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 THE LIBRARY 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 / °
 
 The Heart of Life. 
 
 i. 
 
 a
 
 A 
 
 BY THE S. 
 
 HUMAN 
 
 ME AUTHOR. 
 
 DOCUMENT. 
 
 
 EIGHTH 
 
 THOUSAND. 
 
 
 Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
 
 THE 
 
 Heart of Life 
 
 BY 
 
 W. H. MALLOCK. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, Ld. 
 
 1895.
 
 I 
 I 
 
 v.l 
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ENGLAND, in spite of railways, still has 
 a few districts which remain, for various 
 reasons, almost as remote and primitive as 
 they were a hundred or even two hundred 
 years ago. Of such survivals there is no 
 more complete example than that afforded 
 by a part of Devon and Somerset, which con- 
 sists mainly of bleak and mountainous moor- 
 land, and confronts for some thirty miles 
 the waters of the Bristol Channel. It is true 
 that here and there amongst its unvisited 
 valleys lonely populations hide themselves 
 in villages with surrounding hedgerows ; and 
 in some of the valleys also, streams, brown 
 with peat, slide and pour and foam through 
 cloisters of sequestered woodland. But of 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
 S04511 
 
 BKM'
 
 2 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 spots like these a stranger sees nothing ; and 
 even here, in the green glades, or by the 
 farm or by the village mill, there is a sense 
 in the air of the open surrounding country — 
 of rolling hills, bare to the wind and mist, 
 where the tufted heather lifts itself, solitary 
 as a wave at sea. 
 
 Geographically, however, civilization is 
 not far off. On the western frontier of this 
 region is the well-known watering-place, 
 Lyncombe, its wooded crags and hillsides 
 glittering with hotels and lodging-houses ; 
 and on the eastern, a shed at the end of a 
 straggling hamlet forms the terminus of a 
 branch line of railway. But between these 
 two points the progressive world of to-day 
 shows its existence only in a modern road 
 connecting them, and even this looks nearly 
 as wild as the solitudes through which it 
 passes. So at least it may well strike a 
 stranger. The coast, from which it is rarely 
 more than half a mile distant, is the loftiest 
 in all Great Britain, reaching in many places 
 a height of twelve hundred feet ; and the 
 timid traveller, as he is driven over these 
 elevations, is apt to feel dizzy at the sight of 
 the monstrous precipices to which he con- 
 stantly fancies that his wheels will approach
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 3 
 
 too near ; whilst inland his eyes meet nothing 
 but a world of gorse and heather, bounded 
 only by clouds brooding on the distant tors. 
 
 Along this road, during the summer, daily 
 once each way, a tawdry coach rattles, gene- 
 rally top-heavy with tourists ; but these in- 
 congruous apparitions pass, leaving no trace 
 behind them, except perhaps some fragments 
 of drifting paper ; and by the time the dust 
 raised by their transit has subsided all that 
 stirs in the landscape is the fleece of some 
 moving sheep. A stranger, indeed, might 
 look about him during the whole journey and 
 detect no sign of human occupation anywhere 
 except some stretches of dry stone wall, 
 which at certain places appear, skirting the 
 road, and accentuate rather than relieve the 
 solitary aspect of the scene. 
 
 Nowhere do these walls produce this for- 
 lorn effect upon the mind more strongly than 
 at a point about eight miles out from 
 Lyncombe, where the road, after a long and 
 rugged climb from the sea-level, reaches at 
 last a high and wind-swept down, which is 
 bare of everything but boulders and stunted 
 grass. What could be the need of any en- 
 closure here is a question that well might 
 baffle the passing curiosity of the traveller;
 
 4 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 for the land on one side would hardly attract 
 a donkey ; and on the other, after fifty yards 
 or so, it appears to tumble into the sea. But 
 a still more perplexing feature is a gate in the 
 seaward wall, carefully painted white, and 
 giving access to a fragment of open road, 
 which to all appearances leads only to the 
 brink of an adjacent precipice. By this gate 
 also, as if to enhance its mystery, a solitary 
 figure used always to be seen standing every 
 afternoon on which the coach passed from 
 Lyncombe — the figure of a lad, roughly but 
 not ill-dressed, who received daily a leather 
 letter-bag from the driver, and disappeared 
 with it over the brow of the cliff, as un- 
 accountably as if he had been changed there 
 into a sea-gull. 
 
 A stranger following him would eventually 
 have encountered a sight almost as unex- 
 pected as he would have done had this 
 miracle actually happened. For on gaining 
 what, as viewed from the coach, appears to 
 be a cliff's edge, he would have seen before 
 him an amphitheatre of steep slopes, down 
 which, by a feat of great engineering skill, 
 the road was led in a long succession of 
 zigzags till it reached in the depths below 
 a belt of feathering pine woods. Descending
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 5 
 
 it thus far he would have found what was 
 invisible from above — a pair of gate-posts 
 surmounted by moss-grown griffins, a lodge 
 with latticed windows almost hidden 
 amongst the branches, and an iron gate 
 guarding the entrance to a gravelled drive. 
 Resuming his course within, the intruder 
 would have been surprised to perceive that 
 his way, which now lay in a green and 
 sheltering twilight, and was bordered by 
 slanting carpets of moss and of ground-ivy, 
 still continued to descend, zigzagging much 
 as heretofore ; and the sea as it shimmered 
 in occasional vignettes through the trees, 
 would have shown him that still it was 
 hundreds of feet under him. At length, 
 however, after he had walked for a good half- 
 hour, certain signs would have assured him 
 that he was nearing the end of his explora- 
 tions. His eyes would have been caught by 
 a glimpse of slate roofs ; and, the road 
 dividing itself in a thicket of rhododendrons, 
 he would have seen that one branch of it 
 led to some stable buildings, whilst the 
 other would have brought him to an open 
 balustraded space, with the waves breaking 
 a hundred feet below ; and with a house on 
 one side of it, whose stucco turrets and
 
 6 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 chimneys betrayed the Gothic taste which 
 flourished at the beginning of the century. 
 It was indeed like a Tudor mansion, as the 
 contemporaries of Beckford conceived of one, 
 reduced in all its details to the scale of a 
 good-sized villa. 
 
 The bad taste of a bygone period mellows 
 with years, as associations lay their tints on 
 it ; and this sham Gothic architecture, in 
 addition to its picturesque outlines, has for 
 our generation the charm of an historic 
 pathos; speaking as it does of an England 
 which is now completely vanished, but 
 which yet, through the pictures retained by 
 us of the grandparents who were surviving 
 in our childhood, almost seems to touch 
 some nerve in our own memories — the un- 
 reformed England of chariots and post- 
 chaises, and the eyes, the necks, and the 
 guitars painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence. 
 And in the case of the present building, the 
 effect of its own aspect was heightened by 
 the beauty and the singular character of its 
 situation, as it stood with its drawing-room 
 windows opening on a terrace of garden, 
 where two peacocks were accustomed to sun 
 themselves on the stone parapet, and with 
 the woods rising behind it till they seemed to
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 7 
 
 meet the sky, except where some higher rock 
 came peering over the pine-plumes like a 
 cloud. 
 
 But up to a date that is still comparatively 
 recent, the life that was lived in this retreat 
 was more curious than the place itself. For 
 inside the arched and nail-studded front 
 door, and the fantastic multiplicity of win- 
 dows, what survived till the year 188 — was 
 the end of the last century, rather than the 
 beginning of this. No sooner was a visitor 
 admitted to the entrance hall than the spirit 
 of that period was puffed into his nostrils 
 like a scent, breathing from beeswaxed 
 floors, from china bowls and vases, from 
 busts on marble tables, and from old Turkey 
 carpets. The past is often associated with 
 decay and dust ; but it was not so here. 
 Everything, on the contrary, was as fresh 
 and sweet as lavender. The oak floors were 
 like glass ; the china shone with cleanliness ; 
 the flowered and faded chintzes were all 
 newly calendered. Only the chairs and 
 sofas were such as Miss Burney or the 
 Miss Berrys might have sat upon ; and 
 of the books which filled, with their 
 glimmer of gilt calf, the many shelves, or 
 loaded the square whatnots, few were more
 
 8 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 modern than the earliest editions of " Childe 
 Harold." 
 
 One broad impression this interior would 
 have at once conveyed to a visitor — that the 
 villa appertained to a family of which it was 
 not the principal seat. In the drawing-room 
 was a beautiful Sir Joshua, and there were 
 two Opies in a breakfast parlour; and these, 
 which were the only large portraits visible, 
 had all the air of having a tribe of companions 
 elsewhere. Again, there were certain articles 
 of furniture, remarkable though not numer- 
 ous, such as one or two large and fine pieces 
 of buhl, and a rose-strewn Axminster carpet, 
 faded and soft like moss, which seemed as if 
 originally they had belonged to some statelier 
 home. And that such was the case was 
 rendered none the less probable by the 
 different kind of evidence supplied by some 
 smaller pictures — miniatures and oval pastels, 
 which spoke of connections with an obsolete 
 world of fashion ; several of the former repre- 
 senting well-known beauties of the Regency, 
 and two of the latter bearing, on their gilt 
 frames, the information that they were gifts 
 of the Prince Regent. 
 
 But between these mementoes of royalty 
 hung something yet more interesting — a
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. g 
 
 pastel also — the portrait of a lady in a turban, 
 in the full regard of whose melting and 
 melancholy eyes all the romance floated that 
 troubled the days of Byron. Small as this 
 picture was, it filled the air with sentiment, 
 like a faint perfume from some single living 
 flower. There were traces, too, on all sides, 
 of devotion to art and literature. Art, indeed, 
 was represented chiefly by such fragments 
 of the antique — bronzes and marble busts — 
 as a hundred years ago men of taste used to 
 bring from Italy ; but the book-shelves, in 
 addition to their fortuitous multitudes of 
 " Spectators " and " Elegant Extracts," "Tom 
 Joneses" and "British Theatres," contained 
 a collection of volumes whose character and 
 whose sumptuous bindings suggested that 
 they had been got together by some one 
 remarkable man — a scholar, a dilettante, and 
 a philosopher, as well as a lover of luxury. 
 
 There were other things, however, fraught 
 with very different suggestions. Amongst 
 the gilded leather bindings which filled most 
 of the shelves, and not far from the neigh- 
 bourhood of a fine copy of the " Decameron," 
 were several rows of works by the Tractarian 
 divines of Oxford — such as Pusey, Keble, 
 and Newman — in all the holy poverty of
 
 io THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 their original cloth backs. On the walls, 
 moreover, were mezzotints of several of 
 these divines themselves ; and, as if to 
 explain their presence, some cases contain- 
 ing scissors and knitting-needles — prim little 
 dainty cases made of shagreen and tortoise- 
 shell — were carefully arranged, like relics, on 
 certain small mahogany tables ; whilst dis- 
 played symmetrically between two pairs of 
 silver snuffers was a book of family prayers, 
 with a purple marker hanging from it. Here 
 were signs of the presence, and also of the 
 will, of some woman ; and a certain formality 
 in the neatness and disposition of everything 
 bespoke the presiding genius of an old maid 
 or a widow. 
 
 Both these sets of suggestions accorded 
 with actual facts. The villa, which was 
 known by the romantic appellation of Glen- 
 lynn, had, at the recent date to which refer- 
 ence has been already made, been occupied 
 for sixty years by a certain old Miss Pole, 
 who was then on the point of reaching her 
 hundredth birthday. The Poles had from 
 early times been a considerable landed family. 
 Pole Park, which they had enlarged in the 
 reign of George II., enjoyed the reputation of 
 being the longest house in shire ; and
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. n 
 
 they had contributed to the world of fashion 
 dandies, sportsmen, and politicians, whose 
 figures had been familiar at White's, at 
 Almack's, and at Newmarket. But these 
 fashionable successes were now things of 
 the past ; and the family had, for more than 
 fifty years, been almost unknown in London, 
 though it continued to flourish in the country. 
 Such knowledge of it as remained in the 
 mind of the world in general was due to the 
 fame of one of its bygone members — Tristram 
 Pole, the wit, the scholar, the exquisite; who 
 was remembered less for the qualities which, 
 when he was seven-and-twenty, had made 
 the Prince Regent call him the best bred 
 man in England, than for a tragic and un- 
 fortunate love affair which brought his 
 brilliant youth to a close, which inspired a 
 beautiful but unpublished poem of Byron's, 
 and left him to the day of his death a changed 
 and a solitary man. 
 
 He it was who, shutting up Pole Park, had 
 built Glenlynn on a remote fragment of his 
 property ; and except for occasional journey- 
 ings in Greece, Italy, and the East, he had 
 there spent in seclusion the latter part of his 
 life. 
 
 On his death, at fifty, his estates passed to
 
 12 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 a brother, with the exception of Glenlynn, 
 which he left to his one unmarried sister. 
 This lady, who at the time was close on the 
 age of forty, though possessed of a fortune 
 which had commanded much male affection, 
 had never been tempted to renounce the 
 single state. Delicate health in her girlhood, 
 and a religious turn of mind, had combined 
 to keep her at home, and to prevent her 
 mixing in society. She had, indeed, lived 
 little out of her own county ; but first at 
 Pole Park, and afterwards at a neighbouring 
 dower-house, she had been a far greater lady 
 than she ever would have been in London. 
 She had been the Providence of the cottager, 
 the patroness of the rector, the confidant of 
 deans and bishops. Her third brother, who 
 had inherited a good estate from an uncle, 
 was one of the archdeacons of the diocese, a 
 man of great talents and accomplishments — 
 a horseman, a magistrate, an artist, a fellow 
 of All Souls, an incumbent of five livings, 
 and a believer in Apostolic Succession. 
 Through constant association with this dig- 
 nified churchman, Miss Pole had found an 
 opening for her benevolence and her talents 
 for management ; and had early acquired a 
 taste, which never afterwards left her, for
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 13 
 
 the respect, the deferent sympathy, and the 
 conversation of the superior clergy. When 
 she removed to Glenlynn, at the mature age 
 which has been mentioned, she not only 
 continued, in that comparative isolation, to 
 organize the distribution of soup and blankets 
 amongst the poor, but devout and cultivated 
 divines, whose manners had been formed at 
 Eton, were her frequent guests, with their 
 neckcloths and old-world faces, and read 
 prayers for her, and praised and appreciated 
 her Madeira. 
 
 As years went on, however, these passed, 
 with their generation, and their place as 
 High Churchmen was taken by the sacerdotal 
 revivalists of Oxford. In one respect, and in 
 one only, Miss Pole marched with the times ; 
 she sympathized with the Oxford Movement. 
 She began to talk of the Church, oftener than 
 of the Church of England ; she admired 
 Archbishop Laud; she read the "Lives of 
 the Saints"; she bought silk book-markers 
 with brass crosses at the end of them ; and 
 she opened her doors to a new circle ol 
 clerics— eager and active men who rejoiced 
 in being described as priests. But except for 
 this exhibition of spiritual or intellectual 
 progress, Miss Pole's ideas and habits
 
 14 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 underwent hardly any change. To the day of 
 her death her views as to the constitution of 
 Society, the humility incumbent on the poor, 
 the importance of county families, the ignoble 
 nature of trade, and the wickedness of the 
 French Revolution, were the views of her 
 class at the end of the last century ; whilst 
 her establishment and the appointments of 
 her house were survivals of its domestic 
 economy. On the dining-room sideboard the 
 knives were ranged in their old knife-boxes, 
 and the bright-patterned cups and saucers, 
 and sparkling Georgian silver, made her 
 breakfast-table look like an old picture by 
 Gilray. 
 
 But Miss Pole's own personal breakfast- 
 table, at the date which now concerns us, 
 had been for many years nowhere but at her 
 own bedside ; and she had been visible to 
 her guests or dependants only at certain 
 hours, when her housekeeper, or an old 
 companion, herself verging on decrepitude, 
 introduced the visitor to an audience in an 
 upstairs parlour. On such occasions Miss 
 Pole was invariably found sitting bolt upright 
 in a comfortless straight-backed chair, her 
 face framed in a cap, her hands covered by 
 black silk mittens, and her glass of midday
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 15 
 
 port, and a volume of Keble's sermons, 
 usually standing on the heavy table close to 
 her. Her voice came like a tremulous echo 
 from a cavern ; but her intelligence was as 
 clear, and her questions were as shrewd as 
 ever. Each day's post brought her a large 
 budget of letters, some containing news, but 
 most of them requests for charity ; and two 
 hours daily were spent by her in dictating 
 answers to them, except when her doctor, 
 the primaeval practitioner of Lyncombe, for- 
 bade her to exert herself, and wrote her a 
 new prescription. 
 
 But one August day, the tourists on the 
 Lyncombe coach, crossing the high downs 
 with the heathery wind in their faces, heard 
 blown at intervals up from some unseen 
 valley, the sound of a tolling bell ; and on 
 inquiring of the driver what this mystical 
 sound was, they learnt, for the first time, 
 probably, that such a lady as Miss Pole had 
 existed, by receiving the news that she was 
 dead.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE exterior of Glenlynn that day bore 
 witness to what had occurred within. All 
 its windows were masses of down-drawn 
 blind, whose whiteness made the discoloured 
 stucco yellower. It was five in the afternoon. 
 The sun was glittering on the chimneys 
 frilled with their toy battlements, and was 
 populating the pine-woods behind them with 
 shadows like inverted arrow-heads. A scent 
 of mignonette came faintly from the garden ; 
 but no sound was heard except the occasional 
 scream of a peacock ; nor was there any 
 movement except the flash of its blue breast. 
 Suddenly this silence was broken by hoofs 
 and wheels, and there drove up to the Gothic 
 front-door a good-looking waggonette and 
 pair, having a large-bearded man in it. He 
 descended slowly, with the peculiar air of 
 one who feels that the smallest action is 
 significant when he himself performs it ; and
 
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 17 
 
 before ringing the bell he stood and contem- 
 plated the house, like a statue of Dignity 
 culminating in a bust of Beneficence. A 
 square of clerical collar which glimmered in 
 the shadow of his beard was hardly needed 
 to proclaim the fact that he was a clergyman. 
 His wide-awake hat itself was eloquent of 
 Anglican orders, and his waistcoat was a 
 manifesto of his belief in their sacerdotal 
 virtue ; whilst a loose jacket, in place of the 
 long conventional coat, quietly indicated a 
 chastened amity with the world. 
 
 " Gibbs, my good man," he said, turning 
 slowly to the coachman, " I fear it is all over." 
 And he laid his hand on the iron knob of the 
 bell-pull as if he were blessing the head of 
 a little child. 
 
 Presently the door was opened by an old 
 man in white stockings and faded green knee- 
 breeches — a footman old enough to have been 
 the father of many butlers. The visitor 
 scrutinized him, and in a voice that was like 
 a cathedral echo, he gave utterance to the one 
 word "John!" It was a simple word in 
 itself, but as uttered now, it vibrated with 
 every meaning that was most proper to the 
 occasion. It was inquiry, human sympathy, 
 and religious consolation in one. The old 
 
 vol. 1. c
 
 18 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 man understood it, and looking gratefully at 
 the speaker, he whispered, " She passed 
 away, sir, at nine o'clock this morning." His 
 withered lips twitched, and pressing his 
 hand to his eyes, he shrank instinctively back 
 into the shadow to hide himself. 
 
 Fortunately for him, however, this uncon- 
 ventional retreat was covered by the advent 
 of an odd little squat woman, who at this 
 moment came waddling out to the doorway. 
 Her forehead was crossed by a thin black 
 velvet band, and her face flanked by bunches 
 of corkscrew curls, like a couple of nosegays 
 tied to a horse's blinkers. This was Miss 
 Drake, the late Miss Pole's companion, who 
 had driven with her, sat with her, read to 
 her, and written her letters ; had made tea 
 for her guests at breakfast, and judiciously 
 absented herself from dinner, with hardly 
 the break of a week, for the past forty 
 years. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Godolphin, is that you?" she 
 exclaimed, grief and asthma wheezing 
 amongst her syllables. "We thought you 
 were still in Scotland. Of course you have 
 heard what's 'appened." She was by no 
 means without aspirates, but when she was 
 hurried or agitated she would drop one, now
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 19 
 
 and then, much as she might have dropped 
 her pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 "I haue heard," Mr. Godolphin an- 
 swered. His manner was as kind to her as 
 it had been to the old footman ; but it was 
 more majestic, as to one who could appre- 
 ciate majesty ; and her left shoulder coming 
 within easy reach of him, he laid his hand 
 on it in a way which made him appear 
 to be wrapping comfort round her, like one 
 of his own great coats. " We must remem- 
 ber," he said, "that our sorrow is only for 
 ourselves, not her. Blessed are the dead 
 that die in the Lord, for they rest from their 
 labours, and their works do follow them." 
 
 Mr. Godolphin's voice, which had as many 
 tones in it as an harmonium, seemed to have 
 concentrated into these last words an entire 
 religious service. Then for a moment he 
 was silent ; but when he began to speak 
 again, his manner, though still solemn, 
 underwent the same change that it did every 
 Sunday when he emerged from his own 
 church door and exchanged with his parish- 
 ioners in the churchyard observations about 
 the crops and weather. Having paid a due 
 tribute to the profundity of Miss Drake's 
 grief, he sought to lessen its strain by
 
 20 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 asking her as to the details connected 
 with it. 
 
 In simple cases^he was an excellent 
 spiritual doctor ; and by putting these ques- 
 tions he produced the relief desired. Miss 
 Drake at once became more or less mistress 
 of herself, and in another moment she was 
 not only coherent but voluble. 
 
 "Her end," she cried, "was like a child 
 falling asleep ; and Dr Clitheroe gave her 
 the 'oly sacrament. Canon Bulman, as you 
 of course know, has been called away for a 
 week, and only came back this morning ; but 
 we've had the Doctor with us, it must be 
 now for a fortnight ; and he's been so good 
 and tender, and prayed by Miss Pole's bed- 
 side, and helped her about her business — her 
 earthly business as well as her 'eavenly, as 
 if he'd been born a lawyer. Mrs. "William 
 Pole — she's here too, and has been this last 
 month; and her son, Mr. Reginald — you 
 can't have seen him for years — he's been 
 telegraphed for. He was coming back to 
 England anyhow from Berlin, or Russia, or 
 Lisbon — I'm sure I forget which ; and dear 
 Miss Pole thought she would like to see him. 
 Telegrams were sent to him at I don't know 
 how many places, so as to catch him on his
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 21 
 
 way ; but only the last reached him, and 
 now he'll arrive too late. We expect him 
 to-night. We hoped he'd have been here 
 this morning. But, Mr. Godolphin," said 
 Miss Drake, suddenly wiping her eyes with 
 a wrinkled finger which had three mourning 
 rings on it, " won't you step in and take just 
 a cup of tea? Mrs. Pole is busy; and as 
 for me — I'm so Wpless, I feel all in a dream. 
 I feel, I assure ycu, as if I were dead, 
 not Miss Pole. But the Doctor, I'm cer- 
 tain, would be very glad to speak to you. 
 I saw him a minute ago pass out into the 
 garden." 
 
 "Let me," said Mr. Godolphin, with an 
 obeisance, " go into the garden and find him. 
 I won't detain you. God bless you, Miss 
 Drake, and good-bye. To-morrow I will send 
 over and inquire if I can be of any assistance. 
 My house, my carriage, my horses, are all 
 at Mrs. Pole's disposal." And he waved an 
 apostolic hand in the direction of his pros- 
 perous equipage. 
 
 The Rev. Sunderland Godolphin was a 
 man happy in the double consciousness of 
 valid priestly orders and three thousand a 
 year. His comparative wealth, however, 
 produced no vulgar pride in him. It was for
 
 22 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 him merely a sort of mental magnifying 
 glass, through which he saw the sanctity of 
 his own sacerdotal office. He was, and had 
 been, for some twelve years, incumbent of a 
 moorland parish, the living of which was in 
 Miss Pole's gift, and in which his generosity 
 had been new every morning. Having long 
 since rebuilt both the church and schools, he 
 was at last treating himself to a billiard-room 
 for the benefit of his boy who was at Harrow. 
 Whilst this was in progress, he had indulged 
 in a two months' holiday, and his duties 
 meanwhile had been taken by Canon Bul- 
 man, whom Miss Pole, for that period, 
 had accommodated at Glenlynn as her 
 guest. 
 
 Mr. Godolphin's inner being, when he 
 turned from the front door, was full of a 
 melancholy, yet not unhappy, activity. He 
 heard his own voice reading Miss Pole's 
 funeral service ; he saw himself bareheaded, 
 advancing to meet her coffin ; and he felt 
 that one among the many fitnesses of her 
 death would be his own resonant accents 
 consigning her to her final rest. His broad 
 chest was expanding and straining his waist- 
 coat buttons, and tears were preparing to 
 mount to his handsome eyes, as he passed
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 23 
 
 through the gate into the small Italian garden, 
 whose carpet of bright flowers glittered 
 before the blinded windows. 
 
 His solitary emotions, however, had not 
 time to complete themselves, for he saw at 
 once, in a corner of this enclosure, some- 
 thing black and motionless, which he recog- 
 nized as Dr. Clitheroe. The Doctor was 
 short, and had just a hint of portliness. Mr. 
 Godolphin's waistcoat was expanded across 
 the chest; the Doctor's emulated it, but a 
 little lower down. He wore a long full- 
 skirted coat, and a tall silk hat, which was 
 badly brushed, and very broad in the brim ; 
 and his general appearance suggested that a 
 mere touch would transform him into a dean. 
 He was hardly more than fifty ; there was a 
 quiet alertness in his eyes ; and his lips were 
 elongated into a placid and kindly smile, 
 which lost itself in cheeks slightly pitted 
 with the small-pox. In his own way the 
 Doctor was an eminent man. He was not 
 beneficed, but he held an important post 
 under Government, and had now been de- 
 puted to visit various parts of the country, 
 in order to draw up reports for a Royal 
 Commission on Education. 
 
 "Ah, Doctor!" exclaimed Mr. Godolphin,
 
 24 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 his voice running before him, like a courier 
 dressed in mourning. 
 
 The little Doctor turned himself round 
 promptly; with short steps he trotted to 
 meet the visitor, and the two were presently 
 walking side by side. A series of remarks 
 were naturally exchanged between them, 
 respecting the excellence of the deceased, 
 and her painless and hopeful death. Dr. 
 Clitheroe's gentle accents were peculiarly 
 suited to the theme. At last, however, with 
 an access of finished briskness, he turned 
 from the death itself to certain matters con- 
 nected with it. 
 
 "Of course," he said, "you know that for 
 her life Mrs. William Pole has everything; 
 and that after her death it goes to Mr. 
 Reginald Pole, her son. About this, I sup- 
 pose, there never was any secret. His 
 father, I have understood, was Miss Pole's 
 favourite nephew; and as for the son, Miss 
 Pole, on the father's death, paid for him at 
 Eton and Oxford, and made him an allow- 
 ance since, which his mother will of course 
 
 continue. As for himself " The Doctor 
 
 smiled and paused. "Perhaps," he said, "I 
 ought not to talk of these private matters. 
 By the way, I suppose they have told you
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 25 
 
 of Miss Pole's wishes about the funeral. 
 She especially desired to be buried in the 
 church at Earlsbury, in the same vault as 
 Mr. Tristram Pole, her brother." 
 
 To Mr. Godolphin this news was a thunder- 
 bolt out of a clear sky. It made him feel as 
 if Miss Pole had unexpectedly died again. 
 For Earlsbury was not his parish ; and to 
 add to this defect in it, its church had never 
 been restored in accordance with modern 
 ideas ; its old clergyman was in a condition 
 analogous to that of his church ; and it 
 seemed to Mr. Godolphin that the solemn 
 rites he had been contemplating were sud- 
 denly emptied of their choicest and their 
 most comforting elements. Dr. Clitheroe, 
 however, was altogether unconscious of the 
 dreadful desolation he had spread over his 
 companion's mind, and continued talking in 
 the same meditative voice. 
 
 "I can't imagine," he said, "what they 
 will do here for accommodation ; so many 
 relations most likely will want to attend the 
 funeral." 
 
 "My dear Doctor," said Mr. Godolphin, 
 rousing himself, "you and Canon Bulman 
 must come and stay with me. I will send 
 my carriage for you at any moment that
 
 26 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 suits you. I could take you now, if you 
 like." 
 
 "I," the Doctor answered, "am going to 
 the home farm. I sent there this morning, 
 and found I could have a bedroom. I know, 
 however, the Canon intended to ask you for 
 hospitality ; .but he wishes to remain here 
 for a couple of nights, if possible, so as to 
 see Mr. Reginald Pole, to whom he was 
 once tutor. Look — here the Canon is." 
 
 A dark figure, pushing aside a blind, had 
 at this moment emerged from one of the 
 drawing-room windows, and with a rapid 
 directness advanced towards Mr. Godolphin, 
 greeting him from a distance with a smile 
 full of gleaming teeth. Canon Bulman had 
 all the air of a sanguine and strenuous 
 traveller on the road of duty, of hard work, 
 and of preferment. His complexion was 
 fresh; his clothes were of the finest cloth. 
 From his watch-chain there dangled a heavy, 
 though plain, gold cross, a miniature com- 
 pass, and a pencil-case in the shape of a 
 cricket-bat. He carried his chin high. His 
 large broad lips had, in repose, the appearance 
 of being clenched like a fist, and there was 
 on his face a certain expression of belliger- 
 ence, like that of a man playing football
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 27 
 
 against the devil. He grasped Mr. Godol- 
 phin's hand with a dry, business-like vigour, 
 and the three clergymen began slowly to 
 pace one of the walks together. 
 
 " I was sorry, Godolphin," said the Canon, 
 when he had first honoured the occasion by 
 referring to Miss Pole's death in a voice of 
 prosperous sorrow, " I was sorry that I was 
 called away ; but I suppose you know the 
 reason. I was called to speak, indeed, take 
 the chair, at two meetings, convened for the 
 purpose of declaring, at this momentous 
 crisis, that private purity on the part of 
 public men is, to the nation, even more im- 
 portant than their politics." 
 
 It had lately happened that the leader of a 
 powerful Parliamentary party had increased 
 his fame by appearing as co-respondent in a 
 divorce case ; and Canon Bulman, who pre- 
 viously had been one of his chief admirers, 
 was the first clergyman belonging to the 
 Established Church to demand that the 
 bestial sensualist — the infamous domestic 
 traitor — should resign his seat, and be 
 hounded from public life. Chastity, in fact, 
 was the Canon's favourite virtue; so much 
 so, that many who respected him for his 
 earnest efforts to promote it, almost felt that
 
 28 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 he accorded it an invidious preference over 
 the others, especially when he ventured to 
 declare in a well-known pulpit at Oxford 
 that the story of the woman taken in adultery 
 was spurious, on the ground that it conflicted 
 with the entire spirit of Christianity. 
 
 The two other clergymen, as any observer 
 might have perceived, were considerably 
 milder in disposition. Indeed, a shadow 
 of pain passed over Mr. Godolphin's face. 
 He said, however, taking the Canon's 
 arm — 
 
 " I know that the cause of right has no 
 more ardent soldier than yourself." 
 
 " Lord Shropshire and Lord Wakefield," 
 continued the Canon, "both spoke at my 
 meetings, and admirably, too — quite admir- 
 ably. Wakefield was staying with me — one 
 of the finest fellows I know. By the way, 
 since we happen to be talking of other things, 
 I confess I can't help regretting that she, 
 who has just left us, did not desire some 
 other place of burial." 
 
 Mr. Godolphin was delighted at the con- 
 versation taking this turn, and hastened to 
 echo a sentiment with which he so deeply 
 sjrmpathized. 
 
 " I confess," he said, " I regret it, too."
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 29 
 
 "It seems," the Canon resumed, with dry 
 and trenchant emphasis, " regrettable that 
 one whose life was so eminently Christian, 
 should weaken the force of her example by 
 thus wishing to rejoin a man who caused, in 
 his own day, the same kind of hateful scandal 
 as that which is shocking the public con- 
 science now." 
 
 This was a very different utterance from 
 what Mr. Godolphin had expected, and 
 neither he nor Dr. Clitheroe knew how to 
 receive it. They were, therefore, both of 
 them not a little delighted at a sudden inter- 
 ruption supplied by a startling sound. It 
 was the sound of a steam whistle ; and, so 
 far as their ears could inform them, it rose 
 from the waters directly beneath the garden. 
 The three clergymen made their move- 
 ments accordingly ; and before long, when 
 they had reached a lower level, they dis- 
 tinguished against the waves some films 
 of ascending smoke. Canon Bulman, who 
 was a renowned Alpine climber, raised him- 
 self on a spike of rock, and looked curiously 
 over. 
 
 "A launch!" he exclaimed; "a beautiful 
 little private launch ! There is nobody in it 
 except the engineer and a sailor."
 
 30 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 "I hope," said Dr. Clitheroe, "that on a 
 day like this the place will not be flooded by 
 any intruding strangers." 
 
 They had reached, as he spoke, a spot 
 where the path divided, one limb of it, like 
 a gutter, scrambling down to the sea, the 
 other leading up again in the direction of the 
 house and garden. Here Canon Bulman 
 suddenly started forward. He stooped to 
 the ground and raised from it some light, 
 pale-coloured object. It was a woman's 
 grey glove, delicate and slightly scented. 
 
 " It seems," he said, holding it out to his 
 companions, "that strangers of some sort 
 must be in the grounds already, though not 
 — I should judge from this — a party of rough 
 excursionists. Hush — listen ! People are 
 there above us." To confirm his observa- 
 tion, a few loosened pebbles, just as his 
 voice ceased, rattled down the upward path, 
 and a second later the nervous form of a 
 woman appeared round a corner, descending 
 on a pair of rickety boots. The woman's 
 dress was black, and piquante with French 
 neatness ; but her face, though not unplea- 
 sant, was very far from distinguished, and 
 a metallic exclamation of "Oh, mon Dieu!" 
 occasioned by a sight of the clergymen,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 31 
 
 and by a simultaneous slip of her heels, 
 would to any experienced ears have explained 
 her as a Parisian maid. Canon Bulman, 
 however, being no discerner of persons — or, 
 to speak more charitably — no respecter of 
 them, with much empressement offered her 
 a hand to assist her, and tendering the glove 
 to her, said, "I think this must be yours." 
 But before the young woman was able to 
 return a suitable answer, another presence 
 had come into sight behind her — a woman 
 also, but one of a very different aspect. 
 About her, too, was a something suggestive 
 of France, not England — a certain simple 
 yet fastidious neatness of dress, which in 
 the present scene looked exotic ; but her 
 movements and the poise of her figure dif- 
 fered from those of the other as the figure of 
 one of Watteau's shepherdesses might differ 
 from a Dutch doll. She was evidently quite 
 young, but too self-possessed to be girlish. 
 Her mouth carried in its curves a certain 
 imperious sadness, and the lights in her 
 eyes were like jewels on dim velvet. Canon 
 Bulman gazed hard at her, wondering why 
 he did so. He noticed a pearl at her throat, 
 and one in each ear also. He raised his wide- 
 awake hat, gripping it by the limp crown.
 
 32 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 " Could you," she said, in a voice that was 
 at once soft and crisp, "tell me the way to 
 the house ? Ah ! my glove. How good of 
 you ! I knew I had dropped it." And she 
 took it from him with a hand dainty as 
 Dresden china. 
 
 " Do you want to go to Glenlynn ? " asked 
 the Canon, with grave deference. 
 
 "Yes," she answered, "to inquire after 
 Miss Pole. We heard she was ill. I have 
 come by sea from Lyncombe." 
 
 " She died this morning," said the Canon 
 simply. " If you went to the house, I fear 
 you would see no one. Mrs. Pole is very 
 busy. Would you allow me to leave a 
 message for you ? " 
 
 " Will you? I should be indeed obliged 
 to you. I have a letter for Mrs. Pole." And 
 she drew, from the pocket of her jacket, an 
 envelope, which she gave the Canon. " I 
 am sorry," she went on, "to hear what you 
 tell me; though I myself never knew Miss 
 Pole, nor saw her." 
 
 The Canon cleared his throat. "I," he 
 said, "am only an accidental guest here; 
 but I am sure I shall be doing right if I ask 
 you to have some tea." 
 
 "You are too kind," she replied, drawing
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 33 
 
 on her glove as she spoke. " But I could 
 not have waited in any case. It is late. I 
 am much obliged to you. Mrs. Pole will 
 know from the letter who I am. Clarisse — 
 come ; we must go back to the boat." 
 
 "Allow me," said the Canon, "to assist 
 you down this terribly steep path." 
 
 The young lady declined the offer with the 
 prettiest grace imaginable ; but the Canon's 
 chivalry was much too vigorous to be re- 
 pulsed ; and a moment later he was dis- 
 appearing between some rocks and rosemary- 
 bushes, with the hand of the fair stranger 
 supporting itself on his broad shoulder. 
 
 " He's a good man," sighed Mr. Godolphin, 
 looking after him; "but not always dis- 
 creet." 
 
 Dr. Clitheroe smiled, as though conscious 
 of a little worldly knowledge. " It's a pity," 
 he said, "that the Canon, who is so alive to 
 a certain kind of evil, should not always 
 detect it, when it is present in his own 
 household. I was told at Windsor, that one 
 of his parlour-maids — a pretty girl of the 
 name of Sophie — is the scandal of the place, 
 owing to the way in which she conducts 
 herself; and that the Canon, when the truth 
 has been represented to him, indignantly 
 
 VO).. I. 1)
 
 34 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 refuses to believe it. Men of his eager 
 temperament are frequently taken in by 
 women." 
 
