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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 The Scourge-Stick
 
 IKlew movcle for mocccjcvlU 
 
 Croivn Svo, price 6s. each 
 
 DREAMERS OF THE GHETTO 
 By I. ZANGWILL 
 
 THE LONDONERS 
 
 By ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 THE WAR OF THE WORLDS 
 
 By H. G. WELLS 
 
 THE FOURTH NAPOLEON 
 
 By CHARLES BENHAM 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH 
 
 By GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO 
 
 THE MINISTER OF STATE 
 By J. A. STEUART 
 
 CLEO THE MAGNIFICENT 
 By Z Z 
 
 THE BROOM OF THE WAR-GOD 
 By H. N. BRAILSFORD 
 
 THE LAKE OF WINE 
 
 By BERNARD CAPES 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING 
 
 By A. J. DAWSON 
 
 EZEKIEL'S SIN 
 
 By J. A. PEARCE 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 21 Bedford Street. W.C.
 
 The 
 
 Scourge-Stick 
 
 By 
 
 Mrs. Campbell Praed 
 
 . . / have seen my little boy oft scourge his top, 
 And compared myself to V .• nought made me e'er go right 
 But Heaven's scourge-stick " 
 
 London 
 
 William Heinemann 
 1898
 
 First Edition, February 1898 
 Second Edition, April 1898 
 
 This book must not be imported 
 into the U.S. 0/ America 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 
 TO 
 MT SON 
 BULKLET 
 
 14';*
 
 BOOK I 
 
 " Hoiv unbecoming it is for one that is mortal to 
 entertain proud aspiring thoughts : for presumption, 
 ■when it has put forth the blade, is "wont to produce in 
 fruit an all-mournful harvest oftvoe."
 
 WRITTEN And I Esther— not of the City and the Conventions : 
 
 BY but Esther of the Wilderness, whose languid pulses 
 
 ESTHER beat youth's measure anew to Nature's piping : whose 
 VASSAL : tired heart throbs again in passionate answer to the 
 paean of victorious Love : and whom the old art- 
 crave has fierce in grip once more — why should not I, Esther 
 Zamiel" scribbler, write yet another book : my last book : my 
 reallest: book : which shall be my own story ? 
 
 For the magic of Philotis is upon me. 
 
 Spring spreads abroad her pleasant odours : the birds are 
 mating : roses play the wanton to bees and butterflies : the 
 orange blossoms in the harem-garden are dropping from around 
 the young fruit : the fig-trees are green, and the vines are putting 
 forth leaves and have tender grapes. 
 
 Softly through my closed jalousies steals the glad Southern 
 sunshine ; and with caress as gentle as a lover's kiss upon the 
 cheek of his sleeping mistress, the warm wind from tire Medi- 
 terranean plays upon my face. It bears upon its breath the 
 wooing murmur of palm leaves, the fragrance of mimosa, the 
 dreamy break of tideless waves upon the shore, and thrills my 
 senses again with the dear scents and sounds of this well-loved 
 Blue Land. 
 
 And memory harks back — back to the Enchanted Days. 
 
 A dream within a dream : what else ? So little has changed. 
 The very carnations and freesias and anemones, set about in the 
 same green pots of the country as those we bought long ago in 
 the market at El-Meriem, might be the flowers of bygone springs. 
 It is the old gay life of Philotis which rolls on down below — the 
 carriages coming and going in front of the hotel : the Neapolitan 
 singers trolling the same old love-songs they used to sing before 
 the Grand Duke's windows : the voices of the Arabs, squatted 
 outside among their embroideries : the laughter floating up from 
 the drinking-fountain : the Muezzin's solemn call, "Allah is 
 great: there is no God but Allah!" . . . Long silent chords 
 vibrating in the oft-repeated melody. . . . All as it was before 
 — in the Enchanted Days ! 
 
 3
 
 4 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 I have taken out from their locked place and looked over 
 back-time note-books and journals. Truly I was a writing- 
 woman from the beginning. How stupid it was of me to mistake 
 my vocation and to fancy, as I did at first, that I had it in me to 
 be a great actress ! 
 
 My real story opens upon the day when I played Claudia. 
 That was the fork of my Y of life — I quote his phrase. So I 
 will start from that grim afternoon when I went in at the stage 
 entrance of the Regency Theatre, before making my appearance 
 as the leading character in Dr. Quintin Glaive's new play. 
 
 It was so curious to see my own name in big letters on the 
 red posters outside the theatre — 
 
 Claudia .... Miss Esther Vrintz. 
 
 Esther \ T assal ! Esther Zamiel ! Esther Vrintz ! Are you 
 bewildered by this triune personality? Well, wait a little while 
 and you will understand. 
 
 Before I stepped inside the stage-door, I turned and stood 
 still, looking down the foggy street and up at the murky sky. 
 There was one ragged rift in the leaden mass through which the 
 sun gleamed for a few seconds before the rift closed again — a 
 blood-red sun, savage and sinister, like the threatening eye of 
 some malignant fate. In that glance upward, it seemed to me 
 that I was putting forth an appeal to destiny. 
 
 For weeks I had been straining every nerve in preparation for 
 the great ordeal, and now at the critical hour I lost hold of my- 
 self. Everything appeared unreal, and I myself most unreal of 
 all. People walking were as grey ghosts, and cabs and omni- 
 buses showed monstrous outlines through the mist. To this day, 
 the uncanny impression of that halt at the stage-door remains 
 vivid as death. Something cold stung my face : a flake of snow : 
 to me most dire omen. For from childhood I have had a super- 
 stitious dread of snow, and have always felt that whenever anything 
 disastrous should happen to me, there would be snow falling or 
 lying white. It used to come into my bad dreams. Mother was 
 buried in a snowstorm. Father died when snow coated the 
 Vasques Hills : and when I was married ... Of that, however, 
 I will tell later. 
 
 But I knew that now I must brace myself to the work. I 
 must not let such fancies overcome me. I must collect my 
 faculties. I must be brave and confident. I must triumph. 
 
 The people in the passage waiting for the doorkeeper to hand 
 them letters and telegrams looked at me oddly, and that brought 
 me back to the actual world. A lady passing out at the moment
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK c 
 
 nodded and said, " Good morning : I wish you luck." She was a 
 "principal " in the evening piece ; and I, who till to-day had been 
 a " super," felt the novelty of being thus addressed by a " prin- 
 cipal," and found comfort in the incident. Then several of the 
 others wished me luck also, and the stage doorkeeper smiled 
 benevolently and raised his hat. The stage doorkeeper's coun- 
 tenance was as a weather-glass of theatrical favour, so I took 
 courage, and that horrible dazed feeling lifted. 
 
 There was one telegram for me, which I opened and read going 
 up the stairs. It was from Agatha Greste, daughter of Frank 
 Leete, the dramatic critic, now on her way to Ceylon, wishing me 
 success. As a man came down by me, I suddenly remembered 
 the theatrical superstition that it is unlucky just before going on 
 to meet anybody on the stairs, and was not grateful when he 
 called out cheerily — 
 
 " Well, Claudia, how do you feel ? ' 
 
 "Oh, I am terribly frightened." 
 
 ' So am I ; it's a good sign. Look here ! you were upset over 
 that dress rehearsal. Don't worry about it. We old stagers know 
 that a bad dress rehearsal is often a good sign, and don't mind 
 a little bit. Just you let yourself go ; and good luck go with 
 you." 
 
 My foolish superstition — was it foolish ? — made me wince not- 
 withstanding the kindly words. This man was one of the older 
 members of the company, and was always sympathetic and en- 
 couraging to beginners, but in the play he took the part of Claudia's 
 evil genius, and his ironic blessing followed her through the acts 
 like a curse. 
 
 The leading lady's room represented then my notion of an 
 earthly paradise. To-day, by grace of Dr. Glaive, I was for a 
 few hours to be in possession of this paradise. I had caught 
 glimpses of it on my way up and down the stairs ; and in the 
 leading lady I saw my ambition personified, and envied her, 
 as those on the lowest rung of the ladder envy the successful 
 climbers. But I had never spoken to her, and probably till I 
 was cast for Claudia she had been unaware of my existence. 
 
 My paradise was charming with chintz hangings and bright 
 light. A long cheval glass reflected me ; a couch and easy-chair 
 awaited me during the intervals ; and there was a dressing- 
 table draped in muslin, with brushes, toilet implements, pins, and 
 cosmetics laid out by a careful hand; and best of all, a neat 
 dresser standing at smiling attention. The place in its freshness, 
 refinement, and quietude brought me a luxurious sense of having 
 reached my goal, and I had to force myself to remember that
 
 6 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 this was but as a vision of the Promised Land, which I had as 
 yet not earned the right to enter. 
 
 Then again came that numbing dread, paralysing brain and 
 limbs. The dresser made me drink some champagne, which she 
 said Dr. Quintin Glaive had sent. There was, too, a loose bunch 
 of white roses, tied with ribbon and bearing a card on which 
 was written, " With Dr. Quintin Glaive's compliments and good 
 wishes." This thoughtfulness surprised me, for, indeed, just 
 then, there was no one in the whole world, or out of it, whom I 
 held in such terrified awe as my "author." I had had no deal- 
 ings with him, except in the way of business and at rehearsals, 
 and he had seemed to me severely critical, and on the whole 
 unsympathetic. 
 
 Those rehearsals ! . . . Queer bits of scenes and grim touches 
 of humour start out as from a dream. I see the great dim theatre. 
 feebly lighted by two or three gas jets, and the weird effect of 
 the boxes draped in white sheets, while the galleries yawned in 
 cavernous blackness, and the stalls looked ghostly in their holland 
 shrouds. . . . Then on the stage, actors and actresses with hats 
 on — w hy do actors always wear their hats, I wonder, when they 
 are rehearsing ? — and carrying little oblong manuscripts of their 
 parts, strutting, gesticulating, or else waiting at the wings study- 
 ing, while the manager, standing in front of the T. light or 
 walking up and down, watched and admonished. 
 
 I seem to hear him. ..." Chesney, Chesney, that won't 
 do at all. . . . Will you try to remember that in the play you 
 are supposed to be a gentleman ? Come, now, this is how it 
 should go " — stepping forward and demonstrating. . . . And then 
 the laugh when Chesney, who was an irreverent youth, replied, 
 " Just as you like, Mr. Carter-Blake ; but Dr. Glaive told me 
 to be natural." 
 
 And Dr. Glaive's voice would float across the footlights from 
 the front row of the stalls, where he used to sit when he looked 
 in at the theatre after his morning consultations. Perhaps we 
 had not known he was there. . . . Then the lines would all fly — 
 Oh, can you imagine what it is to lose your part altogether from 
 sheer nervousness ! " Word !— word ! " you murmur agonisedly ; 
 and either the prompter will not give it, or you are more hope- 
 lessly put out by the wrong cue. 
 
 Dr. Glaive was truly alarming — dryly sarcastic to the men 
 when they annoyed him by their misconception of his meaning ; 
 politely painstaking with the women. There was an old lady 
 who played elderly plutocratic lead, and who couldn't make her- 
 self vulgar in just the subtle way he wanted. I don't know why
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 7 
 
 one meaningless phrase in the play sticks, " That has nothing to 
 do with us." I can hear Dr. Glaive's courteous expostulations, 
 " The us, Mrs. Ferrers. A good deal more should be made of 
 that us. Say it as if — as if you were the editor of The Times, 
 you know." Then to me gently reproving in the midst of my 
 love scene, " I don't like it, Miss Vrintz. . . . Please, Miss Vrintz, 
 try that again. ..." 
 
 How they echo, the trivial sentences, through the long years ! 
 
 I have never been able to understand why Dr. Glaive offered 
 me the part of Claudia. Mr. Leete told me that he had been 
 attracted by my voice in a recitation he had heard me give at a 
 party — Mr. Leete got me that engagement — and that in appear- 
 ance I realised his conception of his heroine. He had said also 
 that he was pleased at the absence of dramatic trick in me, and 
 that he wanted to make an artistic experiment. 
 
 I was' enormously flattered, and even Mr. Leete was overwhelmed 
 at the magnitude of the opportunity. There wasn't an actress in 
 London who would not have welcomed it. Dr. Quintin Glaive 
 was the playwright in whom, at that time, the critics were most 
 interested. He was a kind of John the Baptist to Ibsen, though 
 of course it is only last year that Ibsen began to be talked of; 
 and in those days no one could have dreamed of quite such a 
 flying in the face of dramatic conventions. It did indeed seem 
 extraordinary that this fashionable dramatist should have chosen 
 for the title-part in his new play a poor, unknown girl, living in 
 one room in Bloomsbury, and earning twenty-five shillings a week 
 in a curtain-raiser, and with not a penny in the world besides. 
 A half-foreign orphan girl, with no friends to push her — not 
 counting Mr. Leete, and he didn't consider me fit yet to be 
 pushed — with no theatrical training, no stage experience to speak 
 of, nothing of any kind to commend her. Why, it was simply 
 a marvel. 
 
 Not to me. There's a saying that a river, a strong man, and 
 genius carve their own way. / was genius. Jove knew it : and 
 the Fates had given me my chance. 
 
 That is what in my crude egoism I said to myself. 
 
 Was it quite fair on a poor, ignorant girl to make her the 
 subject of an artistic experiment ? And would Dr. Glaive have 
 made the experiment if he could have seen how my whole life 
 would be affected by it ? 
 
 Besides Dr. Glaive's flowers, there was a magnificent Covent 
 Garden basket of roses, lilies, and orchids from Mr. Hector Vassal
 
 8 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 — a pretty courtesy, and quite the sort of offering for a millionaire. 
 Yet in all my clammy excitement there came over me an odd 
 instinctive feeling about that costly bouquet : it was like my 
 feeling about Mr. Vassal himself. 
 
 This too, however, I shall have to write of later. 
 
 Then began the making up and dressing ; and then came the 
 low rumble from the theatre as it filled : the quavering of the 
 orchestra : the dull sound at the wings of the curtain rising . . . 
 And then my call. . . . 
 
 • • • • 
 
 Alas ! alas ! The glory was departed from me, and my 
 paradise was forfeit — perhaps for ever. I had failed ; failed 
 absolutely and irretrievably. The first two acts had been an 
 exhibition of reckless incompetence ; the third act was collapse ; 
 the last, despair. It was ruin complete, and the murder of my 
 career. There was no consolation in the reflexion — if at the 
 moment I had been capable of reflecting — that Dr. Glaive's 
 blundering confidence in his experiment and my own overweening 
 self-conceit and ambition had been its murderers. 
 
 I stood, a frenzied, hunted thing, in the leading lady's 
 dressing-room, waiting for what should come. 
 
 Presently the stage-manager knocked at the door and asked, 
 pushing it ajar as he spoke — 
 
 " Miss Vrintz, will you take your call ?" 
 
 From the theatre sounded the shrilling of excited voices. 
 . . . Was it possible that they were hissing the author ? Why 
 had they not hissed me ? The curtain had fallen in a silence, 
 ghastly, deadly, more appalling than the loudest roar of de- 
 nunciation. 
 
 >" No, thank you, I'd rather'not. . . . Unless [Mr. Carter-Blake 
 says I must." 
 
 " Oh, no ; you are to do as you please," and he shut the door 
 and went away. After a little while there was another knock, 
 and the dresser went to the door. 
 
 " Mr. Leete, to see Miss Vrintz." 
 
 Again, as the door opened, came echoes from the front, and 
 the hoarse roar of pit and gallery, where they were shouting now 
 " Au — thor ! . . . Au — thbr." The dresser turned to me, " Will 
 you see Mr. Leete ? " 
 
 I nodded, and she held the door open for him and then went 
 out. 
 
 Mr. Leete stood still for a few moments, as if uncertain how 
 to address me. He has told me since that I seemed terrible to 
 him, in my white make-up and stony calm ; and that his task
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 9 
 
 would have been 'much easier had he found me in hysterics. 
 The big man looked at me with moist eyes, and his voice was 
 smothered in his great beard and moustache as he spoke with 
 his head down, nervously stepping forward and taking my two 
 hands. I hardly realised then, but I know now what it must have 
 cost him to come. 
 
 " What can I say to you ? " he exclaimed. 
 
 "The truth.'' 
 
 I took away my hands ; his touch only hurt me, and sym- 
 pathy was a mockery. 
 
 " You'll have to write the truth in the Sentinel. Let me hear 
 
 it now." 
 
 "The truth !" he repeated, giving me a frightened glance. 
 
 "The true truth. I think I know it. But grind it in; and 
 for God's sake don't pity me." 
 
 I understood by his startled expression that he was not pre- 
 pared for this mood of savage desperation. I had always been so 
 quiet, so shy — except about my art. 
 
 "Very well. Perhaps it is the kindest thing to tell you 
 straight out that you have made a miserable failure." Having 
 taken the scalpel he used it unflinchingly. "An unmitigated 
 failure. Esther, I feel a brute — yet you have asked me for the 
 brutal truth." 
 
 " Quite right. But there's such a thing as failure with a 
 glimmer of possibility in the future. Is there a gleam? That's 
 what I want to know." 
 
 He hesitated. "You must recollect," he said, "I always told 
 you that the part of Claudia would tax the resources even of a 
 great artist. I never expected you to grasp it." 
 
 " No ; but you expected " 
 
 He paused, then answered deliberately, " Well, I expected that 
 your conception would show originality — that though technique 
 might be deficient, there would be spontaneity, passion— in short, 
 some flash of genius. There was nothing of the kind. 
 
 "It passes my understanding," he went on in an exasperated 
 tunc, "when I think of your reading of The- Duchess of Malfi I 
 Allowing lor want of experience, for being stage-struck — allowing 
 for everything, there should still have been moments." 
 
 He made a few agitated steps, and clutched his beard and 
 moustache after a way he had when he was excited. I waited. 
 
 "There ! if you will have it, — there wasn't a redeeming point. 
 The whole thing was hopeless." 
 
 I didn't wince at the death-probe. I had known the truth 
 all along. Throughout the play I had never held the audience
 
 io THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 for an instant, and had felt it. I had never struck one spark. It 
 had been mouthing and miming in the dark — putting out my whole 
 strength against a stone wall. I cried out something of this to 
 him, thanked him for his candour, told him I knew it was the 
 best thing for me that he should be honest. 
 
 "Upon my soul, I believe it is," he answered huskily. "It 
 may be saving you years of untold suffering. You are not like 
 the rest. You have got an ideal. And if there's a pitiful thing on 
 God's earth, it's an artist with an ideal and no power to realise it." 
 
 "That's true," I answered. " My father was like that." 
 
 " Yes, your poor father thought he could compose a great 
 opera, and he was just a fifth-rate musician ! It's in the blood." 
 
 Again Mr. Leete walked up and down, and at last stopped 
 before me, dragging at his beard. They say that one notices 
 trifles when one is dying, and this trick of his was what impressed 
 me most just then. 
 
 "Look here," he said; "you told me you only wanted to be 
 put to the test. Well, you have been tested. Abide by the result. 
 Give up the stage and try some other way of earning a livelihood. 
 Go out as a governess." 
 
 " I couldn't parse a sentence or do a rule-of-three sum. I'm 
 totally uneducated on the ordinary lines, and I hate children." 
 
 "That's bad ! Well, you wouldn't do badly in drawing-room 
 recitation. I daresay that I could get Glaive to help you along. 
 I'm not much in the way of party-giving ladies myself- — in 
 Belgravia anyhow. But Glaive knows a lot of them." 
 
 I shuddered. The poems of Adelaide Anne Procter, and the 
 So?tg of the Shirt at suburban entertainments ! For I could never 
 look in Dr. Glaive's face again. 
 
 Mr. Leete gave a groan when I said that. 
 
 " I'm greatly to blame for this. I encouraged your high- 
 flying aspirations. I've been a romantic fool." 
 
 " If it was being a romantic fool to trust generously to my 
 faith in myself! yes, I suppose you were one. You'll be wiser 
 another time, Mr. Leete ; and so much the worse for some other 
 poor girl who has got the real stuff in her." 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't kiss the rod so meekly," he exclaimed. 
 "You make me hate myself." 
 
 "I . . . /kiss the rod!" 
 
 " Think it out/' he said, " and above all things let us be prac- 
 tical. I have your welfare at heart. If it's only because you're a 
 friend of my Gagsie. And she's gone off to Kandy, and heaven 
 only knows when I shall see her again ! I should have it on my 
 conscience if I didn't try to stop you from running after a will-o'-
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK n 
 
 /■ 
 
 the-wisp. You are a delicate thing and not fit to stand up against 
 disappointment and rebuff. If I've been rubbing in the salt, it's 
 to harden you." 
 
 "Of course," he went on, "no one has a right to pronounce 
 definitely. It's possible that you may prove all the critics, my- 
 self included, mistaken, and that in years to come you may take 
 rank in the profession. But I'm bound to tell you my honest 
 opinion — that of an old critic, who has watched the rise of scores 
 of actresses — and it is, that if you remain on the stage you'll 
 have to make up your mind to a low place. Always supposing 
 that your professional advancement would come through the 
 legitimate channels." 
 
 " I don't quite understand what other channels there could 
 be for me besides what you call the legitimate ones." 
 
 "You are not a child," he answered, "and you must have 
 had your eyes opened in the theatrical world. If not, the sooner 
 they are Opened the better for you. You have seen leading ladies 
 who can't act a stroke, pushed forward by managers and puffed in 
 newspapers — attracting a public that they've got round by adver- 
 tisement, good looks, trick of manner, dressing, some style and 
 fascination — the Lord knows what ; but it's not legitimate art." 
 
 His meaning became dimly apparent. Perhaps it was curious 
 that my eyes had not been opened wider during the year and 
 a half in which I was a "super" at the Regency. But somehow 
 my nature hadn't, so far, assimilated notions of that sort. 
 
 "You've got the good looks, and a — it was said by a man 
 I don't like — a power of attracting. You might work a career in 
 that fashion if you chose. Certainly if you did choose, Gagsie 
 and I would wash our hands of you, but that's not the ques- 
 tion. Anyhow, no matter how you might recoil from the thing, 
 it's a danger you ought to realise. You'd find the temptation 
 horrible — good women have told me so. It begins so insidiously 
 — cheap outlay at the start ; just looking pretty and making 
 yourself agreeable, and the inducement of opportunity to prove 
 yourself. Esther, you are a brave, true, proud girl, but, like every 
 other woman, you have your weak side. Do you think you are 
 strong enough to play the waiting theatrical game honestly — no 
 fear and no favour — to the end, which will probably mean the 
 bitter end — defeat ? " 
 
 I couldn't answer him. There was a reckless streak in my 
 nature of which sometimes I felt afraid. If the devil had come 
 to me the night before, mightn't I have sold my soul for success ? 
 
 Mr. Leete put his heavy hand on my shoulder in a rough 
 fatherly way.
 
 12 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 " My girl, as I said, let us be practical and look at things 
 as they are, and not as we want them to be. My sincere convic- 
 tion is that you'll never get higher than a step or two on the 
 ladder. To reach beyond that, will cost you years and years of 
 drudgery. To-day's failure will throw you back. I've done you 
 harm ; Glaive has done you harm — I've told him so. Oh, it's 
 a sickening business grinding on in the ruck. You haven't the 
 health or the grip for it. The profession is a grand one for those 
 who have the capacity to mount ; but you have seen enough as 
 a ' super ' to know what the other thing means." 
 
 Then I lost my self-control, and lifted my arms wildly as 
 I cried out, " What it means ! To grind on till one has lost 
 youth, health, hope, enthusiasm, even ambition — and still to grind 
 on ! God help me ! Yes, I know what it means." 
 
 Frank Leete cried out too as I let my arms drop again. 
 
 " My heaven ! That's good ! Why couldn't you do that sort 
 of thing on the stage. Tell me just — why ? " 
 
 I laughed — how grimly ! — repeating " Why ? " 
 
 Presently I asked, " Have I killed the play ? " 
 
 "Oh no, the play will be seen again." 
 
 " But / shall not." 
 
 " It doesn't really matter much to Quintin Glaive," said Mr. 
 Leete. "Playwriting is only the recreation of his leisure hours, 
 and he has made his name and can command the market. By 
 the way, he told me to ask if he should come round and see you. 
 He spoke very nicely about it all. You had better see him." 
 
 " No ! The cannons of Balaclava sooner ! " I gave Mr. 
 Leete a message for Dr. Glaive that I was sorry to have been 
 such a disappointment, and that I would not trouble him any 
 more. Then I asked Mr. Leete to go. 
 
 " I'll put you into a cab," he said, and pressed my hand 
 in affectionate and remorseful good-bye. But I told him that I 
 wanted to be alone and to slip out unnoticed. Besides, how could 
 I afford cabs now ? 
 
 " If any one speaks to me I shall go mad," I said ; and added, 
 " You see, I've got to act my little part this evening." 
 
 He lingered just a minute while I put away in their box the 
 paste ornaments I had been wearing and which had been my 
 mother's — worn by her on the stage also. She, too, had been an 
 unsuccessful actress, a little unknown Jewess of Philotis, who had 
 played in the theatre there, and had fallen into ill-health, and 
 soon after her marriage had given "up her profession. Doubly 
 inherited failure was born in me. 
 
 Mr. Leete shook my hand again, promised his interest in
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 13 
 
 getting me on for a country tour, if I still remained bent upon 
 the theatrical life, bade me sup with him at his house on the 
 morrow, which was Sunday, to hear the news from Agatha Greste, 
 his daughter, and talk matters over with his wife. 
 
 I answered vaguely that I would try to come ; but in truth, 
 I felt little appetite for the discussion of my failure with Mrs. 
 Leete, who was a worthy person, but a poor comforter in mis- 
 fortunes, which she was apt to regard as the result of arrogant 
 self-confidence. 
 
 Quarter of an hour after Mr. Leete had gone, I was dressed 
 again in my ordinary clothes, and had left the leading lady's 
 room, from which henceforth I was outcast. With a thick gauze 
 veil and a- waterproof hiding completely my face and figure, I had 
 passed unobserved through the stage-door, and was waiting in 
 the open portico of the theatre for an omnibus to go by. 
 
 The world was quite white, for snow was falling in thick noise- 
 less flakes, and the unlovely alley leading to the stage entrance 
 seemed transformed, with all the projections of the mean houses 
 drawn in dazzling lines ; while the roar of traffic was deadened 
 and the shapes of vehicles and people appeared even more 
 phantasmal than they had done three hours before. Now for 
 the first time since the beginning of the performance, I became 
 conscious of being sick and faint, so that I could hardly drag 
 along my limbs. There was no omnibus of the familiar colour 
 in sight ; and secure in my shrouding veil, I turned within the 
 portico and sat down on a stone ledge abutting from the wall, 
 behind a pillar upon which the placards with my name conspi- 
 cuous, still hung. These formed for me an appropriate screen 
 from the little crowd of persons who had collected there, waiting 
 like myself for omnibus or cab. 
 
 Some of these seemed in no hurry ; they were men — critics 
 and literary and theatrical people, who were discussing the play. 
 The feeling of dizziness left me at the sound of my own name 
 uttered by one of a small group which had gathered beside the 
 very pillar that sheltered me. I knew by sight two of the men 
 in this group. One was a novelist ; the other, dramatic critic 
 for an important paper. There were two or three besides, whom 
 I did not know. 
 
 " Oh, damn the play ! " one of these was saying. "That will 
 do well enough when it's cut and pulled together. It's not the 
 play. It's the actress ! " 
 
 " I'm not talking of the actress for the moment, but of the
 
 r4 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 English drama," said another. " Esther Vrintz, or anybody else 
 —genius or duffer, what does it matter? Everything nowadays 
 is sacrificed to construction. That's part of the theatrical shib- 
 boleth. It's the system of dramatic upholstery that's at fault. 
 Give us psychological upholstery instead. Why don't some of 
 you novelists turn dramatist and upset the whole modern apple- 
 cart—go in for real realism — of the heart and not of the 
 garments. For I loathe that machinery which makes for ' points ' 
 and works up to a 'curtain.'" 
 
 The man who spoke was leaning against the pillar with his 
 profile towards me. A tall man, loosely built, lean and square, 
 in an overcoat that hung on, rather than was moulded to his 
 spare bony frame. I saw the outline of a long, straight nose, 
 with mobile nostrils, a nervous-looking mouth under a small 
 moustache, and a peaked chin with a cleft in it, not hidden by 
 the short silky beard trimmed to a Vandyke point. It was an 
 odd mixture, the face, of sensitiveness and power. Somehow the 
 man put me in mind of a worried lion ; perhaps because there 
 was a touch of the lion in the shape of his heavy brow and 
 rather massive head, and in the backward wave of his mane of 
 short hair, which turned up at the points and grew in a peculiar 
 way upward from the temples that I observed when he took 
 off his hat to a lady passing. The eyes were a very clear grey, 
 with lashes much darker than hair or beard, and had a melan- 
 choly particularly intent expression, heightened by the close 
 knitting of the rather shaggy brows above them. Altogether there 
 was something in the appearance of this man which fixed itself 
 on my brain, and during years afterwards I never forgot the face. 
 Do you believe in mind currents which attract or repel certain 
 persons to or from each other? I hadn't thought much about 
 such things then, and yet even then I seemed subtly conscious that 
 something went from that man to me, during those minutes, when 
 the skirt of his coat almost touched my cloak as I crouched in my 
 niche behind him — something that in my dazed misery and the 
 blur and desolation of my failure gave me an odd sense of 
 warmth and support. His voice too affected me; it was deep 
 and musical, and his manner of speech had a peculiar force and 
 incisiveness. A queer fancy darted through my mind, that what- 
 ever this man said should be accepted by me as a pronouncement 
 of fate. Always I have had a fantastic leaning to this kind of 
 divination by straws of circumstances. 
 
 " Quintin Glaive had given a push or two to the apple-cart," 
 said the first speaker. " But he must have been mad to imagine 
 that girl could touch the part of Claudia"
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK k 
 
 "She is really a doosid pretty little thing," said a dandified 
 mustachioed man, with a disagreeable accent. " Small, but a fine 
 shape of a woman, and moves well. I believe she would fetch 
 the town if she was taught to dance and put into burlesque." 
 
 " I don't know which was maddest, Glaive to offer her the 
 part, or Frank Leete, who seems a friend of hers, to let her 
 accept it," said the novelist. "But one can't beat the heroic 
 audacity of these mimes. No doubt she thought herself a born 
 immortal." 
 
 " Ah, that divine courage of egoism ! " said the Man of Des- 
 tiny. " We've all had our turn of it, and should be compassionate 
 for the failures. If no man had ever believed in himself, the world 
 would be pretty barren of achievement. Well, it was too painful 
 an exhibition for me to care to watch it closely ; and yet — I am 
 not sure— » — " 
 
 "You don't mean to say that you think she'll do — in spite 
 of this." ' 
 
 " Not on the stage," he answered decidedly. " But I shouldn't 
 wonder if she did do something some day." 
 
 " Some day is a long day — and what ? " 
 
 " That's beyond me. But those eyes vmst mean inspiration 
 of some kind — they're magnificent. It's a curious type." 
 
 " At any rate," said the critic, " however heroic her audacity 
 may have been, she put nothing heroic into her failure. The 
 thing was sheer collapse from the middle of the first act." 
 
 " But there was something heroic in the look of dumb des- 
 peration she threw round the house," said the Man of Destiny. 
 " It was the passionate despair of absolute incompetence." 
 
 "Yet Leete was declaring at the Roscius that he meant to 
 make something of her." 
 
 " He'll never make an actress. . . . Why didn't she let 
 herself go, and trust to her eyes and hair, and those extraor- 
 dinarily fascinating dimples to carry her through ? " the Man of 
 Destiny exclaimed with a sort of angry abruptness. "She im- 
 presses me distinctly as a bit of womanhood, but that for the 
 actress ! " He gave an expressive squaring-back movement of 
 his shoulders. "As woman pure and simple I fancy she would 
 be convincing." 
 
 " Frank Leete assures me that it is as the actress, unfortunately, 
 and not as the woman, she wants to convince." 
 
 "Advise him to tell her that she has mistaken her vocation," 
 the Man of Destiny answered. " It will be kindest. For the 
 stage she is simply hopeless. Far better that she should fall in 
 love, marry, and cultivate babies instead of dramatic art. Per-
 
 1 6 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 haps, after all, the meaning in those eyes may be merely crudely 
 feminine." 
 
 Ah, heaven ! it is a bitter thing to be a woman ! I remem- 
 bered what Mr. Leete had said about the channels which were 
 not legitimate. Had women, then, no vocation but one ? There 
 was a note of pitying suggestiveness in the voice of that Man of 
 Destiny. He too might have been thinking as Mr. Leete had 
 thought. He was not like the others, though to him, too, I was 
 just — "a bit of womanhood." 
 
 It seemed as though another part of me, something which 
 was myself and yet not myself, had been listening to and noting 
 the dialogue — noting it as though not I, but another miserable 
 actress who had failed were its subject. I had sat so still, so 
 numb, and yet so intensely alive. The sensation resembled 
 that of taking chloroform, when all that happens seems to take 
 place in another room. Now I came suddenly to myself, and 
 the pain of that coming to was like the sticking of a knife into a 
 limb no longer ansestheticised. I had cast my die, and Fate had 
 decreed against me. As I rose, a gasping sound, which I could 
 not repress, escaped my lips. The Man of Destiny turned, and 
 his eyes fixed themselves upon me full. They were strange eyes, 
 deep, bright, and intensely melancholy. But it was impossible 
 for him to see my face through my veil, for which I was thankful. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he said, mechanically making way for 
 me as I walked blindly through the group and out from the 
 colonnade into the street and the snow. People jostled me, 
 and I had the feeling that they weren't real people at all, but 
 fiends let loose for my torment. I went along quite a distance 
 before I even thought of an omnibus, and was standing still, 
 shivering, when a policeman asked where I wanted to go, and 
 hailed one which was passing. I shrank and shivered in the 
 corner of it, looking out over the conductor into the street, 
 where the things I saw struck me with a ridiculous acuteness, 
 and fixed themselves indelibly, so that even now I could tell 
 what were the flowers that day in the window of a big florist's 
 — there were sheaves of mimosa which reminded me of Philotis 
 — and then I have a vivid memory of a man with a barrow 
 roasting chestnuts ; and I particularly noticed a row of hearth- 
 rugs outside a second-hand furniture shop, illuminated by flaring 
 gas jets, and I remember thinking that a hearth-rug at six and 
 elevenpence halfpenny must be good value for the money. 
 
 They put me down near Gower Street ; and I remember, too, 
 as I walked, scrunching the snow underfoot in savage wrath, and 
 thinking to myself, " Oh, if I were only some superhuman giant, and
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 17 
 
 could trample down those creatures who jeered from the gallery, 
 and strike murderous blows at the fine folk in the stalls who had 
 tittered during my great scene. What did they know about pain ? 
 If I had but the power to make them scream with my agony ! If 
 I could only hurt somebody ! " 
 
 There were three flights of stairs to my room, which was dark 
 except for the gas on the landing. The fire was unkindled, and 
 the encrusting snow made a white dimness on the window-panes. 
 I lighted the jet within, drew the curtains, took off my wet cloak, 
 and made myself tea with a spirit-lamp. I was determined that I 
 would not think, if I could help it, till after I had played in the 
 evening piece. 
 
 I had to start off again almost immediately, but the tea and 
 the food I forced myself to swallow, did me good, and I no longer 
 felt faint. I knew that I must nerve myself to my task. I must 
 not break down until the theatre was over, and then I might cry 
 all through the night, and all through the morrow, and all through 
 the next day till half-past six, if it so pleased me. - 
 
 Again I passed through the stage-door. This time nobody 
 wished me good luck. As usual, people were standing near the rack 
 reading their letters, and I heard the ring of laughter and caught a 
 scrap of the talk. " Why, gracious, my dear ! she was too feeble for 
 
 anything ; she simply " Then as the speaker suddenly saw 
 
 me, there was an audible " H — sh " and quick bending over corre- 
 spondence in the effort to appear absorbed and oblivious. The 
 stage doorkeeper had no smile for me now. He, too, was intent 
 over the sorting of his letters and telegrams, and pretended 
 not to see me. Oh, I don't suppose they meant to be unkind ; 
 theatrical folk are not, as a rule, given to exult over a comrade in 
 misfortune. They just wanted to spare me and themselves the 
 embarrassment of allusion to the afternoon's calamity. Anyhow, 
 it didn't matter. No pin-pricks could hurt me now. 
 
 The door of the leading lady's room stood open as I went by, 
 and I had a mocking glimpse of my forbidden paradise, and could 
 see the dresser making her preparations. 
 
 The " supers' " dressing-room was ever so high, and I shared 
 it with three others. As I stood on the threshold for a few 
 moments unnoticed in the buzz of talk, with what poignant 
 bitterness the contrast struck me between the dainty restful 
 chamber below and this comfortless little barrack, with its per- 
 vading air of commonness and its noisy occupants, whose under- 
 bred voices jarred more sickeningly than they had ever jarred 
 before. I realised forcibly just then that the dramatic profession
 
 1 8 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 is in itself a social system, having its aristocracy, its middle-class, 
 and its democracy. These women were of the condition to 
 which " supers " of a London theatre mostly belong — the fixed 
 quantity that has found its level, the ruck of which I must in 
 future form a part. 
 
 That was how the thing hit home. Till to-day, I had never 
 looked upon the supers' dressing-room as anything but a mere 
 passage to the queen's apartment. It was horrible to think that 
 night after night, during long year after long year, I must go 
 forth to my work from just such a place as this and from among 
 such companions. 
 
 There were three of them standing with their backs to the 
 door, arranging their dyed hair and making up their faces in front 
 of a long shelf which had drawers underneath, and looking- 
 glasses between wire-guarded gas jets on the wall above. 
 
 To-night all the sordid details of the room seemed to rise up 
 at me, and they fixed themselves in my brain as the things in the 
 street had fixed themselves while I had sat in the omnibus, so 
 that I could make a catalogue of them now. The dingy wash- 
 ing-stand in the corner, with the paint worn off it ; the two or 
 three cane-bottomed chairs ; the make-up appliances set before 
 each glass on a soiled towel or bit of newspaper ; powder in 
 saucers or large shabby boxes ; flabby, stained powder-puffs of 
 different sizes ; pots of vaseline ; sticks of cosmetic ; rouge and 
 grease-paint ; pencils of black and blue lead ; the human effluvia 
 mingling; with whiffs of sodden drink from the dresser's breath — 
 she was not a pleasant specimen, this particular dresser ; how 
 different from the one in the leading lady's room ! But then, 
 could one expect the supers' attendant to be the same order of 
 handmaid as the dresser who, during a course of years, had been 
 trained to the requirements of the leading lady ? 
 
 I had opened the door softly, and as I did so a shout of coarse 
 laughter caught my ear, and my own name. 
 
 " My goodness ! Vrintz was a frost this afternoon. Didn't I 
 say she'd be too dire for words ? " 
 
 " Serves her right. I can't stand the conceit of these 
 ' ten minutes ' actresses, who think themselves Mrs. Siddonses." 
 
 There was a glance sideways between wisps of hair, and a lull 
 as I went to my own corner. The girl who had last spoken 
 turned effusively to the dresser. " Get us another bottle'of stout, 
 Bessie, there's a darling." 
 
 " All right, dearie," returned the dresser, and went out. 
 
 " So the notice has gone up for this bally old farce," I heard 
 another of the women say, as she stood back to see the effect of
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 19 
 
 the lines she had been drawing under her eyes. " Well, it doesn't 
 matter to me. Gascoigne will take care that I'm in the next piece. 
 Thank Heaven /don't aspire to be leading lady all at once ; " and 
 though I wouldn't look, I felt the spiteful glance upon me. 
 
 If the notice was up, I suspected that my engagement, like 
 the farce, was coming to an end. Should I get another? And 
 if not, how was I going to live? 
 
 Presently there came the familiar sound outside the door, 
 " Beginners, please ! " and I had to go on. 
 
 I made up my fire when I got home, and sat down on the 
 floor in front of it, for I was shivering and shaking. Now I knew 
 myself to be alone with defeat ; and that grim fiend I had been 
 trying to keep at bay, clutched at the nerves somewhere in my 
 chest ; and the tightness and pain threw me into a sort of gasping 
 convulsion, so that I literally writhed on the floor where I had laid 
 myself when the paroxysm took me. 
 
 Oh my God ! what had I done that I should be crushed in 
 such agony of despair. No physical pain could be worse than 
 this suffering. Why should the one supreme good upon which my 
 whole soul had been fixed be wrenched away from me? It was 
 not as though I had wanted anything wicked. From the time 
 that I was a little girl, every instinct in me seemed to have been 
 pushing on in the crave to be a great artist. Where was the 
 wrong in that to be punished so cruelly ? And if it were wrong, 
 why had God given me the instinct of art for my inheritance ? 
 Frank Leete was right ; the crave was in my blood ; and failure 
 was in my blood too. Don't I remember how we found Father 
 lying in a red pool and the score of his opera torn into little 
 shreds round him ! He had been artist enough to know that 
 he could never be great. And I was artist enough to know that 
 the man of the profile had spoken truth, and that I could never 
 be great either. 
 
 Looking back upon that anguish of despair, it all seems 
 such crude, such exaggerated emotion. But that was my way. 
 I have never felt deeply about more than two or three things 
 in my life; and those have pierced down into the roots of my 
 beiii 
 
 No wonder I thought God cruel — if indeed I had then a 
 definite belief in any especial God. For all faiths had meant 
 pretty much the same to mc in my bringing up — a Roman Catholic 
 or a Protestant church, a Jewish synagogue or an Arab mosque — 
 just as it came. 
 
 And it wasn't either that I was ambitious in the worldly sense.
 
 20 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 Though I did even then realise that there was in me a streak over 
 which I have always vaguely puzzled. An exaltation of sense — I 
 cannot quite phrase it — a susceptibility to certain finer forms of 
 emotion, and an immense yearning for fulness of life : a yearning 
 which was nevertheless mainly spiritual and which seemed to affect 
 me mostly through Nature and in my passionate determination to 
 excel in art. Oddly enough, the human merely repelled me ; it 
 appeared gross, and I had a dislike to it at close quarters. For I 
 don't think that I was vain in the ordinary girl's way ; and it never 
 entered my head to try and attract admiration. I only cared about 
 being pretty in so far as I might approach in outward similitude 
 the splendid creatures of imagination I wished to impersonate. 
 
 These analysings of my temperament are the after translation 
 of what I was then merely feeling, and, maybe, are inartistically 
 discursive. But they occur, so I let them stand. 
 
 I don't know how long I lay there in front of the fire; it 
 had died to ashes, and my gaspings had ceased, when after a bit 
 I knew that I was hungry. My supper was on the table — my 
 landlady always put that ready. Only some scraps of cold 
 meat, bread, and a glass of milk, which I took ; and then I noticed 
 on the table a letter that must have been left by special mes- 
 senger, for it had no stamp. There was not any need of the 
 embossed address on the flap of the envelope to tell me whence 
 it came. I knew that Mr. Vassal, the rich man who had sent me 
 the basket of hothouse flowers, was the writer. 
 
 I could not take in the meaning of the letter at first. Not 
 till I had read it over twice was I sure that it was genuine. 
 
 No, certainly, it was not a hoax, for I had already received 
 from Mr. Vassal two notes. One had been about a dinner at 
 Richmond that he gave for the Leetes and Agatha's fiance, 
 Captain Greste, just before the marriage, and to which he had in- 
 vited me. The other — some trivial matter which also had relation 
 to Agatha — yes, I remember, it was to ask whether a certain wed- 
 ding-present he had thought of would be acceptable. 
 
 So that my associations with Mr. Vassal had been of a 
 kindly nature, and there was nothing to account for the faint 
 feeling of repulsion I had towards him. Well, yes, there had 
 been something. One evening at the Leetes', when Mr. Leete was 
 reading aloud a play that had been submitted for his approval, 
 and I, was feeling rather interested and excited over it, I looked 
 up and caught Mr. Vassal's eyes fixed upon me, and their ex- 
 pression somehow made me frightened and uncomfortable. I 
 did not know why at the time ; I do know why now. 
 
 That Mr. Vassal should be in love with me ; that he should
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 21 
 
 wish to marry me was more marvellous and incredible than that 
 
 Dr. Quintin Glaive should have thought me fit to play Claudia. 
 
 This was the letter : — 
 
 " — - Grosvenor Street, 
 January 14. 
 
 "My dear Miss Vrintz, — You may be surprised at the 
 subject of this letter, and you may perhaps think that, in writing 
 it, I am presuming too [much on an acquaintance which has 
 offered but few opportunities for intimate interchange of thought 
 and feeling. You may never even have suspected that in those 
 opportunities I have learned to love you and to form the wish, 
 very close to my heart, that you should become my wife. 
 
 "May I dare to say, without seeming brutally unsympathetic 
 or disparaging of your talent — which was to-day too severely 
 taxed by" want of experience and a part of immense difficulty — 
 that I am selfish enough to hope the critics' verdict may dis- 
 courage you from continuing your stage career. For, unflattering 
 to my vanity as is the reflexion, I am afraid that were the verdict 
 as favourable as your theatrical well-wishers hoped, you would 
 not pause to weigh such worldly advantages as might be involved 
 in my proposal. But in the event of failure to realise your artistic 
 expectations, I would ask you to consider, does the alternative I 
 offer, hold nothing in the way of compensation for your disappoint- 
 ment ? You will at least acquit me of undue self-confidence. I 
 am aware that I am dealing with a nature singularly guileless and 
 elevated in aim and motive. Were this otherwise I should not 
 be so greatly attracted by you. I should not see in you the 
 woman whom of all others I most desire for my wife and the 
 mother of my children. 
 
 " Esther, this is what I ask — that you will accept me as your 
 husband. I do not presume to anticipate that you can love me 
 at once after the romantic fashion in which you might love a 
 younger man. But I indulge the hope that if you will give me 
 the right to try, I shall be able to rouse in you a feeling not wholly 
 incompatible with my own ardent devotion. Of this devotion I 
 will not now say much, for I fear that effusive protestation might 
 jar upon your sensitive reserve, and injure the cause I most 
 earnestly long to plead in person. 
 
 " I anxiously await your decision. Will you let me see you 
 to-morrow? Yet rest assured, my regard for you is so great 
 that I would not unduly press or worry you : and whatever may 
 be your mood, I will respect it. May I request the favour of an 
 early telegram naming the hour most convenient for me to come. 
 I am — yours with deepest affection, Hector Vassal."
 
 52 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 As, after long years, I re-read this letter, I wonder within 
 myself whether its studied self-repression and formal courtesy 
 were the result of consummate knowledge of woman's nature, or 
 of an instinct of self-preservation which forbade a loosening of 
 the curb, lest shock and antagonism should follow. In any case, 
 the effect was well calculated. I had no key to the disposition 
 of the writer. He was a stranger ; and if it seems curious that I 
 should not have shrunk from this closest of all relations with a 
 stranger, it must be remembered that I had gone through a mental 
 and moral cataclysm, that I was bruised, quivering, and bleeding, 
 and in the extremity of desolation, and that almost any hand 
 then stretched out, would have brought a sense of stay and refuge. 
 Then, too, the fact that the letter had come at a moment of crisis, 
 seemed in itself fateful, and I was in the mood to yield myself 
 unquestioningly to guidance which had the semblance of destiny. 
 
 Thus after I had read the letter three times, and had sat for 
 perhaps a quarter of an hour with my head in my hands, staring at 
 the dead fire, and with my brain a chaos and my whole being an 
 ache, I took my blotting-book and spread out a telegraph form 
 upon it. 
 
 I thought I would write the telegram at once, and ask the 
 landlady to send it at eight in the morning, telling myself 
 that I should sleep better for having made the decision. So in a 
 reckless impulse, I set down the address. 
 
 Then something stayed my hand, and for the first time the 
 immense importance of the step I was about to take, came over 
 me. It was the confession that I was beaten ; it was good-bye 
 to the art life for ever ; it was— oh, something strange, dreadful 
 — and yet vaguely alluring. 
 
 To be the wife of a man extremely wealthy, and to live in 
 state and luxury ; to be freed from everything that was sordid and 
 degrading ; to be loved . . . The image of Mr. Vassal with that 
 disagreeable look in his eyes rose up, and I fell to shuddering, 
 for I understood sufficiently what marriage meant, to know that I 
 should be selling myself body and soul. 
 
 But, it was the lot of almost every woman ! 
 
 The shudder of repulsion didn't last long enough to deter ; 
 the vision of the future didn't paint itself luridly enough to appal. 
 Both were over-swept, as by a wave, with the recollection of Mr. 
 Leete's warning and condemnation. And following his words, 
 came back those other words, the pronouncement of destiny, ring- 
 ing through the silence in their deep incisive cadences, over and 
 over again. ..." Mistaken her vocation." ..." Never make 
 an actress." ..." The despair of absolute incompetence." " It's
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 23 
 
 true ; it's true," I wailed out into the empty room. The echo of 
 that man's voice rang the fiat. I wrote a telegram. 
 
 "To Hector Vassal, Grosvenor Street. — Come to-morrow 
 
 at three. Esther Vrintz." 
 
 I slept the dreamless sleep of exhaustion. In the morning 
 when I awoke my telegram had gone. 
 
 At three o'clock Mr. Vassal came. I wonder if I can describe 
 him just as he impressed me then. 
 
 He was a particularly tall and largely-built man, spare and 
 upright, always extremely well dressed and well groomed ; and at 
 that time, I had never seen him without an uncanny sort of orchid 
 in his buttonhole. He varied his flowers, but, to the end of his 
 days, they were without exception rare and peculiarly coloured, 
 streaked and spotted, and of the kind that is forced abnormally. 
 I used to think later that his taste in this direction gave a clue to 
 certain phases of his character. 
 
 His face was striking and distinguished — massive features ; a 
 determined chin, smooth-shaven ; blackly marked brows ; eyes 
 prominent, weary, indifferent, yet intensely alive and masterful ; a 
 sallow skin, smooth for his age, the only lines then being two 
 furrows from the nostril to the corner of the mouth, and a slight 
 triangular mark caused by a puffiness beneath the lower eye- 
 lids ; a big mouth ; strong lips, half hidden by a heavy grizzled 
 moustache; long, yellowish teeth; hair grey-black and closely 
 cropped ; a dent in the bridge of the nose ; the neck a thick 
 column which put one in mind of the busts of Roman emperors. 
 That was his type. Agatha Greste, who had odd fancies, used to 
 say that he was a reincarnation of the Roman period. 
 
 When he talked to women, his manner was elaborate though 
 quiet ; but in the company of commonplace people he would 
 have moods of bored endurance ; at other times he would say 
 cutting, cynical things — now I am drawing on later experiences 
 and impressions. One had the feeling with him of forces in 
 leash — ferocious forces, perhaps, and that anything terrible might 
 lie under the outer calm. If I had thought the whole matter out 
 then, I might have remembered that Frank Leete, who, with all 
 his Bohemianism, was the properest, kindliest, and yet most 
 frankly human of men, never spoke of Mr. Vassal without some 
 slight constraint, nor seemed perfectly at his ease with him. To be 
 sure, Mr. Leete often dined with him in Grosvenor Street or at the 
 Roscius, and always seemed pleased, and a little flattered, when 
 asked ; for Mr. Vassal's bachelor dinners were, he told us, famous.
 
 24 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 He would recount to us the dishes, over which he would wax 
 eloquent, and the names of the guests; but he would put off 
 Agatha's closer inquiries by one of his mock worldly-wise sayings 
 — perhaps quote Erasmus, I think, to the effect that we should 
 choose our friends for the service they do for us ; and observe 
 that it would ill become him to criticise the mental feast when 
 the physical one was so superexcellently good. But all the same, 
 I got the impression that he did not wholly approve of Mr. 
 Vassal's dinners or of the conversational tone of his guest. I had 
 asked my landlady, who was a dressmaker, to let me see Mr. 
 Vassal in the parlour where she took orders from her customers. 
 She had looked inquisitive and a little distrustful when I made 
 the request, but seemed satisfied when I told her that it was an 
 elderly gentleman, a friend of Mr. Leete's, who was coming to 
 call on me. But she only lighted the fire as he arrived ; it was 
 just sputtering cheerlessly, and gave me cover, as I poked it and 
 put on more coal, for the embarrassment of the greeting. 
 
 Mr. Vassal, quite composed and magnificent, and more Roman- 
 emperor-like than ever, though in a frock-coat instead of a toga 
 and the purple, was examining a monstrosity in coral under a 
 glass case on the centre table. The contrast between us — be 
 tween the dingy dressmaker's room with a dummy in a ball-gown 
 covered by a sheet in the corner, the wax flowers, the family 
 Bible, and the photographs of upper servants on the walls, be- 
 tween all this and the mansion in Grosvenor Street, which I had 
 seen in passing, with powdered footmen hanging about the steps 
 — struck me as bewilderingly comical, and I asked myself whether 
 this interview were part of a fairy story or a nightmare. 
 
 "Yes, it is extraordinarily cold," Mr. Vassal said in his well- 
 bred way, as though the scanty spitting fire were a concession 
 to unusual weather. Then he added when I had left the coal- 
 scuttle and had taken my seat on the horse-hair sofa, "It was 
 very kind of you to telegraph to me." He put himself into the 
 one slippery arm-chair, laying his hat and stick beside him, and 
 removing his left-hand glove. The silver-mounted stick, the 
 unobtrusive perfection of his clothes, the orchid, and a faint 
 perfume mingling with the after whiff from expensive cigars, 
 struck pleasantly upon my senses, and seemed a testimony to 
 the reality of that new world the doors of which he wished to 
 open to me. 
 
 One or two more superficial remarks passed, and it was a 
 relief to find that he made no allusion to the disaster of the pre- 
 vious afternoon. Then silence fell. I was shivering inwardly, 
 and I could not look at him, but watched the fire crackling and
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 25 
 
 belching thick smoke through the layer of cheap coal. All the 
 time, I was uneasily conscious of his gaze, and at last was forced 
 by a kind of fascination to turn my eyes upon him, for, from 
 beginning to end, he had always a fascination over me, even 
 when it was the fascination of hate. 
 
 He was bending forward and looking at me from under his 
 black brows with the expression that had repelled me in Mr. 
 Leete's drawing-room. Somehow it did not now repel me. Was 
 this because I was half-way to the devil's market ? Oh, why 
 didn't I stay in the temple and do penance, and wait upon my 
 goddess till it should please her to turn her face to me? But 
 I had shut the door of my temple behind me, and baser in- 
 fluences were playing round. I seem to know all this now ; but 
 then — how could I tell ? I was half-frightened at some uncom- 
 prehended spectre of the future : half-intoxicated by the imme- 
 diate thought of empire over this man, who, in his own fashion, 
 was so powerful. And as I met his eyes, that look in them 
 lowered before mine, and his face became moved and softened 
 into an expression of anxious expectation. I knew it was doubt 
 of my answer that was thus shaking his self-confidence, and the 
 knowledge gave me a shock of wonder and of awe at this mystery 
 of love which could so change the nature of a man. 
 
 Looking back now upon that scene, it becomes all a blur 
 of confused emotion. I have in my mind the sense of struggle 
 against that shapeless dread : the sense, too, of almost pleasant 
 self-surrender. I remember a thrill of intense strangeness and 
 loneliness. I remember getting up from my chair and going to 
 the mantelpiece, where I leaned my head, sobbing like a lost 
 child. I have the consciousness of that tall, strong form close 
 beside me, of the faint perfume of the clothes, of the indescrib- 
 able physical and mental atmosphere that seemed to surround 
 it, and which, till the very end, affected me. I can hear now 
 the voice deepened with subdued fervour, and appealing in its 
 tenderness. 
 
 " Esther, I can't bear to see you cry. Only let me take care 
 of you, and no one shall ever be unkind to you again." 
 
 Ah, that was what I wanted — some one who would take care 
 of me, and wrap me round in sympathy and affection, and cover 
 me from failure and derision and despair. 
 
 So it was settled that I was to be Mr. Vassal's wife.
 
 BOOK II 
 
 " Oh, Jove/ ivhy hast thou given us certain 
 proofs to knoiv adulterate gold, but stamped no mark 
 luhere it is most needed, on man's base metal ? "

 
 EXTRACT FROM Now for a paper talk with you, dear Gagsie 
 A LETTER — a poor ghost substitute for the real thing. 
 
 WRITTEN You remember Sterne's remark about " the 
 
 BY apparition of the fifth instant (for letters 
 
 FRANK LEETE may almost be called so) ? " By the time 
 TO this arrives, you will have settled down in 
 
 MRS. GRESTE : Kandy — which sounds comic, but which 
 
 I, alas ! find unrelieved tragedy — and I 
 shall be realising in even fuller measure than now what it is 
 to have lost a daughter. Yea, and more than a daughter ! 
 Secretary, proof-reader, fellow-critic at first-nights, literary co- 
 worker, friend, companion ! A daughter is a human accident ; 
 a true companion is a human miracle. And when both are 
 combined — oh, then Providence in one of its nasty little ways 
 steps along with the husband. And it's " Bless you, my chil- 
 dren," and down goes the curtain, the lights are out, and all 
 is ended. " Oh Provvy, Provvy ! It's all the fault of Prowy," 
 as Jeremy Bentham says. 
 
 Concerning first nights. Felix Ffolliott's opening on Saturday 
 turned out a brilliant function — all but the play, which, as it 
 happened, was not the thing. Talk of construction ! It has no 
 beginning, no middle, no end. Nothing happened all through ; 
 and of the two leading motives, one of them is quite too weak, 
 and the other quite too unpleasant. And the writing ! Well, I 
 don't know what English is coming to, or criticism either, to 
 judge from the next morning's papers — except with the much- 
 abused old public, who, take my word, simply won't go. 
 
 What can one do but shrug ! Only a few days ago I saw 
 
 it placidly stated in a newspaper that no literary man in England 
 
 had tried stage-writing since the days of Sheridan. In Sheridan's 
 
 time they said the same ; but one wonders what Goldsmith, 
 
 Sheridan Knowles, Bulwer, Miss Mitford, Shirley P.rooks, Tom 
 
 Taylor, Reade, and a few other inferior people were if they were 
 
 not literary. Truly, it is amusing to hear Ffolliott, who does 
 
 not, in the literary sense, know a play from a palimpsest, publicly 
 
 deploring the want of authors equal to his genius. Oh ! the 
 
 29
 
 3 o THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 deadly ease with which a poet might retort on the tragedian, 
 whose ear can't tell him the difference between ten syllables 
 and twelve. But better shrug ! I wanted your support badly 
 that night, for I hadn't the courage of my convictions : got 
 talking to Ffolliott afterwards at the Roscius, and slurred my 
 notice. 
 
 I've wanted you too, abominably, in the Esther Vrintz affair. 
 Truly, for startling developments and human incongruities, every- 
 day life beats the most blood-and-thunder melodrama. Prepare 
 for a shock of astonishment — Vassal the millionaire is going to 
 marry Esther the actress ! But I will relate from the beginning, 
 as the storytellers say, for, like Elia's Bridget, " I must have a 
 story, well, ill, or indifferently told." Claudia duly came off: and, 
 by the way, your Brindisi telegram arrived in good time at the 
 theatre. The poor girl made the direst failure. We were all 
 wrong, and those readings of Camiola and the Dnchiss meant 
 nothing. I never witnessed a more pitiable exhibition ; and I 
 can tell you, it took a stringing up of nerve to go round after- 
 wards and convince her — she asked me straight — that she was 
 hopeless. I did my best to persuade her that she would do no 
 good on the stage. It was the honestest, and certainly I thought 
 then the kindest course, though I felt like the slayer of the one 
 ewe lamb. 
 
 For if you can't be great — why then, as Hamlet says, "the 
 rest is silence." 
 
 It's a queer thing that consuming passion for artistic success, 
 when, as in her case, it is unallied with the capacity. There 
 weren't two opinions among the critics about that — as you'll see 
 from the batch of papers I asked your mother to post to you — 
 no, nor on the part of the " Great Big Stupid " either. 
 
 I really believe that in our poor Esther, this passion has 
 swallowed up every other sentiment and feeling. She lived and 
 breathed on that hope, and when it was taken from her, the very 
 life seemed wrenched out too. She knows no more of the world 
 as it is, or of men as they are, than a year-old baby. 
 
 Gagsie, my dear, I'm glad it isn't you that Vassal fell in love 
 with. No doubt it is a fine thing to be the wife of a millionaire, 
 but will it be a fine thing to be the wife of Hector Vassal? 
 That's where the shoe of responsibility pinches. For it was 
 under my roof that he first met her : it's I who got her on the 
 stage : and it's I whose brutal plain-speaking gave her no choice 
 than to accept his offer; though, as a matter of fact, I don't 
 suppose there are a dozen unmarried, penniless women in London 
 who wouldn't jump at it. Anyhow, I find comfort in the reflec-
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 31 
 
 tion that it was not I who put it into Quintin Glaive's head to cast 
 her for the part of Claudia. 
 
 All the same, the thing worries me sorely. Why, I cannot 
 exactly explain — that is, according to the enormous importance 
 it assumes. I have never since the days of callow youth lost 
 sleep o' nights because of a girl who was no kin to me. For 
 there is not truly any obligation upon me to concern myself so 
 deeply over poor little Esther's future — no tie of consanguinity, 
 nor even the bond of a long friendship with her father. 
 
 I had not common patience with Vrintz's egotistic vapourings 
 about his music, which always ended in collapse, for sheer want 
 of pluck and faculty. I couldn't stand the way either that he 
 bullied his wife, who was a feckless creature, but I am sure had 
 stuff in her, if only he had allowed it to come out. Yes, there is 
 really no peason, except that you are fond of her, why I should 
 make myself miserable about the girl's marriage — at which, too, 
 as I have said, most Belgravian mothers would rejoice for their 
 daughters. But I do make myself miserable for all that. I 
 suppose it is the ineradicable folly of the male, who is bound to 
 run tilt against windmills for the sake of a pretty woman. In fact, 
 several times lately, when thinking of Esther as I walked home 
 from the Roscius, haunted by her appealing eyes, I've imagined 
 myself into the heroic mood — felt quite ready to encounter giants 
 in the shape of theatrical managers, and rather anxious to see a 
 few dragons lying round from whom one might rescue distressed 
 damsels with this valiant little arm and this good sword. 
 
 And the funny thing is, that after I've catalogued her eyes 
 and hair, and soft skin and nice red mouth all made for kisses, 
 I can't for the life of me analyse the damsel's particular charm, 
 which is distinctly independent of these things. I'm not sure that 
 it does not lie in the contrast between those magnificent brown 
 eyes with the red glint in them, out of which Melpomene illusively 
 gazes, and those helpless baby lips which are so unutterably 
 pathetic when they quiver in disappointment, and so fascinating 
 when they break out, which is seldom enough, in a downright 
 girl's laugh. Do you remember the gladsomeness of the child 
 that day when we picnicked at Burnham Beeches, and when I 
 told her that Glaive was pleased with her recitation ? 
 
 Well, poor Esther ! there's not much laugh in her nowadays : 
 and upon my soul, were I Vassal, and as confident as I ought to 
 be, if I were about to marry a girl of nineteen, that I was the right 
 sort of husband to teach her to play high jinks with life discreetly, 
 I'd want to shake all the Wertherian nonsense out of her first of all : 
 then hug her as soon as I'd done laughing at her tragedy airs, and
 
 32 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 finally put a lollipop into her mouth to keep her from scolding 
 me. But when I watch old Hector playing the elderly and opu- 
 lent lover — and he does it with quite becoming dignity — I some- 
 times wonder within myself, whether I ought not to pull out that 
 good sword from its- sheath, and make an onslaught upon the 
 dragon right down through its golden scales. 
 
 There are nasty stories as to his treatment of the first Mrs. 
 Vassal, and — well he hasn't been a patron of the drama for 
 nothing. Ask your husband, who has been a young man about 
 town, what they say of Hector Vassal in the clubs. We had a 
 little discussion on the subject, Greste and I — who am an unsus- 
 pecting devil, and loth to think ill of my friends — in connection 
 with that Richmond dinner, which Greste wanted me to refuse. 
 
 Do you recollect what a point Vassal made of our bringing 
 Esther? If I had had the least notion! . . . Well, one might 
 spend a lifetime in moaning because one has just not happened 
 to seize the psychological moment ! Anyhow, the affair is settled 
 now, beyond even a dramatic critic's jurisdiction. And I can but 
 maintain that, when everything is said and done, it is a fine thing 
 to be the wife of a millionaire. 
 
 Besides, old Hector is genuinely in love with the future Mrs. 
 Vassal, which is a very different thing from being in love with a 
 ballet-dancer. My first impression after the engagement took 
 place was — and you know the saying, "Always mistrust your 
 first impressions, for they are generally correct " — that if Esther 
 will only be human and spontaneous, and allow herself to enjoy 
 life without analysing her emotions, and forget that she ever had 
 artistic cravings and morbid sentimentalisms, she may reform the 
 rake and bring out whatever good there is in him — even Lucifer 
 was a fallen angel— and be, in short, as happy as most people 
 who are contented with the moon and don't cry for the sun as 
 well. But Esther is Esther, and I doubt if she'll e'er be graced 
 so far. 
 
 By the way, it has struck me as a curious exemplification of 
 the man's enormous egoism that he should cherish the Arcadian 
 dream of making poor little Esther Vrintz fall romantically in love 
 with him — at his age ! Or is it the overweening confidence in his 
 manly charms, induced in even the breast of a sexagenarian by 
 the possession of much gold and the flattery of a 
 woman ? . . . Who would credit old Vassal with romanticism ! 
 But there's no folly to beat old folly ! 
 
 The men at the Roscius are still agape, for nobody expected 
 Hector Vassal to play King Cophetua. For myself, apart from 
 romanticism, I should have guessed it as the very role he would
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 33 
 
 choose. He'd always want to be boss of the matrimonial show, 
 and that might not have been so easy, if he had gone in for a 
 Vere de Vere. Moreover, he is a bit of a cynic, and a millionaire 
 can afford to despise the question of pedigree. For there is really 
 nothing against our Esther except that she is the daughter of a 
 bandmaster, and was a super at the Regency. 
 
 Besides all that, too, Vassal has an object in view outside the 
 matter of personal attraction. I could have prophesied that before 
 the second year of his widowerhood he would be leading a new 
 bride to the hymeneal altar, for reasons apart from love. The 
 grievance of his life is that he has no son, and the property is 
 entailed and must go to Robert Vassal, which would be the 
 bitterest drop in old Hector's cup of death. 
 
 You know the story, don't you, how Hector Vassal was engaged 
 to a pretty girl, the wedding-day fixed, and everything ready, and 
 how his younger brother, who had been in India, turned up and 
 eloped with the lady. Robert Vassal, the Views man, is the son 
 of these two, and for this nephew, the offspring of his betrayers, 
 Hector Vassal is supposed to cherish an undying hate, quite 
 on the good old melodramatic lines. You see what a duty poor 
 Esther will owe to her husband and to the millions, and Heaven 
 help her if she fail in it. 
 
 Oddly enough, Robert Vassal and his uncle met in Glaive's 
 box at the Claudia performance. Robert was there for Views, 
 the dramatic critic — Fox, you know — being down with bronchitis. 
 Hector Vassal looked his nephew unflinchingly in the eyes, and 
 walked straight out of the box : it was deucedly uncomfortable 
 for the rest of us. I have been wondering whether that chance 
 meeting did anything to precipitate his matrimonial intentions. 
 
 Yes, he's a bit of a cynic. I'll tell you of a little episode that 
 occurred that Sunday. It was just after Esther had accepted him, 
 and perhaps that's the reason, when I come to think of it, why it 
 made an impression on me, for the matter itself is hardly worth 
 mentioning. I was not feeling easy about the girl. I had asked 
 her to come to supper, and had left the Roscius in the afternoon, 
 thinking I'd walk round to fetch her and cheer her up. I hadn't 
 gone half way when I met Vassal, who told me that he had been 
 calling on Esther, and that he wanted to speak to me about her, 
 and persuaded me to turn back with him to the club. As we were 
 passing down in the fog, a miserable starved woman stepped 
 from under a lamp-post, and whined for a shilling. Vassal looked 
 at her in a cold-blooded way. 
 
 "Why should I give you a shilling?" he asked. "You'll 
 only go and spend it in the gin-shop." 
 
 c
 
 34 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 " And what would you do ? " she said with a croaking laugh, 
 "if you were cold, and hungry, and wretched? Wouldn't you 
 go and drown it all in the gin-shop ? " 
 
 " Yes, I should," he answered. " You are a sensible woman, 
 and here's half-a-sovereign for you. Go and get drunk." 
 
 It was the tone in which he said it that jarred. And then a 
 few moments later, in the Roscius smoking-room, he was dis- 
 coursing, in his quiet deliberate way, upon the advantages to a 
 man of mature experience in wedding with youth, beauty, and 
 innocence, and of providing an interest for declining years in the 
 calm joys of domestic life. And then he informed me that he 
 had arranged to marry Esther Vrintz. 
 
 He has bought her — that's what it comes to. Bought her in 
 the hour of her abasement, when pluck failed her, and she could 
 not stand up against her beating. And I'm the wretch, the false 
 friend who should have lifted her, strengthened her, and helped 
 her to new courage for a fresh fight. And I just didn't. I hit 
 her instead when she was down. I be-rated her and trampled 
 upon her, and when, on the marriage-day, the parson asks me, 
 " Who giveth this woman to be married to this man ? " and I 
 answer, " I do," I shall feel no better than a slave-dealer handing 
 over a helpless maiden into captivity. 
 
 She doesn't love him — not in the very least. But then how 
 could a girl of twenty love a man who is at least thirty-eight years 
 older than herself. I should say that she is half afraid of him ; 
 half magnetised by him. Do you know, that as I watch them 
 together, I can't help being reminded of the snake cage in the 
 Zoo, and of the poor little rabbit mesmerised by the snake's eyes 
 and waiting for the deadly spring. It's a nightmarish fancy, but 
 I can't get over it ; she has just that pathetic, quivering, dazed 
 look. Yet I am bound to say that there's no fault to be found 
 with his manner to her ; and that when he makes his offerings, 
 it is rather with the suggestion of a knight doing homage to his 
 liege lady than of a sultan decorating his latest favourite. Fancy 
 poor little Esther Vrintz hung with the Vassal diamonds ! I 
 should like very much to know what Robert Vassal thinks of it 
 all ; but I hear he has taken his annual holiday from Views, and 
 is with his wife at Philotis. The marriage is to come off immedi- 
 ately,— quite a private affair. Esther is staying with us, at Vassal's 
 request ; he asked me that Sunday in the Roscius smoking-room 
 if I would father her for the occasion. Of course, I told him that 
 would have been my business under any circumstances. I got 
 her off her last week's engagement at the Regency, which was a 
 very simple arrangement with Carter-Blake, who was electrified
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 35 
 
 when I explained the position. A delicate system of indemnifi 
 cation for our trouble has been already inaugurated in the shape 
 of enormous hampers of game and garden produce from Grise- 
 wood and Tregarth, with the result that we have abandoned the 
 high teas of suburban economy, and so marked an advance has 
 taken place in the health of our weekly bills, that your mother 
 and I, like Francis Jeffrey and his bride, now trust in Providence, 
 and have hopes of dying before we get to prison or the work 
 house. For my own part, I confess that the last woodcock of 
 the season, with forced asparagus and strawberries to follow, are 
 not dainties to be sniffed at. Your mother and the bridegroom 
 expectant have fixed up the matter of the trousseau between them. 
 I, acting on Esther's behalf, have tried to work a marriage settle- 
 ment. But our millionaire demurs ; he prefers that his young wife 
 should not be monetarily independent of him. There speaks the 
 cynic again. No doubt on broad lines, Wisdom is justified of her 
 children. I don't like it, but am not in a position to press the 
 point. I thought it my duty to lay the matter before Esther, and 
 she absolutely forbade me ever again to allude to it. Oh, you 
 women ! what unpractical, ridiculous, divine creatures you are ! 
 
 Now I have delivered myself, and leave your mother to give 
 you all other news, social and domestic. . . .
 
 BOOK III 
 
 " I only knoiv myself as a human entity ; the scene, 
 so to speak, of thoughts and affections ; and am sensible 
 of a certain doubleness, by ivhich I can stand as remote 
 from myself as from another. Hoive-oer intense my 
 experience, I am conscious of the presence and criti- 
 cism of a part of me ivhich, as it ivere, is not a part 
 of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but 
 taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. 
 When the play, it may be the tragedy of life, is over, 
 the spectator goes his ivay. It ivas a kind of fiction , 
 a luork of the imagination only as fir as he ivas 
 concerned. "
 
 WRITTEN From the years when I was quite a little girl, I 
 
 BY used to have at odd times a strange, starved, 
 
 ESTHER excited feeling which made me want to say poetry, 
 VASSAL : to act some great emotion, to listen to grand 
 music, or else to write — to write out my very 
 soul. And the poetry, the acting, the music — when I could 
 get to the- Catholic Church at Philotis and hear the organ — or 
 the writing, down of my crude passionate fancies, would take 
 away the restless gnawed sensation, and I would feel as though 
 I had eaten soul-food and were filled and satisfied. 
 
 But the satisfaction was never for very long. Always, the 
 soul-craving would come back ; and in the old days at Philotis, 
 when Father was sick, gloomy, and estranged, I don't think I 
 could have borne my loneliness but for the dream-life I managed 
 to create for myself side by side with everyday existence. I used 
 to intoxicate myself with all kinds of glorious imaginings about 
 the future, when I should have become a great actress ; and as 
 I wandered among the pine woods above El-Meriem, the wind 
 through the pine branches, the gurgling of hill torrents, and the 
 murmurous break of the sea, seemed all part of the dream, and 
 I would feel impelled to scribble down my fancies in those flimsy- 
 leaved copybooks with chequered rulings that I bought at the 
 French stationer's in the Square Casphar, on afternoons when 
 Father led the band which played there twice a week. 
 
 I have been looking over those old copybooks, and there are 
 bits in them which set me weeping scalding tears of sheer pity 
 for that lonely, emotional, idealistic child, who was such a strange 
 mixture of earth and heaven. But there's nothing in the pages 
 that fits into place here. Journals are such ghosts of things, they 
 tell so little and suggest so much. 
 
 So I'll just go on autobiographically, culling from the old 
 notes here and there. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 How curious it is, that flashing conviction one gets at moments 
 — through the word, the look, the movement, the glancing pre- 
 sent — of a link with some far distant past, gone before it is even 
 
 39
 
 4o THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 recognised. Not so much is it the sense of having lived this very 
 thing before, which I have heard people say is what they feel — 
 as an overpowering consciousness of causes dating ages back, 
 and of mystic relation with the forces shaping destiny. This 
 seems a grand way of putting what is I believe a common enough 
 experience, but that was how it seemed to me ; and one day its 
 indescribable vividness startled me into the vain effort to break 
 off my engagement with Mr. Vassal. 
 
 He had been talking in a rather more intimate manner than 
 usual about his first marriage, and the embittering effect it had 
 exercised upon his life. Certainly the union had not taken place 
 under auspicious conditions. The girl to whom he had been 
 engaged, and whom he truly loved, had been false to him, and 
 had run away with his younger brother a day or two before that 
 fixed for the wedding. In a fit of rage and wounded pride, Mr. 
 Vassal owned, he had almost at once married another woman. 
 " A Delmar," he said, as though that explained everything. I 
 had asked Mr. Leete before about the Delmars, and he told me 
 they were a great, old, and very poor Catholic family, with a 
 streak of eccentricity running through them; and that he 'had 
 always heard of the first Mrs. Vassal — she had been dead barely 
 two years — as a cold, proud, bigoted, and most unhappy woman. 
 He looked at me earnestly when he said the words " most un- 
 happy " ; and I wondered if he could be wishing to put me on 
 my guard ; but it did not seem loyal to Mr. Vassal, who was to 
 be my husband, and was very good to me, to question a third 
 person about his private affairs. Mr. Vassal himself I should 
 never have dared to question. Besides, what did it matter now 
 that I had chosen my fate? Only, Mr. Leete's manner gave 
 me pause ; and I had at the moment a sort of foretaste of 
 that dreadful feeling which came over me while Mr. Vassal was 
 talking. 
 
 There was nothing to account for it in his words or look, 
 except indeed that suggestion of masked fierceness which struck 
 unpleasantly at times, and may have caused the shrinking sensa- 
 tion when he came near me, which I could not help, and for 
 which I blamed myself. For I have often thought since with 
 surprise how particularly kind and gentle Mr. Vassal was during 
 the short period of our engagement. 
 
 He had been speaking of the grief his childlessness was to 
 him, and how bitter the thought that his property would even- 
 tually enrich the son of his greatest enemy — the man whose 
 treachery had practically destroyed the best years of his life. 
 
 " It turned me into a hard materialist and made me despise
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 41 
 
 women," he said. " I'm not referring to the late Mrs. Vassal, 
 whose greatest fault was that she bored me. And then one 
 couldn't stand the house being filled with priests, and it seemed 
 simplest to leave her, as much as regard for appearances allowed, 
 to enjoy their society undisturbed. I don't excuse myself," he 
 went on ; " no doubt it was all very sad and very bad, but the 
 blame rests on the man and woman who broke my faith in human 
 nature and poisoned all my best impulses. 
 
 " For I'm not the callous pleasure-seeker the world takes me 
 for," he went on. " Let a real emotion grip me, and the whole 
 strength of my nature becomes concentrated upon it. I've loved 
 well ; I've hated well. The one thing means the other ; it is 
 merely a question of polarity. Now you know, dearest," and he 
 kissed my hand as he spoke, " the priceless boon I am taking 
 from you.' It is you who are giving me back my youth, and 
 re-making what is left of my life. You restore the happy hopes 
 those two robbed me of — the hope of home, of dear companion- 
 ship, of a son to sit in my place and supplant the son of my 
 enemy." 
 
 His voice dropped as he said the last words, and he seemed 
 himself to become conscious of the note of implacable aversion 
 in it, and to be anxious to remove its impression. He got up 
 abruptly, and his manner changed and became restrained as 
 usual. 
 
 " There ! I've given you what few people have ever had, a 
 glimpse of my true self, and perhaps I haven't raised my character 
 in your estimation. But remember what I said. Love and hate 
 are convertible terms, and you are the angel who is to work the 
 miracle of transmutation." 
 
 Presently he took leave of me, and in a dazed way I returned 
 the good-bye, for it was then that the supernatural hand seemed 
 laid upon me, and that the warning flash of past and foreknow- 
 ledge filled me with sudden fear. I cried out as he was leaving 
 the room, hardly knowing what I said — 
 
 " I can't do it ! Oh, I can't do it." 
 
 He came back at once, standing over me, tall and strong. 
 
 '^Vhat is it that you can't do?" he asked. 
 
 "I can't marry you. Oh, don't make me; it would be of 
 no use." 
 
 " Why would it be of no use ? " 
 
 He spoke quietly, even tenderly, but at my resistance a flame 
 leaped into his face changing its whole expression ; and as he 
 caught my hands in his firm soft grasp I had the feeling, deepened 
 in after years, of a force in him which, if there ever came to be a
 
 4 2 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 struggle between us, would paralyse me into cowed submission. 
 I fought against it now in desperate jerks. 
 
 " Because I shouldn't be anything that you want. . . . I'm 
 frightened of what may come of it. ... I don't love you." 
 
 " I know that," he said ; " but I mean to make you love me." 
 
 And I seem to see the gleam in his eyes, which my fancy 
 likens to that in the eyes of some fierce pinioned thing ; and 
 again I feel the shudder. . . . Why did I not know that the 
 shudder which ran through me then at his caress was a sign 
 from God's Servers warning me against marrying Hector Vassal ? 
 
 For truly I believe that at each of life's crossroads, God's 
 Servers stand ready to point out the better way. But we, like 
 dumb beasts, which have not yet attained man's higher faculties, 
 have still to reach unto soul-sight and soul-hearing; and until 
 through love and pain our spiritual senses have been awakened, 
 we may not see the arresting hand nor understand the guiding 
 voice. I have learned that it is good to love, that it is good to 
 suffer, and that, as it is written, " Even when the gates of prayer 
 are shut in heaven, those of tears are open." 
 
 . • • • • • • 
 
 I can't write about those days before my marriage. They say 
 that in some Eastern countries the girl-brides are given haschisch, 
 and that is how it seems to have been with me : for everything is 
 confused and phantasmagoric as in an opium dream, the inner 
 blending unreally with the outward, while through it all, ever 
 vividly present, the magnified and distorted image of Mr. Vassal 
 shows like some unnatural representation upon a shadow-sheet. 
 Through all, too, there comes back upon me the sense of im- 
 potent revolt and of growing dread. Once I planned to run 
 away, but my penniless condition made that impossible, and I 
 distrusted my own impulses. Then I wrote a letter to Mr. 
 Vassal, a pitifully foolish outpouring of my heart, beseeching at 
 least for delay. That too was but the helpless beating of a 
 caged bird against the bars. The jailor brought sugar and 
 stroked the bird's plumage, but the cage remained close shut. 
 He said the letter was sweet and maidenly, that he loved me all 
 the more because of it. Then he took the sheets out of his 
 breast-pocket and burned them in my presence, bidding me 
 forget they had been written. He said that once I was his wife, 
 once I had plunged into the irrevocable — the phrase struck chill — 
 I should smile at my girlish tremors and be glad in the happy 
 reality which he would not let me renounce. 
 
 Had Agatha Greste been near, I think I could have told her 
 everything, and she being married and loving her husband, would
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 43 
 
 have understood, and would have helped me to understand. . But 
 Agatha was far away in Kandy, and there was nobody else. How 
 could I confide in Mrs. Leete, who was never tired of praising 
 Mr. Vassal and of congratulating me upon my good fortune ? 
 
 If only the human drama could be divided like a stage-play 
 into acts with dead blanks between ! If the curtain might have 
 fallen when the marriage ceremony was over, and we stood wait- 
 ing for a few moments on the church steps, the central figures, as 
 it were, of a closing tableau ! 
 
 Alas ! in life there are no drop scenes. 
 
 It was strange that this day, too, snow should be falling. 
 Thick and fast the flakes drove, starting painful thrills of associa- 
 tion. There rushed into my memory that first picture standing 
 out from the mists of childhood, of my mother's coffin borne 
 through the. door into the great white rain. And then a later 
 picture of snow-covered hills and stone pines painted on a blue 
 sky, and the ground white-flecked in the shadow of tombstones, 
 where they were laying Father to rest. . . . And then, more 
 startlingly distinct, the scene outside the theatre and the group 
 of men in the portico. And I felt once more the icy chill and 
 the stab at my heart as the man of the profile had spoken the 
 words of destiny. . . . "She has mistaken her vocation." . . . 
 
 Mr. Vassal's voice awoke me. 
 
 " My dearest, you are shivering with cold. Why don't they 
 come up at once?" and he spoke authoritatively to the servant 
 who was signalling the carriage. He hurried me down to it. 
 The leave-takings had been done ; he had arranged everything. 
 We were to drive straight to the train, and there was to be no 
 breakfast. Mrs. Leete had kissed me in the vestry, and had cried, 
 just as she had cried at Agatha's wedding. She wore the same 
 dress, too ; but how different my wedding was from Agatha's ! 
 Mr. Leete had looked at me with a strange expression in his eyes 
 as he had mumbled a blessing from under his big moustache. 
 Now he pressed heavily forward and gripped my hand as Mr. 
 Vassal led me to the brougham. 
 
 "God bless you, Esther," he said again, and added, "Take 
 care of her, Vassal ; remember she is only a child." 
 
 " It's hardly necessary to give me that injunction," said Mr. 
 Vassal with a low laugh, which vibrated unreally. But everything 
 was unreal, though so curiously vivid, that day. Mr. Vassal 
 paused to express in rather formal but elaborate terms his grati- 
 tude to Mr. and Mrs. Leete for their "great kindness"; and 
 taking his seat beside me gave the order to drive on.
 
 44 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 Then as he leaned back, wrapped in his sable-lined coat, it 
 seemed to me that his form dilated with pride of possession, and 
 it was my master who took my hand — my master claiming the 
 thing he had bought. " Mine now," he said ; " mine to have and 
 to hold and to cherish ! Mine till death parts us ! " 
 
 By-and-bye we were speeding along alone together. Our com- 
 partment had been specially reserved, and Mr. Vassal's servants 
 had laid out furs and newspapers and different luxuries of travel- 
 ling, including a most dainty luncheon. That broke the first 
 strangeness. Mr. Vassal waited on me, and made me drink cham- 
 pagne and eat, remarking what a much better arrangement this 
 was than the wedding-breakfast Mrs. Leete had been anxious to 
 provide in St. John's Wood. 
 
 " It is a relief to get out of those surroundings," he said. 
 " Kind, good people ! I must be for ever grateful to them ; but 
 of course one prefers his own atmosphere." 
 
 And indeed he seemed now to have a different air, more s*elf- 
 assured and still more Roman-emperor-like than in the Leetes' 
 little house, where he had adapted himself with a grand urbanity 
 to their simple ways, but had clearly conveyed that they were un- 
 accustomed and uncongenial. This of course had not struck me 
 so much there as now that I saw him with obsequious servants 
 waiting his commands, and, as he said, in his own atmosphere. 
 I realised what a personage had married me. 
 
 At the first stopping-place they came and took away the lun- 
 cheon, and got Mr. Vassal something he wanted, and then we two 
 were left to ourselves. 
 
 • • • • • « • 
 
 Alone together, as the train rushed through the falling snow 
 and the darkling afternoon . . . alone together, my master and I — 
 husband and wife, bound to each other so long as we both should 
 live ! 
 
 And the actualities of marriage came for the first time close to 
 me, looming shapeless but overwhelming. My eyes were drawn 
 to my master above the furs he had put round me, and I found 
 his eyes fixed upon my face with that look in them I had seen 
 before. 
 
 At my glance he moved abruptly to my side. 
 
 My left hand was lying bare in my lap, with my new wedding- 
 ring upon its third finger. He kissed my hand, and kissed the 
 ring, and played with the ring — my master ! 
 
 "A little loose," he said. "I thought of that yesterday, and 
 chose a guard." It was a spring serpent in diamonds with ruby 
 eyes, that coiled twice round my finger. . . .
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 45 
 
 And my master's eyes seemed to me like the snake's eyes, . . . 
 or like those of a wild beast lying in wait for its prey. . . . And 
 my master's encircling arms were like the snake's coils. 
 
 Rushing on . . . rushing on ! . . . And the gusts of snow blurring 
 everything — blurring the gaunt trees, the red lights, the ghostly 
 houses . . . blurring thought . . . blurring sensation. 
 
 Oh, that pitiless snow ! Oh, that veiled, distant moon ! 
 
 Rushing on still. Now in my master's brougham, drawn by 
 my master's horses. Over the noiseless snow, past pale hedges, 
 by sodden fens and sedgy pools. Now through lodge gates and 
 down an avenue of eldritch oaks and elms, with the wind making 
 a dismal groaning among their knotted limbs. 
 
 There was a little oratory leading out of the sitting-room next 
 my bed-chamber. It had a window to the east, with an altar 
 below, and on the altar an ivory Christ. 
 
 In the wintry dawn upon the morrow of my marriage-day I 
 crawled to the foot of the altar. And the frozen sun, as it broke 
 against the east window, shed a dimmed glory upon the crucified 
 Christ, but no ray of divine pity pierced the blackness of my 
 despairing soul.
 
 BOOK IV 
 
 " Words are the physicians of a distempered mind."
 
 WRITTEN I am asked to fill up the gap in Mrs. Vassal's story, 
 SEVEN and to tell of the circumstances which brought us 
 
 YEARS into closer relation. 
 
 LATER It was in the December of '72 that I was 
 
 BY suddenly summoned to Grisewood Castle to see 
 
 DOCTOR its mistress, who was dangerously ill. 
 QUINTIN- I had not hitherto been on terms of intimacy 
 
 GLAIVE :, with the Vassals, though not long before, Mrs. 
 Vassal had consulted me as to the state of her 
 lungs, of which I had not thought favourably. I had also 
 found her nerves overwrought, and her general condition un- 
 satisfactory. Besides this professional intercourse, I had met 
 her casually from time to time at formal entertainments in 
 London : and from the occasion of my first meeting with her, 
 in especial after her marriage, she had inspired me with the 
 deepest interest. This was not only because of my connection 
 as the author of Claudia, with her trial and failure in the Regency 
 Theatre, but the circumstances of her marriage had aroused both 
 my curiosity and compassion, Mr. Vassal being a man of whom 
 I had little reason to think highly. Then, too, the woman herself 
 appealed as no other woman has ever done to my sensibilities, 
 alike of man, artist, and doctor. I don't know whether I am 
 out of the common in this respect. Certainly, I have wondered 
 much that Mrs. Vassal did not, during her London career, excite 
 more general admiration. It may have been that she was not 
 a prominent figure in society, at any rate at that time, so that 
 beauties of a far inferior order, but with greater claim to notoriety, 
 were quoted before her. Or it may have been that she was of 
 that subtly refined type which impresses only the less common- 
 place order of man. In any case, she was to my thinking — and 
 perhaps I am not altogether commonplace — exceptionally lovely, 
 with her small flower-like head, her wonderful brown eyes, delicate 
 aquiline features, and that curious exotic charm so noticeable 
 among the Jewesses of Philotis — the charm which is inseparable, 
 I fancy, from some Eastern strain of parentage — that subtle blend- 
 ing of the fate-doomed immortal with the mutable feminine. So 
 
 49 D
 
 5o THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 that it is as though the wing of trouble overshadowed a lovely 
 maiden's head : as though the hymn of the Furies echoed faintly 
 in certain vibrant modulations of a girlish voice : as though the 
 terrible inspiration of a Cassandra shone from out eyes meant 
 to languish in tender love-glances. 
 
 In truth, what struck me most in her was that grievous 
 suggestion of arrested development, as of some odorous tropical 
 blossom blighted before it could open and shed forth its perfume : 
 or of a rich stream issuing from a fount of rare virtue, and turned 
 to ice near its source by the touch of untimely winter. For my 
 experience of Esther Vrintz, the actress, slight as it had been, made 
 me certain that her emotional nature was once vividly alive, and 
 that she had cherished an intense ambition. This chill petrifac- 
 tion of a woman was not the girl I remembered. Her very voice 
 had changed in timbre, had lost those flute-like notes so indicative 
 of passionate feeling, which had greatly influenced me in giving 
 her the part of Claudia. Thus I found myself wondering on 
 every occasion that we met, what had so altered her. Though 
 she had failed artistically, she had certainly made a success from 
 the mundane point of view ; there was round her as much 
 of pomp and paraphernalia as would have made most women 
 happy, and which, even in the case of a nature above the ordinary, 
 might have proved a basis of reconcilement with conjugal in- 
 felicities. Might not hers be, therefore, I asked myself, one of 
 those other-worldly temperaments to which marriage must repre- 
 sent either heaven or hell — as her own favourite heroine, the 
 Duchess o/Maifi, puts it : and life under certain moral conditions, 
 an unendurable degradation ? Alas ! through what Valley of 
 Humiliation could she have passed to bring that look of dumb 
 misery into her eyes, and to quench all the hope and joy that 
 by right of youth were hers ? I longed inexpressibly for her 
 confidence, but how could I think that she would ever reveal 
 to me the pain she kept sedulously hidden from the world ? Yet, 
 though she told me nothing of her inner feelings, it is not im- 
 possible to read some few scattered pages of a life that interests 
 one, even though it be written in a dead language hidden from 
 the world ? 
 
 I had watched her progress as far as my limited opportunities 
 would allow, and had seen that she made no success in London. 
 No doubt her lowly origin was against her, and she was too 
 deficient in social ambition, too unused to fashionable ways, too 
 self-absorbed and timid, and worse than all, too unhappy, to 
 shine either as guest or hostess. I could not judge of how she 
 got on among her neighbours at Grisewood — probably ill enough
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 51 
 
 — but in London, those great houses I knew, mostly kept their 
 doors closed, or opened them to her doubtfully : and at the few 
 parties at which I met her, she seemed morbidly shy, or else in 
 a kind of dream, and had a cowed dog-like way of glancing at 
 her husband, as if waiting for a cue ; which was unpleasantly 
 suggestive, though I must admit that Mr. Vassal's ornate courtesy 
 in public showed no justification for the terror and repulsion 
 some instinct made me divine in his wife. 
 
 This was during the season or two following their marriage 
 when as I said the Vassals did not go out a great deal, and not at 
 all into literary or Bohemian society, which would account for 
 what has always puzzled me a little, the fact of Mrs. Vassal never 
 having been Drought into social contact with Robert Vassal, her 
 husband's nephew and heir, also now a member of the young 
 Tory party, and coming into some small prominence in Parlia- 
 ment. Here, too, she had failed entirely in what was expected 
 of her, there having been no sign of a son to inherit Grisewood 
 and Tregarth. I felt sure that the secret canker gnawed, and 
 was probably, I thought, the cause of all the wretchedness. 
 
 Grisewood Castle, the House of Bondage, as later I some- 
 times called it, is an imposing, many-turreted edifice, approached 
 by a long avenue of gnarled and ancient trees, and set among 
 venerable cedars. A majestic but dreary abode, and, from its 
 low-lying situation, not the healthiest that could have been chosen 
 for one so frail of physique as Mrs. Vassal. From its sombre 
 look, I could well have imagined it a " house possessed with 
 ills " : and the vague legend hanging round it, of a malediction 
 upon the later Vassal branch, which had somehow, it was sup- 
 posed, not altogether fairly, dispossessed the rightful stock, lent 
 itself to the sinister effect of the castle exterior on this bleak 
 evening of my first arrival there. 
 
 The great place was full of servants, but there was no one else 
 to give any attention to the sick woman, if one might except 
 the local doctor. I learned that he, in conjunction with Mr. 
 Wargrave, the rector — Mrs.Wargrave was away — and Mrs. Vassal's 
 maid had decided upon telegraphing for me. Mr. Vassal, they 
 told me, had started on a yachting trip just immediately before 
 his wife had been taken ill. 
 
 Never did there seem a being so forlorn as this mistress of a 
 grand castle and of a millionaire's fortune. 
 
 I found her condition greatly aggravated, if not mainly caused, 
 by a severe mental shock she had evidently sustained. I did not 
 discover the precise nature of the shock, but from certain facts, 
 which in the exercise of my profession had come previously to
 
 52 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 my knowledge, and from her utterances in delirium, I concluded 
 that it was caused by some painful revelation concerning her 
 husband. 
 
 I spent the greater part of the night by her bedside, and 
 fragments of her wandering talk detach themselves, and stand 
 ineffaceably written on my memory. Pitiful babble, in which 
 broken bits of her life pieced themselves incongruously, and gave 
 me the clue, for which I had once wished, to her secret misery. 
 
 She seemed to recognise me. 
 
 ..." Why do you come here ? . . . No, no. I don't want 
 you to do anything. Let me alone. . . . Listen ! What's that ? 
 . . . Au — thor! . . . Au — thor!" Her voice pitched itself to a 
 quavering semblance of the hoarse shout from pit and gallery at a 
 first-night. . . . "Don't you hear? . . . Why don't you take your 
 call ? . . . They are not going to hiss you. . . . Ah ! " She shrieked 
 wildly, " Save me . . . save me. . . . There . . . It's going to spring. 
 . . . Oh, for God's sake, keep it away. . . . Down by the curtain 
 there — a long black snake. . . . And there's another ! . . . And 
 here ! Oh ! On my finger ! . . . See its eyes — its cruel glittering 
 eyes. . . . Take it away — take it away. . . ." 
 
 She tore the ring from her finger and flung it on the floor. 
 " Bury it in the snow. . . . Oh, fall thicker, thicker . . . faster, 
 faster. . . . Cover it. . . . Hide me from him. . . . Oh, don't let him 
 come — don't let him come. . . ." 
 
 She had cowered back into a corner of the bed panting with 
 terror, and then she uttered a plaintive moan. 
 
 " It's no use . . . it's such a difficult part. . . . Oh I can't do 
 it. . . . No, that goes flat ; I know it does. . . . Music ! . . . They've 
 missed the cue. . . . ' Claudia, is this death ? ' . . . Death ? . . . Oh, 
 word — word. . . . Thy heaven's doors a>c my hell-gates. . . . That's 
 not it. . . . Why don't they play up ? . . . How can I remember 
 without the music ? . . . " 
 
 " ' How horrid in the sight of God 
 Are those grey locks which seek 
 Fictitious youth ! How horrid those old eyes, 
 All wrinkled round. . . . '" 
 
 " For I mistook my vocation, you understand." 
 
 The wide uncomprehending eyes gazed solemnly into my face. 
 
 " And you know, when you feel the despair of absolute in- 
 competence, there's nothing for it but to make a vow before the 
 altar. ..." 
 
 Then again a fit of shuddering, and the voice sinking to a 
 horror-stricken whisper.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 53 
 
 "The snake's eyes shining through the snow. . . . Oh, save 
 me ! . . . Don't let him touch me ! . . . I hate him. . . . Oh, God ! 
 how I hate him ! . . . And all the time to be so wicked ! Shame 
 . . . Shame ! Oh, it's horrible. . . . I was a young girl too once. 
 . . . Destroyed ... all destroyed. . . . And he laughs ! He can 
 laugh ! . . . Devil's laughter ! . . . All one pollution . . . The cue — 
 Claudia's cue. . . . No, that's something else. . . . Word ? . . . Oh, 
 why won't they give the cue ? . . . 
 
 ..." There's the doctor . . . Pah ! how badly you smell . . . 
 you doctors and your drugs. . . . And the long glittering serpents 
 . . . and the poor women . . . and the wretched — wretched girls ! 
 ... I know I must die. It has bitten my arm. . . . Oh, how you 
 stare ! . . . No, I won't drink ; it's poison. ... I must die. . . . And 
 the snow \vill hide me away and cover me up. ... I shall never 
 make an actress — that's what he said; and there's nothing left 
 for me to do. ... It was he who brought the snake. . . . But I'll 
 pray . . . I'll pray at the altar. . . . The Christ is there. . . . There 
 must be a God who will punish wicked men. . . . He laughs — 
 they're all laughing. . . . That's hissing. . . . Don't you see the 
 gallery is full of snakes. ... I tell you I will be great. . . . And I 
 will laugh too . . . laugh . . . laugh. ..." 
 
 The hollow peal rang out like a ghost's merriment. And so 
 all through the night till the morphia I injected began to take 
 effect, and dawn brought an interval of unconsciousness. 
 
