"  g  O  ri O


I Y











The Fire Within
By
Patricia Wentworth
(Mrs. G. F. Dillon)
Author of "A Marriage under the Terror," etc.
"Quench than the fires of your old gods,
Quench not the fire within,"
Matthew Arnold.
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1913


TO NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
213831A
ASTOP,. LF'-'OX A'lD
TILDtN *'OL> .DAlI'^iNS
R 1825 1-
COPYRIGHT, 1913
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
the ftnicliecbocliec press. Wew


CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. MR. MOTTISFONT'S OPINION OF HIS
NEPHEW ..... 
II. DAVID BLAKE 12
III. DEAD MEN'S SHOES .... 30
IV. A MAN'S HONOUR .... 40
V. TOWN TALK 56
VI. THE LETTER 66
VII. ELIZABETH CHANTREY ... 77
VIII. EDWARD SINGS . ..,.,.  . 91
IX. MARY Is SHOCKED ,  . .107
X. EDWARD Is PUT OUT . . . 120
XI. FORGOTTEN WAYS  .... 134
XII. THE GREY WOLF  . . . 143
XIII. MARCH GOES OUT . . . .156
XIV. THE GOLDEN WIND . . . .163
iii
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
CIRCULATION DEPARTMEMT
 476 FIFTH AVENUE 


IV
Contents
V. LOVE MUST TO SCHOOL .
XVI. FRIENDSHIP .
XVII. THE DREAM .
XVIII. THE FACE OF LOVE
XIX. THE FULL MOON .
XX. THE WOMAN OF THE DREAM
XXI. ELIZABETH BLAKE .
XXII. AFTER THE DREAM
XXIII. ELIZABETH WAITS .
XXIV. THE LOST NAME 
171
179
188
199
207
214
225
236
243
258


The Fire Within





PROPERTY OF THE
CITY OF NEW YORK
The Fire Within
CHAPTER I
MR. MOTTISFONT'S OPINION OF HIS NEPHEW
As I was going adown the dale
Sing deny down dale, and derry down dale,
As I was going adown the dale,
Adown the dale of a Monday,
With never a thought of the Devil his tricks,
Why who should I meet with his bundle of sticks,
But the very old man of the Nursery tale.
Sing derry down dale, and deny down dale,
The wicked old man of the Nursery tale
Who gathered his sticks of a Sunday.
Sing deny down, derry down dale.
Mr. Edward Mottisfont looked over the
edge of the sheet at David Blake.
"My nephew Edward is most undoubtedly
and indisputably a prig — a damned prig," he
added thoughtfully after a moment's pause for
reflection. As he reflected his black eyes danced
from David's face to a crayon drawing which
hung on the panelled wall above the mantelpiece.
"His mother's fault," he observed, "it 's not


2 The Fire Within
so bad in a woman, and she was pretty,
which Edward ain't. Pretty and a prig my
sister Sarah"
There was a faint emphasis on the word sister,
and David remembered having heard his mother
say that both Edward and William Mottisfont
had been in love with the girl whom William
married. "And a plain prig my nephew Edward,"
continued the old gentleman. "Damn it all,David,
why can't I leave my money to you instead?"
David laughed.
"Because I should n't take it, sir," he said.
He was sitting, most unprofessionally, on the
edge of his patient's large four-post bed. Old
Mr. Edward Mottisfont looked at him quizzically.
"How much would you take—eh, David?
Come now—say—how much?"
David laughed again. His grey eyes twinkled.
"Nary penny, sir," he said, swinging his arm over
the great carved post beside him. There were
cherubs' heads upon it, a fact that had always
amused its owner considerably.
"Nonsense," said old Mr. Mottisfont, and for
the first time his thin voice was tinged with
earnestness. "Nonsense, David. Why! I've left
you five thousand pounds."


Mr. Mottisfont's Nephew 3
David started. His eyes changed. They were
very deep-set eyes. It was only when he laughed
that they appeared grey. When he was serious
they were so dark as to look black. Apparently
he was moved and concerned. His voice took a
boyish tone. "Oh, I say, sir—but you must n't
—I can't take it, you know."
"And why not, pray?" This was Mr. Mottis-
font at his most sarcastic.
David got the better of his momentary
embarrassment.
"I shan't forget that you 've thought of it, sir,"
he said. "But I can't benefit under a patient's
will. I have n't got many principles, but that's
one of them. My father drummed it into me
from the time I was about seven."
Old Mr. Edward Mottisfont lifted the thin
eyebrows that had contrived to remain coal-black,
although his hair was white. They gave him a
Mephistophelean appearance of which he was
rather proud.
"Very fine and highfalutin," he observed.
"You're an exceedingly upright young man, David."
David roared.
After a moment the old gentleman's lips gave
way at the corners, and he laughed too,


4 The Fire Within
"Oh, Lord, David, who'd ha' thought it of
you !" he said. "You won't take a thousand?"
David shook his head.
"Not five hundred?"
David grinned.
"Not five pence," he said.
Old Mr. Mottisfont glared at him for a moment.
"Prig," he observed with great conciseness. Then
he pursed up his lips, felt under his pillow, and
pulled out a long folded paper.
"All the more for Edward," he said maliciously, "All the more for Edward, and all the more reason
for Edward to wish me dead. I wonder he don't
poison me. Perhaps he will. Oh, Lord, I 'd give
something to see Edward tried for murder!
Think of it, David—only think of it—Twelve
British Citizens in one box—Edward in another—
all the British Citizens looking at Edward, and
Edward looking as if he was in church, and won-
dering if the moth was getting into his collections,
and if any one would care for 'em when he was
dead and gone. Eh, David? Eh, David? And
Mary—like Niobe, all tears"
David had been chuckling to himself, but at the
mention of Edward's wife his face changed a
little. He continued to laugh, but his eyes hard-


Mr. Mottisfont's Nephew 5
\
ened, and he interrupted his patient: "Come,
sir, you must n't tire yourself."
"Like Niobe, all tears," repeated Mr. Mottisfont,
obstinately. "Sweetly pretty she'd look too—
eh, David? Edward's a lucky dog, ain't he?"
David's eyes flashed once and then hardened
still more. His chin was very square.
"Come, sir," he repeated, and looked steadily
at the old man.
"Beast—ain't I?" said old Mr. Mottisfont
with the utmost cheerfulness. He occupied him-
self with arranging the bedclothes in an accurate
line across his chest. As he did so, his hand
touched the long folded paper, and he gave it an
impatient push.
"You're a damn nuisance, David," he said.
"I 've made my will once, and now I 've to make it
all over again just to please you. All the whole
blessed thing over again, from 'I, Edward Morell
Mottisfont,' down to 'I deliver this my act and
deed.' Oh, Lord, what a bore."
"Mr. Fenwick," suggested David, and old Mr.
Edward Mottisfont flared into sudden wrath.
"Don't talk to me of lawyers," he said violently.
"I know enough law to make a will they can't
upset. Don't talk of 'em. Sharks and robbers.


Mr. Mottisfont's Nephew 7
enough. I found a little mottled man, that sat
blinking at me, and repeating my words, till I
could have murdered him with his own office pen-
knife. He called me Moral too, in stead of Morell.
'Edward Moral Mottisfont,' and I took occasion
to inform him that I was n't moral, never had been
moral, and never intended to be moral. I said
he must be thinking of my nephew Edward, who
/ was damn moral. Oh, Lord, here is Edward.
I could ha' done without him."
The door opened as he was speaking, and young
Edward Mottisfont came in. He was a slight,
fair man with a well-shaped head, a straight nose,
and as much chin as a great many other people.
He wore pince-nez because he was short-sighted,
and high collars because he had a long neck.
Both the pince-nez and the collar had an intensely
irritating effect upon old Mr. Edward Mottisfont.
"If he hadn't been for ever blinking at some
bug that was just out of his sight, his eyes would
have been as good as mine, and he might just as
well keep his head in a butterfly net or a collecting
box as where he does keep it. Not that I should
have said that Edward did keep his head."
"I think you flurry him, sir," said David,
"and"


8 The Fire Within
"I know I do," grinned Mr. Mottisfont.
Young Edward Mottisfont came into the room
and shut the door.
Old Mr. Mottisfont watched him with black,
malicious eyes.
For as many years as Edward could remember
anything, he could remember just that look upon
his uncle's face. It made him uneasy now, as it
had made him uneasy when he was only five years
old.
Once when he was fifteen he said to David
Blake: "You cheek him, David, and he likes you
for it. How on earth do you manage it? Does n't
he make you feel beastly?"
And David stared and said: "Beastly? Rats!
Why should I feel beastly? He 's jolly amusing.
He makes me laugh."
At thirty, Edward no longer employed quite
the same ingenuous slang, but there was no doubt
that he still experienced the same sensations,
which fifteen years earlier he had characterised
as beastly.
Old Mr. Edward Mottisfont lay in bed with
his hands folded on his chest. He watched his
nephew with considerable amusement, and waited
for him to speak.


Mr. Mottisfont's Nephew 9
Edward took a chair beside the bed. Then he
said that it was a fine day, and old Mr. Mottisfont
nodded twice with much solemnity.
"Yes, Edward," he said.
There was a pause.
"I hope you are feeling pretty well," was the un-
fortunate Edward's next attempt at conversation.
Old Mr. Edward Mottisfont looked across at
David Blake. "Am I feeling pretty well—eh,
David?"
David laughed. He had moved when Edward
came into the room, and was standing by the
window looking out. A little square pane was
open. Through it came the drowsy murmur of
a drowsy, old-fashioned town. Mr. Mottisfont's
house stood a few yards back from the road, just
at the head of the High Street. Market Harford
was a very old town, and the house was a very old
house. There was a staircase which was admired
by American visitors, and a front door for which
they occasionally made bids. From where Mr.
Mottisfont lay in bed he could see a narrow lane
hedged in by high old houses with red tiles.
Beyond, the ground fell sharply away, and there
was a prospect of many red roofs. Farther still,
beyond the river, he could see the great black


toThe Fire Within
chimneys of his foundry, and the smoke that came
from them. It was the sight that he loved best
in the world. David looked down into the High
Street and watched one lamp after another spring
into brightness. He could see a long ribbon of
light go down to the river and then rise again.
He turned back into the room when he was ap-
pealed to, and said:
"Why, you know best how you feel, sir."
"Oh, no," said old Mr. Mottisfont in a smooth,
resigned voice. "Oh, no, David. In a private
and unofficial sort of way, yes; but in a public
and official sense, oh, dear, no. Edward wants to
know when to order his mourning, and how to
arrange his holiday so as not to clash with my
funeral, so it is for my medical adviser to reply,
ain't it, Edward?"
The colour ran to the roots of Edward Morris- font's fair hair. He cast an appealing glance in
David's direction, and did not speak.
"I don't think any of us will order our mourning
till you 're dead, sir," said David with a chuckle.
He commiserated Edward, but, after all, Edward
was a lucky dog—and to see one's successful rival
at a disadvantage is not an altogether unpleasant
experience. "You'll outlive some of us young


Mr. Mottisfont's Nephew n
ones yet," he added, but old Mr. Mottisfont was
frowning.
"Seen any more of young Stevenson, Edward?"
he said, with an abrupt change of manner.
Edward shook his head rather ruefully.
"No, sir, I have n't."
"No, and you ain't likely to," said old Mr.
Mottisfont. "There, you 'd best be gone. I 've
talked enough."
"Then good-night, sir," said Edward Mottis-
font, getting up with some show of cheerfulness.
The tone of Mr. Mottisfont's good-night was not
nearly such a pleasant one, and as soon as the
door had closed upon Edward he flung round
towards David Blake with an angry "What's
the good of him? What's the good of the fellow?
He 's not a business man. He 's not a man at all;
he 's an entomologiac—a lepidoptofool—a damn
lepidoptofool."
These remarkable epithets followed one another
with an extraordinary rapidity.
When the old gentleman paused for breath
David inquired, "What's the trouble, sir?"
"Oh, he's muddled the new contract with
Stevenson. Thinking of butterflies, I expect.
Pretty things, butterflies—but there—I don't see


Mr. Mottisfont's Nephew 13
font—"three years, David—and this damn pain
all along—all the time—gettin' worse"
"Oh, I think we can relieve the pain, sir," said
David cheerfully.
"Much obliged, David. Some beastly drug
that 'll turn me into an idiot. No, thank ye, I 'll
keep my wits if it's all the same to you. Well,
well, it's all in the day's work, and I 'm not com-
plaining, but Edward 'll get mortal tired of waiting
for my shoes if I last three years. I doubt his
patience holding out. He 'll be bound to hasten
matters on. Think of the bad example I shall
be for the baby—when it comes. Lord, David,
what d' ye want to look like that for? I suppose
they 'll have babies like other folk, and I 'll be a
bad example for 'em. Edward 'll think of that.
When he 's thought of it enough, and I 've got
on his nerves a bit more than usual, he 'll
put strychnine or arsenic into my soup. Oh,
Edward 'll poison me yet. You 'll see."
"Poor old Edward, it's not much in his line,"
said David with half a laugh.
"Eh? What about Pellico's dog then?"
"Pellico'sdog, sir?"
"What an innocent young man you are, David
—never heard of Pellico's dog before, did you?


14 The Fire Within
Pellico's dog that got on Edward's nerves same as
I get on his nerves, and you never knew that
Edward dosed the poor brute with some of his
bug-curing stuff, eh? To be sure you did n't
think I knew, nor did Edward. I don't tell
everything I know, and how I know it is my affair
and none of yours, Master David Blake, but you
see Edward 's not so unhandy with a little job in
the poisoning line."
David's face darkened. The incident of Pel-
lico's dog had occurred when he and Edward were
schoolboys of fifteen. He remembered it very
well, but he did not very much care being reminded
of it. Every day of his life he passed the narrow
turning, down which, in defiance of parental
prohibitions, he and Edward used to race each
other to school. Old Pellico's dirty, evil-smelling
shop still jutted out of the farther end, and the
grimy door-step upon which his dog used to lie
in wait for their ankles was still as grimy as ever.
Sometimes it was a trouser-leg that - suffered.
Sometimes an ankle was nipped, and if Pellico's
dog occasionally got a kick in return, it was not
more than his due. David remembered his own
surprise when it first dawned upon him that
Edward minded—yes, actually minded these en-


Mr. Mottisfont's Nephew 15
counters. He recalled the occasion when Edward,
his face of a suspicious pallor, had denied angrily
that he was afraid of any beastly dog, and then
his sudden wincing confession that he did mind—
that he minded horribly—not because he was
afraid of being bitten—Edward explained this
point very carefully—but because the dog made
such a beastly row, and because Edward dreamed
of him at night, only in his dreams, Pellico's dog
was rather larger than Pellico himself, and the
lane was a cul-de-sac with a wall at the end of it,
against which he crouched in his dream whilst the
t
dog came nearer and nearer.
"What rot," was David's comment, "but if I
felt like that, I jolly well know I 'd knock the
brute on the head."
"Would you?" said Edward, and that was all
that had passed. Only, when a week later Pellico's
dog was poisoned, David was filled with righteous
indignation. He stormed at Edward.
"You did it—you know you did it. You did it
with some of that beastly bug-killing stuff that
you keep knocking about."
Edward was pale, but there was an odd
gleam of triumph in the eyes that met
David's.


16 The Fire Within
"Well, you said you "d do for him—you said it
yourself. So then I just did it."
David stared at him with all a schoolboy's
crude condemnation of something that was "not
the game."
"I 'd have knocked him on the head under old
Pellico's nose—but poison—poison 's beastly."
He did not reason about it. It was just instinct.
You knocked on the head a brute that annoyed
you, but you did n't use poison. And Edward
had used poison. That was the beginning of
David's great intimacy with Elizabeth Chantrey.
He did not quarrel with Edward, but they drifted
out of an inseparable friendship into a relation-
ship of the cool, go-as-you-please order. The
thing rankled a little after all these years. David
sat there frowning and remembering. Old Mr.
Mottisfont laughed.
"Aha, you see I know most things," he said,
"Edward 'll poison me yet. You see, he 's in a
fix. He hankers after this house same as I always
hankered after it. It's about the only taste we
have in common. He 's got his own house on a
seven years' lease, and here 's Nick Anderson
going to be married, and willing to take it off his
hands. And what's Edward to do? It's a


David Blake 19
and lay staring at the ceiling. Presently his eyes
wandered back to Elizabeth. She was sitting
quite still, with her hands folded. Very few busy
women ever sit still at all, but Elizabeth Chantrey,
who was a very busy woman, was also a woman of
a most reposeful presence. She could be unoc-
cupied without appearing idle, just as she could
be silent without appearing either stupid or
constrained. Old Edward Mottisfont looked at
her for about five minutes. Then he said suddenly:
"What 'll you do when I 'm dead, Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth made no protest, as her sister Mary
would have done. She had not been Edward
Mottisfont's ward since she was fourteen for
nothing. She understood him very well, and she
was perhaps the one creature whom he really
loved. She leaned her chin in her hand and
said:
"I don't know, Mr. Mottisfont."
Mr. Mottisfont never took his eyes off her face.
"Edward 'll want to move in here as soon as
possible. What 'll you do?"
"I don't know," repeated Elizabeth, frowning
a little.
"Well, if you don't know, perhaps you 'll
listen to reason, and do as I ask you."


20 The Fire Within
"If I can," said Elizabeth Chantrey.
He nodded.
"Stay here a year," he said, "a year is n't much
to ask—eh?"
"Here?"
"Yes—in this house. I Ve spoken about it to
Edward. Odd creature, Edward, but, I believe,
truthful. Said he was quite agreeable. Even
went so far as to say he was fond of you, and that
Mary would be pleased. Said you 'd too much
tact to obtrude yourself, and that of course you 'd
keep your own rooms. No, I don't suppose
you 'll find it particularly pleasant, but I believe
you 'll find it worth while. Give it a year."
Elizabeth started ever so slightly. One may
endure for years, and make no sign, to wince at
last in one unguarded moment. So he knew—had
always known. Again Elizabeth made no protest.
"A year," she said in a low voice, "a year—
I Ve given fifteen years. Is n't fifteen years
enough?"
Something fierce came into old Edward Morris- font's eyes. His whole face hardened. "He 's a damn fool," he said.
Elizabeth laughed.
"Of course he must be," and she laughed again.


David Blake 21
The old man nodded.
"Grit," he said to himself, "grit. That's the
way—laugh, Elizabeth, laugh—and let him go
hang for a damn fool. He ain't worth it—no man
living 's worth it. But give him a year all the
same."
If old Mr. Mottisfont had not been irritated
with David Blake for being as he put it, a damn
fool, he would not have made the references he
had done to his nephew Edward's wife. They
touched David upon the raw, and old Mr. Mottis-
font was very well aware of it. As David went
out of the room and closed the door, a strange
mood came upon him. All the many memories
of this house, familiar to him from early boyhood,
all the many memories of this town of his birth
and upbringing, rose about him. It was a strange
mood, but yet not a sad one, though just beyond
it lay the black shadow which is the curse of the
Celt. David Blake came of an old Irish stock,
although he had never seen Ireland. He had the
vein of poetry—the vein of sadness, which are
born at a birth with Irish humour and Irish wit.
As he went down the staircase, the famous
staircase with its carved newels, the light of a
moving lamp came up from below, and at the turn


22 The Fire Within
of the stair he stood aside to let Elizabeth Chantrey
pass. She wore a grey dress, and the lamp-light
shone upon her hair and made it look like very
pale gold. It was thick hair—very fine and thick,
and she wore it in a great plait like a crown. In
the daytime it was not golden at all, but just the
colour of the pale thick honey with which wax is
mingled. Long ago a Chantrey had married a
wife from Norway with Elizabeth's hair and
Elizabeth's dark grey eyes.
"Good-night, David," said Elizabeth Chantrey.
She would have passed on, but to her surprise
David made no movement. He was looking at her.
"This is where I first saw you, Elizabeth,"
he said in a remembering voice. "You had on a
grey dress, like that one, but Mary was in blue,
because Mr. Mottisfont would n't let her wear
mourning. Do you remember how shocked poor
Miss Agatha was?—'and their mother only dead
a month!e s I can hear her now." Mary—yes, he
remembered little Mary Chantrey in her blue
dress. He could see her now—nine years old—
in a blue dress—with dark curling hair and roundi
brown eyes, holding tightly to Elizabeth's skirts) and much too shy to speak to the big strange boy
who was Edward's friend.