 A minute or two later the Canon was 
 visible re-ascending, wearing on his face a 
 consciousness of successful gallantry, and 
 yet, together with this, the irritation of some 
 puzzled thought. " That's curious," he said, 
 " most curious ! I mean that young woman's 
 face. It's quite familiar to me. Where — 
 now where can I have seen it ? It's not a 
 pleasant face. No, no, no — not pleasant." 
 
 "The Pole connection," said Mr. Godol- 
 phin, magnificently, "is immense, as you, 
 Canon, who live so much in the world, know. 
 In all probability you will hear she is some 
 relation ; and you may perhaps have met her 
 yourself at a State Concert. Did you ever, 
 by the way, see Mr. Pole, the head of the 
 family ? The last of the squires they call 
 him. He is sure to attend the funeral. And 
 the Duke " — Mr. Godolphin had much simple 
 reverence for high rank, and he pronounced 
 the name of the Lord Lieutenant of the 
 county as if the mere utterance of it was an 
 honour to himself — "the Duke, who is a 
 relation also, and full of all right feeling, will 
 be present most likely— indeed, I should say,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 35 
 
 certainly. It will be an impressive gather- 
 ing, if only the service itself could be per- 
 formed with more seemliness." 
 
 The Canon, whose devotion to democratic 
 principles, was only equalled by his taste for 
 aristocratic persons, listened to this informa- 
 tion with much smiling attention ; but unfor- 
 tunately the concluding words touched a 
 different part of him. 
 
 "You remind me," he said, "of what I 
 remarked just now. The larger this gather- 
 ing is to be, the more sincerely I deplore the 
 fact that Miss Pole should have elected to 
 be buried by the side of her adulterous 
 brother. Had I," continued the Canon, 
 " known that such was her wish, I would 
 have frankly told her what I feel about 
 it. I was, in fact, just before my departure, 
 on the point of remonstrating with her on a 
 very similar subject. You both, perhaps, can 
 guess what I refer to." 
 
 Mr. Godolphin shook his head. "I refer," 
 the Canon continued, "to something you 
 must be well acquainted with — the picture 
 of a woman which hangs here in the first 
 drawing-room. I have often looked at it for 
 a quarter of an hour together, disagreeably 
 impressed by it ; but it was only last week
 
 36 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 that, by accident, I learnt whom it repre- 
 sented — the shameless partner of the sin of 
 Miss Pole's own brother. My dear Godol- 
 phin, I don't blame Miss Pole herself; but I 
 do blame her family for not having long ago 
 urged her to destroy, or at all events to hide 
 this object; and I shall certainly, at some 
 fitting season, mention it to my old friend 
 Reginald." 
 
 "We must all honour you," said Mr. 
 Godolphin, "for the feelings by which you 
 are actuated. But tell me," he went on, 
 eagerly changing the subject, " how is 
 Reginald ? Do you ever come across him 
 now ? I call him by his Christian name, but 
 it is years since I set eyes on him." 
 
 "Ah," exclaimed Canon Bulman, "one of 
 a thousand — he is." And his manner as he 
 spoke altered and became fresh and breezy 
 with good fellowship. " I too have not seen 
 him for years — except at a levee, in the dis- 
 tance, and once at the late Prime Minister's. 
 But such a good fellow he was — such a 
 scholar too — so easy to teach and guide ! I 
 sometimes used to fancy he was a little led 
 away by all that nonsense about birth and 
 family, and so forth ; and like many of these 
 young aristocrats he was too apt to think
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 37 
 
 that Society was the world, and that the 
 world was a playground for himself. But 
 all that, I fancy, has now passed away. I 
 always say that it was I who formed his 
 mind ; and that my teaching it was, which, 
 in due time, brought forth fruit. When he 
 went abroad first to stay with his cousin 
 the ambassador, he thought only of amuse- 
 ment — innocent amusement, I grant you; 
 and, as I often dinned into him, he was apt 
 to be shamefully extravagant. But sound 
 teaching tells ; and he hadn't been in Berlin 
 six months, before he had taken to studying 
 the industrial conditions of Germany, and 
 was made secretary to our Royal Commis- 
 sion. I gather, too, that this fault of his, 
 extravagance, has now quite disappeared ; 
 and that he lives with extreme frugality. 
 Well," continued the Canon, "to have been 
 living at all these capitals, and have been 
 received as he has been in all the best 
 society — it would have been a dangerous life 
 for some — very, very dangerous. But as for 
 him, he morally is one of the cleanest men 
 I know." 
 
 These last words were ominous of a return 
 to his favourite topic; but Mr. Godolphin 
 interrupted, by exclaiming, "Ha! there are
 
 38 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 my horses — look at them — impatient to be 
 off. Whenever you can come to me, Canon, 
 remember, there is your bedroom waiting 
 for you." 
 
 They were by this time approaching the 
 front door of the house. Mr. Godolphin 
 turned to his friends, and solemnly said 
 good-bye to them, drawing himself up to 
 his full priestly altitude ; and mounting his 
 waggonette, which seemed to become full of 
 him, he vanished to the rapid music of hoofs 
 and of crunching gravel.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 REGINALD POLE, whose arrival was that 
 evening expected, and whose character had 
 been described with so much appreciation by 
 his tutor, was the son of a promising diplo- 
 mat, who, early in his career, had married a 
 distant cousin, and had died in Paris about 
 twelve years afterwards. It proved that his 
 affairs were left by him in extreme disorder ; 
 and the mother and her boy would have been 
 in a position of considerable embarrassment 
 if it had not been for the kindness of a certain 
 celebrated Mrs. Steinberg, the wife of a 
 gorgeous banker, who was flourishing under 
 the then Emperor. This lady, true to a 
 constantly expressed friendship, at once 
 offered the two a home for as long as they 
 required one, under the painted ceilings and 
 amongst the ornate candelabra of her hotel ; 
 and with her they remained, until, through 
 Miss Pole's aid, the various debts left by
 
 40 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 Mr. William Pole were settled. In due time 
 Miss Pole made known those intentions, 
 with regard to her great -nephew and his 
 mother, which were embodied in her will 
 and testament ; and he, as Dr. Clitheroe had 
 said, was educated and subsequently main- 
 tained by her. 
 
 Miss Pole, though an admirer and 
 practiser of all the virtues as she under- 
 stood them, did not, so far as young men of 
 position were concerned, include amongst 
 the virtues any definite work. Diplomacy, 
 indeed, and the army, she regarded as 
 channels of temptation ; and was inclined to 
 desire for her heir, when he left Oxford, a 
 safe career of leisure, which should end in 
 his being a county member. Little as Miss 
 Pole had lived in the world herself, she had 
 always been accustomed to take the great 
 world solemnly ; and she reverenced a duke 
 almost as much as if he were a church. It 
 seemed, therefore, to her that one of her heir's 
 most important duties was thoroughly to 
 familiarize himself with that distinguished 
 society which, next to the Church, was a 
 gentleman's most unerring teacher, and with 
 which God had been pleased to connect him 
 by so many ties. He himself, who was full
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 41 
 
 of social aptitudes, and even more social 
 fastidiousness than he had cared to reveal to 
 Canon Bulman, was not slow to fall in with 
 his great-aunt's views. Such fashionable 
 relations as the Pole family possessed — men 
 and women alike — combined to render his 
 entrance into the society of London easy, 
 and the continuance of this conduct was, in 
 the case of many of them, a personal com- 
 pliment of which at first he had no suspicion ; 
 being really an evidence less of their own 
 affection for him, than of the credit done by 
 him to the family by his various social talents, 
 which did indeed resemble those ascribed to 
 his renowned great-uncle. On the other 
 hand, much of the welcome which he received 
 from fashionable mothers and their daughters, 
 and which was in reality due to an exaggerated 
 rumour as to his prospects, he was at first 
 simple enough to attribute to a judicious 
 appreciation of himself. Thus his self-esteem 
 was maintained despite his modesty, till in 
 due time he came to understand men and 
 women better, and it was placed on a new 
 basis, which he told himself was knowledge 
 of the world. Meanwhile, however, in ad- 
 dition to the pursuit of fashion, he gave his 
 attention to things of a more serious nature.
 
 42 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 He made the acquaintance of certain cele- 
 brated men of science, who cashed their 
 drafts on fame occasionally at polite dinner- 
 tables ; and he read their books and discussed 
 theology with them in their laboratories, with 
 results which would have horrified the eclectic 
 freethought of Canon Bulman. He also 
 turned his attention, as Miss Pole had 
 hoped, to politics ; and indeed became 
 gradually intimate with several well-known 
 statesmen. 
 
 He was, however, possessed by the opinion, 
 in which his intercourse with these veterans 
 confirmed him, whilst convincing him of its 
 singularity, that accurate knowledge of the 
 life and conditions of nations, the habits of 
 various races, and the details of trade and 
 industry, were almost as necessary to make 
 a member of parliament useful, as experience 
 of the House itself, or a fluency on public 
 platforms. Influenced therefore by this 
 opinion partly, and partly by an unwilling- 
 ness to sacrifice the delights of freedom, he 
 determined to postpone any effort to thrust 
 himself into public life, until he should have 
 mastered one set of subjects at all events, in 
 a way which should enable him to treat it 
 with some authority. At that time a certain
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 43 
 
 extreme party had begun to proclaim a 
 number of startling doctrines with regard to 
 the poverty and misery of the masses of the 
 British nation, and to demand, on behalf of 
 the poor, who were described as having been 
 wronged for centuries, reforms of the most 
 violent and the most impossible kind. 
 Whilst the majority of practical politicians 
 treated their demands with a smile, the 
 question of fact suggested by them, seized 
 on young Pole's imagination ; and he set 
 himself with perseverance, though without 
 exaggerated avidity, to study the condition 
 of the masses as it actually was then, and 
 also as it had been during the past century. 
 It is true that he attempted no personal 
 investigations himself ; but he collected with 
 remarkable judgment the most instructive 
 records that were available ; and after several 
 years had elapsed, he was at last beginning 
 to think that the time was come when he 
 might gratify his aunt's wishes, and repre- 
 sent the Pole family in Parliament, even if 
 he represented nothing else. He found, 
 however, that to wait for a seat was a very 
 different thing from obtaining one. Amongst 
 seats which were safe for a Conservative, or 
 even hopeful, there were, during eighteen
 
 44 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 months only five vacancies ; and for these 
 there were other claimants whose claims 
 stood higher than his own. Disappointed at 
 this, though not ungenerously embittered, 
 he began to think of dismissing his Parlia- 
 mentary ambition from his mind ; whilst a 
 sense of public duty, which had been growing 
 in him with the progress of his studies, urged 
 him, on the other hand, not to shirk his re- 
 sponsibilities. In this condition his doubts 
 were unexpectedly solved by a severe illness, 
 which completely undermined his strength, 
 and forced him for many years to spend much 
 of his time abroad. 
 
 Amongst other things which reconciled 
 him to this fate, was the fact of an unfortunate 
 connection which he had formed with a well- 
 known demi-mondaine, or rather which she — 
 a woman of considerable talents — had con- 
 trived to form with him. It was a connection 
 which soon not only wearied but humiliated 
 him ; and he welcomed the circumstances 
 which brought it rapidly to an end. He took 
 with him on his travels a portion of his 
 political library, and still from time to time 
 he continued his former studies ; but new 
 countries, new societies, the passing excite- 
 ment of one or two slight romances, and the
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 45 
 
 spectacle of a new religion, filled his mind 
 with other thoughts and interests. In Italy 
 he became acquainted with many dis- 
 tinguished ecclesiastics ; he made a long 
 retreat in a celebrated Benedictine monastery ; 
 and his natural revulsion from an amatory 
 episode unworthy of him, called to life in his 
 mind that passionate sense of contrition to 
 which all that is deepest in the Catholic 
 Church appeals. He was far, indeed, from 
 becoming a convert to the Catholic faith ; 
 and, to say the truth, his contrition did not 
 altogether preserve him from a kind of 
 conduct which again called for its exercise ; 
 but on this occasion his heroine was a 
 complete woman of the world, who first 
 engaged and then betrayed his affections, and 
 left him with a wounded heart, as well as a 
 dejected conscience. Some men by experi- 
 ences such as these become hardened or 
 enslaved in vice ; others only learn by them 
 to see it in a clearer light, and to return with 
 a manlier understanding to the rules of life 
 which they had violated. Pole was a man 
 who belonged to this latter class, partly 
 owing to a well-balanced mind and tempera- 
 ment, but still more to the fact that he had in 
 him, beneath his passions, a capacity and a
 
 46 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 need for the affection which passion so often 
 injures. At all events, the next time that the 
 personality ofa woman appealedto him, which 
 was not till some years later, the appeal was 
 of a different kind. He had been staying at 
 Berlin, on a visit to the British ambassador, 
 who was related to him ; and it so happened 
 that ust about that time the British Govern- 
 ment had undertaken to institute a Royal 
 Commission, to inquire into the working of 
 trades unions and the condition of labour on 
 the Continent. At this, his old interest in 
 these subjects revived ; and his strength by 
 that time being very nearly restored, he ac- 
 companied one of the English officials on 
 several tours of investigation. On one of 
 these occasions, a slight attack of illness 
 detained him for several days in a little 
 German watering-place ; and here, at a table- 
 d'hote, he accidentally made the acquaint- 
 ance of a young Englishwoman and a child, 
 who were lodging in a house close by. The 
 mother — or rather, as he presently learnt, the 
 stepmother — attracted him, not only by her 
 grace and her gentle beauty, but also by her 
 forlorn condition, of which he gradually 
 gathered the details. The head of her 
 husband's family was a certain "Welsh
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 47 
 
 baronet, who enjoyed an obscure celebrity as 
 the owner of a curious castle. The husband 
 himself, it appeared, was devoted to cards 
 and racing. It was not quite clear to Pole 
 whether he was a jockey or a book-maker. 
 It was evident, however, that he was a great 
 student of economy; for, having heard that 
 this town was the cheapest place in Europe, 
 he had chosen it a month ago as a home for 
 his wife and daughter, till the death of a 
 decrepit relation should enable him, without 
 extravagance, to be as liberal to them as he 
 was to himself. 
 
 All this Pole gathered in an indirect way. 
 The wife, he discovered, was also related to a 
 family that was known to him ; and this fact, 
 which touched her almost to tears in her 
 loneliness, made her the readier to confide 
 in an unlooked-for friend. A day or two 
 after his first meeting her, his friendly interest 
 in herself was forgotten in concern for her 
 situation. The rent of the apartment she 
 occupied, it appeared, was to be paid monthly, 
 and it now was due, together with a fort- 
 night's bills ; but a remittance from her 
 husband, promised her a week back, had 
 not arrived, though she had telegraphed 
 several times for it, and the landlord of her
 
 48 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 house had already taken to threats which 
 alarmed her all the more because she hardly 
 grasped their meaning. Pole was enabled 
 to discover her sad story only because, on 
 coming one day to call on her, he found her 
 crying into her hands, with her head resting 
 on the table. It was only little by little that 
 he learnt the nature of her embarrassment ; 
 and the tears, when he knew the whole, 
 were not in her eyes but his. In another 
 moment, however, he made light of the 
 whole matter, and offered to lend her what- 
 ever she might require for the moment. 
 
 "On second thoughts," he said, "I will 
 pay it in to your bankers ; and when your 
 money comes you can send me a cheque to 
 Berlin." 
 
 She was overwhelmed with shyness and 
 gratitude, and, without more words, he left 
 her, naming the sum which she would 
 presently find at her disposal. He had not 
 at the moment more than half that sum in 
 his possession ; he did, however, possess a 
 favourite watch, which, not without a pang, 
 he disposed of at half its value. But even 
 this was considerable. He thought of his 
 own expenses in the immediate future ; he 
 resolved to reduce these to the smallest
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 49 
 
 amount possible; and then, retaining only 
 what he judged would be thus necessary for 
 him, he placed the entire remainder to his 
 friend's credit at her bankers'. It was a sum 
 which would suffice not only to pay her 
 landlord, but to support her for another month 
 should her remittances be delayed further. 
 
 In common with most people, Pole often 
 had heard of want, but he had never before 
 had so vivid an example of it close to him. 
 On returning to Berlin he wrote to the 
 authorities at home, offering, without salary, 
 to take part in the work of the commission. 
 His offer was accepted, his talents being not 
 unknown, and by-and-by he was accorded 
 both a salary and the post of secretary. It 
 was observed by his friends that, either as 
 a cause or a consequence of his work, he 
 rapidly grew in many ways a more serious 
 man than formerly ; and that though his 
 income was for the time slightly increased, 
 he emulated in his own life the poverty 
 which he was engaged in studying. He was 
 never, indeed, ill-dressed, nor did he affect 
 ostentatious economies ; but it could not 
 escape the notice of those who had known 
 him formerly, that in matters of personal 
 self-indulgence he acted like a poor man. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 This self-denial was in part, though not 
 wholly, due to the continued embarrassment 
 of the lady whom he had already assisted. 
 His headquarters for a time were in the little 
 town of her exile ; and he often contrived, 
 without her entertaining a suspicion of it, to 
 supplement, through her bankers' agency, the 
 irregular remittances of her husband. The 
 rest of his savings, as time went on, he set 
 aside also for a similarly unselfish purpose. 
 His official work, which enlarged itself far 
 beyond its intended limits, afforded him 
 occupation which lasted for several years ; 
 and most of each year he spent accordingly 
 on the Continent. 
 
 His work of inquiry was now at last 
 complete, and even had he not had news 
 of Miss Pole's illness, he would, for other 
 reasons, have been returning then to 
 England. The friend whose interests he 
 had taken so much to heart, and for whose 
 sake he had made so many concealed sacri- 
 fices, had some months previously been 
 liberated from her German prison. Her 
 husband's pious hopes for the speedy release 
 of his relations had been accomplished by 
 Providence on a more liberal scale than he 
 had anticipated ; and he found himself not
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 51 
 
 only in possession of enough ready money 
 to turn his head, and to appease his most 
 pressing creditors, but also of a baronetcy, 
 of a castle, and of a property with appropriate 
 mortgages. Under these circumstances his 
 wife had, in his eyes, acquired a utility which 
 he never expected to find in her; and as a 
 preliminary to settling her as his ornamental 
 housekeeper in the country, he begged her, 
 with a view to producing between him and 
 her enough good humour and amity for the 
 purpose of married comfort, to join him 
 on a tour which he meant to make in 
 America, and which he intended should 
 unite the excitements both of pleasure and 
 of business. 
 
 After much hesitation his wife had accepted 
 the proposal, and during her travels Pole 
 had had no news of her. He was accordingly 
 delighted to receive from her, just as he was 
 starting for England, a letter which told him 
 that she had returned, and was staying for a 
 week in London. Most of that week was 
 gone before her letter reached him, but he 
 arrived in London in time to see her for haK 
 an hour, though not, indeed, under circum- 
 stances that were very favourable to conver- 
 sation. A note from her was awaiting him
 
 52 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 at his club, telling him that she must start 
 for Wales by a train which left Paddington 
 in the middle of the afternoon ; and she 
 begged him to meet her at the railway- 
 station half an hour before. Together with 
 this letter was a telegram from Glenlynn, 
 urging him to come with whatever speed he 
 could ; and as the station for both their trains 
 was the same, the appointment she suggested 
 was thus easily kept. She was waiting for 
 him at the door of the booking-office ; and, 
 leaving his luggage with his servant, he 
 slowly strolled with her up and down an 
 empty end of the platform, asking her hesita- 
 ting questions about her welfare and her 
 immediate prospects. Pole's manner was 
 naturally not demonstrative ; and as for her, 
 the various replies she made to him were 
 almost as shy as they might have been had 
 he been a new and unsympathetic acquain- 
 tance. At last, however, when he stood by 
 her carriage door, and took her hand, just 
 as the train was moving, her eyes suddenly 
 filled, and looked at his dim with gratitude ; 
 and she said in trembling accents, " I can 
 never repay your kindness — all that you 
 have done for me — or forget it." 
 " "Write to me ! " he replied.
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 53 
 
 "Yes," she said— "yes. Of course I will. 
 But wait till I write to you." 
 
 The carriage was already moving. She 
 kissed her hand to him, and she was gone. 
 
 His own train started a quarter of an hour 
 afterwards, and, lost in many meditations, 
 he was hardly conscious of the journey, as 
 he was hurried westwards to the house 
 which was thenceforward to be his home.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MEANWHILE at Glenlynn, the two clerical 
 visitors, having bidden Mr. Godolphin adieu, 
 betook themselves to their respective 
 chambers, where the one copied out a report 
 on workhouse schools with a type-writer, 
 and the other wrote a dozen letters in con- 
 nection with a forthcoming meeting. Miss 
 Drake was secluded in her own chamber 
 likewise, idle with bewildered sorrow ; and 
 though a message was sent to her by Mrs. 
 Pole begging her to be present at dinner, she 
 clung to the custom, invariable during Miss 
 Pole's lifetime, of having her evening meal 
 alone in her own parlour, where a chop and 
 a poached egg proclaimed her loss anew to 
 her, by making her feel how unable she was 
 to swallow them. At the same hour Dr. 
 Clitheroe and the Canon, fresh from their 
 respective labours, were awaiting Mrs. Pole 
 in the drawing-room. Their collars shone
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 55 
 
 in the twilight ; their hands were pink with 
 washing ; and their lips had the faint cheer- 
 fulness that is caused by expectant hunger. 
 Presently Mrs. Pole entered. " Dinner is 
 ready," she said. "Shall we come in? 
 Martin and John have settled that there is 
 to be no bell to-night." 
 
 The two old servants stood solemnly by 
 the dining-room door, as the small company 
 passed into a glimmer of light which shade- 
 less candles were casting on silver covers. 
 The dishes were placed on the table as they 
 were a century back ; nor, except for such 
 articles as were there for actual use, was 
 there any ornament — not even a single flower. 
 But the plate was fine in its simplicity; the 
 linen was smooth as porcelain ; and the 
 ponderous old decanters flashed from a 
 hundred facets. 
 
 Mrs, Pole was a woman of charming though 
 faded aspect, which touched those who 
 looked at her like a tranquil day in autumn. 
 In spite of her grey hair, drawn from her 
 forehead artlessly, she seemed to be hardly 
 sixty, although she was really more. A sense 
 of humour was discernible in the play of her 
 features, and there still lived in her eyes the 
 light of some vanished spring-time. The
 
 56 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 death of those who die at so great an age 
 that their life has long been a yearly in- 
 creasing wonder, can be hardly expected, 
 except for its accidental results, to break the 
 hearts even of near relations; and Mrs. Pole 
 was the last person in the world to put her 
 voice or her manner into any exaggerated 
 mourning. She wore, indeed, this evening 
 the soft veil of solemnity which falls over 
 most faces in any house of death ; but it 
 subdued her natural smile without affecting 
 to hide it, and the two clergymen, for her 
 sake as well as for their own, were relieved 
 to read in her demeanour a tacit licence to 
 be themselves. Dr. Clitheroe said to her 
 cheerfully that he hoped she was not ex- 
 hausted, and Canon Bulman made apprecia- 
 tive noises with his soup. Mrs. Pole spoke 
 in a matter-of-fact voice of the amount of 
 business that had been forced on her during 
 the day. "I sent," she said, "a dozen 
 telegrams in the morning, and more, I 
 think, have come this afternoon than ever 
 agitated my aunt in the whole course of 
 her life." She then mentioned the people 
 whom she expected at Glenlynn for the 
 funeral, and the Canon, who wrote articles 
 against the House of Lords in reviews,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 57 
 
 pricked up his ears at the name of a well- 
 known peer. 
 
 "That reminds me," he said, wiping his 
 mouth hastily, and plunging his hand into 
 one of his coat-tail pockets, "here is some- 
 thing that I ought to have delivered sooner." 
 And, giving her the letter which had been 
 confided to his care in the garden, he explained 
 the incident, alluded to the young lady's 
 appearance, and watched Mrs. Pole with 
 interest as she broke the envelope open. 
 
 " I think," she said placidly, when she 
 had read the letter through, "that I can ex- 
 plain the mystery. Your attractive friend is 
 the daughter of the person who writes this 
 letter, and that person is a sort of cousin of 
 ours. I dare say you know we have certain 
 foreign relations, and this is one of them — 
 Countess O'Keefe, she calls herself. Years 
 ago I met her at Pole Park. She was a regular 
 foreigner in her ways, although she was by 
 birth an Irishwoman. She smoked cigarettes 
 in her bedroom, and never came downstairs 
 till twelve. I need hardly tell you her visit 
 was not repeated. Well, it seems she is at 
 Lyncombe now with a yacht. I suppose if 
 she stays long enough it will be necessary to 
 ask her over."
 
 58 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 At the name of O'Keefe Dr. Clitheroe looked 
 up. It was a name at that time celebrated 
 throughout Europe, being borne by a con- 
 tinental statesman who had great influence 
 with his sovereign. 
 
 " Has she anything to do," asked the 
 doctor, "with Count O'Keefe, the minister?" 
 
 " She belongs to his family," said Mrs. 
 Pole, indifferently, " and so did her husband, 
 for she married her first cousin. She met 
 him at Carlsbad. He was an officer in the 
 Austrian army, and was very rich. His 
 mother was a Polish princess. As for the 
 young lady, I know nothing about her ; but 
 the women of that family had all the reputa- 
 tion of being beautiful — of having beautiful 
 figures " 
 
 "This one's figure was beautiful," inter- 
 rupted the Canon. 
 
 "And Reginald heard about one of them," 
 Mrs. Pole continued — " I hope it is not this 
 one — who got into some dreadful trouble. 
 This one's name, as I see by her mother's 
 letter, is Shimna." 
 
 The Canon frowned, and listened with 
 grave attention ; but the subject dropped, 
 nor was it again approached till Mrs. Pole 
 had departed, and the clergymen drew their
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 59 
 
 chairs together. Then when the Doctor, 
 with a smile like a silent grace, had demurely 
 poured out a glass of old brown sherry, the 
 Canon, who was a total abstainer, helping 
 himself to some French plums, at once went 
 back to the subject of the O'Keefe family, 
 and began to explain a number of facts 
 relating to it, which could not so well have 
 been discussed in Mrs. Pole's presence. 
 
 " You did not perhaps know," he said, "that 
 Mrs. Pole was an O'Keefe herself. She 
 was — she was the Dean's daughter : and 
 Count O'Keefe, who is the head of her family, 
 is an Irish peer, a naturalized Austrian 
 subject, and also a Count of the Holy Roman 
 Empire." The Canon, like many a convinced 
 and fierce democrat, was an earnest though 
 secret student of the " Peerage " and " Landed 
 Gentry " ; and he proceeded with considerable 
 accuracy to inform the Doctor, how an Irish 
 marquis, Mrs. Pole's great grandfather, 
 having died without leaving any heir to his 
 marquisate, had been succeeded in the barony 
 of O'Keefe by his kinsman, the grandfather 
 of the statesman. "It is curious," he said 
 dryly, when he reached the end of his narra- 
 tive, " that the class whose special pride is 
 to do nothing for themselves or their fellow-
 
 60 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 citizens, should be the only class who are 
 privileged to have their histories written. 
 But what I have just been telling you is 
 really odd and interesting." 
 
 When they went into the drawing-room, 
 Mrs. Pole was not there ; and the Canon, 
 after a variety of aimless and fidgety move- 
 ments, was finally attracted towards the 
 pastel portrait of the lady, which he had, as 
 he said, so often studied before, and whose 
 presence in that place he regarded with such 
 serious indignation. 
 
 " Look, Dr. Clitheroe— look ! " he exclaimed 
 at last. " Here is what has been worrying 
 me. That young lady we met in the garden 
 is exactly like this picture— except, of course, 
 that she was exceedingly tight-laced, that 
 instead of a turban she wore one of those 
 abominable fringes, and had, what this 
 woman has not, that meretricious foreign 
 look about her. Unfortunately how well 
 one knows it ! " 
 
 " Ladies' dresses," began the Doctor, " I'm 
 afraid are lost upon me." But just at this 
 moment Mrs. Pole showed herself in the 
 doorway. 
 
 "He's coming," she exclaimed, with a 
 trembling agitation in her voice, "Martin can
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 61 
 
 hear the wheels. I have," she continued, 
 "just been with poor Miss Drake, such a 
 forlorn little object you never saw in your 
 life. Dr. Clitheroe, I wish you would go up 
 and try to comfort her. She always says 
 'the Word,' when you speak it, does her so 
 much good. And listen — I'm sure you might 
 safely tell her this — that my aunt, to my 
 knowledge, has left her the large silver tea- 
 urn, the old Worcester tea-set, and a house 
 for her life at Lyncombe." 
 
 The Doctor mounted the stairs, bound on 
 this work of mercy, with the busy action of 
 a dormouse in a rotating cage. A moment 
 later, a bell had been rung loudly, and Mrs. 
 Pole and her son were exchanging salutations 
 in the hall, with a quiet which had the 
 semblance of indifference, though it had the 
 semblance only. Taking his arm she led him 
 into the dining-room, where supper was 
 awaiting him ; and the Canon forbore to follow 
 them. He retired to the drawing-room in- 
 stead, where he attentively contemplated the 
 portrait, and consulted anew the history of 
 the O'Keefe family in the peerage. With an 
 unenlightened expression he at last subsided 
 into a chair ; and taking up a weekly review, 
 and turning to an article of his own in it,
 
 62 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 which bore the suggestive title of " The Debt 
 of Dives to Lazarus," he solaced his mind 
 with admiring a trenchant train of reasoning, 
 which would, if acted on, have deprived him 
 of his whole canonical income. He was 
 before long interrupted by the return of Dr. 
 Clitheroe, and almost on the heels of the 
 Doctor appeared Reginald Pole. 
 
 The new-comer had a face with clear-cut 
 features, and hair which just on the temples 
 was growing prematurely grey. In his look 
 there was a certain melancholy, combined 
 with activity and decision, and there was in 
 his whole bearing the self-possession and 
 gravity of a man unconsciously accustomed 
 either to command or receive attention. His 
 dress even, careless as it was, had a certain 
 air of distinction, which the best tailor 
 may fail to convey to his most fashionable 
 cloth. 
 
 Whatever sadness his features might have 
 when in repose, their expression changed, 
 when he spoke, into one of cordial welcome. 
 "My dear Canon," he said, "it is a real 
 pleasure to me to find you here ; and Doctor, 
 for all your kindness I hardly know how to 
 thank you. I hope you have both of you 
 found some place to smoke in. My mother
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 63 
 
 is gone to bed. Will you have a cigar with 
 me in the dining-room ? " 
 
 Of the two clergyman the only smoker was 
 the Canon ; but they both moved as was 
 suggested, the Canon, with a paternal 
 gesture, pushing Pole by the arm. The 
 Doctor condescended to a little whisky-and- 
 water, and the trio were soon conversing 
 with a pleasant but restrained animation. 
 
 "It is, Dr. Clitheroe," said Pole, "an odd 
 coincidence that we both of us should be 
 serving the State in much the same capacity. 
 I represent the world, you represent the 
 Church. Things ought to go well when the 
 State is served by both." 
 
 "And I, Reginald," said the Canon, un- 
 willing to be left out in the cold, "have had 
 the honour — if it can be called such — of 
 forming the mind of a Royal Highness in his 
 teens. You and Dr. Clitheroe have been 
 studying the condition of the people — the 
 great problem. I have had to busy myself 
 with the other end of the stick, a very 
 different and less satisfactory operation." 
 
 "Ah, Canon," said Pole, laughing, "I 
 know your republicanism from of old. But 
 you have, at any rate, had the opportunity 
 of serving the great cause by teaching a
 
 64 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 prince directly his own miserable insig- 
 nificance." 
 
 The Canon was a man, who, on his social 
 side, was extraordinarily thin- skinned. Grati- 
 fied by deference, a slight stung him like a 
 mosquito ; and worse than a slight was any- 
 thing like a sarcasm. He might not have 
 suspected Pole of meaning either one or the 
 other, if there had not been a something in 
 his late pupil's whole manner, which, though 
 really nothing more than the natural result 
 of experience, seemed meant to announce 
 to him that their former positions were re- 
 versed ; and now this flippant allusion to his 
 sacred democratic theories, coupled perhaps 
 with a glance at his social practice, made him 
 for a moment fret with surprise and anger. 
 
 "Princes, Reginald," he said, "are being 
 taught their miserable insignificance by a 
 greater teacher than either you or I." But 
 then with a strong effort he summoned his 
 temper back again, and, abruptly changing 
 the subject, said in an altered tone, " By the 
 way, there was a question about which I 
 wished to speak to you. Have you ever met, 
 when abroad, any of yourO'Keefe relations?" 
 
 " Only the minister," said Pole. " I stayed 
 once for six weeks with him. There are any
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 65 
 
 number of others ; but I never happened to 
 meet them. I wish," he added pleasantly, 
 "that I had. Though not very reputable, 
 I heard they were extremely handsome, 
 especially one of them, whose good looks 
 were more than she could manage." 
 
 The Canon stared at Pole, full of perplexed 
 horror, which, however, was gradually got the 
 better of by curiosity. " There is a Countess 
 O'Keefe," he said, " who is at Lyncombe now 
 with a yacht ; and this very afternoon she 
 sent over to inquire after Miss Pole." 
 
 "There are," said Pole, "several O'Keefe 
 families. One had a villa at Baden-Baden, 
 and a mortuary chapel there, with a gold dome 
 among the pine-woods. I knew of them by 
 hearsay only. They were half Russian, or 
 Polish." 
 
 " From what your mother tells me," cried 
 the Canon, "these must be the very people. 
 But what was that you said about one of the 
 young ladies connected with them ? " 
 
 "It was a story," said Pole, "that I heard 
 only by accident ; but it was so well known 
 that there can be no harm in repeating it. 
 The hero of it was half a Frenchman — well- 
 born, very handsome, and rumoured to be 
 immensely rich. The young lady, it appeared, 
 
 vol. 1. F
 
 66 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 had promised to marry him ; and scandal 
 said she forgot that she was not married 
 already. In cases like these, the usual story 
 is, that the man, when the time comes, 
 won't marry the woman. Here, however, 
 this usual story was reversed — and the 
 prudent young lady refused to marry the 
 man. Instead of being rich, he proved to be 
 very poor; and it was, so malice said, on 
 making this tragic discovery, that she broke 
 his heart by refusing to let him make an 
 honest woman of her. But all the O'Keefe 
 young ladies, they told me, were wild as 
 hawks, though this poor Countess Stephanie 
 is the only one that I remember even by 
 name. She has married, I think, since then, 
 a man who might be her father." 
 
 "Ah," exclaimed the Canon, "this one is 
 Countess Shimna. I see," he said, laughing, 
 " that you stare at me. I suppose I forgot to 
 tell you that the Countess O'Keefe who is at 
 Lyncombe, sent here a daughter as mes- 
 senger — a most striking young lady ; and it 
 was about her I wished to ask you. The 
 moment I set eyes on her there was some- 
 thing in her that I thought peculiar ; and I 
 see this evening" — the Canon here dropped 
 his voice, as if he were nearing a subject
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 67 
 
 almost too delicate to touch upon — "I see 
 this evening that her face bears the most 
 singular resemblance to that unfortunate 
 portrait which has been allowed to hang here 
 in the drawing-room." 
 
 "The portrait!" said Pole, reflectively. 
 " Now, which portrait is it that you mean ? 
 Do you mean the beautiful Lady Thyrza 
 Brancepeth, my great-uncle's heroine, and 
 the heroine of Byron's poem ? " 
 
 "I mean," said the Canon, "forgive me 
 for speaking plainly — a shameful woman, no 
 matter how beautiful. The portrait, Regi- 
 nald, should not hang where it does. It is 
 fit only for a certain species of house which 
 a Christian man never enters, and of which 
 Christian women should not know the ex- 
 istence. Come, let us learn to call things by 
 their right names, and not speak of heroines 
 when we mean — well, I won't say what." 
 
 "I confess," began Pole, with the faint 
 dawn of a smile, " I always took the greatest 
 possible interest" — he was going to say "in 
 Lady Thyrza," but, with quick good-feeling, 
 he checked himself, and continued in a 
 changed tone, "an interest in strange like- 
 nesses. I confess I am curious to see this 
 mysterious young relation of mine. As for
 
 68 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 the likeness — well, Lady Thyrza Brancepeth 
 must have been some relation to her too. 
 She was originally Lady Thyrza O'Keefe." 
 
 "Indeed!" said the Canon, " indeed ! She 
 is not in ' Burke.' " 
 
 "No," replied Pole. "For reasons with 
 which I think you will sympathize, her name 
 was intentionally taken out of that book of 
 life, the Peerage." 
 
 The Canon once again felt the mosquito's 
 sting. He fancied he detected a sarcasm 
 directed against himself in this allusion to 
 a volume of which he knew himself such a 
 frequent reader; nor was his inflammation 
 soothed by the few words which Pole said 
 next. They constituted a second sting, 
 malignant with a new virus. 
 
 "I really," Pole innocently continued, 
 "forget about all those relationships, if 
 indeed I ever knew. To-morrow, if you 
 like, we will speak about Lady Thyrza to 
 my mother." 
 
 " Speak to your mother," cried the Canon, 
 " about your uncle's adulterous mistress ! 
 Reginald, pray be decent. My dear boy, 
 what can have come to you ? You and I, 
 about these points, used to agree so well." 
 His old pupil repressed a slight gesture of
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 69 
 
 impatience, and said gently yet indifferently, 
 " No doubt we agree still. I am glad, Dr. 
 Clitheroe, that my aunt's end was painless." 
 
 The doctor looked up with a peaceful and 
 serious smile. " Her last conscious act," he 
 said, " was to receive the Sacrament." 
 
 "Yes," added the Canon, in loud and 
 strenuous tones as he beat out the light of 
 his cigar-end by dabbing it against a silver 
 salver, " a death like hers is a really beautiful 
 thing, and should give each one of us a 
 robuster belief in life." 
 
