He replied with a certain air of restraint: "Yes."

"Why?"

"My dearest, I can do better work there than here. I had not meant to

speak about it to you--yet. Lord Vauxhall has paid me a very great

compliment."

"What sort of compliment has he paid me? Did he ask you to keep so

important a matter from your wife?"

"I so understood him."

"And your word is pledged?"

"Yes."

"Has he offered you more than you receive here?"

"We shall be richer by some hundreds a year."

"I am sorry," said Betty, with heightened colour. "Lord Vauxhall is

shrewd. Had you seen fit to consult me, I should have implored you to

remain where you are. Money is no object to you."

"True. But preferment----"

"Preferment! Promotion! That implies service. You have only been here

eighteen months. There will be gossip about this."

"As if I cared for gossip."

"We will say no more about it," said Betty; "but I tell you frankly that

I am hurt!"

She turned and left the room. That he should not have trusted her was

hard to be borne; yet later she made allowances for him. Doubtless,

Lord Vauxhall had insisted upon secrecy. Her husband's sense of honour

had closed his lips. She had been unjust, unkind, a disloyal wife. She

had even insulted him, hinting that an increase of income had lured him

from duty. At this point she bathed her eyes, arranged her hair, and

ran downstairs to beg pardon and entreat forgiveness. Archibald was

magnanimous.

"You have shown the right feeling, dear Betty, which I knew you

possessed. I am acting according to my lights."

Next day the Rector of St. Anne's wired to Mark to come to town; Mark

replied that he had had a bad bout of influenza, in those days a new and

virulent disease. Archibald, nervous about his Lenten sermons but

laughing to scorn the possibility of catching influenza, went down to

Weybridge in the afternoon. He found Mark looking pale and thin, but

otherwise in good spirits, and on the high road to recovery.

"You're a valiant man to visit me. This confounded disease is so

infectious. You laugh? You'll cry if you get it! I've been as weak as

a baby. If it had not been for Honeydew----"

He spoke enthusiastically of all his nurse had done for him. Archibald

nodded absently, turning over in his mind certain possible themes which

he wished Mark to consider.

"Yes, yes," he interrupted. "She did what she could, I make no doubt."

"She's one of the very best," cried Mark. "I say--it was awfully good

of you, old Archie, to run down here. I expect work has piled up."

"It has; it has. I want to speak to you about that." He paused for a

moment, as a smile flickered across Mark's lips. Archibald, Mark was

reflecting, had an axe to grind. He had not left home merely to visit a

brother laid by the heels. Suddenly his feeling which had flamed grew

chill. He listened perfunctorily to some introductory remarks.

"My Lenten sermons are giving me grave anxiety; I find that something

out of the common is expected. If you will bear with me, I'll walk over

the--er--course which I've marked out."

"Cut along!" said Mark.

Archibald winced. Mark had no sense of the fitness of things. He spoke

at times as if he (the Rector of St. Anne's) were a boy in his teens.

Perhaps a word in season might----

"_A propos_," he said, with dignity, "don't you think, my dear fellow,

that it is time for you to put away certain childish--you will pardon

the adjective--certain childish expressions. It's absurd to talk of a

man of my weight--'cutting along'...."

"True! You can stroll if you like, as the placid Pecksniff strolled.

You have put on weight, Archie."

Archibald, indeed, was broader and thicker about the neck and shoulders.

He had lost the look of youth; the hair on the top of his head was

thinner; his eyes were less clear; his fine skin had become redder and

coarser in texture.

"I carry great burdens," he replied. "Perhaps I ought not to ask you to

share them."

Mark responded instantly, touched by this unexpected solicitude: "I'm

all right."

"You might come to us for a week. Betty will nurse you."

"That is impossible. I must finish my book."

"Oh, yes--your book. I am looking forward to reading that. But I wish

you would turn your talents to something more serious than fiction.

I----"

"Shall we talk about your work?"

Archibald smiled, but Mark fidgeted and frowned, as carefully culled

platitudes fell upon his ear. Archibald was indeed strolling placidly

down familiar paths to the great festival of Christendom. The very name

of Easter had always quickened Mark's pulses. Hitherto he had hastened

to the feast, the most joyful of pilgrims. Now he was shut out; or

rather, the door stood wide open, but he dared not pass it. The ban lay

upon him--and upon how many thousands? His imagination flared,

revealing a multitude staring with yearning eyes at tables spread for

others. Archibald, in his silky tones, was enumerating celestial joys.

His words flowed like a pellucid stream.

"What are you smiling at?" he asked abruptly.

"I beg your pardon," Mark replied, "but you remind me of an alderman

reciting to a starving mob the names of the dishes to which he and his

corporation are about to sit down."

Archibald had wit enough to see and feel the point. He saw, too, that

Mark was moved.

"You have an idea. I should like to hear it, although----"

"Although I am without the pale, you would say. Archie, if you would

descend from your pulpit and walk in the shadows with me for a little

while--and if then you could set forth my doubts and perplexities, how

many, think you, of your congregation would not say: 'I, too, have

wandered in those blind alleys.' And having pierced the crust of their

indifference with your sympathy and insight, if then you could transmit

the light which seems to have always blazed on you, this Easter would

indeed be a Day of Resurrection to hundreds who now lie cold and dead."

He paused, gazed keenly at Archibald, and continued: "But you--you

cannot do that. You have not trod the wilderness...." He covered his

face with his hand.

"It is true," said Archibald, in a low voice, "that I do lack an

experience common, I fear, to hundreds of my parishioners. And if I

cannot open their hearts, and you can, lend me your key."

Mark was silent. Then, as before, the sense that he had envied and

hated this once dearly beloved brother made him generous.

"I will write down and send what is in my mind. No--don't thank me!"

He began to talk briskly of other things. Presently Mary came in and

reminded him to take his medicine. Archibald had not seen her before.

Twice during the previous summer Betty and he had come to Weybridge, but

each day had been spent upon the river. Mark went into his bedroom, and

Mary disappeared, to reappear a moment later with a tea-tray. Archibald

was alone with her for a couple of minutes. She arranged the tea-things

with quick, deft fingers, displaying the admirable lines of her figure

as she moved to and fro, now standing upright, now bending down. In the

soft light of the spring afternoon she looked charming, with the

inexpressible freshness of youth and health. Archibald addressed her.

"You are," he was about to say "Mary," but changed it to "Miss Dew."

"Oh, no, I am Mary," she replied, smiling. "Your brother calls me

'Honeydew.'"

"My brother calls you a ministering angel."

His soft voice had that fluid quality which percolates everywhere. He

meant to be polite, nothing more; he wished to thank a pretty girl who

had nursed a brother: but to Mary his words had other significance; his

glance became an indictment, his tone inquisitorial. Without reason,

her cheeks flamed. Archibald turned aside, murmuring a commonplace.

When he looked at her, after a discreet interval, she was composed but

pale. She went out of the room and did not return.

"Um!" said Archibald to himself, "I must speak to Betty about this."

Not, however, till late did he find an opportunity. Harry Kirtling was

dining in Cadogan Place, and loath to say good-night. The young fellow

had crushed a muscle of his leg out hunting, and had come up to London

to see a famous surgeon, who prescribed gentle walking exercise and

massage. Harry complained bitterly of the hardship of spending a

fortnight away from his kennels, but was consoled by Betty, who promised

to entertain him. Despite his injury, he looked astonishingly well, and

brought with him from Cumberland a breezy atmosphere of mountain and

moor which Betty inhaled gratefully. He had managed to make it plain

that he was still her devoted slave--a tribute which the best of women

accept without scruple. And he had asked her advice upon a score of

matters connected with Kirtling.

When Harry had taken his clean, lean body out of her drawing-room, Betty

turned rather impatiently to Archibald.

"Has anything happened? You have been so glum. Surely you do not

resent my asking Harry to dine without consulting you?"

"Harry?" His tone was heavily contemptuous. "Harry can waste as much of

your time as you like to give him. Yes; something has happened."

He told his story.

"I don't believe it."

"The girl is attractive. Her mother, I am told, reckons herself a lady.

Something must be done. I give you my word that I am not mistaken."

"I don't believe it," Betty repeated.

None the less, she did believe it. Here again Archibald's voice

beguiled her understanding. He had acquired that power, invaluable to a

clergyman or a barrister, of making every statement sound as if it were

irrefutable fact.

"I went down to Weybridge to see Mark on important business, and for a

quarter of an hour he sang this girl's praises. It is obvious that he

wished to impress me, to make me see with his eyes."

"What is she like?" Betty asked, shortly.

Archibald described her with a deliberation which annoyed his wife.

"The girl is very comely, my dear; alluring, many men would call her. A

seductive figure--round, but not too plump; the complexion of Hebe."

"That's enough," said Betty.

"I tried to do the girl justice," replied her husband with dignity.

"Personally speaking, her type of beauty does not appeal to me, but as a

man of the world I cannot deny that it may appeal irresistibly to

others!"

