I LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO . 
 
 1
 
 p 
 
 V
 
 WOKLD S-END
 
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 WHAT WAS ONE TO DO WITH A BIG, SATANIC CROW THAT 
 
 SPOILED ONE S DAY DREAMS?" Page 60
 
 WORLD S END 
 
 BY 
 
 AMELIE RIVES 
 
 (PRINCESS TROUBETZKOY) 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 THE QUICK OR THE DEAD, ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 ALONZO KIMBALL 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 1911, by 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 Copyright, 1913, 1911, by 
 P. F. COIJJEH & SON, INC. 
 
 All right* reserved, including that of trantltlion into foreign 
 languages, including the Scandinavian 
 
 FIFTH PRINTING 
 
 April. 1914
 
 TO 
 
 MY FRIEND 
 DR. FREDERICK PETERSON 
 
 \MTH GRATEFUL 
 AFFECTION
 
 WORLD S - END 
 
 RANDOLPH and his nephew, Richard Bryce, 
 came out of the Ritz-Carlton together and got into 
 Randolph s motor-car. 
 
 It was January. Through scudding drift stole a small, 
 sad, tarnished, wondering moon, ineffectual against the in 
 solent, lilac- white glare of the arc-lamps. 
 
 The car crossed Fifty-ninth Street, and the brazen horse 
 of the Sherman Statue, with its angel groom, seemed to 
 leap at them. A few moments more brought them to the 
 door of the house on Fifth Avenue, where, after some 
 tableaux, Auguste was to dance that night. 
 
 A footman in powder and knee-breeches sauntered up 
 and helped them off with their overcoats in the semi-pro 
 fessional, semi-negligent manner of one rehearsing a do 
 mestic s part in private theatricals. 
 
 As they entered the ballroom the curtains were about to 
 be drawn aside from a small stage. In the dull light they 
 could see the blonde blur of women s arms and shoulders 
 among the dark mass of the men s black-coated backs, and 
 an occasional gleam from one of the gilded chairs. The 
 atmosphere seemed close and murky after the thin rigour 
 of the outside air. 
 
 Richard slipped into an empty chair, but Randolph re 
 mained standing. He was such a big man that to fold 
 himself up in a small space for any length of time caused 
 him acute discomfort. 
 
 A youth who was on the stage before the curtains now 
 made some witty remarks, well peppered with indiscreet 
 personalities, at which there was a little flurry of appre 
 ciative laughter. 
 
 The tableau that followed was startling. In front of a 
 large cage sat a lovely girl in Oriental costume. Within 
 
 1
 
 2 WORLD S-END 
 
 the cage a monstrous figure suddenly upreared itself a 
 huge man clad in shaggy hide to represent an ape. A 
 movable jaw with great fangs and a cushion of red tongue 
 were adjusted to his face. 
 
 Thrusting out one arm, he caught at the young woman s 
 veil. She eluded him and began a slow dance of allure 
 ment. Suddenly, from some portion of her gauzy dress, 
 she drew forth a slice of raw meat and gave it to the 
 monster. He took it, tested it between his fangs, threw it 
 down, and, breaking the bars of his cage, rushed at the 
 tantalising houri. Lightly casting her long chain of pearls 
 about his neck, she led him from the scene. A rustle of 
 whispers ended the applause. People were evidently at a 
 loss as to the meaning of this sjanbolic drama. 
 
 The next tableau consisted of a big canvas on which was 
 painted a spirited chestnut filly with up-flung heels. Where 
 a horse s head should have been there looked out the beau 
 tiful, mischievous face of the loveliest woman in New 
 York. As if just smitten by the heels of the Centauress, 
 a little Satyr, in evening-dress, rolled helpless, its head 
 supplied by that of a well-known man. 
 
 "Why don t you look where you re going?" said the 
 Centauress. 
 
 "Alas! that s why I m here," replied the Satyr. 
 
 A gale of laughter and bravos greeted them; then the 
 curtains fell for the last time, the lights were turned on, 
 and the servants began to clear the room for dancing. 
 
 As the lights went up, Randolph saw all about him the 
 people that he had known for many years, but had not seen 
 often during the past three or four. He glanced quickly 
 from woman to woman, thinking how little they had 
 changed, and how the saying that American beauties wither 
 early was a mistaken one. 
 
 A little, fair, paunchy, mild-faced man, the husband of 
 one of these beauties, hailed him suddenly as "old chap" 
 and remarked that Randolph reminded him of an African 
 explorer ... he was so very sunburnt and looked so 
 aloof somehow. Randolph replied to this with some banal 
 ity, and then all at once the little man began to tell him 
 about his pet bullfinch. He said that the capacity of bull 
 finches for affection was immense, and that his pet was in 
 the habit of alighting on his head in the morning and, press 
 ing down its little wings on either side of his forehead in a 
 sort of embrace, bursting into song.
 
 WORLD S-END 3 
 
 Randolph looked at the little man while he told this 
 anecdote, and liked him for it. The lack of self-conscious 
 ness that could allow a man to paint himself in so absurd 
 a guise struck him as simple and appealing. Then, just as 
 he was about to reply, the bullfinch s master slid into an 
 anecdote filthy and silly. 
 
 Randolph turned away, saying that he must go and speak 
 to his sister, and the vision pursued him all the evening 
 of a round-bellied, sentimental-eyed little man, with a bull 
 finch perched upon the crown of his bald head, pouring 
 forth its innocent roulades, while a stream of salacious in 
 anities issued from the human mouth below. 
 
 Mrs. Bryce was standing near one of the doors, talking 
 to a young man. who turned away as Randolph approached. 
 She was a very thin woman, but beautifully made, tall and 
 dark, like her brother. The most striking feature in her 
 face was her black, narrow eyebrows, which lifted with an 
 effect of fretfulness as they neared the nose. Her mouth 
 was at the same time querulous and restrained, as though 
 she had a slight grievance against life \vhich she preferred 
 not to mention, but the lips were prettily shaped, and 
 touched this evening with carmine, Randolph noticed. He 
 thought it hardened her, but it was undoubtedly becoming. 
 She had the merest wing-brush of grey at either temple, 
 although she was now fifty-one. 
 
 As Sally Randolph she had been one of the beauties of 
 Virginia, and as Mrs. Peter Bryce she had continued her 
 triumphant career in New York until poor Peter s losses 
 broke up their social life. 
 
 Randolph s generosity had kept them from anything like 
 poverty, but of course the house on Fifth Avenue and the 
 place in Newport had to go ... though in her heart Sally 
 had felt that Owen would have indulged her in keeping 
 these also. At this point, however, Peter had grown ob 
 stinate, and his "No" w r as not to be melted, shattered, or 
 put aside. Nine years ago poor Peter had died in the 
 effort of making a second fortune, and his wife was left 
 with an income of only two thousand a year. Since then 
 she had lived part of the time at " World s-End," her 
 brother s estate in Virginia, and part in the charming flat 
 he had furnished for her in New York. A year after his 
 father s death her son Richard had gone to Paris in quest 
 of art, and it was now three months since his return. Ran 
 dolph also had been absent from both New York and Vir-
 
 4 WORLD S-END 
 
 ginia for several months, in the study of educational ques 
 tions which he thought might help him with the people 
 at " World s-End"; and was but just returned from a 
 visit to Miss Berry s Schools in Georgia. It was with the 
 view of also studying Richard as veneered by France 
 that he had asked him to dine at the Ritz-Carlton that 
 evening. 
 
 Richard was Mrs. Bryce s only child, and one of her 
 suppressed grievances against life was the constant torment 
 afforded her by the idea that his Tolstoian sympathies 
 might so gain upon her brother as to induce him to divide 
 his great riches among the poor and leave Richard with 
 only a few paltry thousands. It had been long under 
 stood among the three that Richard was to be his uncle s 
 heir, in case that Randolph did not marry. 
 
 Mrs. Bryce, knowing her brother in some ways very well, 
 considered that as he had reached the age of forty-seven 
 without marrying he could be safely regarded as a fixed 
 bachelor. 
 
 Yet as she looked at him now she wondered anew, as she 
 often did, how this had happened, for there was nothing 
 ascetic or monkish about Owen on the contrary, his hazel 
 eyes and deeply cut mouth were full of humour and tem 
 perament. 
 
 "Do you find Richard much changed?" she asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 Randolph returned her concentrated gaze with the flicker 
 of a smile. 
 
 "He ll be worse before he s better, Sally ... as Han 
 nah used to tell me." 
 
 "How do you mean?" demanded his sister with a nerv 
 ous twitch of her petulant eyebrows. "Do you think that 
 Paris has . . . Aarmedhim?" 
 
 "Why, no, Sally . . . don t be a goose. Paris has no 
 special brew for poisoning a youth. If he wants poison he 
 can find it here in New York just as well as in Paris. I 
 mean that he s got I find myself quoting Hannah again 
 notions in his head. : 
 
 "I wish you wouldn t keep me on tenter-hooks like this," 
 said Mrs. Bryee peevishly. I wish you d say what you ve 
 got to say about my boy quite plainly, Owen. In a second 
 or two somebody is sure to interrupt us." 
 
 Randolph could not resist teasing her. 
 
 "There s very good stuff in the lad indeed," said he,
 
 WORLD S-END 5 
 
 "but at present there s too much, embroidery for the ma 
 terial." 
 
 His sister looked at him with real anger and he repented 
 of his frivolity. 
 
 In other words ... in the plain language I asked you 
 to speak . . . you mean that you consider Richard a pre 
 tentious noodle," she remarked, before he could utter the 
 sentence that he was hastening to frame. 
 
 "Dear Sally, I meant nothing of the sort," he said, hold 
 ing her with his kind eyes. Don t be cross. It would 
 be a fine thing for us to quarrel over Richard of all people. 
 The boy has talent. I suppose you don t really want me 
 to tell you that he is Michael Angelo and Shakespeare in 
 one?" 
 
 " I m not aware that I ve ever given you reason to think 
 that I considered Richard the reincarnation of those two 
 worthies," observed Mrs. Bryce Avith a stiffness so like 
 Richard s on such occasions that Randolph with difficulty 
 suppressed a smile. "He has never been really congenial 
 to you," she added bitterly, noticing the abnormal serious 
 ness of his expression caused by the effort to keep from 
 smiling, and realising with her quick hyper-sensitiveness 
 exactly what originated it. 
 
 "My dear girl," exclaimed Randolph, "this must really 
 stop. It would be too foolish of us to get at cross-purposes 
 over Richard. I m fond of him, as you know. What real 
 congeniality there can be between a boy of twenty-six who 
 looks upon the Universe as a vast studio and a man of 
 forty-seven who regards it as a confoundedly trying school 
 I leave it to your own wits to divine. Richard is at an 
 age when his enthusiasms give him keener delight than they 
 do his fellows his middle-aged fellows, at least that is 
 all." 
 
 Mrs. Bryce turned this over for a second or two. 
 
 "Have you made out what it is exactly that he washes 
 to do?" she asked at length. 
 
 "I believe he intends to reform the art and morals of 
 America," he replied demurely. "At least, reform is the 
 word that he would use. I doubt whether even you, my 
 dear Sally, would agree with him as to its appositeness. 
 
 Mrs. Bryce knit her brows at him. He saw the sym 
 bolical chip upon her shoulder. 
 
 Why do you say even me ? " she demanded sharply. 
 
 "Because, however ardently, as a devoted mother, you
 
 6 WORLD S-END 
 
 might long to agree with your son, as an avowed sup 
 porter of the existing social order, you would be bound as 
 vehemently to differ from him." 
 
 What dreadful things has that boy been saying now ? 
 asked his mother with simple anxiety. 
 
 "Oh, just a few passing whacks at marriage and religion. 
 They seem to him inartistic," said Randolph, laughing. 
 "Come, Sally . . . don t look so tragic. You aren t going 
 to take all this froth of youth for the brew underneath, 
 are you?" 
 
 He saw in her eyes a real dread. 
 
 "Owen ... he has always talked like that. It isn t 
 only froth. The dregs are in it." Then she caught her 
 self up. "He thinks it s clever," she said. "He likes to 
 startle us." 
 
 Her brother just touched her hand as they stood to 
 gether near the door. 
 
 Well . . . don t take it too seriously, he said, and she 
 gave him a warm, deep glance, as fleeting as his touch had 
 been, but which told him. more plainly than words could 
 have done how sincere was her affection for him, despite 
 her wayward, testy temper. 
 
 Then, as she had foreseen, they were interrupted and, 
 leaving her with a knot of friends, Randolph went across 
 to speak with the mauve-eyed English lady who had played 
 the Centauress in the tableau, and who was signalling to 
 him. On his way through the crowded room he caught a 
 bit of innocuous gossip that pleased his sense of fun. A 
 woman was saying to another : 
 
 "My dear! You ve been too long away! Don t you 
 know that Lola Sibley has just had a baby?" 
 
 "Is she pleased?" 
 
 "Of course. And now they re going to Egypt and tak 
 ing Tootie with them." 
 
 "Who is Tootie? The baby?" 
 
 "No the fox-terrier. The baby is to stay with its 
 grandmother." 
 
 Randolph was smiling so pleasedly over these remarks 
 when he reached Mrs. Beresford (such was the mauve-eyed 
 lady s name) that she said, "You ve heard some delicious 
 stupidity. I know that particular expression of yours so 
 well. What was it?" 
 
 "Just about Tootie s going to Egypt and the baby stop 
 ping with its grandmother."
 
 WORLD S-END 7 
 
 "Oh, yes! Hadn t you heard that before? It s been to 
 and fro over New York for days, like the dove over the 
 waters. Poor dears! I believe the baby rather scares 
 them. But don t let s talk of Lola Sibley," she went on. 
 "It s so nice to have you with us again. When are you 
 going back to Virginia? You do love that old place of 
 yours dreadfully, don t you? It s so very nice and so odd, 
 too, to see an American so fond of a place. But I suppose 
 you call yourself a Virginian eh?" 
 
 "A Virginian first, perhaps," admitted Randolph, smil 
 ing. "It s in the blood, you know." 
 
 "Yes, I know . . . John Randolph of Roanoke and all 
 that." 
 
 Randolph laughed out this time. 
 
 "I m afraid that ancestral personage was a bit of a 
 scalawag," said he. 
 
 "Ancestral personages generally are," said Mrs. Beres- 
 ford. 
 
 "Then it s fortunate that I m not going to be one, isn t 
 it?" returned Randolph, who enjoyed this light chaffing 
 after his months of conscientious grind. 
 
 Mrs. Beresford s match-making instinct was alert in an 
 instant. 
 
 "Aren t you really ever going to marry?" asked she 
 with true British frankness. "It s no end of a shame. I 
 know a perfect darling of a girl for you. She s in this 
 very room." 
 
 Now. . . . Now ..." said Randolph warningly. Do 
 you want me to rush off for safety to World s-End the 
 first evening that I have seen you in a year?" 
 
 Mrs. Beresford narrowed her white lids slightly and 
 looked at him as sternly as eyes that resembled periwinkle- 
 flowers could look. 
 
 "You may joke," said she, "but I think it s shameful 
 of you not to marry." 
 
 Randolph begged to know why in the world she thought 
 it "shameful." 
 
 "Because you are depriving some woman of such a duck 
 of a husband," retorted she. and they both laughed. 
 
 But the next moment she became serious again. "Apart 
 from joking," she said, "you really ought to have a son 
 to inherit your fortune and that Virginia estate you love 
 so much." 
 
 And poor Richard . . . why should his nose be put out
 
 8 WORLD S-END 
 
 of joint at such inconvenience to me? Don t you like 
 Richard?" 
 
 "Yes. I do. I more than like him. I think he s won 
 derful. I think he s a genius. But a genius ought to make 
 his own fortune. 
 
 "Geniuses aren t famous for making fortunes," said 
 Randolph gravely. But, tell me, why do you think Rich 
 ard a genius?" 
 
 "Oh," said Mrs. Beresford, "it s his wonderful talk 
 for one thing. He s the most brilliant talker I ever heard. 
 He s too young, you know, to have done anything much 
 yet awhile. But what I have seen of his work I think 
 extraordinary so utterly original. Surely you think it 
 original?" 
 
 "I haven t seen it yet. I m going to his studio tomor 
 row afternoon." 
 
 "How nicei So am I. I m really very keen to know 
 what you ll think of his work. Haven t you read any of 
 his latest poems?" 
 
 ; Not yet, said Randolph. Have you ? 
 
 "No but he has read some of them to me. They are 
 most original ! He has discovered a new rhythm or beat or 
 something of the kind in verse. It s a little beyond me 
 I m not literary, you know but the effect is wonderful." 
 
 Randolph said that this reminded him of a Latinist of 
 his acquaintance who had discovered a new method of 
 scansion which allowed one to read Cassar s Commentaries 
 as rhythmically as though they were the Georgics of Virgil. 
 
 Mrs. Beresford gave him a shrewd glance and said : 
 
 "I believe you are poking fun at me, but all the same 
 Richard s verses are remarkable. They re so soaked with 
 colour. You seem to see it waving up in spirals from 
 the pages as he reads. And he s so charming to look at. 
 Just watch him as he stands there talking to that girl in 
 lavender. You feel somehow that a man who looks like 
 that must do original work. The very way he dresses is 
 a bit of perfect art." 
 
 Randolph looked at his nephew s young, thin silhouette, 
 seen partly against the lavender frock and partly against 
 the white-and-gold panelling of the wall, and was pleasantly 
 struck by its distinction. The high, black-satin stock of the 
 "thirties," and the reticent, suave cut of the evening coat 
 with its black- velvet lapels, suited admirably the lank young 
 figure and long, ivory-toned face. The small, neatly
 
 WORLD S-END 9 
 
 shaped skull, however, struck him as being too much de 
 veloped in front, and too little in the back. Richard 
 moved his hands a great deal when he talked, long, leaf- 
 like hands that seemed as light as paper from this dis 
 tance. 
 
 Randolph, who believed that a man s outward appearance 
 often corresponds with his artistic work, thought that there 
 would probably be a good deal of self-conscious artifice in 
 Richard s writings " Chinoiserie," he called it to himself. 
 
 A rustle of expectation stirred the room. 
 
 Ah it s Auguste coming. Have you seen him dance ? 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "Neither have I. But I m dying to. Richard says that 
 his dancing is the harmonic of rhythmic violence to which 
 life is set. 
 
 "Richard takes delightful liberties with words," said 
 Randolph, amused. "The harmonic, as well as I remem 
 ber, is the secondary or overtone. Now, I should have 
 thought that Richard meant to say that ..." 
 
 Here Auguste and his mate in dancing wafted into the 
 room on a light wind of music, and Randolph did not 
 finish his sentence. 
 
 II 
 
 O ANDOLPH watched the dancers at first rather than the 
 ** dance. 
 
 " My country tis of thee . . ." he reflected. "Where 
 else in this broad world would mothers bring their young 
 daughters to see Auguste dance?" 
 
 Auguste had a good-natured, impudent face, with round 
 nostrils and round, dark blue eyes, bland with a serene 
 effrontery. He was of medium height, well-knit and agile 
 with the grace that is expressive of a springlike strength 
 beneath. He held his partner to him by a hand spread 
 flat between her shoulders, the gesture of a feline that has 
 put his sheathed paw lightly on some object, yet means 
 to hold by its claws if necessary. 
 
 The girl was of an exquisite vulgarity a slim, rounded 
 bit of femininity whose very bones seemed pliant. Her 
 small, wedge-shaped face with its blackened eyes and crim 
 soned lips looked sickly under its wings of cropped hair, 
 dyed straw-colour.
 
 10 WORLD S-END 
 
 Auguste was in ordinary evening dress for this first 
 dance, and the girl wore a short slip of thin, very clinging 
 stuff over fleshings. 
 
 At first they spun so fleetly and evenly over the sleek 
 floor that he was reminded of the motion of "sleeping" 
 tops then the dance grew more measured, more accented, 
 and gradually passed into the most intricate maze of sen 
 sual patterns, with those two human bodies weaving the 
 web of desire as on an invisible loom. . . . 
 
 Randolph withdrew his look from them and bent it on 
 the spectators. In moments of climax the audience often 
 interested him more than tire drama, and this interest was 
 keener than usual at the present moment. 
 
 "With what expression would all these young women and 
 girls of his own world be watching those gyrating aliens 
 from another? 
 
 The faces were fixed, but mostly expressionless ; they were 
 absorbed, but he could see no other emotion upon them 
 than that of a perfectly frank and unrelaxing curiosity. 
 He glanced at a group of men clustered in a big doorway. 
 With them it was different. Mouths were parted eyes 
 glistening. They too were obsessed by curiosity, but of an 
 other relish. Yet these were the fathers, brothers and 
 sweethearts of the women in the little gilded chairs. 
 
 The dance ceased and there was great applause. 
 
 "I must say, it s ... frank," said Mrs. Beresford. 
 
 "Yes you couldn t call it subtle, certainly," admitted 
 Eandolph. 
 
 "Of course it s rather horrid, but it is beautiful in a 
 way." 
 
 "Certainly it is," he agreed. 
 
 She glanced back over her shoulder at the chairs behind 
 them. 
 
 "It does seem odd to have young girls here, doesn t it? 
 I suppose that s modernity." 
 
 Let s call it modernity, said Eandolph. 
 
 "It displeases you, doesn t it?" 
 
 "Why should it displease me? I haven t a daughter 
 here, and Sally is of mature age. You can t be thinking 
 that my own morals are in danger?" 
 
 "Well ..." said Mrs. Beresford ruminatingly "I be 
 lieve I feel just as you do." 
 
 "Please ... how do I feel?" 
 
 "You don t like all these young girls looking on."
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 11 
 
 "It seems an odd situation to me, I confess. But I ve 
 watched them carefully, and, do you know, I don t think 
 it affects them one way or the other?" 
 
 "No . . ." she said, gazing about her again. "I don t 
 think it does. Why do you suppose that is?" 
 
 Ah ..." said Randolph, and he gave a whimsical imi 
 tation of an elaborate Gallic shrug. 
 
 As another man came to speak to Mrs. Beresford at this 
 moment he made over his chair to him and, turning away, 
 found himself beside a portrait painter named Buxton 
 whom he rather liked. 
 
 "What do you think of it?" asked Buxton when they 
 had shaken hands. Rather steep for a drawing-room fad 
 hey?" 
 
 It s amazmg, " said Randolph. 
 
 "Which? The dance or the audience?" asked the other, 
 grinning. 
 
 "The combination. It s perfectly incredible. What do 
 you make of it?" 
 
 "Give it up," said Buxton. "But what do they make 
 of it? ... That s the interesting question. They aren t 
 blind . . . they aren t fools . . . they aren t sucklings . . . 
 they aren t sexless. Yet they stare at *hat unspeakable per 
 formance like hair-dressers busts at the crowd." 
 
 Richard here approached and, addressing his uncle with 
 an annoyed air, said that he was sorry to have led him to 
 expect so much from Auguste s dancing that already 
 America had injured Auguste as an artist that his danc 
 ing had become lukewarm and banal and had lost its mar 
 vellous violence and savage elan. 
 
 "You ll doubtless regard me as old-fashioned, Richard, 
 un bourgeois en- dclirc, when I tell you that I consider 
 him sufficiently indecent since he dances before young 
 girls. But look at them! As calm as though they had 
 been a-Maying!" 
 
 Richard gazed at the untroubled maidens from under 
 his straight, black brows, so like his mother s. Then he 
 looked again at his uncle. 
 
 "Have you guessed their secret?" asked he. 
 
 "No," said Randolph, frowning a little. 
 
 Then I will tell you, Uncle Owen for I know what is 
 at the core of their hearts. They adored it for all women 
 adore brutality. But they ve been brought up to conceal 
 things, and so they re concealing it; just as a woman might
 
 12 WORLD S-END 
 
 draw on a white glove to hide the bruise of a lover s vio 
 lent kiss on her arm." 
 
 Randolph looked at him bleakly. He would very much 
 have enjoyed giving Richard a sound cuff. Sally s bitter 
 speech "lie has never been really congenial to you, "- 
 shot into his mind, and he recalled how from boyhood 
 certain traits in Richard had always jarred upon him, re 
 membering at the same time that whenever lie had over 
 come the first instinctive recoil from a personality his after- 
 experience had proved his intuition to be right. How 
 differently he had looked on life when he was Richard s 
 age! Women had seemed to him like mysterious flowers, 
 at whose touch all the portals of beatitude would fly open. 
 The thought of violence in connection with a woman would 
 have seemed to him a stupid profanity then as now. 
 
 And in a sudden flash he saw the scene empty of him 
 self and Richard reigning at World s-End Richard with 
 his decadent, Montmartre-ish ideas, ruling over the negroes 
 and white country folk whose problems he had spent so 
 many years trying to solve in a sane, human, fellow-kindly 
 fashion. After all, if he had a son The old, ineradi 
 cable human instinct startled him with the suddenness of 
 its attack. Yes there was no shirking it he would have 
 preferred to imagine his own son at "World s-End" rather 
 than the son of his sister. Or, no, he corrected himself, 
 rather than the individual being, Richard Bryce. 
 
 Richard, in the meantime, perceiving quite clearly that 
 his uncle s attitude was antagonistic to his interpretation 
 of the reason for the virginal serenity of the young girls 
 in face of Auguste s dancing, thought what a pity it was 
 that a really able man like Uncle OVen should cherish 
 those antiquated ideas of chivalry which left so many 
 American women moping on pedestals and so many Ameri 
 can men moiling below them. In his darksome young creed 
 the maidens went very willingly to the Minotaur and the 
 Sabine women had only shrieked from savoir faire. 
 
 "Ah . . . Auguste is going to give us the Apache at 
 last," he exclaimed suddenly, and he and Randolph worked 
 their way along the edge of the throng in order to be a 
 little nearer to the dancers. 
 
 Auguste, in rough dress, with a vulgar little cap shading 
 his rapacious, questing eyes and a brutal red neckerchief 
 about his throat, had taken on the dignity that always 
 lurks in latent ferocity. His mate, in her black calico
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 13 
 
 gown and shock of bleached hair, chopped off as for the 
 guillotine and falling over a red neckerchief like his own, 
 was no longer the pert little street-decoy of the fleshings 
 and revealing slip, but a tranced, piteous victim of sex, 
 drawn to the devouring male like a seabird to the glare of 
 the pharos that means its death. 
 
 The dance begins. It is a dance of satiety on his part, 
 of not to be rebuffed, utterly debased pleading on hers. 
 He is the carnivore whose lip-bristles are stiff with blood, 
 who has eaten of sweet white meat till he wishes to rend 
 and grind what he can no longer swallow. She is the blood 
 that cries from the ground where it is spilt to be spilt 
 again, the degraded flesh that does not feel itself alive 
 until the fangs of the devourer are in it. 
 
 To pulse-beats of music, inane as the gabbling of idiots, 
 the two circle and turn, facing each other, and ever she 
 shamelessly and wofully solicits, and ever the glutted male 
 flings her off, as though the very reek of her anxious femi 
 ninity roused in him a fierce hatred of reaction. Once, 
 with an orgasm of pent rage, he cuffs her right and left, 
 on her whitened jaws, as the tiger cuffs his mate grown 
 too familiar. But now he catches her to him, and the 
 brutal bound with which he does so is like a roar of ex 
 asperation. He bends her backward, sideward, as though 
 he would break her fragile bones and hear them grit to 
 gether in the warm pulp of her flesh then flings her from 
 him like a little doll of rags. Back she goes, and back 
 and back, until her cropped poll rests upon the boards and 
 her slight body is an arch of quivering and repulsed de 
 sire from head to heels. Her black skirts spread withered 
 about her. She is like a dark, soiled flower picked from 
 the gutter and cast back again, a poor "fleur du mal" 
 dashed back upon the pavement from between the crevices 
 of which it sprang. 
 
 "When she trembles up, crouches, fawns, solicits, he 
 pounces this time he has her by the wrists. Up she goes, 
 up and up. He whirls her round his head like a living 
 sling a sling of flesh in which the heart is the stone to be 
 slung forth. Round and round he whirls her. What will 
 the end be? Will he hurl her out above the prettily 
 dressed women in the little gilded chairs, to fall among 
 them, crushing them with her actual body, as the symbolic 
 body of her sisterhood should crush their placid self-satis 
 faction? But no, he drops her finally back within his owu
 
 14 WORLD S-END 
 
 claws; spinning ever faster and faster, ever closer and 
 closer he holds her, until blended into one shape, like a 
 madly whirling, Aphroditic toy, they dart from the room, 
 and the "Apache" dance is over. 
 
 The culmination of the evening came for Eandolph, how 
 ever, when the maidens on whose account he had been so 
 concerned rose from their places in response to the invita 
 tion of the young men, and with smiling good-will began 
 to imitate with their partners the sinuosities of the modern 
 variation of the "valse chaloupe" which Auguste had first 
 given. 
 
 He noted two Frenchmen whose remarks he had over 
 heard earlier in the evening watching the dancers and bus 
 ily engaged in a rapid exchange of undertones, and he pur 
 posely avoided passing near them, not caring to hear what 
 they might have to say just then about the customs of his 
 country. 
 
 As he neared the door, for he had decided not to wait 
 for Richard and Sally, a mother accosted her daughter in 
 quite audible tones. 
 
 "Maudie dear, I wouldn t dance any more with Teddy 
 Bering if I were you. He s had entirely too much cham 
 pagne. And mind you avoid young Miller. He s a nice 
 boy, but you know he s always tight about this time in 
 the evening." 
 
 Randolph handed his ticket to the condescending foot 
 man, and, recovering his great-coat, stepped out into the 
 thin, stinging air in a mood of mingled relief, wonderment, 
 annoyance, and melancholy. 
 
 On the afternoon of the next day Richard was at work 
 in his studio. As his long, nervous, too finely chiselled 
 hands indicated, he was an ardent lover of detail for its 
 own sake. Form as expressed by line was what most ap 
 pealed to him, and he had exotic ideas about colour, which 
 he said should be mentally suggested rather than presented 
 to the eye in crude masses. 
 
 Jewels he called the bourgeoiseries of nature, and con 
 sidered alabaster and black marble the only precious stones. 
 
 In accordance with this theory, his studio was entirely 
 in black and white. 
 
 His gift as a draughtsman was undoubtedly rare. The 
 fluent, vibrant beauty of his line swept out along the white 
 surface like black gossamer on the wind of imagination.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 15 
 
 But he also considered himself a poet, a painter and a 
 sculptor. 
 
 "When an admiring lady had once asked him to what 
 school of philosophy he belonged, he had replied that he 
 was "an ideopraxist. " The lady had looked up the word 
 in the dictionary as soon as she got home and found that 
 it meant "one who is impelled to act by the force of an 
 idea; who devotes his energies to the carrying out of an 
 idea." She discovered later that this idea by whose force 
 Richard was impelled, and to the carrying out of which 
 his energies were devoted, was the idea of the revelation 
 of the natural bent of a man as disclosed by his art, re 
 gardless of all accepted standards of morality and beauty, 
 and of all promptings of the so-called higher self (I quote 
 Richard) which was merely the grafting by civilisation of 
 a banal and morbid sensibility upon the primal and vig 
 orously a-moral senses of the natural man. 
 
 As often happens, Richard was of a colder nature than 
 his theories. He experimented with his senses rather than 
 they with him as in the case of the average youth of six- 
 and-twenty, and had he taken a bride he would surely have 
 ground her into paint. 
 
 He was working at present on a volume of his own poems 
 which he was illustrating, and it was to hear his latest 
 poem, which he called "The Daughter of Ypocras, " that 
 some people were coming that day Sylvia Beresford, the 
 lovely Mrs. Fierce-Hull, and his mother, who had asked to 
 bring Mary Talliaferro. 
 
 Richard frowned now as he recalled Mary s light grey, 
 Irish eyes with the short black lashes and little dance in 
 them for, whether she spoke or was silent, Mary always 
 seemed to be making light of his most cherished ideas. 
 
 When Randolph arrived at the studio he found there 
 Sylvia Beresford, Mrs. Fierce-Hull, and two artists, a Mr. 
 Hines and a Mr. Prosser. 
 
 Mrs. Fierce-Hull, of whom Richard had spoken as being 
 uniquely exquisite, was a tall, incredibly thin woman with 
 a white, mask-like face and a Pierrot mouth painted violet- 
 red. From mists of greenish ashen hair her gold green 
 eyes gazed out with the still detachment of a cat s. 
 
 Randolph learned from this lady that Mr. Hines was a 
 disciple of Matisse but that Mr. Prosser was a law unto 
 himself and had just finished a most amazing decoration 
 of zebras for Mrs. Fierce-Hull s dining-room.
 
 16 WORLD S-END 
 
 "It s simply marvellous," she said, "to see what Mr. 
 Prosser has done with zebras after George Moore s saying 
 that zebras and Swiss chalets cannot be used in art. You 
 should see them for yourself, Mr. Randolph one can t de 
 scribe them." 
 
 Just here Sally came in with Mary Talliaferro and, be 
 fore reading his poem, Richard was persuaded to show 
 them his last piece of sculpture, a bas-relief in alabaster 
 set upon black marble and entitled "AVoman. " The black 
 marble, showing dully through the semi-diaphanous ala 
 baster, symbolised, in Richard s view, "the darkness of 
 masculinity lowering through the lighter substance of 
 femininity." To Randolph it seemed disagreeably remin 
 iscent of certain cheap effects in cameos. The face itself, 
 contorted and perverse, certainly did not represent his idea 
 of "Woman." He awaited with curiosity the verdict of 
 the others. 
 
 There was silence for some moments after Richard had 
 withdrawn the scarf of black gauze with which the bas- 
 relief was veiled. Then Mrs. Pierce-Hull drew a long 
 breath and said : 
 
 "You have disclosed the secrets that women have been 
 keeping these thousands of years." 
 
 Sylvia said: "It s amazing ... it s ... it s terri- 
 fyingly true." 
 
 The disciple of Matisse said in his deep, rough voice: 
 "fa y est, et en plcin," and Prosser exclaimed: "My 
 dear Bryce, what a bi-sexual brain you must have to do a 
 bit of revelation like that." 
 
 Mary and Sally were discreetly quiet. Randolph 
 confessed frankly that he did not "understand." The 
 two artists and Mrs. Pierce-Hull spent the next twenty 
 minutes in trying to enlighten him. Finally Richard 
 broke forth into a monologue on the hidden ways of 
 art. 
 
 Randolph was diverted and annoyed at the same time 
 by the caracolings of Richard s high-horse, and wondered 
 whether he would ever dismount and pursue the one real 
 gift that he had on the sober feet of common sense. But 
 no, it seemed as if he would choose to reign as Prince of 
 Smatterers over a court that gazed enchanted through the 
 magnifying glass of many-coloured words which he held 
 before his artistic personality, for now he was telling them 
 that the only real tonic-scale was that of the Chinese, and
 
 WORLD S-END 17 
 
 of how he was engaged in writing a one-act opera in ac 
 cordance with the Chinese laws of music. 
 
 At last, standing beside the lectern of ebony and ivory, 
 on which lay his book of poems, he began to expound it 
 to them. 
 
 The daughter of Ypocras was, he told them, a lovely girl 
 who had been changed into a dragon and doomed to re 
 tain this fearful shape until some lover, knowing of her 
 plight, should be bold enough to kiss her on the mouth. 
 In his poem the lover comes and, being often mirrored in 
 the beautiful eyes which are all that remain to her of her 
 woman s form, is drawn gradually into doting on the 
 rare sinuosities of her dragon-shape, and the play of light 
 along her scales of gold and violet. So that, when at last 
 his kiss transforms her again to woman, his artist-heart 
 breaks at the loss of his exquisite dragon, and he sinks 
 dying at the feet of the sweetly normal maiden who has 
 taken her place. 
 
 In this poem, he explained, he had endeavoured to reveal 
 some of the dark yet radiant magic that lurks in the 
 mysterious perversities of femininity, as opposed to the 
 commonplace attraction of what he might call the daylight 
 charm of the uncomplex woman. 
 
 When he began to read, the still, feline eyes of Mrs. 
 Fierce-Hull never left his face, her pupils seeming to ex 
 pand and contract with the cadence of the verse, like those 
 of a cat following the uneven flight of a young bird. Syl 
 via s face was rigid with attention, Sally s anxious. Only 
 in Mary s light grey eyes the little dance seemed going to 
 a merry tune of the mind. Randolph continued to watch 
 Mary with great pleasure. Hers was certainly the charm 
 of daylight, and he thought how crisp and awakening was 
 the contrast of her vivid, humourful face to the almost 
 drugged-looking hothouse beauty of Mrs. Fierce-Hull. Yes, 
 in this atelier of Richard s with its rapt devotees, Mary 
 W,> like a fine rousing major-chord struck full across the 
 dreamy minor meanderings of a chanson by De Bussy. He 
 would get her to come and have tea with him somewhere 
 after it was over, and they could talk together, in happy 
 and undisturbed philistinism, of "World s-End and some 
 of the daylight things that Richard scorned. One was 
 always happy with Mary. That warm heart of hers, saved 
 from sentimentalism by her keen sense of fun, flowed out 
 so to the interests of others as to make them seem doubly
 
 18 WORLD S -END 
 
 interesting to the others themselves. And suddenly Ran- 
 dolph wondered why it was that he had never fallen in 
 love with Mary, she was so pre-eminently lovable and so 
 charming to look at with her light-grey happy eyes, her 
 too-short upper lip that always let through a gleam of 
 her pretty teeth, her dark hair curling free from the heavi 
 est pins, and the soft red in her olive cheeks. She was 
 the right age for him, too, just thirty-six, and liked the 
 things that he liked and loved World s-End almost as much 
 as he did a strong bond. But in all the years that he 
 had known her it had never once crossed his mind to "fall 
 in love" with her though there was no one for whom he 
 had a stronger affection. And now, all at once, like that, 
 he found it strange that he had never done so, and wan 
 dered why it was exactly, and whether she could ever have 
 loved him if he had cared in that way. 
 
 Just here Mary looked at him as though she had felt the 
 touch of his thoughts, and the little dance in her eyes quick- 
 ened until it became like the dance of light on water, and 
 she made the slightest motion with her lips which told 
 him better than words could have done exactly what she 
 thought of the Daughter of Ypocras, and Richard s 
 sarcophagus-like studio and Mrs. Fierce-Hull, and the 
 painter of zebras, and everything. Yes, he and Mary were 
 so much in sympathy that they could often communicate in 
 this manner without words, and it seemed stranger than 
 ever to him that he had never "fallen in love" with her. 
 
 It was stranger even than he thought, for in these things 
 there is often an unadmitted hypnotic force which emanates 
 from the apparently passive, and Mary had loved him all 
 her life. 
 
 Ill 
 
 HPAXI or hansom?" asked Randolph when at last he and 
 * Mary were in the street together. 
 
 "Oh, a hansom by all means," said Mary. "I can never 
 get too near to a horse, as you know, and besides they re 
 so nice and old-time-y and don t smell of gasolene only 
 please pick out a good horse." 
 
 They let three "Pirates" who were "cruising" the Ave 
 nue rather mournfully go by, and then Randolph lifted 
 his stick at a cab drawn by a cocky little bay.
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 19 
 
 "I wish I had some sugar." sighed Mary as she got in. 
 and the horse turned his head to investigate. i; I know that 
 little horse was somebody s pet once. His legs have been 
 fired. They sold him for that. I reckon." 
 
 Randolph was delighted to have Alary all to himself. 
 Her Virginian accent, not too marked, was the pleasantest 
 sound he had heard for a lone time, and she was so per 
 fectly natural and "daylight." He thanked Richard 
 mentally for that expression. It might have been invented 
 iV." Mary. 
 
 To her he said: 
 
 "You are certainly the most endearing person. Mary. 
 Shall I stop somewhere and get you some sugar?" 
 
 But Mary laughed and said no. that she wanted her tea 
 so dreadfully it made her selrlsh. 
 
 ""Where are we going for our tea?" she asked him. 
 "X ot to an ultra smart place, please. I m so tired of Ritz- 
 Ca-rltons and Empire frocks." 
 
 "Well:" said Randolph, when in a quiet place she had 
 been served with tea and a toasted rnunin. 
 
 "Ah." she replied, twinkling at him through her short 
 lashes which always seemed rumpled somehow, and which 
 gave such charm to her light eyes. "I s^e that you want 
 me to unburden myself on the subject of Richard/ 
 
 "You ve seen a good deal of him this time?" 
 
 "X no. I m not up to Richard s standard . . . but 
 enough " 
 
 "You don t think Europe has improved him 1 " 
 
 "Richard." s-aid Mary thoughtfully, "is like integral 
 calculus to me a mere name. Or. perhaps. I should say 
 like the Fourth Dimension, only I believe you can see 
 through all sides of a thing at once ha the Fourth Dimen 
 sion, and you can t see through even one side of Richard. 
 
 Something in her tone, whimsical though it was. made 
 Randolph ask. 
 
 "You don t think there s any real evil in the bov. do you. 
 Mary ? 
 
 If he had hoped for a quick denial he was disappointed, 
 for Mary considered this and then s-aid : 
 
 "Xot in the way you mean. but it s not good for man 
 to be alone that s in the Bible. as Aunt Lucy used to 
 s-ay and Richard dwells alone in a splendid emptiness of 
 which he is the centre. In plain language. I don t think 
 anvbodv in the whole world is real to Richard but himself
 
 20 WORLD S-END 
 
 . . . You, I, his mother, everybody, " she waved a bit of 
 muffin in a circle before putting it into her mouth, "... 
 we re just parts of his dream. He d grind anybody s bones 
 to make him not bread, but cake. You know I never was 
 crazy about Richard," she ended apologetically. Eandolph 
 smiled, a little wryly. 
 
 "No, I know you never were, that s just why I value 
 your opinion so much. You re sure to be just to the people 
 you don t like." 
 
 "That s a great compliment, Owen." 
 
 "I meant it for one, Mary." 
 
 He looked so sober and disturbed that Mary rummaged 
 her mind hurriedly for something soothing. 
 
 "Perhaps he ll outgrow all this . . . this ..." she hes 
 itated for a word, all this demi-deuil art, she continued, 
 twinkling in spite of herself, "and Mrs. Fierce-Hulls and 
 things." 
 
 "What do you make of that lady?" 
 
 "Why," said Mary, "at first sight she seems to belong 
 to the class that uses three-cent stamps instead of two to 
 match its violet letter-paper, but I ve met her once or twice 
 before and I think her mind is really ruled stationery with 
 a bunch of flowers in the corner. Perfectly proper, you 
 know, if a little ornate. Striking but chaste, as the sta 
 tioners tell you." 
 
 Randolph smiled again, but said, 
 
 "I m rather worried, Mary." 
 
 "Yes," she answered simply, "I understand." 
 
 She knew that he was thinking of World s-End, and its 
 future administration, and of all those other vital in 
 terests which would be left in Richard s hands if Owen 
 passed on his property to him. They both sat silent for 
 some minutes and Mary thought of the painful day seven 
 years ago when Sally had been informed by Owen himself 
 of the new disposals that he had been making of some of 
 his property, and of how Sally, in her maternal greed, had 
 told Mary that she believed Owen was becoming mentally 
 unbalanced. She had even talked wildly of a "commis 
 sion of lunacy" to enforce trusteeship for, by the new 
 investments that he had made, Randolph had much re 
 duced his income. 
 
 Mary recalled Sally as she had looked that day, frus 
 trated in her desire to grasp all that could be grasped for 
 her offspring, and how in that hour she, Mary, had de-
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 21 
 
 cided that maternal love can be spiritual or animal, just 
 as any other love can, and that only when it is more spirit 
 ual than animal is it beautiful. In Sally that day she 
 had seen the tigress that would gladly rend a Buddha to 
 give meat to its cub. 
 
 And she also recalled the sudden up-rush of adoration 
 that had mingled with her love for Owen when she gath 
 ered out of Sally s incoherencies the true facts of his of 
 fence selling a good portion of his gilt-edged bonds and 
 securities in the great bodies that gorge on profit, he had 
 bought outright cotton-mills and factories of different kinds 
 in Virginia and other states, and these he proposed to 
 run on a system which would share all profits equally with 
 the workers, exclude child-labour, and reduce the work 
 ing-hours to eight. There were other socialistic enormities 
 which Mary could not exactly recall. 
 
 "AYhat are you smiling at, Mary?" Owen asked her. 
 
 "Oh, just at a trifle that came back to me one of 
 Sally s ways nothing worth telling." 
 
 "I wish I had your happy nature," he said, with real 
 wistfulness. If you saw a bit of thistle-down floating by 
 I believe you d smile at it. The least thing makes you 
 happy." 
 
 "I made a prayer once, years ago, when I was just a 
 child," said Mary. "I remember I was up in the hay 
 loft and I felt so joyous just watching old Dick the old 
 carriage horse that they used to let me ride sometimes, 
 you know just watching him prick his ears and twitch 
 his hide as I dropped grains of corn on him through a 
 chink dear me ! What a long sentence ! But I was so 
 happy, and it was such a little thing to make me happy 
 that I had a sudden inspiration and I said, Oh, Lord, 
 please increase my happiness in little things, and it was 
 answered," she ended, laughing. 
 
 "It was a lovely prayer," said Randolph warmly, "and 
 remarkable for a child to make. But," he sighed, "I can 
 take pleasure too in little things, a ride on The Clown 
 the scent of the earth after rain ... it s the big things 
 that weigh so heavily If I had married, perhaps ..." 
 
 "Yes, perhaps," said Mary. 
 
 But to marry without being wholly in love ..." 
 
 "No . . . it would be dreadful to marry without being 
 wholly in love," said Mary. 
 
 He came back to the idea which, was haunting him.
 
 22 WORLD S-END 
 
 Now, about Richard, he began, do you know, I have 
 a very queasy conscience sometimes about the part I ve 
 played in Richard s life." 
 
 Why you ve played a splendid part towards him ! " ex 
 claimed Mary, rounding her clear eyes at him partly in 
 surprise, partly in vexation. "You ve been a great deal 
 more to him than most fathers are to their sons, ever since 
 Mr. Bryce died." 
 
 Her tone said, "I don t like niy friends abused to nie 
 even when they do it themselves." 
 
 "What a staunch little partisan you are, Mary!" said 
 Randolph, and he touched her hand affectionately as it lay 
 before her on the table. "But most fathers don t repre 
 sent the ideal to me, and I m afraid I ve . . . well . . . 
 shirked things a bit with Richard. 
 
 "What, for instance?" demanded Mary, still unsympa 
 thetic. 
 
 "I ought to have kept him more with me . . . got at 
 him more, as you might say. 
 
 "Not I," denied Mary vigorously. "I d like to see any. 
 one get at Richard through all that paraphernalia 01 
 affectation." 
 
 But when he was younger. ..." 
 
 "He was affected in his cradle, I m sure of it," said. 
 Mary firmly. "I m sure if he could have spoken ho 
 would have declared that he preferred an ink-bottle to hia 
 milk-bottle, or a mixture, perhaps, because it would have 
 been more subtle. 
 
 "I think you re too hard on him, dear." 
 
 This "dear" and the trouble in his eyes quite melted 
 Mary, who was meltable at the best of times. "Well, 
 granted that I am," she said, "that doesn t make it more 
 reasonable for you to be too hard on yourself. And as 
 for Richard," she broke off and the dance in her eyes be 
 gan again, "I think my special prejudice dates from the 
 day (he was eighteen) when I was sewing in the alcove 
 window of Sally s room, and he came in (he didn t see 
 me, of course) and powdered his nose before going to ride 
 with a girl. You can t imagine what a horrid sight it is to 
 see a young man powder his nose ! 
 
 Randolph joined in her bubble of laughter over this, but 
 ended by saying: 
 
 "I m. not going to let you wheedle me from my point, 
 Mary. It seems to me that I m partly responsible for that 
 powdering of his nose.
 
 WORLD S-END 23 
 
 "Now," returned Mary, "that is sheer nonsense. His 
 father and mother had the bringing up of him until he was 
 seventeen, and everyone knows that it s in his childhood 
 a hoy gets his strongest bent!" 
 
 "There are a great many things that may be un-bent 
 between seventeen and twenty-six, Mary." 
 
 "I oughtn t to have used the word bent about Rich 
 ard, " said Mary sharply, "I should have said creased. 
 He s made of too flimsy a material to bend." 
 
 "Xow . . . now . . . ," protested Randolph. 
 
 "You ve done everything for him everything," per 
 sisted Mary. "Travelled with him, read with him, given 
 him everything ..." she broke off and said, on another 
 key, there, perhaps you might have done better by him, 
 I mean given him less." 
 
 "It s a hard question ..." said Randolph, rather 
 sadly. "One doesn t know exactly where to begin or where 
 to leave off in these questions. You re afraid of inter 
 fering with individuality and then you find there s a twist 
 you might have straightened." 
 
 "Richard is all twist," said Mary. "He s a human 
 arabesque!" 
 
 And Randolph, smiling, said again, "now . . . now, 
 Mary." 
 
 "Well what is this particular twist that you might 
 have straightened?" asked she grudgingly. 
 
 "Exercise," he answered. "The boy doesn t take any. 
 Boxing, fencing, swimming I wanted to teach him fencing, 
 and the artistic side appealed to him at first, but he 
 soon got bored with it. I ought to have insisted, I m 
 afraid." 
 
 "What good would that have done?" asked practical 
 Mary. "He would have dropped it as soon as he got away; 
 from you. He was always a physically indolent boy. That^s 
 why he s so lanky now. I m sure he thinks that lankiness 
 is beautiful." 
 
 And she looked at the vigorous, well-knit figure be 
 fore her with its splendid elasticity, so noticeable even 
 in repose, and contrasted it in her mind with the flat 
 drawing of Richard s long, not ungraceful, but pithless 
 form. 
 
 "I don t see how he could grow up near you and not 
 want to be every inch a man if only in his body, she said, 
 "but he probably thinks it dreadfully bourgeois to be six
 
 24 WOKLD S-END 
 
 feet two and able to lift a hundred and seventy pounds in 
 one hand." 
 
 "So you even remember the number of pounds," 
 laughed Randolph. You are an insidious flatterer, Mary, 
 dear." 
 
 Of course I remember the number of pounds and the 
 number of feet and inches you ve jumped. And exactly 
 how many miles you ve swum in contests and . . . and 
 all of it. "What s the use of being the proud friend of 
 a real athlete if you don t remember the terms of his 
 prowess ? 
 
 "You are certainly the greatest dear, Mary," said he, 
 and at that moment he decided that he was incapable of 
 falling in love with any woman since he had not fallen in 
 love with Mary. "While she, looking at his dark> eager 
 face, in which so much of the boy still survived, felt that 
 it was good to have loved Owen and no other man, even if 
 she had to die a lonely old maid for the privilege, with 
 nothing but memories and his friendship to the last as 
 solace. 
 
 "Are you coming to World s-End this spring with 
 Sally?" he asked, breaking the silence which had followed 
 his last remark, and thinking, as was indeed the case, that 
 it would be useless to look for sympathy from Mary in 
 his self-reproachful misgiving about Richard. 
 
 "No I can t be there till the summer. But I ve prom 
 ised Sally to come by the first of July. 
 
 "That s good," he said heartily, "for I won t be able 
 to get there myself until then. I m running down next 
 week to look over things a bit, then I must be off on a 
 long trip among the factories." 
 
 She gave him a look of great gentleness. There was no 
 dance in her eyes now. "Don t wear yourself out, Owen," 
 she said. 
 
 "No danger. It does me good all of it. I can t think 
 how I stood it till twenty-eight, milling along in a frowsty 
 law-office. But the training s been of use to me in many 
 ways. Any commissions at "World s-End ?" 
 
 "My love to darling little Hannah," said Mary. Han 
 nah was Owen s old coloured housekeeper who had been 
 the maid of his grandmother and his nurse, a character 
 with all the best traits of the white race, yet of full negro 
 blood. "In fact, give them all my love but especially to 
 dear Hannah."
 
 WORLD S-END 25 
 
 "They re all your devoted slaves just as much as though 
 the war had never been," said Randolph, looking at her 
 affectionately. 
 
 Well ..." she said, smiling in response, "they call 
 themselves your people, don t they?" 
 
 "I really love my old coloured folk," said he thought 
 fully. 
 
 How about the young ones ? asked Mary with another 
 sort of smile. 
 
 "They are rather impossible as a rule," he admitted, 
 "but some of them promise better things. Hannah s 
 daughter is a nice girl." 
 
 You had her educated for a trained nurse, didn t you ! 
 
 "Yes in Boston." 
 
 "And she really isn t airified ?" 
 
 "Not a bit. When she comes to World s-End for her 
 holidays she helps about the house in all sorts of ways as 
 simply as possible." 
 
 "That s Hannah coming out in her she is really a 
 wonderful person. By the way . . . you asked me about 
 commissions for World s-End. I ve just remembered 
 something I wish you would do for me." 
 
 Of course anything. 
 
 "It s just a little parcel of silk-scraps that I got my 
 dressmaker to give me for Mrs. Ladd, you know, the 
 lame woman who lives at Nelson s Gift. She s such a dear, 
 and so plucky. I was coming to take it over to her myself 
 when I went to World s-End, but it will be so long for 
 her to wait, and you could send a man over with it. 
 
 "I might take it myself. I haven t been to see old 
 Nelson for some time. I always feel as though I were in 
 terrupting his work." 
 
 "He s still at his book on the Nelsons and their kin, 
 I suppose?" 
 
 "Yes I believe that s it." 
 
 "Have you seen Phoebe lately?" 
 
 "No I haven t seen her since she was a little bit of a 
 thing." 
 
 "I haven t either. She s been with her grandmother in 
 Roanoke for years, but now I hear she s at home with her 
 father for good. She s a little first cousin of mine, you 
 know. 
 
 "Oh, we re all cousins in Virginia they re related to 
 us, too."
 
 26 WORLD S-END 
 
 "They tell me she s grown into a lovely girl. I only 
 remember her as a little thing with the whitest skin and 
 the reddest mouth I ever saw, and passionate as a hum 
 ming-bird." 
 
 "I only remember her hair," said Randolph. "I took 
 her up before me on the saddle once for a canter over the 
 lawn, and her hair flew back into my face. I remember 
 it because it was all dappled, brown on gold." 
 
 Mary laughed. 
 
 " Dappled hair ... what a funny description. How 
 do you mean . . . dappled ?" 
 
 "Why, just that," said Owen. "It was dappled with a 
 darker shade just as the quarters of some sorrel horses 
 are." 
 
 "I m afraid the poor child has rather a dreary life," 
 she said presently. "She must be about twenty now. I 
 was devoted to her mother when I was a child. She was 
 a lovely woman. She died when Phoebe was six. I hadn t 
 seen her for years, but I remember crying when I heard 
 that Aunt Mildred was dead." She paused a moment. 
 "Do you know? ... It would be nice ..." then she 
 paused again. 
 
 "What would be nice?" urged Randolph. 
 
 "I was just thinking that it would be so lovely for 
 little Phoebe if Sally would have her at World s-End this 
 summer for a week or two." 
 
 "Why, of course. I ll tell Sally." 
 
 "You ll have to manage it a little." 
 
 "Manage it? Why?" 
 
 Sally is so dreadfully particular about the young girls 
 that Richard meets." 
 
 "Capital! I ll see that he meets this one. If she s so 
 pretty she may wipe out the memory of Mrs. Pierce-Hull. 
 Richard might fall desperately and humanly in love with 
 her and solve all our problems." 
 
 "He ll never fall desperately and humanly in love with 
 anyone," said Mary firmly. "His type is La Morte 
 Amoureuse. A Virginia country-bred maiden would be 
 far too daylight for Master Richard." 
 
 Well, we 11 have her at World s-End in any case, since 
 you wish it, said Randolph. 
 
 "Thank you," said Mary, with warmth. "You re al 
 ways so nice to me, Owen." 
 
 "And what are you to me?"
 
 WORLD S-END 27 
 
 "Just Mary," she said demurely, and the little dance 
 in her eyes hid something very different from laughter. 
 Then she glanced down at her watch, and sprang up quite 
 horrified, saying that she would have only twenty minutes 
 to dress for dinner and that her gown had two tunics and 
 a sash with fifty hooks. 
 
 IV 
 
 "WEN S thoughts were full of Mary after he had taken 
 her to Sally s flat, and, as he walked along the bitter 
 streets under the sagging snow-filled sky, he thought of 
 her courage and her ever-willing sweet unselfishness 
 brought so triumphantly out of the drudging years that 
 she had spent in the care of a hysterical, self-absorbed 
 old aunt, now happily dead, as he reflected with satis 
 faction. But Aunt Lucy had made what post-mortem 
 amends she could (though utterly unrealising that she 
 had any amends to make) by leaving Mary all her small 
 property. It was truly small, the income amounting to 
 only fifteen hundred a year, but it seemed wonderful to 
 Mary, who declared that she could never get used to such 
 riches and the wonder of having all her time at her own 
 disposal. Now she could work quietly on the charming 
 fairy-tales which had always brought her some fame and 
 a little money. She had even admitted to Sally once 
 that she really missed her poor Aunt Lucy, for, after all, 
 it was a good feeling to have another so dependent upon 
 one for all joy and comfort. 
 
 "Mary s an angel. She says that she really misses her 
 Aunt Lucy." Sally had passed it on to Owen, who had 
 retorted by saying that Mary s only fault was a tendency 
 to sentimentalism and that she had better not go about 
 quoting "Now Lucy s dead and oh! The difference to 
 me!" because people who didn t know her as they did 
 might misunderstand its true significance, and think very 
 naturally that she alluded to the fifteen hundred a year 
 disencumbered of Aunt Lucy s hysteria. Sally had called 
 him unfeeling and said that it would cut Mary to the 
 quick to hear of his saying such things, and Owen had 
 replied rather sharply that she never would hear them 
 unless Sally told her, this remark producing a coolness 
 between brother and sister for some days. He smiled now
 
 28 WORLD S-END 
 
 at the recollection. Sally s temper was so uncertain 
 the least spark burnt a hole in it as in gauze but he 
 loved Sally dearly, chiefly, though he did not realise it, 
 on account of those mutual nursery experiences which are 
 always either a bond or a severance in after years. Sally 
 had been a regular little mother-sister to him in those 
 days. Now his was the paternal part poor Sally ! Always 
 chafing so at the loss of her own money which had slid 
 with Peter s through the steep chute of speculation. 
 
 With a start, Randolph woke suddenly to his surround 
 ings. It was the seventh of January in the savage winter 
 of 1912, and the cold bit like flame. His morning had 
 been spent with others of a like mind in trying to make 
 some provision for the poor against the evil days of freezing 
 and starvation ahead. It had been like trying to feed 
 Behemoth on aphides, and he thought of the . first three 
 headlines in "The Times" that morning, printed side by 
 side with no thought of dramatic contrast. The first ran 
 thus: "Eight dead of cold City s poor suffer." The sec 
 ond began: "$200,000 for a painting." The third stated 
 that "$49,675 had been paid for two rare books, one of 
 which was the famous Gutenberg Bible." 
 
 Roused by the fierce cold, he found himself staring 
 up at the ugly, brown church from which a stone had 
 fallen that autumn and crushed a workingman as though 
 to remind him that his class were outsiders and must 
 not venture too near sacred edifices where millionaires 
 handed round the plate. He went quickly on, urged 
 both by the cold and a sudden pang of homesickness for- 
 "World s-End, as primal as a pang of hunger. He longed 
 to be once more where such as he could make happy were 
 happy, and to forget the stark sights and sounds of the 
 freezing, starving city, if only for a few weeks, in the 
 august spaces of the winter countryside. 
 
 Three days later he was driving over the snowy roads, 
 through the iron-hued woods, to World s-End, and New 
 York and its problems lay far behind him, like a sickness 
 of the spirit which has turned to a new life. 
 
 The sky was clear and grey as ice, star-dusted and over 
 blown by wisps of gauzy cloud. On either side of the 
 sleigh the blurs of light from its lamps ran up and down 
 over weeds and banks and fences like friendly will-o -the- 
 wisps, anxious to show the way. He could see the horses 
 breath jetting hot from their nostrils, as in old engravings
 
 WORLD S-END 29 
 
 of the steeds of Phaston. They went ever up and up 
 through rolling pasture-lands and fields, already sown with 
 winter oats and wheat, across brooks strangely silent, sleep 
 ing under their shields of ice. And always, there before 
 him, majestic and wistful at the same time, soared the 
 lovely outline of the mountains that seemed part of his 
 boyhood, that took part in his manhood, that he always 
 thought of as sharing his old age with something of that 
 mute sympathy in things ancient for the eld of man. 
 
 Owen leaned back among the bear-skin rugs, savouring 
 this drive homeward through the winter night as only 
 one so intensely home-loving and country-loving could 
 have done. David, the coachman, a dark, taciturn negro 
 of forty, thoroughly reliable, as the taciturn so often are, 
 and especially devoted to his master though not in a volu 
 ble, picturesque way had told him that all was well at 
 World s-End, and that their Christmastide had been made 
 very happy by the presents he had sent, though they 
 "cert ny had missed him." 
 
 As he leaned there, borne swiftly over the snow-soft 
 ened roads by the pair of strong young bays that he had 
 bred himself, with the pungent, healthy odour of their 
 warm hides blown back to him, with the landscape that he 
 loved like a familiar face unfolding about him, and the 
 stern, yet friendly stars in their accustomed places above 
 the mountains, he experienced something of that "feeling 
 akin to ecstasy," which Tolstoi mentions in a letter to 
 his wife, written upon reaching Yasnaya after a period 
 spent in Moscow. He recalled the very words which so 
 exactly expressed his own mind: " . . . After all that 
 Orion and Sirius above the Crown Woods, the fluffy, silent 
 snow, a good horse, good air, good Misha, and the good 
 God." All speculative thoughts left him. During those 
 moments he was content simply to Be. 
 
 After passing the old wrought-iron gates of World s-End 
 they still had a mile to drive through the grounds, or what 
 Sally loved to call the "Park." Huge American walnut 
 and tulip trees made Gothic groinings overhead. The oxi 
 dised silver of poplar stems went by in stately file. Ameri 
 can lindens. English elms, maples, ash, birch, acacias and 
 beech lifted their delicate fret-work against the stars, 
 for Randolph s paternal grandmother had been a lover 
 of lordly trees and it was to her that World s-End owed 
 its present charm, both of grounds and house. He thought,
 
 30 WORLD S-END 
 
 as he had so often thought before, of what a wonderful 
 old woman his grandmother had been. A statesman s 
 able wife, so good and wise a mistress to her slaves that 
 they still visited her grave in affectionate remembrance 
 an architect of real talent the whole simple, lovely 
 facade of World s-End was of her designing, a shrewd if 
 light essayist, a good though not profound scholar, a reader 
 of men, last, but not least, a perfect keeper of her own 
 household and a sincere and practical Christian. 
 
 He could see her now, as plainly as when he was a lad, 
 drifting lightly as a leaf down the long halls of World s- 
 End in her little heelless shoes with their back ankle-ribbons 
 crossed over white thread stockings, the one damask rose 
 that she always wore showing through the soft tulle folds 
 at her neck, and the broad strings of her white tarlatan cap 
 floating behind her. 
 
 . . . They were crossing the little Green Flower river 
 that curved so prettily through the grounds. When they 
 had passed the low stone bridge they would be at the foot 
 of the south lawn, and he would see the lighted windows of 
 the house. Yes, there they were soft orange oblongs be 
 tween the white columns of the east and west wings. And 
 above he could see the nickering glow behind the panes 
 of his bedroom windows that told of a log fire. 
 
 Up the East Avenue they went at a swinging trot, the 
 horses freshening as they felt the stable near. And Ran 
 dolph too had a pleasant quickening at the heart as he 
 neared home after his long, drudging absence. 
 
 ORLD S-END might have been aptly called The 
 House of Columns, for next to her love for the boles 
 of great trees had been his grandmother s passion for Doric 
 columns and their white stucco shafts, a stately regiment 
 standing as though at attention before the walls of old 
 English brick, guarded the entire front, upheld great log 
 gias at the end of either wing, and supported a noble 
 portico at the back. 
 
 Both panels of the great mahogany door were thrown 
 wide and Owen saw, as he had known that he should, Han 
 nah s trim little figure against the gold-white background
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 31 
 
 of the hall. Old Jonathan, her husband, also born a slave 
 at World s-Eiicl, had been waiting at the foot of the front 
 steps, and now poured forth a torrent of greetings and 
 good wishes, as he took his master s bag from him. Owen 
 shook the gnarled black hand warmly and then sprang 
 up the shallow steps like a boy towards his old nurse and 
 friend. "Dear little Hannah. How good to be at home 
 again! Are you well? No cough?" 
 
 And he took both her hands and looked down at her 
 affectionately, while her soft, loving negro eyes quietly 
 drank in his face with the look of a Mary welcoming her 
 only son who is also a god. 
 
 All that she said, however, not being gifted with the 
 power of exuberant self-expression, was: 
 
 "I m real well, dear Mr. Owen, sir. Is you well? You 
 looks well, thank God." 
 
 "I m always well, Hannah, thank you. But your cough 
 you haven t told me about your cough?" 
 
 "The medicine you sent have cure it, Mr. Owen. I don t 
 cough a speck." 
 
 "Good! . . . good!" said he. "And everyone else is 
 well?" 
 
 "Yes, sir all yo people is well, white and coloured. 
 Yo coloured people is most too well. . . . 
 
 She broke off and smiled with a shy sort of mischievous- 
 ness that he knew of old had something behind it. 
 
 "That s mighty funny, Hannah," said he, smiling in re 
 sponse. "Too well! How can that be?" 
 
 She gave him a droll, demure glance out of her big, 
 dark eyes, so much too large for her little dark face. 
 
 They re so w r ell they got real sassy, Mr. Owen. I reckon 
 they like that man Jeshron in the Bible he wax fat an 
 kick, you know." 
 
 "AYhat are they kicking about, Hannah?" 
 
 "Oh, that s jes my way o puttin it, Mr. Owen. 
 They ain t kickin about anything, but they so satisfied 
 over all those nice presents you sent em Christmas, 
 they lay they bound to come here tonight an thank 
 
 you." 
 
 She gave him another glance, and added with sly grav 
 ity. 
 
 "They re right in the East Hall now, Mr. Owen, a whole 
 chance of em. I do hope you won t mind. . I couldn t 
 put a bit of sense in em. They jes would come."
 
 32 WORLD S-END 
 
 "Can I have some supper first, Hannah?" asked he 
 drolly. 
 
 "The idea, Mr. Owen! As if I d let you be worried 
 with all that passel of gooses before you had the good 
 supper I fixed for you with these little old black hands!" 
 
 When he had partaken of a tenth of the good things that 
 Hannah s love had prepared, he went with her to the East 
 Hall to greet and be greeted by "his people." 
 
 They were ranged along the white panelled walls in 
 shades of brown as varied as a russet wood in autumn, a 
 gathering from different parts of the whole neighbourhood, 
 men and women, young and old; about a score of those 
 who had been the slaves of his parents and grand-parents, 
 with their children and grandchildren and great-grand 
 children. 
 
 He caught a glimpse of the dark, melodramatic face of 
 "Brother Minor," the negro pastor of Hannah s church, 
 and guessed that he would have to support an address 
 from that quarter but it did not annoy him, only stirred 
 something warm and deep in his own nature which always 
 went out to his Brothers of the Dark Face, and brought 
 him back this touchingly full measure of affection. 
 
 There was one that he did not recognise, however, an 
 old, old man with white wool and filmy eyes, so curved and 
 feeble on his hickory staff that he seemed the emblem 
 of a past social order. 
 
 As Randolph spoke to each in turn he took them by the 
 hand, and when this ancient s hand was in his, so frail, so 
 trembling, with its bent, yellow-lined fingers, he said 
 gently : 
 
 "Who are you, uncle? I haven t seen you before." 
 
 The old man peered dimly up at him, and parted his 
 thick lips that trembled like his hand, but no words came 
 from them. He only gazed and gazed and two tears, slow 
 and difficult, as though they were the last of many, gath 
 ered on his shrivelled eyelids. 
 
 Hannah came softly up, her face very kind and pitiful. 
 
 "He s the oldest living man what belonged to my dear 
 old Master yo grandfather, Mr. Owen. His name is 
 Gared Douglas. He s wandered up here to die, I reckon, 
 all the way from Culpepper. " 
 
 She laid her hand gently on the old man s arm. 
 
 "Uncle Gared this is yo ole Marster s son, come home 
 again.
 
 WORLD S-END 33 
 
 Then the old negro found his voice. It was faint and 
 childish and trembled like his hand and his lips. 
 
 "Dee Lawd takes away," he said, "an dee Lawd gives 
 ag in. . . . Blessed be dee name ov dee Lawd." 
 
 " Scuse him if he talks foolishness, Mr. Owen," said 
 Hannah anxiously. "He s got innocent like a little child 
 once mo ." 
 
 Owen led the old man to one of the hall chairs. 
 
 "Sit down here, Uncle Gared," he said kindly. "You re 
 too old to stand about." 
 
 He helped the bent body to lower itself into the chair, 
 saying, "I suppose little Hannah here has given you a 
 good supper." 
 
 The old negro only gazed and gazed at him. At last he 
 said: 
 
 "Is you my young Marster come home again?" 
 
 "I m Owen Randolph, the son of Owen Randolph," said 
 Randolph, smiling. 
 
 But the old man did not smile. His forehead grew piti 
 fully anxious over the dim, steady gaze that he kept upon 
 Owen s face. 
 
 "Young Marster ... "he said, "kin I ax you a fa 
 vour?" 
 
 Hannah s soft voice slipped in. 
 
 "Now don t you get to talkin , Uncle Gared, child. You 
 jes set quiet an let the young Marster talk to you." 
 
 Still with that look of the old smitten hound crawling 
 to its master s feet to fix its dying eyes on his face, old 
 Gared said again : 
 
 "Kin I ax you a favour, young Marster?" 
 
 Randolph put his hand on the other s shoulder. 
 
 "That you can," he said, "ask right on." 
 
 With the most intense and piteous appeal that he had 
 ever heard in a human voice the old negro said : 
 
 "Den, young Marster, will you please suh, tuh buy 
 me?" 
 
 " Buy you ?" said Owen, thinking that he could not 
 have understood. 
 
 "Yessuh buy me back. I ll sell myself real cheap. 
 You kin hev me fo fifty dollars, Marster. Dat ain t 
 much even furrer ole man lak me, but I wants a grave 
 stone full me an Susan. You see, young Marster, I want 
 to b long tuh somebody. Susan s gone. I ain t got chick 
 nor chile nor kith nor kin. . . . Gared he so lonesome ! Buy
 
 34 W O R L, 13 S - E N D 
 
 me an lemme stay home wid you, young Marster! Buy 
 me, an keep me home!" 
 
 Owen found it hard to speak. As soon as he could do so 
 he said: 
 
 "I don t need to buy you to do that, Uncle Gared. You 
 shall stay with me and have a home at World s-End as 
 long as you live." 
 
 The old negro caught his hand and held it to his breast. 
 
 Glory! Glory!" he cried, transfigured. 
 
 And all the others intoned "Glory! Glory! Praise 
 Gawd! Amen!" 
 
 Hannah with the tears streaming down her face came 
 and led the old man away. "Now res quiet," she mur 
 mured to him. "You got home at larst, po ole man. Me 
 an the Master 11 keep care of you." 
 
 The deep silence that followed was broken by Hannah s 
 pastor, who asked leave to "make a prayer of thanksgiv 
 ing." In words warm from his heart it came, simple and 
 eloquent : 
 
 Lord, Thou who did send Thy Darling Son to teach 
 men how to love an serve each other to whom is neither 
 Jew nor Gentile, nor black nor white bend down and 
 weave our heart strings, and the heart strings of this no 
 ble man, in a strong web of onderstandin that to the sec 
 ond an third ginyration, his childun s childun, an our 
 childun s childun, may dwell in peace and goodwill to 
 gether. Amen ! 
 
 With this prayer still in his ears, Randolph went up to 
 bed. He lay long awake, however, in the old mahogany 
 bedstead, with its carven posts and valance of white dim 
 ity, watching the firelight play upon the white walls and 
 ceiling, casting there the pattern of the pierced brass 
 fender and giving evanescent life to the portrait of his 
 mother in her blue tulle gown of the sixties with white 
 japonicas on hair and breast. 
 
 It was so good to be at home that he lay awake wilfully, 
 for the pleasure of realising it. The logs snapped and fell 
 between the andirons just as when he was a boy and this 
 was the nursery filling the black chimney-throat rath 
 clustered sparks "people going into church" his mother 
 used to call them. The great elm outside his window 
 cracked with the bitter cold just as then. In the upper 
 hall, slightly muffled by distance, the old clock gave its 
 wheezing, asthmatic groan before striking eleven, just as
 
 WORLD S-END 35 
 
 it had done through his grandfather s and father s life, 
 and all the years of his own childhood and boyhood and 
 manhood. 
 
 Far away, like a cry from the sad civilisation from w r hich 
 he was a refugee for a little while, the long, melancholy 
 note of a passing train tore through the quiet night. 
 
 His collie, "Rab," started up, sniffing at a coal which 
 had fallen too near him on the hearth, then lay down 
 again with a deep sigh, nearer his master s bed. There 
 was no wind, but a low, gentle droning, like a chord of mu 
 sic, played through the chinks and keyhole of his door. 
 Every book, every object in this room was a friend, dear 
 and familiar from his boyhood. He turned over, closed 
 his eyes, opened them again to look at what he loved, lay 
 thus, opening and closing his eyes, turning in the great 
 bed with its sleek linen which smelt of citronalis and 
 rose-geranium, the sw r eet perfume that always brought his 
 mother before him with her beautiful, sorrowful brown 
 eyes and lovely smile. . . . 
 
 Tomorrow ho would take a long ride on "The Clown" 
 through the soundless snow. . . . "Rab" would leap hap 
 pily in front. . . . He might carry that parcel to Nelson s 
 Gift for Mary. . . . He would skate too. . . . He would 
 get into that old coat that was so comfortable. . . . But 
 no, he must wear a decent coat if he went to the Nelsons . 
 . . . No matter ... in any coat it would be delightful. 
 . . . But he could not sleep. He was too happy through, 
 and through. 
 
 VI 
 
 founder of the branch of the Randolph family to 
 * which Owen belonged had been a very distant kins 
 man of the grandfather of John Randolph of Roanoke. 
 He was the second son of "Oliver Randolph of Stryde 
 Hall and Cayleford in Buckinghamshire, gentyleman," 
 whose property real and personal was entailed on his 
 elder son, Oliver, and who, on acquiring a royal grant 
 in Virginia of some forty thousand acres, had settled it 
 upon this second son, Owen. That this especial branch of 
 the family had been one of considerable means in England 
 from 1460 to 1528 the remaining records of lands bought 
 and leased bore ample proof. That they were distinguished
 
 36 WORLD S-EXD 
 
 by an unusual gift in affairs of state they considered due 
 to the fact of one of them having married about 1576 a 
 relative of that Secretary of State who kept his office under 
 four monarchs, Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary and Eliza 
 beth. "A man of wonderful tact. Under Henry he 
 observed his humour ; in Edw r ard s time kept the law ; 
 in Mary s intended wholly State affairs, and in Eliza 
 beth s was religious. 
 
 The father of the present Owen s ancestor had taken 
 possession of his Virginia estate in 1651, and on it his 
 son had built "a fayre house tho littel," in 1652. This 
 house, which had been pulled down and replaced by an 
 other in 1730, he had called " World s-End" from its sit 
 uation on a fold of the Western mountains commanding a 
 view of both valleys and the distant range of the Blue 
 Ridge, which doubtless seemed to the exiled Englishman 
 like a rampart guarding the extreme end of the earth. 
 
 The motto of this branch was "Moy et le roy, " and its 
 crest "a nag s head couped, bridled, or." Owen never 
 used his arms, as he thought such things paradoxical in 
 an American, but Sally s path in life was pleasantly strewn 
 with little nags heads. 
 
 Mary had once said that she believed Sally would stamp 
 that horse s head on her sponge if it \vould stick, and 
 that the only reasonable heraldic device that she had ever 
 seen borne by a Virginian was that of her friend Henry 
 Pilkington "a husbandman mowing, proper." 
 
 Their mother, to whom Sally attributed Owen s idealis 
 tic-socialistic vagaries, was still known in Virginia as "the 
 beautiful Janet McCleod." She had been a lovely, wistful, 
 melancholy, other-worldly soul, whose chief joy on earth 
 was in dreams of heaven. Two divine passions had shared 
 her ardent and spiritual heart, motherhood and adoration 
 of the Christ, and she had died when Owen was ten. He 
 had loved her as she him, and to this day the scent of 
 flowers in a church made him shudder. Hers was the first 
 and last funeral that he had ever attended. That coffin 
 with its ornate silver handles, the flowers that she had 
 loved and tended heaped upon it, so soon to be crushed by 
 the clammy red clay; the mournful chanting of her fa 
 vourite hymn, with which she had so often sung him to 
 sleep in her tender contralto ; the gowned clergyman walk 
 ing before that black, oblong case, and reading words from 
 a book which the boy denied passionately in his heart with
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 37 
 
 a sort of rage of grief, because it was hideous to him to 
 think of his mother struggling up bewildered out of that 
 black box at the Last Day with shrivelled flowers tum 
 bling about her, and the red clay in her lovely hair all 
 this, together with the scent of the new crape in which 
 his grandmother and aunts were smothered, the measured 
 tolling of the bell which wrung his every nerve like a loud, 
 brutal voice, reminding him with rude insistence of his 
 loss, wove about him on that day a web of horror, in which 
 he and his dreams had been netted for many a long year 
 after. 
 
 And when he grew to be a man he thought of the un 
 conscious cruelty which leads pious people to let a little 
 child s last memory of its mother s face be, not of that 
 face alight with sweet, familiar love, but cold, stern, ma 
 jestically alien, resting upon a bleak cushion of white 
 satin with that delicately cynical smile of death which 
 seems to say, "All you whom I loved, stand aside. You 
 have no part in me nor I in you. There is no god but 
 .Death, and Mortality is his prophet." 
 
 For long years the thing which wrung his heart, when 
 he recalled his mother s face as it had looked then, was 
 the memory of the pretty black mole, like a little "mouche" 
 at the corner of one eye. This little mole had been his 
 special place to kiss in the sweet whimsy of childhood; 
 he had called it her "one sin" and declared that he would 
 kiss it white before she went to heaven. And now she 
 was in heaven and the pretty mole was still there, the tiny 
 source of EO much innocent love and laughter, there in that 
 smug box with its neat jeweller s lining of white satin, 
 and the grim holes where the screws would fit when the 
 lid was put in place. Somehow this had seemed to him 
 most horrible of all, and he had hated God for thinking 
 of such lovely things and then defacing them so ruth 
 lessly. 
 
 Shortly after his mother s death his father had received 
 a highly advantageous offer to assist in building an im 
 portant railway in France, and, accompanied by their 
 mother s elder sister Susan, he and Sally went with their 
 father to that country for an indefinite period. 
 
 In about two years from this time Aunt Susan mar 
 ried a French gentleman from Normandy, the Comte de 
 Mauvigny, and was thereafter known to them by her re 
 quest as "tante Suzanne."
 
 38 WORLD S-END 
 
 Sally was educated at a convent near M. de Mauvigny s 
 country place, and Owen sent across the Channel to Har 
 row. 
 
 While Sally was still learning French, embroidery and 
 sweet manners from the gentle nuns of the Sacre Cceur 
 and Owen, at Harrow, was absorbing, along with other 
 more important things, the crisp well-bred accent that 
 clung to him. through life. Colonel Randolph himself, his 
 work in France completed, went to Egypt to undertake 
 some colossal engineering exploits for the Khedive. 
 
 It was there that the foundation of his great fortune 
 was laid. 
 
 From Harrow Owen went to Oxford, and, as Colonel 
 Randolph very wisely thought that a young man who was 
 to inherit so considerable a fortune should know some 
 thing of how to manage it, Owen had finally entered the 
 office of his father s solicitor in New York, but, after two 
 years of the kind of work he had never really cared for, 
 he had withdrawn from his engagements, with his father s 
 consent, and travelled widely in different countries for 
 some time. 
 
 Owen had been always at heart a dreamer and a scholar, 
 the stuff of which the man of letters rather than the law 
 yer is created. But writing essays, no matter how suc 
 cessful, did not seem to him an occupation worthy of a 
 man s whole effort, nor a task of sufficient importance for 
 a lifetime. The fret of the twentieth century to solve vital 
 problems, if only in part, was upon him. His father s 
 millions clogged his spirit. His father had earned them, 
 he had the right of enjoyment in them, but to Owen it 
 seemed as though by their possession he was constrained 
 into the attitude of a nestling arrested in its development, 
 into whose effortless, open beak the unscratched-for juicy 
 grub is being continually dropped by those who know the 
 joy of wings. 
 
 VII 
 
 EN sprang from bed with a bound next morning. 
 A huge log-fire, just lighted, was crackling and flack 
 ing its bright pennons in the broad chimney-place, but 
 the room was large, the thermometer little above zero, and 
 it would take a good hour to temper that biting atmosphere 
 he always slept with windows and shutters wide.
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 39 
 
 The day, blue as a gentian, poured in from every quarter, 
 a shimmering flood shot with gold. The peculiar, fairy- 
 like radiance of reflected snow beat upon the ceiling. 
 
 He looked out. The sloping lawn was a sheet of orange- 
 white, netted with cobalt shadows. From its surface rose 
 the dark steins of the trees, each bearing its smoke-like 
 web of winter twigs. The great hedges of box and thickets 
 of mountain laurel seemed almost black in the contrasting 
 glare. Beyond all, to the southward, flowed that band 
 of air-washed violet beloved by all dwellers on the mountain 
 slopes of the "Western valley, the dim, dream-haunted, 
 skyey waste of the far horizon. 
 
 After luncheon he was to ride over the farm, and then 
 visit the schools. lie decided to go for a walk. Three 
 dogs followed or rather preceded him; Rab, who now and 
 then ran along on his snout, gobbling snow as he did so, 
 after the weird manner of collies his Irish setter, "Bran," 
 and an aged fox-terrier, whose real name "Mr. "Worldly- 
 Wise Man" had been shortened to "Wizzy. " 
 
 While out riding one day Owen had heard faint yaps of 
 distress, and, turning aside into the lane whence they pro 
 ceeded, 1 had found a bedraggled pup, struggling on its side 
 in a puddle. To take it up before him on the saddle, re 
 gardless of mud, was Owen s way one of the many ways 
 that Sally found so trying. He carried it back to World s- 
 End. gave it warm baths with his own hands, and sent for 
 the vet. Diagnosis declared Wizzy s ailment to be strych 
 nine, probably absorbed while devouring poisoned meat 
 set for weasels or such stragglers as himself. He was cured, 
 but ever after his little spine had resembled the letter " S, " 
 and when he ran his hind legs went faster and more jaunt 
 ily than his front legs, giving him a rakish, devil-may-care 
 aspect totally out of keeping with his serious, rather cyni 
 cal character, and his solemn eyes, with their white under- 
 rims in which was always a tear, as in old prints of the 
 repentant Magdalene. It is safe to say that "Wizzy" 
 had the most tender place in his master s affections, for he 
 was allowed to sleep on the foot of his bed, while "Rab" 
 was only permitted the hearth-rug and "Bran" had a ken 
 nel of his own. The last two, as one might say, were dear 
 and familiar friends, but Wizzy was more like an uncomely 
 orphan child that had no one else to love him. He re 
 paid this love ten-fold, as is tfce other-worldly way of 
 W T izzies, and was used to regard his master when he re-
 
 40 WORLD S-END 
 
 turned from an absence with an expression which must 
 have resembled that of Adam before his fatal offence, as 
 he gazed up at the Lord come to walk in Eden in the cool 
 of the evening. 
 
 Owen whistled as he drew near the stables a whistle 
 not meant for dogs, as they well knew, for they paid no 
 attention whatever but which set all the horses nickering, 
 and caused leaf-eared heads with great, gleaming eyes like 
 bubbles of dark glass to be thrust over the gates of loose 
 boxes. 
 
 He bestowed sugar with impartial justice, smiling to 
 himself as he fed Richard s mare, it was so like Richard 
 to have a jet-black, hysterical mare, with no speck of 
 white on hoof or hide and to call her "El Borak, " after 
 the steed that bore Mahomet to Paradise. But his own 
 favourite riding-horse, "The Clown," claimed his chief 
 attention. He and "The Clown" were real cronies. Owen 
 said that The Clown was a wag, and that some animals 
 had a sense of humour, no matter what scientists declared. 
 A roguish eye was certainly The Clown s, roguish and pa 
 thetic at the same time. He was used to gaze up at his 
 master, as Owen came down the front steps to mount him, 
 with his forehead lifted into two wrinkled eyebrows by a 
 look of such wistful intensity as made his equine face dif 
 ferent from the face of all other horses. Some dogs will 
 look man in the eye, but The Clown was the only horse 
 that Owen had ever known to do so. 
 
 He was a big, sixteen and a half hand, up-standing grey, 
 rising nine, with a fine forehand, but a little too short in 
 the quarters, though strong, or he could not have borne 
 Qwen s fourteen and a half stone so blithely. His sire 
 Grey-Eagle s blood kept him from coarseness and his crest 
 and thropple were like an Arab s. But it was his fan 
 tastic, gay, jest-loving nature that especially endeared him 
 to Owen. The two were far more like dog and master 
 than horse and master. 
 
 Owen rubbed The Clown s mousey nose and he returned 
 the attention by taking Owen s sleeve between soft prehen 
 sile lips and bunting him gently. As The Clown was being 
 saddled, George Downer, the manager, came into the stable 
 yard. 
 
 "Anything wrong, George?" asked Owen. 
 
 "No, sir, I only just thought of something. You said 
 this mornin you might be ridin over to Nelson s Gift
 
 WORLD S-END 41 
 
 and I just remembered what I d heard about the Holly- 
 brook Woods." 
 
 "What about them?" asked Owen, glancing quickly to 
 where the wood in question made so comely a feature of 
 the winter landscape. 
 
 "I hoard tell that Mr. Nelson was go in to sell em to 
 a saw-mill." 
 
 "To a saw-mill! The Hollybrook Woods!" exclaimed 
 Owen, aghast. 
 
 "That s what I ve heard tell I know how much "you 
 think of em, and I thought you might want to put in a 
 bid." 
 
 "It s to be an auction then?" 
 
 "Yes. sir sealed bids." 
 
 "I think I can settle with Mr. Nelson without waiting 
 for an auction." 
 
 "Don t you pay too much for them woods, sir," said 
 Downer, giving him a brotherly look out of shrewd, direct, 
 iron-grey eyes." 
 
 VIII 
 
 npIIAT ride through the snowy fields and woods 
 towards Nelson s Gift might have been a progression of 
 Death on the Pale Horse for all the sound it made. It was 
 like cantering through a white dream. The snow was so 
 dry and fluffy that it did not even "ball" in The Clown s 
 hoofs, the air so still that its bitter edge was not too bit 
 ing. Owen sat loosely, far back in the saddle, giving him 
 self to the long rock-a-bye of the grey s even gallop, with 
 all the primitive pleasure of a boy in a swing. The crows 
 were tremendously busy over some social disruption. 
 They flew and cawed and lighted and cawed by twos and 
 threes and in posses on every fence-rail. Under the eye 
 of a great, round, daffodil-coloured sun, the earth lay in 
 her dazzling winding-sheet more beautiful thus than ever. 
 Nelson s Gift was a small, very old house, half of frame, 
 half of brick, tucked away among gentle, pastoral hills at 
 the back of Hollybrook Wood, about five miles from 
 World s-End. On the side nearest the house the wood 
 was fenced off, and a five-barred gate with a rusty chain 
 arrangement had to be opened. As Owen was struggling 
 with this chain, not wishing to dismount if he could avoid 
 it, he saw a tall girl coming towards him down the hill
 
 42 WORLD S-END 
 
 on the crest of which Nelson s Gift was situated. She 
 waved her hand as though bidding him. wait for something, 
 and, glancing down at the other side of the gate, he found 
 that he had been struggling with a padlocked chain. As 
 she came nearer he saw that the hair under her little fur 
 hat was brilliant and shaded like a pheasant s breast, and 
 he was sure that this could be no other than Phoebe Nel 
 son. 
 
 She came up quite breathless from hurrying through the 
 deep snow. 
 
 "I m so sorry," she said in a fresh, joyous young voice 
 which seemed to express that she was delighted to be speak 
 ing to a live human being, who was not her father or the 
 overseer, or a "person of colour." "We thought every 
 body in the neighbourhood knew that this road w r as closed 
 now. 
 
 As she was speaking she thrust a key into the rusty pad 
 lock, and turned it with both hands, but it would not 
 give. Owen had dismounted as she came up, and offered 
 to help, telling his name as he did so. 
 
 "Oh, I knew that," she said with a smile, friendly and 
 joyous like her voice. "I ve seen you often when I was 
 a little girl. I m Phoebe Nelson." 
 
 She was dressed in a short skirt and jacket of heavy 
 grey corduroy and wore "rubber-boots." Where the sun 
 struck her hair it was like fire and the fur of her cap a 
 rim of blue ashes above it. 
 
 Looking at her, Owen recalled Mary s saying about the 
 "whitest skin and the reddest mouth." As she looked 
 back at him he noted her lashes, short, thick and black 
 like Mary s, and remembered that her mother had been a 
 Talliaferro. The eyes under those lashes, however, were 
 not pale grey like Mary s, but blue all sorts of blue 
 dark, light, greenish, purplish a blue that seemed to over 
 flow and tinge the whites, so that behind the gathered 
 lashes long pools of varied blueness gleamed with an effect 
 of jewels fallen among dark grasses. 
 
 She was not what could be called a perfectly beautiful 
 girl, though, in spite of her lovely colouring. Her nose 
 was too short, her chin a little too prominent, her mouth, 
 while it had the inimitable silken smoothness of youth, 
 too full a mouth not of the spirit, but triumphantly and 
 radiantly of the flesh laughter and pleasure-loving 
 curved out at the centre, carved up at the corners.
 
 W O K L D S - E N D 43 
 
 The eyes and mouth of Phoebe seemed emblematic of 
 the two natures which struggle in every child of man. And 
 Owen recalled another of Mary s descriptive phrases 
 "as passionate as a humming-bird." Phoebe s vivid young 
 face had in it that will-to-live and to live ardently which, 
 more than anything, perhaps, makes a human being inter 
 esting to speculate about. 
 
 "I m so sorry," she was repeating as, the gate now 
 open, he came through. ""What a dear horse. I do be 
 lieve he s asking me for sugar." 
 
 "The Clown" was nudging and nuzzling at her pockets, 
 much as a calf invites its mother to be more generous with 
 its supply of milk. She pinched his soft, rubbery lips with 
 knowing fingers. "I do love horses," she said, "and 
 dogs. ... ; Stooping, she stroked Wizzy along his curved 
 spine, and, while savouring the caress, that little cynic 
 looked up through frozen tears at his master as if saying, 
 "Is this a person I should really know?" Rab and 
 Bran were far ahead in hysterical pursuit of a rabbit. 
 "Dear, dear!" continued Phoebe, addressing Wizzy, "you 
 certainly are a scornful little dog. What twisted his poor 
 little back?" she ended, warm pity in her fresh voice. 
 
 AYizzy s story was told as they walked together up the 
 slope of the white hillside. 
 
 Her father had said once, referring to Owen, that he 
 was as near being a Socialist as one sprung from Randolph 
 and McCleod could be. Glancing at him now, she thought 
 how dreadful it would be to see beautiful World s-End 
 cut up into kitchen gardens, and the house (so she 
 imagined) turned into a sort of Socialistic inn where no 
 one would pay board, of course, but each would dig in his 
 horrid little garden. 
 
 Phoebe w r as more of a mid-Victorian maiden than a mod 
 ern one. Her short, blithe life had been spent chiefly in 
 these Virginia mountains among old-fashioned, somewhat 
 straitly bred elders, a Bishop-fearing, God-respecting 
 community who still looked upon a proper marriage as 
 the chief event in a woman s life. Far from her had passed 
 the scythed wheels of the woman s movement, the heavy 
 tread of organised charities, the cohorts of improving 
 lecturers under the pied banners of culture to the shrill 
 music of the pipes of progress. She was as full of romance 
 as though she had lived in the days when the "Waverly" 
 novels thrilled all hearts.
 
 44 WORLD S -END 
 
 She stole shy, appraising glances at Owen as they 
 trudged on side by side through the two feet of salt-like 
 snow. She decided in her girl s phraseology that he was 
 "very handsome; that he did not show his age." If only 
 he had been seven and twenty instead of seven and forty 
 ... it might have been he . . . (in her thought Phoebe 
 said comfortably, "it might have been him") that wonder 
 ful lover who in her firm conviction was to appear sud 
 denly, all splendid like Lohengrin before Elsa, and bear 
 her away to realms of married bliss. In every wind she 
 heard the possible beat of his horse s hoofs in the sudden 
 opening of a door: he might stand behind it. AYhen a 
 letter of introduction was sent to her father this time, 
 instead of some frowsy professor, it might be he. When 
 she rode on old "Councillor" she reined in at every curve 
 in hills and woods . . . just around that bend, hidden by 
 the stems of the trees, he might be riding towards her. 
 Today, when she had seen Owen at the gate her heart 
 had given a stinging bound. "What if, at last, it were he? 
 She had only five more years of youth. If he did not 
 come and claim her before she were five and twenty, the 
 unspeakable disgrace of old maidhood would fall upon 
 her. She had thought at sixteen that eighteen would be 
 the proper age for her marriage, at eighteen she had de 
 ferred it to twenty, now, at twenty, she gave herself the 
 leeway of five more years of celibacy. And if not wedded, 
 by that time the deluge! It seemed so dreadful a con 
 tingency that she would not even consider it in her thought, 
 but brushed it away with an "of course." 
 
 It never occurred to her to look for her mate among 
 those whom she already knew. A lot of good-looking, long- 
 legged cousins, scattered about among her native moun 
 tains, meant only "those boys" to her. She had seen but 
 little of the world. Some weeks every year spent with a 
 cousin at the University of Virginia, two visits to Balti 
 more, a fortnight in New York last winter with her Aunt 
 Frances, who had a little flat, and who gave her an after 
 noon tea and two theatre patries this summed up her 
 experience of the world. 
 
 "What a pity," said Phoebe to herself, stealing another 
 narrow blue glance, "what a pity that he is forty-seven. *
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 45 
 
 IX 
 
 found her father in a pretty room, all panelled 
 * with dim green, and furnished with chairs and sofas 
 covered in the cross-stitch of Queen Caroline s day, now 
 much worn and faded. He was seated in one of those old 
 "half-wa} r house" chairs, with a shepherd s plaid over his 
 knees, and his bony feet, in carpet slippers, resting on a 
 hot brick covered also with a carpet. His collar was high 
 and old-fashioned, reaching to his waxen gills. He wore 
 a broad tie of black satin and a browny-black frock coat. 
 On an array of small tables with twisted legs were scat 
 tered sheets of manuscript, documents old and new, and 
 many books. 
 
 Phoebe said : 
 
 "Father, here is Mr. Randolph come to see you," and 
 the old scholar smiled politely, disclosing a row of more 
 than usually monotonous false teeth, which at once, in 
 some odd way, gave his mouth the look of an old lady s 
 feature astray in the countenance of masculinity. "I am 
 very glad to see you, sir," said he. "Pardon my not 
 rising. I have just succeeded in getting my feet warm." 
 
 Owen drew up a chair and asked how the genealogical 
 researches were progressing. 
 
 Mr. Nelson replied with words to the effect that, when 
 one s bark foundered on the deep of genealogy, it was al 
 ways to another sea, and proceeded to read, at some length, 
 a statement which went to prove that the families of Che- 
 vail and Cabell are probably identical, not wholly different, 
 as he had always thought. 
 
 Phoebe sat rather dejectedly during this address, twirl 
 ing a curtain tassel for one of the cats to play with, and, 
 when the extract drew to a close, Owen, moved by the dis 
 consolate look on the young face, resolutely changed the 
 subject for the time being. 
 
 "By the way, sir," said he, "I m sorry you ve had to 
 close the road from Hollybrook Wood through this es 
 tate. I hope neighbours haven t been behaving unpleas 
 antly?" 
 
 Mr. Nelson s waxen face took on the look of someone 
 who from a pleasant dream is wakened by falling upon 
 the floor. 
 
 "If it were only neighbours, sir," he exclaimed, with.
 
 46 WORLD S-END 
 
 deep feeling then, turning to his daughter, said, Phoebe, 
 my dear, some Madeira and a few of Patty s thin biscuit 
 would not be amiss." 
 
 As Phoebe left the room on this errand, he turned again 
 to Owen, saying, "I do not wish to aggravate the sense 
 of injury which my daughter has already very strongly. 
 She is a creature of impulse wholly unlike either her 
 dear mother or myself. I think I can trace the strain in 
 her directly to an ancestress who was called Imperious 
 Prue Horsemandon from her overardent character. There 
 is a portrait of her by Sir Thomas Lawrence at my grand 
 father s place in King William County. The eyes and 
 mouth are exact replicas of Phoebe s. 
 
 "A spirited girl is a delightful thing, sir," said Owen, 
 smiling. May I hear what has roused my cousin Phoebe s 
 spirit?" 
 
 "Why, sir," replied the old man, much gratified by this 
 pleasant reminder that he was talking to a kinsman, "it 
 is this unfortunate, I may say abominable," continued he 
 with some heat, "question of roads." 
 
 "Of roads?" said Owen, raising his eyebrows, "is more 
 than one road involved?" 
 
 Two two roads have been closed against us, Mr. Ran 
 dolph and not by strangers but by one of our own blood. 
 
 "That seems an incredible thing to happen in this neigh 
 bourhood," said Owen with genuine sympathy. "Cour 
 tesy about private roads is a tradition with us." 
 
 "It is not so with these," interrupted the old man a 
 flush had come into his waxy cheeks. "It is the son of 
 my own brother s son who has done me this injury," he 
 announced. "I can place it only to the account of one 
 thing the influence exerted upon him by his Scottish 
 agent, whom he employs to manage the estate a cur 
 mudgeon, sir, a typical curmudgeon! In fact I am con 
 vinced that it is all this man s doing!" 
 
 "But," said Owen, puzzled, "how can he own an es 
 tate so near? your land joins mine at the Green-Flower." 
 
 "Ah," replied Mr. Nelson, his face looking worn and 
 very aged all at once, "there you have touched the really 
 tragic element in the matter. As you doubtless know, 
 sir, the war completely impoverished my father Nelson s 
 Gift is heavily mortgaged. My chief ambition, by saving 
 here and there, and by the royalties that I may derive from 
 this work, he laid a rheumatic hand on the mass of manu-
 
 WORLD S-END 47 
 
 script near by, "my fondest ambition, an old man s am 
 bition, is to leave Nelson s Gift unencumbered to my 
 daughter. I, therefore, compromised by allowing the 
 young man to purchase the eight hundred acres known as 
 Cross-Road Farm. I acted hastily; too hastily. I ne 
 glected to reserve the right of way to the only road which 
 leads from Nelson s Gift to the Station at Crewe. It is 
 imperative that I should have a new road. Therefore, I 
 shall have to part with Ilollybrook ATood." 
 
 "Mr. Nelson," said Owen, impulsively, "I should be 
 very glad TO buy it and leave it standing, with perpetual 
 right of way through it for Nelson s Gift." 
 
 "My dear sir," stammered the old man, "my dear 
 sir. 
 
 He had a disconcerting habit of pulling the short hairs 
 from his nostrils in little snatches, while talking gravely, 
 and now it seemed as though he would denude his austere 
 nose completely. I cannot express to you . . . " he began 
 again. 
 
 Suddenly his face worked violently he snatched off his 
 spectacles and buried his face in his handkerchief with a 
 dislocating sneeze. 
 
 "Pardon me," he murmured, looking up, rather shame 
 faced. "It is a strange weakness, but I always sneeze in 
 moments of strong emotion." 
 
 And there were tears in his little black eyes. 
 
 They had talked the matter thoroughly over by the time 
 that Phoebe came back with the thin biscuits and Madeira. 
 She had delayed on purpose, knowing very well that her 
 father would prefer to explain matters to his guest in pri 
 vate. As she entered Owen was saying that he would begin 
 fencing the Ilollybrook "Woods from the Cross-Road farm at 
 once, and Phoebe, catching only the last words, poured the 
 full blueness of her eyes, usually half-veiled, into a wide 
 look of anger, exclaiming: 
 
 Twas I who got father to shut him out from our road 
 to the mountain. Now he ll have to go around three miles 
 to haul wood!" 
 
 The old man said, as sternly as his new-found relief and 
 happiness would permit: 
 
 "We must not nurse rancour, my daughter. I have 
 some very good news for you." 
 
 "Even the Lord didn t say we must let people jump 
 up and down on us ..." began Phoebe rebelliously.
 
 48 WORLD S-END 
 
 But, Father ! she hurried on in another voice, you look 
 tired . . . take your wine and biscuit right away." 
 
 "Serve your Cousin Owen first, my dear." 
 
 "Here s to the health of the new road," Owen said, 
 smiling, and Mr. Nelson bowed grandly from the waist 
 up above the shepherd s plaid and said, "Your health, 
 sir." 
 
 Then he explained to Phoebe. She stood stockstill under 
 the first shock of delight then span round and round, 
 glowing, sparkling. She had taken off her fur cap, and 
 Owen saw a beautiful, full forehead, neither high nor low, 
 on which the sorrel hair grew in a " widow s peak. This 
 forehead of Phoebe s spiritualised her whole face. 
 
 "Oh!" she cried. "Oh! I think, I think " She 
 
 ran to Owen and seized both his hands. "I think you re 
 just splendid . . . Cousin Owen!" 
 
 Owen did not guess all that this Cousin Owen meant 
 of loyal devotion and enthusiasm. It was Phoebe s uncon 
 ditional surrender to a hero-worship that was one of the 
 strongest emotions her nature had yet known. 
 
 He flushed up like a boy, and she cried out between tears 
 and laughing, "Oh, father! look! He s blushing because 
 he s done such a lovely thing!" 
 
 "My dear, my dear," remonstrated the old gentleman, 
 much moved, "you embarrass our kind friend." 
 
 "VVizzy, who had stolen in with Phoebe, here inadvertently 
 came to the rescue by "saying his prayers" to the plate 
 of biscuit. 
 
 "Look at the darling!" exclaimed Phoebe, rushing to 
 him. "You couldn t object to such a duck of a dog as 
 that, father!" 
 
 "If the little creature is Mr. Randolph s pet, he is cer 
 tainly welcome," replied her father, his natural aversion 
 from dogs completely swallowed up in warm gratitude. 
 
 "VVizzy said his prayers again and again, and deity in 
 the form of Phoebe answered them all with crisp morsels 
 of his favourite biscuit. 
 
 "Do you find Phoebe much changed since when she was 
 a child?" asked Mr. Nelson, seeking to divert the conver 
 sation from what promised to be too emotional a topic for 
 this daughter who resembled neither her dear mother nor 
 himself. 
 
 "I should have known her by her hair anywhere," said 
 Randolph, smiling.
 
 WORLD S-END 49 
 
 "Yes, I am told that she has an unusually fine suit," ad 
 mitted her parent. "To her waist, I believe." 
 
 "Below," laughed Phoebe. 
 
 "She speaks," continued the old gentleman as imper 
 sonally as though the girl had been a family portrait, good 
 English. I took much pains with her when she was little 
 more than an infant. I presume that, like myself, you do 
 not object to a Virginian accent?" 
 
 "I love it," said Owen. 
 
 "And the liquid pronunciation in such words as cyar- 
 pet, cyar, gyarden, do you find that pleasant to the 
 ear?" 
 
 "Most distinctly pleasant," said Owen. 
 
 Phoebe was telling Wizzy in dumb-show that she found 
 it embarrassing to be discussed openly in this way. 
 
 Her father continued with impersonal calm, "I am glad 
 to hear you say so. If you will kindly hand me that little 
 lexicon of pronunciation from the right-hand shelves, 
 sixth row, next the chimney, I will show you something 
 of interest in regard to the question. The volume was 
 compiled by my grandfather." 
 
 Owen handed him the volume, and, replacing his spec 
 tacles, discarded for the sneeze of emotion, the old gen 
 tleman turned the yellowed, wrinkled pages until he found 
 the desired word. 
 
 " Garden, " he read aloud, "usually pronounced gar 
 den, but the elegant insert a y. 
 
 X 
 
 EN saw a good deal of Phoebe and her father during 
 the two weeks that he remained at World s-End. He 
 found the old scholar both pathetic and lovable, while the 
 girl, with her young enthusiasms and ardent will to live, 
 seemed to him singularly winning. 
 
 Just before leaving World s-End, at the end of the sec 
 ond week, he sent over a pretty sorrel mare called "Kill- 
 dee" to Nelson s Gift, with a note for Phoebe tied to her 
 bridle, and the neat little Sowter saddle that Richard 
 had used when a boy on her shining back, for Phoebe, 
 having never been able to attain to the luxury of a side 
 saddle, rode astride. He said in the note that he sent 
 "Killdee" because she was such a perfect match for
 
 50 WORLD S-END 
 
 Phoebe s hair, and because Phoebe s father had said that 
 he might, also, last but really first, because "Killdee" was 
 one of the gentlest and wisest of her sex. 
 
 It may be imagined what sort of ardent, brimming-over 
 letter it was that Phoebe wrote him in thanks for this gift. 
 It went astray, and he did not receive it until two months 
 later, while in North Carolina, where he was engaged in 
 settling some difficulties which had arisen in one of the 
 cotton mills. Pie had been much hurt by Phoebe s sup 
 posed silence, for he was one of the most human of men, 
 but now, as he read her affectionate, enthusiastic words, 
 he blamed himself roundly for not having guessed the 
 truth. And a vision of Phoebe herself, with her loving, 
 lovable mouth and the blue flame of her impassioned eyes, 
 rose before him, and he could hear her ardent young 
 voice exclaiming as on that first day, "I think you re just 
 splendid, Cousin Owen!" 
 
 A letter from Sally, by the same post, informed him that 
 she and Richard were going down to World s-End much 
 earlier this year than usual, as Richard found it impos 
 sible to w T ork on the Chinese Opera, which he had begun, 
 in the noise and confusion of New York. They would be 
 there, she thought, about the middle of April. The con 
 trast between Phoebe s simple, single-minded letter and the 
 thought of Richard with his Chinese opera made Owen 
 smile. 
 
 He wrote to Sally by return post, a letter full of Phoebe 
 and her unspoiled charm. He said at the end of his let 
 ter that he thought it would be advisable for Sally to call 
 at Nelson s Gift, as, among other things, Phoebe was 
 Mary s first cousin and it would please Mary so much, 
 and then that after doing so, if Sally would invite Phoebe 
 to spend a few days with her at World s-End, it would give 
 him great pleasure, as he had grown very fond of her and 
 was sure that Sally would too. 
 
 Sally showed this epistle to Richard, with lips folded 
 inward. 
 
 "A young country girl tete-a-tete with me at World s- 
 End!" said she. 
 
 "A young girl of any kind at Wo rid s-End Good 
 Lord!" said Richard. 
 
 "If only your uncle wouldn t thrust his ideas down one s 
 throat so," said Sally, who was apt to be inelegant when 
 annoyed.
 
 WORLD S-END 51 
 
 "If only lie would realise that the people he finds eon- 
 genial to him may not be congenial to others," said her 
 son. "A gushing young girl and I with Chinese inter 
 vals to master. . . . Oh, Lord!" he groaned again. 
 
 "We can slip out of it somehow," said his mother 
 firmly. 
 
 "We must," he assented as firmly. 
 
 "I don t feel like visiting anyone after the rush I ve been 
 in this winter. I should think Owen might realise that." 
 
 Richard just lifted an ironical lip. 
 
 "How do you expect a Socialistic sentimentalist to real 
 ise that the society of one s fellow beings is ever anything 
 but a boon?" 
 
 ""Well," replied Sally, "be that as it may, I simply re 
 fuse to have my first spring days at World s-End utterly 
 spoiled by having a young country miss on my mind from 
 morning till night. I shall tell Owen that I am too abso 
 lutely worn out. Of course we shall have to put up with 
 her when Mary comes. 
 
 "Oh, I ll slip oil to Newport or somewhere," said Rich 
 ard cheerfully, and his mother regarded him fleetingly, 
 with an inscrutable expression which he did not observe. 
 
 They went down to World s-End. together a few days 
 later, World s-End, which at this season of the year re 
 sembled "La Foret dcs Lilas" of Perrault s fairy tale, all 
 embowered as it was in swaying plumes of mauve and 
 white. The red-bud was out in fields and woods and the 
 orioles and wood-doves were calling from every glade and 
 dingle. The periwinkle, too, blue and innocent as chil 
 dren s eyes, filled the hollows with its wistful loveliness. 
 And through all and over all was that exquisite, elusive 
 perfume of spring, like the perfume that might be wafted 
 from the warm draperies and flying hair of a hamadryad. 
 
 Sally s face took on an unwonted softness as she and 
 Richard drove through the grounds together. 
 
 "Ah! . . . I do love it," she breathed. 
 
 She put her hand on her son s hand. 
 
 "Some day," she said, "it will be yours. ..." 
 
 "It is a rare old place," he admitted, returning slightly 
 the pressure of her fingers. "Yes . . . here I can finish 
 my Chinese opera." 
 
 A week went by and, having wound himself up in a skein 
 of the dissonances of Cathay, Richard mounted "El 
 Borak" and went for a long ride.
 
 52 WORLD S-END 
 
 The servants had been much mystified as to the work 
 which kept Richard strumming behind closed doors for 
 many hours a day on a strange instrument which gave 
 forth a sound that recalled both banjo and guitar, as a 
 mule recalls horse and ass, yet is neither. 
 
 "He ll make hisse f sick ef he donV take keer," Aunt 
 Polly, the cook, had remarked only that morning in the 
 kitchen. "Keepin hisse f shet up thout so much ez a 
 mou ful of fresh air. What he doin in dat room makin 
 dem outlandish noises anyhow, Joe?" 
 
 Joe, her youngest son, one of twelve, who looked after 
 Richard when he was at World s-End, said that Mr. 
 Richard done took to pickin on some cu yous sorter banjo 
 what wa nt a banjo, an what sounded outer fix tuh Mm." 
 
 "Well . . . Gawd be praised!" said Aunt Polly when 
 she heard that he had ordered his horse. "Maybe dee 
 Lawd s done wo him out wid dat folishness, an now he 
 gwine ack like urrer Chrishuns once mo . I sho is sorry 
 fo Miss Sally, an her so peert an nachul-actin , hevin a 
 son what acks so flightified ez Mr. Richard. I bleeves he 
 does it a-purpose. I clon t bleeve he cnjijs hisse f pickin 
 tuh hisse f all day long an part o dee night lak dat. 
 Well glory be. Ridin ll do him a chance o good. Ef 
 dat mean mar o his n d jes th o him, dat ould do him 
 still mo good. You hear me! G long, Joe for Jeeze 
 sake git him on dat haAvse while he in de humour. 
 
 Borak was fresh, and Richard rode her far and fast 
 without particularly noting where the road was leading 
 him. When he reined in finally it was at the top of a hill 
 strewn with the gold patines of dandelions, and at the bot 
 tom in a ford of the Green Flower river a girl was water 
 ing her horse. It was Phoebe on Killdee, and what 
 caught Richard s eye, of course, was that remarkable hair 
 of hers it blazed out in a great, glowing lump at the back 
 of her black straw hat and seemed to be on fire in the sun 
 light. 
 
 Richard said to himself : 
 
 "A woman with such hair must have charm." It 
 dimmed the memory of Mrs. Pierce-Hull s fleece of gold 
 as a torch pales a candle. 
 
 The girl here looked up, and smiled frankly. Her mare 
 had finished drinking and was now blowing the water play 
 fully through her nostrils, as horses like to do in running 
 streams.
 
 WOKLD S-END 53 
 
 "Mind how you come down that hill," she called out 
 to him. "There s a broken drain-pipe on the left." 
 
 She was riding astride, he now noted, and her slim 
 young shape, in its neatly cut coat of whip-cord (she 
 had made it herself from a pattern lent by an English 
 friend), was charmingly boylike and nymphlike in one. 
 This combination of contrasts was further pleasing to 
 Richard. 
 
 "Thank you . . ."he called back as he descended gin 
 gerly. "I m very much obliged ... I should have been 
 in it in another moment. ..." 
 
 "It s downright wicked," said the girl, "the way they 
 leave the roads in this county." 
 
 What county am I in, please 1 
 
 "Queen Caroline. Didn t you know?" 
 
 "No I came from World s-End. I thought I was still 
 in Buckf astleigh. " 
 
 "From World s-End?" The girl s face lighted up. 
 "Then," she cried after a little pause, "you must be Rich 
 ard Bryce. " 
 
 Richard bowed over Borak s coal-black crest. "I am," 
 he said, "and, if I may ask, you ... ?" 
 
 "I am Phoebe Nelson," said the girl. "I am so glad to 
 know you. Your Uncle Owen is my cousin." 
 
 "Then I m your cousin, too." 
 
 "Five times removed," said Phoebe, laughing. 
 
 He smiled, keeping his steady black eyes on hers. This 
 smile was not like Owen s. There was in it something. . . . 
 She quickened sweetly in response, withdrawing her eyes 
 gently and looking past him up at the blue April sky now 
 strewn with little silver shells of cloud. As she lifted her 
 chin in doing so he saw the pulses in her white throat 
 beating softly like the pulses in the downy body of a white 
 moth held by the wings. 
 
 "I think we re going to have rain," she said. 
 
 "I shottld like very much to call at Nelson s Gift, if 
 you will allow me," said Richard. "We have been here a 
 week. My mother came earlier this year because she was 
 so tired from, her winter in New York. She s quite done 
 up, or she would have called on you before this. " 
 
 "The idea!" exclaimed Phoebe, startled. "A girl like 
 me ! Why should she ? " 
 
 From what she had heard, she was distinctly in awe of 
 Sally.
 
 54 WORLD S-END 
 
 "But," continued Richard in his suave voice, "if you 
 will let me I will call in her place." 
 
