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CHAPTER XXIV

FRIENDS


The calamity at the Courtlands' struck on all their acquaintance like a
nip of icy wind, sending a shudder through them, making them, as it
were, huddle closer about them the protecting vesture of any hope or any
happiness that they had. The outrage on the child stood out horrible in
the light of the mother's death: the death of the mother found an
appalling explanation in the child's plight. Whether the death were by a
witting or an unwitting act seemed a small matter; darkness and
blindness had fallen on the unhappy woman before the last hours, and
somehow in the darkness she had passed away. There was not lacking the
last high touch of tragedy; the catastrophe which shocked and awed was
welcome too. It was the best thing that could have happened. Any end was
better than no end. To such a point of hopelessness had matters come, in
such a fashion Harriet Courtland had used her life. The men and women
who had known her, her kindred, her friends, and her household, all whom
nature had designed to love her, while they shuddered over the manner of
her going, sighed with relief that she was gone. The decree of fate had
filled the page, and it was finished; but their minds still tingled from
it as they turned to the clean sheet and prayed a kinder message.

Grantley Imason, so closely brought in contact with the drama, almost an
eye-witness of it, was deeply moved, stirred to fresh feelings, and
quickened to a new vision. The devastation Harriet had wrought, Tom's
cowardly desertion, the pitiable plight of the children, grouped
themselves together and took on, as another of their company, the
heightened and freshened impression of stale sentimentality, and a
self-delusion trivial to vulgarity, which he had carried away from his
encounter with Walter Blake. To all this there seemed one clue; through
it all one thread ran. He felt this in the recesses of his mind, and his
fingers groped after the guiding-line. That must be found, lest,
treading blindly through the labyrinth, he and his too should fall into
the pit whence there was no upward way. They had been half over the
brink once: a preternatural effort--so it might properly be called--had
pulled them back; but they were still on the treacherous incline.

Out of his sombre and puzzled reflections there sprang--suddenly as it
seemed, and in answer to his cry for guidance--an enlightening
pity--pity for his boy, lest he too should bear on his brow the scar of
hatred, almost as plain to see as the visible mark which was to stamp
little Sophy's for evermore--and pity for Sibylla, because her empty
heart had opened to so poor a tenant: in very hunger she had turned to
Blake. He no longer rejected the hope of communion with the immature
infantile mind of his son; he ceased to laugh scornfully at a love
dedicated to such a man as Walter Blake. A new sympathy with his
boy--even such as he had felt for Tom Courtland's little girls--spurred
him to fresh efforts to understand. Contempt for his wife's impulsive
affections gave way to compassion as his mind dwelt, not on what she had
done, but on what had driven her to do it--as he threw back his thoughts
from the unworthy satisfaction her heart had sought to the straits of
starvation which had made any satisfaction seem so good. This was to
look in the end at himself, and to the task of studying himself he was
now thrust back. If he could not do that, and do it to a purpose,
desolation and pitiableness such as he had witnessed and shuddered at
stood designated as the unalterable future of his own home.

Then, at last, he was impatient; his slow persevering campaign was too
irksome, and success delayed seemed to spell failure. The time comes
when no man can work. The darkness might fall on his task still
unperformed. He became afraid, and therefore impatient. He could not
wait for Sibylla to come to him. He must meet her--in something more
than civility, in something more than a formal concession of her
demands, more than an acquiescence which had been not untouched by irony
and by the wish to put her in the wrong. He must forget his claims and
think of his needs. His needs came home to him now; his claims could
wait. And as his needs cried out, there dawned in him a glow of
anticipation. What would it not mean if the needs could be satisfied?

He stayed in London for Harriet Courtland's funeral, and in the evening
went down to Milldean, a sharper edge given to his thoughts by the sight
of Tom and the two little girls (Sophy could not come) following
Harriet's coffin to the grave. Christine Fanshaw was in the carriage
which met him at the station, and was his companion on the homeward
drive. The Courtland calamity had touched her deeply too, but touched
her to bitterness--if, indeed, her outward bearing could be taken as a
true index of her mind. She bore herself aggressively towards fate and
its lessons; an increased acidity of manner condemned the follies of her
friends; she dropped no tears over their punishment. Still there was
very likely something else beneath; she had not heard from John since
she came down to Milldean.

"How have you all been getting on?" Grantley asked, as he took the reins
and settled himself beside her.

"We've done excellently since you went away. Of course we've been upset
about this horrible business, but----"

"Otherwise you've done very well?" he smiled.

"Oh, yes, very!"

"Since I went away?"

"Yes, since you went away," Christine repeated.

"Perhaps it's not a very good thing for me to come back?"

"We can hardly banish you from your own house."

The concession was grudging. Grantley laughed, and the tone of his laugh
brought her eyes sharply round to his face.

"You seem very cheerful," she remarked with an accusing air.

"No, I'm not that exactly; but I've got an idea--and that brightens one
up a bit, you know."

"Any change does that," Christine admitted waspishly.

"I saw John for a minute. He looked a bit worried. Does he complain?"

"He hasn't complained to me."

"Oh, then it's all right, I suppose. And he says the business is all
right, anyhow. How's the boy?"

"As merry and jolly as he can be."

"And Sibylla?"

"Yes, Sibylla too, as merry as possible."

"They both have been, you mean?"

"Yes, of course I do."

"While I've been away?"

"Yes, while you've been away."

Grantley laughed again. Christine looked at him in dawning wonder. She
had expected nothing from this drive but a gloom deepening--or at least
a constraint increasing--with every yard they came nearer to Milldean.
But there was something new. With some regret she recognised that her
acidity, her harping on "Since you went away," had not been the best
prelude to questioning or much of an invitation to confidence; and it
had, moreover, failed in its primary purpose of annoying Grantley by its
implied comment on his conduct. Her voice grew softer, and, with one of
her coaxing little tricks, she edged herself closer to his side.

"Any good news among all the bad, Grantley?"

"There's no good news yet," said he.

She caught at his last word.

"Yet? Yet, Grantley?"

"I'm not going to talk any more. That off-horse is a young 'un, and----"

"It's something to have a 'yet' in life again," she half whispered.
"'Yet' seems to imply a future--a change, perhaps!"

"Do you want a change too?"

"Oh, come, you're not so dull as to have to ask that!"

"You've told me nothing."

"And I won't. But I'll ask you one question--if you'll leave it at
that."

"Well, what's the question?"

"Did John send his love to me?"

Grantley looked at her a moment, and smiled in deprecation.

"It would have been tactful to invent the message," smiled Christine.

"I'm getting a bit out of heart with tact, Christine."

"Quite so, my dear man. And get out of patience with some other things
too, if you can. Your patience would try Job--and not only from jealousy
either."

Grantley's only answer was a reflective smile.

"And what about Tom Courtland?" she went on. "Is he with the children?"

"No, he's living at the club."

"Hum! At the club officially?"

"You're malicious--and you outrage proper feeling. At the club really,
Christine. He feels a bit lost, I fancy. I think it rather depends on
somebody else now. He's a weak chap, poor old Tom."

"You're full of discoveries about people to-day. Any other news?"

"No, none."

"But, you see, I've heard from Janet Selford!"

"Will you consider my remarks about your remarks as repeated--with more
emphasis?"

"Oh, yes, I will! You're talking more as you used to before you were
married."

"That's a compliment? I expect so--coming from a woman. Christine, have
you read Sibylla Janet Selford's letter?"

"Parts of it."

"I wish you hadn't. I didn't want her to know. I saw the fellow
there--with Anna."

"Anna's a very clever girl. She does me great credit."

"I should wait a bit to claim it, if I were you. I'm sorry you told
Sibylla."

"If you're going to be generous as well as patient, there's an end of
any chance of your turning human, Grantley."

"You're quite good company to-day."

"I'm always ready to be; but one can't manage it without some help."

"Which you haven't found in my house?"

"Yes, I have--since you went away."

But she said it this time in a different way, with a hint, perhaps an
appeal, in her upturned eyes, and the slightest touch of her hand on his
sleeve--almost like the delicate soft pat of a kitten's paw, as quick,
as timid, and as venturous. Grantley turned his head to look at her. Her
eyes were bright and eager.

"We've actually begun to be pleasant," he said, smiling.

"Yes, almost to enjoy ourselves. Wonderful! But we're not at the house
yet!"

"Not quite!" he said.

His face set again in firm lines.

"You'd so much better not look so serious about it. That's as bad as
your old County Council!"

"Are you quite sure you understand the case?"

"Meaning the woman? Oh, no! She's difficult. But I understand that, when
one thing's failed utterly, you don't risk much by trying another."

They came to the top of the hill which runs down to Milldean. Christine
sighed.

"Poor old Harriet! She was a jolly girl once, you know, and so handsome!
I've had some good times with Harriet. Do you think she's at peace,
Grantley?"

"She has paid," said he. "She has paid for what she was and did. I hope
she's at peace."

Christine's eyes grew dreamy; her voice fell to a gentle murmur.

"I wonder if it's quite silly to fancy that she's paid something for
some of us too, Grantley? I was thinking something like
that--somehow--when I said, 'Poor old Harriet!'"

"I daresay it's silly, but I don't know that it seems so to me," he
answered.

Just once again he felt the tiny velvety touch. So they came to
Milldean.

The twofold pity which had roused Grantley from a lethargy of feeling,
misconceived as self-control, had its counterpart in the triple blow
with which the course of events assailed Sibylla's estimate of herself.
In the first place, the news about young Blake announced in Janet
Selford's letter--indirectly indeed, but yet with a confident
satisfaction--made her ask whether her great sacrifice had been offered
at a worthy shrine, and her great offering received with more than a
shallow and transitory appreciation. In the second, the thought and
image of the Courtland children spoke loud to the instinct which her
ideas had lulled to sleep, bitterly accusing her desertion of the child
and her indifference to his fate, rousing her ever underlying remorse to
quick and vengeful life. Lastly, she was stirred to see and recognise
the significance of the third turn of fate--the meaning of the nemesis
which had fallen on Harriet Courtland: how she had let her rage spare
nothing, neither self-respect, nor decency, nor love; and how, in the
end, thus enthroned in tyranny, it had not spared herself. The three
accusations, each with its special import, each taking up a distinct
aspect of the truth, and enforcing it with a poignant example, joined
their indictments into one, and, thus united, cried out their
condemnation of her, taking for their mouthpiece Christine Fanshaw's
pretty lips, using her daintily scornful voice, and the trenchant
uncompromising words from which the utterer herself had afterwards
recoiled as too coarse and crude to be a legitimate weapon of attack.
The logic of events was not so squeamish; it does not deal in glosses or
in paraphrase; it is blunt, naked, and merciless, and must be, since
only when all other appeals and warnings have failed does its appointed
work begin. It fastened with what almost seemed malicious glee on
Christine's biting word, and enforced it by a pitiless vividness of
memory, an unceasing echo in Sibylla's thoughts. Her emotions had gone
"sprawling" over everything. The description did not need elaboration.
It was abominably expressive and sufficient. And it did not admit of
pleading or of extenuation. It showed her touching, on one extreme,
Blake's shallow and spurious sentiment; on the other, Harriet
Courtland's licence of anger. It pointed her attention to the ruin of
Tom's life, to the piteous plight of his children, to Harriet's fate, to
Blake's facile forgetfulness of love too heedlessly and wantonly
offered. It stripped her fantastic ideas of their garish finery, leaving
them, in the revulsion of her feelings, bereft of all beauty and
attractiveness. Impelled to look back, she seemed to find the same trail
over everything--even in those childish days of which Jeremy
Chiddingfold had once given a description that would not have reassured
her; even in the beginning of her acquaintance with Grantley, in the
ready rapture of her first love, in the intoxication of the fairy ride.
Changing its form, now hostile to her husband instead of with him, the
same temper showed in all the events which led up to the birth of little
Frank: its presence proved that her madness over Blake was no isolated
incident, but rather the crown of her development and the truest
interpreter of a character empty of worth, strength, or stability. Many
bitter hours brought her to this recognition; but when light came, the
very temper which she condemned was in her still, and turned the
coolness of recognition and analysis into an extravagant heat of scorn
and self-contempt.

What was the conclusion? Was she to throw herself at Grantley's feet,
proclaiming penitence, imploring pardon, declaring love? "No, no!" she
cried. That would be so easy, so short a cut, so satisfying to her
roused feelings. She put the notion from her in horror; it was the
suggestion of her old devil in a new disguise. Her love for Grantley had
bitten too deep into her nature to be treated like that, with that
levity and frivolity of easy impulse, that violence of headstrong
emotion, those tempests of feeling so remote from true sincerity of
heart. The cure did not lie in pampering sick emotions into a plump
semblance of healthy life. Where did it lie, if it were possible at all?
It must lie in the most difficult of all tasks--a change not of other
people or of their bearing and feelings towards her, but a change of
herself and of her own attitude towards others and towards the world,
and in her judgment and her ruling of herself. If things were to go
differently with her, she must be different. The arrogance of her nature
must be abated, the extravagant claims she had made must be lowered. The
thought struck on her almost with despair. So hard seemed the lesson, so
rough the path. And it seemed a path which must be trodden alone. It was
not as the easy pleasant road of emotion, beguiled by enchanting
companionship, strewn with the flowers of fancy, carpeted with pleasure.
This way was hard, bleak, and solitary. Merely to contemplate it chilled
her. Even that happiness with her child, which had so struck Christine
and afforded matter for one of those keen thrusts at Grantley Imason,
appeared to her in a suspicious guise. She could not prevent it nor
forgo it--nature was too strong; but she yielded to it with qualms of
conscience, and its innocent delights were spoilt by the voice of
self-accusation and distrust. Could it be real, genuine, true in the
woman who had deserted the child and been indifferent to his fate?

Both penitents, both roused to self-examination, Grantley Imason and his
wife seemed to have exchanged parts. Each suffered an inversion, if not
of character, yet of present mood. Each sought and desired something of
what had appeared to deserve reprobation when displayed by the other.
Their own propensities and ideals, carried to an extreme, had threatened
ruin; they erected the opposite temper of mind into a standard, and
thereto sought to conform their conduct at the cost of violence to
themselves. It seemed strange, yet it was the natural effect of the
fates and the temperaments which they had seen worked out and displayed
before their eyes, in such close touch with them, impinging so sharply
on their own destinies.

Sibylla had not been at home when Grantley arrived. She met him first in
the nursery, when she went to see little Frank at his tea. No mood, be
it what it would, could make Grantley a riotous romping companion for a
tiny child: that effort was beyond him. But to-day he played with his
son with a new sympathy; talked to him with a pleasant gravity which
stirred the young and curious mind; listened to his broken utterances
with a kindly quizzical smile which seemed to encourage the little
fellow. Grantley had never before found so much answering intelligence.
He forgot the quick development which even a few weeks bring at such a
time of life. He set all the difference down to the fact that never
before had he looked for what he now found so ready and so obvious.
Anything he did not find for himself the nurse was eager to point out,
and with the aid of this enthusiastic signpost Grantley discovered the
road to understanding very readily. He and the boy were, without doubt,
enjoying one another's society when Sibylla came in.

She stood in the doorway, waiting with an aching heart for the usual
thing, for a withdrawal of even such sign of interest as Grantley had
ever shown in old days. It did not come. He gave her a cheery
recognition, and went on playing with Frank. Irresistibly drawn, she
came near to them. Something was signalled in Frank's struggling speech
and impatiently waving arms. Grantley could not follow, and now turned
his eyes to Sibylla, asking for an explanation. The nurse had gone into
the other room, busied about the preparations for the meal. Sibylla took
Frank in her arms.

"I know what he means," she said proudly.

Her eyes met Grantley's. His were fixed very intently on her.

"I don't," he said. "Is it possible for a man to learn these mysteries?"

His tone and words were light; they were even mocking, but not now with
the mockery which hurts.

She flushed a little.

"You'd like to learn?" she asked. "Shall we try to teach him, Frank--to
teach him your code?"

"I'll watch you with him."