"You call yourself a man of the world," said Betty suddenly. "You do

not preach to us as a man of the world. If this girl loves Mark, if he

has made her love him, you ought to be the first to urge him to marry

her. From a pagan point of view such a marriage may seem disastrous,

but from the Christian's----"

She confronted him with heaving bosom and flaming eyes. Her agitation

and excitement amazed him. But he grasped the essential fact that he had

blundered, that it might be difficult to retrieve the blunder. He was

aware that some of his sermons moved his wife to the core, for she had

told him so a score of times. He was also aware, but as yet in less

degree, that as mere man he had aroused without adequately satisfying

her expectations.

"If you choose to misinterpret me----" he began.

"But I don't choose. I ask you, you the preacher and teacher, to make

plain a puzzle which you, not I, have propounded. Let us admit what you

tell me. Heaven knows that Mark has lived a lonely and forlorn life.

Never has he complained to me; but I have guessed, I have felt

that--that--beneath the mask he chooses to wear a devil tears him. That

devil drove him from the Church. Well, we know that misery loves

company. He has talked to me about this girl. She is a plucky

creature, like Mark, inasmuch as she faces adversity with a smile. She

has a selfish, querulous mother to whom she is devoted. Such a girl

would appeal to such a man. And now you tell me that she is attractive.

It is significant that Mark never mentioned that to me. I take back

what I said. I believe you are right. Mark _has_ learned to love this

girl, and she loves him. And what are you going to do about it? And in

what capacity? As a man of the world? Or as a priest of the Most High

God?

"I beg you to compose yourself."

"You can compose me by telling the truth----"

"You dare to imply that----"

"I dare be honest with my husband. I have not been happy for some

weeks, and you must have noticed it. Sometimes, particularly of late, I

look for the man I married, and I find somebody else. Let me finish! I

am too conscious of my own shortcomings not to be aware that between

most husbands and wives lie troubled waters only to be passed by mutual

faith and patience. Why, happiness is faith; and women, I often think,

are on the whole happier than men, because their faith is stronger. A

woman can believe in her child, in her husband, in her God. Well, as

years passed, my faith in God grew dim, and you restored my sight. But

now, somehow, I no longer see so clearly. Is it my fault or yours? I

listen to your sermons, and then I come back to this luxurious house,

and somebody tells me that you are _persona grata_ at Windsor--that you

are sure to be made a bishop, as if preferment were salvation; and----"

"My dear!" said Archibald, "it is late, and I have half a dozen letters

to write. You have been talking in an unrestrained manner. You are not

yourself."

He left the room, erect, impassive, master of himself, but not of her.

She gazed defiantly after him, clenching her slender fingers. Intuition

told her that this man was trying to serve God and Mammon, but when he

came to bed an hour later, she owned herself humbly in the wrong. Again

Archibald was magnanimous, assuring his dearest Betty that already he

had forgiven and forgotten her offence. The "forgotten" sounded

patronising. As if he, with his memory, could forget! She lay awake,

perplexed and dismayed, for she knew that Mark was still so dear to her

that the thought of his caring for any other woman was insupportable.

*CHAPTER XXXI*

*BETTY SEES DANGER SIGNALS*

Second thoughts constrained Archibald not to interfere with Mark. He

told himself that he had been alarmed unnecessarily. Mark was in no

position to marry a penniless girl; the infatuation--if infatuation had

been aroused--would subside, the more quickly, doubtless, if

undisturbed. Moreover, he was too busy to give affairs other than his

own more than a passing thought. Four days after the visit to Weybridge

he received from Mark a huge envelope filled with rough notes and

suggestions for a course of Lenten sermons. With these (and

supplementary to them) were a score of sheets of foolscap setting forth

the phases of modern unbelief, or want of belief. Archibald read this

record with a keen appreciation of its dramatic value, but--it would be

unfair to suppress the fact--touched to issues higher than those

involved in rhetoric. His extraordinary "flair" had not been at fault.

Mark had given him more than ideas: insight into a human heart. And

whatever he saw Archibald could describe with emphasis and effect. At

once the plan and purpose of his sermons were made clear. He would take

infidelity as his theme, and treat it synthetically, putting together

all forms of unbelief, and exhibiting them as the root from which evil

sprang and flourished. Faithlessness was the common denominator of

suffering and sin. He remembered what Betty had said about happiness in

women being dependent on faith, and told her that wittingly or

unwittingly she had hit a truth. But if he expected her to hit another,

he was disappointed. She said quietly that she had drawn a bow at a

venture.

About this time she paid a visit to Weybridge, Mark still pleading work

as an excuse for not coming to Cadogan Place. Archibald awaited her

report with awakened interest. Betty told her husband that Mark was

certainly madly in love--with his heroine.

"And he tells me," she concluded triumphantly, "that Mary, who seems a

nice modest girl, is going to marry a Mr. Batley. When _The Songs of

the Angels_ is sent off to his publisher, he will come to us."

About mid-Lent the novel was despatched to town. After a few days a

letter came from McIntyre, accepting the MS. and offering better terms

than Mark had expected--fifty pounds upon the day of publication and a

royalty upon a sliding scale. An American publisher, Cyrus Otway, who

had large dealings with McIntyre's house, happened to be in England. He

offered Mark similar terms for the American rights. Mark was jubilant,

but McIntyre predicted limited sales.

"It will be well received," he said. "My readers have no doubt on that

point, but we do not expect it to be popular. You have an admirable

style, but your subject--eh?--is sublimated: over the heads of many.

And the story is sad. The public likes a happy ending. Other things

being equal, the story with the happy ending sells four to one at least.

Mr. Cyrus Otway would like to meet you." Mark lunched with Cyrus Otway,

and was entertained handsomely.

"I'll be frank with you, Mr. Samphire," said the Boston publisher, a

thin, pale, carefully dressed man, with a typical New England manner as

prim and precise as a spinster's, and very bright, restless eyes. "This

is an experiment on our part--a leap in the dark. Our people, sir, know

a good thing when they see it. But the difficulty lies in making them

see it. Have you done any dramatic work? You have not. Ah, there's a

goldfield! And, if I may be allowed to say so, I think that you would

strike rich ore there. You have dramatic power and a re--markable

insight into character...."

Mark repeated this conversation to Betty. He was staying at Cadogan

Place and in high spirits. The drudgery of hack-writing no longer

impended. Already he was in a position to do the work he liked best

where and when and how he pleased.

"A hundred pounds is not much," said Betty doubtfully.

"It will last me a year," said Mark.

Meantime, Archibald's Lenten sermons were filling St. Anne's every

Sunday and exciting widespread comment. Mark had seen and revised the

first three before he left Weybridge. The others were prepared and

written out under Mark's eye in the comfortable library at Cadogan

Place. The Rector of St. Anne's made no scruple of accepting what help

his brother could give him. Mark honoured all cheques, reflecting that

this was a labour of love, which made for his happiness as well as

Betty's. It never struck him that he was compounding a moral felony.

Such knowledge came later; but, at the moment, had any person--Lady

Randolph, for instance--pointed out what he was doing, he would have

indignantly (and honestly) repudiated his own actions.

Betty listened to every word of these sermons and told herself she was

the wife of an evangelist. None the less, she did not ignore the fact

that a sharp distinction lay between Archibald as Man and Archibald as

Priest. One day she said to Mark, "Somehow one does not expect a great

preacher to lose his temper because the cook has sent up cod without

oyster sauce."

"Oh, his little weaknesses ought to endear him to such a woman as you

are. He tells us each Sunday what a man ought to be, and on weekdays he

shows us what a man is. A preacher without his little infirmities would

be as uninteresting as--as cod without oyster sauce."

After Easter, Mark returned to Weybridge. Betty missed him so much that

she had a fit of nervous depression which lasted two days. She made a

resolution to devote herself to parochial work, to begin a course of

stiff reading: pamphlets dealing with the better housing of the poor,

and kindred subjects.

Mark was now absorbed in writing another novel, and in the correction of

proofs. _The Songs of the Angels_ appeared simultaneously in New York

and London upon the first of May. Mark wrote to Betty that he had never

felt in such good health, or more sanguine about the future. He was

living in the open air, and had the appetite and complexion of a gipsy.

Archibald, meanwhile, was working hard on committees, hand-in-glove with

a ducal philanthropist, whose music-loving duchess declared that Mr.

Samphire had the best tenor voice in the kingdom. In return for this

high compliment, the Rector of St. Anne's was persuaded to sing at the

duchess's small dinner parties; and this led to a widening of a circle

of acquaintance, which now included some very great people indeed.

Betty found herself dining out three days in the week, and was amazed to

discover that her husband enjoyed this mild dissipation. As a celebrity

he began to be courted wherever he went, and his photograph embellished

certain shops. Young women entreated him to write in their albums.

The world said that Chrysostom was a good fellow and still unspoiled,

but his wife noted an ever-increasing complacency and compliancy which

gave her pause. He had begged her, it will be remembered, to keep at

arm's length certain frisky dames whom she had met at Newmarket and

Monte Carlo, when she was under Lady Randolph's wing. These ladies were

of no particular rank or position. But when Lady Cheyne, notorious all

over Europe before and after she married her marquess, called upon Mrs.

Samphire, Archibald insisted upon Betty returning the call and accepting

an invitation to dine at Cheyne House. Betty protested, but he said

blandly: "I have reason to know that Lady Cheyne is an indefatigable

worker in Chelsea. She will be a parishioner of ours when we go to the

Basilica. Personally I do not believe half the stories they tell about

her."

