THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE BARRIER 
 
 (LA BARRlfeRE)
 
 BOOKS BY RENE BAZIN 
 
 PUBLISHES BT CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 The Barrier net $1.00 
 
 (La Barriere) 
 
 "This, My Son" $1.25 
 
 (Lea Noellets) 
 
 The Nun $1.00 
 
 (L'lsolfe) 
 
 The Cominsc Harvest $1.25 
 
 (Le Bid qui Leve) 
 
 Redemption . . ^ $1.25 
 
 (De toute son Ame)
 
 THE BARRIER 
 
 (LA BARRI&RE) 
 
 BY 
 
 RENE BAZIN 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE NUN," " REDEMPTION," " THE 
 COMING HARVEST," " THIS, MY SON," ETC. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 MARY D. FROST
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published September, xgio
 
 THE BARRIER 
 
 (LA BARRIER E) 
 
 834876
 
 THE BARRIER 
 
 ON the smooth-shaven lawn of the Westgate-on- 
 Sea Tennis Club where a tournament was in 
 progress, the final match had just begun between 
 a pair of teams, each consisting of four men and 
 as many girls. Team was an appropriate name 
 for these groups of amateurs of the racket and 
 ball, whom society so carefully distinguishes 
 from professionals but who resembled them 
 closely at this moment, not only in the skill and 
 rapidity of their play, but in their complete ab- 
 sorption in the game and in the spirit of com- 
 radeship which precluded the slightest hint of 
 gallantry or coquetry between the men and 
 girls. All played alike with an ardour befitting 
 the champions of a long-practised art, with keen 
 pride in a clever stroke on either side, and with 
 an eager emulation far surpassing the mere sense 
 of youthful enjoyment, and preventing all inter- 
 change of idle words. At one end of the tennis- 
 ground, in the shade of a high hedge, a throng of 
 spectators were gathered, mostly women, and in- 
 cluding the usual contingent of poor but high- 
 born British spinsters. 
 
 i
 
 2 THE BARRIER 
 
 Two or three of the acknowledged leaders of 
 county society presided over this assemblage and 
 appeared to be holding a sort of semi-regal court, 
 to which had flocked numbers of summer resi- 
 dents from the villas along the shore, not from 
 Westgate only, but from Deal, Berchington, and 
 other pleasant nooks of this county of Kent re- 
 nowned for its bracing air and equable climate. 
 All seemed to know each other, either as mem- 
 bers of the tennis club or as invited guests, and 
 to constitute, for the time being, an exclusive co- 
 terie to which many of them were, evidently, 
 proud to belong. 
 
 An animated talk was going on among the 
 players who had already taken part in the match, 
 and who now clustered around one of the ladies 
 whom they greeted with joyous exclamations of, 
 "Oh, Lady Breynolds, I'm sure Reginald will 
 win!" 
 
 Having thus paid their respects to her, all 
 turned their steps towards a temporary booth 
 erected in the centre of the lawn, where tea was 
 being served. 
 
 The lady so addressed was seated in a low 
 garden-chair; her figure, which still retained the 
 slenderness of youth, was set off by a close-fitting 
 costume of dark-blue serge, her chestnut hair 
 was coiled about her head in heavy braids, after 
 the fashion of an earlier day; and though ap- 
 proaching her fiftieth year, she was still beauti- 
 ful, with classic regularity of features, and a 
 marked air of distinction. 
 
 Her face, which in repose was somewhat cold
 
 THE BARRIER 3 
 
 and reserved, with little play of expression, evinced 
 a lifelong habit of self-control and a sense of her 
 own dignity befitting so finished a type of the 
 great lady. 
 
 Yet her greeting was not wanting in grace, 
 owing to a pretty fashion she had of inclining 
 her head to one side as she bestowed on each 
 guest in turn a rapid, penetrating glance which 
 seemed to say: "Oh, yes. I recognise you. I 
 recall perfectly your name, your family, the very 
 words we exchanged when we met, a week, two 
 months, a year ago. All these things concerning 
 you have the honour of being imprinted on the 
 memory of Cecilia, Lady Breynolds." 
 
 With the little circle surrounding her who may, 
 for the moment, have fancied themselves ad- 
 mitted to her intimacy, her tone was easy, even 
 playful, and her clear laugh revealed the candid 
 simplicity of her nature. The talk among the 
 ladies was confined to light comment on the scene 
 before them. From time to time Lady Brey- 
 nolds turned to watch her son, who was taking 
 part in the final match, and as she did so her 
 light blue eyes, scarcely veiled by their blond 
 lashes, wore an eager look of maternal pride and 
 admiration, and as the close of the game ap- 
 proached her gaze never left that part of the 
 field where Reginald was playing. He was, how- 
 ever, far too absorbed in the match to return 
 her glance. 
 
 All conversation had now ceased, while the 
 women bent eagerly forward beneath their sun- 
 shades, and the men, seated cross-legged on the
 
 4 THE BARRIER 
 
 grass at their feet, watched each turn of the game 
 with set lips and contracted brows. 
 
 In this breathless silence, broken only by the 
 buzz and whir of a passing automobile, the thud 
 of the balls was distinctly audible. Suddenly 
 there was a burst of cheers and a clapping of 
 hands, not too loud, however, to befit so select 
 a company. 
 
 Then followed shouts of, " Bravo, Reginald! 
 Well done, old fellow!" while the air rang with 
 his name, and one connoisseur remarked to 
 another: "His play reminds me of Alfred Lyttle- 
 ton's; the same quickness and precision. What 
 a pity he is ordered back to India so soon! He 
 would certainly win the championship." 
 
 As Reginald Breynolds made his last success- 
 ful shot amid shouts of triumph, a brief smile 
 crossed his serious face, and seemed to express 
 a momentary sense of the joy of life, of delight in 
 the spring sunshine and the fresh sea-breezes 
 blowing across the hedge of laurels. He looked 
 around for the girl who had shared his victory, 
 not, indeed, as an equal, but as a friendly and 
 zealous ally, and gaily waved his thanks to her. 
 Then his face resumed its habitual gravity as, 
 drawing on the coat which a comrade was hold- 
 ing out to him, and tightening his belt, he crossed 
 the field with a long, easy stride, overtopping by 
 half a head the admiring group who followed 
 him. 
 
 On reaching his mother's side, he pressed the 
 hand she held out to him in a close, tender grasp 
 which spoke more eloquently than words, while
 
 THE BARRIER 5 
 
 her glances conveyed the exact degree of senti- 
 ment which she allowed herself to display in pub- 
 lic, permissible surely in the mother of so hand- 
 some and popular a son. 
 
 "I am proud of you," was all she said, "and 
 delighted at your success." 
 
 She rose slowly as she spoke, closing her tor- 
 toise-shell lorgnette and slipping it into her belt; 
 then with a glance at her special intimates invi- 
 ting them to follow her, and including the rest of 
 the circle in a slight bow, she made her stately 
 progress towards the tea-table. 
 
 There the tennis-players had already gathered 
 in knots of twos and threes, and the girls were 
 passing tea, while the men, having laid aside their 
 rackets, were growing conscious at last that they 
 had pretty companions. 
 
 Etiquette being postponed until dinner, they 
 were still merely comrades in sport, and the men 
 were free to stretch themselves out at full length 
 on the grass, to talk or keep silence. They showed, 
 in fact, little eagerness for conversation, but lis- 
 tened idly to the chat of the girls in their bright- 
 hued berets, confining themselves to monosylla- 
 bles or an occasional jest in reply and leaving 
 colloquial efforts to those weaker vessels who 
 spoil serious sport and whose real mission in life 
 is to amuse the superior sex. They indulged in 
 no compliments, but when a girl, prettier or more 
 spirited than the rest, chanced to raise her arms 
 to rearrange her disordered locks or lingered near 
 one of them to offer a cup of tea or to discuss 
 some act of prowess in the game, a gleam of pleas-
 
 6 THE BARRIER 
 
 ure might be seen lighting up the eyes of these 
 young conquerors. 
 
 "I hope, Reginald," said his mother, "that 
 you have congratulated Mile. Marie Limerel. 
 She played so well," and as her son nodded a 
 careless assent she added warmly: 
 
 "Yes, excessively well; admirably." 
 
 "As well as an English girl, Madame?" in- 
 quired a low, musical voice in which there lurked 
 a shade of irony. Insignificant as were the words, 
 something in the modulations of the voice revealed 
 a harmonious nature. Reginald, who was deep 
 in conversation with a friend, a heavy youth in a 
 plaid cap, with the air of a groom, glanced from 
 his mother to the girl who had just spoken, and 
 replied: "Not better than an English girl, but 
 quite differently, and extremely well, as you say, 
 mother," and having uttered these words in a 
 tone of constrained politeness, the young soldier 
 resumed his talk with his friend, Thomas Winne, 
 a young man who concealed brilliant scientific 
 attainments beneath an unprepossessing exte- 
 rior. To him Reginald was relating reminis- 
 cences of his garrison life in India, of which an 
 occasional word caught the ear: "As I was say- 
 ing, I had bought a half-breed collie from a na- 
 tive, and found him hard to train." And as the 
 crowd around the tea-table was constantly shift- 
 ing he took no further part in the general conver- 
 sation. 
 
 Daylight lingers long on these late spring days 
 in England, but the sun was now setting and its 
 level rays shed a flood of golden light over the
 
 THE BARRIER 7 
 
 waves along the shore, over the quivering tops 
 of the hedgerows, and the fair heads of the girls 
 around the tea-table, and as Marie Limerel rose 
 to take her leave she, too, was enveloped in this 
 flood of splendour. Lady Breynolds who, with- 
 out being an artist, was keenly alive to beauty, 
 exclaimed: "Look, Dorothy, at the brunette 
 Marie transformed into a Venetian blonde! How 
 wonderful ! " 
 
 "It may be wonderful, but it's not at all be- 
 coming," replied the young lady thus addressed, 
 a slight creature of twenty with the eyes of a ga- 
 zelle and a rose-orchid complexion, who had been 
 playing a dozen games of tennis with the energy 
 and endurance of an athlete, and was now recli- 
 ning lazily in a wicker easy-chair. 
 
 "You are very hard to please," rejoined Lady 
 Breynolds. 
 
 And, in fact, in this sunset light, the French 
 girl's rich brown hair piled in wavy masses above 
 her brow seemed to be crowned with red autumn 
 foliage and strange-hued seaweeds. It was but 
 a momentary effect as she stood with the dazzle 
 of sunlight in her eyes and a smile on her lips, 
 holding out her hand to Lady Breynolds; then 
 she drew back into the shadow of the hedge. 
 
 Reginald turned as Mile. Limerel rose to take 
 leave, and before offering his hand hastily raised 
 his tennis cap, as if in deference to French custom. 
 Others in the group called out good-byes to the 
 departing girl, and such is the spell of a certain 
 grace of bearing and movement that the talk 
 ceased for a moment round the table as all turned
 
 8 THE BARRIER 
 
 to watch her departure. The sunset glow had 
 already faded, but the evening light fell full on 
 her tall, lithe figure, outlining the curve of her 
 slender throat, cream-white as the petals of a 
 magnolia, and the firmly rounded cheek, with its 
 mantling colour, eloquent of pure race and high 
 spirit, as, with the light, rhythmic step which be- 
 tokens character and decision, she moved swiftly 
 away. 
 
 The company now began to disperse, Lady 
 Breynolds having been summoned by a groom, 
 and at last Reginald and his friend were left in 
 solitary possession of the field. The two young 
 men were still deep in talk, or rather Reginald 
 talked while Winne was an intent and motion- 
 less listener, confining himself to an occasional 
 question or a murmur of assent. His head was 
 bent forward and his cheeks were flushed as if 
 with the effort his sluggish imagination was ma- 
 king to keep pace with his friend's narrative. He 
 rarely raised his eyes to Reginald's face, but 
 when he did so it was with a look of complete 
 devotion and loyalty towards this friend, who 
 sat recounting his Indian adventures with head 
 thrown back and keen gaze fixed on the horizon. 
 
 "It was rough work, then?" queried Winne. 
 
 "Rough indeed! I was sent, the only white 
 officer, in command of a detachment of the Six- 
 teenth Rajput Regiment on a reconnaissance into 
 the higher valleys of Assam. The region is quite 
 unexplored, with magnificent scenery, but terrible 
 from the torrential rains which almost wash away 
 the mountains, and from the ferocity of the
 
 THE BARRIER 9 
 
 Mongol population who hate the English, despise 
 the Hindoos, and are constantly fighting among 
 themselves. It is a country of dense forests and 
 jungles, with a tropical growth of giant ferns and 
 creepers, camellias and laurels, forming an almost 
 impenetrable tangle of tough, glittering, prickly 
 foliage. We plunged into these thickets, and 
 after three weeks of constant effort we were able 
 to set up our camp and give the men a chance 
 to rest. We encamped amid the ruins of an old 
 fort in a hollow, bowl-shaped valley. One side 
 of this natural fortress was formed by the mas- 
 sive blocks of some very ancient building, doubt- 
 less a temple; the other three sides we repaired 
 and strengthened by stakes driven into the 
 ground and huge tree trunks bound together 
 with stout creepers. A narrow stream flowed 
 through the valley, just below the camp. We 
 had sent out scouts in all directions, but found 
 no cause for alarm; they brought back reports of 
 seeing only a few scattered huts, and a solitary 
 native here and there who fled at their approach. 
 I profited by this apparent tranquillity to ex- 
 plore the country, leaving my small force of 
 thirty men under command of a sergeant known 
 as Mulvaney, after Kipling's hero." 
 
 "Yes, I remember. Had Kipling ever visited 
 that region?" 
 
 "No, I was the first Englishman who had pene- 
 trated so far. I set out with an escort of two 
 men, hunting as we went. We crossed a high 
 pass and descended into another valley, much 
 wider than the first, evidently peopled and partly
 
 10 THE BARRIER 
 
 cultivated. Here we were greeted by a Euro- 
 pean, a missionary, who had been living for 
 twenty years among this people, unknown to the 
 outer world, or at least to Assam." 
 
 "An Englishman?" 
 
 "No, a Frenchman, and a Roman Catholic. 
 He had succeeded in partly civilising a native 
 population of several thousands, had built a 
 church, laid out roads, and cleared the land for a 
 wide space around the village. 
 
 "He was a tall thin man, with a grizzled beard. 
 I spent two days with him, not under his roof, 
 however, for he lodged in the poorest hut in the 
 village, while he quartered me with one of the 
 wealthier natives until we entered the jungle. 
 What a hunt he gave me! You have heard of 
 those battues in India where they drive wild 
 beasts of all sorts into an enclosure, a regular 
 Noah's ark! After the game had been driven in 
 by a troop of beaters, shouting and waving flags, 
 we were posted near the only outlet; we had barely 
 time to load our muskets and fire before the mad 
 rush of infuriated wild beasts was upon us, a leap- 
 ing, roaring mass of every coat and colour." 
 
 "Did the missionary fire, too?" 
 
 "He did, indeed, and never missed a shot. I 
 saw stags and lynxes, hares, foxes, and a tiger, 
 which your humble servant shot. I saw wild 
 boars too, and in the midst of this mad rush I 
 caught sight of two men creeping by close at our 
 feet, and emerging, three paces off, in the jungle. 
 If they had chosen but I was under special pro- 
 tection. It was royal sport, such as few hunters
 
 THE BARRIER 11 
 
 of big game have known or are likely to know. 
 But two days later " 
 
 "The sport was fiercer still, was it?" 
 
 "It was, indeed. I got back to camp none 
 too soon. The entire population had gathered 
 in our rear and were about to attack us. We 
 were hemmed in by an enemy far more danger- 
 ous than the wild beasts we had slain in the jungle. 
 For a fortnight we stood a siege in that block- 
 house, defended only by trunks of trees and loose 
 masses of rock. For assailants we had hunger, 
 thirst, and the hot season in addition to the inces- 
 sant attacks of a numerous and active foe, and I 
 saw our end rapidly approaching. 
 
 "Suddenly, one morning, a band of unexpected 
 allies flung themselves on the savages and made 
 their way into our camp. They were led by the 
 abbe*, whom I recognised a long way off by his 
 height and his movements. He brought us sup- 
 plies, and I owe it to him that I am here at this 
 moment. But when I attempted to express my 
 gratitude, I was met by the most singular re- 
 fusal I have ever encountered." 
 
 "What did you offer him?" asked Winne. 
 
 "Whatever he wanted. I began by proposing 
 an indemnity." 
 
 "Well, what did he say to that?" 
 
