.

"Leave that to me--I assure you you may leave it to me."

"Richard!" said Alice imploringly--"just think. I know what you say is

very important--very true. But for me personally"--she looked round the

room with wandering eyes; then found a sudden passionate gesture,

pressing back the hair from her brow with both hands--"for me

personally--to tell the truth--to face the truth--would be

relief--infinite relief! It would kill the fear in which I have lived all

these years--kill it forever. It would be better for all of us if we had

told the truth--from the beginning. And as for Hester--she must know--you

say yourself she must know before long--when she is of age--when she

marries--"

Meynell's face took an unconscious hardness.

"Forgive me!--the matter must be left to me. The only person who could

reasonably take legal action would be myself--and I shall not take it. I

beg you, be advised by me." He bent forward again. "My dear friend!"--and

now he spoke with emotion--"in your generous consideration for me you do

not know what you are proposing--what an action in the courts would mean,

especially at this moment. Think of the party spirit that would be

brought into it--the venom--the prejudice--the base insinuations.

No!--believe me--that is out of the question--for your sake--and

Hester's."

"And your work--your influence?"

"If they suffer--they must suffer. But do not imagine that I shall not

defend myself--and you--you above all--from calumny and lies. Of course I

shall--in my own way."

There was silence--a dismal silence. At the end of it Meynell stretched

out his hand to Alice with a smile. She placed her own in it, slowly,

with a look which filled Catharine's eyes once more with tears.

"Trust me!" said Meynell, as he pressed the hand. "Indeed you may." Then

he turned to Catharine Elsmere--

"I think Mrs. Elsmere is with me--that she approves?"

"With one reservation." The words came gravely, after a moment's doubt.

His eyes asked her to be frank.

"I think it would be possible--I think it would be just--if Miss

Puttenham were to empower you to go to your Bishop. He too has rights!"

said Catharine, her clear skin reddening.

Meynell paused: then spoke with hesitation.

"Yes--that I possibly might do--if you permit me?" He turned again to

Alice.

"Go to him--go to him at once!" she said with a sob she could not

repress.

Another silence. Then Meynell walked to the window and looked at the

weather.

"It is not raining so fast," he said in his cheerful voice. "Oughtn't you

to be going home--getting ready and arranging with Hester? It's an awful

business going abroad."

Alice rose silently. Catharine went into the kitchen to fetch the

waterproof which had been drying.

Alice and Meynell were left alone.

She looked up.

"It is so hard to be hated!" she said passionately--"to see you hated. It

seems to burn one's heart--the coarse and horrible things that are being

said--"

He frowned and fidgeted--till the thought within forced its way:

"Christ was hated. Yet directly the least touch of it comes to us, we

rebel--we cry out against God."

"It is because we are so weak--we are not Christ!" She covered her face

with her hands.

"No--but we are his followers--if the Life that was in him is in us too.

'_Life that in me has rest_--_as I_--_Undying Life_--_have power in

Thee_!'" He fell--murmuring--into lines that had evidently been in his

thoughts, smiling upon her.

Then Catharine returned. Alice was warmly wrapped up, and Catharine took

her to the door, leaving Meynell in the sitting-room.

"We will come and help you this evening--Mary and I," she said tenderly,

as they stood together in the little passage.

"Mary?" Alice looked at her in a trembling uncertainty.

"Mary--of course."

Alice thought a moment, and then said with a low intensity, a force to

which Catharine had no clue--"I want you--to tell her--the whole story.

Will you?"

Catharine kissed her cheek in silence, and they parted.

* * * * *

Catharine went slowly back to the little sitting-room. Meynell was

standing abstracted before the fire, his hands clasped in front of him,

his head bent. Catharine approached him--drawing quick breath.

"Mr. Meynell--what shall I do--what do you wish me to do or say--with

regard to my daughter?"

He turned--pale with amazement.

And so began what one may call--perhaps--the most romantic action of a

noble life!

CHAPTER XVII

When Catharine returned to the little sitting-room, in which the darkness

of a rainy October evening was already declaring itself, she came shaken

by many emotions in which only one thing was clear--that the man before

her was a good man in distress, and that her daughter loved him.

