(LIBRARY UNIVEF f OF CAU .* SAN wttQQ 1 presented to the LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIFGO by FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY _ Ward L. Thornton donor WINTERGREEN PZ 3 i- V/i 'Where is she?" he demanded - -"- WINTERGREEN A TALE OF THE RECONSTRUCTION BY JANET LAING AUTHOR OF "BEFORE THE WIND," "THE MAN WITH THE LAMP" PUBLISHED BY THE CENTURY CO. NEW YORK MCMXXII Copyright, 1922, by THE CENTURY Co. Printed in U. S. A. TO ALL THOSE WHOM IT MAY CONCERN THIS SCRAP OF SECRET HISTORY IS DEDICATED CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I IN WHICH AMONG OTHER THINGS SOME ACCOUNT is GIVEN OF A FEW OF THE PREHISTORIC ACTS OF THE PRINCIPAL HEROINE 3 II IN WHICH THE HISTORIC ADVENTURES OF THE PRINCIPAL HEROINE BEGIN . . 15 III WHICH BEGINS WITH A MYSTERY AND ENDS WITH A REVELATION 27 IV IN WHICH ALL THE MEMBERS OF A HOUSEHOLD GET UPON EACH OTHER'S NERVES 48 V IN WHICH AN ACCOUNT is GIVEN OF SOME RAILWAY ACCIDENTS 74 VI IN WHICH WINTERGREEN ENTERS THE LAND OF PROMISE 96 VII IN WHICH THE LAND OF PROMISE BE- COMES AWARE OF ITS NEW INMATE . 118 VIII WHICH BEGINS WITHIN A SICK-ROOM AND ENDS AMONG SEA- PINKS . . . . 137 8 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE IX IN WHICH WINTERGREEN HAS A TEA- PARTY AND ALICE INSTITUTES AN AN- NIVERSARY 156 X IN WHICH THE REV. MR. PENNIFEATHER INADVERTENTLY THICKENS THE PLOT 173 XI IN WHICH PUBLIC BUSINESS is TRANS- ACTED 195 XII IN WHICH THOMASINA DOES SOME THICKENING 221 XIII IN WHICH WINTERGREEN PERCEIVES THE IMMINENCE OF ANOTHER OCCASION . 241 XIV IN WHICH PRIVATE AFFAIRS BECOME PUBLIC AND VICE VERSA .... 260 XV IN WHICH WINTERGREEN ONCE MORE MEETS WITH AN OCCASION . . . 274 XVI WHICH BEGINS WITH ONE DEPARTURE AND CONCLUDES WITH ANOTHER . . . 293 WINTERGREEN "The first difficulties to be surmounted will be not economical but emotional." PROFESSOR SHIELD NICHOLSON, Inauguration Lecture, University of Edinburgh, October, 1919. WINTERGREEN CHAPTER I In which among Other Things some Account is given of a few of the Prehistoric Acts of the Principal Heroine IT was in the town church of Rathness one fine Sunday morning in the August of 1919 that in the fiftieth year of her age, and in direct answer to prayer, the idea of becoming a domestic servant occurred to Miss Julia Glenferlie. It was the first idea she had ever origi- nated, and when it appeared over the horizon of her mind it fairly took away her breath. It was so ordinary- looking, like a teacupful of poison, and it held likewise such possibilities. Awe-stricken she considered it there- fore, while apparently absorbed in the sermon, with her hat tipped over her small keen gray eyes, her shortish nose, and her long upper lip. She was short and stout altogether, giving an impression of strength and sturdi- ness both of mind and of body. Her own teeth and hair were still sufficient, and she had the complexion of a Ribston pippin. She was plainly but not unfashionably dressed in gray, with touches of brilliant green about her. Green was her color. Her mother's name had been Wintergreen, and it pleased her to wear green always in memory of her. 3 4 WINTERGREEN As she sat there with her eyes fixed on the minister, she was realizing that Providence in vouchsafing this idea had once more sprung a surprise upon her. She recognized it also as the same kind of surprise sudden and sensational which she had had several times before. Perhaps never, she reflected, had there been a woman so peace-loving by nature who had found herself so fre- quently in vicissitudes of the first magnitude. She re- membered specially three of these as she sat there with her gaze fixed. Her first crisis had overtaken her when she was no more than seven years old. Had she not heard her father predict it, it is probable that she would not have been ready for it. As it happened, however, she had heard him predict it many times and had become, un- known to any one except herself, quite used to the ex- pectation of it. Therefore when she had come upon the laird one day in his so-called study holding a revolver to his forehead, she had immediately grasped the situa- tion. Instinctively also heredity may account for this she had realized her father's state of mind at the moment. She had not rushed forward and seized his arm and screamed at him as her mother would have done. She had stood quite still in the doorway and said "Take care, Daddy ! It may be loaded !" Thus she had saved the head of the house from suicide, for with all his faults and defects the laird had a strong sense of humor, and the aspect of his small fat daughter delivering herself of this speech had been too much for his determination and had sent him into fits of laughter. On another occasion, when she had been in her teens, she had found herself in a railway carriage one of the old-fashioned non-corridor kind alone with a drunken A FEW PREHISTORIC ACTS 5 man, who said he would make her rue the day if there and then she would not kiss him. She had managed to conceal the horror and consternation she had felt at the alternative offered to her, and had merely asked if he would wait till they came out of the tunnel they were then entering so that she might see what she was doing. With shouts of mirth the man had consented to this ar- rangement, but, at the other end of the tunnel, he had found to his indescribable dismay that one of the carriage doors was swinging wide open, and that he was alone in the compartment. Julia meanwhile had made her way by the footboards along the train to the guard's van, and was already concealed among the luggage there when the danger-signal, frantically pulled, brought the engine to a standstill. As no one ever learned the real facts of the case except the guard and the engine-driver, no one else believed that she had been in the carriage at all, and when her tormentor recovered from his alcoholic state even he did not believe it. Other events had followed from time to time, made the more remarkable by the long dull intervals between them. Had a contour map of her life's course been drawn it would have been a straight line broken, when it was broken at all, by precipices. The last of these would have been marked on such a map not long before this story opens, when, after an eventless visit of two years spent with quiet cousins in America, she made up her mind to come home in the May of 1915 on the Lusi- tania. It is unnecessary to recall here what happened. All the world has rung with the echoes of it. But no one probably except those immediately concerned knows how Miss Glenferlie saved the life of Mr. James Macfarlane. 6 WINTERGREEN The two had made acquaintance on the evening of the day of starting. They happened to be placed next to each other at dinner, and no one else for he was singu- larly unattractive seemed to be inclined to talk to Mr. Macfarlane. Miss Glenferlie therefore, to whom being unkind was being uncomfortable, allowed him to talk to her. But as he did this, not only during that dinner, but ever after in season and out of season she very soon had had enough of him. In vain, however, did she try to shake him off. In vain did she lend him books to distract his unwelcome attention. And she had ac- tually reached the verge of cutting him absolutely dead, when the German torpedo suddenly and inextricably intertwined their destinies. They had been standing side by side on deck when the water rose all about them, and Miss Glenferlie, with that uncanny self-possession which was hers at such times, had noted even at that dreadful moment how her gar- rulous companion had been struck speechless. There had been no last words. He had forgotten all about her. Had she not thought of it for herself she would not even have had a life-belt. She had a last impression of him struggling to put on his own, as she slipped off her dripping skirts and swam for dear life. When the great ship sank and dragged her down with it into an abyss of icy darkness, the memory of Macfarlane's trembling hands and pallid loose-lipped countenance accompanied her. And when