 "He merely laughed. I then suggested draw- 
 ing up a report to my chief and obtaining a 
 pecuniary reward for him as well as an official 
 acknowledgment from the British government. 
 Then he grew serious and said: 'No, my friend, 
 no honours for me.'
 
 12 THE BARRIER 
 
 "I next offered to call the attention of the 
 French government to his noble action, upon 
 which he laid his hand upon my arm and inter- 
 rupted me in a harsh tone, but with tears in his eyes. 
 
 "Imagine us both perched in a sort of niche in 
 the wall, a haunt for bats hollowed out of the roof 
 of a temple so ancient that its sculptures could no 
 longer be distinguished from fissures in the stones. 
 Our feet hung over the abyss as we sat there, gaz- 
 ing down into the valley beneath, from which 
 rose an odour of carnage mingled with blossoms. 
 
 "We were the leaders, and as I listened to my 
 soldiers singing at their supper in the woods fifty 
 feet below us, I was tasting the first joy of our 
 rescue. Finally silence set in, with only the blue 
 vault of the night sky around us. 
 
 "I was filled with a deep sense of gratitude 
 towards our rescuer, a man so brave and so devoid 
 of ambition; but at last I began to resent his 
 refusal and to urge upon him the point of honour 
 which did not permit me to regard the safety of 
 my men and my own as so trifling a matter. I 
 grew angry and must have said something that 
 wounded him, for when I ended he replied : 
 
 "'It is well. You force me to make a cruel 
 confession. I have deserved it, but I beg you 
 to keep the secret of my name. For a score of 
 years I have lived amongst this people ; I hope to 
 die in their service. But before coming out to 
 India, for the space of several months in Europe, 
 I was an unworthy priest. I sinned against the 
 vows of my order my whole life since then has 
 been an expiation. . . . You understand now,
 
 THE BARRIER 13 
 
 my friend, that I have no wish to lessen the rigour 
 of this expiation. Suffer me to take my leave of 
 you. You can never remember me now without 
 remembering my fall, and you have forced me 
 to feel shame rather than pride in the service I 
 have been able to render you. But it is better 
 so. Good-bye.' The next day he left us, and I 
 never saw him again; but I own to you, my dear 
 fellow, that I was deeply moved by this meeting." 
 
 "What does it prove?" exclaimed Winne. 
 "That there are Roman Catholic priests who do 
 not keep their vows!" 
 
 "It proves rather the opposite," Reginald an- 
 swered, "since such expiations, purely voluntary, 
 follow on sin But no, you cannot understand 
 it. You would have to look into those deep eyes 
 of his, hollowed out by tears, like stones on the 
 beach washed for ever by the tide. I was brought 
 face to face with the mystery of purification. I 
 felt myself infinitely beneath him. I saw that 
 there was something more heroic and more mov- 
 ing than innocence repentance. I would will- 
 ingly have knelt and asked his blessing." 
 
 "The blessing of a sacrilegious priest!" 
 
 "What of him who has never repented?" 
 
 The square-cut jaw of Reginald's friend moved 
 in a short, mirthless laugh, and his eyes flashed 
 beneath his heavy brows as he said: 
 
 "You are joking, no doubt." 
 
 "No, far from it." 
 
 "I should never have fancied you such a poet, 
 Reginald. And what did you do? Did you kneel 
 to this priest?"
 
 14 THE BARRIER 
 
 "No, but we said a prayer together." 
 
 "What was this prayer? I am curious to 
 know." 
 
 "I do not remember. All this was fifteen 
 months ago, and since then " 
 
 "Well, since then?" 
 
 "My views have altered greatly." 
 
 Thomas Winne was silent for a long time. He 
 was grieved and shocked, but the friendship be- 
 tween the two young men was being strengthened 
 by their very Disagreement. Winne sought for a 
 formula in which to sum up his thoughts and 
 had difficulty in finding one. At last he held 
 out his hand and said: "These are the results 
 of travel and change of environment. You will 
 become your old self again here. All this will 
 pass. How long is it before you go back?" 
 
 "Five months at least. I may even get a 
 longer leave." 
 
 Winne reflected that five months at home 
 might, indeed, accomplish much. He need not 
 force himself into the secret depths of another's 
 will and conscience. He merely added : 
 
 "For my part, I hate all this priestly business!" 
 
 Then the friends walked slowly back towards 
 Westgate and parted on entering the town, with 
 the heartiest grasp of the hand they had ex- 
 changed for years. 
 
 Night was now coming on, but the clouds over 
 the sea still held a lingering glow. It may have 
 been the waves, stirred by a fresh breeze, which 
 flung back so many shimmering rays upon the 
 night sky. Meanwhile Marie Limerel had reached
 
 THE BARRIER 15 
 
 home, or, rather, the modest story-and-a-half 
 villa on Westgate Bay Avenue, with its tiny 
 garden in front and strip of lawn in the rear, 
 which her mother had rented for the season. She 
 ran quickly up the stairs to their little sitting- 
 room, with its wide bay-windows opening on the 
 esplanade, where she found her mother carefully 
 taking down from the closet her dainty white 
 evening gown. The look of motherly solicitude 
 which often cast an anxious shade over Mme. 
 Limerel's brow lighted up on Marie's entrance. 
 
 "Good-evening, mamma," she cried, embra- 
 cing her. "Did you see little sister at the con- 
 vent?" 
 
 "Yes, dear, and found her well." 
 
 "Pauvre cherie! I have deserted her to-day! 
 Ah! I see that you have a letter from Paris," 
 she added hastily, as she caught sight of an enve- 
 lope lying on the table. 
 
 "Yes, Marie, a letter from your uncle, and a 
 somewhat strange letter it is." 
 
 "Ah! let us see it," and as Marie spoke she 
 and her mother seated themselves, with the same 
 supple grace of movement, side by side on a 
 couch in the window where, in the half light from 
 a lamp behind them, they appeared like a pair of 
 sisters. 
 
 They did not begin to read at once. 
 
 "FeUicien has passed his examination and taken 
 high rank," remarked Mme. Limerel. 
 
 "How delighted I am! He deserves it. He has 
 worked so hard to fit himself for a diplomatic 
 career. And how my uncle has worked to help
 
 16 THE BARRIER 
 
 him on! How many dinners he has given to his 
 political opponents!" 
 
 "Yes, and if it had been the giving of dinners 
 only! If he had not sacrificed his convictions to 
 Felicien's success!" 
 
 "What of it, mamma? He has tried to turn 
 himself into another man to serve his son, and it 
 appears that the operation has proved a success. 
 I am not in raptures over the news, but I am well 
 content. Do you not believe me?" 
 
 Mme. Limerel let the hand that held the let- 
 ter drop into her lap and gazed at her daughter 
 for a moment the brief space a mother requires 
 to read the face of her child then having found 
 what she sought there and dispelled a passing 
 doubt, she smiled. 
 
 The only thing this mother had retained from 
 a happy past was her tender way of smiling at her 
 children. She might still have been pretty had 
 she cared to be so, but she wished to appear young 
 only in the eyes of Marie and Edith. At this 
 moment, however, the likeness was striking be- 
 tween mother and daughter. Both had the same 
 smooth forehead, shaded by masses of dark brown 
 hair, breaking into little ripples like tendrils of 
 gold; both had the same beautiful brows with 
 their perfect arch, the same white skin hardly 
 tinged by the colour that glowed rich and warm 
 beneath. They had the same clever, sensitive 
 lips, Florentine in their long curves, Parisian in 
 the upward tilt at the corners, the same proud 
 glance never devoid of thought, all these signs 
 indicating, under the mere physical resemblance,
 
 THE BARRIER 17 
 
 equal gifts of mind and heart. The girl, however, 
 was taller and far more robust than her mother, 
 though as they sat nestling close to one another 
 the difference was not apparent. 
 
 "Well," said Mme. Limerel at last, "why don't 
 you read your uncle's letter? " 
 
 There was no change of expression in the girl's 
 face, no movement stirred her outward tran- 
 quillity, but something of her inward radiance 
 was withdrawn, like the tide ebbing back from 
 the sands, as she answered: 
 
 "I can easily imagine all he says." 
 
 "You expected this letter then?" 
 
 "Not actually, but it does not surprise me." 
 
 "It does, in fact, concern you," said Mme. 
 Limerel, whereupon Marie began reading rapidly. 
 
 M. Victor Limerel first entered into full par- 
 ticulars regarding his own health, that of his 
 wife, and of their son Felicien, before proceeding 
 to announce that the latter had passed his dip- 
 lomatic examination with honour. Marie's look 
 became more absorbed as she turned the page and 
 read: "F61icien is now a man; he has a profes- 
 sion and all the qualities that insure success. We 
 are therefore disposed, his mother and I, to urge 
 him to marry. He has always declared that he 
 would take this step as soon as he had entered on 
 his profession. The moment has therefore ar- 
 rived and the question is: Whom shall he marry? 
 You can readily believe that I have given the 
 subject deep consideration, and that our difficulty 
 is simply one of choice. 
 
 "I desire, in fact I am determined, that he shall
 
 18 THE BARRIER 
 
 make an advantageous marriage, and you know 
 me too well to think I would hesitate to define 
 what I mean by this. I mean a wealthy marriage ; 
 one which will include those social and family con- 
 ditions which we are entitled to look for, but, 
 above all a fortune. I have laboured too hard 
 all my life not to desire a reward at last in the 
 happiness of my son. My wife, I will not deny, 
 would be less exacting, being, as you know, a per- 
 son of sentiment. 
 
 "Why are you not in Paris, my dear Madeleine? 
 I should be so glad to talk over this important 
 matter with you, and appeal to your sound judg- 
 ment. We do not always agree on minor questions 
 but I feel confident that you would support me 
 in this. You have too much experience of life, 
 too much affection for Fe"licien, for me to doubt 
 that your counsel in this juncture would be wise 
 and disinterested. You would also have great 
 influence with my wife, and probably with my 
 son as well. 
 
 "When are you coming home? I hope you 
 are not proposing to linger for ever on the shores 
 of the English Channel. Reassure me on this 
 point, and give our best remembrances to our 
 nieces, who are, doubtless, as rosy and blooming 
 the one as the other. Six weeks at Westgate! 
 Shall we recognise Marie after such an absence?" 
 
 "Well, what do you think, dear?" 
 
 "That my uncle is an excellent man of business, 
 and as such feels so superior that he regards 
 other people as simpletons. That is so plain that 
 it stares one in the face."
 
 THE BARRIER 19 
 
 "Tell me your whole thought, Marie, so that I 
 may see whether we have drawn the same con- 
 clusion." 
 
 " I am sure of it. They are attempting to marry 
 Felicien. But my cousin shows no enthusiasm 
 for the very rich bride they have provided for 
 him. He is making objections and my uncle 
 counts on us to overcome them." 
 
 "He is in love elsewhere?" 
 
 "It is more than possible." 
 
 Mme. Limerel laid her hand on Marie's arm, 
 their eyes met and their souls in them. 
 
 "Marie, has Felicien ever told you that he 
 loves you?" 
 
 "Never plainly. Between cousins one never 
 knows; at least for a long time. They are a genus 
 apart, half-way between brothers and lovers. 
 But he has always treated me with affection and 
 he was very sad when we parted. That is why I 
 think he loves me. His father seems to think so, 
 too." 
 
 "Well, dear child, if Felicien were to tell you 
 he loved you, would you marry him?" 
 
 The girl rose: she was charming in her blend- 
 ing of youthful gravity and emotion, of feelings 
 half acknowledged and half resisted. The scene 
 suggested by her mother's question rose before 
 her. She heard the words of tenderness, she 
 saw the eager, troubled face of the man who was 
 uttering them. But a sovereign power wrestled 
 with this vision; a certain influence strong, sub- 
 tle, noble spoke other words and penetrated 
 deeper into this young soul.
 
 20 THE BARRIER 
 
 "There would be a very serious question to 
 settle between us first," she replied. Her mother 
 gave a sign of assent. She must have felt com- 
 plete confidence in the rectitude and strength of 
 character of this daughter of twenty. She did not 
 seek to question Marie further, but merely said: 
 "As to family ties, do we really constitute one 
 family? We visit each other frequently, and 
 dine together at intervals, but what sympathy is 
 there between us as regards essentials? We man- 
 age to avoid open quarrels, but is there not a con- 
 stant sense of inward irritation on both sides? 
 Are there not heated discussions when we meet, 
 and mutual reproaches? The trouble is, that we 
 are united merely by convention and regard for 
 society. And I believe it is so in most families, 
 and that friendship and congeniality of mind 
 make the true kinship." 
 
 At this moment the sound of the Japanese 
 gong, violently struck by their little maid to 
 summon them to dinner, broke off the conver- 
 sation. 
 
 This was the first time that Mme. Limerel and 
 Marie had spent a summer in England during 
 the three years that the younger daughter had 
 been left at school there; and the reasons that 
 had led them to permit themselves such an ex- 
 travagance were characteristic of the logic and 
 thrift of the old French bourgeoisie in the pur- 
 suit of pleasure. Mme. Limerel had been left 
 a widow at twenty-eight, by the sudden death 
 of her husband, a captain of artillery, who had 
 been killed by the explosion of a powder-maga-
 
 THE BARRIER 21 
 
 zine. In her bereavement she had immediately 
 left the southern city where she was residing with 
 her husband, and returned with her two little 
 daughters to Paris. .There her fortune, though 
 not large, had enabled her to live according to 
 her tastes; to entertain her friends modestly, to 
 spend freely for her charities, and to indulge for 
 many years in one luxury which she had now 
 resigned a carriage of her own. This "equipage," 
 as it was laughingly styled by M. Victor Limerel, 
 himself an ardent motorist, had long traversed the 
 streets of Paris like the relic of a former age, 
 calling up to the eyes of those who saw it pass 
 the vision of a portly, powdered dowager seated 
 therein, very unlike its actual occupant. It was 
 a coupe* from a once fashionable maker, lined with 
 quilted garnet satin and drawn by a dapple-gray 
 mare, maternal of eye, movement, and shape, 
 which trotted solidly along the boulevard, pre- 
 senting a majestic breadth of chest to the gaze 
 of indifferent Paris. 
 
 But within the year Mme. Limerel had decided 
 to give up the " equipage," to sell the ancient 
 mare, and discharge Joseph, the old coachman, 
 and had announced her intentions to Marie in 
 these words: 
 
 "I shall take cabs in future, my dear child, and 
 you and I will travel." 
 
 Accordingly the new regime had been inaugu- 
 rated by this trip to Westgate-on-Sea, and the 
 hiring of a villa for the season. 
 
 The little town of Westgate, having no poor 
 population of its own and frowning upon excur-
 
 22 THE BARRIER 
 
 sion parties, flourished as happily upon its peace 
 and seclusion as other resorts upon their crowds 
 and noise. There were few passers along the tree- 
 shaded avenue as the two ladies started for their 
 customary evening walk, but the bay-windows of 
 the small villas were all brightly lighted, and 
 the family parties within were plainly visible, 
 enjoying their after-dinner coffee and evening 
 papers. 
 
 A sea-breeze was blowing and the air was cool, 
 and sparkling with the tang of brine. Great 
 veils of mist hung vertically over the sea as if 
 suspended from the stars, wrapping earth and 
 sea together in their diaphanous folds. Mme. 
 Limerel and Marie followed the path that skirts 
 the shore, winding up from the beach to Ledge 
 Point, between the smooth lawns of the more 
 luxurious villas. Both women loved this lofty 
 outlook over the mouth of the Thames. At in- 
 distinguishable distances in the mist, the gray 
 floor of the bay was streaked with foam from the 
 tracks of countless vessels, and twinkling clusters 
 of lights here and there marked the fleets lying at 
 anchor, men-of-war, fishing boats, or great freight- 
 ers waiting for the tide to carry their cargoes to 
 the docks of Chatham and London. 
 
 Farther still the electric lights on Margate pier 
 illuminated a narrow stretch of sea and revealed 
 a fantastic palace, whose pillared portico and 
 domes of fire seemed to be floating on the water. 
 
 Mme. Limerel was in the habit of thinking 
 aloud when alone with Marie, the sympathy 
 which united them leaving to each perfect free-
 
 THE BARRIER 23 
 
 dom of opinion, while their mutual understand- 
 ing made silence no barrier between them. 
 
 "I am growing tired of this English comfort, 
 Marie," she said; "these people care too much 
 about their ease." 
 
 "That may be, mamma, but we must remem- 
 ber that we are seeing them in their holiday sea- 
 son. We ought to see them at work before we 
 judge them. Many of the men have earned in 
 daring enterprises what they are spending in 
 luxury. For instance: I went with Dorothy 
 yesterday to call on Mrs. Milney, whose pretty 
 villa with the white chimneys you can see through 
 the trees yonder, and I discovered what was the 
 origin of their wealth." 
 
