416D THE SHADOW ^"* '* m ON REACHING THAT WINDY QUARTER OF THE SHIP HE MARCHED STRAIGHT UP TO THE WOMAN. [See page 24. THE SHADOW A STORT OF THE EVOLUTION OF A SOUL By HAROLD BEGBIE Author of "Twice-Born Men" NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO Fleming H. Revell Company LONDON AND EDINBURGH CONTENTS PACK CHAPTER I. A SUGGESTION OF MYSTERY 13 CHAPTER II. HAGAR AND ISHMAEL .. .. .. .. .. 36 CHAPTER III. THE WELCOME 42 CHAPTER IV. POOR RELATIONS 53 CHAPTER V. MR. AND MRS. GRINDLEY 68 CHAPTER VI. WE MUST SUFFER .. 81 CHAPTER VII. AN INVASION OF GLEVERING 97 2228483 Contents CHAPTER VIII. A SUDDEN CHANGE 115 CHAPTER IX. A NEW PHASE OF EXISTENCE 131 CHAPTER X. STRUGGLE AND INTERRUPTION .. .. .. .. 150 CHAPTER XI. THE NEW LIFE 167 CHAPTER XII. THE METHOD OF AUGUSTUS NUTTLE 179 CHAPTER XIII. MARY DISINHERITS HER SON .. .. .. .. 198 CHAPTER XIV. UNREST 210 CHAPTER XV. THE HARMLESS DECEPTION .. .. .. .. 229 CHAPTER XVI. THE TRIAL OF STRENGTH 248 CHAPTER XVII. ALARM 262 8 Contents CHAPTER XVIII. THE RISK 278 CHAPTER XIX. THE BLOW 294 CHAPTER XX. COMPANIONS IN GRIEF 309 CHAPTER XXI. THE FALL OF THE DARK .. .. .. .. .. 326 CHAPTER XXII. DISCEDITE MALEDICTI 348 CHAPTER XXIII. THE OUTLAW .. 362 CHAPTER XXIV. THE INVISIBLE INFLUENCE 380 CHAPTER XXV. THE SISTERS 400 CHAPTER XXVI. CHRISTOPHER SPEAKS 415 CHAPTER XXVII. A SUDDEN TEMPTATION 432 Contents CHAPTER XXVI 1 1. THE LIGHT RETURNS 452 CHAPTER XXIX. AT THE BEACON 465 CHAPTER XXX WHEN HE WAS YET A GREAT WAY OFF .. .. 485 TO THE SHADOW "THIS LEARNED I FROM THE SHADOW OF A TREE** CHAPTER I. A SUGGESTION OF MYSTERY ON board a steamer bound from Quebec to Liver- pool, some twenty odd years ago, there was an individual who attracted considerable attention among the rest of the passengers, for reasons which we shall make haste to explain. This gentleman, who was perhaps five or six-and- forty years of age, described himself on his letter- paper in the following manner : MR. MAURITIUS SMITH Merchant, Planter, and Collector of Jungle Produce, Hotel and General Store Proprietor, Editor, Mine Owner, Prospector, Contractor, and Explorer. On the opposite side of the paper, which was quarto size and of thin foreign material, figured half-a- dozen addresses scattered over the Malay States, with the addition in brackets, " European Agents, Grindley & Son, St. Mary Axe, London, E.G." 13 In appearance Mr. Mauritius Smith, whose face was ploughed up with wrinkles, was a thin, red-haired, bone-staring, loose-jointed individual, with protuberant eyes, and an immense nose which suggested that he hunted for tin-mines and jungle produce in the same way that a hound follows a fox. This impression was heightened by the fact that he walked with bent knees, the neck outthrust, the head craned forward, the notable nose pointing downwards and, as it were, sniffing forward, while the combed and parted mous- taches beneath bristled with a wirelike energy. And yet in spite of this alert and hunting expression there was some generous quality of good nature in the Collector's harrowed face which advertised a cheerful, equable, and even humorous disposition. He had a smile which converted all his red wrinkles into beams of sunlight. Accompanied by his wife, who was short, coffee- coloured, and energetic, with twinkling brown eyes deep set under level brows, Mr. Mauritius Smith walked round and round the upper deck, wearing a greenish overcoat with collar and cuffs of grey fur, blue flannel trousers, canvas shoes, and a remarkable Andalusian-looking hat of hard black felt, low and flat in the crown, firm and flat and broad in the brim, with a "guard" fastened at the back and attached to a buttonhole of his inner coat. Undoubtedly Monsieur et Madame were on the best of terms with each other. They talked with animation, glanced at each other with affection, laughed together, gave each other's arms little hugs and presses, and appeared to possess with an inexhaustible loco- 14 A Suggestion of Mystery motor energy topics of conversation equally unfailing. No sooner had the steamer left the wharf than Mrs. Mauritius Smith, who wore a thick tartan cloak and a black mantilla, slipped a hand through her husband's arm, and then, oblivionising the beautiful spectacle of Quebec fading into the west, the banks of the St. Lawrence tremulous against soft skies, and even the entertaining pageant of their fellow-passengers, the twain set off on a pacing peregrination of the decks in delightful conversation, as though they had only just met after a long separation. There was a little hop in their steps, and they walked tucked up together in the closest and most affectionate understanding. But it was neither his appearance nor his devotion to his wife which made Mr. Mauritius Smith the most remarked man on this Atlantic liner steaming eastward. He was afflicted. There are physical afflictions which touch the most indifferent heart; there are others which make it difficult for the gravest to hide a smile. "What a piece of work is man," that some trivial defect in the nerves, some intangible taint in the blood, can transform the miracle of his body "in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel" into a mere buffoonery. Disease had done for Mr. Mauritius Smith what the Com- prachicos had done for L'homme qui rit, that is to say, he was a cause of wit in other men. The control of his nerves was irregular. Every now and then the collector of jungle produce would be overtaken with a shaking fit, which not only forced his limbs to shoot out suddenly with a 15 The Shadow frantic eccentricity, but which converted his genial and good-tempered face into a mask fit for a panto- mime. Nor was the contortion of face and body the extremity of his trouble, for at every few minutes noises of an extraordinary and startling nature would spring involuntarily from his lips. At one moment it seemed that he was imitating the sound of sawing wood and at the next that he was drawing innumer- able corks. It was characteristic of Mr. and Mrs. Smith that these grimaces and ventriloquisings did not interrupt their conversation. Sometimes when he darted forward with a little twitching run he would say " motor " ; and sometimes when he clicked, gobbled, and croaked he would say " vocal." It appeared to afford him an infinite amusement to ticket his eccentricities and define his infirmity. It may be imagined that these unusual mannerisms would soon create interest on board a ship. Boys quickly discovered the attraction of Mr. Smith and would overtake him, look back at him, waylay him round corners, and keep an eye on him at meals. Moreover, trouble had arisen on the second day of the voyage. It chanced that the captain a little square-shouldered, bombastic man going his round of the ship, came face to face with Mr. Mauritius Smith just as that unfortunate passenger, issuing from the bath-room, was overtaken by one of his spasmodic agitations. The poor gentleman so one might have thought made a ferocious rush at the great officer, as though to smite him with sponge and flannel, and even to assault him violently with his slippered foot, making at the same time a grimace which clearly 16 A Suggestion of Mystery argued a desire to insult authority. The captain, being a man of action, somewhat peppery in temper, did not draw back and await explanations, but instantly put himself into a fighting posture, and would surely have taken the aggressive had not Mr. Smith righted himself at that instant and exclaimed, " Nature, not me, captain ; imperious necessity ! " and passed on with a genial smile. This incident, through the media of stewards, was the talk of the ship by breakfast- time. Later on that same day, as Mr. Smith was leaving the deck to make his way to his cabin, a very old lady, nervous of the sea, frightened of fellow-passengers, and suspicious of stewards, and who had hitherto kept to her cabin, happened at that very moment to be gathering up her skirt preparatory to stepping on deck. They encountered each other in the doorway, and the Collector, recovering himself from nearly over- turning the lady, lost control of his muscles, and made a terrible grimace accompanied by such violent noises and agitations of his limbs that the old lady cried out in a panic of distress, " Take him away ! take him away!" and declared to the steward who rushed to her assistance that she had nearly been trampled to death by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Custom had staled for the sufferer the inconvenience of his affliction. He ignored it with his wife and treated it as a jest among strangers. If he entered the death-like silence of the reading-room and suddenly fired off a succession of noises, causing people to jump in their seats, he would make a propitiatory bow and announce with an appeasing smile, " Merely the clock- 17 C The Shadow work." Sometimes he would go into the smoking- room before retiring for the night, and would stand behind the card players watching the game, or sit beside the chess players contemplating the moves, and if on these occasions he was so overcome by his affliction as to startle and interrupt the players, he would murmur apologetically, " Machinery, gentle- men ; defect of ancient standing ; painless and harm- less ; pray continue." Occasionally during meals his involuntary jerkings would send a tumbler of water across the table, or a spoonful of soup into the vicinity of a watchful and apprehensive neighbour, where- upon Mr. Mauritius Smitn. would smile amiably and explain that the accident was caused by nothing serious, merely " irregular explosions of nervous energy." There was, in short, as perfect an under- standing and as cheerful a good humour between Mr. Smith and his infirmity as existed between that gentleman and his chief blessing, to wit, Mrs. Smith. On the afternoon of the second day of the voyage, when the bows of the ship were lifting ominously and a pearl-like greyness of the sky contrasted sharply with the black-blue mass of heaving ocean, when the air was deadly cold, the wind shrill in the rigging, the decks and rails and chairs saturated with a salt dampness on this miserable afternoon, when the majority of passengers were either lying down or amusing themselves in the saloon, Mr. and Mrs. Mauritius Smith, staggering round the bow end of the upper deck and pausing at the lee quarter to fetch their breath, happened to look down into the waist of the ship. 18 A Suggestion of Mystery A number of sad-looking steerage passengers were seated on the booby hatches with their backs against the derricks ; the women had shawls over their heads, the men had the collars of their coats turned up about their ears ; a more desolate and depressed group of humanity could scarcely be imagined. In the entrance to the cabins stood a knot of people whose white faces peering up at the bridge presented a ghost-like effect against the darkness of the interior. A couple of dirty-looking seamen, with cotton-waste in their hands, leaned against the weather bulwark. Beyond this scene of gloom and wretchedness, high up on the lifting deck of the fo'c'sle head, sat a beautiful woman watching a little boy who was drawing in a book which rested on her lap. The loneliness of their situation, the picturesque effect of their attitude, would by themselves, on such a bitter day, have attracted attention. But Mrs. Mauritius Smith, whose little eyes pierced a great deal further than the staring orbs of her husband, detected in the woman and child attractiveness of another kind. The woman was young, graceful, and refined ; when she bent down to watch the boy's drawing there was something singularly sweet and affectionate in the outline of her body the whole attitude expressed love and tenderness but when she raised her head and gazed for a moment at the sea there was so much tragedy and suffering in the young face that Mrs. Mauritius Smith, who was swift in her intuitions, jerked her husband's arm and exclaimed energetically, " Look at that beautiful young creature ! there's some romance about her." 19 C 2 The Shadow This- was the attraction instantly perceived by the Collector's wife, the attraction of mystery. Mrs. Mauritius Smith was not the only person on board the liner who had experienced a conviction that some mystery attached to the young mother in the steerage. Several passengers parading the decks had stopped to look at her ; they had noticed how she kept herself aloof from other people, how noble was her bearing, how dignified her appearance ; on one occasion they had also observed how the little boy had glanced into his mother's face and then turned his back on the scene, when a generous pas- senger of the upper deck had scattered oranges and chocolates among the children in the waist. The captain behind his storm-sheet on the bridge had turned his glasses upon the interesting woman more than once ; he had discussed her with the chief officer, and had even sent to inquire her name and particulars. " Mauritius, what is she doing in the steerage ? " demanded Mrs. Smith. " She is doing, Annabel, what poverty manages to do in situations even more painful and far less salubrious, she is existing. You cannot possibly praise her for that I defy you. It is an achieve- ment common to the race. To exist how wonderful ! " " There is certainly some romance about her." " She is young," said Mauritius ; " good. She is handsome ; very good. She is a mother ; ex- cellent. She seems honest ; surprising. Those are the materials. Pet, oblige me by constructing your romance." The boy forced the pencil into the woman's hand, 20 A Suggestion of Mystery and she bent down to finish his drawing. The attitude was charming. " I don't go so far as to say she is a lady," said Mrs. Mauritius. " Why not ? " exclaimed Mauritius, with expostula- tion. " Why stick at anything ? Consider your reputation." Mrs. Smith jerked his arm, saying, " Now take a good look at her, Mauritius. You are a judge of people. Is there not I ask you something about that beautiful young creature which is uncommon and remarkable ? " The collector of jungle produce fixed his eyes upon the woman on the fo'c'sle head. Just as he was about to dismiss the romantic surmisings of his wife, the object of his gaze rose from her seat, and standing up with an arm thrown over the shoulder of her son, surveyed the ocean with so mournful and so tragic an air of dejection that he was obliged to revise his ideas. " Why, look at her, Mauritius ! " exclaimed the kind-hearted Annabel. " If ever I saw sorrow, there it stands. She's grief in stone. She's a statue. Oh, we must do something for that poor young thing. What great eyes ! What a fine brow ! And look at the mouth the suffering there ! She is a lady I can see she is. And look at the child a young aristocrat, every inch of him. I tell you, I'm perfectly certain there's some romance about her." The bows rose and fell, with increasing discomfort to nervous passengers ; occasionally the ship rolled. Darkness deepened in the sea and greyness in the sky. Every moment the air grew colder. 21 The Shadow On the fo'c'sle head the figure of the watching woman began to lose the sharpness of its outline. With this merging into the greyness of twilight, the sense of her desolation became more impressive. She might have inspired a superstitious passenger with alarm, so dejected, so despairful, and so ominous was her posture. " Annabel," said Mauritius, " you are right. That lady is in trouble." " And therefore, my dear, you will go and see what you can do. Now be quick before it gets too dark, and come back and tell me all about it" "A moment's reflection," exclaimed the Malayan editor. " To descend is ofttimes to offend. First-class does not wear the garb of a ministering angel in the eyes of third-class ; it is robed in the fine raiment of patronage. Offensive, Annabel. Your dark lady on the fo'c'sle head would resent patronage. Are you with me, love ? " Mrs. Smith turned and rested her little twinkling eyes upon the Collector. " Mauritius," she said tenderly, " you have a way with you you know you have, you can't deny it." "Angel, if you think so " He prepared to depart on his mission. " Wait a minute," said Annabel, with suddenness, and crying over her shoulder, " I won't keep you a minute," she hurried down the deck at a run. Mauri- tius followed at a slower pace, feasting his eyes with admiration upon the quite ungraceful figure of his wife. " What a heart ! " he exclaimed. When Mrs. Smith returned she brought with her a 22 A Suggestion of Mystery wicker-work bottle of eau-de-cologne. " The corkscrew is at the side," she said, panting for want of breath. " Tell her it's from your wife, with her kind regards ; and, Mauritius, be sure and find out all about her." She returned to her former situation and waited for events. The people in the waist had disappeared. The deck was sodden with sea water. The monotonous sound of the ship's engines was broken every now and then by a sharp hiss and rattle as a spout of water shot up at the bows and fell with a drench across the deck. The mast-head light cast a pale radiance on the deserted scene. The roll of the liner had that helpless, hopeless, and aimless sensation which is so different from the active and as it were consciously directed energy of the rise and dip. Over the dark face of the melancholy waters hovered an embittered and weary pessimism, as though Time had made even the ocean decadent ; the noise of the monster was deep and muttering, fretted at quick intervals by a sharp and seething hiss which was full of malevolence. In the wind there was a cry keen and insistent. In spite of the cheerless scene the woman held her forlorn and exposed position in the bows. Her head was bare, and over her shoulders she wore a dark and hooded cloak, with which she covered the boy at her side. She appeared to be some twenty-seven years of age. She was above the medium height, and without rigidity held herself with a dignity of carriage which enhanced the noble lines of her figure. She was dark-eyed her hair a deep brown ; the tone 23 The Shadow of her skin that of a brunette ; the profile was rather handsome than beautiful ; the indescribable sense of sorrow which breathed in her expression destroyed the texture of softness which is perhaps necessary to beauty, but the hidden courage which supported and endured the sorrow gave majesty to a face which otherwise might perhaps have repelled certain minds by the gloom of its suffering. Mrs. Smith saw her husband cross the waist, and watched him with anxious eyes as he mounted the ladder to the fo'c'sle head. On reaching that windy quarter of the ship he marched straight up to the woman and, touching the brim of his hat, making a bow, and stamping his feet for warmth, began to address her. Unfortunately he was almost immedi- ately overtaken by " an irregular explosion of nervous energy," which caused the little boy, who had emerged from the cloak at his first approach, to start back and press close to his mother. The woman, however, maintained her attitude and showed no surprise. The darkness and the cold increased. A bugle sounded. Mrs. Smith began to think about dressing for dinner. She waited, however, till Mauritius had given the woman the bottle of eau-de-cologne and had seen him on easy terms with the boy. Then, hoping that he would soon have something to tell her, this good little Mrs. Smith drew her cloak close about her rotund figure and hurried down the deck to her cabin. She had put out the evening clothes of her husband, turned his silk socks and selected his white tie, and was sitting waiting for him to fasten the back of her 24 A Suggestion of Mystery dress, when he rapped sharply on the door and entered in a hurry. " I have three minutes, Birdie," he exclaimed, taking off his hat and coat, " in which to play lady's maid to you and valet to myself." He bent over intricate hooks and eyes hidden in the tucks and entangled by lace. " I will tell you the story of the interesting lady at dinner," he continued, fastening his wife's dress, " and for the present you must be content with meagre details. She is French ; she is a widow ; and her brother-in-law is no less a man than Sir Matthew Grafton of Glevering. Congratulate me ; the dress is fastened." " Did I not say she was a lady ? Did I not say there was something mysterious about her ? " " You did. You hesitated on the lady, but you plunged on the mystery. Yes, you were right, as you always are right. Angel, I rejoice that this poor lady has powerful and rich relations, not merely because it proves that you were right about her, but because it will save you from insisting that we should adopt widow and child and make ourselves responsible for their future. And now, by your leave, I will get ready for dinner." Mrs. Mauritius Smith asked herself as she left the state-room why these rich and powerful relations allowed the poor lady to travel in the steerage. "There is some mystery," she told herself, as she waited for her husband ; " we must ce-rtainly do some- thing to help the poor creature." The Shadow CHAPTER II. HAGAR AND ISHMAEL THE woman on the fo'c'sle head was going into exile. To her Canada was not an adopted country but a motherland. She had known no other. The ocean was something she had never seen before ; England was a country of which she was entirely ignorant. Mother and son were emi- grants from the New World to the Old World. o The tragedy of exile was deepened in their case by the humiliation of destitution. They were beggars. Mr. Mauritius Smith, with all his tact, had learned only the outline of Mrs. Grafton's story. She had told him that her husband was dead and that she was going to England to the house of her brother- in-law. A few questions had elicited the information that this brother-in-law, whom she had never seen, was Sir Matthew Grafton of Glevering, in Gloucester- shire. This outline of the widow's story may be filled in from the following narrative : Nine years before our history, begins Richard Grafton, a handsome and impetuous man of twenty- six, had arrived in Canada with two thousand pounds 26 Hagar and Ishmael of capital and innumerable letters of introduction. He was the youngest brother of Sir Matthew Grafton, and his emigration was imposed upon him by the baronet after years of ruinous 'riot and disgraceful dissipation. Sir Matthew had made this emigration a condition of paying his brother's debts for the second time. After presenting a letter of introduction to the Governor-General at the Citadel, Dick Grafton, whose good looks, high spirits, and impulsive generosity made him wonderfully popular with all classes of people, had spent six weeks in Quebec, enjoying the friendship of the Governor-General, with whom he went on several fishing excursions, and abandoning himself to the excitements and pleasures of the old French capital. From Quebec he moved to Montreal, where he was handsomely entertained by the leading bankers and the heads of the Canadian Pacific Rail- way, and where he found a more congenial wildness than existed in Quebec. It was during his intemperate career in Montreal that he fell in love with the woman who had attracted the sympathy of Mr. and Mrs. Mauritius Smith. She was at that time a girl fresh from the convent, beautiful in expression, distinguished in appearance, and charming with the simplicity and shyness of a perfectly pure and innocent character. Her father was a politician who made more speeches with his hat at the back of his head in the bar of the Place Viger Hotel than he did on the recognised platforms of the country. He was a good-natured Frenchman of forty, utterly without principle, and completely 27 The Shadow abandoned to the society of hard-drinking and con- vivial companions ; life, he said, should be lived sans faqon, and with a tumbler of whisky in his hand, his shabby silk hat at every imaginable angle, this once generous but now degraded man would under- take to prove, in a voice as hoarse as a costermonger's, his large eyes overflowing with weakness, laughter, and good temper, that there was a deal of hypocrisy and cant among the kill-joys, spoil-sports, and Pharisees of every religion under the sun, his own included. At any mention of " boodle " and " graft " he would wink his eye, throw back his head, roar with laughter, and say that matters were worse in the States. From this professional politician, who hoped by popularity in wine bars to reach a place in the next Cabinet, Dick Grafton received some useful advice. " Canada," said he, " is at the beginning of a boom. Here, in the East, it is trade ; in the middle West, wheat ; beyond the Rockies, fruit. Take my advice ; go to Winnipeg and grow corn. If that doesn't suit you, go to Okanagan Valley and grow fruit. But go west. The tide of capital and emigration is setting westward ; soon it will be a rush." Dick Grafton visited this Frenchman's house, who was a widower, and came under the spell of the convent girl. He discussed matters with the father, refused anything in the nature of a dot, and proposing to the daughter, was timidly accepted by a mind too bewildered by his charms and too innocent of the world to realise the consequences of its surrender. After the marriage, which was in the nature of an 28 Hagar and Ishmael orgy, the profligate and his beautiful, frightened bride started for the West. Dick Grafton was at last in earnest His capital had dwindled ; the future was threatening. He determined to make a fortune. Land was obtained some twenty odd miles from Calgary, then a mere village, and in six months Dick Grafton had a wooden house, immense ranges of farm buildings, the finest of agricultural implements, much cattle, and a surviving hundred pounds of capital. He was thinking of applying to the father-in-law for more money, when news came that the dissipated politician had dropped down dead in a tavern. The solitude of the place soon became intolerable to this wild nature. He rode frequently to Calgary, occasionally he made journeys to Winnipeg, for weeks he would disappear in the Rocky Mountains, and finally, on the pretence of business, he would go to Vancouver and remain there for months at a time. Mary Grafton, with her baby, was left in charge of the farm. She had no money, and the men on the place were sometimes outspoken on the matter of their wages. Her situation was one of the greatest misery and anxiety, only relieved by love for her child. She felt the loneliness and helplessness of her state, was alarmed by the long absence of her husband, was appalled by the immense silence and the everlasting monotony of the great prairie. Then a gradual change worked in her mind. As her boy grew, her mind became more restful. He was everything to her heart humanity, cities, occupation, passion, duty, religion, eternity. She wanted nothing else. And with this change the 29 The Shadow prairie no longer annihilated her consciousness ; it was the foreshadowing immortality of her devotion. She loved its wide spaces, its innumerable shades, its eternal silence. She felt the breathings of the dawn in her blood, the kiss of the night on her brow. Nature was conscious of her and loved her. She was content. The child adored his mother. At her knee he learned to draw and to read ; from her lips he received the mystery of God. It was she who taught him to ride, and who took his hand at night and stood under the moving pageant of the heavens, teaching him to feel the majesty of the universe. Her voice was very low and caressing. Every word that she uttered made a lasting influence on the impressionable child. He would sit on her lap, his hands on her shoulders, his eyes searching into the profound depths of hers. " Mother," he would say, " I believe I could see your soul if my face wasn't in the way." Her beautiful dark eyes reflected the child's like a mirror. Consider the situation. For eight years this inex- perienced French girl from a convent, married to a wild, dissolute, and unprincipled Englishman, lived in the unbroken solitude of her motherhood. The world was the prairie ; humanity, the men who worked on the farm. Neighbours there were none. The sound of church bells never reached that desolation. Neither priest nor doctor came to her door. Civilisation was the daily round of domestic duties. She walked or rode with her boy far into the prairie, without seeing house, shop, or living creature. She was conscious of her son, her soul, and God. This trinity was her motherhood ; there was nothing else. 30 Hagar and Ishmael It is necessary to realise the plenitude of her motherhood for a right understanding of subsequent events. When this son, whose name was Christopher, had reached his eighth year, a friend of the father, accom- panied by the lawyer of Calgary, came one day from Vancouver with news that Dick Grafton was dead and buried. The sordid details of his death were merci- fully hidden from his widow. When the dissolute friend had made an end, the lawyer took up the tale. The farm was mortgaged. There was nothing which the young widow could touch and say, " This is mine." From the buildings, the stock, the imple- ments, and the wheat growing in the earth, to the furniture in the rooms and the pots and pans in the kitchen, everything was sold over her head. The friend from Vancouver offered comfort. Dick Grafton, he said, had written on his death-bed to his brother in England saying that his widow would sail for England with his son, whom he commended to his brother's love, by the next steamer. He wished Mrs. Grafton to go to England immediately. A subscrip- tion had been raised among Dick's friends in Van- couver and Victoria. He had brought with him a sum of money sufficient to pay the expenses of the journey. The expenses of Dick's illness and funeral had been already deducted from the subscription. He brought the receipts and placed them in her hands a message from the dead. Mary Grafton was staggered and dumb. Her father was dead. She had no friend in all the length and .31 The Shadow breadth of this vast continent, which was yet her cherished home. To whom could she turn for com- fort and counsel ? The man from Vancouver was flaccid with drink. The lawyer from Calgary was adamant. Who could help her ? What could she do ? In the twinkling of an eye life had become one question, and one only, " How shall we live ? " She was a beggar and her son was an outcast. There was nothing for the young mother and her child but exile. She knew from what her husband had said that his brother was a great man in England ; but he was a stranger to her, and the country was foreign. To leave Canada, to turn her back upon the prairie was terrible ; to go penniless and dependent to this stranger, in a land utterly unknown to her, was an agony. Necessity drove her from her home ; destitution forced her towards the stranger. When she had paid the wages due to the men on the farm, there was just enough money for the long journey. She travelled, as we have seen, third- class. Is it not plain why the figure on the fo'c'sle head attracted the gaze of so many people ? What grief could be more bitter, what desolation more complete ? This young mother and the child whom she adored found themselves expelled from a solitude which was heavenly to a sociality which frightened and repelled. They had left the noble isolation of the prairie for the packed consociation of the steerage. They had come from the hush of the 32 Hagar and Ishmael sanctuary into the harsh clangour of a world which seemed to them coarse, hostile, and cruel. The eight years in the wilderness, eight years of communion with Nature, had given to Mary Grafton that sublimity of carriage and expression which drew the gaze of so many people on board the liner. The dignity of soul which comes from unbroken inter- course with Nature is different from every other form of nobility. It is as different from the dignity of a lady of quality, however virtuous, as the stars from electric light, as different from the dignity of scholar- ship and authority as the mountain from the statue. And yet, though there is no grandeur which can compare with it, one sees in the ascetic of the 'wilder- ness a wistfulness and sad serenity which inspires the dignity of his soul with qualities more agreeable than mere haughtiness or a self-centred arrogance. One is conscious of reverence in the presence of these anchorites of Nature who are so grand, so sad, and so gentle There was no bitterness in the heart of Mary Grafton, but an enduring sorrow. She felt the cold- ness of the world, the hostility of humanity, the punishment of necessity. She was alone with her son in the midst of a multitude who did not care. She had no money to buy bread for him ; there was nothing she could do to provide for him. Worse still, in this horrible hard world, she was the boy's only protector and shield, and she was ignorant of life. When the brother of Louis Bonaparte said to Victor Hugo, " Death is the affair of a moment, but exile is long," the poet replied, " It is a habit to be 33 D The Shadow learned." There was this difference, however, between the great Frenchman and the French widow from Canada ; he loved society, she solitude ; he was driven from Paris, she from the prairie ; he loved the world, she feared it ; he knew all things, she nothing ; his exile was with honour, hers with humiliation ; he left behind him politics, she left behind her Nature ; he went to a country of his own choice and as his own master, she to a country dictated to her and as a dependent In one thing only did their exile agree, both were conscious of God. Victor Hugo said, " It is a habit to be learned " ; Mary Grafton cried to God in the silence of her heart, "Father, protect my child." The information which Mrs. Mauritius Smith gathered from her husband's narrative fired her interest in the young widow. " Did I not say," she exclaimed from the lower berth, as the ship rolled with a horrible lurch, " that there was some romance about her ? A sister-in-law of a baronet travelling third-class and herding with the lowest people ! Mauritius, we must get to the bottom of her story, and we must help her. I shall not be able to get a wink of sleep to- night. It makes my heart bleed to think of that beautiful, sorrowful young thing lying in a miserable bunk surrounded by the snores and curses of emigrants. Emigrants eat onions and never wash ; steerage is stewage. They are packed like sardines. Instead ol a door there is a curtain. Horrible ! The arrange- ments are made for savages and she is a lady. Some- body ought to speak to the captain." " Angel," replied the Collector from the upper berth, 34 Hagar and Ishmael "somebody ought to speak to the laws of political economy. Those are the rascals ; those are the autocrats and tyrants. Ah, if only I could get at them. What a world it is ! And yet, Annabel and yet, dear love, if I conducted any one of my businesses as you would like other people to conduct theirs the directors of this shipping company, for instance you and I, pet, would be travelling steerage, grateful for an onion. Let us be fair to the universe." The ship gave a great shudder. Undisturbed by this noise, Mrs. Mauritius asked, " What is her brother- in-law about to let her travel in such a fashion ? Of course he doesn't know she is coming, we are aware of that ; but still, you would think that somebody might have done something." Mauritius, rubbing his head into the pillow, an- nounced from the upper berth, "The misery of the world, pet, is very largely attributable to everybody wondering why in the name of fortune somebody doesn't do something. Somebody is the alias of nobody. Something is a synonym for the impossible." " I intend to do something," retorted the lower berth. " Another bottle of eau-de-cologne ? Birdie, you are going it." He sighed and muttered to himself, "What a heart ! " " I shall go and speak to her to-morrow," said Mrs. Smith ; " if we can't give her the moon we can show her kindness." The ship rolled at a sickening angle. "What a night ! " said the upper berth. " Nature, you observe, Annabel, is no respecter of first-class. We suffer with the folks in the steerage." 35 D 2 The Shadow Mrs. Mauritius Smith kept her word. She descended to the steerage after breakfast, and mounted to the fo'c'sle head. The morning was bright and beautiful ; above was a translucent sky spaced with continents of clouds ; stretching away to the surrounding horizon was the sea, dark blue champing white foam, and flashing sunlight ; the air was crystal clear ; the wind fresh and rejoicing. One felt without looking that the masts, ventilators, and funnels of the liner shone in the sunlight The decks were dry and cheerful, the white paint had a glisten. As Mrs. Mauritius Smith made her way through the crowded waist she smiled upon mothers and swarming children of half-a-dozen nationalities who appeared to be rather more happy and delighted than the people she had left on the upper deck. Mary Grafton stood with her son in the narrowest part of the bows, looking forward. One of her hands was resting on the boy's shoulder. She wore no hat and her beautiful hair was trembling in the wind. Mrs. Smith was at first disappointed in her face. The features were not so regular as she had thought ; the skin was less fine than she had imagined. But directly the young widow spoke she was brought back to her original opinion. The voice was exceedingly sweet in tone, with such a reserve of quiet strength, suggesting an infinite depth of personality, that Mrs. Smith immediately recognised superiority by becoming conscious in herself of inferi- ority. This superiority of the steerage passenger was not social, intellectual, nor moral ; it was a superiority of character, of being, of personality. As Mrs. Smith 36 Hagar and Ishmael listened to the haunting voice she observed the wonder and the splendour of the woman's eyes. In a moment, by a few words uttered in her beauti- ful voice, Mary Grafton had transformed disappoint- ment into enthusiastic admiration. Mrs. Mauritius Smith told herself that the poor young widow was superb, mysterious, unique a woman unlike any other woman she had ever met. For the first time since her marriage Mary Grafton found herself in conversation with a kind and gentle creature of her own sex. She did not respond with effusion, but she was conscious of comfort. Dread of the world, fear of the human species, gave way in her heart to some inexpressible and quite undefinable hope. She met Mrs. Smith's questions with perfect candour, but her answers were brief and delivered in such a manner as to suggest reserve. Conversation was something new to her ; kindness was disturbing in its novelty. " How I envy you ! " Mrs. Smith said, " you lucky creature you ; to be going to lovely Gloucestershire, and to live in a gorgeous country house, with nice people to love you and fuss you. I only wish you could see my rabbit-hutch in Perak and my hovel in Selangor. No country like England. No people like the English. What a chance for your boy too ! You'll see him one day walking arm-in-arm with the Prince of Wales, mark my words. Mauritius is a judge of character. He said to me this morning, ' That boy will mount.' " Mrs. Smith paid many visits to the fo'c'sle head. She established friendly relations with Christopher, 37 The Shadow who showed her his drawing-book, saying-, " I did this," or " Mother did that," or " Mother helped me in this one." She succeeded, too, in making her cheerful visits really welcome to Mary Grafton, who began to greet her with a smile and to part from her with affection, Mauritius came with his angel on these visits, and delighted the boy by saying, " Only the clockwork," whenever his face assumed the terrifying aspect of an ogre. He brought with him sweets, oranges, and pictures. He told wonderful stories of the jungle, stories of monkeys he had caught, tigers he had shot, and butterflies he had netted ; he gave Christopher a very perfect idea of the Malay Peninsula the coral reefs, the exotic flowers, the immense trees, the mountains, the coffee and tobacco plantations, the little, black-eyed, lank- haired, olive-skinned inhabitants. Never in all his life had Christopher met such a hero. The boy sat on the Collector's knee, staring into his red and wrinkled face, with its enormous nose and ferocious moustaches, listening with an enchantment and a breathless wonder to these stories of the world. And while they delighted each other in this fashion, Mrs. Smith and the mother of Christopher walked slowly up and down, or stood together at the ship's side talking with an entire confidence. "My dear," said the Collector's wife, who had pressed upon the young widow two blouses, a lace fichu, and some gloves, "your brother-in-law will receive you with open arms. He will be proud of your beauty, and your boy will delight him. You don't know whether he is married or not ; but it 38 Hagar and Ishmael really does not signify. If he is, his wife will be glad of your companionship, and his children will make a hero of their cousin from Canada. How I should like to be by when you make your grand entrance ! You are a very lucky woman ; England is a much nicer country than Canada. You will find the people charming. You will mix with the highest in the land. Who knows that your boy won't go to Court and be Prime Minister ? I should say that nothing is more likely." At Liverpool the kind-hearted Smiths not only made arrangements with the Captain by which the Graftons were able to leave the ship earlier than the rest of the steerage passengers, but they post- poned their own business in the town in order to see the strangers safely on the road for Gloucester- shire. Mauritius, who had startled the passengers by appearing in a braided frock-coat and an old-fashioned but highly polished silk hat, sent a telegram to Sir Matthew Grafton announcing the hour at which his relations would arrive at the station. He then saw to the provision of their meal during the journey. After giving Christopher a bundle of illustrated papers, he handed Mrs. Grafton his card, saying, " If at any time I can be of use to you No need to say any more ; a perfect understanding between us. You will observe three addresses on the card. The London address, my agent's, will find me for three months, perhaps longer. We go to the metropolis the day after to-morrow." " I shall write to you," said Mrs. Mauritius. " And 39 The Shadow you must write back and tell me all about your grand goings-on." " My wife crosses her letters," said Mauritius, and made an involuntary grimace which startled a porter. The train was about to start. " I knew it ! I knew it ! " exclaimed Mauritius, clutching his wife round the waist, for that impulsive little lady had stepped on the foot-board, seized Mrs. Grafton's arm, and thrust her face through the window. It was the first time in her life that Mary Grafton could remember being kissed by a woman. "Annabel, come off!" said the Collector, tugging his wife's arm. " This instant ! Pet, you are im- perilling my happiness ! What a heart ! " " God bless you ! God bless you ! " cried Mrs. Smith, following the train. " Annabel, my arm ! " said Mauritius sternly. But Mrs. Mauritius still advanced beside the moving train, from a window of which Christopher was now waving his handkerchief. " Good-bye, good-bye," she kept saying, in a voice which only just reached her own ears. " Annabel, do you wish me to exert force ? " demanded Mauritius, keeping her back from the edge of the platform with a most affectionate pressure of his arm. " Need you be suicidally benevolent, my dear ? Need you destroy my happiness merely to gratify your own feelings ? " " I feel I feel as if my heart will burst," answered his wife, turning away. " Oh, Mauritius, to think of that poor, lonely young thing going as a beggar to relations she knows nothing about." 40 Hagar and Ishmael " Angel," replied Mauritius sadly, " let us contem- plate the matter calmly. Your heart burst, in the first case, because the lady was travelling steerage ; that evil has passed, that scandal has been removed, that iniquity has ceased to operate. The shuddering victim has survived. Fanfare of trumpets ! But your heart is bursting now for another reason. Pause. Need it burst ? A stitch in time saves nine. Don't let it burst. Consider for one moment. In the distance of the lady's future looms the interesting figure of a baronet. Baronets, beloved, are not monsters noblesse oblige ; a baronet's movements in real life are not accompanied by slow music ; immense achieve- ment of democracy your modern baronet is not necessarily villainous. Annabel, take a bright view, take a snob's view. Baronets are beautiful. The lady for whom your heart is bleeding, quite unnecessarily, my queen, is at this moment ascending into the exalted atmosphere of aristocracy ; you and I, adored one, if I mistake not, are making our middle-class way to a two-and-sixpenny luncheon in a commercial hotel." " Mauritius, do you really think they will treat her kindly?" " Annabel, if they don't ! " " Well ? " " There's the village policeman." With a lift of his head, Mauritius ended the matter by exclaiming, " The Middle Ages are dead. Bluebeard is impossible. The meanest subject of Her Most Gracious Majesty is free. Rule Britannia ! God save the Queen ! " CHAPTER III. THE WELCOME IT was towards evening when Mary Grafton and her son arrived at the railway station. There was no one to meet them. People greeted their friends, collected luggage, and went away. She was still standing on the platform, waiting for someone to address her, when the train departed. " Don't you know where we are to go, mother ? " asked Christopher, glancing up suspiciously. At that moment a porter approached and asked if the tin box on the platform was Mary's luggage. " Sir Matthew's carriage," he said, " is outside." They found a one-horsed brougham in the yard, with a luggage basket on the roof. Christopher was greatly struck by the cockaded coachman in his buff coat and the black horse with its silver harness. " What a splendid carriage," he said, when they were inside. " Did you see the crest on the door ? I say, mother, aren't the cushions soft ? " After passing through a cheerful market town and following a narrow, high-hedged road for half a mile, the carriage began to ascend a hill. The big horse pulled the well-hung brougham without effort. Between the branches of trees Christopher, who was standing up at the carriage window, caught glimpses 42 The Welcome of a vale which was flooded with a golden mist. As the carriage ascended the hill, this vale opened out more and more, disclosing a wide pasture dotted with trees, through which a river wound its way in sinuous folds which sparkled like a crystal floor. " Oh, mother," he"; exclaimed, with a catch of his breath, " isn't it beautiful ? " It reminded him in the glowing sunset mist of pictures and dreams of Paradise. The hedges, the trees, the flowers, the wonderful emerald of the grass, delighted this son of the prairie. He was so deeply moved by it all that he could scarcely speak. With his hands on the window-ledge, his knees unconsciously knocking against the door, he stood entranced and wondering, feeling the spell of this new and wholly unsuspected world. Every now and then he snuffed the air, delighted by the deep woodland scents of autumn. The hill grew stiffer and the horse came to a walk. Presently the trees and hedges fell away, and from a goodly height the valley burst upon their view. " Oh, mother, look look ! " exclaimed Christopher excitedly, and made room for her at the window. Against the rich splendours of the west rose purple hills, drowned in a gold light immediately beneath the setting sun, and on either side rolling away into violet mists as soft as dreams. Enclosed between these cloud-like ramparts lay the broad and fertile valley, diaphanous in the distance, everywhere powdered by gold light, and lifting from its sward of green velvet the gold and russet banners of autumn. The river reflected the crimson clouds and the blue sky. It shone through the wooded valley like a path of 43 The Shadow light, a high road to the sun, a way to heaven. The wide scene was incomparably fair. Birds were singing in the still air ; rabbits, which appeared enormous to Christopher after the gophers of the prairie, were feeding on the down. As the carriage ascended, the sound of a church bell ringing for evensong floated to their ears. " It is like the Garden of Eden," said Christopher. " Oh, mother, aren't we lucky to have such a country to live in ! " The carriage went forward again at a swift trot, and presently, at a slower pace, began a descent. In a few minutes they were passing through a picturesque village of stone houses, from which had come the sound of the church bell ; the tall pillars of drive gates flashed past them ; they were moving quickly through a picturesque park, where the trees were guarded by railings, and where cattle were feeding in great numbers. At a turn of the drive they passed over a bridge and entered the gardens, which were separated by a sunk fence from the park land. The house came into view. It was a low, deep, and solid building of grey stone, partly covered with creepers, and forming three sides of a gravelled quadrangle. The noble arched doorway with carved spandrels was surmounted by a coat of arms. The lofty latticed windows on the ground floor were emblazoned with shields, and in the case of two handsome bay windows on either side of the doorway there was the further embellishment of handsome battlemented parapets reaching to the eaves. The open space of the quadrangle gave a sense of spacious- ness to this ancient house. The tall trees on either 44 The Welcome side of it, and others rising above the roof on the farther side, enclosed the stone mansion with a feeling of homeliness. One felt that the first grandeur of the place had yielded to centuries of home love, family affection, and domestic peace. While Christopher sat mute with astonishment, his mother kept her gaze fixed upon the doorway, hoping and almost expecting to see her brother-in-law emerge with children crowding at his side. The carriage drew nearer, the door remained closed. " Mother, are we really going to live here ? " asked Christopher, turning to her with a puzzled and baffled expression in his eyes. " This is your uncle's house, dear," she answered, watching the door. " Your father lived here when he was a boy." " Why did he leave it ? " " Do you like it very much ? " " Oh, it is so grand ! " he answered, turning once more to the window. " I never knew houses could be like this." The carriage stopped before the arched doorway. Christopher opened the door and stepped out. At the same moment the great door of the house opened and a butler advanced to the carriage. His eyes glanced for a moment at the tin box in the luggage basket. No one was in the hall to greet them. The noise of the carriage wheels moving away from the house came to Mary's ears as the butler closed the door, and she stood in the silence of the panelled hall waiting for the unknown. Christopher, who was gazing at 45 The Shadow portraits on the oak wall, put his hand through his mother's arm and kept close to her side. They were conducted across this hall, which was dim and solemn like a church, to a broad corridor through which sunlight was streaming from an open door at the end leading to the pleasure gardens. On the walls were pictures, and on either side busts standing upon marble pillars. They passed a fireplace with a stone mantelpiece reaching to the roof. The servant paused at a door and opened it. He announced no name, and waited for Mary to advance. She found herself in a large room, which was bright with sunshine, flowers, and beautiful things. At the far end of this apartment a lady rose from a writing- cabinet, and advanced to meet the travellers with a jingle of ornaments, a rustle of garments, and no words. She was dressed in black, and wore a garden hat of white straw trimmed with black silk. For nothing but a somewhat unusual firmness and resolu- tion of expression could this middle-aged lady be described as remarkable. She was of average height and average build. Her hair was colourless, her features plain, her skin commonplace. It was only in the eyes, which were straw-coloured and had exceedingly small and penetrating pupils, that one detected originality. This originality lay in a rough- ness of disposition which was masculine. She gave Mary her hand without speaking, but bowed a little and permitted a slight smile to flicker at the corner of her lips ; then she turned to Christopher, shrinking at his mother's side, and inquired, " What is his name ? " 46 The Welcome " Christopher," the mother answered. " Christopher ! How odd ! An unusual name." She went towards the hearth where a table was set ready for tea. " You must be fatigued after your journey," she said. " Pray sit down." She indicated a settee with an inclination of her head, and proceeded to pour boiling water from a kettle into the teapot. Mary and Christopher sat down side by side on the settee. " Did you have a rough crossing ? " she asked, glancing for a moment at Mary, and then fixing her eyes upon Christopher. " It was our first experience of the sea," Mary replied. "Nothing unusual, I expect," said the lady; "things are mostly normal. Won't you eat something ? Christopher, you can pass the dishes." When she had poured out their tea, she said, " Perhaps I should explain to you that I am Miss Grafton." She looked at Christopher, and added, " You will call me Aunt Isabel. Let me hear you say it. Come, you've got a tongue in your head. Aunt Isabel let me hear you say that" When poor Christopher had mumbled the name, she said, "The boy is nervous. He must get over that," and taking up a long and narrow silver tube blew out the flame of the spirit-kettle. She fixed her gaze upon Christopher and watched him eat. " You'll be careful of crumbs," she said once. She spoke about the weather, the state of the garden, and matters of a similar nature. She might have been entertaining a casual caller from the village. When they had finished their tea she inquired if Mary would 47 The Shadow like to go to her room, and told Christopher to ring the bell. " Harder," she said, as he gave a nervous pull to the bell-rope ; " try and strike a medium between tugging and fumbling." When the butler appeared she told him to request Mrs. Ryder to come to the drawing-room. " We dine at eight," she said to Mary. " Christopher, I suppose, goes to bed before that hour ; but perhaps to-night he had better sit up. Will you come to this room at about five minutes to eight ? We try to be as punctual as possible." The housekeeper appeared. She was a little, shrew- ish-looking, rat-like woman, dressed in black with a black lace cap. Her face was the colour of old parchment, her lips a faded blue, the eyes dark and vigilant. Miss Grafton delivered Mary and Christopher into the hands of this official, and returned to the writing-cabinet. Poor Mary! With a heart aching and desolate she took Christopher's hand and followed the little, hastening, black figure through long corridors, up stairs, down passages, and across wide landings, till the rat stopped before a closed door, waited for her to come up, and then opened it. " This, m'm, is your room," she said in a hurrying voice, which suggested that she had pressing business elsewhere. " Be pleased to enter." It was a beautiful room. One object alone offended, the tin box. "The young gentleman's room," continued Mrs. Ryder, " is in the west wing." She backed to the door. " Perhaps, m'm, you would like to visit it" 48 The Welcome Mary's eyes expressed anxiety. " I should like him to sleep in my room, if it is possible," she said. Mrs. Ryder, with a pale smile and the least sugges- tion of a shrugged shoulder, could only say that Miss Grafton had given orders for a room in the west wing. " He is not used to sleeping away from me," said Mary. " If you could have a bed brought in here " Mrs. Ryder wagged her little head. "You would have to speak to Miss Grafton, m'm," she said, with finality, and held the door open. She appeared to be in so great a hurry that Mary resisted no longer, and holding Christopher's hand, preceded her into the passage. The diminutive woman followed, closed the door, and started off at a great pace, leading the way from corridor to .corridor, with the travellers hurrying behind her. Christopher, who was horribly alarmed at sleeping so far away from his mother, felt his heart rising to his mouth with every step of the winding way. " Mother," he whispered, reaching up to her ear, " I don't want to be so far away from you." She squeezed his hand and answered, " It will be all right, dear ; don't be afraid." To the frightened boy there was something dreadful in the swift and perfectly silent paces of the little black housekeeper. In the mother's heart was a rising mutiny struggling with the impotence of despair. Christopher's room was in the bachelors' quarter, a small and rather dark apartment, but quite comfortable and pleasant. The single window was open, and they saw through it, behind two or three ancient medlar- trees, the walls of the stable yard. 49 E The Shadow "The young gentleman has only to ring the bell for anything he requires," said Mrs. Ryder. She looked about her. " His luggage has not been brought up ? " " All his things are in my box," said Mary ; and then, taking a step towards the little black rat, she asked, " Will you see if his bed cannot be brought into my room ? " Mrs. Ryder protested that it was beyond her power to give such an order, but after pressure consented to place the matter before Miss Grafton. She hurried from the room on this mission. Directly the door had closed, Christopher put his arms about his mother, and said, " Don't let them take you away from me." His arms were trembling, his face was pale. " Mother, I don't like this place. I want to go away. Let's go away now." She com- forted him as well as she could. A thin tap at the door announced the silent return of the little housekeeper. Miss Grafton, she said, wished the matter to wait till she could discuss it with Mrs. Richard. It would not be convenient to make any alteration that evening. Christopher clutched his mother's hand and gazed up into her face with alarm. Mary said to him, " My bed is big enough for both of us." She looked up and met the gaze of the house- keeper. Mrs. Ryder's lips tightened, and she dropped her eyes. " Of course, m'm, you will do as you please," she said, " but it would be best perhaps to speak to Miss Grafton." The return journey was made to Mary's room. It 50 The Welcome may be imagined with what abandon Christopher embraced his mother when they were alone together. The staggering realisation had come to his young soul that this beautiful mother was his only help and pro- tector, that people in the world were definitely hostile to him, that cruelty was a dreadful and terrible fact. Perhaps, too, he was conscious of his mother's loneli- ness, poverty, and dependence. He had perceived in his long journey across Canada, and on board the ship from Quebec to Liverpool, that he and his mother travelled with rough and shabby people, while other people in finer clothes occupied comfortable carriages and walked about high up on decks that were roofed in from the rain. But now, for the first time, he felt in some dim fashion the tremendous division of rich and poor. He did not in the least wish to be rich, but he was horribly afraid of poverty. Mary consoled him with tenderness, assurances of her love, and words of quiet courage. " We must give no trouble," she said. " We must be quiet and polite ; but we will keep together." " Don't they want us here ? " " You see, dear, they don't know us yet." After a pause he said, " I don't like Aunt Isabel." He lifted his face and searched her eyes. " Do you, mother ? " " We must not judge too early. Perhaps she means to be kind." A servant arrived presently with hot water. She offered to unpack for Mrs. Richard, but Mary declined. One of the blouses which little Mrs. Mauritius had given to Mary Grafton was of black lace, and suitable 51 K 2 The Shadow for mourning. Although it made but an ill-fit, Mary selected this garment for her appearance at dinner, and wore it with the dark skirt in which she had travelled. Mother and son entered the drawing-room at five minutes to eight Isabel Grafton was sitting in an armchair reading the newspaper. She was dressed in a handsome black garment, low at the neck, and, as the fashion was then, almost entirely sleeveless. Chris- topher gazed at the amazing spectacle. The curtains were drawn, candles were lighted on the mantelpiece. " I hear that you want Christopher to share your room," Isabel said, lowering the paper to her lap. " He is not used to sleeping away from me," answered Mary gently. "But surely he is old enough to begin?" The sharp eyes fastened on Christopher and took his measure. " He is quite a size. A boy of his age ought to begin to be manly. You don't keep him soft, I hope ? " " He is not quite eight." " Is he afraid to sleep alone ? " " I like him to be with me, if you don't mind." " Oh, it is the mother, and not the child, who is the disturbing factor, I see ! Well, we won't discuss the matter now. To-morrow will be time enough." She folded the newspaper carefully, and put it down on table at her side. " It will be as well," she said, fixing her eyes upon Mary, " to avoid all disputatious subjects at dinner. My brother objects to persona matters. We talk about general topics." The door opened. "This is Sir Matthew Grafton," said Isabel, and rose from her chair. 52 M- CHAPTER IV. POOR RELATIONS ARY turned towards the door. She saw a thin and bearded man advancing from the shadows into the pale light cast by the candles. She rose, holding Christopher's hand, and moved forward with a hesitating step. It could not be said that Sir Matthew gave his hand to the lady. He thrust it at her grudgingly and drew it hurriedly away, like a man who regarded the most simple act of politeness as a concession either to insincerity or effeminacy. He mumbled certain words which signified a greeting but sounded like a contradiction ; glanced down at his nephew, whose proffered hand he only half accepted, and that with a bad grace and something of an amused snort ; and then he moved gratefully away to the other side of the hearth, picking up the paper as he went, and inquiring of Miss Grafton, with a kind of savage humour, if she found the excitement of life too much for her. The baronet was a man of over fifty years of age. He was thin, square-shouldered, and walked with a stoop. The most remarkable feature in his copper- coloured face was the long-haired eyebrows, which twitched and worked with a ceaseless mobility. These 53 The Shadow reddish eyebrows almost wholly obscured the eyes, which seemed in the very occasional glimpses one obtained of them to be engaged in cracking flints for some macadamised by-way of sardonic laughter. The forehead was square and broad, not high ; the colour of the hair, which was thin and ended in a curl over the nape of the neck, like a pug dog's tail, was a dark brown inclining to grey. His mous- tache and beard were reddish-brown. He presented the general appearance of a well-bred, boorish, and untidy countryman. Mary observed that the hand which she had touched for a moment was hard, stone cold, and covered with rough hair. Christopher noticed only the twitching eyebrows and the long hairs projecting from the nostrils. When the butler announced that dinner was served, Isabel led the way from the room, followed at the length of her sweeping train by Mary and Christopher hand- in-hand. Sir Matthew was still reading the paper when they passed through the doorway. Dinner was served in a small panelled room with a handsome fireplace, where a wood fire of noble logs made a pleasant perfume. The table was lighted by candles and shone with silver and glass. A butler and one footman waited on the little party. Christopher turned pale when he saw that his mother was to sit on one side of the table and he on the other. Sir Matthew arrived in the room before they had taken their seats. As soon as he was in his chair he began to speak to his sister, pushing his forks 54 Poor Relations and knives forward, resting his forearms on the table, and bending down his face close to his hands as if those little eyes of his were conducting a topo- graphical examination of the wrinkles. His voice was pleasant and scholarly, but the enunciation pedantic ; he spoke with an amused contempt and a disdainful ridicule, his eyes glittering, the bushy brows twitching with a kind of hairy laughter. The servants brought soup to the others, but none to Sir Matthew, who continued to talk in the same stinging and amused fashion to his sister at the other end of the table. Sometimes he would lift a hand and examine the finger-nails close to his eyes. Miss Grafton, who listened to his flowing discourse, and occasionally said " Yes," or " Really ? " or " How pre- posterous ! " or " My dear Matthew ! " continually glanced at Christopher with the superintending eye of a schoolmistress. The soup was hot, and poor Christopher committed the blunder of blowing noisily into his spoon. "There is no train to catch," said his Aunt Isabel in a swift aside. Sir Matthew talked of many subjects, treating them all with an impartial and amused disdain. Mary Grafton gathered that he was at odds with the local clergyman, and that he greatly relished the discovery that more than fifty pounds were required to repair the lead roof of one of the aisles through which rain had long been making its way. She also gathered that none of Sir Matthew's farmers understood their business, that the local authorities were a set of ignorant demagogues, that a politician who had made a speech on the previous day was an egregious ass, that an 55 The Shadow author whom Sir Matthew had done the honour of reading that afternoon was a prodigious idiot, and that a scientific discovery, of which the newspapers were making an inordinate fuss just then, was rather older than someone named Archimedes. It will be easily imagined that this dinner was some- thing of an ordeal for the two travellers arrived in civilisation from the prairie and the steerage. When a dish was presented to Christopher he had not the least idea in the world what to do with it. " You had better help him, John," said Miss Grafton, in her sharp voice. To Mary, who was the first to receive dishes, the like of which she had never seen before, the difficulties were equally great ; nor did she know, among so many knives and forks, even when she had surmounted the difficulty of helping herself from a dish, what instru- ments to employ for its consumption. Such an in- vention as a fish-knife, for instance, was something quite new to her. But not for herself did she feel the trial of this dinner. Her heart knew everything that Christopher was suffering and yearned towards him. She would look across the table and give him little encouraging smiles glances which were not lost upon Isabel Grafton and her eyes on these occasions seemed to say, " Don't be afraid, my son ; I am with you ; these people are nothing to us." The only conversation between Isabel and Mary concerned the dishes, and was in the nature of asides. For the most part, Mary sat silent through this meal. Christopher opened his mouth only to eat. Poor Relations At the conclusion of dinner, Sir Matthew followed the others to the drawing-room, and taking up the paper, which he held close to his eyebrows, at once began to read. He did not retire entirely into him- self, but every now and then, with a scornful laugh, would read aloud to his sister some particular which amused him. Miss Grafton sat on the opposite side of the hearth, working with needle and silks. Mary and Christopher occupied the settee between the two chairs. Christopher held his mother's hand, sat close to her side, and watched the twitching eyebrows of his uncle. Whenever Miss Grafton looked up from her needlework it was to glance at Christopher. Mary gazed straight before her at the fire. When half an hour had passed, Sir Matthew dropped the paper, and arose from his chair. He bowed to Mary, wishing her good-night, and saying to his sister, " Isabel, I shall see you again," walked to the door. " Christopher," said Miss Grafton, and pointed to the retiring figure, "go and open the door for Sir Matthew." When they were alone again, Mary said, " I will put, Christopher to bed now, if I may." Miss Grafton bowed. " It is quite time," she said. " I expect you are tired yourself, and would rather not come down again. Breakfast is at nine. You will be called at eight." She gave Mary her hand. " You are sure to sleep well," she said. Christopher made an addition to his usual prayer that night. He prayed at his mother's knee that God would make everybody kind to his mother. 57 The Shadow When he was in bed there came a diffident tap at the door, which instantly made him start up and listen. He had recognised the knock. Mary went to the door. Mrs. Ryder had come to inquire whether Mrs. Richard really intended that the young gentleman should not sleep in the room prepared for him. When she received her answer the little woman put on an ominous expression, but made no reply. She glanced at Mary a glance which seemed to be a warning and after a pause, making a bow to the inevitable, which seemed to say, " Well, you will have to bear the consequences," the little black rat paced away on her silent feet, and Mary closed the door. " They aren't going to take me away ? " inquired Christopher over the bedclothes. His mother reas- sured him, tucked him up afresh, kissed his forehead, and bade him go to sleep as soon as he could. While Christopher sank into the feather mattress of a boy's dreams, Mary sat in an armchair before the fire thinking out the problem of her situation. "They do not want us here," she told herself. " They are not glad to see us. They do not mind showing us that we are not wanted. In fact, we are so disagreeable to them that they cannot help showing their annoyance. And we do not want to stay here ; it is not our wish that we are here now. Nothing would make us happier than to go away. How can I tell them this ? I must say to them, We would rather go away ; will you help me to find employ- ment ? If I can bring myself to say that they ought to be glad. It would relieve them of our presence." 58 Poor Relations Later in her musings the sorrowful expression of her face gave way to one of determination and energy. " I will not stay here," she said to herself. " If I have to beg my bread I will go away. To-morrow I will tell them, and to-morrow we will go." Then she remembered Mrs. Mauritius Smith. " I was a stranger to her," she said ; " to these people I am a relation, Christopher is of their blood." Her heart softened, tears came into her eyes. " Why cannot people be kind like that good woman ? " It occurred to her that she should write to the Collector's wife, tell that benevolent heart everything, and implore her help. She got up from the chair and, after looking jto see that Christopher was sleeping soundly, sat down at the writing-table. But when she came to put her grievance into words it vanished. Of what could she complain ? Of what cruelty and barbarism had her relations been guilty ? She laid down the pen and sat with her hands folded in her lap, looking at a blank sheet of paper. They did not wake in the morning till the servant entered with hot water. When the curtains were drawn and the blinds pulled up the room was flooded with sunshine. They wakened with the song of birds in their ears, and saw from the window a wide pleasaunce of green garden, descending by terraces and stretching past clipped hedges into an infinite distance of river and woodland. Christopher rose with fresh courage, longing to explore the garden, and unafraid of Aunt Isabel. Mary felt the courage of her overnight rebellion gone from her. 59 The Shadow They were down before nine o'clock and went into the garden, walking in the sun and delighting in the English flowers which they had never seen before. As they came back towards the house they saw Miss Grafton standing at a door waiting for them. She looked older in the sunlight, but there was a suggestion of cheerfulness in the face. She spoke about the beautiful morning and called them to breakfast with some show of hospitality. Sir Matthew appeared in a loose and untidy Norfolk suit, carrying a bundle of letters ; he said good- morning in a general way as he entered, and going to the side-table, proceeded to peer and sniff among the dishes until he had found what he required, when he helped himself and sat down to the table. As he masticated his food, he tore open envelopes, glanced quickly through letters, and occasionally read out a line or two for the amusement of Miss Grafton. Christopher could hardly take his eyes off this hairy man with the twitching eyebrows, who stirred his coffee round and round with his spoon, masticated with a ceaseless munching of his jawbone, and read letters aloud with a biting intonation which suggested that he was treating the words as part of his breakfast. When this meal was over, Miss Grafton said to her sister-in-law : " I thought I would take you and Christopher to do some shopping this morning. There is a train at eleven. Would you be ready for the carriage at twenty minutes past ten ? " This excursion, Mary found, was made for the purpose of providing both herself and Christopher with clothes. 60 Poor Relations The presence of Christopher on this journey pre- vented Mary from speaking as she wished to do to Miss Grafton. Conversation became a cross- examination between the two ladies concerning Canada, with Miss Grafton for questioner. Mary found herself arrayed in widow's weeds. They returned to Glevering by the same train in which the travellers had journeyed on the previous evening. On going to her room Mary discovered that a door communicating with another apartment was open, and she saw that Christopher's things had been placed in this dressing-room. When tea was finished Miss Grafton told Chris- topher to go and play in the garden, cautioning him against doing any damage to the trees, the flowers, or the borders. "You will have something brought up to you to your room at seven o'clock," she said ; " you won't come down to dinner." When he had left the room she turned to Mary and said, " We have not yet had an opportunity of discus- sing matters. Perhaps we might make a beginning now. I must explain to you, in the first place, that we know really nothing about your affairs. My brother wrote to Sir Matthew from Vancouver saying that you were coming to England, and asking him to befriend you and the child. He made no mention of any other arrangements. We received a cable from someone announcing his death before the letter arrived, and that is really all we know. But was there no property of any kind ? His farm, I suppose if the accounts he gave of it were true must have been worth some- thing ? I understand that Sir Matthew sent him con- 61 The Shadow siderable sums of money from time to time for the purpose of improving his stock, and his implements, and his buildings. What has become of all that money ? " Mary gave an account of the lawyer's visit and said that she knew no more. " I fear you have been remiss," said Miss Grafton, after cross-examining on this narrative. " As far as I can gather, my brother utterly neglected his farm, deceived Sir Matthew, led a thoroughly dissolute life, and you did nothing whatever to stop him. Surely you had some influence with him ? " Mary was dumb. " Very well, then," continued Miss Grafton ; " the position is this, that you have literally no means what- ever?" " None." " And no relations who can help you ? " Mary shook her head. " My father is dead," she said. " Of course you will understand," resumed Miss Grafton, "that while Sir Matthew is willing to do everything to assist you, he cannot but feel that, after having paid Richard's debts again and again, provided him with capital, and helped him to make a start in life, it is something of an injustice that he should be called upon to provide for the widow and son for the rest of his days. I don't say this to make you un- happy. I only want to make the position clear. And having said this, I am sure you will do everything to comply with Sir Matthew's wishes and teach Christopher to be particularly careful about a strict obedience." 62 Poor Relations Mary realised that her affairs no, her destiny, had come to a crisis. "I know very little of the world," she began nervously. "Apparently nothing at all," interrupted Miss Grafton, but not with ill-nature. " I should like to ask," Mary continued, " whether it is possible for you to help me to find any work to do " " Work to do ! What do you mean ? " " To earn my own living and Christopher's." " You must put that idea out of your head." " Why ? " " It is ridiculous." Mary's face paled a little, but her voice was quite steady when she said, " Do you know how bitter a thing it is to be dependent ? " " Oh, stuff and nonsense, my dear child ! You mustn't talk like that." " But I do." This was said with a quiet insistence which brought a faint flush into Miss Grafton's cheeks. For one moment she looked excessively like a cat whose patience was exhausted. " You are not yet used to England and English ways," she said sharply. " Time will cure you of romantic notions. England is a practical country. We are not a sentimental people. You must try to become like us. A little less sugar in your relations with Christopher would be a good beginning." " I would rather go away and earn my own living." " I am afraid you would find that difficult." " Is it impossible ? " 63 The Shadow " Quite." " But we cannot stay here." " Why not ? " " I feel we cannot." " Get rid of sentiment." " We are not wanted." " English people do not rush into friendships. There is no reason why you should not spend an agreeable time with us. The country is pretty ; there are one or two intelligent neighbours. Sir Matthew and I are not ogres. If you will try to grow into our ways you will not find that it is irksome to stay at Glevering." " But I cannot be a dependent all my life. That is dreadful to me." " Circumstances have already done that for you, my dear child. It is no use blinking the facts. You married Richard with your eyes open. You must have known the kind of man he was. And you did not use your influence, apparently, to save him from ruin. The result is dependence on the head of the family. You must put up with it" " I cannot" " Cannot ! What else can you do ? " " Anything. I would rather work in this house as a servant than stay as " " Nonsense ! Oh, stuff and nonsense, my dear creature! You really mustn't talk such high faluti- nation at Glevering. We are not used to heroics. Take my advice, do not quarrel with your bread- and-butter. Try and be grateful for it" "Miss Grafton, is there nothing, really nothing, that I can do to earn my own living ? " 64 Poor Relations " You must call me Isabel ; I am your sister-in-law ; you are a member of the family. No ; there is nothing that you can do. It is your destiny to stay here." "Do you mean that in all England I could find no work ? " " There is one thing you could do. But you can do that here as well as anywhere else." " What is that ? " " You are young ; you are good-looking. You might marry again." Mary regarded her sister-in-law with a dazed despair. " But in that case you would have to leave Chris- topher behind you." " I shall never marry again. I shall never leave Christopher." " Oh, you don't know what you can do till you try. I came to a conclusion about you last night. You are a blank piece of paper ! I said to myself, ' This girl has never yet exerted herself in any way ; she has not yet begun to live ; she has only mooned.' We shall wake you up, my dear, before many weeks are over. You won't know yourself for the same person in six months." A servant entered with the letter-bag. " What you need to begin with," said Miss Grafton, choosing the key from her chatelaine, " is " she waited for the servant to close the door "stiffness. You are inclined to flop. Your mind is what we call in England flabby. You will see life from quite another standpoint when your backbone is stiffer, it will give you more vision." 65 F The Shadow While she was speaking she opened the letter-bag and sorted the contents. "Here is a letter for you!" she exclaimed. "An English stamp too. I didn't know that you had friends in England." She glanced up suspiciously and handed the letter. "It must be from a lady I met on board ship." " Indeed ! What was her name ? " " Mrs. Mauritius Smith." "My dear Mary!" Mary looked up from the envelope. " How preposterous ! Mauritius Smith ! Did one ever hear such a name ? You'll be careful, won't you, not to establish any intimacy with people of that kind ? Acquaintances made on board ship, without knowledge of the world, are exceedingly dangerous. Mauritius Smith ! I really never heard such a name in my life." At dinner that night, when the servants had retired, Miss Grafton looked down the table with an ice-cold smile, and said, " Matthew, Mary heard this afternoon from a friend of hers. What do you think the name was?" " Possibly," replied the baronet, " it was Mauritius Smith." Even Miss Grafton was astonished. And so great was her astonishment that she did not smile at the really inimitably droll manner in which Sir Matthew intonated the ridiculous name. It was as if he had picked up a dirty rag by the ends of his fingers, exhibited it for a moment to the mockery of the universe, and then dropped it with amused disgust. 66 Poor Relations Miss Grafton, recovering her composure, searched her brother's face for an explanation, but could dis- cover nothing. She contented herself by saying, " Did you ever hear such a name as Mauritius ? " " It certainly tends," he replied acidly, " to heighten the comedy of Smith." 67 F 2 CHAPTER V. MR. AND MRS. GRINDLEY WITH a commissioner for oaths on one side of them, and a pianoforte teacher on the other, Mr. and Mrs. Grindley lived in tolerable com- fort and complete composure in Merrick Square, Trinity Street, London, S.E. They would have lived with equal satisfaction anywhere else, since it was the opinion of Mr. Grindley, or " Old Jack," as his intimates called him, that a man who gave his mind to it could be happy at the North Pole, while Mrs. Grindley never ceased to impress upon her go-ahead married children that it was neither the wall-papers nor the neighbourhood which made a home, but the heart. This old couple had lived from childhood in the Borough. The father of Old Jack had occupied a house in Trinity Square and the parents of Mrs. Grindley had occupied a house in Trinity Street. When Jack Grindley married Charlotte Close they thought themselves very fortunate to obtain a comfort- able villa in Merrick Square, so near to the old folks, and this feeling had continued with them ever since, long after the old folks had been gathered to their rest. Furniture removers never made a penny out of the Grindleys. 68 Mr. and Mrs. Grindley It was as if the barometer of their souls had been placed at Set Fair by the good fairy of temperament at birth and had remained at that position ever since. Whether the sun shone in Merrick Square or the rain descended on the leafless trees of the public garden, Mr. and Mrs. Grindley registered no change in their tempers. Old Jack came home at night through yellow fog or whirling snowstorm with exactly the same degree of contentment as he manifested in summer evenings or the cool of the spring. Both husband and wife were like that cheerful old lady who said that she had been born before nerves were discovered. They never took offence ; they were never indignant ; they were always agreeable, thankful, and contented. The parlour of this old couple on a winter's evening was an interior which an artist might have seized to represent the spirit of London's middle-class. On one side of the bright and cheerful hearth sat Old Jack in a grandfather-chair, one finger of his right hand curled over the stem of a churchwarden pipe at which he puffed with deliberate slowness, his legs extended, his slippered feet crossed, a bandana handkerchief pro- truding from his coat-tail pocket, and the Times newspaper in his left hand, from which he occasionally read aloud. And on the other side of the hearth, in a low chair, with her lap spread wide to provide accommodation for two black cats with yellow eyes, sat Charlotte Grindley, with wool and knitting- needles, her dear old face, with its fine wrinkles and its greying skin, illuminated by a gentle and continual smile, her lips opening every now and then to make a remark, accompanied by a moment's 69 The Shadow rest of the knitting-needles and a glance over her spectacles at Mr. Grindley. The furniture was all of solid and plain Victorian fashion ; the pictures on the walls were engravings of Dore's religious work ; the light which filled the little room came from a lacquered gas-chandelier ; never- theless there was something bright, happy, and even beautiful in this London interior, which was perhaps the spirit of its happy occupants. It seemed to be full of flowers and colour. Jack Grindley was a huge old fellow, with a pink face, blue eyes, and white hair. His whiskers were combed out on either side of his face and made a little fringe under his chin. He had the habit of drawing back his eyelids and staring with a gape of apparent astonishment at nothing in particular when a question was addressed to him which required an original answer. He was slow-witted and given to prolonged reflections which seldom reached the stage of verbal expression. He liked to sit in his grandfather-chair, puffing slowly at his pipe, staring into the fire, and thinking of the world's problems, which existed chiefly in his mind as matters of commerce. He was a shipping agent in a small way of business, occupying the same offices in St. Mary Axe which his father and grandfather had occupied before him. His clients dated back to the earliest ledgers on the shelves. The firm thought more of keeping up its reputation with the dead than of extending its operations among the living. Old Jack never sought business ; perhaps he felt that other people had to make a living as well as himself. 