If she had been of the true bigot stuff she would have seen in the

threatened scandal a means of freeing Mary from an undesirable

attachment. But just as in her married life, her heart had not been able

to stand against her husband while her mind condemned him, so now. While

in theory, and toward people with whom she never came in contact, she had

grown even more bitter and intransigent since Robert's death than she had

been in her youth, she had all the time been living the daily life of

service and compassion which--unknown to herself--had been the real

saving and determining force. Impulses of love, impulses of sacrifice

toward the miserable, the vile, and the helpless--day by day she had felt

them, day by day she had obeyed them. And thus all the arteries, so to

speak, of the spiritual life had remained soft and pliant--that life

itself in her was still young. It was there in truth that her

Christianity lay; while she imagined it to lie in the assent to certain

historical and dogmatic statements. And so strong was this inward and

vital faith--so strengthened in fact by mere living--that when she was

faced with this second crisis in her life, brought actually to close

grips with it, that faith, against all that might have been expected,

carried her through the difficult place with even greater sureness than

at first. She suffered indeed. It seemed to her all through that she was

endangering Mary, and condoning a betrayal of her Lord. And yet she could

not act upon this belief. She must needs act--with pain often, and yet

with mysterious moments of certainty and joy, on quite another faith, the

faith which has expressed itself in the perennial cry of Christianity:

"Little children, love one another!" And therein lay the difference

between her and Barron.

It was therefore in this mixed--and yet single--mood that she came back

to Meynell, and asked him--quietly--the strange question: "What shall I

do--what do you wish me to do or say--with regard to my daughter?"

Meynell could not for a moment believe that he had heard aright. He

stared at her in bewilderment, at first pale, and then in a sudden heat

and vivacity of colour.

"I--I hardly understand you, Mrs. Elsmere."

They stood facing each other in silence.

"Surely we need not inform her," he said, at last, in a low voice.

"Only that a wicked and untrue story has been circulated--that you

cannot, for good reasons, involving other persons, prosecute those

responsible for it in the usual way. And if she comes across any signs of

it, or its effects, she is to trust your wisdom in dealing with it--and

not to be troubled--is not that what you would like me to say?"

"That is indeed what I should like you to say." He raised his eyes to her

gravely.

"Or--will you say it yourself?"

He started.

"Mrs. Elsmere!"--he spoke with quick emotion--"You are wonderfully good

to me." He scanned her with an unsteady face--then made an agitated step

toward her. "It almost makes me think--you permit me--"

"No--no," said Catharine, hurriedly, drawing back. "But if you would like

to speak to Mary--she will be here directly."

"No!"--he said, after a moment, recovering his composure--"I couldn't!

But--will you?"

"If you wish it." Then she added, "She will of course never ask a

question; it will be her business to know nothing of the matter--in

itself. But she will be able to show you her confidence, and to feel that

we have treated her as a woman--not a child."'

Meynell drew a deep breath. He took Catharine's hand and pressed it. She

felt with a thrill--which was half bitterness--that it was already a

son's look he turned upon her.

"You--you have guessed me?" he said, almost inaudibly.

"I see there is a great friendship between you."

"_Friendship!_" Then he restrained himself sharply. "But I ought not to

speak of it--to intrude myself and my affairs on her notice at all at

this moment...." He looked at his companion almost sternly. "Is it not

clear that I ought not? I meant to have brought her a book to-day. I have

not brought it. I have been even glad--thankful--to think you were going

away, although--" But again he checked the personal note. "The truth is I

could not endure that through me--through anything connected with me--she

might be driven upon facts and sorrows--ugly facts that would distress

her, and sorrows for which she is too young. It seemed to me indeed I

might not be able to help it. But at the same time it was clear to me,

to-day, that at such a time--feeling as I do--I ought not in the smallest

degree to presume upon her--and your--kindness to me. Above all"--his

voice shook--"I could not come forward--I could not speak to her--as at

another time I might have spoken. I could not run the smallest risk--of

her name being coupled with mine--when my character was being seriously

called in question. It would not have been right for her; it would not

have been seemly for myself. So what was there--but silence? And yet I

felt--that through this silence--we should somehow trust each other!"

He paused a moment, looking down upon his companion. Catharine was

sitting by the fire near a small table on which her elbow rested, her

face propped on her hand. There was something in the ascetic refinement,

the grave sweetness of her aspect, that played upon him with a tonic and

consoling force. He remembered the frozen reception she had given him at

their first meeting; and the melting of her heart toward him seemed a

wonderful thing. And then came the delicious thought--"Would she so treat

him, unless Mary--_Mary_!--"

But, at the same time, there was in him the mind of the practical man,

which plainly and energetically disapproved her. And presently he tried,

with much difficulty, to tell her so, to impress upon her--upon her,

Mary's mother--that Mary must not be allowed to hold any communication

with him, to show any kindness toward him, till this cloud had wholly

cleared away, and the sky was clear again. He became almost angry as he

urged this; so excited, indeed, and incoherent that a charming smile

stole into Catharine's gray eyes.