 "Business, of course." 
 
 "Yes, but a business carried on in Honolulu. 
 Their salon is hung with lovely water-colour 
 sketches of the scenes amidst which their fortune 
 was made. Old Samuel Milney, whom we see 
 every afternoon setting out for the golf-links 
 with his groom, is spending in sport the rem- 
 nants of a physical vigour which has resisted 
 thirty years of plantation life in Oceanica. Two 
 of his brothers are out there now, and his nephew 
 is going soon to join them. Yes, they have a 
 right to feast as they shot their own game and 
 often at great hazard to themselves." 
 
 "You love them, child, you might as well con- 
 fess it." 
 
 "I understand them, or at least I am begin- 
 ning to do so, which is not quite the same thing, 
 mamma."
 
 24 THE BARRIER 
 
 " You certainly understand them far better than 
 I do." 
 
 "That is because you do not play tennis, 
 mamma; and you decline teas, while I go wher- 
 ever I am invited, and am growing quite used to 
 this social freedom." 
 
 "And how do they really strike you, these 
 English people?" 
 
 "As very like ourselves, mamma." 
 
 "No paradoxes, dear. Every book we read 
 tells us the contrary. Like us, indeed!" 
 
 "Not in their habits, of course, but in them- 
 selves, the men especially. I assure you I have 
 already encountered several Normans among 
 them, which is, perhaps, not surprising, but also 
 more Gascons than you would think possible, a 
 few dull Auvergnats, not so many Parisians, cer- 
 tainly, but one or two. Indeed, mamma, an 
 Englishman who has travelled is often one of 
 the finest types of men." 
 
 "Ah, yes, Marie, but how French you appear 
 to me when I see you in the midst of them!" 
 
 "I feel so, too " 
 
 "But you do not feel as I do, I am sure. At 
 this very moment I am pining for our Avenue 
 d'Antin apartment, and the thought of hearing 
 the Montrouge tram-car pass once more seems 
 to me like a bright dream." 
 
 "Your dream will be realised before long, dear- 
 est, we are going back so soon. For my part, I 
 shall miss all this a little. Look out yonder now! " 
 
 They had reached the end of the ledge where 
 the path turned to descend. Beyond them
 
 THE BARRIER 25 
 
 stretched the curving lines of Westgate and the 
 adjoining beaches festooned along the western 
 coast with their chalk cliffs palely outlined against 
 the starlit sky. The incoming tide filled the night 
 with its murmur, and swayed the grasses along 
 the cliff's edge. 
 
 Mme. Limerel raised her arm and pointed out 
 the circle of costly villas fringing the shore. 
 
 "The most interesting thing in the world," she 
 said, "is the human soul. How many souls have 
 you discovered during the six weeks you have 
 been playing and talking with these idle English- 
 men and women?" 
 
 "I have divined a few." 
 
 "That is something. Who are they?" 
 
 "There is little Dorothy for one. Her inner 
 nature is as clear as a fountain." 
 
 "Who besides?" 
 
 "Reginald Breynolds." 
 
 "What? That well-bred cow-boy! He was 
 wonderful in the tournament to-day, you tell me. 
 But you believe that he has a soul? You are 
 sure of it?" 
 
 "Yes; a troubled soul, mamma." 
 
 "He has confided in you, then, Mademoiselle?" 
 
 A light laugh answered her first, then the truth- 
 ful lips resumed their serious curve. 
 
 "He would have to be unhappy indeed to con- 
 fide in a woman. No, we have exchanged nothing 
 but tennis balls. But I have heard from Dorothy 
 that he and his father do not agree, at least there 
 have been heated discussions between them." 
 
 "And do you know the cause?"
 
 26 THE BARRIER 
 
 ''Religion, mamma." 
 
 "It is always so, Marie; the longer you live the 
 more convinced you will be that the bitterest dis- 
 sensions are not over money and material things, 
 but involve souls and consciences. I often say 
 to myself that there has never been a time so 
 theological as ours, so stirred to its depths by 
 opposing spiritual forces. Where is there a fam- 
 ily, whether of believers or sceptics, that lives in 
 perfect peace?" 
 
 "There is ours, dear, you and I and Edith." 
 
 "Poor darling! She must be asleep at this 
 hour." 
 
 "Not yet, see! The light in her window is still 
 burning." 
 
 They had now left the shore road behind them 
 and were returning by a path that crossed the 
 fields. In the distance before them rose the roofs 
 and turrets of the convent "Des Oiseaux," the 
 home of France in exile. 
 
 "That is another cause for regret at leaving 
 Westgate," pursued Marie, "that we must leave 
 Edith behind. The child grows more winning 
 every day." 
 
 "Does she not? And she is growing more at 
 home here, too, and appreciates the sacrifice we 
 are making in order to keep her in this pure air 
 where she is gaining strength in body and mind 
 our little Edith, so tall and slim and fair." 
 
 "While I am so tall and slim and brown." 
 
 "She is like her father." 
 
 "See! Her lamp is out at last. Edith is asleep 
 beneath her white curtains. Sister Noe*mie has
 
 THE BARRIER 27 
 
 just glided by in her felt shoes like a soft shadow, 
 and put out the light." 
 
 The pale gleam from the second-story win- 
 dows of the convent had indeed vanished. The 
 thoughts of the mother and elder sister still hov- 
 ered about the sleeping child as they pursued 
 their quiet way homeward through the starlight, 
 these two who loved each other with an almost 
 equal love, since one was a mother and the other 
 had not yet given her heart. 
 
 The following day, in the drowsy stillness of an 
 English Sunday afternoon, an automobile stopped 
 before the door of the villa, and the two French 
 ladies stepped into it, Mme. Limerel, in defer- 
 ence to her late " equipage," insisting that the 
 chauffeur should drive slowly. After crossing a 
 scantily wooded, highly cultivated plateau whose 
 distant slope dipped on either hand to the shores 
 of the bay they descended into a grassy hollow 
 a sort of channel long ago abandoned by the sea, 
 and now filled with rich pastures divided by wire 
 fences; they next passed a chain of low hills, 
 some densely wooded, others given over to the 
 plough, across whose dry stubble the winds drove 
 the dust in clouds, like spray off the waves. After 
 crossing the last of these hills the limousine turned 
 into a wide avenue shaded by lofty beeches, past 
 a porter's lodge as damp and moss-covered as a 
 forest cave, and rolling smoothly over the sanded 
 driveway in the twilight of the boughs suddenly 
 emerged before a stately dwelling, standing in 
 an open space encircled on all sides by dense
 
 28 THE BARRIER 
 
 masses of gray-green foliage. The house was a 
 rectangular building with many windows, the red 
 of its brick softened and toned by age and the 
 moisture of the climate, its square towers crowned 
 with crenelated stone battlements, the whole 
 effect mellowed by the misty blue distances of 
 the park which formed its setting. 
 
 This was Redhall, and the car having drawn 
 up beneath its portico Mme. Limerel and her 
 daughter alighted, being admitted through a long, 
 glazed gallery resembling a vast conservatory in 
 which family portraits and old china took the 
 place of flowers. Richly emblazoned stained 
 glass filled many of the long windows opening on 
 the park, through which they caught glimpses of 
 a party of golfers in the distance. From the 
 drawing-room, on the other side, came the sound 
 of a piano, strummed by unskilful fingers; as the 
 groom threw open the door this sound suddenly 
 ceased, and Dorothy rose in confusion and flew 
 to embrace her French friend, with cheeks far more 
 flushed than they had been after her exertions in 
 the tennis-field. 
 
 "Oh, Marie! Oh, Mme. Limerel! I play so 
 badly," she cried as she greeted them. "I am 
 alone. Every one else is in the park. Lady 
 Breynolds has walked to the lake with the Hunter- 
 Brices, and Sir George is showing Fred Land his 
 kennels." 
 
 "How entertaining that must be for Mr. 
 Land!" 
 
 "Oh, well! does anything really entertain him, 
 or bore him, either?"
 
 THE BARRIER 29 
 
 "Perhaps his colleagues do the latter." 
 
 "Yes, that is very possible. You can see 
 Robert Hargreave and Donald Hagarty playing 
 golf with the Hunter-Brice girls, and here am I. 
 Shall we go to meet the walking party?" and so 
 speaking she led the way through one of the long 
 windows, past the north front of Redhall and 
 along the high hedge which bordered the flower 
 gardens. Then their three figures were half lost 
 in the wide glades of the giant chestnut grove 
 whose trees were contemporaneous with the 
 castle and had been planted, originally, so far 
 apart that their branches had spread for two 
 centuries before meeting overhead. Last year's 
 dry leaves, sifted by the winter winds, lay piled 
 in pale heaps upon the mossy turf beneath their 
 feet. After a quarter of an hour's walk they 
 overtook Lady Breynolds, who had brought her 
 guests to see her rhododendrons. 
 
 From the bank on which they stood she was 
 pointing out the small oval lake from whose 
 margin the dense foliage rose in terraces of un- 
 broken verdure, excluding all other vegetation 
 and enclosing the dull green water of the pool 
 with its glittering leaves and intertwined roots, 
 amid which the foxes found a covert. Not a bud 
 showed its purple hues as yet, though in other 
 seasons, by the end of May, these violet slopes 
 reflected in the water and framed by the forest 
 were like a vision of Eden. 
 
 "I am sure that India has no sight so marvel- 
 lous as this," Mr. Hunter-Brice was saying. He 
 was an athletic personage, reduced by a touch of
 
 30 THE BARRIER 
 
 gout to this moderate form of exercise, and drag- 
 ging one leg slightly as he walked. "I am afraid, 
 however, that our friend Reginald doesn't appre- 
 ciate their beauty; he has been quite dumb all 
 day." 
 
 "Oh, he has his days," replied Lady Breynolds 
 hastily; "he is usually devoted to this corner of 
 the park." 
 
 But as she spoke her face betrayed some in- 
 ward disquietude. Accustomed as she was to 
 self-control, she had not quite succeeded in mas- 
 tering her emotions, and while her voice was sub- 
 missive to her will, her eyes expressed a secret 
 pain. 
 
 Happily at this moment Dorothy's voice, clear 
 as the note of a skylark, caused Lady Breynolds 
 to turn her head and, catching sight of Mme. 
 Limerel and Marie, she recovered control of her 
 nerves and greeted them with her usual gracious 
 courtesy. 
 
 "We shall have time to make a tour of the park 
 before dinner," she said, "if Mme. Limerel does 
 not mind so long a walk. I will show you the 
 Highland cattle and my herd of antelopes." 
 
 Dorothy passed her arm through Marie's and 
 pointing out Reginald's figure pacing alone on the 
 shore of the lake, in the midst of the rhododen- 
 dron thicket, she said aloud : 
 
 "I hope you may be luckier than I, Marie. I 
 have not succeeded in making his lordship smile 
 once this morning," and in a lower tone she 
 added: "There is certainly something strange 
 going on in this house. Reginald seems very
 
 THE BARRIER 31 
 
 unhappy, and he does not consider me a suffi- 
 ciently serious person to confide his woes to. 
 Good-evening, Hamlet," she cried as he ap- 
 proached them. "I am bringing you a beauti- 
 ful stranger who is worthy of sharing the sorrows 
 of the prince of Denmark." 
 
 Reginald shook hands heartily with the two 
 girls, and offered Dorothy a branch of rhododen- 
 dron bearing the first half-opened bud of the sea- 
 son, like a tiny pine-cone shot with flame colour. 
 Mrs. Hunter-Brice, who was the mother of two 
 unmarried girls, turned to watch this little scene 
 from the comedy of youth, suspecting a romance 
 beneath it, but Dorothy ran ahead to join the 
 others. Reginald lingered behind with Marie. 
 
 "I am glad of a chance to talk with you," he 
 said. Marie made no reply and they strolled 
 slowly along the avenue, while Lady Breynolds 
 and her companions were soon lost to sight. 
 The girl looked back over the sheet of water be- 
 hind them, dimpled with light breezes and reflect- 
 ing the forest in its depths. Reginald, walking 
 beside her, had not a glance for his companion; 
 his eyes seemed to be pursuing some far-off mel- 
 ancholy dream. 
 
 Marie could not divine what trouble he was 
 about to confide to her, but her innate gift of 
 sympathy inclined her to respond fully to this 
 appeal, whatever it might be. 
 
 Finally Reginald, folding his arms with a ges- 
 ture habitual with him when engaged in earnest 
 talk or discussion, began: 
 
 "Winne did not come to-day."
 
 32 THE BARRIER 
 
 This clearly implied and Marie so understood 
 it: If Thomas Winne had been here to-day he 
 would have been the recipient of my confidence, 
 but since he is not at hand, I turn to you. 
 
 Without awaiting any further explanation she 
 answered: "He is indeed your best friend." 
 
 "Yes," he acquiesced absently; then pursuing 
 his own train of thought he resumed : 
 
 "Something serious happened here this morn- 
 ing." 
 
 "What was it?" the girl asked. 
 
 "I refused to attend church with my father 
 and mother." 
 
 Marie raised her eyes to her companion. As 
 he spoke every feature of his manly face, so calm 
 and regular in repose, seemed to contract and 
 harden, while he kept his eyes fixed on the ground. 
 
 "Excuse me, but I do not understand why 
 that is such a serious matter. We feel obliged, 
 we Catholics, to attend church every Sunday, but 
 you are not under the same obligation." 
 
 "No, but my father insisted and I refused." 
 
 "And what followed?" 
 
 "We have been at odds for some time already. 
 He is arbitrary by nature, and he has the right to 
 be so. I am not accusing him, you understand." 
 
 He walked on a few steps in silence, then 
 resumed : 
 
 "This misunderstanding and lack of sympathy 
 between us has become intensified of late. The 
 moment is approaching when I must make up my 
 mind to yield to him completely, or to break 
 free."
 
 THE BARRIER 33 
 
 "You fear that he will reopen the subject?" 
 
 "Not in the same way. He never repeats 
 himself, but I fear that this very evening, being 
 Sunday, will bring matters to a crisis." 
 
 "But what can I do to help you?" 
 
 Reginald replied, with a shade of annoyance 
 in his tone and with his face still turned away 
 from her. 
 
 "I am not given to asking advice, I assure you. 
 I like to act for myself, on my own responsibility. 
 But the problem that confronts me now is new to 
 me, and I feel that your advice might be of 
 service." 
 
 Marie rejected the idea with a slight wave of 
 the hand as she said: 
 
 "Why do you not ask counsel from your 
 mother?" 
 
 "She would not understand." 
 
 "Or from some old friend Miss Violet Hunter- 
 Brice, for instance, or Dorothy, whom you have 
 known from childhood." 
 
 "No, I have chosen you because I am sure you 
 have an enlightened conscience." 
 
 He said this with a low laugh which did not 
 relax the drawn expression of his face, although 
 it slightly softened the harsh inflections which his 
 voice had assumed. Marie smiled slightly, but 
 the smile did not linger. "Well," she said, "you 
 may tell me." 
 
 But such was Reginald's reluctance at seeking 
 advice, especially from a woman, that he con- 
 tinued to walk on in silence until they reached 
 a bench beneath the trees at a point where
 
 34 THE BARRIER 
 
 four woodland paths met. Here he motioned 
 Marie to be seated and took his place beside 
 her. 
 
 The woods were lonely and deserted at this 
 hour, and wrapped in a soft mist that mist 
 which is never far distant in the English land- 
 scape but in front of them the arch of foliage 
 opened and revealed the sunlit meadows beyond. 
 
 Reginald leaned forward, with his hands upon 
 his knees and his head lower than the girl's who 
 sat erect and silent, awaiting his words and pray- 
 ing inwardly that she might make no mistake. 
 
 "Well, this is how it all came about," he began. 
 "I was brought up here between my father on 
 the one side, very stern as it becomes a man to be, 
 but over stern perhaps for a father pardon me 
 for saying this; it is necessary in order that you 
 may understand on the other hand, my mother 
 very tender always, but absorbed in her duties as 
 mistress of a great place which she managed alone, 
 with old-fashioned servants whose outward def- 
 erence often hides careless indifference to their 
 duties, and farmers who are mere hired agents, 
 with none of that loyalty and attachment to the 
 soil which you in France doubtless imagine to be 
 characteristic of our great feudal estates. My 
 brother was much younger than I, having been 
 born about the time I left Redhall for Eton. So 
 I was brought up in this corner of old England and 
 on my father's Lancashire estate, much like one 
 of those eighteenth century feudal lords who di- 
 vided their time between field sports and psalm- 
 singing. In matters of religion I was trained to
 
 THE BARRIER 35 
 
 exact attendance on the services of our church, 
 and a vigorous intolerance if not of every other 
 form of belief at least of Catholicism. My 
 parents allowed me to be brought up just as they 
 had been, and among my earliest reading books 
 were " Fox's Book of Martyrs," and "The Story 
 of Liberty." Do you know those two books?" 
 
