"Do you never feel that they reproach you for losing interest in them?"

She smiled. "I think perhaps they are relieved because I have ceased from

troubling them--from requiring more of them than they could give me," she

answered, smothering a sigh.

"May I look at them?" I asked, anticipating her permission by rising and

going toward them.

"Yes; certainly," she answered, rising herself, and following me

languidly. The books were arranged in groups--science, history, biography,

travels, poetry, fiction; with bound volumes of such periodicals as the

_Contemporary Review_, _The Nineteenth Century_, and the

_Westminster_. I read the titles of the volumes in the science

divisions with surprise, for she had never betrayed, nor had I ever

suspected, that she had added the incident of learning to the accident of

brains. But if she knew the contents of but half of these books well she

must be a highly educated woman. I took out several to see how they had

been read, and found them all carefully annotated, with marginal notes

very clearly written, and containing apposite quotations from and

references to the best authorities on the various subjects. This was

especially the case with books on the natural sciences; the physical ones

having apparently interested her less.

"These are not very elegant books for a lady's boudoir," she said,

referring to the plain dark bindings. "I dislike gorgeously bound books,

and could never make a pet of one. They are like over-dressed people; all

one's care is concentrated upon their appearance, and their real worth of

character, if they have any, escapes one."

"Were you ever an omnivorous reader?" I asked.

"No, I am thankful to say," she answered, her natural aptitude for

intellectual pursuits overcoming her artificial objection to them, as she

looked at her books and became interested in them in spite of herself;

"for I notice that the average reader who reads much remembers little, and

is absurdly inaccurate. It is as bad to read everything as to eat

everything; the mind, when it is gorged with a surfeit of subjects,

retains none of them."

She had a fairly representative collection of French, Italian, German

books, all equally well-read and annotated, each in its own language, the

French and Italian being excellent, but the German imperfect, although, as

she told me, she liked both the language and the literature very much the

best of the three. "German suggested ideas to me," she said, "and that is

why I paid less attention to the construction of the language, I think.

But I am afraid you will find no elegancies in any tongue I use, for

language has always been to me a vehicle of thought, and not a part of art

to be employed with striking effect. Now, here is Carlyle, the arch

phrasemaker. I always admired him more than I loved him; but his books are

excellent for intellectual exercise. He forced those phrases from his

brain with infinite pains, and, when you take them collectively, you find

yourself obliged to force them into yours in like manner."

She had become all interest and animation by this time, and I had never

known her so delightful as she was that morning while showing me her

books. She had no objection to lending me any that I chose, although I

told her that I only wanted them to read her notes. I took a variety, but

found no morbid tendency in any remark she had made upon them.

I paid my visit late in the afternoon next day, and found Evadne in the

drawing room. She was standing in the window when I entered, but came down

the room to greet me.

"I have been watching for you," she said. "I hoped you would come early.

And I have also been watching that party of jubilant ducks waddling down

the road. Come and see them. I believe they belong to us. They must have

escaped from the yard. But aren't they enjoying the ramble! That old drake

is quite puffed up with excitement and importance! He goes along nodding

his head, and saying again and again to the ducks: 'Now, didn't I tell you

so! and aren't you glad you took my advice and came?' And all the ducks

are smiling and complimenting him upon his wisdom and courage. They ought

to be driven back, but I haven't the heart to spoil their pleasure just

yet by informing against them."

I was standing beside her in the window now, and she looked up at me,

smiling as she spoke. She was brighter under the immediate influence even

of the watery winter sun, now a red ball, glowing behind the brown

branches of the leafless trees, than she had been in her gloomy north room;

and I took this lively interest in the adventurous ducks to be a glimpse

of the joyous, healthy mind, seeing character in all things animate, and

gifted with sympathy as well as insight, which must naturally have been

hers.

"When am I to go out?" she asked, "I begin to long for a sight of my

fellow-creatures. I don't want to speak to them. I only want to see them.

But I am sociable to that extent--when I am in my right mind."

"Tell me about this mental malady," I begged.

"Ah," she began, laughing up at me, but with a touch of bitterness. "I

interest you now! I am a case! You do not flatter me. But I mean to give

you every help in my power. If only you could cure me!" She clasped her

hands and held them out to me, the gesture of an instant, but full of

earnest entreaty.

"Come from the window," I said. "It is chilly here."

"Yes, come to the fire," she rejoined, leading the way; "and sit down, and

let us have tea, and talk, and be cosey. You want me to talk about myself,

and I will if I can. I was happy just now, but you see I am depressed in a

moment. It is misery to me to be so variable. And I constantly feel as if

I wanted something--to be somewhere, or to have something; I don't know

where or what; it is a sort of general dissatisfaction, but it is all the

worse for not being positive. If I knew what I wanted, I should be cured

by the effort to obtain it."

She rang the bell, and began to make up the fire; and I sat down and

watched her because she liked to do those things in her own house.

"Strangers wait upon me," she said, "but my friends allow me to wait upon

them."

When the servant had brought tea and retired, she began again.

"Now question me," she said, "and make me tell you the truth."

"I am sure you will tell me the truth," I asserted.

"I am sure I shall try," she replied; "but I am not so sure that I shall

succeed. If you provoke me, I shall fence with you; if you confuse me, I

shall unwittingly say 'yes' when I mean 'no.' In fact, I am surprised to

find myself confiding this trouble to you at all! It has come about by

accident, but I am very glad; it is such a relief to speak. But how

_has_ it come about?" she broke off. "Did you suspect?"

"Suspect what?"

"That I am insane."

"You are not insane," I answered harshly.

She looked at me as if my words or manner amused her. "I remember now,"

she said. "I complained of the worry in my head, and then you questioned

me."

"It is not an uncommon complaint," I rejoined.

"Is it not?" she answered. "Well, I don't know whether to be sorry for the

other sufferers, or relieved to think that I am not the only one, which is

what you intend, I believe. But, doctor, the misery is terrible,

especially now that it has become almost incessant. It drives me--fills my

mind with such dreadful ideas. I have actually meditated murder lately."

"Murder in the abstract, I supposed?"

"No, murder actually, murder for my own benefit, or what I fancy in that

mood would be for my benefit; the murder of one poor miserable creature

whom I pity with all my heart and really care for--when I am in my right

mind."

My heart sank. It was not necessary for me to know, and I had no

inclination to ask, who the "one poor miserable creature" was.

"And when the impulse is on you, what do you do?" I said.

"It is not an impulse exactly," she answered; "at least, it is nothing

which I have ever had the slightest inclination to act upon. I am just

possessed by the idea--whatever it may be--and then I cannot sit still. I

have to rush out."

"Into Regent Street, for example?" I suggested, her last remark having

thrown a sudden side-light upon that occurrence.

"Yes," she said. "But I didn't know I was going to Regent Street. I had

read of Dickens prowling about the streets of London late at night when he

was suffering from the effects of overwork, and recovering his

tranquillity and power in that way, and I thought I would try the

experiment; so I went out and just walked on until I was tired, and then I

got into an omnibus, so as to be with the people, and when it stopped and

they all got out, I got out too, and walked on again, and then that horrid

old man spoke to me. It was a great shock, but it had the happiest effect.

I woke up, as it were, the moment I got rid of him, and felt quite myself

again; and then I hurried back, as you know. You still disapprove? Well,

in one way, perhaps you are right; but still it did me good." She stopped,

and looked into the fire thoughtfully; and then she smiled. "Forgive me,

do!" she said. "I know I behaved badly next day; I could not help it. The

sudden relief to my mind had sent my spirits up inordinately for one thing;

and then your face! Your consternation was really comical! If I had

injured you irreparably in your estimation of the value of your own

opinion of people, you could not have cared more. But I am sorry, very,

very sorry," she added, with feeling, "that you should have lost your

respect for me."

"What could make you think that I had lost my respect for you?" I asked in

surprise.

"Because, you know, you have never come to see me since, as you used to

do." She looked at me a moment wistfully, and I knew she half expected me

to explain or make some excuse; but I could not, unfortunately, do either

without making bad worse. I could assure her, however, honestly, that I

had not lost my respect for her.

"And I came to see you when you required me," I added.

But she was not satisfied, "I know your philanthropy," she said. "But I

would rather have you come as of old because you believed in me, and like

and respect me. I value your friendship, and it pains me to find that you

can only treat me now like any other suffering sinner. Is it going to be

so always?"

("Will the child kill me with her innocent talk?")

She had not alluded to the discontinuance of my visits before. I thought

she had not missed me, and, being in a double mood, had been somewhat hurt

by the seeming indifference, although I would not have had her want me

when I could not come. Now, however, I was greatly distressed to find the

construction she had put upon my absence, and all the more so because I

could not explain.

"Do not say that!" I exclaimed. "You have always had, you always will

have, my most sincere respect. It is part of an unhealthy state of mind

which makes you doubt the attachment of your friends."

She was glad to accept this assertion. "Ah, yes!" she said. "I know the

symptoms, but I had forgotten for the moment. Thank you. I _am_ so

glad to see you again!" She sighed, leaned back in her chair, folded her

hands on her lap, and looked at me--"if only as a doctor," she added

slowly. "You have some mysterious power over my mind. All great doctors

have the power I mean; I wonder what it is. Your very presence restores me

in an extraordinary way. You dispel the worry in my head without a word,

by just being here, however bad it is. I used to long for you so on those

days when you never came, and I used to watch for you and be disappointed

when you drove past; but then I always said, 'He will come to-morrow,' and

that was something to look forward to. I used to think at first you would

get over my escapade, or learn to take another view of it; but then, when

you never came, I gradually lost heart and hope, and that is how it was I

broke down, I think."

This guileless confidence affected me painfully.

"But I want to discover the secret of a great doctor's success," she

pursued. "What is your charm? There is something mesmeric about you, I

think, something inimical to disease at all events. There is healing in

your touch, and your very manners make an impression which cures."

"Knowledge, I suppose, has nothing to do with it?" I suggested, smiling.

"No, nothing," she answered emphatically. "I have carried out directions

of yours successfully which had been previously given to me by another

doctor and tried by me without effect. You alter the attitude of one's

mind somehow--that is how you do it, I believe."

"Well, I hope to alter the present attitude of your mind completely," I

answered. "And to resume. I want you to tell me how you feel when one of

those tormenting thoughts has passed. Do you suffer remorse for having

entertained it?"

"Only an occasional pang," she said. "I do not allow myself to sorrow or

suffer for thoughts which I cannot control. I am suffering from a morbid

state of mind, and it is my duty to fight against the impulses which it

engenders. But my responsibility begins and ends with the struggle. And I

am quite sure that it is wiser to try and forget that such ideas ever were

than to encourage them to haunt me by recollecting them even for purposes

of penitential remorse."

"And when it is not a criminal impulse, that affects you---"

"_Criminal!_" she ejaculated, aghast at the word.

I had used it on purpose to see its effect upon her, and was satisfied.

The moral consciousness was still intact.

"Yes," I persisted. "But when it is not an impulse of that kind, what is

it that disturbs your mind?"

"Thoughts of the suffering, the awful, needless suffering that there is in

the world. The perception of it is a spur which goads me at times so that

I feel as if I could do almost anything to lessen the sum of it. But then,

you see, my hands are tied, so that all I can do is think, think, think."

"We must change that to work, work, work," I said.

"It is too late," she answered despondently. "Body and mind have suffered--

mind and body. All that is not wrong in me is weak. I would have it

otherwise, yes. But give me some anodyne to relieve the pain; that is all

you can do for me now."