 " My poor old aunt ! " said Pole, as they all 
 three rose. "She was very kind to me. Well, 
 Canon, good night. What philosophers we 
 should all of us be if we took our own deaths 
 as easily as we do those of our friends ! " 
 
 "Good night, Reginald," said the Canon, 
 with magisterial coldness ; and when he 
 entered his bedroom he shut the door with 
 a bang.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IF the Canon went to bed indignant with his 
 old pupil, and disappointed by him — brooding 
 over the waste of his own bygone teachings, 
 and still more over the complete evaporation 
 of his own personal influence — Pole was 
 conscious of a certain distress also. Having 
 met the Canon again with a sense of cordial 
 pleasure, he was conscious that almost at 
 once he had jarred his feelings somehow ; 
 and he examined his memory in vain to 
 discover exactly how : but he hoped that 
 next day things would easily right them- 
 selves ; and he rose next morning planning 
 many civilities by which he hoped to con- 
 ciliate his offended tutor. 
 
 The Canon's personality was at all events 
 not far off from him. When he was just 
 completing his toilet, his ears became con- 
 scious of a sound which he conceived to be 
 caused by somebody grinding coffee. But
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 71 
 
 on entering the breakfast-parlour he found 
 that he had mistaken its nature, and that 
 it really proceeded from the Canon reading 
 family prayers. As he knelt down before 
 the nearest mahogany chair, and rested his 
 forehead on a surface of French polish, he 
 recognized the familiar phrases of the Right 
 Rev. Bishop Bloomfield, whose " Household 
 Devotions for each Day in the Week" had 
 been used at Glenlynn for more than half a 
 century; and he could not suppress a smile, 
 which was certainly not devotional, when he 
 heard the Canon, obviously much against the 
 grain, constrained to prefer the following 
 petition to Providence. " Make us humble 
 to our superiors, affable to our equals, kind 
 and condescending to the poor and needy." 
 It was a petition, however, of which the 
 Canon need have had no personal fear, for it 
 was plain when he rose from his knees that 
 in his case it had not been answered. He 
 was humble to nobody, and to Pole, instead 
 of being affable, he was distant. 
 
 Pole saw this with concern — a concern 
 that was all the greater because with each 
 little attention which he happened to pay 
 the Canon, the Canon's manner appeared to 
 become more frosty. Still this breakfast
 
 72 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 was not an unpleasant meal ; and for Pole 
 there were many things in it which had a 
 peculiar charm. The room, with its faded 
 rep curtains, its faded sage-green walls, 
 its old dumb waiters, and sideboard on 
 whose glossy mahogany Georgian spoons 
 and mustard-pots rested like swans on 
 water, the dangling bell-pulls — one on each 
 side of the chimney-piece — the turreted 
 chimney-piece, Gothic, after the fashion of 
 Strawberry Hill, the bright-coloured, large- 
 patterned service of old Crown Derby, 
 which shone on the table-cloth like roses 
 placed on snow -drops — all these things 
 touched him with many subtle associations. 
 So, too, did Miss Drake, who had risen 
 from dreams of her tea-urn, to find that 
 family prayers still had power to comfort 
 her, and who was so far in possession of 
 her faculties as to be able, with her mit- 
 tened hands, to unlock her tea-chest, and 
 make tea as usual. Every object and inci- 
 dent reminded him of his earliest days, even 
 the delicate, home-made wafer biscuits, and 
 the butter-pats with the Pole crest on them : 
 but everything now seemed charged with 
 some gentle sense of loss ; and once, looking 
 at Miss Drake, who was munching a piece
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 73. 
 
 of toast, his eyes grew dim as he noticed 
 how a dilatory tear traversed her cheek 
 unperceived by her, and fell into her heap 
 of salt. 
 
 As for Mrs. Pole, she had a pile of letters 
 beside her, most of which, when she had 
 read them, she passed over to her son. The 
 Doctor mentioned that he had secured for 
 himself a bed out of the house ; and the 
 Canon, without expressing any instant desire 
 to move, explained how at any moment he 
 could betake himself to Mr. Godolphin's. " I 
 hope," said Mrs. Pole, "you will stay here, 
 if we are able to keep you. I will talk with 
 Reginald first, and see you a little later." 
 
 She and her son had a busy two hours 
 together; and in the middle of a conference 
 with the bailiff and an undertaker from 
 Lyncombe, the air of the room was agitated 
 by the entrance of Mr. Godolphin. He 
 exhaled a fragrance of the Church, as if he 
 had been a censer; but he brought with him 
 also much practical sagacity, which, as he 
 was not to have the privilege of burying Miss 
 Pole himself, he consecrated to the task of 
 suggesting how the mourners might be con- 
 veyed to her funeral. He undertook to 
 engage all the flies in the neighbourhood ;
 
 74 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 he settled with the undertaker that there 
 should be a special train to Lyncombe, which 
 would bring, amongst other people, his Grace 
 the Lord Lieutenant of the County; and 
 many of the necessary arrangements he 
 engaged to superintend himself. " I find 
 that we can keep the Canon till the funeral, 
 if he may come to you that night," said Mrs. 
 Pole to Mr. Godolphin, as he rose to go. 
 " At any moment," said Mr. Godolphin, " my 
 house is yours." And with dignified rapidity 
 he made his way to his carriage, proud to be 
 bearing for his neighbours such congenial 
 and important burdens. "Will you, Regi- 
 nald," said Mrs. Pole, "go and tell the 
 Canon. He'll be glad to have another couple 
 of days to talk to you." 
 
 Pole, however, did not at once execute 
 this commission. He went instead to the 
 room where the dead was lying, and opened 
 the door softly, with a useless, yet instinctive 
 reverence. As he looked at the lifeless face 
 he caught his breath and started, for what 
 he saw was so strange, though it still re- 
 mained so familiar. Death with the young is 
 physically like mere unconsciousness ; with 
 the old it is sometimes a transfiguration. It 
 was so in this case. Most of the wrinkles
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 75 
 
 of a hundred years had disappeared ; and 
 there lay on the cheeks and lips a peace that 
 was almost girlish, as if the waxen face had 
 gone back to its own youth again, or the 
 last sleep in its mercy had erased the writ- 
 ing of life. Pole stood for some minutes 
 at the foot of the four-post bed, on whose 
 green curtains he had often gazed with awe 
 in his childhood ; and vague thoughts came 
 to him, agitating the petals of memory, and 
 blowing to him the scent of the days when 
 his aunt had been a fairy godmother to him, 
 and Glenlynn and its gardens formed a fairy- 
 land filled with holidays. The sound of the 
 stable clock broke in on his meditations ; 
 and surprised of the lateness of the hour, he 
 made his way downstairs, to look for the 
 Canon, and convey to him Mrs. Pole's mes- 
 sage. His mind was softened and solemnized 
 by this converse with the past and death. 
 He felt a desire to be in charity with every 
 human-being, as a fellow-communicant in 
 the cup of a common destiny ; and he was 
 now more bent than ever on regaining an 
 old friend's kindliness. 
 
 The Canon meanwhile had been in the 
 library, reading with fierce satisfaction a 
 newspaper paragraph in praise of one of his
 
 76 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 own speeches. It was a speech which, a 
 few days back, he had delivered in St. James's 
 Hall, and in it he had contrasted what he 
 called "the two moral senses;" the moral 
 sense of the workers, and the moral sense of 
 the idle; "that is to say," he had explained, 
 " of the loafing or the propertied classes." 
 The Canon, in fact, had, during the past two 
 or three years, added to his democratic creed 
 certain new articles, which gave him much 
 agreeable notoriety in the columns of news- 
 papers, and also, as he flattered himself, 
 much influence in the country. One of these 
 articles was that, next to inchastity, the 
 thing which required the most denunciation 
 was capital ; and as he boasted that he had 
 never, since the day when he left Cambridge, 
 so much as looked into a book of political 
 economy, no one could have been better 
 qualified for attacking the latter evil. His 
 attacks on wealth in general had, indeed, of 
 late been so uncompromising, that some 
 sermons which he preached to a fashionable 
 congregation in Mayfair, conclusively proved 
 the fashionable luncheon to be stolen, at 
 which he v/as accustomed to refresh himself 
 after service. One of his great successes had 
 been a collection in behalf of a strike, when
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 77 
 
 a beautiful countess, who was more or less 
 of a Magdalene, had handed the bag round 
 with a grace that was almost irresistible. 
 Some of his critics had been so unfair as to 
 say that he looked on every strike as being, 
 in its very nature, just. But there was 
 one which occurred at a colliery in which 
 he had himself some shares ; and he con- 
 sidered that the knowledge and energy with 
 which he denounced this, was a proof of the 
 impartiality with which he supported others. 
 When Pole entered, he looked up from his 
 paper sharply; but the message brought to 
 him was, in many ways, so agreeable, and 
 Pole's manner in giving it was at once so 
 genial and deferent, that he suddenly thawed, 
 and began to recover his conviction that his 
 pupil was still under his healthy and com- 
 manding influence. 
 
 " My dear boy," he said, " your mother is, 
 indeed, most hospitable, and I shall be truly 
 glad of a few days' conversation with you. 
 If you've nothing to do, what say you to this 
 — shall we take a turn in the garden, and talk 
 about old times ? " 
 
 Pole assented, full of pleasant expectation, 
 and the Canon, as they went, took his arm in 
 an almost paternal fashion. He soon found,
 
 78 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 however, that the event was likely to dis- 
 appoint him. The Canon found little pleasure 
 in retrospection for its own sake ; he was 
 impatient of it, as a sentimental frivolity : 
 and instead of dwelling on any personal 
 memories of the past, he plunged into what 
 he was delighted to call "the burning ques- 
 tions" of the present. 
 
 "There is one thing about you, Reginald," 
 he said, "which does really rejoice me. I 
 mean the fact that the work which has fallen 
 to you to do is a work which has brought 
 you face to face with realities — with the great 
 problem of our time — that terrible spreading 
 poverty which is a new social portent, and 
 which I said in my speech last week may be 
 called ' the shadow of capital.' " 
 
 " But, my dear Canon," began Pole, speak- 
 ing as deferentially as he could, " is what 
 you say a fact ? Is poverty spreading ? I 
 have figures in my possession here — and 
 besides, there are published Blue-books " 
 
 The Canon, however, interrupted him. 
 "Pooh!" he said, "a Blue-book will prove 
 anything; and I don't care for figures — I 
 trust to my own eyes. I have seen," he was 
 about to say, "the poverty of the poor my- 
 self; " but his respect for veracity checked
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 79 
 
 him, as he had long since settled with his 
 conscience that his vocation with regard to 
 the poor was to give them the benefit of his 
 reasoning powers, rather than of his com- 
 pany. " My dear fellow," he said, "the fact 
 is evident. Ask the people themselves. Not 
 all the fudging of Blue-books will cheat them 
 out of their own experiences." 
 
 The Canon was a man with whom to argue 
 was to quarrel ; so Pole, who was resolved 
 to preserve not only his own temper, but his 
 companion's, without retracting his own 
 views, made no attempt to insist upon them, 
 and for some time he listened submissively 
 to the Canon's attacks on wealth, and his 
 alternating doctrines that it should be pos- 
 sessed by everybody and by nobody. But 
 at last he felt that he hardly could listen 
 longer, and interrupting the Canon with the 
 most careful and respectful gentleness, he 
 said — 
 
 " I assure you that my interest in these 
 problems is as deep as yours. But your 
 labour and capital, after all, have to do 
 only with the cup that contains life. The 
 great question still for us is, what is the life 
 that it contains ? " 
 
 " Naturally," retorted the Canon ; " and
 
 80 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 who, do you suppose, denies that? Not I, 
 at all events. To use your well-worn 
 metaphor of the cup and the wine contained 
 in it, who can insist more strongly than I 
 myself do on the duty of each one of us to 
 see that the wine is pure ? You are aware, 
 I suppose, of the particular Cause which I 
 am now myself championing, and that is 
 merely an incident in a larger moral move- 
 ment." 
 
 " I was thinking of things," said Pole, with 
 a slight sigh, " which are beyond the reach of 
 movements, but which also belong to the 
 moral world. I was thinking of the fidelity 
 of a man to a woman, or of a father to his 
 helpless child. I was thinking of those con- 
 centrated affections, which are the heart and 
 the light of life, and of which your love 
 for the community is merely the diffused 
 reflection." 
 
 The Canon halted and looked Pole in the 
 face. "And do you," he exclaimed, "really 
 mean that the affections, as you call them, 
 need no moral government — no control at the 
 hands of Christian public opinion ? What is 
 corruption— what is vileness unutterable, 
 except these same affections in their natural 
 unchristian state ? "
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 81 
 
 "Is there anything vile," said Pole, "in 
 a mother's love for her children — in the 
 eyes, the breast that move to the small 
 hands calling for her, and to the lips on 
 which language just begins to bud ?" 
 
 "You are speaking now," retorted the 
 Canon, " of nature, not of morals. Animals 
 are good mothers till their young can walk 
 and feed themselves. Where nature does 
 well, let us leave her to her own devices. 
 Our business, as Christians, is to fight against 
 her when she does ill, and to arraign her 
 before the presence of the God who is at 
 once her creator and her judge." 
 
 "And yet," said Pole, "the conqueror of 
 more than half of the Christian world was 
 not the Judge and the Creator, but a mother 
 and a little boy." 
 
 The Canon, who had been vaguely dis- 
 pleased by the whole turn the conversation 
 had been taking, was irritated by this last 
 observation almost beyond endurance. It 
 irritated him partly as a respectful allusion 
 to a Church which he tolerated with difficulty 
 unless it happened to be represented by a 
 cardinal ; and it irritated him still more from 
 the feeling with which the words were 
 uttered. He disliked and distrusted all 
 
 vol. r. G
 
 82 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 sentiment on principle, making only one 
 exception in favour of righteous anger. " If 
 that is so," he said dryly, "the Apostles 
 might have spared themselves their trouble. 
 The true Church is, according to your view, 
 in the nursery." 
 
 "And if it were not there," replied Pole, 
 unruffled by this sarcasm, "there would be 
 little good in its being anywhere else. Look ! 
 some one is beckoning to us. That means 
 luncheon. The two things," he added, 
 absently, as if following out some train of 
 thought, and as if his companion had ex- 
 pressed no disagreement with him, "the two 
 things that move me most are these — the 
 child for whom we must do everything, and 
 the dead for whom we can do nothing." 
 
 This last reflection might have been thought 
 sufficiently harmless. There was nothing 
 unchaste in it ; nor was it an apology for 
 capital : but, all the same, Pole felt, when he 
 re-entered the house, that it had clenched his 
 failure, in spite of his best efforts, to secure 
 anything like a really cordial understanding 
 between himself and one whose tempera- 
 ment seemed to have risen in arms against 
 his own.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 AT luncheon the Canon was taciturn ; but 
 he ate with a vindictive vigour, as if con- 
 verting the beggarly elements against their 
 will to the service of Christian righteousness ; 
 and he afterwards set out by himself on what 
 he said would be a ten-mile walk, treading 
 heavily on the gravel as he started, like St. 
 Michael trampling on the devil. 
 
 " I hope, Dr. Clitheroe," said Pole, when 
 the two men were left sitting together in the 
 dining-room, " I hope you will find your 
 bedroom at the farm comfortable. When 
 we have finished our coffee, shall we go and 
 look at it ? And if anything is wanting, we 
 can send it down by this evening." 
 
 " I am sure," answered the Doctor, " I shall 
 find everything I require ; but I should like 
 the walk. There are certain important 
 reasons why I am anxious to have a little 
 conversation with you."
 
 84 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 The Doctor's manner expressed such kind 
 and serious solicitude that Pole was set 
 wondering as to what the conversation would 
 refer to. The farm was about a mile off. It 
 stood half-way up a valley which slanted 
 down to the sea, and was reached from 
 Glenlynn most quickly by a beautiful and 
 wooded path, which ran along the cliff-side 
 and hung over the waves and shingle. Along 
 this they took their way, going slowly so as 
 to enjoy the prospect. 
 
 "I suppose you know," began the Doctor, 
 with a little nervousness, and a tremor of 
 feeling in his voice, " I suppose you know 
 the kindness — the exceeding kindness — which 
 your aunt has shown me on very many occa- 
 sions. Your mother, too " The Doctor 
 
 paused to clear his throat. " It is difficult 
 to me now even to speak of all this kindness. 
 What I wished to tell you is that in a small 
 way — in a very small way — I have found 
 myself able to repay it : and the way is one 
 which nearly concerns yourself." 
 
 With each word of the Doctor's, Pole 
 became more and more mystified. 
 
 "Your aunt," continued the Doctor, after 
 a pause, "in many of her business matters 
 was good enough to confide in my judgment ;
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 85 
 
 and during her last illness she laid before me 
 the entire state of her affairs. Of the main 
 provisions in her will she made no secret ; 
 and you are probably yourself aware of them. 
 She made no change in them at the last. The 
 bulk of this property, with the house, is your 
 mother's for her life ; but a certain sum of 
 money comes at once to you. The amount, 
 roughly speaking, is about twenty thousand 
 pounds, which used to bring your aunt about 
 seven hundred and fifty pounds a year — a sum 
 somewhat in excess of what she was accus- 
 tomed to allow you." 
 
 " All this," said Pole, " coincides with what 
 I have understood." 
 
 The Doctor stood still in the path, and with 
 quiet eyes looked up at his friend. "You 
 will," he said gently, " be far richer than you 
 expected to be. The income you will receive 
 will be much more like three thousand." 
 
 Pole could not help smiling, for the news 
 had a pleasant sound. None the less, he 
 stared at the Doctor incredulously. The 
 Doctor was known to be a valuable public 
 servant, but he was not reputed to possess 
 much business ability; and the natural con- 
 clusion in this case was that he had somewhat 
 muddled himself. He proceeded, however,
 
 86 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 like a person who knew quite well what he 
 was talking about. " I see," he said, with 
 his equably modulated intonation, "that you 
 look surprised. I am glad to have been the 
 means of bringing such a piece of good fortune 
 in your way ; and I know also that I was 
 giving to your aunt a greater pleasure than to 
 yourself; for you, I think, have always been 
 rather careless of money." 
 
 "But, my dear Doctor," said Pole, "this 
 sounds like a fairy-tale. By what process of 
 alchemy can you have possibly worked this 
 miracle ? " 
 
 "That," replied the Doctor, "is precisely 
 what I desired to explain. I have, as you 
 know perhaps, served twoGovernments. My 
 former chief, Sir Joseph Pilkington, to whom 
 I owe my appointment, and who was pleased 
 with what I did for him, was always of 
 opinion that the stipends of myself and of one 
 or two others were not commensurate with 
 our work; and he was anxious to have them 
 raised. But this he found impracticable. 
 Subsequently he went to Australia, where he 
 is at the present moment. You have heard 
 of the Ridgehill and the Mount Mackinnon 
 mines, the owners of which are now some of 
 the richest persons at the Antipodes. Well,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 87 
 
 Sir Joseph Pilkington was the moving spirit 
 in this enterprise ; but the capital required at 
 starting, for various reasons, had to be raised 
 in England. Firmly convinced of the enor- 
 mous fortune that would be realized, Sir 
 Joseph offered to myself and one or two of 
 my colleagues the privilege of raising among 
 ourselves or our friends a certain part of this 
 capital, placing us in a position similar to 
 that of holders of founders' shares. I invested 
 myself every available penny I possess, and 
 for the past five years I have been receiving 
 twenty-five percent. Well, owing to circum- 
 stances which I can explain by-and-by more 
 fully, the opportunity has been offered me 
 of investing a yet further sum, not to exceed 
 fifty thousand pounds, either on my own 
 behalf or that of persons nominated by me — 
 investing it on terms not indeed the same, 
 but yet approximately similar to those which 
 I have mentioned. Interest will be guaran- 
 teed to the amount of fourteen per cent. ; and 
 when I show you the names of some of the 
 guarantors, you will see that this now is no 
 speculative business, but something as safe 
 as Consols. Now, I was on the point, six 
 months ago, of offering my only brother the 
 opportunity of investing thirty thousand
 
 88 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 pounds, but he, poor fellow, died, and his 
 son has turned out ill. I was, therefore, glad 
 to offer the same opportunity to Miss Pole ; 
 and for your sake she embraced it gladly and, 
 I am sure, wisely. Of course, as I said, the 
 sum is twenty thousand, not thirty. The 
 remaining ten thousand — I tell you this in 
 confidence — has been invested by Canon 
 Bulman ; but he would not wish it to be 
 spoken about." 
 
 " But are you sure/' said Pole, "that the 
 whole thing is sound ? A safe fourteen per 
 cent, really seems hardly credible. Would 
 it not be better, before the money is actually 
 sent, to talk the matter over with old Mr. 
 Whilks, my lawyer ? " 
 
 " Of course," said the Doctor, " the oppor- 
 tunity is exceptional ; but founders' shares 
 constantly pay much more. As to your 
 lawyer, I only wish we could have consulted 
 him — for your own satisfaction, I mean. 
 But there is one point which I must impress 
 on you. It is absolutely necessary that this 
 entire transaction should be kept private, as 
 the favoured position which has been ac- 
 corded to me might, were it known, excite — 
 you can easily see how — any amount of 
 angry feeling, not against myself, but against
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 89 
 
 Sir Joseph Pilkington. And this brings me 
 to the point which I want to make quite 
 clear to you. The money has been placed 
 in my hands absolutely — it has already been 
 sent, so we cannot recall it now — and thus, 
 plain as the nature of the transaction will 
 be, when you have heard its details, your 
 reliance ultimately will have to be on my 
 own integrity." 
 
 "Of course," said Pole, touched by the 
 Doctor's manner, " I rely upon that implicitly. 
 My only doubt has reference to the accuracy 
 of your information." 
 
 "About that," said the Doctor, "you shall 
 be satisfied very soon. But to return to 
 yourself. I felt that, though I was sure you 
 trusted me, I had no right in an important 
 matter like the present, to force this trust 
 upon you. I have, therefore, arranged that, 
 should you not approve of this investment, 
 you will be able to withdraw your principal 
 at the end of the current year, or any subse- 
 quent time, at two months' notice. If you 
 are wise, I think you will leave it where it 
 is. In my bedroom at the farm I have docu- 
 ments which will explain all to you." 
 
 The bedroom, when they came to examine 
 it, they found to be clean, but almost Spartan
 
 90 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 in its simplicity. There was no carpet 
 except a strip by the dimity-curtained bed ; 
 the chairs were hard and cushionless ; and 
 on the dressing-table, ornamented with 
 tufted mats of crochet-work, was a looking- 
 glass, in which the Doctor's face assumed 
 the proportions of a spoon. The Doctor, 
 however, welcomed the accommodation as 
 delightful, and the room was littered already 
 with various little properties belonging to 
 him. 
 
 "See," he said with pride, "there is my 
 new type-writer, and my patent reading- 
 lamp, which I hook on to the blinds of the 
 railway carriage. That is the oil-stove in 
 which I can cook my breakfast — four and 
 sixpence it cost ; and here is my latest 
 acquisition. See this lamp ! I light it. It 
 makes my coffee ; then, when my coffee is 
 made, whip ! — up this catch goes, and out 
 goes my lamp." 
 
 The Doctor was a great collector of small 
 patent inventions, and had frequently testified 
 his gratitude to his hostesses at Glenlynn 
 by presents of ingenious button-hooks, tooth- 
 brushes, and new kinds of soap. Having 
 done the honours of his coffee-boiler, he 
 resumed his airs of business, and briskly
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 91 
 
 unlocking a black leather despatch-box, on 
 which his address at Whitehall was printed 
 in gold capitals, he produced a number of 
 letters and other papers, and one after the 
 other submitted them to Pole's inspection. 
 The Doctor's method of explaining financial 
 matters surprised him by its precision and 
 its unostentatious lucidity. By the time the 
 various documents had been put back in 
 their places Pole's dominant feeling was a 
 cordial sense of gratitude, which almost put 
 out of his thoughts the actual advantage 
 which had been conferred on him ; and, 
 though not an effusive man, he spoke his 
 thanks with a sincerity which Dr. Clitheroe, 
 by his expression, showed that he under- 
 stood. They remained at the farm no longer 
 than their business kept them ; and when 
 they began to walk back, the Doctor, as if 
 considering himself thanked enough, deli- 
 cately turned the conversation to general 
 and indifferent topics. 
 
 Of the world, in the narrower sense of the 
 word, the Doctor had. seen nothing; but his 
 professional experience had given him much 
 knowledge of life, and his plans for his own 
 future seemed to be modestly extending 
 themselves. He talked of buying a yacht,
 
 9 2 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 to assist him on his official journeys, and 
 asked Pole's advice as to the choice of a 
 house in London. 
 
 "How soft the wind is!" he said, raising 
 his tall, silk hat ; " and how marvellous is 
 the beauty of these views ! See, here is a 
 bench. Shall we sit down for a moment ? " 
 
 They did so, and after a pause, emitting a 
 few "hems," he began again, not without a 
 certain shyness. 
 
 "There was one other little matter," he said, 
 " which I wanted to name to you ; and I hope 
 — indeed, I think I may even say I am sure — 
 that you will take what I say in the spirit in 
 which it is said. I know from experience 
 that persons who come into an inheritance 
 frequently find themselves, for a not incon- 
 siderable period, poorer than they were 
 previously, instead of richer. In the case 
 of yourself, for instance, and of your mother, 
 the duties will be very heavy ; and I was 
 thinking this morning that you would pos- 
 sibly — it is no uncommon case — find your 
 ordinary balance at your banker's hardly 
 equal to the calls on it. I have, therefore, 
 made bold to pay into your account a half- 
 year's dividend in advance, on the twenty 
 thousand I have invested for you ; and this
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 93 
 
 will enable you, in case the necessity arises, 
 to help your mother with any advances she 
 may require. The cheque I have sent is for 
 fourteen hundred pounds — a sum which I 
 think will be sufficient to make things quite 
 easy for you." 
 
 "My dear Doctor," exclaimed Pole, "you 
 positively take my breath away ! But, in- 
 deed, I cannot accept all this overwhelming 
 kindness." 
 
 " So far as I am concerned," said the 
 Doctor, " you may assure yourself that I 
 feel no inconvenience. I only wish I did, 
 because I should feel in that case that I 
 was making some more adequate return for 
 the kindness of your family to myself. Listen 
 now. To convince you how easy it is for 
 me to do this, and how little scruple you 
 need feel in accepting so small a favour, let 
 me tell you what my own income has been 
 for the last five years. You must remember 
 that this is in confidence." 
 
 "Certainly," Pole replied. 
 
 The Doctor proceeded in a soft, emphatic 
 undertone, letting the syllables follow each 
 other slowly. " Eleven thousand a-year," 
 he said. " It is more, far more, than I know 
 how to spend. I am, therefore, quite sure
 
 94 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 that you will not hurt me by refusing this 
 trifling service which I have so much plea- 
 sure in doing you." 
 
 " My dear Dr. Clitheroe," answered Pole, 
 speaking with more emphasis than was usual 
 with him, " by refusing your kindness I feel 
 I should be making you an ill return for it. 
 You have made it easy for me to accept it, 
 but difficult to thank you adequately." 
 
 "Very well, then," said the Doctor, in a 
 gratified manner, "let us speak no more 
 about it ; though by-and-by there are a few 
 more business details which I shall have to 
 mention to you. It's late," he exclaimed, 
 drawing out his watch. " Bless me, how 
 late ! But wait here another moment. Let 
 us look at the view once more. How 
 marvellously beautiful, how marvellously 
 peaceful it is ! 
 
 Pole, though he had hitherto showed no 
 signs of exhilaration, began at last to feel the 
 influence of the Doctor's news, and the 
 pleasure of unexpected wealth possessing 
 him like an armed man. The scene itself 
 contributed to this effect, as he sat for some 
 minutes longer silent by the Doctor's side. 
 Before them was glittering an oval of breezy 
 sea, bordered in silver by the bark of a
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 95 
 
 shining birch-tree. On the steep banks that 
 embowered them, and descended below their 
 feet, clumps of heather bulged between hazels 
 and slender tree-trunks ; above miniature 
 horizons of tall grass ferns raised their 
 antlers, and gorse in the intricate twilight 
 lifted its yellow stars.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IF Canon Bulman's anxiety to stay on at 
 Glenlynn was due to the wish he had ex- 
 pressed for the society of his former pupil, 
 his wish was one which apparently he took 
 small pains to gratify : for though, like a 
 Christian and a gentleman, he was suffici- 
 ently civil to Pole, he never again sought him 
 as a companion, or attempted a confidential 
 conversation with him ; but contented him- 
 self with aiming at him occasional darts of 
 sarcasm, in the hope of shaming him back to 
 his old allegiance. The Canon in fact was a 
 person — and the type is by no means rare — 
 who was not only offended by men who 
 ignored his influence, but was also attracted 
 to them by a sort of hostile fascination, till 
 his self-esteem should be pacified by getting 
 the better of them. He had, however, in 
 prolonging his visit, other views of a less 
 militant nature : and in these — as he learnt
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 97 
 
 at luncheon on the day before the funeral — 
 in these, at all events, he was not going to 
 be disappointed. 
 
 " Lord Wargrave," said Mr. Pole, speaking 
 with an air of half-distressed amusement, 
 "comes quite early this afternoon, and he 
 tells me he is determined to stop over to- 
 morrow. I can't think how we shall keep 
 him quiet, and I know he'll be discontented 
 with our cooking." 
 
 " He stayed 'ere twice," said Miss Drake, 
 " in Miss Pole's time, and he liked our four- 
 year-cld mutton, which he said ate so 
 
 juicy." 
 
 " I'm glad of that," said Mrs. Pole. " And 
 then there's the old Madeira." 
 
 "He stayed with me once at Cambridge," 
 said the Canon, "when I was a Fellow. I 
 had a famous cellar in those days, which 
 Lord Wargrave appreciated. He is a cousin 
 of yours, I think," the Canon added abruptly, 
 as if suddenly afraid he might have spoken 
 with too great freedom of so important a 
 man to a lady who had the importance of 
 being his relation. 
 
 " He's my husband's cousin," said Mrs. 
 Pole. " I am glad to find you know him. 
 You and he will amuse each other. He's 
 
 vol. 1. h
 
 98 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 wonderful. He knows everybody. But this 
 is not the worst. The Duke — the old Duke 
 of Dulverton " — the eyes of the Canon glis- 
 tened — "is also coming — not, however, till 
 later. At first he meant to have gone 
 straight to the church from Lyncombe. But 
 I am sure that Lord Wargrave, who is 
 staying with him, has made him alter his 
 plans. He is such a cross old man — the 
 Duke is, except when he's in a good temper. 
 I suppose you would know I was Irish, 
 because I said that." The Canon's radical 
 soul swelled with reverence for a woman 
 who could speak so naturally of a duke as a 
 " cross old man " ; and his just appreciation 
 of merit, even in a great magnate, led him to 
 observe how much he had heard of the 
 Duke's talents. Then he silently meditated 
 on what Mr. Godolphin had said — that the 
 Duke also was somehow connected with 
 his hostess's family. The world in general 
 seemed to grow warm with sunshine : and 
 however Reginald Pole might rub him the 
 wrong way, he felt, as he surveyed the dining- 
 room, that he was sitting in the right place. 
 
 Pole, Dr. Clitheroe, and the Canon were still 
 sipping their coffee, and the Canon had taken 
 a cigarette from a case of ruby-coloured
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE, 99 
 
 enamel — " a present," he observed inciden- 
 tally, "from Prince George of Finland — such 
 a good fellow — a right good honest fellow " — ■ 
 when aboisterous peal came clanging from the 
 front-door bell, and Pole rose, exclaiming — 
 " There he is ; that's Lord Wargrave ! " 
 Lord Wargrave was a man who had 
 achieved European celebrity, not so much 
 for his own gifts, as his appreciation of the 
 gifts of others. He had never attempted 
 to distinguish himself either in literature, 
 science, or politics, or in any of the idler 
 pursuits which give brilliance to fashionable 
 life. He had, indeed, once been devoted to 
 the study of architecture, and had been 
 anxious, at his own expense, to add a chapel 
 to Westminster Abbey; but his only solid 
 achievement had been an Elizabethan house 
 for himself, which was so much too large for 
 his means that he lived usually with his 
 friends. He had never made a speech in the 
 House of Lords ; he had published nothing 
 except some gossiping notes of his travels ; 
 but he knew the motives, the aims, and the 
 histories of half the public men and beautiful 
 women in Europe far better than they knew 
 them themselves, and he certainly divulged 
 them with infinitely greater candour. He
 
 ioo THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 was master of a fair property and a very 
 presentable pedigree, and wherever this last 
 happened to be defective, he had thoroughly 
 repaired it by the aid of his vigorous imagina- 
 tion. All this produced in him a satisfactory 
 dignity of deportment, which was, when he 
 entered the dining-room, much admired by 
 Canon Bulman. His hair, his whiskers, and 
 his eyebrows were so many sandy-coloured 
 bushes. His face, in repose, possessed a 
 certain massive gravity, but took a hundred 
 expressions when he spoke, like lights in 
 disturbed water. Liking, as he did, men of 
 most sorts and conditions, the clergy were 
 far from forming any exception to his rule, 
 and often, when laying down the law in the 
 study of some country parsonage, he had, 
 except for the want of a white tie, every 
 appearance of being an admirable clergyman 
 himself. 
 
 He greeted Canon Bulman, taking him by 
 both hands. "This is," he exclaimed, "a 
 quite unexpected pleasure." And when the 
 Doctor was introduced to him, he said, " I 
 was reading your last report yesterday. It's 
 by far the most masterly thing of its kind I 
 know." 
 
 He then seated himself, awaiting the
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 101 
 
 advent of his luncheon, and, looking round 
 the room with a slow, judicial scrutiny, 
 said — 
 
 " I tell everybody that this is the oldest 
 house in England. It is the only house 
 where the life is three generations old. If 
 your aunt, Reginald, had not been a rich 
 woman, I always maintain that she might 
 have made a large income, merely by show- 
 ing herself to American tourists as the one 
 survivor of our old county aristocracy." 
 He was here interrupted by some dishes 
 being placed in front of him, and the voice of 
 the old butler, which murmured in his ear, 
 " What wine, my lord ? " 
 
 " Madeira," said Lord Wargrave, with 
 sharp and unhesitating brevity, as he trans- 
 ferred two chops with their rosy juices to 
 his plate. 
 
 "I see," he began, pausing between his 
 mor:hfuls, and addressing Canon Bulman, 
 "that you are still active as a captain of 
 the national conscience." 
 
 His utterance was grave, and Canon Bul- 
 man was much gratified by it; but under 
 the corners of Lord Wargrave's nervous 
 mouth there lurked, in company with a 
 few crumbs of potato, a certain ambushed
 
 102 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 humour, which a keen observer might have 
 detected. 
 
 "You," said Canon Bulman, leaning for- 
 ward with an ingratiating smile, " I am sure, 
 must be of our opinion, that it is impossible 
 for a man condemned publicly in the divorce 
 court to remain the leader of a great Parlia- 
 mentary party, especially considering the 
 way the whole thing was done. Why, he 
 used to drive — I am told this for a fact — 
 down to Palace Yard with the partner of his 
 guilt, in a brougham." 
 
 " Did you ever meet the lady ? " asked 
 Lord Wargrave, peering up at him. 
 
 The Canon frowned and bridled. " Never," 
 he answered ; " I am thankful to say, never." 
 
 Lord Wargrave looked at the ceiling, and 
 murmured in a reflective voice — 
 
 "A delightful woman, a most delightful 
 woman ! The Archbishop of Monaghan 
 used to call on her every day. She wrote 
 that Report on Ireland which he sent to the 
 Pope — the whole of it." 
 
 The Canon knew not how to receive this 
 speech. Various expressions were in a state 
 of civil war on his face, and the eyes of 
 Lord Wargrave twinkled for just a moment. 
 
 When the latter had finished his luncheon,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 103 
 
 his expression gradually altered. He leant 
 over to Pole, and said in a resounding 
 whisper — 
 
 " My dear Reginald, let me look at your 
 poor aunt's body." 
 
 Lord Wargrave was an amateur of all 
 kinds of emotion, and before he had left the 
 dining-room he had pulled out a large silk 
 handkerchief, so as to be ready for the tears 
 which he meant presently to shed ; and 
 when, five minutes later, he emerged from 
 the chamber of death, solemnly wiping the 
 remaining moisture from his eyes, he felt as 
 much warmed and exhilarated as if he had 
 had another glass of Madeira. 
 
 The Canon, meanwhile, had recovered his 
 equanimity, and sacrificed the craving of his 
 muscles for a long walk to the unselfish 
 pleasure of entertaining Lord Wargrave in 
 the library, and helping him to examine its 
 rows of curious and forgotten books. 
 
 "By the way," said the Canon at last, 
 hastily closing a volume of French engrav- 
 ings which had held him for a minute or two 
 in fascinated indignation, " do you happen 
 to know and remember a certain pastel 
 portrait here, which hangs in the next 
 room ? ''
 
 104 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 " I suppose you mean," said Lord 
 Wargrave, " the portrait of the divine 
 Thyrza. Beautiful, beautiful! That picture 
 at Christie's would fetch at least a thousand 
 guineas." 
 
 " I was not," said the Canon, dryly, " think- 
 ing of the merits of a picture whose presence 
 in this house I consider to be in itself an 
 indecency. What made me allude to it was 
 a very curious fact." And he then described 
 the appearance of the young lady in the 
 garden, her singular resemblance to the por- 
 trait, and what he had gathered as to her 
 family history. Lord Wargrave pricked up 
 his ears. "And she was," the Canon con- 
 tinued, "not only like this woman, but she 
 looked as if her career either had been, or 
 would be similar. One of the family, Pole 
 tells me, has gone desperately wrong 
 already." 
 
