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 THE WIND IN THE TREE 
 
 . OF CALIF. LIBRARY. 108
 
 Juwceness of tine North Wir> 
 -4 the Ojitierness of ihe E-asf - 
 the hony& brcaifc ofthe South. ' 
 
 Sf Ju aS5 ^5 ^^^ ^^^ - in - ri-u?h " 
 
 all the xnn^s of The world blav upon 
 the tree of love
 
 THE WIND 
 IN THE TREE 
 
 Seven Love Stories 
 
 by 
 Millicent Sutherland 
 
 WITH A FRONTISPIECE 
 BY WALTER CRANE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 R. H. RUSSELL 
 
 MCMII
 
 Copyright, 1902, by 
 Robert Howard Russell 
 
 All rights reserved 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England 
 
 Printed in the United States 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON 
 AND SON CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
 
 \HE fierceness of the North 
 Wind and the bitterness of 
 the East ; the honeyed breath 
 of the South, the passion of 
 the West; in truth all the 
 'winds of the 'world blow upon the 'Tree of Love. 
 
 2133C98
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 I The Fate that Follows .... j> 
 
 // Lady Totos Betrothing . . . j>/ 
 
 /// The Doubt 6l 
 
 IV "Till Seventy Times Seven" . . 8j 
 
 V Mrs. Leonid 7/5 
 
 VI The Laureate 143 
 
 VII The Great God Chance . . . 183
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 " Gold or silver every day 
 
 Dies to grey." . . .
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 the air of a November 
 night wet, and warm as 
 early June disconnected 
 sounds were borne hither 
 and thither, gaining impor- 
 tance from the repose of 
 the atmosphere. A fish- 
 hawker cried his wares; a chain clanked at the 
 pier-head ; under lately moored fishing smacks 
 the water sucked and gurgled ; aboard one of 
 these a belated worker, hampered in the achieve- 
 ment of his task, uttered impatient oaths. No 
 moon Xr star pierced the blackness, but here 
 and there in uncurtained windows a lamp burned 
 feebly, set by an inmate who, without thought of 
 the community at large, needed for a time an 
 illumination. 
 
 Within the doors of the Milk and Mustard^ 
 standing beside the quay, the life of the port of 
 Marke was more truly expressed. Here un- 
 usual jollity prevailed. A fishing fleet from 
 Scotland, following herring, had anchored for a 
 night in the outer harbour. The masters, making 
 all fast, and inquisitive as to the ways and man- 
 3
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 ners of the inhabitants, had landed in company 
 to explore ; but the evening was unpropitious, 
 the tavern inviting; it set a limit to their 
 ambitions. 
 
 The hostility of south-coast fishermen to 
 intruders on their grounds was converted by 
 curiosity into hospitality. Every bench and 
 settle in the Milk and Mustard became crowded ; 
 the proprietor began a roaring trade. 
 
 Below the public-house and its five worn stone 
 steps ran at right angles, and almost to the edge 
 of the sea, a row of dwellings ; on stormy nights 
 the waves would scatter their spray upon the 
 uneven thresholds. Old these houses were and 
 lean-to ; insanitary, yet fully inhabited. In 
 respect of the tenants, the town of Marke 
 could account for little. They were nearly all 
 aliens, striving, it was hinted, in one way or 
 another to atone by a dismal present for a tumult- 
 uous past. The " Settlers' Barracks," the familiar 
 name for the row, held possibly its comedies and 
 its tragedies, but they were out of line with the 
 gossips of the town ; little could be gathered 
 concerning them in the market-place. A hearse, 
 
 4
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 or the cart from the general provision store, 
 called as necessity required at one or other of 
 the warped green doors, otherwise the dwellers, 
 man, woman, and child, lived pretty much as 
 they pleased. 
 
 To-night the majority of these, being, in spite 
 of their mystery, of no uncommon clay, gazed on 
 the crowded harbour, and, catching the spirit of 
 excitement, had saved the price of oil and tallow- 
 dip, to join the throng in the tavern and gain, 
 so they considered, a fairer exchange for their 
 pence. Beneath one door only a faint line of 
 light broke the depressing gloom, and the mur- 
 mur of voices, or an occasional hollow cough, 
 spoke of life within. 
 
 A girl and two men were in the kitchen, which 
 served also as parlour. The girl sat sewing on a 
 straight-backed sofa which rilled one side of the 
 wall. This sofa, with its carved ornaments and 
 faded damask cushions, looked quaintly out of 
 place, but gave an immediate interest to the 
 room. The fire was well stacked ; the light from 
 the coals, from the flame of a single candle in a 
 heavy brass candlestick on the dresser, and from 
 5
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 a lamp on a shelf, mingled and flickered around 
 the girl. Her needle passed unceasingly through 
 the soft, grey material that lay upon her lap, and 
 thence hung entwined about her feet and trailed 
 on the clean brick floor. 
 
 A young man sat beside her, and his arm 
 touched her shoulder. He wore still the jersey 
 of the day's employment, and his well-shaped 
 sunburnt hands were clenched between his knees ; 
 a faint, briny odour clung to his clothes ; to his 
 curly auburn head. From his pipe, held bowl 
 downwards, the ashes trickled unnoticed upon 
 the grey stuff. He wore no collar round his 
 muscular throat. The rough edges of his jersey 
 bound his neck, and with ostentatious jauntiness 
 a large horn-handled knife was stuck through a 
 leather waist-belt like a feather in a cap. 
 
 " Love," he was saying, and his voice, full and 
 refined in accent, quivered as he spoke, " only 
 twenty-four hours and you're mine. I '11 hold 
 you close, I'll call you wife you're not 
 afraid ? " 
 
 She looked into his face and drew her 
 breath quicker, for his passion, strong, and so 
 
 6
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 strange to these cramped surroundings, enveloped 
 her. 
 
 " Do you want me so much ? " she said simply, 
 and tossed back her head, displaying thus the 
 beauty of her features, the delicate moulding of 
 chin and ear, " are you sure ? " 
 
 " Sure ? " He sought his words slowly to gain 
 mastery over a burning impulse. " I 'm counting 
 every moment, as I 've counted every hour. 
 Have n't I suffered enough to gain you ? I 
 dread everything till we're together. Margot" 
 his voice took on a fiercer tone " if any one 
 wanted you, if any one took you from me now, 
 I should kill him." 
 
 " No one wants to keep me, wild boy, no one 
 but " She had risen to her feet, and whisper- 
 ing, nodded towards the bowed figure in the chair 
 on the hearth. 
 
 She took the few steps which separated her 
 from the man whom she had indicated, and knelt 
 beside him. He seemed as he sat, of great height, 
 his head belied the droop of his shoulders. It 
 was alert and defiant in pose ; he looked like a 
 man waiting for a word ready on its delivery 
 7
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 for immediate action ; only the closest glance re- 
 vealed the fact that he was blind stone blind. 
 
 " Father," she said, pressing to him. 
 
 He made no reply, but stretched out his right 
 hand before him, searching. 
 
 The girl took it and clasped it in hers. 
 
 " To-morrow I 'm to be married," she went 
 on eagerly, " at the chapel, you know. The 
 flowers are there already. The minister said no 
 flowers that neither dead nor living needed them 
 gathered but I filled my arms from the Squire's 
 vinery, and brought them and piled them in wet 
 moss under the altar because to-morrow they 
 must be fresh. Dick calls them c white star-fish ' 
 and the autumn leaves ' blood traces on his boat 
 decks,' but they '11 be the best of all the wedding 
 they and your blessing." 
 
 She looked over her shoulder but met with no 
 expostulation to reprove such bold words. Dick's 
 head was bowed upon his hands. The man at 
 her side moved restlessly ; his feet shuffled on 
 the rag-mat laid beneath them. 
 
 " I 'm so happy," she said, continuing her 
 thoughts. 
 
 8
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 Then John Winterscale spoke sharply ; he 
 tried to escape her hold. 
 
 "Is that her voice? Listen answer is 
 that her voice ? " 
 
 " My voice, father, mine mine," she urged. 
 " Come back to the present for my sake. I 'm 
 so tired of the past." 
 
 He gave a cracked laugh. 
 
 " Tired you Ve said that often, Therese 
 tired ! When you dance all night and sing all 
 day, and I Ve been waiting so long. It 's I who 
 should be tired I." 
 
 His querulousness sank to a moaning and a 
 muttering. He gave sharp jerks to his shoulders 
 and elbows, as if he wished to rise and hold some- 
 thing that was eluding him. 
 
 In desperation, M argot was driven to explain. 
 She must make this man realise her life that was 
 to be, as he realised his own that had slipped be- 
 hind him. To-night, in view of the inevitable 
 to-morrow, seemed her last chance. 
 
 Dick called imperatively from the sofa. " Let 
 him alone, he won't understand. Come back to 
 me I miss you." 
 9
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 She smiled confidently. " Wait not all 
 things at once. He must understand it will 
 be all the world if he understands wait." 
 
 She still clung to the worn hands ; upon each 
 she laid a kiss and they became passive to her 
 touch. To give coherence to his thoughts, there 
 was but one charm to work, worn thin as it was 
 with cruel use. 
 
 " Tell me about my mother," she asked, with 
 quick decision. 
 
 There passed through the gaunt frame a visible 
 thrill ; an expression of hope crossed the man's 
 face. The blank of his sightless eyes was 
 forgotten. 
 
 " Little Margot, is it ? " His voice changed. 
 " Little M argot's good-night? Whist! Say your 
 prayers, and I '11 tell you about her I love best. 
 She is out now," he crooned, " when you sleep 
 she '11 be home sure, certain she '11 be home, 
 and she '11 sleep too, while all my soul enfolds 
 her." 
 
 He paused, racked by his cough. To the girl 
 there was nothing strange in the situation. The 
 romance of her lonely youth had been built 
 
 10
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 around that phrase "Tell me about my mother;" 
 all the romance of her memories and all the mis- 
 ery. She would be the little child again to the 
 father who only knew her as such. She would 
 open the windows of his darkened mind and 
 bring him, through the lisping of her simple 
 prayer, a fuller knowledge to-night. The Mar- 
 got of to-day in momentary disguise of yesterday 
 would become a reality to him at last. Dick 
 had said it was impossible, but she would try, 
 and he should see. He was watching her now, 
 half fearful of her kisses given to this strange 
 blind man, half jealous of them. She felt his 
 glowing eyes upon her though she did not turn 
 her head. 
 
 Far out, from the harbour bar, came the sound 
 of moving waters. Dick heard it, his listening 
 strained, concentrated, like that of all seafaring 
 men. 
 
 " The wind 's rising from the south-east," he 
 said. 
 
 But Margot prayed : " Our Father, which art 
 in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name," like a 
 young child she faltered and intoned, her eyes 
 ii
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 the while fixed on the sightless face and on the 
 moving lips, till the prayer faded into silence, and 
 he cried out : " They say I 'm blind, but I see 
 I see ! " 
 
 As he gathered strength to speak on, he grew 
 exultant : " She is dressed in silver, she is dressed 
 in gold. I Ve read of beauty, I Ve dreamt of it, 
 but she : She is more beautiful than all, and she 
 dances to the whole world." 
 
 " Yes, yes," repeated Margot breathlessly, 
 urging him, " she dances she dances tell 
 me more ? " 
 
 " They said I should never win her I, a 
 mad Oxford boy with all my laurels to gain. In 
 the great theatre where princes crowded to her 
 with their wild applause, how should she notice 
 me who crawled to kiss her feet, I, who crouched 
 in the dark and waited for what was so certainly 
 mine. One day her smiling eyes reached me and 
 she saw do you hear saw me." 
 
 " I hear," the girl answered tremulously. 
 
 "Through six countries I followed her in 
 each one I found her more desirable. She drove 
 me from her with tears and anger, she threw my 
 
 12
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 gifts to the street boys, but to all places and 
 crowds I followed and I fought for her, she 
 could not escape, how could she ? Then one 
 day one day she came to me ; crept slowly 
 because she was tired, she said ; ran fast because 
 my love compelled her, and when I had her safe 
 to toil for, and little Margot came" he turned 
 on his chair with a convulsive movement "I 
 lost her. I lost her," he almost shrieked, " and 
 I cannot see to find her." 
 
 How often Margot had heard this story. 
 How indelibly every detail of his fancy, and 
 the truth of the sordid reality had been imprinted 
 on her mind. She raised her eyes to the faded 
 photograph of the ballet dancer hung above the 
 mantelpiece. She saw the exquisite features and 
 mocking eyes of the mother whom she remem- 
 bered only as in a dream, the woman who had 
 fallen from superb triumph to ghastly degrada- 
 tion, maiming out of all shape the soul of this 
 man whom she had swayed so absolutely. To- 
 night in the telling of his story he was more 
 flushed, more impatient than Margot had ever 
 seen him; as he talked he snatched his hands
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 from hers and beat them together. He rose and 
 fell in his chair as if he rode in a chase. He was 
 rapidly out-reaching his strength. She leant the 
 more heavily against his knee, confused by her 
 effort, conscious of a supreme difficulty before her. 
 
 " Listen," she insisted. 
 
 He caught up the word intelligently: " Listen, 
 while you tell me she was unworthy that she's 
 dead that her name is degraded ! I tell you 
 she lives she loves me she comes, she " 
 by an effort of will, as if something had been 
 spoken in his ear, he checked himself; his head 
 sank upon his breast, his poor arms shook as if 
 with palsy. 
 
 " Dear, hush," soothed the girl, the tears run- 
 ning down her cheeks. " It was not for evil I 
 asked you to listen, father. I am Margot, your 
 little Margot. Did n't you hear me pray ? Say 
 once that you love me, that you bless me, for 
 to-morrow I shall marry Dick Harrod." 
 
 The name with a flicker of fresh reason came 
 forcibly through his lips: " Harrod would you 
 have me bless the traitor who steals her heart ? 
 That deceiver of women ! Ah, she will not 
 
 14
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 listen. Therese a curse upon her she loves 
 him she loves him ! " He slurred into a whim- 
 pering jargon, and sank, a maudlin heap, lower in 
 his chair; his hands, limp and nerveless, fell 
 heavily like pendants to his twitching arms. The 
 moment was past. 
 
 M argot staggered to her feet. Her lover sup- 
 ported her, but she suffered the faintness of 
 despair. Helplessly her glance wandered to the 
 corners of the room ; it rambled from the pieces 
 of furniture that from here and there in the old 
 manor-house of other days had been saved from 
 the auctioneer, to the tumbled lines of her 
 wedding gown, to her lover's face. 
 
 He caught her look and by his expression of 
 entreaty changed it. She gave a deep sigh as if 
 awakening from a trance and trembled in his 
 hold. 
 
 " Sweetheart," he cried, leaning her back 
 against his breast, " what did I tell you? He 
 can't understand he '11 never understand again. 
 His mind 's distraught." 
 
 " Harrod Harrod " she murmured in dull 
 distress. " What did he mean, Dick ? " 
 15
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 " He meant that my father was a gentleman, 
 as the phrase goes Harrod of the Tor and 
 that you knew already : that he wronged my 
 mother for one and cast sheep's eyes at yours 
 years after is truth. Ah bad knowledge for 
 your sweet ears. My mother, bless her, soft- 
 ened my father's fierce temper in me, but it 
 rages still when they try to hurt you, when 
 they try " he broke off his eyes scanned 
 her face hungrily. " Ah, my God ! How I love 
 you ! " he cried out and covered her mouth with 
 kisses. 
 
 She wrenched herself free and stepped back, 
 her face suffused. "Don't, don't that's not 
 what I want. You 're all alike, you men 
 passion passion. Our purity to feed it ; 
 we must be angels that you may be devils. 
 You frighten me, I say you frighten me as 
 much as father does." Then she threw herself 
 upon his breast again, and called out for for- 
 giveness ; imploring him to love the white 
 flowers on the altar, the softness of her wed- 
 ding dress, the Bible she had given him as a 
 wedding gift, as much as he loved her, till, over- 
 
 16
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 wrought, she fell a-laughing at the wonder in his 
 eyes. 
 
 Presently as they sat together at peace again, 
 the ever-falling rain began to patter and trickle 
 noisily in great drops upon the pavement and 
 upon the roof. The deep whistle of an approach- 
 ing steamer sounded. The moaning at the har- 
 bour bar had grown very distinct, and angry 
 gusts of wind heralded a midnight tempest. John 
 Winterscale, huddled in his chair, seemed fast 
 asleep. 
 
 With her thimbled ringer Margot pointed to 
 him. 
 
 " Shall he be with us, Dick ? " 
 
 " Aye if it is the fate that follows Heaven 
 grant no worse. You can watch with him when 
 I 'm at sea, and have his company." 
 
 She pouted. 
 
 " Must you go often fishing, Dick, and leave 
 me lonely. What if she came back? " 
 
 " She ? she 's gone don't fret for that, dear 
 love. What should bring her here again no 
 money or diamonds, I warrant." He touched the 
 weather-glass beside him. " A bad fall," he 
 17
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 added ; " I mistrust these sullen evenings 
 there '11 be shipwreck before morning. I shall 
 go and tend the moorings of the boats. We want 
 no further losses." 
 
 Margot checked him. 
 
 " Wait one moment longer wait. They 're 
 coming from the tavern, let the crowd go by. 
 Do you hear them ? They '11 get brawling if 
 they can and throw foolish words at you." 
 
 Dick smiled. " Are you afraid for me ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Margot. " I 'm afraid for your 
 wild temper." 
 
 In truth the rabble in the street seemed large 
 and noisy. Well satisfied, and unwilling to hide 
 longer behind shut doors, they shouted, yelled 
 and cursed. Heavy footsteps shuffled and danced, 
 oaths slipped up in vacant laughter. Loud be- 
 yond all else sounded a woman's angry chatter, 
 then a woman's scream. 
 
 Margot heard it. 
 
 " The creature 's hurt " she bit her lip 
 " I 'm sure she 's hurt. Now how still it is ! Are 
 they running for help ? Listen." She lifted her 
 hand. 
 
 18
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 "You can't bind her wounds, dear soul," and 
 Dick, rising, kissed her on the fingers. 
 
 But almost instantly he was thrust from his 
 footing to unsteadiness. The door had been 
 determinedly and violently pushed inwards, and 
 a woman, flinging herself through the entrance 
 against his shoulder and falling back, let her 
 weight hasten the slamming of the door behind 
 her. She looked with a sleepy smile upon the 
 consternation she had aroused. 
 
 " They 're after me," she muttered ; " a fuss 
 for nothing. I caught her in the ribs with the 
 castanets and knocked the wind out of her. I 'm 
 all right here, ain't I ? " She walked forward a 
 pace or two, and dropped into the carved high 
 chair by the window to scan with insolent 
 familiarity one and the other with a gaze first 
 of scrutiny, then of interest, then of sheer amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " Well, life 's queer enough, but this is queerest 
 of all," she chuckled as their silence continued. 
 " I 've come back, old man," she repeated, rais- 
 ing her voice, " I 've come back ; hurry now and 
 take me to your arms." 
 19
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 At the sound of the voice John Winterscale 
 turned his head with a rapid horizontal move- 
 ment, but he made no sign of speech. " What 
 are you waiting for ? " she added. " You deserve 
 a warm time for this cold welcome." 
 
 " Hush," cried Margot impulsively, " don't 
 you know he's blind?" 
 
 "Blind, is he? That he always was to the 
 world's ways," the woman retorted, and lifting 
 her heavy eyelids she fixed inquisitive eyes 
 upon the lovers. She was not very drunk, but 
 the brandy of an evening's carousal had swept 
 away all reserve. Her curiosity was indefinably 
 coarse. 
 
 " Who said < no luck ' ? Back to the bosom 
 of my family, with a girl as like myself as two 
 peas, and a young pirate of a lover for her very 
 own. Kiss her, Dick Harrod. Do you think I 
 don't know you ? You Ve your father's eyes, 
 young sir, and he made a fine wooer." She swept 
 her eyes jealously over Margot's face : " Stitch 
 through your wedding dress, but no mating if I 
 have my way ; you 'd have the world at your feet 
 to-morrow, and not a sailor man's cabin as the 
 
 20
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 beginning and the end. Ah," she pursued with 
 a laugh, " I hear them running on. They Ve 
 missed their quarry this time and left me with my 
 new fortune." 
 
 Margot, in this woman's revelation, saw no 
 illusion, but the truth. She surveyed the fate 
 that foils all mortal strategies to capture joy, 
 and shuddered at its aspect. This wreck, this 
 defaced image, upon which strong passions had 
 burnt and smouldered, and by which Love, with 
 hidden face, had flown past this destroyer 
 this shameless woman her mother her 
 mother ! And Dick must know it now. The 
 agony of that. This mother's blood in her 
 veins, this nature grafted to hers, what could 
 her soul, tainted so hideously, sanctify; what 
 could it save or uplift ? Not Dick and his 
 mad passion ! Heavens, not Dick, light of her 
 eyes ! Like a waxing flame the idea burnt in 
 her brain. She stood now, the work dropped 
 from her hands, her bosom heaving, and listened 
 to the torrent of words ; and with every nerve and 
 muscle tense, her lover waited beside her in stony 
 silence. 
 21
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 " Come," said the woman, rising unsteadily, 
 " shall I tell you what I was before the years 
 
 stole their d d march on me ? Shall I tell 
 
 you how I danced to the piping, and made men 
 laugh, and sob, and shout?" She broke into a 
 slovenly quick-step, lifting her draggled brown 
 skirts from the muddy, misshapen boots that cov- 
 ered her still supple feet. " Old man," she ban- 
 tered, her head on one side, her arms akimbo, 
 " do you hear ? " 
 
 With the movement the tinselled hat fell away 
 from her face, and the old insolent witchery 
 flashed for an instant over her faded countenance, 
 so deformed in outline and texture that the actu- 
 ally delicate features had lost all distinction. 
 " Old man, you 're blind," she went on, " but do 
 you remember the hall at Garseppo and your 
 prayers ? You 've chosen a bleak dwelling since 
 I left you, but get back the piano from the pawn- 
 shop, and I '11 drown your shrieking winds I 
 hate 'em," and she laughed noisily. 
 
 Winterscale in his chair had begun to whimper 
 like a teased child : " Ghosts, ghosts, they are 
 mumming and mocking me, Therese, stealing 
 
 22
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 your voice and your memories. Ah ! " with a 
 sudden sharp snarl of impotence " would that 
 I could kill them ! " 
 
 " Ghosts," again the shrill ugly laugh " little 
 ghost about me, poor fool as ever. Oh ! you Ve 
 sold my piano and my dancing shoes. For 
 shame, you pauper prince. Does that old name 
 grate on your ears ? Bah ! I can do you no 
 more hurt nor good but she can she can " 
 and the woman clapped her hands in her daugh- 
 ter's face till she almost touched it. 
 
 At this Dick sprang forward and caught her 
 by the wrist, and they struggled together with 
 angry exclamations, but with a fiercer strength 
 she shook him off, and went on exulting. 
 
 " If she had her mother's wit to lead her angel 
 face, she '11 slip you yet, young fellow. While 
 I 've been roving with my castanets from pot- 
 house to pot-house, she 's wanted me here. She 's 
 beautiful beautiful as I was. Man alive ! I '11 
 teach her to bring you gold, and fame if you 're 
 worth it ; the wagging and the cheering tongues 
 it all comes again I see it for myself I 
 see it for her a hundred times over." 
 23
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 " Therese," like a long-drawn scream the name 
 rang out and flashed across the room. Startled 
 by its wildness, the woman ceased her glib utter- 
 ances. John Winterscale stood at full height, 
 the heavy chair in which he had sat, skidding 
 from his push like a marble, to the wall ; then as 
 if on the instant he had been given sight and 
 perfect knowledge, he moved towards his wife, 
 but she drew back and flung her arms round 
 Margot's shrinking form, at bay from his ap- 
 proach of recognition and re-conquest. 
 
 " Not yet, old man," she called in loud and 
 strident tones, " I '11 come and snivel to you 
 soon enough, but she and I have to face the 
 music together ; she 's got to wear the fine feathers 
 that you stripped me of, while I make her a 
 queen, the mistress of grand lovers, I " the 
 words that raced to follow gurgled in their utter- 
 ance, not indeed drowned by Margot's piteous 
 cry of " Dick, for love's sake, save me," not 
 checked by fear of the sudden flash of a knife 
 between the lamp-wick and her eyes, but ended 
 by a deed with life itself. The woman dropped, 
 to thud upon the brick floor and lie unmoving. 
 
 24
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 Again the mocking nothingness of life before 
 death had proved itself. The wind rattling at 
 the window, the steps of the blind man groping 
 towards the object of his desire, his hands held 
 high as if he would lift her round the breast and 
 raise her to his lips ; the quick frightened breath- 
 ing of the destroyer and his love ; all were sounds 
 sucked in to deepen the silence which lay upon 
 the twisted heavy figure of the dead. 
 
 What had been Harrod's thoughts in the act? 
 No thought but a mad impulse to deliver his 
 beloved to push away from her entirely an evil 
 birthright. With the fancy in his rage to shield 
 her with something more potent than his sun- 
 burnt hand he had touched the knife at his belt 
 disappearance, not death, was what he asked, and 
 now there was no disappearance, for she was there 
 still, more hideous in her silence than in her 
 speech, and he took as penalty an eternal 
 recollection. 
 
 Innocent of the anguish of these young beings, 
 John Winterscale, groping feverishly, had come 
 near at last. His hands fell lower and he stum- 
 bled by the table; it slid away as the chair had 
 25
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 slid away at the fierceness of his touch. He 
 dropped upon his knees : " Therese, heart of my 
 heart, where are you ? " he babbled, and touched 
 one nerveless arm. He fingered the upturned 
 palm, but unsatisfied he drew his fingers onward 
 over the cheap fur jacket, the beaded bodice, the 
 frayed collar, and reached the face, most merci- 
 fully shrouded in shadow. Here his touch lin- 
 gered, and as he stroked with a woman's tenderness 
 each hollow and feature, he cried out as at a new- 
 found joy. 
 
 " Sleeping, sweetheart, come home to sleep, 
 I said it would be so. I will not rouse you. Shall 
 I forgive you, forgive you for being long? Ah, 
 yes lie here." He crept lower till his unkempt 
 hair in straggling grey locks swept across her 
 brow. " Lie here." He opened his breast and 
 laid the poor head on it. " I 'm blind, but I see 
 you now. Ah, God be praised, I see you now ! " 
 He had sunk to her level, he muttered gladly ; 
 one hand wound in the long grey folds of the 
 wedding gown which lay forgotten, heaped be- 
 neath the corpse, the other feeling for the breath, 
 over the half-open rigid mouth. 
 
 26
 
 THE FATE THAT FOLLOWS 
 
 And all apart from this strange drama at their 
 feet, the drawn sword of their misery between 
 them, the lovers stood. Children yet, but old in 
 their sorrow, in their agonised outlook ; straining 
 towards each other in the darkness of the present, 
 yet drawing each from each, terror-stricken before 
 the menace of the shrouded future. 
 