"I will give you no anodyne, either actual or figurative," I answered,

rising to go. "If you had no recuperative force left in you there would be

less energy in your despair. It rests with yourself now entirely to be as

healthy-minded as ever again if you like."

I never could remember whether I said good-bye to her that day, or just

walked out of the room, like the forgetful boor I sometimes am, with the

words on my lips.

CHAPTER XIV.

A medical man who does not keep his moral responsibility before him in the

consideration of a case must be a very indifferent practitioner, and, with

regard to Evadne, I felt mine to such an extent that, before the interview

was over, I had decided that I was not the proper person to treat her. I

doubted my judgment for one thing, which showed that for once my nerve was

at fault; and I had other reasons which it is not necessary to give. I

therefore determined to run up to town to consult Sir Shadwell Rock about

her. He was a distinguished colleague and personal friend of mine, a man

of vast experience, and many years my senior; and I knew that if he would

treat her, she could not be in better hands.

When I left As-You-Like-It I found that I had just time to drive to

Morningquest and catch the last train to town. It was a four hours'

journey, but fortunately there was a train in the early morning which

would bring me back in time for my own work.

I knew Sir Shadwell was in town, and telegraphed to him to beg him to see

me that night at half-past eleven if he possibly, could, and, on arriving,

I found him at home--very much at home, indeed, in a smoking jacket and

slippers over a big fire in his own private sanctum, enjoying his bachelor

ease with a cigarette and the last shilling shocker.

I apologised for my untimely visit, but he put me at my ease at once by

cordially assuring me that I had done him a favour. "I was going to a

boring big dinner this evening when your telegram arrived, and your coming

in this way suggested something sufficiently important to detain me, so I

sent an excuse, and have had a wholesome chop, and--eh--_a real good

time_," he added confidentially, tapping the novelette. "Extraordinary

production this, really. Most entertaining. I can't guess who did it, you

know, I can't indeed--but, my dear boy, to what do I owe the pleasure?

What can I do for you?

"First of all give me a wholesome chop if you have another in the house,

for I'm famishing."

"Oh, a thousand pardons for my remissness!" he exclaimed, ringing the bell

vehemently. "Of course you haven't dined. I ought to have thought of that.

Something very important, I suppose?"

"A most interesting case."

"Mental?"

"Yes. A lady."

"Well, not another word until you've had something to eat. Suitable

surroundings play an important part in the discussion of such cases, and

suitable times and seasons also. Just before dinner one isn't sanguine,

and just after one is too much so. When you have eaten, take time to

reflect--and a cigarette if you are a smoker." He had been holding his

book in his hand all the time, but now he pottered to a side-table with an

old man's stiffness, peeped at the paragraph he had been reading, marked

his place with a paper cutter, and muttered--"Very strange, for if she

didn't steal the jewels, who did? Mustn't dip though; spoils it." He put

the book down, and returned to me, taking off his spectacles as he came,

and smoothing his thick white hair. "Now don't say a word if you've read

it," he cautioned me. "I always owe everybody a grudge who tells me the

plot of a story I'm interested in. But, let me see, what was I saying? Oh!

Take time, that was it! There is nothing like letting yourself settle if

you are at all perplexed. When the memory is crowded with details the mind

becomes muddy, and you must let it clear itself. That is the secret of my

own success. In any difficulty I have always waited. Don't try to think,

Much better dismiss the matter from your mind altogether, make yourself

comfortable in the easiest chair in the room, get a rousing book--the

subject is of no importance, so long as it interests you--and in half an

hour, if the physical well-being is satisfactory, you will find the mental

tension gradually relax. Your ideas begin to flow, your judgment becomes

clear, and you suddenly see for yourself in a way that astonishes you."

"Then pray oblige me by resuming your seat and cigarette," I answered,

"and let me transfer my difficulty to you while the moment

lasts--_your_ moment!"

"When you have dined," he said good-humouredly. "I won't hear a word while

you are famishing. Tell me how you are yourself, and what you are doing.

My dear boy, it is really a pleasure to see you! Why aren't you married?"

"Now, really, do you expect me to answer such an important question as

that with my mind in its present muddy condition!" I retorted upon him.

"My many reasons are all rioting in my recollection, and I can't see one

clearly,"

The old gentleman smiled, and sat patting the arms of his chair for a

little. "You're looking fagged," he remarked presently. "Work won't hurt

you, but beware of worry!"

My dinner was brought to me on a tray at this instant, and the dear old

man got up to see that it was properly served. He tried the champagne

himself, to be sure it was right, and gave careful directions about the

coffee. His interest in everything was as fresh as a boy's, and nothing he

could do in the way of kindness was ever a trouble to him.

"You have been coming out strong in defence of morality lately," I

remarked, when I had dined. "You have somewhat startled the proprieties."

"Startled the pruderies, you mean," he answered, bridling. "The

proprieties face any necessity for discussion with modest discretion,

however painful it may be,"

"Well, you've done some good, at all events," I answered. I did not tell

him, but only that very day I had heard it said that his was a name which

all women should reverence for what he had done for some of them.

"Well," he said, "the clergy have had a long innings. They have been hard

at it for the last eighteen hundred years, and society is still rotten at

the core. It is our turn now. But come, draw up your chair to the fire and

be comfortable. Well, yes," he went on, rubbing his hands, "I suppose

eventually morality will be taught by medical men, and when it is much

misery will be saved to the suffering sex. My own idea is that a woman is

a human being; but the clerical theory is that she is a dangerous beast,

to be kept in subjection, and used for domestic purposes only. Married

life is made up to a great extent of the most heartless abuse of a woman's

love and unselfishness. Submission, you know--!"

When I had given him the details of Evadne's case, so far as I had gone

into it, he asked me what my own theory was.

"I feel sure it is the old story of these cases in women," I answered.

"The natural bent has been thwarted to begin with."

"Yes," he commented, "that is a fruitful source of mischief even in these

days, when women so often listen to the voice of the Lord himself speaking

in their own hearts, and do what he directs in spite of the Church. The

restrictions imposed upon women of ability warp their minds, and the

rising generation suffers. But how has the natural bent been thwarted in

this case?"

"I have not ascertained," I said. "She is a woman of remarkable general

intelligence, but she makes no use of it, and she does not seem to have

any one decided talent that she cares to cultivate, and consequently she

has no absorbing interest to occupy her mind, no purpose for which to live

and make the most of her abilities. She attends punctually to her social

duties, but they do not suffice, and she has of necessity many spare hours

of every day on her hands, during which she sits and sews alone. I suppose

a woman's embroidery answers much the same purpose as a man's cigarette.

It quiets her nerves, and helps her to think. If she is satisfied and

happy in her surroundings her reflections will probably be tranquil and

healthy, but if her outward circumstances are not congenial, she will

banish all thoughts of them in her hours of ease, and her mind will

gradually become a prey to vain imaginings--pleasant enough to begin with,

doubtless, but likely to take a morbid tone at any time if her health

suffers. This has been the case with Evadne--"

"With _whom_?" Sir Shadwell interrupted.

"With my patient," I stammered. "I have been accustomed to hear her spoken

of by her Christian name."

"Humph!" the old gentleman grunted, enigmatically.

"She has one of those minds which should be occupied by a succession of

lively events, all helping on some desirable object," I proceeded--"the

mind of a naturally active woman."

"Well," he answered, "it seems to be another instance of the iniquitous

folly of allowing the one sex to impose galling limitations upon the

other. It is not an uncommon case so far as the mental symptoms go. How

does she get on with her husband? does she contradict him?"

"No, never," I answered. "She is always courteous and considerate."

"Ah, now, I thought so," he chuckled. "A happily married woman contradicts

her husband flatly whenever she thinks proper. She knows she is safe from

wrangling and bitterness. I think you will find that the domestic position

is the difficulty here. You don't seem to have inquired into that very

carefully."

I made no answer, and he looked at me sharply for a moment, then asked me

how old my patient was.

"Twenty-five," I told him.

"Twenty-five," he repeated; "and you are intimate with both her and her

husband. Now, have you ever had any reason to doubt her honesty--her

verbal honesty of course I mean?"

"Quite the contrary," I answered. "I have always found her almost

peculiarly frank."

"A woman may be accurate, you know, in all she says of other people," he

observed; "but that is no proof that she will be so concerning herself."

"I know," was my reply; "but I feel quite sure of this lady's word."

"And during the time that you have known her she now confesses that she

has suffered more or less?"

"Yes. She mentioned one interval during which she said a new interest in

life took her completely out of herself."

"What was the interest?"

"I did not ask her."

"She fell in love, I suppose, and you happened to know the fact."

"I neither know, nor suspected such a thing,"

"That was it, you may be sure," Sir Shadwell decided. "When a young and

attractive woman, who speaks to her husband with marked courtesy and

consideration, instead of treating him familiarly, talks of having an

interest in life which takes her completely out of herself, you may take

it for granted almost always that the new interest is love."

"It is more likely to have been the small-pox epidemic," I rejoined, and

then I gave him an account of that episode.

"Ah, well, perhaps," he said. "We are evidently dealing with a nature full

of surprises." He pursed up his mouth and eyed me attentively. "My dear

boy," he said at last, "I think I see your difficulty. You had better turn

this case over to me altogether."

"Thank you," I answered. "That is what I should like to have suggested."

"Then send the lady up to town, and I will do my best for her."

CHAPTER XV.

Sir Shadwell Rock was exactly the kind of man Evadne had had in her mind,

I felt sure, when she spoke of the peculiar influence which distinguished

men of my profession exercise upon their patients. He was a man of taking

manners to begin with, sympathetic, cultivated, humane; and, I need hardly

add, scrupulously conscientious and exact. I could confide her to his care

with the most perfect reliance upon his kindness, as well as upon his

discretion and skill--if she would consent to consult him at all; but that

was a little difficulty which had still to be got over. I anticipated some

opposition, because I felt sure she had not realized that there was

anything threatening to be serious in her case, and would therefore see no

necessity for further advice. This made the arrangement difficult. It

would not do to arouse any apprehension about her own state of mind; but

how to induce her to go to London to consult an eminent specialist without

doing so was the question. Had Lady Adeline been at home the suggestion

would have come best from her, but in her absence there was nobody to make

it except that impossible Colonel Colquhoun. If he chose to order Evadne

to consult Sir Shadwell Rock, I knew she would do so at once, for she

never opposed him, and he was so apt to be unreasonable and capricious

that she would probably not think that the order signified much. But the

further question was, would he give it? After I had finished my morning's

work, I drove to the depôt to see. The men were on parade when I entered

the barrack square. They were drawn up in line, and the first thing I saw

was Colonel Colquhoun himself prancing about on his charger, and not in

the most amiable mood possible, I imagined, from the way he was

blackguarding the men. He sat his horse well, and was a fine soldierlike

man in uniform, and a handsome man too, of the martial order, when his

bald head was hidden by his cocked hat, and his blond moustache had a

chance; the sort of man to take a woman's fancy if not the kind of

character to keep her regard.

An unhappy old mounted major had got into trouble just as I came up. His

palfrey was an easy ambler, but he was the sort of old gentleman who would

not have been safe in a rocking chair with his sword drawn and his chief

complimenting him.

"You ride like a damned tailor, sir," Colonel Colquhoun was thundering at

him just as I drove up.

An officer in undress uniform, Captain Bartlet, and Brigade Surgeon James,

who was in mufti, were standing at an open window in the ante-room, and I

joined them there, and looked out at the parade.

"I don't know how you fellows stand that kind of thing, and before the

men, too," I remarked, _à propos_ of a fresh volley of abuse from

Colonel Colquhoun.

