“Ah,” he said, “I can’t help you, you know. You must fudge it out as

best you can. I’m dreadfully sorry—but that’s the truth. You might come

to a pass where I could be of use—I hope you won’t—there’s no reason

to suppose it. Meantime——”

“He’s kindness itself,” she said, looking beyond him. “He was kind from

the very beginning—but—I know that I ought not to have married him.”

“Perhaps,” said Senhouse, “he ought not to have asked you.”

Her eyes fell. “No,” she said, “perhaps not.”

After a pause of some intensity on her part, she broke out. “What you

tell me of yourself fills me—makes me excited. It’s glorious. You stand

on your feet—you are free as the air—owe nothing—while I—what am I?

Not even myself. The dressmaker made me—the policeman guards me. My

husband—but if I had no husband, what could I do? Belong to somebody

else? If I broke a rule——”

He stopped her with a gesture—a quick jerk of the head. She met his

eyes.

“The pity will be if you break a rule without getting full value for the

escapade. Don’t do that.”

“I wasn’t thinking—I didn’t mean you to think—” He had frightened her;

she was quite breathless.

“You must understand,” he said, “that, in my view, you are no wiser to

put your body in a cage than your mind. Both must be free. Don’t make

the mistake of thinking that a woman who breaks our law of property in

one way is worse than the shop thief who breaks it in another. To wound

the feelings of a good and generous man is a serious thing—but not to

take bread when you are starving. At least, that is how I look at it.

But—you must be very sure you _are_ starving. Sincerity is the supreme

virtue, and insincerity the only deadly sin.”

She nursed her cheek, while dreams showed themselves in her grave eyes.

Whether she was pondering what he said or no, there’s no doubt she was

giving it personal application again. Tristram was in her mind—her

morose, exclusive lover. Was her friend giving a benediction to

Tristram’s plain desires? What was she to do then? Was she to be

possessed by Tristram—at last? Sincerity, he said, was all. Was she

sincere? Could she ask—dared she? She knew that what he told her she

should believe—Yes; and she juggled. She did not want to know what he

would say—because she knew it already. Blame her as you will—that’s

the fact.

Very woman that she was, she went about and about the thing she dared

not—peering for the assurance of her fears. She looked softly at him as

he sat there, plucking the grass by handfuls or making mounts of torn

plantains—she looked wistfully. “You are my friend then—whatever

happens to me?”

He met her melting eyes candidly. “Depend upon me.”

“Ah,” she said, “but I do! Well, then, I must do what seems to me

best—I must be brave.” He smiled.

“Have your adventures, of course. Don’t be afraid of them. Be true to

yourself, though—at every cost.”

“Yes, yes, I promise you that. . . . When shall I see you again?”

He gazed blankly at the sky. “I don’t know, really. I’m a wanderer, you

know. But the Land’s End finds me from November to February mostly. I

begin to work West about October. I am due in the North now—in the

Lakes. Wastwater will find me—somewhere thereabouts. I shall be there

till September. I leave London to-night—no, to-morrow—” Their eyes met

again, without embarrassment. He was the only man she could have

commerce with in this way. “I shall see you at Land’s End some day or

other,” she told him. “When I’m wounded——”

“Caught in a wire by the foot,” he laughed. “All right—I’ll set you

free.”

“But suppose you were in Berkshire when I was there—How should I know

that you were there? Would you call at Southover?”

He laughed. “No, indeed I shouldn’t. I’m a hedgerow chap. I move by

night mostly.”

“Well, but—you might be within a mile of me, and I should never know

it.”

“Yes, you would, of course,” he said, simply. “You’d know by the trail.”

“What trail?”

“Don’t you know that? I’ll show you. Old Borrow calls it the _patteran_,

and swears he got it from a gipsy girl called Ursula. You needn’t

believe him; I don’t. But the trail is certain. A woman who lived in a

cave at Granada showed it to me. Look here.” He plucked up a handful of

grass. “Here’s a four-went way”—he marked it with his finger in the

dust. “Now watch”—he scattered the grass, which took, roughly, the form

of a curved pointer. “You see that on a road—it means the way I am

gone. But I do mine with leaves, when leaves there are—with leaves from

the sunny side of a hedgerow. You can always tell them.” Her brows

inquired—she was intensely interested. “Dunce, they are bigger of

course, and darker. I use them because the gipsies, who are everywhere,

use leaves, too, but never take the trouble to select them. Now you’ll

always know _my_ trail by that. Do you see?”

She clasped her hands together—her eyes danced. “How splendid! How

glorious! Then we have a language. I can find you whenever I want you.

For if I wanted you very badly, I could set a _patteran_ for you,

couldn’t I?” He nodded. She said in a low voice, “You don’t know how

strong you have made me—you can never know. Thank you a thousand

times.”

“Not a bit,” he said, lightly. “If we’re friends, you are entitled to

know my little games.”

“And may I speak to you like that—when I go anywhere?”

“Do. We share.”

She sighed. “How can I ever thank you!”

The sun was low when she got up, saying that she must go home. It was

discovered to be seven o’clock. “Why,” she cried, “they had forgotten to

have any tea!”

“Poor girl! Will you have some now?”

“No, no. I don’t want it. But I must go. Will you come with me? Or are

you engaged?”

“You know I’m never engaged. I shall come with you, of course. Will you

drive?”

She shook her head. “No, that’s too quick. Let’s walk over the grass.

It’s no distance.”

She talked to him of her friends—of all her friends but Duplessis. This

he observed. Did he know Mr. Horace Wing? By repute only, it seemed. He

could be seen in photograph shops—a very “pretty fellow”; too pretty,

Palmer Lovell? Unlicked, he judged. Then he tried her. “I know young

Bramleigh,” he said with one of his straight looks into the deep of you.

“I met him yesterday.”

She received the shock unfaltering. “Lord Bramleigh? I hardly know him.”

He had failed. Lord Kesteven—for she went on blandly with her list—he

had never heard of. He asked “What he did?” and made her open her eyes.

“Do!” she said, with a comical air of being shocked. “He’s a Marquis.”

This made Senhouse perfectly happy, but he apologized for laughing.

“I’ve nothing against him, you know. I believe it’s an honest calling.

Does he do nothing else but be a kind marquis to you?”

She affected scorn. “He’s an Ambassador—in Paris. I hope that’s honest

enough for you.”

“I hope so, too,” said Senhouse, “but I’d rather be a marquis. Is he

your friend?”

“He says so. I think he means to be.” All of a sudden she leaned towards

him; he felt her urgency. “You are my friend. I have no others. You have

promised me your friendship.”

“You have it, my dear,” said Senhouse. They walked the rest of the way

in silence; but he stopped once, and interested her again. It was in

Mount-street—of all places. He stopped short, as if he was listening;

his head high, eyes closed. He was sensing the air, listening to it,

smelling it. Narrow Mount-street took the semblance of a forest path,

brambled, dusty, hemmed with bracken fronds and silvered roots. “There’s

rain—there’s rain,” he said—“I can hear it coming. May be a day off,

but it’s on the way.” She watched him incredulous. “Are you a magician?

What are you?” He laughed. “I’ve got feelers, that’s all.”

At the door in Hill-street he left her. She was inclined to be

tremulous, tender—but he was completely cheerful. He would have gone

with a wave of the hand had she not held out her own. As it was, she had

prepared a little formal speech—“I cannot tell you how glad I am that

we met—I——”

“Don’t try to tell me,” he said. “I know it. One takes that for

granted—among friends, you know. That’s the privilege of the estate.”

“Yes, yes—of course. Well, I won’t thank you for doing what pleases

you. I am sure that it _has_ pleased you.” She fished for an answer.

“Take it for granted,” he repeated.

That braced her. “I will. I do. Good-bye.” This time he did wave his

hand.

“Mr. Duplessis have called, Madame,” said Greatorex at the door. “He

have left a parcel. Lord Kesteven have called—and Mr. Wing.”

The parcel—discreetly phrased—proved to be most palpably a truss of

roses. She unfastened it herself, and found a slip of paper pinned to

the stalk of one. “Forgive,” was written on it. Smiling wisely, she went

upstairs to dress, her bouquet in her hand.

VII

SHE GLOSSES THE TEXT

Had Duplessis, flowers in hand, sued his forgiveness at any time, she

was not the woman to be stern. That was not in her; she was at once too

sensitive to the flattery of the prayer, and too generous to refuse it.

But at this particular time she felt very strong; fresh from communion

with her friend, secure in him, she felt equal to judging a dozen

Tristrams—and to judging them leniently. “They know not what they do.”

That was why she had smiled so wisely to herself on her way upstairs;

and it may have been why she wore some of his flowers in the waistband

of her gown that night. It was one of her most charming gowns, too;

mouse-coloured tulle. In the belt of this she set crimson roses, of

Tristram’s offering.

She dined out, and went on to a party. Duplessis was waiting for her at

the foot of the stairs; they went up together. He had never yet taken

possession of her in that manner, and cannot be excused of brutality.

But he was quick to presume; was not at all a good object for

generosity. Her eyes had answered his inquiry—“Forgiven?” before he

touched her hand; she had said “Of course,” and the rest followed as a

matter of course. He assumed from it his right to be offensive, and her

privilege to be unoffended. She went upstairs by his side, so far as he

was concerned, possessed to all intents and purposes—under his

protection. She did not know it then or even feel it; her lightness of

heart buoyed her up. Had she not been encouraged in adventure?

By the time they were well past their hostess at the door Tristram had

resumed this air of the vaguely irritated lion. He looked grandly about

him over heads—his height gave him pretence.

“What are we to do here—? All these people—a wilderness of monkeys—”

When a young man, sure of welcome, had come up on toe-tips to shake

hands with Mrs. Germain—had bowed, prattled, bowed and gone, Duplessis

showed more than fatigue. He had seen his crimson flowers at her belt,

and they bretrayed him. “I want to talk to you. Let’s go and sit down

somewhere. It can’t be here.” He spoke shortly, as if he meant it.

She took his arm without question, and he pushed a way through a couple

of full rooms. Beyond these was a little boudoir, beyond that a library,

empty. She sat, and he stood fidgeting with reviews on the table, taking

up and throwing aside like a child sick of toys. And she sat softly

there with cast-down eyes, waiting until he chose to remember her.

She was very conscious of his mood, and not unsatisfied with it. The

whole thing was a game, an adventure, say, and this a recognized move in

it. “Have your adventures—don’t shirk them. Sincerity is the great

matter. Be yourself whatever happens.” He had been plucking up the grass

at her feet as he told her that, and she had not been able to see his

face, though she had tried. He spoke deliberately, as if he was screwing

the words out one by one—as if they ought to be said, cost him what

they might to say. Had they cost him anything? Ah, if she could have

known that!

But—“Be yourself whatever happens!” Had she a self? What was it? Was it

that of a young woman who—of one of those women who like to be coveted,

are ready to be owned, who indeed always are owned by one or another?

