She marvelled a little that he could speak of it

"Pray, Christo, do not harp upon that. None accuses you. How could

such a thing be thrown as blame upon anybody? Fate so often uses the

kindest of us to do her cruel deeds. 'Tis the height of her cynic fun

to plan parts in her plots and make the wrong actor play them."

"I ought to have used common sense and kept away altogether."

"Common sense!"

"I know; but I found it in Australia. There was no excuse for me. Can

he forgive me?"

"I have not heard him breathe so much as one hasty word since he has

known. You do not understand him to ask such a question. He is above

admiration. No woman ever had such a good husband. And the better I

love him, Christo, the better shall I love you, for giving him to me."

"Good God! you mustn't talk like that, must you?" he asked with some

flutter; but she regarded him calmly as she answered.

"Why should not I? He knows that I loved you, and, therefore, love you.

I am a most logical woman, and unchanging. It has all been very smooth

and clear between Myles and me from the first, because we both hated any

shadow of misunderstanding. That's the strength of our married life."

"My only fear centred in the recollection of his great straightness. He

hates a trick, even though he may win by it."

"He loves me with all his heart."

"Yes--there it is. I didn't feel very anxious about the thing I did

first; only about what I have done since I sometimes get a doubt. The

question is whether, once dead, I was justified in coming to life again.

Man's only built to be heroic in snatches--at least the average man--and

when I found myself rich, instead of keeping it up and going through to

the bitter end, as a bigger chap would have done, I thought of Godleigh.

If you had lived a year and more among gum trees I think you might find

it in you to forgive me for coming back. Those eternally lost gum

trees! And springtime calling, calling from home! And here I am in

God's good green again--His always, mine for a little while."

"Who can wonder that you came? The wonder would have been if you had

stopped away. The thing you desired to bring about is done--happily and

for ever."

"But Myles? He's so thorough. What does he think? Half-measures

wouldn't win his respect."

"Half-measures you call them; but even a saint's life is only

patchwork--all wrought in the drab colours of human nature, with a few

bright stars marking the notable deeds. Yes, and lesser existences are

a mere patchwork of good intentions, mostly barren."

"Not barren for certain. We sow decent grain and dragon's teeth mixed;

and the poor sowers so often don't know which is which--till the crop's

past praying for."

"That's your philosophy, then. I was wrong; you have changed."

"It's true. These things are in copybooks, but we never heed them when

we are young. So that is why sometimes I have my doubts about Myles.

Then I think along another line and the cloud vanishes."

"There can be no cloud, and he will soon rejoice that such a friend is

in the land of the living."

But suspicion had already wakened in Yeoland.

"You say 'he will rejoice'; you don't say 'he does.'"

"Of course he does. How can you doubt it?"

"Tell him you have seen me, and that I am a perceptible shade wiser than

when I left England. Tell him that incident in the wood has come near

breaking my heart. I can feel great griefs if I don't show them. I do

not expect him to slip into the old relations as you have. You and I

were a couple of wild wood children together for years, until our elders

trapped us and attempted to tame and educate and spoil us. Yet between

him and me now there are close bonds enough--bonds as deep to me, as

binding, as eternal as the dawn-light we both adore. But he's a

fire-worshipper, or something, and I'm a Christian; so, when all's said,

we shall never get straight to one another's hearts like Honor and

Christo. It isn't possible. I thought to meet him with a handshake to

bridge the years, and a silent understanding too deep for words; I

pictured him all the way home as my friend of friends, and now--now I

ought to go upon my knees to him and ask him to put his foot on my neck

and forgive me for that moonlight madness."

"Now I know that it is you, not I, who fail to understand my husband,"

said Honor. "He is a greater man by far than you think or I know.

Never utter or dream these things any more, for they are wrong. Forget

them and look forward to happiness."

They talked a while longer on divers themes; then the woman rose to

return home, and Christopher, declaring an intention to visit Endicott's

that evening, went back to Godleigh.

Each now marvelled much from a personal point of view at this, their

first meeting--at its familiarity of texture and lack of distinction.

Both indeed felt dumbly astonished that, after such a gap, converse

could be renewed thus easily; yet they joyed in the meeting; and while

Yeoland ingenuously gloried in the sight and voice of the woman he had

loved, Honor's pleasure was of a colour more sober, a quality more

intricate.

*CHAPTER II.*

*THE MEETING OF THE MEN*

Christopher Yeoland visited Bear Down on the evening after his meeting

with its mistress; but the hour was late when he arrived, and Honor had

retired with a headache ere he entered the farm. Even as he reached the

front door and lifted his hand to the bell Yeoland changed his mind and

strolled round to the kitchen entrance. There he stood for an instant

before marching boldly in according to his old custom. A voice fell upon

his ear, and for a moment he thought that it must be Mark speaking to

himself alone, as was the blind man's wont; but other speech broke in

upon the first, and, catching his own name on Cramphorn's tongue,

Christopher stood still, laughed silently, and listened.

An utterance from Churdles Ash was the first that came distinctly to

him.

"Us o' Little Silver be like the twelve apostles, I reckon--all mazed

wi' gert wonder to hear tell of a resurrection."

"Awnly theer's a world-wide differ'nce 'tween Lard o' Hosts an' this

gormed Jack-o'-lantern," answered Cramphorn. "For my part I'd so

soon--maybe sooner--he was wheer us thought him. Born he was to make

trouble, an' trouble he'll make while he walks airth. No fay, I can't

fox myself into counting this a pleasing thing. He'm takin' up gude

room, if you ax me."

Christopher, having heard quite enough, himself answered as he came

among them--

"That's honest, at any rate, Jonah. But I hope you're wrong. I've come

back a reformed character--on my solemn word I have. Wait and see."

He shook hands with Stapledon first, afterwards with Mark Endicott and

the assembled labourers. There fell a moment of awkward silence; then

Jonah, who felt some word from him seemed due, knocked out his pipe and

spoke before retiring. He contented himself with an expression of

regret, but hesitated not to qualify it so extensively that little doubt

arose concerning his real opinions.

"I didn't knaw as you was behind the door, Squire Yeoland, else I might

have guarded my lips closer. An' bein' a living sawl--to save or damn

accordin' to God's gudeness--'tweern't seemly for me to speak so sharp.

Not that offence was meant, an' a man's opinions be his awn; though I

trust as you'll order your ways to shaw I'm a liar; an' nobody better

pleased than me, though not hopeful, 'cause what's bred in the bone

comes out in the flesh. An' I may say you've proved wan thing--if awnly

wan: that a sartain party by name of Charity Grepe be a auld,

double-dealin' rascal, an' no more a wise woman than my awn darters. So

gude-night all."

Pinsent and Collins retreated with Mr. Cramphorn, but old Churdles Ash

remained to shake hands once again with the wanderer.

"I be a flat Thomas wheer theer's any left-handed dealings like this

here," he said. "Most onbelievin' party as ever was, as well a man may

be when the world's so full of evil. But by the hand of you and the

speech of you, you'm flesh and blood same as the rest of us. I'm sure I

hope, your honour, if you'll take an old man's respectful advice, as

you'll bide above ground henceforrard an' do no more o' these dark,

churchyard deeds 'mongst Christian folks. It may be very convenient an'

common down-long in furrin paarts, but 'tidn' seemly to Little Silver,

wheer theer's such a lot o' the risin' generation as looks to 'e for a

example."

"I'll act as becomes me ever afterwards, gaffer," declared Christopher,

whereon, gratified by this promise, Mr. Ash touched his forehead,

praised God and the company, and so withdrew.

Then Yeoland began his story, and Mark put an occasional question, while

Stapledon kept silence until he should have opportunity to speak with

the other alone. A necessity for some recognition and utterance of

personal gratitude weighed heavy on him. That Christopher desired no

such thing he felt assured, but he told himself that a word at least was

due, and must be paid, like any other debt. Myles had judged as the

wanderer suspected: Yeoland's initial act seemed great to him; this

return to life he accounted paltry and an anticlimax beside it. Putting

personal bias out of the question, or believing that he did so,

Stapledon endeavoured to estimate the achievement from an impartial

spectator's standpoint, and so seen this homecoming disappointed him.

He did not deny the man his right to return; he only marvelled that he

had exercised it. Yet as Christopher, with many an excursus, chattered

through his story, and spoke of his native land with manifest emotion,

Stapledon wondered no more, but understood, and felt disinterested

sympathy. Then he blamed himself for previous harsh criticism, and

discovered that the leaven of a personal interest had distorted his

point of view. Morbidly he began to think of Honor, and the dominant

weakness of his character awoke again. He told himself that Yeoland

would find out how perfect was the unanimity between husband and wife;

then he gave himself the lie and wondered, with his cold eyes upon

Christopher, if the returned wanderer would ever discover that the inner

harmony of Honor's married life was not complete at all times.

When Yeoland had made an end, Mark asked him concerning his plans for

the future, and listened to many projects, both happy and impracticable,

for the glorification of Godleigh and the improvement of Little Silver.

"Clack's going to be my agent. After he practically perjured his

immortal soul for me, I cannot do less for him than give him that

appointment. And he's a good sportsman, which is so much nowadays."

With some element of restraint they discoursed for an hour or more, then

Yeoland rose and Myles walked part of the way home with him. Under a

night of stars the farmer spoke and said what he accounted necessary in

the briefest phrases capable of rendering his sentiments.

"I want you to know that I understand and I thank you. My gratitude is

measured by the worth of what you--you gave me. I can say no more than

that."

"No need to have said as much. Your voice tells me you don't like

saying it, Stapledon, and truly I had no desire to hear it. You see, we

could only win her full happiness that way. I knew her character better

than you could----"

"Impossible!"

"Now, no doubt, but not then, when these things happened. I pictured

her with you, and with me. I appreciated your message, but I didn't

agree with you. Honestly you have nothing to thank me for. We're on

this now and will leave the bones of the thing clean-picked. It was

love of the woman--desire to see her happy for all time--that made me

act so. You asked her to marry you before you sent your message by

Clack. So that showed me you believed that you could achieve her

happiness if she let you try. But she would never have married you

until she knew that I was out of it. The right thing happened. All's

well that ends well. With a past so distinct and defined, it seems to

me that the future could hardly look happier. We understand each other

so well--we three, thank God. I threshed it all out through many a long,

sleepless night, I can tell you. I'm no _tertium quid_ come back into

lives that have done with me; I'm not here to ruffle up a tangle already

smoothed out by time. You understand that?"