"Oh! by Jove! we've got to stand it, many of us, for weighty

considerations quite apart from our personal dignity," Captain Bartlet

rejoined. "A man with a wife and five children depending upon him will

swallow a lot for their sake. It would be easy enough to answer him, but

self-interest keeps us quiet--a deuced sight oftener than discipline, by

the way. However," he added cheerfully, "all C.O.'s are not so bad as that

brute out there, nor the half of them for the matter of that."

"But, still, it's a wonder what you stand, you combatants," Dr. James

observed.

"Shut up, doctor," Captain Bartlet rejoined good-naturedly, "Don't presume

upon your superior position. _Your_ promotion doesn't depend upon the

colonel's confidential report, nor your peace in life upon his fancy for

you. You can disagree with him in your own line, but we can't in ours."

"Is Colonel Colquhoun often so?" I asked. He had just been assuring that

unfortunate major that a billet in the Commissariat department, with a

pound of beef on one spur and a loaf of bread on the other to prevent

accidents, was the thing for him.

"More or less," was the answer. "He's notorious all through the service.

He brought his own regiment up to a high state of efficiency, I must say

that for him, and led it into action like a man; but, between ourselves, I

expect there's never been a time since he got his company when there

wasn't a bullet ready for him. You remember, James, in India? of course it

was an accident!"

The doctor nodded. "The men call him Bully Colquhoun," he supplemented.

"But surely his character is known at the Horse Guards?" I said.

"Ah, you see he's a smart officer," Captain Bartlet rejoined; "and what

are officers for? To knock about and to be knocked about. Just look at him

now! See how he's bucketing those men about! He was a militiaman, and

that's a militiaman all over! A man who's been through Sandhurst has

carried a rifle for a year himself, and he knows what it is, and gives his

men their stand easy; but a militiaman has no more feeling for them than a

block."

"Well, I can't see why you seniors don't remonstrate," I rejoined. "The

War Office is bound to support you if you show good cause."

"Yes, and cashier you too for very little, if you make yourself obnoxious

by giving them trouble," Bartlet replied. "Roylance was the only fellow

that ever really stood up to Colquhoun. He was a young subaltern that had

just joined, but an awful devil when he was roused, and he swore in the

anteroom that if the colonel ever blackguarded him before the men, or

anywhere else, or presumed upon his position to address him in terms which

one gentleman is not permitted to use to another, he'd give him as much as

he got. Well, the very next day, on parade, Roylance got the men into a

muddle. Colquhoun's a good soldier, you know, and nothing riles him like

inefficiency; and, by Jove! he was down on the lad like shot! He poured

his whole vocabulary on him, and then, for want of a worse word, he called

him 'a damned dissipated subaltern.' Well, Roylance just stepped back so

as to make himself heard, and shouted coolly: 'Dissipated! that comes well

from you, sir, considering the reason for the singular arrangement of your

own _ménage!_' with which he handed his sword to the adjutant, and

walked off to his quarters! You should have seen Colquhoun's face! He went

on leave immediately afterward, and of course the matter was hushed up.

Roylance exchanged. He'd lots of money. It's the men without means that

have to stand that kind of thing."

My voice was husky and I could scarcely control it, but I managed to ask:

"What was the insinuation?"

"What, about Roylance? Just a lie! The lad's life was as clean as a

lady's."

"I meant about the marriage?"

"Oh, don't you know? Colquhoun himself told us all about it in his cups

one night. Just as they were starting on their wedding trip she got a

letter containing certain allegations against him, and she gave him the

slip at the station, and went off by herself to make inquiries, and in

consequence of what she learnt, she declined to live with him at all at

first. But he has a great horror of being made the subject of gossip, you

know, and her people were also anxious to save scandal, and so, between

them, they managed to persuade her just to consent to live in the house,

he having given his word of honour as a gentleman not to molest her; and

that has been the arrangement ever since. Funny, isn't it? 'Truth stranger

than fiction,' you know, and that kind of thing, Yet it seems to answer.

They're excellent friends."

The parade had been dismissed by this time, but I had changed my mind, and

did not wait to see Colonel Colquhoun. I had to hurry back to make

arrangements with regard to my patients in the hospital, and then I

returned to town, and midnight saw me closeted once more with Sir Shadwell

Rock.

CHAPTER XVI.

The revolting story I had heard in the barracks haunted me. I had thought

incessantly of my poor little lady taken out of the school room to face a

position which would be horrifying, even in idea, to a right minded woman

of the world. What the girl's mental sufferings must have been only a girl

can tell. And ever since--the incubus of that elderly man of unclean

antecedents! All that had been incomprehensible about Evadne was obvious

now, and also the mistake she had made.

During the most important part of the time when a woman is ripe for her

best experiences, when she should be laying in a store of happy memories

to fall back upon, when memory becomes her principal pleasure in life,

Evadne had lived alone, shut up in herself, her large intelligence idle or

misapplied, and her hungry heart seeking such satisfaction as it could

find in pleasant imaginings. As she went about, punctually performing her

ineffectual duties, or sat silently sewing, she had been to all outward

seeming an example to be revered of graceful wifehood and womanliness; but

when one came to know what her inner life had become in consequence of the

fatal repression of the best powers of her mind, it was evident that she

was in reality a miserable type of a woman wasted. The natural bent of the

average woman is devotion to home and husband and children; but there are

many women to whom domestic duties are distasteful, and these are now

making life tolerable for themselves by finding more congenial spheres of

action. There are many women, however, above the average, who are quite

capable of acquitting themselves creditably both in domestic and public

life, and Evadne was one of these. Had she been happily married she would

undoubtedly have been one of the first to distinguish herself, one of the

foremost in the battle which women are waging against iniquity of every

kind. Her keen insight would have kept her sympathies actively alive, and

her disinterestedness would have made her careless of criticism. That was

her nature. But nature thwarted ceases to be beneficent. She places us

here fully equipped for the part she has designed us to play in the world,

and if we, men or women, neglect to exercise the powers she has bestowed

upon us, the consequences are serious. I did not understand at the time

what Evadne meant when she said that she had made it impossible for

herself to act. I thought she had deliberately shirked her duty under the

mistaken idea that she would make life pleasanter for herself by doing so;

but I learnt eventually how the impulse to act had been curbed before it

quickened, by her promise to Colonel Colquhoun, which had, in effect,

forced her into the disastrous attitude which we had all such good reason

to deplore. It seemed cruel that all the most beautiful instincts of her

being, her affection, her unselfishness, even her modest reserve and

womanly self-restraint, should have been used to injure her; but that is

exactly what had happened. And now the difficulty was: how to help her?

How to rouse her from the unwholesome form of self-repression which had

brought about her present morbid state of mind.

I was sitting up late the night after my second visit to Sir Shadwell

Rock, considering the matter. Sir Shadwell's advice was still the same:

"Send her to me." But the initial difficulty, how to get her to go,

remained. How to draw her from the dreary seclusion of her _Home in the

Woman's Sphere_, and persuade her that hours of ease are only to be

earned in action. I thought again of Lady Adeline, and sat down to write

to her.

The household had retired, and the night was oppressively silent. I felt

overcome with fatigue, but was painfully wide awake, as happens very often

when I am anxious about a bad case. But this was the third night since I

had been in bed, and I thought now I would go when I had finished my

letter to Lady Adeline, and do my best to sleep. As I crossed the hall,

which was in darkness save for the candle I carried in my hand, I fancied

I heard an unaccountable sound, a dull thud, thud, coming from I could not

tell whence for the moment. The senses are singularly acute in certain

stages of fatigue, and mine were all alive that night to any impression,

my hearing especially so; and there was no mistake. I had stopped short to

listen, and, impossible as I knew it would have been at any other time, I

was sure that I could distinctly hear a horse galloping on the turf of the

common more than a mile away, a mounted horse with a rider who was urging

him to his utmost speed; and in some inexplicable manner I also became

conscious of the fact that the horseman was a messenger sent in all haste

for me.

Mechanically I put my candle down and opened the hall door. It was a

bright night. The fresh invigorating frosty air seemed to clear my mental

vision still more strongly as it blew in upon me. Diavolo in mess dress,

his cap gone, his fair hair blown back by the wind; breathless with

excitement and speed; with thought suspended, but dry lips uttering

incessantly a cry for help--"Galbraith! Galbraith! Galbraith!" My pulses

kept time to the thud of the horse's hoofs on the common. I waited. I had

not the shadow of a doubt that I was wanted. But I did not ask myself by

whom.

The sound only ceased for a perceptible second or so at the lodge gates.

Were they open? Had he cleared them? What a jump! Thud! He must be

well-mounted! On the drive now! The gravel is flying! Across the

lawn--Diavolo. Good speed indeed!

Scarcely five minutes since I heard him first till he stopped at the steps

in the starlight, hoarsely panting "Galbraith! Galbraith!"

"I am here, my boy! What is it?"

"Come! Come to her at once! Colonel Colquhoun is dead."

The mind, quickened by the shock of a startling piece of intelligence,

suddenly sums up our suspicions for us sometimes in one crisp homely

phrase. This is what mine did. "The murder is out!" I thought, the moment

Diavolo spoke. Evadne--was this the end of it! Such a state of mind as

hers had been lately, might continue for the rest of her life, to her

torment, without influencing her actions; but, on the other hand, an

active phase might supervene at any moment.

Diavolo had dismounted and sat down on one of the steps, utterly

exhausted. "Here, take the reins," he said, "and mount, I'm done. I'll

look after myself. Don't waste a moment."

I needed no urging.

"I have actually meditated murder lately. Murder--murder for my own

benefit."

The horrible phrases, in regular succession, kept time to the rhythmical

ring of the iron shoes on the frozen ground as the horse returned with me,

still at a steady gallop, to As-You-Like-It.

I had recognized the animal. It was the same fine charger which Colonel

Colquhoun himself had been riding so admirably on parade the last time I

saw him. Only yesterday morning! "Murder actually, murder for my own

benefit." No! no!--stumble. Hold up! only a stone. Shall we ever be there?

Suspense--"Murder actually"--no, it shall not be that! Hope is the word I

want. Beat it out of the hardened earth! Hope, hope, hope, hope, nothing,

nothing but hope!

We had arrived at last. No one about. Doors open, lights flaring, and a

strange silence.

Leaving the horse to do as he liked, I walked straight upstairs, and on

the first landing I met Evadne's maid.

"I hoped it was you, sir. Come this way," she whispered, and pushed open a

door which stood already ajar, gently, as if afraid of disturbing some

sleeper.

It was Colonel Colquhoun's bedroom, large and luxurious, like the man

himself. He was stretched upon the bed, in evening dress, his gray face

upward. One glance at _that_ sufficed. But almost before I had

crossed the threshold I was conscious of an indescribable sense of relief.

There were four persons in the room, that poor old "begad" major, who

could not ride, and Captain Bartlet, both hastily summoned from the depôt

evidently, and still in mess dress; Dr. James in ordinary morning costume,

with a covert coat on; and Evadne herself in a black evening dress, open

at the throat. It was her attitude that relieved my mind the moment I saw

her. She was seated beside the bed, crying heartily and healthily. The

three gentlemen stood just behind her, gravely concerned; silent,

sympathetic, helpless, waiting for me. No one spoke.