she rose to the surface again more dead than alive she thought she must be still imagining him, for, clinging to the plank which she had clutched, there he was, pallid cheeks, staring eyes, and everything. He was within a few feet of her, and even as she became A FEW PREHISTORIC ACTS 7 aware of this, he began moving hand over hand towards her. "Save me," he gurgled. "Save me for the love of God." There were shrieks all round them, but she only heard his horrible whisper. Awful sights were on every hand, but she only saw him edging nearer. Next moment he might have over-balanced the plank or have gripped her in his insane terror. In either case he would have de- stroyed them both. But as usual her self-possession served her. "Keep where you are," she managed to say. "Hold on to the middle of the plank. If you hang on to me I can do nothing for you. But if you keep still I shall try to get opposite to you." Mercifully he obeyed her. She must indeed have looked a fearsome sight with her teeth chattering like castanets, and her hair afloat like seaweed. She moved along till she was facing him. "Have you your flask ?" she said. She knew he always carried one. He opened his mouth but he could not speak. "Keep still and I '11 get it," she said peremptorily. She was as good as her word, though it cost her a su- preme effort. His saturated pocket clung to the flask like death itself. Nevertheless a few moments later she had just man- aged to extract it when to her horror Macfarlane seized it and began draining all the brandy in it. "You wretch !" she exclaimed. "You selfish wretch ! Are you going to leave none for me?" 8 WINTERGREEN But it seemed he had again forgotten her. "You brute!" she whispered, and then she fainted. From that moment until the night before this story opens, except that she had found his name in the list of passengers saved, Miss Glenferlie had seen or heard nothing more of Mr. Macfarlane. As though Providence were making up to her for the last great adventure, she had lived for four years in peace and quietness at the Skellicks her solitary old house set round with Scotch firs among the fields two miles be- yond Rathness. It was the only part of her father's property which he had been able to leave her at his death. The road to it was not much better than a cart- track. The old house itself was dark and gloomy. Ex- cept for her adventure, which she refused to mention, its mistress was considered uninteresting. She was left for the most part, therefore, to the companionship of her flowers and her books, and this pleased her very well. Many people, indeed, declared that they did not visit her because they knew she did not desire to be visited by them. A wit in Rathness had once called her the Excluse, because those to whom she was ever "at home" could be counted on the fingers of one hand. This name for her, which became general, was supposed to be specially amusing, because, though her father had been the laird of Glenferlie, her mother before she married him had been his housekeeper. During the war Miss Glenferlie had knitted a sock a day and spent her money on war-works as lavishly as her father might have done. But she herself had re- mained withdrawn from it all in her own cozy little boudoir, where, for hours at a time, no sound of the A FEW PREHISTORIC ACTS 9 outer world was heard but the wind in the fir-trees and the sea sighing in the distance. With the signing of the peace a new era began. There was no more knitting at the Skellicks. But otherwise there was little difference. The money still poured out into the maws of a dozen charities, which had been starved throughout the war and were now clamant for increased subscriptions. Miss Glenferlie, however, could now read without interruption, and she did so almost constantly. There was so much still to be read, she re- flected, and so little time to do it in. Her mother had died at sixty, her father at sixty-two. She, herself, was now fifty. She saw herself reading on happily to the end of her life. Outside problems did not trouble her. She avoided, indeed, all literature that was concerned with the present day. She had heard of reconstruction, of course, and was vaguely glad that it was going on. But it never occurred to her that she personally had anything to do with it. Once her minister had made her uneasy by saying that she must have been spared from the Lusi' tania for some special purpose, but immediately after- wards he had relieved her mind by saying he wanted money for something. She supposed, therefore, that he only meant that she should spend more freely still, and she was glad that spending and reading could go on simultaneously. It was just then, however, that, though she did not realize it at the time, signs of another precipice began to appear aKead of her. In the spring of the year 1919 Old Roger died. Old Roger had been gardener, coach- man, and butler at the Skellicks. It was, as Dalrymple io WINTERGREEN the cook said, as though there had been three deaths at once. It would have taken three people to replace him, and not one was to be found at anything like the wage which the retainer of thirty years' standing had consid- ered ample payment. Worse than this, Dalrymple, whose temper had never been good, suddenly realized one day that she was being taken advantage of. Others who were mere infants in comparison to her both in years and capabilities were earning as much as she was. She there- fore requested her mistress to pay her a wage more suit- able to her qualifications or to find another cook. Three days after this, Dawson, the house lady's maid, after looking pensive for twenty- four hours, began to sigh heavily one evening as she was brushing her mis- tress's hair. On being asked what was the matter she said that the matter was her wage. If Dalrymple was to get a rise, surely it was only fair that she should get a rise too. Otherwise Dalrymple, whom she cordially disliked, would have the right to lord it over her. Miss Glenferlie agreed that this must be avoided at all costs. But on debating with herself as to what those costs should be, it seemed to her that further advice than that of Dawson would be useful. Mr. Carrick in Rath- ness was the family lawyer and banker and an old friend as well. Miss Glenferlie, therefore, wrote to him stating her own case and the case of her domestics. Mr. Carrick's reply was the third and most ominous sign. He came himself in person to deliver it, and was most kind and sympathetic. All the sympathy in the world, however, could not alter the fact that Miss Glenferlie's income had been considerably exceeded by her expenditure. Indeed, so much, it seemed, was her account at the bank already A FEW PREHISTORIC ACTS 11 overdrawn that Mr. Carrick himself was financing her until the next substantial dividends should come in to square things up at Christmas. She must see, he ex- plained, how if your resources being what they were, if you gave five pounds to this and five pounds to that and ten pounds to the other, you soon came to the end of your money. Funds, moreover, were lower than they had ever been. Even the substantial dividends he had spoken of might, when they did come in, be mere frac- tions of what they had been aforetime. Under these cir- cumstances any rise of wages to either of the two serv- ants would be unadvisable, and, as he had been making up his mind for some time to tell her, all her charities must be stopped forthwith. Mr. Carrick was a dapper little amiable gentleman with a habit of tapping himself nervously with his eye- glasses. He tapped himself more than usual during this address, for something, as he said afterwards to his wife, glimmered in the eyes of his client which he had seen before in the laird's eyes when he was about to burst into one of his torrential rages. Nothing happened, however. All that Miss Glenferlie said was "I understand." Then she talked of other matters. Moreover, she gave him an excellent tea before he set out again on the rough road back to Rathness. But no sooner had Mr. Carrick taken