 " Humph ! " muttered Lord Wargrave into 
 the space between his coat and waistcoat. 
 " I've not the least doubt she's an extremely 
 fascinating woman." Then, turning to the 
 Canon, he said, " I should like to see her. I 
 have in my own mind not the least doubt 
 about the matter. Tristram Pole had a 
 daughter by Lady Thyrza Brancepeth. Byron
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 105 
 
 saw the girl, and mentions her in an un- 
 published letter. She was brought up in a 
 convent, and married one of her mother's 
 relations — a fire-eating count who fought 
 under the first Napoleon. I've not the least 
 doubt that this girl is her grand-daughter. 
 With such a grandmother she has every 
 right to be charming." 
 
 The Canon's face grew frigid. Out of the 
 corner of his eye Lord Wargrave perceived 
 this. 
 
 " Did you ever," he said, in a very serious 
 voice, " hear these verses ? 
 
 ' Those myrtle-blooms of starriest birth 
 Were dim beside her breast of snow ; 
 And now it sleeps beneath the earth 
 From which their sister blossoms blow.' 
 
 They come from the poem which Byron 
 wrote on Lady Thyrza's death." 
 
 What would have happened to the Canon 
 had the strain of the situation been pro- 
 longed, it is very difficult to say ; but at this 
 juncture luckily the door opened, Lord 
 Wargrave's eyes wandered, and he exclaimed, 
 with extended hands — 
 
 " But, God bless my soul, who's this ? 
 Why, my dear old friend the Dean ! " And
 
 io6 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 the next moment he was very nearly em- 
 bracing a stately gentleman in gaiters and 
 snowy necktie, whose face was fresh as a 
 foxhunter's, and who walked like an arch- 
 bishop. 
 
 "I think, Canon," said Lord Wargrave, 
 ■" you must know Dean Osborne Pole. This, 
 my dear Dean, is the celebrated Canon 
 Bulman." 
 
 The Dean, though a high Tory and a hater 
 of clerical radicalism, greeted the Canon with 
 much fraternal condescension, and the Canon 
 returned the greeting with a courtly, yet 
 independent deference, which showed him 
 in his best light. 
 
 "I see, Wargrave," said the Dean, "you 
 have been having an afternoon among the 
 Muses. In this library there is, if I remem- 
 ber rightly, a remarkably fine collection of 
 early editions of the classics." And the 
 three gentlemen discussed books for an hour 
 or so, till Mrs. Pole entered, and was shortly 
 followed by tea. 
 
 "I hear," said Lord Wargrave by-and-by, 
 as he finished the last tea-cake, "that half 
 the county will be at the funeral ; not only 
 men, but ladies ; and perfectly right, too. 
 Such a death as this is like a Dissolution of
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 107 
 
 Parliament. The Duchess is coming, and 
 old Lady Taplow with her. That," he 
 murmured, patting the Dean's apron, " is one 
 of the reasons that brings the Duke here." 
 Then followed some story told in a whisper, 
 which the Dean received with an expression 
 of not very severe reproof. 
 
 "Ah, well," said the Dean, "dukes have 
 their ducalities. Augusta," he continued, con- 
 sulting a large gold repeater, " I will, if you 
 will allow me, ask to be shown my room." 
 
 "Let me," said the Canon, with alacrity, 
 "act as groom of the chambers." And he 
 sprang to his feet like a boy ; but just at this 
 moment the door opened again, and a new 
 arrival was announced — an old man, short 
 and fragile, who stooped somewhat, and 
 shuffled rather than walked. His clothes 
 hung on him loosely ; his grey hair was thin ; 
 and a pair of smoked glasses which eclipsed 
 a good half of his face, made it hard to con- 
 jecture the meaning of the smile which 
 hovered about his mouth. The moment he 
 spoke, however, he gave some clue to the 
 mystery. His hollow voice, his pronuncia- 
 tion, which bore the traces of some far-off 
 dandyism ; his elocution, which was empha- 
 sized by sententious pauses, and punctuated
 
 108 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 by soft and semi-malicious chuckles, all 
 combined to render the smoked glasses 
 transparent, and to betray the light beneath 
 them of an alert but benevolent cynicism. 
 This was the Duke of Dulverton, who had 
 inherited from his father one of the most 
 celebrated names in Europe — a name which 
 he was wont to say with a caustic modesty, 
 had been for himself an extinguisher rather 
 than a pedestal. When Mrs. Pole went up 
 to him he shook her by both hands ; he 
 greeted the Dean with benignity, and nodded 
 at Lord Wargrave curtly ; but most of his 
 graciousness seemed to have been kept for 
 Canon Bulman. The Canon was delighted, 
 though the ducal words had been few; and 
 he was by no means so anxious now, as he 
 had been a few minutes previously, to quit 
 the library and escort the Dean to his bed- 
 room. The Dean, however, held him to his 
 promise, and the two dignitaries departed. 
 The Duke eyed the Canon's coat-tails as they 
 disappeared through the doorway, and turn- 
 ing to Mrs. Pole, he said to her, " Is that 
 your sniveller?" This was his private 
 generic name for a clergyman ; but though it 
 certainly betrayed small reverence for the 
 pulpit, there were few men in England from
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 109 
 
 whom a larger number of clergymen had 
 received greater and more thoughtful assist- 
 ance than from himself. 
 
 " Oh, ho ! " he said, when Mrs. Pole had 
 set him right. " Canon Bulman, is it ? You 
 introduced him to my deaf ear. A shocking 
 fellow, I know him — a shocking fellow ! I 
 thought he was too well-groomed for one of 
 your hedge-parsons. To tell you the truth, 
 I like the hedge-parson better." 
 
 In spite, however, of this opinion, when 
 the party reassembled for dinner, the Duke's 
 attention to the Canon was even more marked 
 than before, though a certain spirit of mis- 
 chief underlay his urbanity. 
 
 " I have listened," he said to the Canon, 
 who sat next to him, " with great attention 
 to your sermons in the Chapel Royal." The 
 Canon bowed. " I invariably agreed," con- 
 tinued the Duke, "with the beginning of 
 every one of your sentences." The Canon 
 bowed again, with a puzzled and yet a 
 gratified expression. " Would you like me 
 to tell you why I didn't agree with the 
 rest?" 
 
 " If you please," smiled the Canon, gravely. 
 
 " Because," said the Duke, laying his hand 
 on the Canon's arm, " because I could not
 
 no THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 hear it." And he stopped abruptly, and 
 glanced round the table. "Augusta," he 
 continued presently, mouthing out the name 
 in a tone which suggested the beginning of 
 a speech in the House of Lords, "have you 
 heard any more of that defaulting bailiff of 
 Miss Pole's?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Mrs. Pole. "It is you, 
 Duke, who should have heard, if anybody. 
 It was your kindness which helped him to 
 go off to the Colonies." 
 
 " Miss Pole," said the Duke, " had him on 
 my recommendation, so I felt bound to look 
 after him. I heard from him this morning. 
 Do you know what he is now ? Not one of 
 you here will guess. He has just been 
 elected a member of the New Zealand House 
 of Lords. Dishonest men are dishonest 
 only for one reason ; that's because they are 
 poor." 
 
 At these words the Canon actually started 
 with delight. 
 
 " That," he exclaimed, " is the very 
 doctrine which I am always preaching from 
 the pulpit, and now and then from the 
 platform ; and that's why some people see 
 fit to call me a radical. I'm glad to find that 
 your grace is of one mind with me. Men
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. in 
 
 are dishonest only when society makes them 
 poor." 
 
 "Then in that case," said the Duke, facing 
 round to the Canon, and speaking in a voice 
 that had the air of being confidential, but 
 which was nevertheless distinctly audible to 
 every one, "in that case, if I were you, I 
 wouldn't be so hard upon the rich." 
 
 Delighted as he was with this sudden 
 thrust, he had no wish to discompose the 
 Canon seriously ; so, to cover the confusion 
 he had caused, he addressed himself to 
 Reginald Pole. " Reginald," he called out, 
 " if I were a poor man you would probably 
 find, when I am gone, that three or four of 
 these silver candlesticks were missing. If 
 you or Canon Bulman," he continued, " ever 
 pay me a visit at Dulverton — if you will, 
 Canon, I shall be very happy to see you — " 
 at this the satisfaction in the Canon's face 
 shone out again after a momentary eclipse — 
 "I shouldn't advise you or any one else," 
 said the Duke fiercely, "to make away with 
 any of the spoons or forks there." 
 
 "Why so, your grace?" asked the Canon 
 a little stiffly ; and all stared with wonder at 
 the Duke's sudden ferocity. 
 
 " Because they're not silver," said the
 
 ii2 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 Duke, and closed his mouth with a snap. 
 Having enjoyed for a moment the surprise 
 which this explanation caused, " Most of 
 my silver," he said, " is in the cellars of 
 Childes' Bank. What I use at Dulverton is 
 a copy in electro-plate. See, when you 
 come, Canon, if you can tell the difference." 
 To the Canon's ear there was magic in the 
 last words; and, on the whole, he enjoyed 
 his dinner: but after Mrs. Pole had left the 
 gentlemen to themselves, he began to be 
 galled afresh in a place that was already 
 aching. When Pole moved from his own 
 end of the table and seated himself by the 
 Duke, the Duke turned round, and edging as 
 close to him as possible, became deaf to 
 everybody else, and talked to him exclusively. 
 He began questioning him about various 
 European capitals, with most of which he 
 himself had had formerly some acquaintance ; 
 and Pole's answers, which were more audible 
 than the Duke's questions, betrayed an 
 intimacy with the beauties of so many Courts, 
 and with so many distinguished Continental 
 families, that the Canon, who knew nothing 
 of Europe but the peaks and table d'hotes 
 of Switzerland, felt— he could hardly tell why 
 — as if he were intentionally shut out in the
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 113 
 
 cold. This alone was a disagreeable thing 
 to bear ; but it was worse still when the 
 Duke, dropping his voice, made one or two 
 remarks which apparently related to ladies. 
 It was an axiom with the Canon, who had 
 the charity which believes all things, that 
 every whispered remark about a woman was 
 either cynical or indecent, or both ; but his 
 righteous anger was directed in the present 
 case not against his ducal neighbour for 
 making the remarks in question, but against 
 his former pupil for being the recipient of 
 them. Lord Wargrave, too, was annoyed, 
 though for very different reasons. He was 
 annoyed at being debarred, owing to the 
 presence of the three clergymen, from a 
 feast of philosophy and anecdote, in which 
 he would have gladly joined; but his sense 
 of propriety constrained him to make the 
 best of the situation, and as he could not 
 well take part in the gossip about Berlin and 
 Paris, he entertained the Dean, Canon 
 Bulman, and Dr. Clitheroe, by trenchant 
 accounts of the immorality of the country 
 priesthood in Spain. The implied tribute to 
 the superiormorals ofProtestantismhallowed 
 this subject in the eyes even of the Canon; 
 but before long the discussion of it was 
 vol. 1. 1
 
 ii4 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 interrupted by the voice of the Duke, whom 
 the interest of some reminiscence had made 
 unconscious of how loud he was speaking, 
 and who was heard saying, in his most 
 pointed and deliberate accents, " Her mother 
 was my father's favourite mistress." 
 
 "Reginald," said the Dean, rising, "don't 
 let me interrupt the Duke. I am going to 
 have a little talk with your mother." 
 
 The events of the dinner-table had a double 
 effect upon the Canon. They left him when 
 he rose from his chair, and from contact with 
 the Duke's elbow, elated with a delightful 
 addition to his stock of social self-com- 
 placency ; and they also left him more 
 dissatisfied with Pole than ever. But Pole's 
 offences against him were not even yet 
 complete. The Canon's tenderest spot had 
 thus far been only grazed by him. Before 
 the evening was over he was destined to 
 plunge a dagger into it. Some business 
 about the funeral, which necessitated an 
 interview with the bailiff, kept him for a 
 quarter of an hour from following his guests 
 into the drawing-room. When he did so, 
 his mother and the Dean were talking together 
 in low tones ; Dr. Clitheroe was smiling 
 silently ; the Duke was apparently asleep ;
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 115 
 
 and the principal sounds in the room were 
 proceeding from the Canon and Lord 
 Wargrave. The Canon, with the air of a 
 complete man of the world, was discoursing 
 to Lord Wargrave about society in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Windsor; and as he saw Pole 
 approaching, he unconsciously raised his 
 voice. "No," he was saying, with reference 
 to a well-known clerical liberateur — the 
 author, amongst other things, of a manual 
 of private prayers, which a crowned head 
 had rendered popular by offering them up to 
 Heaven — "no," the Canon was saying, "I 
 don't think I exactly like him. Rather 
 snobby, I fancy — rather fond of great people." 
 
 "I am never quite certain," said Pole, at 
 whom the Canon had cast a lofty glance, 
 " what it is that people mean by a snob." 
 
 "I mean," said the Canon, "and so I 
 believe do most of us, a man who estimates 
 others by who they are, not by what they 
 are." 
 
 " I," replied Pole, " should venture to differ 
 slightly from you. So far as the accidents 
 of position have any effect on us at all, 
 everybody's social judgments move roughly 
 to the same tune ; but the men whom you 
 call snobs play each note a semitone wrong ;
 
 n6 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 they distort the tune with false expression 
 and emphasis, and very often," he added as 
 an afterthought, "they pretend that they are 
 not attempting to play the tune at all." 
 
 In his mind as he spoke there was no 
 thought of wounding anybody. He was not 
 even trying to put the Canon argumentatively 
 in the wrong. But the Canon, for some 
 reason, grew crimson to the roots of his hair. 
 He bit his lip, and was stammering for some 
 retort when a hollow voice sounded from the 
 depths of an armchair. The speaker was the 
 Duke, who, if he had slept at all, had certainly 
 managed to sleep with one ear open. 
 
 " Canon," he said, " Mr. Pole is perfectly 
 right. Mr. Pole had you there, I think. 
 When the nation honoured my father by 
 making him a duke, did they mean to give 
 him something which others should not 
 respect? No one," continued the Duke, in 
 his best aphoristic manner — "no one deserves 
 an honour who despises it ; and no one 
 despises it who receives it. "Wait, Canon, 
 till you're a bishop — as you are perfectly sure 
 to be — and tell me what you think then." 
 
 So far as the Duke was concerned, Canon 
 Bulman's feelings, outraged by the beginning 
 of this speech, were charmed by the end of
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 117 
 
 it into a state of renewed satisfaction ; but it 
 was only by all the efforts of mundane and 
 Christian self-control combined, that he was 
 able to be courteously civil in saying " Good 
 night" to Pole, and in accepting from his 
 hands a copy of the Lyncombe paper, which 
 contained an account of the arrangements 
 for Miss Pole's funeral on the morrow. 
 
 \
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A GOOD deal of arranging had indeed been 
 necessary to facilitate the attendance of the 
 large numbers that were expected. The 
 church where the burial was to take place 
 was some two hours' drive from Glenlynn, 
 hidden in a deep valley : but a couple of miles 
 on the Lyncombe side of it was a spot on the 
 moor where several rough roads met, one 
 having been a coach-road seventy years ago. 
 Here stood a bald old inn, which had, since 
 the days of coaches, been kept disconsolately 
 alive by the patronage of a few stag-hunters ; 
 and at this spot the mourners from all quarters 
 were to assemble. Here the hearse was to 
 await them at half-past eleven ; and here, in 
 a room where travellers once breakfasted, 
 they were subsequently to solace themselves 
 with the funeral baked meats. 
 
 By the hour appointed the place wore a 
 strange aspect. The lines of hedgeless road
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 119 
 
 were black with flies and carriages, the warm 
 gorse-scented wind blowing all August 
 through their windows. Some of the car- 
 riages were empty, but most had sable occu- 
 pants : and a number of figures also were 
 standing about the inn-door. Chief amongst 
 these was Mr. Pole, the head of the family, 
 six feet four in height, with a clean-shaved 
 commanding face ; recalling a past age by 
 his voluminous white choker, and black, 
 swallow-tailed coat, buttoned across his 
 chest tightly. A little in the background 
 was the undertaker, taking charge of the 
 waving hat-bands, with which he had con- 
 tracted to decorate the principal male 
 mourners, and, little as he thought it, to 
 give to the day's solemnities another touch 
 of an age that has almost vanished. 
 
 The last arrivals were the party from 
 Glenlynn. Their advent caused a consider- 
 able though subdued sensation ; and the 
 carriages then began to be marshalled in 
 proper order. The family and their imme- 
 diate friends meanwhile entered the inn ; 
 where the hats of the favoured males were 
 indued with the insignia of sorrow. The 
 Duke alone was exempt, for the exceedingly 
 simple reason that he wore an old soft
 
 120 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 wide-awake, on which no hat-band could 
 support itself; and the undertaker on 
 realizing this would hardly have recovered 
 from his bewilderment, if it had not been 
 for Lord Wargrave, who, with an impatient 
 grunt, tendered his own hat to receive the 
 orthodox treatment. 
 
 At length it appeared that the preliminaries 
 were settled : and the undertaker, backing 
 like a Lord Chamberlain, led his lugubrious 
 procession out to the line of carriages. In 
 front the plumes of the hearse slowly waved 
 and nodded, and wild bees and butterflies 
 passed and repassed between them. Pre- 
 sently a word was given ; the dark plumes 
 moved onwards, and the carriages began to 
 follow like a train of crawling caterpillars. 
 The nature of the road in itself was enough 
 to make the progress slow ; but in half an 
 hour it suddenly grew yet slower, this being 
 partly due to the steepness of a descending 
 hill, and partly to a fact which was announced 
 by the sight of some low-browed cottages,, 
 and then by the throbbing note of a slowly- 
 tolling bell. Presently came cottages clus- 
 tering more thickly ; men — mostly old — were 
 walking along in black : the note of the bell 
 grew clearer: the carriages at last stopped.
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 121 
 
 There was hardly a cottage within fifteen 
 miles of Glenlynn which Miss Pole's charity 
 had not either cheered or pauperized : and a 
 small, but sympathetic, crowd was assembled 
 at the churchyard gate. The scene was 
 singular. The church and the straggling 
 village said to the stranger from every roof 
 and window that progress never as yet had 
 entered this secret hollow ; indeed, the primi- 
 tive aspect of everything almost appalled 
 the mind, whilst captivating it. The church, 
 for some reason lost in parochial history, 
 was large and out of all proportion to the 
 present number of the parishioners. It had 
 been built in the fifteenth century ; but its 
 fine pointed windows showed, both in their 
 glazing and their tracery, the repairing hand 
 of the eighteenth; and its old-world air was 
 most probably owing to its suggestions of that 
 nearer past rather than of the more remote. 
 
 And now, from its opened door, what 
 figure was this that was given forth to the 
 light, and advanced between the mouldering 
 tombstones — a figure whose old wig and 
 dusty tumbled surplice made it seem as if 
 both they and their wearer had been taken 
 out of some forgotten cupboard ? He shuffled 
 in walking ; his proportions were somewhat
 
 122 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 portly ; and about his nostrils hung shadows 
 suggesting snuff. His face, indeed, produced 
 the impression of a man who was walking 
 in his sleep ; till suddenly his lips moved, 
 and the following well-known words rose 
 from them, distinctly audible, though thin 
 in the open air: "I am the Resurrection and 
 the Life, saith the Lord. He that believeth 
 in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
 live." And the palled coffin, with its bearers, 
 had begun their movement towards the 
 church. 
 
 The mourners followed — a long column 
 of infantry — brushing the forlorn grasses 
 that leaned over the grass-grown path, and 
 defiling into the building through a porch, 
 on whose whitewashed walls notices hung 
 about ratepayers and licences for dogs and 
 guns. Within the spectacle was one of 
 which soon there will be no example left. 
 The old square pews of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, some of them lined with moth-eaten 
 green baize, filled the body of the church ; 
 and one of the aisles was dwarfed by a 
 brown gallery. The clerk's desk, the clergy- 
 man's desk, and the pulpit, rose above one 
 another, crowned with a huge sounding- 
 board, on which stood a gilt angel blowing
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 123 
 
 a dusty trumpet. The lion and the unicorn 
 hung in a black frame, with the royal arms 
 between them, over the middle of the chancel 
 arch ; and a meagre altar, adorned with two 
 velvet cushions, was flanked by a dingy 
 board inscribed with the Lord's Prayer, and 
 the table that begins with, " A man may not 
 marry his grandmother." 
 
 Whilst the coffin, in the central passage, 
 rested on its high trestles, the alien company 
 gradually found places, stirring up, as they 
 did so, odours of old prayer-books, musty 
 hassocks, and many past congregations. 
 Pole, who, on entering, had observed the 
 gallery staircase, made his way alone to a 
 solitude amongst the upper seats ; and 
 filled with a swarm of thoughts, which he 
 feared to betray to others, was able unnoticed 
 to gaze on the scene below. Meanwhile, a 
 sudden and unexpected sound had startled 
 the ears of almost all those present. It was 
 the sound of a fiddle, from which an old 
 village musician, who supplied with his 
 instrument the place of organ and organist, 
 began to elicit the tune of a funereal hymn. 
 To those, who, like Pole, knew the West of 
 England well, and were aware that till up 
 to the middle of the present century, a village
 
 124 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 band of flutes, fiddles, and clarionets, con- 
 tinued in remoter places to supply the sole 
 church music, the wail of these notes was 
 as music coming out of a grave. To Pole 
 it rose pungent, like some bewitched incense, 
 fraught with everything that was dear and 
 past and impossible ; and his own life, with 
 its secrets, whatever they were, enlarged 
 themselves, till his personal consciousness 
 was little more than a heart, beating and 
 palpitating with the hopes and losses of 
 generations. Then his attention strayed to 
 a mural tablet facing him, bracketed on coats 
 of arms, and surmounted by a willowy 
 female, whose straight Grecian profile 
 drooped over a marble urn. Straining his 
 sight somewhat he spelt out the inscription, 
 the very phrasing of which was sufficient to 
 fix its date. " In the adjacent vault, accord- 
 ing to his own directions, are disposited the 
 mortal remains of Tristram Pole, Esquire, 
 eminent alike for the genius and the elegant 
 accomplishments which endeared him to 
 his Sovereign's son, and for his public 
 services to his country. He was for many 
 years Member of Parliament for this county, 
 and owner of Pole Park and its large 
 appendages. Reader, learn from hence the
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 125 
 
 vanity of all earthly possessions ; but be 
 also taught, by the signal example of one 
 whose charitable hand was ever open to the 
 poor, to cultivate that special virtue which, 
 more than any other, recommends man to 
 his Creator and covers a multitude of sins." 
 
 But he had hardly come to the end when 
 he realized that the fiddle had ceased and a 
 single voice was snuffling through the musty 
 silence. " Behold, Thou hast made my days 
 as it were a span long; verily every man 
 living is altogether vanity." Then the voice 
 sank to a long monotonous murmur, inter- 
 rupted only by the lilt of two doxologies, 
 to the shame-faced singing of which the 
 assembly was stimulated by the fiddle. 
 
 Pole had been listening in a fit of vague 
 abstraction, moved by his surroundings he 
 hardly knew how or why : and at length he 
 leant forward, half kneeling, with his face 
 buried in his hands. His mental condition, 
 in common with that of so many, was such 
 that the service could not possibly mean to 
 him what it has meant to those who have 
 listened to it for so many centuries. Its 
 formal meaning for him was the form of a 
 myth or fable ; but there was something in 
 it — a something not to be crystallized into
 
 126 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 words — which sank deep into his being and 
 touched those roots of life from which all 
 religion springs — all religion that is more than 
 a lost chapter of chemistry. With a painful 
 tenderness his thoughts began to fix them- 
 selves on two other lives connected with 
 or dependent on his own, and he mentally 
 began to offer up his own- happiness for the 
 sake of theirs, placing it, as it were, upon an 
 altar, and offering it for his own sins also ; 
 until, as he knelt in spirit, it seemed to him 
 as if a fire from heaven streamed through 
 the cold and darkness, and consumed the 
 sacrifice and accepted it. 
 
 But such visions are transient whatever 
 their meaning or their effects may be ; and 
 Pole was roused from his by a rise in the 
 clergyman's voice, which brought the follow- 
 ing syllables poignant and piercing to his ear 
 — " It is sown in corruption ; it is raised in 
 incorruption " — and reminded him, among 
 other things, of how far the service had 
 proceeded. At the same moment he dis- 
 tinguished what before had escaped his 
 notice — a black wound gaping in the pave- 
 ment of the aisle opposite ; and he then 
 recollected that the interment would be 
 inside the church.
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 127 
 
 The open vault, however, was not all that 
 he saw. On turning his head slightly, he 
 perceived with some surprise, that he was 
 not, as he had thought he was, alone in 
 the gallery any longer. In the pew next to 
 his own were two female figures. But he 
 probably would not have bestowed a second 
 glance on them if he had not been roused by 
 a breath of some incongruous perfume. He 
 looked; and a slim hand, delicately gloved in 
 black, caught his attention resting on a mil- 
 dewed prayer-book. Then he realized the 
 crisp curves of a figure which a dark jacket 
 emphasized with fastidious outlines ; and, 
 on raising his eyes, a pair of eyes met his 
 which held his own in one long astonished 
 scrutiny. They were the eyes of the pastel 
 portrait ; only far down in their depth, 
 shining between their long lashes, there 
 was, mixed with feeling, a faint sparkle of 
 espieglerie. Of what he did he was alto- 
 gether unconscious ; but he knew he must 
 have made some sort of movement towards 
 her, for, shaking her head slowly with a 
 gentle smile of deprecation, she just raised 
 for a moment one reproving finger. But at 
 this juncture a stir took place below. The 
 coffin was being lifted, and numbers were
 
 128 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 making their way towards the vault. Pole, 
 with a hasty gesture, prepared to do so like- 
 wise ; but in the act of going he hesitated, 
 and, leaning towards the fair stranger, he 
 said in a grave undertone, " Would you care 
 to come down too ? I know you. I am 
 Reginald Pole ; and you are Countess Shimna 
 O'Keefe." She was like a woman who is 
 encountered in a dream, and who is surprised 
 at nothing. She replied in a tone that was 
 even lower than his own, " I would rather 
 remain here. Go — you must go alone." 
 
 A moment later he was standing by the 
 dark aperture. The sentences of the Burial 
 Service were being read at intervals like 
 minute guns, and the coffin was being 
 lowered slowly. In the gloom underneath 
 were lights, and by means of a dirty ladder 
 the Squire, Lord Wargrave, and several 
 others descended. Pole followed them. 
 The cold walls of the vault lisped with 
 unwonted echoes as men shuffled and pushed 
 each other, settling the coffin in its place. 
 At last somebody touched his sleeve respect- 
 fully, and put into his hand a trowel filled 
 with something. He saw it was earth. He 
 threw a little on the coffin lid, and the 
 words, " Ashes to ashes," were heard in
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 129 
 
 the air above. As he performed this office 
 the words " Margaret Pole " gleamed up at 
 him in silver as yet untarnished ; and at the 
 same moment the candle-light revealed 
 another inscription, which now was quite 
 close to this one, and which he stooped down 
 to examine. What he saw was a text some- 
 what abbreviated from the original : " The 
 mother may forget her sucking child, yet will 
 I not forget thee." This struck him as suffi- 
 ciently, though not signally appropriate, until 
 through the thick dust he made out a few 
 words more — " Tristram Pole," with the date 
 of his birth and death; and then it dawned 
 on him that the dead man might have chosen 
 the text himself, with a meaning somewhat 
 different from that which his orthodox 
 relations must have attributed to it. 
 
 As he climbed the ladder again the elocu- 
 tion of the officiating clergyman struck him 
 as having grown unaccountably more im- 
 pressive and sonorous. It imparted the 
 vibrations of a bell to the overwhelming 
 sentence that was being uttered. " I heard 
 a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, 
 From henceforth blessed are the dead which 
 die in the Lord : even so saith the Spirit ; for 
 they rest from their labours." Pole stared 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 i 3 o THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 at the speaker, and instead of the old 
 incumbent who had, as he heard subsequently, 
 been seized with a fit of hoarseness, and had 
 retired to suck lozenges in the vestry, his eye 
 rested on the form of the Rev. Sunderland 
 Godolphin, arrayed, it is true, in a surplice 
 much too short for him, but, in spite of this 
 trivial detail, more imposing than ever, and 
 at last doing justice to Christianity, to his 
 auditors, and to himself, by showing how the 
 Church of England could bury her children 
 when she chose. For him, at all events, the 
 solemnities had not been performed in vain. 
 
 The concluding prayer at the grave had 
 not come to an end before Pole had escaped 
 from the crowd, and stolen back to the 
 gallery ; but he found it entirely empty. He 
 had scanned the figures below, but failed to 
 distinguish what he was seeking. He 
 descended the stairs hastily, and at the 
 bottom was an old bell-ringer, who asked 
 him " if so be he was looking for two ladies ; " 
 and who, on being answered "Yes," replied, 
 with a senile grin, "That the ladies had 
 left in a carriage ten minutes ago." 
 
 A moment or two later everybody was 
 once more in the sunlight. The sky glowed 
 with blueness, the air smelt of grass and
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 131 
 
 summer, and faces hitherto rigid brightened 
 into discreet smiles. By the time the inn 
 was reached again the smiles had rippled 
 into laughter. Clergymen, lawyers, doctors, 
 and tenants on the Pole estate exchanged 
 greetings with the great county magnates ; 
 and Lord Wargrave, who alone stuck to his 
 waving hat-band, looked about him fussily, 
 as if surprised at not being recognized. 
 Canon Bulman, by an unconscious instinct, 
 hovered in the Duke's neighbourhood, and 
 found himself sitting next him when the 
 party settled down to their refreshments. 
 Old Lady Taplow, however, who was on 
 the Duke's further side, took possession of 
 the ducal ear, and the Canon could only 
 listen. 
 
 "It was very touching and picturesque," 
 she began in her gruff, masculine voice. 
 " I am glad that you made me come. By 
 the way, Duke, I ought to thank you for the 
 cheque you gave me for my bazaar. It was 
 kind of you. You're a good man, Duke." 
 
 "And you," said the Duke, "are a good 
 woman — so far as I know, that is to say — so 
 far as I know." The Canon swelled with 
 anger at the tone of this flippant innuendo, 
 and, cultivating the emotion, felt proudly
 
 132 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 that he was no sycophant. He turned away, 
 and found that his other neighbour was Pole. 
 
 "Somebody," he said sarcastically, as he 
 glanced round the table, " will be proposing 
 the bride's health soon. People are far 
 more cheerful here than at most wedding 
 breakfasts." 
 
 "Well," replied Pole, "is not that as it 
 should be ? A death is the ending of sorrow, 
 and a wedding is generally the beginning 
 of it."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CANON BULMAN, when the funeral feast 
 was over, instead of returning to Glenlynn, 
 was claimed by Mr. Godolphin, and his 
 place was to be taken by the old family 
 lawyer. The day being Saturday, the rest 
 of Mrs. Pole's visitors were to stay till 
 Monday ; and Mr. Godolphin had been 
 rendered happy by her promise to bring 
 them all to his Sunday morning's service. As 
 they were standing by the carriages and 
 settling how to seat themselves, Dr. Clithe- 
 roe, with a little nervousness of manner, 
 touched Pole's arm, and said to him in a 
 confidential whisper, " Do you think you 
 would care to walk the last two miles of 
 the way ? We have had no exercise, and I 
 should be glad of a few words with you." 
 
 "Certainly," Pole replied. "Let us get 
 in here then with Miss Drake." And by- 
 and-by, when the swelling downs were
 
 134 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 reached which hid Glenlynn between their 
 bare shoulders and the sea, he and the 
 Doctor descended, leaving Miss Drake alone 
 — a little abstracted bundle of silence, and 
 crape, and tears. 
 
 "I have had," said the Doctor, "during 
 the last few days no opportunity of explain- 
 ing a small matter to you. Your mother 
 understands it. She, naturally, has my 
 entire confidence ; but the whole arrange- 
 ment — I am sure you will not forget this — 
 must rest a secret between our three selves. 
 Your lawyer, Mr. Whilks — I presume he is 
 coming here for the purpose — will presently 
 take possession of your aunt's will, and 
 explain its provisions to yourself and others. 
 Now I want to tell you beforehand that in 
 the will itself you will find no money left 
 to you till after your mother's death. The 
 reason, of course, is that your twenty 
 thousand pounds had to be realized during 
 Miss Pole's lifetime, and, as I have explained 
 already, placed in my hands to deal with. 
 Well," the Doctor proceeded, "the difficulty 
 in our way was this : how to ensure your 
 succession to the sum in question, and yet 
 to keep the transaction secret, as I was 
 bound to keep it. Your aunt wished to
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 135 
 
 confide entirely in my own honour, and to 
 leave in my custody all the papers connected 
 with it. That proposal, however, I could 
 not entertain for a moment. She and I, 
 therefore, hit upon this device. A document, 
 signed by me and accompanied by a letter 
 from herself, was placed in a sealed packet. 
 It was directed to you, and deposited with 
 other valuables in a safe, and this packet is 
 expressly left to you in the will, described ' as 
 containing certain papers and memoranda, 
 explanatory of my conduct with regard to 
 the said Reginald Pole, which packet I 
 desire that he open and read in private.' If 
 you will look here," said the Doctor, pulling 
 out a large pocket-book, " I can show you 
 a duplicate of a formal document, in which 
 the receipt of the money is acknowledged 
 by me, and the terms on which I received 
 it are stated." 
 
 The Doctor produced a large sheet of fools- 
 cap paper, which bore the stamp of the 
 Government Office to which he belonged, 
 and on which the following form was 
 engrossed in a clerk-like hand, the names 
 and dates being faintly written in pencil : 
 • Received for investment by me, the under- 
 signed, from Margaret Pole, of Glenlynn,
 
 136 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 spinster, on behalf of her great-nephew, 
 Reginald Osborne Pole, Esq., the sum of 
 twenty thousand pounds. I undertake to 
 pay interest quarterly on the above sum, at 
 the rate of fourteen per cent, per annum, 
 the same to be paid to the aforesaid Margaret 
 Pole during her lifetime, and after her death 
 to the aforesaid Reginald Pole, his heirs, or 
 his assignees. This arrangement is to hold 
 good for eleven years and five months from 
 the present date, at the end of which period 
 I reserve the right of repaying the principal. 
 Further, after five months from the present 
 date, I engage to repay the principal, should 
 this be desired, at any time that may be 
 named, two months' notice having been 
 given me. In the event of my death, the 
 above arrangements will be carried out for 
 me by my colleague, Edward Stuart Michell, 
 Esq., Inspector of Technical Schools for 
 England, who will represent me in this 
 transaction." 
 
 Pole looked the paper through, and gave 
 it back to the Doctor, merely observing, " I 
 am glad that my mother understands. She 
 would else have wondered at my having 
 been left nothing. As it is, I suppose old 
 Whilks, who knew something of my aunt's
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 137 
 
 affairs, will be puzzled at the personal 
 property being less than he probably 
 imagined it." 
 
 "I don't think," replied the Doctor, "we 
 need have any fear of that. This last will, 
 like the former one, was drawn up by Mr. 
 Whilks himself, and your good aunt explained 
 to him that she had spent a portion of her 
 capital. The statement was strictly true, 
 for, as you will see from the paper I have 
 shown you, the twenty thousands pounds 
 were virtually transferred to you during her 
 lifetime. No," continued the Doctor, rub- 
 bing his hands gently, " since you and your 
 mother understand the transaction, there is 
 nothing in the will which will elicit comment 
 from anybody." The Doctor's prediction in 
 this respect proved substantially, though not 
 literally, true ; for when the contents of the 
 will came to be known in detail, so many 
 were the legacies left to old servants, and 
 so far beyond her humble hopes was the 
 provision made for Miss Drake, that the 
 sense of Miss. Pole's loss, which had thus 
 far been a grey cloud, was already illuminated 
 by the spreading light of resignation. 
 
 By the following morning the progress in 
 Christian cheerfulness was remarkable, when
 
 138 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 Mrs. Pole, in a large open waggonette, con- 
 veyed her party to Mr. Godolphin's church. 
 Mr. Godolphin, too, when he saw through 
 the vestry window the heads of the Pole 
 horses tossing themselves at his churchyard 
 gate, felt his heart agreeing with the text 
 of the sermon he was about to preach, and 
 acknowledging that death had been partially 
 swallowed up in victory. His own chancel, 
 with its altar and surpliced choir, its brass 
 lectern, its crosses, and brilliant scrolls, 
 seemed by contrast with the one he had 
 visited yesterday, more perfect than ever to 
 him in its modest catholic beauty. It touched 
 him afresh by the effect which he felt it 
 would have upon the strangers ; and when 
 his organ, from its rows of spruce blue pipes, 
 began to flute forth a very creditable volun- 
 tary, he silently thanked Heaven at being 
 thus permitted to offer to it such music as 
 would not ascend to it from any other village 
 in the county. But the climax was reached 
 when his choir, being duly robed, poured 
 through the vestry door and took their ap- 
 pointed places. Then, slow and stately, 
 came Mr. Godolphin after them, the sleeves 
 of his surplice swelling with some wind of 
 the spirit. The organ reverently hushed
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 139 
 
 itself, and "Dearly beloved brethren" pro- 
 longed, and, indeed, outrivalled, the music 
 of its silenced diapason. Mr. Godolphin 
 proceeded with his ministrations, as if con- 
 scious that the service was not prayer only, 
 but a lesson in prayer ; and when he reached 
 the passage, which always had been his 
 favourite, " High and mighty, King of kings, 
 Lord of lords/' he produced the impres- 
 sion, as Lord Wargrave observed subse- 
 quently, of being "himself the great Sublime 
 he drew.'' Nor was his sermon unworthy 
 of what preceded it. It was really in excel- 
 lent taste, and instinct with unfeigned 
 emotion ; and no dispassionate student of 
 human nature could have avoided feeling, in 
 spite of his guileless vanity, an affectionate 
 respect for him, as his periods hung and 
 echoed amongst the rafters. 
 