For the dead, reverence. I stood by the bed looking down on the splendid

frame, prone now and inert, and again I thought of the last time I had

seen him, a fine figure of a man, finely mounted, and exercising his

authority arrogantly. I looked into the blank countenance. No other man on

earth had ever called forth curses from my inmost soul such as I had

uttered, to my shame, in one great burst of rage that had surprised me and

shaken my fortitude the night before as I journeyed back alone, without

the slightest prospect, that I could see, of saving her. The blank face,

decently composed. His right hand, palm upward, was stretched out toward

me as if he were offering it to me; and thankful I was to feel that I

could clasp it honestly. I had not a word or look on my conscience for

which I deserved a reproach from the dead man lying there. I took his hand:

a doctor doing a perfunctory duty? No, a last natural rite, an act of

reconciliation. In that solemn moment, still holding his hand and gazing

down into his face, I rejoiced to feel that the trouble had passed from my

soul, that the rage and bitterness were no more, and that only the

touching thought of his kindly hospitality and perfect confidence in my

own integrity--a confidence impossible in a man who has not himself the

saying grace of a better nature--would remain with me from that time forth

forever.

I laid my hand on Evadne's shoulder, and she looked up.

"Ah! have you come?" she cried, her voice broken with sobs that shook her.

"Is it really true? Can nothing be done? Oh, poor, poor man! What a life!

What a death! A miserable, miserable, misspent life, and such an end--in a

moment--without a word of warning--and all these years when I have been

beside him, silent and helpless. If only I could have done something to

help him--said something. Surely, surely there was _something_ I

might have, done?" She held her clasped hands out toward me, the familiar

gesture, appealing to me to blame her.

"Thank Heaven!" I inwardly ejaculated. "This is as it should be."

In the presence of eternal death, her own transient sufferings were

forgotten, and healthy human pity destroyed any sense of personal injury

she might have cherished.

We four men stood awkwardly, patiently by for several minutes, listening

to her innocent self-upbraidings, knowing her story, and touched beyond

expression by the utter absence of all selfish sentiment in any word she

said.

When she was quite exhausted, I drew her hand through my arm, and took her

to her own room.

Cardiac syncope was the cause of death. Colonel Colquhoun had been out

that evening, and had, through some mistake of the coachman's, missed his

carriage, and walked home in a towering rage. The exertion and excitement,

acting together on a heart already affected, had brought on the attack. He

was storming violently in the hall, with his face flushed crimson--so the

servants told us--when all at once he stopped, and called "Evadne!" twice,

as if in alarm; and Mrs. Colquhoun ran down from the drawing room; but

before she could reach him he fell on the floor, and never spoke again.

CHAPTER XVII.

Much of my time during the next few months was devoted I to the

consideration of Evadne's affairs. Her father made no sign, and she had no

other relation in a position to come forward and share the responsibility;

but, happily, she had very good friends. I had noticed that Diavolo was

singularly agitated when he brought the terrible news that night to

Fountain Towers, but thought little of it, as I knew the boy to be

emotional. The shock to his own feelings did not, however, prevent him

thinking of others, and the next thing I heard of him was that he had been

to Morningquest and waited till the telegraph office opened, in order to

send the news to his own people, and beg them to return at once, if they

could, on Evadne's account; and this they did, in the kindest manner, with

as little delay as possible.

"I have only come to fetch Evadne," Lady Adeline said when she arrived. "I

am going to take her away at once from this dreadful house and this dreary

English winter to a land of sunshine and flowers and soft airs, and I hope

to bring her back in the spring herself again--as _you_ have never

known her!"

Mr. Hamilton-Wells stayed behind, at considerable personal inconvenience,

to consult with me about business. Colonel Colquhoun had died intestate

and also in debt. What he had done with his money we could not make out,

except that a large sum had been sunk in an annuity, which of course died

with him. But one thing was quite evident, which was that Evadne would

have little or nothing besides her pension from the service, and that

would be the merest pittance for one always accustomed to the command of

money as she had been. Mr. Hamilton-Wells wished to impose a handsome sum

on her yearly by fraud and deceit, out of his own ample income.

"Really, ladies are so peculiar about money matters," he said. "I feel

quite sure she would not accept sixpence from me if I were to offer it to

her. But she need not know where the money comes from. It can be paid into

her account at the bank, you see, regularly, and she will take it for

granted that she is entitled to it."

"I am not so sure of that," I answered with some heat, "but at any rate

the plan is not possible."

"Now, my dear Galbraith," Mr, Hamilton-Wells remonstrated, "do not put

your foot down in that way. I am the older man, and I may also say,

without offence, the older friend, and I am married; and Lady Adeline will

strongly approve of what I propose."

"I do not doubt it," I maintained; "but it cannot be done."

"She is not the kind of person to marry for money," Mr. Hamilton-Wells

observed, looking up at the ceiling.

"Who? Mrs. Colquhoun?" I asked. "I don't understand you."

"Oh," he answered, "it occurred to me that you might be thinking such a

consideration would weigh with her in the choice of a second husband."

I stared at the man. He was sitting at a writing table in my library, with

the papers we had been going through spread out before him, and I was

standing opposite; and, as he spoke, he leant back in his chair, with his

elbows on the arms of it, brought the tips of his long white fingers

together, and smiled up at me, bland as a child, innocent of all offence.

I am inclined to think he did secretly enjoy the effect of unexpected

remarks without in the least appreciating the permanent impression he

might be making. But I don't know. Some of these apparently haphazard

observations of his were pregnant with reflection, and I believe, if his

voice had been strong and determined instead of precise and insinuating;

if he had brushed his hair up, instead of parting it in the middle and

plastering it down smoothly on either side of his head; if his hands had

been hardened by exposure and use instead of whitened by excessive care;

if he had worn tweed instead of velvet, Mr. Hamilton-Wells would have been

called acute, and dreaded for his cynicism. But looking as he did,

inoffensive as a lady's luggage, he was allowed to pass unsuspected; and

if his mind were an infernal machine, concealed by a quilted cover, the

world would have to have seen it to credit the fact.

I put my hands in my pockets after that last remark, and walked to the

window glumly; but as I stood with my back to him, I could not help

wondering if he was making faces at me, or up to any other undignified

antics by way of relaxation. Did he ever wriggle with merriment when he

was alone? I turned suddenly at the thought. He was calmly perusing a

paper through his pince-nez, with an expression of countenance at once so

benign, silly, and self-satisfied, that I felt I should like to have

apologised for the suspicion.

"There is nothing for it, Galbraith," he said, "that I can see. She must

either be poverty-stricken or have an income provided for her."

"She has enough to go on with for the present," I answered.

"You can provide the money yourself if you would rather," he suggested, in

the tone of one who gives in good-naturedly to oblige you. "I don't care,

you know, where the money comes from, so long as the source is

disinterested and respectable."

I had returned to the table, but now again I walked to the window.

"But, I think," he continued, while I stood with my back to him, "as you

say, for the present nothing need be done. Give her time for a rope--eh?

What I do deprecate is leaving her to be driven by poverty to marry for

money. My dear Galbraith," he broke off, protesting, "you have been on the

prance for the last half-hour. For a medical man, you have less repose of

manner than is essential, I should say. In fact, you quite give me the

notion that you are impatient. But perhaps I am detaining you?"

"Oh, not at all," I assured him.

"Well, as I was saying," he pursued, "give her time to marry again. That

would be the most satisfactory settlement of her difficulties. She is, I

quite agree with you, a very attractive person. Now, there is the Duke of

Panama already, Lady Adeline says--but she seems to have an objection to

princes, especially if they are at all obese. I do not like obese people

myself. Now, do _you_ ever feel nervous on that score?"

"What score?"

"The score of obesity. You are just nicely proportioned at present for a

man of your age and height. _I_, of course, am far too slender. But

if you were to get any stouter by and by, it would be such a dreadful

thing! I hope flesh is not in your family on both sides. On one I know it

is. Now, my people are all slender. There is a great deal in that, I

notice."

He was doing up the documents now with much neatness and dexterity.

"These had better go to my lawyer," he remarked.

"Why not to mine?" I suggested.

"Oh, allow me," he said, with great suavity--"as the older man. Of course,

as a question of right, we neither of us have any claim to the privilege

of being allowed to help this lady. Eventually, however, one of us may

secure the right; but there is many a slip, you know, and perhaps it would

be less awkward afterward if a person whose disinterestedness is quite

above suspicion had had the direction of affairs from the first."

There could be no doubt of what he meant by this time, and the argument

was unanswerable.

"Do you feel inclined to return with me to Mentone?" he asked.

"I am afraid I cannot get away just now."

"Ah! I suppose it _is_ too soon. Well, she is quite safe with us, and

we will bring her back to Hamilton House in the spring.". Mr.

Hamilton-Wells smiled complacently as he took his seat in his carriage. I

almost expected him to thank me for the sport I had been giving him, he

looked so like a man who had been enjoying himself thoroughly. I thought

about that last remark of his after he had gone, and pitied Lady Adeline.

It must be trying to be liable at any moment to have words, which one

deliberately chooses to hide one's thoughts, set aside as of no

consequence, and the thoughts themselves answered naïvely. However, there

was no real reason for hiding my thoughts any longer on that subject. I

had done my best manfully, I hope, while the necessity lasted, to mask my

feeling for her, even from myself; but there was now no further need for

self-restraint. I might live for her and love her honestly, and openly at

last; and, accordingly, when Sir Shadwell Rock came to me for a few days

at Christmas, I did not attempt to conceal my intention from him.

"It is a great risk," he said gravely, "a very great risk. Of course, now

that the first cause of all the trouble is removed, the mental health may

be thoroughly restored. So long as there is no organic brain lesion there

is hope in all such cases. But I tell you frankly that the first call upon

her physical strength may set up a recurrence of the moral malady, and you

cannot foresee the consequences. However, you know as much about that as I

do, and I can see it's no use warning you. You have made up your mind."

"Yes," I answered. "I shall be able to take good care of her if only I am

fortunate enough to win her."

"Well, well, she seems to be a loyal little body," the old gentleman

replied; "and I wish you success with all my heart. She will have much in

her favour as your wife, and since you are determined to run the risk, let

us hope for the best."

And that was just what I did while I waited for the spring, and to such

good purpose that I became light-hearted as a schoolboy. I watched the

birds building; I noticed the first faint green shadow on the hedges, and

the yellowing of the gorse; I listened in the freshness of the dawn to the

thrush that sang "Evadne." And when at last Mr. Hamilton-Wells walked in

one day unexpectedly, and explained, somewhat superfluously, that he had

come, I could have thrown up my hat and cheered!

"But without the ladies," he added.

"Have you left them behind you?" I demanded, trying not to look blank.

"Yes," he answered very slowly, then added: "At Hamilton House." I suppose

nobody ever thought of kicking anything so "slender" as Mr,

Hamilton-Wells, or associated such a vulgar idea as would have been

involved in the suspicion of a deliberate intention to "sell" you with a

person of such courteous and distinguished manners. But one did

occasionally wonder what he was like at school, and if blessings and abuse

were often showered on him then at one and the same time, as had come to

be the case in later life.

He had come to ask me to dinner that evening, and when I arrived he was

standing on the hearthrug, gracefully, with a palm-leaf fan in his hand,

Evadne greeted me quietly, Lady Adeline with affectionate cordiality, and

Diavolo, who was the only other member of the party, with a grave yet

bright demeanour which made him more like his Uncle Dawne in miniature

than ever.

"'In the spring,'" Mr. Hamilton-Wells observed precisely, waving his fan

to emphasise each word, and addressing a remote angle of the cornice, "'In

the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.'"

Diavolo flushed crimson, Lady Adeline looked annoyed, but Evadne sat pale

and still, as if she had not heard.

I was right about her not being likely to leave her affairs in anybody's

hands. Very soon after her arrival she insisted upon having an accurate

statement of accounts, and begged me to go over to Hamilton House one

morning to render it, as she found Mr. Hamilton-Wells quite unapproachable

on the subject.