David Blake 23
Elizabeth watched him. She knew very well
that he was not thinking of her, although he had
remembered the grey dress. And yet—for five
years—it was she and not Mary to whom David
came with every mood. During those five years,
the years between fourteen and nineteen, it was
always Elizabeth and David, David and Elizabeth.
Then when David was twenty, and in his first
year at hospital, Dr. Blake died suddenly, and for
four years David came no more to Market Harford.
Mrs. Blake went to live with a sister in the north,
and David's vacations were spent with his mother.
For a time he wrote often—then less often—
finally only at Christmas. And the years passed.
Elizabeth's girlhood passed. Mary grew up.
And when David Blake had been nearly three
years qualified, and young Dr. Ellerton was
drowned out boating, David bought from Mrs.
Ellerton a share in the practice that had been his
father's, and brought his mother back to Market
Harford. Mrs. Blake lived only for a year, but
before she died she had seen David fall headlong
'n love, not with her dear Elizabeth, but with
Mary—pretty little Mary—who was turning the
heads of all the young men, sending Jimmy Larkin
with a temporarily broken heart to India, Jack


24 The Fire Within
Webster with a much more seriously injured one
to the West Coast of Africa, and enjoying herself
mightily the while. Elizabeth had memories as
well as David. They came at least as near sad-
ness as his. She thought she had remembered
quite enough for one evening, and she set her foot
on the stair above the landing.
ese s Poor Miss Agatha!'e s she said. '' What a worry
we were to her, and how she disliked our coming
here. I can remember her grumbling to Mr.
Mottisfont, and saying, 'Children make such a
work in the house,' and Mr. Mottisfont"
Elizabeth laughed.
"Mr. Mottisfont said, 'Don't be such a damn
old maid, Agatha. For the Lord's sake, what's
the good of a woman that can't mind children?'"
David laughed too. He remembered Miss
Agatha's fussy indignation.
"Good-night, David," said Elizabeth, and she
passed on up the wide, shallow stair.
The light went with her. From below there
came only a glimmer, for the lamp in the hall was
still turned low. David went slowly on. As he
was about to open the front door, Edward Mottis-
font came out of the dining-room on the left.
"One minute, David," he said, and took him


David Blake 25
by the arm. "Look here—I think I ought to
know. Is my uncle likely to live on indefinitely?
Did you mean what you said upstairs?"
It was the second time that David Blake had
been asked if he meant those words. He answered
a trifle irritably.
'' Why should I say what I don't mean? He may
live three years or he may die to-morrow. Why
on earth should I say it if I did n't think it?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Edward. "You
might have been saying it just to cheer the old
man up."
There was a certain serious simplicity about
Edward Mottisfont. It was this quality in him
which his uncle stigmatised as priggishness. Your
true prig is always self-conscious, but Edward was
not at all self-conscious. From his own point of
view he saw things quite clearly. It was other
people's points of view which had a confusing
effect upon him. David laughed.
"It didn't exactly cheer him up," he said.
"He is n't as set on living as all that comes to."
Edward appeared to be rather struck by this
statement.
"Is n't he? "he said.
He opened the door as he spoke, but suddenly


26 The Fire Within
closed it again. His tone altered. It became
eager and boyish.
"David, I say—you know Jimmy Larkin was
transferred to Assam some months ago? Well, I
wrote and asked him to remember me if he came
across anything like specimens. Of course his
forest work gives him simply priceless opportu-
nities. He wrote back and said he would see
what he could do, and last mail he sent me"
"What—a package of live scorpions?"
"No—not specimens—oh, if he could only have
sent the specimen—but it was the next best thing
—a drawing—you remember how awfully well
Jimmy drew—a coloured drawing of a perfectly
new slug."
Edward's tone became absolutely ecstatic. He
began to rumple up his fair hair, as he always did
when he was excited. "I can't find it in any of
the books," he said, "and they 'd never even
heard of it at the Natural History Museum. Five
yellow bands on a black ground—what do you
think of that?"
"I should say it was Jimmy, larking," mur-
mured David, getting the door open and departing
hastily, but Edward was a great deal too busy
wondering whether the slug ought in justice to be


David Blake 27
called after Jimmy, or whether he might name it
after himself, to notice this ribaldry.
David Blake came out into a clear September
night. The sky was cloudless and the air was
still. Presently there would be a moon. David
walked down the brightly-lighted High Street, with
its familiar shops. Here and there were a few
new names, but for the most part he had known
them all from childhood. Half-way down the hill
he passed the tall grey house which had once had
his father's plate upon the door—the house where
David was born. Old Mr. Bull lived there now,
his father's partner once, retired these eighteen
months in favour of his nephew, Tom Skeffington.
All Market Harford wondered what Dr. Bull
could possibly want with a house so much too
large for him. He used only half the rooms, and
the house had a sadly neglected air, but there were
days, and this was one of them, when David,
passing, could have sworn that the house had not
changed hands at all and that the blind of his
mother's room was lifted a little as he went by.
She used to wave to him from that window as he
came from school. She wore the diamond ring
which David kept locked up in his despatch-box.
Sometimes it caught the light and flashed. David


28 The Fire Within
could have sworn that he saw it flash to-night.
But the house was all dark and silent. The old
days were gone. David walked on.
At the bottom of the High Street, just before
you come to the bridge, he turned up to the right,
where a paved path with four stone posts across
the entrance came into the High Street at right
angles. The path ran along above the river, with
a low stone wall to the left, and a row of grey stone
houses to the right. Between the wall and the
river there were trees, which made a pleasant
shade in the summer. Now they were losing
their leaves. David opened the door of the
seventh house with his latch-key, and went in.
That night he dreamed his dream. It was a long
time now since he had dreamed it, but it was an
old dream—one that recurred from time to time
—one that had come to him at intervals for as
long as he could remember. And it was always
the same—through all the years it never varied
—it was always just the same.
He dreamed that he was standing upon the
seashore. It was a wide, low shore, with a long,
long stretch of sand that shone like silver under a
silver moon. It shone because it was wet, still
quite wet from the touch of the tide. The tide


David Blake 29
was very low. David stood on the shore, and saw
the moon go down into the sea. As it went down
it changed slowly. It became golden, and the
sand turned golden too. A wind began to blow
in from the sea. A wind from the west—a wind
that was strong, and yet very gentle. At the
edge of the sea there stood a woman, with long
floating hair and a long floating dress. She stood
between David and the golden moon, and the
wind blew out her dress and her long floating hair.
But David never saw her face. Always he longed
to see her face, but he never saw it. He stood
upon the shore and could not move to go to her.
When he was a boy he used to walk in his sleep
in the nights when he had this dream. Once he
was awakened by the touch of cold stones under
his bare feet. And there he stood, just as he had
come from bed, on the wet door-step, with the
front door open behind him. After that he locked
his door. Now he walked in his sleep no longer,
and it was more than a year since he had dreamed
the dream at all, but to-night it came to him again.


CHAPTER III
DEAD MEN'S SHOES
There 's many a weary game to be played
With never a penny to choose,
But the weariest game in all the world
Is waiting for dead men's shoes.
JT was about a week later that Edward Morris- * font rang David Blake up on the telephone
and begged him in agitated accents, to come to
Mr. Mottisfont without delay.
"It's another attack—a very bad one," said
Edward in the hall. His voice shook a little, and
he seemed very nervous. David thought it was
certainly a bad attack. He also thought it a
strange one. The old man was in great pain, and
very ill. Elizabeth Chantrey was in the room,
but after a glance at his patient, David sent her
away. As she went she made a movement to
take up an empty cup which stood on the small
table beside the bed, and old Mr. Edward Mottis-
font fairly snapped at her.
30


Dead Men's Shoes 31
"Leave it, will you—I've stopped Edward
taking it twice. Leave it, I say!"
Elizabeth went out without a word, and Mr.
Mottisfont caught David's wrist in a shaky grip.
"D' you know why I would n't let her take that
cup? D'you know why?"
"No, sir"
Old Mr. Mottisfont's voice dropped to a thread.
He was panting a little.
"I was all right till I drank that damned tea,
David," he said, "and Edward brought it to me
—Edward"
"Come, sir—come—" said David gently. He
was really fond of this queer old man, and he was
distressed for him.
"David, you won't let him give me things—
you 'll look to it. Look in the cup. I would n't
let 'em take the cup—there 's dregs. Look at
'em, David."
David took up the cup and walked to the win-
dow. About a tablespoonful of cold tea remained.
David tilted the cup, then became suddenly
attentive. That small remainder of cold tea with
the little skim of cream upon it had suddenly
become of absorbing interest. David tilted the
cup still more. The tea made a little pool on one


32 The Fire Within
side of it, and all across the bottom of the cup a
thick white sediment drained slowly down into
the pool. It was such a sediment as is left by very
chalky water. But all the water of Market Har-
ford is as soft as rain-water. It is not only chalk
that makes a sediment like that. Arsenic makes
one, too. David put down the cup quickly.
He opened the door and went out into the
passage. From the far end Elizabeth Chantrey
came to meet him, and he gave her a hastily
scribbled note for the chemist, and asked her for
one or two things that were in the house. When
he came back into Mr. Mottisfont's room he went
straight to the wash-stand, took up a small glass
bottle labelled ipecacuanha wine and spent two or
three minutes in washing it thoroughly. Then he
poured into it very carefully the contents of the
cup. He did all this in total silence, and in a very
quiet and business-like manner.
Old Mr. Edward Mottisfont lay on his right
side and watched hin. His face was twisted with
pain, and there was a dampness upon his brow,
but his eyes followed every motion that David
made and noted every look upon his face. They
were intent—alive—observant. Whilst David
stood by the wash-stand, with his back towards


Dead Men's Shoes 33
the bed, old Mr. Edward Mottisfont's lips twisted
themselves into an odd smile. A gleam of sar-
donic humour danced for a moment in the watch-
ing eyes. When David put down the bottle and
came over to the bed, the gleam was gone, and
there was only pain—great pain—in the old,
restless face. There was a knock at the door, and
Elizabeth Chantrey came in.
Three hours later David Blake came out of the
room that faced old Mr. Mottisfont's at the farther
end of the corridor. It was a long, low room, fitted
up as a laboratory—very well and fully fitted up—
for the old man had for years found his greatest
pleasure and relaxation in experimenting with
chemicals. Some of his experiments he confided
to David, but the majority he kept carefully to
himself. They were of a somewhat curious nature.
David Blake came out of the laboratory with a
very stern look upon his face. As he went down
the stair he met with Edward Mottisfont coming
up. The sternness intensified. Edward looked
an unspoken question, and then without a word
turned and went down before David into the hall.
Then he waited.
"Gone?" he said in a sort of whisper, and David
bent his head.


34 The Fire Within
He was remembering that it was only a week
since he had told Edward in this very spot that his
uncle might live for three years. Well, he was
dead now. The old man was dead now—out of
the way—some one had seen to that. Who?
David could still hear Edward Mottisfont's voice
asking, "How long is he likely to live?" and his
own answer, "Perhaps three years."
"Come in here," said Edward Mottisfont. He
opened the dining-room door as he spoke, and
David followed him into a dark, old-fashioned
room, separated from the one behind it by folding-
doors. One of the doors stood open about an
inch, but there was only one lamp in the room, and
neither of the two men paid any attention to such
a trifling circumstance.
Edward sat down by the table, which was laid
for dinner. Even above the white tablecloth his
face was noticeably white. All his life this old
man had been his bugbear. He had hated him,
not with the hot hatred which springs from one
great sudden wrong, but with the cold slow ab-
horrence bred of a thousand trifling oppressions.
He had looked forward to his death. For years he
had thought to himself, "Well, he can't live for
ever." But now that the old man was dead, and


Dead Men's Shoes 35
the yoke lifted from his neck, he felt no relief—no
sense of freedom. He felt oddly shocked.
David Blake did not sit down. He stood at the
opposite side of the table and looked at Edward.
From where he stood he could see first the
white tablecloth, then Edward's face, and on
the wall behind Edward, a full-length portrait
of old Edward Mottisfont at the age of thirty.
It was the work of a young man whom Market
Harford had looked upon as a very disreputable
young man. He had since become so famous that
they had affixed a tablet to the front of the house
in which he had once lived. The portrait was one
of the best he had ever painted, and the eyes,
Edward Mottisfont's black, malicious eyes, looked
down from the wall at his nephew, and at David
Blake. Neither of the men had spoken since they
entered the room, but they were both so busy with
their thoughts that neither noticed how silent the
other was.
At last David spoke. He said in a hard level
voice:
"Edward, I can't sign the certificate. There
will have to be an inquest."
Edward Mottisfont looked up with a great start.
"An inquest?" he said, "an inquest?"


36 The Fire Within
One of David's hands rested on the table. "I
can't sign the certificate," he repeated.
Edward stared at him.
"Why not?" he said. "I don't understand"
"Don't you?" said David Blake.
Edward rumpled up his hair in a distracted
fashion.
"I don't understand," he repeated. "An in-
quest? Why, you 've been attending him all these
months, and you said he might die at any time.
You said it only the other day. I don't under-
stand"
"Nor do I," said David curtly.
Edward stared again.
"What do you mean?"
"Mr. Mottisfont might have lived for some
time," said David Blake, speaking slowly. "I was
attending him for a chronic illness, which would
have killed him sooner or later. But it did n't
kill him. It did n't have a chance. He died of
poisoning—arsenic poisoning."
One of Edward's hands was lying on the table.
His whole arm twitched, and the hand fell over,
palm upwards. The fingers opened and closed
slowly. David found himself staring at that
slowly moving hand.


Dead Men's Shoes 37
"Impossible," said Edward, and his breath
caught in his throat as he said it.
"I'm afraid not."
Edward leaned forward a little.
"But, David," he said, "it's not possible.
Who—who do you think—who would do such a
thing? Or—suicide—do you think he committed
suicide?"
David drew himself suddenly away from the
table. All at once the feeling had come to him
that he could no longer touch what Edward
touched.
"No, I don't think it was suicide," he said.
"But of course it's not my business to think at
all. I shall give my evidence, and there, as far
as I am concerned, the matter ends."
Edward looked helplessly at David.
"Evidence?" he repeated.
"At the inquest," said David Blake.
"I don't understand," said Edward again.
He put his head in his hands, and seemed to be
thinking.
"Are you sure?" he said at last. "I don't see
how—it was an attack—just like his other attacks
—and then he died—you always said he might
die in one of those attacks."


38 The Fire Within
There was a sort of trembling eagerness in
Edward's tone. A feeling of nausea swept over
David. The scene had become intolerable.
"Mr. Mottisfont died because he drank a cup
of tea which contained enough arsenic to kill a
man in robust health," he said sharply.
He looked once at Edward, saw him start, and
added, "and I think that you brought him that
tea."
"Yes," said Edward. "He asked me for it,
how could there be arsenic in it?"
"There was," said David Blake.
"Arsenic? But I brought him the tea"
"Yes, you brought him the tea."
Edward lifted his head. His eyes behind his
glasses had a misty and bewildered look. His
voice shook a little.
"But—if there's an inquest—they might say
—they might think"
He pushed his chair back a little way, and half
rose from it, resting his hands on the table, and
peering across it.
"David, why do you look at me like that?"
David Blake turned away.
"It's none of my business," he said, "I've
got to give my evidence, and for God's sake,


Dead Men's Shoes 39
Edward, pull yourself together before the inquest,
and get decent legal advice, for you 'll need it."
Edward was shockingly pale.
"You mean—what do you mean? That people
will think—it's impossible."
David went towards the door. His face was
like a flint.
"I mean this," he said. "Mr. Mottisfont died
of arsenic poisoning. The arsenic was in a cup
of tea which he drank. You brought him the
tea. You are undoubtedly in a very serious posi-
tion. There will have to be an inquest."
Edward had risen completely. He made a
step towards David.
"But if you were to sign the certificate—there
would n't need to be an inquest—David"
"But I 'm damned if I 'll sign the certificate,"
said David Blake.
He went out and shut the door sharply behind
him.


CHAPTER IV
A MAN'S HONOUR
"Will you give me your heart?" she said.
"Oh, I gave it you long ago," said he.
"Why, then, I threw it away," said she.
"And what will you give me instead?
Will you give me your honour?" she said.
"ELIZABETH!"
A- 2 There was a pause.
"Elizabeth—open your door!"
Elizabeth Chantrey came back from a long way
off. Mary was calling her. Mary was knocking
at her door. She got up rather wearily, turned
the key, and with a little gasp, Mary was in the
room, shutting the door, and standing with her
back against it. The lamp burned low, but
Elizabeth's eyes were accustomed to the gloom.
Mary Mottisfont's bright, clear colour was one of
her great attractions. It was all gone and her
dark eyes looked darker and larger than they
should have done.
"Why, Molly, I thought you had gone home.
40


A Man's Honour 41
Edward told me he was sending you home an
hour ago."
"He told me to go," said Mary in a sort of
stumbling whisper. "He told me to go—but I
wanted to wait and go with him. I knew he 'd
be upset—I knew he 'd feel it—when it was all
over. I wanted to be with him—oh, Liz"
"Mary, what is it?"
Mary put up a shaking hand.
"I 'll tell you—don't stop me—there 's no time
—I 'll tell you—oh, I 'm telling you as fast as I
can."
She spoke in a series of gasps.
"I went into your little room behind the dining-
room. I knew no one would come. I knew I
should hear any one coming or going. I opened
the door into the dining-room—just a little"
"Mary, what is it?" said Elizabeth. She put
her arm round her sister, but Mary pushed her
away.
"Don't—there's no time. Let me go on.
David came down. He came into the dining-
room. He talked to Edward. He said, 'I can't
sign the certificate,' and Edward said, 'Why not?'
and David said, 'Because'—Liz—I can't—oh,
Liz, I can't—I can't."


42 The Fire Within
Mary caught suddenly at Elizabeth's arm and
began to sob. She had no tears—only hard sobs.
Her pretty oval face was all white and drawn.
There were dark marks like bruises under her
hazel eyes. The little dark rings of hair about
her forehead were damp.
"Dearest — darling — my Molly dear," said
Elizabeth. She held Mary to her, with strong
supporting arms, but the shuddering sobs went on.
"Liz—it was poison. He says it was poison.
He says there was poison in the tea—arsenic
poison—and Edward took him the tea. Liz-
Liz, why do such awful things happen? Why does
God let them happen?"
Elizabeth was much taller than her sister—
taller and stronger. She released herself from
the clutching fingers, and let both her hands fall
suddenly and heavily upon Mary's shoulders.
"Molly, what are you talking about?" she
cried.
Mary was startled into a momentary self-control.
"Mr. Mottisfont," she said. "David said it
was poison—poison, Liz."
Her voice fell to a low horrified whisper at the
word, and then rose on the old gasp of, "Edward
took him the tea." A numbness came upon


44 The Fire Within
"Molly, my dear, you must listen. No—
I 'm thinking of what's best for every one. You
don't want any talk. If you go to David's house
at this hour—well, you can see for yourself. No
—listen, my dear. If I ring David up, and ask
him to come here at once—at once—to see me,
don't you see how much better that will be?"
Mary's colour came and went. She stood
irresolute.
"Very well," she said at last. "If he 'll come.
If he won't, then I 'll go to him, and I don't care
what you say, Elizabeth—and you must be quick
—quick."
They went downstairs in silence. Mr. Morris- font's study was in darkness, and Elizabeth
brought in the lamp from the hall, holding it very
steadily. Then she sat down at the great littered
desk and rang up the exchange. She gave the
number and they waited. After what seemed like
a very long time, Elizabeth heard David's voice.
"Hullo!"
"It is I—Elizabeth," said Elizabeth Chantrey.
"What is it?"
"Can you come here at once? I want to see
you at once. Yes, it is very important—import-
ant and urgent."


A Man's Honour 45
Mary was in an agony of impatience. "What
does he say? Will he come? Will he come at
once?"
But Elizabeth answered David and not her
sister.
"No, presently won't do. It must be at once.
It's really urgent, David, or I would n't ask it.
Yes, thank you so much. In my room."
She put down the receiver, rang off, and turned
to Mary.
"He is coming. Had you not better send
Edward a message, or he will be coming back
here? Ring up, and say that you are staying
with me for an hour, and that Markham will
walk home with you."
In Elizabeth's little brown room the silence
weighed and the time lagged. Mary walked up
and down, moving perpetually—restlessly—use-
lessly. There was a small Dutch mirror above the
writing-table. Its cut glass border caught the
light, and reflected it in diamond points and rain-
bow flashes. It was the brightest thing in the
room. Mary stood for a moment and looked at
her own face. She began to arrange her hair with
nervous, trembling fingers. She rubbed her
cheeks, and straightened the lace at her


46 The Fire Within
throat. Then she fell to pacing up and down
again.
"The room 's so hot," she said suddenly. And
she went quickly to the window and flung it open.
The air came in, cold and mournfully damp.
Mary drew half a dozen long breaths. Then she
shivered, her teeth chattered. She shut the
window with a jerk, and as she did so David Blake
came into the room. It was Elizabeth he saw,
and it was to Elizabeth that he spoke.
"Is anything the matter? Anything fresh?"
Elizabeth moved aside, and all at once he saw
Mary Mottisfont.
"Mary wants to speak to you," said Elizabeth.
She made a step towards the door, but Mary
called her sharply. "No, Liz—stay!"
And Elizabeth drew back into the shadowed
corner by the window, whilst Mary came forward
into the light. For a moment there was silence.
Mary's hands were clasped before her, her chin
was a little lifted, her eyes were desperately
intent.
"David," she said in a low fluttering voice,
"oh, David—I was in here—I heard—I could not
help hearing."
"What did you hear?" asked David Blake.


A Man's Honour 47
The words came from him with a sort of startled
hardness.
"I heard everything you said to Edward—
about Mr. Mottisfont. You said it was poison.
I heard you say it."
"Yes," said David Blake.
"And Edward took him the tea," said Mary
quickly. "Don't you see, David—don't you see
how dreadful it is for Edward? People who did n't
know him might say—they might think such
dreadful things—and if there were an inquest—"
the words came in a sort of strangled whisper.
"There can't be an inquest—there can't. Oh,
David, you 'll sign the certificate, won't you?"
David's face had been changing while she spoke.
The first hard startled look went from it. It was
succeeded by a flash of something like horror, and
then by pain—pain and a great pity.
"No, Mary, dear, I can't," he said very gently.
He looked at her, and further words died upon his
lips. Mary came nearer. There was a big chair
in front of the fireplace, and she rested one hand
on the back of it. It seemed as if she needed
something firm to touch, her world was shifting
so. David had remained standing by the door,
but Mary was not a yard away from him now.


48 The Fire Within
"You see, David," she said, still in that low
tremulous voice, "you see, David, you haven't
thought—you can't have thought—what it will
mean if you don't. Edward might be suspected
of a most dreadful thing. I 'm sure you have n't
thought of that. He might even"—Mary's eyes
widened—"he might even be arrested—and tried—
and I could n't bear it." The hand that rested
on the chair began to tremble very much. "I
could n't bear it," said Mary piteously.
"Mary, my dear," said David, "this is a busi-
ness matter, and you must n't interfere—I can't
possibly sign the certificate. Poor old Mr. Mottis-
font did not die a natural death, and the matter
will have to be inquired into. No innocent person
need have anything to be afraid of."
"Oh!" said Mary. Her breath came hard.
"You haven't told any one—not yet? You
have n't written? Oh, am I too late? Have you
told people already?"
"No," said David, "not yet, but I must."
The tears came with a rush to Mary's eyes, and
began to roll down her cheeks.
"No, no, David, no," she said. Her left hand
went out towards him gropingly. "Oh, no, David,
you must n't. You have n't thought—indeed you


A Man's Honour 49
have n't. Innocent people can't always prove
that they are innocent. They can't. There 's a
book—a dreadful book. I 've just been reading
it. There was a man who was quite, quite inno-
cent—as innocent as Edward—and he could n't
prove it. And they were going to hang him—
David!"
Mary's voice broke off with a sort of jerk. Her
face became suddenly ghastly. There was an
extremity of terror in every sharpened feature.
Elizabeth stood quite straight and still by the
window. She was all in shadow, her brown dress
lost against the soft brown gloom of the half-
drawn velvet curtain. She felt like a shadow
herself as she looked and listened. The numb-
ness was upon her still. She was conscious as
it were of a black cloud that overshadowed them
all—herself, Mary, Edward. But not David.
David stood just beyond, and Mary was trying to
hold him and to draw him into the blackness.
Something in Elizabeth's deadened consciousness
kept saying over and over again: "Not David,
not David." Elizabeth saw the black cloud with
a strange internal vision. With her bodily eyes
she watched David's face. She saw it harden
when Mary looked at him, and quiver with pain


A Man's Honour 51
care? We 've only been married six months.
It's such a little time. Don't you care at all? I
never knew such dreadful things could happen—
not to one's self. You read things in papers,
and you never think—you never, never think that
a thing like that could happen to yourself. I
suppose those people don't all die, but I should
die. Oh, David, are n't you going to help us?"
She spoke the last words as a child might have
spoken them. Her eyes were fixed appealingly
upon David's face. Mary Mottisfont had very
beautiful eyes. They were hazel in colour, and
in shape and expression they resembled those of
another Mary, who was also Queen of Hearts.
Elizabeth Chantrey became suddenly aware
that she was shaking all over, and that the room
was full of a thick white mist. She groped in the
mist and found a chair. She made a step forward,
and sat down. Then the mist grew thinner by
degrees, and through it she saw that Mary had
come quite close to David again. She was looking
up at him. Her hands were against his breast,
and she was saying:
"David—David—David, you said the world
was not enough to give me once."
David's face was rigid.