 When all was over the party from Glenlynn 
 waited to speak to him in the churchyard, 
 where they were first met by his wife — a 
 lady whose native kindness expressed itself 
 in a county accent. Mrs. Godolphin had a 
 pronounced taste for colour ; and she usually 
 celebrated Sunday with a display of glitter- 
 ing ribbons, which made her look like a 
 yacht on the morning of some grand regatta.
 
 140 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 But now she was all in black, and her 
 ribbons hung their heads, as she held Mrs. 
 Pole's hand, and, glancing shyly at the 
 others, said that "Dear Sunderland" would 
 be there in another moment. In another 
 moment he came, glossy in long black cloth, 
 and standing bareheaded, as if, whilst he 
 was on consecrated ground, he was, in some 
 special and spiritual sense, indoors, he bowed 
 majestically on being introduced to the two 
 peers ; and turning to the Dean, told, though 
 he hardly knew it, one of the few untruths 
 of his life. "Had I been earlier aware," he 
 said, "that there was any chance of your 
 being here, I should have asked you if you 
 would have preached this morning. Canon 
 Bulman," he continued, " has taken a service 
 at Lyncombe. I trust, Mrs. Pole, that you 
 — all of you — are going to stay for luncheon. 
 We counted on your doing so — Mrs. Godol- 
 phin and myself." This invitation was en- 
 tirely unexpected; and Mrs. Pole was on the 
 point of refusing it, when a vision rose before 
 her of a table laid for ten, covered with pies 
 and chickens, crackers, and coloured jellies, 
 and of the sadness of two human beings, if 
 they alone sat down at it. After a little 
 hesitation, therefore, the proffered hospitality
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 141 
 
 was accepted, and the whole party bent their 
 steps towards the Vicarage. 
 
 Mr. Godolphin turned inclusively towards 
 the Dean, Lord Wargrave, and the Duke. 
 •I hope," he said, "you were pleased with 
 our little service." 
 
 " Very much so," said the Duke. " I shall 
 take your chancel for a model, whenever I 
 have the courage " He paused. 
 
 "The courage to do what, Duke?" said 
 the Dean. 
 
 "The courage to deprive the Duchess of 
 our old family pew." 
 
 " I don't know, Dean," said Mr. Godolphin, 
 elated by this praise, and betraying in his 
 voice a gentle amused triumph, "if you have 
 seen the letters about me in the last week's 
 'Western Times?' There I am, gibbeted — 
 as near Rome as possible." And as he 
 spoke he shone with all the delights of 
 martyrdom. 
 
 It was shortly after this that Lord War- 
 grave, nudging the Duke with his elbow — 
 an attention which the Duke hated — muttered 
 his observation about Mr. Godolphin and 
 "the great Sublime." The Duke, however, 
 entirely ignoring the witticism, replied sen- 
 tentiously —
 
 142 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 " I thought the passage remarkably well 
 read. I'll tell you what," he continued, 
 with a little malicious laugh. "You, War- 
 grave, have seen a good deal of the world. 
 Did you ever observe this, that bad men 
 may have many follies, but only good men 
 have foibles ? Mr. Godolphin is a thoroughly 
 good man. If I were the Deity, I should 
 listen to him with a great deal of pleasure ; 
 and if he were a poor man I should give him 
 my best living." 
 
 Lord Wargrave felt the dig ; he received 
 digs very often ; but nothing wounded him, 
 and he was rarely even perturbed. He was 
 not so now ; and when he seated himself 
 in the Vicarage dining-room, and perceived 
 the amplitude of the hospitable repast before 
 him, his friendship for Mr. Godolphin almost 
 surpassed the Duke's. After luncheon, Mr. 
 Godolphin happened to mention that he was 
 sending his carriage to bring back Canon 
 Bulman. Lord Wargrave, on hearing this, 
 went up to Pole confidentially and said to 
 him — 
 
 " Would you be disposed to come into 
 Lyncombe with me ? We can get a lift, 
 and return to Glenlynn in a fly. It occurred 
 to me I might as well take the opportunity
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 143 
 
 of going and calling on my old friend 
 Countess O'Keefe." 
 
 " You know her then, do you ? " exclaimed 
 Pole, with surprise and interest. 
 
 "I've known half the family," said Lord 
 Wargrave, "at one time and another; and 
 I've not a doubt when she sees my card, 
 she'll remember me. Besides, she's your 
 own relation. It is only proper you should 
 call." 
 
 Pole, however, required no pressing. Mr. 
 Godolphin was delighted that the services of 
 his carriage were appreciated, and the two 
 gentlemen drove off in it triumphantly. 
 When they reached Lyncombe, and de- 
 scended the precipitous hill, which zigzags 
 down to the port between villas and hanging 
 gardens, the very first object that glittered at 
 them and caught their attention was a smart- 
 looking steam schooner lying near the 
 primitive pier, and lighting up all the pros- 
 pect with its awnings and flashing hand- 
 rails. 
 
 " I thought," said Lord Wargrave to Pole, 
 when the carriage had set them down — and 
 he took his arm and spoke in a confidential 
 mumble — "I thought it as well not to 
 mention this visit of ours to your mother.
 
 i 4 4 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 She was not particularly warm in her wishes 
 to meet these ladies ; but when we have seen 
 what they are like, I have no doubt we shall 
 be able to tell her they're everything that is 
 correct, well-bred, and delightful." 
 
 Pole was somewhat amazed at Lord 
 Wargrave's speculative condition with regard 
 to a person he had spoken of as an old friend ; 
 but he had not fully realized that this 
 remarkable man, who had thrown the net of 
 his acquaintanceship over most of the 
 civilized world, assumed that he knew every- 
 body, till events proved the contrary, and 
 that he would then make a new friendship 
 in discovering it was not an old one. 
 
 "We must get a boat," said Lord 
 Wargrave, as with a somewhat imperious 
 gesture he tried to attract the attention of an 
 old, somnolent fisherman. But Pole inter- 
 rupted him and pointed to a couple of figures, 
 lounging at a little distance, with caps scarlet 
 as poppies, and spruce blue jerseys, which 
 were seen, on a nearer view, to carry in white 
 letters the outlandish word " Moshiska." 
 Lord Wargrave, always happy to exhibit his 
 accomplishments as a linguist, addressed 
 the men in Italian and then in German, as if 
 taking it for granted that they were natives
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 145 
 
 of Trieste or Fiume. They answered, how- 
 ever, in the tongue of the Isle of Wight. 
 " The Countess," they said, " was on board ; " 
 and in a minute or two more he and Pole 
 found themselves at the yacht's side. Lord 
 Wargrave's hand was in his pocket, about 
 to produce his card-case, when a fit of shy- 
 ness, rare as an angel's visit, urged him to 
 shift the burden of self-introduction to his 
 companion. " Send up your card," he said, 
 "and I will write my name on it." The 
 card was sent, and with a very flattering 
 promptitude the visitors were invited to 
 ascend. They found themselves in a world 
 of deck-houses, deck-chairs, and plump red 
 cushions littered with Parisian novels. 
 Amongst some of the cushions in the stern, 
 there was, as they followed their conductor, 
 a disturbance of blue serge and bright 
 cherry-coloured bows ; and a tall lady had 
 risen and was coming forward to meet 
 them. Her figure was full but had not lost 
 its outlines ; an infantine straw hat, with 
 " Moshiska " written on its ribbon, sur- 
 mounted rippling hair which recalled the 
 yellow of a mimosa blossom ; and her face, 
 though it showed the lines and contours of 
 sixty, was radiant — thanks to her powder 
 • 1. L
 
 146 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 puff — with the dust, not of age, but of youth. 
 Both her hands were extended in gracious 
 welcome, to Pole first, and to Lord Wargrave 
 after him. Her voice was charming ; she 
 had a faint foreign accent, which produced 
 the impression that she would have been 
 very sorry to lose it ; and her manner had 
 just that one unnecessary degree of empresse- 
 ment, which betrays in a woman that civility 
 has an added value for her, because, for 
 some excellent reason, she no longer always 
 receives it. " I was so distressed," she said, 
 ringing her r's, "to hear, Mr. Pole, of your 
 poor old aunt's death. My daughter and her 
 maid went to witness the funeral. And your 
 mother — she wrote me such a pretty, nice, 
 kind note. I knew her as a girl. She is well 
 now ? Yes ? That's right, then. Lord 
 Wargrave, do be seated. We have met, you 
 say. Was it at Baden ? " 
 
 "That's the worst," said Lord Wargrave, 
 who was in the depths of a chair by this 
 time — "that's the worst of meeting a charm- 
 ing woman. The fact remains so vivid it 
 makes one forget the circumstances." 
 
 "You were staying then with the Grand 
 Duke, were you not?" said the Countess, 
 helping him out. "We had not time, I
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 147 
 
 think, for much conversation together. It 
 was the year when that silly little Ladislaus 
 — a perfect boy he was, a baby— you remem- 
 ber him with his great boutonniere — was 
 said by everybody to be au mieux with the 
 Grand Duchess." 
 
 Lord Wargrave remembered. At once he 
 was on solid ground. "The united ages," 
 he said, " of the Grand Duchess's lovers, 
 would make a smaller total than those of 
 any other women in Europe." He and the 
 Countess now perfectly understood one 
 another ; and even if, as seemed possible, 
 they had never so much as spoken previously, 
 they were soon conversing as though they 
 had been lifelong friends. Nor was Pole by 
 any means left out in the cold. She said to 
 him, " Will you order tea for me ? You see I 
 treat you like a relation. And be a good 
 man, do; and fetch me my cigarette case. 
 It is lying there by a book — oh, such a book, 
 mon Dieu ! It is called ' Les Leures c/e Violette. ' 
 My cousin Bobrovski sent it me." 
 
 "Is that the prince — the traveller?" said 
 Lord Wargrave. " Why, God bless my soul, 
 I met him by the Dead Sea, when he was 
 straining his eyes to distinguish the sub- 
 merged public buildings of Gomorrah. I
 
 148 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 saved his life, I remember, by giving him a 
 package of tinned pigs' trotters." 
 
 " He'scominghere soon," said the Countess, 
 with the faintest air of embarrassment. "The 
 yacht is his. He is a dear fellow, and he lent 
 it me. I was," she went on, as if hurrying 
 over delicate ground, " told that the sea air 
 would be good for my daughter's health ; 
 and this place was particularly recommended 
 to us. She's been nervous lately, and there's 
 been a little something wrong with the chest ; 
 and she would, for many reasons, like a place 
 that was quiet. We've seen a little thatched 
 cottage with which we are all charmed ; and 
 when some of our servants — our old servants 
 — can arrive, we shall most likely leave her 
 here for a couple of months." 
 
 "And where is Countess Shimna now?" 
 asked Pole, who had been patient hitherto 
 only because each moment he expected the 
 young lady's appearance. 
 
 " She's gone with her maid to church," 
 said the Countess, poising a cigarette between 
 two fingers laden with pearls and diamonds. 
 " She sets you a lesson. You should both 
 be hearing a sermon, instead of sitting and 
 talking nonsense here with me. You laugh ! 
 I should have heard mass myself at eight
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 149 
 
 o'clock this morning, but the carriage did 
 not come, and I am forbidden to walk up- 
 hill." 
 
 "Well," said Lord Wargrave, "here are 
 two father confessors, eager to hear your 
 sins, and to tell you in absolution that they 
 are far more charming than the virtues of 
 other people." 
 
 "Ah," said the Countess, with a gay ripple 
 of laughter, "that is good now! I'm afraid 
 they'd be a long catalogue." 
 
 Pole meanwhile was beginning to think 
 wearily that, since Countess Shimna was 
 away, the visit was a waste of time ; so, 
 consulting his watch, he said, " If we wish 
 to be back for dinner, I fear we must say 
 good-bye, and ask to be put ashore. My 
 mother, Countess, is hoping so much to see 
 you ; but if business prevents her this week 
 from driving over to Lyncombe, perhaps you 
 and Countess Shimna will come one day to 
 us at Glenlynn." 
 
 "Your dear mother!" exclaimed the 
 Countess, evidently pleased at this overture, 
 but once again betraying some slight em- 
 barrassment. "As for me, I am not strong 
 enough for visiting. I must wait, too, and 
 see what my cousin Bobrovski has settled
 
 150 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 for me. But as for Shimna — she, I am sure, 
 will be delighted to see your mother. Write 
 — do write — and tell her a day for coming." 
 
 Pole was by this time standing, ready to 
 say "good-bye"; but Lord Wargrave, who 
 seemed each moment to be sinking deeper 
 in a quicksand of cushions, was far from 
 showing the smallest inclination to move. 
 " My dear fellow," he said, "you are happily 
 young and active. Will you order the car- 
 riage for us ? and when I see it on the pier, 
 I will join you." 
 
 Pole readily assented, feeling now that the 
 visit had been a success. Though his mind, 
 since his meeting with Countess Shimna, had 
 been occupied with other things, the memory 
 of her at odd moments had been frequently 
 shining through them at him, and he was 
 conscious of a curiosity with regard to her 
 which surprised him, and which he tried to 
 stifle. At this moment, however, it was 
 possessing him unreproved, and his thoughts 
 were busy with her appearance in the old 
 church, when the boat that was taking him 
 back bumped against the harbour steps. As 
 he landed he heard that the men said some- 
 thing ; but he did not realize what, till, on 
 reaching the topmost step, he saw that the
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 151 
 
 subject of his thoughts was herself standing 
 before him. Again for a moment, just as 
 in the gallery of the church, their eyes 
 exchanged an unflinching and full regard. 
 Then her lips smiled, like an opening rose- 
 bud. She put her hand out to him. He 
 took it, and held it lingeringly. 
 
 " I have been," he said, " to call upon your 
 mother. Lord Wargrave is with her still. 
 We are just starting for Glenlynn. I am 
 going to get a carriage. My mother means 
 to write, and ask you to come and see us." 
 The sentences came with a sort of uncon- 
 scious shyness. Something of shyness 
 showed itself in her also, for she several 
 times drew breath as if meaning to begin a 
 sentence. She was silent, however, until 
 he came to an end, and then she said simply 
 and almost tremulously — 
 
 " I should like that. Good-bye ; I must go 
 now."' She again gave her hand to him, and, 
 withdrawing it with the soft slowness of a 
 wave withdrawing itself from the sand, she 
 went down to the boat, and the water was 
 soon between them. He made no attempt to 
 keep her. He did not turn to watch her 
 even. On the contrary, he walked sharply 
 away, anxious to make sure of the memory
 
 152 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 before it had time to alter — the memory of 
 that butterfly of a moment, before a detaining 
 touch had been able to brush from its wings 
 one of their fragile colours. 
 
 "The mother," said Lord Wargrave, as 
 they drove home together, "is a dear, 
 delightful woman. Her cousin Bobrovski is 
 evidently of the same opinion. Perhaps we 
 can hardly expect your own mother to agree 
 with him. But as for the daughter — well," 
 he grunted, as if fumbling about for a phrase 
 adequate to his meaning, " she's the sort 
 of woman to make any man under fifty 
 mad." 
 
 That evening on the terrace at Glenlynn he 
 again returned to the subject. He and Pole 
 had, both of them, after dinner been tempted 
 out of doors by the moonlight and the breath 
 of the verbena beds ; and Lord Wargrave, 
 who was devoted to poetry though he was 
 shrewd enough never to write any, talked by 
 turns of the beauty of Countess Shimna with 
 her singular family likeness to Lady Thyrza 
 O'Keefe ; of various moonlit scenes — of 
 Venice, of Constantinople, and the Alhambra, 
 with which, he hinted, he had tender associa- 
 tions of his own ; and of various distinguished 
 ladies who, being dead, could never contradict
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 153 
 
 him, and whose acquaintance with himself 
 had caused much romantic disaster, though 
 whether to them or to him he left chivalrously 
 undetermined. 
 
 " If I were your age," he said, "I should, 
 instead of being here, be in a boat in 
 Lyncombe harbour watching the lights of the 
 Moshiska. If you want to keep young," he 
 continued, thinking of his own career, and 
 diverging from particular reflections to 
 general, " you should never attempt to marry 
 before you're forty. You should be humbly 
 content till then with women who are married 
 already. You won't," he said, having debated 
 for a moment whether he should give his 
 wisdom a cynical turn or a sentimental — 
 " you won't be disappointed then by expect- 
 ing too much of marriage. But look. Your 
 butler is at the window. Is he looking for 
 us for family prayers ? You have them, I 
 know, on Sundays. On such occasions I 
 never miss being present. I prayed with 
 Brigham Young every night I was in Salt 
 Lake City." 
 
 Pole replied that prayers would not be for 
 another hour, and Lord Wargrave found 
 there was time to relapse into sentiment 
 and philosophy. Pole, however, was not
 
 154 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 responsive ; and the very thought of Countess 
 Shimna, for some reason, appeared to have 
 grown wearisome to him. 
 
 " You don't," grunted Lord Wargrave, 
 having congratulated him on possessing so 
 fascinating a neighbour, " seem aware of 
 your bonne fortune. Young men of the 
 present day have no love, and no religion. 
 They marry at twenty-five, and cease to 
 say prayers at twenty." 
 
 " I," said Pole, with a laugh, " at all events, 
 am not married. And as for praying, 
 we shall all of us pray again when a 
 Royal Commission reports upon what to 
 pray to." 
 
 "A night like this," said Lord Wargrave, 
 " is a creed and a religion in itself. What 
 makes religion is feeling." 
 
 "Yes," replied Pole, "and it lasts while 
 the feeling lasts. Religious belief in these 
 days is a Penelope's web, which is woven 
 by the soul in emotion, and which the mind 
 unweaves in meditation." 
 
 "And in spite of the mind," said Lord 
 Wargrave, "the soul weaves it again." 
 
 " Is Saul among the prophets ? " murmured 
 Pole ; and moving away from his companion 
 for a step or two, he looked out over the
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 155 
 
 sea. "And I, too," he said to himself, 
 "have still a religion left me. It is buried, 
 but buried in my heart ; and for me it will 
 still live, till memory no longer sits by the 
 holy sepulchre."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 TWENTY-FOUR hours later Mrs. Pole's 
 guests had departed, and a new chapter of 
 life was opened at Glenlynn, after the final 
 closing of one which had lasted for sixty 
 years. But, so far as externals went, the 
 immediate future promised to be merely an 
 unbroken prolongation of the past. The sole 
 innovation was that Miss Drake, who was 
 to remain on, had, after much pressing, 
 consented to dine downstairs. 
 
 Pole, who for many months had been 
 engaged on the preparation of a Blue-book, 
 in which the results of his long labours were 
 to be summarized, resolved to take every 
 advantage of a seclusion so favourable to 
 work, and finish the volume, by dint of 
 determined application, before the House re- 
 assembled for an imminent autumn session. 
 He had already been corresponding about it 
 with his excellent official chief — a retired
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 157 
 
 manufacturer of stockings, whom the wisdom 
 of the Tory party had converted into a peer, 
 under the homely title of Lord Henderson ; 
 and Lord Henderson, a man of extreme 
 practical shrewdness, had exhibited an in- 
 terest in the task, and a keen sense of its 
 importance, which inspired Pole's resolution 
 with new vigour and spirit. There was, 
 indeed, at present nothing to distract him 
 from it. Countess O'Keefe had written to 
 Mrs. Pole to postpone Countess Shimna's 
 promised visit for a week, as they were 
 going with Prince Bobrovski for a cruise 
 down the coast of Cornwall ; and Pole had 
 received the news without visible disappoint- 
 ment. If useful and congenial work, pre- 
 pared under agreeable circumstances, really 
 contains, as it is said, the secret of human 
 happiness, he had apparently every oppor- 
 tunity of working out his own salvation. 
 His advantages were not merely those of 
 common quiet and comfort ; they comprised 
 almost everything calculated to nerve and 
 gratify the ambition and the faculties of an 
 energetic man, and caress the feelings of a 
 sensitive one. Well connected, and bearing 
 an ancient name, already possessed of a 
 reputation, intellectual as well as social, and
 
 158 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 engaged in an absorbing occupation, which 
 might lead him to a brilliant future, he had 
 not only just succeeded, in the vigorous 
 spring of life, to a beautiful home, which, 
 being his mother's, was his own, but he 
 had also found himself possessed of a private 
 income, so infinitely exceeding his expecta- 
 tions as to seem like a magician's gift. And 
 this new life, despite the suddenness of its 
 advent, joined itself to the old, not with any 
 crude abruptness, but with a noiseless and 
 gentle coalescence, reaching his earliest 
 years with a thousand uniting fibres. In- 
 deed, the rooms and passages, musky with 
 ghosts of departed scents, the old books 
 and the wall-papers, the silver and the 
 flowered china, and the mysterious cup- 
 boards into which he had once peeped 
 fearfully, not only brought him back again 
 to his own boyhood, but seemed to ex- 
 hale upon his spirit the calm of an earlier 
 generation. 
 
 It was a calm, too, that was alive with fresh- 
 ness. He would wander out into the early 
 hours before breakfast, when the air was 
 quick with smells of shaven grass ; when the 
 scythes swished through the dew on un- 
 dulating, green declivities ; when the flower-
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 159 
 
 beds were censers, with the soul of the 
 earth rising from them, and the silver gravel 
 on the walks rustled beneath his footprints. 
 He would watch the gardeners, bent by one 
 lifelong service ; their moorland lads be- 
 ginning the same career, and one or two 
 wrinkled old women in sun-bonnets, kneel- 
 ing to grub up weeds. Their very rakes, 
 and spuds, and wheelbarrows — he had 
 known them all since childhood. They were 
 all like objects in prints of a hundred years 
 ago ; and he felt, as he walked alone among 
 these surroundings, that an unlooked-for 
 peace was for a time enfolding him in its 
 wings. This peace even came to possess, 
 or to simulate, a spiritual character. Dr. 
 Clitheroe, whose work in that district 
 was not yet finished, had taken on his 
 room at the farm for some weeks longer; 
 whenever he was not absent on business 
 he had his meals at Glenlynn ; and each 
 morning and evening the gentle inflection 
 of his voice now filled the dining-room 
 with the murmur of household prayer. As 
 Pole knelt and listened to the well-worn 
 phrases of faith, the heaven, which had 
 long grown visionary, again appeared above 
 him, and sheltered him, like a kindly
 
 160 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 roof-tree, from the horror of the inhuman 
 Infinite. 
 
 But this was not all. Before many days 
 were over, new ideas, new schemes of 
 activity, began to develop themselves in his 
 mind, and revealed sources of happiness to 
 him deeper, in some respects, than any he 
 had known hitherto. Familiar though he 
 had been, and also profoundly interested, 
 in all contemporary problems affecting the 
 prosperity of the masses, and frequent as 
 had been the cases in which, prompted by 
 his kindness, he had given assistance to 
 individual sufferers, his view of the helpless 
 and the suffering had been that of the scien- 
 tific inquirer, whose business is to supply 
 knowledge to others, rather than set an 
 example by applying it practically himself. 
 Indeed, his position, and the very nature of 
 the duties he had undertaken, had prevented 
 his feeling the existence of any personal 
 relationship between him and the groups of 
 men — themselves so widely separated — 
 -whose conditions he studied, and whose 
 evidence he so often took. But now, 
 for the first time in his life, he was no 
 longer a wanderer ; and he found himself, 
 in addition to being possessed of a home,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 161 
 
 surrounded by human beings, who, instead 
 of being specimens and examples, had with 
 that home and himself a vital and a personal 
 connection. Intellectually all this was, of 
 course, a truism to him, of which from the 
 very first he had been aware ; but it was 
 some days before accident revealed it to him 
 as a moral truth, and he hardly knew its face 
 when he looked at it thus transfigured. 
 
 He was an active man, accustomed to long 
 walks ; and often, to refresh himself after 
 work, he would ramble for many miles, re- 
 newing his boyish acquaintance with the 
 beautiful country round him. He thus passed 
 through several of the moorland villages, 
 contrasting them with the villages whose 
 condition he had studied in other countries. 
 Here the farmers, as he knew, lived in the 
 patriarchal way, which is, in the West of 
 England, not even yet extinct. They worked 
 with their labourers, and ate often at the 
 same table with them ; and the aspect of 
 the cottages, and of the simple people them- 
 selves, filled him with the feeling that round 
 the tranquillity of his own home was a zone 
 of social tranquillity equally undisturbed and 
 deep. At first, in fact, they affected his mind 
 no further than by supplying it with this 
 
 vol. i. m
 
 162 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 sense of passive and almost indolent satis- 
 faction : and he had looked on these scenes 
 as a pensive observer only, being taken by 
 the villagers for a tourist who had lost his 
 way. 
 
 But one day when he was struggling to 
 open an unhinged gate, a woman came out 
 from a cottage, and civilly offered him her 
 help. He thanked her with equal friendli- 
 ness, and was intending to pass on, when he 
 noticed that on her doorstep a diminutive 
 child was standing. It was a boy about 
 three years old, clean and pretty in spite of 
 its poor clothes. Pole asked the woman if 
 it was hers. With a smile she answered, 
 "Yes;" and he, going up to it, patted it 
 gently on the cheek, and began to talk to it 
 in very creditable infant English. It looked 
 up at him as if it had found a friend, and 
 presently enlivened its half-articulate syl- 
 lables with that most delightful and mysteri- 
 ous sound — a little child's laughter. Pole 
 had never, to his own knowledge, possessed 
 that most valuable gift of conversing easily 
 with persons out of his own rank of life, 
 unless there happened to be some definite 
 reason for doing so ; but now sitting 
 down on a bench and taking the boy on
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 163 
 
 his knee, he began to talk to the mother 
 about it. and presently to question her about 
 herself. 
 
 At last she said, "You're so good, sir, to 
 my little boy, it may be, perhaps, you've a 
 little boy of your own." 
 
 Pole's face saddened. " I am not married," 
 he answered. 
 
 "It's not often, sir," said the woman, 
 •that a stranger comes our way. You'll be 
 staying somewhere in these parts, I suppose." 
 He told her who he was. "Indeed, sir!" 
 she exclaimed with a curtsy. " I'm sure I 
 beg your pardon, in case I have been too 
 free." 
 
 "I have spent," said Pole, rising, " a very 
 pleasant half-hour with you. I hope I shall 
 see you often. Come, little boy, good-bye. 
 One of these days I shall bring you a pretty 
 top." 
 
 He felt as he walked home that suddenly, 
 and without any effort, his knowledge of 
 things had been enlarged by this chance 
 interview ; and those roots of life, the sim- 
 plest human sympathies, were revealed to 
 him pushing their fibres through the whole 
 human soil, and binding together all classes, 
 however otherwise divided.
 
 1 64 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 It so happened that, in an equally accidental 
 way, the same grave fact was forced on him 
 again next morning; only now it was under 
 a different aspect. Close to the home-farm 
 there lived a labourer's family, which was 
 well enough known at Glenlynn as improvi- 
 dent, and always poor. Pole had himself 
 known many of its members, in his child- 
 hood ; and they and their helpless ways 
 had, during Miss Pole's lifetime, excited 
 disapproving amusement, far more than 
 compassion. Dr. Clitheroe, when he ap- 
 peared at breakfast, brought news that the 
 father was dying, "And I fear," he said, 
 " that the wife and children will be in a very 
 sad plight." 
 
 "The Western's," said Mrs. Pole, with 
 a sigh, " have been a trouble ever since I 
 can remember. The more Miss Pole 
 did for them, the less they did for them- 
 selves." 
 
 "Well," said Pole, as he sipped his 
 coffee indolently, " I suppose we must sin 
 against our principles and help them once 
 again." 
 
 He had taken up one of his letters and was 
 amusing himself by looking at the post- 
 marks, when the Doctor observed casually:
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 165 
 
 " I was told that they really have nothing to 
 eat at all, and that the children are at the 
 door crying. I have promised to give them 
 a little help myself." 
 
 " And has no one," exclaimed Pole, " given 
 them even a crust already ? Mother, what 
 can I take ? Give me some bread and milk — 
 meat, butter, anything. I will go with it 
 myself this moment." 
 
 He rang the bell ; the required orders were 
 given ; and half an hour later he found him- 
 self in the cottage kitchen, dispensing his 
 provisions to the children and the mother 
 also ; the hunger of the father having just 
 been appeased for ever. Hitherto he had 
 been conscious of that shrinking from the 
 sight of pain which often makes sensitive 
 men more selfish in action than the callous ; 
 and he had even now experienced a momen- 
 tary nausea on first coming face to face with 
 the slatternliness of the misery he was 
 relieving. But the pleasure of giving relief 
 made him forget all else. The cheeks of the 
 children, squalid with dirt and sores, became 
 delightful to him as he offered each mouth 
 its portion ; and the youngest little creature 
 he fed with his own hands, watching the 
 smiles sprout on its lips like mushrooms.
 
 1 66 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 He promised to see what could be done 
 further; and the widow's face was a bless- 
 ing, which went with him when he turned 
 away. 
 
 This incident started him on a career of 
 new activity. The sentimental aspect of the 
 scene he had just witnessed soon passed from 
 his mind ; but it left behind it a suddenly 
 awakened sense that some of the very evils 
 whose nature he had been so long studying, 
 were here at his very doors, calling on his 
 experience for a cure ; and a resolution leapt 
 to life in him, that he would apply practically 
 to these, the remedies which his observation 
 had shown him to be most successful else- 
 where. 
 
 He explained his ideas to his mother, 
 who was shrewd enough to see their value, 
 and who promised him her help and sanc- 
 tion in any schemes that might be advisable. 
 He sent for the bailiff, and consulted him as 
 to the best means of ascertaining the exact 
 condition of the poor in the surrounding 
 villages ; and with a view to obtaining not 
 only information but counsel, he begged 
 his mother to invite Mr. Godolphin to 
 dinner — him and his wife, and all her array 
 of ribands.
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 167 
 
 The invitation was sent. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Godolphin came. The dinner was at half- 
 past six, this early hour having been chosen 
 in order that afterwards they might enjoy 
 the evening out-of-doors ; and for the same 
 reason, all were in morning dress — Mrs. 
 Godolphin being, for her part, a perfect 
 Golconda of jet beads. After dinner Pole 
 in the twilight garden drew Mr. Godolphin 
 away with him, and began to unfold his 
 plans, which comprised an orphanage, with 
 an industrial school attached, and perhaps 
 a lodging for widows ; and explained how 
 such modest institutions had been tried 
 with success in Belgium. He then asked 
 Mr. Godolphin for advice and help, deferring 
 to his practical wisdom, and superior local 
 knowledge. 
 
 Mr. Godolphin was not only touched by 
 this appeal, he was flattered by it. But his 
 vanity was of that rare and delightful kind 
 which stimulates its possessor'sbestqualities 
 only ; and he listened with the keenest atten- 
 tion to Pole's plans and prospects, criticizing 
 them at the same time with great practical 
 shrewdness. At last he stopped short in his 
 walk, put his hand upon Pole's shoulder, 
 and looked at him with generous eyes. " I
 
 168 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 am thankful," he said, " to see that your 
 aunt's spirit lives in you." He paused, and 
 then with a tremor in his voice, continued : 
 " Canon Bulman was telling me that you 
 had become a free-thinker. I confess I am 
 not quite able to tell what that word means. 
 The more freely I think myself, the more 
 firmly do I believe in Christ. And, Reginald 
 — may I call you that ? for I knew you when 
 you were quite a lad — I spoke just now 
 of your good aunt's spirit living in you. I 
 ought to have said that what lives in you is 
 the spirit of Christ ; and I will not forbid 
 you, if in doctrine you should not exactly 
 follow me." 
 
 In width of knowledge, and in intellectual 
 power generally, Pole was, beyond compari- 
 son, superior to Mr. Godolphin ; but what 
 most helps and encourages even the greatest 
 of practical thinkers, what braces the sinews 
 of their will, and makes its strength a reality 
 instead of a wasted possibility, is the support 
 and appreciation of ordinary simple men ; 
 and Pole experienced the reality of this great 
 truth now. Mr. Godolphin, moreover, pos- 
 sessed, in addition to his simplicity, a 
 temperament which, in some ways, was as 
 active as Pole's own. Many men who like
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 169 
 
 him had spent most of their lives in the 
 care of the poor, and who had done so, as 
 no doubt he had, with a special, even if 
 humble, complacency, might have felt some 
 jealous distrust of a young layman like 
 Pole, who was thus presuming to intrude 
 into their own department, and whose 
 ideas, whatever their value, were an implied 
 criticism of theirs. But to such feelings as 
 these, Mr. Godolphin was a total stranger. 
 Much that Pole said to him was to him 
 certainly new ; but he welcomed its novelty 
 as a help, not an insult to himself. In 
 especial he welcomed Pole's practical sug- 
 gestion that they should provide themselves 
 with the large-scale ordnance-maps of the 
 neighbourhood — maps which showed clearly 
 each individual cottage, and compile, with 
 this to guide them, a list as complete 
 as possible, of the families inhabiting each, 
 with their wages and condition gene- 
 rally. 
 
 Intercourse between Glenlynn and Mr. 
 Godolphin's vicarage was of daily occur- 
 rence whilst these preliminaries were being 
 settled ; and formed for Pole the pleasantest 
 element in his life. He did not, however, 
 allow his official work to suffer; and he
 
 iyo THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 found time also, with the aid of a Lyn- 
 combe architect, to make some rough plans 
 for his proposed simple buildings. His 
 mother, though hitherto all her ideas of 
 charity had been nearly as old-fashioned as 
 those of Miss Pole herself, welcomed his 
 projects with a sympathy not unlike Mr. 
 Godolphin's ; and meanwhile, in private, he 
 had resolved on setting aside for these 
 philanthropic purposes, and for another, more 
 secret, but equally unselfish, most of that ad- 
 ditional income which had so unexpectedly 
 come to him. In this way he was carrying 
 into action the kind of resolve which his 
 mind, at Miss Pole's funeral, had laid as an 
 offering before he knew not what Power ; 
 and the charm of his home, and the interest 
 of his official work, were supplemented and 
 increased by a contentment whose source 
 was deeper. 
 
 But in spite of all this, a certain portion 
 of his being was tenanted by a distress or 
 melancholy, which work, ambition, the 
 approval of conscience, and the mere pleasure 
 of living, might often reduce to silence, 
 but could not dislodge. To have detected 
 this fact would have required a far acuter 
 observer than any of those persons by
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 171 
 
 whom he now happened to be surrounded, 
 and most of its signs, indeed, were beyond 
 the observation of anybody. But any one 
 who could have watched him in the soli- 
 tude of his own bedroom, or followed him 
 on the lonely rambles which he every day 
 took, would have seen reason to be con- 
 vinced that all the liberal sunshine which 
 the outward and inward world had com- 
 bined to pour on him was constantly made 
 cold and grey by some cloud of anxiety or 
 of sorrow. 
 
 Like many men suffering in the same way, 
 he would frequently, when alone, talk aloud 
 to himself in broken sentences. Several 
 times, in the morning, when his letters had 
 been brought to him in bed, he exclaimed, 
 as he looked them over, " Nothing — not a 
 single line ! " and this would be succeeded 
 sometimes by some ejaculations such as 
 these — " I have given all I have, and I get 
 not even a word;" "I did not think it was 
 in human nature to be so cruel;" or again, 
 " I feel myself cut off from everything that is 
 best in life, as if I had been a murderer." 
 There was, moreover, a certain path clamber- 
 ing along the heathery cliff-side, to which 
 each day he would betake himself; and,
 
 172 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 seating himself on a lonely rock, he would 
 look out over the sea, on which now and 
 again some white wave would flower, and 
 which whispered far below, with its foam, 
 upon curves of shingle. From here, high on 
 the horizon the form of a coast was visible, 
 where Wales opened to the Atlantic a suc- 
 cession of visionary forelands ; and the eyes 
 of the lonely watcher would fix themselves 
 from time to time on their distant and elusive 
 shadows, which were hardly distinguishable 
 from clouds. Here, too, he would not un- 
 frequently talk to himself, in phrases which 
 were similar to those just mentioned, and 
 which any one who overheard them could 
 not have failed to attribute either to unhappi- 
 ness of the deepest kind, or else to the most 
 ridiculous affectation of it. That it was not 
 affectation, however, would have been 
 proved sufficiently by the fact that the 
 moment he was in the presence of others, 
 his demeanour entirely altered, and he 
 assumed the appearance of equable, and 
 often of buoyant spirits. His aspect, indeed, 
 would brighten occasionally even when he 
 was alone, as though the natural hunger for 
 happiness, inherent in a sensitive and vigor- 
 ous nature, would insist on satisfying itself,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 173 
 
 despite all opposition from the mind ; and 
 he would view the scenes around him with 
 the pleasure which is characteristic of a 
 poet, and which is heightened, rather than 
 disturbed, by a melancholy which has lost 
 its sting. 
 
 Cloudless intervals like these were the 
 result and the reward usually of some excep- 
 tionally hard, or exceptionally successful 
 work, whether this were connected with his 
 Blue-book or his philanthropic projects ; and 
 after ten days or so cf life under his present 
 circumstances, there came to him a morning 
 of work that was exceptional in both ways. 
 A letter from his chief, Lord Henderson, was 
 brought to him, when he was still in bed, 
 begging him to send, by return of post, if 
 possible, certain comparative tables with 
 regard to artisans' house-rent in Paris, 
 Berlin, and other continental towns. As 
 the first post left at one, and it was desirable 
 to catch this, he ordered his breakfast to be 
 brought him in his own room, and working 
 there without intermission, just finished his 
 task in time. This close application happened 
 to be all the easier to him because a succes- 
 sion of light showers deprived him of any 
 temptation to go out. But when he was
 
 174 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 placing the document in its envelope, he 
 saw that the sky was clearing, and he rose, 
 rejoicing in the prospect of a half- hour's 
 stroll before luncheon. 
 