 "By name only." 
 
 "Well, both represent the Catholics as blood- 
 thirsty persecutors and barbarians, and my father 
 never pronounced the word without scorn, or 
 spoke of Mary Tudor otherwise than as 'Bloody 
 Mary.' So that, while still very young, I burned 
 with righteous zeal against them, and wondered 
 how my mother could tolerate an Irish maid of 
 that faith beneath her roof. Forgive me for 
 mentioning my childish notions. I have been 
 completely cured of these unjust prejudices 
 against Catholicism. My father, however, stands 
 where he has always stood." 
 
 "And Lady Breynolds?" 
 
 "My mother also, but her nature is different. 
 My change of opinions has caused her great suf- 
 fering I do not doubt, but she has always defended 
 me to my father. She faces the world with a 
 smile, but with my troubles always weighing on 
 her heart. At this very moment I can fancy her 
 pointing out her pet deer and saying, 'Look! we 
 got our first pair from Lord Llandover, seventeen 
 years ago'; while in her heart she is saying, 
 ' Reginald in opposition to his father, to the whole 
 past of our race! How can I bear it?' She suf- 
 fers, I know. She would not understand though
 
 36 THE BARRIER 
 
 she would try to forgive me. I escaped from her 
 influence very young, at thirteen, when it was de- 
 cided that I should go to Eton. I had resolved 
 before that to be a soldier, and when I said, 'I 
 want to enter the army; I want to fight and to 
 cross Africa like Stanley,' my father approved 
 and my mother tried to be as proud as he was 
 that I had chosen that career, but she found it 
 hard." 
 
 "I can understand how she felt." 
 
 "You see, then, how it was. I had the most 
 high-minded and tenderest of mothers, but we 
 were separated too early for any close intimacy 
 between us on questions of conscience, even if it 
 might ever have existed. Everything else we 
 have had in common; the tie between us has been 
 of the closest ; it has been her pride and, at times, 
 her joy. The inward struggle of which I am about 
 to tell you has been until lately my own secret." 
 
 Marie looking across the sunlit meadow saw the 
 little group they had recently left returning to 
 the castle, and involuntarily stretched out her 
 hand towards them as if to say, "Why are you not 
 here, you to whom this troubled soul rightly 
 belongs?" Then her arm fell slowly to her side 
 and she did not speak. 
 
 "When I was at Eton," Reginald went on, 
 "and later at the military school at Sandhurst, 
 I had hours of ardent faith. The young so 
 naturally aspire to God. I listened to sermons 
 by the best preachers of our Church. I found 
 them often eloquent and elevated in thought, 
 but I was conscious that the life of Christ on
 
 THE BARRIER 37 
 
 earth was not brought near to me ; that nothing 
 I heard seemed to make it close and imitable. 
 Morally I strove to follow those principles which 
 I had heard preached and which, it is but 
 just to say, I had seen practised, the chief of 
 them being: 'Seek the truth, follow the truth, 
 cleave to the truth.' These lofty precepts in- 
 spired my will, but I felt them to be too vague 
 and abstract and I asked myself: Where is truth, 
 since my code of action is not always the same as 
 that of others? How decide, since it receives its 
 sanction merely from my own authority, and I 
 may be following a blind guide? My heart suf- 
 fered as well as my reason, for the Divine ex- 
 ample seemed rather an abstraction, as I told 
 you, than a living friend." 
 
 " Your ideal seems to me a noble one." 
 "Do not judge too hastily or you may be dis- 
 appointed. I entered a Catholic church for the 
 first time at Farnborough, near Sandhurst, and 
 first saw Catholic sisters at the Italian hospital 
 in Queen Square those with the great white 
 caps you know." 
 
 "The Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent." 
 "Yes, and the sight touched me most of all, 
 because purity and charity seemed natural to 
 them. They were not striving to be pure in 
 heart but simply were so, nor to be devoted to the 
 poor and suffering, for they were so naturally, 
 and with their whole being. The music of your 
 Church, too, and the discipline which I saw in 
 everything and which I knew to be the same 
 the world over, gave me the impression of a very
 
 38 THE BARRIER 
 
 great and powerful organisation of which I was 
 not a part. 
 
 "At the same time, during the Sandhurst va- 
 cations, I read many controversial works, espe- 
 cially those undertaking to refute the errors of 
 Rome. But they did not free me from these 
 torturing doubts, as unrelenting as the fevers of 
 the jungle. Finally I went out to join my regi- 
 ment in India my white regiment, you under- 
 stand and a year later I obtained my transfer to 
 a native regiment, which had alw r ays been my 
 desire. Out there I had many days of vigorous 
 action without time for thought, but these were 
 followed by long periods of inaction given over 
 to haunting memories and deep musings. You 
 cannot imagine these tormenting mental preoccu- 
 pations, you who have always lived in the quiet- 
 ude of faith." 
 
 "The peace, yes, but not the quietude. That 
 does not belong to our day." 
 
 "I mean that you have never felt called upon 
 seriously to defend the ideas which constitute 
 your belief. A young girl especially among 
 you receives her faith ready-made and does not 
 dream of changing it." 
 
 "You are mistaken there. If she changes her 
 faith less often than a man, it is because she 
 knows it more thoroughly and can defend it 
 better." 
 
 "Then you can understand the state of a soul 
 which sees the faith it has inherited wavering. 
 For months out there in the mountains or the 
 jungle, with fierce native tribes about us, I strug-
 
 THE BARRIER 39 
 
 gled to come to some settled conviction on that 
 question, so long debated between your Church 
 and ours, of the Real Presence in the sacrament. 
 That seems to me to constitute the essence of 
 religion. Certain of the faithful among us believe 
 it, but it is not authoritatively taught by our 
 Church, and yet I find in St. John: 'Whoso 
 eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath 
 eternal life'; and in St. Matthew: 'Take, eat, 
 this is my body.' Why suppress these texts? 
 How explain them otherwise than by the Real 
 Presence? During those solitary months I was 
 brought face to face with the dilemma which con- 
 stantly pressed upon my mind: If Catholicism 
 be false what truth is there in the other Chris- 
 tian Churches? Is Christianity itself an illusion 
 cherished by thousands of human beings? For 
 Catholicism appeared to me not as the object of 
 my own faith, still so shattered and wavering, 
 but as the type of Christianity at its highest 
 degree of energy, in its closest union with the 
 divine." 
 
 "And during all this time were you praying 
 for help?" asked Marie. 
 
 "Yes, but I have not your faith. God has not 
 answered me. I have destroyed the belief I once 
 held and have not yet attained the other. It has 
 become impossible to me to consider myself as 
 belonging to the religious communion in which I 
 was brought up, and at the same time when I turn 
 towards what I have called the highest type of 
 Christianity, the Roman faith, all the imagery, 
 all the suspicions, all the imprecations in which I
 
 40 THE BARRIER 
 
 have been nursed rise up once more and revive 
 within me. I ask your pardon for saying this, 
 but you must hear it to understand my state of 
 mind. I think of Babylon, of the Scarlet Woman ; 
 I recall the apostrophe of George Borrow in 'The 
 Bible in Spain/ where he says: 'Pope of Rome, I 
 believe you to be as malicious as ever, but you are 
 sadly deficient in power. You have become par- 
 alytic, Batushca, and your club has degenerated 
 to a crutch/ 
 
 "Then I am aghast at the thought that men 
 have endured such sufferings, waged such wars, 
 defied hatred, endured humiliation, have loved, 
 obeyed, lifted their eyes to heaven, all for a mag- 
 nificent but vain illusion! Forgive my words.' 
 
 The serious lips which had already moved si- 
 lently now replied simply: 
 
 "I will pray for you." 
 
 He was not thinking of her, but of himself. 
 She merely replaced for him his absent friend. 
 The fact of her being a woman, her youth and 
 charm signified nothing to this man tormented 
 and driven by higher and more pressing concerns, 
 and did nothing towards modifying his stern logic 
 or softening its bitter expression. Nevertheless 
 some deep feeling now stirred within him as 
 Marie Limerel spoke and he answered, with his 
 eyes still full of trouble : 
 
 "I am grateful to you, very grateful. And 
 now that you know that I no longer belong to 
 the Church of my father, nor, indeed, to any 
 Church, advise me. Suppose that this evening, 
 or to-morrow, my father requests me to affirm
 
 THE BARRIER 41 
 
 by a word or a sign my adherence to that Church, 
 what must I do? Where does loyalty and truth 
 to my own soul lie?" 
 
 He waited, drawing back a little in order to look 
 at the thoughtful profile of this young girl who 
 was about to judge him, and whose lips were to 
 pronounce sentence. They parted and she spoke. 
 
 " Why not refuse, since your conscience dictated 
 that course this morning?" 
 
 "That would mean a final rupture with my 
 father. He will not understand or pardon my 
 insubordination." 
 
 "Your liberty of conscience in fact." 
 
 "Yes, my liberty. But in his eyes it will 
 appear mere blindness and ingratitude. And I 
 shall not even have the compensation of having 
 sacrificed my place in my father's affections for 
 a truth of which I am absolutely convinced. I 
 shall be merely one who says: 'I do not see truth 
 where it exists for you, nor do I see it clearly 
 elsewhere.' Is it not hard to take such an atti- 
 tude when dictated by no positive conviction? " 
 
 "You are obliged, above all, to be true." 
 
 "You are right." 
 
 "In your place I should do as I have said." 
 
 Reginald was silent for a moment, then spoke 
 firmly and deliberately: "I will do it." He re- 
 mained for a while with his eyes fixed on the 
 ground; then his features relaxed in obedience to 
 a will which had resumed its power, and as he 
 rose his voice rang out with its wonted cheerful- 
 ness: "We shall be late for tea and I shall have to 
 apologise for detaining you. Let us hasten back.
 
 42 THE BARRIER 
 
 The Misses Hunter-Brice have been wanting so 
 much to know you, they will be furious with me, 
 and one of them seems like a very vindictive 
 person. Miss Violet is a sort of witch." 
 
 "Really!" 
 
 "Yes, a witch wrapped in clouds of gossamer 
 you will see." 
 
 And so the two young people hurried back 
 along the avenue under its roof of spreading oak 
 branches, trying to resume their every-day talk, 
 and to forget the intimate and serious words that 
 had just passed between them, but the deeply 
 moving subject they had discussed could not be 
 so lightly thrown aside. They walked rapidly, 
 talking with forced enthusiasm of the sunset, 
 trying to laugh and exchange light words which 
 seemed to say, "We are strangers again," and yet 
 they could not be quite the same to each other as 
 before. 
 
 No one expressed the least surprise at their 
 prolonged absence. The golf players having now 
 returned, some introductions took place, but tea 
 was over and the little tables laden with buttered 
 toast and muffins, tea-cakes, chocolate, madeira, 
 and sherry were set back against the wall. The 
 talk was interrupted by the arrival of the master 
 of the house with Mr. F. Land, and one of the 
 ladies addressing the latter asked: 
 
 "Did Sir George maintain his favourite para- 
 dox, that Kent is a good fox-hunting county?" 
 
 "No, I did not," asserted the baronet. "I am 
 growing old and reforming." 
 
 "I am sure at least that you bragged of your
 
 THE BARRIER 43 
 
 dogs as the best pack in Kent or Sussex, superior 
 even to the Tickham or Lord Lecanfield's. Now, 
 didn't you, Sir George? And have you convinced 
 your friend?" 
 
 " Convinced him! A man who understands 
 everything and cares for nothing, not I." 
 
 " Nothing but books, you mean." 
 
 "Yes, his own, perhaps," and the old squire, 
 whose voice was hoarse with British fogs and 
 fox-hunting, not to speak of British pipes and 
 ale, burst into a resounding laugh. 
 
 The distinguished critic, familiarly known 
 among his intimates as Fred Land, replied geni- 
 ally: 
 
 "Not even those. I no longer look into my 
 own books for fear of finding them unreadable. 
 A thought only lasts a moment and is buried be- 
 neath the next thought, one tomb upon another. 
 I am much prouder, I assure you, of having given 
 Lady Breynolds a recipe for tea-cake than of 
 writing any book." 
 
 Whatever words the great critic uttered were 
 belied by a lurking expression in the corner of his 
 eyes, around his lips, or in the lines of his fore- 
 head a reserve, a contradiction, some hint of easy 
 indifference or sarcasm, giving the impression of a 
 deep and but partially understood power. This 
 was suggested, also, by the carriage of his head, 
 the imperious arch of the brows, the prominent 
 nose, the loose masses of hair tossed back from 
 his forehead like a mane. His smooth-shaven, 
 leonine countenance was so dominating, so vital 
 with intelligence that one scarcely noticed that the
 
 44 THE BARRIER 
 
 body supporting it was below the medium height 
 and somewhat obese and heavy with age. His 
 hands, however, were still shapely and delicate, 
 and adorned with rings of great price. This was the 
 companion with whom his host was making the 
 circuit of the hall, stopping to greet each of the 
 guests in turn. The contrast they presented was 
 striking, for Sir George, although of a caustic 
 and practical mind, gave the impression of ex- 
 treme physical, rather than intellectual, vigour. 
 
 He was a man for whom the duties of hospi- 
 tality had the importance of an hereditary func- 
 tion, a prerogative of the aristocracy, of which he 
 acquitted himself with the ease due to long habit, 
 but not without a secret longing for the more 
 congenial freedom of his out-of-door life. 
 
 His appearance betrayed no symptoms of that 
 gradual slackening of the energies in speech and 
 gesture which is the forerunner of old age. He was 
 clad in a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers of a 
 rough, greenish cloth which he called his armour, 
 and shod with hob-nailed shoes, while his sturdy 
 calves were clothed in gaiters of chamois leather. 
 
 He stopped for a moment beside Reginald, who 
 was standing by himself in a corner of the draw- 
 ing-room, and measuring his son's lofty stature 
 with a glance of secret pride he said: 
 
 "What have you been doing all the afternoon? 
 I haven't seen you since morning." 
 
 "I have been for a walk with Mile. Limerel." 
 
 "You couldn't do better," and with that he 
 resumed his circuit of the room, pausing to ad- 
 dress the Hunter-Brice girls with somewhat formal
 
 THE BARRIER 45 
 
 and studied pleasantries. These young ladies were 
 engaged in imparting their views upon the pros- 
 pects of the Labor party to Fred Land, who lis- 
 tened with an air of patient resignation. 
 
 Sir George proceeded on his way, stopping 
 to joke more freely with his old crony, the tall 
 and attenuated Richard Hargreave, a professor of 
 Tamil, who spoke his own language badly and with 
 a decided stammer. An animated discussion 
 was going on between the liberal M. P. Donald 
 Hagarty and the aged Hunter-Brice, a Tory, a 
 protectionist, and the head of several railroad 
 corporations, and Sir George threw himself into 
 the contest with a zest which revealed the 
 born fighter, argumentative and stubborn. His 
 twenty years' seniority over Lady Breynolds 
 showed plainly enough in the thin-skinned, florid 
 countenance where the blue veins stood out prom- 
 inently on forehead and temples, and a certain 
 surly doggedness lurked in the lines around the 
 mouth and thin set lips, and where the small, 
 bead-like blue eyes twinkled beneath bristling 
 shaggy eyebrows. His friends said of him: 
 "When Sir George dies, England will lose the 
 most British of her sons." He was, in fact, the 
 typical John Bull, a child of old England, firmly 
 attached to old customs, to his rank, his Church, 
 and all that, in his eyes, formed an essential part 
 of the British Constitution. He rejected all nov- 
 elties which conflicted with the existing scheme 
 of things. He was faithful to his friendships as 
 also to his enmities. No one beneath his roof 
 ever dreamed of disputing his orders, or even
 
 46 THE BARRIER 
 
 asking for an explanation of them. He could 
 forgive negligence, but never lack of discipline or 
 what he chose to call insubordination. His faith 
 in his country was boundless and touching. He 
 read his Times daily in order to become more 
 thoroughly imbued with a sense of the superi- 
 ority of England and the progress of the empire, 
 and stoutly refused to recognise any defects in 
 his party or his nation. If by chance he dis- 
 cerned a slight crack in the edifice, he proceeded 
 to stop it up with an aphorism such as, "Have no 
 fear, rely upon the sound common sense of the 
 English people. " He had never been seen to shed 
 a tear. In times of bereavement or anxiety, such 
 as the loss of his mother who had died at Redhall, 
 or once during an alarming illness of Lady Brey- 
 nolds, Sir George had shut himself up in his own 
 rooms and spoken to no one, but when he emerged 
 he was seen to have altered and grown old, show- 
 ing the deep hold which mental suffering had upon 
 his stern and reticent nature., 
 
 Evening was now drawing on. Through the 
 long windows the distant hills and the fringe of 
 forest could be seen glowing in the amber light of 
 the sinking sun. Lady Breynolds rose, as a signal 
 to her guests that they might seek their rooms for 
 a little repose before dressing for dinner. Half 
 after eight saw them again traversing the bril- 
 liantly lighted long gallery and re-entering the 
 drawing-room, the men in dress suits, the ladies 
 in low evening gowns not all designed perhaps 
 after the latest Parisian fashion. 
 