“His servant or his maid, his ox or his ass—” Must she be property,

personal property? Ah, but let her never forget that, such as she was,

Jack Senhouse was to be her friend—always—at the call of her need.

Then she remembered the _patteran_, and smiled to herself.

Presently she looked up at Tristram, scowling over the _Deux Mondes_.

“What are you going to do with me, now I am here?” she asked him

lightly; whereupon he turned short, and sat down near her.

“What _can_ I do with you? What’s possible? What am I allowed to say? I

feel like a caged cat. Am I to pay you compliments, ask you if all’s

well? Has it come to that? I know what you would say if I did. You are

not happy. It’s evident.”

It was only in this man’s company that she failed of self-possession.

With men far greater than he, such as Kesteven; with men defter than he,

men of the Wing vein, she could, as it were, hold the reins, and feel

the mouth. With Duplessis she was always liable to strike back upon

former days. At any moment, had he but known it, he could have put her,

so to speak, into a white muslin frock, turned her into the fluttered

village coquette. Oddly enough, with all his wits, he had never known it

until this moment; he had always read her new position into her old

ways. But now it was too plain to mistake; he had but to lift his hand

and—! The discovery ran through his veins like a strong wind—to make

him shiver.

She was looking down at her hands in her lap, picking up her fan plumes

one by one, and running them between her fingers. A latent trembling

possessed her, which he felt rather than saw. The same fever caught him.

“Where’s Germain?” He spoke masterfully.

Her reply was studiously simple. “He’ll come for me by-and-by. He’s at

the Speaker’s dinner.”

“He’s always somewhere else.” Mischief prompted her to ask if he

complained of that; but he was not to be drawn.

“If you were my wife,” he told her, “I should never leave your side. If

you were my wife, I should be your lover always.”

Here was a lie, obvious even to her; but the devout imagination in it

was enough to thrill her. Watching her closely, he saw that she was

thrilled.

“You’re not happy,” he said, “and I’m not happy. You made a frightful

mistake—but mine was worse.”

It was hardly the moment to assure him that he was quite wrong. If a

gentleman does you the honour to discern misery, even where none exists,

it proves attention, at least, to your circumstances. It’s an oblique

compliment.

She said gravely, “I don’t think we ought to talk about such things. I

have never given you any reason to think me dissatisfied with——”

“Oh,” he broke in, “we’re not considering the creature comforts, I

imagine. You came here in a carriage from your big house—and you’ll go

back to a big house in your carriage. I can understand that these are

pleasant arrangements; and after two years of them, for what they are

worth, you may well confuse them with the real thing. But that—! A full

cup, nodding at the brim! Life together! No world, nobody in the world

but two souls—ours! And work: work together! Good God, it’s ghastly to

think of.”

He looked haggard, and there was a hollow ring in his voice, the

hoarseness of a consumptive. Her heart went out to him in pity, and her

hand was laid for a moment on his sleeve. “You are not well—you work

too hard. Please don’t.”

“Work!” he said, “I have none. I wish I had. I’ve quarrelled with Jess.”

“I know. I’m very sorry. I wish that we—that I——”

He suddenly and squarely faced her. “Look here, Molly,” he said, and

made her heart beat and her eyes quail. He, and he only, had called her

Molly. “You know what’s the matter. There has hardly been a day since

you’ve been in town that I haven’t seen you—I’ve found out where you

were to be—and I’ve been, too. You possess my mind; I think of nothing

else, can’t sleep for thinking. I believed that I should get over it,

and perhaps I should if I hadn’t seen you again last autumn. There was

the mischief. I vow to you I didn’t want to come, shouldn’t have come if

Jess hadn’t insisted. A confounded ass—! It all began again then—and

now, I tell you fairly I shan’t get over it. I’m not going to try. It’s

stronger than I. . . . And I believe that you care, too. I do believe

that, I know you do. You wouldn’t sit there so still if you didn’t—you

wouldn’t hide your eyes if you didn’t. You dare not show me how bright

they are. Ah, but I know how bright they can be, and what makes them

shine! No, no, you and I belong——”

“Oh, don’t, don’t—please don’t!” The cry was wrung from her, and the

courage to look at him came. But then, as she turned her head away, she

said faintly, “You mustn’t,” and made things ten times worse.

His next words beat her back. “I love you, do you hear? I adore you—I

care for nobody, no rights or claims in the world; I can’t live without

you. If you won’t listen to me, if you drive me too hard, I shall—No,

no, that’s wicked. Molly, I’ll do you no harm, I swear to that. But you

and I have got to be together, or I shall go mad. Now you know it all.”

She rose, and he with her. Both were shaking; but she spoke first.

“Let me go now, please—take me back. I mustn’t be found here.” He was

ready.

“I’ll take you away, now. I’m glad I’ve had it out with you. Now you

know the facts at least.”

She put her face in her hands. “It’s dreadful. I ought not to have

listened to you. It was very wrong. What are we to do?”

“Love each other dearly,” said Tristram, and took her in his arms and

kissed her. She shuddered and shut her eyes, but did not try to move.

Her lips were parted; there came a long sigh. “My darling, my darling

girl,” he said, and kissed her again. They heard steps, and sprang

apart. Her terror was manifest. “Come,” he said, “we must get out of

this.”

She took his arm—she looked as sleek as a stroked dove. They went into

the rooms without another word. She was almost at once confronted with

people whom she knew, and Duplessis left her with the first group she

encountered. She saw him shoulder his way through, nodding to right and

left in his grand, careless way; she saw him go out and knew that he

would not come back. Engaged in the chatter usual to such times, she

talked at random, laughed without knowing what amused her. When she was

told that Mr. Germain had been seen—was here looking for her, she

gathered her wits at once and went to find him.

He was talking in his calm, superior way to a great lady. His Court

dress suited him—he looked like his ancestor, Sir William, pictured in

the dining-room at Southover.

The great lady put up her glasses and smiled at Mary. “Here comes that

pretty person you’ve given us. How d’ye do, my dear. What’s the secret

of your bright eyes? Late hours agree with you, it’s plain; but this

poor man of yours wants care.”

“Yes, indeed,” said she, thankful of the turn-off.

Mr. Germain made her a bow. “If you have come to take me away, my dear,

I shall not deny you the pleasure. The whole duty of a wife in the

season is to take her husband from parties. Am I not right, Duchess?”

“My dear man,” said she, “I don’t pretend to such privileges. My husband

has been in bed these two hours. Good-night, you happy pair. Now, my

dear, when will you come to me? The 20th, of course—my ball. I trust

you for that. But do come in to luncheon—positively any day except

to-morrow and Thursday—oh, and Saturday. Saturday is hopeless.” She

tapped Mary’s cheek with her fan—“What a dawn colour!”—and smiled

herself onwards, fat, satiny, and benevolent. The Germains gained their

carriage, and he was asleep before they were in Carlos-place. She sat

absorbed, gazing out of the window, still under the spell of Tristram’s

love-making. She went to bed—lay wide-eyed in the dark for a while;

then sighed deeply, and smiled, and slept. Her last waking thought was

sophistical. “He told me to have adventures—and to be myself. And he’s

my friend, whatever happens.” Entrenched behind her philosopher, she had

no dreams.

VIII

ADVENTURE CROWDS ADVENTURE

Odd thing! The rain nosed out by the man of weather came to pass. But it

delayed for a week or more, which was time enough for many other

prophecies to be fulfilled. When, however, it did come it struck her

imagination. She awoke late from a night of deep sleep to hear it

thudding on roof and balcony and to see, when she looked out, the heavy

trees of Berkeley-square streaming like waterweed under a sluice. Here

and there a cruising hansom thrashed a way through, now and again a

milk-cart. The butcher-boys wore their baskets on their heads. Her first

conscious thought was of Senhouse, bare-crested to the wild weather. It

would be wild in the open, and, of course, he was in the open. On some

wide common, perhaps, facing the gale, with the rolling collar of his

jersey flacking like ship’s cordage. Ah, to be there with him, sharing

the joy of battle!

It was with a sense of suddenly leaving the wholesome, great air for

that of a hot-house that she turned to her breakfast tray and pile of

letters. She picked up the first of them; the hand was Tristram’s. A

letter from him, and a visit, were now daily events. A letter to him,

also, must be written daily, and somehow delivered.

This one was cavalier in tone. “Sweetheart,—I must see you, if only to

arrange how best we may meet. What a storm last night! But what a clear

blue promise before us! I shall be in the Burlington Arcade—Gardens

end—at noon. Come.” “Tr.”

Even she, never yet free from her early subjection to him, felt that

this was not how lovers write to their sovereign ladies. An

assignation—and in such a place—proposed to Mrs. Germain! She coloured

high and clear. He had done what she could never have believed possible;

he had really offended her. Nothing in the whole world could have

persuaded her to go.

But by-and-by that sophistry which is ever at hand to clinch a woman’s

argument the way she wants it to travel, modified her view, suggested a

duty. Insolent, arrogant, exorbitant lover that he was, he must be

taught his place. He should see her inaccessible; he should see her cold

profile as she drove by him without so much as a turn of the head.

Perhaps then he would know that she was not a village girl at his

disposal. Perhaps. Thus, at least, she reasoned—and thus she did. The

brougham was ordered for a quarter to twelve—she kept it fifteen

minutes, and then gave the order, “Bank.” Her bank was that of England,

and stands in Burlington Gardens.

She had no real errand there, but she feigned one. A cheque was to be

cashed. The footman was to take it—and even as she gave it him she saw

Tristram at the mouth of the Arcade—in an overcoat to his ankles, his

wet umbrella in his hand.

She sat rigid in her place, wide-eyed for events. While looking at

Musters’s careful back it was perfectly possible to see her lover at his

post. He was watching her intently, she knew; but he did not move. He

did not intend to go a step out of his way to meet her. True, he had

walked to the Arcade—he, who lived in the Albany! A most cavalier

lover, this.

The game went on . . . the minutes passed. The footman came back with

her money and waited for orders. She named a shop—a jeweller’s close

by, in Vigo-street. Jinny Middleham was to be married, to a Mr. Podmore,

a clergyman, and must have a present. How happily things turned out; the

cheque would serve. The touch of Musters’s whip caused the hoofs to

clatter on the asphalt; the brougham lunged forward and swept her by the

shameful trysting-place. She peered sideways as she passed; Duplessis,

looking full upon her, did not even lift his hat. Nor, during the hour

she spent, fingering enamels, rivières, and rings, did he appear at the

shop-door. When she went by the Arcade on her return he was not there.

She felt strongly the sensation of escape, and was surprised to be so

free from disappointment. Senhouse came back to his own place in her

thoughts—he and the wind on the heath. Both good things.

But in the afternoon, at about six o’clock, her cavalier was ushered

into her drawing-room, where she sat alone, and stood by the door

looking at her until the man had gone out. Then he crossed the room

quickly, came straight to her, knelt, took both her hands and kissed

them.