For a moment she looked at him appealingly, and then knelt on the floor
and arranged the toys as Frank had wanted them. The little fellow
laughed in triumph.

"How did you know?" asked Grantley.

"I've not lost that knowledge--no, I haven't," she answered almost in a
whisper.

The scene was a spur to his newly stirred impulses. He had rejoiced in
his wife before now; but the clouds had always hung about the cot, so
that he had not rejoiced nor gloried in the mother of his child. His
heart was full as he sat and watched the mother and the child.

"You've got to watch him very carefully still; but he's getting ever so
much more--more----"

"Lucid?" Grantley suggested, smiling.

"Yes," she laughed, "and, if possible, more imperious still. I believe
he's going to be like you in that."

"Oh, not like me, let's hope!"

He laughed, but there was a look of pain on his face.

Sibylla turned round to him and spoke in a low voice, lest by chance the
nurse should hear.

"You mustn't be sure I agree altogether with that," she said, and turned
swiftly away to the child again.

Grantley rose.

"Lift him up to me and let me kiss him," he said.

With grave eyes Sibylla obeyed.

But the natural man is not easily subdued, nor does he yield his place
readily. In the end Grantley was not apt at explanations or apologies.
The evening fell fair and still, a fine October night, and he joined
Sibylla in the garden. Christine remained inside--from tact perhaps,
though she was very likely chilly too. Grantley smoked in silence, while
Sibylla looked down on the little village below.

"This thing has shaken me up dreadfully," he said at last. "The
Courtlands, I mean."

"Yes, I know." She turned and faced him. "And isn't there something else
that concerns you and me?"

"I know of nothing. And you can hardly say the Courtlands concern us
exactly."

"They do; and there is something else, Grantley. I know what Janet
Selford wrote."

"That's nothing at all to me."

"But it is something to me. You know it is."

"I won't talk of that. It's nothing." He put his hand out suddenly to
her. "Let's be friends, Sibylla."

She did not take his hand, but she looked at him with a friendly gaze.

"We really ought to try to manage that, oughtn't we? For Frank's sake,
if for nothing else. Or do you think I've no right to talk about Frank?"

"Suppose we don't talk about rights at all? I'm not anxious to."

"It'll be hard; but we'll try to be friends for his sake--that he may
have a happy home."

Grantley's heart was stirred within him.

"That's good; but is that all?" he asked in a low voice full of feeling.
"Is it all over for ourselves? Can't we be friends for our own sakes?"

"Haven't we lost--well, not the right--if you don't like that--but the
power?"

"I'm an obstinate man; you know that very well."

"It'll be hard--for both of us; but, yes, we'll try."

She gave him her hand to bind the bargain; he gripped it with an
intensity that surprised and alarmed her. She could see his eyes through
the gloom. Were they asking friendship only? There was more than that in
his heart and in his eyes--a thing never dead in him. It had sprung to
fresh vigour now, from the lessons of calamity, from the pity born in
him, from the new eyes with which he had looked on the boy in his
mother's arms. She could not miss the expression of it.

"Is that the best we can try for?" he whispered. "There was something
else once, Sibylla."

He had not moved, yet she raised her hands as though to check or beat
off his approach. She was afraid. All that the path he again beckoned
her on had meant to her came to her mind. If she followed him along it,
would it not be once more to woo disillusion, to court disaster, to
invite that awful change to bitterness and hatred?

"You are you, and I am I," she protested. "It--it is impossible,
Grantley."

His face assumed its old obstinate squareness as he heard her.

"I don't want that," she murmured. "I'll try to be friends. We can
understand one another as friends, make allowances, give and forgive.
Friendship's charitable. Let's be friends, Grantley."

"You have no love left for me?" he asked, passing by her protests.

"For months past I've hated you."

"I know that. And you have no love left for me?"

She looked at him again, with fear and shrinking in her eyes.

"Have you forgotten what I did? No, you can't have forgotten! How can
you wish me to love you now? It would be horrible for both of us. You
may forgive me, as I do you--what I may have to forgive; but how can we
be lovers again? How can we--with that in the past?"

"The past is the past," he said calmly.

She walked away from him a little. When she came back in a minute or so,
he saw that she was in strong agitation.

"That's enough to-night--enough for all time, if you so wish," he said
gently. "Only I had to tell you what was in my heart."

"How could you, Grantley?"

"I haven't said it was easy. I'm coming to believe that the easy things
aren't worth much."

"You could love me again?"

"I've never ceased to love you--only I hope I know a bit more about how
to do it now."

She stood there the picture of distress and of fear. At last she broke
out:

"Ah, I've not told you the real thing! I'm afraid Grantley, I'm afraid!
I dare not love you. Because I loved you so beyond all reason and
all--all sanity, all this came upon us. And--and I daren't love you
again now, even if I could. Yes, I ought to have learnt something too;
perhaps I have. But I daren't trust myself with my knowledge." She came
a step nearer to him, holding out her hands beseechingly. "Friends,
friends, Grantley!" she implored. "Then we shall be safe. And our love
shall be for Frank. You'll get to love Frank, won't you?"

"Frank and I are beginning to hit it off capitally," said Grantley
cheerfully. "Well, I shall go in now: we mustn't leave Christine alone
all the evening." He took her hand and kissed it. "So we're friends?" he
asked.

"I'll try," she faltered. "Yes, surely we can manage that!"

He turned away and left her again gazing down on the village and Old
Mill House. He lounged into the drawing-room where Christine sat, with
an easy air and a smile on his face.

"A beautiful evening, isn't it?" asked Christine with a tiny shudder, as
she hitched her chair closer to the bit of bright fire and threw a
faintly protesting glance at the open window.

"Beautiful weather--and quite settled. I shall enjoy my holiday down
here."

"Oh, you're going to stay down here, and going to have a holiday, are
you?" she asked with a lift of her brows.

"Well, hardly a holiday, after all. I've got a job to do," he answered
as he lit his cigarette--"rather a hard job at my time of life."

"Is it? What is the job?"

"I'm going courting again--and a very pretty woman too," he said.

A rather tremulous smile came on Christine's face as she looked at him.

"It's rather a nice amusement, isn't it?" she asked. "And you always had
plenty of self-conceit."

"Why, hang it, I thought it was just the opposite this time!" exclaimed
Grantley in whimsical annoyance.

Christine laughed.

"I won't be unamiable. I'll call it self-confidence, if you insist."

He took a moment to think over her new word.

"Yes, in the end I suppose it does come to that. Look here, Christine; I
wish the people who tell you you ought to change your nature would be
obliging enough to tell you how to do it."

Christine's answer might be considered encouraging.

"After all there's no need to overdo the change," she said. "And there's
one thing in which you'll never change: you'll always want the best
there is."

"No harm in having a try for it--as soon as you really see what it is,"
he answered, as he strolled off to the smoking-room.




CHAPTER XXV

PICKING UP THE PIECES


Mrs. Bolton was very much upset by what had happened at the Courtlands'.
An unwonted and irksome sense of responsibility oppressed her. She
discussed the matter with Miss Henderson and made Caylesham come to see
her--Miss Pattie Henderson, who knew all about how Sophy's letter had
reached her mother's hands; and Caylesham, whom Mrs. Bolton had made a
party to the joke. It did not seem so good a joke now. She and Pattie
were both frightened when they saw to what their pleasantry had led.
Little Sophy's suffering was not pleasant to think of, and there was an
uncomfortable uncertainty about the manner of Harriet's death. A scheme
may prove too successful sometimes. Caylesham had warned Mrs. Bolton
that she was playing with dangerous tools. He was not now inclined to
let her down too easily, nor to put the kindest interpretation on the
searchings of her conscience.

"You always time your fits of morality so well," he observed cynically.
"I don't suppose poor old Tom's amusing company just now, and he's
certainly deuced hard up."

Mrs. Bolton looked a very plausible picture of injured innocence, but of
course there was something in what Frank Caylesham said; there generally
was, though it might not be what you would be best pleased to find. Tom
was not lively nor inclined for gaiety, and he had just made a
composition with his creditors. On the other hand, Miss Henderson was in
funds (having completed her negotiations with the Parmenter family), and
had suggested a winter on the Riviera, with herself for hostess. There
are, fortunately, moments when the good and the pleasant coincide; the
worst of it is that such happy harmonies are apt to come rather late in
the day.

"It's all different now that woman's gone," observed Mrs. Bolton. "It's
the children now, Frank."

"Supposing it is, why am I to be dragged into it?"

"We must get him to go back to them."

Various feelings combined to make Mrs. Bolton very earnest.

"He wants to stay here, does he?"

"No, he hates being here now. Yes, he does. He only comes because he's
got nobody else to speak to. And he's in awful dumps all the time. It's
not very cheerful for me."

"I daresay not, Flora. But why doesn't he go back then?"

Mrs. Bolton had been moving about the room restlessly. Her back was to
Caylesham as she answered:

"He won't. He says he can't. He says----"

Caylesham threw a glance at her, his brows raised.

"What does he say, Flora?"

"Oh, it's nonsense--and he needn't say it to me, anyhow. It really isn't
particularly pleasant for me. Oh, well, then, he says he's not fit to go
near them." She turned round to him; there was a flush on her face.
"Such nonsense!" she ended impatiently.

Caylesham pulled his moustache, and smiled reflectively.

"I suppose it might take him like that," he observed, with an impartial
air.

"Oh, I know you're only laughing at me! But I tell you, I don't like it,
Frank."

"These little incidents are--well, incidental, Flora. Innocent children,
you know! And I shouldn't be surprised if he even made excuses for
Harriet now?"

"No, he doesn't do that. It's the children. Stop smiling like that, will
you?"

"Certainly, my dear Flora. My smile was a pure oversight."

"It was all I could do to get him to go to the funeral. Do you think she
killed herself, Frank?"

"I've not the least intention of examining the question. What can it
matter?"

Mrs. Bolton shrugged her shoulders impatiently. It did seem to her to
matter, but she would not let Caylesham think that it mattered much. She
returned to her point about the children.

"He's miserable thinking about them, and yet he won't go near them. I
call it idiotic."

"So do I. But then they aren't our children."

"Well, I'm not going to stand his saying it again and again to me."

"I really agree. There can't be any reason for saying such a thing more
than once."

She broke into a vexed laugh.

"When you've had all the fun you can get out of me, perhaps you'll begin
to help me. You see, I want it settled. I want to be off to Monte with
Pattie."

"I see. You want to go with Pattie and----?"

Mrs. Bolton shook her head.

"Just you and Pattie?"

"She's going to stand it to me: I haven't got a farthing. And, I say,
Frank, he ought to go back to those poor little wretches now. You can
make him do it if you like, you know."

"I? Well, I'm an odd sort of party for such a job."

"Not a bit. He'll listen to you just because--well, because----"

"I haven't spared your feelings, Flora, don't mind mine."

"Because he knows you don't talk humbug or cant."

"You're being complimentary after all--or at any rate you're meaning to
be. And you'd never see him again?"

"He'll never want to see me." She was facing Caylesham now. "I've been
fond of poor old Tom. Come, you know I have? Say that for me."

"Yes, I know you have. I've reproved you for it myself."

"But he'll not want to see me--and soon I shan't want to see him
either."

She looked a little distressed for a minute, then shrugged her shoulders
with a laugh.

"That's the way of the world."

"Of part of it," Caylesham murmured as he lit a cigar.

But he was really sorry for Mrs. Bolton. Notwithstanding a notable
mixture of motives, in which the condition of her purse and the
opportunity of going to the Riviera figured largely, she was grieved at
the way in which her friendship with Tom was ending--grieved that it
must end, and hurt that Tom should desire to have it ended. She had
always suffered from this unfortunate tendency to kindly emotions which
the exigencies of her position did not permit her to indulge. Indeed it
was very likely the kindly emotions which had originally produced the
position. That did not make the matter any better; the ultimate
incongruity was none the less undesirable. With his indifference to
accepted codes, Caylesham thought it rather lamentable too. Still she
did want, above all things, to go to the Riviera with Pattie Henderson.
One must compromise with life, and it was not clear that she was getting
the worst of the bargain.

With Flora Bolton set aside (and of course she had no reasonable title
to consideration), the case seemed a simple one to Caylesham, and his
mission an obvious utterance of common sense. He could not enter fully
into Tom Courtland's mind. Tom was not naturally a lawless man;
desperation had made him break loose. The bygone desperation was
forgotten now in pity for his children and for the woman whom, after
all, he had once loved; and he looked with shame on the thing he had
done, attributing to it all the results which Harriet's fury had
engrafted on it. Broken in fortune and in career, broken too in
self-respect, he had been likely to drift on in a life which he had come
to abhor. He felt his presence an outrage on his children. If the death
of his wife had seemed to save him from a due punishment, here was a
penalty different, but hardly less severe. While he was in this mood
Caylesham was the best man to carry the message to him. The only chance
with Tom was to treat what he had done as natural, but to insist that
the sequence of events was utterly unexpected and essentially
unconnected with it. To urge the gravity of his offence would have been
to make reparation and atonement impossible. Caylesham took a very
strong and simple line. He declined to discuss the state of Tom's
conscience, or the blackness of Tom's mind, or even the whiteness of the
minds of the children. Everybody was very much alike, or would be in a
few years anyhow, and Tom was not to be an ass. The line of argument was
not exalted, but it was adapted to the needs of the case.

"My dear chap, if you come to that, what man is fit to look his children
in the face?" he asked impatiently.

But then it occurred to him that he was idealising--a thing he hated.

"Not that children aren't often wicked little beggars themselves," he
added cheerfully. "They steal and lie like anything, and torment one
another devilishly. I know I did things as a boy that I'd kick any grown
man for doing, and so did my brothers and sisters. I tell you what it
is, Tom, the devil's there all the time; he shows himself in different
ways--that's all."

Tom could not swallow this gospel; he would give up neither his own
iniquity nor the halo of purity to which his mind clung amid the sordid
ruin of his life and home.

"If I could pull straight----" he murmured despairingly.

"Why shouldn't you? You're getting on in life, you know, after all."

"They--they guess something about it, I expect, Frank. It's not pleasant
for a man to be ashamed before his own children. And Miss Bligh--I
thought she looked at me very queerly at the funeral."

"You'll find they'll be as nice as possible to you. The children won't
understand anything, and Suzette's sure to be on your side. Women always
are, you know. They're not naturally moral--we've imposed it on them,
and they always like to get an excuse for approving of the other thing."

Tom grew savage.

"I know what I've done, but anyhow I'm glad I don't think as you do."

"Never mind my thoughts, old chap. You go home to your kids," said
Caylesham cheerfully.

He was very good-humoured over the matter; neither all the unnecessary
fuss nor Tom's aspersions on his own character and views disturbed him
in the least; and he did not leave Tom until he had obtained the
assurance that he desired. This given, he went off to his club, thanking
heaven that he was quit of a very tiresome business. If he did his bad
deeds without misgiving, he did his good without arrogance; perhaps they
were not numerous enough to give that feeling a plausible excuse for
emergence.

"It's all right," he wrote to Mrs. Bolton in reporting his success. "I
made him promise not to be an ass. So you can go off with Pattie with a
mind free of care. Good luck to you, and lots of plunder!"

The immoral friendliness of this wish for her success quite touched Mrs.
Bolton.

"Frank's a really good-hearted fellow," she told Miss Henderson as she
settled herself in the train and started on her journey, the fortunes of
which it is not necessary to follow.