54 The Fire Within
whole figure relaxed, her face became soft and
young again.
"O David, God bless you!" she cried.
David frowned. His brows made a dark line
across his face. Every feature was heavy and
forbidding.
"Can you hold your tongues?" he repeated.
"Do you understand—do you fully understand
that if a word of this is ever to get out it 's just
sheer ruin to the lot of us? Do you grasp that?"
Elizabeth Chantrey got up. She crossed the
room, and stood at David's side, nearly as tall as
he.
"Don't do it, David," she said, with a sudden
passion in her voice.
Mary turned on her in a flash.
"Liz," she cried; but David stood between.
"It's none of your business, Elizabeth. You
keep out of it." The tone was kinder than the
words.
Elizabeth was silent. She drew away, and did
not speak again.
"I 'll do it on one condition," said David Blake.
"You'd better go and tell Edward at once. I
don't want to see him. I don't suppose he 'sbeen talking to any one—it's not exactly likely—


Town Talk 57
twenty-one, and William was fifteen, and every one
shook their heads. I can see 'em now. Well, I
gave some folk the rough side of my tongue, and
some the smooth. I had to have money, and no
one would lend. I got a little credit, but I could
n't get the cash. Then I hunted up my father's
cousin, Edward Moberly. Rolling he was, and
as close as wax. Bored to death too, for all his
money. I talked to him, and he took to me. I
talked to him for three days, and he lent me what
I wanted, on my note of hand, and I paid it all
back in five years, and the interest up-to-date
right along. It took some doing but I got it
done. Then the thing got a go on it, and we
climbed right up. And folks stopped shaking
their heads. I began to make my mark. I began
to be a 'respected fellow-citizen.' Oh, Lord,
David, if you 'd known William you 'd respect
me too! Talk about the debts—as a handicap,
they were n't worth mentioning in the same breath
with William. I could talk people into believing
I was solvent, but I could n't talk 'em into
believing that William had any business capacity.
And I couldn't pay off William, same as I paid
off the debts."
David's recollections plunged him suddenly


58 The Fire Within
into a gulf of black depression. Such a plucky
old man, and now he was dead—out of the way—
and he, David, had lent a hand to cover the matter
over, and shield the murderer. David took the
black fit to bed with him at night, and rose in
the morning with the gloom upon him still. It
became a shadow which went with him in all his
ways, and clung about his every thought. And
with the gloom there came upon him a horrible,
haunting recurrence of his old passion for Mary.
The wound made by her rejection of him had been
slowly skinning over, but in the scene which they
had shared, and the stress of the emotions raised
by it, this wound had broken out afresh, and now
it was no more a deep clean cut, but a festering
thing that bid fair to poison all the springs of life.
At Mary's bidding he had violated a trust, and
his own sense of honour. There were times when
he hated Mary. There were times when he craved
for her. And always his contempt for himself
deepened, and with it the gloom—the black gloom.
"The doctor gets through a sight of whisky
these days," remarked Mrs. Havergill, David's
housekeeper. "And a more abstemious gentle-
man, I 'm sure I never did live with. Weeks a
bottle of whisky 'ud last, unless he 'd friends in.


Town Talk 59
And now—gone like a flash, as you might say.
Only, just you mind there 's not a word of this
goes out of the 'ouse, Sarah, my girl. D' ye hear?"
Sarah, a whey-faced girl whose arms and legs
were set on at uncertain angles, only nodded.
She adored David with the unreasoning affection
of a dog, and had he taken to washing in whisky
instead of merely drinking it, she would have
regarded his doing so as quite a right and proper
thing.
When the local papers had finished Mr. Morris- font's obituary notices and had lavished all their
remaining stock of adjectives upon the funeral
arrangements, they proceeded to interest them-
selves in the terms of his will. For once, old Mr.
Mottisfont had done very much what was expected
of him. Local charities benefited and old servants
were remembered. Elizabeth Chantrey was left
twenty-five thousand pounds, and everything else
went to Edward. "To David Blake I leave my
sincere respect, he having declined to receive a
legacy."
David could almost see the old man grin as he
wrote the words, could almost hear him chuckle,
"Very well, my highfalutin young man—into the
pillory with you."


60 The Fire Within
The situation held a touch of sardonic humour
beyond old Mr. Mottisfont's contriving, and the
iron of it rusted into David's soul. Market
Harford discussed the terms of the will with great
interest. They began to speculate as to what
Elizabeth Chantrey would do. When it trans-
pired that she was going to remain on in the old
house and be joined there by Edward and Mary,
there was quite a little buzz of talk.
"I assure you he made it a condition—a secret
condition," said old Mrs. Codrington in her deep
booming voice. "I have it from Mary herself.
He made it a condition."
It was quite impossible to disbelieve a state-
ment made with so much authority. Mrs. Cod-
rington's voice always stood her in good stead.
It had a solidity which served to prop up any
shaky fact. Miss Dobell, to whom she was
speaking, sniffed, and felt a little out of it. She
had been Agatha Mottisfont's great friend, and
as such she felt that she herself should have been
the fountainhead of information. As soon as
Mrs. Codrington had departed Miss Hester
Dobell put on her outdoor things and went to
call upon Mary Mottisfont.
As it was a damp afternoon, she pinned up her


Town Talk 61
skirts all round, and she was still unpinning them
upon Mary's doorstep, when the door opened.
"Miss Chantrey is with her sister? Oh, indeed!
That is very nice, very nice indeed. And Mrs.
Mottisfont is seeing visitors, you say? Yes?
Then I will just walk in—just walk in."
Miss Dobell came into the drawing-room with
a little fluttered run. Her faded blue eyes were
moist, but not so moist as to prevent her perceiv-
ing that Mary wore a black dress which did not
become her, and that Elizabeth had on an old
grey coat and skirt, with dark furs, and a close
felt hat which almost hid her hair. She greeted
Mary very affectionately and Elizabeth a shade
less affectionately.
"I hope you are well, Mary, my dear? Yes?
That is good. These sad times are very trying.
And you, Elizabeth? I am pleased to find that
you are able to be out. I feared you were indis-
posed. Every one was saying, 'Miss Chantrey
must be indisposed, as she was not at the funeral.'
And I feared it was the case."
"No, thank you, I am quite well," said Elizabeth.
Miss Dobell seated herself, smoothing down her
skirt. It was of a very bright blue, and she wore
with it a little fawn-coloured jacket adorned with


Town Talk 63
him, it would be only proper, only right and
proper.' That is what I said, and I am sure I was
right. It was his wish, was it not?"
"He did not like to see people in black," said
Elizabeth.
. "No," said Miss Dobell in a flustered little
voice. "Very strange, is it not? But then so
many of poor Mr. Mottisfont's ideas were very
strange. I cannot help remembering how they
used to grieve poor dear Agatha. And his views
—so sad—so very sad. But there, we must not
speak of them now that he is dead. No. Doubt-
less he knows better now. Oh, yes, we must hope
so. I do not know what made me speak of it.
I should not have done so. No, not now that he
is dead! It was not right, or charitable. But I
really only intended to explain how it came about
that ? was not at the funeral. It was a great
deprivation—a very great deprivation, but I was
there in spirit—oh, yes, in spirit."
The purple grapes nodded a little in sympathy
with Miss Dobell's nervous agitation. She put
up a little hand, clothed in a brown woollen glove,
and steadied them.
"I often think," she said, "that I should do
well to purchase one black garment for such occa-


64 The Fire Within
sions as these. Now I should hardly have liked
to come here to-day, dressed in colours, had I not
been aware of poor dear Mr. Mottisfont's views.
It is awkward. Yes, oh, yes. But you see, my
dear Mary, in my youth, being one of a very large
family, we were so continually in mourning that I
really hardly ever possessed any garment of a
coloured nature. When I was only six years old
I can remember that we were in mourning for my
grandfather. In those days, my dears, little
girls, wore, well, they wore—little—hem—white
trousers, quite long, you know, reaching in fact to
the ankle. Under a black frock it had quite a
garish appearance. And my dear mother, who
was very particular about all family observances,
used to stitch black crape bands upon the trouser-
legs. It was quite a work. Oh, yes, I assure you.
Then after my grandfather, there was my great-
uncle George, and on the other side of the family
my great-aunt Eliza. And then there were my
uncles, and two aunts, and quite a number of
cousins. And, later on, my own dear brothers
and sisters. So that, as you may say, we were
never out of black at all, for our means were such
that it was necessary to wear out one garment
before another could be purchased. And I be-


Town Talk 65
came a little weary of wearing black, my dears.
So when my last dear sister died, I went into
colours. Not at once, oh, no!"—Miss Dobell
became very much shocked and agitated at the
sound of her own words. "Oh, dear, no. Not,
of course, until after a full and proper period of
mourning, but when that was over I went into
colours, and have never since possessed anything
black. You see, as I have no more relations, it
is unnecessary that I should be provided with
mourning."
Elizabeth Chantrey left her sister's house in
rather a saddened mood. She wondered if she
too would ever be left derelict. Unmarried
women were often very lonely. Life went past
them down other channels. They missed their
link with the generations to come, and as the new
life sprang up it knew them not, and they had
neither part nor lot in it. When she reached
home she sat for a long while very still, forcing
her consciousness into a realisation of Life as
a thing unbroken, one, eternal. The peace of
it came upon her, and the sadness passed.


CHAPTER VI
THE LETTER
Oh, you shall walk in the mummers' train,
And dance for a beggar's boon,
And wear as mad a motley
As any under the moon,
And you shall pay the piper—
But I will call the tune.
Mr. Mottisfont had been dead for about
a fortnight when the letter arrived. David
Blake found it upon his breakfast table when he
came downstairs. It was a Friday morning, and
there was an east wind blowing. David came into
the dining-room wishing that there were no such
thing as breakfast, and there, propped up in
front of his plate, was the letter. He stared at it,
and stared again. A series of sleepless or hag-
ridden nights are not the best preparation for a
letter written in a dead man's hand and sealed
with a dead man's seal. If David's hand was
steady when he picked up the letter it was because
his will kept it steady, and for no other reason.
66


The Letter 67
As he held it in his hand, Mrs. Havergill came
bustling in with toast and coffee. David passed
her, went into his consulting room and shut the
door.
"First he went red and then he went white,"
she told Sarah, "and he pushed past me as if I
were a stock, or a post, or something of that sort.
I 'ope he 'as n't caught one of them nasty fevers,
down in some slum. 'T is n't natural for a man to
turn colour that way. There was only one young
man ever I knew as did it, William Jones his name
was, and he was the sexton's son down at Dunning-
ton. And he 'd do it. Red one minute and white
the next, and then red again. And he went off
in a galloping decline, and broke his poor mother's
heart. And there 's their two graves side by side
in Dunnington Churchyard. Mr. Jones, he dug
the graves hisself, and never rightly held his head
up after."
David Blake sat down at his table and spread
out old Mr. Mottisfont's letter upon the desk in
front of him. It was a long letter, written in a
clear, pointed handwriting, which was character-
istic and unmistakable.
"My dear "David, "—wrote old Mr. Mottis-


68 The Fire Within
font,—"My dear David, I have just written a
letter to Edward—a blameless and beautiful
letter—in which I have announced my immedi-
ate, or, as one might say, approximate intention of
committing suicide by the simple expedient of
first putting arsenic into a cup of tea and then
drinking the tea. I shall send Edward for the
tea, and I shall put the arsenic into it, under his
very nose. And Edward will be thinking of
beetles, and will not see me do it. I am prepared
to bet my bottom dollar that he does not see me
do it. Edward's letter, of which I enclose a copy,
is the sort of letter which one shows to coroners, and
jurymen, and legal advisers. Of course things
may not have gone as far as that, but, on the
other hand, they may. There are evil-minded
persons who may have suspected Edward of
having hastened my departure to a better world.
You may even have suspected him yourself, in
which case, of course, my dear David, this letter
will be affording you a good deal of pleasurable
relief." David clenched his hand and read on.
"Edward's letter is for the coroner. It should
arrive about a fortnight after my death, if my
valued correspondent, William Giles, of New York,
does as I have asked him. This letter is for you.


The Letter 69
Between ourselves, then, it was that possible
three years of yours that decided me. I could n't
stand it. I don't believe in another world, and
I 'm damned if I 'll put in three years' hell in this
one. Do you remember old Madden? I do, and
I 'm not going to hang on like that, not to please
any one, nor I 'm not going to be cut up in sec-
tions either. So now you know all about it.
I 've just sent Edward for the tea. Poor Edward,
it will hurt his feelings very much to be suspected
of polishing me off. By the way, David, as a sort
of last word—you 're no end of a damn fool—why
don't you marry the right woman instead of
wasting your time hankering after the wrong one?
That's all. Here's luck.
"Yours.
"E. M. M."
David read the letter straight through without
any change of expression. When he came to the
end he folded the sheets neatly, put them back in
the envelope, and locked the envelope away in a
drawer. Then his face changed suddenly. First,
a great rush of colour came into it, and then every
feature altered under an access of blind and un-
governable anger. He pushed back his chair and


70 The Fire Within
sprang up, but the impetus which had carried him
to his feet appeared to receive some extraordinary
check. His movement had been a very violent
one, but all at once it passed into rigidity. He
stood with every muscle tense, and made neither
sound nor movement. Slowly the colour died
out of his face. Then he took a step backwards
and dropped again into the chair. His eyes were
fixed upon the strip of carpet which lay between
him and the writing-table. A small, twisted
scrap of paper was lying there. David Blake
looked hard at the paper, but he did not see it.
What he saw was another torn and twisted thing.
A man's professional honour is a very delicate
thing. David had never held his lightly. If he
had violated it, he had done so because there
were great things in the balance. Mary's happi-
ness, Mary's future, Mary's life. He had be-
trayed a trust because Mary asked it of him and
because there was so much in the balance. And
it had all been illusion. There had been no risk—
no danger. Nothing but an old man's last and
cruelest jest. And he, David, had been the old
man's dupe. A furious anger surged in him. For
nothing, it was all for nothing. He had wrenched
himself for nothing, forfeited his self-respect for


The Letter 71
nothing, sold his honour for nothing. Mary had
bidden him, and he had done her bidding, and it
was all for nothing. A little bleak sunlight came
in at the window and showed the worn patches
upon the carpet. David could remember that
old brown carpet for as long as he could remember
anything. It had been in his father's consulting
room. The writing-table had been there too.
The room was full of memories of William Blake.
Old familiar words and looks came back to David
as he sat there. He remembered many little
things, and, as he remembered, he despised him-
self very bitterly. As the moments passed, so his
self-contempt grew, until it became unbearable.
He rose, pushing his chair so that it fell over with a
crash, and went into the dining-room.
Half an hour later Sarah put her head round the
corner of the door and announced, "Mr. Edward
Mottisfont in the consulting room, sir." David
Blake was sitting at the round table with a de-
canter in front of him. He got up with a short
laugh and went to Edward.
Edward presented a ruffled but resigned appear-
ance. He was agitated, but beneath the agitation
there was plainly evident a trace of melancholy
triumph.


72 The Fire Within
"I've had a letter," he began. David stood
facing him.
"So have I," he said.
Edward's wave of the hand dismissed as
irrelevant all letters except his own. "But
mine—mine was from my uncle," he exclaimed.
"Exactly. He was obliging enough to send me
a copy."
"You—you know," said Edward. Then he
searched his pockets, and ultimately produced
a folded letter.
"You 've had a letter like this? He 's told you?
You know?"
"That he's played us the dirtiest trick on
record? Yes, thanks, Edward, I 've been enjoy-
ing the knowledge for the best part of an hour."
Edward shook his head.
"Of course he was mad," he said. "I have
often wondered if he was quite responsible. He
used to say such extraordinary things. If you
remember, I asked you about it once, and you
laughed at me. But now, of course, there is no
doubt about it. His brain had become affected."
David's lip twitched a little.
"Mad? Oh, no, you needn't flatter yourself,
he was n't mad. I only hope my wits may last as


The Letter 73
well. He was n't mad, but he 's made the biggest
fools of the lot of us—the biggest fools. Oh, Lord!
—how he 'd have laughed. He set the stage, and
called the cast, and who so ready as we? First
Murderer—Edward Mottisfont; Chief Mourner—
Mary, his wife; and Tom Fool, beyond all other
Tom Fools, David Blake, M.D. My Lord, he
never said a truer word than when he wrote me
down a damn fool!"
David ended on a note of concentrated bitter-
ness, and Edward stared at him.
"I would much rather believe he was out of his
mind," he said uncomfortably. "And he is dead
—after all, he's dead."
"Yes," said David grimly, "he 's dead."
"And thanks to you," continued Edward,
"there has been no scandal—or publicity. It
would really have been dreadful if it had all come
out. Most—most unpleasant. I know you
did n't wish me to say anything."
Edward began to rumple his hair wildly.
"Mary told me, and of course I know it's beastly
to be thanked, and all that, but I can't help saying
that—in fact—I am awfully grateful. And I 'm
awfully thankful that the matter has been cleared
up so satisfactorily. If we had n't got this letter,


74 The Fire Within
well—I don't like to say such a thing—but any
one of us might have come to suspect the other.
It does n't sound quite right to say it," pursued
Edward apologetically, "but it might have hap-
pened. You might have suspected me—oh, I
don't mean really—I am only supposing, you
know—or I might have suspected you. And now
it's all cleared up, and no harm done, and as to
my poor old uncle, he was mad. People who
commit suicide are always mad. Every one
knows that."
"Oh, have it your own way," said David Blake..
"He was mad, and now everything is comfortably
arranged, and we can all settle down with nothing
on our minds, and live happily ever after."
There was a savage sarcasm in his voice, which
he did not trouble to conceal.
"And now, look here," he went on with a sudden
change of manner. He straightened himself and
looked squarely at Edward Mottisfont. "Those
letters have got to be kept."'
"Now I should have thought—" began
Edward, but David broke in almost violently.
"For Heaven's sake, don't start thinking,
Edward." He said: "Just you listen to me.
These letters have got to be kept. They 've


The Letter 75
got to sit in a safe at a lawyer's. We 'll seal 'em
up in the presence of witnesses, an send 'em off.
We 're not out of the wood yet. If this business
were ever to leak out—and, after all, there are
four of us in it, and two of them are women—if
it were ever to leak out, we should want these letters
to save our necks. Yes—our necks. Good Lord,
Edward, did you never realise your position?
Did you never realise that any jury in the world
would have hanged you on the evidence? It was
damning—absolutely damning. And I come in
as accessory after the fact. No, thank you, I
think we 'll keep the letters, until we 're past
hanging. And there 's another thing—how many
people have you told? Mary, of course?"
"Yes, Mary, but no one else," said Edward.
David made an impatient movement.
"If you 've told her, you 've told her," he said.
"Now what you 've got to do is this: you Ve got
to rub it into Mary that it's just as important
for her to hold her tongue now as it was before the
letter came. She was safe as long as she thought
your neck was in danger, but do, for Heaven's
sake, get it into her head that I 'm dead damned
broke, if it ever gets out that I helped to hush up a
case that looked like murder and turned out to be


CHAPTER VII
ELIZABETH CHANTREY
"Whatever ways we walk in and whatever dreams come true,
You still shall say, "God speed " to me, and I," God go with you."
COME days later Elizabeth Chantrey went
 away for about a month, to pay a few long-
promised visits. She went first to an old school-
friend, then to some relations, and lastly to the
Mainwarings. Agneta Mainwaring had moved
to town after her mother's death, and was sharing
a small flat with her brother Louis, in a very fash-
ionable quarter. She had been engaged for about
six months to Douglas Strange, and was expecting
to marry him as soon as he returned from his
latest, and most hazardous journey across Equa-
torial Africa.
"I thought you were never coming," said
Agneta, as they sat in the firelight, Louis on the
farther side of the room, close to the lamp, with
his head buried in a book.
77


78 The Fire Within
"Never, never, never!" repeated Agneta, strok-
ing the tail of Elizabeth's white gown affection-
ately and nodding at every word. She was sitting
on the curly black hearth-rug, a small vivid crea-
ture in a crimson dress. Agneta Mainwaring was
little and dark, passionate, earnest, and frivo-
lous. A creature of variable moods and intense
affections, steadfast only where she loved. Eliza-
beth was watching the firelight upon the big
square sapphire ring which she always wore. She
looked up from it now and smiled at Agneta, just
a smile of the eyes.
"Well, I am here," she said, and Agneta went
on stroking, and exclaimed:
"Oh, it's so good to have you."
"The world not been going nicely?" said
Elizabeth.
Agneta frowned.
"Oh, so, so. Really, Lizabeth, being engaged
to an explorer is the devil. Sometimes I get a
letter two days running, and sometimes I don't
get one for two months, and I 've just been doing
the two months' stretch."
"Then," said Elizabeth, "you 'll soon be getting
two letters together, Neta."
"Oh, well, I did get one this morning, or I


Elizabeth Chantrey 79
should n't be talking about it," Agneta flushed and
laughed, then frowned again. Three little wrin-
kles appeared upon her nose. '' What worries me is
that I am such a hopeless materialist about letters.
Letters are rank materialism. Rank. Two people
as much in touch with one another as Douglas and
I ought n't to need letters. I Ve no business to
be dependent on them. We ought to be able to
reach one another without them. Of course we
do—really—but we ought to know that we are
doing "It. We ought to be conscious of it. I 've
no business to be dependent on wretched bits of
paper, and miserable penfuls of ink. I ought to be
able to do without them. And I 'm a blatant
materialist. I can't."
Elizabeth laughed a little.
"I shouldn't worry, if I were you. It'll all
come. You 'll get past letters when you 're
ready to get past them. I don't think your
materialism is of a very heavy order. It will go
away if you don't fuss over it. We 'll all get past
letters in time."
Agneta tossed her head.
"Oh, I don't suppose there'll be any let-
ters in heaven," she said. "I'm sure I trust
not. My idea is that we shall sit on nice


8o The Fire Within
comfy clouds, and play at telephones with
thought-waves."
Louis shut his book with a bang.
"Really, Agneta, if that isn't materialism."
He came over and sat down on the hearth-rug be-
side his sister. They were not at all alike. Where
Agneta was small, Louis was large. Her hair and
eyes were black, and his of a dark reddish-brown.
"I didn't know you were listening," she
said.
"Well, I was n't. I just heard, and I give you
fair warning, Agneta, that if there are going to be
telephones in your heaven, I 'm going somewhere
else. I shall have had enough of them here.
Hear the bells, the silver bells, the tintinabulation
that so musically swells. From the bells, bells,
bells, bells—bells, bells, bells."
Agneta first pulled Louis's hair, and then put
her fingers in her ears.
"Stop! stop this minute! Oh, Louis, please.
Oh, Lizabeth, make him stop. That thing always
drives me perfectly crazy, and he knows it."
"All right. It's done. I 've finished. I 'm
much more merciful than Poe. I only wanted to
point "out that if that was your idea of heaven, it
wasn't mine."