 It was some time after that — when she was convalescent — 
 that I had a talk with her, which, though I could hardly then 
 have imagined it, materially influenced her life. 
 
 I had been called down a second and third time — now by 
 Mr. Vassal, who had returned to Grisewood on being informed of 
 his wife's illness, and had shown all due concern in regard to its 
 progress. There was nothing in his manner, suave, deliberate 
 and self-contained as usual, to confirm my suspicion of a har- 
 rowing scene before his departure. He received my remarks 
 upon the case with becoming solicitude, but when I alluded to 
 the origin of Mrs. Vassal's attack, and spoke of the necessity for 
 guarding against a recurrence of mental trouble, he looked me 
 straight in the face with his cold prominent eyes, and said without 
 any sign of discomposure, "That is perhaps less easy than might 
 be supposed. You are a man of the world, Dr. Glaive, and you 
 must know that it is not always possible to wrap one's women- 
 kind in moral cotton-wool. And your professional experience of 
 the neurotic temperament must no doubt have shown you that a 
 sudden worry is apt to produce an effect quite disproportionate to 
 the cause."
 
 56 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 She winced as at a painful recollection, and her imploring 
 eyes, with no restraint in them now, gazed into mine, while a 
 sudden flush reddened her pale cheek. 
 
 " There's something I wanted to ask you," she began falter- 
 ing. " I couldn't ask Mr. Sergison. ... I was delirious, wasn't 
 I ? ... I must have said things." . . . 
 
 The red went out of her face, and her voice sank to a whisper. 
 
 " How could I bear it if I had let people know. There was 
 the nurse, too, you see. . . . How could I bear the spying and 
 whispering and prying? Can't you understand how dreadful it 
 would be ? . . . Tell me — not anything you can help — which it 
 would hurt me to speak about. ... I shall know — For you are 
 wrong — It is so much better not to speak of some kinds of 
 trouble. But tell me if I said " 
 
 " Nothing, believe me, that you need distress yourself about. 
 Your wanderings were all disjointed and incoherent : and the first 
 night, when you were most delirious, the nurse hadn't come : 
 and I was in the house, and sat up with you. And surely I 
 needn't tell you, that whatever a doctor might learn in that way, 
 would be as sacred as though it had been spoken to a priest in 
 the confessional." 
 
 An expression of relief crossed her face, and the surface agita- 
 tion calmed, though I could feel that it was still surging beneath. 
 
 " Thank you," she said : " if people don't know, that's all that 
 matters." 
 
 She looked away from me into vacancy, and closed her lips 
 tightly, resolved, apparently, to say no more. I could not bear 
 to watch her, and got up and walked to the window, standing 
 there, and noting unconsciously the funereal plumes of the great 
 cedars as the wind swayed them, and trying to compose myself 
 into the attitude of the physician. But this was difficult. Pre- 
 sently I came back to her and spoke impetuously. 
 
 "You said that was all which mattered — people knowing. 
 There's everything else to matter. Your own life, and whether 
 it mightn't be best for you to face the thing — whatever it is, out 
 straight, and find a means of escape. For your trouble will 
 probably kill you if you can't rouse yourself and rise above it." 
 
 She shuddered again at the thought, I supposed, of laying 
 bare her sorrows. 
 
 " Oh, no, no : don't speak of it. How could I escape ? . . . 
 There's nothing I could do." 
 
 She would not even admit the suggestion of practical counsel, 
 and my own inability to give it was certain. For that, a clear 
 comprehension of the facts was necessary. I could only ask if
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 57 
 
 she had no man-relation or close woman-friend in whom she 
 might, as the first step, confide fully. 
 
 " I haven't a relation in the world," she answered. " And 
 as for a woman-friend, I can't think of one closer than Mione 
 Arathoon." And she gave a dreary little laugh, which I half 
 echoed, for Mrs. Audley Arathoon did not then seem the person 
 one would cast for that part. 
 
 " Let us talk of something else," said Mrs. Vassal, resuming 
 her forced quietude. " I want to know if I shall live to be old — I 
 mean in the ordinary course of events." 
 
 " No, you will not live to be old if you go on spending your 
 winters here. How many have you spent already ? " 
 
 " I have been married seven years." 
 
 " And how old are you ? " 
 
 "Twenfy-seven." 
 
 "Listen," I said, "I am going to lecture you, and you must 
 bear with me patiently." 
 
 Then I made some fatuous exposition of the duty of the 
 physician in the matter of plain speaking. 
 
 " There's no reason why you should die. You have youth 
 and vitality, and all the material advantages. If you could find 
 a real interest which would prevent your mind from fretting away 
 your body, also if you could winter out of England, you would 
 gradually get quite well. Now I want you to make some engross- 
 ing work for yourself." 
 
 "That's the worst of being rich," she answered, smiling 
 faintly. "There's no work one is obliged to do." 
 
 " Surely," I said, " the possession of riches implies respon- 
 sibility : " and was again angry with myself for seeming a prig. 
 
 " Yes, I know what you mean. But you see I wasn't built 
 that way. How can you expect a poor girl, who was the daughter 
 of the bandmaster at Philotis, and lived on twenty-five shillings 
 a week in a Bloomsbury lodging, to play the part of an English 
 county lady properly. I've tried it, and have made a disgraceful 
 failure — almost as bad as the Claudia failure. Ah ! " she ex- 
 claimed, in an outburst of emotion, "Looking back to that perform- 
 ance at the Regency makes me feel bitter against you, Ur. Glaive. 
 for," she added, in answer to my expostulatory ejaculation, "don't 
 you see that if you hadn't put me into Claudia, we shouldn't be 
 sitting here now, talking over my ruined life?" 
 
 That was the fear which for a long time had haunted me. I 
 told her this, saying, "At least I can put forward' the odd claim 
 upon your confidence that I have been the means of destroying 
 your career."
 
 58 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 " My career ! " she replied in a tone of melancholy derision : 
 " that is such a big word, and so inappropriate. For you know 
 as well as I know in my heart, that I should have failed just the 
 same whenever the test came. I hadn't got in me the capacity to 
 succeed : and it's absurd and wrong to reproach you. Besides, 
 it wasn't you who changed my life for me." Her voice vibrated 
 in deeper cadences, as though she were thrilled by some acute 
 recollection. " I might have gone on. and failed again and again, 
 if it had not been for something I heard by accident that day — 
 the opinion of another person, which decided me. . . . No, you 
 are not responsible. And perhaps I should not feel bitterness, 
 but gratitude towards you. Yet," she exclaimed, "there's never a 
 day nor a night in which I don't regret that baulked career. To 
 look back upon what I was then — upon the enthusiasm, the 
 ambition, the belief in beautiful things — it's like looking back 
 through midnight murk to the glory of yesterday's sunrise." 
 
 She had leaned forward from her reclining posture, her chin 
 raised a little, her eyes shining and absent. Now she drew back 
 in an embarrassed manner, as though half ashamed of her poetical 
 fervour. 
 
 "It's stupid, isn't it, to talk like that? I don't know what 
 makes me have the impulse to tell you things. In all these seven 
 years I've never spoken out to any one." 
 
 Moved to the quick by that struggling appeal for encourage- 
 ment even against herself which I had discerned in her jerky 
 manner and the painful questioning in her fixed gaze, I implored 
 her to trust me, to give herself outlet for once, and to let me be 
 her safety-valve. She listened to my reasonings and entreaties 
 with the same dry shining look in her eyes and with a tremulous 
 working of her features. 
 
 When I had ended, there was silence for a few moments, in 
 which the very air seemed heavy with restrained emotion. Then 
 she cried suddenly and passionately — 
 
 "Well, if you think it best. . . . You shall be my safety- 
 valve. I will try to speak out, and after to-day I will be silent 
 and endure my lot. Perhaps talking to you might help me a 
 little. Doctors ought to understand something about people's 
 dreadful thoughts and feelings, or else what use are they ? . . . 
 But other people's couldn't be as bad as mine ! . . . The utter 
 blackness and desolation ! And your body doing everyday things 
 . . . and then suddenly in the midst of them the ghastly horror 
 seizing you. ... A supernatural kind of horror that would drive 
 one mad if it lasted. ... I can't put it into words ... as if your 
 soul were separated — alone — shivering in awful space. ..."
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 59 
 
 She shivered now, and went quavering on with the morbid 
 egotism peculiar to such cases as hers, only that I could never 
 bring myself to regard her quite as a "case." 
 
 It seemed to calm her when I explained that this sense of 
 shadowy horror was a symptom familiar enough to the nerve 
 specialist ; and as I discoursed upon physiological and psycho- 
 logical connections, and described certain other sensations to 
 which she had not referred, but which she recognised as part of 
 her condition, she smiled gratefully, as though I had given her a 
 clue through the mental labyrinth in which she wandered. 
 
 Now that the reserve was broken, she seemed even to have a 
 difficulty in controlling the flow of self-revelation, sometimes re- 
 peating herself, and continually showing by the pucker in her 
 brow and the clouded expression of her eyes how great had been 
 the strain under which she had previously walked the ways of 
 ordinary life. I let her talk on, only now and then interrupting 
 her with a word of sympathy and reassurance. 
 
 "... Yes, it is all very well to say that I should feel diffe- 
 rently if my nerves and brain were properly nourished . . . the 
 neurotic temperament — that's what you doctors call it. . . . But 
 you know it is not only that. ... It is that I am — what I am ; 
 that my life is what it must be. ... I have made it so and can't 
 alter it. . . . No, it can't be altered. Do you think I haven't 
 thought it all out ? . . . There's no use in worrying over that. . . . 
 The thing is to meet it like a woman of the world. Of course 
 there are many women placed in positions more difficult than mine. 
 It's I — myself that make my hell. Don't you remember — 
 
 ' Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed 
 In one self-place ; for where we" are is hell, 
 And where hell is, there we must ever be.' 
 
 " I recollect ranting that to myself in the pine-woods at El- 
 Meriem . . . we had a home there, you know — El-Meriem isn't far 
 from Philotis — when I was a girl." 
 
 Oh, the organ-stop pathos of those words "when I was a girl !" 
 "... but the trouble is that I'm not like other women. . . . And 
 [*ve tried so hard to live the life — to care for things that — and I 
 cannot. ... It turned to nausea — loathing. . . . I'm tired — tired 
 of struggling. . . . Do you believe that one can be taken posses- 
 sion of by a spirit of hatred ? ... It is so terrible to hate ... a 
 person . . . who is very near — so that there can be no getting away. 
 ... As if you were chained to some strange soulless thing that is 
 stronger than you, and fascinates and compels you, and yet fills
 
 60 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 you with rage and revolt. . . . That's how I've felt ever since I 
 married. . . . 
 
 " And I've prayed — in there " — she signed towards the oratosy, 
 ..." cried aloud in my despair . . . but never any help came. . . . 
 You see I married wrongly — for the sake of money and position 
 and to escape from my failure. . . . And at the beginning I did 
 not try as I ought to have done. ... I did not try enough to con- 
 quer my rebellious feelings. I let the . . . aversion get the better 
 of everything ... of all that was gentle and tender in me. . . . 
 And then the feeling towards me seemed to change and become 
 dislike . . .'a kind of mocking triumph in making me obey. . . . 
 And there were reproaches that seared like hot iron . . . because 
 . . . you know ... I am very proud. . . . And it is degrading to 
 take things — money, luxuries — one's very food and clothing . . . 
 and not to give the payment that was agreed upon. . . . And then 
 to be taunted with the humiliation. . . . Besides, you know . . . 
 he wanted to have a son. . . . And I was like Hannah and be- 
 sought the Lord, and He heard me not. . . . Sometimes I have 
 a dreadful feeling about the curse on this house ... for you 
 know the story, don't you? . . . how a Vassal, not quite rightfully 
 or legitimately of the family — I forget . . . forced the heiress into 
 marrying him. She was not quite right in her head . . . and he 
 got to hate her and starved her to death, they say. . . . And ever 
 since a curse has rested on the house. ... I feel it ... as though 
 the place were reeking with all the revengeful thoughts of years 
 and years back — till the air is like a pestilence — the old hate 
 breeding fresh hatreds. . . . For doesn't it seem to you possible 
 that a very strong wicked feeling might take invisible form and 
 infect weak people by its own poison ? . . . I am glad that I have 
 no child to be cursed too. ..." 
 
 A fit of dry sobbing stopped her. She had been speaking 
 fast, with little pauses between the agitated utterances, sometimes 
 so low that I could hardly hear her. The tragedy of those 
 broken, allusive sentences overwhelmed me. I longed to give 
 her some sign of my deep sympathy, and yet was afraid to say 
 anything lest my own emotion should choke me and make me 
 seem unresponsive, thus checking the stream of her difficult con- 
 fidence. ... I put out my hand and timidly touched hers ; and 
 presently she went on again, her voice gaining strength. 
 
 " It's because you are a doctor, and different from others, that 
 I let myself go like this ; it's not because I want advice or words 
 of pity. ... I don't want you ever to remind me of to-day. . . . 
 You said it would belike speaking to a priest in the confessional. 
 ... I know what my life must be. . . . That day . . . when I had
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 61 
 
 the shock of knowing . . . and I ran out into the wood ... I 
 thought my marriage could be broken ... I did not know what 
 I was doing ... I wanted to be alone ... to breathe pure air 
 ... to escape from this evil house. . . . And he brought me back, 
 and I was forced to obey. . . . Then I asked him to let me go, 
 and he would not ... he said there should be no scandal. . . . 
 And what would be the use ? ... the harm is done, and never, 
 never can be undone. ... I have made my lot, and I must abide 
 by my making. ..." 
 
 The despair in her tone gave me the most miserable sense of 
 helplessness. Though human misery had often before now been 
 bared to me, this misery affected me as none other had done, for 
 its root seemed not so much in the actual facts of Mrs. Vassal's 
 •life as in the inner springs of her being ; and it was indeed canker 
 of the souk Putting stress upon myself, I avoided the more 
 tragic aspect .of the matter, and, from the professional standpoint, 
 urged upon her the necessity for giving occupation to her mind, 
 if only as a means of physical relief and intellectual discipline. 
 Thus gradually I got her to talk more composedly, and upon 
 more general topics. I spoke of her old interest in the drama, 
 and asked her if, merely as an artistic study, it might not be 
 possible to revive it. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " I suppose," she answered, " that I am morbidly self- 
 absorbed ; but I cannot take up things in the abstract. I seem 
 to need the stimulus of personal emotion to rouse my faculties. . . 
 I read a good deal, but the more scientific books are outside me ; 
 and I find works of imagination mechanical and artificial. Plays 
 seem very wooden to me now ; — always at the critical moment 
 the scene closes and the curtain falls, and the real life of it all 
 has to be woven out of what is unsaid and undone. . . . Often 
 as I sit in a London theatre I wonder to myself that the drama 
 ever appealed to me. as the highest form of art." 
 
 " Music then ? " I said. 
 
 " A certain kind of music ; devotional music in especial 
 affects me horribly. ... I say horribly because it makes me so 
 sad. . . . liut I can't express myself in the language." 
 
 I asked her if she had ever thought of writing, adding that 
 I myself knew no more engrossing pleasure than the creation of 
 a world of one's own with the pen. My suggestion seemed to 
 take some hold on her. She thought for a moment or two, and 
 I saw by the expression of her face that her mind was working 
 backward along healthier channels. 
 
 ' You make me think of my girlhood," she said presently,
 
 62 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 " and of how I used to scribble things at El-Meriem. I always 
 had a fancy for writing, and kept a kind of journal of my '"ideas 
 and feelings — you can imagine the sort of girl-nonsense. . . . 
 But I dropped all that when I married." 
 
 " Why not take it up again now ? " 
 
 She drew herself together with a little shudder. 
 
 " I didn't mean in the purely introspective sense, though 
 I believe it would be better for you to write down morbid 
 imaginings than to let them prey upon your brain. I was think- 
 ing more of my own early method of training memory and 
 observation, and of getting a firmer touch in character-drawing ; 
 for you know it's my pet private conviction that in me a novelist 
 has been spoiled by the doctor. That may or may not be true, 
 but in parenthesis let me add, that I am certain my early efforts 
 in fiction have helped me as a doctor to a better understanding 
 of human nature." 
 
 I told her of theories I had about the craft — since then far more 
 ably set forth by Robert Louis Stevenson — which would involve a 
 course of preparation as systematic as that to be gone through 
 by the painter or sculptor : the student of fiction looking upon 
 the world around him as an atelier, and before attempting any 
 sustained work, making many rough studies, and filling as many 
 note-books as the art student spoils canvases. 
 
 It was a favourite theme of mine, and I enlarged upon it, 
 for I found it was taking her a little out of herself; till a message 
 came from Mr. Vassal that the carriage would soon be round to 
 take me to my train, and that he requested the favour of a few 
 words before I started. I got up and took my leave of Mrs. 
 Vassal. 
 
 "You will pay attention to my prescription for your mind 
 as well as to my prescription for your body ? " I said, after 
 impressing upon her certain medical injunctions. 
 
 " Yes," she answered ; "I will try." 
 
 " Map out a novel or drama," I went on. " Or better still, 
 do not map out, but make studies of life as it presents itself 
 to you individually ; and if you feel cramped by your own 
 personality, think that there is a good deal, if not everything, 
 in the theory that the artist is not much more than a sensitised 
 plate for the receiving and giving forth of impressions. So write 
 from the deeps of you, and be not afraid." 
 
 " I am certain," I said, " speaking as the physician, that you 
 will find relief and help from the outlet ; and speaking as the 
 artist, I am certain, too, that you will do good work. I couldn't 
 have been so far out in my estimate of you in the beginning,
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 63 
 
 though in Claudia I handicapped you too heavily. Frank Leete 
 has never ceased to reproach me for that." 
 
 She gave again that dreary little laugh which so went to my 
 heart, and repeated, " I'll try ; " then added, conquering her 
 reserve by an effort, for I had seen already that she repented her 
 burst of confidence, and that the flood-gates once closed would 
 not easily open again, " I am sorry that our talk has ended. 
 And I want to thank you ; you have done me good. I will 
 remember all that you have said." 
 
 "And you will rely on my friendship — my discretion — my 
 most earnest wish to be of use to you in any way that is possible ? " 
 
 I felt my voice tremble ; she too seemed greatly moved, and 
 I saw the tears gather in her eyes. 
 
 "Thank you — thank you," she said hurriedly. She put her 
 hand in mine, and the convulsive pressure of the little thin 
 fingers sent a strange quiver through me. 
 
 " Good-bye, Dr. Glaive ... I wish . . ." she faltered. " I seem 
 unresponsive. . . . But indeed, I am very unhappy." 
 
 " I know it ; and I can do nothing — only preach to you and 
 physic you, neither of which are of much good. Well, you will 
 write to me sometimes, and tell me how my two prescriptions 
 work ? " 
 
 "Yes — thank you." 
 
 The door closed upon me, and I left her, praying inwardly 
 that my sympathy might have lightened her burden a little. At 
 least I had the satisfaction of seeing that the tense look upon her 
 face had relaxed, and that her eyes were softer and more natural. 
 
 I did not go again to Grisewood Castle, and my next meeting 
 with Mrs. Vassal was not for some time afterwards.
 
 WRITTEN How did I ever for a moment imagine that I 
 
 BY could stand up against Mr. Vassal? Perhaps it 
 
 ESTHER was my talk with Dr. Glaive which gave me 
 VASSAL : courage. But it is hopeless. When he looks at 
 me with that concentrated gleam in his eyes, the 
 old terrified fascination overcomes me, and I am like an ex- 
 asperated bird fluttering between the claws of a great, soft, 
 fierce cat. I hate him, and yet I am afraid of him. I'd fly 
 to the ends of the earth to escape from that look in his eyes, 
 from the touch of his big white hands ; but I cannot. I am 
 rooted before him by this strange force of mingled attraction, 
 repulsion, and dread. 
 
 They say that the soul has lived and will live on through 
 asons ; they say that love is of the soul, and endures through 
 eternity. But, is not hate more powerful than love, stronger than 
 the very soul itself? 
 
 It is wrong of me to write this. But I am a wicked woman. 
 My heart is bitter and my mind is evil ; and God, who is Love, 
 can have no commerce with hate. 
 
 Why was I made after such fashion ? Why have I been 
 chained in this yokeship of living enmity ? Why is not my lot 
 as the lot of other women who have husbands dear and honoured, 
 and babes at their breast, or lovers for whom the world would be 
 well given ? 
 
 And what is the meaning of all which is written about love 
 — the love of man for woman ; of parent for child ; of brother 
 for sister ; of friend for friend ; of saint for sinner ? This mighty 
 river of human affection, which poets tell us will soften the hard 
 rock, and make the desert blossom ! This spiritual sun, which 
 will pierce the heart's darkness and wither noxious thoughts and 
 cause the soul to send forth shoots to heaven ? I have read of 
 these things, but I do not know them. 
 
 Why should my life alone be arid, my heart alone unlightened 
 
 and unwarmed ? Or is it all nothing but a mocking lie, a pretty 
 
 fable, a tinselled robe which civilisation has shaped in place of 
 
 the fig leaves ? 
 
 564
 
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 65 
 
 So, often I tell myself as I look round upon the London 
 world ; as I see the girls exhibited in the marriage-market, and 
 the wan tricked-out creatures in the gaming-rooms at Homburg ; 
 as I catch the indefinable look on men's faces when they have 
 dined freely and the mask falls for an instant. 
 
 But at other times — maybe on a clear spring day, when 
 quivering sunbeams shoot down straight from heaven through the 
 crinkled leaves of nut branches ; when the violets and wood- 
 anemones are lifting their modest heads, and the may-bloom is 
 out and the lilies of the valley breaking their sheaths ; when the 
 birds are cooing and calling to each other, and the wind rustles 
 inarticulately through young foliage, and the whole earth seems 
 filled with pure fragrance and tender mystic murmurings. Then 
 all the old El-Meriem dreams come back to me enriched and 
 glorified, afid I believe in love. 
 
 Then I wonder in my soul if the divine dove will ever descend 
 upon me, the symbol of a new baptism and of a hope eternal. 
 
 Foolish fancies, which shrivel and shrink beneath the sombre 
 flame of Mr. Vassal's eyes. 
 
 But it is a relief to have them out. Yes, Dr. Glaive is right. The 
 moral canker was spreading poisonous humours for need of outlet. 
 
 There seemed to me a savage inappeasable animosity in Mr. 
 Vassal's gaze when I dared to meet it after the wild words which 
 broke from me in my desperate revolt. 
 
 I can't remember what they were, but I told him that I hated 
 him, that I wished to go away and never to see his face again. 
 
 And then I must have flung at him some reproach which struck 
 home. He had listened so far without moving a muscle ; now 
 the set ironic look relaxed in a spasm of rage. He lifted his 
 head, drawing a long breath, as though fury were bracing his 
 frame, and came closer to me. The scorching gleam from his 
 eyes was more than I could bear ; his domineering personality 
 overpowered me ; and it was as though my passion of aversion 
 were thrust back by his grim might and held me in one long 
 throe. I lifted up my arms with the helpless instinct to shield 
 myself. His soft strong fingers seized my wrist as in a grip of 
 steel. Yet there was no brute energy in the grasp, and his voice 
 when he spoke scarcely rose above a whisper, though each word 
 cut like a knife. 
 
 "That's a damnably vulgar thing to say. But what can one 
 expect out of the slums of a theatre ? It would have been too 
 much to suppose that you could meet a situation with dignity. 
 God! you shall not say things of that sort to me. I'm your 
 master, understand, and you'd better ignore what you find un- 
 
 E
 
 66 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 pleasant. I give you the opportunity, and so much the worse 
 for you if you don't take it. Just listen ! You've got to behave 
 decently. There's to be no talk, mind — no scandal — no running 
 away, and none of those heroics. You failed on the stage ; don't 
 try it on in private life. You've got to do what I choose ; and let 
 there be an end of this injured wife business, once and for ever." 
 
 He took away his hand. On his lips was the smile with which 
 I've seen him watch a beaten dog quail. I turned dizzy and sick ; 
 the room reeled, and the flame of the fire and the flame in his 
 eyes leaped towards me. I felt myself falling, and everything 
 became black. 
 
 When I came to myself I was on the sofa, and Mr. Vassal 
 and Tremlett, my maid, were beside me. Tremlett was sponging 
 my forehead, and Mr. Vassal held a restorative to my lips. 
 
 I don't care whether Mr. Vassal ever reads what I am writing. 
 Why should I care ? If he were to read it, and it made him so 
 angry that he were to cast me out from his house, that would be 
 the best thing, not the worst, that he could do to me. 
 
 But I need not even conjecture what effect these self-com- 
 munings of mine might have upon him. He is not the sort of 
 person to examine his wife's private papers. If by chance he 
 were to pick up this book and run his eye over the page, he 
 would take a cold-blooded pride in letting me know that he had 
 not turned the leaf; and I can imagine the sarcastic suavity with 
 which he would recommend me to pursue my literary labours if 
 they afforded me any satisfaction, but would beg exemption from 
 the privilege of criticising them. 
 
 That is exactly what he did say once, not long after our mar- 
 riage, when he handed me back a letter of many pages — surely I 
 ought to have learned by that time not to write letters — con- 
 taining my whole ecstatic philosophy of life's woes, and a fervid 
 appeal to him not to confound my faith in things spiritual by a too 
 strenuous enforcement of his own carnal code. 
 
 Often have I wondered whether there is anything good in the 
 universe in which Mr. Vassal believes. That he should look upon 
 religion as a mere form does not so greatly surprise me, for all my 
 life creeds have somehow seemed to me but as so many different 
 sorts of vesture to be varied according to climate, temperament, 
 and social conditions, the spiritual body within remaining ever 
 the same. In the worst darkness of my doubt and despair, I 
 have tried to find comfort in that spiritual reality which my inner 
 senses have ever dimly discerned, though the shape of it is hidden 
 from me. But for Mr. Vassal the Spirit has no existence ; and it
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 67 
 
 is this division, as between two kingdoms of nature — this dead 
 wall of matter — which gives me the feeling of moral alienation 
 indescribable. For him, beyond the flesh there is nothing — God 
 a fetish, more or less poetic as the scale of civilisation rises or 
 falls ; the Church a useful State institution ; the clergy liveried 
 officials for the suppression of independence among the lower 
 orders, to be outwardly supported with honour and observance, 
 but merely as part of the masque and pageant. And for the 
 domestic sanctities ! I've heard him speak of marriage as a legal- 
 ised method for the production of heirs and the preservation of 
 family property. And love — no, I won't quote his definition. 
 
 I am roughly epitomising his private views as they have been 
 at various times delivered in the billiard-room after dinner to 
 such intimates as Mr. Arathoon and Mrs. Raphon, his sister ; to 
 Mione, Audley Arathoon's wife, and others broadly tolerant. 
 Sometimes, too, I have listened to Mr. Vassal's talk across a 
 London dinner-table. I believe he is considered a clever talker, 
 but I have observed that rich men usually receive the attention 
 of their audience. Occasionally he says startling things in a soft, 
 deliberate manner ; more often he looks bored, and gives an im- 
 pression of reserved power. With a certain type of woman, whom 
 I don't frequently meet, he has the air of Caesar unbending : with 
 another he is the sedate epicurean ; with a third — such as Addie 
 1 kseltine, our neighbour's daughter — he is a blend of Sir Roger 
 de Coverley and Dean Swift. It seems to amuse him to play a 
 part adapted to his background. Not in order to make an effect 
 —Mr. Vassal would never do anything so common ! — but as a 
 kind of emotional stimulus. I have heard him declare that the 
 only saint worthy of being canonised would be the person who 
 invented a new sensation ; and once when he had lost an enor- 
 mous sum of money on the Stock Exchange, he announced, in a 
 complacent drawl, that it was the first time he had ever known 
 the enjoyment of gambling. 
 
 From that point of view I can understand his interest in the 
 drama. How he must have laughed at my poor pretensions to 
 
 an actress — he who is so accomplished a performer on the 
 social stage, and who can suit himself with the ease of a con- 
 summate mime to a change in the mental atmosphere. 
 
 I <>r instance, the Mr. Vassal of Grosvenor Street and the Mr. 
 Vassal of Grisewood and Tregarth are, as I know from observation, 
 two separate personalities. I can never help admiring my master 
 at Grisewood when we are entertaining our country neighbours, 
 and the Bishop, and Dean, and Canons of Woodchester — there 
 is a flavour of the clergy in our severe Grisewood functions, and
 
 68 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 the Bishop always comes to us for near confirmations, church 
 openings, and the like. Then when we have house-parties for 
 the Hunt Ball, and in the shooting season, Mr. Vassal is again 
 a study in decorous geniality. Equally admirable, too, is he at 
 tenants' dinners, and among the miners at Tregarth when he visits 
 his Cornish estate ; and he can be evangelically agreeable to our 
 portly parson Mr. Wargrave, and that serious Christian, his wife. 
 
 If I am crudely flippant, remember that I am still unpractised 
 in literary portraiture. There is also a certain grim humour, 
 which I am sure Mr. Vassal would himself appreciate, in the 
 notion of his supplying me with a character- model. For I am 
 following on Dr. Glaive's suggestion, though so far, I fear, to little 
 profit. I have tried to map out a novel, but all is dim and chaotic, 
 and my attempts at composition are laboured and lacking in 
 inspiration. 
 
 As regards the fight against circumstance, my illness, or the 
 cataclysm in my conjugal relations, seems to have strangely 
 deadened my power of resistance, even my power of feeling. 
 Or it may be that I am living a little more outside myself, and 
 do not kick quite so hardly against the pricks. 
 
 We have a party in the house for the Hunt Ball. It is made 
 up of our usual set at Grisewood — the Cotherstones from the 
 other side of the county ; the Heseltines from Fincham — he is 
 master of the fox-hounds ; a pretty rich young American and her 
 husband who have taken a place near for the hunting ; a couple 
 from Devonshire, some men, a stray girl or two, and Mione 
 Arathopn and her husband. 
 
 I don't care for the Arathoon family, which seems linked with 
 the Vassals in rather an odd way, for Mr. Arathoon is only a 
 great London solicitor and Mr. Vassal's legal adviser, and Mrs. 
 Raphon, his sister, who keeps his house, though very handsome 
 and dressing splendidly, is just a little under-bred. Mione tells 
 me that she was supposed to be in love with Mr. Vassal, and 
 very angry when he married me, but that apparently does not 
 prevent the two from being great friends. There is some sort of 
 kinship between the families. I think, but am not sure, that Mr. 
 Arathoon's mother was a Vassal. And then Mione, wife of 
 Audley Arathoon, the solicitor's son, is of the Delmars, and so 
 distantly connected with Mr. Vassal's first wife. Mione is an 
 heiress in a small way, and I have always wondered how she 
 came to marry Audley Arathoon, for she frankly despises her 
 father-in-law and aunt by marriage. Audley is a barrister and 
 has good manners.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 69 
 
 Mione interests me, she is so flinty, and frivolous, and shrewd, 
 and yet somehow I can't help fancying there are depths beneath, 
 if one could only sound them. She has fluffy red hair and the 
 complexion that goes with it, and romantic velvety eyes that 
 seem out of place in such a worldly person. She says she likes 
 coming to Grisewood because it's a rich house, and her idea of 
 perfect happiness is to have quantities of money and everything 
 about her as luxurious as possible, and also because Mr. Vassal 
 mounts her, and she can't afford to hunt as many days as she 
 would wish from her own little hunting-box. 
 
 • ■<*••• 
 
 How like a dream it all is ! The arrivals, the inane civilities, 
 the great hall in which we receive our guests, with its carvings, 
 portraits, suits of armour, Indian gods, blue porcelain, screens, 
 palms, stands of flowers, and all the rest ; the flames of the log 
 fire leaping up in the half light and making gleams and shadows 
 among the groups — stiff at first, till the servants bring in lamps 
 and tea, and there comes the clatter of cups and the fuss of 
 handing scones and muffins. Mr. Vassal, the genial country 
 squire, is saying just the right thing to everybody — discussing 
 county matters with old Lady Cotherstone, inquiring from her 
 what the various house-parties are to be, and the latest views of 
 " the Duchess " about the organising of a political fete which is 
 agitating the neighbourhood. I hear him in snatches, here and 
 there, deploring my recent illness and the lung delicacy which 
 will prevent me from going to the ball ; explaining how anxious 
 he is to make my imprisonment in the house as little irksome as 
 may be this winter — he has had Quintin Glaive the specialist 
 down, who has advised a warmer climate for future winters, 
 though it was not thought desirable that I should risk the long 
 journey at present so late in the season. But next winter he 
 will arrange that I shall leave early for the south — Cannes, 
 Biarritz, or perhaps Philotis. . . . 
 
 Philotis ! A lump rises in my throat ; and I stand dazed by 
 the rush of ghost-memories. . . . And then somebody speaks to 
 me. ... It is Mione, who has just come in with Mr. Littlewood ; 
 and I notice that at sight of him Addie Heseltine blushes un- 
 comfortably. Not long ago Mr. Littlewood wanted to marry 
 her; and when she refused him, he went to live in the forests of 
 Yucatan, and scraped buried monuments and took to archaeology 
 and to photographing ruined cities. 
 
 Mione's flutter and chatter arc all part of the dream. She is 
 covered from head to foot in a sealskin coat. ..." I'm too abomi- 
 nably untidy. . . . We've driven over eighteen miles. Such a run !
 
 70 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 ... I ought not to kiss you ; my cheek is freezing. Chocolate ? 
 thank you. . . . Audley ? . . . But where is he — just ? That's what 
 I want to know. I'm quite uneasy about him. I think he must 
 be sitting in a ditch. ... Of course he was out. And if you 
 had seen the wretched horse he was riding, rear this morning 
 when our second man mounted him, you wouldn't wonder I'm 
 uneasy. . . ." 
 
 Mr. Vassal asks if Audley is looking out for a hunter, for 
 he thinks he has heard of a good bargain ; and young Lord 
 Cotherstone joins in. . . . He knows a man who wants to sell his 
 horses . . . Rathdowney — a splendid lot. . . . And the master, Mr. 
 Heseltine, who is always drawn by shorthorns and hunters, but 
 is mostly silent on other topics, wakes up to declare that Rath- 
 downey is a regular horse-coper, and that selling his hunters is 
 a dodge to get rid of them. . . . 
 
 More arrivals and new civilities, and fresh tea. . . . And the 
 dream-medley of babble. . . . Mione sipping her chocolate and 
 entertaining Addie Heseltine close to me with reminiscences of 
 recent doings. . . . She had been rushing round . . . had been in 
 Norfolk for a family wedding ... a sixteen-mile drive to church 
 and no foot-warmers . . . had suffered atrociously from the wicked 
 behaviour of Audley's sister's youngest hope . . . "A three-year- 
 old bridesmaid dressed like a ballet-dancer." . . . "And fancy the 
 brat holding out her skirts and doing a. pas seul and then flopping 
 down on the bride's train at the ' Wilt thou have this man ?'"... 
 Then . . . "The women didn't approve of me; and the husband 
 of one of them told me what they said : playing it rather low 
 down, wasn't it ? Well, of course I know I'm not pretty ; but 
 I'm effective. Every woman can be that if she chooses ; it's only 
 a question of putting on your clothes and setting your hat at the 
 right angle." 
 
 Oh yes, Mione is quite right ; she is effective. 
 How curious it is, this froth and spray of life ! . . . And I sup- 
 pose that for every one of them — even for Mione — there are bitter 
 ingredients seething in the brew beneath. But does nobody 
 think of them ; does nobody care, as long as there are good things 
 to eat and diamonds and county balls and splendid runs ? . . . 
 The fancy becomes vivified in my brain — my poor brain, which at 
 moments, seems as empty and unreal as the froth and spray itself. 
 The lights and fire-gleams and glints of silver and china, and 
 people's faces and the bits of colour in their clothes seem to detach 
 themselves, and to be as so many dancing bubbles tossed up on the 
 billows of life-experience — past mingling with present in confused 
 glimmerings. For a second, there is a queer incongruous flash giving
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 71 
 
 me back the supers' dressing-room at the Regency — the women with 
 their dyed hair making themselves up, and one of them saying, 
 "When the gag's too strong, it just guys the whole show." . . . 
 Fancy remembering that theatre slang all these years, and thinking 
 of it now. . . . The whole show ! What is this but a show ! . . . 
 I feel a hand on my arm. Prim, majestic Lady Cotherstone 
 has come up to me. ..." My dear Mrs. Vassal, you look as if you 
 were going to faint. I cannot think that you ought to be standin' 
 about, worryin' after us all, though Mr. Vassal tells me that Dr. 
 Glaive prescribes amusement and cheerful society. But I know 
 what it is to receive a party for the first time after recovering from 
 an illness ; and I am going to make you take me upstairs and show 
 me my room ; and I shall feel more comfortable when I have 
 seen you into your own for an hour's quiet rest. Leave Mr. 
 Vassal to look after the others ; he doesn't need any one to help 
 him. What a difference between the old school and the young ! 
 Cotherstone hasn't the faintest notion of a host's duties. If I 
 could only persuade him to take your husband as a model ! But 
 it seems to me that the young men of to-day expect their women- 
 kind to do their manners for them as well as their religion. . . ." 
 
 The dream-scene changes. . . . There is the long dinner-table 
 with its decoration of orchids — we are famous for our orchids — 
 and its array of plate. The dining-room is hung with tapestry in 
 deep dull tints, and the gay dresses and bare necks and diamonds 
 shine out against it. Every one is talking and laughing, and all 
 seems glitter, froth, and colour, the pink coats of the hunting-men 
 making vivid plashes that are accentuated by the black garb of 
 the London men and the clergy. It is a large dinner-party, for 
 near neighbours have been asked to meet the house-party, and the 
 Dean and a Canon and their wives have come over from Wood- 
 chester. 
 
 In the drawing-room the women's comments and condolences 
 upon my ill-health are like thin string trios and quartettes after a 
 full orchestra, Lady Cotherstone's deep middle notes dominating, 
 and a bounteous matron in a tiara taking up the refrain. 
 
 . . . For Mr. Vassal's sake, it is so important that I should run 
 no risk ... his anxiety . . . etcetera. 
 
 " Oh, so touching ! " bleats Mrs. Wargrave, nodding her smooth 
 serious head with its flat plaits and bands curved over a benevo- 
 lent forehead, and smiling her deprecatory smile. 
 
 . . . "Young women are so careless about their health till gout 
 and other things begin to happen . . ." from Lady Willoughby. 
 
 ..." Mr. Vassal was saying that it all came from an imprudent
 
 72 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 walk in the wood on one of those bitter days . . . How unfortunate 
 that he should just then have started to join his yacht ! . . . Man- 
 dour, wasn't it, where he went ? . . . . Oh, too fascinating by Mr. 
 Vassal's description ! . . . A real bit of the old East within five 
 days of London . . . quite close to Philotis, where people are all 
 going now for the winter, since Views began to praise up the 
 place. . . . 
 
 . . . "And what a wise thought of Tremlett to consult with 
 Mr. Wargrave and have Dr. Glaive telegraphed for. . . . Mr. Vassal 
 seems to have such confidence in Tremlett. . . . Oh, it's a great 
 advantage in one's maid being an old family servant." And 
 so on. . . . 
 
 Doctors and ailments, gardens, bric-a-brac, and village bounties ! 
 Don't the dowagers and clergy-women ever tire of these things ! 
 
 " Such a touching little shop with its little plate of sweets in 
 the window and string of reels. . . . And there was a small shrub- 
 bery at the back of the house . . . quite a touching little wilder- 
 ness. . . . And the baby buried and got rid of ! Such a mercy ! 
 ... A wee cosy grave in a warm corner of the churchyard ; and 
 the mother free to begin the world again, and so grateful to the 
 Ladies of the League ! " 
 
 That's Mrs. Wargrave explaining things to Lady Cotherstone, 
 who is President of the Woodchester Rescue and Reformation 
 League. . . . 
 
 Oh, sickening ! Why don't they leave the poor women alone, 
 and begin by reforming their own brothers and sons — and 
 husbands? 
 
 Mione makes some queer little cynical remark about the girls 
 in the Westminster slums, and then says that she thinks a mission 
 should be started for the rescue and reformation of unfortunate 
 women of society with incomes under fifteen hundred a year, who 
 are expected to keep up appearances. " It's a moral impossi- 
 bility," says Mione, "though I know a woman who manages a 
 brougham, and Worth dresses and diamonds — not old-fashioned 
 family jewels, but beetles and doves, all sweet new Paris designs, 
 genuine and of the first water— on less than a thousand. . . . And 
 she gave up dyeing her hair — it used to be golden when I first 
 knew her, and now it's dark brown — because she doesn't think 
 that sort of thing 'quite nice in the mother of a little family.' . . . 
 And it's all done on Irish rents ; and we know what that means." 
 
 Mrs. Heseltine looks shocked, and changes the topic to homeo- 
 pathy, and Mione retires to examine a photograph and talk 
 gowns with the pretty American. The men straggle in, and two 
 or three, who make for the dowagers, stand at attention while
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 73 
 
 homeopathy holds the field, till Lord Cotherstone gives a dash 
 as though he were going to open a gate for a lady, pulling the 
 lapel of his pink coat and stammering slightly. 
 
 " It all c-comes of sleeping with your window shut, Mrs. 
 Vassal. L-liver and the east wind, and that sort of thing. I've 
 been t-touched myself, you know. Upon my honour, when I've 
 had a good night — liver all sound, and slept like a t-top with a 
 bit of the window open, I declare I don't look more than twenty- 
 five. And when it's an east wind, and I'm stewed up — t-touched 
 in the liver and chippy, you know . . . well, on my honour, I 
 m-might be forty-five." 
 
 Oh, how absurd and grim it all is ! One might fancy that 
 coffee — "strong coffee made in the French way — it must be in 
 the French way . . . black and very clear, with a tiny dash of 
 brandy," — as says Lady Willoughby of the tiara in her treble 
 staccato — one might fancy that this, and aconite, and belladonna 
 are a cure for diseased souls ! And there's a sort of devil's chorus 
 to the drawing-room comedy, " Lies — lies — all lies ! " it runs. . . . 
 And through it Mr. Vassal's voice horribly distinct — his well-bred 
 country-squire voice. 
 
 "Tiresomely short of foxes, ain't we? I doubt the stock 
 holdin' out. ... A capital run the other day . . . two rings round 
 Swinton and Nunneloe. . . . Oh, bad, bad yesterday : the country 
 very deep, and the Master dreadfully disappointed at not 
 killing." 
 
 . . . Then Mr. Vassal again, to Sir James Willoughby. ..." Do 
 you really think we ought to grant the licence? Isn't it playing 
 up to the brewing interest?" 
 
 And . . . "Yes, Mr. Dean, you are quite right. It is certainly 
 our duty as landed proprietors to face the responsibility. But 
 really in my humble judgment this depravity of the upper classes 
 is an exaggerated matter — a sensational cry of the Radical press. 
 Of course vice exists : let us sorrowfully grant the fact. But has 
 our class the monopoly of vice? The Woodchesier Indepen- 
 dent might as well accuse us Wood ford shire squires of being a 
 dissolute set — eh, Master? because morality in the shoemaking 
 villages is at rather a low ebb. . . ." 
 
 I set Addie Heseltine to the piano. Her music has tears in 
 it ; and Mr. Littlewood places himself at the angle of the instru- 
 ment and gazes unutterable things. But Addie won't glance his 
 way, and I am sure that she is thinking of the curate whom her 
 parents have banished from Fincham. How can she want to 
 marry a curate, I wonder ! . . . She plays a waltz by Chopin, and 
 then some Schumann bits. . . . By-and-by she stops : and the
 
 74 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 buzz of voices begins once more : and at intervals, detached 
 phrases sound above the confused hum . . . Mr. Wargrave's 
 robust laugh and strident tones. 
 
 "A fine row the hounds made on Saturday, Master, giving 
 tongue down by the osier bed near the churchyard. You quite 
 spoiled my funeral. . . ." 
 
 The two Gainsboroughs look down from the yellow bro- 
 cade wall — those sweet serene Gainsborough ladies, whose muslin 
 draperies fall so graciously, and whose eyes are so limpidly pure, 
 that sure they can never have peeped down into the tragedy 
 below life's bubble and froth. ... Or was it that though those 
 Vassal wives had bad husbands, too, and many a gnawing grief, 
 they knew how to preen their heads proudly and to use their 
 rouge-pot and hide disgust under a smile ? ... If I might but call 
 them down from their gilt frames and ask them their secret ! 
 
 . . . Night has brought an interval in the raree-show, and the 
 performers are taking their rest. All but one. . . . The fire casts 
 strange flickers upon the buhl furniture of my bedroom, and draws 
 dancing gleams from the silver boxes and bottles and ornaments 
 upon the tables. But through the leaden hours my wide eyes 
 watch the glimmering rays till they die and dawn replaces them. 
 It is during vigils such as this that I feel the superstitious dread, 
 the horror of desolation, which Dr. Glaive told me is due only to 
 unstrung nerves and a bloodless brain. But no material explana- 
 tion will do away with that consciousness of unseen presences 
 and of being delivered over to the powers of darkness. 
 
 I know when the ghostly terror is coming, by a sensation of 
 clammy cold that deadens my limbs while my mind remains 
 acutely alive. Any distant sound swells into the rhythmic volume 
 of a corps of soldiers marching to the beat of drums. . . . Then, 
 too, I lose the sense of weight and size, and my pillow becomes 
 a universe and the canopy of my bed realms of space. 
 
 Great waves of light pass over me, to be followed by waves of 
 darkness. Sometimes unknown faces start out of the void with 
 lightning vividness, gaze for a moment, and melt away, to be 
 succeeded perhaps by a whole processional pageant in which 
 grotesque phantoms move along in regular order and bewildering 
 rapidity. . . . 
 
 This feeling that the world around is no more than a painted 
 picture, a sort of magic-lantern illusion flitting across a white 
 sheet, becomes a grisly oppression, never lifting. . . . 
 
 ... I am alone. The house is strangely silent ; the carriages 
 have driven off with their freight for the ball — young men and
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 75 
 
 maids, old men and matrons, pink coats and black, satins, 
 velvets, and diamonds and clouds of tulle. They bade me good- 
 night in the hall. Mione gave me a kiss ; and last of all, in 
 presence of the whole party, Mr. Vassal came deliberately to- 
 wards me, wished me pleasant dreams, and raised my hand to 
 his lips. 
 
 " What an adorable manner ! and what an angel to devote 
 himself to us when he would so much rather be doing Darby and 
 Joan with you ! " whispered Addie Heseltine, who ran up to beg 
 that I would not stand in a draught. 
 
 I went back to the empty drawing-room ; it was full of ghosts. 
 The hall-door fell to with a muffled bang, and the roll of carriage 
 wheels died away down the avenue. The high-headed Gains- 
 borough women smiled at me out of their frames their arch 
 superior smile. They too, no doubt, had gone gaily off to 
 county balls in their time, disdaining to be sick or sorry. 
 
 " You an actress ! " the sweet mocking lips seemed to say. 
 "And la ! you cannot play your part as bravely e'en as we played 
 ours. And you must mope and weep and tear your hair and 
 take to bed, because, forsooth, you hate your husband ! 'Tis 
 vastly fine to sulk ; but was it for love or money, tell us, that you 
 sold yourself? And since the bargain please you not, to break it 
 were mighty easy. Go. then, and cease from vapouring. Thou 
 hast no little ones, as we had, to cry shame and call thee back. 
 Thou hast not given to the house an heir. Go now, this very 
 night. Be free, forsaken, and hungry. Live in a garret, an it 
 suit thee better than a castle. What should hinder thee? " 
 
 What should hinder me ? . . . Nothing . . . nothing but my 
 deadly weakness. Nothing but the dense spiritual blackness 
 which closes me round like a wall and shuts out the way. . . . 
 Nothing but the power of my master. . . . 
 
 ... I have been sitting here for a long time. There is only 
 a heap of grey ashes on the hearth. The fire has gone out, and 
 I did not know it. Another fire warmed me. 
 
 For, while I was brooding in loneliness and great heaviness 
 of soul, a wonder came to pass. It seemed that in the stillness 
 of night and the gloom of dejection, a miracle was wrought — a 
 Pentecostal quickening, as though there had come the rushing 
 mighty wind from heaven, and the descent of the cloven tongues 
 of flame. 
 
 I have known within me, dumbly, inexplicably, helplessly, 
 that I had something of the art-gift. But there was neither 
 sound nor language in which it might find utterance.
 
 76 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 And now, at last, my fancy has spoken, as the voice to the 
 Hebrew of old spoke, saying, " Take up thy pen and write." 
 
 My fancy has become a thing of life. A crude misshapen 
 thing perchance, but it has a lusty cry ; and I love this bratling 
 of Sorrow's begetting. 
 
 I have told no one of the saving grace which has fallen upon 
 me : yet it is under the support of this new hope that I have 
 taken courage and looked my fate in the face : for it is clear to 
 me that in my work I shall find the solace of dark hours, and the 
 torch to light my steps along life's difficult path. 
 
 After seven years of torpor, the old mysterious cravings have 
 seized me once more ; and the artist nature, with its sweet pain 
 and tumult, is awake and clamouring. My work is at once the 
 cry of my starved soul for bread, and the manna with which heaven 
 feeds it. 
 
 I am very grateful to Dr. Glaive. 
 
 Nevertheless it is strange that his two or three letters to me 
 have not roused responsive chords ; and beyond asking him the 
 names of some books which might help me in the cultivation of 
 a literary style, I have said very little to him about the work. 
 Nor have I any impulse to set him up as the high-priest of my 
 temple of art. 
 
 Why is this ? . . . Sometimes I have dreams of an absolute 
 artistic sympathy, but I get no realisation of them here. It may 
 be that the impulsive outburst of confidence after my illness has 
 brought its reaction : it may be that the laws of affinity are 
 arbitrary and do not admit of reasoning. 
 
 I have been a great deal alone. There have been long frosts, 
 and Mr. Vassal has made lengthened visits to London — or else- 
 where — for I know nothing of his movements. Once he brought 
 Mr. Arathoon, the elder, down with him, and I believe the two 
 spent a whole day in the library going over family documents. 
 Mione, who has paid a short visit at the Castle once or twice, gave 
 me to understand that there was hope of a legal loophole, by which 
 the entail might be evaded : and afterwards, that negotiations had 
 been set on foot for a compromise with the heir. 
 
 I have an instinctive dislike to Mr. Arathoon. Is that, I 
 wonder, because he dislikes me ? It is not easy to discover Mr. 
 Arathoon's sentiments, but upon the fact of his aversion for me
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 77 
 
 I feel no doubt. He is a fair, handsome man of the Jewish type, 
 with a thin nose slightly beaked, and a long silky beard with 
 hardly a trace of grey, which is so fine that it scarcely hides the 
 lower part of his face. His eyes are light grey, expressionless, 
 and singularly hard and opaque, so that when he looks at you full, 
 which is not often, it seems to be through thick glass. He is a 
 man of culture — that is his own phrase — and a great lover of 
 music ; and it is odd to hear him singing love-songs in a well- 
 trained mellifluous voice, and to remember that his profession 
 lies mainly in the searching out of man's baser motives. He has 
 got a foreign streak in him — I don't quite know whence : and 
 among the politicians, journalists, and artists of note whom one 
 meets at his house in Chesham Place, there is a good sprinkling 
 of distinguished Frenchmen, Germans, and Russians. He is a 
 gourmet as well, and has composed a cookery-book. 
 
 I am amused sometimes at hearing Mione talk about her 
 father-in-law. " Caliban intended Mr. Vassal to take Mrs. Raphon 
 off his hands." Mione has a trick of giving irrelevant nicknames. 
 " I suppose you know," she went on, "that my aunt by marriage 
 once cherished an ardent passion for your husband. Perhaps she 
 does still— how can I tell? There are persons outside books 
 capable of sustaining that sort of thing, though I am not one 
 of them. Oh ! " she exclaimed in whimsical despair, " I often 
 look at Audley and ask myself ' Why ? . . . Wherefore in a mis- 
 guided moment did I imagine that I was in love and condemn 
 myself to become an Arathoon ? ' . . . Let me warn you, Esther, 
 never to expect a good turn from old Arathoon or his sister. They 
 are of the tribe which always pays back a grudge with compound 
 interest." 
 
 Mione has related to me the story of Rhoda Raphon's unfor- 
 tunate marriage : of a bubble company in which Mr. Raphon had 
 been scapegoat, and Michael Arathoon, Mione hinted, not scathe- 
 less, but undiscovered : of the Raphons' complete loss of fortune : 
 of the mysterious suicide of Mr. Raphon, and of Mr. Arathoon's 
 generous offer to his half-sister of a home. But Mione scoffed at 
 the notion of her father-in-law as a benefactor. "Caliban disin- 
 terested ! Why, he never did an unselfish thing in his life. You 
 may be certain that he cheated the Raphons, and that there was 
 something he was afraid would come out if he let her loose on 
 the world. Then he wanted a housekeeper, and it is respectable 
 to have a sister presiding at your table. Besides, she is handsome 
 and agreeable, and it's a cheap way of getting out of responsibili- 
 ties, which is a consideration to a rich pauper like my father-in- 
 law, whom common decency compels to provide an allowance for
 
 78 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 an only son. He doesn't love Mrs. Raphon, I can tell you," said 
 Mione. "He says he wouldn't mind a handsome demon, but 
 that he is bored with a handsome fool. Mr. Vassal would have 
 been an ideal brother-in-law, putting the social advantages on one 
 side, for you see, Caliban knows all his secrets, and there could 
 have been no inconvenient questions asked about the Raphon 
 scandal." 
 
 Mione communicated to me the result of the search among 
 the Vassal papers. "They can't do anything. There's not a 
 legal needle-eye for even my father-in-law to wriggle through ; and 
 if there had been one the size of a pin's-point, you may be sure he 
 would have managed it. Robert Vassal will not hear of terms. 
 Audley tells me it is Mrs. Vassal who holds to her son's rights 
 and refuses to be bought out." 
 
 I should like to learn more about Mr. Vassal's heir, whose 
 name is never mentioned at Grisewood. Perhaps it is not strange, 
 though it seems so, that we have not once met in London, for 
 naturally people would have avoided asking us together, knowing 
 of Mr. Vassal's animosity ; and if we ever happened to be in the 
 same room at a large party, it is not likely that any one would 
 have pointed him out to me. I have heard that he is a literary 
 man and the editor of Views, and occasionally I buy a number 
 of that weekly journal, and wonder which of the articles are 
 written by him. I know that he wrote the novel which ran 
 through the paper last year and was much criticised. I got it 
 afterwards from the library, and it seemed to me extraordinarily 
 powerful. There were scenes in it which throbbed and ached 
 with feeling — vivid, and unlike anything I have ever read. Then 
 philosophical and psychological bits, intensely sad and full of 
 subtlety ; then other bits almost fantastic, with a kind of wanton 
 sword-play of metaphor and quaint conceits. When I think of 
 that book and of the volume of poems by Robert Vassal, which 
 I have read also, I shrivel into myself with shame at my own pre- 
 sumption. But there are simple as well as complex harmonies, 
 and I tell myself that I must pipe my own poor tune to the time 
 my leader beats, and to no other.. These words, which I found 
 in a beautiful American book not long since, bring me re- 
 assurance :— 
 
 "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is 
 because he hears a different drummer. let him step to the music 
 which he hears, however measured and far away." 
 
 I have heard, too, that Robert Vassal has lately been elected 
 a Member of Parliament, and is one of a rising little camp of 
 new-time Tories.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 79 
 
 Mione Arathoon tells me that she is second or third cousin 
 to Mrs. Robert Vassal, but has never really known her — I imagine 
 partly on account of the Vassal and Arathoon intimacy. They 
 are both, curiously enough, of the Delmar stock, to which the 
 first Mrs. Vassal belonged. Through Mione I heard that the 
 Robert Vassals had been dreadfully poor, till he had made his 
 way in the literary world and had obtained the editorship of 
 Views. This seems hard indeed, when he or his son must 
 eventually succeed to Grisewood and Tregarth. Mione told me 
 also that she had met Mr. and Mrs. Robert Vassal last winter at 
 Philotis. 
 
 "It was at the Hotel Cosmopolitain. They had taken the 
 Villa De'pendance in the Cosmopolitain garden. You know it ? " 
 
 I answered, " No." For they had not finished building the 
 hotel when I went away from Philotis. 
 
 But memory thrust forward a vivid picture of grey-green slope 
 and zigzag white road, losing itself in the dark green of fir-thicket 
 — of a fringe of pine-tops against the blue, of a shadowed ravine 
 cutting the hills, of a pile of glaring masonry and trellis of scaffold- 
 ing, of newly turned earth, and young palms, and gold-dropping 
 mimosa. Memory even gave back the cooing of a wood-pigeon 
 in an ilex grove and the scent of tea-roses from the garden of an 
 adjacent villa. Oh, blue sunshiny dreamland ! Land of youth, 
 of freedom, of hope ! 
 
 Mione went on. 
 
 " He is an odd jerky person, Robert Vassal, with eyes that 
 don't seem to be seeing you when you are talking to him. I 
 should have known he was an author ; they've all got some- 
 thing queer about them — a kind of latent energy that you feel 
 would boil up into any sort of nonconformity on the least pro- 
 vocation." 
 
 I asked her to tell me of Robert Vassal's wife and the boy. 
 
 " His wife ! She is queerer than he is. You know she is sup- 
 posed to be a little wrong in her head, to put it mildly — though 
 nobody says much about the matter, and he manages to keep it all 
 dark very cleverly. But Father-in-law, who knows everything about 
 everybody, told me that for two years after the boy's birth she 
 was practically insane, and that most husbands would have shut 
 her up. But he didn't. He looked after her, and she got better. 
 Now she only has occasional mad fits. He didn't show up more 
 than once or twice at Philotis ; they told me there that she was 
 pretty well. ... A tall, lean woman with a ( irecian nose and a head 
 like a cameo. The washed-out, greyish-yellow, run-to-seed, aristo- 
 cratic type — the Delmars came in with William the Conqueror,
 
 8o THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 or thereabouts, you know. So ghost-like ! " Mione gave a little 
 shiver. "Pale yellow eyes, pale yellow hair, pale yellow skin — I 
 used to call her the Yellow Woman — with something in her way 
 of looking at you that forces you to think of her afterwards whether 
 you want to or not. She reminded me somehow of a big sickly 
 yellow orchid thing we used to grow in the stove-house, which had 
 a very strong scent." 
 
 Strange ! Mione's exaggerated description has made this 
 woman a definite human fact to me, and she has been vividly in 
 my mind ever since ; it's almost like an uncanny possession. I 
 asked Mione whether she had ever talked to her. 
 
 "Yes, once. She used to sun herself in a sort of gravelly 
 place with bamboos round it, in the Cosmopolitain garden, 
 wrapped up in shawls, not reading or doing anything, but just 
 watching him with her bright yellow eyes . . . such extraordinary 
 eyes, like a mad cat's. He had a habit of walking up and down 
 with his book, as if he felt restless and uncomfortable, and I am 
 not surprised. . . . Then, every now and then, she would call to 
 him, in a deep sort of organ-note voice, ' Robert ! ' And he would 
 go back and settle her wraps or something, and sit by her a bit, 
 and then begin walking again. I couldn't help noticing them, 
 for my chair was fixed on the slope just above. He was as atten- 
 tive to her as though he had been a well-paid courier. They 
 were supposed to have been very much in love with each other." 
 
 In love with each other ! That's better than owning Grise- 
 wood and Tregarth, and the Vassal diamonds and the rest. Well, 
 they are not to be pitied after all ! 
 
 " She had money, I believe," said Mione, with the little cynical 
 gesture — an uplifting of her chin and crinkling of the lids over 
 her soft eyes that I associate quaintly with a peculiar after-dinner 
 laugh of Mr. Vassal's. "It couldn't have been much, or she wouldn't 
 be a Uelmar. Indigence and eccentricity are the only Delmar 
 inheritance I ever heard of. In fact," pursued Mione, " I'm the 
 one sane and practical Delmar there has been for generations. 
 They all go shaky on something— religion, or railways, or love — 
 or any fad that happens to fall handy ! . . . And I'm the only 
 Delmar, too, who ever had twopence — that's by a fluke, through 
 a maternal uncle. . . . From that, and the way he looks after her, it 
 seems as though the romantic-attachment part of the story was true. 
 There is a fascination about her even still — I remember when I was 
 a tiny child, I used to hear of her as ' the beautiful Miss Delmar,' 
 and there are all the remains, though, of course, now she is a 
 specimen of the 'once-have-beens.' . . . Enormous will-power! 
 That woman would do anything she had set her soul on. No
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 81 
 
 doubt she set her soul on getting possession of him, and did 
 it. Haven't you noticed that man-geniuses are always weak on 
 the side of their feminine relations ? They're either very much 
 married, or very much the other thing. I prefer them myself when 
 they're the other thing. Robert Vassal is very much married." 
 
 I made Mione tell me everything she could about Mrs. Robert 
 Vassal. 
 
 "Well, she interested me in a haunting kind of way; and I 
 was abominably bored at the Cosmopolitain, and thought I'd 
 like to know them. So one day I walked down the bank and 
 introduced myself — as a distant Delmar connection, you know — 
 and made some nice speeches about her health, and the table- 
 d'hote food, and that sort of thing. I chose my opportunity when 
 he had left her for a morning — and I don't wonder he wanted 
 a change — so that she shouldn't fancy he was the attraction. . . . 
 
 " Oh ! she is certainly very odd. There she sat with a port- 
 folio, and some bits of paper in her lap — I never saw anything 
 so funny. The papers were all covered with queer geometrical 
 sort of drawings, and new moons scattered about, and signs of 
 the zodiac — I know those because I once went to a fancy dress 
 ball as Night, and they were embroidered in silver at the bottom 
 of my skirt, though, as you can't see them, what they had to do 
 with Night I don't know. ... I asked her if she was doing Euclid 
 problems, and she shook her head. 
 
 "'Perhaps you wouldn't believe,' she said, 'that I was clever 
 at mathematics once, and used to help my husband a great deal 
 in his literary work. He wouldn't be the famous man that he 
 is if it hadn't been for me. He says so, and I know it's true. 
 But now I'm broken down, and I lead a retired life. . . . And I've 
 got a reason,' she said, ' for not making new acquaintances : 
 they're dangerous to him! 
 
 " If you could have seen the look she gave me. I began to 
 have cold shivers. . . . But I didn't intend to be beaten, so I 
 pretended not to notice the hint, and smiled, and condoled, and 
 agreed that her husband was a very famous person indeed. But 
 I put up a silent prayer that she wouldn't question me on the 
 grounds of my belief; for, between ourselves, that novel of his 
 is altogether too high flown and incomprehensible for my taste. 
 And as for his poetry ! Well, I never know what people do want 
 to write poetry for. As if there wasn't quite enough of nonsense 
 in the world in the love-making line, without adding that. . . . 
 15ut I really was curious about those queer drawings — fancied 
 they might be embroidery patterns — and I asked her what they 
 were for. 
 
 F
 
 3 2 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 " ' It's a hororary figure,' she said ; and I was just as wise 
 as ever. 
 
 " ' You see,' she went on, fixing me again with her crazy look, 
 1 Saturn is lord of the ascendant, and rules the sign of Venus. 
 She's evil aspected in Leo and Cancer, which denotes misfortune 
 for him ' — that was her husband — misfortune in the months of — 
 I'm sure I forget which. . . . My dear ! such gibberish ! There 
 was something about a cusp — whatever that may be ; and some- 
 body's sixth house, and somebody's lady of the eighth house. . . . 
 And I said it was extremely interesting, and quite exhilarating 
 in these hard times to hear of anybody with eight houses, or even 
 six — only I hoped for his sake they weren't on agricultural pro- 
 perty. But I told her that the lady sounded rather improper — 
 especially if he had one in each of his houses — and that if it was 
 a riddle, I should like very much to know what it all meant. . . . 
 
 "'You mustn't tell Aim,' she said. 'He doesn't like to see 
 me doing it. . . . But it's for his sake. . . . There's an Influence 
 coming into his life . . . that's what it means, and I want to 
 guard him against it. . . . It's not you,' she said, staring at me 
 with those uncomfortable eyes. ' You're not the kind of person 
 to influence him : though you are a Delmar. But, no doubt, 
 you take after your mother. Her family lived in Woodchester, 
 I have heard ' — which was a ladylike way of reminding me that 
 Grandfather retired from the iron trade into domestic affluence — 
 with aspirations — and aspirates. To the last I bear solemn 
 witness. . . . Oh, dear ! didn't I just feel inadequate ! and I told 
 myself that I'd better go. ' What a strange talk we are having,' 
 she said. ' I hope I haven't said anything disrespectful of your 
 mother's family. I have always understood that she was a 
 very charming person. But I am quite sure you are not the 
 Influence.' 
 
 " I said I was sorry that I wasn't the Influence, because per- 
 haps my wits might be improved if I were ; and then I toddled 
 up the bank again. Next time they settled themselves by the 
 bamboos, I only ventured to bow ; and he glowered at me as 
 he took off his hat. I always thought that I was the cause of 
 their hiring the De'pendance, which they did soon after, and as 
 its garden is separated from the hotel grounds, I never saw her 
 again : and that was the beginning and the end of my attempt 
 to scrape acquaintance with the Robert Vassals. I was rather 
 sorry," Mione added. " I should have liked to get at the inside 
 of that woman, for I believe there's some sanity in her madness, 
 and I'm sure she'd have amused me ; and perhaps I might have 
 amused her. I should have laughed her out of her nonsense.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 83 
 
 Think of spending one's life casting hororary figures, and sus- 
 pecting every good-looking woman of being an ' Influence ' one 
 has got to guard one's husband from. It's sad — when there are 
 always gowns and Guardsmen to shake one out of the dumps. 
 The thing that jars upon me is that she makes herself such a 
 frump. Do you observe that's a failing with clever men's wives ? 
 . . . And now that crinoline is buried in the past, and you can 
 always buy yourself a curly toupet, there's no excuse for unbe- 
 coming invalidism. Bless the being who invented tea-gowns ! 
 They make it so easy to manage picturesque floppiness. Now I 
 feel morally certain that in domestic privacy Mrs. Robert Vassal 
 wears a red-flannel dressing-gown with white woollen feather- 
 stitches meandering about — judging from her shawls. It annoys 
 me when ajbeautiful woman doesn't make the best of herself." . . . 
 And then Mione wandered off on the philosophy of marriage, a 
 subject she is rather fond of. ..." A pretty woman who can't 
 keep her husband on his knees adoring, is too stupid to exist. 
 The two best safeguards against Influences are Worth and the 
 Cookery-book. It's always the nice virtuous domestic wives who 
 are tyrannised over or neglected — the wives whose maids make 
 their gowns and who screw down the cook. Nobody — not even 
 a genius — wants his wife to wear home-made dresses and economise 
 over the eggs for the puddings. The first necessity of a modern man 
 is to dine decently : the second, to be envied by his fellow-men ; 
 the third, to be amused. Who could envy a man when he owns 
 a frump ? Feed your husband ; flatter him ; flirt, and let him flirt. 
 . . . Those are my tactics with Audley, and I'm quite satisfied 
 with the result." 
 
 I brought her back to the Robert Vassals by inquiring about 
 the boy. 
 
 " Oh, he wasn't at Philotis. Probably left behind at school. 
 But somebody told me that he's a splendid British bulldog sort 
 of little chap. How did they contrive it ? On the principles 
 of two negatives making a positive, or the other way on — Vassal 
 and Delmar ! My good gracious ! what will his children be 
 like ? It's certain that the third generation will give the Lunacy 
 Commissioners something to do." 
 
 Then a softer note came into Mione's voice. " I don't won- 
 d r," she said, "that you feci rather bitter over that boy." 
 
 " I have not the least feeling of bitterness. Why should I 
 grudge another woman the happiness of being a mother?" 
 
 " Well," said Mione, becoming flinty again, "that's a happiness 
 that, personally, I never hankered after. I've no leanings towards 
 the young of the human species, which is just the most tiresome
 
 84 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 in the animal kingdom. You can't for interest compare a baby 
 with a kitten or a puppy. But then, you see, by Provvy's merci- 
 ful dispensation, as Frank Leete would say, I am not required 
 to provide anybody with an heir." 
 
 I am almost happy to-day ! 
 
 Curious that I should write these words — I to whom joy has 
 been so long a stranger. 
 
 But I am not old yet. And the sun is shining, and the air is 
 dreamy and sweet and melodious with the scents and the mur- 
 murings of coming spring. The crocuses and the little fat 
 aconites are pushing up their heads through the yielding earth, 
 the birds are softly twittering, and my heart is glad in the gush 
 of running sap and budding things — glad in the thought that life 
 is not all barren ; that though love may be an illusion, marriage 
 a mockery, and motherhood a vain yearning, there remain the 
 service of art and the striving after spiritual beauty. And my 
 heart is glad more than all in the sense of a trial made and 
 of work done. For this morning I wrote the last page of my 
 story. 
 
 Now I am confronted by a practical difficulty. How am I 
 to get my book published, or even read by a publisher's reader, 
 without letting the publisher, at least, know who I am ? And I 
 can't write under Mr. Vassal's name ; that is absolutely out of 
 the question. I will go unfriended and unknown before the bar 
 of the public, as Esther Vrintz went. I will be judged without 
 favour, as Esther Vrintz was judged. Perhaps I shall fail, as 
 Esther Vrintz failed. But something tells me that I shall 
 not fail. 
 
 I have thought of taking counsel with Mr. Leete. I can trust 
 him to help me and not to betray my secret. He loves a literary 
 mystery. A long time ago he himself published a novel anony- 
 mously — it was a failure, and once only in a burst of confidence 
 did he allude to the subject, which is a sore one. And have I not 
 already proved his lively faith in untried genius ! So I have 
 written to ask if I may talk to him about a literary matter I am 
 interested in ; and if — for I believe Mr. Vassal is staying in 
 Grosvenor Street — he will choose a date when there is no first 
 performance at any of the theatres, and beg Mrs. Leete to take 
 me in for a night. I remember his ways. He never goes to' bed 
 before four in the morning, and does not rise till afternoon ; 
 and he is in his happiest mood when he has dined and is 
 sitting in his den with his cup of black coffee, a liqueur, and 
 his pipe.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 85 
 
 Ah, it makes me think of the time when I read Massinger to 
 him and dreamed of being a new Rachel ! How well I seem to 
 know the little dark room, its walls covered from floor to ceiling 
 with books, — books exude everywhere in the Leetes' house, on 
 the stairs even, which have a dado of them and are narrowed in 
 consequence, — the table a litter of papers, proofs, pipes, and 
 photographs of dramatic celebrities adorned with straggling in- 
 scriptions in black ink written with a quill pen, and the wee 
 shabby copy of Pope close to hand. For it is a peculiarity of 
 Mr. Leete's that he always carries about a copy of Pope for 
 the consolation of a dull hour. I have heard him recite the 
 Rape of the Lock from memory ; and he is proud of having trans- 
 lated The Essay on Man into French — he is an accomplished 
 French scholar — which was a great production. He read it 
 aloud to Agatha and her fiance and me, and I am sure never 
 quite forgave Captain Greste for 'saying that he thought the Eng- 
 lish version dull enough. How well, too, I know the look of 
 Mr. Leete as he leans back puffing clouds of smoke, and clutching 
 spasmodically, as he gets excited, at his great beard — a trick of 
 his, while he discourses on dramatic criticism, the Elizabethans, 
 Alfred de Musset, Victor Hugo, and the rest. And every now and 
 then he kindles to such a pitch of boyish enthusiasm that I feel just 
 a hundred years old beside him. Is it the air of Bohemia, I 
 wonder, which keeps people young? I said something of this 
 kind to him, and his kind eyes grew moist, his face saddened, and 
 he quoted Henri Miirger. 
 
 " ' La jeunesse n'a qu'un temps,' even in Bohemia ! " 
 
 Then we got talking back to old times, and to Clatidia, and 
 to my failure ; and he stooped forward and patted my shoulder 
 with his fatherly hand and gave his big mellow laugh, saying — 
 
 " Well ! well ! At any rate, none of us critics would dare to 
 give you a bad notice for the ' Mistress of Grisewood.' It's a 
 big part, and takes a lot of playing, and there's no fault to be 
 found with your rendering." 
 
 "There's every fault," I cried out. "I play it very badly. 
 
 And " I had to choke down a sob and a great longing to 
 
 take his two warm hands and feel one of them on each cheek — 
 just for the sake of the dear old Bohemia and the girl who is 
 dead and buried— and to tell him that I would give all Grisewood 
 and Tregarth and the Vassal diamonds to be Esther Vrintz once 
 more in her third-floor room in liloomsbury. But I didn't quite 
 make a fool of myself. 
 
 " Mr. Leete," I said after a moment or two, in which he 
 looked at me with a look he might have given to Agatha, his
 
 86 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 daughter, " it's all right . . . and the part's a big one, and I'm 
 glad I'm not an utter duffer in it. . . . But — it wants variety, you 
 know. And I've got the old artist crave on me again. I failed 
 as an actress, and now I want to try as a writer, and I want you 
 to help me." 
 
 Then Mr. Leete laughed his great tender laugh again, and 
 one hand went up to his beard, and he took the pipe out of his 
 mouth with the other, laid the pipe on the table, and stretched 
 out the hand to me, his face crinkling up with delight. 
 
 "Where's the manuscript? Give it to me," he exclaimed. 
 " You want my opinion ; it's a novel of course, and you've got it 
 with you. Go and fetch it for me." 
 
 I told him that I did not want him to read my novel in 
 manuscript, or at all, unless it were a real success. I explained 
 the whole thing to him and my reasons for secrecy, and made 
 him give me his promise that he would under no circumstances 
 divulge my true name. 
 
 He swore by all his gods, and they are many. "You are 
 quite right," he said. "There's nothing I enjoy so much as a 
 literary complication. Command me, if not as your critic, then 
 as your slave." 
 
 " After all," I answered, " I don't want very much. I am 
 going to send my manuscript to Brock & Son, and neither they 
 nor any one else in the world except yourself, is to know who has 
 written it. I have signed it by my mother's name, ' Esther 
 Zamiel.'" 
 
 Mr. Leete nodded approvingly. "As a nom-de-plume, ex- 
 cellent." 
 
 " I shall beg Mr. Brock for a candid opinion. Now may I 
 have any communications from Messrs. Brock addressed under 
 cover to you ? " 
 
 Mr. Leete seemed disappointed that his part in the affair was 
 to be such a passive one, but he agreed readily enough. 
 
 "And I don't fancy," he said, "that if Vassal comes to know 
 of it — which he will do sooner or later — he can call me out for 
 conniving at that sort of clandestine correspondence." 
 
 As for my prospects, he was full of hope and encouragement. 
 He had always felt certain, he said, that I should do great things 
 somehow and some day. It could never have been intended that 
 my artistic individuality should be merged in a grand marriage. 
 I was an artist, and would always be an artist, always belong 
 to dear Bohemia, let Philistia claim me never so loudly. . . . 
 
 Ah me ! Poor Esther Vrintz ! . . . 
 
 Then he added: "And suppose that your book does take
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 87 
 
 London by storm, and that old Brock, whom I know slightly, 
 should worry me with questions about Esther Zamiel, what am I 
 to say ? " 
 
 " Say that you knew her father, who was a disappointed musi- 
 cian, and that you helped her on to the stage, where she was a 
 failure, and are helping her now in another line of business. 
 Very likely she will be a failure in that too, and then nothing will 
 matter." 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 My manuscript has been a month in the publisher's hands. 
 I have written again. And now Mr. Leete has forwarded me 
 a note in which Miss Esther Zamiel is requested to call upon 
 Mr. Brock.
 
 BOOK V 
 
 " Loot into thine heart, and ivrite."
 
 WRITTEN I have seen Mr. Brock. Yes, what Mr. Leete says 
 
 BY is true. I am artist to the very fibre of me, and 
 
 ESTHER I thrill with exaltation, doubt, and pain. I will 
 VASSAL : tell of the interview. 
 
 Mr. Brock is elderly, with rather long, grey hair, 
 the stoop of a man of letters, alert eyes, and an eager, genial 
 manner which seems frankness itself — and which yet, now I come 
 to think of it, commits him to nothing. He was seated before a 
 large writing-table, on one side of which, stood a row of electric 
 knobs with names printed on them, and below these several 
 speaking-tubes, one of which was conspicuously labelled " MS. 
 Room." There was a high bookcase behind the writing-table 
 filled with books in new bindings, and on the top of it, the bust 
 of a great novelist, for whom Brock & Sons published. On the 
 wall hung an engraving of another dead and gone author, a 
 famous woman, whom Mr. Brock's father introduced to the 
 reading world. The house keeps up its traditional policy of 
 fostering unknown talent : that is why I chose it. 
 
 On Mr. Brock's table were packets of business papers neatly 
 docketed, some pages of manuscript, a pile of what looked like 
 ledgers, and a bundle of proof-sheets of the new number of 
 Brocks Magazi?ie, which he seemed to have been reading. 
 
 The card on which I had written Miss Esther Zamiel lay 
 upon the blotting-pad. As I entered, the publisher rose and 
 held out his hand. 
 
 ''Miss Esther Zamiel," he said, and pulled forward an arm- 
 chair to which he waved me, seating himself again at the writing- 
 table, " I am extremely obliged to you for having granted my 
 request for an interview." 
 
 His keen eyes ran me up and down. I had put on my 
 plainest clothes; but perhaps he thought that my dress was not 
 quite appropriate to the struggling literary aspirant, for there was 
 surprise in his expression. Something of the old terror of the 
 footlights came over me and shrivelled me into stiff reserve. I 
 answered mechanically and sat still, waiting for him to speak. 
 \\<: hesitated, arranged his papers before him, and fidgeted with 
 
 9'
 
 92 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 the card ; and all the time I could feel his eyes shifting on and 
 off me. 
 
 " Miss Zamiel," he began presently with an air of embarrassed 
 candour, "I was anxious to see you and to have an opportunity 
 in conversation with you of forming my own judgment indepen- 
 dently of my Reader. That was why I asked you to come, and 
 yet I feel that I ought to apologise for doing so, for I have 
 nothing definite to tell you." 
 
 He waited, but I said nothing. 
 
 " The truth is," he went on, " your letter interested me, and 
 the reports I got of the story you were good enough to submit 
 to us interested me still more. They have also surprised me, 
 for they are not the kind of reports we usually have of a young 
 lady's first novel." 
 
 A pause. 
 
 " Your manuscript has been through the hands of two of my 
 Readers. I had better tell you at once that their reports are not 
 quite favourable. They differ; but though opposed in certain 
 details, coincide upon the main point. Both speak of talent, 
 power, originality; yet — in short, you asked for an honest 
 opinion. If you wish it I will read you some extracts from these 
 reports." 
 
 I said that I should like to hear them. 
 
 Mr. Brock selected a volume from the pile of ledger-like 
 books near him and opened it. I saw that it was labelled 
 " Reports," and that on each page was pasted a smaller page of 
 manuscript with the heading of the firm. Mr. Brock turned 
 over the leaves. 
 
 "Here it is . . . Frotn Nadir to Zenith — Of course," he said, 
 "that title would never do. Too astronomical, and not taking. 
 And perhaps I ought to say now that, as a rule, we don't care for 
 one-volume works — especially by unknown authors. They don't 
 pay the expense of advertising — however, we can go into that 
 question later. My first Reader sums up the book " 
 
 Mr. Brock hummed over the opening sentences. 
 
 ..." Pity that a certain amount of good material . . . vivid- 
 ness of impression . . . feeling for the beauties of Nature — in 
 parts, force of description — should be so entirely thrown away. 
 The subject is objectionable." Here followed an epitome of 
 the plot, which Mr. Brock skipped freely. ..." Handled with 
 the crude amateurishness of an hysterical schoolgirl . . . revolting 
 from the utter absence of artistic reserve. ... It is true that the 
 book might attract a class of readers, but so do the reports of 
 the divorce court . . . h'm ! . . . h'm ! ... It offends against the
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 93 
 
 laws of probability; but what is worse, it offends against the 
 canons of good taste and morality." 
 
 Mr. Brock turned over the page, and with accentuated delicacy 
 refrained from meeting the eyes of his shocked and wounded 
 listener. 
 
 " You will pardon me, Miss Zamiel. I trust that you will not 
 be too deeply hurt by the sharpness of the criticism. I thought 
 it best that you should hear it without any softening down. The 
 second Reader takes in some respects a different view." 
 
 Mr. Brock began again. 
 
 "From Nadir to Zenith is daring in its originality and in 
 its unconventional treatment of a world-worn theme." . . . Mr. 
 Brock paused to run his finger down the lines. " Here we have 
 again an abstract of the plot. I need not trouble you with that 
 . . . h'm ! . . . h'm ! . . . Here we are." ..." It is in parts crude, 
 in parts repulsive, but the power and passion of the book are 
 undeniable. Passion indeed forms the motive of the work, and 
 some of the love-passages are so realistic that to the prurient 
 mind they might give a suggestion of animalism." . . . Mr. Brock 
 gave a deprecatory murmur before he proceeded. 
 
 " The almost painful conscientiousness with which these are 
 made to accord psychologically with the delineation of a debased 
 character, might, however, in the case of the thoughtful reader, 
 remove that impression. . . . 
 
 "... So unconventional is the treatment, so masculine the 
 sentiment, that but for the feminine prefix and other evidences 
 of origin, one might almost believe the book to be the work of a 
 man. ... In its present form it is impossible. Three volumes 
 are crammed into one in a manner savouring of melodrama, and 
 certain details, set forth with an amazing and even childlike 
 candour, require careful toning down. To be acceptable to the 
 public, the entire work needs recasting and expansion. My 
 belief, however, is that there is a touch of genius in the author, 
 and that she will in time make a distinct mark. I strongly advise 
 you not to lose sight of her." 
 
 "And now, Miss Zamiel," said Mr. Brock, closing the book, 
 " I come to what I wanted to say when I asked you to oblige me 
 with an interview. I'm going to be quite frank with you. I 
 cannot publish your story in its present form, nor am I quite 
 disposed to accept as final either of the judgments which I have 
 read to you. I am going to ask a favour. Leave me the manu- 
 script for a little while longer. Unfortunately, the Reader on whom 
 I place entire reliance has been absent from England during the 
 last month. He returns shortly. I should like him to read your
 
 94 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 story; and if he thinkswell of it, to give you his advice as to the 
 remodelling of it. There is no one in England better qualified to 
 give such advice, as you would at once admit if I might tell you 
 his name. That, you will understand, is not possible. Candidly, 
 I don't want to lose sight of you ; and I ask you this as a favour, 
 because it is of course quite possible that the final verdict may be 
 discouraging." 
 
 "Yes," I answered vaguely. I got up from my chair. "It 
 does not seem to me that there is any favour in what you ask, 
 Mr. Brock. I am very glad that my manuscript is to have another 
 chance. Besides, you might have kept it ever so much longer 
 without saying anything to me." 
 
 " We should probably have done so, had you not written a 
 second time. I am very much obliged to you, Miss Zamiel, and 
 I promise you that you shall have our answer at the very earliest 
 opportunity." 
 
 I thanked him and went away. Mr. Brock conducted me 
 himself to the door of the outer office, and it struck me after- 
 wards that this might be an auspicious circumstance. But then 
 I was dazed, hurt, astonished. The sentences of the Readers' 
 reports kept repeating themselves in my brain. I had followed 
 Dr. Glaive's advice, and had written out of the deeps of me. 
 What is there in me to call forth such comment as that which I 
 heard? How can I have offended against the canons of good 
 taste and morality ? . . . I who have never known love. ... I 
 walked on, my cheeks crimson, tears starting from my eyes, and 
 yet moved to the core and treading on air. The woman in me 
 bled : the artist rejoiced. Had not the Reader spoken of a 
 " touch of genius " !
 
 FROM My dear Brock, — The east wind has travelled like 
 
 ROBERT wildfire through the whole of this miserable machine, 
 VASSAL till I have become an incarnate Cough and a walk- 
 TO ing Inflammation. And that is what one gets from 
 
 JAMES a return to one's native land ! And you call me 
 BROCK : . unpatriotic ! Patriotism is a quality no more : it is 
 a vice in everybody who is not Irish, and an ad- 
 vertisement in all who are. Which means that I did not open 
 your bundle of MS. till yesterday. 
 
 Good boy Barham, with his eternal cant about the moralities, 
 is out of it this time, though I grant you that a certain toning 
 down of style and revelations will be necessary before you intro- 
 duce your Unknown to Mrs. Grundy. I'd stake a good deal, 
 however, on the woman being as pure-minded as a Greek Venus — 
 always supposing that a Greek Venus was ever endowed with 
 mind, which we know she wasn't. Tryon is nearer the mark in 
 his criticism. The author of From Nadir to Zenith — Heavens, 
 what a title ! — will certainly make her mark, as he predicts. No, 
 distinctly and emphatically, don't let her go. There's money in 
 her, which appeals to the mercantile element in you ; and there's 
 genius too — a rare combination. She wants delicate handling, 
 and she mustn't be allowed to get it into her head that she is 
 improper. Excuse me for saying that I think you made a mistake 
 in reading her those reports. A touch of self-consciousness might 
 make her immoral. At present she is naked and not ashamed — 
 an Eve of novelists. 
 
 Tryon is right: the book is impossible in its present shape; 
 it needs recasting, and might with advantage be spread over two 
 or three volumes — two, I should say, for a prentice hand ; it takes 
 workmanship to make a second volume in three interesting. I 
 believe that with toning down, pulling together, and drawing out, 
 there's stuff in the story lor a big success, though nobody knows 
 better than yourself that the appreciative faculty of the British 
 reading public is almost as incalculable a quantity as that of the 
 playgoing public. In fact, you never know where to have 'em ! 
 If you think that Esther Zamiel is of the sort to take kindly such 
 
 95
 
 96 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 help and advice as I can give her, I will gladly fall in with your 
 suggestion of an interview, provided always that my incognito be 
 strictly preserved. — Faithfully yours, 
 
 Robert Vassal. 
 
 By the way, I don't know why you should take it for granted 
 that Esther Zamiel is a pseudonym. Esther! — "whom the king 
 married and made queen . . . and the two dragons are I and 
 Haman "■ — of the tribe of the critics — " And their cry was great ! " 
 Zamiel — of the Rabbis — a name, I fancy, I have seen in Philotis. 
 Many thanks for your inquiries after my wife. She has been 
 much benefited by her sojourn in that City of Delight.
 
 WRITTEN I want to remember every word that the Reader 
 
 BY said to me. 
 
 ESTHER There were two men in Mr. Brock's office when 
 
 VASSAL : I went in. The publisher greeted me in his bland 
 alert manner : the other man was standing at the 
 ' farther window, his head a black blur against the light, a manu- 
 script in his hand. He just looked up for a moment, then 
 began reading again. " I have to thank you a second time for 
 coming, Miss Zamiel," said Mr. Brock. " I congratulate you 
 on the interest your work seems to have aroused; and I hope 
 that you may feel disposed to give attention to my Reader's 
 suggestions, and that when remodelled I may have the pleasure 
 of publishing your story. I ought perhaps, however, to tell you 
 that you will need all your courage, for you have to do with a 
 critic who is considered mercilessly truthful." 
 
 The man at the window looked up again sharply, as though 
 he were annoyed. I seemed to know in a queer intuitive way 
 that the publisher's words had jarred. A touch of that other- 
 world presentiment which I have had before, made everything 
 seem at once vivid and unnatural for a moment. I can't analyse 
 the feeling — it's a thing by itself. 
 
 I said that it was the truth I wanted. 
 
 Then the other man spoke, as if he were quoting from the 
 pages before him, "Oh, ye men, are not women strong? Great 
 is the earth ; high is the heaven ; swift is the sun in his course. 
 . . . Great is truth, and mighty above all things ! You will note, 
 Brock, that I have been studying the Apocrypha." 
 
 He stepped sideways from the window, claiming attention. 
 The other-world grip tightened on me, and in the daze it made 
 there was the shock, sharp and insistent, of a past association. 
 I had listened to that voice ; I had seen that profile before. 
 
 Presently I heard Mr. Brock say, "Now 1 am going to leave 
 
 you to your fate." He made a gesture with his hands as though 
 
 he were shaking off all unpleasant responsibility. " Unfortunately, 
 
 . Zamiel, I can't present your critic by name. For obvious 
 
 reasons, a publisher's reader and a professional slayer of literary 
 
 97 G
 
 98 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 hopes is anxious to keep his incognito. But allow me, 'The 
 Reader . . . Miss Esther Zamiel.'" 
 
 The man bowed, impatiently I fancied, and said, as the door 
 closed on Mr. Brock and his periphrases, " Miss Zamiel will 
 understand that there may be young authors less ready than her- 
 self to sacrifice vanity to truth." 
 
 And now that he had come closer, and that he looked at me, 
 it all flashed back — the falling snow, the gloom of winter after- 
 noon, the great pilasters of the theatre, with their flaring red 
 posters, the group of men in the portico. I heard again those 
 incisive tones — Fate's fiat for me — felt again that stab of despair. 
 I could not speak. I could only stare at him wildly ; and he 
 exclaimed with a frown of annoyed surprise, "You know who 
 lam?" 
 
 "No," I answered, recovering myself; "I don't know your 
 name. I have only seen you once, and that was long ago." 
 
 "But you seemed so startled — so shocked. . . . Where did 
 you see me? " 
 
 "It was at the theatre — outside, after a matinee." 
 
 " A matinee ! . . . But what of that ? " 
 
 " I was an actress, and I had failed dreadfully . . . and you 
 were present at the failure. . . ." 
 
 " There must have been a great many others present also," 
 he said. 
 
 " Yes. . . . But it was something you said — I heard you say 
 that I had mistaken my vocation, and that I should never do 
 any good." 
 
 He knitted his forehead as if searching for a clue that he 
 could not find. 
 
 " I am very sorry if I hurt you. ... I wish I could remember. 
 ... I seem to have a glimmering. . . . But it's of no use. I suppose 
 I have seen a good many young actresses — who failed." 
 
 " It is nearly eight years ago," I said ; and then the thought 
 occurred to me that if I were to proclaim myself Esther Vrintz, 
 I might as well proclaim myself Mrs. Vassal. Somehow the sight 
 of him swept away pretences, and I had almost forgotten that I 
 am masquerading under a pseudonym. 
 
 " Please don't try to remember me. I had much rather you 
 didn't. Only it is strange that, after having heard you say that 
 I should not succeed as an actress, I may now have to hear you 
 say that I shall not succeed as a writer." 
 
 "Yes, it is strange," he said thoughtfully, and his eyes seemed 
 to search my face still. 
 
 " Won't you sit down ? " he added abruptly, pushing forward
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 99 
 
 the leather arm-chair, and himself taking Mr. Brock's place at the 
 writing-table. He turned over the manuscript he held, which I 
 now saw was my own. " I am not going to say that you will not 
 succeed as a writer." 
 
 Again I had the sense of mind-currents playing between us, 
 just as on that day when I was crouching against the pillar in the 
 theatre porch and listening to his talk, only it was intensified 
 many degrees. And indeed ever since this meeting in Mr. Brock's 
 office the impression has remained. Perhaps it is the peculiarly 
 bright ray his eyes give out when they are fixed upon one which 
 causes the fancy. They are sad eyes ; there's something repressed 
 in them. But they are kind ; and the mouth, that is so sensitive 
 and worried-looking, becomes quite different when he smiles. 
 
 •• You Jcnow George Lewes's admirable saying, that in criticism 
 everything depends upon the point of view. I may criticise you 
 according to a low standard, or according to the highest." 
 
 I said something about wishing to aim at the best things. My 
 own words seem to matter so little ; it is his which I should like 
 to keep as a possession. 
 
 " Good ! Tell me," he asked abruptly, " are you working for 
 money ? " 
 
 Something of the puzzlement which had been in Mr. Brock's 
 face was in his, and 1 noticed a quick glance at my neck, and 
 remembered a valuable pearl set in a brooch, with which my lace 
 scarf was fastened, and that the lace itself is old and particularly 
 good, like all the Vassal lace. 
 
 I told the Reader, that if he thought I was fit for it, I wanted 
 to work for Art. 
 
 " Oh, Art ! " 1 le laughed and gave a little upward movement 
 and turn of his head. It is a fine intellectual head, so much 
 stronger than the lower part of the face, with the hair growing 
 rather curiously straight back from the forehead and curling at 
 the points. 
 
 " I am not sure that Art didn't thrive much better in the 
 garret days than be-dinnered and be-diamonded in modern 
 London. Hunger, you know, is medicine for immortality! . . . 
 May I read aloud a bit of your manuscript? That's how I shall 
 
 id my criticism. And remember, it is to be the highest standard. 
 We want to write for men and women who have thought and 
 suffered — not for the penny million.' 
 
 My heart heat quick with pleasure at this coupling of me witli 
 himself. Presently it beat quicker still, but in dread and shame. 
 
 " Listen to this," he said. 
 
 He read aloud several passages from my manuscript. They
 
 ioo THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 are bits which, now that I go over them in cold blood, make my 
 cheeks tingle. While he went on it seemed to me that my secret 
 soul in all its folly and presumption was being laid bare as under 
 a magnesium light. My glowing metaphor, my romantic senti- 
 ment, my fervid dialogue, became vulgar twaddle and jingling 
 melodrama. Every now and then a delicate irony from him, or 
 a pointed illustration, would accuse me of slipshod English — 
 or worse. Once he gravely inquired what had been my artistic 
 intention in regard to a complication of plot ; and alas ! I had had 
 no "intention," but had written at the spur of fancy. He re- 
 proved a tendency to inartistic commingling of the Romantic and 
 Naturalistic methods, quoting a line from Ruskin and delivering 
 a warning against the irreverent adaptation to modern life of 
 situations dealt with in the Greek tragedies. . . . There are many 
 kinds of torture ; this is one of which the recollection makes me 
 start from sleep o' nights, as Mr. Leete's Elizabethans would say, 
 smarting and burning as though the lash were stinging yet. 
 
 " I have been very hard on you," he said at last, laying down 
 the manuscript ; " but it was with a purpose. I thank you for 
 your brave patience. Don't hate me for plying my trade ; and is 
 it any consolation to know that I only do this sort of thing for 
 those I see are worth it ? Try to look upon me as a surgeon, who 
 to do his patient any good must probe deep." 
 
 " Tell me if I am quite hopeless," I cried desperately. " You 
 said it once before in my hearing ; say it again to my face ; and 
 if that's the truth, don't gloss it with soft words just because you 
 are sorry for me." 
 
 " And why should I be sorry for you ? " he asked abruptly, 
 bending a little forward and looking at me with an interested 
 expression. " Even supposing I didn't think much of your chances 
 as an author, why should I pity you ? You don't need to work 
 for money, so that it can't be a matter of vital importance. You 
 must have all the ordinary interests and pleasures of a woman 
 of the world ; and there are better ways of amusing oneself than 
 by the writing of novels. . . . Unless," he paused, and I fancied 
 that he was endeavouring on outward indications to construct a 
 theory about me — " unless it is that you are alone in the world, 
 deprived perhaps of some dear companionship, and that you are 
 counting on this work to supply what is lacking in your life ? " 
 
 " Yes, I am alone in the world." 
 
 I spoke from my inner sense of things — not considering, as 
 I have done since, the false impression my words might produce. 
 But how, as Esther Zamiel, could I have replied, except evasively? 
 How convey the truth without conveying also the fact that I am
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 101 
 
 an unhappy married woman ? Yet I have been wishing all the 
 time that there were no petty deceptions between us. While I 
 am talking to him, there comes over me a feeling I have never 
 had in my life before — a feeling of having gained mental foot- 
 hold, and of standing with one able to comprehend my inner 
 self on a platform high above the worldly conventions. That 
 is as it should be. Where Art reigns, the ordinary-man-and- 
 woman conventions should cease to exist. He is just " the 
 Reader " to me. I don't know his name ; I don't want to know 
 it. I am his pupil ; he is my teacher. 
 
 " Surely you can understand," I said, " what it is to be stifling 
 for the need of expression — the need of a larger life ? " 
 
 " I know the need well, and have suffered severely from it ; 
 but a man has outlets difficult for a woman to find. Well, I 
 have learned so much about you without any telling from you. 
 It's all written here " — he touched the manuscript with the palm 
 of his hand. " Here I see the yearning for things unutterable ; 
 here I see the curse and crown of genius." 
 
 "Genius!" 
 
 "Yes; you have power, originality, sincerity. I venture to 
 believe that you have genius." 
 
 Did I cry out in my rapture and astonishment, and was it 
 that which made him rise and stand for a minute, looking down 
 on me with radiant and yet mournful kindness ? 
 
 " It's a big word — genius ! Think ! You may be great ; that 
 thought should keep you humble. But I observe with gladness 
 that though you have artistic pride, you have not artistic vanity. 
 If I handled you roughly at first, it was because I wanted to test 
 you ; so that I might, if you would let me, help you in mastering 
 the craft. I have found fault with the form ; and the form, re- 
 member, is everything, and is nothing. It is the spirit that 
 giveth life. Remember, too, that the spirit manifests itself through 
 form, and that form may be moulded into symmetrical beauty. 
 That is where I, as an elder craftsman, may be of use to you. 
 The art of the novelist has to be learned; it is a mistake to 
 suppose that the fine taste which leads to perfection of form 
 comes by intuition. At the same time I realise a responsibility. 
 I should dread the quenching of the spirit by a too strenuous 
 insistence upon technicalities. If I were to become, to some small 
 extent, your teacher, I should not approach you again in the 
 
 nng attitude of this morning. I want you to rewrite your 
 book according to the new lights, and to send it to me feeling 
 certain of appreciation, and that my suggestions and corrections 
 would be just those which a more experienced workman might
 
 io2 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 offer to an enthusiastic beginner, in danger of assaulting the 
 canons of intellectual Grundyism. One wiser than I has said 
 that though genius may sometimes need the spur, it as often 
 requires the curb." 
 
 " I will do everything that you say is right, if you will tell me 
 where I am wrong." 
 
 He looked pleased, and still standing, or else walking to and 
 fro in the narrow space between window and fireplace, he began 
 to discuss the manner in which my story might be improved and 
 expanded. He advised me to brood — for a week, a month, six 
 months — exactly so long as it might take me to get grip of the 
 subject. 
 