She received me in the morning room alone, and began at once in the most

business-like way, "Mr. Hamilton-Wells' reticence convinces me that I am a

beggar," she said cheerfully. "Tell me the exact sum I have to depend

upon?"

I named it.

"Oh, then," she proceeded, "the question is, What shall I do? I cannot

possibly live in the world, you know, on such a sum as that."

"What do you propose to do?" I asked, her tone having suggested some

definite plan already formed.

"Go into a sisterhood, I think,' she answered.

"Nonsense!" I exclaimed.

She raised her eyebrows.

"I beg your pardon," I said. "But you are not fit for such a life. Why, in

a month you would be seeing visions and dreaming dreams."

"But I am afraid I shall do that now in any case, wherever I am," she

sighed; and then she added, smiling at her own cynicism; "and I think I

had better go where such things can be turned to good account. I have had

no horrid thoughts, by the way, since I left As-You-Like-It, but of course

I shall relapse."

"No, you will not," I blurted out, "if you marry happily."

Her face flushed all over at the word.

"Will you, Evadne," I proceeded--"or rather could you--be happy with me?"

She rose, and made me a deep courtesy. "Thank you," she answered

scornfully, "for your kind consideration, Sir George Galbraith! I always

thought you the most disinterested person I ever knew, but I had no idea

that even you could go so far as that!"

And then she left me alone with my consternation.

How in the name of all that is perplexing had I offended her?

Lady Adeline came in at that moment, and I put the question to her,

telling her exactly what I had said. She burst out laughing.

"My dear George!" she exclaimed, "forgive me! I can't help it! But don't

you think yourself you were a little bit abrupt? You do not seem to have

mentioned the fact that you feel any special affection for Evadne. It did

not occur to you to protest that you loved her, for instance?"

"No, it did not," I answered; "I should think that the fact is patent

enough without protestations."

"She may have overlooked it, all the same," Lady Adeline suggested, still

laughing at me. "I would advise you to find out the next time you have a

chance."

"Where is she?" I demanded, going toward the door.

"Oh, you won't see her again to-day, you may be sure," she rejoined; "and

it is just as well, you bear, if you mean to make love to her with that

kind of countenance!"

But I would not be advised.

I strode straight up to her room, which I happened to know, and knocked at

the door.

She answered "Come in!" evidently not expecting me, and when she saw who

it was she was furious.

"I cannot understand what you mean by such conduct!" she exclaimed.

"Well, then, I'll make you understand!" I retorted.

Mr. Hamilton-Wells insinuated afterward that Evadne only accepted me to

save her life. But I protested against the libel. I have never, to my

certain knowledge, uttered a rough word either to or before my little lady

in the whole course of our acquaintance. But why, when she loved me, she

should have gone off in that ridiculous tantrum simply because I did not

begin by expressing my love for her, I shall never be able to understand.

She might have been sure that I should have enough to say on that subject

as soon as I was accepted.

The day after the engagement was announced Diavolo called upon me.

Needless to say he found me in the seventh heaven. I had been walking

about the house, unable to settle to anything, and when I heard he had

come I thought it was to congratulate me, and I hurried down; but the

first glimpse of his face caused my heart to contract ominously.

"Well, you have played me a nice trick," he said, with concentrated

bitterness, "both of you. You knew what _my_ intentions were and you

gave me no hint of your own. You preferred to steal a march on me. I could

not have imagined such a thing possible from you. I should have supposed

that you would have thought such underhand conduct low."

"Diavolo!" I gasped, "are you in earnest?"

"Am I in earnest!" he ejaculated. "Look at me! I suppose you think I am

incapable of deep feeling."

"If only I had known!" I exclaimed. "Yet--how could I guess? The

difference of age--and, Diavolo, my dear boy, believe me, I do sympathise

with you most sincerely. This is a bitter drop in the cup for me.

But--but--even if I had known--will it make it worse for you if I say it?--

it is me she loves. She would not have accepted anyone but me. Even if I

_had_ withdrawn in your favour--"

He waved his hand to stop me. "Don't distress yourself," he said. "It is

fate. We are to be punished with extinction as a family for the sins of

our forefathers. My case will be the same as Uncle Dawne's--only," he

added suddenly, and clenched his fists, "only, if you treat her badly,

I'll blow your brains out."

"I hope you will," I answered.

He looked hard at me with a pained expression in his eyes. "Ah, I'm a

fool," he said; "forgive me! I don't know what I'm saying. I'm mad with

disappointment, and grief, and rage. Of course, if she loves you, I never

had a chance. Yet the possibility of giving me one, had you known,

occurred to you. Well, I will show you that I can be as generous as you

are." He held out his hand. "I--I congratulate you," he faltered; "Only,

make her happy. But I know you will."

He felt about for his hat, and, having found it, walked with an uncertain

step toward the door, blinded with tears.

I stood long as he had left me.

Ah, brother! have you not full oft

Found, even as the Roman did,

That in life's most delicious draught

_Surgit amari aliquid?_

Lady Adeline met me sadly the next time I went to Hamilton House.

"Do you blame me?" I faltered.

"No, oh, no!" she generously responded. "None of us--not one of us--not

even Angelica, suspected for a moment that he was in earnest. It had been

his wolf-cry, you know, all his life. Evadne herself has no inkling of the

truth."

"I hope she never will," I said.

"If it rests with Diavolo, she will not," his mother answered, proud of

him, and with good cause.

It is a salient feature of the Morningquest family history that not one of

them ever had a great grief which they did not make in the long run a

source of joy to other people. Diavolo's first impulse was to go and see

service abroad; but he soon abandoned that idea, although it would have

afforded him the distraction he so sorely needed, and resigned his

commission instead; and then took up his abode at Morne, in order to

devote himself to his grandfather entirely, and it was in Diavolo's

companionship that the latter found the one great pleasure and solace of

his declining years. The old duke had been wont to say of Diavolo at his

worst: "That lad is a gentleman at heart, and, mark my words, he will

prove himself so yet!"

And so he has.

His was the first and loveliest present Evadne received. He did not come

to her second wedding, but, then, nobody else did except his father and

mother, for it pleased us all to keep the ceremony as quiet and private as

possible; so that his absence was not significant; and, afterward, he

rather made a point, if anything, of not avoiding us in any way. In fact,

the only change I noticed in him was that he never again made any of those

laughing protestations of love and devotion to Evadne with which he used

to amuse us all in the dark days of her captivity.

CHAPTER XVIII.

We were married in London, and when the final arrangements were being

discussed, I asked her where she would like to go after the ceremony.

"Oh, let us go home, Don," she said--she insisted on calling me "Don." I

told her the name conveyed no idea to me, but she answered that I was

obtuse, and she was sure I should grow to love it in time, even if I did

not understand it, if it were only because it was _fetish_, and

nobody could use it but herself; to which extent, by the way, I was very

soon able to endorse her opinion. "Don't let us go to nasty foreign

hotels. I hate travelling, and I hate sight-seeing--the kind of

sight-seeing one does for the sake of seeing. We will go home and be

happy. No place could be half so beautiful to me as yours is now."

That she should call it "home" at once, and long to be settled there, was

a good omen, I thought. But she was happy, beyond all possibility of a

doubt, in the anticipation of her life with me.

Soon after our return I took her into Morningquest, and left her to lunch

with her aunt, Mrs. Orton Beg. I had business on the other side of the

city which detained me for some hours, and when at last I could get away,

I hurried back, being naturally impatient to rejoin her. Mrs, Orton Beg

was alone in the drawing room, and I suppose something in the expression

of my face amused her, for she laughed, and answered a question I had not

asked.

"Out there," she said, meaning in the garden.

I turned and looked through the open French window, and instantly that

haunting ghost of an indefinite recollection was laid. Evadne was sleeping

in a high-backed chair, with the creeper-curtained old brick wall for a

background, and half her face concealed by a large summer hat which she

held in her hand.

"I thought you would remember when you saw her so," said Mrs. Orton Beg.

"It was just after that unhappy marriage fiasco. She had run away, and

sought an asylum here, and when you were so struck by her appearance, I

could not help thinking it was a thousand pities that you had not met

before it was too late."

"And then you asked me to use the Scottish gift of second sight--I was

thinking at the moment that she was the kind of girlie I should choose for

a wife, and so I said she should marry a man called George--"

"Which made it doubly a Delphic oracle for vagueness to me," said Mrs.

Orton Beg, "because Colonel Colquhoun's name was also George."

"Now, this is a singular coincidence!" I exclaimed.

"Ah!" she ejaculated. "But I do not talk of 'coincidences'--there is a

special providence, you know."

"Which deserts Edith and protects Evadne?"

"You are incorrigible!"

"You are a demon worshipper! The Infinite Good gives us the knowledge and

power if we will use it. _Evadne_ was a Seventh Wave!"

"'The Seventh Waves of humanity must suffer,' you said." We looked at each

other. "The oracle was ominous. But surely she has suffered enough? Heaven

grant her happiness at last!"

"Amen," I answered fervently.

As soon as we were settled, I tried to order her life so as to take her

mind completely out of the old groove. I kept her constantly out of doors,

and never let her sit and sew alone, for one thing, or lounge in easy

chairs, or do anything else that is enervating.

I made her ride, too, and rise regularly in the morning; not too early,

for that is as injurious in one way as too late is in another; the latter

enervates, but the former exhausts. Regularity is the best discipline. I

taught her also to shoot at a mark, and took her into the coverts in the

autumn; but she could not bear the sight of suffering creatures, and

unfortunately she wounded a bird the first time we were out, and I was

never able to persuade her to shoot at another. However, there was active

exercise enough for her without that, so long as she was able to take it,

and when it became necessary to curtail the amount, she drove both morning

and afternoon, and took short walks and pottered about the grounds in

between times.

I had bought As-You-Like-It while she was abroad with the

Hamilton-Wellses, and had had the whole place pulled down, and the site

converted into a plantation, so that no trace was left of that episode to

vex her. In fact, I had done all that I could think of as likely in any

way to help to re-establish her health, and certainly she was very happy.

Everything I wished her to do seemed to be a pleasure to her; and mind and

body grew rapidly so vigorous that I lost all fear for her. She said she

was a new creature, and she looked it.

When we had been married about a year, Sir Shadwell Rock came to pay us a

visit. Evadne was quite at her best then, and I introduced her to him

triumphantly.

He asked about her progress with kindly interest when we were alone

together, and declared heartily that she was certainly to all appearance

thoroughly restored, that he was quite in love with her himself, and hoped

to see her in the van of the new movement yet.

She took to the dear old man, and told him his great reputation did not

frighten her one bit; and she would lean on his arm familiarly out in the

grounds, pelt him with gorse blossom, fill his pockets with rose leaves

surreptitiously, till they bulged out like bags behind, and keep him

smiling perpetually at her pretty ways. He had been going abroad for a

holiday, but we persuaded him to stay with us instead, and when we parted

with him at last reluctantly, he declared that Evadne had made him young

again, and the wrinkles were all smoothed out.

His last words to me were: "So far so good, Galbraith," and I knew he

meant to warn as well as to congratulate. "Don't keep her in cotton wool

too much. Make her face sickness and suffering while she is well herself.

Take warning by the small-pox epidemic. She has no morbid horror of that

subject, because she knows practically how much can be done for the

sufferers. If she devote herself to good works, she will be sanguine

because so much is being accomplished, instead of dwelling despondently on

the hopeless amount there is still to do."