his departure than his client went into the small room on the upper floor, once called the study and now the boudoir, and set herself grimly to tackle the situation. As she did so she looked up at a portrait of her mother painted by a friend of the laird's who had lived for some time on his hospitality and had been mothered by 12 WINTERGREEN his lady, the erstwhile Jane Wintergreen. It had been the artist's fancy to paint her in an old rose-colored brocade belonging to some former lady of the Skellicks which had been found in a forgotten wardrobe, and the plain sen- sible face of the ex-housekeeper looked out from under a black lace head-dress adorned with red roses. The daughter, clothed in something which matched the shadows in the room, seemed herself a shadow beside the flamboyant canvas. Otherwise she might have been look- ing at her own face in a mirror. Her own image looked back at her, solemn and slightly grim, for the lady of the Skellicks had had her own ado with her laird. She had come to him at the Skellicks when he had already sown the wind and was in process of reaping the whirl- wind. His one regret was that she had not come sooner. "You would have saved the estates, Jane," he had al- ways said. "You would have kept a grip on 'em, old woman." Certain it was that she had kept a grip on what was left. The Skellicks, such as it was, with all its house- hold gods, many of them heirlooms, had been left in good order to her daughter. She had implanted also in the last descendant of the Glenferlies the same reverence and regard for her belongings that she herself had always felt for them. "You have in them what money cannot buy," she had said. "They are your inheritance. They have come down to you from an honorable past. Men and women of your own blood have used and seen them and have been proud of them. It is now your duty to keep them well and carefully so that you may hand them on as you have received them." From this it will be gathered that Jane Wintergreen A FEW PREHISTORIC ACTS 13 had been no ordinary housekeeper. She had been no ordinary mother either. "I '11 have you taught nothing but what you are likely to need," she had said. "You can't sing a note in tune, so I '11 not have you taught music. I never see you want- ing to draw, so I '11 not have you taught drawing. But when your father is tired of teaching you, which will be every other day, I '11 teach you what / know. It may be nothing much, but it has served me as well as many a grander education has served grander folks. If it had n't been for it I would n't have been your mother." Which was true enough. She taught her Julia then all the secrets of house- keeping, against her Julia's will often, for she was a book-worm by nature. She taught her the secrets of economy, against her will also, for she was a born spend- thrift. Further, she instructed her in what she called the Arts, and the first of these, though she did not call it by that name, was Reticence. "Don't let folks know all that you know," she said. "Your father has given you learning, but if you take my advice you '11 keep quiet about it, hide it away, tuck it into the middle of you. It will come through all right as the flavor comes through a pudding." The second Art was what she called Attention. "It 's not the women that talk," she would say, "and that are always showing off that get on. It 's the women that take time to notice things. Above all, it 's the women that listen." These words came into Julia's mind as she sat that evening looking up at the portrait. It seemed to her as though her mother were even now urging her to listen, 14 WINTERGREEN endeavoring to advise her from some higher sphere of influence. She remembered how in that very room she had so often admonished and advised her father. She sat fascinated, looking up, but no definite message came to her. Her mind kept circling like a squirrel in a wheel. All the usual expedients occurred to her and were re- jected. She would never let the Skellicks, and go into rooms in Rathness. She would rather do anything than hand over the household gods to strangers. She real- ized, nevertheless, that something must be done. She had pledged herself to send money to half a dozen people before Christmas. And if she had to pay wages and keep herself and her household as befitted her position in life, she could not do so without appealing to Mr. Carrick. On her mother's side she had no connections except those far-off cousins in America who looked upon her as their rich relation. Her father's family had had no dealings with him after what they termed his mesal- liance. To humiliate herself before any of them was quite out of the question. Yet no other way out of her difficulties had been revealed to her when the evening post interrupted her. CHAPTER II In which the Historic Adventures of the Principal Heroine begin DAWSON brought up the letter for there was only one partly because it was her duty to do so, and partly because she wanted to reconnoiter. Dalrymple and she, now joined by a common interest, had, since the lawyer left, been awaiting developments. As time had passed on, however, -and nothing had happened, a change had come over the spirit of their dream. It did not occur to them that their mistress could dispense with their serv- ices, but they began to think that there might be some difficulty in getting her to see eye to eye with them. The question therefore now was whether, if their wages were not raised sufficiently, they should or should not stay on at the Skellicks. In this connection they remem- bered various advantages of their present situation which they could not be sure of finding elsewhere. "When ye 've been a long time in a place," said Daw- son, who was inclined to be sentimental, "ye canna help gettin' a kind o' fond o' 't." While she spoke her gaze wandered round the kitchen which had once been the pride and delight of Jane Win- tergreen, and which still retained from beyond the years something of the impress of her personality. "She never grudges," Dawson went on, referring to the present owner. "She likes ye to tea an' supper a' 15 16 WINTERGREEN body that comes. Ye wouldna get that in some places." "Hoots ay," said Dalrymple. "They 're that desperate to keep ye noo they 'd crawl on their knees to please ye. Jess Kirk was tellin' me the ither day she 'd as mony folk in every day as she liked an' her mistress never says a word." "Does she no'?' said Dawson. "Weel, weel! A' the same I 'd be sweer to leave Miss Glenferlie. She kens what guid wark is an' she can show ye things hersel'. If she 's willin' to gi'e a rise at a', I '11 bide till I ha' time to look aboot me onyway." "Ye 'd better," said Dalrymple. "In some o' they hooses whaur they pay a ransom they tell me it 's because they ha' to dae 't to keep the maids f rae rinnin' awa' again whenever they see their kitchens." "Aweel," said Dawson, "rise or nae rise I 'm thinkin' I '11 stay on till Christmas." "I '11 no' say that," said Dalrymple, "but I '11 no' be onreasonable. I '11 tak' the long time she has been my mistress into conseederation." "Ay, that 's but fair," said Dawson, and she might have said a good deal more had not the door-bell rung just then and obliged her to go and open it to the post- man. When she returned from taking up the letter, however, Dalrymple was waiting for her with some eagerness. "Aweel?" she said as soon as Dawson appeared. "Aweel, did she say onything?" "No' a word," said Dawson. "She was sittin' in the dark there lookin' gey bethochtet-like." "Bethochtet?" exclaimed Dalrymple. "Ah, then she'll be comin' forrit." "I wouldna wonder," said Dawson. "I said I would HISTORIC ADVENTURES BEGIN 17 bide on whether or no', but there 's nae use dashin' at things, an' it 's my opeenion, noo that I 've seen her, that if we staund firm she '11 jist gi'e what we ask for." "Then the thing to dae," said Dalrymple, "is jist to staund by ane anither." "That 's the plan," agreed Dawson. "Efter a', when ye can get it what for should ye no' tak' it?" Miss Glenferlie had moved over to the window where the last of the sunset light stHl lingered, and had sat down to read her letter. For some time after that there was absolute silence. Then suddenly and faintly: "Lord help me!" she ejaculated. To save time and tedium it will be best here to give the letter. It was dated from a London hotel. "Dear Miss Glenferlie," it ran. "It is with an emo- tion which I can hardly repress sufficiently to hold my pen that I sit down after the lapse of four years to let you know that I have now quite recovered from the effects of the Lusitania disaster. I need not harrow your feelings with details nor rend your heart with an account of my subsequent sufferings. All I need say until we meet to exchange experiences and revive old memories is that no sooner was I cured sufficiently to leave hospital than I at once set out to find you. I never met any one who understood me as you do, never any one with whom I could converse so freely. It was only yesterday, how- ever, that 1 found your address in a book you lent me and which must have been in my pocket when the dis- aster happened. 