70 Mr. and Mrs. Grindley Among the clients of Grindley & Son was the collector of jungle produce. We must now narrate that our friend the Collector was born in Curepipe, Isle of Mauritius, being the fifth son of Jonathan Smith of Port Louis, a violent man and an exporter of rum and cocoanut oil. Jonathan in a sudden fit of cheerfulness had named his fifth son Mauritius, declaring, to shame his other children, that this fifth son should grow up to exemplify the Fifth Commandment, and that one day he would prove to be the greatest ornament of the island. But the young Mauritius, over whose unconscious head this prophecy had been made, having survived as many catastrophes in infancy as the only sister of Sir Walter Scott, who from her cradle, he tells us, was the butt for mischance to shoot arrows at, and whose childhood was " marked by perilous escapes from the most extraordinary accidents " Mauritius, we say, having survived a calamitous childhood wherein malaria complicated by bronchitis played a Box and Cox arrangement in his tittle body, manifested such a detestation of rum and cocoanut oil, and showed such a rebellious spirit to- wards his father, who was a cruel master, a bad husband, and a violent parent, that Jonathan in a fit of temper Dne day kicked him out of doors, convinced that a child who showed so little respect for his prophecy concerning bhe Fifth Commandment, and who had squashed so many fingers in doors, fallen down so many stairs, caught so many diseases, and swallowed so many poisons, could only be reserved for the hangman's rope. In this way it came about that Mauritius went to sea. He made four voyages round the world in sailing- 71 The Shadow ships, and having kept a weather eye open for a pleasant life and a promising future wherever he went, settled down one day in Selangor, became a tobacco- planter, and without surrendering that position gradu- ally became almost everything else that it is possible for human nature to become in the Malayan States. His energy was incredible. Not content with ex- porting "nigger-head" to America, and trading all over the considerable region of the peninsula, this red- headed explosion of nervous energy conceived the idea of a connexion with London itself. In the midst of his golden dreams the name of his father's London agent occurred to his mind. There and then he wrote to Grindley & Son suggesting illimitable possibilities of trade between England and the Malayan States. To this letter he received the dry reply that Grindley & Son would be pleased to open an account with the son of their late client, Mr. Jonathan Smith, of Port Louis, Mauritius. Our gentleman was elated. By the next ship sailing for England he sent such a varied and astonishing consignment of jungle produce to St. Mary Axe as almost took Mr. Grindley's breath away, while it threw his old clerk into a fit of laughter which lasted throughout that memorable day. From the moment when Mauritius established com- mercial relations with London, the name of Grindley & Son figured on his writing-paper, on his office door, and in his advertisements as the European agents of Mauritius Smith, Collector of Jungle Produce. The Collector shortly after paid his first visit to England ; he was then thirty years of age, and Mr. Grindley was kind enough to show his Malayan client 72 Mr. and Mrs. Grindley some private hospitality in Merrick Square. Amongst other business done before he departed, the Collector married a niece of Mrs. Grindley's, the kind-hearted Annabel Close, described by the rejoicing bridegroom as the finest export ever sent out by England to civilise the East and ennoble humanity. In this manner the curt and commercial relations with Grindley & Son had assumed a friendly and even a family character, and whenever Mauritius and his wife came to London on a flying visit they always stayed with the Grindleys in Merrick Square. Some few days after the Smiths had parted from Mary Grafton at Liverpool, Old Jack and Mauritius sat together talking business in the parlour, while Mrs. Grindley and Annabel discussed feminine affairs in the drawing-room. " I shan't live to see it," said Old Jack, in his quiet and laborious way, "but you fellows in the East, if you know your business, will bring about sooner or later, as the case may be, such a revolution in trade as the world has never known." " Give me the hint, Uncle, and you shall stand in," replied Mauritius, stretching his legs. " Half profits, I give you my word. If my word isn't enough, I'll knock on the wall for the commissioner of oaths." Old Jack took his pipe from his mouth, and gaping towards the looking-glass over the mantelpiece which reflected the white globes of the gas chandelier, demanded, " What is trade ? " He asked the question as if he were propounding some universal riddle. " Trade," said Mauritius promptly, " is the breath of life. Without the brisk trader, whose brain is never 73 The Shadow still, civilisation would peter out, cities would become deserts, and humanity itself revert to savagery. Trade is action, energy, achievement. It is the plunging watercourse, and not the Sahara. Ha, ha ! Do I speak truth ? Have at it again. Trade, Uncle, is the turning wheel, the roaring wind, the resistless tide. I would sooner have done what I have done as trader, than have written Gray's Elegy, taken Quebec, or built the Monument. Blow the trumpet ! " " Trade," said Old Jack, very solemnly, " is woman." Mauritius was about to speak, but Old Jack raised a rebukeful finger and continued : " When you take a walk through the streets of a great city, study the shops. You will find, my boy, that nine out of ten contain feminine goods. What are the millions of men in cotton factories, silk factories, and diamond mines working day and night to supply ? The demands of women. Wonderful ! And now, con- sider this : What would happen to the trade of the world if we took purse and reticule from the women of Europe and clapped 'em all under lock and key ? " " There'd be a slump, Uncle ! " exclaimed Mauritius. " It would be ruin. And now consider this, which is the other side of my argument : What will be the effect on the trade of the world, when the millions of women in Asia are converted to Western ideas it's bound to come, mind you when all these millions of poor heathen women, each with a purse and a little bag in her hand, go shopping in the Regent Street of India, the Bond Street of China, the Oxford Street of Turkey ? What will be the effect on trade ? Some- thing considerable, something immense." 74 Mr. and Mrs. Grindley Mauritius jumped up. " Uncle," he cried, " there's money in it ! " " My boy," said Old Jack, " when you return you keep this idea at the back of your head. Don't forget it Let it germinate. And don't you ever hinder a missionary who is doing his work honestly and justly." The knock of a postman interrupted them, and Mauritius, still exclaiming at Old Jack's idea, moved towards the door. " Someone will bring the letters," said Mr. Grindley. " Rest, Mauritius. Repose yourself. I've often told you, you're too jerky. What you want is quiet. Quiet is good for the human race. That is why the Almighty commanded one day's rest in the seven. I sit here, Mauritius, when my day's work is done, and I smoke my pipe slowly, mark you and think. Wonderful things come to a man when he thinks. I believe that if I live long enough I shall think out things in trade which will revolutionise the world. If I could benefit my fellow-men in that way, I should go with less misgiving to my account. It isn't enough, Mauritius, to earn daily bread for ourselves ; we must see what we can do for the daily bread of other people. There's religion in trade. Most of the political problems come from selfishness in business. Christianise com- merce, and you save the world That is what I think of as I sit here smoking my pipe when the day's work is over." The benevolent ruminations df the old gentleman were presently interrupted by the sudden and excited appearance of Annabel, who opened the door with 75 The Shadow such a rush that the gas wavered in the globes. She advanced rapidly to Mauritius with a letter in her hand, her face agitated, her eyes expressing the vividest anxiety. Old Jack drew back his eyelids and gaped towards the looking-glass. Mrs. Grindley followed her niece at a much more leisurely pace, and closed the door after her. The two black cats rose to greet the old lady. " Mauritius," exclaimed the Collector's wife, " she has written me the most heart-rending letter that ever came through the post. Read it. The poor thing is utterly wretched. We must certainly do something. I should like to telegraph to-night, only it's too late. Aunt Charlotte says don't you, Aunt ? that it would be murder to leave her with those cruel people. Just imagine, Uncle Jack, she and her poor little boy received like utter strangers, treated like poor relations, and made to feel that they are most unwelcome. Aunt Charlotte understands how dreadful it must be. And the poor thing writes to ask me if I can help to find her some work in London. Anything ! That is her own word, Uncle Jack anything! Isn't it too pathetic ? Mauritius, did you ever read such a letter in your life ? " Mrs. Grindley throughout this speech had heaved up her hands and exposed the palms with something of the mournful air of an imperfect conjurer anxious to convince an audience of particularly sharp and knowing boys that he has nothing concealed in his sleeves ; but at the conclusion she placed these hands on the agitated arms of her niece and pressing them with comfort, said in a pacifying and gently correct- 76 Mr. and Mrs. Grindley ing tone of voice : " But you must be calm, my dear. Nothing can be done without calm ; can it, Jack dear?" The old gentleman removed his pipe the eighth of an inch from his lips, and replied, " Nothing." Annabel raced on with a catalogue of Mary Grafton's virtues, and a tale of all the sufferings that sweet and amiable creature had to bear at the hands of her rich and atrocious relations. Mauritius handed the letter to Old Jack, and said to Annabel : " Kind hearts are more than coronets. What do you propose ? " " We must get them away at once," replied Annabel. "Certainly," said Mauritius, winking at Mrs. Grindley, who was now seated with one of the black cats in her lap. " It would be perfectly cruel to leave them there," said Annabel, watching the effect of Mary's letter on her uncle. '* We must telegraph the money to pay their fares," said Mauritius, " and immediately endow an insti- tution providing shelter, food, and raiment for all widows and orphans afflicted with rich and titled relations." " We can find them work," said Annabel. " What work do you suggest, angel ? " inquired the Collector. " The widow might open a hair-dressing establishment in Regent Street and the boy set up as bootblack outside the Royal Exchange." " There must be something she could do," said Annabel. " For instance, pet ? " " Oh, I don't know, but there must be something." 77 The Shadow Mr. Grindley finished the letter, folded it, and handed it back to Annabel. " Isn't it," she cried, " a letter to break one's heart ? " Old Jack drew back his eyelids, gaped, and rounded his mouth to a small o. After a pause he said, " The lady is perhaps a trifle fanciful." Mrs. Grindley immediately confessed, " The same idea crossed my mind in the drawing-room, Annabel dear." " Mark you," said Old Jack, with his usual delibera- tion, " I don't say that the lady has nothing to complain about. But I put the question, Is she not, perhaps, a trifle fanciful ? " " You see what your uncle means, dear," explained Mrs. Grindley. " He doesn't for a moment imply that your friend says what is not true ; but he wonders whether, perhaps, she does not expect rather more from the world than the world can give. That is it, isn't it, Jack dear ? " Annabel explained at great length that there was never in the world before a person so modest and patient as Mary Grafton, certainly nobody less exacting. Mauritius burst out laughing. " My dear Uncle, my dear Aunt," said he, " you might as well try to freeze the Thames in summer as turn the heart of my incomparable wife from her intention of providing for this interesting young widow and her poor father- less boy. It is not the smallest use to oppose her ; all we can do is to mitigate her benevolence. I shall consider myself fortunate if this particular attack of heart trouble leaves me with enough money to get back to Selangor." 78 Mr. and Mrs. Grindley Annabel interrupted her husband. " Oh, Auntie," she cried, with a finger at her lip, " I have got an idea ! Would you " she paused, and then knelt down beside Mrs. Grindley, stroking the cat and gazing affectionately into the old lady's eyes " would you ask them here for a few days while we see what can be done ? " " Admirable ! Excellent ! " cried Mauritius, with great gusto. "Birdie, that is the brightest idea I have ever heard from your lips. Hitherto we our- selves have befriended and provided for the neces- sitous ; now, other people shall share our delights. We won't be selfish any longer. Let them have our room, Uncle. Annabel and I will return to Selangor immediately with pleasure ! " The rest of the evening was spent in a prolonged conference as to what could be done for Mary Grafton. Neither Mr. Grindley nor his wife seemed to think that much good could be effected by inviting the widow to Merrick Square. The old people appeared to think that there was no occasion for hurry. They counselled reflection and calm. Finally, since Annabel insisted that something must be done, Old Jack, after having thought the matter over in complete silence for twenty minutes, delivered judgment in the following words : "Annabel," he said, taking his pipe from his mouth, "you and Mauritius had better run down to this place, pay her a visit, and see for yourselves how the land lies. One interview is worth a mile of corre- spondence. And don't make yourselves responsible for anything till you have seen her." 79 The Shadow " Uncle," cried Mauritius, " that is a good idea. We will take her by surprise." " And do tell the poor thing," said Mrs. Grindley, " that London is a hard place for a woman to earn her daily bread in. If she can possibly bring herself to put up with her present circumstances, I am sure it would be better for her." " Much better," said Old Jack. 80 CHAPTER VI. WE MUST SUFFER was quick in perception. He had ^ seen at once, without understanding it, that his mother and he had come to a house where they were not wanted. His child's mind, which had some- thing of the infallibility of feminine instinct, knew that his mother's distress was chiefly on his own account. As he was a brave boy, and had a great love for his mother, he resolutely set himself to relieve her anxiety. To begin with, he assured her that he did not mind lying alone in bed while she was downstairs in the dining-room. He never told her how his heart thumped under the blankets when he heard the door of her bedroom open, although he knew it must be the housemaid come to tidy the room for the night His fear was that the nocturnal visitor was Mrs. Ryder. The little rat-like housekeeper, passing silently through the long corridors of the house, always struck a chill through him. He felt, too, that it would ease his mother's mind if he bore himself with a greater cheerfulness in the house and grounds. He began to walk about with his hands in his trousers' pockets, to lounge in chairs, to whistle, to talk to his mother at meals, even to laugh at his uncle and aunt behind their backs. Si G The Shadow This new manner seemed to Mary the dawn of boy- hood ; to Miss Grafton it appeared the boy's natural character, which had been momentarily eclipsed on the first day of his arrival by nervousness. Nothing pleased Miss Grafton more than having somebody to correct. She never went through the rooms in the morning without finding something ill done or not done at all. She had one of those ener- getic minds which seem able, not to discover, but to create mistakes in the work of other people. If the universe had been conducted on the principles of a high school, Miss Grafton would have applied for the post of head-mistress, and there would have been trouble among the stars. In a day or two, it was quite clear that Christopher's life was to become a burden to him. Not only was he corrected for this and that, but his day was mapped out for him with the precise routine of a prison dis- cipline. He was perpetually being told not to put his hands in his pockets, not to swing his leg when he was reading, not to dawdle in the garden, not to scrape his plate, and not to make so much noise when he was eating an apple. He had to show Miss Grafton his finger-nails before every meal. He was taught to fetch cushions and footstools ; to hold wool between his hands for Miss Grafton to wind ; to cut the leaves of interminable books ; to sit perfectly still and silent when his elders were talking ; and a great many other excellent habits for a boy to learn at the hands of a sweet and affectionate nature. Miss Grafton made him read aloud from history and geography books. She taught him the botanical 82 We Must Suffer names of flowers. She made him write in a copy- book, and gave him dictation, and set him sums. " We must find out," she said to Mary, " what the boy really does know, if he knows anything at all." When he went for a walk with his aunt and mother, Miss Grafton would bid him go on ahead, and throughout the excursion would say, " Head up, Chris- topher," or " Keep your shoulders back," or " Don't swing your arms like that." The happiest time in his day, next to the delightful hours spent with his mother and his drawing-book in the seclusion of her bedroom, was the daily ride with a groom. Christopher rode beautifully, and all the efforts of the English groom to give him a stiff and formal seat utterly failed of their mark. When they got upon the open down, and the groom, forgetting his instructions, gave himself up to the zest of a gallop, Christopher was almost wildly happy. The fine air reminded him of the prairie, the rush through the wind was a breath of freedom, the joy of the motion was a glorious exhilaration of his senses. When he came back from these gallops, with pink cheeks and glowing eyes, Mary almost accustomed herself to the thought that it would be selfish to remove him from Glevering. But the continual fretting of Miss Grafton was too insistent for this idea to become a conviction. The boy did not grumble or complain, but his mother saw that his nerves were beginning to be jagged and torn. She felt that this condition of things would grow worse. Every day tightened the screw and strengthened the chain. 83 G 2 The Shadow As we have seen, she wrote to Mrs. Mauritius Smith. On the morning following the despatch of this letter, while Miss Grafton was going her rounds, Mary went with Christopher into the unused chapel which formed the terminus of one of the wings, and where she had often gone for quiet and repose and resignation since her arrival at Glevering. This little exquisite chapel was dark and mysterious. The beautiful painted window above the communion table, with its graceful tracery and glass of the seven- teenth century, was the only means by which the light of the outside world could manifest itself. The screen, the waggon-roof, the choir-stalls, and the pews, were all of black oak. It was only when one had rested for several moments in this sacred place, consecrated by centuries of family prayer, that the charm of its conception and the extreme beauty of its decoration stole into the mind with a gradual awe-inspiring wonder. Mary was reminded by this chapel of her convent life, the days of her childhood, her earliest knowledge of God, her first communion, and the awakening under- standing of her soul. It bathed her in a recreating peace to come and sit in one of the old pews, and let the mystery of the sanctuary breathe out towards her from under the dim window and through the shadows of the choir. She prayed in the silence of her soul, sitting there with folded hands and open eyes. Those prayers of the young mother in the chapel were not worded petitions, but yearning supplications of the soul outbreathings of her pure spirit to the Father of spirits. 84 We Must Suffer Sometimes when Christopher was at lessons with Miss Grafton, Mary would enter the chapel, close the great door behind her, and advancing slowly and with bowed head to the sanctuary, would kneel before the Holy of Holies and receive into her soul a sacra- ment not offered with hands. She had been denied the consolations of her church ever since her marriage and throughout her mother- hood. But worship was an instinct of her being. Always her heart had been an altar. Never had she ceased to pray. Her thoughts were a continual litany, her whole life was lived under the influence of the idea of eternity, the conviction of God. The Mother-Superior of her convent had given the young girl when she departed for her father's house a little book of extracts from the writings of Fenelon. This book had ever since been to her a perpetual and increasing support. It was the only survival of her wedding-presents. She had read it so often that she now knew it almost word for word, and in her prayers many of the most earnest cries which rushed upward from her soul uttered themselves to God in the language of the saintly Frenchman. This morning, as she sat with Christopher's hand in hers, feeling the sacred spell of the chapel closing about her soul like invisible wings, a passage from the little book of consolation came suddenly and unac- countably into her mind with a fresh significance. These were the words : " We must suffer not only in submission to the will of Providence, for the purification of our souls and the perfection of our virtues, but often for the success of those designs of which 35 The Shadow God has made us the instruments. Whoever desires to do good must be willing, and must expect to suffer. You must arm yourselves with courage and patience. You must be willing to endure tribulations and trials of all sorts which -would over- whelm you were you not supported by a well-established faith and charity. The world will blame, will tempt you ; your friends and your enemies may appear to combine against your good designs. Those even with whom you are united to promote a good work may be a snare to you. Opposite tempera- ments, different views, contrary habits, may cause you great suffering from those upon whom you have depended for support and consolation. Their defects and yours will perpetually clash in your intercourse with them. If true charity does not soften these difficulties, if a more than common virtue does not sustain you under these bitter trials, if an unfailing and fervent piety does not render this yoke easy to you, you will sink under it." The illumination which came to her mind with the recurrence of these familiar words was quiet, gradual, and quite unstartling ; but it revealed to her in a clear and steady light a truth hitherto but dimly guessed. She became aware of an insufficiency in herself which nothing human could make adequate, and of an in- completeness in the world which nothing mortal could make perfect. She realised at that moment the impossibility of escape from the world's doom. " We must suffer." The world's antagonism to peace, to innocence, and to love, assumed in her mind the qualities of peril. Human society nowhere on the earth could do anything but clash upon the secret thoughts of the soul. Life was something hard, hostile, difficult. The earth was not kind. Then she perceived a greater truth. The spirit existed here in exile from God. Only by turning to God in all things could that exile 86 We Must Suffer be endured. In a degree she had never before realised, her frightened soul apprehended the tremendous need of God. Without unfailing and fervent piety the soul must sink under the burdens of the world. Without God the heart must break, the reason perish in a cry of madness. She loosed her hand gently from her son's, and leaning forward, bowed herself down under the sheltering wings of Infinite Fatherhood. Christopher waited a moment, half-frightened by this silent action, this new experience ; then, feeling that his mother was suffering some distress too deep for his hands to reach or his heart to fathom, he kneeled down at her side, and prayed God to make her happy. The child hoped that she would be com- forted by his action and thought that she would put out a hand and touch him. But the mother's prayer was too deep ; she was quite unconscious that he kneeled at her side. To the child this profound prayer of his mother was a terrible isolation. They had left the door ajar which gave entrance to the chapel from the hall. They were on their knees when the jingle of Miss Grafton's chatelaine struck discordantly upon their ears. They did not at once rise, but remained with their heads bowed, their backs to the door. In a moment the door was pushed open, and Miss Grafton entered the chapel, speaking, in her usual tone of voice, to Mrs. Ryder who followed close behind her. As she advanced, Mary and Christopher rose from their knees. Miss Grafton was surprised and somewhat annoyed. 87 The Shadow " Oh, you are in here," she said, with her penetrating voice, and looked at them. " Not a very healthy place for you, is it ? No air at all. Christopher would certainly be better in the garden." She went forward without the smallest trace of rever- ence to the sanctuary, the housekeeper creeping like a swift shadow behind her. There was as little rever- ence in the silent and quite soundless movements ol the housekeeper as in the noisy and practical advance of the mistress. Miss Grafton thought that to lower the voice in an empty church or to walk about in it with a step different from one's ordinary gait was a form of hypocrisy. A church was built of wood and stone like any other building ; how one walked or talked did not affect it ; one could be reverent in the heart without cringing the knee, muffling the voice, and creeping about like a ghost. There was no non- sense in her religion, she said. She did not know that in the Graftonian religion there was also no God. Mary and Christopher were walking in the garden when Miss Grafton came out to them. The child had asked his mother whether anything had happened to make her sad, and she had answered, " No, some- thing has happened to make me glad" Her voice was so happy that he had looked up quickly ; and to his dying day he never forgot the infinite look of peace in his mother's eyes. That profound and wonderful expression dispelled his perplexed anxiety, but awed him so that he could not speak. " Nothing can hurt us, Christopher," she had said presently. " If you always think that God loves us, you will feel safe. We are safe. I know that He cares for us." 88 We Must Suffer She had just spoken these words, which deepened Christopher's awe, when Miss Grafton approached them. Christopher was sent indoors to prepare a lesson, and Miss Grafton, turning away from the house, said to Mary, " I have something to say to you." An hour ago these ominous words would have produced a kind of terror in the mother's heart, but now they made no impression. What was it that she had learned in the chapel ? On her knees she had received the assurance that there is no pain or suffering, no grief or sorrow, no wound or humiliation, however bitter, which cannot be endured by a soul resting in God. To rest in God is to be invulnerable in the midst of battle, sheltered in the midst of tempest, patient in the midst of pain, quiet in the face of death. Submission to that divine and infinite Will, resignation to that loving and righteous Providence, accomplish more than the pacifi- cation of a frightened soul ; they disarm the multi- tudinous hosts of the world's antagonism. And for the sensitive mind, the disquieted heart, the shrinking soul, only in this utter and grateful submission of the will can there be lasting calm and inviolate tran- quillity. She was willing to endure tribulations ; she was content to suffer. By God's mercy she promised to be patient under provocation, to be meek and lowly, to accept all trials and all humiliations, to transform everything that hurt and assaulted her soul into the discipline of God's providence. She felt that she would now be able to teach 89 The Shadow Christopher the secret of life. Her own sense of rest was so deep and pervasive that she yearned to share it with her son. She saw that life at Glevering, with all its humilia- tions and subtle affronts, could be perfectly supported by this divine faith. She would sit a beggar at their table, and not be ashamed ; she would bear their glances and their neglect without anger or resentment. How could they hurt her if she did not feel their chastisement ? What could the world do to shatter her peace if she had renounced the world ? How safe, how secure, how happy she was ! Christopher, she told herself, should so learn to comprehend this loving Fatherhood of God that he, too, would be strong and enduring ; the manhood in his soul, which they would either break or embitter, should become that flexible and lasting thing which supported the saints when the wolves of the world howled against them. He should be taught the true manliness, the true courage, the true strength ; his beautiful and innocent young soul should unfold its powers in the cool and sacred shade of her motherhood, the wings of Eternal Love encompassing them both. Yes, this life which but an hour ago had tortured and racked her finest sensi- bilities was become now, not an outrage threatening to overwhelm her, but a discipline for the purification of her soul and the perfection of her virtues, her soul and her son's soul, her virtues and his virtues. They were safe. Nothing could destroy them. Thus it was that Mary heard without affright the ominous intimation that Glevering's mistress had something to say to her. 90 We Must Suffer Isabel Grafton began at once in her precise and business-like manner. It was high time, she said, that Christopher prepared for school ; her soundings of him had revealed inconceivable depths of ignorance ; he knew no arithmetic to speak of, no Latin whatever, his spelling was disreputable, his writing perfectly infantile, and as for his geography, he did not even know the names of the oceans. As it happened, Sir Matthew had been thinking for some months of opening the chapel for those people in the village who, like themselves, could not endure the odious man in the Rectory. A chaplain would be engaged, and this person, who would have nothing to do but conduct the services on Sundays, might very well employ his week-days by coaching Christopher for school. This announcement was a most terrible trial to Mary's faith. The thought of separation from her son was unendurable. His soul belonged to her. She and she alone, had the right to train it for God. " I am a Catholic," she said gently, " and Chris- topher " Miss Grafton stopped dead. "You must never mention never, in the presence of my brother, that you are a Roman. There are reasons." She began to walk again. " I have no wish to hurt your feelings," she said, " but I must tell you that if you knew the history of your church, and if you really understood what it teaches, you would immediately disown it with feelings of shame and detestation. But that does not concern me. There is no Roman church in the neighbourhood, and unless you attend the services in 91 The Shadow the chapel you will be obliged to practise your religion in secret. However, that is for yourself to decide. You need not anticipate any interference in the matter of your religious convictions either from Sir Matthew or myself. So long as you are careful never to mention the word Catholic in his presence pray be most careful of that no harm will be done. But Christopher is quite another question." The idea of physical separation from Christopher suggested by the word school was a poignant anguish to the mother ; but the suggestion of a spiritual separation, a separation of her son's soul from hers, was intolerable. She knew nothing of the Church of England, except the vague and contemptuous ideas which float in the atmosphere of Roman seminaries. Loyalty to the Roman Church did not really move her; it was loyalty to her own soul, loyalty to the illumination which had just come to her, which now operated with resistless force in her mind. Christopher, at all costs, must know the blessing and the strength of her religion. Mary said quietly : " He is my son. No one must teach him religion but myself." Miss Grafton laughed good-naturedly. "You do not, my dear child, appreciate the situation." " Do you mean that we are dependent on you ? " " Apparently you have no other support" " Yes, there is God." Isabel glanced for a moment at her sister-in-law with a quick reprehension of her eyes. " You have been praying in the chapel," she said, with a sting of censure 02 We Must Suffer and a full acidity of contempt ; " your senses are not yet adjusted to the material world. Faith is a perfectly proper condition for a soul with a well- balanced brain and a practical knowledge of life, but it is extremely dangerous in any other case. Until you are better acquainted with the world you would do well to restrict faith to your prayers." " I am ignorant of the world, but my conscience will light my way." " Conscience without intelligence," said Miss Grafton impatiently, " is a compass without a navigator. But this is all beside the point. Let us, please, avoid con- troversy. I myself dwell very much outside the region of opinion. In my world, which is the world of practical daily life, there are certain perfectly well- ascertained causes and effects, and nothing in that world is a matter of opinion ; when we use words in that world we know what we mean. Now, to resume, Christopher is your son, it is true, but he is something more ; he is a Grafton. Sir Matthew, with very good reason, has such an antagonism for Roman Catholics that it is a boundless folly for you to suppose that he can possibly entertain for a single moment the idea of educating the boy he is supporting for his brother's sake in the principles of that discredited church. That, my dear Mary, is quite out of the question. There are other reasons which I need not go into. Enough of this side of the question. Let me now tell you that my brother intends to deal handsomely by your son. If he conducts himself well, and shows a proper sense of his condition, Sir Matthew will send him to Eton. It will depend only on his own efforts whether 93 The Shadow he goes to Oxford afterwards. I want you to know these intentions of my brother so that you may realise the obligations which Christopher is under to Sir Matthew and the opportunities which are presented to him." To Mary the name of Eton had no meaning what- ever, and even if she had possessed the world's respect for all that Eton stands for in English social life, she would have felt no difficulty in withstanding the temptation to surrender her motherhood. Very strong in that motherhood, now doubly sacred in her eyes, she replied quietly but with an unshakable decisive- ness that Christopher was her son and that his religion must be his mother's. To this Miss Grafton coolly and off-handedly answered that Christopher had possessed a father, and that Mary must put out of her head the supposi- tion that the son was to be deprived of his father's religion. " Evidently," she said, with a fine asump- tion of knowledge, " you are quite ignorant of the law on this subject. Let me assure you that you have no power in the world to alter the religion of the boy's family. He will be brought up in the faith of his fathers, and in no other." " But he is my son," said Mary, beginning to fear. " It you refuse to keep us here, unless I give up his soul, we will go away." "You can go away, my dear child," answered Miss Grafton, " although it will be very unwise of you to do any such thing. But Christopher will stay." In her ignorance of the world, Mary was visited with a desperate terror. " Oh no," she said, struggling 94 We Must Suffer for clarity of thought ; " no one can take him from me." " I must tell you something that you do not know." " He is my son. He belongs to me." " Will you listen ? " " I will work for him. I cannot let any one take him from me." " I will wait till you are quiet." " How can you take him away from me ? " " That is what I wish to tell you. If you will compose yourself, you will understand what I have to say. I do beg you to study command of your feelings. It is quite impossible for you to act as a rational being and to think as a rational being if you let your emotions get the upper hand of your reason." For a few moments they walked in silence. " What I have to tell you, Mary," said Miss Graf- ton, " need not be told to Christopher. Sir Matthew does not wish him to know. You will therefore keep it for the present entirely to yourself. It is a matter of the greatest importance." She paused, then, turning to mark the effect of her words, she said, " Christopher at present is Sir Matthew's heir." Mary made no answer. " The only son of my second brother," continued Miss Grafton, glancing away again, " was killed in Zululand, the rest of the children are girls. My third brother, who married Lady Emily Jervis, has no children at present. In these circumstances, Chris- topher is the heir to the title next after the present generation. So far as we can see, he will some day 95 The Shadow be the head of the family. It is, therefore, his due that he should be educated for his position ; it is therefore inevitable that he should grow up in the traditions of his family. You are his mother, and unless you marry again you will always live here, and you will see as much of him as anybody else. But there must be no interference in Sir Matthew's plans for his education. None whatever. You will not see anything unreasonable in this essential con- dition if you realise, as I think you will on reflection, what it means to be the head of the Graftons." " That is nothing to me," said the mother. CHAPTER VII. AN INVASION OF GLEVERING contrast between the natures of Isabel and 1 Mary Grafton was complete. No subtle and painful analysis was necessary to reveal this difference ; it was drawn by the pencil of Nature. Nothing could be more antipathetic than the vivid, masterful, capable, hectoring, straw-coloured eyes of Miss Grafton, and the large, luminous, dark eyes of the young widow. In the presence of Isabel one was careful ; in the presence of Mary one was reverent. Isabel's eyes pierced with the sharpness of steel and saw an infinite detail ; the eyes of Mary received vision and seemed to reflect in their profound depths the soul of things. In the affairs of life Isabel was as vastly superior to Mary as Mary was superior to Isabel in the things of God. Their natures, indeed, represented the eternal conflict between spirit and matter, phenomena and reality, society and life, time and eternity, God and Mammon. The duel between these two so sharply contrasted antagonists ended in a manner which each regarded as a victory. Isabel got her own way and congratu- lated herself on a personal triumph. Mary resigned herself to the Divine Will and blessed God for the 97 H The Shadow ability with which His love had provided her to practise renunciation. We must explain how it was that the controversy concerning Christopher ended in this way. At first Mary was resolute in her determination. Nothing that Isabel said or threatened had power to turn the current of her purpose. In one scale of the balance might be all the proudest titles and all the greatest wealth in the world, but in the other was the soul ol her son. It seemed to her an inconceivable thing that Isabel should imagine it possible for a mother to sell the heart of her maternity and the soul of her child for a price. On the morning which followed the first day of this duel she received a letter from Annabel which gave strength to her resolution. Kind little Annabel had written out of the fulness of her heart, and the whole letter glowed with hope and palpitated with courage. She told Mary not to worry, assured her that a happy end would soon be found for her troubles, declared that no woman need nowadays be dependent on others, and concluded by a thrice-underlined intima- tion that she and the Collector were preparing a surprise for their dear and beautiful friend. With what joy did Mary read and re-read this effusive and affectionate letter ! It promised her deliverance from humiliation ; it opened a door from her present helplessness ; it struck at the chains of her ignominious dependence. The idea that she could be set free was a joy unspeakable, but her soul was ravished by the greater and more glorious thought that she would work for Christopher, and earn his 98 An Invasion of Glevering bread, and provide for him body and soul. This was a thought most precious to her. No labour could be too severe, no garret too mean, no circumstances too hard and oppressive for the sacrament of her mother- hood. She began to visualise the delightful life ahead of her, the life in which she worked for Christopher, and they lived together in love, simplicity, and in- dependence. On that day, therefore, Mary still resisted the assaults of Miss Grafton. It must be told that neither Mary nor Christopher ever saw the baronet alone. They met him at meals, he sat in the drawing-room after dinner for an hour, and that was all. On these occasions he never spoke to them intimately, and hardly ever addressed them personally. He seemed to have no other channel for his remarks either about them or the servants except his practical, sharp-eyed sister at the other end of the table. " Mrs. Richard, I hope, has spent a pleasant after- noon," he would say to Isabel, with his eyebrows twitching and his eyes grinding out their flint-like smile ; or, " Has Christopher manifested a ray of in- telligence in his lessons this morning ? " or, speaking of the footman still in the room, " Why does he hold a dish a mile away from one, or else push it into one's chest?" In the drawing-room, having read The Times in his library, he glanced through Miss Grafton's Morning Post and read aloud paragraphs which amused him and which had a certain interest for his sister, but possessed no meaning for his sister-in-law. 99 II 2 The Shadow Everything concerning his intentions or his wishes as regarded Mary and Christopher came through Miss Grafton. But when Mary had retired for the night, Miss Grafton always paid a visit to the library, and from these audiences she came away with clear and minute instructions from the baronet. Sir Matthew had married in his twenty-fifth year a lady with a great fortune. The Rector of Glevering, presented to the living by Sir Matthew's father, was extreme in his views, which were of the order known as Tractarian. He was an able man, and persuasive with that Gladstonian persuasiveness which is even more powerful in its operations on the possessor than on other people. He made an impression on Lady Grafton when that poor lady was bowed to the 'earth by the death of her first child. This impression deepened. The lady's susceptibilities were like a mirror, her will stubborn enough in its antipathies was like wax where its sympathies were deeply engaged. As the Rector advanced in his ideas, so, too, did Lady Grafton. Increasing illness rendered her a little hysterical, and she began to pass the Rector in the race of ideas. He came to the point where the Church of England seemed to have no other mission in the world than corporate reunion with the Latin Obedience ; Lady Grafton rushed on to the point where surrender to Rome appeared to be surrender to God. Sir Matthew awoke too late to the situation. His irreligiousness had made him avoid the Rector, and he never went to church. It was from Isabel, who 100 An Invasion of Glevering came on a visit to Glevering, that he first learned the danger. Instantly he practised the greatest severity towards his wife and set himself to drive the clergyman out of Glevering. In both these efforts he met with defeat. The Bishop refused to act, the Rector refused to resign ; every effort of the squire to humiliate the clergyman and impoverish the parish only revealed the complete independence of the in- cumbent and the impotence of the patron. But far worse than this failure with the clergyman was his defeat at the hands of his wife. Lady Grafton went to London, was received into the church of Rome, and dying some five years afterwards, bequeathed the whole of her fortune to that communion. Miss Grafton had good reasons when she warned her sister-in-law against any reference to the Roman Church. The thought that his heir should be a member of the hated church was insufferable to the baronet. He gave the matter a night's consideration and arrived at a conclusion which he communicated to Miss Grafton on the following day. Mary was to be wooed into the Church of England. In this way it came about that Christopher found himself more kindly treated and began to enjoy the pleasures of life in scenes which were delightful to his boyish senses, while in place of domineering and brow-beating patronage, Mary found herself the object of an almost affectionate solicitude. Isabel made Christopher her first present. It was Foxe's Book of Martyrs. On the same day she told 101 The Shadow the wondering boy that Sir Matthew intended to give him a pony on his next birthday. To Mary, Isabel talked in as gentle and persuasive a manner as she could command of the Church of England. She sought to enlighten the ignorance of her sister-in- law, and to remove the unintelligible prejudices which that innocent child had unconsciously imbibed in her convent. She was not altogether unsuccessful. Mary learned from this proselytising sister-in-law that the Church of England taught the same religious prin- ciples as the Church of Rome ; that separation was merely a form due to the difference of nationality and the necessities of government ; and that a Christian could find everything in the Church of England which the most scrupulous devotee could discover in the Church of Rome. Immediately the great barrier in Mary's heart gave way. It had seemed to her that the choice at first pre- sented was between God and godlessness. If Chris- topher could learn to love God in the beautiful little chapel of Glevering, why should she risk his peace and safety in the perils and affrights of a great city like London ? But to give up her ambition of working for him ! It was like tearing up the gifts of Hope. She found a passage in Fenelon which seemed to guide her decision : " We must renounce those who are most dear to us, and whom we are in duty bound to love ; this renunciation consists in loving them only for God ; enjoying the consolation of their friendship occasionally, and with moderation, being ready to 102 An Invasion of Glevering part with them when it is the will of God, and never seeking in them the true repose of the heart." She began to doubt the reality of her faith, even to suspect her own motherhood. Did she love Chris- topher with a selfish and an animal love ? was she ready to efface herself for his happiness ? was it of him she thought and him alone, or of her feelings towards him ? And did she love God more than her child ? Terrible question ! Could she say, with God listening to her, that she did not seek repose of the heart in her mother's love, that she sought it only in His will and purpose ? She was sorely tortured. If they taught Christopher the consolations of faith, if she was permitted to see him sometimes, why should she seek to dispute God's will ? Was it not the will of Heaven that her child should be the heir to this place in the English world ? Could she alter pre- destination ? She must bow, she must submit. It was God's will with her that she should renounce all selfishness in her mother's love. This decision to which she was called was but another loving providence for the purification of her soul and the perfection of her virtues. She was accustoming herself to this idea, when one day, a week after the controversy had opened, an unexpected incident provided her with fresh strength for her purpose. The family was in the midst of luncheon when the butler entered the dining-room and announced that Mr. and Mrs. Mauritius Smith had called to see 103 The Shadow Mrs. Richard. The effect of this announcement was multiform. To begin with, Christopher started from his chair, saying, " May I go to them, Aunt Isabel ? " while Aunt Isabel commanded with a sharp asperity, " Sit down immediately." Mary's face, full of light and gladness, turned from mistress to servant, anxiously waiting for the admission of her friends. As for the baronet, he glanced up the table, waited to catch his sister's eye, and then, giving her an almost imper- ceptible nod, began to eat with extraordinary quick- ness. " Did you tell them," asked Miss Grafton, " that we were at luncheon ? " The butler replied with a bowing affirmative. " And they said they would wait ? " The butler was silent, with that provoking awkward- ness which servants adopt when they have something to say which is out of the routine of their office. He first regarded Miss Grafton with a deferential expres- sion which seemed to say, " Pray do not harrow my feelings by commanding me to say another word," and then lowered his gaze and seemed to suppress a pale smile of which he was heartily ashamed. " Come," said Miss Grafton, " you've got a tongue in your head. What did they say ? " Lifting up his eyes, and glancing at the baronet for a moment, the troubled butler made answer in a low voice : " Well, miss, when I said that you were at luncheon, the gentleman answered me that luncheon was one of the noblest words in the dictionary ; and he added, miss, that he would be much obliged to me 104 An Invasion of Glevering if I would introduce him to our cook's definition of that word as quickly as possible, seeing that he had eaten nothing since 7 . 30 this morning." " Isabel," said the baronet, with a most agreeable laugh, " that is just the very thing Mr. Mauritius Smith would say. It is characteristic of the gentle- man's cheerful and liberty-loving nature. Pray let them come in." He rose from his chair as he spoke, and turning to the footman, said, " Bring me cheese in the library." At the door he said, " Do let them enjoy themselves ; let them have all to eat they ask for." Mary inquired in a gentle voice if she should go to her friends. " We will all go, my dear," said Miss Grafton, with a little amused and quite cheerful bow. " Lay places," she said to the butler, and rose from her chair. When they entered the room into which the visitors had been shown, the collector of jungle produce, with his blazing face and his trumpet of a nose, came forward with the greatest affability and assurance, exclaiming, " Hillo, Christopher Columbus ! " while his little, weather-beaten, brown-faced wife rushed at Mary and embraced her with kisses which seemed as though they would never come to an end, with such cooings and inquirings and tenderness as even Laertes' son, we are bold to conjecture, never received from Pene- lope. Miss Grafton stood in the background of these greetings, like a goddess surveying the antics of a small mortality. 105 The Shadow Mauritius froze a little at sight of her ; he bowed with a court-like exaggeration, mumbled a few words of address, and then relieved his feelings and recovered his composure by digging Christopher in the ribs, punching that delighted young gentleman in what he called his " bread basket," and rallying him in the most frank and candid manner imaginable on the change in his fortunes from steerage to Glevering. " Won't you come and take some luncheon ? " asked Miss Grafton, with indulgent kindness. Annabel, with her kind face wreathed in smiles and her little dark eyes sparkling with pleasure, explained that Miss Grafton must really excuse her for showing such uncontrollable delight at sight of her dear friend, of whom she had never ceased to think for a single moment since she parted from her at Liverpool. Mary, a little bewildered by this overwhelming greeting, took Mrs. Smith's arm and followed Miss Grafton to the dining-room. No sooner had they seated themselves at the freshly arranged table than poor Mauritius, overcome by one of his paroxysms, went off like a Catherine- wheel. Both the servants jumped at the first sound of the sawing-wood-noises and the tearing-linen-noises which succeeded each other with a rapidity truly alarming, while Christopher turned quickly to Miss Grafton, who was staring open-eyed at the frightful grimaces which the Collector was apparently aiming at her, saying eagerly, " It's all right, Aunt Isabel ; it's only the clockwork ! " Mauritius, emerging from this spasm, laughed 106 MAURITIUS, OVERCOME BY ONE OF HIS PAROXYSMS, WENT OFF LIKE A CATHERINE-WHEEL. An Invasion of Glevering heartily, and said, " Christopher Columbus remembers everything. No occasion for panic or alarm, ma'am. Irregular explosions of nervous energy, nothing more. Not catching in the least. They only serve to give me an appetite for my meals. Christopher, you ruffian, we'll see who can eat the most." After this inauspicious beginning, the meal pro- ceeded a little frigidly. Mrs. Mauritius, with sweetness jn .her eyes : and ingratiating admiration in her voice, began presently to speak to Miss Grafton about her beautiful home. " How proud you must be of it ! What a superb edifice so stately, so ancient, so magnificent ! " exclaimed the kind little woman. "When it burst upon our view in the fly, I gripped my dear husband's hand and exclaimed I couldn't help myself ' The stately homes of England, How beautiful they stand ! ' It seemed such a natural quotation. And then I said to him, ' But it is not only grandeur we are looking at, Mauritius ; we are looking at family love, the home-life of England, and all the dear, dear beauties of domestic affection.' You don't know how we appreciate those things in exile." Miss Grafton bowed her acknowledgment of this compliment. " My wife, ma'am," said the Collector, munching heartily, " paid the same compliments to the exterior of your mansion as I wish to pay to your table. This cold beef, these delicately bronzed potato balls, and these pickles I venture to particularise the gherkins are worthy of the mansion. They are 107 The Shadow the genuine article. If the right honourable baronet were present I would venture to congratulate him on his cellar ; I pronounce this hock to be tip-top, Ai, incomparable. Christopher, you roystering ruffian, if you fare like this every day you'll equal the fat boy in Pickwick, the Lord Mayor's coachman, and the Tichborne claimant." " I feel so happy," said Mrs. Smith, directly her husband had finished, " to think that our friend is living in such a paradise of a place ; and now that I have had the pleasure of seeing you, Miss Grafton, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to know that she is provided with 'what is far more than a grand house and a proud position a true and noble friend." " You are really too kind," said Miss Grafton. "Ah, ma'am," said the Collector, with his mouth full of beef and potatoes and with a long gherkin dripping vinegar from the end of his lifted fork, " my wife, who is also my angel, my providence, and occasionally my stupefaction, does in truth possess the most remarkable kindness of which it is possible to conceive. If you knew her, ma'am, you would find yourself constantly exclaiming, ' What a heart ! ' But on this occasion, I am bound to say, I whose feet have been brought a thousand times to the edge of bankruptcy by the abnormal benevolence of my wife's heart, that she does not exaggerate. You have re- ceived us with cordiality. You are feeding us with a royal munificence. And, if I am anything of a judge of character, I read in your countenance, rna'am and I am bold to confess it to the said countenance qualities of generosity, kindness, and humanity which 1 08 An Invasion of Glevering would not be out of place in the visage of a philan- thropist like Elizabeth Fry or a saint like St. Monica, er St. er well, any in the calendar. Christopher, you villain, you've stolen a march upon me ; you've taken advantage of my volubility ; but, have at it ! I'll catch you up." And Mauritius set to work with an energy which amply justified this concluding boast. Directly he had finished speaking, Mrs. Mauritius leaned confidently towards her hostess, and said in a very ingratiating and intimate way, " You will under- stand, dear Miss Grafton, how anxious we have been about our friend. Relations can be so disagreeable, can they not ? I am sure I felt at Liverpool, when we were saying good-bye to her, just as if she were going into a hospital for some terrible life or death operation. We didn't know, you see, what she was going to." " My wife, ma'am," said Mauritius, " has an imagina- tion during one of her heart attacks which the divine William himself might have envied for the tender scenes in King Lear." " I cannot tell you," said Annabel, " how relieved I am." Miss Grafton smiled. " I am glad," she said. " I feel now," continued Mrs. Mauritius, " that we can start for the East without the smallest anxiety." " At the same time," said the Collector, venturing to wink at Miss Grafton an audacity which that lady, strange to say, did not resent " it would probably complete the relieved feelings of my pet if you would assure her, ma'am, that you have no dungeons in the establishment, that no poison is admitted to the larder, 109 The Shadow and that daggers are not encouraged among your retainers." Annabel shook a reproving finger at him, and turned again to her hostess, saying, " My husband always laughs at my anxiety, dear Miss Grafton ; but I am sure you will understand how I felt when I parted with our friend, knowing that she was going to relations who were complete strangers to her. You can imagine our dreadful anxiety." " If, ma'am," said Mauritius, " you could produce the right honourable baronet, or at any rate persuade him to walk across the lawns in view of the windows for one moment only, so that my angel could assure herself with her own eyes (which heaven bless) that the aforesaid baronet is neither Bluebeard nor Daniel Quilp, it would go some way to insure me against several years of heart-breaking questions from my angel concerning the perfect safety of her dear friend in Glevering." Mauritius burst, out laughing, and turning to one of the servants, said, "A little more wine, please." "Well, really," said the wife, "you do read such dreadful things in the newspapers nowadays don't you, Miss Grafton that a person may be excused for imagining anything. I'm sure, even among the aristocracy " "Birdie, I forbid you!" cried the Collector. He laughed again, and shook a finger at her. " From this moment I refuse to hear one word derogatory of our ancient aristocracy. I have been received with honour ; I have been treated with munificence. An appetite extending from 7.30 a.m., and covering some hundreds no An Invasion of Glevering of miles of the Great Western Railway's permanent way, has ceased to exist. It has been wiped out. I am grateful. Christopher, you breathless forager, you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth ! And under this roof, lucky dog, it need never be idle ! " When luncheon was finished, the party went into the garden, and Christopher asked if he might take the Collector to the stables, a request which Miss Grafton granted with a singular sweetness. Then the three ladies walked about under the trees and down the long borders, Mrs. Smith exclaiming at the beauty and splendour of the place, and repeatedly expressing her happiness at the thought that her dear friend now possessed in Miss Grafton a noble relation, a loving companion, and an unfailing friend. Mauritius and Christopher appeared presently, the Collector explaining, watch in hand, that they must now depart. " My cabman tells me," he said, with an exaggerated bow to Miss Grafton, " that your servants have handsomely entertained him in the kitchen. Permit me in his name and my own to acknowledge the courtesy to the mistress of those servants and the ch&telaine of this magnificent mansion. Angel, your wraps." For two minutes Annabel was able to speak in private to Mary Grafton. With great rapidity of utterance, accompanied by innumerable nods of the head, the little weather-beaten woman counselled her friend to abandon all thought of London, to endeavour to accommodate herself to Miss Grafton's ways, and to enjoy the blessings and comforts of life at Glevering with the happy hope that the baronet ill The Shadow would leave Christopher something handsome in his will, perhaps make him his heir 1 " At the same time, my dear," she concluded, " if you should ever be in need of a friend, and Mauritius and I are out of the country, you must write to Mrs. Grindley, my aunt, whose address you know, and who will gladly, most gladly, do what she can to help you. But remember what dear Shakespeare says, ' It is better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.' London is a horrible and wicked city ; a boy like Christopher might quite easily be run over in the streets or ruined in his soul by evil companions. Here, whatever the diffi- culties of the situation, he must grow up sweet and pure, mustn't he ? and that is everything." While his wife was speaking to Mary in this manner, the Collector edged uncomfortably close to Miss Grafton, and with his hand to his mouth, whispered in her ear, "Assure me, I beg you, that the right honourable baronet is not offended." " Offended I don't understand 1 " " I ventured to write to him." " He told me, I recollect." " He was not offended, I hope. Out of the fulness of my wife's abnormal heart I wrote that letter. Receiving no answer, I inferred offence affront to the baronet's honour ; not intended, on my honour." " It is thoughtful of you to be interested in our sister-in-law." " Thank you, ma'am I Feelings relieved ! Ha, ha, I am happy again." At the cab door, with his hat doffed, Mauritius 112 An Invasion of Glevering bowed low over Miss Grafton's hand and was about to salute it with his lips, when a spasm caused him suddenly to fling it away and make a face at her instead. However, when he had recovered from this interruption of his courtesy, he desired her in the most felicitous language imaginable to accept his life's homage and to present his reverence to the right honourable baronet, her brother. " I shall never forget this visit," he concluded, "and if ever you should find yourself in Selangor or Perak, or any- where in the Malayan States, you will find me, ma'am, your most humble and obedient servant." As the cab drove away Mrs. Mauritius Smith with a fluttering handkerchief projecting from one window and the Collector with a waving hat from the other Miss Grafton said to Mary, "What kind- hearted people ; but, my dear girl, what specimens ! " Then she called Christopher and told him not to run after the cab and to cease waving his hand. When the house vanished from view, the Smiths drew themselves out of the window-frames and into the cab, and sat down side by side, a little breathless. " Oh, Mauritius," exclaimed Annabel, " did you ever see such a face in your life ? " "A piece of masonry, certainly," said Mauritius, producing his cigar-case. " And the house more like a prison than a home. Oh, I do feel so sorry for her ! Not a chair out of place, not a pin on the floor nothing at all to suggest a home. If Christopher is ever allowed to laugh in that house, or poor Mrs. Grafton to put her feet up on a sofa, I shall be surprised. And, Mauritius, The Shadow those little, hard, gimlet-pointed eyes ! Oh ! ugh ! They make me shudder to think of them." "Our comfort is," said the Collector, biting the end from a cigar, " that we have perhaps done some- thing to humanise the lady. You were incomparable. I regret, however, that I did not get a chance of having a go at the baronet. We may, I think, nevertheless, flatter ourselves that we have spilt a few drops of the milk of human kindness in that house which will not easily be sponged out." " Of course she is far better off there than starving in London," said Annabel thoughtfully. " Carried, Birdie," said the Collector, striking a match, " tiemine contradicente" CHAPTER VIII. A SUDDEN CHANGE WEEK after the invasion of Glevering by Mr. and Mrs. Mauritius Smith, Sir Matthew Grafton, glancing through his letters at breakfast, an- nounced to his sister with a particularly disdainful inflection of his voice that " the minister " would arrive by the mid-day train and would stay the night. Mary heard this announcement with quick interest. She understood what it meant ; Chris- topher's tutor was coming to Glevering. She was. now more or less resigned to her existence. The visit of the Smiths, and the letters she had since received from Annabel, filled her with a dazed fear of the world and of London in particular. To expose Christopher to the dangers and temptations, the sufferings and poverty of a vast commercial city, appeared now in her eyes as a risk not to be con- templated. The thought, too, that he was heir to Glevering acted powerfully in her mind, making her feel that it was the manifest will of Providence for him to remain where he was, surrounded by the environment of that destiny which had clearly been prepared for him. She set herself to forget the fond dream of working to support him, with its pleasant delights of H I 2 The Shadow being herself his only companion and instructor. She put that thought out of her heart, as an object too apparent and obvious in a world of occult purposes, as an aspiration too beautiful for accomplishment in a form of existence meant only for discipline. He must grow up in the surroundings of his father ; others who knew this English world must train him for the fulfilment of his duties ; he belonged to society as well as to herself; God had not meant him for her selfish pleasure and delight, but for Himself and His divine purpose. So she reasoned with herself, and so she brought herself to the difficult temper of renunciation. Besides, under the greater kindness of Miss Grafton, Christopher was beginning to enjoy life at Glevering ; he was bright and cheerful, his eyes often shone with laughter, he talked with excitement of the many amusements which the place provided. If when he was hopping from pattern to pattern on one of the carpets, he encountered Mrs. Ryder, he did not now stop dead and, holding his breath, wait for her to pass, but said cheerfully, " Hullo, Mrs. Ryder ! " which though it seldom drew a word from the hurrying black rat, seemed to relieve Christopher of the memory of his old fear. Then, too, he had made a secret acquaintance with one of the garden boys who knew where all the birds would build their nests in spring, who could catch hedgehogs and squirrels rather more easily than he could spud plantains out of the lawn, and who had offered to sell Christopher a pair of white mice in a wooden cage with a revolving wheel, for one shilling and sixpence. A Sudden Change The hedges full of mystery ; the woods full of life ; the river with its roach and gudgeon ; the ponds with their carp ; the stables with horse-boxes, stalls, coach-houses, hay lofts and harness-rooms ; the farm with its barns, cowsheds, pig-styes, stables, and fowl- houses ; the enchanting gardens ; the wide and windy spaces of the park everything in this wonderful world, so different from the prairie, fed the ardent mind of the boy with a constant enthusiasm. Over and over again he said to his mother : " Oh, isn't it a lovely place ? If there were no lessons, and if Uncle Richard and Aunt Isabel would go away and let Only-the-Clockwork and his Birdie come and take care of us, wouldn't Glevering be just like heaven, mother ? and wouldn't we enjoy ourselves and be frightfully happy ? " All this, we may be sure, made it easier for Mary Grafton to bear the dependence of her position, and even helped her to put out of her heart the rather quixotic but quite pardonable notion of working to support Christopher in London. The clergyman who came to consult about the chaplaincy at Glevering made no very great impres- sion on the anxious mother, tie was a spare, pale- faced, dark-featured man, well advanced in middle life, and with no striking force of personality. His name was John Kindred ; he had worked ever since his ordination in a destitute quarter of London. The death of his wife, to whom he had been devotedly attached and of whom the bishop had said that she was worth a leash of curates, had broken him down and rendered him unfit to maintain single-handed 117 The Shadow the grim contest with privation and iniquity in its most savage and ferocious shape. The two little girls of the marriage went to live with his father and mother in their rectory among the Cumberland mountains, and John Kindred, with the help of the bishop, sought work of a light and undistressing nature which would support him till he was once more fit for the struggle in London. Sir Matthew did not appear at luncheon that day. When the meal was finished Christopher took Mr. Kindred's hand and went with him into the garden. Isabel Grafton and Mary looked at each other as the spare and threadbare figure of the clergyman passed before the drawing-room window. " Well," asked Mrs. Grafton, " what opinion have you formed ? " " He seems simple and kind," Mary answered. " Not too simple, I think, and not too kind, I hope," commented Miss Grafton. " His chief recom- mendation is that he has no fads ; we shall see if he will do." Mr. Kindred made a more favourable impression on Mary at dinner, Sir Matthew still absenting himself from the table ; afterwards in the drawing- room even Isabel became interested in his answers to her questions concerning the problems of London poverty. Both ladies perceived that behind the worn and pallid face of this little quiet clergyman, there was a mind of resource and resolution. When Mr. Kindred came to take up his quarters at Glevering he was given a suite of small rooms in the bachelors' wing a bedroom, a room for his meals, and a schoolroom. Christopher now took all his A Sudden Change meals with the tutor. Mary saw scarcely anything of the clergyman except in the chapel, which was now thrown open for people on the estate and for those of the villagers who were dissatisfied with the Rector. Mr. Kindred lived entirely in his quarters, and was instructed by Mrs. Ryder how to leave the upper floor by a staircase which did not communicate with the centre part of the mansion. Christopher was told by Miss Grafton that if he should encounter Sir Matthew when he was walking in the park with the tutor he was to raise his hat and pass on, never on any account was he to stop and speak. Miss Grafton had explained to the tutor in a single phrase that Sir Matthew did not attend church services. The emptiness of Mary's life was now complete. She had no occupations ; occasionally she accompanied Miss Grafton on that lady's cold and inspector-like visits to the cottagers ; occasionally she was provided with some such work as knitting woollen garments for poor people. For the most part, her days passed with a deadly monotony, rendered still more difficult of endurance by the wholly antipathetic character of Isabel. Gradually the long-suffering Mary perceived that Miss Grafton was pursuing a definite purpose. She was improving her sister-in-law, making a lady of her, making her a woman of the world. All the books given to Mary were chosen by Isabel, and in their walks Miss Grafton would examine her on these interesting and formative works. Correction of certain habits and manners was also continuous throughout the day, not in a spirit the least unkind or vexatious, 119 The Shadow but rather in the pleasant and amused fashion of a proficient authority diverted by the blunders of a tyro. Mary did not walk, did not hold herself, did not speak, did not sit, did not stand, did not open a door, did not smile, did not eat, did not drink, did not, in fact, perform any of the mental and gymnastic operations of civilised society exactly as Miss Grafton expected them to be performed. " I am afraid," she said once, "that you will never acquire the Graftonian manner." The Graftonian manner, be it said, was exemplified at its height by the third brother of Sir Matthew, the Right Honourable Edmund Grafton, who, besides marrying Lady Emily Jervis, was a Secretary of State with every prospect of becoming Prime Minister. This was the bright particular star of the Grafton family, a lineal descendant of a race which ever since its first mention in history had made money and gained lands by its patriotism. A man urbane with- out geniality, charming without sincerity, a great scholar and a popular speaker, a dignified statesman and an adroit politician in everything an aristocrat, touching the universe with the encouraging hand of patronage, and taking good care that the universe at some of its dirtier points did not sully the whiteness of his hand. Isabel Grafton believed that she, too, was urbane, charming, cultured, and adroit It was her chief pride that the Graftons delighted so many people whom they regarded, if not with scorn or detestation, at least with amused disdain. She took the curtseys of villagers for tributes to her charm of manner quite 120 A Sudden Change as much as to the power of her position. She believed possibly with some truth that people were proud of her calls and visits, and boasted among their neighbours that Miss Grafton of Glevering had been to see them. In vain did this imperious and well-satisfied lady seek to give her sister-in-law from the prairie that final grace of civilisation, that last finishing touch of aristocracy and culture, the Graftonian manner. Mary, with her solemn dark eyes, her gentle tenderness, her quiet and profound spirituality, could not be made to hold her head in the air, to stiffen her back- bone, to speak with a telling incisiveness, to regard the earth with the patronising gaze of a superior being. But Isabel's vivid and masterful companionship was not without its effects on this subdued and self-effacing nature. Mary perceived, the more she felt the impact of this hard mind, the infinite beauty of the Christ character. Just as opposition saved John Bunyan from despair and roused him from himself to defend a truth dearer than his own soul, even touching his darkened mind with the wholesome sense of humour, so Mary Grafton, roused from her own struggles to contemplate irre- ligiousness in the concrete, became a more vigorous and attentive personality. She began to study her sister-in-law with interest. Sometimes in controversy she smiled at opinions so trivial and so at variance with the universal truth of things as to be amusing. She defended her own point of view with a quiet composure, entirely free from sullenness. Isabel, it must be said, did not 121 The Shadow resent this opposition ; she would have preferred surrender to Graftonian philosophy, but she welcomed the spirit and vivacity which began to show in her sister-in-law's manner. " Mary is waking up," she said to her brother one evening ; " I think we might begin to think of getting her married." Such was the state of affairs when Mr. Peter Richards was thrown at the head of Mary Grafton. This gentleman was a widower, and one whose bereave- ment might truthfully be described by a word of greater blessing. From the day when he led his wife to the altar that spirited lady had led him by the nose into the last place in the world he desired to frequent, the vortex of society ; and in the vortex of society Mr. Richards had spun like a helpless molecule for a matter of five-and-twenty years. Released from this gyration he had retired to his house in Gloucestershire, and for eighteen months had enjoyed the perfect restfulness afforded by his hobbies of collecting prints, growing carnations, and experimenting on his body with every patent medicine whose advertisement hypnotised his senses. " Mary is the very wife for him," said Isabel. " He will rejoice to discover a woman in the world who is meek and pliant. It will give him the opportunity of paying back old scores." "There seems a happy suitability," replied the baronet, " in making Mrs. Richard plural by a second marriage. Add the ' s ' by all means." Mary, quite unsuspicious, was kind and delightful to the middle-aged Mr. Richards, and found pleasure 122 A Sudden Change in visiting his beautiful garden and looking over his portfolios of prints. He seemed to her one of the quietest and saddest old gentlemen in the world, and out of pure sympathy, without effort, she made a pleasant impression on his heart. Miss Grafton began to entertain. Mary was pro- vided with new raiment and made a figure at the dinner-table. Finally Edmund Grafton and Lady Emily came on a visit to Glevering, and the great house was filled with distinguished and important people. In the midst of this galaxy Mary made a dark, silent, and beautiful figure, attracting the atten- tion of the mournful old gentleman chosen by Isabel for her future husband. " My sister-in-law," said that shrewd lady to her victim, " will never dazzle the world, I am afraid. It is not that she lacks beauty or intelligence, but; the inclination. I am positively alarmed by her Puritanism." Mr. Richards would wander to Mary's side in the drawing-room and together they would sit quite out- side the brilliant circle, talking in low voices and with many pauses of the weather, the amount of sickness in the world, the sorrows and trials of life, and other subjects of a similarly reflective character. Mary, who dreaded Edmund Grafton's immense superiority he was like a being from another world and who felt that the cold eyes of Lady Emily were a pair of balances eternally engaged in weighing the intellectual development of every person they regarded with a polar stare, naturally derived from the simplicity of Mr. Richards' society a feeling of 123 The Shadow security and relief. She began to consider him in the light of an old friend. It really seemed that the plot of Isabel was working to a most happy and successful conclusion. When the house party dispersed, and Glevering resumed its dead monotony, the intimacy of Mary and the widower continued with a quiet persistency. He lent her books, occasionally wrote to her, and would drive over once or twice a week to Glevering, sometimes carrying Mary and Isabel back to his house, or taking them to a neighbouring place of historic interest. Winter passed, spring came, and summer grew to its glory. Christopher was flourishing under the tuition of Mr. Kindred. A greater brightness was visible in his young eyes, he became an omnivorous reader, he was hungrily interested in Nature, rhapsodised about the colours of flowers, was intoxicated by their scents, sat up at night to watch the throbbing of the vault of heaven, no longer found a delicious sweetness in stealing to whispered treaties with the garden-boy. Mary watched her son with loving and satisfied eyes. She was no longer so essential to his happiness, but in his happiness she was glad. His sensitive mind, expanding to the beauty and mystery of the physical universe, counted as waste all hours undevoted to the stories, the poems, the parables, the delightful intimacies of his tutor. It was with Mr. Kindred he went his long walks, with Mr. Kindred that he passed lingeringly beside the flowered border of the gardens, with Mr. Kindred that he loved to sit in the study 124 A Sudden Change asking questions and listening to the wonders of the world. " Know you what it is to be a child ? " cries Francis Thompson. " It is to be something very different from the man of to-day. It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism ; it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear ; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything." John Kindred, transplanted from the rough courage, the sordid destitution, the degrading vices, and the blank ugliness of a London parish, found in this beautiful paradise the soul of a child opening to the wonder of existence. He from East London, the child from the prairie ; he in the shadow of death, the child in the bitterness of an alien dominion. The man rested on the child, the child flung himself into the arms of the man. They loved each other like father and son. Because Christopher was so perfectly happy, Mary grew gradually more secure in her position. This spiritual contentment began to show in her face. The look of tragedy passed, a profound sweetness illuminated her dark eyes, a gracious gentleness clothed her lips. She often thanked God in her prayers that she had submitted to the discipline which had proved so deep a blessing. Such was the state of affairs at Glevering when Mr. Richards, who had lately shown the most intense interest in Mary's health, recommending her day after 125 The Shadow day to take a particular medicine which he could solemnly assure her had saved his own life, and imploring her to wear an electric belt which he asserted to be the surest protection in the world against every disease imaginable, came one day to Sir Matthew's house and, walking with Mary in the garden, ventured to suggest that it would remove all his anxieties about her health if she would place herself entirely under his care and submit herself to the affectionate regimen of a devoted husband. Mary was so surprised by this offer that she refused it with a promptitude and decision lacking in all kindness. The tone of her voice, the energy of her manner, proved the most suitable balm for the widower's heart. He was devotedly grateful that a woman so evidently masterful and decisive had refused him. He thanked her in a nervous haste, said that she was perfectly right, announced his intention of sending her a bottle of the medicine he had been recommending, and lifting his hat, hurried away like a man escaping from earthquake or plague. Isabel's infallible instinct informed her of this crisis. She took Mary to task with considerable harshness. Finally, finding her sister-in-law immovable, she fired a ringing shot. " I should have thought a nature like yours would welcome deliverance from a position of dependence." Mary thought over those words and they hurt her. But Christopher was happy. She could not take him away. Even if she had money and security for the future, it would now be cruelty to remove the child from a setting where his young soul was radiant 126 A Sudden Change with delight. To leave him, of course, was impossible. Maternal passion had made her refuse so hotly an offer of marriage ; her soul was her son's," and she must live with him to her life's end. For some weeks she was conscious of a deepening displeasure on Isabel's part. Again and again she knew the bitterness of exile. Again and again she recalled the words " How salt that bread doth taste them then shalt know That others give thee, and how hard the way Or up or down another stair to go." Christopher detected her sadness. "What makes you unhappy ? " he asked, his arms round her neck, his puzzled gaze searching her eyes. " Has Aunt Isabel been unkind to you, mother ? I thought she was trying to be nice. Mr. Kindred said you would soften her nature." She tried to comfort him, and because he was so anxious for her to be happy in his natural wish to remain at Glevering, he was easily deceived. But a new trouble arose. Mr. Kindred was called at the beginning of winter to Cumberland, where his father was dying. A few weeks after the old rector died, and John Kindred returned only to take his leave of Christopher and Glevering. He was going to take the dead father's place as rector of the Cumberland village. With his departure everything changed for Mary and Christopher. A new chaplain came who was as hard as John Kindred had been sympathetic, a rough, business-like, discontented nature, who grew impatient with Christopher's blunders, snubbed the child's 127 The Shadow questions, treated his love of Nature as a disease, made the Almighty not a father but a schoolmaster. This was bad enough, but Isabel Grafton's manner grew daily more wounding and scornful. She showed Mary without reticence of any kind that she considered her continued presence at Glevering an affront. Often Mary sat through meal after meal without a word being addressed to her. Mrs. Ryder, who had hitherto submitted to the childlike tyrannies of Christopher, began to play the spy upon him. One afternoon when Mary and Isabel were at tea, Mrs. Ryder entered the room and said that Christopher had just arrived drenched to the skin, having fallen into the river. "All his nice things," she concluded petulantly, " are ruined." Isabel heard her out. " Put him to bed instantly ; to-morrow I will speak to Mr. Clarkson," she added, referring to the new chaplain. " I shall tell him to cane Master Christopher." "You mustn't do that," said Mary very quietly. She was quite white. Isabel turned and surveyed her with insulting disdain. In an electric silence Mrs. Ryder walked soundlessly to the door. "This is my house," said Isabel, with a stinging contempt, " and I must ask you to keep your orders till you have one of your own." As Mrs. Ryder closed the door, Mary rose from her chair. " It is impossible for me to stay here," she said. Her eyes were full of a strange horror, as though her soul were appalled by the other's inhumanity. " I shall take Christopher away to-morrow." 