 27
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 u All's right with the world. . . ."
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 ADY TOTO BRINSLEY 
 
 and her daughter sat at 
 either end of the fire-guard 
 on the upholstered red leather 
 seat. In clothes and shoes 
 they were much in tune, but 
 their bearing suggested feminine amenities. 
 
 It was half-past ten on a September morning, 
 and a fire burned brightly in the drawing-room at 
 Brockmere. Lady Toto felt chilly after break- 
 fast at all times of the year ; her daughter had 
 surreptitiously opened the window, yet the at- 
 mosphere of the room continued oppressive. 
 
 Lady Toto tapped her toe, clad in scarlet kid, 
 upon the hearthrug. 
 
 " I hope, at least, Moyra, you won't insult the 
 poor boy." 
 
 " My dear Mums, how you do fly off at a 
 tangent. Why should I insult him? I only 
 said " 
 
 " You only said," interrupted Lady Toto, 
 " that you thought your engagement nonsense, 
 and that you had no intention of marrying any 
 one." 
 3'
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 "Well, perhaps Lord Kinbrace will consider 
 that sound sense ; perhaps he thinks just the 
 same thing. I should if I were he." 
 
 Moyra slipped from her perch, and with rather 
 flushed cheeks walked to the writing-table. She 
 picked up a letter which was lying on it. 
 
 " Read that again," said Lady Toto, watching 
 her. 
 
 The letter was from Lord Kinbrace. He 
 announced his arrival from India the previous 
 Friday and his intention of alighting at Brockmere 
 private station at 3.30 this afternoon : he sent 
 his love, and might a carriage meet him ? 
 
 "It is obvious that he wishes to come that 
 he is dying to see you," insisted Lady Toto. 
 
 " Oh, that 's quite possible ; really, the ab- 
 surdity of our last encounter " Moyra went 
 off into a peal of laughter. 
 
 " Absurdity ! What absurdity ? " retorted her 
 mother. " Really, girls of the present day have 
 no sentiment. It was the prettiest scene in the 
 world ; the apple-blossoms falling on your hair 
 which by the way, Moyra, is getting painfully 
 dark the gentle, courtly way he held your 
 
 32
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 hand whilst we betrothed you : he looked much 
 more like a young Cavalier than an Etonian." 
 
 "A young what? " 
 
 " A young Cavalier a Troubadour if you 
 like." Lady Toto floundered a little amongst 
 her similes. " Dear boy, if I had n't been nearly 
 old enough to be his mother I should have been 
 in love with him myself." 
 
 " I believe," began Moyra pensively, " that 
 when one gets on in life " she looked at the 
 excited countenance of her youthful mother and 
 checked her observation ; Lady Toto was shading 
 her complexion with a tiger-lily from the heat of 
 the fire, her short coat and shorter petticoats were 
 cut to perfection, the sunlight glinted on her 
 elaborate curls. Certainly, neither physically 
 nor mentally could she be said to be getting 
 on in life ; the phrase, in relation to her, was 
 preposterous. 
 
 Moyra, sick to death of the argument, went 
 over to the window. The bright Italian garden ; 
 the sunny park beyond; the wide, still lake 
 in the valley between the trees : she wanted to 
 go out to all these things. Nature at least would 
 33 3
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 understand that an outrage had been done to her 
 imagination ; that she was too much a child of 
 hers to be coerced to a callous conventionality of 
 action without strong protest. 
 
 But her mother's voice still reached her in her 
 meditations. 
 
 " Well, what are you going to do ? " 
 
 " Behave with perfect propriety, Mums ; what 
 else ? " 
 
 " Not take your engagement for granted ? 
 Allow him to think himself free ? " Lady Toto 
 protested. 
 
 " Most certainly he is free he was a little 
 boy three years ago ; now " 
 
 " Now he is a young man who has succeeded 
 to his property," declared Lady Toto, " one 
 of our biggest Highland lairds. You surely 
 would not run the risk " 
 
 "Any risk," broke in Moyra defiantly. 
 " He 's got to feel what he 's supposed to feel 
 or else or else he may go where he will. Now, 
 Mums, leave me to manage this ; don't inter- 
 fere. Let it be f Lord Kinbrace,' not ' dearest 
 Geordie,' for goodness' sake. Don't recall apple- 
 
 34
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 blossoms and Eton collars with significant smiles ; 
 don't talk of marriage as if it were the only bliss- 
 ful condition of existence and don't flick imagin- 
 ary bread-crumbs off his coat-collar as you do to 
 all the young men. Give me a chance." With 
 which parting flippancy Moyra swung out through 
 the French window on to the terrace, leaving her 
 mother in a state of incoherent exasperation to 
 face the chef. 
 
 " Merlan frit Coq-de-bruyere that '11 do 
 What a girl she is ! Non, Philippe, pas de soupe 
 grasse elle est affreuse, absolument affreuse." 
 
 A little later Lord Kinbrace and a friend, wait- 
 ing the departure of the train, paced the platform 
 at Paddington. 
 
 " Are you looking forward to your visit, 
 Geordie ? " 
 
 " Upon my soul, I don't know. I Ve hardly 
 found my feet in this country yet. Three 
 years' absence is a long time. Then the remem- 
 brance of that tomfoolery last time I was at 
 Brockmere sticks ; I believe I 'm expected to 
 remember it, that 's the worst." 
 
 " What does Lady Toto say ? " 
 35
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 " Read her letter." 
 
 " Ah," remarked the other, handing it back, 
 " Lady John Brinsley is a woman of the 
 world." 
 
 "But I like her. That's the best of it, and 
 Lord John is such a good fellow. They were 
 awfully kind to me when I was a boy. I can't 
 think why, for I was a regular oaf. If only that 
 stupid thing had n't happened in the garden it 
 was merely a game, but Lady Toto took it seri- 
 ously it seemed to impress her so much. Every 
 letter she has written has had something like this 
 in it: 'Your little sweetheart Moyra has gone 
 to study music at Dresden this winter,' or 
 * your little sweetheart Moyra looked so pretty at 
 the Drawing-Room yesterday.' " 
 
 "A mere way of speaking, I expect. Women 
 can never call a spade a spade; they are so 
 exuberant." 
 
 " Oh, but she means it to be a spade, whatever 
 she calls it," laughed Lord Kinbrace. " I 've a 
 sort of presentiment that way. Truth is, the last 
 thing I want to do is to get married." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 36
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 " Take your seats," said the guard, slamming 
 the doors. 
 
 Lord Kinbrace pushed his head out of the 
 window as the whistle sounded. 
 
 " I '11 tell you why when I come up on 
 Saturday." 
 
 " Whatever you do," shouted his friend, " be 
 strong-minded." 
 
 But Lord Kinbrace did not hear, the train 
 steamed past the end of the platform. He set- 
 tled himself in the corner of the carriage, put his 
 hat on the rack, took up the evening paper and 
 floated into seas of perplexity. He felt curiously 
 uneasy regarding the near future. To begin with, 
 he had not a ghost of an idea what Moyra Brins- 
 ley might be like. The last time he had seen 
 her she was a gawky schoolgirl with roguish 
 eyes quite taking enough to his schoolboy 
 inexperience. "Stunning" he called her when 
 she had run him a race down the avenue and 
 beaten him, after the betrothal. But since then 
 he had n't even seen her photograph, or heard 
 anybody talk about her. Only these constant let- 
 ters from Lady Toto, like a tug at a chain when he 
 37
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 thought himself free. And he wanted so much 
 to be free ; not for any particularly worthy pur- 
 pose, but that he might go on idealizing Mrs. 
 Dupre the wife of the senior major in the jyth 
 Dragoons. 
 
 He gave an impatient jerk to his cap, pulling it 
 more over his eyes. He was aware of conflicting 
 emotions about Mrs. Dupre. She was rather an 
 important person to be able to think about in 
 close relation to himself rather a satisfaction 
 that she was in love with him when so many 
 older men were in love with her yet it was 
 curious that he did n't miss her more. The 
 September stubble and partridges, the early 
 meets, his new motor-car, were all such eloquent 
 consolations for the lady's absence in India 
 too eloquent, perhaps ; the fact was he did n't 
 miss her at all. 
 
 " I suppose all we men are like that," he mused, 
 his eye on the varying soft-coloured landscape 
 as the train sped on, " things, things, things, 
 and people last of all." He felt, drawing this 
 conclusion, quite a philosopher. 
 
 Yet on arrival he became again the nervous 
 
 38
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 boy. The immediate recognition of the footman 
 who seemed to have kept his place a long time, 
 the proprietary air with which the man seized his 
 bag and rugs, the close-shut brougham an 
 anomaly on such a day as this all began to 
 accentuate his sensation of captivity. He wanted 
 to suggest walking, but the coachman's eye was 
 upon him like a gaoler's. After all, it was a short 
 drive. Through the great iron gates with the 
 stone, spread eagles on either pillar, down the 
 broad sweep of the elm-avenue to the familiar 
 oak hall-door, studded with rusty iron nails. 
 The groom of the chambers led him along the 
 parquet passage with its cupboards of old china 
 and its rusty armour. The light from the mul- 
 lioned windows reflected his figure in the pier- 
 glass on the end wall all the way as he went. 
 
 And Moyra, playing Peeping Tom from a nook 
 in the gallery, watched the moving reflection ; 
 studied the balance of his walk, the neat dark 
 head and sunburnt skin, his chestnut no longer 
 budding moustache with growing approval. 
 Then as he reached the ante-room and Lady 
 Toto with both hands outstretched rustled out to 
 39
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 meet him, she doubled back down the stairs, slipped 
 past the verandah and fled into the garden. 
 
 Later at tea they all foregathered. 
 
 " How do you do," she said brusquely, " I 
 should n't have known you again if I had met 
 you in the street." 
 
 " No ? " he answered, too shy to glance at her 
 for more than a second. He wanted to say some- 
 thing else, to give her tit for tat for her forget- 
 fulness, but he felt unaccountably embarrassed. 
 Lady Toto dropped the silver sugar-basin amongst 
 the tea cups and broke one. This was a merciful 
 diversion, but still the conversation lagged. 
 
 "John ought to be in from shooting soon," 
 said Lady Toto. 
 
 "Will there be any birds left for me to- 
 morrow ? " remarked Lord Kinbrace, his face in 
 his tea. 
 
 " Partridges are the one thing that never fail 
 here," asserted Moyra, spreading raspberry jam 
 on a brown tartine. 
 
 This complete aloofness one from another was, 
 according to the young people's estimate, a very 
 fair start, but Lady Toto had never been forced 
 
 40
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 to such self-command before. She, poor lady, 
 was sorely worried. Of love-making of a sort 
 she had plenty of knowledge, her undefeated 
 youth, indeed, had allowed it to be superficially 
 perpetual. She had long ago marked herself a 
 success. As the years advanced she grew more 
 complacent, believing herself to be well preserved 
 that her appearance justified the approving 
 words of men. In all fairness to Lady Toto 
 be it said that compliments and archness were her 
 simple weapons. From the light combats in 
 which these could engage, she obtained complete 
 delight. To explore the dark recesses of pas- 
 sion's possibilities never occurred to her. Such 
 lapses in other people she associated with her pet 
 abhorrence, tears and dishevelment. It was bad 
 enough to have dear Lord John serious some- 
 times, and the worry of being gossiped about 
 would have incited crows'-feet. " Elle est surtout 
 tres jeune mais au fond tres pratique" her 
 French governess had said when leaving her 
 twenty-five years ago, and that seemed indeed 
 to explain everything. Moyra was the cause of 
 her deepest emotions to her a most inexplicable
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 girl. At this moment, trying beyond measure ; 
 sweeping opportunity away with an indifference, 
 a positive rudeness, to this young man that set 
 Lady Toto's nerves on edge. Instinct, however, 
 preserved her from arousing a dispute by per- 
 sonal comments, so she tapped her foot continu- 
 ally and drank mouthfuls of coffee, hoping still 
 for the best as the pauses between the young 
 people's monosyllables grew longer. 
 
 " Let 's go out," said Lord Kinbrace suddenly. 
 
 The long rays of the setting sun darted in at 
 the window and caressed Moyra's pretty head. 
 For this delightful occurrence his eyes, grown 
 bolder now, were full of admiration. 
 
 " Let 's," she answered, starting up. 
 
 " My dear, why don't you ride," suggested 
 Lady Toto. 
 
 " We will," replied Moyra, pleasantly, " I '11 
 go to the stables." 
 
 " May I put on my gaiters ? " added milord. 
 
 Now indeed Lady Toto felt relieved. Lord 
 Kinbrace's allusion to his gaiters brought a touch 
 of familiarity, of domesticity into their strained 
 relationship the ice was broken. 
 
 42
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 " Gaiters why of course, let me fetch them 
 for you " she became arch ; " I 'd love to 
 button them on with my own little silver button- 
 hook ; now do let me, deares " She caught 
 Moyra's steady glance of disapproval and hesi- 
 tated. Hesitated indeed, and sat down again to 
 direct hurriedly in a changed voice: 
 
 " Ring the bell had n't you better ring the 
 bell, Moyra ? Edward will bring the gaiters to 
 the* hall." 
 
 " Very well, Mums," Moyra replied, in a level 
 tone of agreement. She swept her triumphant 
 gaze to the young man standing in uncertainty 
 behind her : 
 
 " Come Lord Kinbrace," she said. 
 
 They rode that day and again the next. The 
 woods were tinged with gorgeous colour ; the 
 long grass glades twining beneath nut-trees and 
 tangled blackberry bushes harboured shadows and 
 bright sunrays ; the pulse of summer still beat 
 full measure, defying the approach of autumn. 
 
 Moyra and her companion sucked the ripe fruit 
 and cracked thenuts with white teeth, whiter between 
 their purple-dyed lips, and laughed continually. 
 43
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 The place and season lent themselves for senti- 
 ment, for the recalling of the intimate moments 
 of the past, but Moyra had chased recollection 
 from her eyes when George Kinbrace almost 
 hopefully began to look for it. Her nonchal- 
 ance, her unaffected prattle about nothing at all 
 were, in the beginning, matters for congratulation. 
 In time, however, he began to be piqued that he 
 had so obviously grown an object of indifference 
 to her. " She likes men," he concluded, " she is 
 the sort of woman who does but I believe she 
 has no more intention of alluding to our betrothal, 
 or of accepting our engagement than of wedding 
 the man in the moon. In all respects that's a 
 mercy " his reflection carried him on. " Liberty 
 forever and Mrs. Dupre " But this gratifi- 
 cation was tempered by a touch of disgust ; Mrs. 
 Dupre's fair memory was tarnished when Moyra 
 Brinsley rode or walked beside him, fresh as a 
 daisy, chattering with fascinating irresponsibility. 
 
 She was brilliant at breakfast, and lovely at 
 noon, a dream in her tea-gown, and the most 
 beautiful person he had ever seen when her 
 neck and arms were bare, and the soup was 
 
 44
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 handed round. But he liked her best on her 
 pony in her little homespun shooting dress, 
 when she seemed like a bon camarade, a jolly 
 playfellow to ride to the end of the world with, 
 out of sight of Lady Toto's eagle eye, out of 
 sound of Lord John's good-humoured platitudes. 
 
 They had spent a long afternoon across coun- 
 try, and Lord Kinbrace was tired of the pitch- 
 and-toss nature of the conversation which gave 
 hirA no opportunity to hold her at any point. 
 
 " A penny," she said suddenly, with a roguish 
 eye-flash from under her peaked cap. 
 
 Come, this was better, this desire for news of 
 himself. He edged his pony nearer to hers. 
 He began to be aware that he was falling in love 
 with her. 
 
 " I was thinking I 'd like to travel with you," 
 he said. 
 
 " Is my geography deficient ? " she asked 
 demurely. 
 
 "Oh, not that but you'd understand so 
 well, you would n't mind missing a London 
 season to shoot in Cashmir, and I know some- 
 how you would not be seasick on my yacht; 
 45
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 as for Java and Sumatra, and all those tropical 
 islands, you would simply adore them." 
 
 " Gracious, what a lot you are taking for 
 granted." 
 
 " Don't you believe in instinct ? " 
 
 " Not much." 
 
 " What do you believe ? " 
 
 " That horses like carrots, and that well 
 that's about all." 
 
 " Now, Miss Brinsley, please be serious." 
 
 " Miss Brinsley is serious," insisted Moyra, 
 blowing her nose ; " I believe I 've got a cold in 
 my head." 
 
 "Welcome that, if it chastens you," answered 
 Lord Kinbrace savagely. 
 
 "Thanks. You think me very foolish?" she 
 enquired. 
 
 " I think you stunning," he retorted, becoming 
 venturesome in his tactics. 
 
 The word was reminiscent, as he intended it 
 should be. She flushed. 
 
 " That 's schoolboy slang." 
 
 " Did you ever know a schoolboy who used it ? " 
 
 " Lots." 
 
 46
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 "Tell me some?" 
 
 " Ralph Carr, and Tom Durand, and the little 
 Kibblet twins " She paused. 
 
 "And ?" 
 
 " And you, I suppose." 
 
 Lord Kinbrace grew reckless ; the girl looked 
 so lovely and she tantalised him. He put his 
 handsome young face close to hers ; she kept her 
 eyes downcast, but for an instant he saw her bite 
 her lip. 
 
 * c Why do you tease me ? " he said. " Ever 
 since I Ve been here you 've been actually cruel 
 twisted all my words to nonsense never been 
 confidential once. Don't you remember the 
 apple-blossom on the pergola ? Don't you re- 
 member our serious wooing ? " 
 
 She gave no answer. The flush came and 
 went in her cheek, and he, with that sudden sense 
 of possession upon which a man stakes a great 
 deal and loses so much, said " You know when 
 we 're married I shan't let you have it all your 
 own way. I shall " 
 
 She snatched the rein from his hand, she turned 
 her face flaming to his. 
 47
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 " Married ! " she cried, " married to you ! 
 What are you talking about ? I 'm engaged 
 already." Then she whipped up her pony and 
 cantered away. 
 
 Lady Toto had to call to herself for consola- 
 tion many resources that evening. It was obvi- 
 ous that some sort of disaster had happened. 
 All day she had been full of suppressed excite- 
 ment. The young people had been constantly 
 together: the tone of their voices, the quality 
 of their laughter floating up from the garden 
 seemed all as it should be. She began to frame 
 her congratulations, to wonder if the papers would 
 say that she looked as young as her daughter at 
 the wedding, to speculate if, as a grandmother, she 
 should wear a bonnet. 
 
 "Let's have the '82 Perrier-Jouet, Tots, at 
 dinner to-night," she had said, poking up Lord 
 John's slumbering form in the leather arm- 
 chair. 
 
 " My dear, our best wine when we are alone ? " 
 protested the sleepy nobleman. 
 
 " Why not when we are alone ? I '11 tell Baker. 
 
 48
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 Good luck such as ours should have good wine 
 to drink its honour." She tripped off on her 
 errand, feeling singularly romantic and happy. 
 Now even before the lamps were all lit she had 
 been cast into a fit of despair. She had come 
 down in a new pink tea-gown to find Moyra 
 huddled in a chair alone, still in her short 
 shooting skirt, and her face buried behind the 
 paper. 
 
 " I 'm not coming to dinner, Mums, my head 
 aches. Tell them to send up fish, roast partridge 
 and apple tart to the school-room." 
 
 And a little further on, in the billiard-room, 
 Lord Kinbrace standing on the bear-skin hearth- 
 rug and saying with a set countenance : 
 
 " I 'm so sorry, Lady John, but I must get 
 back to town by the 7.15 express to-morrow 
 morning. If it is too early to have the carriage 
 out, I could easily walk." 
 
 Then indeed Lady Toto's tears welled. Her 
 voice was full of genuine distress as she returned 
 to that prohibited occupation of smoothing imag- 
 inary crumbs from the young man's coat lapels. 
 
 " But, my dear Geordie, why ? We shall be 
 49 4
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 miserable to lose you. You have been here so 
 short a time, and the hounds draw at the best 
 place at six." 
 
 " Oh, yes, the hounds," repeated Lord Kin- 
 brace vaguely, in a tone of disappointment. 
 
 " Look here, young man," Lord John's 
 herculean form stumped across to them and re- 
 lieved the strain of the situation, " are you 
 going to ride Gadfly or that buck-jumper, Prim- 
 rose ? I really want you to try her. She is a 
 clinker to hounds after the first ten minutes." 
 
 " I 'm afraid, Lord John " began Kinbrace. 
 
 " Afraid, not a bit of it ; you Ve the pluck of 
 the devil. You '11 come back next month and 
 want to ride nothing else. I 'd better have both 
 horses out for you." And Lord John hurried 
 away to his orders. 
 
 " You see," said Lady Toto. 
 
 " I suppose I 'd better wait," said the boy, 
 clutching at a straw ; " there's an express at night, 
 is n't there ? " 
 
 " Quite, quite late ; the middle day trains are 
 useless." Lady Toto rejoiced in the reprieve. 
 " Poor Moyra has a terrible headache," she added 
 
 50
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 sympathetically ; " I 've persuaded her to go to 
 bed." 
 
 And, for the life of him, at the moment Lord 
 Kinbrace could not express any commiseration. 
 
 There had been, between three and four in the 
 morning, a heavy fall of rain. By six o'clock the 
 rising of the earth-smell into the keen, clear air, 
 the perfect stillness of the atmosphere, the cloud- 
 less sky offered a gladness generously. Lord 
 Kfnbrace, like all true sportsmen, loved Nature 
 from his childhood, had ever given her his won- 
 dering exclamations at sunrise and sunset, or in 
 the hour of storm. Now cantering with hands 
 down and head bent towards the hounds gath- 
 ered about the hunt-servants in the park, he 
 forgot the trials of the previous evening, his 
 wounded vanity, the nursing of his grievance ; 
 he could not be despondent, he was so glad to 
 be alive. 
 
 Still it was evident that Moyra was not with 
 Lord John. She was probably not up, had no 
 intention of changing her mood. If she chose to 
 sulk but could she sulk? that was the ques-
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 tion ; and she .answered it by riding out of the 
 yard with the post-bag in her hand. 
 
 " Good morning," she called out with the 
 brightest smile, " I am not going to hunt; it's 
 rot at this time of year. I am going to Dry- 
 chester to fetch the letters." 
 
 " You 're in an uncommon hurry," he growled, 
 " for your letters. The mail train won't be in." 
 
 " Oh, by the time I get there." 
 
 " I should have thought a study of hound- 
 work more exhilarating." 
 
 " You 're to ride Primrose, then," she continued, 
 ignoring his criticism. " Be careful she 's the 
 very demon of a dream." 
 
 " I suppose you would laugh if you saw me 
 laid out." 
 
 " Why, no it would n't be funny." 
 
 Then she waved her whip and trotted off, 
 clattering along the hard high road. 
 
 Lord Kinbrace looked after her. 
 
 " That 's a funny girl," he muttered, steeling 
 himself to an independence of judgment. "The 
 man who is going to marry her will have his time 
 full." 
 
 52
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 He reproached himself for a lack of courage 
 with Lady Toto ; he might so easily have asked 
 her who the fellow was. And the thirst for the 
 knowledge worried him for an hour or two. It 
 took the zest out of the pretty hound-work. It 
 caused the huntsman's cheery notes to get on his 
 nerves and made his hands hard on Gadfly's 
 mouth. 
 
 " I say," Lord John trotted up on his fat bay 
 cob, " are n't you going to get on Primrose ? 
 Only half an hour to breakfast, you know." 
 
 Lord Kinbrace was in a temper for a skirmish. 
 He vaulted from saddle to saddle with alacrity. 
 
 " Take her down the main ride for a bit," 
 urged Lord John. " Whoa, old girl ! that 's it, 
 give her her head." 
 
 Kinbrace set his teeth ; the brute meant trouble, 
 he hated black mares with a large white in the eye 
 and a perpetual swish of the tail. 
 
 He turned her from the hounds ; this she re- 
 sented. He was obdurate she obstinate. Still 
 on the way he wanted to go she went at last 
 but raced entirely out of control ; her jaw up- 
 raised, her head sawing from side to side. In 
 53
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 vain he strove to steady her. He saw ahead the 
 rabbit wire and pheasant hutches, he saw moreover 
 the approach of Moyra, the reins on 'her pony's 
 neck, the open sheets of the "Drychester Weekly 
 Times " obscuring her face. Five minutes later 
 the following : a receding horse at a gallop, a 
 receding pony at a trot, both riderless. Upon 
 the ground a crumpled heap of man and maid, 
 alive and speaking, but hopelessly disarmed. 
 Everywhere a flutter of letters upon the grass 
 like so many doves in a picture book. 
 
 " Oh oh oh " in crescendo, and Moyra 
 grasped a shapely leg, stockinged pepper-brown. 
 
 " God Almighty ! " quoth Lord Kinbrace 
 hoarsely, " have I killed you ? " 
 
 " Oh," cried Moyra, " oh ! " She leaned 
 heavily against his shoulder and he entwined her 
 in his arms all unconscious that further and 
 further into the earth he ground beneath his heel 
 Mrs. Dupre's last letter freshly forwarded. 
 
 " Is it awful pain ? " 
 
 " Partly pride," she muttered. He thought 
 she moaned. 
 
 " That beast ! " 
 
 54
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 " I told you ! " 
 
 " What did you tell me ? " 
 
 " That she was a beast first and a darling after- 
 wards." 
 
 " I have no recollection of it did you?" 
 
 " Certainly. Why are n't you hurt? " 
 
 " I wish I were." 
 
 " I don't, for you must carry me." 
 
 " Is your leg broken ? " 
 
 " No, but it aches." 
 
 He stood up and lifted her ; at the moment 
 she'' seemed a featherweight, though later she con- 
 fessed to ten stone. 
 
 And Lady Toto at this period became mag- 
 nificent. 
 
 The riderless steeds reaching their stables had 
 stunned her to an awful terror. Recovering her- 
 self she had rushed hatless and in her turquoise- 
 kid shoes towards the wood, followed by the 
 helpers and the gardeners. In good time she saw 
 the two saw Moyra still lying and Kinbrace 
 kneeling beside her. Then she halted, finally 
 returned, and drove her retainers behind their 
 walls. She exercised a superb command. " My 
 55
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 child may be dead," she assured herself " quite 
 dead, but after all it is a crucial moment." Then 
 for the first time for years she went up to the 
 yellow boudoir and cried. 
 
 Thus Geordie Kinbrace carried Moyra home 
 alone. She held to the mutilated post-bag with 
 the letters crammed in again all except Mrs. 
 Dupre's, that indeed had been buried under a 
 fern root. To his surprise he found no one 
 about. He walked with his burden through the 
 open hall door down the parquet passage and laid 
 her unaided upon the sofa in the drawing-room. 
 