18 WINTERGREEN "What thoughts the sight of it conjured up! But I wish to forestall nothing. I only write this to tell you that I have ascertained by telephone that at the hotel at Rathness they can give me a room next Friday, also that you are still alive and at the same address. I cannot tell you how relieved I was to hear this, because I had heard nothing of what had happened to you from the moment when we stood together on the deck and you said: 'What was that?' when the torpedo struck. Since then, up till a few days ago, I have been in the unfor- tunate position of my mind being absolutely blank. Now, however, it is filled with the thought of you. Till Friday then, when you shall see me as soon as may be after my arrival. "Yours ever in the bonds of the awful past, "JAMES ANDERSON MACFARLANK." Miss Glen fer lie had read this letter over twice before she took it in, in all its bearings. She did so then, how- ever, and it was at this point that she gave vent to her ejaculation. So this, she reflected bitterly, was what had come to her because her mother had taught her to be a good lis- tener. This was the result of being kind. The more you did for some people, it seemed, the more you were expected to do. As if it were not enough to have saved this man's life, he now evidently expected her to be de- lighted to receive him whenever he should choose to visit her. And by a chance that was nothing less than dia- bolical he had forgotten all the circumstances of their last meeting, when he had clung to the plank more like a terrified animal than a rational human being. If he had had any recollection at all of the way in which he had HISTORIC ADVENTURES BEGIN 19 treated her, drinking off the brandy which she had meant for them both, surely even he, impossible as he was, would not have dared again to approach her. But there it was. His mind at that point was blank. Had there ever been anything so unfortunate? And now again he was coming hand over hand, groping into her life as he had groped his way along the plank. The very thought of him made her shudder not so much the thought of him hideous, abject, half -drowned, as she had last seen him, but the thought of him at the Rathness Hotel in his enormous checks and his pink silk neckties. She imagined him flourishing his diamond rings in the smok- ing-room, and claiming her as an intimate friend, as he would be sure to do. He had attached himself to her on board ship and he would doubtless attach himself to her now, making her the talk of the whole neighborhood. And how they would talk ! With what zest ! With what relish ! Miss Glen- ferlie's young man! Miss Glenferlie's admirer! She could hear them. On the other hand, to refuse him admission to the Skellicks to repudiate him altogether, seemed impossible. It was evident that his mind was in a precarious state. Any violent disappointment might plunge it once more into the sea of blankness from which it had just emerged. She realized this with a sinking of the heart, for just as it had never occurred to her on that former dreadful occasion to push him off the plank into the Atlantic, so now for fear of what might be the consequences she never thought of refusing to see him. It was just at this point, however, that the plan of evacuating a position which had become untenable first occurred to her. But it only made her feel worse than before as realization 20 WINTERGREEN came to her that she was hemmed in by lack of money. Moreover, from what she already knew of Mr. Mac- farlane it was certain that wherever she went he would follow her. He had found her address before. He would find it again. That night she dreamed, when she slept at all, that an old man of the sea was strangling her with a pink silk necktie. The next day was Sunday, but she was in no mood to go to church. Once there, however, it occurred to her that prayer might help her. She prayed therefore so fervently all through the first hymn and prayer and the Old Testament lesson that a woman behind thought she must be ill and touched her on the shoulder. At this she sat up, and, being provided with an open hymn-book by her solicitous friend behind, she was en- deavoring to fix her attention upon it when over the page her eye was caught and held by a little picture un- obtrusively placed in the corner of a stained glass win- dow opposite. The picture was of Jesus in the house of Martha and Mary. Martha was depicted as standing at a table baking, and, for the first time, though she had seen the picture often before, the resemblance of Martha's homely face to that of her own mother struck her. She had seen her mother so, many a time, when she was baking in the kitchen at the Skellicks. The morning sunshine falling through the colored glass was setting the little scene aglow, and to the tired woman the picture of that old-time home seemed to be illuminated with the light of her own childhood. Again, as on the night before, a vivid realization of her mother's presence came to her. This time, however, she saw her not in HISTORIC ADVENTURES BEGIN 21 the rose-colored brocade, but in her old-fashioned work- ing-garments. They still hung in a wardrobe at the Skellicks. Till the day of her death the lady of the house had preserved them. "No; they are part of the happiest days of my life," she had said once, when her daughter had suggested send- ing them to a sale of jumbles. The daughter thought of these words now when she ought to have been thinking of other things. Her mother had been happiest as a servant. Though like Martha she had been careful and troubled about many things then, it had not been about her own affairs. It had not been about the larger responsibilities. She had had her orders, and she had carried them out with all their might, taking a daily pleasure in the work of her own hands, in the comfort of others in the perfection of her skill. How much better she had been as the housekeeper of the Skellicks than she had been afterwards as its mis- tress, with clothes and food to provide for a whole house- hold, with wages to pay, with endless calls at all times upon her reserves of tact and patience ! How often she must have longed for the comfortable solitude of her housekeeper's room again, for the quiet hours of leisure she had found there, unbroken by her laird's complainings. There she had been undisturbed by sordid anxieties, unworried by social obligations. With what regret she must have contemplated her past sometimes, wishing herself back once more on the old plane, haunted by it as by some fourth dimension, always tantalizingly close at hand, yet impossible of attainment! But at this point in her meditations Miss Glenferlie 22 WINTERGREEN felt her mind for a moment stop thinking altogether. Like Mr. Macfarlane's it became an absolute blank, so that a space must have been left in the continuity of its workings like that which one finds before the beginning of a new paragraph. And then all at once out of nothing out of