128 A Sudden Change " Be so good as to sit down." Mary remained standing. "If you wish to go away," said Miss Grafton, "neither Sir Matthew nor I will hinder you. You are perfectly free to go ; Sir Matthew will make you a small allowance, so that you may live in tolerable decency. I had intended to make this proposal in a day or two's time. , Your extraordinary conduct has only hastened it. We both feel that you and Chris- topher are not quite congenial to this environment. Please set your mind at rest concerning the caning ; since Christopher is going, I will say nothing to his tutor. Very well, then, that is settled ; you may behave yourself quietly and with common sense." Mary regarded her quietly. " Why did you not make this proposal when we first came, when I asked you to let us go ? " " There were reasons." " You said Christopher was Sir Matthew's heir." " The likelihood of his ever having Glevering is now happily removed. You must put that hope out of your head." " I see." " You will be perfectly free to bring him up as you wish." Isabel shrugged her shoulders. " But I hope you will teach him to honour his name and never bring it into disrepute." Mary said, " I shall take no allowance from Sir Matthew ; I shall work for my son. I have friends who will help me." " We will discuss that to-morrow. In the mean- time, no scenes, I beg you." 129 K The Shadow That night Mary wrote to Mrs. Grindley, and told Christopher, who had been put to bed by Mrs. Ryder's order, that they were going away from Glevering. He flung his arms round her neck and kissed her. " Oh, I am so glad, mother. Can we go to Cumber- land ? I should like to have Mr. Kindred for my tutor, if I could. I love Mr. Kindred ! " "We cannot go to Cumberland," she answered, caressing him. " Where are we going to, then ? " " To London." The word had an ominous sound in the child's ears. He lifted back his head from his mother's face, searched her eyes for a moment, and then let it sink once more to the warmth of her cheek. He lay there wondering and silent, with confused images floating in his mind and the sound of the word " London " echoing in the silent places of his soul. 130 CHAPTER IX. A NEW PHASE OF EXISTENCE IT was with a feeling of spiritual exultation and mental release that Mary Grafton set out from Glevering to face the world with her son. In her heart was a sense of gratefulness which welled up like a spring of crystal water ; in her soul was a psalm that sang with the ecstasy of a lark in the azure heights of freedom. This going forth from bondage was a flight into paradise. She was sick of splendour and a-weary of idleness. Not to be waited upon but to render service was the desire of her heart. Like Thoreau, when he escaped from civilisation to seek Nature in the woods, this daughter of the New World, breaking joyously free from an ancient and an alien stagnation of soul, wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life. " I wanted to live deep," said Thoreau, " and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life." Mary Grafton had a deeper impulse in her heart. She wanted to work out her motherhood, to taste that magic draught to the uttermost. The misgiving and fear of the world which had operated at first to keep her a prisoner at Glevering had given way of late in the knowledge of mankind and society brought 11 K 2 The Shadow to her mind by modern reading. At the moment of her rupture with Isabel Grafton she was confident of her power to find a place in the world's business. The deepening of her religious consciousness in the solitude of that idle and unfriendly existence at Glevering had created in her soul the most perfect trust in the love and providence of Heaven. She was afraid neither for herself nor for Christopher. She trusted humanity ; she believed in God ; the whole strength of her motherhood was active for service. It must now be told that on the eve of her departure for the East little Mrs. Mauritius Smith had sent Mary a five-pound note, and had told her that if ever she should feel unhappy or distressed at Glevering she was to take the train for London and go at once to Mrs. Grindley, who would do everything to provide her with the means of earning bread. Possessed of this affectionate gift, Mary was able to decline all the financial propositions of Sir Matthew, presented and almost forced upon her by Isabel. She would take no money at all, no, not even for her fares. When Isabel insisted that Christopher should not be robbed of his inheritance, she replied that Christopher belonged to her and had no other inheritance but her devotion. She went out from Glevering with courage and freedom, she escaped from dependence with self-respect. With the five-pound note of Mrs. Mauritius Smith she paid for the tickets to London, and with the balance she faced the world. It was towards evening when they reached London. ft 2 A New Phase of Existence Snow had fallen in the morning ; fog, yellowing as it came, had crept up the river at noon and now hung in orange density over the dripping housetops. The depression of the lamplit streets, thick with snow-water and crowded with a melancholy multitude forcing its dismal way homewards, was bad enough to chill the enthusiasm of this young widow and to fill the mind of the child with alarm ; but they were both quite happy. Christopher gazed out of the dirty window of the four-wheeler as he had looked from the window of Sir Matthew's brougham on the drive at Glevering. Everything interested him ; he was entranced by the interminable shops, the unending procession of humanity, the chiaroscuro of the wet and foggy streets with their lighted windows, their multitudinous lamps, their shining pavements, their pools of water, and the lumbering thunder of vehicles moving through the orange air with misty lamps. The sense of a great army which beat upon his confused brain from this dark and mysterious world, the feeling of some unifying and yet unintelligible purpose in the haste and silence of this ceaseless humanity these things, while they perplexed and overawed the child, filled him with intensest interest and kept his gaze fixed and fascinated on the streets. Such a world as this he had never visualised ; none of his nightmares had revealed to him an atmosphere so haunting, a multitude so doomful. Once again Mary Grafton found herself going to the house of strangers. But now she was not appre- hensive nor disquieted ; the letter from Mrs. Grindley had been kind and gentle ; besides, she was better 133 The Shadow acquainted with the world, and her purpose in seeking these strangers was not to live on charity but to find work to earn her bread. Nevertheless, she was going to strangers ; a certain disquiet of mind on this account prevented her from feeling the spell of the murky city. They arrived in Merrick Square soon after six o'clock. The cabman, who opened the jammed door of his vehicle with a tug which made its window rattle, and whose voluminous garments steamed like the flanks of his little horse, put his face inside and inquired with a spreading smile, accompanied by a long-drawn snivel, if they had enjoyed the scenery. " Sorry to get out, aren't you ? " he said, ducking his head and winking at Christopher ; " like to go for a turn round Regent's Park, wouldn't you ? Oh ah ! But, mind you, to enjoy a London Particular properly you want to be on the box. You can taste it there, eat it, drink it, masticate it, chew it, swallow it and ain't it delicious ! Talk about pea-soup, or snuff- pudding, or laughing-gas ! Not in it. My little boy what's a cripple, with one of his lungs a fair radical why, he lives on fog. It's meat, drink, and medicine to him, straight. If it wasn't for fog he'd be dead in no time ; vanish like a beanfeast or benefit, he would. Summer-time we're that anxious about him, his mother hardly likes to leave him alone for two minutes together ; but directly winter comes we know he's safe for six months at least. Safe ? Yes ! he could no more die in a fog than a man could die of starvation in a coffee-shop ; a fog, lady, kind of banks him inside and out ; he breathes it in 134 A New Phase of Existence at his pores and leans against it, like a willing-to- work-but-won't leans against a public-house." Christopher stared at the man with eyes of wonder. It was his first glimpse of a Londoner. When Mary asked what she should pay, the cabman protested that he must leave the matter to her, only venturing to suggest that he hoped the lady would not altogether overlook the fact that his horse was getting on in years, that the price of oats was rising, that this was his first fare that day, that he had a long way to go back with no chance of a fare on such a night, and that his little boy, who was a cripple and one of whose lungs was a radical, always asked him first thing when he got home at night if he had driven a generous lady with a little boy the very image of himself. Mary presented two shillings, a coin at which the cabman looked with a most dejected countenance, not venturing to touch it. " If you are in indigent circumstances," he said sorrowfully, and with a very prolonged snivel, " say so at once, ma'am, and I won't take a farthing ; I'd rather not." Mary offered half-a-crown. " Well, if you can afford it," sighed the cabman, clucking his long lips, " I must take it. But I had counted I can't help telling you on three shillings and sixpence, that was what I had counted on, forty- two pence, two-and-forty coppers. All the time I was on the box, with the fog going into me, and the steam coming out of me, my feet and hands perished with the cold, and my nose like a piece of lead pipe, I kept saying to myself, ' Cheer up, William,' I said, ' it 135 may be four shillings, but it won't never be less than three-and-a-tanner, three bob and a tizzy at the lowest,' I said ; ' for you're driving/ I said, ' a lady and a mother who knows what it is to be the father of a family, and would rather, I'm sure, William, go without a new diamond ring or a bangup petticoat, than starve the children of an honest, hard-working London cabman.' " To this pathetic appeal Mary replied by adding a shilling to the half-a-crown, and the cheerful cabman, discovering a pocket in his deeply buried trousers, and a purse at the extreme bottom of this well-like pocket, put away the coins, made way for his passengers to alight, and said that for twopence extra he would carry the luggage to the front door, and even put it inside the hall. Our travellers had the door opened to them by a neat maid-servant, who smiled most pleasantly and invited them to come in with a real and cheerful greeting. Before they were well in the hall, a door of one of the rooms opened and Mrs. Grindley herself came forward to welcome her visitors with the greatest kindliness. The cabman put down the box just as these greetings came to an end, and taking off his hat, rubbed a red handkerchief over his forehead, and heaved a sigh vigorous enough to flicker the gas in the hall lamp. " I've brought 'em safe, ma'am," he said to Mrs. Grindley, with one of his pathetic snivels, " and very proud I am ; the fog, ma'am, was that thick coming along that many an experienced cabman might have landed 'em at Kensal Rise or Norwood, instead of in Southwark ; oh, ah ! that he rnigh* " 136 A New Phase of Existence "Cabman, if you blow your own trumpet," said Mrs. Grindley, with a smile, " I shall not give you a cup of cocoa and a slice of cake. You should be humble ; really, to hear some cabmen talk you might think they were Captain Cooks discovering the North Pole. Jenny," she added, turning to the neat maid, " give the cabman a cup of cocoa and a slice of the plum cake, and the tract about people who blow their own trumpet ; and now, my dears, come into the warm. Good-night, cabman ; study to be quiet and modest and composed, and make as few crumbs as possible, there's, a good man." Mary and Christopher found themselves in a room so small after the great apartments of Glevering that it was almost laughable. But a cheerful fire was glowing in the grate, the table was spread for high tea, a kettle was bubbling on the hob, and the little parlour wore a look of such unmistakable comfort and kind-heartedness that the travellers felt them- selves to be almost as much welcomed by the antimacassars, the arm-chairs, the fire, and the teapot, as by the beaming mistress of the house. When they had warmed themselves at the fire, and made acquaintance with the two yellow-eyed black cats, Mrs. Grindley took them upstairs and showed them their bedrooms. They were comfortably but very plainly furnished rooms, with texts on the wall and only one or two coloured pictures, from ancient Christmas numbers of the Graphic. " I hope you will be comfortable here," said Mrs. Grindley, turning up the gas. " They are smaller rooms, I expect, than what you have been accustomed 137 The Shadow to ; but it isn't the distance of the walls that makes a room, is it ? no, something more than that is required to convert cubic space into home. You know that. Ah ! I know you do." With a little nod to Mary she left the room and closed the door behind her. " Oh, mother," said Christopher, in a whisper, " isn't she a perfect old dear ? " He stopped short and added, " There's a cake for tea with almonds on top." Soon after they had descended to the dining-room, Mr. Grindley came home. His wife, who had one ot the cats in her lap, heard his latchkey in the door, and carefully placing the animal on the hearthrug, rose with a proud smile, saying, " My dear husband has returned." They all went into the hall to greet him. Christopher was struck dumb by the old gentleman's bulk and by the broad brim of his stovepipe hat. While he gazed up at the colossus, Jenny came running up the back stairs to take off the master's highlows in the hall, and Mrs. Grindley brought his carpet slippers from the fire. " I am very pleased to see Mrs. Graftori and Son," said the old gentleman, leaning a hand on either side of the hall while Jenny slipped off the highlows and Mrs. Grindley slipped on a warm shoe. " I hope you will both be happy and comfortable." Mr. Grindley then entered the dining-room, went to the grandfather chair at the head of the table, waited for the others to assemble, and said grace. He then sat down and did considerable justice to his wife's housekeeping. After their meal they sat round the fire, Old Jack smoking his churchwarden pipe, Mrs. Grindley nursing the cats, Christopher watching the 138 A New Phase of Existence huge old gentleman with unabated amazement, and Mary looking from one to the other with interest and gratitude in her eyes. At nine o'clock Jenny, who had long ago cleared away the tea-things, entered the room and placed a large family Bible on the table. Mr. Grindley took his place there and opened the Book, and the others turned round towards him. In a slow but quite undramatic way he read the wonderful fifteenth chapter of St. Luke, with those imperishable parables of the lost sheep, the piece of silver, and the prodigal son ; then slowly closing the Book, he said, after a prolonged pause, " Religion is summed up in those three parables ; it lives there, all of it ; and the greatest words ever uttered on earth are there also : The Son of Man is come to save that which is lost" He pronounced these words very slowly. Then he said, getting up from his chair, " Let us pray," and they all knelt down and said the Lord's Prayer. They remained silently on their knees for a few moments, and during those hushed moments Christopher, who did not pray, heard in his soul the words repeated again and again, The Son of Man is come to save that which is lost. They seemed in some inexplicable way to cling about the processes of his mind, like haunting music. When Jenny had taken away the big Bible, she inquired if she should put Master Christopher to bed, and Christopher rose so willingly to go with her and refused so happily his mother's offer to accompany him, that Mary remained quite contented and at ease with her host and hostess. 139 The Shadow " I did not like to say anything before Christopher," said Mrs. Grindley, when the door had closed and they were once more seated round the fire, " in case you should not like him to hear us discuss the future ; but we think, my dear of course we mustn't be too certain, but we may allow ourselves to hope, may we not ? we think we have discovered something that may suit you. Oh, but you mustn't thank us yet ; you must see first whether it will do." She smiled and beamed and passed her hands slowly and caressingly along the soft flanks of the purring cat in her lap. Old Jack, who had filled and lighted his long pipe, sat with his eternal calm gazing at the fire and smoking with the gravest deliberation. " It is something," said Mrs. Grindley, " of a pro- fessional nature. One of our sons, who is married and has a house of his own, is connected with journalism ; he is a writer and has to do principally with advertise- ments. We applied to him directly we received your first letter, because he is in the way of knowing so many people, and this morning he sent us a note which really looks as if he had discovered something suitable. A friend of his, Mrs. Dobb, whose profes- sional name is Madame Tilly, has an office in Bond Street ; she is consulted by ladies of fashion about trouble/: with their skin and their hair what is called nowadays a beauty doctor. It sounds a little vain, and no doubt plenty of vain people consult her, but our son says that Madame Tilly is a thoroughly good woman and assures us that you would be quite happy with her. He describes her as a genius, whatever that may be. What the duties are, we do not know, 140 A New Phase of Existence but they would be light, and certainly not above your strength. The salary he mentions is twenty- five shillings a week to begin with, and this would be increased to thirty shillings if you found yourself able to assist Mr. Dobb, who is also a professional in his business but what that is we do not know ; our son does not mention it, but he also describes Mr. Dobb as a genius. If you think you would like to try this work, my dear, you can call and see Madame Tilly to-morrow ; but you are not to hurry, and you are not to be anxious, for there is plenty of time and plenty of kind people in the world who will help you. Jack, my dear, will you tell our friend what you think about the matter ? " Mr. Grindley continued to smoke for a full minute ; then he removed his pipe from his lips, and still staring at the fire, said, "Twenty-five shillings a week is money ; I should take it" He had spent the greater part of his day revolving in his mind the proposal of his son, and this was the weighty conclusion he had reached. About the business of a beauty doctor he knew nothing ; it sounded to him precarious and off the lines of sound trade, but women he regarded as the basis of all commerce. He had an immense respect for the place of women in political economy ; he also knew that the shipping trade could not pay five-and-twenty shillings a week to a young widow who knew nothing about anything. Mary was delighted by the proposal. Her dreams had come true at last, she could now work for Chris- topher and provide for him and keep him as her very own son. With quiet gratitude she accepted the 141 The Shadow suggestion that she should call upon Madame Tilly on the following day. A yellow sun was shining over the damp city when Mary got out of an omnibus at the corner of Bond Street. There was a touch of rawness in the air ; the chill of the wet pavement struck up through the soles of her boots. The hurry of the pedestrians, the splashings of vehicles, and the disorganised arrange- ment of the shop numbers served to confuse her, to frighten her a little, and made her nervous of success. She found the place at last, and through a private door which stood open at the side of a glove shop, made her way up a narrow staircase to a dirty landing on the second floor. Here she found the name of " Madame Tilly " painted with a flourish on a wooden door, accompanied by the request that visitors should ring the bell. She rang timidly, and waited with a beating heart on the doormat, which badly wanted a good shaking. The door was opened by a remarkable-looking man, whose face instantly awakened some dim recollection in her mind. Mary felt convinced that she had seen him before. He wore a wide-brimmed black felt hat and an inverness cape, which gave him the appearance of an actor ; he was cleanshaven, lantern-jawed, long- haired, and his eyes, which were large and melancholy, disconcerted Mary by the mysterious sorrow with which they fixed themselves upon her in a prolonged and rather lugubrious scrutiny. When he heard her name and the object of her visit, this mysterious individual made a profound bow and with a wave of his hand motioned Mary to enter. 142 A New Phase of Existence He then closed the door, crossed the room to an arch- way covered by a curtain of grey velvet, and dis- appeared. The pink and scented room in which Mary found herself was handsomely furnished ; there were palms in pots by the curtained windows, flowers on the mantelpiece, and books, magazines, and newspapers on the tables. The grey carpet with pink roses was thick ; a beautiful Persian rug was spread before the fireplace ; the chairs were upholstered with grey plush ; there were photographs in silver frames, and some beautiful china on the tables and mantelpiece ; the furniture was charming and refined, ol Sheraton design. The curtain lifted, and a small middle-aged lady in a rustling dress of black satin advanced quickly up the room. She was diminutive, pretty, well propor- tioned, with a dazzling complexion, grey-blue eyes, and brown hair which was quite lustrous. The hand which she gave to Mary was white like flour and wonderfully soft ; the voice was eager, impulsive, quivering with energy. " Oh ! what beautiful eyes you have ! " exclaimed Madame Tilly, and dragged her visitor to a chair by the fire. After some preliminary remarks she ex- plained in a quiet, breathless-like manner, screwing up her eyes and using innumerable gestures, the duties required of an assistant. Mary would have to receive visitors, to recommend such articles of aestheticism as complexion -creams, face -powders, manicure equipments, electrical apparatus for the skin and hair, and would presently, when she had 143 learned the business, undertake to massage the faces of clients, to electrify their hair, and attend to their hands. Furthermore, she would have to help in the correspondence, which was very heavy and extremely intimate, writing letters, keeping accounts, and making up parcels for the post ; occasionally, if necessary, she would be asked to help Madame Tilly at that lady's private house in the preparation of creams, unguents, and face-washes. If she was quick in these duties she might add to her income by helping Mr. Dobb, who had a profession of his own on the next floor, necessi- tating a good deal of writing also of the most intimate nature. Mr. Dobb's professional name was Nico. She had probably seen his photographs and advertisements in the fashion papers. He was a genius, Kolossal ! Madame Tilly raised her eyebrows, lifted her shoulders, and heaved her soul to the ceiling. Oh, Kolossal ! Mary was bewildered by this breathless catalogue of labours, and her only misgiving as to the situation lay in her capacity to fill it with satisfaction to her employers. The nature of the work did not strike her one way or the other. This misgiving she modestly expressed to the impulsive and emotional Madame Tilly, who replied with a rush that the pro- fession did indeed require talents of the highest order and a sensibility of the very keenest kind, but that no one knew what they could do till they tried. Nico would teach her. At this point in their conversation there was a ring at the bell, and a client entered the room, warmly and most graciously welcomed by Madame Tilly, who left Mary after patting both her cheeks and saying that she was iust the very person 144 A New Phase of Existence for the profession. While she was talking to the client, Mr. Dobb came from the curtained archway, hat in hand, and with a movement of his head indicated to Mary that she should follow him from the room ; his walk was slow, tragic, funereal ; his mournful eyes and rigid countenance made a dramatic contrast with the intense, vivid, and mobile countenance of his little, beautiful wife. On the next landing, to which he had mounted like a king ascending a throne, Mr. Dobb produced a key, opened a door which had the name of NICO painted upon it, and stood on one side for Mary to enter. At the mention by Madame Tilly of the name Nico, she had recognised in Mr. Dobb a personage who advertised his intense face in the fashion-papers, and invited people to consult him about their characters. She found herself in a small room, with green walls, green carpet, and green curtains. It was dimly lit ; mysterious pictures hung upon the walls. A skull occupied the usual place of a clock upon the mantel- piece. A globe of crystal was on the round table in the middle of the room, the centre of which was occupied by a low silver bowl filled with violets. On a side table against the wall was a pile of unopened letters addressed to Nico in feminine handwriting. Mr. Dobb placed his wideawake hat on a chair, regarding Mary with an earnest scrutiny. He then put off his inverness cape, still fixing her with his tragic eyes. " Madame," he then exclaimed in a deep and intense voice, " what would you do with me ? " and after spreading his arms wide, he grasped the silk-faced lapels of his frock coat and gazed with a H5 L The Shadow quivering excitement into her eyes which suggested melodrama or a lunatic asylum. Mary, being quite unable to answer this strange question, and not having the quickness of the London gamin, which would have supplied a most suitable reply, having some connexion between Mr. Dobb's head and a hypothetical bag, lowered her eyes and waited. " Do you feel in yourself, in your soul of souls," asked the man of genius, in a low, solemn, and vibrating voice, rolling his r*s with a tremendous effect, " a call to this work ? Do you know, have you realised what our work is, mine and my wife's ? " He made a pause. " I will tell you ! We ache, we wince, we agonise. To what end ? Beauty ! " This word he uttered with a shuddering ecstasy. "Both of us, madam, my wife and I, we agonise for Beauty Beauty which is Truth, Truth which is Beauty. Ah " He passed his hand swiftly up his forehead and tugged at his hair. "We, who were Greeks in the days of Pericles, I who had Praxiteles as my most intimate, most dear, most precious friend my wife, who soothed the sorrows and yearnings of Aspasia, and peeled for her willow wands from the banks of the Maeander, we are here, our souls are here in this cold, northern, and commercial city, helping a debased humanity to realise beauty. Yesterday Athens ! To-day, Londinium ! Ah, but humanity is saved by the reincarnation of Greece. " Madam," he cried, " I will detail. My wife takes the face of humanity, which the corruption of ages 146 A New Phase of Existence has smirched with hideousness, and tries by the gentle kneadings of her art to make it soft, childlike, beautiful. I take the soul of humanity, buried deep in grossness and materialism, and struggle by mine art to make it vivid as the lightning, lofty and intense as the great planet Neptune. Our object is single and the same : Beauty ! " My wife works upon the flesh to reach the soul, to reach the soul I work upon the will ; we are both doctors of beauty. What is beauty ? It is intensity of life. If a lamp-post in the street below us could feel and quiver and agonise after more light, it would be beautiful for me. Beauty of form is much ; beauty of feeling is all. The pig at the trough ! Do you shudder ? Nay, he is swept by an ecstasy of sensation. I would know the quintessence of that. " All things that feel, and desire, and are conscious of exquisite yearnings have the potentiality of beauty. It is only your clod, satisfied with nothing and desiring nothing, who is dead in my eyes, like a rock, like a stone, like a board. To feel, to possess a bosom throbbing after sensation, this is life, this is the soul, this is immortality. " Enough ; if you come to us, to my wife and to me, you must feel in your soul an irresistible rusk towards an infinite and unqualified sensation of beauty. You must be sincere, as we are sincere. To anoint a lady's face on the floor below with some spice-breathing unguent as though you were a hireling servant blacking a grate, or shining your mistress's shoe, will not remove a single freckle ; your 147 L 2 finger-tips must quiver with passionate desire for beauty. "In the same way, to answer letters addressed to me by tortured spirits throughout the kingdom as though you were a clerk making a monetary entry in a columned ledger will not allay one pang of agony. Your pen must scorch the paper with intensest sympathy ; the words will be mine, but as you write them, so will their effect be on the soul of the sufferer. " All this is a mystery. Madam, people consult me about their destinies. Troubled souls ! They either come here and present me their palms to read, or send me an imprint of their thumbs in ink. I com- fort and console them, or I warn and menace ; I can be helpful, I can be terrible ; I know the past, I can forecast the future. I am Nico. " Enough. To terms. We offer you, my wife and I, a certain sum of money a week. Let us call it one sovereign and some odd silver five shillings, I think it is ; enough of that. If you succeed, this honorarium will be raised ; and I tell you, I who read character as a man reads a book you will succeed. At this moment I know your thoughts, I read them. You think you will not succeed ; you think that I am eccentric, too intense, mad ! You are even afraid to come here again. Why ? Because your soul, your beautiful pure soul, is locked, locked in slumber. I will awake it, I will bathe it in roses and the vintage of the stars. You shall succeed ; deep in your soul are the choicest qualities, the richest gifts, the most intense sensibilities dormant! I will call 148 A New Phase of Existence them into being. I will turn them to the service of humanity ; you shall not live in vain. No, you shall help to make the world beautiful ! "On Monday at nine you will come here and begin ; my wife will teach you, I will teach you." He took a step towards her. " Look in my eyes ! " he commanded. He bent towards her. " Say to me, with conviction, with sincerity, with energy, / will succeed" Mary complied with this request as well as she could. " I am satisfied," said Nico, with a professional sigh, as though the effort of mental concentration had over- powered him. " Farewell." 149 CHAPTER X. STRUGGLE AND INTERRUPTION IT was not without an effort that Mary Grafton brought herself to accept the situation offered by Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs. The scent of the pink and grey room in Bond Street clung about her garments like something evil. The mouthing palmist filled her pure and wholesome mind with the first loathing she had ever entertained towards a human being. But she knew that she must work for her living, and she felt that it would wound the kind heart of Mrs. Grindley if she refused this offer, which the old lady's own son had been the means of securing. Besides, had not Mr. Grindley counselled her to accept it ? These considerations determined her decision. She became an assistant to Madame Tilly and Nico. After staying in Merrick Square for some three weeks, going early every morning to Bond Street and returning late in the evening to the Grindleys' house, Mary became the occupier of rooms of her own. Mrs. Grindley found them for her. " We should like you, my dear," she said affection- ately, " to stay always with us ; but our married children are continually coming on visits, and we really have not the room. But you will be near us and quite happy, I think, in the rooms we have found for you." Struggle and Interruption There lived in Trinity Street a single lady of straitened circumstances whose nerves had been ridden for some years by the terror of burglars. Although her property would have fetched but a few shillings even in the hands of the most wheedling cheap-Jack of the New Cut, she had patent bolts and locks to the doors, patent fastenings to the windows, and her hall presented the appearance of a cloak-room at a theatre, so loaded was its row of pegs with masculine hats and ulsters of Samsonic proportions. A burglar entering the house of Miss Maffey by the front door would have fled in terror. On the personal assurance of Mrs. Grindley that Mary Grafton's character was unimpeachable and that Christopher was a boy who had never in his life held any communication with gangs of thieves and pick- pockets, nor was ever likely to do so, Miss Maffey consented to let two of her rooms to these friends of good Mrs. Grindley. They were unfurnished rooms, one of moderate size, and the other little more than a box-room ; they were high up, airy, and clean. Mr. Grindley, who had received a cheque from Annabel for the purpose, assisted Mary in purchasing the necessary furniture, and after she had been a month with the Dobbses, our French-Canadian moved with Christopher into these rooms and became a self- supporting London lodger. The domestic economy of this couple was conducted on the severest principles. They paid five shillings and sixpence a week for their two rooms. Light and coal cost two shillings a week, a gallon of oil at the cheaper shops costing sevenpence, a hundredweight The Shadow of coal one-and-fourpence, wood a penny. Mary used an oil-stove, which cost her two shillings, for early morning cooking ; it saved lighting the fire. She learned to cook with a Dutch oven and acquired the Scotch habit of roasting in a saucepan. The food bill came to ten or eleven shillings a week, and was often lightened by sundry gifts of cakes, pastry, and groceries from old Mrs. Grindley. A gift of a pound of coffee, for instance, made a substantial reduction in these expenses. Mary bought many of her provisions in the street-markets on Satur- day night, and got used to being " my deared " by fat, red-faced hucksters whose change, thrust into her hands copper by copper, was terribly greasy. She could buy in this manner mutton at fourpence a pound, and mixed vegetables, which lasted for several days, at twopence. From the timorous but shrewd Miss Maffey she learned many of those tricks by which the poor of London manage to supply their bodily needs at a cost which would astonish an alderman. " You can buy odd shoes at different stalls," said Miss Maffey, " for a few pence. They are just as good as a pair tied together by the heels with a piece of string. And then, sausages. If you go to a shop and purchase half a pound, you will usually get three. But if you go to two shops and buy a quarter of a pound in each, you will get four two at each. You gain a sausage. And be sure you keep your eye open in the market for what is advertised as a speciality. I have known cheese a halfpenny a pound cheaper Monday than Wednesday. That's worth saving. Some of the shops, where they sell mutton by the 152 Struggle and Interruption slice or in a single chop, or one portion of steak, will sometimes throw in, by way of advertisement, a pound of sausages. Indeed, it is true. A whole pound of sausages ! It's astonishing how they do it. And be sure and buy dripping. It's much nicer, if you get it at a clean shop, than imitation butter. Taste real hot dripping toast and see if you don't ask for more. It's lovely! Onions are a great stand-by. A penny packet of dessicated soup with an onion stewed in it, and bread-and-cheese afterwards, is a supper good enough for any one. As for me, I generally have a Borough bloater for my supper, being a little fas- tidious in my stomach at bedtime. All smoking hot, a soft-roed bloater can be eaten with a relish, especi- ally if it has been chosen and carried home one's self, encouraging the appetite with its healthy smell." With these hints for her guidance, and her own French wit to aid her, Mary soon became an expert shopper of the Borough. An average week, she found, worked out in the following manner : s. d. Rent . . . .056 Light and coal. . .020 Bread . . . .010 Milk . . . .010 Butter or dripping . .010 Cheese . . . .004 Tea and coffee . . .020 Groceries . . .020 Meat . . . .030 Soap and soda . . .006 Washing . . . .010 Fares . . . .020 TotJil . .114 153 The Shadow Sometimes, as we have said, this list was lightened by presents from Mrs. Grindley, and if these gifts came in the week when Mary earned thirty instead of twenty-five shillings, she felt herself rich indeed. She was soon able to buy some pots of geraniums for the window-sills, and to sow mustard and cress in soup-plates. As for her dresses, Miss Maffey had told her that she bought all her own " titivations," such as lace collarettes and curl-pins, out of the money earned by saving all waste paper, journals, and other valuable raw material of a great city's commerce, which thoughtless people throw away. Mary Graf ton learned to become a seller as well as a buyer in the great and wonderful London market. The change from Glevering was complete ; even from Merrick Square it was great enough. But mother and son were not unhappy in their eyry. To Mary the chief bitterness was her long separation from Christopher, but this made the home journey an eager excitement and gave to Saturday afternoons and to Sundays a joy, a delight, a gratefulness which she had never guessed. To this woman adrift on the world, life had one purpose and one meaning her son. She loved Christopher with all the strength of her woman's nature, and her soul, which was pro- foundly conscious of God, yearned towards the child with the force and boundless affection of eternity. For his sake she could bear the pettiness and even the degradation of life in the pink and grey room of the beauty doctor. She was strengthened by her love for Christopher to endure the strain and wretched- ness of commerce with the palmist. It was not the 154 Struggle and Interruption pitifulness of her employment which weighed upon her mind, but the dragging hours of separation from the boy necessitated by that mean labour. With what injunctions and blessings, and with what sacred prayers in her heart, did she take leave of him in the morning ! With what anxiety and longing did she hurry home to him after the day's work ! They were very happy in their two rooms. She left him every morning with a certain number of words to learn in a spelling-book, a copy to write, a Latin declension to master, a few pages of history to read, and perhaps a map to draw. In the evening when she had prepared their simple meal, Christopher helping her with much pride, she would examine him on what he had learned during the day. On these occasions he sat in her lap, with his cheek against her breast, his eyes closed so that he should not see the book held in her hand. Miss Maffey took him with her every morning on her shopping expeditions, and Mary gave him half an hour's walking in the streets before he went to bed. On Saturday afternoons they would make ex- cursions to Peckham Rye, or Kennington Park, or Clapham Common ; on Sunday they accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Grindley to St. George's Church, dined with the old people in Merrick Square, and spent the afternoon in St. James's or Hyde Park, breathing an air which reminded them of Glevering. Christopher felt a change in his circumstances and was puzzled to know why his mother had to go to work every day. He could understand the exodus from Glevering, but his Promised Land had not in- 155 The Shadow eluded the idea of his mother leaving him every day for some mysterious and unknown quarter of this huge city which frightened him. " When I get older," he said, " I shall work for you, and we will never leave each other." His ambition was to be an artist, and to have his mother always at his side while he worked. Gradually he grew accustomed to the new life. He felt it was fun to go marketing with his mother on Saturday night. He lost his terror of crowds, and would even look a gang of roughs in the face. He enjoyed the shops. He studied the queer faces and droll figures of the multitude. His exercise-books had for marginalia admirable caricatures of Dickensian characters who swarm in these parts of London. Humanity became as great a pleasure to the vivid nature of the boy as the beauty and peace-fulness of Glevering. The tenor of their life was interrupted one day in a manner which threw Mary into something ap- proaching a panic. She returned late one evening from Bond Street to learn from Miss Maffey that the School Board officer had called and inquired about Christopher's education. The thought that her child should be taken from her, should be forced to go to a school of the State's choosing, and should thus be thrown into the intimacy of other children about whose moral principles and home-training the State could give her no assurance, filled her anxious heart with the liveliest alarm. Without waiting to prepare supper, she took Christopher's hand and hurried across the road to Merrick Square. Old Mr. Grindley was sitting in his 156 Struggle and Interruption grandfather chair smoking a churchwarden pipe, with the Times tumbled at his feet. Mrs. Grindley, on the other side of the hearth, with both black cats in her spread lap, was reading aloud from a report of the London Missionary Society. At Mary's entrance, Mrs. Grindley lowered the report, and exclaimed, " Something has happened ! " She put down the cats, and approached the young widow with anxiety and comfort shining in her kind eyes. " You must be calm, dear," she said. " What- ever it is, you must compose yourself. Remember, nothing can hurt or harm you." Old Jack puffed very, very slowly at his pipe, turning his usually unturnable head from the fire, to stare at Mary with lifted eyebrows and lifted eyelids, his little mouth drawn to the size of a waistcoat button. He said nothing. Christopher, standing between the two women, regarded the Colossus and wondered why he did not rise, did not greet his mother, did not speak. But Old Jack was not rude, nor wanting in sympathy. He was preparing that slow but steady mind of his for the reception of a new thought, bracing and steadying his brain to receive the impact of some fresh idea. How could he be garrulous or attentive to small politeness, when he hadn't the faintest notion of what Mary, whose face was as white as paper, intended to say ? The story was soon told. Mrs. Grindley lifted her hands and turned up her eyes. " Dreadful ! dread- ful!" she kept saying. Old Jack, at its conclusion, turned his face back to the fire, relaxed the tension 157 The Shadow of eyebrows and eyelids, took a steadier pull at his pipe, and stretched out his legs again, crossing his slippered feet. " What can she do, Jack dear ? " asked Mrs. Grindley, and knowing that her husband would need time to answer, she turned to Mary and comforted her by assuring the poor mother that it would all come right if only she could be calm and composed. Christopher, feeling that he was the guilty cause of this perturbation, went down on one knee and began to renew acquaintance with the two cats. After a long pause Mr. Grindley delivered judgment. He said that the rate-supported schools, like every educational establishment in the country, entertained a false notion of education. " Instead of teaching children to earn a living, they teach them to pass examinations," he said slowly, " but all schools are the same. The whole system throughout the world is wrong. It won't last. Education is a fad." He smoked for some time in silence, a pause utilised by Mrs. Grindley to slip her arm through Mary's and to whisper that it would all come right and that she mustn't worry. Then Old Jack continued : " I should let him go. He's old enough to take no harm. It's only a form, and it costs nothing. He may as well be there as anywhere else." At first Mary could not bring herself to accept submission to the law. She sought by every means in her power to alter Mr. Grindley's judgment. But the old man remained inflexible, and he had an ally in Mrs. Grindley, who echoed her husband's suggestion that after all Christopher might as well be in a Board- 158 Struggle and Interruption school as anywhere else. Finally Mary's heart was accustomed to the thought. She gathered from the Grindleys a hopeful idea of the national schools. She left Merrick Square, comforting Christopher and telling him that he would be happier at school during her absence than waiting for her alone in the lodgings. Thus it came about that one of the possible heirs to an ancient baronetcy, a boy, too, with the proud Graftonian blood in his veins, went to a Borough Board-school, and sat at his book in company with the ragged, starving, and sickly children of the wretchedest dog-holes and kennels in Christendom. Christopher, curious to relate, never spoke of these children to his mother. He soon conquered his fear of school, and had no tales for his mother's ear but those of his success in the class or of the kindness of his instructors. He told her, if she asked about his schoolfellows, of those who came as well dressed and as well cared for as himself, of whom, God be thanked, there are great numbers in every national school throughout the slums of London. Mary was happy and contented, watching Christopher for any change in his character, and never detecting the smallest cloud in the pure heaven of her child's innocence. She had become quite restful in this fresh habit of her London life, when a new disturbance arose, of a different character. Among the clients of Madame Tilly, who were chiefly ladies from the richer suburbs each of whom persuaded herself that she was lucky to share with the entire English aristocracy the attentions of the famous and 159 The Shadow exclusive Beauty Doctor there were at least three or four fashionable women, ladies of quality, who were far too superior to frequent the pink and grey room in Bond Street. To these high and mighty dames Madame Tilly would go on certain days, bag in hand, like a clockmaker come to wind up clocks, and in their own rooms would anoint and massage the much- tried complexions, electrify the hair, and attend to the finger-nails, even to the toes. It chanced on one occasion that appointments with two of these great personages clashed, and Mary was despatched with a litttle bag to a house in Chelsea while Madame hurried to a house in Mayfair. Mary had now become more or less used to the sickening work of beauty doctor. She had seen by this time too much of overfed, overdressed, and quite godless humanity to be surprised at the vanity, the paltriness, the shameless egotism of these slaves of Mammon. She had even got beyond hating herself for putting hands which surely God had created for nobler uses to the mean work of correcting the ravages of time and intemperance. Love for Christopher, the purest love that ever lived in woman's heart, an utterly sweet and self-sacrificing passion, the profundity of which he was one day to realise with inexpressible poignancy, preserved her self-respect in this odious trade, and enabled her to discharge its duties without bitterness or impatience. " What does it matter," she said to herself on many occasions, " whether our work is a great thing or a mean thing, so long as we make it a means for the purification of our souls and the perfection of our 1 60 Struggle and Interruption virtues ? It is not the labour that counts, but the effect of the labour upon our characters. Everything on earth, in the sight of God, must be small the grandest aspirations of the human mind must have something childlike in the eyes of the great Father. It is only for our hearts He cares ; not what we do, but what we are ; not what we gain, but what we wish to be." To-day, with a new duty thrust upon her, this exquisite faith wavered, and her courage was tried. At the thought of going to some unknown woman in her own house, and there, admitted like a menial, to perform the hateful operations of her sorry trade, she felt her first repugnance, her earliest disgust. In the midst of her rising rebellion, however, she experienced a sudden and a consolatory peace, a peace breathing from words of Fenelon, long familiar to her brain. " The simple and commonplace morti- fications which consist in constant resignation to the gentle discipline of God in the affairs of every day," says that noble soul, " are more to be preferred than all those artificial austerities which flatter the soul and poison renunciation with self-righteousness." From Fenelon she had learned the truest and simplest Christianity a complete resignation to the will of God, and a spiritual interpretation of even the smallest and most trivial events which touched her soul. For Mary Grafton life was a discipline, its purpose was character, its goal lay far beyond the bounds of time and place. Nothing happened to her which she did not use, in her own quite simple and child-like fashion, to correct faults of character, 161 M The Shadow to chasten self-will, to discipline disposition, to purify her soul. She went on this new mission and performed her duties as well as she could. The lady was young, beautiful, hot-blooded ; her temper was none of the sweetest ; she resented a deputy in place of Madame Tilly herself ; she was vexed, impatient, querulous ; her cheeks were flushed, her large eyes luminous and excited, her petulant lips dry and parched. She had been up till three in the morning, she told Mary, and she had lost at baccarat more money than she cared to think about. It was almost hopeless, she supposed, that her complexion could look well with her blood racing at such a sickening pace. " I was a fool," she said, w to drink so much whisky-and- syphon ; but one gets excited and dry and frightened at the time one forgets everything else." "Is such a life worthwhile?" asked Mary. " It is the only one I have got," answered the lady. At the end of the operation, her trembling hot fingers fumbled among the strewed dressing-table and presently offered rather impatiently a florin to the humble masseuse. Mary was first astonished, then tempted to accept the money, then pained. " No, mademoiselle," she said. " If you owe so much money " " Nonsense, what do you mean ? You can buy yourself an ornament of some kind." " You are very kind, but I could not take it, even to do good with it" The lady tossed the money back to the table. "Very well," she said, "just as you please. The 162 Struggle and Interruption servants will give you a glass of wine and some cake if you ask them. I am much obliged by your service." Just as Mary was reaching the first floor, the door of the drawing-room opened and an elderly lady came out accompanied by Lady Emily Grafton. Mary drew up, lowered her head, and waited for them to precede her down the next flight of stairs. Both women regarded her, and passed slowly forward. As Lady Emily reached the stairhead, she turned and looked once more at the beautiful but humble young creature in a black dress, who carried a pro- fessional bag, and was descending from the bedroom floors of this house, a stranger to its owner. Mary did not raise her eyes, but she knew that Lady Emily had turned and looked at her. A few days after this occurrence she received an angry letter from Glevering addressed to her at Madame Tilly's establishment Isabel Grafton accused her of wantonly and shamelessly degrading the family honour. She said that Mary had refused out of pride the allowance which Sir Matthew generously offered to provide her with, and yet had suffered herself to earn money by one of the most reprehensible, mischievous, and contemptible trades to which an honest woman could lay her hands. She concluded by challenging Mary to say whether she better did her duty to Christopher by following an abominable and disgusting and unnatural calling, which would surely be flung one day in the face of her son, particularly if he ever succeeded to the title, than by accepting an allowance from the head of Christopher's family, which would at least enable her 163 M 2 The Shadow to live in self-respect and to educate Christopher as the son of a gentleman ought to be educated. On the day when this letter arrived Mary's labour was shared by Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs. She made up several packages for Madame Tilly, saw to three or four purple- faced ladies from the outer suburbs, and then, on the upper floor, wrote to poor unhappy women all over the country, who, entangled by the skilful advertisements of Mr. Dobbs, had written to consult the wizard Nico, pouring out in letters marked " Private and confidential " the little petty tragedies of their little petty lives. The vigorous phrases in Isabel Grafton's letter rang through the mind f Mary as she wrote at the dictation of Mr. Dobbs epistles which shocked and disgusted her. Isabel's protest had produced a new problem in Mary's mind. She no longer thought of her work as a submission to Providence ; she saw it for the first time very clearly as something which was definitely wrong and non-good. She shuddered at the remembrance that she had considered this odious work as a discipline sent to her by God. It was something evil, something unrighteous ; her heart was tortured. Conscience, which had been silenced by motherhood, became suddenly clear-voiced and unequivocal. She was supporting Christopher by the wages of sin. Her labour encouraged vanity and opposed the punishments of outraged nature ; she confirmed the vain and the frivolous in their worldliness ; she exerted herself to rescue from a just retribution those who pursued 164 Struggle and Interruption animalism. It was not now of herself that she thought, but of those to whom she ministered ; she saw them as evil, culpable, selfish, and unspiritual the creatures of worldliness, self-indulgence, and materialism. How could she think, how could she believe, that Providence would have her work for these worst enemies of purity and goodness ? But there was Christopher, his bread must be earned, and to what else could she turn her hand ? Where could she find virtuous employment by which she could earn the pittance necessary for his support ? Then came the temptation of the Grafton allowance. There was no need for her to work at all. Sir Matthew would provide her with 'money sufficient for herself and for Christopher. Had she any right to refuse this assistance ? Was she not letting her selfish mother- hood cloud her sense of justice ? the money might certainly be regarded as Christopher's right. In any case, this offer of an allowance rendered it quite in- defensible that she should any longer earn money by a calling which she had seen to be definitely immoral. She was very troubled and disturbed. That night she wrote to Isabel Grafton ; she neither accepted nor refused the offer of an allowance ; she acknowledged that her present employment was dis- tasteful, but said that she would prefer to maintain Christopher and herself by her own labour rather than live on the bounty of relations. Until she could dis- cover whether it was possible to obtain more congenial work, she would like to leave the kind offer of Sir Matthew in abeyance. From that moment she searched the advertisement 165 The Shadow columns of newspapers and wrote innumerable letters of application. In some of the interviews which fol- lowed from her letters, Mary learned, for the first time in her life, something of the boundless horror of a city's iniquity. She was very wretched and very distressed, when one evening, returning with Christopher from her marketing, a boy in rags and horribly dirty suddenly confronted them with a grinning face and hailed Christopher by name. When they moved on again, Mary said, " Are there many boys like that at your school ? " " No," said Christopher, " Charlie Reed is the worst of the lot ; he is always getting into trouble ; isn't he dreadfully dirty, mother ? " This meeting drove Mary several steps nearer to the acceptance of Sir Matthew's offer. She said she would give herself another week ; she answered adver- tisements every night, counting the cost of the stamps with anxiety. At the end of the week she came home to write to Isabel Grafton a letter of surrender. She found Christopher unwell. He had been sent home from school early in the afternoon with a blind- ing headache ; his cheeks were flushed, his hands burning, there was a lethargic torpor in the luminous eyes which frightened her and filled her with dread. She consulted Miss Maffey, and on that lady's advice went for a doctor. " Put him to bed," was the doctor's first command. After his examination he said to Mary, " Can you nurse him, or do you go to work ? He has got scarlet fever, badly." 166 CHAPTER XI. THE NEW LIFE MARY wrote to Mrs. Dobbs explaining that she could not come to her work on account of Chris- topher's illness ; she expected that this letter would be acknowledged by dismissal, and was pre- pared to write to Glevering asking for help ; but instead of dismissal the Dobbses arrived that night in Trinity Street much to the perturbation of Miss Maffey, who at once regarded Nico in the light of an assassin and a dynamitard bringing with them gifts of fruit and scent for the little invalid. They were both so kind, so thoughtful and sympa- thetic, that Mary's heart for the first time warmed to them. Madame Tilly told her that she was not to give business a thought till Christopher was perfectly well again, and that in the meantime her salary would be paid as usual. Nico, who had made himself very pleasant to Christopher, came from an examina- tion of the boy's palms and whispered to Mary, " He will recover ; your son will live to be a famous man." How could Mary say to these kind people, " Your trade is sinful and bad ; I cannot serve you any longer " ? Their considerateness and sweetness caused her to feel ashamed of the efforts she had made, with- 167 The Shadow out their knowledge, to free herself from their toils. She discovered goodness in them ; their kindness opened her eyes to their humanity. But so over- whelming was her anxiety for Christopher that this and every other consideration could find no permanent lodging in her mind. As the fever developed itself, she was filled with terror that he would die. The thought was terrible to her ; under its agonising weight faith broke down, and she was a mother alone with the frightful forces of Nature. One night which she often recalled in after years as the poor wasted child lay panting and white in his bed, tossing from side to side, the lips mingling with the incoherencies of delirium the fretful moans of physical anguish, the thought suddenly burned in her brain, " What if it is God's mercy that he should die?" She now knew something of sin and evil, her fear of the world was no longer a fear of ignorance. What if it were God's mercy that the child should be delivered from the risk of contamination ? Could she let him go ? He was innocent, his soul was unspotted ; no evil had sullied his purity, no iniquity had blackened his heart ; could this loveliness survive if he lived to face the world ? Would it not be better that God should take him as he was, stainless and undefiled ? Would it not be for his happiness that he should depart out of this cruel world and breathe the spiritual air of blissful paradise ? No, no! a thousand times no! Her motherhood rushed up to heaven with a prayer. Whatever the 1 68 THE DOBESES CAME BRINGING THEIR GRAPES FOR CHRISTOPHER. The New Life consequences, let him live. He was her all. Let him live. She would be by him always ; her love would protect him ; she would answer to God for his soul. Let him live. The child heaved a deep sigh. His moaning ceased, his pantings and murmurings died away ; he sank into an easeful sleep. Mary bent over him and kissed his brow, with a thanksgiving in her heart. On the following day the doctor said to her, " The crisis is passed. We shall pull him through." Mrs. Grindley, who had been a daily visitor all through this desperate time, came one day to see Mary with a newspaper in her hand. The crisis was well over ; Christopher was out of danger. The old lady did not think that Mary would be agitated by the news she had brought. The death was announced in the paper of the infant son of Sir Matthew Grafton's third brother. Mary had never heard of this child's birth. " It looks to me," said the old lady, " as if those grand people at Glevering altered their manner to you when this child was born. Now that the poor little thing is dead, and Christopher is once more in the line of succession, they will probably want you to return." A few days afterwards the Dobbses came to Trinity Street, bringing with their grapes for Christopher a letter for Mary. It was from Isabel, who wrote to know her sister-in-law's decision concerning Sir Matthew's offer, which could not, she said, be indefi- nitely extended. In spite of this somewhat peremp- tory demand, the letter was far more kindly in tone 169 The Shadow than the first. "Matthew and I both recognise," she wrote, " that your motives in wishing to maintain yourself are praiseworthy and honourable ; what we wish you to see is that your self-respect may do con- siderable and even irreparable injury to Christopher. At the most impressionable time of his life you must be exposing him to a contamination highly undesir- able and most dangerous." The letter concluded by inviting Mary to come on a visit to Glevering. Her situation was one of the greatest difficulty. She sat sleepless that night for many hours beside Christopher's bed, striving to see light in the darkness, a straight path in the confusion of her ways. But how great was her problem ! If she surrendered to Glevering, Christopher would certainly be taken out of her hands. His life would pass out of her keeping. His soul, which God had given back to her from death, would be shaped, not for heaven, but for the world. She to whom the mercy had been shown, she who had promised to answer for his soul, would have to sit silent watching him grow into the Graftonian manner, as an end of existence. She knew that Sir Matthew's offer was conditional, and would be a hundred times more severe in its conditions now, if Christopher was once more the possible heir of Glevering. On the other hand, there was her distasteful employ- ment in Bond Street, and above all things, the risk to Christopher of contagion in the terrible Board school. She was brought to see that the State interferes like an autocrat between parent and child, if they are poor. The State insisted that Christopher should go to 170 The New Life school. However carefully his mother might rear and guard him, he would be exposed to disease from chil- dren whose parents took no such care of them. The State does not make itself answerable for the health of the children it compels parents to surrender ; it does not separate the healthy from the unhealthy ; its schools are the breeding-grounds of disease, and good parents must suffer from the neglect of bad parents. This tyranny of the State frightened the poor mother bereft of her freedom. She might guard Christopher from colds and coughs, but the Board school made all her care useless. She might keep him clean, but the Board school sent him home with horrible parasites. She might instil into his soul the principles of morality and the spirit of religion, but how could he preserve his innocence among the wretched children of immoral parents ? One evening Mr. Dobbs came alone to Trinity Street. Madame Tilly, he explained, was busy at home manufacturing ointments. He was very kind to Christopher, for whom he had brought a drawing- book and a bundle of pencils, and he spoke to Mary with unusual gentleness. Presently he turned to her and said, " We do not wish to hurry you, or to add to your anxiety, but we shall be very glad if you can come back to us shortly. We are overworked just now. A new advertisement has awakened the souls of hundreds, thousands, to our beneficent work. You will be of great assistance to us." Mary did not know what to say. Mr. Dobbs watched her for some moments, and then said that perhaps Mrs. Grindley would sit with Christopher 171 The Shadow while she was absent. Then Mary spoke. She said that she had begun to wonder whether she was quite fit for the work. Her mind, she was afraid, was not in the business. She felt that somebody else might be of greater use to Madame Tilly. " Why do you say that ? " asked Nico. His eyes burned. " What work in all the world could you find so beautiful and full of ministration ? Would you be happier casting accounts in a ledger, serving people over a counter with ribbons and trinkets, wasting your genius in the mere materialism of commerce ? We are satisfied with you ; why are you dissatisfied with us ? " Pressed by the intense magician, Mary said at last that she had conscientious scruples, and as well as she could, with those terrible eyes fixed upon her, and feeling in her heart unimagined reproaches at the memory of all the kindness she had received from these people, she stated what those scruples were. Nico heard her out. " You surprise me even more than you pain me," he said gently. "You have been with us all these months and you have not caught the spirit of our work. How is that ? Do we seem to you rogues and impostors ? Are we base-minded and commercial ? Is our work something evil and wrong ? Surely you have been blind. I say that in all the world there is no work more noble than Madame Tilly's and my own. What does she essay to do ? To prevent ugliness, to increase beauty. Ugliness is the enemy of the spirit. It is beauty which quickens the soul. And I I use abnormal powers to warn humanity against suffering, pain, and sin. Have you 172 The New Life ever heard me counsel any to works of evil ? Mrs. Grafton, you have been made anxious by the sickness of your son. You have lost your clear vision, your true judgment. But if you would rather not come back to us, if it is against your conscience to return, we shall not stand in your way ; we will release you." It seemed to Mary that she had cruelly hurt this man who had been so kind to Christopher, so in- dulgent to herself. She was full of regret. " Let me come back and help you till you can find someone else," she said. " I do not think of you and Madame Tilly except with gratitude and respect. It is only that the work does not appeal to me as it appeals to you." So Mary returned to Bond Street and worked once more with the beauty doctor and the palmist, while Mrs. Grindley and Miss Maffey took care of Chris- topher in her absence. She was now more and more determined to with- stand pressure from Glevering. The possession of Christopher was too precious for surrender. Her energies returned with her work. She felt again the satisfaction of her little establishment. But what could she do to find suitable employ- ment ? Mrs. Grindley said to her one evening : " My dear, we have been talking together, my dear husband and I, about Christopher's education. We do not think it would be altogether wise to send him back to school. Now, we know of a very clever man who would do famously for his tutor, and the fees would not be very serious, seven or ten shillings a week. Why 173 The Shadow should you not write to your relations at Glevering and ask them to pay for this education ? " " They would insist on taking him away from me." Mrs. Grindley wondered whether it might not be better, after all, if Mary and Christopher returned to Glevering. But Mary exclaimed that it would be servitude. She had escaped once, she had discovered a means of earning daily bread ; she would never go back to dependence and humiliation. "And yet, my dear," said Mrs. Grindley, watching her shrewdly, " you do not appear to be very happy with those eccentrics in Bond Street." " I should prefer some other kind of work," Mary admitted. " Why are you not happy with them ? " Mary told her scruples. " I had no idea," said the old lady, quite horrified, " that they were such wicked people." " Oh, they are not wicked. It is the work which is bad, though in their eyes it is altogether good." "They must be thoroughly wicked people," said Mrs. Grindley emphatically. She went away. On the following Sunday, Christ- opher, out of the house for the first time since his illness, dined with his mother in Merrick Square. Old Jack was greatly moved by the little boy's appearance, and frequently had moisture in his eyes. When he stood up to say grace his voice was husky, and his hands shook in carving the hot roast beef. He was quite silent through the meal, and occa- sionally he made violent use of his bandana handker- chief. 174 The New Life After dinner Christopher was placed on the drawing- room sofa and- provided with books. Mrs. Grindley sat beside Mary on the other side of the room. Old Jack, who had remained in his grandfather chair at the table, did not join them. "We have been making inquiries," said Mrs. Grindley, lowering her voice a little, "and we find that the mission church wants a lady visitor. It is work that you would like, because you are good ; and it is work which would prosper in your hands, because you know so well that of ourselves we can do nothing. But, my dear, there is the monetary side. Religion, un- fortunately, cannot afford to pay its labourers such fine wages as beauty doctors and witches and magicians and humbugs. The money in this case is forty-five pounds a year. But stop a minute. You could add a little to this by giving French lessons to one or two children in the neighbourhood. You would be saved travelling expenses. And if you can bring yourself to send Christopher back to the Board school, with the little help which we love to give you, you might just manage to scrape along." The thought of such work was a joy to Mary Grafton. Her heart leapt at the idea. Not only was it deliverance from the horror of her present trade, but it was work definitely good, useful, and noble. Moreover, she would have Christopher always at her side. Such a light came into her great eyes that little Mrs. Grindley very nearly began to cry. " I could desire nothing better in all the world," said Mary. 175 The Shadow But the thought of the Board school was terrible. " Don't you think, my dear," said Mrs. Grindley, when this fear had been uttered, "that you might write to your relations and get them to pay for Christopher's schooling ? " At that moment the door opened. Old Jack appeared with his churchwarden pipe in his mouth. He was very red. His eyes stared more than ever. Without looking at any one in particular he said : " I'll arrange with Nuttle. I'll settle that He shan't go back to the school." These words were the first that had crossed Mr. Grindley's lips, except the grace before and after dinner, since his guests arrived ; and, having delivered them, with his head in the air, his pipe stem close to his lips, the Colossus retired again, and closed the door rather noisily. Mr. Nuttle was reader to a firm of publishers in a very small way of business. He earned something over a hundred pounds a year in this manner, and added to his income by writing occasional articles for the newspapers and magazines. He occupied a single room in Trinity Square. This was the gentleman recommended by the Grindleys as a tutor for Christopher. He was a clever man. He went to church. His character was beyond reproach. They had ascertained that he would be willing to give Christopher two hours in the morning, one in the afternoon, and that he would provide the boy with an adequate amount of home-work. Now that Old Jack had undertaken to arrange matters with Nuttle, nothing stood in Mary's way. She was able to refuse Sir Matthew's offer, to retire in 176 The New Life a few weeks from Bond Street, and to begin her new work in connexion with the mission church. How bright was now her simple and useful exist- ence. The loss in money was considerable, but she was helped on every side ; to begin with, Miss Maffey reduced the rent from five-and-sixpence to four-and- ninepence ; the two shillings hitherto spent in fares was a clear gain ; Mrs. Grindley supplied the week's tea and coffee ; Mrs. Mauritius Smith sent every month from Selangor a money-order for a sovereign ; and Mary was paid half-a-crown a week by the clergy- man in charge of the mission for giving two of his little girls an hour's conversation in French five days a week. Perhaps for the first time in her life Mary was supremely and quite wonderfully happy. She loved her work, which had the inspiration behind it of her whole temperament and her purest ambitions. She made delightful friends among the poor people, who became really dear to her. She discovered mothers supporting their children and bringing them up religi- ously on six and seven shillings a week, whose person- alities exercised a spell over her. She made acquaint- ance in little back attics with gentlepeople fallen upon evil times who neither boasted of past grandeur nor complained of present poverty, but bore everything with resignation and a cheerful goodwill. She had particular friends in blocks of buildings or in tiny two-storeyed houses tucked away in courts and alleys, whose eyes brightened at her coming. There were two pensioners who lived together, a paralysed man and a blind man to whom she was very much devoted ; 177 N The Shadow the great joke of these two old men was that the paralysed man could see but could not catch the insects which troubled their peace at night, while the blind man who might have caught them could not see them. These two buoyant old fellows got to love Mary Grafton, and her affection for them was a new force in her life, making for cheerfulness and good spirits ; they were the first people who had made her laugh since childhood. In a word, the world opened its little doors to this charming woman, and in going about doing good she discovered with a joy that uplifted her own character and widened her humanity how much virtue, charity, courage, and religion lie buried from the eyes of a hurrying age in the shabbiest, saddest, and most destitute quarters of a great city. From a nunnery, she came into the world and realised the large heart of humanity. " You seem to grow younger every day," said Mrs. Grindley one morning, when they encountered each other in the Borough High Street. " It is because I am always meeting people so much braver, better, and happier than myself," answered Mary with a cheerful smile. There is a light in the face of good women who give their lives to the poor which is never seen in the eyes of the world. CHAPTER XII. THE METHOD OF AUGUSTUS NUTTLE WHILE Mary Grafton was experiencing this spiritual change in her new work, the mind of Christopher, under the intellectual dominance of Mr. Nuttle, was beginning to take vigorous shape. At first he was stunned by the impact of this tremendous person, but, recovering from the first shock, he soon awoke to a consciousness very much more lively than ever he had enjoyed before. Mr. Nuttle was a rousing and an expansive boyish- looking gentleman of two-and-thirty. He had a tumbled mass of curly light hair, hanging red cheeks generally streamed by two shining trickles of perspira- tion, a double chin, a ragged moustache, a snub nose topped with eyeglasses, round childlike eyes, thick eyebrows, solid temples, and a girth which afforded constant amusement to his friends. The wags among his acquaintances quoted concerning him the lines of that other Augustus in the " Struwwelpeter," "Augustus was a chubby lad, Fat ruddy cheeks Augustus had." They also called him " Nuts and May," or more intimately, " Nutty." " Christopher," he said impressively, on the first morning of their acquaintance, " I am going to place 179 N 2 The Shadow at your disposal not only my brain, which hath strange places crammed with observation, but my experience, which is a jewel. I know men and books, cities and history. I have exhausted the philosophy of the Greeks, the jurisprudence of the Romans, the religions of Asia, the politics of modern Europe. I know where humanity now stands ; I know the frontiers of its fretful, midge-like activities. More than all this, my devout pupil, I know the heart of man. Life is mine oyster, as London is my garden. I love this great city. You shall love it too, because I will teach you to understand it." Christopher had laid out his books with the neat- ness taught to him by his mother. There were the copy-book and exercise-book together, with a piece of blotting-paper on top of them, the little pile of lesson-books on the left side, the ruler and two pens on the right side, and in the middle a penny bottle of ink. Mr. Nuttle pointed to this arrangement and said, " Remove those baubles," then he added, producing a dirty briar pipe and a shabby tobacco pouch from his pocket, " and get your headgear." As the surprised Christopher walked beside his tutor in the street he discovered Mr. Nuttle's method of education. It was extremely interesting. Before a grocer's shop the fat young man, pipe in mouth, would stop, and in a few moments saturate Chris- topher's mind with a knowledge of commercial geography. There was not a tin of fruit, a bottle of pickles, a heap of currants, a packet of tea, a bowl of sugar, or a round of cheese which did not inspire 1 80 The Method of Augustus Nuttle the tutor with a lecture on the products of various soils, the customs of the people who produced them, the climate and scenery under which they were pro- duced, and the shipping business which brought them into the market of Great Britain. The smallest thing served Mr. Nuttle for instruction. From the brass badge on the leg of a street sweeper to the doubtful ices dished out in little green and blue glasses by a sunburned Italian everything in the London streets loosed the descriptive and didactic eloquence of Mr. Nuttle. The window of a chemist's shop was his laboratory for expounding the high mysteries of chemistry ; an ironmonger's gardening tools made him a professor of agriculture ; a second-hand book- seller's grubby trays caught him up into literature, philosophy, and theology ; a milliner's window not only gave him opportunity for pointing out the im- mense part played by women in the commerce of the world, and not only enabled him to assign the silks to France, the cottons to Lancashire, the lace to Brussels, and the jet to Whitby, but gave him a jumping-off ground for a psychological dissertation on the feminine mind, with biographical details of certain historical women, which quickened Christo- pher's dormant faculties while it puzzled his com- prehension. Moreover, as they walked along, he would say, "This man approaching us in the brown coat is a fool. He drinks. Drink, Christopher, is not a thing even to be handled by giants. It destroys the verminous populations of cities, it kills the soul of a decadent race. Avoid it, Christopher. I myself 181 The Shadow handle beer, because my health requires it, and my moral control is sufficient. But water is good enough for the outside of the body ; let it serve you also for the inner man. Drink is the hydra." Or, when he was religiously disposed and Mr. Nuttle's religion was a declamation rather than a life he would per- haps say, " This woman with the silly face passes for a good-natured creature among her friends and is counted an affectionate, good mother; but her children will grow up weak, profitless, vicious. They will arraign her at the Seat of Judgment ; her love will have cost them their souls. Love is a term too loosely used, Christopher. To love a child with sugar and kisses is to ruin it. In real love there is strength, sternness, inflexible direction. Such is the love of God, who cleanses the earth with hurricane and storm. Nature is tremendous ; it is majestic. No parent who loved a child, in the noble use of that term, ever lost the soul of the child. On the other hand, Christopher, most of our sad human wreckage is the product of that false, sugary love of indulgence and weakness which is the curse of England. Write on the tablets of your memory that the children of cruel and neglect- ful parents are ofttimes strong and profitable, the children of indulgent parents, never. Grasp the idea that the love of God is a chastening and a strengthen- ing affection, something sublime, awful, ghostly. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The greatest injury done to humanity by the Roman Catholic re- ligion lies in its enervating misrepresentation of Divine love ; they have placed a Woman in Heaven, some of them even call her ' Our dearest Mamma.' Chris- 182 The Method of Augustus Nuttle topher, your character depends on your comprehension of God's Fatherhood." The most interesting part of Mr. Nuttle's method lay in his visits to such splendid storehouses as the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, the National Gallery, Westminster Abbey, and the Botani- cal Gardens, Kew Gardens, and the Gardens of the Zoological Society. Christopher never forgot to the end of his days the first visit he made with Mr. Nuttle to the National Gallery. He was struck dumb with amazement At first he heard nothing that was said by his tutor. With a thumping heart and staring eyes he stood transfixed by the genius of Velasquez. He had never dreamed of such paintings. From canvas to canvas he moved with a growing and quite breathless as- tonishment, bewildered by the crowding endless wonders of immortal genius. It was a new world. Augustus seemed like a genie who had caught him from the grey streets of London and on some magic carpet had carried him to enchanted regions. Then he began to listen to his tutor. Mr. Nuttle made every picture interesting. He understood the science of this art. He brought out unsuspected beauties and developed in the boy's mind, hitherto occupied only by form, a sense of the more spiritual achievement of colour. He had anecdotes to tell of the great painters, he unfolded a pageant of history as they went from room to room. " I astonish you," he said, at last. " I astonish myself 'And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew.' I8 3 But I will tell you my secret. A Whitakers Almanack, Christopher, is the only book one needs to lay down the law on politics and to astonish a dinner table with facts and figures. For the rest, one must love. From boyhood I have loved pictures. I could no more draw a man's beard than I could draw a woman's eye ; but, because I love pictures, I understand them as well as any painter that ever lived, except Velas- quez." He raised his hat. " You must love pictures, too. No man without this sense of beauty is a com- plete being. Whether you can draw or not, you must be ready to go a hundred miles to see a great picture." It was really astonishing how Christopher's mind brightened and widened under this strange tutoring. He became more vivacious and intellectually more energetic. He was quick with banter and jest. He ran on ahead of whatever his mother was saying to him ; he anticipated the end of conversations ; he was eager, impulsive, wonderfully nimble. He laughed when he described his walks with Mr. Nuttle, but never irreverently ; he saw the humorous aspect of that prodigious personality, but he knew that his own mind sunned itself and expanded in the radiance and illumination of the fat young man. " I wrote to Mr. Kindred this afternoon," he once said to his mother, " and I told him that I didn't like Mr. Nuttle half so much as him, but that he suited Glevering and Mr. Nuttle suited London. I drew a picture of Mr. Nuttle in his pork-pie hat, with a pipe in his mouth, and his tie round his neck, pointing up to Nelson's column and saying, 'What Nelson was on sea, Nuttle is on land.' It was just like him, when 184 The Method of Augustus Nuttle he puffs out his cheeks, blows out his lips, and snorb down his nose." Christopher became so sharp that he soon discovered Mr. Nuttle's weak spots. Augustus, in their walks through the London streets, would sometimes leave Christopher at a street corner, telling him to observe people ; on his return he would examine his pupil on what he had observed ; Christopher was conscious on these occasions of a strong smell of beer. It chanced that an important visitor called in Trinity Street on an afternoon when Mr. Nuttle and Christopher happened to be at home, at work in the eyry. Miss Maffey opened the door on the chain,, and exposed the point of her nose and the corner of her eye, asking sharply, " Who is it ? " A lady's voice replied, " Mrs. Grafton lives here, I think?"' " Do you wish to see her ? " demanded Miss Maffey, becoming more visible. " If she is at home." " She is not." " I should like to wait till she returns." " Are you a friend, or do you come on business ? " " I am a relation." " Stop a minute." The door closed, the chain was unfastened ; then once more the door opened, but this time with a wider sweep of confidence and hospitality, and Miss Maffey, in a shabby shawl and a dirty cap, confronted Miss Grafton of Glevering. The inspection and cross-examination proving satis- factory, Isabel was admitted and conducted to the top of the house. 185 The Shadow Horrified by Miss Maffey, horrified by the stairs, horrified by the odour of the place, Isabel was shown into a garret full of tobacco smoke. While she stood coughing and half-blinded on the threshold she dis- cerned the nephew of Sir Matthew sitting over lesson- books with a quite impossible young man in a mustard-coloured suit. This impossible young man, who was disgustingly fat, removed his pipe, went to the window, and opened it. " Out, Nicotina, out ! " he exclaimed, and turned to address the visitor with a confident and condescending affability. Miss Grafton for one cold freezing moment measured with haughty eyes the fat young man, whose friends called him " Nutty " ; then she turned to her nephew and, advancing a step further into the room, asked Christopher if he had forgotten who she was. Christopher's extreme pallor was an emphatic answer in the negative. He rose from the table and approached his aunt with a hanging head, giving her a very timid hand with grubby and ink-stained fingers. While she was inquiring from Christopher concerning his mother's r absence, Augustus Nuttle possessed himself of his pork-pie hat and walking-stick. He approached Miss Grafton, laying an affectionate and paternal hand on Christopher's shoulder, and said, " My pupil will not regret that you have interrupted the infinitive mood of ' moneo.' My own feelings are not important. Permit me, madam, to take my leave." With a courtier's bow, he backed away and departed Isabel found Christopher singularly dull. To all her probing questions he returned answers the most 1 86 The Method of Augustus Nuttle hazy, uncertain, and vexatious imaginable. When Miss Grafton asked him if he would not like to return to Glevering, he replied, after a nervous pause, that Mr. Nuttle thought no boy could be properly educated out of London. Baffled by the boy, Isabel began to look about her. This sitting-room was also the kitchen and Christo- pher's bedroom. Mary slept in the much smaller chamber which led out from it. By skilful questioning and rummaging about on her own account, Isabel discovered that the draped ottoman was the coal box, holding a hundredweight, that pots and pans were hidden under the coverings of chairs and tables, that the strangest looking sofa in the world became Christo- pher's bed at night, and that a small draped table with books and photographs on top was his washstand. Miss Grafton went to and fro in this garret, lifting up coverings with the end of her parasol and peeping under chairs and tables with impatient scorn. " It is really a preposterous way of living," she said ; " and the difference it has made in you is perfectly dreadful. You look the ghost of your former self. It is high time you came to the country and had your pony again." Mary Grafton saw a cab at the door when she returned and learned from Miss Maffey that a relation had come to see her. She guessed at once that Isabel was upstairs. It was tea-time, and Mary carried in a piece of newspaper two very fine Borough bloaters with which she had purposed to delight the soul of Chris- topher. When she opened the door of her eyry and advanced to greet her sister-in-law, Miss Grafton said, 187 The Shadow " My dear Mary, what an atmosphere ! When I first entered it reeked like a tobacconist's shop, and now it smells like Billingsgate. What on earth have you got in that paper ? For pity's sake put it out of the window, and come and tell me how you are and how you think I look, and when you are coming to Glevering. As far as Christopher is concerned, the sooner you come the better. My dear Mary, I never saw such a change in a boy in my life. He looks deathlike ! " Mary became very pale, she looked at Christopher with grave anxiety. " He had a serious illness some little time ago," she said turning to Isabel ; " but he is better now. I think he is getting stronger every day." Isabel was horrified to hear that Christopher had been ill in this frightful attic. She said that Mary ought to have telegraphed to her at once. She spoke about the importance of Christopher's life. " You seem to forget," she said, " that he is likely to fill a position of great responsibility." Mary smiled. " Isn't it enough," she rejoined, " that I never forget how very dear he is to me ? " She moved to the ottoman, putting off her cloak. " I must get you some tea," she said. Christopher jumped away to a drawer and in a very few minutes, while his mother lighted the oil-stove, laid the table for tea, producing among other things half a loaf of bread from an earthenware pan and a plate of dripping from the cupboard. Miss Grafton was more startled by the cheap cutlery than by the dripping. 