 " Then, put aside the old manuscript, and write — write what 
 comes to you. Remember you cannot describe vividly what you 
 do not feel vividly. Get your keynote, make your atmosphere, 
 and be fearless, and trust in your own sense of art. If it doesn't 
 carry you along, it's worth nothing. . . . And if you come to a 
 crux and want advice or sympathy, don't hesitate to write to me ; 
 I shall take the deepest interest in your progress. Next to doing 
 good work oneself, the greatest artistic joy is in watching others 
 do it. A letter addressed to ' The Reader ' under cover to 
 Mr. Brock will always find me, and shall be answered without 
 delay." 
 
 I got up to go. Some instinct of shyness kept me from 
 holding out my hand. He made me a low bow. I could not 
 help saying — 
 
 " If you only knew what new hope you have put into my 
 life, you would understand why I find it hard to thank you." 
 
 " Don't try," he answered abruptly. " Besides, I do know. 
 Do you think I have never been hopeless and lonely and in want 
 of encouragement ? There's no need to thank me. Do that 
 when London is talking about your book — though," he added, 
 " I shall have done nothing to deserve your thanks."
 
 FROM Dear Madam, 
 
 JAMES Presuming your work Naamah to make three 
 
 BROCK volumes, I beg to offer you, on the signature of 
 TO the agreement, fifty pounds (^50) in cash, and 
 
 ESTHER on the publication of the book fifty copies free of 
 ZAMIEL : charge. 
 
 I beg to remain, very faithfully yours, 
 
 James Brock. 
 From tJie Same 
 to the Same. 
 
 Dear Miss Zamiel, — Tone down ; tone doivn ; tone down. 
 — Yours faithfully, James Brock. 
 
 From the Same 
 to the Same. 
 
 Dear Miss Zamiel,- — I cannot thank you too much for the ex- 
 treme kindness with which you receive the suggestions offered you. 
 
 I appreciate the difficulty, as also does the Reader, of giving 
 effect to them so as not to lose the unity of the story. It seemed 
 right, however, for me to place before you the different, and 
 indeed opposite, opinions of two Readers, one judging much 
 by impulse, the other by reason. I knew you would get from 
 the two together a view in advance of what the two schools of 
 critics would say, and so be beforehand with them by obviating 
 any objections which appeared to you legitimate. I think the 
 process of temptation is always difficult to show without begetting 
 a feeling of repulse in the reader's mind, if the mind be healthy. 
 This is the point I am most anxious about. 
 
 However, I now leave the matter with you, in gratitude for 
 your patient forbearance. — Yours very truly, James Brock. 
 
 From the Same 
 to the Same. 
 
 I )iak Miss Zamiel, — I send you a line to say that I am amply 
 
 satisfied with progress so far. 
 
 I have just received the Piccadilly Gazette. A grand notice ! 
 
 — Yours very truly, James Brock. 
 
 103
 
 EXTRACTS . . . Of course, the more absorbing interest of 
 FROM THE the story lies in the psychological analysis of 
 LETTERS Naamah's character, and of the effect upon a 
 OF THE virginal nature, at once singularly elemental and 
 
 READER singularly complex, of a loathed bondage to 
 
 TO legalised sensuality. Profoundly painful as the 
 
 ESTHER study is to me — and that for reasons much 
 
 ZAMIEL : deeper than any mere rule of conventional pro- 
 
 priety — I cannot say that I would alter or 
 omit a single line. You must expect to be misunderstood. 
 Stupid people believe that evils are mitigated, if not cured, 
 by not being talked about. Prurient people believe that sen- 
 suous passion can only be treated from the motives that would 
 actuate themselves. Of course, I do not know how far your 
 object was, as I need not say it might legitimately be, artistic 
 purely, or how far it was also social and moral. But the book 
 has set me thinking on the workings of popular philosophy and 
 fashionable practice. The inculcation of theories which are after- 
 wards found not to square with the facts of life, of creeds which 
 will not bear examination, doctrines which will not stand the test 
 of experience, destroy I am sure many characters and wreck 
 many careers. Add to these, the dreary, witless, vulgar flippancy 
 which is supposed to constitute the best social tone, and wonder 
 if you can, that a girl with any mind or heart or soul breaks 
 out into extravagance or vice. Your book afflicts me. But my 
 consolations are two. In the first place, fashionable society, 
 which alone lives like that, is a very small portion of the human 
 race. In the second, people will find out sooner or later that 
 the only security against morbid misery, the only existence 
 worth leading is the double life of the intellect and the affec- 
 tions. I observe with pleasure that your Leonore does not 
 care for reading. That is as true a touch as Iago's contempt for 
 women. 
 
 The frivolity of the social life described and the tragedy 
 
 which is being enacted behind the scenes reminds one of the 
 
 104
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 105 
 
 Venetians in Browning's poem who amuse themselves by night 
 and by day. 
 
 ". . . till in due time, one by one, 
 Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone, 
 Death stepped tacitly and took them where they ftever see the sun.''' 
 
 I read your chapters last night at a very advanced hour, after 
 the House had done its work. The hour was appropriate to a 
 story so full of ominous suggestiveness, but was too late for me 
 to do more than scribble you a rough impression of the effect 
 produced. I have now some criticisms to make and some faults 
 to find. . . . [Here follows a list of corrections.] 
 
 . . . Pardon me if I make a suggestion. You have painted 
 your Naamah pure, forgiving, and — passionless. Can you not 
 infuse a few warm drops into the current of her blood ? 
 
 I am afraid that human sympathy, except in the case of a 
 small canting section, will always be with the Magdalen rather 
 than with the woman who leaves it to be supposed that, after all, 
 her coldness has been the safeguard of her purity. Could you 
 not by a stroke or two of your pen let us at least guess that under 
 different conditions, in a more congenial atmosphere, under the 
 touch of a master-hand, the marble statue would have breathed, 
 and that the spark of passion would have been kindled ? 
 
 If, however, you as an artist are content to leave the apprecia- 
 tion of your work to the comparatively small number of minds 
 capable of discerning the spirituality of the ideal, you are certainly 
 justified. "When therefore I say that Naamah might be improved 
 by a little "warming up," remember I say so from the point of 
 view of Mr. Brock's public — the public which demands that the 
 ideal should be debased slightly, as the Mint puts alloy into 
 pure gold to make it current. . . . 
 
 You have seized and expressed my meaning. You have 
 animated the statue. . . One passage only I should like to 
 expunge. . . . 
 
 • •>>••• 
 
 ... I am going to give you a little lecture in parenthesis. 
 Whether of my work, or your work, or anybody's work, never 
 believe in being too good for the public. It may take a little 
 while to educate it, but "the Great Big Stupid" always under- 
 stands in the long run. One can never be too clever, except by 
 being obscure — the crying sin of a whole crowd of writers, who 
 use obscurity of language to veil obscurity of thought.
 
 106 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 And now — another parenthesis : and to answer the difficulty 
 at which you hinted. You will be less dependent upon mood 
 when you grow master of your work. Mastery comes from 
 knowledge; and knowledge only from reading and experience. 
 Originality is idle without it, and cram is poor substitute. 
 
 . . . Cultivate knowledge, not of society, but of books, whose 
 strange fascination grows like no other. Oddly enough, there 
 is no diet for imagination like knowledge when it is not mere 
 formal cram. 
 
 I understand what you say about those " partings of the way " 
 — those Y's of life — which belong both to the intellectual and 
 emotional life. Several years ago I myself came to one such. I 
 was then older than you are now. Up to near that time, I had 
 read practically nothing but French novels and poetry, and was 
 absolutely without the invaluable power of attention. I had 
 worked half-heartedly, and wanting the spur of actual need, at a 
 profession I loathed. There could not have been a more wasted 
 life, or one more unhappy or discontented. I had broken down 
 after my father's death, and other severer trials ; and for more than 
 two years was practically non-existent. Then that came about 
 which obliged me to take myself in hand, and I did begin to 
 read. A naturally good memory helped me to conquer indolence 
 and inattention, and I forced myself to know. . . . Never had 
 life so harlequinesque a change ! In health : in power : in 
 happiness — in everything ! Imagination, starved as I say for 
 lack of knowledge, seemed to grow with my reading. I am 
 not of the way of thinking of Schopenhauer, who looks upon 
 truth that has been picked up from books as a meretricious sort 
 of thing. Books are worth to me all the society on earth except- 
 ing that of a few real and kindred souls. There's a chapter of 
 autobiography. I don't ask you to forgive it, irrelevant as it 
 seems. It means, cultivate knowledge for your own gift's sake 
 — and especially now that, as I glean from sundry phrases and 
 allusions in your last letter, you feel yourself at one of life's 
 cross-roads. 
 
 • •••••■ 
 
 Why do you make your prominent men-characters sceptics or 
 atheists? If you can't stand an orthodox Churchman — I speak 
 artistically — why not go in for a Roman Catholic ? Atheists and 
 sceptics — c'est toujours perdrix. I think you will see with your 
 artistic eyes what I mean. Darwinise Max if you like, but give 
 him faith in something. . . . 
 
 I had to hurry off the proofs of your last chapter this morning,
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 107 
 
 and regret having given myself no time for explanation or apology 
 in regard to my fussy little interpolation. It was suggested by a 
 remark of my wife's, who occasionally looks over proofs for me, 
 and by a chance, lighted upon that delicate awakening passage — 
 a passage which naturally appeals to the feminine view of things. 
 I gave the marginal criticism for your consideration merely as 
 embodying the idea of the conventionally brought-up English- 
 woman, and not because I agree with it. On the contrary, I 
 think I hold with you ; but it occurs to me that in some matters 
 your method of generalising is rather of the masculine order. 
 
 Still another autobiographical parenthesis. You speak of 
 apathy of the mind and soul, and of an "awakening" crisis. 
 I have gone .through one of those crises to which you allude, and 
 at the root of them lies a mystery apart from causes material and 
 mental, for it is above and beyond both, and it comes of the 
 spirit. And again I say unto you — Work. 
 
 Do you not agree with me that the truest definition of genius 
 is chronic incapacity to harmonise with its environment ? The 
 contrasting types of the two women of genius in your story realise 
 this notion — antithetically. Strange how in the region of things 
 invisible, as in the universe visible, the law of duality reigns. 
 Genius as an abstract quantity distinctly comprises the dual at- 
 tributes — body and spirit. Leonore, secondary figure as she is, 
 and notwithstanding her indifference to books, must be classed 
 under the heading. Naamah is genius of the reflective order in 
 its poetic and spiritual aspect ; Leonore represents intellectual- 
 material genius, and expresses it in action and feeling rather than 
 in what I must call the literary tendency. Your psychology seems 
 to me correct in making these two women — the one all brain and 
 spirit, the other all brain and passion — fall in love with a poet 
 who combines, as every genuine poet must, the three elements, 
 passion, mind, and soul. Your analysis of the poet's tempera- 
 ment interests me curiously. But it occurs to me that just as 
 poets are differentiated from other men, so are poets differen- 
 tiated from poets. In your poet, for instance, there is more of 
 the traditional artistic weakness and inconsistency than, say, in 
 a Victor Hugo ; and there is more strength and steadfastness 
 than in an Alfred de Musset. One might add that there is in 
 some poets an extraordinary power of the nobler loving, that 
 underlies and overarches perpetually all their merely artistic 
 phases, and also a depth of religious feeling — I speak of the 
 Nature religion, not the religion of creeds — which causes con-
 
 io8 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 tinual turmoil and conflict— the battle of the two beings within 
 one. 
 
 Yes, I wish I could help you by throwing a flash from the 
 masculine understanding upon that question of the poetic tem- 
 perament and its emotional complexities. But alas ! I cannot 
 see a way out of the horrible problem which for generation after 
 generation has made the relation of man and woman, thus crowned 
 and cursed, an agony rather than a glory. Yet I think I do feel 
 some truths about the poet nature — its strength and its feeble- 
 ness ; its fret and fervency ; its fatal battle of soul and sense ; its 
 moth-like flutterings towards an unrealisable ideal; and the tor- 
 turing lack of unity in it, which makes its heaven-in-hell and its 
 hell-in-heaven. 
 
 But surely the final word should not be given to the pessimist, 
 or in very truth there is no God. Surely, if there be a law spiritual, 
 the ineffective beginning should shadow forth the glorified End. 
 
 Do you picture the poet in youth, under the magic touch of 
 first love, glowing with the enthusiasm of a boy-Shelley, pure, 
 noble, full of passionate faith in God and Woman and Man — full 
 of ecstatic belief in the eternity and oneness of marriage ? 
 
 Then picture the overthrowing of his altar, the discovery that 
 marriage is not a fulfilment of the monogamic Ideal, but only a 
 fragment of a vast, so to speak, polygamic scheme. Picture him 
 brought face to face with that insoluble riddle of the artist nature, 
 the inappeasable hunger for perfection : forced to know, with a 
 poet's unerring intuition, that the highest good is to worship one 
 woman ; and yet to realise that he is doomed to worship a kind of 
 mosaic of complex womanhood — doomed by the arbitrary will of 
 the Demi-urgos, having not yet found the greater God. For you 
 remember how the Greeks used to figure to themselves that in 
 the sombre darkness behind Zeus, there loomed another stronger 
 God, the Ultimate Fate — in Whom, I confess, lieth my hope. 
 
 Some words you have written, embolden me to express a 
 nebulous fancy that neither man nor woman are fit yet for the 
 monogamic ideal. ... I theorise on abstract lines. There is 
 scarcely a man or woman at this stage of evolution fit to be trusted 
 with the entire life of another. The race is not developed enough. 
 Man will wreck woman by unfaithfulness of the spirit or the letter: 
 woman will wreck man by jealousy, ill-temper, a hundred woman's 
 weaknesses. 
 
 Yet, I cling to my half-doubting faith in the ultimate Zeus, the 
 Larger Beyond. I tell myself that all is not pessimism ; all is not 
 defeat. I tell myself that the martyrdom of the many may mean 
 the redemption of the few : that to pass through the gateway of
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 109 
 
 an unspeakable agony, behind all the conventional gods, may be 
 a nearer reaching towards the mystery of the universe, and a way 
 opened for the race into higher being. I cling to my trembling 
 hope that here, or hereafter, the Love- goal may be won, the 
 twin-soul recognised, and the passionate progress close in peace 
 ineffable. 
 
 . . . Will the drafts of faith be honoured ? 
 
 Forgive this rhapsody. I have again burst my bonds of critic. 
 Perhaps I had better make the clean confession that I myself am 
 half a poet.
 
 WRITTEN The next occasion upon which I met Mrs. Vassal 
 
 BY was at a dinner-party at the house of Mr. Arathoon 
 
 DOCTOR in Chesham Place, at which she and her husband 
 QUINTIN were present. Already I had received a note from 
 GLAIVE : her, desiring me to call in Grosvenor Street the 
 following day, as Mr. Vassal wished her, she said, 
 to consult me about her winter plans. 
 
 This was in November, very soon after the publication of 
 Naamah. The book was making a sensation. 1 had got it in the 
 natural order of things from the library : had at once discovered 
 the authorship, and had, I must own, felt deeply hurt at Mrs. 
 Vassal's silence on the subject. But when I saw her, the ever- 
 renewed charm of her personality, her pathetic smile, and that air 
 of aloofness from petty interests, which made her unlike other 
 women, worked their spell, and I ceased to resent her want of 
 confidence, attributing it to its rightful cause — the shy pride of a 
 sensitive nature, and reactionary reserve after her impulse to self- 
 revelation. 
 
 I noticed a certain change ; and fragile as she still seemed, it 
 was on the whole for the better, though the brightness of her eyes 
 and the vivid, pink flush on her cheeks made me suspect lung 
 mischief, and resolve within myself that if I had any voice in the 
 matter, Philotis, or some such Southern place, should be her 
 winter abode. Beyond this, her face had lost something of its 
 old brooding unhappiness, something too of that strained quietude 
 of feature, which had been in such unnatural contrast with the 
 wild frightened expression, at moments, of her eyes, always to me 
 sadly suggestive. I could easily guess that her literary work had 
 been an outlet for morbid energies, and that her nerves were in 
 a healthier condition than when I had seen her at Grisewood. 
 
 The frightened look only came back when Mr. Vassal spoke 
 to her. Yet on the surface, there was nothing in his manner to 
 call it forth. He was coldly suave, indifferently elaborate : in 
 fact, he gave her rather more attention than society usually de- 
 mands from a seven years' husband who has grown tired of his 
 wife, but is too well bred to make the boredom apparent.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK in 
 
 There was something in this man which, long before I began 
 to take a special interest in Mrs. Vassal, repelled me so greatly 
 that I had avoided his company, and after the first, had refused 
 the invitations he sometimes sent me to his bachelor dinners, 
 famous as these were in the matter of viands, wines, and witty 
 conversation. The wit was of a flavour not to my liking ; and 
 though I am a man of the world, and I hope, neither prude nor 
 prig, that first entertainment offered no inducement towards a 
 repetition of the experience. 
 
 It gave me a curious impression of having leaped centuries, 
 to certain Roman banquets of Imperial times. We only wanted 
 couches and garlands of roses and ivy, and a myrrhine cup or two 
 for a theme, and Syrian dancing-girls and nightingales' tongues 
 and a few other such trifles ! And was not there Loseley Allard 
 paraphrasing the Parasite, and delivering paradoxical epigrams in 
 defence of the noble profession of dining-out — and some other 
 matters ; while grosser echoes floated from a still further past on 
 the after-dinner talk. One does not need to dive deep for ancient 
 instances. We have refined the outward forms a little ; but is the 
 inner man less of a brute than in the days of a Caligula or a 
 Commodus ! And now as then, the gold-gods take the reserved 
 places, and no doubt the moon wails yet over the calumnies 
 of scientists and philosophers — if there were eagles' and vultures' 
 feathers lying handy, to bring one within hail of her. 
 
 Yes, it forces itself — the parallel between that dead empire in 
 its pride, luxury, and wantonness, and the pride and luxury and 
 wantonness which meet us day and night in this great, vile, magni- 
 ficent London. 
 
 It forces itself — the similitude. Not in point of moral de- 
 cadence only, but in the grip and grandeur of the race : its 
 combativeness, its resistless stretch for dominion ; its civic pomp 
 and pageantry and forensic brilliance : its intellect, glitter, and 
 dash, and its gropings too after a philosophical interpretation of 
 life's problems. Here and there, a stern grappling with these on 
 Stoic methods : more widespread, the gentle Epicurean tendency 
 to garner in the beautiful and to lull discontent with a sort of 
 mental haschisch. Then, too, the nation's despairing satire ; its 
 hard materialism ; its deification of Reason ; its derisive railings 
 against the old myths and the dethroned gods. And side by side 
 with all this, the melancholy of honest thinkers : the feverish 
 worship of vain idols : the cult of superstition — for as Novalis 
 puts it, " Where there is no God, there are ghosts." 
 
 While over this seething mass of sensuous and intellectual 
 elements there broods palely the divine Ray : the dawn in
 
 in THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 humanity of spiritual knowledge. And so it seems to me, that 
 here, now, in this city of corruption, outshining wandering 
 lights, and putrescent gleams, there is shed the irradiating in- 
 fluence of an other-world truth, just as in imperial Rome, reeking 
 with vice, fetid with the stench of blood, some earnest souls 
 caught, eighteen hundred years ago, the distant glory of the Star 
 that rose above Galilee. 
 
 One might in truth be tempted to believe, in moments of 
 fantastic wondering, that those old Romans have reawakened in 
 the flesh after their bodiless sleep of nigh two thousand years, 
 and are walking our streets, pleading in our tribunes, legislating 
 in our Senate House, dancing and miming in our theatres, rioting 
 and wantoning in our pleasure-palaces. Think of this, as you 
 stroll down the long gallery in the Uffizi, filled with the statues of 
 dead Romans : or nearer still, go through the Roman court in 
 the British Museum, and there among the busts you will find 
 men and women whose type you met last night in some London 
 drawing-room. But Mrs. Vassal never struck me as being of the 
 type of imperial Rome. She had rather a touch of the Greek — 
 of the Pythia of the Delphic Grove ; the priestess of some Ionic 
 temple set against a background of turquoise sea and grey slope. 
 
 I have always been grateful for a certain intuitional faculty 
 which I consider one of the essentials towards successful practice 
 as a physician. True that the intuition has failed me on occasions, 
 mainly where my own feelings have been involved ; but on the 
 whole I have been able to rely fairly upon these flashes of inner 
 vision, which, piercing the corporeal mask, seem to reveal the in- 
 corporeal being with its salient emotions and desires, in a manner 
 that is often extremely painful and rarely creditable to human 
 nature. To-night, three people appeared thus illuminated — Mrs. 
 Vassal, her husband, and Mrs. Rapnon our hostess. Why the 
 latter I hardly know, unless it were that as I watched her greeting 
 of the Vassals, my interest in Mrs. Vassal made me divine at 
 once that she was the object of Mrs. Raphon's bitterest dislike 
 and jealousy. I had already scented drama in the past relations 
 of Mr. Vassal with this handsome fervid lady — unusually hand- 
 some to-night, in a ruby velvet gown, and coronal of diamond 
 stars, which set off her brilliant complexion, magnificent sweep of 
 shoulder, and languorous Southern eyes. I noticed the glances 
 she cast from time to time at him, and they contradicted, on a 
 certain inductive process of reasoning, any casual-observer theory 
 as to Mr. Vassal's indifference towards his wife. It became clear 
 to me that Mrs. Raphon suspected, as I myself did, the smoulder- 
 ing rage of baffled desire underlying his frigid urbanity, and that
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 113 
 
 it roused in her emotions, too complex to be more than guessed 
 at as being of a somewhat correspondent order. 
 
 Jotted down in my commonplace book, I find a quotation 
 trite enough to make me suppose that it owes its admission to 
 reflexions upon the Vassal situation. 
 
 "Love and hate," it says; "attraction and repulsion in the 
 human creature, are practically equivalent forces." 
 
 I have often thought that, presuming spiritual electricity to 
 be governed by the same laws as physical electricity, a series of 
 experiments to determine and regulate the relative polarity of 
 wedded pairs might be productive of interesting results. 
 
 I had entered the drawing-room almost simultaneously with 
 the Vassals, who were the last arrivals ; and, till we were seated 
 at dinner, was not able to make out the different guests. The 
 Arathoort parties were always a mixture of law, art, politics, and 
 finance ;. and to-night, the Vassals and Mrs. Audley Arathoon 
 seemed the only social ingredients not to be thus labelled. 
 Perhaps I should except the very mundane mother of a girl- 
 novelist pretty and quaintly serious, who was proudly bear-lead- 
 ing an ephemeral sensation in the way of poetesses — a provincial 
 poetess, the freckled, sandy-haired, and altogether incompatible 
 embodiment of certain Sapphic inspirations. I made notes of 
 the trio with a view to extracting from them minor comedy 
 characters for a drawing-room scene, but somehow have never 
 put them to use. 
 
 Besides these, there were a Law-lord and his lady ; an un- 
 married member of the Cabinet ; a famous painter ; the French 
 correspondent of a great daily paper, himself a man of letters ; 
 two pretty bright women whom I did not know; a celebrated 
 Eastern traveller, and four or five others with whom I was more 
 or less acquainted. But though the company was sufficiently 
 amusing, I found the dinner dull. Mrs. Vassal was some way 
 down on the same side of the table, so that I had not the 
 pleasure of watching her; and the poetess, who was my fate, did 
 not interest me one jot. 
 
 After dinner, when we men joined the ladies, I noticed from 
 the door that Mrs. Vassal was sitting a little apart, and that she 
 looked nervous and uncomfortable. It seemed to me that her 
 glance in my direction was appealing ; and I began my progress 
 towards her, not altogether a rapid one, owing to the flutter and 
 movement brought about by the men's re-entrance. In my slow 
 course, however, I found out the cause of her discomposure. 
 Passing a knot of women who had paused apparently in the dis- 
 cussion of a rather engrossing subject, I saw in the hands of one 
 
 H
 
 ii 4 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 of them a new library volume. Two others lay on the table by 
 her, and I read the title Naamah. No doubt Mrs. Vassal had felt 
 embarrassed at being forced to give an opinion upon her own book. 
 
 My way was blocked by the portly form of a financier who 
 was hanging on to Mr. Vassal, with Audley Arathoon in tow. 
 
 " Fifty-four thousand pounds to be paid into Court before two 
 o'clock ! And none of the Syndicate knew it ! Is that the way 
 you do business in the City?" 
 
 " My dear sir, I ain't a Parliamentary lawyer," languidly 
 replied Audley. " What's going to happen ? " 
 
 "The thing won't float, that's all;" and just then the man of 
 letters, who had taken up a volume of Naamah^ accosted Mr. 
 Vassal. 
 
 " This is the book I was mentioning to you at dinner. It's a 
 curiosity in its way, as the work of a woman." 
 
 Mr. Vassal looked at the book, and entered its title on his 
 tablet. His wife was watching the occurrence ; and when I spoke 
 to her, turned with a start and a scared look in her eyes. 
 
 " Mrs. Vassal," I said in a low voice, " I guessed your secret 
 when I read Naamah. But without that, I should know it now 
 by the expression of your face." 
 
 "Oh, you will not betray me?" she implored. "I could not 
 bear that Mr. Vassal should find me out." 
 
 "I think he will certainly do that if he reads the book. As 
 far as I am concerned, of course you are absolutely safe." 
 
 My tone must have conveyed that I had been wounded by 
 her reticence, for she said hurriedly — 
 
 " Forgive me for having told you nothing about it — after all 
 your kindness, too, in advising me. But I had so little con- 
 fidence in my work. And perhaps I was superstitious — you 
 know that's a weakness in me— and you were connected with my 
 first failure." 
 
 "At any rate," I said, "you have not failed this time. 
 Listen." 
 
 By a glance I directed her attention to the group, of which 
 Mr. Vassal and the man of letters now made part, and to the 
 remarks being uttered by a distinguished-looking, white-haired 
 lady — the wife of the Law-lord. 
 
 " Oh yes, terribly clever — deplorably clever for a woman, and 
 for one so young. You can see from several things in the book 
 that she must be young, and that her experience of the world is 
 limited, in spite of the strong views she takes. I couldn't bear 
 the story on that account. It made me quite miserable to think 
 of a woman of her age being so morbid. Why, she ought to
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 115 
 
 write about cream and honey, first love and constancy, babies' 
 kisses and conjugal bliss." 
 
 "Talking of kisses/' observed Audley Arathoon, "did you 
 see that an unfortunate man was fined eight pounds for kissing 
 a girl?" 
 
 Mr. Vassal, who had been turning over the leaves of Naamah, 
 gave his indescribably mirthless chuckle, murmuring — ■ 
 
 "Poor devil ! He might have kicked his wife to death for that." 
 
 Mrs. Vassal turned on me her eyes, which were full of tears. 
 
 "I suppose that I am morbid, and so the book is morbid?" 
 she said. 
 
 "Yes. you are morbid, and the book is morbid. Perhaps 
 that is hardly to be wondered at" 
 
 And it came into my mind suddenly to say, " I wish that you 
 could love some one." 
 
 " Love some one ! " she repeated. 
 
 "It's the one real educator," I said. "But I suppose that I 
 ought not to wish that for you." 
 
 "No," she replied. "You ought not to wish that for me. 
 Certainly I cannot wish it for myself. It's the one thing I should 
 dread." 
 
 " Your work will suffer. This book would have been better — 
 powerful as it is — if you had ever loved. I should like to tell 
 you what I think of Naainah" I added impulsively. 
 
 " Tell me," she said. But at that moment Mr. Vassal brought 
 up the man of letters, whom he presented to his wife ; and when 
 I approached her again, the mother of the girl-novelist was dis- 
 coursing animatedly close by, and my own novelist-incognita 
 was listening in amusement. 
 
 " Here is another view of the literary profession," she said to 
 me with a smile. "You must pay attention to it." 
 
 I have heard it asserted that Mrs. Vassal had no sense of 
 humour, an opinion I never shared. I think that under happier 
 domestic conditions she would have been quick to seize the 
 lighter side of things, and that a joyous trait of her nature 
 would have expanded like a flower. In obedience, I lent my 
 ear to a blonde, fashionably dressed lady, with restored bloom and 
 an air of sprightly appeal, who gave the impression somehow of 
 having furnished insufficient material for an elaborate mould. 
 
 "Well, after all," she was saying, as she smoothed down and 
 contemplated a piece of rose-point on her gown, " Rosalind is so 
 solid, that perhaps it is a good thing for her to have a frivolous 
 mother who enjoys life." 
 
 " I enjoy life too, mamma," said Rosalind.
 
 n6 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 "Oh, but you enjoy it in such a fearful way. I should die 
 if I lived Rosalind's life ; and I suppose she would die if she lived 
 mine. Rosalind likes histories and type-writing and things — May 
 I tell the story of the type-writer ? It's something quite new and 
 wonderful, you know ; and you can print your own books with it. 
 . . . Well, we were staying in a country-house and I was in the 
 morning-room, and suddenly we heard a sound of whizzing and 
 whirring; and Lord Alec said, 'Good gracious! what's that? 
 Has the water-pipe burst ? ' And then Lady Alec said, ' It comes 
 from Rosalind's room.' So I went up to see; and there was 
 Rosalind type-writing — a sort of sewing-machine business on a 
 thing like a piano ; and a treadle going " 
 
 " No, no ; not a treadle, mamma." 
 
 "Well, never mind ! If I am to be corrected, I won't go on. 
 I asked Rosalind what was the matter, and she said, ' Oh, it's all 
 right, mamma ; ' so I went back and told Lord Alec, ' Rosalind 
 says it's all right ; she's type writing.' Then every one in the house 
 insisted on marching up to Rosalind's room, to see what type- 
 writing was like ; they'd never heard of it before. . . . Oh, it's a 
 dreadful thing to have a literary daughter. And she believes in 
 palmistry too. May I tell the story about the literary breakfast ? 
 It was at Venice " 
 
 " No, Rome, mamma." 
 
 " Rosalind, if I'm to be interrupted, I won't go on. . . . There 
 was the man who wrote about beetles and dancing dervishes, 
 you know — he died just afterwards. And when the palmist 
 looked at his hand, she said, ' I see nothing ' " 
 
 " No, no, mamma ; she told somebody else " 
 
 " Rosalind, I'm certain she said - 1 see nothing.' And after- 
 wards when she talked about it to Lord Alec — he was there too — 
 she said, 'How could I tell him what I saw? His line of life 
 was cut short, and I knew he was going to die.' " 
 
 Miss Rosalind had been signalling with her eyebrows across the 
 room to the poetess, by whom Mrs. Raphon was endeavouring to 
 do her duty. 
 
 " Mamma, we shall be late." 
 
 " It's a literary party," the elder lady announced lugubriously. 
 " Is anybody here going on ? Of course you are not, Mrs. Vassal ; 
 I do wish you were literary. Rosalind, will there be any one at 
 the literary party for me to talk to ? " 
 
 " No, mamma, they'll all be lions roaring." 
 
 " Well, I do hope there'll be some idiot for me to talk to ; " 
 and she turned plaintively to me, "Are you going, Dr. Glaive? " 
 
 There was a little ripple of laughter which pleased me, for Mrs.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 117 
 
 Vassal laughed too, as simply as a child — Oh, yes, this work was 
 doing her good. The lady who had caused the laugh appealed 
 to me once more. 
 
 '• What have I said? Are you literary ? I must say I never 
 feel comfortable in literary society. They ask me what I do ; and 
 what I think. And they wear high dresses in the evening — brown 
 silks and cameo brooches and their heads fiat. Now don't they, 
 Rosalind? You can't deny it." 
 
 " That was one phase of literary society, mamma. To-night 
 there'll be diamonds and Parisian gowns." 
 
 " Well, I do hope there'll be somebody for me to talk to — some 
 human being, I mean." 
 
 Then in the general break-up which followed, Mrs. Vassal 
 rose too*- I had no opportunity for a long time of telling her 
 what I thought of A T aamah, my visit next day being purely pro- 
 fessional ; and shortly afterwards she went back to Grisewood to 
 make preparations for wintering at Philotis. 
 
 After leaving Chesham Place that evening, I dropped in at the 
 Roscius. I found the supper-room crowded, several strangers 
 having been brought in, and among them Robert Vassal, the 
 editor of Views. He was not a member of the club, probably 
 because his uncle belonged to it. He was sitting beside Frank 
 Leete, the dramatic critic, whom I spotted, and seemed to be 
 delivering himself pretty freely upon the wrongs of English 
 authors. 
 
 <( We're suffering from two running sores," he was saying — " the 
 little host of doctrinaires — Paravel's at the bottom of it — he started 
 the school of literary priggism — who write biographies and lay down 
 the law about everything ; and then there's the shameful class of 
 writers who steal our ideas because their own fields are barren, 
 and live by robbing their fellows. They ain't all playmakers — 
 How are you, Doctor ? " Leete gave a mellow guffaw. 
 
 " What about dramatic critics ? " 
 
 " My dear fellow, who would be a dramatic critic if by God's 
 outside mercies he could be anything else ? . . . You can ; and are. 
 ... As for those others, with them I acknowledge no fellowship ; 
 they're beyond man's tribunal ; and they're not even worth the 
 Almighty's shot — created like black beetles for contemptuous 
 annihilation." 
 
 I asked after Mrs. Robert Vassal. 
 
 " Fairly well, thank you. I'm taking her to her old quarters at 
 Philotis, and shall stop there for a month or two while the House 
 is up — I can't stand England " — he went on, talking fast, as though 
 he wanted to get away from an unpleasant train of thought, and
 
 nS THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 I guessed that one of his wife's nerve attacks, as he called them, 
 was worrying him. 
 
 " I'm a nuisance to myself — temper awry, brain bothers, sheer 
 incapacity for work ! I want solitude and the desert. Aversion 
 for friends — another symptom, and loss of interest in every mortal 
 thing." 
 
 " What's the reason of it all ? " asked Leete. 
 
 " Want of a sphere ; growing old ; twopenny halfpenny acci- 
 dents that wouldn't damage anybody else ; the humours of West- 
 minster ; tiresome contributors and exacting editors. . . . What are 
 you doctors for, Glaive ? Physicians, I have found in vain — one, 
 after another, you included. ... I was made to drink all things 
 and no fluid, turn by turn ; was commanded to avoid all men, and 
 to cultivate company ; to work hard and not to work at all ; to 
 travel and stay at home ; to abstain from flesh and to eat nothing 
 but meat ; and now, I'm beginning to see fancy shapes, and to 
 make studies of suicide. ... By the way," and he turned suddenly 
 to Frank Leete, " there's something I want to ask you. Who is 
 Esther Zamiel?" 
 
 Frank Leete's guilty start convinced me that he was in Mrs. 
 Vassal's secret. 
 
 "What on earth has that to do with you?" he exclaimed; 
 and added, "By Jove, I forgot. You read for Brock? " 
 
 " Not in a regular way now. I haven't the time. But he 
 generally asks my opinion when Barham sends him a particularly 
 venomous report." 
 
 " What do you think of Esther Zamiel?" asked Frank Leete, 
 transparently evading the original question. 
 
 " I confess that little lady takes my fancy. She has got plenty 
 of good stuff in her. But who is she ? " 
 
 Frank Leete smothered a laugh between his big hand and his 
 big beard. No doubt he, like myself, saw a certain grim comedy 
 in the situation, which had brought Mrs. Vassal into unconscious 
 relation with her husband's hated heir. I trembled for Frank 
 Leete's discretion, but he maintained it honourably. Bending 
 forward as though he were about to make a mysterious communi- 
 cation in the most solemn secrecy, he whispered loudly behind 
 his hand. 
 
 " A poor little actress who made a mess of things. That's all 
 I can tell you." 
 
 " Made a mess of things ! " repeated Vassal, with a pucker of 
 his brows. "She was wearing sixteenth-century Flemish point, 
 and a pearl worth a good deal of money." 
 
 Frank Leete gurgled on behind his hand.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 119 
 
 "You can buy wonderful things in the Palais Royal." 
 
 " You don't buy that lace in the Palais Royal, nor that pearl 
 either." 
 
 "Upon my honour," said Leete, "I can't tell you anything 
 more about her." 
 
 The dramatic critic bustled out of his seat. " Excuse me, my 
 dear fellow, but there's Bonham beckoning to me. I can't lose 
 this opportunity of extracting the truth about a little matter I'm 
 concerned in. Bonham is a devil of diplomacy you know up 
 to 2 a.m. And then if you can get him well on the other side 
 of a whisky bottle, I assure you his revelations are surprising." 
 
 " Frank Leete doesn't know much about Esther Zamiel : or 
 doesn't mean to say what he does know," remarked Vassal. "It's 
 the last with you too, I conclude ; for I notice that you doctors 
 do know most things." 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 " It's not the type. No, it's not the type," he exclaimed, as 
 though he were contradicting an assertion. "I've had some 
 correspondence with her over her book," he went on. " She is 
 very interesting. I should like to get at her history — if she has 
 yet developed one." 
 
 The qualification struck me, for it seemed to echo my own 
 feeling in regard to Mrs. Vassal. In spite of the dramatic con- 
 ditions of her life, her own drama was still embryonic. 
 
 The little incident of this meeting and the conversation with 
 Robert Vassal impressed me even at the time as a curious link 
 in the chain of circumstance. Later on it assumed a more signi- 
 ficant suggestiveness.
 
 WRITTEN I have been thinking a great deal about what Dr. 
 
 BY Glaive said — that my work would have been better 
 
 ESTHER if I had ever loved. 
 
 VASSAL : Of course, looking back I see that I have never 
 
 really loved any one in my whole life — never any 
 one but myself. If I have shown kindness to others, it was 
 because I felt it my duty, not because I cared. Round about 
 Grisewood, there are a number of people — commonplace, whole- 
 some, fussy, good people, like the Heseltines and Wargraves, 
 and Lady Cotherstone, from whom there seems to flow a stream 
 of general benevolence and affection — towards their families, 
 their friends, the villagers — towards almost everybody, in fact, 
 who comes their way, except sinners and vulgar persons. But 
 I am not like them. I don't have any gushes of affection. The 
 stream has either been frozen within me, or the source is not there. 
 
 Partly, perhaps, because I have not been educated in loving. 
 There was Mother — I was fourteen when she died. It seemed 
 sad and strange to lose her, but that was all ; I soon got over it. 
 And Father — Well, I never troubled much about loving Father : 
 it wouldn't have seemed natural. 
 
 I wonder if I am one of those elfish creatures — a sort of 
 Undine who has got to find her soul in love. 
 
 Mother talked to me before she died about the defects in my 
 character : and one of the things she said was, " The greatest fault 
 you have, Esther, is that you don't love enough. Never be afraid 
 of loving. All the blessedness that ever comes to us women, 
 comes through loving : and all your trouble in life will come 
 through not loving enough." 
 
 Poor Mother ! my memory of her is as of a flower that 
 withered slowly for want of water. Child as I was, her words 
 set me thinking. I wrote them down, and the account of her 
 last days, to which death gave a dramatic value. No doubt this 
 was greatly due to the instinct of the writing woman, but it was 
 my tendency in those days when my whole mind was set upon 
 being a great actress, to dramatise everything, even Nature and 
 Death.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 121 
 
 While I have been shut up here at Grisewood with a cold 
 which has delayed my departure for Philotis, Addie Heseltine has 
 driven over pretty often to see me. She plays dreamy music, 
 which puts me into a writing mood, and counteracts the effect on 
 my nerves of her enthusiastic eulogies of Mr. Vassal as a husband, 
 from the Woodfordshire social point of view. And between 
 times, she discourses upon her curate-romance and the Littlewood 
 complication. 
 
 So I have been taking notes of the curate-romance as a study 
 of tame emotion. 
 
 "You see things have come to a crisis," Addie said. "I 
 can't keep Mr. Littlewood dangling any longer. He has been 
 very patient and devoted for years, and it comes to a question now 
 either of his going away altogether or staying as my husband. . . . 
 I'm in a bad hole, dear — a worse hole than I've ever been in 
 before. . . . And you see, too, I ought to marry. I can't go on 
 wasting my youth and losing my chances. . . . Oh, it is all very 
 well for you to smile, and I know you think it dreadful to look 
 
 upon marriage as a profession, though " and Addie stopped 
 
 and went red, and I knew what had suddenly occurred to her. . . . 
 "But that's what it comes to. Poor dear Father can't live for 
 ever, and Mother will be jointured, and we shall have our portions, 
 and tiny ones they will be. There are ten of us, you know, 
 counting the boys and the married sisters. . . . And so I've 
 written to Harold Milward, and I've told him all about Mr. 
 Littlewood. That's one comfort — Mr. Littlewood knows every- 
 thing, and Harold knows everything too. I got his answer to-day 
 — Harold's. There wasn't a word of clergy-shop in it, except that 
 he prayed God to guide me in my decision. But he says that he 
 can't hold out the faintest hope of ever being rich enough for 
 Father to consent to our marriage. . . . And then Mr. Littlewood 
 takes it all so sensibly. He says that he won't talk of love, but 
 of community of interest — that's such a nice way of putting it — 
 and that I shall help him with his monuments and his hiero- 
 glyphics, and he will help me with my music, and love will come 
 in time. ' I'd go back to Yucatan,' he said, ' and stop there, if my 
 going would insure your happiness with the man you love. But 
 if I went, what would remain to you ? You can't marry the man 
 you love, and there's only a blank left in your life with a man who 
 loves you taken out of it.' And you know, dear Mrs. Vassal, that's 
 perfectly true." 
 
 I could only assent. 
 
 " I should like to get away from Woodfordshire," Addie went 
 on. "Oh, how I wish you could take me to Philotis with you.
 
 i22 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 It seems impossible to make up my mind here. I feel as if I 
 were in a hothouse, or like a fly in a honey-pot. I can't escape 
 from the thought of Harold. . . . You never saw him. Mrs. 
 
 '& 
 
 Vassal — that was the year you were away. He was very ugly, 
 with great square shoulders and a heavy face and kind eyes, and 
 a true look — oh, not half so polished or clever or such a man of 
 the world as Mr. Littlewood. ... It was all Father's fault too. 
 He would ask Harold to dinner, and what could you expect ? I 
 used to think what a comfort it would be to have some one 
 always to depend on — who wouldn't fly out at trifles, and grumble 
 at the dinner, and be in a sulk because there had been a bad run 
 — though I don't think Mr. Littlewood is bad-tempered, and I'm 
 sure I've tried his temper enough. But Harold is so firm, and 
 strong, and gentle. And I knew that the parish work was utterly 
 distasteful to him, and that he had been forced into the Church. 
 Yet the old women always had their wine, and their Bible read to 
 them. . . . And, oh dear ! I must settle something, for I can't stand 
 Mrs. Wargrave's sympathy. . . . ' This is terrible, dear Addie ' — and 
 don't you know her funereal look ? Really, when Mrs. Wargrave 
 begins to gush over one of the rector's funerals, I always think, 
 what a pity it is that she won't be alive to enjoy her own ! " 
 
 And then Addie laughed in a way that didn't suggest a broken 
 heart. 
 
 Oh yes ; Addie is wavering. The curate is away in Birming- 
 ham, and Mr. Littlewood is not going to Yucatan, but means to 
 hunt with the Woodchester pack this season. I counsel and plead 
 on the side of youth, love, and romantic poverty, and Addie 
 looks at me curiously and says — 
 
 " Ah, if we poor girls could only all be as fortunate as you 
 are. There doesn't come to many of us the chance of millions, 
 middle-age, and Mr. Vassal." 
 
 Yesterday Mr. Vassal came unexpectedly into my sitting- 
 room and asked me for some tea. He held in his hand the 
 second volume of Naamah. 
 
 " Hast thou found me, O mine enemy ? " my shrinking heart 
 cried. 
 
 "You need not have been ashamed of your bantling," he 
 said ; " but on the whole you are wise not to own it. I see that 
 you have shocked some of the critics ; it would be a bore if you 
 scandalised the parsonesses and squiresses." 
 
 I poured out his tea ; he drank it, his eyes fixed on me with 
 an inscrutable look. I said something ; it does not matter what. 
 How had he discovered me ?
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 123 
 
 " That did not require any abnormal cleverness. I was re- 
 commended the book at the Arathoons', and you don't suppose 
 that, after having lived with you for seven years, I could fail to 
 recognise you in it? Besides, I had observed that during the 
 last few months a new interest absorbed you, which made you 
 forget yourself — and me. I knew it must be an artistic interest. 
 Of course, under other conditions, I should have suspected the 
 usual intrigue. But that hasn't developed yet." 
 
 My indignant exclamation made him laugh. 
 
 "Yes, I know the phases — curiosity, disappointment, weari- 
 ness, repulsion, reaction. They generally culminate about the 
 fifth year. Then sooner or later comes along the lover." 
 
 Again I felt the helpless rage of a trapped creature, and the 
 mockery of his smile maddened me. He tapped Naamah with 
 his smooth white forefinger. 
 
 " This may take the lover's place. I always told you that you 
 had the capacity for a grand passion. The mistake I made was 
 in imagining that / could arouse it. Let this be your safety- 
 valve. Go on writing. You have my full approval. Will you 
 give me another cup of tea ? "
 
 BOOK VI 
 
 " Love, like death, comes to the soul but once."
 
 WRITTEN Philotis ! The name weaves a spell. It is 
 
 BY Memory's password to the Blue Land. 
 
 ESTHER Here now, as I lie in Philotis dying, I look over 
 
 VASSAL : my little old note-books — limp-covered, square- 
 ruled, bought in the Enchanted Days at the French 
 stationer's in the Square Casphar, where I used to buy the same 
 kind when I was a child. 
 
 Do you know that odd, living magnetism which inanimate 
 things sometimes give forth — things which have been wept over, 
 joyed over, to which one's deepest and dearest emotions have 
 clung ? Then you will know, too, how the sight and touch of 
 these little books stir in me throbs, reincarnate, of the dead 
 rapture and the buried pain ; how, as I look at the scrawled 
 pages, I seem to be looking into the face of a ghost — a ghost 
 who has the very aspect of mortality, but whose hand I cannot 
 clasp, whose lips I may not kiss — a ghost with terribly sad eyes, 
 between whom and me there is silence — still always silence. 
 
 Philotis ! I linger on the word ; it breathes — love. 
 
 And I love the place, though I am dying of it — love it with a 
 youthful fervency and with impassioned thrills of association, 
 bound up in sea and sky and hills, in trees and flowers and the 
 sound of the wind, in the faces of the people and the appearance 
 of the streets. 
 
 It is so beautiful, and nothing seems ever here to change. 
 The sky is always that softly luminous blue, w r ith the jagged 
 aloes, the tangled palm-fronds, the glistening fir-needles, drawn 
 in different shades of green upon it, as upon an immense tur- 
 quoise. And then, the blue of the sea ! Deeper turquoise than 
 the sky ! That rich clear Mediterranean blue — except in the bay, 
 close to shore, where the water lies in curious zones of colour — 
 here a ribbon of intensest emerald, there a weed-streak of reddish 
 brown ; here, in the shallows, a stretch of foam-flecked purple, 
 and where the sun touches it, of delicate opal whitening to silver. 
 Then, standing forth against the infinite sky, the blue mountains 
 — Sralta and the snow-tipped Katka range — shadowed, mystic as 
 
 the hills of a dream. 
 
 127
 
 128 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 Sometimes I sit in a boat and look back at Philotis. The 
 mountains rising behind seem to spread arms around it — the 
 Vasques hills, their summits fantastically serrated, barring the 
 western side of the harbour ; and to the east, the long lone pro- 
 montory of Cape Feurd, with the lighthouse on its hump. Then, 
 as the boat sways round, the islands show at the harbour's en- 
 trance, Rassem and Me'diane, the surf breaking over their black 
 tapering points, and making a shining line upon the sea's blue. 
 Tier by tier the city rears itself, like a great white amphitheatre, 
 glittering in the sunlight, built up from the bay. Grey volcanic- 
 looking ridges back the olive-groves and pine-woods and melt 
 into the misty hills. Villas and gardens and lovely Moorish 
 palaces, embedded in palms and bamboos, spread out in the 
 curve ; and on the level, white houses, red-tiled, flat-roofed, and the 
 domes of many mosques, some of which are Catholic churches. 
 
 It is sad to think of Philotis as a conquered city, though 
 there is a curious picturesqueness and a dramatic contrast in this 
 blending of West and East. 
 
 Down by the strand lies the French town, all garish boule- 
 vards and arcades, with its new cathedral and opera-house, and 
 the square, where still plays the band that Father used to conduct, 
 and where all the motley life of the place gathers. 
 
 From the square, lead tortuous stair-streets, climbing up the 
 Arab quarter to the overhanging citadel, and to a very ancient 
 mosque, sacred yet to the creed of the Faithful. It is like some 
 city seen in a dream, for indeed, all that old girl-life, when I knew 
 the Arab quarter well, seems a dream now. The houses nearly 
 touch each other, and are painted grey and green and greenish- 
 blue ; some few are bright blue, and in the windows of these you 
 may see looking out, women with uncovered heads and painted 
 faces, their eyelids and eyebrows darkened, wearing fancifully 
 embroidered jackets and narcissus flowers in their hair. 
 
 Such quaint bits ! Beautiful Arab doors, brass-studded, and 
 lintels of carved stone with gorgeous tiles let into the wall above ; 
 here and there, an open door, giving the glimpse of a Moorish 
 courtyard, of slender pillars and graceful arches embossed in red 
 and green and gold. There is so much of that soft green colour- 
 ing everywhere, even in the jars outside the native pottery shops, 
 some large enough to hold one of the Forty Thieves. How quaint, 
 too, is the life of those narrow streets ! The droves of donkeys 
 driven by bright-eyed Arab boys ; the white figures in yashmaks, 
 threading their silent way ; the melancholy Arabs in grey-hooded 
 cloaks and white bournouses passing along ; the hideous negresses ; 
 the copper-coloured gipsies ; the Bedouin women, with their olive
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 129 
 
 faces and silky hair, and the cabalistic blue mark on their foreheads 
 and chins. 
 
 And then the vignettes in the windows ! The embroiderer at 
 his work ; the hooded Arabs and turbaned Jews seated cross- 
 legged by their wares ; the weaver, his threads spread out, stooping 
 before his wheel; the negro basket-plaiter ; the players at chess 
 and dominoes ; the devout son of the Prophet, in his bed droning 
 the Koran ; there, a Muzzabeet from the desert wrapped in his 
 carpet-cloak ; there, a group of tattered men and veiled women 
 pausing with their loads of vegetables from the market, round 
 three blind Arab troubadours — fine-looking fellows, with chiselled 
 features and short beards, and sightless eyes, upraised as they 
 chant in monotonous recitative, and sing choruses to the beating 
 of tom-toms. 
 
 These are the pictures in the Arab quarter, now as then. 
 
 Away by the hotels and villas it is quite different. The roads 
 are white, and send out a blinding glare, and the shadows under 
 the umbrella-pines are almost black. The cloying Arab smell 
 has given place to the scent of flowers. In the ravines the broom 
 is yellow ; the mimosa buds are changing from green to gold ; 
 the narcissus is out in the meadows ; roses fling themselves on 
 the walls in a laughing caress, and the yuccas hang their creamy 
 bells ; trails of mesembryanthemum drop down stone parapets ; 
 the orange groves have blossoms among the ripe fruit ; the pepper- 
 trees toss forth red clusters ; the fir-woods are a tangle of under- 
 growth — wild rosemary, lentiscus, and sea-lavender, and white 
 heath, with here and there a thin-stemmed forest pink. 
 
 Back through the years to the mood in which I wrote at the 
 beginning of the Enchanted Days. 
 
 ... It is so new, so old, so strange, so familiar. ... I am 
 not the Esther of Grisewood, pining in a dank dungeon of morbid 
 despair. I am a liberated Esther, enwrapped by the divine glamour 
 of youth, in whom hope and joy are reborn. For the magic of 
 Philotis is upon me. 
 
 Faintly intoxicating blows the breeze. The glitter of sunbeams 
 on the sea ; the hum of insects ; the rustle of leaves ; the scent 
 of roses — all bring a delicious sense of irresponsibility. I laugh 
 softly to myself in very lightness of spirit. A thousand frolicsome 
 fancies seem let loose within me. I have the consciousness of 
 unseen presences, of whispering voices. I love to bask in long 
 luxurious reverie, and my very lassitude becomes beatific. Thus 
 I lie for hours on the couch before my window, lulled by the 
 breath of an unknown happiness. I watch the lateen sails scud- 
 
 i
 
 i 3 o THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 ding across the bay, the roll of the breakers over Rassem's rocky 
 snout — he looks like some strange primceval monster rising from 
 the deep — and the play of the clouds on the Vasques hills. Then 
 comes the Muezzin's call, "Allah is great; there is no God but 
 Allah ; " while, as though in gentle mockery, following upon it, 
 sounds the chime of the convent bell. And gradually the sea 
 reddens and the shadows grow darker, the horizon line more 
 misty, and the mountains deepen to purple against the glory of 
 the after-glow. 
 
 And it is as though a gracious spirit brooded upon the waters, 
 while in the hush of a mysterious expectancy Nature awaited his 
 coming. And my sleeping soul is stirred by the hovering near- 
 ness, and the fountains of my heart are unsealed. 
 
 Oh, that I were as other women are, and might hear the 
 voice of the Beloved as he cometh up from the wilderness : — 
 
 " I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse. . . . Open 
 to me, my sister, my love. ... At our gates are all manner of 
 pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, oh 
 my beloved. . . . Arise, my love." 
 
 Oh, that I might arise and answer and open to the Beloved. 
 
 The train crawls slowly along to El-Meriem, between hedges 
 of prickly pear and aloe, with here and there a row of gum-trees, 
 their wind-blown bark hanging in shreds like beggars' tatters. 
 Across the white road, which lies parallel with the line, one sees 
 an occasional auberge or orange-farm. Odd figures and proces- 
 sions move along the road — strings of panniered mules led by 
 Arabs ; files of women, who, as the train passes, pull their 
 veils hastily over their faces, leaving only a loophole for one eye 
 to peep through ; withered negresses iaden with garden produce, 
 and sometimes a whole Kabyle family, the bigger children on 
 donkeys, the mothers wrapped in white haiks, fastened by barbaric 
 pins and chains, which hang on their breasts and foreheads, carry- 
 ing babies slung between their shoulders. Then the plain widens 
 into orange groves and fields yellow with narcissus, and from it 
 the mountains rise abruptly behind El-Meriem. It is Sralta which 
 towers yonder, snow on his crown, his base black with firs. Then 
 a range of naked grey peaks bristle down from the great Katkas, 
 the gorge of the Mestral cutting it, and the Mestral river, a green 
 ribbon, white-spotted where it foams in the shallows, winding 
 through the valley between dwarf bamboos and oleander trees, 
 and losing itself among the coast hills on the way to the sea. 
 
 There is a small village perched on the brow of a hill a little
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 131 
 
 way inland from El-Meriem. Its attraction is an old mosque and 
 Marabut's tomb, the resort at certain times of many of the Faithful. 
 
 Yesterday I went to this place, which is called Kassis. 
 
 It is a very quiet spot, almost deserted except on pilgrimage 
 days : for even the Arab houses are many of them empty. Once 
 it was a fortified town, and is still encircled by the grey ruins of 
 a fortress wall. For a little while, some public works close by, 
 made it more French than Arab, and so the hillside was planted 
 with olives, and there was an attempt at growing vines. But the 
 ground was stony and unprofitable, and after the works were 
 done, the French population dwindled, and the Arab one did 
 not come back. That was before my time. Now there is still 
 less sign of active life at Kassis. 
 
 Even the Cours with its plane-tree built round by a stone 
 bench in the middle, and its cafe, outside which is inscribed the 
 obsolete iegend, " On casse croute a toute heure," is silent and 
 almost empty. The French quarter lies, as the way is here, on a 
 lower level than mosque or citadel, and behind these, rise desolate 
 spurs of the Katkas — grey crags, bleak and naked, except where, 
 low down, there is a straggling patch of olives or a tiny red- 
 roofed cabin with whitewashed walls and slits of windows, or a 
 clump of cypresses — dark blotches against the grey. A mule, 
 with gaping paniers, comes clattering down the narrow street 
 leading up from the Cours, and bestriding it, an Arab, bare-legged 
 and tattered, yet with that mysterious dignity stamped upon the 
 meanest mendicant among the Prophet's children. Perhaps it lies 
 in the impassive features, on which the word Fatality seems written ; 
 or, maybe, in the folds of the bournous or haik, that, to their last 
 shreds, fall back with something of classic grace. The street is 
 only a rough stair of cobble-stones, the houses over-arching, and 
 the upper storeys resting on sapling pillars. They have doors 
 mounted in dull brass, and benches are fixed underneath the 
 projections. But the doors are mostly closed, and only a few 
 Arab children crawl about the benches — bright-eyed, clear-skinned 
 rogues. 
 
 Now and then, passing along to the mosque, one may see 
 a ruminative Arab or a pair of veiled women ; but all the interest 
 of the town seems to have centred round the native coffee-house, 
 where are squat groups of Arabs drinking the thick black beverage 
 of the country ; and two are kissing each other with comic 
 solemnity. They turn to look at me as I go by, and make a 
 remark ; but I know Kassis of old, and am not afraid to walk 
 through its streets alone. Here is a long stairway with white 
 balustrades, where women in yashmaks and bearded turbaned
 
 1 32 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 men are going up and down. The stairway leads to a little 
 garden enclosure, in which grow palms and twisted cactus 
 plants ; and two sides of it are walled in by the mosque. 
 Beggars whine and cringe about the stair and against the outer 
 wall : a white-bearded mufti comes out of the building and paces 
 the path, absorbed in meditation. Through an open doorway 
 there is a glimpse of the Marabut's tomb, with the yellow and red 
 flags hanging about it, and of figures bowed on the floor around. 
 Rows of slippers stand at the entrance. Close by, on a stone 
 pedestal, is perched an emaciated saint, who nods his hideous 
 head, and murmurs toothless thanks for the coin I place by his 
 side. Do I not know that saint ? Here he had his habitation 
 when I was a girl at El-Meriem, and now he must have grown 
 into almost a part of the stone. 
 
 Down a small flight of steps there is another court, and 
 another great door, through which I may not pass, and which 
 gives a new vision of prostrate figures and of more women in 
 yashmaks going in and out. It is not permitted me to enter, 
 but I may wander on through a narrow white passage, and I may 
 examine the old doorway and the tiled fountain in the wall. And 
 now I am in a second small quadrangle, with green-tiled arches 
 and spiral pillars, and a fountain trickling into a marble basin 
 where the votaries of the Prophet are washing their feet. Beyond 
 lies a peaceful little burying-ground, where the graves of the 
 muftis are open to the sky. Just a grassy plateau, with a low 
 parapet wall on three sides, and some old slanting cypresses 
 framing a wonderful view of grey hills and distant snow-capped 
 mountains — majestic Sralta nearest — of olive-clad slopes and 
 curving white roads ; of the green valley of the Mestral, widening 
 down from the beetling bluffs of Tour mestral ; and far away, the 
 glittering roofs of Philotis curving round its blue bay, and, with 
 the lighthouse of Cape Feurd, a pale spot on the horizon. 
 
 I sat myself on the parapet, in the farthest corner, where the 
 graveyard wall makes an angle with the wall of the ruined fortress. 
 It is on the brink of the steep. In the wall are jagged gaps, and 
 a little below, on a green ledge, grow more almond-trees, blown 
 slantwise like the palms and cypresses, and which are putting forth 
 bloom. 
 
 Down beyond Kassis the tops of the olives make a grey-green, 
 billowy bed. When I bent forward, I could see all the expanse 
 of country and the sea afar. But when I leaned against the 
 wall, it was almost as though I were in a dead world ; for then 
 only the barren hills, the ruined citadel, and the grey stretch of 
 olives were visible. The wind swept across the plateau from the
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 133 
 
 snowy mountains, and it seemed to have a voice different from 
 the voice of the wind in other places, and to be telling a sorrowful 
 tale of long past things and people, of dead loves and buried hopes. 
 The silence and deadness and greyness of it all gave me an 
 uncanny impression, which was intensified by the sight of those 
 veiled, wraith-like forms flitting past the entrance door on their 
 way back from the mosque. I shivered with the chill of this 
 ghostly feeling, and got up from the niche, intending to find a 
 more sunny seat ; then stood still, wonder-struck, for at that 
 moment the Reader came into the burial-ground. 
 
 Yes, it was the Reader. I knew his profile and the backward 
 poise of his head. I knew his worried, intent expression, as he 
 stopped, not seeing me, and stood gazing out on the view. Pre- 
 sently he came quite close to me, still blindly, and I gave an 
 exclamation. He started ; a light of sudden astonishment flashed 
 from his eyes, and, raising his hat, he stepped forward, holding out 
 his hand. 
 
 " Miss Zamiel ! " he said ; and I too started at the sound of the 
 name which was not mine. Somehow, here, in this Moslem burial 
 ground, we seemed to meet for the first time as man and woman. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you," he went on. " It's a funny coin- 
 cidence. Though I don't know why — for since, by the malignant 
 irony of Fate, Climate has begun her games, Philotis naturally 
 results." 
 
 " It is not so much of a coincidence as far as I am concerned," 
 I answered, "for I know this place very well." 
 
 " Really ! " 
 
 " I was born at Philotis. My father died at El-Meriem." 
 
 " You were born at Philotis ! Then that accounts " He 
 
 was looking at me intently. "You have eyes like some of the 
 Philotis women," he said abruptly, and added, " Please forgive 
 me ; but the thought came into my mind at the moment, and I 
 couldn't help saying it. It puzzled me, for I don't recollect ever 
 having seen it before — that peculiar reddish-brown — out of this 
 place. There was a child in the tram to-day with eyes that colour." 
 
 His evident fear lest he had been too personal made me laugh, 
 and he gave me a quick startled look. When I asked him the 
 reason he replied — 
 
 " Do you know that your laugh sounded quite girlish, and 
 out of keeping with the tragic impression I had got somehow 
 of ' Ksther Zamiel ' from that one meeting of ours in Mr. Brock's 
 office. It must be the vivid setting of Philotis that makes the 
 difference. . . . And so you have been here before?" 
 
 "My mother was a Philotis woman." And I told him how
 
 134 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 we had left Philotis when I was a little child, and had come back 
 after Mother's death, and had then lived at Philotis as long as 
 Father was alive. 
 
 " And no doubt you have people here of your own, and that's 
 what brings you back again ? " he said. 
 
 I told him that I had no people of my own in the whole 
 world, and that I had been sent here for my health. 
 
 " I'm sorry to hear that. And yet you look better than when 
 I saw you that day in Mr. Brock's den." 
 
 There was a little silence I had sat down again, and he was 
 leaning against the wall, with his foot on the parapet, prodding 
 the ground with his stick. I caught his eyes fixed upon me, and 
 I think he would have liked to ask me more questions. I daresay 
 that he wonders about me — who I am. and because I seem rich, 
 where my money comes from. Presently he said, " May I sit 
 here ? " 
 
 He placed himself on the parapet facing me in the angle. 
 
 "You see," he began again suddenly, "I was a true prophet. 
 I told you that you would succeed." 
 
 " I owe it to you, for I couldn't have done anything if you 
 hadn't helped me. And I've never been able to thank you 
 properly for your letters. They gave me just the help and en- 
 couragement I needed so badly." 
 
 "Did they do that? I'm glad. Well, I liked writing the 
 letters ; though I often fancied, when I had let my pen run away 
 with me, that they might bore you ; and I liked yours in return. 
 I missed them ever so much when they came to an end." 
 
 "And I — I thought that perhaps you might have written — 
 perhaps after " 
 
 I stopped, for it seemed as though I were taking his personal 
 interest too much for granted. After all, it has been nothing but 
 a literary association, though in his letters he told me a good deal 
 about himself, which must be what makes me seem to know him 
 so well. 
 
 " After you had become famous ! So you did mind a little 
 my ungracious conduct, which is admitted without benefit of 
 clergy. But, you see, after all, I was only the Reader to you ; and 
 my work ended when the reviewers began theirs." 
 
 I fancy he must have been subtly conscious that his words 
 rebuffed me, for after a minute he added more genially, "Yes, I 
 wanted very much to know how you took success, and whether it 
 made you any happier. Has it ? " 
 
 " Happier ! Oh yes— for the joy of the work." 
 
 " Why," he said, " you are not old enough to feel, as I do, that
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 135 
 
 work — real work — is all that's worth living for when afternoon 
 draweth nigh. But your success must have made a difference in 
 things generally." 
 
 " I don't know — I don't care in that way. No, it has not made 
 any change in my life." 
 
 " Is it that you too want to get away from publishing and 
 shilling books, and Mudie and puffs? And do I find another 
 out-of-date person who agrees to loathe publicity? I'm not at 
 all sure, though, that it's a healthy sign in a beginner, this 
 indifferentism." 
 
 He seemed puzzled, and I fancied a note of rebuke in his 
 voice. I wanted to explain to him that there was no affectation 
 in my indifference ; for, in truth, to win praise as Esther Vrintz 
 would be- very sweet to me. But of what use is it to Mr. Vassal's 
 wife ? Of what use, too, to let the Reader know who I am, though 
 I can hardly doubt that he would keep my secret ? Still, it would 
 be a jarring note ; and this relation, which is unlike any other, 
 and is the most poetic thing in my life, would be brought down 
 at once to the common-place level. 
 
 So I answered nothing. We shall meet again, and he will 
 learn to know me better. Then something made me say — 
 
 "How could you tell, that day at Mr. Brock's, that I was 
 unhappy ? " 
 
 " Oh, it was easy enough to read that — in your book, in your 
 face, and by one or two things you said. Somehow, before I 
 saw you, I had got you into my mind as a poor girl — poor in the 
 money sense, I mean — on whom Fate had not smiled." 
 
 " And afterwards ? " 
 
 "Well, afterwards I came to see that I had been wrong in 
 some things, not in others." 
 
 " Are all authors so kind ? And do you often help struggling 
 writers as you helped me ? " 
 
 " I try — when I get a good chance. But I don't often manage 
 to do it so nicely." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Well, for one thing, they are not usually so satisfactory as 
 you from the literary point of view. And they don't always take 
 criticism so kindly. As for the kindness of authors, I know — 
 what I know of it. Dickens cut and altered and edited me in 
 my beginnings, asking my permission as though he were the tyro 
 
 and I the master. And I could tell you of others So, my dear 
 
 Miss Zamiel, I should be less than worthy in my own eyes if I 
 didn't at least try to do to others what others have generously 
 done by me."
 
 136 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 " I wish that I could read some of the books you have written," 
 I exclaimed. 
 
 " How do you know that you have not done so ? " 
 
 " I don't know . . . very likely. Mr. Brock gave me to under- 
 stand that you were a great author." 
 
 " Brock flattered me. Think of me, however, if you like, as 
 half a poet, which is a long way from being a whole poet. No, 
 no ; I'm not going to give away my incognito just yet : there's 
 such a charm in it. So we'll let my immortal works slide for 
 the present." 
 
 He did not speak for a few moments, but demolished with 
 his stick a tender little sucker of mesembryanthemum which 
 hung over the wall. I had a half impulse to stop him ; it seemed 
 so cruel : but I only picked up the soft fleshy thing with its pink 
 bud as it fell at my feet. 
 
 "I suppose it's as good a thing as one can do," he said. 
 
 " Oh no, no." I was thinking of the mesembryanthemum. 
 He looked up at me quickly. 
 
 " What ? Not to help others ? " 
 
 "That ! — Yes ; but it would be no use my trying. I want so 
 much help myself." 
 
 "Now, there's just where you might give help — in taking it 
 from people, and so bringing about an interchange of sympathy. 
 There's nothing so good for one as that." 
 
 " It's difficult," I said, " for people who are shut up in them- 
 selves." 
 
 " Don't I know it ? I should have been a much happier man 
 if I could have thrown myself more on my fellow-men — been 
 more objective, in fact. But that's the curse of us writers — the 
 subjective mania. We must needs turn our minds into private 
 dissecting-rooms and lock the door upon our nearest and dearest, 
 while we scrape our sensations bare and gloat over their mecha- 
 nism : or we take out our emotions and put them into a pickle- 
 bottle, and spend our time in gazing at them. And then, some 
 of us write a novel or a poem in which we describe them. Oh, 
 you needn't laugh. You are as bad an offender as any — worse, 
 for you take yourself so deliriously seriously : and some of us, 
 who have got a gleam of humour, don't — always. 
 
 " Perhaps," he went on, " you fancy that your Naamah is some- 
 body absolutely new and original whom your fancy has created 
 outside you. But she isn't. They're your own nerves that you 
 were scraping : and your own — I won't be so daring as to say your 
 own experiences, but your potentialities of experience." 
 
 I used to wonder sometimes, when I was sending him the
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 137 
 
 bits of my book, whether he understood. He did understand. 
 And his eyes, when they looked straight into mine, gave me a 
 feeling as though he were searching down right into my soul. 
 They made me speak from the inner me. 
 
 " But then reserve may be a sort of safeguard — if confidence 
 between you and the one — those nearest you, is impossible. . . . 
 It must be impossible when one's reallest thoughts and impulses 
 are in rebellion against the conditions of that very nearness. . . ." 
 I spoke stumblingly. " Surely," I exclaimed, " that's the cruellest 
 thing that can be." 
 
 "The cruellest ! It's hell upon earth." 
 
 He said the words with repressed vehemence : and again it 
 was as if some subtle air-current carried a mind-vibration from 
 him to me. I can't describe the feeling in any other way. 
 He was looking down, and again slashing savagely at a mesem- 
 bryanthemum trail. 
 
 " Oh, don't," I cried involuntarily. 
 
 " Don't ? " he repeated. I pointed to the torn, bleeding 
 shoot, and we both laughed. 
 
 " It was temptingly juicy, and I wasn't thinking. I shouldn't 
 have supposed that you were sentimental in that way. You'll 
 be telling me that you are a ragamuffin-champion and beast-lover 
 — not that that isn't a good thing — and an anti-vivisectionist into 
 the bargain, which is what some people think all nice women 
 should be." 
 
 " Then I'm afraid I'm not a nice woman in that sense, prac- 
 tically, though I am sure that I am theoretically. But it has 
 never come into my way to get up enthusiasms about creches and 
 broken-down cab-horses, or against vivisection either. I know 
 it's a great fault in me that I'm not in the least philanthropic." 
 
 " Yet you couldn't bear to see me slaughtering a flower." 
 
 " I don't know why. It seemed inconsistent somehow with 
 what you said about helping people." 
 
 "Oh, I'm a mass of inconsistencies. But never mind. Why 
 should you have said what you did? That seems inconsistent 
 too ; for at anyrate you have got your life in your own hands — 
 more, that is to say, than most of us. You told me that you 
 were alone." 
 
 Then suddenly his eyes moved down from my face — perhaps 
 there was something in it which betrayed me— to my ungloved 
 left hand lying on my lap. I saw that he noticed the wedding- 
 ring on my third finger, and that now he understood. He gave 
 a little start and drew back rather stiffly. 
 
 " No," I said, " I am not alone : not in the way you meant."
 
 138 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 " Of course I might have guessed that you were married." 
 
 He looked away at Sralta. The furrows in the mountain's 
 side were deepening as the sun lowered ; and I had a pang in 
 thinking that our talk must soon come to an end. 
 
 "It was unaccountably stupid of me, and I ought to beg 
 your pardon," he went on with a certain severe courtesy. " I had 
 no right to lead up to anything so personal. I quite understand 
 that you may have some good reason for not writing under your 
 own name. Naturally to me you will always be ' Esther Zamiel.' 
 But perhaps I am wrong, and that is your name : only you are 
 not Miss Zamiel ? " 
 
 " No, it is not my name ; " and I added, " If I am just Esther 
 Zamiel to you, you are to me only the Reader." 
 
 " That's quite fair, isn't it ? Though—" he pulled himself 
 up — " No, it doesn't matter." 
 
 I wonder if it was an instinct of delicacy which kept him 
 from telling me his name — the feeling that, since I wanted to 
 withhold mine, he would not put me in a false position by dis- 
 closing his. 
 
 " No, it doesn't matter," I repeated. 
 
 " In fact, as I said, the incognito has a charm of its own. I 
 shall be immensely interested in your literary career, and I hope 
 that we may always have that very pleasant meeting-ground. 
 Are you working now? But I suppose you are. Do you 
 remember what George Sand says in one of her letters, 'One 
 must have a passion in life, and the profession of writing is 
 nothing less than a violent and indestructible passion." 
 
 Then he became "the Reader," which he had not been all 
 through our talk till now. I told him about a story Mr. Brock 
 had asked me to submit for his magazine, and we discussed the 
 plot, and he advised me as to its treatment. 
 
 As we talked, the sun dropped slowly, the sky became softly 
 golden, and the desolate greyness of Kassis was changed into a 
 rosy flush. Truly in that tender glow there seemed to me some- 
 thing symbolic of the art-comradeship which may henceforth 
 irradiate the greyness of my life, while the wall that closes in our 
 meeting-ground shuts out also sex and circumstance and all the 
 ordinary worldly conventions. Is this the reason why, when he 
 talks, and even when he looks at me, there comes over me a sense 
 of dreamy harmony and of satisfaction such as I have never known 
 in any human companionship? 
 
 The shadows of the cypresses in the graveyard grew quite 
 black, and out of the glow there crept the chill of sunset. We 
 both got up. I had yet to drive to El-Meriem, and my doctor's
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 139 
 
 orders are stern against exposure after the sun has gone 
 down. 
 
 So we walked back through the tiled quadrangle, past the open 
 mosque and the Marabut's tomb, and down the flight of stairs, 
 along the Arab streets to the Cours, where the carriage stood. 
 
 As we waited while they were closing up the landau, a French 
 child stepped forward and gave me a bunch of violets. She was 
 a clean, pretty creature, with appealing dark eyes : and something 
 made me stoop down when I took the flowers and give her a 
 kiss. I don't know why I had the impulse, unless it was because 
 I felt happy. I don't care much for children, though sometimes 
 I have longed intensely for one of my own — not because of 
 Grisewood and Tregarth, nor from the wish for an heir to dis- 
 possess the nephew whom Mr. Vassal so hates ; but because I 
 have had the feeling that warm arms clinging round my neck and 
 a baby's head against my bosom would soften my hard heart and 
 teach me the meaning of love. 
 
 I had that thought now as my lips touched the child's cheek, 
 and was filled with a strange emotion, so that I knew, when 
 I looked up, meeting the Reader's eyes, that mine were bright 
 with tears. 
 
 "Take care," he said kindly, as I gave the little thing some 
 money. "You will have the whole small population of Kassis 
 down upon you with nosegays, and you won't get to El-Meriem 
 before sunset. Are you at the Europe ? " 
 
 " Yes— And you ? " 
 
 " Oh, I keep to the old-fashioned Poste. It's only for a night 
 or two. I have left my wife at Philotis, where we are in a villa." 
 
 He helped me into my cloak and settled my furs. 
 
 " I shall be back at El-Meriem almost as soon as you, for I 
 am on the tramp, and shall make a short cut by the traverses." 
 
 That was yesterday. I wonder if I shall see him in the town 
 to-day. 
 
 El-Meriem has become a modern French town, and at the 
 first glance I hardly seemed to know it. Yet if one looks for 
 them, there are all the old picturesque nooks still. For the 
 French part is only an adaptation, or rather aggregation, skirting 
 the Arab city, leaving its heart untouched. The Cours is in the 
 French part, and has a huge palm left in the centre, and a stone 
 fountain, and there are plane-trees planted all round, with rough 
 benches underneath them. Cafes and green-shuttered porticoed 
 buildings line the Cours ; and here are all the hotels in the place,
 
 i 4 o THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 except the new half-English Europe, which is built higher up 
 the hill than even the Arab town. All the inhabitants of El- 
 Meriem seem to be coming and going through the Cours — Arabs 
 in white hoods, bare-legged and idly sprawling : others squatting 
 beside pyramids of oranges, making no effort to attract passers- 
 by, and with always that strange look of fatality upon their 
 Biblical faces. There are Jews in rich dark greasy clothes, and 
 handsome fashionably-dressed Jewish women, while some wear 
 the hard unbecoming black head-dress of the Jewesses here. 
 There are soldiers in full red trousers striped with blue, high 
 boots and blue embroidered jackets ; Arab boys in red fezzes and 
 ragged garments frolic on the edge of the fountain basin and 
 pelt the dogs which come to drink : and here a file of stately 
 Bedouins march along, and at the moment, in odd contrast, two 
 fat Frenchmen look up from the Petit Journal and exchange a 
 laugh. 
 
 The market-place, close by, is full of picturesque bits too. 
 The oranges and yellow pumpkins and strings of capsicums make 
 bright spots of colour among the piles of vegetables and fruit. 
 Here one sees an even greater confusion of callings and nationa- 
 lities — Arabs, Jews, Kabyles, Bedouins, Spahis, and Zouaves ; 
 bourgeois Frenchmen and French women, and veiled beings with 
 yashmaks parted to show one roguish eye intent on purchase. 
 Here a pair of ancient Moors in brown gowns sit cross-legged 
 conversing, and there, before a cafe, is another, making jokes that 
 seem out of keeping with his patriarchal mien ; and there is the 
 Arab barber shaving his customers. Ah ! what a familiar scene 
 is this market-place to me ; and how often I used to come here 
 in the old days with our servant Barbe to lay in provisions ! 
 
 Up in the old town there are two mosques, — El-Meriem, like 
 Kassis, has the memory of its sacred Marabut : and there is an 
 Arab cemetery on the slope, to which on certain days a long 
 straggling procession of white-veiled women may be seen wind- 
 ing among the palms and oleanders and olive groves. Near the 
 Cours there was once another mosque ; but it is a mosque no 
 longer : and where the Moslem used to prostrate himself towards 
 Mecca, the Christian now kneels before the Madonna and Child. 
 It is all out of harmony : the slender Moorish pillars and tiled 
 arches clash with the tawdry pictures of saints and the images of 
 the Virgin ; and dignified Arab simplicity with artificial flowers 
 and guttering candles. But, in spite of these jarring elements in 
 the association of two faiths, I have always loved and been deeply 
 moved by this mosque-church. To-day, the dim lofty place, the 
 organ music, and march of priests down the aisle, brought me a
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 141 
 
 soothing sense of peace and healing, and had upon me something 
 of the effect of a mediaeval pageant belonging to some past exist- 
 ence, now altogether faint and unreal. 
 
 Is it possible that I have ever been a child at El-Meriem ? 
 
 Long after the service ended, I stayed kneeling before one of 
 the side altars which has a great, white, thorn-crowned Christ, 
 reminding me of the Christ at Grisewood. But that other Christ 
 had never shed any blessed balm upon me when I had crawled 
 to His feet in sharpest pain and direst dread. To-day as I 
 kneeled beneath the mystic Light — to-day that I am not unhappy, 
 but am filled with dreamy content — I had the sense of a Divine 
 Presence, of a spiritual haven. All the time that I kneeled, the 
 remembrance of Kassis blended in a vague way with my mood of 
 half-religious exaltation : and vividly near, seemed a ghost-like 
 companionship which has been hovering since yesterday. Frag- 
 ments of conversation float in my memory — thoughts, explana- 
 tions which I wish now had been made, but which I have a dim 
 fancy were understood. 
 
 This feeling of an unseen, sympathetic fellowship was with me 
 even more strongly as I came down from the cathedral steps into 
 the everyday world I used to know. After the dusky solemnity 
 of those echoing aisles, there seemed something visionary in it 
 all — the brilliant sunshine, the heterogeneous crowd, the fantastic 
 contrasts of the Cours. Through this masque of Eastern life a 
 procession of the creed of the West was passing — a procession 
 of priests, the crucifix upraised, and of acolytes in crimson habits 
 chanting to the rhythmic movement of the censers. Then came 
 a following of white-capped nuns, and behind them a gathering 
 of peasants — men in blue blouses, weather-beaten women, and 
 sturdy brown children, the faces of all hushed into devotional 
 gravity. Here was more than just the dramatic clash of two 
 civilisations. The human element, refined almost from its 
 grossness and squalor, somehow appealed to me with a pathos 
 and deep meaning which I had never before found in it, and 
 seemed to lend the scene a symbolism of deeper meaning and 
 higher beauty. It is an unwonted experience to me, this human 
 thrill, this sense of being no longer apart from the everyday 
 crowd, no longer quite bound about by the circle of my own 
 emotions. Only the last day or two have I had that feeling of 
 touch with the common interests of humanity, that feeling, 
 which made me want to kiss the child at Kassis, and which stirs 
 in me an inexplicable sympathy with the sorrows and joys around, 
 as though it were the throbbing of a new life within me. 
 
 1 low is this, I wonder !
 
 i 4 2 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 As I walked along the broad path towards the fountain, I 
 came face to face with the Reader : and he turned and paced 
 beside me, asking if I had caught cold from the late drive of 
 yesterday. 
 
 So we got into talk, and sat down on one of the benches under 
 a palm. As we sat there and were looking up at Sralta and at 
 a great ragged cloud resting on the mountain's brow, a sunbeam 
 bursting through a rift in the mass brought into sudden distinct- 
 ness the fortress perched on one of the grey crags which beetle 
 over the Mestral gorge. 
 
 " Do you know that place ? " he asked. 
 
 " It is Tourmestral." 
 
 "Yes, I know; but have you ever been there?" 
 
 I told him that as a girl I had often wished to visit Tour- 
 mestral, but that for a long time the way had been impassable by 
 a great landslip, and I had never been able to go. There was 
 only the zigzag path we could see now faintly drawn on the side 
 of the precipice. 
 
 "They call it the Road to Paradise," I said. "But it was 
 too far off and too steep for me to climb it alone." 
 
 " The Road to Paradise ! " he repeated. " Ah, that is a path 
 one does not climb alone ! Though I have done so," he added 
 with a laugh. " I made a tramp to Tourmestral last year." 
 
 I asked him to tell me what had happened to the Chateau, 
 and what Paradise was like when you got there. 
 
 " It is the most fascinating old Moorish palace you can 
 imagine, crammed chock full of eighteenth- century and Empire 
 properties ! You know it used to be a Moorish stronghold, and 
 was called Bab-el-Mestral, which, as you must know too, means 
 Gate of the Mestral. But the French drove away the Moors and 
 rechristened it ; and the castle, which had been the summer palace 
 of the Dey, was bought by a Marquis de Cayrol not so very many 
 years ago. His wife died there, and he took a hatred to the 
 place and would not go near it again. Now he is dead as well, 
 and it belongs to his son, whose sympathies are more with Paris 
 racecourses than with remote Moorish ruins. You see I have 
 been working up its history professionally. There's an interest- 
 ing library at the Chateau. I wish we might go some day and 
 explore it." 
 
 I wondered what my doctor would say to that "mad 
 scheme." 
 
 " Well, I suppose it is rather a mad scheme for you just now. 
 But there's a fair carriage-road in the daylight, and we should 
 not be condemned to mount by the Chemin du Paradis. It
 
 ■' THE SCOURGE-STICK 143 
 
 wouldn't do for you, however, to think of the excursion till late 
 spring. The day I went, I was nearly snowed up." 
 
 Presently he said, " I saw you in the church just now, and 
 wondered if you belong to Rome." 
 
 "No; I sometimes wish that I did." 
 
 "And I too," he said seriously, "sometimes wish the same 
 thing. It's a fine historic institution, and there's a certain poetic 
 grandeur in one's notion of the voices of many ages echoing 
 through that vast dim pile. Besides, its very fetters give a 
 delusive idea of security. I have moments when to put myself 
 into a sort of moral or intellectual prison seems to me just the 
 most desirable thing — if it were possible." 
 
 " I don't ever want to do that." 
 
 " Naturally ! You've nothing yet to guard yourself against. . . . 
 One goes through the phases." ... (I am taking up his words 
 as I recall them). " It's all a kind of seesaw rebound. At a 
 particular time of life materialism has one in grip ; then comes 
 the turn of unquenchable spirit. The spiritual view of things 
 always seems the most convincing in the long-run. . . . But we 
 pen-talked something of this in relation to the poetic temperament, 
 didn't we ? I remember writing you a rhapsody, of which later 
 I repented." 
 
 I asked him why he had repented of it, but he did not tell me. 
 
 " Our affinities, even on paper — perhaps because they were 
 on paper — seemed pleasantly comradesque," he said; "and I 
 suppose that accounts for the rhapsody ; I can't account for the 
 repentance. . . . You must realise as well as I," he went on, "that 
 in art and in emotion and in religion, which is only a blending 
 of art and emotion, there is always a further beyond — a fearsome 
 region where the limbs totter and the knees fail, and a man cannot 
 answer for his actions or his feelings when he gets into it. That's 
 where one realises his helplessness to cope with forces, not so much 
 outside as within himself — forces stronger than will or reason." 
 
 " But you give me the notion of a strong man," I exclaimed 
 impulsively. " I should never have thought of you as being 
 tossed about in that way." 
 
 He made an abrupt backward gesture. 
 
 " You don't know me in the least — how should you ? I'm 
 weak, deplorably weak. There's a confession ! When it's a case of 
 reaching a certain pitch of feeling — I've only reached that pitch 
 once in my life. . . ." He paused and prodded the ground with 
 his stick as he had prodded the mesembryanthemum at Kassis. 
 
 ..." You'll think of course that it came through being in love 
 wuli a woman — especially after what I wrote in that concatena-
 
 i 4 4 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 tion. . . . But that wasn't it exactly." He hesitated again and then 
 plunged on. 
 
 " The thing that frightened me was being brought face to face 
 with all the terrible and magnificent possibilities of a splendid 
 love. . . . I'm not speaking of the ordinary love, but of the kind 
 of passion that totally transforms a man or woman. It was a 
 shock to me to realise the sort of heaven or hell that might be 
 the key to. . . . There's where my weakness comes in. I've a holy 
 horror — except of course professionally — of the grand crisises of life 
 I once wrote about — no, we won't be pedantic and talk of ' crises.' 
 I should always want to double back round the fork of the ' Y.'" 
 
 He turned off the subject jerkily. 
 
 " You women-writers never rightly gauge the weakness of the 
 male artistic animal. You nearly always turn us out prigs, senti- 
 mentalists, or monstrosities. Your poet in Naamah is a masterly 
 prig, though you've done him so sincerely that we accept his 
 priggishness kindly. And your man of muscle is a beef-fed 
 sentimentalist — the Agnostic lover — and your cynical husband is 
 a refined monstrosity. A man would have made him grosser in 
 some ways and yet less repulsive." 
 
 "A man," I answered, "would not have seen him with the 
 woman's eyes. No man can see another man from the woman's 
 point of view." 
 
 "That's true — indisputably true as regards the marriage rela- 
 tion. But, my dear friend" — (there was a certain whimsical 
 humour in his smile as he leaned towards me) — " I don't believe 
 that artistic temperaments, about which we talk so much, are a 
 bit different from other people's temperaments. I suppose I've 
 got one — I don't know ! But we like putting things off; we 
 don't like being kept in order ; we hate being bored ; we expect 
 the world to dance to our tune — and we excuse ourselves by our 
 'temperament.' . . . That for your private ear; it wouldn't do to 
 utter such heresies openly." 
 
 We both laughed. Close by, a hideous black man tried to 
 draw our attention to a performance in which he twisted his 
 flattened nostrils and protruding lips into the likeness of various 
 birds, beasts, and reptiles. The Reader noticed my gesture of 
 distaste and said — 
 
 " Let us move on. These negroes are a nuisance." 
 
 He threw the man some coins, and we walked to a bench on 
 the other side of the square. Here a quaint, big-eyed Arab 
 child, with henna-dyed hair and thin little brown hands — what is 
 it that is so appealing in Eastern hands ? — one holding together 
 the folds of its grey striped garment, the other a bunch of
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 145 
 
 flowers, came up and offered me the nosegay. I took it, saying 
 something to the little thing which drew a jesting remark from 
 the Reader. 
 
 " Have you any children ? " he asked suddenly. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I have one — a boy — a jolly little chap. He's just going to 
 Harrow. He hasn't got the artistic temperament, bless him ! " 
 
 " Then he won't be an author ? " 
 
 " No. If there's one thing he has a holy abhorrence of, dear 
 fellow, it's the craft. No authoring for him ! The bar or the 
 army. Seems a queer choice of alternatives, but such has he 
 decided." 
 
 The Reader's face lightened curiously, and his laugh was very 
 soft and tender. I can see that he cares deeply for his boy. 
 
 " We had thought of having him over for the holidays ; and 
 he'd have been a splendid chum for me in my tramps — when we 
 weren't wanted at the villa." 
 
 There came over his face that indefinable shade of melan- 
 choly, and I wondered. 
 
 "But," he added, "his mother didn't like the notion of his 
 crossing alone when the gales were on." 
 
 The Muezzin call reminded me of the hour, and I got up. 
 We strolled together out of the Cours, and up the hill, along a 
 road bordered with ficus-trees on one side, and on the other by 
 a low wall, against which leaned the ragged Arabs, their Scrip- 
 tural faces silhouetted upon the wonderful blue, to which no 
 blue on earth can be likened. 
 
 " I am taking you out of your way," I. said. 
 
 "Oh, one can't walk too much in this place. When I get 
 away from my desk I'm like a giraffe on the loose. I wish," he 
 added abruptly, "that you'd let me talk over your new work 
 with you, as you get on with it. Seriously, give me time to read, 
 mark, learn, and inwardly digest, and I believe I could help you 
 as well as anybody else." 
 
 Why, who could ever help me as he can ? . . . I told him 
 this, and how gladly I accepted the suggestion ; and then I was 
 moved to say — 
 
 " I should like to make something out of my life through my 
 work — if it isn't too late." 
 
 "How can that be?" 
 
 "Ah, you don't know what it is to have failed in everything 
 you have undertaken. It's owing to you that I haven't quite 
 failed in this. You showed me the way. . . . That is what makes 
 you seem different to me from other people." 
 
 K
 
 146 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 As I looked at him, I saw an expression in his face which I 
 could not quite understand, but which filled me with gratitude 
 and gave me a new impulse of trust in him. As though I needed 
 any new impulse ! Have I not trusted him unhesitatingly from 
 the beginning ! ... It was partly pity that was in his face, and a 
 vague protecting tenderness. I think my look must have made 
 him feel that I was grateful, for he spoke out impetuously. 
 
 " You ! a child ! — to talk of failing in everything ! Why, you 
 are a child — a little unformed child. I can't help speaking uncon- 
 ventionally. As you say, I'm different in my relation to you 
 from other people, and I'm utterly glad of it. . . . Yes, you're a 
 child, in spite of Naamah and the critics. You have looked 
 upon one side of life from behind nursery bars. It's perfect 
 nonsense for you to speak of things being too late. . . . You, so 
 young, and so " he waited a moment — "and with the pro- 
 mise of a brilliant career before you." 
 
 " Oh, but I am not young at all," I answered. " I have been 
 married eight years. I am nearly thirty; and for a woman at 
 that age, it is too late for many things." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " I am certain that you have not grown any older since the 
 day you left here — ten years ago, didn't you tell me ? Or else 
 your fairy godmother was waiting for you on the pier when you 
 landed, and touched you with her magic wand — for, you know, 
 Philotis is an enchanted garden." 
 
 Ah, yes ! that is how it is ! Philotis is an enchanted garden !
 
 FROM A LETTER . . . Have you any idea how uncon- 
 WRITTEN MANY sciously winning you were in those early 
 MONTHS LATER days, when we were "the Reader" and 
 BY "Esther Zamiel" to each other? And 
 
 THE READER do you realise in the least how the mys- 
 
 TO tery and the fascination of your beauty 
 
 ESTHER VASSAL: worked alike upon the half-poet and the 
 
 whole man, so that at one moment I would 
 dream of you as pure soul, an ethereal Influence with whom to 
 soar into the realms of the gods ; and at another I would be tor- 
 mented by an inconsistent and most human longing to provoke 
 the play of those unsuspected dimples which were always so chary 
 of exhibiting themselves — particularly that one especial and en- 
 chanting dimple which was a pointer to the left curve of your 
 upper lip, in one especial and enchanting smile. That was a 
 little Nyanza, that dimple, waiting for the adventurous explorer 
 to come along ; the others were only dints which your fairy god- 
 mother made with the tips of her fingers when she stooped over 
 your cradle at Philotis and marked you with the fairies' sign ! 
 And did you know, that by some queer racial freak, you had got a 
 dash of the gipsy, dear — whence else gat you that free grace of 
 tread, that startled-fawn poise of head, and the delightsomeness 
 to you of green woods and running rills and wild things and earth- 
 frolic ? And did you know that that curved upper lip of yours, 
 which pouted the wee-est bit when you smiled, and caught back 
 upon your pretty teeth, was then — for all its tragic droop in sad 
 times, and its look of pathetic futility — just the ripe-pomegranate, 
 kissable lip of a passionate, laughter-loving child ? No, you never 
 realised in the very least your vivid, troublous, and altogether un- 
 English charm. 
 
 And though I aimed at an Arthurian chivalry in the matter 
 of respecting your reserve, how impossible it was not to con- 
 struct theories about you, not to piece together scraps of your talk 
 and stray allusions that you made, and draw inferences therefrom ; 
 — or rather to fail in drawing any inference that was satisfactory. 
 For this puzzled me— that while of a surety, the pleasant land of 
 
 147
 
 i 4 8 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 Bohemia was no unknown country to you, and you had un- 
 doubtedly wandered in the streets of that picturesque city of 
 Prague, you yet seemed to have somehow acquired a knowledge 
 of English provincialism and clericalism, nearly as complete in its 
 way as Miss Austen's own. Then, too, how impossible not to 
 speculate upon what grim experience might have befallen you, 
 which, while leaving you with the bloom of maidenhood almost 
 unbrushed, had yet inspired that vehement revolt in Naamah 
 against things that are, and had brought the fateful look into 
 your eyes. 
 
 Do you remember the morning at El-Meriem when you spoke 
 of having failed in everything, and of its being perhaps too late to 
 mend your life ? And can you recall the moment when your big 
 mournful brown eyes looked straight into mine, with the appealing 
 trust of a lost child who has found a protector — the moment, 
 which now thinking back upon it all, seems to me the critical 
 moment in our joint relation ? . . . What would you have said 
 then, could you have known of the rush of bewildering emotion 
 which swept over me, and of the longing I had to take your slim 
 hand in mine, and then and there vow an eternal comradeship, a 
 life's devotion in return for your confidence ? 
 
 Too late ! How the phrase from your lips moved me ! Yes, 
 too late no doubt for me and for millions of other men and women 
 who have missed their supreme opportunity. But for you who 
 had never come within touch of life's truest realities — I was con- 
 vinced of that — for you — beautiful, rare, exquisite, aflame and 
 athrill with undeveloped capacities, created to give and take 
 blessedness, to love and to be beloved ! That you should utter 
 over yourself the knell, " Too late ! " — It seemed pitiful. 
 
 My mind was torn with these thoughts and with wonderings 
 about you — Esther Zamiel, who nevertheless was not Esther 
 Zamiel — as I climbed the olive terraces behind your hotel that 
 afternoon, haunting the place where you were staying, in the half 
 presentiment and the dim hope, that a kind Fate might bring us to- 
 gether again. A benignant Fate indeed ! All hail to the dread 
 Sister ! She was in a tender mood that day. 
 
 And so thus thinking, I tramped the lonely pine forest, which 
 grew denser and more lonely the farther I got from the town. 
 You know the rift in it, — of course, well — where one comes on 
 that grand view of Sralta, rearing his flattened hump of naked 
 rock above the dark mass of pines, as though it were some 
 primaeval altar, while the smoke of the charcoal-burners rising 
 from the hill-furrows seemed clouds of incense before a shrine. 
 And you know well too the cleared spot beyond, and the rough
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 149 
 
 footpath bordered by lentiscus and sea-lavender leading to a 
 tiny house set about with old fig-trees. 
 
 Ah yes, you are familiar enough with that quaint abode — the 
 red-tiled roof and gable with a cross upon it ; the narrow terrace 
 and its balustrade of perforated brick, and the oranges hanging 
 over the wall ; and the extinguisher-shaped summer-house at one 
 end, purple with bougainvillea ! Even at that first glimpse I 
 associated you in an inexplicable way with this little dwelling. 
 I pictured you dreaming your early day-dreams on that sunny 
 terrace. In imagination, I could see you gazing out over the 
 balustrade towards the hazy sea and the unknown world, your 
 tremulous face kindled, your eyes shining, and your chin up- 
 lifted in that impulsive movement you make sometimes, which 
 shows the curves of your beautiful throat. . . . And then. ... ah, 
 was not Fate good to us that day ? . . . Did not I see a slender form 
 in a long furred coat pacing slowly from the summer-house ? And 
 was it not indeed Esther Zamiel who came down the steps to the 
 path where I was waiting ? And you did not seem to think it at 
 all wonderful that I should be there. Nor did it seem to me at all 
 wonderful that you should say, as you did, simply, " I came to look 
 at this house ; we used to live here when I was young." And then 
 do you remember how we stood together under the olive-trees; and 
 how still it was — not a grey leaf swaying; and the queer crooked 
 boughs showing so black against the moveless foliage. And how 
 dreamily sounds floated up from the distant town — the tinkle of 
 mule-bells ; the hammer-strokes of workmen at the forge ; the 
 cathedral chime ; and near by, the woodcutter at work and the 
 soft cooing of pigeons? 
 
 And do you remember, too, what a strong scent came from 
 the narcissus patch, and how, as you leaned against the terrace wall, 
 you idly gathered some daisies and said that they weren't like 
 English daisies — those sweet El-Meriem daisies, with their pink 
 tips and their fat yellow hearts? And you said, too, that the 
 anemones would very soon be out, and the asphodels in bloom ; 
 and we agreed that the asphodel is a disappointing flower, and 
 has no right to its poetic traditions. . . . 
 
 How pleasant it is to call back those trivial things ! 
 
 And do you remember our walk — our never-to-be-forgotten 
 walk ? How I asked you if there were not some gourbis close 
 by ; and you shook your head and said you did not know ; and 
 how presently a melancholy Arab came Strolling along in ragged 
 dignity, and you ran down and questioned him in Arabic. And 
 how mock-indignant you were when I made a jest of your Arabic, 
 declaring that it was mere argot ; and how you retorted and
 
 ISO THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 challenged me, and I was obliged to own up to my own educa- 
 tional deficiencies — for I couldn't speak Arabic then. It was almost 
 — not quite — a revelation to me, that light-hearted girlish aspect of 
 you. Yes, you said the Arab had told you there was a tribu across 
 the ravine, quite near, only that we must beware of the dogs. 
 