 " Will you go to bed ? " he asked. 
 
 " Bed ? " opening her eyes wide, " I 'd rather 
 be here." 
 
 " I shall go for the doctor," he said. 
 
 " It 's not the doctor I want," she declared. 
 
 He sat down on the edge of the sofa and she 
 let him take her hand. 
 
 " But, Moyra, you must see him. I am miser- 
 able about you." 
 
 " Don't be miserable. I am rather happy now 
 it is over. I might have broken my neck, you 
 know." 
 
 56
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 "It was awful "he said. 
 
 " The moss was so soft," she answered. 
 
 " You are too brave by far." 
 
 " Don't you like brave women ? " 
 
 " One ought to, but I 'm such a d d coward 
 myself." 
 
 " A coward ! " she cried incredulously, " not 
 you, Geordie." 
 
 It was the first time she had used his Christian 
 name; he felt a lump in his throat. 
 
 " I can't face the thought of your marrying 
 any one but me," he said in irrelevant desperation. 
 
 "In fact, you'd rather I had been killed just 
 now ? " 
 
 " Almost," he groaned. 
 
 He felt her breath on his cheek. Her cap had 
 fallen off and her curls were all tumbling into 
 her eyes. He forgot the accident altogether. 
 
 " Look," he said, " I must know. You must 
 trust me. Tell me the name of the chap." 
 
 " Tell you ? For what reason ? " 
 
 " I can't stand uncertainty guess-work. I 
 want the truth." 
 
 " The truth." She raised her bewitching little 
 57
 
 LADY TOTO'S BETROTHING 
 
 face to his as closely as she dared. She put her 
 hands on his shoulders, pulling herself up. 
 
 " Well, if you would be very kind and get me 
 some Pomade Divine, some coffee, some marma- 
 lade and some buttered rolls, I '11 tell you the 
 truth. I 'm engaged to you." 
 
 " You witch," he cried ; then, seeing a flash 
 of heathery hills in her blushing cheeks of 
 azure rippling lochs in her expressive eyes, he 
 forgot to be strong-minded, forgot to argue the 
 point, dropped in his joy to soft Gaelic speech 
 and clasped her to his heart. 
 
 " Muirnean," he said, " Muirnean ; " which, 
 being interpreted by Lady Toto, meant the best.
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 " When first we met we did not guess 
 That Love would prove so hard a Master
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 irew the en d of his cigar 
 into the fire. " Don't you 
 think that you are making 
 an unnecessary fuss," he 
 said to her. 
 
 The surroundings cer- 
 tainly gave reason to his 
 remark. A boudoir hung with rose damask pan- 
 els and curtains, and carpeted by thick grey pile 
 laid beneath artistic furniture of ancient history 
 and modern arrangement; under tall palms and 
 r6se-shaded lamps flowers grouped, scenting the 
 air; no ugliness, no dissonance of outward ob- 
 jects to mar the luxury that spelt itself divinely. 
 Yet the crouching figure near the hearth wept 
 and wept, while the man beside her reproved 
 and explained with easy calmness. 
 
 " You see," he went on, in his sympathetic 
 voice, " I don't mean to make you unhappy ; 
 I won't if you '11 only understand me ; but one 
 can't force one's self to feel what one does n't feel, 
 don't you know ? " 
 
 If only she would look up, his eyes, he thought, 
 could do the old work of conquest, he could 
 61
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 compel submission. But her slender form, in 
 its soft satin draperies, remained bowed with 
 grief; he had only the back of a golden-brown 
 head, heaving with baffling abandonment, to 
 look at. 
 
 " Myrtle, this is absurd really you are be- 
 having like a child." 
 
 She lifted her face to his now with a sudden 
 movement of decision. 
 
 " You love someone else," she said, " not one 
 reason you 've given me is a true one not that, 
 nor that, nor that," she counted on her fingers, 
 regaining composure as her conviction became 
 more assured ; " the only possible meaning of it 
 all you love someone else." 
 
 He was taken aback. He had relied on her 
 vanity to dull her perception. 
 
 "Your suggestion is distinctly wide of the 
 mark. Besides, I don't see " 
 
 " You don't see," she interrupted, with a tor- 
 rent of words " you don't see that it's just what 
 makes despair for me. All that you Ve been 
 telling me in this hour is nothing now I feel sure 
 of this. You said mysterious things that showed 
 
 62
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 you were thinking about her as you talked you 
 had flashes in your eyes you must have been 
 seeing her face ; it 's all so plain. 
 
 "But I never said I loved any one," he 
 prevaricated. 
 
 " Why need you say ? There 's been some- 
 thing about you all the time that was new. Not 
 your kind words of dismissal horribly kind and 
 formal not that something quite different. 
 The woman you love has n't given you herself 
 as I have ; she has excited your imagination, and 
 I I only your desire." 
 
 She had risen, this woman, with her tear- 
 stained, childish face upturned to the man who 
 was asking his freedom, to a pathetic dignity. 
 It cut George Farquhar more sharply than her 
 hysterical reproaches. 
 
 " Dear, you Ve been all that 's good and sweet," 
 he began. 
 
 " Good and sweet ! " she ejaculated. " You 
 choose your epithets for me ridiculously. Can't 
 you see that I Ve loved you to distraction, and 
 bored you horribly as the result ; that my brain, 
 or soul, or something equally abstract could n't 
 63
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 satisfy you in short that I 'm a failure, though 
 'a deuced little duck' wasn't that your 
 favourite phrase when I don't make a goose 
 of myself." 
 
 She swayed forward in the chair, she touched 
 his knee with her hand. A note of cajolery 
 crept into the last words. Farquhar knew that 
 from an exalted moment she was dropping into 
 bantering reminiscences. At all costs he must 
 check her. 
 
 " Your memory is vivid," he said, looking im- 
 patiently from the clock on the mantelpiece to 
 his watch. " I Ve said many things when I felt 
 inclined to say them; now I must go it's 
 late." 
 
 " Oh, please not. You can't call half-past nine 
 late ? " 
 
 "Yes, I do." 
 
 " And are n't you coming back ? " 
 
 "Certainly sometimes. We shall be the 
 best of friends ; " he felt his freedom near, and 
 added warmth to his words, "don't think that 
 I shall quite forget you." 
 
 She laughed bitterly. 
 
 64
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 " Do you think she will remind you in little 
 things ? When you try to kiss her, will she put 
 her head so " she suited the action to the 
 words ; " when you say * How I love you, 
 carissima!' will she purse her lips so? "the 
 pantomime was repeated. 
 
 Farquhar was taken off his guard. 
 
 " Look here, Myrtle," he retorted, " you 
 shan't speak about the best woman in the world 
 like that." 
 
 She clapped her hands with nervous energy, 
 but answered him through set teeth. 
 
 " You 've given yourself away at last. I knew 
 you would. ( The best woman in the world ! ' 
 It's Mrs. Neyland. That's your continual 
 description of her. You silly, why did n't you 
 deck her out with vices if you wanted me not to 
 know? If you wanted me not to care" her 
 voice trailed off " why did n't you kill me ? " 
 
 Those wailing sobs, how he hated them. But 
 Farquhar had reached the door ; he could not go 
 back as consoler nothing would do any good; 
 he had got over the worst, and it was absurd 
 to make things more impossible for himself. She 
 65 5
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 had plenty to do, plenty to amuse herself with, 
 plenty of creature comforts to soften the blank of 
 his loss, " for it will be a blank," he said to him- 
 self; as he ran down the stairs he wondered at his 
 own popularity. 
 
 There was a keen north-east wind blowing in 
 Grosvenor Place, but, wrapped in his heavy over- 
 coat, he fought against it till he reached Picca- 
 dilly ; he shrank at the moment from the seclusion 
 of a cab. 
 
 " Paper ! " shouted a newsboy, " paper ! " 
 Farquhar's eye rested carelessly on the fluttering 
 bill in the little blue hand : " Twenty thousand 
 mounted men wanted for South Africa. Sharp 
 engagement." 
 
 "That beastly war," he muttered, and turned 
 into his club. 
 
 The cheerful carelessness of the surroundings 
 changed his sensations. Thoughts grew agree- 
 able again, he began to allow his imagination to 
 flutter forward to the morrow. At any rate the 
 present day and its discomfort was ended ; to- 
 morrow he would see Mrs. Neyland. How grace- 
 ful she was, and, without prejudice or nonsense, 
 
 66
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 what a grip of things she had. He conjured 
 up a vision of wide, shadowy eyes, of long- 
 fingered white hands, made for caresses ; he recol- 
 lected the fascinating turn of shoulder and hip in 
 a characteristic attitude, he spoke grave words to 
 himself about her, but in thought he was envel- 
 oped by the rising incense of her magnetism. 
 " I love her," he said. " Thank the Lord, I am 
 free to love her. To-morrow we shall be a little 
 nearer ; the next day and the next " he caught 
 his^reath quickly. He shaded his eyes with his 
 hand ; it seemed as if he would throw a transitory 
 shadow over a dazzling prospect. 
 
 In the boudoir in Belgrave Square the woman 
 he had left had dried her eyes, but like a wild 
 creature she wandered to and fro, tossing the 
 flowers he had sent her from their vases, sweep- 
 ing his gifts from their place. " What can I do, 
 what can I do ? " she cried, and nothing gave 
 answer to this unbridled misery. 
 
 Presently, shaping a plan, she ceased to walk. 
 " I '11 go to Mrs. Neyland. I don't care if she 
 knows now. I '11 tell her. She does n't love 
 him yet, but she 's going to love him, and she 's 
 67
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 so splendid he won't get tired of her." She 
 uttered her thoughts aloud, and the tears of her 
 despair fell again at this culminating idea. 
 
 But in her mind, as she went out, she had no 
 scheme of action. Her child-nature, undisci- 
 plined and undeveloped, called out for consola- 
 tion, that was all. There were no reserves or 
 self-pride to conquer ; she wanted to hold out her 
 arms to any one who could offer escape from pain 
 and say, " I can't bear it make me happy again. 
 He made me so happy while he played with me." 
 
 " Yes Mrs. Neyland is at home." 
 The tall footman, as he answered, looked at her 
 enquiringly. She clung to her scarlet cloak and 
 hood that he tried to relieve her of; the heavy 
 velvet seemed a sort of armour of defence ; her 
 tea-gown beneath, she fancied, must look drenched 
 with tell-tale tears. Up the wide marble stairs, 
 hung with masterpieces of Burne-Jones's women 
 of romance pale women of unsatisfied passion 
 she flitted nervously by her guide. 
 
 On the landing the servant passed her quickly, 
 and entered a room on the right. She heard a 
 
 68
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 voice say : " Did n't you understand, Edward, I 
 could not see any one ? I really must " The 
 broken sentence augured disappointment. Myrtle 
 felt that she had reached a gate of deliverance ; 
 she could not at any one's bidding turn back. 
 She hurried forward, and she and Mrs. Neyland 
 faced each other : one just inside the threshold of 
 vthe room, the other still outside. 
 
 " You want to see me ? Come in. I 'm afraid 
 you '11 find me in great disorder. I 'm sorting 
 my books ; one so rarely gets a spare evening." 
 Mrs. Neyland rubbed her dusty fingers on her 
 lace handkerchief, waiting, expecting an expla- 
 nation. 
 
 They knew each other so slightly, these two, 
 standing together in the high, faintly-lighted 
 room. On the floor, on the sofa, on every avail- 
 able chair, books lay heaped. The fire gave out 
 little heat ; it must have been recently lighted. 
 Audrey Neyland had evidently found a haven 
 for industry in a disused drav/ing-room. She 
 herself, tall above the average, in a long mauve 
 bedroom wrapper, her auburn hair framing a 
 clear-cut face and serious hazel eyes, seemed to 
 69
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 have been recalled from dreams and visions, from 
 blessed content, to talk to this woman who had 
 intruded so strangely upon her solitude ; a woman 
 eight years younger than herself, about whom 
 she had sometimes smiled with gayer companions, 
 in her gentle, absent-minded way, as society's 
 prettiest feather-headed chatterbox. Yet in her 
 attention now she was perfectly civil. 
 
 " I wanted to see you dreadfully," Myrtle 
 burst out. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Will you mind what I 'm going to say ? " 
 
 " But why should I ? " 
 
 They sat down, Mrs. Neyland in a high 
 Elizabethan chair, against which her hand leant 
 a little wearily. 
 
 " I 'm perfectly miserable," Myrtle gasped. 
 " George Farquhar does n't love me any more. 
 I know he cares for you." 
 
 Like the first rumble of a thunder-storm over 
 sleeping mountains the broken words of this con- 
 fession struck upon Audrey's heart ominously. 
 They crashed upon her dreams and dispelled 
 them. Her face, ordinarily pale, had faded to an 
 
 70
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 ashy white ; she needed deep resource not to be 
 driven to self-betrayal. 
 
 "Why do you come and say these things?" 
 she answered in a slow, faint voice. " Don't you 
 think it is a mistake ? " 
 
 " If you were as wretched as I am you 'd think 
 nothing a mistake except to go on being wretched. 
 I felt if I told you, you 'd be sorry, and I 'd feel 
 happier. You won't let George make love to 
 yqu ? " 
 
 The inquisitive eyes fixed upon Mrs. Neyland's 
 face danced imploringly. In her naive frankness 
 Myrtle was seeking comfort for herself. Audrey 
 knew that she would speedily find it. 
 
 With sudden strength of mind she asked : 
 
 " What has George Farquhar been to you ? " 
 
 Myrtle dissolved into tears. 
 
 " Everything. I know you '11 despise me, but 
 I 've never been joyful except with him. It 
 did n't seem to matter, one was so glad. You 
 don't know him very well yet, but he 's so clever, 
 so kind. He was awfully kind to me, nobody 
 else was. They thought me stupid, extravagant, 
 he never said I was either such a blessing!
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 But I really believe I am stupid ; I can't learn, 
 I can't change, I only want to be happy. Now 
 he 's gone there 's nothing left." 
 
 " Nothing left ! " said Mrs. Neyland, interrupt- 
 ing this torrent of sobs and words. " Of course, 
 one can't judge for other people. You seem to 
 have a great deal still. Your " 
 
 " Please don't make a list," Myrtle interposed. 
 " Nothing counts." 
 
 " But things have to count, have n't they ? " 
 
 "No, not really." Myrtle shrugged her 
 shoulders defiantly. " I suppose I shall go to 
 the devil." 
 
 " But that 's nonsense." 
 
 " I dare say it sounds nonsense, but how is one 
 to be happy ? I'm useless at home. I think I 
 am like one of the children. I want some one to 
 hold my hand and then I might get along some- 
 how " she paused. "Mrs. Neyland, won't 
 you persuade George Farquhar to come back to 
 me? He would do anything you asked." 
 
 The ghost of a smile crossed Audrey's face. 
 There was pathos in this grotesque conception of 
 the emotions and their career. Was it possible 
 
 72
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 to believe that the love that fled could return 
 at bidding; that the thing overpast could be 
 again. She looked curiously at her questioner, 
 measuring her own love for George Farquhar and 
 his for her against the feeling that all apart from her 
 had tied him to this woman ; wondering jealously 
 if, even for one half-hour, more than the mere 
 attraction of face and figure had kept him captive. 
 Fgr, strong, self-reliant, pure in nature as she natu- 
 rally was, her intellect crying out at the lack of 
 logic in the thing, over her own soul the fascina- 
 tion of the same man had swept. She asked no 
 rescue, no check, to what seemed to her inevitable ; 
 " For life for death " quivered unspoken words 
 upon her lips when they met. Now before the 
 last revelation, which a few hours later would 
 have sealed her fate, all unasked, all undesired, 
 salvation had come. Brick by brick, built by the 
 childish confession of this deserted woman, a 
 bridge of deliverance spanned the torrent of her 
 course ; " Come " those tearful eyes, those bab- 
 bled confidences seemed to say to her, " come 
 and walk with me all the way I trust you so." 
 
 Audrey moved in her chair as if in pain, lean- 
 73
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 ing forward a little and looking into the dying 
 embers of the fire. 
 
 "I don't think that George Farquhar will do 
 what he does n't wish to," she said, gathering her 
 wits to an assertion that voiced a presentiment. 
 " I shall see him to-morrow then he 's going 
 away for a long time to the war, I think." 
 
 " To the war ! " ejaculated Myrtle. 
 
 " Do you think that strange ? I think most 
 surely he will go." 
 
 There was relief in the answer. 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind. I only thought he hated 
 the idea. Perhaps when he comes back he '11 be 
 fond of me again. There's always that hope. 
 Better the certainty that he 's gone than that he 's 
 here and does n't care. But., even if he has n't 
 told you so, I 'm sure he 's in love with you." 
 
 " Your imagination runs away with you. If 
 he 's finished loving you, as you say, he will not 
 begin loving me. You told me he was clever." 
 
 " That has nothing to do with it. He loves 
 you differently. It's difficult to explain, isn't 
 it ? I don't want the sort of love he gives you. 
 If I could only keep him as he used to be. But 
 
 74
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 I don't suppose it would be any use talking to 
 him about me. He dropped me like a stone at 
 the bottom of a well to-night. He won't fish me 
 out again." 
 
 Audrey stooped to find a book. 
 
 " Was it only to-night ? " she faltered, before 
 raising her head. 
 
 "Yes, only to-night he told me straight; he 
 Jias not been the same for a week oh, about a 
 fortnight, I think." 
 
 To one of these women the agony of this inter- 
 view demanded imperatively its close. 
 
 " Won't you go home now," she begged. " I 
 expect you sleep well. In the morning things 
 won't seem so bad ; in time you will forget him." 
 
 " Forget him ! " Myrtle cried, "oh, I can't for- 
 get him, only, Mrs. Neyland, if it does seem 
 better in the morning, and I don't see him any 
 more, I shall begin flirting. I know I might go 
 all wrong again unless unless you 're friends 
 with me. I do want to be friends with you." 
 
 "How can I help you ? " 
 
 " Ever so much. You 're so splendid about 
 George. I never thought you 'd be like that. 
 75
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 I thought you 'd be cross. If you would be 
 friends I might be good ; it would be worth 
 while." She fell on her knees impulsively by the 
 almost rigid figure. Involuntarily the elder 
 woman shuddered. She saw her course so 
 clearly ; outlined and unavoidable. Mentally she 
 stepped on to it, and grew old in the effort. 
 
 " My dear," she said, forcing herself to a 
 bantering tenderness, while her body, tense and 
 unwilling, drew away from this clinging creature, 
 " I can't be Father Confessor and Mother Su- 
 perior all in one. But why should n't we be 
 friends ? Come," she said, raising her, " it '11 
 be all right." 
 
 " You 're an angel ! " the exclamation was 
 full of new satisfaction, " it '11 be a sell for George. 
 He 'd never expect a thing of this sort, would 
 he ? " But to such a query Audrey could give 
 no reply. She rose silently, and together they 
 went down the stairs. They parted with a kiss. 
 
 The next day, without ceremony or question, 
 the doors were opened to George Farquhar. The 
 marble stairs, as he hurried up them in those first 
 minutes of lamplight, seemed to him as steps to 
 
 76
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 heaven. Mrs. Neyland's boudoir door was ajar ; 
 unannounced he pushed it open. She sat within 
 on the soft green cushions of the window-seat, 
 peering through the latticed panes into the grey- 
 ness of a January twilight. 
 
 " Audrey," he said, his eager voice anticipating 
 her greeting, " this day has been interminable." 
 
 " Has it ? " She turned to him wearily, indi- 
 cating no gladness. 
 
 Why did she sit there, he thought, so far from 
 him. Was it to urge him the quicker to her side ? 
 Was it to keep him in suspense ? His heart was 
 beating to suffocation, he could not answer his 
 own self-questioning. As he remained standing, 
 she rose, and came to him. She put her hand on 
 his arm. 
 
 " Do you remember yesterday ? You said you 
 knew something was imminent for both of us. I 
 know now what that something was the end. 
 Will you kiss me once ? " 
 
 The finish of her sentence struck him with 
 passionate force. He forgot the enigmatical 
 beginning. 
 
 Kiss her his arms were around her, his lips 
 77
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 on hers. Surely thus he reached the fulness of 
 experience, this alone was first and perfect love ; 
 all else the years had held grew meaningless. 
 
 She threw back her head suddenly and looked 
 him in the eyes. 
 
 " I 'm glad I love you," she said, " glad I love 
 you so dearly, because it makes it easier for me 
 to tell you the truth." Their arms fell apart as 
 she spoke, and Farquhar felt instantly that there 
 awaited him a proscription. 
 
 " Your friend was here last night," Audrey 
 went on. " I 'm sorry you thought well to 
 make her unhappy." 
 
 So this was the bolt from the blue. He 
 ground his teeth. Myrtle had stolen her re- 
 venge. She had known the woman she would 
 have to deal with, simply from his credentials ; 
 she had poured out her griefs and her wrongs 
 to gain her sympathy. An insane desire seized 
 him that he had taken her at her word and killed 
 her before he left her. 
 
 " How dare she," he burst forth, " how dare 
 she come to you. I 've treated her better than 
 any other man would have done. You know I 
 
 78
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 don't love her, you know " Audrey stopped 
 him with an imploring movement. 
 
 " Don't make excuses. I was going to tell you 
 that I understood quite well without any explana- 
 tion; at least I mean to understand. I'm sure 
 you love me now, sure to the tips of my fingers, 
 to the bottom of my heart. I want to keep you 
 where I put you, right up there in my estima- 
 v tion" she lifted her hand "leave me my 
 blessed illusions. Don't make excuses." 
 
 He stood with lowering brow, silent, helpless 
 at her command. 
 
 " You see, nothing matters for myself, but for 
 her everything matters. She 's pretty, she 's silly, 
 she is n't half awake ; she 's simply made for a 
 man's light fancy, just as she was for yours. 
 I can't leave her, now I know the truth, can I ? " 
 
 "You're not going to tell me," he cried 
 hoarsely, " that you will give me up because she 
 may go to the devil if you don't?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What can she feel for good or bad, really ? 
 It will go for nothing, your sacrifice, and you'll 
 certainly ruin me," 
 79
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 Audrey shook her head : " No," she said, " I 
 shan't do that." 
 
 " But how will you help ?" he asked desperately. 
 
 " I 'm going to be her friend. I shall try and 
 paint in the details to her life it's crude out- 
 line at present." 
 
 " You don't care about her." 
 
 " Why not? She is my redemption." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he insisted. 
 
 " I mean that if it had n't been for her I should 
 have done all that you wished. There was noth- 
 ing to hold me back from anything. I Ve had 
 only unhappiness in my life. It was so easy to 
 be imposed upon by happiness." 
 
 " And I love you I love you," he cried in 
 torture. 
 
 " You know," she went on, as if afraid of keep- 
 ing anything in reserve at this moment of renun- 
 ciation, " things had no meaning till you came ; 
 all the things I thought I liked gave no answer 
 to the questioning in my heart." 
 
 " Audrey," he implored, " don't, for God's 
 sake, tell me this ! Don't show me Paradise to 
 
 make it a mockery to me." 
 
 80
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 " I merely want you to know," she continued, 
 unheeding, " that it is n't exactly prudery, or even 
 principle, that keeps me from you ; it is some- 
 thing quite different so much greater, so 
 much stronger. Now, while I tell you all this, 
 you seem quite far away. I suppose I am on 
 the bridge she made for me ; I can't get off it if 
 I would." 
 
 He looked across at her with troubled eyes. 
 For another woman's conversion he would have 
 summoned the power of his personality to aid. 
 Remonstrances, threats, caresses, they had done 
 their work before, in minor crises, but in a 
 situation such as this they were blunted 
 useless. In spite of her love for him this 
 woman could not be influenced, as he could in- 
 fluence ; she had dominion over a spiritual exal- 
 tation which carried all base things before it, and 
 from her reacted upon him, to lift him, at least 
 for the time, with all his cynical self-will to the 
 level of her resolution, of her sacrifice, with irre- 
 sistible force. Never had he dreamed such suf- 
 fering possible, this awakening of his slothful 
 
 soul as it struggled through its bars to meet hers. 
 81 6
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 " What do you wish me to do ? " he asked 
 painfully at last. 
 
 Audrey fixed her great eyes upon him. " She 
 asked me to send you back to her," she said. 
 
 He made a movement of indignation. 
 
 " And you expect me to do this ? God, if 
 she were the last woman in the world, if she 
 were " 
 
 She interrupted him. " Hush, I expect no 
 such thing ; the impossibility of it seems as cer- 
 tain to me as it does to you. I 've only given 
 my message." 
 
 " To see what I would say ? " he retorted. 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " I shall go to the war ; I shall pray that every 
 bullet that is fired will spot me," he cried inco- 
 herently. 
 
 " It would be braver to live," she answered, 
 white to the lips. 
 
 He was on his knees now. He held her hand 
 and kissed it desperately. 
 
 " Audrey, have mercy ! Is there no hope ? " 
 
 " Yes, a hope with wings." 
 
 " I love you so," he repeated. 
 
 82
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 "And I you." She touched his wavy black 
 hair with lingering tenderness. 
 
 " Why are you changing me ? " he groaned, 
 "why are you making me ashamed of all I've 
 done of all I 've wanted to do?" 
 
 A sudden gladness irradiated her face; it 
 seemed as if angels, comfort-laden, were wheeling 
 about their desolation. She must give him 
 v courage, he whose weakness had been his un- 
 doing. 
 
 "Do you see now that duty is stronger than 
 life or death," she said, " and that love's duty is 
 strongest of all ? " 
 
 How could his lips refute what his wretched 
 heart echoed. He rose to his feet without a 
 word. The newsboy's cry of fresh war-news 
 floated up to them, the cabs dashed past outside, 
 the noises of the street reached them ; expressions 
 of all the commonplace things of commonplace 
 life that waited to prey upon their purpose. But 
 in this moment of triumphant self-abnegation they 
 stood guarded. 
 
 " I always thought you a good woman," he 
 said at last with a passionate reverence in his 
 83
 
 THE DOUBT 
 
 voice; "whatever you had done I should have 
 thought you a good woman but I verily 
 believe your goodness will make me a different 
 man." 
 
 " If that is true," she answered, simply, " you 
 are giving me a great victory."
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 "When the sands on the seashore nourish 
 
 Red clover and yellow corn ; 
 When figs on the thistle flourish, 
 
 And grapes grow thick on the thorn ; 
 When the dead branch, blighted and blasted, 
 
 Puts forth green leaves in the Spring, 
 Then the dream that life has outcasted 
 
 Dead comfort to life may bring."
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 RECKON it's a case of 
 1 kiss and good-bye ' at last, 
 little girl. Life 's been a 
 deuced sight more comfort- 
 able these six months at 
 Hallows Creek than I Ve 
 ever known it, but it is 
 plain the place is getting too hot to hold me. I 
 think the game is pretty well played out ; in 
 future you '11 have to cut the cards for some 
 luckier fellow. Eh, Rosette ? " 
 
 The man had thrown one arm over the high 
 rail of the paling against which he was leaning, 
 and chipped at the hard wood with his knife to 
 hide his embarrassment. 
 