Soon after this, however, I began to hope that a new interest in life was

coming to cure her of all morbid moods for ever. I was anxious at first,

but she was so quietly happy in the prospect herself, and she continued so

well in spite of the drain upon her strength, that I soon took heart

again.

"You have got to be very young, Don, since I was so good as to marry you,"

she said to me one day.

She had come in with some flowers for me, and had caught me whistling

instead of working.

Sir Shadwell had consented, in his usual kind and generous way, to share

the responsibility of this time with me. He came down to us for an

occasional "week-end," just to see how she progressed, and his

observations, like my own, continued to be satisfactory. It was a crucial

test, we knew. If we could carry her safely through this trying time, she

would be able to take her proper place with the best of her sex in the

battle of life, to fight with them and for them, which was what we both

ardently desired to see her do.

There had been never a word of the mental malady since Colquhoun's death.

I had judged it well to let her forget she had ever suffered so if she

could, and I had no reason to suspect that she ever thought of it. She had

had hours, and even days, of depression since our marriage, but had always

been able to account for them satisfactorily; and now, although of course

she got down at times, she was less often so than is usually the case

under the circumstances, and was always easily consoled.

She paid me a visit in my study one day. She had a habit of coming

occasionally when I was at work, a habit that happily emphasized the

difference between my solitary bachelor days and these. She was shy of her

caresses as a rule, but would occasionally make my knee her seat, if it

happened to suit her convenience, while she filled the flower vases on my

table; or she would stand behind me with her hands clasped round my neck,

and lean her cheek against my hair. She did so now.

"You love your work, Don, don't you?" she said.

"Yes, sweetheart," I answered; "next to you, it is the great delight of my

life."

"But, Don, you find it all-absorbing; don't you?"

"No, not _all_-absorbing, _now_."

"But sufficiently so to be a comfort to you if you ever had any great

grief? After the first shock, you would return to your old pursuits, would

you not? And, by and by, you would find solace in them?"

I unclasped her hands from my neck, and drew her round to me. There was a

new note in her voice that sounded ominous.

"What is the trouble, little woman!" I whispered, when I had her safe in

my arms.

"I don't think I could die and leave you, Don, if I thought you would be

miserable."

"Well, then, don't allow yourself to entertain any doubt on the subject,"

I answered; "for I should be more than 'miserable.' I should never care

for anything in the world again."

"But if I should have to die--"

"There is no need to distress either yourself or me by such an idle

supposition, Evadne," I answered. "There is not the slightest occasion for

alarm."

"I am not _alarmed_," she said, and then she was silent.

A few days later, I found her sitting on the floor in the library, reading

a book she had taken from one of the lower shelves. It was a book of Sir

Shadwell Rock's on the heredity of vice. I took it from her gently,

remarking as I did so: "I would rather you did not read these things just

now, Evadne."

"I suppose you agree with Sir Shadwell Rock," she said.

"Let me help you up," I answered.

"Do you?" she persisted.

"Of course. He is our chief authority," I answered. "But promise me,

Evadne, not to look at any of those books again without consulting me. I

shall be having you like the medical students who imagine they have

symptoms of every disease they study."

"It would mark a strange change in my mind," she answered; "for I used to

be able to study any subject of the kind without being affected in that

way."

That her mind had changed, alas! or rather, that it had been injured by

friction and pressure of the restrictions imposed upon it, was the

suspicion which necessitated my present precaution, but I could not say

so.

She held out her hands for me to help her to rise. "Why are women kept in

the dark about these things?" she said, pointing to the books on heredity.

"Why are we never taught as you are? We are the people to be informed."

"You are quite right," I said. "It is criminal to vithhold knowledge from

any woman who has the capacity to acquire it. But there is a time for

everything, you know, my sweetheart."

"Now, that poor Colonel Colquhoun," she went on as if I had not spoken.

"He for one should never have been born. With his ancestry, he must have

come into the world foredoomed to a life of dissipation and disease. It is

awful to think we may any of us become the parents of people who can't be

moral without upsetting the whole natural order of the universe. O Don! it

is dreadful to know it, but it is sinful to be ignorant of the fact."

"But there is no fear for our children, Evadne," I said. "Ah! that is what

I want to know!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands round my arm.

"Come out into the grounds then, sweetheart," I answered, affecting a

cheerfulness I was far from feeling; "and I will tell you the whole family

history."

I had to go out that evening to see a serious case in consultation with a

brother practitioner. I had ordered the dogcart for ten o'clock, and

Evadne came out into the hall with me from the drawing room, where I had

been reading to her since dinner, when it was brought round.

"_Must_ you go?" she said listlessly.

"I am afraid I must," I answered; "it is a matter of life and death. But

why shouldn't you come too! It will be much better than staying here

alone. I ought to have thought of it sooner. Do come! I will send the

dogcart back, and have the brougham."

"It would delay you," she said, hesitating.

"Oh, no! Two horses in the brougham will get over the ground faster than

one in the dogcart. Come! Let me get you some wraps."

"But when we arrive, my presence will be an inconvenience," she objected.

"In no way," I answered. "It will not be a long business, and you can wait

very well in the carriage with a book and a lamp."

She came out and looked at the night, still undecided. The weather was

damp and uninviting.

"I don't think I'll go, Don," she said, shivering. "Good-bye and safe home

to you!"

As I drove along, I cast about in my own mind for a suitable companion for

Evadne, someone who would vary the monotony for her when I had to be out.

She had no ladyloves, as so many women have. Mrs. Orton Beg was at

Fraylingay again, and Lady Adeline was the only other friend I knew of who

would be congenial just then; but she had multifarious duties of her own

to attend to, and it would not have been fair to ask her, especially as

she was sure to come if she knew she was wanted, however great the

inconvenience to herself. I knew nothing at that time of two other friends

of Evadne's, Mrs. Sillinger and Mrs. Malcomson, to whom I afterward learnt

that she was much attached. Owing, I think, to the unnatural habit of

reticence which had been forced upon her, she had not mentioned them to

me, although she continued to correspond with them. It took her some time

to realize that every interest of hers was matter of moment to me. A

certain colonel and Mrs. Guthrie Brimston had recently settled in the

neighbourhood, in order, as they gave out, to be near the Morningquest

family, with whom they claimed relationship, on the ground, I believe,

that they also were Guthries. Colonel Guthrie Brimston led people to

suppose that he had left the service entirely on the duke's account, his

disinterested intention being to vary the monotony for the poor old

gentleman during his declining years. They had claimed Evadne's

acquaintance with effusion, but she had not responded very cordially.

"Let them have a carriage and horses whenever they like, Don," she said,

"and give them plenty to eat; but don't otherwise encourage them to come

here."

Recollecting which, I now inferred that Mrs. Guthrie Brimston would not

answer my present purpose at all.

This was the first time Evadne had shown any objection to being left

alone. She used to insist upon my going away sometimes, because, she said,

I should be so very glad to come back to her! But she was never exacting

in any way, and never out of temper. And she had such pretty ways as a

wife! little endearing womanly ways which one felt to be the spontaneous

outcome of tenderness untold, and inexpressible. It was strange how her

presence pervaded the house; strange to me that one little body could make

such a difference.

Foolishly fond if you like. But if every man could care as much for a

woman, hallowed would be her name, and the strife-begetting uncertainties

of heaven and hell would be allowed to lapse in order to make room for

healthy human happiness. Our hearts have been starved upon fables long

enough; we demand some certainty; and as knowledge increases, waging its

inexorable war of extermination against evil, our beautiful old earth will

be allowed to be lovable, and life a blessing, and death itself only a

last sweet sleep, neither to be sought nor shunned--"The soothing sinking

down on hard-earned holy rest," from which, if we arise again, it shall

not be to suffer. No life could be fuller of promise than mine at this

moment. Nothing was wanting but the patter of little feet about the house,

and they were coming. Doubts and fears were latent for once. My hopes were

limitless, my content was extreme.

"May you have quiet rest to-night, my darling; may your heart grow strong,

and your faith in man revive at last."

About halfway to my destination, I met the gentleman who had asked me out

in consultation, returning. He was on his way to my house to tell me that

the patient was dead. My presence could therefore be of no avail, and I

turned back also. I had not been absent more than an hour, but I found, on

entering the house, that Evadne had already retired. It was a good sign, I

thought, as she had been rather fidgety the whole day. I had some letters

to write, and went at once to my study for the purpose, taking a candle

with me from the hall. The servants, not expecting me back until late, had

turned out most of the lights downstairs. The lamp in my study, however,

was still burning. It stood on the writing table, and the first thing I

saw, on entering the room, was a letter lying conspicuously on the

blotting pad. It was from Evadne to me.

She had evidently intended me to get it in the morning, for a tray was

always left for me in the dining room in case I should be hungry when I

came in late, and my chances were all against my going to the study again

that night. I put my candle down, and tore the note open with trembling

hands. The first few lines were enough. "I am haunted by a terrible fear,"

she wrote. "I have tried again and again to tell you, but I never could.

You would not see that it is prophetic, as I do--in case of our

death--nothing to save my daughter from Edith's fate--better both die at

once." So I gathered the contents. No time to read. I crumpled the note

into my pocket. My labouring breath impeded my progress a moment, but,

thank Heaven! I was not paralyzed. Involuntarily I glanced at my

laboratory. It was an inner room, kept locked as a rule, but the door was

open now--as I knew I had expected it to be. I seized the candle and went

to the shelf where I kept the bottles with the ominous red labels. One was

missing.

"Evadne!" I shouted, running back through the study and library into the

hall, and calling her again and again as I went. If it were not already

too late, and she had heard my voice, I knew she would hesitate. I tore up

the stairs, and I must have flown, although it seemed a century before I

reached her room. I flung open the door.

She _had_ heard me.

She was standing beside a dressing table in a listening attitude, with a

glass half raised to her lips, and her eyes met mine as I entered.

My first cry of distress had reached her, and the shock of it had been

sufficient. Had that note fallen into my hands but one moment later--but I

cannot bear to think of it. Even at this distance of time the recollection

utterly unmans me. The moment I saw her, however, I could command myself.

I took the glass from her hand, and threw it into the fireplace with as

little show of haste as possible.

"To bed now, my sweetheart," I said; "and no more nonsense of this kind,

you know."

She looked at the fragments of the broken glass, and then at me, in a half

wondering, half regretful, half inquiring way that was pitiful to see.

Shaken as I was, I could not bear it. While the danger lasted, it was no

effort to be calm; but now I broke down, and, throwing myself into a

chair, covered my face with my hands, thoroughly overcome.

In a moment she was kneeling beside me.

"O Don!" she exclaimed, "what is it? Why are you so terribly upset?"

Poor little innocent sinner! The one idea had possessed her to the

exclusion of every other consideration. I said nothing to her, of course,

in the way of blame. It would have been useless. She was bitterly sorry to

see me grieved; but her moral consciousness was suspended, and she felt no

remorse whatever for her intention, except in so far as it had given me

pain. The impulse had passed for the moment, however, and I was so sure of

it that I did not even take the fatal phial away with me when I went to my

dressing room; but for forty-six days and nights I never left her an hour

alone. The one great hope, however, that the cruel obliquity would be

cured by the mother's love when it awoke amply sustained me.

She was well and cheerful for the rest of the time, greatly owing, I am

sure, to the influence of Sir Shadwell Rock, who came at once, like the

kind and generous friend he was, without waiting to be asked, when he

heard what had happened; and announced himself prepared to stay until the

danger was over. I heard Evadne laugh very soon after his arrival, and

could see that "the worry in her head," as she described it, had gone

again, and was forgotten. The impulse, which would have robbed me of all

my happiness and hopes had she succeeded in carrying it out, never cost

her a thought. The saving suffering of an agony of remorse was what we

should like to have seen, for in that there would have been good assurance

of healthy moral consciousness restored.