 And did I not catch at that inadvertent "we" of yours ; so 
 that you were obliged to come along and continue to be my 
 interpreter ? 
 
 And in what happy comradeship we set off! And were you 
 as blithe and rejoicing in it as I was, I wonder? Yes, I think 
 you were. Do you remember how at first you would not have me 
 carry your cloak, till you were forced to yield it up, as we cleaved 
 a way through the fir and undergrowth across the ravine ? And 
 how, as we mounted again, I made you sit down and rest, because 
 you were panting? There was such a soft pink flush on your 
 cheeks ; and you talked so gaily, calling my attention now to this 
 thing and then to that ; and I found something infinitely touching 
 in this capacity of yours to get pleasure out of Nature's trifles ; and 
 you seemed to me like a flower expanding in air and sunshine. . . . 
 Do you remember the ladybird that settled on your neck? 
 — Shall I ever see a lady-bird in the woods without again 
 seeing you, and the pretty gesture with which you preened your 
 head and drooped your lashes, as you tried to watch the insect 
 meandering from your neck to your shoulder? — while I in my 
 turn watched you, and admired the fashion of those golden dark 
 rings fringing the nape of your neck, and the satiny sheen of the 
 coil, which I fancied your maid must spend a long time in brushing 
 to make it so glossy. 
 
 And then you looked up at me and laughed, and asked me if 
 I knew the superstition that when a ladybird alighted upon one, 
 something good was going to happen ? . . . 
 
 Ah, my dear, my dear! Has there any good come to you 
 through me?
 
 WRITTEN Somehow, I can't think of him now as "the 
 
 BY Reader," but as my friend, my comrade, the only 
 
 ESTHER real friend and comrade I have ever had — except 
 
 VASSAL : Agatha Greste ; and she married and went out 
 
 of my life so soon, that I can hardly count 
 
 her as a practical reality. 
 
 We seemed to make a leap forward in our friendship — to 
 become companions rather than master and pupil — two days ago 
 when we went to the gourbis together. 
 
 It was so odd that he should have been there when I came 
 down to the roadway from visiting my old home — just there 
 waiting for me, exactly, I could have fancied, as though Fate had 
 sent him. 
 
 And yet in that expedition we didn't talk much or very 
 intimately — till, at least, quite the end. It was the sense of 
 growing things, the wind in the branches, the sunlight flickering 
 on the bark, the sound of the birds and insects — all sorts of 
 outside and trifling circumstances, and the wonderful feeling of 
 it all, which seemed to bring us near to each other. I hadn't 
 much chance either of talking gravely while we ploughed our 
 path down and up the ravine. And there, when we got to the 
 top, lay the native encampment, with a ring of prickly pear 
 marking it round, and all the dogs running out and barking 
 at us. But he quieted them. He must have a nice way with 
 dogs and children, for the mob of half-naked copper-coloured 
 little creatures that followed the dogs, only played at being 
 frightened. 
 
 Then came out a brown girl with flashing eyes, and wearing 
 silver haik-pins and anklets, and bracelets that tinkled, tinkled as 
 she moved. She carried a brown baby ; and when I talked to 
 her, could only giggle and nod. But she was content to chatter 
 to the Reader, crying at intervals, " Makash ! Makash ! " when he 
 was obliged from sheer shame, as I told him, to bring forth a few 
 halting words of Arabic. For now it was my turn to play the 
 critic, and to tease and exult over him, so that we all made merry 
 together like a pack of school-children on a holiday. But how 
 
 '5'
 
 152 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 could any one help being glad of heart in this smiling Blue 
 Land? 
 
 The women spread a clean mat on the ground inside the 
 prickly-pear hedge, and other brown mirthful beings came out of 
 the huts. They wore barbaric jewellery, and some of them held 
 brown babies. They clustered round and examined my dress 
 and trinkets, making soft gesticulations and infantile sounds of 
 curiosity and delight. It was so lucky that I had some chocolate 
 and a ribbon, and some trifles that I could give them as little 
 presents. The Reader made me translate and interpret, for 
 though he declares that he can read scholarly Arabic — which I 
 take private leave to doubt — he says that Arabic argot is beyond 
 him ; and often I felt embarrassed, for I could not tell him quite 
 all that the women said. 
 
 Then we looked into the gourbis, where were the skins drying 
 which are to be made into water-bags, and the great pottery jars 
 filled with grain, and the balls of wool for the weaving of bour- 
 nouses. The kuss-kuss was cooking for the men's evening meal, 
 and I tasted it first, and the Reader after me, and the woman 
 with the heaviest bangles and anklets told us that Suliman liked 
 the kuss-kuss best when it had meat in it, but that was only four 
 or five times a year; and as for wine !— But that was forbidden 
 by the Prophet. Then she stroked the fur of my coat and kissed 
 my hand, which was a great honour, for she is the wife of Suliman, 
 and Suliman is chief of the tribe. 
 
 Far back in the dimness of the gourbi were some raised yel- 
 lowish patches, each showing two gleaming red spots, and those 
 were the eyes of roosting fowls. Suliman's wife dived among 
 them. She wanted to make a present in return for that five-franc 
 piece of the Reader's, which insures meat for Suliman's kuss-kuss 
 to-morrow. The brown woman laughed, the fowls cackled and 
 cluttered, and one new-laid egg after another was brought out 
 and put into the Reader's hands, to his great embarrassment, till 
 I made a bag for them with my pocket-handkerchief, and so we 
 carried them away. 
 
 When our merriment had come to an end, and we were across 
 the ravine again, the words broke involuntarily from me, " I have 
 been so happy." Again he gave me that pitying look. 
 
 " Aren't you ever happy at home ? " he said. 
 
 Then all the light went out. Home ! ... In my mind's eye 
 rose a picture of gloomy Grisewood against its background of 
 mournful cedars and sagging grey sky, a picture, too, of my 
 master's face with its cold, tired eyes and the lines about the 
 nostrils. My breath caught in a strange little gasp.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 153 
 
 " Home ! " I cried wildly, impulsively, scarcely knowing what 
 I said. " This is my home. I love this place. It makes me 
 feel young and good and happy." 
 
 " Oh, you poor little thing ! " he exclaimed. " Why shouldn't 
 you be always happy and always at home ? . . . For sure, home is 
 where loving hearts dwell together in peace and oneness." . . . 
 Then he added hastily, " I beg a hundred pardons, but — you 
 interest me." 
 
 "Why?" I asked impulsively. 
 
 " I don't know. Your book interests me, you interest me. . . . 
 And somehow I have felt all along that your life was a very lonely 
 one, and very sad." 
 
 "Yes, it is sad," I answered. "And yet one needs so little 
 on this beautiful earth to make one happy." 
 
 " Nothing but the liberty which God has given to the wild 
 things He has made," said the Reader with a laugh, in which 
 there was a note of bitterness ; and he went on — 
 
 " The birds that live i' the field 
 On the wild benefit of Nature, live 
 Happier than we ; for they may choose their mates, 
 And carol their sweet pleasures to the spring." 
 
 " I know every word of that part," I said. " Once I had the 
 
 presumption to dream of playing it." 
 
 "You ! Ah, I forgot that you had once been an actress." 
 Presently we said good-bye. He told me that he was going 
 
 back to Philotis that evening. 
 
 In the great Square Casphar there sounds continuously the 
 drop, drop of multitudinous footsteps and the Babel of many 
 voices. At this hour in especial it is thronged with the polyglot 
 population of Philotis. For it is the hour when the band plays — - 
 and oh ! how many times as a little girl I have sat on this very 
 bench and have watched and listened and waited till the concert 
 was over, and it was time to take train back to El-Meriem. 
 
 For old sake's sake, I often come down now to hear the band 
 play. I know hardly any of the English or French people here, 
 and no one takes any notice of me ; and in the intervals, if I get 
 bored with the familiar sights, I read or scribble. Tremlett is 
 always with me, but one can't talk to one's maid. I can't, at any 
 rate, talk to Tremlett in the way I have heard women talk to their 
 maids. I dislike Tremlett, but she performs her duties so fault- 
 lessly, that if I wanted to do so I should have no excuse for 
 sending her away. Besides, Mr. Vassal would be annoyed ; it
 
 i 5 4 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 was he who chose Tremlett for me. She is the daughter of an 
 old butler at Grisewood, who is dead, and Mr. Vassal thinks very 
 highly of her as an entirely trustworthy person. 
 
 It is an interval between the pieces, and I have been studying 
 the crowd. Such a curious crowd ; every nationality, one would 
 fancy, represented in it. There are men in Greek, Turkish, and Ar- 
 menian dress ; Jews in greasy gaberdines ; French, English, and 
 American residents, and English and American tourists. There 
 are smart cavalry officers in uniforms of blue and red, and pictur- 
 esque Zouaves and Spahis. There are gipsies and negroes and 
 Moors ; there are Arab women waddling along in trousers of a 
 fulness that varies according to the rank of the wearer. . . . How 
 funny that is ! . . . Then there are smug French shopkeepers and 
 their wives ; there are widows in weeds, and consumptive people 
 in Bath chairs, and children and bonnes and grisettes. Sickly 
 little Arab girls with their hair dyed red are pretending to kiss 
 the hands of passers-by as they beg for coins. Here comes along 
 a dirty Arab man carrying a load of skins newly flayed. All the 
 dogs in the square rush at him and are driven back by the crack 
 of his long whip, only to rally again. Out there at the end of the 
 square streams a great band of gesticulating Arabs. Is it a poli- 
 tical hneute or a rising among the Christians? Nobody takes 
 any notice, and the band begins to play once more. It is 
 merely a rush to a cheap auction that has been opened a little 
 way off. 
 
 ... I remembered that I had something to call for at the Arab 
 jeweller's in the stair-street which leads to the old town. So 
 Tremlett and I joined the band of shrouded figures which are 
 always going up and down. At the top of the stairway stood 
 several handsome, bold-looking girls in embroidered jackets with 
 painted faces. I know them for the girls who sing and dance, 
 and who, legislation ordains, shall have their dwellings marked 
 in blue figures. I have a curious feeling about these girls. They 
 don't look good, yet it is certain that they don't look unhappy. One 
 can tell by their faces that they have never knelt in remorse and 
 regret before maidenhood's desecrated altar. They have not been 
 tormented by morbid fancies nor spiritual yearnings which have 
 proved only a vain shadow. If there be any satisfaction in material 
 pleasure, they must have discovered it. At least they must live 
 their lives ; and in the strange by-ways of emotion through which 
 they have passed, who can tell what sweet-smelling blossoms they 
 may have gathered ! 
 
 I got what I wanted at the jeweller's, and, turning out of the 
 shop, saw the Reader coming towards me. The bright, interested
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 155 
 
 look, which I have learned to know, illuminated his face as he 
 greeted me. How good it is to call up that look ! 
 
 "You are going into the old town," he said. "I wish you 
 would let me come with you. I am now studying colloquial 
 Arabic, and shall shortly resume my original attitude towards 
 you — of critic." 
 
 This was a merry little expedition too — almost as merry as 
 that to the gourbis, though there was all the time a disagreeable 
 consciousness of gaunt, unsympathetic Tremlett stalking behind. 
 I wonder if it struck her as odd that I should be in so gay a mood, 
 and I wonder, too, what Mr. Vassal would have thought could he 
 have followed us and listened to our chatter. 
 
 How quaint it all was — the irregular houses leaning together, 
 the white-clad forms, the glimpses of Moorish courts and dim 
 interiors, of great cool mosques and fountains and bowed wor- 
 shippers. Then the fascinating suggestiveness of streets and 
 windows ! Here was an athletic middle-aged Arab carrying 
 another Arab, who was old and fat, upon his shoulders, and just 
 behind them two priests in cassock and shovel-hat ; and after 
 them a drove of donkeys laden with lentiscus faggots, and then 
 a negro bearing a load of charcoal on his bent head, and butting 
 his way through the crowd, shedding his charcoal as he went ; and 
 every now and then a group of stately Moors, who might have 
 been posturing for an illustration in a pictorial bible. We sat on 
 a bench and drank Arab coffee, and many a veiled woman passing, 
 looked at me through the peep-hole in her yashmak, and laughed 
 and nodded as her slippers flapped on over the stony way. Then 
 we visited the shops and bought brass pots and kuss-kuss spoons 
 with coral handles, and embroideries and charms against the evil 
 eye, and many other odds and ends. And the Reader teased me 
 again about my Arabic argot, and rebuked me once more for 
 being a sentimentalist. That was when I had given a lettuce to 
 a starved donkey and some goodies to a row of Arab boys, who 
 were flattening their noses against the window of a French con- 
 fectioner's at the foot of the old town. 
 
 " Now what is going to be the result of this injudicious bene- 
 volence ? " he said. " The next nice watery lettuce that donkey 
 sees, he will immorally grab and be whopped for. And those 
 ragamuffins will never again be able to resist the temptation of 
 sticky sweet-stuff, and they will steal and be sent to prison, and 
 you will be responsible for the whole mischief." 
 
 And I retorted that the Reader's cynicism was but a poor, 
 cheap affair — worse than his Arabic. . . . And so it went on, till 
 the sun was near sinking and the street corners all shadow.
 
 156 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 Trivial babble! But what a happy sense of comradeship and 
 holiday-making it gave ! 
 
 When we got to the Square Casphar again, I held out my hand 
 to bid him good-bye. 
 
 "Won't you let me call you a carriage?" he said. 
 
 But I told him that the tram-car was just starting, and that 
 for the sake of old times I must go in it. 
 
 " I will go too," he said. " I have a call to make half-way up 
 the hill." 
 
 The sun was setting as the omnibus clattered up. It was a 
 stormy sky — great splashes of purple-red cloud tinging the bay, 
 and crimsoning angrily behind the pointed summits of the Vasques 
 hills. The waves breaking on the sand were red too, and so were 
 the sails of two boats scudding across Mediane. Surf broke over 
 the long black reef at the end of Rassem, and there were broad white 
 marks on the horizon-line. To-morrow will be bleak and tem- 
 pestuous, but to-day Nature has been royally gracious, and tender 
 and sweet as the scent which floats from orange -groves and 
 rose-gardens. 
 
 A ravine runs furrowing the fir-covered hill which rises behind 
 the Cosmopolitain. Its sides are woody with ilex, mimosa, and 
 arbutus set among the pines ; there is an underlay of heather ; and 
 many other wild plants and shrubs grow along the banks. Over 
 the bronze-grey rocks there tumbles a mountain torrent, and 
 along the side of the stream a narrow footpath curves, and turns 
 into the heart of the forest. 
 
 This is my favourite walk, and often I spend hours in a shady 
 nook, where a great fissured rock makes a rampart from the road 
 and an ilex dips its branches into a shallow pool, with sandy 
 bottom, and slippery stepping-stones bridging it. The stream 
 steals gently out of the pool, tender-sounding as the clink of 
 musical glasses, then, falling with hoarse murmur over a tiny pre- 
 cipice, it foams and rages among miniature boulders, as might 
 the life flowing in tranquil course, till a great love stirs it 
 to passionate tumult. The sun glints on wet briars, and the 
 soft roar of the water brings an indescribable sense of lonely 
 remoteness from the common world, so that if it were not for the 
 faint rumble of carriages up and down the zigzag, there would 
 seem no connecting link with prosaic existence. 
 
 Looking up the dell, the. tall columns of the firs blend into 
 each other, and the branches cross and interlace among the blobs 
 of foliage. A palpable resinous scent hangs in the air. The
 
 •' THE SCOURGE-STICK 157 
 
 sun sends a ray dancing askant the red-dappled boles ; and other 
 rays gleam on the cascade drops, while through the glistening 
 green of pine-needles I seem to see deep into unfathomable azure, 
 as far as Infinity. 
 
 Ah ! do you know the beauty of those quivering pine-needles 
 drawn upon the great blue concave of this enchanted land ? 
 
 Here I write and dream — dream out my new love-story. 
 
 It is the Reader's pet dreaming haunt too, he tells me. Several 
 mornings we have met and sat by the torrent while he has read 
 from my manuscript, and we have talked over my story — and 
 many other things. But our talk is so wandering and fragmentary, 
 that when I try to remember and write it down, half its meaning 
 .has gone. 
 
 Maybe this is because so much of its life and vividness lies 
 in tones, looks, gestures, and even in the pauses of speech. So 
 real and great a fact has our fellowship become — for indeed, 
 were there no compact in words, I should still know him for my 
 close and dear friend — that in all my solitary hours I am never 
 without the feeling of companionship. At those times I have 
 the continual consciousness of his eyes searching mine, in the 
 way they do when we talk — gazing straightly, clingingly, piercing 
 barriers, till I realise as definitely as I realise my pulse-beats, the 
 rare electric force which draws our inner selves into relation. 
 
 And I wonder within myself, since this pure intellectual friend- 
 ship is so sweet, what more subtle joy would love itself have to 
 offer. ... If this be friendship, what then may be the Beyond ? 
 
 Truly, it does not seem so difficult here, in the perfumed glow 
 and glamour of the Blue Land, to dream oneself beyond the 
 borders of friendship into the consecrated dual life — the love-life 
 in which hearts affined might throb to the rhythm of Nature's 
 music, sense and soul, revelling exultant in sun, and sky, and 
 waving branch — in the reed chant of Pan, and the virgin's hymn 
 of praise to Aphrodite. ... Ah ! I am pagan in the passing hour 
 of spring. 
 
 A dream. . . . But how fair a dream ! 
 
 And all the time the torrent sings its own rich-toned song. 
 And the words of it are those which he read me from a book one 
 day. 
 
 " Love ! love ! There is nothing that endures but love !" 
 
 To-day he said to me, with that odd shake of his shoulders : 
 "I should like to ask you a question — tout droit et de bon 
 cceur— comme ca "
 
 158 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 " Tell me what it is." 
 
 "Do I dare? . . . You have written about love: and sufficiently 
 convincingly for most people. Yet I am sure that what I have 
 already hinted at is true. As far as actual realisation of the 
 master-passion goes, you are still a child behind nursery bars. 
 Am I not right ? " 
 
 I answered him frankly, "Yes, you are right. I have never 
 loved." 
 
 "Your art, then, has been all-sufficing to you? Is that what 
 you have fed your heart upon since early girlhood — the desire 
 to be great ? And how has the human emotion been kept pent ? 
 Did you make Naamah your safety-valve ? " 
 
 It must have been something in my face which checked his 
 impulsive questioning, and caused the change in his tone as he 
 added — 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I spoke to the artist rather than to the 
 
 woman." 
 
 We had been standing at the shallow where the stepping-stones 
 are ; and now we crossed by them, and began to mount the hill, 
 walking in silence along a side path which leads to the hotel. 
 
 At last, he said abruptly — 
 
 " Esther Zamiel — I know no other name to call you by — I 
 want to say something. ... Of course I have seen you go in and 
 out of the Hotel Cosmopolitain, and naturally conclude that you 
 are staying there. My wife and I are in the villa-annexe. There- 
 fore, does it not strike you that as we are bound sooner or later 
 to discover each other, we might as well declare ourselves at 
 once ? Of course you will command me as you please, but that 
 seems to me logic. I don't suppose it's necessary for me to assure 
 you that your secret is as safe with me as though I had never 
 had the privilege of meeting you in Mr. Brock's office as the 
 ' Reader ' ; also that I have not even looked at the hotel 
 list." 
 
 Then again, all in a moment, there came over me that extra- 
 ordinary mystic perception which I have had once or twice 
 — the instantaneous mind -flash backwards and forwards, by 
 which I know that in some strange incorporeal fashion this 
 man's being and mine are inextricably linked. We looked into 
 each other's eyes, and to me the look seemed a recognition 
 through the mists of aeons ! . . . That was my fancy. But, of 
 course, he could have had no such fantastic thought. . . . Yet 
 sometimes I think that he too knows. . . . 
 
 I said no word. Just then it was impossible to talk out, for 
 some French people had strolled up, and were chattering behind
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 159 
 
 us ; and we weren't alone again till we had passed through the 
 wicket -gate into the Cosmopolitain garden. Then he made 
 straight for a secluded gravelled nook, closed in by dwarf bam- 
 boos, where there are seats and a table ; and here, planting his 
 stick in the gravel, he stood facing me. 
 
 "Well!" he exclaimed. "This is what I have got to say. 
 Release me from my parole. And this also — my name is Robert 
 Vassal." 
 
 And now there was borne upon me the meaning of that fatal- 
 istic flash ! It seemed to me that my inner self must all along 
 have been aware of his identity with Mr. Vassal's nephew. . . . 
 But how blind, how foolish not to have guessed with my bodily 
 faculties ! . . . For a moment I felt giddy. 
 
 " What is the matter?" he asked. "There is nothing so ex- 
 traordinary in the revelation. I only wonder that you haven't got 
 to know before this who is Mr. Brock's pet reader. Frank Leete 
 might have told you." 
 
 "Yes . . . there is ... it is extraordinary," I stammered, "be- 
 cause I ... I am Mrs. Vassal . . . your uncle's wife." 
 
 " You I " he cried in a sort of smothered gasp, and gave me a 
 queer, wild stare ; and then burst into a yet wilder laugh. " And 
 you didn't know ? " 
 
 " No. . . . How should I know ? " 
 
 "Yes, . . . of course ..." he answered absently, staring still. 
 " Perhaps you wouldn't have cared to help me if you had 
 known ? " I said. 
 
 " Why not ? You are Esther Zamiel." 
 
 He said the words defiantly, as though he were maintaining a 
 disputed assertion. 
 
 " I am your uncle's wife," I said again. 
 He laughed, the same queer laugh. 
 
 " Yes ; you are the wife of Hector Vassal, the millionaire, as 
 they call him. You are the mistress of Grisewood Castle, and of 
 Tregarth, and of the mansion in Grosvenor Street, and of the 
 yacht, and of the Vassal diamonds, and the Lord knows what 
 besides. . . . Yes; how the lace and the big pearl puzzled me — you 
 didn't notice — that day at Brock's ! Well, you are all that ; and I 
 perfectly understand why you arc also a most unhappy woman." 
 "I am not unhappy — now." 
 
 The words came out involuntarily. Did he realise, I wonder, 
 how much he himself has done to mend my lot ? He has given 
 me my power of working : he has given me his friendship and 
 sympathy . . . and so I am no longer unhappy. 
 That's what it amounts to.
 
 160 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 He did not answer. I keep seeing him in my mind as he 
 stood, his profile bent, his gaze fixed moodily outward through a 
 cleft in the bamboos, his hands clenched nervously on the crook 
 of his stick. Then suddenly he looked at me, his eyes staring 
 still, but bright and soft, and less wild. 
 
 " You have been to me as a star shining in darkness- — Esther 
 — Esther Zamiel ! " he said. " I hope that the light is not now 
 going to be all quenched." 
 
 I stretched out my hand. It seemed to me as though I were 
 stretching it forth to importune Fate, that I might hold fast this 
 thing she was threatening to take from me — this beautiful and 
 noble friendship, the only good gift she has ever let fall into my 
 life. How can I bear to lose it ? How can I meekly give up all 
 that I care most for in the world? I have written it, and I am not 
 ashamed. Why should I be ashamed ? Are we not friends ? 
 
 That was what I said to him. "We are friends." 
 
 He took my hand and held it in a tight clasp for a moment. 
 
 "Yes — friends always, even if we never see each other. For 
 how will it be henceforth with our friendship — our pleasant literary 
 intimacy? That's the trouble. I don't know if this can go on." 
 
 We faced each other, blankly and miserably, confronting 
 together, as it were, a common peril. Then I said — 
 
 " But a woman ... a wife is not a slave. I am not bound to 
 submit to dictation that is unreasonable." 
 
 " Would it be unreasonable ? I am not so sure. A wife has 
 to judge of those things, however, for herself. But it seems to 
 me that in such a matter you would be bound to obey your hus- 
 band — your lord and master." 
 
 " My master ! " With all the miles of sea and land interven- 
 ing, I seemed to feel the compelling force of my master's cold, 
 imperious gaze — that indescribable current of mingled fascination 
 and repulsion, but of entire supremacy, which I have no power 
 to resist. No, it would be useless to strive against my master. 
 
 "lama coward," I exclaimed. " I cannot stand against him. 
 He makes me do what he chooses." 
 
 " Is not that perhaps best ? Otherwise your life might be 
 harder ; and our friendship is certainly not worth that price. 
 Besides," he added, " there is another will to be counted in the 
 matter." 
 
 " Another will ! " 
 
 "My wife's. She has strong feelings on the subject. She 
 regards Mr. Vassal as our enemy — hers, mine, and our son's." 
 
 "But ..." I don't know why there should have come over me 
 a sense of chill and constraint; yet so it was, and I could not go on.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 161 
 
 " I am bound to consider my wife's wishes, as much — 
 perhaps more, than you are bound to consider those of your 
 husband." 
 
 I had never heard before in his voice the note that was in it 
 now ; it affected me strangely ; we were both silent. . . . Presently 
 he said, jerkily — 
 
 " I must think the thing out. I am sorry that we know each 
 other's names. It would have been better had we remained 
 Esther Zamiel and ' the Reader ' as long as might have been. . . . 
 Good-bye. ... I ought to be back at the villa." 
 
 So that is what has happened ; and I don't know what to do. 
 
 I suppose that according to the ordinary laws of conjugal rela- 
 tionship, I ought to tell Mr. Vassal of my discovery, and ascertain 
 his wishes. But — am I not justified in looking upon our marriage 
 relation as outside the pale of ordinary conjugal law ? 
 
 It is three days since I parted from the Reader in the bamboo 
 arbour. I have not seen him since. He has not been in the 
 garden, nor has he sought me in the ravine. Perhaps he has gone, 
 as he once told me was his habit, on a long tramp to " think 
 the thing out." 
 
 Has he told his wife about me, I wonder ! 
 
 Mione's description of Mrs. Robert Vassal is vividly before 
 me ; and she is so real, in my imagination, that I can hardly be- 
 lieve I have not seen and known her — that mad yellow woman, 
 with the fierce yellow eyes, the cameo face, the determined will 
 through all her madness, and the intense love for her husband ! 
 Could that have been the splendid love, in its terrible and 
 magnificent possibilities, to which he alluded? I find myself 
 constantly searching the square, and in passing vehicles, or the 
 grounds of the hotel, for a sight of her, but in vain. I know that 
 instinct would make me recognise her were we ever near together. 
 But it is evident that she no longer sits in the Cosmopolitain 
 garden ; and the only sign of occupancy I have ever seen at the 
 annexe has been a brougham drawn up, which I know to be that 
 of my own doctor. The annexe has its separate roadway, and a 
 rose-trellis divides its grounds from those of the hotel. Yesterday 
 my doctor asked me if the Mr. and Mrs. Robert Vassal who in- 
 habit the villa are any connections of mine. 
 
 I replied that there was a family connectionship, but that I 
 was not acquainted with Mrs. Vassal. 
 
 Then yielding to the immense curiosity I feel about this 
 woman, I put to the doctor some trivial question concerning her 
 health, remarking that I never saw her driving or walking. His 
 
 L
 
 1 62 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 reticence rebuked me for a breach of professional etiquette. He 
 never talks about his patients. "Mrs. Robert Vassal suffers a 
 good deal," he answered, " and she seldom leaves the villa." 
 
 To-day I received a telegram from Mr. Vassal. He is with 
 the yacht at Mandour, and wishes me to join him on a short 
 cruise. Mrs. Raphon, Mione Arathoon, Lady Diana Cleeve, Mr. 
 Paravel the writer, and one or two others, are of the party. They 
 and the yacht will be here to-morrow. 
 
 • • • • • • • 
 
 Everything has come back — the terrible oppression of false- 
 seeming ; the weight of sadness ; the shrinking from life's hideous- 
 ness, and from a galling yokeship ; the gasping, as for very breath, 
 in the fetor of this moral prison. 
 
 Here, on the yacht off Mandour, that hateful atmosphere en- 
 compasses and stifles me. But there — beyond the sea and the 
 mountains — there, in blue beautiful Philotis, lies the enchanted 
 garden of peace and purity. 
 
 ... It is a wild night ; there is a mistral blowing ; the wind 
 whistles through the rigging, and the surf booms yonder on the 
 shore ! And I lie in the groaning darkness, panting, yearning, 
 bound. 
 
 And something stronger than fleshly fetters, fiercer than the 
 elemental fury, drives my spirit through the wrack and clangour, 
 across sea and land, and over the granite hills, to a fair haven, 
 moonlit, rose-scented, murmurous with tender cooings, and blessed 
 by benignant influences, where troubled hearts may rest from 
 aching and kindred souls commune in safety. 
 
 It is he — my friend — who has given me the key to the en- 
 chanted garden ; and not man nor devil shall wrest it from me. 
 
 I have the dreadful consciousness of a sort of demoniac hatred 
 in Mr. Vassal's eyes. They seem continually watching me, forcing 
 mine, as it were, mesmerically towards them ; and their gleam 
 gives me a sick frightened feeling, making me as helpless as though 
 I were indeed under the domination of an evil power. Sometimes 
 I think that look in Mr. Vassal's eyes makes even Mrs. Raphon 
 uncomfortable. Yesterday I saw her turn pale and wince, when, 
 as she was talking in that way which I dislike so intensely, and 
 which causes me to almost dislike Mione for joining in, Mr. 
 Vassal turned upon her in a savage sort of fashion, and said some- 
 thing in a low tone that had the effect of completely quenching 
 her vivacity. 
 
 In the evening, however, some dancing-girls came from Man- 
 dour, and turned the deck into a scene of curious gaiety; and by
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 163 
 
 that time Mrs. Raphon had recovered herself, and Mr. Vassal's 
 humour was changed, and they seemed excellent friends once 
 more as they sat and whispered together through the performance. 
 But it filled me with an unspeakable dreariness — the dance of 
 these bold beautiful girls ; and I had a nausea as of the husks the 
 swine do eat. 
 
 I have never seen Mr. Vassal in so peculiar a mood as now — 
 or rather, in so many peculiar moods. Perhaps it is the Eastern 
 atmosphere which lends a certain suggestiveness to his talk, and 
 makes so plainly evident the contempt in which he holds women 
 — the Eastern atmosphere too, perhaps, that accounts for his 
 alternating fits of wild geniality and of sullen depression, while 
 again at times he seems devoured by the craving for some new 
 excitement, so that he scours Mandour in search, as he puts it, 
 of a sensation. 
 
 This evening at dinner he said that he had found one which 
 had been difficult to negotiate, had cost him twenty pounds, and 
 promised to be almost as exhilarating as a Black Mass had once 
 proved. He asked Mione if she would like to see a Black Mass, 
 at which she shuddered and crossed herself — for, like all the 
 Delmars, she is a rigid Catholic. 
 
 "Please don't," she said. "I'm not superstitious, Em not 
 bigoted, and I'm not exclusive ; but I do draw the line at the 
 devil." 
 
 " I love superstition," said Mr. Paravel. " Alas ! the Refor- 
 mation killed our superstition, and at the same time it killed 
 our art." 
 
 But Lady Diana Cleeve ignored Mr. Paravel's gentle attempt 
 to turn the conversation. She is a mundane-mystic, a clever 
 woman of the London world, and sufficiently handsome and 
 agreeable to be a welcome visitor at Grisewood. Having no 
 orthodox scruples, she plied Mr. Vassal with questions, and he 
 went on to tell of his experience of Eastern and Western sorcery, 
 and of certain magical incantations in which Jewish babies are 
 said to be sacrificed, whereat it was Mrs. Raphon's turn to 
 shudder. 
 
 " I can't bear to hear you," she cried. "You must be a black 
 magician yourself." 
 
 "Yes, I believe I've a touch of the Diabolist in me," he 
 answered. " It goes with my temperament." 
 
 " Temperament ! " repeated Mr. Paravel in his musical voice. 
 "Shall I tell you what it is that absolutely rules the world? It 
 is temperament." 
 
 Mr. Paravel had been abstractedly playing with a peach, a
 
 1 64 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 half-listening smile upon his mediaeval-looking face. Mione says 
 of him that he ought to carry a halo under his arm when he goes 
 out to a party, instead of an opera hat. He is an Oxford don — 
 a man of grave thinkings which are often hidden under a show of 
 aesthetic fantasy ; a writer on art subjects, his chosen period the 
 Renaissance, so that sometimes his talk is as an echo of the 
 troubadours, or a waft from the Rose of Chivalry. He interests 
 me in a fashion. Just now he is meditating a new work, of 
 which he has told me the gist ; and he is so inwardly absorbed 
 that I have been wondering what his attraction can be to Mr. 
 Vassal that he has been invited to join this yachting party. Yet 
 I have sometimes fancied that Mr. Vassal's tendency towards 
 psychological analysis is stronger than I had imagined. Possibly, 
 however, Mr. Paravel's presence may be accounted for by the 
 fact that he is a great friend of Lady Diana Cleeve. 
 
 "I speak of 'temperament' in its English sense," he added, 
 " not in its usual French acceptation — if, indeed, one can define 
 the term clearly enough to give it a sense." 
 
 " I should like to know how you define it," said Lady Diana. 
 
 " Ah, how ! ... As an imponderable quantity — a mist, an atmos- 
 phere, which permeates, surrounds, qualifies, and binds together 
 an individuality — an unknown something, no more to be analysed 
 than you can analyse animal magnetism or spiritual affinity. A 
 link between body and soul ; of the substance of both, and yet 
 neither. Briefly, the essence of the personality." 
 
 "In fact," put in Mr. Vassal, "that indefinable something 
 which, according to poets' drivel, expresses love." 
 
 " I certainly imagine," answered Mr. Paravel, his face losing 
 a little of its dreaminess as he leaned forward, smiling sympa- 
 thetically, " that one might pretty safely define love as the point 
 of contact between two temperaments." 
 
 "Just as one might define many a marriage as a tragedy 
 of temperament," said Lady Diana, who delights in such dis- 
 cussions. 
 
 " That is unquestionably true," affirmed Mr. Vassal, with an 
 acrid laugh. 
 
 " And you are quite right," Lady Diana went on, addressing 
 Mr. Paravel, "in what you say about the absolute tyranny of 
 temperament. It is so insidious that we are almost unconscious 
 of it, though as a matter of fact, from the time we get up in the 
 morning till the time we go to sleep at night — and who can 
 answer for the influences that regulate dreams? — every thought 
 and action are governed by temperament. You wonder why a 
 person enters the room in a particular way, and has certain
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 165 
 
 peculiarities of gesture and unaccountable tricks of speech. That 
 person is simply fulfilling mechanically the dictates of tempera- 
 ment." 
 
 Mione was gazing thoughtfully out of the saloon window. 
 
 "Mrs. Arathoon, what are you plotting?" asked Loseley 
 Allard. 
 
 "Your conquest," returned Mione, turning sharply. 
 
 " Ah, that is accomplished already," said he gallantly. "When 
 you are present, I renounce art, transcendentalism, and all their 
 works, and yield myself to the minor excitements of life." 
 
 "That, anyhow, should simplify existence," said Mione. "I 
 must say, Mr. Paravel, that you booky people seem to me to waste 
 a good deal of time in running round your own tails. Loseley is 
 more practical. He extracts his minor excitements out of his 
 friends — dinners, I suppose, and such trifles — like the street boy 
 pulling periwinkles out of the shell. Now I don't hanker after 
 affinities and 'essences of the personality' — whatever that may 
 mean — and points of contact, and the rest of the rubbish. I 
 like good embroideries — Cretan by preference — and old silver, 
 and hunters, and diamonds, and plenty of clothes — fine batiste, 
 and petticoats with cascades of Valenciennes — and the remainder 
 accordingly. My temperament would get on quite nicely if I had 
 money enough to buy all the things I wanted." 
 
 " Well now, suppose we start off," said Mr. Vassal. " I see 
 Osman hanging round waiting for orders. You shall take all 
 you can stand of my twenty pounds' worth of sensation." 
 
 It turned out that we were only able to stand about ten 
 minutes of it. Before long we found ourselves at the heart of 
 the old town of Mandour, in a mysterious Moorish court open 
 to the sky, flickeringly illuminated by Arab lamps, and with 
 galleries from which white-shrouded heads protruded, and occa- 
 sional eldritch shrieks issued ; below, a mass of evilly excited 
 faces, tom-toms beating, clouds of incense rising, and in the 
 midst of the incense, a saturnalia of bearded ghouls, writhing 
 their unclean limbs, uttering devilish cries, dancing on burning 
 coals, gashing themselves with knives, swallowing scorpions — 
 horrors unnameable — I know not what, for I could look no 
 more. Here was certainly the flavour of diabolism. Worst part 
 of the horror seemed the expression of Mr. Vassal's own face 
 when he turned it towards me, as the other pairs, sickened already, 
 moved to the door. Mr. Paravel had been the first to escape. 
 Mione followed him. Mrs. Raphon glanced at Mr. Vassal, but 
 he motioned her forward with Loseley Allard, and taking my 
 hand, placed it within his arm. He stopped behind the rest, at
 
 1 66 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 one of the outer pillars of the court, and made me stand against 
 it, thus shielded from sight of the performance. There was an 
 angry movement in the multitude when it became aware of the 
 retreat of the English party — and a crowd of Mandour fanatics 
 is not a monster to be bearded lightly. Mr. Vassal looked round 
 for our dragoman. 
 
 " That damned Osman has got frightened and made off," he 
 said. " This is a meeting of religious madmen, and it might be 
 dangerous to force a way. As a sensation, the thing is crudely 
 brutal. You can keep your eyes shut, though perhaps that might 
 be a pity. They are going to swallow live snakes, and probably 
 one or two will kill themselves before it's over. There should be 
 some excitement in that. Don't shudder ; it's only their short cut 
 to Paradise." 
 
 I blurted out something wild — asked if he had exhausted all 
 the varieties of sensation, that he must make one in the watching 
 of torture — said that perhaps this was with a view to inventing 
 new methods for inflicting it. 
 
 " Oh, by God ! " he exclaimed, " you hit the mark. Modern 
 civilisation doesn't give a man much scope for punishing a woman 
 who has made herself a curse to him. One has to remember 
 that he is a gentleman. . . ." 
 
 Presently he said in a quieter tone, " I suppose that you 
 look upon me as a sort of devil. . . . You don't answer me, so 
 I'll take the compliment for granted. Perhaps I am. That's 
 the result of marrying for love. ... A blase sensualist with a big 
 brain— the modern definition of the devil ! And it pretty well 
 defines me I" 
 
 He turned round and became absorbed in the performance. 
 I imagined that the snake business was proceeding, and with my 
 eyes shut, leaned hard against the pillar — I haven't the least idea 
 for how long. The thrilling hush, then the excited swell and 
 murmur of the crowd, the shrill screams from ghosts above, and 
 the unearthly howls of grey ghouls below, turned me sick. 
 Through the shrieking I could hear Mr. Vassal's cold chuckle. 
 He was amused at the show. But after a minute or two, I knew 
 that he had turned again to me, and that his arm was hold- 
 ing me up, as he fumbled in his pocket for his flask. Then 
 just as everything was going black, the silver cup was put to 
 my lips. 
 
 " Drink some," he said ; " this thing is really beastly." 
 
 I did as he bade me, and the clammy faintness passed. He 
 filled the cup again and took a draught of the spirit himself. 
 
 " They've packed the doorway," he said. " But I'll chance
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 167 
 
 it in a minute. I assure you that if I were the devil, I'd choose 
 a more refined sort of torture for you than this." 
 
 After a few minutes he spied Osman the dragoman, and the 
 two manoeuvring a passage, got me out. We stood in a dark Arab 
 street out of sight of the horrors, and out of hearing of the yells. 
 
 " Please go back," I said. " Osman will take me to the 
 boat." 
 
 " No ; I've had enough of it. As a sensation, the thing wasn't 
 worth twenty pounds." 
 
 He gave an order to the dragoman, who went on, and I was 
 alone with my master. Soon we reached the open space by a 
 mosque, and he told me to sit down. 
 
 "Yes, if I were really a devil," he repeated, " I should practise 
 more subtle methods. There's where the dramatic instinct comes 
 in : you, ought to appreciate that." 
 
 All of a sudden he bent forward and gripped my wrist so 
 tightly that it hurt me. 
 
 " And that's why I'm not going to interfere in the least with 
 your sentimental friendship for Robert Vassal," he said. " You 
 can see as much of him as you please ; only it's not to be in my 
 house, remember. You may meet him how and where you choose, 
 provided that it's outside Grisewood and Grosvenor Street and 
 my presence. I've no objection whatever." 
 
 I stared up at him bewildered, not knowing what to say or 
 to think. And it seemed to me in the pale light which played 
 upon it, that his cold, puffy face, with its glittering eyes and deep 
 lines and satirical smile, did in truth resemble that of a Mephisto- 
 pheles. Yet the feeling that surged through my bewilderment, 
 my repulsion and terror, was one of intense relief; for the key of 
 the enchanted garden remains in my keeping. Then, what does 
 anything matter? I have always my Friend. 
 
 " You didn't expect that grace," he said, ironically chuckling. 
 " Perhaps, after all, I'm not such a devil as you think me." 
 
 At that moment Mione's voice called from the top of the 
 flight of steps leading to the mosque, where she stood with 
 Loseley Allard and Mrs. Raphon. 
 
 " The battle has been fierce and sanguinary," she cried, "and 
 the list of casualties serious. Mr. Paravel has lost his halo, and 
 Lady Diana her temper; and Loseley has shed his blood in a 
 vain struggle to rescue Aunt Rhoda's pince-nez from the clutches 
 of the Infidel. As for me, I've had enough, thank you, of sensa- 
 tion for one evening. Great Caisar ! you may have all the rest 
 of your twenty pounds' worth for yourself." 
 
 Presently Mr. Paravel and Lady Diana appeared also, they
 
 168 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 too having retreated to the mosque. Mrs. Raphon hysterically 
 attached herself to Mr. Vassal, and I moved to the other side of 
 Mione. Thus we walked down to the shore, and took boat back 
 to the yacht. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 I am at Philotis again. The yacht has gone, and Mr. Vassal 
 and his party with it. 
 
 A cold caught that night at Mandour has kept me within 
 doors. It is chill and rainy ; and soddenness and desolation 
 have fallen upon the Blue Land. I, too, feel desolate. I have 
 so wanted to see the Reader, and to tell him that we may con- 
 tinue to meet and be friends. Before leaving I gave the concierge 
 a note for him, to say that I had gone in the yacht to Mandour, 
 and that I hoped he would be still at Philotis on the date of my 
 return, which I duly appended. I thought he would have replied 
 to the missive, or at least, when I did come back, have called to 
 inquire ; but there has been no word. 
 
 Yet I have always the feeling of his nearness, though now 
 it is as of nearness on the other side of a thick grating. Why 
 should he not have written a kindly line ? It would have been 
 natural ; it would have been courteous. 
 
 Does he wish me to understand that I have over-estimated 
 his interest in me — that in his official capacity of the Reader, I, 
 as Esther Zamiel, a young writer of promise, might have had a 
 certain literary claim upon him, which, knowing me now as Mr. 
 Vassal's wife, he desires to repudiate ? Have I, out of my need 
 and longing, been all the time imagining a sympathy that never 
 really existed ? Could he have even misconstrued my frankness 
 and my leaning upon him as an ordinary man of the world might 
 misconstrue them ? Could he fancy ? 
 
 No, I won't write it. The bare thought is ignoble. But as 
 it comes over me — and it will come in spite of myself — I shudder 
 in unspeakable humiliation. 
 
 Perhaps it is that' Mrs. Robert Vassal refuses to countenance 
 our friendship. 
 
 Perhaps they have left Philotis. The season is ending : the 
 rain is over now, and spring in a great glad burst is upon us : 
 the almond-trees have shed their petals, and the fig-branches are 
 putting forth leaves. 
 
 No. I asked Tremlett to inquire if Mr. and Mrs. Robert 
 Vassal are at the annexe, and the concierge informed her that 
 they are still there, but are leaving in a few days. 
 
 I cannot let him go out of my life without stretching forth a
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 169 
 
 hand — without at least being sure that we part by his wish. 
 It is right that I should tell him I have received Mr. Vassal's 
 sanction to our acquaintanceship — our " sentimental friendship " ! 
 
 What made him use that phrase ? 
 
 And then there is my literary work ! He promised to read 
 and give me his opinion of the chapters as I wrote them, as " the 
 Reader " might do. And I have several to show him. 
 
 Yet an unaccountable dread of I know not what, holds me 
 back from writing — the feeling that by summoning him I may be 
 invoking the calamitous irrevocable. 
 
 I have written. Only a few formal lines asking him to call. 
 
 I waked nervously. . . . We are now within the pale of the 
 Conventions ; and he was ceremoniously announced and ushered in. 
 
 Everything was changed, and he himself changed also. He 
 looked worn and ill at ease. His manner was constrained ; there 
 seemed somehow a cloud over his face ; but his eyes, earnest and 
 sad, were as true lights shining out of the cloud. 
 
 He made some banal remarks — about the weather, Mandour, 
 the emptying of Philotis. 
 
 "You are going away too? " I said. 
 
 " Yes ; I've got to be back at Views. Ought I to mention that 
 I am the editor of that flourishing journal ? . . . . I'm taking my 
 wife across, and shall leave her at Hyeres till one can depend on 
 the weather in England." 
 
 Then I exclaimed — and indeed I was deeply hurt : 
 
 " You would have gone without saying good-bye to me ? " 
 
 " I am here. Always the last moment, you see ! Is that the 
 artistic temperament?" 
 
 I threw off the forced pleasantry as though it had stung me. 
 And his nervous laugh gave place to an expression of almost tragic 
 gloom. 
 
 " Forgive me," he said. 
 
 "You would have gone— if I had not written. And I wrote, 
 too, before." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I wanted to say — it seems right— that Mr. Vassal has no 
 objection to our knowing each other." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 He made no other comment, but an odd light came into his 
 face ; and then the cloud spread again directly, as though he had 
 been momentarily glad, but was on the whole disappointed at the 
 information. I went on.
 
 I7 o THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 "Perhaps it would be best to say Mr. Vassal's exact words — 
 that he had no objection whatever to our meeting, provided it were 
 not at Grisewood or in Grosvenor Street — or in his presence." 
 
 " The proviso was surely unnecessary." 
 
 " I did not ask his permission ; he spoke of his own accord." 
 
 " It is strange, isn't it?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "Well, " he said, "that limits things." 
 
 " Yes. ... But here. . . ." 
 
 It was all so jerky. I can't recall anything but bald words. 
 
 " Oh, here ! " 
 
 He sat moodily staring out of the window and saying nothing. 
 I seemed to feel that the invisible barrier between us was getting 
 thicker and thicker, and that I must tear it away. 
 
 " If you would help me still in my work. . . . Why should it 
 not be as before? ..." I stammered. " Could I not write to you 
 sometimes ? " 
 
 " Yes ; there's no reason why you shouldn't write— or even call 
 upon me at my office, since I can't see you at your own house. . . . 
 Many of my lady contributors to Views do call upon me at my 
 office — if you were a contributor. There's no reason why you 
 shouldn't write," he repeated ; "just as Esther Zamiel would have 
 written. ..." 
 
 " And you ... as the Reader? " 
 
 "No." He made a quick gesture. Then he turned his eyes 
 upon me, and said slowly, " I want to be the Reader. But don't 
 you see? — it's difficult." 
 
 " You said. . . . Perhaps it is. ..." I went on stammeringly. 
 "Perhaps you think that you ought not to help me, because 
 of what Mrs. Vassal feels about the connectionship with my 
 husband?" 
 
 " You are Mrs. Vassal. " He gave an odd little laugh. " My 
 wife is Mrs. Robert Vassal. No, I haven't mentioned you to 
 my wife." 
 
 I don't know why I felt glad. Presently he added, " I mean 
 as Mrs. Vassal." 
 
 " But as Esther Zamiel ? . . . You said — in one of your letters, 
 I remember — that she had read some of the Naamah proofs ? " 
 "Yes — only one or two sets." 
 
 " Does she . ..." I feel always a curious hesitancy in uttering 
 the name. " Does Mrs. Vassal help you with your work ? " 
 
 " Some years ago she helped me a great deal. That I am 
 what I am, is entirely owing to my wife. Perhaps it is well that 
 I should tell you this. Perhaps, too, I ought to explain that her
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICIv 171 
 
 claim on my gratitude is all the stronger because, mainly through 
 anxiety and attendance upon me at a trying crisis of our lives, to 
 which she was physically unequal, her health and nerves gave 
 way, and her mind is not now brilliantly clear as it once was. 
 That is why when the Naamah proofs seemed to interest her — 
 she took them up accidentally — I encouraged her to go on with 
 them." 
 
 " But — you said it was only one or two sets ? " 
 
 "Yes — she fell ill again, and has not been able to do anything 
 of the kind since." 
 
 There was another silence. He played absently with a silver 
 wine-cup on the table, which is one of the things I bought in the 
 old town^ that day we were there together — I wondered if he 
 recollected it, and how light-hearted we had been. The thought 
 of it all blended with the long cadences which the rustle of the 
 palm-leaves made ; and the same fancy may have been in his 
 mind, for he said suddenly in an absent way — 
 
 " Do you like the sound of the wind ?. . . It seems to come from 
 such a long way off ! " 
 
 " This is a ghastly sort of joke, isn't it?" he added abruptly, 
 his dreamy tone changing. 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " The whole show ! Life, love, and all the rest. It really 
 seems sometimes as though the Demi-urgos had been allowed to 
 try his hand at world-making, and were laughing in his sleeve at 
 the mess he has made of things, and at the fine fighting that goes 
 on among the devils he has set loose in us." 
 
 " The devils ! " I wondered of what he was thinking. 
 
 " We're full of them — we writing people. Good demons and 
 bad demons ! And upon my soul I don't know whether the good 
 or the bad are most responsible for the best work we do. I know 
 that when I've honestly tried to give the moral excellences an 
 innings, I've done my feeblest and insincerest work. And the 
 other way on, when I've let go the brake." 
 
 I made some faint remonstrance. 
 
 " No, I couldn't let the brake go altogether," he said. " Seri- 
 ously, I'm too great a coward. Besides, I've built a wall round 
 myself — a wall of hard and fast obligation — dead-letter respecta- 
 bility. But it strikes me sometimes that I might be a truer man 
 and a greater artist if I had the courage to knock down my wall 
 and strike out for the open." 
 
 He got up. 
 
 " Talking of demons, my poetic one has been pretty active 
 lately. You'll see the result shortly in Views."
 
 172 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 He did not seem to hear the question I asked about his 
 poem. 
 
 " Don't you think," he said, as though he were taking up some 
 previous argument, " that conscience may after all be only a geo- 
 graphical and chronological question ? There's not a sin you 
 could mention which I couldn't show you to have been at some 
 time and in some place accounted a virtue. You know that 
 when Herodotus was shocked, and reproved the Scythians for 
 eating their fathers and mothers, they bade him not blaspheme." 
 
 He half held out his hand, but let it fall to the back of a 
 chair. " Good-bye," he said. 
 
 I got up too and faced him, and I would not say good-bye. 
 I would not let him go like that ; and I knew that my voice was 
 choky and my eyes swimming, and I did not care. 
 
 " Won't you tell me — what I am to do ? " I said desperately. 
 
 He leaned over the chair, looking intently at me, and his face 
 softened from its hard, veiled expression, while his voice deepened 
 and shook slightly as he answered — 
 
 "How can I tell you what to do — I who am weaker and 
 more doubtful and more ignorant than you yourself?" 
 
 "Tell me whether you want us to go on being friends. ... It 
 doesn't seem so quite." 
 
 " You think that I don't care whether I ever see you again or 
 not?" 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " Then I'll tell you that to see you and talk to you sometimes 
 would be just the greatest pleasure I could have in life. ... So 
 when we are both in London again I'll write to you. I'll write 
 and ask you to do something for Views. And you shall come 
 and see me, and we'll talk over the work." 
 
 " Thank you. . . . Then I shall wait until you write to me ? " 
 
 "Yes, that will be best." 
 
 "You see," he said, "yours was the true instinct which made 
 you want to keep the art-life distinct from the life of conventions. 
 I like this standing with you outside the walls of the city. We 
 have the whole free wilderness to roam in — the great, grand, 
 poetic wild." 
 
 He held out his hand again. I put mine into it, and so we 
 stood with them clasped. 
 
 '" Esther Zamiel of the Wilderness," he said solemnly. " Not 
 Mrs. Vassal. That name belongs to the City and the Conven- 
 tions. Esther Zamiel, give me your friendship, and let me 
 give you mine. And we will thank Heaven for that which is the 
 second reallest thing the world holds."
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 173 
 
 " The second reallest ! " 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 "Never mind grammar; we can keep that for our books 
 There is one thing more real, but it is for the elect souls." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 " Whosoever loves knows the cry of this voice," he said. 
 " Perhaps you will have to hear that voice before you do the best 
 work that is in you ; and perhaps you will be happier if you never 
 hear it. . . . Now good-bye." 
 
 And so he left me. 
 
 He promised to write, but he has never done so. It is more 
 than three months since I came back from Philotis, and I have 
 received no communication from the office of Views, official or 
 personal. 
 
 I have read his poem. He calls it The Garden of Enchant- 
 ment ! And while I read, I wondered whether some sort of occult 
 telegraphy had conveyed to him the unspoken words in which 
 during many hours of loneliness I have talked to him as to my 
 other self. I seem to find the echo of them here. And that 
 thought-fellowship of Philotis, instead of lessening with time and 
 distance, has become an uncanny haunting and a bitter pain. 
 
 All this while he has been in London. I have read his articles 
 in Views. I see his name mentioned in various papers. Our lives 
 seem to run in parallel grooves, yet we never meet face to face. 
 
 He was at the first night of Dr. Quintin Glaive's new play. 
 We were in a box, and he sat in the front row of the stalls with 
 the critics. How their faces reminded me of Claudia I I saw 
 him talking to Frank Leete, and wondered if he knew that I was 
 there. 
 
 And last week I went to hear a debate in the House of Com- 
 mons, and through the grating of the ladies' gallery I looked down 
 upon him as he sat, his hat tilted over his brows, engrossed in 
 what was going on, occasionally exchanging a remark with the 
 man next him, or scribbling something on a sheet of notepaper, 
 or else animatedly joining in a " Hear, hear." I remembered 
 his having once said to me, "A man wants two interests in life. 
 Literature isn't enough ; it's too desky and cramping." My feeling 
 of remoteness seemed despairingly intensified by the sight of him 
 in this place — one of the distinctive crowd of legislators; a man 
 in the world of men, touching, so to speak, the pulse of Great 
 Britain. I remembered what he had said to me about the dead- 
 letter wall of respectability he had built round himself; and as I 
 watched him bowing in this House of Rimmon, I asked myself
 
 174 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 what affinity could he have with Esther Zamiel of the Wilderness, 
 that he should leave his gods to worship with her in the "great, 
 grand, poetic wild " ? 
 
 Alone ! yes, one must be alone — alone on the broken spar, 
 drowning out of sight ! Alone amid the crowd applauding you 
 — supposing they do applaud, which sometimes they do not. . . . 
 
 My old mood has come back to me. I am filled with the 
 nausea of life's falsity. The world seems unreal, and people all 
 wear grinning masks ; and that sense of loneliness in a vast alien 
 crowd becomes at times intolerable. The thrill of human sym- 
 pathy and of fellowship with other women, and with little children, 
 and with living, growing things, which stirred my heart at Philotis, 
 has never quickened it again. All the companionship I know 
 is that of a ghost — the grey ghost of Kassis ; the ghost of a 
 friendship which was but falseness and illusion too. 
 
 I snatch at straws of distraction. Last night I let a man 
 make love to me ; and afterwards I went through agonies of 
 self-abasement at the desecration of an ideal. It strikes me with 
 a shock of terror that there is another side to my own nature, 
 which I have never understood, though I have dimly felt it. I 
 realise that the exaltation which seemed all spiritual may take 
 subtler lower forms, may lie in the wail of a violin and in the 
 clink of a zither; that it may lurk in the scent of ball-room 
 flowers, in the sparkle of champagne, in the movement of a 
 waltz. Love ! What is it but exaction and withholding ; squan- 
 dering and beggary; ecstasy and revulsion! The essence of it 
 uncertainty ; the core of it regret. And friendship ? . . . A 
 mockery. 
 
 Mr. Vassal is fishing in Norway, and afterwards will be yacht- 
 ing till October. One of the servants fell ill and died of typhoid 
 fever, caught in the London house. The drainage has been con- 
 demned, and the place given over to workmen. So I have taken 
 rooms at the St. Cyprian Hotel ; and there is no reason why I 
 should not receive the Reader there if he cared to come and 
 see me. 
 
 I have written to him, and he has replied excusing himself 
 from coming, with a certain conventional insincerity which hurts. 
 Oh, it hurts. . . .
 
 Office of "Views," 
 September 10. 
 
 FROM My dear Mrs. Vassal, — Your note was a pleasure 
 
 ROBERT to me, and I thank you for not having forgotten 
 VASSAL one who has but an unworthy claim on your re- 
 TO - membrance. I am afraid, however, that I must 
 ESTHER: postpone the further pleasure of talking to you 
 about the Views story, and other more or less 
 interesting subjects, for a little while at least. In the first place, 
 my time is not my own after two o'clock; and though I have 
 occasional bits of leisure, I never know whether or not I can 
 count on them. In the second place, my wife, who is very ailing, 
 goes to Germany immediately, and my movements depend greatly 
 on her state of health ; it is probable that I shall accompany her. 
 
 Please forgive my apparent insensibility to a flattering invita- 
 tion, and don't let it lose me the privilege of seeing you at some 
 convenient opportunity, Three things, of which I know some- 
 thing, cannot be explained in set phrases — Eton, the British con- 
 stitution, and the life of a journalist-politician. The last is my 
 plea for grace. 
 
 With my best wishes, I am ever sincerely yours, 
 
 Robert Vassal. 
 
 i7S
 
 BOOK VII 
 
 " Love is not altogether a delirium, yet it has 
 many points in common thereivith. I call it rather 
 a discerning of the infinite in the finite, of the idea 
 made real, ivhich discerning again, may be either 
 true or false, either seraphic or demoniac, inspiration 
 or insanity." 
 
 M
 
 WRITTEN A thing has come to pass, so blessed, so altogether 
 BY unlooked for, that I scarcely know if this be the 
 
 ESTHER world of yesterday, or a new universe in which all 
 VASSAL : the old fashions are changed. 
 
 Now I have heard the cry of that Voice. 
 Yesterday, when I got here, London was grey with creeping 
 mist and dank with the chill of late September — a city of autumn 
 gloom, and of hopes withered and dead as the brown leaves which 
 fluttered down upon the pavement and were whirled away by the 
 gusty wind. This evening the mist and the drift have gone ; the 
 sun sets golden and glorious behind the trees of the Park ; the 
 hopes that seemed sapless have put forth in one night miraculous 
 blossom and fruit, and London is London no longer but a magic city 
 lying fair and radiant mid the glow and glamour of the Enchanted 
 Garden. For the universe is revolutionised all through the revo- 
 lutionising of a man's mood, which brought me yesterday, as I 
 sat forlornly in the darkling evening waiting for lights, a note 
 that had been forwarded from Grosvenor Street. 
 This was all : — 
 
 Office of "Views," September 27. 
 
 My dear Friend, — Always keep your true friendships in 
 repair, said the rude but otherwise excellent Dr. Johnson. Are 
 you in town, and where? And if at the St. Cyprian Hotel, may 
 I come and see you ? — Yours ever sincerely, 
 
 Robert Vassal. 
 
 It was bewilderingly formal at first — and he didn't seem the 
 
 same man quite — was better groomed, more conventional ; the 
 
 frock-coat gave a suggestion of London buckram. . . . There 
 
 was the usual autumn questioning, and the answerings thereto — 
 
 conversational road-making : the weather, the doings of the past 
 
 season. . . . That sort of thing didn't make much difference to 
 
 him, he said. He was debarred by the circumstances of his life 
 
 from taking part in the social whirligig. . . . But as for society ! 
 
 There was only one kind of society worth having — meaning good 
 
 179
 
 180 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 talk. " And after literary society," he went on — and then came 
 the worried smile and absent mane-toss — " I prefer the diplomatic. 
 One broadens out there. Lawyers are too worldly, doctors are too 
 scientific, politicians are too one-sided, actors are too boisterous, 
 musicians are too stupid, and mere drawing-rooms are too dull. . . . 
 That's why nobody, not even Quintin Glaive, can write a society 
 play. ' Clever ' dialogue is so utterly untrue. To be natural it 
 must be idiotic." 
 
 The theatres had their turn. 
 
 Suddenly, jerkily, " You are not looking well. The festive 
 tread-mill, I suppose. That social wear and tear does more harm 
 to a constitution like yours than any amount of work. It is called 
 relaxation — which is just what it isn't." 
 
 I said that I had been working a little as well as playing a 
 great deal. 
 
 " So I saw — and read. How voluminous you are becoming. 
 Your five volumes make an imposing show on my shelves. But 
 Naamah remains still the beloved affinity. . . ." 
 
 A pause. 
 
 " I envy you your absorbing attraction to story. For myself, 
 I'm beaten by a stupid versatility. It's not laziness, it's not 
 culture — the terrible word — it's a fatal perversity, which prevents 
 me from becoming a popular novelist. . . . Well ! 
 
 ' Oh, British public, who may love me yet. Marry and amen ! ' " 
 
 He got up, fidgeting, and looked steadily at a photograph for 
 more than a minute. A desolation was creeping over me, like 
 unto the desolation of that last parting at Philotis. Had he 
 come just for this? He turned abruptly back and stood, his 
 eyes probing deep down into me. 
 
 " No ! . . . you are looking over-tired. Take care — play is 
 work, my child." 
 
 Then . . . How did it come about? I cannot tell. He 
 took my two hands in his, and, as his sad-happy eyes looked into 
 mine, and his deep shaken voice sounded in my ears, all the for- 
 mality and strangeness and jerkiness vanished. The pain and 
 humiliation melted into joy, and there remained no more of 
 bitterness, only sympathy unquenched and content inexpressible. 
 
 " Little woman," he said, " I'm like the children. Please I 
 want to come home. I've missed you ; I've wanted you ; I've 
 longed for just a look at you." 
 
 And then ... It was as though a spirit went from one to the 
 other of us, kindling both our hearts. Quite suddenly he drew
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 181 
 
 me close to him, pressing my hands against his breast and bend- 
 ing his face to mine, and we kissed each other. 
 
 And his own words were fulfilled : for I knew the cry of that 
 Voice; and the bridge which God has built between heaven 
 and the lower earth was shown unto me. 
 
 He poured out all his heart to me, and I mine to him. He 
 told me that he had loved me always, from the very beginning, 
 even when he had found himself looking forward to Esther 
 Zamiel's letters and pondering upon why he should take so deep 
 a personal interest in what was after all but a branch of his trade. 
 He said that he too had the feeling of kinship aeons back ; that 
 he too had dreamed first at Kassis of an ideal friendship. But 
 he had become afraid, he said, as he had yielded to the charm of 
 our companionship — afraid because of the demons within ; afraid 
 because of the dues already owed ; afraid because of his own 
 Laodicean nature, which made it impossible for him to render in 
 justly-balanced measure either to Caesar or to God. 
 
 So he had fought with his demons. And when defeat 
 threatened, he had doubled round the fork of the Y, as he 
 phrased it, and had taken refuge within his wall of dead-letter 
 obligation, justifying his cowardice, in going back from his 
 compact as the Reader, by disingenuous excuses, for which he 
 nevertheless despised himself. Then he had got to know in 
 some occult fashion that he was doing me harm. It was borne 
 in upon him that our bond demanded truth from him to me, 
 even though this should mean renunciation. So, in an uncontrol- 
 lable impulse, he had broken down his defences, and had resolved 
 that, come what might, we two should stand, were it but for an 
 hour, face to face, soul to soul, out in the open — beyond the 
 City and the Conventions. 
 
 All this he told me haltingly, in mingled exultation and com- 
 punction, with a certain blended recklessness and solemnity. 
 
 " And now that I am with you face to face," he said, " now 
 that we are really alone together in our wilderness, I know that it 
 is not to be for one little hour, but for whole lives ; and that here 
 we shall find refuge for our hearts, and our hope and salvation. . . . 
 For I love you, Esther, with the truest and best part of me ; 
 and if you are dearer to me than anything in the world, you are 
 highest to me above it. There shall be no clashing with the 
 Gesar dues. We'll keep this thing apart and holy. Do you 
 understand ? " 
 
 Yes, I understood. There was no need for assurances. Our 
 hands clasped in unspoken pledge. And we talked on — he
 
 i8 2 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 saying dear and tender words that somehow I can't write in cold 
 black ink, for they are holy. 
 
 Oh, I want to be good. I want to be worthy of his noble love. 
 I want to love God. I want to make people happier. I want to 
 write beautiful books. I want to live a beautiful life. ... 
 
 He has gone. I watched him disappear among the trees in 
 the golden sunset. But it is only till to-morrow. ... He will 
 come again to-morrow. 
 
 And I sit here, dreaming, dreaming, in the after-glow of my 
 great happiness. . . . 
 
 From a mirror near, my own face looks out at me ; and I 
 don't seem to know my face, for there is a radiance upon it. Am 
 I indeed gracious and sweet and lovely ? 
 
 Those were his words ; and because they were his words, it is 
 not vain and foolish to treasure them. 
 
 My love ! my love ! I do not treasure them in vanity. I 
 love myself only because you love me. 
 
 And as I sit dreaming, it is as though your living presence — 
 no grey ghost of Kassis, but you — in warm flesh and blood — 
 filled the vacant chair. And your tender, troubled gaze never 
 leaves me. 
 
 Dear eyes! I shall always see you — so loving and so sad. 
 Why are they so sad ? . . . Dear lips ! I shall always feel your 
 kiss. . . . Dear lips of mine that are consecrated ! 
 
 It is the renewing of youth — his treasured words also. We 
 live in the hour ; and for seven days shall know neither past nor 
 future, for we have snatched a week from Time and Fate. 
 
 We never speak of the duty that lies afar. There seems a 
 tacit agreement between us that no allusion shall be made which 
 could break the poetic spell. So that in all our tender familiarity, 
 of which the wonder and the joy deepen hourly, there is a certain 
 reserve that I respect as I would the sanctuary of an alien worship. 
 Why should I murmur because in our Palace of Bliss there must 
 always be a locked chamber. Could I have it otherwise ? 
 
 Yet I shiver at the thought of dread possibilities, as at an 
 advancing shadow ; and, though it is realised only at moments, 
 I know in my heart that the spectre of a woman stands ever 
 between us— the woman whose strength lies in her love and 
 whose claim no righteous judge could deny ; and I know, too, that 
 in any conflict of duty and passion it would be I who should 
 fall, forsaken, and wounded to the death. 
 
 But why should I be afraid? There will not be any conflict. 
 Are we not clean of heart and clear of purpose to keep our love
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 183 
 
 but as a green place in the desert — a spring of pure water at 
 which our souls in drouth may slake their thirst ? 
 
 There flash upon him less lurid lights — gleams from his 
 world of men ; and the boyish side of him comes uppermost — 
 as when he drops in upon me in friendly intimacy — and there's 
 always such a dash of friendliness, pure friendliness, in the art- 
 comradeship — when he talks literary shop, and scolds me for 
 being too much of a mental anatomist, and for my "gloomy, 
 gormy, death's-head-and-crossbones " views of things generally. 
 How we laughed once over my sentimentalism ! And I was a 
 little hurt, till he confessed to being very much tarred with the 
 same brush. 
 
 " Here's a lecture that for your pretty sins' sakes, you've got 
 to listen to. It is a bad kind of world, dear little woman, but 
 I'm too absolutely care-free and blest in your sweet companion- 
 ship for the moment — alas ! the moment — to bewail it over- 
 gruesomely. Drink ; be merry ! Life is mortal; the time on earth 
 is short j and death is immortal when you are once dead. That's 
 my lecture, which cometh from the Ancients. . . . And so, pending 
 our joint immortality, I'm going to embalm the humours of ' the 
 local man ' in satirical verse for Views." 
 
 He had come from a suburban political meeting. 
 
 " Such a fight ! I got them quiet as lambs — chaffed them : 
 made them laugh : and thought of you all the time, and laughed 
 myself at the queer incongruity of my inner vision of you — my 
 Muse and my Egeria, hovering over as grimy a collection of 
 Republicans as ever brayed at a Tory candidate. King Demos 
 rampant ! " 
 
 " And you quieted them ? " 
 
 " Held them as sheep before their shearers till I had done. 
 I like that sense of grip upon primitive man. I believe action, 
 and not contemplation, is my metier. Really, it often strikes me 
 that I'd have done better — say, waging war in the desert at the 
 head of a tribe of Bedouins, than polishing pentameters in a 
 London fog. What weather ! One doesn't need to be a Magian to 
 rejoice in the soft tender radiance of this sun-star which dawned — 
 when was it, Stella ? — I can tell the very instant — five by the clock 
 on Tuesday of this same all-blessed week — and here's the Times 
 prophesying a fine day on American authority: and the Almighty 
 brings down soot to spite 'em. Bless Him ! How He hates 
 Yankee cocksureness ! " 
 
 I too had my day's tale to tell. I had been to Quintin Glaive, 
 and the Desert had been ordained for my winter destiny.
 
 1 84 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 " Which means — Philotis ? " he said. 
 
 "Yes, I go no farther. And we shall meet — and that will 
 be well." 
 
 I fancied that his face clouded. " Will it be well ? Who 
 knows ! The inaccessible desert might be a better abiding-place 
 for you, my Esther. . . . Never mind ! . . ." 
 
 He threw off the momentary shade in whimsical merri- 
 ment. "So the bells shall go a-ringing for Sahara; but we'll not 
 be parted — no. 
 
 For I'll send you reamses, 
 Beyond your dreamses, 
 Of friendly nonsense by the camel-post. 
 
 The degradation of doggerel, dear ! Poste restante. Sandsea. 
 Sharon. C.A. (Central Africa) — where you will be safe enough 
 from me in bodily presence, and the paper-talk shall begin 
 again." 
 
 Then, in one of those strange alternations of mood which 
 puzzle me, a sadness fell upon him, and for the remainder of 
 the hour we spent together his tenderness was tinged with 
 melancholy. 
 
 Now I know the meaning of the vague sweet pain of girlhood's 
 time — the troubled rapture : the uncomprehended yearning. It 
 was love, not art, that I craved always. ... Or are love and art 
 so interblended that the desire and accomplishment of them are 
 one and the same ? 
 
 Love ! One has read of it : written of it : jested about it, 
 blasphemed it, denied it ! How familiar a word, idea, symbol ! 
 And till the hour of initiation, how uninformed by knowledge ! 
 
 There has come to me a curious awakening of the religious 
 sense : a groping apprehension of spiritual potencies beneath the 
 apparently material. It is as though in the thrill of my being 
 to that of the Beloved, a mystic wire were set vibrating, and 
 flashing along it, through some divine electricity, a ray from the 
 Great Central Sun, lighting its kindred beam in him and in me. 
 Hitherto the word Heaven has conveyed to my mind little mean- 
 ing. It was impossible to conceive of a condition of bliss in 
 which all needs and aspirations should be fulfilled. Now, in its 
 earthly reflection I discover the Beatific Reality : and I know that 
 this white flame of human love is a spark from the Divine Love, 
 pervading life and nature, as spirit interpenetrates body. So that 
 by the light within, we may perceive substance illuminated, dis- 
 cerning its inner essence, and realising that according to a Law
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 185 
 
 unutterably mysterious we two through love have become one 
 with the Soul of the Universe. 
 
 Thus I find the spiritual current of our blended beings per- 
 vading all ordinary interests and associations, investing them with 
 an ethereal charm and meaning. And this in much greater degree 
 when the higher enjoyments are concerned, such as books, music, 
 scenery, and the finer emotions. So it is when loftier feelings 
 are stirred that I am most vividly conscious of Robert's influence 
 either in or out of the body — the corporeal nearness, even when 
 unperceived by the senses, becoming in an inward manner more 
 real and intimate. 
 
 In this inward manner I was suddenly intensely aware of him 
 yesterday afternoon at St. James's Hall, during the performance 
 of Brahms' Sextet in B flat. Do you know it? — the solemn 
 andante, -followed by the rippling scherzo, like a stirring of the 
 sea on a sunshiny day, with always underneath its dancing glad- 
 ness a sorrow inexpressible, a wail as of drowned dead from 
 the depths ? My eyes were involuntarily attracted to a certain 
 part of the hall, and I recognised him by the turn of his shoulders 
 and the tossing of his short curls in that upward gesture of his. 
 I saw him shift posture and glance searchingly back, as though 
 he too had divined our nearness. And as I throbbed to his 
 mood of dreamy unrest, I felt that for him, as well as for me, 
 the stuffy room, the rows of well-dressed people, the grand piano 
 and long sob of the violins, the sea of dark heads beyond the 
 bowed figures of the performers, and the grotesque shapes of the 
 instruments which gave forth their strangely human modulations, 
 were all merged in one vast vague ecstasy of rapture, regret, and 
 longing. 
 
 We missed each other in the outgoing crowd, but he was with 
 me nevertheless ; and as my cab rolled along, the roar of London 
 grew faint, and my thought travelled swiftly to grey Kassis. 
 
 I crossed the Park in the dusk, when the Serpentine bridge 
 was almost empty. Night was creeping up, and lamps twinkled 
 feebly, eclipsed by the red glow of the sky on the water. And 
 just then a hansom rattled by, and his face flashed out of it, 
 bathed in the day's dying light. 
 
 And I laughed outright to myself in sheer joy. 
 
 " Oh, I hope that I may live to be old. Life is so good when 
 one is happy ! "
 
 FROM THE I am indeed glad to know that I make you 
 LETTERS happy. How strange it is ! And how true and 
 
 OF sad and beautiful ! Yesterday, doubt, separate- 
 
 ROBERT ness, and misery. To-day, joy untold and under- 
 
 VASSAL standing perfect. For me too, commonplace 
 
 TO realities have become dim, bodiless, and un- 
 
 ESTHER : meaning. For me too, the world is a glorified 
 dream ; the day is steeped in a wondrous peace ; 
 the sun shines with a mystic light ; and through the squalid 
 London streets there are breathed unknown scents that might 
 be wafted from the Garden of Paradise. 
 
 Dear ! do you care for that child's story, which long ago I 
 used to read to my little boy, and which comes to me at this 
 moment in all its deeper interpretation ? For the lilies bloom 
 now around me, and the bliss of life is chanted by the invisible 
 choir. From the tree of knowledge drop no blood-red tears, but 
 rose-lit stars ; and standing beneath it, the fairy smiles and beckons. 
 Have I strength to gaze and not enter in ? Can I rest content 
 with worshipping that lovely face on bended knee, and not forfeit 
 right to worship in wildly seeking the forbidden kiss ? . . . 
 
 I look forward to the future with an awful hope. 
 
 . . . Last night I walked all the way home across the moonlit 
 Park and thought of you — you — you — of your unfulfilled possi- 
 bilities ; your heart, which might have found and made such 
 happiness. . . . The broad road was rattling and aflame with 
 carriages ; the white moon shone above in its deep blue tent ; 
 and the scene seemed an illustration of the noisy gaudy vulgarity 
 of social life and the higher thought and nobler impulses which — 
 the gods be thanked — descend upon us sometimes like dew from 
 heaven. . . . 
 
 ... I often think of that wish of De Quincey's, that a prayer 
 might have the pursuing power which old-fashioned superstition 
 assigned to a curse, and might follow its mark and reach it always. 
 In such case, I should send a prayer to you, to reach you through 
 whatever counter-influences, and bring you health, and repose, and
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 187 
 
 happiness. I would bid you have sweet dreams to-night — and 
 not of me, unless they carry with the thought of me some soothing 
 and strengthening power to make me seem to you sleeping, what 
 I would try to be for you waking. ... In the fine old words, I pray 
 God to have you in His keeping. The prayer which for half a 
 life had ceased to be anything but a barren formula, becomes a 
 thrilling reality when I breathe it for you. Am I too effusive? 
 Forgive me, Esther. 
 
 ... A little line, dearest, sped from my soul. What a wealth 
 of meaning, by the way, that word has — Dearest ! . . . Need one 
 write any more ? In one sense, no. But alas ! where there are 
 barriers which cannot be removed, that would not be overleaped, 
 then it is impossible to give the word its fullest meaning, which 
 would make it tell its whole story. . . . 
 
 . . . These hours together, and our frank interchange of ideas, 
 have indeed brought us near to each other — made me feel in a 
 curious sort of way as though we were sharing one soul between 
 us. Is this too fanciful ? In truth I love you with soul and spirit, 
 as well as heart. . . . 
 
 ... So you like my little notes — my simple love-notes ? And 
 are they then so different from what you are pleased to term my 
 " official " and my " analytical " letter ? . . . Who taught me to write 
 them ? You teach me to write them. For they are the natural 
 bubbling up of my feelings to you at such moments as I write. . . . 
 
 ... I wonder if it is from my own immortal works or somebody 
 else's that I gather the phrase, " How sweet and gracious you 
 are ! And how I have done well to love you ! " . . . You are my 
 poetry of life ; the ordinary concerns of the world, my prose ; these 
 only touching the poetic when they win your interest. I pass 
 from the prose of existence into its poetry when I come within 
 the faint fragrance which I associate with you. . . . 
 
 ... I have cast off the mood of depression — the cloud that 
 had been brooding over me since that strange waking dream — my 
 curious dialogue of the two waking voices of which I spoke to 
 you ; one within, the other without — the one a voice of good, 
 the other a voice of evil. Yes, I am nervous and sensitive, and 
 given overmuch to melancholy — at times devoured by melancholy. 
 Though you make me very happy, and life seems indeed dear, 
 there is always still the "inseparable sigh for her" — for you. And 
 worse : always the wrench of a divided claim. . . . Perhaps it was 
 because of this that our talk took its mournful turn, and dealt 
 with life's mysteries, and life's oldest mystery after life itself —
 
 i88 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 death. . . . Alas ! alas, Stella ! this day is cold and grey— grey 
 in the skies ; grey too in my spiritual conditions. . . . 
 
 ... I wonder will you be surprised to get this little greeting 
 in the morning. It will be like some loving tone, perhaps, 
 sounding softly in your wakening ear, or like some tender touch 
 upon your cheek. . . . Perhaps you will come to me in my thought 
 to-night— in my half-dreaming thought. And I shall feel your 
 presence and be thrilled by it. ... A dream ! Yes — but let us 
 dream ! 
 
 Some fairy tips your missives fairest fair — which is a blank 
 verse to your intention, or will be a rhymed one if you make a 
 rhyme to it. Just a hand-clasp; one more real being I hope 
 soon to follow. Do you know that I saw you this evening on 
 the Serpentine bridge. You were steeped in the glow of sunset, 
 which had in it a certain tenderness and melancholy sweetness. 
 I can't think of you in glare — odd fancies ! But they come. 
 
 By the way, look in Views. There's a passage in an essayette 
 of mine which you inspired. Guess which ? 
 
 The chapter has been delightful — all delightful ! And now 
 it is closed, and I shut the book and go upon my way — back 
 from the green place in the Wilderness to the City within the 
 Walls ! 
 
 Closed ! In the real sense it can never be closed, but is 
 always open to be read, and re-read, even if only as some pages 
 of past life. Remember this, if you should feel grieved or hurt 
 — which, alas ! I fear may be, when my letters change, as change 
 they must, under changed conditions. Believe that the chapter 
 we have gone through together is real, true, and living in the 
 heart of me — as living, real, and true as my love for you which 
 inspired it. 
 
 As to the world beyond our wilderness — the Step we have 
 taken together is perfect peace. But as regards this world, my 
 child — for that same Step— n'en parlons plus. . . . 
 
 I have been grinding out "copy" six hours to-day. And I 
 am — Tired ! — Thine, R. V.
 
 WRITTEN I will fill in a gap here. 
 
 BY That was in the autumn, when I came home 
 
 AGATHA unexpectedly, and in great trouble of mind. I 
 GRESTE : wanted to consult with my father upon a pain- 
 ful discovery I had made in relation to my 
 husband. -Never mind what this was ; it's buried now in his 
 grave, and. there's an end of the matter. I allude to it just 
 to show how it was that I came to be at Grisewood Castle for 
 the inside of a week in the October of that year. 
 
 Dr. Quintin Glaive was a little mixed up professionally with 
 my trouble. I met him in Paris, where he happened to be spend- 
 ing part of his holiday, and we talked it over there. Dad came 
 to join me in Paris — Mother died that summer — and we had 
 a bad time together — very bad, but more bearable in unfamiliar 
 surroundings than it would have been at home. So it happened 
 that out of the six weeks I was in Europe, only ten days were 
 passed in England. 
 
 Esther Vassal would not have had so much of those ten days, 
 
 but that Dr. Glaive talked to me about her, and asked me to 
 
 write and propose myself, if possible, on a visit to Grisewood. 
 
 He did not tell me anything very definite, but I gleaned from 
 
 what he did say that she had been extremely unhappy, and quite 
 
 morbid for a time, and though she was better again, and seemed, 
 
 he said, to have taken a new grip on life in the way of intellectual 
 
 interest, that she had found out Mr. Vassal was a brute — I 
 
 always knew it : didn't I, in old days, declare to Esther that he 
 
 must be one of the wicked Roman emperors come into the world 
 
 again? — Dr. Glaive went on to tell me that he knew she was 
 
 lonely, and that he was sure it would be a relief to her if she 
 
 could disburthen herself to a real friend. 
 
 Therefore I did write, though I had not intended to. I was 
 
 so miserable myself, and in such perplexity — for I had to make 
 
 a decision on which my whole future depended, and which, when 
 
 made, was against Dad's wishes and advice, so that it led to 
 
 troubled discussion and fresh heartburning that I did not feel 
 
 like going near any of the people I used to know before I married. 
 
 189
 
 i 9 o THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 Besides, Esther had become such a grand lady ! It's no use 
 to maintain that accidents of fortune don't make any difference 
 in friendship, for they do make a difference, if not in fact, at 
 any rate in atmosphere and surroundings : and these cause a 
 certain stiffness, by which one or both of the two concerned are 
 unconsciously affected. 
 
 I suppose that was why I did not get really into touch with 
 Esther during those few days at Grisewood. Yet she was ever 
 so sweet and dear — extraordinarily improved in manner from the 
 old time ; and I dare say that if I had thrown my arms round 
 her neck, and blurted out all my wretchedness, and appealed 
 to her sympathy, she would have responded by confiding her 
 own sorrows, and would perhaps have told me of the consolation 
 she had found for them. Of course at that time I knew nothing 
 of the intimacy with Robert Vassal. But all the chasm of years 
 and changed conditions lay between us, and I could not some- 
 how bring myself to the laying bare of my wounds in open fashion. 
 Time is needed for free reciprocal outpouring : and so we re- 
 mained affectionately aloof. She did not even talk to me about 
 her writing. Dad had explained the Naamah mystery — which 
 was no particular surprise to me, for I had always believed that 
 there was genius hidden somewhere in Esther — but he had en- 
 joined upon me not to betray his breach of confidence, unless 
 Esther herself started the subject. She did not do so : and I 
 was silent. It was partly because I hadn't read Naamah. I had 
 meant to do so, but other matters had engrossed me \ and this 
 omission on my part made me guilty and tongue-tied. And — 
 I know it was small and mean, but I did find it impossible to 
 get over the fact that she was no longer Esther Vrintz, the shy 
 half-starved actress, who had been glad to come on Sundays to 
 St. John's Wood to dinner or supper, and read Massinger and 
 Webster, and talk over her ambitions, but Mrs. Vassal of Grise- 
 wood Castle and Tregarth, a most high and mighty personage 
 in her way, while I was just the wife of a captain in an Indian 
 regiment, poor, sick, and sorry, with no fine dresses, nor jewels, 
 nor fashionable chit-chat, nor attendants, nor appurtenances 
 whatsoever — the most insignificant member of the big house- 
 party gathered at the Castle. 
 
 This insignificance seemed accentuated in an odd way, by the 
 presence of Mrs. Audley Arathoon and Mrs. Raphon, far more 
 disconcerting than that of greater and simpler ladies, such as Lady 
 Cotherstone and Lady Diana Cleebe, and the Bishop's wife, and, 
 even in a lesser degree, young Mrs. Littlewood. Those other two 
 were so very much at home, and apparently so satisfied with them-
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 191 
 
 selves, apparently also so satisfactory to Mr. Vassal, that they had 
 the knack of making one feel badly turned out, behind date in 
 conversation, and, generally speaking, a blot on the picture. Still, 
 after the first day or two, I got to like Mione Arathoon, and to be 
 amused at her frank announcements concerning herself and her 
 neighbours, and also at the pains she took to conceal any indica- 
 tions that she possessed a heart. As for Mrs. Raphon, however, 
 with her big, dark, deceitful eyes, and cat-like manners, under- 
 neath which there was always the scratch of a claw, from the first 
 moment of my acquaintance with her till now, I have thought her 
 simply detestable. 
 
 But to go back to Esther. It puzzled me a little — the dark 
 allusions Dr. Glaive had made to underlying horrors in her life. 
 Certainly 'one could easily conceive that marrying Mr. Vassal 
 might mean tragedy of sorts ; but — well, perhaps I had lately 
 become familiarised with tragic conditions in marriage, aggravated 
 by sordid fret ; and I had come to the conclusion that though 
 money won't mend a broken heart, it provides soothing dressings 
 for it. I don't know about being virtuous on five thousand a year ; 
 but it does seem to me that on fifty thousand or thereabouts, 
 virtue may at least contrive to avoid jarring encounters with vice ; 
 and that the situation once faced, alleviations may be found to 
 make it more bearable, when, as in this case, the worst sting — that 
 of a betrayed love — be wanting. 
 
 I fancied that Esther, thinking likewise, must have faced the 
 situation and counted its alleviations, for it did not strike me that 
 she was in such dire inward distress as to need emotional outlet. 
 I was not then aware that she had found for the time, at any rate, 
 a very comforting outlet. 
 
 As I write this, I am almost inclined to put my pen through 
 the lines, so tinged do they seem by my bitter mood of that dark 
 period ; but perhaps it is truer to my feelings of the time to let 
 them stand. Later I learned to know Esther better. Yet, in 
 spite of the warp in me, I could not help noticing, through all the 
 mechanical graciousness with which she performed her part, and 
 notwithstanding the sad expression which is a peculiarity of her face, 
 an air in her of dreamy content, as though her real self were living 
 in company of some secret joy in a world apart. This was the 
 impression she gave me, far more than that of a woman weighed 
 down by hidden misery. At moments she seemed to glow with a 
 white inward fervour that I could only liken to the sheen of some 
 fine pearls she often wore. I thus got the fantastic notion of her, 
 as of a rare pearl among rubies or other more garish stones. Mrs. 
 Raphon, I imagined, might be a cat's-eye— I had seen splendid
 
 i 9 2 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 specimens in Ceylon — Mione Arathoon, a yellow diamond per- 
 haps ; Lady Cotherstone, a rich deep-hued amethyst — one might 
 multiply similes. As for Mr. Vassal — well, I don't know what 
 particular gem is dedicated to a certain baleful Power. 
 
 This sounds melodramatic ; but really I used to have a feeling 
 as of a bad moral emanation whenever Mr. Vassal came near. 
 That's ungrateful too, for he was especially courteous to me — his 
 least-liked guest. I know that he didn't like me ; and as for me, 
 I couldn't bear that bored saturnine smile of his, and the look in 
 his eyes, which seemed to wither up all fresh homely sentiment. 
 I could imagine Mephistopheles looking in that way while he 
 might be watching a game of chess, with men and women for the 
 pieces, wondering within himself whether one of the puppets 
 would be moved by some other motive than the old hackneyed 
 ones with which he was quite nauseated, and so give him the zest 
 of a new interest. I used to see his eyes following Esther about, 
 as if he were waiting for developments ; and there was a gleam in 
 them which convinced me that whatever his attitude towards her, 
 it was certainly not one of cynical indifference. Thinking it over 
 later, I came to the conclusion that only one woman had ever 
 roused Mr. Vassal's deepest feelings, and that this woman was his 
 wife. Indeed, I believe that she remained the greatest and the 
 last excitement of his life, and that the only other strong passions 
 of his nature were his hatred of Robert Vassal, and his intense 
 bitterness at having no son to oust his nephew from inheritance. 
 
 It has sometimes puzzled me what there was in Esther which 
 appealed in so forcible a manner to certain men and women with 
 whom she came into contact. It was not her beauty, curious and 
 characteristic as that was. There were many women in her circle 
 — Mrs. Raphon for instance — more remarkable for fleshly charm. 
 Nor could it have been her talents, for her gifts were very much 
 under the surface, and so impressionable by her surroundings was 
 she, that anything antagonistic to her own temperament would 
 have the effect of making her shrivel up like a sensitive plant 
 into shy self-conscious reserve. Nor was it a faculty of sympathy ; 
 for in this, during her earlier life, she always seemed singularly 
 deficient. I can only define it as some odd personal magnetism 
 — what Dr. Glaive used to call her exotic charm, which she ex- 
 haled, as it were, in such manner that one could not help being 
 subtly conscious of it ; perhaps, too, as he said, the tantalising 
 suspicion of unsounded depths, and of immense capacities for all 
 the stronger emotions. 
 
 The Cotherstones and the clerical set were only two or three 
 nights at the Castle. After them came a London contingent,
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 193 
 
 including one of Mione's Guardsmen, Mr. Paravel the critic, and 
 a few others tending towards the more familiar Bohemian type. 
 It struck me just now that Mrs. Raphon and Mr. Vassal must 
 have entered upon a new lease of friendship, they were so much 
 in each other's company; and I remembered some talk I had 
 heard, before Mr. Vassal's attraction to Esther, of his subjugation 
 by the handsome widow. Mione Arathoon, with whimsical petu- 
 lance, declared herself aggrieved at the transference of attentions 
 from herself. 
 
 " I must own that Aunt-in-law is clever," she said one day to 
 Esther, while we three were sitting together in Mrs. Vassal's 
 morning-room. " I always imagined that when ripe charms had 
 once palled, their day was done. But, you see, it's a mistake to 
 suppose that burned-out fires can't be rekindled. Rhoda Raphon 
 understands men better than I do, which is saying a good deal ; 
 for the surest way to learn man in the abstract is not to care two- 
 pence for man in the concrete — only, of course, you must make 
 him believe that you do." 
 
 "But if you don't care, Mione, why take the trouble?" said 
 Esther — serenely unconscious, I thought, of Mrs. Audley's 
 insinuations. 
 
 "Because it annoys me to be left out in the cold," answered 
 Mione. "And now-a-days you're only valued for the number 
 and variety of your admiring appendages. That's why I cultivate 
 Guardsmen. . . . Esther, I don't believe that you paid the slightest 
 attention to my remark about burned-out fires ? " 
 
 " I suppose you mean that Mr. Vassal used to admire Mrs. 
 Raphon — -you have always told me so — and that now he has 
 begun to admire her afresh. That is not so surprising." 
 
 " Yes, it is — on the burned-out-fire theory. But it appears 
 that if you grovel long enough before the ashes, and blow flattery 
 hard, you'll set the sparks alight at last. ... It annoys me as much 
 as being out in the cold myself," Mrs. Arathoon went on, " to 
 watch Aunt-in-law, at her time of life — though I'm bound to con- 
 fess that she wears her years jauntily — blushing and squirming, 
 and protesting that nor Melchisedec, nor Mahomet, nor Don Juan 
 himself were comparable for wisdom and seductiveness to Hector 
 Vassal, Esq., of Grisewood Castle and Tregarth — millionaire, a 
 
 detail — of the ancient house of By the way, Esther, have 
 
 you ever found out the true facts about that unseemly ancestor 
 who married the lunatic ? " 
 
 We laughed — -there's nothing to do but laugh at Mrs. Audley 
 Arathoon's thrusts ; but Esther looked uncomfortable. 
 
 " I thoroughly enjoy digging up the bones of that ancestor," 
 
 N
 
 I94 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 Mione went on, " and discreetly pelting the greatest of the Caesars 
 with them. There's a doubt, isn't there, as to whether he wasn't 
 an illicit Vassal altogether ? It was 'cute of him not to begin 
 starving the poor heiress-wife till she had given him a legitimate 
 heir. And how did she contrive the Curse, Esther?— was it a 
 dying malediction, or does the ghost walk ? " 
 
 Esther flushed and paled quickly, as she has always had a 
 trick of doing if moved about anything. 
 
 " There's no ghost, Mione. Please don't talk about the Curse ; 
 we don't like it." 
 
 " But if there isn't a ghost, anyhow there is a Curse?" 
 "They say so." 
 
 "And I've heard that since it was laid on the house, no Vassal 
 has ever prospered in his love affairs. Well, we'll drop the sub- 
 ject. At any rate, according to Aunt Rhoda, Mr. Hector Vassal 
 beats the record in woman-charming. It's a pleasing piece of in- 
 formation ; but when it begins with curried prawns at luncheon, 
 pauses with the coffee, and starts afresh with soup at dinner, it's 
 apt to produce yawns." 
 
 "You are malicious, Mione." 
 
 "I'm jealous— that's it. The truth is, I used to find Mr. 
 Vassal good company. Reformed rakes always are — the scent 
 of the roses clings round the broken vase — and now he's bored 
 with me. I've done all my tricks, and there's nobody here to 
 help me invent new ones ; and I really can't play the fool without 
 a nailery. Don't give me away to Aunt Rhoda, Mrs. Greste. 
 She'd tell Mr. Vassal, and that would be too humiliating." 
 
 It was just then that Tremlett, Mrs. Vassal's maid, came into 
 the room with some Philotis embroideries, for which Esther had 
 sent to show Mrs. Audley Arathoon. 
 
 Looking back on things, certain trifles in connection with this 
 woman stand out, though at that time I only remarked her as the 
 means of throwing an unexpected light on Mione's character. 
 Mrs. Audley Arathoon spoke to her kindly, praising the repara- 
 tion of a piece of embroidery that Tremlett had made. She was 
 a dark, repressed-looking woman of middle age, who must once 
 have been extremely handsome, and was now the model of a 
 trustworthy lady's-maid. When she had gone out, Mrs. Audley 
 turned off from family matters to chiffons, and presently observed 
 incidentally to Esther — 
 
 " Did you know that Tremlett had a daughter?" 
 " Tremlett ? No ; she has never been married." 
 Mione gave her shrill little laugh. " Can you imagine the 
 impeccable Tremlett straying? Its true, though. I've had a
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 195 
 
 soft feeling for the woman — I used to dislike her before — since 
 last season, when I saw her half mad with grief by the girl's 
 bedside. The poor thing had been run over, and was lying 
 stunned." 
 
 "I think you must be mistaken," said Esther. "I remember 
 that last summer Tremlett told me she had had a niece run over, 
 and asked if she might go and nurse her. That is what you are 
 thinking of." 
 
 "The niece was her daughter," emphatically replied Mione. 
 " Tremlett doesn't know that I know it, and please don't en- 
 lighten her. I heard her with my own ears imploring the 
 doctors to let her stay with the girl because she was her mother. 
 The wretches had been talking about the rules of the hospital." 
 
 "But" how did you come to be in the hospital?" asked 
 Esther. - ' 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mione, with a slightly embarrassed air, " I 
 happened to be reading to an old woman in the ward. Trem- 
 lett didn't notice me. I knew her." 
 
 "Why, Mione, I didn't know that you went in for that kind 
 of thing." 
 
 " Slumming, child-rescue, and the rest ! Oh, I do, when I've 
 got nothing else to amuse me. I'm like Mr. Vassal, always hunt- 
 ing a sensation. I never hankered after a colossal fortune," she 
 added, in an off-hand manner, "because I should feel bad eating 
 ortolans and knowing that a few streets off there were people 
 starving. And I shouldn't at all relish the bother of providing 
 them with dinner." 
 
 That speech of Mione's made me begin to like her. Later 
 on, I found that she did an immense amount of charitable work 
 in an odd secret way, and that flinty frivolous Mrs. Audley 
 Arathoon was a sort of guardian angel in certain unsavoury 
 quarters of Westminster and Southwark. 
 
 The next day, Esther told me that she had spoken to Trem- 
 lett about her daughter. 
 
 "I thought, you know," Esther said; and her voice trembled 
 a little, suggesting that she might have private reasons for feeling 
 strongly on such a subject, " that the girl may be living an un- 
 guarded life ; and that, if she is pretty, wrong might come to her, of 
 a terrible kind. . . . And then it seemed so sad that a mother and 
 child should be separated in that way; and I thought how easy it 
 would be to help Tremlett, who is a good dressmaker, to a home of 
 her own, and a business in which her daughter might be with her." 
 
 I remembered at the moment that trait in Esther Vrintz upon 
 which I have commented, and that I always regretted — a kind
 
 196 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 of insensibility to the needs of others, so that it used not to occur 
 to her to do any of those little helpfulnesses which may come 
 within the scope of women, even of small means. It interested 
 me to see that her nature had to some extent broadened and 
 sweetened — for more than one tiny incident of the sort had 
 struck me ; and I wondered if the change had come through the 
 possession of wealth, a result which does not always follow. 
 
 " But it was of no use," Esther went on. "Tremlett did not 
 take my suggestion at all kindly. She answered, almost excitedly, 
 that she did not want any one to interfere in her life, and would 
 not admit that she had a daughter. Her manner makes me sure 
 that there must be some sad story behind it all, but of course I 
 can't do anything in the matter against her will." 
 
 Another small circumstance impressed the affair still more 
 upon my mind. Esther asked me to take a turn with her in the 
 grounds. She was considering a question from the head-gardener 
 as to the uprooting of a certain rhododendron patch ; and her 
 inspection of this led us past the windows of a library-smoking 
 room, which she told me was Mr. Vassal's business sanctum. 
 On our way back from the rhododendrons we saw the outer door 
 of this room open, and Tremlett emerge from it, apparently deeply 
 agitated. She escaped by a side walk, leading to a back court, 
 and Esther was turning also, I fancied to avoid the windows, 
 when Mr. Vassal, standing at one of them, tapped upon the pane 
 to call our attention, and made a sign that he would join us. 
 
 His face through the glass, with its impassive sardonic look, 
 brought back my grotesque notion of him as a maleficent genie 
 setting emotions working for his amusement, and grimly watching 
 results, as though human nature were a sort of moral roulette- 
 wheel, and there was a cold-blooded satisfaction in counting how 
 the numbers came up. 
 