188 The Method of Augustus Nuttle " I should like to talk to you alone, Mary," she said, walking to the open window and looking over the pots of flowers to the endless chaos of slates and chimneys which stretched into smoky distance with a monotony and a weltering confusion horribly offensive to the mistress of Glevering. " Could Christopher," she said, turning away and facing Mary, " take his tea with the droll person who shouted to me over the door-chain that is to say, if she is not likely to give him some fatal disease ? " Christopher was dispatched to Miss Maffey, and Isabel sat down in a chair as near to the open window as she could drag it. She refused anything to eat, but accepted a cup of tea. " Now, Mary," she began, " I want to talk to you very seriously. This kind of life that you are living is impossible. You are making a martyr of yourself without cause. There is no reason for you to live with shabby people. Glevering is open to you. Ample provision for all your reasonable wants is waiting for your acceptance. You will be free to come and go from Glevering at your own will, and no one will interfere with your liberty. Why, then, should you make a martyr of yourself and live this highly ridiculous life in one of the worst of the London slums ? " Mary surprised Isabel, who was watching her like a cat, by the composed and serene smile with which she met this frontal attack. " I am not making a martyr of myself," she said, with a quiet amusement. " To tell you the truth, I have never been so happy in my life." 189 The Shadow " You mean that you like this life ? I don't believe it. No. You are stubborn and self-willed, you troublesome creature, but your tastes are not low. Besides, even if you did like living among low people and pigging it in a garret, you have no right to keep Christopher from the privileges of his station. My dear Mary, you don't realise how terribly ill that poor boy is ; I was shocked when I first saw him. Here he was, in this tiny attic, where the food is cooked and where he sleeps at night, learning Latin with a preposterous fat person smoking a reeking pipe in an atmosphere that simply choked me. Are you fair to your son ? Is your affection unselfish ? What imaginable reason can you have for keeping him here, killing him, when he might be at Glevering ? You say he has been ill. Can you wonder at it ? Every other person he passes in these disgusting streets is infectious, I should say. Think ! You keep Christopher in this howling, ill-smelling, and con- tagious wilderness when he might be at Glevering. Now, I ask you, is that just, is that reasonable ? " Mary said : " You compare the Borough with Glevering, and you make the Borough far worse than it is. Other people's children live here and grow up healthy and strong. The people are far from being low and vile. I have many acquaintances in the back- streets who are quite splendid and fine. You have no idea what good people live in our little streets. You are really unfair to the Borough. Then, as to Glevering." She paused for a moment, and added with some difficulty: "You are naturally proud of it ; it is certainly very beautiful ; but you must forgive 190 The Method of Augustus Nuttle me for saying that it is neither a place where I could be happy nor is it the kind of influence which I think would be good for Christopher." Isabel lowered her cup and saucer to her lap with a decisive drop of her hand. She stiffened her back, raised her head, and surveyed Mary with an expres- sion of face equally divided between genuine astonish- ment and righteous indignation. " What on earth do you mean ? " She could trust herself to say no more. Mary realised that only plain speaking could justify her preference for the Borough and cut short the interference of Glevering ; she was also not wholly unaware of the missionary spirit an impulse to bring home to the satisfied mistress of Glevering the vanity and uselessness of her proudful existence. Since she had worked among the poor, since she had given herself definitely and whole-heartedly to the service of religion, she had learned to look with other eyes on all the activities and standards of the world. With this new vision Glevering more and more assumed in her eyes a guilty and a godless shape. Her mind was quite clear upon that point. The existence led by Isabel Grafton and her brother was an arrogant contradiction of the life commanded by the Light of the World. This missionary impulse drove Mary to emphatic utterance. " I mean," she replied very quietly, " that the existence which satisfies you at Glevering would starve me ; it would impoverish that part of me which I have been taught to prepare for eternity. High ceilings 191 The Shadow and regular meals are not enough. And, believe me, to a person who knows how much hunger there is among the poor, a luxurious table is something quite terrible. I wonder if you know what I mean. Sometimes I feel guilty of the little luxuries with which we, Christopher and I, occasionally indulge ourselves here. You see, there are so many men and women, and so many young children, who have not even bread. Those people are my brothers and sisters. I am so conscious of my littleness in the sight of the Eternal, that I cannot put myself above them. They are really my brothers and sisters. If they are my brothers and sisters I must love them. And how can I love them if, while they starve and perish, I am sur- rounded by superfluity and do nothing to help them ? Besides, it is my greatest joy to help them. In going to them I approach nearer to the love of God, without which I cannot live for an hour. It is only in service that one realises the joy of religion. Christianity is a religion of service above everything else. " That is the heart and soul of it ; we express our love for God, our thankfulness for His mercy, and our longing to be received into His eternity, by striving to bring others into the same peace. Christ told us to do so, did He not ? Do you know that among the poorest of the poor people who have scarcely enough to keep body and soul together there is the spirit of charity and helpfulness ? The widow's mite is still being cast into the treasury. They are wonder- fully kind to each other, these poor people, who look so shabby and sometimes so coarse and hard. I wish you would spend a month or two " 192 The Method of Augustus Nuttle "My dear Mary," interrupted Miss Grafton, getting up and putting down her teacup, " I wish to say nothing that can hurt you, certainly nothing that can disturb your faith, which seems to afford you such enviable self-satisfaction ; but I would counsel you " here Miss Grafton drew herself up and glanced down at the missionary with a lofty superiority "not to criticise those whose opportunities for culture and whose place HI society are greater than your own. It might lead to the asking of some questions which you would find it difficult to answer. But that is by the way. I should like to point out to you that philanthropy does not limit its opportunities to London. You can love your fellow-creatures, if you wish to do so, at Glevering. Above everything else, I want you to see that even if your passion for philan- thropy overmasters your judgment, at least you should not let it override your consideration for Christopher. Religious people are usually unselfish abroad and extremely selfish at home. You run a very great risk in dragging Christopher away from the advan- tages which belong to his station. One day he may reproach you." Mary shook her head with a smile which aggravated Miss Grafton. " Christopher is quite happy with me," she said gently. " He does not want to go to Glevering. Do you know, I hope he will never want to go there ? " " I don't understand what you mean," said Isabel. " I mean, that I hope he will always be so true to his higher nature that he would find himself wretched at Glevering. If he ever became its master, he 193 O The Shadow would fill its empty rooms, I hope, with the unhappy, the sorrowful, and the tired. You would not like to think of Glevering put to such uses ? " " You have become extraordinarily fanatical ! " " Oh, I don't think so." " But you are. You don't see how fantastic your notions are, how impossible they are in the modern world. However, I must not argue with you on the question of religion. But Christopher is another matter." " Forgive me, Christopher belongs to religion." "He has rights which are quite distinct from your religious motives." " He has no rights." " What do you mean by that ? " " We belong to God," replied Mary, quoting F^nelon. " He made us not for ourselves but for His own purpose. He has absolute right to our obedience and service." She met the angry and im- patient glance of Isabel's eyes with a calm gaze. " Rights," she exclaimed gently. " How can you use such a word. We are creatures. We have duties towards our Creator ; we certainly have no rights" " You are talking the veriest nonsense ! " said Miss Grafton. " No. Believe me, if you could only forget Glevering and think of the universe, if you could only forget the name of Grafton and think of Calvary, you would see that what I say is quite true and most seemly. We have no rights on the earth or in existence. The universe is too great ; we are too little. And humility is one of the chief instructions of our Master. If we 194 The Method of Augustus Nuttle deny that, we make ourselves superior to Him " Mary paused for a moment, and then with a gentle smile full of a noble rebuke she said very quietly, " Compare for a moment what your family has done for England, with what our Master has done for humanity ! Is it not a little presumptuous to make ourselves superior to One who has saved the world ? " Isabel Grafton's face was rigid with annoyance. " No more sermon, I beg," she said shortly. Mary heard her breathing in the pause that followed She continued, " I will ask you to tell me, if I may, what are your intentions regarding Christopher's future ? Sir Matthew, who has some right and some claim in the matter, would like to know that." " It is my hope," Mary said quietly, " that he will wish to serve in the Church." " I see." " I shall use no force. Unless he feels himself impelled, I should not wish it. But my prayers are that he may long for that service." " And, of course, keeping the poor boy tied to your apron strings and denying him every opportunity of making acquaintance with the great world, your in- fluence over him is supreme, and he will do what you wish. Very well. Christopher is to become a clergy- man. Now I should like you to be very just in this matter. I should like you to send for Christopher and let me place before him the opportunities which his relations are willing to provide him with. I should like to hear from his own lips his wishes and ambitions. Will you send for him ? " 195 O 2 The Shadow Mary rose. " Before he comes," said Isabel, " there is something I must say to you. None of my brothers has a son. After their deaths Christopher would succeed to the title and to Glevering. At present we may say that he is the heir. But," Miss Grafton spoke with a deliberation intended to frighten, " if you follow out your present intentions regarding him, unfitting the poor boy for the honour and the privileges of the position, you will disinherit him. Sir Matthew has made up his mind ; if Christopher does not answer to his ideas, he will marry again." Mary said, " I would rather Christopher died at this moment than that he should ever answer to those ideas." The steadiness of her voice startled Isabel as greatly as the outrageous sentiment astonished her. "Mary ! " she exclaimed, " what on earth do you mean ? " " Shall I tell you ? " " You not only rob your child of his heritage," said Isabel hotly, " but you speak insultingly of those who befriended you in your destitution ! " She rose from her chair. " What possesses you ? What is the matter with you ? I think you are the most unnatural person I have ever had to do with." Mary considered for a moment whether she should speak, whether she should give utterance to the judg- ment against Glevering which had matured in her mind ever since she became profoundly acquainted with the suffering of humanity and the deeper signifi- cance of religion. While she hesitated, something in the calm depths 196 The Method of Augustus Nuttle of her eyes warned her antagonist to provoke that resolute spirit no further. " It is useless to argue with you," said Isabel. " I really have no words that would apply to your extra- ordinary mind. Please send for Christopher. I am thankful that you are fair-minded enough to give the poor child an opportunity of expressing an opinion for himself." 197 The Shadow CHAPTER XIII. MARY DISINHERITS HER SON " "IT 7ELL, Christopher," said Isabel, directly the boy VV entered th room and before he had quite accustomed himself to the knowledge that his aunt was still there, "what are your ideas about your future ? what do you wish to be ? Come. Sit on this chair, and let me hear you talk." Christopher cast a nervous look at his mother, crossed the room, and sat down rather awkwardly on the chair indicated by his aunt. It was so near to that great personage that he felt incapable of speech. " Well," she said, endeavouring to adopt a pleasant and friendly tone of voice, "what is it you would most like to be?" Christopher began to swing one of his legs. " It seems to me," said Isabel, affecting a smile and looking at the swinging leg with its clumsy boot, " that you would like to be a clock ! That, however, is out of the question. Even your mother would not like you to be that! Come, speak. What do you wish to be ? A soldier, for instance ? " " No." " Well, a lawyer ? " 198 Mary Disinherits her Son " No." " Not a lawyer. Let us think now. What other profession is fitted for a young gentleman ? " " I should like to be " Christopher began, and then stopped. " I know," said Isabel " a clergyman." " No," said Christopher, " an artist." Isabel laughed in her hard metallic fashion, but did not look at Mary. "You will be a long time," she said, " before you earn any money as a painter. Don't you think it would be better to become a clergyman and paint in your spare time when you are not engaged in teaching the Sunday-school, writing sermons, and calling on invalids ? " " I don't want to be a clergyman," said Christopher, with some energy. " Oh, you are emphatic about that ! " Mary stood beside the fire, one of her hands resting on the mantelpiece, her eyes directed towards Christopher. The expression of her face was calm and contented. She made no effort to influence the boy, and manifested no desire to interrupt the high-handed cross-examination of his aunt. It was difficult to believe that the boy had just uttered sentence of death on the great hope and central longing of her life. " I should like to be an artist," repeated Chris- topher, "and earn money to save mother from working." "Now that is quite praiseworthy, Christopher," exclaimed Miss Grafton, and leaning forward she put a hand on the boy's shoulder. Then she added, "If 199 The Shadow you want to be an artist, and we are allowed to do so, your uncle and I will help you to be a great one." Christopher's eyes sparkled, and he looked at her quickly. " You must have the very best masters, and you must live in large and healthy rooms, with plenty of light and air, and plenty of space for your canvasses. You can't hope to be an artist if you live in a little dark attic under the slates of a London slum. You must go to Rome, to Florence, to Dresden, to Paris. But, let us think for a moment. Would you prefer that ? would you like to have fine rooms, to have the best masters, and to have money enough to travel ? or are you so devoted to this slum that you cannot bring yourself to leave it ? " " Can mother come too ? " " Oh, she will be at your heels wherever you go," smiled Isabel ; " you may be sure of that ! All she wants to know is what you wish and desire. A pattern mother ! " Christopher turned to Mary. There was such com- placency in her eyes that he was not suspicious. " Would you like to ? " he asked eagerly. " Let me explain for one moment," interrupted Miss Grafton, "what a serious matter we are dis- cussing, Christopher. I must tell you exactly what it is I am here to learn. Now listen very carefully, and remember that what you decide will affect your whole after-life. I have come to know whether you would like one day to be the sole master of Glevering, with all its lands and houses and beautiful possessions, to be Sir Christopher Grafton of Glevering, 200 Mary Disinherits her Son rich, powerful, and independent of all the world ; or whether you would rather struggle to earn bread in a smoky garret, poor, humble, and unknown. You are quite old enough to decide for yourself. The choice is for you to make. Before you make it, remember that it now rests with you to decide whether you shall be rich and free all your life, or poor and wretched. Whatever you choose now, such will be your future life." Christopher's suspicions were aroused. There could be no comparison in 'his mind between the joys of wealth and the miseries of penury ; why was he called to decide between them ? why was his mother silent? Overwhelmed by the thought that he might one day be Sir Christopher Grafton, owner of all the beautiful world named Glevering, the bewildered boy looked at his mother, a light in his eyes, his whole face eager and questioning. But Mary said nothing. While mother and son contemplated each other, Miss Grafton, with a pale smile on her face, looked for the first time since her questioning of Chris- topher began, at her real antagonist in this duel. The confidence and serenity in Mary's face did not dash the hopes of Miss Grafton. She knew now the mind of Christopher. Whatever influence the mother might exert, whatever success might attend her efforts to bend the child to her will, Isabel would know that for ever and ever, to the last hour of her dying day, Mary would be haunted and perhaps tortured by the thought that Christopher, if he followed her, had followed her against his will. 201 The Shadow " Of course there is no comparison ! " she exclaimed impatiently, rising from her chair. " Look round this poky attic, feel the compression of its grimy walls, and then, think of Glevering ! Come, Mary, my dear creature, be reasonable. Don't stand in the way of your child's happiness. Don't make your maternity the shadow between him and the sun. You see what he wants. You know that he has made the only rational choice that a healthy and sane person could make. Come, don't break his heart by saying that you want him to starve in this garret until he can scrape halfpence enough to go to some obscure theological college and become a curate." Christopher's eyes grew suddenly large. " Don't you want me to be an artist, mother ? " he asked, with rather a dry voice. The thought of becoming a clergyman had made him stone cold and filled his child's heart with wretchedness. It was impos- sible to mistake the real significance of his hungry question. " I want you to be what you most want to be, Christopher." Mary spoke tenderly, lovingly, under- standingly. "You should certainly never be a clergyman against your own will. That would be wicked. But you are much too young to decide now what you will be when you grow up. Do not be anxious. There is no crisis, no danger. You are my son, and I will see to it that you have what is best and wisest for you." Christopher jumped up and went to her, putting his arms round her waist and laying his cheek against her breast. Mary did not flash a look of triumph at 202 Mary Disinherits her Son her antagonist, but bent a tender smile upon her boy, and stroked his hair with a loving hand. " There is one very distinct crisis in his life," said Miss Grafton, approaching a step nearer. " Whether he decides now or three years hence about his pro- fession does not greatly matter. But now, once and for all, he must decide between Glevering and this garret. Make that quite plain to him. Don't I warn you ! lay up for yourself a burden of remorse. He must decide now between poverty and riches, between odious sordid- ness and dignified comfort. I have told you Sir Matthew's decision ; that is irrevocable. I either take him the message which will enrich Christopher and pos- sess him with Glevering, or the message which will dis- inherit him. Now, make that plain to the boy. Don't let him decide without knowing the consequences." " I decide that," said Mary, meeting Isabel's eyes " Without reference to the person affected ? " " Yes." " And your decision is ? " " Poverty." " Does Christopher like that ? " " Whether he likes it or not, that is the decision of his mother." " Mary ! do you really know what you are doing ? " Miss Grafton was confounded. In a miserable attic whose poverty disgusted her, she heard penury and destitution preferred before the pomp and pageantry of Glevering Glevering with its splendid sun-filled rooms, its delectable gardens, its repose and ancient grandeur. " What possible reason can you have," she demanded, " for beggaring your own child, for robbing 203 The Shadow him of a great inheritance, and exposing him to all the bitterness and disabilities of poverty ? " " I believe in God" Miss Grafton recovered her composure and said with acerbity, " That is an interesting expression of opinion, but " " It is everything." " Allow me to finish what I wish to say. A belief in God is hardly a good reason for making a pauper of the person who has most claim on your affection ; nor can I see why belief in God should be incompatible with existence in Glevering." " That is because you are not a Christian," said Mary. " Will you explain ? Not a sermon, I beg, but an explanation." " I do not judge you," Mary said slowly and calmly ; " there is no need ; the high importance which you attach to wealth and title condemns you. You judge yourself. By the importance you attach to such things you announce yourself opposed to the spiritual view of this earthly existence, which is the religion of Christianity. Your own words arraign you and con- demn you. Is it not true that you cannot conceive how I should hesitate for one moment between Glevering and this garret for my child ? You appeal to him, knowing that a child's eyes can be dazzled by gilded toys. Are you not, too, a child to think that these things matter ? You try to intimidate me by making me think that some day Christopher will reproach me bitterly for disinheriting him. Nothing can intimidate me ; I rest in the promise of God. If the day come when Christopher reproaches me I shall 204 Mary Disinherits her Son be grieved, but not defeated. I had rather he re- proached me a thousand times for making him poor, than once for making him rich. I assure you that if he accuses me for robbing him of what you call his inheritance, I shall have an answer and a justification ; I assure you, too, that I shall have strength to bear his reproach. But if out of the destruction wrought by great possessions he should ever say to me, ' Mother, why did you load me with temptation ? ' I should be dumb ; and I think my heart would break." Isabel did not reply with anger. Quite gently and almost winningly, but with an undertone of superiority, she inquired, " Is it impossible for a person with great possessions to live a virtuous life ? " " I will answer that, if you will answer me one question," said Mary, who was still quietly fondling the curls of her son. " In your judgment, is the life led by your brother and yourself a virtuous life ?" Isabel's face glowed with the pale fire of a bitter indignation. She surveyed Mary with open and candid contempt. " You mean," she said sharply, " that in your judgment we are thoroughly disreputable ? " " No. But I do mean that in God's judgment you are disobedient." " Oh, you are acquainted with the judgments of God ? " " They have been uttered. Don't, I pray you, mis- interpret me. I am not sitting in judgment on you. I don't pretend to say that I am better than you. But I must say, because you yourself force it upon me, that you declare yourself, both by your manner of life and the character of your opinions, superior to the Master whom to follow in implicit obedience is 205 The Shadow the sole object of my life. How, then, can I let my son go to you at Glevering ? Not all the wealth and glory of the earth could compensate for his acquire- ment of what you call so proudly the Graftonian manner a spirit the very opposite of Christ's. I have told you I would much sooner lay him in the grave than see him answering to the ideas of your brother. That is not a fanatical utterance. It is a deliberate and most rational decision. How could I wish him to be cold, proud, scornful, self-satisfied, idle, and dreadfully indifferent to all the sufferings of humanity, when I follow the Christ, who was meek and lowly, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, who said that we must love and serve our fellow-men ? You condemn that idea. You are superior to it. You are convinced that the Graftons are right and Christ is wrong. You wish my son to acquire the Graftonian manner ; the last thing in the world you want him to acquire is the Christlike spirit. That is the real difference between us. You come to him is it not so ? with the temptations of the world. I protect him, so long as my motherhood reigns in his heart, with the power of immortality. I do not say that a religious life would be impossible to him as master of Glevering some of the noblest people supporting our mission here are very rich ; but the danger is great, poverty is certainly safer ; and, as for the influence which you and Sir Matthew would exert upon him in these immature and impressionable years, that would be destructive. There is a wickedness which is neither criminal nor vicious ; a wickedness which offends no law ; it is the wickedness of a hard heart 206 Mary Disinherits her Son and a proud spirit a soul superior to God. At all costs I will save my son from that." " A long sermon," said Miss Grafton, with great bitterness. " I am sorry that you have such a bad opinion of my brother and me. I am still more sorry that your particular form of Christianity should make you, Mary, that most hateful of all characters, a self- righteous person. But my brother and I will manage to outlive your bad opinion of us ; and as for your own character, I confess that I am not particularly interested in it, having other matters to concern me in my idle and wicked life at Gleverin^. But, what I do regret very deeply and lastingly is the cruel use you make of your influence to deprive this poor boy of his privileges. That seems to me an act of deliberate tyranny. You have heard what he said. You have seen the look in his eyes. If ever a mother knew absolutely and beyond all doubt what her son most desired in the world, you know in the case of Christopher. And you ignore his wishes, his desires, the whole tendency of his being. You override his character with your own ; you tyrannise with your ideas over his. You know, Mary you know that you cannot give him the opportunities to become what he most wishes to be, and yet you deliberately prevent him from obtaining those opportunities, with a thousand other privileges, from people who are the nearest on the earth to his dead father. I earnestly hope that you may never have to reproach yourself for this most selfish tyranny." To do Miss Grafton justice she was quite unselfish and quite honest in the expression of this hope. 207 The Shadow She knew that if Sir Matthew married again she would cease to be mistress of Glevering ; this know- ledge it was which had brought her to Trinity Street and which had kept her moderately cool under the judgment of her sister-in-law. But, as Mary was speaking, the reasoning side of her character ousted the purely selfish purpose of her heart. As a cold and superior pedant of agnosticism, a % s a great lady devoted to the laws and customs of an ancient society, she despised the preaching mother and really pitied the disinherited child. Quite unselfishly and quite honestly, we say, she felt convinced that one day Mary Grafton would bitterly upbraid herself for this act of a mother's tyranny. " Christopher knows," she said, looking at the boy, " that we are willing to give him what he asks, and that you prevent us. That knowledge will grow in his mind." She raised her eyes to Mary. " Once more I ask you, do you seriously, and with a full sense of your responsibility, decide that Christopher shall never possess Glevering ? " " A power higher than mine or yours will decide that," replied Mary quietly. " But," she added, raising her head and meeting Isabel's challenging gaze, " I do decide that he remains with me here through his childhood." " You disinherit him ? " " I keep him." "You deliberately, wantonly condemn him to poverty ? " "I save him from temptation." " It is useless to say any more. You have chosen. 208 Mary Disinherits her Son Christopher's life is decided. You have sacrificed your child for a caprice. Your stubborn and self- opinionated obstinacy tyrannises over the child's will. No one can help him. The unfortunate boy suffers, and will suffer still more, because his mother wills it." Miss Grafton advanced another step. " Good-bye, Christopher," she said, and held out her hand. The boy brought his arms from Mary's waist and nervously took the extended hand, still keeping close to his mother. " I hope," said Miss Grafton, " that you may never feel the injustice which your mother is doing to you in the name of religion." She released her hand and offered it to Mary. For a moment the two women looked at each other in silence, with the child between them. " You must misjudge me," Mary said, very quietly, " because your standards are opposed to mine. We cannot understand each other. We live in quite different worlds. I think I realise how foolish I must appear in your eyes. Do try and see how unwise you must appear in mine." They parted in this manner. When Miss Grafton had left the house, Mary said to Christopher, " Do you understand what we have been saying ? " " I think I do," he answered ; " you don't want me to be rich." " Do you want to be rich ? " " I should like to be rich so that I could help you." " You can help me now," she said, kissing him ; and laughing in quiet happiness she added, " You can help me, Christopher to put away the tea ! " 209 p The Shadow CHAPTER XIV. UNREST MARY assured herself that Christopher's mind was really set upon the career of a painter, and then she consulted with Mr. Nuttle. She desired her son above everything else to serve in the Church, but she recognised that such a vocation demands an impulse of the most spiritual and unequivocal character. Never once did she seek to force Christopher's will in this direction ; it was enough for her that in the traffic of their daily life she taught him humanity's responsibility to God and breathed upon him the prayerful influence of her pure spirit. So long as he loved God she was happy. Mr. Nuttle agreed that Christopher's wittier was that of an artist. " If it can be managed," she said, thinking of her little savings, " I should like him to begin learning now, while he is still young." " Madam," replied Augustus Nuttle, blowing out his cheeks, " he has begun. He is learning now. His masters meet him day after day in the National Gallery. They are the great masters, the only masters." Mary thought that something more was necessary. " Buy him some paints, a bundle of brushes, and 210 Unrest two or three canvasses," said Mr. Nuttle. " Don't let any second-rate dauber corrode his young genius with old faults. Time enough for him to have a master when he has learnt how far his own method can carry him. Poverty will do the rest ; for magister artis, as I think Persius says, ingenique largitor venter ; hunger, madam, is the true master of arts." So Mary brought Christopher his first materials, and in their eyry he made his first efforts to become a painter, with his mother for his first model. They were still very happy together. There was certainly no one in the world more dear to Christopher than his beautiful mother. He loved her with all the energy of his happy and impulsive nature ; loved her, too, with the fulness which her own lovable nature created in his affections. He remembered how devoted they had been on the prairie ; how she had comforted him on the long journey to England; how she had stood between him and persecution at Glevering ; and how she had worked for him, and still worked for him, in this little room under the slates of a London house. But he could not rid his mind of certain words uttered by Miss Grafton. They haunted him and perplexed him. To a boy, however wholesome, and however free from vulgarity or priggishness, it is a tremendous knowledge that great wealth, immense power, and a sounding title are in some way directly connected with him. Christopher could not forget the noise made in his ears by the words, " Sir Christopher Grafton of Glevering." He could not prevent himself dwelling on Monte Cristo dreams of prodigious wealth. 211 p 2 The Shadow He would lie in his bed at night, hovering between wakefulness and sleep, with the delicious thought that Glevering was his, and that he was playing a lordly providence to Mr. and Mrs. Mauritius Smith, to Mr. and Mrs. Grindley, to Mr. Augustus Nuttle, to dear Mr. Kindred, with whom he still corresponded, even to Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs ; and above all, to his mother. Coming out from these intoxicating dreams, he could not but be conscious of certain deficiencies in the eyry. Miss Grafton had said, " Look round this poky attic, feel the compression of its grimy walls ; and then, think of Glevering ! " Very often did poor Christopher make this fateful comparison. He compared the row of dingy geranium- pots on the window-sill, the soup-plates of mustard and cress, and the vases filled, some with shingle and some with fibre, out of which tulips and daffodils were struggling into life, with the range of greenhouses at Glevering and those wonderful enchanted gardens over whose smooth lawns and through whose shady walks he had so often wandered in a daze of delight. There were a hundred ways in which he compared the attic with the country house. Now it was the dingy wall- papers that hinted the comparison in his mind, now the broken hasp of the window, now a chipped plate, now the pewter forks and spoons, now the smell of cooking. Every hour of his day this comparison was suggested in one way or another, and as his faculties developed the more impatient he grew with the eyry. And when in the crowded streets he stood before shop-windows and saw all the fine things he longed to buy for the learning of his art, he could not help 212 Unrest remembering that Miss Grafton had offered him an inexhaustible purse. He could not understand why his mother had said so emphatically that poverty was better than wealth. Money seemed to him a perfectly good thing, and the want of it he felt to be something which frustrated desires not only harmless but the very soul of his life. It was an inconceivable thought for his eager mind that money was, in any way, something evil. On one occasion, walking with Mr. Nuttle through the strange places of Soho, Christopher told him about Miss Grafton's visit. Augustus Nuttle, who had been snuffing the odours and studying the ex- hibited menu of a little French restaurant, pricked up his ears. He had gathered from the Grindleys that these Graftons of the Borough were connected with the greater and infinitely remote Graftons of a baronetcy, and one of the finest places in the country. He had heard this tale with about the same interest with which a wise man listens to the boast of poor Tom that if he had his rights he would be rich Sir Thomas. But now from the lips of the ingenuous boy, Mr. Nuttle learned how close the connexion was ; nay, realised that he was peregrinating the London pave- ments with a potential baronet, Sir Christopher Grafton of Glevering. He appeared to pay no attention to the boy's story. " I think my exchequer can support the charge," he exclaimed, " and I know that my appetite deserves it. Christopher, we will go into this gourmet's retreat, and forget the world." He rolled off Browning's lines about Chablis and Rabelais, and entered the shop with an air. 213 The Shadow During that luncheon, Christopher's first experience of a meal in a French restaurant, Augustus Nuttle learned the full story of Isabel's visit. It was a summer day, and in spite of drawn blinds the atmosphere of the crowded shop was oven-like. Mr. Nuttle's cheeks grew redder and redder ; the perspira- tion trickled out of his thick curls and ran down his munching cheeks ; between the courses he took off his eyeglasses and wiped the moisture from them with his napkin, and drank great gulps of his wine. When he was served with coffee and a cigar, he sat back in his chair, stretched his legs, and considered the story which Christopher had unfolded. He came to a conclusion. " Your mother," said he, after a considerable pause, " evidently entertains strong views on the subject of wealth. ' What shall it profit a man ' From that point of view, Christopher, money, power, position, and all earthly glory, are ridiculous absurdities. Pallida Mors ! On the other hand, it is not so easy in complex civilisation, and in northern latitudes I lay stress on 51 30' 48" to picture the life of poverty which is both easy and agreeable in the Orient Horace recommends modus in rebus. For us moderns, the inhabitants of Europe, the Blondins of 51 30 48", the religious life must needs be in the nature of a compromise. How far your mother has done well in refusing for you certain great privileges and perhaps much wealth, it is not possible for me to say I do not know all the circumstances. But she has chosen. It is your duty to obey. By striving with every ounce of your power" Mr. Nuttle's 214 Unrest cheeks shook as he uttered these words " to win glory and honour, you will justify her choice." This is what Mr. Nuttle said to Christopher. When he returned to his room in Trinity Square he did not immediately set about reading the parcels of manuscripts awaiting his decision. He lit a pipe, walked about the room for a few minutes with his hands in his pockets, and then sat down at the writing-table and took paper and pen. For a quarter of an hour, blowing out his great cheeks and muttering frequently aloud, Augustus Nuttle was busily engaged drafting a letter to the mistress of Glevering. When he had finished this task, he leaned back in his chair, the paper in his hand, and read aloud the sonorous phrases with exceeding gusto. He pronounced the composition a " stunner." It was a thoroughly clever letter, a little full-bodied perhaps, but completely veiling its true purpose. Mr. Nuttle referred briefly to his meeting with Miss Grafton in Trinity Street, and without professing any affectionate interest in Christopher, went on to say that the boy's desire to become a painter was deepening, that his capacity for such a career was considerable, and that while at present there was no need for the expenditure of any money on lessons, the day must shortly come when it would be essential for him to visit the great galleries of Europe and put himself under the instruction of some recognised master. From this point Mr. Nuttle proceeded to declare his conviction that everything should be done to give Christopher those opportunities which his talents deserved, and without which he could not hope to 215 The Shadow be an artist ; and he ventured to express the hope that Miss Grafton would consider what might be done for Christopher in this direction, as he imagined that the circumstances of Christopher's mother would not permit of any thorough apprenticeship. He concluded by the statement that this letter was written without the knowledge of either Mrs. Grafton or Christopher, that it was dictated by no desire to interfere in family matters, and that its object and excuse (which was quite true in one sense of the word) was art. Miss Grafton had made up her mind to delay the day when Sir Matthew should go wife-hunting. Once before she had made experiment of existence outside Glevering ; she had not cared about it ; she certainly had no desire to sit down for a second time by the waters of Babylon and practise the Graftonian manner on a small income. For this reason Isabel told her brother that Mary was still rebellious, but that she was bringing up the boy very nicely, and in time would almost certainly surrender. Sir Matthew nodded his head, well satisfied with this report, for it flattered him to think that people had to surrender to the terms he dictated. " We can afford to wait," he said ; " his blood may save him, but I anticipate a horrid manner." It came about, then, that the letter of Mr. Nuttle, which might have received very different treatment, was politely answered by the great Miss Grafton of Glevering. Augustus was delighted. Isabel thanked him for his kind interest in her " unfortunate nephew," declared herself willing to do what she could for his 216 Unrest welfare, and hoped that Mr. Nuttle would kindly report to her from time to time the condition of his pupil's health and the state of his intellectual progress. Finally, this gracious letter said that if later on Mr. Nuttle could persuade Mrs. Richard Grafton to let Christopher travel abroad with him, Miss Grafton would be glad if he would consult her privately in the matter of expenses. Augustus blew out his hanging cheeks, and dreamed great dreams. Such was the state of affairs in the fortunes of Christopher when Mr. and Mrs. Mauritius Smith came from the Malayan States on a visit to the Grindleys in Merrick Square. Let it be known, in a parenthesis, that when Miss Maffey looked round the corner of her chained door and for the first time beheld one of the Collector's irregular explosions of nervous energy, she was thrown into the worst fainting-fit of her existence. The greeting between Mary and Annabel was a repetition in a more emphatic manner of that greeting at Glevering which had so astonished Miss Grafton. Annabel could not keep the tears out of her eyes, as she kissed Mary first on one cheek and then on another, now pressing her close to her breast, and now holding her at arm's length to study the beautiful calm face. As for Mauritius, whose trumpet nose had waxed larger and had taken on a more plum-like tone, he declared fifty times that Christopher Columbus had jumped into manhood, was a bully fellow, was a game-cock, would astonish the natives, set the Thames on fire, and turn again thrice Lord Mayor of London town. 217 The Shadow For the three weeks that these kind-hearted people remained in London, Mary and Christopher, for the first time in their lives, saw something of the festivities of a great city. The Smiths carried them night after night to the Exhibition which was attracting great crowds to Earl's Court. On some occasions they would go to one of the minor restaurants, which Mauritius declared was the haunt of aristocracy, and afterwards attend a concert, sitting with the ttite and enjoying themselves with immense enthusiasm. " When I come to London," said Mauritius, " I bring a few dollars with me, and I see life." " We call this our holiday, dear Mary," said Annabel, who feared that the lavish manner in which Mauritius was scattering his dollars might make Mary sigh for great possessions. But, to tell truth, Mary very often had to feign gratitude for these excitements. She was sufficiently unsophisticated to enjoy entertainments of a melo- dramatic character, and very glad she was on these occasions to mark that merit always met with reward and incompetence with punishment ; but at some of the other houses to which his ignorance of London had taken the collector of jungle produce, Mary was not only pained and horrified, but for the first time in her life she felt a frightful fear for Chris- topher. She would turn her eyes from the bright stage to mark in the darkness of the theatre the face of her son. Sometimes so delighted and ravished was the expression in his eyes, that she trembled and felt cold. She was really glad when the visit of these dear and 218 Unrest generous friends came to an end. She wanted to resume the happy monotony of her useful life and the delightful uninterrupted intimacy which existed between her and Christopher. But the Smiths in their departure had left her a legacy of anxiety. Mauritius had praised Christopher's paintings in his extravagant fashion. " What did I tell you when I first saw that penny drawing-book of yours in the steerage ? I said, 'You'll be President of the Royal Academy.' And you will, too ! " Then he had said to Mary, " You must send him to Paris. Paris is the only school for young genius. All the world goes to Paris. The sooner the better. Let him go young. When I come back next time I want to dine with Christopher Grafton, R.A., at the Garrick, the Beefsteak, and Buckingham Palace ! " Praise of this kind was not good for Christopher. He was not deceived. He knew perfectly well his almost ridiculous limitations. But the excited words of Mauritius stimulated his ambition, already restless enough, and made him long to spread his wings. One day he approached the subject with his mother They were sitting in their attic at the end of a summer's day. The windows were open, and the stir of the outside world came into the room with the fresh night wind which fluttered the hangings. Mary had washed the tea-things and cleared the table. A lamp burned on the table where Christopher was sitting, his head resting on his hand, reading a book. Mary at his side was busy with needlework. Christopher sighed, yawned, stretched himself, shut 219 The Shadow the book, and got up from his chair. He began to walk the room with his hands in his pockets. There was a frown in his eyes ; his hair was ruffled ; his cheeks were hot ; he looked restless, tired, irritated. He went to the window, and stood there with the breeze on his brow, looking out over the moonlit roofs and the chimneys spectral in the distance. " You want to go to bed, Christopher ? " she inquired. " No, mother, no," he replied gently. " I want to go to Paris. Now, if I could. I should like to get into a balloon and sail away this instant. I feel that London is " " Yes ! " " Keeping me back." He leaned his arms on the sill, bent his knees to rest them against the wall, and, drawing a deep sigh, went on with the burden of his complaint He was sixteen, an age dangerous to certain tem- peraments. He was conscious of an overmastering heat in his body which made repose an agony of the nerves. To sit still, to be idle, to prosecute any slow and laborious task, was really a torture of his mind. He wanted to be out in the world doing things. He could not have said what it was to which his spirit impelled him ; but he knew that to sit hour after hour in this garret was a frightful ordeal which made him want to scream, or cry out harsh words, or break things. Many a man looking back at the end of a long life recalls this passionate and insensate unrest of youth as the supreme temptation and sharpest pain of his experience. Christopher said that his paintings made him miser- 220 Unrest able ; they were so bad, so very bad and hopeless. He was not quite sure, indeed, whether it was any good for him to go on trying. He thought he would like to go back to the prairie. London was hateful. It kept his brain on the simmer. He wished he had learned to play games, or had a horse to ride, or could do anything which had action in it. " I don't know what has come over me," he con- cluded miserably ; " but, mother, I can't help hating these rooms, hating London, and longing for something to happen." Did he guess, as he leaned on the window-sill looking out at the moonlit city and uttering these complaints of irritation as though they were nothing, that every word struck the heart of his mother with a knife ? that he was filling that unselfish heart with a gigantic terror ? that he had brought her suddenly to the bitter agony of a mother's love the hour when the son ceases to be a child ? She sat with her back to him, the needlework lying in her lap, her hands resting there, her eyes closed. She was praying. The hour had come. Her son had spoken, and she knew that his soul had made its choice. Was there not a terrible significance in his attitude ? he had spoken with his back turned upon her. She desired peace and repose for his soul ; he had chosen action. She had laboured to make this room more dear and sacred to him than any place on earth ; he had pro- nounced it hateful. She had prayed that God would give him a quiet heart and a steady spirit fixed upon eternal things ; he had suddenly spoken to her out of a tempest of unrest. 221 The Shadow She reproached herself. It came to her with a cruel clearness that she had deprived this beloved son of that which might have saved his soul from disquiet ; he possessed no friend of his own age, he played no games, he was without joy. Alas, how wrong she had been. How foolish, how impossible her scheme. She had forgotten that her child was a man, and that in his pulses smouldered the fires of youth. For a dreadful moment she thought of her husband. But while her eyes were closed she was conscious only of God's overshadowing protection, and when she opened them again she was composed. It came to her that she was disquieted by the realisation of sexual difference, the sudden apprehen- sion that her child's nature was different from her own a nature, a temperament, a disposition unalterably opposed to her by physical laws, against which all effort, even all prayer, was powerless. But the thought came to her : " It is not his physical nature that I love ; it is his soul." In the spiritual region, she realised with a sudden accession of happiness, there is neither masculine nor feminine ; the sexual barrier does not exist ; there is no gulf fixed, across which the mother cannot reach to her son ; soul is soul, whether it inhabit the body of man or woman. Then she need not fear. She need not reproach herself. She need not feel that her son inhabited one hemisphere of mortal life and she another. The sexual difference was of the physical kingdom ; his soul and her soul were of like substance their im- mortality was a divine oneness infinitely above the ebb and flow of human passion. 222 Unrest She must forget that he was man and she woman ; all misgivings must be banished from her mind ; her relations with him must be confident and unques- tioning. Religion was the triumph of spirit over flesh. She was about to call him to her side, when some impulse of her soul moved her to go to him where he stood at the window. Perhaps she felt in this impulse a divine significance. She put her arm round his neck and stood with him by the open window, looking over the roofs of London. He slipped an arm round her waist, and drew himself nearer to her, but he did not look in her eyes. The sounds of the street ascended to their ears ; they saw the twinkling lights of the vast city melting into the pearl-like haze of distance. " I know what you feel ; I understand," she said, very gently. " You have reached the age when it is hard to sit still. Birds leave their nests ; children go out into the world. It is natural." She paused for a moment, conscious of his irregular breathing. Then she continued, " Very well, dearest, you shall go. But because I love you so, because you are everything in the world to me, do not go and leave me here alone without the sure knowledge which will make parting from you easy and bearable." He made a movement as if to take her into his arms, as if to pour out a flood of loving words, but checked, and said slowly, " I don't want to go away from you, mother. You don't understand what I mean." "You want action, you want a career," she said quietly ; " that is impossible here. It is quite right that you should go away. And I must stay because 223 The Shadow my work lies here ; and for other reasons. But I can only let you go if I have that knowledge of which I spoke. Do you know what I mean ? " He hesitated. " Tell me," he said presently. " I must know for very certain," she answered, speaking slowly and with a deep earnestness which disquieted his turbulent mind, " that you see clearly the truth of life, that your purpose is definite and unchangeable, that your heart is fixed. I cannot let you go, Christopher, if you feel yourself uncertain about life. I should cling to you, and I think you would be unable to withstand my tears, for I should implore you with tears not to go away from me. But if I know that your heart is fixed on eternal things, if I can feel sure that your character belongs to God, it will be easy for me to bear separation. Can you promise me that ? " With a sudden movement, breathing hard, he turned to her, took her in his arms, and with his eyes hidden from her gaze, his face pressed against her neck, said, " Why do you speak of separation ? I do not want to leave you. I love you better than everything in the world. You know how I love you." Her heart thrilled with the deepest and purest human joy. " It is sweet," she murmured tenderly, lowering her lips to his hair and mothering him in her arms, " to know how greatly we love each other. But I under- stand, dearest, that I cannot keep you here always ; I realise that you must make your own way in the world. And this does not pain me. I am not sorrow- ful. Only, only because it is your soul that I love 224 Unrest I want to know that you are strong enough to with- stand the temptations of the world. I can lose your presence for a little without grief ; but I cannot lose your soul. When you are away from me I want to feel that we have communion in our prayers, that your soul is adoring the God whom I adore, that your spirit is seeking the same immortality with me. Can you not see how tortured and miserable I should be if in our separation I felt a spiritual separation, if I felt that you were travelling further and ever further away from the goal I am seeking ? That would kill me. Look in my eyes. Christopher, my dearest life, my only son, soul of my soul, what do you read in my eyes but love for you love everlasting, unselfish, and divine ? Look deeply into them. What else is there but love ? Can you see there anything except love ? Because I love you so, promise me that as long as you live you will never let the shadow of the world come between God and your soul. Realise now, looking into your mother's eyes, as you never realised it before, that this difficult and fleeting life is but a journey from time to eternity, that nothing counts except the soul. You will be tempted, for the world is full of temptations ; you will be constantly in danger ; you will always be threatened ; never will you be perfectly safe. Dedicate yourself to God. Now. Now, Christopher, as you look into my eyes. Say to yourself that you will grow every day in the consciousness of God, that you will be mindful of Him mindful of the Eternal ; promise me to pray every morning and every night for the knowledge and love of God." 225 Q The Shadow It is impossible to express the earnestness of this appeal. It did not lie in the words, and not alto- gether in the tone of the voice. Christopher saw depths in his mother's eyes of which he had been hitherto unconscious, depths of the spiritual life which make immortality more certain for him who has eyes to see, than all the balanced arguments of reason. But above everything else, the earnestness of her pure spirit breathed itself upon him in some inexpressible and quite intangible energy ; he felt this earnestness pervade his whole being, entering into him as light enters and occupies a room ; for a wonderful moment he was exalted and illuminated. " I promise everything you ask," he cried, kissing her impulsively ; " and I will never do anything to pain you. Never, I would rather die." " Not for my sake," she interrupted, " but for God's. You will not be safe if it is only of me you think ; be mindful always of God. I know life now, Christopher; I see it so clearly. No soul is safe from the soiling and destructive temptations of the world which does not always have God before its eyes. That is the meaning of religion. Religion gives us the highest and most haunting idea of God a Divine Father. By constantly worshipping God our soul becomes so strong that we can withstand all the temptations which would hurt and destroy it. First, a mind that is full of the idea of God finds it easy to resist the tempta- tions of the world wealth, show, and vanity appear trivial to it ; then as the idea of God deepens, the mind finds it easy to resist the temptations of the flesh ; and last of all, when the idea of God occupies 226 Unrest the whole soul, the mind finds it easy to resist the temptations of the devil pride, self-sufficiency, and all spiritual thoughts which are opposed to humility and meekest love. It is not enough for me to feel that you will keep clear from the stain of impurity ; not enough to know that you will never consider wealth and vanity things of consequence ; I must know that your soul is set upon God because you feel that to adore Him is your deepest joy. I want your soul to attain the purest heights of being. I cannot let you go unless I am sure of you." He had lost his first ecstasy. Her words troubled him. There was too much tempest in his young mind for this idea of adoration to enter and occupy. He said to his mother. " You have taught me religion, and I shall never forget anything that has come to me through you. Mr. Kindred's last letter spoke about religion. I said that you had taught me every- thing." She was not satisfied. " Christopher," she said gently, " it is very difficult, when we are young and the world lies before us, to realise that nothing temporal and earthly can satisfy us. You do not feel that, do you ? You feel certain that there are things in life of which I know nothing, which you will be able to find, and which will give you pleasure and satisfy you. That is what is called the confidence of youth. But it is the wisdom of the ages, the testimony of the whole human race, that in the soul of man there are immortal longings which nothing on this earth can satisfy. Possess yourself of this knowledge now. It is your inheritance from 227 Q 2 The Shadow the past. You are the heir of this immortal wisdom. Nothing can satisfy you on this earth. Do believe that Then you will find, by looking towards God, by contemplating the idea of immortality, by working out your destiny with the conviction of eternity in your soul, that the things of this life will assume a new and wonderful meaning for you, and that rest will enter in and possess you. I have taught you many times that saying of St. Augustine, that God has made us for Himself, and that we can never be at rest till we rest in Him. Realise its meaning now when you are looking to the world for something that you have been unable to discover here with me." Christopher said that he did not want the world for anything which his mother could not give him ; but that he felt something driving him to a more active existence. " It is not wrong to wish to be an artist," he concluded ; " and I know that I shall never be able to paint as I want to paint, so that, you see, I do not expect to be satisfied. And, mother, I promise you that I dream at night of having you always at my side, and earning your living as well as my own. That is my greatest happiness and my chief ambition." He was still speaking when a knock sounded on the door. They both turned from the window, and saw Augustus Nuttle entering the room. CHAPTER XV. THE HARMLESS DECEPTION MR. NUTTLE came to make a proposal. The weather was so fine, London was so unbearable, and physical exercise was so essential to health, that he thought two or three days' hard walking in the country would do both Christopher and himself a world of good. Christopher's eyes brightened at the suggestion, and Mary felt the wisdom of the tutor's proposal. On the following day, very early in the morning, Mr. Nuttle and Christopher started away from the Borough and made their way by omnibuses and underground railway to Paddington, where they took train for Stratford-on-Avon. On the evening of the second day of this excursion, while Christopher was in the highest spirits and rejoicing in the beauty of the country, the two pedestrians, after breasting a hill, came suddenly upon a scene which caused Christopher to stop dead and exclaim. They looked down from the cool hill-top upon a green valley watered by a broad river and planted with trees. " Why, I know this ! " cried Christopher. " I've 229 The Shadow been here before. This is where we lived when we first came to England." Mr. Nuttle was lying down, panting hard, the perspiration shining on his red face. He took off his cap, mopped his forehead, and said, " We will call on Miss Grafton. I should like to see Glevering. Non ego ventosa plebis suffragia venor. I like to dine at the table of the rich, while I remain Radical." Christopher began to dream. But he said, " Oh, she won't care to see me. We had better give Glevering a wide berth." Mr. Nuttle said, " Sit down and rest, my pupil. I have something to say to you." Then, as Christopher lay on the hill-top, looking down into the beautiful vale, Mr. Nuttle sowed in his heart the first seeds of disobedience. No companion could have been more delightful on a walking tour than this well-read and energetic fat young man He had enchanted Christopher at Strat- ford, at Shottery, at Guy's Cliff, and at Kenilworth ; he had made the long and dusty road of their pilgrimage a ceaseless amusement with narrative, ballad, anecdote, witticism, and even burst of song. His disquisitions, too, had a compelling charm for the boy whose mind was beginning to question the faiths of childhood ; no man could hold forth more eloquently at a moment's notice on theology, philosophy, and politics. Christopher was more than ever before under the influence of his tutor. Thus, when on the hill-top overlooking the vale which was so movingly familiar to him the first glimpse of England which had intoxicated his senses 230 J ' WHY, I KNOW THIS ! ' CRIED CHRISTOPHER, ' I'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE.' The Harmless Deception Christopher listened to Mr. Nuttle, his mind was in no fit condition to resist temptation. The love of his mother lay behind him ; the attic in Trinity Street was not to be thought of in this glorious green world ; and, if he ever thought about them at all, how poorly the stammering exhortations of his mother compared with the large discourse of his tutor's mind ! Augustus let Christopher into a secret. " Your aunt, I must tell you," he said impressively, "is a great deal fonder of her nephew than that young gentleman imagines. She is fond of him for himself, but as I see the matter there is a certain degree of art in her affection. Ah ! I see deep, Christopher ; I probe to motives. Your aunt, I believe, intends to see you in order to make reconciliation with your mother. The two ladies have had a tiff ; the one in Gloucestershire desires to be friends ; the one in the Borough is waiting on events. It seems to me that through you the Gloucestershire lady hopes to reach the heart of Trinity Street. You must be circumspect. We will go down to Glevering, present ourselves to Miss Grafton, and see what she has to say to us." Christopher exclaimed at the idea of visiting his aunt, but Mr. Nuttle, who had arranged the meeting by correspondence with Miss Grafton herself, made light of all the boy's fears and objections. " Your aunt is very fond of you, Christopher," he said, with emphasis ; " and you will be an exceedingly foolish fellow if you slight her affection." " How do you know she is fond of me ? " " Ever since I met Miss Grafton we have corre- sponded," replied Augustus, getting on his feet 231 The Shadow " You need say nothing of the matter to your mother. Miss Grafton wished to know how you were progressing with your work, how you were getting on in painting, and how your health was a most sympathetic aunt ! My dear fellow," he said, confidentially taking Chris- topher's arm as they walked forward, "you are one of fortune's favourites ; your career is assured ; your future will be a brilliant one. All you have to do is to DC exceedingly gracious to your aunt, and, as regards your mother, to wait a favourable opportunity for telling her of this visit and for effecting a recon- ciliation between the two ladies." Christopher was certainly excited by the thought that Miss Grafton wished him well. The wild dreams of immense wealth recurred to his mind. He thought of himself, with a bewildering pleasure, as Sir Chris- topher Grafton of Glevering. It did not strike him deeply that he was deceiving his mother. The cunning suggestion of Nuttle that he might be the means of making up a quarrel between his mother and his aunt worked in his mind against the operations of conscience. The sight of Glevering filled his heart with emotion. As he walked through the familiar park in the glimmering light of sunset, and received into his nostrils the deep earth scents which revived a hundred memories of his childhood, the excited boy could not prevent himself from dreaming of the day when all this beautiful world would be his, his very own, to do with it what he would. And Mr. Nuttle, at his side, was the tempter. " You must use your reason, Christopher," he said ; 232 The Harmless Deception " this fine place, and all the glory of it, can be yours why should you fling it away ? " " If you said that to my mother," replied Chris- topher, laughing, " she would tell you " A lady's reason changes like the fashions," inter- rupted Nuttle. " Your mother, whom I reverence, has had a misunderstanding with the present mistress of Glevering ; being a woman, she associates Glevering with her misunderstanding ; but you will alter her views you are destined to be a peacemaker. As for Glevering look about you ! Is it goodly, is it desirable ? Is it the kind of place that a wise man would throw away on account of a lady's tiff ? Chris- topher, you must think for yourself." The clock over the stables, whose tones awoke fresh memories in Christopher's mind, was striking seven when the two dusty travellers, with ruck-sacks on their backs, approached the house. They were crossing the quadrangle to the front door when Isabel came round the corner of the house, carrying a parasol in her hand and a book under her arm. Christopher flushed at the sight of her and felt his heart begin to beat with an uneasy thump. Isabel, whose penetrating eyes were fixed upon him, smiled as she approached. In a moment Christopher com- pletely recovered his composure. The travellers were welcomed very agreeably, and Miss Grafton even stooped to jest lightly on their dusty appearance. " You must make Glevering your inn," she said pleasantly, and led the way round to the other side of the house. Her manner was not affectionate, but it was free 233 The Shadow from frigidity, which Christopher's sensitive soul most dreaded. She looked at him several times ap- provingly, but did not distress him with questions. He was surprised to find her so human and pleasant. It seemed to Christopher only a few minutes after his first glimpse of Miss Grafton that he was lying in great peace and complete satisfaction in a hot bath, with the window of the room wide open and all the delectable sounds of the summer garden entering in his ears. How much better than an inn was this great house with its glorious garden full of scents and greenness and song of birds ! When he had made his very simple toilet he went to his tutor's room and found that anxious gentleman paying enormous attention to the parting of his thick hair. They arrived in the morning-room some few minutes before eight o'clock and found both Miss Grafton and Sir Matthew awaiting them. Christopher was strangely moved by the sight of his uncle. Sir Matthew gave him his hand with some warmth, accompanied by a rough laugh of amusement, and studied his bearing for a quick moment under eyebrows which twitched more than ever. Augustus expressed gratitude for the allowance as to dress made by Miss Grafton and Sir Matthew to pedestrians. Sir Matthew seemed to think it a diverting matter that people should walk through the country; he quite laughed once or twice at the idea. Augustus Nuttle was something of a diplomatist, and not a bad judge of character. Before dinner had proceeded very far he had arrived at a just estimate of Sir Matthew's temperament, and with no little 234 The Harmless Deception cunning began to feed the great man with observa- tions which flattered his conceit. Sir Matthew did not unbend to the plump young man who talked too pompously to please him, but he held forth to him with a freedom which surprised Miss Grafton at the other end of the table. Augustus was thoroughly satisfied by the impression he had made. On the following morning, an hour before luncheon, the travellers took their departure. Christopher had visited all the favourite haunts of his childhood and was entranced by the wonderful summer beauty at Glevering. He departed with real regret, which he did not attempt to disguise. " You must come again, Christopher," said his aunt. " We shall always be glad to see you." She had said nothing about his mother or his career. But when tutor and pupil were once more on the road, Nuttle told Christopher that he was certainly provided for, that his future now lay straight before him. " Your aunt wishes you to travel abroad, and that is also the wish of your uncle, who is a very sensible man. They have been kind enough to suggest that I should take you. For the present they do not wish your mother to know that it is they who are making provision for the journey ; we will say nothing about it. You see, Christopher, if your mother knew that Miss Grafton was paying our expenses, she would be disposed to think, perhaps at any rate, there is the risk of it that your relations in Glevering were attempting to purchase a reconciliation. That would never do. Your mother's love is too precious to be 235 The Shadow bought by any one. Miss Grafton nourishes the hope that she may establish the old friendship on better grounds. So we will say nothing about this visit, nor yet about Miss Grafton's proposal concerning our trip abroad." All the answer Christopher made to this suggestion was, " But my mother will want to know where we got the money from ! " Mr. Nuttle brushed aside this objection. " We will allow her to think that she is doing it all. It would be most cruel to come between mother and son ; Miss Grafton feels that ; I feel it. We will let your mother think that her purse is paying the way. I shall tell her that I have means enough of my own for the purpose, and I shall make the cost of your travels so light that it will not be a burden to her. She will rejoice, Christopher, to think that she is helping you ; and we shall travel like princes." A stronger character, a nobler nature, than Chris- topher's would have felt the dishonesty of this proposal. But to Christopher, whose nature was lively, vivid, affec- tionate and emotional, rather than strong, resolute, and noble, its dishonesty only appeared for a single moment, and vanished quickly as an unreasonable scruple in the tremendous impulse of his being towards action and experience. He longed so greatly to see the world, he disliked so thoroughly the smoky attic in Trinity Street, and he was so unconvinced of the reasonableness of his mother's intense piety, that it really seemed to him a perfectly just and honourable deception, something he could do without treachery to his love for her. Think ! The opportunity to break 236 The Harmless Deception free from London, to escape from English shores, to see Paris, Dresden, Florence, Rome perhaps Athens, was presented to this ardent, enthusiastic, and impulsive boy as something quite easy, and not only possible, but actually as a definite affair of to-morrow! His blood was on fire with the idea. To see the world, to drink deep of existence, to come face to face with the life of men and women what an inexhaustible delight ! He was young ; he was throbbing with mental energy and physical force ; the world pre- sented to him an enchanted kingdom ; life called him with a syren song altogether irresistible ; how could he stop to consider whether there was any possible significance in his mother's strange and un- natural warning that the world could not satisfy ? If the world could not satisfy him, then surely the renunciations and inhibitions of religion must fail to please ! He accepted the tutorship of the cunning man at his side, who conscientiously believed that in counselling Christopher to deceive his mother no evil was done and much practical good might ensue. Christopher said that he would do as Nuttle advised. " When shall we be off ? " he asked. Mary Grafton had found an emptiness in her garret during Christopher's absence. This emptiness op- pressed her. The room became the shell of her former contentment. When he returned from the excursion, bronzed by the sun, his skin shining with health, his young eyes bright with excitement and happiness, the room overflowed again with its old satisfaction. In his impetuous embrace she realised 237 The Shadow that this parting had been worth while ; reunion was so delicious. That very evening, as they sat together in the attic after tea, with the old hum of the streets rising to their ears from the world beneath their open windows, Christopher began to speak of Nuttle's project for a tour abroad. He spoke so enthusiastically that Mary was carried away. He had made her so indescribably happy that she could not thwart his plans. With everything he said she agreed, smiling into his eyes, stroking his hair, holding his hand. And when Chris- topher said that Nuttle wanted to go abroad on his own account and would pay his own expenses, Mary was delighted, and said, " I have been saving up to pay for both of you ; now you will be able to stay longer ! " He took her in his arms, kissed her again and again, and said, " How good you are to me ! I want to go, mother, for your sake as well as mine. I want to succeed that I may be able to look after you." She was quite happy. They sat till late that night talking of the future. Christopher was determined to succeed as a painter. He wanted money, he said, not for itself, but for the power it would give him to make his mother happy. They must always live together. This first journey should be the only one he would ever take without her. They would go to foreign countries in the winter, and return to England in the spring with pockets full of money for all the poor and suffering people whom his mother loved to befriend. They would have a house in the country, and she should be happy all the 238 The Harmless Deception day long happy in the right way, the good way. Christopher was perfectly sure about that. He was not ambitious, or covetous, or worldly. He loved his mother and he loved his art. They would be happy in the right way. Before the day of departure, Mary saw the tutor alone. She was very quiet, grave, and beautiful. He never forgot to the end of his life, which was full of strange events, that brief interview with the mother of Christopher. She said to him, " My son's soul is more precious to me than his fame or his success. Will you remember that, when you are out in the world with him ? Will you shield his soul from temptations to which his generous nature is hastening in innocence and ignorance ? Do what you can to save his purity from stain, his joy and hopefulness from disillusion- ment, and his heart from hardness and bitterness. Constantly keep before him, I beg you, the ideals of our religion yours, mine, and his." " No temptation will overcome Christopher ; I will remind him of his mother," replied the tutor. " Remind him of God," said the mother very gently. Mr. Nuttle began to pace the room. " A young man, Mrs. Grafton," he said impressively, " best comes to a knowledge of God through the love of a good mother. Believe me, it is only through those sorrows which we seek to spare youth that the mature man and the mature woman reach apprehen- sion of God. Life is growth in the knowledge of God. No child can grasp on the threshold of existence the immense meaning of that word. Look back upon your own life ; is your idea of God the same as that 239 The Shadow which filled your mind when you first knelt in prayer ? Let your heart be at rest. Do not hope that Chris- topher, in the heat of his youth, the dawn of his manhood, can comprehend the fulness of the spiritual life as you comprehend it, as the saints comprehended it. The spiritual life is growth, is progression. He is safe now under the influence of your love. Let that be the chief force in his soul, till he is old enough to look from the earth to the universe. I will answer for it that while your love is strong in his soul he walks uprightly and remains unspotted by the world." Mary's dark eyes, whose unfathomable depths filled him with awe, rested upon the tutor in a profound contemplation. " No soul is safe," she said slowly, " which does not perfectly know that to love God and to desire spiritual perfection is the reason of its existence. I have tried to teach my child that truth from his earliest years. If you feel that it is true and it is the soul of our religion will you deepen its apprehension in his mind ? You are a man ; you have an intellectual influence over him ; he is fond of you. Make use of these responsibilities to convince him that God must be all in all. Do not think that I want him only to be pure, only to be moral ; I want him to adore God, to be a living soul more conscious of immortality than of his mother's love." Mary Grafton made a profound impression on the heart and mind of the young tutor. He felt that he had been in the presence of an angel. His conscience upbraided him for the deceit he was practising on this pure and gentle nature. For some little time he 240 The Harmless Deception seriously debated with himself whether her touching idealism, with its complete contempt for wealth and ambition and its entire reliance on the providence of God, was not the noblest way of life. But the tutor was an intellectual Christian, a theologian, a philosopher, rather than a disciple of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The world had its attraction for him. He kept his religious ideas apart, and spoke of " the hidden life." His attitude to eternity was an aspiration of the mind ; his attitude to humanity the philosophical position of a man of the world. Therefore, while he determined to guard the soul of Christopher from sin and evil, he came to the satisfying conclusion that it was right and good to give the boy the advantages of wealth and to lead him towards the destiny prepared for him by his powerful relations. The mother thought only of Heaven ; the tutor con- sidered Glevering. Mary knew that she had now reached a definite period in her life. The childhood of Christopher was passed. The page must be turned which her love and her prayers had inscribed with the tenderest intimacy of maternity. On the other side of that page the first word to be written was Separation. Her child was going from her. The separation must needs be spiritual as well as physical. Other influences and fresh stimuli would touch his character. He would see a new world. He would exchange innocence for knowledge. He would think for himself. And when he returned, though he came back pure and innocent and noble, it would not be with the same eyes that he answered 241 R The Shadow her gaze, not with the same kiss that he greeted her. She was not dejected by this knowledge, but she contemplated it with a certain sadness of heart which deepened as the day of departure approached. Not once did she think of her own loneliness in the eyry, of the desertion she would feel when her eaglet had flown away. She did not even think of the dangers to which Christopher would be exposed and the change which must overtake his character, from her point of view. In her noble soul there was room for only one thought, the soul of her son in its relation to God. And Christopher ? Did he once think of the deceit practised upon this loving heart, of the knowledge he was hiding from her of the secret ambition of his soul which was opposed to all her wishes ? Yes ; many times. There were hours when the poor boy was utterly wretched and frightfully tortured by his con- science. He wished it could be otherwise ; but his wishes were not that he should share his mother's religious attitude towards the world, but that she could be brought to see with his eyes the glory and delight of Glevering. There was one powerful salve to his conscience the thought implanted in his mind by the tutor that he was destined to reconcile his father's relations with his mother. But on the eve of his departure, excited by the journey before him, he could not sleep ; and as he lay restlessly in his bed, the memory of all his mother's love woke in his mind with the most vivid reality. It 242 The Harmless Deception was on this bed that he had lain at the gate of death ; she had nursed him, smoothed his pillow, bathed his burning forehead, comforted and assuaged his terrible anguish. Could he ever forget that love ? Their life together, from the dawn of consciousness on the prairie to this hour when he was leaving her with a lie in his soul, came back to him in a swift pro- cession of pictures. He saw her as his guardian angel, always working for him, always thinking of him, always loving him with a divine protecting tender- ness. He could not leave her with a lie. He threw back the clothes to go to her room and make his confession. As he crossed the floor the moonlight fell dimly upon his trunk, lying open to receive its last contents on the morrow. He stopped for a moment. Then it came to him that she had packed it with her own loving hands, and the thought of how she had made all these preparations for his happiness and comfort away from her touched his heart with a fresh contrition. He went forward. As he turned the handle of her door he was thinking of the money she had saved for his journey, the un- necessary sacrifice she had made for his ambition, and the deceit with which he had accepted that sacrifice. Tears rushed to his eyes and he felt himself the guiltiest of men. She was sleeping. It was dark in the room, and he only knew by the sound of her breathing that she slept. 243 R 2 The Shadow He stood half-way between the door and the bed, listening. As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he perceived dimly the oval of her face, grey against the whiteness of the pillow and shadowed by the darkness of her hair. There was a noble sternness discernible in the expression of her face, a look which filled him with awe. She seemed infinitely aloof from him. Through the tears drying in his eyes he looked upon the face of his sleeping mother and felt afraid. A breath of wind rustled the blind, and the rumble of distant wheels came to his ears. She sighed deeply, murmured words which he could not hear, and turned her face towards the wall. For a moment he waited, afraid that she would wake. Then, very quietly, he returned to the other room. She woke as he closed the door, and raised her head from the pillow, listening. No sound came to her. She lay awake, thinking of the morrow. Later she rose from her bed, impelled by the sadness in her heart to look upon Christopher for the last time in his child sleep. He had fallen into a slumber as she opened the door. The moonlight fell full upon his beautiful face as she stood looking down upon him. It was the face of an angel. A feeling of happiness took possession of her. God would guard such purity and keep the splendid spirit true. She knelt down at the bedside, and with her eyes fixed upon his face, prayed to God with happy faith in her heart. When she had returned to her room she could not 244 The Harmless Deception sleep. She was not sad, she was not fearful. The visit to the sleeping child had restored all her con- fidence in God's protection. But sleep deserted her. She lit a candle and began to read. The book which she had chosen was one of curious anecdotes. She opened it at random and glanced through the pages without much attention. After some minutes she came upon the following story : When Leonardo da Vinci set about painting " The Last Supper " on the wall of a monastery in Milan, he was sore troubled to find a perfectly pure and sacred face which should serve him as study for the counten- ance of Christ. At last he discovered a boy in the choir of the cathedral so beautiful, so tender, and so pure that no better study for the divine and loving Saviour could have been found upon the earth. When the central figure was completed, the great artist worked contentedly for many years upon his picture till he came to another standstill. Nowhere could he find a model base enough for the figure of Judas. After some search, however, he discovered a broken and degraded creature for this purpose. On the last day, when he was dismissing the Judas model, that abandoned and wretched man said to him, " Signer, you have painted me before." " Indeed," answered Leonardo, " and where was that ? " " In this same picture on the wall," replied the man. Leonardo looked at him closely. " You are wrong," he said ; " I have not painted you here, except as Judas." " Yes," rejoined the other, " you painted me as Christ." The horror of Leonardo at this terrible discovery cannot be told. The once pure and beauti- 245 The Shadow ful boy of the cathedral choir, falling in with evil companions at Rome, whither he had gone in youth to study music, had become first a victim of dissipation and folly, and finally of shameless vice and the most terrible crime. Thus did Leonardo learn how the world may corrupt the divinest innocence and the most beautiful purity. Mary Grafton closed the book, and with a great horror in her eyes stared straight before her. She had never been so shocked, so shaken in her life. Her confidence was torn away from her. She stood on the precipice, listening to the roar of the abyss. Christopher was going into danger. The world was waiting to assault his soul. The contagion of the world was something terrible and appalling. Would his innocence stand ? Would his purity survive ? The boy whose lovely countenance had served the painter for a study of the Christ had become a fitting study for the traitorous Judas. A mother's prayers had surely guarded that child in youth. He was pure till he broke away to seek art in a distant city, beyond the sheltering love and protection of his mother. From maternal love to the world ; from Christ to Judas ! Oh, terrible, awful ! She slept no more that night. Her mind was too haunted by perilous fears to pray to God. She lay tortured by a waking nightmare of the world's iniquity, dreaming dark dreams of Christopher's ruin. In the morning she went early to his room, the book in her hand. He wakened to find her sitting on the side of the bed. He embraced her with impulsive love, full of high spirits and happiness. 246 The Harmless Deception She gave him the book and watched him as he read. " How dreadful, how horrible 1 " he exclaimed, looking up at her, and closing the volume. " Promise me, Christopher," she said, slowly and sorrowfully, " to pray to God every morning and every night of your life, and to remember Him in every hour of your day." For a moment she paused. Then the terrible anxiety from which she had suffered all the night broke down her strength ; with tears standing in her eyes, her voice troubled by broken sobbings, she took her child in her arms, and uttered words which may not be written. " Oh, mother, mother ! " he cried, straining her to his breast, " I love you more than life ; a thousand times I would rather die than touch your heart with a moment's grief. Do not be afraid for me. I am your son. I can never fall into sin. We shall be happy and safe together all the days of our life." " Pray to God," she whispered earnestly ; " promise me ; night and day ; never forget never forget." " I will pray to God, night and day, and think of you every minute of my life," he answered. " Oh, mother, you hurt me 1 It is as if you don't know how I love you." "Pray to God," she whispered again, "pray to God." 247 CHAPTER XVI. THE TRIAL OF STRENGTH ISABEL GRAFTON was following a definite policy. 