Myles agreed with the younger man, and tried to believe him.

"Of course I understand. Friends we shall always be, and each welcome

to the other when our devious ways may cross. Honor is not likely to be

sentimental under such curious conditions. She will view this, your

return, with the calm self-possession she displays in all affairs of

life. It has done her good already, and lifted a cloud. I tell you so

frankly. She was haunted. I hear you know all about that. There is no

need for you to say what you feel about it. I will take your words as

spoken. So here we stand--we three--and our lives must go forward and

unfold to the ripening here on this hillside. What then? There is room

enough?"

"Ample, I should imagine. That you should ask the question is a little

astonishing. But I understand you better than you think. You can't

help the defiance in your tone, Stapledon; you can't wholly hide the

hardness in your voice. D'you think I don't know what's cutting you so

deep when you look at me and remember that night? Forgive me. I have

paid for it with grey hairs."

"You mistake. I should be a fool to blame you seriously for that.

Merely evil fortune. Evil fortune was overdue in my life. I had been

waiting long for reverses. You were the unconscious instrument."

"Your old, sombre creed, whose god is the law of chance. Anyhow, you

and your wife shall find no truer friend than Christopher Yeoland in the

years to come."

They shook hands and separated, the one perfectly happy and contented

that this ordeal was over; the other already in a cloud of cares with

his face lifted to meet troubles still invisible. The one saw a smooth

and sunlit road ahead of him--a road of buds and flowers and singing

birds; the other stood among pitfalls past numbering, and the way was

dreary as well as dangerous.

As he returned home, Myles stopped and looked over a gate to set his

thoughts in order. Whereupon he made discoveries little calculated to

soothe or sustain him in this hour. First he found that lack of

knowledge alone was responsible for his commotion--lack of knowledge of

his wife; and secondly, reviewing his recent conversation with

Christopher, he very readily observed a note in it unfamiliar to

himself. This man's advent aroused an emotion that Myles had read of

and heard about, but never felt. Upon the threshold of renewed

intercourse, and despite so many friendly words, Stapledon recognised

the thing in his heart and named it. He was jealous of Yeoland's

return, and his discovery staggered him. The fact felt bad enough; the

position it indicated overwhelmed him, for it shone like an evil light

on the old fear; it showed that the understanding he boasted between

himself and Honor by no means obtained. Herein lay his trial and his

terror. No cloudless marital life could receive this miasma into its

atmosphere for an instant, for jealousy's germ has no power to exist

where a man and a woman dwell heart to heart.

Great forces shook Stapledon; then he roused himself, fell back upon

years of self-discipline, shut the floodgates of his mind, and told his

heart that he was a fool.

"The man shall be my friend--such a friend as I have never had yet," he

said aloud to the night. "I will weary him with my friendship. He is

honest, and has sacrificed his life for me. It is the vileness of human

nature, that hates benefits received, which works in me against him.

And if it pleases Fate to send me another child, this man, who believes

in God, shall be its godfather."

His determination comforted Stapledon, and he passed slowly homeward

conscious of a battle won, strong in the belief that he had slain a

peril at its birth. He told himself that the word "jealousy" rang

unreal and theatrical, in presence of his wife's slumber.

*CHAPTER III.*

*FLAGS IN THE WIND*

Godleigh forest was paying its debt to the Mother in good gold, and a

myriad leaves flew and whirled aloft, tumbled and sailed downwards,

rustled and hustled over the green grass, dropped amongst the forest

boughs, floated away on Teign's bosom, eddied in sudden whirlwinds at

gates and wind-swept gaps of the woodlands. The summer glory was

extinguished once again, the tree-top life was ended for another

generation of foliage; and now, final livery of russet or crimson won,

the leaves fell and flew at the will of a wild wind, or waited in some

last resting-place for latter rains, for alchemy of frost and for the

sexton worm. Their dust is the food of the whole earth, and to the

blind and patient roots, twisting gigantically at the hidden heart of

things, they return obedient. For to them they owe every aerial

happiness in gleaming dawns, every joy of the moonlight and starlight

and deep nocturnal dews, song of birds and whisper of vernal rain, cool

purple from shadows of clouds and all the glorious life of a leaf--of

each small leaf that joins its particular jewel to the green coronet of

summer.

Little Silver took a holiday from the affairs of working-day life on the

occasion of the Squire's official return to Godleigh Park, and the day

was set aside for rejoicing and marked with a white stone. A great

banquet under canvas formed the staple attraction; the grounds were

thrown open, and Christopher invited his small world to lunch with him

in a noble marquee tricked out with flags and streamers. But the season

and the day proved out of harmony with campestral merry-making.

Nature's October russets, pale gold and red gold, killed the crude

bunting colours; a high wind rollicked and raved through the woods and

over the waste places; the great tents and the lesser creaked and

groaned, billowed and bent; yet those driven from them by fear were sent

back by heavy squalls of rain. The autumnal equinox welcomed Yeoland

roughly to his home; but happily he drove under the triumphal arch of

laurel and oak before an envious gust sent it sprawling; happily also

the increasing wind blew the sky clean towards nightfall, though the

rockets that then shrieked aloft chose perilous, unexpected places for

their descent, and the bonfire was abandoned, for its conflagration must

have threatened every rick of hay within half a mile east of it. Upon

the whole, however, this celebration was counted successful, though one

uncanny incident marred the day. At earliest dawn Mr. Brimblecombe

discovered that some genius unknown had decorated the Yeoland mausoleum

with heavy wreaths of autumn flowers and evergreens; but even the least

imaginative recognised that such accentuation of the tomb at this moment

showed a triumph of wrong-headedness.

Upon that great occasion did Henry Collins, whose patience, even in

affairs of the heart, was almost reptilian, avail himself of the general

holiday. And when Sally Cramphorn, who still philandered with him,

though fitfully, promised that she would take a walk by his side after

the feasting, Henry believed that the moment for speech was come at

last. He had debated the form of his proposition for several months,

and the girl's attitude now naturally led him to suspect an agreeable

termination to his protracted sufferings. The time was that of eating

and drinking, and Sally, who perceived that Mr. Gregory Libby, from his

standpoint as carver at the head of one of the tables in the banqueting

tent, viewed her position beside Collins with concern, hastened her meal

and shortened it. Then, as soon as possible upon the speech-making, she

took Henry by the arm and led him forth very lovingly under the nose of

the other man. Together they proceeded through the woods, and the

graciousness which she exhibited while Gregory's eye was yet upon her,

diminished a little. Still the woman felt amiably disposed to her

innocent tool, and even found it in her heart to pity him somewhat, for

she guessed what now awaited her. Mr. Collins walked slowly along, with

some strain and creaking of mental machinery as he shook his thoughts

and ideas into order. He passed with Sally under pine trees, and at

length found a snug spot sheltered from the wind.

"Us might sit here 'pon the fir-needles," suggested Henry.

"'Tis damp, I doubt," answered his companion, thinking of her best gown.

"Then I'll spread my coat for 'e. I want to have a tell along with you,

an' I caan't talk travellin'. 'Tis tu distractin', an' what I've got to

say'll take me all my power, whether or no."

He spread his black broadcloth without hesitation, and Sally,

appreciating this compliment, felt she could not do less than accept it.

So she plumped down on Henry's Sunday coat, and he appeared to win much

pleasure from contemplation of her in that position. He smiled to

himself, sighed rather loudly, and then sat beside her. Whereupon his

tongue refused its office and, for the space of two full minutes, he

made no remark whatever, though his breathing continued very audible.

"What be thinking 'bout?" asked Sally suddenly.

"Well, to tell plain truth, I was just taking pleasure in the idea as

you'd ordained to sit 'pon my jacket. 'Twill be very comfortin' to me to

call home as you've sat on un every time I put un on or off."

"If 'twas awnly another party!" thought the girl. "Doan't be such a

fule," she said.

"That's what everybody have been advisin' me of late," he answered

calmly, without the least annoyance or shame. "'Tis the state of my

mind. Things come between me an' my work--a very ill-convenient matter.

But, whether or no, I'll be proud of that coat now."

She sat comfortably beside him, and presently, after further silence,

Henry lolled over towards her, and, taking a straw, sought with clumsy

pleasantry to stick it into her hand under the white cotton glove which

she was wearing.

"What be about?" she asked sharply. "Go along with 'e! Doan't 'e knaw

me better than to think I be so giddy?"

Thus repulsed, Mr. Collins apologised, explained that in reality he did

know Sally better, that his action was one of pure inadvertence, and

that he admired her character by special reason of its sobriety.

Silence again overtook them, and, while Sally fidgeted impatiently, the

man's owl eyes roamed from off her face to the woods, from the woodland

back again to her. He stuffed his pipe slowly, then returned it to his

pocket; he sighed once or twice, tied up his boot-lace, and cleared his

throat. After a painful pause the woman spoke again.

"Be us at a funeral or a junketing? You look for all the world as if

you'd catched something hurtful. Wheer's your manners? What's in your

mind now?"

Henry gulped, and pointed to an oak immediately opposite them--a great

tree bound about in a robe of ivy.

"Was just considerin' 'bout thicky ivydrum, an' what gude sneyds for

scythe-handles her'd make."

"Then you'd best to bide here with your scythe-handles, an' I'll go

back-along to the company. I didn't come out to sit an' stare at a

ivybush if you did."

"Doan't 'e be so biting against me, woman!" said Collins indignantly.

"I be comin' to it so fast as I can, ban't I? 'Tedn' so easy, I can

assure 'e. Maybe chaps as have axed a score o' females finds speech

come quick enough; but I've never spoke the word to wan afore in all my

life; an' 'tis a damn oneasy job; an' I ban't gwaine to be hurried by

you or any other."

Sally appeared awed at this outburst. She suddenly realised that Mr.

Collins was a man, a big one, a strong one, and an earnest one.

"Sorry I took you up tu quick, I'm sure. I didn't knaw as you felt so

deep."

"If I could have trusted pen an' ink, I should have written it out for

'e," he answered, "but my penmanship's a vain thing. I'll have the

handkercher out of that pocket you'm sittin' on, if 'tis all the same to

you. Theer's a dew broke out awver my brow."