"I should hope not," said Betty. "If a quarter be true, she is dyed

scarlet."

Often she talked to Lady Randolph, but never with the candour of bygone

days. Intuition told her that her old friend had no great liking for

Archibald, although she rejoiced at his success.

"You were at Cheyne House last night," said Lady Randolph, with the

twinkle in her eye which Betty knew so well. "I dare swear the dinner,

my dear, was better than the company."

"Archie says the dinner was perfection." Then she flushed slightly,

remembering that her husband ought to know, for he had spared but few

dishes. "Have you read Mark's new book?"

"I have," said Lady Randolph.

At once Betty began to praise the _Songs_. It was to be inferred from

her sparkling eyes and eager gestures that Mark's success had become

vital to her. Lady Randolph drew conclusions which she kept to herself.

But that night she said to Lord Randolph: "I saw Betty Samphire this

afternoon. It is as I feared. Her parson, the man beneath the surplice,

never inspired anything warmer than respect."

"Ay, say you so? Dear me--that's a pity. But there's stout stuff under

the surplice."

"Stout?" Lady Randolph smiled. "You have hit the word, Randolph.

Stout--and growing stouter. And some of the stuff is--stuffing."

"My dear, you are severe. _Who drives fat horses should himself be

fat_. I have noticed that your good round parson is the most popular;

your lean fellow makes everybody uncomfortable. Archibald is thought

highly of. He is approachable; he has great gifts of organisation; he

is liked by Nonconformists and Roman Catholics."

"No doubt," replied Lady Randolph impatiently. "In a word he can lunch

at Lambeth and dine at Cheyne House, but I am thinking of Betty. A

sword impends."

In a vague, mysterious way Betty herself was conscious of danger. As a

girl the pageant of the London season had excited her. Her

sensibilities, too keen, her adaptability, her faculty for enjoyment,

inevitably were overstrained during those feverish months between April

and August. When she married a clergyman she told herself that she was

out of the rapids and at rest in a placid backwater. Now,

involuntarily, she had been sucked into the current again. And

curiously intermingled with the feeling of apprehension was a thrill.

At times the desire to let herself go, to fling herself, like a Maenad,

into the gay crowds, to be reckless, as they were, became almost

irresistible. The devil-may-care temperament of the De Courcys set her

pulses a-tingling. But so far she had restrained these longings. And

then one night, in late June, Harry Kirtling met her at a ducal house to

which Archibald deemed it a duty to go. A splendid entertainment had

been provided. A famous prima donna and a brilliant violinist enchanted

lovers of music; a French comedian travelled from Paris to recite; minor

luminaries twinkled round these fixed stars. A few choice spirits,

however, had withdrawn to a small room set apart for cards, wherein a

young guardsman had opened a bank at baccarat. This was in flagrant bad

taste, for both host and hostess detested gambling. Yet it lent a spice

to the adventure. Lady Cheyne told her cavalier that she felt as if she

were meeting a lover in a church. When the fun was getting furious,

Betty and Kirtling came in on the heels of curiosity. Betty drew back,

but Harry held her arm. A moment later he was recognised and invited to

try his luck. Always easy-going and thoughtless, he pressed forward,

half dragging Betty with him. Lady Cheyne looked up, saw Betty, and

screamed with laughter. Her mocking laughter roused the devil in Betty.

She had not gambled since her marriage; and gambling in all its forms

was regarded by Archibald as a deadly sin. Upon the Sunday succeeding

Derby Day he had preached upon this very subject. He had shown that

betting had become a national vice; he had described with dramatic force

its moral effect upon servants and children. This was one of a series

of sermons upon the sins of the day, in the preparation of which the

Rector of St. Anne's needed no assistance from others: culling his facts

from pamphlets and Blue Books, and marshalling them with the skill which

comes from long practice. To such sermons Betty lent an indifferent ear.

They were of the Gradgrind type: too didactic, too florid, too obvious,

to appeal to the intellectual members of his congregation. He preached

in the same Cambyses vein upon drunkenness and gluttony. When Lady

Cheyne laughed, Betty was vouchsafed a vision of her husband as she had

seen him ten minutes before, sharing a _pate_ with a be-diamonded

countess who admitted frankly that she lived to sup.

"You must not peach, Mrs. Samphire!" cried Lady Cheyne, turning up her

impudent nose.

For a moment the game was stopped, and those present stared at Betty.

"Peach?" echoed Harry, who had certainly taken more than his allowance

of champagne. "Not she! Come on, Betty, let us venture a sovereign!"

He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a five-pound note.

"Halves?" Betty nodded. "When it's gone, we'll stop--eh?"

Betty nodded again, beginning to laugh. One of the young men offered

her his chair.

"You play," said Harry. "I'm such an unlucky beggar." He pushed the

counters which he had received in exchange for his note in front of her.

The dealer picked up the pack in front of him, and began to deal. Up

till then he had won. Now his luck deserted him and fell on Betty.

"_Tapez sur la veine_," said Harry. "Pile it on, Betty!"

By this time Betty was sorry she had sat down. In the hope of losing

what she had won already, she did pile it on, the banker making no

objection. But still she won, and won, and won. And then, in the

middle of the noise and laughter, the host walked in--and out! But the

expression on his face put an instant stop to the proceedings. The

young guardsman, looking exceedingly foolish, pulled out a pencil and

began computing his losses to Betty.

"I make it seventy-five pound," he said. "I'll send it to you

to-morrow, Mrs. Samphire."

"No, no," said Betty.

"Pooh," said Harry. "You forget that I'm your partner. We'll have a

spree together with this ill-gotten gold." He laughed, and the others

joined in, but Betty smiled dismally. All London would be prattling of

this escapade within a few hours.

Going home in the brougham she told Archibald what had passed. The

light inside the carriage was dim, but she felt rather than saw his face

stiffen into amazed displeasure.

"And the Duke came in?"

She understood from his tone that being caught was not the least part of

the offence.

"I have said that I am very sorry."

"You have made me ridiculous," said Archibald in a tone she had not

heard from him before.

"You will make yourself ridiculous," she retorted, "if you take this too

seriously."

He exclaimed hotly: "I would not have had it happen for five hundred

pounds."

The opportunity was irresistible to murmur: "The moral obliquity of it

seems to have escaped you."

"What? You laugh? You sneer? This is too much, too much."

"Much too much," Betty answered disdainfully. "I said I was sorry.

Well, I'm nothing of the kind--now. I'm glad. And I shall play again,

if I choose, and back horses, as I used to do, when I was a happy

sinner."

To this Archibald made no reply, and Betty told herself that she was a

shrew. As the brougham stopped she said in a low voice: "Archie, I

apologise."

Her husband, in a voice colder than liquid air, replied: "I accept your

apology, Betty, but let me beg that nothing of this sort occurs again."

*CHAPTER XXXII*

*BETTY MAKES GOOD RESOLUTIONS*

During July a deanery in the West of England fell vacant and was offered

to Archibald Samphire. Conquest, acting on a hint from Lord Vauxhall,

came post haste to Cadogan Place. It happened that he was shown into

the drawing-room, and it also happened that on the balcony Betty sat in

a chair, fast asleep, with a dull novel on her lap. The balcony was a

pretty place, protected from the sun by a striped awning and filled with

palms and plants.

Conquest looked more enormous than usual in a light grey frock-coat,

open in front, revealing a vast extent of white waistcoat. His eyes

sparkled keenly beneath the heavy black brows. Archibald found himself

shirking these piercing eyes, as he explained that his library was

filled with a deputation of working men, from whom he had escaped with

difficulty. Conquest nodded impatiently as Archie's polished periods

fell softly upon the air heavy with the heat of summer and the perfume

of many flowers.

"Yes, yes," he said; "I'm obliged. I hate to be kept waiting. About

this deanery--hey?"

"I am giving the matter earnest consideration."

"You can't afford to take it," said Conquest abruptly. "If you go

there, you'll stay there, mark my words! That'll be the end of you. I

told Vauxhall you'd too much common sense to chuck him. If it were a

bishopric, of course, Vauxhall would not stand in the way. I can't pick

my words. And by this time you and I understand each other."

He spread out his broad, pudgy hands in a gesture familiar to Archibald.

"How did you hear?"

"It's my business to hear things. I've a hundred eyes and a thousand

ears. Well?"

"It's great preferment."

"You will be 'Mr. Dean' of course. But you'll be out of sight and out

of mind. How did you get this offer? By being on the spot. I'll say a

word more, only you mustn't give me away. You met the Prime Minister at

Belgrave House the other day. My friend, he had heard you preach a

certain sermon at Westchester, but, by gad! he'd forgotten you."

"Forgotten me?" exclaimed Archibald. "Why, he came up as soon as the

ladies left the dining-room, and was most civil."