 "I m sure that father will be very glad," said Phoebe 
 with unwonted primness, because her heart was beating a 
 little fast. 
 
 Then may I come tomorrow ? asked Richard. 
 
 "Of course," said Phoebe. 
 
 But suddenly a little nymphean panic overtook her. 
 " It s time for father s wine. ... I 11 be late. ... I mu;rt 
 go now," she murmured. "Good-bye." 
 
 She turned Killdee s head, and set off at a canter. 
 
 "Good-bye . . . till tomorrow." Richard called after 
 her. 
 
 It was he. . . . It was Tie . . . at last! . . . Could there 
 be any doubt, when they were both young, and his hair 
 was dark while hers was fair? "What a young prince, to 
 come riding suddenly up to her out of the spring morn 
 ing! How kindly were the gods to set all the scene so 
 prettily blossoms, birds, a breeze of Eden, clouds like 
 silver shells, a sky to match her own eyes ! And his eyes 
 so black, so masterful how they had seemed to dive down 
 within her, and touch a little nerve somewhere that was 
 still thrilling sweetly. Oh, it was he beyond all manner 
 of doubt! They did not love yet, but love had touched 
 them. The god had stood with a wing over the shoulders 
 of each, and eyes full of gentle laughter, knowing well 
 what they only dimly felt as yet. Oh, beautiful, delirious 
 chance, that had brought her to Green Flower ford that 
 morning! Yet it was not chance she felt that she blas 
 phemed only loving fate, on sandals bound with roses, 
 could have led her thither. 
 
 And what a rich voice he had, and what charmingly dif 
 ferent hands from anyone else in the world ! And his 
 mouth when he smiled how wonderful! Those hands 
 would touch her own some day that mouth she let 
 the reins on "Killdee s" sagacious neck and hid her 
 glowing face in her hands. No more forever was the 
 dread of old-maidhood to haunt her pillow fairy mar 
 riage bells rang at her from every flower. She longed in 
 that moment for a tangible God, that she might embrace 
 his knees and kiss the hem of His garment. Tomorrow 
 he was coming, bringing with him the wild honey of 
 romance. 
 
 And Richard, riding home on Borak, now mincing
 
 WORLD S -END 55 
 
 pettishly, her black chest specked with foam, was think 
 ing: 
 
 "What that little wood-nymph has to learn! To teach 
 her some things would be diverting. Her face is a psy 
 chological contradiction. The eyes are like pretty nuns in 
 blue habits, praying at their windows, while her mouth is 
 like a laughing amourcuse in the street below. I shall 
 tell her that some clay. ... It will be interesting to watch 
 her expression and to hear what she will say, that is, if 
 she understands at all." 
 
 lie did not mean to tell Sally of this encounter. He 
 thought it unnecessary. It would only ruffle his mother 
 and cause her to make fretful remarks. There would be 
 quite time enough for such disclosures after he had been to 
 Nelson s Gift. Then he could easily persuade his mother to 
 call. He knew just the amount of sulkiness needed in him 
 self to break down the sulkiness in her. One day of aloof 
 and punctilious civility on his part and she would call at 
 Nelson s Gift. 
 
 If he found this little wood-nymph .really diverting on 
 further acquaintance, it was better that he should see her 
 quite frankl}?-. One call from Sally, one from Phoebe, 
 then things would remain comfortably conventional, and, he 
 could drop in at Nelson s Gift whenever it amused him 
 to do so. He knew beyond question that his mother and 
 Phoebe would never be congenial. Those two visits would 
 put things on a proper basis, and afterward it would be 
 quite unnecessary that he should report to his mother every 
 time that he saw Phoebe. She had such morbid ideas about 
 his getting married too young and interfering with his 
 genius. As if he had not reiterated to fatigue his absolute 
 abhorrence of being bound in any way. He had even in- 
 v /uted a saying once to soothe her, but which had only 
 shocked without convincing. He had said to her during 
 cue of her anxious appeals to him not to marry until he 
 was at least thirty-live : 
 
 My dear mother, why worry ? I do not intend to marry 
 at any age. The marriage-bed is the death-bed of art."
 
 56 WORLD S-EXD 
 
 XI 
 
 T> ICHARD started for Nelson s Gift the next morning at 
 ** nine o clock. This unusual departure from his late 
 routine called forth no comment on his mother s part 
 either verbal or mental, for Eichard s days were always 
 ordered or rather disordered by whim the presiding deity 
 of the eccentrically artistic. 
 
 He himself wondered if he might not be a little early, 
 but then he reflected that for all her pure white cheeks 
 Phoebe was yet a rustic maiden and probably rose early. 
 He need have given himself no concern: she had been up 
 and abroad, fresh as from a bath of dew, since the first bird 
 piped in the lilacs under her window, ready and sweetly 
 palpitating with expectancy, like Eos in her dawn-hued 
 robe of cloud, awaiting the bright rising of Orion. And 
 Phoebe s frock, the prettiest she had, though old, might 
 well have been woven of mauve clouds, so soft and dim 
 was it from many \vashings. It was cut in the scant, short- 
 waisted fashion of the year before, and girdled close under 
 her young breast with a fold of the same filmy stuff. 
 Around her throat, white and sweet as manna, she had, 
 after much deliberation, fastened a thread of gold from 
 which hung a tiny miniature of her mother set in ame 
 thysts. She wanted her mother s picture on her breast, 
 this wonderful day, since she herself could not have that 
 mother s breast to lean on. Besides, the amethysts went 
 so prettily with her gown and the mauve ribbon which 
 she had drawn through her sorrel hair. 
 
 Lily, the housemaid, Aunt Patty s blue-black daughter, 
 came early to tell her that Mr. Nelson was suffering from 
 a violent crick in his neck. She had given him his early 
 cup of coffee, into which she put a tablespoonful of peach 
 brandy, and then surrounding him with all the parapher 
 nalia of research, and leaving a small silver bell beside him, 
 joyfully descended to the little garden that had been spe 
 cially laid out for her mother, her own maiden for the 
 rest of the paradisaical morning. 
 
 She took with her a copy of Tennyson and her mother s 
 Bible. It was meet, she thought, that she should begin 
 this day by reading a little in her mother s Bible. 
 
 Within a ring of dim blue hyacinths, in the grassy centre 
 of the quaint plot with its borders of periwinkle, she
 
 WOKLD S-EXD 57 
 
 seated herself beside the little pedestal of old, mossy marble, 
 crowned by a bronze basket, now blue with wild violets. 
 Reverently she knelt, kissed the worn little volume that 
 smelt of must and pressed flowers, and opened it at random. 
 She opened at a place marked by a little gilt-edged i card 
 on which was a tiny coloured print of the sun rising yellow 
 in a pink sky, and underneath some verses in diamond 
 type. A pensive tenderness rushed over her. She went 
 back, back as in a swing of flowers, to the days when she 
 used to repeat these verses by heart, leaning on her mother s 
 breast. She read the first one over now, holding her 
 mother s picture to her lips as she did so. 
 
 The morning bright, with rosy light, 
 
 Hath waked me from my sleep! 
 Father, I own, Thy care alone, 
 Thy little-one doth keep. 
 
 Ah, I do want to be very, very good, thought Phoebe, 
 sweet tears filling her eyes. It s the only way I can thank 
 God for giving me so much happiness." 
 
 She turned another leaf. Two rosebuds, once white, now 
 a wan yellow, lay flattened within a piece of old-fashioned 
 letter-paper. On this was inscribed, in a delicate, "run 
 ning hand, Flowers from my little Phoebe s christening 
 nosegay. 
 
 Phoebe kissed that, too, and the tears brimmed over. She 
 was glad that she had never carefully examined her 
 mother s Bible until today. All these touching memen 
 toes were like messengers who spoke clearly in a still, small 
 voice that seemed to come from heaven. She turned more 
 pages, forgetting to read the sacred text in her absorption 
 with words, to her, as sacred. Now it w T as a prayer she 
 found. On the back of the sheet was written : " To be de 
 stroyed unread at my death." 
 
 "Ah, but she would w^ant me to read it," thought 
 Phoebe, and she unfolded the thin sheet. 
 
 " Dear Heavenly Father, " she read, " I am very 
 tired of well-doing, and my feet falter, and I faint by the 
 wayside. Oh, give me strength to conquer, and to live 
 so that I may bring up my precious baby to be Thy child. 
 Fill me with noble and unselfish thoughts and purposes 
 for her sake. Cast out of me all care for self. Let my 
 dear husband and my little child have reason to be glad
 
 58 WORLD S-END 
 
 that I have lived. Hedge up my way with thorns from 
 all wrongdoing, and keep my precious baby from evil 
 in thought, word and deed all her life long. May she 
 live to love and bless her mother, and to serve Thee truly 
 all the days of her life. Oh, keep her pure of heart so 
 that she may one day see Thee. For Jesus dear sake. 
 Amen. 
 
 "My sweet, darling mother," murmured the girl, now 
 weeping outright. I will always, always do as you would 
 wish me to ! " She folded the touching prayer and put it 
 in her bosom. Then came an envelope in which Phoebe 
 found her christening-ribbons, and a little marker printed 
 with coloured crayons by her own chubby fingers when 
 she was five years old. Then an orange blossom from her 
 mother s bridal wreath, some little religious verses cut 
 from weekly papers, and a packet of written records of her 
 own childish sayings and doings. She read some of them, 
 smiling now through her fast-drying tears: 
 
 My dear, droll baby said to me this morning, Mother, 
 do kitties hatch eggs ? Well, where do they find their kit 
 ties? Do they fish for them?" 
 
 " Yesterday, just after Thomas had read morning pray 
 ers, she said to him : "Father, dear, I do wish you wouldn t 
 pray so much about the lusts of the flesh. 
 
 " I sent her over Tuesday last to spend the day with 
 Frances Macon s little girls and their cousins, and when 
 she came back I said, "Phoebe, which of all your little 
 friends do you love the best?" She thought a while, 
 pulling her pretty gold curls through her mouth in 
 a way she has, and then she said: "Well, I love Molly 
 Page quite much, but her tears come too easily. I be 
 lieve I love myself best, because my tears don t come so 
 easily!" : 
 
 Phoebe broke into a little ripple of laughter over this 
 last. 
 
 "Oh, what a vain little thing I was!" she reflected, then 
 thought ruefully, "Perhaps I m just as vain still. I was 
 a whole hour dressing and doing my hair over and over 
 this morning." 
 
 But as she recalled why it was that she had taken so 
 long, and been so fastidious over her toilet, an April pink 
 clouded her clear face to the temples. She closed the 
 Bible again, having quite forgotten to read any of its 
 scriptures, and, tying about it once more the piece of faded
 
 WORLD 3-END 50 
 
 ribbon which kept the flowers and slips of paper from 
 falling out, hid it in a bed of irises nearby. 
 
 It was just as well. Nothing in the sacred volume would 
 have suited her nicod that morning except perhaps cer- 
 tnin lovely lines from the less sensual portion of the Song 
 of Songs, but this her father had particularly requested 
 her never to read until she was a mature and wedded 
 woman. How Phoebe would have adored them, the im 
 mortal words in which love and spring come triumphing 
 hand in hand: "3Iy beloved spake, and said unto me, 
 Rise up, my lore, my fair one, and come away. For 
 lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the j owers 
 appear on the earth; the time of the singing of lirds is 
 come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The 
 fig-tree puttcth /or/7/, her green leaves, and the vines u-ith 
 the tender grape give a good smell, Arise, my love, my 
 fair one, and come away." 
 
 But, knowing nothing of the lovely and appropriate 
 words which she had put away among the iris leaves, she 
 opened her mother s little blue-and-silver "Tennyson" and 
 began reading "Maud." 
 
 . . . "Birds in the High Hall garden calling, 
 
 Maud, Maud, Maud. ..." 
 
 "When she came to this, Phoebe let the book drop upon her 
 knees. 
 
 "If only dear mother and father hadn t given me such 
 a plain, old-fashioned name ! she thought regretfully. The 
 "Phoebe-bird" might go on calling her name in the love 
 liest garden, but no one would ever think of making a poem 
 out of it. Here she heard a conversational "Caw," and, 
 glancing up, saw that "Jimmy Toots," her tame crow, was 
 progressing towards her down the garden path, in hops, 
 punctuated by sly pauses. He cocked his head when she 
 looked up, and fixed a sly, teasing eye of brass upon her. 
 
 "Go away, Jimmy Toots," said Phoebe severely. "I 
 don t want you this morning. 
 
 "Caw!" he responded, unruffled, and fluttered straight 
 to her shoulder, for he was an amiable if sardonic fowl. 
 
 "Oh, Jimmy Toots, go away!" pleaded Phoebe, trying 
 to take him down. "You re like a blot on a love-letter!" 
 
 But Jimmy clung with his strong claws to her shoulder, 
 tickling her through the thin muslin, and rocking back and 
 forth with spread wings to maintain his balance as she 
 shrugged to dislodge him.
 
 60 WORLD S-EX D 
 
 "Oh, you tiresome, tiresome old thing!" said Phoebe, 
 laughing in spite of herself, but really vexed at what she 
 felt to be the jarring note of the coal-black Jimmy in the 
 fresh fairness of the morning. Had she been a pagan 
 maiden, she would have offered a pair of milk-white doves, 
 with coral feet and eyes, to Venus, but w r hat was one to 
 do with a big, satanic crow that spoiled one s day dreams, 
 and could only appropriately have been laid on the altar 
 of Pluto ? 
 
 And, of course, it was at this moment that Richard came 
 into the garden. 
 
 Phoebe started to her feet, and Jimmy Toots, again 
 whirring wild wings to keep his perch under this vio 
 lent oscillation, beat down a strand of her bright hair. 
 It netted his jetty breast as with a skein of flame, 
 and Richard found delightful this picture of a young 
 girl in an April garden, with a bird of ill omen on her 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Don t take him down . . . please," he said, as Phoebe 
 strove with both hands to pull " Jimmy" from his post, 
 without tearing her frock. 
 
 "If it had been a ring-dove, all would have been spoiled," 
 he added, cryptically enough to Phoebe s ears. 
 
 She stood quite still when he had spoken, leaving Jimmy 
 conqueror with her eyes showing in a blue line between 
 her short, black lashes, gathered together as always wiien 
 she smiled, and "two little blushes" in her clear cheeks 
 like Mary of Ballylee. 
 
 "She is," thought Richard, "far better this way than 
 on horseback. That clinging gown exactly suits her type. 
 She is long and lissome like a Botticelli. Her hair, as well 
 as her mouth, is the hair of a born amour euse. And that 
 crow is a master-touch. "Wilde may say what he will; 
 Nature outdoes us all when she chooses to be artistic." 
 Aloud he said : 
 
 "You with that crow are like a poem by Baudelaire." 
 
 Enchanted by being compared to a poem, though the 
 name of Baudelaire was a mere musical sound to her, 
 Phoebe laughed softly and said: 
 
 "I can t imagine a crow in a poem." 
 
 " The Raven ?" suggested Richard indulgently. 
 
 "Oh, but a raven is different there is something grim 
 
 and strange about a raven, but a crow! " she broke 
 
 off and, laughing, quoted the old jingle:
 
 WORLD S-END 61 
 
 " Stealing corn has been their trade, 
 Ever since the world was made. 
 
 "All the same," said Richard, "that crow against your 
 wonderful hair strikes the sinister note that all beauty 
 should have to be complete." 
 
 This was not only Greek to Phoebe, but Hebrew, Sans 
 krit, Choctaw. She smiled again, putting up her hand to 
 touch "Jimmy Toots" quite gently, now that Richard had 
 praised him, then suddenly, in response to Richard s look, 
 which was again serious, almost brooding, she ceased to 
 smile and gave him back his glance like a clear mirror, her 
 eyes deepening and growing wistful. 
 
 Some lines of Baudelaire, whom the crow still kept in 
 Richard s thought, occurred to him. 
 
 "... dcs ycux obscurs, profonds et vastes, 
 Comme toi, Nuit immense, cclaires comme toil 
 Leur fetix sont ces penscrs d Amour, mele de Foi, 
 Qui petillent au fond, voluptueux ou cliastes." 
 
 "I m so sorry that father s ill today and won t be able 
 to see you," said Phoebe, from sheer shyness, breaking a 
 silence wonderful to her, wherein they seemed to be gazing 
 at each other s very souls. 
 
 "Yes. ... I am sorry, too," agreed Richard politely. 
 
 Here Jimmy Toots, who had been for some time eyeing 
 the head of an amber hairpin that gleamed temptingly in 
 the sunshine, made a skilful dab at it with his strong 
 beak, and, withdrawing it triumphantly, fled as fast as 
 he could with his clipped wing to the shelter of the lilacs. 
 
 Even in this thrilling hour, so great a favourite was 
 the amber hairpin Math Phoebe, that she made an instinctive 
 dart after the bird, and in so doing struck the little volume 
 of Tennyson into view from among the Basses. 
 
 Richard stooped and lifted it. He ranked Tennyson and 
 Longfellow together, and of course she would read both 
 poets. They were the pabulum of young girls. 
 
 "Don t you admire Tennyson?" asked Phoebe timidly, 
 turning from her useless pursuit of Jimmy Toots. 
 
 "He s written asiomatically melodic lines," admitted 
 Richard in concession to her charming naivete. "I don t 
 care for the celebrated moaning doves and murmuring 
 bees myself. I believe that the only two poems which
 
 62 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 seem to me to have any spontaneous life in them he himself 
 condemned as ... er ..." He hesitated, searching in his 
 mind for an adjective suited to express his meaning to a 
 young girl. "As too Swinburnian, " he concluded. 
 
 Phoebe looked eagerly at the hook whose leaves he was 
 turning, then up at his lowered lids, then she said shyly : 
 
 "What are they? I wonder if I know them." 
 
 "But you must, if you are so fond of Tennyson." 
 
 Phoebe flushed a little. 
 
 "I don t read much poetry at a time," she said. "I 
 haven t read nearly all of that book. Only Maud and the 
 Idylls of the King, and The May Queen, and a few 
 others." 
 
 "You ve never read CEnone and Fatima ?" 
 
 "No," said Phoebe sadly. Here was she, disappointing 
 the prince on the very first day that he had entered her 
 garden. Wretched girl! she would read poetry by the 
 hour, by the ell from this day forward. 
 
 Richard looked at her downcast face, and a sudden in 
 spiration came to him, caused by the scientific curiosity of 
 the psychological vivisector. 
 
 " If I may sit here on the grass beside you, he said, I 
 will read them to you if you like. 
 
 If she liked! Phoebe looked at him with such a smile 
 that words were not needed, and made room for him within 
 the ring of hyacinths. Now he was so near her that she 
 could note the fine grain of the skin on his temple, and 
 get a whiff of the peaty scent from his coat of grey Scotch 
 homespun. 
 
 "I shall only read you a few lines from CEnone, " he 
 said, "the whole is rather tiresome. But I ll give you all 
 of Fatima it s rather charming." 
 
 The extract from CEnone ended with the lines : 
 
 "Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms 
 Were wound about thce, and my hot lips prest 
 Close, close to thine in that quick- falling dew 
 Of fruitful kisses, thick as autumn rains 
 Flash in the whirling pool of Simois." 
 
 To Phoebe it was almost as if Richard s lips brushed hers 
 in the reading of those words. She did not flush, but grew 
 even whiter than was the nature of her magnolia skin, and 
 kept her eyes upon her clasped hands. The little pulse of
 
 WORLD S-END 63 
 
 her soft throat, that Eichard had noted yesterday, beat very 
 fast. 
 
 He just glanced at her and went on to "Fatima." 
 
 "Last night when some one spoke his name, 
 From my swift blood that went and came, 
 A thousand little shafts of flame 
 Were shivered in my narrow frame. 
 O love, O fire! once he drew 
 With one long kiss my whole soul through 
 My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew. 
 
 Before he mounts the hill I know 
 
 He cometh quickly: from below 
 
 Sweet gales as from deep gardens bloio 
 
 (Richard s voice made the "deep gardens" seem this 
 garden.) 
 
 Before him, striking on my brow. 
 
 And, isled in sudden seas of light, 
 
 My heart, pierced through with fierce delight, 
 
 Bursts into blossoms in his sight." 
 
 When he looked at the girl this time her hands were quiv 
 ering on her knee and her whole throat and face one soft 
 wave of rose. 
 
 "Ah, little amoureuse," thought Richard, "what coun 
 try duffer will clang out his ragtime fancies on your sensi 
 tive chords?" 
 
 But he had no idea of playing "Paris" to Phoebe s 
 "CEnone. " How to change this mood only too easily 
 evoked? Young girls were dangerous things to tamper 
 with, and Phoebe did not even stir his cool senses, only 
 roused in him that inevitable and cruel curiosity of the 
 initiate, as regards the promising neophyte. 
 
 "I write verse myself," he now said in a matter-of-fact 
 voice, closing Tennyson and flinging him a yard away, as 
 though putting such a banal poet at his proper distance. 
 "You are such a wonderful listener so simpatica that I 
 wonder if you would let me read you some of mine one 
 day?" 
 
 // she would let him read some of his very own poetry 
 to her! That poetry which must be so much more won 
 derful than Tennyson s, or even Browning s, of which she 
 had heard but had not read. "Oh, would you, really?"
 
 64 WORLD S-END 
 
 she said, and her parted lips stayed open, and the colour 
 swept up again into her face. 
 
 Richard said that he would bring over his poems in a 
 day or two if she would allow him, and he began telling 
 her about "The Daughter of Ypocras. " 
 
 "Oh," cried Phoebe, throbbing with the joy of finding 
 that one atom, at least, of what must be his universal knowl 
 edge she shared with him. "I know! I read all about it in 
 Sir John Mandeville s Travels. That must make a beau 
 tiful poem." 
 
 Richard was both astonished and pleased to hear of her 
 acquaintance with his abstruse subject. "When he told her 
 that she was the only person among those he knew who had 
 ever heard of the daughter of Ypocras her delight was 
 lovely. Even Richard was touched by it. Something in 
 his brittle, artificial nature stirred delicately. 
 
 "When she looks like that one has the most primitive 
 desire to kiss her," he thought, amused at his own banality, 
 as of a spring-bewitched Tom, Dick or Harry. 
 
 He went on to tell her that he was also sculptor and 
 painter as well as poet and a look of awe came into her 
 eyes; it changed her from amoureuse to devotee, and 
 made her still more appealing to Richard, whose nature 
 craved adulation rather than love. 
 
 He did not wish to destroy this mood in her by more 
 commonplace conversation, so he rose, saying that he feared 
 he had kept her too long from her father, to whom he 
 hoped that she would express his regrets. Just as he was 
 going, Jimmy Toots emerged again from the lilacs and, 
 flying to the bronze basket on the little pedestal, fixed him 
 with an impish, half-veiled eye. 
 
 Richard paused. 
 
 "By the w r ay," he said, "I must make a painting of you 
 and that sardonic crow together if you will let me. 
 
 "Of me . . . with Jimmy Toots?" said Phoebe doubt 
 fully. She did not want the prince to paint her with so 
 unromantic a fowl. She would have preferred to hold an 
 armful of hyacinths, those dim blue blossoms which would 
 always mean Richard to her from this day until she died. 
 
 Certainly it will be unique, said he decisively. But 
 is Jimmy Toots his name? It doesn t seem at all a fitting 
 one to me. I shall always think of him as Charles Baude 
 laire." 
 
 He took of? his hat gravely to the crow.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 65 
 
 "Au revoir, M. Baudelaire," he said. 
 
 The crow fluffed out his sombre plumage, drew up one 
 foot, then stretched it far out; opening his heak wide, he 
 seemed to yawn derisively in Richard s face then sud 
 denly he flew again to Phoehe s shoulder. 
 
 Caw! Caw!" he cried harshly. 
 
 You two are wonderful together . . . wonderful, said 
 Richard, with the enthusiasm that only art could rouse in 
 him. "I shall call my painting Pandore et le Genie du 
 Coffre. . . . There s something very French about you 
 the way your hair grows, perhaps." He indicated it with 
 one of those leaflike gestures of his hand. One can think 
 of you in a hcnnin with the white wimple flowing clearly 
 
 over your burning hair, like " He hesitated, seeking 
 
 the appropriate simile, "like foam over flame. I won t 
 delay. If you don t mind, I 11 come tomorrow. 
 
 "No. . . . Come," said Phoebe softly. 
 
 Richard bent over her hand in the way that he had 
 brought back from France, and kissed it. The kiss seemed 
 to fly along her veins and print itself on her heart. 
 
 M. Jimmy Toots de Baudelaire ca\ved again, very sul 
 lenly this time, and smacked his beak with a sound as of 
 little shears being smartly closed. 
 
 XII 
 
 A FTER Richard had been for the second time to Nelson s 
 *"* Gift, he decided that his mother had better call imme 
 diately. He broke it to her thus : 
 
 I ve something rather agreeable to tell you, mother. I 
 know how you always worry in the end when you don t see 
 your way to doing what Uncle Owen wishes, so I ll com 
 fort your mind by telling you that I met Phoebe Nelson 
 out riding the other day, and she s not at all the gushing 
 miss but a quiet, pleasant girl: I think you d really 
 rather like her. 
 
 They were at breakfast in the West Portico, and he 
 helped himself to a piece of butter while speaking, care 
 fully lifting on it one of the nasturtium flowers with which 
 it was adorned. He always ate the blossoms with his but 
 ter. To devour colour, bloom and pungency all in one, he 
 said, lifted the low necessity of eating to an aesthetic 
 pleasure.
 
 66 WORLD S-END 
 
 As his mother said nothing, merely busying herself with 
 the old Sheffield coffee-urn, he continued, "Uncle Owen 
 was right, too, in saying that she isn t beautiful, but she 
 has extraordinarily lovely colouring. It s like looking at .a 
 materialisation of the tints that float before me after gazing 
 at masses of black and white." 
 
 Sally here made one of the tart remarks she rarely ad 
 dressed to her son, but which she was noted for making to 
 less-privileged mortals. "Your sense of colour, it seems 
 to me, should be sufficiently stimulated by the mass of blacks 
 and whites that your uncle has accumulated here at 
 World s-End, without going farther afield, my dear Rich 
 ard." 
 
 Richard received this gnat-bite upon the smooth, metal 
 lic surface of the humour in which he always encased him 
 self when foreseeing a tilt with his parent. "It is singu 
 lar," said he, "how a race afflicted with the horrible shades 
 of muddy buff that specialise the skins of Caucasians should 
 ever have been called white. . . . One rarely sees a com 
 plexion that even approaches white. Phoebe Nelson" (he 
 pronounced the name with deliberation) "has a really 
 white complexion. At times it is like a pale camellia re 
 flecting blood." 
 
 Sally gave the urn a sharp twitch of disgust. "What a 
 horrid simile!" she exclaimed, "and at the breakfast-table, 
 too. . . ." 
 
 "My dear mother," said Richard, "blood is a component 
 part of the loveliest complexion besides, even in itself, 
 blood is a beautiful thing. I have often thought that Nero 
 used his emerald at the circus, not to escape seeing the 
 ruby pools in the arena, but to intensify his sense of crim 
 son by the use of its complementary colour when he next 
 looked with the naked eye." 
 
 "Richard ! I beg of you," cried Sally, pushing back her 
 chair, "the last morsel of roll that I was trying to swal 
 low is nearly choking me." 
 
 She drank some gulps of the scalding coffee that she 
 had just made, so hurriedly that tears came into her eyes, 
 and she was obliged, despite her desire for cold dignity at 
 that moment, to blow her nose. 
 
 "As you like, I m sorry," said Richard with his little 
 air of indulgence, which, as fervently as she adored him, 
 maddened the high-spirited Sally at times. 
 
 "Sometimes," she said bluntly, "you certainly talk non-
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 67 
 
 sense, Richard. It s clever nonsense, but it s nonsense all 
 the same. 
 
 Richard smiled and bowed teasingly. 
 
 "Clever nonsense is a thing that Socrates would have 
 taken off his laurels to," he said, unruffled. 
 
 This girl, burst forth his mother sharply, not ventur 
 ing to engage in a contest of wit with him, "you are going 
 to bring her here, I suppose?" 
 
 "Why, no," said Richard. "I was thinking that if you 
 went there it would please four people very much, at very 
 little expense to your comfort." 
 
 "I see no necessity whatever for my driving five miles 
 over abominable roads to call on a girl of sixteen." 
 
 "Twenty, on the first of May so she told me yester 
 day. When you see her you will agree with me that May 
 day is the most appropriate in the calendar for her birth 
 day." 
 
 I wonder that the girl herself should wish it. It would 
 be much more proper for her to call on me." 
 
 "As far as I can make out," said Richard, taking an 
 other nasturtium in his fingers and munching it delicately, 
 "she is distinctly frightened by the idea. I imagine that 
 she would receive you with much the emotions that the fair 
 Rosamond received Queen Eleanor." 
 
 This made Sally very angry. 
 
 "I consider that comparison gratuitously and egregiously 
 impertinent," she said, having recourse to pentasyllables 
 as one uses a charger s hoofs to crush an enemy too skilful 
 with the cross-bow. 
 
 "I ~bcg your pardon. ..." said Richard with a look of 
 real concern. Whatever affection he had was given to his 
 mother, besides, he did not wish to antagonise her too much 
 just now. I am very, very sorry that you took my words 
 in that way, mother. I didn t mean to anger you, of that 
 you may be sure." 
 
 This was true in a sense, for, although he had thought 
 a little delicate teasing would not be amiss, he had not 
 desired to rouse actual wrath. 
 
 He got up suddenly and went round behind her chair. 
 His rare kisses he kept in reserve for just such occasions, 
 like magic bullets sure to reach the mark. Bending over, 
 he now bestowed one lightly on his mother s hair. Her 
 stiffness did not relax, but a slight red flew into her sallow 
 cheeks.
 
 68 WORLD S-END 
 
 "Mater mea," said Richard softly, "I m sorry. . . . 
 Won t that do?" 
 
 Sally struggled for a moment, then her hand went up to 
 his where it rested on her shoulder. She gave a catching 
 sigh. Deep are even the slight wounds of an only son so 
 avidly beloved. 
 
 "There are some things ..." she began, then ended in 
 another tone: "But there . . . since you re sorry." 
 
 Richard seated himself on the arm of the old Georgian 
 chair. 
 
 "Really, mother," he said, "you have enchanting hair. 
 As I look down on the lovely black and white web of it, I 
 see in it the rarest hues violet, emerald, almandin. ..." 
 
 Sally laughed outright, and her ill-temper fled as quickly 
 as it had come. 
 
 "An old woman with rainbow-coloured hair! What a 
 picture ! 
 
 "Rainbow-coloured hair would be beautiful with your 
 eyes, mother," said Richard. 
 
 "If you praise my eyes, you praise your own, my boy," 
 said she. 
 
 That Richard had her own eyes gave Sally an unending 
 pleasure, secret and exquisite. It was like the seal of her 
 motherhood upon him. The sign that made him hers in a 
 way that no other woman could ever possess him. 
 
 "If," said Richard, with the sort of eighteenth-century 
 gallantry that he used to her at times, and which he knew 
 delighted her, "if the gods had asked me before birth what 
 gift I would have from life, I should have replied my 
 mother s eyes. " 
 
 And bending over he kissed the slight, burnt-out looking 
 hand with its soft, thin palm and nails a little too deeply 
 curved at the matrix. 
 
 "To tell you the truth, Mother," he then said, choosing 
 this propitious moment for frankness, with his usual acu 
 men in dealing with her, "the girl promises me the rarest 
 subject for a painting. She has for a pet a grim old crow, 
 that perches on her shoulder. Her hair is like autumn 
 leaves on fire, and to see that sin-black bird against it, so 
 close to her fresh, na ive face. What do you think of doing 
 her in a thin gold-tissue gown, and calling it Tandore et 
 le Genie du Coffre f" 
 
 "The titles you choose are always beautiful, but I can 
 scarcely tell about the picture until I have seen the girl."
 
 VV O R L D S - E N D 69 
 
 This inadvertent admission did not escape Richard. 
 
 That was just what I was thinking of," said he. "I 
 want your opinion as always, and to give it, of course, you 
 would have to see her. Besides, in a country neighbour 
 hood like this, it s always best to feign conventionality 
 don t you think so? If you called on Phoebe Nelson, my 
 painting her would seem perfectly natural, and people 
 wouldn t go devising some stupid romance." 
 
 "You see," admitted Sally reluctantly, "I didn t know 
 that you thought of painting her." 
 
 "Then you ll be a gracious lady, and go?" asked Rich 
 ard, kissing her hand again. 
 
 Where your art is concerned, I put all personal feeling 
 aside," replied his mother. "Yes, I will go. This after 
 noon?" 
 
 That would be charming of you then I could continue 
 my painting tomorrow." 
 
 "Very well " said Sally, "you might as well order 
 the carriage now, so that John will not take out one of 
 the bays this morning." 
 
 And, lighting a cigarette, Richard strolled off to the 
 stables, well satisfied with what he had accomplished and 
 the way in which he had accomplished it. 
 
 "When he and Sally arrived at Nelson s Gift that after 
 noon there were guests already in the green-panelled room? 
 and Phoebe was handing thin biscuits and Madeira. 
 
 As she saw Richard entering with his mother the little 
 tray that she was carrying in one hand tilted and the wine 
 glasses ran together with a crisp tinkle. She put it down, 
 and came forward with her shy grace. Her muslin frock 
 was white today and she had pinned some hyacinths on 
 her breast. 
 
 Sally saw at once that, as Richard had said, her colouring 
 was lovely, but Phoebe s mouth displeased her. 
 
 The guests proved to be Phoebe s English friend who had 
 lent her the pattern for her riding coat a Mrs. Griggs 
 with a distant relative, Lady Agnes Tonks. and her son 
 Harold, a youth of eighteen. Harold, it seemed, had de 
 veloped a delicacy of the chest, and his mother was touring 
 the world with him in search of the health required to 
 continue his education at Oxford. 
 
 Lady Agnes, who owed her title to the fact of being 
 a daughter of the Marquess of Portingale, the late Mr. 
 Tonks having risen to opulence from the humbler sphere
 
 70 WORLD S-END 
 
 of "trade," was small, slight, prettily rounded and as 
 vivacious as a Frenchwoman. 
 
 Harold was a grey-eyed, large-mouthed lad, with a win 
 ning snub-nose freckled on the bridge and a delightful 
 voice. Harold and Phoebe had become great friends during 
 his stay. He thought her the nicest girl that he had ever 
 seen. 
 
 They had been discussing the latest vagaries of Mr. Nigel 
 Graham, the Scottish agent, w r hen Richard and his mother 
 entered, and now the subject was taken up again. 
 
 It seemed that Mr. Graham, on discovering that some of 
 the Nelson s Gift cattle had strayed upon his farm through 
 a gate inadvertently left open had turned cows and calves 
 into the highroad. 
 
 "Most boorish, I call it. Fancy doin a thing like that- 
 to a neighbour!" said Lady Agnes. 
 
 "Mr. Graham is not distinguished for his neighbourli- 
 ness, remarked Mr. Nelson, not smiling this time, however 
 
 "The man s a regular curmudgeon," said Mrs. Griggs. 
 
 I had to get on Killdee in the rain to help find them, 
 Phoebe put in, "one of the poor little calves nearly 
 died." 
 
 Here Harold, who had contained himself with difficulty 
 until his elders expressed themselves, burst forth. He had 
 a little difficulty with the letter " b " in speaking. He now 
 said with considerable violence: 
 
 That s the sort of b-bally b-bounder that we kick on the 
 b-b-behind at Eton." 
 
 "Don t be coarse, sweetie," remonstrated Lady Agnes, 
 just flicking him on the sleeve with one of her long, wash- 
 leather gloves that she had drawn off when the wine and 
 thin biscuits were served. 
 
 Young Harold became as red as a turkey-cock. It was a 
 real blight upon his manhood, this dreadful habit of his 
 mother s which he could not break, and which consisted 
 of addressing him on the most untoward occasions by the 
 nursery term of endearment, "sweetie." 
 
 But Lady Agnes, quite unconscious of her lapse she had 
 so often promised reformation and failed to accomplish it 
 that her son had almost resigned hope, now drew her 
 chair up to Sally, who was seated by Mr. Nelson, and said 
 in her clear staccato: 
 
 "I m so enjoying this amazin country of yours, Mrs. 
 Bryce. These Virginia hills are sweetly pretty. Naturalty
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 71 
 
 I dote on them, for they ve brought my poor dear boy his 
 health again." 
 
 "I am very glad," responded Sally a little stiffly, for she 
 thought Lady Agnes s manner rather patronising. "It is 
 not pleasant to have one s son ill." 
 
 " Not pleasant, . . . my word!" exclaimed her lady 
 ship, using a provincialism of her own countryside which 
 she thought rather fetching as employed by a daughter of 
 Lord Portingale. "That s an odd way of puttin it, to be 
 isure. But then, you Americans are so delightfully unex 
 pected." 
 
 Sally indulged her desire for tartness. 
 
 "Do you lump us all together like that?" she inquired 
 mildly. "Chinese, Germans, Slavs, Irish?" 
 
 "AVell, " said Lady Agnes airily, "they all get the flav 
 our, you know. It s like puttin garlic in a pot-pourri 
 not that I mean to be uncomplimentary. You re a fas- 
 cmatin race fascinatin so original. Now here, in this 
 state, down South, you call it, don t you?" 
 
 "We are rather in the habit of calling it Virginia," re 
 plied Sally, who was thoroughly vexed by this time. 
 
 "Ah, yes . . . quite so. ... Dear old Thackeray but 
 I must say he wasn t a dab at givin the local colour to 
 other countries. Now, here, it strikes one, you know, I m 
 sure you won t mind my mentionin it, because I think it 
 rather attractive but really it does strike one I mean 
 the way that all the Virginians talk like niggers. I mean, 
 you know that it seems surprisin that the whites 
 shouldn t have got the black to talk like them, instead of 
 talkin like the blacks. Eh, what ? 
 
 Here Richard, anxious that this visit should pass smooth 
 ly, called out: 
 
 "Mother, do ask Miss Nelson to show you her garden 
 and her crow." 
 
 Phoebe came up shyly. His mother ! And such a com 
 manding personage, to boot. It was rather overwhelming 
 to be asked to show a crow, of all things, to such a stately 
 being. 
 
 "I should love to ... if you would care," she hesi 
 tated, lifting wistful eyes. 
 
 I shall be charmed, said Sally with unusual gracious- 
 ness, so delightful did it seem to her to be rid of the stac 
 cato arpeggios of Lady Agnes running commentary on her 
 native State and its inhabitants.
 
 72 WORLD S-END 
 
 So Phoebe took Sally into her garden and to her, of all 
 people, presented Jimmy Toots. 
 
 Thank God, that is over ! said Sally with real feeling, 
 as ten minutes later she was rolling again towards World s- 
 End with Eichard beside her. "That type of English 
 woman is more than I can endure patiently. If the belted 
 earl, her faiher, had trounced her soundly with the belt 
 in her childhood not removing the buckle he might have 
 taught her good manners. And the girl s father, an arro 
 gant old pedant Fancy announcing on his own au 
 thority like that that the Chivalls and Cabells are one fam 
 ily ! And that snub-nosed boy with his coarse vulgarities. 
 Thank heaven that you went to an American school and 
 an American college. ..." 
 
 Richard felt it to be something gained that his mother 
 had not yet excoriated poor Phoebe with that double-edged 
 tongue of hers which had evidently been whetted by this 
 visit. 
 
 Didn t you think the contrast of that sinister crow with 
 the girl s youth and colouring striking?" 
 
 "Almost too striking, Richard, to be quite frank. To 
 me it seemed a most unpleasing combination. Shall you 
 paint her mouth exactly as it is ?" 
 
 "It s a unique mouth, isn t it?" 
 
 "To me," said Sally, "it is painfully bizarre. I was 
 reading the other day in that book of Chinese translations 
 from which you took your libretto, and in one of the 
 poems the lover compares a girl s lips to crimson cater 
 pillars Phoebe Nelson s mouth is like that." 
 
 Sally could be deliberately malicious when she chose. 
 
 But Richard was not offended. 
 
 " Crimson caterpillars! . . . Charming!" said he. "I 
 have always thought that the gracefulness of worms was not 
 appreciated. 
 
 Sally gave it up. 
 
 XIII 
 
 XT morning, when Richard came, the garden was 
 immaculate of the presence of young Tonks. 
 "Thank heaven," said he to Phoebe, "that Yorkshire 
 pudding of a boy is not here today. He is like a young 
 Bottom among your flowers, and he needs no mask to make 
 Mm so. His head is naturally the ass s."
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 73 
 
 "No, no," said Phoebe, smiling but loyal. "Harold is 
 really a clear. I don t know what possessed him yesterday, 
 but I gave him a good scolding after you went. I don t 
 think he ll bother us again for some time." This last was 
 said with perfect unconsciousness of its full meaning. "I 
 can t think what got into him yesterday to be so sulky," 
 she repeated. 
 
 Richard smiled at a pencil which he was sharpening. 
 
 Can J t you ? said he. I can. 
 
 Really ? asked Phoebe, curious. What, then ? 
 
 "Why, the youth is over his big ears in love with you," 
 replied Richard, blowing the pencil-dust delicately from 
 its point, and looking straight at her. 
 
 "Oh, no!" she cried, blushing over all the milky skin 
 that her frock left uncovered. To her the w r ord "love" 
 from his lips, even in this indirect way, set her pulses 
 tingling. "He s only a little boy . . . almost a child." 
 
 That s nothing, said Richard gravely. When I was 
 only a child of seven I was wildly in love with r. friend of 
 my mother s. When she used to lift me up among the 
 perfumed laces at her breast I used to feel as though I 
 would faint for joy." 
 
 "Oh! . . ." was all that Phoebe could manage, this 
 seemed to her so peculiar and sweetly confusing somehow. 
 
 "I used to look up at her beautiful mouth and ache 
 because my own was so humiliatingly little. I used to 
 imagine how, when I was a man, I would kiss those lips 
 until I hurt them to make up for my own pain." 
 
 Oh ! . . . " said Phoebe again in a lower voice. Her col 
 our came and went under his words, like a flag of rose and 
 white shaken by the wind. 
 
 Richard, reflecting how sweetly facile she was to play 
 upon, recalled an old legend, Irish, was it? or German, 
 perhaps of a man who plays upon an enchanted harp 
 that suddenly begins to make music of itself, and 
 through this music he discovers that the harp is really 
 made out of a w T oman, and that in playing on its strings 
 he has been playing with her lovely hair. 
 
 Such a harp, he thought, was Phoebe, made for the 
 subtle delight of a rare artist. And looking at her with 
 his slightly heavy black eyes, of which the irises were so 
 large in proportion to the white, he mused on the fortu 
 nate chance which had sent her across his path, just as the 
 creative mood in him was waning.
 
 74 WORLD S-END 
 
 All the women who were drawn to him and his work, no 
 matter how differing in type, gave off, under the stimu 
 lus of his fancies, a sort of pollen of the spirit which 
 strangely fertilised the flower of his art. But never had he 
 found so perfectly, so delicately responsive a temperament 
 as this of Phoebe. One had but to touch her with a feather 
 from the wings of love and she would flush and quicken. 
 But the instrument was delicate and must not be touched 
 too forcefully. Besides, he must reveal to her gradually 
 his implacable aversion from all conventional forms of love 
 he must let her become indubitably aware that for him 
 marriage did not represent a high ideal of consecrated 
 affection, but the degrading severance from all freedom, 
 the gyves with which the dead body of a convention is 
 rivetted to the living spirit. 
 
 In this way he would protect both her and himself from 
 the trying results of a young girl s worsted- work dream of 
 a romantic affection ending in wedding-cake. 
 
 He smiled now as this last fancy occurred to him, and 
 said : 
 
 "You may look at what I have done, if you like, this 
 morning." 
 
 Oh, I have longed so to see it ! " she cried with kindling 
 eyes. "May I look now?" 
 
 Richard nodded, and she came and stood beside him at 
 the easel. 
 
 The drawing was a web of beautiful, flying lines. On a 
 faint background of many Phoebes, the one pose that he 
 had finally chosen stood out clear and vivid. He had per 
 haps exaggerated her likeness to a Botticelli, so that the 
 head seemed a little small for the long, nymphean limbs, 
 and he had more than suggested the pretty globes of her 
 breast under the crimpled draperies. But the translation 
 of Jimmy Toots into a bird of sombre presage was wholly 
 a masterpiece. Far more than any serpent, he seemed 
 fitted to whisper of honeyed sins in the ear of this virginal 
 Eve-Pandore. 
 
 Richard waited a moment, then said, "Well?" 
 
 "Are my . . . am I quite as ... as long as 
 that?" asked "Pandore" at last, timidly. "It s beau 
 tiful, of course," she hurried on, "only I didn t know 
 that ..." 
 
 The line from your girdle to your shoe-tip is one of the 
 loveliest and most unusual I ever saw," said Richard reas-
 
 WORLD S-END 75 
 
 suringly. "It is longer than in most women, but all the 
 more exquisite for that." 
 
 Phoebe could hardly believe her own rose-flushed ears. 
 There was then something about her that the prince 
 thought "exquisite"! Oh, magic April morning, forever 
 
 blessed among all mornings, day of days It was then 
 
 exquisite to have long legs and a head like a little flower 
 with foliage-hair ! 
 
 "The head is much n-nicer than mine," she murmured, 
 stammering in her delightful surprise. 
 
 No, said Richard, but I must ask you something. . . . 
 You see, to balance the composition those black wings 
 tilting sharply to the right need something here. ..." 
 He made a swift curve in the air before the drawing with 
 his pencil. "I think, if it won t be too much trouble, I ll 
 get you to loosen your hair. 
 
 "AVhy, of course," said Phoebe happily, beginning to 
 draw out the shining masses about her ears. 
 
 But Eichard just touched her hand lightly. "No," he 
 said again, "I don t mean loosen it in that way. I mean 
 let it fall loose all about you." 
 
 For an instant even the submissive adulation of Phoebe 
 was staggered. "Wliat would her father, and Aunt Patty, 
 and the upright black Lily, unexpected neighbours . . . 
 what would they say, were they to come and find her sit 
 ting to a young man in her garden, with her hair flying 
 loose? 
 
 Then she thought, How silly I am ! Hasn t he brought 
 his mother to see me? Of course he wouldn t ask me to do 
 anything really improper." (Phoebe regulated her con 
 duct by that old-fashioned word.) So she said again, 
 "Why, of course," and began pulling out all the big amber 
 pins that held her heavy locks in place. 
 
 As it tumbled down, a rippling, flashing sheet of flame 
 and sunlight, the sight went a little to Richard s senses 
 other than artistic. He had an almost uncontrollable im 
 pulse to plunge his hands into the fragrant mass. 
 
 "Astarte must have had hair like that," he said. 
 
 Phoebe, who didn t know who this lady might be, but 
 who divined from Richard s tone that she must have had 
 beautiful hair, smiled shyly, carding out the silken lengths 
 with her fingers and looking askance at them. 
 
 "It s a dreadful trial in hot weather," she said. 
 
 Richard could not, or rather would not, resist his desire
 
 76 WORLD S-END 
 
 longer. The touch, of rare textures was one of his subtlest 
 pleasures. , 
 
 "May I?" he asked, extending his hand, and, as she did 
 not answer, only went on smiling, not knowing quite what 
 it was that he wanted, he lifted one of her tresses and 
 pulled out its shining skein across his palm. 
 
 Phoebe quivered slightly, as though her hair had the 
 antennas-like quality of sensation. Part of her actually lay 
 there in the hollow of his hand. Mysterious and lovely 
 thought. And there, too, lay her heart, if he had only 
 known it. And his heart? Ah, he would not touch her 
 hair like that if his heart were not already hers as hers 
 was his. . . . 
 
 He murmured some words in French : 
 
 "... cette chevelure, 
 "Je la veux agiter dans I air comme un mouchoir!" 
 
 Then he lifted his eyes to hers with the still, brooding look 
 that she loved, and said softly: 
 
 "You have the hair of destiny, little Phoebe." 
 
 They had agreed only yesterday that being cousins after 
 all they would call each other by their Christian names. 
 
 "How do you mean?" she faltered. It was so wonder 
 ful to have him speak her name. She no longer chafed at 
 its plainness since he had said that it was charming. She 
 repeated his words wonderingly, "The hair of des 
 tiny . . .?" 
 
 "The greatest women lovers in history and legend had 
 hair like yours I feel sure, Isolde, Guinevere, Lucrezia, 
 Francesca, La Valliere. It is the true Field of the Cloth 
 of Gold where kings meet, not to parley with one another, 
 but with Eros, he who is also called Pteros the Flyer, 
 because he comes and goes so swiftly." 
 
 He paused, and, as she looked up at him with deepened 
 eyes but saying nothing, continued : 
 
 Your eyes are very mysterious behind this veil of gold. 
 You have religious eyes, dear Phoebe but your mouth . . . 
 shall I tell you what I said to myself about your mouth 
 and eyes when I first saw them?" 
 
 "Yes. ..." whispered the girl. 
 
 So he told her his simile of the nuns and the amoureuse. 
 Phoebe, whose knowledge of French was only that of the 
 average school-girl, thought that amoureuse was merely
 
 WORLD S-END 77 
 
 the feminine of "amour," which she knew meant "love," 
 and so she said softly that she thought his idea beauti 
 ful. 
 
 "She hasn t an inkling of its real meaning," reflected 
 Richard, and, vexed with the harp for failing this time 
 to make music of its own under his subtle touch, he turned 
 away suddenly, saying that he must begin to work. 
 
 After ten minutes at his easel, however, he came and lay 
 upon the grass beside her. 
 
 "This lovely hair of yours," he said, just touching the 
 curved ends that hung beside him, "is so marvellously 
 alive that it seems to draw the vitality from the rest of my 
 picture. I must stop a while and begin again from another 
 point of view." 
 
 He rested his chin on his palm and lay looking at her 
 quietly for a while. 
 
 "It seems strange," he said at last, "that you, who are 
 the very spirit of youth, should be the child of an old 
 man." 
 
 Phoebe, who had never thought of this, looked at him, 
 startled. And she remembered that her mother, too, had 
 not been young at the time of her marriage. What a sad, 
 sad thought ! Her father and mother had never been young 
 lovers ... as she and Richard were. 
 
 i But I ve heard that the most beautiful love often comes 
 after marriage, she said, speaking her thought. 
 
 Richard smiled, playing with the ends of her hair. "My 
 dear little Phoebe, love doesn t \vait on lawyers and mar 
 riage-licenses, but takes whom it will, when, where and 
 how it will. Indeed, marriage is love s bitterest enemy, 
 not his gracious friend, as so many think." 
 
 "Love s enemy?" asked Phoebe, filled again with sad 
 ness, so poignant this time that it greyed the blueness of the 
 sky. "Oh, how can that be?" she appealed to him. 
 
 "Tie a flower to a bar of iron and lay it before a slow 
 fire won t the flower wither?" 
 
 "No ... no ... it can t be like that!" 
 
 "But, Phoebe, dear, it is I have seen too many mar 
 riages not to know." 
 
 The blue eyes above him grew black. They flashed wide 
 and her lips trembled. 
 
 "It is not! It is not!" she cried. "The Brown 
 ings ..." 
 
 "Oh, dear Phoebe," said Richard, letting himself drop all
 
 78 WORLD S-END 
 
 his length upon the grass as though exhausted. "Spare me 
 the Brownings ! 
 
 Phoebe was almost angry, if she could have felt anger 
 against him, she would have been in a downright temper. 
 Her Brownings! Her sacrosanct ideals of wedded bliss! 
 And to be asked to spare some one from them ! 
 
 "You can t be in earnest," she said with a stiff dignity 
 worthy of his mother. 
 
 "But I am, dear. My earnestness is deadly as deadly 
 as that picture of a divine passion thinned out for fifteen 
 years, I think it was, like a condiment over the daily 
 stale bread of wedlock. Phoebe," he lifted himself on his 
 elbow and looked at her mutinous face with dark humour. 
 the Brownings were guilty in my eyes of one of the worst 
 crimes they took a great passion by the nape and made 
 it respectable. 
 
 In answer, Phoebe sprang to her feet and began twisting 
 up her hair as though she were wringing out a wet cloth. 
 Unmistakable now was the vivid anger in her eyes. She 
 was, in fact, in what Aunt Patty was used to designate "a 
 tantrum." Richard saw that he had smitten his living 
 harp too sharply. 
 
 He pulled coaxingly at the hem of her mauve skirt, and 
 Phoebe, enamoured though she was, actually said sharply, 
 
 "Don t! It s so old you ll tear it!" 
 
 "Are you really angry . . . with me?" asked Richard 
 in a voice which he made tremble a little. 
 
 Phoebe stood still, with the look in her eyes of a hare 
 that suddenly finds itself in a trap. She stopped twisting 
 up her locks, and all at once tears shone between her low 
 ered lashes. 
 
 Richard took the hand that hung near him very gently in 
 his own. 
 
 "How are we to be real companions, Phoebe," he said, 
 "unless you give me freedom to speak my real thoughts to 
 you ? He added with that almost daemonic acumen of his 
 for the right note at the right moment, "I d rather be 
 lonely than bound in any way, Phoebe. 
 
 As she still continued silent he went on softly, "Perfect 
 freedom . . . wide-winged liberty in thought, in love, in 
 art those are my ideals. If you tied your red-bird to 
 your wrist with a cord, would you have any pleasure in it ? 
 Do you think that it would love you better, or continue 
 to love you at all?" He just touched her fingers with his
 
 WORLD S-EXD 79 
 
 lips. "All my life I have had this desperate love of free 
 dom," he said. "Once when I was a child my mother 
 tried to control me by tying me to a chair. It threw me 
 into convulsions." 
 
 "Father tied me to a chair, too, once when I was little," 
 murmured Phoebe in a low voice. And I ... I bit him. 
 1 was a very naughty child. I always had a dreadful 
 temper. I ... I am sorry." 
 
 "You see," said Richard in a casual tone, not wishing 
 to underscore her repentance as it were by accepting it iu 
 words, "my ideal of great love is the loves of those who 
 never tried to trim Love s wings as you ve trimmed your 
 crow s, but who gladly went wherever his pinions bore 
 them laughing at the dull rubble-heap of broken laws. 
 Laws," he continued musingly, "are never interesting until 
 they are broken. Yes, I had rather be lonely all my life 
 than bound." 
 
 No one hated bondage more than Phoebe. This was a 
 sentiment with which she could wholly sympathise. Oh, 
 how free her love would leave him ! Their marriage would 
 not be the House of Bondage, as he feared, but that House 
 of Fulfilment of which "William Morris, her favourite poet, 
 wrote so beautifully in "Love Is Enough." 
 
 The sweet lines sang in her mind. 
 
 Here is the House of fulfillment of craving, 
 Here is the cup with the roses around it. 
 
 She smiled so prettily to herself that Richard said: 
 "Tell me what you are thinking of, Phoebe, dear." 
 But she shook her head with a look that showed him it 
 
 would be useless to coax her, and for the moment he went 
 
 back to his work. 
 
 XIV 
 
 A PRIL was over. May had been two weeks with them, 
 ** the Virginian May that is like the June of poets, with 
 its roses and honeyed sunlight and sweet, impassioned 
 clamouring of birds. 
 
 With April had gone Harold Tonks and his mother. 
 Phoebe had been at Crewe Station to see them off, mounted 
 on Killdee, with Richard and the flighty Borak cur 
 vetting feverishly beside her as the engine let off shrill
 
 80 WORLD S-END 
 
 blasts of steam before starting. It had been some small 
 consolation to young Harold to see how insecure was Eich- 
 ard s lanky seat on Borak. 
 
 "That piffler Bryce can t ride for nuts," he had told 
 his mother as the train drew out. A rippin horsewoman 
 like Phoebe is bound to tire of such a duffer in the end." 
 
 And, with this soothing thought in his mind and a kiss 
 blown from Phoebe s dogskin glove, he was whirled away 
 to Canada, an unwilling young Ccelebs in search of health. 
 
 With April had gone also Sally s first content with the 
 beautiful isolation of "World s-End. She was constitution 
 ally idle, and, like most other idlers, craved the contact 
 of her kind. Talking was so much the easiest occupation 
 that she knew, when day-dreams of Richard s future 
 palled, as they would pall sometimes when lack of Richard s 
 presence withdrew their proper nourishment. Moreover, 
 Sally was beginning to be a little restive under his frequent 
 visits to Nelson s Gift. Of course his painting was their 
 incentive, but then one never knew. The spring played odd 
 tricks with young people, even with the aged, she had 
 heard. How terrible, how disastrous it would be should 
 Richard present her with Phoebe as a daughter-in-law! 
 Sally had never wished for a daughter. Indeed, she had 
 never felt the need of any other child than Richard, and 
 a daughter-in-law. . . . The thought was under any cir 
 cumstance disagreeable, but in connection with Phoebe Nel 
 son! . . . 
 
 She had taken one of those strange aversions for the 
 young girl w r hich, in mothers, resemble the spontaneous 
 hatred with which some women regard the stranger who 
 afterwards becomes a rival. She felt, without acknowledg 
 ing it fully to herself, that there was a strain in her son s 
 nature to which that glowing mouth of Phoebe that she so 
 disliked would appeal mightily, should nature disarm him 
 of his cynicism in some soft May moment. 
 
 She was beginning to be sure that she had acted very 
 stupidly in not asking the girl to World s-End as Owen 
 had wished, then this absorbing painting of "Pandore et 
 le Genie du Coffre" would have been done in the old ter 
 raced garden under her own eye. Even when she had not 
 been present, she could have seen them from her windows. 
 There was nothing like a garden in view of the front win 
 dows for checking undue sentiment in the young. Now, at 
 that tumble-down, picturesque old place, Nelson s Gift, the
 
 WORLD S-END 81 
 
 garden was tucked away in tangled shrubbery, like a rose 
 in a light-o -love s hair. Old Mr. Nelson was more or less 
 of an invalid he would never sit out of doors with them, 
 or think of the healthy diversion of afternoon tea, or so 
 much as dream of hobbling to a window to see what was 
 going on. 
 
 Sally wrote to both Owen and Mary, asking them for 
 heaven s sake to try to be at World s-End by June at least, 
 instead of waiting for July ; that Richard was wholly 
 absorbed in his art and that she feared a nervous break 
 down from sheer loneliness. 
 
 In the meantime "Pandore ct Ic Genie du Coffre" was 
 progressing famously. Even old Mr. Nelson had limped 
 into the garden once or twice to note its progress. AVhen 
 regarding it he confessed with winning frankness that, 
 though the idea was certainly original, he considered his 
 living Phoebe far prettier than Richard s "Pandore," and 
 remarked that a yellow shift seemed to him an odd garment 
 in which to represent a Greek maiden ; that, indeed, if his 
 memory did not fail him, yellow had been worn as mourn 
 ing by the Hellenes. 
 
 And really, so delicious did Phoebe look in the slim 
 robe of golden tissue alluded to by Mr. Nelson as a " yellow 
 shift," with her white, white arms shining through the 
 delicate stuff and her loosened hair making its gold seem 
 tarnished, that Richard had come again and again to con 
 gratulate himself on the congenital coldness of his tempera 
 ment. 
 
 "Any other man would have kissed that mouth and 
 forgotten to paint it long ago," he thought, and oddly 
 enough this self-congratulatory thought had at the same 
 moment roused in him a stinging desire to taste those 
 lips himself, if only for a fleeting instant. And it was 
 the dread of interfering with his art, not even a passing 
 thought of consideration for Phoebe, that restrained him. 
 
 As for Phoebe, her love for Richard was grown to such 
 a pass that she could not think of him as a separately dis 
 tinct entity. lie seemed in some strangely beautiful way 
 to be herself, and she him. She would have liked him to 
 be something rarer, nearer, more mystically knitted to her 
 than a lover. She would have liked to think that a blazing 
 star had been born somewhere in space, and that out of 
 one half God had created her, and out of one half Richard, 
 and that their love would fuse them into one blazing star
 
 82 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 again. But it was only the heart in her that was a poet 
 and not the mind, so that she could only thrill with those 
 lovely emotions, not put them into words even for her 
 self. In that deep heart she held Richard as a still pool 
 holds the sky, its clouds, its lightnings and its stars. All 
 of Richard s moods, dark or fair, were dear to her, and to 
 his wild theories she had grown accustomed. It would all 
 be well one day, when he took her in his arms then he 
 would see the truth of love, and that truth would make 
 him free as he had never been before even in his fondest 
 dreams of freedom; while the blazing star of their united 
 love would light his path forever and all shadows would 
 flee away. 
 
 One late afternoon a sudden thunderstorm kept him at 
 Nelson s Gift for the night. It seemed a sort of cloud 
 burst ; fences were swept away, cattle drowned, the Green- 
 Flower became an ugly torrent impossible to ford. Then, 
 about nine o clock, a southwest wind sprang up, the clouds 
 were herded over the mountains, stars began to glimmer, 
 and presently the soft, clear shoulder of a naked moon 
 slipped over the horizon. But the thrumming of the once 
 placid brook, now a ruddy cataract, at the foot of the 
 garden told what the larger streams must be, so all thought 
 of returning to World s-End that night was put aside, and 
 Richard, in one of the sporadic bursts of amiability which 
 overtook him through life, sat down to a game of chess 
 with Mr. Nelson. 
 
 Phoebe had some yards of soft white stuff to hem for a 
 little frock that she was making. She came and sat near 
 them with her work, under the soft light of an oil lamp, 
 and the grey kitten, the only child of its tortoise-shell 
 mother, jumped thistle-footed into her lap and daintily 
 made a nest for itself among the soft folds. 
 
 Ac Phoebe sat there, still as a white mouse so as not 
 to disturb the chess-players, with her pretty hand flying 
 regularly out at intervals, followed by the obedient thread, 
 and capped by the worn gold thimble which had been her 
 mother s, she was thinking: 
 
 "Some day we shall sit like this in our own home, and 
 I shall be sewing on something for Richard. This thrill 
 ing fancy so moved her that she let her energetic little hand 
 rest on the grey kitten for a moment, while her lips parted 
 and her eyes grew dark and vague. 
 
 Richard, glancing up from the game, which he played
 
 WORLD S -END 80 
 
 well and had difficulty in arranging so that Mr. Nelson 
 should seem to win by skill and not by the sheer stupidity 
 of his opponent, noted this look, and thought to himself : 
 
 That child is as passionate as a Sicilian. It would take 
 skill and coolness to play with that flame without burning 
 oneself." 
 
 Phoebe s eyes happened to meet his gazing at her. Her 
 lips parted. Her spirit seemed to flow from them with 
 her breath and touch him like perfume. He shivered 
 slightly. It was odd, but Phoebe certainly moved him 
 against his will at times. Yet it was pleasant, too, and 
 for him, of course, there was no danger. 
 
 "Phoebe, my dear," said her father. "There is a strong 
 draught from that window. I feel it myself, and Mr. 
 Bryce shivered just then." 
 
 Richard turned his attention to his queen, who was in 
 check, and Phoebe rose silently and closed the window, 
 shutting out the rain-quickened scent of honeysuckle and 
 damask roses. 
 
 "When prayers were over and Mr. Nelson had said good 
 night, Phoebe handed Richard his bedroom candle in an 
 old silver candlestick with snuffers neatly laid beside 
 it. 
 
 "Your room is there," she said, pointing upwards, as 
 they stood together in the quaint octagon hall. "Just at 
 the head of the stairs, to your left. I sleep down here so 
 as to be near Father, because the servants stay in the 
 quarters at night. If you want anything, will you please 
 call me and not father ? When he s waked at night he can t 
 go to sleep again. That is my room, on the right, the one 
 with the fan-light over the door." 
 
 "Thank you," said Richard, taking the candle, "but I m 
 sure I shan t need anything. Hark! "What a wind!" 
 
 "Yes. And hear the brook. It sounds like muffled 
 drums." 
 
 A window shutter crashed to. There was a tinkle of 
 falling glass. 
 
 Oh ! dear I must run to see to the windows, cried 
 Phoebe. 
 
 All night long the great wind, coming whence and blow 
 ing whither no man knew, beat with its soft, wild pinions 
 against the aged house. The staunch walls thrilled with its 
 impact, and now and then a timber creaked as in a buffetted 
 ship. High above, down steeps of black-blue air, a frantic
 
 84 WORLD S -END 
 
 moon fled through the tattered wrack. Now Richard s 
 whitewashed walls shone like a bleached shell with her livid 
 radiance, now became dim again. He turned and turned 
 uneasily on the old-time bed with its mattress of hair laid 
 upon plump billows of goose-down. Though he had opened 
 both windows wide and fastened back the Venetian blinds, 
 the warm air that had gathered all day beneath the low 
 roof was not dispelled by the outer burly. A strong smell 
 of brown Windsor soap filled the room. Suddenly he felt 
 as though he were smothering. He got up and went to the 
 window, leaning far out, so that the wind played roughly 
 with his sleek hair. And the sight from this window was 
 so lovely that he drew up a chair and sat there gazing 
 at it. 
 
 Below him lay Phoebe s garden, now sprayed with the 
 flying foam of rose-petals ; beyond the soft, breastlike pas 
 ture lands, all bathed in moonlight; beyond these Holly- 
 brook Wood, its drenched foliage tossing silver plumes in 
 the warm, wild wind that was like Sirocco. 
 
 But it was the garden and the untrimmed lawns around 
 it, with their clusters of guelder rose-shrubs, like girls in 
 white gowns crouching from the blast, that seemed to him 
 enchanting. 
 
 What a night to sit in a stuffy room filled with the odour 
 of brown Windsor soap ! 
 
 Now the wind seemed lulling. It came in languid ripples 
 all sweet with scents of rain-washed earth and flowers. Sud 
 denly a mocking-bird, bewitched by that white moon, began 
 its song of wanton ecstacy. 
 
 Richard started up as though the bird had called to him, 
 and flung on his clothes. He could not stand it another 
 moment. He w r ould go out into this night so evidently 
 created for poets and lovers and the free souls of winged 
 things. He looked at his watch in the moonlight. Three 
 o clock! he must have dozed a little, after all. In two 
 hours the dawn would break. 
 
 He went cautiously down the old staircase, stopping and 
 listening when a step creaked under his tread, but nothing 
 stirred. Somewhere in the hall below a mouse had got 
 hold of some little hard object, one of Phoebe s spools, 
 probably, and rattled it against the wainscotting. Rattle, 
 rattle . . . silence. Rattle, rattle . . . silence. He stole 
 on, past Phoebe s door, having in his mind a picture of a 
 young girl sleeping daintily between the heavy goldwork
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 8r 
 
 of two long braids. Another moment and he was outside, 
 in the splendid vacancies of the night. 
 
 Here, too, all was utter silence save for the thrumming 
 rush of the brook at the hill s foot, and the tank-tonk of a 
 cow-boll in a distant pasture. The mocking-bird paused for 
 an instant. Richard trod on mats of rose-leaves, arid was 
 forced to step aside here and there because of great acacia 
 boughs which had been blown down. And again the fierce, 
 soft w r incl rose from its crouching, and quickened the moon 
 lit garden with its breath. 
 
 And Richard thought of Phoebe, daintily sleeping be 
 tween her golden braids, and of how she would exult in 
 such a night. 
 
 He glanced towards her window above the low hedge of 
 lilacs, and saw that it had become a dim, yellowish square 
 in the grey wall. Then she too \vas awake. How wonder 
 ful it would be to mix the music of that living harp with 
 the soft wildness of a night like this! He went close to 
 the window and looked up. Something stirred softly 
 within, like a bird stirring the foliage among which it rests. 
 Then a slight shadow passed between him and the white 
 curtains. 
 
 Richard pressed in among the wet lilac-leaves and put 
 his hand on the sill of the window. "Phoebe!" he said 
 softly, "Phoebe!" 
 
 All was still, then a low voice, very startled, said : 
 
 "Richard! ... Is it you?" 
 
 "Yes, Phoebe, dear. The night is so wonderful and it 
 will soon be day now. Come to your window and see how 
 wonderful it is." 
 
 Stillness again, a long pause, then Phoebe s hand drew 
 back the curtains, and he saw her face, very small and 
 childish in the moonlight under the dark gold of her hair, 
 parted and braided for the night as he had fancied. 
 
 "Look." he said, sweeping his hand towards the moon- 
 enchanted garden, "there is white-magic at its whitest and 
 most magical. . . . How shameful to sleep through it! 
 ..." He pointed towards the great moon. "There she 
 is ... the real Circe in all her splendour, and men sleep 
 at her feet like cosy swine. Come out, Phoebe! Come out 
 into this wonder. Let us do homage to Selene in the wild 
 dawn like two Greeks of old." 
 
 "But," said Phoebe, hesitating softly, "the dawn has not 
 come yet, Richard. It would seem so . . ."
 
 86 WORLD S-END 
 
 "Ah, Phoebe, dear," he pleaded, "are you going to let 
 old stepdame convention rob you of this marvellous hour? 
 See, dear, it must be nearly four o clock. Look at your 
 watch. . . . One hour till dawn . . . one lovely, unique 
 hour . . . together. The rain is so warm and fragrant on 
 the grass that it can t harm you. . . . You will be like a 
 wood-nymph walking through the dew to whiten her slim 
 feet. Come, Phoebe ! Ah, come. . . . You are above such 
 silly Grundyisms. ..." 
 
 And still Phoebe hesitated, holding the curtains shyly 
 before her figure in its white nightdress. 
 
 "Phoebe," said Richard in a low voice full of wounded 
 reproach, "can it be that you don t trust me?" 
 
 Then Phoebe turned quickly, dropping the thin curtains, 
 which blew gently inward, as though following her retreat 
 ing form, and he heard her voice, just audible, saying : 
 
 "Wait. ... I ll slip something on and be with you in a 
 little while." 
 
 "I could lift you out through the window," said Richard 
 softly, but he got no answer to this suggestion. 
 
 In a few minutes she came stealing through the front 
 door, like a shy ghost stealing towards dawn from the 
 old house that it has prettily haunted through the night. 
 Her hair was now unbraided and pinned up loosely about 
 her head. 
 
 A soft gown of white wash-silk fell in straight folds to 
 her feet and she had put on little Chinese sandals of straw 
 so as not to spoil her prettiest slippers with the wet. 
 
 Richard went to meet her and took her hand to lead her 
 down the shallow steps. 
 
 "You look quite the Greek girl, Phoebe," he said, smil 
 ing, "only I would rather that your hair were free." 
 
 The wind, as if agreeing with him, here caught a hand 
 ful of the loose masses and tossed it out about her face. 
 
 Richard helped her gather it up again. 
 
 "How lovely you are in the moonlight," he said as he 
 did so, "you are like a moon-maiden yourself, a hand 
 maiden of Selene slipped down to play for a white hour 
 with the children of men. How do you like our earth, 
 little moon-maid ? Has she not a f ragrant breath ? 
 
 They had walked on hand in hand, towards the Greek 
 temple of white stucco called "the Venus temple," which 
 overlooked her garden. All at once he dropped her hand 
 and stood looking at her.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 87 
 
 "Yes, I must paint you so," he said. "Psych wander 
 ing after Eros left her. That little temple will compose 
 beautifully with the rounded shrubs." He took her hand 
 again. 
 
 "Let us see what offering the storm has brought to 
 Venus." 
 
 A delicate exultation filled him. This was a rare adven 
 ture, suited to the subtle, semi-sensuous, semi-spiritual hu- 
 ; :r/ur of a poet-artist in the twentieth century. He thought, 
 v,-ith a smile, oi ? the uncomplex childishness of the Greek 
 imagination which had pictured wood-nymphs as pursued 
 by Satyrs, Fauns and gods of fleshly form descending in 
 gold chariots from a marble heaven. Not even an inkling 
 had those worthies of the possibilities of exquisite mental 
 voluptuousness. How crass was the average man s dream 
 of pleasant indulgence ! He felt that, unique as were the 
 night and the circumstance, he himself was even more 
 unique. And he wondered how the delicate spell was 
 working in the mind of the girl who walked so gently be 
 side him, her face a little bent towards the earth, like the 
 faces of the flowers about her, heavy with rain. 
 
 But Phoebe s thoughts were only the thoughts of count 
 less other maidens who had walked with their lovers 
 through the still heart of a moonlit night. 
 
 "He I together . . . only we two, in the wonderful 
 
 night together. He I Will it ever change? . . . 
 
 Could it ever change ? . . . 
 
 "It would be better to die now ... he and I ... alone 
 together before anything less beautiful might happen." 
 
 They reached the little temple and looked in. On the 
 wet flags lay a drift of rose leaves and among them a great 
 white butterfly, its pale wings pasted to the dark stones. 
 
 "Look, Phoebe," said Richard, bending over it, "look 
 what a poem nature has created for us ! Here lies Psyche 
 dead in the temple of Venus." 
 
 "Ah, poor little thing," breathed Phoebe softly. "It 
 seems strange that it should take a great storm to kill a 
 butterfly." 
 
 "The soul dies hard, they say," mused Richard. "And 
 Venus is very cruel she sent the storm, of course. Stay 
 like that!" he exclaimed, breaking off. "Now I have my 
 picture! Psyche Pleurant son embleme dans le Temple de 
 Venus. ..." 
 
 But no sooner had he uttered these words than even
 
 88 WORLD S-END 
 
 Richard became aware of the drolly artificial note struck 
 by the French language thus spoken in the rustic sweet 
 ness of that wild Virginian night. 
 
 As if in especial derision of his mistake, the sweet song 
 of mockery broke forth again. 
 
 They stood silent, listening, and for a moment Richard s 
 heart became simple within him. He gazed at the pale, 
 absorbed profile of the girl beside him and thought : How 
 lovable she is! If I were an ordinary man I should have 
 lost my heart to her long ago." 
 
 A puff of wind blew her hair across his face. It was 
 sweet as clover with her own young fragrance. As Richard 
 withdrew its silken clinging from his mouth his hand shook 
 slightly. It would be ... unique to kiss those parted 
 lips lightly, delicately in this strange hour. 
 
 Phoebe turned to him as though he had spoken. 
 
 "Phoebe . . ."he murmured. He still held her hair in 
 his hand. He drew her gently towards him by the soft 
 mesh. Now she was very close. The warm fragrance of 
 her breath mingled in his nostrils with the scent of her rich 
 hair, and sweetly, yieldingly, she followed the chain made 
 of her own tresses by which he drew her to him. "When 
 she was close enough he lifted the long strands and wound 
 them about his own throat. Their faces were very near 
 together now, held by that link of living gold. 
 
 "Phoebe," he whispered, his breath becoming her breath. 
 She trembled from head to foot, but stood quite still, and 
 her dark, rapt eyes were fixed in his. 
 
 "Phoebe," he said again, and now his mouth brushed 
 hers. Under that faint touch, light and sharp as flame, 
 the girl seemed to slip downward like water through his 
 arms. He caught and stayed her, his quickened heart 
 sending the blood in hot beats against his ears and eyes. 
 And at the contact of that young body, so soft, so pliant, a 
 sudden gust of overwhelming passion, wilder than the wild 
 wind, seized and rocked him ; a gust of passion, cruel and 
 relentless as are ever the rarely roused passions of the 
 habitually cold. The egoist in him ravened and must be 
 fed at any cost to anyone. Bending his head he kissed her 
 on the lips, holding her to him until he felt her young 
 breasts beat against his like scared birds. 
 
 To Phoebe in her inexperience of love, though deliciously 
 startled, this seemed only a natural phase of the wonderful 
 overwhelmingness of which she had dreamed. Here was
 
 WORLD S-END 89 
 
 her master, her conqueror, and though these strange kisses 
 bruised her lips, it was fitting that a lover s caresses should 
 be different from all others, even to the point of pain. She 
 did not struggle, but hung trembling and panting in his 
 arms, her eyes dark and dim under her drooped lids, like 
 those of a carrier pigeon that has flown too far and fast. 
 Endless seemed those mad caresses, endless the sweet, dizzy 
 ing tumult of her heart. It was as though life were failing 
 her as though the earth were but a shaken branch of ilow- 
 ers beneath her feet. A fiercely sweet, confusing music 
 seemed throbbing all about her, trancing her, numbing her 
 senses too sharply tuned. 
 
 XV 
 
 TN those days Phoebe was a primitive and a pagan. That 
 * God was love seemed to her a statement that swept 
 dogma aside in its vast comprehension of all possible emer 
 gencies of the soul. That she kept her room, and did not 
 see Richard before his departure on the day after the storm, 
 was but the shyness of the bride, while the past night floated 
 in sweet, confused glimpses through her fancy. She was 
 Richard s bride. Of course, she knew that in the eyes 
 of men the wonderful wild sweetness of that moonlit hour 
 would seem a sin, but in the eyes of God she w r as sure that 
 she was Richard s bride. 
 
 Richard rode away early the next morning and did not 
 come to Nelson s Gift the following day. lie sent a mes 
 senger to Phoebe instead, with a little box of moss-jade in 
 which was a pretty circlet for her hair, formed of 
 crysoprase set in old silver. On the slip of paper which 
 lay with it in the box was written, in French For the 
 most beautiful hair in the world, with my homage." (This 
 "homages" was a subtle touch under the circumstances, he 
 had considered, and would surely please her.) "Unex 
 pected business calls me to New York this evening. I am 
 desolate, but it is absolutely necessary for me to go." 
 
 lie had written in French for two reasons, one that it 
 was easier to write impersonally in that language ; the 
 other that in case any one else opened the box by mistake 
 they would not understand the message and Phoebe could 
 translate as she chose. Mr. Nelson had once volunteered 
 the information that he knew German, but not French.
 
 90 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 When Phoebe read these words she went as white as the 
 paper on which they were written, and a doubt, dreadful 
 and sickening as the first pang of a mortal illness, swept 
 over her. She trembled, and caught the table edge for sup 
 port, gazing down at the gems which seemed to stare back 
 at her, cold and cynical as the eyes of little vipers. 
 
 He was going away. . . . Going away like that, without 
 a parting look or word. . . . And he sent her jewels and 
 words in French which he had not even begun with her 
 name or signed with his. . . . Then, so terrible was the 
 anguish of this doubt, that she tore it from her heart with 
 all the strength of her passionate young will. Of course, 
 Richard was true, they would be married soon before men, 
 as they had already been married before God. Only some 
 thing dreadful could have called him from her at this 
 time. . . . And she wondered what might have happened 
 to make his presence in New York vitally imperative. Per 
 haps Cousin Owen had died suddenly. . . . How sad that 
 would be. She was so fond of him. But no, she felt that 
 Richard would have mentioned it if that had been the 
 cause of his sudden departure. On her knees by her bed, 
 there alone in her room with the door locked, she spread 
 out the sheet of paper and read over and over the French 
 words, as one starving chews desperately on splinters of dry 
 wood. "Desole, " that meant "desolate," grief-stricken. 
 She had no knowledge of any trumpery, conventional sig 
 nificance for the word. He was "desolate" because he had 
 to leave her, but then why, why such a short message? 
 Why write it in French that he knew she only imperfectly 
 understood ? 
 
 Somehow his gift of jewels made her shrink with a sick 
 distaste, which she could not account for. If he had only 
 sent her a rose that he had kissed. If he had only written 
 her name and used one of the simple words that lovers 
 love "dearest" "darling." . . . And again that doubt, 
 like a shaft with poisoned tip, struck through her heart. 
 What if ... but so horrible was this "if" that Phoebe 
 lashed herself with other scorpions to dull the pain of its 
 sharp bite. She it was who was disloyal to Richard in her 
 thoughts. She was the offender, guilty of "Use majcste" 
 towards her Prince, her King . . . but not to come for one 
 parting word, one good-bye kiss. . . . Oh, there was 
 nothing, nothing in all the world of chance that could have 
 kept her from him at such a time had she been in his
 
 WORLD S-END 91 
 
 place! And once more that wild "will to believe" brought 
 her up out of the submerging doubt which had again swept 
 over her. 
 
 Suddenly a new pang assailed her, he had not even 
 sent her his address in New York. She gazed about her 
 with hot eyes. Every object in the pretty room, so sweetly 
 familiar, had grown strange and sinister, even menacing. 
 The calm May morning, sparkling so freshly, seemed to 
 glare at her with hard, intrusive aloofness. 
 
 She got up dully and locked the circlet away in her chest 
 of drawers, then, surprised by a sudden convulsion of 
 weeping, sank down and lay with her forehead against the 
 bare boards, sobbing until her breast ached with the violent 
 spasms. 
 
 Meanwhile, Richard s state of mind was not enviable. 
 Until now his superfine senses had been as wine at dainty 
 feasts of life. "What was this heady torrent that had over 
 whelmed him, not blandly awaiting his delicate sips in 
 pretty glasses, but rushing, wild and frothy like the 
 vintages in legend, which some sorcerer strikes from the 
 dry rock to enliven a festival? 
 
 Besides . . . and here Richard stood quite still, and his 
 black eyes, brooding on disastrous possibilities, grew dense 
 and velvety as soot in their opaqueness. Phoebe might even 
 be dreaming of marriage, in spite of all that he had told 
 her concerning his abhorrence of that tie. Young girls 
 were like that. No, he must certainly get away. These 
 disturbing fires, deprived of all fuel, would die down after 
 a few days of absence. His sudden departure could be 
 easily explained to his mother. His art called him neces 
 sary studies for the Chinese opera, which he had so ne 
 glected of late. Then, too, his mother had never liked 
 Phoebe. She would find such satisfaction in the cessation 
 of his visits to Nelson s Gift that she would easily recon 
 cile herself to his departure. 
 
 How then to deal with Phoebe? All must be gradual. 
 He felt that an infinitely graded toning off of his relations 
 with her was the wisest coarse. A certain thrifty shrewd 
 ness showed him at once that nothing positively must be 
 committed to paper. After some hours of deep cogitation 
 he had thought of the circlet of crysoprase in his collec 
 tion of old jewels, and the accompanying note in French. 
 But then, from New York she would certainly expect love- 
 letters. This complication worried him gravely for some
 
 92 WORLD S-END 
 
 time, but suddenly the riddle solved itself, as it were. He 
 would send her, at intervals not sufficiently far apart to 
 alarm her, bits of his love-poems, which she had not seen. 
 He would alter them slightly no, slightly would not do 
 for Kichard was amorously expansive on paper but re 
 vised carefully they would be admirable substitutes for 
 love-letters and wholly uncompromising. 
 
 With his mental house in this neat order, he went to New 
 York. 
 
 Two days later Phoebe received what she believed to be 
 her first real love-letter . . . and from him! 
 
 Cold and startling as a little snake, where a rose has 
 been looked for, the first "revised" poem slipped from the 
 envelope that she had warmed with kisses. Poor Phoebe ! 
 Her impulse was to burst into tears but conquering 
 this desire, which she felt to be childish and unreasonable 
 when Richard had, of course, thought to please her more 
 by a poem than by a mere, ordinary letter, she set herself 
 to master its meaning. She was pathetically like a child at 
 a task too difficult. There, in the little "Venus temple" 
 where together they had found the great, white butterfly 
 broken on the wet flags, she tried to get some glow from 
 the crisp, gem-like words set in a strange, harsh form. 
 As if to make it all the more aloof and peculiar, the verses 
 were in French very idiomatic Richard was excessively 
 vain of his French. 
 
 Phoebe, the suppressed tears making her throat ache, 
 translated, with the help of a little dictionary for which 
 she had to return to the house, words which signified, as 
 well as she could gather, that: 
 
 "Thou, my crumb, hast green eyes and hair of tortured 
 gold." [She knew so little French that she read "ma 
 mie" literally, and it seemed indeed a strange term of 
 endearment to her sore mood.] "Hadst thou eyes tor 
 menting and golden and hair of green, I could love thee 
 with another love, more subtle and delicately venomous. 
 Nothing is more beautiful than a wounded love. I would 
 strike blood from thy bird-like breast and drink it like 
 sweetly poisonous wine. Lovely art thou, my crumb, and 
 if thou hadst eyes of gold and hair of crysoprase, I could 
 not love thee more cruelly but I would love thee with a 
 subtler love." 
 
 After she had mastered this, Phoebe had a moment of 
 despair in which she wept, at last, as passionately as on the
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 93 
 
 day of his departure. She had dreamed all those forty- 
 eight hours of going to sleep some night with a letter be 
 ginning "My own Darling" close against her heart. 
 
 Valiant had been her fight during those two interminable 
 days against that dreadful doubt which from time to time 
 stabbed her. But now it was back upon her like a vulture, 
 clinging and tearing with claws and beak, smiting her with 
 great black pinions. 
 
 Not, how .-ver, until a fourth of those strange, epistolary 
 poems reached her did she suffer the assault of shame. 
 "When this fourth copy of French verse lay open in her 
 hands she did not even try to read it, but, flinging herself 
 upon her bed, lay still as death, her hands crushed against 
 her eyes. And shame, like a great vampire, came and 
 spread its heavy, noisesome bulk upon her, covering her 
 from head to foot sucking her strength, sucking, as it 
 were, her very life. This shame was so horrible that she 
 loathed her own body lying there and the touch of her 
 hands upon her eyes. She longed to strip it from her like 
 a soiled garment, to be loosed on the wide clean winds, 
 and, mingling with them, be freed from herself forever. 
 
 No tears came now. Shame scorches and withers. It 
 has no flood-gates like kindly grief. And lying there, her 
 fingers causing bright spangles to swim on the red dark 
 ness of her eyelids, Phoebe thought of the day that Rich 
 ard had first come to "World s-End, and of how she had 
 gone early to her mother s garden to read in her worn 
 Bible. Over and over the words came back to her over 
 and over, over and over, "Keep my precious baby from 
 evil . . . keep her pure in thought, word and deed so that 
 she may one day see Thee." She struck herself on both 
 cheeks. "It is well that my mother died before I grew 
 up." 
 
 Then came reaction, and her love for Richard, rushing 
 like an eager up some still, sluggish river, swept her far 
 out on the tide of desolate longing. Though she burnt with 
 mortification as she wrote them, she could not, even now, 
 refrain from sending occasionally one of the little notes so 
 piteously simple, which he never answered save indirectly 
 by those artificial poems that she had come to hate. She 
 grew so pinched that her father prescribed a tonic before 
 breakfast. 
 
 Then one morning, while Phoebe, sweetly obedient in 
 spite of her great trouble, was lifting this mixture to her
 
 94 WORLD S-END 
 
 lips, Fortuna in her grimmest aspect came and laid a heavy 
 hand upon her shoulder. So intense was the faint sick 
 ness that overpowered her that she sank to her knees where 
 she stood before her dressing table, and the pale red stuff 
 in the glass was spilt over her night-gown. 
 
 "What is it? What is it?" she thought, feeling blindly 
 about her for some support. "Is it death?" 
 
 She managed to drag herself to her feet after a few 
 moments, but only to be crushed down again by that deadly 
 nausea. Crawling little by little to her bed, she lay there 
 in a half stupor until Lily, who had twice rung the little 
 gong for breakfast, came to see \vhat could be the mat 
 ter. 
 
 Lily bathed her face with cologne-water and tried to get 
 her to drink some coffee, but it was useless . . . she could 
 not swallow. 
 
 She hoped that she might be going to die, and lay still 
 and helpless, feeling that she could love God again if 
 he would only let her die. But by one o clock, after she 
 had drunk a bowl of Aunt Patty s good chicken-broth to 
 please her father, who had come and sat at her bed-side 
 and touchingly fed her from the spoon as though she were 
 a little tot again . . . she felt so much better that she 
 dressed and went downstairs. 
 
 It must have been, she thought, the taste of the calisaya 
 bark which was so bitter, and the smell of the nut 
 meg which dear father would grate over the mixture, 
 though she disliked it so much. And she sighed wearily, 
 thinking how she had loved life only seven short 
 weeks ago, and how death now seemed to her the safest 
 refuge. 
 
 But next morning again she was deathly sick. 
 
 Mr. Nelson was so troubled that he wished to send for 
 their friend, Dr. Patton, but Phoebe pleaded so earnestly, 
 that, fearing to excite her unduly, he said, well . . . well, 
 Puss," and went off downstairs, his carpet-slippers slap 
 ping gently on each bare step. 
 
 Although this horrid faint sickness continued to make 
 her first waking a time of dread, the afternoons brought 
 such complete respite that Phoebe thought she must be 
 having a sort of belated "spring attack," and convinced 
 her father of this theory, so that Dr. Patton was not sent 
 for. 
 
 It was not until a week later, that during a visit to Mrs.
 
 WORLD S-END 95 
 
 Ladd, the recipient of Mary s gift of silk-scraps, the real 
 horror of her situation was revealed to her. 
 
 She had been telling that sympathetic soul of the dread 
 ful way she felt every morning, and Jane Ladd had said: 
 
 "Poor lamb. That cert n ly is a shame. It sounds 
 zackly ez if you was a married lady ! "Why my gal Louizy, 
 she s a-carryin her eighth an the sickness she do hev 
 ev y mornin , same as you, is enough to make a rhinosserer 
 cry for pity! Yo sickness sounds jes like that sickness, 
 Miss Phoebe, honey. It cert n ly do seem a shame ez you 
 should go through with it for nothiii . " 
 
 Then it was that the world went black to Phoebe, and 
 only by setting her teeth sharply in her hand, while pre 
 tending to lean her face upon it, had she kept herself from 
 fainting. 
 
 That night, putting aside all pride, in her frantic terror 
 and distress she had written the following letter to Rich 
 ard. 
 
 "Dear, dear Richard for God s sake come to me. It is a mat 
 ter of life and death. Oh! my own dear Richard. You must come 
 to me and at once. Don t torture me by asking me to make my 
 meaning clearer. Only come, come, dear Richard, come quickly, for 
 
 Christ s sake. 
 
 Your 
 
 PHOEBK. 
 
 XVI 
 
 ICIIARD was in Newport when he received this letter, 
 and, as he breakfasted by his bedroom window, he 
 could hear the strains of the "Tango" played by the baud 
 of the Casino not far away. 
 
 The man had brought his letters on the same tray with 
 the hot-house grapes, toast and coffee that always composed 
 his morning meal. There w r as a letter from his mother with 
 the nag s head in silver on the square envelope, some bills, 
 and Phoebe s little narrow, blue-grey missive. 
 
 Richard lit a cigarette before reading it. When he had 
 done so, his thoughts came in words, quick and plain, like 
 the thoughts of an everyday man. 
 
 "God! I hadn t thought "of that .... What a damnable 
 mess ! 
 
 lie sat perfectly still, staring at the letter which he had 
 dropped again upon the tray, the cigarette smoking out in
 
 96 WORLD S-END 
 
 a long ash between his fingers. He sat there until the fire 
 reached his fingers, when he jerked it out of the window, 
 and, rising, began to walk up and down the room. All 
 the possible consequences of his fit of May-madness were 
 filing before him, a ghostly throng, stretching out like the 
 kings in Macbeth to the crack of doom. If his uncle knew 
 he would surely disinherit him unless he married her. And 
 the thought of being married thus violently, suddenly, 
 against all his fixed theories, against the strongest instinct 
 of his whole nature, filled Eichard with a sort of panic- 
 terror and revulsion. And, yet, he supposed that people 
 would say he ought to marry her. "People!" when had 
 he ever cared what "people" would say to his actions, good 
 or bad ? But his uncle, that was different. And his mother 
 would she stand by him if. ... Yes, he thought she 
 would stand by him through anything. And Phoebe her 
 self. . . . He felt sorry for Phoebe in spite of his anger 
 against her the sort of anger that one feels against an 
 object which has fallen and hurt one unwittingly the 
 emotion which makes a child strike the door against which 
 it has hurt its head. 
 
 No, the thought of marrying her of marrying anyone, 
 was unbearable, suffocating, but especially the thought of 
 marrying her. They had not really an idea in common, 
 and, even if they had, marriage was a relationship that 
 spoiled the subtlest emotions, just as a damp cellar spoils 
 exquisite fabrics. And he had a sickening vision of Phoebe, 
 modishly dressed, presiding over a well-appointed table 
 in a richly furnished house full of clamorous children 
 of himself sitting down and rising up from this table or 
 another like it, endlessly. His very spirit seemed to melt 
 like wet paper within him at the picture. No it must be 
 arranged some other way. It could be arranged of course. 
 Men settled such affairs secretly and discreetly every day. 
 He was not a callous bounder to leave her without pro 
 viding for her in her present situation. But how to do 
 this? He would have to persuade her to come North. It 
 would be the veriest folly for him to go down there to Vir 
 ginia. . . . Would set tongues wagging. He must find 
 some respectable woman. . . . Long Island. . . . Con 
 necticut ... a farm-house in Connecticut he knew the 
 very woman! 
 
 He took another turn and stopped mechanically before a 
 tapestry of Susannah. The Elders faces, round and
 
 WORLD S-END 97 
 
 chuby above their white worsted beards, peeped at him. 
 from the yellow and blue foliage like the faces of naughty 
 schoolboys who had disguised themselves in false beards. 
 
 "AA hat an idiotic tapestry," he thought irritably, wak 
 ing fcr a moment to the offensive art of the design. xYiid 
 then a l at once, between him and Susannah, rose the fresh 
 form of Phoebe, with her loving smile. And that sharp 
 hunger of the senses, so mortifying in its rude humanness 
 to his would-be super-manly ego, and which had been doz 
 ing like a drugged cat, sprang up and clutched him. After 
 ail. . . . But the next moment revulsion came again. Feel 
 ings w^re not in question here; he must act and act 
 promptly. 
 
 He invented a plausible excuse for his hostess and took 
 the train to New York that noon. 
 
 The day after next a registered parcel was brought to 
 Phoebe, where she lay fully dressed but white and dim- 
 eyed on her bed, in the half-darkened room. 
 
 When she saw the hand-writing 011 its cover her heart 
 seemed *:o shut and open. She stole from bed and locked 
 the door. Then she cut the string, snipping it nervously 
 with her little curved nail-scissors and slicing into the 
 heavy oil-skin paper in which the parcel was wrapped. In 
 side she came upon another cover with many seals. On 
 this lay a letter the first thickly filled envelope that she 
 had ever received froin him. She started to tear it open 
 with her little cold, shaking fingers, then thrust it in her 
 breast and began to undo the second wrapper. She would 
 keep the best for the last, She only prayed dumbly that 
 he had not sent her more jewels. The wrapper was off 
 at last. She lifted a fold of white tissue paper, then sat 
 staring, seated on the edge of her bed, the box on her 
 knee, her hands fallen away from it and lying loose at her 
 sides. The faint yet penetrating scent of fresh twenty 
 dollar bills rose to her nostrils. They were in two neat 
 packages held together by little strips of white paper. 
 Ever after, as long as she lived, the scent of fresh paper- 
 money gave her the dreadful sensation that the scent of 
 ether gives to those w r ho have been suffocated for an opera 
 tion. 
 
 She sprang to her feet the next instant, and the box 
 fell to the floor. One of the little paper bands broke, 
 and the crisp, green bills opened like a fan at her feet. 
 She stumbled to the window. Somehow it was hard to get
 
 98 WORLD S-END 
 
 her breath. She opened the shutters slightly, and strug 
 gled for it, her breast heaving painfully, the hair aboit her 
 forehead wet as from a bath. When she had at last 
 managed to draw one deep breath, she sat down by the 
 parted shutters and, with eyes all wild and brigh; now, 
 began to read the letter. When she had finished it she 
 stayed quite still, as Richard had stayed by his window in 
 Newport, and on her white lips was a little stiff sir.ile. A 
 dying marmoset has just such a little, stiffened sm;le over 
 its small, human teeth. 
 
 It had taken Richard five hours to compose the letter 
 that she had just read. Its method was elaborate but its 
 gist simple. In it he began not with her name mis com 
 munication, like all the others, neither had her name at 
 the beginning nor his at the end he began by an appeal 
 to a certain bigness and freedom of spirit in her which 
 he said that he had divined from the very first. He called 
 on her not to bow her head before imbecile conventions, 
 but to have the courage of her passion, and realise that 
 real love can never be bound by laws, any more than the 
 great primal force of a Samson could be bound by green 
 withes. That to shear off the beautiful, wild tresses of love 
 with the dull shears of law only deprived it of all its 
 strength, and delivered it a mere soulless hulk into the 
 hands of the Philistines. He said that now, at this vital 
 point in her life, she should rise above herself, and meet 
 love on the high, joyous, light-swept plateau of freedom. 
 He bade her think of Isolde and Guinevere anel Sappho 
 and Aspasia, or, if she wanted an example more staid, let 
 her recall the long life of honour led by Marian Evans in 
 the companionship of Lewes. He reminded her that she 
 already knew his theory of life when they became lovers. 
 He appealed to her sense of justice and stated that she 
 could not but admit that he had informed her repeatedly 
 of his overwhelming aversion from marriage anel his fixed 
 determination, under no circumstances (these last two 
 words were underscored), under no circumstances ever 
 to marry. 
 
 He said that for him to come to her at this time would 
 be madness since what could he do but take her away 
 with him? And that, in her present oversensitive condi 
 tion, to have all the filth of gossip spattered over their 
 linked names would mean torture to her. 
 
 He assured her that, if she would only be as sweetly
 
 WORLD S-END 99 
 
 reasonable as he knew it was her nature to be, all could 
 be satisfactorily arranged. That he was very fond of 
 her and would make every provision for her safety and 
 comfort. She must not let false pride stand in her way 
 at this crucial point in her life in both their lives. But, 
 then, he was sure that in her lovely nature there was no 
 such thing as false pride, and that she would accept and 
 use the sum which he forwarded her for immediate neces 
 sities in as frank and affectionate a spirit as that in which 
 he sent it. Then followed directions, painstakingly minute, 
 as to how part of this sum was to be employed by her. She 
 was to go to Crowe, as though leaving for a short visit 
 to the University of Virginia. Then she would go on to 
 Charlottesville. When she reached that town she was to 
 take a train on the Southern Railway, as he had found 
 that those trains went straight through to New York with 
 out any fatiguing stop in AVashington. He would meet her 
 at the New York terminus himself. Here followed a de 
 scription of the "kind and perfectly respectable woman" 
 in whose care he would place her. He had done this 
 woman s husband a service once, which made her now a 
 most valuable and dependable ally. Afterwards she could 
 go to France or Italy and he would join her there. Rich 
 ard had reflected over this last assertion for a long time, 
 and had finally decided that, even if plans were altered 
 later, some such promise was necessary to induce Phoebe 
 to follow his instructions quietly. At least, she should 
 never lack for every comfort and refinement in her sur 
 roundings. He was even sorry now that he had to send her 
 to this plain farm-house, but there was no choice. 
 
 He wound up by saying that she could count on his 
 loyalty and affection, and must not allow herself to be 
 come overwrought through anxiety and thus possibly de 
 lay the journey which it was so vitally necessary for her 
 to make at once. 
 
 Richard had never before written even a page of such 
 sound, clear English as composed this letter of some 
 twenty sheets. Phoebe sat quite still, hour after hour, and 
 the little smile looked as though pasted on her lips, for 
 it never grew more or less, or changed in any way. 
 
 At sunset she stirred, shivered all over once, then got 
 slowly to her feet. She went to her little greenish Colo 
 nial mirror on its stand of inlaid mahogany and, tilting it 
 forward, looked at her reflected face. As she noticed the
 
 100 WORLD S -END 
 
 odd smile on her mouth she passed her hand over it, wiping 
 it away. Then she opened one of the drawers in the mir 
 ror stand and took out a box of pink nail-salve. Carefully 
 she put a little en either dead-white cheek, then rubbed 
 it gently. 
 
 "Father mustn t see my face like this," she said aloud. 
 And her voice startled her, so that she dropped the box 
 of nail-salve. It rolled under the dressing-table and she 
 let it lie there. 
 
 Then she went and, shivering again all over as she 
 touched them, lifted the bills and packed them neatly 
 away. Her eyes were wide and still very bright and wild, 
 but her fingers, though cold, did not shake any longer. She 
 found a piece of clean wrapping-paper and did the par 
 cel up in it. Next, taking out the box which held the cir 
 clet of crysoprase, she wrapped that also with slow care, 
 and then wrote Richard s club address (the only one that 
 he had sent her) across the top of both. Under it she 
 printed "By Registered Post." Then she took his letter 
 and sat down again on the edge of the bed with it in her 
 hand. Presently she rose, lighted a candle and, taking out 
 the hearth-screen of old glazed blue wall-paper with its 
 edge of strawberry-flowers, burnt the letter, sheet by sheet, 
 in the empty fire-place. 
 
 When this was done she replaced the screen and, going 
 noiselessly downstairs, passed on tiptoe the room where her 
 father was at work, and went out of the house towards 
 Hollybrook Wood. 
 
 In the heart of the wood she stopped, and sinking on 
 a cushion of green moss with its little red fungi that she 
 used to think the fairies cups, she leaned back against a 
 great oak, and let her arms trail at her sides. She looked 
 up into hanging caverns of dark leaves and thought of 
 nothing unless the conviction "those are leaves . . . they 
 are moving a little ... the breeze moves them . . . that 
 pink between them is the sky ... it is the sunset," unless 
 these convictions could be called thought. 
 
 At one o clock that night, rising from the bed on which 
 she had lain down without undressing and still with that 
 strange, stiff numbness of mind and flesh upon her, Phoebe 
 wrote a second letter to Richard. It was in short sen 
 tences, very bare and simple, and it had neither his name 
 at the beginning nor hers at the end, after the fashion he 
 had shown her.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 101 
 
 She said that she returned the money because it was 
 impossible for her to use bis money. That she was sorry 
 if this offended him but it was her feeling and would not 
 change. That what he asked her was to break her father s 
 heart in his old age. She could not do that no matter what 
 happened to her. She said, "If you were to marry me 
 I would leave you entirely free. I would not even ask to 
 be with you. And she begged him to excuse her for writ 
 ing such a short letter, but that her head felt strange. ; If 
 you marry me, she wrote again, I will worship you, but 
 I will never even ask to see you afterwards if you do not 
 wish it." 
 
 Then she herself took the two parcels and the letter to 
 Crewe the next afternoon, driving "Killdee" in the little 
 "jumper" which they used to send for the post, for she 
 felt too strange and numb still to think of riding. 
 
 This letter brought from Richard another even more 
 vehement than the first. This time he enclosed a fifty- 
 dollar bill, telling her that her attitude was sheer madness; 
 that if she would only follow his directions their unwedded 
 love could be made so fair a thing that her father s recon 
 cilement to it would be only a question of time. He did 
 not reflect while writing this last sentence that a question 
 of time" in reference to a rather infirm old man, nearly 
 eighty, had its ironical aspect. He conjured her by her 
 affection for him (Richard) and out of regard to herself 
 to come at once to New York, where, as he had said be 
 fore, he would be waiting for her at the station. Two days 
 later he received an envelope with the Crewe postmark, in 
 which he found the fifty-dollar bill and half a sheet of 
 paper, on which was written in Phoebe s round, girlish 
 hand, "I cannot do it, Richard." 
 
 Again Richard wrote, and again the fifty-dollar bill went 
 on its travels between New York and Virginia. It was 
 returned as before, but this time there was no writing 
 with it. 
 
 Richard became frantic with apprehension. A dark 
 anger against Phoebe burned at his heart. God only knew 
 whether people were not already talking. This delay was 
 criminal. He had no knowledge of how soon such things 
 became apparent to the eyes of other women. He wrote 
 again. When five days had gone by without any answer 
 from the girl, he decided, after a sleepless night, to write 
 and make a clean breast of the whole affair to his mother.
 
 102 WORLD S-END 
 
 She knew him as no one else had ever known or would 
 know him. When she realised how impulsive had been his 
 fault, how horrible and deliberate might be its conse 
 quences to his whole life, she would intervene, bring 
 Phoebe to reason (though, of course, she would not follow 
 his plan for a reunion) and prevent, in some way, all pos 
 sibility of so disastrous a marriage. And yet ... he 
 was not so sure, after all, of what would be his mother s 
 ideas on the question. She had rigid, old-fashioned 
 notions on the subject of "honour" and family. Phoebe 
 was a kinswoman, though distant. It was possible ... he 
 shivered. . . . Yes, now he thought it quite possible that 
 his mother might insist on his marrying the girl. 
 
 He thought and thought over this. The hatred of mar 
 riage, especially of this marriage, had grown into an obses 
 sion with him during the past two weeks. He felt that he 
 would rather be dead than married to Phoebe and lie 
 was ardently attached to life. 
 
 Suddenly he remembered something that had passed be 
 tween him and another man in Newport. This man, Her 
 bert Stokes by name, had hailed him one morning at the 
 "Casino." 
 
 "Hullo, Bryce," he had said. "Hear you re off on a 
 Chinese opera. I m off to China itself in two weeks. 
 Better come along and tuck in local colour for the opera. 
 
 Richard would have liked to go very well, but not at 
 that time, and not with Herbert Stokes. However, being 
 rather interested in the notion, he had questioned Stokes 
 about his plans. Stokes intended to sail from Brindisi to 
 India, despite the season, thence to Hong Kong. 
 
 "Come along, old chap," he had urged (he thought 
 Richard and his theories great fun), "I ll give you a bunk 
 in my cabin. I sail the 28th of June in the Wilhelm der 
 Grosse, a capital boat. Come along." 
 
 Richard s heart went very fast. Today was the 26th 
 of June. He could post the letter to his mother on the 
 27th and sail the day that she received it. He would add 
 a postscript to say that Stokes had offered to share his 
 cabin with him, and that it was such an opportunity to 
 study Chinese music in the land of its origin that he had 
 felt he must not refuse. He would say that he thought 
 she could manage everything better, really, if he were out 
 of the country. 
 
 Richard felt that he was doing a dastardly thing, an act
 
 WORLD S-EJSTD 103 
 
 of the most ruthless and cowardly selfishness both towards 
 Phoebe and towards his mother, that is, he felt the dis 
 comfort which such actions cause even to the doer, but 
 he veiled the bare bones of fact from himself with swad- 
 dlings of sophistry. 
 
 Yes, once he was actually out of the country on a pro 
 longed trip like that, Phoebe would be compelled to rea 
 son, and he could trust his mother s pride to keep such 
 a secret inviolate, especially from his Uncle Owen. 
 
 He wrote the letter, posted it as he had planned, on the 
 27th, and on the 2Sth sailed with Stokes for Naples. 
 
 XYII 
 
 TOURING those five days of her silence Phoebe had gone 
 *- through almost every phase of torture that her situa 
 tion could devise. Only one throe had as yet been spared 
 her hatred of the man whom she had loved so wildly. And, 
 to save herself from the dreadful possibility, she began to 
 lay to her own account all that had happened. Yes, it 
 was cruel, terribly cruel of him to remind her that she had 
 known well his views of life before giving herself to him 
 wholly but it was just. She had known and rebelled 
 against them. And she recalled the day they had almost 
 quarrelled about the Brownings, and the feeling of de 
 jected sadness that had crept over her at his jeering words, 
 They took a great passion by the nape and made it re 
 spectable." 
 
 Yes. she had tied the bandage warm with love s eyes 
 tight, tight about her own. But then, he also had known 
 her views, simple as they were. Surely he could not have 
 thought. . . . Yet as surely he had thought her light, else. 
 . . . And hot shame, like a breath from the furnace of 
 degradation, would sweep her from head to feet. Oh. if it 
 were true, that he did not love her . . . were not her father 
 so old and so fond she would rather die than be married 
 to him. But then, in this wrong, strange way, he did love 
 her. He would not urge her to come to him if he had no 
 love for her. . . . Then she thought of the little box of 
 fresh, green bills, of the fifty-dollar note that had gone 
 back and forth between them so often, and again sliame 
 withered her. 
 
 Yet it was not possible that this was all ... this dread-
 
 104 WORLD S-END 
 
 ful silence, in which she seemed struggling like one buried 
 alive. If she were only dumb and patient a little longer he 
 would come to himself ... he would see and realise that 
 she could not strike down her own father in his old age 
 with the cruellest of weapons, dishonour and ingratitude, 
 he would come to his best self, the noble self that was 
 really he and all would be well again, and this present 
 horror like a black dream that has passed with daybreak. 
 
 "When, however, the sixth day came and went also in 
 silence, a wild, fierce rage awoke in Phoebe. "If I were 
 alone in the world," she thought, "he should not marry 
 me now, though he came crawling. If I had not my father 
 arid the . . . child to think of ... I would kill him be 
 fore I would marry him." 
 
 And she sat down suddenly, trembling all over, for that 
 was murder which she had felt in her heart. But before 
 the trembling had ceased a new passion almost as terrible 
 was upon her. The desire for revenge the desire to make 
 him suffer something of what she was enduring. And she 
 thought and thought how she might hurt him savagely, 
 in a vital part, striking with all her force. And again she 
 trembled violently. This was more terrible than anything 
 that had yet been. Did she then hate Richard? Was 
 she, in addition to her unspeakable shame, going to bear 
 the child of hatred ? No, no ! She did not hate him she 
 only wanted him to share in her suffering. That sad para 
 dox of passion which makes the injured wish to torture 
 what they still adore confused and wrung her. But her 
 anger did not abate; it grew and grew, until by the next 
 day it had become an obsession with her. 
 
 As she lay upon her sleepless bed that night, her eyes, 
 that felt as though scorched by the dry lids fixed upon 
 the freckled darkness that swam so dizzyingly before her 
 a wild solution leaped into her mind. His mother ! She 
 could wound him through his mother ! More than anything, 
 she felt, it would hurt him to have his mother know of 
 this cowardly thing that he had done to a young girl, so 
 lonely, so undefended, one of his own kin. And she 
 thought, "Tomorrow I will go and tell his mother. He 
 will hate me, and she will hate me, but he will have to 
 marry me then. And my father and the child will be 
 saved from dishonour." She did not think of saving her 
 own honour. She felt that even marriage could not save 
 that which was so irrevocably lost in her own eyes since
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 105 
 
 he had only used her like a toy which is cast aside when 
 broken. 
 
 The next morning she dressed herself very carefully in 
 a plain white linen frock and put on a simple hat that 
 drooped low over her eyes. 
 
 "I am going to see Mrs. Bryce, father," she said. "1 
 have told Lily to be sure to give you your biscuit and 
 Madeira at eleven." 
 
 "Thank you, my dear. I am glad to see that you feel 
 well enough to go for a visit, but you are still very pale. 
 If you would only consent to my asking Patton. . . . 
 
 "No, no, father, dear. Please ... I am really very 
 well. I am always a little pale in summer." 
 
 And, kissing him gently on the cheek, she got into the 
 "jumper" and turned "Killdee V head towards World s- 
 End. 
 
 The old man looked after her, troubled. 
 
 The child s lips felt cold, he said to himself. I must 
 really persuade her to let me send for Patton." 
 
 Then he became absorbed in untangling a knot in the 
 ancestral intricacies of the Queen Anne County Nelsons, 
 and forgot how chilly those young lips had felt against his 
 cheek. 
 
 The day was fair and glowing. Great silver-breasted 
 clouds swam on the blue lake of air. In Ilollybrook wood 
 the quivering sun-spots played over her white gown and 
 " Killdee s" satin coat, in dapples of gold, light as gossa 
 mer. There was a sweet, warm scent of summer through 
 everything, mingled of the fragrance of fruit and flowers 
 and new-cut grass, and the strong, fertile soil that bred 
 them. 
 
 She let "Killdee" drink at the ford, and thought with 
 a sick pang of the day she had looked up and seen Rich 
 ard on his black mare at the top of the hill. The dan 
 delions, that had seemed so like little scattered gold coins, 
 were long gone. The grass was dark and unbroken by 
 wild flowers, and some Southdown sheep, looking too heavy 
 for their slim, black legs, with black Roman noses glued 
 to the earth, were cropping it, moving slowly as they 
 grazed. In their sun-lit whiteness seen from a distance 
 they resembled other clouds, slowly travelling over a dark 
 green sky. 
 
 "When Phoebe reached the bridge at the foot of the slant 
 ing lawn she stopped "Killdee" and sat gazing up at the
 
 WORLD S-END 
 
 white columns of the house that was his home. Yes, here 
 he had been born he had played through those rooms and 
 over this very lawn, when he was an innocent little child, 
 before her father and mother were married before she 
 had been even thought of. Where had she been then? Or 
 had she been anywhere? And now he was a man, and 
 she . . . she was coming to tell his mother what sort of 
 man that little, romping boy whom she seemed to see so 
 plainly had grown into. But this thought only lighted 
 a darker fire in her heart. Others should suffer. . . . She 
 would not suffer all alone. She was a consistent pagan, 
 even in her misery, for she had never thought of God as 
 being wroth with her. And Christ had been coldly kind 
 to the woman taken in sin. His very perfectness had made 
 him seem far and indifferent but neither, she felt, would 
 His sentiment towards her be one of anger a gentle, un 
 comprehending pity perhaps, and abstract pity could not 
 help her. 
 
 As the old butler showed Phoebe into the cool, dim rose- 
 parlour, suddenly, without warning, a dissolving fear came 
 upon her. "What was she doing here? How had she come? 
 Was she mad? Would they take her and put her in some 
 awful place? With a heart beating to suffocation she 
 rushed towards the door, which old Jonathan had closed 
 behind her. As she reached it it opened again and Sally 
 entered quickly, closing it once more. 
 
 Phoebe stared at her, shaking in all her limbs a dark, 
 thick cloud settling down about her. She could see nothing 
 distinctly only a pale blur that she knew was Sally s 
 face, and the black oblong of her tall figure. She felt an 
 arm catch and support her she was being led towards 
 a sofa. 
 
 "Sit here ... I w r ill bring you some wine," she heard 
 a deadly quiet voice saying, as though far away. The arm 
 was Avithdrawn, she felt a pillow slipped beneath her head 
 then she fainted. 
 
 When she came to herself Eichard s mother was hold 
 ing a little bottle to her nostrils that made her strangle 
 and cough she tried to rise upon her elbow. 
 
 "Lie still," said the deadly quiet voice. 
 
 Phoebe obeyed. After a moment the voice said: 
 
 "You must drink this," and a strong wine was put to 
 her lips. She obeyed again, swallowing a few mouthfuls 
 with difficulty.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 107 
 
 "Now lie quite still again." 
 
 Phoebe lay very still, closing her eyelids. Opening them 
 heavily a moment later she saw Sally s black eyes fixed 
 upon her with a strange expression. It was not hatred, 
 nor pity, nor comprehension, but a something mixed of 
 all these, and it was full of great pain. 
 