He humbled himself. She hardly knew him for the same man. And he did the

thing handsomely, too, named himself grievous things, exalted her,

wouldn’t hear of any excuse. Her generosity, easily moved, was all on

his side in a few minutes. She could not hear him accuse himself.

Perhaps he had been thoughtless; but she had had no right, she said, to

be so angry.

Finally, she wouldn’t listen. “If you go on talking so wildly,” she told

him, “I shall begin to think you don’t mean it.” And then he did

explain.

It appeared that there had been reason in what he had proposed. A

certain delicacy taught him that he could not continue calling at the

house after what had happened. That could hardly fail to appease her.

His seeming insult, then, had really been intensely prompted by his fear

of insulting her. She considered this with hanging head.

“Mind you, Molly,” he went on, being master of her hand, “I can’t

withdraw one word of what was forced out of me that night; I can’t wish

undone one single act. I adore you, and I must tell you so; I love you,

and must show my love.” Here he kissed her. “The question is, how and

when am I to see you. See you I must and will. I wanted to talk to you

about that—and how was I to do it? Would you have had me ask you to my

rooms?”

It did occur to her here that a better place could have been found,

since they met most nights in the week in somebody’s house; but she put

the cavil by as unworthy. Since he was in her husband’s house, however,

not disturbed unduly by the delicacy which had troubled him overnight,

it would be as well to hear what he suggested.

“I’m not going to be unreasonable,” he told her; “I shall settle down

presently, and things will jog along, no doubt, for a bit. But at this

moment, when I have just won you—after two years, Molly, after two

years—I must have you more or less alone for a few days. Upon my soul,

I think you owe me that.”

He made her feel that she really did; but he frightened her, too. She

looked quickly into his face, where he knelt gazing at hers. “You must

tell me what you mean,” she said. “I don’t understand. Alone? For a few

days? That is surely impossible.”

He explained with eagerness. “Of course, of course! Don’t, for God’s

sake, misunderstand. I would not ask you to do anything which would

cause you discomfort. Heaven forbid. I said, ‘more or less alone.’ Isn’t

that plain enough? If I can’t see you here, it can only be at some of

these infernal crowds we all flock to—and how can we be sure of a

moment there? Look here, my dearest, think of this plan. I should like

you to go and stay with your people for a bit.”

That did sound feasible. Her quick mind jumped after his instantly. “My

people?” she said, wondering. “Yes, I should love to see them all again.

Jinny, my sister, is going to be married. I should have gone for that in

any event. Yes, of course, I could go there if——”

He poured out his plans. She should go to Blackheath at once, and he

would take her down, leave her at the door. He should take rooms in

Greenwich: there was an hotel there, not bad at all. You looked over the

river; the shipping was magnificent. Every day he would meet her

somewhere—they would both be unknown. Every day they would spend

together: Greenwich Park, the river; they could sail to the Nore, round

the Mouse. It would be Heaven, he said. And then he pleaded—his love,

his misery, his longing. “Without you I’m a lost soul, Mary; if I’m

worth saving, come and save me. In the sight of Heaven you were mine on

the day I kissed you first. Do you remember when that was? How long ago?

Do you think I have forgotten it? Never, never. That kiss sealed you

mine—mine for ever. And what am I asking of you now? A few days’ human

companionship—a sop which you are to throw to a starving man. Haven’t

you charity enough for that? Ah, but I see that you have—you can’t hide

it from me.” She could not.

He went on from strength to strength. “I save the proprieties by this

plan; I secure you absolutely from prying eyes and profane tongues. You

will have your people, your mother, to fall back upon if I could be—if

you could fear me scoundrel enough—My beloved! I wrong you to name such

a thought. You may disapprove of me—you may be hurt—God forgive me! by

things that I say, do, look. They are things wrung from me by this

throttling passion—for three years I have been gripped by the throat.

Ah, and it must end, or be the end of me! Well—Molly, look at me. What

will you tell me?”

She did look at him then—for one dewy moment. Pity, kindness, infinite

wistfulness, pride—mingled in the fire, melted, and lay gleaming in her

eyes. Wonderingly she searched his face, ready to quail before the

savagery she expected to read there; but he was wise—she could find

nothing there but honesty, frank and manly desire; for he saw to it that

she should not. Before she turned her head she had given him her hand.

He stooped and kissed it softly; then went away.

Before dinner she went to her husband in the library where he sat, with

his reading-lamp, blue-books, and spectacles. “Come in,” he had called

in answer to her knock, but did not turn when she entered. As she

approached his desk, approached his studious back, she felt like a

school-girl, coming to ask if she might leave early—with a fibbing

reason for the teacher, which disguised the secret, fearful joy of the

real reason. The school-girl showed in every halting word, in every

flicker of the covering eyelids. . . .

“I was going to ask you—Would you mind if I were to go to my people for

a few days—soon? Would you be able to spare me, do you think?”

He turned quickly, hurt by her meekness. “My love! Of course! Can you

ask me such things?”

She could not afford tenderness from him just now. She took a

business-like tone.

“My sister is to be married shortly, as you know. There is a good deal

to do. I could help mother, you know. Jinny is staying with Mr.

Podmore’s family.”

He nodded approvingly. “Quite so, quite so. It would be only kind. You

have engagements, no doubt—but nothing pressing, I suppose. Have we not

people here, by the way?”

“Not until the 26th. This is the 11th.”

“Yes, yes, my dear. Make whatever arrangements suit you. When do you

think of going?”

“I thought, the day after to-morrow. But——”

“Well, my love?”

“I should not care to go, if I thought—that you might want me.”

He turned to his desk. “Want you!” he said under his breath. “Want you!”

So careful was he that she could never have guessed the bitterness of

that soft cry.

But she lingered yet. “Of course—it is quite close to town. You could

write—or telegraph—I could come in a moment.”

“Yes, my dear one, yes,” he said, his face averted. “It would be easy

enough. But I am not likely to disturb you in your happiness.”

This would never do. “It would be my duty to come.”

He groaned. “Oh, my dearest, spare me!”

She must misconstrue that, or she must fail; she must gulp it down, and

she did—but it turned her sick.

“Thank you,” she said staidly. “Then I will write to mother.” Her

fingers were within an inch of his shoulder; they hovered over, almost

touched it. Then she went. He covered his face with his hands. I think

he prayed.

IX

THE PATTERAN

As she lay watchful in her bed the night before her escapade, she vowed

that she had no love for Tristram, none whatever. At the same moment she

protested with a cry that she had none for her husband either; indeed,

it was rather the other way. Surely, surely, she was entitled to

resentment against that poor gentleman. For what reason under Heaven had

he broken in upon her laborious days if, now that he had her, she was to

be no more to him than a figure at his table? Was this the whole duty of

wives? She knew better than that. Nay, then, had wives no rights? Was

she bought to be a nun? She declared to herself that she would be

willing, should that enable her to help him in his work. But she knew

that nothing would enable her; she had insight enough into character to

read what manner of man he was. “He can tell me nothing—nothing. And

the more he needs me the less he can say so. If I went to him on my

knees and begged him to be open with me, he would shrivel before my

face. No, no, he must be for ever bestowing favours—he loves to be the

benefactor—and that’s all he loves. If he could pity me he would love

me again—in his way. But—” and she clenched her little hands and

stiffened her arms—“he shall never pity me—never.” And then she

blushed all over to feel how she had crept to him to ask his leave of

absence, and how she had cowered there, with drooping eyelids too heavy

to be raised. Alas! and how she had fibbed.

A thought of Tristram here, of his kisses and strong arms about her,

made her heart beat. The wild joy of being possessed by so fine a

creature was not to be denied, once you blinked the truth that in the

very act of taking possession he would despise you for suffering it.

That had to be blinked, though. Whatever she might have become by right

of marriage, by intercourse with Tristram’s own world, by familiarity

with its ways—to Tristram she was still a little governess, sent into

this world to be kissed and fondled—but no possible companion for a

gentleman, or man of parts. Formerly, if she had felt this, she had

accepted it; but now—well, it had to be blinked. Mary was no fool. She

knew quite well that she had learned the ways of the great. She knew

that she was a success. She had been clever enough from the beginning to

see that safety lay only in being absolutely herself. While she had gone

in and out of Misperton Brand, from school-house to church and back, she

had turned her eyes and ears—all her senses—upon these lords of the

earth who were lords without effort. Her Cantacutes, James Germains, and

their friends—every gesture of theirs had been a study to her. By

instinct she had bored into the very marrow of these people. They alone

in the world could afford to be themselves. And directly she could

afford it she put that into practice—with success, as she knew very

well. Tristram Duplessis, however, would have none of that, ignored it.

He was entirely himself, too, and never allowed her to forget that she

was his inferior. Every look he gave her was, in its way, an insult,

implied “You are mine, my dear, for the picking up.” She knew that she

ought to be offended—but she was _not_ offended. She knew that such a

homage as his was not flattering—and yet she was flattered by it. Then

why should she run away from what pleased her? As she asked herself this

question, to which the answer had been so easy a little while before,

she found herself now echoing more faintly her “Why, indeed?” Was not

love a necessity to women? Was she to have none of it? Was she to be an

unwedded wife for ever, and unloved? What had her friend told her, that

wonderful day in the Park when, it had seemed, the scales fell from her

eyes and she saw men and women where before she had seen herds, dressed

by the milliner and marshalled by the police? Love, he had said, is a

real thing—one of the few real things we have; and it has been turned

by the lawyers into a means of securing real property. “It’s bad enough

that women should lend themselves to that; but worse things are done in

love’s name, I believe.” Well then, if Tristram loved her, in his way,

was she not justified in giving him what she had left to give? At that

moment she felt his arms about her, his breath upon her cheeks. Yes,

yes, he loved her—he had always loved her. Let come what might of that.

She turned on the light and left her bed; she sat at her writing-table

and scribbled a few words on a sheet—“I am going to Blackheath

to-morrow—by train. I shall leave Charing-cross at 4.15.” She put that

in an envelope, wrote his name and address, stamped it. Now, what was

the time? Two o’clock? It could still be posted so that he would get it

at eight. Dressing gown, slippers, a hasty twist to her hair, a cloak

and hood—she opened her door noiselessly and crept downstairs.

She was some time unfastening the front door—time enough to cool; time

enough to decide with a leaden heart that she had no love for Tristram.

The keen pale air tempered her still further. “Be yourself,” she had

been told; and “Sincerity is the whole matter.” Insincerity! There lay

the sin. She had to go to the corner of the Square to the pillar-box;

but not a soul was in sight: it could be done. Gathering her cloak about

her, she ventured out, and walked tiptoe forward, with eyes all astare

for a policeman or late cab. . . .

The houses seemed made of eyes; there was not a blind window but had a

witness in it. Mocking, leering, incredulous, curious, heavily reproving

she dragged before them her load of shame. Oh, that it should have come

to this, that she was a spectacle for all London’s reproach! But she

sped onwards on light feet, her letter in her hand.