every- thing the realization suddenly emerged that the way which had been barred to her mother was not barred to her; that there was nothing to hinder her from with- drawing herself whenever she pleased from her present predicament ; that there was nothing to prevent her from becoming what her mother had been and had been proud to be a domestic servant. No wonder she looked awe-stricken as she sat there in contemplation of this simple yet complete solution of all her difficulties. For there it was, ready-made, and so obvious that the only wonder was that she had not before thought of it. Her mental struggles and pertur- bations of the night before seemed in face of her discov- ery so ridiculous that she smiled broadly and suddenly, and then laughed softly, to the scandal and consternation of her friend behind. The apparently insurmountable obstruction in her path had disappeared like that Himalayan torrent over which one night an explorer with terrific difficulty transported his whole cavalcade, only to find it dry next morning. All her worries had vanished into thin air. She would not need to be unkind to a half -demented invalid. She would need no more large supplies of money. She would need no more servants. She would not need to let the house. She would need no clothes beyond those which her mother had worn. Even her nom de guerre was ready for her her mother's name Jane Wintergreen. She HISTORIC ADVENTURES BEGIN 23 would not need to stint her charities. She would not need to return to ordinary life until she had squared things up generously not only with them but with Mr. Carrick. No sooner did the " Scotsman " arrive the next morn- ing at the Skellicks than Miss Glenferlie seized upon it, and in about five minutes she had fixed upon the fol- lowing advertisement: " Wanted immediately a cook-housekeeper for doctor's house. Wages 52. Liberal outings. Four in family. Apply Mrs. Adair, The Bow House, Cauldstanes, East- shire." In response to this she wrote immediately and posted with her own hands the following application: " Mrs. Adair. " Madam : I beg to apply for the post of cook-house- keeper advertised in to-day's 'Scotsman.' I am un- able to give any guarantee of respectability except my own assurance that I have been thoroughly trained in housework of all kinds, and that I have usually suc- ceeded in accomplishing what I have undertaken to do. In lieu of reference I offer to pay my railway fare and to arrive in Cauldstanes by to-morrow evening, when I hope that you will grant me an interview. " Yours truly, "JANE WINTERGREEN." Ideas generate ideas, and when it came to her actual departure the new Wintergreen's mind was running so smoothly that everything went like oiled clockwork. The manner of her going deserves record as an ex- 24 WINTERGREEN ample if economy of sensation be taken into account of one of the most entirely successful domestic manceu- vers of the period. What happened was this. On the Wednesday evening Mr. Carrick, returning from his office late, found a letter lying waiting for him, addressed in Miss Glenferlie's familiar handwriting. It had been left, the maid explained, by an elderly woman of respectable exterior so far as she could judge in the dusk, who was dressed in black and closely veiled, and who had handed it over in silence and then departed. Mr. Carrick read the letter on the spot. " Dear Mr. Carrick," it ran. " This is to let you know that I am leaving the Skellicks for a time, and that even if I do not return for many months there will be no need for anxiety. I have given orders that in the meantime all my correspondence is to be handed to you, and I now ask you to deal with it and with all other business as you think fit. I do not wish the house to be shut up. But I wish the two servants to be dismissed. They had both virtually given notice so that there will be no need to pay them more than a month's wages. My old friends the Clackmannans, who were in charge while I was in America, and who know how a house should be kept, will be delighted to be installed again at the lodge at any wage you suggest. " With kind regards and thanking you in advance, I remain, yours sincerely, " JULIA GLENFERLIE." Mr. Carrick on reading this went at once into his study and rang the bell. HISTORIC ADVENTURES BEGIN 25 " Who did you say brought this ? " he said when the maid entered. He tapped the letter with his eye-glass. "An old woman, did you say?" he added. " Yes, sir," said the maid. "A stranger?" "Yes, sir." "You are sure of that?" "Yes, sir." "Well keep some supper for me," said Mr. Carrick, "and tell Mrs. Carrick that I shall be back in an hour or so. I have to go out now." A few minutes later he was on his way to the Skellicks, and soon the astonished Dawson was opening the door to him. "Is Miss Glenferlie in?" he asked. "Yes, sir," said Dawson, wondering, for it was dark night outside. He was ushered into the dining-room, where a bright wood fare was burning and preparations made for a dainty meal. But he had not sat long there listening intently, before the silence of the house was disturbed by sounds of scurry here and there. Doors opened and closed. Footsteps could be heard on the stairs agitated whis- perings in the hall outside. "I thought so," said Mr. Carrick to himself. Then the door of the dining-room opened again, and Dawson, rather paler than usual, appeared. "The mistress is not there, sir," she said in a per- turbed voice. "She must have gone out or something." "Does she generally go out at this hour?" said Mr. Carrick. 26 WINTERGREEN "Never sir," said Dawson, "and she was in at tea- time for I took her tea up to the boudore. Oh, sir, can anything have happened to her?" "No, no," said Mr. Carrick, determined to avert if possible even the beginnings of a nine days' wonder. "You will be glad to hear that there is no need for anxiety. I had not expected that Miss Glenferlie had already started, but I knew that she was going away." "Going away, sir?" ejaculated Dawson. "Going away?" echoed another voice from the door- way. Mr. Carrick, looking up, met the round eyes of Dal- rymple fixed upon him in blank dismay. Perturbed as he was himself, he yet appreciated the tableau. "Yes, going away," he said with a gravity which he found it difficult to preserve, "and I have been instructed to tell you that your mistress has given up her situation." CHAPTER III Which begins with a Mystery and ends with a Revelation WHATEVER satisfaction Mr. Carrick may have felt in turning the tables upon her servants, he was by no means satisfied in his own mind that all was well with Miss Glenferlie. As he tramped back to Rathness along the windy road, his mind was full of the letter she had written, and the more he thought of it the more it seemed to him mysterious and extraordinary. By the time he reached home he was very much wor- ried. Mrs. Carrick was sitting up for him. He found her by the drawing-room fire deep in one of Mrs. Belloc Lowndes's novels. "I only hope she has n't done for herself," he said to her. "She may have inherited the tendency from the laird. He was always threatening to 'go out' as he called it, and she has never been quite the same since the Lusi- tania." "But what should she commit suicide for?" said Mrs. Carrick. "We had a talk the other day about money matters," replied her husband, "and I told her she had overdrawn her account, and that she must, for a time at least, stop giving money to charities. She may have taken this too much to heart." "No, I don't think so," said Mrs. Carrick, laying aside 27 28 WINTERGREEN "The Chink in the Armor" as she spoke. "If she had been going to do that she would n't have written this letter and all those directions about what was to be done till she came back. No, if she 's dead, it is much more likely that she has been murdered." Mrs. Carrick said the last words in a whisper, looking over her shoulder as she spoke. "Murdered?" exclaimed the lawyer. "For heaven's sake don't say that, Mary!" "Well, you asked my opinion," said Mrs. Carrick, "and it 's this the woman who brought the