 "You . . . know?" whispered Phoebe. 
 
 "Yes, I know." 
 
 There was silence. Phoebe wished that she could have 
 died before his mother had looked at her like that. Sud 
 denly she struggled again to rise. 
 
 I must go ! " she cried wildly. Sally put a hand on 
 her arm. "You must let me go! You must let me go!" 
 There was such desperate pain and such desolation in this 
 cry that all of woman in Sally went out to meet it. 
 
 She took Phoebe s hand and held it firmly but gently in 
 both her own. 
 
 "Don t be afraid of me ... I want to help you." 
 
 Phoebe s wild, bright eyes fled from her to the door. 
 "Oh, let me go. . . . Please let me go," she panted. 
 
 "You are ill. You can t go now. Try to be quiet. I 
 want to be your . . . your friend." 
 
 "It s no use! It s no use! . . . If he doesn t love. . . ." 
 
 "He loves no one but himself," said Sally in a hard 
 voice. "Try to be reasonable. You must help me to help 
 you." 
 
 All at once Phoebe became very gentle. She looked up in 
 Sally s face with dark, mournful eyes. "I didn t know 
 you were kin 1 .." she said. "I used to be afraid of 
 you. You are kind, but under it you hate me. ... I feel 
 it." 
 
 Sally returned her look this time inscrutably. "You 
 must try to be reasonable," she said again. "I will do 
 all in my power for you. I have something that I must 
 tell you. You will need all your courage." 
 
 Phoebe s eyes grew wide and wild again. Her white 
 lips framed the word "Why?" but no sound came from 
 them. 
 
 "THl! you try to be quiet if I tell you? I must tell 
 you, because suspense is worse than anything for you 
 now. 
 
 "Tell me," motioned the white lips from which no sound 
 came. 
 
 "I received a letter this morning from . . . my son,"
 
 108 WORLD S-END 
 
 said Sally she could not bring herself to utter Richard s 
 name just then. "He sailed for the East yesterday." 
 
 Phoebe still gazed at her. Her lips were parted but did 
 not stir now. 
 
 Sally came and sat beside her on the sofa, as much to 
 escape from that haunting look, as out of pity though 
 she was certainly moved by a profound pity. She put her 
 thin, soft palm over Phoebe s interlaced fingers. 
 
 "Poor girl do you understand?" she said. 
 
 Phoebe spoke, articulating thickly. 
 
 "To . . . the East ?" she said, in a whisper. 
 
 "Yes ... to the far East ... to India ... to China. 
 He will be gone," she just paused and then said slowly, 
 gravely, "for over a year." 
 
 Phoebe sat deathly quiet. She seemed scarcely to 
 breathe. Presently she said in an almost inaudible voice, 
 "Thank you . . . for telling me." 
 
 Something in that deathly stillness alarmed Sally. She 
 put her hand on Phoebe s shoulder this time. "You can 
 trust me," she said. "Try to get what comfort you can 
 from that." 
 
 "Thank you," said Phoebe again. She rose, she was not 
 trembling now. Her eyes were steady. Sally rose too. 
 "When I have thought out everything I will come to Nel 
 son s Gift and talk it over with you," she said. Suddenly 
 her voice broke. 
 
 "I am very, very sorry for you," she added. "And 
 ..." she swallowed, turning away her face. "Part of 
 the pain is mine . . . my only son is a coward." 
 
 Good-bye, said Phoebe. She went slowly towards the 
 door. 
 
 The instinctive feeling of one woman for another moved 
 Sally from the thought of her own pain. She caught up 
 the glass of wine and followed Phoebe. 
 
 "Drink the rest of this before you go," she urged, but 
 Phoebe, smiling mutely, put aside her hand and went from 
 the dim room out into the glowing day again. 
 
 Sally stood watching, behind the curtains of the Rose- 
 room window, while old Jonathan handed the girl into the 
 "jumper" as though it had been a court coach, and David 
 put the reins into her hand. She had not gone with Phoebe 
 to the front portico, feeling that the girl would rather 
 leave that house alone. And. though she never cared for 
 Phoebe, something in the listless lines of the beautiful
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 109 
 
 young figure, so nymph-like, so girlish, went suddenly to 
 her heart. It was her son, her son, who had done this 
 dreadful thing. The child that would be born of that 
 young girl driving off there, so lonely, in the shabby little 
 vehicle which meant dire poverty that child would be her 
 grandchild! Sally s heart contracted with pain. She put 
 up her hand to it, and standing there behind the shielding 
 curtain broke suddenly into bitter tears. 
 
 As Phoebe came to the stone bridge over the Green- 
 Flower, she had to draw aside for a carriage that ap 
 proached from the opposite direction. It was Owen, who 
 thought to give Sally a pleasant surprise by arriving a 
 day or two before the first of July. As he passed Phoebe 
 he started up and was about to call to his driver to stop, 
 but it seemed to him that she did not see him, though 
 she looked straight at him. Her face so white and pinched 
 gave him a shock. Some intuition made him sink back 
 again, without doing more than lifting his hat with a 
 smile and a "How d ye do, Phoebe?" Then he saw in 
 truth that though she had been looking so directly at 
 him she had not seen him, for she drove by in silence, her 
 wide, dark eyes now fixed on the distance. 
 
 Sally had barely time to escape to her own room as she 
 heard the sound of wheels on the gravel. When Hannah 
 came and told her gleefully that Owen had arrived she 
 grew quite faint. This was dreadful. She had so counted 
 on 4 hose two days still left her before his coming, to set 
 tle all arrangements about Phoebe. If Owen should ever 
 know should ever guess even . . . As deeply, burningly 
 indignant as she was with Richard, as fierce and honest as 
 was her scorn for his brutal cowardice, still he was her 
 only son, ardently beloved. Owen must never, never know. 
 She would go that very afternoon to Nelson s Gift. Yes, 
 she would surely go, for not only did Owen s unexpected 
 arrival fill her with dread, but there had been that in 
 Phoebe s way of receiving those crushing tidings which 
 even now made her sick with a vague, foreboding appre 
 hension. She bathed her face carefully, and went down 
 to greet him with an affectionate smile on her lips. 
 
 "Dear Owen! How very, very nice! And I ve heard 
 from Mary. She ll be here Wednesday." 
 
 She quivered inwardly a sort of tremor of the vitals 
 when she thought that she must tell Owen of Richard s
 
 110 WORLD S -END 
 
 sudden departure for the East. Yes, she must certainly 
 tell him, and as soon as he asked about Kichard, for any 
 delay might look suspicious later on. 
 
 "You look better than I expected from your letters, 
 dear," said he, kissing her. "But tell me, what is the 
 matter with Phoebe Nelson? I was shocked when I saw 
 the child just now. She looks very ill to me. Has she 
 been ill?" 
 
 Sally s expression was very natural not overdone or 
 too indifferent. 
 
 "She s rather an obstinate little thing," she said. "I 
 was just telling her that she ought to be in bed instead 
 of rushing about the country in that rough, shaky trap. 
 She has a sort of slow fever that seems to have hung on 
 from the spring. I m going over to speak to her father 
 about her this afternoon." 
 
 "Good!" said Owen heartily, "that s awfully nice of 
 you, Sally. I ll just come along too. She s a dear child. 
 I hate to see her look like that. I knew you d grow fond 
 of her." 
 
 And he gave his sister s thin shoulder a little squeeze 
 as she stood near him. 
 
 When Owen said that he would go with her to Nelson s 
 Gift that afternoon, Sally felt again that queer tremor of 
 the vitals. She longed to talk with Phoebe s father, to 
 pave the way for suggesting to him that what the girl 
 needed was a complete change of air, and that she, Sally, 
 would be delighted to have Phoebe go with her to the 
 sea-side. But this could not well be done if Owen were 
 present. 
 
 "Poor Sallykins, " said Owen, looking at her nervous, 
 sallow face out of which she tried hard to keep the per 
 turbation of her thoughts, "now that I ve had time to 
 see you, I don t find you looking at all well yourself. It s 
 a good thing Mary and I have come to buck you up a bit. 
 Richard should have looked after you better. By the way 
 . . . where is Richard? Hullo, Wizzy!" 
 
 "Wizzy was one of Sally s strongest aversions, but she 
 had never welcomed anything more gladly than she did 
 now the advent of that desperately excited little dog, who 
 came sliding and slipping amid a rattle of toenails down 
 the long hall. Hannah took care of him during Owen s 
 absence, and he never entered "the big house" while his 
 master was away, but now that beloved scent had somehow
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 111 
 
 been imparted to him from Hannah s skirts, and he rushed 
 to welcome his god. fie whined and leaped upon those 
 adored legs, sneezing with overwrought emotion every time 
 that he attempted a bark of welcome, and Owen, sitting 
 down in one of the hall chairs, lifted him to his knees. 
 
 Sally sank into another chair beside them, and the re 
 lief of Wizzy s presence brought her so far as to lay one of 
 her hands on his little sleek, snaky head. He promptly 
 growled and Owen laughed, pinching his nose a little, which 
 made him sneeze again. 
 
 Dogs always know, he said, blandishments from their 
 enemies never deceive them." 
 
 But I m not an enemy I don t dislike them. I only 
 don t care to have them too near me." 
 
 "Evon Wizzy is laughing at that lame explanation," 
 said Owen, and indeed Wizzy did seem to be grinning sar 
 donically at Sally, with his tongue hanging out to the 
 roots, and his black lips edged as with "pinking" near 
 the jaws, drawn back almost to his collar. 
 
 "It isn t really the dogs it s the red mud they bring 
 in," continued Sally, pursuing desperately this subject 
 while thinking, "I must speak naturally when I do have 
 to answer. I mustn t speak too carelessly. 
 
 "Wizzy, I think you might make friends with me," she 
 coaxed again, extending her hand but again Wizzy gave 
 his warning growl as of a little kettle about to bo il over. 
 
 "But where s Richard? how is he?" asked Owen again. 
 
 "Owen." said Sally gravely, "I m very, very much an 
 noyed with Richard." 
 
 The perfect naturalness of her own voice in saying this 
 astonished herself. 
 
 "Why, what now?" said he, trying to keep out of his 
 tone the mingled amusement and irritation that a new 
 vagary of Richard always caused him. 
 
 "He has gone away, Owen. . . . He has gone off for a 
 long trip to the East . . . most unexpectedly. . . . He 
 went with Herbert Stokes who offered to share his cabin 
 with him." 
 
 "Herbert Stokes!" echoed Owen, eyebrows lifted. "The 
 all round sport chap! What in Heaven s name possessed 
 Master Richard to go off with Herbert Stokes of all men?" 
 
 "You know Richard, Owen. He s perfectly unaccounta 
 ble." 
 
 "What part of the East?"
 
 112 WORLD S-END 
 
 "India and China." 
 
 "What a time of the year to choose! He ll suffocate. 
 When did he go?" 
 
 "He sails today. He only wrote me of it yesterday." 
 
 "And he left you all alone here like that without 
 warning ? 
 
 It was very wrong of him. It has hurt me very much. 
 
 Owen took Wizzy s polished little head in both his 
 hands, and looked down into the adoring, white-rimmed, 
 eyes. 
 
 "Wizzy, " said he, "I believe that you could have 
 brought up Master Richard more wisely than your Aunt 
 Sally and I have done." 
 
 XVIII 
 
 , who disliked driving as a diversion, rode "The 
 Clown" that afternoon, and Sally sat in the carriage 
 alone with her thoughts for all those hot five miles. The 
 day had grown very sultry and, when Owen rode back 
 to her now and then, "The Clown" looked like a blue 
 horse, with the reflection of the sky on his soaked grey 
 hide. Distant storms were playing all about them. The 
 muffled thunder sounded like some drowsy jungle-beast 
 over a half devoured kill. 
 
 Do you think we shall be caught in a storm at Nelson s 
 Gift?" she asked him nervously, once when he rode up. 
 
 "No ... the cloud dun tun , as the darkies say. 
 They re catching it down the river though. I wish it 
 would come our way, even at the cost of a ducking. The 
 corn needs it badly." 
 
 He rode off again. 
 
 Sally s thoughts went on and on, bruising her tired 
 head. "Will she see us? How will she act if she does? 
 ... If she s too ill will she let me come up to her bed 
 room? I shall have to go over again tomorrow without 
 Owen. But I must see her this afternoon. She s in a 
 dreadful state. . . . Anything might happen. . . . She 
 might do some reckless thing . . . something awful. " Sally 
 shuddered with a sort of hot-coldness in the sultry air. . . . 
 And suddenly it came over her with desolating reality that 
 in this, the most frightful crisis of her whole life, of three 
 lives, she was debarred from consulting Owen, the one of
 
 WORLD S-EXD 113 
 
 all others on whom she most leaned, whose advice she 
 valued most. 
 
 "Ah," she reflected bitterly, "barren women are saved 
 more than they dream of." 
 
 Mr. Nelson was in the green-panelled room as usual, 
 his manuscripts about him. 
 
 lie was evidently much gratified at their visit, and espe 
 cially pleased to sec Owen. His long old face lighted up, 
 and his smile was warm even over the chill perfection of 
 his teeth. Phoebe, he said, would be so distressed to have 
 missed them. She had a bad headache and had gone out 
 for a walk, thinking to relieve it by air and exercise. He 
 regretted that he had not thought to ask her in which 
 direction she intended going. 
 
 Sally was relieved and anxious at the same time. She 
 was relieved that Owen would not see Phoebe, but her anx 
 iety was poignant when she thought of the girl walking 
 alone in that sultry air, with a possible storm gathering 
 about her. She tried to divert her thoughts by glancing 
 about the room, while Owen and Mr. Nelson talked of the 
 latter s book, and his farming. She looked up at the por 
 trait of Phoebe s mother with its weak, candid brow, and 
 sweet mouth shaped as by the singing of hymns. Sud 
 denly tears stung her eyes as she thought of Phoebe with 
 her mother gone, and only that old, pedantic scholar, his 
 life spent in rummaging the annals of the dead, to stand 
 between her and evil. 
 
 Bitterly the vision of Richard, moving a trusted guest 
 and kinsman through that simple home, wrecking it, de 
 vastating a young girl s whole life and being bitterly and 
 cruelly this vision of her only son rose before her. 
 
 1 He is a wicked man, she told herself, aching with pain 
 and anger. "My son is an evil-hearted, wicked man a 
 common seducer. I have heard of such things all my life. 
 Now it has happened to me. . . . And I am all alone 
 with this dreadful burden ... he has left me and that 
 poor girl to bear it all alone." 
 
 More tli an the bitterness of death was upon Sally as 
 she sat there quietly in her cool, embroidered grey gown, 
 gazing at the mild, loving face of Phoebe s mother. 
 
 But as the moments passed and still Phoebe did not re 
 turn, or Sally bring up the chief object of their visit, 
 Owen spoke out suddenly. "To tell you the truth, sir," 
 lie said, we came on purpose to talk to you about Phoebe
 
 114 WORLD S-END 
 
 I was awfully distressed today to see her looking so pale 
 and run down." 
 
 "Yes," replied Mr. Nelson, "I have been troubled for 
 some weeks about my little girl . . . she is an old man s 
 ewe lamb, you know," he added and his old voice shook 
 a little. "But," he continued, before either of his guests 
 could speak. "She assures me that she is really better of 
 late. I cannot persuade her to see Dr. Patton." 
 
 1 We must think of some nice plan for her, said Sally, 
 "a complete change of air would probably do her more 
 good than any doctor." 
 
 "Doubtless doubtless," said Mr. Nelson sadly. He 
 was thinking that most of the nine thousand paid last Janu 
 ary by Owen for Hollybrook Wood had gone to lift the 
 mortgage, and that the rest was invested in a bond, en 
 tirely safe, but that brought him in only sixty extra dol 
 lars a year. And even this sixty, so urgently needed for 
 daily necessities, would not furnish sufficient means for 
 a change of air such as Phoebe needed. 
 
 "I should be delighted," said Sally, determining sud 
 denly to speak, and hurrying the words a little in spite of 
 herself, "if . . . if I should decide to go to the seaside later 
 some time next month, perhaps, to take Phoebe with me. 1 
 And now she saw that Owen was looking at her with the 
 most candid surprise, for she had never in her life left 
 World s-End in summer for the seashore. The next mo 
 ment, however, he thought. "That will really be an ex 
 cellent idea for them both. Sally is a great dear to think 
 of taking the child with her." 
 
 "You are more than kind," said the old man, much 
 moved. "I have no adequate terms at my command with 
 which to thank you. . . . 
 
 A long growl of thunder, much nearer than any that 
 had been before, interrupted him, and Owen started up. 
 
 "I think I ll have a hunt for Phoebe," he said, as he 
 went out. 
 
 The sick fear of something vague and yet terrible that 
 might happen at any moment seized Sally again, but con 
 trolling it as best she could she turned to Phoebe s father 
 and began to talk to him about the coast of Maine and New 
 Hampshire, and of how invigorating it was, especially to 
 Southerners, worn by the heavy heat of such a June as 
 was just past. 
 
 In the meantime, Owen, with his eyes on the great,
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 115 
 
 threatening bulge of purplish-black that hung over Idler s 
 Mountain, strode faster and faster towards Jlollybrook 
 Wood. lie felt tolerably sure that, on such a dense, hot 
 afternoon as this, a girl with a headache would make for 
 its cool depths. 
 
 He was a lover of storms and even his anxiety for Phoebe 
 could not prevent his taking pleasure in the lurid quick 
 ening of all the scene about him. The foliage of the trees, 
 lashed and beaten by high currents of wind, changed to a 
 livid hue. A strange, wild light struck the distant pas 
 tures, and the grazing sheep were turned by it as to flecks 
 of mica. A flock of pigeons streamed glinting against the 
 ominous sky and every now and then a flash of lightning, 
 like a gilded crack in a huge shell, would split the heavens. 
 "All the same," he thought as he quickened his gait to a 
 run, "that storm won t reach us it s going down the 
 Green-Flower like the others. But Phoebe may get a fright 
 ..." and he ran on till he reached the wood. As he 
 entered its great, dusky aisles and felt its damp fragrance 
 all about him, he was newly thankful that he had been able 
 to save it from the saw-mill. The giant pines were land 
 marks for miles around. Little mossy paths veined it as 
 with .inde and malachite, and, where Hollybrook itself ran 
 trilling its low song, ferns curved lush and tough-stemmed. 
 
 It v. as very still here in the woods, the only sound a 
 harsh rushing far overhead, where the wind lashed the top 
 most branches "a sound as of going" in the trees. 
 
 Owen walked, on, calling now and then, "Phoebe! 
 Phoebe!" and once or twice giving the far-carrying Aus 
 tralian cry, "coo-ce!" but no one answered him. 
 
 He had come to a little lawn, covered with wild-violet 
 leaves like the grave of Keats, where the brook lilted 
 half-asleep through a covert of hazel and kalmia and elder- 
 shrubs he had just reached this spot and was about to 
 step across it when a new sound caught his ear, driving 
 the blood from his face the sound of a long, low, piteous 
 moaning. Some little woodland thing, caught in a springe, 
 might moan like that. It rose and fell, regular and rhyth 
 mic as though the heart itself might have been marking 
 its beats with faint sounds of anguish. 
 
 Owen sprang forward, a sudden ice in all his veins. 
 
 The one leap brought him to where Phoebe lay, face 
 down, her hands clutching the warm moss. 
 
 "Oh, Phoebe, Phoebe! little Phoebe . . . my poor little
 
 116 WORLD S-END 
 
 child . . . my poor little Phoebe," cried Owen, and he 
 threw himself on the ground beside her, and tried to lift 
 her in his arms. But she clung frantically to the earth, 
 like a desperate child to its mother s breast. "Xo ... no ... 
 no ... no/ she moaned, "oh, no ... no ... no ... 
 no." 
 
 "Phoebe, dear dear child. I must hurt you, I fear," 
 said Owen, his face convulsed with pity and alarm, "but 
 I must lift you up, dear. I must take you to the house." 
 
 At this she stopped struggling, and Owen lifted her in 
 his arms, and felt with another pang how light she was. 
 The little wrist that swayed out over his shoulder looked 
 delicately brittle in its thinness. In her pale fingers were 
 bits of the moss and leaves that she had clutched. 
 
 To carry a swooning girl for nearly half a mile, no mat 
 ter how slight and thin she may be, is a feat that takes 
 strength and endurance of no mean order. He reached 
 Nelson s Gift with the sweat running down his face. 
 
 Terrified as he was, he had yet the wisdom to go around 
 with Phoebe to the kitchen instead of bearing her like 
 that into her father s presence. 
 
 Aunt Patty was not the hysterical type of negress, but 
 a quiet, staid old woman; her worn face had looked on 
 much sorrow, and she was well acquainted with the dark 
 surprises of life. 
 
 She laid her hand on Lily s shoulder as the girl opened 
 her lips as if to scream and said sternly: 
 
 "Don t you dar holler dis ain t no time for hollerin 
 dis is actin time. You go on up and set Miss Phoebe s 
 bed ready, an I ll show Mr. Randolph whar to carry her. 
 Come dis way, suh. We-all kin go up de back steps." 
 
 They laid Phoebe on her little bed of white wood painted 
 with blue roses and Aunt Patty stood and smoothed the 
 damp hair from the unconscious forehead, her harsh, toil- 
 roughened palm catching on the silken locks. 
 
 "My 1 il honey . . . my po 1 il lamb," she murmured. 
 
 Mrs. Bryce is here, Aunt Patty, Owen told her. " I ll 
 go bring her up." 
 
 As he left the room, Phoebe s red-bird flew from the 
 cage of which the door stood open, and lighted on the 
 foot of the bed. 
 
 Aunt Patty looked at it and her brow contracted. "I 
 don t like dee sign of birds in sickness," he heard her 
 mutter. "No, I don t."
 
 WORLD S-EXD 117 
 
 Jimmy Toots v,*as strutting on the window-sill. Now, 
 as if jealous of the red-bird, he gave a displeased "caw" 
 and fluttered over beside him. 
 
 "Too many birds . . . too many birds." crooned Aunt Pat 
 ty, and she said "shoo" and shook her apron at him. King 
 Rcdcly flew to the mirror, but Jimmy Toots, ruffling all his 
 feathers forward, merely scratched his ear leisurely, then, 
 stretching one leg far out behind him, drew it up under 
 his sooty down. and. resting upon the other, remained ini- 
 perturbably where he was. 
 
 Owen went to the door of the drawing-room and asked 
 Mr. Nelson if he would excuse Sally for a moment that 
 Phoebe wished to see her. The old gentleman expressed 
 himself as most grateful to Owen for finding Phoebe and 
 bringing her safely home. 
 
 "She will fetch some Madeira and thin biscuit for us 
 now." he ended in a pleasant voice. "My daughter is a 
 thrifty little housekeeper, and not even Patty is allowed 
 to use her keys." 
 
 Sally came out and gazed up at him with a white face. 
 
 "Phoebe is very ill," he said. "I found her in the wood 
 in a dreadful state. She is unconscious. You had better 
 go up at once. "When I ve broken it to the old man, I ll 
 take The Clown and go for Patton." 
 
 Wait ! cried Sally and her thin fingers dug into his 
 arm. 
 
 ""Wait? Why?" he asked startled. 
 
 Sally tried to speak, and a harsh croak came from her 
 lips. She gave a sort of hysterical laugh "It s ... it s ... 
 the shock. ... Is she delirious?" she asked, stammering. 
 
 "No . . . unconscious. But a doctor. . . . 
 
 "Let me see her first. She has a "horror of doctors. . . . 
 Don t you remember. Her father said so. . . . Any shock 
 now . , . any shock, I mean. ... It would be terribly 
 dangerous to give her any shock. I ll see her first." 
 
 And Sally :-ushed off up the winding stairway of the 
 front hall. 
 
 "Jimmy Toots" was still keeping sombre vigil on the 
 bed-foot as she entered, and Aunt Patty rocking and croon 
 ing with the girl s little dead -looking hand held against 
 her breast. 
 
 "Open the shutters wide!" said Sally in a harsh voice. 
 "Now come help me." 
 
 Together they slipped away the pillow from under
 
 118 WORLD S -END 
 
 Phoebe s head, opened her bodice and, cutting the lace of 
 the corset, dragged it from under her. The girl s face, 
 lying there with sightless eyes and little chin, pointed 
 towards the whitewashed ceiling, struck to her heart. On 
 the pale lips was that stiffened smile of a dying mar 
 moset. 
 
 Sally took a towel and, wetting it, struck it sharply on 
 Phoebe s cheeks and temples. After a minute or two the 
 girl gave a long, faint moan and half opened her eyes. 
 Quick as thought Sally bent close to her, her fingers on the 
 pulse which was beating thinly but regularly. 
 
 "You re safe," she said, "I m with you. I m going to 
 keep you safe." 
 
 The girl wearily closed her eyes and turned away her 
 face. 
 
 Sally had great nervous strength, and she propped the 
 limp body up in her arms and held it against her, while 
 Aunt Patty brought the plain little nainsook nightgown. 
 Together again the knotted black hands and the thin sal 
 low ones clothed the girl in the fresh garment, and draw 
 ing back the sheet laid her in her bed. 
 
 "I must plait this or it will have to be cut off," said 
 Sally. "Hold her head steady on the pillow while I comb 
 it out," 
 
 She was assured now that Phoebe was in no danger of 
 her life. She had merely been in a long swoon of utter 
 exhaustion brought on by her condition and the horrible 
 shock of that morning. 
 
 She combed and braided the bright hair. 
 
 As she was finishing "Jimmy Toots" flew suddenly at 
 her and, giving her hand a sharp dig with his beak, beat 
 his wings against her arm. She almost shrieked with the 
 uncanny fright of it. There was a little blood-drop on 
 her hand w r here his beak had struck. 
 
 "Oh, drive him out! . . . drive him away!" she cried 
 to Aunt Patty. 
 
 Aunt Patty, advancing cautiously from behind, threw 
 her apron over the crow and transferred him to his cage 
 of osier which stood near the window. 
 
 "Dat s Satan s own bird," said she, "but he sho love 
 my baby. He thought you \vas harmin her." 
 
 "Stay by her," whispered Sally, and ran downstairs to 
 Owen. 
 
 "There s no need of a doctor," she said, as he came out
 
 WORLD S-EXD 119 
 
 into the hall, hearing her step. "It s only a faint . . . 
 the poor child s dreadfully run down. I m going to stay 
 all night . . . when I asked if she wouldn t see the doc 
 tor si 10 nearly went off into another swoon. Take The 
 Clown, and tell Mirabel to send me a bag with night things 
 in it." 
 
 Here Mr. Nelson joined them, his thin face drawn with 
 apprehension. 
 
 Sally rapidly repeated what she had said to Owen. The 
 o:-.i man looked overwhelmed when she stated that she was 
 going to remain at Nelson s Gift for the night. 
 
 "My dear Madam," he said, taking her hand in both 
 his own, "how can I thank you ? if you had seen my 
 little Phoebe more than once or twice it would be love 
 for her that moved you, but as it is only the rarest, most 
 generous kindliness of heart can prompt such an unselfish 
 action." 
 
 She thought that Owen was looking at her rather 
 strangely. 
 
 lie suggested once more having Charles Patton in case 
 of any unforeseen developments, and this time it was all 
 that Sally could do to control the natural irritability of 
 her temper. But finally it was decided that for the present 
 Patton should not be sent for. 
 
 "Phoebe seems indeed to have an almost morbid dis 
 like of the idea," said her father. "I agree with Mrs. Bryee 
 that as there is no danger at present we had better not 
 run the risk of agitating her unduly by his presence." 
 
 "Yes, yes that is best . . . I m sure of it," urged 
 Sally. 
 
 And suddenly, with all his faculty of intuition, Owen 
 felt convinced that there was something hidden and sin 
 ister in this strange eagerness of Sally to prevent a doc 
 tor from coming to Nelson s Gift that night. 
 
 He turned silently, and went out to mount The Clown, 
 a dark confusion of doubt, foreboding, grief, formless sus 
 picion whirling through his mind. 
 
 XIX 
 
 the eerie half-light of the retreating storm 
 * under wild witchlocks of ravelled cloud Owen rode 
 fast towards "World VEnd. Alwavs Phoebe s heart-rent
 
 120 WORLD S-END 
 
 moaning and her one wild cry rang in his ears. The mere 
 memory of that desolate cry shook his heart again. And 
 he recalled the fragile lightness of her body when he had 
 lifted her, and the touching helplessness of her little head 
 against his arm, and that thin, pale wrist swaying loose 
 so pitifully. Phoebe! little Phoebe so laughter-loving, 
 so childlike in many ways whence had she drawn the 
 source of such a grief? what tragedy had breathed on 
 her, blighting her bright carelessness and Sally how 
 strangely Sally had acted ! how her thin fingers had 
 gripped his arm it was because she did not wish him to 
 go for a doctor that she had gripped his arm like that 
 Why ? Why ? There was something here hidden, dark, un 
 natural it was as if Sally were in a plot with someone 
 were plotting to hide some fearful thing and from 
 him. He could not order his thoughts. They broke on 
 him from all sides, like evil creatures thrusting heads and 
 stings from crevices in an impassable wall. The only thing 
 that he felt clearly was the presence of something horri 
 ble and dark under the thick surface into which he could 
 not see. Again and again Phoebe s face came before him 
 as it had looked, stark and unconscious against his arm : 
 the sightless eyes, the little teeth just showing piteously 
 between the parted lips. Again and again he heard the 
 moaning, so desolate, so long drawn out, low and spent, 
 as of some small woodland thing caught in a springe. But 
 what what could have brought her to this desperate pass? 
 And not to have a doctor. Somehow he could not bring 
 himself to believe that Sally really thought a doctor should 
 not be sent for. But then, in that case, she had some rea 
 son. What could be her reason? Since Phoebe was ill 
 enough to make her think it necessary to spend the night 
 at Nelson s Gift why not a doctor? And why should 
 Sally care so much about her when she had only seen her 
 once or twice? Yes, "once or twice" was what the old 
 man had said. Sally was not impulsive or given to sud 
 den affections. Now she would stay all night with a girl 
 that she scarcely knew. Besides, she had said that Phoebe 
 was not really ill. Yet she was going tro spend the night 
 watching by her. 
 
 And more and more that feeling as of something sinister 
 and fateful, waiting to spring, grew and darkened the hori 
 zon of his mind; closed upon him in a smothering cloud 
 of obscure dread, of peril half-surmised, of doubt, of pain,
 
 WORLD S -END 121 
 
 of a sort of under-impulse of anger which made him wish 
 to take Sally s arms and turn her so that she must face 
 him, and compel her to give him the true reason for her 
 strange conduct. 
 
 He rode back to Nelson s Gift with his mood in no way 
 light rued, and went up himself to give Sally what he had 
 brought her. 
 
 She wished to take the hag through the half-open door, 
 but Owen said : 
 
 "Xo, please I want to see you." v 
 
 Then she came out hurriedly, closing the door behind 
 her. She was still very pale, and her eyes looked deeper 
 sunken in their dusky hollows. 
 
 "What is it, Owen? Please, don t keep me." 
 
 He looked straight into those restless eyes. 
 
 Why are you so bent on not having Patton, Sally? 5 
 
 She seemed to him to hold her breath for an instant. 
 Then she said quietly. 
 
 You heard what the girl s own father said." 
 
 "Yes but why do you wish it?" 
 
 "I think that/ is self-evident." 
 
 "I do m7t think so," said Owen. 
 
 "Please give me my things, Owen. Phoebe is quieter 
 when I am beside her. 
 
 Why should she be quieter when you are beside her ? 
 You are almost a stranger to her." 
 
 "I can t discuss that at a time like this, Owen. If you 
 will not give me the bag I must go back without it." 
 
 Owen took her gently by the arm. 
 
 "There is something here I don t understand," he said. 
 "You must explain it to me. Sally." 
 
 "You are acting very strangely at a time like this. Please 
 let me go. You are hurting my arm." 
 
 "No, Sally, I am holding you very lightly. But you 
 must clear things for me. Why are you staying here to 
 night? Why are you willing to take such a grave respon 
 sibility ? To lead that old man into thinking that a doctor 
 isn t needed? If anything dreadful should happen 
 
 Try as she might. Sally could not restrain the shudder 
 that ran through her at these words. "I must know what 
 is back of all this," said Owen, and his face that she only 
 knew as kindly, and pleasantly ironical, was hard as flint 
 
 "If you will let me go now, Owen, I will come down 
 later and talk with you."
 
 122 WORLD S-EXD 
 
 "You promise?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Then he released her arm, but when she had disappeare,d 
 into Phoebe s room he stood for some moments longer gaz 
 ing at the closed door, with brows drawn down, and lips 
 set. 
 
 When he went back to the library he found Mr. Nelsoa 
 leaning on a malacca stick by the window. He turned 
 as Owen entered and his face brightened. 
 
 "Patty has just brought me word that Phoebe is much 
 better," he said, "and now I am doubly glad to see that 
 you are safely returned. The sky looks very ominous. I 
 have been fearing that we might have a cloud-burst such as 
 kept Mr. Bryce here for the night about the first of May. 
 
 Owen, who was walking towards him, stopped short, 
 then moved forward again. 
 
 "I don t think we shall have a storm tonight, sir," he 
 said. "Besides, if you don t object, I shall spend the night 
 here in any case. That sofa will make a capital bed." 
 
 "I could not think of such a thing as letting you sleep 
 on a leather couch, Mr. Randolph. The room that Mr. 
 Bryce occupied is always kept in readiness for guests." 
 
 What the old gentleman was really anxious about was 
 supper. Would Patty be able to serve a presentable sup 
 per ? Were there eggs enough ? How would she manage 
 without Phoebe to direct her? 
 
 Owen had been gazing at the door of the closet where 
 Richard s picture of Phoebe was kept. Now as the old 
 gentleman s measured utterance ceased, he started. 
 
 "I will do just as you wish, sir, of course," he said. 
 
 "Even such small rest as my anxiety about my daugh 
 ter may leave me," rejoined Mr. Nelson, "would be en 
 tirely dispelled were I to think of you as sleeping on a 
 bare couch. But I see that you look towards your ne 
 phew s portrait. Would you care to see it again?" 
 
 "No " said Owen abruptly. "No . .. thank you. 
 
 I agree with you in thinking that it doesn t do Phoebe 
 justice. And what patience she must have had posing for 
 such an elaborate portrait. It must have taken quite a 
 long time. . . " 
 
 "Undoubtedly your nephew spent great pains upon it. 
 That the likeness is not more striking is certainly not due 
 to any lack of care on his part. For hours every day he 
 would paint with, the most undiminished ardour. On the
 
 W O II L D S - E X D 123 
 
 few occasions that I watched him at his work I was struck 
 by his great perseverance. I am quite unacquainted with 
 the methods of artists, but it struck me as both singular 
 and praiseworthy that so young a man should so untiringly 
 cover the same surface with different coats of paint, if 
 to take pains is genius, sir, your nephew is certainly a 
 genius. 
 
 Owen was standing at the window staring up at the sky, 
 which was now almost blended with the dark earth. Only 
 some fast gliding greyish blurs told where clouds were 
 scudding over the black abyss of air. "I hope Richard 
 didn t try your hospitality too far, Mr. Nelson," he said. 
 "He s apt to forget other things where art is concerned." 
 
 "On the contrary," said Phoebe s father, "it was a great 
 pleasure to have such an attractive youth, at Nelson s 
 Gift. He and Phoebe seemed to be very congenial com 
 panions. I believe it was a disappointment to her that 
 he could not finish it this summer. But she told me that 
 important business called him unexpectedly to New York, 
 the day after the storm if I remember rightly, or no, 
 it was the day after that." 
 
 "The first of May I think you said?" 
 
 "About then, or say; I recall that it was after 
 Phoebe s birthday, about the second week in May, I think. 
 \Ye missed the young man. He plays chess quite well for 
 a beginner. I won a game from him with considerable 
 difficulty on the evening that he stayed all night with us. 
 
 Owen s temples ached with the pressure from his quick 
 ened heart. He was like one who has been stunned for 
 a moment, and wakes to the pain of the blow. That in 
 tuition of his, swift and sure as a woman s, had leaped to 
 some appalling conclusions during the last ten minutes. 
 And yet and yet Phoebe! little Phoebe! Those clear, 
 childlike eyes. that lightly laughing mouth but here 
 reason stabbed with her cold blade Juliet had not so 
 passionate a mouth as Phoebe s Juliet who, from her 
 moonlit balcony, could demand his intentions of her lover 
 as calmly as her lady-mother might have done; whether 
 his "bent of love" were "honourable," his "purpose mar 
 riage"? "While Phoebe sickeningly sure was Owen, that, 
 shaken by the breath of love, Phoebe would never have 
 paused to question her lover s honour or the worthiness of 
 his intentions. 
 
 If what he feared in that dark glare of revelation cast
 
 124 WORLD S-END 
 
 by the old man s innocent garrulity, if what he shudder- 
 ingly feared were true, then no baser, more heartless, 
 more cowardly scoundrel lived than his nephew, Richard 
 Bryce. 
 
 And as controlling himself by an effort of sheer will, 
 he led the old man to ramble amiably on, he was putting 
 together, link by link, the fragile chain of circumstantial 
 evidence; the night spent at Nelson s Gift nearly two 
 months ago, the sudden departure of Richard within two 
 days after; the lie about "important business"; Phoebe s 
 look that morning when he met her driving from World s- 
 End; the news of Richard s sailing for the East, only re 
 ceived by his mother that very day; Sally s eagerness to 
 go again to Nelson s Gift in the afternoon; the anguish 
 of Phoebe in the wood; Sally s almost fierce determina 
 tion not to have a doctor. Like a scroll of some Satanic 
 scripture, unholy and convincing, the facts and their in 
 terpretation unrolled before him. 
 
 And Phoebe meantime, lying white and broken in her 
 bed with its blue-rose garlands, was thinking: 
 
 "There is no other way I must get my strength then 
 I must kill myself." 
 
 From under her heavy lids she watched his mother, sit 
 ting in her own little wicker chair against the blue denim 
 cushions that she had made herself. How tall and tired 
 and thin she looked, folded deep in her dressing-gown of 
 pale-blue crape, that made her sallow face seem dusky as 
 an Indian s. How straight those great black eyes stared 
 before her how like, how dreadfully like, his eyes they 
 were! And how the big jewels of her rings glittered in 
 the draughty candle-light where her hands were clasped 
 together upon her thin knees. Was she praying? Phoebe 
 shivered through all her spent nerves. If she were pray 
 ing it must be to some evil power, for those black eyes 
 might have been the eyes of Job s wife when she bade him 
 curse God and die. 
 
 His mother in her room. His mother, knowing all her 
 shame, ready to protect her in order that he might not 
 suffer the consequences of her shame. "I must kill myself 
 
 I must kill myself " she thought. "And I must do 
 
 it surely I must not be saved I must not make a mis 
 take." 
 
 Feverishly her thoughts quested, seeking the surest way. 
 There was no pistol in the house laudanum? She might
 
 WORLD S- END 125 
 
 take an overdose, and so fail of her aim. She swam too 
 well to drown herself she had "heard that people who 
 could swim did so in spite of their desire for death the 
 instant that the water was about them. Suddenly her 
 heart checked, then laboured painfully. She had thought 
 of it! She had thought of a sure way! In the store-room 
 was a quart of chloroform kept for emergencies on the 
 farm. She would make a sack of some stout material, 
 then with the quart of chloroform and her bath-sponge, 
 she would go far into the Mountain Woods very far, 
 where she could not be found for days. She would soak 
 the sponge in the chloroform, put it in the sack, then lie 
 down and fasten the sack tightly over her head. "But I 
 must get strong first. I must make her think I will mind 
 all that she says." 
 
 And from under her heavy lids, and thick, short lashes, 
 she watched Sally, sitting there so motionless in the little 
 wicker chair, with her black eyes smouldering darkly, and 
 her thin, jewelled fingers clasped on her thin knees. 
 
 XX 
 
 A FTER supper, which to Mr. Nelson s great relief was 
 ** excellent, though plain, the old gentleman pleaded so 
 earnestly to be allowed to see Phoebe, if only for a few 
 moments, that Sally told him he might go and sit by her 
 till she came back, if he would not talk to her or let her 
 talk to him. When he had gone upstairs, she turned to 
 her brother, saying: 
 
 "Now, Owen," and led the way into the green-panelled 
 room. 
 
 Sally, while she had sat brooding in Phoebe s wicker- 
 chair, had determined on her course of action. She knew 
 that the girl s secret would be as safe with Owen as though 
 buried in a depthless sea, and she had decided to tell him 
 that Phoebe had confided her tragic secret to her, and that 
 her lover w r as a Virginian whom she had known for some 
 years, and whose name she preferred not to tell, as he had 
 died suddenly, a day or two ago. This would account for 
 Phoebe s despair, and would also prevent Owen from tak 
 ing steps to discover the man s name and trying to force 
 him to marry Phoebe. But when she found herself alone
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 with Owen, and lifted her eyes with schooled calmness to 
 his face, she saw that the hard expression had left it and 
 that he only looked profoundly sad and rather older than 
 .usual. 
 
 I ve come to explain whatever you think necessary," 
 she said gently. 
 
 Thank you, Sally, he replied, but I ve been having a 
 long talk with the old man. Many things have become 
 clearer to me. I am sorry if I was abrupt just now. My 
 great anxiety and the shock of the whole thing must be 
 my excuse. Mr. Nelson tells me that aversion from 
 doctors comes to Phoebe directly from her mother. It s 
 a singular prejudice to inherit, but such things have no 
 rules. ..." 
 
 He was not looking at her as he said this, but at Phoebe s 
 grey kitten, which had sprung upon his knee and was 
 playing with the buttons of his waistcoat. Sally thanked 
 God that he had not been looking at her. The blood surged 
 into her face, and she felt her lips twitching in spite of her 
 efforts to control them, so violent was the reaction from 
 the most poignant dread to this unexpected relief. 
 
 She was silent just long enough to get her voice per 
 fectly under command, then said quietly : 
 
 "I think that you will see for yourself tomorrow how 
 much better Phoebe is. She is quite composed now, and 
 drank some milk and wine I mixed for her very obediently 
 and sweetly." 
 
 "Yes, she has a lovely nature," said Owen a little 
 hoarsely. 
 
 It was natural, he felt, that Sally should wish to keep 
 from him the horror of Eichard s act, yet that she should 
 set herself deliberately to deceive him after all these years 
 of close companionship cut him to the heart. 
 
 "Shall you stay here tonight?" asked Sally, dreading 
 silence. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Nelson has offered to put me up. And if there 
 should be any change for the worse, if you should decide 
 to have a doctor, after all, I can get Patton more quickly 
 than a farm-hand on some old plug could." 
 
 That s very, very kind of you, Owen. It will be a great 
 comfort to feel that you re in the house." 
 
 Owen laid the squirming kitten on its back in one of his 
 big hands, and stroked its little pear-shaped stomach, while 
 it caught his forefinger in both paws and pretended to
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 127 
 
 bite it. "Do 3-011 think that I can see Phoebe tomorrow?" 
 he asked, still with his eyes on the kitten. 
 
 "I ... well ..." hesitated Sally. "It might excite 
 her too much. But if she wants to see you, . . . perhaps." 
 
 "AYe re great friends, Phoebe and I," said he, and again 
 his voice was a little hoarse. 
 
 "Yes ... I think you might see her, as she knows you 
 so well," hurried Sally, anxious to conciliate him in every 
 way possible. "It might divert her from thinking too 
 much of her own . . . feelings." She had been on the point o 
 saying "troubles," and bit her lip, glancing sharply at 
 him, but the kitten still claimed his attention. 
 
 "Thanks. I wish very much to see the child. But don t 
 you think the old gentleman has been with her long 
 enough ? Hadii t you better go back now ? 
 
 Sally rose with alacrity, and the brother and sister 
 clasped hands for good night. 
 
 "If you need me, I shall be in the room at the head of 
 the stairs," said Owen, and as he said this it seemed to 
 Sally that a shadow passed over his face. But the next 
 instant she decided that the strain of the past three or four 
 hours had made her fanciful. All the way upstairs she 
 kept saying in her heart, "Thank God! Thank God!" 
 After all, he was not really suspicious, only upset by the 
 shock. And she had a wild longing to get to some corner 
 quite by herself, where she could ease the stricture in her 
 throat by a fit of weeping. 
 
 The next morning, while she was taking her coffee seated 
 by Phoebe s bed, she said to her : 
 
 "My child, you had better call me Cousin Sally ; it will 
 seem more natural if you are going away with me for a 
 long trip. It will explain our relations clearly." 
 
 "Yes, Cousin Sally," said Phoebe obediently. 
 
 "And, Phoebe. I want you to try to be as quiet and com 
 posed as you can. I am really your friend. I want you 
 to lean on me." 
 
 "Yes . . . thank you, Cousin Sally," said Phoebe. She 
 wished to please, to inspire confidence, so that Sally should 
 not be afraid to leave her to herself, while they were pre 
 paring to go away. She dreaded more than anything that 
 Sally should insist on taking her back to "World s-End, 
 and so interfere with her plan about the chloroform. But 
 even that should not stop her. She would kill herself; 
 though to accomplish it she had to leap from the train over
 
 128 WORLD S-END 
 
 some high trestle or embankment on her way to the sea 
 side. 
 
 Sally rose and put down the little tray on which the 
 coffee had been served. Then she came back and seated 
 herself on the low bed, taking Phoebe s hand in both hers. 
 
 "Listen, my child," she said. 
 
 "Yes," said Phoebe, looking up at her wearily, but 
 submissively. 
 
 "I want you to keep this thought before you. It will 
 give you strength. I am determined that Richard shall 
 marry you when he returns from the East. I have a strong 
 will, Phoebe. You can rest assured that Richard will 
 marry you." 
 
 "Yes," said Phoebe again, but she was thinking now 
 that no will on earth was so strong as the will in her 
 which had determined that she would die rather than live 
 after the wrong that she had suffered, or become the wife 
 of a man who had treated her as Richard had done. There 
 was no confusion now in her feeling towards him. She 
 hated him with a hatred in direct inverse ratio to what had 
 been her passionate love. She hated him so utterly and so 
 bitterly that those black eyes which resembled his, and 
 which looked very kindly at her this morning, were loath 
 some to her. When Sally touched her with her hot, thin 
 hands it was by the supremest effort that she restrained 
 herself from shrinking physically. 
 
 "Now," said Sally, pleased with the girl s perfect docil 
 ity, "we understand each other. I feel that we can be good 
 friends. I confess that at first I felt very bitterly towards 
 you, but I hope I m a just woman. When I had thought 
 things over I saw that the chief wrongdoing was Richard s 
 though it was a dreadful, dreadful thing to happen, 
 Phoebe and may ruin Richard s career. Unless, per 
 haps," she added, looking at the girl keenly, "you will let 
 yourself be guided by me in the future, as you are doing 
 now." 
 
 "I am sorry. ... I will try to please you," said 
 Phoebe. 
 
 "Then there may be hope for us all three," said Sally. 
 "It looks black enough now, but there may be hope." 
 
 Phoebe said nothing this time. She looked at Sally s 
 face, which had grown absent and almost forbidding in its 
 dark gravity, and for the first time she wondered, "What 
 does she mean to do with . . . the child ?
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 129 
 
 A fierce, new feeling leaped to life in Phoebe. That poor 
 little child would never be born, she was sure ; yet if it 
 were to be, through some mischance of fate, did this woman 
 think that she, or any other being, would have the strength 
 to take it from her? 
 
 Under the smooth bedclothes she clenched her hands, 
 with their broad, strong little palms and slight, pointed 
 fingers, while the blood stormed into her white face. 
 
 Sally noticed the bright flush and, drawing the bed 
 clothes a little higher, said : 
 
 But we re talking too much for your strength. Lie 
 quite still now and try to take a nap." And, going over 
 to the window, she seated herself again in the wicker chair, 
 with the portfolio from her dressing-bag upon her knees, 
 and began a long letter to Richard, into which she poured 
 some of the pent bitterness that was corroding her. 
 
 When Sally had returned to Phoebe the night before, 
 Owen settled the old gentleman comfortably with his manu 
 scripts, and said that he would have a pipe outside. 
 
 He walked for a long time up and down the little flagged 
 path that divided Phoebe s garden from the lower lawn. 
 In the warm darkness he could hear the regular, crisp, 
 tearing sound of a horse grazing. It was "Killdee," who 
 had been turned on the lawn for the night. Owen, who 
 had handled her when a tiny, tip-toe foal, called softly, 
 and with a "quhirr" of inquiry she ceased grazing. then, 
 after a short sniffing halt, came up to him. He took her 
 gently by the forelock, and played with her soft muzzle, 
 Phoebe s horse, care-free and mildly lawless in the sum 
 mer night, a creature blithely beyond reach of moral ques 
 tions, while Phoebe herself lay shattered because unwit 
 tingly she had snapped one of the invisible bonds that 
 hold in place a code of ethics. lie sighed heavily, releasing 
 the mare, who returned to her grazing, moving slowly as 
 she cropped. 
 
 And walking to and fro, his pipe, long smoked out, still 
 between his teeth, Owen pondered with dull pain on the 
 dreadful situation which had been revealed to him. 
 
 He had led Sally to believe that his suspicions were 
 allayed for several reasons; foremost was his determination 
 neither to share nor to discuss Phoebe s pitiful secret with 
 any one. That he and Sally should sit down calmly to talk 
 over the plight of the young girl seemed to him revolting. 
 And he thought of Phoebe as a poor, little prisoner of hope,
 
 130 WORLD S-END 
 
 and Sally as her tolerant but fiercely resolved gaoler, risk 
 ing everything in order to shield the son who had brought 
 dishonour upon her. Somehow it seemed to him pathetic 
 and wretched beyond words that the vivid, wilful young 
 creature he remembered should now be merely a bit of 
 broken jetsam in Sally s thin, harsh grasp. And what did 
 Sally intend doing? What were her plans? . . . The 
 child ... he shivered in the warm air . . . the child, . . . 
 little Phoebe s child, . . . what had she planned to do 
 with that? Here was a dreadful question. A something, 
 twined with the roots of his being, thrilled painfully at the 
 thought that her child might be taken from Phoebe . . . 
 cast into the convenient deep of anonymity. That, he felt 
 sure, was what Sally would wish to do. But it should 
 never be. Only how to prevent it ? How to stand between 
 Phoebe and these terrible consequences without telling 
 Sally that he had divined all ? How to shield Phoebe with 
 out searing her with the fact of his knowledge ? He seemed 
 to be in an impasse, black and thick as the night and im 
 penetrable as a jungle. Yet there must be a clue he 
 would come upon it if only he groped patiently enough. 
 
 To and fro he walked, to and fro, and the sound of Kill- 
 dee" grazing came as regular as heart-beats. 
 
 At ten o clock he returned to the house and lighted the 
 old man s bedroom candle for him, escorting him to his 
 door on the way to his own room. 
 
 As he entered the "guest chamber" he stood with his can 
 dle held low, looking about him with repulsion. Richard had 
 slept in this room on ... that night. He turned with a 
 shudder from the bed with its honey-comb spread and 
 square pillows, and, opening wide the shutters as Richard 
 had done, sat down by the window. The same scent of 
 brown Windsor soap that had harassed Richard stole about 
 him. 
 
 He sat frowning, his arms folded tightly, gazing out at 
 the downy blackness. As soon as the house was quiet he 
 would go and lie on the sofa in the library 
 
 The next morning about ten o clock Sally returned to 
 Phoebe s room after a walk with Owen in the garden. 
 
 "Owen wants very much to see you, Phoebe. Do you 
 care to see him? Are you strong enough?" 
 
 The colour rushed into Phoebe s face, then back again, 
 leaving her painfully white. She closed her eyes for a 
 second, and one corner of her mouth trembled.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 131 
 
 "Don t trouble if you feel too weak. Owen will under 
 stand perfectly," said Sally kindly, relieved to think that 
 the girl would not be able to see him, after all. 
 
 Phoebe opened her eyes quickly, and they were bright 
 and scared like the eyes of a bird that one holds, no matter 
 how discreetly, in one s hand, . . . but there was a little, 
 timid half smile on her lips, touching in its wistfulness. 
 
 "I d love to see Cousin Owen," she said. 
 
 Sally went to fetch him. 
 
 Owen came quickly, his dark face eager and brimming 
 with tenderness, though he had tried hard to compose it to 
 an ordinary expression on entering. His big figure in his 
 crash riding clothes seemed to fill the little room. When he 
 saw Phoebe s face, so childish and wan, between the bright 
 braids that Sally had plaited afresh that morning and laid 
 out over the pillow, tears sprang to his eyes in spite of him 
 self. 
 
 "Little Phoebe . . . dear child," he said, drawing up a 
 chair and taking the pale little hand that she extended 
 silently in both his big brown ones. 
 
 Sally had seated herself by the window and was gazing 
 out at Hollybrook Wood. 
 
 Phoebe lay and smiled at Owen, but her lips quivered 
 so that she could not speak at first. lie just sat quietly, 
 stroking the slight hand that he held and smiling back at 
 her. 
 
 "How . . . how is Wizzy?" she managed finally. 
 
 "Wizzy is in fine feather. "Would you like him to call 
 on you ? 
 
 "Yes," said Phoebe. Somehow Wizzy seemed the only 
 natural, friendly thought that had come to her in long, 
 dark ages. "Will you bring him some time, Cousin Owen? 
 
 5 t 
 
 This very afternoon, if you like, said Owen. He was 
 wondering why that little peak of soft hair on her lovely 
 forehead should seem to him the most touching thing 
 he had ever looked at. Where the heavy curves turned 
 back from her face there was a little dusting of golden 
 down that lay on her white brow like pollen on a lily 
 leaf. 
 
 "A child . . . just a child herself," thought Owen, his 
 heart wrung within him, . . . and he thought of Eichard 
 with a throe of rage. 
 
 "Saliy is going to stay with you another night, and
 
 132 WORLD S-END 
 
 David can bring Wizzy in the trap that fetches her some 
 things that she needs." 
 
 Did he fancy it, or did Phoebe s slight fingers cling 
 closer to his as he mentioned that Sally would stop an 
 other night with her ? . . . But she only said : 
 
 "Yes, Cousin Sally is so kind," and she saw that Sally 
 glanced approvingly at her when she spoke of her as 
 "Cousin Sally" to Owen. 
 
 "We must be sure, though, that Jimmy Toots is safely 
 shut up," said Owen. "Wizzy has a wholesome terror of 
 Mr. Toots." 
 
 "He s in his cage all the time now," said Phoebe, a little 
 sadly, Owen thought. "He was very naughty and bit 
 Cousin Salty. He s very jealous." 
 
 Poor Jimmy ! said Owen. Where is he ? " 
 
 "There," said Phoebe, pointing. 
 
 "Can t we have him out for a bit, Sally?" asked her 
 brother. " I ll watch him. 
 
 "He s really very savage with me, Owen." 
 
 "Oh, but he likes me. ... I ll watch him," said Owen, 
 and getting up he released the crow, who with an exultant 
 caw flew straight to the foot of Phoebe s bed, fluffed out all 
 his feathers with a vigorous shake, then smoothed himself 
 to a glossy sleekness, and, hopping down, began to walk 
 solemnly up the slender body outlined by the Marseilles 
 quilt. He nestled down finally against her cheek, and be 
 gan to nibble her ear. 
 
 "Dear Jimmy," said Phoebe, stroking him. "Dear 
 Jimmy," and then suddenly, without warning, she began 
 to cry bitterly. 
 
 "Don t . . . don t," pleaded Owen, wiping away the 
 tears with his big handkerchief, which almost hid her little 
 face from view. 
 
 "Sally won t let me stay if you cry, dear. She won t 
 let me come again. . . . Please, dear, please." 
 
 Phoebe caught the big, gentle hand, and held it tight 
 against her face. She checked her tears by a violent effort, 
 but he felt the brush of her thick lashes against his 
 palm as she blinked away the blinding drops. His heart 
 ached with pity. He would have liked to gather her 
 up against his breast and comfort her as a mother does a 
 child. 
 
 "I think you d really better go now, Owen," came Sal 
 ly s quiet voice from the window.
 
 W O II L D S - E N D 133 
 
 Phoebe s eyes were closed. She made no sign to detain 
 him. 
 
 "I ll come again tomorrow, dear," he said, rising. 
 "Please," he heard her whisper. 
 
 XXI 
 
 day following was a Tuesday, and, as Mary arrived 
 Wednesday afternoon, Sally was obliged to return to 
 World s-End to receive her. However, the girl was so 
 much better that she felt no anxiety in leaving her for a 
 little while, though she was slightly nervous, too, because 
 Owen had said that he intended to remain at Nelson s Gift 
 until evening, in order "to cheer Phoebe up a little and 
 see that Wizzy and Jimmy Toots did not come to clips. 
 
 Phoebe came down at nine o clock, and the exertion of 
 dressing had brought the "two little blushes" to her cheeks 
 again. To Owen her eyes looked fearfully large and 
 bright, but Sally seemed to think that she was very well 
 for the time being, and went off, promising to bring Mary 
 back with her on Thursday. 
 
 When the carriage had driven off with Sally, Owen 
 turned to Phoebe, who was seated listlessly on one of the 
 hall chairs, and said : 
 
 "Now, little cousin, don t you think you might come out 
 into your garden if I gave you my arm?" 
 
 "Not the garden ..." said Phoebe, and he saw a little 
 shiver run through her. 
 
 "Into the air, at all events," he coaxed. "It s such a 
 wonderful morning. We ll take Jimmy Toots or Wizzy, 
 whichever you prefer of those two implacables and go 
 under the big tulip-tree near the rose-hedge. Won t you?" 
 
 "We ll take clear Wizzy," said Phoebe, "he s so un 
 happy when he isn t with you." 
 
 Owen drew her hand through his arm, and they went 
 slowly out together into the serene morning, so fresh and 
 breeze-stirred for July. "You must have some cushions," 
 he said when they reached the tulip-tree, and he went back 
 to the house for them. 
 
 Phoebe sat on the warm, sun-burnt grass, and leaned 
 against the great bole, looking after him. The colour burnt 
 deeper in her cheeks, then left them wholly. She had
 
 134 WORLD S-END 
 
 thought, How kind, how kind he is ! "Would he be kind 
 to me ... if he knew?" 
 
 "There! "What do you mean by getting pale again?" 
 exclaimed Owen, as he came back with the cushions of the 
 library sofa and made her sit upon one while he tucked 
 the other behind her. 
 
 "I wish I could take you away with me to some lovely 
 place in France or Italy and pet you into health again," 
 he continued, looking at her with his affectionate hazel 
 eyes. "You would answer beautifully to spoiling, I m 
 sure. 
 
 This was almost too much for Phoebe . . . the contrast 
 of what he had said with what he would surely say if ... 
 he knew. She drooped her head and played with a stalk 
 of grass without answering. "Poor little child! Poor 
 little, desolate, helpless child ! thought Owen, divining her 
 simple thoughts. 
 
 He, like Sally, was resolved that Richard should marry 
 her, . . . and yet, ... as he looked at that tender, droop 
 ing face with the delicate fire of youth all quenched, when 
 he thought of the man who had done this and of the base 
 ness and artificiality of Richard s nature, ... it seemed 
 to him that Phoebe s fate as Richard s wife would be 
 even more deplorable than it was at present; and sud 
 denly there sprang up in him a sharp revulsion from the 
 thought of handing her over bound by legal ties to her 
 seducer. 
 
 There is something wrong with us all, he thought bit 
 terly. "Here is a beautiful young creature about to be 
 come a mother, and instead of an exulting reverence we 
 feel shame and pity, just because the law has not set its 
 approval upon her act. She has only followed the instinct 
 of a dryad in spring-time, . . . and she sits there, dis 
 graced, wretched, her life in ruins." 
 
 Phoebe glanced up, feeling the spell of his eyes that 
 dwelt on her so earnestly, so thoughtfully. The colour 
 waved again over her white face. "Why are you so good 
 to me, Cousin Owen?" she asked, with a touch of her old 
 impulsiveness. 
 
 Because I m fond of you, Phoebe, he answered gently, 
 "and because you are very sweet and lovable." 
 
 Phoebe put up her hands to her face, and this gesture 
 twisted Owen s heart-strings. 
 
 He grew pale, and then he, too, gave way to impulse.
 
 WORLD S-END 135 
 
 He put his hand gently over the little hands that hid her 
 face. 
 
 "I m very fond of you. dear," he said again, "and noth 
 ing, nothing in all the world, . . . nothing that you or 
 anyone else might do, could ever change my affection for 
 you." 
 
 "Oh, no ... no ..." wailed the girl from behind her 
 sheltering fingers, and it was like a faint echo of that ter 
 rible cry in the wood, which still haunted him. 
 
 "Nothing, Phoebe," he repeated firmly; "absolutely 
 nothing. " 
 
 Suddenly Phoebe caught his hand in both hers, and held 
 it to her breast. Her wild, wide eyes gazed at him pite- 
 ously. 
 
 "I m afraid ..." she w r hispered. "I m so afraid. 
 
 ; i 
 
 Owen was startled. She so evidently spoke aloud, with 
 out knowing that she had spoken. 
 
 "Of what, dear?" he asked gently. 
 
 She still stared at him, . . . then her look broke, 
 dropped away from his. 
 
 "I ... I was just . . . thinking," she faltered. 
 
 "Well, you mustn t think too much. You haven t quite 
 recovered from that faint in the woods. Shall I tell you 
 some stories of my travels, as Othello told Desdemona? 
 ... I m big and brown enough to play the Moor." 
 
 "Yes . . . please," said Phoebe. 
 
 So he leaned on his elbow, while AVizzy lay in a blissful 
 demi-doze against his adored boot, only rousing now and 
 then to have a snap at the cloud of gnats that swarmed 
 near. He told her of Hungary, and Eussia, and Turkestan, 
 and of strange Punjabi customs, and of how he had been 
 tempted to shoot big game in India, but had desisted be 
 cause of the look he had once seen in a dying stag s eyes, 
 so that he determined never again to destroy a living 
 creature. And here Phoebe looked at him through sudden 
 tears and said : 
 
 "I think you have the most beautiful heart hi the 
 world." Owen stopped short, hot to his ears. It 
 seemed just as though he had been making a bid for her 
 admiration, but really he had only been moved by the 
 desire to tell her something which he knew would fit her 
 mood. 
 
 "Don t, Phoebe," he said boyishly; "you make me
 
 136 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 ashamed to have told you. Most decent men feel like that 
 nowadays. 
 
 "The best, kindest heart in the whole world," said 
 Phoebe again, with a touch of her old wilfulness and smil 
 ing- slightly through her tears. "If all men were . . ." 
 She broke off, and again her face whitened and drooped 
 toward her young breast. 
 
 Owen plunged afresh into his traveller s tales. After 
 an hour, noticing how worn she looked all at once, he said 
 that she had better go and lie down until dinner time, and 
 he took both her hands, pulling her gently up from the 
 grass, and then, keeping one upon his arm as when they 
 had come out, led her back to the house. 
 
 When he went out to mount The Clown late that after 
 noon, Phoebe followed him. She was flushed again now, 
 and, her eyes, darkly glowing, had a curious, fateful 
 look that disturbed him. She stood silent while he 
 mounted ; then, coming close, laid her hand on The Clown s 
 neck. Her dark, burning eyes were fixed upon his face. 
 
 "I want to thank you," she said. "I want to thank 
 you, and I don t know how. . . . But it s all here. ..." 
 She put her hands passionately to her breast. "Please, 
 Cousin Owen, always remember that it s here . . . here in 
 my heart. ..." 
 
 "Why, Phoebe dear, protested Owen, trying to take it 
 lightly, "one would think I was off for a long journey!" 
 
 "No ... I just wanted to say it," she answered with 
 her wistful smile. 
 
 Owen rode off with a troubled, anxious feeling that he 
 could not account for. The nearer he got to World s-End 
 the more this feeling increased. 
 
 Suddenly, under an intuitive impulse not to be denied, 
 when he was in sight of the very gates, he pulled The 
 Clown s head sharply round, and rode back to Nelson s 
 Gift at a smart pace. 
 
 When he reached it he swung down, tied The Clown to a 
 bough, and rapped with his crop-handle on the front door. 
 
 Lily came sauntering, a mild surprise in her bovine eyes 
 as she saw who it was.* 
 
 Can I speak to Miss Phoebe a moment ? asked Owen. 
 
 Miss Phoebe, she done gone out." 
 
 Where?" 
 
 I dunno, suh." 
 
 When?"
 
 WORLD S-END 137 
 
 " Bout ten minutes ago, I reckon." 
 
 Owen turned abruptly, and ran up the sloping lawn 
 at the side of the house, from whence one had a pretty clear 
 view of the surrounding fields. He looked in vain at first; 
 then he saw her, a little figure in a long, dark cape, moving 
 steadily up a grassy shoulder towards Idler s Mountain. 
 His heart in his throat, he knew not why, he set out after 
 her, still running. 
 
 She was walking with her head bent, evidently absorbed 
 jn her own thoughts, for she did not look round at the 
 noise of pursuing feet, and when, at last close to her, he 
 called "Phoebe!" she started with a wild cry, and some 
 thing that she had been carrying under her cape fell at 
 her feet and broke. The next instant the air was full of 
 the dead-sweet, pungent odour of chloroform. 
 
 Phoebe, white as death, her hands to her heart, trem 
 bling from head to foot, stood wildly staring at him above 
 the broken bottle. 
 
 "Phoebe!" cried Owen; then, as the truth rushed on 
 him, "Oh, Phoebe!" he cried again, and snatched her 
 roughly up in his arms, as though snatching her from some 
 hideous peril. 
 
 The girl struggled desperately to speak with coherence. 
 Even in this hour of unexpected detection she clung madly 
 to her purpose. She must mislead him, beguile him in 
 some way. If she did not, they would never trust her alone 
 again, . . . she would never be able to escape. 
 
 "I was ... I was ... I was going, ..." she stam 
 mered painfully. 
 
 Owen set her gently down, keeping his arm about her. 
 He was whiter now than she was. "Yes, dear, yes? . . . 
 "Well?" he said, trying to follow her mood. 
 
 "I was going ... to take it ... for a horse that . . . 
 that broke his leg. A horse up ... up in the mountain." 
 
 A profound instinct told Owen to let her think him de 
 ceived. 
 
 " Well, dear, don t worry. . . . We can get some more, " 
 he said, soothing her. "I m sorry I gave you such a start, 
 but I just remembered something I wanted to tell you." 
 His brain worked like lightning. I thought perhaps that 
 while you were still feeling so weak you would rather not 
 see Mary for a few days. So I just turned back to tell you 
 that I could manage it perfectly for you without hurting 
 Mary s feelings."
 
 138 WORLD S-END 
 
 "Thank you. ..." whispered the girl. 
 
 She could scarcely stand upon her feet, even with his 
 arm round her. Suddenly she clung to him with all her 
 might, clutching him with both hands, pressing her face 
 against his breast. "Oh, I m afraid . . . I m afraid . . ." 
 she stammered. "Don t leave me! . . . Don t let her take 
 me. . . . You are . . . are . . . the only . . . the only one 
 
 I m not afraid of. Don t leave me . . . don t leave me. 
 ? j 
 
 Holding the convulsed figure close against him, . . . 
 pressing her head to him with a hand on the thick, loosened 
 hair, . . . shivering with pity and a sick dread of what 
 might have been had he not turned back, . . . Owen felt 
 suddenly within him a wild light such as breaks sometimes 
 through the blackest storm. It blinded him for a moment, 
 . . . shook all his manhood with its sudden, appalling 
 brightness of solution. Then, bending his head close to 
 hers, he said : 
 
 "I ll never leave you, Phoebe, if you wish it. Listen, 
 dear, . . . don t be frightened. Could you . . . Will you 
 marry me, Phoebe?" 
 
 Clinging to him closer than ever, her little fingers 
 clenched in the stuff of his coat, she went on pleading des 
 perately, Don t leave me ! ... Don t leave me ! " She 
 had not taken in a word of what he had said. And Owen, 
 dreading the consequences of this frantic reaction from 
 one ghastly terror to another, . . . the recoil from the ter 
 ror of death to the terror of life, . . . soothed her as best 
 he could, half lifting her from the ground in his effort to 
 give physical support to her poor body, shaken as by an 
 ague with throes of unreasoning fear. 
 
 Little by little, coaxing, scolding gently now and then 
 as with a panic-stricken child, he got her to a fallen log, 
 and seating himself upon it, with Phoebe still clinging to 
 him, held her against his side and smoothed the tangled 
 hair away from her wet forehead. She grew quite still 
 after a few minutes, catching her breath convulsively now 
 and then, like a child after a fit of sobbing. And the little 
 face, so white, so piteous, thrown back in abandonment 
 upon his arm, with closed eyelids quivering like the wings 
 of birds clumsily shot and dying painfully in helpless ter 
 ror, moved Owen as nothing had moved him since that far- 
 off day of his mother s burial. Love and pity in their 
 purest forms filled him as he looked down at Phoebe s
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 139 
 
 wan face and smoothed away from it the rich hair so 
 strangely contrasting in its vivid brilliancy and vigorous, 
 super-abundant life. 
 
 He did not reason about what he meant to do. It came 
 as an overpowering instinct, the instinct to lift this lovely, 
 stricken child out of the dark waters that were submerg 
 ing her into the safety of his love and tenderness. And 
 even through his immense pity he felt a leap of exultation 
 as he thought how he could change all for her, . . . rescue 
 her from her own fears, from Sally, from the dastard who 
 had betrayed her, from fate itself, . . . could set her in 
 a sure refuge, and give her, if not happiness, at least peace 
 and, in time, content. And, as he was very human, the 
 thought also flared through him, "In time . . . perhaps 
 love." But he shook this thought angrily from him, stung 
 by the consciousness of a certain baseness that seemed al 
 ways to mingle with the highest human motives. Yet she 
 was made for love had he the right, taking advantage of 
 her extremity, to shut her forever in the cold house of 
 grateful affection ? And at the thought of her gratitude a 
 coldness flowed through his uplifted mood. Long years 
 spent with a wife who gave him gratitude. . . . And 
 Phoebe s was a passionately grateful nature. . . . And he 
 was a man to whom tepidity in such relations had always 
 seemed revolting. What if he should come to love her with 
 that force of passion which he knew well was latent in him? 
 The future, like a great threatening form, drew close and 
 thrust aside the present. But then he looked down again 
 at Phoebe, and all doubts gave way before the appeal of 
 her unconscious face, the helpless weight of her spent 
 body against his breast. 
 
 "Phoebe dear," he said, when he thought that she had 
 recovered enough to understand him, "I want you to lis 
 ten to me quietly. You will, won t you, dear?" 
 
 For answer she lifted her heavy lids, and looked up at 
 him, and the trust in those dark eyes thrilled his heart with 
 something more than love, deeper than pity. 
 
 "You trust me, don t you, Phoebe?" 
 
 She groped for his hand, her eyes still on his, and 
 quickly, before he guessed what she would do, kissed it 
 with a little humble kiss, cold as ice. 
 
 Owen flushed, and tears sprang to his eyes. 
 
 "Could you trust yourself quite to me, dear? ... I am 
 far, far older than you, but I would be very good to you,
 
 140 WORLD S-END 
 
 little Phoebe. If you would be my wife" his heart 
 seemed to pause in spite of his absolute decision I would 
 take you away with me and make you well again." 
 
 A wild, faint smile stirred the little face. Phoebe 
 thought that her friend was jesting with her to divert her 
 from her suffering. 
 
 "No ... no ... Phoebe ..." he said, holding her 
 tighter, "don t smile. ... I am in earnest. ... I want 
 you to let me marry you. ... I want to make you well 
 and happy again. Don t you think you could be happy 
 with me if you tried very hard, Phoebe dear?" 
 
 And this time he smiled at her in his turn. She stared 
 up at him with wide eyes, in which was sheer amaze 
 ment, then dread again. Suddenly she struggled to rise, 
 and he loosed his arms, leaving her quite free. 
 
 "I don t want you, dear, unless you want to come to 
 me," he said gently. 
 
 Phoebe s lips parted, but no words would come. She 
 sank beside him, and hid her face against his knee. Her 
 long hair fell over her just as in pictures of the repentant 
 Magdalene. Owen frowned, and gathered it from about 
 her hidden face. And suddenly a wild hope leaped in him. 
 If she would only confide in me. ... If she would only 
 tell me, then all would be clear and simple." But the next 
 instant he felt that this hope was folly. Always lenient to 
 human weakness in others, always moved by a passion of 
 pity before the pitiful, that disarming chivalrie tender 
 ness of his feeling for Phoebe made it impossible for him 
 to bring stern codes to bear on her ; he, the man, could only 
 feel how little and helpless and wronged she was. Who 
 could expect such a child to lay bare to the man who had 
 just done her the greatest honour in his power the fact of 
 her own dishonour ? Who could expect her to shut the last 
 door of escape with her own hands. Besides, young and 
 childish as she was, there was in her that gift of passionate 
 gratitude which might prevent her from accepting his 
 offer, if she knew that compassion had prompted it. And 
 yet ... he felt that it would be a triumphantly beautiful 
 thing if she could force herself to tell him all. 
 
 Kneeling there with her face hidden against his knee, 
 Phoebe seemed to herself to be rushing round and round 
 between high walls in utter, vacant darkness. This must 
 be one of the wild, confused dreams that had troubled her 
 so sorely of late. It was not true, of course. Perhaps she
 
 WORLD S-EXD 141 
 
 had really taken the chloroform, after all, and was dying, 
 and this was one of the dreams that came with death. She 
 had heard people say that chloroform gives strange, 
 queerly real dreams. 
 
 But presently Owen s quiet voice breaking through the 
 tumult of her thoughts made her quite sure somehow that 
 it was not in a dream that he spoke to her. 
 
 "I love you very dearly, Phoebe darling," it said. 
 
 The blinding truth ! He loved her ... he wanted to 
 marry her . . . Phoebe began to tremble with a new trem 
 bling, and suddenly the bitter tears came. 
 
 "I can t ... I can t. ..." she whispered so low that 
 he could not make out the words. 
 
 Owen bent over and lifted her to his side again. 
 
 "Will you, dear?" he said, and, as on the day when she 
 had begun to weep under "Jimmy Toots " caresses, he 
 took out his big handkerchief and wiped away the tears 
 that made all her white little face glisten as with rain. 
 
 "No, no ... I can t . . . You wouldn t want me if 
 ... no ... no ... I love you too much. ..." 
 
 "Dear heart, that s an odd reason for not marrying 
 me." 
 
 "Oh, I can t ... I can t ... I can t," she kept pite- 
 ously repeating. 
 
 Are you afraid of me, dear?" 
 
 Oh, no . . . no . . ." 
 
 You said just now that you loved me." 
 
 Ah, I do! ... I do!" 
 Then Phoebe . . .?" 
 
 I can t let you marry me ... I ... I ... no one is 
 worthy to be your wife." 
 
 "Dear child, that is very sweet nonsense, but it is non 
 sense. Look, dear, this is my mother s engagement ring. 
 If you ll lot me I ll put it on your finger now." 
 
 He slipped from his watch chain the little ring of old 
 green enamel, with its bands of brilliants and emeralds set 
 like roses, and held it towards her. "It will just fit, I 
 think," he said, smiling very tenderly into her scared eyes, 
 where a sort of doubtful, troubled hope was beginning to 
 shine. "My mother had little hands like yours, dear." 
 
 This ring seemed to Phoebe like the wonderful talisman 
 of legend. Once on her hand, all the world would be trans 
 formed. She sat gazing at it, her tears checked, her heart 
 beating wildly. She dared not ... it would be dreadful,
 
 142 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 wicked beyond words, to put on his mother s ring ... to 
 let him marry her . . . her of all the world. She dared 
 not. She would not do this wicked, wicked thing . . . and 
 yet, there on that brown palm so lovingly extended to her, 
 lay the magic that would turn dishonour into honour. a 
 world of menace into a world of safety. His wife . . .his 
 wife . . . Owen Randolph s wife . . . safe, shielded, loved, 
 cherished. Then suddenly a little voice, fine as a hair, be 
 gan speaking as it were within her brain: "You forget," 
 said this tiny, piercing voice, for surely it was not herself 
 thinking "you forget your Cousin Owen does not look 
 on such faults as yours as the world looks. Don t you re 
 member how kindly he spoke of that poor farm-girl wbo 
 was betrayed? Yes yes. Remember that. Ila doesn t 
 condemn sins such as yours as the world does, lie spoke 
 pityingly of poor Jessie forgivingly. // lie knew all he 
 would surely forgive you. Why tell him to give him pain, 
 when he would forgive you in any case ? . . . " 
 
 On and on went this voice, and Phoebe listened to it 
 like one tranced, her eyes upon the little ring in which 
 lay salvation. And now the voice melted into her own 
 thought. . . . "He would forgive me if he knew. . . . 
 Why hurt him by telling him? . . . lie would forgive 
 me. . . . He would forgive me. ..." 
 
 In the wild fever and confusion of her mind she over 
 looked the most vital point of all the terrible fact that, in 
 consenting to marry Owen, she would be consenting to his 
 belief that her child would be also his. Yes, strange as 
 it may seem, in her bewilderment and torture this dreadful 
 consequence of her possible yielding escaped her altogether. 
 But she thought of Sally s black, resolute eyes . . . and 
 her heart shook within her . . . Richard s face flashed be 
 fore her, and shame dissolved her. She threw herself on 
 the ground near his feet and broke into a storm of sob 
 bing. 
 
 Owen lifted her again. He felt that the time had come 
 to check these rending outbursts of emotion. "Phoebe," 
 he said, feigning a sternness that was far from his heart, 
 which felt sore with pity ; "do you mean that you wish me 
 to go away and not come here any more ? 
 
 And at this dire question the girl started and stiffened 
 in his arms as though he had stabbed her. "Well, then, 
 either I must go away ... for good ... or you must tell 
 me that you will marry me."
 
 S-EXD 143 
 
 "Oh, no ... no, Cousin Owen! ... I couldn t bear it 
 ... I couldn t bear it. ... Oh, I am so afraid again!" 
 
 "You don t love me, after all?" 
 
 "Yes, yes. . . . Oh, more than anyone. ..." 
 
 "Tli en hold out your hand, sweetheart." 
 
 The girl shuddered violently. He heard her teeth chat 
 tering in spite of her tightly clenched jaws. Suddenly she 
 thrust out to him her little hand, shaking as w r ith palsy, 
 lie slipped the ring home on her finger, then kissed it 
 softly. 
 
 XXII 
 
 WEN went straight to Sally s room when he returned 
 to World s-End. She was dressing for dinner, but 
 said, "Wait a minute," and, slipping on a wrapper, opened 
 the door for him. He had rarely of late years seen his sis 
 ter with her hair down, and now the black, thick locks, 
 lightly touched with grey, that hung about her face gave it 
 an unnatural look. He came in, and, standing near her 
 dressing-table, took up one of the ivory boxes, examining 
 the "Nag s head" on it as though he had never before 
 seen that aristocratic little animal. He did not believe in 
 the theory of softening bad news to people, and yet he felt 
 that what he was about to tell her would be so overwhelm 
 ing that he delayed the moment involuntarily, his heart 
 beating like a boy s about to confess some misdemeanour 
 to a not over-indulgent mother. She stood looking at him, 
 a dread suspense in her eyes. She was very pale. 
 
 "Sally," he said suddenly, putting down the little box 
 and turning to her, what I m going to tell you will be a 
 shock to you . . . but there s no use doling out such 
 things. I m going to be married ... to Phoebe Nelson." 
 
 Sally went white as bone. Her lips parted, and she 
 stood gazing at him without a word. 
 
 "I know how you must feel," he went on, beginning to 
 walk up and down the room. "It s so unexpected ... so 
 against my theories . . . but then I was never a consistent 
 person, Sally, as you know." He smiled at her rather 
 wryly, but there came no answering smile to Sally s face. 
 "I ve never yet found an 1st or ite or ic that would 
 label me exactly. . . . Just a blundering poor devil going 
 at things the best w r ay I knew how. . . . Now I ve blun 
 dered into marriage . . . but I love Phoebe very dearly."
 
 144 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 He was saying more than he wished, and more than he 
 had meant to, but Sally s stark, dumfounded face seemed 
 to call for some veil of words to cover its nakedness. Blank 
 amazement, rage, scorn, ruthlessness, all were in her black, 
 steady gaze. Her likeness to Richard became startling. 
 
 Suddenly she sat down sideways in the nearest chair, 
 and, gripping its back with both hands till the knuckles 
 whitened, shook back her loose hair and gave a short, harsh 
 laugh. 
 
 "Don t ..." said Owen involuntarily, putting out his 
 hand. This laugh struck him as dreadful. 
 
 "Since when ..." began Sally; she moistened her dry 
 lips. "Since when have you felt the tender passion?" 
 
 Owen went toward the door. 
 
 "I do not understand your attitude," he said coldly. 
 
 There had been something ferocious both in that laugh 
 and the sneer of her question; he felt that he looked on a 
 woman he had never known. He had never glimpsed the 
 tigress of maternity in Sally, as Mary had once done. That 
 she was thinking of Richard, and of the dark seciet which 
 she could not tell him, he knew well, but he did not 
 realise that her chief fury lay in the fact of his marrying 
 at all, not of his marrying the victim of Richard s wanton 
 egoism. He had not yet taken in the full consequences that 
 would result for Richard and for Sally herself from his 
 marriage with anyone. 
 
 But Sally had conned them over one by one for years. 
 "The thing that she greatly feared was come upon her," 
 and she thirsted to strike as she had been stricken. And 
 yet she was as helpless as some spider meshed in its own 
 vitals. "Were she to tell him all, Richard s disinheritance 
 would be doubly sure. Now, at least, for sheer decency s 
 sake he would have to provide properly for him in his 
 will, though the great fortune which she had come to look 
 upon only as a trust for Richard, temporarily in Owen s 
 hands, would inevitably pass to the children of the latter. 
 ... A blast of fire seemed to strike her here ... it was 
 Richard s own child that would take his place ! . . . That 
 child, begotten in a moment of May madness, would have 
 all of which Richard was to be dispossessed. For a second 
 Sally felt that this terrible fire in her heart and brain was 
 madness. Yet she must control herself. All was irrevoca 
 bly lost if she did not control herself. 
 
 "Wait. . . . Wait, Owen," she stammered, the smile
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 145 
 
 with which she tried to veil the look of rapacious cruelty 
 on her face distorting it to a singular ugliness. "My joke 
 was in bad taste . . . but it was only a joke. ... I m 
 . . . " She swallowed. I m sorry if I offended you. 
 
 He came back slowly. 
 
 "I m going to ask you," he said, "not to be sarcastic 
 with Phoebe when you see her." 
 
 A strange look flickered over Sally s face, despite all her 
 fiercely set will. She rose, and taking up a brush began 
 brushing out her hair so that its thickness came between 
 her and his cold look. 
 
 "I don t think you need have said that," she remarked, 
 turning his request shrewdly against himself. "I have 
 tried my poor best to be kind to the girl." 
 
 She could not have uttered Phoebe s name then, though 
 its absence had meant complete severance between her and 
 Owen. 
 
 He replied in an unmoved voice : 
 
 "You have been very kind to her. But you have also 
 been kind to me, until today." 
 
 "It isn t like you, Owen, to harp on a mistaken jest, 
 and treat it like a deadly offense." 
 
 "I confess that I ve been deeply hurt." 
 
 "I m sorry." 
 
 "Then there s no more to be said. We shall be married 
 at once. I ve spoken to her father. He is willing. I shall 
 take Phoebe abroad at once. But I m keeping you from 
 dressing. 
 
 He went to the door again, then once more turned back. 
 
 "Please do me the favour of letting me tell Mary of this 
 myself." 
 
 "Just as you wish, of course." 
 
 "Thanks." 
 
 He went out. 
 
 Sally let the brush fall into her lap, and sat staring at 
 her own eyes in the mirror. The candle-light, falling from 
 silver sconces on either side, deepened the shadows in her 
 eye-sockets and the flat hollows of her cheeks. She saw 
 plainly the skull under her own flesh. And she smiled 
 now grimly enough. It was fitting that a death s-head 
 should look back at her from her own face. The utmost 
 calamity, short of Richard s death, had overtaken her. 
 And, as in a fiery panorama, pictures of the detestable fu 
 ture unrolled before her; visions of Phoebe in her place,
 
 146 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 in Eichard s place at World s-End Phoebe, the little, 
 easily seduced country-girl at the head of the table, 
 ordering the servants, receiving guests. Phoebe, no longer 
 "little Phoebe Nelson," but Mrs. Owen Randolph, of 
 World s-End. Phoebe, with a right to have the nag s head 
 on her brushes, on her linen! . . . Sally caught up the 
 brush from her lap and hurled it against the wall with all 
 her might. Some of the delicate, cream-hued plastering 
 broke away with the impact, leaving a rough grey patch 
 shaped like a tulip-leaf. ... It was the act of an enraged 
 peasant woman, the primitive spending of rage on inani 
 mate objects, inherited from the violent old founder of 
 their family, and which even Owen himself had never com 
 pletely outgrown. 
 
 A little sobered by her physical outbreak, Sally rose and 
 began putting up her hair with icy, resolute fingers. She 
 would not ring for Mirabel. She could not have restrained 
 herself from striking had the girl made a blunder in her 
 toilet. And as she fastened the hooks of her thin gown, 
 tearing the delicate stuff in her nervousness, she kept swim 
 ming as it were frantically round the dark pool of her 
 own thought, like some desperate creature fallen in a deep 
 reservoir and seeking for some chink of egress from its 
 steep, slippery sides. 
 
 There must be a way of stopping it. That it should go 
 on, should accomplish itself, was impossible . . . utterly 
 impossible. She thought of threatening Phoebe with a dis 
 closure of the whole affair, but then, like a rank bit in the 
 mouth of a vicious mare, the thought of Richard s part in 
 it checked her. No, but she would wire Richard to come 
 back at once, . . . better, far better that Richard should 
 marry the little fool than that she should become Owen s 
 wife. But no, again, it was not Phoebe, but she, she who 
 had played the fool! . . . How easily she had been duped 
 by the girl s sham of soft, listless misery ! . . . And all the 
 time, all the time that crafty little wretch, so seemingly 
 child-like and pliable, had held to her sly purpose with a 
 will of iron ; . . . the determination to play upon one man 
 with a cunning learned from her experience with another, 
 and this time to make sure that marriage, not a mere fleet 
 ing moment of lawless pleasure, should be the outcome! 
 . . . "Oh, I did well to distrust that bold, red mouth of 
 hers!" she thought. And in her angry, distorted imagina 
 tion poor Phoebe figured as a young Delilah.
 
 WORLD S-END 
 
 "He will rue it," she thought savagely. "Oh, he will 
 rue it to the bitter end if he marries her! . . . She will 
 drag his name in the dust. . . . She will take the next 
 lover that she fancies, and the next and the next!" 
 
 Then suddenly she felt a deep sense of injury, of wrath 
 ful resentment at what she chose to term Phoebe s "base 
 ingratitude. 
 
 Yes, she really thought of Phoebe s consent to marry 
 Owen as an act of the blackest ingratitude to her, Sally. 
 When she had done all in her power to shield the girl, had 
 promised her safety, had even promised that Richard 
 should marry her. But it must be stopped. She would 
 tell Mary everything, and together they could surely think 
 of some plan to stop this monstrous marriage. Yet, no 
 . . . she could not confide in Mary. Mary had never un 
 derstood or rightly valued Richard. It was the one flaw in 
 their relations with each other. Besides Phoebe was Mary s 
 first cousin. Then, too, she could not run the risk of 
 Mary s telling Owen. Mary had such strange ideas of 
 candour and the perfect frankness demanded by friend 
 ship. But what to do? Any action must be quick, imme 
 diate. Why they might be going to be married tomorrow 
 or the next day! 
 
 Sally s heart seemed to faint in her breast at this 
 thought. If she had only a mouthful of brandy . . . but 
 she could not endure the thought of Mirabel fussing about 
 her. She snatched up her bottle of German cologne from 
 the dressing-table and took a quick gulp. . . . The fiery, 
 scented stuff almost strangled her. ... She coughed, 
 gasping for breath, and tears of pain ran down her face. 
 Then the hot liquid bit into her stomach. She felt revived. 
 It was in some novel that she had read of a woman s drink 
 ing cologne. It was true then that it had the effect of 
 brandy. And it struck her as odd that something read in 
 a novel should prove of practical use. 
 
 Gathering her thoughts together as she would have 
 gathered a wind-tossed cloak, she went down to the "rose 
 room. 
 
 Owen was standing by the open window dressed for din 
 ner. They went side by side, in silence, out into the 
 West Portico, where breakfast and dinner were always 
 served at World s-End during the summer and late spring. 
 
 The cologne, or possibly her own fiery will, had certainly 
 steadied Sally s nerves.
 
 148 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 She said quite, naturally as they sat clown : 
 
 "I suppose the old gentleman is delighted?" 
 
 "He is pleased, I think," said Owen. "I fancy that he 
 has worried a great deal about what Phoebe s fate would 
 be when he died and he has a liking for me." 
 
 "He would have, of course. You ve been awfully good 
 to them both." 
 
 "I m very fond of them both." 
 
 "How long will the engagement be?" 
 
 "We shall be married next Monday and take "Wednes 
 day s steamer for Havre. 
 
 This "we" was like the sting of a whip to Sally. 
 " Happy s the wooing that s not long a-doing, " she 
 could not refrain from quoting, but she looked down at 
 her plate as she said it, so that Owen could not see the 
 flare of malice in her black eyes. He said nothing, how 
 ever, and presently she took up the dropped thread again. 
 
 "How will she manage about a wedding-gown at such 
 short notice ? 
 
 "There isn t to be any wedding-gown. Phoebe prefers 
 not to have one, and I prefer it, too." 
 
 "Oh ! . . ." breathed Sally. "That seem a pity, doesn t 
 it?" she added, softening the veiled sneer of this "Oh," 
 which she had not been able to repress. 
 
 "No. I don t think so. I ve always loathed weddings 
 and everything connected with them. A bull-fight isn t so 
 barbarous a spectacle as a smart wedding in my eyes 
 at least." 
 
 "Yes. ... It does seem strange . . . for you. . . ." 
 Sally let her words trail off, and sat gazing thoughtfully to 
 where the Green-Flower made a shining loop at the foot of 
 the rose-garden. The evening star hung like a great daffo 
 dil of fire just above the languid blue of the far hills. 
 
 Owen winced as she had meant him to. 
 
 "Of course the difference in our ages will make it seem 
 a sad mistake to many people," he said. "My only excuse 
 is that the child is fond of me, and I believe that I can 
 make her happy . . . despite my extreme age," he added, 
 with a rather ironical smile. 
 
 Sally did not like this smile. Men are not ironical over 
 their own actions unless they are very sure of them. She 
 sought in her mental armory for a subtler weapon. 
 
 "I wonder what dear Mary will say?" she then mused 
 aloud. How often she has told me what a pity it was that
 
 W O II L D S - E X D 149 
 
 you had never married. She said that she was afraid you 
 never would now. And then to find that you ve fallen in 
 love with a slip of a girl ... I do think Mary will be as 
 tonished, don t you?" 
 
 "Very likely," said Owen drily. The shaft had gone 
 home as neatly as she could have wished. 
 
 Then Sally, in her hungry desire to wound, made a seri 
 ous blunder. 
 
 "Do you know," she said thoughtfully, leaning her head 
 on one thin hand with its heavy stones of green and red 
 and black-blue, and playing with the spray of citronalis 
 from her finger-bowl "do you know I once thought that 
 she and Richard might have a love affair?" 
 
 Owen had- always felt that a certain fibre of coarseness 
 in Sally struck through in moments of temper, but this 
 passed all bounds. That she should link those names to 
 gether before him seemed the greatest breach of all decency 
 of .soul that he had ever known. He was afraid to look at 
 her for fear that some of his cold disgust should find its 
 way into his eyes. He sat silent, his gaze fixed on the 
 great star which hung over Phoebe s home, and thought 
 with exultation of how he had rescued her from the power 
 of this woman, who by her last speech had set herself at 
 such an immeasurable distance from him, and whose cruel 
 laugh when he had told her of his coming marriage still 
 echoed painfully in his ears. 
 
 Sally had frayed with her own hands one of the slender 
 bonds that hold together the uncongenial members of a 
 family the old, deep-rooted sense of affection as obliga 
 tory between children of the same parents. With a man 
 like Owen the other bond, duty, would hold, though it 
 chafed to the bone, but affection is no more to be com 
 manded than passionate love, and in that moment, together 
 with his disgust, came a sharp feeling of dislike. 
 
 He glanced at the great gems burning on his sister s sal 
 low fingers, and remembered how sweet and girlish had 
 looked the simple ring of enamel on Phoebe s timid, flower- 
 white hand, and he thought how he would ask her never for 
 his sake to deck herself with the vulgar beauty of great 
 jewels. And, again, as he noticed something ruthless and 
 talon-like in those sallow fingers, he wished that he and 
 Phoebe were already standing together on the deck of the 
 liner, with America a brown haze on the horizon. 
 
 Sally herself was frightened when she had spoken. "If
 
 150 WORLD S-END 
 
 he should ever find out by any chance, he would never for 
 give me that speech," she told herself. And she remem 
 bered what the scriptures say about being ware of the 
 wrath of a patient man, for Sally was a conscientious and 
 methodical reader of the Bible. 
 
 As soon as coffee had been served Owen excused him 
 self and withdrew to his study, saying that he had a press 
 of matters which must be attended to at once in view of 
 his approaching departure from America. He had never 
 bid her good-night so coldly, or excused himself to her so 
 formally, and Sally suffered under this, for beneath the 
 lava waves of impotent rage and jealousy for her young 
 burned the ofttimes choked but never wholly extinguished 
 slow fire of real affection for her brother. She had suc 
 ceeded in wounding him, if not to the full measure of her 
 passing impulse, still sufficiently to have chilled his feeling 
 for her, and she shivered over the too speedy result of her 
 blind strokes with the two-edged blade of revenge. 
 
 A dreadful night she spent, tossed from impotent wrath 
 to jealousy from impotent jealousy back to helpless 
 wrath. The barren pangs of unavailing anger racked her 
 almost insufferably . . . anger against Phoebe, against 
 Owen, against Richard, against fate (she called it "fate," 
 but it was anger against a powerful but inactive God that 
 Sally felt), against herself. She tossed and tossed until the 
 blind, blank eyes of her white-curtained windows slowly 
 opened in the dark wall. 
 
 Then she got up, and, all haggard and weary as she was, 
 dropped on her knees by one of the open windows, and 
 flung up desperate prayers at the cool, indifferent sky of 
 early dawn. "Oh, my God! my God! thou art my God!" 
 cried her heart like frantic David. "Set it right. Stop 
 this dreadful thing. Forgive Richard. Send him back. 
 Let her marry him. Let anything happen but that my 
 brother should marry her. Oh, my God ! thou art my God ! 
 Listen to me!" To this effect prayed desperate, angry- 
 hearted Sally to the calm dawn. And in her soul was the 
 cry of the indignant prophet of old : " Wilt Thou always 
 be unto me as waters that fail ?
 
 WORLD S -END 151 
 
 XXIII 
 
 ART S coming was a relief to the brother and sister, 
 fixed there as they were in the great, lonely house 
 with the shadow of misunderstanding and wounded feel 
 ing between them. Something sweet and briary fresh as 
 of wholesome airs blowing over an old-time garden filled 
 with rue, and rosemary, and thyme, was brought with 
 Mary s atmosphere. The little dance in her grey eyes was 
 as refreshing as the dance on running water when one 
 goes for a dip after a sultry day. 
 
 Sally kissed her with a sense of gratitude for her pres 
 ence that was almost humble for Sally. 
 
 Owen took both her hands and held them so tight that 
 her rings bit, but she did not wince. 
 
 "Mary," said Sally, and she told the truth, "I was never 
 so glad to see anyone in my life ! 
 
 Mary, " said Owen, "I didn t think I could get fonder 
 of you, but at this moment I realise that my affection has 
 grown since you stepped from the carriage. 
 
 "You dear tilings," said Mary, "I ve missed you both 
 dreadfully. You make me feel just as though I were com 
 ing to my very own home." 
 
 "It is your very own home, " said Sally and Owen in 
 the same breath. Then all three laughed. 
 
 I never heard you and Sally so unanimous, said Mary. 
 "Have you been quarrelling that you re so desperately 
 glad to see me?" 
 
 And, though she did not show it, something in the air 
 of both told her that she had unwittingly struck a very 
 large nail directly upon the head. 
 
 "Iced tea for Mary in the West Portico!" she smiled, 
 speaking in a little girl s voice and tucking Sally s hand 
 beneath her arm. "Mary so thirsty!" 
 
 And she rattled on, telling them of absurdities that had 
 happened during her journey and entering into lively one 
 sided dialogues with the dogs who came panting and wag 
 ging about her, until the little gene, caused by her uncon 
 scious stroke of shrewdness, had entirely gone. 
 
 She thought that Sally looked very worn in the bright 
 western light, and there was a tension also about Owen s 
 face that made her sure that grave questions were stirring 
 at Worlcl s-End.
 
 152 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 After tea, Sally lay down in a Madeira chair on the lawn, 
 and Owen took Mary for a stroll by the Green-Flower. 
 
 "Or," he said, as they reached the creeper-laced 
 bank near the boat-house, "shall I punt you up to the 
 weir?" 
 
 "Please," said Mary. 
 
 She lay back on the red cushions, watching his tall fig 
 ure at the pole, and it seemed to her that her happiness 
 was very great in just loving him as she did. She looked 
 at the greenish sheen of the little river, in which the first 
 faint salmon-coloured streaks of sunset were reflected, at 
 the heavy heads of mid-summer roses nodding down to 
 her from the garden hedge above, at the w r hite columns of 
 the West Portico rising from its cloud of shrubbery, at the 
 sweet, vague peace of the drowsy sky, and in her heart 
 was repeated that sweet, vague peacefulness. She recalled 
 a saying that she treasured. "He who loses his love keeps 
 her always." Perhaps, if Owen had loved her in return, 
 perhaps . . . this lovely hour would have missed some of 
 its delicate keenness. Consuming fires leave ashes, though 
 they may be white as snow. . . . 
 
 Owen s voice roused her, saying : 
 
 "Mary, dear, I ve something rather startling to tell 
 you. Be good to me. I shrink from telling you, Mary 
 but at least you won t misunderstand. You never do that. 
 Only . . ." 
 
 "Suppose we drift while you tell me," she said, smiling 
 at him, and to herself she said, "Richard." She could not 
 account for a certain doubtful, troubled look in his eyes, 
 save by that one word. So often she had seen that look in 
 his eyes when he puzzled over the problem of Richard. 
 
 He came and sat near her, and the anxiety in his dark, 
 eager face made her long to comfort him. 
 
 "Is it Richard?" she asked. 
 
 He flushed deeply, but said, "It s myself, Mary." If 
 Mary looked at him, when he told her, as though she 
 thought him about to yield to a mere sensual passion for 
 a pretty morsel of young girlhood, he felt that it would be 
 hard to bear. He knew every expression of those light-grey 
 eyes sc well. Would they look coldly amused ? . . . Would 
 they look gallantly friendly through a cloud of disappoint 
 ment in her friend? . . . How, how would those kind, fa 
 miliar eyes look at him when he had told her? 
 
 "Mary," he said, gazing at her anxiously, almost be-
 
 WORLD S-EXD 153 
 
 seechingly. "I ... I am going to be married, and to 
 someone you know. ..." 
 
 lie broke off as if waiting for her to help him. It seemed 
 to Mary that life stopped short, while she, the tossed rider, 
 went spinning on into vacancy. Somewhere out of a great 
 void she heard her voice saying: 
 
 "To someone I know?" 
 
 She felt that her eyes looked blind. Putting up her 
 handkerchief to them, she said again: "Forgive me, Owen, 
 ... it isn t Lick of sympathy . . . it s a gnat ... in my 
 eye. ... It stings like fire." 
 
 "Poor Mary! Then that blank stare wasn t all for me? 
 . . . Can I help get him out?" 
 
 "No, thanks," said Mary, her handkerchief still to her 
 eye. "I think lie s drowned by now." 
 
 She thought it very strange that she could sit there, talk 
 ing in such a calm voice, while her breast felt squeezed to 
 gether by that shrewd pain. A woman of times past, mar 
 ried by proxy to the lover she must forego, and glad to be 
 near him even with the naked sword between, might have 
 felt as Mary did, had he risen and plunged that sword into 
 her heart. 
 
 "Some one I know?" she repeated. "You must tell me. 
 I can t think of anyone." 
 
 He blushed hotly again, looking away from her. "It s 
 your own little kinswoman . . . Phoebe, " he said in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "Plwclc. . . . Phoebe Nelson? That ..." 
 
 Mary had been going to say "that child," but she broke 
 off, a new pain mixing with the old. 
 
 Owen looked at her this time with saddened eyes. "I 
 know what you were going to say, Mary. . . . But think a 
 little before you judge me. We ve known each other a 
 long time. Do you think it likely that I? . . ." He, too, 
 broke off, and his look left hers again. 
 
 Mary s heart gave a sudden throb. 
 
 "There s something under this," she thought. "Some 
 thing that he s not going to tell me. What is it? What 
 can it be ? Does Sally know ? . . . Poor Sally ! . . . what 
 a tempest must be raging in her." 
 
 And Owen was thinking: 
 
 "Yes ... in spite of all, it s natural she should see it in 
 this light. A man of forty-seven marrying a girl of 
 twenty. ... It looks but one way . . . even to the most
 
 154 W O R L D S - E X D 
 
 indulgent friend. And then, too, Mary has heard me speak 
 so often against such marriages. . . . But it hurts more 
 than I had dreaded it would." 
 
 "How queer life is . . ." Mary was saying thought 
 fully. Do you remember the day we took tea at Sherry s, 
 and I talked to you of Phoebe ? . . . " 
 
 She stopped. The mocking irony of fate had never so 
 come home to her. She had sent him to Nelson s Gift her 
 self. ... It was she who had brought them together. 
 
 "Yes, I remember," said Owen slowly; "I saw Phoebe 
 for the first time when I rode over with your parcel." He 
 turned full to her. 
 
 "Mary . . ." 
 
 "Yes, Owen?" 
 
 "Phoebe has been very ill. I m going to take her away 
 as soon as possible." 
 
 A new pang for Mary. The marriage was to take place 
 quickly then. 
 
 I love her dearly, Mary. 
 
 "I know that. Did you fancy I could think you would 
 marry anyone that you didn t love?" 
 
 "No. . . . But . . . we ve talked of such things so 
 often. It s such a volte-face. ..." 
 
 "Theories are just flimsy rags in life s hands, dear 
 Owen." 
 
 Her eyes shone very kindly on him now, and he felt a 
 drawing in his throat that had he been a woman would have 
 meant tears. 
 
 "I think," he said, looking down at the fringed end of a 
 ribbon that had blown across his wrist in the light 
 breeze, "I think that she ll be happy with me in spite of 
 ... of the difference. ..." 
 
 "And you, Owen . . . what about your happiness?" 
 said Mary, speaking sharply for the first time. 
 
 He started, glancing quickly at her. Then he knew that 
 he must pull himself together, if he did not wish her astute 
 instinct to get on too close a trail. His smile came very 
 naturally. 
 
 "When you see her even now after her illness I don t 
 think you ll worry about my happiness, Mary dear." 
 
 "Is* she so lovely?" 
 
 "Winning and lovable in every way. But you ll 
 see for yourself. I ve promised to take you there tomor 
 row.
 
 WORLD S -END 155 
 
 Mary winced. A little human sting of unreasoning 
 anger shot through her pain. 
 
 "If you don t mind, I d rather have one quiet day at 
 "World s-End first," she said. 
 
 His dashed expression hurt her so that she cried repent 
 antly the next instant : 
 
 "I m a selfish pig! Of course I ll go. ... I really 
 want to see little Phoebe, and especially now." 
 
 His face brightened like a boy s. 
 
 You couldn t be selfish if you tried," he said, and 
 reaching over gave her hand a warm squeeze. "She hasn t 
 any mother, as you know, and she s a little in awe of Sally. 
 A girl needs some woman to be good to her at such a 
 time. 
 
 Again Mary winced. Really, she was not quite old 
 enough to be Phoebe s mother. 
 
 The punt had drifted to the bank under a great willow, 
 and the long, tremulous tresses of foliage swayed sadly 
 against the clear mauve sky with its hem of gold brushing 
 the dark hills. All the salmon-rose had faded out. The 
 sunset was like a pale autumn flower. 
 
 Does Sally take it very hard ? 
 
 "Rather." 
 
 His face grew cold. 
 
 "You ll have to be lenient to her, dear Owen. From 
 many points of view it s a great blow to her." 
 
 "You re thinking of . . . Richard?" 
 
 She noticed the slight hesitation before Richard s name, 
 and the hardness in his voice, which was even colder than 
 his expression. 
 
 "I m thinking of Sally s feeling about Richard. This 
 will change everything for him, you know." 
 
 "Yes . . ."he said. 
 
 Mary found the grimness of his tone strange. More 
 than ever she felt sure that Richard was in some way in 
 volved. 
 
 "Where is Richard, now that I think of it?" she 
 asked. 
 
 He and Stokes have gone to the East. 
 
 "Herbert Stokes! . . . Richard went with Herbert 
 
 Ofn 1 -nc 9 " 
 
 oiO-i-vCS s 
 
 "Yes. ... It s rather droll, isn t it?" 
 "It s more than droll, " said Mary, smiling. "It s 
 mysterious.
 
 156 WORLD S-END 
 
 Owen got up and poled the punt out into mid-stream 
 again. 
 
 "Sally will get jealous if I keep you too long," he said. 
 
 As they came near the garden again they saw Sally s 
 white figure on the bank. She waved to them, and Owen 
 turned the punt and poled towards her. 
 
 As she stood watching them she noted the grace of 
 Mary s light figure against the red cushions, and suddenly 
 she thought: "There was the wife for him! ... If he 
 had to marry at his age, why didn t he choose Mary?" 
 . . . And she reflected with a sick regret how Mary would 
 probably have had no children. And of how, in that case, 
 Richard would have still been the heir. 
 
 "What a fool Owen has been in every way," ran her 
 bitter thought. "Now his first-born will be another man s. 
 And as for any others that may come ..." A disfiguring 
 smile twitched her lips. It was still on them when the 
 punt came near, but dusk had fallen and it was not visible. 
 She got in beside Mary, wondering if Owen had yet told 
 her of his coming marriage, but she did not dare open the 
 subject before him. They glided to and fro an hour longer, 
 and she and Mary talked of surface things, while Owen, 
 steadily poling, kept silence for the most part. 
 
 That night, when Mary found herself alone in her room, 
 she blew out the candle, and, going over to the window, 
 knelt down beside it, quietly leaning her face on her 
 clasped hands and gazing up at the tranquil stars. And 
 as she knelt there she thought of Emerson s fancy in which 
 he imagined Nature looking down on perturbed mortals 
 and saying: "So hot my little sirs?" Then she drew from 
 the bosom of her dress a silver cross, which was fastened 
 to the slender Venetian chain she habitually wore, and 
 looked at it with a half smile. It was a little cross of the 
 twelfth century that Owen had brought her once from 
 Poland. How appropriate that Owen should have given 
 her a cross! . . . She bit her lip suddenly, for the smile 
 had almost changed into a sob. . . . Then she kissed 
 the trinket, and, slipping it back into her bosom, bent down 
 her forehead on her two hands and whispered softly, "Dear 
 Lord, keep my love strong. Keep it unselfish. Keep it 
 good. Keep it real." 
 
 She got up from her knees and began slowly to undress. 
 Just as she was about to lie down a knock came at her 
 door.
 
 WORLD S-END 157 
 
 "It s Sally. . . . May I come in?" 
 
 Mary bit her lip again, a trick that she only had when 
 alone. then went and opened the door for Sally. 
 
 "Oh ! . . . you re all in the dark. I m afraid you were 
 going to sleep." 
 
 "No ... I had just finished brushing my hair." 
 
 "Then may I stay just five minutes?" 
 
 "Yes, do stay. AVait till I find the matches." 
 
 She found them, and lighted her bedroom candle again. 
 
 The yellow light revealed Sally in the pale-blue dress 
 ing gown that so accentuated her thinness and swarthi- 
 ness. She stood looking at Mary with a sort of angry hun 
 ger in her black eyes. 
 
 "I m afraid I m selfish," she said, "but I do so long 
 for a good talk with you. 
 
 "I m not sleepy . . . truly. Shall we keep the candle 
 lighted or blow it out?" 
 
 "Blow it out, do," said Sally. "I like to talk in the 
 starlight." 
 
 They settled themselves near the window, and then Mary 
 put its little silver hat on the candle, and the room was 
 filled with quiet dusk again. 
 
 "I suppose he s told you," came Sally s voice out of the 
 darkness like a bitter gust. 
 
 "Yes," said Mary. 
 
 "Did you ever think that Owen could be such a pitiable 
 fool?" 
 
 "Calling Owen names won t make things different, 
 Sally." 
 
 Sally grew excited. 
 
 "Oh, Mary! For God s sake don t be a prig! ... A 
 man of nearly fifty who marries a girl of twenty is a fool, 
 ... if he were Solomon himself he d be a fool." 
 
 Mary said calmly : 
 
 "lie s not a fool if he loves her." 
 
 "Loves her! Mary! ... Do you call it love . . . the 
 feeling of a man his age for a bit of dimpled flesh ? 
 
 "Don t, Sally," said Mary coldly. 
 
 But Sally went furiously on : 
 
 "There s no use being superior, Mary. You know as 
 well as I do that no Dante and Beatrice love ever drew 
 a middle-aged man to a pretty chit. It s horrible of Owen 
 to give way to sheer animal desire like this!" 
 
 Mary was so sorry for the poor tigress gnashing im-
 
 158 WORLD S -END 
 
 potently the fangs that could not avail for her whelp that 
 she put aside her indignation and answered very gently. 
 
 "Listen, Sally. I don t mean to be a prig, but I do 
 think you harm yourself when you give way to such feel 
 ings about Owen, and put them into such rough, bitter 
 words. How can you nurse such feelings against such a 
 brother? And I don t believe in your heart you think 
 it true. You can t think a man like Owen is marrying 
 for such reasons. ... I believe there s something under 
 it all. Do you know what it is?" 
 
 Silence fell between them in the darkness like a soft, 
 ominous body. Then Sally said in a constrained voice: 
 "What could there be under it but what you won t ad 
 mit? You ve always been fanciful about Owen." She 
 paused again, then added with the malice that so seethed 
 in her since yesterday against everyone, against every 
 thing, "A stranger might think you were in love with 
 him yourself, from the way you always resent the mere 
 idea of his having a fault. He s a fine man, of course, 
 but he s been far from a Galahad, I can tell you." 
 
 "Oh, Sally," said Mary, and Sally heard her get to 
 her feet in the darkness, "sometimes I think that the mo 
 ment will come when I have to choose between my self- 
 respect and my friendship for you." 
 
 This scared Sally badly. Mary was the one woman in 
 the world whom she really loved and depended on. 
 
 She caught at the glimmer of her white gown through 
 the dusk. 
 
 "No, no! ... Don t say that! . . . Why should you 
 be angry? I m sure I only wish to God that you and he 
 did love each other! . . . Oh, Mary, don t turn on me in 
 my wretchedness. Think, think what it all means to me, 
 and forgive me! ... My son ruined . . . my home gone. 
 . . . Oh, Mary!" 
 
 And she began to sob dryly. 
 
 Mary sat down again. She was always easily mollified 
 by any evidence of real affection, and the sincerity in 
 Sally s appeal was beyond doubt. Besides, that cry about 
 wishing that she and Owen had loved each other went 
 very straight to her sore heart. She put her hand on 
 the bent head. 
 
 "Poor Sally!" she said. "You do eat your heart so. 
 Let s talk about Richard. Why did he go away and leave 
 you like this?"
 
 WORLD S -END 159 
 
 Sally choked her sobs at once, and went off into a long, 
 wandering narrative about Richard and the Chinese opera. 
 That was why he had gone to China, she said. He felt 
 that it was absolutely necessary for his work. And she 
 talked on for some moments in this strain, a strong in 
 stinct urging her to dispel from Mary s mind all possible 
 ideas of there being anything strange about Richard s 
 sudden departure for the East. 
 
 "But," said Mary, "has he given up his painting en 
 tirely for the present? . . . Didn t he paint at all while 
 he was here?" 
 
 Sally, in her hurried mind, pulled out rapidly one 
 thought after another, like a novice trying which stop of 
 an organ will produce the right tone. If she said "no 
 not much," Mary would be sure to hear about his portrait 
 of Phoebe. If she spoke of that Mary would ask about 
 it. If she said nothing that would seem queer later on. 
 If she began to speak of Phoebe she was afraid of of 
 fending Mary again, and then, too, it would come out how 
 often Richard had been at Nelson s Gift. Yet Mary would 
 be sure to know that some time. Not a stop but would 
 produce the wrong tone! . . . She fumbled with them so 
 ] ong in silence that Mary said, 
 
 "Didn t you hear me, dear?" 
 
 And then Sally in desperation pulled out the "vox hu- 
 niana" to its full power. 
 
 "Oh, Mary! ... I m a wretched creature! . . . Rich 
 ard s art is more to him than I am. . . . And now Owen 
 is going to be taken from me ! 
 
 This touched Mary deeply. There was so much of sad 
 truth in that anguished wail. Marriage assuredly divides, 
 to a certain extent, the fondest brother and sister, while 
 she knew well that next to himself his art was first with 
 Richard. 
 
 "Mothers of geniuses can t expect everything, my poor 
 dear," she said tenderly, though she didn t at all think 
 Richard a genius. There was really nothing of the prig in 
 Mary. "But little Phoebe must be a sweet child from all 
 I hear. And Owen says you ve been very kind to her. 
 Why shouldn t her affection prove a new comfort to you? 
 You can t think that Owen would ever want you to leave 
 World s-End." 
 