82 The Fire Within
You did n't make it. And you ought to be pro-
perly grateful for being allowed to walk about with
a real live halo. Why should you pretend? If it
was n't pretence, you would n't take so much
trouble about doing it. You 'd just twist it up
on a single hairpin.
"It wouldn't stay up," said Elizabeth.
"I wish it would n't. Oh, Lizabeth, won't
you let it down just for once?"
"No, I won't," said Elizabeth, with pleasant
firmness.
Louis fell into a gloom. His brown eyes
darkened.
"I don't see why," he said; and Elizabeth
laughed at him.
"Oh, Louis, will you ever grow up?"
Louis assumed an air of dignity. "My last
book," he said, "was not only very well reviewed
by competent and appreciative persons, but I
would have you to know that it also brought me
in quite a large and solid cheque. And my poems
have had what is known as a successd'estime,
which means that you and your publisher lose
money, but the critics say nice things. These
facts, my dear madam, all point to my having
emerged from the nursery."


Elizabeth Ghantrey 83
"Go on emerging, Louis," said Elizabeth, with
a little nod of encouragement. Louis appeared
to be plunged in thought. He frowned, made
calculations upon his fingers, and finally inquired:
"How many times have I proposed to you,
Lizabeth?"
Elizabeth looked at him with amusement.
"I really never counted. Do you want me
to?"
"No. I think I've got it right. I think it
must be eight times, because I know I began
when I was twenty, and I don't think I 've missed
a year since. This," said Louis, getting on to his
knees and coming nearer, "this will be number
nine."
"Oh, Louis, don't," said Elizabeth.
"And why not?"
"Because it really isn't kind. Do you want
me to go away to-morrow? If you propose to me,
and I refuse you, every possible rule of propriety
demands that I should immediately return to
Market Harford. And I don't want to." Louis
hesitated.
"How long are you staying?"
"Nice, hospitable young man. Agneta has
asked me to stay for a fortnight."


84 The Fire Within
"All right." Louis sat back upon his heels.
"Let's talk about books. Have you read Fen-
der's last? It's a wonder—just a wonder."
Elizabeth enjoyed her fortnight's stay very
much. She was glad to be away from Market
Harford, and she was glad to be with Agneta and
Louis. She saw one or two good plays, had a
great deal of talk of the kind she had been starving
for, and met a good many people who were doing
interesting things. On the last day of her visit
Agneta said:
"So you go back to Market Harford for a year.
Is it because Mr. Mottisfont asked you to?"
"Partly."
There was a little pause.
"What are you going to do with your life,
Lizabeth?"
Elizabeth looked steadily at the blue of her
ring. Her eyes were very deep.
"I don't know, Neta. I 'm waiting to be told."
Agneta nodded, and looked understanding.
"And if you aren't told?"
"I think I shall be."
"But if not?"
"Well, that would be a telling in itself. If


Elizabeth Ghantrey 85
nothing happens before the year is up, I shall
come up to London, and find some work. There 's
plenty."
"Yes," said Agneta. She put her little pointed
chin in her hands and gazed at Elizabeth. There
was something almost fierce in her eyes. She knew
very little about David Blake, but she guessed
a good deal more. And there were moments
when it would have given her a great deal of
pleasure to have spoken her mind on the subject.
They sat for a little while in silence, and then
Louis came in, and wandered about the room
until Agneta exclaimed at him:
"Do, for goodness' sake, sit down, Louis! You
give me the fidgets."
Louis drifted over to the hearth. "Have you
ordered any meals," he said, with apparent
irrelevance.
"Tea, dinner, breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner
again." Agneta's tone was vicious. "Is that
enough for you?"
"Very well, then, run away and write a letter
to Douglas. I believe you are neglecting him,
and there 's a nice fire in the dining-room."
Agneta rose with outraged dignity. "I don't
write my love-letters to order, thank you," she


86 The Fire Within
said "and you need n't worry about Douglas. If
you want me to go away, I don't mind taking a
book into the dining-room. Though, if you 'll
take my advice—but you won't—so I 'll just
leave you to find out for yourself."
Louis shut the door after her, and came back to
Elizabeth.
"Number nine," he observed.
"No, Louis, don't."
"I 'm going to. You are in for it, Lizabeth.
Your visit is over, so you can't accuse me of spoil-
ing it. Number nine, and a fortnight overdue.
Here goes. For the ninth time of asking, will you
marry me?"
Elizabeth shook her head at him.
"No, Louis, I won't," she said.
Louis looked at her steadily.
"This is the ninth time I have asked you. How
many times have you taken me seriously, Liza-
beth? Not once."
"I should have been so very sorry to take you
seriously, you see, Louis dear," said Elizabeth,
speaking very sweetly and gently.
Louis Mainwaring walked to the window and
stood there in silence for a minute or two. Eliza-
beth began to look troubled. When he turned


Elizabeth Ghantrey 87
round and came back his face was rather
white.
"No," he said, "you Ve never taken me seri-
ously—never once. But it's been serious enough,
for me. You never thought it went deep—but
it did. Some people hide their deep things under
silence—every one can understand that. Others
hide theirs under words—a great many light
words. Jests. That's been my way. It's a
better mask than the other, but I don't want any
mask between us now. I want you to understand.
We 've always talked about my being in love with
you. We Ve always laughed about it, but now I
want you to understand. It's me, the whole of
me—all there is—all there ever will be"
He was stammering now and almost incoherent.
His hand shook. Elizabeth got up quickly.
"Oh, Louis dear, Louis dear," she said. She
put her arm half round him, and for a moment he
leaned his head against her shoulder. When he
raised it he was trying to smile.
"Oh, Lady of Consolation," he said, and then,
"how you would spoil a man whom you loved!
There, Lizabeth, you need n't worry about it.
You see, I 've always known that you would never
love me."


90 The Fire Within
Agneta knelt down beside her, and began to
pinch her arm.
"I would if I could, but I can't," she observed
viciously. "I've tried, of course, but I can't
do it by myself, and it's not the sort of thing you
can expect religion to be any help in. As if you
did n't know that Louis and I simply love your
littlest finger-nail, and that we 'd do anything for
you, and that we think it an honour to be your
friends, and—oh, Lizabeth, if you don't stop
crying this very instant, I shall pour all the water
out of that big flower-vase down the back of your
neck!"


CHAPTER VIII
EDWARD SINGS
"What ails you, Andrew, my man's son,
That you should look so white,
That you should neither eat by day,
Nor take your rest by night?"
"I have no rest when I would sleep,
No peace when I would rise,
Because of Janet's yellow hair,
Because of Janet's eyes."
WHEN Elizabeth Chantrey returned to Mar-
ket Harford, she did so with quite a clear
understanding of the difficulties that lay before
her. Edward had spoken to her of his uncle's
wishes, and begged her to fulfil them by remaining
on in the old house as his and Mary's guest.
Apparently it never occurred to him that the
situation presented any difficulty, or that few
women would find it agreeable to be guest where
they had been mistress. Elizabeth was under no
illusions. She knew that she was putting herself
in an almost impossible position, but she had made
91


Edward Sings 93
friends. Hey? I 'm glad, Edward and Mary 'll
be glad, and David—hey? David's a friend of
yours, isn't he? Used to be, I know, in the old
days. Prodigious allies you were. Always in
each other's pockets. Same books—same walks—
same measles—" he laughed heartily, and then
broke off. "David wants his friends," he said,
"for the matter of that, every one wants friends,
hey? But you get David to come and see you,
my dear. He won't want much persuading, hey?
Well, well, I won't keep you. I must n't waste
your time. Now that I 'm idle, I forget that
other people have business, hey? And I see Miss
Dobell coming over to speak to you. Now, I
would n't waste her time for the world. Not for
the world, my dear Miss Elizabeth. Good-day,
good-day, good-day."
His eyes twinkled as he raised his hat, and he
went off at an astonishing rate, as Miss Dobell
picked her way across the road.
"Such a fine man, Dr. Bull, I always think,"
she remarked in her precise little way. Every
word she uttered had the effect of being enclosed
in a separate little water-tight compartment. "I
really miss him, if I may say so. Oh, yes; and I
am not the only one of his old patients who feels


94 The Fire Within
it a deprivation to have lost his services. Oh, no.
Young men are so unreliable. They begin well,
but they are unreliable. Oh, yes, sadly unreli-
able," repeated Miss Dobell with emphasis.
She and Elizabeth were crossing the bridge as
she spoke. Away to the left, above the water,
Elizabeth could see the sunlight reflected from
the long line of windows which faced the river.
The trees before them were almost leafless, and it
was easy to distinguish one house from another.
David Blake lived in the seventh house, and Miss
Dobell was gazing very pointedly in that direction,
and nodding her head.
"I dislike gossip," she said. "I set my face
against gossip, my dear Elizabeth, I do not ap-
prove of it. I do not talk scandal nor permit it to
be talked in my presence. But I am not blind, or
deaf. Oh, no. We should be thankful when we
have all our faculties, and mine are unimpared,
oh, yes, quite unimpaired, although I am not
quite as young as you are."
"Yes?" said Elizabeth.
Miss Dobell became rather flustered. "I have
a little errand," she said hurriedly. "A little,
errand, my dear Elizabeth. I will not keep you,
oh, no, I must not keep you now. I shall see you


Edward Sings 95
later, I shall come and see you, but I will not detain
you now. Oh, no, Mary will be waiting for you."
"So you have really come," said Mary a little
later.
After kissing her sister warmly, she had allowed
a slight air of offence to appear. "I had begun to
think you had missed your train. I am afraid the
tea will be rather strong, I had it made punctually,
you see. I was beginning to think that you
had n't been able to tear yourself away from
Agneta after all."
"Now, Molly—" said Elizabeth, protestingly.
But Mary was not to be turned aside. "Of
course you would much rather have stayed, I
know that. Will you have bread and butter or
tea-cake? When Mr. Mottisfont died, I said to
myself, 'Now she 'll go and live with Agneta, and
she might just as well be dead.' That's why I was
quite pleased when Edward came and told me
that Mr. Mottisfont had said you were to stay on
here for a year. Of course, as I said to Edward,
he had no right to make any such condition, and
if it had been any one but you, I should n't have
liked it at all. That's what I said to Edward—.
'It really isn 't fair, but Elizabeth isn 't like other
people. She won't try and run the house over my


96 The Fire Within
head, and she won't want to be always with us.'
You see, married people do like to have their
evenings, but as I said to Edward, 'Elizabeth
would much rather be in her own little room, with
a book, than sitting with us.' And you would,
would n't you?"
"Oh, yes," said Elizabeth laughing.
The spectacle of Mary being tactful always
made her laugh.
"Of course when any one comes in in the even-
ing—that's different. Of course you 'll join us
then. But you 'd rather be here as a rule, would n't
you?"
"Oh, you know I love my little room. It was
nice of you to have tea here, Molly," said Eliza-
beth.
"Yes, I thought you'd like it. And then I
wanted the rest of the house to be a surprise to
you. When we Ve had tea I want to show you
everything. Of course your rooms have n't been
touched, you said you 'd rather they were n't; but
everything else has been done up, and I really
think it's very nice. I Ve been quite excited
over it."
"Give me a little more tea, Molly," said
Elizabeth.


Edward Sings 97
As she leaned forward with her cup in her hand,
she asked casually: "Have you seen much of
David lately?"
"Oh, yes," said Mary, "he 's here very often."
She pursed her lips a little. "I think David is a
very curious person, Liz. I don't understand him
at all. I think he is very difficult to understand."
"Is he, Molly?"
Elizabeth looked at her sister with something
between anxiety and amusement.
"Yes, very. He's quite changed, it seems to
me. I could understand his being upset just
after Mr. Mottisfont's death. We were all upset
then. I am sure I never felt so dreadful in my
life. It made me quite ill. But afterwards,"
Mary's voice dropped to a lower tone, "afterwards
when the letter had come, and everything was
cleared up—well, you 'd have thought he would
have been all right again, would n't you? And
instead, he has just gone on getting more and more
unlike himself. You know, he was so odd when
Edward went to see him that, really,"—Mary
hesitated—"Edward thought—well, he wondered
whether David had been drinking."
"Nonsense, Molly!"
"Oh, it's not only Edward—everybody has


98 The Fire Within
noticed how changed he is. Have you got any-
thing to eat, Liz? Have some of the iced cake;
it's from a recipe of Miss Dobell's and it's quite
nice. What was I saying? Oh, about David—
well, it's true, Liz—Mrs. Havergill told Markham;
now, Liz, what's the sense of your looking at me
like that? Of course I should n't dream of talking
to an ordinary servant, but considering Markham
has known us since we were about two—Markham
takes an interest, a real interest, and when Mrs.
Havergill told her that she was afraid David was
taking a great deal more than was good for him,
and she wished his friends could stop it, why,
Markham naturally told me. She felt it her
duty. I expect she thought I might have an
influence—as I hope I have. That's why I
encourage David to come here. I think it's so
good for him. I think it makes such a difference
to young men if they have a nice home to come to,
and it's very good for them to see married people
fond of each other, and happy together, like
Edward and I are. Don't you think so?"
"I don't know, Molly," said Elizabeth. "Are
people talking about David?"
"Yes, they are. Of course I haven't said a
word, but people are noticing how different he is.


Edward Sings 99
I don't see how they can help it, and yesterday
when I was having tea with Mrs. Codrington, Miss
Dobell began to hint all sorts of things, and there
was quite a scene. You know how devoted Mrs.
Codrington is! She really quite frightened poor
little Miss Hester. I can tell you, I was glad that
I had n't said anything. Mrs. Codrington always
frightens me. She looks so large, and she speaks
so loud. I was quite glad to get away."
"I like Mrs. Codrington," said Elizabeth.
"Oh, well, so do I. But I like her better when
she 's not angry. Oh, by the way, Liz, talking of
David, do you know that I met Katie Ellerton
yesterday, and—how long is it since Dr. Ellerton
died?"
"More than two years."
"Well, she has gone quite out of mourning.
You know how she went on at first—she was
going to wear weeds always, and never change any-
thing, and as to ever going into colours again, she
could n't imagine how any one could do it! And
I met her out yesterday in quite a bright blue
coat and skirt. What do you think of that?"
"Oh, Molly, you've been going out to too
many tea-parties! Why shouldn't poor Katie
go out of mourning? I think it's very sensible


ioo The Fire Within
of her. I have always been so sorry for
her."
Mary assumed an air of lofty virtue. "I used
to be. But now, I don't approve of her a,t all.
She 's just doing her very best to catch David
Blake. Every one can see it. If that wretched
little Ronnie has so much as a thorn in his finger,
she sends for David. She 's making herself the
laughing-stock of the place. I think it's simply
horrid. I don't approve of second marriages at all.
I never do see how any really nice-minded woman
can marry again. And it's not only the marrying,
but to run after a man, like that—it's quite dread-
ful! I am sure David would be most unhappy if
he married her. It would be a dreadfully bad
thing for him."
Elizabeth leaned back in her chair.
"How sweet the hour that sets us free
To sip our scandal, and our tea,"
she observed.
Mary coloured.
"I never talk scandal," she said in an offended
voice, and Elizabeth refrained from telling her
that Miss Dobell had made the same remark.
All the time that Mary was showing her over


Edward Sings 101
the house, Elizabeth was wondering whether it
would be such a dreadfully bad thing for David
to marry Katie Ellerton. Ronnie was a dear
little'boy, and David loved children, and Katie—
Katie was one of those gentle, clinging creatures
whom men adore and spoil. If she cared for him,
and he grew to care for her—Elizabeth turned the
possibilities, over and over in her mind, wonder-
ing
She wondered still more that evening, when
David Blake came in after dinner. He had
changed. Elizabeth looked at him and saw things
in his face which she only half understood. He
looked ill and tired, but both illness and weariness
appeared to her to be incidental. Behind them
there was something else, something much stronger
and yet more subtle, some deflection of the man's
whole nature.
Edward and Mary did not disturb themselves
at David's coming. They were at the piano,
and Edward nodded casually, whilst Mary merely
waved her hand and smiled.
David said "How do you do?" to Elizabeth,
and sat down by the fire. He was in evening dress,
but somehow he looked out of place in Mary's
new white drawing-room. Edward had put in


102 The Fire Within
electric light all over the house, and here it shone
through rosy shades. The room was all rose and
white—roses on the chintz, a frieze of roses
upon the walls, and a rose-coloured carpet on
the floor. Only the two lamps over the piano
were lighted. They shone on Mary. She was
playing softly impassioned chords in support of
Edward, who exercised a pleasant tenor voice
upon the lays of Lord Henry Somerset. Mary
played accompaniments with much sentiment.
Occasionally, when the music was easy, she shot
an adoring glance at Edward, a glance to which
he duly responded, when not preoccupied with
a note beyond his compass.
Elizabeth was tolerant of lovers, and Mary's
little sentimentalities, like Mary's airs of virtuous
matronhood, were often quite amusing to watch;
but to-night, with David Blake as a fourth person
in the room, Elizabeth found amusement merging
into irritation and irritation into pain. Except
for that lighted circle about the piano, the room
lay all in shadow. There was a soft dusk upon it,
broken every now and then by gleams of firelight.
David Blake sat back in his chair, and the dimness
of the room hid his face, except when the fire
blazed up and showed Elizabeth how changed it


Edward Sings 103
was. She had been away only a month, and he
looked like a stranger. His attitude was that of a
very weary man. His head rested on his hand,
and he looked all the time at Mary in the rosy glow
which bathed her. When she looked up at Ed-
ward, he saw the look, saw the light shine down
into her dark eyes and sparkle there. Not a look,
not a smile was lost, and whilst he watched Mary,
Elizabeth watched him. Elizabeth was very glad
of the dimness that shielded her. It was a relief
to drop the mask of a friendly indifference, to be
able to watch David with no thought except for
him. Her heart yearned to him as never before.
She divined in him a great hunger—a great pain.
And this hunger, this pain, was hers. The longing
to give, to assuage, to comfort, welled up in her
with a suddenness and strength that were almost
startling. Elizabeth took her thought in a strong
hand, forcing it along accustomed channels from
the plane where love may be thwarted, to that
other plane, where love walks unashamed and
undeterred, and gives her gifts, no man forbidding
her. Elizabeth sat still, with folded hands. Her
love went out to David, like one ripple in
a boundless, golden sea, from which they drew
their being, and in which they lived and moved.


104 The Fire Within
A sense of light and peace came down upon
her.
Edward's voice was filling the room. It was
quite a pleasant voice, and if it never varied into
expression, at least it never went out of tune,
and every word was distinct.
"Ah, well, I know the sadness
That tears and rends your heart,
How that from all life's gladness
You stand far, far apart—"
sang Edward, in tones of the most complete
unconcern.
It was Mary who supplied all the sentiment
that could be wished for. She dwelt on the chords
with an almost superfluous degree of feeling, and
her eyes were quite moist.
At any other time this combination of Edward
and Lord Henry Somerset would have entertained
Elizabeth not a little, but just now there was no
room in her thoughts for any one but David.
The light that was upon her gave her vision.
She looked upon David with eyes that had grown
very clear, and as she looked she understood.
That he had changed, deteriorated, she had seen
at the first glance. Now she discerned in him the


Edward Sings 1
0
cause of such an alteration—something wrenched
and twisted. The scene in her little brown room
rose vividly before her. When David had allowed
Mary to sway him, he had parted with something,
which he could not now recall. He had broken vio-
lently through his own code, and the broken thing
was failing him at every turn. Mary's eyes, Mary's
voice, Mary's touch—these things had waked in
him something beyond the old passion. The
emotional strain of that scene had carried him be-
yond his self-control. A feverish craving was upon
him, and his whole nature burned in the flame of it.
Edward had passed to another song.
"One more kiss from my darling one," he sang
in a slightly perfunctory manner. His voice was
getting tired, and he seemed a little absent-minded
for a lover who was about to plunge into Eternity.
The manner in which he requested death to come
speedily was a trifle unconvincing. As he began
the next verse David made a sudden movement.
A log of wood upon the fire had fallen sharply, and
there was a quick upward rush of flame. David
looked round, facing the glow, and as he did so his
eyes met Elizabeth's. Just for one infinitesimal
moment something seemed to pass from her to
him. It was one of those strange moments which


106 The Fire Within
are not moments of time at all, and are therefore
not subject to time's laws. Elizabeth Chantrey's
eyes were full of peace. Full, too, of a passionate
gentleness. It was a gentleness which for an
instant touched the sore places in David's soul
with healing, and for that one instant David had a
glimpse of something very strong, very tender,
that was his, and yet incomprehensibly withheld
from his understanding. It was one of those
instantaneous flashes of thought—one of those
gleams of recognition which break upon the dull- ness of material sense. Before and after—dark-
ness, the void, the unstarred night, a chaos of
things forgotten. But for one dazzled instant,
the lightning stab of Truth, unrealised.
Elizabeth did not look away, or change colour.
The peace was upon her still. She smiled a little,
and as the moment passed, and the dark closed in
again upon David's mind, she saw a spark of
rather savage humour come into his eyes.
"Then come Eternity"
"No, that's enough, Mary, I'm absolutely
hoarse," remarked Edward, all in the same breath,
and with very much the same expression.
Mary got up, and began to shut the piano.
The light shone on her white, uncovered neck.


CHAPTER IX
MARY 13 SHOCKED
Through fire and frost and snow
I see you go,
I see your feet that bleed,
My heart bleeds too.
I, who would give my very soul for you,
What can I do?
I cannot help your need.
THAT first evening was one of many others,
* all on very much the same pattern. David
Blake would come in, after tea, or after dinner, sit
for an hour in almost total silence, and then go
away again. Every time that he came, Eliza-
beth's heart sank a little lower. This change, this
obscuring of the man she loved, was an unreality,
but how some unrealities have power to hurt us.
December brought extra work to the Market
Harford 3 doctors. There was an epidemic of
measles amongst the children, combined with one
of influenza amongst their elders. David Blake
stood the extra strain but ill. He was slipping
107


1o8 The Fire Within
steadily down the hill. His day's work followed
only too often upon a broken or sleepless night,
and to get through what had to be done, or to
secure some measure of sleep, he had recourse more
and more frequently to stimulant. If no patient
of his ever saw him the worse for drink, he was
none the less constantly under its influence. If
it did not intoxicate him, he came to rely upon
its stimulus, and to distrust his unaided strength.
He could no longer count upon his nerve, and
the fear of all that nerve failure may involve
haunted him continually and drove him down.
"Look here, Blake, you want a change. Why
don't you go away?" said Tom Skeffington. It
was a late January evening, and he had dropped
in for a smoke and a chat. "The press of work
is over now, and I could very well manage the lot
for a fortnight or three weeks. Will you go?"
"No, I won't," said David shortly.
Young Skeffington paused. It was not much
after six in the evening, and David's face was
flushed, his hand unsteady.
"Look here, Blake," he said, and then stopped,
because David was staring at him out of eyes that
had suddenly grown suspicious.
"Well?" said David, still staring.