"He can be civil when he likes," said Conquest drily. "All the same, he

had forgotten your name; he did not know what you were doing. The

Duchess, who is a capital friend of yours and a good creature although

she does sniff, sang your praises for five minutes. And that did the

trick. Of course, he made inquiries; he satisfied himself that you are

a corking good worker and a discreet fellow, and all that, but, bless my

soul, aren't there hundreds of such? Lord--yes. But they don't dine at

Belgrave House. Now, look here, I've no time to waste. I came here to

do you a friendly turn. You will gain far more than you will lose by

refusing this so-called preferment. And I'll see that your

self-sacrifice is duly recorded. Trust me for that. You think you've

made a mark. So you have; so you have; but you must deepen the

impression. You've a magnificent voice, but, man--it won't carry four

hundred miles. If you want it to be heard by the right people you must

preach in a London pulpit."

"My dear Conquest, I really----"

"Pooh, pooh! You don't like me the less because I talk straight when no

one is listening. Now--stand and deliver a monosyllable. Are you going

to chuck Vauxhall? Yes--or No?"

"I have no intention of chucking Lord Vauxhall or anybody else."

"Right. That means No. Good-bye. You'll see a leader in next

Saturday's _Mercury_ which will warm the cockles of your heart."

Before Archibald could reply, Conquest was out of the room. For a big

man he could move--when he so chose--with amazing quickness and

lightness. He disappeared, leaving a vacuum which Betty filled. As

Archibald turned, after ringing the bell for a servant to show out

Conquest, he saw his wife standing in the window, framed by the ferns

and palms.

"Betty!" he exclaimed.

"Why didn't you kick that--that beast downstairs? I heard what he said.

He insulted you. I was asleep outside. His voice woke me. For your

sake, not mine, I resisted the temptation to come forward, and--oh, I

could have flown at him!"

Her bosom heaved; her eyes sparkled. Archibald stared at her dully,

wondering what words would meet this emergency.

"Have you nothing to say?" she cried.

"My dear," he said, "you do not understand."

"Then explain--explain!"

"Conquest means well. He is our friend; a rough diamond, I grant you,

but he means well. He is our friend."

He repeated the words, sensible that they were inadequate, yet unable to

find others.

"Save us from such friends!"

"I had almost decided to send a refusal."

"Why--why, only last night you were on edge to accept. You gave me a

dozen _pros_ against my two or three _cons_."

"And perhaps," said Archibald, in what Betty sometimes called his

"antiseptic" manner, "those _cons_ outweighed the _pros_, although

numerically less. Conquest takes your view of the matter. He feels that

I have undertaken a task here in Chelsea, which cannot be abandoned.

He----"

"He tells you to _reculer pour mieux sauter_," said Betty derisively,

"to refuse a deanery and accept a bishopric later! He--the apostle of

expediency, of diplomacy, of compromise! Well--I do not judge him. But

he counts you to be of his own opinion. He brands you as a time-server,

a worldling, a parasite. And you let him do it--and shake hands with

him! And, on next Saturday--you will read a leader in the _Mercury_

which will warm the cockles of your heart."

"Protest would have been wasted," said Archibald. "If you will excuse

me, my dear, I will go downstairs. The deputation is waiting for me."

"One moment," said Betty. "I have something to say which must be

said--here and now. Last night you spoke eloquently enough of that west

country and the life we might lead there. And I--I," she faltered and

blushed, "I was not honest when I urged you to stay here. I am drifting

into the old hateful whirlpool from which I thought I had escaped for

ever. I pictured to myself life in a cathedral close--stagnant,

dun-coloured, full of uninteresting duties--and I recoiled from it. I

smelled that old smell of cleaned gloves at all the parties. I thought

of myself, not of you. But now, I beseech you to consider what London

means to both of us--to you and to me. And if Mr. Conquest is right, if

your sacred profession is a trade, if great success in it can be

achieved only by such self-advertisement as he thinks justifiable, is

such success worth having to a Christian gentleman?"

Archibald frowned. Then, feeling that his powers of speech had returned

to him, he answered at length, citing certain prelates whose piety,

sincerity, and humility were above reproach. Conquest took the

worldling's view. He was more than half pagan, and he posed openly as a

scoffer and a cynic. Still, he was right in contending that the great

places in the Church's gift were held by those whom a wide knowledge of

the world had equipped. Such knowledge was not to be gleaned in a

cathedral close lying in the heart of a sleepy west country town. He

hoped that his dearest Betty would not misunderstand him when he

confessed frankly that he did aspire to the highest positions, not for

what they might hold of honour or emolument, but for the power they

conferred of doing widespread good to others. Warming to his theme, he

flooded Betty's perplexed mind with scores of ready-made

phrases--phrases laboriously accumulated: stones, so to speak, with

which he had fortified his own position.

"Oh--I am muddled, muddled," said Betty.

"I have been muddled myself," her husband admitted. "Modern life must

perplex and distress the wisest. And all of us at times feel a desire

to get out of the hurly-burly. Shall I say that last night, feeling

worn out and discouraged, I did long for the quiet and peace of that

west-country deanery; but this morning--now," he expanded his chest, "I

am myself again."

He smiled assuringly and left the room.

When he had gone, Betty went back to the chair among the ferns and

palms. She tried to go over what her husband had said, to look at the

matter fairly from his point of view. But the effort was greater than

she could compass. She felt as if she had been submerged in a torrent

of words, and of these words nothing was left--only a sense of

desolation and isolation.

When she saw Mark a few days later, the article in the _Mercury_ had

been published. Conquest was given to boasting that he could "boom" an

author with such subtlety that none, not even the man himself, suspected

what was being done. The readers of the _Mercury_ rose from the perusal

of the article in question convinced that a seasonable and well-deserved

tribute had been paid to a saintly and self-sacrificing preacher of

Christ's gospel. Archibald, reading it, was aware that his cheeks, as

also the cockles of his heart, were very warm indeed. Betty did not

read the article. Mark, however, was full of it, not knowing that

Conquest had written it.

"The truth is," he told Betty, "the truth is, Betty, that I did not like

his acceptance of the Basilica. It bothered me a good deal. Now this

proves plainly that Archie is above worldly considerations. Not another

man of his age would have refused such an offer."

Betty asked for news of the _Songs_.

Of this Mark had nothing very encouraging to tell. The book, handsomely

received by the Press, was in fair demand at the libraries, but less

than two thousand copies had been sold. In America as yet it had not,

so Otway wrote, "caught on." The new novel, _A Soul Errant_, was sure

to be a success. He talked with animation for half an hour, describing

his characters.

"You live for this," said Betty abruptly.

"Do you blame me," he answered quickly, "because I make the most of what

is left?"

"I beg your pardon," she replied.

Later, she inquired after Mary Dew.

"She's having a better time of it," Mark declared. "I don't mind telling

you, Betty, that I've tackled her mother. I told her she was a

slave-owner, a despot, and a bully. She took it like a lamb, and things

at Myrtle Cottage are easier, I can assure you."

"And Albert what's-his-name, who is going to marry your paragon----"

"Albert Batley is making money. He has a big building contract near

Surbiton. He will give Honeydew all she wants, and deserves."

"You know nothing of women, Mark."

"So the critics say--confound 'em; but I tell you, Betty, I know a good

woman when I see her."

"There you are; displaying your ignorance. You talk in that foolish

masculine manner of good women, as if good women were in a class by

themselves, and different from all others. Why good and evil are such

relative terms that sometimes I can't tell one from the other."

"Then you're a miserable sinner, and blind to boot. Good, the genuine

article, can never be mistaken for evil, although evil, I grant you, may

counterfeit good. Bless me! I've been puzzled a score of times by

sinners, but I never mistook a saint."

"How many have you met?"

"More than you think," he replied gravely.

"And where do you place me? Among the sheep or the goats?"

Mark wondered why her lips trembled. She looked tired and pale, much

paler than usual.

"What a question!" he said lightly.

"I'll answer it myself, Mark. I have an extraordinary appreciation of

good. There are times when I have soared--yes, that's the word--into

another world. I had dreams, visions if you like, when I was a girl,

but the most vivid experience of the kind came upon me unexpectedly--in

Westchester Cathedral, upon the day Archie preached his sermon. I

grasped Something that morning which cannot be described, but It was

real substance. I grasped It, and I let It go. Since I have wondered

what It was. Perhaps I--touched--God."

"Ah!" said Mark. "Go on, go on!"

She saw that his eyes were shining, that the expression which she had

missed from his face since her marriage had come back.

"Go--on," she sighed. "I am going back. Can you help me?"

She turned to him with a pathetic gesture of entreaty. The light faded

in Mark's face. He began to stammer.

"If I c-c-could----"

"You believed once. And now your faith is gone! Why? How? You _must_

tell me."

In her excitement she laid her hand upon his wrist, clutching it

fiercely. He felt that her fingers were burning, that the fire in them

was fluid, that in another moment the flame would flare in him,

consuming them both. He rose, releasing his wrist with violence.

"I c-c-can't tell you that." He moved half a dozen paces from her,

before he turned. When he spoke again his voice was quite steady.

"Faith oozes from some people imperceptibly: there is a steady drain of

which they may be unaware, but my faith left me in an instant. It may

come back as suddenly. It may be redeemed. I have thought sometimes

that faith is God's franchise which is given freely to all, and taken

away from the unworthy. And once taken away, it is never given again,

never. It must be ransomed--paid for."