1 She had an object in life which obsessed her thoughts. To breed in Christopher's mind a weaken- ing criticism of his mother, gradually and carefully to alienate the young man's affections from that noble heart, was the purpose of her life. In this diabolical intention she saw nothing evil. Her conscience, drilled in the philosophy of what is called worldly common sense which is the con- temptuous antithesis of religion never reproached her, never hindered her, never for a single moment induced her to hesitate and reflect. The advantages of wealth and position were real and insistent in her mind ; to question them was ludicrous ; to repudiate them was fanatical. A meek and lowly spirit was associated in her philosophy with hypocrisy ; a heart whose affections were set on things above amused her as a solecism ; religion was something which gave up the ghost, for all intelligent people, in the Middle Ages. Mr. Nuttle might have quoted of this lady the line in Tacitus, Corrumpere et corrumpi seculum vocatur ; to corrupt others and be oneself corrupt is called life. Untroubled by conscience, and perfectly convinced that she was seeking the rightful happiness of her 248 The Trial of Strength young nephew, this astute and able woman of the world set herself to win the heart of Christopher against his mother. In this contest the advantages were altogether on the side of Glevering. To begin with, Mary Grafton knew nothing of the struggle. She was in the position of a city unconscious of an enemy drawing near to invest it. Christopher had placed an enormous advantage in the hands of his aunt by consenting to make a dupe of his mother. Isabel, on the other hand, was waging war in the full light of day, and with an accomplice in the citadel she sought to beleaguer who was himself the main object of her dispositions. There were other advantages. Isabel was rich. To Christopher, whose blood was hot with the fire of youth, and whose soul was straining at the leash of penury and obstruction, Isabel appeared in the light of a fairy godmother who would give him all that his heart desired. Her philosophy chimed with the im- petuous mood of his youth. He realised the pleasures and delights of a long purse. He saw joy in the world. He was impatient of restraint. The idea that one must deny the beautiful world, deny one's very self, and cultivate some mys'terious and peaceful desire for an existence after death which was invisible, in- tangible, and unknown, struck him as the unreal delusion of an imagination broken free from reason. His soul lived, pulsed, and longed in his senses. He could understand the philosophy of his aunt , the ideas of his mother troubled, disturbed, and some- times irritated his mind. With these considerable advantages on her side 249 The Shadow Isabel pursued her diplomacy. She made no declara- tion of her purpose to Sir Matthew, and only showed herself to Augustus Nuttle in the guise of Chris- topher's patroness. No one knew the purpose to which she had devoted her singular powers and her tremendous resolution. Christopher certainly was wholly unconscious of it. The first move was made when the tutor brought Christopher to Glevering ; the second, when Isabel sent both tutor and pupil for a foreign tour. Isabel determined that this second move should establish her advantage and make the way clear for the third. Mr. Nuttle was provided with a large sum of money and instructed to indulge his pupil in everything. Chris- topher was to be shown the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. His eyes were to be dazzled. New appetites were to be created in his heart. He was to break the apron-string binding him to his mother and become a man of the world. Augustus saw that Christopher travelled in luxury. He took a personal pleasure in teaching him the dis- crimination of a gourmet. It amused him to lead this unfledged and wondering young creature into the established places of an immemorial luxury. He would sit back in his chair after dinner, and over the curling smoke of his cigar, watch the shining eyes and the flushed face of the handsome youth who stared about him with a half-troubled and all-excited gaze. But again and again the mind of the amused tutor, himself revelling for the first time since his thriving days, in the comfort of a full purse, would be haunted by the grave eyes of the boy's mother, and he would 250 The Trial of Strength become aware of her voice saying to his soul, " Remind him of God." The tutor was subjected to temptation. He was not a devil beguiling a young man towards evil which he himself despised. He was a weak and self-indulgent human being, powerfully inclined to the very pleasures which half-attracted and half-frightened the boy for whose character he was responsible to the mother. But he made an attempt on many occasions to fulfil his promise to Mary Grafton. He would speak in his large manner, with a flourish of words and his cheeks puffed out, of the extinguished pomp and vanished vanity of Babylon and Rome. He would enlarge on the early victory of Christianity at Antioch, and its gradual spread across the Western world, declaiming finely of the perfumed luxury and heated voluptuous- ness which had withered and perished under the pure breath from Galilean hills. " All this that we see before us now," he would say, " will perish and pass utterly away. It is but the lifting of a little wave in the vast ocean of infinity ; the striking of a gilded clock in the immense silence of eternity. ' Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.' To become a glutton in this great universe, to forget God in the midst of eternity what a madness! Epicuri de grege porcum what an epitaph." He took Christopher to Roman Catholic churches famous for their music. He was one of those modern sentimentalists in religion, who regard the principles of Protestantism as insular and local, not to be carried with him by the educated Englishman when he travels 251 The Shadow into Latin countries. Christopher, therefore, beheld his tutor posturing in all manner of attitudes and adopting what Bacon calls " a new cringe " at every few minutes of his devotion. And these things, far from counteracting the magnetic forces at work upon his soul from the world of sense, only induced the boy to put religion more and more out of his mind as something to which he was evidently by nature antipathetic. However, his heart was pure, and his delight in art was now so great that the common sins of the common world had really little power over his senses. Augustus felt safe and self-satisfied when he walked beside Christopher in picture-galleries and museums, or pointed out to him in churches and cathedrals the splendours of ecclesiastical architecture. The boy responded to his illuminating discourse on these occasions with a quick and vigorous enthusiasm. There was nothing whatever in his nature to suggest a hog from the sty of Epicurus. But Augustus forgot that profound saying of the mother, " No soul is safe which does not perfectly know that to love God and to desire spiritual perfection is the reason of its exist- ence." Also he failed to recall the admonition and the warning, " Do not think that I want him only to be pure, only to be moral ; I want him to adore God." Christopher returned from this tour strengthened and confirmed in his ambition. To Mary's quiet and comprehensive gaze, the change in her son was great and decisive. He had quite ceased to be a child ; there was not a vestige left of his playful infancy ; he was a man. 252 The Trial of Strength She accepted this change without grief and without regret Her great hope for him, that he should enter the service of the Church, a hope to which she had clung in the secrecy of her soul up to this very hour, perished at her first glance of him. God had ordained otherwise. She had nothing to do but submit. She could not help delighting in his handsome appearance, and taking pleasure in the proud intelli- gence which showed in his fine eyes. His manner was so confident and pleasant ; his voice was so musical and high-spirited ; it was natural that she should feel proud of her son. He added glory to the attic. A week after his return he surprised her by saying that he wanted to go on another walking tour with his tutor. She had hoped that he was glad to be home, and that to rest with her in their eyry was a delight to him after the fatigue of foreign travel. But she did not frustrate his wishes. The walking tour was another deception practised on this pure heart. It was necessary for Christopher to go to Glevering and express gratitude to Miss Grafton for his lordly tour. He had forgotten to thank his mother for her sacrifice. When he got back from Glevering, where his appearance delighted both his uncle and aunt, he found that his mother had made an engagement to go with him to the Grindleys for supper. At this meal his affairs were brought to a crisis. Old Jack thought the time had come when the services of Augustus Nuttle might be dispensed with ; the old gentleman had many calls on his purse, and the 253 The Shadow education of Christopher seemed to him now a matter that might be ruled out of his ledger. He questioned Christopher, and asked him what he intended to do with his life. " It is time," said the old man, " that you began to think of helping your mother." Christopher, with a sinking heart, replied that he wished to be an artist. Mr. Grindley drew back his eyelids, rounded his mouth, and stared. Art, in his mind, was a hobby ; something for young people to pursue in the evening, after the serious duties of the day had been performed. Christopher said that while he was in Paris he had made inquiries, and that it was really quite possible for a student to live on a few francs a week. The old gentleman still stared at him. " I think," said Mary, " that I can manage to provide for him. He was quite happy on his tour with the little that I could give him." Christopher flushed scarlet. When they were back in the eyry, Mary asked him how much money would be necessary for his support in Paris, and the length of time he would require to study there. He said quickly, looking away from her, " Wouldn't it be better to write to Aunt Isabel and ask her to help me." Mary became a little pale. " I would rather help you myself if I can," she said quietly. Then,, after a pause, she asked gently, " Do you regret Glevering, Christopher ? " He was silent for some time, keeping his gaze 254 The Trial of Strength averted. " I wish," he said presently, bringing his eyes to her face for a swift moment, " that we could manage to be friends with them. They would help you. You wouldn't have to work so hard, and stint yourself of so many things. And I could have four or five years' study." She became quite white. " Four or five years ? " she asked. " That is really not a long time if you are tre- mendously in earnest." She was thinking of the separation. " But if you can live economically," she said slowly, " I could manage to give you the money without trouble. Why should we look to Glevering ? Don't you feel that it is better for us to be independent of all patronage and interference ? You don't want a life of grandeur and luxury, Christopher ? You have been quite happy, haven't you, with your mother in our little eyry ? " He got up and began to walk about the room. " I can't bear to think of you working so hard and living so poorly," he exclaimed. " I reproached my- self a hundred times when I was living in luxury abroad and enjoying myself like a prince." " Living in luxury ! " she interrupted, turning to look at him. He flushed and said, " Compared to this. The smallest hotel is quite grand," he added, " compared with our garret." Then, growing bold in the midst of his sudden discomfiture, " Mother," he exclaimed, coming close to her, " why not make it up with Glevering ? They can't hurt us now. They can't 255 The Shadow separate us. And they could help us just when we need it. Think ! You could come to Paris with me. Wouldn't that be fine ! We could live together Why not make it up ? " She took his hand. " They could hurt us," she replied quietly, looking up at him. " Do you know how ? By drawing our thoughts and affections away from God. All temptation lies in that, Christopher. The shadow of the world is always seeking to obtrude between the soul and God. The world conquers us whenever we attach importance to earthly satisfactions. It breaks the central communion of the soul, which cannot live without the calm and celestial repose of desire for God." He made no answer. " You find it difficult to think that this is true ? " she inquired gently. " It is, nevertheless, the testi- mony of all history. Human life is incomplete with- out the longing after immortality and the complete reliance on the love of God, which is religion. To compromise between time and eternity is to make shipwreck of our peace. The more we are detached from the world, the deeper, the profounder, is our repose. Believe that this is true ; not because I say it, not because I know it, but because it is the written wisdom of all the ages ; above everything else, because it is the illumination of the sweet Saviour whom we call Light of the World." He said that he believed, kissing her forehead ; but added, kneeling at her side and stroking her hands with a son's caresses, " One need not live without religion, mother dear, because one takes advantage of 256 The Trial of Strength the help of relations. The Grindleys have helped us ; that hasn't interfered with our religion. Why should the help of Aunt Isabel be different ? " " Because her soul is different. Her help would not be given in the spirit of Christ, but with a base object in view the perversion of your soul. Do not think that sin comes to us in theatrical dress, with in- famy written on its brow ; it comes often with pleasant- ness and kindness, and chiefly in the smallest things of life for character is corrupted more by trivial habits and thoughts which appear insignificant, than by great and striking events in our life. That is what I have endeavoured to teach you from childhood. Religion is an attitude of the soul towards God ; it is a character. Very easily is that attitude changed, and that character altered, by the smallest compromise with the world, the least adjustment of our opinion to the standards of the world. It is because I want you to set your whole affections upon God, and to love Him with all the force and energy of your being, despising every temporal vanity, that I have laboured to keep you clear of the destructive influence of Glevering. Do not undo my work ; do not throw my love aside ; stand superior to all the allurements of money and pride, and yield yourself utterly to the love of God." Christopher, troubled in his conscience, and dis- tracted by the difficult pass in his affairs, carried the matter to his tutor. Mr. Nuttle set his mind at rest. He had already discussed this business with Mr. Grindley. " I told him," said Augustus, " that I knew people in Paris who would look after you for next to nothing, 257 s in exchange for lessons in English a harmless tarra- diddle which you can tell your mother, not to deceive her for your purpose is not evil but to save her from pecuniary sacrifices and mental anxiety. Miss Grafton, you understand, will arrange matters through me. I cease to be your tutor. I remain your friend. I shall tell your mother, what I have already told the Grindleys, that my circumstances are easy and that I intend to devote a considerable part of my leisure to looking after you in Paris. I shall be your frequent visitor. As for pocket-money, you will have ample. Your mother will feel that as you are earning your board and lodging by teaching English, the few shil- lings she can send you, without distress to herself, will suffice for all your needs. Save those shillings, Christopher ; do not spend one of them ; and when the great and happy day arrives for you to reconcile your mother and your father's relations, give them back with kisses and with tears to the mother who will adore you the more for your victory and fame. She will never reproach you. Pia mater phis quam se sapere, et -virtutibus esse priorem vult. The end of her love will be greater than the beginning." Exactly as the wisdom and diplomacy of Mr. Nuttle decided was this matter of Christopher's apprentice- ship to art concluded between mother and son. He told her that he could support himself in Paris. What were his feelings when he told her the lie ? He was young, he was innocent, he was good and wholesome. Yet he could look into those loving eyes, which were lit by the purest fires of devotion, and utter words chosen and purposed to deceive her. He 258 The Trial of Strength knew her mind that she desired him to stand free from Glevering, that all her laborious days, all her sacrifices, and all her innumerable stintings of self, had but this one object for their end. Yet he could put himself under the protection of Glevering, look into his mother's eyes, and utterly deceive her love. His heart smote him while he spoke. When her face lighted and she took his hand and said that she was pleased, he trembled for a moment on the edge of confession. But the poison, long planted in his mind, exerted its power and opposed this sudden impulse of a generous heart. He told himself that the lie was uttered for his mother's sake. The parting was terrible for the mother. Night after night she had dreamed of the Christ and the Judas in Leonardo's picture. Her days were haunted by the fear that her son who was going from her in the flush of his youth, so good to look upon, so pure and noble and generous within, would return with the marks of the world upon his face and the bitterness of knowledge in his heart. She' had seen the transition from child to man. Was it God's will that she should see the awful transition from innocence to guilt ? He was conscious of this terrible anxiety in her heart. He dreaded a scene. A conversation earnest and direct frightened and dismayed him. He struggled to keep their intimacy during these last days on a light and cheerful ground. He made himself very busy, went often to the British Museum, read hard at French on his return, and got Augustus to come in of an evening. 259 S 2 The Shadow He found it necessary, the nearer the day of his departure approached, to avoid his mother's eyes. She never intruded her anxiety upon his excited mind. She was busy with his wardrobe in her spare time ; she entered into his gay moods at meals ; she gave herself with pleasure to helping him in his French. Only on his last night in the eyry did she speak to his soul, and that very simply, quietly, and but for a moment. She brought him the little book of quota- tions from Fenelon which had comforted and helped her in so many difficult hours of her life, and asked him to take it with him to Paris. " I think that all I would say to you," she con- cluded, opening the worn volume, "is expressed in these simple words : ' Good intentions will avail you but little, and your piety (however sincere) will only reproach and torment you, unless God is the rock of your confidence, and the resting-place of your hopes.' To part with you. Christopher," closing the little book and giving it into his hand, " is not easy for me. It can only be tolerable if I know that when I am praying night and day, you too are praying to the same God with the same desires in your heart. That is our agreement. We will pray together. Every morning, and every night. You will not forget, you will never miss, will you ? I think if you did I should be aware of it," she said, putting her hand upon his shoulder. " No soul, dear son, is safe against the world that does not continually desire the presence of God." This was the only solemn moment in their parting. On the morrow, in the midst of the last hurrying 260 The Trial of Strength preparations for departure, came Augustus Nuttle to take the student away. Mrs. Grindley had given Christopher a pair of " military hair-brushes " ; Old Jack had slipped into his hand a couple of sovereigns ; poor old Miss Maffey had brought him a cardboard bookmarker worked by her own hands with blue and scarlet wool ; the clergy- man in charge of the mission had given him Pere Gratry's Henri Perreyve ; and the two old pensioners, the one paralysed and the other blind, had sent him, by the hand of Mary, a dozen cotton handkerchiefs tied up with pink ribbon. And now came Augustus with a little packet neatly enfolded in finest tissue paper. It was a silver cigarette case with Christopher's monogram in the centre. " He is old enough," said Augustus, with amusing seriousness, " to acquire the great and saving habit of tobacco. I wish I could quote Horace on the subject. Unfortunately that great man lived before this bene- ficent discovery." Mary felt a certain coldness at her heart. The words, " He is old enough," frightened her more than the gift, which seemed to be an outward sign of his masculine independence. Alas, old enough to acquire what other habits ! old enough to learn how many new ways, how many fresh desires ? She realised that he was going, not only out into the world, but definitely away from her. Their farewells were taken in the room. She held him quietly in her arms, let her lips rest for a moment on his brow while she breathed a silent prayer to God, and then, drawing back her head a little, she looked into his eyes, which were still innocent and pure. 261 CHAPTER XVII. ALARM CHRISTOPHER had been nearly two years in w Paris, with only the briefest and most occasional visits to London, when the collector of jungle produce and Annabel his kind-hearted wife came to stay with the Grindleys in Merrick Square. They had been in Germany, on some business of Mauritius', and had come through Paris, where they had spent a day or two with Christopher. When the first cheerful greetings were over in Merrick Square, and high tea had come and gone and con- versation had settled down into a pleasant course of gossip, Mauritius suddenly exclaimed : " And now tell me about Christopher Columbus ? Has Glevering relented, and has the right honourable baronet stuffed the boy's purse with doubloons and moidores ? Tell me about that." Mrs. Grindley lifted her hands and Old Jack drew back his eyelids. Neither of them spoke. " He seems to have plenty of money," said Annabel, glancing anxiously from one to the other, " and to be living a little extravagantly. Of course we did not ask him any questions. We thought it would be indelicate and unwise." " I also thought," laughed Mauritius, " that it would 262 Alarm put Master Reynard on his guard against us make him wary and induce him to draw in his horns." " We let him entertain us and made as though we observed nothing," added Annabel. Mrs. Grindley turned from looking anxiously first at Annabel and then at Mauritius, to rest a helpless and questioning gaze on her husband's face. "We don't mean for a minute," said Annabel, "that the handsome boy is wicked or foolish or reckless." " Not in the least," said Mauritius. " It's only that he does seem to have a lot of money and to know a great many high-spirited young fellows. You understand what we mean, aunt ? " " He must sow his wild oats like every one else," laughed Mauritius. "The boy is doing well. He's working like a nigger one of the worst workers in the world, by the way where did that ridiculous notion come from ? No, Christopher Columbus is not in danger. He'll do. I prophesy that one day he will be a famous man. But, my word, he seems to have more twenty-franc pieces to throw about than is altogether safe for a handsome young fellow with a captivating manner." "Jack dear," said Mrs. Grindley, "what does it mean ? " Mr. Grindley was puffing faster than usual at his long pipe, one arm extended, a trembling finger at the end of this arm fidgeting and pressing at the grey ashes in the bowl. His eyes were fixed upon the fireplace. Every now and then his knees worked and his crossed slippers gave a slight jerk. 263 The Shadow No answer could be got out of the old gentleman. He shook his head when they asked him what it meant. He let them glance away to other subjects, and sat in his grandfather chair, gaping at the fire, silent and thoughtful, his knees twitching, his finger fidgeting at the bowl of his pipe. Quite late in the evening, when they were talking about something else, Old Jack got laboriously out of his chair, stumped to his tobacco-jar on the side- board, and said, " Ask Nuttle." It was agreed that this should be done, and that not a hint of any kind should be given to Mary, who did not yet know that her friends were in England. Mr. Nuttle came to breakfast on the following morning, and explained matters to his own satisfac- tion. He said that Christopher had no doubt let himself go, being a generous nature, on the occasion of a visit from such old and devoted friends as Mr. and Mrs. Mauritius Smith. Perhaps he had borrowed a little money for the festivities, and would have to live close in order to repay it. Augustus would see to that when he next visited Paris. But, in any case, Christopher was extremely popular among the people with whom he lived, and he was really earning quite a comfortable living by his lessons in English. There was not the slightest cause, Mr. Nuttle assured the company, for a moment's anxiety. Old Jack rose from the breakfast table to go to the city. Mrs. Grindley fetched his muffler and old- fashioned tall hat, while Jenny put on his highlows and fastened the laces as he sat in the hall. 264 Alarm "What do you think of it, Jack dear?" asked Mrs. Grindley. "I think," said Old Jack, "that some of those twenty- franc pieces ought to have found their way to his mother." It was this thought which had kept the old gentleman sleepless for an hour and more overnight, and with which he had waked in the morning. Soon after breakfast Annabel hastened across the road to Trinity Street, longing to embrace Mary, for whom her affection was deepened by this new mis- giving concerning Christopher. She had quite made up her mind to speak hopefully and cheerfully of the young student, certainly to utter not a single word which would distress the faithful mother's heart with anxiety. Mary was deeply delighted to see her kind and loving friend. She embraced her with warmth and caressing tenderness. Annabel brought joy into the loneliness of her attic, where she now lived very near to the line of hunger, for the sake of Christopher, whose absence had become a deprivation and a sorrow inexpressibly painful and desolate. But when Annabel exclaimed, with twinkling brown eyes and smiling lips, " I have got news for you, my dear ; a surprise ! I bring you a greeting, and who do you think it is from ? from Christopher ! we have seen him ! " when she said this, Mary's eyes flashed with eagerness, she took the little woman again into her arms, and cried out, " Oh, tell me, tell me ! This is too good to be true." She was glad to see Annabel for her own kind 265 The Shadow sake, but to see her as one who had lately come from the presence of Christopher, from the sight of his eyes, the touch of his hand, the sound of his voice this was a greater joy than she had imagined. For Mary had longed often and very earnestly for some woman to come and tell her about Chris- topher, some good woman who would regard him from her own point of contemplation, and observe changes in him, small but significant. The reports of Augustus Nuttle were the views of a man a man of the world, too, who would see nothing of subtle changes in the boy, and who would count it a good and hopeful thing to see the young man approximating to his own easy and tolerant ideas of human life. They had meant nothing to Mary beyond the satisfaction of Christopher's messages and the knowledge that he was well. Annabel was a woman, and a good woman. She would have everything to say which Mary most desired to know. Very eagerly, then, did the poor mother take this kind friend by the hand, lead her to a seat, and still holding her hand as she sat beside her, ask question after question concerning her son. For a long time Annabel answered cheerfully enough. As the questions became more intimate, however, she began to fence. Finally, under the pressure of searching and brave questions, and under the influence of Mary's compelling eyes, she began to hint a vague and shadowy anxiety. She spoke of Christopher's good looks, his popularity, his high spirits. She said that one did not want him to be tame and spiritless. A boy with a generous 266 Alarm and impulsive nature like Christopher must express himself in a gallant and vigorous manner. Mary listened with her disconcerting grave eyes, which were full of profound spirituality, searching the face of her friend. " Do you mean," she asked very quietly, " that he is inclined to riot ? " Annabel, looking away from Mary, laughed at this idea. Mary said, interrupting her, and gently stroking her hand, "If you had known his father you would understand his danger, and you would not leave me in ignorance." Annabel was struck dumb. She searched the eyes of the mother and wondered what story, what tragedy, lay behind those terrible words, "If you had known his father you would understand his danger." It came to her that to deceive Mary would be a crime. She dare not, however, utter all her fears. " Tell me the truth," said the mother. Annabel looked into her eyes. She was still under the shock of those words, " If you had known his father," still wondering what frightful narrative of suffering and misery they abridged with such signifi- cant brevity. Mary had suffered, then, from some- thing sharper than poverty ; Christopher carried in his veins the heritage of some iniquity which had overshadowed his mother's life ; what could she say, what could she do ? to be silent, to sit actionless in the face of this danger, was a crime. 267 The Shadow " Tell me the truth," said the mother, and caressed her hand. Then Annabel said, " I do not think for one moment, my dear, that Christopher has done anything of which you would disapprove. I believe he is thoroughly good and noble. But there is a risk. I will tell you in secret, but say nothing to anybody else, to my uncle and aunt, to Mauritius, or to Mr. Nuttle. You are sensible as well as good, brave as well as loving. And there is no cause for hurry or excitement Christopher, my dear, appears to have more money than he actually needs ; he seems to be surrounded by poorer students who seem to sponge upon him ; he does nothing wrong ; he is temperate ; he is the same loving and high-spirited boy as before, but his very generosity to his friends, who seem much poorer than himself, leads him into extravagance which is perhaps not very good for him, particularly if he has inherited any tendency to wildness and pleasure." Mary's face did not pale. Her eyes did not close. All the time Annabel was speaking she held her friend's hand, occasionally stroking it, and kept her gaze upon Annabel's face. But there was such anguish in her heart as cannot be told, such agony of despair as cannot be written, for she felt that this news had come too late, that her son had chosen, and that nothing could turn him back. Annabel leaned forward, placed her free hand upon Mary's shoulder, and kissed her brow. It was cold as marble. " It is a pity," she said gently, " that you cannot live 268 Alarm with him in Paris. If you were there, always at his side, there would be no danger." Mary shook her head. " Oh, I am sure of it," Annabel said ; " your in- fluence always near would prevent any risk.", Again Mary shook her head. " But he loves you so dearly. You should have seen how his face lighted up when he spoke about you. And he is preparing a surprise for you, taking such pride in it He loves you, my dear, better than anything else on the earth. If you could manage to live with him over there I am sure it would prevent the slightest risk of his making unwise friendships or forming dangerous habits." Mary said, " If he loved me, he would love God. And if he loved God he would be safe." Annabel was shocked. "My dear," she said re- proachfully, " do you doubt his love for you ?" Mary's eyes did not waver. " The love which I have tried to create in his heart is not there. I love him, but he does not love me." " Can you say that ? It is terrible." " I can say it. It is true." " That he does not love you ? " " No, he does not love me." There was such final and absolute conviction in these words that Annabel was shaken and abashed. Mary looked gently at her, and said, "This is nothing new, my dear friend. I have known from the first dawn of his youth that he does not give me the whole of his heart, which is love. You have not brought me to this discovery. I am not dejected. 269 The Shadow Do not reproach yourself ; and do not think that my love is exacting and unjust I shall seek to make him love me all the days of my life. Do you know how I wish him to love me ? I wish him to love me in a perfect communion of our spirits. He may have different desires, different habits, and different am- bitions from me ; our earthly ways may be entirely different ; but the poise of his spirit must be one with mine it must be directed towards God. Only that will content me. He must feel with me that nothing on this earth, neither its glories, its ambitions, nor its rewards, can be compared with the things of God. Until he feels that, his affection for me is not love, and his soul is in danger. Think a moment, and you will see. Is not the heart of love self-sacrifice ? If I asked him to give up the world, to give up his art, and to devote himself to helping the poor and suffering for Christ's sake, do you think he would gladly and willingly make the sacrifice ? No, my friend, he is dear to me beyond all expression of language, but he does not love me. And he is in danger. The soul incapable of apprehending that in comparison with God all the lures of the world are as dust, is not safe. Its progression is towards the animal." Annabel could say nothing to this. There are some moments in our life, when a spirit nobler than our own reveals to us glimpses of those pure and distant heights of being which exist for most of us only as impossible hopes and shadows of our dreams. We see those luminous heights clear and distinct, shining in a celestial radiance, lifting their lofty summits high above 270 Alarm the fret and fever of the world ; and for that brief and flashing moment of illumination, we are ourselves trans- figured. We behold the spiritual life. We are conscious of immortality. For a moment Annabel's good and kindly and tolerant nature was caught up into the sphere of spirit and saw the everlasting truth of things. The love of Mary for her son did not seem to her, then, a demand extravagant and non-natural. She realised that this quiet woman, with the grave eyes and the melodious low voice, saw human life with a truer vision than the soul who compromises between God and Mammon. For one moment, brief, sudden, inexpressible, but tremendously convincing, she felt the majesty of the religious life and the unutterable content of that great word immortality. The division of humanity became plain to her. She saw with large eyes the immemorial contest between good and evil. The hosts of God and the hosts of Mammon were those who believe in death and those who believe in immortality. She was dazed in the midst of her illumination by the thought that vast numbers of the human race believe in death. They must, or their lives would be different. It was a new thought to her. She had not before contemplated the great truth, that those who live to the world believe in death. The confession of faith of the world is Credo, Mors that, and no other. To believe in one's extinction, one's annihila- tion, one's swift approaching and irresistible blotting out of thought, feeling, consciousness how terrible how godless ! But not to believe in death is to 271 The Shadow believe in immortality ; and she saw this was her illumination which made Mary's love a reasonable and inevitable passion in her eyes she saw that to believe in immortality is to lose susceptibility to the blandish- ments and beguilements of the world, is to be good and pure and wholly spiritual. Really to believe in immortality, really and profoundly to believe that the soul is a traveller through eternity, destined for the everlasting and unutterable satisfactions of divine love, is to be sublimely immune from the little enticements of terrestrial existence, let and hindered as it is on every side by the limitations of an animal body. Yes ; she saw, for that brief moment of illumination, the impulse, the inspiration, the surety of knowledge which creates out of common humanity such Christlike souls as the disciple of Assisi. But the light flashed and withdrew. The greyness of the attic returned. She heard again the noise of the street. She saw the human eyes of her friend. She felt the obsession of the world investing her mind with material reality. Shades of the prison house began to close upon her radiant soul. Not only did she herself lose sight of that immortal sea which brought us hither, and cease to hear its mighty waters rolling evermore, but in the obsession of material reality which gives such conceit to the powers of our human senses, she truly felt that Mary inhabited a world of delusion and that she could justly say of her, See but life as it really is, and " Soon, soon thy cheer would die, Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfixed thy powers, And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made." 272 AND NOW CAME AUGUSTUS WITH A LITTLE PACKET NEATLY ENFOLDED IN FINEST TISSUE PAPER. Alarm Yes, see life as it truly is, poor dreamer, and all your golden unsubstantial dream would " Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours." " I think," she said in her kindest and gentlest tone, " that I understand what you mean. But I must say, and I only say it because I hope it may help you, that your love for Christopher does seem to me a little exacting. Do you not forget, perhaps, the difference of his sex, and the difference of his age ? And then, too, you must remember, dear, that not all of us feel so certain of the next world as you do. For most of us, particularly when we are very young and the world seems so very delightful to our fresh senses, any other life must appear shadowy and problematical. It is more a possibility than a certainty. With a great many religious people, I really think it is more a hope than a definite conviction. As Tennyson says, and as I think so beautifully ' We have but faith ; we cannot know, For knowledge is of things we see.' Christopher must be given time to develop and grow. He has perhaps lost something of the faith of his childhood, but that happens to all vigorous and eager minds in youth ; it does not mean that he will remain where he is ; he is good, he is affectionate, he is generous, give him time and he will grow in knowledge and come nearer to you with every year. I am sure of it." Mary said in answer to this comfort, " I cannot explain." She knew why it was that she could not make her 273 T The Shadow friend understand. Annabel was not a mother. To only a father or a mother is the divine knowledge really possible of the fulness of love. Annabel could never know in what manner Mary loved her son. "If you loved someone with deep affection," Mary said slowly, " would you be content with a mechanical response ? You would surely desire the answer of the heart. Is not that the chief part of Christ's revelation concerning our love towards God? I think it is His wonderful insistence on spiritual love, spiritual truth, and His condemnation of formal service and mechanical devotion, which most satisfies us in contemplating His character, which most lifts Christianity above all other religions and marks it as divine. It satisfied the Pharisees that a man did not steal, did not commit murder. Christ shook their religion to the dust by saying that a man who does not sin, but who desires to sin, is equally guilty with him who does. That lifts morality into the region of religion. Religion is an answering love to the love of God. And so I face the truth. My son's love for me is the mechanical affection of morality ; it is not the spiritual affection of religion. My love would be unworthy if it was satisfied with what he gives me now. Such love as he gives me he owes me; it is my right, my due,; to withhold it from me, not to be conscious of it, would make him a monster. But I desire to be loved in another way." Annabel repeated her conviction that Christopher's love would grow and develop with his character. " You must not think me unreasonable and exacting," Mary answered, with a sudden tenderness which had something in it of Christopher's own impulsiveness. 274 Alarm I think I know how he feels towards the world. I think I can understand what it is to be a young man. I think I can realise his temptations. But the differ- ences of sex and age do not affect the direction of a character, and all my anxiety for him is summed up there the direction of his character. A hundred times I think about him very happily, yearn towards him with simple delight in his pleasantness, and love him with a very hunger of heart and soul which is without anxiety. But always a voice asks in my ear, Whither ? He is loving, generous, charming, and good ; but whither is he travelling, what is the direction of his soul ? That question keeps my love awake. My sleepless love must be tortured until I know in my soul that his face is set where ? Towards the morning light. Every hour that he lives, facing as he is now, he is advancing towards the night. Can I be satisfied ? Can I be without anxiety ? " Annabel still struggled to convert this superb solici- tude of motherhood into the tolerant optimism which satisfies most people's idea of their duty towards their neighbour. She did not realise the reasonableness of Mary's anxiety until finally the mother told her the story of the Christ and the Judas in Leonardo's " Last Supper." Then she said : " I am glad I have told you what I think of Chris- topher. Go to him, my dear. I think you ought to be at his side." " That is impossible." " Why ? " " I must earn my living." " But " 275 T 2 The Shadow "Yes?" " Christopher appears to have plenty of money." Mary started. " He earns money," Annabel said, " by teaching English. You might surely do the same." For the first time Mary reflected on the strange knowledge that Christopher had means. In the beginning of this interview she had heard something about money, but the word had passed, the significance had escaped her, she had been occupied by a greater matter. Now the full meaning struck her mind, and filled her with a fresh horror. She had hoarded her poor pence to send to her son ; his letters had always expressed a gratitude for these remittances, which implied a rigid economy and a devoted ascetism on his own part. Whence came the means for prodigality ? A dreadful terror possessed her. How could he possibly have money ? The thought grew in perplexity and horror. It was not only that he deceived her, not only that he took her money apparently to squander it, but that he made money in some way which he dared not tell her. What way was that ? To what iniquity had he stooped his soul ? She endeavoured to mask her anxiety from the scrutinising sympathy of Annabel, but Annabel perceived it clearly enough, and was full of remorse for having sown the seeds of such terrible disquiet in the mother's heart. 276 When she returned to Merrick Square this feeling of remorse deepened. She was haunted by it, and frightened. She said nothing to Mrs. Grindley, but when Mauritius returned from a busy day in the City she told him what she had done and expressed her anxiety. He made light of her misgiving. On the following morning, however, Annabel woke with this fear strong in her heart. Again the Collector attempted to ridicule her anxiety. " Do you think for a single moment," he asked, "that Mrs. Grafton is the woman to take poison or throw herself over London Bridge ? " " Let us go round and see her," said Annabel. They went together. Miss Maffey opened the door on the chain, and Mauritius got behind his wife to prevent a second panic on the landlady's part. Annabel advanced to the narrow opening and asked for Mary. Miss Maffey's eyes and nose came round the corner ; then the door closed, the chain scratched in the socket, and once again the door opened. Miss Maffey stood on the mat, drawing her shawl closer about her concave chest, her thin nose growing visibly bluer in the morning air. She looked like some strange prehistoric bird, miserable in the knowledge of its anachronism. Annabel inquired again for Mary. " Gone," said Miss Maffey abruptly. " Gone," said Annabel, laying her hand suddenly upon the arm of Mauritius and feeling terribly guilty. " To Paris," said Miss Maffey. 277 CHAPTER XVIII. THE RISK was one chief defect in the character of 1 Christopher Grafton. He lacked that highest courage which is the inexorable and determined valour of a virtuous nature. His gentle disposition made him conciliatory where he should have been relentless. His extreme degree of sensitiveness caused him to shrink from giving pain, where to wound, and to wound deeply, would have been an act of mercy. Because he was tolerant, he was pliant. To say that he courted popularity and made him- self all things to all men, from the vainest and meanest of motives, would be not only to traduce and utterly misrepresent his character, but to miss the secret of his spiritual contest. He did perhaps sometimes think pleasantly of his popularity, and, as a boy will, be glad with himself that other people liked him, sought him out, and quite openly admired him. But this was not his danger. His character, his destiny, his soul, hung in the balance of peril because the gentleness and conciliatoriness of his lovable nature made him accommodating in situations where resolute opposition was demanded of a virtuous nature. He shrank from controverting opinions which he knew to be evil, not because he was inclined to their evil, but 278 The Risk because to dispute them seemed to him invidious, and to denounce them seemed to him the action of self- righteousness. He did not want to preach. The r61e of moralist offended him. The great virtue of modesty entered into and informed his vice. Mary Grafton, with that profound perception which is the property of a perfectly spiritual nature, knew that the root-danger of this amiable quality lay in the poise of his soul, or, as she said, in the direction of his spiritual life. For this easy tolerance, this gentle charity, this unassuming and sensitive modesty was dangerous, and only dangerous, because the direction of his soul was not absolute. It was because the direction of his character was not determined, that his tolerance became pliancy, and his charity weakness. It was this knowledge which had made her say, " No soul is safe which does not perfectly know that to love God and to desire spiritual perfection is the reason of its existence." The shining illumination of her soul lay in that knowledge. Before her eyes had grown the example of this spiritual law. There was nothing in Christopher's character which might not have been a grace if the direction of his soul had been absolutely towards God. And, because he lacked that absolute direction, there was nothing in his character which was not loaded with peril. His very vices became virtues in the religious sphere ; and his very virtues became vices in the sphere of worldly compromise. This profound truth is little apprehended, and yet the vast library of religious experience testifies to its universality. Character is what it is, solely by reason 279 The Shadow of the life's objective. A soul determined to goodness and inspired in all its activities by the inspiration of immortality may possess and may convert into the most potent forms of grace those very characteristics and qualities which are a cardinal source of failure and distress in a soul conscious of no definitive objective. The touchstone of character is the ancient and most rational demand, Quo vadis? Whither goest thou ? To Christopher, whose blood was hot in his veins, and whose childlike faith acquired at his mother's knee had gradually and unconsciously become philosophised by the theology of his tutor, life had no clear and certain end, and his own particular existence was without seriousness or importance. He was satisfied in the religious sphere by those interesting speculations concerning the Creator of the universe which have been at all periods of the world's history a source of delight to curious minds. He was interested in the question of a God. As for any close and permanent experience of God's power, as for any consciousness of need of divine love, he was a stranger to it, it had not occurred in his life. The immense miracle of the Christian religion, which fills the historian with rever- ence and awe, was for this happy and impulsive youth only a very beautiful and sensuous idea, something which inhabited rather the region of art than the kingdom of conduct. His life, as a totality, was adrift on the ocean of chance. He carried no chart ; he was careless of a destination. When he arrived in Paris and found himself his own master, he was conscious before everything else of the 280 The Risk joy of freedom. He loved his mother, but in some subtle way she restricted him. A thousand times he reproached himself for being glad that he was free. These fits of emotionalism, which might have been so forceful if his soul had been consciously directed, passed without effect upon his character. His mother became to him very much what religion was to him, an occasional and most tender aspiration, but not a controlling and sanctifying force. He threw himself heart and soul into the life surrounding him. What was that life ? There are as many minds among the art students of Paris as among the mass of mankind. There are religious minds, moral minds, vulgar minds, and animal minds. But there is one unifying principle among them. They are serious as regards art. For them Art is the passion and reason of existence. They are devoted disciples. And this devotion makes for a certain oneness among these divergent minds. The religious student makes an art of his religion, the moral student makes an art of his morality, and the sensual student makes an art of his animalism. It is here, as elsewhere, for the principle is universal, a question of poise, a question of the soul's direction. Christopher found himself among men with whom he could perfectly sympathise. At first he was horribly shocked by the vices of the worst, and somewhat stunned by the aberrations of the religious. His wholesome common sense prevented him from falling a victim both to the sins of the base and to the extravagance of the sensuously religious. But these first feelings of shock and surprise melted under the 281 The Shadow persuasive geniality of the brotherhood. He became every day more tolerant. If he stood every day freer from their influence over his opinions and actions every day he grew more sympathetic to the spirit of his companions. The joy of life, the freedom of the senses, the delights of experience, the passionate clamour of the feelings these things began to stir and move within his soul. He was in love with life, and the ambitions of his art satisfied every faculty of his being. His handsome appearance, his really considerable talents, and his charming ingenuousness soon made him a favourite in the brotherhood. He was popular for himself. Then came the added popularity of his purse. His relations at Glevering kept him supplied with money, and his generous nature led him into prodigal liberality. He lived himself almost as simply as he had done in the eyry, and this economy enabled him to practise a hospitality towards his poorer friends which, in their eyes, was wonderfully lavish. Among such hungry and struggling youths he was something of a Mecaenas. He gave dinners at some of the best Bohemian restaurants ; played host at the opera, the theatre, and the music-hall ; and organised excursions into the country. He was never what a moralist would call wicked, but he was never serious. Perhaps it would be inexact to describe his mind at this time as flippant, but there was nevertheless the tone of flip- pancy in his high spirits and his joyous irresponsi- bility. The occasional remorse as touching his mother, to which we have already referred, operated in his mind 282 The Risk with greater sharpness as he yielded more and more to the spirit of his companions. Sometimes returning from a music-hall and a supper, where he had been the gayest of his set, he would find himself, in the solitude of his lodging, plunged suddenly into an abyss of emotional repentance. Out of these moods there grew an ambition. He would paint for his mother a Madonna that should gain the applause of Paris. This picture should silence his conscience, should give ex- pression to his love, should be the one great serious note in his extravagant existence. He found a model who inspired him with something of his mother's nobility. He bought the finest hood and robe that he could find for his purpose. The greatest hours of his day were devoted to painting this picture. When he was at work on this idea he was supremely happy, and, in an emotional way, in- tensely affectionate towards his mother. It was the excuse for his life. As it neared completion he was filled with a haunting sense of deprivation. He could have wished it to last until his wild life was over for ever. It chanced, on the very day when Annabel was expressing to Mary her anxiety about Christopher, that four or five of his friends, wishing to make their Mecaenas some return for his generosity, proposed to him at their dejeuner in a restaurant a visit that night to a fancy-dress ball. Christopher laughingly refused the invitation. His friends used their utmost persuasiveness. Christopher shook his head. " I am not a dancing man," he said rather weakly. 283 The Shadow At this they laughed, and Christopher flushed uncomfortably. " It is not necessary to dance," they said with amusement ; " and until you have seen the ball you do not know Paris." But Christopher said " No," and in spite of all their earnest entreaties returned to his work. That night he dined with two of these friends. Their invitation was repeated early in the dinner. Although Christopher still refused, his disinclination to go had weakened by the conclusion of the meal. They told so many droll stories of this ball, they made it so great and cosmopolitan an event, they caused him so convincingly to feel that his experience of life would be provincially incomplete if he did not attend, that his " No " at the end of the dinner was infinitely less negative than his " No " at the end of the ctijeuner. Still, he did refuse to go. To atone in some way for this refusal, not wishing to hurt the feelings of his friends, he sat late over the table and unconsci- ously drank much wine. Neverthless, his resolution held good. He parted with his friends and returned to his studio. He had been there a matter of two hours, vainly trying to concentrate his attention on reading, and had just tossed aside his book and begun an impulsive letter to his mother, when the door of the room burst open and the party of his friends bound for the ball entered with hilarious laughter, dressed in the eccentric costumes demanded by the occasion. They thronged about Christopher, imploring him 284 The Risk to come. He laughed and refused. They took his hands, knelt, kissed them, and prayed him to come. One of them had a bottle in his hand ; he poured out a glass and presented it to Christopher. He laughed good-naturedly, provided the intruders with cigarettes, and drank the liquor. Still he refused. They became urgent. No excuse was accepted. Some were offended by his refusal, others were pathetic in their appeals. He was surrounded by these clamorous " good-fellows." He was one against seven. Christopher knew not what to say to these friends. At first he was wretched. Then he began to frame excuses for them. They seemed so kind and generous and good-hearted. After all, what a prig he was to stand out against these seven jolly fellows. The wine he had just drunk, the mood of restlessness which had driven him to begin the letter to his mother, the gaiety into which the fantastical costumes of these happy friends had thrown him, actuated in his mind towards compliance. After all, what was the harm ? " I can't come," he said at last. " Why, my dear fellows, I've got nothing to wear." " We'll get you something." " You shall go as Apollo." "Apollo! Nonsense. He shall go as " "Ha! I have it," cried another. "Look here! To our very hand ! " He held up the hood and robe which served for the model of Christopher's picture for his mother. 285 The Shadow On the following morning Mary Grafton arrived in Paris. She reached the Gare du Nord just before six o'clock. It was raining and the air struck with a sharp coldness. There was something mournful and depressing in the aspect of the city, but she was unconscious of this effect, unconscious even that she was tired after a sleepless night in the train. She had very often dreamed in her childhood, and in the first dawn of her womanhood, of this great capital city of her forefathers. She knew French history, French literature, and had treasured books with pictures of castles in the Loire valley, amazingly beautiful cathedrals, and the chief buildings of Paris. It had often been a wonder to her how she should greet this dear and unvisited fatherland, by what power of the mind she would be able to restrain the emotion of her heart. Now at last she was actually in Paris itself. For the first time she was home and among her own people. But there was neither excitement nor joy in her heart. She was conscious of nothing but the numbing dread which had possessed her from the first moment of her departure. She was so habituated to economy that even in this strange and bewildering city she did not think of taking a cab. She inquired of a porter the route to Christopher's lodging, and learned from this man, who was amused by her antique Canadian French, how she could cross Paris by the omnibus drawn up in the rain outside the courtyard of the station. She made her way across the brown puddles which were jumping with spots of rain, and found 286 The Risk that the omnibus was already full. She waited under a streaming umbrella, with her little canvas bag in her hand, for the next omnibus. From the people crowded on the pavement came the smell of wet clothes. She was not aware that the cold and damp of the stones penetrated her thin boots. It was after half-past six when she entered the long, old-fashioned, ramshackle omnibus, with its driver high up in the air over three horses abreast. The boulevards were now crowded with a moving pro- cession of drenched umbrellas. Shopkeepers and restaurateurs were beginning to open their premises. The roadside kiosks exhibited coloured pictures and newspapers which were spotted by the rain. At seven o'clock she found herself on the other side of the Seine in a network of narrow streets, whose tall houses added to the darkness and depres- sion of the day. She inquired of passers-by, who stopped unwillingly in such weather and at such a busy hour, the way to Christopher's lodgings in the Rue St. Andre des Arts. It was with difficulty that she followed their directions across the maze of little streets. At last, leaving the Rue Bonaparte by the Rue Jacob, and crossing the dark Rue de Seine, she came suddenly and unexpectedly upon the Rue St. Andr6 des Arts ; for the first time during her long journey she was conscious of emotion. The sight of those familiar words, Rue St. Andre des Arts, which she had written more than a hundred times in addressing her letters to Christopher, filled her with a sudden and strange emotion. How close they made him feel to her. How suddenly real became her 287 meeting with him. How kindly, how familiar they looked on the white wall. The clocks had struck seven when she was wander- ing in the tortuous streets beside the fecole des Beaux Arts. It was nearly the half-hour when she arrived before Christopher's lodgings. The door stood open. In the hall was a dirty crop-headed, small-eyed man in shirt-sleeves, slippers and green baize apron, reading a newspaper. A pail was at his feet, a broom leaned against his shoulder. The muddy mat was pulled on one side, and the stone floor was thick with dry dust. Mary inquired for Christopher. The man raised his little eyes from the newspaper and scowled at her. He looked at her umbrella, which was making a pool on the stone floor, then he glared at her canvas bag, and finally raised his eyes to her face. " It is too early," he said ; " Monsieur Grafton was at the ball last night." Mary said, " Will you permit me to go up ? " " I cannot, madame." " I am his mother." " In that case you can certainly go to his room ; but I do not think that he has yet returned." He walked away to the end of the passage and called up the stairs. A woman's voice answered him. He demanded if Monsieur Grafton had come back. The woman said, No. He said that a lady was coming up to wait for him, and then turning to Mary, said, "They keep up their mischief till daybreak, and long after. I myself, last year, encountered a cab- load of these fine young fellows by the Gare St. 288 The Risk Lazare at eight o'clock ; they were singing loud enough to wake the dead, and their antics disgusted me, who am easy-minded enough in such matters. It is youth. They are mad on these occasions. One must look the other way." When Mary arrived at the top of this building, she found a tired-faced woman waiting for her at an open door. " Monsieur Grafton," said this dame, who wore a white cap and had a brush and pan in her hand, "has not yet come back. He was at the students' ball last night. A pity that he went. He is too good for such company. When he comes back he will be too tired for visitors. But if you wait you will see him. I shall not make his coffee till I see him. I have experience of these affairs." " He cannot be very long," said Mary. " No ; unless some of his friends have carried him off to sleep elsewhere." " I will wait." " You have travelled ? " " Yes." " From far ? " " From London." " But that is a long way. You must have been in the train all night. *And now you are wet. I will light the stove, and if you wish it, I will make some coffee." Mary accepted this suggestion, and entered Chris- topher's room, which was also his studio. The smell of stale tobacco hung about the apartment, which was very dirty and untidy. 28g U The Shadow While she was lighting the stove, the woman said, " I am fond of Monsieur Grafton. He is a young man with a heart. I say he is too good for these wild chaps, who call themselves students. They make him as bad as themselves. When I saw him go down the stairs last night, I could have dropped dead where I stood." She got up from her knees and looked at Mary. " I am not one of those who go with the Clericals, but I have my religion still ; and when I saw Monsieur Grafton, I tell you, it made my blood run- cold." Mary became so white that the woman checked. " You are a friend of his ? " she asked. " I am his mother." " Ah, the good God comfort you, madame, for I am also a mother, and know what it is to have loved uselessly." Mary bowed her head. " I will say no more. I will get you some coffee. It will soon be warm in this room, though the sky- light keeps it a long time cold. You can make yourself at your ease till Monsieur Grafton comes back." When Mary was alone, she crossed the room to Christopher's bed, fell upon her knees, and with her face pressed into the pillow, began to cry very quietly and softly. She rose presently, with recovered composure, but with the most poignant anguish in her heart, and in a stunned, half-conscious manner began to walk about the room. She came to the picture of the Madonna and stood still. 290 The Risk The picture had no comfort for her. it was full of religious feeling, it was a spiritual picture ; but in its very religiousness it seemed to mock her last hope. For from painting this pure picture, the artist had gone to some orgy of which even the porter of the house spoke with disgust. Mary contemplated her son's Madonna. She de- spaired the more she felt its spirituality. An immense horror seized upon her. What was the condition of a soul that could express such beauty and such purity, and go from the labour to a scene of riot? What unbridgeable gulf, what unfathomable abyss, separated his character from hers ? In what world did he dwell, that was so unthinkably different from hers ? This was not a question of his youth or his sex ; it was some terrible and appalling question of the soul. She was still standing before the picture when the woman returned with the coffee. " I have looked down the street, but he is not coming," she said. " Ah, they are very wild, these students. They paint Christs, and Madonnas, and saints, but they do not understand what they do. It is not good to be young." While Mary was drinking her coffee, the woman said, " Some people go to the students' ball who ought to be in prison. It is horrible ! I would not have gone as Monsieur Grafton went last night, not if I had been sure of a thousand masses for my soul." The woman's words had little meaning for Mary Grafton. It was agony enough to know that he had gone willingly to some godless orgy ; she thought that 291 U a The Shadow the woman referred to the spirit in which he had set out for the evil carousal. " But look ! " cried the woman of a sudden, as she made some pretence at putting things straight on the table ; " a letter, madame ! it is perhaps for you." She brought the unfinished letter to Mary. " Perhaps it will tell you where he is, and explain why he has not yet returned." Mary's eyes fell upon the words, " My own dearest mother." They seemed to thrust a dagger through her heart. She read the hurried, impulsive, and affectionate letter. Christopher's mood of the previous night had cause him to express an almost gushing devotion towards his mother. On a wave of sentimentalism> conscious of remorse for his intemperance at the table, he had been borne forward into the most extravagant expressions of devotion and duty. He said how the memory of the eyry grew every day more dear to him; how he saw clearer now the goodness with which she had surrounded him ; how he realised the love and self-sacrifice of her noble heart in providing him with the means to follow his art. " I am more deter- mined," the unfinished letter concluded, " every day I live, nay, every hour I live, to succeed in my art, that I may make our future together full of happiness and pleasure and tenderest love." Mary knew that this was not the utterance of a hypocrite. When he wrote those words he meant them. But the very generosity and extravagance of his sentiments, honest though they were, terrified her soul, 2Q2 The Risk because she saw how pitiably they lay at the mercy of any mood. He was without direction. As she finished reading the letter, she thought, " It was not from painting that picture he went to riot and wickedness, but from writing this letter." The woman left her, and she sat solitary in the room, with the letter in her lap, her eyes fixed upon the Madonna. The church clocks outside struck nine o'clock. 293 CHAPTER XIX. ''PHE morning wore away, and Christopher did not 1 return. At half-past twelve the porter looked into the room. " He has not returned, then ? " " No." " And you, madame ? You must be hungry. Would it not be better for you to go to the restaurant at the corner and get some dejeuner ? " " I will wait here." " I can bring you something, if you wish it. It is not good to starve." Mary accepted the offer. When he brought her the luncheon he said, " I have left word at the restaurant that you are here, in case he should go there first, since he must eat before he works." He came and took away the tray at three o'clock. There was still no news of Christopher. When she was alone again, a sudden feeling of intense fear took possession of her. She got up suddenly from her seat and began to pace the room. " Oh, God ! " she kept crying " oh, dear God ! " a cry that was a prayer, an exclamation that was a litany. " Oh, God ! oh, dear God " the voice was very low and soft and agonising ; her eyes, expressing terror, 294 The Blow glanced here and there with wild entreaty ; her hands were clasped, every now and then she raised them up, pressing them against her breast. Each time she turned at the end of the room she found the calm eyes of the Madonna confronting her with a steady scrutiny. As she walked to and fro in this state of wild grief her eyes caught sight of the little Fe"nelon she had given him on his departure from London. It was on the side of the table at which he had written his letter to her, and in the centre of the cover was a little pile of grey dust ; he had used it as an ash-tray for his cigarette. She picked up this book as she went, spilling the ash, which clung about her fingers, and, still continuing to pace the room, sobbing in a soft and tearless way, opened the familiar volume and read the words which first came to her eyes : " Whilst you live without God in the world, you arc the continual sport of fortune, and the prey to the injustice, malignity, and evil designs of men. Your unrestrained pas- sions expose you to those of others, and your unbridled desires associate you in their crimes ; your pride and self-love (which are incompatible with those of your neighbour) foam and swell against opposition, like the billows of the angry ocean, and occasion you a thousand shipwrecks. You exist in constant warfare with all around you, and know not where to rest. Is this a state, even with worldly prosperity, to be preferred to the holy hope, the divine calm, the conscious trust in Providence, possessed by that soul, which, having renounced its self-love and restrained its oassions, walks humbly with its God ? " She could read no further. She closed the book, and clasping it tightly in her hands, raised her eyes, crying, " Oh, God ! help me ! " 295 The Shadow She saw the infinite separation between herself and her son. They inhabited each a hemisphere. They were under a different sky, breathing a different air, surrounded by quite different objects. She had the holy hope, the divine calm, the conscious trust in Providence ; whilst he, without direction, without God, was the sport of fortune, the prey of evil men, exposed to the passions and crimes of those who live as though immortality were a figment of the brain. Why did he not return ? The thought that he was the prey of evil men filled her with horror. She opened the door and looked down the stairs. She returned to the room, leaving the door open, and began once more to walk about in wildest fear. At five o'clock there was no news of him. She left the room and went down the stairs. For nearly an hour she walked up and dow'n in front of the house waiting for him. The porter came out to get himself a paper. " He will not be back till night now," he said, over his shoulder. Mary returned to the studio. She made herself busy. She opened her canvas bag, and saw to the stove ; she poured out some water and washed her face and hands ; she removed her hat, and did her hair before Christopher's glass. All through these operations she was praying. At seven o'clock the woman came to the room. " What will you do, madame ? You cannot sleep in this place." " I do not need sleep, but I must stay here." " But you will make yourself ill. It is unwise." 296 The Blow " What is it that can keep him ? Do help me ; I am a stranger in Paris, and I do not understand. Are there no friends of his to whom I could go, who would help me to find him ? He must be ill to stay so long away. What do you think is the cause ? Is it possible for you to send anywhere and inquire ? Please help me, I am very distressed. I want to see my son quickly. It is such a pain for me to wait." The woman took Mary's trembling hands and patted them reassuringly. " It is with you like this because you are a young mother and have a good heart. It is sometimes better perhaps for those mothers who think no more of their children than a chestnut-tree thinks of its chest- nuts. Our children burden our young years when we might enjoy ourselves, and then when we have got the wrinkles round the eyes and the stiffness in the knees what ? Why, they break our hearts ! Tut, it is nothing to them. But the good God knows all these things, and that is one comfort. I could not go on with my sufferings if I did not say often in the day, 'Well, the good God knows all about these things.' And you, madame, must say the same thing, for we poor women have no help nor comfort in our middle age except what the blessed God will send us. And as for this pretty young son of yours, he will come back to-night before bedtime, though I hope he won't bring a noisy band of his comrades along with him ; and you and he can make yourselves very happy here till it's time for you to get into the bed which I will prepare for you 297 The Shadow on the next floor. And look here, I will send my husband to the restaurant for a nice little dinner for you, and when it is finished I will bring you a cup of coffee, and you shall be as snug and com- fortable up here as if you were at home by your own fireside. So rest quiet, madame, and be sure that the good God knows what you feel in your heart, which is true, or the world wouldn't go round as it does, and that I'm very sure of." Mary was now in a condition of the greatest dis- tress. From the moment when Annabel first hinted the danger, her mind had been agitated by fear. She had agonised with herself what to do, and then, driven by their resistible impulse of motherhood, had set out for Paris. The journey had been a torture of her nerves on account of the alarm she felt for Christopher's safety. She had hardly closed her eyes in the train from Calais to the Gare du Nord. She had made her way through the drenching streets of a strange city to discover that her son was not in his room, that he had gone on the previous evening to some hideous depravity, and that he had not returned all night. She had waited through the long morning, through the longer afternoon, and now, sleepless physically broken and mentally tortured her vigil was still unended. Night had fallen on Paris. The lamps were shining in the streets ; the shops made facades of fire in the long boulevards. Theatres and music-halls were opening their doors. From the streets ascended the brisk hum of a world going out to make merry. And she still sat in the gloom, waiting for her son who did not return. 298 The Blow To remain there became with every minute more impossible. To do nothing, to sit actionless, to wait, was beyond the point of endurance. When the man arrived with her dinner from the restaurant he found her pacing the room, white of face, her eyes lustrous and feverish, her whole manner expressing the most terrible agitation. He lighted the gas and drew the curtains, while she poured out a stream of words imploring his advice, his help, his co-operation in finding her son. " Madame may make her mind quiet," he said. " Monsieur Grafton will return in an hour. I am sure of it." He frowned upon her agitation, not knowing how to handle it, and escaped from the room as soon as possible. When he got back to his rooms he sent his wife to the top of the house to quiet the English lady in the studio. The woman arrived, panting from her climb of the stairs, to find Mary sitting in a chair far from the table where her dinner was set out. " Come, maclame, you must not sit there, with your hands idle and your thoughts everywhere. Our hands are given us to keep our thoughts to our duty. He who folds his hands is lost. When the hands are idle the thoughts do what they will. So you, make use of your hands, madame ; take a knife and a fork, and do your duty, which is to eat, since God made every man to stand in need of nourishment. When we starve we disobey the laws of the good God. I myself keep no fasts, not for any man. Eat, madame, it is your duty to do so." Mary made a most moving appeal to this woman. 299 She implored her to send someone to the place where Christopher had gone on the previous evening ; if not there, then to his usual haunts to the house of his master, to the lodgings of his friends. She could not bear, she said, to wait any longer in this dreadful uncertainty. The woman said, " Look here, my good lady, you are too exigeante, and I tell you that. What 1 Your pretty boy has been dancing, and has gone to sleep on the floor of a friend's lodging, and you are to make an outcry at the gate of heaven ! Tut, there is no harm in Monsieur Grafton. To be a little gay what is that at his age ? One would think, to hear you talk so, that the devil had already got his soul. I tell you, you do not know the world. You expect too much. Come, be reasonable. Eat your dinner, and I promise you Monsieur Grafton shall be laughing here and smoking his cigarettes and telling you all about it before the good St. Sulpice informs us that it is ten o'clock." This assurance did not satisfy Mary. The woman's easy tolerance shocked and horrified her. She reiterated her plea. She caught the woman's hand and held it in a pressure of persuasion, begging her, beseeching her, to send someone into the streets to inquire for Christopher. " Look, madame, I will make a bargain," replied the woman ; " you eat your dinner, and I will send my man I know where." " Yes, I promise. Will you send him at once ? Now?" "Yes, yes, at once. But I tell you this, vou are 300 The Blow too exigeante. The good God did not make mothers to break their hearts over the little peccadilles of their sons. Tut, what he has done is nothing. It is that. One would think he had done a murder or stolen some money, to see you so white. Make your mind easy ; he has been a little merry, like many others, and he will come back laughing and gay in spite of a mal de ttte" While Mary sat at the table, she reflected on this condition of mind, this extraordinary and yet quite common attitude towards sin, which, after two thousand years of Christianity, is precisely that of the pagan world. She was deemed exigeante because she saw that a state of the soul which for one moment can con- template vice and intemperance is the state of a soul not consciously directed towards God, and therefore exposed to all the perilous temptations of the soul's enemy. Why did people speak lightly of these evil things ? Why did they discriminate between sins ? Why did they make degrees of darkness ? Could not they see that a soul is either directed towards God or set to follow its own caprices ? Is it difficult for the world to realise the so simple and inevitable truth that the choice of a character lies only between God and evil ? And how strange, how be- wildering, that the Church has failed after all these long centuries to make clear the great fundamental teaching of Christ, that it is not obedience to this or that law which matters, but the conscious, increasing, and absolutely controlling passion of adoration of God. These reflections served to quiet her agitation. 301 The Shadow She recovered her normal restful ness the sense of a divine protection. She committed herself to God, and waited in a cold composure of spirit for the return of her son. The clocks of Paris struck nine. Every stroke was a chastisement of her nerves. The good woman of the house came up the stairs with coffee. " I have got some news for you," she said. " My husband has seen some of the students. Monsieur Grafton was full of his tricks. He was very gay, one of the wildest. But he went home with four or five of his friends. My husband says he will perhaps sleep till late, then go and get some supper, and return here at midnight or a little later, seeing he will not be sleepy. So you had better drink your coffee and let me show you the room I have made ready for you. You will see him in the morning. And I should say that sleep is what you need more than any son, be he the best on earth, for sleep is one of the laws, and you have rings round your eyes which are like blows from a man's fists." Mary asked permission, when she had seen her room, to remain in the studio till eleven o'clock. The woman shrugged her shoulders and said as for that she might do what she pleased, but it was a sin to be out of that nice warm bed she had made ready for her. Ten o'clock struck. For an hour longer Mary waited in the studio. When the churches, from belfry and tower, were calling over the roofs of Paris that it was eleven o'clock, she opened the door of the studio and stood 302 The Blow on the stairhead, listening for a sound. The house was still. She descended a few stairs and waited. While she was listening she was praying. Not a sound came to her. She returned to the studio. Another hour went by ; the day had passed ; a new morrow was born. Still there was no sign of Christopher. Very reluctantly she left the studio, lowering the "gas, and descended to her room on the next floor. She did not wake till nine o'clock, and only then at the entry of the woman with coffee. " Has he come back ? " " No." The question had been so eager and confident ; the answer was terrible. " My husband has now gone to ask someone. Drink your coffee and eat your roll and butter. By the time you have dressed he will be back with news." " But what can have happened ? " "You will be off again on your wild fit of last night ! I tell you we shall have news in half an hour." " But what is the matter ? " " He has been very gay this time, that is all. Now, take what I have brought you, and get ready, or Monsieur Grafton will be back before you are up." The woman left her. Mary turned her face to the pillow and sobbed a prayer of agony to God. An hour had passed when she entered the studio. No one was there. The eyes of her son's Madonna seemed to contemplate her with compassion. She went to the landing, listened a moment, and then descended. When she reached the ground floor 303 she found the woman standing outside the open door, looking down the street Mary went to her. " My husband has gone again ; there was no news. He will be back very soon. It is better for you to go upstairs. Look, people are staring at you. If you please, madame, return to the studio." It was not till after eleven o'clock that the woman came upstairs, her husband followed, and stood in the door looking at Mary. There was something in their faces that filled the mother's heart with a terrible apprehension. " What is the news ? " It was like a cry, full of most piercing pain. " Madame must not look so wild," said the woman, pretending that she was more out of breath than was really the case. " It will do no good to be crying and making a fuss." " No, that will do no good at all," said the man from the door. " What has happened ? " " Look, madame, it was what I told you last night. Monsieur Grafton was very gay at the ball. He was exceedingly gay. And that is all. So I was right, you see, after all, was I not ? " " My wife said to me last night, Monsieur Grafton has been gay at the ball ; it is nothing else. She said so several times." " But where is he ? " " He has got himself into a little trouble. Only a little trouble. Through his gaiety; it is nothing else." "Madame understands; Monsieur Grafton has only been gay." 304 The Blow Mary could not question, could not speak. Her eyes, full of tragedy, rested on the face of the woman. She was white as death. " I will tell you, madame, what my husband has heard. It was a little matter with an agent de police ; but nothing, nothing. And it was only a part of the gaiety, you must understand." " Yes, it is necessary to understand that," said the man. " Why, madame, you must not look as if you saw the dead rise ! Come, come ; sit down, and look like a living woman, or I will tell you no more. Have I spoken like a fool with no sense that you should look at me as if Monsieur Grafton had committed a crime ? " " There is no crime in the matter ; it is necessary to understand that." " I tell you, madame, it has all to do with the gaiety at the ball. It is part of that jollification. A mere nothing. Why, if it were a son of mine I should laugh." " Yes, one would certainly laugh." " So, look a little happier, I beg you, madame, or Monsieur Grafton will be afraid to come back. Tut, you must teach him to laugh at the affair." " You see, madame, these things will happen among the students." " No doubt Monsieur le juge de paix will make light of this little affair ; for all Frenchmen remember that they have once been young, which is a mercy to many a poor fellow in the violon." " Oh, there is no doubt Monsieur Grafton will soon 305 X The Shadow be set free. Perhaps a little amende fifty or sixty francs but he will be set free. But, certainly." " That agent de police must have been a fool to take Monsieur Grafton to le paste and bring him before le commissaire. He should have looked away. Those who cannot laugh should turn the head. It is necessary to do that in a city like Paris ; why, of course, we all know." " There are gendarmes and gendarmes, madame ; one would arrest Monsieur Grafton and another would not. Monsieur le juge de paix will understand that, you may be sure." " You mustn't look so frightened and dead, madame. Why, what a poor mother you make yourself! Is your son a babe or is he a fine young man with a gallant spirit ? Come, you must not look so. We shall do nothing for you, my husband and I, if you do not laugh at this little affair. Tut, it is nothing. One laughs at such things every day in Paris. But I will tell you what I think. I think that agent de police is a Catholic, one of the Clericals ; there are some of those in the gendarmerie; and it was seeing Monsieur Grafton dressed like that picture there " " It was certainly very foolish to go dressed in that fashion " " Madame ! " " Look, she dies ! " " Get me some water, Etienne. Quick ! " Mary staggered to her feet. She was like death ; her lips were blue ; there were great circles of swelling darkness under her eyes. It seemed that she did not breathe. For a moment she swayed, as if she would fall. 306 MADAME !' 