For days Lucy and little Vera had crept fearfully through the silent
house, knowing that a dreadful thing had happened, not allowed to put
questions, and hardly daring to speculate about it between themselves.
When Sophy began to be about again, pale and shaken, with the bandage
still round her head, she took the lead as she was wont to do, and her
bolder mind fastened on the change in the situation. There was no need
to be afraid any more; that was the great fact which came home to her,
and which she proclaimed to her sisters. It might be proper to move
quietly and talk low for a little while, but it was a tribute to what
was becoming, not a sign of terror or a precaution against danger. It
was Sophy too who ventured to question Suzette, and to elicit
instructions as to their future conduct. They were to think very kindly
of mamma and love her memory, said Suzette, but they were not to talk
about her to papa when he came back, because that would distress him.
And they were not to ask him why he had gone away, or where he had been.
Of course he had had business; and, anyhow, little girls ought not to be
inquisitive. A question remained in Sophy's mind, and was even canvassed
in private schoolroom consultations. What about that portentous word
which had been whispered through the household--what about the divorce?
None of them found courage to ask that, or perhaps they had pity on poor
Suzette Bligh, who was so terribly uncomfortable under their
questioning. At any rate nothing more was heard about the divorce. Since
it had appeared to mean that papa was to go away, and since he was
coming back now, presumably it had been put on the shelf somehow. All
the same, their sharp instincts told them that their father would not
have come back unless their mother had died, and that he was coming back
now--well, in a sort of disgrace; that was how they put it in their
thoughts.

A committee consisting of Kate Raymore, Janet Selford, and John Fanshaw
(a trustee under the Courtland marriage settlement, and so possessing a
status), had sat to consider Suzette Bligh's position. Suzette loved the
children, and it would be sad if she had to leave them; moreover she was
homeless, and a fixed salary would be welcome to her. Lastly--and on
this point Janet Selford laid stress--she was not exactly a girl; she
was just on thirty. John nodded agreement, adding that nobody outside of
an asylum could connect scandal with the name of Suzette Bligh. So it
was decided that she should stay, for the present at all events, in the
capacity of companion or governess. The children wondered to find
Suzette so gently radiant and affectionate one evening. She had not told
them of the doubt which had arisen, nor how great a thing it was to her
to stay. They had never doubted that she would stay with them now.

It was late one afternoon when Tom Courtland slunk home. He had sent no
word of his coming, because he did not know till the last minute whether
he would have courage to come. Then he had made the plunge, given up his
room at the club, packed his luggage, and left it to be called for. But
the plunge was very difficult to him--so that his weak will would not
have faced it unless that other door at Mrs. Bolton's had been firmly
shut in his face. He was uncomfortable before the man who let him in; he
was wretchedly apprehensive of Suzette Bligh and of the children. He
needed--very badly needed--Caylesham at his elbow again, to tell him
"not to be an ass." But Caylesham had gone back to employments more
congenial than he ever professed to find works of benevolence. Tom had
to endure alone, and he could find no comfort. Against Harriet he could
have made a case--a very good case in the judgment of half the world.
But he seemed to have no excuse to offer to the little girls, nor any
plea to meet the wondering disapprobation of Suzette Bligh.

He was told that the children were in the schoolroom with Suzette, and
thither he bent his steps, going slowly and indecisively. He stopped
outside the door and listened. He could hear Suzette's mild voice;
apparently she was reading to them, for nothing except the continuous
flow of her words was audible, and in conversation she was not so
loquacious as that. Well, he must go in; perhaps it would be all right
when once the ice was broken. He opened the door and stood on the
threshold, blushing like a schoolboy.

"Well, my dears, here I am," he said. "I've come home."

He caught Suzette's eye. She was blushing too, blushing a very vivid
pink--rather a foolish pink somehow. He felt that both he and Suzette
were looking very silly. For quite a long time, as it seemed, he looked
at Suzette before he looked at the little girls. After that there was,
or seemed to be, another long silence while the little girls looked
first at him, then at Suzette, then at one another. Tom stood there
through it all--in the doorway, blushing.

The next moment all the three were upon him, clinging to his hands and
his coat, kissing him, crying out their gladness in little excited
exclamations, the two elder taking care to give Vera a fair chance to
get at him, Vera insisting that the chance was not a fair one, all the
three dragging him to an armchair, and sitting him down in it. Two of
them got on his knees, and Lucy stood by his side with her arm round his
neck.

"My dears!" Tom muttered, and found he could say no more.

His eyes met Suzette Bligh's. She was standing by the table, looking on,
and her eyes were misty.

"See how they love you, Mr. Courtland!" she said.

Yes! And he had forsaken them, and the bandage was about Sophy's head.

"You won't go away again, will you?" implored Lucy.

"No, I shan't go away again."

"And Suzette'll stay too, won't she?" urged Vera.

"I hope she will, indeed!"

"You will, Suzette?"

"Yes, dear."

"We shall be happy," said Sophy softly, with a note of wonder in her
voice.

It really seemed strange to have the prospect of being
happy--permanently, comfortably, without fear; the prospect of
happiness, not snatched at intervals, not broken by terror, but secure
and without apprehension.

Tom Courtland pressed his little children to him. Where were the
reproaches he had imagined, where the shame he had feared? They were
annihilated by love and swallowed up in gladness.

"We do love you so!" whispered Lucy.

Vera actually screamed in happiness.

"Oh, Vera!" said Suzette, rather shocked.

That set them all laughing, the little girls, Tom, presently even
Suzette herself. They were all laughing, though none of them could have
told exactly why. Their joy bubbled over in mirth, and the sound of
gladness was in the house. Tom Courtland held his head up and was his
own man again. Here was something to live for, and something to show
that even his broken life had not been lived in vain. The ghosts of the
past were there; he could not forget them. But the clasp of the warm
little arms which encircled him would keep their chilling touch away
from his heart. Freed from torments that he had not deserved, rescued
from pleasures that he had not enjoyed, he turned eagerly to the
delights of his home which could now be his. His glad children and
kindly Suzette were a picture very precious in his eyes. Here were
golden links by which the fragments of his life could be bound together,
though the fractures must always show--even as the scar would show
always on Sophy's brow, however much her lips might smile or her eyes
sparkle beneath it.

They were roused by a voice from the door.

"It's not hard to tell where you all are! Why, I heard you at the bottom
of the stairs! What a hullabaloo!"

John Fanshaw's bulky figure stood there, solid and bowed with weight and
his growing years. He looked on the scene--on the happy little folk in
their gloomy black frocks--with a kindly smile, and the mock reproof of
his tone hid more tenderness than he cared to show.

"Papa's come back--back to stay!" they cried exultantly. "Isn't that
splendid, Mr. Fanshaw?"

"I hoped I should find you here, Tom; but I came to call on Miss Bligh."

"I hope you'll always find her here too," said Tom.

Suzette was flattered, and fell to blushing again. She was acutely
grateful to anybody who wanted her. She took such a desire as a free and
lavish gift of kindness, never making out any reason which could account
for it.

"I'm only too happy to stay if--if I can be of any use," she murmured.

John sat down and made one of the party. They all chattered cheerfully
till the time grew late. Sophy, still treated as an invalid, had to go
to bed. She kissed John, who held her closely for a moment; then threw
herself in Tom's arms, and could hardly be persuaded to let him go.

"I shall write to Mr. Imason and tell him you've come back," she
whispered as a great secret. "He was so kind to Lucy and Vera
when---- You know, papa?"

Tom passed his hand over her flaxen hair.

"Sleep quietly, darling," he said.

For quiet and peace were possible now.

There had been no expectation that Tom would be home to dinner; and
though Suzette assured him that something could easily be prepared (and
that homely sort of attention was new and pleasant to Tom), he accepted
John Fanshaw's invitation to take pot-luck with him. They walked off
together, rather silent, each full of his own thoughts. They did not
speak until they had almost reached John's door.

"That's the sort of sight that makes a man wish he had children," said
John slowly.

"I've often wished I had none. Poor Harriet!"

"But you're glad of them now?"

"Why, I've nothing else! It just makes the difference to life." He
paused a moment, and then broke out: "And they've nothing but love for
me. Not a word, not a thought of reproach! Just because I've never been
cruel to them, whatever else I've been! Poor little beggars! We can't
keep like that when we grow up. We're too fond of our grievances--eh?"

John looked at him for a moment, but said nothing. They went into the
house in renewed silence. It seemed very large, empty, and dreary.

"Your wife not back yet? I heard she was staying with the Imasons."

"She's there still. I don't know when she's coming back."

"Rather dull for you, isn't it? You know you always depended on her a
lot."

John made no answer, but led the way into his study. He gave Tom an
evening paper, and began to open his letters. But his thoughts were not
on the letters. They were occupied with what he had seen that afternoon
and with the words which had fallen from Tom Courtland's lips. The
children forgave with that fine free forgiveness which will not even
recognise the need for itself or the existence of any fault towards
which it should be exercised. It is there that forgiveness rises to and
is merged in love. But when people grow up, Tom had said, they are too
fond of their grievances. John had been very fond of his grievance. It
was a fine large one--about the largest any man could have, everybody
must admit that; and John had declined to belittle it or to shear off an
inch or two of its imposing stature. All it demanded he had given. But
had he? What about Frank Caylesham's money? Had it not demanded there
something which he had refused? But he had given all it asked so far as
the sinner who had caused it was concerned. Against her he had nursed
and cosseted it; for its sake he had made his home desolate and starved
his heart. Aye, he had always depended on Christine. Tom was right. But
because of his grievance he had put her from him. He was fond of his
grievance indeed! If Tom's children had been old enough to recognise the
true value and preciousness of a big grievance, they would never have
received Tom as they had that afternoon; they would have made him feel
what he had been guilty of. He would have been made to feel it
handsomely before he was forgiven. Children were different, as Tom
Courtland said.

John got up and poked the fire fiercely.

"The house is beastly cold!" he grumbled.

"Ah, it wouldn't be if Mrs. John was at home!" laughed Tom. "She always
looks after the fire, doesn't she?"

John Fanshaw bitterly envied him his peace and happiness. He forgot how
hardly they had been achieved. The vision of the afternoon was before
his eyes, and he declared that fate was too kind to Tom. A heavy dulness
was over his face, and a forlorn puzzled look in his eyes. He must have
done right, he must be doing right! How could a self-respecting man do
otherwise? And yet he was so desolate, so starved of human love, in the
end so full of longing for Christine--for her gracious presence and her
dainty little ways.

With an effort he collected his thoughts from these wanderings, and
began to read his letters. Tom was still occupied with his paper and his
cigar; but he looked up at the sound of an "Ah!" which escaped from
John's lips. John had come on a letter which set his thoughts going
again--a letter from Sibylla. She upbraided him playfully for not having
come down to see them and Christine.

"I'm sure Christine must be hurt with you, though she's much too proud
to say so. We want to keep her over Christmas. Will you come as soon as
you can and stay over Christmas and as long as possible? I've not told
her I'm asking you, so that she mayn't be disappointed if you can't
come."

There was diplomacy in Sibylla's letter, since she knew the state of the
case far better than her references to Christine implied. But John was
not aware of this. His attention was fixed only on the invitation, and
on the circumstances in which it came. He could not go to Milldean and
take his grievance with him; it was too big and obtrusive for other
people's houses--it could flourish properly only in a domestic
_t;te-;-t;te_. So he must stay at home. He sighed as he laid down the
letter. Then his fingers wandered irresolutely to it again as he looked
across at Tom Courtland, who had now ceased reading and was smoking with
a quiet smile on his face.

"Anything up, old fellow?" asked Tom, noting the gravity of his
expression.

"No. It's only from Mrs. Imason, asking me to go down there at
Christmas."

"You go!" counselled Tom. "Better than bringing your wife back here."

There was a third course--the course favoured by the grievance. John did
not speak of it, but it was present in his thoughts. He shook his head
impatiently, and began to talk of general topics; but all the evening
Sibylla's letter was in his mind, ranging itself side by side with the
scene which he had witnessed at Tom Courtland's.

The gloomy idol he had set up in his heart was not yet cast down. But
the little hands of the children had given its pedestal a shake.




CHAPTER XXVI

THE GREAT WRONG


The Raymores were lodging over the post-office at Milldean, in the rooms
once occupied by the curate. The new curate did not need them; he was
staying at the rectory, and meant, after his marriage with Dora Hutting,
to build himself a little house, go on being curate, and ultimately be
rector. He had a well-to-do father who had bought the advowson for him
as a wedding present. His path in life was clear, visible to the very
end, and entirely peaceful--unless Dora decided otherwise. So the rooms
came in handy for the Raymores; and it suited Jeremy's inclination and
leisure to stay the while with his sister on the hill. He had a bit of
work to finish down at Milldean, while the Raymores were there. However
assiduous you may be, love-making in London is liable to interruption;
it must be to a certain degree spasmodic there: business, society, and
such-like trifles keep breaking in. A clear week in the country will do
wonders. Thus thought Jeremy, and it was his brilliant suggestion that
brought the Raymores to Milldean for a month. What more obvious, since
Charley was to land at Fairhaven and to stay a month in England? Spend
that month in London, where things interrupted, and people stared, and
old-time talk was remembered? No! Kate Raymore jumped at the idea that
this wonderful month should be spent in the country, in quiet and
seclusion, among old friends whose lips would be guarded, whose looks
friendly, whose hearts in sympathy.

When Jeremy made this arrangement--so excellent a one that he may be
pardoned for almost forgetting the selfish side of it--he had not failed
to remember Dora Hutting. There had always been alternative endings to
that story. Jeremy's present scheme was a variation from both of them.
None the less, he had come decidedly to prefer it to either. But he had
not allowed for the presence of the curate; and this circumstance,
casually brought to his knowledge by Grantley Imason on the evening of
his arrival, had rather disturbed him. There was another feature in the
case for which he was quite unprepared. The name of the curate was a
famous one--actually famous through the length and breadth of the land!
This was rather a staggerer for Jeremy, who might deride, but could not
deny, the curate's greatness. Certain forms of glory may appeal more to
one man than to another, but all are glorious. The curate was Mallam of
Somerset.

"The Mallam?" asked Jeremy.

"Yes, the Mallam," said Grantley gravely.

"By Jove!" Jeremy murmured.

"I think you ought to forgive her," Grantley suggested. "He's played
twice for England, you know, and made a century the first time."

"I remember," Jeremy acknowledged, looking very thoughtful.

This was quite a different matter from the ordinary curate. Ritualistic
proclivities, however obnoxious to Jeremy in their essence, became a
pardonable eccentricity in a man whose solid reputation had been won in
other fields.

It was not surprising that Dora carried her head very high, or that the
cold politeness of her bow relegated Jeremy to a fathomless oblivion.
Knowing the ways of girls, and reluctantly conscious of Mr. Mallam's
greatness--conscious too, perhaps, that his own riches and fame were not
as yet much in evidence--he was prepared for that. But, alas, Charlie
was a cricketer too, and had infected Eva with his enthusiasm for the
game. She was quite excited about Mallam. Jeremy did not appreciate this
feeling as generously as he might have; yet Eva made no attempt to
conceal it. She rather emphasised it; for she had come to the stage when
she sought defences. After the first eager spring to meet the offered
and congenial love, there comes often this recoil. The girl would have
things stay as they are, since they are very pleasant, and the next step
is into the unknown. She loves delay then, and, since the man will not
have it for its own sake (not knowing its sweetness nor the fear that
aids its charm), she enforces it on him by trickery, and makes him
afraid of losing the draught altogether by insisting on his sipping it
at first. She will use any weapon in this campaign, and an ardent
admiration for Mr. Mallam was a very useful weapon to Eva Raymore. She
said more than once that she considered Dora Hutting a very lucky girl.
She thought Dora must be charming, since Mallam was in love with her.
She held Mallam to be very handsome, and refused to believe--well, that
his talent was so highly specialised as Jeremy tried to persuade her in
words somewhat less gentle than these.

Jeremy's knowledge of girls gave out before this unexpected call upon
it. He recollected how Dora had served him, and how Anna Selford had
trifled with Alec Turner. He grew apprehensive and troubled--also more
and more in love. He forecast complicated tragedies, and saw Mallam
darkening his life wherever he turned. But the women understood--Kate
Raymore, Christine, even Sibylla. They glanced at one another, and
laughed among themselves. They were rather proud of Eva, who played
their sex's game so well.

"Thank goodness, she's learnt to flirt!" said Christine. "A woman's
nowhere without that, my dear, and I don't care whether she's married or
not."

"She just adores Jeremy," Kate assured Sibylla. "Only men can't see, you
know."