As he spoke he was aware that at any cost to his own feelings the talk

must be turned into safer channels. His first impulse had been one of

unreasoning fear and horror. When she touched him, he lost for a

terrible moment his self-control. Love is a despot whose lightest word

may make the bravest coward. Seeing her distress, hearing her quavering

voice, feeling her trembling fingers, he had divined his own weakness.

"Paid for?" She echoed the words. "How?"

"By sacrifice," he answered slowly. "By blood sacrifice."

When he had gone, she went to her room and locked the door. Alone, her

face flamed with anger against herself. Had she betrayed her secret?

She could not answer the question. Had he spoken coldly, precisely--on

purpose? Nine women out of ten distrust a man's works, and have absurd

and infantile faith in his words. But Betty had had a surfeit of words

from her husband. Of late, much of her leisure had been wasted in

trying to determine their value. Archibald's works were

self-explanatory. He was indefatigable as parish priest and

philanthropist. Such work could be measured; it lay within a circle,

say the inner circle of the Underground Railway. But his sonorous

phrases, his dogmas and doctrines, were immeasurable: including this

world, past and present, and the world to come. It was natural,

therefore, that finding herself compassless in a sea of sentences, she

would steer by the light of such fixed stars as frequent communions,

charity organisation, the visiting of the sick, and the crusade against

alcohol. In a word, she had come to the conclusion that it did not

matter very much what a man said, but that what he did was vital to his

own welfare and the welfare of others, the true expression of his

character and temperament. Whenever a woman touches the fringe of such

a commonplace, you may be sure that she will watch a man's actions, the

more closely, perhaps, because she has become too heedless of his words.

Betty had seen Mark shrink with a violent effort from her touch; he had

kept out of Cadogan Place during the summer; he had lost faith in

revealed religion. What if these effects were to be traced to one

cause--herself?

When she was able to think articulately, pleasure in her discovery was

obliterated by pain--the bitter pangs of retrospection. Why had she

doubted him--and herself? By what irony of fate had she given herself

to Archibald? But almost instantly she curbed these unavailing regrets.

The past was irrevocable. What did the future hold for Mark and for

her? One thing was certain: they must meet but rarely, perhaps not at

all.

And then ensued a struggle, from which she emerged weak indeed, but

triumphant. Once again she was conscious of that sense of detachment,

of looking in spirit upon the flesh; once again a strange giddiness

warned her that only in fancy had she attained to the heights, that the

cliffs were yet to be scaled.

When she met her husband that afternoon a closer observer than he might

have detected a tenderness in her voice and manner: the first-fruits of

a resolution to do her duty as wife to a good man. That night, when she

said her prayers, she thanked God passionately, because she could esteem

and respect the Rector of St. Anne's.

*CHAPTER XXXIII*

*ILLUMINATION*

In August the Archibald Samphires moved from Cadogan Place to a house on

the Embankment, which belonged to Lord Vauxhall, and was part of that

property which he was so anxious to populate with the "right kind of

people." The house faced the Thames and contained some charming rooms,

which combined the quaintness and fine proportions of the old Chelsea

houses with such modern luxuries as electric light and radiators. The

house in Cadogan Place had been papered and decorated by a former

tenant, whose taste was severely aesthetic. Betty abhorred the

olive-greens, the dingy browns, the sickly ochres of the Burne-Jones

school. But she had accepted them philosophically, reflecting that

houses in London must be repapered and decorated more often than in the

country. None the less, she sometimes told herself that certain fits of

depression were due to her bilious-coloured walls, and that Babbit's

theories, as set forth by the Squire's widow, were worth consideration.

Now she had been given a free hand, at a moment when fashion was

changing with Protean swiftness from darkness to light. Rose-red and

yellow, delicate greens, ethereal blues, and white-enamelled woodwork

wooed the fancy of housewives. Betty told Lady Randolph that she was no

longer a woman, but a colour scheme diffusing prismatic tints.

"The rainbow after the storm."

Betty glanced up quickly. Did her old friend guess that she had passed

through a storm? Or was it a happy allusion to that frightful

bistre-coloured paper in her bedroom in Cadogan Place?

"I shall be happy here," she said gravely.

They were standing in the drawing-room of the new house. The Admiral's

Chippendale furniture was in its place, delicately revealed against

lovely white panelling. The walls were rose-coloured, of a paper whose

texture was as that of brocade. The general effect was fresh and

joyous: vernal in the delicacy of its tints, without a hint of the

_bonbonniere_. Outside, the sun was declining in the west, and the river

ran all golden past the trees and meads of Battersea Park. Some barges,

laden with hay, were gliding by on the ebb-tide.

"Archie's room will be ready to-morrow," said Betty, "and we ought to be

in the day after. You have all pitied me, but I have enjoyed the dead

season immensely."

Lady Randolph, who was passing through town on her way to Scotland from

Birr Wood, nodded understandingly.

"The room is just like you, Betty, and that is the prettiest compliment,

my dear, I have ever paid you. And I must say that the dead season has

agreed with you. I never saw you look more alive."

"The fact is," said Betty seriously, "I have been setting more than one

house in order."

Lady Randolph smiled. "I have seen--I have guessed---- Ah, well, we

wives try to remould our husbands, and the time is not wasted if we

succeed in remoulding ourselves. My dear, I must fly. Can I give you a

lift?"

Betty said that much remained to be done, but after her friend had gone

she showed no inclination to set about doing it. Instead, she sat by

the open window, gazing at the river flowing slowly and silently to the

sea. Already she had come to regard this as the great waterway of her

thoughts. She rejoiced because she was about to live upon its banks;

she recognised its suggestion and symbolism, its myriad beauties, its

mystery and power.

At this moment she was reflecting that the Thames was a source of

pleasure and profit to man, because man, as embodied by the Thames

Conservancy, controlled it. When it burst its banks, the abomination of

desolation followed. Without the innumerable dams and locks cribbing

and confining it, these splendid waters would be wasted. Now they

percolated everywhere, into hundreds and thousands of homes.

Would it be so with her own life? It ran in a channel other than the

one she would have chosen, had choice been given her; it was diverted to

uses she had not apprehended; it was likely to be diffused infinitely,

trickling here and there, instead of rushing free and untrammelled over

a course of its own making. Since that memorable interview with Mark,

Betty had accepted the limitations which duty imposed. She had not

shirked the trivial tasks of a parson's wife, albeit she was tempted to

spend more time (and money) than was lawful in alluring shops. She had

not seen Mark alone. She had put from her comment and criticism of her

husband: striving to think of the strength that was in him rather than

the weakness.

Now she was aware that these efforts had not been made in vain. Life

had become easier, happier, more profitable to herself and others. She

dared to look forward, and refrained from looking back.

Presently she rose up, glanced, smiling, at the pretty room, and leaving

it reluctantly went downstairs. Archibald was out of town for a few

days on duty in the Midlands, and by the morrow she hoped that all his

furniture would be moved. Part had come from Cadogan Place that

afternoon, and, before returning home, she wished to see it placed in

the right room. In the hall she met one of the servants, who was acting

as caretaker. In answer to a question, the man said his master's desk

had arrived in the van which was leaving. Betty entered her husband's

room trying to remember the exact spot where Archie wished his desk to

stand. It was an immense affair, with a fluted, revolving top, which,

when closed, locked itself and all drawers. As she crossed the

threshold of the room, she remembered what Archibald had said. The desk

had been placed in the wrong position.

"Oh, Dibdin," she exclaimed, "that will never do. Have the men gone?"

Dibdin said respectfully that the van was still at the door, but

suggested that the men should move the desk on the morrow. Betty,

however, was anxious to see how it looked in the place her husband had

chosen. So the men were summoned. Doubtless, they were tired, and

possibly sulky at being called as they were about to drive away. The

desk was very heavy and awkward to move; it stood on a rug upon a

slippery parquet floor. The men, using unnecessary violence, canted it

slightly forward. In the effort to steady it, their feet slipped, the

desk fell forward with a crash, and burst open: the fluted lid flying

back, and the contents of a dozen pigeon-holes and drawers being

scattered over the floor. However, upon examination it was found that

no damage had been done. The desk was lifted and placed in the desired

position, and the men dismissed. Dibdin looked so dismayed that Betty

laughed.

"Why, Dibdin, all's well that ends well."

"Master is so particular about his desk," said Dibdin. He had been with

Archibald before his marriage. "He'd never allow me to touch his

papers."

"You shan't touch them now," said Betty. "I'll arrange them, Dibdin,

before I go home."

Dibdin went out, leaving his mistress sitting on the floor surrounded by

notebooks, cheque-books, manuscripts, and all the accessories which

usually cover a busy man's desk. As she began to arrange these, she

reflected that the best-laid plans gang agley. Archibald had insisted

upon locking up everything, and yet, despite precaution--his precious

desk had burst open. What a lot of MMS. to be sure! And she had not

the vaguest idea into what drawers and pigeon-holes they ought to go.

Archibald had a reasonable dislike of being disturbed when at work, and

when he was not at work the huge desk was always locked.