 Sally sat up straight and stiff as a steel rod under 
 Mary s soothing hand.
 
 160 WORLD S-END 
 
 "I can t talk of Phoebe Nelson to you, Mary. She s 
 your first cousin. I consider that she s treated me with 
 cruel ingratitude. 
 
 "With ingratitude? . . . Youf But how s that possi 
 ble?" 
 
 "If she has any intelligence whatever, and she has 
 plenty, believe me, she must have known how she was 
 wrecking my whole life and my son s, too, by accepting 
 Owen." 
 
 Mary could not help smiling to herself in the darkness. 
 This speech struck her as so peculiarly " Sallyesque. " 
 "My dear Sally," she protested, "how could you expect 
 a young girl smitten with first love to think of its con 
 sequences to anyone?" 
 
 "First love!" came the bitter voice out of the darkness, 
 and, before she could restrain it, a laugh broke from Sally. 
 
 Something in this laugh shocked Mary. 
 
 "Do you mean," she said, very gravely, "to insinuate 
 that Phoebe? . . . 
 
 Sally s words of denial came stumbling. She was badly 
 frightened again. 
 
 "I don t mean anything but that the idea of first 
 love has always struck me as ridiculous. Why, a girl 
 like that must have been in love with someone ever since 
 she could lisp! ... It s so. . . . 
 
 "Why do you say a girl like that ?" said Mary sharply. 
 
 "Oh, Mary! Don t catch me up so. ... I only meant 
 any girl just out of her teens. You talk exactly as if 
 you thought I meant to say something disparaging." 
 
 "It certainly sounded like it," said Mary, who had a 
 temper of her own, which somehow Sally always ended 
 by rousing. 
 
 Sally got up and said in a forlorn voice: 
 
 "I think I d better go to bed. ... I m dead tired . . . 
 and I only keep offending you." 
 
 Mary rose too. 
 
 "I really think that sleep will help you more than I 
 can," she said, "I m truly, truly sorry for you, but I 
 do think you re borrowing trouble." 
 
 "One doesn t borrow what one has too much of al 
 ready," said Sally dryly, "but one s own troubles always 
 seem superfluous to others." 
 
 Mary put her hand on the thin shoulder. Its thin 
 ness seemed suddenly pathetic to her. It was as if Sally
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 161 
 
 inhabited a frame out of which all softness had been burnt 
 by her fierce passions. 
 
 Are you going to quarrel with me as well as with poor 
 Owen?" she said, smiling. "Don t Sally. . . . Lonely 
 anger is the king demon." 
 
 "No," said Sally harshly, "helpless anger is. But I 
 don t want to quarrel with you, Mary. I m very trying I 
 know, but unhappy people are always trials." 
 
 "Don t talk like that, dear," said Mary, melting again. 
 She leaned forward and kissed her. "Go and try to get 
 some sleep. Tomorrow may be different." 
 
 "It can only be worse. But I mustn t say anything 
 more. Good-night, Mary." 
 
 "Good-night, Sally." 
 
 Sally took up the candle which she had left lighted 
 outside the door, and went swiftly away down the long 
 corridor. 
 
 Mary stood looking after her, then with a sigh she turned 
 and entered her room again. 
 
 From her window she could see the windows of Owen s 
 study in the East Wing. There was a lamp burning on his 
 desk, and as she looked he came and sat down by it, spread 
 ing out some papers before him. 
 
 Mary s heart stirred painfully. He was making prepa 
 rations for his marriage. She closed the shutters of her 
 window and turned away. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 OIIALL you ride over to Nelson s Gift or shall I drive 
 ^ you ? asked Owen of Mary at breakfast the next morn 
 ing. 
 
 I think I ll get you to drive me, please," said Mary, 
 smiling. "It s a very womanly occasion, and I don t feel 
 as though I could be as motherly as you seem to wish in 
 riding-boots. 
 
 "I should think that now, at least, you d wish you had 
 a motor here," put in Sally. "A lover in the twentieth 
 century, with only horses at his command and five or six 
 miles to travel several times every day, does seem at a dis 
 advantage." 
 
 She was making a great effort to be natural and pleasant,
 
 162 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 but she could not wash all tartness from her words and 
 manner, try as she might. 
 
 "Oh, I should hate the thought of a motor at World s- 
 End," said Mary impulsively. 
 
 "I feel about motors, here, much as the king who had 
 all the machinery in his kingdom smashed, for fear they d 
 grow in power and intelligence until they came to rule 
 over men," said Owen. "Don t you remember the en 
 gaging picture in Erewhon, of the engine in her shed 
 with all the little engines gamboling around her like 
 foals?" 
 
 To his infinite delight, although he still felt very sore 
 against her, Sally replied with some stiffness: "I ve never 
 been to Erewhon, or whatever the place is." 
 
 Mary, who cherished Samuel Butler as much as he did, 
 dared not glance at him. The dimple near her chin came 
 and went. 
 
 "You won t come with us, Sally?" she asked 
 
 "Not today. My head is tiresome." 
 
 Mary and Owen drove off half an hour later behind a 
 pair of fast brown cobs. The blue sky, softened by a 
 skein of silvery cloud, seemed like a tent made for happi 
 ness. She sat there beside him, her eyes following the 
 eight busy hoofs, and thought: 
 
 "This is one of our last drives together. It will never 
 be like this again. Life is freakish and very cruel. I 
 am not happy, but if he could he happy I should not mind. 
 For a little while he will think he is. But afterwards. ..." 
 
 And she saw Owen sadly enough, a w r hite-haired man of 
 seventy when his wife would be still a young woman, only 
 a year or two older than she herself was now. 
 
 She looked up at him, throwing back her shoulders under 
 her white cambric gown. 
 
 "Tell me something about Phoebe," she said. "You ve 
 scarcely spoken of her at all." 
 
 Owen let the whip just touch "Jinko s" quarters, and 
 the fiery little horse plunged ahead with a snort. 
 
 "I haven t talked about her on purpose," he said. 
 When there are two people that you re especially anxious 
 to have friends, it s the greatest mistake to talk much 
 about them to each other." 
 
 "Well . . . perhaps you re right," said Mary. 
 
 Her eyes were on his brown hand, he had not put on 
 his gloves which she had picked up from the seat when
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 163 
 
 she got in, and now held in her lap. The little flat alumi 
 num sleeve-links, with the sapphire sparks, she had known 
 ever since she knew him. She could close her eyes at 
 any time and see those strong wrists and the sheen of 
 the stiff white linen against them, held by those links, as 
 plainly as she saw them now. As is often the way with 
 women, Owen s hands seemed more vividly dear to her 
 than even his face, with the quick-moving affectionate ha 
 zel eyes that she so loved. He wore no ring of any kind. 
 Now she wondered if he would wear a wedding-ring. 
 Somehow this thought hurt her more than even the thought 
 of so soon seeing the woman who was going to be his 
 wife. 
 
 "How silent you are today, Mary dear!" said Owen, 
 looking down at her with a smile. "Are you pondering 
 all the possible sorrows that may lurk for me in the es 
 tate of marriage?" 
 
 This was so near the truth that Mary gave a little guilty 
 laugh. 
 
 "I can t help it, Owen. Marriage is such a venture." 
 
 "Everything worth having or doing is a venture, isn t 
 it?" 
 
 "I suppose so," said Mary. 
 
 Owen laughed in his turn. 
 
 "I must say you re rather dampening, my dear 
 girl." 
 
 "Oh, am I? Oh, I should hate to be that!" cried Mary, 
 and the colour flew into her face. "Oh, don t say that! 
 Please. . . . 
 
 "Why, Mary dear, of course I know it s just your af 
 fection for me." 
 
 Just her "affection" for him! . . . 
 
 Mary s short upper lip trembled a little. 
 
 "You see," she said, in a matter of fact voice, the next 
 moment, "I know you so much better than most people 
 do. I know what a tragedy marriage would mean to you 
 if it turned out anything less than perfect." 
 
 She saw his face change, though she was looking past 
 him at the horses ears. 
 
 "I m afraid marriage is never perfect, Mary." 
 
 "Yours ought to be," she said, in a low voice. 
 
 He turned and put his hand over hers with one of those 
 frank, impulsive caresses that always pleased and hurt 
 her, which most, she could not tell.
 
 164 WORLD S-END 
 
 "Mary dear," he said, "do you know I ve sometimes 
 thought if you d ever cared for me ... in that way, we 
 two might have been very happy." 
 
 Mary felt as though he had struck her. If she had 
 ever cared ... in that way ! Had she, then, hidden all 
 feeling too successfully? Was the devastation of her life 
 all her own doing? But the next instant a sure intuition 
 came to her aid. No there was no use blinding herself. 
 Not once in all their long affectionate friendship had he 
 felt one throb of stronger emotion for her. 
 
 "You mustn t jest to an old maid about such a wonder 
 ful lost opportunity," she said lightly. "It isn t worthy 
 of true knighthood." 
 
 "Well, after all," said Owen thoughtfully, "a friend 
 ship like ours is one of the best things in life." 
 
 "Indeed it is," she said heartily. 
 
 As the trap emerged from Ilollybrook Wood, Phoebe, 
 watching from her window for the first cloud of dust, with 
 all the nervous eagerness of a "Sister Ann," saw it at 
 once, and her heart began to beat violently. She had 
 spent the whole morning over her toilet. She must look 
 her very best to greet Cousin Mary, the dearest friend 
 of the being that she worshipped with all the passion of 
 a guilty gratitude. For Phoebe did not blind herself. 
 She told herself over and over with burning pain that 
 she w T as a wicked, wicked girl, in spite of that cherished 
 feeling that Owen would forgive her if he knew. It was 
 very clear to her that she should tell him, and yet, given 
 her youth and inexperience and the anguish of fear from 
 which she had just barely escaped, . . . she had no more 
 power to struggle out of this desperate temptation than a 
 poor linnet out of the grip of the bird-lime. Then, too, her 
 native joy in life and a certain childishness which was part 
 of her being made her now, and were to make her again 
 and again, lose her heavy sense of her true situation with 
 its problem and its guilt in the glamour of these days so 
 suddenly and bewilderingly radiant. 
 
 She had ransacked her mother s little trunk in the at 
 tic for something especially pretty to wear, and had de 
 cided at last on an old fichu of embroidered Indian muslin 
 trimmed with point applique. This soft web-like kerchief 
 she had adjusted over a straight little frock of corn-col 
 oured muslin with short, ruffled sleeves. About her throat 
 she tied a band of black velvet, and drew another through
 
 WORLD S -END 165 
 
 her hair. "When all was done she looked like a winning 
 portrait by Komney, and the little peak of hair on her 
 forehead, over black-blue eyes, made her likeness to his 
 "divine lady" very striking. 
 
 Anxiety, dread, a sort of shamed exultation which she 
 could not suppress, had set a lovely carmine under her 
 eyes, still so over-bright and startled in their quick glances. 
 
 When Mary saw her she said to herself: "No wonder! 
 She is one of the most bewitching creatures I ever looked 
 at!" 
 
 "Think of this being my little butter-ball Phoebe!" 
 she said, and took her straightway in her arms. 
 
 Great tears sprang to Phoebe s eyes. She tried hard 
 to speak but could not. Owen stood looking on, with 
 an odd human pride in the loveliness that he saw had 
 gone to Mary s heart. And all at once he thought: 
 "Yes ... I shall suffer. If she can t ever love me ... I 
 shall suffer badly." He turned away, saying that he 
 would go and talk to Mr. Nelson while they "made 
 friends" anew, after all these years. 
 
 Suppose you take me up to your own room ? sug 
 gested Mary as he left them, her arm still about Phoebe s 
 waist ; the child was a full inch taller than she was. How 
 strange ! Somehow she had always gone on thinking of 
 her as a little girl all this time. "We should be so much 
 more comfy and to ourselves there. You know I adored 
 your mother, Phoebe dear. You seem to belong to me 
 specially. And just now, at this wonderful time in your 
 life. . . . " 
 
 Phoebe s head went down on her shoulder. 
 
 "Oh, Cousin Mary," she said very low, "don t be too 
 sweet to me. . . . And . . . and don t talk of mother . . . 
 I can t bear it ... now. . . . 
 
 Mary leaned her cheek down against the girl s and held 
 her close without saying anything. There was that same 
 strange mingling of joy and anguish in thus holding close 
 to her heart the one thing in the world dearest now to 
 Owen. Mary would have spoiled the plot of a melodrama 
 entirely. She was the woman scorned, she told herself 
 with her irrepressible quick sense of the incongruous, and, 
 instead of acting like the classic fury, here she was, cher 
 ishing her rival as though she had really been the mother 
 whose part Owen wished her to play. 
 
 "Shall we go to your room, dear?" she said again, at
 
 166 WORLD S-END 
 
 last. I want to see Jimmy Toots. Owen has told me how 
 he watched over your bed all the time you were ill." 
 
 So Phoebe shyly led the way upstairs and Mary made 
 the acquaintance of Jimmy Toots and King Reddy. The 
 cardinal bird flew to Phoebe when she whistled and lighting 
 on her head tickled her with his sharp little claws. It 
 seemed to Mary that the girl looked appropriately crowned 
 \vith flame, as the brilliant scarlet wings fluttered over 
 her hair. 
 
 "No wonder ... no wonder ..." she kept repeating 
 to herself. And gazing earnestly at Phoebe she tried to 
 see through that mask of a young face, so much harder 
 to penetrate than the faces of the middle-aged and old, 
 on wiiich life has left writing more or less decipherable. 
 Had she depth . . . character ... or only this keen, 
 heady charm of colouring and vitality, and the native 
 sweetness of temper which was revealed by every line and 
 expression? . . . 
 
 They talked all sorts of intimate, everyday things, sit 
 ting there together in Phoebe s little room with its old white 
 furniture wreathed in roses of blue. And Mary said how 
 many times she had longed to have Phoebe \vith her, only 
 her (Mary s) Aunt Lucy had been such an invalid that 
 she couldn t have anyone. And then, too, Phoebe had 
 been with her grandmother in Roanoke for so many years. 
 "For how long was it, really, dear?" 
 
 "Ever since I was fourteen until last year," said 
 Phoebe. "But you used to write me such beautiful let 
 ters, Cousin Mary. I used to put them under my pillow. 
 I loved them even better than your stories and I always 
 loved your stories best of all. Look. . . . She pointed 
 shyly to the little shelves on either side of the fireplace. 
 "I have them all there." 
 
 And Mary saw that there indeed were her five little 
 blue-and-gold fairy-tales for children. "You sweet child!" 
 she said, kissing Phoebe s hair. "I feel I ve missed some 
 thing very lovely in not having shared those years with 
 you." 
 
 "But I love you just the same, dear Cousin Mary," said 
 Phoebe, nestling up to her with a glowing look of grateful 
 response to this tenderness. 
 
 "What an almost terribly ardent nature the child has!" 
 thought Mary. And for the first time she thought of 
 Owen s responsibility towards Phoebe in their coming mar-
 
 WORLD S -END 167 
 
 riage, instead of Phoebe s towards him. "Tell me, 
 Phoebe," she said suddenly. ""What did you think of 
 Richard? . . . Did you see much of him?" Phoebe 
 changed colour so violently and her eyes dilated so that 
 Mary thought. . . . "She dislikes him and is afraid of 
 him." "I don t believe you like Master Richard any more 
 than I do, Phoebe." she said, smiling. 
 
 The girl hesitated a moment, and then said in a low 
 voice : 
 
 "Why don t you like him, Cousin Mary?" 
 
 Mary looked consideringly at her for a moment, and 
 then she said : 
 
 "I believe I ll just speak out to you, dear, because you 
 will probably be brought into close relations with him, 
 and it s just as well that he shouldn t bemuse you as he 
 does most women. He s a clever trickster, is Master Rich 
 ard, and that s the truth, my dear. He s very clever in 
 deed, but he s a trickster, and never so happy as when 
 he s leading some unsuspecting woman by her pretty nose 
 to worship at his altar. And he s the most finished egoist 
 I ever knew, and I m afraid that he s very false. Perhaps 
 I oughtn t to prejudice you like this, but I can t bear to 
 think of Richard s winning you for a possible disciple. 
 You see, he turns up his very handsome and silly nose 
 at Owen. . . . 
 
 "How dare he!" cried Phoebe, starting up. Her eyes 
 looked as black as Sally s in her white face. Mary drew 
 her down again, much amused. ""Why, what a little fire- 
 eater ! she said. AVait till you know the gifted Rich 
 ard better. He probably looks down in his thought on 
 the Christ as a sort of gifted young fanatic with bourgeois 
 ideas of fellow love. Just how cruel one can be with per 
 fect sang froid, in the pursuit of one s own desires, is his 
 measure for strength of character, I fancy. But, as I 
 said, he s very clever, and very, very good-looking in a 
 sort of early-eighteenth-century-Don- Juanish way. Mercy ! 
 what a composite adjective ! . . . So you are just as well 
 warned beforehand, my dear, though you think your 
 Cousin Mary rather catty for doing it." 
 
 "How dare he look down on ... on ... Cousin 
 Owen!" burst forth Phoebe again. 
 
 "If you ask me," said Mary, laughing outright this 
 time, "I think it s because he s really a donkey in spite of 
 his cleverness. He d be sure to make a mess of any serious
 
 168 WORLD S-END 
 
 issue in his life, and his opinions of people aren t worth 
 that!" 
 
 And she snapped her slender forefinger and thumb as 
 deftly as a school-boy. 
 
 "He isn t worthy," said Phoebe, her breast heaving, 
 "he isn t worthy to scrub the ground where Cousin Owen 
 has trodden!" 
 
 "Phoebe," said Mary, the little dance beginning in her 
 eyes, "are you going to continue calling Owen Cousin 
 Owen after you are Mrs. Randolph?" 
 
 "Oh, Cousin Mary!" cried Phoebe, one flame, and she 
 slid down by the chair on which Mary was seated and 
 hid her face in her lap. 
 
 Such vehement feeling startled while it amused Mary. 
 She could not help wondering, as she stroked the bright 
 head against her knees, if Owen would not find such ex 
 cessive and ardent sensitiveness a little disconcerting at 
 times. "Do you love him so much, little Phoebe?" she 
 said, very gently. 
 
 Phoebe lifted a face so transfigured that it reminded 
 Mary of the face of Stephen when the gaping crowd had 
 seen it change and become as the face of an angel. Al 
 most holy was the expression of Phoebe s white, glowing 
 face. " It s more than love. ... I worship him the way I 
 ought to worship God ! she cried. 
 
 "Oh, my little child! Take care . . . take care!" said 
 Mary, a clutch at her heart of pitiful tenderness. "The 
 woman who loves a man like that throws herself bound 
 into the furnace." 
 
 "I d be thrown bound into hell for him!" said Phoebe 
 in a low, concentrated voice. And in the blindness of her 
 inconsistent simplicity, not even for a fleeting second did 
 it cross her mind that it was she herself who might be drag 
 ging Owen into the very depths she spoke of. A great Rus 
 sian has truly said that "as a general rule, people, even 
 the wicked, are much more naif and simple-hearted than 
 we suppose." 
 
 Mary shuddered and drew her sharply up beside her. 
 
 "Don t, dear," she said. "It hurts me to hear you talk 
 like that." 
 
 You don t know . . . you don t know . . . said 
 Phoebe, hiding her face in her hands, and beginning to 
 shiver also. "I ... I can t explain . . . but that s the 
 way I feel, and nothing can ever, ever change it!"
 
 WORLD S-EXD 
 
 When they went downstairs again they found Owen and 
 Mr. Nelson seriously poring over some papers which lay 
 between them on one of the little tables. The old gentle 
 man welcomed Mary warmly. He had always been "con 
 siderably attached" to her, as he would have put it, and 
 now he felt that her presence during this agitating time 
 was a great boon. 
 
 "I suppose my little girl has been telling you of the 
 very gratifying and happy change that is to take place in 
 her life, so soon now," he said, retaining Mary s hand a 
 moment and looking up at her rather wistfully. "I de 
 plore my own loss but not her gain," he added. "And if 
 you could make me a little visit when she has gone next 
 week I should count it a generous action on your part, 
 my dear Mary." 
 
 "Of course I ll come, Uncle Thomas," said Mary cor 
 dially. Her heart contracted, but nothing of this inner 
 hurt showed on her kind face. "Is it to be so soon?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Owen our kinsman has requested me to call him 
 by his Christian name Owen wishes the wedding to 
 take place this coming Monday, as the French steamer 
 sails on Wednesday, and he is very anxious to take Phoebe 
 away from, the scene of her late illness. My child," he 
 continued, addressing Phoebe, "you will share your life 
 with one of the most generous of men. These marriage 
 settlements that. ..." 
 
 "Please " said Owen with a hot blush, putting his 
 
 hand over the papers. 
 
 "Well, well," said the old gentleman indulgently, "I 
 will respect your modesty. It is a rare enough asset now 
 adays if all that is told me be true." 
 
 "By the way, Phoebe," said Owen, hastening to change 
 the subject beyond all possibility of relapse, "this will be 
 a famous chance to choose your cabin, with Mary here 
 to help you. I ve got the plan of the Lorraine with me. 
 
 ; > 
 
 He came over and drew up a chair and one of Mr. Nel 
 son s brood of little tables to where Mary and Phoebe 
 were seated. 
 
 "See," he said, spreading the plan of the ship out be 
 fore them, "there are the different decks. Now you can 
 take Mary s advice, because she s crossed so often, and 
 will know know better what you would probably like than
 
 170 WORLD S-END 
 
 I would. If we take a cabine de luxe it will give us 
 away at once, and I detest deck cabins myself there s 
 always such a beastly row going on just outside but most 
 women prefer them, I believe." 
 
 He was so absorbed in getting the bearings on the rather 
 intricate plan before them that he did not notice how rose- 
 red Phoebe s face flared, nor the almost piteous look of 
 shy alarm that came into her eyes. 
 
 Mary took one of the cold little hands and held it tightly. 
 Men were dear, clumsy, tactless beings, she reflected. 
 Probably Saint Peter s father never left off telling him 
 that he would have to set off for his fishing at cock-crow, 
 while his mother, she felt sure, never so much as used a 
 feather-bed again ! She smiled her little, dry half-smile, 
 thankful that she held the priceless antidote of humour 
 against pain. She explained the different decks to Phoebe 
 with kindly interest. 
 
 I agree with Owen," she said. "Unless you want to 
 be labeled bride and groom from the start you can t have 
 a cabin e de luxe. I d rather have cabins on the saloon 
 deck every time, especially at this season of the year. You 
 can have the ports open all the way." 
 
 "These two I ve marked are rather nice, I think," said 
 Owen, pointing with the little aluminum pencil that 
 Phoebe was beginning to associate with him as Mary did 
 the sleeve-links. 
 
 "Very nice," said Mary approvingly. "Not too near 
 the dining-room, and not too far from the bath 
 rooms. Do we practical old travellers shock your ro 
 mance, my dear?" she ended, turning with a smile to 
 Phoebe. 
 
 "Oh, no ... no indeed. I think it s lovely of you to 
 take such interest ..." protested the girl, stammering 
 and blushing more than ever. 
 
 "Well, then," said Owen, also smiling at her confused 
 little face, "shall we say these two?" 
 
 "Yes . . . please, " murmured Phoebe. 
 
 "Then that s settled," said he with an air of relief, 
 and folding up the plan returned it to his pocket. 
 
 What about your wedding-dress, Phoebe ? asked Mary 
 suddenly. 
 
 "I . . . I m not going to have one, Cousin Mary, said 
 the girl, white now instead of rosy. 
 
 No wedding-dress and veil ! cried Mary. But if I m
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 171 
 
 to act maman to you, I really can t allow such a breach 
 of tradition !" 
 
 "No . . . please Cousin Mary . . . please," pleaded the 
 girl, catching her by the arm, such a passion almost as 
 of terror in her dilating eyes that Mary was startled. 
 
 Owen came to the poor child s rescue. 
 
 "I ve asked her not to, Mary," he said. "I hate all 
 that sort of bridal pomp. . . . Why couldn t she be mar 
 ried in the gown she has on. It s quite lovely I think." 
 
 "Oh, no!" cried Mary. " Yellow s foresworn don t 
 you remember?" 
 
 She quoted the old rhyme: 
 
 "Green is forsaken, 
 
 Yellow s foresworn ; 
 Blue s the sweetest colour that s worn. 
 
 "Why not the Virgin s colours, blue and white? She 
 would look a perfect sweet in blue and white?" 
 
 Phoebe changed colour so rapidly that Mary could only 
 account for this over-emotionalism by the fact that she had 
 not entirely recovered from her illness. 
 
 "Listen, Phoebe dear," she said, drawing the girl to 
 her. "Let s send Owen back to talk to Uncle Thomas and 
 I ll tell you a nice plan I ve thought of." 
 
 She gave Owen a look over Phoebe s head that sent him 
 back to Mr. Nelson s chair at the other end of the room. 
 Then she said: "Darling, I ve a really sweet white chif 
 fon gown that I ve never worn but once. I m a famous 
 seamstress, and I can fit it to you in a morning. You 
 shall just wear that and some of the lovely white roses I 
 saw in your garden as we came up." 
 
 "Oh, thank you, dear, dear Cousin Mary! How good 
 you are to me!" said the girl, a mist of gratitude in her 
 eyes. "Everyone is good to me oh, much, much too good 
 to me. I don t deserve any of it not any of it." 
 
 And to Mary s dismay she caught her under lip in her 
 teeth and began to struggle with sobs that would rise in 
 spite of her. She looked so pale now that Mary came to 
 the swift conclusion that the excitement of their visit and 
 the allusions to her wedding had been too much for her 
 strength after her recent grave illness. 
 
 "There . . . there ..." she soothed, patting the quiv 
 ering shoulders as she would have done a child s. "Go up 
 to vour little blue-rose room and lie down dear. I shall
 
 172 WORLD S-END 
 
 take Owen away now. "We ve stayed too long as it is. I 
 see well why he wants to get you away in such a hurry. 
 This illness has played all sorts of pranks with your nerves. 
 Go and rest now, and I ll bring over the white chiffon 
 tomorrow. 
 
 As they drove home she told Owen that Phoebe seemed 
 to her terribly over-wrought and keyed up. 
 
 "Don t you think you d better have a doctor see her?" 
 she ended. "This week will be very trying for her. And 
 I really can t think how the child is to go quietly through 
 such a strain as the wedding ceremony without something 
 to calm her a little." 
 
 "Phoebe has her mother s dread of doctors," said Owen, 
 giving his attention to "Jinko," who was playing rock 
 ing-horse at a bit of white paper in the road. 
 
 "But she would listen to you, Owen." 
 
 "Sally and her father both think it s better not to 
 force her when she s so excitable." 
 
 "Well ..." said Mary doubtfully, "you three have 
 been with her through it all, so I suppose you know best, 
 but I should certainly have. Charles Patton in to give her 
 some simple nerve-sedative." 
 
 XXV 
 
 I 
 
 PHOSE were days of exquisite mental torture for Sally. 
 
 -* Obliged by force of circumstance to control herself 
 outwardly when in the presence of others, her bedroom 
 became the scene of frantic outbursts, during which she 
 would prowl to and fro as in a cage, talking aloud to her 
 self, gesticulating fiercely, sometimes dashing objects to the 
 floor, as she had hurled her brush against the wall on the 
 night that Owen had told her of his coming marriage. 
 "I m going mad. ... I m going mad," she would say, 
 her hands in her grey hair. And indeed it was a sort of 
 madness that possessed poor Sally then, the cruellest of 
 dementias, impotent rage, that starveling passion that 
 thrives on its own leanness, and grows by what it may 
 not feed on. She "went all the day angry" and the night 
 did not allay her pangs, for she had dark, turgid dreams 
 wherein, when she would have struck, her arm encountered 
 soft waves of resistance, as though one should try to smite 
 a foe through heavy waters and when she w r ould have
 
 WORLD S-END 173 
 
 spoken fierce truths, her tongue seemed pasted to her 
 palate. 
 
 Then, too, reaction would come upon her without warn 
 ing a slacking of the savage impulses almost harder to 
 bear than her spasms of thwarted anger. And crouching 
 forward in her chair, her chin gripped in her thin, jewelled 
 fingers, she would brood by the hour on the infamy of 
 her silence, at this crucial moment in his life, towards the 
 brother wlio had been more than a brother to her in all 
 her troubles. Yet not for a heart-beat did she think of 
 breaking it. 
 
 There is no selfishness so ruthless as the selfishness of the 
 female defending its young; the human jungle knows no 
 more pitiless man-eater than the over-maternalised woman 
 with an only son to nourish and protect. Had Owen been 
 about to marry unwittingly some street-woman, and had 
 this marriage been to Richard s profit, Sally would still 
 have held her tongue. She loved Richard with that strange 
 animal passion of maternity which has no sense of hu 
 mour and therefore no sense of proportion. "And they 
 twain shall be one flesh" applied in her mind to mother 
 and child far more than to husband and wife. 
 
 When Richard had been laid in her arms after her dark 
 agony, she had not once thought of her husband as his 
 father. Poor Peter, lifting his round, sanguine face all 
 blotched with tears of pity from the rumpled bed-clothes 
 where he had been hiding it until this supreme moment, 
 had seemed as detached from her mysterious, isolated rap 
 ture as great Csesar dead and turned to clay. "Mine . . . 
 mine . . . mine . . . mine . . . mine," her exultant rhap- 
 sodist heart had beat the measure. The child was hers as 
 the world is its Creator s ... as Adam was his Maker s 
 when he formed him alone out of the dust. 
 
 Despite these devastating outbreaks in the privacy of her 
 own room, however, Sally played the part she had elected 
 gallantly enough in public. Mary found the worn, burnt- 
 out look in her face quite natural, considering all things, 
 and she was very tender with her somewhat trying friend 
 during all that time. It is certain that one gets used to 
 suffering, just as the muscles grow accustowed to hard 
 labour, and, though Mary also had some grim strug 
 gles with pain in those days, yet she bore it well, and no 
 trace of it ever crept into her face when others were look 
 ing.
 
 174 WORLD S-END 
 
 She went over alone, next morning, with the white chif 
 fon gown, thinking with sad whimsicality how odd it was 
 that Owen s bride should be going to wear one of her 
 dresses at the altar. Life s little ironies, Thomas Hardy 
 called such incidents. 
 
 Phoebe was much calmer today and, though the lack 
 of excitement left her face colourless and a little wan, 
 Mary thought her even lovelier than before. The girl s 
 almost pathetic appreciation of her gift won all her 
 tender heart. 
 
 Only one jar she had during that visit, and this was 
 when her uncle alluded to Richard s portrait of Phoebe 
 and insisted on Phoebe s getting it out for Mary to see. 
 
 The girl changed colour in the painful way of yester 
 day and said in the low tone that Mary had already 
 learned meant inner distress "I can t, father. Cousin 
 Owen had it packed Wednesday to send to New York." 
 
 "You will see it there, then, my dear Mary," the old 
 gentleman said cheerfully. "I imagine that you will not 
 find it a very good likeness." 
 
 When Mary and Phoebe were in the latter s bedroom, 
 trying on the chiffon gown, Mary said as she pinned the 
 folds into place: 
 
 "Phoebe, dear, why didn t you tell me yesterday that 
 Richard had painted your portrait?" 
 
 There was a certain reproach in her kind voice. 
 
 Phoebe answered again in that low tone. 
 
 I hate that picture, Cousin Mary. I hate talking about 
 it." 
 
 "But you let me say all those things, dear, without 
 giving me a hint that you had seen him so often." 
 
 "I despise him ... I can t bear to talk about him." 
 
 Try as she would to prevent it, a little rigour ran over 
 her. 
 
 "Was he ... rude to you?" asked Mary gravely. 
 
 There was a slight pause. 
 
 "He ... he ... made fun of me," said Phoebe at 
 last, almost inaudibly. 
 
 There was such bitterness in the young, stifled voice 
 that Mary thought she had the clue. "I see," she told 
 herself. "He ridiculed all her girlish ideals and made his 
 usual offensive remarks about decency and religion and 
 all the virtues . . . quite enough to make a romantic 
 young girl despise him/ as we Virginians say." She
 
 " WAS HE ... RUDE TO YOU? ASKED MARY GRAVELY" Page 174
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 175 
 
 decided not to press the matter further, and merely 
 said : 
 
 "I m glad you don t like him, dear. I was afraid that 
 you might have been impressed by his gorgeous paradoxes. 
 He looks at life through very ugly spectacles, does Rich 
 ard." 
 
 Phoebe said nothing, and when Mary had finished pin 
 ning the gown into place they sat near the window and 
 sewed on it together. 
 
 Mary thought the picture of the young girl sewing on 
 her wedding-dress, with the great crow perched in his 
 usual place on her shoulder, singularly striking. "Omi 
 nous, " she felt the superstitious would have called it. 
 "Phoebe," she said suddenly, returning to the subject that 
 she had meant to dismiss entirely, "how did Richard paint 
 you?" 
 
 "In a gold gown," said Phoebe, her voice again sink 
 ing. 
 
 ""With the crow?" asked Mary intuitively. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "He would," said Mary, and she smiled, dropping the 
 subject this time for good. 
 
 Sally came over once with Mary before the wedding. 
 She was very polite and interested in her manner, and 
 Phoebe could gather nothing of her inner thought from 
 her composed face and sombre black eyes which never 
 rested fq>r an instant upon hers. She had dreaded be 
 yond words that Sally would seek an interview with her 
 alone, and when Owen made excuses about her not com 
 ing to Nelson s Gift again before Monday, as she was quite 
 ill and meant to keep her bed until then, a great weight 
 seemed to roll from Phoebe s heart. 
 
 On Sunday afternoon Owen came with the brown cobs 
 and took her for a long drive. 
 
 She wore the corn-coloured frock because he had said 
 that it was "lovely," and a white gauze hat with wreaths 
 of little blue roses that Mary had given her. 
 
 "You look like the spirit of the day in that sunshiny 
 gown and sky-coloured hat," said Owen, smiling down at 
 her. "But it seems to me that your expression is just a 
 little too sober for your dress, dear. What is it, sweet 
 heart? Doubts? . . . Have you been counting my grey 
 hairs when I wasn t looking?" 
 
 * You haven t hardly a grey hair ! Your hair is beauti-
 
 176 WORLD S-END 
 
 f ul ! cried Phoebe hotly, and then blushed as Owen broke 
 into irrepressible laughter. 
 
 I shall have to call you honey-pot, " he said, "I m 
 not used to such sugared speeches." 
 
 ""Well ... it is beautiful," said Phoebe, taking refuge 
 in obstinacy then with a little touch of her old spirit 
 "People must have told you so before, Cousin Owen 
 I m sure they must!" 
 
 "Yes, I m a pretty fellow," said Owen, delighted with 
 this outburst, and glad to tease her a little. "Hearths 
 have been strewed with wreckage by my mere passing." 
 
 Phoebe s face went crimson again. 
 
 "You re laughing at me," she said chokingly. "Oh, 
 Cousin Owen please, please don t laugh at me!" 
 
 In return he bent down, put his hand over hers and, 
 looking into her shy eyes, said, smiling: 
 
 "Phoebe, you must learn to call me Owen." 
 
 "I . . . I m afraid I never can," she stammered gaz 
 ing into the goldish-grey eyes so near her, and noticing, 
 despite her confusion, that there were little flecks of 
 brown and green near their pupils. "It sounds so ... 
 so. ... " 
 
 "Disrespectful?" teased Owen. 
 
 You re unkind ! flashed Phoebe passionately, and sud 
 den tears made his face seem blurred to her. Owen felt 
 remorseful. He had only meant to laugh her into being 
 a little more at ease with him. Poor child ! She was just 
 one quiver of sore nerves. 
 
 I wouldn t be unkind to you for anything in the world, 
 little heart," he said gently. "Just feel in my pocket 
 I need both hands for these monkeys by this bank and 
 see what you ll find there. That will show you better 
 than words where I place kindness in the scheme of 
 things." 
 
 Phobe hesitated an instant, then he felt her slight 
 fingers fluttering like a bird in his pocket. She drew out 
 a little blue-velvet box and her colour changed like the 
 wind. 
 
 "Open it, dear," he said, and she pressed the spring. 
 Her wedding ring lay there before her. She sat staring 
 at it, her lips parted. 
 
 "Read what s inside, Phoebe," he said again. 
 
 She looked in the narrow circlet and read the words: 
 "Phoebe Owen. July 8, 1912. Kindliness."
 
 WORLD S-END 177 
 
 "You see," he said, watching her face, over which the 
 quick emotions chased each other like shadows over a field 
 of blowing wheat. "I ve chosen kindliness as the motto 
 of our life together, dear Phoebe. So you may always be 
 sure, whatever happens, that I never mean to be un 
 kind." 
 
 Suddenly she stooped and pressed her lips to his hand, 
 so whollv occupied with the fractious "Jinks" and 
 "Jinko." 
 
 "You re like God to me!" she said, in response to his 
 embarrassed remonstrance, and hid her face against his 
 sleeve. 
 
 At first Mary had thought of spending the night before 
 the marriage with Phoebe at Nelson s Gift, but she decided, 
 after talking it over with Owen, to leave the child quite 
 alone with her father on that eve, and to go over before 
 breakfast in the morning with him. The wedding was to 
 take place very early, in order to allow them to catch 
 the noon train at Crewe. 
 
 And Phoebe, as dearly as she loved Mary, was glad 
 to be alone, for being with her father seemed almost 
 like being alone so far, so mercifully far was he from 
 all real knowledge of the conflicting passions in her 
 heart. 
 
 She sat on a low stool close beside him after supper, 
 and leaned her head against his knee. 
 
 "I hate to think of your being all alone when I am 
 gone, father dear," she said wistfully. "But then, Cousin 
 Mary is going to stay a week with you, and soon Aunt 
 Charlotte will be coming. I am so glad that she will make 
 her home here now." 
 
 "Your great-aunt," said the old gentleman, clearing his 
 throat, "is of an affectionate disposition. I am considera 
 bly attached to her but she is strangely fantastical in 
 F.ome of her ideas. It will not be like having you, my 
 daughter. 
 
 "Oh, father dear," cried Phoebe, fondling his old hand 
 against her cheek. "I am coming back to you soon, soon! 
 Cousin ... I mean Owen says that I shall." 
 
 "A wife s place is with her husband, my child," said 
 the old man, his voice quivering a little. "Owen will not 
 find me a jealous parent." 
 
 ; He loves you too ... he wants me to be with you. . . .
 
 178 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 He showed me with a pencil just where your room would 
 be at World s-End." 
 
 "He is one of the best of men," said her father, with 
 feeling. I part with you in perfect confidence as to your 
 future. I am resigning you into the care of a noble char 
 acter." 
 
 "Yes, yes, father dear," cried ardent Phoebe, and she 
 knelt up and threw her arms about his neck, drawing the 
 old face, with its subtle, mawkish odor of age, close to 
 her fruit-scented cheek. "There is no one as noble as he 
 is in all the world, except you, my own dear father ! 
 
 But in her heart of hearts Phoebe did not think even 
 her father, whom she fondly loved", as noble as the man 
 whom she was to marry on the morrow. 
 
 "There . . . there, my child. Calm yourself," he re 
 plied, smiling faintly at the affectionate falsehood which 
 he divined. "It is not well to compare the differing but 
 equally natural affections which we may feel. Sit here 
 by me, w T here we can both look upon your dear mother s 
 face, and let us offer a prayer in our hearts that her 
 knowledge and love may be with you in this hour of your 
 happiness." 
 
 They sat there silently, hand in hand, and the old heart 
 going gently out on the tide of tender memories could not 
 know the shrinking anguish which wrung the young heart, 
 so miserably begging God to keep from her mother the 
 dark truth to let her know only so much of her child s 
 fate as would, she felt sure, make even heaven a happier 
 place to her. 
 
 And all night long Phoebe dreamed that her mother 
 came flitting softly near, and that her eyes, at first so lov 
 ingly happy, would change and grow piteous, as some 
 dark power whispered the truth to her. Only towards 
 morning did she fall into an unquiet sleep and from this 
 she was waked by the blithe voice of Aunt Patty saying: 
 
 "Git up, git up 1 il bride! Dee bridegroom s a-w r aitin 
 f uh you, an Miss Mary s a-dressin dee bridal-altrum ! 
 
 When the old negress had gone Phoebe slipped from 
 her bed upon her knees and prayed passionately for the 
 first time since disaster had overtaken her. She prayed 
 that whatever she might suffer, whatever punishment 
 might fall upon her, whatever life held for her of dark 
 ness and of bitterness, that never, never, through her 
 should sorrow come upon Owen.
 
 WORLD S-EXD 179 
 
 "0 God," ran the childish wording of her prayer, 
 "Thou kuowest that I love him and adore him more than 
 I do thee but, kind God, only punish me for that . . . 
 keep him safe from my sins!" 
 
 The day was again lovely, but promised rain towards 
 evening. The whole green world seemed but the play 
 ground for joyous shadows. In Phoebe s garden the roses 
 fluttered in the wind like white birds trying to escape and 
 join in the blithe game of sun and air. Mary ruthlessly 
 snipped off great masses of them to decorate the old oc 
 tagonal hall where the wedding ceremony was to take 
 place. She had brought with her a heavily embroidered 
 shawl of white Canton crepe that Oven s grandmother 
 had worn on her wedding journey; there had been no 
 railway smoke to defile such things in those days, and 
 the pure, white folds made a lovely covering for the lit 
 tle table that Mary had set as an altar, with silver candle 
 sticks and heaps of Baiiksia and Damask roses. Box and 
 ivy she trailed over the old green-paneled walls. The 
 place looked like the Bower of Seven Delights when she 
 had finished. She had sent Owen up to wait in Mr. Nel 
 son s study, now seldom used because of the old man s 
 rheumatic knees. Sally would not arrive for yet an 
 other half -hour. Stepping back to the front door, Mary 
 looked approvingly upon her work then suddenly, there 
 being no one to see, her hands went up to her face and 
 she swayed a little. The knife in her heart had turned 
 sharply. For one second she had realised what it was that 
 she had been about that morning. Only for a moment, 
 because Mary would have made an excellent citizen of 
 Carthage during the last days of that city. 
 
 Then she went up to help Phoebe adjust the white chif 
 fon gown on which were several dozens of little hooks- 
 and-loops to fasten. 
 
 The girl began trembling from the time the gown went 
 over her head until the last hook was in place. And even 
 when this was done the trembling continued. Mary 
 whipped out a bottle of aromatic ammonia from her bag. 
 She put a teaspoonful in half a glass of water and ap 
 proached Phoebe. 
 
 "Take this," she said firmly, holding the cloudy mix 
 ture to her lips. The girl obeyed docilely and by and by 
 the trembling ceased. 
 
 In the meantime Owen, feeling very absurd in a frock-
 
 180 WORLD S-END 
 
 coat and white tie at half-past nine in the morning, was 
 walking about the little study upstairs gazing alternately 
 at a fine old print of Harrow, to which school Mr. Nelson s 
 father had also gone, and reading over and over the dry 
 titles on the musty, calf-skin backs of the fat volumes 
 presented to him on neat wooden shelves. 
 
 "The Nelsons of Fauquier," he read, "The Nelsons of 
 Queen Charlotte County," "The Moores of Farley" 
 "Owen Randolph s Exploration of the Green-Flower 
 River" "Account by Phoebe Nelson of her Interview 
 with Powhatan. " This promised a moment s diversion at 
 least. He took down the yellow-grey volume and opened 
 it. Little silver-grey creatures fled over the page like 
 minnows. He slapped the book together to dislodge them 
 and read: 
 
 "I was mightily astonished when I saw that the hue of 
 the renowned Chieftain was no more of a ruddy colour 
 than my shoe. He was a right mannerly man for a savage 
 and bore himself with a sour pride. I found it difficult 
 to support the glances of his eagle eye with becoming com 
 posure. The interpreter disclosed his meaning in lan 
 guage that seemed to me too choice to emanate from an un 
 tutored savage, but he assured me that Powhatan pos 
 sessed a considerable gift of diction. . . . 
 
 Owen put back the little book with a smile. The Phoebe 
 Nelson of that day expressed herself so exactly like her 
 descendant the Thomas Nelson of this. Their "gift of 
 diction," as she would have said, was almost identical. 
 
 He pulled out his watch and looked at it ... a quarter 
 past ten. The Reverend Henry Nelson, a kinsman of 
 course, was to arrive at this hour. Owen and Phoebe were 
 to be married punctually at half-past ten, to allow an hour 
 for the drive to Crewe. And here Owen became aware 
 of such physical nervousness that to jump from the win 
 dow, even at the risk of breaking his legs, would have been 
 a relief. He went to it and looked out. Ah . . . there 
 was Sally in a gown of white lace that she had got to 
 wear when she went to Newport with Richard later in 
 the summer. How ghastly she looked poor Sally ! He 
 felt that he must look queer himself. Certainly civilisation 
 liked to invent for itself trying ordeals. If he and Phoebe 
 could only have driven over quietly to the Reverend 
 Henry s some morning and said: "We want to catch the 
 noon train for New York, please marry us as quickly
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 181 
 
 as you can," what a simplification of everything that 
 would have been ! But then women liked these emotional oc 
 casions. And suddenly came the thought of Phoebe 
 enduring far more at this moment than anything that he 
 could imagine with all his keen sympathy of Phoebe 
 being decked in bridal white over the dark, bitter secret 
 in her heart. It was dreadful that there seemed no 
 escape for reasonable beings from such tawdry tortures 
 as these ! He was now so nervous that his throat felt stiff 
 like wood, and he would have given much for a shameless 
 draught of Mr. Nelson s cherished Madeira. 
 
 He began again reading over the list of unvarying Nel 
 sons and their native localities, in sheer despair, w r hen 
 the door opened and Marv said softly: 
 
 "Owen." 
 
 He jumped towards her. 
 
 "What is it?" he asked, scared by her pale face. 
 
 "Nothing. Only Mr. Nelson has come. They re wait 
 ing for you. You are to go down the side stairway and 
 join Mr. Nelson in the panelled room. Then he ll walk with 
 you to the hall. Stop near the little table with the silver 
 candlesticks. Sally is there now. I ll go and get Phoebe." 
 
 She was turning away when Owen caught her arm. His 
 face was as pale as hers. 
 
 "Mary . . . there s something terrible about all this. 
 It s like a ... a ... an execution." 
 
 "Oh, Owen!" said Mary, and she couldn t help smiling, 
 as sharp as was the pain at her heart. 
 
 He stood gazing at her fixedly. 
 
 "Just a minute, Mary ... I can t think somehow. It s 
 a beastly feeling." 
 
 "Shall I get you a glass of wine?" 
 
 "No . . . no," he said shamefacedly. "But Mary . . . 
 I want to thank you for all you ve done. . . . He 
 stooped down and kissed her suddenly. "Bless you, dear," 
 he said. "Now I ll go." 
 
 He found Mr. Nelson waiting for him, attired also in 
 a frock-coat, or as he would have said a "Prince Albert," 
 of perfect preservation but quaint cut. He held the hand 
 that Owen gave him, and put his other over it in quite 
 a touchingly paternal manner. "God bless you, my dear 
 boy," he said. "This is a trying hour for you. The 
 bride s sensibilities do not have all the excursions and 
 alarums to themselves on such occasions. I recall the
 
 182 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 day of my own wedding as I look at you. I regret to say- 
 that my chief happiness was deferred by Providence until 
 I was sixty, but I clearly recall the terror that I felt : my 
 heart might have been that of a reluctant maiden." 
 
 At the thought of Mr. Nelson with the heart of a "re 
 luctant maiden" beating aginst his austere ribs, Owen 
 gave a sickly laugh. 
 
 "To tell you the truth, sir." he said, the old Harrow 
 speech coming back to him in this upsetting moment, "I m 
 in a thumping funk." 
 
 "I take it," said Mr. Nelson, "that in modern idiom 
 you mean to signify that you are considerably agitated." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Owen humbly. 
 
 "I had thought of such a contingency," said the old 
 gentleman, with what on any other face would have been 
 a roguish smile. Here . . . "he reached behind him and 
 brought forth an actual bumper of Madeira. "Drink this, 
 my dear boy." 
 
 And Owen drank it with enthusiasm to the last honey- 
 coloured drop. 
 
 As they entered the flower-decked hall together he saw 
 only a confused blur of faces, then after a moment or two 
 he recognised Sally, standing very straight and thin, with 
 Hannah s little figure in its neat brown gros-grain close 
 beside her. 
 
 Behind the altar, improvised by Mary, the Reverend 
 Henry, a tall handsome man of sixty, was standing quietly, 
 his hands crossed over his white stole. Everything was 
 very still. An oriole began its liquid fluting in the syringa 
 near the door, and somewhere the trilling note of a tree- 
 toad told of coming rain. Owen stared at the roses on the 
 altar and the candle-flames, darkly saffron in the daylight 
 w T ith pale-blue centres, bowing softly this way and that 
 in the mild summer air. He noticed also how a little green 
 beetle, climbing awkwardly over one of the roses, made 
 it sway and nod. Then a stir among the others and the 
 tilt of their faces upward made him know that Phoebe was 
 coming down the stairs. His heart began to pound pain 
 fully. He felt that the blood had left his face; his lips 
 were cold against each other. He, too, looked up. Yes, 
 there, with Mary s arm about her, she was coming down 
 towards him. 
 
 Mary had set a chaplet of white roses on her hair, and 
 fastened a sash of silver gauze under her small breasts.
 
 WORLD S-EXD 183 
 
 From her girdle to her little feet in their silver shoes (a 
 pair of Mary s) the soft, thin stuff hung in unbroken 
 folds. Ophelia, on her way with flowers to be the bride 
 of death, could not have looked more white and sweetly 
 wild and virginal. A Delphic trance of awed inspira 
 tion and bated fear shone from the great bright eyes 
 fixed on emptiness. Her very lips the lips that Sally 
 had thought too red for a young girl were "white as her 
 smock. 
 
 Mary brought her to her father, who in turn took her 
 icy little hand and led her to Owen s side. There he left 
 her, stepping back again to Mary, his old face working 
 childishly with emotion. 
 
 Owen looked down at the slight form, so virginal, yet 
 that was not a virgin s, and his very bones seemed melting 
 with compassion and vain tenderness. . . . He longed to 
 take her hand and hold it fast in his. But she did not 
 see this yearning look; her eyes were fixed before her, 
 wild and bright in her face of a rapt snow-maiden. 
 
 The Reverend Henry had a beautiful, sonorous voice. 
 His Virginian accent, broad and homely, gave it a sort 
 of affectionate intimacy, as though the two standing before 
 him were peculiarly under his protection. 
 
 With gentle deliberation he spoke the opening phrases 
 of the solemn service : 
 
 "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the 
 sight of God, and in the face of this company, to join to 
 gether this man and this woman in holy matrimony; 
 which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the 
 days of man s innocency. . . . 
 
 The slight figure began to tremble. Owen s hand went 
 out, regardless of all due forms, and grasping hers held 
 it safe and warm. 
 
 "... Into this holy estate these two persons present 
 come now to be joined. If any man can show just cause 
 why they may not lawfully be joined together let him 
 now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace." 
 
 The oriole sang on and on in the pause that followed, 
 but no one spoke. 
 
 Then fixing his kindly black eyes on Phoebe and Owen 
 he continued, addressing them directly: 
 
 "I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the 
 dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts 
 shall be disclosed, that, if either of you know any impedi-
 
 184 WORLD S-END 
 
 ment why ye may not be lawfully joined together in mat 
 rimony, ye do now confess it. . . ." 
 
 These words seemed overwhelmingly terrible to the man, 
 knowing as he did the piteous secret of the girl beside 
 him. His other hand went over hers. He had never 
 read the marriage ceremony. If it had been devised to 
 torture her it could not have been more aptly worded. 
 The blood rushed into his face. His eyes were fixed an 
 grily on the prayerbook held by the rector, with its black 
 cover and large gilt cross. 
 
 But then came the first tremendous question, put di 
 rectly to him, Owen Randolph. Somehow that this stranger 
 should address him by his Christian name made it doubly 
 impressive, as though all lesser conventions were swept 
 aside by this great covenant into which he was entering. 
 
 "Owen, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded 
 wife, to live together after God s ordinance in the holy 
 estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, 
 honour, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, for 
 saking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye 
 both shall live?" 
 
 Prompted by the rector, Owen said "I will" in a quiet 
 voice, and this time catching Phoebe s now fluttering 
 glance, as of a bird seeking some escape from a closed 
 room, he smiled at her. 
 
 The warmth of life seemed restored to her by that 
 smile, the colour flew once more to her white lips and 
 cheeks. To the like question, now put to her, she whis 
 pered "I will," her eyes still on Owen s. 
 
 Then came the enquiry : 
 
 "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" 
 and Phoebe s father moved forward, and said clearly, 
 though tremulously, "I, her father." 
 
 This response in words was unusual, but no one in the 
 little company noticed it. 
 
 At last Owen slipped the ring engraved with "Kindli 
 ness" upon her finger, and said after the rector the 
 words: "With this ring I thee wed, and with all my 
 worldly goods I thee endow: In the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." 
 
 Then came the prayer "Our Father" and the great ap 
 peal beginning "O Eternal God, Creator and Preserver of 
 all Mankind, Giver of all spiritual grace," the solemn in 
 junction :
 
 WORLD S -END 185 
 
 "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put 
 asunder ; the pronouncement of Phoebe and Owen as 
 man and wife, the final blessing: 
 
 "God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, 
 bless, preserve, and keep you : the Lord mercifully with 
 his favour look upon you and fill you with all spiritual 
 benediction and grace; that ye may so live together in 
 this life that in the world to come ye may have life ever 
 lasting. " 
 
 Then came silence, profound and hushed. The oriole 
 began to sing again. Somewhere far out on the pastures a 
 mare nickered to her April foal. Lastly, "Wizzy, escaped 
 from the stable where David had shut him up till the cere 
 mony should be over, came with an injured whine and rat 
 tle of toe-nails along the waxed floor. 
 
 Sally gave a nervous laugh, then, with a stir and mur 
 mur like people waking out of sleep, the little group broke 
 up and came clustering round with good wishes and 
 friendly cheerfulness. 
 
 But in a moment or two Mary took the girl once more 
 up to her little room with its blue roses and memories 
 so tender and so terrible. Wordlessly she helped her to 
 change from her white bridal dress into a suit of silvery 
 linen-tweed (another gift of Mary s). She set the little 
 toque of dark blue velvet on the sorrel hair, gave her her 
 gloves, her handkerchief then, suddenly weeping, she 
 took her in her arms. 
 
 "Bless you, my darling," she whispered, "he will be 
 good to you ... be good to him." 
 
 May God disown me if I am not good to him ! said the 
 girl passionately. But there were no answering tears in 
 her eyes. Something seemed to hold her heart in bands of 
 steel joy and fear, too great for tears. 
 
 There was a confused tumult of good-byes, then she was 
 in the dog-cart with Owen, who was to drive them himself 
 to Crewe. 
 
 "Jinks" and "Jinko," more freakish than ever with 
 the white wedding favours fluttering at their ears, bounded 
 forward. Aunt Polly s Joe on "The Clown" cantered 
 past them to open the first gate. They passed through and 
 she was alone with Owen on the high-road to Crewe on 
 the high-road of life. . . . 
 
 As soon as they had passed Hollybrook "Wood he gave 
 her the reins, saying, "Hold these a minute, dear," and
 
 186 WORLD S-END 
 
 jumping down he took the favours from the cobs head 
 stalls and tossed them aside. 
 
 "I won t have you annoyed with these stupid frip 
 peries," he said, smiling at her. "Thank God they spared 
 us rice and old shoes at least!" 
 
 Phoebe felt a passion of gratitude that he had not said 
 anything serious or tender to her. She felt that she could 
 not have borne it. 
 
 The cobs sped, sneezing with animal spirits, over the 
 road to Crewe. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 N the Pullman Phoebe sat as in a dream, her shoulder 
 against the little travelling-cushion in its scarlet leather 
 case that Owen had slipped behind her. The familiar 
 landscape streaking by looked as foreign to her as Rus 
 sia or "the still vext Bermoothes. " She could see Amer 
 ica s round, fuzzy poll in the neat black turban that Mary 
 had trimmed especially for her repeated in a little mirror 
 across the aisle. Owen had said : 
 
 "I ve put America in the same car with us, Phoebe, 
 because you might need her for something." 
 
 Then he had gone off in consultation with the negro 
 porter. 
 
 Phoebe looked at her own feet, as they rested on the 
 seat before her, clad in a pair of Mary s shoes with flat, 
 square buckles, and they seemed as unfamiliar as the 
 landscape. She dimpled suddenly in spite of the al 
 most gruesome awe that was upon her, and that constant 
 sense of dreadful, gnawing guilt, remembering how Alice 
 had felt the same way about her feet in the immortal 
 story and her proposed letter of introduction with its ad 
 dress, "Feet Alice, Alice Feet; Alice s Feet, Hearthrug, 
 near the Fender." How fortunate it was that she and 
 Cousin Mary both had "the Talliaferro feet," else she 
 would have had to wear a commonplace pair of her own 
 brown shoes without any buckles. Then, with a startled 
 glance around her, she let the little half-smile drop from 
 her lips. 
 
 And now Owen was coming towards her. Her heart 
 seemed to turn over and sit down hard in her breast. 
 This was her simile to herself. Her heart was still sitting
 
 WORLD S-END 1ST 
 
 there, on the floor of her spirit so to speak, when he 
 calmly took the opposite seat from which she had with 
 drawn the buckled shoes, and laid a magazine on her lap. 
 
 "These blessed provincial trains make too much racket 
 for any talk," he said, smiling. "I m going to see what 
 our over-vitalised ex-president proposes as his next move. 
 Are you quite comfy?" 
 
 "Yes," murmured Phoebe. 
 
 Owen opened a Washington paper, and became absorbed 
 in its contents. 
 
 And again Phoebe shared the emotions of Alice when 
 she exclaimed, "Curiouser and curiouser!" It simply 
 could not be true that the big, brown figure opposite, so 
 composedly reading the daily paper, was that of ... her 
 husband. 
 
 She sat up suddenly, the cushion slipping down beside 
 her. Owen, behind the opened sheet did not see this 
 movement but to America it was visible in the little mir 
 ror, and she turned quickly, her pleasant, puffy lips part 
 ing in an inquiring smile over her square teeth with the 
 little gap in the middle which caused her to lisp and 
 through which her pink tongue showed when she talked, 
 as she did fluently and often. Then she got up and came 
 over to Phoebe, bending across the arm. of the seat with 
 her little swagger of importance. 
 
 "You want anything, Miss Phoebe?" 
 
 "No, thank you, America." 
 
 "Lemme cut yo book for you, Miss Phoebe." 
 
 She lifted it before Phoebe could say "yea or nay" and, 
 returning to her place, began cutting the leaves with one 
 of her hat-pins. 
 
 "Curiouser and Curiouser" became the whole world 
 and its contents to Phoebe. That was Uncle Burrell s 
 niece America, who had been born at Nelson s Gift and 
 had never travelled farther than Staunton in all her past 
 days, now on her way to Europe as Mrs. Owen Randolph s 
 maid ! 
 
 Mrs. Owen Randolph herself shivered at the uncanny 
 improbability of this idea, and suddenly belated homesick 
 ness swept over her in a heavy wave. What were they 
 doing now at dear Nelson s Gift? Was her father brood 
 ing apart in his great-chair, too sad even for work on his 
 beloved genealogy? Had Sally already gone home, seated 
 in lonely state in the victoria, the lace dome of her parasol
 
 188 WORLD S-END 
 
 haughtily upheld, and that hard, repressed look on her sal 
 low face, as though "An I would I could speak upheaving 
 truths." Phoebe shuddered at the memory of that bitter, 
 implacable face. 
 
 "Was Mary perhaps coaxing dear father now into a little 
 cheerful talk, while Aunt Patty and Lily dismantled the 
 pretty altar, and the Reverend Henry came to say good 
 bye, with his surplice and stole put away again in his bag ? 
 "Would Mary sleep tonight in her own little bed with the 
 blue roses, or in the more pompous sumptuousness of the 
 goose-down bed in the "guest chamber"? What were dear 
 "Jimmy Toots" and "King Reddy" and the grey kitten 
 doing? She choked a little at this thought. And poor, poor 
 Wizzy, was he balanced on the seat of the victoria beside 
 the unsympathetic Sally, his little, crooked back making 
 him slip miserably with the motion? . . . All those roses 
 that Cousin Mary had cut they would be dead by night- 
 poor roses! And she had cared for them so tenderly all 
 the spring and summer. There were not vases and bowls 
 enough at Nelson s Gift to hold such heaps of roses. . . . 
 Oh, it was all strange, strange almost past endurance 1 
 And Owen seemed far, far way, and almost forbidding, lik< 
 an indifferent stranger, sitting there so absorbed in every 
 day questions, while she ranged bewildered through confus 
 ing aisles of dread novelty. 
 
 As if she had spoken her thought aloud, he put down tho 
 paper and came over beside her. 
 
 Homesick, dear ? " he asked, and laid his hand on hers. 
 
 "A ... a little," said Phoebe in the low voice that he, 
 like Mary, had learnt meant inner trouble. 
 
 He glanced round to see that no one was looking, lifted 
 the little hand in its suede glove and kissed it gently. 
 
 "I won t let it last, dear," he said, smiling at her. 
 "We re going to have the most beautiful times together. 
 This is the most trying part of all. Wait until I show you 
 France and England. Tante Suzanne will want to keep us 
 in Normandy I know, but I think England w r ill be better 
 this summer. I ve a friend there who has the jolliest little 
 cottage in Norfolk. Just the thing for us. It s on the Nor* 
 folk Broads. We can have such fun trawling and shrimp 
 ing. Did you ever shrimp ? > 
 
 "No, "said Phoebe. 
 
 "Do you like sailing?" 
 
 "I ve only been once or twice but I wasn t seasick."
 
 WOULD S-END 189 
 
 "Good!" said Owen. "I ll get a Una-boat what we 
 call a catboat in America, and we two can go sailing till 
 you re as b? own as a nut !" 
 
 He talked on, telling her of the charming places that she 
 was to see with him, of the lovable eccentricities of Ma 
 dame de Mauvigny, of his English friends, who would be 
 so very nice to her, of all sorts of bright, natural, stirring 
 events to come until her sad mood was quite gone and a , 
 sort of tremulous, glad excitement had taken its place. 
 After all, it was through a wonderful fairy tale that her 
 life now lay. She would grasp what sweetness she could 
 with both feverish little hands. Fate had been cruel and 
 niggardly to her. Now she seemed sleeping, drugged by 
 Owen s power all that could be niched from her Avhile she 
 slept, she, Pl. cebe, would clutch greedily. The obstinacy, 
 which in her was passionate when roused, like all her other 
 emotions, sprang up and lit her eyes and cheeks. She 
 would take by force all, all that life had wanted to cheat 
 her of, with strong hands she would take it and hold it 
 fast. She would learn from this new, full existence, open-, 
 ing so dazzlingly before her she would become a woman 
 cultured, clever, wise, charming. She would make him 
 proud of her. Now she was just a little Virginia country 
 girl, whom for some sweet, mysterious reason this wonder 
 ful, superior being had elected to love had made his wife. 
 She would rise to him oh ! she had so much to learn, but 
 she would be tireless she would strive endlessly, unweary- 
 ingly until she was worthy to stand beside him as his equal. 
 No, not his equal ; no one in all the world man or woman 
 could be his equal, but at least as his companion, of 
 whom he could think with pride. 
 
 Owen, delighted to have dispelled her sad mood, talked 
 on until it was time for lunch. 
 
 That, her first meal with him alone, seemed a wonderful 
 event to Phoebe. He made her drink a glass of light wine, 
 and the unusual stimulus, together with the new ambition 
 and eager will that had flared up within her, brought such 
 sparkling life into her face that those nearby could not 
 keep their eyes away from its flame-like beauty. For 
 Phoebe was " journalicrc" to a degree in her looks, and 
 this, her wedding-day, chanced to be also a day of physical 
 loveliness with her. 
 
 "No ... no ..." she told herself, the wine singing its 
 little song of enchantment in her young veins, I will not
 
 190 WORLD S-END 
 
 suffer more than I can help. I will be as happy as I can." 
 
 But when they reached New York, late that night, and 
 the lift had whirled her up to the fifteenth floor (Owen 
 liked to be high in good air, and away from the clatter of 
 the streets), when she stood alone in the false artisticness 
 of the little sitting-room, while Owen went with America 
 and the bell-boy to see that the former s room was near 
 enough and comfortable dread and the old sick terror 
 closed down upon her. 
 
 "Poor little child. . . . Poor little child ..." thought 
 Owen, seeing her white, set face from the corridor before 
 he entered; "what torments of apprehension must be rack 
 ing her. ..." 
 
 And his own heart contracted painfully, for it seemed to 
 him frightful, the idea of possessing a woman wholly, 
 whose heart so lately all another s must even in its sick 
 rebound from desperate love to desperate loathing shrink 
 with unspeakable repulsion from the thought of a new 
 lover s embrace. And yet, for her own sake, sooner or 
 later. . . . 
 
 And, great and real as Phoebe s dread was, it had only 
 indirectly to do with the thought of Richard s having been 
 her lover. She so hated him that, in the abstract, the 
 thought of belonging wholly to another was not so awful 
 to her. She felt that to belong wholly to someone else 
 would seal her away as in a tomb from that terrible past. 
 No, it was rather that all power of such emotion in her had 
 become paralysed, the chords of passion were loosed and 
 numb. Besides, her worship for Owen demanded striving 
 and sacrifice not amorous exultation. If she could have 
 given her life for his she would have leapt toward 
 the knife, or over the abyss with a little laugh of joy. 
 But she had no fire of love to give him. . . . The fire of 
 "love seemed to her a lurid, smoky flame coiling darkly in 
 the grim cellar of life. "What she longed to give him was 
 adoration in the sunlight in the eyes of the morning. 
 She thought of him as having placed a crown of light upon 
 her sorrowful, disgraced head. To have bathed his feet 
 with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her 
 liead would have seemed to her only a fitting and natural 
 action. 
 
 She stood there now, not knowing that he watched her 
 from the outer corridor, and her hands went piteously to 
 her breast, and her eyes were fixed on the door of the next
 
 WORLD S-END 191 
 
 room with that look in them that he had once seen before 
 the look of a hare caught suddenly in a weighted trap. 
 
 He entered and, going up to her, put his arm about her 
 shoulders. 
 
 "Dear heart, you look tired to death," he said in a mat 
 ter-of-fact voice. I think if you go straight to bed it will 
 be the best thing. I ll send America to you and order a 
 light supper on a tray. I m rather done myself. "Wed 
 dings are sad amusements, aren t they?" 
 
 He pointed to an opposite door. 
 
 That is the door of my room. If you want anything in 
 the night, you ve only to call me. I ll leave it open." 
 
 And, kissing her softly, he went to fetch America. 
 
 The largeness of Phoebe s nature did not let her mis 
 judge him, as another young girl might have done. She 
 did not attribute his action to a cool indifference, but 
 when she had dismissed America for the night she sank 011 
 her knees beside the glittering hotel bed, and thanked God 
 with humble awe that He had given poor, unworthy her 
 to a man so almost incredibly tender and considerate. She 
 knew with a sure instinct that he had divined her shrink 
 ing dread and the confusion of all her senses, and he had 
 done that for her. His love was not a selfish appetite, but 
 a great deep like the sea which could wait upon the moon 
 of joy. Oh, she could give him all, all some day, when 
 she was not so utterly weary with remorse and vain regret 
 when guilt was washed away by the tears of blood that 
 her heart shed every hour. . . . And she crept into her 
 lonely bed, broken but happy, and went to sleep with the 
 ring engraved "kindliness" against her lips. 
 
 Next morning came a rap at her door and his voice call 
 ing: 
 
 "Little slug-a-bed! Coffee s here. . . . Slip on a dress 
 ing-gown and come have it with me ! 
 
 Flushing and paling like apple flowers in a wind, she 
 gave a hasty brush to her hair, threw on the little cap of old 
 Honiton with its pink rosettes over either ear (Mary had 
 really provided Phoebe with all the prettiest part of her 
 improvised trousseau), and, slipping into the pink 
 gown that went with it, slid shyly through the half-open 
 door, looking like a figure from one of Morland s paint 
 ings. 
 
 "What a little eighteenth century picture you are in
 
 192 WORLD S-END 
 
 that cap, Phoebe!" said Owen, smiling. "I needn t ask 
 whether you rested well." 
 
 "Oh, Cousin Owen, I ..." began Phoebe, and then 
 stopped short, abashed by the delighted little whinny of 
 laughter that broke from Owen. 
 
 "Really, Mrs. Randolph," he said, and began to laugh 
 again. 
 
 "You do love to tease me, don t you?" said Phoebe, 
 laughing herself. "I must get used to it, I suppose." 
 And she sat down at the table and began to pour coffee 
 with as matronly a manner as she could assume. 
 
 Owen, watching her serious face and the little dig 
 nified airs that she gave her pretty hands, thought boy 
 ishly: 
 
 "Oh, Lord! . . . What a painfully bewitching child. 
 . . . There s no fool like an old fool. ... I m in for 
 it and no mistake " 
 
 It was all he could do to keep from going round to her 
 chair, bending back her head with its stately pose of mar 
 ital dignity, and kissing her full and warm on her parted 
 lips. 
 
 "Do you take one lump, or two or none?" asked 
 Phoebe sedately, with the sugar-tongs poised. 
 
 "Half a lump, please, Cousin Phoebe," said he as se 
 dately. 
 
 Phoebe flushed. 
 
 Don t tease me any more this time, she pleaded ; " I 11 
 really try never, never to do it again." 
 
 "How are you going to manage that half lump?" he 
 asked, smiling. 
 
 Phoebe looked anxiously about. 
 
 "If there was a nut-cracker ..." she suggested at 
 length. 
 
 Owen laughed and, leaning over, took a lump of sugar 
 and broke it in his fingers. 
 
 "There was one, you see," he said, smiling at her. This 
 light nonsense he told himself was the best thing; she 
 looked puzzled but happy under it like a child that feels 
 safe with some trusted gro\vn-up who does bewildering 
 things with it. 
 
 "Do you dress quickly or slowly, Mrs. Randolph?" he 
 asked as he drank his coffee. 
 
 "Oh . . . quickly!" said she. 
 
 Owen looked at her consideringly.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 193 
 
 "Phoebe," said he, "don t you think Missis a very 
 ugly title?" 
 
 " It ... it isn t pretty . . . is it ? " she said doubtfully. 
 
 "Quite the reverse. And husband has always seemed 
 to me a singularly repellent word. Suppose we just pre 
 tend we re sweethearts off on a delightful, scampish sort 
 of adventure. Take off that dear little air of responsibility 
 and be just little Phoebe with me." 
 
 "I ll be anything 1 you want me to be anything!" said 
 the girl, with suppressed emotion. 
 
 "You dear! You winsome, as they say in Devon, 
 ..." said Owen, making love to her across the table in 
 spite of himself. "You re just a delicious honey-pot like 
 Mary of Scotland." 
 
 Phoebe blushed and blushed, hanging her head. 
 
 Owen watched her for a moment, then pulled himself 
 together and got up. 
 
 "Bo vou mind if I smoke a pipe in here?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh, please do!" said Phoebe. 
 
 Somehow she had never felt quite sure that she was 
 :really a married person, until she saw him lounging com 
 fortably near her in a big chair with his old "briar" in his 
 Ynouth. 
 
 "Does it really taste good?" she asked, after some sec 
 onds of thoughtful contemplation. 
 
 "Excellent will you try it?" he asked gravely, offering 
 it to her. The gay little imp that had so long lain sick in 
 her peeped up all at once, and she put forward her red 
 mouth and took a whiff or two. 
 
 "Oh! How nasty! . . . How can you!" she cried, 
 coughing and scrubbing her lips with her small handker 
 chief. I think men s mouths must have a different lining- 
 from ours. 
 
 "They have," said he seriously. 
 
 "Have they really?" 
 
 Yes. They re lined with asbestos, and vours with rose- 
 leaves." 
 
 "Oh, Cousin ... I mean Given!" exclaimed Phoebe. 
 "You do talk such nonsense to me." 
 
 "Don t you like it?" asked he, laughing. 
 
 Why, yes I do, said Phoebe, with a little air of sur 
 prise. 
 
 "Then if you like it, and I like it, there s no use fa 
 tiguing our brains by unnecessary wisdom."
 
 194 WORLD S-END 
 
 Suddenly Phoebe rose and went behind his chair. He 
 felt her arms steal round his neck and her cheek pressed 
 against his. 
 
 I do love you ! she whispered softly. 
 
 Owen felt like crying "Hands off! Fair play!" but he 
 only lifted the arm that lay on his shoulder and, kissing it, 
 got up with a long stretch, pipe in hand. 
 
 "We mustn t be too lazy," he said; "there s lots we 
 must do today. 
 
 "Must we?" said Phoebe, looking interestedly at the 
 little pink bedroom slipper that dangled from her toe. 
 
 "Mh-mh, " said Owen, using the Virginia affirmative, so 
 convenient when a pipe is in one s mouth. 
 
 He took a note-book from his pocket, and began reading 
 her a list, standing up before her. 
 
 "Things for Phoebe. A steamer-coat, light-w T eight. A 
 fur coat to the heels. A steamer trunk. A beret or motor 
 bonnet. A motor veil. A foot-muff. A fitted bag, no 
 Mary scratched that out. We ll wait for London. Two 
 pairs of Dent s gloves. Some woollen stockings. A warm 
 dressing gown for steamer." 
 
 He stopped reading and looked at her. She was twisting 
 her fingers together and her face was scarlet. 
 
 Owen really had some psychic powers. Where Phoebe 
 was concerned he was a finished mind-reader. He threw 
 the little book on the table, and knelt before her, a hand 
 on either arm of her chair. 
 
 "Phoebe, my sweet," he said, "are you going to be a 
 naughty girl and hurt me with false pride about taking 
 some of the worldly goods I endowed you with yester 
 day?" 
 
 Phoebe s hands went up to her face. 
 
 "If ... if ... only I had something of my own," she 
 whispered piteously. 
 
 Owen pulled down her hands and held them. 
 
 "Look at me, Phoebe," he said. 
 
 Her eyes came slowly up full of tears. 
 
 "You said for the second time just now that you love 
 me." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And I love you." 
 
 "Yes . . . thank you," murmured Phoebe. 
 
 She was too enchanting. Owen reached up and caught 
 her to his breast for an instant, then he put her far back
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 195 
 
 in the chair again. It was exactly the embrace that a child 
 bestows on an adored doll, but Owen did not at all regard 
 Phoebe as a doll. 
 
 "Listen to me, darling baby thing," he said, smiling at 
 her a little confusedly, had she known the different 
 grades of masculine smiles, "I stopped your father from 
 telling you the other day, but now I m going to tell you 
 myself. You have got something of your own, dear honey- 
 pot ; I settled a whole hideous building on you when you 
 unselfishly agreed to be known by the unlovely appella 
 tion of Missis. You have exactly ten thousand a year 
 of your very own to buy all the pins necessary for your 
 toilette. "Will 3-011 be reasonable now? I ll present you 
 with a cheque-book bought with your own money the mo 
 ment we reach England. In the meantime allow me the 
 honour of being your banker. All these things in Mary s 
 list (except the fur coat that was my idea, and I cling to 
 it with obstinacy), all those things you can present to your 
 self if you wish. I ve nothing at all to do with them." 
 
 "Ten . . . ten . . . thou ..." gasped Phoebe, regain 
 ing her breath. She could not achieve the impossible word, 
 and sat gaping at him like a lovely Zany. 
 
 "Ten thousand, dear Lady False Pride. If I were to 
 lose all my fortune at one fell swoop you would still be 
 above want and could help me out if you were generously 
 inclined. Come, Phoebe dear, it s customary to make mar 
 riage settlements. Your father approved. You say you 
 love me, yet you let a base thing like money come between 
 us the very morning after our marriage our first morning 
 as man and wife. " 
 
 He reached out and shook her gently as she lay curled 
 in a soft, little heap, her face hidden again. "Phoebe! Are 
 you going to hurt your man the first time he s in your 
 power?" 
 
 Then suddenly her fragrance was all against his face 
 she held his head against her breast with straining arms, 
 and he heard the sweet, deep rhythm of her heart close to 
 his ear. 
 
 "No . . . no. ... I wouldn t hurt you for the whole 
 round world. I ll take anything. ... I ll take a million 
 if you want me to. . . ." She pushed him back and looked 
 eagerly at him "Give me two million if you like," she 
 said, "and I ll take it and use it every bit up !" 
 
 My pretty ! My winsome ! cried Owen again, between
 
 196 WORLD S-END 
 
 tears and laughing, and suddenly he pulled down her 
 mouth to his. But scarcely had their lips touched when 
 he sprang up, saying gaily if a little thickly, "Now, let 
 me see how quickly you can dress, after all your boasting. 
 I ll phone Purley to fetch the motor. Shall we go for the 
 furs first?" 
 
 "Anywhere . . . anything you like," said Phoebe reck 
 lessly, so rejoiced was she to see that she had not hurt him 
 too grievously, and was forgiven. 
 
 When they got back to the hotel the motor looked as 
 though it had returned from a Christmas shopping tour. 
 Owen went with Phoebe to their sitting-room, and, finding 
 that America had returned, left her in the care of that 
 young person, saying that he should be gone until evening, 
 as he had some business that must be attended to. 
 
 "Shall we have dinner here?" he asked. "Or shall I 
 take you out somewhere. It ll be rather muggy in the 
 cafes I m afraid." 
 
 "No . . . here, please," said Phoebe. The memory of 
 their breakfast together still thrilled her softly. 
 
 "Very well. Purley will order lunch to be sent up 
 here. You can talk it over with him. Take good care of 
 her, America." 
 
 "I cert ny will, Mr. Owen," said America, showing the 
 little gap in her teeth. 
 
 As he closed the door Phoebe turned to the young 
 negress, whom she was very fond of. Oh, America, she 
 said; "hug me!" 
 
 "You sweet, sugar lady!" cried the other, squeezing her 
 to her breast with enthusiasm. 
 
 "Ain t you got de king of de wor l, do?" she asked, 
 holding Phoebe off and devouring her shy face with her 
 affectionate ox-eyes. 
 
 "Oh, America," sighed Phoebe, sinking down and 
 stretching out a small foot for her ministrations. "Please, 
 when you say your prayers tonight, pray that nothing 
 dreadful will happen. I m too happy. It makes me 
 afraid." 
 
 XXVII 
 
 "DEING too well known in New York to risk having his 
 *-* wedding journey broken into by reporters, Owen had 
 registered at the hotel under the name of "Owen Reed."
 
 WORLD S-EXD 197 
 
 As Mr. and Mrs. Owen Reed, he and Phoebe also figured on 
 the passenger list of the Lorraine. 
 
 The crossing was uneventful, the passengers uninterest 
 ing. Phoebe went in to dinner every day with a fresh knot 
 of lilies-of-the-valley at the breast of the white chiffon 
 frock. This attention on the part of Owen struck her as 
 the crowning touch of all his lavish goodness to her; it 
 gave him quite away as a bridegroom to the astute "trip 
 pers," who yet were fortunately too much in awe of his 
 personality to venture on the usual pleasantries even at 
 a distance. 
 
 "Mr. Reed" reminded "Mrs. Reed" that he had not 
 taken a cablne do luxe for the same reason that prompted 
 his assumption of their temporary name. It would have 
 set them apart as targets for the crassly vulgar. But 
 Phoebe loved her simple, white "shipshape" cabin in any 
 case, and the strangely sweet, not too familiar intimacy 
 that it brought with her "man" as he had once so thrill- 
 ingly called himself. 
 
 She grew to look for the delicious impropriety of his 
 advent from his own cabin across the way in all the aban 
 don of braces, to brush his thick locks before her little mir 
 ror using the two handleless tortoise-shell brushes, which 
 she always wondered how he managed to wield so dex 
 terously. And he, while shaving every morning, would 
 glimpse the sorrel head, in its cap of Honiton with the 
 pink rosettes, peeping out from her door, above the violet 
 cloth of the dressing gown that he had chosen for her the 
 day before sailing ; there was Phoebe reconnoitring to reach 
 the bathroom. 
 
 Sometimes he came and read bits to her from Tolstoy s 
 "Cossacks," which he was enjoying to the full again after 
 a six years gap. And she would lie on the little couch 
 under the port-holes and, gazing at his face as he read, see 
 him as Olyenin and wonder how Marianka could have been 
 so cruel. 
 
 The arrival at Havre was a new delight. The strange 
 tongue, so exciting to her romantic fancy; the train with 
 its vertebras of small foreign carriages, and the little irasci 
 ble engine, like a mechanical toy ; the keen, different scent 
 and tang of the alien air all these things stirred her like 
 a strange tale told at twilight. Then came the rattling, 
 bumping, swaying flight to Paris the fenceless landscape 
 queerly striped with bands of culture, at last, the dark-
 
 198 WORLD S-END 
 
 gold aura of Paris on the night, and the final descent in 
 the big Gare du Nord. 
 
 They had received a telegram by the pilot. 
 
 "Suis a Paris pour le mois de Juillct. Pauvre Gaston 
 souffrant. Viens sans fautc a I hotel Mauvigny rue La 
 Perouse. Salutations affectueuses. Emkrasse la petite 
 epouse pour Tantc Suzanne." 
 
 "The old dear!" said Owen affectionately. "I had no 
 idea she would be in Paris this time of year. Uncle Gas- 
 ton s gout, of course. But how nice for you, dear. The 
 hotel Mauvigny is one of the most charming houses in 
 Paris. Tante Suzanne will spoil you even more than I ve 
 done." 
 
 "That would be hard to do," said Phoebe, smiling at 
 him. 
 
 Louis, the ancient footman, came trotting towards them, 
 touching his hat like a wound-up toy as he advanced. He 
 had a special culte for Owen. 
 
 "Monsieur Randolph . . . Madame ..." he panted, 
 wreathed in smiles. "Madame la Comtesse attend dans 
 I auto." 
 
 "Bien, Louis. Comment ga va?" said Owen, shaking his 
 old hand. 
 
 "Bien, M sieu. Bien, M sieu. Tres bicn," galloped 
 Louis; then he seemed to gather the faquins together by 
 a lift of his eyebrfews. They came in a bunch, trundling 
 bags and boxes. America and Purley followed in the rear. 
 In a few minutes Ow r en had assisted Phoebe into the motor 
 and the arms of Tante Suzanne. 
 
 The motor had a little electric rose-globed light in its 
 roof, and was lined with a pale, pinkish cloth. "When 
 Phoebe emerged from that voluminous and hearty embrace 
 she looked upon the most amazing old lady possible to con 
 ceive. 
 
 Madame de Mauvigny was seventy if she was a day. She 
 was attired in a marvellous confection of Irish lace and 
 embroidery over bright rose-colour. On her elaborate 
 white wig, as luxurious as the "crinierc" of a French war 
 horse in the time of Roland, w r as a basket hat composed 
 entirely of pink rose-buds, and her large, plump hands 
 were covered by rose-coloured suede gloves. As Phoebe 
 bent forward to receive her kiss she noticed the still natu-
 
 WOKLD S-END 199 
 
 rally jet-black eyebrows, not unlike Owen s, over vivacious 
 golden eyes full of sparkling lights. 
 
 "Ida, petite," cried the old lady, holding Phoebe off in 
 her strong 1 , vigorous hands. "You are charming! "What is 
 she like, eh } A Moreland? A Romney? Ha! C cst Qa! 
 she is like the famous Emma. Perhaps not quite so 
 beautiful but more raffince. More intelligent, pour sur! 
 Jc t aimc dcja, ma mignonne. Kiss me queek!" wound up 
 Tante Suzanne, who had really acquired an unconscious 
 French accent in speaking English during her seven and 
 thirty years sojourn in France. 
 
 "Forgive my hodge-podge of French and English, dear 
 child," she continued the next moment. "My language is 
 piebald, but my meaning is solid gold. . . . like my heart. 
 Eh, Owen, you solemn rascal?" 
 
 "Your heart," said Owen, kissing a pink glove, "is above 
 rubies." 
 
 Tante Suzanne chuckled pleasedly. 
 
 "Is that the way he won you, my pigeon?" she asked 
 Phoebe. "With that honey tongue of his? Eh!" she 
 broke off with a sigh that burst from her all in a piece, 
 like a little puff through a broken pane. "Qu ils sont 
 hcurcux, Ics amourciix! I remember so well my wedding 
 journey with ce pauvre Gaston. "We went over the Bren 
 ner pass in a diligence for sheer romance. It smelt abom 
 inably musty and stable-y je me souviens but it might 
 have been Cinderella s coach for all we knew. He lifted 
 me down whe-n we arrived, and carried me over the thresh 
 old like a Roman bridegroom. Poor dear! his gout 
 wouldn t let him lift a kitten now. Have you ever had 
 symptoms of gout, my dear boy 1 
 
 "No, dear auntie," said Owen, laughing. 
 
 "Ah, Jes amourcux, les amourcux ..." sighed the old 
 lady again, and she went off into a sort of dream for a mo 
 ment or two. 
 
 Then she roused, preened herself, adjusted her bangles, 
 her hat, her gloves, and poured forth volleys of questions 
 about everyone and everything "at home," as she still 
 called Virginia. 
 
 While Owen answered her Phoebe was gazing out at the 
 dark, summer beauty of the horse-chestnuts in the Champs 
 Elysees and the curving lines of electric lights sparkling as 
 for a fete. The street was nearly empty at this hour. A 
 shower had just passed, bringing out that odour of
 
 200 WORLD S-END 
 
 drenched foliage and pavement so peculiar to Paris. More 
 than ever the girl seemed to herself to be gliding through 
 a wonderful dream. 
 
 "Eh, my turtle-doves," said Tante Suzanne, with a sud 
 den note of deprecation in her voice. "I have excuses to 
 make you. Je suis desolee mais que fairef Diana Wrex- 
 borough descended on me yesterday with two children, a 
 bonne and a tutor. She s on the way to her sister in 
 Bretagne, where she ll leave them all for the rest of the 
 summer and only stops two days with us. But the hotel 
 Mauvigny is not elastic. You, my poor dears, will have to 
 put up with one room between you and a dressing-room. 
 Still, that won t be such a desolating hardship for nouveau- 
 maries, eh?" she ended, and tweaked Phoebe s ear with a 
 very roguish smile. 
 
 The girl flared under her words and touch like a blown 
 coal. Tante Suzanne lifted amused eyebrows and glanced 
 at Owen for sympathetic enjoyment of his bride s nai ve 
 confusion. He was gazing out of the window with what 
 she thought an expression peculiar under the circum 
 stances. 
 
 Suddenly, in her thought, she struck as it were her astral 
 forehead. Light had glimmered in her Gallicised mind. 
 "Tiens!" said she to herself. "I had completely forgotten 
 how touchy is the modesty of Americans! Eh, bon Dieu! 
 One mustn t mention coats to Potiphar s wife, nor so much 
 as a sofa cushion to an American bride!" 
 
 Thus reflecting, she deftly changed the subject. 
 
 "Diana is very keen to know your bride," she said to 
 Owen. 
 
 "I ve told you about her, Phoebe," said Owen, coming 
 to the -rescue. "The Duchess of Wrexborough. You ll 
 love each other, I think." 
 
 "Pour sur," said Tante Suzanne, nodding. "And the 
 child couldn t have a better influence than Diana." 
 
 The Duchess of Wrexborough came forward to meet 
 them when they entered the salon, rising slight and im 
 mensely tall in her white tea-gown. Her little deer-head, 
 so unmistakably and beautifully English, with its short 
 nose and up-curving Greek chin and mouth, was crowned 
 by a great braid of ink-black hair, and from under 
 straight brows, that met like those sung by Theocritus, 
 looked eyes as softly clear and changeful as blue opals. 
 
 "How very nice to see you again!" she said to Owen.
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 201 
 
 Then, taking Phoebe s hands in both hers, she looked smil 
 ing into her eyes. "I have so wanted to know you," she 
 said in her lovely low voice. "Owen and I have been such 
 friends for over twenty years . . . ever since my nursery 
 days. ... I hope you ll let me be fond of you, too." 
 
 "Oh . . . thank you ! said Phoebe in her pretty way, 
 and her heart rushed into her eyes. 
 
 "She s a perfect sweet!" said Diana Wrexborough, 
 turning to Owen, and drawing Phoebe to her side. 
 
 Surely, surely, this was a dream! She was certainly 
 just another Alice in Wonderland, and presently this beau 
 tiful Duchess would turn sharply and say, "Off with her 
 head!" 
 
 "Take off your hat, clierie, and let us see you better," 
 said Tante Suzanne. "Take off her hat, Owen." 
 
 Phoebe handed him the little toque, and the shaded can 
 dle-light shone on her beautiful forehead. 
 
 "Don t you think she s very like the Romney of Emma 
 Hamilton with the dog in her arms, Diana?" asked the old 
 lady, just touching Phoebe s hair with her pink-gloved 
 hand. "N cst-cc-pas cpatant?" 
 
 "Yes . . . very," said Diana, "only she s so much finer. 
 I mean in the French sense . . . raffince. ..." 
 
 "Just what I said!" cried Tante Suzanne triumphantly. 
 
 Owen, who, as usual, divined correctly that Phoebe was 
 beginning to feel a little as though she were an objet d art 
 under amiable but critical consideration, now remarked 
 that he thought the most beautiful sight in the world 
 would be that of food as he and Phoebe had had nothing 
 since a glass of wine and some sandwiches at four o clock. 
 
 "Jo suis line vicillc denatured" exclaimed Madame de 
 Mauvigny tragically. "You poor children! Come with 
 me at once ! All is prepared. And you, too, Diana. We 
 can sit by and see the love-birds eat." 
 
 That night, when she was alone, at last, in the "one room 
 between you," Phoebe stood gazing at the lovely old Louis- 
 Quinze bed, as though it were some powerful sorcerer in 
 disguise and had already cast a trancing spell upon her. 
 
 Below in the quiet street she heard a chauffeur s cry of 
 "Porte!" The great doors of the porte-cochere opened 
 and clanged again. The dull rumble of a motor entering 
 jarred through the building. It was Tante Suzanne s 
 eldest son. Jack de Mauvigny, returning from a house 
 party at Versailles. Then she heard a new voice speaking
 
 202 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 in French and the low, lonely voice of Diana answering. 
 Tante Suzanne s vigorous laugh rang out. Then Owen 
 spoke. The voices came nearer, died away. All was quiet 
 in the strange, beautiful house that seemed built of such 
 stuff as dreams are made of. ... 
 
 The afternoon following Phoebe s arrival Tante Suzanne 
 and Diana spent the most delightful hours ransacking Paris 
 for pretty things in which to array her. They were ex 
 actly like two eager children over a doll which they have 
 been given carte blanche to dress. 
 
 At last Owen said, with a masculine note in his voice not 
 to be gainsaid by females who had let him in for several 
 thousand pounds worth of kickshaws, "I am going to take 
 Phoebe off alone, and get her something that I myself 
 choose, ~by myself!" 
 
 The replete shopperesses smiled indulgently, and, hailing 
 a taxi, Owen handed the girl in, sprang in after her, and 
 called an address to the chauffeur that took them far into 
 the old quarter of the town. 
 
 As they got away from the more crowded thorough 
 fares he put his hat on his knees, crossed his hands on his 
 stick and, leaning his chin on them, smiled down at as 
 much of her profile as her hat left visible. 
 
 "Do you mind my pouncing on you and taking you off 
 all for myself like a greedy ogre ? " he asked. 
 
 Phoebe shook her head vehemently but she did not look 
 at him, and sat still as a mouse, her lashes curving down 
 ward. 
 
 Owen bent and glanced under the brim of the big black 
 hat that Diana had just chosen for her. 
 
 Has the cat stolen your tongue, as they say to chil 
 dren?" 
 
 Phoebe shook her head again, overcome with an im 
 measurable shyness at being thus alone with him for the 
 first time on that especial day. 
 
 "You ll have to show me, or I can t believe you," he 
 teased. 
 
 Phoebe smiled in spite of herself, and a little tip of coral 
 stole out between her, pretty teeth. 
 
 He caught her to his side. 
 
 "My winsome! My wife. . . . " he whispered. 
 
 So does the full possession of a loved woman work on 
 some men the finest changing discreeter emotion into 
 \
 
 WORLD S-EXD 
 
 the extravagant magic of un weighed passion and deep, al 
 most melancholy tenderness. And Phoebe was of Helen s 
 brood; her kiss remained like a sweet, clinging fire that 
 many waters of rationality could not drown. Even in far- 
 off China Richard recalled sometimes with an angry hun 
 ger the wild nectar that had lain on her lips that night of 
 May. 
 
 She crouched now, quivering in Owen s clasp, one dread 
 ful question burning through her. Was she then shame 
 less, utterly shameless? ... A creature without moral 
 sense, without sense of decency . . . that she should feel 
 this timorous, sweet delight under his touch and words? 
 . . . "Oli, but this is different!" she pleaded to her own 
 thrilled, accusing heart, "I thought that other was love 
 . . . but this . . . this is love ! But her heart ruthlessly 
 answered Shameless ! Shameless ! 
 
 Yet Phoebe was of Helen s, not Phryne s, strain. Owen 
 held her, gently now, a little longer; then, lifting one of 
 her hands, kissed it and set her free. 
 
 A pang of unspeakable bitterness, rank and envenomed, 
 had shot through him as lie remembered that the slight 
 form yielding so softly against his side had been in the em 
 brace of another man. To have faced that fact with affec 
 tionate compassion was one thing; to realise it in the 
 midst of a throe of passionate love was another. She was 
 now his own, his wife all the desire of his manhood 
 quintessentially refined by years of abstinence from the 
 lighter toys of love yearned towards her. And yet . . . 
 and yet ... of that lovely body would be born the child 
 of another man. . . . 
 
 When the chauffeur stopped at the address that he had 
 given he said: 
 
 "Would you mind if we put off my present till tomor 
 row? ... I feel suddenly so sick of shops. . . . Suppose 
 we go out to Versailles and have dinner there? ... I ll 
 send Tante Suzanne a petit bleu." 
 
 "Oh, I d love not to shop any more!" cried Phoebe 
 eagerly. I d much rather go somewhere with you. 
 
 That evening Diana said, as they exchanged good-nights : 
 "When all the pretty things we chose today are finished, 
 mind you both come to me in England! I m going to shut 
 Wrexborough House next week. You re to come to me in 
 the country." 
 
 "At Gaunt s Hill or Mivvern?" asked Owen.
 
 204 WORLD S-END 
 
 "Oh, Miwern, of course. The Thames is my joy at this 
 season. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 J ONDON rather overwhelmed Phoebe at first sight, it 
 *- J was so wonderfully grim and mysterious after Paris, 
 but its use of a language she could understand unsealed 
 once more the vials of America s volubility, which the 
 French tongue had somewhat stayed. 
 
 They sat informally together in Phoebe s private sitting- 
 room at the Eitz, and partook genially of pigeon pie. The 
 servant who brought it had been dismissed by Phoebe, who 
 wanted to relieve her surcharged feelings by personal chat 
 ter with that brown bit of home, America Vespuccia Byrd. 
 
 They were stopping in town overnight, on their way to 
 Miwern, as Owen had to attend to several matters. 
 
 Meanwhile Phoebe and America discussed the pigeon pie. 
 
 "Oh, America," cried Phoebe. "Do you know we re 
 in England, and this is pigeon-pasty we are eating? You 
 might think it w r as pigeon pie from its looks, but don t for 
 get it s really pigeon-pasty, America." 
 
 "Tases jes like good ole Faginia pigeon-pie tuh me," 
 announced America, lisping more than ever from sheer 
 excitement. 
 
 "And that sky up there," continued her mistress, wav 
 ing her fork, "is London sky, America." 
 
 America goggled her large eyes at it. 
 
 "It s dee spit image uv Faginia sky, Miss Phoebe," said 
 she, chewing genteelly, with her puffy lips pursed together. 
 Then she added: 
 
 "Miss Phoebe, is England in London?" 
 
 "No, London s in England." 
 
 "What s England in, Miss Phoebe?" 
 
 "In the sea," said Phoebe, laughing. 
 
 "Great day in dee mawnin!" cried America, "s posin 
 de sea ris in de night and kivvered it an we-all like dat 
 red-sea done Pha-ry-oh? . . . "What you tell me dat fuh, 
 Miss Phoebe? I ain t goin res easy in my bed tonight, 
 thinkin of how we s right in dee sea. But tain t red, dat s 
 one comfort. I seed miff of it comin over to know dat." 
 
 Phoebe was too much bent on her ow T n thoughts to follow 
 her closely. She held a nectarine towards America.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 205 
 
 "This," slie said, "is a nectarine an English nectarine. 
 Did you ever see a nectarine before, America? . . . Isn t 
 it curious?" 
 
 America eyed it cynically. She was determined not to 
 show too much astonishment over things no matter how un 
 usual. 
 
 " Jes looks tuh me like a sorter stark-nekkid peach, Miss 
 Phoebe." 
 
 "Oh, you funny thing! "What do you mean by stark 
 nekkid?" 
 
 "Well, sometimes hit means one thing an sometimes 
 another. Dis time hit means all dee fuzz is off n dat nec- 
 teril or whatever you calls it, an hit looks percisely like 
 a peach what s done take off its flannel drawers." 
 
 Phoebe got up and hugged the woolly head. 
 
 "America!" she cried. "If I hadn t brought you I d 
 have died of homesickness ! . . . You re such a comfort, 
 America ! And, oh ! you re so funny ! 
 
 "I likes bein funny when I means to be," said Amer 
 ica shrewdly, "but sometimes Mr. Owen he larfs at me 
 when I ain t thinkin of funniness. Dat sho is upsetting." 
 
 "You mustn t mind, Rikky. He laughs at me, too." 
 
 "Oh, I ain t mindin ," said America; "I m jus notie- 
 in ." 
 
 Phoebe amused Owen, on their way to the play, by a 
 mimicked account of this conversation. One of her reac 
 tions had come over her, and she had again determined to 
 be "just as happy as she could." 
 
 As she was Helen s kin, Owen s refrain from passionate 
 love-making piqued while it gave her relief from her self- 
 torturing thoughts. Now she could love him secretly, with 
 out that torn feeling of guilt. She could wear the red rose 
 of love with a difference. That evening he gave her a string 
 of lovely pearls. The child looked exquisite with those 
 moony globules lying at the rise of her white breast, but, 
 as the thought of what they symbolised came to him, he 
 winced like a man struck upon a green wound. 
 
 It was in these days that he faced his feeling towards 
 Richard and knew it to be hatred; knew that in some 
 moods there would be danger for them both, should he 
 come suddenly on Richard. He felt the strength of his 
 own hands to be a terrible force in those moments, for he 
 imagined them closing round a human throat pressing 
 and pressing till the eyes set and the tongue protruded.
 
 206 WORLD S-END 
 
 "When he looked at Phoebe, and felt his love for her rise 
 at flood in his heart, he knew that he was first primeval 
 man, and then, far, far removed, a civilised and philosophic 
 being. What in those moments he craved, even more than 
 he craved the contact of her sweet body, was the feel of 
 his enemy s flesh between his fingers. How was he to con 
 trol, without appearing to do so, the naked savage in him, 
 were Richard to come suddenly again into their life to 
 gether, as he might do at any moment? For, capricious 
 as was Richard s nature, Owen did not believe that the 
 East would long hold him. How was he to act with the 
 coolness that, for Phoebe s own sake, the future demanded 
 of him ? Any marked, or even noticeable, difference in his 
 manner to Richard might light a fuse that would hoist 
 their house of secrets as high as Arcturus. 
 
 He grew thin in these days. Like poor Sally, he eat his 
 heart," and its mangled nerves made all his life one ache. 
 
 They arrived at the country station about six o clock the 
 next afternoon, and got into the musty fly which Purley 
 had in waiting. It struck Phoebe as very odd indeed that 
 a duchess shouldn t send to fetch her guests from the sta 
 tion. It seemed on the same line as saying plain "Ma am" 
 and "Sir" to the sovereigns of England. Then Owen re 
 minded her that they had been unable to say by what train 
 they would arrive. 
 
 Another slight shock awaited her at the house. Diana 
 was not there to receive her. 
 
 Mivvern was not an old house, but it was very charming 
 and friendly, and Diana called it her "print- frock place." 
 She said that one always had one s happiest times in a 
 print-frock, and that being at Gaunt s Hill was like wear 
 ing a peeress s robe of velvet, and ermine, at a Coronation, 
 with a stufty coronet tugging at one s hair. 
 
 From the windows of her bedroom Phoebe saw the suave, 
 plushy lawns slanting to the river that shook a little sequin 
 of light here and there between its fringing trees: a huge 
 Lebanon cedar, from under which some servants were 
 clearing away the tea things; and far, and faint on the 
 summer air, like an old wash drawing, the dome of St. 
 Paul s and the brownish-mauve haze formed by the breath 
 of the huge town. 
 
 "Oh, America," sighed she, thinking of Diana s absence. 
 "Aren t English customs strange?"
 
 WORLD S-EA T D 207 
 
 "Gawd, lie knows cley is, as de ole ooman said when 
 she found a pants button in her hard-b iled aigg, " re 
 sponded Ai.ierica feelingly for she was quick-witted and 
 knew exactly to what Phoebe alluded. "Dee duchess lady, 
 she lets you conic up in a ole hack all gaumed with musk 
 (America meant "must"), and den she ain t hyuh to say 
 howdy !" 
 
 "Of course, it s just English, Rikky." 
 
 "Faginia s good miff fo me," sniffed America. 
 
 Another tap came at the door. 
 
 Phoebe, who was by this time in stays and petticoat, ran 
 to open the door herself, thinking that this must at last be 
 Diana. 
 
 She was faced by a tall, smiling lady with a fleece of 
 crinkled lint-white locks dressed a la Princesse de Galles, 
 who came promptly in, saying cheerfully: 
 
 "How d ye do, Mrs. Randolph? I m Francie Bemyss. 
 Diana told me to look after you. What darling little stays ! 
 . . . Diana said she bought half Paris for you. I do so 
 adore looking at frillies, don t you? . . . Have you had 
 some tea? Oh, what perfectly exquy hair!" 
 
 Phoebe, much embarrassed at thus being found in such 
 frank disarray by an entire stranger, herself elaborately 
 costumed, began to twist up her loose locks, blushing and 
 smiling. But Lady Frances stayed her hand. 
 
 "Do leave it down!" she pleaded. "I shall tell them 
 your nickname must be Godiva. We re all nicknamed. 
 Bemyss, my husband, you know, is The Ancestor. I m 
 The Lamb because my hair is so disgustingly like a fleece. 
 Di is called IIoppo, short for Hop-o -my-thumb, you 
 know, because she s such a darling bean-pole. Wrex- 
 borough is Homer, because he s always pulling out 
 some political plum and saying See what a great man am 
 I. Now you ll be Godiva. I am so pleased to have got 
 the first chance at you ! I in rather a dab at nicknames. 
 But you haven t said whether you ve had tea?" 
 
 "Oh, no, thank you . . . please ... it s so late," said 
 Phoebe. 
 
 "It is rather late," admitted her visitor. Then she 
 seemed deliciously overcome by America, whom she sud 
 denly glimpsed for the first time. 
 
 "Oh, what a darling nigger!" she cried. "How dread 
 fully chic of you to bring a nigger with you. She s from 
 the States, of course?"
 
 208 WORLD S-END 
 
 Phoebe, glancing nervously at America, who would 
 rather far have been called a leper than a nigger, said 
 timidly : 
 
 "We call them colored people at home." 
 
 "Oh, do you? How sweetly quaint. But there s not a 
 ray of colour about her. She s as brown as my boot," and 
 she thrust out her smartly shod foot to let Phoebe see how 
 sound was the comparison. 
 
 America, glowering like an offended queen of the Nu 
 bians, snatched up a fluff of lingerie from the bed as 
 though she were angrily plucking a great fowl, and disap 
 peared into the drawing-room. 
 
 "I m afraid you ve hurt her feelings," said Phoebe 
 anxiously. "She s a dear soul, but her temper s very 
 cranky. 
 
 "Fancy now!" cried Lady Frances, opening her milk- 
 blue eyes. "Just fancy a nigger s minding being called 
 a nigger. Ah! . . . Here s Di. " She fluttered out as 
 Diana entered, and the latter came and took Phoebe in her 
 arms. 
 
 "You look worried, dear," she said. "lias Frances been, 
 talking you to death?" 
 
 "N-no, " hesitated Phoebe. "She was very nice . . . 
 only ... it s poor Rikky she docs so hate being called a 
 nigger!" 
 
 (Phoebe was already picking up unconsciously the Eng 
 lish intonations. She absorbed things like a little sponge 
 without knowing it.) 
 
 "Poor soul! Does she?" asked Diana, surprised in her 
 turn. "Why, I thought they called themselves niggers? 
 They do in their songs, at any rate . . . Dere was an old 
 nigger and his name was Uncle Ned. ..." 
 
 And she hummed the line of the old plantation song. As 
 she ended America s voice came shrill and clear from the 
 dressing-room : 
 
 "Yes, ma am, Mrs. Duchess, ma am we calls ourselfs 
 niggers sometimes, but we don t like other folks to do it. 
 Hit s like whoppin yo own chile. You kin bust him open 
 ef you likes, but you don t want nobody else to ez much ez 
 smack him!" 
 
 Diana rocked with silent laughter. 
 
 "I ... I ... feel just that way about Gerald," she 
 murmured when she could speak. "I can t bear even 
 Wrexborough to put a finger on him. But you must begin
 
 WOULD S-END 
 
 to dress, darling 1 , and so must I. I was so sorry not to be 
 here to meet you, but I had to go in a horrid motor with 
 some people." 
 
 "Well, CryscYs . . . little girl of gold," said Owen, 
 smiling down at her, as half an hour later she came and 
 stood shyly before him, "are you pleased with yourself?" 
 
 "Do you like me?" she asked wistfully. 
 
 "If you didn t have on that diamond halo I would 
 show how much I like you." 
 
 A .sweet recklessness thrilled suddenly through Phoebe. 
 She took a passionate little step toward him. 
 
 "Show me any way," she whispered. 
 
 Owen caught his lip in his teeth. His eyes darkened, 
 and he stood silent, gazing at her. Then he put his hand 
 over her heart, and felt it leap to his touch. 
 
 "Is it all mine?" he said in a low voice. 
 
 "All, all!" said the girl, still whispering, and straining 
 up her whole slight figure to meet his hand. "Oh, if I 
 could only take it out of my breast and show it to you!" 
 
 He caught her to him and set his lips to hers. The kiss 
 was long and deep. He drew back from it with a shudder, 
 putting his hand over his eyes. 
 
 Suddenly the noise of a huge silver gong w r ent softly 
 roaring through the house. 
 
 Owen tried to smile it off. 
 
 "Honey-pot . . . honey-pot," he said unsteadily. "This 
 is a crazy way to prepare you for your introduction into 
 English society. ..." 
 
 Phoebe was looking up at him, a soft, dazed passion in 
 her eyes. 
 
 "I don t care ..." she whispered. "I don t care for 
 anything in the whole world but your love." 
 
 "Well . . . you have it," said he with a short laugh. 
 "Now, come. . . . Don t look at me like that. . . . Oh, 
 what a disintegrating little w r itch you arc! Come . . . 
 really . . . we must go. down. Let s say our multiplica 
 tion table together to collect our wits." And he began so 
 seriously : Twice one is two ; twice two is four ; that 
 Phoebe laughed also, and the spell was broken. 
 
 The house party which Diana had asked to meet Phoebe 
 and Owen consisted chiefly of her most intimate friends. 
 Londoners, both wise cud frivolous, especially at the end 
 of the season, welcome anything that is new, and the ro 
 mantic story well told of a little Cinderella, who was also,
 
 210 WOULD S-END 
 
 Diana declared, a darling and a beauty and who had just 
 been lifted by the Prince from obscurity and poverty into 
 the fairy-like possession of American millions ("billions," 
 Lady Frances had put it), made all the guests at Mivvern 
 anxious to see Cinderella for themselves. 
 
 It was a delightful gathering as delightful and catho 
 lic as only English house parties ever are. There was an 
 ex-cabinet minister the most distinguished parliamentar 
 ian of his day an amusedly listless personage, with dead- 
 white hair and dead-black eyes, and a lank, languid figure 
 who looked as though Hamlet might have been his grand 
 father, the "melancholy Jacques" his father, and Amiel a 
 maternal uncle. 
 
 There was an old cabinet minister, who looked exactly 
 like the picture of John Bull in "Punch" and a young 
 cabinet minister, a very stripling of a cabinet minister, 
 with a smooth, round, peachy, teasing face, greenish-grey 
 eyes and impossibly thick boyish hair. Phoebe could 
 scarcely believe that the Honourable Victor Keith Had- 
 ringham really and truly occupied that awesome position. 
 
 There was a rather overpowering great lady of mature 
 charms, with a petunia-coloured wig and the biggest 
 sapphires in England, who Phoebe learned later to her 
 unmixed bewilderment was the inamorata of the John- 
 Bullish peer ; openly acknowledged by everyone but herself 
 and his lordship. 
 
 There came several less exalted personages a great nov 
 elist, a well-known actor, a noted M.F.H., some charming 
 women among whom was Lady Frances s sister Delia Tor- 
 ranee (called Dempsy by her friends), a gay mad-cap, as 
 small and dark as Lady Frances was tall and fair. 
 
 "Nervous, dear?" asked Owen, as they went down the 
 last broad, shallow flight together and the hum in the 
 drawing-room grew louder. 
 
 "No," said Phoebe, with a little up-tilt of her chin. 
 "It s funny how brave one feels in a beautiful dress. It s 
 like a knight getting on his armour. 
 
 "Well, God be wi you, little Daniel," said Owen, step 
 ping aside for her to enter the brilliant room that hummed 
 like a gilt hive. "I throw you to the lions. ..."
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 211 
 
 XXIX 
 
 "OHOEBE never forgot that first English dinner. Young 
 * Hadringham took her in. When they sat down Lord 
 RrOekmorton, a quiet, dark man of about thirty-five, was 
 on her right. Phoebe s eyes were sloe-blue with shy ex 
 citement. The little blushes waved their bright flags be- 
 iieath. On her sorrel head the tiny diamonds twinkled 
 as she turned from one to the other of the two men, who 
 both began talking to her at the same time. 
 
 "Talk to me, Mrs. Randolph," urged Hadringham; 
 "Rockmorton is only bluffing/ as you say in the States. 
 He isn t such fathoms deep as I am. He s really the 
 property of Dempsey Torrance, only she talks so much and 
 he so little that they ve never managed to come to the 
 point between them. 
 
 "Don t listen to Vic, Mrs. Randolph," said Rockmorton 
 in his turn. "He s an abominable hedger and would com 
 promise with Cupid himself. 
 
 "Oh," said Phoebe, delighted, as she thought, to under 
 stand this allusion. "I know. And are you a ditcher, 
 Lord Rockmorton?" 
 
 "I see you re thinking of the industries that flourished 
 so amazingly among the Tories last year," answered he, 
 smiling. "But I was only alluding to my friend s consti 
 tutional weakness. No I m not a ditcher. The duke 
 and our great man and Thrynne there represent the op 
 position. I m what our papers so chastely call a Liberal 
 peer. 
 
 "He s a Laodicean," said Iladringham. "He d rather 
 have to take old Sophia off Burlough s hands than give a 
 casting vote." 
 
 "Why do you call her old Sophia ?" asked Phoebe, 
 glancing at the Countess of Greystairs. "She isn t really 
 old." 
 
 "We don t mean anything unkind by it," Hadringham. 
 assured her gravely. It s a sort of term of affection. Per 
 haps it s a little the contrast of her wig. Did you ever 
 see such immortal youth in a wig?" 
 
 "It would be more becoming with a little grey in it, 
 don t you think so?" suggested Phoebe timidly. 
 
 Rockmorton and Hadriugham went off into fits of laugh 
 ter.
 
 212 WORLD S-END 
 
 "Suggest it to her! Pray suggest it to her, dear lady," 
 said Rockmorton when he had recovered. "And let me 
 hide behind the door when you do so." 
 
 ""Well, I do think it would soften her face," persisted 
 Phoebe stoutly. 
 
 " Soften her face! " moaned Hadringham, and then 
 they were off again. 
 
 "What did I say so funny that time?" asked Phoebe, 
 with a puzzled smile. 
 
 "Why, bless me, Mrs. Randolph, if you softened old 
 Sophia s face you d destroy it entirely. Her only hope is 
 to keep it as hard as possible." 
 
 "As hard ... ?" said Phoebe, opening wide her eyes 
 upon him. 
 
 "The patina of Lady Greystairs s face is celebrated," 
 Rockmorton explained. "It s almost as rare a work of art 
 as the lost Chinese art of cloisonnee on filigree." 
 
 "Is it . . . enamelled?" asked Phoebe, in an awed whis 
 per, which convulsed them again. "I ve heard of that, 
 but I never saw it before. 
 
 And she gazed cautiously over the epergne of mauve 
 orchids, at the perilous snows and carnations of "old 
 Sophia s" countenance. 
 
 "Eric," said Hadringham suddenly, "I ve done my 
 duty nobly by Lady Constance, but the fair Boultbee will 
 make her Arthur call you out on the pretext that your 
 hair isn t brushed to suit him, or something of that sort, 
 if you neglect her another instant." 
 
 Rockmorton put up his eye-glass, looked through it with 
 scorn at his friend, as though saying, "I m up to your 
 tricks, old chap," and turned resignedly to the beauty on 
 his right, who was beginning to make pellets of her bread 
 with a frosty air of detachment. 
 
 "Now," said Hadringham genially to Phoebe, "tell me 
 something about Virginia. I ve always doted on Virginia 
 and Virginians ever since I first read my Thackeray; and 
 I m sure you d like talking about your home. 
 
 "Oh, how kind of you to care!" cried Phoebe, her eyes 
 lighting up, "just like big purple lamps," as Hadringham 
 afterwards confided to Diana. And she flung herself 
 whole-heartedly into a description of Nelson s Gift, the 
 darkies, "Killdee," "King Reddy "everything. 
 