It seemed to be only the power to endure mental misery which had been

injured by those weary days of enforced seclusion and unnatural

inactivity, for I never knew anyone braver about physical pain. It was the

strength to contemplate the sufferings of others, which grows in action

and is best developed by turning the knowledge to account for their

benefit, that had been sapped by ineffectual brooding, until at last,

before the moral shock of indignation which the view of preventable human

evils gave her, her right mind simply went out, and a disordered faculty

filled the void with projects which only a perverted imagination could

contemplate as being of any avail.

Whatever doubts we may have had about her feeling for the child when it

came were instantly set at rest. Nothing could have been healthier or more

natural than her pride and delight in him. When she saw him for the first

time, after he was dressed, I brought him to her myself with his little

cheek against my face.

"O Don!" she exclaimed, her eyes opening wide with joy. "I love to see you

like that! But what is she like, Don? Give her to me!"

"_She_, indeed!" I answered. "Don't insult my son. He would reproach

you himself, but he is speechless with indignation."

"O Don, don't be ridiculous!" she cried, stretching up her arms for him.

"Is it really a boy? Do give him to me! I want to see him so!" When I had

put him in her arms, she gathered him up jealously, and covered him with

kisses, then held him off a little way to look at him, and then kissed him

again and again.

"Did you ever see a baby before?" I asked her.

"No, never! never!" she answered emphatically; "never such a darling as

this, at all events! His little cheek is just like velvet; and, see! he

can curl up his hands! Isn't it wonderful, Don? He's like you, too. I'm

sure he is. He's quite dark."

"He's just the colour of that last sunset you were raving about. I told

you to be careful."

"O Don, how can you!" she exclaimed. It was beautiful to see her raptures.

She was like a child herself, so unaffectedly glad in her precious little

treasure, and so surprised! The fact that he would move independently and

have ideas of his own seemed never to have occurred to her.

So far so good, as Sir Shadwell said; and we soon had her about again; but

the first time she sat up, after her cushions had been arranged for her,

and her baby laid on her lap, when I stooped to give them both a kiss of

hearty congratulation, she burst into tears.

"It is nothing, Don, don't be concerned," she said, trying bravely to

smile again. "I was thinking of my mother. This would have been such a

happy day for her."

This made me think of the breach with her father. I had forgotten that she

had a father, but it occurred to me now that a reconciliation might add to

her happiness, and I wrote to him accordingly to that effect, making the

little grandson my excuse. Mr. Frayling replied that he had heard

indirectly of his daughter's second marriage, but was not surprised to

receive no communication from herself on the subject, because her whole

conduct for many years past had really been most extraordinary. If,

however, she had become a dutiful wife at last, as I had intimated, he was

willing to forgive her, and let bygones be bygones: whereupon I asked him

to Fountain Towers, and he came.

He was extremely cordial. I had a long talk with him before he saw Evadne,

during which I discovered from whence she took her trick of phrase-making.

He expressed himself as satisfied with me, and my position, my reputation,

and my place. He also shook his watch chain at my son, which denoted great

approval, I inferred; and made many improving remarks, interspersed with

much good advice on the subject of babies and the management of estates.

Evadne had been very nervous about meeting him again, but the baby broke

the ice, and she was unfeignedly glad to make friends. Upon the whole,

however, the reconciliation was not the success that I had anticipated.

Father and daughter had lost touch, and, after the first few hours, there

was neither pleasure nor pain in their intercourse; nothing, in fact, but

politeness. The flow of affection had been too long interrupted. It was

diverted to other channels now, and was too deeply imbedded in them to be

coaxed back in the old direction. Love is a sacred stream which withdraws

itself from the sacrilegious who have offered it outrage.

It was an unmitigated happiness, however, to Evadne to have her brothers

and sisters with her again, and from that time forward we bad generally

some of them at Fountain Towers.

Mrs. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe, otherwise known to her friends as Angelica,

was one of the first people privileged to see the baby.

"Oh, you queer little thing!" she exclaimed, pointing her finger at it by

way of caress. "I've been thinking all this time that babies were always

Speckled Toads. And you are all rosy, and dimpled, and plump, you pretty

thing! I wish I had just a dozen like you!"

Poor erratic Angelica, with all her waywardness, "but yet a woman!" There

was only the one man that I have ever known who could have developed the

best that was in Angelica, and him she had just missed, as so often

happens in this world of contraries. I am thinking of our poor Julian,

known to her as the Tenor, whom she had met when it was too late, and in

an evil hour for us and for herself apparently, the consequences having

been his death and her own desolation. Yet I don't know. Those were the

first consequences certainly, but others followed and are following. The

memory of one good man is a light which sheds the brightest rays that fall

on the lives of thousands--as Mr. Kilroy has reason to know; with whom,

after the Tenor, Angelica is happier than she could have been with any

other man. And then, again, she has Diavolo. The close friendship between

them, which had been interrupted for some years, was renewed again in some

inexplicable way by the effect of my marriage on Diavolo, and since then

they have been as inseparable as their respective duties to husband and

grandfather allow. And so the web of life is woven, the puzzling strands

resolving themselves out of what has seemed to be a hopeless tangle into

the most beautiful designs.

Some of Evadne's ideas of life were considerably enlarged in view of the

boy's future.

"I am so glad you are a rich man," she said to me one day, "and have a

title and all that. It doesn't matter for you, you know, Don, because you

_are_ you. But it will give the baby such a start in life."

She summoned me at a very early period of his existence to choose a name

for him, and having decided upon George Shadwell Beton, she had him

christened with all orthodox ceremony by the Bishop of Morningquest as

soon as possible. That duty once accomplished must have relieved her mind

satisfactorily with regard to a _Christian_ name for him, for she has

insisted on calling him by the heathen appellation of Donino ever since,

for the flattering reason that his temper when thwarted is exactly like

mine.

"I am sure when you were his age you used to kick and scream just as he

does when his wishes are not carried out on the instant," she said. "You

don't kick and scream now when you are vexed; you look like thunder, and

walk out of the room."

"Baby seems to afford you infinite satisfaction when he kicks and screams.

You laugh and hug him more, if anything, in his tantrums than when he is

good," I remarked.

"I take his tantrums for a sign of strength," she answered. "He is merely

standing on his dignity, and demanding his rights as a rule. It was the

same thing with his father when he frowned and walked out of the room. He

wouldn't be sat upon either, and I used to see in that a sign of

self-respect also. It is a long time now since I saw you frown and walk

out of the room, Don."

"It is a long time since you attempted to sit upon me," I said.

"I am afraid I neglect you," she answered apologetically; "you see, Donino

requires so much of my time."

She continued to be cheerful for months after the birth of the boy, and we

waited patiently for some sign which should be an assurance of her

complete restoration to mental health; or, so far as I was concerned, for

an opportunity of testing her present feeling about the subject that

distressed her. I had given up expecting a miraculous cure in a moment,

and now only hoped for a gradual change for the better.

The opportunity I was waiting for came one winter's afternoon when she was

playing with the baby. It was a moment of leisure with me, the afternoon

tea-time, which I always arranged to spend with her if possible, and

especially if she would otherwise have been alone, as was the case on this

occasion.

I had been responding for half an hour, as well as I could, to incessant

appeals for sympathy and admiration--not that I found it difficult to

admire the boy, who was certainly a splendid specimen of the human race,

although perhaps I ought not to say so; but my command of language never

answered his mother's expectations, somehow, when it came to expressing my

feelings.

"Do you think you care as much for him as I do, Don?" she burst out at

last.

"More," I answered seriously.

"Why? How?" she demanded, surprised by my tone.

"Because I never could have hurt him."

"Hurt him!" she exclaimed, gathering him up in her arms. "Do you mean that

I could hurt him! hurt my baby! Oh!" She got up and stood looking at me

indignantly for a few seconds with the child's face hidden against her

neck; and then she rang the bell sharply, and sent him away.

"What do you mean, Don?" she said, when we were alone together again.

"Tell me? You would not say a cruel thing like that for nothing."

"I am referring to that night before he was born," I said, taking the

little bottle from my pocket. This seems to me to have been the cruellest

operation that I have ever had to perform.

"O Don!" she cried, greatly distressed. "I understand I should have killed

him. But why, why do you remind me of that now?"

"I want to be quite sure that you have learnt what a mistaken notion that

was, and that you regret the impulse."

She sat down on a low chair before the fire, with her elbows on her knees

and her face buried in her hands, and remained so for some time. She

wanted to think it out, and tell me exactly.

"I do not feel any regret," she said at last. "I would not do the same

thing now, but it is only because I am not now occupied with the same

thoughts. They have fallen into the background of my consciousness, and I

no longer perceive the utility of self-sacrifice."

"But do you not perceive the sin of suicide?"

"Not of that kind of suicide," she answered. "You see, we have the divine

example. Christ committed suicide to all intents and purposes by

deliberately putting himself into the hands of his executioners; but his

motive makes _them_ responsible for the crime; and my motive would

place society in a similar position."

"Your view of the great sacrifice would startle theologians, I imagine,"

was my answer. "But, even allowing that Christ was morally responsible for

his own death, and thereby set the example you would have followed to save

others from suffering; tell me, do you really see any comparison between

an act which had the redemption of the world for its object and the only

result that could follow from, the sacrifice of one little mother and

child?"

"What result, Don?"

"Breaking your husband's heart, spoiling his life, and leaving him lonely

forever."

She started up and threw herself on her knees beside me, clasping her

hands about my neck.

"O Don, don't say that again!" she cried, "Don't say anything like that

again--ever--will you?"

"You know I should never think of it again if I could be sure--"

She hid her head upon my shoulder, but did not answer immediately.

"I am seeking for some assurance in myself to give you," she said at last;

"but I feel none. The same train of thought would provoke me again--no,

not to the same act, but to something desperate; I can't tell what. But I

suffer so, Don, when such thoughts come, from grief, and rage, and horror,

I would do almost anything for relief."

"But just think--" I began,

"No, don't ask me to think!" she interrupted. "All my endeavour is not to

think. Let me live on the surface of life, as most women do. I will do

nothing but attend to my household duties and the social duties of my

position. I will read nothing that is not first weeded by you of every

painful thought that might remind me. I will play with my baby by day, and

curl up comfortably beside you at night, infinitely grateful and content

to be so happily circumstanced myself--Don, help me to that kind of life,

will you? And burn the books. Let me deserve my name and be 'well pleasing

one' to you first of all the world, and then to any with whom I may come

in contact. Let me live while you live, and die when you die. But do not

ask me to think. I can be the most docile, the most obedient, the most

loving of women as long as I forget my knowledge of life; but the moment I

remember I become a raging fury; I have no patience with slow processes;

'Revolution' would be my cry, and I could preside with an awful joy at the

execution of those who are making the misery now for succeeding

generations."

"But, my dear child, it would surely be happier for you to try to

alleviate--"

"No, no," she again interrupted. "I know all you can say on that score;

but I cannot bear to be brought into contact with certain forms of

suffering. I cannot bear the contradictions of life; they make me rage."

"What I want to say is that you should act, and not think," I ventured.

"How can I act without thinking?" she asked.

"You see, if you don't act you must think," I pursued; "and if you do

think without acting, you become morbid. The conditions of an educated

woman's life now force her to know the world. She is too intelligent not

to reason about what she knows. She sees what is wrong; and if she is

high-minded she feels forced to use her influence to combat it. If she

resists the impulse her conscience cannot acquit her, and she suffers

herself for her cowardice."