 The answer he waited for was long in coming. 
 There was scorn in the girl's swimming eyes as 
 she looked at him. 
 
 " So you 're off," she said at last. 
 " If I want to keep a whole skin on my body," 
 he expostulated; "you know my position here 
 with Malone ; Harry might have been a better 
 pal." 
 
 She flushed. 
 87
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 " He 's been as good a pal as you 'd let him 
 be. You began his ruin Seth Malone is about 
 finishing it." 
 
 " Look here," he broke in. 
 
 But she silenced him. 
 
 " Be honest. I might have done some good 
 with my boy a year ago. You came here not to 
 help me but to steal my power and to make him 
 your cat's-paw. What does it matter to you that 
 I love my brother, and that by loving you I 'm 
 untrue to him ? What 's it matter to you the 
 wreck of both our lives, as long as you get off 
 scot-free. Ah, go ! go ! " She burst into con- 
 vulsive sobbing. 
 
 Her weakness gave him renewed self-assurance. 
 
 "So you class me with that shady Melbourne 
 stranger who 's played all the mischief. Thank 
 you. You women are extraordinary. In your 
 hearts you make us kings, then curse us with 
 your mouths as if the devil were in us." 
 
 " No difference between you and Seth Malone, 
 in your ways, in your principles," she exclaimed 
 at his taunt. 
 
 " Principles be hanged." 
 
 88
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 He picked up his slouch hat from the ground, 
 put it on and lit his pipe : then his arm stole 
 round her waist. 
 
 " Look here, little girl, be fair." 
 
 She made an effort to remove his arm, but he 
 kept it close ; in time her head sank against his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " How shall I live without you ? " she said 
 desperately. 
 
 "Ah, that's the question," he answered gravely, 
 as if he had found it suddenly important. " You 
 know well enough that if I had sixpence in my 
 pocket or the prospect of a roof we 'd share it. 
 Will you believe me that if I get a start again in 
 Old England, or anywhere, I'll come back and 
 marry you ? Swear you believe it ! " 
 
 She nodded, only half convinced. 
 
 It was a strange scene this. The telling of an 
 old story on this desolate station in Australia at 
 the moment of sunrise. 
 
 The man was young and comely, but for pre- 
 mature coarseness of mouth and nose ; the girl 
 was younger, large-eyed, clean-cut in limb and 
 feature, but pale as a ghost in the uncertain light. 
 89
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 The wooded hill upon which they stood dropped 
 steeply into the gully. There the tree-ferns 
 spread graceful fronds and the darker foliage of 
 the sassafras shadowed them. A brook mean- 
 dered like a silver ribbon between the cliffs ; 
 down in the plain among the orange groves it 
 widened into a river. The awakening birds were 
 twittering the mocking note of the jackass, 
 the "caw" of the parrot, sounded now and then 
 in the gum trees, and still at such an hour of 
 freshness and peace could be heard the murmur 
 of men's voices, the popping of corks in the 
 drinking saloon a hundred yards away. 
 
 "Then it is to-night, Jim," she said, raising 
 her eyes to his at last. " Quite certain to-night ? " 
 
 "Certain," he answered straightening himself; 
 " and if in the interval I can fill my pocket from 
 that thief Malone's, so much the better." 
 
 She shivered and walked away from him. He 
 called her back. 
 
 "Look, Rosette," he said, in atone of genuine 
 emotion, "it's hard lines for you and me, but 
 don't think me a cur if I play up there to- 
 night " he jerked his arm over his shoulder ; 
 
 90
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 " I must. Come," he added, " bring me luck. 
 Stand beside me and sing that 'Good-bye' I 
 like. Do you know your voice has more power 
 over me than your eyes, it '11 let me go a better 
 man. Promise." 
 
 " What are you asking me ? " 
 
 " Everything." 
 
 " And I 'd give you everything," she cried out 
 passionately. 
 
 Then he kissed her. 
 
 The movement in the tavern had ceased at 
 last; as she went slowly home the sky was 
 golden. Down in the painted verandah dark- 
 ened by its overgrowth of jessamine and clem- 
 atis, stretched at full length on the narrow 
 bench, two figures lay in deep sleep. Unkempt, 
 exhausted, they had thrown themselves carelessly 
 there, for neither Harry Paulevrer nor Seth 
 Malone, the fever of their gambling upon them, 
 had slept in bed for nights past. 
 
 Rosette khelt by her brother's huddled figure 
 and her tears rained upon his face. He was so 
 piteously young, he was buying his experience at 
 such an awful price. She had followed him from
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 Melbourne to this wild loneliness ; she had tried 
 to be a mother to him, to give strength to him, to 
 advise him and slave for him. She adored him. 
 All in vain ; he was tossed like a plaything be- 
 tween the influence of two bad men, strangers to 
 his past ; one of these men she loved, the other 
 she hated. She had been proud of Harry once; 
 he was strong and active, his character clean, his 
 face open, even pure. Now as she looked at 
 him his eyes seemed swollen, his mouth had 
 fallen into loose restless lines, his golden curls 
 were matted with neglect. 
 
 She let her head fall upon his breast. 
 
 " If only the world would change," she moaned, 
 " or that we could all die." And the sun, as if 
 to mock her, crept in unclouded brilliance higher 
 into the heavens. 
 
 After a time she heard the jolting of the mail- 
 buggy on the rough track. It came into sight 
 drawn by an undersized team and clothing the 
 wattle and the wild cherry trees in the garden 
 with dust. The noise disturbed the sleepers. 
 
 Jim Escrick came out from the house, and 
 Malone turned over, stretched out his bony 
 
 92
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 arms, kicked off his shoes, and stood up, six 
 foot two in his dirty socks. His lips, cruelly 
 narrow, seemed to fall inwards in his curious 
 uncanny face ; a yellow, wrinkled forehead sloped 
 backward from narrow brows to where the sandy 
 hair, already sprinkled with grey, grew in short 
 erratic tufts over his long skull, like pampas on a 
 prairie. 
 
 " Waal, waal, that 's quare," he said, winking 
 from one to the other of his unappreciative 
 audience, " very quare, indeed ; a regular excar- 
 shion sort of a dream, too, all along of card- 
 playin' and brandy. There was the King of 
 Diamonds, Miss, a very rum tarn-out, oncom- 
 mon like that cove over yonder " Jim became 
 attentive "a runnin' off with the Queen of 
 Hearts a straight tip that, I reckon. Waal, 
 hop, hop, comes the Knave of Clubs, that was 
 trumps, sees them half way across the Paramatta 
 River f Ho, ho !' says he." Malone assumed 
 a peculiar expression, but the rest of the sentence 
 was strangled in its birth ; he had barely time to 
 spring aside to avoid the rapid blow that cleft the 
 air. 
 93
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 " What 's that for, mate ? " he drawled, clench- 
 ing and unclenching his claw-like left hand, but 
 displaying perfect self-control before this fierce 
 assault. " Dreams is dreams, as facts is facts 
 you pay your money if you can and you 
 takes your choice. Sonny," and he shook the 
 still yawning Harry by the shoulder, " wake up ; 
 here's a chap blind drunk at seven o'clock in the 
 morning, with a desire for tarning our brain-pans 
 into pulp." 
 
 " You lying dog," shouted Jim, " do you think 
 I don't understand your low dodges ? " 
 
 " Shut up," said Harry, " don't make such a 
 d d noise." 
 
 " Noise ! it 's more than a noise ! " Escrick 
 set his teeth. " Can't you see where the brute 's 
 driving you you fool Paulevrer?" 
 
 " I 'm not in your leading-strings, thanks. 
 Malone 's as good a right to speak as you ; I 've 
 no reason to believe you 're a better sort. If 
 you go on taking the law into your own hands, 
 Escrick, the sooner you leave the place the 
 better." 
 
 Jim assumed a sarcastic tone. " There 's 
 
 94
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 gratitude. Do you think without your asking I 
 should have wasted six months trying to make 
 a cub like you find your level in the world, 
 you think you 're the only one to draw a prize in 
 this infernal lottery of existence. Well, mark 
 me, you '11 draw something else presently and 
 not from me." 
 
 He threw the bitter words at the young fellow, 
 and stood with folded arms waiting their effect. 
 Harry, white with anger, menaced him. 
 
 " You clear out," he said, raising his arm, 
 " d' ye hear me. Clear out." 
 
 But Escrick did not move not yet the mo- 
 ment for his obedience. 
 
 Then Harry made to fling himself upon him, 
 but Rosette was between them. She hung with 
 all the weight of her strong young body against 
 her brother ; she kept them by sheer force apart, 
 and gave them both a queer hesitation. 
 
 " You must n't," she gasped ; " Jim 's not 
 speaking truth. He 's only jealous of Malone. 
 You were such pals till he came. Don't strike 
 him now, Harry, for pity's sake. Jim," she 
 stamped her foot, " explain to him, can't you ? " 
 95
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 "What's there to explain," said Jim, laconi- 
 cally. " I don't want to quarrel with your 
 brother." 
 
 " And he does n't want to quarrel with you 
 say it, Harry," she insisted. 
 
 " What 's there to say," he answered sullenly, 
 as the other had answered. But the force of his 
 anger had weakened ; he felt the thrill of this girl's 
 entreaty. Before the failure of his youth's bright 
 promise, she had been his day-star. He was 
 making a mess of her life pretty freely now ; he 
 had sense enough to know that, and conscience 
 enough at this crisis to spare her further misery. 
 
 " Friends, then," he said, and looked across at 
 Escrick. 
 
 Jim looked at Rosette, and cast the remaining 
 shred of his better nature into the scale with his 
 selfish love for her. Together they outweighed 
 his irritation and insolence. 
 
 Malone, who had with intention shifted the 
 odium of this quarrel entirely off his own 
 shoulders, drank a glass of whiskey in lieu of 
 breakfast, leaning against the open window ; 
 presently the tumbler slipped through his fin- 
 
 96
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 gers, and broke on the tiles at his feet. Over 
 the girl's bowed head the young men had 
 clasped hands. 
 
 The sunset had faded into the clear, pale sky 
 of twilight, when four riders, their jaded horses 
 stumbling along, returned from a day's round 
 
 Rosette, unable to bear the loneliness of the 
 house, had gone out with the others. She rode 
 now beside Jim Escrick ; his arm hung loosely 
 over her white pony's neck, his dark, reckless eyes 
 searched hers. 
 
 " Don't be low, little one, I 'm not worth 
 grieving over." 
 
 " No," she said, looking up at the first stars. 
 
 " But you '11 sing, won't you," he reminded 
 her ; " I count on it." 
 
 " I '11 sing," she answered, wondering where she 
 could find the voice for aught but. lamenting. 
 
 Paulevrer and Malone rode jovially in front. 
 In fact, for the men it had been since morning 
 a day of good-fellowship. They had light- 
 heartedly played with the usual subjects and jokes 
 which bound them together, and invited no quarrel 
 97 ?
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 beyond the cheerful argument of the minute. 
 They had the wanderer's temperament, all of 
 them ; the power to make to-day as good as yes- 
 terday, to forget as quickly as they acquired, to 
 lay down a feud in the environment where it had 
 been born and strike out for the next one in a 
 pleasant temper. 
 
 Not so Rosette. She rooted on the ground 
 where she fell. Engrained in her sensitive nature 
 a strong faithfulness, she suffered cruelly at trans- 
 planting. 
 
 As she slipped off her pony at the entrance to 
 the verandah, she entreated him. 
 
 " You '11 say good-bye to me alone before 
 the song, Jim ? " 
 
 He bent from the saddle and caressed her hair. 
 
 " On my oath," he answered ; then he looked 
 over his shoulder up the hill eagerly at the lighted 
 windows of the saloon. 
 
 The men ate supper yawning and grumbling, 
 then without rest walked out, and though the girl 
 stayed at the table, Jim forgot her and went with 
 his companions, his eye on Malone and his hate 
 for him increasing. 
 
 98
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 For a couple of hours she trusted him, expect- 
 ing his return, and waited, battling with the dread 
 of the difficult empty days that lay before her. 
 Would Jim's departure mend matters for her 
 brother would he gain thereby ? A thousand 
 times no, while Malone remained ; there would be 
 in the loss nothing but loss, and her own despair. 
 
 The footsteps that sounded near the house 
 from time to time, never lingered, but passed 
 always up the hill. The suspense of his belated 
 coming, the longing to be near Escrick in this last 
 hour, was growing more than she could bear. 
 So she took her hood from the peg and followed 
 him. 
 
 Never had heaven framed a more splendid 
 night. The moon was at its full, and gave to 
 each feathery, floating cloud a silver lining. The 
 stars shaping the Southern Cross blazed in and 
 out among lesser kin, like diamonds amidst 
 pearls. 
 
 Yet there was no one abroad to gaze and 
 marvel, but this young girl ; and she, thinking 
 only of her purpose, ran quickly on without 
 reflection. 
 99
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 The roughly boarded door of the saloon was 
 open ; well, indeed, for the atmosphere was ter- 
 ribly oppressive, and the wreaths of bad tobacco- 
 smoke choked and half blinded. Across the set- 
 tles against the walls the station hands dozed, 
 drank, or wrangled. Two swinging lamps, one 
 under a painted glass shade, the other without a 
 shade at all, hung high in the ceiling, and gave 
 a poor light. The few dilapidated tables were 
 surrounded ; the gamblers that Rosette sought 
 had usurped the crooked-legged one in the 
 corner. 
 
 As she entered, she became instantly aware of 
 the emptiness of Escrick's promise. The game, 
 only the game, fired his eyes and threw complete 
 absorption into his attitude ; he would play to 
 the last minute, and then go. Rosette, for all he 
 knew now, or cared, might be a hundred miles 
 away. 
 
 Malone was dealing the cards with the slow 
 precision and continual calculation characteristic 
 of the man. Under his elbow he had laid a bag 
 of almost ostentatiously presented notes. He 
 looked like some old-world wizard ; there was 
 
 1 00
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 strength in his badness, cleverness in his machina- 
 tions. Escrick knew this always, but more than 
 ever to-night. Harry the boy was winning ; his 
 face was suffused with a rosy flush, he talked gar- 
 rulously during the deals. Escrick was astute 
 enough to realize this success as no mere chance. 
 Malone was merely getting Paulevrer utterly 
 into his net to make the final break-up irremedi- 
 able, his revenge on Escrick more complete. 
 
 In a moment of impatience Jim had kicked 
 his chair back and stood lounging against the 
 table. Though Rosette could have touched him 
 with her hand, he appeared indifferent to her 
 presence, even if he had noticed it. Was it pos- 
 sible that he had forgotten the promise she had 
 made him, as he had forgotten his promise to 
 her ? As in her misery she wondered, he lifted 
 his head, and his glance, to her surprise, fell on 
 her at once ; there was no uncertainty in it. He 
 must have known her beside him from the be- 
 ginning. 
 
 " Sing," he said in a low tone of command 
 rather than entreaty. " Sing," he repeated again 
 as she hesitated. 
 101
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 She felt the strength of his desire through 
 and through her frame. 
 
 How it was she hardly knew, but the song 
 began. Not the Yankee plantation lullaby or 
 music-hall ditty she usually gave them, and the 
 chorus of which would rise, a jovial roar, from 
 the half-tipsy company, but Jim's ballad, a 
 present he had brought her from Henderson one 
 afternoon. New-fangled they had called it, but 
 she had sung it camping in the bush on long 
 summer evenings. Jim remembered the first 
 night she had mastered it, kneeling in the winter 
 firelight ; he had loved her better then. Now, as 
 the words " Falling leaf and fading tree " floated 
 out in her clear, sweet voice through the dense, 
 heated atmosphere to the calm night-air, he 
 seemed the least moved among those rude squat- 
 ters who left, in a few moments, the cards and 
 counters in careless disorder and sat as if spell- 
 bound to listen. 
 
 It was no nightingale's clear treble, no prima 
 donna's studied bravura, this girl's singing. As 
 the swan in its death-throes gives a sobbing 
 dirge to the world once, and then silence, so it 
 
 102
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 seemed that all the longing and despair Rosette 
 had ever felt or would feel again were concen- 
 trated in these tragic minutes. 
 
 She sang the song once and began to sing it 
 again. No one told her to cease, for to these 
 rough men her voice, figuratively, was as the 
 voice of God, and gained, while it gave its sweet- 
 ness, the mastery it claimed. 
 
 Malone seemed to parley with his familiar 
 spirit, angel or devil ; he found it, his head sunk 
 on his breast, engrossing. Harry's expression, 
 the plaything of occasion, had grown sunny with 
 satisfaction and pride in his sister. He had no 
 apprehension of the singular pathos she displayed. 
 And Escrick, his face buried in his hands, watched 
 through his fingers the bag of money which lay 
 before Malone on the stained baize cloth. 
 
 He was encountered by the strongest tempta- 
 tion of his strongly-tempted life. Never had 
 action appeared more easy. The other lamp had 
 died out, for the barman, taking advantage of the 
 lull, slept ; the moon illumined little, rather aided 
 the darkness. A moment's presence of mind and 
 the coveted money his a horse, ready saddled, 
 103
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN " 
 
 tethered outside and so into the world, to begin 
 again. 
 
 Such thoughts, disjointed, perilous, insisting, 
 chased and rechased each other through his mind. 
 He was tired of the losing score on the tablets 
 of his experience. One simple act and he could 
 wipe it off, to begin afresh one wrong to win a 
 right, after all. 
 
 And Rosette ? She loved him she was sing- 
 ing to make him happy she would not fail ; 
 be even glad afterwards that she had helped him 
 to be free ; that she had so innocently but so 
 effectually served as accomplice. 
 
 There was a sudden instant of complete dark- 
 ness a cloud had passed over the moon. The 
 coincidence stunned his conscience, and by a deed 
 he scotched his doubts. His hand slid down from 
 his face and across the table ; then he went out at 
 the door slowly, as if overcome by the music. 
 
 Rosette, seeing all, still sang : 
 
 " What are we waiting for, O my heart ? 
 Kiss me straight on the brow and part " 
 
 The passionate words burst out, wrung from 
 her own broken heart, to keep the listeners as 
 
 104
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 the witch kept the sleeping sailors long ago, till 
 her lover had time to vault into the saddle and 
 gallop away. 
 
 It had come at last the end. Trembling 
 she sank onto the chair Jim had pushed back ; 
 the acuteness of the sudden silence in this dark, 
 peopled room was remarkable. But the spell 
 removed, they immediately forgot its potency in 
 a renewed desire for self-assertion. A hubbub 
 of talk broke out; the barman knocked over 
 glasses and pipes' in needless activity to renew the 
 lamp to a spasmodic flame ; Seth Malone coughed, 
 spat, and drew himself straight in his chair. He 
 hated his period of weakness ; he became fiercely 
 energetic, gathering up the cards and squaring 
 to the table with a muttered undercurrent of 
 contemptuous speech, directed against all and 
 none. 
 
 Harry rubbed his brow, " That was a good 
 song," he said. " It 's your deal, Escrick " but 
 the light streaming down now showed Rosette 
 upon the chair. 
 
 Malone looked at her, his eyes screwed closely ; 
 then his hand, holding the greasy cards, groped 
 105
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 about the table. Through suspicion his knowl- 
 edge became rapidly conclusive. 
 
 " Gone, by h , gone ! " he shouted, sweep- 
 ing the cloth where the notes had been. Then 
 at full height he towered above the trembling 
 girl, and cast his imprecations over the whole 
 saloon. " He 's cut it, the rogue, be d d to him. 
 You, gal, with your cunning wiles are at the bot- 
 tom of this, you ," and the foul word hissed 
 through the air. " Where is he ? Out with the 
 truth, or there will be killing, d' you hear not 
 my first job in that line killing, bloody killing ; " 
 in his infuriation he foamed at the mouth and 
 gurgled like an epileptic. 
 
 Rosette drew away as his fist threatened her, 
 but there was no quiver of emotion in the ghastly 
 pallor of her face. She bore the burden of her 
 sorrowful knowledge and her sacrifice with a great 
 courage under this man's insults; only before her 
 brother she quailed. He had crept up to her and 
 had put his hands heavily on her shoulders. He 
 had understood the situation slowly knew at 
 length that the money had gone and Escrick with 
 it but he knew best of all that his sister had 
 
 106
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 failed him. What extenuating circumstances for 
 her? Her action so obvious, the result so suc- 
 cessful. The web of deception was too well 
 woven to be unravelled by any excuses ; he did 
 not invite them, but condemned her unheard. 
 
 " My God, Rosette ! " he said, full of the bit- 
 terness of his disappointment, " I 'd have staked 
 my soul on your honour. You loved that scoun- 
 drel, but, dupe that I was, I thought you straight. 
 Well, there 's an end to it, and the station should 
 be proud of such a well-matched pair. I know 
 the country better than he does, aye, and I '11 
 track every inch of it till I shoot him and curse 
 him for the dog he is." Then, turning from 
 the dumb agony in her eyes, he went out as 
 Escrick had done before him. But for his exit 
 there was no tethered horse saddled ; he made 
 down the hill to the stables running, and most 
 of the men followed. 
 
 For a minute, stunned by the injustice of the 
 accusation, sick unto death with this load of com- 
 plicated trouble, she swayed as if she would have 
 fallen. She steadied herself, however, against the 
 loathsome table with its scattered cards and cigar- 
 107
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 ends and dribbles of spirit and water spilt from 
 glasses raised by shaking hands, till, looking 
 round, she found herself, but for Malone raving 
 in the corner, deserted the door wide and 
 the sky outside lightening before the dawn. 
 
 She began to consider coherently now; to 
 reckon that Jim would have made for Blowcaster 
 and so to join the railway-line, that he would 
 have ridden down the narrow path with the 
 broken gate as the quickest way to get there. It 
 was that way Harry would ride also he would 
 guess as she guessed and perhaps it would be 
 at the gate, where he would have to check his 
 pace, that she might stay his wild ride of pursuit 
 and make him listen to her once more. 
 
 So she turned toward the hill and climbed it 
 as the others went down, and began to run 
 through the thick grass which, twisting round 
 her ankles, impeded every step. 
 
 She crossed the shoulder. The moon hidden 
 by clouds, the darkness was still great, but, her 
 eyes growing accustomed to it, she saw indica- 
 tions of the valley beneath and of dark woods 
 nearer. She felt the path now, the pebbles flew 
 
 108
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 under her feet and she sank into soft dust. 
 Then she stopped she had reached the broken 
 gap in the palisade ; it was there her brother 
 would come. 
 
 It had been broken down by cattle and no one 
 took the trouble to repair it, but piled it with 
 rough stones. Over these Harry would not be 
 able to gallop, but must pick his way. She heard 
 already the thud of the horse's tread behind her 
 as she stood coolly in the opening. Her brother 
 was thirsting for her lover's life ; with his knowl- 
 edge of the road he might so easily overtake him. 
 But it was she who had let Jim go and it was 
 she who would let him get away alive into the 
 world where he would forget her. 
 
 She had no power, while thinking of his life, to 
 consider his dastardly deed. Her only wish was 
 to have a delaying touch upon her brother's 
 rein, to bring him to reason, as she held reason, 
 with her old compelling persuasions. 
 
 Standing between the wooden posts she smiled 
 now, her face turned to where the dawn would 
 break, as if in prayer for the two men so dear to 
 her. 
 109
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 
 Harry in the full stride of his canter approached. 
 He had chosen the way as she divined, from the 
 same idea ; he knew of the gap and the stones, 
 but he had no intention of labouring over them. 
 His horse was agile and trained : put him at the 
 obstacle and he could jump it easily and gather 
 fresh impetus for faster pacing in the quest. 
 
 Therefore, galloping down, the blood in his 
 head, in his eyes ; his mind one-idea'd, revengeful, 
 he saw the dim outline of some figure in his path. 
 With lack of reason he suspected Escrick's re- 
 lenting, and swearing to offer him no chance,, he 
 cocked his pistol and fired. But it was a woman's 
 sharp cry that echoed to the rash shot, and his 
 heart stood still, for the figure lay as it had fallen. 
 Quickly he dismounted and bent over it. 
 
 " My God," he groaned, striving to loosen the 
 handkerchief at her neck, " Rosette, speak to me, 
 for the love of heaven, speak to me ! " But 
 there was only silence, and he gathered her into 
 his arms, and looked at the trickling blood from 
 the mark on her forehead, upon the purity of her 
 placid face. There was no sound anywhere, yet 
 the birds were preparing to wake, and soon the 
 
 1 10
 
 "TILL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN" 
 cold wind of the hour of dawn made him shiver; 
 it sighed above the grass under the distant trees. 
 The horse, wandering around, began to tear and 
 chew the dry scrub. 
 
 The light came, and the grey changed to yel- 
 low, and the yellow to the orange and crimson 
 forerunners of the sun. He knelt there, bab- 
 bling of his childhood's devotion, of his love 
 now, of his need for her forgiveness ; but there 
 could be no answer ; after all, for her and for 
 him it was the end. 
 
 in
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 " Strong is your hold, O Mortal Flesh ! 
 Strong is your hold, O Love ! " 
 
 This is the experience as my friend related it. If 
 I fail to share her sympathies, I tell the tale as it 
 was told.
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 THINK it is a puzzle to 
 my friends that I, with my 
 notions and habits of other 
 times, should be spending 
 the season in a Mayfair 
 hotel with its show-cases, 
 flower-stall, public restau- 
 rant, and string band, instead of hiring, as I have 
 generally done, the sober unpretentious house in 
 the market. 
 
 I confess that I am myself in a measure puz- 
 zled at such encouragement of extravagance en 
 fauteuil. I pay fabulous sums for garish apart- 
 ments, I scribble the name of the advertising 
 silversmith upon my visiting card, I mass gar- 
 denias amongst my laces, and eat my dinner to 
 the tune of " Monte Cristo " with half the demi- 
 mondaines of Europe and their attendant swains 
 at my side, as if there were no such things as 
 fixed incomes and infinite ideals. But having 
 something to forget, I bring thus a new interest 
 into life and should be satisfied. 
 
 The fact is, I am one of those unfortunate 
 beings a woman of perception ; gifted (accord-
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 ing to the chroniclers) with " rare insight," and I 
 have been the witness of an incident so baleful to 
 my remembrance and yet so inexplicable that 
 when I repeated the story to my best friend she 
 merely smiled, whilst I, in the telling, shuddered 
 as at a catastrophe of personal import. 
 