 "And you ve lived there like a little dryad in a birch- 
 tree all these years," said Victor Hadringham, regarding
 
 WORLD S-EXD 213 
 
 her meditatively out of his broad, greenish eyes, "and now 
 you sit here looking like a darling little queen in the midst 
 of our over-civilised flummeries." 
 
 It was so astonishing to Phoebe to have a strange youth 
 call her a " darling little queen," even though he were 
 the infant prodigy of the Cabinet, that she blushed all 
 down her milky neck and arms. 
 
 "Oh, you sweet !" thought Victor; "here I ve been wast 
 ing my youth mulling at beastly politics when I might 
 have been questing for you in the cotton groves of Vir 
 ginia. 
 
 "Virginia has cotton groves, hasn t it?" he asked sud 
 denly. 
 
 "Well . . . you see," said Phoebe, hesitating in her ef 
 fort to impart the truth without seeming too bluntly to 
 correct an ignorance so astonishing in a Cabinet Minis 
 ter; "it docr-n t grow quite tall enough to make groves. 
 We say cotton fields. But South Carolina and Georgia 
 and Alabama are the cotton States. Tobacco comes from 
 Virginia, you know." 
 
 "Of course! Sir Walter Raleigh, his pipe! . . . And 
 he brought us over those jolly flowers called Michaelmas- 
 daisies, too. But, to tell you the truth, I m not thinking 
 of either the flora or the staple products of Virginia. What 
 I am really thinking ..." 
 
 "Yes? . . . What?" asked Phoebe, deeply interested. 
 
 "Since you ask me then what I am really thinking is 
 whether you are frightfully in love with your husband? 
 . . . But stay . . . don t break it too abruptly to me if 
 you are. I couldn t stand the shock like this, right before 
 everyone, with a large slice of roast beef looking me full 
 in the face, too. . . . But please, please don t say you 
 are! . . . He s ages too old for you. You should love 
 someone of let me see well, someone not more than 
 thirty-two . . . someone who would be foolish enough to 
 build a little shrine to each of those pansies that I suppose 
 you call eyes. You angel lady ! " he broke off, if you look 
 at me with that horrified expression of shocked amaze, I 
 shall swoon, and then the Powers, " he nodded towards 
 Lord Burlough, "will want to know what s up, and my 
 parliamentary future won t be worth twopence! Are you 
 really shocked?" he asked, leaning a little nearer her, 
 charmed by the puzzled cloud in her eyes, which arose 
 from not knowing whether to consider him demented or a
 
 214, WORLD S-END 
 
 wicked Lothario. "You mustn t be, you know? . . . Just 
 ask Di, or any of them, and they ll tell you that Vie Had- 
 ringham is a perfectly harmless person." 
 
 "Oh," said Phoebe, immensely relieved. "Of course 
 . . . you were chaffing me, as you call it over here!" 
 
 "No, lovely dryad, I wasn t exactly chaffing," said 
 Hadringham mournfully. "But I m afraid you are in 
 love with your husband. Only don t tell me so bang out. 
 Sweet dreams are better than sour realities. 
 
 Here Rockmorton firmly intervened, and Phoebe, bewil 
 dered and determining to ask the key of this strange 
 statesman s character from Diana on the first opportunity, 
 turned to her other neighbour with a little breath of re 
 lief. 
 
 It was an eager, excited Phoebe who faced Owen that 
 night, when he came in from his dressing-room to ask how 
 she had enjoyed her evening. 
 
 "Oh, Owen!" she cried. . . . "They seem to like me! 
 . . . Oh, I ll make you proud of me yet! . . . You shall 
 be proud of me ! . . . " 
 
 Conceited child ! I m proud of you now, said he, 
 laughing. "Keep those Cinderella slippers still a moment, 
 and tell me some of your triumphal experiences." 
 
 She came and sat on the arm of the big, chintz-covered 
 chair into which he had thrown himself. Her voice took 
 on a little hush. 
 
 "Owen ... do you know? It was like miracles. . 
 But I didn t make a fool of myself. "When Mr. Ravon took 
 me off to that corner it was all I could do not to look round 
 to you for help. One of the greatest scholars in England, 
 and me, Owen ! Just think of it ! . . . and then. ..." 
 
 She swung her graceful body forward and looked into 
 his face. 
 
 "Do you know what happened?" 
 
 "If I hadn t been looking all the w r hile, I should strongly 
 suspect him of having kissed you," replied he, much 
 amazed. 
 
 "No. . . . But he began that quotation about the Dios 
 curi from Epictetus, and I finished it! ... You know 
 Epictetus is the only what-you-might-call learned book that 
 I do know anything about! ... I felt a dreadful little 
 fraud, but he looked so pleased that I just thanked God I 
 knew that much! , . . Then Lord Burlough said some-
 
 WORLD S-END 215 
 
 thing about Burke, and I had read some of Burke to dear 
 father, so I knew that! . . . And oh! Owen . . . won t 
 you get me all Burke s speeches . . . and, and . . . Plato. 
 And some things from the Persian. I do want to know 
 things so dreadfully ! I want you to be proud of me ! Oh, 
 I do want that more than anything!" 
 
 "More than anything f" he asked, laughing in spite of 
 himself, and catching the excited little hand which was 
 tracing on the air the immense scope of the learning which 
 she wished to absorb. 
 
 She slid down beside him, regardless of her spangled 
 gown. 
 
 "More than anything . . . but one thing," she said 
 softly. Owen sat looking into the ardent, upturned face a 
 moment ; then he took it in his hands, and kissed softly her 
 forehead and eyelids and mouth. 
 
 "Dear Honey-pot, " he said. "It s after one. I m 
 going to help you get off these gew-gaws unless you want 
 America." 
 
 "No I told her that she needn t wait up." 
 
 He helped her unfasten the circlet and roses, undid such 
 hooks as she could not reach, and then, kissing her again 
 in that gentle, almost melancholy way, it seemed to her, 
 went off to his own room. 
 
 Phoebe, relieved as she always was at the continuance of 
 his unimpassioned mood, felt yet a sharp, contradictory 
 pang. Did he really, really love her, after all? or was it 
 only a kind affection that he felt? She crept rather for 
 lornly and humbly into the big bed, and in her ear, buried 
 in the huge, square pillow, her heart beat. "Shameless! 
 Shameless! "Would he love you at all if ... he knew?" 
 
 Great tears began to burn her eyes. All the guileless 
 delight in her little triumphs slipped from her like a gar 
 ment. She sobbed herself to sleep. 
 
 XXX 
 
 month of August, the most disastrous to agricul- 
 * ture that England had known in many years, passed 
 weeping on its way. As a writer from Herefordshire sum 
 marised in one of the weeklies, "Wheat was nil, under 
 waiter ; barley practically ditto ; oats worse than bad ; grass 
 120, but no good."
 
 216 WORLD S-END 
 
 "You will carry away a doleful impression of our tight 
 little island/ " Diana had said to Phoebe on the fourth 
 morning of steady downpour at Mivvern, but so very 
 "nice" was everyone to the little Virginian that it would 
 have taken more than a rainy August to give her a sad 
 impression of England. 
 
 And yet in spite of all the petting and spoiling that she 
 received, in spite of the wonderful and ever new fact that 
 she was regarded as a "great darling" and the "new 
 beauty" wherever she went, in spite of Owen s evident if 
 amused pride in her little successes, far down in her 
 heart a red mouse was gnawing night and day. Scarcely 
 was there a moment that she did not feel the sharp teeth 
 digging, digging in her side. And dreadfully clear would 
 sometimes come the face of Richard, just as she was 
 falling asleep or w r aldng maybe, with expressions of ter 
 rible intimacy, with eyes dilated with cruel love, as she 
 had seen it that night in May. 
 
 And she would wonder with a sick shudder, lying all 
 alone in the big bed under its gay chintz curtains, how 
 Owen s face would look were he ever to know, . . . Were 
 she ever to tell him. . . . "Would he perhaps kill her ? Kill 
 Richard? . . . Oh, she hoped that rather than hate her 
 he would kill her quickly, mercifully ! But she knew that 
 this was mere idle fantasy. No idea could be more far 
 fetched and absurd than that Owen should deal brutally 
 with a woman. No, he would merely give her one look 
 of loathing and turn from her forever. She tried to im 
 agine his face with such a look upon it, but except in a 
 dream now and then, horribly real, she could never picture 
 it otherwise than kind. Yet this kindly look was, in itself, 
 beginning to torture her. Had she then dreamed those 
 few passionate caresses, that she trembled to remember, 
 that she had trembled in receiving, afraid of her own 
 joy in them, that even now seemed so shameful a thing to 
 her? 
 
 Even that kiss, given on the evening of their arrival at 
 Mivvern, just before they went down to dinner, had been 
 the last of its kind that she had received from him. And, 
 in her ignorance of the ways of men, she asked herself, if 
 it was like that perhaps always? Did intense feeling die 
 with them as a bee dies when it has stung? . . . Was 
 one passionate embrace all that their love demanded ? And 
 oh ! when she so completely loathed that other, was it, after
 
 WORLD S-END 217 
 
 all, so shameful in her to love passionately the man who 
 was her husband? But, then, was it not doubly shameful 
 to love him if he had no love for her? ... If he only 
 thought of her with that amused affection which she had 
 come almost to shrink from? . . . 
 
 A wild hope had begun to visit her as far back as those 
 Paris days. The hope that perhaps ... in spite of every 
 thing, she had been mistaken. That destiny would not put 
 upon her the hideous burden of that other s child. When 
 she thought that this horror might be before her ... it 
 seemed as though she must escape through what the old 
 Stoic that she loved, her one wise friend, Epictetus, 
 called "the open door." . . . But she felt so well, so light 
 . . . surely, surely she had been mistaken. Yet, if she 
 were not ... if that surplusage of misery were in store 
 for her . . . would not even the harsh God of the Old 
 Testament forgive her if she sought escape from it in 
 death. For there had begun to grow in Phoebe a new 
 realisation of the terrible wrong that she had done to 
 Owen. She had known his views on certain matters when 
 she consented to marry him . . . that his code was one of 
 broadest compassion and non-judgment of others even for 
 a fault like hers . . . but . . . his code involved the tell 
 ing of the truth, . . . the deliberate choice of a man in 
 such a case. . . . And Avhat had she done by her silence? 
 ... It was no less than the one sin unpardonable in 
 women that she had committed the foisting of another 
 man s child on one who would believe himself its father. 
 . . . Oh, now ... if this child were born to her she must 
 tell him . . . she must tell him and go away from him 
 forever or ... It was too late to retrieve her sin against 
 him, but at least she could expiate it even by death. 
 
 And she wondered at her own nature, which could pass 
 through such abysms of wretchedness as she descended into, 
 during these hours, . . . and then later on recoil and find 
 solace and even jcyousness in the passing moment. 
 
 If only, if only that would not come upon her, she could 
 bear anything else, even the lack of a keener love on 
 Owen s part. If only that would withdraw its sullen, fetid 
 shadow from her life, . . . she would go softly all her 
 days, not in the bitterness, but in the thankfulness of her 
 heart. She could tell him then some day without abso 
 lute despair. 
 
 And in Owen also this hope had begun to stir. She
 
 218 WORLD S-END 
 
 seemed so girlish, so Hebe-fresh and virginal, . . . her 
 lithe figure had such pretty slenderness. Might it not all 
 have been a horrible mistake? . . . The error of a girl s 
 ignorant alarm, following the shock of betrayal? ... If 
 this were so ... The rest seemed almost trivial compared 
 to the unspeakable relief that would result from a certain 
 knowledge that no child would be born of Kichard s 
 wanton baseness. 
 
 Owen looked on life with a large tolerance. Bodily 
 chastity, per se, had always seemed to him* far below other 
 virtues in the scale of goodness. He ranked unselfishness, 
 forgiveness, kindliness, fellow-feeling far above it, when 
 considered as a thing apart. A merciful prostitute seemed 
 to him a far worthier creature than a back-biting prude. 
 He valued deeply that saying of the Christ that publicans 
 and harlots enter the Kingdom before certain of the pro 
 fessedly righteous. He had not the Minotaurish trend of 
 the male nature which demands offerings of virgins as its 
 natural food. That Phoebe had not come to him a virgin 
 was a matter that caused him personal suffering through 
 the instinctive exclusiveness of sexual passion, but he did 
 not condemn her or regard her as a soiled creature be 
 cause in her unguarded, inexperienced springtime she had 
 yielded to an overmastering if mistaken passion. For he, 
 on his side, never doubted that Phoebe would one day tell 
 him all. What racked him, what broke him on the wheel 
 of his own imagination was the thought that in the fair 
 body which had grown dearer to him than the blood in his 
 own veins lay hidden that possible life w r ith sources drawn 
 from a foul spring, . . . the life quickened by another and 
 which might bring her torture and even death. 
 
 Love, in its strongest aspects, is never a reasoned thing. 
 Such love he had come to feel for her, yet he told himself 
 that he had full reason also for his love. 
 
 A sweeter, more generous, more single-hearted, more 
 natural and divinely ardent creature never drew the breath 
 of life, he felt assured, recalling the infinite sweet riches 
 of her lovely nature. A fitter victim for Richard s cool- 
 hearted lust could not have been found, though fate had 
 combed the world with her great carding-iron. And yet 
 . . . how was it with her in regard to Richard? She gave 
 him, . . . Owen ... a pathetic hero-worship; ... a 
 trembling affection (it had never occurred to him that 
 Phoebe responded even by a tonic echo to his own passion),
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 
 
 the result in chief of what, she must tell herself, poor 
 child, was her debt of guilty gratitude towards him. But 
 Richard, . . . how did she think of him? . . . Was that 
 love quite dead, or only sleeping? If she were to see him. 
 again, . . . when she saw r him again, . . . for that ordeal 
 must come to both of them, to her, and to Owen himself, 
 in time, . . . when she saw Richard again, . . . how 
 would it be wiil i her? A first unhappy passion in the 
 heart of a girl like Phoebe must be a saturating poison, 
 he thought, infecting the tissues of soul and body, like 
 some fabled potion, . . . like the fatal drink mixed by 
 Isolde. Had life that bitterness in store for him? . . . 
 that he should see in her eyes some day rekindled love for 
 Richard ? 
 
 Once he had held her against his heart as wife, . . . 
 once only. For her own sake he had drunk of the cup that 
 had not been mixed for him, . . . but out of that sole em 
 brace had sprung an enduring passion, . . . that emotion 
 begotten of spirit and of flesh which is experienced but 
 once in a lifetime by man or woman. 
 
 And so, with the red mice of secret pain nibbling at their 
 hearts, they went with the desperately weeping August 
 days from country house to country house, and always 
 Phoebe was petted and spoiled delightfully, and Owen 
 amused and humanly pleased with her pretty triumph and 
 his part in it. 
 
 On the night that Diana gave her fancy ball at Guant s 
 Hill the weather stopped sobbing and weeping for a little 
 while, and by twelve o clock a great gold-breasted moon 
 lolled on feathery clouds behind the oaks and beeches of 
 the park. 
 
 That was the crowning night of Phoebe s comet-like pas 
 sage through the firmament of British country life. Diana 
 had invented for her a lovely dryad s costume, and when 
 dressed in it she looked as though a slender birch had just 
 opened its silver house to let her forth. 
 
 Drifting by with Diana in a pause of the dancing, she 
 hesitated a moment, then stopped shyly near Owen, who 
 was leaning against a doorway in his Cossack costume of 
 severe black cloth and high astrachan cap. This costume 
 had been suggested by Tolstoy s novel read on the passage 
 over. 
 
 ". . . . Will you dance with me, Sir Cossack?" she 
 asked, flushing and paling in her wild-rose way.
 
 220 WORLD S-END 
 
 Owen smiled and shook his head. 
 
 Bad form, sweet dryad, he said. Diana would have 
 me flogged with my own knout." 
 
 "But . . . we don t mind, do we?" she asked wistfully. 
 "I d so love to dance with you just once!" 
 
 He shook his head again, still smiling. 
 
 Diana, turning back, overheard. 
 
 "What s this! Waltz with one s own husband at my 
 ball ! Never ! cried she, and bore the mutinous dryad to 
 the other end of the room. 
 
 Somehow Owen s refusal to dance with her stung 
 Phoebe out of all proportion to what, in her mood that 
 night, she felt to be its affront. And this sharp sting in 
 her pride, in the vanity evoked by the constant spoiling 
 that she had been receiving of late, . . . caused her to 
 sting herself also like a little snake of Arizona, ringed by 
 birds with thorns. Sharply she planted these self-inflicted 
 wounds in her sore, morbid pride. "He snubs me kindly 
 like that, because I bore him. He doesn t want me. He is 
 only fond of me as if I were some little pet. Something 
 that he had found hurt or sick . . . that he had taken pity 
 on. Yet other men care for me . . . make love to me. 
 And if I am shameless to want his love is it my fault ? Did 
 I make myself? No, . . . some cruel power made me what 
 I am. The cruel power has made me love him. These 
 others love me, but I only love him. And he doesn t want 
 me. Even to dance with me would bore him. And yet 
 other men tell me that they love me, and that I am made 
 for love." 
 
 And in her over-strung, excited mood tonight, that grew 
 ever more and more excited as the gorgeous, confusing 
 pageant surged about her, she began to feel angrily that 
 life was again trying to cheat her, was playing with her 
 like a cat with a mouse. If he did not mean to love her 
 more, why had he loved her so passionately that once? 
 If her love meant nothing to him, why that one time had 
 he trembled at the touch of her mouth on his? . . . But 
 she was not a toy, a doll, to be picked up in a careless mo 
 ment and then laid aside and forgotten. She was not even 
 a little girl any more, to be soothed with sugar plums of 
 kindly words, and as good as bidden to go and play by 
 herself. No . . . she would make him feel . . . she would 
 make him love her! But how she would do this, ... by 
 what means she could not tell. Only her heart burned
 
 WOULD S-END 221 
 
 sullenly like a smoky candle in her sore, angry breast, and 
 its fumes rose to her brain, confusing, clouding it with 
 thoughts half conceived, that swarmed sparkling like the 
 fiery patterns on a darkness which is not dark to sick eyes. 
 
 And this mood mounted, and mounted with every dance, 
 with every sip of champagne which she drank thought 
 lessly to quench the thirst of dancing, with every word of 
 flattery or love, whispered by men who were, some in 
 earnest, and some only grasping at the chance of a few 
 hot, thrilling moments of by-the-way pleasure when, in 
 some discreet corner, they might taste that red, tempting, 
 alien mouth. The unreasoning recklessness of fever came 
 upon her. Her hands were hot and dry, . . . her eyelids 
 felt hot against her eyes, so feverishly glittering and di 
 lated. When she saw the tall figure in its Cossack dress, 
 dancing with some other woman, vain rage scorched her 
 heart, and she felt as the humming-bird does when it tears 
 to pieces the flower that refuses honey. He was hers . . . 
 he was hers. . . . Whether he cared or not ... no matter 
 how wrong it was for her to care, ... he was hers, her 
 own. And once she had been his. But he had played with 
 her. "What for her had been a torture of sweetness and 
 was now a torture of anguish ... had for him been only 
 the careless drinking from a cup that stood at his hand. 
 And now that he had emptied the cup of novelty, ... he 
 pushed it aside. Yes, yes ! She was like an empty cup to 
 him, . . . but she would show him that she was more . . . 
 that to the very brim she was filled with the wine of lifz-, 
 ... of love. . . . 
 
 As she finished a dance with Rockmorton they found 
 themselves near the door of one of a suite of smaller rooms, 
 that lay opposite the ball-room. A knot of people clustered 
 about this door, evidently gazing at something of interest 
 which was taking place within. She pressed forward, eager 
 in her present feverish mood to escape nothing of the "lust 
 of the eyes." She found herself next to Owen. She glanced 
 up at him, but he did not see her. His look was fixed on 
 Dempsy Torrance, who was dancing alone in the centre 
 of the room. And, all stung and quivering with jealousy, 
 she hurt herself again and again by gazing unnoticed at 
 that look of admiration in his eyes. And again and again, 
 smarting, on fire with her piteous, helpless jealousy, . . . 
 she glanced from his eyes to the light, madcap figure of 
 Dempsy, swaying and turning in an East Indian dance.
 
 222 WORLD S-END 
 
 She was famous for her mimicry of celebrated dancers, 
 and now she was giving them an imitation of the last 
 London favourite in a dance of exotic seduction. 
 
 I could do that better, yes, better than she can ! came 
 Phoebe s passionate thoughts, like a swarm of sparks 
 burning and dying out as they burnt. "I am prettier 
 than she is I have prettier hands and feet." And she 
 clenched her little hands in the folds of her dress and, 
 gazing at Owen, kept saying between her teeth: "Look 
 at me . . . look at me . . . you shall look at me." 
 
 He turned suddenly and looked down full into her eyes. 
 She gasped, locking her hands together. Something in 
 her small, excited face struck him painfully. 
 
 "Don t you feel well, dear?" he said. 
 
 Yes perfectly. Why do you stare at her so ? " 
 
 "At whom? At Miss Torrance? . . . Because she s 
 charming to stare at. You can t see her where you are. 
 Take my place." 
 
 He stepped aside to make room for her, but she caught 
 his arm in her strong little hand. 
 
 "Come and dance with me," she said under her breath. 
 "I don t care what anyone thinks, not Diana or anyone. 
 . . . Come and dance with me, Owen." 
 
 He laughed, shrugged his shoulders and gave her his 
 arm. They began to dance. He held her lightly as one 
 holds a stem of flowers which one is afraid of crushing. 
 In the middle of the ball-room she stopped short. 
 
 "I won t bore you any more," she said. 
 ""Why, Phoebe!" said Owen, quite disconcerted and 
 glancing sideways at her stormy face. "What is the mat 
 ter, dear?" 
 
 "Life is the matter ..." she said in a low, condensed 
 voice. Before he could make any response to this Victor 
 Hadringham had danced off with her. 
 
 Owen stood an instant looking after them. He felt 
 worried. The child had never looked lovelier, but there 
 was something unnatural and overwrought in her expres 
 sion. She did not look exactly ill, more what the Scotch 
 call "fey." Then he saw her smiling and chattering in 
 the hall outside with Hadringham, and presently a foot 
 man brought two glasses of champagne. She drank one 
 nearly at a draught. Hadringham just touched the other 
 to his lips. They went off towards the conservatories to 
 gether.
 
 WORLD S-END 223 
 
 A half-hour later Owen saw her standing near one of 
 the great windows with Lord Bemyss, and went up to her. 
 
 "Don t overtire yourself, dear," he said. "It s nearly 
 three o clock. And, by the way, I wouldn t take too much 
 of this champagne if I were you. AYrexborough is more 
 famous for his claret than his fizz, eh, Tony?" 
 
 "Rotten stuff," agreed Bemyss. "I ve told him so often, 
 and so has Diana, but he s a\vfully pig-headed." 
 
 Owen scarcely heard what he said, however, being too 
 astounded at the expression with which Phoebe was re 
 garding him. She was playing with the trail of ivy on her 
 breast, and a slight smile just lifted the edge of her lip. 
 In her eyes, steady, dilated and wide, fixed on his, was a 
 look almost of menace. Bemyss had turned away to speak 
 to someone for an instant. 
 
 "If you think I m taking too much wine, why don t 
 you tell me so straight out?" Phoebe was asking in a low 
 voice that only lie could hear, "why do you put it on the 
 poor Duke s champagne?" 
 
 "Why, Phoebe!" said Owen, for the second time that 
 evening. 
 
 Here Bemyss turned back to them again, and Owen, 
 after hesitating a moment, went off without saying a word. 
 
 The cruel little imp in Phoebe s heart danced with glee. 
 
 "I ve hurt him . . . I ve hurt him! . . . Then I can 
 hurt him! . . . Oh, I ll hurt him more!" she kept say 
 ing to herself. 
 
 When she ran up to the beautiful apartments that Di 
 ana had assigned to her in the West Tower it was after four 
 o clock. Somehow her feet w T ould not go quietly that night 
 she might have been shod with the little red shoes of 
 the sea maid in the fairy-tale, the little red shoes that 
 made their wearer s feet dance ever on and on though her 
 heart was breaking. Her feverish mood had passed into 
 physical fever now, though she did not know it. Her 
 brain was spinning. Her thoughts came without sequence 
 but always on the same subject. "Love . . . love. . . . 
 He shall love me. . . . Life shall not cheat me. Love . . . 
 love . . . passionate love . . . the love in story-books and 
 songs and poems. Yes . . . that is what I want. I m 
 made for love, they say. I want it ... I need it ... I 
 will have it. ... 
 
 Her eyes were black and quivering. The two little 
 blushes under them were like flowers of fire now.
 
 224 WORLD S-END 
 
 She looked about her. Owen was not there, but she 
 had felt him follow her upstairs. He was in his own room. 
 He would come presently to help her unfasten her dryad- 
 dress. She took a length of her lovely hair in either hand, 
 and, running over to the great mirror sunk in the wall 
 between two silver lamps, stood gazing at her own image. 
 
 Through the big casement window the moon, now near 
 its setting, diapered her filmy gown with soft rose and 
 gold and amethyst. 
 
 She turned, slowly swaying from side to side, as Dempsy 
 had done in the East Indian dance. "Yes . . . yes . . . 
 I am far prettier . . . my breasts are like white flowers 
 . . . hers are like little, withered pears. ..." 
 
 She laughed softly, a cruel, low laugh. . . . 
 
 "Well, little dryad," said Owen s cool, kind voice from 
 the doorway of the other room. He came lounging in with 
 a cigarette in his hand. He still wore his Cossack dress, 
 but had laid aside the hot cap of astrachan. As he caught 
 sight of her he stopped short. The child was so wonder 
 fully lovely, standing there in the mingled light of moon 
 and silver lamps, with her bright hair dripping from her 
 fingers, and her double shining back from the pool of the 
 big mirror. As he stood, the cigarette-smoke curling up 
 between them, she turned softly and came nearer, laugh 
 ing again that little, honeyed cruel laugh. And she be 
 gan swaying and bending before him, in the fashion of 
 Dempsy s slightly tipsy dance of an hour ago, only here 
 the willowy beauty of the slight figure made all the dif 
 ference. 
 
 "See!" she whispered. "I can do it too. . . . Don t 
 I do it as well as she does?" 
 
 Owen caught his lip between his teeth. She knew that 
 jtrick of his, and her heart leaped. 
 
 She came nearer. 
 
 "Tell me ... tell me ... " she whispered. "Isn t 
 this as pretty as what she did?" 
 
 Phoebe ..." began Owen. His voice sounded strange 
 and he stopped short. 
 
 "Tell me . . . tell me ..." she coaxed, still nearer 
 now. The. warm perfume of her hair stole to him. Sud 
 denly he took a step forward and buried his face in its 
 thick fragrance. She could feel him shaking. With that 
 soft, low laughter she pushed him from her. 
 
 "No ... no ... I want you to look at me. I want
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 225 
 
 you to tell me that I can do it as well as she can. Look 
 . . . look ..." 
 
 Slowly she swayed and turned, allurement in every line 
 of her softly laughing face and lissome body. In that thin, 
 classic gown, with the ivy leaves on hair and breast, she 
 was like a little priestess of Idalia offering herself to love. 
 . . . And surely that was love, passionate love that 
 poured on him from her eyes so dilated and feverish in 
 her tense, ardent face. Desire shook him. He went white 
 as death. 
 
 Then suddenly, in the midst of those soft, voluptuous 
 wrcathings, she stiffened stopped short. Her hand went 
 to her side clutched it. "Wild, amazed terror stared from 
 her changed eyes. 
 
 "What is it ? For God s sake. What is it?" he cried, 
 starting forward, the spell snapped. 
 
 She rocked stiffly against him like a broken toy. He saw 
 that she had fainted. He laid her on the great Eliza 
 bethan bed, and ran wildly in search of help. 
 
 She had felt another life move beneath her heart. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 HTHE little village of Wyckthorn in Norfolk looked much 
 the same as it had done in the time of Joseph Arch, 
 the farmers no longer flogged the farm lads, neither were 
 folk horsewhipped for stealing turnips, nor did laborers 
 get the sack for not attending church as in the good old 
 days before 1870: and though the cottages had been en 
 larged, so that families of nine were no longer sometimes 
 forced to sleep in two rooms, thus increasing the danger 
 of "a heavy fall of bastards in one year," as an old woman 
 had once complained, the roses still climbed as lavishly 
 over them, and their little windows peeped as charmingly 
 as ever from under eyebrows of tangled creepers. 
 
 "Wyckthorn Cottage," as the house they had taken 
 was called, stood apart at one end of the village, sur 
 rounded by gardens and pasture-lands. One approached 
 the front door through an old paling fence, in which be 
 tween brick posts was set a little gate of beautifully 
 wrought iron. The old sunk-garden lay at the back, and 
 when Phoebe and Owen came down about the first of Sep 
 tember it was all vaporous with the tall mauve sprays of
 
 226 WORLD S-END 
 
 lavender, through which here and there broke a fiery spike 
 of scarlet sage. Beyond the garden lay a shaven lawn, 
 divided from the fields by a ha-ha. The house had been 
 added to from time to time, and had that familiar charm 
 of things that have grown, not been turned out all at once 
 in a lump of geometrical precision. 
 
 It had the queer internal economy of such houses, where 
 all the domestic viscera, so to speak, seem topsy-turvy, 
 yet work in perfect harmony as though defying the natural 
 laws of architecture. Thus the library was at the front 
 door, the hall wound like a "Z" the dining-room found 
 itself in a wing, and the drawing-room came last of all, 
 spreading out along the whole front of the garden as 
 though the old house had said, "I will express my feel 
 ings for once in a big yawn and stretch," and so had 
 gaped forth this delightful, commodious apartment, full 
 of old Sheraton furniture and flowery chintz that seemed 
 to reproduce the garden within doors. 
 
 The sea lay about three quarters of a mile off, and a 
 winding, white road led to it along the Broads," on an 
 arm of which a windmill spread its slatted wings against 
 the low, English sky. 
 
 Phoebe had been very ill for several days after those 
 wild moments in the East Tower, in which she had seemed 
 to change into another being before Owen s bewildered 
 eyes. 
 
 As he sat white and miserable the next morning near 
 the window before which her wilful, lovely dance had 
 taken place, Diana had come slipping softly in from the 
 bedroom, a queer smile on her lips. 
 
 This smile was so strange that it checked the question 
 with which Owen had started up. 
 
 "You dear soul," she had whispered. "Don t look so 
 scared. 
 
 She took his hand, and held it. 
 
 c You dear, stupid, stupid old silly ! she had exclaimed, 
 still in a whisper and still smiling. Haven t you guessed ? 
 . . . Really?" 
 
 The blood rushed back on Owen s heart. 
 
 "Not . . . ?" he stammered. 
 
 "Yes!" said Diana. Tears shone behind her smile. 
 "The poor darling is a bit out of her head, but it s 
 nothing. Girls are often like this . . . with the first, you 
 know. I m going now to wire Fulke to come down at
 
 WORLD S-END 227 
 
 once. There s a good nurse in AYrexton. I ll send a trap 
 for her when I send the wire. . . . The child got over 
 excited last night. . . . Danced too much, and all that. 
 Don t look so worried! I assure you it s nothing. She ll 
 be perfectly all right in a day or two." 
 
 And, still smiling that mysterious little smile that women 
 have for such occasions, she left him. 
 
 So it had come ! . . . He sat down with a queer feeling 
 of halvedness, as though he had been cut in two just under 
 his breast-bone. And, then, suddenly broke upon him a 
 dark shower of strangely practical questionings. "When 
 would the child be born? . . . He remembered bits of 
 old-wives wisdom that he had not known until then he 
 was even aware of. From some odd pigeon-hole in his 
 mind lie drew them forth. Seven-months children were 
 different from other children. People who knew about such 
 things could tell at once. . . . He must keep anyone away 
 from her who knew the date of their marriage. . . . Tante 
 Suzanne. . . . She would be sure to want to be with 
 Phoebe. ... If the child were not what a seven-months 
 child should be she would know at once. Would surmise 
 all sorts of things. . . . His heart choked him with its hot 
 bound. . . . She would think that he he Owen himself. 
 . . . He walked up and down the room with a face like 
 death. Suddenly it worked like a woman s. He sat down 
 again and covered it with his hands. A sob broke from 
 him. 
 
 Nothing that he had ever heard or read of, no tragedy 
 of Ophelia, or Antigone or Virginia herself, slain in the 
 market-place by her father s hand, seemed to him so pite 
 ous, so horrible, as the tragedy of that dance of love 
 checked by the stirring of another s child. For he guessed 
 with hateful certainty that such was the truth. 
 
 Phoebe came out of her illness like one dazed. She 
 seemed unable to recall incidents that had happened for 
 quite a considerable period before it. Thus her arrival 
 at Gaunt s Hill and the ball itself were blanks to her. 
 Diana petted her and bade her not worry; told her 
 that it was all very natural just now, and that the great 
 accoucheur, Lindsay Fulke, had said that she only 
 needed perfect quiet to set her straight again. It was 
 that silly ball, and her own too charming little self, which, 
 had made those greedy men dance her to death, that had 
 done the mischief. If only she, Diana, had known! . . .
 
 228 WORLD S-END 
 
 But, then, probably such a blessed little goosie as Phoebe 
 had not known herself. Diana was so happy for her! . . . 
 There was nothing in the world sweeter than little lips 
 at one s breast. It was a droll, queer rapture that only 
 those who had felt it would understand. Phoebe must 
 think of her when that little sucking caress as of a fairy- 
 bee thrilled her heart for the first time. And so on, and 
 on. While Phoebe, lying white and spent, thought how 
 strange it was that a lovely voice like Diana s could yet 
 sound so hideous in her ears. 
 
 As soon as Phoebe was able to travel, Dr. Fulke ordered 
 her to the quiet of Wyckthorn. Diana had a round of 
 important visits to make in Scotland, and politics were 
 very stirring just then, Wrexborough needed her every 
 minute, but as soon as she could, as soon as Fulke would let 
 her, she was coming to see how her little Virginian sweetie 
 fared in an English cottage. It was a duck of a cottage. 
 She envied her brother every time she went there. She 
 wouldn t give one such ducky cottage for a dozen Gaunt s 
 Hills, etc., etc. 
 
 Owen had realised almost immediately that Phoebe s 
 mind was washed of the memory of that wayward, passion 
 ate dance, and he thanked God for it. He quivered when 
 he remembered the depths of joyous passion, pagan and 
 unashamed, that had been revealed in her. He had thought 
 to marry Chloe, sweet as clover, and he had taken Idalia a 
 daughter to his wife. And though it was a temporary 
 madness that had thus unveiled the divine fire to him, yet 
 he felt, very surely now, that love for him had kindled 
 it, and that what had passed between her and Richard 
 was but as lightning striking out a sudden storm, as soon 
 spent as gathered. 
 
 Only the more terrible did this make the tragedy of the 
 not-to-be-escaped fate that lay before her, before him 
 through her. 
 
 The first days at "Wyckthorn were passed, whenever the 
 weather permitted, in the Una-boat. As Phoebe had said, 
 she never suffered from seasickness, and these long hours 
 tacking along the lovely, wistful shore at high tide seemed 
 to soothe her, and melt the trouble in her large eyes, for 
 the time being. 
 
 Later on she began to ask for books and papers, and 
 would lie contented on a sofa before the log-fire in the 
 cheery drawing-room as long as Owen, could manage to
 
 WORLD S-END 229 
 
 read aloud to her. Somehow an obsession for hearing 
 Plato took her, and Owen subscribed to the London Li 
 brary that he might easily get her any book that she de 
 sired. 
 
 _IIe read the "Phedrus; and "Crito" and "Sympo 
 sium" to her, and she thrilled over them, as most girls of 
 her age would have done over melodrama. Here was a 
 new charm in this rich nature which he realised was only 
 just beginning to unfold. 
 
 She gave a little laugh, the first in many a day, when he 
 read bow Alcibiades had taken the big wreath of violets 
 and ivy, fluttering with ribbons, from his own brows and 
 crowned Agathon, and then, suddenly catching sight of 
 Socrates next him, had begged back some ribbons from. 
 Agathoii and decked the great philosopher s bald head 
 with them. 
 
 "Oh, Owen. I can see him!" she said. "So drunk and 
 handsome, with Socrates kind, ugly face just quietly smil 
 ing at him. But read me about Diotima again. What she 
 says when Socrates asks her, What is love ?" 
 
 Owen read: 
 
 " What, then, is Love, I asked? Is he mortal? . . . 
 No. What then? As in former instances he is neither 
 mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two. 
 What is he, Diotima? He is a great spirit, and like 
 all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the 
 mortal. And what, I said, is his power? He inter 
 prets, she replied, between gods and men. ... " 
 
 "Stop!" she had cried, raising herself on her elbow, 
 with starry eyes and flushed cheeks. "That is enough. 
 Put a mark in it I want to learn it by heart tonight be 
 fore I go to sleep." 
 
 Then she began to want to know more of the world 
 philosophies and religions. 
 
 He got the Bhagavad Gita and a little book of extracts 
 from the gospel of Buddha. From a beautiful transla 
 tion of bits of the Mahabbarata he read her of how the 
 king turns back from the door of heaven when the door 
 keeper will not admit the faithful hound that has followed 
 him through all his troubles. And of how, as he is turn 
 ing away, lo ! the doorkeeper himself ia revealed as the 
 great god Indra, who bids them both enter, as this was 
 the last test. 
 
 Her tears came. She said:
 
 230 WORLD S-END 
 
 "I think that s almost the loveliest thing in any Bible 
 I ever heard of." 
 
 Chven bent down and kissed her with emotion. "You 
 are the loveliest thing in or out of Bibles!" he had whis 
 pered rather chokily. 
 
 They made little excursions into Fichte, Spinoza, 
 William Law. lie sent for such books at random as they 
 came into his mind. Then she wanted to know more of 
 modern philosophy. He was astounded at her remarks on 
 pragmatism. 
 
 "I don t think cutting up truth into lots of little bits 
 makes it more true," she had said. "It doesn t seem as 
 true, somehow. It s just as if one took a flower and 
 pulled it apart, and then held it out and said, Here is a 
 flower. But it isn t a flower any more. It s just scraps. 
 That is what . . . pragmatism, do you call it? seems to 
 do. Of course I m only an ignorant girl, but it seems 
 like that to me, Owen." 
 
 "It seems like that to one not ignorant at all," he an 
 swered, looking at her with a throb of tender pride. "A 
 very great man has said much the same thing, only not 
 in your pretty way." And he got Eucken s "The Truth 
 of Religion" and read her parts of it that he thought 
 would appeal to her, feeling that it would cost her too 
 great an effort just then to follow through the heavy 
 form of the whole. 
 
 At one passage her hand stole out and sought his tim 
 idly. 
 
 "Read that again," she whispered. And steadying his 
 voice by an effort he did as she asked and repeated the 
 words of splendid hope : 
 
 . "An ascent of life may often result more easily from 
 a precipitous fall with its scars than from the stagnation 
 of daily routine. Evil may exercise a stirring power, and, 
 along with this, point out the path to goodness. Suffering 
 and guilt may occasionally be conducive to the inner ad 
 vance of life and to the formation of a new nature." 
 
 This, together with his saying that "we cannot explain 
 evil, but we can overcome it," she stored away in the ar 
 moury of wise words that she was furnishing as a defence 
 against those dreadful thoughts that came like things out 
 of the night and dragged her down into black places. 
 
 Among other things, he hunted up a book little read 
 nowadays that he was fond of Sir Humphry Davy s
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 231 
 
 "The Last Days of a Philosopher," and bade her note 
 how strangely it presaged the Oriental dreams that had 
 haunted London for the past twenty years or so. And 
 then he read her Kant on The Immortality of the Soul, 
 to show her how a great mind differentiates between ratio 
 cination and intuition. 
 
 She said very wistfully one night, after one of these 
 ventures into philosophical speculation: 
 
 Owen, dear. I ve just had a thought of my own. It s 
 a very little thought, but it s all my own. I d like to tell 
 you, only I m half ashamed." 
 
 He took her hand and held it to his cheek. 
 
 "Xot of me, sweetheart, surely." 
 
 ""Well, then . . . All these men, great and wise as they 
 were, could not have imagined a new colour if they had 
 tried ever so hard. How, then, could they have thought 
 that they could imagine God? Do you see what I m try 
 ing to say?" 
 
 He looked wonderingly at her. 
 
 "That is not a little thought, darling. Yes ... I see 
 what you mean." 
 
 "It seems to me." she said, her eyes absent, "that to 
 love what is beautiful and hate what is ugly in life, and 
 ourselves, and others . . . and never to judge. ... It 
 seems to me that is a good religion. ..." 
 
 "So it is, sweetheart." 
 
 "A God that we could understand wouldn t be a God, 
 He would be no greater than those who understood Him. 
 That is the way I feel. I think we just have to trust what 
 is beautiful and ask it to bless our sins to us. 
 
 Looking up rather timidly to see whether he approved 
 her humble gropings, she surprised his eyes with tears in 
 them. 
 
 "Oh . . . are you sad?" she cried, her voice tender 
 and fallen. 
 
 "No. It s just that I love you very dearly. Very, 
 very dearly, little heart." 
 
 She caught his hand with the book in it, and kissed it 
 in that sudden way she had. 
 
 "If you love me I can bear anything!" she said, and 
 he had answered : 
 
 " If I love you! "... 
 
 For lighter reading they had the enchanted forest of 
 George Meredith to wander through, and he read her
 
 232 WORLD S-END 
 
 some of flie poets most dear to him. She especially loved 
 the beautiful lines by Donne : The Undertaking. Over 
 and over she made him read it to her : 
 
 **But he who loveliness within 
 
 Hath found all outward loathes, 
 For he who colour loves, and skin, 
 Loves but their oldest clothes. 
 
 If, as I have, you also do 
 
 Virtue in woman see, 
 A.nd dare love that, and Bay so, too, 
 
 And forget the He and She. 
 
 A.nd if this love, though placed so, 
 
 From profane men you hide, 
 Winch will no faith on this bestow, 
 
 Or, if they do, deride: 
 
 Then you have done a braver thing 
 
 Than all the Worthies did: 
 A.nd a braver thence shall spring, 
 
 Which is, to keep this hid." 
 
 When he had finished reading it for the first time, look 
 ing up to see from her expression whether it appealed to 
 her, he had found her face covered by her hands. 
 
 "What is it, darling?" he had asked. 
 
 And suddenly she had uncovered her face, all quickened 
 and uplifted. 
 
 "Oh, I will make myself all glorious within for you, 
 like the King s daughter!" she had whispered passion 
 ately. 
 
 As often happens with the advent of a dreaded thing, 
 the transmutation of apprehension into reality brought 
 with it a species of strange peace. The terrible, unavoid 
 able destiny had fallen, they were in the net. What use 
 of further struggles? 
 
 Sometimes, when Owen thought of what the next six 
 months must surely bring, his very flesh quailed, and, as 
 for Phoebe, she was only able to sustain that dreadful 
 imagination by the hope that it might result in death. 
 In the meantime this beautiful present took on a wonder 
 ful glamour, as though in defiance of the dark shade that 
 menaced at the crossways. She resigned herself to what 
 lay before her, being convinced now, as women often
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 233 
 
 are, that she would die in childbirth, and having re 
 solved to confess all before she died and thus fall quietly 
 asleep with his forgiveness for pillow since surely death 
 would bring her his forgiveness. 
 
 A certain hateful problem Owen had had to solve alone. 
 The problem of shielding Phoebe from any breath of 
 scandal in regard to the premature birth of the child that 
 would be looked upon as his. 
 
 After days and nights of racking thought he had de 
 cided to go to Dr. Fulke with a well-ordered lie. There 
 was no other solution possible that he could see, try as he 
 might, and by thus taking the experienced physician into 
 what would be apparently a grave and intimate confi 
 dence he could command the protection for Phoebe which 
 could be obtained in no other way. 
 
 So he confided to Fulke that, owing to serious fam 
 ily complications, he and his wife had been married pri 
 vately at a date which antedated their public marriage by 
 two months. Afterward events had occurred which made 
 it necessary to confess all to Mrs. Randolph s father. He 
 had insisted that no one else he told and on the immediate 
 performance of a public wedding. Therefore, Dr. Fulke 
 would understand the grave difficulty in which they found 
 themselves at present. 
 
 Whether the great accoucheur credited this story or not 
 Owen could never decide. He listened with discreet at 
 tention, saying, "Quite so, quite so," at proper intervals, 
 and, when Owen had ended, assured him of the honour 
 that he felt so grave a confidence to be. 
 
 ; Give yourself no further uneasiness," he had then con 
 tinued. "A word from me will keep Mrs. Randolph iso 
 lated from even her most intimate friends until such time 
 as I may think fit. The Duchess tells me that she will be 
 in Italy with her children during February and March. 
 Have you any near relative on this side, persons who 
 may think it their privilege to be near Mrs. Randolph at 
 such a time? The confinement, as I said, will probably 
 take place during the latter part of February." 
 
 When bald medical terms struck Owen on the raw he 
 winced, but there w r as nothing for it but to sustain the 
 interview to the bitter end. As long as he lived the 
 thought of that stuffy, pompous house in Harley Street, 
 of Fulke s sagacious, slightly over-ingratiating face and 
 fluent, sonorous voice filled him with sick disgust and
 
 234 WORLD S-END 
 
 mortification. He had never before deliberately fabricated 
 and carried out a lie. Had the physician believed him as 
 on proofs of Holy "Writ, still that stinging, mortifying 
 doubt would have haunted him. 
 
 He left finally, having been told by Fulke that the con 
 finement could be stated to have taken place prematurely, 
 and that he (Fulke) would pronounce the condition of 
 Mrs. Randolph to be so grave that no one must see her 
 until his authority had been given. 
 
 "Let us see," he meditated finally. "A seven-months 
 child, that would make it ... Quite so. ... In two 
 months, not before, friends might be permitted to see 
 mother and babe. Give yourself no further uneasiness, 
 Mr. Kandolph. I will take matters firmly in hand when 
 that ... a ... happy occasion arrives." 
 
 And with a smile meant to be sympathetic, but which 
 resembled that of a genial clergyman relating an anecdote 
 slightly off-colour to a carefully selected audience of one, 
 the great man had bowed him out. 
 
 The people who had really grown fond of little Phoebe 
 wrote her charming notes and letters in her exile. Diana, 
 of course, but Dempsy Torrance also, Lady Francie, 
 Hadringham, Rockmorton, all sent her more or less scrappy 
 but affectionate missives. 
 
 Hadringham s were written with a quill pen, almost two 
 words to a page, and illustrated with clever caricatures of 
 the powers that be. There was one, especially droll, of 
 himself speaking in Midlothian to a solitary Scot, with 
 the "ghaist of guid auld Wullie" (thus Phoebe learned 
 that some of his old constituents alluded to the late Mr. 
 Gladstone) with this august shade weeping tears of wrath 
 behind him, as the crowd rushed off after a blighting rep 
 resentation of the Duke of Wrexborough, in a monthly 
 nurse s cap, with the tariff-reform in swaddling-bands 
 held to his ducal chest. Diana wrote in high feather. 
 
 "... I shall be running down to see you soon now, 
 darling. We ve scored the most glorious victory in Mid 
 lothian. That constituency has never returned a Tory 
 since Gladstone won it from Buccleugh, you know." (As 
 if Phoebe knew anything whatever of the kind ! ) " Wrex- 
 borough is simply chortling with glee. He says we can 
 certainly force a dissolution of Parliament in November, 
 now. But I don t know. The Liberals have some dis 
 gustingly strong men. Vic Hadringham made a ripping
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 235 
 
 speech in Dundee. But all this is just piffle to you, 
 dear duekie, isn t it? / know what you re interested in! 
 Mind it s to be Phoebe Diana in case ... !" And so 
 on and on. . . . 
 
 "Oh, dear," Phoebe had exclaimed with some mourn- 
 f ulness after Owen had explained to her the meaning of 
 Iladringham s sketch and Diana s political allusions. "If 
 wo re going to be here some time, I must learn something 
 about it all. They re always talking this sort of way, 
 and I feel such a little fool. ..." 
 
 So Owen subscribed to "The Times," and "The Na 
 tion," as representing different sides of the shield. And 
 Phoebe ploughed through Parliamentary debates and Lib 
 eral and Tory leaders with indefatigable if confused per 
 severance. The ideas which she gained from this enforced 
 diet were not clear, but they were certainly enlarged! 
 
 By the same post that brought Diana s letter came one 
 from Mary to Owen that fortunately he began to read 
 while Phoebe was absorbed in her own new r s. 
 
 It was headed "Read this when alone," and he slipped 
 it quietly into his pocket. He would say that he had 
 mislaid it, if necessary, should Phoebe, w r ho had noticed 
 the handwriting, ask to see it later. 
 
 "When he had an opportunity of reading it he found 
 that Mary was at World s-End with Sally, who had been 
 seriously ill. 
 
 "I know you don t like bad news in broken doses, dear 
 Owen," Mary wrote. "So I will tell you at once that Dr. 
 Patton says poor Sally has a grave heart-trouble. She 
 will be subject to these attacks all her life, and must be 
 very, very careful. She may live many years; she might 
 go suddenly. He has told her frankly that her heart is 
 involved, so that she will be careful and follow his in 
 structions, but of course we haven t let her know how 
 seriously. I ve thought that the poor dear looked very 
 badly for a long time. Of course it depresses her dread 
 fully, and Richard s being away makes it all much worse. 
 He s in Ceylon now. I didn t dream he d stick it out 
 so long. I ve written him of Sally s condition and hope 
 he ll be here before long. Sally never shows me his let 
 ters, but they re written on very thin paper and very 
 little of it! This hurts her, of course. I can see it, 
 though she never hints at such a thing. Dear Owen, 
 don t mind if I say something straight out of my heart
 
 236 WORLD S-END 
 
 to you. But if you could write Sally an old-time-y, affec 
 tionate letter, I think it would do her more good than all 
 Dr. Patton s heart-tonics put together. She hasn t shown 
 me your letters, either, but I know how she behaved at 
 the time of your marriage, poor, dear, wrong-headed, hot- 
 tempered Sally. And I know you at least I think I do. 
 You just get cool when you re angry, and it s so much 
 harder to bear than any other form of wrath. I know as 
 if I d read every word just the sort of pleasant, apart 
 letters you write to Sally. But if you could see her now 
 there s something about her that s horribly pathetic 
 like that poor, dull, droopy eagle in Central Park that 
 we ve felt such righteous indignation over, don t you re 
 member ? 
 
 "Well, then, write to poor, moping, caged-eagle Sally 
 as if you still loved her, for I know you do, under all 
 your vexation, which is so natural! Even now, when I 
 know how ill she is, she gets my own tolerable little 
 temper on its hind legs sometimes. But she d really go 
 straight to your heart if you could see her. I don t know 
 a lonelier soul in the world than hers. Even I, whom she s 
 so fond of, seem only to reach her through a medium like 
 thick, clear glass. You have been nearer to her than any 
 one else, I think, so don t leave her to eat that sick heart 
 of hers in isolation. 
 
 As Owen read these words a warm breath from the 
 garden of childhood stole over him. How often Sally had 
 forgiven him, and he her, in those old days! Memory 
 writes with strange invisible ink. The acid of anger gets 
 only on its unlovely records, setting them sharp and black 
 against the page; but pity brings forth kindly, tender 
 phrases, poignant trivialities of affectionate forbearance 
 and unselfishness. 
 
 Before he \vent to bed that night he wrote his sister 
 a long, affectionate letter full of their news (all except 
 that of Phoebe s condition) and the gossip of people in 
 high places, which he knew amused. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 TOWARDS the middle of February they left Wyckthorn 
 * and went to the pleasant lodgings that he had fur 
 nished in Half-Moon Street.
 
 WORLD S-END 237 
 
 The day on which Phoebe s child was born was one of 
 those London days of greyish-yellow fog through which 
 the sun glowers like a great cat s eye. 
 
 As if to cheer the weather and the occasion, the maid 
 had lighted so hot a fire in the dining-room that Owen, 
 sitting down alone to a meal that had the tastelessness of 
 food in dreams, was compelled to have the windows opened. 
 The saffron murk streamed in through them like smoke, 
 and that dense, penetrating smell of soot which clings 
 even in foreign lands to books and stuffs that come from 
 London filled his throat and nostrils. 
 
 Doctor Fulke had just been phoned for by Nurse King. 
 No, Mrs. Randolph was not suffering. . . . All was going 
 on very well. Nurse Stebbins would arrive with the doc 
 tor in half an hour. Mr. Randolph could go in now and 
 speak to Mrs. Randolph if he wished. 
 
 lie went with a painfully tightened heart. 
 
 Phoebe was propped up against the pillows, her eyes 
 very fised and bright, a little moth s-wing of dry, vivid 
 colour close beneath them. She smiled when she saw him, 
 and as he bent over and took her hand, timidly, said: 
 
 "Don t worry. ... I m not afraid." 
 
 And she kept saying "I m not afraid. ... I m not 
 afraid," until Nurse King made him a sign with her eye- 
 browa to leave the room. 
 
 Owen went back to the dining-room, but the butler was 
 there clearing away the breakfast things, so he took refuge 
 in the little room, fitted up half as library, half as boudoir 
 for Phoebe, where he was used to read aloud to her while 
 she rested on the big lounge. Tcherkoff s play, "The 
 Cherry Garden," lay face down on one of the cushions, 
 where he had placed it when she went to bed the night 
 before. He took it up and began mechanically reading 
 where they had left off; one of the old, obvious questions 
 that haunt such moments beating in his mind : Shall we 
 ever finish it together? He let the book drop, and, sit 
 ting down on the lounge, buried his face in the cushions. 
 They smelt of the lavender water that she used on her 
 hair, and he sprang up again and began to walk the room. 
 
 He had read a hundred times of men in his position, 
 yet it seemed to him that the greatest efforts of genius 
 to express what he was now feeling had been only clever 
 literature. Yet they were dreadful enough in all con 
 science and he recalled with a shudder the account in
 
 238 WORLD S-END 
 
 "War and Peace" of the little princess s death in child 
 birth. Levin s distracted torment over Kitty in like case 
 also came back to him. lie shuddered as he thought that 
 he might have to listen to dreadful cries later on, cries 
 wrung by an anguish which neither he nor any other being 
 could stay. It was the brutal inevitableness of the thing 
 which seemed to him most crushing. lie remembered with 
 another shudder what Fulke himself had said to him only 
 a day or two ago, by way of consolation he realised with 
 a wry smile, namely, that were the pains of child-birth 
 pathological instead of natural scarcely a woman would 
 survive. 
 
 He went to the window and looked out. No sign 
 of Fulke s motor as yet. . . . Was that a cry? . . . 
 He stopped short, his breathing checked. Ah, it was 
 only Nurse King calling for America to bring hot 
 water. 
 
 He and the doctor had decided that there would be no 
 danger in America s remaining with her mistress. She 
 was a young, unmarried woman with a straight record, 
 (Aunt Patty and Uncle Burrell had taught her chastity 
 "with briers," so to speak) and very ignorant of all 
 facts, scientific or otherwise, connected with such matters 
 as the one in progress today. She was badly frightened 
 now, but such was her devotion to Phoebe that she would 
 not for worlds have been anywhere but near her at such 
 a time. With droll pathos she had stuffed her black ears 
 already with cotton- wool so that, in case her "sweet sugar- 
 lady" cried out, she should not hear it. 
 
 It seemed hours to Owen before Fulke came. 
 
 He remained in Phoebe s room about half an hour, then 
 came out, followed by the second nurse, a dumpy, sweet- 
 looking soul of about fifty, with a slight cast in her mild 
 brown eyes, and slim, energetic hands. She was really the 
 nurse in charge. Diana had wanted to send a woman, 
 her own old nurse, who always looked after her in ad 
 dition to professional nurses at such times, but Dr. Fulke 
 had said that in this case he preferred that Nurse Steb- 
 bins should take charge. 
 
 Owen waited until she had returned to Phoebe s 
 room and then approached the doctor. 
 
 "All is going admirably . . . admirably ..." said the 
 latter, speaking the moment that he caught sight of Owen s 
 pale, strained face. "A braver little lady I never saw.
 
 WORLD S-END 239 
 
 You can put every confidence in Nurse Stebbins. I shall 
 return in an hour or so. . . . " 
 
 " An hour or so! " 
 
 Owen felt suddenly as though all London had swayed 
 a little, as at the tail-end of an earthquake. "You re not 
 going . . J" 
 
 Lindsay Fulke smiled the compassionate, slightly su 
 perior smile which he reserved for unreasonable husbands 
 in such instances. 
 
 "My dear Mr. Randolph, your good lady will not need 
 my services for some hours yet. Indeed, she is so re 
 markably brave and strong that I think Dame Nature 
 could take care of her without my assistance. Except that 
 you had exacted a promise from me, I should not return 
 until" he consulted his watch on its broad black fob 
 "until at least one o clock. As it is, I shall be with you 
 again by eleven." 
 
 "Good God! Do you mean to say that she will have 
 to suffer all that time? That it won t be over before one 
 o clock?" 
 
 The perspiration stood on Owen s forehead. He caught 
 his lip in his teeth. "It s damnable!" he said in a choked 
 voice. 
 
 Fulke put his hand on his arm. 
 
 "You must face facts, my dear sir," said he. "Mrs. 
 Randolph is doing nicely, very nicely indeed. Your in 
 experience makes you unnecessarily anxious." Nurse 
 King here came out again and they persuaded Owen that 
 the doctor could do nothing for Phoebe at present. 
 
 Owen awoke suddenly to the fact that both had the 
 most heartless faces he had ever seen. Nurse King s was 
 perfectly impassive, she even smiled a little. Still worse 
 was a certain expression of preoccupation on Fulke s san 
 guine, intelligent countenance, set neatly between grey 
 mutton-chop whiskers. Owen told himself bitterly that 
 butchers had just such amiably heartless expressions. 
 
 He went back into the dining-room when the doctor had 
 left, and found America crouching over the fire, rocking 
 to and fro and nursing her brown face in both hands, as 
 though she had a toothache. 
 
 "What are you doing here? Aren t you needed in the 
 other room?" he asked sharply. 
 
 She burst into forlorn sobs. 
 
 "I don want Miss Phoebe to have no horrid ole baby!"
 
 240 WORLD S-END 
 
 ahe wailed. "My po , precious, own sugar-lady! God s 
 mean! I don t ivant her to have no baby!" 
 
 "America . . ."he began sternly. His lips shook. He 
 turned and went out into the narrow corridor that led 
 past his own bedroom to the bathroom at the back of the 
 house. It seemed to him that he paced this corridor for 
 hours. Listening, with checked heart about which the 
 blood felt clotted, for some dreadful cry to reach him, he 
 was torn between two thoughts. The thought that he 
 thanked God he was not responsible for her present an 
 guish . . . the dreadful reactive thought of how another 
 man was responsible the thought of Richard as the father 
 of the child that was perhaps even now rending away her 
 life. Up and down he walked up and down, for hours, 
 days, ages how could he tell? 
 
 Hark! That was a door opening . . . were they com 
 ing to tell him that she was dead? It was Nurse King 
 again. And now her face looked kinder. She was not 
 smiling. 
 
 "Mrs. Randolph is asking for you, sir. ..." 
 
 He could not go quickly enough. He ran, his lip be 
 tween his teeth. He was frightened, horribly frightened. 
 What dreadful sight would he be called to look upon? 
 But she wanted him. That was enough. . . . 
 
 She was standing in the centre of the room, gripping a 
 chair with both hands. He saw the little knuckles yellow- 
 white with that desperate grip. Her hair lay in wet 
 strands across her forehead. But her eyes blazed, wonder 
 ful, as if on fire, in her pinched, flushed face. And, as 
 familiar as that face was, yet it seemed somehow the face 
 of a stranger. This was a Phoebe that he had never seen. 
 Nurse Stebbins stood just behind her, coaxing her in a low, 
 steady voice to lie down. 
 
 "Phoebe . . . my darling ... I am here. What is 
 it?" he cried, running to her. 
 
 "I want to tell you ... to tell you . . . before I die. 
 ..." Suddenly she cast a wild glance all about, as 
 though for help. Then she stammered : 
 
 "No! No! Go away. ... Go away. ..." 
 
 Nurse Stebbins flung her arms about her. 
 
 "Go, sir. . . . You d better go now. ..." 
 
 But Phoebe had recovered for the time being. With 
 great drops trickling down her little ghastly face, she 
 tried to speak coherently.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 241 
 
 "I m not afraid, but I must tell him. ... I must tell 
 him. ... I can t die until I ve told him. ..." 
 
 "My darling! My own little Phoebe, there s nothing 
 that you could tell me would make a straw of difference! 
 Nothing . . . nothing. . . . Nurse, can t you get her to 
 lie down? Let mo help you to your bed, my poor dar- 
 ling." 
 
 Heedless of them both, she kept stammering. "I must 
 tell you. ... I can t die till I ve told you. . . . Send 
 her away. ... I must tell you alone ... all alone. ..." 
 
 Owen was at his wits end. He turned to the nurse. 
 
 "Could you leave us a moment, nurse? Would it be 
 safe?" 
 
 She answered in a discreet murmur: 
 
 "She hardly knows what she s saying, sir. I think 
 you d better slip out quietly, the first chance." 
 
 Suddenly Phoebe loosed her desperate hold r f the chair. 
 She reached out with her little hands that were cramped 
 from the fierce clutching, and seized the breast of his coat. 
 
 "Forgive . . . forgive ..." she stuttered. Then the 
 blood rushed over her face in a dark wave. She loosed 
 him, beat the air with her hands. . . . Between them, he 
 and the nurse got her to the bed. 
 
 "You d better go now, sir. You can t help. ..." 
 
 He went out, stumbling at the door. He felt deathly, 
 physically sick, and his heart was like lead with helpless 
 pity. 
 
 He went again through the dining-room on his way to 
 the corridor. The negress was now lying face down on the 
 hearth-rug, her hands over her ears, yet there had been no 
 cries coining from that closed room. This strange silence 
 was almost worse than cries. He looked at America with 
 a sudden feeling of tenderness. But he could not speak, 
 lie passed on into the corridor. Now he lengthened his 
 walk to its utmost limit, and, reaching the bathroom win 
 dow, he gazed down at the murky maze of London spread 
 ing on every side. Hundreds of thousands of houses, hun 
 dreds of thousands of women in them, many enduring at 
 this moment what she his dear, his "winsome," as she 
 loved him. to call her was enduring there in that room, 
 with its ghastly array of white linen. And as the thought 
 of Richard lashed him again he knew that to kill him 
 simply would not suffice; that torture was the only thing 
 that could satiate this famished rage in himself this
 
 242 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 thirst for retaliation, for the assuaging glut of retribu 
 tion. The old, fierce death by quartering the four mad 
 dened horses dragging the human flesh asunder . . . that 
 would be the death for her betrayer for the bowelless 
 Wretch that had brought her to this pass. 
 
 Dr. Fulke returned, left again for an hour, again re 
 turned. This time he stated his intention of remaining 
 until Mrs. L N -- t udolph was delivered. 
 
 Five o clock had come. America brought Owen a cup 
 of scalding tea into the corridor, and stood by like a faith 
 ful, fierce little dog until he had drunk it. Her big eyes, 
 all puffy from weeping, looked like horse-chestnuts glis 
 tening between their split brown hulls. . . . Then she 
 Went away again. As she opened the door into the din 
 ing-room heavy, cloying, nauseating, the smell of ether 
 stole through the whole apartment. 
 
 "Thank God ..." thought Owen, with a deep breath. 
 "Thank God . . . they re giving her ether. ..." His 
 mind went on, working feverishly, automatically. "We re 
 ungrateful wretches. The name of the man who invented 
 anaesthetics ought to be better known than Shakespeare s. 
 There ought to be statues. ... I will give a statue to 
 him myself. . . . Men are ungrateful dogs. . . . Who 
 knows his name? I don t. . . . I ve heard it, but I ve 
 forgotten. . . . They used to strap people to tables and 
 carve them like beef. . . . Now there is ether chloro 
 form. . . . Yet we don t remember the man s name! . . . 
 I d rather have been that man than any who ever lived. 
 , . . But there were several. . . . Any one of them, 
 then. . . . All s quiet now. . . . The ether . . . the 
 ether . . . the ether. . . . Thank God for ether . . . 
 ether . . . ether. ..." 
 
 . . He went to the window of the bathroom and looked 
 down again r L , the town, now but a dark, roaring chaos, 
 pricked by innumerable lights all blurred with fog. He 
 thought of the bits of paper that his mother used to burn 
 for him on the nursery hearth at World s-End. The sparks 
 of their soft black surface, as the flame died out, were 
 like these lights of London on the sooty darkness. And as 
 he stared at the great leviathan of the town crouched 
 there below him in the night, it seemed to him that a 
 Vast spirit hung above it, the composite wraith of all 
 those millions of tiny souls that went to make its huge 
 ness the invisible molecules in the vast ego that w r as
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 243 
 
 London. Darkly it brooded there, the sinister sum-total, 
 the one unique, bodiless yet more powerful than any 
 bulk of brawn and sinew the soul, as it were, of the in 
 comparable, unspeakable town, formed of the millions of 
 little severed souls, that fared feverishly, each wrapped 
 in its nursery-dream of separate individuality, in what 
 the Bralimans call the "great heresy of self." . . . 
 
 A door opened and shut. . . . Another. . . . Footsteps 
 A- ent to and fro. AVere they seeking for him to tell him 
 that she was dead? Yes . . . there ... in the light of 
 the corridor he saw the gleam of a nurse s cap. . . . Nurse 
 King s voice called: 
 
 1 Mr. Randolph ! Mr. Randolph ! 
 
 He came forward with his ashen face and wet forehead, 
 and stood dumbly staring at her. 
 
 "Ah. it s you, sir. Dr. Fulkc sent me to tell you that 
 you have a line little daughter, sir. Mrs. Randolph has 
 had a beautiful time. And she s been so brave not even 
 one cry ! I ve never seen the like of it. 
 
 When he was admitted to her room, some hours later, it 
 was all sweet and fragrant with the homely perfume of 
 orris and warm flannel. A shaded lamp burned on the 
 floor, but in the reflection from the big round of light cast 
 by it on the white ceiling he could see her clearly as she 
 lay, long and slim, in the fresh, pure bed. And, first of 
 all, he was struck by her virginal look as of a little snow- 
 maid, lying there with her baby upon one languid arm, 
 scarcely curved to hold it. Even in motherhood she was 
 Helen s daughter. 
 
 Nurse Stebbins slipped out as he came in, and he went 
 and knelt beside the bed. Not even daring to feel for her 
 free hand under the bedclothes, he pressed his lips to the 
 quilt of pale blue silk that outlined her slight body. With 
 a little human thrill of relieved jealousy, he saw that the 
 child was not at her breast, for in his ignorance he did 
 not know that a woman may not suckle her child until sev 
 eral days after its birth. 
 
 Her eyes, soft, shining, assuaged, imploring, yet 
 strangely exultant, stole up to his. Her little face, puri 
 fied by God only knew what wild fires of anguish and 
 initiation, smiled shyly, tremulously. Down in the deeps 
 of that anguish which holds the mystery of life all had 
 been swept from Phoebe but the one new, overwhelming 
 sense of motherhood. For the present remorse and shame
 
 244 WORLD S-END 
 
 were forgotten. It seemed as though she had plunged 
 under a dark river which had cast her on a far shore with 
 her baby, giving her temporarily the supreme gift of 
 oblivion. 
 
 Even the sight of Owen s moved face did not break the 
 surface of the still pool of mother-love in which she seemed 
 to float, absolved from all physical and mental pain for 
 the time being. 
 
 "My sweet . . . my winsome . . ."he whispered, tears 
 starting from his eyes. One fell upon the hand that she 
 had drawn from beneath the bedclothes and clasped 
 weakly about his big fingers. She lifted it and kissed 
 away the tear. Her lips formed words, but so low that 
 he had to bend his ear close to catch them. 
 
 Do . . . you . . . love me?" 
 
 He caught the little nerveless hand and pressed it 
 passionately to his lips and eyes, and again it was all wet 
 with tears. 
 
 "Then . . . look," she said, and her lowered eyelids 
 showed him where she would have him look. 
 
 Yes, the inevitable moment was come. He had forefelt 
 it often with anguish and vain shrinking. Now it was 
 here. 
 
 Bending forward, her hand still to his cheek, he looked 
 down on the little creature in its cocoon of soft white 
 flannel. It was what some nurses call a "waxen baby." 
 Like a little image of purest wax it looked, its lashes mak 
 ing two dark lines like circumflex accents on its tiny face; 
 its faintly rosed mouth sucking in sleep. And upon 
 its brow, just peeping from the warm flannel, lay a little 
 down of gold, like pollen on a white flower leaf. And 
 there, as Phoebe, in her strange new pride, pressed the 
 bedclothes further back, there, almost incredibly perfect, 
 was a little hand, with bud-like thumb and petal fingers; 
 with nails as perfectly finished and polished as though 
 the most skilful manicure in London had just been tending 
 them. And this little hand moved him with an odd 
 yet profound and pitiful tenderness. He had thought 
 to hate this child to have to do fierce battle with instinc 
 tive loathing, yet now, at sight of that tiny hand, 
 so perfectly, almost absurdly, finished, all that stirred 
 in his heart was this feeling of pity and tender 
 ness. 
 
 "Feel it how soft it is . . ." whispered Phoebe.
 
 WORLD S-END 245 
 
 And he ventured to touch, with one of his big fingers the 
 
 ridiculously perfect little hand. 
 
 The finger-petals spread, waved feebly. He moved his 
 
 finger down against them ; instantly they closed tight about 
 
 it, and a queer thrill ran up his arm to his heart. 
 He heard Phoebe s low, passionate whisper: 
 "Oh, love her . . . love her . . . please. . . ." 
 He stooped lower and kissed the little hand clenched so 
 
 determinedly about his finger. 
 
 Then Nurse Stebbins came in again, and said, smiling, 
 
 that he must go. 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 OALLY had r.nswered, under a hot impulse, Richard s 
 ^ letter, written just before he sailed. This answer waa 
 stern and indignant, full of bitter reproaches and harsh 
 irony, and in it she made known her implacable resolve 
 that he should marry Phoebe ; no matter how far he fled 
 (what hurt her, perhaps, most cruelly of all, she said, 
 was that her sou should play the coward) nor how long 
 he delayed the issue ; that and that alone could modify 
 her utter, her heart-broken disappointment in him. He 
 knew well how she had dreaded an early marriage for him, 
 any marriage, in fact, unless one of exceptional promise, 
 when he should be at least thirty-five, let him judge, 
 then, what must be the state of her feelings when she 
 assured him from the inmost depths of her soul that this 
 marriage was his only means of escape from her absolute 
 contempt. There were pages and pages of this letter, 
 written in her querulous, pointed hand, in which the a e 
 and d s were never closed, and the crossings of the t s 
 soared high above the line, like the bent curves that chil 
 dren make to represent birds flying; but this statement of 
 her fixed resolve in regard to his marrying Phoebe was 
 the gist of all its wrathful scorn and stinging denunci 
 ation. 
 
 Richard was sheltering with Stokes from the intoler 
 able heat of i\ Chinese August in the bungalow of some 
 friends at Swatow, when he received this letter, and ai 
 he finished reading it and crumpled it back into its thin 
 sheath lined with oiled paper (Sally had been determined 
 that no mischance of weather should destroy it during its
 
 246 WORLD S -END 
 
 long voyage) he felt as though he must take the next 
 steamer back to America in order to bring his personality 
 to bear directly upon his mother. She had never yet, in 
 the long run, been able to resist that subtle, invisible force 
 which his presence exerted over her. But the next instant 
 he thanked whatever gods there be that he had had the 
 lucky inspiration of this journey with Stokes. Otherwise 
 and he shivered with indignant repulsion otherwise he 
 might at this very instant be cast in the play of life for the 
 role of husband that part, to him, so lugubriously middle- 
 class and lacking in all spiritual eclat. The superiority 
 of Jehovah to Jove, in that the former was an unwedded 
 deity, had made him often declare that the Hebrews had 
 a far more distinguished mythological imagination than 
 the Greeks. No nature had not endowed him with his 
 unique, super-original personality, to case it in the motley 
 of a " husband." Domesticity was surely the most crass 
 affront that civilisation had ever offered to genius. Be 
 sides had his mother really become his enemy that she 
 should propose that he, with his subtle, costly tastes, that 
 were as the breath of life to him, that, in fact, constituted 
 his being as distinct from other beings with Ids necessity 
 for exquisite and appropriate surroundings, on an allow 
 ance of only eight thousand a year that she should pro 
 pose marriage for him with a penniless girl? 
 
 In the end the whole thing amounted to this he was 
 to choose between genius and domesticity domesticity, 
 moreover, made doubly - oppressive by poverty. Eight 
 thousand a year as a means of artistic subsistence for one 
 was meagre enough, the gods of art knew well but eight 
 thousand shared with a wife and children. . . . Richard 
 shivered again in the muggy August air, gazing out over 
 the lovely port of Swatow, now twinkling through the 
 heat-haze with its pretty island, where they dined some 
 times in the cool grey of the evening. 
 
 It assuaged him a little to realise that he stood on 
 ground so far from Virginia and that his perturbed gaze 
 rested on Chinese waters. It took over a month for let 
 ters to reach America from here. By the time his reply 
 found her his mother would be in a more reasonable mood. 
 He would put it to her but, of course, with delicate indi 
 rection whether she really contemplated asking him to 
 tear off the wings of his genius with his own hands. And 
 he thought of those who to him were the greatest ones on
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 2 17 
 
 earth, Nietzsche, Alexander, Leonardo, Machiavelli, Cs- 
 sare Borgia, Baudelaire, Napoleon would they have flung 
 aside their "birthright for the mess of domestic pottage? 
 Did not life teach the true artist to be even more ruth 
 less to others and himself rather than kinder, as that 
 gifted bourgeois, Goethe, had said? And, now that he 
 thought of it, Goethe himself had not evolved that maxim 
 of kindness until he had passed over the dead bodies of 
 many a wayside love. Fancy what the world would have 
 lost had Goethe s mother insisted on his marrying one of 
 his early flames! The world of art would have suffered 
 even more than Goethe himself, but the pangs of both 
 would have been irreparable. No, it was a great lesson in 
 the super-moral moralities that Dostoievsky had meant to 
 symbolise in " Le Crime ct le Chdtiment" in that terri 
 ble and brutal test of murder which the hero sets himself. 
 To prove strength, whether by single murders, as Ras- 
 kolnikoff did, or by wholesale slaughter, as had been the 
 method of Napoleon that was the essential thing. The 
 wretched "Praying Mantis" devoured by the female in 
 the very act of submissive love, such should be the em 
 blem of all husbands. 
 
 He felt calmed by these reflections, and during inter 
 vals of the next two days inscribed to his mother the 
 third lengthy epistle that he had ever written, in which 
 all these ideas were skilfully embodied. 
 
 Long before Richard s letter reached her, however, the 
 extreme bitterness of his mother s resentment against him 
 had waned. The crisis of impotent rage evoked in her 
 by Owen s marriage with Phoebe had its natural reaction, 
 and in this reaction an unreasoning pity for the son who 
 by it had been deprived of what she had come to consider 
 his birthright softened her feelings towards him. After 
 all, wiser and older men than he had succumbed to pas 
 sions which had wrecked their lives; and she thought of 
 Parnell and the tragic story of his career, ruined by an 
 unlawful love. Still, in the very sources of her being, the 
 knowledge that her son had acted with cowardice and 
 baseness was like a bitter dust clouding the waters. 
 
 Sometimes, in the midst of her own pain, she wondered 
 to what extent he suffered, for she would not admit even 
 to herself that possibly Richard had not felt more than 
 passing qualms of anger at having yielded to so unwise 
 and dangerous an impulse. She insisted upon picturing
 
 248 WORLD S-END 
 
 him as a victim of remorse, and persuaded herself that in 
 time, despite all his violent aversion, he would of himself 
 have come to marriage with the girl as the only reparation 
 possible to his own manhood as well as to her. And, 
 shrinking from dealing him the fresh blow that news of 
 his uncle s marriage would bring him, she delayed telling 
 him until two months after Owen and Phoebe had sailed. 
 
 This letter, posted during the middle of September, 
 reached Bombay after Richard had left, and was for 
 warded by the clerk in the hotel; unfortunately, however, 
 the Babu confused the address with that of another trav 
 eller, and Richard never received it. His next home-news 
 came from Mary, and consisted of an account of his 
 mother s illness. She begged him to return as soon as 
 possible, as she (Mary) thought that Sally was fretting 
 for him, though she never said so. 
 
 And now, indeed, Richard really suffered. His affec 
 tion for his mother was the one really sound and vital 
 feeling in his life. He could but think that this sudden 
 illness was in great part, if not wholly, due to him, and 
 with a wretched and belated remorse tugging at his heart 
 he took the next steamer for Brindisi. 
 
 On the Cunarder at Naples was a Southerner named 
 Grierson, a bumptious, over-genial person, whom Richard 
 in his present mood took special pains to avoid. But 
 the second day out, as they were nearing Gibraltar, Grier 
 son, who was standing with a woman at the taffrail, leaned 
 behind her and offered his field-glasses to Richard. 
 
 There was nothing for it but to thank him and stare 
 through them. When he turned to give back the glasses 
 the woman had disappeared and he was tete-a-tete w r ith 
 Grierson. 
 
 "Ever up there?" asked the latter, with a jerk of the 
 head towards the Rock. 
 
 "No," said Richard. 
 
 "I ve been. Glad I went, now, though it was an awful 
 bore. So hot between those high walls going up that the 
 Missus fainted. But no one can go now, so I m glad 
 I did go." 
 
 "Naturally," said Richard. 
 
 He made a movement as if to pass on, but Grierson 
 said: 
 
 "Hold on a minute. I m a great admirer of that 
 cracked uncle of yours. Most public-spirited private
 
 WORLD S-END 249 
 
 citizen in the South. And I ve a friend wants to consult 
 him about some pretty fine schemes, socialistic and all 
 that, you know. I ll be deucedly obliged if you can tell 
 me when his honeymoon in foreign parts will be over?" 
 
 Richard frowned. He disliked jocosity, and particu 
 larly when applied to matters even indirectly connected 
 with himself: 
 
 "I beg your pardon?" he said, as if he had misun 
 derstood. 
 
 "I only want to know how long before he returns to 
 America. My wife says that his bride has been cutting 
 a wido row in English sassiety. : (Grierson was the 
 sort of man to call society "sassiety" as a jest.) 
 
 "I really don t understand," said Richard coldly. 
 "Whose bride ?" 
 
 "Why, your uncle s, of course Owen Randolph s. He 
 is your uncle, isn t he ? 
 
 Grierson s stodgy, clean-shaven face looked chap-fallen, 
 and his "chaps" w r ere of such dimensions as to make such 
 a change very noticeable. 
 
 Richard answered rather sharply, for he was beginning 
 
 to feel a vague uneasiness. "Yes, he s my uncle but. 
 
 ) j 
 
 Light dawned on Grierson. Ho gave a sort of view- 
 hulloa and smacked his great thigh in its plaid knieker- 
 bocker. 
 
 "Oh, I say, Bryce," he shouted, with singular offen- 
 siveness, it seemed to Richard. "I believe I m giving 
 you news! / don t believe you ve heard of his mar 
 riage ! 
 
 Richard looked at him with still anger, his brows knitted. 
 
 "Your pleasantries are somehow not amusing to me," 
 he said. "I don t laugh easily." 
 
 Grierson calmed himself. 
 
 "But really, you did know he was married, didn t 
 you?" 
 
 Grierson was of too stout a fibre to be snubbed easily. 
 He stood there in his genial vulgarity, still smiling into 
 Richard s gloomy face. 
 
 It was too late for the latter to pretend a knowledge 
 which he did not have. Besides, he felt sure that this 
 offensive bounder must be retailing some newspaper go- 
 sip, as unfounded as it was unpleasant. 
 
 "I have been in the East since May," he now said
 
 250 WORLD S-END 
 
 sternly, "but if you are speaking seriously I feel sure 
 that you have been misinformed. 
 
 No, my son," said Grierson jovially. ("Richard flushed 
 with anger.) "I m not misinformed, by Jingo! Married 
 sure and fast is the hardened Benedick. Married on the 
 8th of July by a man I inow the Reverend Henry Nel 
 son. I got it from him, so it s a sure deal." 
 
 Richard stared silently out to sea. He could scarcely 
 credit what he had heard, yet Grierson r. last words had 
 the true note of conviction. Richard s whole mind was 
 bent on keeping his face impassive. 
 
 "My letters must have miscarried," he said finally in 
 a cold voice. 
 
 "So you don t even know who the bride was, hey? 
 "Well ! I in in luck to be handing out fresh news on a liner. 
 A perfect little beauty, they say, and the Reverend Nel 
 son s second cousin. You must know her, of course, 
 Bryee? They live near your place up in Buckfastleigh 
 County. No, they re in Queen Charlotte, I believe 
 Phoebe Nelson . . old Family-Tree Nelson s little girl. 
 Crabbed age and youth . . . January in the lap of 
 May ha-ha! But of course that s only my joke. Owen 
 Randolph s a fine man for many a year yet. 
 
 Richard pulled off his glove as deliberately as he had 
 drawn it on. He rolled it carefully up with the other 
 and fastened the outer wrist-button. 
 
 "Whom did you say my uncle has married?" he asked 
 in a detached voice. 
 
 "Phoebe Nelson . . . old Tom Nelson s daughter. You 
 know her, don t you?" 
 
 "Slightly," said Richard. 
 
 "Is she such a beauty as they re making out in Eng 
 land?" 
 
 "Very charming. Excuse me. I ve an engagement." 
 He turned and went forward, leaving Grierson plant e. 
 Even that easy-going person s gorge rose at this cavalier 
 treatment. 
 
 "Puppy!" thought he; "needs to get his face smacked." 
 
 Then suddenly light broke. 
 
 "Oh-ho!" he thought, grinning. "I see which way the 
 cat jumps. Uncle s millions slipping elsewhere!" And 
 he stumped joyously to the smoking-room to recount over 
 a high-ball how "hacked" that stuck-up chap Bryce had 
 looked at the news of his uncle s marriage. Hadn t heard
 
 WORLD S-END 251 
 
 it, by Jingo! Got positively green . . . pea green over 
 it! 
 
 In the meantime Richard had walked nervously for 
 ward until he was in the bow of the Cyclopic. He leaned 
 there in the steady breeze, his cap under his arm for 
 safety, watching the sluicy crash of the ice-green water 
 under the ship s foot, "Phoebe . . .he s married Phoebe. 
 . . . No. Impossible. . . . But perhaps it s true? . . . 
 What, then? . . . Phoebe . . . married to Uncle Owen. 
 . . . Impossible . . . but if it s true? . . . Then . . ." 
 
 He stared down at the sleek curve of the ton-weights 
 of massive water, in which the foam was submerged like 
 clots of powdered glass. And there, through the salt 
 tang of the sea wind, a breath of flower-scented air seemed 
 to reach him. . . . He saw the moonlight on wet lawns. 
 ... A soft, parted mouth quivered beneath his. . . . 
 
 He put his bent forefinger against his lip and bit it 
 nervously. Here was another infernal tangle. . . . He 
 wished to God now that he had not told his mother. He 
 might have managed if only he and Phoebe were in the 
 secret . . . but now, with his mother always watching 
 him. And they would have to meet. H" could not with 
 draw from all intercourse with his uncle cease going to 
 World s-Eiid entirely . . . that would rouse conjecture 
 at once, if not suspicion. 
 
 "God! what a damnable position," he said aloud but 
 he could scarcely hear his own words for the wind at the 
 bow. 
 
 Then, without warning, the grimmest aspect of his 
 dilemma rushed upon him. The money . . . his uncle s 
 fortune ... it would go now to the latter s wife and chil 
 dren, of course. His chil . . . Eichard s mind checked, 
 staggered, in the midst of this thought. That coming 
 child . . . the child that was really his . . . Richard s 
 . . . would be looked on by his uncle as his child. . . . 
 
 Richard stared and stared at the thundering volume 
 that poured smooth and blackly green from under the 
 ship s- foot, sending up great, tumbled masses of silverish 
 spume. 
 
 "It s impossible . . . incredible," he thought again. 
 "That ass has gorged a lot of newspaper lies. ... I ll 
 not believe it." And again the little after- voice in his 
 mind whispered, "But if it s true! What then?" 
 
 The Cyclopic reached New York towards the end of
 
 252 WORLD S-END 
 
 December, and Richard went straight from the dock to 
 his mother s flat, where Mary had written they were going 
 in October. 
 
 Mary met him in the hall. He changed colour when 
 he saw her, and this moved Mary of the Tender Heart, 
 because she had not believed him capable of the emotion 
 that she saw unmistakably written now in his face. 
 
 She kept his hand very kindly in hers a moment. 
 
 "Don t look so anxious. I really think she s better 
 lately . . . ever since we got your wire." 
 
 "Thank God," said Richard, having recourse to one of 
 the banal expressions of common humanity in his intense 
 relief. His face worked, and Mary turned away, feeling 
 quaintly that to have surprised Richard in the grasp of 
 so uncomplicated an emotion as filial love was like having 
 glimpsed his soul in its under-garments. She opened the 
 sitting-room door to let him go in alone, and closed it 
 softly behind him. 
 
 Sally was lying on a couch after her noonday drive. 
 Her eyes seemed immense in their deep, brownish circles. 
 Richard stood looking at her, his face still quivering, and 
 she gazed back at him, a dull red gathering on her cheek 
 bones. Then suddenly her set expression broke, she held 
 out her thin arms. With an awkward step or two, Rich 
 ard reached them, his head was on his mother s breast. 
 He was crying like a little lad, and Sally held him tight, 
 saying, "My boy. . . ._ My boy. ..." 
 
 Richard drew back his head presently and looked at her 
 unashamed, his face all smeared with tears. "What I 
 have endured since Mary wrote me . . ." he whispered. 
 He felt for his handkerchief vainly, and Sally took out 
 hers and wiped his eyes and cheeks, then let him take the 
 crumpled ball from her. 
 
 "And to feel that it was my doing. . . . Mother! that 
 was hell. ..." 
 
 The sick pelican hastened to denude herself still more. 
 
 "No . . . no. ... It wasn t your doing, my darling 
 that is, only partly. Oh, Richard ! Richard ! What dread 
 ful madness possessed you . . . you, of all people?" 
 
 "I don t know, Mother. . . . Nature plays curious 
 tricks on one. ..." 
 
 He sat on the edge of the sofa, holding her thin hand 
 in his, kissing it from time to time and staring gloomily 
 at the carpet.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 253 
 
 "But, my son, if you felt temptation coming. ..." 
 
 "It wasn t like that, mother. I can t explain. ... It 
 came like a cloudburst. ... I had no more idea of such 
 a thing than of suicide. ..." 
 
 Sally gave a heartrending sigh. 
 
 "It was almost suicide, my poor boy." 
 
 "Yes ... I know," he said. 
 
 "Richard, ..." said Sally (there was a cruel, unwom 
 anly hope in her voice. She was all mother now). "Did 
 she . . . did she . . . lead you on?" 
 
 "No, mother," said Eichard. 
 
 Sally sighed again. 
 
 "But she s a light girl, for all that," she said. 
 
 Eichard grew pale. 
 
 "No. mother," he said again, in a low voice but very 
 distinctly. 
 
 "Not! . . . But how, then, could she give herself to 
 another man in less than two months . . . after?" 
 
 Eichard glanced up quickly. The blood settled on his 
 cheek bones just as his mother s had done when he en 
 tered. 
 
 "Then it s true?" he said. 
 
 "What is true?" asked Sally, puzzled. 
 
 "That . . . she s married to my uncle?" 
 
 Sally started up on her elbow. 
 
 "Eichard! Didn t you get my letter?" 
 
 "No, mother. I thought one of your letters must have 
 miscarried." 
 
 "Didn t Mary mention it?" 
 
 "No. A vulgar brute called Grierson told me aboard 
 ship." 
 
 What ! You learned this awful thing from a stranger ? 
 . . . Oh, my poor, poor boy ! 
 
 She sank back and tears came into her eyes. 
 
 Eichard knelt down beside the sofa and looked at her 
 imploringly. 
 
 "Mother, dear, if you get agitated, Mary won t let me 
 stay with you. Please, please don t worry about me. You 
 make me feel the most worthless wretch in the world with 
 your unselfishness." (This must have been an emotion 
 sufficiently novel to have its bitter-sweet for Eichard.) 
 "It is you alone that I am thinking of in all this and 
 you must think of yourself and not of me." 
 
 Sally smiled a smile as subtle and faint as Mona Lisa s.
 
 254 WORLD S-END 
 
 "When I cease to think of you I shall no longer be 
 myself," she said. 
 
 Kichard sat silent, kissing from time to time her thin 
 hand where the rings looked cruelly heavy now. 
 
 Suddenly Sally spoke. 
 
 "Richard ... I must tell you that I was doing all in 
 my power for the girl." 
 
 Richard kissed her hand. 
 
 "Everything everything that was possible I did for 
 her. When she fell ill I went and nursed her myself." 
 
 "She was ill?" 
 
 "Yes. Very ill, or seemed to be. I ve thought since 
 that it was part of a scheme to work on your uncle s sym 
 pathies. . . . That girl is much cleverer than she seems, 
 Richard." 
 
 Richard swallowed. This was the stale after-taste of 
 pleasure that kept rising in his throat under his mother s 
 persistent words. 
 
 "It . . . it isn t in her nature to scheme . . . believe 
 me, mother." 
 
 Sally put up her nervous, sallow hand and turned his 
 face to the light. 
 
 "Had you more love for her than you will admit, Rich 
 ard?" she asked. 
 
 "No, mother. ... I ... I was fond of her. But 
 . . . that is not the question. Mere justice is the question. 
 It isn t in her to scheme or plot." 
 
 "I wonder at your action in leaving the country if 
 such has always been your opinion of her," said his 
 mother, with the first taint of bitterness in her voice. 
 
 It was my horror of marriage in the abstract. ..." 
 
 But you would have married her if . . . ? " 
 
 "Mother, whatever you had insisted on my doing I 
 should have done. But it would have shattered my whole 
 life." 
 
 And what is it now, with all your possessions stripped 
 from you?" she asked sombrely. 
 
 "At least," said Richard with some dignity, "I possess 
 my own soul. In a marriage like that I should have pos 
 sessed neither my soul nor my body." 
 
 "I don t believe you have yet realised what this mar 
 riage means to you to your whole future." 
 
 "Yes ... I realise it." 
 
 "Yet you defend the girl? Her ingratitude to me . . .
 
 WORLD S-END 255 
 
 the wanton lightness with which she went from one man s 
 arms to another s at the first beckoning?" 
 
 That dusky red flew into Richard s face again. Some 
 where down, down in the primal depths of his virility 
 stirred an instinct that leads the male to defend female 
 things worried by other females. 
 
 "I don t believe the woman lives who could have re 
 sisted such a temptation," he said. 
 
 Sally was angry with him for resisting her, yet some 
 thing in her felt glad that he resisted. 
 
 "You must excuse my one-sidedness, " she said coldly. 
 "I confess that my view of the whole affair is a very 
 partial one. I think of you first . . . the girl last of all. 
 Though, as I said, I did all for her that was in my 
 power." 
 
 "I knew you would," murmured Richard. He was suf 
 fering extremely at present, had his mother only guessed 
 it. By her very severity she had compelled him to defend 
 the defenceless, and, in so doing, the ruthlessness of his 
 own course towards Phoebe became partially evident to 
 him. He wondered whether his mother would often bring 
 up this odious and painful subject. As she got stronger 
 he must let her know that it was beyond endurance dis 
 tasteful to him. Just at present, however, he had no 
 course but to submit. He added now: 
 
 "You have the right to make me any reproaches in 
 your power. I deserve them all, and more than all. But 
 I would be a hound if I let you think too badly of ... 
 of . . ." 
 
 He could not pronounce Phoebe s name. Again he 
 kissed his mother s hand and sat silent. 
 
 Sally took up another side of the question. "Have you 
 thought how terribly embarrassing it will be when they 
 come back?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes . . ." 
 
 "It will be impossible for you to avoid them altogether. 
 Owen would begin to wonder. . . . You will have to come 
 to World s-End sometimes. Richard! What a horrible 
 . . . what an unthinkable situation!" 
 
 "I know," he said thickly, 
 
 "But you will have to do it sometimes. If Owen should 
 ever dream. . . . But of course that s impossible. Only 
 you will have to be frightfully careful. ... I wish now 
 that you had not told me. "
 
 256 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 Yes I have wished that too, said Richard under his 
 breath, "ever since I heard of the marriage." 
 
 "They will be coming back in the spring, I suppose," 
 Sally continued. "Good God! . . ."she broke off. "The 
 . . . the . . . child. ... I shall have to sit there know 
 ing it is your child. . . . There, with her and you and 
 Owen . . . with her knowing that I know. . . . Oh, it s 
 too much ! It s too much ! I can t stand it. ... I can t. 
 
 5 7 
 
 She struggled up, holding by his arm and gasping for 
 breath. Richard was wild with alarm. He called des 
 perately for Mary. She came running with a glass in 
 her hand. She had foreseen some such contingency as 
 this. Supporting Sally s head very tenderly, she held to 
 her nostrils a handkerchief with a little globule of nitrate 
 of amyl crushed in its folds, then, when the stricture in 
 her chest was relieved, gave her the medicine in the glass. 
 
 And as she eased her back upon the pillow, while Rich 
 ard stood looking on, helpless and ghastly pale, she 
 thought: "No, I can never leave her now. How strange! 
 Some of us seem destined to be prisoners of hope all our 
 lives. I thought I was free at last when Aunt Lucy went 
 and now here is poor Sally. There s no woman but me 
 whom she really loves or who loves her . . . and I can t 
 leave her to a trained nurse. Well, if only for Owen s 
 sake I must do it ... but then I m fond of her, too, 
 poor, poor Sally!" 
 
 She sat down by the couch, fanning Sally with a little 
 Spanish fan from a table near by, though it was snowing 
 outside, and whispered to Richard that he had better go. 
 
 He went submissively, looking back from the door at his 
 mother s ghastly face on the violet cushion with a sick 
 spasm of his own heart. He was exhausted as though 
 from cruel physical exercise, and his brain felt like gritty 
 fluff within his hot skull. Truly a great matter had been 
 kindled by his little fire. One careless spark of passion, 
 like a burning shred from some holiday bonfire and all 
 his ordered world was a conflagration.
 
 WORLD S-END 257 
 
 T3 UT Phoebe and Owen did not return to America that 
 *-* spring, as Sally had thought. Little "Susan Diana," 
 as the baby was quaintly named, had an illness in April 
 which hung on for some time, and which Dr. Fulke said 
 would make a sea voyage that summer extremely risky 
 for her. 
 
 The baby s name was the result of much cogitation on 
 the part of Phoebe and Owen. Phoebe did not wish her 
 name given to it, neither did Owen. If they had named 
 it Mary, Sally would have been jealous. They both felt, 
 though neither could tell the other of these feelings, that 
 to call it after Sally would not do. And Owen winced 
 at the thought of the child s bearing his own mother s 
 name, and the name of Phoebe s mother was not suggested 
 either. So they had decided to call the little one after 
 its two godmothers, and, by Taiite Suzanne s request, 
 "Diana" was the name chosen for use. She could not 
 bear, she had said, to think of another "pauvre fillet te 
 ecrasce par un nom aussi liideux quo le sien." 
 
 In June they had gone to stay at "Bois Dormant," the 
 Mauvigny chateau in Normandy, for the summer, and 
 in July Owen went to America for three weeks, to see 
 Sally, who was still far from well, and to give a glance 
 at his affairs. By the autumn little Diana was as lively 
 and rosy an atom as could be desired, and in the last 
 week of September they sailed from Havre for New York. 
 
 It was on a day all glittering blue and gold that Phoebe 
 came back to " World s-End," whence, in the little 
 "jumper," behind Kildee, she had driven away in such 
 a daze of misery. As they passed over the stone bridge 
 at the foot of the lawn she looked down at the Green- 
 Flower, now all embroidered with patterns of red and 
 yellow autumn leaves, and thought of that day. How 
 
 madly wretched she had been then, and now But 
 
 now, in spite of all the love and care that surrounded 
 her, because of it. indeed, was she not at times even more 
 wretched, with a deeper, more hopeless misery? For 
 the first ecstasy of motherhood had passed, leaving her 
 no less devoted to her baby, but at the same time making 
 place for that anguish of remorse which wrung her when 
 she saw Owen so tender to the child that he thought his
 
 258 WORLD S-END 
 
 own, about which she had deceived him with a cowardly 
 silence worse than actual lying. 
 
 He had trusted her, honoured her, saved her, and she 
 had done this dreadful thing to him. 
 
 Then suddenly the hunger for happiness rose in her, 
 wild and fierce as the physical hunger of the starving, and 
 all her young irresponsibility revolted from stern codes 
 and the inner voice which so ruthlessly condemned her. 
 But now reaction had seized her for the moment, and she 
 found sweetness in the contrast of that day with this. It 
 seemed to her that life, her life, at least, was far 
 stranger than anything that people wrote in books, for 
 she could see the wraith of herself sitting huddled and 
 stupefied in the jumper in her shrunk white linen frock 
 all alone . . . more lonely than any one in the world, 
 she thought and now, over that same bridge she was 
 passing in a smart carriage, her husband beside her, Giles, 
 the baby s nurse, tall, thin, and very English, on the seat 
 in front, and on her knees little Diana herself, "burbling" 
 like a joyous " Jabber wo ck. " Giles had given her a china 
 dog to play with, for her teeth were coming fast and she 
 loved the feeling of the cool porcelain on her hot little 
 gums; and alternately she sucked the round, inane head 
 with its blue eyes and brown ears, or beat with the ani 
 mal s whole person on Owen s knee. 
 
 "Da-da-da-da-da-da," said Diana gaily, with every in 
 flection of assertion and enquiry possible to imagine. 
 
 Phoebe looked at her thoughtfully. 
 
 "I do really believe she s trying to say, Ta-ta, Owen, 
 What do you think, Giles?". 
 
 "P r aps, m m. She s very quick to learn." 
 
 "Da-da-da-da," said Diana, and suddenly smote her 
 in the face with the china dog, chuckling rapturously. 
 
 "Oh, Giles!" cried Phoebe, "I m. afraid she s cut your 
 lip." 
 
 Giles answered impassively from behind her handker 
 chief. "No, m m. Only a slight bruise, m m. Twas my 
 fault. She s done it before. I should have been on the 
 watch." 
 
 Here Diana bumped her head against her nurse s flat 
 but motherly breast, and, taking the dog s head entirely 
 into her own rosy mouth, mumbled it contentedly. 
 
 "Isn t it odd," said Phoebe to Owen, "how such a wee 
 mouth outside can be so big inside?"
 
 WORLD S-END 259 
 
 "As far as I can gather," said Owen, "babies are far 
 more fearfully and wonderfully made than w r e are." 
 
 He was rejoiced to see Phoebe so calm, with what he 
 knew must be such an ordeal looming directly ahead, for 
 Sally had stayed on at World s-End with Mary to await 
 their coining. Eichard, Mary had written, w r as off to 
 North Carolina for the autumn shooting. 
 
 But Phoebe was far from calm Avithin. Her talk about 
 the baby had only been to give Owen the impression that 
 he had received. It seemed to her that this coming meet 
 ing with Sally was one of the hardest things that fate 
 had yet brought upon her. But it was unavoidable. By 
 night and day, waking and sleeping, for long months it 
 had haunted her. She had tried hard to school herself 
 against the grim hour. 
 
 She sat very straight, not leaning back, and her hands 
 dug hard against each other under cover of her gloves. 
 And as they drew nearer and nearer to the house, and 
 she caught glimpses of the South Portico between the 
 dance of red and yellow leaves, her face grew very pale 
 and her eyes dilated. 
 
 Owen knew that look and his heart ached for her, yet 
 there was nothing that he could do. In his ears was her 
 piteous cry on the morning of her baby s birth. "I must 
 tell you. ... I can t die till I ve told you." That 
 memory was very precious to him. Could the nurse have 
 left them together for a few moments he knew that, had 
 he let her, she would have told him everything. . . . 
 
 Now they were passing the clump of seven great acacias 
 011 the east lawn. A crimson hammock was slung between 
 two of them. Someone in a white gown was lying in 
 it. As the carriage approached she sprang up, and he 
 saw that it was Mary. She came running towards them. 
 David drew up the bays, and her face, with its light- 
 grey eyes all a-dance w r ith excitement, looked up at 
 them. 
 
 "Oh, Cousin Mary! Dear Cousin Mary get in! get 
 in!" cried Phoebe. 
 
 Mary jumped in and sat down between Phoebe and 
 Owen, taking a hand of either in her own. 
 
 "Oh, my dears! How glad I am to get you back!" she 
 said. Tears twinkled on her short lashes. She winked 
 them away and laughed. Then she caught sight of the 
 baby.
 
 260 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 "Oh, the sweet!" she gasped. "May I take her a 
 minute ? 
 
 Phoebe caught up little Diana and put her in Mary s 
 arms. Mary s heart leaped as she pressed the tiny, floss- 
 covered head against it (Diana always snatched off in 
 stantly whatever headgear was put upon her). She was 
 holding Owen s child in her arms. That was a terrible 
 and beautiful moment. She could not tell which was 
 greater, her pain or her feeling of exquisite tenderness. 
 This, all unknown to her, was the most ironical moment of 
 her life, but she did not dream it, and her heart overflowed 
 with that feeling of anguished sweetness. 
 
 Diana was a singularly sweet-tempered child, imperious 
 and courageous. She never howled at the ghastly sight 
 of a strange face, as most babies do. Now she wriggled 
 round in Mary s arms, and, freeing her little hand from 
 the too-close embrace, pounded her blithely with the china 
 dog. 
 
 "Da-da-da-da," said Diana to Mary. 
 
 And Mary, smothering her with kisses, said "Da-da-da" 
 back to her again. 
 
 "Oh, aren t they dear together?" cried Phoebe. "She s 
 partly yours, Cousin Mary. Look, Owen ! How the little 
 thing is staring right up in Mary s eyes!" 
 
 And, indeed, the child had thrown her head back on 
 Mary s breast, and was gazing into the light-grey eyes 
 out of her deep, violet ones, with that sudden look of 
 mysterious solemnity that makes one feel sometimes as 
 though a pilgrim of the ages were looking from a baby s 
 eyes. 
 
 "It s as if she recognised her ... as if she were seeing 
 her again after a long, long time," said Phoebe, awed. 
 
 " la child, very old, over waves, toward the house of 
 maturity, the land of migrations, look afar, : quoted 
 Owen. "Who knows? . . . Perhaps she does recognise 
 her!" 
 
 "Baby baby," thought Mary in her secretly and pas 
 sionately, yet sweetly, aching heart. "Perhaps we were 
 nearer . . . far nearer, in another life. Perhaps there 
 you were my very own . . . not lent to me kindly as you 
 are now." 
 
 Suddenly Diana started as from a little sleep, and began 
 her joyous poundings with the china dog again. 
 
 Mary spoke to them over her fluffy head.
 
 W O K L D S - E N D 261 
 
 "Sally is much, much, better," she said. "Of course, 
 she s greatly wrought up over your return. She doesn t 
 say much, but I can see that this darling mite" she 
 squeezed the baby to her "is in her thoughts from morn 
 ing till night. She s been turning the old nursery into a 
 regular bower. And she says primly: Owen shall have 
 no cause of complaint if 7 can prevent it, or that Eng 
 lish nurse, either. Isn t that Sallyesque?" 
 
 "What does Patton think of her condition now ? asked 
 Owen. They were nearly at the house. 
 
 "Much better. Excitement is bad for her, of course. 
 Not pleasant excitement like this, though. And she can t 
 rush up and down stairs and all over the place as she 
 used to. It s very hard on her, poor dear. But, with 
 moderate care, there s no reason to think that she won t 
 live till her bones rattle, as she says." 
 
 The carriage was stopping before the South Portico. 
 They saw Sally s tall figure in a gown of mauvish heather- 
 mixture, standing at the top of the steps. Owen helped 
 Mary out, then turned and took Phoebe s hand. He kept 
 it in his as they mounted the steps together. 
 
 Sally s eyes were fixed on little Diana in Mary s arms. 
 
 "Richard s child . . . Richard s child ..." she kept 
 saying to herself. Her teeth were clenched so hard that 
 the muscles on her thin jaws stood out. 
 
 "Isn t she a darling?" cried Mary eagerly. She ran 
 up the steps and put the baby in Sally s arms. There 
 was nothing for it. The thin arms were obliged to close 
 about the little thing, or else to let her drop upon the 
 stones of the porch. 
 
 Sally stood, with a dusky red on either cheek-bone, hold 
 ing her grandchild in her arms. 
 
 "Da-da-da-da," said Diana, pounding her thin breast 
 with the china dog. 
 
 Giles stepped forward. 
 
 "Shall I take her, m m, " she suggested. "She gives 
 nasty blows with that toy sometimes." 
 
 "Thank you," said Sally. Her arms loosened, and 
 Giles took the baby. 
 
 Now Phoebe stood before her, her hand still in Owen s. 
 
 There was an instant s pause, then Sally bent forward 
 and touched her cheek with set lips. Phoebe was white 
 as death. She could not speak, but she gave Sally a 
 touching, quite indescribable look as she drew back after
 
 262 WORLD S-END 
 
 placing her dry kiss. The black eyes avoided the dark 
 blue ones. Then Owen kissed Sally, and both he and 
 Phoebe said how glad they were to hear from Mary that 
 she was better. 
 
 "Oh, they ve tinkered me up between them," she said 
 drily. "But you know how much good a patched stirrup 
 is. It always breaks at the most important fence." 
 
 She turned towards the front door. 
 
 "Shall we go up to the nursery?" she asked in Phoebe s 
 direction, but still without looking at her. 
 
 "Please," said Phoebe in a low voice. 
 
 The nursery at World s-End was a delightful room, 
 looking over the south lawn. It had four windows, as 
 Owen s room had, two opening in cupboards in the wall, 
 with the line of distant mountains, now bloomily blue, 
 like grapes, showing through a network of yellow pear- 
 leaves. The other windows were all one shimmer from 
 the pale gold of the tulip trees outside, that fluttered in 
 the soft October breeze. There was a log-fire in the big 
 fireplace with its brass fire-dogs and fender of pierced 
 brass. The white walls were hung with old prints, the 
 London "Cries." An old rose-and-white chintz, with a 
 pattern representing little boys in short-waisted trousers 
 fishing from a broken bridge, hung at the windows and 
 covered the chairs and sofa. There was a small, single- 
 post rosewood bed with a valance of this chintz for Giles, 
 and a wee rosewood crib with twisted side-bars for the 
 baby. Some toys were placed near the fire, an old 
 rocking-horse that had been Owen s and a little cart that 
 Sally had often pulled him about in. She went now and 
 opened a door, showing a bathroom tiled in white and 
 rose that she had had added, making use of a large closet 
 formerly used for wood. 
 
 This is the addition I wrote you of, she said to Owen. 
 "I thought it necessary." 
 
 "It was dear of you to think of it," he said warmly. 
 "It s the very thing eh, Giles?" 
 
 "Very nice indeed, sir, most comfortable, I call it, sir," 
 said Giles, with unqualified approval. She was looking 
 about with a sly surprise that tickled Owen greatly, in 
 spite of the agitation of his inmost thoughts. She had 
 so evidently braced herself to endure the life of a pioneer 
 for the sake of Phoebe and the baby, to both of whom she 
 was already sincerely attached. In any case, however, she
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 263 
 
 was ready to endure hardship at the command of "her 
 Grace," whose under-housekeeper she had been for eight 
 years. Before coming to Diana she had nursed the only 
 child of Victor Iladringham s sister. And it was the death 
 of this child, whom she adored, that had caused her to 
 give up nursing for a time. She was a woman of some 
 education and a quiet, determined character. 
 
 "Just the thing for that little Turk of a namesake of 
 mine," Diana had said to Phoebe. "If Martha Giles 
 can t manage her, no one can, for you ll never be able to 
 do it, you soft-hearted ducky!" 
 
 Giles was a childless "widow woman," and expressed 
 herself as thoroughly satisfied with her one experience. 
 
 A soft little noise, like the scratching of a mouse on the 
 wainscoting, came at the door. It was Hannah, come to 
 welcome "the young mistress" ("the bride," as they 
 still called her below-stairs) and to see "Mr. Owen s 
 baby," 
 
 She and Giles were presented to each other in due 
 form. Giles told Phoebe afterwards that she "had no 
 notion, m m, asking your pardon, m m, that a black per 
 son could be ave so white-like." She and Hannah formed 
 almost immediately a quiet friendship that lasted as long 
 as they lived, a consummation devoutly to be grateful 
 for, as English servants in a Virginia country-place are 
 forlorn exiles, as a rule. 
 
 They left Giles to the ordering of her new kingdom, and 
 followed Sally downstairs to the rose-room for tea. 
 
 As Phoebe entered this room she grew white again. 
 That faint yet individual perfume characteristic of all 
 very old Virginia rooms, where beeswax and pot-pourri are 
 freely used, recalled so bitingly to her the day when she 
 had been in there alone with Sally, and had fainted from 
 sheer horror and misery on that very sofa towards which 
 Owen was now leading her. 
 
 "Won t you take off your furs?" asked Sally with cold 
 civility, and Phoebe, with a start, began loosening her 
 stole and jacket. 
 
 Mary ran up to help her. 
 
 "What lovely, lovely fur!" she exclaimed, holding it 
 against her cheek. "Almost as soft as little Diana s hair. 
 Isn t it exquisite, Sally?" 
 
 She held it towards her. 
 
 "Very handsome," said Sally, glancing up from the
 
 261 WORLD S-END 
 
 teapot in her hand, then back again. Her acrid thought 
 was: 
 
 "Marriage hasn t improved his socialism. Black sables 
 are odd wear for a socialist s wife." 
 
 And, somehow, one of the bitterest tilings in all this 
 bitter homecoming was that "that girl," as Sally still 
 called her in her thought, should be wearing a stole and 
 muff and hat of black sable. 
 
 Phoebe could not make up her mind to sit on that sofa 
 to which Owen had led her. She drew up a little chair, 
 and poised herself nervously on the edge with her cup 
 of tea. 
 
 "With her jacket and furs off, her figure in its brown 
 chiffon blouse and sheath-like skirt of dark-brown cloth 
 looked both taller and frailer than it used to. 
 
 This struck Mary. 
 
 "Why, Phoebe, darling," she said. "You ve got too 
 thin. We must mend that." 
 
 "Oh, I m very, very well, Cousin Mary," said the girl, 
 flushing slightly as she felt Sally s black eyes sweep over 
 her. "I never was fat, you know." 
 
 "Yes, I do know, vain puss! But there s a difference 
 between slimness and thinness. Don t you find her thin, 
 Sally?" 
 
 Sally rinsed a cup with delicate care. 
 
 "I find her looking very well," she said. 
 
 "Well, that or something certainly gives you quite an 
 air, " smiled Mary. "You re not my little village dar 
 ling any more." 
 
 Fancy ! said Phoebe, blushing and smiling very pret 
 tily. 
 
 Mary gave a delighted little trill of laughter. 
 
 "Oh, you imitative monkey!" she said. "I never heard 
 anything so British in my life! Do you notice that Eng 
 lish accent, Sally? which the English laugh at us for 
 calling it, by the way, and rightly, too, I must admit." 
 
 "Phoebe probably admires her friend, the Duchess of 
 Wrexborough, extremely," dropped in Sally s dry voice. 
 "Imitation is the sincerest flattery, you know." 
 
 "Poor Phoebe!" smiled Owen. "They re ragging you 
 rather stiffly, aren t they? Perhaps she s caught it from 
 me. You know, Sally, you always say my accent can be 
 cut with a knife. 
 
 "The case is slightly different, you must admit," re-
 
 WORLD S -END 265 
 
 turned Sally. "Nearly all your youth was spent in Eng 
 land. Phoebe has only been there a few months." 
 
 "But I don t mean to do it," put in Phoebe earnestly. 
 "I think it s beautiful, but I never tried to do it my 
 self." 
 
 She looked rather distressfully at Owen. 
 
 "I like it, however it came about," said he, just touch 
 ing the big sorrel coils. "So why worry?" 
 
 "I won t, then," said Phoebe, feeling suddenly cour 
 ageous even towards Sally. This new feeling of courage 
 was so pleasant that to exercise it she held out her cup 
 to the tea-maker. 
 
 "May I have another?" she asked. 
 
 "With pleasure," said Sally. It was astonishing the 
 secret bitterness that she managed to instill into this re 
 mark, so tempered that but for circumstances it would 
 only have conveyed its meaning to the ears for which it 
 was intended. There was a certain expression of kindly 
 frankness about Owen s face, an openness almost boyish 
 at times, which led people to think him an unobservant 
 man. Even Sally had never penetrated this pleasant 
 "persona" of his. She thought that she could chasten 
 Phoebe s present state of undeserved prosperity unknown 
 to any save themselves. But, behind the smiling lightness 
 of his manner, anger was stirring in him. This was too 
 bad of Sally, this veiled, hostile bitterness, and it was 
 stupid. 
 
 "When you ve finished that cup, I think I ll take you to 
 your room, dear," he now said. "It s a fagging journey 
 from New York to Crewe" 
 
 Phoebe sprang up gladly, putting down her half-full 
 cup. 
 
 I don t want any more. I d like to go now. 
 
 "The room over this ... of course?" said Owen to 
 Sally from the door. lie saw her eyebrows twitch nerv 
 ously. 
 
 "Yes" she said. 
 
 It had been their grandmother s and mother s bedroom, 
 and opened into that of Owen s, who occupied his father s. 
 
 Phoebe gave a little cry of pleasure as they entered it. 
 A lovely, homelike place it was, with its cheery mixture 
 of white Empire and Chippendale and its old Aubusson 
 carpet with a green ground circled by cornucopias of 
 faded grey from which tumbled all the flowers of Flora s
 
 266 WORLD S-END 
 
 garden. A fire of cedar-logs burned on the wide hearth, 
 filling the room with its aromatic fragrance. 
 