'LOOK SHE DIES ! ' ' GET ME SOME WATER, ETIENNE, QUICK!' The Blow The woman caught her, and held her fast. The poor lady lifted her head, stood firm, and gently laid her hands, which were cold like ice, upon the arms of the good woman. She was standing in this position when the man returned with the glass of water. She strained in a lifting manner with her head, as if something troubled her throat. She closed her eyes ; her lips were rigid. The unearthly pallor of her face had that terrible glaze which is the frost of death. And it was set, cold, stricken. It was as if she had looked upon the frown of God. " Drink the water," said the woman, taking the glass. " Madame need feel no alarm," said the man huskily. " She is religious," said the woman to her husband, as though Mary could not hear her ; " it is not the prison that troubles her, it is the dress that he wore ; we should not have said anything as to that. Drink a little water, madame. Perhaps she is a Catholic, for there are still Catholics in England. Certainly she is religious. It is a great pity. Come, dear madame, the water will refresh you." Mary took the glass and held it. Her hand did not shake. She stood so firmly that the woman relaxed her hold. " I must go to him," she said. " But that is impossible, madame," said the man. "You must wait till he comes back," said the woman ; " to-morrow, perhaps, or the next day." " You see, madame, Monsieur Grafton has been already taken from \htposte in what we call le panier 307 2 x The Shadow d salade to the prison. But it is not yet known when he will be brought before le tribunal. To-day, to-morrow, next day next week, it is not yet known." Mary closed her eyes. " Let me be alone," she murmured, hardly opening her lips. " For a few minutes I will think. Then I will come to you." The husband interrogated his wife with a glance of his eyes, lifting his eyebrows. The wife answered, " It is better to leave her alone. She is religious. She will pray, she will weep, and that will do her good. Let us go down." " Madame has only to ring the bell and either my wife or I will come to her," said the man. When they were outside the door, they stood listening. " She will die," whispered the man, raising his eyebrows and expressing hopelessness with his hands and eyes. The woman shook her head. M She is religious. Did I not say last night, she is religious ? " " But if he go to prison ! For he has injured that gendarme, look you ! " " It is always with women like this when they are religious." " They say he was like one who is mad." " Listen ! " " What do you hear ? " The woman listened for a moment, bending her head, a finger at her lips. Then, half-turning her head to the man, she whispered quickly under her breath, " She weeps ! " 308 CHAPTER XX. COMPANIONS IN GRIEF F'OR a moment the mother, who had received her death-blow, stood where the good people of the house had left her. She was rigid, erect, with the immobility and solidity of a statue. It seemed that she might stand there, firm and upright, for ever. Suddenly her physical energies collapsed and went from under her, like a broken net. She sank down- wards and only prevented herself from falling by clutching a chair, into which she dropped, huddled and helpless. She found herself bereft of vigour. She was shivering, as if struck by a palsy. She was ice cold. She began to cry in a long and almost childlike whimpering. For some few minutes she let grief run from her in a tide of tears, broken by swift and unviolent sobbings which did not shake her body or interrupt her breathing. If Christopher could have seen her, so pitiful and broken, so quietly bowed and shattered, he would have been driven to self-destruc- tion by the remorse of Judas. There was some indescribable degree of tragedy in her posture ; the feebleness was so terrible ; the abandonment was so complete ; she was Grief without hope, without want of hope ; she was a heart bleeding to death, through 309 The Shadow tears which soothed and numbed the pangs of dissolution. Presently this awful flow of quiet agony was broken by a convulsive sob ; she was shaken throughout her whole body. She braced herself and sat upright ; her tears ceased ; through the water of the soul she looked towards the Madonna ; she was conscious of a great cold surrounding her heart. She closed her eyes, and the tears that had so suddenly checked there, welled into the dark lashes ; a look of awe deepened in her face, a look that was half horror and half resignation. She slipped slowly from the chair upon her knees, clasped her hands, raised them towards her breast, and lifted her face towards the protection of God. It was not possible for her to pray ; stunned and broken, she remained kneeling, with her hands clasped before her, her face lifted, her soul directed towards God, but inarticulate, without request, without want, without hope. As she kneeled there, the full horror of her son's infamy came towards her in a cloud of darkness, beating great wings of hellish blackness round her soul, mocking her piety, destroying her hope, laying desolate the last vestige of her self-control. She realised from the purity of her own soul the full infamy of her son ; she let herself fall forward, and lay upon the ground, her arms extended, her face pressed to the floor, like a being annihilated by the thought of infinity. The measure of her ability to bear sorrow was the measure of her hope in Christopher ; while she could 310 Companions in Grief struggle to believe that he was approaching God, while she could persuade herself that his soul was drawing nearer to the religious life, there was nothing no agony, no desolation she could not have borne with- out a tear, without a cry ; but now, hope was destroyed. It was not only that Christopher had done this terrible thing ; it was not only that her perfectly pure and most reverent spirit looked, with an awe incomprehensible to such people as the Frenchman and his wife, upon the infamy which they regarded as the pardonable folly of a young and high-spirited man sowing wild oats no, it was not only that ; horrible and appalling as this infamy seemed in her eyes, it was not that act alone which had destroyed her last hope and had broken her heart. It was the knowledge that he had perjured his soul ; he had played trickster to the love of his mother. While she lay prone and stunned upon the ground, she was not conscious of God. She was conscious of the last thing upon which her eyes had looked before she closed them in an effort of prayer. She was conscious of her son's Madonna. She knew that as she lay there the picture contem- plated her with eyes painted by her son ; she and the Madonna were alone there together ; there was no one else in the room ; and that Madonna, that com- panion of her bitter agony, was a lie. The purity she expressed was impurity, the maternity that breathed from her was a mockery ; the holiness that shone in her calm countenance was ribaldry ; she was some- thing monstrous and infernal, she was Leonardo's study for Judas masquerading as the Christ Never 311 in the world had picture so blasphemous and shameless come from the soul of man ; her son had painted it, her child who was in prison had given her this companion for the hour of her disillusion ; the picture in the room was like a ghost standing behind her. It was not the austerity of her virtue which broke her down ; it was the knowledge pressing upon her consciousness from every side that the son of her love had deceived her, and to deceive her had frightfully mocked God. She recalled the letters he had written to her ; she thought of the letter lying on his table that last letter written with the Madonna in the room, and interrupted by the blasphemy of an unthinkable crime ; he had gone from that letter, from that false Madonna, to a scene of iniquity. It was these thoughts that nailed her to the ground ; they shut out from her soul contact with comfort ; they made it impossible for her to pray. She was conscious only of his falsity ; the blow which had broken her heart had fallen from his perjured soul. All beautiful and tender sentiments of mercy and forgiveness expressed in such phrases as " Tout com- prendre dest tout pardonner" were destroyed in her heart ; his infamy she might have forgiven, but his guile, his mendacity, his Judas kisses these things crushed her to the earth. She did not judge him, she did not condemn him ; she was conscious of no revulsion in her great love towards him ; but she had nothing in her heart with which to say, " I forgive." It was not love which had died in her heart. It was hope, it was understanding. Through her stunned mind there floated memories of their past, from that 312 Companions in Grief first beginning of love in the wooden house on the great western prairie lands, down to the night of his departure from the eyry in London. She saw him in pictures. A child sleeping in its cot beside her bed ; a child, holding her hand and looking up at the stars, asking questions ; a child at her knee, learning to pray ; she saw him at the wooden table making his first excited efforts to print capital letters ; seated on a pony, riding at her side over the soft undulating earth of the prairie ; sitting in her lap, his cheek laid against her breast, listening to fairy tales. She saw him in the train that bore them both from the West to the East, on the great ship that carried them across the sea ; clinging to her at Glevering in fear of being taken from her ; crying to her in the illness which wasted him in Trinity Street ; standing at the open window, with his back to her, uttering the first words of unrest, and going from her into the world with the promise to pray every night and every morning for the protection of God. What had she failed to do ? What appalling omission had she made in her training ? Why had a son so loved, so guarded, so taught, so prayed for, fallen to the infamy of a perjured soul ? One thing had struck her in the midst of her desolation. Had she not after all done grievous wrong in depriving him of the patronage of Isabel Grafton ? There perhaps lay the real cause of his crime the poverty to which she had condemned him. If he had gone to Glevering, if she had given him up to those hard but resolute minds, would he not have been so surrounded with guards and engirded with protection, that whatever 313 The Shadow his fate this unspeakable degradation of infamy could not have overtaken him ? Had she done well to subject him to the restrictions and privations of a London attic, whose windows looked upon only wretchedness and want ? Had she not crossed the purpose of God and so brought him to this dreadful catastrophe ? The thought that perhaps she was responsible lifted her from the ground. She rose to her feet, pressed her hands over her eyes, and began to walk about in the room, judging herself and seeking the forgiveness of God. As she moved to and fro she struck something, and stopped abruptly, drawing her hands from her eyes ; she was face to face with the Madonna. The woman and the picture contemplated each other. The mother contemplated the creation of her son, and it seemed to her that the picture knew the last secret of her soul, while to her the picture was full of an insoluble mystery. Though she stood there for ever, she could never know how that seemingly pure and seemingly holy face had come into existence, nor what mysteries of brain and soul had gone to its creation. The two figures, marvellously contrasted, contem- plated each other with a long scrutiny. The contrast lessened, Mary began to find herself in the Madonna ; it was as if she had come to a mirror and seen, not her to-day's agony and shattered peace, but the sublime repose and celestial confidence of her yesterday. It was disillusion looking into a glass and seeing illusion ; it was despair going to a mirror to contem- plate its woe and finding hope. The witness of her desolation was not a stranger who mocked ; it was her 314 Companions in Grief own vanished faith, her own departed calm, grieving for her with a divine sorrow and some subtle in- expressible spirit of reproval. As she looked upon the picture, feeling all that was really pure and really sincere in it for did it not express the young painter's remorse, contrition, and aspiration towards his mother ? it seemed that some voice spoke softly and tenderly in her ears, saying with reproach, " In prison^ and ye visited Me not" She turned quickly from the picture. As she turned the door opened ; there was a rustle of garments ; a woman entered the studio, who was smiling. It was Isabel Grafton. The two women started ; Isabel was the first to regain her composure. She advanced into the room saying, " Christopher, then, is not here ? But you ! this is a surprise, Mary. How is it that you are in Paris?" She held out her hand, which Mary took in a dazed manner. It struck the jealous heart of the mother that this antagonist had entered the studio without being announced. She was familiar with the place ; she came as an old friend. Her next words deepened this perplexing discovery. " Oh ! he has finished the great picture ! I must look at it." She approached the Madonna. " It is very good ; he has improved it. Don't you think it is a performance ? I am really very pleased. At first I thought it would be only sentimental, wishy- washy. He has got strength into it. The blue of the robe is beautiful, and it is a fabric. That is very good indeed." She turned about " But let me hear about 315 The Shadow you what has brought you to Paris ? It is odd that we should meet here." The unusual vivacity of the mistress of Glevering and her evident discomposure at encountering Chris- topher's mother, told Mary the secret of the money which had so perplexed Annabel and tortured her own mind. This discovery only added to the pressing burden of Christopher's deception. He had deceived her here. The pittance which she had weekly scraped together to send to her son in Paris had not been necessary. He had taken it, thrown it into the purse supplied by Glevering, and spent it in riot and crime. The bitterness of this thought made the cup of her agony flow over ; in the very matter where she had just begun to upbraid herself, the soul of Christopher had perjured itself. She had thought that deprivation had driven him into infamy ; she discovered that her enemy had supplied the means which had accom- plished the ruin of her son. Isabel Grafton had bought his soul, and Christopher had sold his mother's honour. Mary could not answer the questions addressed to her. She contemplated Isabel with a horror and a reproach of which she was quite unconscious. Isabel, who was passing through Paris on her way to Vienna, and who had come to take Christopher by surprise, felt that Mary's presence in the studio was only explicable on the supposition that she had discovered Glevering's part in Christopher's education. She was conscious of moral discomfort ; the expression of Mary's gaze touched her with a sense of guilt. " I hope," she asked, forcing a smile, " that you do Companions in Grief not resent my interest in Christopher ? " She waited for an answer, and then added, " You must remember, my dear Mary, that after all he is my brother's son. You cannot expect me to exorcise natural affection." " Do you know," Mary asked, with a slow and deadly energy, " what you have done ? " " Perfectly." " You have taught a son to deceive his mother." "Your theatrical exaggeration again I I have really done nothing of the sort ; I have supplied my nephew with a little pocket-money. Whether he acquainted his mother with these presents was a matter of indifference to me, simply because the mother did not choose, for some quixotic reason of her own, to treat me with confidence." " Do you know what your wicked money has done ? " " What do you mean ? " " Listen," said Mary, in a voice low with pain, and trembling with grief that was difficult to suppress. " I have toiled and saved in order to provide my son with the means of existence ; I have lived for his sake on the edge of starvation. I have been every day, since he went away, hungry for his sake. Do you under- stand this ? that I have felt the wet of the pavement strike at me because he needed the shillings that would repair my shoes. You do not know how it has been necessary for me to suffer in every hour of my life for his sake ; I tell you now, but do you understand ? And I was happy. I sent him my savings, week after week, with the hope in my heart that he was living as I myself lived, not suffering, but safe from the temp- tations which come with money. You know, for I 317 The Shadow told you so, that I desired to deliver him and protect him from the dangers of money ; it was for the sake of his soul that I wished him to be braced by healthful poverty. It was through poverty that I trusted God would deliver him from the perilous inclinations which destroyed his father ; and now his father's sister has come between us, between the soul of the mother and the soul of her son. You have taught him treachery to his mother ; you have taken away his innocence and given him guile. You have stolen his honesty, and given him deceit in its place. Yes ; you have done this, and I know now, as I know there is a sky above us, that one day before the throne of God you will have to give account of my son's soul, for you have thrown it into hell." Her voice did not break throughout this passionate speech, but as she proceeded, tears welled thicker and thicker into her eyes, so that at the end she was obliged to turn away her head. Isabel regarded her without pity and without repent- ance. She felt distaste for the exaggerated language of her sister-in-law, and she had contempt for the senti- mental weakness which had brought this scene to tears. " I am sorry," she said coldly, " to find you still so very painfully self-righteous." Mary turned upon her. " Do you know what you have done ? " she cried fiercely. Miss Grafton lifted her head. " Be so good as not to shout at me." " You have ruined my child, you have destroyed my son." Companions in Grief " Can you be more coherent ? " " You have been the serpent to the soul of my son. You have tempted him. You have lured him. You have destroyed him. Listen ! I will show you your wicked soul. I gave my life to stand between the world and the soul of my child ; I set myself to show him the love of God ; I had one object in all my existence to make him so conscious of God that he would be safe from the world. And while I spent my motherhood in this devotion, you crept secretly into our humble life and turned his gaze away from God, you turned it to the world ; like a tempting Satan, you stole secretly between the mother and her young child and dazzled him and bewitched him deliberately ! Is it not true ? Did you not turn his gaze towards the world ? To do that was to turn it away from God. I say to you that you have played the part of a fiend. His ruin lies at your door. His corrupted innocence, his violated purity, his dishonoured faith they are the work of your soul. He himself shall tell you so ; wait, you shall hear your condem- nation from his own lips. One day you shall hear it from the lips of God." The violence with which Mary spoke, she who was usually so calm and coldly self-possessed, made it clear to Isabel that something of an extraordi- nary nature had occurred. She tried to think what it could be ; in the midst of her indignation at being thus sermonised and vulgarly denounced she racked her brain for an explanation of this amazing violence. " Where is Christopher ? " she demanded. 319 The Shadow Mary had covered her face with her hands and turned away. " You have spoken to me," said Isabel, " in a manner quite inexcusably rude. You have brought absurd charges against me ; something, I suppose, has happened to throw your mind into this violent and unreasonable state. What is it ? If you cannot tell me, let Christopher come and speak for himself." Mary drew her hands from her face ; her eyes were tearless, but blurred with pain ; the marks where her fingers had pressed were visible on her stricken face. The tempest of passion had passed, leaving her calm, with the terrible death-like repose of despair. " I do not know what I have said to you." She paused, regarding her sister-in-law, not with anger, but with dreadful sorrow. " God shall judge between us. Christopher is in prison." Isabel started ; she took an impulsive step towards Mary. " What do you mean ? " Mary told the story. " But we must go to him," cried Isabel. "He must not be allowed to stay where he is. You make too much of this matter. It is disgusting enough, but it is not a crime. In the streets of Paris, among the students and young people, an arrest is a common affair ; it is nothing, but it must stop at that. What have you been doing to stay here weeping over his soul, when you should have been speaking to the contmissaire ! How futile and how like you ! Where have they taken him ? You had better stay here. 3-0 Companions in Grief I will go alone. It is not tears that will set him free, it is money." As she concluded there was a knock at the door. Both women turned. It was Isabel who cried " Entrez " in a loud voice ; she was thoroughly roused and energetic. The door opened and a man entered. He appeared to be taken by surprise at finding two ladies in the room ; he stood at the door with his hand upon the handle. He was between fifty and sixty, with a noble head, and a face that was marked by suffering. Over his arms he carried the robe and hood which appeared in the picture. " Mesdames" he said, bowing, " I was told down- stairs that I should find the mother of Monsieur Grafton in this room." Mary went forward. " I am Gaston Chabert, the master of Monsieur Grafton." Isabel swept towards him in her imperious way. " You can tell us, mattre, about this unfortunate matter. What can be done ? " The great painter rested his eyes, which seemed to harden as they looked upon the mistress of Glevering ; then he turned to the pale face and bowed figure of the mother. " Please tell us," repeated Isabel. " What can we do ? " " Alas, madame nothing. " Nothing ? " Mary raised her head and looked at the painter. He gently extended his hand, and moving a step 321 Y The Shadow towards her, laid it upon her arm. His eyes regarded her with a profound compassion. " Madame," he said in a low voice, " you will have need of courage." " Please tell us at once, maitre, what has happened," cried Isabel, now thoroughly alarmed. Mary said, " I will be brave." " I have just come, madame," said the painter, who continued to address himself only to the mother, " from the tribunal. I bring you only bad news. The case has been tried ; it is decided." " Then I can see him, monsieur ? " " Alas, madame, that is impossible." " But you don't mean," exclaimed Isabel, " that he has been condemned ? " Chabert, keeping his eyes still fixed upon Mary, replied : " Yes, madame, he has been sentenced." Mary drew a sharp breath, and turned deadly white. " But this is preposterous," cried Isabel. " I will go at once to the Embassy." " Nothing, madame, can alter the decision of the tribunal. I addressed Monsieur le President ; I pleaded for Monsieur Grafton. The rest of my pupils implicated in this disastrous affair have been ordered to pay only the amende. Monsieur Grafton, because of his violence to the agent de police, which is a serious crime, has been condemned to pay an amende of two hundred francs, and has been sentenced to thirty days' imprisonment." Mary reeled for a moment, and Chabert held her, guiding her to a chair. 322 Companions in Grief Isabel stood irresolute. " It seems to have been a more disgusting matter than I was given to understand," she said with emphasis. Her mind was reviewing the situation. " You must be brave, madame," Chabert said to Mary. " What can I do ? " she asked in a low voice. " Have courage ; the thirty days will pass." In her grief she realised her impotence. She could do nothing to help her son. " Madame must wait till the imprisonment is over." She realised that she could not even wait in Paris for her son's release. She was penniless Isabel moved towards the door. " One can do nothing for him ; he has disgraced himself. I only hope it will not appear in the English newspapers." She turned at the door and looked at Mary. " Isabel ! " Mary was on her feet. " Well ? " " Help me. I must wait till he comes back. I have no money." Isabel surveyed her with a critical scrutiny. " You can really do no good by waiting." Mary's eyes darkened. " You are the cause of this, and you refuse to help me!" " I object to your saying that I am the cause of this humiliating and scandalous affair. It is grossly imper- tinent. As for helping you, if you have really conquered your superiority for Glevering " She 323 Y 2 The Shadow opened the bag containing her purse. " What amount do you require ? " Mary's face was white with horror. "You are the cause of his ruin, and you desert him ! God have mercy on your soul." In spite of these words, uttered with the deepest horror of a pure soul, Isabel asked peremptorily : " How much do you require ? " " Nothing." They had spoken in English, a language which Chabert did not understand. He thought by the action of Isabel in opening her purse that they were speaking of the fine. " There is no need for anxiety about the amende" he said. " I have paid for all my pupils ; it is nothing." " I wish to pay the fine," Isabel said, and placed two hundred francs on the table. " As for the other matter," she added, "here is a note for five pounds which you may do what you like with." " Take it back," commanded Mary. Isabel confronted her. " I throw it into the street if you leave it there. Your money has brought him to this ; you have suborned his soul to treachery, infamy, ruin. You forsake him when your money has destroyed him. There is a curse upon it. Take it back ! Your soul fills me with horror." Isabel's eyes hardened. She replaced the note in her purse, surveying Mary with a haughty and most hateful contempt ; then, with a slight lifting of her head, as though dismissing her sister-in-law as hopeless 324 Companions in Grief and beneath her notice, she passed out of the room without another word. " Monsieur," said Mary, turning impulsively to Chabert as the door closed, " I am poor. Help me to live till my son comes back to me. I implore you." " I too am poor, but I will help you." He looked away. As he did so he started, uttering an exclama- tion of surprise. He was looking at Christopher's Madonna. 3-'5 CHAPTER XXI. THE FALL OF THE DARK FOR thirty days Mary Grafton lived in the studio. A sum equivalent to fifty pounds was placed in her hands by Gaston Chabert on the third day after his visit. She lived upon the sale of the Madonna. This picture, which expressed Christopher's emo- tional repentance and which testified to the presence in his heart of some vestigial sense of his mother's devotion this picture, too, with which he had hoped to win applause, and which he intended to present to his mother in a cloud of glory was the means of that mother's support during the bitter days of his imprisonment. Chabert endeavoured to comfort Mary by telling her that the picture had been purchased by one of the first art dealers in Paris ; that it was to be repro- duced, and that on each of the reproductions, which would surely be very numerous, Christopher was to receive a royalty. " He is my best pupil," said the great master ; " but until I saw the Madonna I did not know his promise. Madame, your son is destined to greatness." During the thirty days of her waiting, this pure and noble spirit recovered the fulness of her faith in God ; 326 The Fall of the Dark she ceased to think of the horror of her son's sin. She considered his youth, more than all else, she assured herself that the Divine Father yearned to- wards this poor and prodigal son. It was the thought of divine forgiveness which melted the frozen grief in her heart. But the shock had done its work. Weakened by the severest privations, her health already undermined by the hardships she had endured for Christopher's sake, and unfitted by the extreme purity of her nature to sustain such assaults upon her peace as this fall and disgrace of her heart's love, the noble woman had received a wound from which recovery was impossible. She could think now with the sweetest charity ot the sin which had struck her death-blow, but it was not in her power to heal the wound. She had nothing in her heart save love and forgiveness, but the heart was broken ; unknown to herself, she was a dying woman ; she had begun to die when she first looked at the Madonna and realised its false holiness. On the day of Christopher's release, who knew nothing of his mother's presence in Paris, she waited for him in the studio. Chabert had put a stop to the festivity with which his pupils desired to celebrate Christopher's freedom at the prison gates. He went himself to the gaol, and as he left it in a cab, with Christopher at his side, told the young man that his mother awaited him in the studio. " She knows everything ? " asked the startled youth. " Everything." That was all. For the rest, Chabert spoke of the 327 The Shadow sale of the Madonna and prophesied a career for his pupil. Christopher was a changed man. He was not religious ; his heart was not softened. He had not flung himself down in an agony of repentance and remorse. But his boyhood lay as far behind him as his infancy ; he was a man. His will was strengthened ; his mind was hardened. He thought of his sin, not with humiliation and sorrow, but with a profound disgust, which was in the nature of nausea. He hated himself as a fool. When he took leave of his master, who remained in the cab, he showed his first signs of mental disquiet. " Your mother," said Chabert, holding his hand, "loves you, my dear Grafton, as I hope the good God loves me. She is good ; she is adorable." The porter and his wife were standing in the vestibule. " You have come back then, monsieur ? I am very glad of it," said the man. " It is nothing ; you will soon forget about it," said the woman. " Madame, your mother, was sad, but she is happy now. Have a good courage." " But yes," said the man, " there is no need for fear." Christopher went slowly up the stairs. His heart was beating with uneven energy. His thoughts were distracted. He wondered how he should open the door, what he should say, how he should manage to look into his mother's eyes. He was conscious of the awkwardness of the situation. A movement above caused him to raise his eyes. 328 The Fall of the Dark The door of his studio stood open. His mother was standing just inside. As he looked up she extended her hands towards him. Christopher ran to her. The arms closed about him ; he seemed to be clinging to her ; they were quite silent. Neither wept ; neither spoke. There was extraordinary energy in the straining pressure of his arms. His embrace said everything. Mary was saying, " God is good." Christopher was saying, " I have killed her." It was the sight of her face, all stricken and drawn and haggard, in spite of its efforts to express a vvelcome, which had filled him with remorse ; he saw his crime in his mother's face ; he saw the abasement of his fall and the ignominy of the prison in the eyes which had regarded him with love and tenderness when he uttered his first prayer to God It was not love for her so much as horror at himself, which had hastened him up the stairs at the first glimpse of her face. He did not fly to those opening arms so much to embrace her as to hide his eyes from the sight of her woe ; and now, pressing her to him, his head bowed upon her shoulder, he had only one thought in his mind, one branding realisation burning into his brain " I have killed her." " All is well," she said, very tenderly ; " you have come back to me, Christopher, I am satisfied." He could make no response ; he did not even dare to raise his head, so greatly did he dread to look into her face. " It shall be as if you had never left me," she went on, lifting one of her hands to lay it lovingly upon 329 The Shadow his head. " We will always be together now. Life will be happy for us ; everything that has happened since we separated from each other must be forgotten. Christopher, my son, I am so happy, so happy now you are in my arms. God is good to me." When at last he could find words he said hoarsely, " I hate myself. I can never forget." It was not without an effort that he was able to free her from his arms and bring himself to look at her. His first glance after this embrace was furtive there was in it some dreadful quality of the prison. He began presently to make excuses for his con- duct, while she remained seated at the end of the room, her hands folded in her lap, her grave eyes following all his movements with a quiet peaceful- ness. He searched among the boxes on the writing- table and found himself a cigarette, which he lighted in the midst of a sentence, and which he smoked with feverish quickness as he paced up and down the room, explaining and excusing. He had not been altogether bad, he assured her ; he had been more a fool than a scoundrel ; as for this miserable ball which had done the mischief, he wished her to know two things. First, he had not wanted to go ; he had stood out against the persuasions of his friends for hours for half a day in fact ; it was only when they besieged him in his room, and simply refused to take a No, that, as much to get rid of them as anything else, he had at last foolishly yielded to their pressure. The second thing he wished her to know that she might see how he was not altogether bad was this. When he arrived at the wretched ball 330 The Fall of the Dark he found how bad and hideous the thing was going to be ; looking round the place he was amazed to see two young girls, one of them English and very beautiful, sitting in evident dismay among the riot. He thought of his mother ; he walked over to these ladies and advised them to go home ; they had come, he discovered, in complete ignorance of the trae nature of the festivity. " They thanked me and implored me to help them out of the place, for they were afraid to move. I assisted them, saw them into a carriage, and for a minute I hesitated as to going back. But I had left my things there, one of my friends was at my elbow, and like a fool I returned. But I want you to see that I did at least do something to save young and innocent ladies from the contagion of the scene. Bad as I am, or foolish as I am, at least and it is all owing to you I have reverence for innocence." Poor boy ! he did not see how every word that he uttered lowered him and made his repentance a pitiable piece of sentimentalism. Qui s'exctise s* accuse. Never was the dictum truer of any apologia than his. He excused his sin to accuse his soul. It was a confession of total inability to apprehend the religious life. The note of vanity sounding through it was dreadful, was shocking, was revolting. To the ordinary good person of ordinary refinement, this confession would have sounded pitiable enough, but to a soul so perfected and so divinely poised as his mother, it sounded like a knell, tolling the death of all her hopes. For a week they remained in Paris. Christopher busied himself about obtaining commissions for pic- 331 The Shadow tures, and was so set upon this work, that he did not observe the increasing sadness of his mother, who was very literally dying of a broken heart. He spoke cheerfully of the future, and never referred to his ignominy. They arrived in London, and Mary immediately took up the business of her life. No news of the incident at the students' ball had reached the ears of their friends. Christopher was greeted as a man who had begun to distinguish himself by the Grindleys, and by Mauritius and Annabel Smith. He saw Augustus Nuttle privately and told him something of the affair at the fateful ball, concluding his narrative with anxious inquiries touching Glevering. Mr. Nuttle could only report that Isabel had written a letter to him from Vienna saying that she was disappointed in Christopher and did not at present intend to assist him any further in his studies. " I fear," said Augustus, not without selfish dis- pleasure, "that you have had the last of the golden eggs. I will not call Miss Grafton a goose, nor do I insinuate that you have killed her. But the eggs are evidently being laid elsewhere ; you are not likely to find any more in ' the roost of eminence ' nbi reddunt ova columbae, which means that Miss Grafton is a pigeon." Mauritius and Annabel, who were quick to perceive that something of a grave nature had occurred during Mary's visit to Paris, and who were shocked immeasur- ably by the terrible change in her appearance, did their best to encourage Christopher in the belief that he was a great painter destined to immortal glory. 332 The Fall of the Dark " To prove my faith in you," cried Mauritius, " I give you a commission. Paint a portrait of my beloved Stupefaction on a canvas which I can conveniently carry back to Selangor, and I plank down twenty guineas, the picture to act as a receipt ! " Thus stimulated and no one could have answered quicker to the flattery of his genius, which was one of the great reasons for his success Christopher set to work in the eyry. He was soon complaining of the bad light and the general inconvenience. Mary went about the sordid streets doing her work, and Christopher painted at the garret window. Some- times he was so restless and fretted at night thpt, weary as she was, Mary would go with him to a concert. One day, when he was finishing the portrait of Annabel, that good little woman said to him, " Do you notice how pale and worn your dear mother is looking ? " " She works too hard," he replied. " It would be a good thing, I think, to persuade her to see a doctor. I have tried, but your influence is so much greater. Do try and persuade her." " It is perfectly monstrous that she should slave as she does ; that is one of the reasons why I stick all day at my painting. I have the ambition to provide for her ; it is certain I shall succeed later on, but it is always difficult at the beginning. I will certainly insist that she should see a doctor." When Mary came home that night, Christopher said to her, " I don't think you ought to live in this neigh- bourhood ; it is unhealthy and depressing ; it affects 333 The Shadow my nerves, so I know. If I get on, we must move to a better part of the town, but in the meantime I think you ought to see a doctor." She said that there was no need. " He would give you a tonic." She made no answer and was busy preparing tea. " Everybody gets run down at times and needs a tonic. I wish you would see a doctor." She turned and smiled towards him. " Am I looking very old, then ? " He rose and went over to her. " See a doctor," he said, with his hands on her arms, " to please me. Ah, mother, when I think of all you have been to me " " Oh, hush, my dear, I have satisfied myself in loving you." " You are the best, the noblest of women," he ex- claimed fervently, "and to please me, who love you so more than you imagine you will see a doctoi and get well." Christopher was successful in his persuasion ; Mar> promised to see the parish doctor in a day or two She came into the room one evening with a bottle o) medicine in her hand. Christopher's anxiety was allayed. He worked hard at his picture ; the bad light troubled him, he was fretted by the narrow circum- stances of the room ; nevertheless he was not unhappy. In his work lay, for the present, his salvation ; absorbed by his art, the wandering and dangerous inclinations of his nature were without power over his will ; and he was tremendously in earnest As the saints so lose themselves in the thought of heaven, that they 334 The Fall of the Dark are safe against the assaults of the world, so Christopher lost himself in the thought of success and was safe against the temptations and beguilements of evil. It is not the money-seeker who is vain or immoral or profligate ; and yet there can be scarcely a condition of mind more opposed to God. One can keep all the commandments in a very centre of hell. Mary knew the condition of her son's mind. She did not speak to him about his attitude towards life nor seek to force him unwillingly towards God. Every day made her feel that she could do nothing ; to change her son's mind was like changing the colour of his eyes. Only God can perform miracles. She prayed, and waited. One evening as Christopher sat reading a biography of the Tuscan artists, while his mother, reclining on a chair-sofa, the gift of kind Annabel, employed herself with needle-work, they were both suddenly roused by the sound of voices and footsteps on the stair outside. Christopher looked up expectantly, gladly, closing his book. " Visitors ! " he said. Mary lowered her needle- work to her lap, and listened. She was too tired to welcome an interruption. The door opened, and Madame Tilly entered the room with eagerness and vivacity, followed at a slower and more impressive pace by the grave and mysterious Nico. " We have come," cried Madame Tilly, " to see our dear friend, and to do homage to the great artist." While she embraced Mary, Nico took Christopher's hand and said, " We have heard of your fame, which I foreshadowed in your boyhood." These people, so difficult to understand, who earned 335 The Shadow their living in a manner, if not disreputable, at least thoroughly questionable, and who nevertheless pre- served in their hearts unusual kindness, had come to renew acquaintance with Mary Grafton out of the purest sympathy. From the go-ahead son of Mr. and Mrs. Grindley, who was connected with the advertise- ment side of journalism, they had heard of Mary's terrible state of health. His report of Christopher's skill as a painter had served them with an excuse for coming to see what they might do for the mother. It was the interest which Mary's pure heart had created in their minds that brought them to Trinity Street. Nico announced that he wanted a picture of his wife, and another of himself, to hang in the rooms in Bond Street. It was impossible for either of them to give sittings, the increasing demands of their important professions precluded such an idea. But he suggested that Christopher should make rough studies of them there and then, and perhaps on subsequent evenings, and working on the portraits by day, should allow his imagination the freest scope. " For," concluded the impressive Nico, " I am not seeking photographs, but pictorial representations of our spiritual natures. I suggest to you something allegorical, something which will induce our clients to yield their wills to the efficacy of our suggestions." Soon after this commission was given, Nico found himself one evening alone with Christopher. " I wish to speak to you," he said, " about your mother. I am a doctor, not of the body, but of the soul. The soul is the life, the body merely the 336 The Fall of the Dark machine. I am concerned about the soul of your mother. I am clairvoyant. My vision penetrates be- neath appearance. The soul of your mother is in peril." Christopher stopped working, and looked at him. " I tell you," continued Nico in a very ghostly manner, " that the Angel of Death inhabits this room. I can feel its presence ; all my senses are aware of it. And on the face of your mother the shadow has already fallen." Christopher swallowed in his throat, and felt himselt grow cold. " It is not sickness, it is not disease, that troubles her," said Nico, folding his arms. " Nor is it a longing for the fuller and more wonderful existence which awaits the spirit after death. It is the most terrible, the most wasting, the most destructive of death's agonies a ceasing of desire for life, a numb and passionless acquiescence in the thought of ex- tinction." Christopher turned to his work again. His heart was beginning to hammer. His breathing was troubled. He found that his hand shook. " Some agony of the heart," said Nico, " has brought your mother to this that she has no wish but for endless sleep, no desire but for cessation of being, for annihilation. Now it is for you, whom she loves above all earthly things, to restore in her soul enthusiasm for existence. You must do that, or she will die. You will wake one morning to find that she is not stirring. There will be a silence here. You will go to her room. You will think that she is still sleeping ; you will find that she " 337 z The Shadow " For pity's sake ! " Christopher stood in front of him, breathing hard) his face rigid and flushed. " It is my wish," continued Nico, " and the wish ol Madame Tilly to help you, You must take your mother away. We have friends, clients of both of us, who will receive you for a nominal payment. They keep a vegetarian sanatorium in Rivermouth. Take your mother there as soon as possible. Let the change of air, the freedom from depressing work, the scent of the pines, the sight of the sea, do their work, but above all things make your love the great re- storer of her vital force. Convince her that you love her." Christopher was thoroughly roused. The thought of death once implanted in his mind took root there and filled him with a very terror of apprehension. He could not rest until he had got his mother out of London. The words of the 'palmist had hung a weight of guilt upon his heart He could not look into his mother's face without remorse. " I have killed her," he said in an agony of bitterness. She was quite compliant. She went to see her slum friends for the last time, for the last time knelt in the mission-church, bade good-bye to the Grindleys, who wept at parting with her, and took leave of poor timorous Miss Maffey with an expression of gratitude for her kindness which was charged with the sense of finality. The establishment recommended by Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs was an impecunious and shabby place at some 338 The Fall of the Dark distance from the sea. Health formed the excuse for lack of comfort. The thin furniture,, the absence of carpets, the inescapable draughts, the want of refine- ment at the table these things were reckoned part of the treatment. For three weeks they suffered the horrors of this place, and then Christopher deter- mined on heroic action. Excellent good news had reached him from Paris concerning the success of the Madonna. He was not only well supplied with money, but the art dealers had commissioned him to paint another Madonna, and informed him that they would be glad to have the refusal of all his religious pictures. "We will go away from this dreadful place," he said to his mother, and set himself to find a happier lodging. By good fortune he found rooms in a charming house, high on the cliffs, and near the pine-woods, where he could paint with a good light till late in the evening. Thither they removed their few belongings and established themselves, after a month of bad vegetarian cookery and the daggers of most pitiless draughts. But the only change visible in his mother's face was the deepening of the shadow of death. And now began for Christopher the terrible drama of his remorse. He was condemned by his own success to paint Madonnas. He could have no model but his mother. Contemplate and consider what it was for his young heart, just emerging from the rush of impatient youth and just beginning to experience the burden of re- 339 z 2 The Shadow morse, to be condemned to paint all day long, and day after day, the fading beauty and declining strength of the love that he himself had slain. Not only this, he must paint his mother as the Madonna. For ever he must have before him the reminder of that night when he had plunged from wavering innocence and half-hearted goodness into the abyss of blasphemy and sin. For him the Madonna awoke no tender thoughts of maternity. She grew every day, with a frightfully increasing emphasis, the hateful reminder and the mocking memory of his crime, which was unalterable. He was like a felon condemned to contemplate the body he has murdered. He could earn his bread in no other way, save by perpetuating the memory of his crime, by branding himself deeper and deeper with the guilt of his mother's blood. He sent to Paris other pictures, pictures of children playing at the edge of the sea, pictures of peasants returning from the fields, pictures of sailors launching their boats and getting in their nets. It was of no avail. These pictures were either returned, or fetched but a starvation price. He could not escape from his doom. He had established a reputation by his Madonna, and in one form or another he must paint Madonnas, if he would live, apparently to his life's end. He was to live out of the religion he neither understood nor greatly reverenced, the religion which he had outraged, denied, and made an instrument for the destruction of his mother. It would not be easy to exaggerate the torture to 340 The Fall of the Dark which he was put by the necessities of existence. Every fresh Madonna to which he set himself was a new agony of the old remorse. They lived in this manner for two years, Christopher hiding his remorse from his mother, and Mary devoting herself to his comfort and happiness. One evening as they sat together on the cliffs, Mary looked up from a new French book which he had brought her that very day, and asked, almost with a glad eagerness, " Do you know this book ? have you read it?" " No." She hesitated for a moment, and then said, " It is quite beautiful. Let me read you a little passage : " ' Corot disait que pour saisir 1'ame et la beautd d'un paysage, il fallait savoir s'asseoir ; je crois que j'ai rdussi a savoir m'asseoir pour regarder la vie. Du point ou je me suis place'e apres bien des tatonnements, elle m'apparait belle et bonne, oui, bonne. . . . Je vois 1'homme, non plus comme un aveugle en liberte", mais comme un co-ope'rateur de 1'ceuvre divine, immortel comme elle. Je le vois marchant en pleine e'ternite', conduit vers des buts lointains et glorieux.' " x She did not turn to him as she concluded this passage, but raising her head, let her eyes travel 1 " Corot said that to seize the spirit and beauty of a land- scape it is necessary to know how to sit down ; I think I have discovered how to place myself for a faithful contemplation of life. From the point where I now stand after long gropings, life appears to me a thing beautiful and good ; yes, good. ... I see humanity no longer as a blind man, punished with the gift of a freedom which terrifies him, but as a worker with God in a destiny as immortal as life itself. I see humanity moving in the midst of eternity, guided towards great ends, distant and sublime." Sur la Branche, by Pierre de Coulevain. 341 The Shadow beyond the shimmering floor of ocean and rest with a new composure of resignation upon the soft and misty line of the horizon, which was not an end but a beginning of unimagined glory. " I think I have succeeded," she said, " in knowing where to place myself for the true contemplation of life. Things which troubled me dreadfully no longer have power over my thoughts to depress me, things which shook, horrified, and bewildered me, now only pain me very little. It is not looking towards, but looking outwards from eternity that makes it possible for one to contemplate the life of this world without terror and distress the thought of eternity, which is inhabited by the mercy and goodness of God." She turned and looked at him. " You are a painter ; you will understand Corot's ' savoir sasseoir! If it is necessary, Christopher, in order to paint a picture, that one should know where to seat oneself, how much more necessary in the greater business of making a destiny, living a life, that one should know where to stand for a true knowledge of the under- taking. Do you feel that ? It is very reasonable and simple, is it not ? I should like to know that you feel some point of view is necessary. ' Whilst we live without God in the world,' says Fenelon, ' we are the continual sport of fortune.' We are like an artist sitting down to paint he knows not what ; a writer sitting down to compose without purpose, object, or intention ; even like a woman with needle, cotton, and material, who, when one asks, ' What do you make ? ' replies, ' I do not know.' To be rational we must have some definition of life. And only two 342 The Fall of the Dark definitions are possible. Either it is God, or it is Mammon." " Mother," he said, without looking at her, " if I do not speak of religion, it is because I cannot forget the past. But I believe in God. I hope for His mercy." This was the last time they ever spoke intimately of the great concernment of human life. Perhaps she had a premonition that her end was near, and would leave in his soul one tender thought of the reasonable- ness of religion and would take with her into eternity one sweet hope that he was turning his face towards the peace of God. No longer, in the phrase of George Sand, tourment/ des choses divines > this lovely character rested in the shadow of that great Hope and was at peace in resignation to the divine Will. The world which had frightened her and darkened the radiance of her spiritual life with fear and terror, had grown at last to be something still held in the love of an infinite Father and tended by His inexhaustible mercy, some- thing which could neither hurt nor destroy her child without the will of her Father which was in heaven. This was the secret of her peace. She had considered that her love, her providence, her constant care and clinging presence were necessary to the safety and security of that child ; she knew now that of herself she could do nothing against the world, but that in the love and mercy of God was the one rock of her defence. She uttered her prayer to God, and left to the tender mercy of her heavenly Father the final and glorious answer to her wistful supplication the salva- tion of her son. Only God could answer that prayer. In the book which he had brought her, but which 343 The Shadow he had not read, she found this description of a picture, which made a profound impression on her mind : " Centre un ciel noir, traverse* d'e"clairs, se dresse une grande croix sur laquelle est cloud un etre humain aux traits rudes, mal de"grossis. C'est le mauvais larron. II est la, agonisant, les cheveux souleve's par un vent d'orage, mais point seul. Une femme du peuple a les bras autour de son cou, les levres sur les levres. Pour atteindre sa bouche, elle a du se hisser sur sa monture, un petit ane blanc conduit par un enfant qui, honteux, s'appuie contre le bois infamant. Est ce 1'amour de Montmartre, de Saint Ouen, de Saint Lazare? . . . Je ne sais, mais dans ce baiser, dans ce corps de femme tendu, exhausse* jusqu'au crucifie', il y a une force de tendresse maternelle qui fait croire au pardon." 1 One morning as Christopher was beginning a new Madonna, the memory recurred to his mind of the beautiful English girl whom he had rescued from the students' ball. It was a memory which came to him frequently when the horror of that awful night pressed upon his soul. At the beginning of a new Madonna, or when he was struggling to express with his brush the exquisite sweetness and most holy purity haunting the unfathomable depths of his mother's eyes, the 1 " Against a black sky, riven by lightning, rises a great cross on which is nailed a human being of a rough and evil counten- ance. It is the impenitent thief. He hangs there in agony, his hair blown back by the wild wind, but not alone. A woman of the people has her arms round his neck, her lips pressed against his lips. In order to reach his mouth she has had to stand on the back of a little white ass, led by a boy who leans against the tree of shame with hanging head. Is this the love of Montmartre, etc. ? . . . I do not know, but in the kiss, in the strained body of the woman, uplifted to the crucified, there is a strength of maternal love which makes one believe in the forgiveness of sins." Sur la Branche, by Pierre de Coulevain. 344 The Fall of the Dark blessed and saving thought of that one good action would shine in the darkness of his soul like a star, merciful with hope. On this particular morning in high summer, painting at the wide open window with the quiet murmur of the sea and the innumerable hum of the green earth in his ears, he thought of the beautiful unknown girl and presently spoke about her. " I wonder," he said, " where she is now, and whether she has forgotten that evil dream. How strangely fate acts with us ! My life touched hers for a moment, one great and awful moment, and then our names, our identities, our destinies unknown to each other we parted for ever. Mother, that little act of mine comforts me. But for that I do not know that I should be able to support the memory of But we will not talk about it. God be thanked, it lies every day, every hour, farther behind me." He raised his eyes from the canvas to study her posture. "This Madonna," he said, with some excitement, "shall be our greatest. It shall express the divine sorrow and the unchanging love of your motherhood. No words so beautiful to me as those lines in the Sonnets " ' Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds . . . O no ! it is an ever-fixed mark, Which looks on tempests and is never shaken. . . .' I have got an idea ! I will paint this Madonna stand- ing at the edge of a wild sea under a roaring sky. It has never been done. There shall be a ship half-buried 345 The Shadow under the waves, and she shall be looking towards it, sorrowful but secure. She shall be the expression of maternal love, which is the nearest our humanity can reach to heaven. She shall be you, and the ship shall be my soul. ... It shall be the love which is triumphant over disaster and time "'Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom ! ' And, mother dearest, remember that I can only succeed if you do triumph over the sorrow I have brought to you. It is necessary that you become every day stronger and happier. Will you try? To help me." He looked up. " I am happy," she answered. Her eyes were closed, a smile of unearthly tenderness lay along the line of her lips. " Are you tired ? " he asked. " It rests me to sit here," she replied, her eyes for a moment contemplating him with a tired but loving interest. She very often dropped off to sleep in the daytime, and he was not disturbed. He continued to work in silence. Presently she said in a low voice, as though speak- ing to herself, " I believe in the forgiveness of sins." These words scarcely reached him ; he thought she was speaking in her sleep, and did not even glance in her direction. He became so absorbed in altering the design of his picture that he looked seldom, and then only swiftly and cursorily, towards his mother for more than 346 The Fall of the Dark an hour ; he observed nothing of the change which was taking place in her. At last he was startled by a profound sigh. Quickly he looked up, with the chalk arrested in his hand. She was deadly white. Her eyes were still un opened. Her lips were parted. " Mother ! " He rose from his seat, and hurriedly crossed the room. " Mother ! " He knelt at her side. She did not open her eyes. Her head swayed a little, as if she were falling asleep. The tiredness of her attitude was the weariness of life, her slumber was the sleep of death. As he stood before her, trans- fixed with horror, her lips moved, and she whispered, " My child ! " Then her head sank. He seized her hands, drew them fiercely towards him, gathered her into his arms, and cried in a loud voice, "Mother! Mother!" She dropped like a dead flower into the terrified passion of his embrace. The pressure of his arms had no meaning for her. The burning force of his kisses gave her no joy. For the first time she did not respond to the cry of his anguish. Dazed, stunned, still unbelieving the thing that had happened, Christopher stood looking down upon his mother lying so peacefully on the couch where he had placed her. 347 CHAPTER XXII. DISCEDITE MALEDICTI '"HOWARDS the close of a summer day, early in A the present century, a traveller with a knapsack on his back was climbing the side of Toom Fell with an energy that suggested some important enterprise. The sky, to which every difficult step of his way brought him a little nearer, brooded black and ominous above the summit of the mountain. This darkness of the heavens deepened with a visible rapidity. It was reflected in the rushing waters of the stream, whose course the traveller was following in his ascent, and showed in the colour of boulders projecting from the side of the mountain, and in the patches of grass which, scattered among the shale, looked like foam of the fields flung upward from the valley in a night of storm. The tinge of thunder, deepening with every moment in the heavens, sank into the earth like a dye. The whole scene was saturated with this livid hue of the storm. In spite, however, of the threaten- ing sky and the swift oncoming of night, the solitary traveller continued his way. Save for himself, nowhere in that wild region of savage solitude and melancholy grandeur was there sign of living thing. He had the world to himself. He shared the wrath of heaven only with the moun- 348 Discedite Maledicti tains. While the rushing water seemed to be plunging downward terror-stricken from the storm, the man seemed to be ascending swiftly only that he might meet it. Solitary in the midst of that gathering darkness, and forlorn in the midst of that abiding desolation, the man, climbing upward to the tempest with a burden on his back, suggested an allegory. As if to fulfil the idea that the black heaven had lain in wait to receive him, the darkness was split and jagged open by a stroke of lightning at the very moment when he reached the summit For a flashing second the magnificent scene was lit up. The traveller beheld the infinite distance of the mountain peaks. He saw skies of turquoise blue. The grass on his way became for the instant green and pleasant. A granite beacon some hundred paces ahead of him, and almost lost in the darkness, leapt up vivid and distinct. This extraordinary clearness of detail lasted but the flash of a moment, while the traveller stood drawing his breath on the summit. Then, as the wonderful panorama sank into the brown-blackness of the storm, the upper air burst into life, a peal of thunder broke with a terrifying and ear-splitting clangour just above his head, which was lifted to the dark skies. An observer would have seen some spiritual quality in this lonely traveller on the mountain-tops strangely and tragically at unity with the thunderstorm. The pallor of his face, the darkness of his eyes, the expression of enduring woe which lived along the line of his lips responded to the suffering of Nature with the suffering of humanity. The expression of his pale 349 The Shadow face and the attitude of his body denoted an age-long misery such as one might think to see in the visage oi the Wandering Jew or the Ancient Mariner. Just as there was no violence of malevolent antagonism in the storm, but rather a dull, passionless, and indifferent obedience to the ruling of some inscrutable Spirit behind it, so in the countenance and attitude of the man there was nothing of Promethean defiance, but only a cold, passive, and dumb submission to the burden of suffering which is the doom of humanity. One felt that if he opened his lips he would say, " I pass, like night, from land to land." He drew his knapsack higher on to his shoulders, and set out to cross the path over the mountain. The roar of the burn had ceased. A profound hush brooded in the darkness. The traveller seemed to feel the weight of this weird silence. He was within a pace or two of the beacon when a second flash oi lightning dazzled the darkness for a second, and then plunged the whole scene back into a deeper gloom. At the moment of this flash the traveller's eyes were fixed upon the beacon. Certain letters carved deep into the stone sprang into clearness. He saw, as though a spirit had flung the words into his face, a command DISCEDITE MALEDICTI and as he realised their meaning, a blast of thunder that seemed to crack the sky burst with appalling suddenness above his head. He stood for a moment, while the darkness thick- ened and the rumble of the bounding thunder rever- berated round the hills, gazing at the words on the beacon. His face became grey and haggard, there 350 Discedite Maledicti was an agony of woe in his eyes dreadful to behold, his lips seemed to swell with the anguish of an unutterable misery ; but, in spite of these signs of suffering, the carriage of his head and the posture of his body denied the supposition of a broken spirit. There was nothing of haughtiness in his attitude, nothing of defiance and resentment. But there was no humility, no contrition. One saw their acquies- cence in judgment, and endurance under punishment. The darkness increased as he stood stricken and unbowed before the beacon. Those terrible words, " Depart, ye Cursed," seemed to hold him in enchantment. It might have been that he had climbed the mountain only to read them. He remained fixed and immovable before that fixed and immovable doom humanity face to face with the tables of stone, humanity deciphering the Law without the interpretation of the Cross, humanity under sen- tence of Jehovah, unfathered by the Love of God. The letters seemed to sink into the stone and disappear. A spot of rain like a tear from heaven fell upon them. The darkness became like the dark- ness of the grave. Then in a moment the rain descended with a swift rush that became almost in an instant a roar. The pageant of the hills, terrible in the lividity of the storm, was blotted out. The rain seemed as if it brought down with the waters of heaven the dye of the tempest It was a black rain, whose very roar was darkness. Distance vanished. The circle of vision narrowed. The universe contracted to the man and the beacon. Even the words of judgment had 351 The Shadow disappeared, as if the darkness had fulfilled the doom, and the curse had fallen. The traveller looked up to the black sky, his face drenched with rain, and after a moment continued his way. Though he appeared to study the darkness only for the weather, there was such pain in his face, such woe and settled desolation, that a man seeing him look upward to the tempest might have said, " This soul hath been Alone on a wide, wide sea ; So lonely 'twas, that God Himself Scarce seemed there to be." He had crossed Toom Fell and descended some distance to reach the side of Raven Scar, over whose desolate summit lay the course of his journey, when he began to be uncertain of his way. The path he had followed lost itself in a wide-spreading desert of shale. He stood looking before him, gazing to left and right, the rain soaking through his shoulders. Then, as well as the fierceness of the rain would let him, he looked upward to Raven Scar. A streak of lightning at that moment illumined the scene. On the summit of the great Scar he saw a man standing with his face lifted to the storm. He crossed the waste of shale, climbed the side of Raven Scar, and reached the summit. For a moment he thought that he had aimed wrongly. Nowhere was the man to be seen. But presently he discerned in the darkness a figure hastening away from him across the mountain top. The movements of this man perplexed him. He was hurrying forward with his 352 Discedite Maledicti head raised, his arms outspread. There was something terrible in his haste, in his attitude. The traveller stopped for a moment and regarded him. Then, as if aware that night was now descending on the mountains, and his journey was uncompleted, he continued his way, walking rapidly through the rain to overtake the man in front of him. A flash of lightning, more vivid, more terrifying, and of greater duration than any which had preceded it, suddenly leapt out of the blackness and flared in jagged lines across the sky. The hurrying figure in front of the traveller stopped dead, and lifting his arms to heaven, appeared slowly to clasp his hands together. Then he turned, and the* traveller saw him. In the great darkness of the mountains he was like a phantom. He was an old, still vigorous, patriarchal man, wrapped in a rough coat of sheepskin the very hue of his beard, which descended upon it almost to the waist. His head was covered by a woollen cap pressed down as far as the shaggy brows, which hung like eaves over wild eyes, small, blue, staring. His ears were hidden under grey hair. There was some- thing mad and majestic about this rude figure of the mountains, something which recalled Lear to the mind of the wondering traveller, Lear in the thunder- storm on the heath, " A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man," a man bereft of his reason, but more tremendous in his madness than a hero in his sanity. When this old man beheld the traveller, he came 353 2 A towards him, using the long staff, which had been gripped under his arm, as a stick, his right hand grasping it high up and plunging it forward at every stride with a quick instancy. He became grand. He was Homeric. " God ! " he cried out in a great deep voice, as he reached the traveller " Almighty God ! " They were standing face to face in the darkness. He lifted his arms, raised his eyes, and cried out again, " Almighty and Everlasting God ! " The traveller watched him. Suddenly the old man, who was labouring under intense excitement, lowered his arms, and bringing his staring eyes near to the traveller's face, exclaimed wildly, " Fear the Lord ! He speaks. He is terrible. Fear the Lord ! " The rugged splendour in this old man of the mountains, which concorded with the sombre darkness of earth and sky, made the traveller study him with an interest greater than curiosity. " The terrors of God," cried the old rnari, looking to the sky, and baying out the words in his great, gruff, vigorous bass, " do set themselves in array against me. Hear attentively the noise of His voice, and the sound that goeth out of His mouth. God thundereth mar- vellously with His voice ; great things doeth He, which we cannot comprehend. Hast thou an arm like God ? or canst thou thunder with a voice like Him ? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season ? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons ? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee ? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death ? " He paused, glancing wildly at the traveller's face ; 354 Discedite Maledicti then, placing a hand upon the young man's shoulder, he said, " When God speaks, answer Him as mighty Job answered. Say ' I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.' Ah ! bow. Bow yourself. We are but as dust before Him." For a moment this old man gazed with staring eyes into the traveller's face ; then, as a flash of lightning flamed, jerked, and flickered over their heads, he suddenly snatched away his hand, raised his face, which had become dull with awe, to the black sky, and " Listen ! " he commanded, and raised his right arm with authority. The two men stood in the darkness, the silence, and the rain, listening. A volley of thunder, which seemed to burst the heavens and shake the earth to her foundations, crashed with a shattering din above their heads, and bounded and rolled away into invisible distance, swelling into angered thuds as it died muttering on the black air. With his weather-beaten face raised to the sky, his hard blue eyes shining luminously, the old man cried in a low voice, " Behold, I am vile. What shall I answer Thee ? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth." He almost whispered into the flying clouds, " Desolation ! Desolation ! " He continued for some moments gazing up into the sky, as though in prayer. As he stood in this manner, the traveller, who was studying his face attentively, saw the skin become suddenly clearer and brighter, as though a candle shone upon it. Every wrinkle became visible. He 355 2 A 2 The Shadow looked up at the sky. The storm had passed. The darkness was melting. It seemed as if the violence of excitement, which had animated and ennobled the old man, fell away from him with the passing of the storm. He shrank, with a strange suddenness, into commonplace. A moment ago, standing like a sentinel in the midst of the tempest, leaning on his long staff and looking up into the blackness of the heavens, he might have been Elijah, Lear, or some old Druid priest reigning by the eloquence of his soul over a wild and lawless people. But now, with the lightening of the sky, the passing of the tempest, he appeared to the traveller only a bowed and broken old man, some ancient shepherd earning dry crusts on the mountains, and fearing not the majesty of God, but the sordid squalor of poverty. Wondering that he had been so marvellously im- pressed by him, and taking him now for some demented peasant whose mind had been affected by religious emotionalism, the traveller approached him, and saying that the storm had passed, inquired the way to Penraven. The shepherd said that he would show him, and they walked forward together, neither speaking. Near the extremity of the Scar, commanding an extraordinary view of the hills, stood a wooden hut with a single window. The shepherd went to it and opened the door, on which was written in rude letters " Fear the Lord." The traveller caught a glimpse of the miserable interior an unmade bed, a table littered with plates and dishes, a fireless stove, a chair covered 356 Discedite Maledicti with old clothing ; on the wall, over the head of the bed, was a red-bordered church almanac with a picture of the Good Shepherd. The old man pulled off his coat of sheep-skin, hung it behind the door, and grasping his staff came out again to the traveller. " This is where you live ? " " Most of the year." Alone ? " " Alone." " Do you mind that ? " " It is the will of the Lord." " That you live alone ? " " That my house should be left unto me, desolate." " Are you from Penraven ? '' " Aye." " You know the clergyman ?" " And his father before him." " I am going to see him, after nearly twenty years. He was my tutor." " He is changed." "In what way ? " " How do the old suffer ? " " You mean he is ill ? " " No." " What do you mean ? " " The old suffer through the children." The traveller's face blanched, and he seemed to wish to hurry his pace. " You are young," said the shepherd, " but yet you should have lived long enough to know that the stroke of the old comes from the hand of the young. 357 The Shadow Aye, the child strikes hard. When an old man is not at peace, it is the work of those he nourished and loved." The young man's eyes darkened. " Parson Kindred and I contend together," said the old man slowly and quietly. " He is for the love of God ; I am for the fear of God. He is of the valley, where there are flowers ; I am of the mountains, where there are storms. But both of us know the dust and ashes. Fear the Lord ! " he cried, raising his voice. " Fear the Lord ! " He stopped, and the traveller turned, wondering at this sudden return of his madness. The old man's eyes were moist with tears. " Aye, fear the Lord," he said quietly, bowing his head in emphasis of the words. " I was once like Parson Kindred. Love ! " His eyes shone, and he lifted his face. " Love ! I was drunk with the thought of the love of God." Hie head came down, shaking sorrowfully, and he muttered, as though to himself, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord ! Let the whole earth fear Him," he cried with sudden energy. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear the Lord ! " He paused, drew a deep sigh, and continued in a quieter tone, " Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. God dis- tributeth sorrows in His anger. Even to-day is my complaint bitter ; my stroke is heavier than my groaning. Aye, and that good man in the valley beneath. His stroke is heavy. God hath struck him as He hath stricken me also. Desolation ! Desola- tion ! Leave him alone to himself. Aye, leave him 358 Discedite Maledicti alone. I have suffered like him. A man must be by himself when God hath made him desolate. Leave him ; he is alone and deserted ; let the Lord dwell with him. And you you are young enough to have father and mother hearken to me. Love your father, love your mother ; and pray to God night and day that never you come to break their hearts and bring their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave ! " The traveller made a movement as if to continue his way. The shepherd caught his arm. "Abide a moment. You have seen me with the wrath of the heavens. Young sir, when you go down to the valley do not forget the thunder of God's voice. Remember it for your own salvation. Speak about it to others for their salvation. Tell men to fear the Lord. Tell young children, lest they come to break their parents' hearts, to fear the Lord. Preach ; be a preacher of the fear of God. I tell you this life passes. Death is swift. My eighty years lie behind me like a vision of the night. Soon cometh judgment. Fear the Lord, I say, fear the Lord." He released his hold/>f the young man's arm, whose eyes had hardened as he spoke, and went forward again. "Yon is your way," he said presently, point- ing downward with his right hand. " You strike the burn by that bush where the hill dips. Follow the burn into the valley till you come to the bridge. Then up the road for half a mile, and you come to the church. Parson Kindred lives a hundred yards from it on the right." He paused, laying a hand on the traveller's arm, and said, " God hath stricken His 359 The Shadow humble minister. Leave him alone. His house is desolate." The traveller stood looking down into the valley. His face was very white and drawn. " Is there an inn ? " he inquired in a hard voice, and turned to the shepherd. The old man considered, and replied, " At the little farmhouse, that lies back from the road just before you reach the church, they would give you a room. Say I sent you." " What is your name ? " " The Mad Shepherd." " Come, a truer name ? " "iThe chief of sinners." The young man eased the wet straps of his knap- sack, and preparing to descend, said, " May I come and see you again ? " " I have said all I know. Fear the Lord." " I am an artist. I should like to make a picture of you." " I think nothing of that" " I may come ? " "To look at me? Better that you give heed to my words." " Good-night I am much obliged to you for show- ing me the way." The old man laid a hand on his arm. " If you see Parson, say the Mad Shepherd prays for him on the mountain. Tell him that Good-night, the Lord be with you." When the traveller reached the valley, the gloom of the dense leafage was pierced and penetrated by 360 Discedite Maledicti moonlight. A sense of sweetness breathed in the still air which was almost overpowering after the mountain top. White mists were ascending from the pastures like spirits rising from the grave ; the moon- light gave them a celestial brightness. The music of the burn filled the night with lovely harmonies. One felt that the storm had been local to the hills and that the peace and beauty of this sylvan valley had been unbroken from the dawn of creation. The striking of the church clock announced to the traveller that the village was near. As he approached it he said to himself, without sorrow and without bitterness, " Discedite maledicti," and felt upon his soul the weight of " a hand that can be clasp'd no more." 361 CHAPTER XXIII THE OUTLAW THE most terrible form of remorse is not that wild despair which drives a man to destruction. To destroy the body in order to escape from one's own soul is an act of madness. Remorse only reaches the fulness of its power in the rational mind. It is a cold, steady, and dispassionate self-knowledge. It is an undying memory. It is not a scourge ; it is a voice. It is not a goad ; it is a burden. The weak often know nothing of remorse ; they know despair. It is the strong who suffer. It will be remembered that the traveller climbing the rugged side of Toom Fell appeared to be in haste, as though he had some urgent enterprise on hand. He was seeking to escape from himself. That traveller was Christopher Grafton. To himself he seemed not only a hateful thing, but an outlaw of God. He had slain his mother by an act that outraged Heaven. By the death of his mother he realised her love, and realised the horror of his sin. His desolation was twofold. He was bereaved of love, he was bereaved of hope. Never more God help him! would he know the divine affection which from childhood had breathed upon his 362 The Outlaw life from his mother's soul ; her eyes were closed, her hands were folded, her breast was cold as marble ; he might cry, but she would not answer ; call, but she would not come to him ; seek, but he would not find her ; she was dead the true and tender companion of his life was dead. We understand death for the first time, says a great writer, when he lays his hand on one whom we love. There is a greater tragedy. Some natures understand love only when death has removed it. To awake beside the grave, to know that what is lost was never valued, that what is beyond the reach of confession, and tears, and penitence, was never understood, that what has passed away from us is beyond the knowledge that at last we do under- stand, do value, and do love ah, with all our strength and with all our soul ! is this not the real tragedy of death, the real tragedy of life, terrible for the repent- ing believer, but most terrible, most unthinkably terrible, for the soul without a God ? To understand death for the first time is the sharpness of sorrow. To understand love for the first time only when it is taken from us is the agony of remorse. The desolation wrought by the death of his mother was tragedy enough, but to this was added, as we have said, the second desolation of eternal hope. He saw his sin, the sin that had killed her, with eyes purged of the world. He saw the horror, the blasphemy, the unpardonable infamy of that sin with eyes that looked through the shadowy portals of death to the awful bourne of immortality. He awoke to feel himself under the curse of God. He felt that if men knew what he had done they would shrink from him, half 363 The Shadow in loathing and half in horror. " Discedite Maledicti " was the just judgment of God ; it would also be the judgment of humanity, if humanity knew " I am defenceless utterly ; I slept, methinks, and woke, And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. In the rash lustihead of my young powers, I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me ; grimed with fears I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap." To analyse the mystery of remorse would be a task as forbidding as hopeless. But this at least must be said, that remorse is not always a continual depression of the energies, is not always a perpetual and unbroken consciousness of despair. No ; it is a voice from outside us which is not always speaking, but which makes itself heard suddenly and in moments when we are freest from the sense of guilt. It is something that haunts our steps for a little while, and like our own shadow, is now in front of us, now behind us, and now vanished altogether. We forget it, but it comes back and says, " I am here." We seek to escape it, we run far from it and delude ourselves that we have lost it, but it stands in front of us and says : " I am thyself what hast thou done to me ? " It was in this manner that remorse functioned in the mind of Christopher Grafton. He thought by ceaseless movement to escape the burden of memory. He avoided all who had known his mother. He shrank from every place consecrated and haunted by her " cold commemorative eyes." Straight from her grave he set 364 The Outlaw out to wander over the earth. Distracted, he sought distraction. There were hours when he felt the en- chantment of pastoral hills and watered valleys, hours when he worked at his art with an exquisite loss of self, hours when a new city obsessed the faculties of his mind. But " Just when we are safest, there's a sunset touch, A fancy from a flower-bell, someone's death, A chorus-ending from Euripides And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears, As old and new at once as Nature's self, To rap and knock and enter in our soul." So it had been with Christopher Grafton. Memory might sleep and doze, but now it stirred in its sleep, and now woke up, and now it murmured, " I am here," and now it wept bitterly, "I am thyself what hast thou done to me ? " Surely this, too, is the lot of purest and unhaunted grief. The heart, widowed of its love, is not always conscious of its awful lack, its aching solitude, but has smiles and words of good cheer for the world, and is itself happy for long hours with quiet peace ; but just when we are safest, there's a sunset touch ; and then one knows the answer to the cry, " Can calm despair and wild unrest Be tenants of a single breast, Or sorrow such a changeling be?" Is it not only in moments that we wake to realise again the full sense of our loss ? Yes, both sin and sorrow are voices in the memory which never die, but which are sometimes silent. 