"I understand quite what you feel," she said as she rose, "and why you

feel it. But I am not bound to follow your advice--or to agree with

you--am I?"

"Yes, I think you are," he said stoutly.

Then a shadow fell over her face.

"I suppose I am doing a strange thing"--her manner faltered a

little--"but it seems to me right--I have been _led_--else why was

it so plain?"

She raised her clear eyes, and he understood that she spoke of those

"hints" and "voices" of the soul that play so large a part in the more

mystical Christian experience. She hurried on:

"When two people--two people like you and Mary--feel such a deep

interest in each other--surely it is God's sign." Then, suddenly, the

tears shone. "Oh, Mr. Meynell!--trial brings us nearer to our Saviour.

Perhaps--through it--you and Mary--will find Him!"

He saw that she was trembling from head to foot; and his own emotion was

great.

He took her hand again, and held it in both his own.

"Do you imagine," he said huskily "that you and I are very far apart?"

And again the tenderness of his manner was a son's tenderness.

She shook her head, but she could not speak. She gently withdrew her

hand, and turned aside to gather up some letters on the table.

A sound of footsteps could be heard outside. Catharine moved to the

window.

"It is Mary," she said quietly. "Will you wait a little while I meet

her?" And without giving him time to reply, she left the room.

He walked up and down, not without some humorous bewilderment in spite of

his emotion. The saints, it seemed, are persons of determination! But,

after a minute, he thought of nothing, realized nothing, save that Mary

was in the little house again, and that one of those low voices he could

just hear, as a murmur in the distance, through the thin walls of the

cottage, was hers.

The door opened softly, and she came in. Though she had taken off her

hat, she still wore her blue cloak of Irish frieze, which fell round her

slender figure in long folds. Her face was rosy with rain and wind; the

same wind and rain which had stamped such a gray fatigue on Alice

Puttenham's cheeks. Amid the dusk, the fire-light touched her hair and

her ungloved hand. She was a vision of youth and soft life; and her

composure, her slight, shy smile, would alone have made her beautiful.

Their hands met as she gently greeted him. But there was that in his look

which disturbed her gentleness--which deepened her colour. She hurried to

speak.

"I am so glad that mother made you stay--just that I might tell

you." Then her breath began to hasten. "Mother says you are--or may

be--unjustly attacked--that you don't think it right to defend yourself

publicly--and those who follow you, and admire you, may be hurt and

troubled. I wanted to say--and mother approves--that whoever is hurt and

troubled, I can never be--except for you. Besides, I shall know and ask

nothing. You may be sure of that. And people will not dare to speak to

me."

She stood proudly erect.

Meynell was silent for a moment. Then, by a sudden movement, he stooped

and kissed a fold of her cloak. She drew back with a little stifled cry,

putting out her hands, which he caught. He kissed them both, dropped

them, and walked away from her.

When he returned it was with another aspect.

"Don't let's make too much of this trouble. It may all die away--or it

may be a hard fight. But whatever happens, you are going to Westmoreland

immediately. That is my great comfort."

"Is it?" She laughed unsteadily.

He too smiled. There was intoxication he could not resist--in her

presence--and in what it implied.

"It is the best possible thing that could be done. Then--whatever

happens--I shall not be compromising my friends. For a while--there must

be no communication between them and me."

"Oh, yes!" she said, involuntarily clasping her hands. "Friends may

write."

"May they?" He thought it over, with a furrowed brow, then raised it,

clear. "What shall they write about?"

An exquisite joyousness trembled in her look.

"Leave it to them!"

Then, as she once more perceived the anxiety and despondency in him,

the brightness clouded; pity possessed her: "Tell me what you are

preaching--and writing."

"_If_ I preach--_if_ I write. And what will you tell me?"

"'How the water comes down at Lodore,'" she said gayly. "What the

mountains look like, and how many rainy days there are in a week."

"Excellent! I perceive you mean to libel the country I love!"

"You can always come and see!" she said, with a shy courage.

He shook his head.

"No. My Westmoreland holiday is given up."

"Because of the Movement?"