 "Do you like it, honey-pot ?" he asked, amused and 
 pleased, watching her as she darted from one object to 
 another, like the humming-bird to which Mary had com 
 pared her. 
 
 " Do I like it? ... Do I like it? " she echoed him, 
 glowing and paling. She came and caught up his hand, 
 meaning to press her lips to it, but he held hers fast and 
 drew her to him instead. 
 
 "Phoebe," he said. "Mind, you re to come straight to 
 me the first minute that World s-End brings you anything 
 but happiness." 
 
 "Yes," she said obediently, but her heart said: 
 
 "I must be very, very careful. I must bear every 
 thing without a look, without a sign. No matter what 
 she says or does to me, I must smile. I must seem happy. 
 I must. I will." 
 
 Owen went away and sent America. 
 
 "Oh, America," said Phoebe, with her usual formula 
 on such occasions, "hug me!" 
 
 America swooped down and squeezed her knees until she 
 pinched them. 
 
 "Isn t it wonderful to be at home again, Eikky?" 
 
 "Miss Phoebe, sugar," said America solemnly, "when 
 Pha-ry-Oh saw dat linen-pin a-comin outer he cha yot, an 
 no hand a-holdin it, he mought a thought twas as won 
 derful as I does bein home ag in!" 
 
 "But you enjoyed yourself abroad, Rikky, you told 
 me so often." 
 
 "Yes, Miss Phoebe, I j yed myse f, but j yin ain t hap- 
 pifyin ." 
 
 XXXV 
 
 next morning Phoebe drove herself over to Nelson s 
 * Gift in the pretty phaeton which Owen had ordered 
 for her before they came home. 
 
 America sat beside her, advanced for the moment over 
 her bete noire, Giles, with little Diana in her lap. The 
 dimple in her round, brown cheek looked as though Aunt 
 Polly had pricked it deep with a kitchen fork, as in her 
 incomparable beaten-biscuits. You know, Giles, Phoebe
 
 WORLD S -END 267 
 
 had explained, "all America s nearest relatives live at 
 my home, so you won t mind if I take her today, instead 
 of you, to hold the baby." 
 
 "Certainly not, m m. Your wishes are mine, m m. 
 Only I hope the minx don t fall into one of her tantrums 
 with the poor dear lamb. Tis very ill for infants to be 
 treated with temper, m m." 
 
 "Oh, she dare not!" exclaimed Phoebe. 
 
 " Dare not is something unbeknownst to her, asking 
 your pardon, m m. She would sauce one of the blessed 
 Apostles if such a thing could befall. I ve no patience 
 with her, and that s the truth, m m." 
 
 "Indeed. I think you have a great deal of patience with 
 her, Giles," said Phoebe. "And I appreciate it very 
 much. I scold her often for being so naughty to you." 
 
 " Tis neither here nor there, m m. I pay no regard 
 to her whatsomedever. Tis all as if a black cat was gave 
 to scratching, and a body kept out of reach and let it 
 scratch the air. The little baggage excuse my plain lan- 
 gwidge, m m may scratch the air and welcome, as long as 
 she don t interfere with me. Tongue is a dish as is easy 
 pickled with scorn." 
 
 "Well," said Phoebe, relieved, "I m glad you look at it 
 so sensibly, Giles. You re the greatest comfort to me. I 
 was just writing to the duchess about you this morning." 
 
 "I thank you, m m, I m sure, m m. I ll be beholden 
 to you if you ll present my dutiful respecks to her grace, 
 m m." 
 
 And so a triumphant America was rolled towards Nel 
 son s Gift, behind one of the brown cobs, seated beside 
 her mistress with the jewel of the world upon her proud 
 knees. 
 
 As they sped along over the familiar road her heart 
 grew ever lighter and lighter, just as Phoebe s grew heavier 
 and heavier, for was she not about to recount her won 
 drous adventures to an admiring and envious clan ? Ever 
 heavier and heavier grew Phoebe s, until, when they came 
 to the ford of the Green-Flower, where she had looked 
 up that April day and seen Richard sitting on Borak 
 at the top of the hill, her whole breast seemed filled with, 
 lead. And when they passed through the gate of Holly- 
 brook Wood, and the little temple of Venus glinted 
 through the trees, so great a sense of shame and misery 
 overcame her that it was all she could do to keep back a
 
 268 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 moan of pain. "With fixed eyes and set lips she drove on 
 to the front door. 
 
 Mr. Nelson had been prevented from being at World s- 
 End to greet her and his little granddaughter on their 
 homecoming because of one of his usual autumn attacks of 
 influenza. A letter to that effect from her Aunt Charlotte, 
 who now lived with him, had been awaiting Phoebe in 
 New York, so that she was not unduly disappointed, but 
 it had seemed long until the next day, when she could 
 show him her new treasure and kiss his dear criss-cross 
 wrinkled face again. Now all her joy was poisoned by 
 those terrible voices of inanimate things which call louder 
 than cannon in the ears of guilt. "Here . . . here it 
 was ..." cried the little temple, the leaves, the flowers, 
 the very blades of grass as she passed them with the sweet, 
 rosy fruit of that dark hour shining beside her. There 
 came back to her the old familiar words of the man in 
 the Bible who beat his breast, not daring to look up, and 
 cried, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." And then 
 rushed over her the thought of how very merciful He had 
 been. "I have been a wretched, ungrateful creature," she 
 thought now, staring at the home which was forever de 
 secrated for her. "He has saved me from my sin, and I 
 have not thanked Him in any way as I ought to have 
 done. I will begin from this hour, from this moment. . . 
 if He will only show me how. ..." 
 
 "Confess ye your faults one to another ..." came the 
 instant whisper from within. 
 
 "No, no, no," urged a second voice, "that would be the 
 crowning act of selfishness to ease your own soul at the 
 expense of his happiness." 
 
 Which voice was the voice of truth? . Which? . . . 
 Which? . . . White and shaken, she drew up the gaily 
 dancing Jinko at the door of her girlhood s home. 
 
 They were all there to greet her, having spied the 
 phaeton from the moment that it left Hollybrook Wood ; 
 her father, wrapped in a greatcoat over his cashmere 
 dressing-gown, Aunt Charlotte, resplendent in peacock- 
 blue, Aunt Patty, Uncle Burrell, Lily, pushed back to 
 a deferential middle distance by her parents. It was such 
 a welcome as softened even Phoebe s dumb, lonely pain. 
 
 Then America was borne off kitchenwards by her kith 
 and kin, and Phoebe and the baby were left in the old 
 green-panelled room with Mr. Nelson and Aunt Charlotte.
 
 WOULD S-END 269 
 
 Her father looked very well, despite his influenza, she 
 thought, as she sat on the little stool at his side in her old 
 place, balancing Diana upon his too narrow knee. This 
 feat was very like trying to balance a lively guinea-pig on 
 a tight-rope. 
 
 Diana gurgled and squirmed, and "swam" desperately 
 at her mother with both mittened hands. 
 
 "Let me take her, while you talk to Thomas," said 
 Aunt Charlotte, and, bobbing a wonderful chatelaine at 
 Diana, she so won that midget s fearless heart that she 
 immediately began her swimming motions in that direc 
 tion with both feet as well as hands. 
 
 Phoebe resigned her gladly; she wanted so very much, 
 to have her father to herself just for a few minutes. 
 
 I need not ask you, my precious child, wiiether you are 
 happy, he said with deep emotion, so soon as Aunt Char 
 lotte and the baby had retired to a distant window. "I 
 need only to look at yonder sweet infant and think of 
 your noble husband, and I am answered." 
 
 Phoebe s heart swelled. Only twice before in all her 
 life had her father called her "his precious child." Once, 
 when as a little thing of six she had begged him piteously 
 to bring her dead mother back to life; once, when he had 
 said farewell to her on her \vedding-day, and now in her 
 young motherhood. But, try as she would, she could not 
 respond freely or talk to him as she wished to in this 
 place. She longed to be gone from it to "World s-End, 
 where all was new and untainted, where at least if there 
 was fear there was also hope. And she was radiant when 
 he said yes, that ho and Charlotte would come over next 
 day and spend a week with her. She fondled his hand 
 and told him of what a charming bedroom and study 
 awaited him there, and of what a splendid library Owen 
 had. 
 
 "Ah, father dear," . . . she pleaded, "more than a week 
 . . . stay with me more than one stingy little week." And 
 he patted her eager face, saying: 
 
 "We shall see. . . . "We shall see . . . but an old man 
 is always wedded to both habits and habitation, my dear." 
 
 Then Phoebe asked after her dear "Jimmy Toots" and 
 "King Reddy" and the grey kitten, "Higgles," and the 
 chipmunk, ""Weech," and the squirrel, " Fluff- wuzz. " 
 
 Mr. Nelson smiled affectionately as she told over the 
 odd little list of names.
 
 270 WORLD S-END 
 
 "Your imagination, my dear, does not trend towards 
 euphony," he said; "indeed, I never heard of an assembly 
 of domestic pets whether in or out of the domain of fact 
 with such cacophanous titles." 
 
 "What does cacoph . . . what you said . . . mean, 
 father dear?" asked Phoebe humbly. Her father was 
 dreadfully learned, she thought. It was odd that she had 
 not imbibed more knowledge merely from such close con 
 tact with one of its fountain-heads. But she thanked her 
 stars that Owen did not use such very difficult words. 
 
 Mr. Nelson explained the meaning of "cacophanous" 
 and then Phoebe went in search of the pets whose names 
 it characterised. She really suffered between her longing 
 to have "Jimmy Toots" with her at World s-End and 
 her shrinking from the associations which he evoked. She 
 decided finally to leave him to Aunt Patty s care he 
 seemed to have grown very much attached to her, and she 
 to him. She would take King Eeddy with her, and 
 "Weech" and " Fluff -Wuzz. " "Higgles" would be too 
 unhappy on a strange hearth-rug. But, then, the dogs at 
 World s-End might devour the others. She ended by 
 taking only King Reddy back with her. 
 
 In the meantime America was making the kitchen 
 coruscate like some jewelled grotto of the Arabian Nights 
 with her scintillating anecdotes of foreign splendours. 
 
 "Yes, Ma am," said she in response to a wondering 
 comment from Aunt Patty, "we is flew high, Miss Phoebe, 
 and me, I kin tell you ! Why dee Queen tuk sech a shine 
 to Miss Phoebe dey wa nt no partin em. She uster take 
 Miss Phoebe by dee elber, same s I se a-holdin you now, 
 an she says, says she: Phoeb, sweetie . . . (she called 
 her Phoeb for short, jes to show how sot she was on her, 
 an sweetie is what dey says over dere like we-all says 
 honey over hyuh.) Phoeb, s\veetie, says dee Queen, 
 le s we-all go play by we se ves. An I tell you, dee 
 Queen of England an my Miss Phoebe, dey d jes hunch 
 up by dey-se ves a-gigglin an a-swappin secrets by de 
 day!" 
 
 Aunt Patty and the whole clanjamfry of shaded kins 
 folk (some twenty in all) sat awestricken and delighted. 
 Then Aunt Patty found her breath. 
 
 "Well, dee ways uv Gawd is sho parst guessin out," 
 said she, "to think uv Him wid all his knowledge of hu 
 man natur pickin out a sassy wench like you to go buttin
 
 WORLD S-END 271 
 
 up wid Queens an sich. Ef you was spiled bcfo , I reckon 
 we ll hev to put bar l hoops round you now jes to hoi 
 you together." 
 
 America bridled and helped herself to more ginger 
 bread from the huge platter served in honour of her re 
 turn from foreign parts. She stuck out her pointed, 
 brown little linger, as perfect as a monkey s, and the cir 
 cle of garnets and rhine-stones which adorned it twinkled 
 in the kitchen fire-light. 
 
 "Did dat Queen war her crown all dee time, or a hat 
 sometimes?" asked Uncle Burrell. 
 
 "She war dat crown all dee time," said America loftily. 
 "She wan t a-goin to be a Queen fuh nothin . When she 
 want to go out she jes had her maid baste a piece o silk 
 in dee top, an she war h it jes dee same es a hat." 
 
 "Glory be! Dat is sho cu yous, " said Uncle Burrell. 
 
 "But dat ain t all," continued America, assisting the 
 gingerbread in its sticky course downward by an affected 
 series of sips from her mug of cider, "talkin bout crowns, 
 one day when Miss Phoebe had to go to a party in a 
 herry (hurry) an I done forget her teerarry . . . she 
 sho did scold me supp n scand lous fur fergitten dat 
 teerarry. ..." (America was a most artistic liar.) 
 
 "What am a teerarry ?" asked Aunt Patty. "Ef 
 you se goin to show off wid outlandish words you se got 
 tuh splain em." 
 
 Teerarry, " said America, who was enjoying her 
 self as never before in her whole career, " teerarry is 
 dee name for dee sorter second-hand crowns what folkses 
 kin war what ain t queens." 
 
 "Uph!" said Aunt Patty. "I wonder at my Miss 
 Phoebe . . . (caze I tells you right now you se gotter quit 
 calliii her yo Miss Phoebe tuh me, you sassy piece) . . . 
 I does wonder at her bein willin to war even a crown 
 what s second han ." 
 
 "Well, clat s only my way o talkin ," America has 
 tened to correct this false impression, "caze dat teerarry 
 uv Miss Phoebe s is only less n dee Queen s by reason it 
 ain t got no p ints to it. It costed ..." she thought 
 rapidly, " ... it costed fifty thousand dollars in 
 gole. . . . 
 
 "Noiv you lyin !" said Aunt Patty calmly. 
 
 "No, I ain t," said America, in no wise offended. "I 
 seed de bill."
 
 272 WORLD S-END 
 
 "Dat s anurrer," said Aunt Patty. 
 
 "Hyuh, ooman, let dee gal git on wid her arrikdote, " 
 put in Uncle Burrell. "What happened when you done 
 f ergit Miss Phoebe s teerarry wid yo laziness ? 
 
 "Shucks!" said America good-naturedly superior, "lazi 
 ness ain t my fault, Unc Burrell. High speritedness is 
 my fault!" 
 
 "Well tell yo tale and hysh bout yo self," grunted 
 the old man. "Go on bout Miss Phoebe an dee party." 
 
 "Wellum," said America, drawing in her breath with a 
 little whistle through the gap in her teeth, "when dee 
 Queen uv Englan seed as how Miss Phoebe ain t got 
 no teerarry to war she jes ups an says: Phoeb, sweetie, 
 says she, I don t care bout his hyuh ole party nohow, 
 she says. Dee King an dee Ambuzzards dey jes wars 
 my life out a makin me dress up fuh parties in my ear- 
 mines and jools all de time. I se jes nach lly sick tuh 
 my stummick uv parties, she says. Hyuh, she says, a- 
 rippin dee crown uv England off n her hade (head), you 
 war my crown, says she. Gawd, He knows I m glad tuh 
 get shet uv it fuh one evenin anyhow ! Now dat," wound 
 up America, "is dee Gawspel trufe!" 
 
 Aunt Charlotte, who of course accompanied Mr. Nelson 
 on his visit to World s-End, was another thorn in Sally s 
 already festering side. She was probably one of the most 
 unique old ladies then living, and had Sally s sense of 
 humour been keener, and her mood less bitter, might have 
 afforded her much refreshment. 
 
 Owen told Phoebe, after he had listened twenty minutes 
 to the old dame s twittering garrulity, that he considered 
 that they (Owen and Phoebe) had the two most unparal 
 leled aunts in the universe. 
 
 Miss Talliaferro (she was the aunt of Phoebe s mother) 
 was at least ninety-eight. Her figure combined the 
 plumpness of the wren with the elegance of the cat-bird. 
 Her still abundant hair, of a soft, floury yellow-grey, she 
 wore parted and dressed in early Victorian ringlets. Her 
 features, which clustered close together in a long, oval face, 
 were of the precisely pretty type characteristic of the 
 steel engravings of "fancy portraits" in the twenties. 
 
 Her manner of speech was as unique as her appearance. 
 She called "James" "Jeems," "yellow" "yaller," and 
 spoke of a "dish of tay" for a cup of tea. Her occupa-
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 273 
 
 tion during moments of social idleness consisted of "knot 
 ting" or "netting" (she used either term impartially) 
 and it was charming to see her sitting in a low chair, her 
 pretty old legs (they had been called like Fanny Elssler s 
 she always told you in due time) crossed daintily, 
 while in the mesh of scarlet silk her charming old feet, 
 in their bronze slippers, looked like burnished beetles 
 caught in some gaudy spider-web. 
 
 She used an English prayer-book and considered the 
 amendations in the American issue both stupid and sacri 
 legious. As regarded politics, she said that she was a 
 "Loyalist," meaning that she was by sentiment still a 
 loyal colonist of England, and she called the father of 
 her country "that interloper." 
 
 When unchecked she would recount the past triumphs 
 of her personal charms by the hour, and would wind up by 
 reciting a long, a thirty-verse-long poem that had once 
 been inscribed to her by an ardent admirer and which, 
 was pasted in the back of her Bible. It began, 
 
 "Charlotte! to praise thee, charms like thine, 
 "Would take an abler pen than mine, 
 Since thy fair sex requires from ours, 
 A tribute of immortal powers. 
 
 It may be imagined with what emotions Sally regarded 
 Phoebe s great-aunt. 
 
 "Ah, do let s have tea in the nursery," pleaded Mary 
 the next afternoon, when the old gentleman and lady ar 
 rived from Nelson s Gift. "It is so gay and cheerful 
 there, and Giles says we can t have the baby down stairs 
 today as she s got a smitch of cold. whatever that is." 
 
 "Yes, that will be so nice!" cried Phoebe, then caught 
 herself up and turned to Sally. If Cousin Sally wouldn t 
 mind?" she added timidly. Try as she would she could 
 not keep this little timid note out of her voice when she 
 addressed Sally. 
 
 Sally lifted one eyebrow slightly. 
 
 " vYhy on earth should I mind?" she asked in quite a 
 pleasant voice, but as she spoke she looked full at Phoebe, 
 which she seldom did, and her eyes were not pleasant. 
 The girl changed colour. 
 
 Jonathan, who had already brought in the old Sheffield 
 tea-tray and set it on a table near Sally, stood waiting. 
 Everyone looked at her. She played with her rings, gaz-
 
 WORLD S-END 
 
 ing absently into the fire. Owen was out somewhere on 
 the farm with Downer. Suddenly Sally glanced up again. 
 She looked from one to the other with a faint expression 
 of surprise. 
 
 "Well ... ?" she said, "what are we waiting for? 
 The tea will get spoilt." 
 
 "Won t you ..." began Phoebe. She hesitated, col 
 ouring painfully, and glanced from Sally to Jonathan. 
 
 "Surely," said Sally, giving her voice a tone of pleas 
 antry, "you are not playing bride still and waiting for 
 your sister-in-law to give orders in your own house?" 
 
 The others felt the unhappy jar of this without seeing 
 exactly why they felt it. They stirred uncomfortably, and 
 just here Owen came in. 
 
 He greeted Mr. Nelson and Miss Talliaferro warmly. 
 
 Tea ? Jolly ! " he exclaimed. Something in the atmos 
 phere struck him. "Why aren t you having tea?" he 
 asked. "That kettle will boil over in another second." 
 
 "We . . . we . . . were thinking of having it in the 
 nursery," said Phoebe in the low voice that he knew. He 
 glanced sharply at Sally. She was smiling slightly. He 
 thought he understood. 
 
 "Take the tray up to the nursery, Jonathan," he said. 
 "Come along all. I m very keen for my tea. But if little 
 Di tries to climb up my legs an usual she ll get scratched, 
 I m afraid. I m bristling with Spanish-needles and what 
 Mary in her refinement calls leggar s-bice. He gave 
 his arm to Mr. Nelson to help him up the stairs. Aunt 
 Charlotte skipped in front like an aged lamb not a sheep 
 by any means. 
 
 Last evening at dinner Phoebe had wanted Sally to keep 
 her place at the head of the table, and Sally had loftily 
 and rather cuttingly declined Avith a few curt words. Owen 
 had felt impelled to say: "Sally is perfectly right, dear. 
 Don t fuss. . . . Phoebe s lip had trembled, but she 
 had quietly done as he wished. The dark blaze kindled 
 in Sally s eyes by his words had burned fiercely all through 
 the meal. "Stupid . . . tiresome of her to a degree . . . 
 and cruelly unkind," Owen had thought, with all a man s 
 helpless irritation over the petty internecine wars of 
 women. But Phoebe must be led to show more "spunk." 
 Hadn t she the solid phalanx of his love and support 
 behind her? Now he felt that again there had arisen 
 some silly household issue. The question of who was
 
 WORLD S-END 275 
 
 to give Jonathan his orders probably. Phoebe must 
 learn to take her place as mistress. Sally was all nettles. 
 A timid touch covered one with blisters. All very well, but 
 how to teach Phoebe to grasp those nettles fearlessly? He 
 turned it over and over in his mind all the way up stairs, 
 while outwardly responding to Mr. Nelson s cadenced re 
 marks. 
 
 The nursery certainly looked a joyous place as Jonathan 
 held back the door for them to enter. The huge fire of 
 hickory and apple-prunings, built on the altar of Diana s 
 "smitch of cold," danced with an effect of gay laughter 
 over the happy chintz and the glasses of the pictures. 
 Each window was a curtain of rippled gold from the blow 
 ing leaves outside. The tea-table had been set on one side 
 of the blazing fire, and Giles was restraining the baby by 
 the tail of her white frock from laying siege to the silver 
 that glittered so alluringly in that mysterious upper world 
 represented by the tops of tables and the seats of chairs. 
 
 "Ba-ba-ba-ba," clamoured Diana, whose cold in the head 
 changed her favourite word despite her, and then she 
 sneezed s) charmingly and looked so quaintly astonished 
 that Mary rushed over and caught her up in her arms, 
 while Giles "blew" her bud of a nose for her with learned 
 skill. 
 
 "Ba-ba-ba-ba," called Diana, and "swam" towards her 
 mother, pressing her little stomach against Mary s shoulder 
 with all her might. "Ba-ba-ba-ba ..." she went on 
 wailing until Phoebe took her and cuddled her close against 
 her breast. 
 
 "Ah," said Mr. Nelson, leaning back in a big half-way- 
 house chair, like the one at Nelson s Gift, and pleasantly 
 soothed by the hot cup of camomile tea which Phoebe 
 had made for him from the baby s stores. "Now that, I 
 grant you, is a congenial subject for a picture the young 
 mother and her babe. How much happier a combination 
 than a maiden with a crow. Mr. Bryce should paint you 
 thus, my dear. Do you not agree with me, Owen?" 
 
 Phoebe s face was hidden against the baby s hair. 
 
 Sally, apparently looking into the fire, watched her as 
 the cat watches, the mouse on which another cat has 
 pounced. Owen said: 
 
 "I don t think my nephew could ever paint a really 
 good portrait of Phoebe. She hasn t the type that he 
 understands.
 
 276 WORLD S-END 
 
 Sally slipped in: 
 
 "You think Boldini, perhaps, would do it better?" 
 
 Owen looked at her. 
 
 "No," he said, "Boldini is too obviously and cleverly 
 sensual. I wonder why you suggested him?" 
 
 "It occurred to me that he could make a very striking 
 picture of her." 
 
 "And so he could of you, or of me," said her brother. 
 "I think you would be amazed to find what a vivid thing 
 he would make of you, Sally." 
 
 "Meaning that I ... ?" she said in a low voice. 
 
 "Sometimes," he said quietly, in the same pitch. 
 
 Mary, on her knees beside the low chair in which Phoebe 
 sat, was scrutinising adoringly the little face which peeped 
 out from under its crocus-coloured floss of hair. Diana 
 had got hold of her mother s hand and was luxuriously 
 munching the rings, so charmingly cool to her feverish 
 gums. Two little teeth, like the dwarf petals of an ox- 
 eye daisy, were already through. 
 
 "I m staring at you, you precious," said Mary to the 
 baby, kissing one of her little bronze shoes, to see whether 
 you re all your mother, or some your father. What do 
 you think yourself, Phoebe? She s absurdly like you, but 
 don t you think there s something, just a wee something 
 about her forehead and the way her hair grows that re 
 minds one of Owen? What do you think, Sally?" 
 
 "I don t think she s at all like her father," said Sally 
 in a peculiar voice. 
 
 "Nor I," said Owen. "She is Phoebe and Phoebe only 
 from top to toe. That s why I m so very partial to her. 
 Just push back that down she calls hair, Mary, and you 11 
 see the little widow s peak that seals her Phoebe s 
 wholly." 
 
 Mary did so. The little face had a singularly winning, 
 innocent look with the soft hair thus strained back from 
 it. The violet eyes were like two flowers suddenly stripped 
 of their shading foliage. 
 
 "Oh, you precious!" cried Mary, and kissed the tiny 
 "widow s peak." 
 
 Everyone looked on with smiles but Sally. She looked 
 on too, but her expression was one of sombre brooding. 
 Owen felt that a sharp physical illness would be preferable 
 to this chronic sick anger against Sally which was gather 
 ing in his heart, and of which he could give no direct
 
 WORLD S-END 277 
 
 sign. He went over suddenly and held out his big hand 
 to the baby. Instantly she put out her little curved arms, 
 which as yet seemed to have nothing in them so grim as 
 bones. Her face was one shine of glee, the two little daisy- 
 petals showed like drops of milk in her pink mouth. 
 
 "How she dotes on her daddy!" laughed Mary. 
 
 "It seems to be reciprocal," said Sally. 
 
 The baby was lying back, chuckling with pleasure, in 
 the hammock made by the big arms. She had got hold 
 of his tie and jerked it rythmically. 
 
 Something that she could no more control than the 
 beating of her heart urged Sally on. 
 
 "Do you love the child because you re its father, or do 
 you think you would love it in any case?" she asked him. 
 
 "I love it because it s Phoebe s," he said. "Except 
 for inconvenient conventions, I should love it in that case, 
 no matter who happened to be its father." 
 
 Phoebe s heart seemed to open wide, letting forth all 
 the blood in Lor body at one hot gush; then to shut so 
 that she felt suffocating. She bent forward, and began 
 to gather up the scattered toys that lay about her chair. 
 Owen was thinking that for the first time in his life he 
 understood how men sometimes beat women with staves. 
 
 Sally went further. It was just as though some per 
 verse demon were at her elbow, jogging it. jogging it. She 
 smiled her slightly one-sided smile and said to Phoebe: 
 
 "You have a very complacent husband, my dear 
 Phoebe." 
 
 Then Owen looked directly at her. and, though he was 
 smiling too, there was something in this smile which gave 
 Sally a queer "turn." 
 
 "Yes. I m a very uxorious husband indeed. I remind 
 myself of the Biblical saying it were better for a man to 
 have a millstone hanged about his neck and to be drowned 
 in the depths of the sea, than to offend one of these little 
 ones meaning of course, Phoebe and Diana in my hope 
 less case." 
 
 Everyone laughed at this shamelessly familiar sentiment 
 from one who had been so long a bachelor, everyone, that 
 is, except Sally. She felt somehow chilled by a vague, sin 
 ister warning. She tried to search his face covertly for 
 some deeper meaning than had been expressed by his 
 words, but vainly. He had given the baby back to Phoebe, 
 and was engaging Aunt Charlotte in conversation.
 
 278 WORLD S-END 
 
 Phoebe drew her chair near her father s, and Mary fol 
 lowed, a still unsatiated baby-worshipper. 
 
 Sally sat with one of her thin, beautifully arched feet, 
 in its well-made brown shoe, on the fender, and stared 
 into the fire through the folds of the handkerchief she 
 held up to shield her face. 
 
 Feeling, from observation of her costume, that Miss Tal- 
 liaferro would relish a compliment on her attire, Owen 
 had begun by saying that it was delightful to meet a 
 wonderful person who managed to look girlish at ninety; 
 (for Phoebe had told him that her great-aunt was over- 
 weeningly proud of her extreme age). And that heliotrope 
 was a marvellously becoming shade to such blonde hair 
 and complexion. 
 
 The old lady bridled, adjusting her stole of imitation 
 ermine, which she had slipped back on entering the warm 
 nursery. 
 
 "Ninety-eight, me good sir, ninety-eight," she corrected. 
 Me next birthday falls in April. As Mr. Mortimer Smith 
 used to say, the spring conducted me to this world, and 
 I would leave it bearing the spring with me. Mortimer 
 Smith was a gallant gentleman in his day and exceedingly 
 gifted. He would have been an eminent public writer had 
 he lacked other means of subsistence. I recall some linen 
 he writ me which run thus: 
 
 "Thy damask check, alike so free, 
 From vile Shakespearean worm and me, 
 That brier rose sans briers, alas! 
 Hath brought fond me to this sad pass. 
 
 Ah, now she s off ! " whispered Mary to Phoebe. 
 
 A rattling scratch and a series of snuffling sneezes at the 
 crack of the threshold told that Wizzy was without, crav 
 ing admission to the presence of the god of his idolatry. 
 
 "Oh, aren t you afraid for the baby?" asked Mary 
 nervously, as Owen went to admit him. But she was as 
 sured that Wizzy had overcome the first pangs of jealousy 
 and even allowed the baby to make free with his ears, if 
 she did not tug too hard. So he came in making a joyous, 
 wriggling letter "S" of himself, and Mary was shown 
 how meekly he sat while Diana "poored" his sleek little 
 head, which he turned sheepishly aside with dejected eyes 
 looking from their tearful corners at Owen. 
 
 Shortly after the baby s reception broke up, and Phoebe
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 279 
 
 went with her father and Aunt Charlotte to show them 
 their rooms. 
 
 Running back, about ten minutes later to look for Aunt 
 Charlotte s " face-d-main," which she thought she must 
 have dropped in the nursery, Mary was surprised to find 
 Sally there alone with little Diana. The baby was seated 
 on a white fur rug, hammering with one of her little bronze 
 shoes upon the floor, and Sally, chin on hand in a low 
 chair, was regarding her with the fiercely confused ex 
 pression of a she-wolf looking at the child that it has not 
 yet decided whether to adopt or devour. 
 
 Sally started as Mary spoke, and that dark flush settled 
 on her cheek-bones. 
 
 "The nurse had to go downstairs for something, and 
 I said I would stay here till she returned. I came back 
 to look for my handkerchief." 
 
 Mary smiled and nodded from the white rug on which 
 she had swooped down beside the baby. "Poor Sally!" 
 she thought, "how queer she is! Fancy making excuses 
 for wanting to see more of such a duck of an only niece!" 
 
 "Isn t she the angelest thing?" she laughed, tickling 
 the baby, who chuckled wildly and said " Pr-r-r-r-rr ! " 
 through a series of bubbles. 
 
 "Mary ..." said Sally, (she could not help it any 
 more than Dostoievsky s hero could help circling closer and 
 closer about the flame of justice which was to burn him 
 to a crisp) . . . "Mary . . . I know the child has Phoebe s 
 colouring, and you said you saw something like Owen in 
 her but, look at her in this light, from this angle." 
 (Mary leaned nearer to Sally.) "There! just that view 
 don t you think she looks like Richard, too?" 
 
 Mary shook her head. 
 
 "I really can t see the slightest hint of a likeness to 
 Richard, Sally." 
 
 "Well. I do," said Sally shortly. 
 
 Here Giles came back and both ladies left the nursery. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 TT seemed to Owen, that had it not been for the cruel 
 * hatred that he felt stealing from Sally s bitter heart 
 and clouding all the air as with a fine, poisonous dust that 
 must be drawn in with every breath, it seemed to him
 
 280 WORLD S-END 
 
 that, but for this, these autumn days at "World s-End 
 would have been the happiest that he had ever known. 
 For, with that sure, intuitive reading of Phoebe which had 
 been his from the first, he saw the struggle within her, 
 and was sure that before long she would confess all to 
 him. That one cloud dispelled by full forgiveness, their 
 life together would have a serene beauty of which he had 
 sometimes dreamed, but never thought to experience. It 
 was, as he felt, a wonderful period of renewal for Phoebe 
 as well as for himself. As always, he had that Arichises- 
 like sense of regeneration from contact with the soil of 
 his old home, and now that the child had come and taken 
 her individual place in their lives, he no longer thought 
 of her as Eichard s child, but as Phoebe s. She was as 
 like her mother as one clear rose to another, nor was there 
 any trace of other parentage in line or tint or gesture. 
 Marvellously, miraculously it seemed to him sometimes, was 
 she all her mother. The little hands had the same ges 
 tures, the little feet sprang from the round ankles in just 
 the same way; her eyes were Phoebe s own, her hair, even 
 the little mouth curving out from the centre, carved up 
 at the corners, was Phoebe s mouth. As for her bud of a 
 nose, it would be in time what shape it pleased God to 
 make it. His feelings towards this child gave Owen that 
 quaint sensation of gratitude to himself, to that part of 
 himself not familiarly realised, which we feel when we 
 find suddenly that we are not cowards, or ingrates, or ut 
 ter egoists, or of the breed of Caliban. He had feared 
 that the strong animal in him would hate the child, and 
 he found that there was part of him which was just as 
 instinctive as the animal and even stronger, and which, 
 without ado or wrestlings, accepted the fact of Phoebe s 
 motherhood as, in itself, a sacred thing, and which looked 
 on her child as an independent being, and not as the off 
 spring of baseness and treachery. 
 
 He would not have been human or a man had he not 
 suffered some deadly throes in facing the thought that his 
 first-born could never be Phoebe s first-born also, nor all 
 his love for her wipe out the dark fact of her child s par 
 entage. But for the child, itself, he felt only tenderness. 
 Ever since the tiny hand had clung to his on the day of 
 its birth he had felt nothing for it but an immense pity, 
 the sort of feeling that moved him to care for poor 
 "Wizzy" more than for self-sufficing "Rab" and "Bran,"
 
 WORLD S-END 281 
 
 and that led him to refrain from shooting the free things 
 of air and wood. And musing on his feeling for this baby, 
 which would have seemed so unnatural to most men, he 
 recalled a dream which had haunted him ever since the 
 day that as a boy of fourteen he went quail shooting 
 with his father. This dream was that he wounded a bird 
 which fluttered along a hedge, fluttered, fluttered, pite- 
 otisly cheeping. He would follow trying to find it and 
 put it out of its pain. A long time he w r ould hunt for it 
 among the thick twigs of the hedge in vain. Then sud 
 denly he would come upon it, but lo ! when he had it in 
 his hands, it was a little, wounded child that he held and 
 so deep and painful would be his feeling of pity that he 
 would wake up with cold sweat on his forehead. Yes, it 
 seemed to him that this little daughter of Phoebe s was 
 like the little child of his dream, something so touch- 
 ingly helpless and defenceless, that his heart stirred just 
 for looking on her. And as he looked at her sometimes 
 now, so gay and confidently joyous, tossed from hand to 
 hand by her little band of worshippers, he would think: 
 "And if Sally had had her way she might now r be one 
 of hundreds of forlorn little foundlings. A poor little 
 bastard flung like a crumb into the maw of chance." 
 
 And savagely, and right humanly, he mused, with 
 
 grim pleasure, on the picture of Richard face to face some 
 day with the fruit of his ruthlessness, with the little un 
 conscious, fairy, flitter-mouse thing, who, for all her deli 
 cate beaut} r , was to be in his life a Frankenstein, absorbing 
 all that he had counted on, coming between him and every 
 coveted good thing of this life. 
 
 Almost, when this picture rose before him almost but 
 never quite, he overlooked the horror of what it would 
 mean to Phoebe, and through her to him. 
 
 As for Phoebe, but for that dark struggle in her heart, 
 and Sally s cruelty, and the cold fear that touched her 
 softly, now and then, in happiest moments, as with the 
 cold hand of some little, patient ape, waiting in the sha 
 dows for its share of the feast, she would have thought 
 herself in a sweet, homely heaven, fashioned perhaps by 
 some Martha-like angel, who knew the hearts of women 
 and their cravings for the dear, familiar ecstasies of earth. 
 But always, when almost she had forgotten, in the most 
 untoward moments, while walking with the man that she 
 "worshipped as she ought to worship God," through the
 
 282 WORLD S-END 
 
 golden October woods, or riding with him over the blue 
 mountain passes, or resting with her hand in his by the 
 fireside while he read aloud to her, or even when she lay 
 in that ivory-coloured love-bed with her head upon his 
 arm, softly, gently, almost timidly, that chill hand of the 
 little ape of fear would steal plucking, plucking at her 
 garment of joy, at her heart-strings, the little clammy 
 hand that teased cringingly as if for food. 
 
 But, in spite of this, much pure, wholesome joy came her 
 way, and she grasped it thankfully, "lifting up her heart 
 in both hands" as the old seer says, holding it high, 
 where the little ape-hand could not touch it. These were 
 her simple joys of every day, which no man could take 
 from her, which even the uncertain future could not em 
 bitter in the memory, if the gods themselves decided to 
 reclaim them and leave her desolate one day. 
 
 These, her hours of companionship in his work, were, 
 perhaps, the most precious of all to her. She was not 
 merely the cherished woman when she went with him about 
 the farm or read his manuscripts aloud that he might the 
 better correct their faults. No, when she entered int(? 
 his plans about the schools, their re-organisation, the se 
 lection of teachers, the planning of new methods, when 
 she began to understand his ideas and their application j 
 when she went with him among the labourers and their fam 
 ilies, and took up her own part in the friendship and good- 
 fellowship which existed at World s-End between employer 
 and employed ; when she began to comprehend some of the 
 fascinating and world-old mastery of the tilling of the soil, 
 some of that awed pleasure, as of one participating in a 
 tranquil miracle, which comes to those who watch the evo 
 lution of seed into grain, "some twenty, some an hundred 
 fold," and the magic burgeoning of sweet fruit from the 
 bitter rind of trees, when she heard the manager counting 
 as simply on his coming flock of winter lambs and the 
 advent of foals and calves and piglings in due season as he 
 did on his future crop of oats and wheat and maize, 
 when all this sweet, strong, primeval life began to 
 enfold and mingle with her separate life, and when she 
 realised his part in it, and responsibility towards it, and 
 that she was allowed to share this interest and responsi 
 bility, it seemed to her as though some sacrifice of herself 
 were needed by herself to express fittingly the deep, grate 
 ful joy that brimmed her heart.
 
 WORLD S-END 283 
 
 "And over and over, over and over she would ask her 
 self: "If I told him all would that be a great enough 
 offering? If I told him everything, would he forgive me, 
 and lovo me perhaps more for being utterly honest with 
 him? Or would I break his heart just to ease my own? 
 But, then, even if he forgave me he could never forget. 
 Every time he looked at the child. . . . She would al 
 ways break off shuddering at this point, for the little, 
 clammy hand would creep out and touch her softly, slyly. 
 . . . "No!" her racked heart would cry "God made 
 me. He knows I cannot. lie that made me knows it isn t 
 in me to do it ... I can t ... I can t! ..." 
 
 And for Sally, too, these days held emotions strangely 
 mixed of pain, of wrath, of jealousy, of bitterness, of sav 
 age tenderness. She thought to feel an untempered ha 
 tred for the child that had come between Richard and 
 all her hopes for him. And yet, though it was so like 
 Phoebe, though violet eyes instead of dusky black ones 
 gazed up at her from its small face, yet there was some 
 thing, a hint, a faint, elusive look now and then, which 
 recalled what Richard had been when she held him to her 
 breast in the fierce rapture of her sensual maternity. And 
 this likeness left her no peace. What was of Phoebe in the 
 child she loathed, but w r hat she sensed of Richard in it 
 drew her as with "hooks of steel." 
 
 This inner struggle made her coldly repellant in her 
 manner to the baby. She had never taken it in her arms 
 since that first day when Mary ran up the front steps 
 and thrust it on her. But sometimes she ached to do so, 
 and the more hungry her longing, the harsher was the cold 
 ness of her voice and look. 
 
 Giles one day, quite out of patience with this unnatu 
 ral relative of so supremely delectable a baby, had broken 
 from her customary shell of reserve and expressed her 
 self in forcible terms to Phoebe. 
 
 "If you ll pardon me, m rn, I can t abide Mrs. Bryce 
 coming to the nursery. She do have that sour an ex 
 pression I fear, sometimes, twill curdle the milk in the 
 poor child s stommick. A fiercer looking lady, begging 
 your pardon, m m what with these jetty brows and 
 that p inted nose, I pray I may never be old more. 
 Wy do she come, ni ni, if tis only to gaze so grim-like at 
 the precious pet?" 
 
 "Poor Mrs. Bryce isn t at all well, you know, Giles,"
 
 284 WORLD S-END 
 
 Phoebe had answered, "she has some dreadful trouble 
 with her heart. "We must feel sorry for her, not vexed 
 with her." 
 
 "If you ll pardon me, m m," Giles had retorted, "the 
 trouble with her heart is that tis a main unkind one. 
 Many folks has that trouble, m m, as lives to a green old 
 age. But all I says, m m, is that I wishes earnest she 
 wouldn t set her foot more in this nursery. 
 
 "But Giles, she comes so seldom." 
 Seldom, say you! Begging your pardon, m m, that 
 only shows what secret, hid ways she as of be aving. Sel 
 dom! -Wy it s all hours she do be a-stepping in, soft- 
 foot as a cat, asking your pardon, m m. Sometimes 
 she do but turn about the room, just touching the toys, 
 maybe, with them long, hard fingers. Then, again, she ll 
 sit and browse in yonder chair for nigh an hour, with 
 them dull, black eyes fixed on the dear lamb as if she was 
 overlookin her. I tell you, m m, tis not wholesome for 
 a babe to be eyed like it was a newt or a toad." 
 
 Phoebe felt worried, she could not tell why exactly. 
 "Has she been in today, Giles?" 
 
 "That she as, m m. I was all in a tirrit w en she went 
 out. Silence and dark looks is an ill combination, m m." 
 
 "Does she ever hold the baby?" 
 
 Not she ! She but sits and glowers at it like. 
 
 "Doesn t she ever talk with you, Giles?" 
 
 "Oh, ay! Sometimes she ll put the ancient question 
 I be that sick of And how do ye like Virginia? or that 
 other nigh as wearing: And were ye not afraid of the 
 black folk at first? Or she ll ask me how many teeth 
 the baby has now. Yes, m m, she ll ask me that the very 
 day after I ve told her twice as how the last one have just 
 pricked through. Tis trying, tis sore trying, m m. I 
 do wish humbly as I might be saved from it." 
 
 "I m sorry, but I don t see what I can do, Giles. She 
 is Mr. Kandolph s sister, you know, and I wouldn t hurt 
 her feelings for anything." 
 
 "Well, m m, of course you know best. But the Master 
 is not always so soft with her. Five or six is the smart 
 raps I ve seen him give her in this very room. Not being 
 in their confidence, begging your pardon, m m, I ad no key 
 to the idden meaning of his words, but I could see that 
 each one it ome. And I confess, m m, twas a great 
 pleasure to me, w ich of course it adn t ought to be, but
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 285 
 
 then, m m, we re all uman, queen as well as kitchen- 
 maid. And of course, as tis past mending, I must just 
 bear it as I may. But when the Madam goes on a visit 
 per aps, or somew ere for her health, Martha Giles will 
 not urt herself with weeping." 
 
 Phoebe recounted this conversation to Owen, saying 
 rather timidly when she ended : 
 
 Don t you think, perhaps, that it would be a good thing 
 if I went away somewhere just for a little while, and took 
 the baby with me? Mary would come, too, I know. You 
 see, it must be so hard on poor Cousin Sally, having me 
 here in her place, and the baby makes it worse somehow. 
 Don t you think that would be a good plan?" 
 
 They were standing before the fire in her bedroom when 
 Phoebe said this, and Owen sat down on the big lounge 
 and drew her down beside him before he answered. Then, 
 with his aria about her, he said: "Upon my word, you 
 suggest deserting me as coolly as you would suggest a walk. 
 Are you so sure of my coolness?" 
 
 Phoebe bent her head, turning and re-turning the wed 
 ding ring on the brown hand that held her waist, the ring 
 which Mary had once wondered whether he would wear. 
 He held her a little closer, then bent and looked into 
 her shy face teasingly. "So you really want to divorce 
 yourself from my bed and board, just because Sally is a 
 crank?" 
 
 "No no, Owen. . . . 
 
 " No no ? Then why did you suggest such a harsh 
 possibility ? Don t you know. . . . He held her to him 
 with sudden passion. "Don t you know that I am a hope 
 less ass about leaving you even for twenty-four hours on 
 business?" 
 
 "I ... I. ... " 
 
 " I ... I. ... Guilt makes you stammer. A guilty 
 conscience. . . . You are tired of me and you make poor 
 Sally the excuse." 
 
 "Oh, don t, don t say it! ... even in fun ..." she 
 pleaded, and he heard tears in her voice. He grasped her 
 suddenly and set her upon his knee, where he could see 
 her face. 
 
 "Phoebe," he said, his voice shook "Phoebe, how 
 much do you love me ? . . . Do you really love me ? Am 
 I first?"
 
 286 WORLD S-END 
 
 She flung herself against his breast. 
 
 "Oh, you know . . . you know ..." she whispered, 
 "first, last, best, all, more than anyone ever loved any 
 one, more than I ought, more than God wants me to. 
 . . . She turned up her mouth to his. I can t speak 
 it ... " she whispered, almost sobbing. "Kiss me . . . 
 kiss me, and feel it." 
 
 Through that long kiss they heard the flutter of the 
 wood fire, the ticking of the little travelling clock, the beat 
 ing of their own quickened hearts. Long, long minutes 
 seemed to flow by, all gold with passion. Phoebe wished 
 that she might die before that long kiss ended, and the 
 little ape-hand touched her chilly again. 
 
 But, with Owen, the fruit of this conversation wag not 
 only that exquisite kiss of married lovers. He thought that 
 he saw a door of escape opening from the situation which 
 tried him almost to the snapping point sometimes. 
 
 If Sally grew to love the child that would solve several 
 problems. In that case she would unconsciously take the 
 child s part against fate, even against Richard as far as 
 lesser matters went. She would stop goading Phoebe with 
 that two-edged tongue of hers, in what she thought was 
 her secret garden of cruelty. She would resign herself 
 more or less philosophically to a position which allowed 
 her to be near the child. And he determined to help her 
 break through the obstinacy of prejudice which he felt 
 instinctively was all that held her back from that lovely 
 little being, who, after all, was compact of her own flesh 
 and blood. 
 
 His opportunity came two days later when Mary and 
 Phoebe had set off on a gay expedition after chestnuts, 
 taking America and two of Aunt Polly s grandchildren 
 with them. The very names of these twin pickaninnies 
 set them off in gales of laughter. One, the little girl, was 
 called Buena Vista, and the other, a boy, Buenos Ayres. 
 Owen, from his study, where he and Downer were working 
 out the problem of the autumn sale and packing of the 
 World s-End apples, smiled as he heard Mary s little stac 
 cato rill of mirth mingling with Phoebe s girlish "ha-ha- 
 ha." He knew that Sally, who did not feel strong that day, 
 was lying on the sofa in the library with a book for com 
 pany. As soon as he had finished with Downer he went 
 up to the nursery. Little Diana had just come in from 
 her afternoon walk (the "smitch of cold" had long since
 
 WORLD S-END 28T 
 
 disappeared), aud Giles was "hulling" her of white coat 
 arid leggings and mittens as though she were a rosy little 
 fruit Avith a white rind. 
 
 "Will you come with Owen, Dido?" he asked, holding 
 out the big hands that always delighted her. She simply 
 flung herself into them. 
 
 "Very fond of her dear dada she is, to he sure," smiled 
 Giles. There s no one she goes to so willing as she does 
 to you, sir; excepting, of course, the mistress." 
 
 "Her ladyship knows that my hig arms make a 
 monstrously comfy throne for her." 
 
 " Er little ighness it ought to be, sir, asking your 
 pardon, but she ave got such denty, winsome ways with 
 her, the love ! 
 
 Owen took Diana off while Giles went to Hannah s room 
 for a cup of tea, and told her "it was the beautifullest 
 sight as ever was, to see such a fine, splendid gentle 
 man a-bearing that sweet mite as you might say a bough 
 bears a blossom. That was the only sense in marriage, 
 so it was, the blessed hinfants. And for her part it did 
 seem a hard dispensation of Providence as it should 
 take two to make em. Many a woman craved the com 
 fort of a child that wouldn t be worritted along of a 
 man. 
 
 Owen went to the library, and paused in the doorway, 
 seemingly surprised to find Sally on the sofa. 
 
 "Do come in ... and shut the door," she said rather 
 pettishly, "there s a dreadful draught." 
 
 "Shan t we be disturbing you?" he objected. 
 
 "Not at all ... not at all ... I can concentrate my 
 mind perfectly with any amount of noise going on." 
 
 "Di isn t a very noisy baby," he assured her gravely, 
 feeling rather amused at her prickly reception of what 
 he knew was a secret pleasure. "She will find food 
 for reflection in my watch chain and watch for the next 
 hour." 
 
 He ensconced himself in a big leather arm-chair with 
 the baby, while Sally returned with feverish application 
 to her book. 
 
 "Blow, baby . . . blow hard," whispered Owen, holding 
 his thumb to the spring of his watch-case. 
 
 Diana made a funny little sputtering noise, her cheeks 
 like bubbles with her desperate effort. Open flew the 
 watch !
 
 288 WORLD S-END 
 
 "A-klee-klee-klee-klee!" chuckled she, bouncing in his 
 grasp with delight. 
 
 This went on for several minutes. Then Sally rested 
 her book on her knee with one eyebrow slightly lifted. 
 
 "It is rather difficult to keep one s attention on a seri 
 ous book like this, with a baby having hysterics over a 
 watch ..." she admitted. 
 
 "Perhaps we d better go," suggested Owen, half rising, 
 "I can take her to my study. It s very warm in there." 
 
 "No pray don t," said Sally. "To tell you the truth 
 I was rather lonely. This keeping quiet is a hard dose for 
 me to swallow. I ll enjoy having you to myself for a 
 little while if it won t bore you." 
 
 "Dear old Sally," he said affectionately, bending over 
 Diana s little head, to squeeze her thin hand in that way 
 he had. (The actual sight of her worn, sickly face when, 
 as now, it was undistorted by bitter feeling always moved 
 him.) "When did you ever bore me? In fact, I m vain 
 enough to think that we ve never yet bored each other." 
 
 Sally smiled a very melancholy, proud smile it was. 
 "Oh, semi-invalids always bore people; we derelicts are 
 a sort of moral dumb-bells to exercise unselfishness. Look 
 at Mary. ... Do you think it has amused her being shut 
 up with me all these months? That woman," she con 
 tinued, her lip trembling, "is an angel. . . . 
 
 "Ah, the angels are pallid gentry beside Mary," he as 
 sented warmly. 
 
 "Da-da-da-da," broke in Diana, tugging with both hands 
 at the watch. " Pr-r-r-r-r-r ! " she sputtered at it, cover 
 ing it with tiny drops from her little wet, teething 
 mouth. 
 
 "There!" said Owen, and the magic watch blew open. 
 
 "I think I ll go back to my book," Sally remarked 
 drily, and took it up again. Owen noticed suddenly that 
 it was a volume of Brieux s plays. Could she be reading 
 "Maternite" . . . That would be an odd coincidence. . . . 
 He wondered how Sally would relish the famous French 
 man s view of conventional chastity. Then he smiled, no 
 ticing that her eyes were fixed, not following the printed 
 lines. 
 
 Diana suddenly twisted away from the watch, with the 
 imperious fickleness of babyhood, and lunging forward 
 made a snatch at M. Brieux. 
 
 "She wants to go to you, I believe," said Owen, holding
 
 WORLD S-END 289 
 
 on to her little flounce-like skirt as he had seen Giles do. 
 "But you feel too seedy to have her, don t you?" 
 
 Sally put down the book again, and he saw that the 
 dusky red had come into her cheeks. Yes, the baby was 
 imperatively motioning to go to her. Her little arms were 
 stretched out, her bronze shoes beating a tattoo of impa 
 tient demand. 
 
 "Da-da-da." she cried passionately to Sally, saying 
 plainly, in her language of intonation, "Take me! Take 
 me ! Take me at once ! 
 
 Sally frowned nervously, hesitated, then reached forward 
 and took the little springing form. The baby sat still for 
 a brief second upon the vicufia rug that covered her 
 grandmother s thin knees, and gazed at her as though en 
 raptured with the dark, gloomy face. Then, suddenly, she 
 dived forward and planted a wide, wet, sucking kiss on 
 Sally s chin. Her little hand went up "pooring" the sal 
 low cheek. 
 
 "Why, it seems a case of perfect infatuation," laughed 
 Owen. 
 
 In Sally s poor, ailing heart boiled the strangest mix 
 ture of repulsion and fierce tenderness. She felt, thus 
 holding Eichard s child, as though the full-blown rose of 
 her maternity had shut and become a bud again. She 
 held the baby to her, with the savage embrace that babies 
 themselves bestow on kittens, then she set her sharply 
 off again on the apex of her knees, lifted together under 
 the fur rug. 
 
 "She s a little light-o -love," she muttered in an in 
 describable voice. "Why should she take this sudden 
 fancy to an unprepossessing old woman? You re a little 
 light-o- -love, do you hear?" she said to the baby, and 
 shook her slightly where she held her poised. 
 
 Hot anger filled Owen, but he sat quite still, polishing 
 with his handkerchief the watch that Diana had bedewed. 
 
 The baby was enchanted with this shaking. She crowed 
 and laughed joyously, kicking her bronze shoes against 
 Sally s breast. 
 
 "Little light-o -love. . . . Little light-o -love ..." 
 said Sally again. Diana continued her gleeful bouncing 
 and crowing. 
 
 "You like the name . . . eh?" said Sally grimly. 
 
 The baby thrust down her flossy poll and began to 
 munch with her warm, slobbering little mouth on Sally s
 
 290 WORLD S-END 
 
 rings. Those warm, munching lips thrilled the perverse, 
 passionate woman as no lover s kiss had ever done. She 
 coloured darkly, then suddenly she thrust her other hand 
 under the short skirts and felt the small bare thighs, soft 
 as rice-paper. 
 
 "This child is ridiculously dressed," she exclaimed in 
 an angry voice. "She is insufficiently clad for this time 
 of year. You should speak to Phoebe, or to that conceited 
 English nurse. Did you bring her half-naked, like this, 
 through those draughty halls?" 
 
 The halls were quite warm, said Owen, but I 11 tell 
 Phoebe that you think the baby had better have warmer 
 things on. 
 
 "For heaven s sake, Owen," she said sharply, "don t 
 mention me in the matter! ... A meddlesome. ..." 
 She had almost said "grandmother." Her heart gave a 
 dreadful, hot stab. She pretended that she had choked; 
 coughed two or three times, and went on. "A meddle 
 some sister-in-law is the most unbearable of family afflic 
 tions. Just speak to that English hop-pole yourself." 
 
 "Very well, ... I will," said Owen. 
 
 He told himself that he was looking on at a drama which 
 made the great plays now lying on the floor by the sofa 
 seem hackneyed. And he wondered at the dual sense in 
 men which could permit him such a thought at such a mo 
 ment. Just here Jonathan came in and said that Mr. 
 Downer would like to see the master again. 
 
 "Shall I take her with me?" asked Owen of Sally, "or 
 would you mind keeping her till I come back? I shan t 
 be gone long." 
 
 "I ll keep her," said Sally ungraciously. 
 
 Owen went out with Jonathan. 
 
 For the first time Sally was alone with her grandchild in 
 her arms. She lay perfectly still, while Diana, absorbed, 
 tried to pluck the little silver buttons from her grey crepe 
 blouse, as though they had been some sort of berries. Then 
 all at once, sitting up among the heaped cushions, Sally 
 caught the baby to her, pressing against her thin breast, 
 withered by the milk that had so long since ebbed from it, 
 . . . the shining head, the little stomach in its cuirass 
 of embroidery, the soft dimpled arms and firm, ener 
 getic legs. Into a sort of living bundle of sweetness 
 she crumpled the child as though she would crush it with 
 savage tenderness to a compass small enough to be covered
 
 WORLD S-END 291 
 
 by one passionate kiss. And from head to feet she caressed 
 it with her dry, burning lips, the little head, the little 
 stomach, the little knees, the little feet, the little hands. 
 
 The baby found these tickling caresses delightful. She 
 squirmed and chuckled with pleasure, seizing in either 
 hand black-and-grey locks of the head that darted over her 
 with the swiftness of a feeding bird. And she tugged until 
 the tears came to Sally s eyes, bracing her little back 
 against her grandmother s bony arm, and pressing with 
 both feet against her body. 
 
 When Owen returned some twenty minutes later Sally 
 was leaning back again among the cushions, and on her 
 breast, its pink mouth making a little ring of coral about 
 the root of its small thumb, the baby lay fast asleep. 
 
 "I ll take her now," he said, bending over. 
 
 But she answered quickly : 
 
 "No. It s very bad for a child to be waked out of a 
 sound sleep. I ll carry her to the nursery myself." 
 
 "But won t that be too much exertion for you?" he ob 
 jected. 
 
 She smiled enigmatically. 
 
 "My heart can support a greater strain than carrying a 
 baby up an easy flight of stairs, she said. 
 
 And she took the child to the nursery, and laid it herself 
 in its crib, while Owen went to look for Giles. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 pOIJSIN MARY," said Phoebe only the next day, "did 
 you ever have a feeling as if the gods were treating 
 you as the Aztecs used to treat the people they had se 
 lected for a sacrifice?" 
 
 Dear child ! What a doleful fancy for such a day ! 
 No. I don t think I ever felt like that. What makes you 
 say such a thing?" 
 
 "It s just that it all seems too beautiful, too happy, too 
 perfect, too peaceful. ..." said Phoebe slowly. " If I had 
 tried to imagine anything as beautiful as my life is now, I 
 couldn t possibly have done it, Cousin Mary. Look, . . . 
 look at it all. 
 
 She turned slowly, her hands against her breast. * Look 
 at me, ... in the midst of it, ... part of it. Look," her
 
 292 WORLD S-END 
 
 voice dropped, at him. ..." She lifted her soft, impas 
 sioned eyes to where Owen was standing near Wrexhill, the 
 apple merchant, while they both regarded seriously the 
 dark winesap which Owen was turning in his hands. And 
 he is mine. ..." she ended in a whisper, wonder and a 
 sort of hushed dread in her voice. 
 
 Mary flinched like one grasped upon a bruise. Then she 
 said, also speaking in a low tone : 
 
 "I know what you mean now, dear. Love and fear al 
 ways go hand in hand. It s like the great mystery of 
 death that makes all the precious things of this life more 
 precious." 
 
 But as she spoke she thought how love had divided her 
 from, love, far more completely than death would have 
 done. 
 
 "Don t . . . don t ..." pleaded Phoebe, shivering and 
 paling in the bright sunlight, "don t speak of death. It 
 always seems to me as if it turned and looked at us when 
 we speak its name." 
 
 Mary smiled at her affectionately and a little sadly. 
 "Ah, Phoebe dear," she said, "it s a wonderful thing to 
 see a happiness so big that it scares a little mortal. That 
 must be a sweet sort of fright. You remind me of your 
 own baby, when I put a handkerchief over my face and 
 then cry Boo ! and let her snatch it off. She has the most 
 delicious thrills of terror then off comes the handkerchief 
 and lo ! there s just Mary s face under it. There s just 
 love s face under that dread of yours. So I can t pity you 
 too much, dear fanciful." 
 
 "I know," said Phoebe wistfully, "it s wrong and maybe 
 it s silly, . . . but ... I just can t help it, Cousin Mary." 
 
 She and Mary had gone with Owen to the orchard to 
 watch the packing of the apples. There is no rural 
 sight more lovely than the apple harvest in Virginia on a 
 perfect autumn day such as this. The sunlight had that 
 joyous sparkle unknown to summer, the light October haze, 
 dimly, dreamily blue, gauzed the woods and mountains and 
 far horizon line, tempering the brilliant foliage from a 
 paroquet-like gaudiness to the soft glow of stuffs from 
 Kashmir. 
 
 Against this delicate drop-scene with which nature had 
 set her pretty drama of the apple gatherers ran the aisles 
 of vigorous young trees, some three thousand of them, now 
 in their prime, all glistening with round, shaded red fruit,
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 293 
 
 or the greenish-yellow of Albemarle pippins. And these 
 dark and pale-red and waxen-yellow balls, clustering along 
 the drooping boughs, were magically gay and joyous 
 against that pale-blue distant haze. 
 
 Near Mary and Phoebe stood the sorting-bin, like a tarned 
 "gyascutus" with its long legs and short legs so adjusted 
 that the apples slid easily from the cushion at its upper 
 end along the slats under the hands of the sorters. And 
 from every side, down the aisle at whose head it stood, 
 came the gatherers with their bushel-baskets of "split- 
 wood," fresh and white as new cut chips and brimming 
 with the bright globes of shaded red, for in this part of 
 the orchard nearly all the trees were wine-saps. 
 
 Ladders of white pine, pointed at the top so as to fit 
 firmly between the smaller twigs, were placed so that the 
 men might reach the higher fruit, but the small fry 
 swarmed up regardless of other aid than legs and arms, 
 and their brown and pink faces could be seen among the 
 foliage, as with a chirp of victory they would cull Sappho s 
 topmost apple of all that had escaped those on the lad 
 ders. 
 
 Men and boys for the most part wore faded blue over 
 alls, and these oft-washed garments seemed cut from a bit 
 of that blue-haze curtain dropped at the back of the scene. 
 
 "Phoebe dear," said Mary, after watching this charm 
 ing sight for some moments in silence, "you ve heard of 
 the curiously impious expression, tempting Providence. 
 Well, . . . that is what you 11 be doing if you indulge one 
 single more gloomy thought in a scene like this. 
 
 " I 11 try not to, said Phoebe, and she slipped her hand 
 in Mary s arm and pressed close to her. 
 
 "Come over here," called Owen at this point; "Mr. 
 "Wrexhill wants to show you how apples are packed and 
 sorted." 
 
 They went, picking their way through heaps of discarded 
 fruit, edging gingerly between the sorting-bin and the team 
 of big grey Clydesdales drawn up beside it. 
 
 Owen was standing with "Wrexhill near Downer, who 
 with his own hands was turning the press that fixed the 
 barrel heads in place. And the old apple merchant, with 
 his shrewd, clever eyes that could fix the diameter of an 
 apple in inches and eighths without the help of a pocket- 
 rule, showed them how the fruit was sorted into barrels of 
 "firsts" and "seconds." Then, to prove the accuracy of
 
 >4 WORLD S-END 
 
 3 eye, he cut an apple in two and laid his pocket-rule 
 ross it. 
 
 "Exactly two inches and a half!" cried Phoebe and 
 ary, with a nai ve surprise that warmed the professional 
 ckles of the old merchant s heart. 
 
 After they had watched the sorting and packing for some 
 ne Phoebe took Mary s hand and said: "I must, I must 
 up one of those lovely ladders!" 
 
 She ran off, pulling Mary with her, and Owen called 
 ter her. 
 
 "Be careful, dear. "Watch her, Mary. She s a reckless 
 .p at times." 
 
 Phoebe selected a ladder that had just been placed 
 ainst a tree so laden with the lovely fruit that it looked 
 :e a decoration in a child s picture-book. 
 Grasping the sides with her strong little hands, she 
 mnted quickly and surely, the ladder giving to her mo 
 ms with the pliant boughs against which it leaned. 
 "Take care . . . take care, darling!" called Mary from 
 e solid earth. 
 
 A little, rapturous laugh fell down upon her. "Mary! 
 m in fairyland ! You must try it, too ! 
 All about her was the hollowed fret- work of the foliage, 
 :e a tent of jade in an Oriental fairy-tale, set with round 
 rnelions. And through the twinkling leaves little slivers 
 violet sky peeped at her, and the soft air, sweet with 
 e smell of sun-warmed apples, caressed her face. She 
 ucked the fruit nearest her hand, and came down again, 
 (inching it as she descended. 
 
 "It s too beautiful to keep still, Mary," she said when 
 e stood beside her. "Let s go for a walk and tell Owen 
 follow us when he s finished. But first I must give those 
 ar, patient things some apples." She went over to the 
 ydesdales and fed them wind-falls until the saliva of 
 urmandise dropped from their plusby lips. 
 "Good-day, Mr. Wrexhill," she called; "thank you so 
 ich for showing me the mysteries. 
 "You must come again day after tomorrow, ma am," he 
 plied, "and see us do fancy packing with the pippins 
 baskets. 
 
 "I ll catch you up in about an hour," Owen called as 
 ey went off in the direction of the mill. "You can ad- 
 ire the view from Logan s Peak while you wait for me." 
 They went to the northeast corner of the orchard and
 
 WORLD S-END 2 
 
 crossed the brown mill stream by a single plank abo 
 three feet from the ground. With country-girlish pri< 
 in their steady heads, they passed over swiftly and light! 
 Mary balancing with her arms, but Phoebe still munchii 
 her big apple. As they went across the fields towards t 
 road that led to Logan s Peak, their feet crushed the litl 
 mauve-flowered stalks of pennyroyal, and its sharp fra 
 ranee rose about them. 
 
 "How I love that smell!" cried Phoebe, throwing t 
 core of her apple at a flock of geese that rose with scol 
 ing. discordant shrieks and settled in a little flotilla on t 
 mill pond. "It means Virginia to me almost more th, 
 anything. Oh, Cousin Mary!" The shadow stole over h 
 face again. "Can t you see how I feel? . . . Everythi: 
 that I love most I have so fully and all together. The go 
 arc jealous, Mary." 
 
 "You talk like a little pagan," said Mary. "I belie 
 you are one at heart. But I m not going to listen to yo 
 heresies. The woes of the too-happy don t move me, son 
 how." 
 
 Phoebe smiled a little absently, then she said, turni: 
 a wistful, anxious face to Mary as she walked at h 
 side with both hands about her arm: "Tell me, dei 
 ... do you think that Owen is happv, too? . . . Kea> 
 happy? 
 
 Mary laughed, and, as often, that laugh hid things r 
 so joyous. 
 
 "If symptoms can be relied on," she answered light 
 "I should say he had a desperate attack of happiness." 
 
 "Only an attack ? . . . You think it will wear c 
 like a fever?" 
 
 "Phoebe! . . . You really try one s patience. Do 
 us enjoy this lovely day and stop croaking like a lit 
 corbie. " 
 
 Sometimes," said Phoebe persistently, "I feel thin 
 coming, Cousin Mary." 
 
 : That s against all sound philosophy." 
 
 "I m not a bit of a philosopher, Cousin Mary." 
 
 "Well, just tell over your blessings and be thankful li 
 the old woman in All on the Irish Shore, who had OE 
 two teeth in her head, but thanked God that they met." 
 
 Phoebe giggled, and said she "wouldn t be mopey a] 
 more," and they walked on, talking lightly enough no 
 up the road called "Turkey-Sag," between dense thicke
 
 296 WORLD S-END 
 
 of hazel and sassafras, and old stone and snake-fences, 
 now red with Virginia-creeper. 
 
 Mary gathered a great nosegay of Michaelmas daisies 
 and golden-rod and the pretty bee-orchid as they went 
 along, and to this Phoebe added twigs of scarlet ash-berries 
 and the vivid blue of wild lobelia. "When they reached 
 Logan s Peak they sat down to wait for Owen on the low 
 stone wall that ran along the bare, wind-swept field 
 that formed the "bald spot" on Logan s shaggy poll. 
 The valley spread below them with its red and yellow 
 chessboard of fertile fields dimmed by the blue gauze of 
 autumn. 
 
 "Cousin Mary," began Phoebe after a long silence, her 
 chin in her hand, her eyes on the pale wood smoke rising 
 straight and calm from the chimneys of "World s-End in 
 
 its bower of trees. "I would like to ask you something. 
 )> 
 
 "Now, Phoebe ..." began Mary warningly. 
 
 "No no, I m not going to croak any more," said the 
 girl earnestly. "I told you I wouldn t. It s only some 
 thing I want to ask you, because I know you ll tell me the 
 truth . . . and, . . . well, because there s nobody else that 
 I d care to ask. But I m a little afraid to ask it, too. 
 May I?" 
 
 Of course you may, darling. 
 
 Phoebe did not speak at once; then she said in a little 
 rush, colouring as she did so : 
 
 "It s this. . . . Do you think I ve improved at all in 
 the last eighteen months? ... I mean, do you think I m 
 a little . . . wiser . . . (that seems a big word to use, but 
 yio u know what I mean). A little ... a little worthier to 
 be his wife?" 
 
 Those hungry, wistful eyes went straight to Mary s 
 heart. She slipped along the wall, and put her arm about 
 Phoebe s shoulders. 
 
 "I do, I do!" she said heartily. "You ve grown and 
 improved in every way. I notice it all the time. I spoke 
 to Owen of it only yesterday, and to Sally. ..." 
 
 She broke off. Phoebe s face fell. 
 
 "Please, please ..." she said in a low voice. "Don t 
 talk to Cousin Sally about me . . . please don t." 
 
 "Why, dear?" 
 
 "She . . . she doesn t like me. " 
 
 "Now, Phoebe . . . you mustn t mind Sally s crusty
 
 WORLD S-END 
 
 ways. There s ever, ever so much, that s good in poor 
 
 Sally." 
 
 Phoebe s face had a sort of strained eagerness. "I faiow 
 there is, Cousin Mary. She can t help not liking me. I m 
 not blaming her for it. It s only that I d rather, ... if 
 you don t mind, . . . that you didn t talk to her about 
 me." 
 
 "She said nothing unkind, I assure you," said Mary, 
 but, as she cast about in her mind for something positively 
 kind that Sally had said, she could not find it. "And 
 what Owen said," she continued, "would have made up to 
 you for what a hundred Sallies, all hating you, might have 
 said." 
 
 Phoebe s face was transfigured. 
 
 "Now she is perfectly beautiful," thought Mary, with 
 a pang that shamed her, but that she could not help. "A 
 moment ago she merely looked fresh and vivid. What a 
 passion her love must be to change her like that all in a 
 breath." 
 
 Phoebe was fairly stammering in her shy eagerness. 
 "Could you . . . w-would you tell me something that he 
 said, Cousin Mary?" 
 
 She was too wrapt in her own emotion to notice that 
 Mary changed also, that she grew pale, and the little dim 
 ple at her mouth s corner nickered nervously. "Of course 
 I ll tell you, goosie," she answered in her soft, tranquil 
 voice. "He said ..." 
 
 "Yes . . . yes ..." cried Phoebe, and caught Mary s 
 hand in both her own, holding it to her breast. 
 
 He said that the more he knew you, the more he loved 
 you. . . ." 
 
 "Oh, Mary!" 
 
 "He said that he was like the man in the legend who 
 plucked a lovely flower, and then found that its roots were 
 covered with jewels." 
 
 Olv! " Phoebe hid her face in her hands. 
 
 "He said that you had grown so close to him that he 
 couldn t tell where he ended and you began! ... I m 
 quoting his ow r n words. . . . And that when he left you, 
 even for twenty-four hours, he felt as though he were 
 maimed. Why, you silly child ! What is the matter?" 
 
 For tears were dripping through Phoebe s fingers. Her 
 whole body was quivering. 
 
 Mary put her arms close about her and was silent. "Ce
 
 298 WORLD S-END 
 
 n est pas la sagesse, mais c est magnifique," she para 
 phrased to herself. 
 
 1 Phoebe divined her thought with that odd, sure telepa 
 thy which visits us all in certain moments of spiritual clair 
 voyance. She looked up, and in her tear-wet face her 
 great, glowing eyes had a certain Sybilline dignity. 
 
 "I know well what you must feel when you look at him 
 and me together, Cousin Mary. No one could feel more 
 than I do how little and unworthy I am beside him. 
 But ..." she drew in a deep breath, looking out to the 
 far horizon, "but a woman who worships a man and who 
 . . . who belongs to him utterly . . . knows something that 
 all the books and all the wise men of the ages couldn t tell 
 her." 
 
 "I know, darling," said Mary softly, all forgetful now 
 of self, "you have borne his child." 
 
 And she did not wonder that Phoebe hid her face again 
 before the wonder and mystery and awful joy of this 
 thought. 
 
 They sat without speaking until Owen s voice hailed 
 them from the wood below. He came up brandishing a 
 letter, the dogs about him, Wizzy and Bran snuffling among 
 the dead leaves, and Rab proudly bearing the old ash stick 
 which had belonged to Owen s father and which he always 
 used both in town and country. 
 
 I thought it was too good to last ! " he called. I was 
 saying Unberufen and knocking on wood all this morn 
 ing." 
 
 "What is it?" asked Phoebe, growing pale. 
 
 "Nothing to be frightened about," he reassured her. 
 "But a sad bore when people are as selfishly contented as 
 we World s-Enders. It s just a letter from Mrs. Beres- 
 ford to Sally. I ve spoken to you often about Sylvia Ber- 
 esford, Phoebe. She s a perfect dear . . . but just at 
 this moment we could manage without her." 
 
 "Is she coming here?" 
 
 Wait. I 11 read you both her letter. 
 
 And, seating himself on the broom-sedge at their feet, 
 he read aloud Sylvia Beresford s letter to Sally. It 
 seemed that Lord Bemyss had come over to shoot 
 bear in the Rocky Mountains, bringing Lady Prancie with 
 him, who in her turn had persuaded Dempsy Torrance to 
 come, too. Sylvia was to take them to the Virginia Hot 
 Springs next week, and she said that, as Sally and Owen
 
 WORLD S-END 299 
 
 had told her so often to ask herself to "World s-End when 
 ever she liked, . . . she wondered now if it would be per 
 fectly convenient to have her, and, if they didn t mind, 
 Dempsy Torrance also, who was quite wild to see Phoebe 
 again. As for her (Sylvia), they knew how anxious she 
 was to know Phoebe, of whom everyone said such lovely 
 things. Francie, who had developed rheumatism on the 
 voyage over, was going straight through to the Hot 
 Springs, but, if Owen and "Mrs. Owen" and Sally would 
 have them, she and Dempsy would stop off at Crewe. 
 
 "So, you see," said Owen, putting the letter back so 
 berly into the envelope, "Armida s garden is going to be 
 invaded." 
 
 Phoebe turned a downcast face to Mary. 
 
 "I told you that I felt something coming," she said. 
 
 Both Owen and Mary laughed at her. 
 
 "If your presentiments aren t ever more darkly filled 
 than on this occasion you ll be a lucky girl," jeered Mary 
 affectionately. 
 
 But Phoebe couldn t be smiled out of her "down" mood. 
 "Of course I want to know Owen s friend, and to see dear 
 Dempsy again," she said, "but somehow it seems the end 
 of something. I don t know why but that s the way I 
 feel. I just simply can t help it. 
 
 He remembered this feeling of hers and Mary s ac 
 count of her persistent apprehensiveness when, about a 
 week later on the morning of the day that Sylvia and 
 Dempsy were to arrive, Sally handed him the following 
 telegram : 
 
 "So very, very disappointed. Poor Frances acute attack on 
 train. "Will stop Washington with her till better. Met Richard at 
 hotel here. Told him he simply must take Dempsy on to Crewe. 
 They arrive train agreed on. 
 
 SYLVIA. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 A S carefully as Owen had schooled himself against this 
 ^ moment, which, sooner or later, had inevitably to 
 come, the shock of it was as violent as though he had never 
 considered its possibility, and instantly there rose in him 
 the thought of Phoebe and all the dread and horror this 
 meeting with Richard would mean to her.
 
 300 WORLD S-END 
 
 Sally, having no key to the set expression of his face, 
 as he stood silent, reading over this message for the second 
 time, thought bitterly: 
 
 "He never loved my boy. If he knew, he would turn 
 him adrift without a penny." Then came another thought 
 in a flash. "If he knew he might kill him." 
 
 She sat down quickly on the sofa near which they were 
 standing, and put up her handkerchief as if to shield her 
 face from the fire. For a second or two she thought that 
 she was going to faint. But the mist cleared, and, though 
 her heart pounded dreadfully, she kept her senses. It was 
 strange that she had never thought of this awful possibil 
 ity before, . . . she, who knew better than anyone else 
 the fearful savagery of the Randolph temper when roused 
 to its utmost. That Owen never gave way to anger as a 
 rule was all the more ominous, and she thought with a 
 sick shudder, as she had thought once before, of that scrip 
 tural saying: "Beware the wrath of the patient man." 
 
 As she glanced sideways at the tall figure standing so 
 quietly with that yellow paper in its hands, . . . the im 
 mense physical strength of which she had been so proud 
 in him now seemed to her brutal and unnecessary in a 
 civilised being. And she began to grow uneasy over 
 Owen s continued silence. What was he thinking? What 
 would he say when he did speak? Perhaps he had some 
 other grudge against Richard? . . . Perhaps there was 
 some secret reason that would make him say he didn t care 
 to have him at World s-End. . . . And, much as such a 
 decision would have saved her and Richard himself, yet 
 the jealous, unreasoning passion of maternity in her heart 
 made her feel hot with anticipatory anger at the mere 
 thought of such a slight to her son. 
 
 There! He was going to speak! . . . Well? . . . 
 
 "This will be an unexpected pleasure for you, Sally. 
 Richard seems to have stopped a shorter time in North 
 Carolina than he meant to," was what he said. "I must 
 go and tell Phoebe to have fires lighted in his rooms. 
 
 And he went out. 
 
 Sally sat looking after him. She thought : 
 
 "Something has occurred between them that Richard 
 hasn t told me of. I believe he detests my boy. 
 
 Her hands clenched, and the dark hue settled on her 
 cheek-bones. She had little love for Owen in her heart ,at 
 that moment.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 301 
 
 But Owen did not go to Phoebe. lie went into his study 
 instead, and stood for a long time gazing at the fire. Then 
 he turned and began to walk measuredly up and down the 
 room. Since the day of little Diana s birth he had not 
 suffered as he was suffering now, and it was chiefly the 
 thought of the ordeal that lay before Phoebe that wrung 
 his heart and nerves. And he was powerless now to help 
 her as he had been then. But in this instance a new dread 
 unmanned him, the dread as to how she would be able 
 to sustain the terrible test that lay directly before her. At 
 any time its severity would have been fearful, but now, at 
 such short notice, with so little preparation, . . . and 
 then, too, having to play the part of hostess under such 
 circumstances, ... to have to sit at the head of that table 
 where Richard s mother had always sat during his former 
 visits, ... to be obliged to address him casually in her 
 role of hostess. Yet there was no escape, and, even while 
 he hesitated to deal her this cruel blow, the minutes were 
 slipping, those few precious minutes which were left her 
 for preparation. 
 
 He started to the door, but stopped and thought again, 
 standing in the middle of the floor, his nether lip between 
 his teeth, as always in moments of intense emotion. Would 
 it not be better for Mary to tell her this? Mary had 
 spoken to him of Phoebe s dislike for Richard as something 
 that she was glad of. If the poor child showed something 
 of her inner feeling at the news of his coming, Mary 
 would attribute it to her dislike of him and her disap 
 pointment at having the sweet quiet of their life broken 
 into by one distasteful to her. 
 
 Yes. He would manage so that Mary should be the one 
 to tell her. And walking rapidly, his lip still between his 
 teeth, he went in search of Mary. 
 
 He found her in the dining-room arranging a great 
 e-pergne of golden-rod and Michaelmas daisies. The au 
 tumn wild flowers were always used on the table at 
 World s-End until their brilliant reign was over. 
 
 Solomon would have found this royal enough, wouldn t 
 he?" she asked, looking with a smile at her white fingers 
 all powdered with pollen. "They re like solid gold plumes 
 from a king s canopy, and they cover one with gold dust." 
 
 "Mary," said Owen abruptly, "Richard will be here 
 this evening." 
 
 "Oh, Owen!" she said, and dropped down on the edge
 
 302 WORLD S-END 
 
 of the black mahogany table that reflected her white frock 
 and the yellow flowers as in a dark tarn. 
 
 "Yes. I m sorry, too. We were such a happy little 
 company. But it can t be helped. And I m. so rushed" 
 (he looked at his watch) "that I can t stop and break it 
 to Phoebe myself. Downer s waiting for me now. It will 
 be a trial to her . . . disliking him as she does. "Would 
 you mind, like the dear you always are, . . . just looking 
 Phoebe up and telling her to have fires lighted in his old 
 rooms? ..." 
 
 "Oh, dear!" said Mary, and she sighed heavily, picking 
 up the scraps of leaf and bloom from the table. "How 
 did it happen, Owen? How is it he s coming so suddenly 
 like this? . . ." 
 
 Owen told her of the telegram. 
 
 "Well, of course it can t be helped," she said. "But it 
 is provoking. Richard s atmosphere is just like coal-dust, 
 to me at least. It smirches everything. Poor Phoebe! 
 How she will hate it. She can t ever bear to hear him 
 talked of. Yes, I ll go at once." 
 
 And, gathering up her gardening gloves and shears, 
 she went off in her turn to look for Phoebe. 
 
 She found her in her bedroom drying her hair, which 
 America had just washed, before the fire. Kneeling on 
 the white fur hearth-rug, she let the heavy lengths 
 droop over her face like a splendid flag of golden tissue, 
 carding it with her fingers and shaking it lightly in the 
 warm glow. 
 
 America had left the room. 
 
 "Phoebe," said Mary. "You ll be a dreadful little trial 
 with your presentiments after this, but I ve something 
 more disagreeable to tell you." 
 
 Phoebe knelt quite motionless. She felt afraid. "What 
 is it, Cousin Mary." 
 
 My poor dear, Lady Bemyss is very ill in Washington, 
 and Sylvia Beresford is stopping on with her. And so 
 Eichard is bringing Miss Torrance on for her. He comes 
 with her this evening." 
 
 Phoebe knelt on, perfectly motionless, under the veil of 
 her thick hair. She looked like some image of a girl turned 
 by a wicked witch into a fountain of gold. 
 
 "Well," said Mary, "has my bad news stricken you 
 with dumbness?" 
 
 Phoebe s inner world was breaking up about her with
 
 WORLD S-END 303 
 
 the crash, and impact of the spring ice on some far north 
 ern river. She did not hear Mary s words. She could not 
 hear anything but that roar of disastrous wreckage in the 
 invisible world where she knelt in darkness. 
 
 This evening ? she said finally in a low voice. 
 
 "Yes. On that six o clock train that comes from Wash 
 ington, you know. I m so sorry for you, Phoebe. I know 
 how you dislike him, and I do, too, I m afraid." 
 
 "Does Owen know?" 
 
 Yes. He sent me to tell you. 
 
 "And ... and Cousin Sally?" 
 
 "Yes. The telegram was to her, you know. My dear 
 child, do let me help you dry that mane. You ll suffocate 
 with it over your face like that." She would have parted 
 it and gathered it aside from Phoebe s face, but the girl 
 stopped her. 
 
 "No . . . please, Cousin Mary. I can t dry it any way 
 but this. It s so thick." 
 
 She leaned forward and began carding it and shaking 
 it again in the firelight. 
 
 "Don t take it so to heart, Puss," said Mary kindly. 
 "After all, he can t really harm you, you know. It isn t 
 as if you were in his power in any way. Mercy me ! I 
 should hate to be in Master Richard s power, I confess." 
 
 "Where is Owen, Cousin Mary?" 
 
 "He went off in a great hurry to speak with Downer." 
 
 Do you know when he 11 be back ? 
 
 No, dear. He didn t say. Before long I should think. 
 Why ? . . . Do you want to see him ? 
 
 "No. I only wanted to know where he was." 
 
 Under her smothering hair, in that dark chaos of broken 
 thoughts, Phoebe whispered "God . . . God . . . God 
 ..." three times, as poor Palstaff did when he was dy 
 ing. Then again she whispered: "God ... let her go 
 ... let me be alone." 
 
 As if in answer to this wild, plain prayer, Sally called 
 to Mary from the hall below. 
 
 "There! I must go, dear. Sally needs me. Shall I 
 send America?" 
 
 No, . . . thank you. I m going to take a nap when 
 my hair s dry." 
 
 Mary ran out, calling : Coming ! Coming ! 
 
 Swaying, stumbling over the hem of her dressing gown 
 in her breathless haste, Phoebe ran on little, shoeless feet,
 
 304 WORLD S-END 
 
 and locked the door softly, . . . leaning against it and still 
 holding both hands about the key after it -was turned home 
 in the lock. 
 
 "God . . . God . . . God ..." she kept saying, cling 
 ing there to the big key, with her hair streaming damply 
 about her. The word was like a sort of hard, fierce sob 
 bing the way it broke from her, "God . . . God . . 
 God . ." 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 I 
 
 T seemed to Richard that no magpie, tipsy on wine 
 
 stolen from the autumn presses, ever chattered as that 
 English girl chattered on the drive from Crewe station 
 to World s-End. Of everything and everyone, of things 
 possible and impossible she piped and twittered, . . ask 
 ing questions which she answered herself in the same 
 breath . . . making statements and counter statements in 
 one endless arabesque of crisp, staccato verbiage. 
 
 What a sweetly pretty landscape! . . . wasn t it like 
 Devonshire? No, it wasn t really like Devonshire, but the 
 earth was red, as in some parts of Devonshire. . . . Oh! 
 the quaint, droll niggers! . . . No, the big niggers were 
 not really quaint, but the little niggers were too utterly 
 deevy. . . . What blue hills! ... As blue as her own 
 eyes! Or ... were they? . . . (Richard, rather rudely 
 taciturn, refused the obvious reply to this, and with per 
 fect serenity she answered herself.) No . . . her eyes 
 were a horrid porcelain-y blue, and these were mysterious 
 and opal-y ; more, much more like dear IIoppo s eyes. Did 
 he know Hoppo ? . . . The Duchess of Wrexborough ? 
 
 She had the most beautiful blue eyes in the world, ex 
 cept, of course, Phoebe Randolph . . . people at home had 
 gone quite mad over Phoebe Randolph s eyes . . . didn t 
 he think she had the most wonderful eyes he had ever seen ? 
 . . . But of course he did. . . . How in the world had 
 he managed not to fall in love with her? Did he know 
 Vic Hadringham ? Well, ... he knew who he was at any 
 rate. Poor Vic had never got over it. ... There was 
 Miss Rothenheim . . . ten million pounds in her own 
 right, they said, and ripping to look at, ... but Vic sim 
 ply fled from her ever since he d fallen so madly in love
 
 PHOEBE S INNER WORLD WAS BREAKING UP ABOUT HER" 
 
 Page 50
 
 WORLD S-END 305 
 
 with Phoebe. . . . And what a sweet she was! . . . And 
 she was simply wild to see the baby. . . . Hoppo and 
 Francie Bemyss both said it was a duck of a baby with 
 eyes like Phoebe s. . . . Wasn t he curious to see it ? But, 
 then, men never cared for babies ... and so forth, and 
 so forth, with scarcely a pause for breath. 
 
 Dempsy told Phoebe afterward that she had been com 
 pelled to "rattle" to prevent herself from feeling as 
 though she were driving to a funeral with one of the 
 mutes. 
 
 "Oh, my dear soul!" cried she. "Sylvia Beresford told 
 me that he was a genius, and a wit and a wonder . . . but 
 all that I can say is that I should think Poe s raven would 
 be a jolly companion compared with him." 
 
 Tea was waiting for them in the rose-room when they ar 
 rived. Sally, Mary, Phoebe, Owen, Mr. Nelson, Miss Tallia- 
 ferro were all assembled there. From a long distance, as 
 down a narrow funnel of piercing light, Richard saw a tall, 
 slight form in white coming towards him ... a little hand 
 of ice was put in his. . . . Yes . . . that was Phoebe 
 Nelson s voice, saying: 
 
 "How do you do?" 
 
 He heard himself say : 
 
 Thanks. How do you do ? " 
 
 His mother came up to ask if he would have a cup of tea. 
 He went off with her to get it. Yes. It had happened. 
 They had met again and spoken. Now they were sitting 
 quietly in the same room, and no one seemed to have no 
 ticed anything unusual. He caught low tones of the warm, 
 full voice that suddenly made him feel as though eighteen 
 months had shrivelled into yesterday. And he kept glanc 
 ing covertly towards her until he heard his mother s whis 
 per at his ear : 
 
 "Don t look at her so often . . . get hold of yourself." 
 
 With a qualm of fear he turned and began talking rap 
 idly to Sally of the journey, and Sylvia Beresford, and the 
 shooting in North Carolina. 
 
 And Phoebe, smiling and speaking very fast and low to 
 Dempsy Torrance, was saying in her heart : 
 
 "It s over. . . . I ve touched his hand, and I m not 
 dead of shame and horror. Yes, ... it s over . . . but 
 it has just begun, too. Can I keep this up? My voice 
 sounds natural. I m not trembling. How can I be like 
 this? It s because I m desperate. Yes" . . .it s despera-
 
 306 WORLD S-END 
 
 tion that makes me able to be like this. ... I m fighting 
 for more than life. . . . But can I keep it up? Can I? 
 . . . Can I?" 
 
 All the time that she was talking with Dempsy, speaking 
 so quick and low, in her heart she was saying this, over and 
 over, over and over. 
 
 And she looked well, though a little over-excited. Her 
 eyes, lit by that inner fire of desperation, blazed almost as 
 black as Sally s in her small face. As on that dreadful 
 day when she had received Richard s first long letter, . . . 
 she had gone for help to her little box of nail-rouge, and 
 the touch of false carmine on her smooth young skin looked 
 only like the natural flush of autumn in the candle and 
 firelight. 
 
 As for Owen, the sight of that fine, lonely courage went 
 to the quick. It seemed to him the most moving, stirring 
 thing that he had ever witnessed. Tears scorched his eyes, 
 dried quickly by the smouldering anger in his breast. And 
 this anger burnt all the more fiercely under its crust of 
 self-control, because of his helplessness to help her. "Yes, 
 life treats us like toys," he thought. "Softly, calmly it 
 takes us, crushes us, . . . sets us here and there like mani 
 kins. The three of us in this room together . . . what an 
 outrage of all decency, ... of all humanity ! Yet we are 
 without resource, . . . quite powerless to help ourselves or 
 one another. A cur snapped at a star, and it fell and he 
 slavered it in his jaws. And no stick broke the cur s back 
 no god set the star again in its place. My star . . . 
 shining out of the dust . . . brave . . . brave . . . braver 
 than battalions of picked men. . . . What men could act 
 as she is acting now ? Not one ! . . . He ! . . . white . . . 
 scared . . . babbling like a sick fool in a fever. . . . And 
 Sally . . . scared too . . . scared to death . . . poor 
 wretch ! . . . But my little love . . . my little warrior 
 . . . bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. ..." 
 
 Good Lud, Mr. Randolph ! exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, 
 by whom he was seated. "What a fierce face you ve put 
 on, to be sure ! . . . I vow you alarm me ! Tis nothing 
 less than a revolution you re pondering, I ll lay me last 
 farthing. 
 
 This voice from the thirties brought him back with a 
 jerk. 
 
 "Dear lady, I was thinking of nothing more sinister 
 than whether Jonathan had put the claret too near the
 
 WOKLD S-END 807 
 
 fire," lie assured her. He knew her old-fashioned interest 
 in fine wines and the care of them. 
 
 She responded at once. 
 
 "Ah, to hear a gentleman solicitous ahout a rare vintage 
 takes me back . . . takes me back ..." she said with real 
 feeling. "I remember the days when a slave would be 
 trounced for jolting a bottle of port. You re of the old 
 school, I see, Mr. Randolph. My great-niece is very fortu 
 nate. My respected father used to say, A man who knows 
 how to care for his wines will know how to care for his 
 wife. He was at vast pains to cultivate my taste in wines 
 ... at vast pains. To this day I prefer a rich bo-kay of 
 claret to posies from a glass house. Mortimer Smith had 
 a line in a poem he writ me, touching on my knowledge of 
 wines. . . . 
 
 Falernian, Falernian, 
 Great Horace sang, but was a man; 
 Fair Charlotte, though a maiden chaste, 
 Hath e en as chasto (for wine) a taste." 
 
 Owen listened with apparent grave absorption, which Aunt 
 Charlotte took for deferential interest and which delighted 
 her. 
 
 And now the time had come when he must join his sister 
 and her son or seem peculiar. He had had no word with 
 Richard since his arrival, and he felt Sally s eyes on him 
 from time to time. It was one of the things that had to be 
 gone through with on this ironical evening. He excused 
 himself to the old lady and went over to where Sally and 
 Richard were seated a little apart near one of the win 
 dows. He noticed Sally straighten as she saw him coming, 
 and Richard jerk his chin sideways with a nervous trick 
 that he had inherited from his father. 
 
 "Quite a long time since I ve seen you, Richard," he 
 said, taking the chair next Sally. "The East didn t brown 
 you much. Was it up to your expectations?" 
 
 Like poor Phoebe, he wondered at the naturalness of his 
 own voice. Richard was not so successful. He stammered 
 "lightly, and changed colour. Then a sort of cold reck 
 lessness took hold of him, and he slid easily into his usual 
 manner. 
 
 "The best of the East is in the dawn," he said. "I 
 seemed to be progressing through a hall of post-cards. But 
 China is less disappointing when one knows how to avoid
 
 308 WORLD S-END 
 
 the obvious. In an inland temple I found the most as 
 tounding music." 
 
 "Yes. I ve heard that their music is astounding," said 
 Owen drily. You really mean that it astounded you with 
 its beauty?" 
 
 Sally was watching Richard avidly, much as a mother 
 mongoose might watch its youngling s first encounter with 
 a cobra. Richard rose fully to the occasion. His manner 
 was perfectly assured now, and his voice civilly if aloofly 
 respectful. 
 
 "I realise that it must sound forced to you, sir, when 
 I confess that I did find it beautiful. There are certain 
 delicate dissonances which appeal to me in every art, . . . 
 and the music of China is as exquisitely inharmonious as 
 a fuchsia. It combines red and violet tones in much the 
 same manner. Of course it takes a special ear to relish it. 
 My Chinese music teacher told me that I heard like an 
 Oriental. It s odd, I admit." 
 
 "Perhaps we have a Chinaman in our ancestry some 
 where," said Owen. "You might ferret him out, 
 Sally." 
 
 He was thinking : 
 
 Those lips kissed her. Those arms held her. . . . " 
 
 Suddenly rushed over him the memory of that poor 
 young girl of the nobility who, during the Reign of Ter 
 ror, was forced to drink a goblet of human blood from the 
 gutter in order to save her father s life. This was to 
 Owen like swallowing that unspeakable draught. Yet he 
 heard his own voice continuing calmly, naturally : 
 
 "Shall you stop long with us this time? The Warwick 
 hounds are running well, I hear. The meets have begun 
 earlier this season. You might put in some good days. 
 
 "Thanks. It s very kind of you, Uncle Owen," said 
 Richard. "But I shall have to go on day after tomorrow. 
 I was on my way to some friends near Baltimore when I 
 met Mrs. Beresford. They re expecting rne, you see. I 
 was meaning to run down for a week or two in November 
 if you could put me up then. 
 
 Of course. "What time in November ? 
 
 "Somewhere about the end, I think." 
 
 As if in spite of himself, quite automatically, Richard 
 had invented this lie on the spur of the moment. Per 
 haps his subconscious monitor had told him that already 
 it looked strange that he had fixed no time for visiting his
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 300 
 
 uncle after so long a separation, especially since Owen had 
 been married during the interval. 
 
 With ready wit Sally abetted him. 
 
 "Yes, it was the end of November that you mentioned in 
 your last letter. It came yesterday. I forgot to tell you, 
 Owen." 
 
 "Well, we shall expect you in November, then. You ll 
 be able to get some good shooting. The quail are thick at 
 World s-End this year." 
 
 Phoebe, listening to Dempsy s headless and tailless chat 
 ter, was aware of those two speaking together in the finest 
 nerves of her being. The lightness of Phoebe s brighter 
 hours was always offset by other hours heavy with bitter 
 ness, but never since her marriage had the horror of 
 what she had suffered and what she had done suffo 
 cated her as now. So dreadful was the confusion of all 
 her ideas that she felt like starting up from her place and 
 hurrying breathlessly after death, like a starving beggar 
 after one who carries loaves. To die ... to die quickly, 
 that was the only thing that could cleanse her of this 
 shame. Then the next instant came one of those sharp 
 recoils with which her vivid, vibrant nature was set as with 
 violent springs. "No . . ." she thought, "no ... I 
 will get above it. I will grind it under my feet. I am 
 worth while in spite of him. My love has washed me clean. 
 I am not that girl. I am made new by my love and Owen s 
 love. And I am going to tell Owen. ... I am going to 
 tell him. ... I will be strong. I will be brave. Even if 
 it is the end of my happiness of everything. I will 
 take my life and put it high . . . high . . out of their 
 reach." 
 
 But then she thought of the child upstairs in its crib, 
 and she put up her hand over her eyes an instant. A wild 
 thought came to her that the scream, stifled on her lips, 
 must rise changed into a terrible look from her eyes. 
 
 Dempsy s voice came clear and carrying: 
 
 "Oh, I say, Phoebe! I d forgot! The baby! ... I 
 must see that baby before I dress for dinner! Can t I see 
 her now?" 
 
 "Yes. Come," said Phoebe, rising. "She ll be asleep, 
 but we can peep at her." 
 
 The two young women went out together. 
 
 "It s about time that we changed, too," said Owen, 
 glancing at the clock. "Patton and Mr. Nelson, the clergy-
 
 310 WORLD S-END 
 
 man who married us, are coming to dinner. You have your 
 old rooms, Richard." 
 
 Thanks, Uncle Owen. Mother told me. 
 
 "Then I leave him to you, Sally." 
 
 He also went out. 
 
 Mother, said Richard in a low voice of intense bitter 
 ness, as Owen closed the door, did I look the knave I felt, 
 or did I play the hypocrite tolerably ? 
 
 Sally caught at his long, nervously twitching hand as it 
 rested on the chair between them. 
 
 "No, no, my boy. You behaved wonderfully . . . really 
 wonderfully, Richard. I was cold with fear at first but 
 you acted exactly as you should have done. 
 
 "And I was cold with disgust," said he sombrely. 
 "Dante never invented a worse situation for his In 
 ferno. : His voice took a fierce, whispering note. "It s 
 hellish, mother." 
 
 Sally rose. 
 
 "When you re dressed," she said, "come to my room. 
 We can t talk here. Mary is looking at us now. 
 
 When Richard knocked at her bedroom door Sally was 
 seated in an arm-chair by the fire, fully dressed, having 
 dismissed Mirabel. Another chair was drawn up, ready 
 for Richard, He sank into it moodily, crossing his legs 
 and moving his foot up and down in its narrow pump 
 as a nervous woman does. He was extremely pale, and his 
 nostrils looked pinched. 
 
 "My poor, poor boy," said his mother, leaning towards 
 him and putting her hand over his as she had done in the 
 drawing-room. "Tell me how this dreadful thing hap 
 pened. Was there no escape?" 
 
 Richard s fingers jerked under hers. He did not look 
 at her, but continued gazing sombrely into the fire. 
 
 "You know Mrs. Beresford, mother. Besides, illness al 
 ways gives rise to a low tyranny. What could I say? I 
 was like a rat with a clever terrier. She had me by the 
 nape." 
 
 "Couldn t you have invented something . . . something 
 vital?" 
 
 He made a movement of impatience, and drew away his 
 hand, pretending to look for his cigarette case. 
 
 "... I must have left it in my other coat. . . . What 
 could I have invented, my dear mother? Business? . . .
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 311 
 
 She knows I have no business. My art? Art isn t sup 
 posed to have claims over sickness. I couldn t very well 
 pretend a sudden illness for myself." 
 
 "And it was as serious as that? Is Lady Bemyss 
 in danger? It seem to me very odd indeed that this Eng 
 lish girl didn t stay with Sylvia if it s as bad as that. The 
 English are certainly very queer." 
 
 "Oh, the girl s a shallow little jade. She hasn t an ounce 
 of real feeling in her whole composition. But the other 
 isn t in any immediate danger, only in great pain. There 
 were trained nurses of course. Mrs. Beresford s chief 
 anxiety seemed to be that this rattle-pate girl shouldn t 
 have her American visit spoiled." 
 
 Sally frowned. 
 
 Sylvia can never see an inch beyond what obsesses her 
 at the moment. She has the highest hand about carrying 
 out her own wishes. But, after all. ..." 
 
 She looked yearningly at his set profile so determinedly 
 turned to her. 
 
 "After all, Richard, . . . though the suddenness of it 
 was a dreadful shock . . . it had to come . . . sometime." 
 
 A short sound escaped him, like the beginning of a 
 laugh. 
 
 "What puppets we all are!" he said. 
 
 "Yes, ... it had to come," Sally repeated firmly. 
 "We ve gone over that often enough, God knows." 
 
 Richard turned and looked at her for the first time. "Do 
 you know," he said slowly, "I ve sometimes thought the 
 game isn t worth the candle, mother. 
 
 "What do you mean?" she asked, much startled. 
 
 Just this, he said shortly. There are quite frequent 
 moments when I think that I d prefer to cut the whole 
 thing- and be a pauper with a free mind. There s some 
 thing villainously low in cringing this way for . . . for 
 . . . " he gulped, for money, he ended harshly. 
 
 His mother gripped his arm in her thin fingers. "Don t 
 talk like a madman, Richard. Prudence is not low. ..." 
 
 "In this case it is," he said sullenly. 
 
 "No, Richard. I deny that. ... I deny it absolutely," 
 she said, her face beginning to burn. "Besides, that isn t 
 the only consideration. . . . Any marked change in your 
 manner to Owen, . . . any sudden break with him would 
 be bound to raise suspicion. Everyone would talk . . . 
 everyone would question . . . Owen himself . . . Richard !
 
 312 WORLD S-END 
 
 If by your own imprudence ... by some chance ris 
 ing from it ... if you should start his mind to working 
 by some mad impulse of self-will . . . yes, of selfishness 
 ... ( ... it would be cruelly, cruelly selfish towards me ! ) 
 . . . Yes ... if you did that . . . dreadful things might 
 happen, Eichard, horrible, unspeakable things. . . . Only 
 today I was thinking . . . yes . . . yes ... I was think 
 ing this morning . . . when I watched him reading that 
 wire. . . . His face was so hard, so cruel. . . . He doesn t 
 like you even now, Richard. He s never liked you. Then 
 think . . . think what it would be if he ever . . . found 
 out. Richard ..." She had his arm in both hands now. 
 "He might kill you . . . before he realised what he was 
 doing, he might kill you. . . .-" 
 
 Richard grew alarmed at the distorted expression on her 
 face so darkly flushed. "Dear mother . . . don t work 
 yourself up," he said, taking one of her hands from his 
 arm and kissing it. "Men don t kill one another nowadays 
 ... at least not men like my uncle ..." 
 
 "You don t know the Randolph temper as I do. ... 
 It runs underground for years, then breaks out sud 
 denly wrecks everything. Why, here, in this very house 
 your great-grandfather killed a man with his bare 
 hands. It was hushed up . . . but everyone knew . . . it s 
 local history . . . Richard . . . promise me . . . promise 
 me on your honour that you won t do any rash, mad 
 thing!" 
 
 Her face was working so painfully, her eyes so burning, 
 that he felt more and more alarmed. "Yes . . . yes . . . 
 I promise," he said, putting his arm about her shoulders. 
 "Please quiet yourself, mother. I will do just as you 
 like." 
 
 Sally put her scorching cheek to his and held him a mo 
 ment in silence. Then she said: 
 
 "I know how bitterly hard it all is ... but it s better 
 to get the first shock over. It will never be as hard as this 
 again." 
 
 "Again!" he echoed her morosely, swinging back in 
 spite of his anxiety on her account to his former mood. I 
 was thinking just now that I d rather be naturalised in 
 some far country than have to go through this a second 
 time. But women haven t the same feelings as men about 
 such things. Their nerves aren t like ours. Look at you, 
 mother, ... ill as you are, when it comes to facing this
 
 WORLD S-END 313 
 
 damnable situation, . . . perfectly calm, perfectly col 
 lected. . . . Look at her. ..." 
 
 Sally gave him a quick, sidelong glance. 
 
 "Do you find her changed, Richard?" 
 
 "I find her devilishly self-possessed quite the queen. 
 She touched my hand as if it had been a toad, and looked 
 between my eyebrows." 
 
 Sally s lips curled with a cruel sneer. 
 
 "You could scarcely expect her to look you in the eyes." 
 
 He went on, not heeding her, his look fixed on his nerv 
 ously jerking foot. 
 
 "Why, she wasn t even pale. She had such a colour that 
 she looked painted." 
 
 Sally s lips curled again. 
 
 "I dare say she was." 
 
 "Nonsense! She s too simple." 
 
 It was her turn to echo him. 
 
 " Simple! You don t know her. Simple! Why, 
 she s as cunning as a monkey. She twists them all around 
 her little finger, Owen, Mary, her father, the servants. . . . 
 I am the only rebel in her little kingdom. And even I 
 don t dare rebel openly." Her face had the expression of 
 a snarl in the changeful firelight. 
 
 Isn t she nice to you, mother ? 
 
 "As nice as I ll allow her to be." 
 
 "But wouldn t it be wise ... ?" 
 
 "I m as sick of wisdom as you are sometimes!" she ex 
 claimed in a choked voice. 
 
 They sat for some minutes without speaking. 
 
 Presently Sally said in an entirely different voice, a 
 voice so changed that he looked up, startled : 
 
 "Richard. ..." 
 
 "Yes, mother?" 
 
 "I asked you to come to my room for a special reason. 
 I wanted to talk to you about the child. 
 
 That dark flush, so like the flush f hat came to his 
 mother s face in moments of sharp emotion, came now to 
 his. 
 
 "Well . . ."he said very low. 
 
 "The child is ... is lovely, Richard." 
 
 "Is it likelier . . . ?" 
 
 "It s like her, most people think, but there s something. 
 . . . At times it is so like you when you were a baby, Rich 
 ard, that it makes my heart stand still.
 
 314 WORLD S-END 
 
 "You . . . you are ... fond of it?" 
 
 "I m human," said his mother in a hard voice; "after 
 all, it s my grandchild." 
 
 "For God s sake, mother!" cried Richard, and got to his 
 feet. His hands opened and shut nervously . . . the palms 
 were wet. 
 
 "Sit down," said Sally quietly; "this at least is some 
 thing that has to be discussed." 
 
 He sat down moodily, with the conventional obedience 
 which he always gave her, and which he very rightly con 
 sidered a part of perfect manners. 
 
 "I must say I can t see why we should discuss it," he 
 said thickly. 
 
 Sally watched him from narrowed eyes. 
 
 "Perhaps," she said at last, "perhaps you, too, may 
 find that you are human." 
 
 ""What can you mean, mother?" 
 
 "Only that you must be doubly on your guard about 
 this child. Oh, I know! You men have very lofty notions 
 about the insignificance and absurdity of babies. She put 
 her hot, dry hand again upon his knee. "Wait, . . . wait 
 until some chance lets you feel the touch of your own child 
 . . . the little clinging hands . . . the little lips. . . . 
 "Wait till the flesh of your own child touches you, Richard ! 
 . . . Then you 11 thank me for having warned you. 
 
 This time he sprang up and began pacing the warm 
 room with its sweetly acrid odour from the vervaine that 
 Sally always used in her bath. 
 
 "I can t conceive of such a thing . . ."he muttered. 
 
 She had the wise-woman s just-sketched smile at her 
 mouth s corner. 
 
 "Only be on your guard, that is all I ask," she said. 
 
 Richard went to one of the windows, and stood looking 
 out into the night. The shutters had not yet been closed, 
 and the reflection of the wood fire in the panes of glass 
 seemed burning among the branches of the tulip tree out 
 side. He stared at it, knitting his straight black brows, so 
 like his mother s, and thrusting out his lower lip. Then he 
 said, without turning: 
 
 Do you think they re happy, mother ? 
 
 "I think Owen is ... for the present. He lives in a 
 fool s paradise. He is besotted about her ! 
 
 "And . . . she . . . ? Do you think she s happy?" 
 
 "How could she be? ... With me here . . . knowing.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 315 
 
 TYith you . . . knowing. She s a clever little actress. But 
 a woman, even a light woman, doesn t forget her first 
 love her child s father ... in the twinkling of an eye." 
 
 Richard gave an exclamation that was like a groan. 
 
 "Don t, mother. Don t . . . don t . . ."he said. 
 
 "Very well. . . . But be on your guard. ... Be on 
 your guard every second, Richard." 
 
 Owen tapped at Phoebe s door. There was an instant s 
 pause; then her voice, very low, said close to the crack: 
 
 "I can t let you in now, dear. But I m almost dressed. 
 I 11 be ready before the others. 
 
 "Poor child!" he thought. "Poor little, courageous 
 child. She can t even spare a moment from her desperate 
 search for more courage." Aloud he said: "Never mind, 
 sweetheart. I only wanted to know what you are going to 
 wear." 
 
 "It s a new gown." A faint little laugh came through 
 the crack of the door. "You ve never seen it. Black and 
 silver. I want to look very dignified and matronly. : 
 
 He laughed, too, just to encourage her in her brave play 
 acting, and called back: 
 
 -Jay it add ten summers to your ripe age ! . . . I 11 
 go down and wait for you. Patton and the rector have 
 come." 
 
 "Yes, please, dear," came the low voice. "I ll follow 
 you in just a minute." 
 
 She heard his steps crossing the room, and then the 
 sound of a closing door. She slipped down on her knees 
 where she had been standing, and lifted her locked hands 
 high towards the white ceiling. 
 
 "0 God. . . . Someone . . . someone . . . help me 
 . . . help me," she whispered, choking. 
 
 Then she got to her feet with a bound, her chin high. 
 
 "I ll help myself!" she said back of her little teeth. 
 "I ll help myself . . . then God will have to help me." 
 
 She finished her hair, which she always did herself, then 
 took up the little hand mirror, looking at her reflection 
 carefully, full-face, three-quarters, profile. Yes . . . that 
 would do. She picked up a bit of soft lint, and wiped 
 some of the carmine from her cheeks. Excitement and 
 pain had sent her oven blood into them. Then she rang 
 for America. The black gauze gown embroidered with 
 silver was a little too elaborate perhaps for a small country
 
 316 WORLD S-END 
 
 dinner, but it added the touch of stateliness that she de 
 sired, seeming to make her an inch or two taller. 
 
 America set the twist of black gauze upon her hair, with 
 its knots of silver poppies just hiding the small ears, 
 and stepped back, elated. 
 
 Dat s a sight prettier nor any crown in dee worl ! " 
 she said. "I don t keer if twas dee Queen of England s 
 an had fifty p ints to it! But lawsie! Miss Phoebe, you 
 does look sot an settled in dat black dress. It sho do 
 make you look scornful. . 
 
 "I want to look scornful, Rikky," said her mistress 
 ivith a faint little smile. 
 
 "Well, you looks it, all right," returned America. 
 " Tech-me-not an you won t git stung is yo name to 
 night, Miss Phoebe. An pret-tfee/ My Gawd! . . . You 
 looks jes like a wax doll in a show-case." 
 
 " Thank you, Rikky. You re a dear thing. I love you," 
 said Phoebe. She took up her fan and handkerchief, and, 
 bending forward, kissed the brown cheek before leaving the 
 room. 
 
 XL 
 
 C* HARLES PATTON was a rather remarkable man. At 
 ^- thirty he had held the professorship of anatomy in one 
 of the first universities of America. At thirty-four he had 
 been asked by the faculty to resign, owing to his habit of 
 deep, steady drinking. At forty, from a wretched, sham 
 bling ghost of manhood, he had suddenly taken himself in 
 hand, and grimly, as though harnessed with despair, had 
 pulled the wreck of his life and his fortune from the mire. 
 Now at fifty-three he was a man beloved and respected by 
 the whole community where he lived and practised. He 
 had received sound offers of advancement, one even from 
 the very university which he had left some seventeen 
 years ago in disgrace, but he refused them all. Owen, who 
 knew him more intimately than any other man, was aware 
 of his reason for conduct that puzzled most people and 
 even angered them. They considered it a reckless in 
 dulgence in false pride that caused a man of such ability 
 and brilliant parts as Charles Patton to remain "rotting 
 away," as they expressed it, in a country neighbourhood 
 when he might have been winning fame and fortune in one 
 of the big centres of civilisation.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 317 
 
 Owen honoured and loved him more for these reasons, 
 which it seemed to him could have been divined by others 
 with the exertion of only a slight amount of imagination. 
 But "imagination," even in slight amounts, is a rarer 
 quality than the uncommon "common" sense, which 
 everyone is supposed to be endowed with in a greater or 
 lesser degree. 
 
 Patton s explanation of his conduct was simple in the 
 extreme. He was in all things rather a simple man, built 
 on broad, noble lines. The architecture of his spirit was 
 rather that of the temple of Phsestum than the more com 
 plex and ornate Gothic. As Marc Antony described him 
 self, he was "a plain, blunt man he only spoke right on" 
 and acted as he spoke. . . . 
 
 "You see," he had said to Owen, " know thyself was 
 supposed to be the wisest advice the ancients had to give 
 and for me it holds good in these days ... if I don t 
 know myself in toto, at least I know my chief weakness, 
 and, as the chap said, my weakness is mighty strong. I 
 haven t climbed out of hell on my hands and knees, so to 
 speak, to risk dropping back there by some silly chance. 
 If I lived at a university or in a big town there would be 
 convivial souls who would be saying constantly: Have a 
 drink, Patton. And, knowing Charles Patton as I do, I 
 know very well, also, that sooner or later when the devil 
 was by, or his good angel napping, a drink he would 
 have. And that one drink would beget forty . . . and 
 there w r ould I be with all hell at my hurdies, as an old 
 Scotsman I know puts it. So that is why, dear old man, I 
 prefer to rot away in the country soberly, discreetly, 
 reverently and in the fear of God. The fear of God let 
 me tell you, by the way," he wound up, with the rare 
 sirJie that lit his saturnine face to astonishing sweetness; 
 
 the fear of God is small potatoes to the fear of w r his- 
 key in those that have once felt it." 
 
 And so it made Owen very impatient and irritated when 
 people sometimes commented to him on the vain obstinacy 
 of Charles Patton s course in life, and implored him to 
 "use his influence with him" and induce him to go forth 
 into the world and gather up some of the ducats and 
 laurels that were supposed to be awaiting him there in 
 heaps. 
 