 Miss Violet Hunter-Brice, for example, had
 
 THE BARRIER 47 
 
 seen fit to swathe herself in billowy scarfs of sea- 
 green gauze, which cast strange reflections on her 
 neck and shoulders and her long, pale face, giving 
 her a studied resemblance to the fay Melusine, or 
 the fabled enchantress of some old romance. 
 
 Her mother, on the other hand, was wearing 
 voluminous puffed sleeves of some remotely 
 ancient fashion ; but in spite of these minor eccen- 
 tricities of style the general effect of the toilettes, 
 coiffures, and jewels was one of individuality, 
 combined with a certain traditional elegance. 
 The men wore evening clothes with the same easy 
 air as their sporting suits, their low shoes per- 
 mitting a display of silken socks of varied hues, 
 of which some of them appeared not a little vain. 
 
 Even the great Fred Land had not disdained to 
 apply his intellect to the frivolities of dress. He 
 appeared to have refreshed himself by a nap, and 
 his fine face, never devoid of thought, had assumed 
 an added expression of malice, irony, and wilful 
 paradox. 
 
 Marie found herself seated at dinner between 
 a shy youth who had nothing to say, and the 
 Oriental scholar, Hargreave, who was evidently 
 fascinated by the sea-green draperies of Miss Vio- 
 let Hunter-Brice on his other side; she therefore 
 was at liberty to observe those about her, and to 
 let her thoughts wander back to the confidences 
 she had received from the son of the house that 
 afternoon. Since their return from the walk he 
 had not addressed a word to her nor appeared 
 conscious of her presence. She could see him 
 now at the farther end of the table chatting with
 
 48 THE BARRIER 
 
 Dorothy, his usual quiet gravity unclouded by 
 any shade of uneasiness, and with that apparent 
 impassibility of demeanour which results from 
 the English training, and is regarded as merely 
 the proper evidence of self-control. He bent 
 over his little neighbour with something of the 
 air of one of the Great Powers condescending 
 to a smaller principality, listening to its ap- 
 peals for aid, and vouchsafing it some small but 
 precious scraps of stored-up wisdom. Then sud- 
 denly a gleam of youth lighted up his face, the 
 firm-set lips relaxed and grew dreamy, the calm 
 blue eyes opened wider, while varying shades of 
 expression, smiling, impatient, challenging, lent 
 animation to his clear-cut features. Reginald's 
 was indeed one of the three faces at table which 
 evinced a strongly marked personality, the other 
 two being his father's and Fred Land's. 
 
 Sir George, who was doing ample justice to the 
 viands and the excellent wines set before him, 
 occasionally raised his imperious, choleric visage 
 from his plate to address some bantering speech 
 to each guest in turn, in a somewhat similar tone 
 to that with which he accosted his huntsmen 
 when riding to hounds. 
 
 Fred Land, after remaining silent during the 
 earlier courses, had been entertaining his neigh- 
 bour, the handsome Mrs. Hunter-Brice, on some 
 subject, doubtless of deep interest to himself, 
 as in fact most subjects were, and was now ready, 
 as was evident from the eager glances he cast 
 about him, to seize or create an opportunity for 
 addressing the whole table.
 
 THE BARRIER 49 
 
 He was an excellent type of the imperialist 
 temperament, while Sir George might be described, 
 like the commercial companies of his native land, 
 as strictly " limited," for while his nature was 
 perhaps as ardent as the other man's, it was far 
 narrower and more insular in all its manifestations. 
 
 "Doubtless, Lady Breynolds," Hargreave was 
 saying, "Dimitri Keiromenos's book on contem- 
 porary Greek writers is a painstaking work." 
 
 "The epithet is poor but just," remarked Fred 
 Land. 
 
 "Is it in English?" inquired Sir George. 
 
 "No; it is not translated yet." 
 
 "Then I shall postpone not reading it until it is. 
 Bless me, what a waste of time! The world 
 would get on just as well if no such books existed." 
 
 "Plato made the same observation in regard to 
 the poets," replied Mr. Land, "and we may cheer- 
 fully echo it concerning Keiromenos's book. There 
 are countries too small to support a literature of 
 their own, and modern Greece is one of them. 
 But as to literary art in general, my dear Sir 
 George, it is the leading power in a state, more 
 important than its navy or its commerce. No 
 country is really great which has not received its 
 patent of nobility from literature. There are 
 peers among nations, Sir George, and baronets 
 and gentlemen, just as there are hod-carriers and 
 cockneys." 
 
 "You believe in the power of the literary class, 
 then?" 
 
 "If I did not I should certainly not belong to it. " 
 
 "Well answered ! but if that is the case, why are
 
 50 THE BARRIER 
 
 you always attacking it? You have not spared 
 one of our leading novelists." 
 
 "That is because I love them, Sir George. I 
 warn them, I give them good advice gratuitously. 
 I am the whipper-in of their corporation. Besides 
 I haven't attacked them all. You exaggerate my 
 merits." 
 
 Several women's voices were raised in protest, 
 and Lady Breynolds laughingly named a couple 
 of famous authors whom Land had handled mer- 
 cilessly, while Mrs. Hunter-Brice and Dorothy 
 added two or three more names, to the intense 
 satisfaction of the critic whom nothing gratified so 
 much as evidences of his unpopularity. He re- 
 peated the names of his victims slowly, rolling 
 them on his tongue as if he were tasting a delicious 
 morsel. 
 
 "It may be so," he observed. "I admit that 
 several of the writers you mention may have fared 
 rather badly at my hands." 
 
 "What is it you reproach them with?" asked 
 Hargreave. "More than one of them has style, 
 an easy, flowing style." 
 
 "l^es, they write as they talk. That is what 
 you mean, is it not? A very good way, my dear 
 fellow, if one happens to talk well." 
 
 Whereupon the critic poured forth an amusing 
 diatribe on modern English prose, calling it the 
 language of the turf and the counting-room, a 
 speech which has ceased to ring with the reso- 
 nance of verse. Then suddenly breaking off in the 
 midst of a sentence and striking a graver key: 
 "You ask me what I reproach these writers with?
 
 THE BARRIER 51 
 
 I will tell you. With refusing to open their eyes 
 to the perils that threaten us." 
 
 "What perils?" queried the baronet. 
 
 At that moment the servants were setting out 
 a service of rare old porcelain brought from China 
 by some ancestor of Sir George's, one of the treas- 
 ures of Redhall. 
 
 "The spirit of sedition which is infecting us, 
 Sir George." 
 
 The baronet gave a dry laugh as he turned his 
 twinkling blue eyes on the speaker. 
 
 "So it has been ever since Adam was in the 
 garden, my friend. You may make yourself easy 
 on that score; we are not like our neighbours, 
 rash and ill-balanced I beg your pardon, 
 Madame. I have always put my faith in the 
 sound good sense of the English people, and I 
 have never been disappointed. What new peril 
 haye you discovered? The agitation of the 
 masses? It has always been the same, more or 
 less. What do you find that is new?" 
 
 "It is no longer an agitation for mere material 
 betterment," said Hargreave. 
 
 "It has become political," added Fred Land. 
 
 "And religious," said another voice. 
 
 All eyes were turned towards Reginald Brey- 
 nolds, who spoke with no thought of uttering 
 paradoxes or making agreeable conversation, but 
 as if on the defensive, impassive as usual, with 
 head thrown back and eyes seeking a contra- 
 diction, much as he looked for a ball on the re- 
 bound on the tennis-court, with the same tension 
 of mind and forward poise of the body.
 
 52 THE BARRIER 
 
 Sir George frowned impatiently. 
 
 "What nonsense you are talking, Reginald," 
 he said. "The workingmen are not stirred up 
 about creeds. The shilling takes the place of 
 honour in all this business. I don't see your 
 point." 
 
 "I am not speaking of popular demonstrations 
 of a social or political nature. For those I feel a 
 natural sympathy." 
 
 "Natural, you say! I don't feel it. If it were 
 natural I should feel it, too." 
 
 "If you would only allow him to explain him- 
 self," murmured Lady Breynolds. 
 
 "There is something besides," pursued her son 
 in a vibrating voice. "A spirit of disorder and 
 evil which exists in every country among us, too. 
 I see it plainly. It is a conspiracy against the 
 soul, seeking to drag it down a rage against all 
 that raises mankind, what I call the essential revo- 
 lution. I sometimes think that if England is ever 
 attacked by the masses, it will be because of the 
 eucharist which has been seen lifted upon her 
 hills." 
 
 "Poet," broke in Fred Land. "You are a 
 genuine poet, Reginald, and poetry carries us 
 far." 
 
 "Hitherto our country has been left to its 
 spiritual torpor," he pursued, "but she is now 
 turning towards the divine, and hence this war 
 against the new spirit which is filling her. That 
 is my belief." 
 
 "He is not a poet, my dear fellow," said Sir 
 George aside to Fred Land; "he is a madman.
 
 THE BARRIER 53 
 
 Tell me this, Reginald, is it papistry which you 
 call divine?" 
 
 "I cannot say out of what truths the supreme 
 truth is made, I do not know by what name it is 
 called. But for me the religious question takes 
 the lead of all others in the life of the people as 
 well as of the individual. I believe that the 
 spirit of Christ has never been so present in the 
 world as now. Though his name is less often 
 pronounced, it is implied in every great move- 
 ment whether in love or hate. I believe that this 
 new spiritual drama will end in a resurrection." 
 
 The courage of the young man who spoke out 
 of the depths of his heart was so simple that all 
 listened gravely, more or less moved. Marie 
 Limerel wished that his face were turned towards 
 her so that he might read her sympathy in her 
 eyes, but having made his answer, he now quietly 
 resumed his talk with Dorothy. 
 
 Fred Land, who had little taste for religious 
 discussions, was also bending once more over the 
 lady beside him. Sir George merely remarked: 
 "He would make an excellent parson, wouldn't 
 he?" But the tone in which he said it showed 
 that his annoyance was keen and his resentment 
 deep. 
 
 A general effort on the part of the guests was 
 powerless to restore the commonplace tone of the 
 previous conversation. Sir George was in greater 
 haste than usual to catch Lady Breynolds's eye, 
 whereupon host and hostess rose simultaneously, 
 and the ladies left the dining-room, escorted to the 
 door by the baronet, while the men all stood,
 
 54 THE BARRIER 
 
 watching the softly tinted floating draperies gather 
 like a cloud in the doorway and disappear. 
 
 As Sir George resumed his seat, the butler 
 brought a fresh bottle of port and a silver case 
 in which lay piled, in separate compartments, 
 Turkish, Egyptian, and Russian cigarettes. 
 
 Their glasses refilled, the men drew closer 
 around Sir George, their voices assuming an 
 easier tone, expressive of a slight relief from con- 
 straint which they would have been loath to ac- 
 knowledge. Fred Land, apprehensive as to the 
 temper of his host, and wishing ty ward off any 
 chance of a quarrel between father and son, has- 
 tened to rally Robert Hargreave on the subject 
 of certain aspersions which the newspapers had 
 lately cast upon the state of morals in the great 
 universities. The scholar took up the cudgels 
 in behalf of these institutions, supported by 
 Hunter-Brice, who had been, in his day, a bril- 
 liant student at Eton and Oxford. 
 
 Reginald sat like one pursuing his own train of 
 thought, who catches the sound but not the sense 
 of the talk around him. Sir George, sitting very- 
 erect, with his eyes obstinately bent upon the 
 goblet before him, glowing with the tawny hue of 
 the wine and reflecting the gleam of the candles, 
 seemed, contrary to his custom, to be sunk in 
 reflection. Suddenly Reginald, who was watch- 
 ing him intently, saw him raise his glass with a 
 rapid movement to the level of his eyes, and on 
 seeing the gesture turned pale. "To-day is Sun- 
 day," said Sir George, "and in accordance with 
 the old English custom among friends, I offer
 
 THE BARRIER 55 
 
 two toasts." He paused a moment, holding his 
 glass with a steady hand, then added: " Gentle- 
 men, the king. " 
 
 Every glass was raised in response, forming a 
 crown held aloft by the hands of seven loyal Eng- 
 lishmen; then the glasses being emptied, at a 
 sign from their master the servants refilled them. 
 
 With a more deliberate gesture Sir George raised 
 his again and said with greater emphasis, "And 
 now the Church." This time every glass save one 
 was raised in honour of the Church of England, 
 and Sir George, without putting his to his lips, 
 continued to hold it high and to gaze straight 
 before him, though the whole current of his blood 
 swayed to his right hand where sat the one whose 
 glass was still untouched. 
 
 Several of the men who had begun to drink 
 paused, only old Hunter-Brice quaffed his port 
 to the dregs and murmured " Excellent," but in 
 so low a tone that the word dropped unnoticed in 
 the silence. 
 
 Every movement ceased; Sir George's ruddy 
 face had turned livid, the tawny liquid in his 
 wine-glass trembled and two drops fell. Then he 
 lowered his arm, set the glass back on the table, 
 and without bending his head closed his eyes. 
 
 Every one glanced stealthily or boldly at Regi- 
 nald Breynolds, whose youthful countenance was 
 rendered impassible by his will, and whose hand 
 was still stretched out with fingers apart as if to 
 grasp the crystal stem of his wine-glass. The 
 baronet, .without a glance at him, pushed back his 
 chair violently and exclaimed.
 
 56 THE BARRIER 
 
 "Let us go." 
 
 Then suddenly recovering himself, he seemed 
 to realise that he was neglecting his duties as a 
 host, and passing his hand across his brow he 
 attempted to smile as he added: 
 
 " Excuse me, my friends, I was forgetting that 
 you had not smoked." 
 
 He struck a match and held it out towards 
 the cigarette of his nearest neighbour. A dead 
 silence followed while the tobacco caught fire, but 
 the friend did not raise the cigarette to his lips, 
 and as the match burnt out the men all rose.
 
 n 
 
 Our of respect for himself and his guests Sir 
 George had controlled his anger, but he could 
 not obliterate all traces of those cruel moments 
 which had strained his nerves beyond endurance, 
 and stirred his pulses to fever heat. 
 
 On seeing him enter the drawing-room the 
 ladies waiting there divined that there had been 
 a conflict between father and son, and that neither 
 had yielded; and while pursuing their chat on 
 feminine themes those airy nothings upon which 
 they could talk without thinking all were secretly 
 thrilled and agitated at the sight of this old man, 
 evidently wounded to his heart's core. Impatient 
 as they were to learn what had taken place, they 
 took pains to raise their voices and to carry 
 on a still more animated and futile conversation, 
 under cover of which they contrived to inter- 
 change whispered comments and to direct furtive 
 glances from time to time at Sir George and at 
 Reginald. 
 
 The former immediately on his entrance had 
 seized his friend, Fred Land, by the arm and 
 drawn him into the recess of a window at the 
 farther end of the vast, brilliantly lighted room, 
 and while he remained standing there, with his 
 eyes fixed in a vacant stare, the critic with a 
 
 57
 
 58 THE BARRIER 
 
 zest which did not appear forced, was pouring 
 into his ear a narrative of youthful exploits in 
 which they had both taken part. "Yes, George," 
 he was saying, " don't you remember that you 
 had told the groom to walk the horses "up and 
 down outside while we, a party of hungry and 
 worn-out hunters, poured into the inn?" From 
 time to time the baronet's lips parted as if to say, 
 "Go on, the hour is nearly up," but he gave no 
 other sign of attention. Lady Breynolds con- 
 tinued to perform her duties as hostess in ap- 
 parent unconsciousness, moving from group to 
 group with her usual quiet dignity and gracious- 
 ness, as if seeking to prolong for one evening more 
 the tradition of Redhall's happy days. 
 
