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 
 
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 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 
 
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