 There is a mistake in one's construction when 
 it offers an inviting surface to the limpets of tragic 
 events in other people's lives. Comedies all 
 well and good one may, at other people's 
 expense have one's laugh. But the holes in 
 the coat of the tramp, the frightened looks of 
 the child in a next door neighbour's garden, the 
 traces of tears around the eyes of the young 
 typist engaged by the hour, should not in the nar- 
 row way be asked to " stand and deliver " ; they 
 belong to the wide road that leads to destruction 
 and for the sake of one's nervous system should 
 be avoided. At least, that is the conclusion I 
 have arrived at ; that is why I jingle through a 
 butterfly existence in the most fashionable resort 
 of the moment. Others by these means have 
 grown impervious, why not I ? One should not, 
 to quote the philosopher, have more than enough. 
 
 116
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 If, however, the cardinal sin of sympathy is 
 subjugated made inactive towards the passive 
 weepers by the wayside, what about the situations 
 that are as bloodhounds at one's throat, and pin 
 one to sight and sensation ? These are of desti- 
 ny's breeding incomprehensible, yet revealing 
 the soul of man beyond human explanation. 
 Let me tell you, as I told my best friend, what 
 under such circumstances came and arrested me. 
 
 Following the maxims of my upbringing, I 
 have for the last fourteen years hired a house 
 in London for the months of February, March, 
 and April. Honestly as I detest house-hunting, 
 I Ve steadily refused to complicate my life with a 
 permanent possession. The house in the quiet 
 region where I could be of the world yet not in 
 it, was no longer available ; I discovered that the 
 dwellings of my friends to be let did not 
 justify my friends' recommendations ; I think, 
 then, it was on January gth that I looked up a 
 well-known house agent. The junior partner of 
 Hay & Horner was away on a holiday in Spain, 
 but the clerk in charge, appraising me I gath- 
 ered this from his manner as somewhat exact- 
 117
 
 f 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 ing ) produced an enormous tome, and prepared 
 due consideration for the range of Madame's luni- 
 form desires, for, as I told him, I infinitely pre- 
 ferred crescents to squares, and streets for me 
 were an abomination. 
 
 " No. 27 Ronda Road," he murmured above 
 the ledger in the tone of one who reads for the 
 first time what he has to explain by heart "a 
 spacious house with a garden, close to Vauxhall 
 Bridge, a little out of the way, perhaps, but 
 convenient for Ascot races." He looked over 
 his glasses and interpreted my movement of con- 
 temptuous negation. 
 
 " Paddington Green," he went on placidly, 
 " moderate rent, owner, Mr. Savile Smith, ac- 
 commodation for six servants, no bathroom 
 that will hardly suit." 
 
 " St. John's Wood bijou residence owner, 
 Miss Totty Major furnished by Maple rent 
 to be paid to Sir . . ." He slid off the danger- 
 ous ground and came up smiling, his hand sweep- 
 ing the page as if removing all prior suggestions. 
 
 " No. 13 Pandora Terrace the very house 
 owners, Mr. and Mrs. Leonid going abroad 
 
 118
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 for some time will let for three months with 
 
 option of purchase, terms moderate, every modern 
 
 improvement, perfectly quiet, facing private 
 
 gardens." 
 
 " Leonid ! " What a queer name ! My fancy 
 was struck with it instantly. I was seized, Heaven 
 knows why, with a burning desire to ask personal 
 questions, but a feeling of reticence prevailed. 
 I was looking for a house; I had made no remark 
 about Mr. Savile Smith, I had passed over Miss 
 Totty Major and her rent collector in stony 
 silence, and now why should I enquire of this 
 excellent clerk the manner of life of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Leonid. 
 
 Leonid . . . Leonidas was that the connec- 
 tion in my mind ? The vision of a white line of 
 road twisting up and up the blue mountains of 
 Greece from the plain of Thermopylae ; all the 
 great feats of arms, of Spartan endurance, swept, 
 but for glorious memory, into nothingness by the 
 overwhelming force of an alien army one against 
 so much. The details of the tragedy rising at 
 this moment to remembrance and framed there in 
 the peaceful setting and perfect pastoral beauty 
 119
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 of the shores of the Euboean Sea, appeared to 
 hold a whimsical significance. I turned for an 
 instant and peered through the plate-glass win- 
 dow into the street, looking as London streets 
 usually do ; a thickening fog had captured the 
 sun of the morning ; it was only half-past three, 
 but the lamplighter was going about his work. 
 
 " I think," I said slowly, as if I had given long 
 reflection to the matter, " I will go and see this 
 house of Mr. Leonidas Mr. and Mrs. Leonid," 
 I corrected. " I shall go to-day ; will you give 
 me a card ? " The clerk answered with alacrity, 
 closing the book, " Certainly, and I may as well 
 persuade you to look in at two other houses, all 
 on your way down. But I feel sure that No. 13 
 Pandora Terrace will attract you." 
 
 Simply for the sake of saying that I had done 
 so, I entered the two houses he had mentioned 
 en route. They neither of them gave any present 
 joy, nor offered a promise of it in the future. 
 
 But if the truth were told I went through the 
 rooms with unseeing eye. I was in a mood of 
 abstraction, weaving possibilities about 13 Pan- 
 dora Terrace and its owners. If they were both 
 
 120
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 Spartans it augured ill for my comfort. Possibly 
 he was the Spartan and she, with oriental blan- 
 dishments, strove to overcome his prejudices. I 
 imagined Mrs. Leonid a lady of ample bosom 
 encased in flowing silk draperies and wearing 
 pendant earrings glistening and glittering. I felt 
 certain about those earrings, and that her divan 
 would be heaped with Persian cushions. But for 
 him I could mould no shape whatever; he re- 
 mained altogether undefined. As the driver went 
 slowly down the Terrace looking for the correct 
 number I chided myself for such ridiculous fancies. 
 " They are probably pot-au-feu, second rate, and 
 their house as unliveable as all other houses," I 
 declared. Then I pushed my head from under 
 the roof of the hansom and looked upon No. 13. 
 The exterior was certainly prepossessing. The 
 walls had been newly painted, and the window 
 boxes were filled with dwarf holly neatly cut and 
 bearing berries. The blinds were down, but here 
 and there I could perceive a light. The three 
 low steps to the enchanting myrtle-green door 
 were of marble, scrupulously clean, and above the 
 lintel hung an old Venetian lamp holding an 
 121
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 electric globe; the knocker was peculiar a 
 brazen raven, its great eyes made of some curious 
 iridescent pebble shining in the light. I sprang 
 out of the cab, rang the bell, and banged the for- 
 bidding bird against the panel, as interested now 
 in the house as in the owners. " 13 Pandora 
 Terrace," I decided, " shall be mine. Who 
 knows whether I shall not buy it and find at last 
 an artistic city hearth." I felt already the exul- 
 tation of possession. 
 
 They took a long time to answer the bell. I 
 rang again and a third time, not over-patiently. 
 
 At last, to the extent of about four inches, the 
 door was opened and a neatly-dressed maid, her 
 hair parted under a French cap, brought her gaze, 
 brim full of anxiety, to bear upon me. 
 
 " I have come to see this house/" I said, 
 looking at her eyes, their agitation appeared so 
 uncalled-for. " It is, I understand, to be let. 
 Tt has grown dark early, but I should like to 
 come in now." I held out Hay & Horner's 
 card. 
 
 She did not attempt to take it, but stood there 
 whispering to me : "You can't come in indeed 
 
 122
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 you can't it is awful. Please go away. Come 
 back next week some day she is " 
 
 The little quavering voice ceased ; it seemed to 
 me that some one from within had dragged the 
 girl back, for feet scuffled on the tiles, and the 
 door, released, swung wide in the draught. Then 
 a hand steadied it, a light shot through the dark- 
 ness, and I was face to face with a tall woman. 
 " Mrs. Leonid," I just breathed to myself and 
 went forward to meet her. 
 
 " My maid is stupid," she said in a clear, slow 
 voice with a peculiar lengthening of the vowels in 
 accent. " I think that maid-servants are an over- 
 rated advantage. I am particularly anxious that 
 you should see this house if you are in need of 
 one. I consider it charming in every way." 
 The manner in which these assertions were made 
 rendered any criticism superfluous. I suspected 
 that Mrs. Leonid was a lady who shrank from 
 contradiction and I decided to be diplomatic. 
 
 " I should very much like to see this house if 
 it really is not an inconvenient moment," I as- 
 sented, and longed to add how much more I 
 desired to see Mrs. Leonid. She still stood 
 123
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 with her back to the light, I could only discern 
 the outline of an imposing figure. 
 
 She walked past me deliberately now, opened 
 a door to the right and with a quick movement 
 switched on the electric light in all the chandeliers 
 of a spacious chamber. My first impression of 
 the room was the contrast of verity to my vision. 
 There was no scope for oriental idleness here. 
 I saw stiff gilt settees, white walls, ormolu tables. 
 Then my eyes became glued with startled fasci- 
 nation upon Mrs. Leonid. 
 
 She was unlike any one I had ever seen before. 
 Her skin was pale and so clear as to be almost 
 blue from the veins that coursed beneath. In 
 profile her features were nearly perfect, but her 
 chin was too long and pointed and gave extreme 
 length to her face. Her hair of glinting gold, 
 undoubtedly natural, had in one single lock 
 turned gray. This fell over the brow with a 
 sideway sweep as if to shade her deep penetrating 
 eyes, for her eyebrows were ever so slightly 
 marked, and the innocence of her forehead from this 
 cause contradicted the hardness of the jaw and the 
 firmness of the close-lipped mouth. I should 
 
 124
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 judge her age to have been about forty, but she 
 was one of those women who have no age. She 
 could never have known blushing youth, she 
 would still be in her prime twenty years hence. 
 Her figure was statuesque and broad-shouldered ; 
 her dress, in the best fashion of the day, fitted 
 closely, but her hair, knotted strangely in meshes 
 of black lace, hung half-way down her shoulders. 
 In her ears she wore rings. I felt a quick thrill 
 of excitement when I saw them. They did not 
 glitter like those of my fancy, but fell in two 
 huge opal-tinted pearl-drops like the unopened 
 buds of an orange flower. A quaint conviction 
 seized me that if I walked over to her and 
 squeezed them between finger and thumb, red 
 juice like blood would flow from them and trickle 
 down her white, uncovered neck. The incorrigi- 
 ble absurdity of my imaginings annoyed me. I 
 coloured and hastened to force some trite remark. 
 I felt sure that my idiotic stare surprised her. 
 
 "This room is lovely," I said, turning my 
 gaze vaguely around ; " I am not sure, though, 
 that I think the Louis XVI. style conducive to 
 comfort." 
 125
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 " Comfort ! " She spoke the word with acrid 
 emphasis. " That is the watchword of the pres- 
 ent day if you wish to lounge and loll, there is 
 my husband's study." 
 
 So I had touched the cloven foot of Spartan 
 severity. She withdrew her uncomfortable eyes 
 from mine. " Take care of the step," she said as 
 she swept on, and I, with ever-growing interest, 
 followed. 
 
 The little room with its tent-like hangings was 
 below the level of the drawing-room and lit by 
 tall candles. I looked round for Leonidas 
 Mr. Leonid but he was not there. Upon the 
 writing-table some books, a few letters, and a 
 number of cigarette boxes ; but it was obvious 
 that he had not been writing for hours. A 
 sofa filled up one side of the room and every 
 available square inch of wall was hung with 
 treasures of travel. Inlaid pistols from Mace- 
 donia, pipes and scimitars from Turkey, Tunisian 
 wallets, a medley of immense interest all indi- 
 cating the collector. 
 
 " Mr. Leonid is fond of distant countries," I 
 said. 
 
 126
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 " Yes," she replied, " he has travelled, and we 
 are about to travel again." She laid special stress 
 on the " he " and " we," and finished off the sen- 
 tence sharply. I saw that she was fidgeting to 
 pursue our investigations in other parts of the 
 house, but I would not be removed so easily. If 
 I was not to see Mr. Leonid, at least I would 
 gain a clear idea of Mr. Leonid's belongings and 
 build up therefrom a graven image when I came 
 to make this attractive den my own. 
 
 I walked over to the fireplace and touched the 
 tiny silver and copper works of art upon the 
 mantelshelf; I had rarely seen such uncommon 
 curios out of the glass case of a museum. As I 
 turned my back to the ledge, I noticed that he 
 had but one picture in the room, the full length 
 portrait of a young girl in a white dress ; the atti- 
 tude was so graceful, the face so lovely, that my 
 attention was riveted. Above the inlaid frame 
 hung a delicate ivory crucifix, before it burned a 
 little red light as before a shrine. 
 
 "Do tell me who that is." The impulsive 
 demand trembled upon my lips. I turned to 
 Mrs. Leonid, but she had passed back into the 
 127
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 drawing-room and when I followed and looked 
 into her face all desire to press the question left 
 me. 
 
 " Do you read ? " she asked abruptly. She 
 fingered a heap of paper volumes. Memoirs of 
 the Inquisition, Life of Napoleon, of Catherine 
 of Russia, of Sforza, of Marat, I read those 
 names quickly among many others. " I only care 
 for memoirs," she added. 
 
 "Of monsters, I see," I remarked rather 
 foolishly in a sudden longing to annoy this woman 
 and defy her empiry. 
 
 " So you consider the makers of true history 
 monsters," she answered with a shrug and contrac- 
 tion of her eyes. " How truly British-matronly ! 
 Only weakness I should have called a crime and 
 these people were strong. They knew what they 
 wanted and they held it while they could. I 
 will put the books away. Come, we have not 
 seen the bedrooms the nurseries." 
 
 I felt like a rag doll with the sawdust running 
 out. I had laid myself open to the snub and 
 received it broadside. I followed her sheepishly 
 up the stairs, resenting her every movement, but 
 
 128
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 powerless to curb a desire to know more of her. 
 She told one nothing, but gave pregnant impres- 
 sions, and the uncanny feeling she had aroused at 
 first sight grew in me to positive fear, while it 
 irritated me to think her, as I did, the centre of 
 mystery. The house was strangely quiet, there 
 were evidently no children, but she showed me 
 luxurious attics for mine with a supercilious air, as 
 if implying that women with children were rather 
 an encumbrance upon the face of the earth than 
 otherwise. Since my remark about the books 
 she did not deviate to general topics. All her 
 conversation was in the strict way of business. 
 The number of baths for the rooms, the nature 
 of the hot-water supply, the charge for possible 
 breakages. In quite unwarrantable fashion she 
 appeared to take my future occupancy for granted, 
 and I, enthralled by the perfect arrangement of 
 the house, went weakly after her almost like a 
 sleep-walker and found no ground of dispute. 
 
 At the end of the long passage on the second 
 floor, I saw the little maid who had rebuffed me 
 on my arrival. She stood on sentry outside a 
 door. 
 129 9
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 Mrs. Leonid approached her. " Go down, 
 Bessie," she said. 
 
 The girl swayed as she listened, but she did 
 not obey. 
 
 " Do you hear me, go down." 
 
 The slow voice seemed to cut the air like a 
 knife, and to reach the trembling figure on its 
 edge. Bessie winced and, bursting into sobs, 
 went, slipping past against the wall as if to avoid 
 a possible blow. 
 
 I thought that Mrs. Leonid would throw light 
 upon this incident, but she was silent about it, 
 and laid her grasp on the door-handle. 
 
 " There is a woman sleeping in here," she said, 
 after a pause ; " we shall not wake her. I think 
 you ought to see the room ; next to mine, it is 
 the best in the house." 
 
 We entered. The room was totally dark, and 
 a pungent smell of medicaments filled my nostrils 
 then a faint scent of violets. 
 
 For the space of a second Mrs. Leonid 
 switched on the light but in that second what 
 a revelation ! 
 
 On the bed raised upon a carpeted dais, lay a 
 
 130
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 figure covered by a big embroidered sheet. 
 Round the still lovely face radiant even in 
 death the long brown hair was spread ; the 
 hands were clasped upon the breast and one 
 great nosegay of violets lay between them. In 
 a flash I recognised the original of the picture 
 in Mr. Leonid's study. Sleeping God! No! 
 She was dead dead. The shadows round 
 the eyes, the awful stillness of the form told 
 their tale ; for the sleeping in this world there 
 would be no more waking. 
 
 " Mrs. Leonid," I said, breathing heavily as 
 the darkness fell upon us, " Mrs. Leonid," I 
 repeated the utter futility of giving informa- 
 tion to this woman struck me as I gave it " she 
 is no longer sleeping ; don't you know that girl is 
 dead ? " 
 
 By this time we were half-way down the pas- 
 sage. She stopped in surprise, and looked at me 
 over her shoulder. 
 
 " That room would do for your husband," she 
 observed in a tone of consideration. " It has a 
 south aspect. It might need repapering we 
 would consider the possibility."
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 Whether I were walking on earth or on air, 
 seemed of small moment. Everything seemed 
 to rock round me ; the confusion of my ideas 
 was unspeakable. We had reached the hall again 
 and she waited. It was evident that she intended 
 me to go. Undoubtedly I had seen all that was 
 of concern for a house-hunter. But with my pulses 
 beating at fever rate I threw manners to the wind. 
 
 Was there no explanation possible ? Out of 
 my brief experiences in this house, I had built up 
 an overwhelming necessity for explanation and I 
 would not, so far as human determination went, 
 be baulked of it now. And yet, who or what 
 could give me an explanation ; the whole situa- 
 tion as far as I was involved, was incongruous. 
 I had no business in this house at such a time, I 
 had no right to be told its intimate history, and 
 positively the sooner I went out of it the better ; 
 but, in a frame of mind of almost frantic supersti- 
 tion, so persuaded was I of fresh developments, I 
 still delayed. 
 
 With uncertain voice I plunged into the com- 
 monplace. " I think I must have left my hand- 
 kerchief in the drawing-room." 
 
 133
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 "If I find it where shall I send it?" Mrs. 
 Leonid asked steadily. 
 
 For all reply I pushed open the drawing-room 
 door, and this time she followed me. 
 
 A man was on the hearth ; he had thrown his 
 hat and umbrella carelessly upon the delicate 
 silk of an arm-chair, and was pacing to and 
 fro. 
 
 " Mr. Leonid," I told myself, and heaved 
 a sigh of relief. 
 
 He looked past me as if I had no existence, 
 straight at his wife. 
 
 " How is she ? tell me at once. I 'd no idea 
 she was so ill I 've torn home, but the fastest 
 is the slowest now. How is she?" his voice 
 was quite hoarse with emotion. 
 
 Swiftly, as a man when a shot has been fired 
 turns his telescope towards the mark, I looked at 
 Mrs. Leonid. I drank in the wave of fury, call 
 it by no weaker word, upon her face. 
 
 " I thought you had left the office extraordi- 
 narily early," she said, ignoring altogether his 
 question. " Cyprian, this lady has come to see 
 the house she will be a probable tenant is 
 133
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 there anything in particular you wish me to say 
 to her ? " 
 
 If she intended this as an introduction, it failed 
 signally in its purpose. Mr. Leonid took no 
 more notice of me than if I had been announced 
 as a new chiffonier from Mellier. He strode 
 towards his wife and his hand brushing his 
 moustache trembled. I could see the sweat- 
 drops upon his brow, and, by the strained position 
 of his lithe figure, all the agony of his impatience 
 and endeavour at control in their struggle. 
 
 How young he was ! Probably not more than 
 two or three and thirty. His face was most 
 refined, the pose of his head distinguished, but 
 all the passion of which human nature is capable 
 surged in his blue eyes. 
 
 "How is she?" he repeated. "I insist 
 tell me." 
 
 " She is very ill," came the sullen answer at last. 
 " Really, Cyprian, your ways are remarkable." 
 
 "Very ill," he repeated slowly helplessly. 
 " I thought it was merely a cold very ill and I 
 was not told." Then his anger burst out. " How 
 dare you ? " he exclaimed ; " how dare you ? " 
 
 134
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 If Mrs. Leonid had been a different woman 
 she would have implored me to go before the 
 crucial moment, the moment when either she or 
 I would have to state the truth. It was obvious 
 she would have been glad to be rid of my 
 presence. The suavity with which she talked of 
 me was forced, but her self-command was great. 
 The ultimate victory was so indisputably hers, that 
 a little restraint now would be to her advantage. 
 
 She faced her husband with an impassiveness 
 which, with my knowledge, I positively admired. 
 The formality of her words and speech became 
 exaggerated. 
 
 " Cyprian, I must ask you before this lady goes 
 to attend to business." 
 
 Attend to business ! Rather and whole- 
 heartedly he would have killed her. There 
 was not the breadth of the silk rug between the 
 tall standing figures. 
 
 " I won't be put off," he went on doggedly ; 
 "understand that. You have lied to me enough. 
 I would go to her instantly except that I might 
 do her harm. I 'd rather suffer anything than 
 do that." 
 135
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 "Oh, Leonidas," I thought, with a dreadful 
 pity at my heart, " oh, Leonidas, you are fighting 
 awful odds." 
 
 There was a gleam in Mrs. Leonid's eye 
 there, and gone again instantly. 
 
 " She is sleeping," was all she said. 
 
 " Sleeping then she is better " The gasp 
 of relief that he gave was pathetic. "Why 
 could n't you tell me before ? I shan't leave 
 the house when she wakes I shall be ready." 
 He fell back on the sofa as if he had been sud- 
 denly released from the rack : the torture of the 
 last few minutes had distorted his handsome face 
 strangely. He became in reaction almost irritable 
 looked at his watch, bit his nails, frowned at 
 me as if he wished me gone, and yet, when I made 
 a movement with my foot, half deciding to rise, 
 gave an involuntary start of apprehension as if he 
 would have me stay. 
 
 Mrs. Leonid took a paper from a drawer and 
 approached me. 
 
 "You will find here everything about the 
 house terms furniture, &c. Perhaps to- 
 morrow you could let me have some sort of 
 
 136
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 answer. A good many people are after it, but 
 I should like to give you the refusal. I don't 
 think this evening " she broke off and the 
 hesitation implied absolute dismissal. 
 
 There was nothing for it but to go. As I 
 moved, Mr. Leonid said to her, " Have you 
 booked places straight through to Verona?" 
 
 " Yes, but for Tuesday, not Monday." 
 
 " Why not Monday ? You had better go 
 Monday." 
 
 " And you ? " 
 
 " I never intended to go Monday. I shall not 
 go if Eva is ill. I don't stir till she is well 
 when she can come with us." 
 
 " Ah ! " The exclamation was so peculiar that 
 for the fraction of a second I shut my eyes. I 
 had an idea that when I reopened them Mrs. 
 Leonid, like some deadly panther, would have 
 sprung upon him. 
 
 " Eva will not go with us," I heard her say 
 and her tone had become monotonous again. 
 " We shall go together, you and I, and see all 
 the countries of the world if you like before we 
 come back but we are going alone." 
 137
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 " I '11 see to that," he answered roughly ; " if I 
 do not choose even now to let this house, I shan't." 
 
 " If you don't choose," her lip curled. 
 
 All this time I was standing waiting to take 
 my leave. Two women looked down upon this 
 young man with such different sentiments. I 
 saw the yawning abyss before him, and Mrs. 
 Leonid driving him slowly to the edge of it 
 every tick of the clock hastened his doom ; of 
 what avail his recalcitrant words? 
 
 " Come," he said, leaping up at last, " I am 
 going to her; I have never disturbed her yet, 
 why should I now ? Her fever must be better if 
 she sleeps, and the crisis must be past. Thank 
 God I have the nursing of her back to strength." 
 
 He went to the door. Mrs. Leonid looked 
 after him, but made no movement to check him. 
 Was it possible that she would let him go to dis- 
 covery without a warning? It certainly seemed 
 so. He had almost left us when for the first 
 time he recollected my presence and spoke to me 
 with boyish embarrassment in his apology. I 
 think he read some sort of understanding in my 
 eyes. 
 
 138
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 " I 'm awfully sorry to have been so rude ; 
 you see I was quite upset such a horrible thing 
 to have Eva ill congestion of the lungs, and 
 they never told me." 
 
 " Who is Eva ? " I interrupted boldly. 
 
 " Eva ? " the light that flashed into his face 
 as he prepared for explanation made it positively 
 beautiful. "She is my niece Mrs. Leonid's 
 niece, I mean. She is the most lovely thing in 
 the world ; too good for it, though, and much too 
 good for the next. She is a sort of person that 
 all unhappy people should be able just to look 
 at, not too closely for fear they might hurt her." 
 He laughed a little candid laugh and then grew 
 grave again. " Fancy, for three whole days I 
 have not seen her, and she has suffered," he added 
 appealingly. " I could only send her violets to 
 show her where my thoughts stayed." 
 
 " She holds your violets," I said. 
 
 He gave a start. 
 
 " Does she, how do you know ? " 
 
 " I have seen her," I answered. 
 
 He threw his glance back to Mrs. Leonid with 
 angry surprise. 
 139
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 " So strangers are allowed where I am shut 
 out. Can you explain ? " 
 
 "Everything." Her voice deepened in her 
 wrath till it really resounded through the room. 
 " Everything ! If strangers are allowed to break 
 in upon our private affairs, well and good, let us 
 keep nothing back. You said that Eva was your 
 niece mine if you like but for Providence 
 she would have been something more to me, 
 and to you. She died to-day at twelve." 
 
 There are moments in life that pass, like the 
 scorching of lightning upon the tree, over the soul 
 of man. The instant comes and goes and may 
 not be stored by description. The fishwife who 
 learns after the night's storm that her sons have 
 been swept into the vortex of the ocean ; the 
 girl who is told on the eve of her wedding-day 
 that her lover has been killed by a simple street 
 accident; the man mounting the steps of the 
 scaffold will understand what I mean. They are, 
 so to speak, moments beyond human endurance 
 yet endured. 
 
 Such a moment had come to my poor Leoni- 
 das. In Mrs. Leonid's opinion he had stood 
 
 140
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 with his back to the wall long enough he was 
 even reckoning on escape and she struck him 
 to the earth. 
 
 I never remember anything so ghastly as the 
 silence that followed her words. If only he had 
 cried out and raved as a young man in such 
 suffering might rave ; but no, he stood stock 
 still and the features of his face under a sort of 
 ashen hue appeared blurred ; of his eyes I saw 
 nothing but the dark sockets. 
 
 And the woman went on talking in spite of it 
 all ; no longer angrily, now she had delivered the 
 blow, but sententiously stupidly. 
 
 " I would have broken the truth to you more 
 carefully, but this lady appears to take a vast 
 interest in other people's business; her house- 
 hunting should be rather an amusing occupation. 
 Eva was unconscious, she would not have known 
 you ; she died without pain," and while she gab- 
 bled I watched him. " The funeral will be on 
 Monday. Then on Tuesday we will start; it will 
 be the very best thing in the world for you, the 
 very best." 
 
 She ceased and I heard the utterance of quaver- 
 141
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 ing, husky words such as might be spoken by a 
 senile old man. "They 're lying to me lying 
 
 lying " and he, moaning like an animal in 
 pain, slid back from the door against the wall. 
 With all the significance in the world Mrs. Leonid 
 took his place and opened the door for me. 
 