 He stepped out to where we stood, and accompanied us to 
 the end of the terrace, which makes quite a long walk. Esther 
 said scarcely a word, but he talked the whole time, making various 
 polite remarks to me about the shortness of my stay in England, 
 and his regret that I should not be able to pay Grisewood another 
 visit. And then he deliberately — I know he did it deliberately — 
 turned the conversation on to army scandals, and the inexpe- 
 diency, supposing a man were unfortunate enough to incur such 
 scandal, of absenting oneself too long from England. 
 
 "Two years, Mrs. Greste," he said, looking at me from 
 between his puffy eyelids. " That is the outside time in which 
 one should lie perdu. In two years the British public forgets any 
 crime. After that it has an unpleasant knack of fancying it
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 197 
 
 ought to find out whether there ever was a crime, and, if so, who 
 did it. On the other hand, it's the greatest mistake to stand up 
 and face the music. If you stop and let yourself be knocked 
 down, England never forgets you have been knocked down, and 
 never forgives you for it. But filer quietly over to Boulogne for 
 three months, six months, a year — according to the magnitude of 
 the offence — then get yourself well tailored, go to your club, 
 shake hands with all your friends, ask after everybody as though 
 nothing had happened, and you'll be the best fellow in the world, 
 and nobody will recollect that the papers ever said anything 
 unkind about you." 
 
 Fiend ! 
 
 After^that he turned abruptly to his wife. 
 
 " You saw that Tremlett had been with me. She is distressed 
 that you should have discovered an unfortunate episode in her 
 early life, in which, I assure you, she was more sinned against 
 than sinning. She is the daughter of an old family servant, Mrs. 
 Greste, and therefore I know her history. Might one ask, Esther, 
 how you came to find it out ? " 
 
 Esther told him in a reluctant, nervous manner, which made 
 me uncomfortably conscious of strained relations between the 
 pair, not looking at him, and faltering when he inquired blandly 
 what motive she had had in desiring to establish Tremlett in 
 business. 
 
 " I had no motive — except that I thought I should like to do 
 a little good." 
 
 Mr. Vassal's sallow face puckered in an evil smile, and the 
 lines about his eyes and nostrils seemed to describe a pattern 
 like that upon the back of a poisonous spider which I have seen 
 in India. 
 
 "Mrs. Greste," he said, with his cold little chuckle, "do you 
 know that if Satan wanted to start a scheme for disorganising 
 and demoralising the lower classes, he'd take a philanthropic, 
 philo-beast, sentimental, slumming woman with religious con- 
 victions and plenty of money, and set her off on 'doing a little 
 good.' And, Gad ! how Satan would grin over her efforts to give 
 the poor starving creatures honest employment and reform their 
 characters ! Half of them would be hanged, and the other half 
 would have twins ! "
 
 FROM THE You say that my letters are meagre, formal, and 
 LETTERS infrequent ! I plead guilty to the arraignment, 
 
 OF and have no excuse to offer. Did I not warn 
 
 ROBERT you ? I have been going through one of those 
 
 VASSAL mental crises we talked about, and now at last 
 
 TO dare to write to you. Three days' solitude, granted 
 
 ESTHER : through the intervention of compassionate fate, 
 
 has been to me a salutary experience, utilised for 
 thought — thought and self-examination. I gat me to a lonely 
 forest inn and fought things out — a pretty sharp conflict. Here, 
 not now alone — though exhausted and shaky as from a kind of 
 ground-swell after a nerve-tempest — there's a simile for you ! 
 — I'm getting well. "Here" means at five minutes' boat from 
 pretty, academic Bonn, in the middle of the beauty of these 
 particular seven hills, looking towards the golden west, and face 
 to face with Roland's historic tower ; and with enough bustle 
 among country-folk, enough assortment of country- trippers, 
 enough large and varied traffic upon the great, still highway, to 
 keep one restfully amused. 
 
 It is a soothing occupation, this "vaguing" in the glorious 
 mid-October Rhineland, with the mighty Swiss air rushing straight 
 at me from the mountains, on the swirl of the broad river. This 
 is after a brief imprisonment in an Alpine valley — ' entierement 
 inaccessible aux courants d'air,' as I once saw Engelberg described, 
 by way of recommendation, in a medical advertisement. . . . 
 
 I can give you no address, but will write later. 
 
 Now in Florence, I lose myself in the meshes of Italian 
 magic. Truly in this city one might make a lifelong home. A 
 very centre of what remains of history and of art, giving a 
 delicious sense of refinement and rest, which contrasts beyond 
 words with the rampant vulgarity of modern England — literary 
 and artistic England most especially. . . . The London papers, 
 as far as I have glimpsed them, have roused in me a chastened 
 amusement, to be corrected at the Pitti. . . . 
 
 What shocks me most in England, and makes me despair
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 199 
 
 of her intellectual future, is the absolute decay of humour, which 
 that vile old Carlyle brought in with his involved phrases and 
 Brummagem Germanisms. ... A touch of humour would make 
 the last London lion-taming phase as impossible as it would be 
 in France — the only country where divine laughter, even in the 
 midst of her gloom and abasement, still falls like rain upon the 
 lower earth, and which alone shattered the ranks of the Salvation 
 Army, by laughing it out of the midst of her. . . . 
 
 But there, I'm grumbling ; and that is not my vein after all, 
 and certainly not the vein in which to write to so sweet a corre- 
 spondent as you. But I'm taken by that Southern demon, a 
 chill, and I'm sick with many cares. My heart and years are 
 wearied out, dear one, and even to your sweetest self I cannot 
 write a long letter. ... I have been keeping self-dissatisfaction at 
 arm's length with casinos, cafe's, theatres, and such-like, till I 
 found myself wildly wondering how such a life can amuse any- 
 body. With any number of resources against boredom, I do 
 resent being bored. But I grow analytic — rather in your line, 
 my lady ; and if I didn't know how fond you are of mental 
 anatomy, should be afraid of boring you in my turn, past pardon. 
 
 ..." Lettres a une Inconnue, par un Homme de Lettres. 
 Deuxieme Serie " ! And by the way, what is it that gives your 
 letters just that tender caressing touch that seems to belong to 
 you, and to which my heart leaps forth in answer? Did you 
 begin to think that pleasant paper-talk of ours was a thing of the 
 past ? Faith, I did. Somehow I could not and would not write 
 and sadden you with morbid complainings, when I could write in 
 no other mood in the Valley of the Shadow I have been passing 
 through. But I send you herewith a mad versicle, which will 
 show you that my flexible-steel nature is thawing from its deadly 
 frost. And my own Fiction-geist began to-day on its own 
 account, and I don't think is failing me quite yet. Till it started 
 I was fearful. Fifty — and I'm getting to that — sounds so witless. 
 
 I leave this place alone to-morrow, and, before settling down 
 to Views, shall give myself a week in Paris, which, sad as she is, 
 and in spite of the garish vulgarity of the Second Empire, that 
 went far to ruin her charm, remains ever " la ville ou on peut le 
 mieux se passer du bonheur."
 
 BOOK VIII 
 
 ' ' Prove yourself ' ; and if you are afraid, go back 
 •with the East-wind ivlio brought you hither. He 
 is about to fly home now, and "will not be seen here 
 again for a hundred years : the time ivill seem to 
 you like a hundred hours, but it is a long time to be 
 tempted. Every evening when I leave you I must 
 say to you, ' Come ivith me. I must beckon ivith 
 my hand; but do not follow, for ivith every step 
 your longing ivill groiv stronger. You ivill come 
 into the room where the tree of knowledge stands : 
 I sleep under its sweet-scented branches — you ivill 
 bend over me, and I must smile ; but if you press a 
 kiss upon my lips, the Garden of Paradise ivill sink 
 into the earth, and be lost to you for ever. The keen 
 •wind of the desert ivill whistle round you, and cold 
 rain ■will fall upon your head ; care and sorrow 
 Will be your lot. "
 
 WRITTEN Bitter — sweet ! And do I already scent revulsion ? 
 BY What it is to lie awake through silent hours ! To 
 
 ESTHER long and wait and pray for the letter that must 
 VASSAL : surely come to-morrow — the letter which will stifle 
 doubt and assuage pain. . . . And the stroke of 
 the morrow makes it to-day y*and livid dawn steals in like a 
 warning wraith through the curtain's chink. Then the morning's 
 packet is brought. And hope leaps up in the eager scanning, 
 and sinks fainting in disappointment. 
 
 Philotis once more ! Blue sea, dancing sunbeams, palms and 
 roses, and glittering white domes against the purple hills ! 
 
 All night in the train which whirled me through France, I lay 
 awake watching the moon high in heaven, and the bare flat fields 
 as they rushed by with their sedgy pools, and here and there the 
 lines of spectral poplars. And all day and night at sea, content 
 lapped me, and my beating heart rested in the thought that to- 
 morrow I should see you, my dear. 
 
 For he is at Philotis — with his wife. Is she mad now, I 
 wonder ! 
 
 I wrote to him at the Club, as he bade me, telling him of the 
 day of my arrival. The hour of the mail packet he would know. 
 There would be nothing extraordinary, it seemed to me, in his 
 coming that afternoon, or even after dinner, from the Annexe to 
 the hotel. And yet a certain anxiety mingled with the joyful 
 expectation. How could I help remembering one balked meet- 
 ing when he had been " suddenly called away "... and the 
 restraint of his later letters — letters so unlike those of the golden 
 week? And then the perhaps intentional missing of me in 
 Paris ! 
 
 ■ •■•••• 
 
 The day wore on ; he did not come. Carriages rolled to and 
 fro in front of the Cosmopolitain ; there were carriages in waiting 
 at the Annexe entrance. 
 
 It struck me that the villa had a different look, and I re- 
 marked this to Tremlett. 
 
 203
 
 2o 4 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 "That's likely, ma'am, for it's much livelier now," she an- 
 swered. " Mrs. Robert Vassal never had visitors." 
 
 " Why, is not Mrs. Vassal here this year ? " 
 
 "No; hadn't you heard, ma'am? It's a Russian Grand-duke 
 who has it this season." 
 
 The sun set behind the Vasques hills; and a pink after-glow 
 spread over the sea. By-and-by the lights of the French town 
 came out; and one large soft star beamed palely, while the re- 
 flection of the after-glow yet remained. Then all the solemn blue 
 became gemmed with stars and lamps, the rumble of carriages 
 ceased, and the night was a sobbing desolation. 
 
 Nor next day was there word or sign, though he is in Philotis, 
 for Tremlett saw him in the town. 
 
 I am frightened. Must it be always so — always this heart- 
 hunger and sense of mutilation when we are spiritually apart? 
 For I seem to know intuitively that he is stiffening himself 
 against me. And I chafe my wound with the old cynical saws — 
 that a love returned is a love lost ; that the woman's idolatry is 
 the man's indifference. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 It is the third day, and he has come. 
 
 We stood holding hands ; and our eyes flew to each other — 
 his fierce and tender, while his face was moved like the sea after a 
 storm. 
 
 He made some inarticulate sound and released my hands ; and 
 we sat down, he a little distance from me, a chill impalpable bar- 
 rier between us. 
 
 " I am sorry I could not come sooner," he said. "Yesterday 
 I was prevented. We are a long way off — on the other side of 
 the town." 
 
 "You had the Annexe several years ! " 
 
 "Yes, but we had been wishing to change; the traffic of the 
 hotel makes it noisy." 
 
 We talked conventionalities — the weather ; my autumn occu- 
 pations ; his travels ; politics ; books ; his Views essays. ... It was 
 all constrained, artificial ; and I felt that I must speak out or choke. 
 
 Suddenly he moved nearer, and took my hands again ; and 
 the deep note was in his voice. 
 
 " Are you glad to see me ? " 
 
 " Glad ! . . . But this is horrible ! We are not ourselves ; and 
 I can't bear it. Remember I'm only a weak woman, and don't 
 be hard on me." 
 
 " I hard ! . . . hard on you ! " He laughed tremulously. 
 
 " Why do you laugh ? "
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 205 
 
 " I suppose because I'm so happy in being with you. . . . 
 Because it's the first time I've ever heard you put forth the plea 
 of being a weak woman." 
 
 "You make me realise the misfortune of such weakness." 
 
 "The misfortune of loving me?" he asked sadly. 
 
 " The misfortune of being utterly dependent on you, so that 
 it is you who make the world glad or wretched for me. . . ." 
 
 He looked down upon me with a tender, faintly humorous, 
 miserable, and altogether man's look. 
 
 " Little woman ! It won't do. . . . You've been crying, making 
 yourself sick with crying. . . . Why ? " 
 
 And then I poured out impetuously what was in my heart. 
 
 " Why should I be ashamed that you should know it, since 
 it is true 7- My whole life is bound up in you. I am you ; and 
 everything is you. You are in the sky and in the sea. You are 
 in the scent of the roses and the sound of the wind. And yet you 
 are apart from them ; and they are only unreal things after all. No- 
 thing is real but you. You give the dreamy glow to life. You cause 
 the pain which seems to rise up out of the very face of the rocks 
 and to strike one from the spikes of the pines against the sky." 
 
 "My child! This is bad; this is bad. Don't tell me it's 
 like that." 
 
 "It was like that yesterday. I drove to the monument at 
 Cape Feurd. And there were the cairn of stones and the rusty 
 iron cross ; and Sralta so near and peaceful ; and the sunlight of 
 the bay ! And you were in everything ; and everything was sad ! " 
 
 " It won't do," he repeated more tenderly than before. " You 
 mustn't make things harder than needs be, for both of us. After 
 all," he added, with that funny gesture-laugh he has, squaring back 
 his shoulder and throwing up his head, "although you do call 
 yourself a writing-woman for an excuse, and I'm half a poet, 
 which is only another way of saying that we are a pair of senti- 
 mental ninnies, we did agree to try and be sane, sensible humans, 
 as far as our limitations would permit. We can't marry each other, 
 dear, because we're both married already — worse luck. And for 
 your sake as well as for that of others, I'm bound to guard against 
 disagreeable comment upon our — friendship. And you must help 
 me, because I love you better than anything in the world, and 
 because — shall I tell you a secret — whisper it in your ear? — I'm 
 just as bad, and worse than you are. And I walked half-way to 
 the Cosmopolitain the evening you arrived, and turned back, 
 saying to myself that it wouldn't do. And I've been punishing 
 myself ever since. And if I didn't cry myself sick too— well, a 
 man's a man, you know — and not a weak woman ! "
 
 206 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 And he held my face back from him a little, and our two pairs 
 of eyes met. And he gathered me up in his arms with a sound 
 like a mother's croon over her child. 
 
 To-day Robert told me the story of his marriage. He told 
 it baldly, jerkily, standing by the fireplace, and now and then 
 taking a stride up and down, as he had done that day in Mr. 
 Brock's office, fighting, I fancied, against an almost unconquerable 
 reluctance. He was in one of his odd, half-reckless moods. . . . 
 I shall try to put down his own words. 
 
 ..." I've got to go back to the financial smash which ruined 
 us and killed my father. So there I was, a young man about 
 town, turned all of a sudden into a starving journalist — otherwise 
 a briefless barrister. I loathed law and loved literature, knowing 
 in essence nothing about it — you remember my telling you in a 
 ' Reader's ' letter about my hopeless dilettantism ? I was bound 
 to starve, anyhow, being the sport of a perverse demon who 
 wouldn't, or couldn't, knock off a sprightly paragraph or society 
 play, but would cheerfully produce five acts of tragic blank verse, 
 or an absolutely unsaleable philosophical novel. . . . 
 
 " Well — after I had been at starvation point for a bit, I found 
 out that I was going blind. . . . Don't shudder, dear ! My eyes 
 are as strong now as ever they were before that year or so of 
 blackness. . . . One of my old college pals tackled the business. 
 He picked me up when he was slumming in the East End for a 
 fellow-parson on a holiday, and took me off to an oculist. I 
 must tell you that I had reached such a pitch of pride and desti- 
 tution that I shunned decent people as if they were the devil — 
 though, as a matter of fact, I came into pretty close quarters with 
 the devil in those days. 
 
 " "Well, the oculist gave the ghost of a hope — an operation which 
 succeeds once in a hundred times, and the speciality of a great 
 German man, meaning an enormous fee and months of careful 
 treatment— practically a year of night, expensive nursing, idleness, 
 an empty exchequer, and ninety-nine chances against a cure ! So 
 I looked Fate in the face, and liked her so little as to make up 
 my mind that when the light went out I'd swallow a dose of 
 prussic acid, and that till then nothing mattered. Brooke shep- 
 herded me down to his vicarage, and his mother and sister looked 
 after me, and cried over me because they didn't know how to 
 help me — they were so poor themselves. ... As if I wouldn't 
 have chosen the prussic acid first ! My God ! I wish I had 
 chosen the prussic acid. . . . 
 
 ' There was a girl staying at the Brookes', an orphan, with a
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 207 
 
 little money of her own — between three and four hundred a 
 year. . . . What do you think of a woman crippling herself, re- 
 ducing her little fortune to a pittance, risking a hopeless, help- 
 less burden on her hands for life — -just for love ? It's something 
 splendid, isn't it? Something to be grateful for — something to 
 bind a man in chains, and make him feel that his whole body and 
 soul aren't sufficient in payment. ..." 
 
 (Ah, dear Heaven ! Think of being paid for giving the man 
 you love his life. . . . Will men never understand women — or 
 realise the sort of torture they may unconsciously put them to ? 
 Dear Heaven ! If 1 had been in that woman's place !) 
 
 . . . "She was handsome and interesting — very handsome; 
 quite beautiful — she used to be called 'the beautiful Miss 
 Delmar.' And she was interesting, being so unlike other women. 
 Clever ; a Tittle hard outwardly, but with a capacity for feeling 
 that — well, she gave suggestions of drama. It amused me to 
 study her. . . . I — I liked her." 
 
 (The yellow woman ! . . . Keep me from hating her ! Keep 
 'me from grudging her — what she bought !) 
 
 "Yes, I liked her. ... I let myself go. ... I never dreamed 
 of that brilliant creature caring for a poor blind devil like 
 me. . . . But she did care. . . . She cared . . . odd, isn't it ? — 
 intensely. 
 
 " Oh I liked her — she attracted me greatly. That wasn't what 
 I thought most about, though. ... I sold myself. . . . Good Lord ! 
 That's the truth. ... I did her an awful wrong. I sold myself 
 out of mean sordid selfishness — for the chance of getting back 
 my sight. I was afraid of blackness for ever; I was afraid of 
 the prussic acid. Life began to seem sweet when I knew I'd got 
 to leave it. And the sunshine was gladdening, and the earth 
 lovely. ... It was my cowardly weakness, which has been my 
 curse every way, all through my days. . . . Can't you realise the 
 immeasurable debt of loyalty? . . . And that wasn't all. I believe 
 there is some fiendish law of compensation, by which what is 
 given to one must be taken from another. She was my scape- 
 goat. Her life was a martyrdom to me, who couldn't recover 
 for endless months, though the operation proved a success, and 
 the cure, as far as the eyes went, was complete. But for a long 
 time I wasn't able to get any spring at all for a mind gone to 
 hopeless waste ; till, all of a sudden, my intellectual faculties 
 came back — the stronger, it seemed, for that fallow-time, and I 
 pulled myself together, worked, and made a literary hit. Then, 
 when I was fairly started, she broke down. It was the stress of 
 anxiety, in the first instance, during that year of black suspense,
 
 2o8 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 and the waiting on me hand and foot, when she was quite unequal 
 to it, and I should have cared for her. Her mind gave way 
 entirely ; they didn't think it would ever come right. But we 
 pulled her through that Valley of Darkness, and every year she 
 has improved, till now her attacks are comparatively rare . . . 
 and I've managed to prevent the world from knowing much 
 about it. . . . Glaive and the rest say that if there's no return of 
 the acute phase, no grief or sudden shock, she may in time get 
 back her old brilliant wit and keen intelligence and common 
 sense. . . . Now " — He gave a passionate gesture, was silent for 
 a moment or two, and then burst out impetuously — " Now it 
 is a dead level of lucid imbecility — has been ever since the 
 rational interval I told you of, when I thought she was begin- 
 ning acain to take an interest in real literature. . . . But for 
 a long time I haven't been able to rouse her to appreciation of 
 anything higher than the shop-girl class of novelette — ' Araminta 
 and the Fortune-Teller and the Wicked Earl' — you know the 
 sort of brain-poisoner — no, I don't suppose you do. . . . And 
 when I remonstrate, she lectures me seriously on my own want 
 of popularity with the multitude, and tries to feed me on that 
 stuff. Me! Mel I'm obliged to tell you — I can't stand it; 
 I must have it out. . . . But do you think I don't know how dis- 
 loyal I am — how base ! That poor martyr ! And all the suffer- 
 ing for my sake — the wrecking of herself that / might steer safe 
 into port. There isn't a day or night that I'm not weighed down 
 by shame and remorse. But think of it, I'm like a forest beast 
 chained — the only outlet I have here, to walk miles and miles — 
 when I can get away ; and that's oniy by convincing her mind, 
 through her poor loving heart, that I need air and exercise — or 
 that I've got to carry on my work. ... At home there are Views 
 and the House. . . . She was always ambitious ; she wanted me 
 to make a name. . . . And I'm freer when the boy's there. . . . 
 I wish you could see him. He understands in the most marvel- 
 lous way. And devoted to his mother — I'm very proud of that 
 boy. . . . 
 
 " But I want more — more — more. And I want to be alone — 
 oh, alone ! — Since I can't have the dear dual solitude ... I 
 crave for the loneliness of the desert — for even a Trappist cell. 
 To live my own life ! To break away mentally and bodily ! Oh 
 the joy of it ! . . . I'm driven to tell lies — to invent petty excuses — 
 when she is logical enough to take excuses in — to take anything 
 in, but the necessity for me. . . . Imagine what it is to be hanging 
 round all day in that stifling feminine atmosphere — listening to 
 the ghastly astrological babble humouring the poor foolish fancies
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 209 
 
 about myself — a portent in the flight of a butterfly ; an evil 
 presage in the face of some passing woman ! 
 
 " And then to think of her as she was — the strong reasoning 
 power — where has it gone — isn't that enough almost to make 
 one disbelieve in a soul ? — the love of good books, the mental 
 companionableness of her. . . . And I reminding myself always 
 that by every law of honour and loyalty my heart and life are 
 vowed to her, and her only " 
 
 He walked up and down between the table and the window, 
 with hands locked behind his back, an odd intent light in his 
 eyes, and his chin a little forward, with the sun catching the curl 
 upward at the points of his hair, and the ripple on the wave where 
 it was brushed back from his forehead. 
 
 " And the worst part of it is that I don't know whether it's 
 worse or better since I've cared for you. Sometimes I think 
 you've been my salvation, sometimes my " 
 
 He pulled himself up abruptly, shocked at the pain in my 
 look which I could not hide. 
 
 "I've hurt you ! Poor little white troubled face ! what have 
 I done ? Oh, are we men all brutes, that we don't know how to 
 treat the women who love us, and whom we're not worthy to 
 love ! " 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 It seems so stupid to be sitting here all through the long 
 night. . . . Yes, I will be brave. It is death in the soul, but I 
 will face it. . . . When I saw him torn and tortured, I cried out, 
 " Go back to the duty which holds you in stronger chains than 
 your love for me." 
 
 How can I fight ? What weapons can I use which would 
 not be of Satan ? " Give me up, and let me go," that's what 
 I said; "lam strong enough to bear it." 
 
 He answered, " Very well ; it shall be as you wish." His 
 face became cold and white, and he left me with no other word. 
 
 After he had gone I stayed very quiet. The hours went 
 on. . . . It is all over ! That is the only distinct thought which 
 shaped itself for a long time. . . . 
 
 By-and-by I began to feel light in the head, and very tired. 
 Odd fancies rose up out of the nothingness. It seemed to me 
 that I was in a deep, dark valley, choked with poisonous fumes, 
 so that I could not move nor breathe. Then through the giddy 
 blackness a silver ray seemed to pierce, and in a strange inner 
 way I saw high above me pure snowy heights, and white forms 
 floating in a golden glory. And I knew that if I could but reach 
 the heights the choking oppression of misery would be lifted, and 
 
 o
 
 210 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 that angels would minister to me. I knew too, in the same 
 inner way, that this silver beam was the ray of renunciation ; and, 
 as I struggled towards the light, it seemed as though for one 
 moment of time my soul were liberated from trammels that had 
 held it bound. A great peace fell upon me, and I heard a Voice 
 within saying, " Passion is the grave : Love, the resurrection. 
 Purify your human love that it may become one with the all- 
 consecrating Love, and so shall you be free and blessed ! " 
 
 But the suffocating cloud wrapped me round again, and the 
 ray vanished. I got ready for bed. Something had risen in my 
 throat, and I had a queer sense of being strangled, but I did not 
 want to cry. . . . Tremlett went on brushing my hair mechanically. 
 ... I felt quite stupid. By-and-by I slept. I dreamed a curious 
 dream — that I was out in the bay, drowning in deep water. The 
 Vasques hills towered grim and gloomy on the land side, and all 
 the sea was dark, till suddenly the moon shone out, and showed 
 me Robert standing by the shore watching me. Somehow in 
 my dream, his face seemed to change into the face of my master. 
 I stretched out my arms, imploring him to save me ; but he shook 
 his head and smiled a wild, cruel smile : and then the waters 
 engulfed me, and I awoke. 
 
 I thought it must be morning when I awoke, but it was only 
 the moon which made my room light, and when I looked at the 
 clock, I saw that my sleep had lasted just an hour. I got up. . . . 
 And now I am sitting here — thinking, thinking. It is as though I 
 had thrown my whole substance into a swiftly running stream and 
 were watching it being borne out to sea — lost for ever and ever. 
 
 The pain ! . . . It's not mental : it's physical — stabbing my 
 heart and making me gasp and writhe till there comes the relief 
 of a sobbing fit. . . . Such odd little things blend with it — the 
 green pot of carnations, the glint of silver on the dressing-table, 
 the pattern of the wall-paper, the sputtering of new-lighted fir- 
 cones — I have made up the fire, for I felt very cold. 
 
 Oh, the tiny remembrances, the little intimacies and their sweet 
 sting ! He said the other day, that I did not understand olive- 
 wood fires, and we kneeled together on the hearth and put on fir- 
 cones. The convent-bell is ringing in the new day. ... I must 
 not let him see how unhappy I am. Surely I have gone through 
 it now — the death- throes of renunciation ! 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 He flashed past me in town this morning, driving with his 
 wife— I have seen her, and it was the impression of a moment — 
 tragic, eerie, haunting. She must have been very beautiful !
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 211 
 
 Dear Heaven ! How happy I am ! 
 
 Quite unexpectedly he stood there trying to seem as though 
 there had been no gap of despair between this and our last 
 meeting. And the laugh and shoulder-shake — pathetic, shamed, 
 lion-like, dolesomely whimsical — went so strangely with the worn 
 look of his face and the terrible sadness of his eyes. 
 
 " I had an uncanny foreboding," he said, " that you would 
 have paid me off in my own coin, and that I should find you 
 departed for Quintin Glaive's desert — you told me, you know, 
 that we were never to meet again — and then what would have 
 been the end of the idyll ? Elegiac, perchance ! For seest thou 
 not, my child," he went on in tragic banter, "that when the 
 Mountain- (that's me) can't come to Mahomet (which is you), 
 and Mahomet (that's you) defies the proverb and runs away from 
 the Mountain (which is me) — why Mahomet and the Mountain 
 arent likely to meet : and broken hearts and tombstones may 
 very probably result ? Dearest ! don't you know that I couldn't 
 do it, even if I wanted ? And that's the truth of it. It's too 
 late now for heroics : I couldn't give you up, if I tried ever so 
 hard. . . . Lord ! what fools we mortals be ! Forget our last 
 talk, when I said things that were base, and tried to make my- 
 self out a sort of caged lion. It strikes me, dear, that — 
 
 ' Humble pie is wholesome meat, 
 Good for some of us to eat,' 
 
 and that such intellectual vanities are to be avoided. It strikes 
 me too that I must have been a loose hyena more like. . . . And 
 as your humble slave is not altogether a bad fellow by nature, he 
 hopes that those roarings may be forgiven him, on the under- 
 standing that he never roars in like manner again. . . . And, O 
 Esther, my star, my dear. There's no use in trying to pretend. 
 ... I love you. ... I love you." 
 
 Forgiven ! The pain and struggle were over, and our hearts 
 beat together once more. 
 
 Robert tells me that he is working at a set of articles for 
 Views, about the old Moorish towns and ruined eyries* of the 
 seaboard hills, and sometimes he is absent for several days 
 tramping the mountains. 
 
 Yesterday, on his way back from the Katkas, he came upon 
 me at Kassis. We met at the brink of the old grey keep, and 
 together wandered away from the mosque down the sunny side 
 of the slope, where olives grow on terraces built up in heat-baked
 
 2i2 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 walls and shadows lie black and mysterious, and where there 
 is nothing to remind one of the French and Eastern life of the 
 village. 
 
 We came to a tiny plateau — a nook where the wall took a 
 curve behind us, and the olives above, slanting over it, canopied 
 this wildly odorous chamber of Nature's fashioning, while a low 
 lattice of roses screened the outer edge of the terrace from the 
 jessamine and violet garden lying several feet below. 
 
 A gnarled old olive-tree opened its split trunk, making a sort 
 of cave arm-chair, its sides clean, warm, and sinewy, its cushions 
 dry moss, its curved roots giving arm-rests. I curled myself close 
 within the tree's embrace, and he, on a root-stool, sat by me. 
 
 How lonely it was ! In the whole world there might have 
 been but him and me, and the mating birds calling to each 
 other. 
 
 A breeze came in gusty swells — a softly ardent wind from 
 the glowing sea, that tossed the pale sides of the olive-branches 
 uppermost, while the sun played in tender frolic upon the leaves, 
 changing their pallor into smiling radiance — a daring wind that 
 parted asunder the rose-petals, unveiling the blossoms' core, so 
 that the sun might kiss at will, and the bee wooing with his deep 
 musical drone, might enter for sweet-feeding. 
 
 The sense of source-life was in the air around us. I leaned 
 against the unbarked heart of the tree, and its vigour of running 
 sap seemed to course through my limbs. Gazing upward, I could 
 see white clouds moving swiftly in the blue dome, as might 
 Nature-spirits who were rejoicing in the great mother's plenteous 
 bounty, and bearing to her pleasant tidings of the fulfilment of 
 her laws. The warm rays caressed my face, and the earth mag- 
 netism thrilled me with tender gladness. 
 
 Then as I turned in sympathy, involuntarily Robert's eyes 
 met mine, and in them that exquisite trouble, that infinite 
 yearning which the very air distilled. Our hands clasped. 
 Mystery of soul and sense affinemenf — that mutual conquest and 
 mergence into each other, through mere touch of loving hands, 
 of two separate human individualities ! 
 
 " Strange, strange ! " 
 
 " What is strange, Esther ? " 
 
 "Tell me. . . . From the first your touch thrilled as no other 
 touch had ever done. . . . Tell me . . . was it so with you too ? " 
 
 " Always ! Thus did I know that I loved you. . . . Ah, 
 dearest . . . with your little wistful face and its baffling charm. 
 . . . And your smile seems to say ' Come with me.' . . . And 
 why may I not follow — into Paradise ? . . . The joy of life is
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 213 
 
 round us : the roses are blooming in our wilderness. . . . Love ! 
 love ! . . . how sweet they are . . ." 
 
 The roses of Kassis ! The roses which cannot fade ! . . . He 
 gave me two : they are white and red. 
 
 I drove back alone to El-Meriem : and yet I was not alone. 
 His ghost-self sat by my side ; and dear, sad, happy eyes shone 
 on me in answering pledge. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 ... I cannot sleep. It is early morning : the Muezzin-call 
 has sounded, the convent-bell has rung, and the nuns are praying ; 
 and as I lie awake, I praise Heaven and count my beautiful hours 
 one by one. So I tell my beads of happiness and offer up my 
 Magnificat. I keep my rosary enshrined in my heart's most 
 secret place, and when I am an old woman it shall serve me in 
 the last Act of Adoration. Ah, grant me more beautiful hours ! 
 Grant me more beads of happiness ! 
 
 ... I hear the faint, full, distant murmur of the sea. For a 
 long time have I been sitting by my window watching the dawn 
 break. First, the moon looked down very large and wan — and 
 wanner yet, as the horizon softly lightened. How pallid the 
 curving roads seem, and how sharply defined the delicate tracery 
 of the mimosa-tree with its plumes of gold, and the fronds of 
 palms and spikes of aloes ! 
 
 The moon has vanished, and daylight creeps into the room. 
 I watch it dimming the fire-glow. The olive-logs are hissing and 
 sputtering, and making an odd quivering noise like the sighing 
 of a living creature. 
 
 • ••••■• 
 
 . . . Will he come to-day ? This is the burden of the hours 
 which breathes in the cadences of the love-song that some Neapo- 
 litans are singing on the terrace of the hotel — they come every 
 morning to sing to the Grand-duke. . . . Then when the song 
 ends and the tinkling of the mandoline stops, my heart's longing 
 beats a more jocund measure to the chaffering of birds and 
 insects, to the pawing of impatient horses on the gravel, and 
 to the colloquies of waiting coachmen. Then in another key, 
 whimsically pathetic, I hear it in the uneven rustle of the palm 
 leaves, and it seems to cling caressingly to the luxurious atmos- 
 phere fanning me. The breeze bears it in waves of perfume — 
 the scent of roses and freesia flowers; and everywhere and in 
 everything is the refrain of that wonderful chant, the reflex of that
 
 2i 4 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 mystic joy. . . . And so I brood, lapping myself in the warm 
 glorious peace. 
 
 But the chill shadow advances, and the spectre hand clutches 
 icily. 
 
 Tell me — are you happy too ? Shall you be sorry to-morrow ? 
 Are you sorry to-day ? 
 
 No, you are not sorry yet, for I should surely know it, and 
 the knowledge would be agony. Not for one single instant am 
 I alone these hours. Ever is that living ghost beside me. 
 Though I cannot see you, your presence is vividly near and 
 persistent. I stretch forth my hand and clasp an invisible hand. 
 Flesh and blood could scarcely be more real. 
 
 Dear, do you remember how we spoke of my fantastic notion 
 — you said it was fantastic — that in human love lies the clue to 
 Nature's sublimest law, the law of duality working through the 
 worlds visible and invisible? And you smiled, and talked of 
 mind currents, and brain vibrations, and sympathetic nerve-cells, 
 when there seemed no means of explaining the curious and con- 
 stant coincidence of thought and feeling between us, which we 
 have tested so often. Then you smiled yet more tenderly, and 
 called me " dear visionary " when I confided to you my intimate 
 belief that one day there will be given to regenerated humanity 
 the secret of a stupendous force, which must have been before the 
 Moveable Powers were established, and shall endure when they 
 have ceased to be. You said — do you remember ? — that there 
 must indeed underlie the monogamic ideal in the mind of man, 
 some great natural truth — a truth quite independent of theo- 
 logical doctrine, the significance of which in the scheme of human 
 evolution, we could only as yet dimly discern. 
 
 And your smile grew sadder and more unsatisfied as I went 
 on to tell you of my vague wonderings about that divine Force, 
 sheathed in flesh ; and of how it seemed to me that through Its 
 strength the bonds of matter might be burst, and the spiritual 
 selves of those who love be delivered from their prisons of body, 
 and be free to hold soul-converse at will, independent of time and 
 space. 
 
 Ah, when shall the Messenger arise to preach the "one man 
 and one woman " ideal, and to proclaim aloud the gospel of 
 sacramental marriage ? Does not the Voice cry now in the wilder- 
 ness ? — our wilderness, our grand poetic wild ! 
 
 Fancies ! fancies ! . . . How may I grasp them ; how express 
 them ! Am I indeed touching the borders of that exquisite 
 life? 
 
 Are they so foolish then, my fancies ? Is it because they are
 
 THE SCOURCxE-STICK 215 
 
 so foolish that you have not come to-day ? . . . But are you not 
 certain to come to-morrow ! 
 
 • ••••** 
 
 Three to-morrows have become to-day ! And all blank. 
 Where are you ? Why do you not come ? 
 
 You should not let me think that you are. sorry. 
 
 Four days since Kassis. 
 
 It is very strange that he does not come. ..." Very strange, 
 very strange." ... I don't know whether I said the words. They 
 kept repeating themselves stupidly all the time as I walked into 
 the town.' Everybody and everything seemed to throw them back 
 at me in an odd, dazing way — the leprous beggars whining as I 
 passed, and the washerwomen at the fountain, the soldiers, and 
 the tattered Arabs, the stiff well-dressed people carrying prayer- 
 books — there is a memorial service or something at the Protestant 
 Church, I remember — how coldly righteous and vindictively 
 virtuous they look, these Englishwomen ! — the carriages going 
 along, the villas and by-ways leading up to the pinewoods, the 
 boulevard and ficus trees, and the band playing — all mixed up 
 with that parrot iteration " Very strange ! very strange ! " 
 
 It has been raining, and there are little pools on the road. 
 How sickly the datura smells, and those asphodels in that bit of 
 waste garden ! . . . There would come a choking feeling, and then 
 it would go on again, " Very strange ! very strange ! " 
 
 There's a mistral blowing; the bay is steely blue; and the 
 frise of rock at Rassem's end shows a long splash of foam. The 
 olives look ghastly as the wind turns up the leaves, and there's 
 no sun to-day to kiss them. 
 
 I saw you. You stared out for an instant from the window 
 of a closed carriage. I was coming out of the Credit Lyonnais, 
 but you did not see me. You had a lady with you all muffled in 
 furs— light sable. Women with sallow faces and yellow eyes 
 should not wear light sable — it only suits dark people like me. 
 The fur came up round her chin, and her eyes shone above 
 it. . . . Yes, yellow-grey eyes, hard like topazes — and fiercely 
 bright ! 
 
 There was a portmanteau up beside the coachman. You 
 were going to the station, I suppose. . . . Very strange! 
 
 It is cruel to leave me like this without a word. . . . Your eyes 
 had a hunted look. Are you afraid of me? Why do you run 
 away ? 
 
 . . . This room is intolerable — so hot — all closed up. . . .
 
 2 i6 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 And the scent of the freesias, and those yellow roses ! . . . Per- 
 haps it's the pain that's stifling me ! 
 
 I am very cold. My teeth are chattering. ... I wonder who 
 the lady is that the concierge said had called and left word she 
 would come to-morrow. . . . Very strange ! 
 
 I hadn't noticed, the card. It's Mione. 
 
 Will he write to me to-morrow ? 
 
 • • • • • • * 
 
 Mione has been on a yachting cruise, but not with Mr. Vassal, 
 who she says is coming to Mandour later. She has left her 
 friend's company, and is waiting a day or two for one of the big 
 steamers which put in at Philotis. I asked her why she preferred 
 it to the yacht ; and she answered that the truth was she had been 
 bored on the yacht. 
 
 " The true truth," she went on in a burst of confidence, " is 
 that my host of the yacht, who dangled after me very pleasantly 
 for a bit, and of whom I had thought better things, has suddenly 
 developed a tragic devotion. I'm not a paragon," said Mione, 
 ' ; but really, though you mightn't suspect it, Audley and I have a 
 code of morals of our own ; and we do try to act on the square 
 by each other. Well, I didn't think it would be acting quite on 
 the square to accept diamond bracelets, and listen to amorous 
 declarations, while Audley is swallowing Count Mattel's globules 
 and drinking boiling water at home." 
 
 I don't know what made me ask Mione if she thought it wicked 
 to care for a man who is not your husband. 
 
 "That depends on the marriage contract," she replied. " I've 
 got a prohibition clause in mine. Besides, I see the absurdity of 
 that sort of thing. It begins beautifully in Platonics, sentimental 
 diaries, and heroics all round; and it ends very nastily in the 
 Divorce Court." 
 
 "Mione, tell me — have you ever loved any one?" 
 
 " Good gracious ! " Mione gave an uncertain little laugh, 
 and went on vigorously closing up the envelopes she had been 
 directing. 
 
 " Oh dear ! what a dreadful nuisance Christmas is ; and I 
 wish Christmas cards hadn't come into fashion. However, I've 
 got some mild amusement out of mine. I've sent Aunt Rhoda 
 Raphon a nice little religious book entitled Plain Paths for 
 Pilgrims' Feet ; and I've written under it, High-heeled Shoes for 
 Limping Sinners. — She complains of corns and refuses to wear 
 anything but the Louis Quinze cut ! — And I've sent my father- 
 in-law a fraudulent cheque drawn on the Bank of Peace and 
 Goodwill. And what a nasty shock Caliban will have when he
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 217 
 
 discovers that the cheque isn't genuine. I drew it for a reason- 
 able amount ! " 
 
 " But, Mione, you haven't answered my question ? " 
 
 " Haven't I ? What was it ? — Did I ever love anybody — any 
 man, I suppose you mean. I certainly think it's rude to put 
 personal questions ; but if you really want to know — I once did. 
 Only, when I married Audley, I buried my skeleton — otherwise 
 my platonics — decently in the family vault, and the defunct 
 Delmars — the Arathoons haven't yet accomplished a family vault 
 — take precious good care it shan't get out and worry me." 
 
 Then she was silent for a few minutes ; and I wondered if 
 Mione had ever kept a note-book, and if she had any compre- 
 hension of the Religion of Love. Presently, however, she was 
 her flinty -self again. 
 
 "Oh, why can't I find disinterested Guardsmen who will 
 dangle for nothing? Why do I never come across those high- 
 minded Society heroes one only sees over the footlights, who reel 
 off epigrams and platonics as fast as Wilton's man opens oysters ? 
 Where do these prodigies lie ; and where do they hide in the 
 noonday, as the psalmist hath it ? . . . Why don't you laugh ? " 
 asked Mione. " You look as though you were in a dream ; and 
 I'm sure you haven't heard half the clever things I have been 
 saying." 
 
 Yes, Mione is right. I am in a dream ; but the dream is a 
 nightmare. 
 
 " I don't believe that you are ill," Mione continued. " Trem- 
 lett tells me you hardly cough at all now. It must be that you are 
 moped. Now I'm going to shake you up. You've got to come 
 with me to El-Meriem to-morrow, where I've a commission to buy 
 scent and oranges ; and I shall take you to the Club dance in the 
 evening." 
 
 We went over the scent factory and had luncheon at the 
 hotel. Afterwards we walked to the Cours, where there was a 
 band playing, and where Mione met some friends, with whom 
 I left her. 
 
 I strolled down to the Cathedral, having a superstitious fancy 
 that if I were to put up a prayer at that side-altar before which 
 I had kneeled the day after my first meeting with Robert at 
 Kassis, Heaven might be gracious to me and lighten my darkness. 
 
 So I prayed in the dim side-chapel with my face upturned to 
 the thorn-crowned Image. No spoken words came forth, but 
 from its very deeps my soul cried, "Give unto me my heart's 
 desire ! "
 
 218 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 Was the supplication impious ? And will it be by the curse 
 of a granted prayer that I shall be answered. 
 
 Is God mocked of His children? As I kneeled a certain 
 beatitude crept over me, and that ineffable sense of oneness with 
 Robert. Truly, in this incorporeal communion might be found 
 an argument for the soul's eternal existence. If there were cer- 
 tainty of the life after death, and of the companionship of our 
 loved ones, then, verily, the grave would be as the portal of 
 Paradise. 
 
 My cry went up, and was answered speedily. 
 
 The consciousness of Robert's nearness became overwhelming ; 
 and I seemed to hear his voice, low, anguished, saying " Esther ! " 
 I rose from my knees and turned, searching the dimness in a 
 trembling awe, fearing and yet expectant. I had not far to seek. 
 He was standing at an angle of the recess watching me. It was 
 himself, not his ghost. The movement he made towards me 
 checked words rushing to my lips ; and for a minute we held 
 hands silently. 
 
 How plainly I could see that he had suffered ! His face was 
 worn ; his eyes were sunken ; and there was a streak of grey in 
 his short brown beard. 
 
 "You have been praying?" he said. "Tell me what you 
 prayed for ? " 
 
 " I prayed for the granting of my heart's desire." 
 
 "And that?" 
 
 "I longed to see you again — and my prayer has been 
 answered." 
 
 " Answered indeed ! Two days later, and a miracle would 
 have been necessary. I go back to England to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow ! You were going without a word? " 
 
 " It would have been better so. Partings are too hideous." 
 
 We were speaking almost in a whisper. He still held my 
 hand. Presently he said solemnly — ■ 
 
 " Esther, don't pray for the granting of your heart's desire, in 
 any bodily sense. Pray for me, if you will — that I may be given 
 strength to stand firm. Pray that my love may avail to keep 
 your pure womanhood unsullied to the end. Pray — and that 
 would be far best — that you may come to despise and forget 
 me. ... I am going to leave you, that you may say that prayer." 
 
 For a moment or two we stood, close, yet held apart, as by 
 the clashing of spiritual swords between. Then he cried hoarsely — 
 
 " Esther, don't look at me with that dumb despairing appeal 
 in your eyes. I can't stand it : it haunts me through days and 
 nights when I am away from you."
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 219 
 
 " Are you going to leave me like this ? " I asked. " Say that 
 you will see me again. . . . Say that you will write." 
 
 " No. . . . Yes, I will write. Forgive me, Esther." 
 
 And he was gone. 
 
 I sank upon a seat and covered my face. I don't know how 
 long I sat there. The blistering burning feeling on my cheeks 
 and hands made me know that I must have been weeping scald- 
 ing tears. I got up, all dazed ; and then I saw a woman standing 
 almost in the same place as where Robert had stood — looking 
 at me. 
 
 I had seen the woman twice before, but never near or upright. 
 She is very tall — wasted as a skeleton — I could tell this through 
 the long mantle trimmed with light sable that covered her. She 
 is like nobody whom I have ever beheld. Her Greek features 
 seem refined to an extraordinary clearness and tenuity, as by 
 an inward devouring flame. That flame leaps out of her yellow- 
 grey eyes, which would mesmerise me, I think, if I stared at her. 
 Though they are so different, they remind me somehow of Mr. 
 Vassal's eyes. Her face, except for the interior illumination, is 
 like the face of a dead person. . . . But how beautiful ! 
 
 She made an abrupt gesture, stretching out her thin hand 
 glittering with rings — a nervous aristocratic hand — and one of 
 the rings forming his name by the initial letters of the stones com- 
 posing it. Ruby, opal, beryl, emerald, ruby, topaz ! I can't imagine 
 how at such a moment I could have taken in these details, but 
 the thought was clear in my mind that this must have been her 
 engagement ring, and it struck me as inartistic. So intense was 
 the passion in the woman's face as her eyes met mine, that for an 
 instant I fancied wildly she was going to strike me. But presently 
 all the fire went out, her pallor became ghastly : she pressed her 
 hand against her heart as if she were in pain, and staggering a 
 little, moved along the aisle to one of the benches. Through the 
 uncanny animosity with which she filled me, I felt a stab of deep 
 compunction, for I guessed that she had witnessed my meeting 
 with Robert, and in the emotion written on our faces had read 
 our secret. 
 
 I would have gone near, and asked her if she were ill and 
 if I could help her, but I dared not. It would have seemed 
 almost like offering her an insult. I waited, and after a few 
 moments she got up and left the church by a side-door. 
 
 Mione's laugh sounded at the entrance ; and she came in 
 with her friends and inspected the place, making the regulation 
 bob as she passed the high-altar. Later on, she said — 
 
 "If you had stopped in the Cours, you might have had a
 
 220 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 dramatic meeting with your husband's hated heir. The Robert 
 Vassals were there. He left her on a bench : and then, I think 
 she must have been afraid I was going to speak to her, for after 
 a bit she got up and followed him. I really should have liked to 
 ask her whether that Influence had come along yet. The woman 
 gives me the creeps. There isn't the smallest doubt that she 
 is out of her mind : her eyes have such a wild way of glaring 
 at you. As for him, he has altered extraordinarily since I saw 
 him last. The Delmars certainly seem to have an unhappy 
 matrimonial effect ; I must warn Audley." 
 
 Mione wanted me to drive to Kassis, but I persuaded her to 
 make another excursion. Her friends went with us. It was all 
 part of the nightmare. And so was the Club dance. 
 
 It is not ended ! It can't be ended. ... All through the 
 dark hours, his longing drags me as by red-hot chains. . . . 
 " Esther, Esther ! " he seems to be calling. 
 
 And I lie bound and tortured — arms stretching vainly to 
 empty space : lips seeking lips that are illusion. 
 
 It is to-morrow that he leaves Philotis. 
 
 From my balcony I watched the boat steam out. But perhaps 
 he has not gone in her. And if not, he will surely come. 
 
 . . . The carriages have driven up and away— the Grand- 
 duke has been giving a tea-party at the Annexe. The musicians 
 on the terrace have packed up their instruments. . . . The sun 
 has touched the Vasques hills. 
 
 . . . Now the beacon on Cape Feurd is alight, and the stars 
 have come forth. 
 
 Dull dead despair ! He is gone. 
 
 How well I get to know the awakenings after these sleepless 
 nights — the maid's knock rousing me from that confused doze 
 which dawn brings : the tinkling of the electric bells in strokes of 
 two, and the jingling of the market omnibus starting for town : 
 the bruised feeling which is soothed by one's cup of coffee ! 
 
 The look of the furniture is a jar, and the pattern on the 
 carpet an irritant. Sometimes there comes over me a fantastic 
 wondering whether the emotions which have flowed forth in these 
 hotel rooms, do in truth leave their impress within the four walls 
 to afflict sensitive occupants. For nothing, they say, is ever lost ; 
 and the ripple of a sigh must roll on through space to eternity. 
 If that be true, I shall feel sorry for my successor here. 
 
 I gave him his chance of freedom. I was prepared. I
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 221 
 
 offered myself to him for a burnt sacrifice to his conscience. 
 Why didn't he know his own mind then and settle accounts? 
 I could have borne it — before Kassis. 
 
 But what is misery when one comes to reason it out? It 
 has no relation with outside existence ; it does not alter one 
 single fact of the substantial world ; it exists but in one's own 
 morbid consciousness. If one could forget, it would cease 
 to be. 
 
 This is only a nightmare. Wake up ! wake up, Esther ! 
 The sun shines ; the sea dances ; the harlequinade goes on ; 
 the laughing old earth whirls round just the same ; the Garden 
 of Paradise is nothing but a fairy-tale after all. Wake up ! wake 
 up, and work ! " 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 I shall write a story about Tourmestral. Yesterday, from the 
 Cours at El-Meriem, I looked up at the castle on the crag, and 
 made up my mind that at last I would go and see it. So I sent 
 this morning for a carriage ; and though the concierge told me 
 there was snow on the Katkas, and that the English are waiting 
 for settled weather to make their expeditions, I set off all alone, 
 and am here. 
 
 Such a queer old-world place, and such a wild drive right into 
 the grey heart of the hills ! Past the campagnes and orange 
 farms, the French cabarets and Arab coffee-houses ; past the 
 pine forest and the grotesque-looking monsters of cactus plants 
 round the gourbis, and the patches of wild onion spreading out 
 tufts of fleshy leaves, with the blue flowers yet unsheathed. Past 
 the last string of camels, and the last herd of goats ; right into 
 the Mestral Gorge, where the green river foams between high 
 precipices, and where the road winds round barren mountain- 
 sides spread with speckled grey and black rocks, and showing 
 here and there huge streaked boulders leaning to each other 
 like monoliths of some ancient temple. And there's Sralta close 
 ahead, every furrow distinct, except where his hump is wrapped 
 in cold grey haze. 
 
 " Eheuh ! eheuh!" the driver shouted, as he rattled round 
 the curve of the zigzag, where there was only a low parapet 
 between us and the river five hundred feet below — not a pleasant 
 road to travel with mettlesome horses on a dark evening. Now 
 we saw Tourmestral jutting out on its pinnacle at the head of 
 the gorge; and it's hard to tell where the natural rock ends and 
 where the fortress begins.
 
 222 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 And there was the Chemin du Paradis drawn in wavy lines 
 on the face of the cliff, losing itself in the shadow of an elephan- 
 tine rock which overhangs the Mestral Pool. 
 
 The sun gleamed out fitfully all the time, and an icy wind 
 from the Katkas made me shiver ; but I like these keen blasts, 
 which numb the gnawing heart-pain for a space. The carriage 
 passed under a broken arch and into a tiny square, where there 
 is an old stone fountain with a bench, and round it some sickly 
 palms. A high white wall closes one side of the square, and in 
 it is set a carved door painted green. From the other two sides 
 narrow streets dip unevenly down, like the streets of the old 
 town at El-Meriem, only that here there is no trace of Arab 
 occupation. I remember having heard that the De Cayrols had 
 re-colonised the village, which is now inhabited by some ten or 
 fifteen families, not counting a few monks. 
 
 As I walked round the square I got glimpses of crumbling 
 steps, battered doors, and cavernous interiors from which, at 
 sight of the carriage, there rushed out small packs of queerly- 
 dressed children, then a couple of sturdy peasant-women in blue 
 blouses and short skirts, and then a grand-dame with a crimped 
 cap and a distaff. 
 
 " Madame wished to see the Chateau ? " suggested the driver, 
 who was unharnessing his horses by the fountain and tying on 
 their nose-bags. Then one of the peasant women, pulling an 
 iron bell-rope, flung open the green door in the wall, and I was 
 in the outer court of the old palace. 
 
 Have I ever seen Tourmestral in a dream ? It has an oddly 
 familiar look. In truth, I seem to myself to have lounged before 
 now in these Moorish courts, with their slender spiral pillars and 
 pointed arches painted in green and gold. I seem to know the 
 sculptured fountain and the orange-tree hanging over it ; and the 
 funny little French custodian, with his crumpled, winter-apple 
 face and apologetic smile, is like a dream-man too. But perhaps 
 that dream is only caused by the strange medley in the place 
 of orientalism and medievalism ; for the contents of a Breton 
 chateau which, starting from the feudal ages and ending with the 
 Second Empire, has grown its furnishings with the centuries, 
 have been emptied into a Saracenic palace, and the effect is 
 queerly bewildering. 
 
 The only part that isn't a jumble of incongruities is the harem 
 court and the rooms opening off it, which, with their dark narrow 
 recesses and raised platforms, where the eunuchs used to sleep, 
 are quite unadaptable to European domestic requirements. And 
 the harem garden ! Was ever such an opium-dream hermitage —
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 223 
 
 if only one might never awaken from that voluptuous slumber ! 
 High stone walls enclose it, draped with roses, wistarias, bougain- 
 villea, and all manner of heavy-scented and gorgeous blossoms. 
 A fountain trickles wooingly, and round it a carpet of shadow 
 and sheen is stretched beneath old gnarled orange-trees, which 
 spread their cool green canopy hung with golden fruit. . . . One 
 ought to hear the bulbul here. ... I have a vision of gazelle-eyed 
 Arab women in tinselled trousers and gauzy haiks reclining on 
 silken cushions, nibbling sweetmeats, and sipping sherbet out of 
 jewelled cups. . . . 
 
 No, I shouldn't care, after all, to dream in that garden ; it is 
 too enervating, too suggestive of the Moslem's houri-paradise. 
 Poor little honey-fed prisoners ! Did they ever feel, I wonder, as 
 I have sometimes felt at Grisewood, when they peered through 
 their loopholes at the world — the only world they knew — going 
 and coming in the outer court ? There's one loophole in the 
 corner, higher and wider than the rest, with a stone seat beneath 
 it, and a view of the valley and road winding up to Tourmestral. 
 Was this, maybe, the perch of the Dey's favourite wife, who loved 
 her lord perhaps and watched eagerly for his coming ; or who 
 hated him perhaps, and shuddered through every rosy limb in 
 dread at his approach ? 
 
 All the while, as he led me along, the custodian chattered. 
 
 " Ah ! unfortunately, visitors are not many at Tourmestral ; 
 though, since the road was improved, carriages with English and 
 Americans come up sometimes from la-bas. It is the magnificent 
 collection of Damascus tiles which attract the connoisseurs ; there 
 is nothing to be seen of such an antiquity, even in Philotis. . . . 
 And there are interesting possessions of the De Cayrol family — 
 Madame may be assured that the bureau in the late Marquise's 
 boudoir is a genuine Pompadour. It is a pity that the present 
 Marquis, though he once came as far as Philotis, had not the 
 enterprise to visit the Chateau. . . . Madame will find everything 
 in excellent order ; though, it being some months since the summer 
 tenants departed, the garden has been perhaps neglected a little. 
 If Madame should desire to rent the Chateau for a few weeks — it 
 is permitted to place certain apartments at the disposal of persons 
 of consideration — a piano and other comforts might be brought 
 from la-bas. Mademoiselle Marthe would have pleasure in making 
 the me'nage for Madame. Wood, it is true, is a little dearer 
 than in town, but what of that ! For food, a sheep is killed once 
 a week, and there is poultry in abundance ; and is not the 
 Mestral trout famed all round Philotis ! . . ." 
 
 Yes, Madame thinks within herself, it would not be disagree-
 
 224 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 able to pass a spring month here, away from the glare and bustle 
 of the Cosmopolitain. 
 
 At last the dream-person bowed himself into retirement, 
 and I set myself to remembering where I could have seen a 
 face like his. . . . Ah, now I have it ! I used to notice him at 
 the entrance to the cafe in the square at Kassis, where he would 
 stand bowing — in the old French days of the place, when I was 
 a child. 
 
 ... I have eaten my little luncheon of pistolets-fourres and 
 fruit, and have wandered about the garden. Not the harem- 
 garden, but one made in terraces below the castle front — a garden 
 which has lichen-grown balustrades, and a sun-dial, and curious 
 massive excrescences at the terrace corners, like miniature watch- 
 towers, which command the whole spreading panorama of valley, 
 river, and grey scarped heights. 
 
 The wind sweeps from the Katkas, stabbing like a knife ; and 
 to escape it I have come down some flights of grass-grown steps 
 to a little court closed in by a high parapet, with broken pilasters 
 and the ruins of a grape-trellis. . . . But even here the wind has 
 found me out. It swirls round the castle in fierce gusts ; and the 
 sun, which all day has been shining only at intervals, is quite 
 hidden now by the grey scud driving along from Sralta. 
 
 An icy rain lashes my face, and there are white feathers floating 
 round. I start and shiver — less from the cold than from the 
 superstitious shrinking which unexpected snow always causes in 
 me. I don't know why it is, but I am afraid of snow. . . . Now 
 it makes me think of Claudia and of my marriage day. . . . 
 
 As I went up the steps, back to the castle, there appeared 
 upon the second terrace a form blurred by the mist, the sight of 
 which made my pulses slacken. . . . And then my heart beat fast 
 — fast, in a great gush of gladness. 
 
 He did not recognise me at the moment, but moved slowly 
 as though to meet a stranger. But when I stepped forward he 
 knew me, and bared his head, while a wonderful white light of 
 joy shone out from his face through the mist and the falling snow. 
 
 He took my hand and put it within his arm, and saying, 
 " Come in at once," hurried me through the whirling flakes to 
 the entrance of the castle. He led me into a sitting-room — a 
 sort of library, with a big empty fireplace, and bookcases all round 
 it, in which there was nothing Moorish except the tiles lining the 
 window recesses. He held my two hands, and looked at me long 
 and earnestly.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 225 
 
 " I am glad to see you ! " he exclaimed. " Oh, I am glad to 
 see you ! " 
 
 The custodian, who had followed us, stood in the doorway 
 bowing and apologetically protesting. Robert went to speak to 
 him, and then I noticed the tiles, which are beautiful ; and some- 
 how, blending with the pattern of them, came the thought that of 
 course the custodian must suppose we had arranged this meeting. 
 What did that matter ? What did anything matter now ? 
 
 Robert came back to me, and the custodian advanced, still 
 smilingly protesting. 
 
 Monsieur and Madame might command him. Monsieur 
 already knew the resources of the Chateau, for it was not so long 
 since he had spent a night at Tourmestral. Fires should be 
 lighted immediately in the bedrooms, and there would be dinner 
 at Monsieur's orders. Happily they had killed the sheep yesterday. 
 
 "He has been telling me that he is afraid you are weather- 
 bound," Robert said. " It may stop snowing, but he doesn't think 
 so ; and any way, it would be dangerous for you to attempt getting 
 back to El-Meriem in the dusk. Don't worry over it, dear; 
 everything is all right." 
 
 Then he turned again to the ex-innkeeper, who was looking 
 so exactly as my child-memory had him in his doorway at Kassis. 
 I wonder how he came to be the De Cayrols' bailiff. 
 
 " Yes, please, a fire here at once ; and some hot coffee, if 
 Mademoiselle Marthe would be so good- — I know these people," 
 he said, as the custodian bustled off, " and can answer for 
 Mademoiselle Marthe's coffee. . . . Are you cold, Esther ? Has 
 the snow wetted you ? What should I do if you got your 
 cough back again ? Dearest, were you mad, to come up here on 
 such a day ? " 
 
 He talked on mere commonplaces, with the intention, I knew, 
 of putting me at ease. 
 
 " I explained to the man that I am a relation of your hus- 
 band's," he said. " It is the simple ironic truth, you know ; and if 
 you are going to be benighted, they'll look after you all they can. 
 I brought him a letter from De Cayrol — whom, oddly enough, I met 
 in Paris the other day — instructing him to give me the run of the 
 library. I understand there are some interesting Arab manu- 
 scripts, which I want to overhaul. Do you know that my Views 
 series has caught on tremendously. I'm going to do an historical 
 article upon Tourmestral, and have tramped up, with my camera 
 and a quire of foolscap, for the purpose." 
 
 He took off my cloak, brushing away the snowflakes, and 
 tucked me up in a fur rug, while the olive-logs sputtered to a 
 
 p
 
 226 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 blaze. Then, when the coffee came, he poured me out a cup 
 and made me drink it steaming ; and all the time as he chatted 
 he fussed about the room, pulling forward chairs and tables, 
 and giving it an inhabited look, with a feminine knowingness 
 that set me laughing in spite of the strangeness and after-taste 
 of pain. But it is always like this with us when we are 
 together in a natural way for ten minutes. No matter how 
 strained the situation, it becomes homely and delightful, and 
 we are at peace in our souls. . . . Till the ghost hand clutches 
 us anew. 
 
 " I know now," he said, " why I had such an overwhelming 
 impulse to make tracks across the hills for Tourmestral. Sym- 
 pathetic brain-cells and nerve-currents at work again ! " 
 
 " I thought you had gone to England." 
 
 " Yes, but I have come back. My wife is ill." 
 
 The dark look came into his face, and I felt the ghost hand 
 moving nearer. 
 
 " It's a sort of nervous illness — her mind has been upset 
 again. ... I can't do much ; and she doesn't seem to care about 
 having me by. ... I find a relief in walking the country. As 
 soon as she is well enough to travel I shall take her away. . . . 
 But don't let us talk of troubles. Since Fate has given us this 
 hour unlooked for and unasked, let us at least be happy in it." 
 
 The cloud passed. This was not the racked, remorseful 
 Robert of the Cathedral, but Robert dear and tender of the 
 golden London days. There stole over me a gentle warmth 
 and a sense of extreme well-being. The fire blazed up, and 
 threw pleasant gleams upon the old furniture and brass mount- 
 ings of the bureaus and bookcases. He had settled me in a big 
 chair at the corner of the hearth, and placed himself on a lower 
 seat by my knee. Outside, the tempest blustered, and thick 
 flakes of snow blotted everything — a winding-sheet maybe for 
 a dead conscience ! . . . But here within, all was rosy glow and 
 great peace. 
 
 He leaned his head against me, and I heard him murmur; 
 and stooping, asked him what he said. 
 
 "Dear, it is good to rest for a little while." And I felt 
 the quiver of a man's deep-drawn sob. . . . " O Esther," he 
 whispered, " if you could know the temptation that comes over 
 me to give up everything — everything for you and happiness. 
 But — it is my curse that I have a conscience." 
 
 Ah, the dead conscience ! Not dead, but only drugged ! 
 
 I laid my cheek against his, and my bosom yearned to him 
 With a yearning, in which blended at once the tenderness of
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 227 
 
 mother and of wife. The deep wells of love in me brimmed 
 and overflowed, drowning everything in the passionate longing 
 to comfort him, because of his long struggle and his force out- 
 worn : the longing to be one with him in his defeat, which was 
 in truth — angels defend me, if the thought be unholy ! — in 
 very truth it seemed, the triumph of my womanhood. . . . That 
 womanhood pleaded for him and for itself. I yearned to be 
 his in the abyss as upon the height ; his in the evil rather even 
 than the good ; his — in the man's weakness rather than in the 
 poet's strength. 
 
 Dawn after the irrevocable : and darkness, the angel-haunted 
 abyss, dividing two worlds. . . . 
 
 It is a new sea which I behold from my turret window, 
 stretching out palely luminous ; and a new earth revelling in 
 splendid life ; and a new heaven, in which the sun as a bride- 
 groom from his chamber comes forth rejoicing. 
 
 " Awake, Esther ! " triumphant Nature seems to cry. " Awake 
 and be glad. Uream no more nightmares of doubt and parting. 
 Awake to imperial reality. For the throne is ready, and the 
 crown wherewith your king shall crown you ! " 
 
 And there, within the great rayed Arch it lies — far from 
 life's sombre fret ; beyond dominion of the people's gods — that 
 conquered realm, where love is law.
 
 BOOK IX 
 
 " ' What have I done ? ' he cried. ' / too have 
 sinned as Adam sinned — and Paradise is lost. He 
 opened his eyes : a star that shone Hie his lost 
 Paradise ivas yet before him in the heavens. It 
 •was the morning star.'
 
 WRITTEN Gone the wild enchantment. Closed the gates 
 BY of Paradise. Back to the City and the Conven- 
 
 ESTHER tions. 
 VASSAL: ..... 
 
 There was a telegram awaiting me at Philotis. 
 To-morrow Mr. Vassal will be here. 
 
 We dined together at the table-d'hote — my master and I. He 
 would have it so. It is the first time I have dined downstairs. 
 Every one stared at us, as we sat at our little table apart. Did 
 they notice the mocking sneer which was masked by his elabo- 
 rate courtesy? 
 
 He is in his demoniac mood of Mandour, and there's some- 
 thing in his manner which frightens me. 
 
 Last night I awoke shuddering from a dream of a great cold 
 boa-constrictor strangling me in its coils. The electric light was 
 turned on ; my master stood there at the foot of the bed watch- 
 ing me, his dark eyes gleaming out from between their puffy lids 
 with an expression in them which made me cry out in terror. 
 He came a little nearer. I had the feeling of the snake 
 about to spring, and there was such fierce hatred in his eyes 
 that I thought he must be going to kill me. But he laughed 
 and said — 
 
 " Don't be frightened. I was only looking at you, and think- 
 ing what a very beautiful woman you are." And he turned away 
 and went out of the room. 
 
 I got up and tried to get to the door and bolt it ; and then 
 the staring electric light seemed to grow bigger and to be coming 
 down upon me, enveloping me in a cloud of dancing stars. I 
 remember nothing more, till I awoke shivering and found myself 
 upon the floor, with the light still burning. To-night I have 
 locked and bolted all the doors. 
 
 We have been to the great ball which the Governor givi i 
 
 to the Sheiks. My master commanded me to accompany 
 
 him, and to look my best. He asked Tremlett what dresses I 
 
 had here, and ordered me to put on the white brocade and 
 
 231
 
 232 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 the diamonds; and he himself chose my bouquet, which was 
 white too. The Grand-duke complimented him upon my bridal 
 appearance. 
 
 Hate sat between us in the carriage as we drove home ; and 
 again I had the gruesome fancy that presently a dagger would 
 flash out and stab me, or that strong iron arms would gird me, 
 and smooth cold hands grip my throat, and that I should be 
 crushed and strangled, as by the snake of my dream. But there 
 was nothing except the quivering suspense of silent terror, and of 
 an aversion that seemed supernatural in its intensity. 
 
 When we had mounted to our salon, he just held open the 
 door of my bedroom for me with a formal good-night, and asked 
 if I would not like some iced soda-water. 
 
 • • • * • ■ • 
 
 Mr. Vassal has left Philotis. 
 
 ****** 
 
 It has come a knife-thrust after a kiss. I was not prepared. 
 
 I had not seen Robert for several days. He looked changed, 
 aged, tempest-ravaged : the tortured ghost of the lover of 
 Tourmestral. 
 
 I seem to hear my own pitiful questioning. . . . What had I 
 done ? . . . Was he angry with me ? . . . Four days ago we had 
 been utterly happy ! 
 
 " Utterly happy ! " Oh, the discord of his laugh ! " Happy 
 with conscience drugged and the sword dangling ! . . . But we 
 were happy ! My God ! we were happy ! " 
 
 He spoke in hard jerks, standing opposite me with his arm on 
 the mantelshelf, and his gaunt face, which had my doom written 
 in its rigid lines and staring out of its hunted eyes, pushed 
 forward, as if to give emphasis to the sentence he was about to 
 deliver. He would not touch my hand, nor offer me the slightest 
 caress. 
 
 Thinking it over since, I know that he forced himself to be 
 cruel, because he was afraid to be kind. One moment of waver- 
 ing and the floodgates would have burst. Passion would have 
 swept all before it, and he would have stood irretrievably com- 
 mitted to the sacrifice of what was even dearer to him than his 
 love — the heritage of good repute he should bequeath to his son, 
 and the life-owed fealty to a woman who had rescued him from 
 worse than death — a woman whose influence over him had
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 233 
 
 always been immensely dominating — a woman whose absolute 
 devotion and dependence upon his affection must appeal to every 
 chord of loyalty in his nature. 
 
 Yet though I know this — knew it in the very rack and wrench 
 of the throe — I have asked myself whether that terrible law of 
 reaction after desire fulfilled, and which so often poisons the 
 relation of man and woman, may not now have been faintly in 
 operation. 
 
 . . . "Fate does not give happiness like that gratis, Esther. 
 The bill has been sent in and has got to be paid. . . . I've some- 
 , thing to tell you " 
 
 Blur. . , . And^the sentences stand out. 
 
 ..." My wife is aware of what my feelings are towards you. 
 . . . And * (very slowly, like ice-drops falling) " her demand is that 
 we never meet again." 
 
 Never — meet . . . again ! At first I hardly grasped his meaning. 
 He repeated the stroke — made me know that the end has come, 
 that the legitimate has conquered, as it must conquer in the 
 long run. 
 
 . . . "She saw us in the church at El-Meriem. . . . She has 
 divined — or discovered — Heaven knows how — not the whole truth, 
 but enough of the truth. . . . Enough to have caused her illness — 
 the mental derangement. . . . Her mind is clear again now. . . . 
 Yesterday there was a scene — an agony. ... I am confronted 
 with the alternative of leaving her, who was my saviour in need 
 — to die, perhaps, in a madhouse — and of forsaking you. ..." 
 
 "You have chosen?" 
 
 "Yes, I have chosen." 
 
 No need to ask the decision. She stood there, claiming her 
 own — the yellow woman, the mad woman ! — in her strange beauty, 
 with the glittering eyes that in spite of me drew him where she 
 would. The wife, who had law and righteousness to defend her, — 
 and ranged in her support, the compelling association of years of 
 wedded life ; of good and ill fortune borne together ; of joys and 
 sorrows shared, and of all the dear everyday cares and tendances. 
 . . . And beyond all, and in forefront of the host, that champion 
 to whom nature had given right and sword — the son who was 
 hers and his. In face of human bond and fact, my mystic 
 sophistries shrivelled like dead leaves before a wind-driven 
 flame. 
 
 Deep in my soul the fire kindled, but then to no avail ; for the 
 flame of truth was quenched by a wave of jealousy, that surged 
 over me, flooding my heart with gall, and I could think only of 
 myself, outraged in my most sacred faith, forsaken, betrayed.
 
 234 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 I am. a wicked woman, stricken low in punishment, and left 
 desolate. 
 
 It is these sentences of his, rising out of the blur, which give me 
 back in their hideous selfishness the bitter words I said to him. 
 
 ..." Esther, don't be cruel . . . don't say such killing things. 
 ... If you could know the torture I suffer ! . . . How can I desert 
 my post? How can I join my life to yours, when there's an 
 impassable wall between us ? " 
 
 The cry pierced me, awaking the old tenderness. I would 
 have thrown my arms about his neck in loving penitence and 
 begged for pardon ; and then, as always, had our hands and lips 
 met, there would have been peace and healing. But if that had 
 been, he would not have been able to leave me. And he knew 
 it, for he drew back with a gesture of repulse. 
 
 " No — I cannot." 
 
 My breast stiffened to stone. 
 
 ..." Yes, there's a wall between," he said. . . . " It has 
 always been there, though w r e have tried to blind ourselves to 
 the fact. You think we have been happy ! But we have only 
 caught as at the skirts of a garment, and the living reality has 
 passed us by for ever. You think we have known the higher 
 joy, but that was impossible, when we chose the lower place." 
 
 " I . . . chose . . . the lower place ! . . . Do you realise the sting 
 of that ? " 
 
 He gave a little shiver. " No, I was thinking only of the 
 truth of it. . . . Esther, have it that I am abjectly base. . . . Where's 
 the use of fine pleading ? You can't forgive me ! " 
 
 My pride rose in fiendish revolt. I challenged him to speak 
 the whole truth. I said that which it shames me to remember — 
 I will be honest in my degradation. He stood there perfectly 
 grim, misery in his eyes, but with his lips set and hard, as though 
 they were carved out of rock. . . . Oh, the irony of that silent 
 condemnation ! ... So my Paradise had been but the ante-room 
 to his hell ; and my love, which I had fancied the ideal to him 
 of all spiritual good, was no more than temptation incarnate, 
 loathed now in the hour of revulsion. What had been my 
 triumph was dishonour to his sight. In his heart of hearts he 
 held me no higher than the companion of his worst self. 
 
 And he denied nothing. 
 
 " It will be easier for you if you hate me," he said. " I admit 
 that I have been weak — abominable. It is my punishment that 
 I make you suffer. But bad as that is, wretch as I am to you, I 
 am not destroying you so wholly as I should be destroying 
 another."
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 235 
 
 "Then — it is that other whom you love with your truest 
 affection ? " 
 
 " She is my wife, and the mother of my son." 
 
 "You have always loved her?" 
 
 "Yes" . . . He seemed dazed; the words dragged out of 
 him. 
 
 " You never loved me in the way that I thought ? " 
 
 " No. . . . Perhaps not in the way that you thought." 
 
 "And I was never . . . the nearest . . . the dearest?" 
 
 " No. . . . You were not the nearest." 
 
 "AndTourmestral?" 
 
 He gav£ me one wild look and stiffened to iron again. 
 
 " I will know. . . . Give me my cup of humiliation in full 
 measure ; let me drink it to the dregs." 
 
 Oh yes, that is the way with us people. The cup must be 
 drained — and more than that, worse than that, the dregs must 
 be analysed. 
 
 "You know," ... he stammered, ..." there are things a man 
 cant say." 
 
 " Not even to a woman who has lowered herself beneath his 
 respect ? " 
 
 The mad bitterness overswept me. 
 
 " Don't," he said hoarsely. ..." I have told you ... I cannot 
 bear it. ..." 
 
 He turned abruptly from me, and went towards the door ; he 
 seemed to stagger. There was a screen before it, which hid him 
 from me. I did not hear the door open. When I followed him, 
 I saw that he was hunched up against the panels. I put my hand 
 on his arm, but he straightened himself, as if shaking me off. 
 
 " Are you going away — never to see me again ? " 
 
 "Yes — I'm going away." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "To India . . . California. . . . What does it matter? But out 
 of this place — to-morrow." 
 
 " Come and speak to me." 
 
 He came back, and we faced each other, he leaning forward, 
 his hands clutching an arm-chair ; and I remembered, as one 
 does remember such things at moments of crisis, that this was 
 the same chair over which he had leaned that day a year ago, 
 when he had bidden me good-bye in this place, and had pledged 
 me in everlasting friendship. ... And with the recollection, it 
 became relentlessly clear that his true self had indeed never 
 willingly consented even to the friendship bargain. For I thought 
 of his early avoidance of me, and of his variable moods later, and
 
 236 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 knew that there had been conflict as far back as that innocent 
 beginning. 
 
 And now ! 
 
 I half kneeled against the chair and gazed up to him in de- 
 spairing and futile appeal. He would not look at me. His eyes 
 were fixed brightly, staring into vacancy ; his face was drawn and 
 grey, and though we were close enough to have clasped each other, 
 the iron wall divided us. For a long time he did not speak. Then, 
 still staring at blankness, he said slowly — 
 
 "There never — never was such a love." 
 
 " It is murdered." 
 
 " You think so. . . . Very well ; that is perhaps best." 
 
 "You leave me nothing — nothing?" 
 
 "No," ... he smiled strangely, " I leave you nothing ! . . . 
 You don't understand now," he went on, in an odd far-away tone, 
 "but you'll understand one day; and you'll know that it's only 
 the body which has been murdered, and that the spirit of it can 
 never die. ... It was never what you thought it. You had a 
 transcendental-material idea, which isn't in accordance with man's 
 nature and with life as it is. . . . And I have been wicked, and 
 untrue — in one sense — to myself and to you, and have committed 
 a wrong that no tortures of regret can expiate. . . . But there are 
 two things you must never say or think. One is, that I don't 
 love you ; the other, that I have ceased to respect you. . . . 
 Good-bye." 
 
 He laid his hand on mine, which, as I kneeled, rested on the 
 chair a little way from his. An impulse made me put my head 
 down and draw his hand to my cheek, and my lips across it, as I 
 used to do. If there had been tears left upon his hand, they 
 might have softened him ; but I could not cry — then. 
 
 And the old magnetic thrill of contact had virtue yet Never 
 for one single instant have I lost the ghost-impression of that 
 touch. I knew that he bent down over me ; and it seemed as 
 though billows of passionate feeling were clashing and dashing 
 round us. I knew, too, that one moment of yielding, and our 
 lips would have clung together, and we should have entered the 
 haven of reconciliation. But he would not yield. He took away 
 his hand, and stood a few paces from the chair. 
 
 "Good-bye," he said. "I don't want you to think that I 
 shall be utterly unhappy." 
 
 I laughed out. If only he had not carried with him, as his 
 last memory of me, the echo of that laugh ! 
 
 " Oh no — that is not what I shall think." 
 
 " Because," he said, with a deep break in his voice, " whatever
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 237 
 
 you may think or feel, my love for you was a beautiful thing, and 
 the good of it will remain, and you will know it." 
 
 He came back for one second, and touched my head, and 
 was gone. 
 
 • • • . ■ ■ • 
 
 And I, Esther of the end of all, look back upon that passion- 
 poisoned Esther of the years that are gone, and from the tear- 
 stained pages of this little black book, beyond, to the Other Side. 
 The past is past : the sin is sinned, and the cleansing is done ! 
 
 For passion is the scourge with which God chastises His 
 children. Only when soul and sense mingle may it serve its 
 true uses -as Heaven's scourge-stick. To the earth falls that 
 which is earthy ; to the Spirit mounts the spiritual. 
 
 Wherefore should I weep for my blindness, now that the end 
 is here, and that God is justified of His instruments? Why 
 should I grieve now because I was not great ? Since now I know, 
 what then and later I only fitfully guessed, that if my love had 
 been the true, grand thing we dreamed of at the beginning, it 
 would have lifted me out of my contemptible egoism. I would 
 have said to him, even so late, repeating his own words, " Dear, 
 we will keep this thing apart and holy." And gently and lovingly 
 I would have bidden him go and pay his debt. Bravely together 
 we would have buried deep the body of our love, clasping hands 
 once in sad, solemn farewell over its grave. Then we would have 
 gone our ways, never to meet again, maybe, in the flesh, but to 
 be one eternally in the spirit.
 
 BOOK X 
 
 • ' Nozu I go ivhithcr thou hast sentenced me, 
 •whither 'tis said the road is common, •where oblivion 
 is the remedy for those that love. But could I drink 
 it all, not even thus could I slake my passionate 
 longing. "
 
 WRITTEN 
 
 BY 
 ESTHER 
 VASSAL: 
 
 Suicide is no 
 
 "Martyrdom expiates everything, 
 expiation." 
 
 I read this in a book yesterday ; but I can't take 
 in its sense ; it seems all wrong somehow. . . . 
 Things look so strange up here at Tourmestral 
 — things within and outside one — all blurred and distorted. . . . 
 And everything is like a painted picture — nothing real anywhere. 
 The valley, and the river, and the cold grey hills ! What are they 
 but a drop scene ? . . . And the people too — that funny bowing 
 innkeeper, and the peasants and the monks — they are only people 
 walking about in front of a drop scene. . . . 
 • For the Garden of Paradise went down — down, when the 
 Prince clasped the Fairy in his arms. And the keen north wind 
 blows over it, and there's nothing left but the reflection in the 
 clouds ; and that's what I'm looking at. . . . Nobody wants to 
 climb up the road to Paradise — now. 
 
 It's all wrong. ..." Martyrdom expiates everything ! " . . . But 
 you see, even being burned alive doesn't last through years and 
 years and years — and go on after you are dead, and blacken 
 with shame a poor helpless innocent, that never wanted to be 
 brought into this cruel world — that has got no right to be in 
 the world. . . . 
 
 "Suicide is no expiation!" That isn't true. No . . . not 
 when there's no other possible way out of the tangle. . . . 
 
 Shall you say it's cowardly — "not great, dear; not like you" 
 Oh, darling ... I can't go on any more trying to be great. I'm 
 nothing but a weak, wicked, self-deceived woman ... all nonsensical 
 play-acting talk — till it came to doing a big thing ; and then I 
 wasn't big enough for it. ... I couldn't touch the part — as they 
 used to say in Bohemia. 
 
 It seems odd — those words of my mother's. ..." Esther, all 
 your trouble in life will come from not loving enough." . . . And 
 see ! It has come from loving too much. . . . And yet Mother 
 was right. I have been hard and self-bound, blinded by my 
 morbid egotism. I have wandered in the dark seeking a clue to 
 
 241 Q
 
 242 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 the spiritual life, and only for a very little while finding it in my 
 love for you. . . . Now I have lost the clue, and all is dark again 
 — suffocatingly dark. 
 
 If I could but write to you — if I knew — if I dared. If I 
 might but ask you to forgive me for the sake of the beautiful 
 beginning, and of the good that will remain — you said it would 
 remain. 
 
 The pain ! the pain ! . . . Billows of it . . . oceans of it, drown- 
 ing my soul. Drowning . . . they say it is an easy death to 
 drown. . . . 
 
 I can't get away from the pain. I walk — down the Chemin 
 du Paradis ■ — up again. . . . Down to the black pool of the 
 Mestral, which has no bottom. Nothing that went down there 
 would ever come up again ; it would keep a secret well. 
 
 There's no other w>y. I've gone over it all — reasoned it 
 out, till I'm giddy. . . . Sometimes I've thought of taking ship to 
 Borneo, Patagonia, Yucatan — what does it matter where, so that 
 it be far enough — of burying myself in the forest Mr. Littlewood 
 used to describe to us. . . . But Mr. Littlewood would be sure to 
 find me ; he'd want to come scraping again at his buried cities ; 
 and he'd tell Addie, and Addie would tell Mr. Vassal. . . . And be- 
 sides, even if I escaped from everything else, how could I escape 
 from myself, and from that which should come after ? . . . How 
 could I escape from the ghost ? — you ghost that I try and talk 
 to, and make understand. . . . And I cannot; and you will not 
 hear. . . . Shall you hear me and understand when I come to 
 you without my poor body, which will never worry you nor make 
 you angry any more ? 
 
 There's a carriage winding up the zigzag, a long way off — 
 winding up the hills from the Mestral valley. . . . 
 
 Only a little black spot, but creeping steadily, slowly, surely 
 every minute nearer. In less than an hour it will be here. 
 
 The yacht lies off Philotis ; my master has come for me. 
 
 I wanted to write you such a long letter. I've tried and tried, 
 and torn up so many sheets, and now it is of no use. I had 
 thought that I would send the letter to Dr. Glaive to give into 
 your own hands. . . . Oh, do you know now? You had never 
 thought of that. 
 
 And you see, don't you ? There's no other way. 
 
 Of course, I know where I am. It's my cabin in the yacht ; 
 I remember everything. . . . That was only a ghastly dream, the
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 243 
 
 notion I had of being penned in a slave-ship — down below water- 
 mark ; and the sounds I fancied clanking chains and groans of 
 prisoners, were only the heaving of the anchor and creaking of the 
 timbers and wind in the rigging when there came on a storm. 
 
 Oh, such dreadful dreams ! Why did you send that horrible 
 negro, with the weals on his face — you know — to hinder me from 
 calling out to you ? Laying his great fat black hand on me — 
 pinky-red it was, inside — Faugh! Laying it on my lips — my 
 sacred lips. . . . You shouldn't have done it. You might have 
 trusted me. 
 
 Of course it was you who sent him. Who else could have 
 known where to find him — just at the corner of the stair street 
 and close to the Bab-el-Ouestani — outside the Arab coffee-house, 
 where we sat that day ? Why, of course you know. 
 
 Did you wa?it to drive me mad ? And if I go mad or die, 
 how will you ever understand ? . . . 
 
 But I'm not mad now. This is my own cabin. Yes — didn't 
 I choose that stuff for the hangings ? . . . And I had that picture 
 painted for the panel at the foot of my berth — I told you how I 
 thought it would help me to sleep, and keep the bad things 
 away. . . . You know the original quite well — in Venice — but we 
 never could agree about Carpaccio. . . . And do you remember 
 telling me that I was like St. Ursula when I was asleep ?■ — as young 
 and sweet and good and happy — that was what you said. But I 
 wasn't dreaming of my martyrdom . . . then. 
 
 " Martyrdom expiates everything. Suicide expiates nothing ! " 
 . . . But why don't they open the porthole ? 
 
 I am half dreaming. . . . This is a prison, you see. They've 
 tried me, and found me guilty, and condemned me ; and I'm to be 
 executed . . . but not till afterwards. . . . That's the law. . . . 
 
 Oh, why won't you open the porthole? Can't you remember 
 I never could live without air ? 
 
 My master won't trust Tremlett now; he's watching me in- 
 stead. . . . That's because there must be a jailor always in the 
 condemned cell — night and day. . . . You see, of course, if there 
 wasn't, and they would open the porthole, I should be free — quite 
 free. Free to go to you and tell you. . . . 
 
 Hut, if you won't talk, what is the use of your sitting there 
 beside him staring at me like that? Let Tremlett come, if th 
 must be two. . . . Not you. . . . Don't you understand that you 
 really will drive me mad ? . . . Sitting there so close, and staring — 
 staring. . . . Are you afraid that J shall scream it all out; and are 
 you trying to stop me with your eyes? Because you're only a 
 ghost, and you can't say anything. And besides, we never wanted
 
 244. THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 words to make each other know things. . . . Oh, you ghost, go 
 away and don't torment me. Can't you trust me enough for that ? 
 If Tremlett hadn't watched me, you'd have had no need to be afraid. 
 ... I never told you that she watched all the time. She watched 
 me going down the Chemin du Paradis, and showed me to my 
 master, so that he knew where to find me. How should I know 
 that there was another road — much shorter — at the top of the 
 gorge ? . . . You never told me about it. . . . You said there was 
 only one road to the Garden of Paradise, and that nobody ever 
 climbed that path alone. . . . But I had to come down alone ! 
 
 I know that the gates of heaven were shut fast that day, and 
 the ramparts manned. . . . Great walls of livid cloud behind the 
 ashen crags ! We think they're clouds, but they are the fortifica- 
 tions of heaven, and they only become clearly visible when some 
 wicked presumptuous soul goes too near and tries to enter before 
 God calls it. Then the angelic warders shoot out their lightnings, 
 and the poor soul is shrivelled and blasted for ever and ever. We 
 think that's nothing more than a thunderstorm ; and some of us 
 pretend that we're not frightened. But you'll understand better 
 now that I tell you. . . . For when one has gone down the Road 
 from Paradise all alone, you come to know things you never 
 knew before. 
 
 But I didn't get the truth properly into my mind then. I was 
 thinking of such foolish, trivial matters. Fairy stories ! Fancy 
 that ! It was looking down into the whirlpool — such a small, 
 sluggish eddy ; not a dramatic whirlpool, which ought to roar and 
 rush and swallow you up quick and give you no time to think 
 nonsense — it was that which put Hans Andersen's Seamaid into 
 my head. . . . You are so fond of Hans Andersen. . . . Do you 
 remember how she swam through the whirlpool to the Witch's 
 home, and let the Witch cut out her tongue, and gave up her 
 beautiful voice, and chose pain sharp as a two-edged sword — 
 just for the sake of winning the Prince's love and gaining an 
 immortal soul ? . . . And it was all wasted ! For the Prince 
 married another woman, and she didn't gain an immortal soul ! 
 Wasn't that foolishness to be thinking, while I watched the 
 scum upon the pool go round and round — the dirty yellow 
 scum, all mixed up with dead leaves and broken bits of stick ? 
 I threw in a little twig — and then another and another. . . . 
 They swirled round so slowly — round and round, getting swal- 
 lowed up at last. . . . And I thought of how my hair would 
 look, spreading out in long twirling things like snakes, with the 
 horrible scum getting into it. . . . And I thought how badly the 
 stale spume would smell and the rotting leaves. . . . And I never
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 245 
 
 could bear bad smells. . . . Then I got down quite close, and 
 looked into the water, where the eddies circled in ; and there was 
 your face — not quite clear, but the eyes shining. ... I wanted to 
 wait one little minute, till the face got clear and the eyes looked 
 into mine. . . . For I knew that when once we should look straight 
 and true into each other's eyes, you would understand. . . . Now 
 I'm telling you exactly how it was, so that you may know it wasn't 
 my fault, and that I did mean to be great. . . . 
 
 Then that was my master speaking. ..." Esther, you shouldn't 
 stand so near the edge ; you might fall in, and you'd find the 
 water very cold." . . . And as I heard his voice, it seemed to me 
 as though a great white bird fluttered its wings close over my 
 body and drew me up into itself, so that I could feel its warm 
 life thrilling through me and turning me giddy. . . . And I thought 
 this was the White Swan of Death. . . . And then everything 
 became dark. . . . 
 
 It was only that I fainted : and I have fainted many times 
 before — but never quite like that.
 
 BOOK XI 
 
 " This is a great mystery, but ive are animals 
 in time and space ; and by time and space and our 
 
 animal nature are ive educated. '
 
 WRIT TEN Ghost ! ghost ! why do you sit there always with 
 
 BY those blank eyes and immovable lips? Are you 
 
 ESTHER stone-blind and deaf, or is it that you will not hear ? 
 VASSAL- Do you know that I am pleading to you day and 
 night for comfort and counsel in my dire extremity ? 
 Or is it only in the Enchanted Land that spirits may commune in 
 bodiless freedom ? Have you no word for me here, in this evil 
 house, with the curse of hate upon it ? 
 
 I am not wrong in my head, though they act as though I were. 
 I know all that goes on around me — why they have brought me 
 back to Grisewood, and who are the people that come to see me, 
 but are never allowed to be with me alone. I know the meaning 
 of the rector's smile, which used to make me think of a sympa- 
 thetic cod-fish ; and what is in Mrs. Wargrave's mind, though she 
 can't say it out before my master, when she nods her head so im- 
 pressively that the parting shows all along it, and purrs gentle 
 platitudes about " woman's noblest mission." . . . And I under- 
 stand why Mione has put aside her little worldlinesses for the 
 moment, as she yawns over her crewel-work — such a grotesque in- 
 consequence is Mione, in her frilled petticoats, and silk fripperies, 
 and Paris hats — and I know why she had that pitying shocked 
 look in her eyes when she kissed me good-bye. 
 
 "You are in trouble, Esther," she said. "I am certain of it. 
 And I'm not hankering after confidences, for I'm not sure that I 
 like them. But I want you to remember that though I am sup- 
 posed to be a flint, fit for nothing but throwing off conversational 
 sparks, I can do a good turn for a friend, and hold my tongue for 
 ever afterwards. Mind that — if the time ever comes." 
 
 Yes, Mione. You can't help me now ; but 1 will remember if 
 the time should ever come. 
 
 Oh, of course I understand it all. My reasoning faculties work 
 
 well enough as far as outside things go. Vet there's a mist upon 
 
 my brain sometimes, like the dark cloud that used to settle over 
 
 Sralta before snow fell ; and it darkens my inner eyes, and has 
 
 blotted out my landmarks, so that I go astray, as I wander alone 
 
 in the wilderness — our wilderness ! 
 
 249
 
 250 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 How else could I doubt you, dear? How else could I fancy, 
 as in those black hours I do, that your love for me was never true 
 love at all — never the irresistible union of souls that I believed it, 
 but only on your part an attraction of body, an idealised senti- 
 ment, created largely by my need? For I see that what one 
 fancies a need of you, in one you love, goes far to shape that one's 
 relation to you. . . . You were " the Reader ; " and I was " Esther 
 Zamiel " the writer, whom you fancied you might help and mould 
 intellectually. You had a generous wish to throw open the Art- 
 temple to a neophyte, for which I thank you. And maybe my 
 morbid type, tainted with genius — which I know is how doctors 
 like Quintin Glaive would classify such women as I am — appealed 
 to the poet, and to, perhaps, a strain of the decadent in you. . . . 
 But all the time your most real self did not waver from the alle- 
 giance your heart had first sworn, so that, while to me you were 
 the one foreordained mate and spouse, I to you was only the 
 poetic distraction of some idle months — only 
 
 No ; I will not say it — I cannot say it. . . . For it isn't true. . . . 
 Ghost, tell me that it isn't true ! 
 
 Leave me my rosary of happy hours. Let me still cherish my 
 sanctities. Echo back to me my Magnificat. . . . Have I not 
 passed through the gates of the Enchanted Garden, and been 
 taught of the gods ? 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 No, dearest, I am not mad — not mad now ; nor wanting any 
 more to kill myself. Never since that strange dream — was it 
 only a dream of the night ? — when you came to me and held me 
 close — close. And I whispered in your ear. . . . And now you 
 knotv. 
 
 Yes, now you know. 
 
 And you can never alter it. Never, even when we are dead 
 and cold, and no more than bodiless shades, can you forget that 
 once we loved in the dear human way. 
 
 We talked it out, the two souls of us, that night. And you 
 made things clear to me which had been dim before. . . . Yes, I 
 will wait, and bear, and hope, as you have bidden me. The rank- 
 ling doubt has gone ; it melted away in that dream-kiss which 
 awoke me, it seemed so real. You love me ; we are each other's. 
 Who can tell what the distant years may bring forth, though the 
 near years be owed ? 
 
 Owed ! Ah, for us that is the word of the enigma. You have 
 made me understand. You have awakened the sense of justice in 
 me. The long-back Past, the far-off Future — both are ours, our 
 very own, our timeless birthright, of which none may rob us.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 251 
 
 But the Present ! That is not yours, nor mine. While She lives, 
 it is owed to Her. 
 
 She bought it with her love, when she rescued you from blind- 
 ness and despair. 
 
 So we talked the whole thing out in the silent darkness — we 
 two souls. 
 
 No, you need have no fear. Could I requite your love by 
 bringing ruin, perhaps death, into your home, and dishonour and 
 remorse to share your bed and your cup? "Doer must suffer" 
 — where have I read those words ? / am the doer. / was the 
 tempter. It was I who importuned Heaven. . . . Ay, and I exult 
 in the ill-gotten boon, even though it has brought upon me the 
 curse of a granted prayer. 
 
 But, alas ! I am in sore strait, and the waters have risen up 
 over my soul. 
 
 Last night I went to my master. I cannot tell what impulse 
 drove me. I felt that I could endure the suffocating suspense 
 no longer. And so I crept downstairs, with the frenzied idea 
 that I would make one daring appeal for release from the horrible 
 falsity of my position, and for permission to leave Grisewood. I 
 thought that at least I would force him to break the ghastly 
 silence there has been between us, and that then I would implore 
 him to inflict upon me any punishment that he pleased, so that I, 
 and I only, were the sufferer. 
 
 He was sitting alone in the library — for Mr. Arathoon, who 
 has been with him, left the Castle yesterday. I opened the door 
 so softly that I had time to watch him unobserved from the 
 threshold, as he leaned back in his arm-chair, smoking, his eyes 
 fixed broodingly on space. 
 
 What is that element in Mr. Vassal which, whenever I step 
 within the outer wall of his personality, quenches my vital force, 
 and turns me into a bundle of quivering nerves, played upon 
 by some irritating and overpowering influence? Never was the 
 oppression more strong upon me than last night as I waited, 
 while he sat there, silent and solitary, amid the rich furnishings 
 of the place, these seeming all to speak of race, wealth, and 
 possession, so that I was seized by the fancy of him, as an 
 epitome of Vassal traditions and Vassal supremacy, resistless 
 now in the effect it produced. There he sat, each detail of his 
 appearance deliberately perfect — his well-cut evening suit, the 
 uncannily-striped flower in his lapel, even the silk mesh covering 
 his high instep. And the whole square shape of the man — the 
 massive iron-grey head, the Caesar-like face, lined and old, and
 
 252 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 marked with many a fierce impulse and many an angry thought, 
 all giving out that distinctiveness, that something mesmerically 
 coercive, which make Mr. Vassal a complex power with which 
 it is impossible to reckon. Suddenly his glance flashed at 
 me from out of the ivory mask that he rarely takes off in 
 my presence. He removed his cigar, saying not a word, and 
 rose politely, sitting down again after a moment. He let me 
 advance, smiling slightly, as though he were gloating over my 
 abasement. 
 
 The entreaty which had framed itself so eloquently died on 
 my lips. I halted, stammered, crouched on a settee ; our faces 
 fronted as if we had been foes measuring steel. 
 