letter was the murderess." "Oh nonsense!" exclaimed her husband. "Is it likely she would so expose herself?" "So far as I have heard she did not expose herself," said his wife. "She came in the dusk and thickly veiled, too ; did n't she ?" "Yes," said Mr. Carrick, "but " "Very well," interrupted his wife, "the first things I would make sure of would be: is or is not that letter forged?" "Forged?" exclaimed Mr. Carrick. "Yes, forged," said his wife. "Is it a genuine letter or is it a red herring drawn across the track ?" "Really, Mary," said Mr. Carrick, "you do get the strangest notions!" "I may or I may not," said Mary. "But how can you be sure that this letter is from Miss Glenferlie?" "Because I know her handwriting," said Mr. Car- rick, taking the letter once more out of his pocket and examining it. tc l know the way she strokes her t's and dots her i's." "And so do other people perhaps," said his wife. "She A MYSTERY AND A REVELATION 29 has a very characteristic handwriting, and that is al- ways the easiest kind to imitate. Besides, you must admit that the letter is very strange. There are queer gaps in it. If she is going away for months, does it not seem unnatural that she should leave no address : not even with you, her confidential lawyer? Why should she cut herself off from everybody like that?" "She will be sending the address," said Mr. Carrick. "She doesn't say she will, anyhow," said his wife: "and another queer thing; she doesn't ask for a penny of money. Now if as you say her bank account is overdrawn how is she going to get it if you do not advance it? Will she overdraw more?" "Oh, no, she won't do that," said Mr. Carrick. "She has a horror of overdrawing. And she knows she can borrow from me." "Yet she has not done so. That seems queer, does n't it? Going away for months without a penny in her pocket." "She must have a few pounds left." "Well a few pounds and with no destination given. Really, Edward, if I were you I should be very uneasy." "So I am," said Edward irritably. "But what on earth can I do? After all I have no business to raise a hue and cry after her. She might be furious if I did. All I can do is to behave as if everything were all right." "But what if it's not all right?" persisted Mary. "What if she is lying somewhere buried in the grounds while her murderers are making off with her valuables and we are sitting here allowing them to escape?" "We can easily make sure about the valuables, any- how," said the lawyer, "without any outsider being mixed up in it. There is an inventory in the office which was 30 WINTERGREEN made by her mother and brought by Miss Glenferlie her- self up to date. When the servants have gone to-morrow I will go over everything myself before the Clackmannans take over charge." It was past midnight when they came to this conclusion, and Mr. Carrick, more at ease in consequence, betook himself to rest. After all, he remarked to his wife from the recesses of his dressing-room, why should a woman of Miss Glen- f erlie's age not be at liberty to do what she liked ? Surely, also, if she chose to go off in an unusual manner her lawyer could not be held responsible. His wife's reply from her pillow was: "No, so long as she did go off." Which, as her husband said next morning, was very inconsiderate of Mrs. Carrick, and caused him to dream all night of finding corpses among Scotch fir-trees. When the new Jane Wintergreen's letter of applica- tion arrived the next afternoon at Cauldstanes, two nota- ble inhabitants of that ilk, Miss Clara and Miss Lydia Fortescue, were seated at their drawing-room window overlooking the Bow House. This must not be taken to mean that they themselves were visible while they occupied this coign of vantage. White lace curtains hung between them and publicity. None the less, between the white palm leaves and roses of the design, a clear view was easily obtainable of the large three-storied mansion across the street. It was built of dark freestone, which gave it rather a gloomy look, and bulged in the center into the bow from which it took its name. It stood withdrawn from the other houses behind a small roughly paved courtyard, and was divided from the street by an iron A MYSTERY AND A REVELATION 31 railing with a gate on which was Dr. Adair's brass plate. It was a dull afternoon, with showers of rain. The narrow High Street had a dreary and forlorn appearance. Straws and pieces of paper were blowing about, but hardly any one passed. The Bow House itself had a depressed and deserted look. Its brasses were dim and spotted with drops of rain. The lamp which hung from the arch above the gate was dirty and neglected-looking, The whole house seemed to blink disconsolately at the passers-by from behind its half-drawn yellow blinds as though sinking from sheer ennui and downheartedness into an uncomfortable sleep. But to the two women opposite there was nothing dull or depressing about it. No stage, no arena, could have been of more absorbing interest. The very unpromising- ness of its appearance was in their eyes an added attrac- tion. It gave a certain piquancy to its dramatic possibil- ities. The two Miss Fortescues were twins, and the physical differences between them were hardly noticeable. They had narrow wrinkled oblong faces rather like pale dates, thin-lipped mouths, dark beady eyes, and scanty hair done up in top-knots. Their clothes were mainly re- markable for the material which had been saved in their making, and for the time which had obviously elapsed since they had been made. Of the two Clara was the more modern and luxurious. A tendency to bronchitis prevented her going out when there was an east wind. As this was almost always she spent most of her time indoors, and also always wore large shawls which gave her a more elegant and draped appearance than her sister. She was besides what was known in Cauldstanes as a character. Her face had the grim expression, relaxing" 32 WINTERGREEN occasionally into sardonic smiles, which is supposed to be associated with detective ability, and she had such a talent for finding out things about her neighbors that for want of material it often made material for itself. She was in short one of that large and too much ignored army of born novelists and dramatists who neither read nor write. "Though I wish to goodness she would," said Mr. Pennifeather, the parish minister, "instead of dabbling in real life and complicating it the way she does." He disliked her presence, even in the church, and was glad when it was too cold or too wet for her to appear there. "But how unchristian of you, James," said his sister once when he told her this. "I know it is," said James. "Yet even Christ was a little unchristian about some people." Clara's public appearances, however, were few and far between. Lydia did the shopping, the district visiting, the calling for her. Lydia went to meetings, to tea-parties, to gar- den-parties. Lydia, as her sister was wont to say, was the social one, but never surely did social butterfly flutter with worse grace or more unwillingly. "For one thing I look as though I had come out of the ark," she said once to Clara when asked the reason of her repugnance to going to a tennis-party. She was standing at the moment before a mirror putting on a toque which Clara had just trimmed for her. "So long as you look like a lady, Lydia, that is of no consequence," said Clara firmly. "And I never know what to say," Lydia continued. "Nobody wants to speak to me. I am so uninteresting." A MYSTERY AND A REVELATION 33 "All the better," Clara had replied, "you can listen. And since no one speaks to you, you will not be told not to repeat anything." Such an injunction indeed would have been a calamity to both sisters. The fact that she could thereby obtain news for Clara was the sole thing that made Lydia's sorties into the society of Cauldstanes endurable to her. While seated generally speechless and often ignored in corners she would be noting in her mind all the items of gossip which came within her range of hearing, and this private