She rose and passed to him a large red handkerchief. Then he thanked

her, mopped his face, and continued--

"When fust I seed you, I felt weak by reason of your butivul faace, an'

the way you could toss hay an' keep so cool as a frog. An' I will say

that the laugh of you was very nigh as fine as a cuckoo's song. Then I

got to see what a gude gal you was tu, an' how you scorned all

men-folk--'cept Libby."

These words he added hastily, as he saw her colour rising.

"Libby, I do allow, you gived your countenance to, though, if I may say

it, ban't no gert sign of love to see a chap in two minds between such a

piece as you an' your sister. But I never looked at no other but

you--not even when I was up to Exeter. An' if you see your way to keep

comp'ny along wi' me, God's my judge you'll never be sorry you done it.

I be a man as stands to work an' goes to church Sundays when let alone.

An' I'd trust you wi' every penny of the money an' ax for no more'n a

shillin' here an' theer. An' I'd stand between you an' your faither, as

doan't 'pear to be so fond of you of late as he used to be."

Sally moved uneasily, for he had echoed a recent, dim suspicion of her

own.

"Best let that bide," she said. "If my faither likes Margery better'n

what he do me, that's his business, not yours."

"'Tis a fault in him, however," answered Henry. "You'm worth ten

thousand o' she; an' he'll live to find it out yet. He'm grawin' auld

an' tootlish, I reckon, else he'd never set her up afore you."

"She'm a crafty twoad," declared the other gloomily. "I knaw she'm

clever'n what I be, but flesh an' blood counts for somethin'. He sees

me twice to her wance--Gregory do; an', whether or no, the man's free as

ban't achsually married."

Mr. Collins grew warm again, to see the drift of his lady's thoughts,

and endeavoured to bring her conversation back to the matter in hand.

"Ban't for me to speak nothin' 'gainst Libby or any other man. An'

'twouldn't be fair fightin' if I said what I'd say wi' pleasure to the

faace of un if he was here; but I want 'ess' or 'no' for myself, an' I

do pray, my dear woman, as you'll consider of it afore you decide."

"Ban't no need, an' thank you kindly, I'm sure," said Sally. "But you

must look some plaace else than me, Henery; an' I'm sure you'll find

many so gude, an' plenty better."

He sat silent, staring and sniffing.

"Doan't 'e cry 'bout it," she said.

"I ban't cryin'--merely chap-fallen," he answered, "an' theer's none

'pon the airth so gude as you that ever I see; an' I do wish as you'd

take your time an' not be so sudden. I can wait--I can wait if theer's

a shade of doubt in your mind. Ess fay, I can wait weeks, an' months,

an' years, so easy as a tree, for you to decide. But do 'e take a bit

of time. 'Tis cruel short just to say 'no,' after all as I've felt for

'e so long."

She accepted the alternative, half from pity, half from policy. Any

hint of an understanding might galvanise the cold-blooded Libby into

action.

"Wait then," she said, "an' us'll see what time sends."

"Thank you, I'm sure--cold comfort, but a thought better'n nought. Now,

if you'll rise up off my coat I might get 'e a few braave filbert nuts;

then us'll join the people."

Sally dusted the coat and helped its master into it. They then returned

towards the central festivity, and upon the way, at the bend of a narrow

path, came suddenly upon Christopher Yeoland, Honor and her husband,

Mark Endicott, with his arm in that of Mr. Scobell, Doctor Clack, and

other local celebrities and men of leading in the neighbourhood.

"Lard! how can us pass all this mort o' gentlefolks an' me that

down-daunted," moaned Henry; but his companion, secure in her pretty

face and trustful of her best gown, felt quite equal to the ordeal.

"So easy as they can pass us," she answered. "They'm awnly men an' women

when all's said, an' us be so gude as them, 'pon a public holiday or in

church. I mind a time when Squire Yeoland never passed me by wi'out a

civil word, an' I shouldn't wonder if he didn't now for all his riches."

She was right. Observing that no parent accompanied her and

recollecting her blue eyes very well, Christopher stopped.

"Ah, Sally, glad to see you again. Not married yet--eh? But going to

be, I'll warrant. That's your man? Lucky chap. And remember, the day

of the wedding I've got twenty pounds for you to make the cottage

vitty."

Miss Cramphorn blushed and murmured something, she knew not what, while

Henry, now safely past his betters, shook at these bold words. Then the

company proceeded, and Myles Stapledon, recollecting when these two had

last met, mused upon the nature of the man, while Honor chid him.

"That's the way you'll send your money spinning, by putting a premium on

improvident marriages. Ask Mr. Scobell what he thinks of such folly."

"A sentiment. I've always liked Sally. I kissed her once and her

father saw me. Myles will tell you about that. Not that she ever liked

me much--too good a judge of character, I expect."

Meantime Mr. Collins and his companion passed back to the tents and

flags, and as they did so Henry could not refrain from commenting upon

the squire's handsome promise.

"Did you hear what the man said?" he asked.

"Not being deaf, I did," answered Sally with evasion. "A wonnerful

offer. Twenty pound! An' just for to make a place smart."

"Best to find a maid as won't keep 'e hanging round. 'Tis mere

gapes-nestin' for you to wait for me--a wild-goose chase for sartain."

"I hope not."

"Twenty pounds ban't much arter all's said."

"Not to your faither, as he be a snug man enough by accounts; but 'tis

tidy money to the likes of me--big money to come in a heap an' all

unearned. Not as I'd want it. You should have every penny-piece if

you'd awnly--"

"I doan't want to hear no more 'pon that head. I've promised to think

of it, an' I ax you not to speak another word till I tell you to."

"'Twas the thought of the money that carried me away like, an' I'll be

dumb from to-day, I do assure 'e."

Somewhat later they met Mr. Cramphorn, but it was significant of a

lessened interest in his elder daughter that Jonah, instead of

reproaching her for thus walking apart with one of the other sex, merely

called to Collins and bid him bring his strength where it was needed to

brace the tackle of a tent.

*CHAPTER IV.*

*DRIFTING*

With return of winter some temporary peace descended upon Myles, and,

looking back, he felt ashamed at the storm and stress of spirit that

Yeoland's resurrection had awakened in him. For a season, as life

returned to its level progress, he truly told himself that he viewed the

friendship between his wife and her old lover without concern, because

it was natural and inevitable. Honor's very frankness and ingenuous

pleasure in the wanderer's company shamed a jealous attitude. Some men,

indeed, had gone further and blessed Yeoland's home-coming. Certainly

that event was in no small measure responsible for Honor's renewed

physical welfare, and the excitement acted kindly upon a temperament

that found food in novelty and desired sweep and play of change for her

soul's health. Stapledon's wife was well again, and soon she discovered

that life could still be full and sweet. Into a sort of lulled

contentment he therefore sank, and proclaimed to himself that all was

well, that the existence of the three, lived under present relations,

was natural and seemly. He checked impatience at the expeditions

planned, listened to Christopher's endless designs with respect to

Godleigh, advised him and endured from him the old, extravagant conceits

and jesting, specious views of life. Yet the glamour was off them now,

and they only wearied Myles. He believed at first that Yeoland must be

a changed man; but very soon he found no such thing had happened.

Nevertheless, some parity of tastes obtained, as of old, in divers

directions. Again they walked for many miles together, each occupied

with Nature from his own standpoint; and again they met in the dawn hour

that possessed like fascination for both. At such times, under grey

winter light, shrewd and searching, what was best in the men stood

first, and they almost understood one another; but when they met,

smudged by long hours of the toilsome day, and especially when they

found each other in common company of Honor, both lacked the former

sympathy.

As for Christopher, he heartily appreciated Myles at this period, and

found the farmer's common sense a valuable antidote to the somewhat too

spacious ideas of Doctor Clack in matters concerning betterment of

Godleigh. And not seldom did Yeoland rejoice, with a single eye, that

his old love had such a steadfast rock upon which to establish her life.

In his relations with Honor he had been a little astonished to find the

fact of her marriage not recognised by his nature, as it was by his

conscience. That Nature could dare to be herself surprised him, when

her wave throbbed through his being now and again upon some rare, sweet

note of voice or tinkle of laughter. At such emotional moments he

complimented the character and heroic attributes of Myles, with a vigour

so crude that Honor might have suspected had not she echoed the

sentiment from her heart. She never wearied of her husband's praises,

and had no discernment as to what prompted Christopher's sudden

overflowings of admiration. The man's return, as in the first instance

of his own juxtaposition with Myles, served to alter Honor's inner

attitude towards her husband. It seemed, in a sense, as she had fancied

of old, that these two were the complement each of the other.

And a result was that his wife became more to Stapledon as the weeks

passed. Gradually--but not so gradually that he failed to observe

it--there came an increase of consideration in small matters, a new

softness in her voice, a deeper warmth in her kisses. He marked her

added joy in life, noted how she let her happiness bubble over to make

him more joyful; and at first he was filled with satisfaction; and next

he was overclouded with doubt. He tried to ascertain why her old

lover's return should increase Honor's liking for her husband; he

laboured gloomily upon a problem altogether beyond his calibre of mind

to solve. He failed to see that the subtle change in his wife extended

beyond him to the confines of her little world, that some higher

graciousness was bred of it, that the least planet of which she was the

sun now reaped new warmth from her accession of happiness. He puzzled

his intelligence, and arrived, through long fret and care, at an

erroneous solution. Utterly unable to appraise the delicate warp and

poise of her humours, or gauge those obscure escapements that control

happiness in the machinery of a woman's mind, Stapledon came to pitiful

and mistaken conclusions that swept from him all content, all security,

all further peace. At the glimmer of some devil's lantern he read into

Honor's altered bearing an act of deliberate simulation. He denied that

this advent of the other could by any possibility possess force to

deepen or widen her affection for him; and he concluded, upon this

decision, that the alteration must be apparent, not real. Such was the

man's poor speed in the vital science of human nature. Next, he strove

to explain the necessity for her pretence, with the reason of it; and so

he darkened understanding, fouled his own threshold with fancied danger,

and passed gradually into a cloudy region of anxiety and gloom. Excuse

for speech or protest there was none; yet, unable to discern in Honor's

frank awakening to everyday life and her renewed healthful bearing

towards all her environment an obvious purity of mind and thought, he

suffered his agitation to conquer him. He lived and waited, and sank

into a chronic watchfulness that was loathsome to him. His fits of

moody taciturnity saddened his wife and astonished her above measure,

for it seemed that the old love of natural things was dead in him. In

truth, his religion of the Moor--his dogma of the granite and vast waste

places--failed him at this pinch. His gods were powerless and

dumb--either that, or the heart of him had grown deaf for a season.