 He was, however, a little surprised when 
 Miss Drake, whom he encountered in the 
 hall, congratulated him on this change in 
 the weather, with what seemed a dispropor- 
 tionate emphasis ; and it also occurred to 
 him, when he came to think it over, that her 
 face was starched into an expression of un- 
 usual preciseness, and that the body of her 
 black dress was unusually rich in crape. 
 But these reflections quickly passed awa3' 
 from him as he went into the open air and 
 smelt the soil of the garden in it, and saw 
 about him the soft silvery mist assuming the 
 dazzling whiteness that breaks into blue and 
 gold. He forgot his statistics ; he forgot all 
 definite sorrow ; and his mind for the 
 moment became a garden of hopes and 
 feelings, vague and delightful as the scenes 
 of the garden round him. All those feelings 
 which the beauty of Nature, as distinct from 
 her grandeur, touches in us, are connected 
 directly or indirectly with religion, or else 
 with love ; and to Pole, who had known 
 romance, it seemed that the flower-scented
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 175 
 
 air around him held vague, diaphanous 
 memories, without passion or regret in them, 
 of women who had charmed him, and of the 
 scenes that had been impregnated with 
 their presence. His mind thus pleasurably 
 agitated, he was strolling, almost heedless 
 of where he went, down one of the little 
 walks that descended tortuously to the shore, 
 when the bough of a rose-tree, bent with its 
 weight of moisture, arrested his course, 
 stretching across his pathway like a bar. It 
 was bright with blossoms, and he stood still 
 to look at them. His gaze lost itself in the 
 depth of the crumpled shadows, where far 
 down were flickerings as of diamonds in 
 crimson caves ; and in every drop that was 
 globed on the upper petals, he detected a 
 miniature universe of colour and leaf and 
 sky. From this state of contemplation a 
 sound of footsteps roused him. They seemed 
 to be near at hand, but he could not dis- 
 tinguish where. He hastily raised the 
 branch and proceeded as the path led him, 
 hoping to avoid a meeting with anybody — 
 even with his mother. A yard or two lower 
 down the path took a sharp bend, and brought 
 him to a view of the sea, framed in an arch 
 of trellis-work. The waves shone in streaks
 
 176 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 of purple and of green turquoise; high in the 
 air the arch was a curve of passion flowers, 
 and beyond were rocks and myrtle, and the 
 spikes of one large grey aloe. It was a view 
 for which he entertained a special affection, 
 seeming to unite, as it did, the beauties both 
 of Italy and of England. But, in addition to 
 these, it revealed to him another beauty now, 
 which brought him to a surprised stand- 
 still. This was nothing else than Countess 
 Shimna O'Keefe, with a figure daintier than 
 any that Watteau dreamed of, and a dress 
 redolent of the sea, as the sea is understood 
 at Deauville. During the whole morning 
 the thought of her had not so much as 
 crossed his mind ; but, on seeing her, he 
 remembered that she was expected to-day 
 for luncheon, and he realized all at once, 
 with a certain sensation of amusement, the 
 true explanation of Miss Drake's aspect and 
 demeanour. He was sure that she had been 
 alarmed by the Canon's description of the 
 stranger, and he augured that the reality 
 would alarm her even more. 
 
 But this faint sensation of amusement was 
 not his sole experience. For a moment his 
 face grew grave, as he thought of how he 
 had met this stranger last, and how her hand
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 177 
 
 had lingered in his on the landing-steps of the 
 Lyncombe pier : and shame at the interest 
 she had excited in him passed through him 
 like a shuddering spirit, whose place was 
 again taken by the very interest which its 
 passage had reproved. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 COUNTESS SHIMNA at first was not 
 aware of his presence. With an absorbed 
 attention she was looking at the scene before 
 her, and the simplicity of her attitude and 
 expression was rendered doubly striking by 
 contrast with her toilette, which, though in its 
 own way equally simple, betrayed in every 
 detail the subtleties of Parisian art. For a 
 few seconds Pole had time to watch her. 
 Then she started and saw him, and he came 
 forward to meet her. Their greeting, so far 
 as words went, consisted of inevitable 
 commonplaces. He hoped she had not 
 been rained upon, during her miniature 
 voyage from Lyncombe, and they congratu- 
 lated each other on the fact that the weather 
 had so completely cleared. But meanwhile 
 he was receiving impressions of her which 
 had little to do with what she uttered. Her 
 
 skin and complexion, free from the least 
 
 X
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 179 
 
 trace of cosmetics, had yet the unnatural 
 daintiness of a face on an old French fan ; 
 and her English, though perfect, had yet the 
 faintest of foreign accents, which made it 
 like Sevres china, as contrasted with common 
 ware. Her touch, too, once more thrilled him 
 with its almost unconscious lingering, and 
 her dress, as he looked more closely at it, 
 roused a new train of associations in him. 
 Various points in it, for which, man-like, he 
 had no name, ambushed coquetries of colour 
 and fit and fold, filled him with thoughts of 
 far-off continental dissipation, of the glitter 
 of casinos, and of whisperings under lamp-lit 
 foliage. But thoughts and impressions like 
 these were at once chastened and intensified 
 by others of a different order. If much in 
 her air and aspect suggested an artificial 
 world, in her face, as she looked at him, was 
 an almost tragic sincerity. Her upper lip 
 had a certain lift in its curve, as if she were 
 ready to gasp with acute feeling ; and the 
 look of her eyes was that of a heart's-ease 
 wet with morning. 
 
 " I am glad I met you," she said, when the 
 first civilities were over. "I should have 
 been shy of making my way to a strange 
 house all alone."
 
 180 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 Any man who has been accustomed to 
 deal with women, and has shared with them 
 the beginnings and endings of a certain class 
 of experiences, may have divided himself, as 
 far as possible, from his past by change of 
 ideas and conduct ; but whenever he meets 
 a woman whose history has been similar 
 to his own, the past of each has the 
 inevitable and unsought effect of producing 
 between the two an unrecognized, and even 
 unconscious, freemasonry. The man's know- 
 ledge of other women becomes knowledge of 
 this one, and the woman is endowed similarly 
 with an instinctive knowledge of the man. 
 Pole, though he was no more aware of the 
 fact than of the tone of his own voice, was 
 himself an example of this truth now. He 
 looked at Countess Shimna without a trace 
 of freedom or familiarity, and yet he spoke 
 to her as most men would not have spoken 
 to such a stranger. 
 
 " I confess," he said, " I should never have 
 thought you shy. You seem to me like a 
 most perfect woman of the world." 
 
 She returned his look with a sparkle of 
 quiet comprehension between her eyelashes. 
 
 " Of one world, yes," she said; "but not 
 of a world like this. You may not know it,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 181 
 
 Mr. Pole, but to-day is a great day for me. 
 For the first time in my life I shall be enter- 
 ing an English home. I am half English 
 myself. English governesses have educated 
 me. I have read English books — poetry, 
 philosophy, novels — all of it ; and I know, or 
 think I know, what an English home must 
 be. That is what makes me shy. Or sup- 
 pose that I tell you plainly — I feel shy of 
 your mother." 
 
 " Why ? " asked Pole, watching her as she 
 dropped her eyes and played with a sleeve- 
 link formed out of two black pearls. 
 
 "There are many reasons," she answered, 
 as if she were addressing the gravel — 
 " reasons I can't explain. But here is one, 
 and that one is quite simple. She represents 
 a life in which I have no part." 
 
 "You have met me only twice," said Pole, 
 " and you are not shy of we." 
 
 "No," she said; "but you are different. 
 Would you like me," she continued, laugh- 
 ing, "to tell you what I mean by that? I 
 have, as you say, met you only twice. How 
 do I know you are different ? How do I 
 know what you are ? I can tell you in an 
 original way. In a Warsaw newspaper, 
 which we got yesterday morning — you know
 
 182 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 the stupid things that are always coming in 
 newspapers — was a letter stating that the 
 eye retains, after death, the picture of what- 
 ever object it looked at last when living. 
 That, of course, is nonsense ; but there is 
 something like it which is true. Eyes which 
 have been familiar with certain sides of 
 life, retain an expression produced by what 
 they have seen ; and other eyes, which 
 have seen the same things, recognize it. 
 I recognize something like this in you — in 
 your, whole expression — no matter what 
 you look at, whether at a funeral ser- 
 vice, or at this garden, or — you must not 
 think me a coquette because I say this — or 
 at myself." 
 
 "I am glad," said Pole, "that you feel me 
 to have something in common with you ; 
 but I should like to think that the feeling 
 rested on anything rather than the fact that 
 your past had been like mine." 
 
 " My present is like yours, at any rate," 
 she replied, looking slowly round her. " "We 
 are both of us seeing the same side of life 
 now. Is your home as beautiful as your 
 garden ? " 
 
 "Come," he said — "come and see. I am 
 glad, at any rate, that you like my favourite
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 183 
 
 view. Look at those colours that float upon 
 our western sea." 
 
 "Ah!" she answered, sighing, as if enter- 
 ing into his mood instantly; "that nuance 
 of blue, far out ! I have been looking at it 
 all the way from Lyncombe." 
 
 They now moved away, and she followed 
 him up one of the climbing paths, he 
 apologizing for its unsociable narrowness 
 and its difficulty. 
 
 " Ah," she exclaimed, as if nothing but 
 trifles had passed between them, "here is 
 your house ! I can see the roofs and 
 chimneys." 
 
 At this moment the sound of his own 
 name reached Pole through one of the laurel 
 hedges, and presently, at the end of the path, 
 he caught sight of his mother, who called to 
 him a little out of breath — 
 
 " Reginald, I've been looking for you every- 
 where. I wanted to ask you to meet Countess 
 Shimna at the landing-place." 
 
 " Mother," he said, "she is here." 
 
 With a slight gesture of surprise Mrs. Pole 
 looked beyond him, and scanned for an 
 instant the delicate figure facing her. 
 
 " My dear," she exclaimed, " I've been 
 wishing so much to see you."
 
 
 1 84 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 "And I, too," said Countess Shimna, 
 " have been wishing so much to come." 
 
 Pole watched her curiously. He saw how 
 she had advanced with a kind of calm 
 timidity, far more finished in its aplomb 
 than any possible boldness, and he said to 
 himself, "If this is shyness, it is shyness 
 become a fine art." But then, on his mother's 
 speaking to her, he saw all her expression 
 change, and its dainty conventionality became 
 transfigured into childlike gratitude. He 
 saw the change go home to his mother's 
 heart. He saw the gentle curve of the girl's 
 lips appeal to her, and, bending with a 
 maternal welcome, the elder woman kissed 
 the younger. 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Pole, "you look like 
 a living flower. With you on its walks, our 
 garden will hardly know itself. Hark ! that 
 bell means luncheon — what you, I suppose, 
 call dejeuner. Come and see how your 
 English relations live." 
 
 Pole followed them, delighted at the suc- 
 cess of the meeting, and very soon he saw, 
 under his mother's influence, an entirely 
 new side of Countess Shimna's nature show 
 itself. 
 
 "You will find," Mrs. Pole said to her as
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 185 
 
 they drew near the front door, " me and my 
 son alone, except for one other person, a 
 strange old dame de campagnie ; " and she 
 then proceeded to give a description of Miss 
 Drake. " I've no doubt," she continued, 
 "you've seen a great many things and 
 people, but I am sure you have never seen 
 anything in the least like her." 
 
 Countess Shimna stood still and broke into 
 a ripple of laughter, which showed her 
 hearers that, whatever she had seen or not 
 seen, she grasped the idea of Miss Drake, 
 and saw her with her mind's eye now. Her 
 appreciation was so unexpected, and the 
 effect of her mirth was so contagious, that 
 her laughter was joined in directly by the 
 two others, until Mrs. Pole said, " Hush ! 
 It would never do if she were to hear 
 us." And they passed indoors into the 
 hall. 
 
 "Ah," said Countess Shimna softly, as at 
 Mrs. Pole's suggestion she laid down her 
 sunshade, with a parrot's head for a handle, 
 on the cool surface of an old marble table, 
 and glanced at the busts, at the glimmering 
 china bowls, and the carpet mellowed with 
 its hundred years of wear, " this is what I 
 knew a home would be."
 
 186 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 "Look," whispered Pole. "There Miss 
 Drake is." 
 
 And there, sure enough, in an inner hall she 
 was, illuminated by the staircase window 
 and standing at an open door, as if waiting 
 for the others to pass into the drawing-room 
 before her. As they did so, Mrs. Pole intro- 
 duced the Countess, and Miss Drake dropped 
 a short curtsy, which resembled the collapse 
 of a concertina. Limited as the social powers 
 of this estimable lady were, she contributed 
 more than any one to make luncheon pass 
 off easily. One of her earliest emotions had 
 been horror of the first Napoleon, and she 
 still clung to the idea that everybody not 
 English was French. Countess Shimna had 
 read of people like this in books ; and nothing 
 could exceed her delight at coming across a 
 living specimen. She divined at once that in 
 Miss Drake's eyes she was a Frenchwoman ; 
 and drawing her out in the prettiest way 
 imaginable, had at last the satisfaction of 
 hearing herself asked if frogs were not, when 
 one ate them, exactly like skinny chicken. 
 Miss Drake, in fact, promoted conversation 
 much in the same way that a cat, a dog, or a 
 child does, to whom everybody conspires to 
 talk. She had never been the recipient of so
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 187 
 
 much attention before, and indeed of the 
 pleasure she caused she was herself perhaps 
 the chief participator. Unwonted smiles 
 made novel wrinkles along her cheeks. Her 
 curls, which were so prim this morning, now 
 frisked with satisfaction ; and the outlandish 
 young lady, who she fancied would smell of 
 brimstone, seemed to her by the end of 
 luncheon little less than an angel. But 
 opinions suddenly changed are proverbially 
 unstable. As the party were on the point of 
 rising, out of the corners of her provincial 
 eyes Miss Drake saw Countess Shimna take 
 her gloves from her lap — long, delicate gloves, 
 with hands that were yet more delicate ; and 
 she felt a sudden shock at the girl's physical 
 beauty. It seemed wicked to her, like some 
 strange form of luxury. Then in an instant 
 came another shock worse than this one. She 
 recollected that this alien must be a Roman 
 Catholic, and a worshipper of saints and 
 idols. Her mouth grew rigid with religious 
 and moral Protestantism ; and as soon as 
 they left the dining-room she fled to her 
 own chamber. 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Pole, as she took 
 her guest into the library, "I have a few 
 letters to write, which I could not finish this
 
 i88 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 morning. I will get them off my hands now, 
 and return to you with a clear conscience. 
 Meanwhile I will leave you to the care of 
 Reginald." 
 
 She went, closing the door. Pole and 
 Countess Shimna were alone. 
 
 "Well," he said to her, with a look full of 
 the questions that grow only from the soil 
 of a mutual understanding. To his consider- 
 able astonishment he saw gathering in her 
 eyes, not actual tears, but the dimness that 
 comes before them. 
 
 "I should," she said, "love your mother, 
 if only I knew her better." 
 
 "I know her," said Pole; "and she is 
 devoted to you already." His manner was 
 different from what it had been in the 
 morning. There was for the moment nothing 
 in it but simple responsive friendship. " Tell 
 me," he went on, "do you like our home 
 also?" 
 
 She began to look slowly round her, taking 
 in every object, like a person who is half 
 stifled, inhaling a draught of air. " Being 
 here," she said, "is like being in church. 
 Your house surrounds me, as a church does, 
 with a life unlike my own, and there is 
 some quiet of old times floating in the air
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 189 
 
 like incense. You won't know what I mean 
 when I say that. You will laugh at me ; but 
 I am made up of nerves and senses ; and with 
 me one sense is always speaking for another. 
 Do you understand that ? One of my 
 governesses used to tell me I mixed my 
 metaphors. For me, scents speak, colours 
 sound, and sounds flash like colour." 
 
 "Well," replied Pole, "come and see how 
 the colours are sounding out-of-doors." And 
 a moment or two later they went out together 
 into the summer. The golden air was fresh 
 with a wayward breeze, that came in sighing 
 puffs from every quarter indifferently, and 
 seemed to be laden with the spirit of 
 moorland honey. "This," said the girl, "is 
 all a new life to me. I have felt nothing 
 exactly like it before — so lonely, so civilized, 
 and yet so free." She seemed to Pole to 
 understand the place as he did. He watched 
 her with a curious interest, delighted to see 
 her happy. 
 
 As they went they began talking of various 
 matters. She mentioned that she had noticed 
 in the library the works of some of her 
 favourite writers — of Byron and Shelley 
 amongst the number, and of one or two men 
 of science — these last being volumes which
 
 igo THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 Pole had himself brought down. "I saw 
 'Werther,' too," she said; "but that is silly 
 and morbid — and Wordsworth. My first 
 governess used to make me learn his verses." 
 
 The extent of her reading surprised him ; 
 and still more than her reading, the way in 
 which she had made her own the intellectual 
 meanings of most of it, so that they mixed 
 themselves with her lightest thoughts, and 
 moved familiarly with them. He hardly 
 made an allusion to which she did not 
 respond. She caught what he said as if it 
 had been a ball tossed to her; and some- 
 times her mind, as through it his thoughts, 
 came back to him, seemed like a prism 
 which had dyed them with deeper colours. 
 
 " See," she exclaimed, as a turn in one of 
 the walks gave her a new view of the singular 
 and precipitous garden, "there is the wild 
 heather shining above the lawns and 
 laurels!" 
 
 " I will take you to it," he answered ; " you 
 shall lie on it. But you must not mind a 
 climb." 
 
 He led her up walks that mounted through 
 sloping thickets of laurustinus. They left 
 the garden ; they passed through a wood of 
 larches, and presently found themselves on
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 191 
 
 the slanting wilderness of the cliffs. From 
 the heights of the rocks above them down 
 to the waves below, was heather, stretching 
 before them in miles of headlong purple. 
 Here and there on a crag some mountaineer- 
 ing sheep glittered ; and above them a sea- 
 gull passed, like the drifting petals of a 
 magnolia. "The heather is dry," said Pole. 
 " Try it : it is a bed of velvet." 
 
 She sank down amongst the tufts, with the 
 supple gracefulness of a fawn ; only as she 
 did so, from her dress came a breath of 
 perfume, which again in Pole's mind con- 
 nected her with a far-off artificial civilization. 
 He sat himself on a stone close by. The 
 heather had half hidden her. 
 
 " From where you are," he said, " you can 
 see nothing." 
 
 "On the contrary," she answered, laughing, 
 " I can see an entire world. I can see — shall 
 I tell you what ? I can see little flowers — a 
 nation of them — yellow, and white, and blue, 
 showing me their faces through the grass. 
 On each side of me is the heather like great 
 hills. I can count the lights and shadows 
 streaking the highest bells ; and beyond these 
 is the sky. And now I am looking in front of 
 me. There my heather hills dip into an
 
 ig2 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 inverted triangle ; and this is filled up by a 
 lilac wall of sea. And I smell the earth. 
 Ah!" she exclaimed, raising herself, "why 
 should we consider it a reproach to be called 
 of the earth, earthy ? Why should we be 
 ashamed of a parent through whom the 
 violets are our sisters ? " 
 
 When they re-entered the house, Mrs. 
 Pole was still upstairs. They went into the 
 silent library, where the blinds, which were 
 now drawn down, filled the room with a cool 
 luminous dimness. Her face and eyes, seen 
 in this different light, startled Pole by their 
 expression of meditative melancholy. He 
 went up close to her, where she stood in an 
 undecided attitude, and said, " Will you do 
 me a favour ? Will you turn round to the 
 light ? Thank you. Forgive me for staring 
 at you. Come with me, and I will now show 
 you the reason." 
 
 Not unnaturally puzzled, she followed him 
 into the room adjoining. There he surprised 
 her further. He seized her arm abruptly, 
 and led her to the pastel portrait. " Look at 
 that," he said. " Perhaps you will under- 
 stand now." 
 
 For some moments she stared at the 
 picture silently ; then, hastily turning to him,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 193 
 
 " Do you mean," she exclaimed, "that is like 
 me?' : He took from a table a little ivory 
 looking-glass and put it into her hand for 
 answer. She looked alternately at the 
 picture and her own reflection, and at last 
 said, " Who is she ? " 
 
 "She is," replied Pole, "some distant 
 relation of both of us. But the thing so like 
 yourself in her is the whole air and the 
 expression." 
 
 " It is strange," she said, looking at the 
 picture, and evidently not displeased at the 
 thought of its being associated with herself — 
 " it is strange how likenesses are handed 
 down in families : and I suppose our charac- 
 ters, our feelings, even our little half-thought 
 thoughts, have their family likenesses in just 
 the same way — only likenesses to counter- 
 parts which nobody ever knew or painted. I 
 often wonder which of my thoughts are my 
 own, and which are echoes from my ances- 
 tors. Do you know these verses ? I think 
 you must. They express what I feel, in 
 this way, with regard to my own nature 
 sometimes. 
 
 "' Will no man tell me what she sings? 
 Perhaps the numbers flow, 
 From old unhappy far-ofi" things, 
 And battles long ago.'" 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 My governess I told you of, made me learn 
 
 that. But the portrait You didn't tell 
 
 me what the name of the lady was." 
 
 "The lady," said Pole, "was the cele- 
 brated Lady Thyrza Brancepeth. She ran 
 away with the man who built this house 
 — my great-uncle. She died only a year 
 afterwards. She is mentioned in Byron's 
 Letters." 
 
 Countess Shimna sank into a chair, with 
 her eyes still fixed upon the picture. "Yes," 
 she said presently, "she died in Italy. And 
 so that was your great-uncle ! " For a 
 few moments she was silent. Then she 
 spoke again. " I am amused," she said, 
 at your asking me if I ever heard the story. 
 Some day I can show you a picture which 
 has a story also. I can show you a minia- 
 ture of lady Thyrza Brancepeth's daughter. 
 You will not wonder then why I should be 
 like that picture. If you care for science, 
 you ought to be pleased to see me. Judging 
 from that picture, I am a good instance 
 of atavism. See," she said, interrupting 
 herself with a laugh, " I have dropped 
 my pocket-handkerchief." He picked it up 
 for her. A curve of her lips thanked him. 
 " Consider," she said, smiling, as if to escape
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 195 
 
 from seriousness, whilst her gloved fingers 
 played with the film which she called 
 her handkerchief, " consider the things of 
 which I am the child, or rather the great- 
 grandchild — of elopement, and of sorrow, and 
 of passion, and of early death. My shield 
 has all those quartiers to make up for the 
 one that is wanting." 
 
 Pole looked at her, puzzled and fascinated. 
 
 He could not tell what to make of her. 
 
 How, he asked himself, did she come by 
 
 thoughts like these — this flower of an idle 
 
 world, who by turns seemed bud and 
 
 blossom ; and who sat there brilliant among 
 
 the faded colourings of the room, with lips 
 
 that were like a kiss, and eyes that were 
 
 like an elegy. But the last words were 
 
 hardly uttered, when he saw her expression 
 
 alter, and the dancing light of childhood 
 
 leapt back again into her face. Before he 
 
 had himself perceived it, Mrs. Pole had 
 
 entered, and coming to Countess Shimna, 
 
 laid a gentle hand upon her shoulder. " You 
 
 are not tired?" she said. " Ah, here comes 
 
 Martin with the tea. But now tell me this. 
 
 Your mother, of course, will allow you to 
 
 stay to dinner? The nights are warm, and 
 
 the launch will go back on moonlight."
 
 ig6 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 It struck Pole as a strange, incongruous 
 thing to hear their guest questioned about 
 a mother's permission ; and yet, when he 
 saw how her face was suffused with childish 
 pleasure, as she told Mrs. Pole that she 
 was perfectly free to stay, she again 
 seemed to him to be a mere child, after all. 
 This impression was presently completed, 
 when the figure of Miss Drake appeared, and 
 grim with shyness, advanced slowly towards 
 the group, moving along the carpet like a 
 clockwork mouse on wheels. Countess 
 Shimna's face lit up again with the light 
 of a half-mischievous amusement; and Miss 
 Drake's lips and cheeks had presently 
 crackled into smiles which showed that 
 this daughter of Heth had made her once 
 more a captive. 
 
 After tea, Mrs. Pole proposed to Countess 
 Shimna a drive in a pony carriage up the 
 long approach ; " Which will show you," she 
 said, " how we are shut out from the world. 
 The carriage holds only two. Reginald will 
 perhaps ride." It was done as Mrs. Pole 
 suggested. Pole, on an Exmoor pony, for 
 most of the way followed them at a little dis- 
 tance, so as to let his mother and her guest 
 cement their friendship by themselves ;
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 197 
 
 and he listened with puzzled pleasure 
 to their soft intimate laughter. On their 
 way back, when they had almost reached 
 the house, they came upon Dr. Clitheroe, 
 trudging from his lodgings, washed and 
 arrayed for dinner, and carrying in his 
 hand a little paper parcel. " Stop ! " cried 
 Pole, to his mother. "I want to introduce 
 him to the Countess. Dr. Clitheroe, here is 
 a lady who has never known an English 
 clergyman, though she has had the privilege, 
 I think, of seeing you once in the garden." 
 
 " I wish," said the Doctor, as he raised his 
 dignified hat, "that the Countess saw before 
 her a worthier member of his profession, 
 Mrs. Pole," he continued shyly, still glanc- 
 ing at her companion. " I have brought 
 you a present — one of those little patent 
 strainers, for fixing to the spout of a teapot, 
 and catching the leaves." 
 
 " How delightful," exclaimed Countess 
 Shimna, amused by him as she had been 
 at Miss Drake. " Dr. Clitheroe, how 
 delightful ! " 
 
 The Doctor, like Mrs. Pole, was already a 
 victim to her charm; and at dinner his con- 
 versation displayed a demure sparkle, by 
 which poor Miss Drake was eclipsed, and
 
 198 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 which came as a surprise to everybody. 
 Whatever else might be in Countess 
 Shimna's nature, there was one thing in it, 
 at all events, that was completely genuine 
 — the buoyancy of spontaneous girlhood, 
 mischievous without being malicious, caress- 
 ing even in its audacities, perfectly trained 
 by the world, and yet supremely natural. 
 She forced on Pole the impression of a 
 child adorned with diamonds, which became 
 her and increased her beauty because she 
 was quite unconscious that she was wearing 
 them. 
 
 But by-and-by when the time came for 
 her to go, and, when wrapped in a fur-lined 
 cloak that had been sent up to her from 
 the launch, she went out alone with him, and 
 they found themselves in the scented night, 
 his impression of her changed suddenly. 
 She was once again for him a woman, as 
 she had been when he met her in the 
 morning, with whom, in virtue of her past, 
 he was conscious of some undefined 
 intimacy. Her eyes said it, as they looked 
 at him, dim and liquid in the moonlight. 
 Her lips themselves could hardly have 
 been more eloquent, no matter how she 
 had used them : and when they spoke her
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 199 
 
 voice was in harmony with her whole 
 bearing. " You must help me every part 
 of the way," she said; and quietly took his 
 arm. 
 
 The effect of this slight action was to fill 
 him with a fantastic jealousy. How had 
 she learned to take a man's arm so easily ? 
 What other man — what other men — had 
 taught her ? Such was the question he 
 asked himself till the sense of her hand 
 leaning on him, reminded him that he, at 
 all events, possessed this treasure now, 
 and showed him also that his support was 
 not by any means superfluous. The sloping 
 paths and the broken lights and shadows 
 were enough to make his guidance neces- 
 sary ; and until they were close upon the 
 shore he had hardly opened his lips to her, 
 except to say briefly, " You will come to us 
 soon again ? " For a second, as he said 
 this, she leaned on his arm more heavily. 
 So at least he thought. If so, it was her 
 only answer. But now when the waves 
 were glimmering within a few yards of them, 
 and they heard the spitting of steam from 
 the launch by the rude landing-place, she 
 paused in her walk, she turned to him, and 
 she took his hand. " Would you like to
 
 200 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 see me again?" she said. "Perhaps you 
 had better not ; but by-and-by, if your 
 mother asks me, I will come. For two 
 strangers, I think, we know each other very 
 well. And now — you must not hold me. 
 Come, help me on board, and make quite 
 sure that you have got rid of me." 
 
 She hardly needed his help, she stepped 
 into the boat so lightly. The screw churned 
 the darkness. Water began to gleam 
 between them. She raised her hand, until — 
 so he fancied — it nearly touched her lips ; 
 then she waved it in his direction — about 
 this there could be no doubt ; and he 
 watched her drifting away from him over 
 the wattled black and silver. 
 
 The house, when he returned to it, seemed 
 to be unusually quiet ; and himself dis- 
 inclined to talk, he took up the day's 
 papers, which, until that moment, he had 
 not found time to glance at. His eyes 
 wandered over the columns carelessly, till 
 at last he leaned towards the light, and 
 made the whole sheet rustle, as his attention 
 was quite accidentallj/ caught by the follow- 
 ing paragraph. 
 
 " Amongst the passengers last Saturday by 
 the ' Umbria ' for New York, was Sir Hugh
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 201 
 
 Price Masters, who succeeded recently to 
 the baronetcy, and to the ownership of St. 
 Owen's Castle, one of the most curious 
 though least visited of the historic mansions 
 of Great Britain. Sir Hugh, who has been 
 long known in sporting circles, and who 
 fractured his thigh last year, when riding 
 Gallipot at Frankfort, is understood to have 
 some big venture afoot in the United States, 
 which, since he is acting in conjunction 
 with Mr. Julius K. Van Skink, we may, 
 though the nature of the project hitherto 
 has been kept dark, conclude to be not 
 unconnected with the noble animal horse." 
 
 This elegant piece of literature was enough 
 for Pole that evening. It did for him what 
 could have been done by no other piece 
 of literature in the house. It completely 
 put out of his head the events of the last 
 nine hours : and it certainly was not of 
 Countess Shimna that he was thinking, when 
 he muttered as he went to bed, " And has 
 she gone too ! Gone, and without a single 
 word!"
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HE passed a restless night; but towards 
 morning slept so heavily that when his 
 servant brought him his letters, he had 
 some difficulty in rousing himself, or in 
 seeing distinctly what had been put into 
 his hand. At last, however, he perceived on 
 one of the envelopes, an address in untidy, 
 but by no means weak, handwriting. As 
 if something had stung him, he started up 
 in his bed, and staring at the address again, 
 broke the envelope open. The words written 
 were few, being nothing more than these — 
 
 " Laburnum Lawn, Windsor. 
 "My Dear Mr. Pole, 
 
 " I deserve anything you can say of 
 me. I am an abominable correspondent. 
 But lately I could not have written, I have 
 been so busy; though you won't believe me. 
 I had to come to London with my husband,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 203 
 
 who has gone back to America ; but I 
 have been so knocked up and ill, with 
 what I have had to do at the Castle, that 
 I have come down here for quiet. I shall 
 stay here for a fortnight, unless I am wanted 
 at home before. I am in lodgings. If you 
 should be in London, do run down and see 
 me, on any day that is convenient to you. 
 Post is going. No time for more. I am 
 ever your sincere friend, 
 
 "Pansy," 
 
 He read this twice, then leapt from his 
 bed, and his face as he entered the breakfast 
 parlour, where Dr. Clitheroe was finishing 
 prayers, had a look of eager pleasure upon 
 it, that was tempered by vague sadness. 
 The Doctor, however, was shadowed by no 
 such cloud. He rose from his knees, and 
 closed Bishop Bloomfield's manual, which, 
 with much ingenuity, he had been propping 
 up against the sugar basin, bright and 
 twinkling as if he had been getting out of 
 his bath ; and as soon as he had said " Good 
 morning," he remarked, with much Christian 
 briskness, on the manifold charms of the 
 young lady who had last night been dining 
 with them. Mrs. Pole, too, seemed to be
 
 204 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 in quite as good spirits as the Doctor ; and 
 she, like him, was still full of Countess 
 Shimna. 
 
 "I am so glad to hear," she said, "that 
 she is going to be left at Lyncombe. I told 
 her she had better come here ; and so she 
 will for a day or two. But the doctors 
 advise her that bracing air is what she 
 wants, and insist on her being established 
 high up on the cliff." 
 
 "By all means," said Pole, with an in- 
 difference that surprised his mother. "Let 
 her come when it best suits her. But till 
 next Wednesday I myself shall probably be 
 away. I have just had a letter which will 
 oblige me to go to London to-morrow." 
 
 "Very well, then," said Mrs. Pole; "we 
 will ask her to come next week. By the 
 way," she continued, "I have heard from 
 Ethel Be Souza. She and Mrs. Steinberg 
 have just come back to Thames Wickham. 
 Perhaps you will go and see them. You will 
 not find many friends in London." 
 
 "Indeed ! " exclaimed Pole, with animation. 
 " Of all women in the world, Mrs. Steinberg 
 is the kindest, and Miss Ethel De Souza the 
 most gifted. The one is a genius in friend- 
 ship; the other a genius in every way. These,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 205 
 
 Dr. Clitheroe, are friends whom we first knew 
 in Paris. Steinberg and De Souza were the 
 great Brazilian bankers. Miss De Souza is 
 Mrs. Steinberg's niece. She is an orphan, and 
 keeps house with her aunt. Mrs. Steinberg, 
 mother, has so often asked me to stay with 
 them, that I think I will telegraph to her, and 
 ask her if they can have me now." 
 
 A message was despatched accordingly ; 
 and in due time came an answer. "To- 
 morrow, by all means ; it will be, indeed, a 
 pleasure." 
 
 Early next morning he started, and was 
 speeding along the high coach-road, whilst 
 the dews and the gossamers were still glitter- 
 ing on the gorse, and the purple dyes of 
 night were wet on the distant hills. The 
 sight of a train was strange to him, after the 
 quiet seclusion of Glenlynn; but his thoughts 
 were already travelling faster than steam 
 could carry them. It seemed to him that the 
 London express, for which he had to wait 
 at a junction, would never come ; and he 
 looked down the line impatiently. At last 
 he saw in the distance a something like a slim 
 black horse-shoe, cut against the sky, with 
 pennon of white fluttering from it — a some- 
 thing that seemed to enlarge, but not to
 
 206 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 advance nearer; until, with a sudden sound, 
 it swelled to a hissing engine ; and the train 
 came sweeping in with its roaring wall of 
 windows. 
 
 His journey, it so happened, was not 
 without incident. "When he reached Read- 
 ing, at which station he was to change, his 
 attention was caught by a considerable bustle 
 on the platform, taking place in front, of a 
 carriage near that he had just left. There 
 was a group — or a little crowd — of men, well- 
 dressed in black, clustering eagerly round the 
 door of a first-class compartment. Some 
 of them were evidently clergymen ; whilst 
 those, who as evidently were not so, rivalled 
 their reverend brethren in the edifying gravity 
 of their demeanour. In another moment 
 there were bowings and a great shaking 
 of hands ; and over one clerical wide-awake, 
 whose wearer had the stature of Zaccheus, 
 Pole perceived the well-known countenance 
 of Canon Bulman, florid with recognition of 
 the distinguished welcome he was receiving, 
 but stamped at the same time with a look 
 that portended business. As the circle of his 
 admirers opened to allow of his being con- 
 ducted out of the station, he happened to 
 perceive Pole ; and quitting his companions,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 207 
 
 came up to him. Flushed with the many 
 successes which he had achieved since he 
 left Glenlynn, Canon Bulman was deter- 
 mined to make one effort more at reducing 
 Pole to his former flattering allegiance, or, 
 at all events, to show himself to him in all 
 the pomp of victory. 
 
 " My dear boy," he exclaimed, with a geni- 
 ality almost patronizing, " I'm delighted to 
 see you — quite delighted ! Are you stopping 
 in this neighbourhood ? If you are, I wish 
 you would come to-night and hear my address 
 on ' Democracy and Personal Purity.' " 
 
 Pole explained the reason why this pleasure 
 would be impossible for him. 
 
 " Then come," said the Canon, " and lunch 
 with me at my new house to-morrow or the 
 day after. I'm only just out of Windsor, and 
 you can reach me from Thames Wickham 
 easily." 
 