Where Hill-street broadens into the Square stands a great lamp, the

centre, as it were, of a pool of light. There had been a storm of wind

and rain in the early part of that night, and the surface of the road

was fretted with gleaming reflections where mud and water had been blown

up into billows. As she stood for a second or two by the pillar-box, her

letter not yet posted, her eyes, painfully acute, fell upon this wide,

dimpled and cresseted bay, and, although her mind was disturbed, took

some sort of interest in the effect. Following the light inwards, she

found her looks arrested by something else—a torn spray of a tree,

blown, no doubt, from one of the planes in the Square garden—which lay

by the pillar-box, almost at her feet. It was about eighteen inches

long, bent in the midst, and pointed to the north. Strictly, it pointed

north-west.

Immediately she remembered the _patteran_ which Senhouse had explained

to her. Wonderful thing—if he had passed this way while she was

contending with her sin, and had laid this sure sign in the road to show

her where he was to be found! It pointed to the north—no! to the

north-west. That seemed to make a certainty of it. Her heart beat high,

and the flood of happiness rose within her until she seemed to be bathed

in it to the chin. She stood alone in that great glaring emptiness,

unconscious of everything but her triumphant release from bondage. To

the north—safety was in the north, comradeship, health, freedom to

breathe and move her limbs! Smiling to herself, she dropped her letter

into the pillar-box, picked up the _patteran_ and returned swiftly to

the house, to bed and to happy sleep. Absolved! She was absolved.

In the morning she arose with the feeling of elation one has at the

opening of an honest adventure; the day is before you, the world lies

mapped out; you are not to fail—you cannot. She dressed, breakfasted

and read her letters. There was one from Tristram, which she had not

even the curiosity to open. She lit the corner of it at the spirit-lamp

and held it daintily out while it curled and blackened under the flame

and dropped in charred flakes into the slop basin. Ghosts of words in

silver characters flickered as they perished—she saw “homage,” “heart’s

queen,” “kiss,” and “my arms.” She wrote to her mother at Blackheath

that she was unexpectedly delayed but hoped to come soon. She would

write again, she said, or send a telegram. Meantime a trunk would arrive

and might wait for her. At eleven she asked if Mr. Germain was up, and

being told that he was, went in to see him.

If he had been in the mood to notice anything but his own troubles, he

must have remarked upon her altered habit. She was radiantly well,

self-possessed, and cool. She kissed his forehead lightly, asked how he

had slept, and then told him that she was lunching out and should have

her luggage sent down to Blackheath. She had given orders to her maid,

and should not want the carriage.

Mr. Germain listened heavily, fingering a blue-book and a pencil. He

made no inquiries, had no suggestions to offer. She anticipated what he

might have had to say as to an approaching visit of the James Germains

by telling him that all arrangements had been made—and then she said,

“I won’t disturb you again. I know that you are very busy.”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “My work presses upon me.” He sighed, and then

asked with studied politeness, “You go to-day?”

She laughed. “I’ve just been telling you about it.” She stooped and

kissed his forehead again. “Good-bye,” she said, “I’ll write, of

course—if you’ll promise to read what I send you.”

He caught his breath, and shut his eyes tightly as if something hurt

him; but he did not move from his chair. Nor did he once seek to meet

her eyes. She could see that he was deeply depressed, but felt no pity

for him just then. Her youth was too strong within her, her adventure

too near, and her freedom too certain. Yet she hovered above him looking

down at him drooped in his chair, quivering over him, as it were, like

some gossamer insect new-dawning to the sun. A word, a sigh, a look

would have netted her in; but nothing came. He sat stonily astare, his

face hidden by his hand—the other keeping his page in the blue-book.

Looking down, as from the battlements of heaven an archangel might

survey the earth, she touched his shoulder with her finger-tips, and was

gone.

In reasoning it all out, or rather in flashing her instinct upon

events—for that was her way—she knew that Senhouse could not himself

have laid the _patteran_ for her guidance. None the less, she was sure

it was intended for her, and that it pointed truly to where he was. It

was June; he would be in Cumberland. Wastwater would find him, he had

said. Her plan, as she worked it out, was to take train to Kendal and

inquire.

This she did. While her trunk and dressing-case were being delivered at

Heath View, and while Duplessis was biting his nails under the clock at

Charing Cross Station, she was being carried smoothly to the north,

snugly in a corner of a third-class carriage, her cheek to the

window-pane, and her bright unwinking eyes watching the landscape as it

rushed up to meet her. The villa gardens and hedgerows of Herts, the

broad Leicestershire cornfields, Bletchley with its spire, Rugby, Crewe,

then the dark over all; but scarcely for a moment did her eyes leave the

nearing north. She arrived at Kendal at midnight, and had some tea. Then

she found the ladies’ waiting-room, lay on the sofa, and slept.

X

THE BROTHERS TOUCH BOTTOM

The James Germains paid a visit to Hill-street in June. It was most

unfortunate that it was so wet, but the time was otherwise convenient,

since Mary was away on a visit to her people. This was how Mrs. James

put it—she was never remarkable for tact. Nor did she care to be.

Surely, she would say, openness is best. Mary once departed, then, Mrs.

James was installed the very next day. The Rector followed her.

From the first he did not like his brother’s looks. John, he thought,

was ailing—ailing and ageing. He showed an unwholesome white in the

cheeks, a flabby quality in the flesh, poor appetite, low spirits.

Vitality was low; he was feeble. He ate hardly anything, and betrayed a

tendency to fall asleep in pauses of the conversation. Yet he talked, in

flashes, during dinner of his projects, with something of the old

hopefulness. He had lately been asking a series of questions,

agricultural questions, “somewhat carefully framed”; he had pressed the

Minister in charge of such matter. He was “not without hope” that some

good might result. Then a deputation of tenant-farmers had been talked

of; he “should not be unwilling” to introduce that. It was very

characteristic of him to talk negatively; the Rector used to trace it to

a Scots ancestress—a Forbes of Lochgour. But he owned to being

weary—alas, that a legislator should admit that in June! and said that

he looked forward to the recess “like any schoolboy.” Mrs. James, who

loved “plans,” asked him his. He had none, it seemed. “Time has pressed

upon us both of late; my work and her dissipations! But I must talk it

over with Mary so soon as she returns. Her wishes must carry weight with

me. I should delight in showing her Switzerland—or Norway——”

“You would not, perhaps, delight in the thousands of people doing the

same thing?” Here was Mrs. James, with her challenging note. The Rector

marked with concern that John let it go.

She inquired whether he would resume his visits to Misperton Brand. “The

Cantacutes often speak of you,” she told him, and then remembered that

of course he saw the Cantacutes here in town. He bowed his head.

“Then you know, of course, that Tristram’s affair—if it ever was an

affair—with Hertha is quite at an end?”

No—Mr. Germain had not known that. “I see very little of Tristram,” he

told her, and resumed the question of holiday-making.

Mary had great leanings to Cornwall. She had been attracted to it upon

her first visit, had often talked of it, and lately had seemed to prefer

it to Switzerland. She would like to be there later in the year; spoke

of November as a good month. “I cannot say that it agrees with me,” he

added. “A languid, relaxing air—and in November! To my mind a visit to

the Land’s End in November would be the act of a suicide. But Mary is

young and strong; and her wishes are naturally mine—and her pleasures

also . . . her pleasures also.” If he sighed he was not aware of it. A

silence fell upon the table, which became painful to two of the three,

though not to be broken. The Rector plunged back into politics. “They

tell me at the clubs that Lord Craye leaves India. . . .” But it would

not do. Mrs. James had the good taste to rise. The carriage was ordered

at 10 to take her to a party.

When she had gone the brothers sat without speaking for some minutes.

The Rector drank his claret; John Germain was in a brooding stare. The

younger broke the silence.

“Dear old boy, I wish that we could have stopped up a few more days—but

the Diocesan Inspector can’t be put off. I tried him with my

silkiest—he’s inexorable—adamant. And then there’s Constantia, with a

bazaar on her conscience. A bazaar—in July!”

John Germain did not lift his head from the hand that propped it. “My

dear fellow, I understand you perfectly. We all have our duties. We must

all face them . . . whatever it cost . . . whatever it cost us.”

The Rector looked keenly at him. “You are not yourself, John—that’s as

clear as day. I do wish that Mary had not left you. It was not like her.

She should have known—” His goaded brother sat up sharply—like one who

lifts his gory head from the press of battle, descrying fresh foes.

“Mary wished to go. I could not deny her. Indeed, I wished it also. Her

parents are alone, and she is useful to them. I believe, nay, I am sure

that she is happy there.”

“Your belief,” said the Rector, “is as pious as the fact, and as rare.

The fashion of the day is for children to tolerate their parents. The

cry is, ‘You brought us into the world, Monsieur et Dame; yes, and thank

you for nothing!’ Thank God, Mary hasn’t caught that trick. But I do

think that, if she is needed here, a hint from you——”

“But I will give her no such hints,” Germain said fiercely. “I am not so

self-engrossed. I am inured to a solitary life, and she is not. I

remember her youth, I remember her activity.”

“One would have thought that London in June—” the Rector began, and was

checked at once. Germain said shortly that the activity excited by

London in June was not wholesome. “She is better there than here,” he

added, and snapped his lips together.

James Germain, having raised his eyebrows at this oracle, immediately

lowered them again, and his eyes with them. After a pause he spoke more

intimately, feeling his way along a dark, surmised passage.

“I believe you to mean that all this whirl is very new to her, and

over-exciting. Must you not be patient, must you not lead? Accustom her

to it by degrees? You know what I think of Mary, and that I have

followed her steps with interest. You have told me how bravely she held

her own in the country; and you aren’t likely to forget that she had two

years in which to do it. You speak of our duties—meaning, I take it,

your own among others? Well, where do these lie, these duties? Where we

find ourselves, or where we may choose to put ourselves? You may tell me

that public life is, in a sense, your sphere—and so it is, I grant you.

But when you entered Mary’s little sphere—as you did, something of the

suddenest—had you not then to inquire whether that could be made

elastic enough to include your own? Surely you had. This Parliamentary

career of yours, now. Nobody is more naturally at Westminster than

yourself: that’s of course. I wish there were more like you, men of

sober judgment, weighted with their private responsibilities. Upon my

conscience, Parliament seems a place for buccaneering now-a-days—a high

sea. I rejoiced, I say, when you stood up. But whether you could fairly

ask a girl of Mary’s training to take over such work with you—by your

side—” Here John Germain held up his hand.

“One moment. You are right, James. I could not. I acted for the best, so

far as I could see my way. I listened to my hopes. It was important that

I should do something to interest her in—in our life together. There

were reasons, serious reasons, into which I cannot now enter. Her life

at Southover. . . . She was not happy, she was not contented. She could

not be.”

James had now nothing to say. He frowned, to conceal his pain. John

spoke on slowly, as if labouring both words and breath.