Mary Is Shocked 109
"Well, I should go away if I were you-go to
Switzerland, do some winter sports. Get a thor-
ough change. Come back yourself again."
There was ever so slight an emphasis on the
last few words, and David flashed into sudden
anger.
"Mind your own business, and be damned to
you, Skeffington," he cried.
Tom Skeffington shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, certainly," he said, and made haste to
be gone.
Blake in this mood was quite impracticable.
He had no mind for a scene.
David sat on, with a tumbler at his elbow. So
they wanted him out of the way. That was the
third person who had told him he needed a change
—the third in one week. Edward was one, and
old Dr. Bull, and now Skeffington. Yes, of course,
Skeffington would like him out of the way, so as
to get all the practice into his own hands. Edward
too. Was it this morning, or yesterday morning,
that Edward had asked him when he was going
to take a holiday? Now he came to think of it,
it was yesterday morning. And he supposed that
Edward wanted him out of the way too. Per-
haps he went too often to Edward's house. David


no The Fire Within
began to get angry. Edward was an ungrateful
hound. "Damned ungrateful," said David's
muddled brain. The idea of going to see Mary
began to present itself to him. If Edward did not
like it, Edward could lump it. He had been told
to come whenever he liked. Very well, he liked
now. Why should n't he?
He got up and went out into the cold. Then,
when he was half-way up the High Street he re-
membered that Edward had gone away for a couple
of days. It occurred to him as a very agreeable
circumstance. Mary would be alone, and they
would have a pleasant, friendly time together.
Mary would sit in the rosy light and play to him,
not to Edward, and sing in that small sweet voice
of hers—not to Edward, but to him.
It was a cold, crisp night, and the frosty air
heightened the effect of the stimulant which he
had taken. He had left his own house flushed,
irritable, and warm, but he arrived at the Mottis-
f onts' as unmistakably drunk as a man may be who
is still upon his legs.
He brushed past Markham in the hall before
she had time to do more than notice that his
manner was rather odd, and she called after him
that Mrs. Mottisfont was in the drawing-room.


Mary Is Shocked in
David went up the stairs walking quite steadily,
but his brain, under the influence of one idea,
appeared to work in a manner entirely divorced
from any volition of his.
Mary was sitting before the fire, in the rosy
glow of his imagining. She wore a dim purple
gown, with a border of soft dark fur. A book
lay upon her lap, but she was not reading. Her
head, with its dark curls, rested against the rose-
patterned chintz of the chair. Her skin was as
white as a white rose leaf. Her lips as softly red
as real red roses. A little amethyst heart hung
low upon her bosom and caught the light. There
was a bunch of violets at her waist. The room
was sweet with them.
Mary looked up half startled as David Blake
came in. He shut the door behind him, with a
push, and she was startled outright when she saw
his face. He looked at her with glazed eyes, and
smiled a meaningless and foolish smile.
"Edward is out," said Mary, "he is away."
And then she wished that she had said anything
else. She looked at the bell, and wondered where
Elizabeth was. Elizabeth had said something
about going out—one of her sick people.
"Yes—out," said David, still smiling. "That's


Mary Is Shocked 113
sideways, with a sudden heavy jerk, and caught
her by the wrist.
"What's that for?" he asked.
Suspicion roused in him again, and he frowned
as he spoke. His face was very red, and his eyes
looked black. Mary had cried out, when he
caught her wrist. Now, as he continued to hold
it, she stared at him in helpless silence. Then
quite suddenly she burst into hysterical tears.
"Let me go—oh, let me go! Go away, you 're
not fit to be here! You 're drunk. Let me go at
once! How dare you?"
David continued to hold her wrist, not of any
set purpose, but stupidly. He seemed to have for-
gotten to let it go. The heat and pressure of his
hand, his slow vacant stare, terrified Mary out
of all self-control. She tried to pull her hand
away, and as David's clasp tightened, and she
felt her own helplessness, she screamed aloud, and
almost as she did so the door opened sharply and
Elizabeth Chantrey came into the room. She
wore a long green coat, and dark furs, and her
colour was bright and clear with exercise. For
one startled second she stood just inside the room,
with her hand upon the door. Then, as she made
a step forward, David relaxed his grasp, and


Mary Is Shocked 115
David had got upon his feet. He was looking
at the two women with a puzzled frown.
"What's the matter?" he said slowly, and
Mary turned on him with a sudden spurt of
temper.
"I wonder you 're not ashamed," she said in
rather a trembling voice. "I do wonder you 're
not—and will you please go away at once, or do
you want the servants to come in, and every one to
know how disgracefully you have behaved?"
"Molly, hush!" said Elizabeth again.
Her own colour died away, leaving her very pale.
Her eyes were fixed on David with a look between
pity and appeal. She left Mary and went to him.
"David," she said, putting her hand on his arm,
"won't you go home now? It's getting late.
It's nearly dinner time, and I 'm afraid we can't
ask you to stay to-night."
Something in her manner sobered David a
little. Mary had screamed—why? What had he
said to her—or done? She was angry. Why?
Why did Elizabeth look at him like that? His
mind was very much confused. Amid the con-
fusion an idea presented itself to him. They
thought that he was drunk. Well, he would
show them, he would show them that he was not


n6 The Fire Within
drunk. He stood for a moment endeavouring to
bring the confusion of his brain into something
like order. Then without a word he walked past
Mary, and out of the room, walking quite steadily
because a sober man walks steadily and he had
to show them that he was sober.
Mary stood by the door listening. "Liz,"
she whispered, "he hasn't gone down-stairs."
Her terror returned. "Oh, what is he doing?
He has gone down the passage to Edward's
room. Oh, do you think he 's safe? Liz, ring
the bell—do ring the bell."
Elizabeth shook her head. She came forward
and put her hand on Mary's shoulder.
"No, Molly, it's all right," she said. She,
too, listened, but Mary broke in on the silence
with half a sob.
"You don't know how he frightened me. You
don't know how dreadful he was—like a great
stupid animal. Oh, I don't know how he dared
to come to me like that. And my wrist aches
still, it does, indeed. Oh! Liz, he 's coming back."
They heard his steps coming along the passage,
heavy, deliberate steps. Mary moved quickly
away from the door, but Elizabeth stood still, and
David Blake touched her dress as he came back


Mary Is Shocked 117
into the room and shut the door behind him. His
hair was wet from a liberal application of cold
water. His face was less flushed and his eyes had
lost the vacant look. He was obviously making
a very great effort, and as obviously Mary had no
intention of responding to it. She stood and
looked at him, and ceased to be afraid. This was
not the stranger who had frightened her. This
was David Blake again, the man whom she could
play upon, and control. The fright in her eyes
gave place to a dancing spark of anger.
"I thought I asked you to go away," she said,
and David winced at the coldness of her voice.
"Will you please go?"
"Mary"
"If you want to apologise you can do so later
—when you are fit," said Mary, her brows arched
over very scornful eyes.
David was still making a great effort at self-
control. He had turned quite white, and his eyes
had rather a dazed look.
"Mary, don't," he said, and there was so
much pain in his voice that Elizabeth made a half
step towards him, and then stopped, because it
was not any comfort of hers that he desired.
Mary's temper was up, and she was not to be


118 The Fire Within
checked. She meant to have her say, and if it
hurt David, why, so much the better. He had
given her a most dreadful fright, and he deserved
to be hurt. It would be very good for him.
Anger reinforced by a high moral motive is indeed
a potent weapon. Mary wielded it unmerci-
fully.
"Don't—don't," she said. "Oh, of course
not. You behave disgracefully—you take advan-
tage of Edward's being away—you come here
drunk—and I 'm not to say a word"
Her eyes sparkled, and her head was high. She
gave a little angry laugh, and turned towards the
bell.
"Will you go, please, or must I ring for Mark-
ham?"
At her movement, and the sound of her laughter,
David's self-control gave way, suddenly and com-
pletely. The blood rushed violently to his head.
He took a long step towards her, and she stopped
where she was in sheer terror.
"You laugh," he said, in a low tone of con-
centrated passion—"you laugh"
Then his voice leaped into fury. "I 've sold
my soul for you, and you laugh. I 'm in hell for
you, and you laugh. I 'm drunk, and you laugh.


CHAPTER X
EDWARD IS PUT OUT
That which the frost can freeze,
That which is burned of the fire,
Cast it down, it is nothing worth
In the ways of the Heart's Desire.
Foot or hand that offends,
Eye that shrinks from the goal,
Cast them forth, they are nothing worth,
And fare with the naked soul.
 did not tell Edward about the scene
with David Blake.
"You know, Liz, he behaved shamefully, but
I don't want there to be a quarrel with Edward,
and it would be sure to make a quarrel. And
then people would talk, and there 's no knowing
what they would say. I think it would be per-
fectly dreadful to be talked about. I 'm sure I
can't think how Katie Ellerton can stand it.
Really, every one is talking about her."
In her heart of hearts Mary was a little flattered at David's last outburst. She would not for the
130


Edward Is Put Out 121
world have admitted that this was the case, but it
certainly contributed to her resolution not to tell
Edward.
"I suppose some people would never forgive
him," she said to Elizabeth, "but I don't think
that's right, do you? I don't think it's at all
Christian. I don't think one ought to be hard.
He might do something desperate. I saw him go
into Katie Ellerton's only this morning. I think
I 'll write him a little note, not referring to any-
thing of course, and ask him if he won't come in to
supper on Sundays. Then he 'll see that I mean
to forgive him, and there won't be any more fuss."
Sunday appeared to be quite a suitable day
upon which to resume the role of guardian angel.
Mary felt a pleasant glow of virtue as she wrote
her little note and sent it off to David.
David Blake did not accept either the invitation
or the olive branch. His anger against Mary was
still stronger than his craving for her presence.
He wrote a polite excuse and sat all that evening
with his eyes fixed upon a book, which he made no
pretence of reading. He had more devils than one
to contend with just now. David had a strong will,
and he was putting the whole strength of it into
fighting the other craving, the craving for drink.


122 The Fire Within
In his sudden heat of passion he had taken an
oath that he meant to keep. He had been drunk,
and Mary had laughed at him. Neither Mary nor
any one else should have that cause for mocking
laughter again, and he sat nightly with a decanter
at his elbow.
"And," as Mrs. Havergill remarked, "never
touching a mortal drop," because if he was to
down the devil at all he meant to down him in a
set battle, and not to spend his days in ignominious
flight.
Mrs. Havergill prognosticated woe to Sarah,
with a mournful zest.
t
"Them sudden changes is n't 'olesome, and I
don't hold with them, Sarah, my girl. One young
man I knew, Maudsley 'is name was, he got the
'errors, and died a-raving. And all through being
cut off his drink too sudden. He broke 'is leg, and
'is mother, she said, 'Now I 'll break 'im of the
drink.' A very strict Methody woman, were
Jane Ann Maudsley. 'Now I 'll break 'im,' says
she; and there she sits and watches 'im, and the
pore feller 'offering for whisky, just fair 'offering. 'Gemme a drop, Mother,' says he. 'Not I,' says
she. 'It's 'ell fire, William,' says she. 'I 'm all
on fire now, Mother,' says he. 'Better burn now


Edward Is Put Out 123
than in 'ell, William,' says Jane Ann; and then
the 'errors took him, and he died. A fine, proper
young man as ever stepped, and very sweet on me
before I took up with Havergill," concluded Mrs.
Havergill meditatively, whilst Sarah shivered,
and wished, as she afterwards confessed to a friend,
"that Mrs. Havergill would be more cheerful like
—just once in a way, for a change, as it were."
"For she do fair give a girl the 'ump sometimes,"
concluded Sarah, after what was for her quite a
long speech.
Mrs. Havergill was a very buxom and comely
person of unimpeachable respectability, but her
fund of doleful reminiscence had depressed more
than Sarah. David had been known to complain
of it between jest and earnest. On one such
occasion, at a tea-party to which Mary Chantrey
had inveigled him, Miss Dobell ventured a mild
protest.
"But she is such a treasure. Oh, yes. Your
dear mother always found her so."
David winced a little. His mother had not
been dead very long then. He regarded Miss
Dobell with gravity.
"I have always wondered," he said, "whether it
was an early apprenticeship to a ghoul which has


124 The Fire Within
imparted such a mortuary turn to Mrs. HavergilTs
conversation, or whether it is due to the fact of
her having a few drops of Harvey's Sauce in her veins."
"Harvey's Sauce?" inquired the bewildered
Miss Dobell.
David explained in his best professional manner.
"I said Harvey's Sauce because it is an old
and cherished belief of mind that the same talented
gentleman invented the sauce and composed the
well-known 'Meditations among the Tombs.'
The only point upon which I feel some uncertainty
is this: Did he compose the Meditations because
the sauce had disagreed with him, or did he invent
the sauce as a sort of cheerful antidote to the
Meditations? Now which do you suppose, Miss
Dobell?"
Miss Dobell became very much fluttered.
"Oh, I 'm afraid—" she began. "I really had
no idea that Harvey's Sauce was an unwholesome
condiment. Yes, indeed, I fear that I cannot be
of any great assistance, or in fact of any assistance
at all. No, oh, no. I fear, Dr. Blake, that you
must ask some one else who is better informed
than myself. Oh, yes."
Afterwards she confided to Mary Chantrey


Edward Is Put Out 125
that she had never heard of the work in question.
"Have you, my dear?"
"No, never," said Mary, who was not greatly
attracted by the title. Girls of two-and-twenty
with a disposition to meditate among the tombs
are mercifully rare.
"But," pursued little Miss Dobell with a vir-
tuous lift of the chin, "the title has a religious
sound—yes, quite a religious sound. I hope, oh,
yes, indeed, I hope that Dr. Blake has no dreadful
sceptical opinions. They are so very shocking,"
and Mary said, "Yes, they are, and I hope
not, too." Even in those days she was a little
inclined to play at being David's guardian angel.
Those days were two years old now. Some-
times it seemed to David that they belonged to
another life.
Meanwhile he had his devil to fight. In the
days that followed he fought the devil, and beat
him, but without either pride or pleasure in the
victory, for, deprived of stimulant, he fell again in-
to the black pit of depression. Insomnia stood by
his pillow and made the nights longer and more
dreadful than the longest, gloomiest day.
Mary met him in the High Street one day, and
was really shocked at his looks. She reproached


128 The Fire Within
the mild spring weather and the show of buds
upon the apple tree in his small square of garden.
He also told her that Mrs. Codrington had three
broods of chickens out, a fact of which Elizabeth
had already been informed by Mrs. Codrington
herself. When Dr. Bull had finished dealing with
the early chickens, he asked for another cup of
tea, took a good pull at it, wiped his square beard
with a very brilliant pocket-handkerchief in
which the prevailing colours were sky-blue and
orange, and remarked abruptly:
"Why don't you get David Blake to go away,
hey?—hey?"
Elizabeth frowned a little. This was getting
to close quarters.
"I?" she said, with a note of gentle surprise in
her voice.
Dr. Bull was quite ready for her. "You is
the second person plural—or used to be when I
went to school. You, and Mary, and Edward,
you 're his friends, are n't you?—and two of you
are women, so he 'll have to be polite, hey? Can't
bite your heads off the way he bit off mine, when
I suggested that a holiday 'ud do him good. And
he wants a holiday, hey?"
Elizabeth nodded.


130 The Fire Within
holding one foot to the blaze. It was a night of
sudden frost after the mild spring day.
"How cold it has turned," said Mary. "Yes,
I really don't know what to do. If Edward goes
on being tiresome and jealous"—she bridled a
little as she spoke—"if he goes on—well, David
will just have to stay away, and I 'm afraid he will
feel it. I am afraid it may be bad for him. You
know I have always hoped that I was being of
some use to David—I have always wanted to
have an influence—a good influence does make
such a difference, does n't it? I Ve never flirted
with David—I really have n't—you know that,
Liz?"
"No," said Elizabeth slowly. "You haven't
flirted with him, Molly, my dear, but I think you
are in rather a difficult position for being a good
influence. You see, David is in love with you,
and I think it would be better for him if he did n't
see you quite so often."
Mary's colour rose.
"I can't help his being—fond of me," she said,
with a slight air of offended virtue. "I am sure
I don't know what you mean by my not being
good for him. If it were n't for me he might be
drinking himself to death at this very moment.


Edward Is Put Out 131
You know how he was going on, and I am sure
you can't have forgotten how dreadful he was that
night he came here. I let him see how shocked
I was. I know you were angry with me, and I
thought it very unreasonable of you, because I
did it on purpose, and it stopped him. You may
say what you like, Liz, but it stopped him. Mrs.
Havergill told Markham—yes, I know you don't
think I ought to talk to Markham about David,
but she began about it herself, and she is really
interested, and thought I would like to know—
well, she says David has never touched a drop
since. Mrs. Havergill told her so. So you see,
Liz, I have n't always been as bad for David as
you seem to think. I don't know if you want
him to go and marry Katie Ellerton, just out of
pique. She 's running after him worse than ever
—I really do wonder she is n't ashamed, and if
David's friends cast him off, well, she 'll just snap
him up, and then I should think you 'd be sorry."
Elizabeth leaned her chin in her hand, and was
silent for a moment. Then she said: " Molly, dear,
why should we try and prevent David from going
to see Katie Ellerton? He is in love with you,
and it is very bad for him. If he saw less of you
for a time it would give him a chance of getting


132 The Fire Within
over it. David is very unhappy just now. No
one can fail to see that. He wants what you can't
give him—rest, companionship, a home. If Katie
cares for him, and can give him these things, let
her give them. We have no business to stand in
the way. Don't you see that?"
Elizabeth spoke sweetly and persuasively. She
kept her eyes on her sister's face, and saw there,
first, offence, and then interest—the birth of a
new idea.
"Oh, well—if you don't mind," said Mary.
"You are nearly as tiresome as Edward and Ed-
ward has been most dreadfully tiresome. I told
him so. I said, 'Edward, I really never knew you
could be so tiresome,' and it seemed to make him
worse. I think, you know, that he is afraid that
people will talk if David goes on coming here. Of
course, that's absurd, I told him it was absurd. I
said, 'Why, how on earth is any one to know that
it is n't Elizabeth he comes to see?' And then,
Edward became really violent. I did n't know he
could be, but he was. He simply plunged up
and down the room, and said: 'If he wants to see
Elizabeth, then in Heaven's name let him see
Elizabeth. Let him marry Elizabeth.' Oh, you
must n't mind, Liz," as Elizabeth's head went up,


CHAPTER XI
FORGOTTEN WAYS
I have forgotten all the ways of sleep,
The endless, windless silence of my dream,
The milk-white poppy meadows and the stream,
The dreaming water soft and still and deep—
I have forgotten how that water flows,
I have forgotten how the poppy grows,
I have forgotten all the ways of sleep.
W was on an afternoon, a few days later, that
I David came into the hall of the Mottisfonts'
house.
"Lord save us, he do look bad," was the
thought in Markham's mind as she let him in.
Aloud she said that she thought Mrs. Mottisfont
was just going out. As she spoke, Mary came
down the stairs, bringing with her a sweet scent
of violets.
Mary was very obviously going out. She wore
a white cloth dress, with dark furs, and there was
a large bunch of mauve and white violets at her
breast. She looked a little vexed when she saw
David.


Forgotten Ways 135
i
"Oh," she said, "I am just going out. I am
so sorry, but I am afraid I must. Bazaars are
tiresome things, but one must go to them, and
I promised Mrs. Codrington that I would be
there early. Elizabeth is in. She 'll give you
some tea. Markham, will you please tell Miss
Elizabeth?"
David came forward as she was speaking.
There was a window above the front door, and as
he came out of the shadow, and the light fell
on his face, he saw Mary start a little. Her
expression changed, and she said in a hesitating
manner:
"Of course, Elizabeth may be busy, or she may
be going out—I really don't know. Perhaps you
had better come another day, David."
He read her clearly enough. She thought that
he had been drinking, and hesitated to leave him
with her sister. He had been about to say that he
could not stop, but her suspicion raised a devil of
obstinacy in him, and as Elizabeth came out of her
room by way of the dining-room, he advanced to
meet her, saying:
"Will you give me some tea, Elizabeth, or are
you too busy?"
"Liz, come here," said Mary quickly. Her


136 The Fire Within
colour had risen at David's tone. She drew
Elizabeth a little aside. "Liz, you 'd better not,"
she whispered, "he looks so queer."
"Nonsense, Molly."
"I wish you wouldn't"
"My dear Molly, are you going to begin to
chaperone me?"
Mary tossed her head.
"Oh, if you don't mind," she said angrily, and
went out, leaving Elizabeth with an odd sense of
anticipation.
Elizabeth found David standing before the
writing-table, and looking at himself in the little
Dutch mirror which hung above it. He turned
as she came in.
"Well," he said bitterly, "has Mary renounced
the Bazaar in order to stay and protect you?
I 'm not really as dangerous as she seems to think,
though I am willing to admit that I am not exactly
ornamental. Give me some tea, and I 'll not
inflict myself on you for long."
Elizabeth smiled.
"You know very well that I like having you
here," she said in her friendly voice. "Look at
my flowers. Are n't they well forward? I really
think that everything is a fortnight before its


Forgotten Ways 137
time this year. No, not that chair, David. This
one is much more comfortable."
Markham was coming in with the tea as Eliza-
beth spoke. David sat silent. He watched the
tiny flame of the spirit-lamp, the mingled flicker
of firelight and daylight upon the silver, and the
thin old china with its branching pattern of purple
and yellow flowers. He drank as many cups of
tea as Elizabeth gave him, and she talked a little
in a desultory manner, until he had finished, and
then sat in a silence that was not awkward, but
companionable.
David made no effort to move, or speak. This
was a pleasant room of Elizabeth's. The brown
panels were warm in the firelight. They made a
soft darkness that had nothing gloomy about it,
and the room was full of flowers. The great brown
crock full of daffodils stood on the window-ledge,
and on the table which filled the angle between the
window and the fireplace was another, in which
stood a number of the tall yellow tulips which
smell like Maréchal-Niel roses. Elizabeth's dress
was brown, too. It was made of some soft stuff
that made no sound when she moved. The room
was very still, and very sweet, and the sweetness
and the stillness were very grateful to David


138 The Fire Within
Blake. The thought came to him suddenly, that
it was many years since he had sat like this
in Elizabeth's room, and the silence had com-
panioned them. Years ago he had been there
often enough, and they had talked, read, argued,
or been still, just as the spirit of the moment
dictated. They had been good comrades, then,
in the old days—the happy days of youth.
He looked across at Elizabeth and said
suddenly:
"You are a very restful woman, Elizabeth."
She smiled at him without moving, and
answered:
"I am glad if I rest you, David—I think you
need rest."
"You sit so still. No one else sits so still."
Elizabeth laughed softly.
"That sounds as if I were a very inert sort of
person," she said.
David frowned a little.
"No, it's not that. It is strength—force—
stability. Only strong things keep still like that.''
This was so like the old David, that it took
Elizabeth back ten years at a leap. She was
silent for a moment, gathering her courage. Then
she said:


Forgotten Ways 139
"David, you do need rest, and a change. Why
don't you go away?"
She had thought he would be angry, but he
was not angry. Instead, he answered her as the
David of ten years ago might have done, with
a misquotation.
"What is the good of a change? It's a case
of—I myself am my own Heaven and Hell";
and his voice was the voice of a very weary
man.
Elizabeth's eyes dwelt on him with a deep con-
sidering look.
"Yes, that's true," she said. "One has to
find oneself. But it is easier to find oneself in
clear country than in a fog. This place is not
good for you, David. When I said you wanted
a change, I did n't mean just for a time—I
meant altogether. Why don't you go right
away—leave it all behind you, and start
again?"
He looked at her as if he might be angry, if he
were not too tired.
"Because I won't run away," he said, with his
voice back on the harsh note which had become
habitual.
There was a pause. Elizabeth heard her own


Forgotten Ways 141
"Is that what you are afraid of?"
"Yes, my God, yes," said David Blake, speak-
ing only just above his breath.
"I don't think you need be afraid. I don't,
really, David. You look very tired. You look
as if you wanted sleep more than anything else in
the world."
She spoke very gently. "Will you let me send
you to sleep? I think I can."
. "Does one ask a man who is dying of thirst if
one may give him a drink?"
"Then I may?"
"If you can—but—" He broke off as Mark-
ham came in to clear away the tea. Elizabeth
began to talk of trivialities. For a minute or two
Markham came and went, but when she had taken
away the tray, and the door was shut, there was
silence again.
Elizabeth had turned her chair a little. She
sat looking into the fire. She was not making
pictures among the embers, as she sometimes
did. Her eyes had a brooding look. Her honey-
coloured hair looked like pale gold against the
brown panelling behind her. She sat very still.
David found it pleasant to watch her, pleasant to
be here.