 And, coward that I was, I was thankful to go 
 now quickly from this hateful house, about 
 which she would ask me no more questions nor 
 expect any, I knew well. 
 
 If only once I could have gone up to Cyprian 
 Leonid and taken his head to my breast like a 
 mother and kissed him for Eva's sake, how glad 
 I should have been. As I went out he turned his 
 eyes, grown luminous again and full of an ineffable 
 sorrow, upon me. In the ha^l I heard her repeat 
 
 drawl the words without a quiver of emotion : 
 " Don't stand there, you had better sit down. 
 
 Let us go over the route now, it will distract 
 your thoughts ; " and he answered her, this time 
 in a tone grown horribly mechanical, " Yes," 
 and again " yes." 
 
 My hansom had been waiting an hour. As we 
 drove off, I saw that the light in the Venetian 
 
 142
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 lamp was extinguished, and the doorway in com- 
 plete shadow ; the raven knocker was not to be 
 seen. It suited my mood to believe it hopping 
 beside me as I went ; faster and faster, a real bird 
 of ill-omen, croaking cruel mandates. 
 
 Of course I had had no explanation really; 
 nobody had told me why Mr. and Mrs. Leonid 
 were man and wife, why that strange hard woman 
 had thrown a glamour over his young personality. 
 " Glamour ? " What a surmise ! I flung it from 
 me ; she was a demon, a vampire ; my unortho- 
 dox soul shrank from the union with fierce 
 protest. Yet there it was existent unchang- 
 ing the thing that has to be. 
 
 How well I could picture those travellers ; he 
 bowed in figure aged = asking at first from 
 every rose-garden and lemon-grove and poppied 
 field blessed memories, and she driving him ever 
 on with matter-of-fact words and intelligent syn- 
 opses of historical fact, drugging him with con- 
 stant cold change till she had bound him hand 
 and foot, altogether submissive to her conventions, 
 leading him blindfold, the only friend, Azrael, that 
 he would ever smile to see again and greet. 
 143
 
 MRS. LEONID 
 
 As we emerged from Kensington, the clock on 
 the barracks indicated five. " So one hour of 
 tragedy," I said, " and all life appears of different 
 complexion." But I felt that the normal would 
 be reclaiming, before long, its hold upon my con- 
 stitution, as indeed most successfully it has done. 
 I drove to Hay & Horner, and found the office 
 open, and the clerk still with the ledger in his 
 hand, dotting down fresh addresses. 
 
 I went up to him and threw his crumpled cards 
 upon the desk. 
 
 " One house is dirty the other hideous 
 the third " I hesitated a second, not for lack 
 of an epithet, but from a sudden feeling that to 
 this complacent clerk it would miss its point 
 " the third," I repeated lamely, " won't suit." 
 
 He readjusted his glasses with an air of sur- 
 prise, and consulted the ledger. 
 
 " No. 13 Pandora Terrace, that is ? You do 
 not like the house ? I am astonished ; it is beau- 
 tifully decorated, they tell me, and that must have 
 appealed to you. Mrs. Leonid is a lady of such 
 taste." 
 
 144
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 " Who knows what 's fit for us ? "...
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 i HE bacon fizzles; there are 
 possibilities in the scones ; 
 my eggs have not bust. 
 Wake up, Alban." 
 
 Joss Harvest spoke over 
 his shoulder as he moved 
 his hands actively about 
 the kitchen range. 
 
 " How it rains," his companion remarked from 
 the window-ledge. 
 
 "Yes, it's the deluge do be persuaded. I 
 have been cook, clerk, nurse to you these last few 
 days. I can't leave you in this exile come." 
 "No, Joss." 
 
 " Heavens ! what perversity ! " 
 Harvest emptied the fried eggs and bacon into 
 a Delft dish. 
 
 " Eat at least, and let 's have another argu- 
 ment." 
 
 Alban Broad smiled. He came towards the 
 food standing on the bare wooden table. The 
 young men sat together now in parley. 
 
 "If you would only believe me," declared Joss, 
 his mouth full, and entreaty in his honest blue
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 eyes, "there's no outlet for your genius here. 
 How can you rhapsodize on a clay soil in a 
 draughty farmhouse at this time of year? A 
 treatise on decaying agriculture may perhaps 
 result but a poem ! " 
 
 " Wrong. The back-water of things breed 
 inspirations; from my point of view this is a 
 back-water of no mean interest." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because of my strange lovers." 
 
 " Lovers ? There are lovers all the world 
 over." 
 
 " Ah, but there 's a purpose about mine that 
 asks to be immortalised." 
 
 " Nonsense, you 're pale as a ghost ; you 've 
 overworked your strength and let that cursed 
 imagination get the better of you. Do you sup- 
 pose any one would recollect you as the champion 
 swimmer of Summertown, as the tinder-box of 
 New ? To get off the line of life as you 're doing 
 spells disaster." 
 
 "You exaggerate," said Alban, a shadow on 
 his eyes ; " but of course to you, with your con- 
 ventional ideas, my action seems extraordinary." 
 
 148
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 "It seems to me simply waste of time and 
 talent, old chap." 
 
 " Something grows," came the retort, " some- 
 thing indefinable. Besides, the place holds a 
 charm. The sun shines on occasions, you 
 know." 
 
 He gave a little gesture towards the homely 
 walls of the kitchen, where they breakfasted, to 
 the rain-streaked diamond panes, and laughed. 
 
 Joss Harvest leant on his elbows moodily. 
 He resented his lack of influence with his life- 
 long friend, but curiosity stirred as to the force 
 that withstood him. They had been boys to- 
 gether, later college comrades, till the parting of 
 the ways took Harvest to the City and sent Alban, 
 with an adequate income assured, afloat on the tide 
 of independence. He had always borne, through 
 the twenty-three years of his life, the stamp of a 
 certain genius, but so sanely, so placidly, a future 
 of action had seemed before him, offering the 
 artistic soul of the actor the greater possibilities ; 
 and now 
 
 " What keeps you here, tell me then ? " Har- 
 vest, at this point of reflection, began again. 
 149
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 Alban pushed back his plate, and flung, on an 
 impulse, the window wide. " How can one 
 explain by explaining ? I 'm enamoured of my 
 world out here, and that 's about all." 
 
 As in close proximity they looked out together, 
 the fast-falling rain, blown inward by a strong 
 westerly wind, stung the faces of the young men ; 
 Alban's, dark, clean-cut, eager, his lower lip mov- 
 ing nervously between his teeth ; Joss's, round, 
 weather-beaten, anxious, his hand tugging at a 
 fair moustache, his blue eyes contracted. 
 
 The whole landscape before them lay in mist. 
 A slight rising of ground towards the horizon, 
 otherwise a perfect flatness of dull brown and 
 early green. The second week of April had yet 
 to run, the spring was late. Between the level, 
 unhedged fields a river coursed, swollen now, and 
 overflowing its banks, and casting a light of tur- 
 bulent water over the monotony of the land. 
 Through the dampness of eyelash they peered 
 beyond, and another farm near the river could be 
 seen, beside it a mass of foam beneath the mill- 
 wheel, and a group of stunted, still, leafless fruit- 
 trees. A road led onward, speaking of distant 
 
 150
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 habitations to be reached, the only touch of hope 
 in the desolation of the moment. 
 
 Joss, gazing along this road, made an involun- 
 tary movement in sudden hatred of the outlook. 
 
 " To get away ! " he cried. " I have n't got 
 your soul." 
 
 " One wants an emergency one to-day," he was 
 answered apologetically. 
 
 " Tell me, all the same," insisted Harvest, with 
 an effort, " what there is about your lovers." 
 
 " Do you really want to know ? Here *s the 
 fly coming your time is getting short." 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " She lives in that farm, and he in the town. 
 In body and spirit they are alien to these parts. 
 It seems as if some one had brought her here from 
 another planet, and the man had followed as a 
 matter of course. They dance into verse after a 
 single glance." 
 
 " 1 see," gibed Joss ; " middle-class accidents 
 a village Hampden with his Maid of Athens. 
 I prefer the two ends of the pole, the primitive 
 animal, or the refinement of the civilized 
 machine."
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 " If only you could see them," Alban cried, 
 warming to his subject; "they're wonderful." 
 
 "In beauty and in love, I suppose ; like the mil- 
 lion after all. In what else are they wonderful ? " 
 
 " You may ask. They see, they aspire do 
 the million do that? Their passion is in their 
 very finger-tips but their souls won't have it. 
 With all their pulses beating, they 've chained 
 themselves to the stars." 
 
 Joss made a slight grimace. 
 
 " Don't tell me that you 're slipping into the 
 swaddling-clothes of the anti-socials. You know 
 as well as I do how that will end. Illicit love has 
 really had its turn in literature." 
 
 " There is no illicit love here." 
 
 " Not yet perhaps, but there 's an end to be 
 reached." 
 
 " I feel as if the ending were in my hands," 
 said Alban, doggedly. 
 
 " Then, for God's sake, force on the old-fash- 
 ioned denouement; burn their pamphlets while 
 they wander at sunset, drag her rational garments 
 I 'm sure she wears 'em under the mill wheels, 
 finish off your last canto in the old, old way, and 
 
 152
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 come back to me for a good drubbing. You 
 must n't get decadent, old chap." 
 
 Joss spoke with an eloquence foreign to his 
 slow tongue, but he had a quick wit, and the 
 madness in the situation which excited his 
 friend's fancy annoyed him. 
 
 But Alban, watching through the window, 
 whispered excitedly 
 
 " Here they are, down by the wicket. Come 
 and look at them." 
 
 At the end of the little brown garden, undis- 
 turbed by the drenching rain, a man and a girl 
 stood. They had stopped in their walk to watch 
 the swollen river surging up almost to their feet. 
 The girl had her face turned in profile. A soft 
 green hunter's tam-o'-shanter was drawn over her 
 brow, a long cloak covered her to her heels, but 
 the line of neck and shoulder could be conceived 
 as supremely graceful. 
 
 " She reminds me of La Mola," and Joss 
 recalled in thought his one meeting with the Span- 
 ish dancer, when men talked of her as the splen- 
 dour of the day ; to his friend he remarked with 
 purposeful consistency : 
 153
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 " She 's not my sort." 
 
 " And him look at him, then." 
 
 The young man faced them. He wore a dark 
 sailor's beret; his soft collar of blue linen was 
 unharmed by the damp. His serge ready-made 
 coat and cycling breeches could not detract for 
 an instant from the athletic grace of his form. 
 The fire in his eyes as he spoke to her, gave great 
 vivacity to his face. Later, Harvest's glance 
 wandered to the almost girlish clearness of com- 
 plexion, to the soft moulding of his open lips. 
 
 " You say he is a printer in Corleston. There 
 is no accounting for the soil where these things 
 grow. If he had been a hunchback, a cripple, I 
 might have believed in his pure soul ; the exist- 
 ing combination is fantastic and unnatural." 
 
 " Ah, I thought I 'd make your prejudices 
 tremble. Are n't they made for the thing that 
 binds men low, and is n't it superb that they 're 
 determined on angel wings here ; does n't their 
 mastery of themselves deserve to be immor- 
 talised ? " 
 
 Joss laughed; recovering from his surprise he 
 regained his role of denunciator. 
 
 154
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 " It 's all very well ; for the mere fact of their 
 birth I allow they are remarkable to look at, 
 but of the seriousness of their resolves, what 
 makes you sure of it ? Their telling you is no 
 criterion." 
 
 " They 've told me nothing, we greet each 
 other sometimes, that's all. In search for sym- 
 pathy they dare n't risk disappointment. They 
 must give the Philistine the go-by. Their walls 
 are not impregnable, alas ! " 
 
 " Why should you be allowed to scale 'em, 
 then ? " 
 
 " Seriously, I 'm brought into touch with them 
 only in so far as anybody who, watching con- 
 tinually, weaves coherence from coincidence. 
 They amaze me. Sometimes, in the forest, 
 it's true I follow them, I hear them talking " 
 
 " Look here, old chap," remarked Joss, " I 
 can't say I like you as eavesdropper." 
 
 Alban reddened. 
 
 " I suppose you 'd order me to play the school- 
 master and bully-rag them with good advice 
 tell them to have their banns read and give them 
 a homily on family life." 
 155
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 "Well, what would happen to the world if we 
 all fixed on the same resolve ? " 
 
 " I think the world would look up a bit," he 
 was answered. 
 
 Joss snorted. 
 
 " Your lovers are fit enough to marry in all 
 conscience. Tell them to take their best chance. 
 To-morrow soon enough they '11 grow old 
 and bored, crying out for the waste of years. 
 Besides, are n't they afraid of the parents what 
 the people about here will say ? " 
 
 " What the people about here will say," Alban 
 fixed his dreamy gaze on three fat geese in the 
 meadow, the only sign of life, now that the lovers 
 had moved away, " What people ? The cow-herd ? 
 The farmer ? They live in another sphere. The 
 parents do not want the girl to marry they are 
 accustomed to young people f walking out.' Mary 
 is their pride what questions should they ask ? 
 No, I wait for a larger test than what people will say." 
 
 "But you yourself," implored Joss. 
 
 "As a man I gauge them sanely, that's the 
 worst of it, but as a poet, no. They summon 
 to my imagination all those voices of mystery 
 
 156
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 which keep one alive. I think through them. 
 Even if I fail to do them justice in verse, I shall 
 reach nearer to my own possibilities." 
 
 There was a rumble in the farmyard, and the 
 expected fly rattled in. 
 
 "You know," Joss threw a last word as he 
 went out to it, " that those are the creatures who 
 commit suicide hand in hand. Romeo and 
 Juliet were well enough ; they 'd lived a little ; 
 but new fashions of the same thing are nasty." 
 
 "If they commit suicide," Alban followed with 
 a laugh, " they will have pronounced their creed 
 a failure. I shall return to London after the 
 funeral, and spend my declining years between 
 St. James's Street and Monte Carlo. Mean- 
 while you can tell Roscut and the rest of the 
 chaps at White's that I 'm travelling. If this 
 production of mine fails I don't want them to 
 think me a complete ass." 
 
 "Of course." Joss was relieved by this first 
 sign of downright common-sense and convention- 
 ality in his friend. " But come back to us soon." 
 He turned suddenly. "You can't think how I 
 hate leaving you for my office." 
 157
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 "And I hate to lose you." Alban laid his 
 hand affectionately in his friend's. 
 
 He stood for some time bareheaded between 
 the milk-pans on the stone threshold of the house 
 and watched the labouring of the fly up the muddy 
 road. He almost wished that it contained a 
 woman, for then there would have been that 
 signal, the flutter of a handkerchief in the 
 distance. 
 
 He turned into the kitchen at last and shut the 
 door. He took the little book from his pocket, 
 the pages covered with close writing, and read the 
 glowing lines, the rapt imaginings which interest in 
 these lovers had inspired. Yet loneliness and 
 depression seemed suddenly to fall upon him. 
 After all, what he had been telling Joss he in- 
 tended to do, would he ever carry it out ? Had 
 he the genius to make a success in verse of what 
 in all probability would be in fact a mere decay 
 of enthusiasm and effort into failure. Six months 
 these lovers had been walking on air, clinging to 
 their unique resolve, to love as the angels love, 
 without human desire or human ceremony. If 
 they would only go away, if they would only 
 
 158
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 remove themselves from under his eyes, he could 
 trust himself to invent, he would force himself 
 to believe in their good faith to the end, and 
 inscribe it in dazzling words. But while they 
 stayed he must stay, he must watch them fulfil 
 themselves, and soon of that he was persuaded 
 they would have to fly to action of some sort, 
 or know their ideal perishable. 
 
 Alban soliloquised standing by the hearth, but 
 he was entirely restless. His cap and mackintosh 
 hung upon a hook on the door ; he took both 
 down and put them on. 
 
 "Caesar, how it rains!" he exclaimed again, 
 " but I must go out and move along." 
 . The garden was patched with a series of pud- 
 dles. The heavy clay-soil clung to his boots as 
 he walked and followed the way of the lovers. 
 They were diminutive forms in the distance now. 
 The path on the river-bank had long since been 
 obliterated by the rising waters, and he ploughed 
 through meadow-land saturated and disagreeable. 
 
 At the gate of the other farm stood Mary's 
 father, a handsome, well-sized yeoman ; within 
 the house, bending to menial work with corpulent 
 159
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 content, Mary's mother. Alban approached the 
 farmer. 
 
 "Terrible weather these days," he said. 
 
 " Ay, sir, it means mischief. Do you hear the 
 roaring waters ? I'm afraid for my dam." 
 
 " Can you do nothing to strengthen it ? " he said. 
 
 "Nought now just trust in Providence for 
 this night. The rain may cease otherwise " 
 he checked himself, there was a look of fear in 
 his eyes. 
 
 Alban swept the sky with a glance, the heavier 
 clouds were sailing across, there was a general 
 lifting upon the horizon. 
 
 " Ah," said he, " it will soon be over a sunny 
 evening." In spite of the farmer's fatalism his 
 spirits rose. 
 
 But all through the day the rain still fell, the 
 wind blew, sighing in the chimney, whistling 
 through cracks and crevices, till towards night 
 there was a lull. In his evening walk once more 
 he met the lovers. When they came face to face 
 with him their eyes were sparkling. She was 
 looking at her man, but he was looking onwards. 
 ' Alban looked at Jasper also. 
 
 160
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 "That mouth," he thought, "would be a 
 painter's joy, but it is not what I want. He 
 must square his jaw for his task. I declare I will 
 speak to them of their purpose, test their mettle for 
 once; it should send me to work till midnight." 
 ' " Good evening," he said ; " we meet often." 
 
 " Yes, sir." Jasper raised his hat. 
 
 " You are lovers," Alban ventured boldly. 
 
 " Comrades." 
 
 The answer fell from her lips clearly. 
 
 " That means more, does n't it, between men 
 and women ? Will you tell me how much more 
 if you love ?" 
 
 " Oh, we love." 
 
 They glanced at each other ; a perfect compre- 
 hension adorned their smile. 
 
 " Do you know," said Alban, " that I have a 
 confession to make. One day, down in the forest 
 of Mall, where we find equal pleasure to stroll since 
 the snow melted, I listened to your resolvings." 
 
 They flushed simultaneously, but holding each 
 other's hands there crept into their attitude a 
 certain pride. 
 
 "We have no secret." 
 161 ii
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 " It should not be a secret," replied Alban 
 gravely ; " you would make a gospel many 
 want a new one." 
 
 " A new one ? No, to explain the truth of 
 the old." Mary spoke again, and as if from a 
 familiar book. 
 
 " But nature," Alban paused. 
 
 She looked at him with a certain dread. 
 
 " Don't remind us," she said ; " all things can 
 be subdued, even nature." 
 
 " Glorious ! You who have so indubitably 
 drunk from her breasts, how will she repay such 
 traitors? How are you going to dissolve the 
 trinity ? Love without pain and joy is nothing." 
 
 " We have joy," she answered. 
 
 " We have not lost pain," said Jasper in a low 
 voice. 
 
 Alban was struck by the inflection of anxiety. 
 He turned upon the man, and for the fraction of 
 a second seized from his handsome face and 
 mentally engraved an expression of distraction. 
 It passed, and the features resumed the exultant 
 cast of a Standard Bearer, mating in glow with 
 Mary's brilliant face. 
 
 162
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 Yet Alban repeated to himself, " Good, the 
 action hastens ; " then he turned, impelled to 
 silent listening by the noise of the river. 
 
 " The waters are threatening, sir," Jasper had 
 the same impression " God grant that the dam 
 hold." 
 
 " With reverence I echo." Alban raised his 
 hat. " This afternoon I saw one magpie." 
 
 " And we a butterfly," smiled Mary, innocent 
 of the superstition attached to his remark. 
 
 " But that was fortune it took you for the 
 summer." 
 
 " We lost it," said Jasper. " Mary would 
 have kept it warm among the window-pots, but it 
 fluttered away somewhere." 
 
 " Kept warm among the window-pots, and it 
 would not? After all, the butterfly would not, 
 you will not, and I will not. We are in an 
 insecure position all round. Do you think destiny 
 when she catches us will send us to her truant- 
 school ? May she be merciful, so that you, I, 
 and the butterfly may in durance vile come to- 
 gether again." 
 
 But they hardly followed his quaint philoso- 
 163
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 phies, their train of thought was in a measure 
 simple, their road was broad and lightly peopled, 
 they had no use for sophistries, for tangled by- 
 ways ; at least the girl had not, but Jasper had 
 felt weaknesses which to her were unknown. 
 Her lofty gaze was unclouded; in his, indicating 
 trouble, were reserves. Reserves, inexplicable to 
 himself, and hidden from her because of her 
 perfect faith and innocence, and consequent per- 
 ceptive limitations, but in their nature and origin 
 clear as day to the penetration of the poet. 
 
 He watched them both intently. The young 
 tree of knowledge, he knew, bent and swayed 
 beneath the weight of this Adam and Eve of a 
 new century ; it had no root. Their fate was so 
 unquestionable ; yet he returned to his first curi- 
 osity at the moment of meeting. He could not 
 let them escape yet. He lit a cigarette, still 
 standing in their path. 
 
 "Then you are lovers," he reiterated; "com- 
 rades, rather. You have between you the utmost 
 share of human beauty and human affection, that 
 goes without saying. What then ? You marry ? " 
 
 " Marry ? Why should we ? " She flung the 
 
 164
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 ardent reply to him. <c We cannot love more. 
 We are going soon to the cities to work." 
 
 "Ah, to work." 
 
 " Truly ; people must work who love as Jas- 
 per and I love." 
 
 It was quaint reasoning. " As Jasper and I 
 love." The words, in their pathetic simplicity, 
 haunted Alban. Women who spoke like that 
 were bound to suffer, and men who know they 
 are so loved must lose their strength. He knew 
 already that the strength of the man was ebbing, 
 that when he unharnessed from the stars she 
 would have tragic disillusions ; now she was per- 
 fect. How great, his heart declared, are innocent 
 women. Then he reverted to her cry for work ; 
 what work could there be for souls like these in 
 a world as it is ? He dared not ask her to ex- 
 plain about work or great cities. He shrank 
 from any hesitation of reply. Her certainty of 
 statement held such charm. Shyly they stood 
 before him, she still with her lover's long-fingered 
 hand in her short strong one. 
 
 " And when you grow old ? " asked Alban, 
 involuntarily. The idea of this rose vividly. 
 165
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 " We shall die," she answered, " perhaps to- 
 gether." 
 
 She said it so gaily, so fearlessly, that the in- 
 quisitive faded from Alban's intention ; he relin- 
 quished enquiry altogether. Why should he 
 interrogate them as to their conception of worlds, 
 of the propagation of the species, of race instinct ? 
 What had they in common with such things ? 
 His eyes were hot with sudden tears. He de- 
 manded that this picture should fade even now ; 
 the colours were too delicate to stand another 
 touch from the brush of time ; the slightest turn 
 of fortune, and it would become a daub. 
 
 He moved from them to hide his emotion. 
 
 " Good night," he said, turning on his heel. 
 " Since we have been talking the sun has deigned 
 to set ; it has thrown a bar of gold into the hor- 
 rible greyness. If my wishes could make the sun 
 rise next to continued happiness and unfaltering 
 endeavour for you, you have those wishes. I am 
 here, you know, hiring this farm, and living with- 
 out much purpose. We may meet again 
 good night." 
 
 He went back to his work, writing by candle- 
 
 166
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 light late. His thoughts tumbled upon paper in 
 a sudden frenzy of inspiration ; with the roar of 
 the river in his ears, he wrote as if against time, 
 like a man with a last chance. 
 
 " It reads more like an elegy than anything 
 else," he said to himself, moving up the creaking 
 stairs at midnight to bed. 
 
 Two hours later he was awakened by the hurry 
 and loud voice of a bearer of bad news. 
 
 " What is it ? " he said, sleepily. 
 
 " The dam 's burst that 's what 't is. Far- 
 mer 'Olroyd's farm's swept off; the tide 's tur- 
 rible." The ploughman stood there gasping, his 
 ill-shapen hat still on his head, and the water 
 dripping down the edge of his corduroy trousers 
 over his clogs to the floor. 
 
 Alban, to check loquacity, flung himself from 
 the bed, and into his clothes. 
 
 " I 'm coming," he said. 
 
 All his manhood was aroused to excitement by 
 this crisis. He felt with strong dramatic instinct 
 that an hour pregnant with incident was dawning 
 for him, that analytical thought would be swept 
 away by sound action. The news was not unex- 
 167
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 pected. The possibility of such a fate had hung 
 before many during the interminable rainfall, 
 only luck more often than not saved situations 
 ripe for disaster, but not this time. That the 
 catastrophe should have come with malice in the 
 dead of night was to him of small moment, so 
 long as he could seize, from personal contact with 
 it, fresh experience. There would be a pale -moon 
 between the angry clouds to light the anxious 
 scene. He left the slow-tongued labourer un- 
 questioned, and they went out. 
 
 As he had guessed, there was a watery moon 
 and a cessation of the rain. 
 
 As far as eye could reach, one tremendous 
 sheet of water swept on its course ; not placidly, 
 as floods sweep over fields, but pouring onwards 
 with wrathful violence, like a captured sea re- 
 leased. The district had always seemed lonely, 
 but as vultures to carrion or flies to flowers, out 
 of nowhere apparently, drawn irresistibly by the 
 fast-travelling news of disaster, a crowd had 
 gathered. 
 
 A crowd, not merely the impotent watchers of 
 the destruction of wood and stone, of the sweep- 
 
 168
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 ing away of human handiwork by the angry 
 forces of nature, but a whispering, anxious crowd, 
 moving with varying gestures, as if it held knowl- 
 edge of grave importance. 
 
 " Are all safe ? " asked Alban of the man near- 
 est him. 
 
 " The boat carried the farmer and his wife and 
 the farm girls, but the daughter would not come. 
 She was waiting for some one, she said; you can 
 see her yet." 
 
 And truly upon the shapeless accumulations 
 round the roof that still showed above the waters, 
 there was evidently a figure. 
 
 " What did she wait for ? " 
 
 " For her lover, some say Jasper Stansted 
 fool's play, I call it," his informant grunted. 
 
 " But he 's come, he 's fetching her surely he 
 has gone to the rescue ? " 
 
 Alban's voice was eager, his heart beat violently. 
 Fierce desire for physical effort in this danger 
 seized him. By heavens, if her lover did not 
 save her soon, at any risk, he must. What were 
 these people thinking of? 
 
 His eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light, 
 169
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 to the whiteness of the faces in it, to the ugly things 
 that swept by him in curls of foam and spume 
 dead horses and calves amidst the beams of wood, 
 and pans and troughs and garden-rails all sliding 
 on too fast in a surging torrent for even the nim- 
 blest hand to clutch. Heavens, it might be her 
 body soon, for on this cold night her strength could 
 not last forever : she must be reached quickly and 
 brought to safety. There should not be much 
 difficulty in it. Where was Jasper ? Struggling 
 somewhere, probably, to approach his love. 
 