“I have failed her—I have failed her. And since that—I have held out

my hands, tried to speak. I am dumb before her youth and eager life. I

love her dearly, I need her—but she cannot know it, will never know it.

Experience is what she cries for, not of the mouth, but of the heart and

blood. I have no blood to give her, and my heart is in a cage.” He spoke

calmly, with the icy breath of despair upon his mouth; but it was to be

seen that his thin frame trembled. . . . “A barrier grew up between us,

not made with hands. Fate made her speak when I was at my lowest; it

called me to listen when she was made strong by need. Since then she has

respected me through fear; loved me by duty. I should have charmed her

fears away, made love her food. Alas! You know that I have failed—from

the very first.”

What could the other say? What could he do but bow his head?

“. . . I have endeavoured not to be selfish in this serious matter. It

would have been easy for me to have kept her in the country; a plausible

thing—it was implied when I took her. But I was not able to do that.

The idea of the sacrifice of one so salient and strong, so

well-disposed, with so much charm, was abhorrent to me. Deliberately,

knowing full well what risks I ran, I chose for this Parliamentary work;

and now I have, under my eyes, the result which I feared—the snares are

all about her; she cannot walk without danger. And I must watch, and be

dumb.”

He sat bitterly silent for a while. Then his eyes flamed, and he struck

the table with his closed hand.

“Nobody shall take her from me. There is a point beyond which I cannot

go. She is mine in all duty and conscience. I am vowed to protect her,

and I will do it—both now and hereafter. Where she is now she is safe

from the dastardly designs which beset her here. Her father will protect

her, her father’s house. When she returns, I must take some steps—I

must consider my plans—I have time enough. On this I am utterly

resolved, that I will rescue her soul from destruction . . . my darling

from the lions . . . from the power of the dog.”

His voice broke; he could say no more; but his face was white and stern.

James Germain had no help for him.

XI

OF MARY IN THE NORTH

She had followed out Senhouse’s precepts as nearly to the letter as

might be; neither staff nor scrip had she—no luggage at all, and very

little money. In her exalted mood of resolve it had seemed a flouting of

Providence to palter with the ideal. To follow the _patteran_

unerringly—a bird’s flight to the north—one could only fail by

hesitation. Time, and the pressure of that alone, had insisted on the

railway. The road, no doubt, had been the letter of the law.

Perhaps, too, a map was another compromise; but she found one in the

station where, having made full use of its water, hair-brushes, and

looking-glass, she dallied in the gay morning light—hovering tremulous

on the brink of the unknown. It showed her Wastwater—where he had told

her he was always to be found; and it showed her Kendal, too, dim

leagues of mountain and moor apart. A loitering lampman entered into

conversation with her. He was a Langdaler, he told her; used to walk

over once a week to see the old folks; and there was another call he had

thither, it seems. There was a lady—his “young lady,” who took it hard

if he missed his day.

He spoke profoundly of Rossett Gill and Green Tongue, of Angle Tarn and

Great End, and of the shelter under Esk Hause, which many a man had been

thankful of before to-day. He advised the train to Windermere, the coach

to Ambleside; thence, said he, you would get another coach to the

Langdales, and there the road stops and you must take to Shanks’s mare.

Here he looked her up and down, not disapprovingly. “Yon’s a rough road

for you,” he considered, “and the track none so sure where the ground is

soft. But you’ll do it yet,” said he; “and I’m thinking there’ll be

looking for ye out of Wastwater.” She blushed, and denied. “Then he’s a

fule,” said the lampman. His final warning was that she should inquire

at the hotel before she started off to walk. She promised, and went into

the town for a breakfast.

Fold within fold, height above height, wood and rock and water, the

hill-country opened to her and took her in. When she changed coaches at

Ambleside she was driven into the arms of the west wind, and could feel

that every mile brought her nearer to her friend. Before the end of this

sunlit day she would be face to face with the one being in all this

world who might know, if he would, every secret of her heart. As she

thought this, she pondered it. Every secret of her heart? Might he then

know all? Yes—and she could tell herself so without a blush—even to

that which she dared not confess to herself; even to that, he might know

them all. She was in great spirits, and there were those in her company

upon the coach who could have commerced with her, by way of exchange or

barter. But though her eyes sparkled, and her parted lips were dewy, she

had no looks for gallant youth. She faced the north-west, and never

turned her face.

The horses drew up, and stretched their necks for water and the

nose-bag; the passengers tumbled into the inn for luncheon. Mary,

faltering no more, struck out along the valley, up Mickleden, for the

sheep-fold and Rossett Gill. The coachman had told her that this road

could not be mistook; her trouble would begin from the Gill. “Follow the

beck,” he said, “to Angle Tarn—that on your left hand—and over the

pass. Make you then for the gap betwixt Great End and Hanging Knott. Esk

Hause we call it—a lonesome place. You shall not turn to right or left,

if you mind me. Due nor’-west lies your road, down and up again to the

Sprinkling Tarn. Maybe you’ll find a shepherd there. ’Tis a place to

want company in, they tell me. You should strike the Styhead pass near

by—if you’re in luck’s way.”

At starting, she felt that she was; springs in her heels, music in her

heart. Up the broad valley, over rocks and tufted fern, beside

clear-running water she sped her way, until under the frowning steep of

the Pikes she began to climb. Here she had needed both patience and

breath; but being alone with all this mountain glory, she must frolic

and spend herself. She took off boots and stockings and cooled her feet

in water and moss; she crossed the beck, and re-crossed it, picked a

knot of harebells for her belt, stooped to drink out of clear fountains,

rested supine in deep heather, fanned herself with fronded fern, watched

the clouds, the birds, bared her arms to the shoulder and plunged them

after trout. She played with her prospect, and had never been so happy

in her life. At five o’clock, biscuits and chocolate; and instead of

being by Sprinkling Tarn she was not yet at Esk Hause.

It was here that she misgave herself, and for a moment knew the wild

horror of the solitude. Man is not made for the fells; Pan haunts them,

and the fear of him gripes the heart suddenly and turns man to stone.

The sun, sloping, had hidden himself beyond Great End. The world looked

dun and sinister—estranged from her and her little joys and hopes. She

stood on a trackless moorland encompassed by mighty hills. The black

earth oozed black water where she trod; right over against her stood a

mass of tumbled rock, spiked at the top as with knives. She was to go

neither right nor left, she had been told; but which was right and which

left by now, when she had roamed broadcast and at random a few times?

The knowledge that she was intensely alone braced her against her

nerves. She beat back panic and considered what had best be done. Here

stood the shelter, a rude circle of stones breast-high. Within was a

seat half hidden in tall fern and foxgloves. Until she knew her road

more certainly, she would not leave that refuge from the night wind; but

at the thought of night coming down and finding her here, alone with bat

and crying bird, made her shiver. With the shelter, then, always in her

eye, she explored the tableland where now she was on all sides. The

walking was rough and boggy; she was near being mired more than once.

Fatigue settled down upon her as her spirits fell dead; despair rose up

in their place and drove her to frantic efforts. She climbed heights

which could give her no helping prospect—since all was alike to her,

one intricate puzzle of darkening purple valleys and clouded peaks. And

here the darkness came down like a fog and found her still. She huddled

closely into her cloak and sat in the shelter, while fear, reproach, and

doubts of which she would never have dreamed drove howling over the

field—like the warring women of the Rheinfels scenting havoc from afar

off, who, or whose likes, we suppose, people the uplands in the

night-time while men and women in the valleys sleep with their children

about them.

At nine o’clock it was dusk, but not dark; she heard quite suddenly and

with distinctness a child crying. “Boohoo! Boohoo!”—a merry note. There

was no doubt that it was silver music to her. A child crying, and not

far away; she left the shelter immediately, her heart clamative for this

blessed solace.

It led her further than she had expected, directly away from the shelter

to the edge of the moorland and down hill among rocks and boulders. She

knew that she could not find her way back, knew that she had risked

everything. Stopping, with her heart beating fast, she listened for the

sobbing wail; caught it again, more clearly than before, and went down

after it. The descent became steep, and she very hot; but now the scent

also was hot, and she in full cry. Presently it struck upon her close at

hand. “Boohoo! Boohoo!”

“Don’t cry,” she called out clearly. “I’m coming—don’t cry.”

The wailing stopped, but not the snivelling, by whose sound she was led.

She peeped round a great buttress of rock and saw a barefoot boy, his

face in his arm, crying pitifully. She ran forward and knelt by

him—“What is it? Tell me what the matter is.” He showed neither

surprise nor alarm—he was beyond that stage—but as she continued to

coax him, put her arm round his neck and tried to draw him to her, he

turned up presently his bedabbled face and gave her to understand that

he was lost and hungry. Mary laughed for joy. Here was one in worse case

than she. “But so am I, my dear!” she told him; “we’re lost together.

It’s not half so bad when there are two of us, you know. And I’ve still

got some food left. Now dry your eyes and come and sit by me—and we’ll

see what we shall see.”

He had a pinched, pale face, freckled, and a shock of sandy hair which

tumbled about his eyes. So far as could be seen he had no shirt; but he

was company, and more—he was poorer-hearted than herself. The mother in

all women awoke in her; here was a child to be nursed.

He came to her without preface and sat by her side. She did not scruple

to wipe his eyes and mouth with her handkerchief; she embraced him with

her arms, snuggled him to her, and fed him with chocolate and biscuits.

He seemed hungry, but more frightened than hungry, and more tired than

either; for when he had finished what she first gave him he lay still

within her arm for some time, with his head against her bosom. Presently

she found that he was simply asleep. Happier than she had been for some

hours, she let him lie as he was, until presently she also felt drowsy.

Then she laid him gently down in the brake, took off her hat, and lay

beside the lad. The cloak covered them both; in two minutes she was

asleep.

He awoke her in the small grey hours by stretching in his sleep, and

then, by a sudden movement, flinging his arm over her and drawing

himself close. She took him in her arms and held him fast. He was still

deeply asleep. She could hear his regular breath, and feel it too. “Poor

dear,” she whispered, “sleep soundly while you can.” Then she kissed

him, and herself slept again.

A sense of the full light, of the warmth of the sun upon her, added to

the drowsy comfort of the hours between sleep and waking. The boy was

still fast, and she hardly conscious, when some shadow between her and

the comfort in which she lay basking caused her to open her eyes. Above

her, looking down upon her, quietly amused, stood Senhouse, holding his

horse by the bridle. The long white sweater, the loose flannel trousers,

bare feet, bare head—but he might have been an angel robed in light.

She sat up, blushing and misty-eyed. “It is you! You have come in my

sleep. I have been two days looking for you.” The extraordinary comfort

she had always felt in the man’s presence was upon her immediately.

Nothing to explain, nothing to extenuate, nothing to hide—what a

priceless possession, such a friend!