His unrest appeared, but the inner fires were hidden very completely.

Then Mark Endicott, who knew that Myles was disordered, and suspected

the tissue of his trouble, approached him, burrowed to his secret, and

held converse thereon through some hours of a stormy night in January.

Stapledon at first evaded the issue, but he confessed at length, and,

when invited to name the exact nature of his disquiet, merely declared

the present position to be impossible in his judgment.

"We can't live with the balance so exact," he said. "I feel it and know

it. Honor and this man loved one another once, and the natural

attraction of their characters may bring them to do so again, now that

such a thing would be sin."

"A big word--'sin,'" answered Mr. Endicott. "If that's all your

trouble, the sooner you let sunshine into your mind again the better.

Honor's an Endicott, when all's said, though maybe one of the strangest

ever born under that name. I'm astonished to hear that this is the

colour of your mind. And the man--queer though he is, too, and unlike

most men I've met with--yet he's not the sort to bring trouble on a

woman, last of all this woman."

"You prose on, uncle, not remembering what it felt like to feel your

blood run hot at a woman's voice," answered Myles with unusual

impatience and a flash of eye. "I give him all the credit you desire

and more; I know he is honourable and upright and true. What then?

Highest honour has broken down before this temptation. He is made of

flesh and blood after all, and a man can't live within a span of a woman

he loves and be happy--not if that woman belongs to somebody else. I

don't assert that his love still exists, yet it's an immortal thing--not

to be killed--and though he thinks he has strangled it--who can say? It

may come to life again, like he did."

"You judge others by your own honest character; but I'm not so certain.

If there is a man who could live platonically beside a woman he loves,

that man might be Yeoland. There's something grotesque in him

there--some warp or twist of fibre. Remember how well content he was in

the past to remain engaged to her without rushing into her arms and

marrying her. He's cold-blooded--so to call it--in some ways. I've

known other such men."

"It's contrary to nature."

"Contrary to yours, but temperaments are different Don't judge him.

There may be a want in him, or he may possess rare virtues. Some are

ascetic and continent by disposition and starve Nature, at some secret

prompting of her own. I don't say he is that sort of man, but he may

be. Certainly his standpoint is far less commonplace than yours."

"I caught him kissing a pretty milkmaid once, all the same; and that

after he was engaged to Honor," answered the other gloomily.

"Exactly. Now you would not do such a thing for the world, and he would

make light of it. Beauty merely intoxicates some men; but intoxicated

men do little harm as a rule. He's irresponsible in many ways; yet

still I say the husband that fears such a man must be a fool."

"I can't suppose him built differently to other people."

"Then assume him to be the same, and ask yourself this question: Seeing

what he did for love of her, and granting he loves her still, has he

come back to undo what he did? Would he change and steal her now, even

if he had the power to do so? What has he done in the past that makes

you dream him capable of such a deed in the future?"

"I don't say that he dreams that such a thing is possible. Probably the

man would not have returned into the atmosphere of Honor if he had dimly

contemplated such an event. But I see nothing in his character to lift

him above the temptation, or to make me rest sure he will be proof

against it. There's a danger of his opening his eyes too late to find

the thing which he doubtless believes impossible at present an

accomplished fact."

"What thing?"

"Why, the wakening again of his love for her, the returned knowledge

that his life is empty and barren and frost-bitten without her. He felt

that once. What more natural than that, here again, he should feel it

redoubled in the presence of his own good fortune in every other

direction?"

"If such a suspicion crossed his mind, he would depart from Godleigh.

That I do steadfastly believe. Understand, your welfare would not weigh

with him; but Honor's happiness--I feel more assured of it--is still

more to him than his own."

"I know--I know; yet how easily a man in love persuades himself that a

woman's vital welfare and real happiness depends upon him."

"Now we argue in a circle, and are at the starting-point again. Yeoland

believed so thoroughly that she would be happier with you than with him

that he actually blotted himself out of her life, and, when he heard she

would not marry you while he lived, let it be known that he was dead.

Solely for her sake he played that cumbrous prank."

"That is so; yet remember what you told me years ago. Then you honestly

believed that this man, from the depths of his own peculiar nature,

understood Honor better than anybody else in the world did. You thought

that, and you are seldom wrong about people. So perhaps he has come to

that conclusion too. If I was the wrong husband for her----"

"I never said such a thing."

"No, because I never asked you; but if it was so, what more likely than

that he has discovered it since his return? At any rate he may think

that this is the case--though I dispute it with all my heart--and he may

feel his sacrifice was vain. Then, what more likely than that he should

ask himself if it is too late to amend the position?"

Mr. Endicott's face expressed absolute surprise and some scorn for the

speaker.

"Do I hear Myles Stapledon? Where have you sucked poison since last we

spoke together? You, who live in the fresh air and enjoy the

companionship of natural beasts and wholesome lives, to spin this trash!

And wicked trash, too, for what right have you to map out evil roads for

other people to follow? What right have you to foretell a man's plan

and prophesy ill? Have done with this dance of Jack-o'-lanterns, and get

upon the solid road again. Look in your wife's character. No need to

go further than that for ointment to such a wound as you suffer from.

You have let jealousy into the house, Myles, and the reek of it and the

blight of it will make your life rotten to the marrow if you don't set

to work and cleanse the chamber again. I know they are happy together;

but you've got to face that. I know she's better for his coming, and

you've got to face that too. These are subtle things, and if you can't

understand them, put them behind you. All this is false fire, and

you're in a ferment of windy misery brewed inside you--just wind,

because the home-coming of this native has upset your digestion. You

ought to feel some shame to harbour such a pack of imps. Time was when

a breath of air from Cosdon Beacon would have blown them back to their

master. How they got in I can't say; for it's not part of your real

character to make trouble. You're like the ploughboy who builds a

ghostie with a sheet and turnip and only frightens himself. Get this

weed out of your heart at any cost. Burn it out with the caustic of

common sense; and trust me, blind as I am, to be quick enough to smell

the smoke that tells of fire. I mean in this matter. Honor's only less

to me than she is to you. And I know the truth about her as sure as I

know the sound of her voice and the things it says, and the secrets it

lets out, apart from the words her tongue speaks."

"She's said many a queer thing on the subject of a man and his wife and

their relations each to the other. I cannot easily forget them."

"It's her wide, healthy frankness in every affair of life that might set

you at rest, if you were not, as I hint to you, a fool."

"If I were a fool, it might. I know she holds the tie lightly. Any

conventional sort of bondage angers her. I won her by a trick--not of my

hatching, God knows--yet none the less a trick."

"You'd make Job lose his patience--you, that I thought a man of ideas as

fresh and wholesome as the west wind! Can't you see this cuts both

ways? She's yours till death parts you, so have done whining. You're

stirring hell-broth, that's what you're doing, and if you let Honor

catch a sight of the brew, there will be some real, live trouble very

likely. You, to break out like this! Well, it shows how true the

saying runs: that every man, from Solomon down, is mad when the wind

sets in one quarter. Now you've found your foul-weather wind, and it's

like to blow you into some play-acting if you don't pull yourself up.

You're the luckiest man on the whole countryside, if you could only see

it so. Be patient, and put your faith in your wife, where it should be,

and go your old gait again."

"I'll try your remedy--ignore the thing, banish it, laugh at it."

"Laugh at yourself; if you could only learn to do that, there'd be hope

for you. And take another point to your comfort. We're all agreed that

Yeoland's no hypocrite, whatever else he may be. Three days since I had

speech with him, and your name was on his lips, and he rejoiced that you

were his friend and Honor's husband. He does not dream that his return

to life has either gladdened her or troubled you. He only sees her now

pretty much as she was when he went away. He hasn't seen what you and I

have--her sorrows. But, remember that Honor's real happiness rests with

you--nobody else--and she knows it, and trusts to you for it. Nobody can

ever take your place, and if she glimpses a serious change in you,

she'll soon be down in the mouth, and, as like as not, a lie-abed

again."

"She has seen a change. She has asked me what was amiss."

"Then stir yourself, and make a giant's effort before she finds out more

than you want her to know. I'm glad I spoke to you to-night--wish I had

sooner; but it's not too late. You've had tangles to untie in your

character before to-day--puzzles to pick--dirty corners to let the light

in upon. Who hasn't? And you're not the one to fear such work, I

should reckon. So set about it, and the Lord help you."

Myles Stapledon rose and took the old man's hand.

"Thank you," he said. "You've done me good, and I'll try to be worthy

of your advice. I don't quite know what this place would be without

you, Uncle Endicott."

"Quieter, my son--that's all. I'm only a voice. Words are poor things

alongside actions. The great deeds of the world--the things

achieved--are not chattered by the tongue, but rise out of sweat, and

deep, long silences. Yet I've given you advice worth following, I do

think, though, seeing that your blind spot looks like jealousy, what

I've bid you do may be harder than you imagine. So much more credit if

you do it."

Neither spoke again, and Stapledon, taking the candle, soon went to his

bed; but Mark sat on awhile over his knitting in the dark, while the

crickets chirruped fearlessly about the dim and dying peat.

*CHAPTER V.*

*A HUNTING MORNING*

On such a morning as hunting folk live for, some ten days after the

conversation between Stapledon and Mr. Endicott, Christopher, who did

not himself hunt, drove Honor to a meet of the Mid Devon. Taking his

dog-cart down a mossy by-path at the spinney-side, he stopped not fifty

yards distant from where a patch of scarlet marked the huntsman's

standpoint. Above was a race of broken clouds and gleam of sunshine

from pale blue sky; below spread opaline air and naked boughs, save

where great tods of ivy shone; while underneath nervous tails twitched

among brown fern and wintry furzes. Then a whimper came from the heart

of the wood, and two old hounds threw up their heads, recognised the

sound for a youngster's excitement, and put nose to earth again. A

minute later, however, and a full bay echoed deep and clear; whereupon

the pair instantly galloped whence the music came.