 For an illuminated minute I got the feeling of having, as it 
 were, lost touch of my own identity, and was dazed by the 
 appalling cloubt as to how much of me, in my deeds and speech, 
 had been real woman, how much an artificial duplicate, a theatric 
 double me, for whom my fancy had, to its thinking, cast an 
 appropriate part in the drama of Circumstance. Do mad people 
 have this curious sensation of being momentarily outside them- 
 selves? They say so. Or is it a foretaste of the death-con- 
 sciousness that is supposed to reveal one's naked self, shorn of 
 psychological trappings ? ... By that supernatural flash of insight 
 I seemed to see myself, through all my relation with Mr. Vassal, 
 a sort of stage-person reciting lime-light heroics, in which I had 
 persuaded my mind to believe ; a creation of my own disordered 
 imagination ; a neurotic growth, to which my dramatic tendencies, 
 my literary outpourings, my sickly selfanalysings had served as 
 might so much hothouse fuel to one of Mr. Vassal's over-stimu- 
 lated exotics. And as in a glass, side by side with the tricked- 
 up puppet, I seemed to behold the flesh-and-blood actuality for 
 which the Creator had intended me — a creature faultful indeed, 
 but of wholesome human sympathies, imbibed at Nature's fount, 
 and thus becoming elementally one with sunbeams and raindrops, 
 earth-mould and great-hearted living things, as should true women, 
 and mothers to be, of men. 
 
 And then, my memory gripping further and faster, so likewise, 
 it seemed to me, had been my earlier relation with the Reader. 
 Exaggerated sensibility and a distempered egoism — what but 
 these had been at the root of Esther Zamiel the writer's exist- 
 ence? Not even in my love — the one overmastering emotion 
 of my life, which had gone farthest towards dragging me out 
 of my unhealthy self-absorption — had I been grandly simple, 
 wholesomely human. . . . Do not my little black cahiers bear 
 witness against me ?
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 253 
 
 I know it. . . . Yet even now, how can I help analysing my 
 intuitions? That is ingrained in us writing-women. 
 
 Yes, it was true. I had looked at my lot with warped vision. 
 I had been given my chance, and had not taken it. Life's reali- 
 ties had faced me for the first time on my marriage morn. Had 
 I then resolutely torn away the swathings of morbid sentiment, 
 and loosed the spontaneous clean-breathing earthling in me, that 
 other fiercer animal might have been won by it to docility, and 
 marriage have become a better thing for us two sinners. 
 
 A universe in a tear ! The moral tragedy of generations upon 
 generations of erring humanity, contracted into an extremest 
 spasm of self-abasement, as one guilt-stricken soul stands for 
 a second Of time face to face with the all-revealing Absolute ! 
 
 Oh ! must one needs go down into the abyss of suffering to 
 find truths of our mortal nature which shall lift us within reach 
 of truths beyond mortality ? 
 
 Is it that a double lock guards the human mystery ; and that 
 to open this door, one must possess, not only the key of love, but 
 also the key of sin ? 
 
 The natural instinct, so long sleeping, awoke and cried out. 
 I flung myself before my master, not caring what should happen, 
 so only that I might be real. Something of those words I have 
 written, and of the remorseful feelings that were stirring me, came 
 brokenly from my lips, as I made my petition. It was the litany 
 I had never before framed even in thought ; the confession of 
 a soul convicted ; the plea for compassion of one wrong-doer, to 
 a fellow-sinner. . . . 
 
 Was he moved by it? ... A sense of unexpected forces set 
 free in the air between us, made me fancy so. I looked at him. 
 He was bending forward, his eyes strained, and the muscles of 
 his hands, which gripped the chair-arms, standing out in knots. 
 Never before had I seen that expression upon his face. All the 
 anguish of Apollyon expelled, was in it. Instinctively I under- 
 stood, that only to strong men who have loved, despaired, and 
 glimpsed heaven hopelessly, can come such a look. 
 
 Yes, truly, must this man, if but for a moment, have soared 
 into touch with the higher passion. ... I know its mark — I, 
 Esther of the Tourmestral 1 >awn ! 
 
 "There has been one woman in the- world whom you have 
 loved with your whole heart, beyond all others," I cried — I was 
 thinking of Robert Vassal's mother — "one woman who has 
 shown you what love may really mean. . . . For her sake, have 
 pity on me."
 
 254 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 His face slowly changed. It was as though the emotion in 
 it were being drawn down deep into his being. When he spoke, 
 his voice had a curious concentrated ring. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "there is one woman in the world whom I 
 have loved with my whole heart, beyond all others. One woman 
 who has shown me what love may truly mean — though not in the 
 way I would have chosen. That woman is — yourself." 
 
 His eyes seemed to accuse, to judge, to condemn : and my 
 conscience faintly cried, " I am guilty." 
 
 He went on. 
 
 " I loved you passionately — and as purely as was possible to a 
 man of my temperament, in whose grim experience women had 
 been either odalisques to be bought, or else cold-blooded world- 
 lings and sexless pietists. In you I thought I had found, as 
 yet undeveloped, those capacities which form the rare and perfect 
 woman — dormant capabilities of feeling, which I believed that the 
 intensity of my affection would rouse into energy, and that so I 
 should gain that late-won happiness I had always in my best 
 moments dreamed of and longed for. I loved you with a devo- 
 tion which, had you not repulsed it loathingly, would have made 
 me your slave till death instead of your hated master." 
 
 " I am guilty ! " my conscience cried yet louder. . . . Where 
 were the sophistic advocates that, in my own mind-communings, 
 had vindicated me so glibly ? Gone. Dumb-stricken. . . . We 
 were alone — eye to eye — we two, who in law and natural fact 
 had been made one, under an honourable obligation by which 
 the very pillars of society are held fast. . . . None might reckon 
 the count between us. A wrong had been done ; an ordinance 
 had been broken ; and that heart-piercing Ray made it relentlessly 
 clear to me that no specious arguments of mystic morality might 
 avail to gloss over the breach. 
 
 On which side does the balance of wrong lie ? Again my con- 
 science answered. Coarsened, smirched, even debased as this 
 man might have been, he ]jad loved me, and, according to his 
 own lights, had meant loyally. . . . He had seen in me his hope of 
 regeneration ; he had married me, taking me from, as he had ex- 
 pressed it, the slums of a theatre, and had put me into a high place, 
 and bestowed upon me worldly advantages such as in my wildest 
 dreams of success I could hardly have looked for. No matter 
 that it was not these advantages which had weighed with me. 
 I had accepted them, and had given nothing in return but re- 
 pellent toleration and grudging obedience. Then, knowing the 
 secret bitterness of his life, had I not added the doubly distilled 
 drop, to poison the years left him ? Could I, had I schemed
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 255 
 
 with the most malignant intent, have plotted to surer purpose? 
 But in counter-plea to my hysterical self-arraignment, memory, 
 shudderingly active, brought me back through long vistas the 
 sense of that rushing train: of my master's face close to mine . . . 
 of the snow blurring everything. . . . 
 
 " I know of what you are thinking," he said, in that same 
 indrawn voice. ..." It is that my love was a base thing at which 
 you did well to recoil. . . . Do you not now understand human 
 nature sufficiently to know that all love of man, as man, for 
 woman, is two-thirds mere material attraction, which must be 
 equalised before the intellectual third becomes a governing force ? 
 Some men are more adroit than others in masking the beast, and 
 that's all the difference there is between what romantic women 
 call the higher and the lower love. . . ." 
 
 His words rang an echo from my own dark hours of doubt ; 
 and the serpent-suggestion bit with a poisoned fang. Yes, trace 
 alike to its root the love of poet and profligate, and is it not true 
 that each stands planted in earth-mire ? Clothe the fairest soul 
 in an uninviting garment of body, and would it seek its twin to 
 any completion? If the hands had never clasped, would the 
 spirits have spoken ? 
 
 " You know that there is a point at which mystic and mate- 
 rialist must meet," he said, as though answering my unspoken 
 thought. " Dress up Nature in whatever idealistic sentiment 
 you please, she remains Nature still. At least I have been honest 
 in my materialism. Did I ever pretend to you that I had been 
 a saint ? Your friend, Frank Leete, knew enough of me to have 
 explained that to you. One doesn't visit Bohemia for the sake of 
 going to church. I have had an insatiable curiosity to explore 
 life to its core ; and I think I may say that I have gauged sensa- 
 tion to its material milligramme — what is existence worth but the 
 amount of experience one gets out of it? Be human first— and 
 then a philosopher. . . . And I've known all the time, that there 
 lay a supreme, ethereal, and elusive emotion, still beyond the 
 milligramme — a something so rare and exquisite that one might 
 almost be deluded into imagining it outside the sphere of earth — a 
 very justification of immortality — a something which I discovered 
 in my boyhood's love, and lost through treachery, in the grasping — 
 which I found again, intensified, when I met you in Frank Leete's 
 drawing-room, and heard the note of passion in your voice when 
 you recited the Duchess's speech to Antonio. 
 
 ..." What is it?" he went on, in a dreamy fervid manner, quite 
 unknown in him, and which impressed me extraordinarily -"that 
 strange and baffling emotion — wholly transcendental, and yet, as
 
 256 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 dependent on matter as the electric spark to which the carbon 
 thrills. For, not all the brainless logic of the spiritualists, can 
 prove after all, that when the body dies, an emotion lives after 
 it. . . . Yes, what is it ? . . . The point of contact between two 
 temperaments — do you remember Paravel's definition ? Love in 
 its dual perfectness — the pearl which a ploughboy may claim and 
 wear, but which is not to be purchased with all the gold in the 
 Mint. . . . That's what I have failed to buy — money down notwith- 
 standing. That's the treasure common to humanity, of which I 
 have been doubly defrauded. Have I not cause to hate those two 
 men, the dead and the living — father and son — who have robbed 
 me of my birthright ? " 
 
 The passion in his voice was a revelation of the man. Out 
 of the depth of new knowledge that had come to me, I spoke wild 
 words. He took up my self-denunciation. 
 
 " No, you did not know ; you would not know ! You found 
 yourself too late. . . . Oh, the tragedy of temperament ! . . . That 
 was indeed a true saying ! . . . And the grimmest part of it all is 
 that I'm not a fool in reading women : and up to a certain point 
 I read you. . . . Did I not know that all the time there was some- 
 thing in your nature akin to the monster in me — a dear, sleek, 
 caressing beast, lying asleep under all that vitiated romanticism 
 and those shuddering-detestation airs? . . . Yes, if you had not 
 infuriated and embittered me, flaunting your aversion, I could 
 have taught you that a man may love a woman with all the body 
 and the brain of him, and yet not have made a compact with the 
 devil. . . . God ! I believe that I a?n half a devil since I've hated 
 you — I take such a queer hellish delight in making you suffer. . . . 
 Perhaps, after all, I shall get more satisfaction out of my hatred 
 than 1 ever got out of my love. . . ." 
 
 He rose abruptly, almost spurning me in his passion. I re- 
 mained crouched there, quivering, bruised down to the deepest 
 fibre of me. I heard him walk the room with heavy perturbed 
 tread, and then pause . . . and pace the floor again — and pause 
 once more. 
 
 When at last I looked up, he was a few feet away, gazing at 
 me, the veins in his temples swelled like cords, as though in some 
 mighty inward struggle. 
 
 He walked deliberately to a table where decanters were set, 
 and poured some liqueur out of one of them into a glass. 
 Coming close, he bent over and put his arm round me, under- 
 neath my shoulder— his muscular arm that felt like iron in its 
 firmness. With great strength, and yet with great gentleness, 
 he supported me to the chair from which he had lately risen.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 257 
 
 " Drink this," he said quietly. " I have agitated you beyond 
 what you can bear." 
 
 The warm, soft liquid coursed through my veins, bringing me 
 new vitality. 
 
 I waited. And again there seemed to me in the air that 
 strange feeling as of palpitating forces let loose. 
 
 "Esther," he said at length, and all the hardness had gone 
 from his voice. It was deep and shaken, and its modulations 
 reminded me of those tones which had wooed me in the dress- 
 maker's parlour so long ago. . . . And there was the same 
 indefinable perfume about his clothes — or was it the orchid 
 faintly sickening? . . . 
 
 " Esther ... I don't hate you ... I love you ! " 
 
 He stooped near me, one knee resting on the broad ledge 
 of the chair, as he spoke almost in my ear. 
 
 " Listen . . . you know more now of life's facts than when I 
 brought you, a girl-bride, to this house, imagining, fool as I was, 
 that because you had been an actress you would also be a woman 
 of the world. . . . Esther, you are very dear to me. ... I would 
 do anything you wish. ... I would forgive you — everything. . . . 
 You should go away from here, as you have asked. ... I would 
 not worry you or come near you till you gave me permission. . . . 
 I would be scrupulously considerate of you. . . . If only, by-and-by, 
 you would accept me again. ..." 
 
 In the eagerness of his pleading his shoulder brushed mine. 
 As I drew back into the angle of the chair, the flame of his eyes 
 seemed almost scorching. 
 
 " Esther . . . don't shrink from me. ... If you knew how 
 that hurts. . . . Lift your lips to mine, and kiss me of your own 
 accord. . . . No, I will not ask even that of you now. . . . Say 
 only that if I let you go away you will come back . . . come 
 back to your rightful position — that which a wife should hold in 
 her husband's house, and her husband's heart." 
 
 It was creeping over me, his irresistible magnetism. 
 
 "I cannot. ..." I try in vain to make the words audible. 
 
 "Think, I have never in my life before stooped to plead so 
 to a woman. Do you know what it costs me? ... It is the last 
 time. . . . Consider before you refuse. ... I would be generous to 
 you. ... I am an old man now. What if I, too, have learned a 
 lesson ! . . . I would be very generous — to you — and to yours. . . . 
 
 . . . "Esther, I told you that my methods are subtle. ... 1 
 told you that there's something of the devil in me. . . . You know 
 it. . . . Don't goad the demon. . . . To night, once and foi ever, 
 I offer you the chance of crying quits. . . . Then, give me your 
 
 R
 
 258 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 lips — of your own will. . . . And that kiss shall seal the act of 
 oblivion." 
 
 Again he waited. I put up my hand feebly — a shield from 
 his eyes. 
 
 "Is that your answer?" 
 
 At last my dry tongue found power of articulation. 
 
 " You know . . . what it is that makes it impossible." 
 
 " Have I not said that I would be generous ? I can keep my 
 word, though it is not a light thing that I would promise. All I 
 ask is that for you, as well as for me, there shall be no backward 
 looks. Think again. ... I offer you the chance of rebuilding your 
 life on a new plan — the past left behind you. . . . And it is not 
 only your life — and mine — which are in your power this night ; but 
 another life too — that of your child. ... I will provide liberally. 
 You need fear no vindictive revenge, no reproach. . . . Unnatural 
 as it might seem, what you look upon as the bar dividing, might 
 be in reality the link to join. I am not an ordinary man, nor 
 are the conditions of the case ordinary ones. Not only is a great 
 inheritance in question, but, by a strange Nemesis, I have here 
 the means of avenging a bitter injury — of at last carrying out a 
 purpose, sought for over forty years. It has pleased the Powers 
 above to make me the subject of an ironic jest, but I can give 
 Fate back her own coin. My enemy's sword has pierced me, 
 but the wound is not vital. I have strength to pluck out the 
 weapon and to turn it against the thruster." 
 
 A grisly jest, in truth ! Fine sport they must be having on 
 Olympus ! I laughed hysterically. 
 
 " Oh no," he said, his voice changing and becoming harshly 
 metallic. " You need not chorus the mocking gods !" 
 
 He drew himself back, crouching as it were, while he watched 
 my face. 
 
 "Well? ... I have put the choice before you. Which thing 
 is it to be ? " 
 
 The minute he gave me seemed an eternity. His excitement 
 had apparently burned out. I knew, however, that it was at 
 white heat. 
 
 " I am awaiting your decision." 
 
 " I cannot ... I cannot. . . . You say that you understand 
 women. Then you must know that there are things which are 
 impossible to a woman — impossible 1 You talk of human nature ! 
 It is Nature herself which forbids." 
 
 " You say so ! " He spoke impassively. 
 
 Then I poured out supplication and self-reproach in broken 
 phrases that seem to sound on yet accusingly. . . .
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 259 
 
 ..." Oh, you are generous — more generous than I deserve. 
 You are greater than I ever guessed. . . . But be greater and more 
 generous still, and in pity don't ask of me what would degrade 
 me in my own eyes more than I am already degraded. . . . Yes, 
 it has come over me — the truth. . . . You make me bare to my 
 sin. ... I see now, at last, what a hard, selfish woman I have 
 been. I see how I must have exasperated you — if you loved me 
 as you say — as I never understood till to-night. ... I see my 
 cold ingratitude. . . . Even though I did not care for you, I should 
 have remembered that you gave me everything you could, getting 
 nothing in return. . . . And in spite of pretending to myself that 
 I despised worldly things — still, I married you. That was the 
 worst wrong I did you." 
 
 " No," he replied, " I exonerate you upon that charge.'' 
 
 " But it is a just one. . . . Then . . . there is something which 
 I cannot disguise from myself. . . . What you said is true. . . . 
 Delude myself as I would, it could not alter the material fact. . . . 
 The weakness which shocked me in others was all the time in 
 myself. ... I was the tempter — when I ought to have fled from 
 temptation ! " 
 
 " That," he said sarcastically, " is the law and the prophets." 
 
 ..." My whole life with you has been one hideous mistake — 
 from the beginning ! " 
 
 " It is not too late to rectify it." 
 
 " Yes, too late — in the way you wish. . . . Our marriage is a 
 dead thing. I hated it — I killed it." 
 
 He urged me still — sternly forbearing. I pleaded on despe- 
 rately. 
 
 " Anything — anything but that. I should feel that it was the 
 offence against the Holy Ghost. ... I know that I have sinned 
 against you, and against the law, in breaking my marriage oath. 
 ... I know it now. . . . But there's just this excuse for me . . . 
 I did love, with my whole heart and soul. ... I made a religion 
 of my love. ... I can't dishonour it." 
 
 -"A religion of what?. . . In the Decalogue it is called by 
 another name." 
 
 His gibe gave me courage to defend my heart's sanctuary. . . . 
 Once more 1 appealed to him in passionate disclaiming. I 
 entreated in frenzied despair. 
 
 Let him inflict any punishment upon me that lie pleased. 
 I would bear it meekly. I would lead any life he might choose. 
 I would obey him to the letter in all the duties he should com- 
 mand of me. He would find me patient, unselfish, cheerful. 
 I would try to anticipate his every wish. ... He would have my
 
 260 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 gratitude, my respect, my affection. ... I would be his devoted 
 daughter, sister, slave. . . . 
 
 He checked the flood by an impatient gesture. 
 
 " Enough," he said. " All that means nothing to me. Your 
 obedience I shall command ; the rest is balderdash. I want no 
 daughter, nor sister, nor slave. It is my wife that I want — the 
 woman who is, and has always been, the one woman in the world 
 to me, and whom I must either love — or hate. There is no half- 
 way post. . . . 
 
 . . . "Understand," he went on, "from this night forth, you 
 will indeed live the life that I choose. When there are people 
 about, you'll take my cue. When I strike up the tune, mind, 
 you've got to dance ; otherwise, there'll be no intercourse between 
 us, except what is absolutely necessary for the preservation of 
 a decent appearance. I'll have no scandal. . . . Now — good 
 night." 
 
 There was exceeding bitterness in the low laugh he gave as 
 he went out, shutting the door behind him. It was as though 
 he too, perforce, echoed the mocking gods.
 
 BOOK XII 
 
 •'• Benoni, Son of my Son
 
 AYRITTEN " On the 29/// of October, at Grisewood Castle, 
 
 BY. Woodfordshire, the wife of Hector Vassal of a son 
 
 AGATHA and heir:' 
 GRESTE : 
 
 This was in the first Times I took up, after 
 landing at Marseilles, when I came back to Europe a widow. 
 
 There is no need for me to say anything about my husband's 
 tragic death, the news of which had met me on my arrival in 
 India, eleven months before. I am taking up the thread of 
 Esther Vassal's story, not telling my own. And, in truth, there 
 are some calamities which change for one the whole face of the 
 world, and may not be put into words. 
 
 Mione Arathon told me that before the boy's birth Esther's 
 mind was quite off its balance, and that she had to be care- 
 fully watched during the voyage from Philotis to prevent her 
 from throwing herself out of the porthole. Though she got 
 over this phase upon the return to England, Mione's descrip- 
 tion of her own first visit to Grisewood sounded sufficiently 
 pitiable. 
 
 ..." Really it was a most uncomfortable spectacle, and gave 
 me a horrid shock. And I've had so many shocks, that I ought 
 to be getting used to them. I got one the other day when a 
 woman I believed in confided to me that she had a lover. They 
 always do confide " (Mione discursed a bit). " They say it makes 
 them feci easier in their minds. To be sure, this woman was 
 angry with the man, who was showing symptoms of desertion 
 and talking about marriage. . . . Still, they do mostly confide 
 . . . except Esther." 
 
 " Except Esther ! " I was indignant at Mione's flippant 
 inference. 
 
 "Oh, well, you never know. The quiet women are always 
 
 worst. '1 like 'em to howl; it's the sulky ones thai go under.' 
 
 That's what an army surgeon said to me oner, talking of the 
 
 wounded after a battle. Esther doe n't howl, and she has gone 
 
 under." 
 
 263
 
 264 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 " Oh, don't say that." 
 
 " Well, you'll see. Perhaps she has come up again. Babies 
 are wonderful buoys when a woman gets into deep water — I don't 
 mean a pun. If you want to know really what I think, I can't 
 help a suspicion of some bad business behind it all. Nowadays 
 one isn't supposed to swallow even Bible miracles; but I must own 
 to a terrified faith in Mandour black magic." 
 
 Mrs. Audley crossed herself, and went on to relate some queer 
 adventure they had had in Mandour, and to declare that Mr. 
 Vassal had confessed to being a diabolist. 
 
 " I am convinced that he has offered sacrifices to the devil, in 
 order that the detested nephew may never reign at Grisewood ; 
 and this weird infant is the result. Esther wouldn't have gone 
 mad for nothing." 
 
 " Oh, surely not mad ! " 
 
 "Well, not exactly raving, but a sort of melancholy. She 
 would sit for hours never uttering, tearing her pocket-handkerchief 
 into little strips, or plucking at the fringe of something, and all 
 the time staring — staring with those eyes of hers, which seem to 
 have got the wild Delmar look in them — only she isn't a Delmar. 
 If I had gone mad there'd have been some sense in it. . . . 
 Then Mr. Vassal was in such mortal dread of muddling up his 
 devil-sent revenge, that he couldn't be induced to quit watching 
 her, to make sure that she didn't inadvertently throw herself out 
 of the window. So he sat staring too. And then there was a 
 nurse in uniform — a sort of keeper person, popping in and out. 
 And there was Tremlett like a chastened Gorgon, in an em- 
 broidered apron, hovering round with smelling-salts. . . . And a 
 rainy summer ! And the churchyard cedars for a background ! 
 Ugh ! it gave me the creeps, so I wrote to Audley to telegraph 
 that he had got the gout and wanted me back immediately." 
 
 Of those days Esther never afterwards spoke to me, and I 
 don't know if she kept any definite recollection of them. My 
 impression is that they remained always in the background of her 
 consciousness, an unspeakable horror ; and of one thing I am 
 certain, that though Esther Vassal lived on through the horror a 
 changed woman, it killed Esther Zamiel the novelist. There 
 appeared no other book by the author of Naamah ; and I remem- 
 ber how at the time, people wondered over the extinguishment of 
 that new light in the world of fiction, and deplored the cutting 
 short by death, as was supposed, of a promising career. But 
 those who knew the secret of Esther Zamiel were faithful to their 
 trust ; and when, years later, Mrs. Vassal took up her pen under
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 265 
 
 her own name, no one identified her work with that of the literary 
 comet of a bygone season. 
 
 I showed the notice in the Times to Dad, who met me at 
 Marseilles ; and he was much interested and excited, not having 
 heard that such an event was impending. 
 
 " The house in Grosvenor Street has been shut up, and I 
 fancied that they were yachting," he said. " I have seen nothing 
 of either of them for months. Of course, this accounts for old 
 Vassal not having turned up lately at the Roscius. I wonder 
 how Robert Vassal feels about it. Well, the desire of Hector's life 
 has been granted him at last, and much may it profit him ! Any- 
 how, I'm glad for her sake," Dad went on. "This puts her into 
 an assured position. I have always felt a little guilty in having 
 delivered her over so entirely into the hand of the enemy. It 
 was disagreeably suggestive, that refusal of his to make a marriage 
 settlement." 
 
 Dad despatched a congratulatory telegram to Grisewood Castle, 
 which was becomingly acknowledged by Mr. Vassal, just as dear 
 Dad, in the catholic exuberance of his sympathies, had sat himself 
 down to indite condolences to Robert Vassal, the dispossessed heir. 
 
 " Damn ! " he cried, tearing up the sheet. " One can't run 
 with both the hare and the hounds ! " And he went off to the 
 Roscius instead. 
 
 When he came back I noticed that he seemed troubled, though 
 he did not tell me why. Presently I saw him drumming absently 
 with his empty pipe on the table, and heard him murmur softly 
 to himself; and then he asked me to look up the quotation, 
 " Life is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who 
 feel." For, he said, he wasn't quite certain whether it was Horace 
 Walpole who was the author. 
 
 Dad never could be happy till he had verified any quotation 
 that occurred to him. 
 
 We had begun to gather together strands of the old working 
 life ; and though I could not as yet go to any first performances 
 or enter into general society, I tried to be as cheerful as 1 could, 
 and not to let the shadow of my widowhood darken Dad's home. 
 For a grief does not become any the lighter for pulling a long 
 face; and at least one need not lay the burden of it on those 
 who love one. So I put my back to the wall and fought my foe ; 
 and by-and-by, in the daytime ;it any rate, the enemy retreated, 
 and I was able to throw myself, with an interesl that daily grew 
 more real, into Dad's literary occupations — correcting his proofs, 
 doing a little easy novel reviewing, consulting authorities for a 
 biography he was writing, and taking a curious pleasure, after
 
 266 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 eight years of the vapid life of an Indian regimental station, in the 
 once familiar atmosphere of books. Truly, there is a nostalgia 
 for Bohemia ; it is born in the blood, and one can never get away 
 from it. That was how I gradually became a writing-woman too, 
 though, of course, in a far less degree than Esther Vassal. Besides, 
 at my husband's death I was left very poor, and there were drags 
 of which I did not want to say anything to Dad ; and so I was 
 glad to be able to earn a little money. 
 
 No answer came to the letter of congratulation I sent Esther, 
 which hurt me unreasonably, for I ought to have considered that 
 she would probably be some time in recovering her strength, and 
 would no doubt be inundated by congratulations from a host of 
 friends, which she would feel bound to acknowledge. But no, 
 that was not quite the cause of the hurt. The real sting lay in 
 the fact that she had not taken any notice of me in my great 
 trouble, when sympathy from her would have been dear, for I had 
 always been — even when I did not properly know her — deeply 
 attached to Esther. Now I jumped to the bitter conclusion that 
 worldly prosperity had spoiled her, and made her heartless and 
 forgetful of former friends. In this I realised later that I had 
 done her great injustice. 
 
 It was in the beginning of December that I nerved myself to 
 pay Dr. Quintin Glaive a visit at his consulting-room in Harley 
 Street. It needed some courage to face him, on account of his 
 indirect association with the tragedy of my married life. 
 
 As I was admitted, a man passed out, going by me with a 
 hurried lifting of his hat. I recognised him at once as Robert 
 Vassal ; and from that day to this I have been haunted by the 
 expression of stony misery on his face. I wondered at the 
 moment if it could possibly be caused by disappointment at 
 the loss of his inheritance, but decided that there must be some 
 nearer and deeper-seated source of grief. Then it occurred to 
 me that perhaps Mrs. Robert Vassal, whom I had never seen, but 
 had understood to be in bad health, might be ill or dying ; and, 
 on an impulse, hardly in accordance with a regard for medical 
 etiquette, asked Dr. Glaive the question. 
 
 He too seemed strangely discomposed, as though something 
 painful had recently happened. But he was reserved, as usual. 
 
 " No," he answered, " I believe that Mrs. Robert Vassal is 
 better than she has been for years. The trip round the world has 
 improved her health, and now — I don't know if you have heard — 
 she is likely to remain in the East. Robert Vassal has thrown 
 up Views and the House of Commons, and has accepted the post 
 of British Consul at Mandour."
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 267 
 
 " Isn't that throwing up a career as well ? " 
 
 " Perhaps ; but Mandour is an important post, and the con- 
 sulship there practically a diplomatic appointment, which could 
 only be offered to a coming man. No doubt, too. in the Eastern 
 surroundings he will find a fresh literary field ; and besides that, 
 it will probably mean his wife's restoration to health." 
 
 Dr. Glaive seemed to me to be speaking perfunctorily and 
 with a heavy heart. He leaned back in his chair, fidgeting ner- 
 vously with his eyeglass, which he fixed in his eyes, tightening the 
 brows over it, and relaxing them suddenly, so that the glass fell — 
 a trick of his that I knew, and which indicated that he was per- 
 turbed in mind. Suddenly he said — 
 
 " Have you seen or heard anything of Mrs. Vassal of Grise- 
 wood ? " 
 
 I answered that I had heard nothing about her beyond what 
 the Times had told me, and that I had been a little wounded by 
 her silence. 
 
 " Don't be hard on her," he said, leaning forward earnestly. 
 " You are the only true woman-friend she has in the world ; and I 
 know that however self-absorbed she may have seemed, she does 
 care for you and appreciate you. Be kind to her, if she will give 
 you the opportunity. Go and stay with her, if you can make it 
 any way possible." 
 
 " Surely," I said, " she needs me now less than ever. But you 
 know that I would do anything — anything that was in my power — 
 to help my friend. I don't know what it is about her that makes 
 me feel as I do for Esther." 
 
 " Yes," he said, " she has a curious, in some ways inexplicable, 
 knack of inspiring affection in those who get below the surface of 
 her nature." 
 
 He was perfectly silent for a few moments. Then when I 
 asked him if he could give me any news as to her present condition, 
 he replied abruptly, that he had had nothing but the most formal 
 communication from Grisewood, and changed the subject, begin- 
 ning to talk to me of my own affairs, with that delicate sympathy 
 and comprehension which make him the good physician he is, 
 and, so much more, the good friend. 
 
 When I got home I found Dad ruminating with a letter spread 
 out over some proof-sheets before him a letter in a hand that I 
 knew, on thick notepaper, with a neat heraldic emblazonment, 
 
 " You see, it's from Vassal of Grisewood," said I >ad. " We are 
 invited to the christening — a gathering, he says, of his own and 
 his wife's oldest friends, to celebrate an event which all must 
 regard as productive of moral and material satisfaction. Odd
 
 268 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 way, rather, of putting it ! Here's something for you, Gagsie, 
 enclosed." 
 
 He handed me a note from Esther, which was pathetic in the 
 quavering formation of its letters, and the little bald sentences of 
 which it was composed. 
 
 " Dear Agatha, — Please will you come — as a great favour 
 to me. I did not answer your letter, because I could not. I am 
 better now. Please come to your old friend, Esther." 
 
 " I don't want to go," said Dad. " I don't like the country — 
 especially in December." 
 
 Dad's eyebrows took the curve, and his eyes gave the peculiar 
 twinkle with which he always heralds a scholarly paraphrase. 
 
 " In fact," he went on, " I love the unspeakable urban soli- 
 tudes, and the sweet security of streets." 
 
 " But all the same," he added, after having smoked a pipe, " I 
 ought to go, and I'll go." 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 So we went. Out of tune as I felt for the atmosphere of 
 Grisewood, and for the society of Mr. Vassal and of his friends, 
 I could not find it in my heart to refuse Esther's request, remem- 
 bering too what Dr. Glaive had said to me. I wondered if he 
 were going to be of the party, since, surely, dating back from 
 Claudia, he might be counted as one of Esther's oldest friends. 
 I learned afterwards, however, that he had been invited and had 
 declined the invitation. 
 
 No, it was impossible to refuse, for something told me that it 
 was indeed my old friend forlorn Esther Vrintz who appealed to 
 me, and not Mrs. Vassal of Grisewood. 
 
 Snow was falling when we arrived, the first snow of the season, 
 and the gaunt cedars outside the Castle looked as though they 
 were dressed in their winding-sheets. I had never seen Grise- 
 wood in mid-winter, and it struck me as indescribably gloomy. 
 But, in contrast to its forbidding exterior, the large inner hall, 
 which was then the usual winter lounge, seemed full of life, light, 
 and merry voices as we entered it out of the white dimness of 
 that December afternoon. I don't know much about great Eng- 
 lish houses, but the hall in Grisewood Castle has always appeared 
 to me one of the most noble and picturesque interiors possible to 
 imagine. I am told that the oak carving is noted all through the 
 country ; also the massive proportions of the fireplace, and of the 
 supports to the gallery, which runs round on each side of the 
 splendid staircase. Then there are paintings worth a king's 
 ransom, as we story-tellers put it, supposing indeed that kings
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 269 
 
 were ransomed nowadays ; and suits of armour and wonderful 
 bronzes and porcelain and tapestries, and I know not what besides, 
 rare and valuable. 
 
 A fire of logs was blazing in the majestic chimney, the tea- 
 table at an angle with it, and brass stands in front, holding all 
 manner of hot cakes ; and at each corner was a red-lined basket, 
 from which crawled a sleek dachshund, while a glorious yellow 
 collie got up from the rug and made a stately advance towards 
 us, gazing up into my face with brown eyes that reminded me of 
 , Esther's. There was a number of people collected round and 
 about the hearth, and Mr. Vassal, in hunting costume — several 
 of the men had evidently returned from the day's run — stood 
 with his back to the fire, towering above the Bishop of Wood- 
 chester, who was contemplatively stirring his tea. A gentle, 
 unassuming bishop, with a kind quaint face, as wrinkled almost 
 as the episcopal gaiters upon his lean legs, and in as distinct anti- 
 thesis as could be imagined to Mr. Vassal, who looked more 
 vulture-beaked, more fleshily saturnine, and more imperially domi- 
 nant than the mind-picture I had kept of him from my last visit 
 of over a year back. I had, too, exactly the same feeling of an 
 unwholesome moral exhalation as he shook hands and gave me 
 his stiffly elaborate greeting. 
 
 For some minutes I did not get sight of Esther, and had time 
 to glance round the party. There was Mrs. Raphon, in a gown 
 trimmed with yellow fur — I think it was a kind of otter — looking 
 extremely handsome, and Mrs. Audley Arathoon, a fashion-model 
 from New Bond Street, whom I heard remarking in an audible 
 undertone to a Guardsman she had in tow, " Now, Sir Jock, it is 
 really too great a strain upon my nerves watching you to see that 
 you don't disgrace yourself. Do recollect that you are not to tell 
 that story to Lady Cotherstone, because you'll shock her, and 
 then silence and consternation will fall upon us, and my hair will 
 begin to uncurl, which would be unbecoming." 
 
 There were some people I did not know, and some I did 
 know, having seen them at Grisewood during my former visit, 
 such as the Heseltines, and Littlewoods, and Lord Cotherstone, 
 who, I was told later, was to be a godfather — the other, of all 
 persons, being Mr. Arathoon, the solicitor. I think that Mr. 
 Arathoon, with his Jewish nose, his sleek fair beard, his red lips, 
 cold grey eyes, and soft false voice, is personally even more 
 obnoxious to me than his sister, Mrs. Raphon. 
 
 Then there was a little London group, in which I recognised, 
 from the Punch cartoons, an ex-Minister of the Cabinet, and a 
 certain Lady Diana Cleeve, whom I knew of as friend of I >r,
 
 2 yo THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 Glaive, and a great admirer of his plays, and Loseley Allard, of 
 the Foreign Office, whom Dr. Glaive calls the Parasite, and with 
 whom I used to act in private theatricals years ago, when I was 
 a girl ; and a little way off, talking to Sir John Willoughby, the 
 member for Woodchester, Mr. Paravel the critic, whose elderly 
 stained-glass face seemed to belong to another world altogether. 
 It was an odd, interesting party, larger than I had expected ; and 
 I felt shy and out of keeping in my mourning, and wished I 
 had not come. 
 
 "Mrs. Vassal is showing Lady Cotherstone our new orchid," 
 said Mr. Vassal. " She will be here in a few moments. Audley, 
 will you ask your wife to give Mrs. Greste some tea ? Excuse me, 
 Bishop, the muffins are behind you." 
 
 The Bishop moved, and made me welcome. 
 
 "You have not been long back from India, Mrs. Greste. I 
 had the pleasure of meeting you here last year, just before you 
 
 started. I hope " And then he was reminded, no doubt by 
 
 my garb, of the sorrow that had befallen me, and stumbled in his 
 speech. Mr. Littlewood came sympathetically forward, and there 
 were "how-do-you-do's" from Mrs. Audley Arathoon and the others, 
 and the babble went on. 
 
 " Addie and I were nearly taking passage from Naples to 
 Marseilles by your boat," said Mr. Littlewood. " We should 
 certainly have done so had we known you were on board. 
 But Addie is such a bad sailor that she funked the Mediter- 
 ranean." 
 
 " The Mediterranean can be a terror even between Corsica 
 and Marseilles," filled in somebody, with what Dad calls the 
 macadam of conversation, and Sir Jock drawled — 
 
 "The worst of a short voyage is, that you don't get the com- 
 fort of quarrelling with your fellow-passengers, because you haven't 
 had time for the excitement of making friends." 
 
 " Or for establishing a proprietary right to your deck-chair," 
 remarked Mr. Littlewood. 
 
 " Oh, when I take my passage, I always make a point of 
 finding out how many unattached ladies there are," observed 
 Loseley Allard. " Once I discovered there were to be nine, so I 
 provided myself with ten deck-chairs, had my name printed big 
 on one, and distributed the others among the damsels. Then I 
 was pretty comfortable." 
 
 " Nine unattached damsels ! " commented Mr. Vassal. " I 
 once made a voyage to the Cape in company of one, and I was 
 extremely uncomfortable." 
 
 " Was the damsel pretty or plain, young or middle-aged,
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 271 
 
 stupid or agreeable?" questioned a Willoughby girl. "And what 
 did you talk about ? " 
 
 " She was young, beautiful, and conversational ; and first of 
 all, we told each other everything that had ever happened to 
 either of us. That took a week." 
 
 "Not more? " murmured Audley Arathoon. 
 
 "Then I invented thrilling misdemeanours, which carried us 
 through the second week. The third seven days I was so mor- 
 tally bored that I contemplated getting the captain to marry us, 
 , and committing bigamy for the sake of ten minutes' excitement." 
 
 Mr. Vassal walked slowly to Mrs. Raphon's side as he spoke, 
 and stooping to say something in a low tone, stroked admiringly 
 the fur on' her sleeve. 
 
 And just then some one came in with Lady Cotherstone from 
 the conservatory — some one I knew, and who yet was strange to 
 me. A pale woman in clinging black velvet, looking taller than 
 she was by reason of her thinness, with haunted brown eyes and 
 a mechanical smile, and, what was stranger than anything else, a 
 broad streak of white hair spreading from her forehead over the 
 top of her head, while all the rest was still its old brown. . . . 
 And this was Esther. 
 
 My start unnerved her. There seemed something dreadful in 
 the quiver that passed over her face, disturbing its gracious rigidity. 
 
 She came close, not offering to kiss me as she had always 
 done before, but holding my two hands, and staring into my face 
 in an odd, frightened way. 
 
 "Don't," she whispered. "You mustn't upset me. . . . I'm 
 not quite strong yet. ..." 
 
 I murmured a few incoherent words, for I was too shocked 
 and bewildered to say anything I ought to have said. She smiled 
 a wan little smile. 
 
 " It's my white hair. . . . Being ill has made it so. . . . You'll 
 get used to me." . . . 
 
 She gave her hand to Dad, and thanked him for having come. 
 
 "For I know you don't like leaving London in the winter. . . . 
 And Grisewood is so terribly dreary, and so cold — outside. In- 
 doors one can keep away from the snow. Isn't it curious that 
 there should be snow now — for my little child?" 
 
 There was an indescribable intonation in her utterance of 
 these words, " My little child." 
 
 "Why! not curious at all, Mrs. Vassal — but seasonable. — A 
 green Yule — you remember the proverb? — seasonable and for- 
 tifying to the youngster," said Dad, with the dear, big, tremulous 
 laugh which always means that his soul is moved within him.
 
 272 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 " I congratulate you. ... I congratulate you . . . with my whole 
 heart." 
 
 " Yes . . . yes . . . thank you. . . . And you must come and sit 
 by me close to the fire, and Mione shall pour you out some tea. . . . 
 And you'll tell us about the new plays. . . . Oh no, he won't 
 have muffins, Mr. Allard. . . . You see I have remembered the 
 buttery scones you used to be so fond of. . . . And you know 
 Lady Cotherstone, don't you ? . . . Dear Lady Cotherstone, this 
 is my great friend Mr. Leete, and his daughter Mrs. Greste, 
 whom you met here last year ..." and so on. 
 
 Oh yes, Claudia. I seemed to realise somehow that the 
 actress-training was being turned to account at last. And as Dad 
 says, it is a big part — that of the Mistress of Grisewood — and takes 
 a lot of playing. 
 
 And while I sat there in the shadow of Mione, silent and de- 
 pressed, and a little bewildered, the shifting groups and the 
 scraps of dialogue became somehow, in my fancy, bits of a scene 
 in the kind of play that Loseley Allard calls tragedy in trousers. 
 
 " Snowing heavily ! " said one of the hunting men. " We 
 were just in time, master ! " 
 
 ... "A thirteen mile p-point in twenty minutes! . . ." from 
 Lord Cotherstone. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " cried the eldest Miss Willoughby, who was in 
 her riding-habit. "You mustn't expect a rational person to 
 believe that." 
 
 " Any more than you must expect a rational person to believe 
 that Littlewood jumped Stratton's Brook," put in the master, 
 with his heavy guffaw. 
 
 "That wasn't St-t-ratton's Brook, Miss Willoughby; it's a 
 m-mile higher up," said Lord Cotherstone. 
 
 " Oh, well, it runs into Stratton's Brook," said Miss Willoughby. 
 
 " And Stratton's Brook runs into the Wyn, and the Wyn runs 
 into the German Ocean. So, on that reasoning, it is clearly 
 proved that Mr. Littlewood jumped the German Ocean," observed 
 the Bishop, giving a gentle clerical laugh. 
 
 "And he's cramming muffin down his throat, and can't de- 
 fend himself," exclaimed Mione. " Mr. Littlewood, what are you 
 sitting on ? You might be one of those creatures on toadstools 
 'mid nodings on.'" 
 
 "Oh, I've got a little more on, really, Mrs. Arathoon, than 
 when I did sit on toadstools in the forest of Yucatan, before 
 Addie took pity on me. But I'll go now and find a chair." 
 
 " And tell Audley that he has flirted long enough with your 
 wife, and that I want him to come and put Flapper through his
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 273 
 
 tricks. Oh, you needn't be jealous. Audley's flirtings are quite 
 harmless. He doesn't talk much to his adorations, but he likes 
 to know they're there. . . ." 
 
 "Sad business, that of the Rathdowney smash," said a 
 hunting man. " Everything up for sale — all the family pictures. 
 Portrait of a lady, portrait of his grandmother, and the rest. 
 Poor Rathdowney ! " 
 
 " Poor Rathdowney ! " echoed Mr. Vassal. " He lived beyond 
 his income for thirty years, had a ripping time, and has now 
 gone to join the Immensities. He was a prosperous sinner ! 
 To give the devil his due, Providence has been kind to 
 Rathdowney." 
 
 " Of course you know the place has been bought," said old 
 Lady Cotherstone. "Inskip, the Woodchester lawyer, told me 
 this morning as I was gettin' into the train. For a hundred 
 thousand ! I didn't ask him whether that included ancestors. 
 What is it to be turned into ? — silk, cotton, or what other dreadful 
 thing ? " 
 
 "Lamp oil," said Mr. Arathoon. "The coming man owns 
 a petroleum spring in Texas." 
 
 "Oh, really! Petroleum! How very curious!" and Lady 
 Cotherstone turned with chilling vagueness in another direction. 
 Her face assumed, however, an expression of intelligence at the 
 approach of the ex-member of the Cabinet. 
 
 "You're just the person I'm looking for," she said. "The 
 Duke wants me to get him the straight tip about politics, and 
 you can give it me." 
 
 "Well," said the ex-Minister after a reflective pause, "you 
 can tell the Duke we're coming in, and that there will be no 
 foreign war after all." 
 
 "I'm glad to hear that," remarked Sir Jock. "Then I shan't 
 be buried in Bulgaria without a tombstone. I don't mind 
 buing decently potted, but there is an ignominy in a nameless 
 grave." 
 
 '•The English' do love a scare about a foreign war," put in 
 Lady Cotherstone. "We're always screamin' out to fori 
 nations, 'Look here, our ships won't float; our cannons burst; 
 our bayonets crumple up — there's no deception. Come along 
 and judge for yourselves.'" 
 
 . . . "I'm told there's to be a new wing built at Rathdowney, 
 and that petroleum is going to make the county hum," said 
 Mr. Littlewood on tin other side. 
 
 "How Woodfordshire will grovel!" exclaimed Mione. "I 
 don't know which amuses me most — to hear a Yankee pay 
 
 s
 
 274 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 compliments, or to see human nature grovelling before a 
 millionaire." 
 
 " The Yankee for choice/' put in Lady Diana Cleeve. " Their 
 patois is so quaint, and they never can get our names right. I 
 had one lunching with me yesterday, and when he went away he 
 said, ' I'm married to just a lovely wife — from Kansas city ; and 
 I'm much obliged for your hospitality, Lady Cleeve ; and we shall 
 have vurry great satisfaction in returning it' That's what I call 
 putting things on a square footing. . . . Mr. Vassal, I've come to 
 tell you that Cosmo Paravel is quoting Dante to your wife, and 
 that you'd better go and look after her." 
 
 "Thank you. . . . But I'm not afraid of Dante." 
 
 " Nor of Mr. Paravel ? " 
 
 "Nor of Paravel." 
 
 " Lady Diana, I observe, divides humanity into four classes," 
 said the ex-Minister — " men, women, politicians, and — Paravel." 
 
 " It appears to me that you give politicians a prominent 
 place," retorted Lady Diana. 
 
 " I put them, you see, below women." 
 
 " Below women ! What a concession ! I shall tell that to 
 Mrs. Vassal ; it seems an appropriate moment. If her husband 
 won't fly to save her, I must." 
 
 Presently Esther came to me. 
 
 " I am going to show you your room, Agatha : you are to 
 rest before dinner." 
 
 Then I noticed, what struck me still more forcibly later, that 
 though Mr. Vassal seemed to be aware, even at a distance, of his 
 wife's every movement, he always turned away when she ap- 
 proached, ingeniously avoiding speech with her. Also that she 
 never addressed him, nor looked at him, but was much less 
 tactful than he in covering the omission. She went with me up 
 the great staircase and along the corridor to my room, talking 
 hostess-trivialities all the time in a nervous, rapid manner, quite 
 unlike that of the old Esther, so that I longed to say, " Surely we 
 are not now behind the footlights." 
 
 As she was leaving me, I asked if she would not take me to 
 see the son and heir. 
 
 Then again the painful quiver passed over her face. 
 
 " No ; no . . . not this evening. . . . And the nursery is a long 
 way from here ... in another wing. . . . To-morrow ... I couldn't 
 now — and get through dinner. . . . You see," she went on, col- 
 lecting herself, and speaking with a strained artificiality, " I'm 
 obliged to be so very careful not to break down. It takes 
 such a long time to recover from an illness . . . and a little
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 275 
 
 thing upsets me. And I have my duty to perform to Mr. 
 Vassal's guests." 
 
 I went deliberately to her, put my arms round her neck, and 
 kissed her. 
 
 "Yes, darling, and you are quite right not to class this 
 person with Mr. Vassal's guests — or Mrs. Vassal's either, for that 
 matter; for I'm the guest of my old girl-friend Esther Vrintz, 
 whom I love dearly. And I've come to Grisewood because she 
 asked me — come in my sorrow, to rejoice with her in her joy." 
 
 " O, Gagsie ! . . . Oh., I was sorry for you ... I was ... I 
 was. . . ..Oh, I know he was all the world to you . . . and I would 
 have written. . . . But I couldn't, indeed, Gagsie . . . then. . . . 
 I was so unhappy myself . . . and I " 
 
 The poor thing, trembling all over, clung to me for a minute 
 or two, gasping the words out between her sobs, which she tried 
 in vain to stifle. . . . " O, Gagsie dear . . . don't . . . don't. . . . 
 You mustn't be kind to me. ... I shall forget all I've got to do — 
 just like Claudia . . . and something dreadful will happen. . . . 
 I mustn't think about myself. . . . Don't, Gagsie dear ! " . . . 
 
 She broke away from me, as a knock sounded at the door, 
 and Tremlett appeared, a phial and a glass in her hand. 
 
 "My mistress ought to take her drops, if you please, Mrs. 
 Greste : it is now past the hour, and Mr. Vassal has sent up, 
 ma'am, to ask if you would kindly go down presently." 
 
 " My drops ! " cried Esther with a wild little laugh. " Oh 
 yes, Tremlett, my drops. I need them, for I'm very shaky still. 
 Give them to me, Tremlett." 
 
 She took her dose from the maid and drank it. No doubt it 
 was some strong restorative, for after it, a faint dash of colour 
 came into her face. 
 
 "Thank you, Tremlett. Please tell them to let Mr. Vassal 
 know I am coming." 
 
 The maid left us, and Esther stepped close to me again, look- 
 ing into my eyes wistfully for a moment, and then laughed once 
 more — that strange laugh. 
 
 "Yes, I must go back to the show and dance my steps — 
 dance to Fate's fiddling. ... Do you remember that line, Gagsie 
 — it came into Claudia. . . . Oh yes, the aetress-training does 
 help one along a bit ! " . . . 
 
 We were all assembled and waiting in the drawing-room 
 before Esther appeared. 
 
 "Do you know what is keeping her?" said Mrs. Audlcy 
 Arathoon. " I went into her room the last thing before coming
 
 276 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 down, to beg as a personal favour that I might not be sent in to 
 dinner with you, Sir Jock." 
 
 "Why this thusness?" asked Sir Jock. 
 
 " Because if I sat next you, I shouldn't have a rag of reputation 
 left for the Woodfordshire canonesses to tear into tatters. . . . 
 Well, I went to Esther's boudoir, and there was the greatest of 
 the Caesars, issuing his imperial command that she should put 
 on another gown. He didn't consider black brocade and old 
 Venetian point sufficiently festive for the occasion." 
 
 " And Griselda obeyed ? " 
 
 " Meek as a lamb ! All I can say is, that Y—jusi wouldn't." 
 
 " Don't you ever change your gowns to please your husband, 
 Mrs. Arathoon ? " artlessly inquired Mrs. Littlewood. 
 
 " Oh dear no," replied Mione, " I change them to please 
 other people's husbands." 
 
 " Well, really," bleated the youngest Miss Willoughby, " if I 
 were a man, I think I'd want my own wife to be what I liked to 
 look at." 
 
 "If you were a man, dear, you wouldn't look at your own 
 wife ; you'd look at other people's wives," returned Mione. 
 "The true art of marriage is ■" 
 
 She stopped. The door had opened to admit Esther, and 
 behind her the butler, who announced dinner. 
 
 " The true art of marriage is — ? " repeated Sir Jock, offering 
 his arm to Mrs. Littlewood. 
 
 "To be continued in our next," said Mione, taking that of 
 Dad ; and I heard her say, " Our dear Esther looks quite bridal, 
 doesn't she, Mr. Leete ? " 
 
 Yes, she was all in white, and her little head, set bravely 
 back, supported the famous Vassal tiara. I noticed the sombre 
 blaze in Mr. Vassal's eyes as they inspected her from head to 
 foot, and the flash of steadfast courage — the first I had seen 
 those brown orbs emit — as she lifted them to his for a moment. 
 I asked myself if it were motherhood that had changed the lamb 
 into a lioness. 
 
 At dinner, I was too far from Esther to be able to see or hear 
 anything that went on in her neighbourhood. In the drawing- 
 room afterwards, the ladies were discussing the decoration of the 
 table, which was of tea-roses and violets that had been procured 
 from Philotis. 
 
 " But it's nothing to the font," exclaimed Mrs. Littlewood. 
 "That's a dream of myrtle and white carnations, sent over 
 expressly from Philotis. You should have come earlier, Mrs. 
 Greste, and you would have helped us in decorating the church."
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 277 
 
 "O Esther," Mione broke in; "do you remember the fields 
 of carnations and roses that day when we went to El-Meriem ? 
 But I heard afterwards that the snow had come down right over 
 Kassis, and had cut them all off." 
 
 Then Esther seemed to be speaking somnambulistically, so 
 unlike itself did her voice sound. 
 
 "Yes . . . the snow came down over Kassis. And the roses 
 were all blighted and dead ... all dead ! " 
 
 She was forgetting her part, and gazed helplessly round as 
 Claudia might have done waiting for a cue. At that moment 
 the men Came in ; and somebody — Lady Diana Cleeve I think — 
 said : 
 
 " O Mr. Vassal, do tell me — was it your notion to order all 
 those lovely white flowers especially from Mrs. Vassal's birth- 
 place ? " 
 
 " Certainly : do you like the connection of ideas ? " 
 
 "Why, I think it is the most charming compliment I ever 
 heard of from a husband to his wife." 
 
 " But nobody except Mr. Vassal could have thought of any 
 thing so delightfully romantic," chimed in Mrs. Littlewood. 
 
 " A mere sentiment ! " said Mr. Vassal, in his ironic manner. 
 " And at my age I might well be ashamed of it." 
 
 "Do not say a mere sentiment," exclaimed Cosmo Paravel, 
 his deep poetic voice ringing out reprovingly. " It is sentiment 
 that never palls —the one thing that brightens our future, soothes 
 our present, and reconciles us with our past. To those who have 
 nothing to hope and nothing to enjoy, sentiment still offers happy 
 memories." 
 
 " Hear, hear ! " exclaimed Sir Jock. 
 
 " Worthy of a man and a Briton ! " murmured Loseley Allard. 
 
 "And now, Mrs. Arathoon, after that, your continuation of 
 the true art of marriage," said Dad. 
 
 "It is to keep the carrot dangling in front of the donkey's 
 nose," replied Mione. "I know I am vulgar; but when Britons 
 take to sentiment, they need a corrective." 
 
 "I must cap that by something that was said at my dinner 
 table the other evening," remarked Lady Diana. "A young man 
 defined love as passing up wine and waiting for it to come down 
 again — and marriage, he said " 
 
 "No, no— Anti-climax !" cried Loseley Allard. 
 "The carrot takes the cake !" said Sir Jock. 
 Ah ! what tragic nonsense it all seems now, with the later lights 
 upon it. 
 
 Mrs. Littlewood began to play, which started new combina-
 
 278 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 tions ; and some persons listened, and some did not. She never 
 minded. Half the charm of Addie's music lay in the way she 
 made it blend with what was going on around. ... I heard the 
 Wargraves and some Woodchester clergymen discussing Mr. 
 Vassal's presentation of ^2000 to the Rescue and Reformation 
 League, towards, as Mr. Arathoon put it, the foundation of a 
 cottage-home for children without visible fathers. Then Lady 
 Diana and Loseley Allard set going a conversation-game, which 
 provoked ringing laughter, and from which I shortly retired. I 
 had the uneasy sense of being no more than a spectator in the 
 drawing-room comedy, and might have said with Dad — and Teu- 
 felsdroch, "We looked out on life with its strange scaffolding, 
 where all at once harlequins dance and men are beheaded and 
 quartered." 
 
 The room is a large one, and has many nooks and recesses, 
 and if one is placed out in the cold, socially speaking, there are 
 always the gracious Gainsboroughs to smile consolingly. I was 
 wondering whether those peerless ladies had belonged to the 
 original or pseudo-Vassal stock, when I became aware that I was 
 sitting, wedged in by a palm and the curate of Fincham's back, 
 close behind my host and Mrs. Raphon, whose conversation, 
 though it was carried on in an undertone, I could not help hearing. 
 No doubt be had been telling her that she was looking well — 
 which was no stretch of fact — for she answered : 
 
 " My friend, I can't return the compliment. These domestic 
 joys don't agree with you. You have aged ten years in the last 
 six months." 
 
 ... (I lost the beginning of the sentence). "At a certain 
 stage in the descent," he said, " the drop comes suddenly." 
 
 " Do you mind ? " she asked. 
 
 " Do I mind ! Is it ever an agreeable discovery that the big 
 throb of life has stilled for you, and that it takes a sensation of 
 considerable poignancy to stir the languid pulses to a quick beat ? " 
 
 " I can't help thinking," she replied, " that over there, you are 
 providing some one else with a pretty poignant sensation. I don't 
 pretend to unravel mysteries, but if that isn't a soul in torture, I 
 don't know the signs of suffering." 
 
 Mr. Vassal's gesture, of which I was darkly conscious, made 
 me certain that the momentary stoppage of Mrs. Raphon's sway- 
 ing fan had indicated Esther. 
 
 " If so, the soul has chosen its own particular corner of hell," 
 he answered grimly. 
 
 There was a buzz, for just then the curate became suddenly 
 aware of me.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 279 
 
 " Oh ! I beg your pardon. I fancy that Mrs. Littlewood is 
 looking at me and wants me to find her music." 
 
 His back removed, I caught a glimpse, past the palm, of Mr. 
 Vassal's countenance, with the dying fire of its bleared eyes, and, 
 to my exaggerated fancy, the death-clutch mark upon his loose 
 jaws and flabby indented cheek. One might well conceive here, 
 the craving for some vitalising emotion to set the enfeebled 
 nerves tingling once more, even though toll might have to be 
 paid for it on the other side of Acheron. 
 
 " What did you do it for ? " Mrs. Raphon said, a wild note in 
 her half.whisper. " Where was the charm ? One could see from 
 the beginning that she abhorred you, and that she only married 
 you for your money. It must have been a powerful attraction on 
 your side. You never paid me the compliment of hating me." 
 
 " I pay you the greater compliment of desiring your friendship." 
 
 She gave a bitter laugh. 
 
 " A convenient label for — ashes ! " 
 
 " Let me put down your cup," he said. 
 
 As they moved, I got up too, and the grouping of the scene 
 shifted. Lord Cotherstone had the centre. 
 
 "I s-say, Mrs. Vassal, we ought to see our godson. How 
 can we do our d-duty properly to-morrow, if we none of us 
 know the object b-by sight?" 
 
 " Hear him ! " cried Mrs. Littlewood. " Fancy insulting the 
 hope of Grisewood by calling it an ' object.' " 
 
 " Or an ' it ! ' " retorted Lord Cotherstone. " But he can't be 
 anything else, can he, B-Bishop, till he's a Ch-Christian ? " 
 
 "I think," said Mrs. Raphon, "that the object ought to have 
 received us in the hall on our arrival." 
 
 " Of course ! " exclaimed Dad. " Mrs. Raphon has an eye for 
 situation. Carter-Blake couldn't have stage-managed a finer close 
 to Act IV. — the peace, goodwill, happy-ever-conclusion ! Such a 
 background — the oaken hall, baronial hearth, properties in keep- 
 ing, ancestral portraits" — Dad waved his hand comprehensively. 
 "And, 'curtain!' — our host here, the grand old English squire, 
 presenting to us the long-desired heir of the house ! Where was 
 your dramatic instinct, Esther — I beg a million pardons, I nit old 
 habit is strong — to have missed such a telling effect?" 
 
 "It is not too late," said Mr. Vassal, with a curious smile on 
 his face, and a fierce gleam shooting in Esther's direction from 
 his serpent-like, eyes. "The child shall be introduced to you 
 now. You will allow me?" And he turned more (Inertly to 
 Esther, with that formal courtesy which Addie Littlewood calls 
 Grandisonian, and rang the bell.
 
 2 8o THE SCOURGE-STCCK 
 
 Esther had risen from her seat, white and agitated, and seemed 
 about to make a protest, but no words came. 
 
 *' Oh ! it's a shame to disturb the brat ! " said Mione. 
 
 But, still smiling, Mr. Vassal commanded the butler to convey 
 his compliments to the nurse, and request that the infant, well 
 wrapped up, might be brought down to the drawing-room. 
 
 " Let the greatest of the Caesars be obeyed ! " breathed Mione, 
 " even though it kill the child ! " 
 
 "Yes, it is a shame," murmured Addie Littlewood. "You 
 never saw such a quaint misery. I doubt their rearing it." 
 
 "Poor little dear!" said Mrs. Heseltine. "Surely by now 
 it's tucked up and fast asleep in its bassinet." 
 
 " And it won't have on its lovely lace robe," said Mione, " for 
 I saw that taken off and folded up, and the creature put into 
 common cambric." 
 
 " You ! " cried Mrs. Littlewood. " You don't mean to say 
 that you have been to the nursery ? " 
 
 Mione nodded shamefacedly. 
 
 " And I couldn't induce you to come and see my boy tubbed ! " 
 
 Mione nodded again. " No, but your boy is a baby, and I 
 don't like babies. And this baby is a phenomenon, and I like 
 phenome — na !■ — That's right, isn't it, Mr. Paravel ? One has to 
 mind one's grammar when there are critics hanging round." 
 
 Everybody laughed. I felt pretty sure, however, that Mione 
 had cried over the phenomenon, for on a private voyage of dis- 
 covery to the nursery on my own account, I had met her coming 
 out of the door with red eyes which she dabbed with her pocket- 
 handkerchief, saying that a cinder had got into one of them in 
 the train. 
 
 Presently the double doors were thrown open, and, preceded 
 by the butler and followed by two footmen, a portly and dignified 
 personage in a silk gown entered, with a magnificent white silken- 
 embroidered and swansdown-bordered mantle hanging over her 
 arms. 
 
 Esther, white and trembling, made a step towards her. " My 
 little child ! " I heard her say almost below her breath, a sound 
 wafted as might have been an angel's benediction. But Mr. 
 Vassal, stepping between, intercepted her movement, and she 
 retired into the background. 
 
 The nurse halted under the central chandelier, in front of 
 Mr. Vassal, who stood straight and tall and imperious, with out- 
 stretched arms upon which she placed the babe. The men and 
 women gathered round, bare shoulders and jewels glittering, and 
 the gentlemen's gilt hunt-buttons shining, as all pressed forward
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 281 
 
 beneath the lamps, to get a sight of the infant. But its mother, 
 still as a statue, kept quite away by the window. 
 
 I too hung back, for I had seen the child before. 
 
 The nurse unclosed its wrappings, arranging a fold of the 
 cloak so as to form a shield for its eyes from the light. But Mr. 
 Vassal mercilessly swept the mantle back, and there from under 
 the swansdown peered a pair of uncanny eyes, below a bulging 
 forehead and out of a wee misery of a face, which seemed to 
 give the spectators so great a shock that no one said a word. 
 
 Mr. Vassal held up the pitiful thing, regarding it himself 
 fixedly for -a moment; then, looking round upon us, always with 
 that strange smile — 
 
 " Let me present to you " — he seemed to pause — " my son 
 and heir." 
 
 There was an inarticulate murmur. Then Dad came to the 
 rescue, with a tremble in his voice as he said — 
 
 " For me, alas ! life is now all retrospect ! — a phrase I have 
 heard used by Cobden. But from nursery recollections, Gagsie, 
 my dear, I should say this is a remarkably intelligent little fellow. 
 And I hope "... here Dad faltered — " I hope he will grow up to 
 be an honour to his father's name . . . and ... a comfort to his 
 mother. . . ." 
 
 "God bless him ! " said the Bishop. 
 
 All the time the babe never uttered a sound, but stared with 
 its supernatural eyes. 
 
 "You haven't told us yet what you are going to call him," 
 said Lady Cotherstone. " Hector, I suppose ? " 
 
 " No. He will be given the name of his " — again Mr. Vassal 
 made a slight pause — " his great-grandfather — Robert." 
 
 Then suddenly there was the clatter of an overturned chair, 
 and a dull thud. And as we turned, it was seen that Esther had 
 fallen in a dead faint, her head against the velvet curtain at the 
 window. 
 
 Mr. Vassal thrust the child, which now began to wail eerily, 
 into the nurse's arms, and there was a rush to the window. 
 
 "Has any one smelling-salts? . . . Water. ... No, give her 
 air " 
 
 Lord Cotherstone parted the curtains and flung the window 
 open, and the shock of a flake of snow which drove in by the 
 casement from the storm outside, roused Esther, and she came 
 to shivering. 
 
 But the next day she was so ill that Mr. Sergison had to be 
 sent for, and she was unable to be present at the christening, or 
 at any of the following festivities in honour of the heir.
 
 WRITTEN With my child's birth, the oppression of fear was 
 
 BY lifted for a while. For there is one place into 
 
 ESTHER which Hate may not enter — that Holy of Holies 
 VASSAL : where a mother watches over her newborn babe. 
 
 So for a few weeks kindliness was my nurse, 
 the world shut out, and my little child lay cradled on my 
 bosom. 
 
 It was such a tiny atom, smaller, frailer, more piteous than 
 ever babe had right to be. Yet it seemed to me that the wee 
 body was charged with some sacred regenerative force, by which 
 my passion-poisoned being might be cleansed and healed. Dimly 
 I felt this then : I know it surely now. 
 
 My little child ! Was this the answer to my prayer at El- 
 Meriem ? Was this the granting of my heart's desire ? It had 
 come to me, the gift of this mysterious new life, born of bliss and 
 anguish, from out that love-region beyond the gates of dawn — the 
 dawn which had arisen upon my Paradise. 
 
 Herein I found the sign that, in His vast humanity, God 
 pitied and pardoned the human error ; and while taking from me 
 the joy wrongfully clutched, by right another's, had bestowed upon 
 me this boon for my solace and redemption. As I gazed on my 
 little child, I began to realise in shadowy fashion that God is in 
 the All — in the evil as in the good, in the darkness as in the 
 light : working through darkness to light, through evil unto 
 good, through flesh unto spirit. Clearly the truth shaped itself 
 that love is the language in which its Maker speaks to the world. 
 Had I not learned that love has many cadences — symphonious 
 as the choiring of seraphs, in near flight from heaven ; harsh, with 
 discordant notes of pain and vain longing, as the song de- 
 scends earthward ? And yet I knew that through my love and 
 anguish, and even my sin, I had come within speech of angels. 
 ... In the eyes of my babe, I seemed to behold a shadow of 
 the Divine-human — That which is outside law, because all law 
 is therein comprehended, linked to the world by love and 
 pain, so that where love and pain are, there stretches the Cord 
 
 Invisible. 
 
 282
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 283 
 
 On the third day after the child's birth, when slight fever was 
 upon me, I had the vision of a stairway to heaven, with radiant 
 spirits floating on either side, and I myself mounting between 
 them to the glory of the dawn, a little child leading me. Other 
 visions I had, too, that day and night, but none so beautiful. Then 
 it seemed as though the babe's lips, clinging to my breast, were 
 drawing out of me, in living streams, those morbid thoughts and 
 feelings which from the beginning had put me in conflict with my 
 lot — the egoistic art-yearnings, the false faith, seeking vain gods, 
 the futile fret of all that was unworthy in my love. I did not 
 understand then, as I came to feel later, that these things had 
 been necessary for progress upward. I had only touched the 
 borders of that knowledge, in dim realisation of the oneness of 
 the Divine with all human experience — even with that which 
 appears to be evil, since without evil there can be no good. 
 
 Now for the first time in my troubled life I felt my fingers 
 close on the clue to the king's palace. And that clue which I 
 had believed was in love of woman for her mate, I found now in 
 love of mother for her child. 
 
 Art ! Love ! Motherhood ! But the greatest of these is 
 Motherhood ! 
 
 The remission of pain was only for a time. Hate lurked 
 menacingly still outside my chamber door ; and as I grew 
 stronger, and life took up its march to the tune of Fate's piping, 
 the old dread came back upon me — that terrified fascination 
 which forced me to do my master's bidding unquestioningly — the 
 old obedience in which now was mingled penitent submission 
 to a punishment earned. The hardest part of the punishment was 
 that it separated me to a great degree from my child. 
 
 For that seemed Mr. Vassal's chief object. I was forbidden 
 to nurse my son ; and on this point the doctors also would admit 
 no parley, so that I was doubly helpless. I might have been a 
 royal lady claimed by court pageants and state cares, so incon- 
 siderable were the dues maternity was permitted to exact. It was 
 almost only by stealth that I could get a little while alone with 
 my baby. 
 
 The child was installed in awing of tin- Castle apart from 
 mine, with a retimn- of nurses and maids and men, and all 
 paraphernalia befitting the future monarch ol Gri ewood. No 
 longer did he seem my own, the living gift Heaven had bestowed 
 upon me, to draw sustenance from my bosom. lie v, heir 
 
 of" the Vassals, in whom I had little part or property. And tin re 
 wire streams of visitors and great doings at tin Castle \ and on
 
 284 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 all occasions Mr. Vassal exhibited the same cold courtesy, and 
 was sardonically benign to guests and tenants, while to me he never 
 spoke, except, as he had said, when it was necessary for the main- 
 taining of a decent appearance. He played his part grandly, and 
 forced me to play mine — entrances and exits, and speeches to his 
 cue ; and ghastly jigging to his fiddling. . . . Oh, it was a brave 
 show — with, all the while, the skeletons rattling in our ears, behind 
 the gilded background.
 
 WRITTEN It was commonly declared in Woodfordshire that 
 BY Esther Vassal would never rear her child, and 
 
 AGATHA people pitied Mr. Vassal for the terrible disappoint- 
 GRESTE : merit which they thought would inevitably follow 
 upon the fulfilment of his wish for an heir. Never- 
 theless the child did live, though it cannot be said to have 
 flourished. 
 
 A poor pitiful little heir it was ; and as Dad put it, had Robert 
 Vassal, the nephew, been inclined even now to raise money 
 upon his expectations, the Jews would probably have managed it 
 for him. But nobody heard anything of Robert Vassal in these 
 days, except indeed, when his name adorned a leaderette, or ap- 
 peared in the occasional column of " Our Mandour Correspon- 
 dent." This at one time happened pretty often, for diplomatic 
 trouble had arisen in regard to the Sheiks, and the British Consul 
 at Mandour had been turned into a sort of Envoy Extraordinary 
 and entrusted with certain negotiations, that he had discharged 
 apparently to his own credit and his country's satisfaction. Once 
 there was a report in the newspapers, afterwards proved incorrect, 
 of his having fallen into the hands of a hostile tribe of the desert, 
 from whose clutches it was supposed that he would not come out 
 alive ; and it was Esther's uncontrollable emotion upon reading 
 this news, which gave me the first definite clue to her life's secret 
 history. The truth flashed then upon me as such truths suddenly 
 do, with a piercing certainty ; and though no words ever passed 
 between us which could directly confirm my intuition, 1 knew all 
 the same, and I am sure that Esther knew of my knowledge. This 
 intuition on my part altered greatly our relation to eacli other. It 
 strengthened our friendship, imparting to it a peculiar sacredness, 
 enabling me to understand things that had perplexed me before, and 
 to give a silent sympathy, which I think was a comfort to her in 
 her lonely sorrow. For she must have been terribly lonely. Even 
 I did not realise for a long time how lonely, since several years 
 elapsed before I was admitted to Grisewood Castle upon a 
 footing of complete intimacy. In the earlier days, when I was 
 
 merely one among other guests, we spectators, who came and 
 
 285
 
 286 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 went in continual relays, looked on at the play as it proceeded 
 duly staged and mounted, Mr. Vassal never forgetting his lines, 
 and Esther following suit with hers, hardly one of us suspecting 
 that it was a mere theatrical performance at which we assisted. 
 For myself, I had from the beginning a dim realisation of the 
 tragedy beneath the laughter ; but it was not till the chief actor 
 began to grow a little weary, and to lose grip on his part, that there 
 came to be undress intervals into which my stayings at the Castle 
 were allowed to lap. Then I saw what no ordinary visitor was 
 permitted to witness, and gained sufficiently clear indications of 
 the battle between two hatreds waging in Mr. Vassal's breast — 
 hatred of the unfortunate little heir, and hatred of the dispossessed 
 nephew ; the two hates balancing each other, and keeping the 
 machinery moving and the situation from collapse. 
 
 I could now more easily comprehend Esther's meek sub- 
 mission to a system of restriction in regard to her intercourse 
 with her son, that at first appeared to me unjustifiably tyrannical. 
 It was pathetic to watch her seizing opportunities for spending an 
 hour in the nursery, and, when the child ailed ever so slightly, 
 coaxing the head nurse — who was a hard disciplinarian, engaged 
 to obey orders, and invariably chosen by Mr. Vassal himself — 
 persuading her to take rest or exercise, and to leave her in charge 
 of the child. The nurse was so unwilling to do this, that I 
 cannot help thinking Mr. Vassal must have made much of his 
 wife's mental trouble before the boy's birth, and had thus estab- 
 lished a reason for the method of espionage he adopted. No 
 doubt, too, Tremlett had been properly primed. I hope I am not 
 uncharitable, but I could never believe that Tremlett was really 
 as devoted to her mistress as her manner would have led outsiders 
 to suppose. 
 
 Poor Esther ! Sometimes at night I would hear a step outside 
 my door and would find her stealing along the corridor to Master 
 Vassal's wing, and then she would excuse herself by saying that she 
 had awakened fancying she heard the boy scream — which was an 
 impossibility. But the nurses had told her that he often started up 
 from his sleep about midnight crying violently, and this expectation 
 would arouse her, and she would go and watch surreptitiously for 
 a few minutes by the child's cot to assure herself that all was well. 
 
 Then when, as rarely happened, Mr. Vassal went away for a 
 day or two, she would contrive to send for Mr. Sergison, and 
 cleverly work him up to the delivering of a medical ordinance 
 that the boy should have carriage exercise or some such thing, 
 and there would be, of course, no plausible reason why he should 
 not accompany her on her drives. Of course, too, when the child
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 287 
 
 was really ill, she could not be denied the nursery ; and this was 
 a pretty frequent occurrence, especially during his teething time. 
 Once when he was about two years old, it was never expected 
 that he would recover, and prayers were offered up for him in the 
 village churches, and physicians were summoned from London — 
 Dr. Glaive, at Esther's urgent request, among them. I fancy it 
 was owing to him that the child did get well. But when we 
 talked it over afterwards, he shook his head sadly, and told 
 me there was such evident tendency to brain trouble, that he 
 should always be anxious on the boy's account ; and that he had 
 strongly impressed, both on Esther and Mr. Vassal, the necessity, 
 as the child grew older, of keeping him under the healthiest 
 influences, and of avoiding cerebral excitement and exposure to 
 the sun. But after this, and until he was about five years old, 
 little Bobby did seem to throw off his infantile delicacy. The 
 weird look left his face, and his forehead lost, to a great extent, its 
 bulging appearance. Though he was always shy, strangely dreamy, 
 and given to curious imaginings, so that he lived as it were in a 
 world of fantasy and it was difficult to tell when he was inventing 
 and when relating fact, he was a forward and intelligent child ; 
 and probably if he had been brought up in a gamekeeper's lodge 
 or a fisherman's cottage with romping brats of his own age, he 
 would have falsified Dr. Glaive's gloomy anticipations. But it 
 was his misfortune that he was born to inherit a fortune. 
 
 As the boy increased in stature, he gained in beauty. His 
 hair was fairer than his mother's, and had a tendency to curl at 
 the points, growing back in half-moon shape from his forehead, 
 and standing out in a kind of aureole. His skin was extraordi- 
 narily transparent, the blue veins showing through its ordinarily 
 waxen whiteness, though he had a trick of flushing at a word or 
 look to the most exquisite rose-petal bloom, that again faded 
 almost as quickly as it had come. His head had the fault of 
 seeming a little too big for his body, but his limbs were straight 
 and daintily formed, and the features very regular, like and yet un- 
 like his mother's, while his eyes were especially lovely — wistful 
 and earnest, with long dark lashes, and this peculiarity, that 
 whereas one was luminous grey, the other was half grey, half hazel. 
 
 Notwithstanding the anxiety he caused her, and in spite of the 
 gruesome atmosphere, to be felt rather than described, which his 
 presence near, and such slight intercourse as he had with Mr. 
 Vassal, brought about, the child was, I am certain, Esth< 
 greatest joy, and the most beneficial influence her nature had ever 
 known. It roused in her a womanly sympathy in which she had 
 formerly been wanting, and made her more tolerant of things and
 
 288 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 persons she disliked, and more ready to take life from the point 
 of view of others and less from her own. This was noticeable in 
 the way she bore with Mr. Vassal's bitter humours and taciturn 
 gloom, and in her patient acceptance of her lot as he ordained it. 
 Often did I marvel how she could endure uncomplainingly the 
 ironic coldness of his manner, and go through, with such effort at 
 cheerfulness, the social duties he heaped upon her. Once, before 
 I got to realise the situation, I said something of this kind — for I 
 am taking up unevenly the threads of these years, as my recollec- 
 tions unravel themselves — advising her, in a moment of undue 
 expansion, to rebel against some irksome demand Mr. Vassal had 
 made, and to which her health was at the time hardly equal. It 
 was, I remember, that she should play hostess in a yachting trip 
 to Monte Carlo and other places, among a gay company, totally 
 unsympathetic in ideas and occupations, in which some of the 
 ladies were not unstained in reputation — a prolonging of the 
 tragic farce, which meant also a long separation from the child. 
 But this was part of Mr. Vassal's new system. Formerly he had 
 preferred to yacht on his own account, and to divert himself at 
 foreign gambling resorts, independently of his wife. Now he 
 always desired that she should accompany him in his pleasure- 
 seekings. I often wondered about, and never discovered, the 
 reason for this freakish wish to have her in his train. I must 
 have delivered myself pretty freely upon the subject of Mr. 
 Vassal, for Esther's reception of my strictures did not encourage 
 me to repeat them. 
 
 " Gagsie — you don't know — " she exclaimed, in much distress. 
 " I must beg you not to judge Mr. Vassal so hardly. There's a 
 great deal that I cannot explain to you ; and so it is better for 
 us not to talk about what you fancy is his unkindness, but which 
 I have truly deserved." 
 
 I protested a little, but she only blamed herself the more ; 
 and I could not help thinking how like Esther it was that she 
 should go from an extreme of self-exculpation to one of incrimi- 
 nation. She was never evenly balanced. Perhaps in this lay some 
 of her curious charm. 
 
 " You see," she said, " Mr. Vassal married me when I was 
 poor Esther Vrintz, with no idea how to perform the duties he 
 had a right to expect his wife would fulfil. I never tried to learn 
 anything, or to please him in any of the ways he would have 
 liked. I just gave up when I found I wasn't equal to things, and 
 grew utterly morbid and wrapped in my own selfish broodings. 
 Dr. Glaive knows that, and how unhealthy my mind became. . . . 
 Everything went wrong — and — well, never mind, Gagsie ; you
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 289 
 
 must understand without my saying. I've got to make up now 
 for the bad things I have done, in the best way I am able. It's 
 no use your telling me I should rebel, for I never can ; and 
 it isn't mere weakness. My mind is fixed that I must do every- 
 thing — even the smallest thing Mr. Vassal wants. And there's 
 nothing — unless it involved some dreadful wrong to Bunchy ; and 
 then I should — yes, I must stand out whether it would be of any 
 use or not— but, short of that, there is nothing Mr. Vassal could 
 require of me that I should be justified in refusing." 
 
 " You allow him to do Bunchy a wrong already," I said, " in 
 keeping the child so much away from you." 
 
 " I've thought of that," she replied ; " it's part of my punish- 
 ment. If Bunchy were as ailing as he used to be, I should be 
 different, and they'd have to drag me by cart-ropes to make me 
 leave him. But you see how wonderfully better he is now ; and 
 Mr. Vassal spares no pains nor money in getting trustworthy 
 people round him, and in giving him every comfort and advan- 
 tage. There isn't a little boy in England so splendidly arranged 
 for as Bunchy." 
 
 " Simply because he is the heir of Grisewood," I said. 
 
 Esther coloured, her flush reminding me of the evanescent 
 rose in Bunchy's cheeks. There was nothing more to be said. 
 Whatever the motive might be, the little heir of Grisewood was 
 as sumptuously provided for as though he had been a prince ; 
 there were just those things wanting in his bringing-up — his 
 mother's companionship, a father's love, and the free gifts of 
 Nature, that many a cottar's son has in generous measure. 
 
 I said no more to Esther ; it only pained her, and I knew 
 that she would defend Mr. Vassal. No obligation rested upon 
 me, however, to respect Mr. Vassal's feelings, and I took an 
 opportunity of letting him know Esther's view of the matter, and 
 how much I admired her loyalty. His chilling reserve rebuked 
 my presumption. But somehow I fancied that he liked me better 
 for what I had said ; and it was certainly after this that I became 
 a more frequent visitor at Grisewood. If he did not suggest the 
 invitations, it was at any rate clear that he did not resent their 
 being given. 
 
 Another thing that used to puzzle me in the first year or two 
 after her child's birth was the absolute extinction of Esther's 
 literary ambition. Of course, long before that, I had read Esther 
 Zamiel's novels, and had felt that they certainly justified their 
 success. Peculiar, slightly unhealthy, and mournful to despair as 
 was their tone, as to tin- power of them, there could be no manner 
 of doubt. The critics had been safe in predii ting that with years 
 
 T
 
 2 9 o THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 and experience she would go far, and I was surprised also to find 
 how much more deeply she had read and thought than I ever 
 imagined. What surprised me most, however, in the novels, was 
 the almost unconscious revelation they gave of a fund of passion- 
 ate feeling one would hardly have associated with the exterior 
 woman, and which I then put down to aberrant genius rather 
 than to temperament. It seemed to me a sin that such literary 
 power should be wasted, and I urged her to resume her pen. 
 
 Not to any purpose. The far-away look came into her face — 
 the look which troubled me ; and all I could get from her by 
 word of mouth was — 
 
 " I can't write now ; Esther Zamiel is dead, and will never 
 come to life again." 
 
 " No, no," I cried ; " she is not dead, but sleeping. The 
 time will come when she must awaken and do better work than 
 she has ever done." 
 
 " The time will come ! " Esther repeated in such a strange 
 tone, and with so wild a look, that I was startled. " Oh, perhaps 
 you are right . . . perhaps you are right, Gagsie ; and Esther 
 Zamiel will really awaken — awaken to the roses and the sunshine, 
 and to the song of the torrent and of the wind among the palm- 
 leaves. . . . And she will write beautiful books — such beautiful 
 books — because they will be true." 
 
 She was trembling with agitation as she turned from me 
 abruptly and left the room. 
 
 But later on, she wrote in answer to a letter of mine again 
 attacking the subject, and recalling to her our girl-talks and her 
 early ambitions. 
 
 ..." I wish I could make you understand, Gagsie ; but I 
 can't — any more than I can make you understand why I feel 
 
 bound to act in some ways as I do Perhaps, as you say, 
 
 Esther Zamiel will awaken some day. 
 
 " But I had a great, great shake — about which I cannot tell any 
 one, and which was in a kind of way connected with my writing- 
 life. It brought me to the conclusion that my fancy, which I 
 had welcomed with such joy, was in reality a source of danger- 
 fostering tendencies it is now my duty to repress. For I be, 
 lieve that we writing-people are a race by ourselves — slaves to a 
 temperament, as Mr. Paravel would say ; and I don't think the 
 temperament is one to make ourselves or others happy. . . . Not 
 you, Gagsie, or your father — you are not of the type — though 
 you are writing-people. You should give thanks to Heaven, 
 dear, for it. Oh, I hope that my boy may not be of the type 
 either. But I fear — I fear !
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 291 
 
 "Sometimes still the old egoistic, analytical mood seizes me, 
 and I can't help, if anything moves me greatly, putting it down, 
 just for relief, as I used. It seems to do me good, and I lock 
 the book away and try to forget. Then, too, I have a vague pur- 
 pose in my scribblings, which perhaps you may know some day. 
 At all events, if I should die first, you will find that I have left 
 you a certain tin box in which are stored a bundle of note-books, 
 and the legacy — if you choose to accept it — of carrying out my 
 wishes in regard to them. 
 
 " Naamah was the outcome of morbid emotions pent within 
 me and' cankering. Probably I should have gone mad if I 
 had not written it. But the phase has passed. I am like a 
 bird which can only pipe one note, and not till my life has 
 rounded itself into harmony — I live on that hope — shall I ever 
 sing a true song." 
 
 I seemed to read in these last lines a distant allusion to the 
 freedom which, in course of nature, through Mr. Vassal's death, 
 would permit her to live her own life ; and the notion jarred. 
 Afterwards I divined her real meaning, which was something 
 quite different. 
 
 I used often to wonder over the thoughts of little Bobby 
 Vassal — or Bunchy, to use his mother's fond, foolish name 
 for him — and how he would have summed up things generally — 
 supposing that he could have found expression for the feeling 
 which must have underlain all his childish philosophisings, that 
 he was not as other boys are, nor his parents as the parents of 
 other children whom he knew. 
 
 Poor wee Bunchy ! His wistful face and small sad existence 
 were ever an affliction to me ; and he was continually in my mind, 
 whether I was in London or at Grisewood. As I write now, I 
 glance backwards and forwards, haphazard as it were, jotting 
 down impressions gathered from the child's prattle and from 
 what I saw myself of his life; impressions, too, of what I learned 
 more indirectly from Esther and the people round him. 
 
 Not that Bunchy knew many boys with whom to compare 
 himself, for Mr. Vassal did not encourage playmates, and the 
 child's opportunities were few of contrasting his own lot with that 
 of his neighbours. But there was the Rectory mar, with its big 
 brood, each of which was far in advance of Bunchy in size, it not 
 in years — a household that gave him an occasional glimpse "I 
 what a love-illuminated home may be, where father, mother, and 
 children dwell together in the bond of amity. Then there was the 
 small Littlewood, the idol of Fincham, who was only a few months
 
 292 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 older than Bunchy, and who was often brought over by Addie 
 when she came to luncheon at the Castle, while Bunchy would 
 be in his turn invited to play with Horry at Fincham when the 
 Littlewoods made their periodical August and Christmas visits. 
 I fancy that precocious Bunchy used to ponder a good deal on 
 the happy freedom of the Rectory boys and girls, and to note 
 enviously how they joked with their genial father and chaffed 
 their sweetly serious mother ; how they were never afraid to say 
 anything that came into their heads, or to enter their father's 
 study uninvited ; and how they flew into passions and committed 
 naughtinesses, and were often reproved, and sometimes punished ; 
 but how it was an understood thing in the establishment that 
 the sun must not go down upon wrath, so that no matter 
 what the offence, it would be wiped out during the half-hour 
 between prayers and bedtime by father's and mother's forgiving 
 kiss. 
 
 And the same with Horry Littlewood, who was always getting 
 into scrapes on account of unlawful dealings with his father's 
 properties, and audacious tricks played upon that rather precise 
 gentleman. I have seen Bunchy stand in amaze when Horry, 
 having gone a little too far in his mischief, had called down 
 parental anger upon his flaxen head, and would then stand 
 shamefaced but resolute, to plead, with fearless eyes looking 
 straight into his father's face, "Dads, me sorry. Please, Dads, 
 forgive Horry for Mumsey's sake." And Bunchy must have 
 marvelled greatly to find that the plea was unanswerable, and 
 that Horry the artful would invariably be forgiven, caught up, 
 and smothered in kisses "for Mumsey's sake." 
 
 In the wildest flights of his imagination — and Bunchy had an 
 innate and hereditary tendency towards fiction — the little fellow 
 could never have conceived the possibility of such a thing 
 happening to himself, or of his mother voluntarily bringing about 
 any kind of familiarity between him and that awesome being 
 before whom every inhabitant of Grisewood quailed, and whom 
 he would not dream of calling anything but Mr. Vassal, if indeed 
 he ever dared to address him. What else should he call him ? 
 He never heard his mother use any more intimate term. _ Once, 
 I recollect, Bunchy astonished Mrs. Littlewood, who was playing 
 upon Horry's feelings with the threat that Dads would not kiss 
 him if he were naughty, by solemnly remarking — 
 
 " Bunchy got no Dads. Where's Bunchy's Dads ? " 
 
 " Why, good gracious ! child," exclaimed Mrs. Littlewood, 
 " Mr. Vassal is your Dads, and I am sure that he is very devoted 
 to you, and that he kisses you ever so often."
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 293 
 
 But Bunchy shook his weird head. 
 
 " Mifter Vatt'l not Dads," he said. " Mifter Vatt'l never kisses 
 Bunchy." 
 
 I heard Mrs. Littlewood relating the episode, which seemed 
 to puzzle her a good deal, as not fitting in with preconceived 
 theories. She softened her perplexity by surmising that it must be 
 difficult for an old man who had never had children to accustom 
 himself all at once to baby ways, and went on to suppose that it 
 must be gout and age which had so changed Mr. Vassal, who, 
 she said, was certainly not the delightfully genial and polished 
 old gentleman he used to be. If Mrs. Littlewood had been as 
 much behind the scenes at Grisewood as I came to be, she 
 would still further have revised her former conception of its 
 master, and would have admitted that by no manner of reasoning 
 could Bunchy have fixed a tender appellation on to that stern old 
 man with the alarming eyes and the ghoulish smile. In fact, as 
 the little boy artlessly confided to me, Bunchy felt certain in his own 
 mind that "Mifter Vatt'l" must be one of those ogres or magi- 
 cians, with tales of whom, one special nursemaid was wont to 
 enliven the hour when the head nurse was at supper, and Bunchy 
 waited broad awake till "Muwie" stole up from the drawing- 
 room after dinner to bid him good-night. 
 
 "Muwie" was at these times usually richly dressed and 
 sparkling with jewels, for Mr. Vassal could not bear to stay at 
 the Castle unless it was filled with guests. He seemed possessed 
 by a demon of restlessness and an insatiable craving for amuse- 
 ment — a craving nothing would satisfy, since nothing really 
 amused him. Often I would ask myself if there could be in the 
 world a more melancholy spectacle than this wicked, worn-out 
 old man who had survived his capacity for enjoyment. No one 
 knew for a week together how long he would remain in any 
 place ; and Esther was obliged, or believed it her duty, to follow 
 everywhere at her lord's beck, leaving the boy, who was seldom 
 taken even to London, in the care of his govern* ss and nurses. 
 
 It could have made very little difference to Bunchy whether 
 the house was full or empty, for he was very rarely brought into 
 evidence. Only one or two of those more intimate visitors, such 
 as Mrs. Raphon or Mrs. Audley Arathoon, would make a « ill on 
 the forlorn little hereditary prince in his own quarters ; and then, 
 as I once heard, Mrs. Raphon would n port Oil the little fellow 
 to Mr. Vassal, after a fashion that made the old man chuckle 
 evilly, and the mother wince notwithstanding her wonderful self- 
 control. The child hated Mrs. Raphon, but of "Auntie Mi," as 
 the two settled between them he should call her, he was oddly
 
 294 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 fond. It amused me to see how tender Mione was to the boy 
 when nobody was looking, while, if any one else was present, 
 she would make bright, biting remarks, and bless Providence for 
 having denied her the over-rated boon of children. She never 
 forgot to bring Bunchy a present, and would spend much time 
 and thought on the selection of some peculiar toy which she 
 thought would amuse him, and which his mother would not 
 already have procured. 
 
 Occasionally, too, the Willoughbys and Cotherstones and others 
 of the Woodfordshire neighbours would dine at Grisewood, and 
 ask that the boy might be sent for. Then he would be brought 
 down, " a quaint misery," which was how Mrs. Littlewood still 
 described him, beautiful as he had grown, in his velvet suit and 
 Vandyke collar, his fair hair brushed into shining filaments like 
 the tassels of Indian corn, his slender form shrinking involuntarily 
 at the sound of Mr. Vassal's voice, and his large, frightened eyes 
 sending nervous glances towards his mother, from whom the 
 length of the table separated him, and who, in a pale agony, 
 would sit silent and constrained till the signal was given for the 
 boy's departure. 
 
 In Bunchy's estimation, as I used to glean from his baby 
 prattle, " Mifter Vatt'l " was the one infallible deliverer of edicts, 
 and the embodiment of all that was most to be feared in the 
 universe. In child-fancy he used to class " Mifter Vatt'l " and the 
 devil together. Of God, Bunchy was not so much afraid, for in 
 the teachings and prayings of their scant hours together, Esther 
 had given him the notion that God loved him and wished him 
 well, as his mother loved him and wished him all good, though 
 the opportunities for showing this were limited by outside fate. 
 Also he got the idea that God was sorry, just as his mother was 
 sorry, for the existence of a Power of evil, before which Bunchy 
 must tremble, but which it was his duty to regard as a painful 
 necessity in the divine system of education. If Bunchy pitied 
 himself and his mother, for — he scarcely knew what, except that 
 it was somehow connected with this Power of evil and " Mifter 
 Vatt'l " — he likewise deeply pitied God for having been obliged to 
 create " Mifter Vatt'l" and the devil. Thus, following the sequence 
 of ideas, as he trembled in spirit before the power and influence 
 of Satan, so he trembled in bodily presence before the power 
 and influence of Mr. Vassal. Whenever he caught sight of that 
 personage in the gardens or stable-yard, or on the staircase or 
 along the corridors, Bunchy shuddered and escaped. Alas ! he 
 could not escape when the freak took Mr. Vassal, as it some- 
 times did in the desperation of his boredom between the house-
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 295 
 
 parties, to have the boy down at the tete-a-tete dinners or the 
 meals at which I made a third. It was worst when husband and 
 wife were alone. Then Bunchy would sit in his high chair between 
 the two and quake all through the gruesome feast, which no 
 doubt he contrasted with those occasions when he had come 
 down with Horry to dessert at Fincham, or had assisted at the 
 cheerful Rectory meal. It had seemed a matter of course that 
 there should be a fire of affectionate raillery between Mrs. Little- 
 wood and her husband, and even the old Heseltine pair, while 
 the adoration of Mrs. Wargrave for the Rector made them appear 
 more like lovers than a prosaic elderly couple. I can fancy how 
 Bunchy reflected upon the fact that in the gardener's cottage and 
 the head-keeper's lodge, where he was sometimes taken by his 
 nurse, the same happy domestic relations prevailed. His poor 
 little mind must have been strangely confused by the condition 
 of things in his own home, where, as a rule, when they were 
 alone together, the master 'and mistress maintained towards each 
 other a grim silence, broken perhaps in presence of the servants 
 by the utterance of some formal commonplace. Bunchy must 
 have noticed that his mother avoided looking at Mr. Vassal, and 
 never of her own accord addressed him, but would sit pale and 
 nervous, smiling occasionally at the child in a wild, forced manner, 
 or saying some tender word to him, which Mr. Vassal's sneering 
 laugh would quench. Sometimes Mr. Vassal would break in 
 with some sarcastic question about the boy's doings, or would 
 suddenly burst into angry abuse of a dish served, or of somebody 
 present or absent who had incurred his displeasure. For as days 
 and ailments gathered upon him, his self-command weakened, 
 his temper grew more capricious, and he would succumb to gusts 
 of unreasoning passion, at which times he did indeed seem more 
 fiend than human. Under the stress of rage his reserve towards 
 Esther would be broken, and he would snarl at her like a savage 
 beast, making the boy shrink and shiver in terror, while the poor 
 mother, growing whiter every moment, would at last piteously 
 implore that the child might be sent to his nursery. Bui that 
 Mr. Vassal would not allow, and when his fury reached this point 
 it usually began to abate, and he would content himself with the 
 hurling of ironic speeches of which the child could not have 
 understood the drift, but which, he must have felt, were as knives 
 piercing his mother's bosom. The tears would gather in his 
 eyes; he would give a little convulsive sob; and Mr. Vai al 
 would gibe at him for being a baby, and then, filling a glass with 
 strong wine, would bid him drink it, finding amusement in seeing 
 the little fellow's pale face flush and his timidity vanish. To my
 
 296 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 delight, on one of these occasions, Esther got up like a goaded 
 lioness, and gathering the child in her arms, marched with him 
 out of the room. I don't know what happened after that — to 
 judge from my poor Esther's face, it must have been something 
 very terrible. The next day the house filled anew, and later Mr. 
 Vassal dragged her off to Homburg. Anyhow, as far as I saw, 
 Bunchy did not come down to dinner again. 
 
 With the failing of Mr. Vassal's powers, things changed some- 
 what and became easier, and his system was carried out less 
 rigorously. He had an efficient co-operator in Tremlett as long 
 as she remained at Grisewood, as far as watch and ward went. 
 But, oddly enough, she seemed to have a liking for the child, and 
 when Bunchy was tiny, one of his favourite amusements was to 
 play in the workroom with her reels and coloured balls of silk, 
 and apparently she enjoyed his company. But Tremlett went 
 away, and a new maid came, who did not care for children, and 
 would not let Bunchy watch her preparing those beautiful gowns 
 in which he loved to see his mother arrayed. 
 
 Tremlett, impassive and reserved to the last, never told any 
 one why she gave up service or where she was going. I know 
 that she rejected the sum of money which Esther offered her as a 
 parting gift, but we heard of her some time later through Mione 
 Arathoon, who, when on a country-house visit, discovered Trem- 
 lett set up in a dressmaking establishment in the neighbourhood, 
 and evidently in very flourishing circumstances. I have always 
 wondered what was the true history of Tremlett,
 
 BOOK XIII 
 
 " Naught but the greatest struggles, "wrongs, 
 defeats, could make thee greatest. No less could 
 mate thee.''
 
 WRITTEN Benoni! Son, not of my sorrow only, but also of 
 
 BY my joy ! 
 
 ESTHER- Life was bitter, and the way I had to walk steep 
 
 VASSAL : and stony, but the hand of my little child upheld 
 and guided me to within reach of those greater 
 Hands which, as I mounted from my valley of shadow, were 
 stretched forth to help me. 
 
 For in truth, and, as I believe, through the regenerating in- 
 fluence of my child, I became dimly conscious of a Power outside 
 myself, assisting my feeble efforts, not only in the soul-struggle 
 towards a nobler faith, but in the performance of everyday duties 
 and in commonplace deed and speech, acting as a deterrent from 
 ignoble thought and selfish impulse. This sense of a mystic 
 guardianship may be looked upon, perhaps, as merely a vivifying 
 of the old-fashioned mystery of conscience, and is no doubt 
 familiar to all who endeavour to walk, however haltingly, the 
 spiritual road; but to me it became something much more — by 
 slow degrees a reality indescribable, but so intense that, upon 
 lying down to sleep, I would commit myself to the unknown 
 Servers in a fantastic yet ever-deepening conviction that my 
 dream-life was thus purified, and my dream-body turned into a 
 vehicle for the learning of spiritual truth. 
 