Betty recognised an enormous pile of papers as sermons. Some were

typewritten, date and text being inscribed upon the outside. Betty

touched them tenderly: her husband's title-deeds, so to speak, to the

honour and respect she bore him. Looking at them she blushed faintly,

thinking of the warmer sentiment they had provoked. As she blushed her

glance fell upon the sermon she had just picked up. This bore no text,

but across it, in Archibald's handwriting, were two words: _Whit-Sunday,

Westchester_.

The words provoked a score of memories. Once more she knelt in the

chancel of that splendid fane, hearing the flute-like notes of the boy;

once more she was conscious of being whirled aloft to ineffable heights.

Then she dropped to earth as suddenly, with a vivid realisation that if

this sermon had never been preached, she would not be here in this

house, the wife of the preacher. With this reflection came a desire to

read the sermon. She laid it aside, while she finished the work of

replacing the other MSS. Then she closed the desk, and discovered that

the lock was hampered. She was wondering whether she ought to seal it,

when she remembered that it would be easy to lock up the room. The

light was failing, yet the fancy took her that she would like to read

her husband's sermon in her own room, overlooking the river as it flowed

to the sea.

She went upstairs carrying the MS. in her hand, and sat down. The sun

was about to set; and the river ran red, no longer golden. Shadows

obscured the city beyond. A mist was stealing up from the east, and the

barges floating into it were swallowed up.

Betty unrolled the MS., spread it upon her knee, and began to read. But

at the first glance she blinked, as if her eyesight were deceiving her.

Then with a muttered exclamation of surprise, she held the sheets of

blue foolscap to the light, and examined them attentively. The MS.,

from beginning to end, was in Mark's handwriting. Here and there words

were interpolated or excised. In the margin were her husband's notes,

but the MS. was Mark's. What did it mean?

She read it through. Yes: as it was written, so it had been preached,

and it had been written by Mark!

Why had she not guessed as much before? She rolled up the MS., tied it

with the red tape which the orderly Archibald used, and went downstairs.

The only other sermon in Mark's handwriting was the "Purity" sermon, but

many were covered with his notes. Again and again a phrase remembered,

a thought treasured--because it revealed the man she had chosen as wise,

and noble, and good, and therefore justified that choice and silenced

any doubts she might have entertained regarding it--stood out as Mark's.

Again and again she read some common-place, some compromise, some

paragraph which rang false, slashed by Mark's red pencil. Once or twice

she held up the sheets, examining closely the condemned passages;

smiling derisively as she perceived the violence of protest in the

broad, deeply indented excoriations. Suddenly Dibdin appeared, bland

but surprised.

"Shall I bring a lamp, M'm?"

"Bring me a basket, Dibdin, and then whistle for a hansom."

She put the sermons into the basket and went back to Cadogan Place,

where a cold supper awaited her. The footman told the cook that his

mistress had eaten nothing, but had called for a pint of champagne. The

cook expressed an opinion that nothing in the world was so upsetting as

a "move"; which turned everything and everybody upside down, and

produced "squirmishy" feelings inside. Presently Betty's maid went

upstairs, and returned with heightened colour. Her mistress, so she

reported, was as cross as two sticks.

Betty, indeed, was pacing up and down her bedroom in a fever of

indecision and unrest. The husband she had honoured was destroyed. The

ghost of him inspired repugnance--a repugnance which found larger room

in the new house. The pleasure she had taken in furnishing became pain,

inasmuch as not a chintz had been chosen without the reflection that she

was recovering what was dingy and discoloured in her life, substituting

for the old and worn the fresh and new. And now, in the twinkling of an

eye, her good resolutions, her hopes and aims, her readjusted sense of

proportion--had vanished. She was in the mood to set ablaze that dainty

room in which in fancy she had passed so many happy hours, to tear down

and destroy the tissues through which she had looked out upon a future

as rose-coloured as they.

She passed a sleepless night, got up feeling and looking wretched, gave

her servants certain hasty directions, and drove to Waterloo. In her

hand she carried a small bag containing the Westchester and Windsor

sermons.

From Weybridge she walked to Myrtle Cottage, and the exercise brought

colour into her cheeks. She was sure that she would find Mark in the

shelter, so she approached it from the side of the grove, being

unwilling to face Mary's clear and possibly curious eyes.

Mark was at his typewriting machine when she saw him, and as usual so

absorbed in his task that he never perceived her. Betty reflected that

he could not have approached her without her being aware of it, but men

surely were fashioned out of clay other than what was used for women.

"Mark!"

He sprang up, with a startled exclamation, and came forwards, holding

out both hands.

"What has happened?"

As he spoke her indignation began to ooze from her. Intuition told her

that the expression upon Mark's face revealed intense sympathy. Her

trouble, whatever it might be, had moved him to the core. Suddenly, a

light flickered out of the darkness. For the first time, she saw herself

and him alone together, shut off from the world. It came upon her with

a shock that she was glad that Mark, not Archibald, had written the

sermon. Only he, the lover of her girlish dreams, could have found the

words which had stirred her so profoundly. Mark repeated the question,

"What has happened?"

"You wrote this?" she cried, holding out the Westchester sermon.

He nodded, realising the fatuity of denial. For a moment they gazed

into each other's eyes. Then she said slowly--

"You wrote the 'Purity' sermon?"

"M-m-m-most of it," he admitted reluctantly.

"You have helped him ever since?"

"I have revised some of his work."

"And I never guessed it," she exclaimed passionately. "If I had thought

for a moment I must have known that it was you--you--you, not him. Oh,

my God, I shall go mad! I married him because you--you had tricked him

out in a garment of righteousness! Had you come forward at the eleventh

hour and spoken I should have thanked you and blessed you. Why did you

hold your tongue--why--why--why?"

"I thought you l-l-loved him," he stammered.

"Loved him?" The scorn in her voice thrilled his pulses. "I loved what

he said, which was yours. Why did you not say it yourself?"

"Because," his infirmity gripped him, "I c-c-c-couldn't." Her face

softened, and the lines of her figure relaxed.

"It is my fault," she said, gazing at him through tears; "I ought to

have guessed."

"Betty"--he had recovered his self-control, now that she was in danger

of losing hers--"Betty, I have done you a wrong. I withheld the truth,

because truth, faith, love had gone out of my life, blasted

by--b-b-by----"

"By me?"

"No--n-n-no."

"By whom?" He paused, and she continued vehemently: "Mark, I want the

truth. Nothing else is possible between us. What killed your faith?

You have never answered that question. What changed you from the man

you were to the man you are?"

"Hate."

She recoiled at the grim word, recoiled, too, from the expression on his

face.

"You hated--your brother?" The words fell from quivering lips. He saw

that she was about to swoop on the truth he had hidden so long. He was

impotent to avert discovery. She came very slowly towards him, her eyes

fixed on his. The expression in them bewildered him. She raised both

her arms and laid her hands upon his shoulders.

"You hated him. Then you loved--me."

"Always," he answered. "To me you came out of Paradise, and brought the

best part of it with you."

"Say it again," she whispered.

"I loved you--always: as child, as boy, as man."

She smiled piteously. "As child, as girl, as woman I have loved--you.

And yet loving me like that you could believe that I loved him. Ah,

love is blind indeed." She held him with her eyes and hands, speaking

softly and quickly: "And because you loved me you gave him what he

lacked. That was like you. But did it never strike you that I might

find out?"

"Not till too late. Betty, I have behaved like a fool. I gave him that

sermon which I would have given my right hand to preach. But I had not

foreseen its effect. Having given it, I could not take it back." He

went on to describe his breakdown, the scene with Ross and the doctors,

the silence which he dared not break, his slow recovery, the renascence

of his hopes and their destruction. A dozen times his stammer stopped

him, as many times he was made aware that this abhorred weakness bound

him the closer to the woman who loved him. When he had finished his

story she looked up.

"What shall we do now?" she asked.

Above, the song of the pines rose and fell in melancholy cadence. The

day was hot, and would become hotter, but here in this sylvan temple the

air flowed in cool and fragrant currents. Mark was silent, reflecting

that always he had known this hour would come. From the moment he had

read Archibald's letter announcing his engagement, Destiny, with the

leer of some hideous gargoyle, had decreed that he should hate his

brother and love his brother's wife. Up to the present moment both

passions had been controlled and confined. The unforeseen had turned

them loose.

"What shall we do now?"

She stood before him absorbed in the love which at last had found

expression. What else the world might hold for her was not.

So standing, delicately flushed, but with eyes which neither faltered

nor fell beneath his, the daughter of Louise de Courcy awaited Mark's

answer.

"You are my brother's wife," he said slowly.

Betty shrugged her shoulders. The gesture, almost piteous in its

shrinking protest, moved Mark more than any words she had spoken.

"If--if I asked you, you would come away with me?"

She nodded, meeting his passionate glance, facing, as he did, the issues

involved. Her hands moved towards him--timidly, but with unmistakable

invitation.

"Betty," he cried, "Betty!"

"Ah! you want me. You do want me--you do, you do!"

"Want you?" his voice broke. Instantly she had seized his hands,

drawing him towards her. He held her firmly--at arm's length. In that

supreme moment he was perhaps stronger than he had been ever before,

inasmuch as the faith which once had fortified him was his no longer,

and yet without it, believing in nothing, holding in derision God's law

and man's, he resisted her, because he was counting the cost to her.