142 The Fire Within
His whole head was stiff and numb with lack of
sleep. Every muscle seemed stretched and every
nerve taut. There was a dull, continuous pain at
the back of his head. Thought seemed muffled,
his faculties clogged. Two thirds  of his brain
was submerged, but in the remaining third con-
sciousness flared like a flickering will-o'-the-wisp
above a marsh.
David lay back in his chair. This was a peace-
ful place, a peaceful room. He had not meant to
stay so long, but he had no desire to move. Slowly,
slowly the tide of sleep mounted in him. Not, as
often lately, with a sudden flooding wave which
retreated again as suddenly, and left his brain
reeling, but steadily, quietly, like the still rising
of some peaceful, moon-drawn sea. He seemed
to see that lifting tide. It was as deep and still as
those still waters of which another David wrote.
It rose and rose—the will-o'-the-wisp of conscious-
ness ceased its tormented flickering, and he slept.
Elizabeth never turned her head. She heard
his breathing deepen, until it was very slow and
steady. There was no other sound except when
an ember dropped. The light failed. Soon there
was no light but the glow of the fire.


CHAPTER XII
THE GREY WOLF
I thought I saw the Grey Wolf's eyes
Look through the bars of night;
They drank the silver of the moon,
And the stars' pale chrysolite.
From star by star they took their toll,
And through the drained and darkened night
They sought my darkened soul.
slept for a couple of hours, and that
night he slept more than he had done for
weeks. Next night, however, there returned the
old strain, the old yearning for oblivion, the old
inability to compass it. In the week that followed
David passed through a number of strange, mental
phases. After that first sound sleep had relieved
the tension of his brain, he told himself that he
owed it to the delayed action of the bromide
Skeffington had given him. But as the strain
returned, though reason held him to this opinion
still, out of the deep undercurrents of conscious-
ness there rose before him a vision of Elizabeth,
143


144 The Fire Within
with the gift of sleep in her hand. He passed into
a state of conflict, and out of this conflict there
grew up a pride that would owe nothing to a
woman, a resistance that called itself reason and
independence. And then, as the desire for sleep
dominated everything, conflict merged into a de-
sire that Elizabeth should heal him, should make
him sleep. And all through the week he did not
think of Mary at all. The craving for her had
been swallowed up by that other craving. Mary
had raised this fever, but it had now reached a
point at which he had become unconscious of her.
It was Elizabeth who filled his thoughts. Not
Elizabeth the woman, but Elizabeth the bearer
of that gift of sleep. But this, too, was a phase,
and had its reaction.
Towards the end of the week he finished his
afternoon round by going to see an old Irish-
woman, who had been in the hospital for an opera-
tion, and had since been dismissed as incurable.
She was a plucky old soul, and a cheerful, but to-
day David found her in a downcast mood.
"Sure, it's not the pain I 'd be minding if I
could get my sleep," she said. "Could n't ye
be after putting the least taste of something in
my medicine, then, Doctor, dear?"


The Grey Wolf 145
David had his finger on her pulse. He patted
her hand kindly as he laid it down.
"Come, now, Mrs. Halloran," he said, "when
I gave you that last bottle of medicine you said
it made you sleep beautifully."
"Just for a bit it did," said Judy Halloran.
"Sure, it was only for a bit, and now it's the
devil's own nights I 'm having. Could n't you be
making it the least taste stronger, then?"
She looked at David rather piteously.
"Well, we must see," he said. "You finish
that bottle, and then I 'll see what I can do for
you."
Mrs. Halloran closed her eyes for a minute.
Then she opened them rather suddenly, shot a
quick look at David, and said with an eager note
in her voice:
"They do be saying that Miss Chantrey can
make anny one sleep. There was a friend of mine
was after telling me about it. It was her daughter
that had the sleep gone from her, and after Miss
Chantrey came to see her, it was the fine nights
she was having, and it's the strong woman she
is now, entirely."
David got up rather abruptly.
"Come, now, Mrs. Halloran," he said, "you


146 The Fire Within
know as well as I do that that's all nonsense. But
I daresay a visit from Miss Chantrey would cheer
you up quite a lot. Would you like to see her?
Shall I ask her to come in one day?"
"She 'd be kindly welcome," said Judy Halloran.
David went home with the old conflict raging
again. Skeffington had been urging him to see a
specialist. He had always refused. But now,
quite suddenly, he wired for an appointment.
He came down from town on a dark, rainy after-
noon, feeling that he had built up a barrier be-
tween himself and superstition.
An hour later he was at the Mottisfonts' door,
asking Markham if Mary was at home. Mary
had gone out to tea, said Markham, and then
volunteered, "Miss Elizabeth is in, sir."
David told himself that he had not intended
to ask for Elizabeth. Why should he ask for
Elizabeth? He could, however, hardly explain to
Markham that it was not Elizabeth he wished to
see, so he came in, and was somehow very glad
to come.
Elizabeth had been reading aloud to herself.
As he stood at the door he could hear the rise and
fall of her voice. It was an old trick of hers.
Ten years ago he had often stood on the thresh-


148 The Fire Within
beth and the fire. He was so close to her that she
had only to put out her hand and it would have
touched his. He stood looking, now at the minia-
tures on the wall, now at the fire which burned
with a steady red glow. He was half turned
from Elizabeth, but she could see his face. It
was strained and thin. The flesh had fallen
away, leaving the great bones prominent.
It was Elizabeth who broke the silence, and
she said what she had not meant to say.
"David, are you better? Are you sleeping?"
"No," he said shortly.
"And you won't let me help?"
"I didn't say so."
"Did you think I didn't know?" Elizabeth's
voice was very sad.
They had fallen suddenly upon an intimate note.
It was a note that he had never touched with
Mary. That they should be talking like this
filled him with a dazed surprise. He as well as
she was taking it for granted that she had given
him sleep, and could give him sleep again.
He gave himself a sudden shake.
"I'm going away," he said in a harder
voice.
There was a pause.


The Grey Wolf 149
"I'm glad," said Elizabeth, and then there
was silence again.
This time it was David who spoke, and he
spoke in the hot, insistent tones of a man who
argues a losing case.
"One can't go on not sleeping. That is what
I said to old Wyatt Byng to-day."
"Sir Wyatt Byng?" said Elizabeth quickly.
"Yes—I saw him. Skeffington would have me
see him, but what's the use? He swears I shall
sleep, if I take the stuff he 's given me—the latest
French fad—but I don't sleep. I seem to have
lost the way—and one can't go on."
He paused, and then said frowning:
"It's so odd"
"Odd?"
"Yes—so odd—sleep. Such an odd thing. It
was so easy once. Now it's so difficult that it
can't be done. Why? No one knows. No
one knows what sleep is"
His voice trailed away. He was strung like a
wire that is ready to snap, and on the borders of
consciousness, just out of sight, something waited;
he turned his head sharply, as if the thing he
dreaded might be there—behind him—in the
shadow.


150 The Fire Within
Instead, he saw Elizabeth in a golden light like
a halo. It swam before his tired eyes, a glow with
a rainbow edge. Out of the heart of it she looked
at him with serious, tender eyes.
Beyond, in the gloom, there lurked such a
horror as made him catch his breath, and here at
his side—in this room, peace, safety, and sleep—
sleep, the one thing in heaven or earth desired
and desirable.
A sort of shudder passed over him, and he
repeated his own last words in a low, altered voice.
"One can't go on. Something must give way.
Sometimes I feel as if it might give now—at any
moment. Then there 's madness—when one can't
sleep. Am I going mad, Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth caught his hand and held it. He was
so near that the impulse carried her away. Her
clasp was strong, warm, and vital.
"No, my dear, no," she said.
Then with a catch in her voice:
"Oh, David—let me help you."
He shook his head in a slow, considering
manner.
"No—there would be only one way—and that's
not fair."
"What isn't fair, David?"


The Grey Wolf 151
"You—to many—me," he said, still in that
slow, considering way. "You know, Elizabeth,
I can't think very well. My head is all to pieces.
But it's not fair, and I can't take your help—"
He broke off frowning.
"David, it has nothing to do with that sort of
thing," said Elizabeth very seriously. "It's
only what I would do for any one."
She was shaken to the depths, but she kept her
voice low and steady.
"Yes—it has—one can't take like that"
"Because I 'm a woman? Just because I 'm
a woman?"
Elizabeth looked up quickly and spoke quickly,
because she knew that if she stopped to think she
would not speak at all.
"And if we were married?"
"Then it would be different," said David Blake.
His voice was not like his usual voice. It
sounded like the voice of a man who was puzzled,
who was trying to recall something of which he
has seen glimpses. Was it something from the
past, or something from the future?
Elizabeth got up and stood as he was standing—
one hand on the oak shelf above the fireplace
the other clenched at her side.


152 The Fire Within
"David, are you asking me to marry you?"
she said.
He raised his head, half startled. The silence
that followed her question seemed to fill the room
and shake it. His will shook too, drawn this way
and that by forces that were above and beyond
them both.
Elizabeth did not look at him. She did not
know what he would answer, and all their lives
hung on that answer of his. She held her breath,
and it seemed to her that she was holding her
will too. She was suddenly, overpoweringly con-
scious of her own strength, her own vital force
and power. If she let this force go out to David
now—in his weakness ! It was the greatest temp-
tation that she had ever known, and, after one
shuddering moment, she turned from it in horror.
She kept her will, her strength, her vital powers in
a strong grip. No influence of hers must touch or
sway him now. Her heart stopped beating. Her
very life seemed to be suspended. Then she heard
David say:
"Would you marry me, Elizabeth?" His tone
was a wondering one. It broke the tension. She
turned her head a little and said:
"Yes—if you needed me."


The Grey Wolf 153
"Need—need—I think I should sleep—and if
I don't sleep I shall go mad. But, perhaps I shall
go mad anyhow. You must not marry me if I
am going mad."
"You won't go mad."
"You think not? There is something that
shakes all the time. It never stops. It goes on
always. I think that is why I don't sleep. But
when I am with you it seems to stop. I don't
know why, but it does seem to stop, just whilst I
am with you."
"It will stop altogether when you get your
sleep back."
"Oh, yes."
The half-dreamy note went out of his voice,
and the note of intimate self-revealing. Elizabeth
noticed the change at once.
"When do you go away, and where do you go?"
she asked.
"Switzerland, I think. I could get away by
the 3rd of April."
David was trying to think, but his head was
very tired. He must go away. He must have a
change. They all said that. But it was no use
for him to go away if he did not sleep. He must
have sleep. But if Elizabeth were with him he


154 The Fire Within
would sleep. Elizabeth must come with him. If
they were married at once she could come with
him, and then he Would sleep. But it was so soon.
He spoke his thought aloud.
"You wouldn't marry me first, I suppose?
You would n't come with me?"
"Why not?" said Elizabeth quietly. The
quietness hid the greatest effort of her life. "If
you want me, I will come. I only want to help
you, and if I can help you best that way"
David let himself sink into a chair, and began to
talk a little of plans, wearily and with an effort.
He had to force his brain to make it work at all.
All these details, these plans, these conventions
seemed to him irrelevant and burdensome.
He got up to go as the clock struck seven.
Elizabeth put out her hand to him as she had
always done.
"And you will let me help you?"
"No, not yet—not till afterwards," he
said.
"It makes no difference, David, you know.
It is just what I would do for any one who wanted
it"
He shook his head. There was a reaction upon
him, a withdrawal.


The Grey Wolf 155
"Not yet—not till afterwards. I'll give
old Byng's stuff a chance," he said obstinately,
and then went out with just a bare good-
night.


CHAPTER XIII
MARCH GOES OUT
I thought I saw the Grey Wolf's eyes.
The sun was gone away,
Most unendurably gone down,
With all delights of day.
I cried aloud for light, and all
The light was dead and done away,
And no one answered to my call,
O DWARD was, perhaps, the person best pleased
B..." at the news of Elizabeth's engagement. He
had been, as Mary phrased it, "very much put
out." Put out, in fact, to the point of wondering
whether he could possibly nerve himself to tell
David that he came too often to the house. He
had an affection for David, and he was under an
obligation to him, but there were limits—during
the last fortnight he had very frequently explained
to Mary that there were limits. Whether he
would ever have got as far as explaining this to
David remains amongst the lesser mysteries of
life. Mary did not take the explanation in what
156


March Goes Out 157
Edward considered at all a proper spirit. She
bridled, looked very pretty, talked about good
influences, and was much offended when Edward
lost his temper. He lost it to the extent of con-
signing good influences to a place with which they
are not usually connected, though the way to it is
said to be paved with good intentions. Mary had
a temper, too. It took her out of the room with a
bang of the door, but she subsequently cried her-
self sick because Edward had sworn at her.
There was a reconciliation, but Edward was not
as penitent as Mary thought he should have been.
David became a sore point with both of them, and
Edward, at least, was unfeignedly pleased at what
he considered a happy solution of the difficulty.
He was fond of Elizabeth, but it would certainly
be more agreeable to have the whole house at his
own disposal. He had always thought that Eliza-
beth's little brown room would be the very place
for his collections. He fell to estimating the
probable cost of lining the whole wall-space with
cabinets.
Mary was not quite as pleased as Edward.
"You know, Liz," she said, "I am very glad
that David should marry. I think he wants a
home. But I don't think you ought to marry him


158 The Fire Within
until he's better. He looks dreadful. And a
fortnight's engagement—I can't think what people
will say—one ought to consider that."
"Oh, Molly, you are too young for the part of
Mrs. Grundy," said Elizabeth, laughing.
Mary coloured and said:
"It's all very well, Liz, but people will talk."
"Well, Molly, and if they do? What is there
for them to say? It is all very simple, really.
No one can help seeing how ill David is, and I think
every one would understand my wanting to be
with him. People are really quite human and
understanding if they are taken the right way."
"But a fortnight," said Mary, frowning. "Why
Liz, you will not be able to get your things!"
And she was shocked beyond words when Eliza-
beth betrayed a complete indifference as to
whether she had any new things at all.
The wedding was fixed for the 3rd of April, and
the days passed. David made the necessary
arrangements with a growing sense of detachment.
The matter was out of his hands.
For a week the new drug gave him sleep, a sleep
full of brilliant dreams, strange flashes of light,
and bursts of unbearable colour. He woke from
it with a blinding headache and a sense of strain


March Goes Out 159
beyond that induced by insomnia. Towards the
end of the week he stopped taking the drug. The
headache had become unendurable. This state
was worse than the last.
On the last day of March he came to Elizabeth
and told her that their marriage must be
deferred.
"Ronnie Ellerton is very ill," he said; "I can't
go away."
"But David, you must"
He shook his head. The obstinacy of illness
was upon him.
"I can't—and I won't," he declared. Then,
as if realising that he owed her some explanation,
he added:
"He 's so spoilt. Why are women such fools?
He 's never been made to do anything he did n't
like. He won't take food or medicine, and I 'm
the only person who has the least authority over
him. And she 's half crazy with anxiety, poor
soul. I have promised not to go until he 's round
the corner. It's only a matter of a day or two,
so we must just put it off."
Elizabeth put her hand on his arm.
"David, we need not put off the marriage,"
she said in her most ordinary tones. "You see,


160 The Fire Within
if we are married, we could start off as soon as
the child was better."
She had it in her mind that unless David would
let her help him soon, he would be past helping.
He looked at her indifferently. "You will stay
here?"
"Not unless you wish," she answered.
"I? Oh! it is for you to say."
There was no interest in his tone. If he thought
of anything it was of Ronnie Ellerton. A com-
plete apathy had descended upon him. Nothing
was real, nothing mattered. Health—sanity—
rest—these were only names. They meant no-
thing. Only when he turned to his work, his
brain still moved with the precision of a machine,
regularly, correctly.
He did not tell her either then or ever, that
Katie Ellerton had broken down and spoken
bitter words about his marriage.
"I 've nothing but Ronnie—nothing but Ronnie
—and you will go away with her and he will die.
I know he will die if you go. Can't she spare
you just for two days—or three—to save Ronnie's
life? Promise me you won't go till he is safe—
promise—promise."
And David had promised, taking in what she


March Goes Out 161
had said about the child, but only half grasping
the import of her frantic appeal. Neither he nor
she were real people to him just now. Only
Ronnie was real—Ronnie, who was ill, and his
patient.
Elizabeth went through the next two days with
a heavy heart. She had to meet Mary's ques-
tions, her objections, her disapprobations, and it
was all just a little more than she could bear.
On the night before the wedding, Mary left
Edward upstairs and came to sit beside Elizabeth's
fire. Elizabeth would rather have been alone, and
yet she was pleased that Mary cared to come. If
only she would let all vexed questions be—it
seemed as if she would, for her mood was a silent
one. She sat for a long time without speaking,
then, with an impulsive movement, she slid out of
her chair and knelt at Elizabeth's side.
"Oh, Liz, I Ve been cross. I know I have. I
know you Ve thought me cross. But it's because
I Ve been unhappy—Liz, I 'm not happy about
you"
Elizabeth put her hand on Mary's shoulder for
a moment.
"Don't be unhappy, Molly," she said, in rather
an unsteady voice.


162 The Fire Within
"But I am, Liz, I am—I can't help it—I have
talked, and worried you, and have been cross,
but all the time I 've been most dreadfully
unhappy. Oh, Liz, don't do it—don't!"
"Molly, dear"
"No, I know it's no use—you won't listen—"
and Mary drew away and dabbed her eyes with a
fragmentary apology for a pocket-handkerchief.
"Molly, please"
Mary nodded.
"Yes, Liz, I know. I won't—I didn't mean
There was a little silence. Then with a sudden
choking sob, Mary turned and said:
"I can't bear it. Oh, Liz, you ought to be loved
so much. You ought to marry some one who loves
you—really . And I don't think David does.
Liz, does he love you—does he?"
The sound of her own words frightened her a
little, but Elizabeth answered very gently and sadly:
"No, Molly, but he needs me."
Mary was silenced. Here was something be-
yond her. She put her arms round Elizabeth
and held her very tightly for a moment. Then
she released her with a sob, and ran crying from
the room.


164 The Fire Within
David's grey pallor, his shaking hand, and his
unsteady voice. His black gown imparted a
funerary air to the proceedings.
"Drinking, that's what he 'd been," he told his
wife, and his wife said, "Oh, William," as one who
makes response to an officiating priest.
But he wronged David, who was not drunk
—only starved for lack of sleep, and strung
to the breaking point. His voice stumbled over
the words in which he took Elizabeth to be his
wedded wife and trailed away to a whisper at the
conclusion.
A gusty wind beat against the long grey win-
dows, and between the gusts the heavy rain
thudded on the roof above.
Mary shivered in the vestry as she kissed
Elizabeth and wished her joy. Then she turned
to David and kissed him too. He was her brother
now, and there would be no more nonsense. Ed-
ward frowned, David stiffened, and Elizabeth,
standing near him, was aware that all his muscles
had become rigid.
Elizabeth and David went out by the vestry
door, and stood a moment on the step. The rain
had ceased quite suddenly in the April fashion.
The sky was very black overhead and the air was


The Golden Wind

full of a wet wind, but far down to the right the
water meadows lay bathed in a clear sweet sun-
shine, and the west was as blue as a turquoise.
Between the blue of the sky and the bright emer-
ald of the grass, the horizon showed faintly golden,
and a broken patch of rainbow light glowed against
the nearest dark cloud.
David and Elizabeth walked to their home in
silence. Mrs. Havergill awaited them with an
air of mournful importance. She had prepared
coffee and a cake with much almond icing and
the word "Welcome" inscribed upon it in silver
comfits. Elizabeth ate a piece of cake from a sense
of duty, and David drank cup after cup of black
coffee, and then sat in a sort of stupor of fatigue
until roused by the sound of the telephone bell.
After a minute or two he came back into the
room.
"Ronnie is worse," he said shortly. There was
a change in him. He had pulled himself together.
His voice was stronger.
"He's worse. I must go at once. Don't
wait dinner, and don't sit up. I may have to
stay all night."
When he had gone, Elizabeth went upstairs to
unpack. Mrs. Havergill followed her.


166 The Fire Within
"You 'av n 't been in this room since Mrs.
Blake was took."
"It's a very nice room," said Elizabeth.
"All this furniture,"said Mrs. Havergill, "come
out of the 'ouse in the 'Igh Street. That old
mahogany press, Mrs. Blake set a lot of store by,
and the bed, too. Ah! pore thing, I suppose she
little thought as 'ow she 'd come to die in it."
The bed was a fine old four-poster, with a
carved foot-rail. Elizabeth went past it to the
windows, of which there were three, set casement
fashion, at the end of the room, with a wide low
window-seat running beneath them.
She got rid of Mrs. Havergill without hurting her
feelings. Then she knelt on the seat, and looked
out. She saw the river beneath her, and a line of
trees in the first green mist of their new leaves.
The river was dark and bright in patches, and the
wind sang above it. Elizabeth's heart was glad
of this place. It was a thing she loved—to see
green trees and bright water, and to hear the wind
go by above the stream.
When she had unpacked and put everything
away, she stood for a moment, and then opened
the door that led through into David's room. It
was getting dark in here, for the room faced the


The Golden Wind 167
east. Elizabeth went to the window and looked
out. The sky was full of clouds, and the promise
of rain.
It was very late before David came home. At
ten, Elizabeth sent the servants to bed. There
was cold supper laid in the dining-room, and
soup in a covered pan by the side of the fire.
Elizabeth sat by the lamp and sewed. Every now
and then she lifted her head and listened. Then
she sewed again.
At twelve o'clock David put his key into the
latch, and the door opened with a little click and
then shut again.
David was a long time coming in. He came in
slowly, and sat down upon the first chair he
touched.
"He 'll do," he said in an exhausted voice.
"I 'm so glad," said Elizabeth.
She knelt by the fire, and poured some of the
soup into a cup. Then she held it out to him, and
he drank, taking long draughts. After that she
put food before him, and he ate in a dazed,
mechanical fashion.
When he had finished, he sat staring at Eliza-
beth, with his elbows on the table, and his head
between his hands.