Sibylla laughed. She understood now better than in the days when she
herself was wooed. But she blushed a little too, which was strange,
unless, perchance, she found some parallel to Eva's conduct which she
was not inclined to discuss with her friends. Jeremy was not the only
man who went courting just now in Milldean. Nor was Kate Raymore the
only woman whose heart expected a wanderer home, and trembled at the joy
of a long-desired meeting. The period of Mrs. Mumple's expectation was
almost done. In two or three weeks she was to go on a journey; she would
come back to Old Mill House not alone. The house was swept and
garnished, and Mrs. Mumple had a new silk gown. The latter she showed to
Kate, and a new bonnet too, which was a trifle gayer than her ordinary
wear; it had a touch of youth about it. Mrs. Mumple knew very well who
was the best person to show these treasures to, who the best listener to
her speculations as to the manner of that meeting. And she, in turn, was
eager to listen to Kate when the news came that Charley's ship was to be
in quite soon. Kate could not say much about that to anybody except to
Mrs. Mumple; but she was sure that Mrs. Mumple would understand.

When on the top of all this came the announcement that Dora Hutting's
wedding was fixed for that day three weeks, Christine Fanshaw was moved
to protest.

"Really, Grantley," she exclaimed, "this village is a centre of
love-making, of one sort or another!"

"All villages are," said Grantley, suavely tolerant, "or they couldn't
go on being villages. It's life or death to them, Christine."

"That's a contemptible evasion. The atmosphere is horribly sentimental.
I don't think I'm in sympathy with it at all."

"Don't talk to me then," said Grantley. "I like it, you know. Oh, you
needn't fret, my dear friend! There's been lots of trouble--and there'll
be lots more."

"Yes, trouble--and hatred too?"

"Oh, well, suppose we suppose there won't be that?" he suggested. "But
the trouble, anyhow."

"Then everybody oughtn't to pretend that there won't! The way people
talk about marriages is simply hypocrisy."

"When the bather is on the bank, it's no moment for remarking that the
water is cold. And the truth is in our hearts all the time. Am I likely
to forget it, for instance? Or are you likely to forget poor old Tom and
that unhappy woman?"

"Or am I likely to forget myself?" Christine murmured, looking out of
the window. As she looked, Dora passed by, and broad-shouldered young
Mallam with her. "Oh, well, bless the children!" she said, laughing.

"It doesn't do, though, to be too knowing--too much up to all nature's
little tricks," Grantley went on, as he came and stood beside her. "We
oughtn't to give the old lady away. She seems a bit primitive in her
methods sometimes, but, if we don't interfere, she usually gets there in
the end. But we mustn't find out all her secrets."

Christine looked up with a smile and the suspicion of a blush.

"Oh, well, one can always forget them again," she said.

"With the proper assistance," he agreed, smiling. "And after all she's
very accommodating. If you do what she wants, she doesn't care a hang
about your private reasons."

"I call that unscrupulous," Christine objected.

"Oh, yes, the most immoral old hussy that ever was!" he laughed. "I love
her for that. In her matrimonial advertisement the woman is always rich,
beautiful, and amiable!"

"And the man handsome, steady, and constant!"

"So we pay the fees--and sometimes get the article."

"Sometimes," said Christine. "Of course we always suit the description
ourselves?"

"A faith in one's self--secure, impregnable, eternal--is the one really
necessary equipment."

"So you've found?"

"Don't be personal--or penetrating, Christine. The forms of faith
vary--the faith remains."

Christine looked up at him again. Something in her eyes made him pat her
lightly on the shoulder.

"Oh, it's all very well," she murmured in rueful peevishness, "but I
shan't be able to stand too much happiness here."

"Think of the others," he advised, "and you'll regain the balance of
your judgment."

To think of the others was decidedly a good thing. Reason dictated the
survey of a wider field, the discovery and recognition of an average
emerging from the inequalities. The result of such a process should be
either a temperate self-satisfaction or a clear-sighted resignation; you
would probably find yourself not much above nor much below the level
thus scientifically demonstrated. But the ways of science are not always
those of the heart, and that we are less miserable than some people is
not a consolation for being more unhappy than others--least of all when
the happy are before our eyes and the wretched farther off. Neither the
preacher of Grantley's doctrine nor its hearer was converted. Grantley
still wanted the best, and Christine, asking nothing so very great, was
the more aggrieved that she was denied even what she demanded.

Kate Raymore's day came. Only Jeremy accompanied the family to meet the
boat. Kate said they would want somebody to bustle about after the
luggage. In truth, Jeremy seemed to her already as one of her own house.
But he did not seem so to himself. Eva had been very wayward, full of
admiration for Mr. Mallam, and on the strict defensive against Jeremy's
approaches. He was so distressed and puzzled that he might have
comforted even Christine Fanshaw, and that he was in fact exceedingly
bad company for anybody. But the party did not ask for conversation. A
stillness fell on them all as they waited for the boat, Kate clasping
her husband's arm tight while her eyes were fixed on the approaching
ship.

The boy came down the gangway and saw them waiting. He was a
good-looking young fellow, tall and slim, with curly hair. Joy and
apprehension, shame and pride, struggled for mastery on his face. Kate
saw, and her heart was very full. His fault, his flight, his banishment,
were vivid in his mind, and, to his insight, vivid in theirs too. But
there was something else that his eyes begged them to remember--the
struggle to retrieve himself, the good record over-seas, the thought
that they were to be together again for a while without fear and without
a cloud between them. Their letters had breathed no reproach, and had
been full of love. But letters cannot give the assurance of living eyes.
He still feared reproach; he had to beg for love, and to fear to find it
not unimpaired.

"My boy!" whispered Kate Raymore as she clasped him to her arms.

"You're looking well, Charley," said Raymore, "but older, I think."

Yes, he was older; that was part of the price which had fallen to be
paid, and the happiness of reunion could not avail against it. His own
hand had overthrown the first glory of his youth; it had died not
gradually, but by a violent death--the traces were on his face. There
was a touch of awe in Eva's eyes as she kissed her brother--the awe
evoked by one who had fallen, endured, and fought. He had to pay the
uttermost farthing of his debt.

Yet the joy rose supreme, deeper and tenderer for the grief behind it,
for the struggle by which it was won, because it came as a victory after
a heavy fight. To Kate it seemed as though he had suffered for their
sakes as well as for his own sin, since in sorrow over him and his
banishment their hearts had come closer together, and love reigned
stronger in their home. A strange remorse struck her and mingled with
her compassion and her gladness as she held her son at arm's length and
looked again in his eyes. It was hard to keep track of these things, to
see how the good and the evil worked, to understand how no man was unto
himself alone, and not to accuse of injustice the way by which one paid
for all, while all sorrowed for one.

As they turned away to the carriage, Eva touched Jeremy on the arm. He
turned to find her smiling, but her lips trembled.

"If I drive back with them, I shall cry, and then I shall look a
fright," she whispered. "Besides they'd rather have him to themselves
just now. Will you walk back with me?"

"All right," said Jeremy curtly.

His feelings, too, had been touched, so that his manner was cool and
matter-of-fact almost to aggressiveness. He preferred to make nothing at
all of walking back with Eva, though the way was long, and the winter
sun shone over the sea and the downs, the wind was fresh and crisp, and
youthful blood went tingling through the veins.

"It's cold driving, anyhow," he added, as an after-thought.

It was not cold walking, though, or Jeremy did not so find it. It was in
his mind that now he had his chance, if he could find courage to use it
and to force an issue. For him too Charley and Charley's sorrow had done
something. They had induced in Eva a softer mood; the armour of her
coquetry was pierced by a shaft of deep feeling. As they walked she was
silent, forgetting to torment him, silently glad of his friendship and
his company. She said nothing of Dora Hutting's good-fortune or of
Mallam's good looks now. She was thinking of her mother's face as she
welcomed Charley, and was musing on love. It was Jeremy's moment, if he
could make use of it. But in this mood she rather frightened him,
raising about herself defences different from the gleaming barrier of
her coquetry, yet not less effective. He feared to disturb her thoughts,
and it seemed to him that his wooing would be rude and rough.

Suddenly she turned to him.

"You'll be friends with Charley, won't you? Real friends, I mean? You
won't let what--what's happened stand in the way? You see, he'll be
awfully sensitive about it, and if he fancies you're hanging back, or
anything of that kind----"

Her eyes were very urgent in their appeal.

"Of course I shall be friends with him; I shouldn't dream of----"

"I'm sure you'll like him for his own sake, when you know him. And till
then, for mother's sake, for our sake, you'll be nice to him, won't
you?"

"Do you care particularly about my being nice to him?"

"Of course I do! We're friends, you see."

Jeremy's fear wore off; excitement began to rise in him; the spirit of
the game came upon him. He turned to his work.

"Are we friends?" he asked. "You've not been very friendly lately."

"Never mind me. Be friendly with Charley."

"For your sake?"

"For our sake, yes."

"I said, for your sake."

A smile dimpled through Eva's gravity.

"'Your' is a plural, isn't it?" she asked.

"Then--for thy sake?" said Jeremy. "That's singular, anyhow."

"Oh, for my sake, then, if you think it worth while."

"I don't think anything worth while except pleasing you, Eva. I used to
manage it, I think; but somehow it's grown more difficult lately."

He stopped in his walk and faced her. She walked on a pace or two, but
he would not follow. Irresolutely she halted.

"More difficult? Pleasing me grown more difficult?"

"Well, pleasing you as much as I want to, I mean." Jeremy in his turn
smiled for a moment; but he was in deadly earnest again as he stepped up
to her and caught hold of her hands. "Now's the time," he said. "You've
got to say yes or no."

"You haven't asked me anything yet," she murmured, laughing, her eyes
away from him and her hands in his.

"Yes, I have, dozens of times--dozens and dozens. And I'm not going to
ask it again--not in words, anyhow. You know the question."

"It's horribly unfair to--to do this to-day--to-day, when I'm----"

"Not a bit. To-day's the very day for it, and that's why you must answer
to-day." A deeper note came into his words, deeper than he had commanded
when he made love to Dora Hutting on these same downs not so very long
ago. "I make love to you to-day because love's in your heart to-day.
You're wanting to love; it's round about us, Eva."

For an instant she saw in him a likeness she had never noticed before--a
likeness to Sibylla: Sibylla's ardent all-demanding temper seemed to
speak in his words.

"Yes, this is the day--our day. And this day shall be the beginning or
the end. You know the question. What's the answer, Eva?"

He let go of her hands, and drew back two or three paces. He left her
free; if she came to him, it must be of her own motion.

"How very peremptory you are!" she protested.

Her cheeks were red now, and the look of sorrow had gone out of her
eyes. Her breath came quick, and when she looked at the sea the waves
seemed to dance to the liveliest music. At sea and land she looked, at
the sky and at the wintry sun; her glance touched everywhere save where
Jeremy stood.

"The answer!" demanded Jeremy.

For a moment more she waited. Then she came towards him hesitatingly,
her eyes not yet seeking his face. She came up to him and stood with her
hands hanging by her side. Then slowly she raised to his face the large
trustful eyes which he had known and loved so well.

"The answer is Yes, Jeremy," she said. "For all my life and with all my
heart, dear!"

"I knew this was the right day!" cried Jeremy.

"Oh, any day was right!" she whispered as she sought his arms.

A couple of hours later he burst into Grantley Imason's room, declaring
that he was the happiest man on earth. This condition of his, besides
being by no means rare in young men, was not unexpected, and
congratulations met the obvious needs of the occasion. Sibylla, who was
there, was not even very emotional over the matter; the remembrance of
Dora Hutting inclined her mind towards the humorous aspect--so hard is
it to appreciate the changeful processes of other hearts. But Jeremy
himself was excited enough for everybody, and his excitement carried him
into forgetfulness of a solemn pledge which he had once given. He wrung
Grantley's hand with a vigour at once embarrassing and painful, crying:

"I owe it all to you! I should never have dared it except for the
partnership that's coming, and that was all your doing. Without your
money----"

"Damn you, Jeremy," said Grantley in a quiet whisper, rescuing his hand
and compassionately caressing it with its uninjured brother.

The imprecation seemed to be equally distributed between Jeremy's two
causes of offence, but Jeremy allocated it to one only.

"Oh, good lord!" he said, with a guilty glance at Sibylla.

"What money?" asked Sibylla.

She had been sitting by the fire, but rose now, and leant her shoulder
against the mantelpiece.

Jeremy looked from her to Grantley.

"I'm most awfully sorry. I forgot. I'm a bit beside myself, you know."
Grantley shrugged his shoulders rather crossly. "I won't say another
word about it."

"Oh, yes, you will, Jeremy," observed Sibylla with a dangerous look.
"You'll tell me all about it this moment, please."

"Shall I?" Jeremy turned to Grantley again.

"I expect the mischief's done now; but you needn't have lost your memory
or your wits just because you're going to marry Eva Raymore."

"Marrying does make people lose their wits sometimes," said Sibylla
coldly. Grantley's brows lifted a little as he plumped down in a chair
with a resigned air. "Tell me what you mean, Jeremy."

"Well, I had to put money into the business if I was ever to be more
than a clerk--if I was ever to get a partnership, you know."

"And Grantley gave you the money?"

"I'm going to pay it back when--when----"

"Yes, of course, Jeremy dear. How much was it?"

Grantley lit a cigarette, and came as near looking uncomfortable as the
ingrained composure of his manner allowed.

"Five thousand," said Jeremy. "Wasn't it splendid of him? So, you see, I
could afford----"

"Five thousand to Jeremy!" said Sibylla. She turned on Grantley. "And
how much to John Fanshaw?"

"You women are all traitors. Christine had no business to say a word. It
was pure business; he pays me back regularly. And Jeremy's going to pay
me back too. Come, I haven't done any harm to either of them."

"No, not to them," she said. And she added to Jeremy: "Go and tell
Christine. She'll be delighted to hear about you and Eva."

"By Jove, I will! I say, I'm really sorry, Grantley."

"You ought to be. No, you may do anything except shake my hand again."

"I can't help being so dashed jolly, you know."

With that apology he darted out of the room, forgetting his broken
pledge, intent only on finding other ears to hear his wonderful news.

"It's very satisfactory, isn't it?" asked Grantley. "I think they'll get
on very well, you know. He's young, of course, and----"

"Please don't make talk, Grantley. When did you give him that money?"

"I don't remember."

"There are bank-books and so on, aren't there?"

"How businesslike you're getting!"

"Tell me when, please."

Grantley rose and stood opposite to her, even as they had stood in the
inn--at the Sailors' Rest at Fairhaven.

"I don't remember the date." He paused, seemed to think, and then went
on: "Yes, I'll tell you, because then you'll understand. He came to me
the morning of the day you--you went over to Fairhaven. While he was
there, Christine's letter came. And I gave him the money because I
wanted to put you in the wrong as much as I could. Oh, I liked Jeremy,
and was willing to help him--just as I was ready to help old John. But
that wasn't my great reason. My great reason was to get a bigger
grievance against you--for the way you had treated me, and were going to
treat me, you know."

"If it had been that, you'd have told me--you'd have told me that night
in the inn. You must have known what it would have been to me to hear it
then; but you never told me."

"I wouldn't part with the pleasure of having it against you--of nursing
it against you secretly. I want you to understand the truth. Are you
very angry?"

Sibylla appeared to be angry; there was a dash of red on her cheeks.

"Yes, I'm angry," she said; "and I've a right to be angry. You're good
to John Fanshaw; you're good to Jeremy. Have you been good to me?"

"It was done in malice against you--and in petty malice, I think now,
though I didn't think that then."

"Doing it was no malice to me. You did it in love of me!" Her words were
a challenge to him to deny; and, looking at her, he could not deny. He
had never denied his love for her, and he would not now. "The wrong you
did me was not in doing it, but in not telling me; yes, not telling me
about that, nor about what you did for John Fanshaw either."