Honor and her companion sat in Christopher's dog-cart behind a fine grey

cob.

"They know that's no young duffer," said Yeoland, as the melody waxed

and the hounds vanished; "he's one of their own generation and makes no

mistake. If the fox takes them up to the Moor, sport is likely to be

bad, for it's a sponge just now, and the field won't live with the

hounds five minutes. Ah! he's off! And to the Moor he goes."

Soon a business-like, hard-riding, West Country field swept away towards

the highlands, and silence fell again.

Christopher then set out for Little Silver, while conversation drifted

to their personal interests and the prosperity in which each now

dwelt--a thing foreseen by neither three short years before. They had

no servant with them and spoke openly.

"My touchstone was gold; yours a husband of gold," said Christopher.

"Money he possessed too, but it is the magic man himself who has made

Endicott's what it is now."

"Yes, indeed--dear Myles. And yet I'm half afraid that the old, simple

joy in natural things passes him by now. It seems as though he and I

could never be perfectly, wholly happy at the same time. While I went

dismal mad and must have made his life a curse, he kept up, and never

showed the tribulation that he felt, but was always contented and

cheerful and patient. Now that I am happier, I feel that he is not.

Yes, he is not as happy as I am. He has told me a thousand times that

content is the only thing to strive for; and certainly he proved it, for

he was well content once; but now our positions are reversed, and I am

contented with my life, while daily he grows less so."

"He's a farmer, and a contented farmer no man ever saw, because God

never made one."

"It isn't that; the work never troubles him. He looks far ahead and

seems to know, like a wizard, long before the event just what is going

to be successful and what a failure. I think I know him better than

anybody in the world, but I can't fathom him just now. Something is

worrying him, and he tries hard not to let it worry him and not to show

that it does. Partly he is successful, for I cannot guess the trouble;

but that there is a trouble he fails to hide. I must find it out and

take my share. Sometimes I think----"

She broke off abruptly.

"What? Nothing that involves me? We're the best, truest friends now,

thank heaven."

"No, no. Time will reveal it."

For a moment or two they were silent with their thoughts. It struck

neither that such a conversation was peculiar; it occurred to neither

the man nor the woman that in the very fact of their friendship--of a

friendship so close that the wife could thus discuss her husband's

trouble--there existed the seed of that trouble.

Christopher mused upon the problem, and honestly marvelled before it.

"I suppose nobody can be happy really, and he's no exception to the

rule. Yet, looking at his life, I should account him quite the luckiest

man I ever heard of. Consider the perfection that he has crammed into

his existence. He prospers in his farm; he has Nestor under his roof in

the shape of your wiseacre of an uncle; and he has you! Providence must

have been puzzled to find a way to hurt him. And she hasn't hit him

under the belt either, for never a man enjoyed finer health. Now where

can he have come across melancholy? I suppose it's his hereafter, or

non-hereafter, that's bothering him. Yet I should judge that the man

was too sane to waste good time in this world fretting because he

doesn't believe in another."

"It's a cloud-shadow that will pass, I hope."

"I hope so heartily--such a balanced mind as he has. Now if I began to

whine--one who never did carry any ballast--you could understand it.

Look ahead and compare our innings. His will end gloriously with

children and grandchildren and all the rest of it. And I--but if I

painted the picture you'd probably say I was a morbid, ungrateful

idiot."

"Very likely; and I should probably be quite right. There's a great duty

staring you in the face now, Christo, and nobody who cares for you will

be contented or happy until you've tackled it like a man. Don't look so

innocent; you know perfectly well what I mean."

"Indeed I do not. I am doing my duty to Godleigh--that's my life's work

henceforth, and all anybody can expect."

"But that is just what you are not doing. You're not everybody,

remember; and even if you think you are, you won't live for ever.

You'll have to go and sleep in real earnest under the skulls with bats'

wings, poor Christo, some day, and Myles and I shall be outside under

the grass."

"Who is morbid now?"

"Don't evade the point. I want you to think of the thing you love best

in the world--Godleigh."

"Well?"

"Godleigh has got to go on. It won't stop because you do--Godleigh's

immortal. When a tree falls there, Nature will plant another. Then

what is to become of the dearest, loveliest place in Devon after you are

gathered to your fathers?"

"I'm going to leave it to you and Myles and your heirs for ever."

"Don't be ridiculous, Christo; you're going to leave it to a rightful

heir, and it's high time you began to devote a little thought to him.

Don't wait until you're a stupid, old, middle-aged thing of half a

century. Then you'll probably die in the gloomy conviction that you

leave your children mere helpless infants."

"So much the better for them, for they'd escape the example of their

father. But, as a matter of fact, I'm not going to marry. Godleigh's

my mother and sister and brother and wife and family."

"Then you'll leave your family unprovided for, and that's a very wicked

thing to do. We're growing old and sensible nowadays, and there'll be

plain speaking between us as long as we live; so I tell you now that

I've thought of this very seriously indeed, and so has Myles. He quite

agees with me; and my opinion is that you ought to marry; the sooner the

better."

"Don't," he said; "don't go in for having opinions. When anybody begins

to cultivate and profess opinions their sense of humour must be on the

wane. Keep your mind free of rooted ideas. You were wont to love the

rainbow play of change, to welcome sudden extremes as a sign of health

and mental activity. Before you married you hated opinions."

"That was before I grew happy, I think. Happiness runs one into a

groove very quickly; it steadies our ideas. Now, you won't be perfectly

happy until you marry."

"To find her."

"Why, that's not so difficult."

"Never, Honor. There was only one possible mother for my children. You

are going over ground that I travelled centuries ago; at least it seems

centuries. I told my fib and looked ahead, quite like a son of wisdom

for once, and counted the cost, or tried to. Let all that sleep. I

shall never know to my dying day how I brought it off, but I did.

Perhaps a generous sympathy for unborn boys and girls had as much to do

with it as anything else. Candidly and without sentiment, it is time we

Yeolands came to an end. For my part I shall die easier knowing that

I'm the last of them. I never was very keen about living for the mere

sake of living, even in old days, and now I care less than ever. Not

that I want to die either; but I go wandering through this great,

roaring, rollicking, goose-fair of a world, stopping at a booth here,

shooting for nuts or something equally valuable there; and when Dustman

Death surprises me, pottering about and wasting my money,--when he puts

out his grey claws and asks for his own again, I shall welcome him with

perfect cheerfulness."

"Nonsense--and wicked nonsense! You--what?--thirty-two, or some absurd

age--trying to talk like Uncle Mark! And Godleigh free! I won't have

it, Christo. If ever you loved me, you must obey me in this and find a

wife."

"Can't; won't; too small-hearted. I've got nothing to give a girl; and

all your fault. Some of me really died, you know, when I pretended that

all of me did."

"Then I suppose that it's my turn to go away and perish now? Would you

feel equal to marrying anybody if I was dead?"

"Not a parallel instance at all. For you there was a grand chap

waiting--a man worth having; else I should not have died, I assure you.

In my case there's no grand woman waiting; so if you expire, you will

merely be bringing a great deal of trouble upon many excellent people

and doing nobody the least good--not even my nebulous prospective lady.

No, Myles and I would merely share a mile of crape and live in black

gloves for ever. You die! What a thought!"

"Sometimes I wish I had long ago."

"No; you must live to brighten these dull Devonshire winters and strew

flowers upon your husband and me when our turns come. Dear old

Stapledon! I'm really bothered to know that something is troubling him.

I'd tackle him myself, only if you cannot win the truth, I certainly

should not. I wish he'd be confidential; I do like confidential men.

For my part I haven't got a secret from him in the world."

"He works too hard."

"He does. The man has a horrible genius for making work. It knocks the

vitality out of him. I hate this modern gospel that sets all of us poor

little world-children to our lessons as a panacea for every evil under

the sun. Just look what dull dogs all the hard workers are."

"Well, you've played truant from your youth up."

"Deliberately, as an example to others. But I'm doing any amount of

work now. Brain-work too; which is easily the most hateful sort of

work. And all for my Godleigh. Yet she doesn't thank me. I see poor

Mother Nature stealing about miserably and suspiciously when I go into

the woods. She liked me better a pauper. She doesn't know that I'm

helping her to make this little corner of earth more and more perfect.

She doesn't look ahead and judge how much toil and trouble I am saving

her with the ruins of things that must be cleared away--either by her

method or my quicker one. She hates axes and ploughs and pruning-hooks,

old stick-in-the-mud that she is."

"Treason!"

"No treason at all. Common sense I call it. I'm weary of this nonsense

about going straight to Nature. Australia taught me to suspect. She's a

bat, a mole; she doesn't know her best friends. She'll sink a saint in

mid-ocean--a real saint with an eighteen-carat halo--and let a pirate

come safely and happily to some innocent merchantman stuffed with the

treasures of honest men, or her own priceless grains and seeds. She'll

put back the hand of progress at the smallest opportunity; she'll revert

to the primitive if you turn your back on her for an instant; she'll

conjure our peaches into wild plums, our apples into crabs, man

into--God knows what--something a good deal lower than the angels, or

even the cave-dwellers. If we let her, she would hunt for and polish up

the missing link again, and huddle the world backwards faster than we

spin round the sun. Nature is a grand fraud, Honor. Take the personal

attitude, for instance. What has she ever done for me? Did she show me

any of her hoarded gold during the month I nearly killed myself

exploring in New South Wales? Did she lead me to the water-holes when I

was thirsty, or lend me a cloud to hide the sun when I was hot? Has she

opened a flower-bud, or taught a bird to sing, or painted a dawn, or

ever led the wind out of the east, that I might be the happier? We fool

ourselves that we are her favourites. Not so. She is only our

stepmother, and behaves accordingly. She knew that the advent of

conscious intelligence must be a death-blow to her, and she has never

forgiven man for exhibiting it."

"So I'm not the only one in Little Silver who is developing opinions, I

see," laughed Honor. "You're growing egotistical, Christo; you're

expecting almost too much, I fear. Nature has something better to do

than plan your private fortune and convenience, or arrange the winds of

heaven to suit a cold in that silly head of yours! Never in my most

dead-alive moment did I grow so dull as that. To be cross with poor

Nature--as if she had not to do what she is told, like everybody else.