 I fancied, maybe at first too rashly, that, by means of this 
 other-world governance, my love for Robert became gradually 
 rarefied and elevated. Though it remained always an abiding 
 consciousness permeating my whole life, time lessened the active 
 torture of those earlier months of separation. His thought had 
 still strength to pierce space and draw to him -the immaterial 
 part of me, but the almost bodily pang as of severed flesh. 
 the torment of unavailing longing for his touch and presence, 
 grew less and less insistent. It was as though Nature's law- 
 had fulfilled itself, and as if the child, descending like an angel 
 with healing on its wings, had delivered me from a spell, at 
 once rapture and agony. 
 
 One night of Spirit-illuminated experience I remember, as 
 
 299
 
 3oo THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 Jacob might have remembered the darkness of Peniel, when 
 there wrestled with him a Man until the break of day. 
 
 It was a strange mental cataclysm, disproportionate perhaps 
 to its immediate cause. For children with a morbid taint have 
 been born in all time to even sane and sound parents, and boys 
 have lied and been punished by a night of solitary imprisonment 
 without madness or perdition ensuing therefrom. But in the 
 spiritual being of each of us, the seed of an upward growth may 
 be sown when we know not of it, and the blossom open in an 
 hour of storm, when God's sun seems farthest from us. 
 
 As my babe began to grow into boyhood, I discovered in 
 him and grieved over small signs of moral aberration, due, I was 
 aware, in great degree to physical conditions — a nervously strung 
 temperament, a frail physique, and all those baneful pre-natal 
 influences, producing cowardice and deceitful propensities, which 
 caused me nevertheless the deepest distress, and at times well- 
 nigh broke my slow trust in a Providence working for ultimate 
 good. 
 
 Remembering Dr. Glaive's advice, I did my best that the boy 
 should lead as simple and natural a life as was possible. I did my 
 best also to conceal from Mr. Vassal his tendency to tell stories. 
 But one day he was convicted of a fault about which he lied 
 flagrantly ; and when the matter was brought to Mr. Vassal's 
 knowledge, Bunchy's sentence was that he should be confined 
 for the remainder of the day and the night, in a turret-room away 
 from his nursery, and that neither I nor his governess nor any of 
 the servants should go to him. 
 
 Almost for the first time I broke through my rule of strict 
 obedience, and remonstrated and entreated. Mr. Vassal made 
 the concession that a maid should sleep in a small room next 
 the turret-chamber, under orders, however, that she was not to 
 speak to the boy or enter his presence unless there were danger 
 of his suffering seriously through fright at being left alone. To 
 me the restriction was made absolute. The maid and the boy 
 were locked up in the turret together, and, short of breaking open 
 an iron-bound oak door at the head of the staircase, access to 
 that part of the house was impossible. 
 
 The turret, which contained two bachelor chambers, and was 
 only used when the house was full, lay above the oratory leading 
 from my own sitting-room. There through the oak ceiling I 
 could hear the patter of my boy's little high-heeled shoes upon 
 the parquet, as he ran up and down in his helpless anger. Then 
 I knew that he must have flung himself upon the ground, and the 
 muffled sound of his sobs and weak cries of " Mother " pierced
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 301 
 
 down into my heart, till I could bear the pain no longer, and ran 
 upstairs in defiance of my master's orders, resolved that I would 
 speak to my darling through the door, and tell him that I was 
 below and that he was not to be afraid. But it was when I 
 reached the corridor at the head of the stairs that I found the 
 iron-clamped door fast, and knew that I was further away from 
 the child than I had been in the oratory. So I went back and 
 listened and waited. And as night crept on, I lacerated my heart 
 in picturing the timid, sensitive creature suffering in the darkness, 
 with the black cedars swaying and groaning in front of the turret 
 windows, and all the dismal sounds of darkness preying upon his 
 nerves — lacerated myself unreasonably, for I should have known 
 by his screams if he were really in terror, and he did not scream, 
 he only sobbed in querulous grief. 
 
 I too sobbed in lonely misery and fear of things supermundane. 
 A blackness fell upon my soul and a horrible doubt, so that it 
 seemed to me that there was no God to protect and comfort 
 those who trusted in Him. and that the pallid Christ, who looked 
 down upon me now with the same tortured smile which had 
 mocked my anguish upon that long-past winter morn, was not 
 Saviour but victim, whose last ineffectual cry had, eighteen 
 hundred years back, rung the knell of a God-forsaken humanity. 
 
 All night 1 remained in the oratory, pacing the narrow space 
 or huddled on the ground at the feet of that ivory Symbol of a 
 world's deliverance — or of a world's despair. Vet though I was 
 crouched there in the body, and alive with my bodily senses to 
 every faint murmur overhead, it seemed to me at moments that I 
 was in reality dead, and that in the spirit I was standing at the 
 firmament's edge, with illimitable space spreading in dense dark- 
 ness before me. Not space as I had imagined it, still, empty, and 
 ethereal, but a vast eddying blackness, a turbid, unknowable sea, 
 in which the sin-stained soul launched upon it might find no 
 bath of oblivion. 
 
 And the circle of my own being was, as it were, contracted 
 into a meaningless span, that held not hope nor faith nor conso- 
 lation. Cone the fable of redemption by pain, (lone the myth 
 of a celestial Energy, working through Love's mystery to the 
 reconcilement of flesh and soul. Gone the dream of a divine 
 transmutation of the human into the spiritual: of passion into 
 the higher love. It seemed to me that I had come to tin- end <>f 
 the human tether. Natural Law must be obeyed Beyond, all 
 was blank futility. The Wheel ol Life must go grinding on. 
 
 Effect must follow Cause, and in its turn I i ause again, 
 
 and sin and heredity must produce their appointed result. 1 had
 
 wrong 
 
 302 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 brought the child foredoomed into the world, and, by a mistaken 
 reading of the code of duty, had placed him under the influences 
 most prejudicial to his moral development. Where was the use 
 of having acquiesced in my fate, accepted my punishment and 
 lived my life ? Could falseness ever lead to good ? Would 
 it not have been nobler to stand by the truth, to have braved 
 the world and risked the consequences to myself and those 
 dear, leaving Nature to adjust her own balance of right and 
 ? 
 
 Looking back, I seemed to see in my supine driftings of the 
 past, and now, in the character of my son, the operation of that fatal 
 weakness which, since the day of my Claudia failure, when I had 
 submitted to the domination of Circumstance, had been my curse. 
 With this doubt came, too, a paralysing doubt of the purity of 
 my motive in yielding myself to punishment and recognising Mr. 
 Vassal as the earthly agent of a higher Tribunal. Was it indeed 
 the wish to spare others shame and suffering, and not rather 
 expediency and a sweet, selfish, quenchless, hope that had lain 
 at the root of my obedience ? Had the renunciation been com- 
 plete ? Was there not even now, lurking deep in my innermost 
 heart, the expectation of reunion at some near or distant day, 
 when death had cancelled vows and broken fetters ? 
 
 Oh, let me cling to that last anchor-truth — truth to my own 
 soul. Even if there be no God, still let me be true ! . . . And if God 
 lives on in heaven, how can He open His gates to falsehood ? 
 
 It must be wrenched away from me, that enticing, terrible 
 hope — that secret longing, never expressed in form of words or 
 definite thought, cherished only in dreams of the night, and 
 banished by waking fancy — the dear longing for warm hands 
 clasping, for living lips clinging, for the joy of Tourmestral 
 once more. . . . 
 
 Out of the thrilling silence I heard the child call weakly. . . . 
 
 . . . And Mother couldn't come to you, darling — Mother, who 
 gave you life, yet was powerless to keep trouble from you — 
 Mother, who brought you sorrow-weighted into this unloving 
 world where there was no place for you. Oh, lonely, tormented 
 baby-soul, struggling too on the verge of that black immensity 
 — comprehending nothing but that destiny was cruel ! 
 
 . . . And Mother's arms tied and bound, so that they might 
 not stretch out and fold you safe ! Mother's heart weeping tears 
 of blood, but helpless to comfort you in your weeping ! Oh, my 
 baby, my little innocent baby, what had we done to God, you and 
 I, that this wicked thing should be ? 
 
 No, injustice could have no part in the design of a beneficent
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 303 
 
 Creator. God did not exist. ... It was only a great Wheel, 
 revolving, revolving for ever and for ever. . . . 
 
 To what purpose ?. . . . Could the Wheel turn endlessly on to 
 no intent ? What became of the human lives lashed upon it, to 
 revolve with it and to disappear ? Why— if all were but blind law, 
 dead matter, crumbling into nothingness — why evil, why good ? 
 Why the eternal conflict ? 
 
 Then, with my baby boy's smothered wail sounding in my ear, 
 by one mighty effort I sent my soul outward from me ; and it strove 
 and wrestled with the Self, as might Jacob have wrestled with the 
 Man of Peniel. It strove and wrestled that the child might be 
 delivered from the burden of my sin. For it seemed to me that 
 in this moment I had reached that acutest stage of the spirit's 
 travail, when personal desire is expelled once and for ever, in the 
 all- mastering prayer for another's good at whatever cost to the 
 Self. 
 
 And in the extremity of the throe, I cast myself forth upon the 
 Infinite, crying voicelessly into the immensity — 
 
 " O God — if there be a God— punish me only, but spare the 
 child. Take everything from me. Let me bear any torture that 
 seemeth well to Thee. But keep the boy good. . . . O God — if 
 there be a God — keep the boy good." 
 
 Then I offered up my last and dearest sacrifice — the tender 
 hope that had lain close and warm by my heart — which had been 
 verily a nearer part of myself than bone of my bone and flesh of 
 my flesh. 
 
 " O God, I will renounce my love for ever and ever ! . . . 
 Dear God, for the child's sake, accept this sacrifice. God, if 
 there be a God to hear — hearken to this my vow. Of my own 
 will, I will never see my love more. I will die and never kiss 
 his lips again. I renounce all — all — utterly. . . . But give me 
 the price, dear God ! Give me the price." 
 
 I know not what mighty angel came to me out of the heaving 
 infinity. It may be that God's Hand was then stretched forth 
 upon me. ... As I lay at the foot of the altar my consciousness 
 went. I could not tell whether I had fainted, or whether I had 
 slept, and in my sleep had been carried to the Heyond and shown 
 the Great Glory. . . . There are no words in which to phrase the 
 Unspeakable. 
 
 When I awoke there was nothing that I could recall — no 
 dream; no beatific vision; no utterance of the Divine. . . . But 
 I kimv— knew with the certainty of one who has beheld his 
 Lord face to face— that God is, and that in His love is our 
 being. ... I knew that my prayer was answered, that my
 
 304 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 sacrifice was accepted, that truly all would be well with the 
 child. 
 
 When the turret-room was opened, and I went to my boy, 
 he was lying dressed upon an old-fashioned settle at the foot of 
 the great canopied bed. His little limbs were curled up in an 
 unnatural attitude ; his curly hair was matted, and his face was 
 white as marble, puckered and stained with tears. I approached 
 him in dread, but he was sleeping tranquilly. As I kneeled 
 down by him, kissing his damp curls, his hand, his eyelids — a 
 tear plashing upon his cheek awoke him, and he started and 
 stared at me with frightened eyes, which lost their wild look 
 when he recognised his mother. The thin arms went up 
 round my neck ; the little body heaved against my bosom. . . . 
 " Muvver ! " he kept repeating in his baby accents. " Oh . . . 
 Muvver ! " and sobbed gaspingly, while I hugged him close and 
 soothed and wept with him. 
 
 I carried him to my own bed, sent away the nurse, and 
 sponged his face, and undressed him, and straightened his dis- 
 order ; and then, when I had him safe within the cool sheets, I 
 cuddled him in my arms and fed him with hot milk and bread. 
 He ate the food hungrily, and the convulsive movement of his 
 chest ceased. The nourishment seemed to clear his dazed brain, 
 and to give back remembrance of the punishment, which had 
 been lost in his dreams. He clenched his small hands in help- 
 less resentment ; his brow flushed and his grey eyes gleamed as 
 he cried passionately, " Bunchy hates Mifter Vatt'l." 
 
 And the tragic incongruity of it all — the ill-dealing of Fate, 
 not now to the child and to me, but to our enemy, whose hand 
 lay heavy upon the boy, smote me, bringing piercing condemna- 
 tion of myself. Again, as during those illuminated moments in 
 which I had gazed upon him before making my last appeal, I 
 pitied Mr. Vassal, and beheld myself as the wronger rather than 
 the wronged. Upon that chaos of thought and emotion, out of 
 which during the night a new spiritual sense seemed to have 
 evolved within me, strange lights flashed, now as then, clarifying 
 the inner deeps ; and every word, detail, and gesture of that 
 scene with my little child rises up, marking an epoch of soul- 
 experience never to be undone nor unwritten. 
 
 " O Bunchy, my darling ! " I cried, stirred by the new com- 
 punction. " You must never say that — never ! never ! " 
 
 The expression of my face seemed to startle the boy; he 
 gazed at me earnestly, with all the anger gone from his eyes. 
 
 " What for, Muvver ? "
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 305 
 
 " Because it's wrong. I cannot bear it." 
 
 " What for, Muvver ? " he said again, wonderingly. " Did you 
 have punishment too ? " 
 
 " Yes," I answered. " When Bunchy is naughty and tells lies 
 and gets punished, Mother is punished as well ; and it hurts her 
 just as badly as it hurts Bunchy." 
 
 The child's look widened. 
 
 " Why is '00 punished ? " 
 
 "Because you are my baby, and a bit of my own self; and 
 everything that hurts you hurts me too. For God gave you to 
 me to rrtake me good — to make me learn love and obedience 
 through- teaching you to love and obey — first God, and then 
 those — who are appointed over you." 
 
 " I know. My parents and guardians ; that's what Nana says. 
 Muvver, is Mifter Vatt'l 'pointed over you too ? " 
 
 " I must obey him and do everything I can to please him, 
 because he is my husband." 
 
 " But you never please him, Muvvie. He's always cross. . . ." 
 The child waited, wistful and curious. Presently — 
 
 "Husbands is farvers too; isn't they, Muvvie?" 
 
 " Sometimes." 
 
 The boy thought deeply for a minute. 
 
 "Nana says Mifter Vatt'l is Bunchy's parent and guardian. 
 Is parent and farver the same thing, Muvvie?" 
 
 "Yes, the same thing." 
 
 " Then why does Bunchy never say ' Farver ' to Mifter Vatt'l 
 — same as Horry and Brucie Wargrave? Why doesn't Mifter 
 Vatt'l never kiss Bunchy?" 
 
 Oh, what could I say to my child? How could I answer 
 him but with wild remorseful kisses? 
 
 " Muwer, was '00 very naughty, and did '00 tell lies to 
 Mifter Vatt'l for him never to speak to you — only when he 
 punishes?" 
 
 "Oh, my baby, don't torture Mother with your question- 
 ings. . . . Oh, you know that you have been very wicked, 
 Bunchy!" 
 
 " I know, Muvvie . . . I'se always wicked. I'se always ti lling 
 
 lies. Something makes me And God hates Bunchy like 
 
 Mifter Vatt'l." 
 
 Then all th< pas ion of pity and pain and mother-love and newly 
 quickened faith thrilled up in me, and spoke by .1 Void which 
 
 tned like the voice of One outside myself. As the quiveri 
 cadences come back, I know them not lor my own utteram 
 but rather for the words of One who bore me up when the bill- 
 
 u
 
 3o6 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 of doubt went over me — of One who comforted my forlorn soul, 
 even as I now strove, in broken interpretation of the language, to 
 comfort the bruised heart of my little boy. Maybe the words 
 were beyond the baby-brain's comprehension ; but who can say 
 that the baby-soul did not hearken and understand ! 
 
 " No, God cannot hate," the Voice said, through my halting 
 speech. " Could /hate my baby-boy ? Do /not love you — love 
 you, my baby who was wicked and was punished ? . . . And think, 
 dear sweet ! Mother's love is only big enough to hold her boy — 
 and — and just a few of the people in her life who have cared for 
 her. . . . But God's love is great enough to hold the whole world, 
 and the stars that are worlds too, and every man and woman and 
 child in every world that ever was and ever shall be. . . . God 
 loves you, baby-man — loves you — loves you, and will always love 
 you, for ever and for ever. Mother knows it. . . . Last night God 
 told her." 
 
 " In a dream, Muvvie ? " the child murmured. " In a Bible 
 dieam ? " 
 
 " God spoke in Mother's heart, and made her understand. . . . 
 God showed Mother that His love holds everything— the world 
 and the stars and her love and the angels, and even the spirits 
 of evil. For God doesn't want the spirits to be evil. . . . And 
 He grieves over them — as He grieves over your badness and 
 mine, little Bunchy. . . As I grieve, in my way, which is so very 
 small a way compared with God's way — when my boy is naughty. 
 . . . For oh, my baby-man, that's the sorrow of it all — that we 
 can't care in God's way till we have had sin in us and round 
 us, and have conquered it through love, and have changed it 
 into good. . . . God means everything and every one in the end 
 to become good. . . And this may be His way of helping the 
 spirits of evil, whom He cannot make pray and turn to Him 
 of themselves, because of their evil. . . . He gives us the task; 
 He teaches us to turn to Him in our great trouble, when sin 
 scourges us and torments us sore. Then, at last, we are forced 
 to join our will with His. So we show the evil spirits, by our 
 resistance of them, the knowledge of good. . . . And that's how, 
 when we fight the sin that is in us, we are helping God to fight 
 the sin that is outside of us. . . . 
 
 " That's why we must never hate any one, even though people 
 may seem unjust and cruel. . . . For that is shutting our souls 
 against love, and taking away the hope of turning evil into good, 
 and of helping God and each other. . . . It's taking away the 
 power of prayer. . . . And prayer is love — nothing else. Not the 
 saying of words — like ' Our Father '—it's much — oh, much more
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 307 
 
 than words ! . . And not the wanting to be good for our own 
 sake, or even for the sake of goodness itself ; but the being good 
 for the sake of helping God and others. . . . It's letting all our 
 heart go away from ourselves in effort and yearning, till our love 
 joins the great river of His love — the river that waters the 
 world. . . . Sometimes our earth-love flows in strong, clear streams, 
 and sometimes in shallow brooklets, and sometimes in fierce, 
 muddy torrents that storms have fouled. . . . But even this love — 
 if we pray for it — finds its way to God's river at last, and becomes 
 purified before it reaches the Sea." 
 
 My child's eyes, big with awe, and bright with gathering tears, 
 gazed up into my eyes that were brimming. And in the lucent 
 orbs I seemed to see reflected the whole mystery of love and 
 life. ... A catch came into his breath, his lips trembled, and 
 suddenly a great sob shook his small frame. He hid his face 
 against my wet face, and, with his arm clutching my neck, 
 whispered between his sobs — 
 
 " Oh, dear Muvvie, don't cry. . . . Bunchy loves Muvver. . . . 
 Bunchy will help Muvver. . . ."
 
 WRITTEN Mrs. Littlewood was not the only person who 
 BY commented upon the change in Mr. Vassal. Wood- 
 
 AGATHA fordshire in general began to wonder and talk, and 
 GRESTE : to rake up ancient history in the shape of that 
 Vassal heiress, who had been weak in her head, and 
 had died a tragic death. Perhaps there was, in fact, a twist in Mr. 
 Vassal's brain, or it may have been that as age and infirmities 
 gathered upon him, he became careless about tying the strings 
 of his mask, so that it dropped occasionally, giving lurid glimpses 
 of the real man who had always been underneath, though so 
 cleverly hidden. No doubt, some persons who did not belong 
 to Woodfordshire, and had known Mr. Vassal under other con- 
 ditions, had long ago suspected the horns and the cloven hoof. 
 Dad was one of these; so, I am sure, was Dr. Glaive; and so 
 also, in a more intuitive fashion, was I myself. Therefore, their 
 manifestation did not come upon me with any great shock of 
 surprise. I was far more interested in watching the development 
 of Esther than the deterioration of her husband. She was 
 immensely altered too. So much in appearance, that any one 
 who had merely known her casually, ten years before, would 
 hardly have recognised her. But though she had lost the beauty 
 of youth, and that especial flower-like charm, it often seemed 
 to me that she had gained much more than she had lost. Her 
 pretty dark hair was now almost white, and all the old flashes 
 of enthusiasm and inspiration were gone. Her eyes were deeper 
 and more steadfast, her smile sweeter, and her expression had 
 no longer the touch of querulousness. There was in her manner 
 a repose and gentle strength, also a strange humility, which 
 seemed to create round her an atmosphere, felt, though it was 
 impossible to define it, by all who approached her, and quite 
 outsiders remarked how much more sympathetic and kindly she 
 had grown. Formerly she had never troubled herself about the 
 sufferings of the poor, going out of her way to avoid the sight 
 of anything disagreeable. Now she took an active interest in 
 village charities, in old women, and hospitals, and almshouses, 
 
 and was doing good work, not exactly on the lines of the Rescue 
 
 308
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 309 
 
 and Reformation League, but in an unostentatious and quietly 
 practical manner of her own, among girls who had gone wrong — 
 in whom, alas ! notwithstanding the Cathedral and the League, 
 Woodchester abounds. It was not generally known that the estab- 
 lishment for the making of embroideries and fine linen and fair 
 needlework, in the High Street, was a private enterprise of Mrs. 
 Vassal's for the employment of these unfortunates, who when 
 they entered there left not hope behind, but found the slate 
 sponged, and no record against them. I, however, had a good 
 deal to do with the workings of the place, and can bear testimony 
 to her ministry. I know, too, that though she was the wife of 
 a millionaire with servants, horses, and jewels galore, and all 
 the rest of the show in marching order, her charities were not 
 altogether easy to manage, and involved some self-denial, for 
 she had no income under settlement, and, except for what 
 she had made by her two books, no means at command except 
 the personal allowance arranged for her at the time of her 
 
 marriage. 
 
 To go back to Mr. Vassal, who isn't such an agreeable object 
 of contemplation — a bad fall in the hunting-field was put forward 
 by his friends in Woodfordshire as the excuse for his unsteady 
 nerves, his violent outbreaks of temper, his curious treatment 
 of his wife and the boy, and the neuralgic pains that made him 
 so restless, and for which he was continually being sent to foreign 
 waters, but whatever excuses the county might find, it could 
 not forgive him for scoffing at the Church he had once delighted 
 to honour : nor could it forgive the sort of society he collected 
 upon occasions at Grisewood. Dad isn't given to arbitrary social 
 distinctions, and is rather apt to class mankind generally, accord- 
 ing to Elias' ruling, into two races — the nun who borrow, and 
 the men who lend — he himself belonging distinctly to the lending 
 race. But even he, with all his Catholic toleration, did nol 
 approve of the company at the Castle, 1 specially when it became 
 theatrical. The Roscius was to him sacred ground, y< I he was 
 wont to say, "Of actors — outsid Roscius — I will quote my 
 
 Shakespeare with a difference, ' I will trade with them, write for 
 them, criticise them, but I will not eal with them, drink with 
 them, nor pray for them ' whi< h only meant that he had I 
 invited to meet at Grisewood a certain eminent member of the 
 dramatic profession a French a< introduction into 
 
 county circles he had nol approved. 
 
 It certainly seemed a queer premonitory im of the decay 
 
 of Mr. Vassal's powers, thai he, who all his life had paid 
 homage to the respectabilities, should now take .1 freakish delight
 
 3 io THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 in defying them. Woodfordshire rose at last in revolt when the 
 Cotherstones, Willoughbys, and others were asked, and went un- 
 wittingly, to meet that same fascinating ornament of the French 
 stage, and two ladies whose ill renown had penetrated even 
 the Cathedral Close. And more deadly insult to Sir John 
 Willoughby and the Tory squires of the party was the presence 
 of a certain Radical atheist, whose private life and public utter- 
 ances had made him a stumbling-block and stone of offence 
 to Church and State. Unfortunately this gentleman's name 
 had been figuring freely in the papers of late, so that even in 
 the unenlightened Midlands there was hardly one person among 
 the county families who, on being confronted with him, would 
 not inwardly have cried " Avaunt ! " One might perhaps 
 except in the connection, placid Mrs. Heseltine, who never 
 read leading articles, and knew as little about Radical politicians 
 as she did about the French drama. Though a little shocked 
 at the actress's free application of carmine, she swallowed her 
 as a foreign possibility. Neither Lady Cotherstone nor Lady 
 Willoughby, however, would allow her to swallow the atheist. 
 The position did not admit of immediate explanations, and it 
 was not till after dinner that she turned her mild blue eyes upon 
 me in mystified inquiry. " But, dear Mrs. Greste — you come 
 from London — do tell me who is this dreadful Mr. ? " Per- 
 haps it's safer not to mention names, but really you might as well 
 have asked just then, " Who is Prince Bismarck ? " 
 
 As soon as the ladies had returned to the drawing-room, Lady 
 Cotherstone ordered her carriage, but before departing she found 
 an opportunity to expostulate with her hostess. 
 
 " My dear," I heard her say, " what does this mean ? They've 
 been telling me queer stories — Inskip the lawyer's at the bottom 
 of them — but I put that down to spite. To-night I believe it all. 
 Is he going off his head? " 
 
 Poor Esther smiled drearily. " No, but Mr. Vassal is in bad 
 health, Lady Cotherstone : it's a great thing for him to be amused ; 
 and these people distract his mind from his sufferings." 
 
 "Then he should start a private theatre — he's rich enough. 
 But he needn't ask the actors to dinner. At any rate, he needn't 
 ask us to meet them." 
 
 "You would forgive him. dear friend, if you knew how his 
 illness preys upon him." 
 
 " I see. Drugs — morphia and all the horrid business. That 
 sort of thing does weaken the brain. Neuralgia ! A bee in his 
 bonnet ! It's what I've been saying to them all. I'm ready to 
 blacken my soul with excuses, if it will do any good. But I don't
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 311 
 
 see how we can dine here again. My clear woman, can't you 
 prevent him from asking such people to the house?" 
 
 Esther shook her head. "No, I'm afraid not." And there 
 was something in her tone that made Lady Cotherstone look at 
 her, I thought half curiously, half compassionately. 
 
 "A bee in his bonnet ! " she said again. "There was some- 
 thing, wasn't there, a long way back — or is it the Delmars ? — one 
 forgets. Or is it just that he is breakin' up ? Such a pity. And 
 Grisewood used to be the pleasantest house in the county. To 
 be sure, that dreadful Mrs. Raphon — I never could understand 
 the attraction towards those Arathoons. Of course that's at the 
 root of, Inskip's ill-nature! — and that pretty young Arathoon 
 woman, who hunts and dresses and says startling things — they 
 were always a little incongruous. But there was the Bishop, dear 
 man ! and really good political people I could quote to the Duke. 
 As for these creatures ! . . . And they're known. There's no de- 
 ception about it. They are an insult ; they are impossible ! " 
 
 "Yes, they're impossible," assented Esther. 
 
 " I'm glad you see it. But of course you would. Can't you 
 put your foot down? Can't you reason with him ? " 
 
 "I'm afraid I can only obey him, dear Lady Cotherstone'' 
 
 "That's the mistake you have made all along, my dear. 
 Obedience is all very well. But when a man has a bee in his 
 bonnet ! And I used to hold him up as a model to Cotherstone ! 
 Yes, he must be breakin' up. He walks unsteadily. I know 
 the signs." 
 
 "And you can feel how terrible it must be for such a man as 
 he was — to face decay !" 
 
 " It's what we've all got to come to. But we don't all outrage 
 society in consequence. Well, I intend to use the privilege of an 
 old friend, and as soon as the place is clear I shall drive over and 
 give him a bit of my mind. And I'm sure Mrs. Greste will agree 
 with me that he deserves it." 
 
 Lady Cotherstone was as good as her word. She Lave lime 
 for the doors and windows to be opened, as she put it, in order 
 that Radicalism, Atheism, and Impropriety mi lit leave no bad 
 fumes behind them; and then she got driven over in her yellow 
 chariot to deliv< r hi r mind to Mr. Vassal. 
 
 Esther was not at home, having gone to her shop at Wood- 
 chester, hut I was hanging round arranging flowers; and anyhow, 
 the old lady only wanted to ■■■ Mr. Vassal, and had hei 
 shown in Straight upon him, in the inner hall, where he had 
 
 established himself. He was sitting in 1 - haii with a sen 1 n
 
 3i2 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 behind him, and a little table by his side covered with papers and 
 wicked French novels — I once took one up and opened it, and 
 that was quite enough for me — and though June sunshine 
 streamed in through the diamond panes and there were bowls 
 of roses all about, a fire of logs was burning on the hearth, and 
 the old man shivered slightly every now and then, as though 
 his blood ran cold and languid. He seemed now to have a 
 hatred of being alone, and I fancy that he preferred the hall to 
 the library, because here he came more into touch with the life 
 of the house. To-day there was little enough, for all the guests 
 had departed and new ones had not yet come. Only Bunchy, 
 attracted by the litter of flowers, peeped furtively in at the outer 
 vestibule, and catching sight of the dread-inspiring figure in the 
 chair, ran swiftly away. Somehow Mr. Vassal, as he sat there 
 with his fierce eyes gleaming from over his book or paper at any 
 sound that caught his attention, made me think of one of those 
 old, bloated, uncannily marked spiders one sees lying in wait for 
 unsuspecting flies. His limbs had a shrunken look owing to his 
 huddled position in the great chair, and his head seemed to have 
 grown larger, while his face was yellower and more deeply lined 
 and broader about the jaws, giving the effect of a faint leer. 
 That smile, which was a caricature of his old bland expression, 
 always caused me a disagreeable jar when I looked at him, and I 
 think it jarred also on Lady Cotherstone. She must have ob- 
 served too, as I did, the slight staggery movement in his legs 
 when he rose to greet her, and a touch of hesitancy in his speech, 
 less apparent as he got himself under control. 
 
 "Don't let me disturb you," she said. "Yes, I know that 
 your wife is out, but you're the one I want to have a little talk 
 with to-day. I am sorry to see that you don't look quite so well 
 as you did the other evening." 
 
 Mr. Vassal gave a more accentuated travesty of the old smile. 
 
 "Ah, milady, it's not your sex only that's at its best after 
 sundown. Cheerful company, and champagne, and pink-shaded 
 candles help a good deal, don't they, to soften the ravages of 
 time?" 
 
 " Well, at all events, you provided yourself and your neigh- 
 bours with cheerful company — not to say exciting company — when 
 I dined here. A little too exciting for us quiet-going Woodford- 
 shire folk ! And that's exactly what I've come to talk to you 
 about," said the dowager severely. 
 
 I judged it seemly that I should retire ; but from the vestibule 
 where I filled my vases I could hear the murmur of the lady's 
 discourse, which seemed long and eloquent. When I went back,
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 3 r 3 
 
 which I did at the sight of butler and footman bringing along 
 silver trays with tea and covered dishes, and waited for the 
 urn to boil, quieting the clamouring dachshunds meanwhile 
 with bits of biscuit, Mr. Vassal was speaking in his husky 
 drawl. 
 
 "Poor ladies! You are very hard upon them. Let me 
 assure you that they have all the Christian virtues— perhaps 
 excepting one — and you know the Magdalen became a saint ! 
 Could even you, my old friend, declare safely that there was 
 only a perhaps between you and salvation ? Have you a ' perhaps'? 
 and what- is it? Or are you too good? — too good to have any 
 comprehension of the trials and temptations of your weaker 
 sisters ! Beauty is a trial. And admiration of man is a trial. 
 An inadequate income is a trial ! Diamonds are a temptation — 
 when they can be bought with a smile — I am quoting dear old 
 Frank Leete, Mrs. Greste. Just imagine, milady ! If you hadn't 
 been lawfully entitled to wear the Cotherstone diamonds — and 
 first-rate water they are — mightn't you have been tempted — just to 
 smile? But forgive me. Who would have dared to tempt you — 
 to smile ? No, you have been too good. You have never strayed 
 within even bowing distance of temptation." 
 
 Lady Cotherstone drew herself up stiffly. 
 
 "Really! Mr. A r assal." 
 
 "Oh, really, you must let me have my little say, now that you 
 have had yours. And you gave it to me pretty hot, you know. 
 But I'm so glad that you have formed such a high opinion of 
 Mrs. Vassal. You will admit that she is beyond all danger of 
 contamination. Pray take my word that I do indeed entertain 
 for her all the respect her conduct and character have merited. 
 Let me beg you to put the question to her — it might ease your 
 mind. And aren't you a trifle illogical? — you extremely uood 
 people so often are. Why should your efforts in the Rescue 
 and Reformation line be confined to streets and penitentiaries? 
 Why shouldn't they be extended to my drawing room. It really 
 isn't altogether the fault of the victims that they are handsome 
 and well-dressed and agreeable. Provvy — as dear Frank I < 
 says — may have had a hand in that." 
 
 Mr. Vassal's laugh sounded too like a travesty of his old 
 cynical chuckle. Lady Cotherstone, as she took her cup oi tea 
 from my hand, glanced up at me with a doubtful and yel 
 enlightened i ion. 
 
 '• And there's the other point,'' Mr. Vassal went on, and after 
 the brief pause, that odd hi sitancy in bis enunciation struck 
 us both anew, for the dowagi i me a econd sharp glance
 
 314 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 in which there was a resigned knowingness, and her lips framed 
 the words, " A bee in his bonnet ! " 
 
 "What did you say ? " Mr. Vassal asked, poking his head for- 
 ward, his wicked old eyes giving more than ever the suggestion of 
 an alert tarantula. " No, I'm not going to change my politics. 
 Tell Cotherstone he needn't be uneasy. I don't care a two- 
 penny damn about politics — excuse me, I swear on precedent 
 — you remember the old duke? — but I do care a great deal about 
 having the tedium of an hour lightened ; and that's just what my 
 friend the Radical does for me. He almost amuses me. Think 
 of having come to this for a man who once lived his life to the 
 quick ! Ichabod indeed ! To be — almost amused. The greatest 
 good the universe now holds for me ! " 
 
 "My dear old friend," Lady Cotherstone cried, genuinely 
 distressed, for there was a mournfulness in the old man's tone 
 that touched even me a little, "it's very sad to hear you talk like 
 this. Amusement isn't everything. One may be growing old 
 and have outlived one's worldly enjoyments, but there are other 
 things — there are the home interests and duties, and ties of family, 
 to bring one satisfaction at the last. There is your little boy — 
 the heir you always wanted. You should feel thankful to Pro- 
 vidence, instead of abusing it, for having granted you your wish." 
 
 " So I do, egad ! So I do, milady ! " 
 
 Lady Cotherstone shrank visibly at the sound of Mr. Vassal's 
 sarcastic merriment. " Oh, don't laugh like that ! " she ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " Why not ? There's an ironic humour about Provvy's ways 
 which appeals to me. It's so — human." 
 
 " You sound rather blasphemous," said the old lady. " I think 
 you must have been catching the infection from your Radical 
 friend. That isn't what we expected of you, Mr. Vassal, whom 
 we have always looked upon as a pillar of the Church and a 
 staunch upholder of the old traditions. How is it that you have 
 so changed ? " 
 
 " Forgotten my part, milady — that's what it is ! He ! he ! he ! 
 — amusing, ain't it, to think how all this time I've made you 
 believe I wasn't acting ? Not up to my old form now, though, 
 and obliged to withdraw from the business. The world's a stage, 
 you know. . . . I've been a fine player in my time. Ask Mrs. 
 Greste ; her father's a dramatic critic ; and she has seen through 
 the trick. Cleverer than all the rest of you. . . . Do I shock you ? 
 You shouldn't grudge me the fun of shocking people — the last 
 little excitement that's left me in these lean days. . And now 
 I'm going to let you into another secret. Your Woodfordshire
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 315 
 
 stage isn't the only one I've played on; and some of my favourite 
 roles haven't been so strictly decorous, that I could have per- 
 formed them under ecclesiastical patronage. No, I never was 
 what my dramatic friends would call a one-part man. I've 
 squeezed the juice from the big orange, and done my best to get 
 my money's worth out of the show — before the green curtain 
 drops, and the fiddles stop squeaking, and the lights are turned 
 off, and there's not even supper at the Roscius to follow — nothing 
 but the long sleep." 
 
 " There's the awakening, isn't there ? " said Lady Cotherstone 
 with an uneasy little laugh, "and we should all of us like to know 
 what that's going to be." 
 
 "The' awakening ! Ah, dear lady, shall I tell you what I think 
 about that? Don't betray me to the Bishop and old Wargrave 
 and the rest of 'em, or they'll be starting a special Rescue and 
 Reformation League for me all to myself. There will be no 
 awakening, my friend. And when I go to sleep all that will 
 happen is this — I shan't hear my man coming in with the hot 
 water — no, nor any last trump calling me before the Judgment 
 throne." 
 
 I.ady Cotherstone said to me when she went out that she 
 should never forget the tone in which Mr. Vassal uttered those 
 words, or the look upon his countenance as he leaned towards 
 her from out of his high-backed chair, his hands held in a curve 
 like the crook of talons before him, and his shoulders raised in 
 a shrug. 
 
 Just then a sun-gleam through the window struck upon the 
 faded crimson of the screen behind him, and shed a sort of 
 demoniac glow upon the evil deep-lined face with its hard pro- 
 truding eyes and grisly grin. 
 
 Well can I imagine how to the well-intentioned God-fearing 
 dame that picture of Mr. Vassal must have been as lurid revela- 
 tion filling her with an indescribable repugnance and alarm. She 
 got up hastily and took her leave.
 
 WRITTEN Time had aged and changed us all. And I 
 BY had given up play-writing, and was beginning 
 
 DOCTOR to wish almost that doctoring would give up 
 QUINTIN me, having come to the unsatisfactory conclu- 
 GLAIVE : sion that though science may advance us some- 
 what in the matter of bones, and fevers, and 
 indigestions, we doctors are not likely to get much forwarder in 
 the field of brain and nerve till there is granted a new revelation. 
 
 I was tired, too, of society, and women had ceased to interest 
 me — except as cases. Women, that is to say, who invited me to 
 their parties and did me the honour to confide their emotional 
 troubles to me when they visited my consulting-room. But there 
 was one woman not to be classed with these, for whose confidence, 
 indeed, I had always hungered, and who had never really given it 
 to me ; one woman of whom I saw little in these later days, but 
 who held ever the sceptre in my kingdom of poesy, and remained 
 always enshrined in my imagination as the ideal of fair and gracious 
 womanhood. Yes, though sorrow had robbed her of her bloom, 
 and her genius had suffered eclipse, and in spite, also, of the dis- 
 illusioning certainty borne in upon me one dreary December day 
 seven years back, that I could not hope to occupy in her life the 
 position even of trusted friend and adviser. 
 
 Need I say that this woman was Mrs. Vassal. Imagine, 
 therefore, the shock of surprise it gave me to have her card laid 
 one morning upon my table, and to know that she was waiting 
 her turn to see me. 
 
 I shall never forget her appearance as she entered, leading by 
 the hand her little boy. It must have been four years since we 
 had last spoken to each other — not since I had been sent for to 
 consult with Sergison and the Woodchester doctor upon the case 
 of the child, of which, at the time, I had thought gravely. Ap- 
 parently too gravely. For in the intervening years I had not 
 heard anything from Mrs. Greste — my informant, as to affairs at 
 Grisewood — of the trouble I had then feared. 
 
 Mrs. Vassal was greatly altered. Her hair had become a soft, 
 
 silvery white, which contrasted strangely and becomingly with her 
 
 316
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 317 
 
 still unlined face and shining brown eyes. Those eyes, always her 
 chief beauty, had lost, to a great extent, their pained, absent ex- 
 pression. Sad they were still, very sad, but it was as the sadness 
 of Fortitude compared with the haunted melancholy of Despair ; 
 and while all the pathos and much of the tragic suggestiveness of 
 her face remained, it had acquired a sweet and steadfast strength 
 which made its expression seem entirely different. 
 
 She told me that they were in London for a short time, in order 
 that Mr. Vassal might undergo a treatment by electricity prescribe d 
 for him by an eminent specialist, and that she had taken advan- 
 tage of the opportunity to consult me about her boy, in whom a 
 certain hysterical tendency had been causing her uneasiness. She 
 had felt, she said, that I, having previously attended him, and 
 knowing something of her own constitution and former morbid 
 twist, might best help her to counteract a similar bias in her son. 
 
 I gave my attention at once to the medical business on which 
 she had come, asking her no questions about herself beyond such 
 as concerned the child, and finding a refuge from the rush of 
 memories and emotions that assailed me, in the professional shell, 
 now so habitually cast round me that it had become almost a 
 part of myself. 
 
 There was an indescribable grace and sweetness about the 
 little fellow, and he had a furtive, appealing glance, quickly 
 averted, that I thought curiously pathetic ; while his limpid, 
 mournful eyes roused in me, to an even stronger degree, that 
 sense of fatality which I had always somehow associated with the 
 eyes of his mother. Yet they were not his mother's eyes. 
 
 He was a slender-formed, fragile creature, with that exquisitely 
 transparent complexion, sensitive to the faintest ripple of feeling, 
 which is so sure a sign of constitutional delicacy. From his 
 mother's account of his progress after that illness during which 
 I had seen him, he appeared to have gone on irom the early den- 
 tition period more favourably than I had anticipated, lint latterly, 
 with the change of teeth, no doubt, he had fallen hark ; and all 
 the particulars she gave me were symptomatic of the mischief I 
 had inwardly prognosticated — the restless nights, with their sudden 
 screaming fits, the frequent headaches, tin n rvou : 1: iceptibility, 
 as well as certain moral and mental iml . among them the 
 
 exaltation of the imaginative faculty and disposition to lalse- 
 hood. 
 
 The examination, to me a painful one, was over, ami I handed 
 her the prescription I had written. Then she said, with a slight 
 hesitation — 
 
 ".May I send Bunchy to his governess, who is waiting to take
 
 3i8 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 him back to Grosvenor Street, and stay and talk with you for a 
 few minutes — that is, if you don't mind my taking up so much of 
 your busy morning ? " 
 
 " My time is yours," I answered, " for as long as you are willing 
 to command it. The longer, the better I shall be pleased." 
 
 "Thank you," she said simply. 
 
 When due directions had been given, and the child was gone, 
 she looked into my face with her deep, earnest eyes, and said, her 
 voice trembling a little — 
 
 "That is like my old friend." 
 
 " A friend whom you have sadly neglected in these past six 
 years," I answered, and almost started at the sound of my own 
 agitated laugh. Then, as leaning over my table I gazed into the 
 troubled brown eyes, still so softly luminous, a wave of exceeding 
 tenderness and of exceeding pain swept over me, and I could 
 scarcely keep a calm demeanour. The sorrowful joy in my look 
 must have touched her, for she made an impulsive movement of 
 her hand towards me, and said, in low, vibrating tones, which 
 recalled that one outburst of confidence at Grisewood after her 
 critical illness — 
 
 " I shall never forget. . . . And you know . . you know . . . 
 you can guess . . how hard it has been. ... If I have seemed 
 ungrateful, it is that I have looked upon you as a dear and true 
 friend, who would understand . . . and forgive . . . without words 
 — words that were impossible for me to say." 
 
 For answer I put out my hand and clasped hers as it lay on 
 the table near me. Her touch thrilled through my whole frame, 
 and any bitter thoughts I might have nursed melted away in the 
 sweetness and the implied pledge of that contact. No speech 
 was needed, and in truth I do not know how long we remained 
 thus, our hands clasped. Presently she withdrew hers, and began 
 questioning me more closely and confidentially about her son. 
 I told her that the boy was very neurotic, and just at the age 
 when trouble might be expected — trouble which should be dealt 
 with by both physical and moral means. Even now, I explained, 
 he should be made to exert some control over his imagination, 
 and should be taught that there was a world of fact to which he 
 belonged, and beyond that, a world of fancy to be governed by 
 his will, and kept at present, as much as possible, in the back- 
 ground. I gave her the practical advice in regard to treatment 
 and diet which is usual in such cases, adding that if, after such 
 extra care, the child still suffered, drugs would be required, and a 
 course of baths might possibly be of service. I did not add what 
 I greatly feared — that the child was too delicate to grow up, but
 
 THE SCOURCxE-STICK 319 
 
 would probably die of some cerebral inflammation before he was 
 fourteen. 
 
 "Now," I said, "let me talk to you about your own health, 
 though it is a long time since you have consulted me as a patient." 
 
 " I have quite got over my old chest delicacy," she answered, 
 evidently trying to rouse herself from her absorption in the boy. 
 "Indeed, I have nothing to say to you professionally about 
 myself; and is it fair to keep people waiting for anything else ? " 
 
 " There's no one waiting ; you came late ; and if there were, it 
 wouldn't matter — unless you would let me come and have a talk 
 with you this afternoon at your own house instead." 
 
 " I am afraid it wouldn't be very satisfactory as far as talking 
 went," she replied. " Mr. Vassal does not like me ever to leave 
 him." 
 
 " He is no better ? " 
 
 "No. Dr. Sutcliffe has told me the truth. He will never 
 be any better ; he will get worse and worse ; and it will become 
 more and more dreadful as the days go on." 
 
 "Yes, I know that it must be dreadful; and I can only feel 
 deep pity both for him and for you," I said. " From what Mr. 
 Leete and Mrs. Greste have told me, I understand the nature of 
 the malady." 
 
 " I have been trying to learn all that I can," she said pre- 
 sently, " so that I may help as far as is possible. But I can do 
 so little — of course he has the trained attendants — I can only sit 
 there and be ready if he wants me. At first, what he cared for 
 most was seeing people and being amused by actors and dancers, 
 who used to come and go through their performances before him. 
 Oh, you can't imagine any more ghastly kind of revel ! And he 
 himself realising the mockery of it, and making cynical comments 
 which told of such emptiness and despair. And nothing that 
 anybody said was of any use. It was like the voice crying 
 'Peace, peace,' when there was no peace to be found." 
 
 I could but murmur such words of sympathy as came to me. 
 She went on, evidently getting relief from speaking— 
 
 "Now he cannot bear that people, his women friends espe- 
 cially, should see him. The pitiable object that he is — you can 
 fancy it. There seems no way of lightening the hours except by 
 reading aloud— reading continually. And the only books that 
 interest him are French novels— novels that are horrible. He 
 will not let me read anything that is not wicked. And that 
 seems more dreadful to me than anything — to be letting his soul 
 sink down deeper into blackness. And one longs and longs for 
 power to lift it up nearer the light."
 
 3 20 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 The note of fervent pity in her voice moved me deeply, re- 
 membering as I did the misery of her marriage. 
 
 " I can give you only one consolation," I said. " It may not 
 last very long." 
 
 "Dr. Sutclifi'e has told me— a year perhaps; perhaps less. 
 No one dares to put things plainly to him. I have tried, but 
 from me he will not bear it. I am sure that he fights against the 
 thought of death. And there are storms of anger which come 
 with the hopeless effort to make himself understood, and which 
 are terrible to see. . . . And that ghastly, half-open mouth ! " . . . 
 She gave an involuntary shudder. " It is more harrowing than I 
 can describe. Oh, I would do anything, anything, if he could 
 be spared the mere bodily humiliation ; that's what he feels so 
 keenly ... Dr. Glaive . . ." 
 
 She leaned forward, and my hand again clasped hers. 
 
 " It's the state of his mind that so troubles me. Can you not 
 give me some comfort ? As the body wastes— even though there 
 may never have been belief in things spiritual — does not the soul 
 awaken at the last ? It is so awful— oh, you must know how awful 
 —to watch a fellow-creature going down like that, unshriven, into 
 the grave." 
 
 I could not answer for a moment, for indeed my heart was 
 sorely racked by her appeal. There was tragedy unspeakable in 
 this grim picture she had drawn of the dying sensualist, but there 
 was pathos more utterly touching in the unconscious revelation 
 she made of the great change that had been wrought in herself. 
 I found something well-nigh divine in her compassionate yearn- 
 ing, which struggled with and almost overcame her physical 
 repulsion ; and in the suppression through years of pain and 
 self-discipline, of her own passionate individuality, with its artistic 
 egoism and rebellious cravings for exquisite experience, its sensi- 
 tive refinement and wayward pride — the very faults which had 
 made up its dear and unforgettable charm, all merged in human 
 fellowship and commiseration for him whom she had once 
 
 hated. 
 
 "You are a noble woman," I exclaimed, "to have forgiven 
 
 so utterly." 
 
 She winced as though I had touched a nerve. 
 
 " Don't. ... Oh, can't you understand . . ." she began pite- 
 ously. " It . . . it's not the forgiving . . ." She faltered as a child 
 might on the verge of tears. " When one has been down oneself 
 into the darkness, it is such a small matter to forgive. ... He too 
 had — much to forgive. . . . Don't speak any more of what is past 
 between him and me. Let it be forgotten."
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 321 
 
 " Perhaps that is best," I answered. " Yet, I repeat, you are 
 a noble woman." 
 
 There was silence, in which turbulent thoughts seemed to take 
 form and press us round like an invisible army ; and it needed an 
 effort of will to disperse them. I resumed with difficulty, and in 
 a studiously matter-of-fact tone — 
 
 "And now about yourself — speaking as a friend, since you 
 won't let me talk as a doctor. You have given up writing ? " 
 
 "Writing Esther Zamiel's novels? Oh yes, altogether." 
 
 " I confess to a feeling of regret — a more personal one than 
 that of the general reader. For wasn't it by my advice that you 
 began the work ? " 
 
 "Of course — I owed it to you — in the first instance," she 
 replied. 
 
 " And it answered its purpose at the time, in drawing you out 
 of your Slough of Despond. Well, anyhow I'm proud of being 
 partly responsible for Naamah." 
 
 " Yes," she said, and added impetuously, " as you are respon- 
 sible for Claudia and for my giving up the stage." 
 
 "No," I rejoined emphatically, "I am not responsible for 
 what led to your marriage. Don't deprive me of the consolation 
 you yourself gave me. Don't you remember ? " 
 
 She looked at me vaguely, as though she had not quite taken 
 in my meaning. 
 
 ''Don't you remember telling me that your rate had been 
 decided for you by the chance words of a stranger ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " She gave a little gasp. 
 
 "A stranger outside the theatre, you said, whom you heard 
 condemn your Claudia. I know that you afterwards came into 
 touch with that stranger. He was Mr. brock's Reader, and your 
 husband's nephew, Robert Yassal." 
 
 I had spoken with a purpose, but was not wholly prepared 
 for the effect of my words, and blamed myself for havin 
 cruel. It was as though the utterance of that name, and the 
 emotions it roused, had swept her in one swift rush out from 
 the valley of calm shadow on to tempest torn heights into the 
 glare of lightning and the crash of storm. Her breast heaved, and 
 the tender memory of youth transfigured her features, making her 
 face tremulous as that of a girl, while her eyes, fixed far beyond my 
 own beseeching gaze, became dewy soli and deep, so that I 
 hardly dared to break the pell of bygoi 
 
 "I wanted to talk to you about thai friend the friend of 
 both of us," I said. " Because hew me, not ver) lot 
 
 from Mandour, to ask if I would give him n< « ol \ 
 
 x
 
 322 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 She came slowly to herself again, recalled as it were, from 
 another world ; and the gleam her eyes now shed upon me 
 was like that of the moon shining through rain-clouds, so 
 chastened was its pathos. 
 
 " He . . . wanted to know ? " she said, almost in a whisper. 
 
 " If you were well ... if you were happy ? " 
 
 " Happy ! " She smiled wildly. The gleam faded ; and the 
 rain-clouds made a veil of tears, which for a few moments fell 
 silently. 
 
 "Tell me," she said at last. ... "I am shut out from the 
 world — that world. I never hear of anything that happens to 
 him. Tell me— is he doing well at Mandour?" 
 
 " Yes ; the appointment was an immense success. The posi- 
 tion of British Consul at Mandour is really more important than 
 that of Minister at many a small Court. You must have read 
 of his mission into the interior, and the reputation it brought 
 him?" 
 
 " I saw that he had been made a K.C.M.G." 
 
 "That mission was of greater diplomatic moment than out- 
 siders imagined," I said. " I had this from a member of the 
 Government ; and the same man told me that he doubted if 
 any one else could have carried it through. Probably it is the 
 poetic faculty which gives him insight into the Eastern character. 
 Yes, Robert Vassal will arrive, as they say. On the whole, I 
 fancy his career has lost nothing through the giving up of 
 Parliament." 
 
 "Oh, I am glad of that. And his work has gained. The 
 last book of poems seemed to me beautiful." 
 
 Yet it hurt me, the inflexion on that word " beautiful." 
 
 Then she seemed to hesitate, but added after a little pause — 
 
 " I hope that Mrs. — I suppose I ought to say Lady Vassal 
 now — is in better health than before they left England ? " 
 
 " I believe that she has taken a new lease of life — has de- 
 veloped quite a talent for foreign diplomacy, and has seconded 
 him ably. Her mind has recovered its tone — as I predicted. 
 She is enormously interested in the whole Eastern show — makes 
 excursions with him into the desert, and is great friends with the 
 Sheiks. Some one who met them at Mandour last winter told 
 me that you would hardly know her ; and that it is quite easy 
 now to imagine that she had once been called 'the beautiful 
 Miss Delmar.' " 
 
 Again there was a silence, which I broke. 
 
 " I was going to answer his letter to-day, though I had little 
 news to give. It seems a strange coincidence — your having
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 323 
 
 come just now— after these years. . . . And, what shall I say to 
 him about you ? " 
 
 "Say that I am well." It was the old vibrant voice that 
 answered — that voice which had thrilled through me on thai 
 winter's day at Grisewood. " Say that my life is more peaceful 
 than it used to be ; and that I have work to do — though it is not 
 Esther Zamiel's work. Tell him that Esther Zamiel died . . . 
 died . . . in the wilderness. . . . Tell him . . ." She quavered help- 
 lessly, and recovered herself. . . . "Did he . . ." she whispered; 
 " did he ask about the child ? " 
 
 "Yes, he asked if the child were a comfort to you." 
 
 She, made no reply in words, but bent her head down, and 
 I saw her body contract and swell in a stifled sob. Then 
 suddenly she looked up at me, and as her wild wet gaze met 
 mine piercingly, the secrets of our souls seemed bared. 
 
 "There's something I have often wished to tell you," I said. 
 " But somehow I have never found the opportunity ; and I did 
 not like to write. ... I did write once — after your boy's birth ; and 
 you gave me no answer." 
 
 "I don't remember," she answered dully ; " I can't remember 
 anything about that time." After a pause she said, " What is that 
 you wanted to tell me ? " 
 
 " I was not sure whether you would care. . . ." The words came 
 haltingly. It was so hard to phrase the communication, and I 
 doubted still if I were doing wisely in making it. ..." I think 
 you might wish to know. . . . Soon after the child's birth was 
 announced ... I had a visit — in this room — from Robert Vassal. 
 He had come over straight from Mandour." 
 
 She gave a low cry, and again hid her face. I could not 
 look. Instinctively I knew that she was thanking Heaven for 
 the solace my words had brought her wounded heart ; and I 
 felt almost as an assassin might have felt, having withheld this 
 knowledge from her in all these years. 
 
 " I had written — I told you — and had got no answer, except 
 from Mr. Vassal, who said that you were recovering slowly, and 1 \ 
 pressed great satisfaction at the birth of an heir. That was before 
 — the visit I spoke of. ... I showed the letter to Robert Vassal. 
 Later on, I wrote to him all that I was able to glean about you 
 from Mrs. Greste and Mrs. Audley Arathoon." 
 
 There was absolute stillness for several minutes, excepl for 
 the sound of Esther's breathing. Then she rose from her chair, 
 speaking composedly, though the words seemed to be Wrought 
 out with difficulty. 
 
 "Thank you. . . . That was -quite right . , . There was
 
 324 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 nothing more to tell. . . . Thank you . . , thank you. . . . And 
 now I must not keep you any longer." 
 
 She laid a little folded paper on the table. 
 
 "For God's sake," I cried, "let me for once feel myself a 
 man and not a machine ! " 
 
 She smiled, her strange, sweet smile. " Thank you ; thank 
 you, my friend," she said again. " I will bring my little boy to 
 see you by-and-by. . . . And you have given me such comfort. 
 ... I think you must know what great comfort you have given 
 me. . . . And my friend . . . you will know too — without words, 
 always in the future, that there is no one I trust as I trust 
 you. ..." 
 
 I took her ungloved hand in mine. 
 
 " Do you remember promising me many years ago that you 
 would let me help you if it were possible, and that you would 
 rely upon my friendship and upon my discretion ? " 
 
 " Yes. . . ." But I saw by the far-away look that she only dimly 
 remembered, and no doubt the more vivid experience of a later 
 time had effaced the pale record. "It was at Grisewood," she 
 said, "before " 
 
 " Before you became Esther Zamiel. And now, as you say, 
 Esther Zamiel is dead. But my — regard for you remains as strong 
 and fervent as in those old days, and as ready to respond to your 
 call, if you ever choose to make one." 
 
 I raised her hand to my lips and kissed it — it seemed to me 
 then, as a soldier vowed to the death might kiss the hand of his 
 queen ; and an impulse for which I can never account, made 
 me say — 
 
 " Esther " — it was the first time I had ever called her by her 
 name — " I want to tell you — here — now — that I understand you 
 — that I reverence you — that I — love you. . . , Good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye ! " she repeated, the word strangled by a sob ; 
 and left me.
 
 WRITTEN If I have said some hard things of Mr. Vassal, I 
 BY am sorry for the necessity that was upon me to say 
 
 AGATH'A them ; but I don't repent the saying, and I can't 
 GRESTE : make myself unsay a syllable of them — no, not now 
 that he is dead. Even when he lay dying I could 
 not make myself feel differently about him ; and all through the 
 times when Esther seemed to wish me to be with her in the sick- 
 room, I never lost that sense of an evil moral exhalation such as 
 I used to have in the splendid days when he played host at Grise- 
 wood. My desperate longing to rush out and gulp in draughts 
 of pure air, made me wonder the more how Esther could en- 
 dure to remain as she did, hour after hour, at the side of his 
 couch, reading or patiently watching, ready at his slightest beck 
 or call. 
 
 Which is a figure of speech ; for he could make no movement 
 except the faintest flicker of the eyelids, and no call ever came 
 from the distended mouth, in which the paralysed tongue lay, 
 visible sometimes feebly writhing, but unable even in his most 
 frantic attacks of rage to give forth speech. He used to have 
 terrible accesses, when the savage beast in him seemed literally 
 to beat against the bars of its flesh prison, so that the eyes would 
 blaze out of the mask-like face, and there would come horrible 
 guttural sounds from the throat, ending in a paroxysm of cough- 
 ing and suffocation. It was all very terrible; but Esther never 
 shrank. Since the day upon which the doctors had told her 
 plainly what the end was to be, she had tak( n her place with a 
 quiet persistent heroism, and devoted herself as far as was possible 
 to alleviating his sufferings. It took some time before he would 
 submit to her attendam e. At first, while still able to command, 
 he would morosely order her to a distance. Then, till speech 
 failed him entirely, he found amusement in making her the butt 
 of his cynical gibes. Hut after a while, as his h< in- 
 
 creased, he grew to accept her ministration , and in a freal i h 
 way to depend upon them, giving when hi was absent distinct 
 signs of impatience for her return. 
 
 Esther has since talked to me "I a fantastic theory that used 
 
 32s
 
 326 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 to weigh upon her — a notion she had, that intense desires and 
 tenacious purposes have the power of individualising themselves, 
 and may thus become spiritual agents for man's temptation and 
 hurt, or for his advancement along the heavenly road. She be- 
 lieved in the Scriptural idea of demons of darkness inciting to 
 foul deeds, and in guardian angels preserving and aiding. But 
 these, she said, were for the most part no denizens of heaven or 
 of hell, but the thought-shapes which men and women uncon- 
 sciously create and send out from themselves, to people those 
 unseen regions where the world's destinies are wrought. She always 
 declared that the legend of a curse upon Grisewood Castle had 
 full foundation ; and was haunted by the feeling that Mr. Vassal's 
 vindictive hatred of his brother in the first instance, and of his 
 nephew afterwards, increasing with the years, and gathering vital 
 force from the two lives — her own and her son's — with which it 
 became linked, had taken superhuman form, and that there was in 
 truth a fourth and maleficent presence ever hovering where they 
 three sat together. 
 
 Certainly one of the later traits in Mr. Vassal which I most 
 detested was the malevolent interest he got to show in Bunchy. 
 He seemed to gain a morbid pleasure from having the child near 
 him. Bunchy made him remember and feel ; and I think he 
 enjoyed the sensation, as he might have enjoyed sticking pins into 
 a deadening limb. In the beginning, Esther made no opposition 
 to the boy's being brought into his room, and there for an hour 
 or so at a time, they three, and the Spirit of Hate, and I, who 
 looked on, would abide together — the pale sad child not daring 
 to occupy himself, sitting motionless in his corner, his eyes 
 irresistibly drawn to the invalid couch, from which that torpid 
 form with the burning gaze watched him incessantly. Mr. Vassal 
 seemed to realise with a malignant satisfaction the mesmeric 
 horror he produced ; and as the boy, in a kind of fascination of 
 terror, after shudderingly withdrawing his eyes for a moment, would 
 turn them back again, the other eyes from between their flabby 
 lids would glow yet more fiercely, and the revolting guttural 
 chuckle would make my blood run cold. Esther has told me 
 that she too felt herself overpowered by the uncanny horror ; and 
 after a few days of this torture, finding that it was having a very 
 injurious effect upon Bunchy's nerves and bringing on the alarmed 
 wakings from sleep and distressing screaming fits, she absolutely 
 refused to allow the child to be brought into the sick-room. This 
 was the occasion of one of Mr. Vassal's most violent accesses, 
 but she bore it with a patience that seemed to me sublime. 
 White to the lips with agitation and with the strain of opposing
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 327 
 
 him, she waited till the worst of his fury was past, and then 
 pleaded and remonstrated with pathetic fervour. 
 
 " I will do anything — anything else you want of me — anything 
 that could give you a moment's ease or comfort," she cried. " I 
 would cheerfully cut off my right hand for that — indeed, indeed 
 I think I would almost die for you. . . . But don't ask me to hurt 
 the child, for that I can't do. After what Dr. Glaive told me, I 
 couldn't run the risk of harm to him — even if it made you happier 
 to have him near. But I don't feel it's that. ... I don't feel that it 
 makes you any happier — and you wouldn't want to hurt him, would 
 you? You have been very generous — don't think I don't feel it. 
 And now that everything is nearly over — oh let there be forgive- 
 ness at the last. And do believe what is the solemn truth, that 
 nothing in the world would make me go against your wishes, 
 except that one thing — my duty to the boy." 
 
 The child did not again appear, but the mother sat on- her 
 beautiful face and head with its white hair and deep eyes and 
 steadfast sweetness of expression, so strange a contrast to the 
 grotesque mask set against the cushions opposite. All that Mr. 
 Vassal seemed to care for now, was having her there and hearing 
 her read. And she would read on in her soft voice, with its old 
 organ vibrations and dramatic intonation, as in the Claudia days, 
 guided as to when she should stop and in her choice of the 
 subject by the flicker in her listener's eyelids and the contraction 
 and dilatation of his pupils, a language she had learned to follow. 
 She used to try and read to him sometimes books which were 
 poetic and ennobling, but he would have none of them ; and so 
 she would have to go back to the coarse witty French novels in 
 which he had always delighted ; and the ghastly incongruity of 
 their humour with the dying man's situation makes me shudder 
 now as I remember and write. It is not a pleasant subject to 
 dwell upon — those last days of Mr. Vassal. 
 
 But Esther went through them, like one possessed of more 
 than mortal courage. I know that she fought as witli the an li- 
 enemy against the sickening aversion that sometimes almost over 
 came her. She fought because she knew that this was the thin- 
 she must conquer— that here was tin- penance she had to a< 1 "in 
 plishj and because, as she said afterwards, something within 
 her made it clear that now was being waged the last battle in 
 her nature between the Powers ol Darkness and of Light, betw< en 
 
 the Spirit of bow and the Spirit of Hair; and that a. Love 
 gained or lost in the contest, so would Cod's Seal.:, be adjusted, 
 and so would it fare with her soul and the soul ol th< child. 
 She has told me that there was no merit to her in the effort she
 
 328 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 made, any more than to the castaway who grips the rock and 
 fights the waves till the rescuers arrive. 
 
 I have fancied that perhaps some dim consciousness of this 
 working of unseen forces in her, pierced to the yet functioning 
 brain of that dead-alive thing of flesh, hardly to be called a man, 
 whom she tended. He was now unable to lie down because of 
 the difficulty of breathing. Literally there was nothing left living 
 of him but eyes and brain. Sight and hearing remained, but the 
 only sign of physical power lay in that almost imperceptible 
 tremor of the eyelids and shadow-like twitching at the left 
 angle of the mouth — that horrible mouth, stiffened into its 
 unnatural leer. 
 
 Near the end I seemed to see a slight softening of the vindic- 
 tive glare in his eyes, and imagined in them a new expression, 
 one of faint beseeching, which made me think at times that he 
 was trying to ask Esther's forgiveness. She fancied that there 
 was something he wanted done, and tried hard to interpret the 
 futile efforts he made to convey his meaning. 
 
 I was on the other side of his couch — she and I being alone 
 with him in his room — when one day she pronounced to him the 
 names of several persons whom it occurred to her he might wish 
 to see. Among them was that of Mr. Arathoon, the solicitor. 
 At sound of it, there came over his face such a despairing ghost 
 of a contortion, that we were alarmed, gave the assurance that 
 Mr. Arathoon should not be summoned, and did everything in 
 our power to soothe him. 
 
 Esther kneeled by his side, passionately reiterating her pro- 
 mise that every smallest indication of his wishes should be 
 attended to, and begging him not to let his mind be disturbed by 
 regrets or uneasy thoughts about herself. " If it is anything to 
 do with money," she said, " anything that you are sorry for about 
 me or the boy" — her voice trembled, as it always did when she 
 mentioned the child to her husband — "you know, in spite of 
 everything, that I have never cared for money, and that I should 
 understand better than any one else could, how you had felt. . . . 
 I should know. . . And whatever you had seen fit to arrange, I 
 should be willing to accept ; and even if it seemed hard, I should 
 try to look upon it as," her voice sank, "ordered for my punish- 
 ment." 
 
 Again that wraith of a movement, and a fixing of the wild 
 imploring gaze which was dreadful to behold. It seems to me 
 that in this moment the Spirit of Love must have conquered 
 finally, and that Esther's redemption was sealed. She stooped 
 close over the man whom she had once so dreaded and hated,
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 329 
 
 and clasping the inert form with her warm living arms, she kissed 
 him long and tenderly. 
 
 "Oh, forgive me," she cried. " Forgive me for having married 
 you as I did. Forgive me for my cold selfishness and want of 
 sympathy. Forgive me for the wrong I did you. . . And, oh ! 
 tell me — tell me if I have made up for it a little in these last 
 years ? I have tried— indeed, I have tried . . . and I have suffered. 
 ... I have been punished. . . . Tell me ! Give me this com- 
 fort " 
 
 Then as her face still touched his, and while her arms were 
 about him, a great inward spasm seized him, and there followed 
 one of those awful paroxysms of coughing and strangulation — 
 the last. 
 
 I had got into my head somehow, I suppose from novels and 
 plays, that when a person of great estates dies, there invariably 
 happens a dramatic reading of the will, usually in the family 
 library, with the family lawyer taking the chair, and all the friends 
 and relatives and inimical scions of the house gathered together, 
 ready as it were to group for a "curtain." 
 
 But nothing of the sort took place after Mr. Vassal's death. 
 Indeed, I don't know exactly what did happen, for I was with 
 Esther, who had collapsed utterly after the strain of those many 
 past months, in her own part of the Castle, and only heard through 
 drawn blinds the sound of carriages without, and knew but from 
 hearsay afterwards that all the county people, and the chief 
 inhabitants of Woodchester and of the borough generally, and 
 the tenants and representatives from Tregarth, had assembled in 
 force to do honour to the dead millionaire, who was committed 
 to the family vault in Grisewood Church with all pomp and 
 ceremony. Esther did not attend the funeral, but little Bobby, 
 holding his godfather Lord Cotherstonc's hand, walked behind 
 Mr. Vassal's coffin as chief mourner. 
 
 Naturally Mr. Arathoon also was there. 
 
 But there was no formal reading of the will. Later we learned 
 that the original document, of which a copy only was in the 
 possession of .Mr. Arathoon, had been searched for at the Castle 
 but not found, and a certain delay in proceedings was caused by 
 the fact that it had been, unknown to the solicitors, deposited 
 with other Important papers, not in the London bank, but in 
 thai at Woodchester. 
 
 Anyhow, the first authentic information Esthi 1 re< eivi d as to 
 its nature was from Lord Cotherstone the co-executoi with Mr, 
 Arathoon — to whom the latter had sent a copy.
 
 33° THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 Lord Cotherstone's intellect was not equal to coping with 
 any legal document, short of its being reduced to spelling-book 
 English, and in the perplexity and consternation which an inkling 
 of the contents of this one aroused, he applied to Mr. Inskip, his 
 own solicitor, to elucidate Mr. Vassal's testamentary provisions. 
 
 These, shorn of technical phraseology, and summarised by the 
 Woodchester lawyer in a further document forwarded to Esther, 
 and so perused by me, went after this manner : — 
 
 The will was dated on the 28th day of November 1876 — when 
 little Bobby was about a month old. After appointing Mr. Michael 
 Arathoon, solicitor, of No. 95 Lincoln's Inn Fields, and Baron 
 Cotherstone of Cotherstone Park, Woodfordshire, to be executors 
 and trustees, it nominated Mr. Arathoon to be the sole guardian 
 of Robert, the testator's only child (thereby, as Mr. Inskip 
 parenthesised it, excluding the mother from the position which 
 nature had assigned her). 
 
 The testator bequeathed to his friend, Mrs. Rhoda Raphon, 
 sister of his friend and legal adviser, Mr. Arathoon, the sum of 
 ^20,000, to be taken by her in cash or in securities at the option 
 of the executors, such legacy to be free of legacy duty, and in- 
 dependent of any other interest the legatee might have under the 
 testator's will or codicils thereto. 
 
 The testator also bequeathed a sum of ^5000, free of duty, to 
 Mary Tremlett, formerly maid to the testator's second wife, and 
 he further gave a sum of ^5000 to his trustees to invest and 
 hold on trust for Madeline, daughter of the said Mary Tremlett, 
 for life and afterwards, as the said Madeline Tremlett should 
 appoint by her will. 
 
 The will then recited the deed which entailed the Cornish 
 estates and the estates in Woodfordshire, and also stated that no 
 settlements were made on the occasion of his second marriage, 
 namely, that with Esther Vrintz. It also recited that his only 
 child Robert would, if he survived the testator, be the tenant 
 in tail of the Cornish and Woodfordshire estates, and that the 
 testator wished to provide his only child with income befitting 
 the owner of these properties, subject to certain conditions 
 thereinafter expressed. 
 
 The will then proceeded to give the child the whole of the 
 testator's large fortune which passed under his will, and not by 
 way of entail, but subject to certain trusts and conditions of which 
 the following only need be mentioned here. The investments 
 and moneys were all vested in the trustees of the will, to pay the 
 sum of ^1000 a year to Mr. Arathoon as long as he acted as 
 guardian to the child ; and the testator declared that this guardian-
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 331 
 
 ship should continue until the child reached the age of twenty-five ; 
 if he did so, the trustees were to hold the investments and moneys 
 on different trusts, thereinafter declared (to which reference was 
 made presently). The sole guardian, Mr. Arathoon, was also for- 
 bidden to allow the mother to have access to her child, or to in any 
 way control the child's education, bringing up, religion, manner of 
 life, or interests. In fact, as far as the law then permitted, Mrs. 
 Vassal (the mother) was absolutely debarred from any communi- 
 cation with her son, and further to effect this object, the testators 
 provided that the trustees were to pay out of the trust estate 
 ,£600 a year, by quarterly payments, to the widow, on condition 
 that and,only so long as she observed the terms and intention of 
 the will ; and that if in the opinion of the guardian she committed 
 any breach of these conditions, the trustees were hereupon to sus- 
 pend entirely the payment of this annuity to her, and that she was 
 to take no interest under the will. Provision was then made for the 
 appointment by Mr. Arathoon of another guardian to be bound 
 by the same conditions in all respects, if Mr. Arathoon should die 
 or become unwilling to art longer. 
 
 The trustees were also to pay the guardian ^2000 a year to 
 expend on the child for education or otherwise, but the guardian 
 was to be under no obligation to account for such expenditure, 
 and might in fact use it as he chose, without restraint. 
 
 If by reason of death or for any other reason, the child was 
 debarred from taking any interest under the will, the trustees were 
 to hold the trust moneys for other purposes, namely to pay one- 
 eighth of the whole of the trust funds to Michael Arathoon, 
 solicitor, one-eighth to Rhoda Raphon, sister of Michael Arathoon, 
 one-eighth to Madeline, daughter of Mary Tremlett, and so on, 
 without mentioning Esther. Mr. Inskip quoted a number of other 
 conditional provisions, which I don't think I need set down here. 
 
 This is what the whole iniquitous thing came to, as far as it 
 concerned Esther. I've copied Mr. Inskip's words as nearly as 
 possible ; and I've left out a lot that seems immaterial. 
 
 Yes, the man was a Fiend ! 
 
 Mr. Arathoon came to the Castle, bu1 Esther refused to 
 him. I suppose that he saw Lord Cotherstone, whose honest 
 English heart was sorely troubled and whose letters on the sub- 
 ject, enclosing notes and opinions from Inskip, almost made me 
 laugh sometimes in their ingenUOUS honor and puzzlemi r»t. The 
 delay in finding the original will softened die shock of it all a 
 little, but that didn't last long, and SOOIl there WS gn al OUt< iv in 
 Woodfordshire. 
 
 Mione Arathoon was the first to rush down to express \u 1
 
 33 2 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 indignation, assuring Esther of her stanch loyalty, and adding the 
 advice, prompted privately by Audley, that she should take the 
 case into the High Court of Chancery and fight it. That was 
 Inskip's advice also. 
 
 "And if you settle to fight," said Mione, "I will stand by 
 you to the whole extent of my Delmar dollars — which perhaps 
 isn't saying much — simply for the sweet satisfaction of spiting 
 Aunt Rhoda, who has got distinctly uppish on the strength of 
 Mr. Vassal's legacy, and of confounding father-in-law's knavish 
 tricks." 
 
 And dear Dad was of exactly the same opinion. He came too, 
 deeply distressed and remorseful. 
 
 "Oh, I'm to blame," he cried, " I'm abominably to blame. I 
 ought to have insisted on a marriage settlement." 
 
 He had been working up the matter with an eminent Q.C., a 
 member of the Roscius. 
 
 " But it's perfectly simple," he said. ' : Of course such an 
 outrage on Nature could never in any decent country be per- 
 mitted. You must have custody of the boy, and you get it by 
 making an application to the Judge of the Chancery Division of 
 the High Court, for the guardianship of, or access to the child. It 
 is at the Judge's discretion to grant this. As you are a perfectly 
 fit and proper person to have the custody of your own son, and it 
 would be impossible for any one to prove the contrary, the decision 
 will of course be in your favour." 
 
 That seemed the general theory. Dr. Glaive, like the rest of 
 Esther's friends, had been consulting authorities, and said that 
 this was the only course open to her. But he was grave and 
 constrained, and I had never seen him look so sad. 
 
 Lord Cotherstone naturally espoused Esther's cause, and did 
 not scruple to express himself forcibly on the subject of "that 
 r-rascally Jew." Relations, we gleaned, were strained between the 
 co-executors, Lord Cotherstone being primed by Mr. Inskip, who 
 had his own private grudge against the late Mr. Vassal's London 
 adviser. However, after his first country squire horror at being 
 dragged into unsportsmanlike complications and mixed up with 
 Jews and attorneys, Lord Cotherstone began to take a modest 
 pride in the strategic tactics Inskip advocated, with a view to 
 putting obstacles in the way of Mr. Vassal's testamentary inten- 
 tions, and of furthering the widow's interests as regards the legal 
 battle that was anticipated. 
 
 There being neither hunting nor shooting just then, Lord 
 Cotherstone found an outlet for his energies in the new game, and 
 lost sight of graver doubts which, I could see plainly enough, were
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 333 
 
 agitating his mother's mind, and, on the principle of reflex action, 
 his own also. 
 
 " Inskip says, Mrs. V-vassal, that what we've got to go for is 
 delay. You can't be t-turned out, or the boy t-taken from you, 
 till p-probate of the will is granted. That's what Inskip says, and 
 he's a clever chap Inskip, and a m-match for any Jew. Inskip 
 says that the w-way to delay probate is for me as co-executor to 
 m-make objections, and to refuse to make an affidavit. I d-don't 
 know exactly what the affidavit means, — something to do with the 
 v-valuation of the estate, but Inskip will explain when the t-time 
 comes." 
 
 Then- Esther's pained look would recall him to the more 
 sentimental issues. 
 
 " I can't understand it in the least, Mrs. V-vassal. P-pon my 
 honour I can't. L-liver don't account for it — that's what I've 
 said to everybody. There's no doubt that p-poor old Vassal must 
 have been off his head, or he couldn't have done it. He never 
 was the same m-man after the nasty spill he had over G-garvie's 
 Ditch. That horse he rode was a clinking goer, but he had 
 a b-bad trick of stopping short and bucking his fences." 
 
 "The will was dated long before that fall," said Lady Corner- 
 stone, who had accompanied her son. 
 
 "Then it b-beats me. He always would take his own line, 
 old V-vassal, when he knew the country. A first-rate sportsman, 
 and rode straight ; b-but he wasn't riding straight then. P-pon 
 my honour, I can't understand it." 
 
 " A bee in his bonnet," said the old lady. " After that dinner, 
 when he got hold of those dreadful people, I said, didn't I, that 
 he couldn't be in his right mind? My dear," Lady Cotherstone 
 went on, speaking with impressive solemnity, " I should like you 
 to understand clearly that I recognise your devoted care of that 
 poor man, all through his last illness, and that I shall make a 
 point of proclaiming how nobly you did your duty. The whole 
 thing, as Cotherstone says, is a mystery. How could he have 
 made that will just at the time of the boy's christening ! Why, I 
 remember our all being here for it, and his having the child 
 brought down. . . . And your fainting suddenly. . . . But nothing 
 will ever alter my opinion that you hav< been most cruelly tr< ated 
 as wife and mother, and that it is the duty of all Woodfordshire 
 wives and mothers to support yoir in an appi :il lor your rights." 
 
 And like Dad, she bewailed the want of a marriage settlement 
 How could her "people" have allowed her to marry without a 
 settlement? Alas, that one fact struck a blow at tin root of poor 
 Esther's moral position. There must have been omething wr<
 
 334 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 This was the lurking doubt underlying all the valiant show of 
 partisanship, and disturbing the Woodfordshire convictions. I 
 could see the doubt in people's eyes, I could hear it in their 
 voices, I could detect it beneath the veil of sympathy which 
 shrouded their questionings. To marry without a settlement is, 
 in the eyes of the landed Philistine, to prove one's self outside the 
 pale of British respectability. Sometimes the gruesome fancy 
 would strike me that Mr. Vassal might be looking down from 
 aloft, and deriving a cynical amusement from the county flutter. 
 It was a jest which would have suited his ironic humour. 
 
 Ah, heart-breaking as was the situation, one could not at 
 moments help seeing its grim comedy. 
 
 They all had their misgivings — every one of them, in spite of 
 their kindness and their protestations, from old Lady Cotherstone 
 to Addie Littlewood and the Canons' wives, they all suspected 
 that there was something vaguely disgraceful in the background 
 of Esther's life, some stigma on her girlhood No one, they said, 
 had ever rightly known her antecedents — which doubtless had been 
 concealed from her husband, and discovered and resented in after 
 years. This, I have gleaned from various sources, was the gene- 
 rally accepted explanation in Woodfordshire of Mr. Vassal's 
 extraordinary will.
 
 BOOK XIV 
 
 ' : As lufien a bird beivails her calloiv brood when 
 they perish, whick, still young, a fierce snake devours 
 in the thick bushes, -while she, kind mother, hovers 
 over them, shrieking -wildly, yet is not able, I -ween, 
 to aid her children, for she is, in truth, herself in 
 great dread to come nearer to the cruel monster. "
 
 WRITTEN Mr. Arathoon sat in my master's chair in the 
 BY library of the Grosvenor Street house, while I 
 
 ESTHKR opposite, watched and listened and waited — waited 
 VASSAL: that I might fully understand my doom. For in 
 spite of the assurances of Mr. Inskip, Lord Cother- 
 stone, Mr. Leete, and the rest — in spite of the elaborate pre- 
 parations for attack and siege, the heaping up of obstacles, the 
 lengthening of delays — in spite of Mr. Arathoon's impassive atti- 
 tude during these past weeks, I felt instinctively that his bland 
 patience was but the cover for deadly weapons in reserve, and 
 that, sooner or later, from his hand the blow which must destroy 
 me would fall. 
 
 Beyond some formal written communications, I had had no 
 intercourse with him since my widowhood. He had now asked 
 for an interview, in such a manner that I could not refuse the 
 demand. That, in fact, through all its courteous wording, was 
 the nature of his request. 
 
 Hitherto I had met him as the host at Chesham Place, as the 
 guest at Grisewood, as the dilettante man of society. To-day, for 
 the first time, I met him as the lawyer, whom every criminal who 
 was not a client had reason to fear. His manner and aspeel 
 therefore struck me in a new light, and for all his conventional 
 politeness, there seemed to be in both something peculiarly sinister. 
 From time to time, as he talked, his eyes gave me a furtive -lame 
 — they seldom look at one full : wily and inscrutable, they 
 appeared to be studying me from behind dulled glass. His 
 yellow-grey beard, well brushed and glossy, swept his chest, and 
 lent a suggestion of dignity. His red, largely moulded lips, at 
 once sensuous and crafty, showed disagreeably between the silky 
 beard, growing low on the chin, and the yet finer moustache. 
 As I sat in my suspense, I marked the little peculiarities ol his 
 face and demeanour; and in fancy I likened mysell to some 
 hapless slave woman, whose only child was in the hands of its 
 capturer . . . my little ailing child, for Bunchy has not been well, 
 and I have brought him up to London that I may < , , n ult Dr. 
 
 Glaive. . . the helpless mother, captive also, who, knowing with 
 
 Y
 
 338 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 the instinct of despair that neither tears nor defiance will aid 
 her, draws in her forces, her very being hanging, as it were, 
 in the balance ; and, while simulating an icy calm, scrutinises 
 the features of her foe, in search of some faint sign of manly 
 clemency. 
 
 There was none. Mione did well to name her father-in-law 
 Caliban. He stroked his beard in a gentle monotonous move- 
 ment, while in his purring voice, that under certain inflexions 
 can ring so harshly metallic, he made me a statement of my 
 position. 
 
 The statement seemed purposely involved — circumlocutory 
 phrases, used perhaps to soften its severity, perhaps to make my 
 questionings more difficult. When I did question, still with the 
 forced quietude I had imposed upon myself, bidding him not spare 
 me in his answers, the gist of the matter needed little interpre- 
 tation. It was, after all, only what the summary of the will 
 and Mr. Inskip's explanations had made clear. I was merely 
 a resident on sufferance in my dead husband's house, the guar- 
 dian of my boy, only until certain legal formalities had been 
 complied with ; and when these were fulfilled, I should have no 
 part nor right here nor in the life of my son. Shortly there must 
 come an end to the petty difficulties Lord Cotherstone, in his 
 well-meaning partisanship, was raising. These were but as so 
 much useless flutter, counting for nothing in the real issues at 
 stake — just so many kindly endeavours to gain for me a few 
 months or weeks of the companionship of my child. This was 
 what Mr. Arathoon, affably commiserative, conveyed to me. It 
 was far from his wish that I should be hurried. He had acquiesced 
 in Lord Cotherstone's tactics, had sympathised deeply with the 
 motives that prompted them ; it was, in fact, a matter of regret 
 to him that the delays had not been still more extended. But 
 the course of the law, if sometimes slow, was sure; and the time 
 had now come in which all must face the situation. 
 
 He emphasised the "all," and, after a moment's pause, 
 added — " the time, in which I, on my side, must tackle the very 
 painful duty laid upon me." 
 
 A bitter rejoinder arose, which I quelled before utterance. 
 
 " Yet, it appears," I said, " that much has been left to your 
 discretion." 
 
 " You mean ? " 
 
 " As I understand the will, it seems to rest with you whether 
 I am or am not absolutely denied access to my son." 
 
 " I think," he said slowly, " that the intentions of the testator 
 on that point are very clearly expressed."
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 339 
 
 ' But you have the power to enforce them, stringently or not, 
 as you should think fit.'' 
 
 "That technically might be a justifiable inference; it is 
 hardly justifiable morally. In accepting the trust imposed upon 
 me by the will, I am morally bound to carry out in their integrity 
 the testamentary wishes of my deceased friend." 
 
 "Even," I exclaimed impetuously; and I tried to make him 
 look at me, but he would not—" even if your conscience and 
 your feelings as a man were in opposition to them ? " 
 
 " A\ Mrs. Vassal," he said, and there came a stronger note 
 into his neutral tone, while as he spoke he divided a strand of 
 his beard and examined it thoughtfully, " that is a point of 
 casuistry, which raises a totally different question." 
 
 There was a silence. Maybe, I thought, in those persistently 
 averted eyes there lurked a gleam of human sympathy. Oh, if 
 I might but find and arouse some kinder side of his nature .' 
 Clinging to the desperate hope, I cast away my chill mask and 
 spoke in tremulous appeal. 
 
 " Mr. Arathoon — you have never had any children ? " 
 
 " No, Mrs. Vassal, I have not been so — blessed." 
 
 " And so it cannot be quite easy for you to understand how 
 a mother feels to her only child— to realise that my boy is just 
 everything in the world to me — everything— and that it would he 
 far less of a cruelty to take away my life, than to take him from 
 me. . . . You couldn't understand that ? " 
 
 And it seemed to me as though not I but that slave woman 
 were entreating, and that I could hear outside myself the agitated 
 falter in her voice, and see the longing in her eyes, to force this 
 ruthless captor to meet her gaze — the longing that he would dare- 
 to be pierced by the mother-anguish in it. . . . Hut he did not 
 dare. He would not look. . . . And I still found hope in the 
 reluctance which held his lids drooped. 
 
 "But at least," I went on, "though you have never had 
 children, you have been a child your elf. You must know you 
 should know, how dearly a son may love his mother when ch 
 have been only the two to hold together and to care lor one 
 another. . . . Think of my little boy not much more than a 
 baby — so helpless — so sensitive separated altogether from his 
 mother to whom he has clung all his tiny life. . . . My pom 
 little boy. . . . And he is so delicate he is ill now I >r Glaivi 
 has warned me thai he mustn't be upset or n , oi his 
 
 brain excited in any way — he has to be treated and watched over 
 with the most 1< ire. . . . Think ol him given up to stra 
 
 Think how his health — his life may depend upon this, . . . (> Mr.
 
 34° THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 Arathoon, there isn't a judge in England who wouldn't say you 
 were justified in not enforcing too sternly that cruel will. ..." 
 
 He gave a faint little indulgent laugh. 
 
 " I am afraid, Mrs. Vassal, that you look at the matter alto- 
 gether from the woman's and not at all from the lawyer's point of 
 view. . . . Believe me, I am very sorry — sorry both for you and 
 for your son " 
 
 "Oh," I cried, "you would be sorry indeed, if you could 
 understand how heavily my little boy has been weighted — ever 
 since he was born. . . . You know . . . you must have learned 
 something of our life -" 
 
 " I know a great deal about your life, Mrs. Vassal. Remember 
 that I was something more than your husband's lawyer : I was 
 his friend. . . . Yes, I know a great deal." 
 
 " But there's one thing you don't know," I cried. " You 
 don't know that in his last moments Mr. Vassal's heart was 
 softened to us, and he repented of his unjust will. . . ." 
 
 " Really ! . . . He was speechless, I believe, for some time 
 before his death ? " 
 
 " It was in his eyes," I went on — " the penitence, the remorse. 
 — Such an imploring, seeking look. . . . And I thought that per- 
 haps he wanted to see you — that things might be altered ; I asked 
 him before he died. And if you could have seen the expression 
 upon his face — of anger— oh, worse! — despair — Yes, Mr. Arathoon, 
 it made me certain that he repented. . . ." 
 
 " Surely, Mrs. Vassal, without going more definitely into the 
 case, which would be bootless, that look of anger — or worse — is 
 rather against your supposition." 
 
 " He did repent ... I know it ... I could swear to it — on 
 my knees. . . . Ask Agatha Greste — she was present. . . . And I 
 begged his forgiveness, and he forgave me — we forgave each other 
 when he was dying. He was sorry ; he would have undone, if he 
 had been able, the evil thing that he did. Nothing will ever take 
 that conviction from me." 
 
 I know not what else I said. My pleadings poured forth, 
 the surging anxiety sweeping all before it, my heart strengthening 
 its courage by the fact that still the man would not face me. ... I 
 besought, as for dear life — oh, as I had said, for far more than 
 dear life. For what is my life worth to me without my son ? 
 
 Then at last his eyelids were raised. He tilted his head 
 back, and contemplated his hands for a moment or two, holding 
 them out before him. A little knotted they were, and wrinkled 
 like a vulture's talons. . . . Murderer's hands, they say, are some- 
 times knotted that way. ... It is a sign of cruelty. . . . But Mr.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 341 
 
 Vassal's hands were soft and smooth and white. . . . Presently he 
 turned his eyes full towards me, and looked unblenchingly into 
 mine — looked at me for quite a long time without speaking. . . . 
 And my own eyes drooped, and hope fell — dead as though a bolt 
 from Jove had stricken it. 
 
 If I had never realised the truth before, I knew now that 
 it was my implacable enemy with whom I had to deal : a man 
 who never forgave and never forgot, and who would relinquish 
 nothing that his greed coveted. 
 
 His greed coveted the handling of the Vassal millions during 
 the long years of my boy's minority — Dr. Glaive and others had 
 warned me of that. ... I knew, too, that my enemy hated me 
 with a relentless hatred — hated me because I had supplanted his 
 sister and thwarted his plans, and somehow come between him 
 and his designs upon Mr. Vassal's money. I read all this with 
 unerring intuition. . . . And I understood also that this was the 
 hour of my enemy's triumph, and that I might expect no quarter. 
 
 After a few moments he spoke, remotely self-justificatory, 
 and smooth as honey. 
 
 " My dear lady, your reproaches place me in a very painful 
 position — all the more so because they are undeserved. It is my 
 misfortune rather than my fault that loyalty to my dead friend 
 obliges me to take an attitude adverse to your interests. As for 
 what you tell me of your husband's last moments, from your 
 point of view, it is very touching, and no doubt, if one might 
 accept it, would be elevating to one's ideas of human nature. 
 But these deathbed interpretations are apt to be coloured by the 
 emotional bias of those concerned. In any case, power of utter- 
 ance and movement having failed, no conclusions can be arrived 
 at, and it would of course have been too late to undo anything. 
 l!ut I was better acquainted with the workings of Mr. Vassal's 
 mind than you are perhaps aware. I can answer for the delibera- 
 tion with which the provisions of his will were planned. I know 
 the feelings and motives which actuated him ; and it is possible 
 that were your other advisers and friends equally well informed, 
 their opinion of his testamentary dispositions might be less harsh. 
 I know that during the years which followed the making oi the 
 will— even when he was only able to express himself !>>' signs, his 
 feelings had not changed, nor had his intentions wavered. I took 
 pains to ascertain this fact. Win- I put on my oath, I should be 
 compelled to state it." 
 
 There was silence. He held me dumb as a sheep in the 
 slaughtering-house. Presently he went on — 
 
 " Mrs. Vassal, believe me that my sympathies as a man, to
 
 342 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 which you have appealed so eloquently, are deeply moved. But 
 that does not alter my moral conviction, painful as it is to say so. 
 I can conceive no loophole for doubt as to my own duty. I am 
 bound in honour and in law, as one of the executors of Mr. 
 Vassal's will and the guardian appointed by him to — the heir of 
 his estates, to carry out what I know to have been his intentions. 
 I am aware that you will consider me inhuman." 
 
 A wave of passionate bitterness overswept me. " Inhuman ! " 
 I cried. " You do well to use that word, for you are committing 
 a crime against nature." 
 
 His manner stiffened to irony. 
 
 "A crime, since you call it so, sanctioned by high judicial 
 authority. I might quote to you Lord Cottenham's decision that 
 mothers have no right to interfere with testamentary guardians. 
 Even a mother must submit to the law." 
 
 " A mother will submit to any law but that which takes her 
 child from her. She will fight to the death for the possession of 
 her child. That's a natural instinct, Mr. Arathoon." 
 
 " Yes, it is an instinct which holds sway in the brute crea- 
 tion and usually in the human kingdom — except under certain 
 conditions." 
 
 " Certain conditions ? " The phrase sounded knell-like. 
 
 " For example ! Those, under which a mother has to choose 
 between the possession of her child and the ruin of one dearer to 
 her even than her child — the man she loves." 
 
 Ah God ! They know how to strike, these lawyer men ! 
 
 The false purring voice went on, and the words smote me as 
 though they had been cut in metal type and were being printed on 
 my brain. 
 
 " Yes, my experience of human nature, which has been con- 
 siderable and varied, shows me the interesting fact that there is 
 one passion stronger in a woman's breast than the maternal 
 instinct. Looking at it from the artistic point of view, for a 
 moment, it's a fact that appeals to me as full of dramatic capa- 
 bilities, even in the nineteenth century. You know, Mrs. Vassal, 
 that I am one-third artist if I am two-thirds lawyer." 
 
 I can imagine, now, the sensations of those victims of the 
 Middle Ages, in their contracting chamber of doom. Steadily 
 and surely, mine was shrinking round me. Soon its walls would 
 meet, and I should be annihilated within their stone embrace. 
 
 . . . ." No, you might not think that there could be any passion 
 stronger in a woman's heart than the maternal one, but I can 
 assure you that there is. Taking a purely problematical case, let 
 us suppose — shall we say yourself? — confronted with the alterna-
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 343 
 
 tive of wrecking the public and private life of the one man you 
 have ever loved, and the sacrifice of such happiness as you would 
 gain from being the unmolested guardian of your son. Which 
 would you choose — the child's society or the man's good?" 
 
 I felt that I was mouthing dumbly — unmeaning, voiceless 
 words, which the dry tongue could not frame into audible language. 
 
 " I think," he said, " that I might venture to predict. In nine 
 cases out of ten, the woman would choose the good of the man — 
 especially so if her choice involved no worldly injury to the child 
 — no deprivation to him in short, but that of her personal care 
 and influence. ... On considering the matter, Mrs. Vassal, don't 
 you agree with me ? " 
 
 "I . . . I . . . have not considered. . . ." 
 
 The stammering accents of that slave mother of my fancy 
 sound through the mists. 
 
 My enemy's soft voice lashed on. 
 
 " It would be worth your while, artistically speaking, to work 
 it out. ... I see the situation strikes you. It is old, very old — 
 classic, in fact /Eschyle-au. But the elemental passions are never 
 too old, do you think, for modern adaptation ? Human nature is 
 always itself, and is always full of surprises. And love has been 
 love, from Eden to the court in which Sir James Hannen pre- 
 sides to-day. Then, its ultimate penalty the flaming sword : m 
 disconcerting revelations and a decree Nisi. . . . Yes, conceive the 
 struggle between a woman's love for her lover, and her love for 
 her child ! . . . There, dear lady, is a theme of tragic interest imme- 
 morial. Putting aside graver considerations for the moment, 1 
 fancy you might turn it to profitable account, your own literary 
 tendencies being so distinctly dramatic. I remember being struck, 
 in one of Esther Zamiel's novels, by the suggestion of a Creek 
 parallel. . . . Forgive the digression . . /your patient silence en 
 courages me. For you know Greek art in any form is my Kin- 
 Charles' head; and here it is again tumbling incontinently into our 
 legal conversation. ... I have no doubt you have heard me many 
 times preaching it to our friends the dramatists— Quintin Glaive 
 for instance, "it would be an improving exercise foi some oi 
 our playwrights to contrast that magnificenl opening scene on 
 the watch-tower of Agamemnon's palace, when the beacon I 
 burning along the Argive hills tell of the tall ol Troy, with a 
 modem-stage prelude to th.- homicidal doings ol some Belgravian 
 Clytemnestra, where a Fr< rich lady's-maid, in a frilled apron, 
 expounds the family complications to an interrogative val< 1 . . . 
 Ah, I see you have no more patience with my arti ;ti< maund( 1 
 ings. . . . Pray sit down again; and we will go bacls to our li
 
 344 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 point, which is to you of so much more vital import than Greek 
 tragedy and modern drama — the custody of your son." 
 
 I had risen, goaded beyond silent endurance any longer. . . . 
 The slave-woman's voice, high-pitched in agony, comes back to me, 
 as though echoed from the walls of the room. 
 
 "Will you, then, Mr. Arathoon, let me hear your views as to 
 the custody of my son ? " 
 
 " That may take a little time ; and you haven't authorised me 
 to prepare a brief. Shall I assume that I am to instruct counsel, 
 and sum up the case for you as succinctly as I can ? " 
 
 " If you please." 
 
 " Well then — Your late husband has by his will left you com- 
 paratively unprovided for. Of course, as the widow of a man 
 whose income I may fairly estimate as something over ,£50,000 
 a year, the annuity you receive — under conditions — is absurdly 
 inadequate." 
 
 " Don't talk of that ; it is nothing to me." 
 
 " No, I can understand it is nothing to you — though many 
 women would consider it a great deal — in comparison with what 
 you feel the deeper wrong of being denied access to your son. 
 No doubt, any legal assistance you might seek would have for its 
 object the gaining custody of your child ? " 
 
 " I will fight for this — at any cost." 
 
 " Ah ! Shall I show you the means you may take — and the 
 cost." 
 
 "You are my enemy," I cried. "Are you the right person 
 to give me advice as to what means I should take to get posses- 
 sion of my son ?" 
 
 " As well, perhaps better than another, since I am more fully 
 acquainted with the facts of the case than any stranger could be. 
 And pardon me, I don't admit that I am your enemy. I am 
 your late husband's friend ; and the inference you draw is hardly 
 established. I should not presume to offer you advice, Mrs. 
 Vassal ; but for many reasons, it might be well that I and not 
 another should put before you the legal courses possible under 
 the circumstances in which you are placed." 
 