168 The Fire Within
"Ronnie is asleep—he 'll do." And then with
sudden passion: "My God, if I could sleep!"
"You will, David," said Elizabeth. She put
her hand on his arm, and he turned his head a
little, still staring at her.
"No, I don't sleep," he said. "Everything
else sleeps—Die Voglein ruhen im Walde. How
does it go?"
"Warte nur, balde ruhest du auch," said Eliza-
beth in her tranquil voice.
"No," said David, "I can't get in. It was so
easy once—but now I can't get in. The silent
city of sleep has long, smooth walls—I can't find
the gate; I grope along the wall all night, hour after hour. A hundred times I think I have found
the door. Sometimes there is a flashing sword
that bars the way, sometimes the wall closes—
closes as I pass the threshold. There 's no'way in.
The walls are smooth—all smooth—you can't get
in."
He spoke, not wildly, but in a low, muttering
way. Elizabeth touched his hand. It was very
hot.
"Come,q David," she said, "it is late." She
drew him to his feet, and he walked uncertainly,
and leaned on her shoulder, as they went up the


The Golden Wind 169
stair. Once in his room, he sank again upon a
chair. He let her help him, but when she knelt,
and would have unlaced his boots, he roused
himself.
"No, you are not to," he said with a sudden
anger in his voice, and he took them off, and then
let her help him again.
When he was in bed, Elizabeth stood by him for
a moment.
"Are you comfortable?" she asked.
"If I could sleep," he said, only just above
his breath. "If I could."
"Oh, but you will," said Elizabeth. "Don't
be afraid, David. It's all right."
She set the door into her room ajar and then
sat down by the window, and looked out at the
night. The blind was up. The night was dark
and clear. There were stars, many little glittering
points. It was very still. Elizabeth fixed her
eyes upon the sky, but after a minute or two she
did not see it at all. Her mind was full of David
and his need. This tortured, sleepless state of his
had no reality. How could it compass and oppress
the immortal image of God? Her thought rose
into peace. Elizabeth opened her mind to the
Divine light. Her will rested. She was conscious


170 The Fire Within
only of that radiant peace. It enwrapped her,
it enwrapped David. In it they lived and moved
and had their being. In it they were real and
vital creatures. To lapse from consciousness of it,
was to fall upon a formless, baseless dream, where-
in were the shadows of evil. These shadows had
no reality. Brought to the light, they faded,
leaving only that peace—that radiance. Eliza-
beth's eyes were opened. She saw the Wings of
Peace.
And David slept.


172 The Fire Within
a cloudless warmth that was more like June than
April.
"Take me down the river," said Elizabeth,
and they rowed down for half a mile, and turned
the boat into a water-lane where budding willows
swept down on either side, and brushed the stream.
David was very well content to lie in the sun.
The strain was gone from him, leaving behind it a
weariness beyond words. Every limb, every mus-
cle, every nerve was relaxed. There was a great
peace upon him. The air tasted sweet. The
light was a pleasant thing. The sky was blue, and
so was Elizabeth's dress, and Elizabeth was a very
reposeful person. She did not fidget and she did
not chatter. When she spoke it was of pleasant
things.
David recalled a day, ten years ago, when he
had sat with her in this very place. He could see
himself, full of enthusiasm, full of youth. He
could remember how he had talked, and how
Elizabeth had listened. She was just the same
now. It was he who had changed. Ten years
ago seemed to him a very pleasant time, a very
pleasant memory. Pictures rose before him—
stray words—stray recollections running into a
long, soft blur.


Love Must to School 173
They came home in the dusk.
"Are you going to see Ronnie again?" said
Elizabeth, as they landed.
"Yes; he couldn't be doing better, but I'll
look in, and to-morrow Skeffington will go with
me so as to get him broken in to the change.
We ought to get away all right now."
David waked next day to find the sun shining in
at his uncurtained window. From where he lay
he could see the young blue of the sky, and all
the room seemed full of the sun's gold. David
lay in a lazy contentment watching the motes that
danced in a long shining beam. There was a new
stir of life in his veins. He stretched out his
limbs and was glad of their strength. The sweet-
ness and the glory and the promise of the spring
slid into his blood and fired it.
"Mary," he said, still between sleeping and
waking—and with the name, memory woke.
Suddenly his brain was very clear. He looked
straight ahead and saw the door that led into the
other room—the room that had been his mother's.
Elizabeth was in that room. He had married
Elizabeth—she was his wife. He lay quite still
and stared at the door. Elizabeth Chantrey was
Elizabeth Blake. She was his wife—and Mary


174 The Fire Within
A sudden spasm of laughter caught David by
the throat. Mary was what she had promised
to be—his sister; Mary was his sister. The
spasm of laughter passed, and with it the stir in
David's blood. He was quite cool now. He
lay staring at that closed door, and faced the
situation.
It was a damnable situation, he decided. He
felt as a man might feel who wakes from the
delirium of weeks, to find that in his madness he
has done some intolerable, some irrevocable thing.
A man who does not sleep is a man who is not
wholly sane. David looked back and followed
the events of the last few months with a critical
detachment.
He saw the strain growing and growing until,
in the end, on the brink of the abyss, he had
snatched at the relief which Elizabeth offered, as
a man who dies of thirst will snatch at water. Well
—he had taken Elizabeth's draught of water, his
thirst was quenched, he was his own man again.
No, never his own man any more. Never free
any more—Elizabeth's debtor—Elizabeth's hus-
band.
David set his face like a flint—he would pay
his debt.


176 The Fire Within
Elizabeth did not speak at once. David
thought that she was not going to speak at all,
but after what seemed like a long time she said:
"David!" and then stopped.
There was a good deal of colour in her cheeks.
David saw that she, too, was making an effort.
"Well," he said, and his voice was more natural.
"David," said Elizabeth, "what did you mean
by 'doing your best'?"
David met her eyes. He had always liked
Elizabeth's eyes. They were so very clear.
"I meant that I 'd do my best to make you a
good husband," he said quite simply.
Elizabeth's colour rose higher still. She con-
tinued to look at David, because she would have
considered it cowardly to look away.
"A good husband to my good wife," she said.
"But, David, I don't think you want a wife just
now."
David came across the room and sat down by
the table at which Elizabeth was working.
"Then why did you marry me, Elizabeth?"
he asked.
Elizabeth did not turn her head at once.
"I think what we both want just now," she
said, "is friendship." Her voice was low, but she


178 The Fire Within
was not an ordinary one. It was for Elizabeth
to make what terms she would. And it was a
relief—yes, no doubt it was a relief.
"If I say, Yes," he said, "it is only for a time.
It is not a very possible situation, you know,
Elizabeth—not possible at all in most cases.
But just now, just for the present, I admit your
right to choose."
Elizabeth's hands relaxed.
"Thank you, David," she said.


CHAPTER XVI
FRIENDSHIP
See, God is everywhere,
Where, then, is care?
There is no night in Him,
Then how can we grow dim?
There is no room for pain or fear
Since God is Love, and Love is here.
The full cup lowered down into the sea,
Is full continually,
How can it lose one drop when all around
The endless floods abound?
So we in Him no part of Life can lose,
For all is ours to use.
found himself enjoying his holiday a
good deal. Blue skies and shining air,
clear cold of the snows and radiant warmth of the
spring sun, sweet sleep by night and pleasant
companionship by day—all these were his portion.
His own content surprised him. He had been so
long in the dark places that he could scarcely
believe that the shadow was gone, and the day
clear again. He had been prepared to struggle
179


Friendship 183
"So it was n't hypnotism. Are you sure?"
"Yes, quite sure."
"But can you be sure? There 's such a thing
as the unconscious exercise of will power."
Elizabeth shook her head.
"There is nothing in the least unconscious in
what I do. I know very well what I am about,
and I know enough about hypnotism to know
that it is not that. I don't use my will at all."
"What do you do? How is it done?" His
tone was interested.
"I think," said Elizabeth slowly, "that it is
done by realising, by getting into touch with
Reality. Things like sleeplessness, pain, and
strain are n't right—they are n't normal. They
are like bad dreams. If one wakes—if one sees
the reality—the dream is gone."
She spoke as if she were struggling to find words
for some idea which filled her mind, but was hard
to put into a communicable shape.
"It is life on the Fourth Dimension," she said
at last.
"Yes," said David, "go on." There was a
slightly quizzical look in his eyes, but he was
interested. "What do you mean by the Fourth
Dimension?"


?84 The Fire Within
"We used to talk of that too, and lately I have
thought about it a lot."
"Yes?"
"It is so hard to put into words. Fourth
Dimensional things won't get into Third Dimen-
sional words. One has to try and try, and then
a little scrap of the meaning comes through.
That is why there are so many creeds, so many
sects. They are all an attempt to express—and
one can't really express the thing. I can't say it,
I can only feel it. It is limitless, and words are
limited. There are no bounds or barriers. Take
Thought, for instance—that is Fourth Dimen-
sional—and Love. Religion is a purely Fourth
Dimensional thing, and we all guess and translate
as best we may. In all religions that have life,
apprehension rises above the creed and reaches
out to the Real—the untranslatable."
"Yes, that's true; but go on—define the Fourth
Dimension."
"I can see it, you know. It's another plane.
It is the plane which permeates and inter-pene-
trates all other planes—universal, eternal, un-
changing. It's like the Fire of God—searching
all things. It is the plane of Reality. Nothing is
real which is not universal and unchanging and


Friendship 185
eternal. If one can realise that plane, one is
amongst the realities, and all that is unreal goes
out. 'There is no life but the Life of God, no
consciousness but the Divine Consciousness.1 I
think that is the best definition of all: 'the Divine
Consciousness.'"
He did not know that she was quoting, and he
did not answer her or speak at all for some time.
But at last he said:
"So I slept, because you saw me in the Divine
Consciousness; is that it?"
"Something like that."
"You didn't will that I should sleep?"
"Oh, no."
"Are you doing it still?"
"Yes."
"Every night?"
"Yes," said Elizabeth again.
David sat up. The mists in the valley
beneath were golden, for the sun had dropped.
As he looked, the gold turned grey, and the
shadow of darkness to come rose out of the
valley's depths, though the hill-slope on which
they sat was warm and sunny yet. David
turned and saw that Elizabeth was watching
him.


186 The Fire Within
"I want you to stop whatever it is you do," he
said abruptly.
"Very well."
"I'm not as ungrateful as that sounds—"
He broke off, and Elizabeth said quickly:
"Oh.no."
"You don't think it?"
"Why should I? You are well again. You
don't need my help any more."
A shadow like the shadow of evening came
over her as she spoke, but her smile betrayed
nothing..
They walked back to the hotel in silence.
David had wondered if he would sleep. He
slept all night, the sweet sound sleep of health and
a mind unburdened.
It was Elizabeth who did not sleep. She had
walked with him through the valley of the shadow
and he had come out of it a whole man again.
Was she to cling to the shadow, because in the
shadow David had clung to her? It came to that.
She drove the thought home, and did not shirk the
pain of it. They were come out into the light,
and in the light he had no need of her. But this
was not full daylight in which they walked—it
was only the.first chill grey of the dawn, and


Friendship 187
there is always a need of Love. Love needs
must give, and giving, blesses and is blessed, for
Love is of the realities—a thing immutable and
all-pervading. No man can shut out Love.


The Dream 189
"Don't you think your master looks well, Mrs.
Havergill?" she said quite gaily.
Mrs. Havergill sighed.
"He do look well," she admitted; "but there,
ma'am, there 's no saying—it is n't looks as we
can go by. In my own family now, there was
my sister Sarah. She was a fine, fresh-looking
woman. Old Dr. Jones he met her out walking,
as it might be on the Thursday.
"' Well, Miss Sarah, you do look well,' he says—
and there, 't were n't but the following Tuesday
as she was took. 'Who 'd ha' thought it,' he says.
'In the midst of life we are in death,' and that's
a true word. And my brother 'Enry now, 'e
never look so well in all 'is life as when he was
laying in 'is coffin."
Elizabeth could afford to laugh.
"Oh, Mrs. Havergill, do be cheerful," she
implored; "it would be so much better for you."
Mrs. Havergill looked injured.
"I don't see as we 're sent into this world to
be cheerful," she said, with the air of one who
reproves unchristian levity.
"Oh, but we are—we really are," said Elizabeth.
Mrs. Havergill shook her head.
"Let them be cheerful as has no troubles," she


192 The Fire Within
remember Jack Webster? Well, you know he 's on
the West Coast, and he 's sent Edward a whole
case of things—frightfully exciting specimens,
two centipedes he 's wanted for ever so long, and
a spider that Jack says is new. And Edward
has never even had time to open the case. That
shows you! It's accounts, I believe. Edward
does hate accounts."
When she had gone David sat silent for a long
time. It was the old Mary, and prettier than
ever. He had never seen her looking prettier,
but his feeling for her was gone. He could look
at her quite dispassionately, and wonder over the
old unreasoning thrill. And what a chatterbox
she was. Thank Heaven, she had had the sense
to marry Edward, who was really not such a bad
sort. Poor Edward. He laughed aloud suddenly,
and Elizabeth looked up and asked:
"What is it?"
"Edward and the case he can't open, and the
centipedes he can't play with," he said, still
laughing. "Poor old Edward! What it is to
have a conscience. I wonder he does n't have a
midnight orgy with the centipedes, but I suppose
Mary sees to that."
It was that night that David dreamed his dream


The Dream 193
again. All these months it had never come to
him. Amongst the many dreams that had haunted
his sick brain, there had been no hint of this
one. He had wondered about it sometimes. And
now it returned. In the first deep sleep that
comes to a healthy man he dreamed it.
He heard the wind blowing—that was the
beginning of it. It came from the far distances
of space, and it passed on again to the far dis-
tances beyond. David heard it blow, but his eyes
were darkened. Then suddenly he saw. His
feet were on the shining sand, the sand that shone
because a golden moon looked down upon it from
a clear sky, and the tide had left it wet.
David stood upon the shining sand, and saw
the Woman of the Dream stand where the moon-
track ceased at the sea's rim. The moon was
behind her head, and the wind blew out her hair.
He stood as he had stood a hundred times, and
as he had longed a hundred times to see the
Woman's face, so he longed now. He moved to
go to her, and the wind blew about him in his
dream.
Elizabeth had sat late in her room. There was
a book in her hand, but after a time she did not
read. The night was very warm. She got up
13


198 The Fire Within
light had gone, David, too, was gone. One
moment, so near—touching her in the darkness
—and the next, gone—gone noiselessly, leaving
her shaking, quivering.
When she could move, she lit a candle and
looked in through the open door. David lay upon
his side, with one hand under his cheek. He was
sleeping like a child.
Elizabeth shut the door.


CHAPTER XVIII
THE FACE OF LOVE
Where have I seen these tall black trees,
Two and two and three—yes, seven,
Standing all about in a ring,
And pointing up to Heaven?
Where have I seen this black, black pool,
That never ruffles to any breath,
But stares and stares at the empty sky,
As silently as death?
How did we come here, you and I,
With the pool beneath, and the trees above?
Oh, even in death or the dusk of a dream,
You are heart of the heart of Love.
CLIZABETH was very pale when she came
•—' down the next day. As she dressed, she
could hear David singing and whistling in his
room. He went down the stairs like a schoolboy,
and when she followed she found him opening his
letters and whistling still.
"Hullo!" he said. ''Good-morning. You're
late, and I Ve only got half an hour to breakfast
199


The Face of Love 201
to close upon Elizabeth. Then he said thought-
fully:
"Dreams are odd things. I've had this one
off and on since I was a boy. And it's always the
same. But I have not had it for months. Then
last night—" He broke off. "Do you know
I 've never told any one about it before—does it
bore you?"
"No," said Elizabeth, and could not have said
more to save her life.
"It's a queer dream, and it never varies.
There's always the same long, wet stretch of
sand, and the moon shining over the sea. And
a woman"
"She stands at the edge of the sea with the
moon behind her, and the wind—did I tell you
about the wind?—it blows her hair and her dress.
And I have never seen her face."
"No?"
"No, never. I've always wanted to, but I
can never get near enough, and the moon is behind
her. When I was a boy, I used to walk in my
sleep when I had the dream. I used to wake up in
all sorts of odd places. Once I got as far as the
front-door step, and waked with my feet on the


202 The Fire Within
wet stones. I suppose I was looking for the
Woman."
Elizabeth took a grip of herself.
"Do you walk in your sleep now?"
He shook his head.
"Oh, no. Not since I was a boy," he said
cheerfully. "Mrs. Havergill would have evolved
a ghost story long ago if I had."
"And last night your dream was just the
same?"
"Yes, just the same. It always ends just when
it might get exciting."
"Did you wake?"
"No. That's the odd part. One is supposed
to dream only when one is waking, and of course
it's very hard to tell, but my impression is, that
at the point where my dream ends I drop more
deeply asleep. Dreams are queer things. I
don't know why I told you about this one."
He took up his book as he spoke, and they
talked no more.
Elizabeth went to her room early that night,
but she did not get into bed. She moved about
the room, hanging up the dress she had worn,
folding her things—even sorting out a drawer full


204 The Fire Within
remembered, but as she stepped back and looked
into his face she saw that he was in his dream.
His eyes looked far away. Then he kissed her
again, and dreaming or waking her soul went out
of her and was his soul, her very consciousness was
no more hers, but his, and she, too, saw that
strange, moon-guarded shore, and she, too, heard
the wind. But the night—the night was still.
Where did it come from, this sudden rush of the
wind, that seemed to blow through her? From
far away it came, from very far away, and it passed
through her and on to its own far place again,
a rushing eddy of wind, whirling about some
unknown centre.
Elizabeth was giddy and faint with the singing
of that wind in her ears. The moon was in her
eyes. She trembled, and hid them upon David's
breast.
"David," she whispered at last, and he
answered her.
"Love—love"
She turned a little from the light and looked at
him. There was a smile upon his face, and his
eyes smiled too.
"Where are we?" she said. And David laid
his face against hers and said:


The Face of Love 205
"We are in the Dream."
"David, what is the Dream? Do you know?
Tell me."
"It is the Dream," he said, "the old dream, the
dream that has no waking."
"And who am I? Am I Elizabeth?" She
feared so much to say it, and could not rest till
it was said.
"Elizabeth." He repeated the word, and
paused. His eyes clouded.
"You are the Woman of the Dream."
"But I have a name"
"Yes—you have a name, but I have forgotten
—if I could remember it. It is the name—the old
name—the name you had before the moon went
down. It was at night. You kissed me. There
were so many trees. I knew your name. Then
the moon went down, and it was dark, and I for-
got—not you—only the name. Are you angry,
love, because I have forgotten your name?"
There was trouble in his tone.
"No, not angry," said Elizabeth, with a quiver
in her voice. "Will you call me Elizabeth, David?
Will you say Elizabeth to me?"
He said "Elizabeth," and as he said it his face
changed. For a moment she thought that he


CHAPTER XIX
THE FULL MOON
The sun was cold, the dark dead Moon
Hung low behind dull leaden bars,
And you came barefoot down the sky
Between the grey unlighted Stars.
You laid your hand upon my soul,
My soul that cried to you for rest,
And all the light of the lost Sun
Was in the comfort of your breast.
There was no veil upon your heart,
There was no veil upon your eyes;
I did not know the Stars were dim,
Nor long for that dead Moon to rise.
""THEY dined with Edward and Mary next day.
*• The centipedes were still immured, and
Edward made tentative overtures to David on
the subject of broaching the case after dinner.
"Edward is the soul of hospitality," David said
afterwards. "He keeps his best to the end.
First, a positively good dinner, then some com-
paratively enjoyable music, and, last of all, the
superlatively enthralling centipedes."
207


210 The Fire Within
You don't know how I 've wanted it. No one
knows. I 've simply hated all the people in the
Morning Post who had babies. I 've not even
read the first column for weeks, and when Sybil
Delamere sent me an invitation to her baby's
christening—she was married the same day I was,
you know—I just tore it up and burnt it. And
now it's really coming to me, and you 're to be
glad for me, Liz."
"Molly, darling, I am glad—so glad."
"Really?"
Mary looked up into her sister's face, search-
ingly.
"You're thinking of me, really of me—not
about David, as you were just now? Oh, yes, I
knew."
Elizabeth laughed.
"Really, Molly, mayn't I think of my own
husband?"
"Not when I 'm telling you about a thing like
this," said Mary. "Liz, you are the first person
I have told, the very first."
Elizabeth did not allow her thoughts to wander
again. As they talked, the rain beat heavily
against the windows, and they heard the rush of
it in the gutters below.


212 The Fire Within
would not come. It was dark. She heard the
rain falling into the river, and she could just see
how the trees bent in the rush of it. And yet she
sat for an hour, by her window, in the dark, wait-
ing breathlessly for that which would not happen.
The time went slowly by. The rain fell, and it
was cold. Elizabeth lay down in the great square
bed, and presently she slept, lulled by the steady
dropping of the rain. She slept, and in her sleep
she dreamed that she was sinking fathoms deep
in a stormy, angry sea. Far overhead, she could
hear the clash of the waves, and the long, long
sullen roar of the swelling storm. And she went
down and down into a black darkness that was
deeper than any night—down, till she lost the
roar of the storm above, down until all sound was
gone, and she was alone in a black silence that
would never lift or break again. Her soul was
cold and blind, and most unendurably alone.
Then something touched her, something that was
warm. There came upon her that strange sense
of home-coming, which comes to us in dreams, when
love comes back to us across the sundering years,
and all the pains of life, the pains of death, vanish
and are gone, and we are come home—home to
the place where we would be.