To blame her!"

"I don't blame her. I know where to throw the blame of things perfectly

well."

"Then you're the only man in the world who does, and you ought to tell

everybody and so make yourself famous."

Thus they prattled in the old manner, and, unconscious of difficulty or

danger, passed upon their way. Much each saw of the other; much frank

delight each took in the other's company; and through the passage of

winter to the advent of spring they progressed, coming nearer and nearer

to discovery of the secret tribulation in Stapledon's heart that each

now innocently, honestly mourned and misunderstood.

*CHAPTER VI.*

*LOVE OF MAN*

Mr. Gregory Libby, to whom circumstance denied any opportunity of close

investigation, at length came upon a conclusion respecting the daughters

of Jonah Cramphorn, and allowed his judgment to be unconsciously

influenced by his desire. That is to say he arrived at a mistaken

decision because the balance of his feeble, physical emotions weighed

toward Sally. She was the eldest and the fairest; he concluded,

therefore, that she enjoyed the greater proportion of her parent's

regard, and must the more materially benefit under his will in time to

come. He braced himself for the crucial question, and it happened that

he did so but two days after a very significant symposium at Endicott's,

during which Mr. Cramphorn occupied the position of chief speaker, and

his daughters were the principal theme of conversation. From discussion

upon these primitive maids, and their father's opinion concerning them,

discourse had truly ranged to higher subjects; but not before Jonah made

definite statements of a sort that deeply moved one among his listeners.

Behind the obscurity blown from a clay tobacco-pipe, Henry Collins sat,

round-eyed and wretched. He gasped with most unselfish sorrow for the

girl he loved, and committed to memory certain surly assertions of Mr.

Cramphorn concerning her, with a purpose to forewarn Sally of the fate

her future held. For Jonah spoke definitely and doggedly. He weighed

the merits of his own daughters with Spartan frankness, and, arriving at

judgment, declared Margery's filial conduct a lesson to Little Silver,

regretted Sally's indifference and independence of manners, and

concluded with complacent hints that his knowledge of human nature was

not wont to be at fault, and that she best able to administer wisely his

worldly wealth should have it as a just reward, when he passed beyond

need of cottage or savings bank.

These utterances Libby heard too late, but Cramphorn's elder daughter

became acquainted with them immediately after they were spoken, thanks

to the enterprise of Henry Collins. He felt it his duty to the woman

that she should be put in possession of such gloomy predictions, while

yet power might lie with her to falsify them.

"Afore the whole comp'ny he said it," declared Henry; "an' he'm a man as

knaws no shadder of turning most times. An' he haven't got the wisdom

of a mouse neither--not in this matter; so it'll surely happen, onless

you fall in wi' his ways more an' knock onder oftener than what you do."

"I've seed it comin', an' he'm a cruel wretch," answered Sally with many

pouts. "An' her's worse--my sister, I mean. Sly minx, she've plotted

an' worked for it wi' low onderhand ways--cooing to un; an' glazin' at

un when he talked, as if he was King Solomon; an' spendin' her pence in

pipes for un; an' findin' his book-plaaces to church--'Struth! I could

wring her neck, an' 'tis more'n likely I shall do it wan day."

"But he doan't knaw--Libby, I mean--though he's sartain to hear soon;

an' your faither won't tell Margery for fear she should give awver

fussin' 'bout arter un, when she knaws his will's writ an' signed an'

can't be called back. So I comed to say that I doan't care a feather

for all his money, an' I loves you better'n ever--better'n better now

he'm set against 'e."

"Ess, I knaw all that; and doan't 'e tell this tale to nobody else; an'

bid them others, as heard my auld beast of a faither, to keep it in an'

tell nobody. Wance Libby knaws, 'tis----"

"All up. Ess, so 'tis, Sally; an' doan't that shaw 'e what fashion o'

dirt the man's made of? Do 'e want a chap to marry you for what you

take to un in your hand? Do 'e----"

"Doan't ax no more questions now, theer's a dear sawl. I ban't in no

fettle to answer 'em, an' I be sore hurt along o' this. A gude darter

as I've been tu. An' her--no better'n a stinging long-cripple--a snake

as'll bite the hand that warms it. I wish I was dead, I do. Go away,

caan't 'e? I doan't want your 'ankersher. Let my tears alone, will 'e?

I wish they was poison. I'd mingle 'em wi' her food--then us would see.

Go--go away! Be you deaf? I'll scream my heart out in a minute if you

bide theer!"

Collins, desiring no such catastrophe, made haste to disappear; and such

is the rough-and-tumble of things that chance willed this dramatic

moment for the entrance of Gregory Libby. Big with fate he came from

hedge-trimming, and shone upon Sally's grief like the sun of June upon a

shower. She was sobbing and biting her red lips; and he, with the

dignity of toil yet manifested about him, dropped his sickle, flung off

his gloves, led Sally behind a haystack, and bid her sit down and relate

her sorrow.

"Just gwaine to take my bit of dinner," he said; "so you can tell while

I eat. What's the matter? You'm wisht, an' your butivul cheeks be all

speckly-like wi' cryin'."

She swallowed her tears, sucked her lips, and smiled through the storm.

"Nought--a flea kicked me. Sit here an' I'll pull down a bit o' dry out

o' the stack for 'e."

"Ban't awften them wonnerful butcher-blue eyes o' yourn shed tears, I'm

sure," he mumbled with his mouth full; "but we've all got our troubles

no doubt. An' none more'n me. I'm that lonesome wi'out mother to do

for me. I never thought as I'd miss her cookin' an' messin' 'bout the

house so much. An' what's money wi'out a woman to spend it--to spend it

on me, I mean?" he added hastily. "I want a wife. A gude woman stands

between a man an' all the li'l twopenny-ha'p'ny worrits as his mind be

tu busy tu trouble 'bout. I want a useful gal around me, an' wan as'll

take the same view of me what mother done."

"You'm a marryin' man for sartain."

"I be. An' I've thought an' thought on it till I got the 'eadache; an'

my thoughts doan't go no further'n you, Sally."

"Lard, Gregory dear!"

"True's I'm eatin' onions. I've been figuring you up for years. An'

now I knaw we'm likely to be a very fitting man an' wife. You knawed

mother; and you knaw me, as ban't a common man ezacally, so say the

word."

"Oh, Gregory! An' I thought you was after my sister!"

"She'm a very gude gal, an' a very nice gal tu," said Mr. Libby with his

usual caution. "No word against her would I say for money. An' if you

wasn't here, I'd sooner have her than any other. A brave, bowerly

maiden wi' butivul hands to her, an' a wonnerful onderstandin' way,

an'----"

"Ess, but 'tis me you love--me--not her?"

"Ban't I tellin' you so? I say it in cold blood, after thinkin' 'pon

it, to an' from, for years. An' I'll tell you how mother treated me,

for you couldn't do no better'n what she did. She onderstood my habits

perfect."

"God knaws I'll make 'e a gude wife, Greg. An' no call to tell me

nothin' of that 'bout your mother, 'cause I'll be more to 'e than she;

an' I'll think for 'e sleepin' an' wakin', an' I'll work for 'e to my

bones, an' love the shadow of 'e."

"I'm glad to hear you say so, Sally, though mother's ways was very well

considered. The thing be to make up your mind as I'm in the right all

times, as a thinking man mostly is."

"I knaw you will be; an' a gude husband, as'll stand up for me against

all the world, an' see I ban't put upon or treated cruel."

"I will do so. An' 'tis odds if I'll let 'e do any work at all arter

you'm wedded to me--work 'cept about my house, I mean."

"No, for 'twill take me all my time workin' for 'e, an' makin' your home

as it should be."

"Kiss me," he said suddenly, "an' kiss me slow while I take my full of

it. Theer's blood 'pon your lips! You've bited 'em. What's fretted 'e

this marnin'? Not love of me, I warn 'e?"

"'Twas, then--just love of you, Greg; an' fear that the fallin' out of

cruel things might make 'e turn away from me."

He patted her cheek and stroked it; then her neck; and then her plump

bosom.

"So butivul an' fat as a pattridge you be! An' I'm sure I love 'e

tremenjous; an' nothin' shall never part us if you say so."

"Then all my tears was vain, an'--an' I'll grow a better woman an' say

longer prayers hencefarrard--for thanksgivings 'cause I've got 'e."

"'Tis a gude match for you, Sally; an' I do trust as you'll never make

me to regret I spoke."

"Never, never; an' you'll never love nobody else, will 'e?"

"Not so long as you'm a gude wife an' a towser to work. My mind was

always temperate 'an sober towards petticoats, as be well knawn."

"Oh, I could sing an' dance for sheer joy, I could! An' so chapfallen

just afore you comed. But what's a faither to a lover--'specially such

a sour faither as mine?"

"Doan't you quarrel wi' Cramphorn, however," said Gregory; "he'm the

last man as I'd have you fall out with."

"Quarrel! I never quarrel with nobody. But he ban't like

you--even-tempered an' fair. A wan-sided, cranky man, faither. I be

his eldest, yet Margery's put afore me. He can't see through her dirty,

hookem-snivey tricks an' lying speeches. I be straight an' plain, same

as you, an' he hates me for it."

Mr. Libby's heart sank low.

"Hates you? D'you say your faither hates you?"

"Well, the word ban't big enough seemin'ly. I can tell you now, because

we'm tokened, an' my heart shan't never have no secret from you. But he

likes Margery best because she foxes him, an' fules him, an' tells him

he's a wonder of the world; an' he believes it. An' Collins says as

he've awpenly gived out that she'm to have all his gudes an' his money.

Why for do 'e give awver lovin' me?"

For Mr. Libby's arm, which was round Sally's waist, fell away from that

pleasant circumference, and an expression of very real misery spread

over his face to the roots of his yellow hair.

"'His gudes an' his money'?" he asked, in a faint voice, that sounded as

though he had been frightened.

"Ess. Why, you'm as if somebody had suddenly thrawed a bucket of water

awver 'e! Doan't think I care 'bout his money now. You'll have to make

him chaange his mind bimebye. When you'm my husband, you'll have to

tackle faither an' see he doan't cut me away."

The man's brain went cold. Desire had vanished out of his eyes, and

Sally might have been a stone beside him. He flung away the remainder

of his luncheon, and uttered a hearty oath or two.