"I couldn't risk seeming to try to make a claim, especially when----"

"Especially when making a claim on me might have saved me! Is that what
you mean? When it might have made all the difference to me and to Frank?
When it might have turned me back from my madness? All was to go to ruin
sooner than that you should risk seeming to make a claim!"

He attempted no answer, but stood very still, listening and ready to
listen. Her voice lost something of its hardness, and became more
appealing as she went on.

"They're allowed to know your good side, the kind things you do, how you
stand by your friends, how you help people, how you lavish gifts on my
brother for my sake. You don't hide it from them. They know you can
love, and love to give happiness. There are only two people who mayn't
know--the two people in all the world who ought to know, whose happiness
and whose trust in themselves and in one another lie in knowing. They
must be hoodwinked and kept in the dark. They're to know nothing of you.
For them you find the bad motive, the mean interpretation, the selfish
point of view. And you're so ingenious in finding it for them! Grantley,
to those two people you've done a great wrong."

He was silent a moment. Then he asked:

"To you and the little boy, you mean?"

"No: he's too young. Anyhow, I didn't mean him; I wasn't thinking of
him. You know that sometimes I don't think of him--that sometimes, in
love or in hatred, I can think of nothing in the world but you, but you
and me. And it's to me and to yourself that you've done the wrong."

"To you--and myself?"

"Yes, yes! Oh, what's the use of doing fine things if you bury them from
me, if you distort them to yourself, if you won't let either me or
yourself think them generous and good? Why must you trick me and
yourself, of all the world? Oughtn't we to know--oughtn't we of
everybody in the world to know? What's the good of kindness if you dress
it up as selfishness? What's the good of love if you call it malice?"

"I've spoken the truth as I believed it."

"No, I say no, Grantley! You've spoken it as you would have me believe
it, as you try to make yourself believe it. But it's not the truth!" She
came one step nearer to him. "I used to pray that you should change,"
she said imploringly. "I don't pray that now. It's impossible. And I
don't think I want it. Don't change; but, oh, be yourself! Be yourself
to me and to yourself. You haven't been to either of us. Open your heart
to both of us; let us both know you as you are. Don't be ashamed either
before me or before yourself. I know I'm difficult! Heavens, aren't
you--even the real you--difficult too? But if you won't be honest in the
end, then God help us! But if you'll be yourself to me and to yourself,
then, my dear, I think it would be enough."

He came to her and took her hand.

"No man ever loved woman more than I love you," he said.

"Then try, then try, then try!" she whispered, and her eyes met his.

There seemed in them a far-off gleam of the light which once had blazed
from them on the fairy ride.




CHAPTER XXVII

SAMPLES OF THE BULK


"You do think they'll be happy?" Mrs. Selford asked a little
apprehensively. Her manner craved reassurance.

"Why put that question to me--to me, of all people? Is it on the
principle of knowing the worst? If even a cynic like me thinks they'll
be happy, the prospect will be very promising--is that it?"

"Goodness knows I don't expect the ideal! I've never had it myself. Oh,
I don't see why I need pretend with you, and I shouldn't deceive you if
I did. I've never had the ideal myself, and I don't expect it for Anna.
We've seen too much in our set to expect the ideal. And sometimes I
can't quite make Anna out." Mrs. Selford was evidently uneasy. "She gets
on better with her father than with me now; and I think I get on better
with Walter than Richard does."

"Young Walter has a way with him," smiled Caylesham.

"I hope we shan't get into opposite camps and quarrel. Richard and I
have been such good friends lately. And then, of course----" She
hesitated a little. "Of course there may be a slight awkwardness here
and there."

Caylesham understood the covert allusion; the marriage might make
matters difficult with the Imasons.

"The young folks will probably make their own friends. Our old set's
rather broken up one way and the other, isn't it? Not that I was ever a
full member of it."

"We've always been glad to see you," she murmured absently.

"On the whole I feel equal to encouraging you to a certain extent," he
said, standing before the fire. "Anna will be angry pretty often, but I
don't think she will be, or need be, unhappy. She doesn't take things to
heart too readily, does she?"

"No, she doesn't."

The assent hardly sounded like praise of her daughter.

"Well, that's a good thing. And she's got lots of pluck and a will of
her own."

"Oh, yes, she's got that!"

"From time to time he'll think himself in love with somebody. You're
prepared for that, of course? But it's only his way. She'll have to
indulge him a little--let the string out a little here and there; but
she'll always have him under control. Brains do count, and she's got
them all. And she won't expect romance all the time."

"You said you were going to be encouraging."

"I am being encouraging," Caylesham insisted.

"Oh, I shouldn't think it so bad if we were talking about myself. But
when it's a question of one's child----"

"One is always unreasonable? Precisely. The nature of the business isn't
going to change in the next generation. But I maintain that I'm
encouraging--for Anna, anyhow. I rather fancy Master Blake will miss his
liberty more than he thinks. But that'll be just what he needs. So from
a moral point of view I'm encouraging there too."

"Of course you don't understand the feeling of responsibility, the fear
that if she's the--the least bit hard, it may be because of her bringing
up."

"Don't be remorseful, Mrs. Selford. It's the most unprofitable of
emotions."

He had preached the same doctrine to Christine.

"When it's too late to go back?"

"And that's always." He looked down at her with a cheerful smile.
"That's for your private ear. Don't tell the children. Walter Blake's
quite great on remorse."

Mrs. Selford laughed rather ruefully.

"I suppose it'll turn out as well as most things. Do you know any
thoroughly happy couples?"

"Very hard to say. One isn't behind the scenes. But I'm inclined to
think I do. Oh, ecstasies aren't for this world, you know--not permanent
ecstasies. You might as well have permanent hysterics! And, as you're
aware, there are no marriages in heaven. So perhaps there's no heaven in
marriages either. That would seem to be plausible reasoning, wouldn't
it? But they'll be all right; they'll learn one another's paces."

"I can't help wishing she seemed more in love."

"Perhaps she will be when she flirts with somebody else. Don't frown!
I'm not a pessimist. If I don't always look for happiness by the
ordinary roads, I often discern it along quite unexpected routes."

"It's pleasant to see people start by being in love."

"How eternally sentimental we are! Well, yes, it is. But capacities
differ. I daresay she doesn't know she's deficient, and she certainly
won't imagine that her mother has given her away."

"I suppose I deserve that, but I had to talk to somebody. And really
it's best to choose a man; sometimes it stops there then."

"Why not your husband? No? Ah, he has too many opportunities of
reminding you of the indiscretion! You were quite right to talk to me.
We shall look on at what happens with all the greater interest because
we've discussed it. And, as I've said, I'm decidedly hopeful."

"We might have developed her affections when she was a child. I'm sure
we might."

"Oh, I shall go! You send for a clergyman!"

Mrs. Selford shook her head sadly, even while she smiled. She could not
be beguiled from her idea, nor from the remorse that it brought. The
pictures, the dogs, and sentimental squabbling with her husband had
figured too largely in the household; she connected with this fact the
disposition which she found in Anna.

"Being a bit hard isn't a bad thing for your happiness," Caylesham added
as a last consolation.

Anna herself came in. No consciousness of deficiency seemed to afflict
her; she felt no need of a development of her affections or of being
more in love with Walter Blake. On the contrary she exhibited to
Caylesham's shrewd eyes a remarkable picture of efficiency and of
contentment. She had known what she wanted, she had discerned what means
to use in order to get it, and she had achieved it. A perfect
self-confidence assured her that she would be successful in dealing with
it; her serene air, her trim figure and decisive movements gave the
impression that here at least was a mortal who, if she did not deserve
success, could command it. Caylesham looked on her with
admiration--rather that than liking--as he acknowledged her very
considerable qualities. The thing which was wanting was what in a
picture he would have called "atmosphere." But here again her luck came
in, or, rather, her clear vision; it was not fair to call it luck. The
man she had pitched upon--that was fair, and Caylesham declined to
withdraw the expression--at the time when she pitched upon him, was in a
panic about "atmosphere." He had found too much of it elsewhere, and was
uneasy about it in himself. He was not asking for softness, for
tenderness, for ready accessibility to emotion or to waves of feeling.
Her cleverness had turned to account even the drawback which made
Caylesham, in the midst of his commendation, conscious that he would not
choose to be her husband--or perhaps her son either.

"You'll make a splendid head of the family," he told her cheerfully.
"You'll keep them all in most excellent order."

She chose to consider that he had exercised a bad influence over Walter
Blake, and treated him distantly. Caylesham supported the entire
injustice of her implied charge with good-humour.

"You're not fond of excellent order, I suppose?" she asked.

"In others," said he, smiling. "May I come and see it in your house
sometimes? I promise not to disturb it."

"I don't think you could."

"She taunts me with my advancing years," he complained to Mrs. Selford.

Anna's disapproval of him was marked; it increased his amusement at the
life which lay before Walter Blake. Blake would want to disturb
excellent order sometimes; he would be indulged in that proclivity to a
strictly limited extent. If Grantley Imason were a revengeful man, this
marriage ought to cause him a great deal of pleasure. Caylesham, while
compelled to approve by his reason, could not help deploring in his
heart. He saw arising an ultra-British household, clad in the very
buckram of propriety. Who could say that morality did not reign in the
world when such a nemesis as this awaited Walter Blake, or that morality
had not a humour of its own when Walter Blake accepted the nemesis with
enthusiasm? Yet the state of things was not unusual--a fair sample of a
bulk of considerable size. Caylesham went away smiling at it, wondering
at it, in the depths of his soul a trifle appalled at it. It seemed to
him rather inhuman; but perhaps his idea of humanity had gone a trifle
far in the opposite direction.

And, after all, could not Walter Blake supply the other element? There
was plenty of softness about him, and the waves of feeling were by no
means wanting in frequency or volume. Considering this question,
Caylesham professed himself rather at a loss. He would have to wait and
look on. But would he hear or see much? Anna had evidently put him under
a ban, and he believed that her edicts would obtain obedience in the
future. So far as he could see now, he had a vision of the waves stilled
to rest, of the gleam of frost forming upon them, of an ice-bound sea.
Now he felt it in his heart to be sorry for young Blake. Not because
there was any injustice. The nemesis was eminently, and even
ludicrously, just. He felt sorry precisely because it was so just. He
was always sorry for sinners who had to pay the penalty of their deeds;
then a fellow-feeling went out to them. Of course they were fools to
grumble. The one wisdom he claimed for himself was not grumbling at the
bill.

He paid another visit that day, under an impulse of friendliness, and
perhaps of curiosity too. He went to Tom Courtland's, and found himself
repaid for his trouble by Tom's cordiality of greeting. The Courtland
family was in the turmoil of moving; they had to go to a much smaller
house, and to reduce the establishment greatly. But the worries of a
move and the prospect of comparative poverty--there was very little left
besides Harriet's moderate dowry--were accepted by Tom very cheerfully,
and by the children with glee; they were delighted to be told that there
would be no more menservants and fewer maids, and that they would have
to learn to shift for themselves as much and as soon as possible. They
were glad to be rid of "this great gloomy house," over which the shadow
of calamity still brooded.

"The children don't like to pass Lady Harriet's door at night," Suzette
whispered in an aside to Caylesham.

Tom himself seemed younger and more sprightly; and he was the slave of
his little girls. His grey hair, the lines on his face, and the enduring
scar on Sophy's brow spoke of the sorrow which had been; but the sorrow
had given place to peace--and it might be that some day peace would turn
to joy. For there was much youth there, and, where youth is, joy must
come, if only it be given a fair chance.

"We're rather in narrow circumstances, of course," Tom explained when
Suzette and the children were out of earshot. "That's because I made
such an ass of myself."

"Well, don't be hard on Flora. She was a good friend to you."

"I'm not blaming her; it's myself, Frank. I ought to have remembered the
children. But we can rub along, and perhaps I shall get a berth some
day."

Caylesham did not think that prospect a very probable one, but he
dissembled and told Tom that his old political friends ought certainly
to do something for him:

"Because it never came to an absolute public row, did it?"

"Everybody knew," sighed Tom, with a relapse into despondency.

"Anyhow you won't starve," Caylesham said with a laugh. "I reckon you
must have above a thousand a year?"

"It's not much; but--well, I tell you what, Frank, Suzette Bligh's
pretty nearly as good as another five hundred, and I only pay her
seventy pounds a year. You wouldn't believe what a manager that little
woman is! She makes everything go twice as far as it did, and has the
house so neat too. Upon my soul, I don't notice any difference, except
that I've dropped my champagne."

"Well, with champagne what it mostly is nowadays, that's no great loss,
my boy, and I'm glad you've struck it rich with Miss Bligh."

"We should be lost without her. I don't know what the children would do,
or what I should do with them, but for her. One good thing poor Harriet
did, anyhow, was to bring her here."

Yes; but if Harriet had known how it was to fall out, had foreseen how
Suzette was to reign in her stead, and with what joy the change of
government would be greeted! Caylesham imagined, with a conscious
faintness of fancy, the tempest which would have arisen, and how short a
shrift would have been meted out to Suzette and all her adherents. He
really hoped that poor Harriet, who had suffered enough for her faults,
was not in any position in which she could be aware of what had
happened; it would be to her (unless some great transformation had been
wrought) too hard and unendurable a punishment.

"The children are changed creatures, Frank," Tom went on. "We don't try
to repress them, you know. That would be hypocrisy, wouldn't it, under
the circumstances? The best thing is for them to forget. Suzette says
so, and I quite agree."

Suzette, it seemed, could achieve an epitaph of stinging quality--quite
without meaning it, of course. Caylesham agreed that the best thing the
girls could do was to forget their mother.

"So we let them make a row, and they're to go out of mourning very soon.
That's what Suzette advises."

A merciful Providence must spare even poor Harriet this! She was to be
forgotten--almost by a violent process of obliteration; and this by
Suzette's decree--an all-powerful decree of gentle inconspicuous
Suzette's.

The man of experience foresaw. Weak kindly Tom Courtland must always
have a woman to fend for him. Because Harriet had not filled that part,
ruin had come. The children must have a guardian and a guide in feminine
affairs. The bonds were becoming too strong to be broken--so strong that
the very idea of their ever being broken would cause terror, and impel
steps to make them formally permanent. Here was another sample from a
bulk of goodly dimensions, one of those by no means rare cases where a
woman who would not otherwise have got a husband--or perhaps taken
one--passes through the stage of the indispensable spinster to the
position of the inevitable wife. Caylesham saw the process begun, and he
was glad to see it. It was the best thing that could happen to Tom, and
for the girls the best way of piecing together the fragments of that
home-life which Harriet's cruel rage had shattered. Only they were all
still so delightfully unconscious of what seemed so obvious to an
outsider with his eyes about him. Caylesham smiled at their blindness,
and took care not to disturb Tom's mind, or to rally him about his
harping on Suzette's name and Suzette's advice. He was quite content to
leave the matter to its natural course. But coming, as it did, on the
top of his visit to the Selfords' and of his impressions of what he had
seen there, it raised another reflection in his mind. How many roads
there were to Rome! And most of them well trodden. Primitive instinct or
romantic passion was only one of many--anyhow if the test of
predominating influence were taken. It was not the prevailing factor
with Anna Selford; it would hardly count at all with Tom and Suzette.
Since then the origin was so various, what wonder the result was various
too! Various results were even expected, aimed at, desired. Add to that
cause of variation human error and the resources of the unexpected, and
the field of chance spread infinitely wide. Save for the purpose of
being amusing--an end to which all is justifiable that is not actually
unseemly--only a fool or a boy would generalise about the legal state
which was the outcome of such heterogeneous persons, aims, and tempers.
But then at the end old nature--persistent old nature--would come back
and give the thing a twist in her direction, with her babies and her
nursery. She made confusion worse confounded, and piled incongruity on
incongruity. But she would do it, and a pretty mixture was the general
result. To make his old metaphor of double harness at all adequate to
the subject which it sought to express, you must suppose many breeds of
horses, and a great deal of very uneven and very unsuitable pairing of
them by the grooms. It was probably all necessary, but the outcome was
decidedly odd.