“Two days!” he said. “You might easily have been two months—or two

years for that matter. But you have made a mighty good shot. My camp is

not six hundred yards away. I’ll show you. But who’s your sleeping

friend?”

She looked down at the lad, whose face was buried deep in bracken. She

put her hand on his hair.

“I don’t know—some poor boy. I heard him crying last night when I had

completely lost myself, and followed the sound. We comforted each other.

He gave me a good night, anyhow. We kept each other warm. But I know no

more of him than that. We’ll find out where he belongs to when he wakes.

He wants food mostly, I think.” And then she laughed in his face—“and

so do I, I believe.”

“Of course you do,” said Senhouse. “Come along, and we’ll breakfast.

I’ve just been out capturing the Ghost. He had wandered far, the old

beggar.”

Mary jumped up. “What are we to do with the boy?”

“Oh, he’ll sleep for an hour yet. We’ll fetch him when his grub’s ready.

You must help me, you know, now you’re here.”

“Of course,” she said, and walked by him, carrying her hat in her hand.

“Are you surprised to see me?” she must needs ask him.

Senhouse raised his eyebrows. “No—I won’t say that. I should like to

know why you came, though. No trouble, I hope?”

She looked at him, radiant. “No trouble now. I saw your trail—your

_patteran_—in London.”

He started. “No, indeed, you did not. I haven’t been near London since I

saw you there. I came straight here by train. But I’ll tell you a

curious thing. Three nights ago I dreamed of you.”

Her eyes shone. “Tell me your dream.” But he would not, and she could

not make him.

Past Sprinkling Tarn, and by the pass which hangs round about the Great

Gable, he led her to a green plateau, high above the track, where she

could see the tent. Bingo stood up and barked a welcome short and sharp.

Then he came scrambling down the scree to meet her, knew her again

immediately, and was profusely happy to see her. It was all like coming

home for the holidays. She turned her glowing face to Senhouse, and her

brimming eyes.

“Oh, why are you so good to me, you two?” she asked him, with Bingo’s

head and fore-quarters in her lap.

“Why not?” said Senhouse.

XII

COLLOQUY IN THE HILLS

By the time the coffee was made, and the porridge, and Mary had emerged

from the tent, washed and brushed and sparkling, she bethought her of

the boy. “I’ll fetch him,” she told Senhouse. “He must be fed.” Senhouse

nodded, so she went back to her _gîte_ of the night. The boy had

disappeared, and with him her cloak.

Senhouse chuckled when he heard her faltered tale. “Nature all

over—bless her free way,” he said. “She’ll lap you like a mother—and

stare you down for a trespasser within the hour. She takes her profit

where she finds it, and if she can’t find it will cry herself to sleep.

Don’t you see that you were so much to the good for our friend? Well,

what have you to regret? You warmed him, cuddled him, fed him—and he’s

gone, warmed, cuddled, and fed. You’ve been the Bona Dea—and he’s not a

bit obliged to you; very likely he thinks you were a fool. Perhaps you

were, my dear; but I tell you, fools are the salt of the earth.”

“Yes, I know,” Mary said. “Of course I don’t mind the cloak. He wanted

it more than I did. But what will become of him—poor little pinched

boy?”

Senhouse picked up a bleached leaf of rowan—a gossamer leaf—and showed

it to her. “What will become of that, think you? It all goes back again.

Nothing is lost.” He threw it up, and watched it drift away on the light

morning wind. Then, “Come and have your breakfast,” he bade her.

As they ate and drank she found herself talking to him of matters which

London might have shrieked to hear. But it seemed not at all strange

that Senhouse should listen calmly, or she candidly discuss them. He had

not shown the least curiosity either to find her here or to know why she

had come; in fact, after his question of “No trouble, I hope?” and her

reply, he had become absorbed in what he had to do that day—the meal to

be prepared, and the plantation of Mariposa lilies which he was to show

her. “The work of three years—just in flower for the first time. You’re

lucky in the time of your visit—another week and you would have missed

them.” But her need to speak was imperious, and so she gave him to

understand.

She told him, therefore, everything which had been implied in former

colloquies—and found him prepared to believe her. Indeed, he told her

fairly that when he had first heard from her that she was to marry John

Germain he recognized that she would not be married at all. “Mind you,”

he went on, “that need not have mattered a bit if the good man had had

any other career to open to you. It was a question of that. You might

have been his secretary, or his confidante, or his conscience, or his

housekeeper. But he’s so damned self-contained—if you’ll forgive me for

saying that—that he and the likes of him start in life filled up with

everything except nature. There was really nothing for you to be to him

except an object of charity. Nor did he want you to be anything else. He

actually bought you, don’t you see, so that he might do his benevolence

comfortably at home. You were to be beneficiary and admiring bystander

at once. And you must have made him extremely happy until you began to

make use of his bounties, and learn by what you had to do without them.

Where was he then? It’s like a mother with a sucking child. She makes it

strong, makes a man of it; and then, when it leaves her lap and goes to

forage for itself, she resents it. What else could she expect? What else

could Germain expect? He gives you the uses of the world; you find out

that you are a woman with parts; you proceed to exercise yourself—and

affront him mortally. I’ll warrant that man quivering all over with

mortification—but I am sure he will die sooner than let you know it.”

Her eyes shone bright. “Yes, that’s true. He is like that. Well,

but——”

Senhouse went on, speaking between pulls at his pipe. He did not look at

her; he looked at his sandalled feet.

“I may be wrong, but I do not see what you owe him that has not been at

his disposal any day these two years and a half. I suppose, indeed, that

the blessed Law would relieve you—but by process so abominable and

disgusting that a person who would seek that way of escape would be

hardly fit to be let loose on the world. That being so, what are you to

do? The fact is, Germain’s not sane. One who misreads himself so

fatally, so much at another’s expense, is not sane. Then, I say, the

world’s before you, if you have courage enough to face the policeman. He

can’t touch you, you know, but he can stare you up and down and make you

feel mean.” Then he looked at her, kindly but coolly—as if to ask,

Well, what do you make of that? And if he saw what was behind her hot

cheeks and lit eyes he did not betray the knowledge.

She could herself hardly see him for the mist, and hardly trust herself

to speak for the trembling which possessed her. “Oh, I would dare any

scorn in the world, and face any hardships if—” but she bit her lip at

that point, and looked away; he saw tears hover at her eyes’ brink.

Presently he asked her, “What brought you up here to see me?” and she

almost betrayed herself.

“Do you ask me that?” Her heart was like to choke her.

“Well,” said he, “yes, I do.” She schooled herself—looked down and

smoothed out the creases in her skirt.

“There’s some one—who wants me.”

“I can’t doubt it. Well?”

She spoke fast. “He has—wanted me for a long time—since before I was

married. Perhaps I have given him reason—I didn’t mean to do that—but

certainly he used to think that I belonged to him. I was very ignorant

in those days, and very stupid—and he took notice of me, and I was

pleased—so he did have some reason, I think. Well, it all began again

last year—imperceptibly; I couldn’t tell you how. And now he thinks

that I still belong to him—and when I am with him I feel that I do. But

not when I am away from him, or alone. I am sure that he does not love

me; I know that I don’t love him. I feel humiliated by such a courtship;

really, he insults me by his very look; and so he always did, only I

couldn’t see it formerly. But now I do. I desire never to see him

again—indeed, I dare not see him; because, if I do, I know what must

happen. He is stronger than I, he is very strong. I know, I know very

well that he could make me love him if I let him. You have no

conception—how could you have? You don’t know what a woman feels when

she is—when such a man as that—makes her love him. Despair. But I must

not—no, no, I would sooner die. I could never lift up my head again.

Slavery.” She shuddered, and shut her eyes; then turned quickly to

Senhouse. “Oh, dear friend, I came to you because I was nearly lost one

night. I had all but promised. I saw your sign in the road—or thought

that I did—just in time, just in the nick of time. And when I saw it,

though I had my letter to him in my hand, telling him where to find me

the next day—Do you know, I felt so strong and splendidly free that I

posted the letter to him—and came straight here without any check—and

found you. Ah!” she said, straining her two hands together at the full

stretch of her arms, “Ah! I did well that time. Because that very night

when I was fighting for my life you were dreaming of me.” If Senhouse

had looked at her now he would have seen what was the matter with her.

But he was sunk in his thoughts. “This fellow,” he said, broodingly,

“this fellow—Duplessis, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“I used to know Duplessis—at Cambridge. And I’ve seen him since. He’s

not much good, you know.”

She was looking now at her hands in her lap, twisting her fingers about,

suddenly bashful.

“But I think,” Senhouse went on, in a level voice, “I think you had

better go back and face him.”

She started, she looked at him full of alarm. “Oh, don’t tell me to do

that—I implore you. Let me stay here a little while, until I’m

stronger.” He smiled, but shook his head.

“No, no. Too unconventional altogether. Really I mean what I say. If you

are to be free you must fight yourself free. There’s no other way. Fight

Germain, if it is worth your while; but fight Duplessis at all events.

That is essential. Bless you, you have only to tell him the truth, and

the thing’s done.”

She was very serious. “I assure you, it is not. He won’t care for the

truth; he won’t care what I tell him—No, don’t ask me to do that. It’s

not—kind of you.”

Senhouse got up. “Let’s go and look at my lilies,” he said. “We’ll talk

about your troubles again presently.” She jumped to her feet and

followed him down the mountain.

He led her by a scrambling path round the face of Great Gable, and so

past Kirkfell foot into Mosedale, bright as emerald. As they neared the

mountains, he showed her by name the Pillar, Steeple and Red Pike, Windy

Gap and Black Sail. High on the southern face of the Pillar there was,

he said, a plateau which none knew of but he. To reach it was a

half-hour’s walk for her; but he encouraged her with voice and hand.

There! he could tell her, at last; now she was to look before her. They

stood on a shelf which sloped gently to the south. Mary caught her

breath in wonder, and gave a little shriek of delight. “Oh, how

exquisite! Oh, how gloriously beautiful!” A cloud of pale

flowers—violet, rose, white, golden yellow—swayed and danced in the

breeze, each open-hearted to the sun on stalks so slender that each bell

seemed afloat in air—a bubble of colour; she thought she had never seen

so lovely a thing. Senhouse, peacefully absorbing her wonder and their

beauty, presently began to explain to her what he had done. “I had seen

these perfect things in California, growing in just such a place; so

when I lit on this plateau I never rested till I got what it was plainly

made for. Full south, you see; sheltered on the east and north; good

drainage, and a peaty bottom. I had a hundred bulbs sent out, and put

them in three years ago. No flowers until this year; but they’ve grown

well—there are nearly two hundred of them out now. I’ve had to work at

it though. I covered them with bracken every autumn, and kept the ground

clean—and here they are! With luck, the tourists won’t light on them

until there are enough and to spare. They are the worst. I don’t mind

the Natural History Societies a bit; they take two or three, and publish

the find—but I can stand that, because nobody reads their publications.