 This invitation Pole cordially accepted, 
 promising that that evening he would send 
 the Canon a telegram ; and presently, as he 
 renewed his journey, in spite of other 
 thoughts that had been occupying him, he 
 began to give his mind to the friends whom 
 he was so fast approaching. His early ac- 
 quaintance with Mrs. Steinberg had been
 
 208 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 kept up by him ever since ; and her niece for 
 the last ten years he had known intimately 
 also. Miss De Souza was indeed a remark- 
 able woman. Born amongst surroundings 
 the very essence of which was luxury — the 
 sort of luxury that aims at turning all life 
 into a bon-bon box tied with ribbons and 
 lined with quilted satin, and herself by no 
 means free from a certain sensuous appre- 
 ciation of it, her existence had yet been that 
 of a spirit in a world of matter. A singular 
 quickness of insight, which outran curiosity, 
 and had very little to do with it, had early 
 revealed to her, almost against her will, the 
 realities of human nature ; and a gift of 
 sympathy, equally quick and delicate, had 
 taken her through the shadows, where others 
 sinned or suffered, purifying what it touched 
 of impure, not defiled by it. And yet, little 
 as her friends suspected it, she had been 
 herself a victim, not, indeed, to the sins 
 which she looked on with such cleanly pity, 
 but to one of those sorrows to which she 
 seemed to be so superior. Wise for others, 
 she had at one time been simple for herself; 
 and her heart, having been left unguarded, 
 because she had never imagined it to be in 
 danger, had been juelded up by her almost
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 209 
 
 without a struggle to the last man in the world 
 who would have seemed calculated to attract 
 her. Her own tastes and feelings were to the 
 highest degree intellectual and sensitive. He 
 was a soldier and sportsman — a son of the 
 open air, with little to recommend him to the 
 eye of ordinary observation, except gallantry 
 and a semblance of reckless frankness. He 
 had, however, as events showed, a certain 
 fastidiousness of taste, with which few of his 
 friends would have credited him. Captivated 
 by Miss De Souza, who, besides being wealthy, 
 well-dressed, and distinguished by much 
 mundane charm, was also in many ways 
 beautiful, he had also experienced a genuine 
 desire for her affection, which appealed to 
 him as something mysterious and indefinitely 
 above himself, and which roused him for a 
 time into a state of stupid adoration. But 
 no sooner had she, who, if she gave her heart 
 at all, was a woman to give without reser- 
 vation or distrust, surrendered to him the 
 treasure that had lately seemed so inacces- 
 sible, than he little by little began to dis- 
 regard and weary of it ; and their engage- 
 ment, which had not been made public, was 
 barely a month old, before his conduct had 
 forced on her the invidious responsibility of 
 vol. 1. p
 
 210 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 dissolving it. Availing himself of the excuse 
 thus given him for posing as the aggrieved 
 party, he engaged himself a month later to 
 a wealthier woman, whom he married ; and 
 thus this secret episode in Miss De Souza's 
 life ended, except for its effects upon herself, 
 which were not suspected by even her 
 closest friends, and v/hich she never men- 
 tioned to any human being. The sole outward 
 sign was an increased sympathy for others. 
 
 The image of this charming friend was 
 occupying Pole's mind, and bringing to it a 
 sense of rest, when the train stopped ; and 
 he was roused from his reverie by his 
 servant, who appeared at the carriage door, 
 and informed him that they had reached 
 Thames Wickham. A few minutes later, an 
 open suburban fly, as dirty and as old as any 
 that had figured at Miss Pole's funeral, was 
 wheeling out of the dusty road, and convey- 
 ing him between tall brick gate-posts, into a 
 space of turf and gravel which was shadowed 
 by old cedars, and revealed beyond the cedars 
 the pillars of a large portico. The vehicle drew 
 up before a flight of wide stone steps ; and 
 the bell had been hardly rung before double 
 doors were opened; and a footman, the 
 excellence of whose place was visible in his
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 211 
 
 mien and movements, was vying with Pole's 
 own man in assisting the visitor to descend. 
 Pole glanced about him with the natural 
 curiosity of a new-comer. There slumbered 
 on every object the bloom of a placid opu- 
 lence. The house was old as suburban 
 villas go, having been built by a Lord Mayor 
 during the reign of George II. But although 
 its exterior, which structurally had been 
 hardly changed, formed still a fine specimen 
 of the stately taste of that period, it was so 
 well coated with paint and shone with such 
 bright plate-glass, that it suggested the last 
 spring-cleaningfarmore than the last century. 
 A corresponding impression was produced 
 also by the interior. The ceilings, the 
 mahogany doors, and the curving stone 
 staircase, were indeed left much as they 
 had been ; but the walls were modern with 
 all the white and gold, that the most 
 florid of contemporary decorators could 
 muster courage to put on them. The old 
 oak floors had been covered with new velvet 
 carpet ; and Pole, as he entered the vesti- 
 bule, saw through two portieres the fronds 
 of palms distending themselves in the central 
 hall of palms. 
 A large consequential butler, who was as
 
 212 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 well stuffed as a pincushion, and whose 
 slightest gesture was a compound of a rever- 
 ence and a benediction, having taken Pole's 
 hat from him, as an acolyte takes a priest's 
 vestment, conducted him past the palm trees, 
 and a retinue of candelabra, into the draw- 
 ing-room, and left him with the solemn 
 information that the ladies would be there 
 presently. Pole, though he had known his 
 hostesses so well, and for such a long time, 
 had never till now, visited them in their 
 present home, which they had indeed ac- 
 quired only within the last five years. The 
 general decoration of the house he had taken 
 in at a glance ; and he had recognized with 
 a smile the profuse spirit of Mrs. Steinberg. 
 She, as he knew, had been cradled in the 
 financial world, and her taste, as here exhi- 
 bited, was an embodied chapter of her 
 biography. He was aware, however, as he 
 looked more carefully round him, that other 
 tastes of a very different order also showed 
 themselves by abundant signs everywhere. 
 When his eyes had grown accustomed to 
 the ormolu clocks and china, and to the 
 many-coloured satin chairs that were quilted 
 and stuffed like bon-bon boxes, he realized 
 that, on every table where china or flowers
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 213 
 
 left space for them, books and reviews of 
 various kinds were lying; and standing by a 
 piano, at one end of the room, was a harp — 
 that instrument whose shape in itself is 
 music. Moving from table to table, he began 
 glancing at the volumes, all of which evi- 
 dently lay there for daily use ; and these, 
 too, made in his mind an intellectual music 
 of their own. Mrs. Steinberg herself was a 
 woman of talent and cultivation ; but the 
 mental musician Pole knew was her niece. 
 
 He was absorbed in these impressions 
 when one of the doors was pushed open, and 
 Mrs. Steinberg appeared, shining with smiles 
 and welcome, and cased in black satin, which 
 did justice to her exuberant outlines. She 
 was a woman whom few people had ever 
 looked at without liking. The upper part of 
 her profile suggested that of a parrot, and 
 also a parentage not entirely English; but 
 its keenness was softened by a considerable 
 number of chins, which would constantly 
 send their contours far up into her cheeks ; 
 and she looked like what she was — an un- 
 ruined spendthrift in benevolence. 
 
 "Ah!' ! she exclaimed, opening her eyes 
 wide, and prolonging the syllable, till a 
 dozen greetings were comprised in it, "and
 
 214 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 here you are at last ! I have posted back at 
 such a pace — and on foot too — to receive 
 you. I was really so touched by your kind- 
 ness in thinking of us, and proposing yourself 
 as you did. And how is your sweet mother ? 
 and that dear old man, Lord Henderson ? I 
 knew him well when he was quite a little 
 humble lad. And I hope you had luncheon 
 in the train, or else you must be com- 
 pletely famished. But tea will come imme- 
 diately. Hark — I can hear the cups — such 
 a clatter that second footman makes with 
 them." 
 
 All this was said with so much rapidity 
 that Pole was hardly able to insert a word 
 of acknowledgment, much less to answer 
 any of Mrs. Steinberg's questions, except, 
 indeed, the one which had reference to his 
 own luncheon ; for if he had not assured her 
 that he had eaten two large packets of sand- 
 wiches, she would then and there have 
 ordered for him a collation of poached eggs. 
 " Because, dear Mr. Pole," she said, as she 
 glanced at what was being brought in by the 
 servants, "there is absolutely nothing here 
 for you." 
 
 She pronounced the word "nothing" with 
 so pathetic an accent of complaint, that Pole
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 215 
 
 looked about, to see what the nothing was. 
 The sight positively overwhelmed him. 
 Whilst he and Mrs. Steinberg had been talk- 
 ing, the corner of the room where they 
 were had undergone a transformation not 
 dissimilar to that which a bare rock under- 
 goes when it is covered by a flock of sea- 
 gulls. Not only was the tea-table itself 
 laden with butter and toast, but on every 
 table in the neighbourhood had descended 
 some form of food — cakes covered with 
 cream, with almond, with sugar, or with 
 chocolate ; and a plate of Scotch short-bread 
 was reposing on an edition of Dante. 
 "Come," said Mrs. Steinberg, "you really 
 must have something. No? You won't? 
 I declare it's too bad of you starving your- 
 self. Well, here is your tea, at all events. 
 Cream ? " she asked. And before waiting for 
 an answer she had given him an allowance 
 so generous as to render his cup undrink- 
 able. 
 
 Presently there rose from outside a sound 
 of feminine laughter. " Ah ! " exclaimed 
 Mrs. Steinberg, "there is Ethel at last." 
 And three shortish young ladies, accom- 
 panied by a fourth, who was tall, entered 
 the room through one of the open windows.
 
 216 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 The shortish young ladies were pretty and 
 pleasant-looking enough, but were all so 
 much alike that it was difficult at first sight 
 to distinguish them. Their clothes, with a 
 humble rashness, aimed at the latest fashion ; 
 their refractory fringes flapped and frolicked 
 upon their eyebrows ; and their laughter 
 rose and fell with a somewhat redundant 
 gaiety. They fell back, however, to make 
 way for the fourth, whose dress, whose 
 bearing, and whose aspect were all singularly 
 different. As soon as she saw Pole she 
 came forward to meet him with a figure 
 whose curves were graceful as those of some 
 tall lily ; and she gave him a welcome — for 
 this was Ethel De Souza — genial as that of 
 her aunt, but subdued, chastened, and ethe- 
 realized. She was, indeed, a woman striking 
 in her whole appearance, not having regular 
 features, but instinct with a noble gracious- 
 ness which showed itself in every movement, 
 and focussed itself in her dark soft eyes ; 
 whilst her voice, equally gracious, had also 
 a pathetic note in it, which made it vibrate 
 with sympathy, and to some ears might have 
 seemed to ask for it. 
 
 "I want so much," she said, "to hear 
 about all that has happened to you — about
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 217 
 
 your place in the country, which I am told 
 is perfectly beautiful ; and your work, which 
 I see referred to every week in the papers. 
 But I won't," she said, dropping her voice, 
 "ask you about these things now. Bring 
 up that chair, won't you ? And here are the 
 Miss Cremers— Molly, Dolly, and Folly. I 
 think you met them once, when you were 
 staying with us at St. Leonard's." 
 
 With an effort, Pole remembered ; and, 
 indeed, he felt remembrance necessary ; for 
 the three young ladies, with eyes full of 
 recognition, were waiting to overwhelm him 
 with mute reproach, if he did not. The 
 Miss Cremers were daughters of a half-pay 
 Indian Colonel, a man well-connected, but, 
 owing to the narrowness of his means, 
 reduced to seek for solace, as he approached 
 the grave, in the sherry, the bitters, and the 
 billiards that offered themselves to him in 
 a third-rate yacht-club ; and he was always 
 delighted, for urgent reasons of economy, 
 when his daughters were absent from him, 
 and quartered on some opulent friend. As 
 for them, they were girls who naturally were 
 sensible enough, nor were traces of good 
 birth and breeding ever absent from their 
 manner; but they had suffered from their
 
 2i3 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 circumstances. They had not seen much 
 of the world, except the society of the 
 watering-place in which they lived ; and the 
 little else which they had seen had hardly 
 been an unmixed advantage to them ; for 
 their visits to a few country houses, and 
 an occasional week in London, stimulated 
 them to flavour their conversation with 
 abortive attempts at worldliness, and to 
 excite by an elaborate meekness the criticism 
 which they meant it to disarm. Pole dimly 
 felt all this in the somewhat unnecessary 
 effusion with which, one after another, they 
 all gave him their hands ; and the eldest 
 almost directly said to him, with a con- 
 fidential gentleness, " Mr. Pole, I was staying 
 last week with a mutual friend of ours, Lady 
 Caterham — Jane Caterham. You will be 
 glad to hear that she is quite strong again 
 now, and looking — oh, so beautiful!" As 
 Pole had met Lady Caterham only twice, 
 as he had set her down in his mind as a 
 singularly vuglar person, and had never 
 thought of her since, except when he had 
 refused her invitations, he experienced some 
 difficulty in responding to Miss Cremer's 
 communication. He managed, however, to 
 murmur, with a very creditable show of
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 219 
 
 interest, "It is a long time since I met her. 
 I suppose you were staying with her in the 
 country ? " 
 
 "Yes," exclaimed Miss Cremer ; "and 
 such a dear old place it is— what I call a 
 mellow place — just like Jane herself." And 
 she was proceeding to describe to him the 
 glories of its park, its museum, and its ball- 
 room, when Mrs. Steinberg happily caused 
 a diversion by asking her niece if "the man 
 had come about the harp." Miss De Souza 
 said, "Yes." "Oh," cried the three Miss 
 Cremers, "dear Mrs. Steinberg, do ask her 
 to play!" "Mr. Pole," continued one of 
 them, looking at him with ecstatic eyes, 
 " don't you think Ethel on the harp the most 
 wonderful thing imaginable ? " 
 
 " He never has heard me," interposed 
 Miss De Souza, laughing. "And if he had, 
 he'd have thought it wonderful only for its 
 badness." 
 
 A sigh of "How can you?" broke from 
 the three Miss Cremers ; and Pole, who had 
 for a moment looked away from them, saw 
 that they now had seated themselves at 
 Mrs. Steinberg's feet, holding her hands 
 coaxingly and caressing her satin knees. 
 • Oh," they repeated, " do ask her ! "
 
 220 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 "Mr. Pole," said Mrs. Steinberg, "these 
 are the dearest girls in the world. I've no 
 doubt, children, she'll play to us after dinner. 
 Don't trouble her now. And listen, I'm 
 sure that one of you will pick Mr. Pole a 
 nice rose for his coat." 
 
 "We all will," they exclaimed, and as if 
 by magic they were on their legs again. 
 "Or perhaps, Mrs. Steinberg," said the 
 eldest, "you would like me to find Birkett 
 and get him to show Mr. Pole to his room." 
 
 "Molly, dear," smiled Mrs. Steinberg, 
 "that will be very kind of you. Birkett is 
 sure to be in the serving-room lecturing the 
 gardener about the flowers. Indeed, we all 
 must be thinking of going to dress soon. 
 By the way, Mr. Pole," she continued, as he 
 was departing under Miss Cremer's guidance, 
 "to-night we have a treat in store for you. 
 We've an evangelical minister dining here, 
 a friend of Martha Blagdon's. You recollect 
 Mrs. Blagdon, my old school-friend, don't 
 you? She'll be down to dinner. This 
 morning she was a little poorly." 
 
 "Over eating!" whispered Miss Cremer 
 to Pole as they left the room. 
 
 He was punctual for dinner to a minute, 
 but Mrs. Steinberg was down before him ;
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 221 
 
 and by her side was another lady equally 
 stout, who, by imitating her dress, was 
 invested with a superficial resemblance to 
 her. Before Mrs. Steinberg had uttered a 
 word of introduction, Mrs. Blagdon, half 
 rising, and speaking with a solemn huskiness, 
 said, " I have had the pleasure of seeing 
 Mr. Pole before. Perhaps he does not 
 remember an old woman like me. Mr. Pole, 
 how are you ? Are you well ? I'm sure you 
 are looking so." He had taken the fat and 
 flaccid hand she offered him. It closed on 
 his like a lobster's claw, and she fastened a 
 moist glance on him which affronted him 
 like an unasked-for kiss. Very rarely had he 
 been more delighted at anything, than he 
 was at a voice, which freed him from his 
 present situation — the voice of a servant 
 announcing Dr. Mogg. Dr. Mogg was a 
 gentleman with white hair and a stoop, and 
 a white beard which confused itself with 
 the crumpled undulations of his shirt. His 
 shaven upper lip was nearly as spacious as 
 his forehead, and together, with his mouth, 
 formed his principal feature. "I'm sure, 
 ma'am," he said, in response to Mrs. Stein- 
 berg's greeting, " I am very happy to have 
 the honour of dining with you. I've been
 
 222 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 blessed for many years with the friendship 
 of Mrs. Blagdon." His natural solemnity 
 was on the present occasion accentuated by 
 a certain shyness ; and his mind, which was 
 really busy with the splendour of Mrs. 
 Steinberg's chairs, had given his face an 
 air of unusual thought, when Miss De Souza 
 and her three young ladies entered, and 
 reduced him to a nervous uncertainty as to 
 what to do with his hands. Mrs. Blagdon, 
 however, with the watchful tact of a friend, 
 relieved him of this perplexity by herself 
 taking charge of one of them, and by saying 
 to the Miss Cremers, with a certain chasten- 
 ing tartness, "Well, girls, I hope that this 
 afternoon you have been doing something 
 a little less frivolous than usual." But Miss 
 De Souza had now come to the rescue, and 
 by the magic of her manner she so wrought 
 upon Dr. Mogg that he presently was as 
 much at his ease as he would have been in 
 his own pulpit. 
 
 " My dear," whispered Mrs. Blagdon to 
 Mrs. Steinberg, " I know that in fashionable 
 society grace is often forgotten ; but I beg 
 you to ask Dr. Mogg to give a blessing." 
 
 Mrs. Steinberg nodded, and they presently 
 passed into the dining-room, where the table
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 223 
 
 was gorgeous with flowers and Venetian 
 glass. There Dr. Mogg was given the place 
 of honour, with a menu in front of him 
 beginning with two soups, comprising three 
 entrees, and ending with Strasburg pate ; 
 and just as the Miss Cremers were on the 
 point of seating themselves, Mrs. Steinberg 
 duly asked her reverend companion for a 
 grace. The Miss Cremers straightened their 
 knees ; every one remained standing ; and 
 for a moment there was a solemn pause, 
 whilst Dr. Mogg considered how he might 
 best improve the occasion. " Oh, Thou," 
 he began at last, clasping his hands before 
 him — "oh, Thou that sittest between the 
 Cherubim, and whose glory is so exceeding 
 that even the Cherubim cover their faces with 
 their wings, consecrate to their appointed use 
 these poor morsels that are before us, and 
 make them humble instruments in the great 
 scheme of our sanctification." 
 
 Mrs. Steinberg cast an involuntary glance 
 at her menu ; the three Miss Cremers ap- 
 peared to be on the point of tittering; but 
 Pole, who never laughed at any exhibition 
 of religion in the presence of any one who 
 could possibly take it seriously, was pleased 
 at noticing how a look from Miss De Souza's
 
 224 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 eyes reduced the young ladies at once to a 
 state of demure decorum. As dinner pro- 
 ceeded, indeed, they were quite unable to 
 refrain from many whispered witticisms as 
 to the number of poor morsels which found 
 their way to the lips of Mrs. Blagdon. But 
 Mrs. Blagdon, although she occasionally 
 looked suspicious, was filled by food with a 
 spirit of Christian gladness that made her 
 impervious to most worldly annoyances. 
 
 " Martha," said Mrs. Steinberg to her, 
 " you're eating positively nothing. Don't 
 pass that jelly. You'll find it is excellent." 
 
 " Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Blagdon, 
 with an air of meek resignation, and with 
 two stalactites of cream hanging from her 
 under lip as she spoke, " don't mind me. I 
 assure you I am doing very well. John," 
 she said, turning to the footman, "you may 
 give me a piece of that, please. Yes, dear, 
 this is really good — so well tasted and so 
 wholesome." And as she finished it and 
 returned her spoon to her plate, she looked 
 round the table, smiling and almost frisky 
 with content. " Seeing you all, dear," she 
 said, turning to Mrs. Steinberg, "has made 
 me ever so much better than I was. I think 
 you are all of you a sight for sore eyes. I've
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 225 
 
 had," she continued, with a species of 
 hallowed jauntiness, " a series of blessings 
 since the sun rose this morning — a good 
 breakfast, good friends, a good dinner, and 
 a good day. Do you know, deary, what I 
 did with myself in my bedroom ? I lay on 
 my sofa and read Dr. Mogg's sermons." 
 
 " I hope," said Dr. Mogg in slow, rumbling 
 accents, " that those poor words of mine 
 may prove efficacious with souls which need 
 rousing far more than Mrs. Blagdon's. 
 Madam," he whispered, leaning towards 
 Mrs. Steinberg, " might I venture, as I am 
 under an earthly physician's orders, to ask 
 
 for a glass of brandy, just " he coughed 
 
 and paused as if hunting for a sufficiently 
 delicate phrase, "just," he said, "to com- 
 pose my stomach." 
 
 Again the Miss Cremers, who all were 
 remarkably sharp of hearing, were just on 
 the point of indulging in a trio of titters ; 
 nor did Mrs. Blagdon, who regarded them 
 with equal disapproval on account of their 
 worldly minds and their want of worldly 
 goods, tend to calm their risibility by the 
 black looks she cast at them. The situation, 
 indeed, was rapidly becoming strained, and 
 Mrs. Steinberg, who understood it, but was 
 
 vol. 1. q
 
 226 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 at the same time annoyed by it, became so- 
 anxious to get the young ladies into the 
 drawing-room, that she quite forgot to ask 
 for another grace, and left Dr. Mogg, before 
 he had realized what was happening, to the 
 company of Pole and the wine bottles, and 
 the chance, if he cared to use it, of com- 
 posing a suitable thanksgiving for the benefit 
 of a single auditor. 
 
 Pole might, under ordinary circumstances, 
 have found it difficult to entertain so uncon- 
 genial a companion ; but the way in which 
 that duty had been performed by Miss De 
 Souza — her tender consideration of the 
 old man's feelings and position — had put in 
 his heart an example which he felt con- 
 strained to emulate ; and Dr. Mogg, though 
 probably regarding him as a brand for that 
 bonfire of the lost, which is for ever to cele- 
 brate the triumph and enhance the gaiety of 
 the saved, could not help feeling about him 
 that, judged by human evidence, he was a 
 friendly and kindly gentleman, full of all 
 Christian courtesy. " After you, sir," he 
 said, as Pole opened the drawing-room door 
 for him, the result being that Pole, with a 
 friendly violence, pushed Dr. Mogg forwards, 
 and entered holding him by the arm. As he
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 227 
 
 did this he saw that Miss De Souza was 
 looking at him, and her face, as she did so, 
 brightened with surprised approval. 
 
 " Come, Doctor," said Mrs. Steinberg, 
 slapping her sofa, " sit down here, and talk 
 to me and Mrs. Blagdon. Those young 
 people are settling what to play to us. Go, 
 Mr. Pole, and help them." 
 
 As Pole approached the group which had 
 clustered about the harp, he found the Miss 
 Cremers apparently fuller than ever of wit 
 and laughter, the zest of which was only 
 intensified by suppression. " Ethel," said 
 one of them, "play him something from Don 
 Giovanni." " No, no," said the second, 
 " Mephistopheles' serenade in Faust." 
 "What will he do?" said the third. 
 " What effect will it have on him ? I don't 
 suppose he ever heard an opera in his life ; " 
 each of which observations was accompanied 
 by smothered mirth. 
 
 " No, no," said Miss De Souza, speaking 
 gently but firmly, and yet accommodating 
 herself to their mood so far as to answer 
 them in a whisper. " Why should we hurt 
 his feelings when he gave us such a delight- 
 ful grace ? Mr. Pole, what shall I play ? 
 Look here — I have thought of these."
 
 228 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 " You couldn't," said Pole, " have possibly 
 chosen better." 
 
 "Now, girls," said Miss De Souza, "go 
 away and be audience." And seating her- 
 self at her instrument, she played with 
 unusual power and feeling, " The Last Rose 
 of Summer," and "Oft in the Stilly Night" ; 
 and, finally, when asked for more she con- 
 cluded with " Home, Sweet Home." 
 
 " Ethel," exclaimed the eldest Miss Cremer 
 when the Doctor had taken his departure, 
 and she and her sisters had again sur- 
 rounded Miss De Souza, "you ought to 
 be a lion-tamer. Mr. Pole, oughtn't she ? 
 Do you know what Mrs. Blagdon said when 
 you finished the first piece ? She said to 
 Dr. Mogg, in a fat wheezy whisper — no 
 wonder it was wheezy after that disgusting 
 dinner of hers — ' I often think all these 
 talents are a very great snare.' And what 
 do you think he answered ? ' So,' he said, 
 ' are our spiritual talents, unless we employ 
 them properly.' " " One for Martha, that 
 was!" said the second Miss Cremer, de- 
 lighted. " And then," resumed the eldest, 
 "when you had finished 'Home, Sweet 
 Home,' there were actually two tears in the 
 good old gentleman's eyes."
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 229 
 
 " Mr. Pole," said Miss De Souza, lingering 
 at the foot of the stairs, as the rest of the 
 party were going up with their candles. 
 " We haven't had a single word. But I 
 want to thank you for one thing — your 
 kindness to that old man, who must, I am 
 sure, have bored your very life out of you. 
 We shall have a long talk to-morrow, I 
 hope." 
 
 "To-morrow," he answered, "I fear I 
 shall have to be away at Windsor. I have 
 told Mrs. Steinberg about it." 
 
 "Listen to the clock," she said. "It is 
 only a quarter past ten. The servants 
 hardly ever put out the lights till half-past. 
 Come back with me into the drawing-room 
 and help me to find a book." 
 
 He felt her presence affect him as a man 
 with an aching wound is affected by the 
 touch of some cool and healing herb. 
 Every look, every movement of hers was 
 mesmeric with assuaging sympathy. He 
 followed her into the drawing-room. 
 
 "You are not," she said, "looking well 
 or in spirits. I hope that all your affairs 
 are going as you could wish them." 
 
 " So far as my affairs go," he answered, 
 " everything has been beyond my hopes."
 
 230 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 " And you are," she said, " famous already 
 — famous for useful work." 
 
 "I could hardly," said Pole, "if I had 
 had the choosing of them myself, have 
 chosen external conditions more favourable 
 than my own ; and I also have done some 
 work which I think is really useful. But 
 I only show — though unhappily I show 
 nobody but myself — how little external con- 
 ditions are able to ensure happiness. You 
 speak of my work too ; and you think, 
 perhaps, it must give me a good conscience. 
 Let us suppose it does. Let us make 
 that supposition, which so flatters me. But 
 our good consciences do not give happiness 
 to us. Their utmost power as comforters 
 is to help us to bear the want of it."
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE following morning Pole received two 
 letters in answer to telegrams he had sent 
 the night before. Both letters were short. 
 The one ran as follows. " My dear Reginald, 
 — Come to lunch or dinner, whichever suits 
 you best. If you do not come at one o'clock, 
 I shall expect you at half-past six. Yours, 
 Randal Bulman." The other was not much 
 longer. " My dear Mr. Pole, — If you please, 
 not luncheon. Come at three, or so soon 
 after as you can. If you don't mind a bad 
 dinner, dine." And there was a signature 
 scrawled so hastily, that had this alone been 
 his guide, it would literally have told him 
 nothing. Reading this last note, he contem- 
 plated the careless writing, first with sadness, 
 then with a passing scowl ; and there came 
 into his mind the image of Miss De Souza. 
 He saw before him her face, so sensitive that
 
 232 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 she seemed to wince at even the passing 
 thought of suffering borne by others. He 
 had noticed her expression as she had asked 
 him after his own welfare, and drawn his 
 confessions from him by the mere magnetism 
 of her sympathy. He recalled it now. He 
 recalled her solicitous kindness towards the 
 old clergyman, and her anxiety to shield him 
 from any accidental mortification ; and he 
 said to himself half aloud, " What a strange 
 thing is human nature ! Here is one woman, 
 on whom I have no claim whatever, except 
 the claim she gives me by her own natural 
 kindness : and yet she is unhappy at detecting 
 the mere shadow of that suffering which 
 another woman, not only sees with apathy, 
 but inflicts on me without compunction." 
 An hour later, however, when he appeared 
 at breakfast, he was duly arrayed in that 
 garment of calm cheerfulness with which 
 men, in polite society, cover the indecency 
 of sorrow. 
 
 "And so," said Mrs. Steinberg, "you are 
 going to lunch with Canon Bulman. There's 
 an account in the paper, I see, of a speech 
 he was making yesterday. And oh!" she 
 exclaimed, taking the paper up, "look at 
 this ! They have had their way at last 1
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 233 
 
 Well, I'm very sorry, I confess ; and as 
 Martha is not here I can say so." 
 
 "Who?" exclaimed the Miss Cremers in 
 chorus. "Dear Mrs. Steinberg, who have 
 had their way ? " 
 
 "Who? Why, my dears, Canon Bulman 
 and his meddling friends. You know how 
 they have been clamouring that the unhappy 
 man should resign." And she named the 
 political leader who was the object of the 
 Canon's antagonism. " He has not resigned, 
 I see ; but two-thirds of his supporters have 
 repudiated him." 
 
 "The Canon," thought Pole to himself, as 
 he set off for the station, " will be so full of 
 his triumph, there will really be no holding 
 him." And he managed to divert his mind 
 from other subjects by speculating in the 
 train as to how his host would receive him, 
 and what would be the character of the 
 canonical house and household. As for 
 the house, it was very much what he had 
 foreseen, except that it was a good deal 
 larger. It was Gothic, as Glenlynn was ; 
 but yet with a wide difference. The Gothic 
 of Glenlynn — the Gothic of a hundred 
 years ago — was the toy of an aristo- 
 cracy playing at medieeval feudalism. The
 
 234 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 Gothic of Canon Bulman's abode, with its 
 piebald arches of red and yellow brick, was 
 the toy of a reformed church playing at 
 mediaeval Catholicism. The building was 
 divided from the road by a frill of turf only, 
 and a cast-iron railing, ornamented with 
 dwarf crosses, over which two excited cats 
 were vulgar enough to be playing leap-frog. 
 The pointed windows were white with 
 muslin curtains, between which were 
 glimpses of ornaments under glass shades ; 
 and the brass knocker on the varnished 
 surface of the front door, was so brilliant 
 that it shone all across the road. Pole's ring 
 at the bell was answered by a dark-eyed 
 parlour-maid, as spruce as the house itself, 
 but considerably less ecclesiastical. He, like 
 Mr. Godolphin, had heard from Dr. Clitheroe, 
 that the Canon was said to be blind enough 
 to retain in his service a domestic whose 
 innocence or whose reformation was by no 
 means so complete as he believed it to be ; 
 and the moment Pole looked at the young 
 lady by whom the door was opened, the 
 Doctor's gossip came back to his mind. He 
 gave to her appearance a very cursory atten- 
 tion ; but a glance was enough to suggest to 
 him as an explanation of her presence, that
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 235 
 
 the Canon, like many of the emotional 
 apostles of chastity, had a special zeal for 
 souls which resided in attractive bodies. 
 This reflection, however, did not occupy him 
 for a moment, and was quite driven away by 
 the interior of the Canon's mansion. The hall 
 was imposing with woodwork of pitch-pine, 
 scooped and scalloped with various Gothic 
 devices, which all had a tendency to be more 
 or less cruciform, and suggestive of sacerdotal 
 asceticism. The Canon, however, who was 
 very far from being a sacerdotalist, had 
 neutralized this effect, by hanging the walls 
 with magnificent Alpine photographs, photo- 
 graphs of the Cambridge Eight, and engrav- 
 ings of a few crowned heads ; whilst a new 
 Turkey carpet covered the floor with comfort. 
 Pole had hardly had time to look round him, 
 when out came the Canon from a library, and 
 bid him welcome, with a muscular grasp of 
 the hand. 
 
 " Lunch, Sophie," he said, " as soon as you 
 can let us have it. And now, Reginald, come 
 in and see my den. A simple place, this, 
 but not bad in its way. Look — those rows of 
 classics — eh — do you remember them? Sit 
 you down there. You will find that chair 
 comfortable. Prince Ferdinand was sitting
 
 236 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 in that chair last week, and he said he liked 
 it better than anything they could boast of in 
 the Castle." 
 
 The Canon, in fact, was in singularly good 
 humour, and that for four different reasons. 
 One was the downfall of the detested and 
 peccant politician ; another, the success of 
 his own last evening's eloquence ; a third 
 — and perhaps the chief — was the sense that 
 the position of things at Glenlynn was re- 
 versed, and that both as a host and a public 
 man he was once again Pole's patron ; and 
 the fourth was the pleasure he took in his 
 new house, and especially in displaying its 
 merits to a fresh spectator. And indeed, 
 when Pole reflected that one of the Canon's 
 favourite missions was to lead the crusade 
 of Labour against property, place, and 
 luxury, he could not help feeling that 
 the bitterness of the Canon's spirit was 
 hardly caused by any want of the main 
 advantages which he attacked. 
 
 "That," said the Canon, on their way 
 across the hall to luncheon, "is the drawing- 
 room;" and he opened one of the doors and 
 disclosed a spacious apartment, divided in 
 the middle by something like a chancel arch, 
 and fitted with rosewood tables, and albums
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 237 
 
 on bead mats. The Canon was blessed with 
 an exceedingly healthy appetite, but he had 
 neither the grossness of a greedy man, nor 
 any of the refinements of a dainty one ; and 
 his table, in these respects, was a very 
 fair reflection of himself. A turbot, a 
 chicken, and an apple tart with cream, 
 followed by a German cheese, the gift of 
 a royal patron — such was the fare he offered; 
 and it was served with appropriate nicety. 
 The silver, though modern, and of very 
 vulgar, inferior design, was plentiful, and 
 well polished ; the porcelain plates were 
 adorned with the Canon's monogram ; and 
 though the Canon himself took only lemon 
 and soda-water, he provided his guest with 
 a bottle of first-rate claret. 
 
 "Well," he said, looking at Pole, with a 
 smile in which the reproving tutor not un- 
 gracefully mixed with the triumphant public 
 man, "you see that I and my friends have 
 had our reward at last, and to our credit 
 as a Christian nation that scoundrel has 
 had to efface himself. I thought, my dear 
 fellow, when I was at Glenlynn, that you 
 treated this and other matters too lightly, 
 or were a little inclined to soften their true 
 features by throwing over them a veil of
 
 238 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 sentiment — a very tawdry and betinselled 
 veil at the best. I wish, my dear Reginald, 
 you would always beware of sentiment. 
 Next to the absolute temptation of the brute 
 senses themselves, nothing is more dan- 
 gerous to true and healthy manhood, both 
 in the individual and to society. It does 
 indeed prepare the way for corruption ; and 
 it does so by no means more efficacious and 
 fatal than by leading us to judge gently of 
 the sins and of the corruption of others." 
 
 " You are not then," said Pole, " of 
 Bunyan's way of thinking, who was accus- 
 tomed to say, ' If it were not for the mercy 
 of God, I myself should be in that sinner's 
 place!"' 
 
 " I am not," said the Canon, giving a slight 
 thump on the tablecloth. "The mercy of 
 God has implanted in us His own image. 
 He has given us eyes to see filth and avoid 
 it ; and it is idle to say that we should all of 
 us choose to walk in it unless, besides giving 
 us eyes, He also kept us in leading-strings. 
 If a man chooses to trifle with his own eye- 
 sight by putting on his nose the coloured 
 spectacles of sentiment, which will prevent 
 him distinguishing the clean places from 
 the dirty, all I can say is, his dirt be on
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 239 
 
 his own boots ; only I don't want his boots 
 to be trampling on my carpet. My dear 
 Reginald, if your friend Bunyan's words 
 mean anything, they mean this — and see 
 how it sounds put this way — If I followed 
 my own inclination I should be a thief, a 
 forger, a murderer, an adulterer, a suicide. 
 In fact it is only by a miracle that I am 
 not one and all of them, as it is. I'm certain 
 that if any one were to say that to either of 
 us we should answer, ' That may be true 
 of you, sir; but I can assure you it is not 
 true of me.' " 
 
 It may be inferred that whilst the Canon 
 was discussing these delicate subjects, his 
 two parlour-maids — for the fair Sophie was 
 aided by a sister handmaiden — were not in 
 the room to listen ; or, if they were, they 
 were hidden behind a screen, which a hardly 
 audible laugh made Pole think not impro- 
 bable : and as at this moment their services 
 happened to be requisite, the Canon was 
 obliged to summon them, and give a new 
 turn to the conversation. 
 
 It was easy to see, however, that his 
 thoughts had not strayed with his words ; 
 for, as soon as his attendants had disap- 
 peared, he returned to his previous subject.
 
 240 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 "I have," he said, "been doing all I can 
 to encourage football and athletic sports in 
 this neighbourhood. There's no better means 
 of keeping our young men out of temptation. 
 The unlucky thing is, that one gets only at 
 the lower classes. One doesn't get at those 
 which are really the worst offenders — the 
 classes which make these riverside towns 
 the sinks of iniquity they are." 
 
 "Indeed!" said Pole. "Are they worse 
 than other places ? " 
 
 "Oh," said the Canon, "it is deplorable! 
 Artists and men boating — down they come, 
 bringing all the vices of society with them. 
 I tell you, in some of these towns there is 
 hardly a pretty girl who gives you what you 
 can call a really modest look. But that is 
 not the worst of it. All these pretty little 
 villas, looking on the river or hidden away 
 in gardens — these are put to the very worst 
 of purposes. Profligate men take them as 
 summer homes for their mistresses. Wives 
 take them as places where they may meet their 
 lovers. The very Thames itself has become 
 the most immoral river in the world." 
 
 The turn of the last phrase almost made 
 Pole laugh ; but he composed his muscles, and 
 merely said, " How do you know all this ? "
 
 1( 
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 241 
 
 Ha!" exclaimed the Canon, ironically. 
 " I know, my dear Reginald, because I make 
 it my business to inquire. Some of the 
 landlords of those very villas I was speak- 
 ing about — God-fearing, clean-minded men ; 
 there's one man named Snaggs, especially — 
 a capital fellow, a right-hand man of mine — 
 come to me with pretty stories. I heard 
 from him only yesterday about a woman, 
 who, whatever she is, is not here for any 
 good. But come," he continued, as if ridding 
 his mouth of some nauseous taste — "come, 
 I'll give you one of Prince Michael's cigars. 
 I am sorry to say I have an engagement at 
 three." 
 