CHAPTER XX
THE WOMAN OF THE DREAM
Oh, was it in the dead of night,
Or in the dark before the day,
You came to me and kneeling, knew
The thing that I would never say?
There was no star, nor any moon,
There was no light from pole to pole,
And yet you saw the secret thing,
That I had hid within my soul.
You saw the secret and the shrine,
You bowed your head and went your way—
Oh, was it in the dead of night,
Or in the dark that brings the day?
FOR the next fortnight Elizabeth lived in a
dream from which she scarcely woke by day.
The dream life—the dream love—the dream itself
—these became her life. In the moments that
came nearest the waking she trembled, because if
the dream was her life, the waking would be death.
But for the rest of the time she walked in a trance.
Earth budded, and the birds built nests. The
green of woodland places went down under a
214


216 The Fire Within
sun. If she took up a book—once what she read
was:
Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For then the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
and another time, Kingsley's Dolcino to Margaret.
Then came a day when she opened her Bible and
read:
"If a man walk in the night, he stumbleth,
because there is no light in him."
That day she came broad awake. The daze
passed from her. Her brain was clear, and her
conscience—the inner vision rose before her,
showing her an image troubled and confused.
What had she done? And what was she doing
now? Day by day David looked at her with the
eyes of a friend, and night by night he came to
her, the lover of a dream. Which was the reality?
Which was the real David? If the David of the
dream were real, conscious in sleep of some myste-
rious oneness, the sense of which was lost in the
glare of day—then she could wait, and bear, and
hope, till the realisation was so strong that the
sun might shine upon it and show to David awake
what the sleeping David knew.


The Woman of the Dream 217
But if the David of the dream were not the
real David, then what was she? Mistress and
no wife—the mistress of a dream mood that
never touched Reality at all.
Two scalding tears in Elizabeth's eyes—two
and no more. The others burned her heart.
And the thought stayed with her.
That evening after dinner Elizabeth looked up
from her embroidery. The silence had grown to
be too full of thoughts. She could not bear it.
"What are you reading, David?" she asked.
He laughed and said:
"Sentimental poetry, ma'am. Would you have
suspected me of it? I find it very soothing."
"Do you?"
She paused, and then said with a flutter in her
throat:
"Do you ever write poetry now, David? You
used to."
"Yes, I remember boring you with it."
He coloured a little as he spoke.
"But since then?"
"Oh, yes"
"Show me some"
"Not for the world."
"Why not?"


218 The Fire Within
"Poetry is such an awful give away. How any
one ever dares to publish any, I don't know. I
suppose they get hardened. But one's most
private letters are n't a patch on it. One puts
down all one's grumbles, one's moonstruck fancies,
the ravings of one's inanest moments. Mine are
not for circulation, thanks."
Elizabeth did not laugh. Instead she said,
quite seriously,
"David, I wish you would show me some of it."
He looked rather surprised, but got up, and
presently came back with some papers in his hand,
and threw them into her lap.
"There. There 's one there that's rather odd.
It's rotten poetry, but it gave me the oddest
feelings when I wrote it. See if it does the same
to you," and he laughed.
There were three poems in Elizabeth's lap.
The first was a vigorous bit of work—a ballad
with a good ballad swing to it. Elizabeth read it
and applauded.
"This is much better than your old things,"
she said, and he was manifestly pleased.
The next was a set of clever verses on a political
topic of passing interest. Elizabeth laughed over
it and laid it aside. Her thoughts were pleasantly


The Woman of the Dream 219
diverted. Anything was welcome that brought
her nearer to the David of the day.
She took up the third poem. It was called:
EGYPT
. pt sands are burning hot.
Burning hot and dry,
How they scorched us as we worked,
Toiling, you and I,
When we built the Pyramid in Egypt.
Heaven like hammered brass above,
Earth like brass below,
How the sweat of torment ran,
All those years ago,
When we built the Pyramid in Egypt.
When the dreadful day was done,
Night was like your eyes,
Sweet and cool and comforting—
We were very wise,
When we built the Pyramid in Egypt.
We were very wise, my dear,
Children, lovers, gods,
Where 's the wisdom that we knew,
With our world at odds,
When we built the Pyramid in Egypt?


The Woman of the Dream 221

one that fits most happily is the hopelessly un-
scientific one of reincarnation. Well, my thought-
wave took me back to Egypt and"
He hesitated.
"Tell me."
Elizabeth's voice was eager.
"Oh, nothing."
"Yes, tell me."
He laughed at her earnestness.
"Well, then—I saw the woman's eyes."
"Yes."
"They were grey. That's all. And I thought
it odd."
He broke off, and Elizabeth asked no more.
She knew very well why he had thought it odd
that the woman's eyes should be grey. The poems
were dated, and Egypt bore the date of a year
ago. He was in love with Mary then, and Mary's
eyes were dark—dark hazel eyes.
That night she woke from a dream of Mary,
and heard David whispering a name in his sleep,
but she could not catch the name. The old
shamed dread and horror came upon her, strong
and unbroken. She slipped from bed, and stood
by the window, panting for breath. And out of
the darkness David called to her:


222 The Fire Within
"Love, where are you gone to?"
If he would say her name—if he would only say
her name. She had no words to answer him, but
she heard him rise and come to her.
"Why did you go away?" he said, touching
her. And as she had done once before, Elizabeth
cried out.
"Who am I, David?—tell me! Am I Mary?"
He repeated the name slowly, and each repeti-
tion was a wound.
"Mary," he said, wonderingly, "there is no
Mary in the Dream. There are only you and I—
and you are Love"
"And if I went out of the Dream?" said Eliza-
beth, leaning against his breast. The comfort of
his touch stole back into her heart. Her breath-
ing steadied.
"Then I would come and find you," said David
Blake.
It was the next day that Agneta's letter came.
Elizabeth opened it at breakfast and exclaimed.
"What is it?"
She lifted a face of distress.
"David, should you mind if I were to go away
for a little? Agneta wants me."
"Agneta?"


224 The Fire Within
rainbow mist that hid and confused them. Now
Agneta needed her, there would be work for her to
do. And she would not see David again until
she could look her conscience in the face.


Elizabeth Blake 227
stopped reading and leaned back with closed eyes,
thinking first of Agneta, then of herself and David.
Louis's voice broke in upon her thoughts.
"Lizabeth, what is it?"
She was startled.
"Oh, I was just thinking."
He frowned.
"What is the good?" he said. "I told you I
could see. You 're troubled, horribly troubled
about something. And it's not Agneta. What
is it?"
Elizabeth was rather pale.
"Oh, Louis," she said, "please don't. I'd
rather you did n't. And it's not what you think.
It's not really a trouble. I 'm puzzled. I don't
know what to do. There 's something I have to
think out. And it's not clear—I can't quite
see"
Louis regarded her seriously.
"If any man lack wisdom," he said. "That's
a pretty good thing in the pike-staff line. Good
Lord, fancy me preaching to you. It's amusing,
is n't it?"
He laughed a little.
Elizabeth nodded.
"You can go on," she said.


230 The Fire Within
Next day Agneta said suddenly:
"Lizabeth, what is it?"
"What is what?"
Agneta's little dark face became serious.
"Lizabeth, I 've been a beast. I 've only been
thinking about myself. Now it's your turn.
What's the matter?"
Elizabeth was silent.
"Mayn't I ask? Do you mind?"
Elizabeth shook her head.
"Which is the'no'for?"
"Both," said Elizabeth.
"I must n't ask then. You 'd rather not talk
about it? Really?"
"Yes, really, Neta, dear."
"Right you are."
Agneta was silent for a few minutes. They
were sitting together in the firelight, and she
watched the play of light and shade upon Eliza-
beth's face. It was beautiful, but troubled.
"Lizabeth, you used not to be beautiful, but
you are beautiful now," she said suddenly.
"AmI?"
"Yes, I always loved your face, but it was n't
really beautiful. Now I think it is."
"Anything else?" Elizabeth laughed a little.


Elizabeth Blake 231
"Yes, the patient look has gone. You used to
look so patient that it hurt. As if you were
carrying a heavy load and just knew you had got
to carry it without making any fuss."
"Issachar, in fact"
"No, not then, but I 'm not so sure now. I
think there are two burdens now."
Elizabeth laid her hand on Agneta's lips.
"Agneta, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Stop thought-reading this very minute. I never
gave you leave."
"Sorry." Agneta kissed the hand against her
lips and laid it back in Elizabeth's lap. "Oh,
Lizabeth, why didn't you marry Louis?" she
said, and Elizabeth saw that her eyes were full of
tears. The firelight danced on a brilliant, falling
drop.
"Because I love David," said Elizabeth.
"And love is worth while, Agneta. It is very
well worth while. You knew it was when you
thought that Douglas was dead. Would you
have gone back to a year ago?"
"Ah, Lizabeth, don't," said Agneta.
She leaned her head against Elizabeth's knee
and was still.
All that week, Elizabeth slept little and thought


232 The Fire Within
much. And her thought was prayer. She did
not kneel when she prayed, and she had her own
idea of what prayer should be. Not petition.
The Kingdom of Heaven is about us. We have
but to open our eyes and take what is our
own. Therefore not petition. What Elizabeth
called prayer was far more like taking something
out of the darkness, to look at it in the light.
And before the light, all things evil, all things
that were not good and not of God, vanished and
were not. If thine eye be single, thy whole body
shall be full of light. In this manner, David's
sleeplessness had been changed to rest and healing,
and in this same manner, Elizabeth now knew that
she must test the strange dream-state in which
David loved her. And in her heart of hearts she
did not think that it would stand the test. She
believed that, subjected to this form of prayer,
the dream would vanish and she be left alone.
She faced the probability, and facing it, she
prayed for light, for wisdom, for the Reality that
annihilates the shadows of man's thought. When
she used words at all, they were the words of St.
Patrick's prayer:
I bind to myself to-day,
The Power of God to protect me,


Elizabeth Blake 235
them over and over again until the tumult died
in her, and she was mistress of her thoughts.
Immortal love could never lose by Truth.
Now she could look again upon the night. The
trees were very black. The wind stirred them.
The sky was full of light made mystical. Which
of the temples that man has built, has light for
its walls, and cloud and fire for its pillars? In
which of them has the sun his tabernacle, through
which of them does the moon pass, by a path of
silver adoration? What altar is served by the
rushing winds and lighted by the stars? In all
the temples that man has made, man bows his
head and worships, but in the Temple of the
Universe it is the Heavens themselves that declare
the Glory of God.
Elizabeth's thought rose up and up. In the
divine peace it rested and was stilled.
And David did not come.


After the Dream 237
The glamour of the June days was gone too.
July was a wet and stormy month, and Elizabeth
was thankful for the rain and the cold, at which
all the world was grumbling.
Mary came in one July day with a face that
matched the weather.
"Why, Molly," said Elizabeth, kissing her,
"what's the matter, child?"
Mary might have asked the same question,
but she was a great deal too much taken up with
her own affairs.
"Edward and I have quarrelled," she said
with a sob in the words, and sitting down, she
burst into uncontrollable tears.
"But what is it all about?" asked Elizabeth,
with her arm around her sister. "Molly, do
hush. It is so bad for you. What has Edward
done?"
"Men are brutes," declared Mary.
"Now, I'm sure Edward isn't," returned
Elizabeth, with real conviction.
Mary sat up.
"He is," she declared. "No, Liz, just listen.
It was all over baby's name."
"What, already?"
"Well, of course, one plans things. If one


238 The Fire Within
does n't, well, there was Dorothy Jackson—don't
you remember? She was very ill, and the baby
had to be christened in a hurry, because they
did n't think it was going to live. And nobody
thought the name mattered, so the clergyman just
gave it the first name that came into his head, and
the baby did n't die after all, and when Dorothy
found she 'd got to go through life with a daughter
called Harriet, she very nearly died all over again.
So, you see, one has to think of things. So I had
thought of a whole lot of names, and last night I
said to Edward, 'What shall we call it?' and he
looked awfully pleased and said, 'What do you
think?' And I said, 'What would you like best?'
And he said, 'I 'd like it to be called after you,
Mary, darling. I got Jack Webster's answer to-
day, and he says I may call it anything I like.1
Well, of course, I did n't see what it had to do with
Jack Webster, but I thought Edward must have
asked him to be godfather. I was rather put
out. I did n't think it quite nice, beforehand,
you know."
The bright colour of indignation had come into
Mary's cheeks, and she spoke with great energy.
"Of course, I just thought that, and then Ed-
ward said, 'So it shall be called after you—Arachne


After the Dream 239
Mariana.' I thought what hideous names, but
all I said was, 'Oh, darling, but I want a boy';
and do you know, Liz, Edward had been talking
about a spider all the time—the spider that Jack
Webster sent him. I don't believe he cares
nearly as much for the baby, I really don't, and I
wish I was dead."
Mary sobbed afresh, and it took Elizabeth a
good deal of her time to pacify her.
Mrs. Havergill brought in tea, it being Sarah's
afternoon out. When she was taking away the
tea-things, after Mary had gone, she observed:
"Mrs. Mottisfont, she do look pale, ma'am."
"Mrs. Mottisfont is going to have a baby,"
said Elizabeth, smiling.
Mrs. Havergill appeared to dismiss Mary's
baby with a slight wave of the hand.
"I 'ad a cousin as 'ad twenty-three," she
observed in tones of lofty detachment.
"Not all at once?" said Elizabeth faintly.
Mrs. Havergill took no notice of this remark.
"Yes, twenty-three, pore soul. And when she
was n't 'aving of them, she was burying of them.
Ten she buried, and thirteen she reared, and
many 's the time I 've 'eard 'er say, she did n't
know which was the most trouble."


242 The Fire Within
no moon. Elizabeth lay and looked at it. It was
very radiant and very soft. She ceased to weep
and she ceased to be troubled. She knew with a
certainty that never faltered again, that she and
David were one. Whether he would become con-
scious of their oneness during the space of this
short mortal dream, she did not know, but it had
ceased to matter. The thing that had tormented
her was her own doubt. Now that was stilled
for ever—Love walked again among the realities,
pure and unashamed. The things of Time—the
mistakes, the illusions, the shadows of Time—
moved in a little misty dream, that could not
touch her. Elizabeth turned on her side. She
was warm and she was comforted.
She slept.


CHAPTER XXIII
ELIZABETH WAITS
And they that have seen and heard,
Have wrested a gift from Fate
That no man taketh away.
For they hold in their hands the key,
To all that is this-side Death,
And they count it as dust by the way,
As small dust, driven before the breath
Of Winds that blow to the day.
you remember my telling you about my
dream?" said David, next day. He spoke
quite suddenly, looking up from a letter that he
was writing.
"Yes, I remember," said Elizabeth. She even
smiled a little.
"Well, it was so odd—I really don't know what
made me think of it just now, but it happened to
come into my head—do you know that I dreamt
it every night for-about a fortnight? That was
in May. I have never done such a thing before.
Then it stopped again quite suddenly, and I
243


246 The Fire Within
"I 'm going up to London for Agneta's wedding
next week. I don't want to go anywhere else.
Do you want to get rid of me?"
To her surprise, David coloured.
"I?" he said. For a moment an odd expression
passed across his face. Then he laughed.
"I might have wanted to flirt with Miss Dobell."
Agneta Mainwaring was married at the end of
July.
"It's going to be the most awful show," she
wrote to Elizabeth. "Douglas and I spend all
our time trying to persuade each other that it
is n't going to be awful, but we know it is. All
our relations and all our friends, and all their
children and all their best clothes, and an amount
of fuss, worry, and botheration calculated to drive
any one crazy. If I had n't an enormous amount
of self-control I should bolt, either with or without
Douglas. Probably without him. Then he 'd
have a really thrilling time tracking me down.
It's an awful temptation, and if you don't want
me to give way to it, you 'd better come up at
least three days beforehand, and clamp on to me.
Do come, Lizabeth. I really want you."
Elizabeth went up to London the day before


Elizabeth Waits 247
the wedding, and Agneta detached herself suffi-
ciently from her own dream to say:
"You're not Issachar any longer. What has
happened?"
"I don't quite know," said Elizabeth. "I
don't think the burden 's gone, but I think that
some one else is carrying it for me. I don't seem
to feel it any more."
Agneta smiled a queer little smile of under-
standing. Then she laughed.
"Good Heavens, Lizabeth, if any one heard us
talking, how perfectly mad they would think
us."
Elizabeth found August a very peaceful month.
A large number of her friends and acquaintances
were away. There were no calls to be paid and
no notes to be written. She and David were
more together than they had been since the time
in Switzerland, and she was happy with a strange
brooding happiness, which was not yet complete,
but which awaited completion. She thought a
great deal about the child—the child of the Dream.
She came to think of it as an indication that be-
hind the Dream was the Real.
Mary came back on the 15th of September.
She was looking very well, and was once more in a


248 The Fire Within
state of extreme contentment with Edward and
things in general. When she had poured forth
a complete catalogue of all that they had done,
she paused for breath, and looked suddenly and
sharply at Elizabeth.
"Liz, "she said. "Why, Liz."
To Elizabeth's annoyance, she felt herself
colouring.
"Liz, and you never told me. Tell me at once.
Is it true? Why did n't you tell me before?"
"Oh, Molly, what an Inquisitor you would
have made!"
"Then it is true. And I suppose you told
Agneta weeks ago?"
"I have n't told any one," said Elizabeth.
"Not Agneta? And I suppose if I had n't
guessed you would n't have told me for ages and
ages and ages. Why did n't you tell me, Liz?"
"Why, I thought I 'd wait till you came back,
Molly."
Mary caught her sister 's hand.
"Liz, aren't you glad? Aren't you pleased?
Does n't it make you happy? Oh, Liz, if I thought
you were one of those dreadful women who don't
want to have a baby, I—I don't know what I
should do. I wanted to tell everybody. But


250 The Fire Within
really have n't told David? That he does n't
know?"
Elizabeth's colour rose.
"Molly, my dear, do you think it is your busi-
ness?" she said.
"Yes, I do," said Mary. "I suppose you won't
pretend you 're not my own sister. And I think
you must be quite mad, Liz. I do, indeed. You
ought to tell David at once—at once. I can't
imagine what Edward would have said if he had not
known at once. You ought to go straight home
and tell him now. Married people ought to be
one. They ought never to have secrets."
Mary poured the whole thing out to Edward the
same evening.
"I really don't know what has happened to
Elizabeth," she said. "She is quite changed. I
can't understand her at all. I think it is quite
wicked of her. If she does n't tell David soon,
some one else ought to tell him."
Edward moved uneasily in his chair.
"People don't like being interfered with," he
said.
"Well, I 'm sure nobody could call me an
interfering person," said Mary. "It isn't inter-
fering to be fond of people. If I were n't fond of


Elizabeth Waits 251
Liz, I should n't care how strangely she behaved.
I do think it's very strange of her—and I don't
care what you say, Edward. I think David ought
to be told. How would you have liked it if I 'd
hidden things from you?"
Edward rumpled up his hair.
"People don't like being interfered with," he
said again.
At this Mary burst into tears, and continued
to weep until Edward had called himself a brute
sufficiently often to justify her contradicting him.
Elizabeth continued to wait. She was not quite
as untroubled as she had been. The scene with
Mary had brought the whole world of other
people's thoughts and judgments much nearer.
It was a troubling world. One full of shadows
and perplexities. It pressed upon her a little and
vexed her peace.
The days slid by. They had been pleasant days
for David, too. For some time past he had been
aware of a change in himself—a ferment. His old
passion for Mary was dust. He looked back upon
it now, and saw it as a delirium of the senses, a
thing of change and fever. It was gone. He
rejoiced in his freedom and began to look forward
to the time when he and Elizabeth would enter


252 The Fire Within
upon a married life founded upon friendship,
companionship, and good fellowship. He had no
desire to fall in love with Elizabeth, to go back to
the old storms of passion and unrest. He cared a
good deal for Elizabeth. When she was his wife
he would care for her more deeply, but still on the
same lines. He hoped that they would have
children. He was very fond of children. And
then, after he had planned it all out in his own
mind, he became aware of the change, the ferment.
What he felt did not come into the plan at all.
He disliked it and he distrusted it, but none the
less the change went on, the ferment grew. It
was as if he had planned to walk on a clear, wide
upland, under a still, untroubled air. In his own
mind he had a vision of such a place. It was a
place where a man might walk and be master of
himself, and then suddenly—the driving of a
mighty wind, and he could not tell from whence it
came, or whither it went. The wind bloweth
where it listeth. In those September days the
wind blew very strongly, and as it blew, David
came slowly to the knowledge that he loved
Elizabeth. It was a love that seemed to rise in
him from some great depth. He could not have
told when it began. As the days passed, he


CHAPTER XXIV
THE LOST NAME
You are as old as Egypt, and as young as yesterday,
Oh, turn again and look again, for when you look I know
The dusk of death is but a dream, that dreaming, dies away
And leaves you with the lips I loved, three thousand years ago.
The mists of that forgotten dream, they fill your brooding eyes,
With veil on strange revealing veil that wavers, and is gone,
And still between the veiling mists, the dim, dead centuries rise,
And still behind the farthest veil, your burning soul burns on.
You are as old as Egypt, and as young as very Youth,
Before your still, immortal eyes the ages come and go,
The dusk of death is but a dream that dims the face of Truth—
Oh, turn again, and look again, for when you look, I know.
 Elizabeth came to herself, the room
was full of mist. Through the mist, she
saw David's face, and quite suddenly in these few
minutes it had grown years older.
He spoke. He seemed a long way off.
"Drink this."
"What is it?" said Elizabeth faintly.
"Water."
Elizabeth raised herself a little and drank. The


260 The Fire Within
"Yes," said Elizabeth, and said no more.
A sort of shudder passed over David Blake.
"Then it's true," he said in a voice that was
hardly a voice at all. There was a sound, and
there were words. But it was not like a man
speaking. It was like a long, quick breath of
pain.
"Yes," said Elizabeth. "It is true, David."
There was a very great pity in her eyes.
"Oh, my God!" said David, and he sat down by
the table and put his head in his hands. "Oh, my
God!" he said again.
Elizabeth got up. She was trembling just a
little, but she felt no faintness now. She put one
hand on the mantelpiece, and so stood, waiting.
There was a very long silence, one of those pro-
found silences which seem to break in upon a room
and fill it. They overhand blot out all the little
sounds of every-day life and usage. Outside,
people came and went, the traffic in the High
Street came and went, but neither to David, nor
to Elizabeth, did there come the smallest sound.
They were enclosed in a silence that seemed to
stretch unbroken, from one Eternity to another.
It became an unbearable torment. To his dying
day, when any one spoke of hell, David glimpsed


The Lost Name 261
aplace of eternal silence, where anguish burned
for ever with a still unwavering flame.
He moved at last, slowly, like a man who has
been in a trance. His head lifted. He got up,
resting his weight upon his hands. Then he
straightened himself. All his movements were
like those of a man who is lifting an intolerably
heavy load.
"Why did you marry me?" he asked in a tired
voice, and then his tone hardened. "Who is the
man? Who is he? Will he marry you if I
divorce you?"
An unbearable pang of pity went through
Elizabeth, and she turned her head sharply.
David stopped looking at her.
She to be ashamed—oh, God!—Elizabeth
ashamed—he could not look at her. He walked
quickly to the window. Then turned back again
because Elizabeth was speaking.
"David," she said, in a low voice, "David,
what sort of woman am I?"
A groan burst from David.
"You are a good woman. That's just the
damnable part of it. There are some women,
when they do a thing like this, one only says
they 've done after their kind—they 're gone