 He waited. 
 
 " Shall I go on ? " he asked. 
 
 I bowed my head. 
 
 " There are two or three courses possible by which the validity 
 of a will may be called in question. Let us take the most remote 
 possibility first. A will may be disputed by the next in succession 
 — who in this case would be your late husband's nephew, Sir Robert 
 Vassal— on the ground that there is a doubt as to the legitimacy
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 345 
 
 of the child. . . . This contention would raise some delicate and 
 difficult points — such as presumable access on the part of the 
 husband to his wife — the mother of the child. Also the motive 
 for self-incrimination on the part of the alleged father, assuming 
 that he were forced to come forward in support of the allegation. 
 Now, in a question of the succession to large estates, it is clear 
 that the evidence would have to be overwhelming. We have 
 also to remember that the late Mr. Vassal himself, before a good 
 many witnesses, acknowledged the child as his son and heir. My 
 opinion is that, under the circumstances of the case, a plea of 
 illegitimacy would be absolutely untenable, even were you, the 
 mother, disposed to put such a slur on your child, for the sake of 
 keeping him in your custody, or were Sir Robert Vassal inclined 
 — which is perhaps equally improbable —to raise the question." 
 
 I could have laughed outright in frenzy at the implication, 
 so grotesquely horrific. I think I did laugh. I must have made 
 some wild movement. He checked me by his own laugh, blandly 
 deprecatory. 
 
 ■• My dear lady, I was speaking as a lawyer, of legal possibilities, 
 which, you observe, I still can hardly admit as possibilities. There 
 is no occasion for that eloquent gesture. Manifestly the doubt 
 as to legitimacy is absurdly inadmissible. Let us go on to the 
 second possibility. . . . The will might be disputed in its entirety, 
 on the ground that the testator was not of sound disposing mind 
 at the date of its signing — shortly after your son's birth. Under 
 that contention, Sir Robert Vassal as next heir would derive no 
 benefit, though, of course, your position and the question of 
 guardianship would assume a different aspect. Were it main- 
 tained, the child would still inherit. . . . Hut — it is a provable 
 fact, that although during the last year or two of his life Mr. 
 Vassal may have failed in intellectual power, he was in complete 
 possession of his faculties at the time of your son's christening. 
 You will remember that pleasant occasion, when so many of us 
 were gathered at Grisewood Castle tor the ceremony ?" 
 
 " I . . . I . . . remember. . . ." 
 
 Again I have the fancy of those nearing walls breaking tin- 
 echo of my voi> e. 
 
 " How unfortunate it was," he went on. " that you yourself were 
 prevented by illness from being nt at the christening, [havi .1 
 
 painful impression of your sudden fainting lit the evening befo 
 which happened at the very moment, if I am not mistaken, wl 
 Mr. Vassal was announcing his intention of naming the boy — 
 after his great-grandfathei that Robert Va ;al whosi portrait by 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds hangs in the Wesl corridor. . . ."
 
 346 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 "And now we come to the third possible course, by which 
 you might gain the custody of your son, and which is the natural 
 and obvious one to suggest itself in the opinion of any ordinary 
 adviser. . . . You may make an application in the Chancery 
 Division of the High Court, to test your alleged claim to the 
 guardianship of your child, and to invalidate the testator's dis- 
 positions bearing on that question. . . . Probably you have been 
 already so advised ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " It is the course I myself should have advised — under some- 
 what different conditions. No doubt, on outside showing, the 
 sympathy of the Court would be with you, as a mother deprived, 
 with apparent injustice, of her natural rights. You will under- 
 stand that the Court in such decisions considers solely the interest 
 of the child. If the mother be an unfit and improper person to 
 have the guardianship of her child, the Court would ordain that 
 it be removed from her influence. If, on the other hand, she 
 were clearly a woman of high moral character and spotless re- 
 putation, and the question of religious disability did not inter- 
 vene — if she could prove herself to have been blameless in her 
 relations with her deceased husband, and that the animus shown 
 against her in his will was without justification, the Court would 
 have strong reasons for deciding in her favour. . . ." 
 
 Once more our eyes met — steel to steel : one blade broken. 
 
 . . . "But — I am entirely frank with you, Mrs. Vassal — the 
 ordeal through which you would have to pass, in proving an 
 unassailable position, might be an extremely trying one. . . . 
 Reflect ! . . . Upon common reasoning, the injustice dealt you 
 seems so flagrant as to be outside the bounds of sanity. A man 
 of Mr. Vassal's stamp and standing does not place this indignity 
 upon his wife — who in the eyes of the world is without reproach — 
 unless he be out of his mind, or unless he has good cause to 
 doubt her honour. . . . We know that Mr. Vassal was not out of 
 his mind. The question of motive therefore becomes important, 
 and might form the subject of searching inquiry. Your past life, 
 the lives maybe of others, would be dragged into the light of day. 
 . . . And — deeply as I should regret the necessity, it would be 
 my duty, as Mr. Vassal's trusted friend and adviser, and the 
 guardian he has chosen for his successor in the family property, 
 to oppose your claim, and to place upon you the onus of showing 
 yourself without blemish. . . . 
 
 ..." Yes, reflect. . . . When large estates are at stake, it is 
 impossible to foresee what side issues may be brought forward — 
 what witnesses may be called. . . . Your former maid — whose
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 347 
 
 parents were, I believe, old servants at Grisewood, and in whom 
 Mr. Vassal reposed especial confidence— as indeed his legacy to 
 her shows — she would be called upon to give her evidence. Also 
 persons in and about Philotis — hotel-keepers, cab-drivers, intend- 
 ants of some of those old fortified places on the sea-board where 
 you may have stayed upon occasions. . . . Occurrences, probably 
 quite innocent, might be twisted to mean something not innocent. 
 How can one tell ! . . . And there is such a thing as indictment 
 for perjury, and trial in a criminal court ! Think of your men- 
 friends being brought into the witness-box— Sir Robert Vassal, 
 for instance, whom I fancy you saw a good deal of at Philotis. . . . 
 Dear lady, I doubt if, when it came to the point, you would care 
 to face the ordeal. Under the most favourable circumstances 
 these examinations and cross-examinations are very disagree- 
 able to a sensitive woman. . . . Believe me, it would be a mistake 
 on your part to attempt fighting. I am convinced that if your 
 friends understood the case as well as I do, they would counsel 
 you to submit to the iron law of necessity." 
 
 There was a long pause. He was standing opposite me, 
 smoothing his hat with the same movement of his vulture hands 
 as that which had stroked his beard. 
 
 " You will not fight, Mrs. Vassal ? " 
 
 The slow gleam of triumph in his cold eyes maddened me. 
 I cried out, "Do your worst, Mr. Arathoon. I have resolved. I 
 mean to fight. Yes, I will fight to the last extremity. I don't 
 care what happens to me. I will sacrifice everything — everything^ 
 do you understand? Hut I will not give up my son." 
 
 "The fight will be useless," he answered, "and I think that 
 before you have finished with the ordeal, you will repent this 
 decision."' 
 
 He had left me. I stood alone in the strait pass to which 1 
 had brought myself, Destiny before me, with arms outstretcl 
 barring outlet. . . . Destiny, whom I had sacrilegiously invoked 
 when I had kneeled before the altar at El-Meriem, and had 
 besought the Lord to grant me my heart's desire.
 
 BOOK XV 
 
 " That -which is foredoomed remains from the 
 olden time, and ivill come to those -who pray for it."
 
 WRITTEN She was standing in the library when I entered 
 
 BY it, looking like a woman petrified by some great 
 
 DOCTOR calamity. So abstracted was she from outward sur- 
 QUINTIN roundings. that she did not hear or did not heed 
 GLAIVE : the announcement of my name. I had been told 
 on arriving that Mr. Arathoon was with her, and 
 had gone straight to pay my professional visit to the child. 
 After leaving him I had stayed in a little ante-room on the 
 ground floor till the lawyer passed down the vestibule on his 
 way out ; and in a few moments the butler, according me the 
 privilege of a doctor and an old friend, led me into Mrs. Vassal's 
 presence. 
 
 He retired, closing the door, and I waited silently. Her back 
 was towards me as she stood motionless before the fire, but 1 
 could see her face and form reflected in a mirror between the 
 windows opposite. Her widow's dress and cap intensified the 
 tragic impression her appearance gave, which was of itself suffi- 
 ciently startling. Her features were strained to rigidity, her lips 
 pressed tight as though she were suffering great pain, while her 
 eyes, wide and dark, were fixed on vacancy in a gaze of inde- 
 scribable despair. There seemed something fate-driven in her 
 whole aspect and in an involuntary gesture she made with her 
 arms, as though invoking the deity at some prophetic shrine. 
 
 I addressed her. She started violently, and turning round. 
 her eyes stared dazedly at me from out of her death-white I 
 Then slowly a more natural colour crept into her i heeks, though 
 she spoke and still looked like a person in a dream or un 
 the compulsion of some terrible necessity, clearly re< d by 
 
 herself, but at which now I could only guess. 
 
 "My friend !... Oh, my friend."... She made a little 
 helpless movement towards me and stopped. "I don't know 
 what to do. ... I am at the end of my tether. . . . Did you 
 know it?" 
 
 "I know nothing for certain, I can only conjecture. You 
 sent for me to sec the boy." 
 
 "The boy ! . . . O God forgive me ! I had forgotten he was 
 
 35'
 
 352 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 ill. ... I have left him all this time. ... I must go to him at 
 
 once." 
 
 " No," I said. " He is well enough for the moment without 
 you. Mrs. Greste is carrying out my directions. ... I will talk 
 to you about him presently. Sit down now and tell me " 
 
 ..." They let him go out in the sun one of those sudden hot 
 days. . . . The house was all in confusion. ... I was not attend- 
 ing to him as I ought. . . . The strain." . . . She seemed to lose 
 herself for an instant. ..." Bunchy never can stand the sun ; it 
 makes his head ache. . . . And now it's so cold ! " She gave a 
 slight shiver. ..." Do you think the cold will hurt him, doctor ? " 
 
 " I am not thinking of the boy just now," I said. " I am 
 thinking of you. Tell me what has happened ? " 
 
 "Tell you!" . . . She paced agitatedly, going to a vase of 
 flowers and taking out a dead rose which dropped over the edge 
 and flinging it into the fire. " I like to burn flowers," she said in 
 an odd absent way, turning to me with a most strange smile. 
 " It's quick — not a death by inches and moments — and years. . . . 
 My friend ! " She seemed to draw in her breath again, and fixed 
 me with her piercing gaze. " I'm fighting for my life — by inches. 
 I'm pushed to the last extremity. . . . They're goading me hard. 
 But I won't give in. . . . No, I won't give in." She gave an ex- 
 cited little laugh, which was half a wail. I led her unresistingly 
 by the hand to a chair. 
 
 " Sit down and let me help you if I can." Alas ! I felt that 
 there was little which man could do in her aid. " I know who is 
 goading you. I saw Mr. Arathoon going out." 
 
 " Oh, great heavens ! Was there ever such an impasse ? 
 Whichever way I look — blank walls and stones ready to fall 
 and crush me. . . . Not me only. That wouldn't matter. . . . But 
 ruin — ruin — to others. ... I can't see any escape. . . . I'm tied 
 and bound every way. . . . And I did it myself. With these very 
 own hands I tied my cords — and the child's." 
 
 I took in mine the hand which she wrung frantically, and 
 softly stroked it. 
 
 "I'm at the end of my tether," she repeated. "I'm at the 
 end of my tether. . . . God has forsaken me. . . . What has been 
 the good of all these years of slow torture ? Where was the use 
 of my great sacrifice? ... I made it for a price. . . . And God 
 has not paid me the price ! " 
 
 " The price ! " I repeated, awed by her low-voiced intensity. 
 
 "I have done my part. ... I said that I would renounce my 
 dearest — my dearest. . . . Do you know what that means to a 
 woman, who has never loved but once in her whole life ? " . . .
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 353 
 
 She spoke still scarcely above a whisper. ..." I made a vow to 
 God. . . . Well — I kept that vow — as far as flesh and blood was 
 able. ... I have battled with my love as though it had been the 
 most sinful thing— abominable ! . . . Even in my dreams I have 
 fought — and awakened weeping ! Oh, such bitter tears. . . . Only 
 God knows what my sacrifice has cost me. ... I made it for 
 Bunchy's sake. ... I did it that my boy might be kept good and 
 safe. ... I made a bargain with God. . . . And He has not held 
 to His bargain. . . . Does He want another sacrifice— a crueller 
 sacrifice still ? " 
 
 " Esther ! " 
 
 " Yes, I must speak. . . . You shall be my safety-valve — do 
 you remember ? — again. ... I did it for the child's sake. ... I 
 plucked out my own heart from my bosom and laid it on the 
 altar as a burnt-offering. . . . Wasn't that enough. . . . Does He 
 want a man's heart— and more? ... A man's name and fame 
 and all his household gods. . . . Does He . . . this jealous God of 
 Abraham ? . . . Then He shall have what He demands. . . . This 
 also will I do." 
 
 "What will you do, Esther?" 
 
 "What will I do ! . . . I'll proclaim the truth aloud in open 
 court — in the newspapers, before the whole world. . . . I'll blazon 
 forth my disgrace. . . . I'll put shame on the man I love — dearer 
 . . . dearer . . . oh, dearer far than my own flesh and blood. . . . 
 I'll put shame on my son, and take away from him his inherit- 
 ance. . . . Then I'd be giving it to — Oh, what am I saying? . . . 
 Was there ever so dire a strait ? . . . And they say I can't do it — 
 that the law won't let me! Won't let a woman — won't let a 
 mother — tell the name of her child's father." She stopped, and 
 quavered off incoherently in a most lamentable laugh. 
 
 " And to what end, Esther?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, do you think there's anything in the world or in 
 heaven or hell, I'd do it for— except to save my boy's soul ? . . . 
 What would become of his soul with Michael Arathoon for its 
 keeper? And with tin- seeds in him. . , , You said yoursell dial 
 he had the seeds in him of all kinds of morbid tendencies— Deceit 
 — who knows what worse I . . , And I'm asked to put my poor 
 sin-tainted child into a serpent's den, that he may SU< k into his 
 blood and batten upon the serpent-poison 1 .. . MyGodl I can't 
 do it. . . . I'll sacrifice everything and 1 v< ry one in 1 
 
 "And when you've done all that you say, my pool I. ther 
 brought public dishonour on yourself, your son. your dead h 
 band; on the man you have loved utterly- and not only on 
 him, but on those belonging to him -When you have done all 
 
 /
 
 354 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 this and have failed in your purpose, since it is almost certain 
 that the law will not support you — What then ? " Again she gave 
 a low cry, which was like that of an animal hunted to the death, 
 and clenched her hands together, as she answered — 
 
 " I will go on fighting. I will fight for every inch — every 
 week — every hour. ... I will contest every point. I will not 
 leave my son. They will have to drag him out of my arms to 
 take him from me. . . . They will have to carry me bodily from 
 Grisewood or this house to take me from him. . . . You shall help 
 me. There are means. . . . Oh, I know — Doctors can do a great 
 deal, when they're put to it. . . . You would swear that he was 
 ill, and that it would kill him to be parted from me." 
 
 " He is ill." 
 
 "Yes, I know. Poor little tender weakling ! . . . And you will 
 make him better. . . . And he will be ill again. Excitement, 
 grief, will make him ill — the consequences would be very serious — 
 You said so. . . . Oh, you will manage all that for me. . . . And 
 if it comes to the very worst, there are ways still in which a 
 desperate mother may outwit a lawyer. . . . But it won't come 
 to the worst. . . . The covenant will have been kept to the last 
 letter. I shall have paid the utmost sacrifice that a jealous God 
 could require. ... I shall have bought my boy's soul — at the 
 price of worse than death " — her voice sank — " to his father ! " 
 
 " My dear ! my dear ! " I pressed her hand, cold and trem- 
 bling in her agony, to my own beating heart, and through a wet 
 mist, my eyes looked into her eyes, which were hard and gleam- 
 ing full upon me in reckless self-betrayal. 
 
 " Oh, my dear, God's covenants are not as man's covenants ; 
 nor does He always pay the price of our sacrifices in earthly 
 coin." 
 
 She stirred slightly, and was silent for a few moments. The 
 dry gleam faded from her eyes, giving place to a look of beseech- 
 ing suspense, but yet uncomprehending. 
 
 " I . . . can't. . . . He has pushed me . . . too far. . . ." 
 
 Suddenly came a frightened start. " My boy is ill ? . . . You 
 said. ... Is he very ill ? " 
 
 " I am afraid that he is going to be very ill. ... It is impos- 
 sible to say yet. ... I shall know better when I see whether the 
 things I have ordered take effect. . . . My poor, poor dear. . . . 
 Oh, don't cry like that ... it breaks my heart. . . . I'll do every- 
 thing that is possible ; in a day or two he may be well again. . . . 
 But . . . Doctors are very ignorant, and very helpless. . . . And it 
 may be — Oh, my friend, if it were that God was keeping His 
 bargain in that way ! . . . There are stronger Arms than even
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 355 
 
 a mother's arms to fold the child safe from harm. . . . You know. 
 ... It was written long ago. ' Sacrifices and burnt-offerings Thou 
 wouldest not . . . but a body hast Thou prepared.' . . ." 
 
 I fought Death hard for the child, knowing full well, as often 
 we doctors do know, that Azrael, with whom I measured swords over 
 the boy's bed, was no dread fiend to be shudderingly vanquished, 
 but rather the Angel of deliverance, sorrowfully repulsed. . . . 
 That is. perhaps the saddest of experiences in this body-saving 
 trade of ours. 
 
 It was one day, when, though life still hung in the balance, it 
 dropped some feather's weight on the earth side, that a man from 
 Mandour came into my consulting-room. A man whom I had 
 last seen in this same place seven years back, on a like errand 
 to that which brought him now — to ask me for news of a mother 
 and a child. 
 
 I told him everything — of the boy's illness — of his mournful 
 little life as the Prince Hereditary of Grisewood, of his mother's 
 patient endurance of a burden that might well have broken a 
 weaker soul— of Mr. Vassal's gruesome death, and the terms of 
 his will. These, the man knew already ; but I told him also, 
 that which he did not realise — Esther's determination, maintained 
 more strenuously with each stronger pulse-beat of the child, to 
 bring the case into Court and, regardless of all possible conse- 
 quences, to appeal for the guardianship of her son. 
 
 He listened almost in silence, only once or twice interrupting 
 me with a terse question regarding the legal issues, that showed 
 me, reading as I did below the surface, how fully he grasped the 
 curious complications of his own position. 
 
 Presently he said, using Esther's own expression — 
 
 "It is an impasse from which there seems no outlet.' 1 
 
 He got up, holding out his hand, and we stood facing. At 
 that moment, notwithstanding some resentful thoughts which had 
 come to me unwelcome and unbidden concerning Rob rt \ a sal, 
 I pitied him from the bottom of my heart. 
 
 " l)r. Glaive," he said in an awkward, hesitating manner, and 
 the husky chest-note told me how much he was Idling, " I think 
 a great deal has been understood between you and me without 
 planation." 
 
 I bowed silent assent. 
 
 "No doubt," he went on haltingly, "th( 1 '•■< " ise "I JTOUl pro 
 fession has given you an insight into human nature a painful as 
 it may have been enlightening. You must be ad UStomed to the
 
 356 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 exploring of dark places in men's lives, and to the baring of their 
 secret weaknesses. You know us as unworthy to kiss the dust 
 upon which a true woman treads. . . . Yet, as man to man, there's 
 something I want to say to you. . . . Dr. Glaive, I want to thank 
 you " 
 
 " You have nothing to thank me for, Sir Robert ; " and I was 
 conscious of the faint bitterness in my involuntary emphasis. 
 
 "Yes — for her sake. You don't suppose it's for my own? 
 You have been a loyal friend to her. In the hour of her desertion 
 you stood by her." 
 
 " I was powerless. There was no way in which I could help 
 her. Had there been, I would have done it, if it had meant 
 laying down my life. . . . Shall I tell you why, Sir Robert ? " 
 Some impulse made me say the words I had uttered only once 
 before in human hearing, " She is the woman I have loved best 
 in the world." 
 
 His fingers gripped mine tightly for a second, and he let my 
 hand fall. There was the same look in his eyes which I had seen 
 in Esther's when she stood — at the end of her tether. 
 
 "I have no answer to make," he said. "I have taken every- 
 thing, and have given — misery untold. You have given your all, 
 and you receive — my thanks." 
 
 He threw back his head with a laugh that was bad to hear. 
 
 " You forget," I said, " I have had her friendship, and that 
 counts for a good deal." 
 
 He moved away, but turned. 
 
 " Well — you can only think of me as a cur. . . . But — there's 
 a saying, andjw/ should be able to feel the truth of it. ... A great 
 love means a great comprehension — and that means, a great 
 forgiveness. She should have taught you that." 
 
 "I know it." 
 
 "There was another woman's — sanity — or life — in the 
 balance. You know that well enough — a woman to whom I 
 owed everything." 
 
 "I know it," I repeated mechanically. 
 
 " Now," he exclaimed, with a kind of wild triumph in his eyes, 
 "the scales are even. . . . Do you know that last year, in the 
 desert, there was just one word from a negro's lips between me 
 and certain death. That would have made things pretty equal. 
 Well, it seems to me that they are equal now, and that we've 
 gone through the great death. She shall decide. . . . Whether 
 the boy lives or dies, my course is plain." 
 
 When I saw the child that mid-day, he had rallied curiously.
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 357 
 
 Towards evening, however, he had sunk into the state of coma 
 which preludes the end. 
 
 For convenience and quietude we had moved him into a 
 room at the back of the house, on the ground floor, between the 
 library and billiard-room, whither I came in and out as often as 
 the professional calls upon me allowed. There I was waiting, 
 knowing that the hopeless battle, in which I had used every 
 weapon with which science could furnish me, must soon come 
 to an end, the man in me rejoicing over the doctor that Azrael 
 had conquered. There Agatha Greste, the best aid doctor and 
 nurses ever had, watched also ; and there sat the hapless mother 
 by her boy's pillow, quite calm, the agonised strain gone from 
 her face,' and the stillness of desolation upon it. My hand was 
 on the child's pulse, and Esther's eyes were reading my features, 
 not in expectation, but with foreknowledge, when the second 
 nurse entered softly from the adjoining room, and held before 
 her a card, upon which "Urgent" was written, and a few lines in 
 pencil. I saw, as I had already concluded, that the card bore 
 the name of Sir Robert Vassal. . . . 
 
 Esther's marble cheeks flushed to an almost girlish rose. From 
 the card she looked at me. Her chest heaved, and there came 
 over her features such a look as I have never seen before or 
 since on face of mortal woman. Her lips moved. I had to 
 stoop low to hear her whisper — 
 
 "Could I leave him safely — only for a very little while?" 
 
 "There will be no change," I answered — "not yet. I will 
 stay with him." 
 
 She bent down, and for a minute or two held her face pre 
 against the face of the child. 
 
 Then, like a black shadow, in her widow's dress, she pa 
 out of the room.
 
 WRITTEN Hands clasping : eyes thrilling into each other : 
 
 BY hearts mingling : the two souls of us, so long 
 
 ESTHER parted, reunited once more ! 
 
 VASSAL : Had our souls ever been far away, the one from 
 
 its mate ? No. But body is a surer prison than 
 stone walls and iron bars. 
 
 This is not a ghost — not the dear banished ghost, whom I 
 had no longer dared invite to the communion of spirit. No 
 ghost ! But warm flesh : breathing speech : all the dear human 
 ways. The old gestures — that upward chin-toss : the squaring of 
 the shoulders : the familiar moody stare : the same worried lip- 
 droop. . . . And then the sudden change — eyes, mouth softening 
 — the broadening out of tiny wrinkles : the loving smile — ah, do 
 I not know it ! The great glad beam of tenderness, that shines 
 only for me ! 
 
 " So brown though ! So very brown. . . . And one small scar 
 that I was not acquainted with — here, close by the temple. An 
 inch higher, and — It makes me shudder. . . . Was it an Arab 
 of the desert who did that ? . . . And grey ! . . . Talk of me 
 being grey and old ! . . . But my hair is silver-white, and Gagsie 
 Greste says it is pretty. And yours ! — Why, it's just the pepper 
 and salt that brown hair goes into. . . . And oh, you shouldn't 
 laugh. . . . Ah no, dearest, you mustn't laugh. . . . Takes me back 
 to that walk, and the gourbis — and Suliman's wife — and the eggs 
 I carried in my pocket-handkerchief. . . . Dearest, dearest, don't 
 laugh, it's all too sad and terrible. ..." 
 
 "And what do grey hair and wrinkles matter, in the wilderness 
 — our wilderness — do you remember ? . . . Nothing matters. . . . 
 For you know it's of no use. . . . No use in pretending. . . . We'd 
 only got to look into each other's eyes . . . always. And I'd only 
 got to put my arms round your neck ! . . . And where was 
 the sense of fine talk. . . . and all the foolish writing-people's 
 speeches ? ... It was you and / that were real. . . . Just you and 
 I. . . . Oh, it wasn't any good trying to fight against Fate. ... I said 
 so — didn't I say so — at Tourmestral ? . . . Oh, darling, darling ! 
 . , . We were only man and woman after all — you said it. ..." 
 
 358
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 359 
 
 " And the roses, dear— do you remember ? . . . The Kassis 
 roses. . . . I've kept them all these years — dead, mouldering 
 things ! . . . No, I'm not sorry. . . . For all the agony, I'm not 
 sorry. . . . Some day we shall know ! It's all a mystery. We 
 were made human. . . . And we've got to learn through our 
 humanity ... to conquer the kingdom of flesh . . . before the 
 gates of the Other Kingdom will be opened to us. . . . Love is 
 the key. . . . And perhaps, who knows ? . . . what the world calls 
 sin. . . . But no true love can be everlasting sin. . . . When the 
 punishment is taken and borne — and we've borne it. Heaven's 
 scourge-.stick ... do you remember ? . . . I've thought of that so 
 often since. . . . And when I learned the part — oh, how long ago ! 
 . . . And when I said the lines — I didn't understand them the 
 least little bit. . . . Listen. . . . 
 
 " ' . . . I have seen — our — little boy oft scourge his top, 
 And compared myself to't : nought made me e'er go right 
 But Heaven's scourge-stick. . . .'" 
 
 Did my thoughts find spoken language ? I cannot tell. They 
 welled up in my heart : and my hands were clasped in his. . . . 
 No, not in all these ghost years, has it changed or waned or 
 waxed feeble — the ineffable virtue of that touch. . . . It's vital 
 still 
 
 And then he said the words ..." My wife ! " 
 
 Can there be on earth or in heaven, music so sweet in a 
 woman's ear as those two human words, spoken by the man she 
 loves ? 
 
 "It's true," he said; "you are my wife— you and none other. 
 I know everything — oh, if I had but known before. All that 
 you have suffered alone — when I should haw been by your side. 
 . . . Henceforth, whatever comes of it, we stand together — you 
 and I — and the child between us."' 
 
 The child! Dear Lord, wilt Thou fulfil Thy covenant? 
 
 "The child between us," he repeated. . , . "Ah. Love— no 
 harking back now upon the cruel past. . . . That for glad long 
 hours of future nearness.... but I have nol been quite the 
 cowardly wretch you may have thoughl me. . . . 1 wa lor 
 
 many mouths. ... I heard nothing till it was too late I had 
 never guessed. . . . Then I (.inn-. . . ." 
 
 " Yes, I know." 
 
 "I came, prepared to face the world with you, ii you had 
 
 desired it. But- you knew? From whal I heard, il ed my 
 
 clearest duty to take my,' If out ol your life. ... I thoughl it
 
 360 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 would be best for you and for the child if I kept away from Eng- 
 land. . . . You have understood that? . . ." 
 " Yes, I have understood. . . ." 
 
 " Only lately have I realised the cruel position in which you 
 were placed. ... As soon as news of the will reached me, I 
 came over again. ... I am here, to stand by you through any- 
 thing — everything — to support you in whatever you think it best 
 to do." 
 
 " And your wife, Robert — who was the nearest?" 
 His look was heartrending. " Don't — That terrible parting ! 
 . . . You have remembered. . . . Esther, there is not a day, nor 
 a night, nor even an hour in which your eyes and voice have not 
 haunted me. . . . But oh, you knew — you must have known — 
 I was cruel, but it was because I dared not let myself falter. If 
 
 ever living man went down into hell, that man is I You 
 
 ask about my wife. The face of things has changed. Somehow, 
 gradually, the Eastern climate — all the new interests, have restored 
 her health, and her sanity — as Glaive said. She has all her 
 original grip of life. She is now like her first self — allowing for 
 the years — even her beauty has come back, and she seems the 
 brilliant intellectual woman I married — with this difference. Her 
 love for me got a shock which, though her reason was almost 
 gone for a time, has slowly diverted her affections into another 
 channel, and has concentrated them upon our son. He is his 
 mother's constant companion, her pride and joy. Whatever 
 happens, they would have each other." 
 
 A vision of those two — another son and another mother — 
 reigning at Grisewood, rose before me. He went on — 
 
 " My son is of age. Everything would be arranged. I have 
 thought it all out. I would give up the whole thing — to him 
 and to his mother. . . . We — you and I — would live out of 
 England. I thought of Japan ; it is very beautiful there and 
 sympathetic, and one can get away from people. Then, when 
 the divorce was granted — that I am certain would be her wish— 
 we could marry. Not here, of course ; but there are countries 
 where it would be legal. ... If it mattered. . . . All that is a mere 
 nothing. I am yours — till death. And you are — my wife." 
 
 His arms were round me ; his lips were on mine ; it was the 
 renewing of youth once more. For that eternal moment my 
 prayers, my tears, even my dying child, even my covenant with 
 God — all were forgotten. The Garden of Paradise lay open, and 
 in my ears the bliss of life was chanted. 
 
 I was in the Blue Land again. The sun gladdened me ; the 
 warm peace of Kassis enwrapped me; the roses wafted their
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 361 
 
 perfume ; the palm-leaves whispered wooingly : the sea and the 
 wind and the mountain torrent sang the old song — 
 
 " Love ! love ! Nothing endures but love ! " 
 
 Then, as from the turret-chamber on that night of wrestling, I 
 seemed to hear my boys call sounding weakly, "Mother ! " 
 
 It was the last — the supreme temptation ; the last wrench 
 asunder of self and spirit. The gates of my earthly paradise 
 closed on me again ; but the mystic kingdom lay in all its 
 shining glory, a conquered realm. 
 
 Clinging to him, weeping, and yet refraining for my oath's 
 sake from the dear caresses, I told him all, and prayed him to 
 uphold me in that purpose wherein I lacked strength. I told 
 him of the night of wrestling — of the despair which had rent 
 me — of the vow I had vowed, of the renunciation I had made, 
 and of the Covenant. 
 
 "God has kept His bargain," I said, "and shall I now go 
 back from mine ? " 
 
 Awe-stricken, he released me, and our arms fell asunder. 
 
 "Come," I said. 
 
 He followed me to my boy's room. The nurses were there, 
 and Dr. Glaive and Agatha. They all moved away when we 
 entered ; and we were left alone together, he and I and the 
 child.
 
 BOOK XVI 
 
 " Good-bye, my Fancy . . . 
 
 Long indeed have ive lived, slept, filtered, become really 
 
 blended into one. 
 Then, if ive die, ive die together (yes, ive'/l remain one) ; 
 If ive go anyivhere, ive go together to meet ivhat happens : 
 Maybe iveHl be better off, and blither, and learn something, 
 Maybe it is yourself noiv really ushering me to the true 
 
 songs (ivho inoivs .•?), 
 Maybe it's you the mortal knob really undoing, turning — 
 
 so noiv, fnally, 
 Good-bye — and hail, my Fancy ! "
 
 WRITTEN Farewell, beloved Blue Land, ever dear and 
 
 BY sacred ! 
 
 ESTHER ' Once more I look out upon early dawn, and the 
 
 VASSAL : sea lies so still — so still, Mediane and Rassem 
 sleeping upon her bosom. The old town has not 
 awakened yet. Full and softly golden, the moon sinks behind 
 the Vasques hills, which stand forth tender and pure as risen 
 ghosts in this unearthly blending of virgin day and dying night. 
 Tiny hamlets, far away on the mountain-side, and all the near 
 villages and mosques show strangely in the ethereal light, and 
 the beacon on Cape Feurd dims slowly, and goes out at last as 
 the dawn turns red. 
 
 Shall we know each other, dear, at once — quite at once — there 
 in the love-realm beyond my second dawn ? And will it be the 
 semblance of our poor earth-bodies that we shall wear ; or shall 
 we be provided with grand new lustrous shapes, in which we 
 shall scarcely recognise our old selves? Ah, dearest, I don't 
 want you in resplendent robe of cloud and with changed, angelic 
 countenance. I want you in the fashion that I knew. You— 
 your very self, with the worn face I last beheld as it bent over 
 the dead child; you, with the sad eyes and moody brow, the 
 flashing smile and impatient head-toss ; you, with all the old 
 tricks of speech and gesture that I loved. 
 
 No, give me no formless glory. I want your own hand to 
 clasp mine and your own voice to welcome me. Let us meet, 
 
 soiled sheaths cast, but, the spirit similitude of human w 
 remaining. 1 or they are not lost, those dear human ways, 
 only purified. Surel y we shall find them a ain, there as here, 
 the core an< of our humanity. That most perfect thing 
 
 which life gave us, shall of a certainty be yet more perfeel in I 
 Beyond, and from the ashes oi passion's pyre shall soar the bird 
 of immortality. 
 
 Truly, if the first great bridge-builders, Sin and Death, hi 
 
 365
 
 366 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 spanned the chasm to hell-gate, there toils still the mightier 
 builder Love, who rears the arch to heaven. 
 
 Do you who read, know what it means to approach the doors 
 of the Shadow of Death ; to brush the border of the unknown 
 country ; to feel the nearness of those hovering presences of whom 
 the form may not yet be discerned ? Have you ever awakened 
 from slumberings on your bed, filled with a wondrous peace and 
 with the sure knowledge that in dreams you have walked with 
 God's Servers, and have heard their voice, and have been taught by 
 them of His works and ways ? These are the silent watchers and 
 cleansers of our houses of clay, the builders in human material, 
 whose bricks and straw are the unruly wills and affections of 
 sinful man. These are the priests of the invisible temple, who, 
 when deep sleep falls upon the body, open to the soul its prison 
 gates and reveal to it visions of the darkness. Therefore, what 
 fear of death should cling to that soul strong enough to break its 
 bars — that soul which, on the wings of a great love and a most 
 poignant pain, ascends to the infinite, and in the place of under- 
 standing, receives that inner wisdom which cannot be gotten for 
 gold, and whereof man knows not the price ? There, in that hall 
 of learning, is delivered to this freed soul the mystery of our dual 
 selves, the mystery of sense and essence, of the day and the night, 
 of time and the stars, of space, the ether, and dreams. There 
 this soul is taught that action is indeed but the shadow, and that 
 not in the gross commerce of everyday existence lies the true 
 tragedy of its passage through the lower years, but on the unseen 
 stage where human destinies are controlled and the signal given. 
 And thus the act-drop falls again and again in the great drama ; 
 while the players sleep awhile, to take up their parts anew, having 
 no knowledge of what has gone before or of what shall come 
 after. So again and again, the tragic mummers stand face to 
 face, and do not discover each other ; and they mouth, and strut, 
 and wail, and rejoice, and cannot tell that they are but the old 
 masquers dressed in new dominoes. 
 
 • •■•••• 
 
 The world recedes, and becomes a diminishing picture, ex- 
 quisite, varied, brilliant still, but unreal as the vivid figures in a 
 painted window, behind which the sun is setting. And as I wait 
 for the act-drop to fall, I ask myself what, for this poor player 
 who has feebly glimpsed the Other Side, is the conclusion of the 
 matter ? Truly it is written that to save his life a man shall lose 
 it. I have lost my all and have gained the whole, and why should 
 I repine because bitterness and inadequate return have been my
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 367 
 
 portion here? The seed sown in sincerity and watered with tears 
 must, according to the unchanging law, yield in fulness of time 
 its ripe harvest. The ages still are ours, and it is love alone that 
 endures for ever. Yes, many pages have yet to be written of 
 the book of human emotion ; but I know now, that its last word 
 shall be, not Pessimism, not Defeat, but Attainment. 
 
 My little, black journals have long given out, and I cannot 
 write now as I did in the beginning. And perhaps after all Esther 
 ' Zamiel's last book, her reallest book, will be her worst failure. 
 
 Never mind ' There will be no Mr. Brock to shrug reprov- 
 ingly and prate about the critics. . . . And it is the Recording 
 Angel who will make this "Reader's Report." 
 
 So, as once upon a time the Reader would have quoted : 
 " O British public, who may love me yet — Marry, and Amen." 
 
 Till'; END
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson <&> Co. 
 Edinburgh &* London
 
 DONOVAN PASHA 
 
 By Sir GILBERT PARKER 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
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 A
 
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 her experience to the mind of the reader, and this is a great art.' 
 
 The Daily Mail. — 'The story is as singular as its title, and as strong as 
 straightforward. . . . The drama haunts and grips us. There is humour 
 in it, too, excellent humour. The Maternity of Harriott Wicken is a story 
 that has elemental human nature in every chapter, and, therefore, sinks deep 
 in the mind.' 
 
 SPINDLE AND PLOUGH 
 
 By Mrs. HENRY DUDENEY 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. — ' Mrs. Dudeney has a power, as precious as it is 
 rare, of conveying a whole scene in a few well-chosen words. Her observa- 
 tion is acute, her word-painting well-nigh exquisite.' 
 
 The Spectator. — 'Mrs. Dudeney possesses the inestimable art of grasp- 
 ing and holding the attention of her readers.' 
 
 THE COURTESY DAME 
 
 By R. MURRAY GILCHRIST 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 Literature. — 'It possesses all the sweetness and rusticity of a pastoral, 
 but through it a thousand lights and shades cf human passion are seen to 
 play. The story will immediately grip the reader and hold him until he 
 reaches the last chapter.' 
 
 The Morning Post. — 'Mr. Murray Gilchrist is an artist to the point of 
 his pen, whose story is at once among the freshest and sweetest of recent 
 essays in imaginative writing.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
 THE HOSTS OF THE LORD 
 
 By FLORA ANNIE STEEL 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — 'Mrs. Steel's latest wonderful romance of 
 Indian life. It is '57 in little, and in our own day. Mrs. Steel has again 
 subtly and keenly shown us how unique is her power of realising the unstably 
 poised, the troubled half-and-half mind that is the key to the Indian problem.' 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — ' No one, not even the Kipling of an earlier day, 
 quite does for India what Mrs. Steel does; she sees Indian life steadily, 
 and sees it whole with a vision that is truthful, sympathetic. Such is the 
 wealth of her observation that her page is rich with colour as an Eastern 
 bazaar, and fragrant as a basket of quinces.' 
 
 VOICES IN THE NIGHT 
 
 By FLORA ANNIE STEEL 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Times. — 'It is the native mind which Mrs. Steel shows us as no 
 other writer has done. She sketches in the native scenes with intimate 
 detail, with ease in obtaining her effects.' 
 
 Black and White. — 'Mrs. Steel works on a crowded canvas, yet every 
 figure stands out distinctly. Voices in the Night is a book to be read 
 carefully. It is a book to be kept and to be read more than once. It is a 
 novel of the best kind, and deserves the attention of the readers who find 
 nothing praiseworthy in the effusions of the popular successes.' 
 
 ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS 
 
 By FLORA ANNIE STEEL 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Spectator.— 'We have read Mrs. Steers book with ever-increasing 
 surprise and admiration — surprise at her insight into people with whom 
 she can scarcely have been intimate, admiration for the ; 
 enabled her to realise that wonderful welter of the 1 md West, w 
 
 Delhi must have p d just before the Mutiny. There is many an ol 
 
 who would give his sword to write military history aa Mi , Steel has written 
 the history of the rising, the si , and the storm. It is the most wonderful 
 picture. We know that none who lived through the Mutiny will lay the | 
 down without a gasp of admiration, and believe that the same emotion will be 
 felt by thousands to whom the scenes depicted are but lurid p h a n ta sm agoria.' 
 
 The Daily Chronicle.— ' A picture, glowing with colour, of the n 
 momentous and dramatic events in all our Empire's later history. We I 
 read many stories having for their setting the lurid I ' lian 
 
 Mutiny, but none that for fidelity to fact, for vivacity of ima . for 
 
 masterly breadth of treatment, comes within half a dozen pll ,; is.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM IILINKMAN.N, z\ lln-iori. Siki.i i, VY.r.
 
 IN THE PERMANENT WAY 
 
 By FLORA ANNIE STEEL 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Spectator. — 'While her only rival in this field of fiction is Mr. 
 Kipling, her work is marked by an even subtler appreciation of the Oriental 
 standpoint — both ethical and religious — a more exhaustive acquaintance with 
 native life in its domestic and indoor aspects, and a deeper sense of the moral 
 responsibilities attaching to our rule in the East. The book is profoundly 
 interesting from beginning to end.' 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — 'A volume of charming stories and of stories 
 possessing something more than mere charm. Stories made rich with beauty 
 and colour, strong with the strength of truth, and pathetic with the intimate 
 pathos which grows only from the heart. All the mystery and the frankness, 
 the simplicity and the complexity of Indian life are here in a glowing setting of 
 brilliant Oriental hues. A book to read and a book to buy. A book which 
 no one but Mrs. Steel could have given us, a book which all persons of leisure 
 should read, and for which all persons of taste will be grateful. ' 
 
 FROM THE FIVE RIVERS 
 
 By FLORA ANNIE STEEL 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Times. — ' Mrs. Steel has evidently been brought into close contact 
 with the domestic life of all classes, Hindu and Mahommedan, in city and 
 village, and has steeped herself in their customs and superstitions. . . . Mrs. 
 Steel's book is of exceptional merit and freshness.' 
 
 The Athenaeum. — ' They possess this great merit, that they reflect the 
 habits, modes of life, and ideas of the middle and lower classes of the popula- 
 tion of Northern India better than do systematic and more pretentious works.' 
 
 The Globe. — ' She puts before us the natives of our Empire in the East as 
 they live and move and speak, with their pitiful superstitions, their strange 
 fancies, their melancholy ignorance of what poses with us for knowledge and 
 civilisation, their doubt of the new ways, the new laws, the new people. 
 "Shah Sujah's Mouse," the gem of the collection— a touching tale of un- 
 reasoning fidelity towards an English " Sinny Baba " is a tiny bit of perfect 
 writing.' 
 
 THE POTTER'S THUMB 
 
 By FLORA ANNIE STEEL 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Globe. — 'This is a brilliant story— a story that fascinates, tingling 
 with life, steeped in sympathy with all that is best and saddest.' 
 
 The Manchester Guardian.— 'The impression left upon one after reading 
 The Potter's Thumb is that a new literary artist, of very great and unusual 
 gifts, has arisen. . . . In short, Mrs. Steel must be congratulated upon having 
 achieved a very genuine and amply deserved success.' 
 
 The Scotsman.—' It is a capital story, full of variety and movement, which 
 brings with great vividness before the reader one of the phases of Anglo- 
 Indian life. Mrs. Steel writes forcibly and sympathetically, and much of the 
 charm of the picture which she draws lies in the force with which she brings 
 out the contrast between the Asiatic and European world. The Potter's 
 Thumb is very good reading, with its mingling of the tragedy and comedy of 
 life Its evil woman par excellence . . . is a finished study.' 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
 RED ROWANS 
 
 By FLORA ANNIE STEEL 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Daily Chronicle.— 'Judge it by what canons of criticism you will 
 the book is a work of art. . . . The story is simple enough, but it is as 
 lifelike as anything in modern fiction. The people speak and act as people 
 do act and speak. There is not a false note throughout. Mrs. Steel draws 
 children as none but a master-hand can draw.' 
 
 The Westminster Gazette. — 'Far and away above the average of novels, 
 and one of those books which no reader should miss.' 
 
 The Daily,News. — ' The book is written with distinction. It is moving, 
 picturesque, the character drawing is sensitive and strong.' 
 
 Black and White. — 'It reveals keen sympathy with nature and clever 
 portraiture, and it possesses many passages both humorous and pathetic' 
 
 THE FLOWER OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 By FLORA ANNIE STEEL 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Academy. — 'Nothing here ought to be neglected, for there is in 
 most places something profitable for not too obtrusive exhortation, and 
 almost everywhere something for enjoyment.' 
 
 The Glasgow Herald. — 'A clever book which should tend to widen 
 Mrs. Steel's circle among the reading public' 
 
 The Scotsman. — 'They have a rich imaginative colour always.' 
 
 The Manchester Guardian. — 'Much sympathy with humanity however 
 dark the skin, and a delicate touch in narrative, raise Mrs. F. A. Steel's 
 Indian Stories into a high rank. There is a pathos in them not common 
 among Anglo-Indian stury-tellers.' 
 
 MISS STUART'S LEGACY 
 
 By FLORA ANNIE STEEL 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Saturday Review. — 'It throbs with the vigour of real creative 
 power. ' 
 
 The Spectator. — ' It is remarkably clever ; it is written in a style which 
 has ease, dignity, grace, and quick responsiv< the demands <<\ the 
 
 theme ; it has passages of arresting power and tin - ; and it 
 
 displays a quick eye for character and a power of depicting it with both 
 force and subtlety. ' 
 
 The Westminster Gazette. — 'A most faithful, vivid impreuion of 
 Indian life. ' 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. — 'A singularly powerful and fascinating story.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, yy.c. 
 
 A 2
 
 BOWERY TALES 
 
 (George's Mother, and Maggie.) 
 
 By STEPHEN CRANE 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Morning Post. — ' Mr. Crane never wrote anything more vivid than 
 
 the story in which Maggie takes the heroine's part. It is as admirable in its 
 
 own field as The Red Badge of Courage in another.' 
 
 The Illustrated London News. — 'Stephen Crane knew the Bowery very 
 well, and in these two stories its characteristics come out with the realism of 
 Mr. Arthur Morrison's studies of the East End. Both are grim and powerful 
 sketches.' 
 
 PICTURES OF WAR 
 
 (The Red Badge of Courage, and The Little Regiment.) 
 By STEPHEN CRANE 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 Truth. — 'The pictures themselves are certainly wonderful. ... So fine 
 a book as Mr. Stephen Crane's Pictures of War is not to be judged 
 pedantically.' 
 
 The Daily Graphic. — ' ... A second reading leaves one with no whit 
 diminished opinion of their extraordinary power. Stories they are not really, 
 but as vivid war pictures they have scarcely been equalled. . . . One cannot 
 recall any book which conveys to the outsider more clearly what war means 
 to the fighters than this collection of brilliant pictures.' 
 
 THE OPEN BOAT 
 
 By STEPHEN CRANE 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Saturday Review. — ' . . . Themost artistic thing Mr. Crane has 
 yet accomplished.' 
 
 The St. James's Gazette. — ' Each tale is the concise, clear, vivid record 
 of one sensational impression. Facts, epithets, or colours are given to the 
 reader with a rigorousness of selection, an artfulness of restraint, that achieves 
 an absolute clearness in the resulting imaginative vision. Mr. Crane has a 
 personal touch of artistry that is refreshing.' 
 
 ACTIVE SERVICE 
 
 By STEPHEN CRANE 
 In One Volutne, price 6s. 
 
 The Athenaeum. — 'The characters are admirably sketched and sustained. 
 There is tenderness ; there is brilliancy ; there is real insight into the 
 minds and ways of women and of men.' 
 
 The Spectator — ' Mr. Crane's plot is ingenious and entertaining, and 
 the characterisation full of those unexpected strokes in which he excels.' 
 
 The Academy. — 'The book is full of those feats of description for which 
 the author is famous. Mr. Crane can handle the epithet with surprising, 
 almost miraculous dexterity. Active Service quite deserves to be called a 
 remarkable book.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
 THE THIRD VIOLET 
 
 By STEPHEN CRANE 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 The Athenaeum.— 'We have never come across a book that brought 
 certain sections of American society so perfectly before the reader as does The 
 Third Violet, which introduces us to a farming family, to the boarders at a 
 summer hotel, and to the young artists of New York. The picture is an 
 extremely pleasant one, and its truth appeals to the English reader, so that 
 the effect of the book is to draw h'm nearer to his American cousins. The 
 Thi?-d V T iolet incidentally contains the best dog we have come across in 
 modern fiction. Mr. Crane's dialogue is excellent, and it is dialogue of a 
 type for which neither The Red Badge of Courage nor his later books had 
 prepared us.' 
 
 AFRICAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENT 
 
 By A. J. DAWSON 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — 'His stories have the special attraction of 
 stories of a country by a man who has knowledge of it and is under its fascina- 
 tion ; and are good stories into the bargain. He has a pretty humour, and 
 the gift of telling a story well, and special knowledge to work upon ; the 
 result is an entertaining book.' 
 
 The Scotsman. — 'The stories are all invented and written with that glow 
 of imagination which seems to come of Eastern sunshine. . . . They are besides 
 novel and readable in no ordinary degree, and they make a book which will 
 not fail to interest every one who takes it up.' 
 
 THE STORY OF RONALD KESTREL 
 
 By A. J. DAWSON 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Athenaeum. — 'The sketches of life and scenery in Morocco and in 
 
 New South Wales are attractive, the literary cod n keeps a good level 
 
 throughout. Mr. Dawson is a writer of ability who has seen 1 things, 
 
 and should go far.' 
 
 JOSEPH KHASSAN: HALF-CASTE 
 
 By A. J. DAWSON 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Athenaeum. — ' Since Mr. Kipling's famous ballad, « ' 
 the underlying unity of martial spirit common t" Ea 1 and Welt, we 1 
 read no more striking or suggestive study of Oriental and li 
 
 of thought than this work, which deals with their fundamental 
 The story is laid at first and last in Morocco, which the author knows better 
 than most Englishmen. Mr. Dawson's style is vivid and not without di tinc- 
 tion. His w>»rk is virile as well as good reading: he can command both 
 humour and pathos.' 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — 'It is strong, undeniably • 'en 
 
 book with many admirable character-studies. The book y a 
 
 powerful one.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 I Street, W.C.
 
 THE LION AND THE UNICORN 
 
 By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — ' Eight short stories, each of them written with 
 a brilliance worthy of the author of Soldiers of Fortune, and each a perfect 
 piece of workmanship. Every one of them has a striking and original idea, 
 clothed in the words and picturesque details of a man who knows the world. 
 They are genuine literature. Each is intensely fresh and distinct, ingenious 
 in conception, and with a meaning compounded of genuine stuff. There is 
 something in all of the stories, as well as immense cleverness in bringing 
 it out.' 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. — 'Stories of real excellence, distinctive and 
 interesting from every point of view.' 
 
 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE 
 
 By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. Illustrated. 
 
 The Athenaeum. — ' The adventures and exciting incidents in the book are 
 admirable ; the whole story of the revolution is most brilliantly told. This 
 is really a great tale of adventure.' 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — 'We turn the pages quickly, carried on by a 
 swiftly moving story, and many a brilliant passage : and when we put the 
 book down, our impression is that few works of this season are to be named 
 with it for the many qualities which make a successful novel. We congratu- 
 late Mr. Harding Davis upon a very clever piece of work.' 
 
 THE NIGGER OF THE 'NARCISSUS' 
 
 By JOSEPH CONRAD 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 A. T. Quiller-Couch in Pall Mall Magazine.— 'Mr. Conrad's is a 
 thoroughly good tale. He has something of Mr. Crane's insistence ; he 
 grips a situation, an incident, much as Mr. Browning's Italian wished to 
 grasp Metternich ; he squeezes emotion and colour out of it to the last drop ; 
 he is ferociously vivid ; he knows the life he is writing about, and he knows 
 his seamen too. And, by consequence, the crew of the Narcissus are the 
 most plausibly life-like set of rascals that ever sailed through the pages of 
 fiction.' 
 
 THE INHERITORS 
 
 By JOSEPH CONRAD and F. M. HUEFFER 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 The Athenaeum. — ' This is a remarkable piece of work, possessing quali- 
 fications which before now have made a work of fiction the sensation of its 
 year. Its craftsmanship is such as one has learnt to expect in a book bearing 
 Mr. Conrad's name. . . . Amazing intricacy, exquisite keenness of style, 
 and a large, fantastic daring in scheme. An extravaganza The Inheritors 
 may certainly be called, but more ability and artistry has gone to the making 
 of it than may be found in four-fifths of the serious fiction of the year.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
 JACK RAYMOND 
 
 By E. L. VOYNICH 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette.— 'This is a remarkable book. Mrs. Voynich 
 has essayed no less than to analyse a boy's character as warped even to the 
 edge of permanent injury by the systematic sternness — aggravated on occasion 
 into fiendish brutality — of his guardian. We know notning in recent fiction 
 comparable with the grim scene in which the boy forces his uncle to listen 
 to the maledictions of the Commination Service directed against himself. 
 Jack Ray?nond 'is the strongest novel that the present season has produced, 
 and it will add to the reputation its author won by The Gadfly.'' 
 
 THE GADFLY 
 
 By E. L. VOYNICH 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Academy. — 'A remarkable story, which readers who prefer flesh and 
 blood and human emotions to sawdust and adventure should consider as some- 
 thing of a godsend. It is more deeply interesting and rich in promise than 
 ninety-nine out of every hundred novels.' 
 
 The World. — 'The strength and originality of the story are indisputable.' 
 The St. James's Gazette. — 'A very strikingly original romance which 
 will hold the attention of all who read it, and establish the author's reputation 
 at once for first-rate dramatic ability and power of expression.' 
 
 VOYSEY 
 
 By R. O. BROWSE 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Standard. — 'The analytical power displayed makes this book a 
 remarkable one, and the drawing of the chief figures is almost startlingly good. ' 
 The Daily News. — ' A novel of conspicuous ability. ' 
 
 FROM A SWEDISH HOMESTEAD 
 
 By SELMA LAGERLOF 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Athenaeum. — 'The very strangeness of ius is one of its chief 
 
 charms. Her domain lies on the i of fairyland, and there is an otl 
 
 worldliness about her m< i il and convincing cnaractei .' 
 
 The Spectator. ■-' We are glad to welcome in this delightful volume 
 evidence of the una h.ucd vitality of that vin ol fantastii invention whit h i 
 purest in the tales of Andersen. The influence of < 
 
 is obvious in the longest and nv> I I tiful story of the I n. Bui 
 
 when all deductions are ma-le on the score <>f indebtedness, the originalit 
 plot and treatment remain unquestioned. The endered touching and 
 
 convincing by the ingenious charm and sincerity of the narrator.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD Sikki.i, W.C.
 
 THE MANTLE OF ELIJAH 
 
 By I. ZANGWILL 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Athenaeum. — 'Contains cleverness of a very varied kind — traits of 
 fine imagination, of high spiritual feeling, keen observation, and a singular 
 sense of discrimination in character and dialogue.' 
 
 The Outlook. — 'His story and the figures which people its pages are of a 
 vivid and absorbing interest, instinct with life, and on every page some witty 
 and memorable phrase, or trenchant thought, or vivid picture.' 
 
 THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 
 
 By I. ZANGWILL 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Spectator. — ' No reader, who is not blinded by prejudice, will rise 
 from the perusal of this engrossing volume without an enhanced sense of 
 compassion for, and admiration of, the singular race of whose traits Mr. 
 Zancjwill is, perhaps, the most gifted interpreter.' 
 
 The Standard. — ' These stories are of singular merit. They are, mostly, 
 of a tragic order ; but this does not by any means keep out a subtle humour ; 
 they possess also a tenderness . . . and a power that is kept in great restraint 
 and is all the more telling in consequence.' 
 
 DREAMERS OF THE GHETTO 
 
 By I. ZANGWILL 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 W. E. Henley in ' The Outlook. ' — 'A brave, eloquent, absorbing, and, on 
 the whole, persuasive book. ... I find them all vastly agreeable reading, 
 and I take pleasure in recognising them all for the work of a man who loves 
 his race, and for his race's sake would like to make literature. . . . Here, I 
 take it — here, so it seems to me — is that rarest of rare things, a book.' 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — 'It is hard to describe this book, for we can think 
 of no exact parallel to it. In form, perhaps, it comes nearest to some of 
 Walter Pater's work. For each of the fifteen chapters contains a criticism of 
 thought under the similitude of an "Imaginary Portrait." . . . We have a 
 vision of the years presented to us in typical souls.' 
 
 THE MASTER 
 
 By I. ZANGWILL 
 
 With a Photogravure Portrait of the Author 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Queen. — 'It is impossible to deny the greatness of a book like The 
 Master, a veritable human document, in which the characters do exactly as 
 they would in life. ... I venture to say that Matt himself is one of the most 
 striking and original characters in our fiction, and I have not the least doubt 
 that The Master will always be reckoned one of our classics.' 
 
 The Literary World. — 'In The Master, Mr. Zangvvill has eclipsed all his 
 previous work. This strong and striking story is genuinely powerful in its 
 tragedy, and picturesque in its completeness. . . . The work strikes a truly 
 tragic chord, which leaves a deep impression upon the mind.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM IIEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
 CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO 
 
 By I. ZANGWILL 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Times. — ' From whatever point of view we regard it, it is a remark- 
 able book.' 
 
 The Guardian. — 'A novel such as only our own day could produce. A 
 masterly study of a complicated psychological problem in which every factor 
 is handled with such astonishing dexterity and intelligence that again and 
 again we are tempted to think a really great book has come into our hands.' 
 
 Black and White. — 'A moving panorama of Jewish life, full of truth, full 
 of sympathy, vivid in the setting forth, and occasionally most brilliant. Such 
 a book as this has the germs of a dozen novels. A book to read, to keep, to 
 ponder over, to remember.' 
 
 The Manchester Guardian. — 'The best Jewish novel ever written.' 
 
 THE KING OF SCHNORRERS 
 
 By I. ZANGWILL 
 
 With over Ninety Illustrations by Phil May and Others. 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Saturday Review. — 'Mr. Zangwill has created a new figure in 
 fiction, and a new type of humour. The entire series of adventures is a 
 triumphant progress. . . . Kumour of a rich and active character pervades 
 the delightful history of Manasseh. Mr. Zangwill's book is altogether very 
 good reading. It is also very cleverly illustrated by I'hil May and other 
 artists.' 
 
 The Daily Chronicle.— 'It is a beautiful story. The KingofSchnorrers 
 is that great rarity — an entirely new thing, that is as good as it is new.' 
 
 THE CELIBATES' CLUB 
 
 By I. ZANGWILL 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 The St. James's Gazette. — ' Mr. Zangwill's Bachelors' Club and Old 
 Maids' Club have separately had such a success— as their sparkling humour, 
 gay characterisation, and irresistible punning richly deserved— that it is no 
 surprise to find Mr. lleinemann now issuing them together in one volume. 
 Readers who have not purchased the separate volumes will be glad to add 
 this joint publication to their bookshelves. Others, who have failed to read 
 either, untd they foolishly imagined that it was too late, have now the 1 
 excuse for combining the pleasures of two.' 
 
 THE PREMIER AND THE PAINTER 
 
 By I. ZANGWILL and LOUIS COWEN 
 
 ]n One Volume, price 6s. 
 The Morning* Post— 'The story is described as a '' fantastic romance," 
 and, indeed, fantasy reigns supreme from the first to the last of i I' 
 
 relates the history of our time with humour and well-ail 
 
 most prominent characters of the day, whether | " »> 
 
 for notice. The identity of th< 1 politidana IS but thinly veiled, while 
 
 many celebrities appear in proprid persond* 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BBDFORD Sitii.i, W.C.
 
 THE WORLD'S MERCY 
 
 By MAXWELL GRAY 
 In Ofie Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Speaker. — 'Those who most admired The Silence of Dean Mait- 
 land will find much to hold their attention, and to make them think in The 
 World's Mercy.' 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. — 'The qualities of her pen make all of Maxwell 
 Gray's work interesting, and the charm of her writing is unalterable. If The 
 World's Mercy is painful, it is undeniably forcible and dramatic, and it holds 
 the reader from start to finish.' 
 
 THE HOUSE OF HIDDEN TREASURE 
 
 By MAXWELL GRAY 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Chronicle. — 'There is a strong and pervading charm in this new novel 
 by Maxwell Gray. ... It is full of tragedy and irony, though irony is not the 
 dominant note.' 
 
 The Times. — 'Its buoyant humour and lively character-drawing will be 
 found very enjoyable.' 
 
 The Daily Mail. — ' The book becomes positively great, fathoming a depth 
 of human pathos which has not been equalled in any novel we have read for 
 years past. . . . The House of Hidden Treasure is not a novel to be bor- 
 rowed ; it is a book to be bought and read, and read again and again.' 
 
 THE LAST SENTENCE 
 
 By MAXWELL GRAY 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Standard. — ' The Last Sentence is a remarkable story; it abounds 
 with dramatic situations, the interest never for a moment flags, and the 
 characters are well drawn and consistent.' 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. — 'One of the most powerful and adroitly worked- 
 out plots embodied in any modern work of fiction runs through The Last 
 Sentence. . . . This terrible tale of retribution is told with well-sustained 
 force and picturesqueness, and abounds in light as well as shade.' 
 
 SWEETHEARTS AND FRIENDS 
 
 By MAXWELL GRAY 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
 FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER 
 
 By MAXWELL GRAY 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 The Athenaeum. — ' Brightly and pleasantly written, Maxwell Gray's new 
 story will entertain all readers who can enjoy the purely sentimental in 
 fiction.' 
 
 The Scotsman. — 'The story is full of bright dialogue: it is one of the 
 pleasantest and healthies: novels of the season.' 
 
 HEARTS IMPORTUNATE 
 
 By EVELYN DICKINSON 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. — 'Happy in title and successful in evolution, 
 Miss Dickinson's novel is very welcome. We have read it with great 
 pleasure, due not only to the interest of the theme, but to an appreciation of 
 the artistic method, and the innate power of the authoress. It is vigorous, 
 forcible, convincing.' 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — ' An enjoyable book, and a clever one.' 
 
 THE HIDDEN MODEL 
 
 By FRANCES HARROD 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Outlook. — 'Intensely dramatic and moving. We have sensitive 
 analysis of character, sentiment, colour, agreeable pathos.' 
 
 The Athenaeum. — 'A good story simply told and undidactic, with men 
 and women in it who are creatures of real flesh and blood. An artistic 
 coterie is described briefly and pithily, with humour and without exaggeratii 
 
 The Academy. — 'A pathetic little love idyll, touching, plaintive, and not 
 without a kindly and gentle fascination.' 
 
 Literature. — ' A remarkably original and powerful story : one of the most 
 intere>ting and original books of the year.' 
 
 The Sunday Special. — 'Thrilling from cover to cover. ' 
 
 SAWDUST 
 
 By DOROTIIKA GERARD 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Athenaeum. — ' Once again Dorothea Gerard has shown considerable 
 ability in the delineation of diver e characters ability as evident in the 
 minor as in the chief persons; and, what is more, she gi i without 
 
 any undue labouring of points as to thi 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — ' 1 he little town ol / 
 the lower Carpathians, is the scene of Mi i Gerard's book. Remoti • 
 geographically; but the writer has not seen her Galician 
 foreigners, nor has s'ie made them other than entirely human. Hun 
 are the scheming Jews, the Pol nts and ' ■•' Go 
 
 millionaire. The story i imple and eminently natural' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Strebt, W 1 ,
 
 GLORIA MUNDI 
 
 By HAROLD FREDERIC 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — ' Mr. Harold Frederic has here achieved a triumph 
 of characterisation rare indeed in fiction, even in such fiction as is given us by 
 our greatest. Gloria Mundi is a work of art ; and one cannot read a dozen 
 of its pages without feeling that the artist was an informed, large-minded, 
 tolerant man of the world.' 
 
 The St. James's Gazette. — ' It is packed with interesting thought as well 
 as clear-cut individual and living character, and is certainly one of the few 
 striking serious novels, apart from adventure and romance, which have been 
 produced this year.' 
 
 ILLUMINATION 
 
 By HAROLD FREDERIC 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Spectator. — 'There is something more than the mere touch of the 
 vanished hand that wrote The Scarlet Letter in Illumination, which is the 
 best novel Mr. Harold Frederic has produced, and, indeed, places him very 
 near if not quite at the head of the newest school of American fiction.' 
 
 The Manchester Guardian. — ' It is a long time since a book of such 
 genuine importance has appeared. It will not only afford novel-readers food 
 for discussion during the coming season, but it will eventually fill a recognised 
 place in English fiction.' 
 
 THE MARKET-PLACE 
 
 By HAROLD FREDERIC 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Times. — 'Harold Frederic stood head and shoulders above the ordinary 
 run of novelists. The Market- Place seizes the imagination and holds the 
 reader's interest, and it is suggestive and stimulating to thought.' 
 
 The Bookman. — ' Incomparably the best novel of the year. It is a ruthless 
 exposure, a merciless satire. Both as satire and romance it is splendid 
 reading. As a romance of the " City " it has no equal in modern fiction.' 
 
 THE LAKE OF WINE 
 
 By BERNARD CAPES 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 W. E. Henley in 'The Outlook.' — ' Mr. Capes's devotion to style does 
 him yeoman service all through this excellent romance. ... I have read no 
 book for long which contented me as this book. This story — excellently 
 invented and excellently done — is one no lover of romance can afford to leave 
 unread.' 
 
 The St. James's Gazette. — 'The love-motif is of the quaintest and 
 daintiest ; the clash of arms is Stevensonian. . . . There is a vein of mystery 
 running through the book, and greatly enhancing its interest.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
 VIA LUCIS 
 
 By KASSANDRA VIVARIA 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. — 'Perhaps never before has there been related 
 wiih such detail, such convincing honesty, and such pitiless clearsightedness, 
 the tale of misery and torturing perplexity, through which a young and ardent 
 seeker after truth can struggle. It is all so strongly drawn. The book is 
 simply and quietly written, and gains in force from its clear, direct style. 
 Every page, every descriptive line bears the stamp of truth.' 
 
 The Morning' Post. — ■' Via Lucis is but one more exercise, and by no 
 means the least admirable, on that great and inexhaustible theme which has 
 inspired ccmntless artists and poets and novelists — the conflict between the 
 aspirations of the soul for rest in religion and of the heart for human love and 
 the warfare of the world.' 
 
 THE OPEN QUESTION 
 
 By ELIZABETH ROBINS 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 The St. James's Gazette. — 'This is an extraordinarily fine novel. . . . We 
 have not, for many years, come across a serious novel of modern life which 
 has more powerfully impressed our imagination, or created such an instant 
 conviction of the genius of its writer. . . . We express our own decided 
 opinion that it is a book which, setting itself a profound human problem, 
 treats it in a manner worthy of the profoundest thinkers of the time, with a 
 literary art and a fulness of the knowledge of life which stamp a master 
 novelist. ... It is not meat for little people or for fools ; but for those who 
 care for English fiction as a vehicle of the constructive intellect, building up 
 types of living humanity for our study, it will be a new revelation of strength, 
 and strange, serious beaut).' 
 
 BELOW THE SALT 
 
 By ELIZABETH ROBINS 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 The Daily Chronicle.— 'All cleverly told, vivacious, life-like, observant 
 sketches. Were we to award the palm where all arc meritoriou . it should 
 be to the delightful triplet entitled "The Portman Memoirs." These tl 
 sketches are positively exhilarating. We can sincerely recommend them as 
 certain cures for the vapours, the spleen, or the " blues." 
 
 THE STORY OF EDEN 
 
 By DOM' WYU.AKDK 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 The Academy.— 'The story is an out itanding one. Then- are 
 thought and colour which gladden, and chai ■ as the li 
 
 only do. A light wit beams through the dialogue On the whole, bravo I 
 DoIfWyllarde.'' 
 
 The Standard.— 'A remarkable book, fresh and '-on, [Tie writer 
 
 has a sense of things as they are, and describes them limply and vividly. 
 The book is well written, and the pictures of social life in Wynberg arc 
 excellent.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM 1 1 KIN KM ANN, 21 BEDFORD Si ri.i.t, W.C.
 
 ST. IVES 
 
 By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 The Times. — ' Neither Stevenson himself nor any one else has given us a 
 better example of a dashing story, full of life and colour and interest. St. Ives 
 is both an entirely delightful personage and a narrator with an enthralling 
 style — a character who will be treasured up in the memory along with David 
 Balfour and Alan Breck, even with D'Artagnan and the Musketeers.' 
 
 THE EBB-TIDE 
 
 By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 AND 
 
 LLOYD OSBOURNE 
 
 I?i One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — 'We are swept along without a pause on the 
 current of the animated and vigorous narrative. Each incident and adven- 
 ture is told with that incomparable keenness of vision which is Mr. Stevenson's 
 greatest charm as a story-teller.' 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — 'It is brilliantly invented, and it is not less 
 brilliantly told. There is not a dull sentence in the whole run of it. And 
 the style is fresh, alert, full of surprises — in fact, is very good latter-day 
 Stevenson indeed.' 
 
 THE QUEEN VERSUS BILLY 
 
 By LLOYD OSBOURNE 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — ' Of the nine stories in thisvolume, not one falls 
 below a notably high level, while three or four of them at least attain what 
 short stories not often do, the certainty that they will be re-read, and vividly 
 remembered between re-readings. Mr. Osbourne writes often with a deli- 
 cious rollick of humour, sometimes with a pathos from which tears are not 
 far remote, and always with the buoyancy and crispness without which the 
 short story is naught, and with which it can be so much.' 
 
 The Outlook. — 'These stories are admirable. They are positive good 
 things, wanting not for strength, pathos, humour, observation.' 
 
 CHINATOWN STORIES 
 
 By C. B. FERNALD 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Academy. — 'We feel that Mr. Fernald has described the Chinese 
 character with extraordinary accuracy. His range is considerable; he begins 
 this volume, for example, with an idyllic story of an adorable Chinese infant. 
 . . . This is sheer good-humour, and prettiness and colour. And at the 
 end of the book is one of the grimmest and ablest yarns of Chinese piracy and 
 high sea villainy that any one has written, Stevenson not excluded. In each 
 of these we see the hand of a very capable literary artist. It is a fascinating 
 book.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
 THE ASSASSINS 
 
 By NEVILL M. MEAKIN 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Times. — ' He brings home to his readers the spirit of awe — of allure- 
 ment and terror — which his chosen place and period inspire. The opening 
 chapters breathe the true spirit of romance. The Orient blazes in Mr. Meakin's 
 descriptions. His pen is dipped in the period he portrays. It is iridescent 
 with the mirage of the East ; glowing now with the life and clash and din of 
 the Ismalians, and again with the victories of Saladin ; powerful in its 
 pictures of human passion, human ambition, and the tragedy of fate.' 
 
 The Standard. — ' The Assassins attracts us on its first page by the ex- 
 cellence of its style, and the interest is kept up to the end.' 
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE VELDT 
 
 By BASIL MARNAN 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Morning Post. — 'A strong, clever, and striking book. Mr. Basil 
 Marnan has drawn some vivid and wholly new pictures. The book has 
 scenes of dramatic power, told with simple directness.' 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — 'It has interested us profoundly, and lias given us 
 good and sufficient reason to hope that another novel from the same hand and 
 with the same misc-tn-scine, may before very long come our way.' 
 
 The Scotsman. — 'This is a South African novel which should arrest 
 attention. It is of engrossing interest. Mr. Marnan has dramatic power, a 
 vivid descriptive talent, and a rich and expressive style. He has written a 
 remarkable book.' 
 
 ON THE EDGE OF THE EMPIRE 
 
 By EDGAR JEPSON and Captain D. BEAMES 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Spectator. — 'Of the wealth and intere I and variety of the mat in ill. u- 
 can be no question. It might be called the Book of the Sepoy, for no writer, 
 not even Mr. Kipling himself, has given us i insighl into the chart 
 
 of the Indian fighting man, or brought home to us more vividly the composite 
 nature of our native i nents. 
 
 The Daily News. — 'The picturesque native soldier has nev< t bt i a o 
 rally described or more realistically painted than in the pi volume, 
 
 book is packed full of good stuff, and d< widely r< 
 
 THE EAGLE'S HEART 
 
 l;, HAMLIN GARLAND 
 
 In One Volume, price 6 , 
 
 The Athenaeum. — ' Mr. Garland's worl I '■•■• ind 
 
 this story is full of his charactei ergy. H< with delight 
 
 in the irresistible fascination of wild life in the Far V> 
 
 The Illustrated London News.— 'If Mr. Hamlin Garland had never 
 written anything else, The Eagle's Heart would suffice to win him a re] 
 tion. It is a fine book, in with humanity, quiverii ;th, and 
 
 in every fibre of it alive.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, Zl BEDFORD 9TRB1 ', v. I
 
 THE BETH BOOK 
 
 By SARAH GRAND 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 Punch. — 'The heroine of The Beth Book is one of Sarah Grand's most 
 fascinating creations. With such realistic art is her life set forth that, for a 
 while, the reader will probably be under the impression that he has before him 
 the actual story of a wayward genius compiled from her genuine diary. The 
 story is absorbing ; the truth to nature in the characters, whether virtuous, 
 ordinary, or vicious, every reader with some experience will recognise.' 
 
 The Globe. — ' It is quite safe to prophesy that those who peruse The Beth 
 Book will linger delightedly over one of the freshest and deepest studies of 
 child character ever given to the world, and hereafter will find it an ever 
 present factor in their literary recollections and impressions.' 
 
 THE HEAVENLY TWINS 
 
 By SARAH GRAND 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Athenaeum. — ' It is so full of interest, and the characters are so 
 eccentrically humorous yet true, that one feels inclined to pardon all its 
 faults, and give oneself up to unreserved enjoyment of it. . . . The twins 
 Angelica and Diavolo, young barbarians, utterly devoid of all respect, con- 
 ventionality, or decency, are among the most delightful and amusing children 
 in fiction.' 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. — ' Everybody ought to read it, for it is an inex- 
 haustible source of refreshing and highly stimulating entertainment.' 
 
 Punch. — ' The Twins themselves are a creation : the epithet " Heavenly" 
 for these two mischievous little fiends is admirable.' 
 
 IDEALA 
 
 By SARAH GRAND 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Morning Post. — 'It is remarkable as the outcome of an earnest 
 mind seeking in good faith the solution of a difficult and ever present problem. 
 . . . Idtala is original and somewhat daring. . . . The story is in many 
 ways delightful and thought-suggesting.' 
 
 The Liverpool Mercury. — 'The book is a wonderful one — an evangel 
 for the fair sex, and at once an inspiration and a comforting companion, to 
 which thoughtful womanhood will recur again and again.' 
 
 OUR MANIFOLD NATURE 
 
 By SARAH GRAND 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Spectator. — 'All these studies, male and female alike, are marked 
 by humour, pathos, and fidelity to life.' 
 
 The Speaker. — 'In Our Manifold Nature Sarah Grand is seen at her 
 best. How good that is can only be known by those who read for them- 
 selves this admirable little volume.' 
 
 The Guardian. — ' Our Manifold Nature is a clever book. Sarah Grand 
 has the power of touching common things, which, if it fails to make them 
 "rise to touch the spheres," renders them exceedingly interesting.' 
 
 London : WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
 THE LAND OF COCKAYNE 
 
 By MATILDE SERAO 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — 'It is long since we have read, and indeed 
 re-read, any book of modern fiction with so absorbing an interest as The 
 Land of Cockayne, the latest book by Matilde Serao (Heinemann), and surely 
 as fine a piece of work as the genius of this writer has yet accomplished. It 
 is splendid ! The character-drawing is subtle and convincing ; every touch 
 tells. Such books as The Land of Cockayne are epoch-making, voices that 
 cry aloud in the wilderness of modern " literature," and will be heard while 
 others only cackle. ' 
 
 THE BALLET DANCER 
 
 By MATILDE SERAO 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Saturday Review. — 'The work of Madame Serao, a novelist with 
 rare gifts of observation and faculties of execution, only needs a little more 
 concentration on a central motive to rank among the finest of its kind, the 
 short novel of realism. She curiously resembles Prosper Merimee in her 
 cold, impersonal treatment of her subject, without digression or comment ; 
 the drawing of clear outlines of action ; the complete exposure of motive 
 and inner workings of impulse; the inevitable development of given tem- 
 peraments under given circumstances. She works with insight, with judg- 
 ment, and with sincerity.' 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — ' Few living writers have given us anything 
 equal to her splendid story The Land of Cockayne, and it is much to say that 
 those who were stirred to enthusiasm by that book will experience no reaction 
 upon reading the two stories here bound together. Genius is not too big a 
 word for her.' 
 
 THE SCOURGE-STICK 
 
 By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Observer. — 'Not only is The Scourge-Stick the best novel that Mrs. 
 I'raed has yet written, but it is one that will long occupy a prominent place 
 in the literature of the age.' 
 
 The Illustrated London News. — 'A singularly powerful study of a 
 woman who fails in everything, only to rise on stepping-stones to higher thii 
 A succession of strong, natural, and exciting situations.' 
 
 Black and White. — 'A notable book which must be admitted by all to 
 have real power, and that most intangible quality — fascination.' 
 
 IN HASTE AND AT LEISURE 
 
 By E. LYNN LINTON 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Literary World. — ' Whatev* i i may 1 e, In HaxUand 
 
 at Leisure remains a notable achievement. It i mi, .m.l wc 
 
 can recommend it with confidence.' 
 
 The World. — ' It is clever, and well writl 
 
 The Graphic.—' It is thoroughly inb t< I it is full of | that 
 
 almost irresistibly tempt quotation.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, z\ Bkdi
 
 THE LONDONERS 
 
 By ROBERT HICHENS 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 Punch. — 'Mr. Hichens calls his eccentric story " an absurdity," and so it 
 is. As amusing nonsense, written in a happy-go-lucky style, it works up to 
 a genuine hearty-laugh-extracting scene. . . . The Londoners is one of 
 the most outrageous pieces of extravagant absurdity we have come across for 
 many a day.' 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette.—' It is all screamingly funny, and does great 
 credit to Mr. Hichens's luxuriant imagination.' 
 
 AN IMAGINATIVE MAN 
 
 By ROBERT HICHENS 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Scotsman. — 'It is no doubt a remarkable book. If it has almost 
 none of the humour of its predecessor {The Green Carnation), it is written 
 with the same brilliancy of style, and the same skill is shown in the drawing 
 of accessories. Mr. Hichens's three characters never fail to be interesting. 
 They are presented with very considerable power, while the background of 
 Egyptian life and scenery is drawn with a sure hand.' 
 
 THE FOLLY OF EUSTACE 
 
 By ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The World.— 'The little story is as fantastic and also as reasonable as 
 could be desired, with the occasional dash of strong sentiment, the sudden 
 turning on of the lights of sound knowledge of life and things that we find in 
 the author when he is most fanciful. The others are weird enough and strong 
 enough in human interest to make a name for their writer had his name needed 
 making.' 
 
 THE SLAVE 
 
 By ROBERT HICHENS 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Speaker. — 'It tells an extremely interesting story, and it is full of 
 entertaining episodes. Above all, the romance of London is treated as it has 
 never been since the glorious reign of Prince Florizel of Bohemia, and, if only 
 on that account, The Slave is a book for the busy to remember and for the 
 leisurely to read.' 
 
 The Daily Telegraph.— 'The book deserves to be widely read. Sir 
 Reuben Allabruth, a figure of real distinction, will take his place among the 
 shades of fiction.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
 FLAMES 
 
 By ROBERT HICHENS 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — ' A cunning blend of the romantic and the real, the 
 work of a man who can observe, who can think, who can imagine, and who 
 can write. . . . And the little thumb-nail sketches of the London streets have 
 the grim force of a Callot.' 
 
 The World. — 'An exceedingly clever and daring work . . . a novel so 
 weirdly fascinating and engrossing that the reader easily forgives its length. 
 Its unflagging interest and strength, no less than its striking originality, both 
 of design and treatment, will certainly rank it among the most notable novels 
 of the season.' 
 
 NUDE SOULS 
 
 By BENJAMIN SWIFT 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 Mr. W. L. Courtney in the ' Daily Telegraph.' — ' Any one who is so 
 obviously sincere as Mr. Benjamin Swift is an author who must be reckoned 
 with. The story is very vivid, very poignant, very fascinating.' 
 
 The World. — 'Mr. Benjamin Swift was a bold man when he called his 
 new story Nude Souls. There is a self-assertion about this title which only 
 success could justify. Lpf it be said at once that the author has succeeded. 
 He lays absolutely bare before the reader the souls of a striking company of 
 men and women. There is that about the book which makes the reader loth 
 to put it down, loth to come to the end — comprehension of human nature, 
 and relentless power of expression.' 
 
 THE REBEL 
 
 By H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 The Morning Post. — 'The tale is full of incidents and dramatic situa- 
 tions ; the result commands our unstinted admiral inn. It is an extraordinarily 
 brilliant performance. Though full of the most subtle character-drawing, 
 The Rebel \% in the main a story of adventure. And these advent 
 related with such sharpness of outline, they arc so vivid, and the style of the 
 author is so brilliant throughout, that were there not a character in the 1 
 worth a moment's consideration, it would still be well worth reading.' 
 
 SONS OF THE SWORD 
 
 By MARGARET I.. WOODS 
 
 In One Volume, prict 
 The Times. — 'To write a good Napoleon novel baa Inn:; Kerned in be one 
 of those enterprises that attract authors onlj rthrow and discomfit 
 
 them. Yet Mrs. Woods has come out of this ordeal unscathed, and hei 
 good fortune places her in the front rank of living that it is 
 
 merely the Napoleonic scenes which m vs of tht ible 
 
 and admirable book, i is much in it 1 the vivid glimpses of the 
 
 Man of Destiny to attract and int<; ry kind ol 
 
 London: WILLIAM HI INI mann, 21 Bedford Strei r, W.C.
 
 THE AWKWARD AGE 
 
 By HENRY JAMES 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Outlook. — 'In The Awkward Age Mr. Henry James has surpassed 
 himself.' 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — ' In delicacy of texture, his work, compared to the 
 work of most, we are strongly inclined to say of all other novelists, is as a 
 fabric woven of the finest spider's web to common huckaback. He suggests 
 more by his reticences than he tells by his statements. . . . We should 
 have to search far and wide in modern fiction to find artistry more finished, 
 so consummate.' 
 
 THE TWO MAGICS 
 
 By HENRY JAMES 
 In One Volume^ price 6s. 
 
 The Athenaeum. — ' In The Two Magics, the first tale, " The Turn of the 
 Screw," is one of the most engrossing and terrifying ghost stories we have 
 ever read. The other story in the book, " Covering End," ... is in its way 
 excellently told.' 
 
 The Daily News. — ' It is a masterpiece of artistic execution. Mr. James 
 has lavished upon it all the resources and subtleties of his art. The workman- 
 ship throughout is exquisite in the precision of the touch, in the rendering 
 of shades of spectral representation.' 
 
 THE SPOILS OF POYNTON 
 
 By HENRY JAMES 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The National Observer. — 'A work of brilliant fancy, of delicate humour, 
 of gentle satire, of tragedy and comedy in appropriate admixture. We con- 
 gratulate Mr. James without reserve upon the power, the delicacy, and the 
 charm of a book of no common fascination.' 
 
 The Manchester Guardian. — 'Delightful reading. The old felicity of 
 phrase and epithet, the quick, subtle flashes of insight, the fastidious liking 
 for the best in character and art, are as marked as ever, and give one an 
 intellectual pleasure for which one cannot be too grateful. ' 
 
 THE OTHER HOUSE 
 
 By HENRY JAMES 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Daily News. — 'A melodrama wrought with the exquisiteness of a 
 madrigal. All the characters, however lightly sketched, are drawn with that 
 clearness of insight, with those minute, accurate, unforeseen touches that tell 
 of relentless observation.' 
 
 The Scotsman. — 'A masterpiece of Mr. James's analytical genius and 
 finished literary style. It also shows him at his dramatic best. He has 
 never written anything in which insight and dramatic power are so marvel- 
 lously combined with fine and delicate literary workmanship. ' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C,
 
 WHAT MAISIE KNEW 
 
 By HENRY JAMES 
 In Ofie Volume, price 6s. 
 The Academy. — ' We have read this book with amazement and delight : 
 with amazement at its supreme delicacy ; with delight that its author retains 
 an unswerving allegiance to literary conscience that forbids him to leave a 
 slipshod phrase, or a single word out of its appointed place. There are many 
 writers who can write dialogue that is amusing, convincing, real. But there 
 is none who can reach Mr. James's extraordinary skill in tracing dialogue 
 from the first vague impulse in the mind to the definite spoken word.' 
 
 EMBARRASSMENTS 
 
 By HENRY JAMES 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Times. — ' Mr. James's stories are a continued protest against super- 
 ficial workmanship and slovenly style. He is an enthusiast who has devoted 
 himself to keeping alive the sacred fire of genuine literature ; and he has his 
 reward in a circle of constant admirers.' 
 
 The Daily News. — ' Mr. Henry James is the Meissonier of literary art. 
 In his new volume, we find all the exquisiteness, the precision of touch, that 
 are his characteristic qualities. It is a curiously fascinating volume.' 
 
 The National Observer. — 'The delicate art of Mr. Henry James has 
 rarely been seen to more advantage than in these stories.' 
 
 The St. James's Gazette. — 'All four stories are delightful for admirable 
 workmanship, for nicety and precision of presentation, and "The Way it 
 Came " is beyond question a masterpiece.' 
 
 TERMINATIONS 
 
 By HENRY JAMES 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Times. — ' All the stories are told by a man whose heart and soul are 
 in his profession of literature.' 
 
 The Athenaeum. — ' The appearance of Terminations will in no way shake 
 the general belief in Mr. Henry James's accomplished touch and i 1 of 
 
 material. On the contrary, it confirms conclusions long since foregone, 
 will increase the respect of his readers . . . With such] riant 
 
 wit and sparkling observation, surely in his best manner, Mr. Jan it to 
 
 be as satisfied as his readers cannot fail to b 
 
 SOME WOMEN I HAVE KNOWN 
 
 By MAARTEN MAARTENS 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Times. — 'Maarten M mself a t the 
 
 short story, and more of a ■ n than v. ■• d.' 
 
 The Academy. 'Weh ve ei I the b we think it contains 
 
 much excell- tl all the wit, the 
 
 Mr. Anth my Hope's social studii , it has, in ad 
 
 cosmopolitanism rare ei I tion.' 
 
 The Outlook. 
 esting, and thee] ■ depict i i 
 
 The Scotsman.— 'Mr. 
 humorist, a story-teller, and a 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, z\ BsproftD Vi C
 
 THE DANCER IN YELLOW 
 
 ByW. e. norris 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Guardian. — 'A very clever and finished study of a dancer at one of 
 the London theatres. We found the book very pleasant and refreshing, and 
 laid it down with the wish that there were more like it.' 
 
 The World. — ' The Dancer in Yellow takes us by surprise. The story is 
 both tragic and pathetic. . . . We do not think he has written any more 
 clever and skilful story than this one, and particular admiration is due to the 
 byways and episodes of the narrative.' 
 
 THE WIDOWER 
 
 By W. E. NORRIS 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 St. James's Gazette. — ' Mr. Norris's new story is one of his best. There 
 is always about his novels an atmosphere of able authorship . . . and The 
 Widower is handled throughout in the perfect manner to which Mr. Norris's 
 readers are accustomed.' 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. — ' There is distinction of all kinds in every paragraph, 
 and the whole is worthy of the delicately-finished details. Mr. Norris is 
 always delightfully witty, clever, and unfailing in delicacy and point of style 
 and manner, breezily actual, and briskly passing along. In a word, he is 
 charming. ' 
 
 MARIETTA'S MARRIAGE 
 
 By W. E. NORRIS 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Athenaeum.— 'A fluent style, a keen insight into certain types of 
 human nature, a comprehensive and humorous view of modern society — these 
 are gifts Mr. Norris has already displayed, and again exhibits in his present 
 volume. From the first chapter to the last, the book runs smoothly and 
 briskly, with natural dialogue and many a piquant situation.' 
 
 The Daily News. — 'Every character in the book is dexterously drawn. 
 ?lr. Norris's book is interesting, often dramatic, and is the work of, if not a 
 deep, a close and humorous observer of men and women.' 
 
 A VICTIM OF GOOD LUCK 
 
 By W. E. NORRIS 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Daily Chronicle.— ' It has not a dull page from first to last. Any 
 one with normal health and taste can read a book like this with real pleasure.' 
 
 The Spectator. — ' The brightest and cleverest book which Mr. Norris has 
 given us since he wrote The Rogue. 
 
 The Saturday Review. — 'Novels which are neither dull, unwholesome, 
 morbid, nor disagreeable, are so rare in these days, that A Victim of Good 
 Luck . . . ought to find a place in a book-box filled for the most part with 
 light literature. . . . We think it will increase the reputation of an already 
 very popular author.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.U,
 
 THE COUNTESS RADNA 
 
 By W. E. NORRIS 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Speaker. — 'In style, skill in construction, and general "go," it is 
 worth a dozen ordinary novels.' 
 
 Black and White.—' The novel, like all Mr. Norris's work, is an exces- 
 sively clever piece of work, and the author never for a moment allows his 
 grasp of his plot and his characters to slacken.' 
 
 The Westminster Gazette. — 'Mr. Norris writes throughout with much 
 liveliness and force, saying now and then something that is worth remember- 
 ing. And he sketches his minor characters with a firm touch. ' 
 
 THE IMAGE BREAKERS 
 
 By GERTRUDE DIX 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Outlook. — 'We have here a book packed with thought, suggestive, 
 
 sincere. The story is told supremely well. It has construction, it has 
 
 atmosphere. The characters live, breathe, love, suffer. Everything is on 
 
 the high plane of literature. It is a book of absorbing interest. 5 
 
 A PROPHET OF THE REAL 
 
 By ESTHER MILLER 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Daily Telegraph.— ' Miss Miller's study is both striking and 
 original. The young authoress knows how to tell her story, and her manner, 
 the way in which she describes the emotions of her characters, is always 
 adequate and often eloquent. She shows us the girl as she was in the days 
 of her servitude, gives us all the illuminating details of her sordid ex 
 then she shows us the pathetic blossoming of the nipped bud under the 
 influence of kindness, the transformation of the morbid girl into a beautiful 
 and gracious woman. Miss Miller is really to be congratulated on her 
 heroine. The study is interesting and faithful.' 
 
 THE GLOWWORM 
 
 By MAY BATEMAN 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Academy. — ' It has quite a charact* own; it has charm and it 
 
 has feeling. The minor characters a d there is a plea 
 
 humour always at hand to relieve a story other.' ii al enough.' 
 
 Punch. — 'A clever, well-written story.' 
 
 Truth. — 'As interesting as it i ori inal.' 
 
 The Morning - Post.— 'It is distinctly a fine : fiction, foi the 
 
 author can delineate character with precision and sympathy, and her st) : 
 admirably polished.' 
 
 The Daily Telegraph. — ' Miss us a very cart ful and 
 
 sympathetic story of the i ei ive phases < nature; the chars teris 
 
 consistently developed with a ten' "i, for the impracticable ami 
 
 appreciation for the beautiful. The author* ha . moreover, ■> fi d <>f 
 shrewd common-sense which, combined with ki • :• tion and humour, 
 
 makes her book both readable and entertaining.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Sikf.et, W.C.
 
 GILLETTE'S MARRIAGE 
 
 By MAMIE BOWLES 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Athenaeum. — 'This is an extraordinarily clever performance and will 
 be found most absorbing. The characterisation is excellent, the dialogue 
 natural and alive, the emotion poignant and real.' 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — ' It is decidedly clever and human, and the 
 brilliantly bold heroism of Gillette's final act of self-sacrifice is effective. 
 One must always admit its undeniable power.' 
 
 THE FALL OF LORD PADDOCKSLEA 
 
 By LIONEL LANGTON 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The World. — ' A very clever and good-humoured jeu d' esprit. The talk 
 is excellent, the atmosphere of worldliness and self-interest tempered by the 
 very best manners and form, the verisimilitude of Lady Killiecrankie, are all 
 much to be commended.' 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — 'Amusing snapshots of current political life.' 
 
 The Westminster Gazette. — 'A clever and ingenious story of political 
 life, told with a touch of cynicism which is redeemed by a background of 
 romance.' 
 
 The Standard. — 'Will no doubt be read with amusement by those who 
 find delight in the personal journalism of the day, and have the curiosity to 
 fit the characters to the originals. There is enough bright writing in the 
 book to make it a pleasant companion.' 
 
 THE WHITE TERROR 
 
 By FELIX GRAS 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Spectator. — 'The fascination of The Reds of the Midi and The 
 Terror is exerted with equal force and charm in their brilliant sequel, The 
 White Terror. Few narratives in modern fiction are more thrilling. 
 M. Gras has the gift of achieving the most vivid and poignant results by a 
 method devoid of artifice or elaboration. The narrative is a masterpiece of 
 simplicity and naivete: a stirring and richly coloured recital.' 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — 'The book is full of living pictures. The 
 feverishness, the uncertainty, of everything and everybody are most power- 
 fully brought out.' 
 
 THE TERROR 
 
 By FELIX GRAS 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — 'Those who shared Mr. Gladstone's admiration 
 for The Reds of the Midi will renew it when they read The Terror. It is a 
 stirring and vivid story, full of perilous and startling adventures, and with- 
 out one interval of dulness. ... It excites and absorbs the reader's atten- 
 tion. The excitement grows with the development of the plot, and the 
 incidents are told with much spirit.' 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
 BY BREAD ALONE 
 
 By I. K. FRIEDMAN 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Spectator. — { A remarkably interesting, able, and right-minded 
 study of the labour question in the United States. The employer, the 
 capitalist, the "hands," the Socialist, the Anarchist, the would-be Saviour 
 of Society, — all are fully, sympathetically, and convincingly presented. 
 There are powerful scenes in the book ; there are characters that touch.' 
 
 The Athenaeum. — ' There are descriptions which tell. There are remark- 
 able scenes painted, as it were, with blood and fire. Man and machinery in 
 grim revolt are portrayed, with hand-to-hand fights and many gruesome 
 death-scenes.' 
 
 'LOVE AND HIS MASK 
 
 By MENIE MURIEL DOWIE 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 Literature. — 'All of the many different kinds of novel readers will enjoy 
 Love and his Mas k. . . . The story is a refreshment from beginning to end. Love 
 and his Mask will be one of the most popular novels of the autumn season.' 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — ' A delightful romance.' 
 
 Punch. — 'A very clever novel, brightly written.' 
 
 FOREST FOLK 
 
 By JAMES PRIOR 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The Spectator. — ' We have no hesitation in welcoming Forest Folk as one 
 of the very best and most original novels of the year, and our only regret is 
 that we have failed to proclaim the fact sooner. The characterisation is 
 excellent, the narrative is crowded with exciting incident, and the author has, 
 in addition to an eye for the picturesque, a quite peculiar gift for describing 
 effects of light and colour. ' 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette.- ' Mr. Prior has a large knowledge and is a 
 keen observer of nature ; he is cunning in devising strong situations, dramatic 
 in describing them. His are forest folk indeed, nun and women of flesh 
 and blood.' 
 
 TANGLED TRINITIES 
 
 By DANIEL WOODRO] I E 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. 
 
 The St. James's Gazette.--' Full of live people, whom one remm;' 
 long. The whole book is charming.' 
 
 The Illustrated London News. — ' Mr. WoodrorTe writes wit! 
 clearness, picturesqueness, and n | he has an eye for chai rid o 
 
 grip of tragic po i ilities. It is a moving story, and tamp the i ithoi 
 one of the few real artists who are now writil ; I gl h fii tii 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 I r, W.C.
 
 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO'S NOVELS 
 
 W. L. Courtney in the Daily Telegraph.— D'Annunzio is one of the 
 great artistic energies of the age. He is the incarnation of the Latin genius 
 just as Rudyard Kipling is the incarnation of the Anglo-Saxon genius. He 
 has invented new harmonies of prose. 
 
 In One Volume, price 6s. each 
 
 THE FLAME OF LIFE 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — 'A work of genius, unique, astounding. 
 There are passages that sweep one headlong, and the whole leaves an 
 indelible impression.' 
 
 The Standard. — ' The pages are rich in symbolic imagery, in beautiful 
 word-pictures of Venice, and are saturated by the spirit of the Renaissance in 
 its most luxurious form.' 
 
 THE CHILD OF PLEASURE 
 
 The Academy. — '. . . Clever, subtle, to the point of genius.' 
 
 The Daily Mail. — 'A powerful study of passion, masterly of its kind.' 
 
 The Daily Graphic. — 'The poetic beauty and richness of the language 
 
 make it a sensuous, glowing poem in prose.' 
 
 The Scotsman. — ' The strength of the book lies in the intensity with which 
 
 the writer brings out the pleasures and pains of his creatures.' 
 
 THE VICTIM 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — 'No word but "genius" will fit his analysis of 
 the mental history of the faithless husband.' 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — 'The book contains many descriptive passages of 
 rare beauty — passages which by themselves are lovely little prose lyrics. . . . 
 It is a self-revelation ; the revelation of the sort of self that D'Annunzio 
 delineates with a skill and knowledge so extraordinary. The soul of the 
 man, raw, bruised, bleeding, is always before us.' 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette. — ' A masterpiece. The story holds and haunts 
 one. Unequalled even by the great French contemporary whom, in his realism, 
 D'Annunzio most resembles, is the account of the pilgrimage to the shrine of 
 the Virgin by the sick, deformed, and afflicted. It is a great prose poem, that, 
 of its kind, cannot be surpassed. Every detail of the scene is brought before 
 us in a series of word-pictures of wonderful power and vivid colouring, and the 
 ever-recurring refrain Viva Maria ! Maria Evviva ! rings in our ears as we 
 lay down the book. It is the work of a master, whose genius is beyond 
 dispute.' 
 
 THE VIRGINS OF THE ROCKS 
 
 The Daily Chronicle. — ' He writes beautifully, and this book, by the way, 
 is most admirably translated. The picture he presents of these three princesses 
 in their sun-baked, mouldering, sleepy palace is, as we look back upon it, 
 strangely impressive and even haunting.' 
 
 London : WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford Street, W.C.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRA 
 
 TH 'S BOOK CARD 
 
 AA 000 374 046 
 
 Uni ^sUy Reseorch Ubf 
 
 dry 
 
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 5189 
 
 P68sc 
 
 1898 
 
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