"It's all been pretty bad. I can't bear to think of poor Harriet, and
I'm not fond of thinking about myself," said Tom Courtland, rubbing his
bristly hair. "But the worst of it's over now. There's peace anyhow,
Frank, and at least the children were always fond of me."

"You're going to get along first-rate," Caylesham assured him. "And mind
you make Miss Suzette stick to you. She's a rare woman; I can see that."

"You're a good chap, Frank. You stick to your friends. You stuck to me
all through."

"Much less trouble than dropping you, old fellow."

"That's rot!"

"Well, perhaps it is. After all, if I hadn't some of the minor virtues,
I should be hardly human, should I? They're just as essential as the
minor vices."

"If you ever see Flora, tell her--well, you'll know what to tell her."

"I'll say something kind. Good-bye, Tom. I'm glad to find you so
cheerful."

The girls came round him to say good-bye. He kissed them, and gave each
of them half a crown. He used to explain that he always tipped children
because in after years he was thus made sure of finding somebody to
defend his character in pretty nearly any company. Since, however, this
was absolutely the only step he ever took with any such end in view, the
explanation was often received with scepticism. His action was more
probably the outcome of one of his minor virtues.

"How kind you are to children! What a pity you're a bachelor!" smiled
Suzette.

"Thanks! I don't often get such a testimonial," he said, risking a
whimsical lift of his brows for Tom Courtland's eye.

He had been seeking impressions of marriage. Chance gave him one more
than he had looked for or desired. Just outside Tom Courtland's, as he
was going away, he ran plump into John Fanshaw, who was making for the
house. There was no avoiding him this time. The men had not met since
Caylesham lent John money and John learnt from Harriet Courtland the
truth of what the man from whom he took the money had done. But there
had been no rupture between them. Civil notes had been written--on
John's side even grateful notes--as the business transaction between
them necessitated. And both had a part to play--the same part, the part
of ignorance. Caylesham must play it for Christine. John had to assume
it on his own account, for his own self-respect. The last shred of his
pride hung on the assumption that, though he knew, and though Christine
was aware of his knowledge, Caylesham at least believed him ignorant.

But heavy John Fanshaw was a clumsy hand at make-believe. His
cordiality was hesitating, fumbling, obviously insincere; his
unhappiness in his part very apparent. Caylesham cut short his effort to
express gratitude, saying, "You shall do anything in the world except
thank me!" and went on to ask after Christine in the most natural manner
in the world.

"She's been a little--a little seedy, and has gone down to stay with the
Imasons for a bit," John explained, taking care not to look at
Caylesham.

"Oh, I hope she'll be all right soon! Give her my remembrances when you
write--or perhaps you'll be running down?"

"I don't know. It depends on business."

"Come, you'll take Christmas off, anyhow?"

Then John took refuge in talking about Tom Courtland. But his mind was
far from Tom. He managed at last to look Caylesham in the face, and grew
more amazed at his perfect ease and composure. He was acutely conscious
of giving exactly the opposite impression himself, acutely fearful that
he was betraying that hidden knowledge of his. Actuated by this fear, he
tried to increase his cordiality, hitting wildly at the mark, and
indulging in forced friendliness and even forced jocosity.

Caylesham met every effort with just the right tone, precisely the right
amount of effusiveness. He had taken a very hard view of what John had
done--harder than he could contrive to take of what he himself had--and
had expressed it vigorously to Christine. But now he found himself full
of pity for poor John. The sight of the man fighting for the remnant of
his pride and self-respect was pathetic. And John did it so lamentably
ill.

"You're a paragon of a debtor," Caylesham told him, when he harked back
to the money again. "My money's a deal safer in your hands than in my
own. I'm more in your debt than you are in mine."

"You shall have every farthing the first day I can manage it."

His eagerness told Caylesham what a burden on his soul the indebtedness
was. It was impossible to ignore altogether what was so plainly shown;
but he turned the point of it, saying:

"I know how punctilious you men of business are. I wish fellows were
always the same in racing. I'm ready to take it as soon as you're ready
to pay, and to wait till you're ready."

"I shan't ask you to wait a day," John assured him.

Enough had passed for civility; Caylesham was eager to get away--not for
his own sake so much as for John's.

"By Jove, I've got an appointment!" he exclaimed suddenly, diving for
his watch. "Half-past six! Oh, I must jump into a cab!" He held the
watch in one hand, and hailed a cab with his stick. "Good-bye, old
fellow," he said, turning away. He had seen John begin to put out his
hand in a hesitating reluctant way. He would have liked to shake hands
himself, but he knew John hated to do it. John made a last demonstration
of ignorance.

"Come and see us some day!" he called almost jovially.

"Yes, I will some day before long," Caylesham shouted back from the step
of his hansom.

As he drove off, John was still standing on the pavement, waving a hand
to him. Caylesham drove round the corner, then got down again, and
pursued his way on foot.

He was quite clear in his own mind that John took the thing
unnecessarily hard, but he was genuinely sorry that John should so take
it. Indeed John's distress raised an unusually acute sense of discomfort
in him. Nor could he take any pride in the tact with which he himself
had steered the course of the interview. He could not avoid the
conclusion that to John he must have seemed a hypocrite more
accomplished than one would wish to be considered in the arts of
hypocrisy. He had hitherto managed so well that he had not been forced
into such situations; he had been obliged to lie only in his actions,
and had not come so near having to lie in explicit words. He did not
like the experience, and shook his head impatiently as he walked along.
It occurred to him that since marriage was in its own nature so
difficult and risky a thing as he had already decided, it was hardly
fair for third persons to step in and complicate it more. He had to get
at any state of mind resembling penitence by roads of his own; the
ordinary approaches were overgrown and impassable from neglect. But in
view of John's distress and of the pain which had come on Christine, and
on a realisation of the unpleasant perfection of art which he himself
had been compelled (and able) to exhibit, he achieved the impression
that he had better have left such things alone--well, at any rate where
honest old duffers as John Fanshaw were involved in the case. Having got
so far, he might not unnaturally have considered whether he should
remodel his way of life.

But he was not the man to suffer a sudden conversion under the stress of
emotion or of a particular impression. His unsparing clearness of vision
and honesty of intellect forbade that.

"I shall get better when I'm too old for anything else," he told himself
with a rather bitter smile. "I suppose I ought to thank God that the
time's not far off now."

It was not much of an effort in the way of that unprofitable emotion
against which he had warned Christine Fanshaw and Janet Selford; but it
was enough to make him take a rather different view, if not of himself,
at least of old John Fanshaw. He decided that he had been too hard on
John; and at the back of his mind was a notion that he had been rather
hard on Christine too. In this case it seemed to him that he was getting
off too cheaply. John and Christine were paying all the bill--at least a
disproportionate amount. The upshot of it all was expressed in his
exclamation:

"I don't want the money. I wish to heaven old John wouldn't pay me
back!"

He would have felt easier for a little more demerit in John. It is
probable, though his philosophising did not lead him so far as this
conclusion, that he too was a sample, and from a bulk not inconsiderable
in quantity. Where it is possible, we prefer that the people we have
injured should turn out to have deserved injury from somebody.




CHAPTER XXVIII

TO LIFE AND LIGHT AGAIN


It was the eve of Dora Hutting's wedding--a thing in itself quite enough
to put Milldean into an unwonted stir. Everybody was very excited about
the event and very sympathetic. Kate Raymore had come to the front; not
even preoccupation with Charley could prevent a marriage from
interesting her. She had given much counsel, and had exerted herself to
effect a reconciliation between the bride and Jeremy Chiddingfold. Into
this diplomatic effort Sibylla also had been drawn, and peace had been
signed at a tea-party. With the help of Christine's accomplished manner
and Grantley's tactful composure, it had been found possible to treat
the whole episode as a boy-and-girl affair which could be laughed at and
thus dismissed into oblivion. The two principals could not take quite
this view; but they consented to be friends, to wish each other well,
and to say nothing about the underlying contempt which each could not
but entertain for the other's fickleness. For Jeremy would have been
faithful if Dora had been, and Dora could not perceive how the fact of
her having made a mistake as to her own feelings explained the
extraordinary rapidity with which Jeremy had been able to transfer an
affection professedly so lasting and so deep. Christine warned her that
all men were like that--except Mr. Mallam; and Grantley told Jeremy that
Dora was flighty, as all girls were--except Eva Raymore. So peace,
though not very cordial peace, was obtained, the satirical remarks which
the parties felt entitled to make privately not appearing on the face of
the formal proceedings.

Important though these matters might be, they were not in Sibylla's mind
as she stood at the end of the garden and looked down on Old Mill House.
Twenty-four hours before, Mrs. Mumple had started on her journey.
Sibylla, Eva, and Jeremy had escorted her to Fairhaven. The fat old
woman was very apprehensive and tremulous; anxious about her looks and
the fit of her new silk gown; full of questionings about the meeting to
which she went. It was impossible not to smile covertly at some of these
manifestations, but over them all shone the beauty of the love which had
sustained her through the years. Sibylla prayed that now it might have
its reward, half wondering that it had lived to claim it--had lived so
long in solitude and uncomforted. It had never despaired, however long
the waiting, however much it was starved of all satisfaction, bereft of
all pleasure, condemned to seeming uselessness, even unwelcomed, as one
well might fear. These things had brought pain and fear, but not despair
nor death. Yet Mrs. Mumple was not by nature a patient woman; naturally
she craved a full return for what she gave, and an ardent answer to the
warmth of her affection. None the less she had not despaired; and as
Sibylla thought of this, she accused herself because, unlike the old
woman, she had allowed herself to despair--nay, had been ready, almost
eager, to do it, had twisted everything into a justification for it, had
made no protest against it and no effort to avoid it. That mood had led
to ruin; at last she saw that it would have been ruin. Was there now
hope? It was difficult to go back, to retrace the steps so confidently
taken, to realise that she too had been wrong. Yet what else was the
lesson? It came to her in one form or another from every side--from the
Courtlands, where death alone had been strong enough to thwart the evil
fate; from the Raymores, where trust, bruised but not broken, had
redeemed a boy's life from evil to good; even from Christine, who waited
in secret hope; above all, from the quarter whence she had least looked
for it--from Grantley himself, for whom no effort was too great, who
never lost confidence, who had indeed lacked understanding but had never
lacked courage; who now, with eyes opened and at her bidding, was
endeavouring the hardest thing a man can do--was trying to change
himself, to look at himself with another's eyes, to remodel himself by a
new standard, to count as faults what he had cherished as virtues, to
put in the foremost place not the qualities which had been his pets, his
favourites, his ideals, but those which another asked from him, and
which he must do himself a violence to display. Had she no corresponding
effort to make? She could not deny the accusation. It lay with her too
to try. But it was hard. John Fanshaw found it sorely difficult, grossly
against his prejudices, and even in conflict with principles which he
held sacred, to belittle his grievance or to let it go. Sibylla was very
fond of her grievances too. She was asked to look at them with new eyes,
to think of them no more as outrages, as stones of stumbling and rocks
of offence. She was asked to consider her grievances as opportunities.
That was the plain truth about it, and it involved so much recantation,
such a turning upside down of old notions, such a fall for pride. It was
very hard to swallow. Yet unless it were swallowed, where was hope? And
if it were swallowed, what did it mean? An experiment--only another
difficult experiment. For people are not changed readily, and cannot be
changed altogether. Difficulties would remain--would remain always; the
vain ideal which had once governed all her acts and thoughts would never
be realised. She must not be under any delusion as to that. And now, in
her heart, she was afraid of delusion coming again; and again
disillusion must follow.

She turned to find Grantley beside her, and he gave her a telegram
addressed to her. She opened it with a word of thanks.

"From John Fanshaw!" she exclaimed eagerly. "He's coming down here
to-night!"

"Well, you told him to wire whenever he found he could get down, didn't
you?"

"Yes, of course. But--but what does it mean?"

He smiled at her.

"I'm not surprised. Christine had a letter from him this morning. I saw
the handwriting. I'm taking a very sympathetic interest in Christine, so
I look at the handwriting on her letters. And she's been in a state of
suppressed excitement all the morning. I've noticed that--with a
sympathetic interest, Sibylla."

"I think I ought to go and see her."

"Not just yet, please. Oh yes, I hope it'll be a good day for her! And
it'll be a great day for your poor old Mumples, won't it? I hope Mr.
Mumple will behave nicely."

"Oh, so do I with my whole heart!" cried Sibylla.

"I'm taking a very sympathetic interest in the Mumples also, Sibylla.
Likewise in Dora and her young man, and Jeremy and his young woman. Oh,
and in the Raymores and Charley! Anybody else?"

Sibylla looked at him reprovingly, but a smile would tremble about the
corners of her mouth.

"You see, I've been thinking over what you said the other day," Grantley
went on with placid gravity, "and I've made up my mind to come and tell
you whenever I do a decent thing or have an honest emotion. I shan't
like saying it at all, but you'll like hearing it awfully."

"Some people would be serious about it, considering--well, considering
everything," Sibylla remarked, turning her face away.

"Yes, but then they wouldn't see you smile--and you've an adorable
smile; and they wouldn't see the flash in your eyes--and you've such
wonderful eyes, Sibylla."

He delivered these statements with a happy simplicity.

"You're not imposing on me," she said. "I know you mean it." Her voice
trembled just a little. "And perhaps that's the best way to tell me."

"On the other hand, I shall become a persistent and accomplished
hypocrite. You'll never know how I grind the faces of the poor at the
bank, nor my inmost thoughts when Frank drops half his food on my best
waistcoat."

"You're outrageous. Please stop, Grantley."

"All right. I'll talk about something else."

"I think I'd better find Christine. No, wait a minute. If you're going
to do all these fine things, what have you planned for me?"

"Nothing. You've just to go on being what you can't help being--the most
adorable woman in England."

"I don't know what you mean to do, but what you are doing is----"

"Making love to you," interposed Grantley.

"Yes, and in the most unblushing way."

"I'm doing the love-making, and you're doing the----"

"Stop!" she commanded, with a hasty merry glance of protest.

"You ought to be used to it. I've been doing it for a month now," he
complained.

Sibylla made no answer, and Grantley lit a cigarette. When she spoke
again she was grave and her voice was low.

"Don't make love to me. I'm afraid to love you. You know what I did
before because I loved you. I should do it again, I'm afraid. I haven't
learnt the lesson."

"Are you refusing the only way there is of learning it? How have I
learnt all the fine lessons that I've been telling you?"

"I've not learnt the lesson. I still ask too much."

"If I give all I have, it'll seem enough to you. You'll know it's all
now, and it'll seem enough. All there is is enough--even for you, isn't
it?"

"You didn't give me all there was before."

"I had a theory," said Grantley. "I'm not going to have any more
theories."

She turned to him suddenly.

"Oh, you mustn't ask--you mustn't stand there asking! That's wrong,
that's unworthy of you. I mustn't let you do that."

"That was the theory," Grantley said with a smile. "That was just my
theory. I'm always going to ask for what I want now. It's really the
best way."

"We're friends, Grantley?" she said imploringly.

"Is that all there is? Would it seem to you enough?"

"And we've Frank. You do love him now, you know."

"In and through you."

She made no answer again. He stood with his eyes fixed on her for some
moments. Then he took the telegram gently from her hand and went into
the house with it, to seek Christine Fanshaw.