 In appearance he was striking, tall and gaunt, with im 
 mense bones that made his strong, flat wrists resemble the
 
 WORLD S-END 
 
 lower joint of a thoroughbred s fore-leg. His face, sickly 
 and weather-beaten in hue, was of a square darkness, and 
 the great, dark, lugubrious eyes under the fine, bony fore 
 head with its hollow temples recalled the later portraits of 
 Edgar Allan Poe. In fact, his whole countenance was sin 
 gularly like that of the poet, only formed on a larger scale 
 and modelled more ruggedly. His smile, already men 
 tioned, disclosing the adamantine teeth which ill health 
 and dissipation had not been able to impair, was singularly 
 charming and unexpected, gleaming in that swarthy, dour 
 countenance like a snow-wreath in a cave. . . . His voice, 
 broadly Virginian, despite his education in Germany, was 
 slow, deep and quietly melancholy. Looking at him for 
 the first time, even the most cynical felt, Here is a man 
 that I can trust to the bitter end. 
 
 Children and dogs and darkies adored him. Women 
 found him strangely attractive. He had never married. 
 And, as though fate had determined to arrange the drama 
 of his life to fit the look of tragedy which had characterised 
 his face from boyhood, his celibacy was universally 
 thought to be the result of a dreadful event which had 
 happened when he was only thirty-three. This was the 
 death in the hunting field of the woman he loved. Before 
 his eyes she had been thrown and dragged by her horse 
 until . . . but such things are better left undescribed. 
 Sufficient to say that for months afterwards poor Patton 
 was like a maniac, had to be confined and cared for in a 
 sanatorium, and there were many who believed that his 
 downward course dated from that day, and was the direct 
 result of it. In part they were right in this conclusion, 
 but the root of the matter lay deeper in some mystery of 
 the cellular brain tissues, or, as some would say, in the very 
 atoms of his soul. 
 
 Patton had been off for a well-earned holiday in the 
 far West when Owen and Phoebe returned from abroad, 
 and this was to be his first meeting with them both 
 since their marriage. He had been called away to a 
 distant village at that time, and so had been unable to be 
 present. 
 
 When Phoebe entered the rose-room she found her 
 father and his cousin in deep converse on one of the sofas 
 and Owen and Patton standing with parted coat-tails be 
 fore the fire. Patton looked like a benign and mam 
 moth crow in his evening clothes, with his great head
 
 VVORLD S-END 319 
 
 bent a little forward listening to what Owen was saying. 
 
 As Phoebe entered he dropped his big coat-tails and came 
 forward, his face lighted by his smile. 
 
 "Is this little Phoebe or some foreign princess?" he said, 
 taking both her hands and holding them. "Bless the 
 child! I do believe she s been growing since her marriage 
 two good inches taller as I m a man of science. You 
 pretty thing. . . . You pretty thing. ..." He broke 
 off. smiling again, and swinging her hands to and fro. 
 " Marriage sholy do become you, as I heard an old 
 darkey say the other day. Such dignity ! . . . Such hoity- 
 toityness ! . . . Does your majesty think that your majesty 
 could condescend to give me a kiss?" 
 
 "Dear Doctor Charlie!" cried Phoebe and hugged him. 
 Such had been her name for him since her babyhood. 
 Somehow she felt safer when those huge, bony arms 
 went round her in response than she had done for 
 many a day. AYith Owen she could not feel safe, because 
 she herself was a menace to him. But here was someone 
 who could protect even Owen from disaster or so it 
 seemed to her. 
 
 "It s the beatings that have improved her so, Charles," 
 said Owen, standing by with his hands on his lean flanks 
 in a way he had. A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, you 
 know; ... I do it for her good." 
 
 "Yes . . . he beats me. He beats me dreadfully," said 
 Phoebe, with a little laugh that caught in her throat. 
 
 "A regular Bill Sykes, eh? ... A Benvenuto Cellini 
 . . . and I suppose you adore him for it in classic female 
 fashion?" 
 
 Yes ... I adore him. ..." said Phoebe, with another 
 of the little laughs that were like sobs. 
 
 Pat-ton thought : 
 
 "Over-strung about something ... or just a woman s 
 high-pressure mood over nothing probably . . . pupils 
 markedly dilated. Wonder if the little witch has been 
 using bella donna? Must give her a scolding later if she 
 has." 
 
 Aloud he said : 
 
 "I diagnose the case as typically a Desdemona-Othello 
 instance of sporadic infection from the microbe, . . . 
 Amor stupendus, which it is well known clogs the sys 
 tem with even greater rapidity than the deadly trichina 
 spiratis. But the disease is only fatal when brought in con-
 
 320 WORLD S-END 
 
 tact with the lago bacillus. You must both gargle three 
 times a day with antigeloso. " 
 
 This nonsense brought a more natural laugh from 
 Phoebe, and Henry Nelson came over to greet her. 
 
 "My last kiss was bestowed on a pale, little bride," he 
 said, as he kissed her hot cheek. Now, I salute a proudly 
 glowing matron. 
 
 Owen laughed. 
 
 "There, Phoebe!" he said. "The black gown has done 
 its work. You see, you strike Mr. Nelson as matronly." 
 
 The puss has certainly grown very tall and dignified, 
 replied the rector. 
 
 "And as I said," put in Charles Patton, "he thinks that 
 she s grown. 
 
 "It s really the black frock, Doctor Charlie," said 
 Phoebe, glancing down at herself. 
 
 "Well, you re a picture in it," retorted he, smiling. 
 "You remind me of a fairy fallen in an ink-pot." 
 
 The others laughed at this poetic simile, and Mr. Nel 
 son from his arm-chair said : 
 
 "I have never seen you attired in black before, my 
 daughter. But it becomes you well. Black is always a 
 dignified wear, though tending to an effect of gloom. I 
 am glad that you lightened it with silver. Is it customary 
 nowadays to conceal the ears so completely? I should think 
 that it would make one hard of hearing." 
 
 "Don t disturb yourself, sir," said Patton. "Eve could 
 hear through a head-dress of prickly-pear pads." 
 
 Here Dempsy and Mary entered together, and shortly 
 came Aunt Charlotte in a grand toilette of robin-egg taf 
 feta trimmed with blonde lace outlined with straw. 
 
 "Did you ever see such an old darling!" whispered 
 Dempsy to Mary. "I m sure the old Duchess of Kent- 
 Queen Victoria s mother, you know wore lace like 
 that." 
 
 "It s probably a cherished heirloom and has a story," 
 whispered back Mary. "Ask her about it later. She loves 
 to have her finery commented on." 
 
 Dempsy took the first opportunity of doing so. When 
 Aunt Charlotte was established on a sofa with her azure 
 skirts spread amply about her, and her handkerchief 
 (which she wore drooping from a ring and chain on her 
 little finger) carefully adjusted, she ran over to her and 
 drew up a little velvet-covered "cricket." seating herself
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 321 
 
 at the old lady s feet. She was more and more fascinated 
 by this near view of Aunt Charlotte en grande tcnue. 
 
 The point-lace handkerchief with its tiny heart of 
 tli read cambric the smelling bottle of Persian glass in its 
 little gold filigree holder the chicken-skin fan with its 
 painting of Venus drawn by doves and surrounded by a 
 covey of Cupids the hair-bracelet with its chased-gold 
 clasp, and the long crystal-drop earrings that pulled the 
 lobes of the old ears into the likeness of plump, pink oys 
 ters, all these adornments seemed to her too wonderful 
 for reality. 
 
 "Dear Miss Talliaf erro, " she said, "your gown is too 
 perfectly lovely ! . . . I was talking to your great-niece 
 about this marvellous lace, and she said she thought it had 
 a story and that I might ask you about it. Do you mind? 
 I m English, you know, and we have some enchanting 
 old ladies in England, but not one that s a patch on 
 you. . . . You re too darling and wonderful! . . . Do 
 you mind?" 
 
 Aunt Charlotte, perfectly charmed, preened herself like 
 a bird of paradise in the sunlight. "Mind, me dear?" 
 said she. " Tis a joy to me old loyalist heart to find me- 
 self pleasing to a daughter of the mother country. Yes, 
 me love ... if all colonists had been as loyal to King 
 Jarge Hid as me noble grandfather was, . . . tis a sub 
 ject of King Jarge Vth would be talking to you this min 
 ute!" 
 
 Dempsy felt torrents of glee inundating her inner 
 world. What a lark ! . . . What a lovely story to take 
 back to England. This old lady might have just stepped 
 out of a play by Congreve with her "King Jarges" and 
 "me loves." 
 
 "How sweetly original of you!" she cried. "And how 
 plucky you are, dear Miss Talliaferro. If I were an 
 American with your sentiments, I should be afraid that 
 the other Americans would tar and feather me isn t that 
 what they do to people they don t approve of?" 
 
 Aunt Charlotte took a sniff at her smelling bottle and 
 winked one spirited old eye over it at the delighted 
 Dempsy. 
 
 "Me child," she said "did anyone lay so much as a 
 finger on Charlotte Talliaferro, all Virginia would rise to 
 a man! I m a bit of history, me love, and America has 
 not so much history that she can afford to destroy any
 
 322 WORLD S-END 
 
 of it!" She joined her dry little chuckle to Dempsy s 
 gurgle of laughter. 
 
 "And what about the Fourth of July, and the Declara 
 tion of Independence, and the Father of His Country, 
 and all that?" asked the subject of "Jarge Vth." 
 
 "The Fourth of July, me dear, is me black Monday 
 and the Declaration of Independence is a vastly over 
 rated document not to call it more inelegantly a pretty 
 pack o lies. Why, take one of the first statements, child. 
 Was ever such a monstrous fib as that? All men are 
 born free and equal. A nigger born the equal of a Cau 
 casian! A lame man born the equal of one with three 
 legs ! A blind man and a leper born free ! Fiddle-de-dee ! 
 Bombast and fustian! As for Jarge Washington, me 
 dear, a more overrated being never breathed ! A most 
 middling person in all respects save luck. Look at the 
 peanut nose of him and the prunes and prism-y mouth ! 
 And hark ye, me love. None so chaste as the man history 
 delights to honour! Tut! Tut! They d have us think 
 the great Jarge was of so ticklish a prudery that the 
 sight of his own calf without a stocking would bring the 
 blush of modesty to his cheek. Ne er ye believe it, honey. 
 A right naughty dog with the ladies was the sainted Jarge, 
 unless me forbears lied worse than history, and was proba 
 bly the father of far more than his country, me dear! " 
 
 Dempsy could scarcely believe her ears. Here was an 
 American story to take back, as fresh as Diana rising 
 from a dew-pond. She sat absorbing Aunt Charlotte at 
 every pore of her clever, imitative mind, her accent, her 
 mannerisms, her little air of having been the confidante of 
 buried centuries. "Just fancy!" she breathed, to keep 
 her going, "if you could have your way, the States would 
 be part of England now!" 
 
 "That they would, me love. But Virginia is the state 
 of states. Had she but been loyal, the rest would have 
 followed as sheep-burrs move with a mule s tale. But, 
 lud! Hear me likening the glorious old Dominion to a 
 mule s tale! Similes are slippery stepping stones to fact, 
 as I was used to tell poor Mortimer Smith a gifted man, 
 me dear, who once writ a sonnet to me eyebrow, or rather 
 to me whole person. In those days me hair came to me 
 ankles and was gold as a guinea. But as to Virginia, me 
 child, did ye not know twas counted one of England s 
 kingdoms in those days ? Fie ! ye did not ? Why, Charles
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 323 
 
 the Second was proclaimed King of England on the eighth 
 of May, 1660, and on the twentieth of next September 
 was proclaimed in Virginia, and the seal of Virginia bore 
 the motto, En dat Virginia quintum, in which the noun, 
 rcc/niun, is understood. Behold, Virginia gives the 
 fifth (kingdom)! Yes, me love! Later, in 1702, they 
 altered it to quint am, to agree with the unexpressed 
 noun, coroiiam Behold, Virginia gives the fifth crown. 
 And ye really did not know that ? Well, well. The Latin 
 sticks in me poor brain like a cockle-burr, when tis but 
 a sieve for the name of the last vulgarian that sits down 
 so lumpishly in the presidential chair!" 
 
 Nothing could have exceeded the scorn with which Aunt 
 Charlotte mentioned this article of state furniture. 
 
 Dempsy was enjoying herself so hugely that she 
 sparkled like a brown diamond, and twisted a little curl of 
 her hair round and round regardless of her coiffure a 
 trick dating back to lesson-conning in the schoolroom. 
 
 "And the lace, dear Miss Talliaferro don t forget the 
 story of your beautiful lace," she urged. 
 
 "Bless me stars! From lace to Jarge Washington is a 
 far cry, me dear. Yes, it has its simple annals, me dear 
 old lace. Twas sent to me mother at the time of the 
 sainted Victoria s coronation." (Dempsy gave a little 
 wriggle of joy at her own astuteness, as she crouched en 
 thralled on the "cricket.") " "IV as said that the dear 
 Queen had a robe garnished with the same lace which had 
 been given her by Her Royal Highness, the Duchess." 
 (Dempsy wriggled again.) "But there s a tale of sen 
 timent goes with it also, me dear. Twas at a dance, when 
 I was sweet and twenty, that a bit of the same lace 
 caught on the button of the gentleman I named just now 
 Mortimer Smith a very gifted, poetical man. And 
 what must he needs do but embody me poor, torn scrap in 
 the poem I alluded to. Tis too long to repeat entire 
 before dinner, but I will quote the one stanza. 
 
 That rustic flow r, Queen Charlotte s lace, 
 Hath in my heart s herbarium place, 
 For of that heart is Charlotte queen, 
 And now her lace may there be seen. 
 
 Tis daintily put, do you not think so?" 
 
 "It s quite too utterly charming!" cried Dempsy, her 
 appreciative eyes twinkling like a marmoset s. Mind you
 
 324 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 say the whole of it to me sometime. Now you won t for 
 get, will you? How does it begin?" 
 
 And Aunt Charlotte, beating time with her little hand, 
 all crisscrossed with a high relief of slippery lilac veins, 
 and followed in its motions by the swinging handkerchief, 
 began to recite, "Charlotte to praise thee, charms like 
 thine " 
 
 In the meantime Sally and Richard had entered and, 
 just as Aunt Charlotte pronounced "immortal powers," 
 Jonathan announced dinner. 
 
 All at once, as Phoebe saw Richard entering the room for 
 the second time that day, a perfect, calm self-possession 
 came to her. It was a phenomenon something like that 
 which causes a condemned man, who has sweated and 
 trembled in his cell from mortal fear, to face the sight of 
 the gallows on which he is to die with entire fortitude. 
 
 "Come, Dempsy, dear," she called, "I know just how 
 fascinating Aunt Charlotte is, but we re going to be very 
 grand and ceremonious tonight in your honour, and 
 Owen s waiting to take you in." 
 
 She stood smiling, her hand on the rector s arm, while 
 they all filed past her into the lovely central hall, with its 
 white panelling and old silver lustres now winking with 
 candles. (All the doorknobs and locks and fixtures for 
 light at "World s-End were of silver, as in a few old Vir 
 ginian houses.) 
 
 And, as she watched them, it seemed to her that they 
 were figures in her dream, and that of this dream she 
 was mistress for the time being, for this evening, at least, 
 and could control them as she pleased. It was an odd, 
 encouraging sensation, akin to that feeling of universal 
 power which the first taste of opium sometimes gives. 
 The poppy of desperation had excited rather than dulled 
 her. 
 
 So the little procession went by as she had ordered it 
 Owen and Dempsy, Sally and Mr. Nelson, Mary and Rich 
 ard, Charles Patton with Aunt Charlotte, and then she 
 followed with the rector the shepherdess of dreams mar 
 shalling her flock. 
 
 The native soup which Phoebe had ordered, thinking it 
 would be an "amusing" food to Dempsy, met with great 
 success. 
 
 "Phoebe! what utterly deevy soup!" she cried.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 325 
 
 "What is all this delicious, slimy stuff that looks like 
 glue and tastes like heaven?" 
 
 "Okra," said Phoebe, laughing. 
 
 "Not yellow ochre?" 
 
 Dempsy s face was a study ; everybody laughed now. 
 
 "No, okra," said Phoebe. "It s a vegetable, not a min 
 eral." 
 
 "That sounds as if we were playing that dear, stupid 
 game of twenty questions, " returned Dempsy. "You 
 must give me tons to take back to England with me." 
 
 "Phoebe looks rather different from what she did the 
 last time you saw her, doesn t she, Cousin Henry?" asked 
 Mary of the rector, across the table. 
 
 "Indeed, I w y as just saying as much to her, before din 
 ner," he answered. "A paler bride I never saw, and I m 
 rather a connoisseur in brides." 
 
 "Do you prefer them blushing like the dawn? " asked 
 Patton. 
 
 "No. I confess that a pale bride appeals to me par 
 ticularly. There is something pure and maidenly in such 
 pallor that makes it touchingly appropriate. Our little 
 Phoebe here was the picture of virginal sweetness. Like 
 a little snowdrop. Now red as a rose is she, and quite 
 as becomingly." 
 
 "Poor, dear child, she ll be red as a garden of 
 roses if you go on with your ruthless personalities, 
 Cousin Henry," said Mary, kindly refraining from 
 looking at Phoebe, who, as a matter of fact, had gone 
 white. 
 
 "Dear me! Are compliments no longer in fashion?" 
 asked the rector, smiling. "I surely thought the old 
 kinsman who married her could praise his little cousin 
 without confusing her." 
 
 "You haven t confused me, dear Cousin Henry," said 
 Phoebe, very low to him. "All that you said was dear 
 and kind." 
 
 "She s recovered, Henry," said Charles Patton teas- 
 ingly, "but she actually paled for a moment under the 
 impact of your sonorous praise. And that reminds me, 
 as our national anecdote-tellers say, of a line of poetry 
 that I read the other day and thought quite unique. It 
 ran thus : Aurora s fair, flushed face some paler grew. 
 That some paler is powerfully idiomatic, don t you think 
 so?"
 
 326 WORLD S-END 
 
 "Your poet was certainly from. Yankee-land, I know 
 that much," smiled Mary. 
 
 Dempsy was trying again to engage Eichard in con 
 versation, or rather to "bally-rag him into uttering," as 
 she afterwards told Phoebe. 
 
 "Don t you think your aunt-in-law is the loveliest thing 
 in that black frock that you ever looked at?" she asked, 
 surreptitiously hiding in her napkin a bit of the "corn 
 pone" which had been served with the soup, also in con 
 cession to her well-known love of novelty, and which she 
 ungratefully considered "quite the nastiest thing that 
 she had ever tasted." 
 
 "Very handsome," said Richard in his noncommittal 
 voice. He disliked Dempsy exceedingly. Not only did 
 she jar on his aesthetic sensibilities, but she was the cause, 
 albeit ignorant, of his present odious position. 
 
 Dempsy looked at him, and then laughed, as though at 
 a secret and amusing thought of her own. 
 
 Richard grew pale with anger, but merely turned to 
 Mary with some banal remark. 
 
 "Virginia," here sounded the high, shrill pipe of Aunt 
 Charlotte, replying to some remark of her nephew s, "Vir 
 ginia is not only going to the dogs, me dear Thomas, 
 she s already in the kennel and the door stuffed with 
 straw. What with her political messes and women boying 
 it like stage Cleopatras of Shakespeare s day she s clone 
 for, me good Thomas, done for! I d rather be a female 
 dog and bay the moon than a modern Virginian woman 
 ... a suffragette! 
 
 This last word was spat forth with quintessential 
 venom. 
 
 "My dear aunt . . . my dear aunt . . . pray con 
 sider the surroundings . . . temper your speech, I im 
 plore you," expostulated the old gentleman in a low, agi 
 tated voice. 
 
 "Pooh! Rubbish! Ye re more of an old woman than 
 I am, me poor Thomas ; ye should sup on posset with your 
 timorous shanks in a mustard footbath," she growled in 
 response, the one subject that ever ruffled her otherwise 
 serene temper being the question of "women s rights," 
 which Patton unfortunately had brought up. 
 
 "My dear aunt ... let me beseech you ... on this 
 happy occasion. ... A controversy of personal animos 
 ity would so painfully jar ..."
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 327 
 
 "Painfully fiddlesticks!" said the irate old dame. "Is 
 a body to sit mumchance while Charles Patton airs his 
 retrograde ideas? How do ye know but he ll contami 
 nate Phoebe, and she ll evince her precious rights by 
 becoming a disciple of yon dog Malthus, and refusing to 
 bear her husband an heir!" 
 
 "Aunt Charlotte if you have one scintilla of consider 
 ation for me and mine, you will desist at once," said her 
 nephew, hoarse and purplish with apprehension. "Your 
 language has a flavour of the eighteenth century, which 
 would only cause discomfort to an assembly of the twen 
 tieth." 
 
 His incensed relative gave a sibilant sniff and, turning 
 on him her plump shoulder with its edging of straw- 
 embroidered lace, engaged Owen with some remark on 
 another subject. 
 
 But Richard had not escaped from the subject of 
 Phoebe by resorting to Mary s soothing if not congenial 
 atmosphere after the friction of Dempsy s electric, eel- 
 like personality. 
 
 "I m so proud of my little cousin, Richard," she said 
 to him at once. "I wonder if you find the change in 
 her as marked as I do?" 
 
 "She is more beautiful than she was," said Richard. 
 
 "Yes, isn t she? A happy marriage is like some won 
 derful spell. She has bloomed out under it like a flower 
 in a magician s garden. But, now that I think of it, you 
 don t believe in marriage, do you?" 
 
 "Not for myself." 
 
 "One could scarcely help believing in it for Phoebe, 
 could one ? " 
 
 "No. Scarcely." 
 
 "How monosyllabic you are tonight," she smiled. 
 "Isn t Miss Torrance to have the benefit of some of your 
 paradoxes?" 
 
 Richard frowned. 
 
 "That girl is detestable ... a cornucopia of every 
 British philistinism." 
 
 "Poor Miss Torrance! And I thought her so very 
 nice." 
 
 "To me," said Richard, "she is insufferable. The sort 
 of woman who would wear a pugree on her hat in India, 
 and maim tigers." 
 
 "But it s very sensible to wear a pugree on one s hat
 
 328 WORLD S-END 
 
 in India, isn t it?" said Mary, who couldn t refrain from 
 goading him a little. 
 
 "I should have said that she d wear a pugree on her 
 mind. That expresses my meaning better," retorted Rich 
 ard with his sneer. 
 
 Patton here said something to Mary, and Richard was 
 left to his own thoughts, for Dempsy was deep in con 
 sultation with Owen about tomorrow s hunt. 
 
 And thus left in peace, if what Richard felt could by 
 any stretch be called "peace," he sat looking moodily 
 at the great, pollen-dusted plumes of Mary s epergne of 
 golden-rod, yet seeing Phoebe clearly, though his black 
 eyes seemed absorbed with the flowers. 
 
 He saw that red mouth which had melted and quivered 
 under his own that May night after the storm, when 
 that other crueller storm had gathered in him, blowing 
 reason and pity before it like windle-straw ; the shin 
 ing hair, with which he had laced her to him, now glow 
 ing in a bright crown as of wifehood, above the eyes 
 which had once gazed at him with shy adoration, and 
 which now when they had rested on his face for an instant 
 had been filled with a frozen repulsion; the lovely 
 throat, the little breasts that had beat against his like 
 scared birds, just showing timidly above the soft black of 
 her bodice. All these things, now by right another man s, 
 he saw with those sullen, veiled eyes of his that seemed 
 only to gaze at the great, yellow field-flowers. And a 
 sick, torpid anger began to stir him, the anger that might 
 come to a man who has thrown aside a ruby, thinking it a 
 bit of glass, and then sees that another, with more knowl 
 edge, has picked it from the dust and set it fittingly. 
 
 He did not care for rubies actually or symbolically, 
 yet it was irritating to think that he had mistaken one 
 for glass. A curious, infinitely base feeling of secret tri 
 umph stole in among the sluggish current of his auger, 
 the feeling that he had first tarnished what the other man 
 now cherished. 
 
 He glanced with his secretive, opaque eyes at Owen, 
 and, strangely enough, Owen at the same moment looked 
 at him. 
 
 Richard s hand clenched under the table, his chin 
 jerked sideways with that inherited trick. 
 
 "You are not coruscating tonight, my dear Richard," 
 Owen permitted himself the slight malevolence of saying.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 329 
 
 "We counted on you to impress Miss Torrance with 
 Young America s brilliancy." 
 
 Dempsy gave that little provoking laugh of hers. 
 
 "I believe he s in the silent stage of being in love," she 
 said. "I believe he s dreadfully in love with someone 
 at this very table!" 
 
 Black fangs of light seemed to leap from Richard s 
 eyes. He could have struck Dempsy on the mouth with 
 joy. 
 
 "Can one blame him?" asked Owen serenely. 
 
 "No . . . and I m really awfully sorry for him," pur 
 sued Dempsy maliciously. "It must be frightfully hard 
 on a man to be in love with some one who s so horribly 
 in love with her own husband." 
 
 Richard had turned away again. Now he ventured to 
 glance once directly at Phoebe. She was listening ear 
 nestly to something that Charles Patton was saying, her 
 elbow on the table, her chin resting on her palm. This 
 was a new thought to Richard, this idea of her being in 
 love with his uncle. It had never crossed his mind before. 
 He had understood, as he had told his mother, how impos 
 sible it had been for one in Phoebe s situation to refuse 
 
 such an offer of salvation as Owen s had been, but that 
 
 she gave him anything but a grateful regard had never 
 occurred to him for an instant. Could it be possible? 
 Did that soft, amourcuse mouth melt for Owen now as 
 it had once clone for him? Could a woman feel another 
 passion so quickly ? Was it possible ? . . . Had that spite 
 ful little English minx hit upon the truth? As though 
 hypnotised by his black eyes, which he had forgotten to 
 withdraw in the absorption of his thought, Phoebe moved 
 restlessly, glanced right and then left, then full at him. 
 
 Into her eyes, into her whole face came a sick, cold 
 look, a look that he had once seen in them when, after a 
 rainy day at Nelson s Gift, one of the loathsome centipedes 
 that infest rotten wood had crawled out along the step 
 of the front porch. 
 
 Quickly she looked away, straight this time at her hus 
 band, a look of dumb, strained appeal, as though for help. 
 And suddenly there floated over her white face the love 
 liest warm rose. Instinctively he glanced back at Owen. 
 Yes. those gold-grey eyes were answering hers, sig 
 nalling some strong aid, some potent, secret force that had 
 sent the bright blood welling upward from her heart;
 
 330 WORLD S-END 
 
 and now, again glancing at her, he saw on her face and 
 in her great, dilated eyes the look of one who regards 
 divinity. Love, a passionate gratitude, but chiefly that 
 full, rapt glow of adoration, lit the eyes that had just 
 shrunk away from his as from some noxious reptile. 
 
 Once more he glanced at Owen. Somehow he did not 
 at all fit the simile of the Praying Mantis; the husband s 
 motley sat on him like a holiday garment. Mated lions, 
 Kichard reflected grudgingly, are not undignified, and 
 there was something in those tawny eyes of his uncle that 
 reminded him now of a lion s eyes. He recalled how, hav 
 ing been delayed once in Marseilles, he had strolled out 
 to the zoological gardens, and stopped fascinated by a 
 cage where a Numidian lion and his mate had not long 
 been confined. 
 
 It had been autumn, and the two great beasts were 
 sunning themselves in their small courtyard under an 
 aspen. The brown, crisp leaves floated down continually 
 through the mild air, and the lioness, lying on hc ;i back, 
 struck at them lazily with her big cushiony paws, just as 
 a kitten might have done. Couched beside her, like some 
 huge, heraldic beast, the lion watched her with his golden 
 eyes from under the black pomp of his mane. Now and 
 then he would gently lick her shoulder, as she might have 
 licked the hide of one of her cubs, and in those steady 
 golden eyes of the male was the softness of a creature 
 regarding its young, rather than of the desert king looking 
 upon his mate. 
 
 Just this look was in Owen s steady, softened eyes as 
 he glanced at Phoebe. Richard had seen such a look 
 often in his own mother s eyes when she wished to reas 
 sure him in some pain or anxiety. 
 
 Then his glance happened to fall from Owen s eyes to 
 his hand, which was resting on the edge of the table. It 
 was a large hand, even for his great size, long, broad, 
 and well shaped, but constructed for strength like some 
 cunning machine made for gripping and crushing. The 
 bones, supplely knit together, showed plainly under the 
 dark surface ; the broad wrist and back were covered with 
 short, dark hair like those of a son of Anak. 
 
 Richard looked from it to his own delicately modelled 
 hand, smooth and fine as a bit of old ivory. The thought 
 came to him how that big, hairy hand lying relaxed there 
 on the polished surface of the table could crush his own
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 331 
 
 hand to pulp, merely by grinding it in one steady grasp. 
 Men must have had such hands in the stone-age, he 
 thought, irritated by its primitive strength and hairiness. 
 lie remembered the story of a man of just such abnormal 
 power as Owen, who had torn the muscle from an enemy s 
 arm as a child rips the pith from an orange. He shivered 
 slightly and, forcing his eyes away from the dark, quiet 
 hand, which seemed to mesmerise them, saw that his 
 mother was looking at him with furtive nervousness. 
 
 He tried to smile at her, but his chin only jerked side 
 ways. If that hand were ever to grasp in anger at his 
 throat ... if by some fatality Owen ever knew. . . . 
 
 There was a subdued noise of chairs being pushed back. 
 Phoebe had signalled to Dempsy with the little smiling 
 nod that signifies dinner is over. 
 
 XLI 
 
 pIIARLES PATTON was the only friend with whom 
 ^ Owen was really intimate. There were several men 
 whom he was fond of, and many whom he liked very 
 well indeed, but only with Patton did he ever speak of 
 things very close to him. He was glad, therefore, when 
 Patton stayed on after the rector had gone, saying that, 
 as there would be a moon at eleven, he would stop for a 
 "crack" with him, as his friend, Andrew Graeme, put it. 
 
 Mr. Nelson always went to bed at ten, and tonight all 
 the women had retired when he did, so that Chven and 
 Patton found themselves free to go to the former s study 
 and take each a big, leather armchair before the fire that 
 Jonathan had just heaped with fresh logs of "red-heart" 
 cedar. 
 
 With pipes lighted and legs crossed, they grinned at 
 each other affectionately. 
 
 "This is something like, old man," said Patton. "As 
 inspiring as the ladies are, for solid comfort give me a 
 pipe, a wood-fire and my chum." 
 
 "It s good to see your gloomy old mug again, Charles. 
 Now tell me about Sally. How serious is it?" 
 
 Patton took the pipe from his mouth and scrutinised it 
 thoughtfully ; then, as if assured that it was the same old 
 briar, he put it back again.
 
 332 W O R L D S - E X D 
 
 "Anything with the heart is serious, my dear fellow. 
 But there s no reason, with proper care, why Sally 
 shouldn t live along as comfortably as most of us. Her 
 trouble is valvular. I won t go into scientific terminology 
 a weakness of the right valve. But those attacks of 
 angina pectoris that she had so often in the beginning 
 were chiefly due to hysteria, in my opinion. Sally will 
 be fifty-three in March. That is rather a serious climac 
 teric with some women, you know. And she s deucediy 
 high-strung and high-tempered, if you ll excuse plain lan 
 guage. Works herself up over things, lets herself go. 
 I ve held forth with considerable force on that subject, and 
 I believe I ve rather impressed her. Any sort of inner 
 commotion is bad for her. If people only realised the 
 direct pathological connection of a bad temper with the 
 arterial system, there d be many more angels in our 
 houses. 
 
 Owen smoked for some seconds in silence, then he said : 
 
 "You talk such a lot, Charles, I believe that poor Sally 
 is worse off than you want to admit." 
 
 "Well ... a cantankerous heart-valve is not like a 
 toothache," admitted Patton grudgingly. "She can t 
 have it out like a troublesome molar, and she can t lead 
 the exciting, helter-skelter life she s been used t<". But 
 with proper care . . . And then there s Miss Mary . . . 
 she s been my right hand in all this. A splendid woman. 
 Sally will listen to her when she simply walks through my 
 orders like a circus girl through a hoop of paper. Her 
 own sister couldn t have been better to Sally than that 
 dear girl has been." 
 
 Owen s face grew soft. 
 
 "You can t give me news about Mary Talliaferro, 
 Charles. There s no one quite like her. You and Mary- 
 yes, you two, well, you make things worth while." 
 
 He looked round at Patton suddenly. 
 
 "Do you know, Charles? ... I think your happiness 
 may be there and you just snoozing calmly like a bat hid 
 ing from the sunlight." 
 
 Patton, who, for all the simplicity of his nature, was 
 a man of keen observation, smiled rather drily. "Miss 
 Mary, said he, has about as much i lea of marrying 
 anyone as she has of going to Timbuctoo as a mission 
 ary." 
 
 "She might make a mission of Charles Patton with
 
 WORLD S-END 333 
 
 good results. Why, she s devoted to you. Mary isn t the 
 kind to be head-over-heels in love. She s too sensible and 
 balanced. You aren t looking for a Juliet, are you? 
 Mary is Portia and Rosalind in one." 
 
 Pattori thought: 
 
 "You re the bat, not I, old man," but Mary s secret, 
 which he had divined long ago, was as safe with him as 
 all those other secrets which sometimes weighed rather 
 heavily on his kind, melancholy heart. 
 
 He said tranquilly: 
 
 "I m no more the marrying type than Miss Mary, 
 bless her sweet heart. Nature turns out certain celibates 
 with the bump of maternity, and paternity, and a depres 
 sion where the bump of amorous activity should be. 
 We re the sort, she and I, who were born commissioned 
 to look after the orphans, those with parents as well as 
 those without. Now we re mothering and fathering poor 
 Sally. We haven t time to spare for amorous friskings. " 
 
 "All the same ,. . ." began Owen. 
 
 "All the same, you re a dear old ass," said Patton 
 cheerfully. "You d break up a beautiful friendship to 
 patch it into a makeshift marriage. It s the inveterate 
 match-making instinct that afflicts all happy newly-weds." 
 
 "Perhaps so," said Owen, smiling, but he looked un 
 convinced. 
 
 "And you really think that Sally s in no immediate 
 danger?" he asked, a moment later. 
 
 "I ve said that any trouble with the heart is serious, 
 but if she ll be reasonable she may outlast us both, old 
 man. That is . . ." 
 
 "That is? . . ." Owen prompted. 
 
 "I ve an idea," said Patton slowly, "that the gifted 
 Richard gives her a devil of a lot of worry." 
 
 Why do you think so ? " 
 
 "Have you never caught her watching him? I say 
 caught her because she does it with great caution. But 
 from time to time, when she thinks everyone is engaged 
 with something else, she looks at him. in a heartbreak- 
 ingiy anxious sort of way. Haven t you noticed it?" 
 
 "Once or twice . . . yes, I think so." 
 
 "Do you know what the fellow s been up to? I never 
 cottoned to Richard, as you re aware. Thank God, 
 you re married to that dear girl. Let s have a boy to 
 break Richard s fine nose thoroughly, as soon as possible.
 
 334 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 please. But do you know if Master Dickon has been in 
 mischief ? 
 
 Owen knocked out his pipe against the chimney, and, 
 taking up another, began filling it from the tobacco pouch 
 that lay between them. "You forget I ve been abroad 
 for over a year. Richard is rather a canny character, 
 as a rule. What sort of mischief do you fancy would 
 attract him?" 
 
 "Ah," said Patton, "that is quite beyond me. The 
 divagations of that young man s imagination are quite 
 out of my scope. Something deeply, darkly, sinuously ec 
 centric, I should say. But then, who knows? Those 
 demi-semi-geniuses, with their finical scorn for the blunt, 
 beaten paths of humanity, are just the chaps to succumb 
 to a sudden seizure of commonplace brutality. They go 
 about tricking out their anaemic phantasies in sorts of 
 Montezuma cloaks of painted feathers, and presto ! one 
 fine day they wake to find themselves begigged over a 
 squaw or a Lapland wench." 
 
 "You really think Richard, with all his fastidiousness, 
 capable of brutality?" 
 
 "I do," said Patton. "It s all in the left side of his 
 face, only you re used to seeing both halves together." 
 
 "Lombroso?" asked Owen, looking rather surprised. 
 
 "Certainly not," said Patton. "All the children of 
 men, you and I among them, are asymmetric. But there s 
 one half of the human face that always gives a person 
 away. I don t know exactly when I first found it out, 
 long before it became popularly known, though. You 
 must have seen examples of it in magazines. No? Well, 
 get me some photographs any, so that they re full- face, 
 and I ll show you." 
 
 Owen opened a drawer in his desk, and took out a 
 handful of photographs at random. Patton spread them 
 out under the light of the double student s-larnp. 
 
 "Capital," he said; "here s our hero himself, one of 
 Sally, one of you. That s enough." 
 
 He pushed the rest aside, and took an envelope from a 
 case of letter paper. 
 
 "Now look here," he said, "we ll do you first. What 
 a shocking photo you make, by the way. Nearly all ir 
 regularly good-looking men do, I believe." 
 
 Charles, you overwhelm me ! 
 
 "Tut! you know very well you re good looking. If one
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 335 
 
 but touches your biceps in friendship, you swell up like 
 the strong man at a fair. But look. D ye see this?" 
 
 lie placed the white envelope so that it cut the photo 
 graphed face in two longitudinally. 
 
 "Now, on this side you re grave, melancholy, even soft- 
 looking. See the droop of the lid and eyebrow? Ideal 
 ism. The mouth-corner is almost womanish, almost too 
 sweet. Now look ..." 
 
 He whipped the paper to the other side. 
 
 "By George! It s more marked in you than in most 
 people. Look at that left eye ! Hard, implacable, al 
 most as ruthless as Sally s in one of her tantrums. And 
 the mouth there s savagery in it. See how the corner 
 dips; grim, a stone-age mouth. Even the jaw has a dif 
 ferent set from this side. Look how it juts. It s the face 
 of a man who could run amok under sufficient provoca 
 tion ... go Berserk. 
 
 "It s extraordinary!" exclaimed Owen, staring down at 
 the unfamiliar side of his face, revealed to him thus un 
 expectedly as in a magic mirror. "And, I must say, 
 singularly unpleasant. "When did you first do this, 
 Charles?" 
 
 "Can t remember to save my life. I ve tried often. I 
 must have been a mere lad when I first chanced upon it. 
 Now we ll have a go at Sally. There you see? This 
 side merely thoughtful, the eye mild, the wing of the lip 
 gentle, candid. Now this other. Look at the temper in 
 that slightly drawn-up under lid. Look at the lines of 
 the mouth, straight and thin as a crack. And the fore 
 head even under the photographer s touchings-up you 
 can see the nervous, petulant drawing of the frontal 
 muscles. There s Sally, the worst enemy of her own heart 
 to her secret life. Now we ll have young Baudelaire 
 Mallarme. Come this side shows up better than I 
 thought. Eye quite straightforward and affectionate, 
 mouth composed, nostril a little stingy, but not over 
 mean. Now let s see the worst of him. By Jingo! Owen, 
 look at that eye and mouth and nostril. There s nothing 
 subtle there, Caliban dressed in velvet, that s what. 
 Yet not Simon-pure Caliban, either, it hasn t enough 
 force for that. A by-blow of Caliban got on Shelley s 
 Witch of Atlas. But there s brutality, all the same, just 
 as I thought." 
 
 He put his great, spatulate thumb on the corner of
 
 336 WORLD S-END 
 
 the photographed mouth. "See that squaring out of the 
 lip just here, like the mouth in a Greek mask of Comedy? 
 In a human face that means brutality of the cheap kind. 
 The sort that will sputter out in unexpected words, or take 
 refuge in a mean passivity. Poof! I like you less than 
 ever, young gentleman." 
 
 And he flipped the photograph from him and went 
 again to his armchair. 
 
 "Interesting, though, isn t it?" he said. 
 
 "Very. But rather depressing. I knew I had a devil 
 somewhere in me, but I didn t know that he showed in 
 my face before." 
 
 "Cheer up. He doesn t when your two halves are 
 looked at together, and that s the way people always 
 see one." 
 
 "And you re not a disciple of Lombroso?" 
 
 "No. The theory s too good to be true." 
 
 "And what of Nordau?" 
 
 "A. granny! Green specs, yellow specs, black specs. 
 A pinch of experience will hoist a stellar system of the 
 ory." 
 
 They both smoked in silence for some minutes, then 
 Patton said: 
 
 "You don t know, old man, how glad I am to see you 
 so happy." 
 
 "Thanks, Charles. I am happy." 
 
 "Without reservations?" 
 
 "I can t help being worried about Sally. And ..." 
 He hesitated. "Well, Richard isn t exactly a joy in my 
 life, I confess. I blame myself about him, Charles." 
 
 "In what way?" 
 
 "I think I might have helped him to be ... well . . . 
 something more genuine than he is." 
 
 "No, sir. . . . He came a waxwork from his mother s 
 womb, and he ll return to nature s matrix a waxwork." 
 
 "You contradict yourself, my dear chap. A waxwork 
 can t be brutal." 
 
 "Yes, it can, if its works get out of order. A wax 
 work individual off the track is as destructive sometimes 
 as a wild engine. 
 
 "You think Richard is in danger of being detraque?" 
 
 " I m going by the look in Sally s eyes when she watches 
 him on the sly." 
 
 Owen clasped both hands behind his head and gave a
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 337 
 
 long stretch, looking up at the blended rounds of light 
 cast by the double lamp on the ceiling. Then he sat up 
 suddenly. The reflection of a lamp on the ceiling always 
 recalled that terrible day of little Diana s birth. 
 
 "Well, old man." said Charles Patton, looking at him 
 with whimsical affection, "what wasp stung you then?" 
 
 Leaning forward, Owen knocked out his second pipe 
 and laid it aside. 
 
 "I ll tell you what harries me like the deuce, Charles." 
 he said. "It s the idea that poor Sally s disappointment 
 over Richard s prospects may have a lot to do with 
 this sudden development of heart trouble. I ve been 
 twisting and turning it every way. Of course ... as it 
 is . . ." 
 
 "As it is, you ve married one of the sweetest young 
 creatures in the world, and your money will naturally go 
 to her children," said Patton bluntly. 
 
 "Not all, Charles. That wouldn t be playing a fair 
 game." 
 
 Patton grunted. 
 
 "You know it wouldn t, Charles." 
 
 "Well . . . perhaps," admitted Patton with another 
 grunt. "What do you propose doing?" 
 
 "That s exactly what I want to talk over with you." 
 
 Patton glanced at him sharply. 
 
 "You don t propose increasing Richard s allowance, I 
 hope?" 
 
 "No. Put I thought of making a provision in my will 
 that would leave him with a good income. I thought 
 that when I had decided on the amount and got every 
 thing in shape it might comfort Sally to let her see it." 
 
 "Mph!" grunted his friend a third time. "And \vhat 
 may be the amount you ve decided on?" 
 
 "I haven t decided yet, old Crusty. That s where I 
 want your advice." 
 
 "My advice," said Patton, speaking with his teeth on 
 the mouthpiece of his pipe, "my advice, if w r axworks 
 could swim, would be to chuck him out into the stream of 
 things, sink or swim, and let him test his precious talents 
 on their bread-winning value." 
 
 "No, no, old fellow. You can t bring up a lad as I ve 
 helped to bring up Richard and then chuck him out with 
 out a penny. Come, Charles, be practical. How much 
 should you say? And, when we ve settled that, tell me
 
 338 WORLD S-END 
 
 your opinion about reassuring Sally by letting her see my 
 will." 
 
 By the time they had hammered this out between them, 
 and Patton had said, with some sarcasm, that he thought 
 the sight of what Owen had finally decided that Richard 
 should inherit would be an excellent heart-tonic even for 
 a moribund, it was long past eleven o clock. 
 
 Owen stood on the North Portico until Patton had rid 
 den off, and then, leaving Jonathan to shoot home the 
 big bolts, went upstairs cautiously, so as not to disturb 
 the sleeping house. 
 
 Seeing a light under Phoebe s door, he knocked softly, 
 waited, then knocked again. Feeling sure that she was 
 not there, he turned the knob and went in. The fire had 
 sunk into a mass of glowing coals over which flickered 
 delicate blue and lilac flames veined with gold. On a 
 little table by the sofa a lamp under its shade of white- 
 silk burned low. The room was warm and sweet with the 
 fragrance of cedar-wood and powdered orris. One of the 
 windows had been left open, and the woodsy, pungent 
 breath of the October night mingled with the languid air 
 within. 
 
 Already the room was saturated with Phoebe s person 
 ality. It looked to him familiar and yet strange, like a 
 well-known face under a new headdress. Everywhere lay 
 the pretty articles that were as characteristic of her as 
 her eyes and hair; the bag of white silk embroidered with 
 wild roses that held her bedroom slippers by day, the 
 white Angora rug thrown back upon the sofa ; the little 
 lace and batiste pillow upon the larger cushion ; the ivory 
 paper-cutter with "P. R." in turquoises that he had 
 given her shortly after their marriage ; the ivory brushes 
 and boxes on her dressing table, marked in the same way 
 that sweet, pure scent of orris. 
 
 The hollowed bracken where a doe has been couching 
 does not speak more clearly of its late occupant than 
 Phoebe s bedroom spoke of her. And as he looked ten 
 derly about him the arm of the pretty nightdress of rose 
 batiste that America had laid ready on the sofa to catch 
 the fire glow, waved softly in the draught from the win 
 dow like something stirring in sleep. 
 
 Owen put out his hand and touched it gently, smiling. 
 Then, noticing the little rose-coloured mules that stood 
 on the white hearth-rug in the "first position" for danc-
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 339 
 
 ing, he picked one up and set it on his palm. The Cin 
 derella shoe lay on his big palm like a quaint slipper- 
 orchid. It was shaped by Phoebe s foot, he could see 
 the moulding of the slim toes in the rose silk, and, lifting 
 it, lie kissed it, smiling again. 
 
 The door opened, and the hanging sleeve waved beckon- 
 ingly in the increased draught. It was Phoebe who came 
 in, her bedroom candle still lighted in her hand. She was 
 in her dressing-gown, with hair unbraided, and she looked 
 very pale now. 
 
 I ve been with Dempsy all this time," she said, com 
 ing over to the fire. "She s such a chatterbox. ... I 
 couldn t get away. Is it very late?" 
 
 "Almost midnight. You look tired, my darling. Come 
 rest here a minute." 
 
 He put her on the sofa, drew the fur over her and 
 closed the window. Then he came and sat beside her. 
 "I only wanted to tell you how charming you were to 
 night, sweetheart. I thought you d be asleep long ago." 
 
 She played with his hand without looking at him. "No. 
 ... I have such a headache. I couldn t have slept, any 
 way." 
 
 "Poor dear! He bent over and kissed her hair. 
 "Can t I play maid! "Won t you go to bed at once!" 
 
 He thought of the heartache which that "headache" 
 stood for, and longed to gather her to his own heart and 
 comfort her, but he refrained. For her, as well as for him, 
 he thought, any expression of physical love with that other 
 under the same roof would be abhorrent. And, watching 
 her face with its lowered, nervously quivering eyelids, he 
 felt that some special struggle was taking place in her. 
 "There, darling," he said, suddenly rising. "I ll go and 
 undress, and you get into bed as fast as ever you can." 
 
 Her lips parted, closed, parted again, and now the 
 colour flew r into her face. She took his hand in both 
 hers and held it to her cheek. 
 
 "AYhat is it, dear?" he asked. 
 
 "I ... I thought ... it is only ... I ... my head 
 does ache so dreadfully. ... If you don t mind . . . 
 perhaps I could ... I would sleep better ... by my 
 self. "^ 
 
 He understood at once. With that other in the house 
 she could not bear him to be near her as her husband. 
 He answered quickly:
 
 340 WORLD S-END 
 
 "You re quite right, sweetheart. I ll run off at once. 
 You re sure I can t do anything before I go?" 
 
 She kissed his hand almost timidly the merest soft 
 brush with closed lips a little, staid caress, like the kiss 
 bestowed on royalty s hand at a court function. 
 
 "No . . ." she said very low. "Oh, yes yes!" she 
 cried, suddenly starting up, her clasped hands against his 
 breast. "You can tell me I don t make you unhappy . . . 
 that you re not disappointed in me. . . . Don t tell me 
 if it isn t true. . . . But if you could. ..." 
 
 He put his arm about her and pressed her head down 
 against his heart. 
 
 "Do you hear that talking under your ear, child?" 
 
 "Yes . . . yes. . . ." 
 
 "It speaks better than I can. Every beat is a throb 
 of joy because you re in it." 
 
 "Oh, I can sleep now! ... I can sleep ..." she cried, 
 and burst into sudden weeping. 
 
 He held her close without a word, and for some mo 
 ments she wept on softly, piteously, like a child who has 
 been forgiven, but that cannot forgive itself. 
 
 Breakfast was early the next morning, as it had been 
 decided that Richard and Dempsy should put in a day 
 w T ith the Warwick Hounds, and the meet was 10.30 and 
 four miles distant. 
 
 As much as he disliked the English girl, he welcomed 
 this natural escape from the impossible situation at 
 World s-End. Dempsy was to ride The Clown and he a 
 clever hunter of Owen s called "Paternoster." It irri 
 tated and humiliated him under the circumstances to ride 
 his uncle s horse, but Borak had cast a shoe and there 
 was no way out. 
 
 Sunlight slanted in between the white columns through 
 the plants and flowers in the quaint, narrow conserva 
 tory that ran across the east wing in front of the dining- 
 room. It fell in a quivering skein over the dark mirror 
 of the round table with its mats of old Flemish lace and 
 central dish of butter wreathed in forced nasturtiums. 
 
 Behind the Sheffield urn, so familiar from his boj hood, 
 Phoebe sat making coffee as he had been used always to 
 see his mother. 
 
 Perhaps nothing since his arrival the night before had 
 given him such a sense of inextricably tangled reality and 
 unreality as the sight of those energetic white little hands
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 341 
 
 grasping the black handle of the old urn that the long, 
 sallow hands had so long been accustomed to wield. He 
 glanced at his mother; she was slowly shredding a nas 
 turtium flower, looking down at it as she did so. And he 
 knew, from the strangely tense bond of sympathy that 
 knit them together like an umbilical cord of the spirit, 
 that this making of coffee in the old Sheffield urn by 
 Phoebe was one of those bitternesses, so grievously dispro 
 portionate to their size, which are as hard to bear some 
 times as matters far more weighty. 
 
 And for himself, too, it was a bitter thing to see her 
 there in his mother s place, the girl that he had thought, 
 at best, to maintain in decent comfort as his mistress, 
 sitting there as mistress not of him, but of the beautiful old 
 house that he had always looked upon as his, and that 
 had now passed from him irrevocably. 
 
 In the clear light of morning, in her simple coat and 
 skirt of mouse-coloured velveteen, with her hair coiled 
 low, English fashion, at the back of her head, the vital 
 change in her struck him somehow more even than it had 
 done the night before. For all the soft contours of her 
 youth, it was a woman who sat there quietly and deftly 
 making coffee for her guests, not the excitable, shy coun 
 try girl that he had known. Experience, sad, and deep, 
 and vital, had left the sign of its sharp chrism on flesh 
 and spirit. And Richard, who had once been able to 
 divine her thoughts from her expression almost as surely 
 as he had divined his mother s just now, wondered what 
 was passing behind the clear, broad forehead, under the 
 " widow s-peak " of sorrel hair. 
 
 It was a strange, singularly unpleasant sensation to be 
 loathed. To be sharply disliked he had often found stimu 
 lating, but the look that he had surprised on her face 
 last evening, that cold, sick look, as of someone happen 
 ing to see a slimy reptile. . . . Richard s self-love and 
 vanity writhed uneasily under the memory of that look. 
 And, glancing at Deinpsy, all pimpante and cocky in her 
 smart Melton-cloth habit, he felt his hatred for her as the 
 cause of his present dilemma increase tenfold. 
 
 She, in the meantime, quite aware of his antipathy, 
 rather tickled by it and returning it full measure pressed 
 down and running over," seeing that her way of speak 
 ing and eating, merely of living, moving and having her 
 being irritated him to the utmost degree, exaggerated
 
 342 WORLD S-END 
 
 all her oddities of speech and manner, with the malicious 
 delight of a little monkey out of reach, teasing some more 
 dangerous creature. 
 
 At least, she thought, if the sulky beast won t talk, 
 I 11 get some fun by baiting him. 
 
 They went into the South Hall for cigarettes and pipes. 
 
 "Nine-thirty," said Owen, looking at his watch. 
 "You ve twenty minutes yet." 
 
 Dempsy took her cigarette from her mouth and called 
 to Phoebe, who was standing with Mary at one of the 
 Windows : 
 
 "I must see that lamb awake before I go do have her 
 down here at once, like a dear." 
 
 I think the nurse has gone out with her, said Phoebe. 
 She wondered if she said this naturally, such an inner 
 trembling had seized her at Dempsy s words. 
 
 Mary, who was still looking out of window, tapped 
 suddenly on the glass. 
 
 "There she is now!" she cried. She tapped sharply 
 again and beckoned, nodding and smiling. "Giles was 
 just going into the garden with her. She heard me. 
 She s bringing the baby now, Miss Torrance." 
 
 As she spoke the front door opened and Giles came in 
 with little Diana on her arm, looking like a puff of thistle 
 down in her fleecy white coat and cap. 
 
 "Oh, you duck! You lamb of love!" cried Dempsy, 
 throwing away her cigarette and rushing at the baby. 
 * Give her to me, nurse, do ! Why, she isn t a bit fright 
 ened ! You love-duck ! See what a lovely pony Dempsy 
 makes!" 
 
 And she began a little gallopade down the hall with 
 the child in her arms. 
 
 Diana was enchanted. She beat with her mittened 
 hand on Dempsy s shoulder, and jumped in her arms 
 as though she were gallopading too. 
 
 The girl pranced back with her, then, seating herself, 
 took off the fluffy cap. 
 
 "Oh!" she cried, laughing, as the soft blowse of red- 
 gold curls was revealed. "How ridiculous! She s just 
 Phoebe seen through the wrong end of an opera glass. I 
 never saw such an absurd likeness. And how strong she 
 is!" she added, as the baby reared back, the better to 
 absorb the new face looking down, at her. "Does she 
 walk yet?"
 
 WORLD S-END 343 
 
 "No, miss," said Giles, who had stepped forward to 
 take the cap. "But she crawls something wonderful. I 
 do think as IIOAV she ll walk very shortly, miss, and her 
 only eight months old come the twentieth of this month." 
 
 Dempsy set Diana promptly on the floor. 
 
 "I simply must see her crawl!" she exclaimed. 
 
 And at once little Di began a swift, crablike movement, 
 planting her mittened hands firmly and using her small 
 legs as though swimming. 
 
 Dempsy plumped down beside her, and accompanied 
 her in the same manner across the hall. They brought up 
 near Richard, who was standing by one of the hall tables 
 not far from Owen. 
 
 "Da-da-da-da," said the baby, throwing her head back 
 as she rested on her firm little arms, and staring up at 
 him. Then a delicious smile broke all over her little face. 
 She lifted one hand, and moved thumb and finger together 
 in one of her imperious gestures. 
 
 Da-da ! Da-da ! she called. 
 
 "Bless me, goosie, " said Dempsy. "That isn t your 
 da-da. There s your da-da. . , ." 
 
 She took the baby s head in her hands and turned it 
 towards Owen. 
 
 "It s a wise child that knows its own father," she 
 laughed. "Fancy anyone taking you for anything so 
 commonplace as a parent, Mr. Bryce!" 
 
 To herself she thought: 
 
 "Dear me! What a temper the brute has! I mustn t 
 provoke him too far or he ll ride over me today or some 
 thing." 
 
 She thought that Richard s pallor came from vexation. 
 He stood gazing down at the child as though hypnotised. 
 Diana made a plunge forward and caught his riding-boot 
 in both arms, her head still thrown back, her pretty chuckle 
 ringing. 
 
 "Oh . . . look at him!" laughed Dempsy, her impish- 
 ness getting the better of her prudence. "Do look at him, 
 everybody! He s positively scared to death! Babypho- 
 bia!" 
 
 She sat back on her heels, revelling with malicious glee 
 in the strange, perturbed expression on Richard s face, 
 which certainly resembled terror. Suddenly she swooped 
 on the baby, gathered her up and thrust her into his arms. 
 
 Hold her ! Hold her, man ! or she 11 fall ! she cried,
 
 344 WORLD S-END 
 
 convulsed with hoydenish laughter. "Oh! did you ever 
 see anything so funny!" 
 
 And she stood back, with peal after peal of mirth, at 
 the sight of Richard, white as his shirt, holding the baby 
 awkwardly to him. 
 
 Owen had started forward, but, before he could get to 
 Richard, Phoebe was there. 
 
 She gathered the child in her arms without a word, and, 
 going over again to the window, began tapping softly on 
 the glass to amuse it, her back to the others. 
 
 "Why I believe Phoebe s vexed with me," said 
 Dempsy in a crestfallen tone. She ran over to Phoebe. 
 "Please don t be vexed with me, you dear thing," she 
 said. "He wouldn t really have let her fall, you know. 
 And, oh ! it was so funny to see him in such a funk. He 
 did look so absurd . . . and I m sure he d rather break 
 his neck at the first fence today than look absurd for a 
 second. Are you vexed, Phoebe?" 
 
 "No ... I m not vexed," said Phoebe almost inaud- 
 ibly. 
 
 You are ! retorted Dempsy, pouting. I must say 
 I didn t know you would get so miffed over such a little 
 thing. I do think it s rather hard on me, Phoebe." 
 
 "I m not ... I m not vexed ... I swear I m not," 
 said Phoebe, with so much smothered passion in her voice 
 that Dempsy was checked. 
 
 "The fact is, I m a horrid little hoyden sometimes," 
 she said penitently. "And that man does make me want 
 to do the most idiotic things. But I really wouldn t have 
 vexed you for the world." 
 
 "Oh, Dempsy! Please ..." said Phoebe, and there 
 was something in her voice that made Dempsy turn away, 
 saying : 
 
 "I should think we ought to be going on if that meet 
 is at half-past ten." 
 
 "While Dempsy had been talking with Phoebe, old Mr. 
 Nelson, w r ho had come downstairs after having toast and 
 coffee in his bedroom, and had caught the last of Dempsy s 
 singularly unfortunate tomboyish jesting with Rich 
 ard, remarked, smiling: "Now that you ve seen our little 
 one, Mr. Bryce, do you not think that a portrait of Phoebe 
 with her babe would far excel the one that you made of her 
 with her tame crow? I confess that I should like to see 
 you try your skill on such a pleasant subject,"
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 845 
 
 Richard managed to reply that his hand was out of 
 practice, that he had been more absorbed in music than 
 in painting for the last year. 
 
 Sally said : 
 
 "You remember that my brother did not think Richard 
 capable of interpreting Phoebe s type, Mr. Nelson." 
 
 Her voice was not bitter, merely toneless. She was 
 engaging the old gentleman in order to give Richard a 
 chance to recover himself. The situation just then seemed 
 as impossible to her as it had done to him the night before. 
 And the expression on Owen s face as he had started for 
 ward to take the child from Richard had struck her as 
 very singular. 
 
 This look stayed with her all day. It was out of 
 the question that Owen should know anything. And yet 
 there had been a look in his eyes. . . . Never, never had 
 people been placed in so abominable, so monstrous a posi 
 tion as they two. . . . Yes, and Phoebe . . . she even 
 found it in her heart to pity Phoebe just then. That 
 must have been a moment of dreadful and humiliating an 
 guish, when she had seen her child in the arms of the 
 man who was really its father, while the man who thought 
 himself its father, her husband, stood looking on. Yes, 
 she was to be pitied. "Poor, wretched girl," thought 
 Sally. Then the reflex thought came swiftly. "She 
 brought it on herself, on us all. It s her own doing. I 
 pity her, but I hate her, too. 
 
 It was fortunate for Richard that Dempsy was so 
 subdued by the failure of her jest that she trotted to the 
 meet in almost unbroken silence. lie rode beside her as 
 silently, his face set and his hands cold in their dogskin 
 gloves. That contact of his child s flesh, about which his 
 mother had warned him, had not roused in him the feel 
 ing which she had foreseen. A chill horror and revulsion 
 had filled him. There, living, breathing, clutching him 
 with imperious, strong little hands, was his pleasant sin 
 of a moment clothed in flesh and blood. There, his own 
 creation, was what stood between him and his whole future. 
 The child s beauty, which the artist in him recognised at 
 once, seemed a diabolical irony. It was as if fate had 
 said : You prefer things exquisite ? Very well here is 
 stark fact for you dressed out like a flower." 
 
 A moment one moment of madness and lo! a liv-
 
 346 WORLD S-END 
 
 ing being moved and breathed to destined ends, a part 
 of himself, yet separate as only one individual is separate 
 from another. 
 
 XLIi 
 
 ICHARD went to his mother s room that night after 
 everyone had retired. 
 
 She looked very thin and ill in her dressing-gown of 
 dark violet brocade. 
 
 "Do you feel up to a talk, mother?" he said, hesi 
 tating. 
 
 "Yes quite. I ve some things that I must say to you." 
 
 "And I to you. I never spent such a day. It s been 
 almost as hard for you, I know." 
 
 "Yes," said his mother, looking up at him and turning 
 the rings, now so loose, round and round on her emaciated 
 fingers. 
 
 Richard bent, and lifted her hand to his lips. It was 
 his favourite way of expressing his tenderness for her. 
 
 "There s something I want to ask you, but I hate to 
 suggest anything that may trouble you." 
 
 She gave a tired sigh. 
 
 "There s no use trying to shirk things at this pass, 
 Richard. I think I feel better for having you to speak 
 out to. What is it that you want to ask?" 
 
 He sat down in the easy chair drawn up near hers, and 
 rested both arms on the side next her. Leaning close to 
 her, he said very low: 
 
 "Mother . . . has it ever occurred to you that Uncle 
 Owen suspects . . . something?" 
 
 Sally s hand went to her side. 
 
 They sat looking at each other fixedly. Then she said 
 in a voice as low as his : 
 
 "Yes this morning when she took the child from 
 you I thought I noticed a strange expression in her 
 eyes as if " 
 
 She shivered, leaving the sentence unfinished. 
 
 Richard gazed sombrely down at his folded arms. "I 
 didn t notice that I was too " 
 
 He also broke off. 
 
 A curious gleam crossed his mother s face. "What did 
 you feel when you held your child, Richard?"
 
 W O H L D S - E N D 
 
 He answered thickly : 
 
 "It wasn t as you think. It was horrible " 
 
 "Yes perhaps a man would feel that way at first," 
 she said with some coldness. 
 
 "It was horrible," he repeated. "It was like touching 
 one s own hand between sleep and waking, and thinking 
 it someone else s hand. Yes that sort of feeling " 
 
 "But the child s beautiful as I said." 
 
 "That only makes it more savagely ironical, somehow." 
 
 His mother said in a peculiar tone: 
 
 "Perhaps it s just as well you don t feel drawn to it 
 ... it might add to your suffering." 
 
 "Yes let s thank the gods I m not paternal," he said 
 with cynical frankness. "That would be the last straw." 
 
 He was staring at the fire, and so did not see the look 
 of hostility that flashed into his mother s eyes for an 
 instant. 
 
 "Poor boy," she said gently the next moment. "After 
 all. it s only natural when one thinks " 
 
 They sat silent again. Then Richard began abruptly: 
 
 "But, mother about my uncle. You say you noticed 
 something in his look this morning. And ever since I 
 came there s been something in his manner, something 
 undefined but chilling a sort of restraint, as though he 
 were coercing himself to speak to me and look at me. It s 
 impossible, don t you think so? that he could guess at 
 even part of the truth?" 
 
 "Yes," said Sally slowly. "I don t believe even his 
 will and he s got the will of giants could restrain him 
 if he knew." 
 
 "Then what do you think it is?" 
 
 "I don t know. But there -are strange things in life 
 that no one understands. Perhaps, without knowledge, 
 his instinct makes him shrink from you. Yes, I think it s 
 an instinctive feeling." 
 
 "It s there whatever it is," he said gloomily. 
 
 "Yes, it s there." 
 
 Again there was silence. Richard bent over and threw 
 a fresh log on the fire from the willow basket near the 
 hearth. A cloud of spaiks like a swarm of gilded gnats 
 fled up the chimney. 
 
 "How is it all to end?" he asked bitterly, leaning back 
 again. "I can t keep this up. mother no mortal could. 
 It would take some being with nerves like steel-filings and
 
 348 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 bowels of brass to act out such, a hideous, abominable 
 farce. And do you think that even if I could keep it up 
 she could? Mother we ve got to face it. It s impossible. 
 If he s got some instinctive feeling against me now, what 
 will it grow into with time?" 
 
 He rose and began moving softly to and fro, picking his 
 feet up and placing them carefully again, like a cat walk 
 ing through wet grass, watching them as he did so, 
 his chin jerking nervously sideways every now and then. 
 He came and stood near her again. 
 
 Why, good God ! did you see her face today when she 
 took the child from me ? That was enough to set any man 
 thinking. You ve said they ll merely think she has an 
 antipathy for me. Yes but one doesn t snatch away a 
 child as from a leper just because one feels antipathy. 
 I tell you, mother, we re all walking on a crust of lava." 
 
 Sally looked up at him, and her brows worked nerv 
 ously. 
 
 "Well, but what can we do?" 
 
 If you d only agree to let me drop it by degrees 
 
 He broke off and said in an excited whisper: 
 
 "I can t stand it, mother. I tell you no man could 
 stand it. The degradation of it is appalling. Am I to 
 lap mud for dead men s shoes?" 
 
 Richard Richard 
 
 "You ve never had anyone look at you as though you 
 were offal " he went on violently. "By God ..." 
 
 "Richard . . . Richard ..." she said again. 
 
 He threw himself down beside her and buried his face 
 in her hands, holding them close with both his own. 
 
 "Mother," he stammered into her soft, hot palms that 
 smelt faintly of vervaine. . "There are things you don t 
 understand I can t tell you. But when she looks at me 
 like that a devil a cold devil stirs in me." 
 
 Sally grew pale. 
 
 She drew her hands sharply from under his face and 
 set them on his shoulders. Shaking them slightly, she said 
 in a harsh voice : 
 
 "Richard! Control yourself! You re acting like an 
 hysterical woman." 
 
 He lifted a distorted face to hers and gave his short, 
 cynical laugh. 
 
 "By God!" he said again. "No woman ever felt as 
 I do."
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 349 
 
 "You speak like an insane person!" she exclaimed, 
 trying to sober him by her glacial tone, but he only gave 
 another of those short, grating laughs. 
 
 "I never claimed inviolate sanity," he retorted. "And 
 what I ve been through today might unbalance a more 
 phlegmatic mind than I have." 
 
 Sally s heart began to beat painfully. She tried another 
 tone with him. 
 
 "If you ll only be a little patient, Eichard. I ve told 
 you this is the worst. It will never, never be as hard as 
 this again." 
 
 He sprang to his feet and resumed that catlike prowling. 
 Just so Sally herself had prowled about this very room 
 after Owen had told her of his coming marriage with 
 Phoebe. She saw herself, with her dark, unbridled tem 
 per, in her son, and her painfully throbbing heart sank 
 within her. And what did he mean what dark, dread 
 ful thing lay hid in his words about a "cold devil" stir 
 ring in him when Phoebe looked at him? She gazed at 
 the set, ivory-hued face, with its opaque black eyes and 
 brooding brows, and something that she had never no 
 ticed in it before, a second personality, as it were, seemed 
 to look with a stranger s look from that familiar face of 
 her iirst-born, her only son. Yes, as closely as they 
 were knit, as near as he had always been to her, the 
 severance of individuality put out its cold, strong arm, 
 thrusting her away, thrusting her out from the inner 
 secret of his present mood. 
 
 Desperately she tried yet another tone with him. "My 
 son," she said softly, "come here beside me again and 
 let us see if together we can t think of some solution." 
 
 lie came as she asked, and sat down again in the arm 
 chair, but, though his face was now composed, its pale 
 mask shut her out from the core of himself hidden far 
 beneath it. 
 
 "You see, dear," she began in a practical voice, "it isn t 
 as if you were striving for a favour. It is your rights 
 your rights that are in question." 
 
 He answered in an even, colourless voice. 
 
 "You forget. I ve passed on my rights." 
 
 "No, Richard. Your folly has cost you a great fortune, 
 but by right a part of it is still yours. No matter what 
 you have done, nothing can destroy your right to a part 
 at least of your grandfather s money."
 
 350 WORLD S-END 
 
 He looked oddly immovable. 
 
 "You see," he said, "my own father had the misfor- 
 tune to lose that part of my grandfather s money which 
 I had a direct right to." 
 
 The calm lucidity of this reasoning irritated his mother. 
 
 "No," she said with bitter feeling. "His fortune was 
 too unevenly divided for that. I know Owen. I know 
 that with his ideas he must provide justly for you that 
 is, if you do not lose your head altogether. 
 
 "All the same, it s degrading," he said between his 
 teeth. 
 
 She felt sharp anger against him for a moment. 
 
 "I suppose you will not deny me a sense of honour," she 
 remarked drily. "And I say that to act like a rational 
 being in order to secure what is your own by every moral 
 law is not degrading in any sense." 
 
 "I think," said Richard, smiling at the fire, "I do 
 think, mother, that the less we say about moral law in 
 this matter the better." 
 
 Sally flushed to her hair. 
 
 She said, after a moment s pause, under her breath, 
 "You must indeed be suffering to be willing to wound me 
 so cruelly." 
 
 Richard was on his knees beside her in an instant. 
 
 "Mother! you oughtn t to be angry. You ought to like 
 it in me that I can think more of my own sense of de 
 cency than of some wretched thousands." 
 
 "I do I do " she said soothingly, melted by the 
 
 desperation in his voice. "But that makes me all the 
 more anxious to protect you against yourself. Against 
 this mistaken, quixotic mood you re in. You may think 
 me cynical, my poor boy, but I tell you from the bottom 
 of a bitter experience that there is no grief that money 
 cannot assuage. Don t mistake me," she put in quickly, 
 as she felt his arm twitch under her hand. "I don t mean 
 repay wipe out but in years to come, when, instead of 
 a wretched, anxious poverty, you look out at life from the 
 comfortable window of means, you will thank me. You 
 will say: Yes, my mother knew best. Oh, you will! 
 You will ! Believe me for your own sake believe me, 
 my dear, dear son." 
 
 Her thin arms were round him, pressing him close to 
 her, and her cheek was upon his hair. 
 
 He knelt, holding her in silence, then he said :
 
 W O K L D S - E N D 351 
 
 "Don t you suppose I know that your every thought 
 is for my good, mother? It s only that this thing this 
 damnable tiling seems beyond my power of endurance." 
 
 She stroked his hair, still holding him to her. "Tell 
 me tell me everything, darling," she coaxed, as though 
 he were a little boy again, struggling with some secret that 
 he longed yet was ashamed to confide to her. "Is it it 
 can t be that you that she still has " 
 
 "I can t explain it you wouldn t understand," he mut 
 tered. "I wouldn t want you to understand." 
 
 "She has some attraction for you still?" 
 
 She felt his forehead damp under her caressing hand. 
 
 "It s the attraction of repulsion when she looks at me 
 like that as if I were refuse." 
 
 "Hush! hush!" murmured she, soothing him. 
 
 "You wouldn t understand even if I could explain." 
 
 "You mean that whatever love you had for her has 
 turned to hatred?" 
 
 "1 mean." he said in that thick voice which evinced 
 overwhelming emotion with him, "I should like to to hu 
 miliate her to the utmost 
 
 Hush ! hush ! crooned Sally, rocking his head against 
 her breast. 
 
 His voice was a husky whisper now. 
 
 "I feel such a devil that it scares me " 
 
 "Hush, boy, hush!" 
 
 "All right, mother. I said you couldn t understand. 
 I don t understand myself but it s there " 
 
 She held his head against her breast for some time, 
 cradling it in her arms, dropping soft kisses on the smooth 
 black hair, as when lie had been a tiny lad, then she be 
 gan speaking softly, coaxingly. 
 
 "You see, dear you re overwrought now. It will be 
 much, much easier next time. And you needn t come 
 often perhaps once or twice a year. I ll always come 
 with you. Now, for instance, in November, you need 
 
 only stay two or three days. Perhaps " (She had 
 
 felt his chin jerk against her breast.) "Perhaps you 
 might wait until Christmas. Then this bitter feeling 
 against her will have lost its edge. I " 
 
 Oh. mother ! mother ! " he broke in with a groan. 
 "Don t you know a feeling like that doesn t lose its edge? 
 It will get worse every time. Every time she will look 
 at me with greater loathing. And I "
 
 352 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 He drew gently away from her, putting his hand to 
 his head. 
 
 "I m afraid I ll have to leave you now," he said. "My 
 head feels so strange I ll have to go and lie down." 
 
 "Yes, yes, darling," she urged him. "Go and get some 
 good sleep. You will see it all differently tomorrow. Go 
 and sleep, boy. You are worn out." 
 
 His face had a curious, withheld look as he stooped to 
 kiss her. She had not understood, and he was glad that 
 she had not, yet he felt an odd loneliness that he had 
 never felt before when with her. "I ll try to see things 
 as you do, mother. But it will be hard 
 
 "Go and sleep," she said, smiling, and holding his 
 hand to her cheek for good night. "Go and sleep." 
 
 Richard went away next day on the morning train, but 
 Dempsy stopped on a week longer. She left, expressing 
 herself as quite "in love" with Virginia, and firmly con 
 vinced that she had mastered the accent. Owen took her 
 on to join Sylvia Beresford and Lady Bemyss at the Hot 
 Springs, and the day after they left Mr. Nelson and Aunt 
 Charlotte returned to Nelson s Gift. 
 
 "We three lone women roam about this house like mice 
 in a cathedral as I believe Sir Oliver Lodge says that 
 electrons do in atoms," remarked Mary, as the last car- 
 riageful of guests drove off. She slipped her arm about 
 Phoebe, who was standing on the lowest front step, where 
 she had gone to give her father a last, good-bye kiss. 
 . Poor little grass-widow," she said. "You mustn t 
 look so forlorn. What can we do, Sally, to cheer her 
 up?" 
 
 "I m rather a broken reed for cheerfulness, myself," 
 said Sally drily. "I am going to the last resource duty 
 for comfort, and shall write some letters that I ve long 
 neglected." 
 
 And she went off to her own room. 
 
 "What shall we do, Mouse?" said Mary, feeling a little 
 vexed with Sally. She thought that Phoebe looked very 
 pale, and she didn t like those purplish shadows under her 
 eyes. She was beginning to think that Phoebe s persistent 
 idea of Sally s dislike for her was not all imaginary. 
 Shall we walk, or ride, or have a game of tennis ? 
 
 "You re so sweet to me, Cousin Mary," said Phoebe in 
 her old, girlish way, leaning her cheek against Mary s arm.
 
 WORLD S-END 353 
 
 "But I feel so tired, somehow, today. If you don t mind", 
 I think I ll just go and lie down in my own room for a 
 little while. 
 
 And she too slipped off. 
 
 Mary stood looking after her, and determined to advise 
 Owen, as soon as he returned, to ask Charles Fatten to 
 have a look at Phoebe. "The child s dreadfully run 
 down," she thought. "She s such a sensitive thing, 
 though I wonder if Sally s attitude towards her has any 
 thing to do with it? What a dreadfully complex thing 
 family life is. Even the holy family had its frictions," 
 she wound up whimsically, recalling how trying had been 
 the brothers of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 Phoebe, lying listlessly on the lounge in her bedroom, 
 with the little lace pillow pressed against her cheek, was 
 gazing absently at the grey, flower-filled cornucopias on 
 the old carpet, and wondering how often she would be 
 called on to bear the horror of Richard s presence, 
 whether, indeed, she could bear it at all any more without 
 going out of her mind. It seemed to her that her head 
 had felt very queer and empty ever since he had come. 
 All the joy lay on her heart like the withered leaves on 
 the autumn paths outside. Only there was no gardener 
 in her heart to sweep away these leaves. And she seemed 
 to see her heart, a little feverish red ball wrapped in 
 mouldering leaves. She turned over and brushed the hair 
 from her face, holding it back with both hands and staring 
 up now at the ceiling. One, two, three, four flies. She 
 thought all the flies died on some mysterious date in Octo 
 ber. How had these come there ? Probably the warmth 
 of the wood fire had brought them to life again. She 
 counted them over, then back again, now straight across, 
 now diagonally. 
 
 "How stupid my mind is," she thought. "It s so tired, 
 yet it goes working over a silly thing like counting flies. 
 Now, if I told him if I got him to come here, in this 
 room, all alone, the moment he comes back and told 
 him everything how would that be? It might be better 
 than this feeling I have all the time now all the time 
 even in dreams. Yes, suppose he turned me out of the 
 house the poor baby and me at least I would feel hon 
 est. This horrible, slimy feeling of hypocrisy would be 
 gone. But then 
 
 "Well you see," she said aloud, as if addressing some-
 
 354 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 One. "I would so much rather be dead than be without 
 his love." 
 
 The sound of her own voice speaking in the empty room 
 gave her a scared feeling, and, strange to say, the feeling 
 of the room s not being empty, but filled with some silent, 
 inimical presence. 
 
 "It s as if we were never really alone." she thought, 
 her heart beating faster. "As if there were witnesses." 
 
 She turned over again, and again fell to staring at the 
 grey cornucopias. What would he say if I told him? 
 And suddenly her ears seemed ringing with vile epithets 
 uttered in Owen s voice. She lay quite still, her heart 
 beating faster and faster. She imagined him looking at 
 her with a hard, jeering stare, cool as glass. She even im 
 agined him striking her. 
 
 "Then what would I do? I would get down close to 
 his feet like a dog and kiss them and perhaps he would 
 kick me. No, no ! I am going crazy I m not thinking 
 my own thoughts something not me is thinking them 
 in me. It s that thing that s in this room watching me 
 hating me " 
 
 She spoke aloud again, before she knew it, sitting up 
 and holding back her hair from her hot forehead with 
 both hands. 
 
 "AVell you see," she said again, as though addressing 
 that invisible thing. "The wages of sin is death. But 
 suppose death doesn t come? What pays for sin then?" 
 
 Her voice did not startle her this time. "What pays 
 for sin then?" she repeated, frowning and looking at the 
 wall before her, as though she expected an answer. She 
 waited a moment and then said, still aloud : 
 
 "If death doesn t come, one can go after it, and fetch 
 it, and pay oneself yes, that must be the way. Is it the 
 way?" 
 
 She waited again as if for the answer. It seemed to 
 come from somewhere, for she lay down again with a 
 heavy sigh, murmuring: 
 
 "i r es of course that s it. But it s very difficult to 
 find death. It sounds easy in books but really it s very 
 very difficult." 
 
 Here someone softly opened the door (she had forgotten 
 to lock it) and Mary slipped in with a little tray on which 
 were a glass of sherry and bitters and some delicate sand 
 wiches.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 355 
 
 Phoebe lay looking at her, still with the little pillow 
 doubled against her cheek. 
 
 "I couldn t I couldn t, Cousin Mary," she began mur 
 muring, shivering with repulsion. But Mary came and 
 knelt beside her, speaking with quiet determination. She 
 knew the master-key to Phoebe s will. 
 
 "Listen, dear," she said, "do you want to meet Owen, 
 when he comes back tomorrow, looking like a blue-and- 
 white ghost ? Do you want to be sent to some horrid place 
 for your health, with domineering nurses bullying you 
 from morning till night ? Very well, then, take what 
 I ve brought at once. I ve been watching you. Owen 
 asked me to. You haven t eaten a morsel that I ve seen 
 for nearly two days. Come, Phoebe, I assure you that 
 Owen and Charles Patton between them will certainly 
 pack you off to a sanatorium if they find you looking like 
 this." 
 
 Phoebe swallowed all the wine and ate a sandwich and 
 a half with perfect meekness. Then she suddenly re 
 belled and pushed the plate from her with petulant dis 
 gust. "Not another mouthful not if they sent me to 
 prison," she said, half-sobbing, half-laughing. 
 
 Mary put down the plate, and, sitting down on the sofa, 
 drew her into her arms as though she had been a baby. 
 
 "There there there," she said, rocking her gently. 
 "Do you know, Phoebe, I believe all this is more mental 
 than physical. I believe you ve got something preying on 
 your mind. Yes I believe I know your secret, you little 
 ostrich Phoebe!" she called the next instant. The girl 
 hung limp in her arms. She had fainted dead away. 
 
 Dreadfully frightened, Mary laid her flat on the sofa, 
 and rang for America on her way to the washstand for a 
 wet towel. 
 
 Then, as she knelt by her, trying to restore her, she 
 thought suddenly: 
 
 "I wonder I wonder if it could be that." 
 
 P>ut by "that" Mary only meant that she wondered if 
 this time Phoebe might perhaps be going to bear Owen a 
 son. 
 
 As soon as he saw her on his return from the Hot 
 Springs next evening, Owen was struck by the sudden 
 change in Phoebe, just as Mary had been the day before. 
 It was as if some deep-seated inner illness had suddenly 
 sent its painful sigua 1 into her pale face and heavy eyes.
 
 356 WORLD S-END 
 
 But when Mary spoke of this to him, and asked if he did 
 not mean to have Doctor Patton see her at once, he said no, 
 that he thought Patton was not needed just now, and this 
 confirmed Mary in her own secret thought of yesterday. 
 
 Owen, standing alone over his study fire, mused deeply 
 and painfully. Some way must be found out of this 
 impasse. He could not leave her to sit alone in the dark 
 gaol of her thoughts, like the poor wretch in Poe s story on 
 whom the walls closed inch by inch every day. Yet how? 
 how? In some way by some means he must manage 
 to impart more clearly to her his views on certain ques 
 tions on that question of bodily chastity in relation to 
 the bigger things of life. In a general way she knew his 
 opinions on that subject, knew that he held no narrow, 
 harsh views of women whom the world called disgraced 
 or "lost"; but from the very closeness of the subject to 
 her own piteous case he had never ventured to speak more 
 than casually on such topics. Now the time had come 
 when it would be a kind cruelty to wound her by direct 
 allusions to instances of a like nature, and by so doing 
 clearly and emphatically to make known to her his own 
 attitude towards them. Yes, he must make her see once 
 and for all that in his inmost thought it was by bad faith 
 she had chiefly wronged him, not by a fault committed 
 before she loved him, but by her silence in regard to that 
 fault her lack of truth with him. He felt sure that, once 
 he had expressed himself fully, clearly, strongly in the 
 matter, she would speak out as he knew that she longed 
 to, and her heart would be freed from the load which now 
 seemed eating into it like a cancerous tumor that, long 
 torpid, has suddenly under some hidden stimulus renewed 
 its deadly florescence. She would see how, when he knew 
 all, he could still love and honour her for all that was 
 love- worthy and honourable in her, clean forgiving and 
 forgetting the wrong that she had wiped out by confes 
 sion. She must realise that he was one who left the dead 
 past to bury its dead, and that in his view the woman 
 who has yielded unwisely to love has not by that one act 
 shut herself out from all other love and the respect of 
 those who obey a larger commandment than that written 
 on the tables of the pharisaical: "Thou shalt not de 
 stroy physical chastity, even by ignorance, for by so doing 
 thou destroyest forever all else that is worthy in thee." 
 
 Ah, how well he understood how it had all happened
 
 WORLD S-END 357 
 
 with her, poor child, so young, so undisciplined, not 
 half sensing where codes and conventions are weak and 
 where strong; then slowly, as we all win our souls, coming 
 little by little to the knowledge, from within as well as 
 from without, that bad faith is at bottom the crime, the 
 core of all crime. How well he divined the sense of cow 
 ardly hypocrisy that was gnawing her, the remorse for 
 the lie that she had acted to him; and the fear, the dark, 
 dreadful fear that were she to tell him now he would turn 
 from her with scorn and loathing. 
 
 No, surely, he must not lose more time. But how to 
 come to this subject naturally, without bluntness? He 
 began running over such books as he might read aloud 
 to her "The Heart of Midlothian," "Adam Bede," "The 
 Scarlet Letter," "Esther "Waters." . . . No, none of 
 these was what he wanted. All at once he remembered the 
 volume of Brieux s plays that Sally had been reading that 
 day when he carried the baby to her in the library. He 
 straightened and a relieved look came into his dark face, 
 which had been so puzzled and anxious. Yes, he would 
 read "Maternite" aloud to her that evening, alone in her 
 bedroom ; he would make her comfortable on the sofa, and 
 then, sitting close to her, her little hand (which had been 
 growing too thin of late) clasped in his and the lamp 
 placed so that her face should be in shadow, he would read 
 her the wonderful drama, and by his comments show her 
 his inmost heart. 
 
 "If I can t ease that sweet heart of hers and bring her 
 to confide in me wholly I m no man, but a straw image," 
 he thought grimly. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 nPITE next day was clear and mild, though the blue haze 
 had increased till the mountains looked like scenery in 
 a dream. 
 
 "Let s go wandering, dear," said Owen to Phoebe, as 
 they stood in the South Portico, after luncheon, watching 
 the gardeners raking up the short grass from the lawns 
 which had just been shaven. "You won t even need a 
 hat just put on boots and gaiters, so that we can go into 
 thickets and brier patches if we like and then let s ex 
 plore the whole farm."
 
 358 WORLD S-END 
 
 "Oh, I d love to!" said Phoebe, a timid joy stealing 
 into her shadowed eyes. "It always makes me happy to 
 go over the farm with you." 
 
 She ran off, and was back in ten minutes in a short 
 skirt and stout little boots and shooting gaiters. 
 
 "We ll just stop in at the stables on our way out," 
 said Owen. "I want to have a look at that foreleg of 
 Paternoster s." 
 
 He took some apples from a basket on one of the hall 
 tables, and they went across the western lawn towards the 
 stables. 
 
 The mellow October sun flooded the world softly, clearly, 
 like a great, golden sea whose bed was the arable soil 
 tilled by little mortals. Against the vague blue hills and 
 distances the autumn woods hung like an arras of lovely, 
 faded tapestry, with now and then the more vivid accent 
 of some frost-reddened tree spreading the great posy of its 
 branches against the vaporous azure, just as those bits of 
 ruddy seaweed were spread out by our grandmothers 
 against sheets of bluish cardboard. 
 
 On every side man, tiller of the soil, was at his labours. 
 Here the great fields of maize, their tassels some twelve 
 and fifteen feet about the dark red earth, were beginning 
 to go down beneath the grey blades of the corn-knives; 
 there a spiked team, two milk-white Clydesdales and a 
 grey, plodded soberly, slanting forward in the strain of 
 ploughing along the shoulder of a hill where w r heat had 
 been harvested in June. The rich, share-sleeked clods, 
 violet-brown in this fat "bottom" fell, slowly turning, 
 like a sluggish, heavy wave, in the wake of the plough. 
 And that freshest, sweetest, most mysterious of all fra 
 grances, the scent of newly broken earth, floated dank 
 and cool into the sunlit air. 
 
 High in the dreamy sky a buzzard, ignoblest of birds, 
 noblest of aeronauts, sailed on moveless wings as though 
 dozing in its assured, contemptuous flight above a world 
 that creeps and clambers. And softly, rhythmically, like 
 the beating of the day s heart under its blue gauzes the 
 regular "rap-rap, rap-rap" of the apple-packers ham 
 mers sounded from the distant orchards. 
 
 As they stood on the flight of stone steps, sunk in the 
 turf near the box-hedge that divided the western lawn 
 from the paddocks, they could see the little Green-Flower, 
 stained blue by the sky s caress, chuckling in its sleep as
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 it drowsed gently to the sea, bearing with it gay flotillas 
 of red and yellow leaves. 
 
 Owen looked from the lovely scene to the little face 
 beside him. It was very rapt and quiet. The big eyes 
 seemed searching the hills for some answer to deep, deep 
 questions. lie put out his big hand and took the small 
 one next him, and instantly the slight fingers curled tight 
 about his (almost as little Di s had done that first day 
 when lie touched them), and his heart yearned to her quite 
 as a mother s to her child in grief. But neither said 
 anything. Silent and hand in hand they went on to the 
 stables. 
 
 "Paternoster" was found standing calmly on the fever 
 ish member, which during the night had become as cool 
 and firm as a well-conducted pastern should be, so they 
 bestowed apples right and left, and passed on through the 
 "old orchard," now fallen on senility, with its quaint, 
 gnarled trees that bore "Leather- Jackets" and "Lady 
 Apples" and "Bel-flowers," and under whose branches 
 the horses were allowed to regale themselves on all the 
 windfalls that they could manage. 
 
 "Shall we go and see them cutting maize?" asked Owen, 
 and she said: "Yes. Let s do that. I love the smell of 
 the cut stalks, and to see them building the shocks." 
 
 They stood for some time talking to the men and watch 
 ing them at their work. Being in among the tall stalks 
 was something like being in a jungle of bamboo, and the 
 light air, stirring the broad leaves that were already turn 
 ing brown, made a soft, incessant rustling like the sound 
 of women passing on light feet in gowns of silk. 
 
 "I should think you might get lost in a cornfield 
 mightn t you?" asked Phoebe, gazing about her at the 
 ranks of green and tawny canes growing so densely and 
 regularly. 
 
 "You could indeed," he said, and he told her how an 
 old slave had assured him that a cornfield was a surer 
 hiding place than a forest. 
 
 "Ho\v good it smells!" said Phoebe. "And how fast 
 they work! They have almost built another shock since 
 we ve been standing here. I ve always loved the corn- 
 shocks in autumn. They look like little wigwams standing 
 about over the red fields. It makes me think of the days 
 when there were Indians here friendly Indians, weren t 
 they?"
 
 360 WORLD S-END 
 
 "Yes fine, friendly tribes. Do you see that old silver- 
 fir?" 
 
 He pointed to a splendid old tree whose top had been 
 torn away, giving it a strangely Japanese look. 
 
 "That was where one of the first Owen Randolphs used 
 to sit for pow- wows with the chiefs it s an old land 
 mark. Logan s tree, it s called. That s Logan s tree, 
 isn t it, Uncle Eben?" he asked, addressing an old negro. 
 
 "Yes, suh, Marse Owen, dat s sho Logan s tree. My 
 great-gran paw is ben tend on yo great-gran paw whilst 
 he wuz confabulatin wid ole Logan hisse f onder dat 
 ve y tree." 
 
 "And now," said Phoebe as if to herself, "the tree is 
 just the same but they are changed. . . . They are dust 
 now but the tree is green and strong as ever." 
 
 "No sad thoughts, please," said Owen, drawing her 
 hand through his arm. 
 
 "Indeed, indeed, I wasn t sad," she exclaimed eagerly. 
 "I was only thinking how it all ends that way every 
 thing in quiet in rest 
 
 Well, do you consider that a very cheerful reflection ? 
 he asked, smiling. 
 
 She still gazed earnestly and wistfully at the dark, tran 
 quil tree, out of whose quiet branches a bird had just 
 flown. 
 
 "Rest is such a beautiful thought," she said softly. 
 
 "Isn t joy as beautiful?" 
 
 She gave a little start and coloured slightly. 
 
 "Yes it s all beautiful," she murmured. 
 
 They took a path across the fields towards the New 
 Orchard, as Owen wanted to speak to Downer. 
 
 The brambles grew very thick near a bit of quagmire 
 beyond which ran Logan s Creek, and he went ahead to 
 hold back the long, thorn-armed sprays for her. 
 
 Looking at his tall figure in its old shooting breeches 
 and light cotton shirt that disclosed the splendid muscles 
 with every movement, Phoebe s heart swelled with love and 
 pride and bitter pain. She thought: 
 
 If he knew if he knew he would not trouble to hold 
 back the briers for me." 
 
 An absurd idea intruded itself, as so often happens in 
 our moments of keenest misery. She gave a little invol 
 untary bitter laugh. It was so unlike her usual laughter 
 that Owen turned.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 361 
 
 "What is it?" he asked. "Can t I share the fun?" 
 
 But the look in her eyes worried him, and all at once 
 the thought of that day when he had overtaken her on 
 her way to Thunder Mountain gripped his heart. 
 
 "This must stop," he thought. "I can t have her suf 
 fer like this. God knows what she might do." 
 
 "Well?" he said aloud, "what was your joke, dear?" 
 
 She looked half shy, half reckless. 
 
 "I was just thinking that if I were to be very wicked 
 you wouldn t hold hack the briers for me you would 
 teach me with them, as Gideon taught the men of Suc- 
 coth. Don t you remember? Gideon went out and got 
 him briers, and with them he taught the men of Suc- 
 coth." 
 
 Owen laughed with her. 
 
 "I daresay all that Gideon taught them was a proper 
 fear of Gideon. I don t believe one can teach much more 
 than that with briers." 
 
 Phoebe walked behind him in silence for a few mo 
 ments. Then she said in her low voice: "But you 
 think wickedness ought to be punished, don t you?" 
 
 He answered over his shoulder, without looking at her: 
 
 "There s so little wickedness it s nearly all ignorance. 
 In fact, it s all ignorance, in my philosophy." 
 
 The low voice came again after a moment or two : 
 
 "But you would punish bad ignorance, wouldn t you?" 
 
 "I wouldn t punish anything. I d help it to see bet 
 ter if I could." 
 
 Silence again for a little. Then the voice grew lower 
 than ever, almost inaudible : 
 
 "Don t you think King Arthur in Tennyson s poem 
 was too good to to Guinevere? Men aren t really ever 
 like that, are they?" 
 
 He laughed out, walking steadily on in front of her 
 along the narrow, bramble-set path. 
 
 "Too good! I think he was a bally prig! The most 
 sugary, conceited ass that ever wore a helmet!" 
 
 He heard a sharp little gasp behind him. 
 
 "I I don t know exactly what you mean," she faltered. 
 
 Now he turned round. 
 
 "My dear girl," he said in a matter of fact voice, "just 
 think the thing over for yourself. Have you read the 
 Idyls lately? No? But you remember them clearly 
 enough, I dare say. Well, then just do me the favour
 
 362 WORLD S-END 
 
 of running over Arthur s noble behaviour in your mind. 
 Firstly (He began marking off the points against 
 
 the blameless king on his strong fingers, which she gazed 
 at as though fascinated.) "Firstly if he d had a ray of 
 gumption he d have seen for himself how things were 
 with his wife and Launcelot. Secondly when he did see 
 (if he was so jolly noble and unselfish), he might have 
 managed to arrange things so as to set them both free. 
 Thirdly, as it never occurred to him to do that, ho 
 might at least have spared her that hifalutin interview in 
 the convent. Think of the picture of that sanctimonious 
 prig, standing there in full armour, while the poor woman 
 grovelled at his feet, and holding forth about her 
 golden hair now lying in the dust, and about how in 
 heaven she \vould come to her senses and love him 
 (why, pray?), not Launcelot nor another! . . . You 
 can t really admire that royal he-prude, Phoebe. You 
 don t really think he w r as too good to poor Guinevere, 
 do you?" 
 
 Phoebe had stood through this, her colour changing 
 from white to red, from red to white. It was so wildly, 
 improbably strange to hear Owen thus defending the royal 
 adulteress against her spotless husband. 
 
 "But but " she stammered finally, "but she was 
 
 wicked, Owen. She deceived him she deceived her hus 
 band." 
 
 "Not in the vulgar, every day sense, Phoebe. She had 
 been married by proxy to Launcelot when she was a 
 young, ignorant girl. He was the most famous knight at 
 Arthur s table. Night after night, during that long, false 
 bridal journey, they lay side by side with his bare sword 
 between them. But swords can t divide hearts and 
 thoughts. 
 
 He took a step towards her in the narrow path, and, 
 framing her face in his hands, raised it so that he could 
 look into her eyes. "Tell me, Phoebe," he said softly, 
 do you think that a naked sword between us on our bridal 
 bed would have kept our hearts apart?" 
 
 Her eyes quickened under his. 
 
 "No " she whispered. 
 
 He held her to him an instant, then released her. 
 
 "And you may be very sure of this," he continued, 
 resuming his walk ahead of her, "that, no matter what 
 you had done, I shouldn t let you crawl about the floor
 
 WORLD S-END 363 
 
 while I preached to you from the heights of my self- 
 righteousness." 
 
 Phoebe walked behind him dumbly, her thoughts all in 
 a bright, confused tangle like the parti-coloured ribbons 
 that issue from a juggler s mouth. She was too bewil 
 dered to take real comfort from his words, yet there was a 
 balm in them that soothed that steady, bitter pain in her 
 heart. And presently, out of the bewildering, snarled 
 brightness of these thoughts came one, clear and golden, 
 a ray of hope piercing her darkness like a magic blade. 
 
 He had found excuses for Guinevere ! Maybe maybe 
 
 But no. It was impossible. He could judge Guinevere 
 with leniency because she was so far apart from him, but 
 for his own wife, the woman who slept on his heart, 
 
 who might some day bear his son He would not be 
 
 human if he did not have for her another judgment. And 
 then, besides, the child the child that he thought his! 
 No, Guinevere had not been as false as she, Phoebe, had 
 been. She had not gone to the king soiled and stained, 
 letting him believe her pure, letting him fey marriage 
 with her assume the fatherhood of a child not his. There 
 it was the unforgivable, the inexpiable, the awful false 
 ness on which she had reared her brittle palace of joy. 
 "What had she and joy to do with each other? She had 
 snatched at the cloak of what she thought passing happi 
 ness, and it had come away in her selfish, feverish grasp, 
 disclosing the stark figure of vain remorse barring her 
 way. 
 
 Suddenly Owen sprang aside and pressed in among the 
 twigs of a thicket near the creek which they had now 
 reached. She followed him to the edge of the tangle, 
 wondering what it was that he had seen. 
 
 "When he came back, from between his big fingers, care 
 fully hollowed, there peeped the sleek, tiny head of a field- 
 sparrow, with its scared eyes so like blackberry seeds. 
 
 Owen opened his fingers slightly and showed her one 
 little chafed claw. 
 
 "It was caught in a forked twig," he said. "If 
 I hadn t happened to see it, it would have starved to 
 death." 
 
 "Oh," said Phoebe, her eyes suddenly full of tears, 
 "how kind, how kind you are to everything!" 
 
 Owen smiled at her over the bird s timid, bright-eyed 
 head. "You talk of Guinevere s wickedness, " said he.
 
 364 WORLD S-END 
 
 "This poor little mite was wicked enough to get itself 
 caught in a forked twig. All young things who go 
 wrong, as they say, are just birds in forked twigs." He 
 opened his hand, lifting it towards the sky with the little 
 fluff of feathers quivering on it. An instant s doubting 
 pause, then, like a shot from a magic sling, away . . . 
 out ... up sped the tiny life. 
 
 They entered the orchard by the southwest gate, and 
 walked towards the sound of hammering along aisles of 
 trees already stripped for the market. And these young 
 trees, so vigorous and symmetrical, on which, only here 
 and there, hung a small, reddish fruit too inferior to be 
 worth gathering, seemed very sad to Phoebe. Patient 
 dryads, they looked to her, from whom all their rosy off 
 spring had been taken away. 
 
 "It was so gay and cheerful in here a week ago," she 
 said, "and now the poor trees look so sad in their dark 
 green dresses with all the apples gone." 
 
 Owen stopped and took a graceful bough in his hand. 
 "Yes," he answered, "but think of the magic secret that 
 each of these bare twigs knows. Thousands of blossoms 
 hidden here, thousands more of apples. . . . We shall 
 be here next spring, please providence, and you will see 
 these sober things in bloom each a tent worthy of Peri- 
 banou and her lover." 
 
 But in Phoebe s heart was the sick thought: "Can I 
 stand it till the spring? This pain, all the time all the 
 time?" 
 
 "It must be wonderful," she said aloud. "I d love to 
 see them. But all these." She stooped and picked up 
 an apple from the pile of discards near which they stood. 
 "They look so fresh and sound. It seems such a waste to 
 leave them." 
 
 "Look carefully," he said. "No matter how sound 
 they seem, they have each their secret, too a dark little 
 secret this time." 
 
 "How?" she asked, turning the glossy, scarlet fruit in 
 her hands and gazing at it. 
 
 He took the apple from her and showed her a tiny dark 
 speck near the stem. 
 
 "It s only a speck," he said, "but it goes to the core. 
 Wait I ll show you." 
 
 He twisted the apple in two with a turn of his strong 
 wrists. "There! you see!" he said.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 365 
 
 And Phoebe saw that the one black speck ran in a little 
 groove to the heart of the fruit. 
 
 "Just one cheeky worm," he smiled, throwing 1 away the 
 halves, "and the whole fruit s good for nothing but 
 pigs or bulk." 
 
 The blood rushed suddenly into her face. 
 
 But all the rest was good ! she cried passionately. 
 "Why do you throw it in the dirt?" 
 
 She stood gazing at the broken fruit, now smeared with 
 red dust, and her dark eyes had a pained, almost angry, 
 protest in them. He knew so well what she was thinking! 
 He raged inwardly at his cruel, momentary forgetfulness. 
 
 "Of course the rest was good," he said lightly. "It s 
 only that for the winter market they don t keep when 
 they re like that. Apple merchants ask far more than 
 philosophers. They won t be satisfied with anything short 
 of perfection." 
 
 "It seems cruel somehow," she said sadly, all pale and 
 listless again. "But of course they re right it went to 
 the heart.- If it had only been on the outside " 
 
 He put his arm about her as they went on. "You 
 mustn t talk so wofully, as if apples were human beings," 
 he said, smiling. "Sometimes a worm at that strange 
 thing, the human heart, only sweetens it. I can t imagine 
 a more deadly companion than a flawless human being, 
 dear woebegone." 
 
 "But just faults are different from a black spot in the 
 heart " 
 
 "Even that apple didn t have a black spot in its heart, 
 Phoebe. Downer and I are far too proud to allow that 
 to happen. That worm just took his selfish fill from one 
 tiny corner. A black spot at the heart would come from 
 some disease of the apple itself, and we don t have that 
 kind at AVorld s-End." 
 
 "But you threw it in the dirt." 
 
 "I did it without thinking." 
 
 "Yes just naturally. It was blemished men don t 
 like blemished things." 
 
 "Your knowledge of men is of course beyond question," 
 laughed Owen. 
 
 "I know that much," she said with dreary obstinacy. 
 
 "What you might call blemished women have been 
 loved more perhaps than any others." 
 
 "How could that be?"
 
 366 WORLD S-END 
 
 "Because, as a rule, they have the most lovable natures 
 and the warmest hearts. Despite your coek-sureness, I 
 doubt if your knowledge of men is as profound as you 
 think, little cynic. A real man what a man would call a 
 man puts warm-heartedness and generosity and general 
 charm far above other things." 
 
 "What other things? she asked, her voice sinking. 
 
 He laughed softly. 
 
 "Why, conventional piety, and housekeeping, and 
 strong-mindedness, and literary ability, and yes and even 
 bodily chastity. A real man had far rather take a gen 
 erous, impulsive, warm-blooded, free-lance to wife than an 
 immaculate but mean-natured virgin." 
 
 Phoebe could not feel the soft earth of the orchard 
 under her feet for a few paces. She tried to speak, and 
 swallowed nervously. 
 
 Then she said, her heart racing: 
 
 "You mean if if he knew it and chose to do it. But 
 suppose 
 
 That nervous swallowing seized her again. She man 
 aged to finish her sentence. 
 
 "Suppose he found it out afterward?" 
 
 Owen gave that soft laugh again. 
 
 "From your awe-stricken tone," he said, "I suppose 
 that you fancy him slaying her, or crying Avaunt, wan 
 ton ! in a terrible voice, and turning on his superior heel 
 to leave her forever to remorse." 
 
 Phoebe walked on blindly for another moment, clinging 
 to his arm, through which he had drawn her hand. 
 
 Then she faltered. 
 
 "Well what would he do?" 
 
 "If he were a real man," said Owen, striking with his 
 stick at the drooping boughs, "I should think he d be so 
 devilish sorry for her, that he d probably love her all the 
 more to make up to her for all she d suffered. 
 
 "Oh! It s turning black!" cried Phoebe, and she fell 
 against him, grasping with her other hand. 
 
 He sat down on the warm, dry earth, and laid her with 
 her head upon his knees. When he saw that she had re 
 covered, and was not going to faint, he said : 
 
 "You know, Phoebe Mary s been telling tales on you. 
 It seems that you don t eat enough to maintain a mos 
 quito. Now, while I ve got you so entirely at my mercy, 
 you ve got to promise me something. Either you promise
 
 WORLD S-END 367 
 
 that from this time forward you ll eat properly, or I 
 phone for Charles Patton as soon as we get back to the 
 house." 
 
 "Oh, I promse I do promise," she said. He pulled 
 her up into his arms, holding her jealously. 
 
 "You little imp!" he said brokenly, "to dare go fret 
 ting over things you won t tell me of you wicked child! 
 Don t you know me yet?" 
 
 A wild impulse leaped in Phoebe. It was almost like 
 the leap of a quickening child within her. 
 
 Til tell him now, she thought. Yes now ! No ! 
 I can t I can t! lie thinks he d forgive but he doesn t 
 know really he can t know " 
 
 And, in a passion of pain and love and remorse, she 
 clung to him and returned his caresses with wild ardour. 
 
 Owen thought: 
 
 "Almost almost she was going to tell me then " 
 
 "When he helped her to her feet there was a soft colour 
 in her face and her eyes were like blue stars. 
 
 They came at last upon the still joyous scene of the 
 apple-packing. Here the trees were still laden with gleam 
 ing fruit, and the gatherers in their blue overalls hurried 
 to and fro with the white, split baskets heaped w r ith scarlet 
 balls. 
 
 The head-man told them that Downer had just gone to 
 the mill-stables, so they turned in that direction. Some 
 young mules, with gentle, foolish faces and eyes blacked 
 round the edges like a professional beauty s, came crowd 
 ing about them as they crossed the pasture. 
 
 "What lovely little feet they ve got!" said Phoebe hap 
 pily. "I wonder if they like apples!" Her heart felt so 
 light that these young mules with their plushy, bitumen- 
 black coats and long black and tan faces seemed to her 
 the most exchanting creatures. All the animals under 
 George Downer s care were as tame as household pets, and 
 the mule colts, all fuzzy and sleek at the same time, 
 nuzzled arid pressed about her for the apples with which 
 she had filled the pockets of her coat. 
 
 As they reached the mill some piglings were being fed 
 in a little trough outside the general feeding-pen, and 
 again it seemed to her that she had never realised what 
 adorable creatures were the young of swine. 
 
 She caught Owen s arm and laughed with glee over 
 their greedy antics until tears hung on her thick, short
 
 368 WORLD S-END 
 
 lashes. One piggy, the "runt," unable to reach the mush 
 in the trough as easily as the others, balanced on his fat 
 stomach with his tiny hams and hind feet hanging like 
 tassels in the air. And they snuffled, and guzzled, and 
 choked, and bit at one another, squealing until they were 
 all splashed with buttermilk, which clung whitely to their 
 long eyelashes and eagerly flapping ears. 
 
 "I must see the mother of these darlings!" she said, 
 and Downer introduced her to the preposterous "Desde- 
 mona," whose lord, "Othello," enjoyed the dignity of a 
 mansion, with glass windows and a paddock, all to him 
 self. She leaned over the fence, and scratched the back 
 of the Berkshire matron with a stick that Downer handed 
 her, and the huge sow, pleasedly moving her thick hide, 
 looked up at her out of her strangely human eyes, set 
 with inch-long lashes. 
 
 "Owen! Come and see! She looks at me as if she 
 understood things! I thought pigs had ugly little eyes. 
 I never looked at one so close before. Her eyes are a 
 lovely brown, and the whites show on both sides like 
 people s eyes. And what eyelashes! Owen! It makes 
 me feel queer the way she looks at me." 
 
 They went together to the paddock of the thoroughbred 
 stallion, "Coxcomb." Owen whistled, and he came slant 
 ing towards them in a splendid curve, tail floating out like 
 a slim plume of brown thistle-down. 
 
 "Why, he s gentle as a dog!" she cried, caressing the 
 ruby-lined nostrils, soft as bats wings. "I believe he d 
 let me kiss him." 
 
 And she touched her lips to the delicate muzzle. Cox 
 comb" sneezed in acknowledgment of this compliment, 
 and covered her with speckles of white. 
 
 Then Downer led the way to where the giant Clydesdale, 
 "Clyde s King," moved at a majestic, clumpering walk 
 along the fence of his kingdom. His huge neck, clothed 
 in its wavy, parted mane, was thrust towards them like an 
 Albrecht Diirer drawing of a medieval war-steed. The 
 great, dark globes of his eyes looked mildly inquiring, and 
 he seemed to smile ingratiatingly, wrinkling up his square 
 lip from his big, stained teeth. 
 
 "He s asking for an apple," said Owen, and she offered 
 him one, drawing back her hand rather quickly as the 
 rubbery lips "happed" down on her palm, securing the 
 apple.
 
 WORLD S-END 369 
 
 Then the Standard-bred "Emperor" and the "Jack," 
 "Blue Thunder" were visited, and Downer called up the 
 Southdowns for them, and pointed out the young cattle 
 grazing in the mountain pasture. 
 
 "It s nice being so near them all," Phoebe said as they 
 turned away. "I ve got such a new happy feeling, as if 
 I d just realised that I m a little animal too, and that it s 
 good to be an animal " 
 
 "Dear little animal!" said Owen, laughing. 
 
 lie was so rejoiced to see that he had been able to lift 
 the pressure of pain from her heart that the full, simple 
 life throbbing all about them seemed peculiarly magnetic 
 and akin to him also. 
 
 "And this evening, when I ve read that play to her," 
 he thought, "she ll realise still more how I feel, and that 
 she. needn t scorch her dear heart night and day because 
 of me and yes, perhaps she will tell me and together 
 we will put the past away forever." 
 
 XLIV 
 
 VEX sat. by the sofa in Phoebe s bedroom, with her 
 hand in his, reading Brieux s great play to her as he 
 had planned that afternoon. 
 
 The night was so mild that, though there was a fire on 
 the hearth, both windows stood open, with the shutters 
 thrown back, and, from where she lay, Phoebe could see 
 the pricking of the stars through the moths -down dark, 
 and hear the dry seething of the yellow poplar leaves in the 
 soft wild wind that came passionately sighing and fainting 
 out of the west, 
 
 From a shrub just under her window rose the sweet, 
 feeble trilling of some belated insect, bidding the summer 
 farewell, and there was a springlike piping of frogs from 
 a far meadow. 
 
 She lay quite still, her eyes on the windy darkness and 
 the little gold blur of the Pleiades, seen now and then 
 as the leaves were blown apart. 
 
 At the end of the second act he laid the book face down 
 on his knee and said : 
 
 "Isn t that a marvellous, heart-breaking thing? I won t 
 read you the last act. It s fine in its way, but somehow
 
 370 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 one feels that it s there to prove things written for a 
 purpose outside the tragic humanness of the rest. Brieux 
 is making some big points in it, but the great throb of the 
 drama has stopped." 
 
 How does it end ? she asked in her most muted voice. 
 "Does she die?" 
 
 "Yes poor little soul." 
 
 "Does . . . does she kill herself?" 
 
 "No. She dies from malpractice. I suppose her sister 
 tried to save her from having a child." 
 
 The wind spent itself for the time being in a great 
 breath like a love-sigh, and in the stillness that followed 
 the fluting of the lonely cricket rose faint and pathetic. 
 
 "I am glad she died," said Phoebe, and her voice too 
 was pathetic and very faint. 
 
 "But what a horrible, useless thing it all was," he an 
 swered. "One real man with a heart in his body could 
 have saved them all. That s where the tragedy comes 
 home to me, darling." 
 
 "Could have saved them?" 
 
 He played with his mother s ring on her hand. "Why, 
 of course, darling. If that brute of a brother-in-law had 
 been half a man even, don t you see how he could have 
 sheltered and comforted that poor child and his wife? It 
 makes one s blood boil, because, though Brieux has put 
 it into this masterpiece, it happens all the time in real life." 
 
 "You would have saved her." 
 
 She did not put this as a question, but stated it as a 
 fact. 
 
 "Yes . . . you would have saved her. But you couldn t 
 have saved her from herself." 
 
 "How do you mean, dear. . . . Couldn t have saved 
 her from herself?" 
 
 "From the pain and the shame and the long, long mis 
 ery," said the muted voice. 
 
 He lifted the hand, which had grown so cold in his as 
 he read on, and kissed it and the ring. 
 
 "I hope that I d have had the power to save her even 
 from that," he said. 
 
 "But how could you? How could anyone?" 
 
 He laid the little hand on his knee, and stroked and 
 played with it as though it were a flower. 
 
 "Do you know, Phoebe," he said, "I ve a notion that 
 you ve got rather a Pietist way of looking at such ques-
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 371 
 
 tions. I ve noticed it several times. And I don t like to 
 think that there s even one vital point that we don t per 
 fectly agree on." 
 
 He heard her take in her breath softly, cautiously. 
 "How don t we agree?" she said. 
 
 "AVhy, you spoke as if that poor girl in the play would 
 have had to go on being ashamed and wretched, no matter 
 what happened. You said it just as if it were a matter 
 of course. Or did you mean that?" 
 
 "Yes ... I meant it." 
 
 "But darling . . . forgive me, but that s such poppy 
 cock!" he said. 
 
 "Oh, Owen!" 
 
 "Such out-of-date, Puritanical twaddle, my sweet dear. 
 Do you mean to say that that poor child" (he caught 
 his own breath imperceptibly before going on), "just 
 because in her young, ignorant love, thinking no evil, 
 she became the prey of a scoundrel, do you really 
 mean that you would have her suffer and be ashamed all 
 the rest of her life?" 
 
 "No, no ... I wouldn t want her to. She . . . she 
 just couldn t help it." 
 
 "If 7 had been her brother she could have helped it. 
 I would have made her see things as they are, not as 
 prudes and prigs and puritans say they are." 
 
 "Yes . . . but. . . . 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 "A ... a ... brother . . . might. No, even a brother 
 couldn t! Oh, don t you see? ... 
 