Then, reading his thought, she inclined her head, whispering, "If there

is a God, and if he bade me choose between life here with you and life

hereafter without you, not being allowed to have both--do you know what

I should say?"

"Do not say it," he entreated. His face was so twisted by the

consciousness that he was taking advantage of her weakness that she

thought he was ill. When he remained rigid, she added gently, "Let us

go to some place where my love shall make up to you for every pang you

have suffered."

"Stop!" he cried hoarsely. "Apart from our love, you have not

considered what this means: to me, the man, nothing; to you the loss of

everything which women hold dear. You must not decide

rashly--you--must--take--time."

She laughed derisively.

"I will take anything you like, so long as you take me."

He caught her to him, closing her mouth with kisses.

*CHAPTER XXXIV*

*CHARING CROSS*

Betty returned alone to London before mid-day. Mark decided to follow by

an afternoon train. They had agreed to meet at Charing Cross, to cross

that night to Ostend. Then, in some remote corner of the Ardennes, they

expected to make plans for the future. The "move," as Betty had pointed

out, covered anything that might appear odd to the enlightened Dibdin.

Her divided household would understand that she was going to a friend's

house for the few hours during which her own bedroom furniture was being

shifted.

Mark accompanied her to the station, returning home to pack a

portmanteau. What doubts he had entertained were dispersed. He swore

that he would look forward, never backward, and found himself whistling

as he climbed the hill to the cottage.

In the shelter, the first object that he saw was Betty's handkerchief

lying in the corner of a chair. He picked up the small, square piece of

cambric and put it to his lips. A faint essence reminded him that

fragrance had come again into his life. Then he began to arrange his

papers. When Mary came in to arrange the cloth for luncheon, he told

her that he was going away for a few days. She expressed no surprise.

Why should she? It lay on his tongue's tip to say: "I have been

wretched: now I am going to be happy. Let us shake hands!" Watching

her moving here and there he was sensible of an impatience, an

irritability almost impossible to suppress. Mary subtly conveyed an

impression of protest. He told himself that this was absurd. Suddenly

her eyes met his.

"What have I done?" she faltered.

"Why, nothing," he answered.

"You were staring at me so queerly," she answered. "The business which

takes you away is pleasant, isn't it?"

He smiled reassuringly.

"Connected with your work, I suppose?"

Her curiosity was natural. He always spoke of his work to her.

"No," he said shortly. "It is not. I dare say you think that I could

not be really keen about anything or anybody outside of my work. If I

told you----"

He closed his lips, wondering why the truth had so nearly leaked from

them. His joy had expanded so quickly, that it exacted a larger

habitation.

"I have nothing to tell yet," he said confusedly, "but I may write; you

shall hear from me; I shall be frank--with you."

He fell into a reverie, as she left the shelter. In a minute she

returned.

"There is a gentleman to see you, Mr. Samphire. Shall I bring him here?"

She handed him a card. A cry escaped Mark's lips.

"David!"

The card fell to the ground. For the moment he felt as if some icy

finger had been laid upon his heart. He had not seen David since the

Crask days. And he had told himself that this old friend had held

sorrowfully aloof, because he had divined that intercourse between the

faithful and the faithless, between Christian and pagan, would prove

(temporarily at least) inexpedient and abortive.

"Please ask his lordship to come here," he said, frowning.

Mary glanced at his face and withdrew. Mark followed her with his eyes

as she crossed the pretty garden between the shelter and the cottage.

Not a cloud, he noted, obscured the soft azure of the skies; upon all

things lay the spell of summer.

"Why has he come?"

Instinctively he armed himself for conflict. It was curious that he

associated the Highlander and his strange powers of second sight with

the quiet English Mary. The impending fight would be two against one.

Good would side with good, although evil might array itself against

evil.

These thoughts flitted through his mind as David was advancing. Mark,

summoning up a smile of welcome, met his friend, who smiled back,

extending both hands.

"Mark," he exclaimed, "I am glad to see you. Thank God, you're well."

"And stronger than I ever was in my life," said Mark. "You'll lunch

with me, David. I must go to town this afternoon, but we can have an

hour together."

"I must go to town too," replied David. "You look a different man,

Mark."

"I am a different man."

David followed him into the shelter and sat down, with a puzzled glance

at his surroundings. During luncheon both men were conscious of a new

and disagreeable sense of restraint.

"Have you another novel on the stocks?"

"Yes."

David jumped up, eager, vigorous, impetuous.

"I have come a long way out of my road to ask you a question."

"Ask it," said Mark.

"When are you coming back to us?"

"Can God only be served in cassock and surplice?"

"You evade my question," said David. "Mark, I have had the feeling that

you were in trouble: ill, dying perhaps. I--I had to come to you. But

I find you a strong man, and "--he glanced round at the pleasant

garden--"and wasting time. Don't mistake me! You have been working

hard, no doubt, but at work which others can do as well. You have

recovered your health and----"

"Go on."

"The work God intended you to do is being left undone," said David.

"Why?"

"If we are to remain friends, David, you had better not press this

question."

"If we are to remain friends, I must. You have resigned a stupendous

responsibility--why?"

"Shall we say--incapacity to administer it?"

"Give me the true reason."

"Can't you divine it?"

"I have divined it," said David, after a long pause. "You sneer at a

gift which is given to few; but you, of all men, ought to know that it

has been given to me. And I have divined more. I know that you are on

the edge of an abyss which may engulf you and another."

"You have divined that?"

The sneer had left him; amazement, incredulity took its place. David

must have heard some idle rumour. He asked him at once if it were not

so.

"I have heard nothing."

"On your oath?"

"Certainly--if you wish it."

Mark paced the length of the shelter; then he turned and approached

David, who was watching him. When less than a yard separated them Mark

stood still and pulled his watch from his pocket.

"It is now two o'clock," he said. "At half-past six this afternoon I

meet the woman I love and who loves me at Charing Cross. To-night--we

leave England--together."

The relief of speech was immense, but with this, and dominating it, was

the fierce desire to confront David with the truth, to invite his

arguments, so as to trample on them.

David said hoarsely: "The woman is your brother's wife. You--you--Mark

Samphire, the man I thought so strong, will do this shameful thing?

_Impossible_!"

Mark laughed.

"I'm going to speak plainly, David. For the first and last time I mean

to let myself r-r-rip!" He drew in his breath sharply. "You shall see

me as I am. I appeal not to the Bishop, not to my old friend of the

Mission, but to a more merciful judge than either--a man of flesh and

blood."

He paused, frowning, trying to compose, to marshal his thoughts. Then

he began quietly, exercising restraint at first, but using increasing

emphasis of word and intonation as he proceeded.

"You say it is impossible that Mark Samphire should do this thing.

Strange! You have intelligence, sympathy, intuition. Impossible! Oh,

the parrot cry of the slave of convention and tradition, of the

worshipper of his own graven images, bowing down before them, unable to

look beyond the tiny circle wherein he moves and thinks. Impossible, you

say? Impossible for Mark Samphire to run away with his brother's wife!"

"Incredible then," Ross interrupted.

"Incredible. It's incredible you should use such a word with your

experience. Can't you realise that the same strength which made me

struggle up towards what you call good or God is driving me as

relentlessly down the other road? I am not the Mark Samphire of the

Mission days, but the Mark Samphire who came from Ben Caryll knowing

that if he had met his brother alone upon that mountain he would have

killed him, or been killed by him. And having felt that, do you think I

would stick at running away with his wife?"

His tone was so bitterly contemptuous that Ross could only stammer out:

"I have never understood why such love as you bore him turned to such

hate."

"Let your God answer that question. As man to man I swear to you that

my brother's extraordinary success in everything we undertook together,

and my own failure, did not sour me. I grudged him nothing--except her.

And I could have let her go to any other. I tell you, David, I've been

tried too high. The irony of fate has been too much for me. A time

comes to the stoutest runner when he falls. Then the fellows who have

been ambling along behind trot past blandly complacent. They are not

first, but they are not last. The man who might have been first is

last. I fell at a fence too big for me--and I broke my neck. We've

said enough, too much, about that, but the fact that I could love as few

love ought to be proof to you that my hate would be as strong."

Ross saw that he was trembling violently.

"If you had written to her----"

"If? That 'if' is crucifixion. Yes; yes; if I had written one line,

whistled one note, held up one finger--she would have come to me. But

then hope had scarcely budded. My life was so pitiful, so frail a thing

to offer. And, voluntarily, she had engaged herself to him. He had won

her, as he had won everything else----"

"Fairly."

"No. Not fairly."

Briefly, but in vehement words, Mark told the story of the sermons,

concluding with Betty's discovery of the truth.

"And now," he demanded, stretching out his shaking hands, "do you see

the real Mark Samphire? Is your finger on the pulse of a poor wretch who

tried to do his duty and--here's the rub, David--who was punished the

more heavily on that account? If I had played the world's game, Betty

would be my wife. Archibald would be still minor canon of Westchester."

Ross took the outstretched hands.

"My poor Mark," he murmured.