 Reginald, seated at the opposite end of the 
 room, was showing Cuthbert Hagarty the big 
 portfolio of sketches in crayon and water-colours 
 which Sir George had brought home from China 
 and Australia. He had not once approached 
 Marie. His purpose, stimulated by a woman's 
 word, kept the track he had marked out for it; 
 and if he suffered in consequence this was no time 
 to show it. Among the whispered comments 
 exchanged between the guests two recurred like 
 a refrain: "Reginald did all that loyalty required 
 of him," and "Sir George can settle the matter 
 without us." 
 
 Mme. Limerel and Marie departed early. Their 
 baggage was brought down and placed on the 
 car which awaited them at the door, the fur 
 robes were wrapped around their knees, and the 
 door closed upon them with a sharp click.
 
 THE BARRIER 59 
 
 Dorothy, who was watching their departure 
 from the nearest window, turned to Reginald 
 saying: "That is their farewell to Redhall. How 
 sharp and dry it sounds! And yet she was a sym- 
 pathetic creature, that French girl. Shall you 
 see her again?" 
 
 "I think not," replied Reginald. 
 
 The car had soon left the park and was whirl- 
 ing along the country road. The weather had 
 changed; a south-west wind was sweeping across 
 the British Isles like a flood-tide without an 
 ebb. Except where the lower currents were bro- 
 ken by hills or dwellings, the tree-tops bent and 
 swayed before it and the foliage rustled in the 
 blast. 
 
 Far overhead a great bank of cloud, uniform, 
 dense, and black, covered two-thirds of the sky, 
 while in the east a few pale stars twinkled on the 
 edge of the storm. This cloud which spread over 
 many counties and was laden with the smoke of 
 factory towns, heavy with the dust and debris 
 of human wretchedness, and the miasma arising 
 from crowded streets, would soon float above the 
 North Sea and be lost in the immensity of its 
 icy billows. As Marie watched it, her thoughts 
 were busy with Reginald's confidences and the 
 subsequent stormy scene to which she had heard 
 veiled allusions. 
 
 Finally Mme. Limerel spoke: "Your long walk 
 with Reginald Breynolds this afternoon must have 
 given you a clew to the scene which took place 
 after we left the dining-room. It seems to have 
 been an intense and moving one."
 
 60 THE BARRIER 
 
 "Yes, he told me he feared something of the 
 sort, but I did not understand at the time what 
 he meant." 
 
 "I am not asking you to betray his secrets, 
 cherie" 
 
 "They are indeed not mine, mamma. If they 
 were you should be told all." 
 
 After a pause Mme. Limerel added: "He re- 
 minds me of the portraits of Cardinal Newman 
 in his youth." 
 
 "Really! That strikes me as more just than 
 the comparison you made the other day do you 
 remember the cow-boy?" Marie Limerel's head 
 stood out in delicate relief against the gray lining 
 of the limousine as she leaned back, shrouded in 
 her veils and with half-closed eyes. Her mother 
 continued to gaze out at the landscape as they 
 whirled by, at the writhing shrubs which in the 
 uncertain light looked like tethered animals strug- 
 gling to break loose. To the north and west the 
 lighthouses and harbour beacons, the gleaming 
 line of quays and jetties, formed a great half-circle 
 of light beneath the canopy of cloud sweeping 
 out towards the open sea. 
 
 At Redhall the evening had ended early. The 
 other guests were all staying in the house, and 
 shortly after eleven the lights were extinguished 
 in the drawing-room, and the ladies having re- 
 tired, the men had betaken themselves to the 
 smoking-room, a spacious apartment brightly 
 lighted and lined with books. 
 
 The official curfew having sounded they en- 
 tered quietly.
 
 THE BARRIER 61 
 
 Some of them had already divested themselves 
 of formal evening dress. Fred Land had merely 
 substituted easy slippers for his patent-leather 
 pumps, but Hunter-Brice had assumed a complete 
 suit of chamois-coloured flannel, and the Honour- 
 able Donald Hagarty, M. P., had exchanged his 
 black coat for a velveteen shooting- jacket. The 
 younger men were still in evening dress, and all 
 were smoking, sipping whisky-and-soda, and re- 
 suming the easy talk and laughter customary at 
 Redhall. 
 
 Sir George, buried in a deep easy-chair beside 
 his old friend Hagarty, was staring into the park 
 and talking, as was his wont, in abrupt, jerky 
 sentences, between the puffs of his cigar, and with 
 long intervals of silence, during which both men 
 listened to the voices of the other smokers who 
 seemed to be all talking at once. 
 
 To all appearances, everything was proceeding 
 according to the usual routine of the house, but 
 no one present put any faith in this outward calm, 
 and from time to time anxious glances were di- 
 rected towards the old lord of Redhall, while 
 murmurs of restrained sympathy encompassed 
 him. 
 
 A little past midnight, as Fred Land, Robert 
 Hargreave, and young Cuthbert Hagarty ap- 
 proached the baronet to bid him good-night, he 
 signed to Reginald, who was following them, to 
 remain behind. For some moments he continued 
 his talk with the worthy Hagarty, contesting 
 point by point that liberal M. P.'s views upon the 
 naval programme of the admiralty.
 
 62 THE BARRIER 
 
 Their cigars had finally gone out and Mr. Hag- 
 arty was about to light another when Sir George 
 stopped him, and handing him a gold-ringed 
 Havana, said gravely: "Take that with you, my 
 friend; you can smoke it in your room. I have 
 some business to settle with my son to-night." 
 Recalled to a consciousness of the family drama 
 which he had momentarily forgotten, Hagarty 
 started, and stared at the cigar, twisting it in his 
 fingers, while he asked himself whether he might 
 urge his old friend to show indulgence towards his 
 son and heir. But his natural reserve and dread 
 of interfering in the affairs of others prevailed, 
 and he contented himself with grasping the hand 
 of father and son in turn before he withdrew, 
 leaving them alone. As his footsteps died away 
 along the corridor, Sir George, steadying himself 
 by grasping the arms of his chair, turned slowly 
 round to face Reginald, who, seeing that his father 
 was about to speak, drew back a step or two. 
 The baronet raised his head with a sudden move- 
 ment and gazed fixedly at his son; then his thin 
 lips parted and in a low tone, as if to show his 
 perfect self-possession, he spoke: 
 
 "I cannot remember a sadder day than this." 
 "Nor I, father," answered Reginald. 
 "Nor a more disgraceful one." 
 "There you must permit me to differ from you." 
 "What you have done is disgraceful. You have 
 refused to pledge the prosperity of the Church, 
 here under my roof, on this land granted us by 
 Queen Elizabeth. Never, do you hear, since 
 toasts have been drunk at Redhall, has such an
 
 THE BARRIER 63 
 
 affront been offered our house by a stranger as I 
 have endured to-night from my own son, in the 
 presence of my guests. What have you to say? 
 How do you justify yourself for this refusal, follow- 
 ing upon that of this morning?" 
 
 "You know my respect for you, father " 
 
 "No idle words, if you please. Your reasons, 
 if you have any." 
 
 "I have one the same for both refusals. I 
 have been studying religious questions 
 
 "That matters nothing to me. You may be- 
 lieve within yourself whatever you like, but in 
 England the Anglican Church is a national institu- 
 tion, and respect for it is a duty we owe the State. 
 An affront to the one is an affront to the other. 
 To deny the Church is to deny one's country." 
 
 "There again I must differ from you. The 
 King always the Church if I can. Allegiance to 
 it is not imposed on one. I am free. I claim the 
 right of private judgment." 
 
 "Not at all! Traditions are a law and so is 
 family union. You may separate yourself on one 
 point or another from the Established Church, but 
 to refuse to pay honour to an essentially English 
 institution is a disgrace to an Englishman. One 
 of my race! Do you think I am a man to en- 
 dure it?" 
 
 Reginald shook his head like one who feels pow- 
 erless to explain his views, so widely divergent 
 were they from his father's. But Sir George 
 insisted. 
 
 "Explain yourself, that is all I ask. But you 
 cannot get out of it by mere words."
 
 64 THE BARRIER 
 
 "I am not attempting to get out of it. I find 
 myself in a position which I have been dread- 
 ing since this morning. I have displeased you 
 deeply. But I owe it to myself, before all things, 
 to be sincere and to let my actions accord with 
 my thoughts. The whole truth is that I have 
 changed. I am no longer bound to our Church 
 by ties of faith. Do not fear, however, my in- 
 veighing against those who remain faithful to her 
 creed many of them are too dear to me. But 
 to profess a faith I no longer hold, even by a sign 
 a false sign to swear an eternal allegiance to 
 which no thought within me corresponds I can 
 do it no longer!" 
 
 Sir George's voice rose to a higher pitch as he 
 retorted: "A papist then!" 
 
 "If I were one, father, I should only be reverting 
 to the faith of our fathers before Elizabeth's time." 
 
 "They had not been ennobled by their sover- 
 eign, Reginald." 
 
 "But they were men, and freemen, and they 
 held the Roman faith." 
 
 "Not the English." 
 
 "Be that as it may. It was the universal 
 faith. Reassure yourself, however, I am not the 
 papist you imagine. It is that which has made 
 this step more difficult and, therefore, more praise- 
 worthy." 
 
 "Pshaw!" 
 
 "I do not belong to the Roman Church. I am 
 even far, as I believe, from adopting that faith. 
 I am merely separated from our Church and in a 
 state of painful doubt."
 
 THE BARRIER 65 
 
 "Well, sir, I am about to make it more painful 
 to you." 
 
 "I do not know how that can be." 
 
 " You will soon see," and as he spoke Sir George 
 raised the mighty fist with which he reined in his 
 Irish hunters, and brought it down upon the table 
 with a crashing blow. "I will not suffer this 
 estate to descend, on my death, to one who insults 
 those from whom I hold it!" 
 
 Reginald was silent. 
 
 "I must request you, Reginald, to open that 
 bookcase; on the lower right hand shelf you see 
 those volumes of the 'Laws of England/ bound in 
 red morocco?" 
 
 "Yes, father." 
 
 "Look for the laws of William III. Good! 
 Hand the book to me." 
 
 Sir George uncrossed his legs and taking the 
 huge quarto stamped with the coat-of-arms of the 
 Breynolds upon his knees, turned the leaves with 
 a firm hand until he came to the "Fines and Re- 
 coveries Act of 1833," chapter 74. He turned 
 his stern old face upon Reginald, all his prodig- 
 ious vitality concentrated in the small blue eyes. 
 He was about to judge and to pronounce sentence 
 in the name of his house; and without seeking it 
 he wore on his countenance a look of secret irony, 
 combined with the ardent satisfaction of a loyal 
 judge sentencing a political criminal. He was 
 not avenging himself; he was the representative 
 and defender of Old England. 
 
 "The wording is explicit," he said. "I have 
 the right, and I shall act upon it, to disinherit you
 
 66 THE BARRIER 
 
 from my estate of Redhall, which is not entailed, 
 and to leave it to your brother. It is only neces- 
 sary, you see, to register the decision in the upper 
 courts within six months." And far as he was 
 from being in a jovial mood, the old gentleman 
 chuckled dryly as he added: "It will merely cost 
 me a tax of one shilling per seventy-two words. 
 Well, what do you say to that?" 
 
 Reginald, standing impassively before him, 
 replied : 
 
 "That you have the power to do as you say." 
 
 "And you may as well add," returned Sir 
 George, "that you know me well enough to be 
 sure that I shall do it." 
 
 "Yes, father." 
 
 "And you may also add that it is perfectly 
 just." 
 
 "I have no doubt, sir, that you think it so." 
 
 "Not at all! It is just in itself. I will have no 
 changes at Redhall no timber felled nor boun- 
 daries altered nor tenants evicted nor the ancient, 
 common faith abandoned. Why, the very deer 
 would flee the park if it had a papist master! 
 No, no! that shall never be." 
 
 "I must assure you once again, father, that I 
 have not become a Roman Catholic." 
 
 "And I must assure you that you will be one 
 soon. I am not a man to be deceived. I see 
 where you stand. But I will content myself with 
 your formal assurance. Promise me, Reginald, 
 that on the day when you give in your adherence 
 to the Romish Church you will give me notice, 
 wherever I am and wherever you may be."
 
 THE BARRIER 67 
 
 The young man's eyes sought for any trace of 
 faltering, any gleam of pity or help, in those keen 
 blue eyes which probed, urged, commanded him. 
 
 A hard condition, he thought. You threaten a 
 conscience already wavering, and you are rein- 
 forced by all the power of nature, of old customs 
 and surroundings. You know how I love this 
 place of which you are so ready to despoil me. 
 But he uttered no word of this. 
 
 "If you think it just to require such a pledge, I 
 will give it," was all he said. 
 
 "Good! I count upon it then." 
 
 These words were pronounced with the harsh- 
 ness of a sentence, and the expression of Sir 
 George's face grew more disdainful as he added : 
 
 "It strikes me, Reginald, that a journey might 
 profitably occupy the remainder of your leave." 
 
 "That is what I was about to propose," replied 
 the young officer coldly. "I had intended to 
 travel later, I shall now go at once." 
 
 "When do you start?" 
 
 "To-night, sir." 
 
 "Very well. I must request you not to have 
 Vulcan harnessed, as he limped this afternoon. 
 My other horses are at your service." So saying 
 the old man rose, and without one glance or word 
 of farewell, left the room. 
 
 Reginald remained standing, following his 
 father's retreating figure until it disappeared, 
 then turned away and passed his hand across his 
 eyes, while every word and act of the day crowded 
 upon his mind. How could one short day have 
 sufficed for all these changes? His life, his future,
 
 68 THE BARRIER 
 
 his prospects, words so full of meaning this 
 morning, had grown empty now. He could have 
 wept over this utter ruin had not his manhood 
 and a life-long habit of self-restraint checked this 
 momentary weakness. 
 
 He approached the window and stared out into 
 the blue distances of the park, which lay bathed 
 in dew and glimmering softly in the moonlight. The 
 path leading to the gardener's cottage stretched 
 clear and white across the lawn like a streak of 
 silver. At the same moment he caught sight of the 
 head gardener himself, the stout, important, 
 thoroughly British William, stepping along this 
 path as noiselessly as possible, all the curves 
 and amplitudes of his sturdy figure emphasised 
 by the moonlight. 
 
 He was on his way home from the servants' hall, 
 where he was a frequent and welcome guest, and 
 where it was the custom, whenever there were 
 guests at dinner, to celebrate the occasion by 
 quaffing loyal bumpers of port to the master's 
 health a custom which Sir George tolerated and 
 paid for, along with many other time-worn abuses. 
 
 William was, in consequence, mildly tipsy and 
 swayed slightly on his stout calves as he has- 
 tened towards his pretty, thatched cottage, em- 
 bowered in honeysuckle and jasmine. 
 
 What strange impulses sometimes move a man 
 in the depths of trouble! 
 
 Reginald threw open the window, thereby 
 causing William to give a guilty start. He quickly 
 recovered, however, on recognising his young 
 master, and touched the flat plaid cap which he
 
 THE BARRIER 69 
 
 seldom removed entirely from his head, while 
 smiling in an embarrassed way as if not quite 
 sure whether he was asleep or awake. 
 
 "Are you on your way to bed, William?" 
 
 "Yes, Master Reginald. Good-night, sir." 
 
 "Doesn't Redhall look pretty in the moonlight, 
 William?" 
 
 "Why, yes, Mr. Reginald. Redhall always 
 looks pretty enough to me, by night or day. I 
 am walking about a bit, you see, though it is 
 rather late." 
 
 The old man's joviality increased as his eyelids 
 grew heavier. It was the first time since Regi- 
 nald's return that he had had an opportunity to 
 talk freely with him, as in the old Eton and Alder- 
 shot days. 
 
 "Just fancy, Mr. Reginald," he went on, "the 
 old fox has littered just outside the garden-hedges. 
 I took care not to tell Sir George. He likes sport 
 well enough, but not as you do, Master Reginald. 
 He would have ordered me to kill the cubs. I 
 could have done it easily enough, but I thought 
 what a pleasure it would be for Master Reginald 
 to hunt the young foxes in October. He! he! 
 The little devils have already eaten more rabbits 
 and pheasants than they are worth, but I like to 
 see you galloping through the park, Mr. Reginald. 
 That will be in October." 
 
 "I fear not, William, but I thank vou all the 
 same. Good-night." 
 
 "Good-night, sir." 
 
 The young man watched the old servant re- 
 turning to his tranquil home where he would
 
 70 THE BARRIER 
 
 sleep secure of the morrow, and attached to the 
 estate as firmly as its very walls. Closing the 
 window, he rang for his man and ordered him to 
 prepare everything for a journey and to give 
 notice at the stables. 
 