 " The boat ! Where 's that boat ? " And there 
 came to his enquiry, almost at his elbow, a man's 
 sobbing answer. 
 
 " The boat, they can't reach her with the boat." 
 
 " Then how ? " 
 
 " By swimming there 's a small channel left. 
 A rope from the boat and a strong swimmer 
 could do it, they tell me." 
 
 " And you, Jasper Stansted ? " 
 
 " I cannot swim," he groaned, and stretched 
 out his arms across the water. 
 
 A curious contempt for the man possessed 
 Alban for a period. Again he was the dissector. 
 
 170
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 He could have written fine lines as he inflicted his 
 torture. 
 
 " But with the boat you could get near, quite 
 near, indeed. You could step across the rubbish 
 with the help of the rope ; there is at least a 
 chance the boatman may have been deceived." 
 
 Jasper was crying like a child. 
 
 " It 's no use, but I want her ! My God, I want 
 her. She must live she 's got to live," he be- 
 sought ; " save her for me ! " 
 
 " Ah, you would have been greater if you had 
 died both of you," Alban answered between his 
 teeth. 
 
 But instantly his natural manliness reasserted it- 
 self, and drove his meaner genius to the background. 
 
 " Listen," he went on, feeling that he was 
 judging hardly, but prompted by a sudden de- 
 sire to rid himself of the thing that had failed 
 him, " I have been waiting long to see the mean- 
 ing of your dream : now I don't mind risking 
 my life to celebrate your awakening. I said I 'd 
 immortalise you. How can I ? You 're like all 
 the rest, crushed at the first test." 
 
 And he swung round on his heel. 
 171
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 " Bring that boat here," he cried, " and be 
 quick about it." 
 
 The heavy punt, too full already of helpers, 
 came on slowly and nearer to him. 
 
 " Get out of that, we don't want overloading ; 
 one man the best rower and the coolest head 
 a coil of rope that's well." 
 
 Jasper crept after him with grateful words. 
 But Alban's voice sounded to him above the 
 roar of waters. 
 
 " Don't speak, don't say anything to me 
 now, I can't listen to you, but if I bring her 
 back, swear that you take her, as a man must 
 take a woman who loves him. There is nothing 
 worth exchanging for such love." It puzzled 
 him, as he said the words, that his inexperience 
 could find such positive assurance in them. Yet 
 he cried out again with stronger insistence. " Swear 
 that you will marry her, work for her, go down to 
 a future death by her, even as you wish to live by 
 her now swear." 
 
 Jasper echoed readily. 
 
 " I swear how gladly I swear." 
 
 Then hearing the tone of relief, the tone 
 
 172
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 without hesitation, eager for any oath that 
 might bring comfort, Alban laughed out, and 
 taking his little book from his pocket he flung it 
 into the stream. 
 
 " Now," he said, " shove off." 
 
 He took the second pair of oars. He swung 
 steadily against the strong waters till the sweat 
 poured down, the eyes of all the crowd upon 
 him. 
 
 His mind alternated between two thoughts ; the 
 moment just passed with the man, the moment 
 that was to come with the woman : that he 
 dreaded. Mary was so strong. He felt that 
 she would have no gladness, rather misery, in 
 the assurance of the compact ; if she believed his 
 disclosure, which was unlikely, she might then 
 and there fling herself into the water, preferring 
 to sacrifice herself to the nature she defied, rather 
 than yield to it. It would be better to wait till 
 he had gathered her to safety before he told her 
 much better, he decided. How good that this 
 struggle for her life should be allowed him, and 
 yet to what life would he return her. It was 
 absurd ; but for the moment he wished himself 
 173
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 the lover. Jasper would have no power to ex- 
 plain to her brave soul the true union of flesh 
 and spirit ; life with him would but accentuate the 
 cleavage. But at this moment the blood coursed 
 through his veins with an exultation which no 
 unrest, no scruples or fear could overpower. 
 Quite simply and naturally, without a suspicion 
 of undue pride, he felt that he had entered the 
 lists of everyday heroism, and, however covetous 
 his imagination for experience, he knew no future 
 moment could surpass in satisfaction the action 
 of the present. 
 
 He rowed on silently with his companion. 
 The water, with dark objects floating here and 
 there upon it, swirled round the boat; the line 
 of people on the banks had grown quite distant ; 
 a little further only, and their goal ! 
 
 There was no doubt about it, the boat could not 
 advance to within a hundred yards of the roof, 
 the lumber sweeping about in the eddies threat- 
 ened now to swamp it. The two rowers rested 
 on their oars and consulted. Mary could be 
 seen quite plainly ; she was crouching by the 
 chimney, the water rising round her feet. Alban 
 
 174
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 waved to her, and she answered him, but with a 
 halting movement, as if, as she waved, she won- 
 dered who could be waving to her, and hoped 
 against hope. 
 
 He surveyed the position quickly. 
 
 " I see a quiet channel there. Tie this rope 
 firmly round my waist," he directed, twisting it 
 as he spoke. " Can't you make a double knot, 
 man ; that 's a clumsy business, but I dare say it 
 will hold. Now pay it out as I jump in. With 
 the turns, I reckon the channel a hundred and 
 twenty yards. I leave you my coat. Are you 
 sure you can steady the boat here ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 Alban plunged overboard, and struck out 
 boldly. He needed caution and confidence, but 
 the expert swimming of school-days stood him in 
 good stead. He smiled as he moved, and his 
 teeth gleamed above the parting water. Every- 
 thing round him loomed so largely in the im- 
 perfect light. 
 
 " Alban among the icebergs," he said ; " verily 
 this water is as cold as the Arctic sea. If only 
 Joss could see me now ! "
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 Through all the intricacies of the stream he 
 reached her at last, and, dragging himself, dripping, 
 shivering, to her level, he held out his hand. 
 
 " I 've come to fetch you." 
 
 " Where is Jasper ? " In her tone there was a 
 whole world of disappointment. 
 
 " You see," he replied quizzically, " Jasper 
 can't swim." 
 
 " But he might have come," she insisted illogi- 
 cally. 
 
 " Ah," Alban retorted in a low voice, " so I 
 said ; you were ready, were n't you ? almost 
 waiting to die together ? Is n't that so ? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered eagerly. " I suppose 
 I could have got away before. I did n't realise 
 the danger, and when I did realise it, I thought 
 he'd come either for life or death it didn't 
 matter which." 
 
 Alban's teeth chattered, he felt a numbness 
 of spirit as she explained, which exceeded the 
 coldness of his body. 
 
 "Jasper wants you to live," was all he said; 
 " you must trust yourself to me. Are you 
 coming ? " 
 
 176
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 She moved reluctantly. In her isolation there 
 had been no fright ; her world was of dreams ; 
 this terrible flood seemed almost to belong to the 
 strenuousness of her ideals, and found its place 
 quite naturally in them. 
 
 "You are kind," she said at last, as if her 
 gratitude had been an afterthought and she was 
 ashamed. 
 
 " See," he ordered, "put your arms round my 
 neck quite lightly, thus. We are in no danger 
 really ; I will carry you on my back. Don't be 
 frightened at the coldness of the water, the boat 
 is close." 
 
 She obeyed. As she clung to him, Alban 
 turned once and looked into her face closely, so 
 that he might even distinguish its expression in 
 the dim light. It was a beautiful face, round 
 which the long hair hung loosened and rippling 
 over the lines of the neck; her brow, wide, serene, 
 seemed like a blank page for tragedy's imprint, 
 her eyes were bright, but they looked away, as 
 she mechanically trusted herself to her preserver 
 away into the distance where she knew Jasper
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 must be standing. Then feeling the nearness of 
 Alban's gaze, she recollected herself, bent her 
 head and kissed him on the hand. 
 
 " Do you know," she said, " foolish as I must 
 seem, I believe you understand." 
 
 "Yes," he said, " I understand, God knows," 
 and he slipped into the water with her. 
 
 He swam a few long strokes, then he set his 
 teeth, for he knew the rope had loosened from 
 its knot, and the slightest catch or strain would 
 free it altogether. He swam on the faster, for, 
 among the timber and branches that impeded the 
 way, it would go. The little hands clung to him 
 firmly, yet as loosely as possible ; there was no 
 fear in her grasp. Yet, to him, delicate and un- 
 trained, the weight was great, and the cold biting. 
 He breathed heavily, and the water now and then 
 lapped into his nostrils, for a slight breeze had 
 risen again after the calm into which the day's 
 gale had fallen. The shape of the boat he saw 
 already, but it seemed to have dropped a little on 
 the waters to be farther than when he started. 
 Once round the corner of this pile, the current 
 would serve his purpose, and carry them quickly. 
 
 178
 
 THE LAUREATE 
 
 His eyeballs started uncomfortably, his breath 
 whistled in his throat, but they approached safety, 
 and he focussed every thought upon this for her 
 sake ; it gave him forced strength. Already they 
 were nearer; a few strokes more nearer still. 
 The buzzing in his head was frightful. His 
 thoughts began to play about his compact with 
 Jasper, about the effect of the new order upon the 
 girl. Then the loosened rope slipped off him. 
 For the first time his nerve faltered : he saw the 
 moving oars, as the rower kept the boat upstream, 
 he heard now the creaking in the rowlocks. The 
 boat was almost over them ; then he threw up 
 his arms. 
 
 " Take her," he gasped, hoarsely, " take her 
 take her." 
 
 In an instant the burden was released from his 
 shoulder ; even in the agony of his cramp he 
 knew she was safe ; but they missed his hand as 
 the stream carried him on. He struggled a little, 
 feeling the uselessness of it. 
 
 " A queer immortality, this," he cried out, as the 
 waters stole his breath and sucked him down.
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 "The little Black Rose shall be red at last; 
 What made it black but the March wind dry ? "
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 ,FTER all," she said to 
 herself, " if I 'd only had a 
 chance." She meditated, 
 leaning over the balcony, 
 above the street. A stroll- 
 ing player, glancing up at 
 her beauty, checked his 
 wanderings, and, to his guitar, sang, in a full 
 tenor voice : 
 
 " Ninon, Ninon, que fais-tu de la vie ? " 
 Then his dark eyes sparkled. She threw francs 
 to him lightly, almost as one might blow kisses. 
 
 But this passing music had fired reflection. 
 It flamed in her almost to despair. She felt sud- 
 denly old, and lookect tne more youthful. The 
 life she had lived, all marked and blurred, moved 
 through her memory till the tears welled. 
 
 "It would have been different if I 'd had a 
 chance," she repeated, and went, sighing, into her 
 shuttered room. 
 
 The clock had just struck two. A light breeze 
 stirred the tall poplars in the park of this fashion- 
 able French watering-place. In the shade the 
 people strolled, or sat inertly upon yellow metal 
 183
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 chairs, as if the mineral waters had even dissolved 
 their commercial importance in the world. A 
 blare of trumpets floated from the pavilion. 
 
 She came on to the balcony again, noting all the 
 scene, but yawning still from her midday sleep. 
 The serenader had passed to other windows. He 
 left her dissatisfied. She tried to convince herself 
 that a week of absolute solitude had brought 
 salvation to body and spirit, but all the time 
 knew well that she had reached a stage of perilous 
 boredom. 
 
 "Why is my life to be continual tumult?" 
 she murmured. " A parson's wife six children 
 a country vicarage my real vocation missed." 
 This was her avowed mental attitude, but a buz- 
 zing sprite in the background of thought sang to 
 another tune. " The devil was sick, the devil a 
 saint would be, The devil got well '. . ." Then 
 came a moment of complete absorption ; it thrust 
 all musing into space. The omnibus from the 
 station rattled up to the hotel ; she saw that an 
 Englishman's valet and an Englishman's luggage 
 were in possession. 
 
 This was obvious. The Saratoga trunk, the
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 Belgian's bag, the French paper box, had passed 
 or stopped a score of times. But the wholesome 
 leather portmanteaux, with their green bands, the 
 square letters, " J. C.," the crocodile-skin dressing- 
 case, the clean-shaven, straight-cut servant giving 
 orders to the French waiter like a general on 
 a battlefield about these there could be no 
 mistake. 
 
 A compatriot at last ! How she had hated the 
 French crowd hanging around everywhere. The 
 narrow-brimmed straw hats, the clipped beards, 
 the fluttering bow-ties, the exaggeration of cour- 
 tesy, or oftener the insolent cap-a-pied stares 
 all were odious. She was a woman alone, it was 
 true ; but she wore no paint as their women alone 
 did, and her eyes flashed a bold disdain of all 
 petty amenities. What reason had she given 
 them to doubt her respectability ? With each 
 draught of tepid water at the fountain she had 
 felt herself sucking in a fierce virtue. Then alone 
 in her little room, banked with roses and corn- 
 flowers she would laugh till the tears came at the 
 recollection of her march of defiance, of the im- 
 perious tilt of her head as she strode through 
 185
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 gaping ranks in the public gardens, like a goddess 
 surprised. 
 
 " If they only knew about me really," she 
 laughed again, and as suddenly grew grave. The 
 blood had rushed into her cheeks from pleasurable 
 anticipation at the arrival of an Englishman; now 
 with self-reproach as she watched the road she 
 cried out to herself, " Douchka, you speak to no 
 man while you are here." 
 
 After all, that was a definite determination she 
 had arrived at. She was starting a new life. She 
 had her studio and the talent to work in it when 
 she returned from this cure : what need to get 
 mixed up with other people's interests ? She 
 had left Claud six months ago and in result had 
 won back all her self-respect, all her natural purity 
 of mind. She was free to touch the best things 
 with clean hands, for she had been true to herself 
 at a cost that atoned in her estimate for the things 
 over and done with. 
 
 People had known about it oh, yes, and they 
 would remember too that was part of the pen- 
 alty but she would live it down she would 
 Her thought trailed off, a smile stole over her 
 
 1 86
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 mobile face ; the Englishman was swinging down 
 the road. 
 
 He wore a straw hat set at a slight angle, he 
 looked like a soldier without the proverbial mous- 
 tache. His face was distinctly attractive, possibly 
 handsome, he was tall and wore the right clothes. 
 
 Then he ran up the steps of the hotel and she 
 put her hands to her eyes with an involuntary 
 movement. 
 
 " I don't want to see him closer." Her heart 
 needed the assurance. 
 
 Later she went out wearing on her glinting hair 
 a muslin bonnet wreathed round with marguerites, 
 and holding up soft skirts from the dust. The 
 hall was empty ; but a blue telegram in the rack 
 bore the address " Julian Carrender." " Why 
 don't they give it to him," she considered ; " he 
 sleeps undoubtedly," and she passed down the 
 passage on tiptoe. 
 
 That afternoon she loitered under the arcade 
 and among the shops. She turned corners with 
 trepidation and avoided the Casino, dawdling 
 eventually to the river where only patient fishers 
 stood and dabbled long lines to wary fish, or 
 187
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 washerwomen scrubbed clothes and laid them in 
 crumpled heaps upon the bank to dry. Here at 
 any rate she would not meet him face to face ; 
 even with this belief she went expectantly. 
 
 From the top of the acacia avenue that flanked 
 the main promenade, she could see the portico of 
 the hotel. As she turned homewards later she 
 looked towards it ; the Englishman was coming 
 down the steps, quickly, as if he had an object 
 in view. 
 
 The impulse to approach him was irresistible. 
 Douchka continued her path, but without look- 
 ing to right or left he crossed it. She saw him 
 pass the obsequious ga^on at the restaurant who 
 had run forward expecting an order, and enter 
 the Casino as if it were familiar ground. Evi- 
 dently he had been here before. It was absurd to 
 imagine that he sought the reading-room ; the 
 latest papers from England must be in his pocket, 
 and in his hotel apartments, ink and pens to 
 spare. Perhaps he had friends to meet him in 
 the Casino ; perhaps she drew her breath 
 sharply as the notion came perhaps he was a 
 gambler. 
 
 1 88
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 For her, gambling had no attraction. Those 
 who sat all day and night in a stuffy atmosphere 
 staking silver pieces cautiously on toy horses 
 whirling round, had ever seemed to her idlers 
 and fools. Surely Mr. Carrender she played 
 with his name could not wish to mingle, even 
 as a student of human nature, with that rabble of 
 most hideous and untidy composition. Then 
 she remembered the baccarat rooms, and, unques- 
 tioned by the attendant at the desk, she passed 
 full of curiosity between the glass doors that led 
 to them. 
 
 The little tables in the corner of the large 
 gilded hall were hemmed in by men and women 
 upon whose faces even at this early hour the 
 garish electric light cast a cruel illumination. 
 
 Eyes heavily shadowed were set upon the 
 vagaries of the cards ; hands displaying flashing 
 rings as if to divert attention from broken nails 
 and sometimes twisted finger-tips, fidgeted con- 
 tinually with the counters on the green cloth, or 
 twitched aimlessly. 
 
 It was such a silent game this one could 
 hear a pin drop. Douchka pushed in beside the 
 189
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 man who held the bank. The fixed eyes, the 
 restless hands, the complete stillness, these things 
 interested her, until she saw Carrender. 
 
 For lack of a seat he stood ; he had been so 
 short a time at the table that the expression of 
 indifference with which he had approached the 
 players had not faded before the tense look of 
 the habitual gambler quite possessed him. But 
 Douchka saw the fading, saw the narrowing of 
 the lips, the droop of the brow, the shifting 
 movement of the eyelids, the gradual disappear- 
 ance of the boyish candour which had been there 
 at her first glance. 
 
 She grew white to the lips as she realised what 
 he was. " My chance," she said to herself, 
 and for half an hour she waited, watching him 
 from the other side of the table. In that time 
 he won continually ; then, as if bored by such 
 persistent luck, he turned half away, looked over 
 his shoulder and encountered her gaze. 
 
 They spoke in that look to each other on the 
 instant. Her soul leaped out between her lashes 
 imploringly ; he almost divined her words, for he 
 reddened to the roots of his hair and sauntered 
 
 190
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 presently round to where she stood. For some 
 minutes elbow to elbow they watched the game. 
 
 " You don't like gambling," he said to her at 
 last in English. 
 
 " No," she answered at once, pleased that he 
 had not mistaken her nationality. 
 
 A cadaverous-looking Belgian sitting below 
 them stared up as they spoke. He was accus- 
 tomed to quick recognitions in this room ; to 
 sudden consultations as to the play. As they 
 turned and walked out together, he resumed his 
 game with a significant shrug. 
 
 In the vestibule of the Casino Julien Carrender 
 continued talking. 
 
 " It is ridiculous," he observed with a laugh, 
 " but you made me feel ashamed of myself, you 
 looked so like my mother no," he added as 
 she smiled deprecatingly, "you know what I 
 mean the reproach in your eyes. I 'm a 
 hardened sinner in most things, but I would n't 
 have spoken to you otherwise, you feel that, 
 don't you ? I seemed to owe you an apology." 
 
 " Why an apology ? " she asked moving slowly 
 into the garden. 
 191
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 He was embarrassed. He wanted to go on 
 talking to her, but he felt that his excuses to 
 draw her into closer personal relation to himself 
 were feeble. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," he said quickly. 
 
 But she helped him out. 
 
 " Are you a gambler?" she asked, throwing a 
 tone of commiseration into her voice. 
 
 In sheer self-defence at her pity, he forced 
 himself to speak lightly. 
 
 " A gambler ? Of course I 'm one. Do you 
 think that so very dreadful ? " 
 
 " I hope you 're fortunate," she said gravely ; 
 " most gamblers I have known suffered from 
 despair but you you ? " She broke off, 
 afraid to continue. 
 
 He stood still in her path ; he threw reserve to 
 the winds. 
 
 " Most gamblers that you know suffer from 
 despair, do they," he repeated. " Do you won- 
 der ? It 's like poison in one's veins, the game. 
 I 've tried to cut it at home in India I nearly 
 got chucked out all round. After the row, my 
 nerves went to pieces, and the doctors told me to 
 
 192
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 drink waters. I looked up the places and I came 
 here, because they said that one could play all 
 day and all night, and Englishmen were scarce. 
 This year I have come again. Now you see that 
 I 'm a coward into the bargain." 
 
 She trembled at this unexpected revelation of a 
 twin life. Her own complicated weakness and 
 suffering matched his, she would have given any- 
 thing to confess it. Instead, she drew herself up 
 with the air of a queen. She pursed her red 
 lips. 
 
 " If one starts to go down hill " she began. 
 
 He stopped his ears with a frown. 
 
 " Don't lecture me," he said, " or you '11 make 
 me wish I had cut my tongue out rather than talk 
 to you. After all, you have only just begun life 
 you Ve probably got everything guarded for 
 you. That is what I guess by your face ; it 's 
 pure and compassionate enough. I must seem 
 such a beast to you." 
 
 He spoke quickly, with great simplicity, and in 
 a moment of tumultuous feeling for them both 
 she dared not trust herself to reply. 
 
 The waiter on the doorstep of the hotel 
 193 13
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 watched them returning. His lymphatic body 
 clothed a hopeful soul. 
 
 "It would be good," he considered, " that 
 milord and madame were acquainted." These 
 English people had stupid ways they avoided 
 table d'hote, they asked to dine in their salon 
 sapristi ! perhaps the two would dine together 
 now, so much the better. 
 
 About this, however, he made a faulty calcula- 
 tion. Not for several days did Douchka meet 
 Julian Carrender again. They touched then on 
 the weather from neutral ground, and passed on, 
 till one afternoon he sent up to ask if she would 
 drive with him. 
 
 "The days are so long," he said, looking at 
 her with admiration as she came down to him, 
 a vision in blue muslin, " I want to talk to you 
 about this wicked world. I 'm always thinking 
 about your eyes the way they look at things," 
 the occasion seemed to warrant the frankness of 
 the remark. 
 
 She laughed and they drove away happily into 
 the sunny French country. 
 
 Since the day they met she evaded difficulty 
 
 194
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 by closing every talk with a hurried formality. 
 She tortured herself in the intervals with doubts 
 and fancies, sinking at one moment into shame 
 at the hypocrisy of the virtuous airs she assumed 
 with him, then rising to glad heights in the 
 knowledge that he believed in her. 
 
 " He thinks my face pure " she mocked to 
 herself in the glass " why are men blind ? " 
 
 In the morning, going to the spring, he would 
 swing out earlier than she could start, and if she 
 appeared on the balcony he would bow with a 
 bright smile. It seemed a sort of atonement for 
 the hours which he spent later in the Casino ; 
 there she never attempted to follow him again. 
 He was grateful, as he played, that she was ab- 
 sent, that he did not see her about the hotel when 
 he turned in late to bed, almost always a loser, 
 yet craving, altogether ashamed, for the morrow's 
 chances. 
 
 But her very avoidance of his occupation, gave 
 her fuller empire over his imagination. To-day 
 he asked her to drive, for he felt that at any cost 
 he must see her, and when she came readily he 
 felt keen pleasure. 
 195
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 They drove on, talking gaily. 
 
 " Are n't you bored here ? " he asked her. 
 " Have n't any of your people come out ? " 
 
 " What people ? " she answered innocently. 
 
 " Your husband, I suppose, and all the rest of 
 them ? " 
 
 11 My husband, and all the rest of them," she 
 evaded ; " no, I am a very independent sort of 
 person." 
 
 " I 'm sure you are, but they ought n't to leave 
 you alone. I should n't," he went on eagerly, 
 " if I were married to you." 
 
 She cast her eyes upon an old peasant woman 
 bending over a strawberry plot. At this in- 
 stant she wished she could change places with 
 her. 
 
 "You would n't ? " she said at last. " It 's a 
 bore not to be left alone," and her tone rang 
 coldly to him. 
 
 "Now you think me cheeky, Mrs. Waring 
 you see I know your name Madame Waring, 
 said the waiter to my British questioning." 
 
 She laughed out now. 
 
 " When people are very solitary what foolish 
 
 196
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 things they will take up. Do you ask questions 
 about all the people you see in the Casino ? " 
 
 She was instantly sorry that she had resorted to 
 badinage, for he became quickly abashed. 
 
 " Why should I ask questions about these 
 brutes ? You know you 're not in the least like 
 any one else here." 
 
 " Then I 'm flattered," she touched his arm 
 apologetically. After this they were silent for a 
 little. The driver explained to them points of 
 view as the loosely reined horses clattered along 
 the dusty road. There was a great satisfaction in 
 the present, she felt in the verdure of the 
 woods, in the green hills that surrounded them, 
 in the blueness of the distant mountains in the 
 centre of France. A charm even in the smocked 
 peasants who, with pathetic prudence, were tying 
 roses into nosegays, the asparagus into bundles, 
 and gathering fruit into baskets for the rich ones 
 of their land. 
 
 They reached presently the restaurant at the 
 highest point of the district, a little house under 
 leafy chestnuts. There among the roses and 
 Spanish lilacs that almost embowered the chairs 
 197
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 on which they sat, on the outskirts of a far-spread- 
 ing vineyard, they drank coffee and fenced with a 
 repartee as brilliant as the butterflies that fluttered 
 upon the flowers. 
 
 Julian Carrender was fascinated by this woman 
 who with perfect frankness of manner told him so 
 much and yet so little ; who eluded him, adopting 
 on the one hand the familiarity of a mother, on 
 the other hand the witchery of a coquette, and 
 who had not yet betrayed her Christian name or 
 told him if she were a wife or widow. 
 
 After all, he did not really wish to question her. 
 Her uncommon beauty, her wit, her delightful 
 talk, the more unrestrained from the freedom of 
 their surroundings in the perfect setting of this 
 summer afternoon, all gave him a knowledge of 
 her character that no other circumstances in the 
 world could have allowed. He grew to know 
 her nature rather than her history an infinitely 
 preferable affair he reckoned. She was at her 
 best because he believed her the best, and 
 showed this in every look and gesture. 
 
 She grew forgetful of the past, unmindful of 
 her own restrictions. " It is my chance," she 
 
 198
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 told herself, tossing her head back in the bright 
 sunshine, " my chance to save him." And he, 
 thinking her altogether adorable, lowered his 
 voice to a great gentleness as, driving back to- 
 gether in the dusk, they talked of simple matters. 
 That night .he did not go to the Casino, but fell 
 asleep reading a book which she had lent him. 
 
 The next morning he sent to ask for her, but 
 she had gone away, the message came back, until 
 the evening. Later, a motor-car steamed up to 
 the hotel and he was hailed by a friend whose 
 unexpected arrival diverted his thoughts a little 
 and kept him again from the gaming tables. 
 
 " I have come for a few hours from Paris," said 
 Max Foster. 
 
 As Foster was departing towards evening, 
 Douchka returned from her expedition to the 
 neighbouring convent a teacher of her child- 
 hood was there, she had explained to Julian the 
 previous day. Both the men saw Douchka, but 
 she only saw her friend standing beside the car ; 
 she smiled and waved gaily as she passed. 
 