entertainment served not only to pass the weary hours, but insured her a warm welcome on her return. It gave her a sense of power which she otherwise would have missed to remember that Clara would be wander- ing about the house wearying for her or sitting at the drawing-room window watching for her first appearance round the corner of the street. There was temptation in this expectation of Clara's also. When there was nothing interesting to relate Lydia would be tempted to invention, so disappointed was her sister when she brought nothing home to her. Had she had her sister's gifts she would undoubtedly have invented. Fortunately for her veracity, however, Lydia had no gifts. But she had often sorely felt the want of them, and it had been a distinct relief when about four years previously the new young doctor had come with his new young wife to the Bow House opposite. The spring day when they arrived was a red-letter one in the history of the Fortescues. Instead of going out to glean pain- fully a few meager items to bring home to the waiting Clara, it was Clara now who had things to tell when Lydia returned from her tea-parties. .A strong source of interest was now ever present in front of their own 34 WINTERGREEN drawing-room windows. Clara required no other enter- tainment than to keep watch upon the Bow House. From the first evening when with sympathetic thrills she watched the handsome young doctor laughingly lift his wife over the threshold, life for her had held a new and keen interest. Hardly an exit or entrance during the hours of daylight escaped her. The sound of the motor morning, noon, and night would bring her, if she was awake, to the window. Little did Alice, the bride over the way, think of the audience that was almost invariably present when she ran to the door to meet her husband or threw her arms round his neck when he said farewell. Behind her cur- tains Clara reveled in all those little intimate scenes. Of nights too she would often come and sit in the dark, when Lydia was asleep and snoring, to watch the light, and sometimes the shadows on the blind, in the bed- room window opposite. But, strangely enough, it was Lydia who first proposed to call on the young bride. Clara's impersonal and spec- tatorial attitude had aroused Lydia's subconscious sym- pathy. Without being aware of it and without knowing why, she was sorry for the young doctor and his wife. She called, therefore, and immediately fell in love with Alice's prettiness and naturalness. She came back to Clara full of Mrs. Adair's attractions, her rose-bloom complexion, her forget-me-not eyes, her hair the color of ripe corn, her beautiful figure, her delightful manner, her kindliness, her charm. "And I 've asked her to tea on Thursday," she con- cluded. Thursday was Clara's official day at home, when the best silver tea-set and the Rockingham cups were set out, A MYSTERY AND A REVELATION 35 and various people dropped in, partly because they liked a good tea, partly from neighborliness, and partly to ask for Clara. Clara, in her best shawl, sat enthroned in an armchair talking and listening at her ease, while Lydia, harassed and disheveled often, did the waiting and entertaining on the material side, with the aid of her younger guests and a small erratic servant. On the day of Mrs. Adair's first visit, which happened to be the last of July, 1914, quite a large party had as- sembled in the Fortescues' drawing-room to meet her. She had been a great success. Every one had been as delighted with her as Lydia had' been. Even Mrs. Ruth- erford of Longshaws, who was rather difficult, had called next day upon her. The bride and her handsome, capa- ble young husband had been both in a fair way to be- come very popular, both socially and professionally, when the war, closing down upon them as upon many other young things, put an end to their first careless rapture. He offered for service in the R.A.M.C., was called up at once, and before Cauldstanes realized what was happening was on his way to India, leaving the fair Alice disconsolate at the Bow House. If she could have gone away too as a V.A.D. or a W.A.A.C. it would have been better for her. But a sister-in-law, whose husband had also been called up, came to stay with her for a week, and became suddenly very ill. Before she had recovered sufficiently to take her departure, years had passed, and the war was all but over. By this time the Fortescues, Lydia openly, Clara se- cretly, had come to be of importance in Alice Adair's life. Her other friends in Cauldstanes had all been too preoccupied or too busy to care much about her in her seclusion after the first weeks. Not so Clara and Lydia. 36 WINTERGREEN It had become a habit with Clara to watch her. Lydia, even if she had not wanted to go over to the Bow House, would have been urged thereto by her sister, and with her too it had become a habit to come and go there at all times. She had often helped to nurse the sister-in- law. She had sat up at nights to let Alice sleep. She had become an intimate of the house. And when the news at last came that the war was over, that Jack was demobilized, and that he was actually on his way home from India again, it came as a distinct blow to Lydia. "Of course I can't expect her to want me now," she confided to Clara as she brushed her hair one night. "Ah, how do we know that?" said Clara. "She may want you more than ever" "Oh, surely not," exclaimed Lydia. "They 're devoted to one another." "She's devoted to him, you mean," said Clara. "You 're tugging, Lydia. That is a very different thing from being devoted to one another." At those words, which were uttered in a tone impos- sible to ignore, Lydia stopped combing altogether. "Clara, if you have heard anything, say it out," she said, fixing her scared eyes upon her sister's face in the mirror. "Well, to tell you the truth, Lydia, I have heard some- thing," said Clara. "Sarah Rutherford was in this after- noon when you were out. She just left before you came in, and she has been hearing strange things about him from India." "Oh, Clara!" exclaimed Lydia, horrified. "What things? Mr. Pennifeather was just telling me to-day that he had been doing so well there. Some one at the A MYSTERY AND A REVELATION 37 hospital at Alimara had written to him saying that he had been perfectly splendid. Don't say " "My dear Lydia, I 'm not saying he has n't been splen- did, am I ?" said Clara. "All I 'm saying is that he has been having a good time too, apparently. A Miss Car- myle there, the niece of the commissioner at Alimara, and he have made themselves the talk of the place. Sarah is annoyed because the girl is a ward of her husband's though she has never seen her because she refused all their invitations before she left for India. They were too dull for her, she supposes. The friend Mrs. Crow- ley, who wrote to her from Alimara says she is a regular little flirt, and that it is a mercy that Dr. Adair is leav- ing." It may be imagined how Mrs. Rutherford's news al- tered the conditions of the Fortescues' intercourse with the Bow House. Clara found inexhaustible food for conversation with Lydia in the contemplation of what was likely to happen on the return of its absent master. Lydia could hardly sleep at nights for sympathy with Alice, now busy and happy and all unconscious of doom, in the midst of preparations for her Jack's arrival. It was heart-rending to Lydia to see her working cheerfully about the house, paler than of yore, worn with watching and anxiety, but young still and eager and with gay con- fidence in life. "We have n't had time to tire of each other, Jack and I," she said once when she came over to tea, and Clara, with her beady eyes upon her, bemoaned the long absence of her husband. "When other people who were married at the same time will be settling down to stodginess we shall be just beginning again." 