 "It will be a long journey," he added. "This 
 is what you are to pack for me." And seating 
 himself at the table where the box of cigars and 
 the volume of the laws of England were still lying, 
 he hastily scrawled a few directions. 
 
 He then ascended the stairs, taking care to 
 tread lightly lest some of the guests might over- 
 hear him and come out of their rooms to propose 
 a moonlight walk or a row on the lake, as often 
 happened at this hour. 
 
 He crossed the gallery leading into the left wing, 
 and finally paused before a door bearing the in- 
 scription, "Princess Mary's Room." This was the 
 chamber where a king's daughter had slept for a 
 night, many years before. 
 
 As he approached, the door opened softly and 
 Lady Breynolds appeared on the threshold, still 
 in evening dress, with a light shawl over her 
 shoulders. 
 
 "Oh, Reginald! Is it you?" she cried. "Tell 
 me what has happened. I am dying of anxiety. 
 Come quickly and tell me that there has been no 
 violence." 
 
 "No, mother, only words; but those were de- 
 cisive ones I must go." 
 
 "That was what I feared. You have deserved 
 it, then?" 
 
 "I have decided it."
 
 THE BARRIER 71 
 
 "My poor, poor child!" Tender and terrified 
 she opened her arms, with a splendid gesture, an 
 unconsciously tragic figure, as she enfolded her 
 tall son and drew him down beside her to listen to 
 his story, stifling her own disapproval, the re- 
 proaches which her conscience inspired since she 
 was as firmly attached to the Established Church 
 as her husband but at this moment she hearkened 
 to her motherly pity only. 
 
 At her side Reginald gave way to his grief. He 
 shed no tears, but whereas with his father he had 
 remained coldly respectful, alone with her and 
 about to leave her, he made no attempt to hide 
 his sorrow. He knew that as her child he in- 
 spired her with the tenderest pity, although his 
 anguish of soul woke no responsive echoes in 
 hers; that his disinterested and honourable mo- 
 tives were ignored by her who loved him, who 
 was his mother, and who could only say: 
 
 "My Reginald, how can you be so cruel to your- 
 self as well as to us?" 
 
 He yielded his hands to her fond clasp and in 
 her heart she felt a secret pride that her handsome 
 son, this splendid man-child who towered a head 
 above her, was leaning to-night upon her maternal 
 support as he had done in his childhood. She made 
 no attempt to dissuade him from his purpose, 
 knowing well that Reginald's resolves were not 
 easily shaken. But she entered into all the details 
 of his proposed journey with the instinct of one 
 who has been a traveller, and for whom the names 
 of remote lands and cities call up definite associa- 
 tions. She was full of motherly anxiety for him.
 
 72 THE BARRIER 
 
 "How will you live, my child?" she cried. 
 "You have those savings which I used to reproach 
 you for laying by?" 
 
 " Yes. I shall spend all that now, and I hope to 
 ask nothing from any one." 
 
 "But I can help you a little, Reginald, and I 
 shall, for your father has never objected or even 
 questioned me as to the use I make of my own 
 money. Very little it is, as you know." 
 
 Her beautiful eyes, which were encircled by 
 dark rings from the fatigue, emotion, and fever of 
 the night, filled with tears as she sounded the 
 depths of this sudden catastrophe, whose causes, 
 alas! stretched so far into the past. She wept 
 outright when Reginald admitted that Redhall 
 might pass away from Sir George's first-born. 
 
 "Ah! how can I defend you when it is you who 
 have condemned yourself? And I shall no longer 
 be here when that wicked act of folly is accom- 
 plished." 
 
 "What do we know of the future?" he an- 
 swered. "I will not be the slave even of a for- 
 tune, that is certain! But I am done now with 
 theories and discussions. Beyond my promise 
 and the present moment I affirm nothing. Only 
 assure me that my name shall be spoken here 
 sometimes, when you are alone, mother, or among 
 my friends. And send me news often of Redhall." 
 
 He rose as he said this, and tried to smile, a 
 grievous effort sometimes. 
 
 "Nearly two in the morning!" he exclaimed. 
 "Poor mother! what a wretched night you have 
 had."
 
 THE BARRIER 73 
 
 "I would pray for many more like it, to have 
 you still here, Reginald. When will you come 
 back?" 
 
 "When my heart has changed or yours and 
 his." 
 
 "Alas!" And so they parted, but first Lady 
 Breynolds insisted that her son should carry away 
 some reminders of his home, things which had 
 belonged in his own room or in the nursery, and 
 she piled his arms up with photographs, a water- 
 colour sketch, two or three books, and a few de- 
 votional pictures with texts. At three o'clock 
 the carriage stood before the door, with lanterns 
 lighted. The air was chill and day was dawning 
 in the infinitude of space between the earth and 
 stars. The meadows gleamed pale around the 
 castle and the shrubs and hedge-rows stood out 
 like the delicate traceries on a moss-agate. 
 Reginald made a sign that the carriage was to 
 follow him and walked slowly down the avenue, 
 drawing his hands through the dewy shrubs as he 
 passed, and laying his fingers with a caressing 
 touch on the pendent branches of the trees from 
 which the dew-drops trickled with a soft, dripping 
 sound. "Thanks," he murmured, "dear trees of 
 home." 
 
 At the turn in the path where the denser foliage 
 was about to hide the walls of Redhall, he turned 
 and faced the castle, with a lingering gaze over the 
 slopes of lawn, the encircling trees, and the ave- 
 nues opening like misty aisles into the forest 
 beyond; then with a last look at his mother's 
 window he hastened on to overtake the carriage.
 
 74 THE BARRIER 
 
 There was no trace of tears on his fair young face, 
 but his heart was weeping silently. 
 
 " You will inform madame as soon as she comes 
 in that I am waiting for her in my study." 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur." 
 
 "And I am at home to no one else." 
 
 M. Victor Limerel wore at this moment his busi- 
 ness expression, which differed entirely from that 
 which he wore in society. His formidable bull- 
 dog jaw and protruding underlip gave his face, at 
 such times, a look of insolent strength and dogged 
 obstinacy, with which his eyes harmonised, promi- 
 nent, keen, and dark, beneath heavy bristling 
 eyebrows. Although past sixty he had not a 
 single white hair, and his moustache, which 
 drooped at the corners of his mouth, was black 
 except for a slight yellowish tinge from constant 
 smoking. His neck was short, and below the 
 broad shoulders his figure dwindled rapidly and 
 was supported on thin, nervous limbs which bore 
 this ill-shaped body about briskly. 
 
 All industrial and financial Paris knew the 
 "Societe Franchise des Filatures de Laine," whose 
 principal factories were at Lille and Mazamet, and 
 it was known to be in a prosperous condition owing 
 to the exceptional ability of its owner and presi- 
 dent. M. Victor Limerel was a great worker in 
 his way, which was that of all originators. He 
 took in all sides of an affair at a glance, as if he 
 had studied it thoroughly, and he judged men in 
 the same way, gave definite orders and never 
 changed his mind. He possessed powers of com-
 
 THE BARRIER 75 
 
 bination, foresight, and memory which would 
 have taxed the brains of half a dozen ordinary 
 men, but he endured the strain, thanks to his 
 capacity for throwing aside all business cares on 
 leaving his office or committee-room and never 
 allowing them to encroach on his hours of leisure. 
 
 In doing this he became absolutely common- 
 place; talking fluently but without a spark of 
 originality, his conversation being made up of 
 echoes from the newspapers and the current talk 
 of the day. 
 
 When any statement of his was contradicted 
 he reaffirmed it with greater emphasis when it was 
 for his interest to do so, and certain signs, such as 
 a protruding of the jaw, the throbbing veins in 
 his temples, and the nervous movements of the 
 fingers, betrayed the man's relentless will, his pride 
 in his unvarying success, and his experience of the 
 weakness of human nature. 
 
 This curtness in expressing his opinions was 
 confined, however, to subjects where his personal 
 interests were involved. On other questions, 
 and those the deepest and highest, he showed a 
 surprising readiness in yielding to the feeblest 
 opposition, and claimed credit for this as evidence 
 of a broad tolerance. 
 
 Many of his relations with the political world 
 were explicable only through this facility for 
 compromise. 
 
 It was generally understood that he was loftily 
 indifferent where principles were concerned, jeal- 
 ous and tenacious only on personal questions. 
 
 M. Limerel had always refused to present him-
 
 76 THE BARRIER 
 
 self as a political candidate, but he passed for a 
 Conservative, no one knew precisely why. His 
 opponents, however, recognised the conservatism 
 of the man of wealth rather than that of the man 
 of convictions. 
 
 His wife had formal orders to cultivate social 
 relations in all parties, and these she obeyed im- 
 plicitly, receiving people of every shade of opinion 
 who might be able to serve her husband in his twin 
 ambitions of being appointed an officer of the 
 Legion of Honour and a manager of the Suez 
 Canal. 
 
 He had married a Mile. Elsa Pommeau, many 
 years younger than himself, the daughter of a 
 banker, who had brought him a large fortune, 
 with the additional dowry of a wealth of blonde 
 hair, superb shoulders, and a smile always the 
 same, which came at her bidding. 
 
 She was neither an ill-meaning woman nor a 
 nonentity, but twenty years of an unvarying social 
 round had filled her with a set of conventional 
 ideas, prejudices, and tastes which belonged to her 
 world rather than to herself. She repeated 
 scandal without a grain of malice ; and, without co- 
 quetry, resorted to every device known to art to 
 preserve the remnants of her youth and fresh- 
 ness in order that she might still figure among 
 the vanguard of pretty women. Yet subject as 
 she was to her husband and to the world, some- 
 thing of her real self of the woman she might 
 have been, enthusiastic, kind, and tender still 
 survived within her. When alone or with her 
 husband and son, she allowed herself at times to
 
 THE BARRIER 77 
 
 think and feel in accordance with her true nature 
 and early principles, expressing herself in vague 
 phrases such as: "You are going too far. I was 
 not brought up with such ideas as that. Do as 
 you please, but I cannot share your opinions." 
 This, however, was the extent of her courage. 
 Sometimes, at long intervals, she strayed into a 
 church and knelt with bowed head, sighing pro- 
 foundly, forming good resolutions for the future, 
 and commending to heaven all who were dear to 
 her, especially her son. Those who saw her in 
 this attitude pronounced her exceedingly devout, 
 and if she chanced to hear the expression she did 
 not attempt to deny it. 
 
 Such was the companion whose fortune and 
 conduct, whose conversation and thoughts, were 
 completely under M. LimereFs control. She lived 
 in dread of his harsh voice, his self-confidence, his 
 arguments, his mockery, and his bursts of anger 
 when she attempted to resist him; she regarded 
 him as a tyrant and yet she loved him. She was 
 not always convinced by his arguments, but since 
 he commanded must she not obey and thus pre- 
 serve their domestic peace at any price? 
 
 Nothing had ever cost her so dear as the com- 
 plete ignoring of her natural authority on the part 
 of her husband in his plans and negotiations for 
 Felicien's marriage. 
 
 M. Limerel regarded this transaction as one of 
 the highest importance, and accordingly as his ex- 
 clusive affair. This marriage was to facilitate that 
 worldly advancement which he called a family 
 concern; that is, one designed for the benefit of
 
 78 THE BARRIER 
 
 the head of the family. Among the young girls 
 whose fathers were men of influence he had sin- 
 gled out Mile. Tourette and had said to F&icien: 
 
 " There is a charming girl!" 
 
 He might as well have said: 
 
 " There is a girl whose father is influential! 
 Baron Tourette is a power: marry his daughter 
 and you will be doing me a service. She is a 
 charming girl besides." 
 
 He was not mistaken on these two points, but 
 upon another which he had not taken into consid- 
 eration. 
 
 Mile. Tourette was a pretty girl, rich and well 
 connected, but Flicien refused outright to have 
 his choice dictated to him. He begged his 
 parents to delay further steps until he had made 
 up his mind to be married. 
 
 "That is mere shyness," M. Limerel replied. 
 "The fear of not pleasing. I know you, my dear 
 boy. But let me introduce you to her. I feel 
 fairly sure what her answer will be, and perfectly 
 sure of yours when once you have seen her. She 
 is bewitching." 
 
 Felicien had yielded finally for the sake of peace, 
 merely saying, "Very well, I will go with you." 
 Accordingly the preliminaries, discreetly con- 
 ducted between M. Limerel and the Baroness 
 Tourette, had led to the following agreement. 
 "Marguerite shall know nothing about it," said 
 her mother, "but I will take her with me to 
 the Salon. You remember that huge canvas by 
 Wambez, of a group of Sorbonne professors show- 
 ing off their robes? Well, at three o'clock pre-
 
 THE BARRIER 79 
 
 cisely we will be in front of that picture, and you 
 can meet us there by chance. Unless I am mis- 
 taken, the portraits of those old gentlemen will 
 serve as a becoming background to Marguerite. 
 The dear child will have an opportunity for a 
 little chat with your son, and that is all we can 
 do. We can insure their meeting but not their 
 liking each other." 
 
 "Certainly not." 
 
 "You will be there then?" 
 
 "At three precisely, Madame, and the result 
 is easily foreseen." 
 
 This was the interview from which M. Victor 
 Limerel had this moment returned. He had 
 made a point of going alone with Felicien. "You 
 would spoil everything, my dear," he had said to 
 his wife. "Your flushed cheeks and the very tone 
 of your voice would betray your feelings. Leave 
 it all to me and when I bring him back a con- 
 queror, you will not regret it." He had long ago 
 settled that there was no place for her in his 
 diplomatic triumphs. He was now awaiting her 
 with an impatience he could with difficulty control. 
 At last he heard a light step on the stairs, and a 
 moment later the handsome Mme. Limerel threw 
 open the door and as she entered cried breathlessly : 
 "Well, what about my son?" This natural cry 
 came from so full a heart that M. Limerel was 
 actually moved by it and almost forgot to re- 
 proach his wife for keeping him waiting, but he 
 exclaimed, nevertheless, with a gesture of impa- 
 tience: "The interview was a failure an utter 
 failure! And all owing to you."
 
 80 THE BARRIER 
 
 "I have no doubt of that. As long as I live, 
 every failure will be owing to me. To be sure, I 
 was not there and you were, but that does not 
 matter. Tell me everything. Where did you 
 meet them? Oh, my poor boy, how he must be 
 suffering! Was it that little chit who did not 
 care for him?" 
 
 "Not at all, ma chere, it was he he alone. 
 How could you fancy such a thing? That is just 
 like you. A disappointment quite upsets your 
 judgment." 
 
 "But tell me, tell me everything. You see I 
 cannot wait. Where did you meet?" 
 
 "We were standing, Felicien and I, with our 
 backs to that great Sorbonne picture in the long 
 gallery. I was gazing with deep interest at a marine 
 view of a stormy sea, and explaining to Felicien 
 the reasons for my admiration, which he did not 
 share, but all the time I was watching for the 
 Tourettes out of the corner of my eye. At a few 
 minutes past three I caught sight of them coming 
 up the grand stairway. They were about to pass 
 us when I stepped forward. 'My dear Limerel, 
 is that you?' exclaimed Tourette. 'What a sur- 
 prise!" 
 
 "How did he appear?" 
 
 "He was out of breath but as cordial as ever, 
 friendly even. I am sure that he favours the 
 match. I am used to reading men, and his 
 manner was unmistakable." 
 
 "And how was the mother?" 
 
 "Very dignified, as usual. But she had come, 
 and that in spite of a headache."
 
 THE BARRIER 81 
 
 "And Mile. Marguerite? What of her?" 
 
 "She was the prettiest Parisienne there, in a 
 frame or out. A perfect little Greuze in a mous- 
 quetaire hat. She has a clever mouth, a re- 
 trousse nose, and sparkling eyes under long, droop- 
 ing lids. But you have seen her. She evidently 
 knew, but showed no signs of embarrassment. 
 Quite at her ease, lively and amusing. She led the 
 way with Felicien, saying: 'I am quite at home 
 at the Salon, Monsieur. Let us come this way.' 
 We followed, tacitly agreeing to fall a little way 
 behind. She talked vivaciously, raising her 
 pretty arm to point things out to him. Felicien 
 hardly spoke. We thought all was going naturally, 
 but we could say nothing about it yet." And 
 M. Limerel proceeded to describe the interview, 
 dwelling chiefly on the role played by the per- 
 sonage who interested him most, namely : himself, 
 his diplomacy and tact, his repartees. 
 