 Pole was pleased to hear this, as it sim- 
 plified his own departure ; and he could not 
 help smiling, as he bade the Canon good-bye, 
 to think in what a notorious way the giver 
 of these choice cigars was unworthy, on 
 the Canon's principles, to set his boots upon 
 the Canon's carpet. Unwilling to be cross- 
 questioned as to where he was now going, 
 or — more embarrassing still — to be accom- 
 panied for any part of the way by his host, 
 he had managed to take his departure when 
 it was hardly half-past two ; and, hurrying 
 to the nearest cab-stand, desired to be driven 
 
 VOL. 1. R
 
 242 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 to a house of whose position he knew little, 
 except that it was outside "Windsor. When 
 he mentioned the name, the driver seemed 
 well acquainted with it. It lay on the out- 
 skirts of the town ; and Pole, from his slight 
 local knowledge, divined, when the cab 
 turned down a narrow lane, that the river 
 Thames could not be very far away. His 
 conjecture proved correct, and soon between 
 two garden walls he saw a boat flash by on 
 the volume of sliding water. At the same 
 moment the vehicle drew up at a wicket, 
 which bore on its green woodwork the 
 words " Laburnum Lawn."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 POLE dismissed the cab, and pushing the 
 wicket open, entered a pathway, narrow but 
 trimly kept, which went for some dozen 
 yards in a curve between tall bushes. He 
 walked very slowly, as. if shy of emerging 
 from this seclusion, and once or twice he 
 hesitated and stood still. But soon — in a 
 few seconds — the sheltered path had done 
 with him, and he found himself facing a red 
 little brick house, covered with creepers, 
 shining with white window-sills, and looking 
 on a lawn which was studded with brilliant 
 roses, and which opened out by a shy 
 aperture on the stream. In the porch, at the 
 top of some steps, leaning against a pillar, 
 was a woman. When Pole appeared, she 
 at first remained quite motionless, but as 
 he came nearer he saw that her eyes were 
 following him, and her lips were relaxing
 
 244 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 into a soft gradual smile. Her dress was 
 a blue silk shirt, and a skirt of rough Scotch 
 cloth. In her blue shirt was a rose, and her 
 face was a rose still fresher. Her eyes had 
 the brooding light of a clouded day in June, 
 and in them and on her face, with its soft 
 infantine curves, there rested two expressions 
 — that of the child looking at its mother, and 
 that of a mother looking at her child. "When 
 Pole reached the steps, she straightened 
 herself with a little jerk that was half play- 
 ful in its abruptness, and ran down to meet 
 him ; and her eyes had now in them a faint 
 dancing sparkle which child and mother, 
 when they look at each other, never see. 
 She held out both her hands to him with a 
 frankness that had something timid in it, 
 and looking him earnestly in the face she 
 said, " Are you glad to see me ? " Her voice 
 was singularly sweet, and trembled with a 
 deprecating laugh. 
 
 "I think," said Pole, gently and yet sadly, 
 "it is I who should ask whether you are 
 glad to see me." 
 
 "Yes," she said; "yes. Of course I am 
 very, very glad." 
 
 " I didn't," he answered, " venture to think 
 you would be. But now I look at you, I
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 245 
 
 really think you are, Pansy. Dear, I believe 
 you are." 
 
 She looked silently at him and merely 
 nodded her head. 
 
 "How pretty," he said, "your garden is, 
 and the little house, and everything ! " 
 
 Her face brightened, as if she were glad 
 to speak of some indifferent subject. "Isn't 
 it nice?" she exclaimed. "Let us walk 
 round and see it all. There is an arbour 
 there, where I thought we would have 
 ea. 
 
 They went together with slow, intermit- 
 tent paces, pausing now and then to look at 
 a bush or flower, and only breaking silence 
 to exchange some trifling observation as to 
 the name or the beauty of a rose, the neat- 
 ness with which the place was kept, or 
 some other obvious topic suggested to them 
 by the surrounding scene. 
 
 " I often," she said, as they came in view 
 of the river, " sit here, myself quite hidden, 
 and watch the boats go by. What pretty 
 spots of colour those men make with their 
 caps! They row well." 
 
 Pole assented, looking vaguely across the 
 water. Meanwhile she had dropped her 
 head and was poking at a dandelion with
 
 246 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 her parasol. At last he asked if she knew 
 the name of a house, half hidden in trees, 
 on the other side of the water. She seemed 
 for the moment as if she had hardly heard 
 him ; and then looking quickly up she uttered 
 the two words, " What, dear ? " The uncon- 
 scious tenderness of her manner, and the 
 way in which the endearing phrase slipped 
 from her, made him turn abruptly round. 
 She raised her eyes to him and his look 
 transfixed her. Half unwillingly she was 
 obliged to return his gaze. " Pansy," he 
 said, " do you know that I think of you night 
 and day ? Tell me — do you know it ? Dear, 
 have you forgotten everything?" 
 
 He spoke low, but his voice shook with 
 suppressed feeling. He did not approach 
 her; but she shrank a little away from him, 
 as a gentle half-tamed animal shrinks from 
 a hand approaching it. 
 
 " Don't," she said, " don't— I beg you." 
 
 " Don't what ? " he asked. 
 
 "You know," she replied. "Oh, Reggie, 
 please be kind to me ! Be nice and friendly. 
 I haven't too many friends." Then with a 
 light, quick movement she turned away from 
 the river, and said to him, " Come, you have 
 not seen half the garden. And the house — I
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 247 
 
 must show you that — and my books, for 
 I have quite a library." She had now 
 summoned to her lips the shadow of a 
 pouting smile. " You will let me show you 
 my books," she said. 
 
 Pole's face and bearing showed signs of an 
 internal struggle. His brows contracted, 
 and the lines of his mouth grew harsh. 
 Then, with an obvious effort, he overcame 
 every bitter feeling, and spoke with a voice 
 and smile that answered to her mood. 
 •" Show me," he said, "everything; I am 
 longing to see it all." A little childish laugh 
 fluttered amongst her syllables as she 
 answered him. She touched his arm lightly 
 and they went together into the house. 
 There, amongst her books, the conversation 
 came with painless fluency ; and if Canon 
 Bulman, in his zeal for the morals of the 
 neighbourhood, had been peering through 
 the window and had known nothing of 
 either, he might have thought them brother 
 and sister, or cousins who had long been 
 separated. It is true that Pole, when her 
 face was turned from him, sometimes looked 
 at her with a wondering and half-pitying 
 sadness ; but he continued to laugh plea- 
 santly, and talk to her with tranquil
 
 248 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 sympathy, as if intercourse such as this left 
 no emptiness in his heart. 
 
 Meanwhile time had gone by quickly, and 
 a maid now appeared at the door of the room 
 where they were sitting, and said that tea 
 had been taken into the arbour. "Will you," 
 said his hostess to him as they rose, " bring 
 out a book with you and read to me ? Any 
 one you like — Shelley, or that volume of 
 Dickens." 
 
 He did as she bade him with a slight 
 reluctant sigh, and slowly followed her 
 out of doors. When they sat down in 
 the arbour he was silent and his face was 
 changed. 
 
 " Have I bored you," she said, "with talking 
 about myself? I have ! I know I have, and 
 now you are going to hate me ! But, Reggie, 
 I've no one but you to whom I can tell my 
 thoughts ; and when I see you they all come 
 pouring out ; and lately, until I came here, 
 I have had no time for thinking." 
 
 " May I," he said, " ask what has been 
 occupying you ? " 
 
 "Oh," she replied, "every kind of thing — 
 practical things. You've no idea what a 
 house the castle is ; and everything comes 
 on me. I shall have to work like this for
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 249 
 
 another twenty years at least. Perhaps," 
 she said gently, "you will be able to see 
 now why I so seldom have time to write to 
 you. You wouldn't wish me — would you ? — 
 to neglect my duties. You ought rather to 
 encourage me to do them." 
 
 Whilst she spoke he looked straight before 
 him, as if he did not hear her. She might 
 have seen by the movement of his throat 
 that he was agitated by some emotion. At 
 last he said in a low, deliberate voice — 
 
 " It is right. You must do the duties that 
 are claiming you on every side. Your new 
 life — the life you have so gladly chosen — 
 must take you and make you part of itself, 
 surround you and absorb you, and raise you, 
 and change you past my knowing you ; and, 
 better still, it will change you so that you 
 will have no need of me." His voice, as he 
 went on, had acquired a growing bitterness, 
 and there was something in it almost fierce 
 as, turning on her abruptly, he said to her, 
 "Is not that so?" 
 
 She looked at him with a face that was 
 frightened rather than angry, and bewildered 
 rather than frightened. 
 
 "Dear," she exclaimed, "don't be rough 
 with me ! "
 
 250 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 Those few helpless words in an instant 
 disarmed his anger. 
 
 "Forgive me," he said; "do I ever wish 
 to wound you ? " 
 
 "No!" she answered. "No; you don't. 
 Be kind and good, then, and read to me." 
 
 He took the book up and began to turn its 
 pages ; but as he did so, his eyes kept stray- 
 ing towards the tea-tray. 
 " What is it ? " she asked. 
 " I was looking at the cups," he said. " I 
 see there are only two. I thought those 
 little cakes might perhaps be for some one 
 else. Is no one else here, Pansy ? " 
 
 She slowly shook her head. "There was," 
 she replied, " but they both of them went 
 to London this morning. They went with 
 nurse, to see the doctor." 
 
 Again his face darkened, but he spoke 
 quite equably. 
 
 " Come," he said, " I will read now. Here 
 is a chapter that always made you laugh. I 
 could hardly trust myself to utter my own 
 thoughts." 
 
 These last words were muttered rather 
 to himself than her, and he began his reading 
 without more ado. He read well, and with 
 apparent interest and willingness ; and she,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 251 
 
 as she listened, kept her eyes fixed on him, 
 and laughed encouragingly at every amusing 
 passage. But in time it seemed as if he 
 were wearying of some painful effort. The 
 spirit went from his voice ; his elocution 
 became monotonous; and at last she stopped 
 him, saying — 
 
 "You're not attending; no, not the least 
 bit. You've made three mistakes in those 
 last two sentences. There, put your book 
 down and talk to me. We have read 
 enough." 
 
 He put the book down with alacrity, and 
 abruptly asked her a question which, to 
 judge from his manner, had been in his mind 
 some time. 
 
 "Why," he said, "would you not let me 
 come to luncheon ? " 
 
 "I couldn't," she said; " I was expecting 
 the dressmaker, so if you had come earlier 
 you would hardly have seen anything of me. 
 Why do you laugh like that ? " 
 
 "I was smiling," he replied, "at a picture 
 which what you have said suggested to me 
 — a picture of you holding a pair of scales, 
 with a man's soul in one, and some new 
 petticoats in the other." 
 
 " No, no," she said, trying to laugh lightly.
 
 252 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 " Your soul was not at stake, only your body. 
 And I do hope that you managed to get lunch 
 somewhere." 
 
 He told her he had. 
 
 "Where was it?" she asked gently. 
 " Where did you have your lunch, dear ? 
 Won't you tell me?" 
 
 He answered brusquely. " In Windsor, at 
 Canon Bulman's. He was my tutor once." 
 
 "Oh," she said, "the man who makes all 
 those speeches ? Very well, and what did 
 Canon Bulman talk about ? " 
 
 "Oh," replied Pole, "he talked about his 
 usual topic. If you very much want to 
 know, he talked about the virtue of chastity. 
 He thinks a man who has lost it is very 
 nearly as bad as a woman." Pole would 
 have been seen by any careful observer to 
 have been speaking at random, and to have 
 been hardly conscious of a listener ; but 
 there was in his tone a certain contemptuous 
 bitterness that gave his words an edge, 
 although they were uttered absently. 
 
 Her lips parted with a hardly audible gasp, 
 and her face appeared to be frozen with some 
 sudden and uncomprehended pain. " I don't 
 think," she faltered at last, " that you ought 
 to say things like that to me." She paused
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 253 
 
 and bit her lip, and her cheeks became slowly- 
 crimson. " It is not delicate," she said, 
 getting out the words with difficulty. Then 
 all at once her eyes filled with tears, and 
 hastily rising from her seat, she stamped on 
 the gravel with her feet, and turning her 
 back on him she hid her face in her handker- 
 chief. " It's too bad of you," she exclaimed 
 in broken tones. " What did you mean by 
 that ? Did you mean anything ? How dare 
 you come down here and talk to me like 
 this!" 
 
 " Pansy," exclaimed Pole, distressed be- 
 yond measure at this outburst, and at first 
 bewildered as to the cause of it. " What 
 have I said ? You know I never meant to 
 pain you." 
 
 But without noticing his question she 
 began to walk away from him. " I am 
 going," she said, "into the house." 
 
 " Shall I come too ? " he asked humbly. 
 
 "As you like," she said, without turning 
 her head. But a moment later, throwing 
 him a glance over her shoulder, " No," she 
 added, "you had better not. Go away — you 
 had better go." 
 
 Instead, however, of accepting his dis- 
 missal, he rose, and unchecked followed her
 
 254 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 with deliberate steps. They presently found 
 themselves once more in the drawing-room. 
 As they entered, he closed the door. The 
 slight sound made her turn round and look 
 at him. " You needn't shut it," she said. "I 
 am not going to stay here. I'm only looking 
 for a book ; I am then going up to my bed- 
 room." And she began to examine the books 
 with an attempt at ease and indifference, 
 though her eyes, had he only observed them, 
 were not in a condition to see. She took up 
 a book at hazard, and began moving towards 
 the door. "I am going upstairs," she said 
 coldly ; " will you kindly let me pass ? " 
 
 "No," he said, with a hard determination 
 that startled her. " I will not let you go till 
 you hear what I have to say." She tried to 
 laugh, as if in that way she might conciliate 
 him, but the little sound she emitted was 
 hardly audible. At all events he did not 
 heed it. "Pansy Masters," he continued, 
 grasping her tightly by the arm, " I order 
 you to go back. Go ! Sit down in that 
 chair. Whatever happens, by God, I will be 
 heard ; and you shall not leave me taking a 
 false impression." By this time she had 
 obeyed him ; she had seated herself in the 
 chair helplessly. At the sound of his oath,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 255 
 
 she winced as if he had struck her with a 
 horsewhip. "I see," he said, struggling to 
 speak calmly, " I see now what you fancied, 
 when I spoke about Canon Bulman. But 
 when I spoke I was not thinking of you. 
 You had driven me back on myself, and I 
 was thinking — I was thinking — of many 
 things. Do you imagine for a moment I was 
 such a coward, such a brute, such a fool, as 
 to apply to yourself anything that the Canon 
 said to me? The Canon ! My thoughts were 
 busy with him for a very different reason. 
 He talks about chastity. He has no idea 
 what the word means. St. Francis preached 
 to birds. I don't know if he ever tried pigs. 
 The Canon's ideas of virtue are those of a 
 converted pig. When I spoke to you just 
 now, I was contrasting in my own mind 
 what he would teach me with what I have 
 been taught by some one else. Some one 
 else has taught me to feel in my heart of 
 hearts the holy and living thing that this 
 virtue really is — to feel that, in its highest 
 form, it is no refusal or negation, but the 
 self-devotion of body and soul at once — of 
 the reasonable soul and flesh that is one 
 man. Chastity is the complete living of one 
 human being for another, which is merely
 
 256 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 the humanized form of the Saints living for 
 God. And who has taught me this ? Who 
 has opened my eyes? It is you — you. 
 Pansy, do not you know that ? Have I loved 
 you so long in vain — to such little purpose ? 
 It was for you I exiled myself all those years 
 
 in Germany; for you that I Ah, but I 
 
 can't speak of it. The thought of you has 
 been always with me." He paused; his 
 voice trembled, and sitting down by her, he 
 leant his face on his hand. " Pansy," he 
 said, " I can't describe it. You have been a 
 presence always dwelling in me, softening all 
 my hard thoughts and quickening all my 
 good ones, and giving my soul wings, and 
 enabling me to forget self. And now, what 
 do you do?" he exclaimed with returning 
 bitterness. "I had not much to give you; 
 but all that I had I gave ; and you have taken 
 it all — all — everything in me out of which 
 happiness might have been made. And you 
 — you leave me with as little compunction as 
 if I had been an upper servant. For six 
 months you never write a single line to me — 
 although, Pansy, there are such things as 
 mails between England and America; and at 
 last when you do write, it is only a careless 
 word or two. I could bear that, if your
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 257 
 
 unkindness ended there. But does it? Think. 
 I travel two hundred miles for the sole pur- 
 pose of seeing you. Of the few hours we 
 might spend together, you give up three to 
 your milliner; and of the hours we have 
 actually spent, you take up the larger part in 
 gossiping about the monthly reviews, and 
 making me read Dickens to you. I have 
 tried to speak to you — the real you ; but in 
 vain. You elude me, you repulse me. You 
 treat me as some stranger, whom you had 
 seen for the first time yesterday. And there 
 is something else I had wished and hoped to 
 see ; and you — you deny me that ! You have 
 no heart ; but do you think that I have none ? 
 or that it is made of wood or leather ? Per- 
 haps I had none once ; but you have given 
 me one, and you are murdering it ! Woman," 
 he exclaimed, "how can you treat me like 
 this ? Do you realize what relation I am to 
 you ? — what link must always bind me to 
 you?" 
 
 All this while she had sat in the chair 
 motionless ; but at these last words she rose 
 with her face rigid, and stumbling forward a 
 step or two, abruptly stood still and faced 
 him. " When you speak like that," she said, 
 in a low constrained voice, " I hardly know 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 where to turn. How can you ? I will not 
 submit to it. Oh! I hate you! " She remained 
 looking at him with an expression that 
 seemed to repeat her language ; but as she 
 did so her eyes suddenly filled with tears 
 again. A little gasp broke from her. She 
 felt feebly and in vain for her handkerchief; 
 and then approaching him with a curiously 
 natural movement, she took his from the 
 breast of his coat, and she convulsively 
 pressed it to her eyes. A second later she 
 hid her face on his shoulder, her hands 
 clutched his sleeve, and he felt her sobs 
 shaking him. 
 
 They dined together like friends ; but their 
 manner was so subdued and quiet, that a 
 listener could hardly have conjectured the 
 precise terms on which they stood. "And I 
 may then," he said at parting, " see you again 
 before I go ? " She replied in a half whisper, 
 "The day after to-morrow. And I will — 
 indeed I will — try to be better to you, and to 
 write oftener. I ought to — I owe you every- 
 thing. Dear, good night." His lips touched 
 her, and he was gone.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HE returned to Thames Wickham oppressed 
 by a profound melancholy, his heart reproach- 
 ing him with the hard language he had used, 
 yet bruised and wounded itself by the treat- 
 ment he had just received. " All my hopes," 
 he said to himself, "are over. She has no 
 wish to pain me. She has lost almost all 
 sense that it is in her power to do so. 
 Yes," he continued, "I am nothing to her; 
 and except her, no one is anything to me. 
 Will she ever know — never! how should 
 she ? — what I am doing for hers, if not for 
 her ? " Then again his imagination con- 
 fronted him with the image of Miss De 
 Souza ; and the thought of her sympathy, as 
 contrasted with the cruel heedlessness of 
 another, embittered his mind afresh, and yet 
 at the same time soothed it. 
 
 It was late when he reached Mrs. Stein- 
 berg's, and his friends had retired to bed ; but
 
 260 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 the following morning at breakfast, he 
 received the welcome news that the three 
 Miss Cremers were going for the day to 
 London ; and Miss De Souza, as soon as 
 they had taken their departure, asked him if 
 he would like to come for a little row on the 
 river. "And we might," she said, "rest 
 somewhere under a bank, and talk." He 
 fetched his hat — she had hers on already — 
 and they went out together into the garden. 
 "How different," he thought, "is the treat- 
 ment I am meeting now from that which I 
 met with in that other garden yesterday!' 
 And a short involuntary sigh reached his 
 companion's ear. 
 
 Before them was a lawn sloping down to 
 the Thames. It was shaded with old cedars 
 and traversed by broad walks. Beds of 
 geraniums glittered in appropriate places. 
 There were steps of white stone, and bright 
 coloured majolica vases, and a tribe of 
 luxurious chairs with plump red cushions 
 under the trees. Close to a landing-place 
 was one of the gardeners waiting, with a boat 
 in readiness — a boat light but roomy, 
 cushioned as luxuriously as the chairs and 
 built for indolent drifting. 
 
 " We shan't want you, Walter," said Miss
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 261 
 
 De Souza, as they embarked. " How is your 
 wife ? Is she better ? I hope she liked the 
 jelly that I made for her yesterday. This 
 afternoon, if she will let me, I will come 
 and read to her. That man's poor wife," 
 she explained to Pole when he dipped his 
 sculls into the water, and they glided out 
 into the stream, " has a terrible internal 
 complaint. It relieves her sometimes being 
 read to." 
 
 A better means of leading to unreserved 
 conversation and of gathering up the threads 
 of an old and intimate friendship, could not 
 have been devised than an expedition like 
 this. For the little discussions that were 
 necessary as to where they should best go, 
 together with the physical occupation which 
 fell to the lot of one of them, enabled them, 
 by easy degrees and without any abrupt 
 transition, to pass from the subjects which 
 lie on the surface of life, to those which are 
 hidden beneath and which conversation 
 rarely reaches. 
 
 "Your aunt," said Pole, alluding to a con- 
 versation which had taken place at breakfast, 
 in the course of which Mrs. Steinberg had 
 indulged in some vigorous language, " was 
 very severe on Canon Bulman, and all his
 
 262 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 splendid speeches. And yet he's a man who 
 has many excellent qualities." 
 
 " I," said Miss De Souza, " confess I have 
 no patience with him. I could hardly read 
 the speech which he made at Reading. But 
 then, perhaps, I am prejudiced, and I have a 
 reason for being so." 
 
 " I was not aware you knew him," ex- 
 claimed Pole with some surprise. 
 
 "No more I do," she answered. "But I 
 used to know his wife. Poor woman, I pity 
 her." 
 
 " His wife ! " Pole ejaculated. "Do you 
 mean to tell me he is married ? How ? 
 when ? where ? I have known him for 
 fourteen years ; though, no doubt, there 
 have been long intervals during which I have 
 lost sight of him. Do you mean he has a 
 wife alive ? " 
 
 " His wife," said Miss De Souza, " was the 
 daughter of a Cambridge surgeon. He 
 married her on being presented to a 
 living, when he resigned his Fellowship. 
 Ten years ago this was. They were only 
 together for a year; and then they agreed to 
 separate. There was nothing wrong, as 
 people put it with so much unconscious 
 irony — as if what they call wrong were not
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 263 
 
 of all wrongs the least. ' He was always 
 preaching,' she said to me, 'about people 
 saving their souls. He never treated me as 
 if I had a soul at all.' " 
 
 "Where did you know her?" asked 
 Pole. 
 
 " Abroad," said Miss De Souza,'" at a little 
 place in the Pyrenees. I often think of one 
 thing she said to me. ' I shouldn't so much 
 have minded had there been other women 
 in the case. I could forgive him for having 
 broken my heart ; but I cannot forgive him 
 for having hardened it.' And then," Miss De 
 Souza continued, " I must tell you one more 
 thing. It will show you the sort of terms 
 they were on. ' You are always flattering 
 yourself,' Mrs. Bulman once said to him, 
 "that you are not as other men are. It is 
 lucky for the happiness of women that most 
 men are not as you.' " 
 
 " It's odd," said Pole, " I should never have 
 heard of this; but of course it is a thing he 
 would keep as quiet as he could. What 
 made him marry the woman, I wonder ? " 
 
 "I should think, from what she told me," 
 said Miss De Souza, "that on one side of his 
 character, he was just the man to be taken 
 by a pretty face. By the way, I ought,
 
 264 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 however, to mention this in his favour — that 
 he made her, considering his means, a very 
 handsome allowance. She died last year. I 
 saw her death in the papers." 
 
 "And now, I suppose," said Pole, "her 
 allowance comes back to the Canon. His 
 fine new house must be more or less a 
 memorial to her." 
 
 By this time they were opposite the 
 mouth of a quiet stream which came floating 
 into the river by many curves and elbows, 
 and formed, under an arch of foliage, an 
 avenue paved with water. 
 
 " Shall we go up there," said Miss De 
 Souza, " and stay quiet under the willows ? ' : 
 
 He assented ; and before long they were 
 stationary in a shady place. 
 
 " How hot it must have made you," she 
 said, " rowing in that burning sun ! Lie 
 down and be comfortable. There are any 
 number of cushions." 
 
 The stern of the boat, indeed, was like an 
 oriental divan, alluring the mind, through 
 the body, to placid dreaming and meditation ; 
 and for some time they neither of them 
 opened their lips, except for some broken 
 remarks on the sound of the water or the 
 reflections in it, or the summer sky, which
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 265 
 
 showed itself in dancing tesselations between 
 the leaves. 
 
 At last Pole said, " I hope that I have not 
 been speaking of the Canon too hardly. To 
 speak bitterly of any one leaves a bitter taste 
 in the mouth." 
 
 "Yes," said Miss De Souza. "I know 
 how you feel that. You did not when first 
 I knew you; at all events, not so keenly." 
 
 "That," he said, "is because as one lives 
 on, one learns how little one could stand 
 hard judgment one's self. But as for the 
 Canon, in spite of what you say about his 
 wife, there is only one thing in him which I 
 really dislike personally. I mean those 
 opinions on which he happens most to 
 value himself." 
 
 " Canon Bulman to me," said Miss De 
 Souza, " represents an idea of virtue which 
 has caused far more misery than most men's 
 lapses into vice. His own wife's history is 
 an instance of this. You see, I speak as a 
 woman; and I have known — well, only a 
 few weeks since, I was seeing a friend of 
 mine — such a noble, patient woman, whose 
 heart, from morning to night — I do not 
 exaggerate — never ceases aching. And why? 
 On account of a husband who, because he
 
 266 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 does not ill -treat her in one way, thinks 
 himself at liberty to ill-treat her in every 
 other. He neglects her, he wastes her 
 money, he has never a tender word for her. 
 Oh ! men never can know how a woman can 
 be made to suffer by a husband whom our 
 Canon Bulman would compliment as a 
 model of fidelity. If a man loves you, and 
 is what is called unfaithful, you can forgive 
 him and take him back to you. If he does 
 not love you, if his warmth is coldness, if 
 his light is darkness, you have nothing of 
 value either to lose, or to win back, or to 
 keep. It has always seemed to me that to 
 call a man a good husband because he does 
 not do one particular thing, is as wise as to 
 call him a good husband because he happens 
 not to be a smuggler. I hope, Mr. Pole, 
 you're not shocked at me for talking like 
 this." 
 
 He watched her. Her voice was trembling, 
 and her eyes, which were turned away from 
 him, and were looking up at the whisper- 
 ing movement of the leaves, had in them 
 the strained, and almost painful intent- 
 ness by which alone eyes sometimes are 
 kept dry. "Does," she continued, "what I 
 say sound unchristian ? I am a Christian ;
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 267 
 
 I say my prayers. I am not married, and I 
 never shall be. These questions personally 
 do not affect me ; but they affect me through 
 the way in which I have known them affect 
 other women, and instinctively I know that 
 in their place I should have felt the same. 
 Please do not think — indeed, I am sure you 
 will not — that I make light of that which is 
 commonly called virtue : but in man, and 
 even in woman, it seems to me mainly 
 beautiful — how shall I put it ? — as a sign 
 of something else, as the blush which the 
 heart sends to the cheek of a deeper con- 
 stancy." 
 
 "You asked me," said Pole, "a minute 
 ago, if I thought what you said unchristian. 
 Who are the women whose faces shine at 
 us from the pages of the gospel? Of course 
 there is the sacred Mother, and Mary, the 
 sister of Lazarus. But who are the others? 
 They are Mary Magdalene, the woman of 
 Samaria, and the woman taken in adultery. 
 If you are wrong," he went on, " I should 
 say you were wrong because your view of 
 things is too high, rather than too low. You 
 can understand only the nobility of the flesh. 
 Canon Bulman can understand only its 
 vileness."
 
 268 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 For a time they were silent. At last he 
 resumed, in a different tone — 
 
 " You say that you yourself feel strongly 
 about these matters, because the confidences 
 of two women have shown you their practical 
 bearing. I am not married, and, like you, I 
 never shall marry ; so, like you, as far as 
 that goes, they do not concern me person- 
 ally. But, like you, I have had strange 
 things brought under my notice. One was 
 brought under my notice the other day, and 
 it has been in my mind all the time we have 
 been talking." 
 
 " Is it anything," said Miss De Souza, 
 " that you could tell me ? " 
 
 "All I can tell of it," said Pole, "doesn't 
 sound much when told. It is only a little 
 story which I conjecture or divine to be 
 taking place at this moment. A man of 
 whom I knew something — this is the long 
 and short of it — became connected three or 
 four years ago with a married woman, who 
 had been practically deserted by her husband. 
 The man was devoted to the woman, and 
 gave up everything for her ; and she, too, 
 was devoted in the most passionate way to 
 him. Well, the lady's husband, who was 
 at first very much out at elbows, has since
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 269 
 
 come into a considerable family property, 
 and now has induced his wife to go back 
 and live with him. Of course, there are a 
 thousand reasons why she should do so. An 
 avenue is open to her full of interests and 
 duties, and no doubt she sees her soul saved 
 respectably at the end of it. But, of course, 
 to walk in this avenue with comfort, it is 
 necessary that she should get rid of her lover. 
 She won't want to have him jumping out of 
 the bushes and joining her; and the process 
 of getting rid of him is what she is now most 
 intent upon. He's not a man who would 
 for a moment keep her against her will. He 
 would probably urge her to take the very 
 course she is taking. But the curious ques- 
 tion is, what will he think of her past rela- 
 tions with himself, when he sees how easily 
 she can sever them ? What will he think of 
 the value of her love for a new life, when 
 it costs her hardly a pang to say good-bye 
 to the old ? Will he think that her soul 
 is more likely to be saved because she 
 hastens to save it with such very little 
 compunction ? " 
 
 "Oh!" exclaimed Miss De Souza, "but 
 a woman must feel under such circum- 
 stances. She couldn't do as you say, if she
 
 270 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 ever really had cared for him. She would 
 only deserve happiness, she would only 
 deserve peace, in proportion to the misery 
 she felt in seeking for them without her 
 friend. Why, a woman such as you describe 
 is a woman who would, if she were ship- 
 wrecked, cling to a swimmer till she was 
 picked up by a boat, and then leave him to 
 drown, exhausted by his toil in saving her." 
 
 "Women," said Pole, "are always hard 
 on women. I felt angry at the thought of 
 her when first I heard the story. But 
 women are weak — so are men too — and life 
 is hard ; and whenever I think of complicated 
 cases like this I am inclined to cut the knot 
 — though I am not a Christian like you — by 
 saying, " ' God have mercy on us, for we all 
 of us need mercy ! ' " 
 
 He said these last words simply, and yet 
 they dragged a little in their utterance, as if 
 he were unaccustomed to this species of 
 confession. For a time they were both 
 silent. Then he said, " It does one good to 
 talk to you. I am not going to compliment 
 you on all the wise things you say. I am 
 thinking of the way you affect me, not by 
 what you say, but by what you are. I find 
 myself expressing to you easily, without
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 271 
 
 false shyness, things which very often I can 
 hardly acknowledge to myself. Your pre- 
 sence thaws thoughts in me which generally 
 are cold and frozen." 
 
 "If that is so," she said, "it is only 
 because, being so weak myself, I feel doubly 
 the troubles of stronger minds. It touches 
 me that you should be troubled — you who 
 are so much above me in every way." 
 
 "Ah," he said lightly, "if I am to go on 
 telling the truth to you, you must never 
 yourself say things so far from the truth as 
 that." 
 
 When they reached the house again the 
 midday post had arrived, and Pole found a 
 letter for him lying on the hall table. The 
 well-known, untidy writing brought the 
 blood to his face. 
 
 " My dearest Reggie," it ran, " I am 
 suddenly obliged to leave. I must go to- 
 morrow, and shall not come back again. I 
 am very busy to-day, and have hardly a 
 spare moment ; but come here this afternoon 
 — about four o'clock, if possible — and see 
 Pansy just for a few minutes. Dear, I am 
 yours. 
 
 " Pansy."
 
 272 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 His brain, as he read, was confused by a 
 rush of thoughts, reproachful recollections 
 amongst them of things which he had said 
 in the boat whilst this letter was actually on 
 the way to him. The gong for luncheon 
 was sounding. He hurried upstairs to his 
 room, and ringing for his servant sent him 
 off with a telegram, containing the words, 
 " Punctually at four o'clock." 
 
 He excused himself for his absence to 
 Mrs. Steinberg — not a very difficult matter, 
 as she took it for granted that he was going 
 to London for an hour or so ; and he found 
 himself, at the time appointed, again in the 
 narrow lane which led between the garden 
 walls and the gate of Laburnum Lawn. 
 "When he was still too far off for the actual 
 wicket to be visible, he fancied he saw some 
 movement at the opening in which the 
 wicket was. "Can it," he thought, "be 
 possible that I shall find other visitors with 
 her ? " This fear was still in his mind when 
 a movement was again apparent, and in 
 another moment a figure emerged into the 
 lane. It was her own. With a shy slow- 
 ness, which yet had something that was 
 eager in it, she advanced towards him. 
 " Pansy," he said to himself, " how have my
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 273 
 
 doubts been wronging you!" They met. 
 There was a smile on her face like the 
 flickering light that is reflected from water. 
 It was tremulous with the affection of which 
 her eyes were full. As he took her hand a 
 tenderness filled his heart, like that felt by 
 a man for a little helpless bird which has 
 fallen from its nest and is too young to fly ; 
 and there broke from him v in a low tone, 
 many of those terms of endearment which, 
 when recorded, are colourless, or even 
 ridiculous, but which, in the air of pas- 
 sion, have a life as vivid and beautiful as 
 the sea anemone has in its own world of 
 waters. 
 
 They went into the garden together. She 
 told him all her plans. She explained the 
 reasons of her departure, which he saw was 
 both necessary and unwilling, due as it was 
 to some difficulty with the servants in her 
 new home ; and then they stood almost 
 silent, bending over a yellow rose, as if its 
 scent and colour were a parting thought 
 which they were sharing. 
 
 Presently she said, " I told you that I had 
 my step-child with me. She is very kind 
 to me now, and I hope I do all I can for 
 her. But there is something else here which 
 
 vol. 1. x
 
 274 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 I must show you. Wait for me, and I will 
 be back directly." 
 
 With a naive, girlish gesture she ran across 
 the lawn and into the house, and Pole could 
 hear her voice calling out to somebody. In- 
 distinctly the sound of an answer reached him, 
 with another sound following this, pitched 
 in a higher key ; and then his companion 
 reappeared in the doorway, and slowly de- 
 scended the steps, leading a little boy. If 
 the child of a woman he had never seen 
 before had been enough to attract him as it 
 played before the moorland cottage, much 
 more was he attracted by the apparition now 
 before him. He went towards it ; he lifted 
 it in his arms for a moment ; and he and its 
 mother led it between them to a seat. 
 
 "Take him," she said, "on your knee;" 
 and they listened to it, watched, and talked 
 to it. 
 
 It was a pretty child, affectionate to almost 
 a premature degree, and the spirit of child- 
 hood laughed in its dark eyes like a star 
 through a night of melancholy. The mother's 
 gaze wandered from it to Pole, and, without 
 saying a word to him, her hand grasped his. 
 The child's presence, however, insured them 
 against silence. The seat, thanks to it,
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 275 
 
 was a centre of conversation and laughter. 
 But this did not avail to drown the notes 
 of a chiming clock, which caused the boy's 
 mother to look at her watch and start. 
 
 "A quarter to five!" she exclaimed. 
 " Dear, you must go ; I can't stay with you 
 longer. And here in the garden I can't even 
 say good-bye to you — at least, I can only say 
 it. But," she said, " I'll tell you what I will 
 do. He and I will walk part of the way up 
 the lane with you." 
 
 Slowly and reluctantly they both rose and 
 went, the mother gently leading her little 
 boy, and saying to Pole, " You take his other 
 hand." 
 
 "And you will," said Pole, as they passed 
 through the garden gate, "write to me, 
 Pansy, sometimes, and not make me feel 
 that you have forgotten me, though I never 
 will ask of you to think of me in any way 
 which you feel to conflict with the life which 
 you wish to lead." 
 
 "Yes, dear, I will write," she said. "I 
 will not be unkind again. But don't look so 
 sad. You will frighten him ; he is watching 
 you." 
 
 Pole stooped down to the small figure 
 between them. " Dear, dear little man," he
 
 276 THE HEART OF LIFE. 
 
 said, " I wouldn't frighten you for the world ; 
 and when I think of you I shall be kind to 
 every little boy I see." He had just pressed 
 his lips on the diminutive upturned face, 
 when the mother exclaimed, " Reggie, there 
 is some one coming. We must go back, 
 dear. Say good-bye to us, and we must 
 go." 
 
 He again embraced the child ; he wrung 
 the mother's hand; and as she turned away 
 she hastily kissed the tips of her fingers to 
 him. He was on the point of casting a last 
 glance behind him, when he realized that a 
 pedestrian was already advancing down the 
 lane. The new-comer was a man with a 
 confident, swinging gait. He twirled his 
 stick as he walked ; his head was well thrown 
 back ; his muscular lips gripped each other. 
 A gold watch-chain and a gold cross gleamed 
 on him. Pole saw with a start that the 
 stranger was Canon Bulman. 
 
 For a moment Pole and the Canon stared 
 at each other in silence. 
 
 "Ah," said Pole at last, "so you see me 
 again in Windsor. I have just come over for 
 an hour to call on an old friend." 
 
 " Your friend," said the Canon, "it appears, 
 has been able to work a miracle and combine
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE. 277 
 
 in her own person the charms both of age 
 and youth." These words, which were 
 accompanied by a certain inquisitorial 
 scrutiny, converted the embarrassment, 
 from which Pole was suffering, into resent- 
 ment, and supplied him with resolution to 
 cut short the interview. 
 
 "I, at all events," he said coldly, "have 
 no miraculous powers, so I must not wait a 
 moment, or else I shall miss my train." 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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