The trippers take everything—or do worse. They’ll cut the lot to the

ground—flowers and leaves alike; and, you know, you kill a bulb if you

take its leaves. It can’t eat, poor thing—can’t breathe. Now just look

into one of those things—look at that white one.” She was kneeling

before the bevy, and cupped the chosen in her two hands. “Just look at

those rings of colour—flame, purple, black, pale green. Can such a

scheme as that be matched anywhere? It’s beyond talk, beyond dreams. Now

tell me, have I done a good thing or not?”

She turned him a glowing face. “You ought to be very happy.”

He laughed. “I _am_ happy. And so may you be when you please.”

“Ah!” she looked ruefully askance. “I don’t know—I’m not sure. But if I

am ever to be happy it will be by what you teach me.”

“My child,” said Senhouse, and put his hand on her shoulder, “look at

these things well—and then ask yourself, Is it worth while troubling

about a chap like Duplessis, while God and the Earth are making miracles

of this sort every day somewhere?” Thoughtful, serious, sobered, she

knelt on under his hand.

“Love between a man and a woman is just such a miracle—just as lovely

and fragile a thing. But there’s no doubt about it, when it comes—and

it ought not to be denied, even if it can be. When there’s a doubt, on

either side—the thing’s not to be thought of. Love’s not appetite—Love

is nature, and appetite is not nature, but a cursed sophistication

produced by all sorts of things, which we may classify for convenience

as over-eating. ‘Fed horses in the morning!’ Well, one of these days the

real thing will open to you—and then you’ll have no doubt, and no fears

either. You’ll go about glorifying God.” He felt her tremble, and

instantly removed his touch from her shoulder. He sat on the edge of the

plateau with his feet dangling. “Let’s talk of real things,” he

continued after a time, “not of feelings and symptoms. This is one of my

gardens—but I can show you some more. Above this plateau is

another—just such another. I filled it with Xiphion iris—what we call

the English iris, although the fact is that it grows in Spain. It’s done

well—but is nearly over now. I just came in for the last week of it.

And of course I’ve got hepaticas and auriculas and those sort of things

all over the place—this mountain’s an old haunt of mine. But my biggest

job in Cumberland was a glade of larkspurs in a moraine of Scawfell

Pike. I surpassed myself there. Last year they were a sight to thank God

for—nine feet high some of them, lifting up great four-foot blue

torches off a patch of emerald and gold. I lay a whole morning in the

sun, looking at them—and then I got up and worked like the devil till

it was dark. . . .

“Some brutal beanfeasters from Manchester fell foul of them soon

after—fell upon them tooth and claw, trampled them out of sight—and

gave me three weeks’ hard work this spring. But they have recovered

wonderfully, and if I have luck this year I sha’n’t fear even a Glasgow

holiday let loose on them.”

She was caressing the flowers, half kneeling, half lying by them. “Go

on, please,” she said when Senhouse stopped. “Tell me of some more

gardens of yours.”

He needed no pressing, being full of his subject, and crowded upon her

his exploits, with all England for a garden-plot. To her inexperience it

seemed like a fairy tale, but to her kindling inclination all such

wonders were fuel, and he could tell her of nothing which did not go to

enhancing the magic in himself. Peonies, he told her of, in a Cornish

cove opening to the sea—a five years’ task; and a niche on a Dartmoor

tor where he had coaxed Caucasian irises to grow like wholesome weeds.

Tamarisks, like bushes afire, in a sandy bight near Bristol—“I made the

cuttings myself from slips I got in the Landes”—Wistaria in a curtain

on the outskirts of an oak wood in the New Forest. That had been his

first essay—ten years ago. “You never saw such a sight—the trees look

as if they were alight—wrapped in mauve flames. And never touched

yet—and been there ten years!

“I’ve got the little Tuscan tulip—clusiana is its name, a pointed,

curving bud it has, striped red and white—growing well on a wooded

shore in Cornwall; I’ve got hepaticas on a Welsh mountain, a pink cloud

of them—and Pyrennean auriculas dropping like rosy wells from a crag on

the Pillar Rock. Ain’t these things worth doing? They are worth all

Chatsworth to me!”

She caught his enthusiasm; her burning face, her throbbing heart were

but flowers of his planting. Once more she was splendidly conscious of

discovery, of unsuspected distances seen from a height and once more

exulted in the strength which such knowledge gave her. No education

could have bettered this—an interest in life itself, in work itself.

All that day she laboured by his side—digging, weeding, fetching and

carrying in that sunny hollow of the hills. She cooked his meals and

waited upon him; she grimed her hands, scratched and blistered them,

tore her gown, blowsed herself, was tired, but too happy to rest. This,

this was life, indeed.

Towards dusk, after dinner, she was so tired that she could hardly keep

her eyes open; and Senhouse who had been watching her with shrewd

amusement, bade her to bed. The tent was at her disposal, while she

remained. Slowly she obeyed him, unwillingly but without question. The

day was fading to a lovely close; night, as it were, was drawing violet

curtains over the dome of the sky. The great hills were intensely dark,

and the valley between them and below lay shrouded in a light veil of

mist. It was so quiet that they could hear the Lingmell beck crisping

over the pebbles or swishing between the great boulders; and once a fish

leapt in a pool, and the splash he made was like a smack on the cheek.

Mary obeyed slowly. She stood behind him where he sat watching all the

still wonder of the dusk, hoping he would speak, afraid herself to break

the spell of her own thoughts. She was excited, she felt the exquisite

luxury of ease after toil; if she had dared she would have indulged her

quivering senses. She could deceive herself no more; she had no need in

the world which Senhouse could not satisfy, and no chance of happiness

unless he did. But she respected him more than she loved him; it never

entered her head for a moment that it would be possible for her to draw

such a man on. Still she stayed, as if unable to leave him; his mere

neighbourhood was balm to her fever.

So they remained for some unmeasured time, while the silence became

crushing and the dark blotted out hill and hollow. She could not hear

her heart beating, and the pulses in her temples. In a manner she was

rapt in an ecstasy: she thought no more; she was possessed; her

happiness was at the point of bliss.

Senhouse sat on, motionless, he, too, absorbed in contemplation—like a

priest before his altar-miracles. He may not have known that she was so

close to him; or he may have known it very well. If he did, he showed no

sign of it. His thoughts, whatever they were, held him, as he sat, his

chin between his clasped knees, rigid as a dead Viking, crouched so in

his tomb of stones. His black, glazed eyes were fixed sombrely towards

the shrouded valley—across it, to the mountains beyond. So at last,

when her pleasure became a pain so piercing that, had it endured much

longer, she must have cried aloud, she shivered as she clasped her hands

together over her breast—and then lightly let one fall to touch his

shoulder.

She must needs speak to him now. “Do you wish me to go?”

He answered shortly. “It will be better. Yes, you had better go.”

“Very well—I will. But to-morrow? Am I to go home to-morrow? I shall do

exactly what you tell me. You know that.”

He did not move, nor answer her immediately. She hung upon his silence.

Then he said, “I’m a man, you know—and you’re a woman. There’s no

getting away from that.”

“And you wish me——?”

“I’m a compromise—by my own act. This is Halfway House. You may rest

here, you see—and go on—or go back.”

She could school her voice, but not her hand which touched his shoulder.

She had to move it away before she spoke. “And if I decide—to go on?”

“You must not—until you know what it means. Some day—possibly—when

you see—not feel—your way, it may be— Look here,” he said abruptly,

“we won’t talk about all this. I told you—in cold blood—what I thought

you ought to do. Go back and see Duplessis. Don’t ask me to reconsider

that—in hot blood. I’m not myself at this time of night. I saw straight

enough when you put it to me. I value your friendship—I’m proud of it.

More I must not say. It is something to have made a woman like you trust

me. That’s too good a thing to lose, do you see? And I’ll tell you this,

too—that you _may_ trust me. If you do as I tell you, it will work out

all right.”

“Yes, yes—I believe that. But you told me this morning to follow—my

heart.”

“I did, my dear, and I meant it. But not what your heart calls out at

midnight.”

She stood where she was a little longer; presently she sighed.

“I will do as you bid me—because you bid me;” and he laughed.

“Reason most womanish.”

“Don’t laugh at me just now,” she said.

He folded his arms tightly, and stooped his head towards them. “I

daren’t do anything else,” he told her; “and I will not.”

In the dark she stretched out her hands to him; but soon she gave over,

and gloried in the strength he had.

“Good-night,” she said; and he answered her without moving,

“Good-night.”

She stole away to his tent; but he sat on where he was, far into the

night.

In the morning light they met as if nothing had happened; and after

breakfast he took her by Wastwater to Seascale—to the train for the

south. He was the old informal, chatty companion, full of queer

knowledge and outspoken reflections. He told her his plans, so far as he

could foresee them. He should be going to Cornwall in November.

Then he put her in the train, and touched her hand lightly, as his way

was. He looked into her face, and smiled half ruefully. “Don’t forget

Halfway House,” he told her. She could only sob, “Oh, no! Oh, never,

never!” He turned away—waited for the train to move—then waved his

hand. As the train carried her under the arch, and bent on its course,

she had her last glimpse. He stood, white and slim, against the grey

buildings. She waved her hand, and was carried onwards to the south.

XIII

THE SUMMONS

She knew now that she loved Senhouse, and that knowledge filled her with

indescribable triumph, and gave her unimagined strength. At the same

time, the quietude of her new joy really amazed her. She could lie back

in her corner seat of the train and watch her flight to the south, be

conscious that every thresh of the great driving wheels was taking her

from her beloved, reflect that she could neither write to him nor hear

from him—wanderer that he was, and sojourner in tents—and regret

nothing, and long for nothing more tangible than she possessed already.

He had her heart; she had made her surrender on that night of intense

colloquy. That had been her true bridal night—by that mysterious

intercourse she had become his irrevocably. A great security possessed

her, a conviction, which it would have been blasphemous to question,

that all was well. If one had told her, you and he may never meet again,

she would have laughed in his face at the absurdity. Such a thing was

not worth argument, spelt its own refutation.

An immense content possessed her, a security which excused her from

looking back, and made the future indifferent. She thought neither of

her husband with remorse nor of Duplessis with apprehension. She was not

appalled by the flatness of her immediate prospect: of a return to town

and its round of flurry, chatter, and dress; of Southover and its autumn

rites. These things were shadows of life: the real life was hidden in

her heart. She would send her tricked-out body to dinner-parties and

other assemblies of dolls, while she herself would be elsewhere, in some

blue immensity of air, breasting some great hill, breathing the

breath—which was food—of her mother the Earth—_her_ mother! _Their_

mother! She and her beloved were brother and sister. Entertainment here,

for the flying miles, to which the threshing wheels lent processional

music.