"Thanks, David; but don't pity me! I envy no man living. You have

listened to my story, patiently. One thing more remains to be said. If

Betty had not discovered the truth, I could have held aloof from her to

the end. On her account, not because she was my brother's wife, I

respected the law. But now," his voice was triumphant, "she wants me.

Do you hear? She wants me. I'm necessary to her. And because of that,

and for no baser reason, I am going to her--to-night."

Ross met his eyes.

"In a word," said he, "you refuse to protect the woman you love against

herself?"

"Once, I should have used that very phrase. What an ocean flows between

us, David!"

"In six months," continued Ross, "you and she will be tormented in a

hell of your own making. There are men and women, thousands of them, who

can steep themselves in the life of the senses. You are not of them,

Mark, nor ever will be; nor is she."

Mark smiled derisively.

"She and I," he retorted, "are two of the myriad insects crawling upon

one of a million worlds. Something within both of us bids us make the

most of our hour. We shall do so. You mean well, David, but you rack

me--you rack me. Go!"

"So be it," said David.

As he was turning, Mark clutched his sleeve. An expression in David's

eyes--the expression which refuses to acknowledge defeat, which

indicates unknown resources--alarmed him.

"You are not going to Archibald," he said hoarsely.

David's face was twitching with emotion, but his voice was firm and

even.

"You must know where I am going," he said simply. "I have

failed--through my own weakness--as I have failed before, as I shall

fail again and again, but I believe that He, whose help I am about to

implore, will not fail. You will not leave England to-night."

When Mark looked up the speaker was gone.

During the next hour preparations for the journey occupied his

attention. But after his portmanteau was strapped and a fly had been

ordered to take him to the station, nearly an hour remained. Mark went

into the grove and flung himself at length upon the soft carpet woven by

the singing pines. He closed his eyes, invoking the alluring image of

Betty. Instantly she came with outstretched hands and shining eyes, but

between them, a grim and sombre figure, knelt David Ross, his face

upturned in supplication. Mark found himself straining his ears to

catch the words of the prayer, but they escaped, fleeting upward whither

he dared not follow them.

Presently he seemed to hear voices other than David's, and like his

inarticulate, although familiar. In his room at the Mission he had often

listened to such voices. What man of ethereal attributes has not? But

since that night on Ben Caryll these sounds had ceased.

He told himself, irritably, that once again he had fallen a victim to

nervous imaginings, echoes of the material world rather than spiritual

communications. Barger had told him that it was easy--given certain

purely physical conditions--to hypnotise oneself, to sink into a

subconscious coma vibrant with sensations and sounds subject to

scientific analysis. But even Barger had never denied the

transcendental gift of David Ross, even Barger believed firmly in the

Seer of Brahan, whose predictions concerning the Seaforth Mackenzies had

been verified so marvellously.

It was impossible to ignore the coincidence of David's visits. Twice

David had sought him out, when he was in sore straits.

At whose bidding?

The question could not be exorcised by sneer or sophism. Mark had

compared himself to an insect, a metaphor used ten thousand times by the

agnostic school and properly, since none other is more expressive of the

insignificance and ephemeral nature of man's body in relation to the

universe. None the less Mark was aware that moral or spiritual facts,

as a writer puts it, have no relation whatever to physical size, and

that a man's soul can no more be measured with a yardstick than the

cardinal virtues.

At whose bidding had David Ross been sent?

He travelled to London by a train which reached Waterloo just after

five. As he neared the city his mood changed from one of doubt and

perplexity to reckless satisfaction. The hansom which took him to

Charing Cross passed over Waterloo Bridge and down the Strand, always

crowded at that hour of the afternoon. Twice the hansom was stopped by

the uplifted hand of a policeman. Each time it drew up opposite a bar

to which thirsty souls were hurrying. Mark's ears could catch the sound

of ice tinkling in long tumblers. Corks were popping intermittently. A

woman's laugh rang out above the buzz of innumerable voices. Mark

stared at the faces of the foot-passengers. Most of the men were

returning from work. An air of relaxation informed them. The day had

been insufferably hot, but now a breeze from the river was flooding the

streets, deliciously cool, astringent, tonic.

The hansom turned in at the station gates, and a moment later a porter

was asking Mark his destination. Mark gave the man instructions as he

handed the cabby a florin.

"Thank ye, sir. 'Oliday times, sir."

"Yes," said Mark, smiling. All round him were men and women,

hard-working Londoners, about to escape into the country or to the

seashore after a year's unremitting grind. The great summer exodus was

now at its height. Some of the humbler folk carried articles wherewith

to beguile the leisure hours: musical instruments, shrimping-nets,

spades and buckets, telescopes, and the inevitable hamper of food.

Mark, with time to spare after he had made arrangements for a coupe to

Dover, caught the contagion of excitement and gaiety, and could enter

into the feelings of an octogenarian who was renewing his youth by

playing a penny whistle. Couples were numerous as birds in pairing-time.

Mark looked at these with sympathetic interest. They drifted by, pair

after pair, an eternal procession of Jacks and Jills. It struck Mark,

not for the first time, that these couples were very youthful. And he

felt that Betty and he shared their youth, that they had not waited too

long. Presently a man of his own class approached, peering eagerly to

right and left, consulting first his watch, and then the great clock.

Mark watched him and followed him. The man was excited and nervous.

Suddenly his face brightened; he ran forward, with both hands extended.

"You have come at last," Mark heard him say. A pretty girl, her face

suffused with blushes, murmured something, and the man answered

hoarsely, "If you had chucked me, I should have cut my throat." Then

they passed, arm in arm, laughing and chattering, into the crowd and out

of sight. Mark looked at his watch. In less than ten minutes Betty

would be here; she also would blush and smile; her hand would be on his

arm; and together they would pass out of the noise and confusion into

sweet, secluded spaces beyond!

His train backed into the station, and passengers began to take their

places. Mark made sure that his coupe was reserved for him, but he

would not allow the porter to put his traps into it.

"I am expecting a friend," he said; and the porter grinned. He walked

back to the trysting-place under the clock, one of half a dozen who had

agreed to meet beneath it. Overhead, the great dial recorded the flight

of time with inexorable, inhuman deliberation. Mark was fascinated by

the minute hand, creeping on and on, nearing the appointed hour. Betty

was running things rather fine, he reflected. In less than seven

minutes the train would be despatched.

Five minutes more glided by. The discordant noises of the station fell

like the boom of distant breakers upon an ear attuned to the sound of

one voice which out of all the voices in the universe was now mute. The

porter approached, anxious and insistent. Mark stammered out a score of

questions. The porter shook his head dismally.

"She must come," said Mark harshly.

As if in derisive answer, the locomotive of the train about to start

whistled. Doors banged. The long line of carriages began to move.

"'Ere she is," said the porter phlegmatically.

Mark turned with thrilling pulses. A woman had rushed up to him, out of

breath and scarlet in the face. That she had missed her train, and was

distressed inconceivably, no one could doubt; but she was not Betty.

Mark could have struck her. She stared stupidly at the vanishing train.

"It's gone," she said.

"Yes," said Mark grimly.

He turned from her to meet the inquisitive stare of a messenger boy.

The boy stared unblinking, and then said, "You're Mr. Samphire?"

"Yes," said Mark.

"I'm to give you this."

He held out a letter. Mark took it, broke the seal, and read it,

unmindful of porter and boy, who exchanged glances and winks; then he

turned to the porter.

"Put my things into a hansom," he said in a dull voice.

"Yes, sir," said the porter.

The boy took one more look at Mark.

"That was a knock-out," he murmured to himself, "a knock-out--sure!"

*CHAPTER XXXV*

*CHRYSOSTOM RETURNS TO CHELSEA*

Betty returned to Cadogan Place, conscious of an extraordinary buoyancy

of spirit, of a gaiety even which made her demure maid stare. "Getting

out o' this dirty old house makes you laugh, ma'am," she remarked.

"Yes," said Betty; "it makes me laugh."

When the maid left the room, Betty sat down by the window which

overlooked the gardens below, the gardens typical of such houses as the

one she was leaving--conventionally laid out, fenced with sharply

pointed iron palings, pleasure grounds wherein no person, out of their

teens, took any pleasure whatever. Betty could see two children and a

gaunt governess walking primly along one of the broad well-swept paths.

One child, a nice fat little girl, escaped from bondage, hiding behind a

bush. Betty could hear the voice of the governess calling to her, and

then a sharp rebuke, as the truant came toddling back to the path.

"If my baby had lived----"

She put the baby out of her thoughts. If it had lived, she and the

child might have remained inside iron palings.

Then, very deliberately, she faced the future. Her money was settled on

herself. Mark and she could live where they pleased, as they pleased.

If one place proved disagreeable they could move on and on; the world

was wide.

She smiled happily and contentedly. Many women, at such a moment, would

have been distraught by anxiety and fear. But Betty was gladder than

she had ever felt before. Indeed, she was triumphant. She told herself

that every instinct she had tried to suppress was vindicated gloriously.

To such a proud, refined woman the memory that she had flung herself at

Mark's head had been always a dire humiliation, the more so because she

had never measured the width and depth of his feeling for her. She

repeated the phrase, "He has always loved me," again and again, letting

the sweetness of it linger upon her lips.