365 The Shadow Some impulse which he did not examine, nor even desire to understand, had at last driven this poor exile of Heaven, this alien of hope, this self-hating outlaw of God who could find no rest for the sole of his foot to the man who had left upon his childhood the ineffaceable impress of a noble and affectionate char- acter. He had no thought to confess his sin, to discuss religion, or to speak of his mother. He came hither by an inarticulate impulse. He could not have told why he came. And now he learned that this good man for whom he treasured a boy's pure and beautiful affection, had been stricken even as he himself had stricken his own mother. The knowledge stayed his purpose. He shrank from seeing the sufferer. Again he heard the sentence in his soul, " Discedite Maledicti" and felt himself outlawed from communion with his fellow- men, outlawed from God. On the night of his arrival he was told by the good wife of the farmhouse that the poor old shepherd of the mountains had once owned land in that part of the country and had been ruined by his sons, ill men, lawless and dissolute. This ruin of his love and his fortune had turned the brain of the old man, and now he spent his years tending sheep on the mountains, occasionally coming down to the village to preach in the village streets the fear of God. " No one, I'm afraid," said the woman, " ever goes near the poor old man, except it be Mr. Kindred." Christopher, looking away, said, " And he, too, has suffered from ungrateful children." " Well, we don't know," said the woman darkly, and 366 The Outlaw with hesitation ; " we can't say what has happened. But both of his daughters have left him. One to get married, though it was a poor marriage enough ; and the other well, nobody knows for certain why she left. I dare say it was nothing bad. I hope it wasn't. They were both handsome, high-spirited young ladies. This place, I think, was far too quiet for them. And they hadn't got a mother to teach them. But, anyway, Mr. Kindred lives alone now. He has done for a year and more. He's there in the house all by himself, poor old gentleman. Just a woman from the village goes in of a morning to tidy up and get him his break- fast, and that's all. As for company, he sees none. Since Lord Penraven died, and the estate was sold, we have had a French family living at the Hall, and they're Roman Catholics, and have a priest of their own something to do with the French royal family, people say and so Mr. Kindred doesn't see anything of them. No, he's very much left to himself, and a sweeter soul or a truer Christian there isn't living in all England, I'll lay my word." This Christopher learned on the night of his arrival at the farmhouse. On the following morning, as he came out into the garden before breakfast, the church bell began to ring. He opened the gate and walked slowly down the road. He wished to see this man who suffered in the solitude of the hills. He thought to see him come up the road and enter the church. He would look upon him, say nothing, and go upon his way again. No figure appeared on the white road. The solitary bell filled the green and leafy valley with a note of 367 The Shadow melancholy not harsh nor grating "the still sad music of humanity." Nobody appeared to be stirring in the stone houses, or in the orchards and gardens which bordered the walled road. The village was as silent as the moun- tains surrounding it on every side, whose peaks pierced the deep blue of a serene sky. From the stone bridge beyond the church, where the road curved away into the gloom of woodland, rose the deep music of the burn. Cattle could be seen feeding in the valley and on the side of the hills, through the trees at the roadside laden with the scents of summer. Christopher, sauntering through the drowsy scene, reached the wall of the churchyard. Still there was no sign of the minister. He walked more slowly, looking over the wall at the village graves, each one the witness of mortality, each one the end of a life either good or evil ; he noticed how the little acre was full of flowers. He came to the lych-gate, and stood looking in the direction where the roof of the parsonage could be seen above the trees. Still no one came. He turned and glanced towards the church. The door stood open. A white-haired man in a shabby cassock, holding a book in one hand and grasping the bell-rope in the other, stood under the belfry. At one and the same time he was ringing the bell and learning verses of the Psalms. Christopher started. It was John Kindred himself. The light of morning entered the church porch. The clergyman stood in a radiance of misty light. The shabbiness of his cassock was manifest at the 368 The Outlaw distance of the gate. Not less apparent was the singular sweetness of his pale and withered counten- ance. His lips were moving, he was lost in the words he was getting by heart ; it was quite clear that he was smiling. Framed by the great arch of the door- way, and enclosed in the ancient stone of the tower, this old man with the bell-rope and the Psalms of David made a picture that the dullest could not have seen without emotion. Christopher felt his heart soften and his whole being lighten, as he stood and looked, reflected and remembered. His boyhood crowded and beat upon his brain. He waited till the ringer ceased. He watched him go away, still reading from the Psalms, and he was still standing at the gate when the flutter of something white in the dark interior of the church told him that the minister had donned his surplice and was moving to the desk. He passed through the gate, got upon the grass at the side of the gravel path, and approached nearer to the church. He was out of sight, and himself could see nothing. He waited to hear the familiar voice. A low murmurous sound came to his ears. He moved nearer, still listening. No words were audible. The tone of the voice was indistinct. He moved forward again, treading softly, and reached the porch. He stood with his head down, his ear inclined towards the open door. Some sparrows in the belfry filled the hot and sunlit air with their chirping. Christopher tried to be deaf to their noise. Then he heard, from the dim interior of this ancient house of prayer, the voice that he knew, the low, quiet, gentle voice which 369 2 B The Shadow had made kind music in his boy's soul. What were the words ? He strained his ears. Then he heard : " Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. . ." He waited there, with his face very white and his head bowed, till the voice in the church broke over the words, " Restore Thou them that are penitent : Ac- cording to Thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord." The rest of the words were lost to his ears in the tinkle of a sheep-bell sounding on the farther side of the graveyard. When he returned to his lodging he could not rid himself of a reflection which caused him inexpressible pain. He remembered that when last he had seen John Kindred his soul was innocent. To go and see this sweet old man now would be but to energise self-hate and intensify the sense of his banishment from the society of virtuous men. He would be reminded at every word of his innocence, of his purity, of his frank and perfect joy all trampled underfoot. He must needs make himself a lie, or this saint would pale before him, shrink from him, even if he did not utter the sentence of banishment, " Discedite Maledicti." And yet to go away into the old emptiness of the world was hard and bitter. To rest for a little while, in his ceaseless pilgrimage of pain, was kind and com- fortable. This green valley, safe in the midst of the eternal hills, appealed to his weary heart. This little sleeping hamlet, reposing with such childlike confidence at the foot of the mountains, breathed into his aching 370 The Outlaw soul a lulling charm of peace. For the first time since he felt himself an outlaw, and set out to flee from men and the habitations of men, he was conscious of some dim whispering sense of peace. No, he must stay a little longer, for a little longer he must cheat himself with the delusion of rest. He went out later in the day, after he had made arrangements for his baggage to be fetched from the station, and avoiding both church and parsonage, struck down [the valley into the unknown country beyond the path to Raven's Scar. It was late before he turned to retrace his steps, and he sought to lessen the distance before him by leaving the winding road and making a straight line through the fields. He found himself presently crossing a park. At a curve in some woodland, he came face to face with a man and a woman, and saw that he was near the gardens ot the park. The woman, who was dressed in the full extravagance of the fashion, put up a lorgnette and looked at him. The man, who was middle-aged, tall, shapely, dignified, and over-elaborately dressed in that kind of clothes which sporting tailors consider do no violence to pastoral Nature, glanced angrily at the intruder and then surveyed him with a haughty stare. Christopher's way lay in front of these people. He turned aside and passed behind them. When he had gone a few paces, the man called him. He turned and found this angry personage striding after him. " You are trespassing, let me tell you." " I am sorry." " Go out at once. You have no right here." 371 2 B 2 The Shadow Christopher replied in French, for he realised by the man's accent that this was the French owner of the Hall about whom the farm-wife had spoken to him. " Pardon, monsieur," he said with a darkening brow, " but you must not address me like a dog." The Frenchman said in English, " You are trespas- sing. Go out. I order you to go out." In French Christopher retorted, " I order you to speak to me as a man." The other, whose face was fierce with annoyance and irritation, standing quite close to Christopher, said, " Will you go, when I tell you ? " " No," said Christopher. The Frenchman glanced back at his companion. She was standing at a little distance, regarding the two men through her lorgnette. Then he turned to Christopher. " I am the Comte de Lyons, the owner of this place ; I order you to go." " If you were the King of France," replied Chris- topher, " I would not obey you." This sentence stung the other to fury. It looked for a moment as if he intended to strike. Christopher said, " Stand back. You come too near me. I am an Englishman ; I hit quickly." The other obeyed this fierce command. He drew back a pace. " I will have you punished," he said. " You are insolent." He got command of himself, and said, " I have warned you that you are breaking the law by being on this property. You refuse to leave it. Very well ; the law shall deal with you." Christopher was about to answer, but the Frenchman strode off. For a moment Christopher regarded him. 372 The Outlaw His blood was on fire. The feeling of injustice which stings lonely men to desperate action was strong in him. He had to lay a rein upon himself. Instead, however, of a brawl, Christopher found expression for his indignation in a continuance of his way. He turned on his heel, and walked forward across the park. At the paling, which he reached through a shrubbery, he came upon a gamekeeper, who was almost breathless through running. "You must not pass here," said the man. "You must go back. This is private property." " I shall not go back." " You cannot pass." " Will you prevent me ? " " You cannot pass this way ; it is private property ; you must go back." " Listen," said Christopher. " I injure neither man nor property in my trespass. I intend to pass on. If you attempt to stop me, it will be at your own risk. I do not brook a hand upon me. I have warned you." " Then I must have your name and address." " That you must discover for yourself." " You refuse to give your name ? " " Stand out of my way." "You will be summoned. We stand no nonsense here." Christopher advanced, the man stepped aside. " I shall follow you," he said " I'll have your name and address, whether or no." Christopher walked forward. He heard the game- keeper following him. He was hot with passion, 373 The Shadow feeling that every man's hand was against him. He turned suddenly, trembling. So hard and threatening was his face that the keeper stopped. " It is my duty to have your name and address," said the servant of the French master. A feeling of profound contempt overcame the burning indignation in Christopher's mind. He hated himself for lack of command, for his exhibition of passion made before this mean person. He told the man his name and the place where he lodged. " If you will tell me the amount of the damage I have done by my trespass," he said, " I will pay you now." The other said, " The law will fix that." "You are mistaken," answered Christopher, and went on. He reached the paling surrounding the park, vaulted it, and made his way down the road. This incident, so trifling, so insignificant, and so dis- tasteful, was destined to affect the life of the outlaw in a manner of which it was not possible for him to dream. Perhaps it was the irritation caused by this disputa- tion which gave him courage to present himself before Kindred. There was just sufficient violence, or dis- turbance, in this encounter to shake his fixed idea, to weaken the invading force of his obsession. It gave him something else to think about. A trivial new event, if it have some quality of violence, is often sufficient to banish for a time the ruling thought of a brain preying upon itself. Christopher'walked to the parsonage on the second morning of his arrival in Penraven. He expected to find an almost ruinous manse surrounded by a veritable 374 The Outlaw jungle. Great, then, was his surprise in passing the church for the first time, and opening the gate of the parsonage, to find himself in a garden full of perfume and colour, looking towards a house whose walls were buried under roses. The scene was charming. The atmosphere was exquisite. He felt that he must soon hear children's laughter and see beautiful faces look from the windows, which all stood open to the sun and the scented air. The silence began to be oppressive. It was delight- ful to find no gardeners at work the scene was a finished picture, and the presence of effort would have destroyed its charm but the absence of children's voices, the absence of all movement, of all life, was strange and perplexing. This place of beauty and joy had above all other characteristics the character of a human home. Christopher felt the presence of children but they were phantom children. The shaven lawns, the grass walks arched by roses, the wide walled borders standing thick with spires and bells and sprays of every lovely flower, the rock garden with its pale colours and its grey stones, the trim hedges, the little thickets of flowering shrubs all this was haunted for Christopher by the presence of happy children ; he could not think of it without children ; and yet the silence was like the silence of the graveyard. Not a sound could be heard. He went to the door, which stood open, and knocked. The interior of the house looked dull and depressing. He could imagine this dwelling occupied by a broken- hearted and deserted old man ; but not the garden. A woman came from the back regions. She was 375 The Shadow old, and wore a rusty bonnet. As she advanced up the hall, she wiped her hands on a coarse apron. Christopher asked for Mr. Kindred. The woman opened a door, evidently the study, and looked in. She closed the door again, and said, "If he isn't in the village, he's in the garden. I expect you'll find him messing himself up in the potting-shed, there or thereabouts." She returned quickly to her scrubbing. A sound of hammering guided Christopher in his tour of the garden to the potting-shed. As he ap- proached it, he noticed three or four wooden boxes standing at the door. He wondered, with a sudden dull pain at his heart, if these boxes contained flowers for the daughters who had left the house of this old man desolate. He came to the door and looked in. The gloom of the shed, odorous of earth, flowers, and earthenware, was like a crypt. Three steps led down to the brick floor ; the rough beams of the roof were hung with baskets, coils of wire, and garden implements ; the one window was covered with cobwebs and looked as though a frost still hung there from the winter. At a broad shelf, littered with soil, pots, boxes, and wooden labels, Kindred a dim figure in the gloom was bending over a box, which he had just fastened, to inscribe the address. For this purpose he used a rounded stick dipped in ink, printing the letters in bold capitals. A smile shone through the transparent pallor of his face. He looked happy. Christopher said, " I have come to see you, Mr. Kindred. After a great many years. Do you re- member me ? " 376 The Outlaw The clergyman, who had lifted his face from the box at hearing himself addressed, came forward, changing his rude pen from the right to the left hand. " Whether I remember you or not," he said, in a gentle voice, " I welcome you." Christopher took his hand. " You were very kind to me years ago at Glevering." " You are Christopher ! " There was such joy in the exclamation, such sweet- ness of welcome, such unabated warmth of affection, that for the first time for many bitter months Chris- topher felt his heart soften and grow glad. But this delightful experience came and went at the same moment. He reflected, " If he knew the truth about me, instead of this warm pressure of the hand, instead of this light in the eyes, instead of these kind words, it would be D iscedite Maledicti ! I must make myself a liar to enjoy the welcome of this good man." The old clergyman said, " Let me finish this address, and we will go out into the sun together." Christopher was amazed and confounded to see in this stricken and desolate man, whom he had expected to find depressed, dejected, and despairful, a spirit of such happy pleasure. He concluded that the story he had heard was exaggerated. Curiosity concerning the daughters who had left their father and their home, caused him to look at the box over which his old tutor was now bending. But it was not addressed as he had expected it to be. He read there the name of a hospital for sick children in London. " We send all the flowers we can," said the Rector, 377 The Shadow finishing his task, " to children in London. I remember how I missed flowers when I lived in London." When they were walking in the sun together, John Kindred, taking Christopher's arm, talked of their old intimacy at Glevering and asked questions concerning the Graftons. Then he said, " And your mother, who taught me so much, while I was teaching you so little ? " " She is dead." The hand pressed for a moment on Christopher's arm. " Then all these beautiful flowers," said the clergyman very gently, as they walked down an aisle of beauty, " must mean to you what they mean to me. They slept in the earth, only that they might rise in grace and beauty to the light. Their glory is a re- surrection. They are witnesses of God. Everything that is beautiful speaks to the soul of God." Christopher said nothing. When they had walked round the garden and were entering the village street, Christopher explained that he intended to study some little time in that part of the world. He said that he wanted to paint a picture of the shepherd he had met on Raven's Scar, and delivered the old man's message. " There are people," said the clergyman, " who call David Warren mad. They are wrong. You dis- covered, I expect, that while great sorrow has hurt his heart and fastened his idea of God to one aspect of our heavenly Father's providence, on the other hand his reason is enlarged, and even inspired, by poetry. You must talk to him. He is a Words worthian figure. There is a grandeur about his soul. God has 378 The Outlaw not yet seen fit to convince him of the supreme secret ; but I find him a noble and heroic man." They reached Christopher's lodging, and Mr. Kindred entered the farmhouse to see how his old pupil was situated. They were scarcely in the room when the farm-wife came to them. She looked distressed. " I have ill news," she said, greeting the Rector and addressing him rather than Christopher. " It's against my wishes to give it, as you'll be the first to know, Mr. Kindred, but we're only tenant people, and have others over us that we must obey or take the conse- quences." She then narrated that the agent of the Comte de Lyons had paid her a visit that morning, and told her that she must either give up her lodger or leave the farm. Christopher flared up. " But this is good news ! " said the clergyman, inter- rupting him. " You must come and share the parson- age with me." He said gentle things to the farm-wife, and then, taking Christopher's arm, said, " Come, let us begin our partnership at once. It will be delightful. I am so glad. Why, this is a greater blessing than an old man deserves at the end of his life." 379 CHAPTER XXIV. THE INVISIBLE INFLUENCE HP HE great darkness clouding the soul of Chris- 1 topher Grafton was the impenetrable shadow of eternal spiritual despair. His tragedy was greater than Hamlet's, greater than Lear's. He was not in despair against the world, but in despair against his own soul. He himself had brought the doom upon him. His sin appeared so frightful, so horrible, and so revolting in his own eyes, that he could not bring himself even to desire mercy and forgiveness. His state of outlawry seemed to him not only just and inevitable, but one with the fitness of things. He was like a man who voluntarily gives himself up to justice, unable to live at peace with his conscience in a state of freedom. Christopher could find no room for peace in the whole universe. He delivered himself up to the judgment and eternal displeasure of God. Those who have had profound experience of troubled souls will understand the cause of this condition. Christopher had awakened to self-knowledge ; he had not altered his attitude towards God. The psychology of repentance is one with the psychology of human existence, a man's attitude towards the Infinite deter- mines his character. How could any change in this terrible state of the 380 The Invisible Influence young man's soul flow from intercourse with the old clergyman, who, as regards things of this world, was as a child ? Three things from the very outset of this intercourse affected Christopher's mind. The first was the simplest of all, and to many people it will appear an insuffi- cient cause of change. It was the presence in his bedroom, which was also his studio, of two texts " I, the Lord, am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer," from the Old Testament, and St. Paul's " Christ shall give thee light," from the New. Every morning when he woke, the first salutation he received was from the lips of Isaiah, the first words he perceived were " Saviour and Redeemer." Over his head, while he slept, was the word Christ " Christ shall give thee light." He found himself, whenever he entered the room, looking for these words. He might forget them immediately, but they had touched his mind. Suddenly, as he walked in the valley or up the mountains, the words would rise to his consciousness, the words Christ, Saviour, Redeemer, and he would ponder them. There is no magic in a text hung upon the wall. It is a thing as free from superstition as an advertise- ment. How, then, does it act upon the soul ? Precisely as an advertisement upon the mind. Indeed, a text is an advertisement of God, it advertises the soul of eternal reality. When a merchant sets up his name and the name of his merchandise from one end 'of the country to the other, he does not think that people who see the writing will go straightway and purchase his merchandise. He merely associates his name with a particular commodity, and the repetition of this The Shadow association of ideas is a form of suggestion in the mind of those who look, even unconsciously, at the printed words from a train window. At such a time when a man wants this commodity, he will at once associate it with the name of the advertiser, and will then order that particular manufacture from his tradesman. This is the simple psychology of advertising, a subject which provides religion with at least one important parable. In the little Fenelon which Mary Grafton had given to her son, were the words : " A man whose whole heart is engaged in some great matter might pass many days in a room attending to his affairs, without seeing either the proportions of the room, the ornaments on the shelves, or the pictures that surrounded him. All these objects would be before his eyes, but he would not see them, and they would make no impression on him. Thus it is that men live. Everything presents God to them, but they do not see Him." A text exhibits to the beguiled mind of humanity the supreme factfof human existence. It strives by repetition to make an impression. The man who hung the first text was a wise tradesman of God. Is it not a strange reflection that the earliest fairy-stories of humanity so often represent people moving like char- acters in a dream under the spells and enchantments of evil spirits ? Nothing could be truer of humanity at this very hour. Englamoured by the material world, God appears shadowy and unreal to their prisoned senses, and it is a task of the greatest magnitude to awaken them to the visible truth of divine things. They believe, in their dream-state, that the transitory 382 The Invisible Influence visible is real ; that the invisible real, which presses upon the brain from all sides of the universe, is a delusion. The ancient cry of the prophet, "Awake, thou that sleepest ! " is not a metaphor. The second thing in his intercourse with Mr. Kindred which affected Christopher's mind was the clergyman's attitude towards death. There was something here so new, so fresh, so illuminating to the young man who had thought of death hitherto only as unbroken silence and a final ending of humanity, that his brain, brought to contemplate a new form of thought, unconsciously responded at least to the stimulus, if not to the idea. One afternoon as they worked together in the churchyard, for Mr. Kindred was his own gardener, bell-ringer, organist, and sacristan, and loved to make the place of graves beautiful with flowers, the Rector said, "There appears to be something very solitary about death, especially when one sees a coffin being brought slowly up the valley to this ancient resting- place, with its little train of mourners. Perhaps we are more distressed by this apparent solitariness at the deathbed of one whom we love. It seems so terrible, so lonely, to watch our dear ones fade from the warm precincts of the day into the darkness and the silence of what we call death. I remember how distressed I used to be by this loneliness, this solitariness of death, in the early years of my ministry. The dying person before one's eyes, the stir and noise of the world outside in one's ears. But have you ever thought what IP \ means, that every day there ascends from this planet ' to the shores of eternity a host of nearly fortyjftojjsjmcl I souls ? Every day ! even as you and I kneel here 383 The Shadow tending these flowers of the dead yes, at this very instant, the shining procession of ascending souls is moving towards God a great company. The air, if we could but see, is always beautiful and glad with the ascent of this wonderful multitude. Does not that thought, that realisation of a great fact in existence, rob death of all sense of loneliness ? Death is not something which happens here, or there, at intervals ; it is everlasting and perpetual. You see, there can never be a break in this glorious ascension of immortal spirits ; it is indeed everlasting, a continual stream of spirit from time to eternity. Day and night, every hour, every minute, there is this uprush of disembodied souls. Think what it means, that if we could stand at a certain point midway between earth and heaven only for the changes of a single moon, we should see a million souls go past us. Think, too, what it means that when you and I pass out of the body of this death we shall be one of a vast company dying and ascending to the mercy and the glory of our Heavenly Father. Not alone. Not solitary. No, thank God, not deserted or abandoned even for a single moment. And surely angels are guiding that great army of ascending souls. I like the thought which says that birth is an out- breathing, and death an inbreathing of the Divine Spirit. One sees the stream of spirits descending to be born, and the stream of spirits ascending to be with God, like the vision of Jacob. The ladder of existence is radiant with the love of God." Christopher discovered that here was a man whose great longing was for death, and whose chief pleasure was anticipation of the bliss and satisfaction of Paradise. 384 The Invisible Influence " The love of Heaven," says Shakespeare, " makes one heavenly." It is a true saying, not apprehended as it deserves to be. The third thing which operated in Christopher's mind was the attitude which Mr. Kindred maintained towards him in all their conversations. The effect of this spiritual and mental relationship was more subtle than the other two. The clergyman, with his simple piety, his childlike confidence in the love of God, his wonderful looking forward to the bliss of eternity, never for one moment treated his guest as a soul whose attitude towards spiritual things was different from his own. Christopher found himself not only ranked as a Christian, but exalted to the company of those who love God and desire His presence above everything else. He was made a Christian, as it were, unconsciously ; one might say, against his own will. Precisely the same quality of disposition which had made him weak against temptations among the students of Paris, made him weak to confess his true position to this noble man, his host. He masqueraded as a Christian. We do not mean, God forbid, that he played the hypocrite. No, he was not despicable. But he kept silence ; he expressed no antagonism ; he allowed himself to be considered a member of the household of faith, because he did not wish to give pain. This passive condition of mind was fraught with consequences for his soul. He received into his soul, unconsciously at first, and presently with a dumb amazement, the peace of this pure old man who loved God and wistfully yearned for heaven. 385 2 c The Shadow The texts on his wall made him aware of three words, " Christ, Saviour, Redeemer " ; the minister's attitude towards death made him think of the next life as a reality ; and the minister's attitude towards himself gave him for the first time in his life knowledge of some deep peace exceeding all the satisfactions of the world. Christopher went to church. He went for two reasons not to hurt the feelings of his host, and to prevent questions. The prayers had little significance for his mind, which was too proud in its sorrow for the humility of penitence. As for the hymns, the in- different singing of simple peasants was all the impression he received from them. Mr. Kindred's preaching was as plain as its subject was simple ; he " talked " to his little flock affectionately and tenderly of the love of God. Christopher was never moved by one of these discourses. And yet, as time went on, his mind became conscious of some deep change. Bitterness was leaving his thoughts. Restlessness was withdrawing from his soul. He felt disposed to remain where he was. The thought of shouldering his knapsack and continuing his wander- ing, passing on, like night, from land to land, became more and more rare with him. He lived his own life ; Mr. Kindred never interfered. They met at meals, occasionally Christopher worked in the garden or went across the hills with his host to visit a sick parishioner. They frequently talked at such times of subjects which were profoundly religious, but their conversation was never controversial or doctrinal. Mr. Kindred appeared to assume in Chris- 386 The Invisible Influence topher a faith which was above the region of defini- tions, and this in spite of the fact that Christopher kept away from Holy Communion. Never once did the clergyman speak of this absence. It was when Christopher sat by himself painting at the open window of his bedroom that he was most conscious of the change taking place in his mind. He was amazed at himself. The peace stealing into his soul, he knew not whence, astonished him. He would wonder why he was not maddened by daily intercourse with a man who lived in the sunshine of God's love and whose soul in the midst of desolation was poised joyously and expectantly for heaven. He reflected often on John Kindred's life. This old man, deserted by his daughters and having only eighty pounds a year for his own needs and the needs of his church, was at peace, was happy. The flowers overflowing his garden, the fruit in the orchard which he pruned and watched so carefully, were not for himself, but were for the poor and suffering in London. Not all the flowers, however. Christopher discovered that every day the old man filled a vase and carried it to the bedroom of his youngest daughter, which was always kept ready for her. There was no one in the neighbourhood intellectually his equal. He had shabby clothes. His food was like a peasant's. He gave away money. Lonely, deserted, poor, and perhaps hungry, this old man was happy as he had never seen any man before. It was a life which made Christopher think. The autumn came and went Winter approached with a gentleness that deepened as it lengthened. 387 2 c 2 The Shadow On Christmas Day the windows of the parsonage were standing wide open to the soft air, and some Gloire de Dijon roses were flowering in the garden. People spoke about a green Christmas, and shook their heads. A change came when spring should have made her appearance. A wind began to move down the valley from the north. The blue of the sky changed to a steel grey. Windows that had stood open on Christmas Day, closed. People went about in mufflers and top- coats. The Mad Shepherd, whose portrait Christopher was painting, prophesied snow. Before the snow came the blizzard. Night and day, with increasing violence, a great wind drove between the mountains and howled down the valley. Trees writhed and moaned in this driving blast, filling the valley with their tossings and their screams. Doors and windows shook and rattled from morning to night, from night to morning. And then, over the shoulder of the hills, one day came a burst of white flakes, like a puff of smoke ; in a minute the hills vanished, and the whole valley was a whirl of snow. The great snowstorm lasted for ten days. On the seventh day Mr. Kindred fell ill. He was over- taken by a shivering fit, and do what he would, he could not feel warm. He appeared better on the eighth day, which was Sunday, and insisted, in spite of Christopher's dissuasion, on taking the usual services. " I am only one," he said, " of a great company who all over the world lead the voice of humanity in its cry to God. The others will be praying through the 388 The Invisible Influence snowstorm. We, too, must pray. Have you ever stood on the summit of a mountain, or on the brow of some tall cliff, and seen the towers and spires of churches rising up as far as the eye can see, each witnessing to the cry of the centuries Thy kingdom come! Such a sight always moves me. It teaches me to think that in spite of sorrow and sin, under almost every roof built by the hands of men there is surely someone who prays to God. On both sides of the globe, from crowded cities, noble towns, and little hamlets, the voice of humanity, conscious of something better than itself can accomplish, ascends to God with the petition Thy kingdom come ; Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven ! " But during this service in the midst of the snow- storm, the devoted minister, who had himself rung the church bell and who had played the organ for the Venite, leaned towards Christopher at the conclusion of the Psalms and by a motion of the head called him to his side. " I am too weak to read the Lessons," he whispered ; " will you do it for me ? " It may be imagined what effect this request had upon the storm-tossed soul of the outlaw of God. For a moment he thought of refusing ; for a moment he thought of hurrying out from the church and fleeing for ever from the presence of the old servant of God, whose eyes were too dim and whose heart was too childlike to perceive the blackness of his soul. But he was held by invisible hands. Some irresistible impulse moved him towards the lectern. Before he realised what had happened he was reading. 3% The Shadow How did it strike the soul of this man to utter in the congregation of that little church, with the wind howling at the windows and roaring over the roof, such words as these ? " And when Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said unto his father, ' Bless me, even me also, O my father.' " Or these words in the second lesson ? " A bruised reed shall He not break, a smoking flax shall He not quench, till He send forth judgment unto victory." Unto victory ! The experience produced a profound impression on the troubled soul of this poor haunted man. He was conscious at first of horror that he should have stood up in a church and read the Bible aloud. His sense of guilt taunted him with hypocrisy. But some stubborn force of passivity that almost amounted to fatalism held this mockery at arm's length. He knew that he was not a hypocrite. Every day after this incident Mr. Kindred visibly weakened. Christopher waited on him with the devotion of a son. The old man constantly ex- pressed a delighted gratitude for this attentive kindness. "Your presence here, Christopher, is one of my greatest blessings," he said one evening ; " and, but for the ill-will of the Comte de Lyons, I might have been quite alone. There is often a mercy even in the unkindness of those who do not love us." " It would be better," Christopher answered, " if one of your daughters were here." Mr. Kindred was silent for a moment. Then he said very quietly, wistfully, " I hope they are happy." 390 The Invisible Influence Christopher said, " Let me write and ask one of them to come to you." " No, Christopher ; it is better as it is. My children," he continued, after a pause, " have not been successful in their earthly affairs. I am afraid they are not happy. One of them cannot come to me she is married ; and to come to this village would distress the other. We must rest as we are. If I thought I could make them happy I should go to them. I shall give as little trouble as possible, and you must be as patient as you have been up to now." He ended with a smile. " But," Christopher persisted, " if they knew that you were ill they would wish to come." Mr. Kindred looked at him. His eyes became soft with tears. " Oh, yes, I hope so," he said gently. " Yes, I think they would. But it is better as it is." He made an effort to brace himself, and said, " You must not think that I am seriously ill, Christopher ! If I thought that the happy hour of my release were at hand I should call them both to my side." Three weeks passed. Mr. Kindred's health showed no signs of mending. Christopher read the lessons in church, went with messages, pensions, and gifts to parishioners scattered among the mountains, rang the bell every week-day for matins and on Sunday for the two services, and did many other useful things for his host. One day, as he was writing letters at the dictation of Mr. Kindred, who sat in an armchair beside the study fire, it chanced that the clergyman's memory failed him concerning an address. He asked Chris- 391 The Shadow topher to refer to a notebook in one of the drawers of the table. Christopher pulled out the drawer, lifted some papers, and came upon a photograph which made him start. " Who is this ? " he demanded, before he was aware of his words. Mr. Kindred turned towards him inquiringly. Christopher wavered for a moment, and then held up the photograph. " That is poor Rose," said the clergyman quietly. " Why do you ask ? " " I have seen her." " I wonder ! " " Yes, I am sure." " Where, Christopher ? " " It was in Paris." " Yes, she has been there." " It was four years ago." " How strange this is. Yes, she was there four years ago. But did not the name strike you when you met ? " " The name ! I did not hear it." " Did you only see her, not speak to her ? " " I saw her, I spoke to her for a moment. It was in a crowded scene. I remember distinctly. This is very like her." " Yes, it is like my poor little Rose." " Is she unhappy ? " " Yes, unhappy." ** I will not say that I am sorry," said Christopher. " I have a sympathy with unhappy souls." " Surely you mean troubled souls." 392 ' THAT IS POOR ROSE,' SAID THE CLERGYMAN QUIETLY. The Invisible Influence " Is she still like this ? " His eyes were bent upon the picture. " You think her beautiful ? " " It is a face one could not forget." " Let me see. Yes, it is a good likeness. She is altered since those days ; but the photograph is perhaps truer now than then. Here she is serious, she was not often serious in those days." He gave back the photograph. " And now she is serious ? Well, I should like to paint her portrait. This" Christopher held up the photograph " is only beautiful to those who have seen her ; the tone of the skin, the colour of her lips and eyes, and the light in the hair they might be any- thing here. A camera is not a soul, it is not even a looking-glass." The finding of this picture revived in Christopher's mind the terrible memory of his life. Rose Kindred was the frightened girl he had saved from the students' ball ; but though her eyes, looking out at him from the photograph, reminded him of that night when he did a thing of deadly evil, that night when he dealt a death-blow at his mother's heart and slew his own soul, yet he found a pleasure, a wild and exciting pleasure, in meeting their gaze. He asked if he might take the photograph to make a sketch from it, and carried it to his room. For days he studied it ; the girl's face haunted him. He would take up the picture, carry it to the window, and stand with it there in his hand, receiving into his mind mysterious influences from her eyes, her hair, her lips. He would frown down upon the picture in his 393 The Shadow hand, with the countenance of a learned man con- sidering some problem in natural science, and ask her why she was troubled, why she was unhappy ? It came upon him with a shock of horror that this beautiful pure girl, whom he had once seen frightened, apprehensive, and timorous in her innocence, had become since that day a thing like himself, guilty and corrupt. " No, no ! " he cried to himself, and shuddered, feeling the blood ice in his veins. He remembered her voice, her startled terrified look at the robe he was wearing. The scene was as vivid as yesterday. He had gone to the two cowering, shrinking girls, besieged by laughing and mocking students, and had said with a boyish self-conscious- ness, " I am sure you do not know where you have come ; let me assist you to go." They had sprung at him. One said : " A trick has been played upon us ; tickets were sent to me ; I thought it was different." Rose had said, " Take us out, take us out quickly." As he helped them to escape from the crowd of riotous students, he said to Rose, " I am glad I saw you, I recognised you as English ; I knew you ought not to be here." Without looking at him she had said, " No one ought to be here." " Oh," he had answered, " a man of the world is quite safe in a place of this kind." To this she had returned no answer. It was the other who thanked him when he parted from them. What had she done? what evil had overtaken her? 394 The Invisible Influence The question fastened upon his mind. Contact with John Kindred, perhaps, had given him a deeper appreciation of innocence, of goodness. He could not bear to think of this girl as not innocent and not good. He questioned the Mad Shepherd. " I know not where the maid is," said the old man ; " but it must be evil that keeps her, for God's will is that she should be with her father." Christopher asked, "Was there no incident, no gossip, before she went away ? " "Aye, gossip enough to keep all the cottagers chattering from one end of vale to other, but not enough to reach these tops of t' mountains." " You mean, that you never heard anything ? " " I heard what parson told me." "That?" " I asked him one afternoon, ' How is Miss Rose ?' He answered, ' She has gone away.' ' Left you ? ' I asked. He looked at me and said, ' I am not alone.' " The shepherd drew a rough hand across his bearded mouth, and said, " Like me, he loved too well. God would have their parents rule their children. You heard tempest last summer, you were up here one day in t' blizzard tell me, is God to be feared ? If ever God gives you children, look well that for their sakes you bring them up to fear the Lord." From an old peasant up the valley, to whom he had often gone on errands from the Rector, Chris- topher received his first narrative of this domestic trouble. " Ah, the dear parson has had sorrow enough with 395 The Shadow his two lasses," said the ancient dame ; " I doubt greatly whether 'twould be any comfort to him, as you think, to have the poor young things round him now he's ill. There was first Miss Louise, who was wild as a colt, and more like a boy than a girl. It was dreadful to see her riding any young horse she could get hold of on the hillside, just like a mad thing. Over the stone fences, and over the rivers nothing frightened her. And she seemed to take a pleasure in beating a horse or a dog that set its will against hers. She shocked many a man ; and yet there was something fine about her, and never did I know her anything but kind to poor people in trouble. Ah ! you'd wonder to think that such a sweet soul as parson could have a child like that harum-scarum ! They say that when his wife died, who was as near an angel as he is himself, he had to go away tutoring to earn food for the young ladies. They came here for a bit, where his father and mother were, and ran wild, for the old folks let them do what they pleased ; then they went to relations, who were wild like themselves ; and so they grew up to be what they are now. " Soon after he succeeded his father they came here, but very soon went back to their relations, not caring for this quiet place, and parson not being rich enough to educate them as young ladies. When they did come back, grown young ladies, a wilder than Miss Louise could not be seen ; people say she defied her father, mocked him, and laughed at his teachings. I pray God it be not true. But she was hard ; I never saw a woman more like a man, and never knew a man 396 The Invisible Influence harder and more cruel than this woman." The dame lifted her hands and raised her eyes. " What became of her ? " " Ah ! you may well ask ! It's a story of shame ; I don't like to tell of it, but everybody knows the tale she was fond of low company, mixing up with any rough men who knew about horses and dogs and foxes ; she didn't care whether they were good or bad, so long as they could teach her something to do with animals. Oh, she was wild and mad, I tell you ! Well, what comes of it ? She married a groom that used to be at Lord Penraven's, a man who feared nothing, and goes off with him to 'keep an inn in Yorkshire, where she is to this day." " And Miss Rose ? " Christopher's heart stood for the answer. " Ah ! poor dear young lady ! She was different ; there was never anything cruel or manlike in her wildness. She was just one of those who must be looked at and admired, and who think that the end of beauty is the end of life. Foolish, fond, but not a scrap of badness in her no, I know there wasn't. She was soft and weak, but not at all like Miss Louise, and Miss Louise ruled her and could make her do anything she chose. Well, just before Miss Louise got married and went away, Lord Pen- raven died, and they sold the Hall to this French Count, and then " "Yes?" Christopher was trembling. " Well, there was trouble." 397 The Shadow He got up, his face was white. " You don't mean you you can't mean " " No one has ever heard the truth," said the old woman. "All we know is that they were always together, Miss Rose and the French nobleman ; she was invited to the Hall, where her father never went, introduced to all the grand people, drove in the Count's carriage, went to Paris with one of the Count's relations, a lady whom some say was equal to an English Princess, and gave out herself that she was to be married to the Count in a year or two's time. You never saw a happier or a more proudful young creature than she was then ; some of the people shook their heads about her. Ah ! poor child, the Lord comfort her ! All of a sudden she went clean away. No one ever heard why. But many laughed bitterly, and some spoke cruel words about her. That's all we know. From that day to this she has never returned, she nor her sister, and the old gentleman lives by himself in the parsonage, as you know ; neither one nor other of his children ever comes near him." Christopher could scarcely bring himself to speak. " Where is Miss Rose ? " he managed to ask. "Folks say she is with her sister, down in York- shire," replied the dame ; " but I've never heard the truth. The story is, she ran there and begged her sister to take her in." " Where in Yorkshire ? " " The place is called Blakeney ; in old days Lord Penraven had a house there for the hunting. People say that Miss Louise, who is now Mrs. Conder, keeps 393 The Invisible Influence the inn like any publican's wife, while her children run about in the yard, with dogs and chickens, just like little heathen." Three days after he had heard this story, Christophei told Mr. Kindred that he must go away for a few days. He feared awkward questions, and spoke off- handedly. " I shall miss you," was the only comment made by the gentle old man. The thought that Rose Kindred was like himself, smirched and corrupted, after having tortured his soul, became presently a strangely calming tenant of his brain. He felt that he would better understand her thus, and that she would come nearer to him. There is a companionship of remorse and adversity. He longed to see her, to speak to her ; whatever she had suffered, to whatever evil she had come, in her soul, he was fairly persuaded, this lovely child with the large eyes and gentle lips was good. " If there is a God," he told himself, " she is His child, and He has not deserted her" strange words for him to use even in communion with himself. Before leaving Penraven he made arrangements for the servant to sleep in the parsonage, left money with her for the Rector's comforts, and set out with the hope that he would presently return bringing Rose Kindred to her father's side. As he walked to the station a carriage passed him. It contained the Comte de Lyons and his chaplain. Both men turned and looked at him. 399 CHAPTER XXV THE SISTERS r PHE Hound Inn at Blakeney is close to the railway 1 station. One looks from the platform into the yard, with its ostler's bell hanging above the kitchen door, its open shed for carriages and carts, its range of half-doored loose-boxes, its row of kennels, and its litter of wooden cases brought from the cellars. Fowls clean themselves in the dust of this yard; pigeons strut and coo on the red tiles of its out- buildings. When the iron handle of the pump is not swinging in the grasp of a groom or a girl from the kitchen, sparrows come and drink of the afterflow that runs spirting into the sink. The men who lounge in this shabby and untidy yard are cattle-dealers, second- rate grooms, drovers, and hangers-on of the turf. The front of the house is more pleasing to the eye. There are two bay-windows on either side of the door, a beautifully rounded bow-window over the porch, and the yellow walls under the heavy eaves of red tiles are covered by close-clinging ivy. The gravel sweep is protected from the road by posts and chains. The name is written in old characters on a board that swings in a frame at the top of a white post near the road. When Christopher approached this inn from the 400 The Sisters station a man was standing under the porch with his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat. He wore a dirty-white billycock hat over his eyes, and had the end of a cigar between his lips. On his lean, grey-coloured, clean-shaven face was every mark of that hardness which declares the professional horseman. His brutality had a coldness and a challenge which made gentle natures shrink and shudder. Just as Christopher was within a pace or two of the porch a woman came from the house and said some- thing to the man in the doorway. He replied to her without turning his head, without altering his attitude, without removing his cigar. She said something else. He made no answer. After waiting, looking at him for a moment to see if he would speak, the woman turned round and entered the house. Christopher followed her. There was a room on one side of the hall full of rough men drinking and smoking ; on the other was a rounded small-paned window, the lower sash raised, with a bar and bar- parlour beyond it. A boy was waiting at the window with a tray ; the woman was in the bar rilling glasses. When she had loaded his tray and the boy had departed, she looked up at Christopher. He raised his hat. " I am a friend of your father," he said ; " my name is Grafton." She flushed up, stared at him with a certain bravado, and then, folding her arms, asked in a rough voice, " How is he ? " She looked hard and embittered. The handsome lines of her face were coarsened by the mutiny of her spirit. Her eyes were too bold ; her mouth was too 401 2 D The Shadow firm ; the arrogance and self-assertion of her will were too harshly apparent. Christopher ftlt that here was a woman who might have served Michael Angelo for a Madonna, but now was only fit to stand as some Madame of the Terror going tearless to the guillotine. They spoke together for a few minutes interrupted by the boy who came to the window with money and returned with change and then Christopher inquired if he might engage a room for the night. Mrs. Conder invited him in. She preceded him, walking like a man, down a flagged passage to a room at the back of the house. The sound of children's voices came to Christopher as the door opened. When he entered the room he saw Rose. She had a baby in her arms, and was sitting on the hearthrug with two other little children sprawling over her lap. Christopher felt a thrill of joy. She looked so beautiful, so gentle, and so good. Mrs. Conder said, " Here's someone who knows papa." Rose, from being all smiles, became instantly grave. She looked up at Christopher with a kind of fear in her eyes. He thought that she recognised him. Mrs. Conder explained who Christopher was, and concluded, " He wants a room for the night. I suppose No. 4 will do?" There was a noise of someone rapping at the bar ; Louise withdrew. Rose got upon her feet, the baby in her arms, and said, " I remember your name quite well, and my father's letters about you. Tell me about him. Is he well ? " "No, Miss Kindred," he answered, "your father is 402 The Sisters not well He is ill. I have come here to tell you so. I hope you will come back with me." " Oh, no ! " she exclaimed hastily. " It is impossible. He didn't ask for me, I am sure. He knows I couldn't come. But if he is ill ? What can I do ? It is very difficult." "Will you let me see you alone for a little? Can you come out into the open with me, where we should not be interrupted ? " She met his eyes for a moment. " You see it is not only myself I am thinking about. There is my sister. I cannot possibly leave her." Christopher said, " Let us go out for a little while and talk." " But what can you say that would alter things ? I don't think it is any good. Don't think that I forget my duty to my father. I remember him every minute of the day. I want to go to him now. But there are reasons which make it impossible." Mrs. Conder returned. Christopher asked whether Rose could not go out for a walk with him. Louise said, " Emma can look after the children." Then she went to Rose and whispered something into her ear. Rose replied : " No, I promise I won't." It gave Christopher a curious feeling to be walking in a Yorkshire dale with this girl oi whom he had thought and dreamed a thousand times since that strange meeting at the students' ball. He was con- scious of a yearning towards her. He had saved her once from horror and terror ; he wanted to save her now from unhappiness and remorse. 403 2 D 2 The Shadow The atmosphere of the inn filled his mind with a poignant sense of aversion. The man at the door with his hard and cruel face was dreadful to him. The sight of Louise filling glasses and counting change made him shudder. It was frightful to think of this woman, this daughter of the man dying in Penraven Parsonage, as the victim of the bully at the door, as the slave of the drinking-bar. But it was worse, infinitely worse, to think of Rose, whose face was not hardened, whose eyes and lips expressed no bitterness, who was still beautiful, pure, and gracious it was infinitely worse to think of her as one of the family in this awful place. What mystery kept her there he did not know. Whatever it was, he summoned all the forces of his will to rescue her. As they walked away from the house he spoke about the children with whom he had found her playing. She said that she was very fond of them, and that they constituted three reasons for her remaining at Blakeney. " My sister," she said, " has no time to look after them herself, and the maid is only a rough girl, who is busy enough too, even if she were the sort of person one would like to leave with children." " An inn cannot be a good place for them to regard as their home." " They have no other." " Forgive me, it is not a fitting place for you." " It is my sister's home." " I do not think she is happy." " That is one of my reasons for remaining with her." " I see. But duties clash. There is your duty to your father, your duty to your sister " 404 The Sisters " Yes ; that is what makes it so hard. " " And your duty to yourself." " Oh, I am happy as I am. I am very fond of the children, and I can help my sister." " If I were your sister, I should leave that place." " How can she ? she is married. It is her home." " She is terribly unhappy." " What makes you say that ? " " Her husband is a brute." " How do you know ? " " She should say, ' I will not live here ; for the sake of my children I will go away ; this place is bad and evil and degrading, I must save my children from its pollution.' " "A woman who is married cannot say that. She must follow her husband." " She can get him to change." " At any rate, to revolt is only possible for those who have means." " She has a father." " Tell me about my father," she said ; " I want to hear everything." They were following a path through a wood on the side of a hill, which was filled with primroses, blue- bells, wind-flowers, and wild violets. The air was redolent of dead leaves. In the distance sounded the continuous thunder of the Force, down below them the river sang its way through moss-grown boulders, and above their heads, in the dim light of interlacing boughs, sounded the sweet jargoning of birds. Christopher, with his hands clasped behind him, his 405 The Shadow head slightly bent, walked beside the girl whom he had rescued from the students' ball on the night of his own ruin. He was conscious at every moment of a deepening affinity. He was impelled towards her by an overmastering impulse of protection. Every word he said to her had the tone of confidence only created by long and closest intimacy. He told her very faithfully the condition of her father. He looked towards her once in the midst of his words, and saw that there were tears in her eyes. He went on with his words, which were not smoothed for her sake. " You must come back with me to Penraven," he concluded firmly. " Nothing on earth must prevent you." He stopped as he said this, and looked towards her. She stopped too, keeping her head turned from him. " I would come back, I promise you, if it were not for my sister," she said. His description of the poor lonely old man dying in the parsonage, who kept her picture in a drawer, had her room always ready for her, and though he never gave expression to the longing, looked wistfully every day for the return of his child, had melted her to tears. She stood with her head turned away, her handkerchief at her mouth. " Your sister must not keep you from your father." " You have seen how it is with her ? " " My heart, I assure you, aches for her." " You have spoken frankly to me. I will trust you. Just before I came away, my sister whispered to me. You saw her. She said, ' Promise not to leave me ? ' I promised. I cannot leave her She is afraid." 406 The Sisters Christopher said, "Your father has called me his son. I will play the brother to your sister. There is one man who may come between husband and wife, it is the brother of the wife. I will save her." " Oh, but nothing can be done." " In the meantime, however, you must decide this matter for yourself. I want to tell you something. Miss Kindred, I speak from the bitterest experience that a man's heart can endure without breaking, when I tell you that if you refuse to come to your father now you prepare for yourself a life of reproach and remorse which will last to the hour of your death. Don't do that. Don't ruin the rest of your life. Whatever has gone before, seize the present and make it the herald of a serene future. I implore you to say to me now, ' I will come back.' " She turned at last and faced him. Her grave eyes were filled with tears, her lips had all the moving pathos of grief. With the pain and suffering in her face she turned to him. " If it were only myself I would come back. I would face what I once fled from. I promise you I would. But when I was in sorrow my sister took me in. She was kind to me. She saved me from a wild despair ; I cannot leave her." " If I persuade her to return to your father, you will come ? " " You will not be able to do that." " Why not ? " " She has a courage which keeps her at the point of suffering. I suppose you know her story. She made a marriage which was not wise. She has 407 suffered terribly. But until this very morning, when she whispered in my ear, ' Promise not to leave me,' never once, not even to me, has she uttered a single word of complaint. She is one of those strong, proud natures, which having taken a course, never turn back, but continue to the end. I have seen her suffer in a way that has pierced my heart, but I have never seen her shed a tear, never heard her utter a word of re- proach. There is something grand and rock-like in her character, and yet I believe her heart is never empty of tears. I love my sister. I have such a pity for her that I cannot utter it. Nothing, nothing will ever make me leave her." They returned to the inn. Louise avoided Christopner. Conder was polite to him, and treated his wife in his presence with respect. He called Christopher " Sir," and spoke about Graftons of Glevering, who had hunted with Lord Penraven's hounds. Christopher measured out to this man a coldness of manner and a dis- approbation of bearing which kept the publican at arm's length. On the following morning he rose early and went into the yard where Louise was feeding the fowls and pigeons. He said to her, " I want to speak to you alone." She looked at him with an expression which was almost disdainful, and said in her bold, loud voice, " I have got plenty to do ; what is it ? " " I want you to come back to Penraven." " And leave my children ? " " No, bring them too." 408 The Sisters " What about the business ? " she drove certain of the hens away, and called others to the food scattered at her feet. " I've got my living to get," she con- tinued ; " I can't be idle and do as I like." " Mrs. Conder," he said gravely, " your father is dying." " Well, I am sorry ; one needn't talk to feel sorry ; I am fond of the old man, though he was never much of a father to me " she scattered her last hand- ful of corn and moved away "but I can't go to him, even if I could do any good." Christopher followed her. " Give me one moment," he said. " What is it ? " She turned and faced him. " Your father will not die happy unless his children are with him." " His children ! Well, I have children of my own. I tell you, I can't go. I do pretty nearly every- thing here. He wouldn't ask for me if he understood. You're going back, you can tell him." " Tell him what ? That your heart is breaking, that your children are growing up in a beer-house, that your future and their future is without one ray of hope ? " Her eyes flashed and her face reddened. " What do you mean ? You don't know what you are saying." She moved away again. "And you might save your children. You are their mother. You might save them ; it is in your power. My presence here is your security ; the reason of my presence here is your opportunity. Say that you will come back with me. Bring your children, 409 The Shadow and with your sister return to Penraven to see your father before he dies." She turned her head for a moment as she walked away from him, and looked at him with a scowling displeasure. " I think you must be mad," she said, and the next moment she was calling to the maid in the kitchen. Christopher spent another day in this inn, which was full of the sense of tragedy. The two sisters endeavoured to avoid him. He saw neither of them alone. Rose always had the children with her. Louise was either in the bar or in the kitchen when he sought her. Christopher was puzzled how to act. He thought at one time of appealing to the husband, even of asking that detestable man's permission for the wife's departure. Such a course was clearly impossible. The more he succeeded in influencing the husband the less would be his power with the wife. He realised that the tragedy of Louise was the tragedy of pride. He spoke seriously and solemnly to Rose whenever he got an opportunity. She would sit with the two elder children playing at her feet, the baby in her lap, and amid these distractions deal with his searching questions. She was most silent when he pressed upon her the terrible influences breathing upon the souls of the children from the atmosphere of the inn. He said to her once : " It is dreadful that you should be in this place, surrounded by all that is base and degrading, removed altogether from what is beautiful and refining ; but, 410 The Sisters for young children children as powerless to protect themselves from the viewless influence of evil sur- roundings as to remove themselves to other and better surroundings it is horrible, it is appalling." She made no direct answer, but spoke of a child's innocence as its best protection against things which appeared disagreeable and base to maturer minds. Christopher did not know that George Whitefield had lived the most impressionable years of his childhood in an inn, had served, as a little boy, the lowest of drinkers in the lowest of taverns, and had been conscious throughout of an invisible Power opening his spirit eyes to the beauty of holiness. Christopher's antipathy to the Hound Inn at Blakeney was not religious, it was intellectual. His fine and sensitive nature recoiled from the brutality of the place ; he shrank from its coarseness, its ugliness, its degraded animalism. His sympathy with the two sisters was for the intellectual and moral side of their natures, not at all for their souls. He thought of the children growing up without any sense of loveliness, without any passion for pure beauty and the joy breathing from the soul of Nature. One morning he came downstairs to find the inn already crowded with people of the lowest kind. The yard was filled with vehicles. There was an unusual stir in the streets. He learned from the servant, who brought him breakfast in a room crowded with men, that it was the first day of a steeple-chase meeting. He went out into the street. Special trains were disgorging a multitude of people, upon whose faces 411 The Shadow was stamped as with a brand every sign of brutality. There were two or three drags drawn up in the station yard among dusty carriages and carts. A continual stream of people poured from the railway station into the inn. Christopher went out into the country and walked in the wood where he made his appeal to Rose. He reached the Force, and sat down upon a great boulder in mid-stream which rose high out of the water a few yards before it plunged downward out of sight in the trees. His face and hands became wet in a fine spray blown backward from the Force. The moving water, gliding with little noise between its green and wooded banks, and approaching with a dreamful calm the precipitous thunder of its inevitable fall, reflected the blue sky, the white clouds, and the glancing flight of birds. It curved round the rocks in its course with as gentle a motion as it touched the hanging branches of trees dipping into its un- spotted current. The sunlight slept upon this gracious tide. The comparison between this scene and that of the inn worked in Christopher's mind as he lay upon the warm stone and felt the spray dusting his face. Louise did not seem to him a pathetic or a tragic figure ; he thought of her with impatience and dis- pleasure. She should grapple with her fate ; she should summon the forces of her will ; she should refuse any longer to suffer the indignity and horror of her unholy alliance. His resentment against the one sister was dictated by an ardent interest in the other. Rose was a pure and beautiful figure in the sordid 412 The Sisters atmosphere of that inn. Her devotion to the children of her sister, her quiet protection of that sister against the cruelties of the husband, her unassuming and scarce noticeable endeavours to mitigate the miseries of her poor sister's life these things struck Chris- topher sharply and made him wonder what possible sin could have driven so pure and gentle a nature from her home. The problem of this tragedy lay with Rose ; it lay where the affections of his heart were moving as slowly, as steadily, as continuously as the river was moving to the cataract. When he turned to go back to the inn, breathing the delightsome atmosphere of the wood and thinking what lay before him in the tavern, he determined that this should be his last day in Blakeney. He would go back to Penraven. He would shake off the memory of this miserable and degraded tragedy. In the midst of the mountains and in the loving company of the old minister, he would devote himself to his art, and in his art seek to find occasional oblivion of his own unalterable doom. These sisters must live out their life their strange life whose tragedy was so unlike his own ; the father would die and go to his long home, and they would still be carrying on the traffic of the Hound Inn. He found the sweep in front of the house empty. There were only a few loiterers in the streets. The railway station was quiet. He entered the inn. At the end of the flagged passage he caught a moment's sight of Louise busy in the kitchen. She was red- eyed. He went to the sitting-room where Rose amused 413 the children, meaning to make one last appeal. She said, as he entered the room, " I have been waiting for you. My sister wants me to go and see my father, and to take the children with me. We can start whenever you are ready." " I am glad," he said, looking at her. " We will start now." 4M CHAPTER XXVI. CHRISTOPHER SPEAKS MR. KINDRED was in his study, seated before a fire, with a shawl over his shoulders, a rug over his knees, his eyes closed in a meditation which carried him far away from the earth, when Christopher entered the garden and made his way across the lawn to the front door. The closed carriage, with Rose and the children inside, moved at a snail's pace over the shingle of the drive. Christopher opened the door of the study very gently, and entered without making any sound. The Rector, whose back was turned to him, asked, " Is that my son come back to me ? " Christopher said as he came to the side of the chair, " And your son brings back your daughter." The old man started and looked up with questioning eyes. He was holding one of Christopher's hands between both of his. " Miss Kindred has come back," said Christopher. Then he added, " She is longing to see you." The old man seemed struck dumb. A faint colour suffused the pallor of his face. His eyes were startled. He said, in a low and wondering voice, " My little Rose! Where? Where is she, dear Christopher?" 415 The Shadow He sat forward and endeavoured to raise himself by the arms of his chair. The sound of the carriage wheels entered the room. Christopher laid a hand on his arm. " She will come to you here. Rest where you are, sir." He stooped down and made up the fire. " She has brought your grandchildren to see you," he said, getting up from the hearth. " My grandchildren ! " the pale face lighted with joy. " God is very good to me." Christopher looked down at the old man, so frail and faded and worn, and a great tenderness seized his heart He stooped and kissed his forehead. " My son, my dear son ! " said the clergyman, pressing his arms. When Christopher went to fetch Rose his face was soft and beautiful, as though the embrace of the minister had baptised him into the peace of God. He helped Rose from the carriage, where she had sat waiting for him at the door, as he had once helped her into a carriage at the door of a music-hall. " Your father is trembling to embrace you," he said, in a low voice. She was very white and agitated. The sight of the parsonage and the garden had awakened thoughts which stirred her being to its depth. " I will have the children with me," she said, in a voice that shook. Christopher went with her to the door of the study. As he opened the door he caught sight of the father standing in the centre of the room, his face shining softly, his arms extending, his lips moving with welcome. The si^ht of this pale and bowed old man, 416 Christopher Speaks risen in tottering weakness to receive his child, brought a blinding moisture to the eyes of God's exile. He turned away from it. The return of Rose to the rectory meant the ex- pulsion of Christopher. When he had recovered his composure he went to consult with the servant as to some lodging in the village. When he saw Rose again he was setting out. " You are not going ? " she asked ; " I want to speak to you." She came with him into the garden. " He is so happy with the children," she said, in a soft voice. " It is beautiful to see his face bent over them, and to watch him turning his ear to catch what they say." " I am glad," he said. " They will give him new life." " But, tell me where are you going with that satchel ? You are not going to leave us ? " " I find," he said, " that every house in this village belongs to the Comte de Lyons, which means that there is no lodging for me this side of Toom Head." She stopped dead. Her face was blanched. " Why do you say that ? " He told her of his altercation with the Count, and of his experience at the farmhouse. Her face, he noticed, cleared as he spoke. " There is one house at the extreme end of the valley which does not belong to him," she said. " It is a farm where they used to let rooms in the summer to mountain-climbers and reading-parties from the universities. Do not go over the hills till you have tried there." He asked her the people's name and was about to 417 2 E The Shadow set out, when she stopped him. " I haven't said to you what I want to say. I want to thank you, now, in the first moment of my return, for bringing me back. Some day, perhaps, I will tell you why I did not return of my own will long ago. I do not pretend that I have ever felt towards my father as I ought to have felt, as I feel now ; I was too young then to love him, too full of my own self to understand his character ; but I was never dead to his affection. Now it seems to me as if I have loved him and understood him all my life. He is wonderfully dear to me. That is why I am grateful to you for bringing me back." " There is nothing more bitter," he answered, " than the self-reproach which comes after death has rendered remorse vain and profitless." With these words he left her. On his way up the valley he encountered the chaplain of the Comte de Lyons, who glanced up at him quickly and curiously, immediately lowering his eyes to the road in front of his feet, and passing with an inscrutable look on his face. Christopher came to the parsonage on the following day to fetch his painting materials. He saw Rose and her father as he walked up the drive. They were standing at one of the lower windows, watching, with delighted smiles on their faces, the two older children playing on the lawn. The laughter of the children came to Christopher as a familiar thing. It was the laughter of the phantom children he had heard on his first entrance into this green happiness. At his approach the children did not run towards him with shouts of greeting ; their laughter ceased, and 418 Christopher Speaks they stopped, pausing over their play, with all the joy suddenly frozen on their lips. Mr. Kindred and Rose at the window wondered why he did not turn aside to speak to the children. He came forward, conscious that the eyes at the window regarded him, conscious that the children waited to renew their game till he had passed. He was strangely aware of separa- tion from this little group of humanity. The clergyman, whose face shone with new happi- ness, begged him to use the parsonage as his workshop, saying that he really could not spare his son, his curate, his sacristan, his private secretary, his gardener. TO B this appeal Rose added her own, " My father will regret my coming if it means your going." Christopher wavered. There was a new happiness in the parsonage. The old abiding atmosphere of resigned sorrow had lifted, had risen like a mist into the blue of a clear sky. This house, which he had got to love, was changed. The air rang, not with inaudible laughter of phantom children, but with real laughter of real children. The face of his friend glowed with a parent's love. The old, desolate, sweet-souled man was humanly happy. Christopher felt himself isolated, felt himself an interloper. This hermitage had become suddenly a human home. What place and lot had he in the happy dwellings of men ? in the security and peace of domestic cheerfulness ? But to go was very difficult. He did not look at Rose, but when he wavered in his answer to their invitation, he was conscious of her in every pulse of his being. The clergyman took his arm. 419 2 E 2 The Shadow " I have named you my son. I have adopted you. What ! Will you leave your father to become a prodigal ? For shame, Christopher, thou child of light. Can the garden get on without you, or have I wages for a hireling ? Can my letters get answered without you, or could I support a private secretary ? Can the bell ring in the belfry without you, or shall I turn its music into mourning by letting someone pull the rope for money ? My son, listen to your father's voice. He bids you stay." Christopher made his choice. He met the appealing wistful eyes of the old minister, which were raised to his face, and said, with something that was almost a smile upon his lips, " I cannot refuse such an invitation." Then he lifted his eyes and looked towards Rose. She was watching him, and in her face he saw the passing of an anxiety. So Christopher came every morning down the valley, rang the bell for morning prayer in the little church, helped the clergyman in his correspondence, and then leaving father and daughter to work in the garden or to amuse themselves with the children, retired to the open window of his old room now a studio and nothing else and there worked at his painting, com- panioned by the two texts " I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer," and " Christ shall give thee light." He sometimes worked till the family had finished the midday meal, and in that case he would dine alone, or Rose would bring him something to his room. He spent most of the afternoon in the garden, and after tea returned to the solitude of his lodging in the farmhouse at the end of the valley. 420 Christopher Speaks He was still condemned to earn his daily bread by painting Madonnas. The art-dealers in London had begun to be aware of his success in Paris. When, in answer to their applications, he sent other pictures, they replied that they wanted religious subjects, particularly pictures of the Madonna. His financial circumstances became easier every month. Engravings and photogravures of the first Madonna the Madonna that was his own mother and his own emotional longings after a state of greater purity were gradually spreading into every country. He had means beyond his wants, but he hated his work, which seemed to him an ex- pression, a confession of his spiritual hypocrisy. The two Madonnas which he had painted since his mother's death had not been praised by the best judges. The dealers in Paris had expressed the hope that he would endeavour to utter the tenderness that was in the first picture and to abandon the expression of settled sorrow and almost despairful resignation which they observed in its successors. Christopher's master wrote to him in the same strain, but with the loving persuasion of a friend and with the convincing force of a great painter. Christopher was as unable to obey his master out of love as his dealers out of covetousness. The first picture apparently had exhausted his spiritual longings ; his mother's death apparently had quenched his desire for joy. The darkness of his soul fell like a shadow on every canvas that he painted. One day, very soon after her return to the parsonage, Rose said to him, "My father tells me that we met in Paris. Is it so ? Do you remember it ? " She 421 The Shadow seemed to ask the question unwillingly, and to be apprehensive about his answer. He considered before he replied. " When your father showed me your photograph," he said, " I thought I recognised you. I think still that I did see you in Paris. But it was only for a moment, and I was not presented to you." " Where was it ? " He set his teeth. " I really forget," he said, after a moment, and breathed more freely when the untruth was uttered. He felt afterwards that this lie banished him further from the society of the good and virtuous. It deepened in him the sense that he was a man wearing a mask, which, once removed, would expose him to the horror of the pure and the execration of the just. He was a man " boding evil yet still hoping good." Truly of him might the terrible words be said, " Idle Hope And dire Remembrance interlope To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind : The bubble floats before, the spectre stalks behind." The bubble ? What filmy shape, reflecting iridescent tints of heaven's sky and catching from the earth, above whose breast it floated light and high, glancings of sunny greenery skimmed like fairy ship the soft blue air, gliding forward light as summer's breath, and fragile as the gossamer ? It was the hope of a cleansed spirit the hope of relief from pressing bitterness the hope of an end to exile. And with that dim and not yet utterable hope there moved and stirred in the travail of his heart an impulse of his 422 Christopher Speaks whole being towards the girl who had suffered and was still sweet. This bubble, floating before his eyes, while behind him stalked the spectre, was known by him to be a bubble that would break and vanish and be as if it had never been if he pressed so fast towards it as even to breathe upon it with his lips. He no more dared fling himself down and say, " God be merciful to me a sinner," than he dared show by word or look to the girl his heart craved for, the love that was beginning to consume his life. The bubble was so lovely to see it ravished his senses ; so lovely, so perfect, so wonderful, so unearthly, and so impossible, that he only dared to open his eyes at rare moments and look upon it but for a frightened glance. Always at such moments he was most conscious of the spectre behind him. Dire Remembrance came ever swiftly beside his idle Hope to vex these feverish dreams of his visionary mind. Well, dreams may be sweet even in the con- demned cell. Christopher said, " It is a dream," and he circumscribed his ambition to the hope that he might always have this power to dream. It gave him pleasure and it provoked his curiosity to watch the daily increasing influence on Rose's character of contact with her father. They were always together. When the weather was fine he would look up from his work to see them walking in the garden. When he entered the study it was to find that he had interrupted them in conversation of an intimate character. She became visibly sweeter, more frank in her tender solicitude of her father, nobler and greater in the expression of her face. He 423 The Shadow reflected upon this great and visible change in her bearing. Then, early one Sunday morning as he rang the bell for Holy Communion, Rose entered the church for the first time since her return. When Christopher saw her alone that morning he said to her, " I should like you to do me a great favour." " I shall do it gladly, whatever it is," she said, with the candour of a pure nature sure of her friend. "It is a wish I have had ever since I first saw your photograph. I want to paint your portrait." She seemed for a moment conscious of his ad- miration. Only for a moment. With her usual composure, with the gravity and tender dignity which had come to her since her return, she 'acquiesced in his suggestion, meeting his eyes without self- consciousness. When he was making his first study for this picture, she said to him, " I had a letter two or three days ago from my sister. I think you will like to know that she says she is happier." " Yes, I am glad." "You did not misjudge her, I am sure. She is very different from her outward manner." " She bears her suffering bravely. Whether she should bear it at all is another matter. But I am glad she is happier. It means that you will remain with your father, and not be fretted by wondering how it fares with your sister. Does she miss her children?" " It is her own wish that they should be away from that place." 424 Christopher Speaks On the second day he said to her, "Would you mind if I painted you as the Madonna ? " She started and said. " Oh, please no. I would rather not." He did not raise his eyes. " Why not ?" he asked. " I can hardly tell you. It is something that hap- pened long ago. I once had a great shock in which the idea of the Madonna played a part. I cannot tell you exactly what it was. I saw suddenly with my living eyes a blasphemy a blasphemy which rises up quite fresh and horrible to my eyes every time I see a picture of the Madonna, every time I hear the Virgin's name in church, and which will haunt me to my dying day." Christopher's face was like death. " That is one of the most terrible things about sin," she said slowly, " its consequences go on. The man who once filled my soul with horror has perhaps forgotten the incident ; he certainly does not realise that his act lives eternally in my mind, is a memory that will never die." Christopher said nothing. " But," she added presently, " it is only a senti- mental reason I set up against your idea. I ought to be superior to unreasoning aversions. Yes, let your picture be as you say." For some moments he was silent. Then he said in a low voice, still working at the picture : " If I could paint a beautiful Madonna it might help you to forget. You are haunted by a devil ; I should like to haunt you with an angel." A.fter a prolonged pause, she said, "Yes. I see 425 The Shadow what you mean. If I could associate the Madonna in my mind with something beautiful, something quite hauntingly lovely, I should lose the darker memory ; this would outshine it. Well, try. Do. It would please me. I have no desire to remember what makes me shudder." " Perhaps my picture might make you think with less wrath of the man who offended you." " Oh," she made haste to explain, " I have no knowledge of him. I do not know his name or any- thing about him." " But you shudder when you think of him." " I shall always do that." " His sin was perhaps an act of folly." "It was atrocious." " I suppose he was young. A boy may commit a terrible sin in the wildness of his youth, and be ever afterwards sorry for it. Perhaps it adds to the burden of his guilt if those he offended continue to think of him with horror." " I cannot explain to you. If I did, you would realise why my memory is so tenacious of its horror. This man, too, did me a great service. For some reason I think he is the man of all men I most want to see. I want to thank him. And yet, think what the horror of his act must have been when I tell you that if I saw him coming towards me, this man whom I desire to thank so very earnestly, I should turn and fly from him, unable to look in his face." " So bad as that ! Then my picture will fail." " I want your picture to exorcise from my mind the association of the Madonna's name with this 426 Christopher Speaks dreadful incident That will be just and right. The beautiful ought to have power over the base. As for the man I am not haunted by" him, but by his act. He is outside my life. Our lives will never cross again." " Then he will never receive your thanks for that act of service." " In missing my thanks he escapes my horror." " Oh, perhaps he knows it. There are people who think that all strong feelings about a person reach and affect him in some occult and mysterious fashion." " Like the witches with their pins and effigies ? " " This is why we are instructed that it is necessary not to judge others, never to feel anger, and always to cultivate kind feelings. It is said that kind feelings about a person, even if they are never uttered, help him." " Do you believe that ? " " I ? Oh, my belief is narrowed to a smaller point than that. I was speaking of theories." " You believe in the forgiveness of sins, evidently." " No ; certainly not in that." " But you have been speaking from that point of view, surely ? " " I was unconscious of it." " There are some sins which one feels can never be forgiven, but " " Such as this blasphemy you speak of, for instance ? " " Oh, one knows that such an act outraged Heaven, but it would be dreadful to think of the man who committed it as one deliberately continuing along a 427 The Shadow path of horror. Perhaps he repented, or will repent. Where there is penitence there is forgiveness." " Do you use the word penitence as a conventional term, or out of some experience of its meaning. But I ought not to ask that question. Forgive me. Only one hears the word repentance used so glibly I imagine that remorse is something terrible." " But remorse is not repentance." " No ? " " Do you think it is ? " " I cannot imagine what repentance is unless it is the child of remorse." " But the child has a life of its own." " Until this minute I have not thought about the subject. I have felt in a dim, subconscious manner that a man burdened by remorse may be regarded as a penitent in so far that his remorse would prevent him from repeating his sin. I have not thought that penitence could grow into anything different from remorse. Isn't remorse an undying memory ? " " Repentance," she said, " is a new birth." " Ah, that is a term I do not understand." " My father would explain it to you." " You think that by some miracle in the will of a man he may forget everything he has been, every irremediable disaster he has brought upon himself and others, wipe out, in fact, the whole memory of his past, which is his personality, and begin a new life ? " " You asked me just now if I had experienced penitence." " I should not have done so." " I experienced long ago remorse for one single 428 Christopher Speaks incident in my life ; it did not carry me very far. It made a repetition of my folly impossible, but it did not create in me a new spirit. I was the same person, wounded and bruised. But quite lately I have made acquaintance with what we call penitence. It grew out of my remorse. But it is quite different. I think one might say that remorse is for a single act, peni- tence is for a condition of the soul. I know that remorse hurt and tormented me, but did not in the least change me. Penitence, on the other hand, neither hurts nor torments, but heals ; and it alters the whole character. It really is a new birth. It seems to me that it is like waking out of a long sleep." "In which remorse was a nightmare." " Yes." " But there must be forms of remorse from which this delightful waking to a new dawn must be eternally debarred." " Oh, none ! " " Do you believe that ? " " I have no intellectual gifts to explain what I mean, but I have the sanction of intuition to persuade me that the forgiveness of sins is a great fact. Don't you feel that ? Don't you feel that the power and the love that is in the universe assures the heart of mercy and forgiveness for repentance ? " " Suppose a man's remorse springs from an act whose consequences cannot be mended ? " " Cannot be mended ? Is there such an act ? " " I should think so. A man may so act as to destroy what he most loves. He may awake to discover how greatly he loved when it is too late, when that 429 The Shadow which he loved is beyond the reach of his voice. For instance, if the prodigal son in the parable had turned homewards to find the father his sin had wounded dead of a broken heart ? " " That would be dreadful. Yes, dreadful. If I had not come when you called me back home, and if some day I had returned to find I was too late " " That is what I mean." " But I hope that I should have found someone to tell me that my father was still alive, and that because he was still alive he was still longing for my return. Remorse would then lose itself in repentance. I should still say, still be able to say, ' I will arise and go to my father.' Remorse ends at the grave ; repentance passes into eternity." Christopher did not realise till she had left him, till he was alone by himself, that for the first time in the long and dreadful period of his remorse he had opened his lips and given utterance to the dark and shapeless thoughts deep buried in his soul. He was at first struck by this bewildering change in himself. He had spoken. Afterwards it came to him with a heating wave of self-consciousness that he had opened the barred doors of his soul because of the woman whose face he was painting. Sympathy had thawed the ice about his heart. That cold and frozen seat of his humanity was melting with love. He tried to remember what he had said to her. He found that it was only her words which lived in his memory. Among those words impressed for ever on the 430 Christopher Speaks tablets of his brain was the Discedite Maledicti which she had unconsciously pronounced against him. If she knew him for what he was, she would not thank him for the services he had rendered her ; she would turn and flee from him in horror. And yet she had spoken of the forgiveness of sins ! With a feeling almost of resentment against her, he endeavoured to forget this conversation, to push it out of his mind, and set himself to think only of his work and to continue his way through the unlifting darkness of eternal night. But he had forgotten the picture. Every touch of his brush opened his eyes to the beauty and sweetness of his new Madonna, and as great as his passion to make this picture his masterpiece became the longing of his heart to possess the consola- tion of the woman's sympathy and love. So, while Christopher painted, he loved, and the love grew to be the central force in his existence. Out of spiritual darkness the grace and beauty of the woman drew him a little further every day, until at last they made him human. It was out of his humanity that his soul was to rise to God. 431 CHAPTER XXVII. A SUDDEN TEMPTATION AS the picture neared its completion, Christopher v who was a great critic because he was a great painter, knew that he had achieved something definite in art. He realised that this picture meant fame for him, fame of the highest and most enduring character. But the picture belonged to Rose. " Will you accept it ? " he said, turning to her one day, as she stood at his side, studying the work and praising it. " Oh, it is too great a gift." " I think it belongs to you more than it belongs to me." " It is very nice of you to say that. But I feel it is really too great a gift. It overpowers and bewilders me to think of possessing it." " I should like you to receive from me something that has come out from myself, something that represents the ideal after which I am struggling in my art You have helped me on the road. This picture, which could not have existed except for you, marks an advance." " You make me happy." 