He left Sibylla in a turmoil of feeling. That she loved him was nothing
new; she had always loved him, and she had never loved any other man in
that fashion. The fairy ride had never been rivalled or repeated; and
she had never lost her love for him, even when she hated him as her
great enemy. It had always been there, whether its presence had been
prized or loathed, welcomed or feared, whether it had seemed the one
thing life held, or the one thing to escape from if life were to be
worthy. Blake had not displaced it; he had been a refuge from it.
Grantley's offence had never been that he did not love her, nor that he
could not hold her love; it was that he loved her unworthily and claimed
to hold her as a slave. Her case was not as Christine Fanshaw's, any
more than her temper was the temper of her friend. And now he came
wooing again, and she was sore beset. So memory helped him, so the
unforgettable communion of bygone love enforced his suit. Her heart was
all for yielding--how should it not be to the one man whose sway it had
ever owned? He was to her mind an incomparable wooer--incomparable in
his buoyant courage, in the humour that masked his passion, in the
passion which used humour with such a conscious art, feigning to conceal
without concealing, pretending to reveal without impairing the secrecy
of those impenetrable sweet recesses of the heart, concerning which
conjecture beats knowledge and the imagination would not be trammelled
by a disclosure too unreserved. But she feared and, fearing, struggled.
They were friends. Friends could make terms, bargains, treaties,
arrangements. Friendship did not bar independence, absolute and
uninfringed. Was that the way with love--with the love of woman for man,
of wife for husband? No, old Nature came in there with her unchanging
decisive word, against which no bargain and no terms, no theory and no
views, no claims or pretensions, no folly and no wisdom either, could
prevail. All said and done, all concessions made, all promises pledged,
all demands guaranteed, they all went for little. The woman was left to
depend on the trust she had, helpless if the trust failed her and the
confidence were misplaced. If she were wrong about herself or about the
man, there was no help for it. The love of the woman was, after all and
in spite of all, surrender. Times might change, and thoughts and
theories; this might be right which had been wrong, and that held wrong
which had been accounted right. The accidents varied, the essence
remained. The love of the woman was surrender, because old Nature would
have it so. If she gave such love--or acknowledged it, for in truth it
was given--she abandoned all the claims, the grievances, the wrongs, all
that had been the basis of what she had done. She took Grantley on faith
again, she put herself into his hands, again she made the great venture
with all its possibilities. She had seemed wrong once. Would she seem
wrong again?

There was a change in him: that she believed. Was there a change too in
her? Unless there were, she did not dare to venture. Had all that she
had suffered, all that she had seen others suffer, brought nothing to
her? Yes, there was something. When you loved you must understand, and,
knowing the truth, love that or leave it. You must not make an image and
love that, then make another image and hate that. You must love or leave
the true thing. And to do that there is needed another surrender--of
your point of view, your own ideas of what you are and of how you ought
to be treated. To get great things you must barter great things in
return. There are seldom cheap bargains to be had in costly goods. Had
not Grantley learnt that? Could not she? It took generosity to learn it.
Was she less generous than Grantley? The question hit her like a blow.
If Grantley had done as she had, would she still have loved, would she
have come again to seek and to woo? Ah, but the case was not truly
parallel. Grantley sought leave to reign again--to reign by her will,
but still to reign. That was not what was asked of her.

Was it not? Eagerly stretching out after truth, seeking the bed-rock of
deep truth, her mind, spurred by its need, soared above these
distinctions, and saw, as in a vision, the union of these transient
opposites. Was not to reign well to serve well, was not faithfully to
obey the order of the universe to be a king of life? If that vision
would abide with her, if that harmony could be sustained, then all would
be well. The doubts and fears would die, and the surrender be a great
conquest. When she had tried before, she had no such idea as this. Much
had been spent, much given, in attaining to the distant sight of it. But
if it were true? If Grantley, ever courageous, ever undaunted, had won
his way to it and now came, in a suppliant's guise, to show her and to
give her the treasures of a queen?

While she still mused, the little boy came toddling over the lawn to her
side, holding up a toy for her interest and admiration. She caught him
up and held him in her arms. Had he nothing to say to it all? Had he
nothing to say? Why, his eyes were like the eyes of Grantley!

The clock of the old church struck five, and on the sound a cab appeared
over the crest of the opposite hill. Sibylla, with Frank in her arms,
watched its descent to Milldean, and then went into the house to put on
her hat. In view of the ancient love between her and Mumples, it was her
privilege to be the first to greet the returned wanderer; she alone
would properly understand and share Mumples' feeling. For all her
sympathy, Kate Raymore was a friend of too recent standing--she had not
witnessed the years of waiting. Jeremy's affection was true enough, but
Mumples feared the directness of his tongue and the exuberance of his
spirits. Highly conscious of the honour done to her, somewhat alarmed at
the threatened appeal to her ever too ready emotion, Sibylla went down
the hill.

A pale frail old student with the hands of a labouring man--that was her
first impression of Mumples' husband. He had the air of remoteness from
the world and of having done with the storms of life which comes to men
who have lived many years in a library; his face was lined, but his eyes
calm and placid. Only those incongruous hands, with their marks of toil,
hinted at the true story. He spoke in a low voice, as though it might be
an offence to speak loud; his tones were refined and his manner
respectful and rather formal. It was evidently unsafe to make any parade
of sympathy with Mumples--she was near breaking-point; but the exchange
of a glance, on which Sibylla ventured, showed that her agitation was of
joy and satisfaction. Evidently the meeting had disappointed the worst
of her fears and confirmed the dearest of her hopes.

"I have to thank you, madame," the old man said, "for the great kindness
you and your family have shown to my wife during my absence."

"We owe her far more than she owes us. I don't know what we should have
done without her."

"The knowledge that she had good friends did much to enable me to endure
my absence," he went on. "She's looking well, is she not, madame? She
appears to me less changed than I had thought possible."

Sibylla could not resist another quick glance at Mumples.

"And I haven't seen her for ten years."

He paused and looked at Sibylla in a questioning way.

"Don't worry any more about that, Luke," said Mrs. Mumples with her hand
on his shoulder. "You knew what suited you best. What was the good of my
coming, if it wasn't to be a comfort to you."

"It was selfish of me, madame; but you've no idea what it is to be
in--in such circumstances as I was. I've been unfortunately a man of
quick temper, and I couldn't trust myself in all cases. I got beside
myself if I was reminded of the outside world--of all I was losing--how
the years went by--of my wife, and the home and the life I might have
had. It was because I loved her that I wouldn't see her----"

"Yes, yes, I'm sure of that," said Sibylla hastily.

"But it was selfish, as love sometimes is, madame. I ought to have put
her first. And I never thought what it would mean to her when I did what
brought me to that place. Well, I've paid for it with my life. They've
taken my life from me."

"You've many years before you, dear," whispered Mrs. Mumple.

"I have so few behind me," he said. "They've blotted out two-thirds of
my life. Looking back on it now, I can't see it as it was. It seems
long, but very empty--a great vacant space in my life, madame."

"Ah, but you've your home and your dear wife now--and we shall all be
your friends."

How dull and cold her words seemed! Yet what else was there to say in
face of the tragedy?

"I'm deeply grateful to her and to Heaven; but I--I have nothing left.
It seems to me that the years have taken everything."

Mrs. Mumple put her hand down to his worn hand and caressed it.

"You'll be better by-and-by, dear," she said.

"I'm deadened," he persisted sadly.

"Don't feel like that," Sibylla implored. "Your life will come back to
you in the sunshine and the country air. We shan't let you feel like
that. Why, it's full of life here. There's a wedding to-morrow, Mr.
Mumple! And another engaged couple--my brother and Miss Raymore! And
you'll like my husband, and I'll bring my baby boy to see you."

"Such a pretty little dear," exclaimed Mumples.

"You must take an interest in us," smiled Sibylla; "and then you'll be
pleased when we are--won't he, Mumples? Because you're to be one of us,
just as your wife is."

Mrs. Mumple suddenly turned away and, murmuring something about getting
tea, escaped from the room. The old man fixed his eyes on Sibylla's face
in a long inquiring gaze.

"You say that to me, madame? I don't deserve to have that said to me.
You're a beautiful young lady, and very kind, I know, and good, I'm
sure. Your husband is lucky, and so is your son. But I've been a convict
for seventeen years, and it's only by a chance I'm not a murderer. I'm
not fit to come near you nor yours--no, not near your little boy."

Sibylla came to him and took his work-worn hand. He saw that she meant
to kiss it and held it back.

"A convict and in heart a murderer, madame," he said, his lips trembling
a little and his calm eyes very sad. "I'm not fit for you to touch."

"I'll tell you something," said Sibylla. "You call me kind and good--you
say my husband and my boy are lucky, and you tell me you're not fit for
me to touch--for me to touch! I tried to run away from my husband, and I
was ready to leave my little boy to his death."

A great wonder came into the old man's eyes; he asked no question, but
he ceased to resist her persuading grasp. She raised his hand to her
lips and kissed it.

"I thought my heart was dead, as you think yours is. But light and life
have come back into mine, and you mustn't shut yours against them. You
must try to be happy, if it's only for dear old Mumples' sake. She's
thought of nothing but making you happy all these years." She laid her
hand on his shoulder. "And love us too. For my husband's and my boy's
sake keep the secret I've told you, but remember it when you feel
despairing. It wasn't easy for me to speak of it, but I thought it would
give you hope; and it will prevent you feeling the sort of thing you
felt about me, and I hope about any of us."

He turned his eyes to hers.

"You're telling me the truth, I know, madame," he said slowly. "It's a
very strange world. I'll try not to despair."

"No, no, don't despair; above all, don't despair," whispered Sibylla.

"I have a remnant of my days, and I have the love of my wife. God has
left me something out of the wreck that I've made."

Sibylla stooped and kissed him on the brow. He caught her hands and
looked again in her eyes for a long time.

"It is true? And your eyes are like the eyes of an angel."

He relaxed his hold on her, and sank back in his chair with a sigh.

"I'm tiring you," said Sibylla. "I'll go now, and leave you alone with
Mumples. I'll call her back here. No, I can't stay to tea--you've made
me think of too much. But I'll come to-morrow and bring my little boy."

"If what you say is true, you must pray for yourself sometimes? Pray for
me too, madame."

"Yes, I'll pray for you the prayer I love best: 'Those things which for
our unworthiness we dare not and for our blindness we cannot ask----' I
will pray for those, for you and for me. And because you're an old man
and have suffered, you shall give me your blessing before I go."

She knelt to receive his trembling benediction, then rose with a glad
smile on her face. She saw Mumples standing now on the threshold of the
room, and kissed her hand to her.

"The old is done, and the new is begun," she said to the old man as she
pressed his hand in farewell.

She walked slowly up the hill in the peaceful dusk. Lights burned in the
church: the village choir was laboriously practising an ambitious effort
for the next day. There were lights in the windows over the post-office;
one was open to the mild evening air, and Jeremy's voice in a
love-ballad competed enviously with the choir's more pious strains, till
it was drowned in a merry protest of youthful shouts. When she reached
home, there was a light in the nursery, and the nurse was singing softly
to the little boy. Her agitation was passed, her emotion was gentle now,
and her face peacefully radiant. Her grievances seemed small beside the
old man's suffering, her woes nothing beside his punishment, her return
to life and light so much easier than his. He had but a remnant of life
left--the rest had been demanded of him in ransom for his deed, and the
ransom had been exacted to the uttermost farthing. He was poor, though
not destitute; but she was rich. Her life lay still before her with all
its meaning and its possibilities--its work and its struggles, its
successes and its failures, the winning of more victories, the effort
and the resolve not to lose what had been so hardly won. Soberly she
looked forward to it, assessing and measuring her strength and weakness
and the strength and weakness of those with whom her life was cast. She
had no more of the blind and reckless confidence of her first essay; her
eyes were open. Her knowledge did not forbid her soul reaching out to
the joy that was to come, but it whispered that the joy was not all, and
that the joy must be fairly won. Yet she welcomed the joy with the
innate ardour of her mind, exultant that now she might take it, that now
it could prove no delusion because she had learnt wherein lay the truth
of it. The clue was in her fingers. The path might be rough sometimes,
uphill sometimes, not all in pleasant valleys and soft beguiling scenes;
there would be arid tracts, perhaps, and bleak uplands. Such was the Way
of Life: she recognised it now. The clue was in her hand, and though she
might weary and stumble, she would not be utterly lost or belated.




CHAPTER XXIX

WITH OPEN EYES


Sibylla had allotted to Christine a small sitting-room on the first
floor of the house to be her private resort during her visit; they
neither of them liked a drawing-room existence all day long. Here
Christine sat waiting John Fanshaw's arrival. She had taken much thought
wherewithal she should be clothed, but that was rather the instinct
which asserted itself in her on any occasion of moment than a token of
confidence in the weapon of becoming apparel. A fair appearance was
never to be wholly neglected by the wise, but she did not rely on it
now. The most that any charming could do would be to extort a passing
admiration, which in its turn might secure a transient forgiveness; but
a reaction of feeling would surely wait on it. She did not want to be
forgiven in that way. In truth she hardly wanted forgiveness at all; at
any rate she would greatly dislike the process. She had been put in the
corner, as she said. The position was not pleasant; but being called out
again with the admonitions suitable to the moment was scarcely a more
agreeable situation. By parting her from him, first in spirit, then in
daily life, John had hardened her heart towards him. He had made her
dwell more and more not on her sin, but on his right to inflict a
penalty. More and more she had remembered what Caylesham had said, and
had asked if he who benefited by the act--of his own will benefited by
it--had any title to despise the hand which was guilty of it. John's
distress, his doubts, struggles, and forlornness, had pleaded against
this judgment of him while she was with him. The idea of them had grown
faint with absence; John had left himself to be dealt with by reason
then, and reason saw only what he had done; the eye could no longer
trace the sorrow and the struggle which had gone with his deed.

Her mind was on Caylesham too. She had just read a letter from Anna
Selford. It was full of Anna and her frocks. (Much advice was
needed--when was Mrs. Fanshaw coming back to town?) It had a good deal
to say of Blake and his handsome presents; and it touched on Caylesham
with a rather acrimonious note. He had been to see them, and had not
made himself very agreeable; really Anna did not see that there was
anything to criticise, nor, above all, that Lord Caylesham had any call
to set up as a critic if there were. Christine smiled over the passage,
picturing so well the veiled irony and the intangible banter which
Caylesham would mingle with his congratulations and infuse into his
praises. Anna would not shrink nor retreat, but she would be angry and
rather helpless before the sting of these slender darts. Memories
stamped on her very soul stood out in salient letters, and the face of
Caylesham seemed to hang in the air before her eyes. To remember loving
is not to love, but it may make all other love seem a second-rate thing.
She loved Caylesham no longer, but she was without power to love anyone
as she had loved him. Others had his vices, others his virtues such as
they were. The blend in him had been for her the thing her soul asked.
Time could not wither the remembrance, though it had killed the feeling
itself. Not John's displeasure was the greatest price she had paid; not
John's forgiveness could undo or blot out the past. John's friendship
and comradeship were the best thing the world had to offer her now--and
she wanted them; but she wanted them not as the best, but because there
was nothing better.

She had no thought of blame for Caylesham, nor of bitterness against
him. Here her fairness of mind came in--her true judgment of herself.
All along she had known what he was and what he gave, as well as what
she was and gave. He had given all he had ever professed to give. (She
was not thinking of words or phrases, but of the essence of the
attachment, well known to both.) If it had not been all she sought,
still she had accepted it as enough--as enough to make her happy, enough
return for all she had to offer. She would not repudiate the bargain
now. Frank had been straight and fair with her, and she would cast no
stone at him. Only it was just very unlucky that matters should fall out
in the way they had, and that she should be the sort of person she
was--a bad sinner, because she could not minimise nor forget--a bad
penitent, because she could not feel remorse that the fault had been
committed, nor humbly seek forgiveness for it. It had abided with her
always--now as a pleasure, now as a threatening danger, as both together
sometimes. Even at this moment it was at once the cause of all her
sorrow and her greatest solace in the world.

Yet in the days between the end of her love for Caylesham and the
discovery which had been made by John there had been another
happiness--when she was on good terms with her old friend John, when
things went well with them, when he admired her--yes, when he treated
her as something precious, clever, and brilliant. Then she had rejoiced
in his pride in her, and given of the best she had to preserve and to
strengthen it. Now, in resentment against John, she sought to deny this.
But in what mood would John come? The maintenance of her denial depended
largely on that.