And sitting down by the fire, still with that same look of suppressed and

tremulous joy, she began to question him about the meetings and

engagements ahead. But he would not be drawn into any talk about them. It

was no doubt quite possible--though not, he thought, probable--that he

might soon be ostracized from them all. But upon this he would not dwell,

and though her understanding of the whole position was far too vague

to warn her from these questions, she soon perceived that he was

unwilling to answer them as usual. Silence indeed fell between them; but

it was a silence of emotion. She had thrown off her cloak, and sat

looking down, in the light of the fire; she knew that he observed her,

and the colour on her cheek was due to something more than the flame at

her feet. As they realized each other's nearness indeed, in the quiet of

the dim room, it was with a magic sense of transformation. Outside the

autumn storm was still beating--symbol of the moral storm which

threatened them. Yet within were trust and passionate gratitude and

tender hope, intertwined, all of them, with the sacred impulse of the

woman toward the man, and of the man toward the woman. Each moment as it

passed built up one of those watersheds of life from which henceforward

the rivers flow broadening to undreamt-of seas.

* * * * *

When Catharine returned, Meynell was hat in hand for departure. There was

no more expression of feeling or reference to grave affairs. They stood a

few moments chatting about ordinary things. Incidentally Hugh Flaxman's

loss of the two gold coins was mentioned. Meynell inquired when they were

first missed.

"That very evening," said Mary. "Rose always puts them away herself. She

missed the two little cases at once. One was a coin of Velia, with a head

of Athene--"

"I remember it perfectly," said Meynell. "It dropped on the floor when I

was talking to Norham--and I picked it up--with another, if I remember

right--a Hermes!"

Mary replied that the Hermes too was missing--that both were exceedingly

rare; and that in the spring a buyer for the Louvre had offered Hugh four

hundred pounds for the two.

"They feel most unhappy and uncomfortable about it. None of the servants

seems to have gone into that room during the party. Rose put all the

coins on the table herself. She remembers saying good-bye to Canon France

and his sister in the drawing-room--and two or three others--and

immediately afterward she went into the green drawing-room to lock up the

coins. There were two missing."

"She doesn't remember who had been in the room?"

"She vaguely remembers seeing two or three people go in and out--the

Bishop!--Canon Dornal!"

They both laughed. Then Meynell's face set sharply. A sudden recollection

shot through his mind. He beheld the figure of a sallow, dark-haired

young man slipping--alone--through the doorway of the green drawing-room.

And this image in the mind touched and fired others, like a spark running

through dead leaves....

* * * * *

When he had gone, Catharine turned to Mary, and Mary, running, wound her

arms close round her mother, and lay her head on Catharine's breast.

"You angel!--you darling!" she said, and raising her mother's hand she

kissed it passionately.

Catharine's eyes filled with tears, and her heart with mingled joy and

revolt. Then, quickly, she asked herself as she stood there in her

child's embrace whether she should speak of a certain event--certain

experience--which had, in truth, though Mary knew nothing of it, vitally

affected both their lives.

But she could not bring herself to speak of it.

So that Mary never knew to what, in truth, she owed the painful breaking

down of an opposition and a hostility which might in time have poisoned

all their relations to each other.

But when Mary had gone away to change her damp clothes, the visionary

experience of which Catharine could not tell came back upon her; and

again she felt the thrill--the touch of bodiless ecstasy.

It had been in the early morning, when all such things befall. For then

the mind is not yet recaptured by life and no longer held by sleep. There

is in it a pure expectancy, open to strange influences: influences from

memory and the under-soul. It visualizes easily, and dream and fact are

one.

In this state Catharine woke on a September morning and felt beside her a

presence that held her breathless. The half-remembered images and

thoughts of sleep pursued her--became what we call "real."

"Robert!" she said, aloud--very low.

And without voice, it seemed to her that some one replied. A dialogue

began into which she threw her soul. Of her body, she was not conscious;

and yet the little room, its white ceiling, its open windows, and the

dancing shadows of the autumn leaves were all present to her. She poured

out the sorrow, the anxiety--about Mary--that pressed so heavy on her

heart, and the tender voice answered, now consoling, now rebuking.

"And we forbade him, because he followed not us ... Forbid him

not--_forbid him not_!"--seemed to go echoing through the quiet air.

The words sank deep into her sense--she heard herself sobbing--and

the unearthly presence came nearer--though still always remote,

intangible--with the same baffling distance between itself and her....

The psychology of it was plain. It was the upthrust into consciousness of

the mingled ideas and passions on which her life was founded, piercing

through the intellectualism of her dogmatic belief. But though she would

have patiently accepted any scientific explanation, she believed in her

heart that Robert had spoken to her, bidding her renounce her repugnance

to Mary's friendship with Meynell--to Mary's love for Meynell.

She came down the morning after with a strange, dull sense of change

and disaster. But the currents of her mind and will had set firmly in a

fresh direction. It was almost mechanically--under a strong sense of

guidance--that she had made her hesitating proposal to Mary to go with

her to the Upcote meeting. Mary's look of utter astonishment had sent new

waves of disturbance and compunction through the mother's mind.