If she hardly knew herself it is no wonder. She crossed London by rote,

reached Blackheath, walked sedately to her father’s little house,

entered the little dull door, and kissed her parents, whom she found at

tea—all in a dream. They made much of her, the great lady she was

become; found it not amiss that she appeared in tumbled gown, with

soiled blouse, and hat remarkable for its unremarkableness. Great ladies

could do as they pleased, being a law unto themselves. Nor were they

confused by her replies to the proper inquiries. “Mr. Germain?” she

said, “I think he’s very well. I haven’t seen him since I left London.

We don’t see much of each other, you know, Mother.” A stack of forwarded

letters was indicated, telegrams among them. She nodded her head, and

passed her cup for some more tea.

She heard of the girls’ progress—all out in good boarding schools of

her providing; next of Jinny’s triumphs in the Lincolnshire home of the

Podmores. “Jinny has a bold way with her, as you know, Mary. They were

not inclined towards her at first. There was a question whether she

should not pack up her box again the day after she got there—but Mr.

Podmore—her Mr. Podmore—went on his knees, _on his knees_, Mary—and

she consented to stay. Very bold of Jinny, considering that old Mr.

Podmore is a Rural Dean——”

Mary smiled. The simple talk went on. By-and-by it came out that a

visitor had called to see Mary several times—a Mr. Duplessis, a very

tall young man. “He came here the evening we had expected you, and I

thought the chimney was afire when I heard his knock. Exactly like the

fire brigade. I opened the door in a twitter—and there he was—six

feet-two of him, and a tall hat atop of that. “Is Mrs. Germain at home?”

he asks me, and I say, “She may be, for she’s not here.” Then he says,

“You are Mrs. Middleham, I take it.” I tell him he takes me rightly.

“Don’t you expect your—Mrs. Germain?” I told him the truth. “I’ll call

to-morrow,” he says—“and he did, Mary, and to-day, too. A handsome,

upstanding young man—very much at home with the likes of me. I

suppose—but you know your own business best, of course.”

Mary stroked her mother’s cheek. “Dear little old Mother,” she said, “I

know you’re afraid for me. Mr. Duplessis is quite harmless. I’ll see

him, if he comes to-morrow.”

In the intervals of housework—for she insisted upon being useful—she

wrote to her husband from day to day, telling him in her first letter

that she had been unable to write before as she had been travelling. On

this particular information he made no comment whatsoever; indeed, he

confined himself to such generalities as the state of the weather, his

cold, “which, under medical advice, I am nursing at home,” and the

proceedings of Mrs. James. “Constantia is a great comfort to me. You

will be pleased to hear that I am not without hope of inducing her to

prolong her visit. She speaks very kindly of you. My brother, I regret

to say, has been called home by parochial cares. . . . The Cantacutes

dined here last evening. I regretted that I could not be down to receive

them. However, Constantia. . . .” She replied pleasantly to all this,

feeling not one grain of discomfort out of anything which Mrs. James

could or could not do. She begged to be kept informed of his cold. “You

know that I will come to you the moment you care to have me.” In answer

to that, by return of post, he wrote that “on no account” must she alter

her plans. “Believe me, I am fully contented that you should be with

your parents. It is, I understand, reckoned a failing of the past

generation that children should admit any claim in them who bore and

nurtured them. Personally, I do not pretend to be abreast of the times

in this particular; nor should I wish you to be so. I am assured that

there is no cause for uneasiness on my account, and will most certainly

see that you are kept supplied with bulletins. I beg my sincere respects

to your father and mother.”

After that she heard nothing more from him.

Duplessis had called two days after her arrival, but she had been out,

and he had not waited. He came again after three days’ interval—having

written to announce his intention—at 11 o’clock in the morning. She was

on her knees, in pinned-up skirt and apron, her arms bare to the elbows,

scrubbing the kitchen floor, when his knock resounded through the house.

The quick blood leapt into her cheeks, but she held to her task. Her

mother came fluttering in. “That’s your visitor, Mary. What am I to

do?—and you in such a state!”

“Show him in here, Mother,” says Mary.

“Never, child. He’ll think you demented.”

Mary was inflexible; her eyes glittered. “I shall see him nowhere else,”

she said.

Upon his second attack, a scared and serious Mrs. Middleham opened the

door. Mary, pausing in her scrubbing, heard the dialogue.

“Oh, good-morning. Mrs. Germain?”

“My daughter is here, Sir.”

“Oh, she’s come, has she? Do you think she would see me?”

“She says so, Sir. I have asked her. But she hopes you will excuse her

untidiness——”

“Oh, of course——”

“She has been kind enough to help us here—she is at work now. You will

please to overlook——”

“My dear Mrs. Middleham——”

“If you will follow me I will show you where she is.”

Mary rose from her knees to receive him, having wiped her hands and arms

on her apron. Her cheeks were burning and her eyes alight—but she

looked none the worse, assuredly, for that.

When Duplessis, stooping his fair head, entered the kitchen, she came

forward lightly to receive him. “Good-morning,” she said. “You will take

me as I am?”

“I’ll take you how I can,” said Tristram, shaking hands. “Your mother

prepared me for this attack of industry. You might let me help you.”

Mary laughed. “Don’t destroy my mother’s illusions. She is convinced of

the complete idleness of the upper classes. If she lost that she would

have to alter all her ideas of society.”

“I don’t know anything about the upper classes; but Mrs. Middleham can

have no notion how hard _I_ can work,” Duplessis said. “I was at it all

last night. Dancing till Heaven knows when.”

“I’ll warrant Heaven does,” said Mrs. Middleham to herself. She was not

able to find anything to say to this magnificent visitor.

Duplessis and Mary made a fairer show, for she had learned to dread,

with the high world, a single second of awkwardness. She was even able

to continue her work on her knees and chat with Tristram, who, for his

part, sat calmly on the kitchen table and talked nineteen to the dozen.

It is difficult to say which side of this simple performance scandalized

Mrs. Middleham the more—that Mary should be on her knees with a

scrubbing brush, or that Duplessis should not be. The good blunt woman

sat it out as long as her endurance would last, growing more and more

stiff in the back, primming her lips in and in until she showed none at

all. Finally she rose with a “You will excuse me,” and stalked out of

her own kitchen. She sat in the empty parlour and looked at a photograph

album as a protest. Meanwhile Mary’s hour had come. It had been on the

edge of her tongue to ask her mother to stay—but she had dismissed the

thought as unworthy. She fixed her mind upon the plateau of Mariposa

lilies, and her eyes on her work, and scrubbed for life.

“Molly,” said Duplessis, “why did you run away from me?”

She elbowed her brush stoutly. “Because I was afraid of you,” she

said—then stopped and looked up at him. “But I’m not now—not in the

least afraid.”

“You need not be. You wrote to me that you were coming on the 13th.”

“I know.”

“And this is the 20th, and you are only just here.”

“No. I have been here four or five days.”

“Where were you—when you were not here?”

“I was travelling.”

“Travelling!”

“Yes. But I decline to be questioned.”

“You mean, I suppose, that you will decline to answer.”

Her colour rose. “You always correct my language, I know. My exact

meaning is that I deny your right to question me about my own affairs.”

“But if they are my affairs, too? May I not know what you are doing with

them?”

She thought. “Yes—I suppose you may do that.”

“Very well. Then I will ask you why you sent me word that you were to

come here on the 13th ‘by train,’ and then did nothing of the sort?”

On her knees still, she faced him with her answer. “Yes, I will answer

that. When I wrote, I intended to come—and expected that you would meet

me. But when I posted the letter I had changed my mind. I did _not_

intend to come.”

He stared, with very cold, bright eyes. “You did _not_ intend to come

when you posted the letter? Pray, did you intend me to expect you at the

station?”

She answered him, “Yes, I did expect it.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Really, my dear friend, you interest me

extremely. Did you think that six hours or more at Charing Cross Station

would be good for my nerves, morals, or constitution?”

“I will tell you what I thought,” she said. “I thought that waiting at

Charing Cross would be no worse—to say the least—for a man than an

appointment in Burlington Arcade could be for a woman.”

Duplessis bit his cheek. “That was your gentle reproof, then, for my

blunder?”

“Yours was only a blunder because I saw what it really was. It had never

entered your head that I could be other than honoured to meet you

anywhere. You presumed that I should run there.”

“You ran very near to it, my friend,” he said. “That is, you had

yourself driven.”

She bowed her head. “I admit it. I was a fool—but I am not a fool now.”

“No,” said Duplessis, “you are not. You are, as a matter of truth,

extraordinarily beautiful just now, and I am more ridiculously in love

with you than ever. But—” She rose from her knees and stood before him.

“Let me finish what I have to say to you, please,” she said. “That was

not my only reason for deceiving you. I wished you to wait for me in

vain, because I wished you to understand that I could not see you any

more. I wished you to believe that our intercourse must be over. I chose

the harshest means I could think of. I might have written it, no doubt,

but you would have answered the letter, and I am no match for you in

writing. I might have seen you and told you—but I couldn’t do that.”

“Molly,” said Duplessis, folding his arms, “why couldn’t you see me?”

She looked down. “Because I couldn’t.”

“It was because you dared not,” said Duplessis.

She did not answer; she was trembling a little now, and he saw it. But

presently she looked him straight in the face.

“Yes,” she said, “that is true. I did not dare.” He laughed gaily and

started forward to take her; but she put her hand up.

“No,” she said, “you are mistaken. I dared not then, but now I dare. I

can meet you now whenever you please, and have no fear at all.”

Duplessis, red in the face, scowled and watched her from under savage

brows. “Am I to understand by that that you have ceased to care?”

“You must understand that I do not love you.”

He left the table where he had been sitting and took a turn about the

room. Presently he stopped in front of her. His height gave him great

advantage.

“I decline to take that answer. I cannot believe that you mean it

seriously. I think that you loved me two, nearly three years ago, and

that you have loved me of late since last October—some nine months. I

know that I have never for a moment ceased to love you. Through your

engagement—horrible entanglement as it was—through your years of

married life—miserable eclipse—my love has gone on, my need has

increased. You know that; you cannot doubt me. It was not my doing that

you were false to our love; I couldn’t interfere; it was begun without

my suspicion, and all the mischief done before I could get home. After

that I did my honest best to get on without you—and then your fool of a

husband must drag me in. What next? The inevitable, the undoubted. We

two were drawn together: it had to be. And now you ask me to believe

that—for no reason at all—it must stop. My dear girl, you can’t swap

horses crossing the stream, you know. I decline to be switched off like

so much electric current. Who’s the other man?”

This surprising turn to his speech nearly threw her off her pedestal.

But she could answer him truthfully.

“There is no question of caprice or of other people at all. The real

truth is that I have grown wiser. I know now that I was losing my

self-respect by permitting you to love me as you did—in the manner you

saw fit to use. It was not love at all—you had got into the habit of

considering me as your property, and you could not bear that anybody

else should claim a right to me. Directly I saw that, I knew that I

couldn’t allow myself to think of you, to be with you—if I was to

be—if I could hope to hold up my head.”

He was very angry. “May I know what, or who, enabled you to see this

unfortunate aspect of my affairs?”