"I know," she answered. "But don't let us discuss the subject any more."

We were silent for some time after that, and then I made a move as if to

speak, but checked myself.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I was going to ask you to do something to oblige me; but now I do not

like to."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, much hurt; "do you really think there is anything I

would not do for you, if I could?"

"Well, this is mere trifle," I answered. "I want you to take that sturdy

much be-ribboned darling of yours to see my poor sick souls in the

hospital. A sight of his small face would cheer them. Will you?"

"Why, _surely_," she said. "How _could_ you doubt it? I shall be

delighted."

"And there was another thing--"

"Oh, don't hesitate like that," she exclaimed. "You can't think how you

hurt me."

"I very much wish you would take charge of the flowers in the hospital for

me, that was what I was going to say, I should be so pleased if you should

make them your special care. If you would cut them yourself, and take them

and arrange them whenever fresh ones are wanted, you would be giving me as

much pleasure as the patients. And you might say something kind to them as

you pass through the wards. Even a word makes all the difference in their

day."

"Why didn't you ask me to do this before?" she said, reproachfully.

"I was a little afraid of asking you now," I answered.

"I shall begin to-morrow," she said. "Tell me the best time for me to go?"

There is a great deal in the way a thing is put, was my trite reflection

afterward. If I had given Evadne my reason for particularly wishing her to

visit the hospital, she would have turned it inside out to show me that it

was lined with objections; but, now, because I had asked her to oblige me

simply, she was ready to go; and would have gone if had cost her half her

comfort in life. This was a great step in advance. As in the small-pox

epidemic, so now at the hospital, she had no horror of anything she

_saw_. It was always what she imagined that made her morbid.

CHAPTER XIX.

Following these days there came a time of perfect peace for both of us,

Evadne's health was satisfactory; she led the life she had planned for

herself; and so long as she shut out all thought of the wicked world and

nothing occurred to remind her of the "awful needless suffering" with

which she had become acquainted in the past, she was tranquilly happy.

Donino rapidly grew out of arms. He was an independent young rascal from

the first, and would never be carried if he could walk, or driven from the

moment he could sit a pony--grip is the word, I know, but his legs were

not long enough to grip when he began, and his rides were therefore

conducted all over the pony's back at first. His object was to keep on,

and in order to do so without the assistance he scorned, he rode like a

monkey.

Evadne was proud of the boy, but she missed the baby, and complained that

her arms were empty. It was not long, however, happily,--and _à

propos_ of the number of my responsibilities, I was taken to task

severely one day, and discovered that I had in my son a staunch supporter

and a counsellor whose astuteness was not to be despised.

I was finishing my letters one afternoon in the library when Evadne came

in with her daughter in her arms, and Donino clinging to her skirt. I

expected the usual "Don, I am sure you have done enough. Come and have

some tea," and turned to meet it with the accustomed protest; "Just five

minutes more, my sweetheart." But Evadne began in quite another tone.

"I have just heard such a _disgraceful_ thing about you," she said.

"A disgraceful thing about me!" I exclaimed.

"Yes. I hear you were asked the other day how many children you had, and

you answered '_Two or three!_' Now, will you kindly count your

children, and when you are quite sure you know the number off by heart,

repeat it aloud to me, so that I may have some hope that you will not

commit yourself in that way again."

"Oh," I answered, "I know how many _babies_ there are; my difficulty

is about you. I am never quite sure whether to count you as a child or

not."

"Now, I call that a mean little score," she said, carrying her baby off

with an affectation of indignation which deceived Donino.

He had been standing with his back to the writing table and his feet

firmly planted before him, gravely watching us, and now when his mother

left the room he came to my knee and looked up at me confidentially.

"Ou bin naughty, dad?" he asked.

"It looks like it," I answered.

"Ou say ou sorry," he advised.

"What will happen then?" I wanted to know.

"Den de missus 'ill kiss ou," he explained. "Den _dat_ all right."

"Truly 'a wise son maketh a glad father,'" I observed.

Donino knitted his brows, and grumbled a puzzled but polite assent. I saw

signs of reflection afterward, however, which warned me not to be too sure

that I knew exactly where the limits of the little understanding were. But

one thing was evident. The boy was being educated on the principle of

repent and have done with it. Old accounts are not cast up in this

establishment.

Donino watched me putting my writing things away; he was waiting to see me

through my trouble. When I was ready, he took as much of my hand as he

could hold in his, protectingly, and led me to the drawing room with a

dignified air of importance. Sir Shadwell Rock was staying with us at the

time, and my daughter was creeping from her mother to him as we entered

the room, and receiving a large share of his attention. Donino glanced at

him, fearing, perhaps, that his presence as audience would make matters

more unpleasant for me.

"Mumme," he said, "dad's turn."

Evadne looked up inquiringly.

"I've come to say I am sorry," I exclaimed.

"Oh," said Evadne, a little puzzled, "that's right."

Donino looked from one to the other expectantly; but as his mother made no

move, he edged up to her side, and repeated with emphasis: "Dad's sorry."

"That's right," his mother answered, putting her arm round him, and

caressing him fondly.

He drew away from her dissatisfied, and walked to the window, where he

stood, with his thumbs in his belt, and his chin on his chest.

"O Don," Evadne whispered, "do look at yourself in miniature! But what is

the matter? What have I done to disturb him? or left undone?"

"I said I was sorry, and you haven't kissed me," I replied.

Evadne grasped the situation at last, and got up.

"I suppose I must kiss you," she said. "I hope you won't be naughty

again."

The boy made no sign at the moment, but presently he sauntered back to the

tea-table as if he were satisfied.

When the children were gone Sir Shadwell asked for an explanation.

"It is beautiful to watch the mind of a young child unfold," he observed;

"to notice its wonderful grasp, on the one hand, of ideas one would have

thought quite beyond its comprehension, and, on the other, its curious

limitations. Now, that boy of yours reasons already from what he

observes."

"Clearly," I answered. "He observes that my position in this house is

quite secondary, and therefore, although he sees his mother 'naughty'

every day, he never thinks for a moment of suggesting that she should 'own

up' to me."

"Don, you are horrid!" Evadne exclaimed.

The next day she went out early in the afternoon to pay calls.

Sir Shadwell and I accompanied her to the door to see her into her

carriage, and she drove off smiling, and kissing her hand to us.

"Now," I said, as we lingered on the doorstep, watching the carriage glint

between the trees: "what do you think about the wisdom of my marriage?"

"Oh," he answered, his eyes twinkling. "You didn't explain, you know, so I

naturally concluded that you were merely marrying for your own

gratification, in which case you would have been, disappointed when you

found what I foresaw, that, under the circumstances, the pleasure would

not be unmixed. You should have explained that your sole purpose was to

make a very charming young lady healthy-minded again and happy, if you

wanted to know what I thought of your chances of success."

"You're a confounded old cynic," I said, turning into the house.

Sir Shadwell went out into the grounds, and there I found him later,

patiently instructing Donino in the difficult art of stringing a bow, his

white head bowed beside the boy's dark one, and his benign face wrought

into wrinkles of intentness.

I was busy during the afternoon, but I fancied I heard the carriage

return. Evadne did not come to report herself to me, however, as was her

wont after an expedition, and I therefore thought that I must have been

mistaken, and more especially so when she did not appear at tea-time.

After tea, Sir Shadwell settled himself with a book, and I left him. In

the hall I met the footman who had gone out with Evadne.

"When did you return?" I asked.

"I can't say rightly, Sir George," the man replied. "We only paid one call

this afternoon, and then came straight back. Her ladyship seemed to be

poorly."

I ran upstairs to my wife's sitting room. She was lying on a couch asleep,

her face gray, her eyelids swollen and purple with weeping, her hair

disordered. As I stood looking down at her, she opened her eyes and held

up her arms to me. She looked ten years older, a mere wreck of the

healthy, happy, smiling woman who had driven off kissing her hand to us

only a few hours before.

"Tell me the trouble, my sweetheart," I said, kneeling down beside her.

"Where did you go to-day?"

"Only to Mrs. Guthrie Brimston," she answered. "But Mrs. Beale was there

with Edith's boy, and we talked--O Don!" she broke off. "I wish my

children had never been born! The suffering! the awful needless suffering!

How do I know that they will escape?"

Alas! alas! that terrible cry again, and just after we had allowed

ourselves to be sure that it had been silenced at last forever.

I did not reason with her this time. I could only pet her, and talk for

the purpose of distracting her attention, as one does with a child. So

far, I had never for a moment lost heart and hope. I could not believe

that the balance of her fine intelligence had been too rudely shaken ever

to be perfectly restored; but now at last it seemed as if her confidence

in her fellow-creatures, the source of all mental health, had been

destroyed forever, and with that confidence her sense of the value of life

and of her own obligations had been also injured or distorted to a degree

which could not fail to be dangerous on occasion. There are injuries which

set up carcinoma of the mind, we know, cancer spots confined to a small

area at first, but gradually extending with infinite pain until all the

surrounding healthy tissue is more or less involved, and the whole

beautiful fabric is absorbed in the morbid growth, for which there is no

certain palliative in time, and no possible prospect of cure except in

eternity. Was this to be Evadne's case? Alas! alas! But, still, doctors

sometimes mistake the symptoms, and find happily that they have erred when

they arrived at an unfavourable diagnosis. So I said to myself, but the

assurance in no way affected the despair which had settled upon my heart,

and was crushing it.

Late that night I was sitting alone in my study. I had been reading

Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple, and the book still lay

open before me. It was a habit of mine to read the Bible when I was much

perturbed. The solemn majestic march of the measured words seldom failed

to restore my tranquillity in a wonderful way, and it had done so now. I

felt resigned. "Hearken therefore unto the supplication of Thy servant"--I

was repeating to myself, in fragments, as the lines occurred to me--"that

Thine eyes may be upon this house day and night ... hear Thou from Thy

dwelling place, even from heaven; and when Thou hearest forgive."

I must have dozed a moment, I think, when I had pronounced the words, for

I had heard no rustle of trailing garments in the library beyond, yet the

next thing I was conscious of was Evadne kneeling beside me. She put her

arms round my neck, and drew my face down to her.

"Don," she said, with a great dry sob, "I am sorry. I have annoyed you

somehow--"

"Not annoyed me, my wife."

"Hurt you then, which is worse. I have taken all the heart out of

you--somehow--I can see that. But I cannot--cannot tell what it is I have

done." She looked into my face piteously, and then hid her own on my

shoulder, and burst into a paroxysm of sobs and tears.

If only I could have made her comprehend what the trouble was! But there!

I _had_ tried, and I had failed.

One little white foot peeped out from beneath her dressing gown, the pink

sole showing. She had got out of bed and slipped on her _pantoufles_

only, and the night was cold. I might have thought that she would lie

awake fretting if she were left alone on a night when her mind was so

disturbed, and here had I been seeking solace myself and forgetting that

great as my own trouble was hers must surpass it even as the infinite does

the finite.

But that error I could repair, I hoped, and it should never be repeated.

"Come, my sweetheart," I said, gathering her up close in my arms. "So long

as you will let me be a comfort to you, you will not be able to hurt me

again; but if at any time you will not listen to my words, if nothing I

can do or say strengthens or helps you, if I cannot keep you from the evil

that it may not grieve you, then I shall know that I have lost all that

makes life worth having, and I shall not care how soon this lamp of mine

goes out."

She looked up at me in a strange startled way, and then she clung closer;

and I thought she meant that, if she could help it, I should not lose the

little all I ask for now--the power to make her life endurable.

THE END.