38 WINTERGREEN "Poor thing!" Clara said afterwards. "Hadn't I better warn her?" said Lydia in great dis- tress. "By no means!" said Clara sharply. "It is none of our business." "Anything that affects her will always be my business, Clara," said Lydia, "and if I thought it would spare her anything " "Don't be a fool now, Lydia Fortescue," said Clara. The essence of the interest of the situation to her lay, of course, in Alice's ignorance. From the spectator's point of view the whole denouement would have been spoiled had Lydia been allowed to carry out her charitable project. And it is likely such was her habit of defer- ence to her sister that she would never have carried it out had not something else happened which changed even Clara's opinion. This was weeks later. Jack had been home for months, and, contrary to expectation, nothing sensational had ac- companied his homecoming. He had arrived late one evening. Alice had met him at the station, and they had come back to the Bow House together in the dusk. Lydia, feeling rather forlorn, had nevertheless ab- stained from going over that night according to custom, and this although Clara pressed her to do so. "No, I will not," she had said with unwonted vehe- mence, and she had adhered to her decision. She had been over often since, however, but to Clara's disappointment she had brought back with her abso- lutely nothing of interest. Nothing at all had happened which might not have hap- pened in any case. The young couple, if a little older, a little more staid in their demeanor, a little more sub- A MYSTERY AND A REVELATION 39 dued in their manner toward each other, seemed as happy as they had ever been. Their only troubles seemed to be outside ones. They were worried by domestics like other people, and when the boarder came they were worried by the boarder. His name was Arthur Gardshore, and he had been sent to Jack Adair by a friend of his father's a professor of psychology who toward the end of the war had found him in a shell-shock hospital where no treatment of any kind was having the least effect upon him. He had come there from a general hospital where he had been cured of desperate wounds, but some obscure lesion was still suspected. Nothing could arouse in him the smallest desire to go on living. Some fundamental source of his vitality seemed to have been injured. Every one had tried his hand on him without result. It was not con- venient to keep him at the shell-shock hospital any longer. Change of environment had therefore been prescribed, but, having no friends he wanted to go to, and no initi- ative, the patient had become a problem in every sense of the word, when Jack's father's friend had appeared upon the scene. He at once took a fancy to the derelict because of a certain grim humor which showed itself occasionally through the man's enveloping gloom, and because of a strange Barbellion-like power of self-de- tachment and self-criticism which manifested itself in him from time to time. The professor desired to see more of him. He invited him to return with him to his home, and there he kept him under observation until he was about to be called away to government research work. It was necessary to find a temporary home for Gardshore, and Jack Adair had at once occurred to the professor. In the early days of their life at Cauldstanes, 40 WINTERGREEN he had spent a memorable week with him and his Alice, and had a picture still in his mind of their pre-war com- fort and happiness. Cauldstanes, he reflected, would be a complete change for Gardshore, and contact with this sane healthy young couple would do him as much good as the sea air. He therefore wrote to Jack by the next post. Gardshore, he told them, was about thirty, of good family, and with plenty of money for all his wants. He had led a strenuous life before the war had de- stroyed him, and had had many friends before he cast them off. "At present he has no interest in anything," the pro- fessor added. "Yet I know from my investigations in his case that once he was an engineer and keen on his work. What is the cause of his persistent depression I have been so far unable to discover. But we specialists, according to the latest theories, are too ready to attribute everything to our own specialties. This is the day of the general practitioner. Take my patient then for six weeks and see if you can reconstruct him, or tell me how to do it." Jack had leaped for joy when he received this letter. "It 's the very thing I wanted," he had said to Alice, to keep me from getting out of everything in this place." And Alice had sympathized, though wondering a little at this speech. Jack had never before spoken of his home as "this place." But she had rejoiced too at the addition to their income which the patient would bring with him. Expenses were heavy, and Jack was making a fresh start. She received the guest with cordiality, therefore. But cordiality, it seemed, was the last thing that melancholy shadow of a human being wanted. He regarded all her efforts to please him and make him feel at home out of A MYSTERY AND A REVELATION 41 eyes which were always forbidding and often hostile. Next morning he absolutely refused to come downstairs, and Jack apparently could do nothing with him. "No, of course I can't," he had said a little testily when she had taken him to task about it. "I did n't expect to either, until I had observed him and seen what was the matter with him." Again, after a few days "We must leave him to himself," he had said. "We must leave him to come to himself." After a fortnight it had still been the same. Card- shore, Jack ordained, was to do exactly as he liked. And he liked apparently to remain in his two rooms upstairs, thereby, to Alice's mind, casting a slur upon her and the remainder of her house. Gradually she came to hate him, to hate his manner of ringing his bell, and the plain- tive way in which he made the most inconvenient re- quests from his upper landing. She hated, also, the way in which he kept Jack talking to him every night for hours in his room while she sat downstairs in solitude. "But, my dear, I must attend to him," Jack had said when she spoke to him about this. "I must attend to him like any other patient. I am being paid to do it." "But will he ever be better ?" Alice had sighed. "Of course he will," Jack had replied. "With all due deference to these shell-shock people, I am convinced that the whole thing is now being caused by his liven I am putting him through a course of alteratives now which will soon set him all right. In the meantime we must keep up his spirits all we can. If we even half cure him here he may make our fortune. He may be the first of many patients who may come to us from outside." But Alice, though she did not say so except to Lydia 42 WINTERGREEN in confidence, thought that this patient would cure her of ever wanting to have another in the house. He was the most difficult person she had ever had to deal with. He took no notice of any of the conditions of life. He was never ready for meals. He never got up in the mornings. He often sat up all night. He was absolutely regardless of arrangements. His invariable deference and politeness were no alleviation of this. They made things worse if anything. One could not storm at him as one might have done. Already, though he had been there such a short time, he had driven the new char- woman distracted. She had announced several times already that either she or Mr. Gardshore must clear out. This would have been nothing, for she was a hateful woman, if they could have got any one to take her place, but not another soul was to be had in Cauldstanes or anywhere else for love or money. All this, or something like this, was in the minds of the two Miss Fortescues as they sat in their drawing-room window watching the Bow House on the afternoon of the arrival of Wintergreen's application. All this and more much more. For at last a really sensational thing had happened, which for the last hour they had been dis- cussing. "And now I agree with you, Lydia," said Clara, "that some warning should be given." Lydia's face blanched but grew very determined. "I 'm glad you think so, Clara," she said. "I should have felt obliged to give the warning now