* * * * *

But if these things could not be told--even to Mary--there were other

revelations to make.

When the lamp had been brought in, and the darkness outside shut out,

Catharine laid her hand on Mary's, and told the story of Alice Puttenham.

Mary heard it in silence, growing very pale. Then, with another embrace

of her mother, she went away upstairs, only pausing at the door of the

sitting-room to ask when they should start for the cottage.

Upstairs Mary sat for long in the dark, thinking.... Through her

uncurtained windows she watched the obscure dying away of the storm, the

calming of the trees, and the gradual clearing of the night sky. Between

the upfurling clouds the stars began to show; tumult passed into a great

tranquillity; and a breath of frost began to steal through the woods, and

over the water....

Catharine too passed an hour of reflection--and of yearning over the

unhappy. Naturally, to Mary, her lips had been sealed on that deepest

secret of all, which she had divined for a moment in Alice. She had

clearly perceived what was or had been the weakness of the woman,

together with the loyal unconsciousness and integrity of the man. And

having perceived it, not only pity but the strain in Catharine of plain

simplicity and common sense bade her bury and ignore it henceforward.

It was what Alice's true mind must desire; and it was the only way to

help her. She began however to understand what might be the full meaning

of Alice's last injunction--and her eyes grew wet.

* * * * *

Mother and daughter started about eight o'clock for the cottage. They had

a lantern with them, but they hardly needed it, for through the

tranquillized air a new moon shone palely, and the frost made way.

Catharine walked rejoicing apparently in renewed strength and recovered

powers of exertion. Some mining, crippling influence seemed to have been

removed from her since her dream. And yet, even at this time, she was not

without premonitions--physical premonitions--as to the future--faint

signal-voices that the obscure life of the body can often communicate to

the spirit.

They found the cottage all in light and movement. Servants were flying

about; boxes were in the hall; Hester had come over to spend the night at

the cottage that she and "Aunt Alice" might start by an early train.

Alice came out to meet her visitors in the little hall. Catharine slipped

into the drawing-room. Alice and Mary held each other enwrapped in one of

those moments of life that have no outward expression but dimmed eyes

and fluttering breath.

"Is it all done? Can't I help?" said Mary at last, scarcely knowing what

she said, as Alice released her.

"No, dear, it's all done--except our books. Come up with me while I pack

them."

And they vanished upstairs, hand in hand.

Meanwhile Hester in her most reckless mood was alternately flouting and

caressing Catharine Elsmere. She was not in the least afraid of

Catharine, and it was that perhaps which had originally drawn Catharine's

heart to her. Elsmere's widow was accustomed to feel herself avoided by

young people who discussed a wild literature, and appeared to be without

awe toward God, or reverence toward man. Yet all the time, through her

often bewildered reprobation of them, she hungered for their affection,

and knew that she carried in herself treasures of love to give--though no

doubt, on terms.

But Hester had always divined these treasures, and was, besides, as a

rule, far too arrogant and self-centred to restrain herself in anything

she wished to say or do for fear of hurting or shocking her elders.

At this moment she had declared herself tired out with packing, and

was lounging in an armchair in the little drawing-room. A Japanese

dressing-gown of some pale pink stuff sprayed with almond blossom floated

about her, disclosing a skimpy silk petticoat and a slender foot from

which she had kicked its shoe. Her pearly arms and neck were almost bare;

her hair tumbled on her shoulders; her eyes shone with excitement

provoked by a dozen hidden and conflicting thoughts. In her beauty, her

ardent and provocative youth, she seemed to be bursting out of the little

room, with its artistic restraint of colour and furnishing.

"Don't please do any more fussing," she said imploringly to Catharine.

"It's all done--only Aunt Alice thinks it's never done. Do sit down and

talk."

And she put out an impatient hand, and drew the stately Catharine toward

a chair beside her.

"You ought to be in bed," said Catharine, retaining her hand. The girl's

ignorance of all that others knew affected her strangely--produced a

great softness and compunction.

"I shouldn't sleep. I wonder when I shall get a decent amount of sleep

again!" said Hester, pressing back the hair from her cheeks. Then she

turned sharply on her visitor:

"Of course you know, Mrs. Elsmere, that I am simply being sent away--in

disgrace."

"I know"--Catharine smiled, though her tone was grave--"that those who

love you think there ought to be a change."

"That's a nice way of putting it--a real gentlemanly way," said Hester,

swaying backward and forward, her hands round her knees. "But all the

same it's true. They're sending me away because they don't know what

I'll do next. They think I'll do something abominable."