432 A Sudden Temptation " You have made me happy too." She was silent. He said, going to the picture and moving it a little on the easel, " It can do no harm for you to know that while I have been painting here, I have been it is a strange word for me to use ! but I have really been happy." He came back from the picture, but did not look at her. " Science, I believe, could explain the reason of this happiness, and give a name to the machinery. It is a case of telepathy. You are happy. Your presence has diffused happiness, and I have received it. Well, I am very grateful." " Mr. Grafton," she said quietly, " will you tell me why you are not a happy man ? " She raised her head, and looked at him. But he kept his eyes from her. " A poet says," he answered, speaking with a quiet evenness of tone, " that this earth is a place ' where but to think is to be full of sorrow and leaden-eyed despairs.' It depends, I suppose, upon what is behind one and what is before." " Yes, on what is before." " If it is a bubble floating before one and a spectre stalking behind, I think it must be difficult to be happy." " Why need it be a bubble before ? " " Because " " You will tell me ? " " Do you realise, Miss Kindred, that your interest in my life is very delightful?" He was going to say "an agony and a torture," and other words, perhaps, uttered out of the extreme hunger of his 433 2 F The Shadow heart ; but he checked, remembering that he was a man wearing a mask, and said, " very delightful," as though her sympathy amused him. She became instantly cold. " Oh, but please don't think," she said, with distress, "that I am merely curious about you." " I know that you are kind, too kind." " You seemed as if you shrank from my sympathy, and shrinking from it, you made it something mean and vulgar." " Please don't say that." " No ; but I realise that you wish to hide your sorrow. I feel reproved." She paused and looked frankly into his eyes with a grave serenity. " Excess of zeal is responsible for my blunder. Do you know what I mean ? Because I have been so unhappy myself, and because I am now so happy, so very happy, I am consumed with ardour to make proselytes. I feel that there is no unhappiness which I could not dissipate. It is the enthusiasm* of the convert. You must forgive me. Another day some day, perhaps we will talk about these things. I should like very much to show my thankfulness to you for your interference in my life, by interfering as successfully in yours. There ! I am candid with you. I know you are unhappy. I am interested in you. I want to make you happy." He made no answer. His large eyes, full of suppressed tenderness, regarded her with gratitude. He seemed as if he did not speak, because his eyes said everything. He remained where he was when the door had closed upon her. 434 A Sudden Temptation The picture was sent to Paris to be framed and tc be exhibited, before it returned to the little parson- age in the Cumberland Hills. Christopher wanted his gift to be crowned by the applause of the world before he presented it to the woman he loved. There was now no occasion for his visits to the parsonage, but he came every day, and, because he was idle, was more than ever in the company of Rose. Their friendship ripened and became rapidly intimate with that extreme of delicacy which is one of the components of fine natures. This intimacy in their conversations was never playful or light ; they passed with a stride alike over mere common- place and mere talk, and came near to each other in the region of intellect. Sorrow had made the boy and girl stage of friendship impossible for both. They were thinking souls. Neither had a disposition to dally with life, or a taste for the trivial. Because both were serious, swift was the progress of their intimacy, and profound was the spirit of their fellowship. If they walked in the valley or climbed the mountains, it was not to titter at little things or to insult great things with flippancy and cynicism, not to gossip of insignificant people or to show each other how clever and how original they could be, but it was to enjoy all lovely forr?/? and sounds and colours, to take delight in the blue sky, the living air, the flowers of the fields, and as they went thus happily along, to discuss without violence of prejudice or intolerance of conviction, the mysteries of existence, the destiny of humanity, and the conflicting specula- tions of philosophy. 435 2 F 2 The Shadow Neither of these two people, this burdened man and this girl fresh from the education of a sharp sorrow, was deeply read, nor in the least scholastic. Happily for them they were complete strangers to the pedantry of the schools. Christopher had his knowledge of men, such as it was ; Rose had her intuitions, her experience of suffering, and her love for Christ. Over both of them, viewless and unrealised, hovered the spirit of John Kindred. One day Rose said to Christopher as they set out for a walk in the valley, " I had a letter this morning from my sister ; I should like to ask your advice about it" " Is she happier ? " " She says she is. I had written to her saying that my father was so much better that I thought I might soon return to help her." " You are not going back to that place." " Her answer has thrown my plans into confusion ; I had intended to go back." " I had never contemplated such a thing." " It is where I ought to be. My father is glad that I am with him ; but his happiness is quite independent of me. It is impregnable. On the other hand, my sister's life needs companionship more than any life I can imagine. You have seen it. You know what it is. Her life is the tragedy of a misalliance. She is married to a man separated from her by every quality which makes alliance not only pleasant but endurable. A madness of her youth has brought down upon her head this terrible and unalterable consequence. She is tragically placed ; A Sudden Temptation I have never seen any woman so dreadfully punished. And I don't think any woman could bear her sorrow as she bears it. This letter, for instance. She says that if I come back to her it would mean that the children must come too. She has thought over what you said about them. For their sakes she wishes them to remain with their grandfather. She has spoken to her husband, and he is indifferent to their future. So there is nothing to prevent them from remaining here, and she begs me to keep them, and stay with them as long as my father lives." " Does she miss them as well as you ? " " Oh, she says never one word about that. But I know how she misses them." " You must not go back." " Hers is a nature, hard, stubborn, and enduring. She was always hard, strangely hard, but it was with a sort of headstrong wildness and vehemence of animal spirits. Now it is cold and enduring. And under the hardness there is a dumb suffering. Do you know I sometimes think that when she came to herself, into her heart was born, for the first time, the tenderness of a child, all the first tenderness of quite a young child, which she herself never knew in childhood. She has seemed to me over and over again a hard and embittered woman, bewildered by the heart of a child. She is not afraid of the world or terrified by her position, but she is confused by entirely new feelings and new thoughts working in herself. Do I explain to you what I mean ? It is very difficult to express it. She is proud and silent in her suffering ; until you knew her inti- mately and watched her carefully you would only 437 The Shadow think of her as a woman hardened and embittered by a rough experience ; but I feel sure that her hardness and bitterness are only a cloak, and a poor frayed cloak, too worn to hide the perplexity of new feelings and new thoughts the feelings and thoughts of a quite young child." " I feel an infinite compassion for her. Ask your father what you should do. If you think you ought to go back, someone could be engaged to look after the children. But don't go back if it is at all possible to avoid it. That is not your atmosphere." Rose told her father, very gently and tenderly, that night the story of poor Louise and her wretchedness. She endeavoured not to pain him, but to make him realise the strength of her call she had perforce to lift the curtain from the terrible and sordid drama of the Hound Inn. The old man was so horrified that he could not speak. " She is no longer hard and unkind," said Rose. " She doesn't show it, but she is quite gentle now, and so very brave." The old man said very slowly and very thoughtfully, with an effort to control his voice, " I have always prayed for her ; God must be there, if her heart is not closed against Him." " Her heart is opening." " Rose," he said solemnly, " tell me the truth." He laid a hand that was trembling like a leaf upon her shoulder, and searched her eyes steadily. " Her husband he is a monster ? '* " He is cruel." " Then she must come back to me here." 438 A Sudden Temptation " Ah ! she will never leave her punishment. No, she clings to it. It is her expiation." The old man burst into tears. His head dropped on his bosom. He seemed to collapse. Suddenly he raised his face, all wet and drawn and white " I will go to her ! " he cried. " Yes, I will go to my child. God tells me." Rose tried to restrain him. " By the lips of your mother, who is an angel, God has spoken to me," cried the old man. " Go to her the voice was loud in my soul. Go to her ! I will go." She laid her loving hand upon him, drew herself close to him, and said all that could be said to expel the thought of this pilgrimage from his mind, fondling and kissing him between the words. As she spoke, growing more forceful and more eloquent as the hope- lessness of such an expedition struck deeper and deeper into her mind, the old man became quiet and calm and still. " You have given me peace," said Rose, " you have made everything plain to me ; you have taught me where to look for serenity, and at last my spirit is at rest ; do you think I should hinder you from going to Louise if I thought you could give her that peace ? But the heart must be in a certain state to receive what you have to give. She has not yet reached that state. And nothing, nothing! that you or I can do would ever induce her to return here, to leave her punishment and take her freedom." He waited till she had make an end, and for some moments after was silent, regarding her with the utmost tenderness. " Have you ever thought," he said 439 The Shadow presently, speaking with great gentleness, "that the wonder and beauty of Christ's character lies in His love, in His love for sinners ? He loves think what that word means ! men and women for whom even the most imperfect of us feel horror and aversion. Only God can reveal such a height and depth of love ! There is no man or woman on the earth, however deeply sunken in sin, however branded by infamy, however hardened by iniquity, over whose soul he does not yearn with the love of a father for his child. It is for sinners that He revealed His love upon the Cross. God so loved the world, so loved sinners! Surely there can be no use made in heaven, among the angels who continually behold the face of the Father, of such poor human words as express disdain, detestation, and despair of humanity. We say that this tragedy of my dear child is ' sordid.' Sordid ! Do you think that that word is used in heaven ? To God and to the angels of God she is a soul wandering in darkness, a soul most precious and dear, a soul perhaps requiring the fullest bitterness of suffering before it can become a soul capable of feeling the need for a Saviour, but never, never once in all the agony and darkness of her suffering, anything but a soul most precious, most precious and most dear. Now, in the mercy of God, the hour has come for her redemption. The hard heart is softened, the proud spirit is no longer self-sufficing. Now is the opportunity of God. This precious soul is in the darkness still, but she is at the gate of the dawn. I will go to her. God ends me. I will take her hand, the hand of my dear child, and I will lead her to the light. Lighten our 440 A Sudden Temptation darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord. Ah, when she kneels to God's love when she acknowledges that the sighing of a contrite heart and the desire of such as be sorrowful are all that humanity can fitly offer to the great God of the universe, Who is so patient with the least of His children, then I shall know that my prayers are at last answered, and that the blessed hour of my deliverance is at hand. Do not seek, dear child, to stay me. Very plainly, very clearly, I have heard the command. To-morrow I will go to her." He leaned forward, laid his right hand upon her head, and concluded, " To-morrow you and Christopher must go into the church and pray for me and for her." When on the following morning Christopher arrived at the door of the church, he found Rose standing under the tower, her hand on the still bell-rope, a new gravity in her eyes. She told him what had occurred on the previous night, and said that her father had already set out for Blakeney. Then she added, " He wishes that the bell should ring, and he asked that we should pray for him." He became very white. The story of the old man setting out to seek his daughter, even as his mother had once set out to seek her son, moved him greatly. The thought that he should kneel alone in the church with Rose Kindred and pray, really pray, for this dear and faithful old saint of God, made him shudder in his soul. Rose passed into the church. The bell rope, released from her hand, swung a little. It seemed to swing towards Christopher. He watched it for a moment, listening to the sound of her retreating foot- 441 The Shadow steps grov/ing fainter in the dim interior of the house of prayer. As he listened, standing on the threshold of the tower, he felt upon his head the sunlight and the gentle breathing of the dawn. He was conscious of the scent of hot grass in the churchyard mingling with the dry odour of old stones in the tower. He heard the singing of birds close to him and the distant bleating of sheep crossing the upland. It was like a Sabbath in his boyhood. The footsteps ceased. The rope hung straight and still. She was praying. He took the rope and sounded the first stroke of the bell. The creak and clanging in the belfry tower, the pull of the rope upon his arm, the sense of action and life which immediately came to him with output of effort, dissipated the reverie from his mind. He felt his breathing come to him again. He realised his body. The world of sense issued from a mist and became vivid to his eyes. He was conscious of himself. When the bell of the clock struck across his ringing, he steadied the rope, hung it up to the hook from which Rose had dislodged it, and entered the church. She was on her knees in a pew close to the reading- desk. The place was full of shadows and silence. Nowhere was there movement of any kind. The bowed figure, lonely in the dim solitude of the church, was like a sculpture. He knelt down in the last pew, and watched her. She was praying. Her soul was in communion with the mysterious and invisible force of the universe whom Christians name God. Into the immensity of 442 A Sudden Temptation the universe she was sending a little spiral of human breath a worded but unuttered supplication, a phrased but silent petition, a prayer. Prayer! The creature addressing the Creator, the vessel addressing the Potter, dust speaking to Infinity ! How still she was. They were alone together in this church, separated from each other by a few paces, the distance between their souls, infinite. She could pray. Ah ! if he could cover his face with his hands, could bow his head upon his breast, and forgetting her, this church, himself, his reason, and his past, could cry, "Our Father" into the infinite if this were possible, if this were possible ! How happy she must be, to pray. Did people who prayed night and day ever thank God for that sublime capacity ? To be confident of Fatherhood, to feel that in the invisible there was goodwill towards them, to have no fear in kneeling down, to be assured that they might speak as a child to its father, to have no dread, no dread at all, to feel no awful isolation, no sense of banishment, not to be conscious of the atheism of a soul that has sinned itself out of the mercy of the universe how immeasurable the blessing, how sublime the gift ! If those who prayed knew for a little moment the deprivation of those who dare not pray, would they not add a new thankfulness to their worship, a fresh fervour to their adoration ? If only he could pray ! If only he could hope ! He was still kneeling, still reflecting, when she rose slowly from her knees. He got up hastily and preceded her out of the church. 443 The Shadow Had he prayed ? A little later in the day they were walking in the valley ; they were quiet and subdued, talking chiefly of the old clergyman and his journey to Yorkshire. Suddenly the Comte de Lyons, riding a showy horse with an over-liveried groom in attendance, appeared before them at a bend in the road. He looked towards Rose as he approached, con- fidently and with a gallant pleasantness. He appeared as if he wished to salute her, and counted on a smile from her eyes. But she kept her gaze straight before her and was very white. When they passed he was smiling with quiet amusement, his eyebrows raised a little, like a man of the world diverted by rustic prudery. That smile heated the blood in Chris- topher's veins. " I hate that man," he said, with energy. Rose made no reply till after the groom had passed, and they had left the road for the fields. " I used to hate him too," she said quietly. " But I have forgiven him." Christopher remembered how he had once found happiness in the dreadful thought that perhaps this woman, whom he now loved with all his being, had so passed out of goodness as to be capable of under- standing the darkness of his soul. He shuddered at the thought, and felt himself grow wretched and miserable as he waited for her to speak. " I remember," she said, " that I once told you, when we were speaking of my return home, that there was a reason why I could not come. I used to think 444 A Sudden Temptation the Comte de Lyons was that reason. He was not. The only reason was my own pride." They walked on, and she said presently, " Shall I tell you the story ? It will complete a conversation we once had about penitence. Do you remember it ? You were inclined to think that I was merely curious about your life " " No, I did not think that. But tell me your story. I have wanted to hear it for a long time." With only the smallest signs of self-consciousness, Rose told her story as they crossed the sun-bathed meadows. They walked slowly because of the heat, sauntering beside a narrow river which flowed slug- gishly from the dazzling mountain ahead of them. The air was oppressively still ; no birds were singing ; the cattle lay in the grass or stood together under the trees, beating off the flies with their tails ; a few white butterflies were the only moving things in that green stillness. The story was a simple one. It was for Christopher, not a confession of guilt, but an unconscious manifes- tation of pure innocence. He shuddered as he listened to this story, recalling the memory of his base suspicion. Rose was not nearer to him for this memory of her past, but removed infinitely above his reach. Every word that she uttered lifted her higher to the heavens and sank him deeper into the abyss. It was the story of a girl's romance, and a pure woman's disillusionment. The Comte de Lyons had met her one day in the fields and had spoken to her. She was quite young, and he appeared to treat her as a child. She listened to him, and was delighted by 445 The Shadow his manner, his words, and his good looks. They met again and again, in the fields, in the woods, and at last in the gardens of his house. He told her that he could not come to the parsonage because he was a Roman Catholic, but that she must take pity on him and come to the Hall. In those days, she confessed, she had no sense of duty, and it gratified some instinct of her being to have this romance in her life, secret from her father, from everybody. She visited the Count at the Hall ; he wrote letters to her, he lent her books, and showed her pictures. He told her that he loved her above every woman in the world. Her head was turned. She could think of nothing else but this wonderful thing, that she was loved. Life had no other reality ; she was like a child in a dream, a princess in a fairy tale. At times the dream was darkened by something he said to her, but always he dissipated the shadow and brought back the light of dreams by explaining that his political position made it impossible for him to propose a public marriage. Once when the Hall was full of French people he had her to stay there, and she went in spite of her father's interdict. The Count bought her beautiful dresses for this house party and gave her jewels. Among the people was an old French lady, who took Rc*e to Paris with her, and tried to educate her (so she said) for the great position which would one day be hers, if she were wise. Rose returned to Penraven frightened and alarmed by this education. She had told so many people that she was soon going to be married to the Count that she dared not for some time express to him her fears and anxietie?. She was more careful in 446 A Sudden Temptation her relations with him, but she shrank from approach- ing the point which might mean for her an end of the dream and humiliation in the eyes of everybody. All this time her father was appealing to her with the most loving tenderness. She withstood every appeal, declared that she meant to marry the Count, and kept on her way. Then came the day when she could no longer live in doubt. She must know, for the sake of her own peace, whether this lover who professed to be dis- tracted by his passion for her, really and honourably loved her. She asked him this question one day in his own house, where he had implored her to come, and in the midst of a violent scene, for he had tried to kiss her. The sternness with which she repulsed him, the severity with which she asked him her great question, changed him from an imploring lover to an angry and mocking scoundrel. He called her a little fool. It was not repentance for her folly, but a sense of humiliation in a word, a fear of ridicule, which had driven the poor innocent child, who had lived so long in the golden atmosphere of her dream, from her home, from her neighbours, from the scene of her disillusionment. She told Christopher that it was only when she had learned to laugh at her girl's folly, only when she felt that the Count was nothing in the world to her, that she realised something of the true seriousness of her life. The sight of her sister's wretchedness in the Hound Inn, the drama of that poor soul bitterly 447 The Shadow reaping what she had sown in a headlong girlhood, and contact with the little children, made her think solemnly of life and its responsibilities. But it was not until he had brought her back to her father, not until that holy and gracious mind had revealed to her the deepest things of the soul, that she saw the past in its true light, saw it as it was, and seeing it, lost the burden of its memory. It was no longer remorse which weighed her down, but penitence which urged her forward penitence which bowed and uplifted her, penitence which gave her sorrow and happiness, peni- tence which flung her into the arms of divine love and assured her of the forgiveness of sins. " What I have told you," she said, " is an answer to that question of yours do you remember it ? whether I had myself ever experienced penitence and remorse ? " They turned to retrace their steps. " You do not know what remorse is," he said quietly, " because you have never sinned." She said quickly, " But how can you say that ? What is sin if all the pain I caused my father was not sin?" She looked at him almost with challenge, as she asked this question, and he turned his head to meet her gaze. Always she had appeared very beautiful to his eyes, but at that moment he felt that his Madonna was a monstrous blunder. Her loveliness was like an angel, the radiance of her beauty was like a glory. He had thought of her as corrupted by the world, and she was shining with innocence. He had thought of her soul as darkened by a terrible memory, and it was clothed 448 'TELL ME IN WHAT WAY i HAVE HELPED YOU, CHRISTOPHER ? ' [See page 490. A Sudden Temptation with brightness. To the black and desolate abyss, where his own crime had condemned him to dwell in eternal despair, he had presumed to drag in thought this lovely spirit, unspotted by the world. He com- pared her with women of fashion who pass for good women ; he compared her innocence, which had shrunk from disillusionment as though she had commited a sin, with the bold and self-satisfied virtue of women who would laugh at her for inexperienced rusticity. How pure she was, how undefiled the natural delicacy of her soul ! Ah ! and how hopeless his love for her, his love which was now quickened by her wonderful goodness till it possessed him like an inspiration ! " When I look at you," he said, with impetuous passion and admiration burning in his eyes, " I say to myself, ' Close your eyes with holy dread, For she on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.' You are pure, you are good, you are sweet, you are beautiful as the angels of God." She removed her gaze slowly from his face, and looked ahead of her with a strange light in her eyes. " What you have told me," he said, " is the story of a child who was dazzled by a bright toy and for a little while forgot its father's love. You have never done evil. You never will do evil. You are one of those happy spirits whom the angels do not need to guard, because they are, like themselves, incapable ot sin. And you believe in the forgiveness of sins, only because you do not realise what sin can be." " Doesn't the extravagance of what you have said 449 2 G The Shadow rebuke you ? " she asked, with a smile that was all sweetness and yet all seriousness. "Think for a moment. To have held such thoughts as I have held, and for a long period, about my father, was a sin which would pain thousands of daughters whose lives are one long devotion to their parents. They would think I was dreadful. And to have lived as I have lived, not for a little while, but for years, with a complete and careless indifference to the love which now gives me peace and security, was also a sin, and a great sin. But I am happy now. I no longer blame myself, or waste my thoughts in thinking of what is over and past. I press all my energies into the gratitude and joy which now possess me." She turned to him again. "That is what you must do," she said, quietly and almost with pleading. Then, with assurance, she said, " That is what you will do." As he met her gaze, as he felt the beauty of her face shining upon him, he was suddenly conscious of a revelation a temptation. " Yes," he exclaimed, with the witchery of her eyes upon his senses, "why shouldn't I ? What a fool I have been to live in the past ; one does no good by regrets." He laughed. " Miss Kindred," he said, with a race in his words, " I believe you have worked a miracle. Indeed, I am sure you have. I experience the most delightful repentance I repent of a most mad and irrational remorse ! From to-day I will be filled with the joy of life. You have cured me. How grateful I am to you. I feel as if you had pulled a great curtain away, and let in the light from all sides. I repent. I repent of useless remorse." 450 A Sudden Temptation He remembered ever after the wild happiness which leaped in his heart as he walked home with her through the fields, the sunset in his face, the sense of her presence and her beauty throbbing in his pulses. He would wear a mask, but a different mask. The iron should be thrown away for ever, and hypocrisy should weave him a covering for his soul, soft, charming, and becoming. He would bury the past with his own hands, he would keep it a secret, he would make himself appear glad, and he would say to this woman, " I am happy and I love you ; come, be my wife, and we will all the pleasures prove." Oh, how delicious and joyful he could make his life. What a fool he had been ! He was a lie as it was, he had only to change the hue of that lie from black to white, from sombre to gay, from melancholy to brightness, to be the happiest man on the earth. He walked back through the meadows in a vision. Delicious pleasure coursed through his veins. The heat of the sun bathed him in joy, the scents of the grass rose like an intoxication to his senses, the hummings and murmurous buzzings of the air chanted freedom to his soul. The burden had fallen. He was free. Life was good and delightsome. "What a fool I have^een," he kept saying to himself, "what a fool !" He had forgotten the dark- ness of his soul in the ravishing beauty and exquisite charm of the woman whom he had named but a moment before pure and good as the angels of God. 451 2 G 2 M CHAPTER XXVIII. THE LIGHT RETURNS R. KINDRED did not return to Penraven for three days. Every day of his absence Chris- topher rang the church bell, and Rose prayed for her father, her sister, and for him. They spent most of their leisure during these three days in the parsonage garden. They were days of inexpressible delight for both of them. Both were conscious that a mysterious barrier was now raised between them which made their friendship self-conscious and intimate in an altogether delightful way. Something of a tender lightness entered into their discourse, an element of gentle and almost mischievous playfulness. They were not frivolous, but they were not serious. The dalliance of autumn, the awakening of love in their souls, gave a respite to their minds, and they surrendered their hearts to the happy influence of love and nature. He would sit gazing upon her with an open admira- tion, and she would flush and smile, knowing that his eyes were worshipping her beauty. " I should like to paint you," he said one afternoon ; " not as the Madonna, but as you are all happiness and beauty and delight. But I haven't the energy. I really can 452 The Light Returns do nothing but sit and look at you. How happy a poet would be to sit in this garden and watch all the changes of soul coming and going in your face. A poet whose spirit could only breathe in the region of loveliness." She would laugh at his praise, and he would contend with her laughter. They found themselves in a lovers' controversy. " A beautiful face," he said, " is the expression of a beautiful soul. When one admires a lovely face it is a spiritual admiration." She shook her head, and spoke of foolish boys who sacrifice happi- ness for a pretty face. " Prettiness," he said, " is not beauty, there are three degrees ugliness, prettiness, loveliness ; one may find splendour in ugliness, but never in prettiness. Prettiness is the most contemptible of human forms. When I see in magazines photo- graphs of actresses and debutantes and brides, I am filled with horror ; they are so often blank with inanity." Sometimes he would speak of his future. He received one day, through his master in Paris, a letter from Glevering. Isabel Grafton wanted to know all about him and wanted him to come on a visit. He told Rose about Glevering, and said that if ever he possessed it he would make it the happiest place in England. " How would you do that ? " she asked in all innocence. " By making the most beautiful woman in England its mistress." These three days of dallying with love were terminated by the arrival of a .telegram from Mr. Kindred announcing the hour of his arrival at the 453 The Shadow station. The message concluded with the word "alone." Rose was playing with the children when this message arrived. It threw her into a state of the utmost grief. She went to Christopher, who had been watching her from a seat under a tree, and handed him the form. "The last word," she said, " tells everything." He read the message and his face darkened. " It means," she said, " that his heart is broken." " One knew that he must fail, but it is dreadful to know that he has failed. Yes, I am afraid it means that he will be dreadfully pained." " Do you know what I most fear ? " she asked. He looked up and saw that her eyes were clouded with moisture. " He is old, he is frail, I fear that this will be his death-blow." He could make no answer. He felt that she was right. He looked away from her towards the children who were playing at horses and were very happy. Rose drove to meet her father, and Christopher returned to his rooms. He was haunted all that evening by the tragic meeting between father and daughter, by the sad confidence which they would exchange in the parsonage. On the following morning, when he was ringing the church bell, dreading to see the bowed figure of the clergyman appearing at the lych-gate, John Kindred suddenly came to him from inside the church. He was wearing his surplice, and instead of appearing bowed and stricken, his pale face was lighted by a 454 The Light Returns quiet happiness and his fading eyes shone with a deep peace. The old man put his hand on Christopher's head and blessed him, smiling into his eyes. Rose came up the path as he turned back into the church. As she passed Christopher she said, " It is better than we hoped, and he is quite happy." The clock struck through the bell-ringing ; Chris- topher hung up the rope and entered the church. He found himself strangely moved by hearing again the familiar voice of the old clergyman sounding through the church. He remembered the morning when he had stood outside in the graveyard and had listened to the words which now he heard again ; but this time with Rose's voice sounding softly after the minister's : " We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. . . . We have offended against Thy holy laws. . . . But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare Thou them, O God, which confess their faults. Restore thou them that are penitent, according to Thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord." And now he heard other words, and heard them with an almost paralysing apprehension of their meaning. The sweet voice of the minister, who was standing at the reading-desk with his hands clasped at his breast, his eyes closed, and his face raised to heaven, came like music down the dim church and hung upon the beatings of Christopher's heart : "... Who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness, and live. ... He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent. . . . 455 The Shadow Wherefore let us beseech Him to grant us true repentance, and His Holy Spirit. . . ." True repentance ! For the rest of the service, Christopher reflected on that phrase. The stress, loving but emphatic, which the old minister laid upon the adjective, haunted his thoughts. True repentance ? Then there was a false repentance. A man could repent of his sins and remain as he was before. What could be the difference, he wondered, between repentance and true repent- ance ? A voice in his soul said, " Yours is a false repent- ance." Then he remembered the words, " That the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy, so that at the last we may come to His eternal joy." He went out from the church with the old darkness deep in his soul, his brain bowed down under the conviction that he was doomed to despair, his heart bitter with the knowledge of its own hypocrisy. He went straight from the church to his studio in the rectory. He was in a muse. When he entered the room his eyes came face to face with the words " l r the Lord, am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer." He looked at them for a moment, a heaviness in his eyes, and then instinctively, by force of habit, turned to the other text " Christ shall give thee light." He stood there facing the emphatic words, conscious that he was now further than ever from any possible benediction they might have for him. What had happened to him ? For three days the influence of the old minister 456 The Light Returns had been removed from his life. For three days he had lived under the influence of a purely human love. With the loss of the one influence and the accession of the other, he had actually contemplated another atrocious and abominable crime. He had set himself to deceive Rose Kindred, to trick her and cheat her into love. He had sought to hide what he was, to make himself what he was not, what he could never be a good and happy man with no hell in his past in order that he might win her love. Yes, actually, he would hide from her that he was the man who had once and for all time filled her with horror. Why was he now only conscious of this crime ? It was the return of the first influence. The hand of blessing on his head, the dear familiar voice praying with childlike confidence to God, the very look and presence of that old, sweet, tender-hearted man had restored to him the solemn sense of eternity and thoughts of holiness. He wondered, as he stood silent and still before the text on the wall, what mysterious diffusion it was which issued from this old man and laid a restraint upon his soul. Some pervasive influence breathed from this minister of God. He needed not to speak, it was there. Some subtle emission of holiness came from him, without effort, and without volition, like scent from a flower, like light from the sun. " Christ shall give thee light." He dwelt on the word " light." He considered how beautiful a mystery it is, this thing we call light, this glory and this beauty of the universe without which 457 The Shadow nothing could endure, nothing could exist What is light ? Light of the World what a sublime title ! To live in history, to descend down the ages, as Light of the World ! " Christ shall give thee light" He turned from that thought, to reflect again on the influence of John Kindred. Whatever it was, this mysterious pervasion stood in the path of his happiness. He could no longer contemplate the deception of Rose. That dream was over. He had approached too near the bubble floating before ; it had burst and vanished into nothingness, and still the spectre stalked behind. He was a man with a past which was an eternal present. As he stood there, the door opened and Rose entered the room. He started at sight of her, and she started at sight of him, so tragic and woebegone was his expression. "What is the matter?" she exclaimed. "What has happened ? " " Your father has come back." " What do you mean ? " " I forget." "Tell me, what is the matter with you. Do tell me. Something has happened. Yesterday you were happy. Now you look as you looked when you came to bring me back here. What is it? May I not know ?" " It is impossible to tell you." " Oh, it cannot be. Do let me help you." "You cannot help me. No one can help me. I will tell you all that can be told. Your father's absence was like the removal of a strong light His 458 The Light Returns going away left me in a great darkness, and in that darkness I dreamed I was different from what I am. Now he has come back, and once more I see myself truly in that strong light. My dream, in which I was very happy, is over. I awake to dislike reality. What was it we spoke of in the valley the other day ? The joy of life ! Yes, that was it. The joy of life ! Well, in my reality there is no joy of life ! " He moved away, going to a box that contained some of his materials, and affecting to put them in order. She stood watching him, unhappy and irresolute. " I am so sorry that you are unhappy," she said slowly. "And if if I cannot help you, I do not want to know what is your trouble. But there is one thing I do wish you would do ; I wish you would speak to my father. I will tell you why. I think you may magnify what troubles you, as I magnified what troubled me." The comparison which she made between her case and his, her soul and character and his soul and character, her memory of the past and his memory of the past, almost moved him to smile. He raised his eyes and looked at her. He wondered what she would say if he suddenly announced, " I am the man of the Madonna." This beautiful girl, who spoke about his trouble and her trouble, in comparison with him, was like a saint of God. "Your father has already done all he can do for me," he made answer ; " he has, unconsciously, answered every question I could put to him." She wavered, looking at him and loving him. " He is asking for you now," she said. 459 The Shadow " I will go to him, and say unto him ? " She put out her hand and touched his arm. " Ah, do ! " Her eyes were full of beseeching. ' He drew his breath heavily, looking down into the tenderness of her eyes. Then he slowly straightened himself, and said, " I have said something which has distressed you ; I must have made too much of my burden. That is one of the warnings against egoism ; directly we speak of ourselves we exaggerate, we play the actor. It is dreadful. I will never talk about myself again." He went forward and held the door open for her to pass out of the room before him. " I am so glad," he said, " that your father has come back happy. You say the news is good ? " " He will tell you," she said, and did not turn her head. Christopher followed her down the stairs. She went into the garden, where the children were playing, and he turned to the study. Mr. Kindred, who was sitting at his writing-table, rose to greet him with a smiling face. " It is good to see you again, Christopher ! " he exclaimed cheerfully, putting out both his hands. They talked for a few moments of other things, and then the faithful and tender old man turned to the subject of his Yorkshire visit. " I want to tell you about it," he said, placing a chair for Christopher before he sat down himself. " I am going to ask your advice and assistance. I am going to beg to you ! " He smiled, settled down in his chair, and continued : " You saw Louise when you 460 The Light Returns went to fetch my dear Rose, and you know some- thing of the condition of her mind, something of the conditions of her life. Until Rose told me the other day, I had no idea what they were. When I arrived at the place, I found that Rose had rather minimised than magnified the state of affairs. But, by the mercy of Heaven, my visit came when those dreadful con- ditions had softened her heart and made her character less proud. She was at first quite unwilling to hear what I had to say indeed, it almost seemed that the poor soul was endeavouring to repulse me. But Heaven's mercy again something I said must have lodged in her mind. Deus dat incrementum. On the following morning she came to my room before I was up, and quite opened her heart to me. She was very beautiful and sweet and gentle. Of course, she was still her strange and vigorous-minded self, but there was surrender to the love and power of God, and contrition for past things. I must not tell you all that she said to me, but I want you to know that her heart is softened and that she now feels what we all feel, the necessity for surrendering our will to the will of our Father, and humbling ourselves before His love and mercy. I want you to know this, because I am going to ask you to help her." He paused for a moment and then resumed. " She would not return with me, even for a few days. She has a very high sense of her duty to her husband. Nothing will ever make her leave him. It is in her nature, which was once so proud and masterful, to bear without a murmur the full consequences of her past. She accepts her lot ; she will bear it to the end. But 461 The Shadow I saw Conder and spoke to him with complete frankness. He is one of those men who, one might almost say, are beyond the reach of the gentle and pure emotions of humanity. A hard man ; an uninstructed man. Worst deprivation of all, a man without the sense of humility. All I could do with him was this, to get his promise that he would give up the inn if something better could be found for him. By ' better,' he means something with more money and less anxiety attached to it. Louise said that if a farm could be found she would look after it. Conder said he would accept a farm. Now, Christopher, is it possible, is it in the least possible that your uncle might help us ? My dear boy, you must be quite frank with me. If you feel any scruple about asking your uncle, you must tell me so. It is a very great request to make, and I would not have you make it if it would cause you the least distress. Tell me, quite frankly, what you think." " I cannot ask my uncle," said Christopher. " But perhaps I can find what is necessary. It would give me pleasure." The old man took his hand and held it affectionately. " I would not ask you," he said, " if she was not my daughter, and, even so, if I was not sure that her heart is turned to God." Christopher marvelled at the magic of this old man who had turned the heart of that hard woman of the Hound Inn. Two days afterwards he received a letter from the art dealers in Paris. The Rose Madonna was an immense success. They offered a price ^or it which staggered him. 462 The Light Returns The Madonna he had painted for his mother had been sold. If Louise were to be saved it was necessary to sell the Madonna he had painted for Rose. It seemed to him as if fate had some grudge against the pictures he had painted with a pure object. He spoke to Rose before he said anything to her father. "Would you like to take your sister out of that inn ? " he asked. " Yes, you know I would." They had scarcely spoken since she found him standing so wretched and sad in the studio. Her heart had yearned for him. She had tried to show him how much she cared and sorrowed for him, but he seemed to avoid her. Now he had come to her again, and she was glad. " If you like to sell the picture I gave you," he said, " you can do so at once. I bring you an offer for it." " But it is your money." " No, it is your picture." " You are wonderfully generous, but unkind. It would be better to say, ' I take back my picture to save your sister.' " " Why ? " " Because you make me sell what you have given me." " Do you mind that ? It is for a good cause." Her eyes appealed to him. They expressed love and kindness. " I think you must sell it," she said quietly. He looked away from her. " No," he answered, speaking apparently without feeling. " I want you to be able to write to your sister and say, ' I can help 463 you.' It is much better that it should come through you. She is proud, and I don't think she likes me. If she asks how you are able to send so much money, you can say that you sold a picture which was worth more than you thought." " That would be untrue." " There is no time to paint another." " Will you paint another ? " "Of you?" Their eyes encountered. " Of me," she said. " I do not know that I dare." " Why do you say that ? " He turned away from her. " Well, I will try. Yes, it will be a test. If I can finish it, I will stay here. If not " " Well ? " " I will go away." " Oh," she exclaimed, letting her love shine frankly in her eyes, " there can never be any reason why you should go away from me. No ! Do not go away." For a moment it was as if he would go to her. But he suddenly steadied himself. His face grew hard. His eyes seemed to cloud and dull. She could hear how heavily he breathed. " Rose," he said, in a voice that frightened her it was the first time that he had called her Rose " if you knew me for what I am, you would drive me from you." Before she could speak, before she could stretch a hand towards him, he had gone. 464 CHAPTER XXIX. AT THE BEACON FOR a week, in which he suffered the greatest distress, Christopher avoided the parsonage. He had come to a crisis in his life. As insistent as his memory of the past was his love for Rose. He could forget neither the mother whom he had loved too late nor the beautiful girl whom he now loved in vain. Always he would be haunted by the memory of his great sin ; always he would be haunted by the memory of his love. He was caught between two whirlwinds. He perceived that the hour of his wandering over the earth had struck again. He must get up and go forward once more, eternally without rest, like that "... Night- wandering man whose heart was pierced With the remembrance of a grievous wrong." For to stay any longer near the woman he loved was impossible. If he stayed, one of two things must assuredly happen ; either he would yield to tempta- tion, make himself what he was not, and cheat her into marriage, or he would pour out the story of his past, fill her mind with horror for him, and lose her kindness with her love. 465 2 H The Shadow It was better to go now, to leave her with pleasant memories of him, and to take away with him the re- membrance of her gentle eyes and loving words. His mind was almost made up to this course of action when a letter arrived from his master in Paris, containing several excerpts from the French news- papers concerning his Rose Madonna. As Christopher read these extracts, and read the noble letter of his master, his pulses quickened and he tasted the cup of happiness. He had won the applause of the first artists in Europe. His fame was assured. He had conquered. Then there rushed in upon his soul the aching and desolating thought that all this glory and all this wealth had come too late. They belonged to his mother, and she was dead. He recalled ah, how bitterly all the pure and innocent aspirations of his boyhood, when he had dreamed of making her so happy and so proud with his success. It was too late. She had toiled and struggled for him almost to the end of her days, she had never known comfort, she had never received the reward of her love. And now she was beyond know- ledge of him. As he thought of her, the wonderful past came thronging about his soul, the past wonderful and sacred with her love. He remembered wet and miserable mornings on which he had stood at the window in Trinity Street and waved to her as she lifted her umbrella to look at him, with a smile of fare- well, going on through the rain and the mire to earn their daily bread in the London across the Thames. He remembered how loving and tender she had been 466 At the Beacon when he lay at death's door in that miserable garret. He remembered what great pains she had taken to make the flowers flourish on the ledge of the window, and how she had always laboured before she went so early to her work, to leave the eyry clean, comfort- able, and bright for him. He could recall not one instance in which she had complained of hardship, expressed a bitter thought, or even said that she was tired. Her memory was a shining and holy memory of service and love. It was the perfectest thing he had ever known. And, God help him he had slain her. All her service, all her love, he had rewarded by an action so horrible that she had sunk under it, and died of a broken heart. A broken heart! And the noblest heart that ever beat with love. God help him God help him, he himself had broken his mother's heart. Was it the pure memory of her love, or the bitter disappointment of achieving fame too late, that made him suddenly cover his face with his hands and burst into tears ? He who wrote that " all men kill the thing they love," cried also : " Ah ! happy they whose hearts can break And peace of pardon win ! How else may man make straight his place And cleanse his soul from sin ? How else but thro' a broken heart, May Lord Christ enter in ? " Christopher's heart was not broken. He drew his hands from his face, started up, and began to pace the room, muttering bitter and angry curses in a 467 2 H 2 low voice, while the tears dried on his cheeks and his breath broke and broke again in sobs beyond his control. He cursed Isabel Grafton, he cursed the man who had tutored him, he cursed Paris, he cursed his fellow-students he cursed every one and every- thing that had corrupted his innocence and come between his soul and his mother's love. Why did not someone say to his young mind, shaking it vehemently and arousing it from the delirium of youth " Your mother will die ; love her before it is too late ; nevermore will you know a love like this " ? Why was he not warned ? Why had the world let him rush into that calamity which had shattered his peace and brought the pillars of his life about his head ? Could no one have spoken ? Isabel Grafton had said nothing. His tutor had said nothing. No one had uttered a single word to make him realise in those wild and headlong days the precious inexpressible gift of his mother's love. He had walked in his sleep. It was death who awaked him. And now it was too late to cry to her, to lay his fame at her feet, to cover her with blessings and reward. Too late. " O God, why is it too late ? " he cried, and beat his breast and ground his teeth. " Look in my face : my name is Might-have-been ; I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell ; Unto thine ear I hold the dead sea-shell Cast up thy life's foam-fretted feet between. Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen Which had Life's form, and Love's, but by my spell Is now a shaken shadow intolerable, Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen. 468 At the Beacon Mark me how still I am ! But should there dart One moment thro' thy soul the soft surprise Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath with sighs Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart, Sleepless with cold, commemorative eyes." He suffered such agony of mind as cannot be written, and was driven for a terrible hour solemnly to debate with himself the thought of self-destruction. Never before, as in this time of his wealth, had he apprehended the depth and blackness of his desola- tion, the frightful loneliness and ruin of his life. If his heart did not break, it was only because his gaze was there, and not turned to the eyes of Divine Pity and Immortal Love. When the end of this week came and Sunday shone into his window, he was quiet and resigned to the burden of his sorrow He rose to a new week with a new determination in his heart. He would go down to the little church, ring the bell for the last time, listen to John Kindred's voice for the last time, for the last time look into the eyes of Rose, drink deep of her young and happy beauty, and then he would turn away from this rural peace, where he had neither right nor lot, and go back to the world where he could be at ease. He would go to Paris. He would live close to his old master. In the kingdom of art he would lose his soul and forget the world that is and the world that is to be. Such was the fixed and quiet purpose of his heart when he arrived early at the church. A few old peasants were standing at the lych-gate. Two little 469 The Shadow children were going up the path, hand-in-hand, with flowers for the grave of a dead sister. At the open door of the tower, Rose was standing watching the children. The rope was unfastened from the wall ; evidently she was there to ring the bell. She stared at sight of him. " I am glad you have come back," she said quietly, as he reached her side. For a moment she looked at him, then saying, " You will ring the bell, won't you ? " she moved away and went to the children with the flowers. The service that morning made a tender impression on the heart of Christopher. Perhaps the knowledge that he was hearing it for the last time was responsible for this effect. He thought the voice of John Kindred had never sounded so sweetly. The words of the prayers seemed to be full of a living significance. He found himself reflecting upon them. When the collect sounded in his ears he envied the happiness of those who could breathe that petition into the vastness of Infinity " Grant, we beseech Thee, merciful Lord, to Thy faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve Thee with a quiet mind, through Jesus Christ our Lord." A quiet mind ! What a gift to ask so simply and trustingly of the awful and dread Power, the high and lofty One inhabiting eternity ! " Cleansed from all their sins " by what magic could the memory be cleansed of indelible mockery, and the irremedi- able ruin wrought by sin be made to stand upright ? Ah, how could the shaken shadow intolerable become 470 At the Beacon again Life's form and Love's ? By prayer ? By whispering soft words into the silent air ? Alas, these simple people did not know what they asked. The dead do not return. In the Gospel three times came the words, " Thy son liveth." Christopher felt with each repetition some strange and personal implication in these words. When John Kindred gave them out as his text, he raised his eyes to the pulpit and looked at the beautiful faded countenance of the preacher, wondering. The hour of illumination was at hand. " If any of you, my dear people, being a father or a mother," began the preacher, speaking in the gentle and natural tone of conversation, "have ever watched with anxiety over the sick bed of a child, and waited through the crisis of the disease for the knowledge of God's will with that life so precious to you, you will know what joy is contained in the sure and certain affirmation, Thy son liveth. You will understand the relief of such words, the deliverance which they bring, the great tide of thankfulness which they send through the heart. " Sin is not only a disease, it is a death. If any of you, having children who live in sin, could hear news brought to you this day that they had turned from that sin and were leading pure and noble lives, would you not rejoice, would you not feel that your child had been raised from the dead, and that the message brought to you was this great good tiding?, Thy son liveth ? " Now, as it is with you and with me, so it is with 471 The Shadow our heavenly Father. As we sorrow for children whose hearts are hardened against us, so He sorrows when we harden our hearts against His divine love. And as we rejoice when their hearts soften, and when they yield to us their full affections, so even our heavenly Father rejoices when we turn away from our sins and our darkness, and cry to Him for His love and forgiveness. " I want you to feel assured that when the angel- messenger as we may suppose the picture stands before God with tidings of some poor wandering soul on this earth, and says to our Father, Thy son liveth, there is in the bosom of God a joy such as a human parent would feel, a great tide of happiness, and heaven is filled with a fresh thanksgiving. " If you do not realise that earthly repentance make happiness in heaven, you will never understand the truth of God nor the lovely meaning of sorrow for sin. " There are two utterances of our Saviour which seem to me almost the most wonderful words that even He ever spoke. They are words frequently used, but I wonder if they are often understood. Let me repeat them very slowly, and you listen to them with humility and awe and love, remembering that it is the great God revealing to you the mystery of existence. . " Jesus said, * Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repentetk.' And again He said, ' / say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repentetk.' " Why are these words so wonderful ? 472 At the Beacon " Think for a moment what heaven is ; it is the abode of eternal happiness. Its light is the presence of God Himself, even the Father. Its joy is the highest joy possible in the whole infinite universe. It is the final attainment, so we may put it, of an infinite and almighty Power delighting Himself in the creation of beautiful forms, and rejoicing Himself in giving happiness to those whom He loves. We cannot conceive of the happiness of heaven. Sometimes, for a moment that must not lengthen lest we die under the vision, a fragment of that unimaginable joy is revealed to our human senses ; but nothing that we can think, nothing that we can dream, ever gives us the very faintest idea of the bliss of heaven. One to whom a great vision had been vouchsafed, perhaps the greatest man that ever lived, endorsed these words, ' Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.' Such is heaven. A place and a state of being so happy, so beautiful, so radiant with joy, that he who thinks often and long about it, must find himself yearning for its glory. And for all mankind, the humblest and least inclined to dream, heaven is the idea of the greatest and highest happiness. We say that heaven is everything beautiful and glad and perfect. We speak of it as the great Perfection. We can imagine nothing more beautiful or more happy. " Well, is it not wonderful that we on this earth can increase the happiness of that happy heaven ? There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. We add to God's happiness. 473 The Shadow God Himself tells us so. He loves the world so loves it, that He gave His only begotten Son. And in the midst of the happiness of heaven, He yearns like a father over the earth, even as Christ wept over Jerusalem. That is why these words of Christ our Saviour are so wonderful. They reveal to us that we on earth can add to the joy of God. Our lives actually touch the life of the Almighty. " What then, my dear people, is the meaning of repentance ? It is the condition of the human heart desired by our heavenly Father, only that He may make us happy. Do not think of repentance as an effort of man himself to escape the indignation and wrath of God. That would not add to the joy of heaven. No, sorrow for sin is something divine. Listen, I will tell you. Penitence is the soul's sub- mission to love. Penitence only comes when we realise love. To love, and to love alone, does penitence belong, and it can be born of nothing else but love. "You may be sorry for your sins without being penitent. You may turn away from sin and live a perfectly moral life, without being penitent. The remorse of Judas Iscariot was not penitence. Penitence comes into the heart only when we realise with how great a love the Father loves us. It is not an unhappy and distressful state of the heart. It is liberation ; it is freedom ; it is love. We become penitent when we feel, with the love of God shining into our darkness, our love going out to Him in a hunger and thirst after His perfection. That is penitence. That is the true repentance which cleanses from all sin and frees the soul to serve God with a quiet mind and a rejoicing 474 At the Beacon spirit You will never be truly penitent until you know more certainly than anything else in life, that God desires your penitence only in order to make you happy, and that your true repentance adds to the joy of heaven. " I remember hearing in my childhood a story that will help you to realise how our lives here on earth affect the joy of heaven. A poor mother, whose heart was broken by the death of her child, dreamed one night that she stood in Paradise and saw the happiness of the angels. Children were in those fields of light, moving in a shining host towards greater and greater glory, their radiant faces raised, their eyes sparkling with happiness, their lips moving in a chant of praise, their hands holding a torch which increased even the sublime light of that happy place. As the mother looked upon this host, she suddenly saw her own little child, standing sad and dejected outside the happy throng, the torch held downward, and the flame extinguished. ' My darling,' she exclaimed, ' why are you not happy like the others?' 'Oh, mother, mother ! ' cried the child, ' your tears have put out my torch.' " Dear people, in that glorious and happy heaven above us, most of you have someone who once loved you on earth. Have you ever thought how your life may add to or sadden their happiness ? Do you think they can be perfectly happy if they know that you are living in sin, or that you are living with hard hearts turned away from the merciful love of God ? Perhaps you were not as loving and dutiful to those dear ones when they were on earth as you might have 475 The Shadow been, as you now wish you had been. Will you still pain them ? Will you still make them unhappy ? " Think, they see you and know the 'thoughts in your heart. These angels in the presence of God wait for their joy to be perfected by your true penitence. You can make them so happy by making yourselves happy in the only way God's children can be happy by stretching out your arms to heaven and desiring the love of your heavenly Father. " You all, every one of you, know that some day you must die. Do you want to go into the next world without the love of God ? Do you think you can be happy there without His love ? You cannot think that ? What, then ; will you go into eternity cold and indifferent to that love, trusting that God will deal mercifully with you ? Is it not better that we should all look forward to heaven with a great joy seeing that none of us can escape death and that we should have our hearts filled with the desire to behold the glory of God, and to see upon the faces of our dear ones the shining light of happiness and joy ? Oh, surely, it is a foolish thing to live as if there was no eternity ; a cruel thing to live lives which distress our angels in heaven ; and an act of madness beyond imagination to refuse, to reject, the great gift of God's love which He makes to us so tenderly and so mercifully with the assurance that joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. " Think, you who have mothers in heaven, you for whom those mothers toiled and laboured and loved, think what joy you can send even from earth into their hearts, by the message of your souls, thy son liveth. 476 At the Beacon " Would you keep them sad and sorrowful ? Would you not rather endeavour to send your gratitude into the infinite in the only way in which it can reach them by loving God ? Would you not rather increase their joy and felicity by embracing God's wonderful mercy and goodness, and by setting yourselves to live as He has asked you to live for your own happiness ? Surely you will do this ? " It only needs that you should turn your eyes from your own hearts, and raise them to the Cross of your Saviour and Redeemer. Accustom yourselves every day to contemplate that Saviour, to consider why He hangs there, and try to imagine constantly, constantly, until it is a habit of your brain, what the love of God must be. You will find that the more you think of God, the less you will think of yourselves and your unhappiness ; and so, escaping from yourselves and rising to Him, you will be filled with such adoration and hungering love that penitence will cleanse you from all your sin, and the place in your heart hitherto occupied by selfishness or sad and bitter memories, will be filled aye, filled to the overflowing, by love for your Father in heaven and by anticipation of the joy He has prepared for you. " This, then, is the thought I would leave in your hearts that penitence for sin adds to the joy of heaven, and is not true penitence unless it delivers you from the burden of remorse and makes you happy, And I ask you, when the pressure of the world and its cares are hard upon you, when you feel that God cannot possibly love you, when you seem to flag and droop and lose even your desire for eternal happiness, 477 The Shadow to think first of those who are waiting for you in heaven, and then of that all-loving Father Who, when one of the least of His children is sorry for sin, bows His great love to complete the work of penitence. ' When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.' " Why was that father looking out for his son ? Why did he see him ' when he was yet a great way off'? Because, dear people, the love in the father's heart, at the first step of the child, cried out with a glad voice, ' Thy son liveth.' . . . ." Christopher walked quickly down the path of the churchyard, and without going either to the parsonage or to his own rooms, made his way into the fields and up towards the mountains. He was conscious of some extraordinary lightness. As he went, walking swiftly up the green side of Raven's Scar, feeling the cool wind in his face and rejoicing in the beauty of the day, he began to wonder why he was so happy. He could not explain what had happened to him. He only knew that as the simple, slowly spoken words of the sermon fell upon his soul he was aware of some quite quiet and inward illumination. His life seemed to shine within him. The great darkness which had gathered melted away. It was wonderful, this consciousness of a bright light within himself, like a lamp in the brain. And now there was that delicious feeling in his limbs of lightness and power, so that he climbed the mountain without effort. He said aloud, in a glad 4/8 At the Beacon voice, "They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." What was that verse which haunted him ? What were the lines from one of the poets that described such an hour as this ? Ah, he remembered " No wish profaned my overwhelmed heart. Blest hour ! It was a luxury to be ! " He reached the head of the mountain, avoided the path leading to the shepherd's hut, and continued his rejoicing way. He had descended on the further side and had begun the ascent of Toom Fell, before he set himself for the first time on this walk to decide definitely what had happened to him. His burden was gone. But when did it fall from him ? He could not tell. Had he unconsciously surrendered himself to God's mercy ? He dare not say. What had happened to him then ? Oh, first and chief of all emotions in his heart was a wonderful sense of joy at the thought that he could add to the happiness of his mother in Paradise. Was it true ? Was it indeed true that the great holy dead can be moved by the thoughts of love from human hearts ? Yes, for He who is called Light of the World had said, There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth ! " Be near us when we rise or fall, Like gods ye watch the rolling hours, With larger, other eyes than ours To make allowance for us all." 479 The Shadow And then there had followed yes, that was when the light had burned in his soul there had followed the thought that penitence is a state of joy, a state of the heart asked by God only that He may reveal His love. Why had he not thought of that before ? What was it in his life that had prepared his soul at last for this long-delayed and glorious illumination ? Penitence ! A state of happiness, a condition of joy ! Yes, for otherwise why should God demand it ? God is Love. He saw at that moment how he had come at last to receive this gracious knowledge. It was the silent influence of the old clergyman the sweet gentle saint of God, whose whole life was a longing for heaven. The secret lay there a longing for heaven. What did that longing embrace ? It embraced everything, for it was the love of God. "The love of heaven makes one heavenly." He saw now clearly what had happened to him. Ever since he arrived in this quiet place the influence of the old minister had been falling upon his hard heart like a gentle rain from heaven. He had gradually, very gradually, lost the idea of God's wrath and indignation against him. He had come gradually, very gradually, to think of eternity as a place and state of being to which the saints look forward with intensest joy. The whole miracle of his conversion, his illumination, had its origin in the old minister's longing for heaven. He had met a man whose soul was continually anticipating the happiness and joy of heaven as a man to whom that happiness and joy were most real and certain. Unconsciously 480 At the Beacon the influence of this heavenly-minded man had fallen upon his soul. He had not realised until this moment how rare it is to find even among the righteous and the virtuous, one who truly and earnestly desires the merciful cup of death, whose life was an intense longing to behold the glory of God. This was the origin of his illumination. A perpetual contemplation of heaven, continual meditation on its celestial bliss, which God has pre- pared for them that love Him this habit had given a grace of such exquisite beauty to the soul of the old minister that flowing out from him it had melted even a heart which remorse had blackened and despair had turned to stone. Did that old man know what he had done ? Christopher saw truly the origin of his illumination. He did not dare to go forward and handle what had followed. But he acknowledged out of a flowing heart the mercy and love of God, knowing that it was Christ and Christ alone Who had made John Kindred able to save him. He lifted his face to the blue sky as he crossed the great summit of Toom Fell, and whispered his mother's name into the calm heavens. " Oh, mother," he said aloud, " I am happy now ; you must be happy too." He remembered what John Kindred had said, " Turn your eyes from your own hearts and raise them to the Cross of your Saviour and Redeemer." As the memory of these words came to him, he thought of those other words on the wall of his studio " I the Lord am thy Saviour and Redeemer." 481 * I The Shadow And those other words " Christ shall give thee light." And now he felt and knew and acknowledged the full mercy of his illumination. His eyes had been drawn away from gazing sullenly upon the blackness of his own heart, they had been raised to survey with wonder and adoration the Light of the World. From thence had streamed light into his soul, from the vision of Love crucified. In that moment of realisation realisation that the love of God had taken away the sins of the whole world he had lost the sense of burden on his soul, staggered and dazed by the revela- tion of such wondrous love. A memory of his boyhood came to him. He recalled the first evening in Merrick Square, and old Mr. Grindley's reading of the great chapter of St. Luke, and his solemn pronouncement as he closed the big family Bible that the greatest of words are these, " The Son of Man hath come to save that which was lost." He went forward, saying to himself, " O God, have mercy on my soul ! Help me to understand Thy love. Quicken all the faculties of my being that I may know more and more of Thy love. Shine upon my darkness, give me evermore Thy light that I may know Thy love." Ahead of him he saw the beacon. No longer did he dread the sentence of excom- munication. Indeed, some instinct of his liberated nature had urged him to this place which he had never visited since the first night of his coming ; he wanted to test nis soul before those awful words. 482 At the Beacon He walked boldly forward, blessing God's name, like a man exalted. As he drew nearer he marked the place where letters were cut into the stone. For a moment it flashed across his mind that there is one unpardonable sin. In spite of remorse and repentance, some spirits will hear that awful sentence, " Discedite Maledicti" He was shaken ; for a moment his soul was plunged in twilight. Then suddenly the words carved in the stone sprang to his eyes VENITE BENEDICITI. Not the curse, but the blessing ! Not Depart, but Come ! Not Ye Cursed, but Ye Blessed ! His heart began to beat fast and he stood and gazed, bewildered and frightened by what seemed a miracle. Then it came to him that he had approached the beacon from another side. He stood before the words, repeating them slowly, " Venite Benediciti" knowing that on the other side of the rock was " Discedite Maledicti" His penitence was completed as he stood before these words of unexpected blessing. Tears rushed into his eyes, his heart seemed to break, and he cried, " Oh, mother, God has forgiven me, you have forgiven me, and now at last it is pardon and peace." * * * * 483 212 The Shadow When he descended to the valley it was late in the afternoon. He was within a hundred yards of his lodging, a deep peace possessing him, when he saw the French priest come from the gate of the farm house and pass up the road. He started, wondering what had causedjthis visit. 484 CHAPTER XXX. WHEN HE WAS YET_A GREAT WAY OFF WHEN Christopher entered his room, the first thing he saw was a letter lying on the table. In the gloom of the low-ceiled and heavily furnished apartment this letter attracted the gaze. He took it up, carried it to the window, and examined the hand- writing on the envelope. It was addressed to him. The writing was a French hand. On the back of the envelope was a coat-of-arms. He felt aware of some menace in this letter. He remembered his altercation with the Comte de Lyons, and he supposed that this letter came from him, delivered by the priest. The idea led him to think of Rose. He opened the envelope and drew out the letter. In the centre of the paper was pasted a cutting from a French newspaper. Above it was written, " Monsieur, I think it fair to tell you that I have left at Penraven Parsonage a similar cutting to this which follows beneath." And at the bottom was written, "Whether the English clerygman of Pen- raven thinks it right to permit his daughter to associate with such a man is a matter about which I 485 The Shadow am indifferent, but as a Catholic priest I have requested him to prevent you from reading the lessons in his church, and it is of this request that I think it fair to warn you." It was signed with the name of the chaplain to the Comte de Lyons. Christopher read the handwriting before he looked at the print. His eyes, which had been bright and calm as he came down from the mountain, rested on the sheet of paper with a great darkness in their depths, a frown drawing the brows together. His face was pale. There was in his lips an expression of quiet pain. He stood at the window, in the falling light of the afternoon, holding the letter in a still hand and looking at the handwriting, not at the print. Then he said to himself, " This is the end," and lifted the paper nearer to his eyes, and read. The cutting was headed " The Grafton Madonna," and began by referring to the now famous picture and the price which had been paid for it. " The young English painter," it continued " has had experience of the interior of a French prison, and no doubt in his violon meditated many a fine religious picture destined to delight the Clericals. The story is worth repeating, as the name of Christopher Grafton is now so associated with that of the Madonna, that religious people throughout Europe speak with becoming reverence of Grafton Madonnas. No doubt they will be glad to know how devoted Monsieur Grafton is to his subject." Then followed a story of the ball of the Quatre <4 rfs, greatly exaggerated, an account of the scene in the streets at dawn, with the conclusion, " For 486 A Great Way Off this devotion Monsieur Grafton paid a fine of two hundred francs and endured thirty days in prison." It was made as horrible as it could be, so horrible that Christopher hated himself again, and felt, as he came to the end, giddy and sick with self-loathing. He had said to himself, as he descended the mountain, "Ought I to tell her, ought I to tell her father ? God has forgiven me. I am no longer that horrible man. It would only distress them to be told. Why should I drag the past before them which God has taken away from me ? It is dead. It has ceased to exist. I am cleansed of all my sins. I can serve God with a quiet mind. No, I will not tell them." " Now," he said, folding the letter, " they know." For several moments he stood by the window dejected and without the power of action. Suddenly it came to him that this dreadful revealment must have plunged the noble old man into most utter misery and sorrow. He braced himself, and exclaimed, " I will arise and go to my father." He was actuated by no selfish motive. He had no thought of persuading Rose to take a gentle view of his sin. No, at that moment he was his highest and purest. He thought of another's pain. All he desired was to say to that old man, " I was what that paper says, but you have saved me." He placed the letter in his pocket and went out from the house. As he entered the garden he felt strangely exalted. He had gone some way along the road when the thought came, " Rose will shrink from me. She will 487 The Shadow know me for the man of the students' ball." He remembered what she had said to him. He was not checked in his purpose, not even saddened. He was supported by some powerful feeling which he could not define. Men who are driven to make a clean breast of some secret sin, experience something of the same scorn of consequence which lived in the impulse urging Christopher on his way. He felt, " I must say to my father, What I was, by the mercy of God, I am no longer ; you have saved me." Beyond that confession he did not think. It occurred to him that he would arrive at the parsonage just before father and daughter set out for the evening service. He wondered if he should wait till it was over. However, he kept on his way. It was some time since he had read the lessons ; now he dared not even put his hand to the bell-rope ; but he went forward, impelled by this powerful force which he could not define. " I must speak," he said. As he drew near the bend in the road which would bring the village before him he quickened his pace. A fresh thought had entered his mind. The clergyman might be so stricken down by this letter as to feel himself unable to take the service. He could imagine the agony of that loving heart. Perhaps his confession of repentance might give the old man courage for his work in the church. So he hurried his paces. At the bend of the road he checked and almost stopped dead. John Kindred was approaching him. At the sight of Christopher the old man extended his arms, as though to say, " Come to me." 488 A Great Way Off Christopher went forward, his eyes full of tears. He did not reflect that it was wonderful to see this old man, whom he had imagined stricken and bowed, coming eagerly towards him with untroubled eyes and opening arms. One thought and only one was in his mind. He gave it utterance directly he came face to face with his father. He said in a low voice, " When he was yet a great way off!" They embraced. Christopher had said everything. The old man, who had not spoken, in his embrace said everything. For the first time Christopher really knew the sweetness and tenderness of the forgiveness of sins. Perhaps this last trial had been necessary to bring home to his mind, in a manner he could never forget, the fatherhood of love, the compassion which lives in forgiveness. With his hands on Christopher's arms, looking up into the young man's face, which was bowed lovingly towards him, the old saint of God said gently, " I was coming to you for two reasons, Christopher. First to thank you, in my name and in dear Rose's, for saving her from that wicked place. And after that for that noble action must be first acknowledged I have come to ask you to read the lessons for me this evening in the House of God." Afterwards, with Rose's kiss of forgiveness on his brow, and such joy in his heart as he had never known, Christopher asked the old minister how he knew when he set out to find him that he had repented of his sin. 489 The Shadow " I knew you were trying to repent of something," he said ; " I knew it from the first. My love for you told me that. And I knew that knowledge of God's love would perfect your effort in His own good time. I was coming to tell you so. It was only when I saw you approaching that I knew God's mercy had given you peace." Christopher said, " Do you know that it is you who have brought me to this knowledge ? You, my father, and only you." " Tell me in what way I have helped you, Christopher ? " Then the young man poured out his full heart in love and gratitude. He told everything the soul of John Kindred had been to him, but most he dwelt on that soul's longing for heaven which had made God's love so real to him. The minister took him into his arms. " It is the law of God," he exclaimed, " that we should all influence one another consciously and unconsciously, for good or for evil. I thank Him, I bless His holy name, that I should be used, in any way, to help your noble, struggling soul. That the blessing of God which has fallen upon me all my life, should fall upon you from me, and without my knowledge, calls to my mind, as though I heard her speaking it now in my ear, a simple verse often on the lips of my dear wife, who is an angel in heaven. Learn it from me, Christopher, and teach it to others when I stand above the world in the Paradise of God." The old man's eyes beamed with spiritual happiness. 490 A Great Way Off He held Christopher's hands in a clasp of fatherly love, and he repeated this verse in a low and gentle voice : " This learned I from the shadow of a tree That to and fro did sway upon a wall, Our shadow selves, our influence, may fall Where we can never be." THE END LONDON I PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 058 059 7