Suddenly she heard the sound of wheels stopping before the gate of the
house. She sat erect and listened. The hall-door opened. She waited till
she heard it close again, then sprang up, cast a glance at a
looking-glass over the mantelpiece, then turned and faced the door. Her
lips were a little parted; she stood very still. Expectation mingled
with defiance in her bearing. A few minutes passed before there was a
knock at the door. She cleared her throat to cry:

"Come in!"

John entered and closed the door carefully behind him; but he did not
advance towards her at once. He stood where he was, with a curious
deprecatory smile on his face. She thought he looked rather old and
worn, and he was shabbily dressed, as his habit was when he had to look
after his own wardrobe without advice and criticism. He carried the
sense of forlornness, as he had when he sat with Caylesham's cheque
before him, and the air of being ashamed too. But his manner gave now no
hint of anger. Christine's heart went out to him in a quick impulse of
sympathy; but she crushed the feeling down, and would give no outward
sign of it. She waited in stillness and silence. It was for him to
speak, for him to set the note of their interview, and of more than
their interview--of their future life, and of how they were to be to one
another henceforward.

"Here I am, Christine. Mrs. Grantley told me I should find you in this
room; and here I am."

She nodded her head coolly, but gave him no other welcome. He came two
or three steps towards her, holding out his hands in front of him in an
awkward way, and with that ashamed pleading smile still on his lips.

"I can't get on without my old girl," he said.

In a flash of her quick intuition she knew his mind. The one sentence
revealed anything which his manner had left doubtful. He was doing what
he thought wrong, and doing it because he could not help it. He was
abandoning a great and just grievance, and thereby seemed to be
sacrificing the claims of morality, condoning what deserved no
forgiveness, impairing his own self-respect. His position, with all its
obvious weakness, had not become untenable in theory, and his reason,
hard-bound in preconceptions, was not convinced. He came under the
stress of feeling, because his life had become intolerable, because, as
he said in one of his phrases of rough affection, he could not get on
without his old girl. The need he had of her conquered the grievance
that he had against her, and brought him back to her. He came with no
reproaches, no parade of forgiveness, with neither references to the
past nor terms for the future.

It was a triumph for Christine, and of the kind she prized and
understood best--a woman's triumph. It had not been expected; it was
none too well deserved. A colour came on her cheeks, and she breathed
rather quickly as she realised the completeness of it. For a moment she
was minded to use it to the full, and, since she was no longer the
criminal, to play the tyrant in her turn. But the very perfection of the
victory forbade. It inspired in her a feeling which reproaches would
have been powerless to raise--a great pity for him, a new and more
genuine condemnation of herself. Had she been so much as that to him,
and yet had used him so ill?

"I've been lonely too, John," she said. "Come and kiss me, my dear."

He came to her diffidently, and hardly touched her cheek when he kissed
her.

"That doesn't feel a bit like you, John," she said, with a nervous
laugh, as she made him sit by her on the sofa. "Now tell me all about
everything! I know that's what you want to do."

That was what he wanted to do--to take her back into the life which was
so empty and incomplete without her--to have her again to share his
interests and to be a partner in his fortunes. Yet for the moment he
could not do as she bade him. He was much moved, and was very unready at
expressing emotion. He sat in silence, gently caressing her hand. It was
she who spoke.

"Of course there's a lot to say; but don't let's say it, John. You'll
know I'm feeling it, and I shall know that about you too. But don't
let's say it." She broke into a smile again. "I should argue, you
know--I always argue! And then---- But if we say nothing about it,
perhaps we--well, perhaps we can nearly forget it, and take up the old
life where we broke it off. And it wasn't a bad old life, after all, was
it, in spite of the way we both grumbled?"

"My dear old girl!" he murmured.

"I suppose you must be as vulgar as you like to-day!" said Christine,
with a dainty lift of her brow and an affected resignation. Then
suddenly she turned and kissed him, saying gravely: "I'm grateful, John,
and don't--don't think there's anything wrong in being generous."

"I only know I've got to have you back with me," he said. "That's all I
know about it anyhow."

"I think it's enough, then," she whispered softly.

Presently the gates of John's mouth were loosed, and he began to tell
all his news. It was mainly about his business--how it flourished, how
he had built up his credit again, of the successes he had won; that as
soon as he had paid off his debts--a moment of embarrassment befell him
here--they would be as well off as ever they had been; horses could be
bought again, the diamonds could reappear, there would be no need to
stint Christine of any of the things that she loved. All that he had
longed for sympathetic ears to hear in the last months came bubbling out
now. And Christine was ready to listen. As he talked and she heard, the
old life seemed to revive, the old interests of every day came back,
exercised anew their uniting power, and brought with them the old
friendship and comradeship. Christine had said that they could "nearly
forget." The words had her courage in them; they had her caution too. To
forget what had come upon them and between them was impossible--in
Christine's obstinate heart even at this moment hardly desired; but it
was possible nearly to forget--at most times so nearly to forget as to
relegate the thing to some distant chamber of the heart and not let it
count in the commerce and communion of the life which they lived
together and which bound them to one another with all its ties. That was
the best thing which could be looked for, since the past, being
irrevocable in deed, is also not to be forgotten in thought. They were
picking up and piecing together the fragments. The ruin here had not
been as utter as it had at poor Tom Courtland's, where the same process
was being undertaken; but there had been a crash, and, though the pieces
might be joined, there would be marks to show the fracture. Yet even the
memory that refused to die brought its good with it. After the ruin came
the love which had in the end sought restoration; if the one could not
be forgotten, the other would always claim an accompanying remembrance.
From this remembrance there might well emerge an affection deeper,
stronger, and more proof against the worries and the friction of common
life which in the old days had so often disturbed their peace and
interrupted their friendship.

Before dinner Christine found an opportunity to visit Sibylla in her
room. Her own brief excitement and agitation had passed off; Sibylla
seemed the more eager of the two about the event of the day. Christine
related it. Her comments on it and on what it meant ran very much in the
foregoing vein, but was modified by her usual veneer of irony for which
her friend made easy allowance. Sibylla had been prepared for an ecstasy
of sympathetic congratulation; but it was evident that though
congratulation might be welcomed, ecstasy would be out of place. Neither
Christine's conclusions from the past nor her anticipations of the
future invited it.

"How reasonable you are, Christine!" sighed Sibylla. "And how immoral!"
she added, with a smile. "You're not really very sorry about it all, you
know. You're just very glad the trouble is over. And you don't expect a
bit more than it's quite likely you'll get! Do you know, you're very
useful to me?"

"My reasonableness or my immorality?"

"One's an example and the other's a warning," laughed Sibylla.

"I don't think I'm immoral. I've had an awful lesson, and I intend to
profit by it. There'll be nothing more of that sort, you know."

"Why not?" Sibylla asked, curious to probe her friend's mind.

"I don't know. No temptation--being sorry for John--being afraid--being,
between ourselves, thirty-five. It all sounds rather mixed, but it
results in a good resolution. And as for the future----" She frowned
just a little. "Oh, it'll be all right, and a great deal better than
I've been thinking lately."

"I must get more like you--not quite like you, but more like you. I
must--I must!" Sibylla declared vehemently. "Has being thirty-five a
great deal to do with it? Because then I can wait and hope."

"I should think it had a good deal to do with it," admitted Christine
dispassionately. "Oh, well, I needn't run myself down too much. Really
John has a good deal to say to it."

"I've Frank too."

"Yes, you have; and you're in love with your husband, my dear."

"That doesn't always make it easier."

"At any rate it keeps up one's interest in the whole affair," smiled
Christine.

"You're happy, anyhow?"

"Happy? Yes, reasonably happy--and I suppose immorally too. At any rate,
I'm settled, and that's really a comfort in its way."

"I don't know that I care so much about being settled. Perhaps I shall
at thirty-five!"

The idea of years making any difference to her moods or her needs seemed
rather a new one to Sibylla. Evidently she was holding it in her mind
and turning it over in her thoughts.

The idea was with her still as she sat rather silent at the dinner-table
that evening. They had a little party, for all the Raymores joined them,
and young Mallam was there also, their guest for the night. Christine
was very gay and satirical. John watched her with ready admiration, but
less ready understanding. The young men were rather noisy, toasting
to-morrow's wedding to the confusion of the bridegroom and the equal
confusion of Eva Raymore, to whose not distant destiny both Jeremy's
words and Jeremy's eyes made references by no means covert. Kate Raymore
and her husband looked on with the subdued and tempered happiness which
was the outcome of their great sorrow, their triumph over it, and the
impending departure of their son, to complete the working out of his
atonement. They talked of the Selfords with some irony, of poor Harriet
Courtland, of Tom and his children with a sympathetic hopefulness and a
touch of amusement at the importance their dear old Suzette Bligh was
assuming and was, it seemed, to assume in the household. Sibylla's own
thoughts widened the survey, embracing in it the couple down at Old Mill
House--the faithful patient woman whose love made even the ridiculous
touching; the broken old man who had given the best of his life in
expiation for a brief madness, and now crept home to end his days,
asking nothing but peace, hoping at best not to be despised or shunned.
Above in his cot lay her little son, at the other end of the scale, at
the beginning of all things; and opposite to her was Grantley himself,
unbroken, but not unchanged; obedient to the lessons, but never put out
of heart by them; doing violence to what he had held most truly and most
preciously himself in order to the search and discovery of something
more true and precious still. The idea of the ever-passing years and of
feelings and fortunes appropriate to each stage of life helped her, but
was not enough. There were differences of minds too, of tempers and of
views; and every one of them implied a fitting in, perhaps a paring away
here or an addition there--a harmonising; these things must be if the
system was to work. Reluctantly and gradually her ardent mind, by nature
ever either buoyant in the heaven of assured hope or cast down to the
depths of despair, bowed to the middle conclusion, and consented to look
through the eyes of wisdom and experience. Happy he who can so look and
yet look without bitterness, who can see calamity without despair, and
accept partial success without peevishness. There were the hopeless
cases. These must be explained, or left unexplained, by what creed or
philosophy you chose to hold. There were--surely there were!--the few
perfect ones, where there was not even danger nor the need for effort or
for guard. Of such she had deemed hers one. It had needed much to open
her eyes--much sorrow and wrong in her own life--much sorrow, wrong, and
calamity in the lives which passed within her view. But her eyes were
open now. Yet she took courage--she took courage from Grantley, whose
crest was not lowered, though his heart was changed.

So spoke reason, and to it Sibylla bowed. The array of cases, the
marshalling of instances--all that the people and the lives about her
had represented and typified--their moral was not to be denied. But
reason is not the sole governor, nor even the only teacher. It might
open her eyes; it might even moderate the arrogance of her demands; it
could not change the temper of her heart. She was not even chilled, far
less embittered. She went forth to meet life and love as ardently as
ever. The change was that she knew more what these things were which she
started forth to welcome, and perceived better to what she must attune
herself. She would hope and enjoy still. But she asked no more a
privilege over her fellows. She could hope as a mortal without immunity
from evil, and enjoy as one to whom there is allotted a portion of
sorrow--and not of her own only, nor perhaps of her making, nor of her
fault, since by her own act and by nature's will her being was bound up
with the being of others, and her happiness or misery, success or
failure, lay in the common fortune and the common weal. For any mortal
perfect independence is a vain thing fondly imagined--most vain and fond
when it is demanded together with all for which any approach to it was
once eagerly abandoned.

The battle was won. As John Fanshaw sacrificed his great grievance, so
she hers. As old Mumple had expiated his fault and paid his price, so
she hers. As Grantley schooled his heart, so she hers. She walked with
him that night in the garden while the rest made merry with games and
songs and jokes within, their gay laughter echoing down to the old house
where the long-parted husband and wife sat at last hand in hand. She
bowed her head, and put her hands in Grantley's, saying:

"At the first sign from you it was easy to forgive. How could I not
forgive you? But it's hard to ask to be forgiven, Grantley?"

"It was necessary that these things should come," he answered gravely.
"They have come and gone. What are they now between thee and me?"

Wisdom had made her point, and for a while now she wisely held her
peace, leaving her work to another who should surely bring it to an
excellent issue--to love, tempered by sorrow and self-knowledge, yet
triumphant, and looking forward to new days, new births, new victories.

"The old time is done," said Grantley. "There's a new dawn. And,
Sibylla, the sunrise is golden still."

"My ever true lover, we'll ride on the downs to-morrow," said she.

"Into the gold?" he asked, in loving banter.

"Yes," she answered bravely. "Haven't we found the way now?"

"It may be hard to keep it."

"We shall be together--you and I. And more than you and me.
And--and--well, I intend to be unreasonable again just for this evening!
I'll expect everything, and demand everything, and dream everything
again, just for to-night--just for to-night, Grantley!"

She ended in a merry laugh, as she stood opposite him with dancing eyes.

"You're always thorough. I was afraid you were going to be a bit too
thorough with those delusions. Need we make quite so clean a sweep of
them?"

"As if I ever should!" Sibylla sighed.

"Perhaps we've been doing one or two of them a little injustice?" he
suggested.

"We'll let them stay a little bit and see if they can clear their
characters," said she. "There might be one great truth hidden among
them."

"I rather fancy there is," said Grantley Imason, "and we'll have the
fellow out of his disguise."


THE END


PLYMOUTH: WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, PRINTERS




HUTCHINSON'S SELECT NOVELS.

_Uniform edition, each volume in crown 8vo, handsome cloth gilt, 3s. 6d._


    THE CUCKOO IN THE NEST.
      MRS. OLIPHANT.

    THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.
      W. CLARK RUSSELL.

    A HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY.
      MRS. OLIPHANT.

    THE VENGEANCE OF JAMES VANSITTART.
      MRS. J. H. NEEDELL.

    THE HERITAGE OF LANGDALE.
      MRS. ALEXANDER.

    THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH.
      DARLEY DALE.

    A SECOND LIFE.
      MRS. ALEXANDER.

    A MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
      ADA CAMBRIDGE.

    FIDELIS.
      ADA CAMBRIDGE.

    THE MISTRESS OF QUEST.
      ADELINE SERGEANT.

    ROGER VANBRUGH'S WIFE.
      ADELINE SERGEANT.

    A WELSH SINGER.
      ALLEN RAINE.

    THE STORY OF AN AFRICAN FARM.
      OLIVE SCHREINER.

    TATTERLEY.
      TOM GALLON.

    THE MIGHTY ATOM.
      MARIE CORELLI.

    THE IDOL-MAKER.
      ADELINE SERGEANT.

    GRIF.
      B. L. FARJEON.

    A STUMBLER IN WIDE SHOES.
      E. SUTCLIFFE MARCH.

    DR. LUTTRELL'S FIRST PATIENT.
      ROSA N. CAREY.

    TORN SAILS.
      ALLEN RAINE.

    WOMAN AND THE SHADOW.
      ARABELLA KENEALY.

    BY RIGHT OF SWORD.
      A. W. MARCHMONT.

    INTO THE HIGHWAYS AND HEDGES.
      F. F. MONTR;SOR.

    AT THE CROSS ROADS.
      F. F. MONTR;SOR.

    BY BERWEN BANKS.
      ALLEN RAINE.

    GARTHOWEN.
      ALLEN RAINE.

    MOLLIE'S PRINCE.
      ROSA N. CAREY.

    A DASH FOR A THRONE.
      A. W. MARCHMONT.

    LIFE'S TRIVIAL ROUND.
      ROSA N. CAREY.

    A DOUBLE THREAD.
      ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER.

    A CORNER OF THE WEST.
      EDITH HENRIETTA FOWLER.

    THE MINISTER OF STATE.
      J. A. STEUART.

    THE ONE WHO LOOKED ON.
      F. F. MONTR;SOR.

    THE FARRINGDONS.
      ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER.

    MY LADY FRIVOL.
      ROSA N. CAREY.

    THE LOVE OF RICHARD HERRICK.
      ARABELLA KENEALY.

    BABS THE IMPOSSIBLE.
      SARAH GRAND.

    THE BANISHMENT OF JESSOP BLYTHE.
      JOSEPH HATTON.

    IN HIGH PLACES.
      M. E. BRADDON.

    A WELSH WITCH.
      ALLEN RAINE.