 " Hullo, Julian," remarked Foster, noticing 
 Carrender's flushed face, " you 're in luck here." 
 199
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " That woman," and Foster, turning his head, 
 looked after the carriage as she drove on. 
 
 " Do you know her ? " said the other. 
 
 " Why, of course, I know her Douchka War- 
 ing and, by Jove ! as pretty as ever. A chance, 
 man cher; but you gamblers are such woman haters ! 
 She left Claud Sanders six months ago for a path 
 of virtue. She lived with him for four years." 
 
 Julian Carrender, like a true gambler, as- 
 sumed an indifference to all the events of life. 
 Unexpected consolations or crashes had never yet 
 won from him a manifestation of particular sur- 
 prise or dismay. The bitter in his career he took 
 with a certain bravado which masked a real cour- 
 age, for he was highly strung, and sensitive to a 
 degree, and he lived his life as it were on edge. 
 
 But Max Foster's statement, hurled at him 
 breezily, to an accompaniment of whirring motor- 
 car machinery, left him cold at heart. 
 
 For quite two minutes after the cloud of dust 
 had shadowed his friend's farewell he stood still 
 
 upon the road. He did not feel exactly disillu- 
 
 200
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 sioned, but brought to a complete volte-face, in 
 his puzzling about the woman he most undoubt- 
 edly loved. It was useless to juggle with phrases 
 now, to assure himself that Douchka was but the 
 plaything of circumstance. She was a woman 
 who, once known, could not be forgotten. In 
 the gallery of his experience she was a master- 
 piece among counterfeits ; she was unlike any 
 woman he had ever met. 
 
 " Douchka Waring lived with Claud Sanders 
 for four years " the sentence haunted his mind. 
 He had heard of Sanders, that was enough. 
 That it should have been thus was in a 
 measure unbelievable, yet possible. The odd 
 part of it was, that, even so, the character of 
 his feelings about her had not changed ; they 
 seemed to be established to stand the push of 
 contingency ; his ideas merely re-sorted them- 
 selves, and into his calculations there crept a 
 new excitement. 
 
 Hitherto he had chafed that she seemed im- 
 measurably removed from him. In spite of other 
 wishes, he had supposed her married unveiling 
 to him for a little, from sheer exuberance of youth 
 201
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 in dull surroundings, the workings of her mind 
 as pastime. This to be recollected under home 
 skies with a laugh, and " Do you remember, 
 Mr. Carrender ? " a thread in the woof of 
 some commonplace conversation in all the do- 
 mestic restraint of her castle terrace, to show that 
 once how long ago ! they had been intimate. 
 Now the oppression of this fear had faded, giving 
 place to other nameless fears. 
 
 Yet, in spite of all fears, she was fair game at 
 last ; the luck had turned, the trump-cards were 
 not all hers. Carrender was never more a gam- 
 bler than at this moment. Without her knowl- 
 edge he had been suddenly shown her hand, 
 could guess at every motive, would almost be 
 able to read each thought, and, by heaven, she 
 should prove herself! That was what he insisted 
 on that he would stake all to prove herself 
 true in spite of everything. He said this to 
 himself, remembering her clear eyes ; but imagin- 
 ing further, and hating himself the while, if she 
 were wrong he must leave her before he could 
 ever allow the wrongness to himself. She should 
 not suffer too much. It was strange, all things 
 
 202
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 considered, that he felt her unquestionably cap- 
 able of deep suffering. 
 
 Then, with a certain nervousness, he went back 
 to dine with her. 
 
 Afterwards, they sat together on the terrace of 
 the Casino, in the most natural way in the world. 
 The soft blue twilight, pierced by stars, spread 
 over them. 
 
 She lit a cigarette from his shyly. 
 
 " Do you think people about here will think it 
 fast of me to smoke ? " she said, and he reas- 
 sured her, marvelling at her complexity. She was 
 supremely happy this he guessed. He could 
 not mistake the slight tremor of her hand in his 
 when they met. She was glad to be with him. 
 
 She told him of her day's excursion, and 
 touched lightly on her girlhood at the convent 
 at Amiens, where she had first met her friend. 
 
 She could be remarkably intelligent when she 
 liked. She looked out on le monde ou I' on i amuse, 
 and gauged it with quick precision. That was 
 part of her charm ; the unusual sense of pro- 
 portion for a woman in her estimate of things ; her 
 sparkling appreciation of uncommon situations. 
 203
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 Carrender drifted into the current of her talk. 
 In answer to his enquiry," Why did you receive 
 that pretty name Douchka ? You know what 
 it means ? " she blushed ; " My father thought it 
 the sweetest word in Russia." She told him then 
 of her birth in that country, and rattled off quaint 
 descriptions of baby-recollections of the great 
 Emperor of his Cossack guard of the strange 
 Moscow Kremlin. She forced him into a hot 
 discussion regarding the condition of the peas- 
 antry ; of limited versus absolute monarchy, into 
 laughing acquiescence in the impossibility of a 
 republic. " See these people," she wound up, 
 waving her hand towards the pink chestnut trees, 
 and including in the gesture the over-dressed 
 women loitering beneath the electric lamps, and 
 the fat respectabilities of French middle class, 
 who crowded them uncomfortably upon the ter- 
 race " what an outcome ! " And he agreed 
 with her sweeping conclusions, as he would have 
 agreed to anything. 
 
 " You are charming," he burst out, " there is 
 nothing you describe that one cannot understand 
 or picture vividly." 
 
 204
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 " So much perplexes me as I say it," she replied, 
 a little wearily. 
 
 " Why ? " he asked, touched to the quick by 
 the sudden sadness in her eyes. He had a great 
 desire that she would hold out her arms to him 
 and tell him the truth of her life. She looked so 
 beautiful amidst all the common types that sur- 
 rounded them. But as he pressed her, she with- 
 drew her glance from his, feeling how dangerous 
 the descent to personalities from the safe level of 
 general topics. 
 
 " The music is playing all the time," she said, 
 "we should not talk too much." 
 
 "You are so much more interesting than the 
 Walkiirie," he insisted, as the violins swept the 
 marvellous phrases into the still air. But she did 
 not answer him. A great anxiety began to creep 
 over her. 
 
 How necessary this man was becoming to her 
 existence, she wanted always to talk to him, to 
 hear him talk ! Their minds seemed to work 
 so much in unison that every minute was joyful. 
 The hours spent away from him had been emp- 
 tied of all profit. She knew that she interested 
 205
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 him as she had wished to do she was drawing 
 him thus away from the tables that was all as 
 it should be. Yet, at this moment, she grew 
 afraid : afraid of such intimate intercourse and of 
 all that it might ultimately mean. He thought 
 her married, and very much alone ; this she held 
 for granted, but he was such a gentleman, that 
 of her solitude and familiarity he had taken no 
 advantage. Still, things could not go on like this 
 forever. 
 
 " What are you thinking of? " he said. 
 
 An answer was needed, and she invented one. 
 
 " I am wondering when you will go to the 
 baccarat room to-night." 
 
 He knew that she replied at random, but he 
 brought another question forward. 
 
 " Don't you want me to go ? " 
 
 " No, oh, no." 
 
 '* Then keep me here." 
 
 "All night?" she bantered. "What about 
 Monsieur le Docteur and chills ? " 
 
 "Not all night always," his voice caressed 
 her. 
 
 "Ah, but I have only twelve days and six 
 
 206
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 hours left of my retreat here c always ' is a 
 big word to use for that." 
 
 " And afterwards ? " 
 
 She tore in pieces between her nervous fingers 
 the chestnut blooms that had fluttered to her lap, 
 yet she spoke gaily, 
 
 "Afterwards? I shall return to England, and 
 you will go to Monte Carlo, where they gamble 
 always." 
 
 He felt a little ashamed of himself, now that 
 she had got the best of this small passage of 
 arms. He had no right to drive her into a cor- 
 ner. She had given him no real encourage- 
 ment ; he was taking a mean advantage of what 
 he knew, and showing himself unworthy of her 
 simple confidences. In spite of her complete 
 self-command, he perceived uneasiness in her 
 expression. But he ventured one more word ; 
 he felt at the moment the imperative need to 
 speak it stronger than his compunction. 
 
 "I don't ask it now but some day any 
 day you choose will you tell me about your- 
 self? " 
 
 "What about myself?" 
 207
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 " The tragedies, the comedies, the things in 
 you, about you, that make me care for you so 
 much." 
 
 He had not meant to go so far, he had startled 
 her. She sprang up with almost a cry the 
 men smoking with a woman, under the palm, in 
 the corner, looked at them with interest. 
 
 " There is nothing to tell," she said with quiv- 
 ering lips, forcing back her tears, " nothing that I 
 can tell you, except that I am a fool playing with 
 fire that you 've known all along let 's go 
 home." 
 
 He drew her cloak round her as closely as he 
 dared ; with a whole world of contrition in his 
 voice he said, 
 
 " My dear, you must forgive me are n't you 
 a little proud, all the same, at having made an out- 
 and-out gambler in love ? I offered you an 
 acknowledgment, not an insult." 
 
 She seemed to be grateful for this touch of 
 humour and courtliness in his apology. It re- 
 assured her as to her position in his estimation 
 conscience had made her too great a coward about 
 that. In silence she took his arm, and smiled 
 
 20$
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 good night when he left her at the door of the 
 hotel. 
 
 But once in her room she was bowed with 
 miserable sobs. Julian had driven the infinite 
 delight of their relationship by a few simple words 
 into a hopeless impasse. She had stilled self- 
 reproach long ago with the sophism that he was 
 the shipwrecked, she the rescuer. Now she had 
 to face the truth, the uncompromising knowledge 
 that all the time he had been merely the lover to 
 deceive, and indeed deceived continually, when he 
 of all men deserved the truth. 
 
 In spite of every temptation to be frivolous, 
 what had he been but guarded in his talk, almost 
 reverent in his respect and above all tender be- 
 yond measure in the flashes of affection which she 
 had roused him to display ? She had influenced 
 him simply because he had believed her good, and 
 " I 'm bad, bad, bad," she repeated, beating her 
 little fist upon the cushion of her chair. Oh, the 
 perplexity, the contradiction of it all ! Even 
 now her first thought was the grief that no longer 
 could she keep him from gambling, no longer 
 urge him to be worthy of himself. He was so 
 209 14
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 worth saving that she would gladly have sacrificed 
 every claim that her adoration might have begged 
 of him for herself, if only he could gain. 
 
 Now that he had spoken, however, there was 
 an end to everything. She must go away. In 
 spite of his avowal he believed her pure. That 
 she was sure of : if ever he learnt what she was, 
 the effect would be too awful to contemplate. 
 The driving him back into depths of cynicism, of 
 abandonment to his besetting sin. By leaving 
 now she could at least bequeath him ideals. To 
 go might be to disappoint him, to stay would be 
 to degrade him. She had not the courage to 
 continue playing a part. To do him the best 
 turn she could, was to go. She stood up smooth- 
 ing her tumbled hair and glanced vaguely at the 
 clock, the hands of which pointed to half-past 
 ten. 
 
 She was convinced, with a certain triumph in 
 the conviction, that to-night Julian would not 
 gamble. 
 
 She did not guess that he paced the gardens 
 still, and for an hour more, stirred by the excite- 
 ment of his own hurried action. He regretted 
 
 210
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 nothing, but wondered when the stress of events 
 would make her bold enough to trust him. He 
 forgot that he was a gambler of uncertain fortune 
 in the longing he had to hold her for self-preser- 
 vation in his arms to make her, in spite of 
 everything, his wife. This desire had grown in 
 him with gathering force during the hours they 
 had spent together this evening. " She is the only 
 woman," he argued simply, " be her past what 
 it may who can in the future make me a man." 
 
 Douchka heard the rumbling of the great doors 
 of the theatre as they closed them, the patter of 
 the feet of the returning pleasure-seekers. She 
 remembered in after years the nature of these 
 sounds so vividly her inability on the instant 
 to bring her mind to a great decision the 
 silly way in which trifles diverted her from her 
 purpose. 
 
 At last she took down the time-table, and 
 found a train to Paris starting at seven in the 
 morning. She rang then for the sleepy waiter, 
 told him her intention, asked for the bill and 
 wrote the usual cheque, all quite mechanically. 
 
 Should she leave a letter for Julian, that was 
 
 211
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 the crucial question^? But what to say fresh 
 lies? Fresh excuses? Better silence. What 
 right had she to assume that the interest expressed 
 on a sentimental evening would follow her even 
 into the next morning. An acquaintanceship of 
 ten days must not be taxed too highly. A week 
 of fortuitous circumstances for man and woman 
 need hardly breed a lifelong devotion. Julian 
 Carrender for a year or two would probably think 
 of her kindly, not as the guardian angel which 
 she had constituted herself. That would be 
 absurd. For a little he might be perplexed about 
 her disappearance, but men had so much less 
 curiosity than women. He would chafe at first 
 in the tedium of his exile ; he might play a little 
 more from boredom she shuddered as she 
 reached this thought, but continued building the 
 card-house of her self-persuasion. After all, he 
 had been between the devil and the deep sea. 
 She, by her departure, withdrew the devil ; destiny 
 might even rescue him from the deep sea. It 
 was no business of hers. So she reasoned then 
 came a rush of tears. 
 
 In the early morning she packed her bag hur- 
 
 312
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 riedly, dreading a last look round the room. Only 
 the drooping roses in the vase, the torn papers in 
 the grate showed her recent habitation. 
 
 At the appointed time she drove to the station 
 and caught her train; it started indeed too late 
 for her burning desire to be away. 
 
 The waiter, usually loquacious, kept back on 
 this occasion all information, waiting for Mon- 
 sieur's questioning. Julian Carrender refrained 
 from this for some hours. 
 
 Then over the widespread sheets of " Le 
 Figaro," he asked nonchalantly : 
 
 " Has Madame breakfasted ? " 
 
 " Madame has gone," replied Pierre, setting a 
 dish of strawberries triumphantly upon the table. 
 
 " Gone ? " the newspaper rustled. 
 
 Pierre handed the hors-cT ceuvres. 
 
 " Yes, Madame does not come back she had 
 the short cure she goes to Paris." 
 
 " Paris ? " echoed Julian, turning white. 
 
 "Paris," echoed his informant again "but 
 she does not leave the address of her hotel " 
 and he went out of the room, for Monsieur dis- 
 liked too much attention, 
 213
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 " Gone," exclaimed Julian, starting to his feet 
 as the door closed, " without a word. So that 's 
 the end of it all. She could n't see it out, poor 
 little thing. What a fool I have been. It's 
 worse than I thought. My God," he added 
 hoarsely, " how much worse ! " 
 
 To Douchka driving through the streets in 
 her prettiest frock, Paris, at the height of its 
 season, seemed like a City of the Dead. 
 
 She had hired a fiacre for the afternoon and 
 had driven first to the Bois; but the verdant 
 alleys, the children at play, the carriages bowling 
 past had added to her misery fourfold. So she 
 went back to the boulevards ; there, at least, in 
 the moving crowd, at a street corner, under an 
 archway, perhaps, she might catch sight of some 
 man or woman whose, very attitude or expres- 
 sion might indicate that like her they hid a 
 breaking heart. Even this would be solace an 
 indefinite sympathy for the great weight that 
 crushed her. 
 
 Her carriage was open, but she paid no atten- 
 tion to the admiring looks that followed her, to 
 
 214
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 the brightness on every side; she presented a 
 numbness of understanding to all attractive 
 objects on the course of this brilliant afternoon. 
 
 She began to say over to herself a familiar 
 verse learnt at her nurse's knee. It came back 
 to her with a kind of fascination at the moment ; 
 she forgot that she was speaking it aloud ; other 
 people beyond herself and Julian mattered 
 vastly little just now. 
 
 "O'er the yellow crocus on the lawn 
 
 Floats a light white butterfly, 
 Breeze waft it ! See it 's gone ! 
 
 Douchka, little soul, when didst thou die ?" 
 
 She looked up to the great luminous blue sky 
 spread above the roofs and chimneys and intricate 
 wires ; " Douchka, little soul, when didst thou 
 die ? " she cried out again, for it seemed to her 
 that to all intents and purposes she was dead, 
 that her soul had flown beyond the reach of 
 every joy. 
 
 The fiacre still drove on. One by one, great 
 tears coursed down her cheeks. The bonne, 
 crossing the street with her bundle, saw them and 
 pitied ; two men at the half-way lamp nudged 
 215
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 each other and one exclaimed, " Via une p'fite 
 cocotte qua perdu son homme" but she did not 
 notice him, her pain had escaped control. 
 
 At dusk she reached the hotel again. She felt 
 chilly in her little room of dark hangings, and, 
 though a summer night, she lit the fire and 
 crouched beside it to think and think. It was 
 queer that she should suddenly feel her soul dead 
 now of all times when she had made a great 
 sacrifice. There had never been a question of a 
 soul with Claud Sanders. She had been with 
 him constantly, of course, but he had never even 
 approached it would have been bored if he had 
 known she had one. But from the very first 
 moment of their encounter her soul had been 
 alive for Julian, and simply for his sake she had 
 killed it. Oh, yes, she had killed it. Good peo- 
 ple in books would tell her she had saved it, but 
 that was untrue. She would go on living, prob- 
 ably for years and years ; yet she knew that 
 through all time she would sing, " Douchka, little 
 soul, when didst thou die ? " and she would 
 remember when. 
 
 She wondered, if she had been courageous 
 
 216
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 enough to go straight to England, whether all 
 would have been easier; yet for a few hours 
 longer she must remain in the country where 
 Julian was. What could he be doing now ? 
 she had a sharp surmise he was playing, playing all 
 the time ; it was quite late when she pulled aside 
 the curtains, the lamps in the street were already lit. 
 
 "Madame est servie" said the patient waiter 
 for the second time, tired at last of the indifference 
 to the dinner he had personally ordered and laid 
 for her ; but still she did not turn her head, gazing 
 down on the yellow pavement, watching the flitting 
 figures upon it, dark and small. 
 
 It was useless to expect her to eat ; so she sent 
 him away. She would go out again. People 
 were murdered at night in Paris, the papers told 
 her, but not in the main thoroughfares, which 
 were safe as in the day. The gay, strolling throng 
 would not remark her, nor yet those seated in the 
 open cafes ; but they would offer a passive com- 
 panionship ; if she cried out at her trouble they 
 would at least hear and pity her madness ; if she 
 stayed alone she would be mad still and only with 
 shadows. 
 217
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 As she went down the stairs a new temptation 
 possessed her. To go back at once ; to pretend 
 that she had been away to fetch a summer hat 
 to design a newer frock to laugh lightly to 
 invite Julian's intoxicating words to encourage 
 them finally to yield herself to him easily, to 
 become 
 
 The word in her mind awoke an awful horror, 
 a perfect medley of recollections. " Not that, not 
 that," she moaned, " even if I die." 
 
 Greedy for the night air to cool her aching head, 
 she pushed past three American girls standing in 
 the hall with a roughness that caused them to turn 
 and stare, till in the fresh empty streets she became 
 more self-possessed. 
 
 The Rue de la Paix was strangely silent ; it 
 had passed through its day's conquests and hid 
 the morrow's temptations under a veil of silence, 
 of desertion. Douchka remembered her amuse- 
 ment there with Claud ; how she had urged him 
 to extravagance and piled dresses and hats at night 
 upon each other as they were delivered, till their 
 salon grew impossible, and he had insisted on 
 dragging her, in spite of a violent cold, to the 
 
 218
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 Petit Paillard, to the Jardin de Paris, because he 
 declared " to eat dinner in a lumber room was 
 a d d sight too much for him." What a differ- 
 ent woman she was now, what a different man 
 was Julian Carrender ! 
 
 As she emerged upon the boulevards, the cafes, 
 crowded with little tables, the people drinking 
 from long glasses or from coffee-cups, smoking 
 out into the still air and dawdling idly, all re- 
 minded her that in the baccarat rooms at Pelon 
 he was probably playing for dear life. She 
 conjured up his face ; fretful from disappoint- 
 ment, he would grow reckless, he would lose 
 continually, and curse her in his heart. 
 
 The further she went, the more in her mind 
 Julian the gambler obliterated Julian the lover. 
 Detached from herself, she began to see his career 
 with renewed clearness. She began to suspect 
 that she had checked his course for only a very 
 little ; and the more strongly for the check, would 
 it draw him onward to his ruin. As she hurried 
 for she began to fear her solitude she swept 
 by a drinking house. It was full of players 
 low-class Parisians. Eager, turbulent, silent, 
 219
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 desperate, as the case might be, in the collection 
 each face struck her shifting -glance, and she 
 trembled as she passed on. 
 
 She crossed the Place de la Concorde, between 
 the automobiles and the rustling noiseless flight 
 of bicyclists, and went down under the trees by 
 the Seine. What she had done, what she was 
 doing, all the while pursued her. She became 
 quaintly aware that she had read her own history 
 in many novels. " It 's odd that life should be 
 like books," she said ; then her thought reached 
 the usual suicide. But the river was dark and 
 horrible, and she turned from the skulkers by 
 the parapet. There was the vigour of sanity, 
 after all, beneath her grieving. From that 
 moment it asserted itself. 
 
 Twenty minutes later she had returned to the 
 hotel. The quick walk had brought the colour 
 to her cheeks, the brightness to her eyes. She 
 never looked more beautiful than when she re- 
 moved her hat and stared at her own reflection in 
 the long pier-glass. Tumbling masses of brown 
 hair above her white forehead, the strong marking 
 of eyebrows, the curl of her lashes, the deep 
 
 220
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 shadows beneath her eyes these were the dis- 
 tinctive marks of her most uncommonly attractive 
 , face. 
 
 And, as she looked, she came slowly, definitely, 
 to a great resolution. 
 
 " He thought me beautiful," she repeated ; " at 
 any cost he shall believe me truthful. I will 
 leave him no false illusions. ' I 'm a coward,' he 
 confessed to his own cowardice once. Now, I '11 
 be brave, go back, and tell him." 
 
 It was late when Douchka walked into Julian 
 Carrender's sitting-room next day it was nearly 
 midnight, indeed, before the train had arrived. 
 
 The concierge had gone to bed. By chance 
 she met no one, though for any astonishment 
 displayed she had steeled herself with a greeting 
 in reserve. She did not expect Julian to have 
 returned from the Cercle he would probably 
 be there till the small hours of the morning. 
 She would simply wait. But when she opened 
 the door, he stood before her, right in the middle 
 of the room, as if he had been pacing it. 
 
 He had not changed his clothes for the eve- 
 
 221
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 ning, but his face was changed in so short a 
 time oddly, pitifully. 
 
 He saw her, and smiled, looking paler than 
 ever then. 
 
 " Ah, Hope," he whispered, as if addressing a 
 vision, "you've come back." Then he bent for- 
 ward by the table, and his shoulders heaved with 
 sobs. 
 
 How different this from what she expected. 
 His cynicism, his reproaches, even his surprise, 
 all would have been natural, but not this 
 despair. 
 
 She went to him, and laid her hand on his 
 head. She acquired complete self-control for 
 the moment. 
 
 " I ran away to shirk the truth I 've come 
 again to tell it." 
 
 He stood up then, fighting with his emotion. 
 
 " I 'm a fool," he said ; " it did n't seem to be 
 you exactly only something that would pre- 
 vent it." 
 
 " Prevent what ? " 
 
 " The inevitable," he answered, putting his 
 hand in his pocket. 
 
 222
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " That I dare n't live without you, that " 
 
 She broke in hysterically 
 
 " And I dare n't live with you do you know 
 what I am ? " 
 
 He looked into her eyes steadily. 
 
 " A good woman," he said. 
 
 " A good woman ! " she cried. " Did you think 
 I went away because I was so respectable that your 
 saying c I care for you ' shocked me ? Did you 
 think that ? I went away because I am bad, mis- 
 erably bad, and I feared you would find it out." 
 
 He did not reply, but there was more colour 
 in his face now as he watched her. 
 
 " I went to Paris I meant to go to England, 
 I meant never to see you again to let you think 
 me foolish, prudish if you like, but at least to 
 believe me pure. Then I was mad with sorrow, 
 I wanted to tempt you ; light love is so easy 
 when one is beautiful, but beyond all things I 
 know that with you it 's impossible. Now I 've 
 come back because, though I mean to put all 
 space of time and circumstance between us in 
 another hour or two, I can't leave a lie behind. 
 223
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 I want you to know the truth ; v you shall carry me 
 in your memory just as I am, not as another : " 
 she looked him full in the face "I lived with a 
 man for four years." 
 
 "At last," said Carrender, holding out his - 
 hands. 
 
 " For God's sake," she moaned, crouching at 
 his feet, " not that have pity for me." 
 
 She had misunderstood him he was almost 
 glad. He would be so tender in his explanation. 
 
 " See, I am a poor old gambler," he said quiz- 
 zically, " with hardly a shilling in the world since 
 yesterday. To-morrow if you had not come I 
 think there would have been nothing not even 
 me. What are you going to do with what 's 
 left?" 
 
 " You mean it was n't worth while to come 
 back and add to your suffering. I know it 's 
 selfish of me, but I was obliged to do it." 
 
 "No that is not the point what are you 
 going to do for me ? " 
 
 She turned her lovely tear-stained face to 
 his perplexed. 
 
 " Marry me," he said, breaking the little 
 
 224
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 bottle which he took from his pocket, against the 
 bars of the grate. 
 
 " Marry you ? " she repeated slowly, " marry 
 you ? Did n't you understand what I said ? I was 
 not the man's wife I " 
 
 He laid his hand on her mouth. 
 
 " I know, dear," he said, " I knew it all the 
 time." 
 
 " And you would marry me with my past? " 
 
 The incredulity of her tone could not conceal 
 its joy. 
 
 " Let us bury your past," he said. " Take the 
 big stone of my rake's progress to lay on it, and 
 we will plant the grave with the roses of our love. 
 God, what a woman you are ! " 
 
 She needed no further words, she let him 
 gather her into his arms, she covered his hands 
 with her kisses. 
 
 " How good you are ! Ah, what happiness ! " 
 
 Then he told her when and how he had 
 known how after she had gone he knew how 
 terribly he cared. 
 
 " I thought you my chance," she declared, 
 explaining her line of conduct. 
 225 15
 
 THE GREAT GOD CHANCE 
 
 " You most certainly were mine." 
 
 " But is n't that false morality ? " she argued 
 presently, nestling closer. 
 
 "Ah, that's a thing to write a book about 
 in real life it's true worship. Do you believe 
 me?" 
 
 " With all my heart." 
 
 Their lips met. 
 
 " Is n't it strange," she whispered, " that what 
 one thinks must be the end is sometimes the 
 beginning ? " 
 
 " And there are some beginnings, pray heaven," 
 he mused, " that should have no end." 
 
 226
 
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