"'Tis a damned oncomely thing, an', as it takes two to a quarrel,

theer's some fault your side as well as his, I reckon. What be the

reason as Margery's more to him than you--his eldest?"

"Because she'm a lyin' slammockin' female twoad--that's the reason; an'

he caan't see through her."

There was a moment of heavy silence; then Gregory Libby spoke.

"Doan't say nothin' 'bout what we've planned out to-day. Doan't tell

nobody. Time enough come Spring."

"Say nought! I'd like to go up 'pon top the hill an' sing out my gude

fortune for all ears to hear!"

"No, bide quiet. Us'll let 'em have the gert surprise of it in church.

None shall knaw till we'm axed out some Sunday marnin'."

"'Twill bust upon 'em like thunder. I lay Margery will faint if she'm

theer."

"An' us'll have the laugh of 'em all."

"'Tis as you please, Greg."

"An' you'll take your oath not to tell?"

"Not even mistress?"

"Certainly not she."

"Nor yet Missis Loveys?"

"So soon tell all Little Silver."

"You might let me just whisper it to my awn sister. 'Twill be a cruel

stroke if her hears it fust afore all the people to church."

"If you say a syllable of it to Margery, 'tis off!" declared Mr. Libby,

and with such earnestness did he speak that the girl was alarmed, and

made hasty assurances.

"Very well, I promise an' swear, since I must. But how long be I to go

dumb? Remember, 'tis tu gert a thing for a woman to keep hid for long.

You'm cruel, Greg, lovey, to ax it. I'll have to blaze it out soon or

bust with it."

"Wait my time. It ban't to be awver-long, that I promise 'e."

"Kiss me again, Greg; an' cuddle me."

"You take your dyin' oath?"

"Ess, I said so."

"Very well; now I must go back to my work."

Presently they separated, and Sally, full of her secret, walked upon air

through a golden world, with her hot heart's core aglow, while Mr. Libby

bit his hare-lip, employed many coarse words for the benefit of the

hedge he hacked at, and put a spite and spleen into each stroke that

soon blunted his bill-hook. He was now faced with a problem calling for

some ingenuity. He yearned to know how he might retrieve his error, and

get well free of Sally before approaching her sister upon the same

errand. Where to turn for succour and counsel he knew not. "If mother

was awnly alive for ten minutes!" he thought. As for another ancient

dame, Charity Grepe, she--publicly exposed as a fraud and delusion by

Jonah Cramphorn--had found her occupation gone in earnest, and now

reposed at Chagford poor-house. There was none to help the unhappy

orphan in his trouble. The matter looked too delicate for masculine

handling; and even Gregory had sense to perceive that it would be easy

for others to take a wrong attitude before his dilemma and judge him

harshly. Then came an inspiration to this lack-lustre son of the soil.

"No pusson else but she heard me tell her," he reflected. "Theer's awnly

her word for it, an' I'll up an' say 'tis a strammin' gert lie, an' that

she was mazed or dreamin', an' that I wouldn't marry her for a hunderd

sovereigns! I'll braave her to her faace, if it comes to that.

Folks'll sooner believe a man than a woman most times; an' if I ban't

spry enough to awver-reach a fule of a outdoor farm-gal on such a

matter, 'tis pity."

*CHAPTER VII.*

*LAPSES*

During early spring a new experience came to Myles Stapledon.

Physically perfect, he had known no ache or ill until now; but chance

for once found him vulnerable. From a heavy downpour upon the land he

returned home, found matters to occupy him immediately, and so forgot to

doff wet clothes at the earliest opportunity. A chill rewarded his

carelessness, and a slight attack of pneumonia followed upon it. For the

first time within his recollection the man had to stop in bed, but

during the greater part of his illness Myles proved patient enough.

Honor ministered to him untiringly; Mr. Endicott was much in the

sick-room also; and from time to time, when the master was returning

towards convalescence, Cramphorn or Churdles Ash would enter to see him

with information concerning affairs.

Then, during one of the last wearisome days in his bed-chamber, at a

season when the invalid was somewhat worn with private thoughts and

heartily sick of such enforced idleness, an unfortunate misunderstanding

threw him off his mental balance and precipitated such a catastrophe as

those who knew Stapledon best had been the least likely to foresee. He

was in fact forgotten for many hours, owing to a common error of his

wife and uncle. Each thought the other would tend the sick man, so

Honor departed to Newton Abbot with Christopher Yeoland, and Mark, quite

ignorant of his niece's plans, was driven by Tommy Bates to Okehampton.

The pitiful mistake had not dwelt an hour in Stapledon's memory under

ordinary circumstances, but now, fretted by suffering and as ill able to

bear physical trouble as any other man wholly unfamiliar with it, his

lonely hours swelled and massed into a mountain of bitter grievance. He

brooded and sank into dark ways of thought. Temptations got hold upon

him; the ever-present thorn turned in his flesh and jealousy played with

his weakness, like a cat with a mouse. Upon Honor's return the man

afforded his wife, a new sensation and one of the greatest surprises

that experience had ever brought to her.

Unaware of his lonely vigil, she returned home in high good humour,

kissed him, complimented him on the fact that this was to be his last

day in bed, and remarked upon the splendour of the sunset.

"'At eventide it shall be light,'" she said; "and Christo was so rapt in

all the glory of gold and purple over Cosdon, as we drove home from

Moreton, that he nearly upset me and his dog-cart and himself. Yet I

wish you could see the sky. It would soothe you."

"As winter sunshine soothes icicles--by making their points sharper.

Nature's softest moods are cruellest if your mind happens to be in

torment."

"My dear! Whatever is the matter? And your fire out--oh, Myles, how

wrong!"

"Is it? Then blame yourself. Since my midday meal and before it I have

seen no soul this day, and heard no voice but the clock. Here alone,

suffering and chewing gall for six hours and more. But what does it

matter so you were pleased with the sunset and your company?"

"Then where is uncle? Surely----? I _am_ so sorry, dear one. We've

muddled it between us, and each thought you were in the keeping of the

other."

"Don't be sorry. What do I matter? Where have you been?"

"To Newton with Christo. And he sent you these lovely black grapes.

I'm afraid I ate a few coming home, but I haven't spoiled the bunch."

"Eat the rest, then, or fling them into the fire. I don't want them."

"You're angry, Myles; and you have a right to be; yet it was only a

dismal accident. We must light the fire, and I'll get you your tea,

poor ill-used fellow. It was a shame, but I'm very, very penitent, and

so will uncle be."

"I wish I could get out of your way. Such a bother for you to come back

to a sick-room; and a sick animal in a house is a bore

always--especially to you, who don't love animals."

The woman's eyes opened wide and she stared at him.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"You know well enough. I'm so exacting and my cough keeps you awake at

night, and these drives in the fresh air behind Yeoland's big trotter

must be such a relief to you. Why don't you ask him to drive you right

away--to hell, and have done with it?"

Honor looked at him, then turned her back and knelt down by the fire.

Presently she spoke.

"Your thoughts have been ugly company I'm afraid. This is a terrible

surprise, Myles, for I know so well how much you must have suffered

before you could say such things to me. Will you never understand your

own wife?"

"I think I do--at last."

"You'll be sorry--very sorry that you could speak so, and let an unhappy

accident be the spark to this. If you had but heard what Christopher

said of you this very day driving home----"

"Don't begin that folly. That he slights me enough to praise me--and

you listen to him and pretend to think he is in earnest!"

She did not answer; then he sat up in bed and spoke again.

"I'm glad that weakness has torn this out of me. I shall be sorry

to-morrow, but I'm glad to-night. Leave the fire and come here. I

don't want to shout. You see what you've dragged me down to; you see

what a snarling cur with his bone stolen I look now. That's your work.

And I'll thank you to put a period to it. I don't live any longer in

this purgatory, however greatly your fool's paradise may please you.

I'm weary of it. It's poisoning me. Either you see too much of this

man or not enough. That is what you have to determine. If too much,

end it; if not enough, mend it, and go to him, body and soul, for

good--the sooner the better."

"Myles! You, of all men, to be so coarse! Are you mad? Are you

dreaming to speak to your wife so? God knows that I've never done, or

said, or thought anything to anger you to this, or shadow your honour

for a second--nor has he."

"'He!' Always 'he--he--he'--rooting at your heart-strings, I suppose,

like a ----. What do you know of his thoughts and dreams? How comes it

that you are so read in his life and mind that you can say whether my

honour is so safe with him? I'd sooner trust it with my dogs. Then it

would be safe. Who are you to know what this man's mind holds?"

"I ought to know, if anybody does."

"Then go back to him, for God's sake, and let me come to the end of this

road. Let all that is past sink to a memory, not remain a raw, present

wound, that smarts from my waking moment until I sleep again."

"You are weary of me?"

"I'm weary of half of you, or a quarter of you, or what particular

proportion of you may still be supposed to belong to me."

"I am all yours--heart and soul--and you know it; or if you do not,

Christopher Yeoland does."

"You love him too."

"That question was answered years ago. I love him, and always shall.

His welfare is much to me. I have been concerned with it to-day."

"Yet you dare to say you belong heart and soul to me."

"It is the truth. If you don't understand that, I cannot help you. He

does understand."

"I lack his fine intellect. You must endeavour to sink to my level and

make this truth apparent to your husband's blunter perceptions. I must

have more than words. Acts will better appeal to me. After to-day I

forbid you to see or speak with Yeoland; and may you never suffer as you

have made me suffer."

"I will do what you wish. If you had only spoken sooner, Myles, some of

this misery might have been escaped. I wish I had seen it."

"Any woman who loved honestly would have seen it," he said, hard to the

end. Then, without answering, she left him; and while he turned

restlessly upon himself and regret presently waxed to a deep shame at

this ebullition, she went her way and came to tears leisurely along a

path first marked by frank amazement. Honor's surprise was unutterable.

Never, since the moment of their meeting, had she dreamed or suspected

that any imaginable disaster could thus reduce the high standard by

which Myles conducted his mental life and controlled his temperament.