 She raised herself on one arm now, pushing back her 
 heavy hair. 
 
 "Don t you see? ... it ... it ... wouldn t be what 
 others thought. ... It would be her own thoughts . . . 
 her thoughts about herself." 
 
 "And what do you think these thoughts would be?" 
 
 The answer came quick and passionate. 
 
 "She would hate herself . . . she would feel that all 
 the seas couldn t wash her clean." 
 
 Owen pushed aside the little table that held the lamp, 
 and, coining close, drew her head upon his breast. 
 
 "Darling, you exaggerate dreadfully," he said. "In 
 the first place, true chastity is really a thing of the 
 spirit. The body may make a mistake and the spirit may 
 chafe and be wretched, but it s absurd and unreasonable
 
 372 WORLD S-END 
 
 to consider that a girl who has erred through love is a 
 polluted being. She s an unfortunate being as the world 
 wags now, but she s far and away a higher being than 
 the woman who marries for convenience or money. She s 
 stars above the woman who for prudential reasons gives 
 herself to the embraces of a husband that she dislikes 
 or despises." 
 
 He could feel the violent beating of her heart through 
 the arm over which his hand was clasped. "She . . . 
 you re talking of a girl in a book, came the low murmur. 
 
 "I m talking of every girl who ever has lived, or does 
 live or will live," he said, kissing her hair. 
 
 She lay quite silent. Then she said: 
 
 "You wouldn t talk so ... if ... if it was . . . 
 me." 
 
 "And why not, you ungrammatical darling? You don t 
 know me quite. Suppose you were suddenly to tell me 
 that you had had a lover ... (he held his breath again) 
 ... a child even. . . . Do you think that would change 
 my love ? Don t you think, knowing you as I do ... the 
 woman who has slept on my heart now for half a year 
 . . . don t you think I know you well enough to know 
 that such a thing could not have befallen you except 
 through love? And don t you know that to fall through 
 love is not to commit a crime, but, as the world goes now, 
 to make a bitter mistake? Don t you know that mother 
 hood in itself is a sacred thing? Can you really think 
 for a moment, knowing me as only a woman knows the 
 man who is her mate, can you think I would judge you ? 
 Condemn you?" 
 
 Suddenly she wrenched herself free and slipped to 
 her knees before him, grasping his arms with both hands. 
 She hung there from his shoulders like the figure in the 
 old print clinging to a stone cross in a stormy sea. Her 
 eyes blazed on his, her lips were parted. 
 
 "Oh, I will tell you! ... I will tell you!" she cried, 
 her bosom struggling against his knees for breath. "I 
 will . . . tell you ..." she panted on a lower note. And 
 now she hung heavily from her clutching hands and her 
 breath came quick. "I will . . . tell . . . you. . . . 
 
 "What, my darling? What will you tell me?" he said, 
 his arms about her. 
 
 And he thought: 
 
 "Now . . . now she is going to tell me ... at last!
 
 WORLD S-END 373 
 
 And I will stop her after the first words, and tell her 
 that I ve always known . . . and that she need never 
 see Richard s scoundrel face again. . . . Now . . . 
 now. 
 
 To her he said again: 
 
 "What is it you want to tell me, my dear darling?" 
 
 But her eyes, still gazing at him, changed ; the fire 
 died down in them. She turned piteously pale, and slowly, 
 thickly she faltered : 
 
 "... That I love you . . . that I love you more than 
 God." 
 
 Then her head drooped forward against him. He felt 
 her shaking with great sohs. 
 
 "I ... I ... am just sorry . . . for the poor girl 
 ... in the play ..." she whispered through that pite 
 ous sobbing, 
 
 October passed on its swaggering, golden way. No 
 vember came and went, with its pale crown of Indian sum 
 mer and veil of wood-smoke from forest-fires, through 
 which peered a sun coloured like a Jacqueminot rose. 
 
 December rushed on World s-End, frost-nipped and 
 cheery, with the "weather-glim" of icy-gold and violet 
 belted about its round horizon, and the sound of axes 
 ringing from the mountain woods. 
 
 And this long chaplet of wonderful, vivid days, (never 
 had there been such an autumn and early winter said 
 the old folk) this jewelled rosary of time, Phoebe told 
 with the feverish fervour of a nun, whose convent may 
 be sacked by nightfall, telling her heaven-ensuring 
 beads. For it had been understood early in November 
 that Richard could not come again to World s-End until 
 Christmas, and then only for a few days. He was simply 
 overwhelmed with work, Sally had explained. Sylvia 
 Beresford wanted him to decorate the whole lower floor 
 of her town house, and Mrs. Fierce-Hull had commissioned 
 him to paint ceilings and walls in the big hall of her 
 country place on Long Island. 
 
 So Phoebe lived, as was her ardent wont, with might 
 and main during the precious respite that fate had ac 
 corded her. 
 
 She was that wonderful thing to Owen, mistress and 
 wife and companion all in one. and he felt sometimes as 
 though he must break through the thin veil that still hung
 
 374 WORLD S-END 
 
 between them, and tell her to he utterly at peace, that 
 not even for a few sinister days need she ever see Rich 
 ard again; that he (Owen) knew, and understood, and 
 took her part against herself so that not even in thought 
 must she be disloyal to her truest self, the self that was 
 her own and his, that should be inviolate of anything so 
 low and disintegrating as vain remorse. 
 
 But he controlled this desire. From the beginning he 
 had kept silence for two reasons: first, that Phoebe 
 might not think compassion alone had prompted him to 
 offer her marriage; second, (and this was by far the most 
 vital factor in his course towards her) that she might de 
 velop from within, of her own volition, into the fineness 
 and strength of character that he knew to be latent in her. 
 
 If he forced the truth and his forgiveness upon her, 
 they would still be gifts from without, things apart from 
 her. But if the truth so wrought in her that she could 
 no longer act a lie, then she would indeed possess her own 
 soul. She would be truth, not wear it at another s bid 
 ding like a garment that may be put on and off at will. 
 
 Perhaps life, master of irony, never arranged a situa 
 tion more to his gusto than the arrival of Richard at 
 World s-End on Christmas Eve. Laden with gifts he 
 came, and of course everyone (even Phoebe, to whom 
 Owen had made a present of the present that she was 
 to bestow) had gifts for him, neatly laid away in tissue- 
 paper, sealed with little red cross charity stamps, and 
 tied with ribbon decorated with holly. No, it is impos 
 sible that irony ever had more toothsome nourishment 
 than when Richard was handed by Mary, as distributor 
 of Christmas-tree fruit, a volume of Villon in a marvel 
 lous old binding, the gift of Phoebe to her nephew-in- 
 law; while Phoebe received a real "yellow- jacket" of 
 royal Chinese weave, with buttons of solid gold, the sea 
 son s offering from Richard. 
 
 She got America to light a huge fire in the laundry 
 later in the day, and slipping out (the laundry was a 
 brick building to itself) she locked the door, and laid 
 the lovely robe on its last bed of coals. It writhed feebly 
 before it caught, as though sentient, and she watched it 
 shuddering, her hands gripped together, and her heart 
 beating fast. Very slowly it burned, and some of the 
 gold buttons were melted, and some escaped among thi?
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 375 
 
 ashes; these last America fished out afterwards, and had 
 set in a gorgeous bracelet which she never wore, however, 
 until safely out of sight of her mistress. 
 
 Then, still pursuant of this great ironic play, cus 
 tom must needs compel Richard to follow with the little 
 company that, headed by Phoebe and Owen, went first 
 to Downer s house to preside over the "Christmas-tree" 
 held there yearly for the laborers and their families. 
 Then down to the servants dining-hall at "World s-End, 
 vcli ere a like tree was erected for the negroes and picka 
 ninnies, and a noble feast, including roast pigs and tur 
 keys, spread for the retainers and their friends. He 
 had to stand by, smiling as best he could, while the old 
 servants drank the healths of the family one by one, name 
 by name, and called heaven s blessings on the "1 il 
 mist ss" meaning Diana) and hoped that Owen s seed 
 would be like Abraham s "as dee sands of dee sea." 
 And at Hannah s request, he had to play the small organ 
 that was Owen s Christmas gift to them (being the only 
 musically endowed member of the family there was no 
 escape) fitting horrible, commonplace chords to 
 
 "Dere s a star in de East on Chris mus morn, 
 Rise up, chillun, an follow. 
 
 And to the old plantation hymn, oddly out of place to 
 the Caucasian mind at such a festival: 
 
 "God s gwine set dc worl on fire! 
 He s gwine raise de heavens higher ! etc. 
 
 And also Richard had to play, "Nearer my God to thee," 
 while the rich, thundering chorus of throaty negro voices 
 rolled about him, and he could see (without looking at 
 it) Phoebe s face, hard and cold and white as a heart- 
 shaped pearl, close to Owen s shoulder. 
 
 "When Sally would have drawn him into her bedroom 
 for a good-night talk that evening he shrank back, saying 
 in a stifled voice. 
 
 "Not tonight, mother ... I m not fit to be with any 
 one but myself tonight." 
 
 And he went off to his own room and, shutting the door 
 with a vicious jerk, was suddenly aware that his eyes were 
 wet with tears of rage. Yes. it was as he had said to his 
 mother that autumn, the edge of his helpless, base anger
 
 376 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 against her whom he had injured only grew keener with 
 time and occasion. Hateful desires wrung him. He 
 imagined himself wiping that little frozen curl of im 
 placable, sick scorn from her red lips with a kiss of hate; 
 searing it from them with the cold flame of angry lust. 
 And he shook, standing there alone in his room, as with 
 the evil appetite of some gnawing disease which craves 
 unholy food, with a low hunger akin to the horrid greed 
 of the cannibal for human flesh. For he was struggling 
 in the throes of that cruelly dividing emotion, desire for 
 a woman s beauty, and hatred of the woman herself. 
 
 And ever there grew in him the craving to hurt her, 
 to wound her in her dearest nerve. He had not descended 
 so low into the abysm of self that he desired to ruin her 
 in the eyes of others; what he craved was some stinging 
 moment, he and she alone, when he could fling her back 
 again some measure of the scorn with which whenever 
 they chanced his way her still eyes covered him. What 
 right had she to look at him as though he were offal, as 
 he had once said? After all, she had not been a child 
 when love overcame her. Something at least of the ways 
 of passion she must have guessed. She had come out to 
 him in the soft May night. Did she expect to pass a 
 wild night of spring with a lover and go scatheless? 
 Had not her lips clung to his? Her breast throbbed quick 
 on his? And he grew dizzy with the longing that mem 
 ory awoke in him, and the fierce anger which he now 
 felt against her for daring to treat him as though he were 
 some refuse that life had left upon her path. 
 
 To hurt her ... to hurt her in her dearest nerve, se 
 cretly, cunningly, that only would assuage this cold 
 fever that devoured him. But he knew well that madness 
 lay that way. He must endure as best he might. Yet 
 here she and her child were lapped in luxury and he 
 constrained to this vile hypocrisy unless he would be beg 
 gared of everything. 
 
 He stood at his window, staring out at the lovely lawns 
 and fields wrapped in winter moonlight, and a shrilling 
 shimmer of sound told him that the sheep were running 
 after the bellwether from some imaginary danger. The 
 sound brought back all childhood and boyhood. He re 
 membered how once when a tiny lad, he had asked his 
 mammy, sitting up in his crib to listen, "What s that 
 funny noise?" And mammy had said: "Go to sleep
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 877 
 
 little master, dat s only dee sheep-bells. H it s only your 
 own sheeps running to fold." 
 
 And when he had asked "Are they really all my 
 sheep, mammy?" 
 
 IShe had said: "Well, dey s as good ez yo own sheeps 
 same as dis whole place is good as yo n ef Marse Owen 
 don t never marry." 
 
 And now it had all slipped from him forever like some 
 bright, teasing houri in a dream. And she and her child, 
 his own child would have it all. . . . Yes . . . she 
 had taken everything from him . . . stripped him naked 
 . . . yet she must needs blister his bareness with her 
 steady, unrelenting scorn. . . . 
 
 Then, suddenly, with that curious perverseness which 
 was his chief characteristic, he realised that the emotion 
 which so rankled in him was one of rare and peculiar 
 savour. Cesare Borgia might have felt towards a woman 
 who dared scorn him just such a poignantly envenomed 
 mixture of desire and hatred. 
 
 And he began to muse on the power of different cycles 
 over the form assumed by human passions, which at core 
 are so unvarying. 
 
 He recalled the portrait of Cesare, by Raphael, in the 
 Borghese gallery at Rome, and how several people had 
 said that he resembled it. His face was longer and more 
 sharply modelled, but he could see, himself, that his 
 opaque, black eyes, slightly swimming up from the lower 
 lids, and his mouth, small, composed and secretive, were 
 much the same as those in the portrait. Yet, though this 
 biting, poisonous emotion that now corroded him might 
 have been felt by that other, pang for pang, his expression 
 of it in the fifteenth century and any expression that could 
 be given it in the twentieth must necessarily differ in 
 all essentials. 
 
 It brought him a grim diversion in his sore, exasperated 
 mood, unmedicined by even the hope of retaliation, to 
 fancy what course Cesare might have pursued with a 
 w r oman who presumed to look at him with a very nausea 
 of loathing. He remembered how the Duke of Valentino 
 had been used in perverse sport to shoot with arrows at 
 prisoners loosed in a court-yard for the purpose, pin 
 ning them by the hair and garments with cruel skill, 
 until he chose at last to send a shaft home in the quiver 
 ing flesh. Yes, he might have ordered a woman like Phoebe
 
 378 WORLD S-END 
 
 to be brought into that court-yard and, then, cool, in 
 scrutable, with the little placid smile on his small mouth, 
 he might have sent his delicate arrows through her gown 
 as she ran terrified from wall to wall, fixing her at last 
 by the mass of her splendid hair. Then, while she hung 
 there, crucified against the wall by her own hair, he 
 might have advanced, smiling and suavely elegant in 
 his velvet and slashed sleeves, and, as he sealed her ter 
 rified, parted lips together with a kiss, might have driven 
 his poniard into her heart. 
 
 Yes, it would have been like Cesare to take that subtle, 
 terrible caress from dying lips that loathed him. There 
 were no such men or passions now. Even he, who 
 could conceive this blighting force of lustful revenge in 
 another, had no desire to harm vitally the woman that 
 he craved and detested at the same time. To make her 
 share, if for a moment only, the stinging humiliation 
 which she dealt out to him was the utmost of his desire. 
 But he wondered whether, had he lived in Cesare s day, 
 he might not have been capable of deeper cruelty. 
 
 As the week which he was compelled by circumstance 
 to spend at World s-Erid went by, his pent, sullen anger 
 against her bit ever sharper and sharper. Small incidents 
 were continually happening to exacerbate this feeling. 
 The skill with which she avoided ever addressing him 
 directly without seeming rude was really amazing. Never 
 once, since his first visit in October, had she spoken to him, 
 except in the casual way demanded by her position as 
 hostess. When she did speak, she looked between his eyes. 
 Once chance so arranged it that they met face to face in 
 the woods of World s-End Mountain. He had gone out 
 with his gun, though the legal date for shooting was past, 
 having sickened of hunting, and the long, aimless rides 
 that formed the only alternative. Phoebe, seeing that 
 "Borak" was not in the stables (she was very careful to 
 inform herself of Richard s probable whereabouts), and 
 ignorant of the fact that a groom had ridden him to 
 Crewe, had gone to the winter woods for refuge. 
 
 They met face to face. Richard, standing by a great 
 boulder in the dry bed of a stream, saw her coming long 
 before she saw him. His first thought was to turn back, 
 then a savage impulse fixed him. He stood watching her, 
 his small mouth just touched by a smile. 
 
 Phoebe was walking with her head bent, her eyes on
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 379 
 
 the dead leaves which rustled ankle-deep about her. Grow 
 ing warm with the steady climb she had thrown her 
 jacket over one shoulder, and rolled her gloves into a 
 ball, which she tossed absently in her hand as she ad 
 vanced. When she was about a yard from him she looked 
 up with a start, like one rousing suddenly from sleep. 
 
 Her face went white and her eyes black. The gloves 
 fell on the dead leaves between them. 
 
 Richard stooped and handed them to her. She took 
 them mechanically, then turning short, went away from 
 him between the grey stems of the trees. When she had 
 gone about ten paces he saw her hand open and the gloves 
 fall at her side. She walked rapidly on and soon the grey 
 aisles hid her from him. 
 
 A blaze of wrath scorched Richard. 
 
 "She dropped them as if they were filth, just because 
 I d touched them," he thought, staring at them. His jaw 
 set with an ugly clench. As he passed the gloves on his 
 way down the mountain he kicked them aside among the 
 underbrush. 
 
 That afternoon, when tea was being served in the rose 
 room, Mary ran in with the baby, and sat her on the car 
 pet. 
 
 "Just watch her!" she cried, laughing. "She ll be 
 toddling before we know it. She pulls herself up on her 
 little feet by anything that s handy." 
 
 Richard saw Phoebe s eyes dilate as they fixed them 
 selves on little Diana. As once before, the baby was 
 crawling straight towards him, pausing now and then to 
 hammer with her little feet on the carpet, and gurgle 
 joyously. In her eagerness she had taken her small under- 
 lip entirely under her daisy-petal teeth, and her small 
 chapped chin glistened like a pink shell with the tension. 
 
 Phoebe half rose from her chair, then sank back again. 
 She was just pouring out a cup of tea for Sally. With 
 a hand that shook slightly she carefully dropped in the 
 two lumps that Sally always took with her afternoon tea. 
 
 Richard, with a cruel joy at his heart, watched the 
 baby s rapid advance towards him. This was her chief est 
 treasure. He would grasp it in both hands and she could 
 not cast it from her afterwards as she had cast her gloves 
 because his touch had soiled them. 
 
 "Isn t she too darling with Richard!" Mary cried, de 
 lighted. "See her lifting herself up by his leg! Don t
 
 380 WORLD S-END 
 
 be frightened Richard she won t hurt you," she ended, 
 laughing. 
 
 "I m not at all frightened," said Richard. 
 
 The baby, with both dimpled arms clamped about his 
 leg, was slowly but surely, amid a series of earnest little 
 grunts, dragging herself onto her bronze-shod feet. 
 
 "Pitty! Pitty!" she shouted, succeeding at last and 
 having resource to her latest accomplishment in words to 
 express the triumph of her soul. And bobbing and dip 
 ping slightly in her effort to maintain the perpendicular, 
 she gazed up into Richard s face, her arms wrapped about 
 his leg. 
 
 Pie bent forward and, gripping her by either arm, lifted 
 her suddenly upon his knees. Still gripping the small 
 arms fast he held her there, staring at her with what he 
 meant to be a smile, but which was more like a grimace 
 of pain. And he gripped her tighter and tighter, a savage 
 desire to hurt overmastering him. 
 
 Bravo, Richard ! called Mary. lie s really scared 
 to death ..." she smiled in an aside to Owen, near 
 whom she was sitting. 
 
 But now the baby, who almost never cried, was getting 
 the oddest look on her little face, half like one who courts 
 a coy sneeze, half that of a woman who is afraid of cats 
 and senses one in the room. Her delicate eyebrows made 
 a sudden "V" on her forehead, her under-lip thrust 
 out like a wee cherry, then suddenly, the finest, most 
 piteous wail came plainting up from her little breast. 
 
 Phoebe swooped like a hawk. Her eyes were the pan 
 ther s that sees its cub maltreated. She caught the baby 
 to her heart, and stood glaring at Richard, trembling 
 from head to foot. 
 
 "You hurt her!" she spat at him. "You hurt her! 
 . . . How dare you!" 
 
 "She s a little coward," said he coolly. "Fancy my 
 hurting her. . . . 
 
 "You are the coward, to hurt a baby!" cried Phoebe, 
 beside herself." 
 
 Sally s voice slid in like a sliver of ice between flames. 
 
 "Owen, I must really ask you to speak to Phoebe, 
 she seems quite out of her head. . . . 
 
 Richard rose and strolled to a window. He did not 
 wish his face to be seen just then. 
 
 Owen, putting his arm about Phoebe and the baby,
 
 WORLD S-END 381 
 
 who was now catching her breath in a series of little 
 half-comforted, hiccoughy sobs, led them from the room. 
 
 "He hurt her! Coward! . . . He hurt her!" Phoebe 
 kept saying, shaking so violently that he was afraid she 
 might let the child fall. "He hurt her! Tie hurt my 
 baby! I could kill him! I could kill him!" 
 
 It was a long time before Owen could quiet her. 
 
 XLV 
 
 PUREE days before New Year the weather turned bit- 
 * tor cold; the roads became like iron and the little 
 Green-Flower was stiffened from bank to bank in a mail 
 of grey ice. 
 
 "If this continues for a few days longer we shall have 
 skating," Owen had said at dinner that night. 
 
 On the second morning, however, the thermometer sud 
 denly dropped, thick, yellowish clouds heaped themselves 
 along the horizon, and as twilight gathered a feathery 
 snow began to fall. 
 
 All night it snowed, and dawn broke over a white world. 
 
 On that morning, although it was the middle of the 
 holidays, Owen had an engagement in Charlottcsville with 
 his attorney. There were some last matters to go over 
 before his new will could be put into its final form, and he 
 was very anxious that Sally should have a copy of it at 
 the earliest date possible. He was anxious, also, to have 
 the matter settled once for all and dismissed entirely 
 from his mind. He had decided, during this last visit of 
 Richard s to World s-End, that some way must shortly be 
 found to prevent the recurrence of so dreadful an ordeal 
 for Phoebe. Perhaps, in the softened mood that would 
 result from Sally s knowledge of the inheritance with 
 which he had provided Richard, he might be able to sug 
 gest to her, that, on account of the evident antipathy which 
 existed between him and Phoebe, it would be better that 
 he should not come to World s-End in the future while 
 they were stopping there. He thought that he could make 
 her see the reasonableness of such a proposition, merely 
 by referring to the painful scene which had taken place 
 only two days ago in the rose room, when Phoebe had 
 thought that Richard purposely hurt little Diana. Owen
 
 382 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 himself, while all one ache of sympathy for Phoebe, had 
 not for a moment shared her opinion in the matter, al 
 though he did not let her see this. As ruthless as he con 
 sidered Richard to be by reason of his quintessential ego 
 ism, he refused to believe that he could be moved by so 
 stark and primitive a force as that of reflex cruelly di 
 rected against the child. No, her wild suspicion was only 
 the result of that inner pain and repulsion which Rich 
 ard s mere presence excited in her, working feverishly on 
 nerves already strained to snapping point. But in one 
 way or another she must be shielded from such suffer 
 ing, and the sooner the copy of his will was in Sally s 
 hands the sooner he would be free to make some move in 
 that direction. 
 
 Phoebe drove with him to Crewe, wrapped in the white 
 fox furs which had been his Christmas gift to her, and 
 which Sally had told Mary were absurdly inappropriate 
 for anything but evening wear. 
 
 "What difference does it make here in the country?" 
 Mary had replied. "She looks such a darling in them 
 like a lovely little Mrs. Santa Glaus, and she won t 
 wear them in town except to the play or a dinner. 
 
 Sally said contemptuously: "He decks her out as if 
 she were a doll." 
 
 And Mary demurely retorted, thinking of Phoebe s 
 pounce on Richard in the rose room: "She s rather a 
 lively sort of doll, I must say." 
 
 "A little like the Iron-Maiden of Nuremburg," Sally 
 capped it. 
 
 Mary said to herself: "Phoebe is really right. Sally 
 detests her." 
 
 Returning from the drive to Crewe, Phoebe made Da 
 vid stop at the stone bridge and got out. In spite of 
 her fur-coat she was chilled by sitting motionless for all 
 those miles, and she turned off along the river to lengthen 
 the walk. She would go around by the boat-house and 
 so up through the rose-garden, quite half a mile more 
 than if she had followed the avenue from the bridge. 
 
 As she passed the boat-house, and turned into the nar 
 row path between box-hedges that led through the garden, 
 past the maze called Queen Charlotte s, she saw Rich 
 ard coming towards her. 
 
 Her first impulse was to turn back, then, as every form 
 of cowardice was hateful to her high-spirited nature, she
 
 WORLD S-END 383 
 
 went quietly on, that white, still look which the sight 
 of him always brought freezing her face, under the soft 
 snow of her cap. 
 
 When he was directly opposite she pressod herself 
 among the stiff box-leaves for him to pass, but he stood 
 still, looking steadily at her. 
 
 From this point the columns of the west wing were 
 hidden by the huge mass of box that Availed the garden 
 from the lawns; only the chimney stacks were visible and 
 part of the railing of the roof and south portico. They 
 were as alone in the winter garden as though the walls 
 of pale blue air had been marble. 
 
 T\ r hen she had waited for some two moments, Phoebe 
 said in her lowest voice: 
 
 "Let me pass, please." 
 
 Her eyes looked levelly past him, and he could see that 
 she was holding her inner-lip between her teeth. 
 
 In a smooth, monotonous tone he replied : 
 
 "Do you think it wise on your part to show your feel 
 ing for me so very openly?" 
 
 It had not seemed as if her face could grow whiter, yet 
 it did so. 
 
 "Please let me pass," she said again. 
 
 "Pardon me ... I confess that concern for myself 
 mixes with my motive, yet concern for you moves me too." 
 
 She stood perfectly silent, but one nostril trembled 
 slightly. It was the quivering of the muscle which marks 
 contempt in a human face. 
 
 "You may sneer," he said with sudden violence. "But 
 I suppose that you have some sort of regard for my un 
 cle." 
 
 She put up her hands and jerked open the fur at her 
 throat with a startlingly quick, mechanical gesture. He 
 saw her swallow, once, twice. 
 
 "Don t dare to speak of him," she said, still in that 
 very low voice, scarcely moving her lips. 
 
 His narrow eyebrows lifted like his mother s those 
 opaque black eyes of his swain a little more towards the 
 upper lids. 
 
 "Really ... "he said in a dry tone. "I am not to 
 be allowed to mention my own relative?" 
 
 She repeated in exactly the same voice and cadence. 
 
 "Don t dare to speak of him." 
 
 Richard gave his short laugh.
 
 384 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 "Come," he said, "this is going a little too far. He 
 was my uncle, you know, before he was your . . . hus 
 band." 
 
 Nothing could exceed the insolence with which he ut 
 tered this last sentence. 
 
 "Don t dare to speak of him. . . . Don t dare to speak 
 of him," she said again, exactly like one talking in sleep. 
 
 He looked at her with a condensed look, curiously hate 
 ful. 
 
 "And why?" he said. "You did not always count 
 me so unworthy." 
 
 He felt as though he had stabbed a snow-image. 
 
 She stood just as still, just as frozen, her eyes even did 
 not quiver. They looked past him blank and fixed. 
 
 He went on: 
 
 "There are several things, in fact, that I must say to 
 you, and they include my Uncle Owen. . . . 
 
 At this name she leaped to life as though he had kin 
 dled resin. Her eyes blazed full on his, her breast heaved. 
 She clenched her hands, pressing them against it. 
 
 "If I were a man I d kill you," she said. 
 
 Eichard smiled. This was a more womanly mood. He 
 quite understood it. He felt more at ease. 
 
 "Yes ... I daresay," he retorted. "But as you re not 
 a man, don t you think we d better be practical? It 
 doesn t matter when we re alone as now, but when we re 
 with others, don t you think you d better restrain the 
 outward signs of your ... a ... dislike for me? Your 
 present happiness has a frail foundation at best. If you 
 continue to treat me as you ve done . . . lately. . . . 
 (He smiled again.) "My uncle can hardly help having 
 his suspicions aroused and then. . . . 
 
 He shrugged one shoulder slightly, still smiling. 
 
 "Oh, coward! . . . Pitiful coward!" said Phoebe, al 
 most in a whisper, and her voice was like the moan of 
 one only half chloroformed. "If he had not gone away 
 you wouldn t dare. . . . 
 
 "You give me," said Richard, "no credit whatever for 
 a possible consideration for yourself. I had thought that 
 in his absence an interview with me would be less painful 
 for you. After all, he has been a good uncle to me . . . 
 I am trying to save him possible suffering. Yes, in my 
 way, I am trying to serve him. . . . 
 
 She was panting now as though she had been running
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 385 
 
 far and fast through the heavy snow; her eyes had that 
 wild, glazed look of a hare caught suddenly in fangs that 
 only half kill. 
 
 " To serve him !" she stammered. "You! " She 
 
 caught desperately at her broken speech, rushed on. 
 "You aren t worthy to eat the dust his feet have trod 
 den. . . . His dog is nearer to him. ... If he knew 
 you lie would spit upon you. . . . 
 
 Richard was as white as she was now, but he still smiled. 
 
 "And yet," he said, "you were my mistress before 
 you were his wife." 
 
 It was these words uttered with clear deliberation that 
 Owen heard as he came swiftly up over the soundless 
 carpet cf snow. He had in his hand the ash stick that 
 he usually carried, and, as these words came from Rich 
 ard s lips, he struck him with it across the face. It laid 
 his cheek open from chin to temple, and the blood gushed 
 forth startling as a red flower in that winter garden. 
 
 And at the sight of that blood, and the stricken face 
 of her he so loved, Owen went suddenly "berserk." 
 
 Thrusting out his great hand he caught Richard by the 
 collar of his coat and jerking him from the ground beat 
 him as a vigorous wench beats a carpet. 
 
 When she saw that limp, bloody figure writhing with 
 out a sound in the terrible grip that was a madman s, 
 Phoebe screamed, the scream of a snared hare, and 
 sprang to them. 
 
 "Owen! Owen . . . Stop! ... God! God!" 
 
 And she clung to his arm, reaching wildly towards the 
 hand that held the ash, sobbing . . . seeing nothing in 
 her terror but rivers of dreadful scarlet ... a crimson, 
 world. . . . 
 
 . . . Suddenly Owen s arm fell, his grip on Richard 
 loosened, and like a doll of rags the beaten man subsided 
 in the snow at their feet. 
 
 Owen stood like a figure of stone staring down at him, 
 the ash still clenched in his hand, but Phoebe dropped 
 on her knees beside the huddled, blood-smeared form, and 
 began wildly searching for signs of life in it. 
 
 "Oh, God! . . . Oh, God!" she kept sobbing. "I can t 
 feel his heart. . . . You ve killed him . . . Oh, God! . . . 
 Oh. God!" 
 
 All at once Owen roused. He threw the stick from 
 him, and stooping lifted Richard in his arms. He went.
 
 386 W O R L D S - E X D 
 
 straight towards the house, and Phoebe followed, her hair 
 fallen loose about her head like a poor street-girl s after 
 a drunken brawl her white furs blotched with blood. 
 More than ever she looked like some wild, soft wood- 
 creature mangled by fangs that only half kill. 
 
 But when he came to one of the old marble vases that 
 stood at the head of the first terrace he stopped and eased 
 his burden upon it. Despite his enormous strength the 
 dead weight of a man nearly six feet tall was too much 
 for him; the sweat poured from his face in the cold air, 
 as it had done when he carried Phoebe herself from Holly- 
 brook Wood to Nelson s Gift. Besides he had suddenly 
 begun to think with astonishing clearness. 
 
 She stood beside him straight and stiff, the attitude 
 of a soldier awaiting orders. She who fainted so easily 
 over her own troubles felt firm as iron to help him bear 
 his. He was staring out at the snowy ground with bent 
 brows. Suddenly he turned his eyes on her. His look 
 was hard and impersonal, the look of an officer apprais 
 ing the force of a lieutenant to whom he is about to give 
 nerve-testing orders. 
 
 "Can you help me? You don t feel faint?" he said. 
 
 "No, I can do anything. Tell me." 
 
 "Then go and send Jonathan and David find Mary 
 and tell her to keep Sally out of the way send Hannah 
 to his room. Wait . . ." he said sharply, as she sprang 
 forward. "Take off your coat." She did so. "Fold it 
 inside out." She obeyed him deftly. "Tell Mary, . . . 
 tell anyone who asks, that Ironmonger savaged him." 
 (Ironmonger was a colt that had only been handled a 
 few times, and was feared to be vicious. Downer and Owen 
 had put him a loose-box at the house stables, hoping to 
 "gentle" him by constant kindness and handling.) "Do 
 you understand?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "He went into the box, and the colt got him jammed 
 and kicked him. Tell Mary to break it to Sally. Now 
 . . . quick!" 
 
 She was off like a lapwing, her hair beating loose upon, 
 her shoulders as she ran, and hanging at last in a great, 
 unravelled knot below her waist. 
 
 The swinging of that bright rope seemed to fascinate 
 his eyes: they remained fixed on it until she was out of 
 sight. Then he looked down at the head hanging like
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 387 
 
 a broken manikin s over his arm. The blood had coagu 
 lated and frozen about the long split in the cheek; the 
 eyes showed in silvery streaks and a half-moon of dim 
 black under the purplish eyelids; the open mouth, at one 
 corner of which the blood had clotted, made a small grim 
 hole in the ghastly face. 
 
 At first he had not struck to kill, else Richard would 
 have dropped like a bullock, but afterwards. . . . The 
 old human threat I ll break every bone in your body," 
 came back to him. Yes, he had meant to beat that body 
 to a pulp, he had not cared while that ecstasy of rage 
 held him whether he took one or twenty lives. AVas Rich 
 ard dead? Was it a corpse that he was holding against 
 the great vase, as against a funeral urn? And would 
 Sally, too, fall dead with the shock of it ? In that moment 
 lie felt curiously indifferent. Glutted rage resembles at 
 first the plethora that follows the glut of animal food. He 
 had sent Phoebe on those precautionary errands from a 
 motive that had nothing to do with emotion or the instinct 
 of self-preservation. It was civilisation reclaiming him. 
 He, who so lately had been mere savage, clubbing what 
 had maddened him with the single fury of a cave-man bat 
 tering his enemy with a stone, had waked with cool wits 
 to the necessity of preventing scandal, of proteecting 
 others, of shielding Sally from unnecessary shock and 
 Phoebe from the sinister results of his outbreak. Per 
 sonally, whether Richard were alive or dead mattered 
 nothing to him at that moment. lie, who shrank from 
 wounding a bird, felt a cold, aloof indifference to the shat 
 tered thing that lay there, half in his arms, half on the 
 marble vase. 
 
 And then he saw that Phoebe w r as returning, still at 
 a fleet, light-footed run over the noiseless snow, followed 
 by old Jonathan and David, also running, but out of re 
 spect keeping a little behind her. 
 
 Owen took Richard s body under the arm-pits, and the 
 two others supported his back and legs. They walked 
 slowly to the house, breaking step so as not to jar him more 
 than was inevitable. 
 
 And Phoebe, in her thin blouse and skirt, her hair still 
 loose about her, walked close to Owen, talking in low 
 quick tones. 
 
 "I found Mary. . . . She s with Cousin Sally now . . . 
 Hannah is getting everything ready ... I told them what
 
 388 W O K L D S - E N D 
 
 you said I was to tell them. . . . What must I do now?" 
 
 " Phone Patton He s at Warwick. He l:as a motor 
 today. He brought me here. Tell him life or death." 
 
 She was off again, elbows to sides, chin up, like a boy 
 running. 
 
 They got Richard to his room, Owen helped Hannah 
 to cut away his clothes and la*y him in the bed. They 
 had scarcely finished when the door was thrust open and 
 Sally entered with Mary close behind her. Her black 
 eyes were fixed like a somnambule s. She went straight 
 to the bed and fell on her knees beside it. One arm curved 
 above the stark head on the pillow, the other she stretched 
 out along the limbs outlined by the counterpane. These 
 arms in their sleeves of black velvet were like the wings 
 of some great bird striving to hover a shattered nestling. 
 
 Mary stood quiet and still behind her, her fingers 
 plaited together, great tears running down her face. The 
 servants were huddled in a dark silent knot near the door. 
 Owen stood at the head of the bed, his face like stone. 
 They all thought Richard dead. 
 
 Bring me cloths and hot water, said Sally s voice. 
 
 Mary knelt down beside her, and put her arm about her 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Hadn t we better wait, dear?" she whispered. "Doc 
 tor Patton will be here in a little while. We might do 
 harm. . . . 
 
 "Very well," said the impassive, slightly croaking voice. 
 "I shouldn t like to do him harm." 
 
 Mary hid her face in her free hand, and the tears 
 ran through her fingers. 
 
 The door opened and Phoebe came in. 
 
 "Doctor Patton is on his way now," she said in a clear, 
 quiet voice. "What else can I do?" 
 
 "Nothing," Owen answered her. "Go to your room 
 and try to rest." 
 
 "I can t rest," she said. She looked from one to the 
 other. 
 
 No one returned her look, they were all gazing at that 
 dreadfully quiet bed. She stood there a moment longer, 
 then stepped quickly backward and went out. 
 
 She went straight down the wide stairs, across the hall, 
 and out again into the snow. As she neared the garden 
 hedge she broke into a run. Faster and faster she ran, 
 until she came to the place in the narrow path near Queen
 
 WORLD S-END 389 
 
 Charlotte s Maze, where they had been standing when 
 Owen came on them. Dropping on her knees she began 
 scooping the snow with both hands over the red stains that 
 marred it here and there. This accomplished, she looked 
 about her with that look of a trapped, desperate hare. 
 On every side her dark, scared eyes quested. Then she 
 began making little rushes to right and left. At last, be 
 yond the box-hedge, in a furrow between the rose beds 
 she saw what she was seeking. 
 
 Pressing through the stiff twigs she went swift and 
 light-footed as a mousing cat and picked up the big ash 
 stick. As she grasped it a shuddering fit seized her for 
 the first time, her teeth chattered and the blood rushed 
 over her white face. Then mastering herself, kneeling 
 down in the fresh snow, so as to be less easily seen by any 
 one chancing to cross the garden, she examined the stick 
 inch by inch. 
 
 Yes . . . there . . . some dark stains. Involuntarily 
 her hands opened, the stick fell again upon the snow. 
 Again mastering herself she seized it and began scrubbing 
 at those red smears with a handful of snow. They seemed 
 grained into the wood : she could not remove them, though 
 the white dust fell pinkened through her fingers. 
 
 After some moments of this vain labour she hid the stick 
 under the dark cloak that she had snatched up in the 
 hall, and went rapidly back again to the house. 
 
 She stopped to listen. Except for the ticking of the 
 big clock in the upper hall the house was still as death. 
 She shuddered again, then skimmed swift and noiseless 
 to her bedroom. She shut and locked the door. As usual 
 a great fire of logs burned on the wide hearth. Kneeling 
 before it she thrust the end of the stick in the coals. It 
 ignited slowly, the ferrule becoming incandescent and the 
 wood burning to a glow like coal. As it burned she thrust 
 it farther and farther in. Now all was consumed but the 
 big knob, polished by the grasp of generations of Ran 
 dolphs. She thrust this, too, in the lambent mass under 
 the bellies of the huge logs, struck it home with the poker 
 of wrought steel, raked the glowing embers over it. 
 
 Then only did she sink back upon the hearth-rug with a 
 long, long, heavy sigh. 
 
 The fire had scorched her eyes, her eyelids seemed to 
 have no moisture in them. Her loosened hair, hanging in 
 snarls about her cheeks, troubled her suddenly.
 
 390 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 Springing to her feet she went to the dressing table 
 and began to comb and brush out the tangled lengths. Her 
 own eyes looked back at her serious, almost angry, but they 
 held no meaning to her. Pier mirrored face was like the 
 face in a picture which has no meaning save to the artist 
 who painted it. 
 
 It was like a mask and she felt masked to herself. She 
 had lost her feeling of identity. She was someone mov 
 ing through a play the whole of which she had never read ; 
 her own part and the "cues" were all that she knew of 
 it. Now it was her part to make herself neat and go and 
 sit in the upper hall in case she might be needed. Pres 
 ently she knew that the curtain of the first act would fall. 
 Her part would be over. She was only cast for that first 
 act. What was Owen s part? She could not tell. But 
 the play would go on without her presently, and he would 
 still be in the play. Her part was a very short one. It 
 must be over after Doctor Patton came. "When Owen had 
 heard what he had to say, then he would spare the time 
 to come and tell her that she must go. It was strange, 
 long ago in a far country, she^ had wondered what he 
 would do if he ever found out,t-whether he would kill 
 them both. Now he had killed Richard. 
 
 She was very wicked worse than she had believed her 
 self to be, for, think and urge herself as she might, she 
 could not be sorry that Eichard was dead. She was only 
 sick with fear for what might happen to Owen. But 
 she could lie for him at least. It was good to be so wicked 
 if that would save the one you loved more than God. 
 She could swear that Richard struck him first. No one 
 else had seen. Yes, she could lie for him. Swearing on 
 the Court Bible to that firm lie, she could give her soul 
 for him; even he, in his just wrath, could not keep from 
 her that dark privilege. 
 
 As she pinned up the last coil of her hair the chugging 
 of a motor sounded just under the window. She looked 
 out, holding the embroidered curtain before her face. 
 Yes, that was Doctor Patton. He got out with a black 
 case in his hand and came quickly up the steps, looking 
 neither to right nor left. Once, though, he lifted his head 
 and stared up at the blank face of the quiet house. Then 
 he disappeared. 
 
 Phoebe slipped noiselessly into the hall, and sat on a lit 
 tle chair just behind the first archway where she could
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 391 
 
 see part of the lower hall and the door of Richard s room 
 without being seen herself. 
 
 ISlie saw old Jonathan make as if to show Patton the 
 way, but the doctor merely nodded and brushed past him, 
 mounting the stairs lightly and rapidly, still with that 
 fixed stern look on his face. lie went straight to Rich 
 ard s door, opened it without knocking and went in, clos 
 ing it behind him. In another moment Mary, Sally and 
 Hannah came out. 
 
 Sally still moved and looked like a somnambule. Her 
 mouth was like a thin, violet bruise on her sallow face. 
 
 Mary walked with her arm about her, murmuring some 
 thing all the time very low into her ear. Sally took no 
 notice of her or of anything. Behind them came Hannah, 
 crying softly, and making no attempt to wipe her eyes or 
 cheeks. 
 
 Hannah turned off towards the servants stairway, and 
 the other two went on into Sally s room. Phoebe saw 
 Mary s hand steal out behind her, drawing to the heavy 
 mahogany door. 
 
 Sue was all alone now in the great hall, with only the 
 slow, imperturbable beating of the old clock for company. 
 
 "I am the true heart of the house," it seemed to say. 
 "No matter what human hearts are stilled beneath this 
 roof I beat on unwearying from generation to genera 
 tion." 
 
 She gazed up at it as at a human face. 
 
 "It will go on beating, beating long after my heart 
 has stopped," she thought. "When all our hearts have 
 stopped forever, it will go on beating, night and day." 
 
 But now a little regular, muffled noise on the stairway 
 made her look up startled. It was AYizzy, coming up with 
 s :olid, infirm perseverance, one step at a time, in search 
 of his master. Phoebe slipped to the stairs and met him. 
 he lifted him up in her arms, and pressed down his sleek, 
 resisting head against her breast. 
 
 "Be good, dear, be good," she urged lowly. "Owen s 
 in trouble. You can t see him now. Stay with me. Owen s 
 i.u trouble." 
 
 The dog gazed up at her out of the senile tears in his 
 aged eyes, and, though the words were inscrutable to him, 
 the tone he understood quite well. He stopped resisting, 
 and lay limp and forlorn within her arms. 
 
 So passed a long, long time. Hannah came and went
 
 392 WORLD S-END 
 
 with various things. Joe followed, bringing cans of hot 
 water from the bathroom. A strange, hospital odor of 
 disinfectants began to steal through the hall. 
 
 Sally came out of her room again, still with Mary s 
 arm about her and stood listening. Niobe must have 
 looked like that as she stood listening for the deadly 
 twang of the god s bow-string. 
 
 Mary, still holding her by the arm as though she 
 feared to have her out of touch for even an instant, 
 reached out and dragged a hall chair nearer. But Sally 
 merely moved a step away from it, without impatience, 
 with a sort of fatal determination, as of one resolved to 
 die standing. 
 
 Then Owen and Patton came from behind that door, 
 which somehow seemed the door of fate, and the four 
 went again into Sally s bedroom. 
 
 AVizzy whined and struggled when he saw Owen, but 
 Phoebe put her hand quickly over his little working snout, 
 and whispered vehemently to him to be still, and again, 
 as if by a sort of telepathic understanding, he subsided 
 and ceased to whine. 
 
 And now again they were coming out. This time Sally 
 walked between Charles Patton and Mary, each of whom 
 supported her. Phoebe could see the muscles in her thin 
 throat working convulsively, dragging down the corners 
 of her mouth in a grimace of anguish. She was fighting 
 with ail her harsh, imperious will for self-control. Owen 
 followed, still with that face of stone, and this time they 
 went again into Richard s room. 
 
 Another long, long time, then Owen and Doctor Pat- 
 ton came once more into the hall, leaving the door slightly 
 ajar. They walked towards the staircase. No sound came 
 from that darkened room. 
 
 Just as they were about to descend the stairs Phoebe 
 stole forth, with AVizzy still in her arms, and went up to 
 them. 
 
 She fixed her big, strained eyes on Patton s face. 
 
 Is he. ... Is he ... ? " she whispered. 
 
 "He s very ill, my dear," said Patton. "Concussion 
 of the brain. But I can t stop now. I ve some things to 
 talk over with Owen. Go and lie down. I ll come to you 
 presently. Tell her that she must lie down, Owen." 
 
 Owen said in an expressionless voice: 
 
 "Go and lie down, please, Phoebe."
 
 WORLD S-END 393 
 
 "I will," she whispered, and went quickly away from 
 them, her head bent over the little dog, who was again 
 beginning to whimper and resist. 
 
 Owen closed his study door, and turned to Patton. 
 
 "I needn t tell you that it wasn t a horse s hoofs did 
 that work. 
 
 "No ... I saw that," said Patton quickly. 
 
 Owen looked at him. 
 
 "I did it," he said. 
 
 Patton returned his look unmoved. 
 
 "Yes? . . . Doubtless he deserved it," he replied as 
 quickly as before. 
 
 "At first," continued Owen, "I didn t strike to kill, 
 but afterwards I meant to, I think. At least, I didn t 
 care Avhether I killed him or not. No he added in 
 a firm voice. "I meant to kill him. A\ 7 ill he die?" 
 
 "Sit down, old man," said Charles Patton. 
 
 Owen obeyed mechanically. 
 
 Patton went on speaking in a quiet, professional voice. 
 
 "I can t tell anything until he comes out of this 
 stupor," he said, also taking a chair. "It may be very 
 serious ... it may only be a matter of careful nursing. 
 By the w r ay, did you have Miss Carney and Miss Lee 
 phoned for? The case will need a night and day nurse." 
 
 "Yes," said Owen. "I sent Jonathan to attend to it 
 at once. They will motor down this afternoon." 
 
 "Good. That compound fracture of the right arm is 
 going to be troublesome. I don t think there are internal 
 injuries, but it s all a matter of guess-work for the next 
 twenty- four hours or so 
 
 Owen got up rather slowly, and went to the window. 
 
 After rive or six minutes Patton rose and followed him. 
 
 "Don t eat your heart, old man," he said 
 
 wen made no reply. After a w r hile, without turning 
 round, he said: 
 
 "If he dies I shall consider myself legally answerable." 
 
 Patton scowled to himself, thrusting out his heavy under 
 lip, and staring at Owen s broad shoulders which half 
 rilled the window. 
 
 "Quixotism is a rum thing," he remarked finally. "It 
 deals chiefly with the tender conscience of the quixotist 
 and is apt to leave out other people." 
 
 "I can t sneak out of a just debt of manslaughter, 
 Charles," said the other dryly.
 
 w u Jfc ij JJ o - xu i\ u 
 
 Patton said: 
 
 "Do you mind if I light a pipe?" 
 
 "No. The matches and tobacco are in the usual place." 
 
 Patton lighted his faithful briar, and then, after several 
 considering puffs, said slowly : 
 
 "You know there are ways and ways of bearing a thing 
 without having recourse to sneaking out of it. In my 
 opinion the man who bears the burden of a fault. . . . 
 
 " Manslaughter is not a fault, it s a crime." 
 
 "Well, say of a crime then, the man who bears such 
 a burden in private, when no good whatever can be done 
 by accepting public ignominy, who bears it alone, 
 rather than cover his family with the reflex disgrace of 
 his punishment, well, in my opinion, that man is a better 
 citizen, more a man in fact, than the purist who gives 
 himself up to man-made justice for the assuaging of his 
 own conscience." 
 
 "Charles, that is sophistry, and you know it" 
 
 "I beg your pardon. I know it s hard sense." 
 
 He was defenceless and I struck him. I had a stick in 
 my hand that would have broken an ox. I held him up 
 and smashed him like an eggshell my brutal strength 
 against his weakness. If he dies I am answerable to the 
 law, and, I shall answer." 
 
 "There are things in law called extenuating circum 
 stances. " 
 
 "Yes. They will do me no good." 
 
 Patton thrust back a half-burned log with his foot as 
 though he hated it. He went on, though he knew that he 
 might as \vell beat with a. feather against a wall of iron. 
 What dark, evil mystery lay behind this appalling disas 
 ter he could not even vaguely surmise, but that it was 
 very dark and very evil he felt assured. The circum 
 stances that had caused Owen Randolph to break another 
 man in pieces, not only the law but the gods themselves 
 might well deem "extenuating." 
 
 "Look here, Owen," he said in a voice of sweet reason 
 ableness, "as man to man, as brother to brother I may 
 say, tell me this: do you honestly consider that to rot 
 out the better years of your life in a penitentiary would 
 really avail anything with gods or men? Do you hon 
 estly believe, that, in case well ... in case of Rich 
 ard s dying, that it would soothe Sally, even if she 
 knew the facts, which mercifully she does not, you tell
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 395 
 
 me ; that it would assuage or comfort her in the least 
 
 to know that her only brother was a convict ?" (lie 
 
 pressed it home.) "And your young wife, your child. 
 "What of them? And the old name. . . . Your father s 
 name ? 
 
 Owen turned a dreadful face on him. 
 
 "Forgive me ... " he said thickly. "I find I can t 
 discuss it." 
 
 lie went quickly to the door and was gone. 
 
 Patton s teetli nearly met in the mouth-piece of his 
 pipe. lie started towards the door, then stood stock-still, 
 scowling at it from under his shaggy brows. His face 
 worked. He put his hand over it, and stood a long time 
 in the darkening room without moving. 
 
 Then he strode forward, jerking open the door as if 
 he were wroth with it, just as he had kicked back the 
 fallen log, and went up to Phoebe s bedroom. 
 
 She was lying on the sofa, the little lace pillow pressed 
 to her cheek, gazing at the grey cornucopias of the car 
 pet. AYizzy lay in the curve of her waist, and as Pat- 
 ton opened the door looked up, eagerly working his black 
 nose, dry with age, in search of the beloved aroma he so 
 yearned for. 
 
 Phoebe sat up as Patton came towards her, and gazed 
 at him with those strained, dilated eyes that he had no 
 ticed just now in the hall. 
 
 He went over to a carafe of crystal that stood on a table 
 near the bed and, pouring out a glass of water, brought it 
 to her with two little white pellets which he handed her, 
 all in silence. 
 
 She swallowed them with the sweet obedience which 
 made her so touching in her times of trouble. 
 
 "Now," he said cheerily, "lie still a little longer. I m 
 going to sit here by you and pamper Wizzy till those little 
 chaps get their work in." 
 
 After five minutes had passed, and still he sat there si 
 lent, she said timidly: 
 
 "Doctor Charlie ?" 
 
 "Bless me," he said, smiling, and putting out his hand. 
 "I was hoping you had dozed off." 
 
 "Oh, no!" she said. "I couldn t sleep. I don t feel 
 as if I should ever, ever sleep again." 
 
 "You don t, eh? ... We ll see about that later on. 
 "What were you going to ask me?"
 
 396 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 "About. . . . About . . . Owen . . . Where is he?" 
 
 "I think he went for a walk," said Patton, with kind 
 mendacity. 
 
 She sank back w r ith a little resigned sigh that struck him. 
 as piteous. 
 
 Presently she said: 
 
 "Doctor Charlie . . . has he told you?" 
 
 "Yes, my dear." 
 
 "Did he tell you that I. . . . 
 
 "lie told me about nothing but his own part in the 
 matter," said Patton quickly. 
 
 "Ah ..." said Phoebe. Her face began to quiver. 
 She turned her head against the little pillow to hide 
 it. 
 
 The door opened. 
 
 Phoebe started violently. The desperate jerk of her 
 whole body as it lay prone on the sofa made Patton think 
 of a just caught fish jerking for breath on a bank. 
 
 "Hello!" he said cheerily, rising. "Here s Owen now." 
 
 Pie took out two more little pellets and twisted them in 
 a leaf torn from his prescription book. 
 
 "Just take those in another hour," he said. "I must 
 be having a look at my patient. See that she takes them, 
 Owen." 
 
 "Very well," said Owen in his level, lifeless voice. 
 
 Patton went out. 
 
 Owen locked the door, and, when Phoebe heard that 
 sound, a fierce wave of mingled terror and joy broke over 
 her. 
 
 "Now .... Now ..." she thought, "he s going to 
 kill me too!" 
 
 She lay with her eyes shut, waiting, and she seemed 
 to be swaying back and forth through space in a great 
 swing. 
 
 Then she felt his cheek against hers on the little pillow, 
 and one of his arms went over her. 
 
 "My heart, my little heart. . . . "What have I done to 
 you?" he was whispering. 
 
 Phoebe had a sensation as though she had fallen from 
 an immense height upon a cushion of air that kept her 
 from being crushed. 
 
 "My sweet. . . . My winsome . . . what have I brought 
 on you? . . . What have I brought on you?" the hoarse, 
 anguished whispering went on. And now his face was
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 397 
 
 buried on her breast, bis arms held her to him as though 
 they would drag her back from some awful abyss. 
 
 Light struck her like a blow. 
 
 "He didn t believe him ..." whirled the wild reve 
 lation "lie didn t believe what Richard said. , . . " 
 
 XLVI 
 
 jNLY at a place "run" as Owen ran "World s-End 
 could the story of "Ironmonger s" savaging Richard 
 have been plausible for a moment, but during the Christ 
 mas holidays the servants there were always given an 
 unusual amount of freedom, and on that day every groom 
 had been absent from the stables since nine o clock in the 
 morning. David, after driving his master to Crewe, was 
 to stable the bays, feed them, and then also take to him 
 self a leisurely afternoon. 
 
 It was because he was aware of all these facts that 
 Owen had thought of fixing the disaster upon "Ironmon 
 ger." He knew that David s devotion could be trusted, 
 and when he left Patton in the study he sent Jonathan to 
 tell David to meet him at the foot of the western lawn. 
 
 The white man and the black man stood facing each 
 other in the winter tAvilight. 
 
 "David," said Owen, "I am going to give you a proof 
 of the entire trust that I have in you." 
 
 "Yessuh," said the taciturn negro. 
 
 "I have said that Mr. Richard s accident was caused 
 by the colt, that he went into Ironmonger s box and 
 the horse savaged him. Do you understand?" 
 
 "Yessuh." 
 
 "No one must ever guess that this is not the truth. I 
 have grave reasons for wishing it." 
 
 The negro s soft, heavy eyes gazed at him unflinchingly. 
 There was in them a look much like that in Wizzy s mel 
 ancholy gaze when he regarded his master. 
 
 "Yessuh, Mr. Owen, suh. You kin count on me." 
 
 I know th at David. Thank you. 
 
 "Yessuh. Thank you, suh." 
 
 " Ironmonger, must leave the place tomorrow. Mr. 
 Downer s nephew, Mat Goodeloe, is anxious to have him. 
 Take him there. Say the horse is my New Year s gift,
 
 398 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 that I consider his present viciousness only due to his not 
 having been handled from a foal as we handle our colts 
 here at World s-End. He is by Ironsides out of a Cox 
 comb mare. I bought him from a man named Ladd in the 
 other valley. If Goodeloe wishes to sell him he is at per 
 fect liberty to do so." 
 
 "Yessuh." 
 
 "You ve got that straight, David?" 
 
 "Yessuh." 
 
 He repeated Owen s instructions and stood waiting. 
 
 "Take him off by daybreak tomorrow. I am keeping 
 the motor that Doctor Patton came in at World s-End for 
 the present. When you come back from Goodeloe s take 
 the cobs and the light wagon and go to Warwick for gaso 
 line. I will let you know later how much to get. j Whero 
 has the motor been put?" 
 
 "In dee second ca yage house, suh." 
 
 "Very good. That is all, David." 
 
 The cause of Owen s unexpected return to World s-End 
 within twenty minutes of his arrival at Crewe had been 
 the collapse of a railway embankment near Charlottes- 
 ville. Despite the calm assertions of science and philoso 
 phy there seems to be a force at work in the lives of men 
 called variously fate, nemesis, karma, destiny. 
 
 It seemed to Phoebe that the following week was passed 
 in another state of being; that she was in a lower realm 
 of that so-called "astral world" so glibly described in 
 some of the books which she had perused during the last 
 year. Everything looked strange, phantasmal, curiously 
 unfriendly. She saw sinister faces in the winter branches, 
 the shadows on the snow, the furniture and hangings. 
 The folds of her own garments thrown on chairs or bed 
 formed themselves into death s-heads. The pictures in her 
 fire were goblin-like. When she took up a book to try to 
 divert her anxious, harrowed mind, it seemed always as 
 though a mocking chance led her to phrases and descrip 
 tions that had a horrid likeness to her own case or the 
 ghastly events that had just befallen. 
 
 And the two trained nurses, in their bleak, white linen 
 gowns and caps, stealing everywhere through the silent 
 house like preoccupied ghosts, added painfully to her il 
 lusion. They seemed to her like true astralites, clad 
 differently, moving differently, speaking in different tones 
 from the denizens of the familiar, everyday world.
 
 WORLD S-END 399 
 
 Miss Lee was a small, slight woman of about forty, with 
 kindly, composed grey eyes, and a tender, comforting lit 
 tle way of sajdng "The best doctors are alarmists, dear 
 Mrs. Randolph. Don t be scared by Doctor Patton s 
 gloomy face." Miss Lee was the day nurse, and before 
 she went to her room she would sometimes slip in with a 
 word of good cheer to Phoebe, telling her how much better 
 the patient seemed, or that she did not really think that 
 his right arm would be stiff for life as the doctor feared, 
 or that he had certainly looked at his mother with recog 
 nition once at least, that morning. 
 
 But Miss Carney, the night nurse, a tall, vigorous young 
 Amazon of twenty-eight, was used to awake from her nine 
 hours of energetic slumber like a young giantess refreshed 
 to exaltation with the wine of sleep, and, after a strenuous 
 walk and a hearty dinner, she would tap at Phoebe s door 
 before going on duty and insist on massaging her, or brush 
 ing that "just too perfectly beautiful hair." 
 
 Phoebe disliked intensely being kneaded from head to 
 foot by strange, strong hands that made her feel as though 
 she were but a little, helpless heap of sentient dough, 
 yet could not bring herself to refuse these generous of 
 fers for fear of hurting the kindly feelings of Miss Carney. 
 And as she kneaded, and rolled, and rubbed, kneeling 
 on a cushion beside the ivory-coloured bed on which poor 
 Phoebe lay stretched like a second Iphigenia on the al 
 tar at Aulis, the ebullient nurse would pour over her 
 a cataract of pathologically lurid anecdotes gathered dur 
 ing her professional experience. 
 
 Some of these cheerily related tales were so ghastly 
 that for hours after Miss Carney withdrew to her nightly 
 watch, Phoebe would lie there, tingling with over-excited 
 muscles and nerves, afraid even to try to go to sleep lest 
 some of the horrors so vividly described should haunt her 
 dreams. 
 
 She went rarely to the nursery in those days and when 
 she did it was merely to kiss the baby swiftly and go out 
 again. 
 
 Giles had a very severe air towards her. She considered 
 that no event less upheaving than that of the last day 
 should interfere with all due attention to her nursling. 
 So one morning she appeared firmly in Phoebe s room with 
 Diana, and placed her without a word in her mother s 
 arms.
 
 400 WORLD S-END 
 
 Phoebe held her a moment, kissed the top of the little 
 hay-scented head, and then rising put her back in Giles s 
 arms. 
 
 " I ... I can t . . . Giles, she said. I m too misera 
 ble. I can t play with the baby while I feel like this." 
 
 "If you ll pardon me, m m, " Giles had said with grim 
 firmness, "your child should be a consolation to you, 
 m m." 
 
 "Yes, yes ... I know," Phoebe had said irritably, 
 "but I can t have her now, Giles. I really can t." 
 
 With in-folded lips Giles had marched to the door. 
 Reaching it she turned. 
 
 "If this blessed lamb falls ill, m m," she said dourly 
 over the baby s head, "then you ll know real misery!" 
 
 And with this parting shot she went out, closing the 
 door so softly that it was a more scathing exit than a bang 
 would have been. 
 
 If Phoebe rested badly during these feverish days and 
 nights Owen could not have been said to rest at all. He 
 slept on a couch in Richard s dressing-room to be within 
 call at any moment, for it took both Patton and himself 
 to assist in moving Richard without giving him too much 
 anguish. 
 
 The chauffeur plied constantly on errands of all sorts, 
 in addition to taking Patton, during such hours as he could 
 be spared, to the houses of his more seriously ill patients. 
 
 America ventured once to tease the grim Giles about 
 her solitary meals, shared in the little "office" off the 
 pantry with this red-bearded personage, but Giles s re 
 buff had been so scarifying that even America had not 
 attempted a second onslaught. "Ye black folk are aye 
 thinking of mating and muling," said she. "Just to think 
 of the ruck of ye is to fancy ye in a great cudcliing-bed 
 such as they used to have in Wales, so my grandmother 
 told me and being Welsh she should know. Ye 11 e en 
 keep your black nastiness from the name of Martha Giles 
 or I 11 have a word with the master. 
 
 America had retired furious, but subdued. 
 
 Phoebe saw very little of Owen. After the momentary 
 break-down, when he had come into her room locking the 
 door, on the day of the misfortune, he had turned again 
 into a man of stone. Phoebe kept to her room most of
 
 W O R L D S - E 1S T D 401 
 
 the time, but now and then Patton would burst in tem 
 pestuously and drive her out for a walk. He also bul 
 lied her into taking a tonic. But nothing succeeded in 
 rousing her from her pale listlessness. 
 
 Sally she never saw, except sometimes on her way to 
 and from Richard s room. Mary was nearly every mo 
 ment with Sally. Phoebe s only real companion and ap 
 proach to comfort in those days was "Wizzy, " and the 
 little dog followed her everywhere like a small decrepit 
 shade, and slept close to her at night, wrapped in his lit 
 tle blanket, where he could nudge her with his hot, dry 
 nose when evil dreams harassed him. In some dim, dog 
 gish way he certainly felt that being near Phoebe was 
 the next thing to being near his master. 
 
 On the tenth of these dreadful, unreal days, near six 
 o clock in the morning, Phoebe had just sunk into a 
 troubled doze, when a wild, unhuman scream roused her. 
 She sat up trembling all over, and "AA 7 izzy" started up 
 too, his scruff bristling. If it had not been for the dog s 
 action she would have lain down again, thinking she had 
 dreamed, so deathly was the stillness of the house after 
 that one awful cry. But as it was she lighted her candle 
 as soon as her shaking fingers could find the matches, and 
 throwing on a dressing gown went out into the hall. 
 
 A low wind was making a harp of the outer door. The 
 old clock beat immovably on. These were the only sounds. 
 But then she saw a band of yellow light under Sally s 
 door. As she gazed at it Miss Carney came running out. 
 
 Phoebe rushed to her. 
 
 "Can t stop now ..." she said, running on down the 
 stairs. Phoebe was after like a deer. She gasped as she 
 ran: 
 
 "You must tell me. ... Is he ... dead?" 
 
 Miss Carney was passionately breaking ice from the big 
 lump in the refrigerator. 
 
 "No . . . get me a bowl please. No ... it s his 
 mother. . . . Doctor told her . . . out of danger . . . 
 went off like that . . . sorry can t stop," and thus, tele 
 graphically speaking, Miss Carney seized the bo- i without 
 ceremony, clapped the ice into it and was off upstairs 
 again in a fleet run. 
 
 Phoebe followed slowly. Her knees felt as though made 
 of wet blotting paper now. She helped herself up each 
 step by the banisters.
 
 402 WORLD S-END 
 
 Reaching the upper hall she went and sat in the little 
 chair behind the archway as she had done on that first 
 day. But now her eyes were fastened on the door of 
 Sally s room. Was she going to die? Was she perhaps 
 dead already? Oh, what would Owen do if this came on 
 him ? Nothing that she could do, no, not the pouring out 
 of her very life, could help him if this horror were to be 
 fall him. And icy cold, her feet and hands numb, she 
 crouched there, wrapping herself with both arms, strain 
 ing them about her own body as though she would help it 
 to bear this new and fearful pain. 
 
 Wizzy, holding up one paw as though it were wounded, 
 came and gazed at her, shivering so violently that she felt 
 compelled to loosen her desperate hold on herself and take 
 him in her arms. So they sat, the wretched girl and the 
 little wretched dog, trembling together like one flesh. 
 
 What seemed to her long hours afterward, Mary came 
 out in her soft, white dressing-gown. Her face was very 
 pale but quiet, and hope stirred in Phoebe s heart. Hold 
 ing Wizzy to her she stumbled forward. 
 
 "Mary ..." she called in a hoarse whisper. "Mary. 
 
 
 Mary turned with a start and came towards her. She 
 took her and Wizzy in her kind arms. 
 
 "You poor, dear little soul," she said. "You look half 
 frozen. It s all right, darling. Don t shake so. Doctor 
 Patton has pulled Sally through. It was the shock of 
 joy after her long despair. Come back to your room, poor 
 baby. We shall have you ill next thing." 
 
 She drew Phoebe into her bedroom and made her get 
 into bed. 
 
 "My poor, poor baby!" she said, cuddling her. "I m 
 afraid you ve been dreadfully neglected all these sad days. 
 Your little patties are like ice. Are your feet cold?" 
 
 She slipped her hand under the bed-clothes and felt 
 the marble-cold feet. 
 
 Just you wait a minute ! she said, nodding and 
 smiling. 
 
 She went quickly out and came back in a few minutes 
 with a bottle of hot water in a crocheted overcoat. It 
 seemed to Phoebe that she had never felt a more blissful 
 sensation than the contact of that bottle s warm little 
 stomach with her frozen feet. Tears came to her eyes. 
 
 "Cousin Mary, you re an angel!" she cried, choking and
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 403 
 
 dragging Mary s head convulsively down to her with both 
 
 arms. 
 
 "Now . . . now ..." murmured Mary. "Don t you 
 be imitating poor Sally . . . there . . . there. ..." 
 
 She patted and soothed her as if she had really been a 
 tearful baby. 
 
 "I ll tell you what I m going to do!" she cried sud 
 denly, straightening and putting her fingers wisely to 
 her lip. The little dance had come back to her light 
 eyes. "We re both rather cold and forlorn I m going 
 to get my spirit-lamp and make us both a cup of nice, hot 
 tea!" 
 
 "Oh, Cousin Mary . . . dear Cousin Mary," murmured 
 Phoebe, between tears and laughter. "It s like when you 
 read of good things to eat in a book and get so hungry. 
 It seems to me I d rather have a cup of tea right now 
 than go to heaven!" 
 
 "But first, Madam Greedy," replied Mary, "we re 
 going to have a nice blaze in this vault-like apartment of 
 yours. "Where does America keep her kindling?" 
 
 Phoebe told her and half got from bed in her eager 
 ness to help, but Mary pushed her back unceremoniously 
 and "battened her down," so to speak, with the bed 
 clothes tucked deep about her ears. Phoebe submitted 
 smiling, but still tearful with mingled relief and grati 
 tude, and then Mary brought a parcel of little "fat-wood" 
 splinters (the resin soaked portions of old pine) and, kneel 
 ing clown before the chimney, soon had a sheet of spark- 
 shot blaze roaring up it. 
 
 "Oh, what a good husband you ought to get, Cousin 
 Mary," sighed Phoebe from the bed. "Aunt Patty says 
 that when a woman can kindle a good fire it s the sign 
 she s going to have a good husband." 
 
 Mary laughed. 
 
 "He ll have to be one of the sons of God to equal that 
 fire!" she said, with gay pride in her feat. 
 
 The whole room was winking and laughing in the or 
 ange glare as though even the old house itself partook 
 in the general feeling of relief that Richard s escape from 
 death had brought to AVorld s-End. 
 
 "Now for our tea!" said Mary, and she whisked out, 
 looking more than ever like a busy angel with the fleecy 
 sleeves of her dressing-gown waving back in the energy 
 of her movements.
 
 404 WORLD S-END 
 
 All her life long Phoebe recalled that cup of scalding- 
 tea, drunk as the grey dawn broke over World s-End on 
 that day of deliverance, as something nectarous, ambro 
 sial, divinely uplifted above all other food that she had 
 ever tasted or ever would taste. And she asked Mary 
 to warm a little saucer of cream dashed with tea for 
 Wizzy, to whom this beverage was a consolation for most 
 of the ills of life. 
 
 She got up when Mary had gone, too restless to stay 
 in the lonely bed which Owen had not shared with her 
 now for two long, miserable weeks. 
 
 "Wrapping her warm, fur-lined dressing gown about her 
 she w r ent to the window and looked out. She always slept 
 with her shutters wide, as Owen liked them, and now she 
 saw the pale scarf of the dawn floating above the dark 
 horizon, beyond the winter twigs, like a w f hite signal 
 waved by hope it seemed to her, and yet . . . and yet. 
 . . . Oh, where was her resolution to tell him all just as 
 soon as she knew w r hether Eichard would live or die? 
 If only he had believed those cruel, true words. And as 
 she stood there, big-eyed, forlorn, a little lonely waif of 
 life, facing the full-breasted dawn, she had something of 
 the wondering pain at the course of things that must 
 visit even the breast of a Japanese condemned by his own 
 decree to self -slaughter. 
 
 The door opened as on that other day and Owen en 
 tered. He was very pale but the stony look had gone from 
 his face. He came over to the window and stood beside 
 her. 
 
 "He will live ... "he said in a low voice. 
 
 Phoebe took his hand timidly, then held it to her lips 
 and heart, and he did not seek to stay her. She did not 
 look at him, and he too was gazing at the quickening 
 east. A red-bird streaked by like a flame springing from 
 the ashen branches. 
 
 Owen was speaking again to himself now. He 
 was speaking his thoughts aloud, muttering indis 
 tinctly : 
 
 "It was those words . . ."he said, "those words. ..." 
 
 Suddenly, in that cold, bleak dawn, standing there ac 
 tually touching the one desire of her heart, little Phoebe 
 was caught up on that mount of transfiguration whose 
 stern splendour breaks, if only once, through the dark 
 mists of most human lives.
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 405 
 
 She stepped back a little from him, and said in a small, 
 faint voice: 
 
 "But . . . they were true words. . . . 
 
 "Eh?" he said, like a man rising confused to the sur 
 face of his own thoughts. 
 
 "Yfhat . . . Kichard said . . . that day . . . ahout me 
 . . . was true. . . . 
 
 There came a silence. She saw his hand go up over 
 his eyes. Then he reached out his other hand behind him 
 without turning, and drew her to him. He held her so 
 tight against him that he hurt her, but this pain was beau 
 tiful. If he would only hold her tighter tighter until 
 the crushed life stopped aching 
 
 "You . . . you . . . didn t understand ..." she fal 
 tered piteously. Oh, put me from you ! . . . It was true. 
 I was his. . . . 
 
 " Don t," he cried sharply. "There s 110 need . . . I ve 
 always known it ... I knew it when I married you . . . 
 and ... I knew you would tell me . . . some day. . . . 
 
 He caught her up to him in both arms now, and she 
 felt his cheek pressed down upon her head, and the tight 
 ening of the muscles in his jaw as he set his teeth to 
 gether. He caught her still closer. "Darling . . . darling 
 . . . darling ..." she heard him whispering. 
 
 At first she clung to him in a trance of amazed rapture, 
 then as the lightning stabs into the sea, a new, lurid 
 pain struck down into the secret depths of her being. If 
 he had always known if he had known when he married 
 her then it was out of pity that he had taken her to 
 save her out of pity pity 
 
 She struggled free and stood staring before her like 
 one witless. 
 
 "Oh, my darling, my little heart. what is it?" he 
 asked anxiously, trying to take her in his arms again. 
 But she put out one hand against his breast, and stood so 
 wdth her stiffened arm holding him away from her. 
 
 "Then ... it ... it ... was pity ..." she stam 
 mered. "You . . . you . . . didn t . . . love me. . . . 
 
 "Phoebe!" he cried. He tried a second time to draw 
 her to him. But she held him off, saying: 
 
 "No ... no. ... Wait, ... It was pity ... all 
 the time it was just . . . pity. ... my God!" 
 
 And flinging herself down she buried her face on her 
 arms against the window-sill.
 
 406 W O li L D S - E N D 
 
 Now he had drawn her up into his arms again. His 
 voice had a sort of tremulous anger in it. 
 
 Phoebe ! . . . Phoebe ! . . . I loved you from the first 
 minute I ever saw you . . . not as I do now . . . but 
 dearly. Do you think I could have married you if I 
 didn t love you?" He gave a sort of broken laugh, then 
 rushed on vehemently. "The man doesn t live who could 
 take to wife a woman he has/^Be- love for. There was 
 pity too, yes, an infinite compassion for a lovely nature 
 wronged and hurt, but I believed in you. I always be 
 lieved in you I knew I had only to wait. I knew the 
 truth there was in you the courage. I knew that you 
 would tell me. When I married you you were sick to 
 death in spirit, a poor little maimed thing; but you, the 
 real you, my Phoebe, you were there under it all. And 
 for that I loved you, and believed in you, and waited for 
 this precious hour. Oh, Phoebe! . . . little heart . . . 
 don t say these cruel things to me. . . . 
 
 But she went on feverishly with obstinate despair! 
 "You only say it to comfort me . . . you re so kind . . . 
 oh, let me go ! ... It was only pity ... it was only pity. 
 ... It s only pity now. 
 
 He held her off and tried to look into her face, but she 
 hung it down on her breast. He could see the great tears 
 glittering down between them a veritable rain of tears. 
 
 "Phoebe ... "he said, his voice was very low and 
 broke on the \vords here and there. "I ve suffered so 
 much these past days . . . are you really going to make 
 me suffer more ? 
 
 "It was pity ... it was pity ..." she droned on, 
 gulping her tears like a child that has given over hop 
 ing. "It was only pity ... let me go ... I will go back 
 to father. . . . 
 
 Then she heard a sound of such fierce, contained an 
 guish that it startled her. It was the moan back of shut- 
 teeth which breaks from a man who is at the limit of his 
 endurance. She glanced up through her blinding tears in 
 terror, and seeing his face her terror increased tenfold. 
 He had the sunken, gone look of one dying, his face was 
 all contorted. He tried to speak in answer to her look, 
 tried twice, then suddenly broke into such sobbing as a 
 woman may only hear once in her lifetime, and which 
 when death comes she still seems to hear. In an instant 
 she had flung herself against him, over him as it were,
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 407 
 
 as though she would shield him from his terrible grief with 
 her soft body. "Oh, my darling! Oh, my life! . . . My 
 soul . . . my blood!" she cried. "Stop! ... Stop! . . . 
 I can t bear it. ... No ! No ! I will not ever say it again. 
 . . . Never, never again. Yes, you love me ! I feel it ! 
 . . . Oh, I love you so! ... Oh, I shall die if you don t 
 stop . . . you are tearing me . . . you are tearing out my 
 heart . . . these are not tears . . . they are blood . . . 
 Owen! Owen! ..." 
 
 lie clutched her as the drowning clutch, his face 
 pressed between her breasts, and with her hands, her 
 arms, her whole body she clung to him, wreathed about 
 him, wound his head to her with desperate, savage ten 
 derness. So they clung sobbing together, shaken as by 
 one life. 
 
 The bright fire that Mary had kindled died down, 
 steps began to pass softly to and fro in the house. The 
 red winter sun, burning softly through the ashen branches, 
 wrapped them in a glowing web. Until they were quite 
 spent they clung there in each other s arms, and Phoebe, 
 under the veil of her thick hair, drank the tears from his 
 face with passionate kisses . . . kissed and kissed that 
 dear face that was more than God to her wild, wilful heart, 
 kissed it until she was so weary that she just left her 
 lips against it in one long, exhausted caress of utter self- 
 abandonment and love half-assuaged. 
 
 XLVII 
 
 went early to bed that evening at World s- 
 *-* End. It was as if they had seen the hem of death s 
 sable garment trail from the threshold, and, double-locking 
 the steadfast door of the still inviolate home upon him, had 
 said with a deep, unanimous sigh of the spirit, "Ah, now, 
 at last, we can sleep in safety." 
 
 Even the faithful Miss Carney was to seek slumber on 
 this beneficent night, lying on the couch which Owen had 
 occupied in Richard s dressing-room, with the door open 
 and a night-light burning. Under the opiate given early in 
 the evening her patient w r ould be sure also to sleep tran 
 quilly until morning. Mary took Sally off to bed at nine 
 o clock. At half -past nine Patton, yawning and stretch-
 
 408 WORLD S-END 
 
 ing like a sluggish colossus coming drowsily to life, went 
 off in search, of the first unbroken rest that he had en 
 joyed since his arrival, two weeks ago. By ten the old 
 clock was the one animated thing in all the slumber-muted 
 house. 
 
 But by the side of Owen.naw so dearly near her once 
 again and fallen immediately into the deep, stirless sleep 
 of exhaustion, Phoebe lay, wide awake, watching the soft 
 shadows from the wood-fire play about the lovely room, 
 that seemed once more to smile upon her with a friend s 
 countenance. Was it possible . . . oh ! was it possible, 
 that death and fear had gone, and only love was with 
 her? Might she not wake up suddenly to find that she 
 had been dreaming, and in her dream had said, "This 
 is a dream ? 
 
 Cautiously, little by little she turned her head on the 
 pillow. No not in dreams was a beloved face ever as 
 clear and familiar as that dark face bent towards her 
 in its sleep the lips parted by deep, tranquil breaths, 
 the eyelids, still heavy from tears, sealing so calmly 
 the tired eyes. And yet dared she but touch him just 
 to reassure herself by yet another sense that he was really 
 there that this wonderful, great day of joy was not illu 
 sion, bvit glorious, golden reality. Just to put out her 
 hand light as a feather and touch his cheek or hair. 
 But then to run the risk of waking him after all that he 
 had been through? No, she dared not. And yet and 
 yet this hunger to touch him softly a moth s wing touch, 
 the touch of a petal on a leaf- 
 As if in his sleep he felt the wistful, timid longing, he 
 lifted one of his arms and let it drop across her slight 
 body. And, pinioned there by the great arm which lay 
 leaden with sleep upon her, she smiled happily, looking 
 down at it from under her lowered lashes. More and 
 more she smiled as a quaint fancy came to her. "Dryad," 
 he called her sometimes. Now his arm lay across her like 
 the great branch of a tree. Her breast could hardly draw 
 in breath under that warm weight yet for a long time 
 she lay there, happy to be stifled by what was so dear to 
 her. And all Phoebe s nature spoke in that happiness. To 
 love, to be loved, even to be hurt by what she loved, 
 this she counted living, and the rest was but shadows to 
 her. 
 
 But presently the fire, flaring up joyous and golden,
 
 WORLD S-EXD 409 
 
 as though it, too, were waking from happy dreams, 
 roused him with the shaking of its bright flag across his 
 face, and. turning a little towards her, he withdrew his 
 arm and felt for her hand, kissing it in his sleep and then 
 keeping it in his own against his cheek. 
 
 Raising herself on her free arm, Phoebe gazed down at 
 him in that fluctuant golden light that was like the actual 
 glow from the wings of happiness. She pored upon him 
 with parted lips and breath in-held, as Psyche might have 
 pored upon sleeping Eros, returned to her, this time with 
 his torch alight by his own will. Gone were fear and 
 darkness. gone was doubt, she looked on the face of 
 love clear of every shadow ; in the quiet heart of the 
 kindly night, there close to him, still cherished and de 
 sired by him, knowing all, like lover and mother in one, 
 she gazed down on him, made helpless by sleep like a little 
 child, at the mercy of even a weak hand like her own, 
 had it been the hand of hate instead of the hand of love. 
 Dearest and best and greatest-hearted of all the world, 
 and he was hers as she was his. . . . And as she leaned 
 there in awed, tender security, suddenly, as it had been 
 a rose-lit slide, the present was withdrawn, and she gazed 
 back into the steep, dark caverns of the past through 
 which with so much fear and so much trembling she had 
 climbed to this wide place of refuge. She looked bravely, 
 not shrinking, and saw herself as she had been when first 
 Owen and then that other came into her life, a self- 
 willed, self-centred girl, full of a wild, imperious desire 
 fcr life and love, not rightly knowing and certainly not 
 caring over-much in what real life and love consisted. But 
 now she knew, if only in part, something of these benign 
 yet awful mysteries; and the new spirit in her shuddered 
 with a sort of pity for what she had then been ; for the 
 blindness and littleness and narrow passion of it all. 
 
 And she sent her thought deeper still, and drew forth 
 the thing that might have been from those dark shadows 
 of the past. She forced her mind to see herself as Rich 
 ard s unwanted wife, a creature for all time abased in his 
 sight and in her own, her child cast off. . . . 
 
 Recoiling from this dread picture, another as terrible 
 confronted her, and she saw herself again, lying there 
 alone on the mountainside, dead by her own hand, lying 
 there for days, perhaps, until . . . 
 
 Vividly there rushed before he:. 1 Oe scene of her old
 
 410 W O R T, D S - E N D 
 
 father s grief and despair as it might have been when 
 he was told of what had been found on the mountain. 
 . . . She dropped her head on her arms and trembled 
 with a sick horror of the self that had been hers. 
 
 For some moments she stayed thus, then again she lifted 
 herself and gazed down at the face of the man sleeping so 
 quietly at her side. Ah, was it strange that she worshipped 
 him? Was she not his creation? Had he not given her 
 a soul? If she had worshipped him before she knew, 
 would not God Himself forgive her for worshipping him 
 now? 
 
 In her impassioned young gratitude she felt a helpless 
 anger against the shortness of life. How was she to grow 
 worthy of him in such a meagre space of time ? How fulfil 
 that burning ideal of herself that should be make her 
 self all glorious within like the king s daughter, as she 
 had once told him that she would do ? 
 
 And again the present was withdrawn ; but now it was 
 at the future that she gazed, at the image of herself as 
 she longed to be, moving through a clear shining towards 
 the summits of spiritual attainment. Yes, no purity 
 would be stronger than her purity, for it would be the 
 fruit of choice and not of chance; no compassion would 
 be deeper than hers, because it would be born of under 
 standing; no unselfishness greater, for her true, her real 
 self had been given her by the selfless love of another, and 
 must be cherished only to spend itself in things apart from 
 self, thus growing in greatness by what it gave away, in 
 accordance with divine paradox. 
 
 Ah, the little children that she would succor. . . . Her 
 heart swelled as she thought of her own baby and re 
 membered what had been almost her chief agony, the 
 seeing him so tender with, what she had thought that 
 he believed his own while she looked on in guilty si 
 lence. And her heart seemed to blush hot within her at 
 this memory. 
 
 Yet all the time he had known, he had forgiven; he 
 had forgiven because he understood, not standing aloof 
 from her in condescending self-righteousness, but draw 
 ing her to his side in that wonderful comprehension that 
 saw the true spirit in her through that dark veil of her 
 mistaken youth. 
 
 Ah, the young girls mistaken as she had been mistaken, 
 caught blind and wilful and reckless in the bright snare
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 411 
 
 of romance and springtime passion, how tender and loving 
 she would be to them, how comprehending, even as he 
 had been to her. And ever she would climb up and up 
 towards those clear peaks that rose so gentle and full 
 of a mysterious promise above the mists and shadows of 
 the world in which till now she had been used to move. 
 What did the great words say? That evil might exer 
 cise a stirring power . . . point out the path to good 
 ness ... to the inner advance of life ... to the forma 
 tion of a new nature. . . . Yes, a new nature, a new 
 life, a new world all these she would win, because of 
 him and of the soul that he had given her. . . . 
 
 A great emotion lifted her spirit as on a rushing wind. 
 For one immortal moment more than love possessed it, 
 the wild gratitude of love for love, the outgush of all the 
 spirit towards some vast, benevolent source, as it were a 
 winging home to the Heart of the universe, to give un 
 speakable thanks. For that moment of wild, purified 
 ecstasy the pagan slipped from Phoebe s soul like a frail 
 husk, she was rapt into unimaginable heights, and all 
 her being quivered upward like a thin, passionate flame 
 towards its Source. 
 
 The next morning, shortly after breakfast, Owen and 
 Patton went for a long walk together. 
 
 Patton was to leave World s-End by the afternoon train, 
 and there was a very serious and important point that 
 Owen wished to discuss with him. 
 
 The day was cold and glittering. From a sky of light, 
 bright blue a small sun glared intensely, as though 
 brought to a focus by the great burning-glass of the sky. 
 The grey woods clung like smoke to the mountainsides, and 
 like smoke clustered in the folds of the valley. The little 
 Green-Flower lay like a torpid, silver-backed python 
 vainly trying to thaw itself in the winter sunlight. Here 
 and there some fields had put on the livery of spring 
 with the emerald plush of winter-oats. There was a great 
 antiphonal in progress among the crows two flights an 
 swering each other, one from the hollow near the oat- 
 field, one from Logan s "Wood. 
 
 Patton was smoking his briar as he walked, but Owen, 
 who preferred a tranquil, sedentary pipe after meals, had 
 already finished his before leaving World s-End, and now 
 jyalked with his hands loosely caught behind him, looking
 
 ,412 WORLD S-END 
 
 Tip from under his brows at the mountains they were ap 
 proaching. 
 
 In their stupendous tranquillity they seemed like a great 
 "Credo" rising towards the suspended abyss of ether, 
 "the earth s will to believe" made manifest. Something 
 in him responded to their silent and immemorial assertion 
 of an all-seeing Unseen, as with a great shout of the spirit 
 only spiritually to be heard. With bare majesty the ven 
 erable words strode through his mind : 
 
 "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence 
 cometh my help. ..." 
 
 The theology of the great Hebrew book might be an 
 thropomorphic, but when it spoke with the voice of its 
 poets it spoke as with divinity s own voice. 
 
 Another trumpeting of words, mysteriously great and 
 potent, sounded its inner reveille : 
 
 "The heart that abandons itself to the supreme mind 
 finds itself in relation to all its works, and will travel a 
 royal road to particular knowledges and powers. ..." 
 
 There came to him a quickening of all his spirit, akin 
 to the ecstatic motion which had drawn Phoebe from her 
 grosser sheath the night before, but with him it was a 
 force of more sobriety, an answering to the vast whole 
 with, "I agree and I revere," an abandonment in full 
 consciousness of all the self to what is selfless, yet tran 
 scends individuality, to the supreme paradox whose core 
 is truth. 
 
 Patton walked in silence beside him, feeling that to 
 gether they touched the garment of a great moment and 
 that virtue went from it to them both. 
 
 As they entered the first field leading to the flank of the 
 mountain, Owen turned to him. 
 
 "Charles," he said, "I want your advice on a very 
 grave question. Now that Richard is out of danger, 
 
 there comes the question of " he hesitated, then went 
 
 on firmly, "of my attitude to him and to Sally." 
 
 "Yes I ve been thinking of that," said Patton. 
 
 "He is certainly out of danger?" 
 
 "It will be a long time before he gets his strength, but 
 practically he is out of danger." 
 
 Owen hesitated again and grew white. 
 
 "That arm . . . ?" he said. 
 
 Patton looked grim. It was the look that came on his 
 face when he had an operation to perform in a case that
 
 W O R L D S - E N D 413 
 
 could only be locally anaesthetized. "I can t tell you yet, 
 old man. It may be stiff he may pull through." 
 
 They walked in silence for some moments. 
 
 Then Owen said, a hoarseness in his voice : 
 
 "What I want to ask you is about telling Sally . . . the 
 truth." 
 
 "I see," said Patton. He pulled hard at his pipe with 
 out noticing that it had gone out. 
 
 There w r as another silence. 
 
 "Will he ... remember clearly, Charles?" 
 
 "Not clearly, I think. But. ..." 
 
 He, too, hesitated. 
 
 "You see," said Owen in an even tone, "the first blow 
 only dazed him. He he looked at me. ..." 
 
 "He ll remember essentials," said Patton stolidly. 
 
 "I thought that." 
 
 Silence fell again. 
 
 Suddenly Patton said rather gruffly: 
 
 "I wouldn t go over it, old man. What s the use?" 
 
 "No use, Charles. At first I didn t care one way or the 
 other. Then I went down . . . there are depths, you 
 know. ..." 
 
 Acute pain twisted Patton s face for a moment, then he 
 said quietly : 
 
 "Yes I know." 
 
 It was he who again broke the silence. 
 
 "See here, old man. I think I ve got the gist of what 
 you want to ask me. Shall I put it for you?" 
 
 "Thanks yes," said Owen. 
 
 "I ve hammered at it a good bit in my own mind. When 
 Richard is strong enough the chances are that he ll tell 
 his mother the truth. I say chances, for he may ..." 
 ( Patton s italics here were very expressive of his opinion 
 of Richard) . . . "he may, out of consideration for her 
 health, decide not to speak. You know him better than 
 I do. What do you think?" 
 
 "I ve gone over that," answered Owen, "and I 
 think that, while he will shrink from telling her, the 
 the circumstances are such that he will feel compelled 
 to." 
 
 "Ah, that settles matters, then." 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 "I think it will be better for you to tell her yourself. 
 If he blurts it out to her like that . . . lying there. ..."
 
 414. WORLD S-END 
 
 His broken sentences were more expressive than words 
 could have been. 
 
 Owen s teeth caught his under-lip and held it. 
 
 Presently he said in a low voice: 
 
 "You don t think this second shock will be too much 
 for her?" 
 
 "It won t be good for her, of course. , But it will be 
 better than the other way. Sally is much better than she 
 was last winter. I doubt if she could have weathered these 
 past two weeks then." 
 
 Shall I tell her today while you are here ? 
 
 Patton thought hard for a few moments. 
 
 "Better wait a while," he said at last. "The boy won t 
 be able to talk coherently for some days. You see, she 
 had one violent shock last night. It was a shock of joy, 
 true but it got in its work just the same. I shall have 
 to keep Kichard under opiates for at least a week more. 
 Suppose we wait until I come tomorrow to settle the 
 time?" 
 
 "Just as you think, of course," said Owen slowly. 
 
 Patton stole a glance full of shy affection at the dark, 
 preoccupied face. Then he suddenly hooked his arm in 
 the other s. 
 
 "I say, Owen," he mumbled. "I d knock these memo 
 ries higher than a kite if I were you. 
 
 Owen smiled. It was a very sad, sane smile. 
 
 "Cockle-burrs are a better simile for memories than 
 kites, Charles," he said. 
 
 "Then I m dashed if I wouldn t chuck cockle-burrs, 
 coat and all, into the fire," retorted Patton grimly. 
 
 "You forget my mind s the coat in this case." 
 
 Patton was silent. The words "physician, heal thyself," 
 occurred to him. Who knew better than he did that 
 memories are not subject to the will of man? Who knew 
 better than he. ... A rigour ran through him. He 
 withdrew his arm and busied himself with refilling his 
 pipe. His hands were shaking. 
 
 They had reached a fence, beyond which rose a grove 
 of noble oaks and chestnuts. Through their trunks could 
 be seen an old brick wall, violet-brown with age and 
 thickly crusted with moss and lichen. 
 
 "The old Randolph burial-ground hey?" asked Pat- 
 ton, glad for even this lugubrious change of subject. 
 
 "Yes. Shall we take a look? The key is here under a
 
 W O R L D S - E X D 415 
 
 flat stone a queer old custom that I ve never 
 changed." 
 
 "Yes, let s," said Patton. "It s a beautiful spot. See 
 how those wild grapevines have grown from tree to tree, 
 making them look like one huge banyan. . . . And the 
 valley there at its feet . . . and the mountain keeping 
 guard. They should sleep sound, those old Randolphs." 
 
 "Yes. I love the place," said Owen. 
 
 He found the big, rusty key and opened the old iron 
 gate between its brick posts, surmounted by balls of stone, 
 from each of which rose a dexter hand holding a toma 
 hawk. 
 
 Owen pointed to them with the key. "The old ex 
 plorer s crest, invented by himself, before the discovery 
 of the famous nag s-head," he said, smiling. 
 
 "Fine old fellow," said Patton heartily. "Is he buried 
 here?" 
 
 "Yes. There he is. He was the third Owen Randolph, 
 you know. He built the central part of the house that s 
 now standing." 
 
 Patton turned about on the thick carpet of periwinkle 
 that ran from high wall to wall of an enclosure about 
 eighty feet square. The tombstones were all very simple, 
 of white marble beautifully toned by age and weather. 
 On this one which stood slightly apart, with one other, 
 from the rest was carved : 
 
 My Father 
 
 OWEN RANDOLPH 
 
 Born Jan. 151715 
 Died Nov. 91795 
 
 Ingenium nemo sine corpore exercebat; optimus 
 quisqiie facere quam dicere, sua a& aliis bene 
 facta laudare, quam ipse aliorum narrare malebat. 
 
 "A fine old chap ... a fine old chap ..." murmured 
 Patton again, reading over the stately Latin words. "Did 
 he choose that reticent epitaph himself, do you know? It 
 would be like what I ve read of him." 
 
 "Yes, it would be like him, but it was more like him. not 
 to choose any, I think. He even stated in his will that 
 he didn t wish any laudatory words put on his grave-
 
 416 W O R L D S - E N D 
 
 stone, and so his son got round it rather well, I think, by 
 quoting that bit from Sallust. It agrees so exactly with 
 the father s views on the subject each best man pre 
 ferred to do rather than to say. ! 
 
 "It s the old statesman in a nutshell," said Patton mus 
 ingly. "Fine stock you come from, old man." 
 
 Owen stood also musing on the simple headstone. 
 
 "They say I hark back to that Owen," he said at last. 
 "He was a man of enormous strength and violent pas 
 sions. 
 
 "Yes, so I ve heard so I ve heard," said Patton hastily. 
 "Could tear a double deck of cards in two, I believe* 
 and tie a poker round his neck like a cravat. 
 
 "So tradition says." 
 
 Member of the House of Burgesses, Councillor of State, 
 Commissioner for boundary lines, treaties with In 
 dians, explorer, patriot, what didn t the old fellow 
 do? You ll have to look lively to keep up with him, 
 Owen." 
 
 Owen shook his head. 
 
 "I m afraid he d disinherit me if he had the power," 
 he said. Whatever he was, I m sure he wasn t socialistic 
 in tendency." 
 
 "But you re not an out and out socialist, old man." 
 
 "I can t buckle on any fixed creed and work in it, 
 Charles. You might call me a question-asker. I try to 
 ask practically. I m not content with answers in the air. 
 But I ve never yet found a solution, neither mine nor 
 other men s, that I could accept in ioto. In the mean 
 time ..." 
 
 "You do your damnedest angels could do no more, 3 
 put in Patton quickly, and they both stifled a laugh out 
 of respect for the quiet sanctity of the place where men 
 and women lay resting after the long day. 
 
 As they turned to go Patton said : 
 
 "I hope you ll have a son some day to carry on the old 
 name. 
 
 "I hope so," said Owen quietly. 
 
 They struck through a field to the left, and, entering 
 the woods, began to climb the mountain. 
 
 "That s a lovely child you ve married, Owen," said 
 Patton presently. "She s going to make a splendid 
 woman. You must cosset her up a bit now, though. We 
 neglected her rather badly during all this turmoil. I ve
 
 WORLD S-END 417 
 
 an idea she doesn t feel quite as strong as she pretends 
 to." 
 
 lie gave one of his shrewd, sidelong glances at Owen, but 
 the dark face was quite unconscious. "Doesn t know yet," 
 thought Patton. "Just as well, too. Might get to worry 
 ing badly over what all this might mean to her." 
 
 So Mary had been right, after all. 
 
 The chief memory that Richard brought out of the dark 
 undertow of death was the memory of a gigantic Face that 
 readied from the heavens to the uttermost depths of that 
 sea in which he seemed alternately to drown or with agony 
 to float upward. And whether he sank, smothering, or 
 floated racked by the tossing of angry waves which seemed 
 to be jerking his bones asunder, always that vast Face, 
 turgid with annihilating wrath, glared at him. Power, 
 evil and irresistible, had taken to itself a shape and 
 poured destruction on him from those dreadful eye-sockets 
 and drawn-back swollen lips. It was the Face of wrath, 
 of vengeance, of ruthlessness the stark visage of mur 
 der filling earth and sky and its likeness was that of 
 a face that he had once known only gentle and benevo 
 lent. . . . 
 
 And it seemed to him that this huge Face, so implac 
 able with the lurid lighting of eyes that thirsted for re 
 venge, was the persona through which sounded the voice 
 of the universe. Those snarled-back lips were the grim 
 curtains of a gateway into which he would be eventually 
 sucked and ground to pulp between great fangs, jagged 
 and preposterous as mountains a serried range of teeth, 
 arming those hot jaws that slavered with the lust of de 
 vouring. 
 
 It was against this face that he struggled and shrieked, 
 in such moments as the opiates relaxed their hold on him, 
 and when the strong tentacles of morphia wrapt him 
 again, holding him numb and heavy in those black depths 
 it was at this face, glaring down at him as through miles 
 of sullen water, that he moaned and muttered feebly. 
 
 Even after he regained his senses and began slowly, so 
 slowly, to mend, this face, remembered, was a torture. 
 And lying there, transfixed by weakness and the heavy 
 plaster, in which his right arm was still set, he would 
 strive pitifully by the hour to recall exactly what had 
 happened, to put into some sequence the events which
 
 418 WORLD S^- END 
 
 had preceded his illness. "What had he said? He could 
 not recall the words. They had been in the rose garden, 
 the snow was very smooth and deep, she had stared at 
 him with helpless rage as one impaled might stare at the 
 executioner. Yes, that was the way it had begun. But 
 afterwards? Only the memory of that kind face made 
 hideous by fury would come to him, of that face and 
 the lifted stick. 
 
 And how much did his mother know? Did they all 
 know? Had she told everything by now? How long ago 
 had it all happened? What was to come next? 
 
 One day, when he could bear it no longer he lay gather 
 ing his scattered forces for a long time, then just man 
 aged to articulate : 
 
 "Mother. . . ." 
 
 She was on her knees by him in a second, her face close 
 to his. 
 
 "My precious boy . . . don t exert yourself. I m here. 
 ... I m always here. ..." 
 
 He looked down at his bandaged arm in the cast, heavy 
 as stone. 
 
 "How? . . ."he whispered. 
 
 "It was that cursed horse . . . Ironmonger, the vi 
 cious colt. Don t think about it, my darling! Charles 
 Patton says you will be quite, quite well again. As well 
 and strong as ever, my darling my own precious boy." 
 
 Eichard smiled weakly at her, and let his eyes close. 
 
 So that was what they had said! 
 
 He was too weak to follow it out. He fell shortly into 
 a thick sleep. 
 
 A week later Hannah brought a little note to Sally 
 from Owen, as during one of Richard s heavy, still 
 drugged sleeps she was taking a few moments to comb out 
 her hair, now almost entirely grey. This startled her a 
 little. Things startled her very easily nowadays. The 
 colour settled on her cheek bones as she read : 
 
 DEAR SALLY: I write because I want to make sure that you 
 will come at once, and not think this only an ordinary message. 
 Patton is with me, and I wish very much to consult you about 
 something. 
 
 OWEN. 
 
 "Where is he?" she said, scrutinising the little dark 
 face to find whether Hannah were in the secret. But
 
 WORLD S-EXD 419 
 
 Plannah knew nothing, and her face was serene and uncon 
 scious, though it looked grave, as all faces did during that 
 time at World s-End. 
 
 "He an the doctor s in the steddy, Miss Sally," she 
 said. "Mr. Owen said he d like to see you right away, 
 please, while Mr. Richard s asleep." 
 
 Sally went slowly downstairs to Owen s study, cogitat 
 ing deeply all the way. Her heart had begun to beat 
 quickly. Could it, might it be ... something about that 
 dark secret that hung over her always? . . . 
 
 She entered and, still holding the knob of the study door 
 in her hand, looked steadily at the two men who were 
 standing before the fire. 
 
 Owen came forward and, taking her hand, gently led 
 her to a chair. 
 
 "Well?" said Sally drily, looking from one to the other 
 of them. "This is rather like being brought before the 
 Vehmgericht. ..." 
 
 Patton came to the rescue. 
 
 "The fact is, Sally," he said, "Owen has something 
 that he feels he must tell you. There s nothing whatever 
 in it to alarm you, but it will probably upset you a good 
 deal. I want you to take this if your heart begins thump 
 ing." He pushed a little glass towards her. "I shall go 
 into the library until you and Owen have finished." 
 
 He got up without more ado and left the room. 
 
 Sally had grown very pale. Her thin hands were locked 
 hard together upon her knee. Suddenly the greyness of 
 her thick hair framing her dark, sallow face struck Owen 
 as terribly pathetic. It was as if she were crowned with 
 the ashes of her burnt-out life. 
 
 He came and stood near her, looking down at her. His 
 lip quivered. 
 
 "Sally," he said at last, "we ve been awfully fond of 
 each other. ..." 
 
 "Why do you say we have been ?" she broke in 
 sharply, her figure rigid, her heart taking a still quicker 
 rhythm. "What is it, Owen? For God s sake let me 
 have it quick. ..." 
 
 He grew so white that she got up and stood close to 
 him, putting her hand on his shoulder. 
 
 "Is it about Richard?" 
 
 "Yes."
 
 420 WORLD S-END 
 
 She took her hand from his shoulder and put it to her 
 heart. 
 
 "And . . . and . . . you?" 
 
 "Yes, Sally." 
 
 "And . . ." 
 
 He spoke in a firmer tone, forcing himself to meet her 
 eyes. 
 
 "It s about us all, Sally. You, me, Richard . . ." 
 He paused. "... Phoebe," he ended almost inaudibly. 
 
 Sally dropped back into her chair as if from a blow, and 
 covered her face with her thin, twitching hands. 
 
 She heard Owen s voice saying: 
 
 "Take this . . . there s worse to come," and felt the 
 touch of the wine glass against her hand. Still keeping 
 one hand against her cheek, she drank the medicine me 
 chanically. 
 
 "... Worse?" she then whispered with that little 
 croak that intense emotion brought to her voice. 
 
 Much worse, my poor girl. ... I want to tell you . . . 
 I must tell you . . . Sally, Ironmonger didn t savage 
 Richard. He wasn t hurt by a horse. . . . He ..." 
 
 He turned with his back to her, staring into the fire. 
 He did not choose to see her face, nor that she should see 
 his in that moment. 
 
 "It was I who did it," he said very low, but distinctly. 
 
 She did not stir or utter a sound. 
 
 He went on without looking round. 
 
 "I ve always known," he said. "I mean about Richard 
 and" he paused again "and . . . Phoebe." 
 
 Still she did not stir nor speak. He went on : 
 
 "He said some vile words to her. I went mad. ... I 
 had father s ash in my hand. ..." 
 
 He stopped, and the silence seemed muffled and roaring 
 as when one s hands are over one s ears. 
 
 Then at last she spoke. 
 
 "I knew it," she said in a deathly voice. "I knew . . . 
 it ... would . . . come. God!" She screamed on the 
 word suddenly, as when Patton had told her that Richard 
 would live. "My brother! . . . my son! ..." 
 
 Patton wrenched open the door and dashed to her. He 
 took her bodily in his arms and laid her upon the leather 
 lounge. 
 
 "Go . . ," he said under his breath to Owen. "Go 
 away . . . quick! ..."
 
 WORLD S-END 421 
 
 Owen went out and straight to his own bedroom. He 
 locked the door and, sinking into a chair by the bed, hid 
 his face in his arms against the pillow. 
 
 It was not until the middle of February that Richard 
 was strong enough to be moved. He passionately desired 
 to get away from AVorld s-End, and Patton thought it the 
 best thing for him. 
 
 They had decided to take him to a piney seacoast in 
 Georgia, and Patton and Mary were to accompany them 
 on the journey, Mary staying on to be with Sally. Miss 
 Carney was also to be kept on until Richard was quite 
 strong again. 
 
 Two days before they left Owen came to the door of 
 Sally s room. 
 
 "Come in, Owen," she said, recognising his knock. 
 
 Pie entered arid went towards her hesitatingly, but she 
 came to meet him. She had been very ill after tbat second 
 terrible blow, and her face had the greyish look that 
 seems like a fine dust fallen from Death s wings in passing. 
 She came right up to him and put her hands on his shoul 
 ders. Her great eyes were inscrutable and unfathomably 
 sad. 
 
 "After all . . ." she said, ". . . my brother. ..." 
 
 Owen s face began to twitch. He hid it on her thin 
 shoulder. She put her hand up to it. He could feel her 
 rings cold through his hair. 
 
 "The bitterness of death, . . ." he heard her whisper, 
 "is past." 
 
 They sat silent for a long time, close together, gazing 
 into the fire, hand in hand as when they had been chil 
 dren. 
 
 Then Owen stirred, and, taking a legal paper from his 
 breast, laid it upon her knee. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked, recoiling. 
 
 "For Richard," he said gently. 
 
 "For . . .?" 
 
 She took up the paper and turned it curiously in her 
 hands. 
 
 What is it ? " she asked again. 
 
 "My will, Sally." 
 
 "You ... you .. .?" 
 
 "I have left him the estate in Florida and some prop 
 erty on Broadway."
 
 422 WORLD S-END 
 
 "You have . . . You . . . ?" 
 
 She could not articulate. Suddenly she who never wept 
 leaned down across his knees and cried as if her poor, sick 
 heart would break. 
 
 Perhaps the most insupportable moment of Richard s 
 life was that in which his mother put the copy of his 
 uncle s will upon the counterpane and told him of its 
 contents. One harsh exclamation broke from him, a dark 
 flush bathed his face then he turned it away, and even 
 her tender coaxing could not win a word from him for 
 hours. 
 
 On the eve of their departure from World s-End, about 
 midnight, Giles, who was a very light sleeper, was roused 
 by the gleam of a shaded candle in the nursery. Thinking 
 that it was Phoebe come to ask her help about something, 
 she raised herself on her elbow behind the bed-curtains, 
 preparatory to getting up. Then, rather indignant and 
 a little alarmed, she kept quite still, watchful, ready 
 to pounce at the least sign of anything unusual. For 
 it was not Phoebe who stood there by the baby s crib with 
 that shaded candle, but the grim, dark lady with the bony 
 hands and hard black eyes that Giles "couldn t abide." 
 Her long dressing-gown of violet velvet hung on her ema 
 ciated body and trailed out behind her like a pall. She 
 looked " as I m a Christian for all the world like a dismal 
 coffin stood on its end," Giles told Hannah the next day. 
 "It was like some grisly visitation to see her a-standm." 
 there in the bowels o the night, creep-mousin them grave- 
 yardish eyes o hern over the blessed lamb, an her that 
 innocent a-slumberin on as though a angel of the Lord 
 was come to kiss her." 
 
 Giles could not tell how long that solemn, ominous figure 
 stood there ; she had no watch by her, but when it finally 
 withdrew her arm was all "pins and needles," she told 
 Hannah. 
 
 Deep, deep in her heart, as on a sensitive film, Sally was 
 fixing the face of her sleeping grandchild. She knew that 
 she might never see it again, though they had assured her 
 that with care she might live for many years. Still. . . . 
 
 Shading the flame with her thin fingers, in which the 
 bones showed painfully through the flesh thus made rose- 
 gold and transparent, she bent over and kissed the little
 
 WORLD S-END 423 
 
 face. The baby screwed all her wee features into a bunch 
 of protest, and vigorously with the back of one hand she 
 scrubbed her month and btidlike noso, as though a cobweb 
 had siiv 1 i -nly blown across them. Then, with a smiling 
 sigh and stretch that arched her whole little body from 
 head to feet, sucking comfortably her own lower lip, 
 .she sank again into her fragrant sleep. 
 
 Giles, on whom in her uncovered state a draught had 
 been playing, here sneezed so violently that her head 
 bobbed downward. "When she looked up the tall, violet- 
 shrouded figure was gone. 
 
 When Sally reached her own room again she in her turn 
 was startled by a figure that stood near her fire and turned 
 to meet her; a figure with half-scared, yet very brave, 
 dilated eyes, and a long rope of sorrel-gold hanging across 
 one shoulder. 
 
 "Cousin Sally," said Phoebe in that muted voice of 
 hers, "I ... I ... couldn t bear to say good-bye be 
 fore the others. I ... I ... want to thank you. ..." 
 
 "To thank me, child?" broke in Sally, with a fierce 
 sound that was half mirth, half misery. "You have little 
 to thank me for, I must say." 
 
 "You . . . you . . . were kind to me . . . once ..." 
 murmured Phoebe," her voice shaken by the beating of 
 her heart. 
 
 Suddenly Sally s face relaxed. 
 
 "We have all suffered/ she said. 
 
 A silence fell. 
 
 "Would you . . . would you like to see the baby . . . 
 alone?" ventured Phoebe, almost whispering. 
 
 "Thank you. I have just seen her." 
 
 "Then . . . good-bye, Cousin Sally. I ... I am sorry 
 for all that . . . that s come on you . . . through me." 
 
 "There was blame on both sides," said Sally firmly. 
 
 "Could you ..." Phoebe began, trembling all over. 
 Could you . . . forgive us ... me and . . . my baby ? 
 she said, her teeth chattering. 
 
 Sally shrugged the heavy violet garment fom her gaunt 
 shoulders with a dexterous movement. With her deft, nerv 
 ous hands, almost in the same movement, she threw it about 
 Phoebe. 
 
 "There . . . you were catching cold," she said. "Good 
 night. There is a great deal that we can all forgive one 
 another. Good night. Good-bye."
 
 424 WORLD S-END 
 
 Good-bye, Cousin Sally," whispered the girl. She half 
 lifted her hand. Sally visibly hesitated, then took it 
 loosely in her hard fingers. 
 
 "Good-bye," she said again. She let a sort of grim 
 smile lift the corner of her lip. "I may get more cordial 
 as I grow older," she said. "I was never a gushing per 
 son, you know." 
 
 "No, "said Phoebe gently. "Then . . . good-bye." 
 
 Once more Sally said good-bye. She watched the slight 
 young figure with the rope of gold that seemed biting into 
 the dark velvet like a fire pass out and turn to the left 
 along the corridor. Then she shut the door quietly. Tak 
 ing off her small enamelled watch, she began winding it for 
 the night, looking coldly and steadily into the fire as she 
 did so. 
 
 The next morning, when the time drew near for Richard 
 and Sally to leave World s-End, Owen took Phoebe in hia 
 arms and told her to walk towards Logan s "Wood, and 
 that, as soon as the carriage had driven off, he would catch 
 her up. She obeyed him silently. 
 
 When she reached the high field at the wood s edge she 
 sat down on a felled log to wait for him. 
 
 To her left lay World s-End in its smoke of winter trees. 
 Above them the real smoke from its dark red chimneys 
 spiralled softly, dimly blue into the clear air. To her right 
 the foothills went tumbling like gay, blue-clad hoydens to 
 the distant valley, and beyond them rose the mountains, 
 stern, austere, like patriarchs coldly watching the antics of 
 an undignified generation. "Why hop ye so, ye little 
 hills ? they seemed asking from under beetling brows. 
 
 And below, straight away on every side, the broad valley 
 heaved softly to the sea. As on that terrible day, just be 
 fore the New Year, snow wrapped the quiet earth. White 
 and blue, as though dedicated to the Virgin, was the 
 lovely day. 
 
 Then Phoebe s heart checked. She put up her hands 
 to it and her eyes grew black. 
 
 A carriage had emerged from the gateway of the south 
 ern lawn. It went at a slow, steady trot along the road 
 towards Crewe. Strange and out of place it looked in the 
 spotless landscape, slowly moving like some great beetle 
 numbed with cold crawling along the soft ermine of the 
 snow. 
 
 And yet in th^t small black, glistening box so quaintly
 
 WORLD S-END 425 
 
 mounted on its orange wheels, Nemesis herself was being 
 borne away, her dark wings crumpled, her bow broken, her 
 shafts unfeathered. 
 
 As in a strange white dream, on which this one blot had 
 fallen from some ink-well of the recording gods, Phoebe, 
 hand on heart, watched the black shining patch slowly, 
 steadily receding over the snowy fields. 
 
 And now Owen s voice spoke close beside her. She 
 started to her name and sprang up. lie took her hand in 
 his, and thus, hand in hand, they both stood watching that 
 beetle-like shape that grew ever smaller and smaller as it 
 went from them across the valley. 
 
 Suddenly, high overhead, a buzzard came slanting down 
 some upper strata of the wind. Below him his dark 
 shadow glided over the dazzling snow. He tacked, flying 
 in the direction of the carriage. And these three dark 
 objects, one high in air, one tracking the pure snow, 
 one stealing over it yet leaving no stain behind, all went 
 from them towards the far horizon line. 
 
 Then the carriage disappeared into the " flat- woods, " 
 the buzzard wheeled and dropped, his shadow vanishing 
 with him. All was white and immaculate again. 
 
 She turned and faced Owen with a tremulous, wondering 
 smile. He held out his arms to her. Suddenly she quiv 
 ered, straightened as she had done that night at Gaunt s 
 Hill. Her hand went to her side. But now there was no 
 terror in her eyes, only the bright, wild look of a nesting- 
 bird. 
 
 "What is it? ... What is it, my darling?" he asked 
 as he had asked then. 
 
 "Owen . . . Owen ..." she stammered, her breath in- 
 held. 
 
 He took her in his arms. "What is it, my dear . . . 
 my winsome?" he asked again. 
 
 She laid her cheek against his breast, holding him to 
 her closer, closer, with both arms. He could just hear the 
 soft whisper: 
 
 "Oh, if I could give you a son!"
 
 A 000 847 631 9