That physical suffering and a sharp illness should have power to

discover and reveal such a secret much surprised her. She remained

incredulous that she had heard aright. It was as though she had dreamed

the meeting and some nightmare Myles--grotesque, rude, a very

Caliban--had taken shape while her mind ran riot in sleep. Yet it was

true, for the measure of his lapse from customary high courtesy, was the

measure of the months that he had suffered in silence, and the measure

of his wrongs. Wholly imaginary she held them; all he had said was the

outcome of a nature fretted by sickness and reduced below itself, like a

drunken man--this Honor believed; but even so she remained in a stupor

of astonishment. To see such a man with his armour off, to hear strange

words in his mouth, to watch passion on his face, was an experience

unutterably painful. And yet surprise transcended sorrow. She was

almost stunned and dazed by this storm of thunder and lightning from a

mind whose weather had never promised such a tempest. Now the moody

fits and evasive humours could be read a little, for light fell every

way. And Honor sat an hour with her thoughts; then passed from first

emotions to others deeper and truer. She began to regret the past and

blame her blindness. Unconventional enough, she had acted with no

thought of any special significance being read into her actions--least

of all by her husband. A woman of more common mind and nature had seen

the danger and doubtfulness of such relations; but this was her first

revelation of it; and the sudden, somewhat brutal disclosure opened her

eyes widely indeed. She set herself to see and estimate from her

husband's standpoint, to gauge the extent of the justice that had

launched his pent-up outburst, and, upon a paltry misunderstanding,

loosed these tremendous charges, hugged up and hidden within his heart

till now. She ignored the cruel manner of his assault, and felt her

heart beat in fear at this shadow of a master passion. Jealousy was its

name, and an accident of lonely hours with the demon had suffered it to

overwhelm him, tear him, dominate him thus.

The thread of the woman's thoughts need not be traced as she strove with

these tangles, and slowly restored the ravelled skein. That Myles would

regret this hurricane she knew; that he would ask her forgiveness, and

probably desire her to disregard his demands she suspected.

Self-control was a garment that her husband could scarcely discard for

long, even in sickness; the amazing thing was that it should have proved

a garment at all; for Honor always believed it as much a part of Myles

as his other characteristics. Meantime she asked herself her duty, and

justice spoke, while the woman listened without impatience.

She understood in some degree the strenuousness of many male characters

upon the subject of ethics; she conceded that men of her husband's stamp

thought and felt more deeply than most women; and she knew that her own

sense of proportion, or sense of humour--which often amounts to the same

thing--had inclined her, rightly or wrongly, to view all relations of

life from an impersonal standpoint, including even those affairs in

which she herself participated.

She knew the absolute innocence of her inmost soul with respect to

Christopher, and her face flamed here at the thought that her husband

had dared to fear for her honour and his own. But she resolutely

identified her thoughts with his attitude; she reminded herself that

Myles was a bad student of character, and quite unable to see the real

nature of Christopher Yeoland, or understand him as she did. Her brain

grew tired at last, and pity led to tears; but the nature of the pity

was uncertain, and whether she cried for herself, for her husband, or

for both, Honor could not have declared with any certainty.

That evening, while Mark Endicott was with Myles and his wife sat alone

in her parlour, Christopher Yeoland strolled up to the farm with a

parcel forgotten and left in his vehicle. The master of Godleigh stayed

for a brief chat, made inquiries after Stapledon, and very quickly

discovered that his companion laboured under some secret emotion. Honor

thereupon changed her mind. She had not intended to whisper a hint of

her tragic discovery, but the other's ready sympathy proved too much for

her reserve. Moreover, there was a thought in her that perhaps the

sooner Yeoland knew the truth the better. She told him a little of what

had happened and attributed it to her husband's great present weakness;

yet the thing sounded graver spoken aloud, even in her very guarded

version, and Christopher's forehead showed that he, too, held it

serious.

"Of course he didn't mean it," she concluded; "and to-morrow he will be

sorry for having spoken so. But I'm afraid that dear Myles will never

understand that we are different from other people."

"You think we are?"

"I know we are. Surely we have proved that to one another, if not to

the world."

"We can't expect people to take us at our own valuation. This row comes

appositely in a way. God knows the truth, but all the same, perhaps the

position is impracticable. The world would say that Myles was right,

and that we were too--too original. Only what's to be done? Of course

he can't forbid us to speak to one another--that's absurd. But, for

some reason, our friendship makes him a miserable man. He's let that

out to-night, poor dear chap."

"I wish I could understand his attitude; but I must make myself

understand it, Christo. It is my duty."

"I believe I do know what he feels. It's pride more than jealousy. His

mind is too well hung to be jealous, but pride is the bait to catch all

big natures. He doesn't like to feel any other man has the power to

please you."

"But remember the basis of our friendship. It must make a difference.

And I have always been so frank. He knew--none better--what we were each

to the other once; and he knows that I am fond of you and always must be

so."

"Exactly; and that's not knowledge to make him particularly happy. We

have accentuated it of late, and hurt him. He sees perils and troubles

ahead that don't really exist--mere phantoms--yet, from his point of

view, they look real enough. He cannot see, and so there's probably a

growing inclination on his part to kick me out of Little Silver, if such

a thing could be done. Yes, I appreciate his attitude, though he can't

appreciate mine. It comes to this: my deep content in your society is

making him very angry--and worse than angry. He's turning by slow

degrees into a volcano. To-day came the first little eruption--a mere

nothing. Myles will regret it, and to-morrow bank up the fire again in

his usual Spartan way; but he is powerless to prevent the sequel. There

may be a regular Pompeii and Herculaneum presently. Your husband is

built that way, though I never guessed it. If you were mine, and he was

in my position, I should not turn a hair, knowing you and knowing him;

but he is different. He doesn't know me at all, and he doesn't know you

as well as I do. He must be blind to a nature like yours by the

accident of his own personal temperament."

"He understands me, I am sure--at least, I think so."

"Not all round. But that's beside the mark. The question is, What

next?"

"No question at all. My whole life and soul must be devoted to making

him happy in spite of himself."

"And what must I do?"

She did not answer, and before need of a definite decision and the

necessity for action, Christopher fell back upon his customary methods.

"Obviously I must do nothing. Least done soonest mended--a proverb

quite as wise as the one I found it on; for deeds make more bother in

the world than the loudest words. I shall let Time try his hand. It

will probably come out all right when Myles gets well. He's so sane in

most things--only there's my volcano theory, I tell you what; I'll speak

to your uncle and ask him if he sees any difficulty."

"Can't you make up your mind yourself?"

"No--unless you express a wish. Otherwise I shall go on as I am going.

I'll see Mr. Endicott, and when Myles is fit again I'll see him. Yes,

that's the road of wisdom. I'll meet him and say, 'Now, old chap,

explode and give me the full force of the discharge. Tell me what you

mean and what you want.'"

Honor, for her part, found loyalty wakened rather than weakened by her

husband's remonstrances. She desired to return to him--to get back to

his heart. Christopher wearied her just now, and when Mark Endicott

entered from the sick-room, Honor bid Yeoland farewell and hastened to

Myles.

Yeoland chatted awhile, shared some spirit and water with the blind man,

and then, on a sudden, after private determination to do no such thing,

broached the problem in his mind.

"Look here," he said; "I've had a nasty jar to-night, Mr. Endicott, and

I'm in no end of a muddle. You know that I'm a well-meaning brute in my

way, even granted that the way is generally wrong. But I wouldn't

really hurt a fly, whereas now, in blissful ignorance, I've done worse.

I've hurt a man---a man I feel the greatest respect for--the husband of

my best friend in the world. It's jolly trying, because he and I are

built so differently. There's an inclination on his part to turn this

thing into the three-volume form apparently. It's such ghastly rot when

you think of what I really am. In plain English, Stapledon doesn't like

his wife to see so much of me. She only discovered this deplorable fact

to-day, and it bewildered her as much as it staggered me. Heaven's my

judge, I never guessed that he was looking at me so. Nor did Honor.

Such kindred spirits as we are--and now, in a moment of weakness, the

man bid her see me no more! Of course, he's too big to go in for small

nonsense of that kind, and he'll withdraw such an absurd remark as soon

as he's cool again; but straws show which way the wind blows, and I want

to get at my duty. Tell me that, and I'll call you blessed."

"What is Honor to you?"

"The best part of my life, if you must know--on the highest plane of

it."

"Don't talk about 'planes'! That's all tom-foolery! You're a wholesome,

healthy man and woman--anyway, other people must assume so. I'll give

you credit for believing yourself, however. I'll even allow your

twaddle about planes does mean something to you, because honestly you

seem deficient--degenerate as far as your flesh is concerned. All the

same, Stapledon is right in resenting this arrangement with all his

heart and soul. His patience has amazed me. Two men can't share a

woman under our present system of civilisation."

"Which is to say a wife may not have any other intellectual kindred

spirit but her husband. D'you mean that?"

"No, I don't. I mean that when a man openly says that a woman is the

best part of his life, her husband can't be blamed for resenting it."

"But what's the good of lying about the thing? Surely circumstances

alter cases? It was always so. He knew that Honor and I loved each

other in our queer way long before he came on the scene. She can't stop

loving me because she has married him."

"It isn't easy to argue with you, Yeoland," answered Mark quietly; "but

this I see clearly: your very attitude towards the position proclaims

you a man of most unbalanced mind. There's a curious kink in your

nature--that is if you're not acting. Suppose Honor was your wife and

she found greater pleasure in the society of somebody else, and

gradually, ignorantly, quite unconsciously slipped away and away from

you; imperceptibly, remember--so subtly that she didn't know it

herself--that nobody but you knew it. How much of that would you suffer

without a protest?"

"I shouldn't bother--not if she was happy. That's the point, you see:

her happiness. I constitute it in some measure--eh? Or let us say that

I contribute to it. Then why need he be so savage? Surely her

happiness is his great ambition too?"

"Granted. Put the world and common sense and seemliness on one side.

They don't carry weight with you. Her happiness then--her lasting

happiness--not the trumpery pleasure of to-day and to-morrow."

"Is it wise to look much beyond to-morrow when 'happiness' is the thing

to be sought?"

"Perhaps not--as you understand it--so we'll say 'content.' Happiness

is a fool's goal at best. You love Honor, and you desire for her peace

of mind and a steadfast outlook founded on a basis strong enough to

stand against the storms and sorrows of life. I assume that."

"I desire for her the glory of life and the fulness thereof."