 Mme. LimerePs ardent interest, the mute in- 
 terrogation of her parted lips, impressed even 
 him, the least indulgent of men towards what he 
 styled motherly sentiment. This mother, with 
 dark rings of anxiety around her eyes, crouching 
 in the easy-chair by the fireside in a posture of 
 suspense, with no concern for her fresh toilette, 
 with her veil rolled back unbecomingly and her 
 hat awry, was no longer the handsome, expres- 
 sionless, blonde Mme. Limerel whom he was wont 
 to dominate, but a being all quivering life and 
 primitive passion. 
 
 "Yes," she exclaimed, "I see it all your meet- 
 ing, your walk through the gallery together. I
 
 82 THE BARRIER 
 
 hear your words and their replies, but the end 
 the end?" 
 
 "Well, when I took leave of the Baron and 
 Baroness Tourette in the lower hall, nearly an 
 hour later, and left them lingering awhile, for 
 form's sake, in the sculpture-gallery, I immedi- 
 ately asked Fe*licien: 'What do you think of 
 her?' His reply, which is stamped indelibly on 
 my brain, was: 'She is charming, father, for some 
 one else, but I am not marrying. I warned you, 
 you know.' 'And your reasons, if you please?' 
 I inquired. 'I might give you any number, but 
 one will be enough to prevent any further at- 
 tempts like this of to-day: I have resolved to 
 marry no one save my cousin Marie." 
 
 "He said that!" 
 
 "He said just that 'No one save my cousin 
 Marie.' 'Your cousin?' I replied; 'I will not per- 
 mit it, do you hear?' 'My mind is made up,' he 
 said, and upon that we came out. My dear, I 
 was furious. I said everything that could be 
 said. I pointed out the folly of marrying a girl 
 who could not bring him even four hundred thou- 
 sand francs, and who had no important connec- 
 tions, except in a circle which no longer counts for 
 anything. I pointed out that when a young man 
 wishes to make his way in the diplomatic world 
 he cannot afford to begin by a blunder. I ex- 
 plained that there are certain obligations for 
 people of our fortune, that in the upper bour- 
 geoisie a man's choice is as strictly limited as that 
 of a prince, unless he means to abdicate and 
 F61icien is abdicating. He will never 'arrive'!
 
 THE BARRIER 83 
 
 It is like setting out on his career armed with a 
 prayer-book instead of a copy of Macchiavelli. I 
 told him all this and much besides. He merely 
 replied with more sentimental speeches, telling 
 me how lovely Marie was." 
 
 "So she is." 
 
 "And Mile. Tourette? Is she not lovely, too?" 
 
 "But Marie has such elevation of mind, such 
 distinction of nature!" 
 
 "Define distinction, will you? The little Tour- 
 ette girl is a thousand times more 'chic/ and that 
 is distinction nowadays, ma chere. And even if 
 she hasn't already those wonderful qualities that 
 F41icien is dreaming of, she is very young, and 
 he can form her to suit his own ideal. Is not a 
 husband the real educator of a wife of twenty? 
 Can he not refine her to any extent?" 
 
 "We are an example of the contrary, mon ami. 
 I was under twenty when you married me." 
 
 "I beg of you I am in no mood for jest- 
 ing.' 
 
 "Nor I, I assure you. Nor of serious contra- 
 diction either. I am merely offering a plea on be- 
 half of that poor boy who is not here to defend 
 himself. Why do you look at me so sternly?" 
 
 M. Limerel rose, tossing down an ivory paper- 
 knife with which he had been slashing the air 
 while he spoke, and began pacing slowly back 
 and forth between window and door, with his 
 arms folded and his eyes fixed steadily upon his 
 wife, who had risen, too, and was evidently begin- 
 ning to waver. 
 
 "Because it is you who are really responsible,"
 
 84 THE BARRIER 
 
 he replied. "You have encouraged Felicien in all 
 these foolish tastes which are opposed to mine." 
 
 "We are discussing his marriage, Victor." 
 
 "We are discussing his whole future, which he is 
 about to compromise. If you had not filled him 
 with a lot of idealistic notions which make me un- 
 easy about him yes, yes, I repeat it, uneasy 
 these notions of excessive piety, for instance 
 
 "What do you call excessive?" 
 
 "Whatever stands in one's way, parbleu" 
 
 "Alas! he has given up all religious observances, 
 much to my regret indeed." 
 
 "I am not concerned with that. What I com- 
 plain of is that he is essentially romantic and 
 mystical." 
 
 ' ' Poor boy ! He has a little spark of enthusiasm 
 in his nature, which he inherits, perhaps, from me." 
 
 "Not at all, my dear. He is, as I say, a mystic. 
 I insist upon it that he lives and breathes in an 
 unreal atmosphere. He has a taste for pious 
 romance, and he imagines Marie to be a sort of 
 Madonna or archangel." 
 
 "He loves her." 
 
 "I call it morbid nonsense and ignorance of the 
 world, or pure folly, whichever you like." 
 
 Mme. Limerel, weary of contending and fully 
 aware of the uselessness of such discussions, re- 
 sumed her society voice, and in her sweetest and 
 most amiable tones replied: "I do not wish to dis- 
 please you, mon ami. What do you wish me to 
 do?" 
 
 "What do I wish? That you should speak to 
 your son and dissuade him from this mad idea.
 
 THE BARRIER 85 
 
 He will listen to you better than he does to me. 
 You have influence over him." 
 
 "I shall make him suffer all the more. But 
 since you wish it I will try my best. Where did 
 he go when he left you?" 
 
 "To the Foreign Office, where he had an ap- 
 pointment. He will soon be back. I leave you. 
 He will come expecting to find me here, and will 
 find you instead." 
 
 "Are you not afraid of his having an ally?" 
 
 "Whom do you mean? My sister-in-law? I 
 wrote to her about it in England and have had 
 an answer." 
 
 "Which you never showed me." 
 
 "True, true! But it was an excellent reply. 
 Oh, she will make no attempt to catch my son! 
 Her principles are even stricter than yours. She 
 is exasperating, but at the same time reassuring, 
 for I feel secure against any manoeuvring on her 
 part. It is only Marie whom I fear, with her ar- 
 dent nature under that air of reserve. She and 
 Felicien have always been on such terms of inti- 
 macy that I never foresaw this danger. Of course 
 she cannot help loving him." 
 
 "Yes, with a cousinly affection." 
 
 "Oh, I know those cousinly affections which 
 are nothing more or less than love in disguise. 
 Marie has eyes and intelligence. She is aware 
 that my son is a charming and advantageous parti; 
 that he has a fortune and will go far. It is against 
 her that you will have to work. You must simply 
 tell him that you regard such a marriage as im- 
 possible and that it would pain you deeply.
 
 86 THE BARRIER 
 
 There! I hear the outside door close; it must be 
 Fe"licien. Tell him you have not seen me yet. Do 
 not turn pale like that! It is nonsense! When 
 will you be a real woman a woman of strong 
 will?" 
 
 Mme. Limerel kept her eyes fixed upon the door- 
 way through which her husband disappeared, 
 saying to herself, "When will you be a real man, 
 with a man's heart?" At this decisive moment 
 she was terrified to find herself alone and forced 
 to act against her natural instincts, and indeed 
 against her sense of right and justice. 
 
 As Flicien entered and bent his eyes upon her 
 with a look of tender inquiry, she threw her whole 
 diplomacy into assuming an attitude of easy uncon- 
 sciousness. Slowly she began removing her jew- 
 elled hat-pins and laying her flower-trimmed hat 
 upon the table before her while she carefully 
 smoothed a stray lock of hair with the tips of her 
 fingers. 
 
 "Has father not come in yet?" he inquired. 
 
 "Not yet, dearest. You have just returned 
 from the Salon from seeing ? In short, how 
 were you pleased?" 
 
 Felicien had a clear, direct glance, and true 
 French eyes, by turns clever, appealing, mocking, 
 and coaxing, but with too many vagrant thoughts 
 passing through them. His pale, youthful coun- 
 tenance, with close-cut brown hair, budding mous- 
 tache, and a prominent chin like his father's, gave 
 him the air of a student, while a certain elegance 
 in the carriage of his head and in the supple out- 
 lines of his figure recalled the portrait of some
 
 THE BARRIER 87 
 
 young Florentine noble of the Renaissance clad 
 in a silken doublet, with a jewelled poniard in his 
 belt. 
 
 He embraced his mother without replying, and 
 after a moment's pause said: 
 
 "Come, sit down here beside me, won't you? 
 I need your help." 
 
 "Ah, my child! when you are once men we 
 mothers are of so little use. You think I can help 
 you still? It does me good to hear that." 
 
 For answer he took her hand and led her to a 
 sofa, where he seated himself beside her, and bent 
 forward with a look of trouble in his eyes. 
 
 She drew herself up and listened intently, with 
 a serious expression on her pretty, doll-like face. 
 At certain words he spoke her eyelids drooped as 
 if pained by what he said, at other moments she 
 turned white, with a faint murmur, "It is im- 
 possible. That is an illusion. It is too late." 
 It was evident that she suffered at seeing him 
 suffer, and at not daring to console him. 
 
 "I am very unhappy," he began. 
 
 "What is it, my child?" 
 
 "There are only three of us at home and you 
 and my father do not agree." 
 
 "Indeed we do! Why do you say that?" 
 
 "Well, he and I disagree on a very serious sub- 
 ject, and I do not know whether you will side 
 with me or with him." 
 
 "Tell me, is it about this marriage? If Baron 
 Tourette's daughter does not please you, your 
 father and I will look out for some other young 
 girl."
 
 88 THE BARRIER 
 
 "I have already found that other." 
 
 "Heavens! Who is she?" 
 
 "One who is very dear to us." 
 
 ' ' What ! Your cousin Marie? " 
 
 "Yes, Marie. You know how fond she has 
 always been of you." 
 
 "That is true." 
 
 "And you have always taken her part. What 
 better daughter could you ask for? She will not 
 have to learn to love you. If you will only help 
 me, mother!" 
 
 "No, you go too fast, Fe*licien. It is out of the 
 question." 
 
 "Why out of the question?" and he looked her 
 straight in the eyes, while she tried to evade his 
 glances as she murmured: 
 
 "Your career, your fortune, require a totally 
 different marriage." 
 
 "Poor mamma! You have evidently seen my 
 father. You are merely echoing him." 
 
 She did not venture to deny it again, and he 
 withdrew from her a little as she said : 
 
 "I don't know whether your father will change 
 his mind later. Possibly he may, but it is safest 
 not to approach him at first." 
 
 "You wish me to wait? You, too?" 
 
 "Yes, my dear child." 
 
 "Then I will, but not without being sure that 
 Marie cares for me. That I must know, and 
 within the hour. I am going at once to ask her." 
 
 "You have not spoken to her yet?" 
 
 "No. I wished to wait until I had passed my 
 examinations and felt myself a man."
 
 THE BARRIER 89 
 
 "And yet you consented to go to this rendez- 
 vous of your father's?" 
 
 "Yes, in order to have one more argument on 
 my side, to be able to say to him: I have seen 
 them both and I love only Marie." 
 
 "But it is quite impossible, my son. A mar- 
 riage cannot be arranged like this, on the spur of 
 the moment." 
 
 "I have loved her for years." 
 
 "Without telling your parents, Fe'licien?" 
 
 "Since you are both against me, I must speak 
 for myself. I shall go to her at once but will she 
 consent?" 
 
 Mme. Limerel shook her blonde head and smiled 
 in spite of her trouble. "How can you doubt it? 
 A girl who knows you!" 
 
 "No, you do not quite understand there are 
 certain things Marie is very superior to others." 
 
 "And what of you, Felicien?" cried his mother, 
 throwing her arms around her son's neck and 
 drawing down to her the sensitive face drawn 
 and vibrating with emotion. "I am weak," she 
 added, kissing him. "I ought not to let you see 
 that I forgive you. I do not approve, and I fully 
 agree with your father. You cannot imagine how 
 upset I am by all this. At the very moment, too, 
 when our fondest wish for you was about to be real- 
 ised, you ruin everything. We have always lived 
 so united and happy until now." 
 
 "Yes, but only by avoiding all vital questions. 
 I fear, dearest mother, that our peace was the re- 
 sult of a weak compromise." 
 
 "Alas! could not things last as they were?"
 
 90 THE BARRIER 
 
 "You see, dear, that they could not." 
 "And what am I to say to your father?" 
 "Tell him that I have gone to see Marie," and 
 as he spoke Felicien arose and left his mother 
 seated alone on the sofa, weeping silently, but all 
 unconscious of the deeper causes of her tears. 
 
 The distance was short between the hotel of 
 the Victor Limerels and the apartment occu- 
 pied by Marie and her mother in the Avenue 
 d'Antin. Fe"licien walked rapidly, pondering upon 
 what he should say to his cousin, what her replies 
 would be, and building up a score of possible 
 romances. He recalled the whole past which 
 bound him to Marie, and saw her once more a 
 child on the beach at St. Lunaire, where the two 
 families had been in the habit of spending their 
 summers, or in the Tuileries gardens which he used 
 to cross daily on his way to and from his college, 
 and where he often lingered to watch his little 
 cousin skipping rope, or running to and fro among 
 the other girls, as lithe and frolicsome as a young 
 kid. He saw her in short skirts at that uncertain 
 age when her smile began to change, as a ripen- 
 ing fruit takes on a tinge of colour Marie, whose 
 proud glance held one aloof from her realm of vir- 
 ginal thoughts and whom he loved even then with 
 a timid, jealous affection, feeling her to be differ- 
 ent from the other girls whom he flirted with at 
 balls this cousin of his who was clever with- 
 out diplomas, this very pretty girl who remained 
 simple, this Parisienne who had bloomed in a 
 chosen circle, and who, as he knew, looked with 
 a shade of youthful severity on the mixed social
 
 THE BARRIER 91 
 
 relations of his father's family that a girl of 
 twenty, so gifted, could remain long without be- 
 ing loved, sought, and won was incredible. He 
 had suffered therefore during this six weeks' 
 absence, this English journey of which he knew so 
 little. Whom had she met over there? What 
 new influences had coloured her girlish image of 
 an ideal hero? This vague fear was one of the 
 secret causes which had decided him to seek Marie 
 at once. 
 
 Mme. Limerel lived on the third floor of a house 
 in the Avenue d'Antin. On being informed by the 
 maid that madame was out, but that mademoiselle 
 was at home, Fe*licien became so agitated that he 
 could barely stammer: "Do not announce me. 
 I will go and find her." 
 
 " Mademoiselle is in the dining-room, writing," 
 the maid said, and as she opened the door Marie 
 sprang up and came to meet her cousin. Drop- 
 ping him a deep curtsey, she exclaimed laughingly, 
 "Good-morning, Excellency. To what do I owe 
 this honour? Sit down, Felicien," she added. 
 "You see I have taken possession once more of 
 my favourite nook for writing, where I have a 
 better light and less noise than on the avenue 
 side." 
 
 And as she spoke she reseated herself at a table 
 in the large bay-window, overlooking a court-yard 
 with low walls, over which a glimpse could be 
 caught of the tree-tops of a garden on the Fau- 
 bourg St. Honore*. 
 
 "I have hardly caught sight of you since you 
 came back from England, Marie."
 
 92 THE BARRIER 
 
 "True. That so-called family party of ours 
 the other evening was not precisely an intimate 
 gathering, and mamma's dozens of special friends 
 were very monopolising." 
 
 "It will be the same at our house; we shall be 
 almost by ourselves at dinner, but in the evening 
 a hundred people are coming and there is to be 
 music. Besides, people always try to monopolise 
 you! When it is not a nice old lady, it is a man, 
 young or old, who wants to sit beside you because 
 he enjoys talking to a lovely girl, and who accounts 
 for it by saying, 'Oh, yes! she is so clever and 
 cultivated!' All of which is quite true." 
 
 "Come, Fe"licien, spare me. We girls have to 
 pass our examinations, too, you know, and they 
 are not always the most amusing ones. Well, 
 here you are, a man with a career before you the 
 career of all others! They must have been de- 
 lighted at home." 
 
 "Yes, but it was a delight that did not last." 
 
 "Do you know any that do?" 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 And as their eyes met for a moment, Marie 
 blushed and bit her lips, realising that she had 
 heedlessly said the wrong thing and brought the 
 conversation to a dangerous point. She began 
 nervously toying with the letter which lay before 
 her. But Marie Limerel was one of those per- 
 fectly frank and courageous natures which hesi- 
 tate only at the start, and having once chosen 
 their path go straight towards the duty before 
 them. Her delicate profile stood out like an 
 antique cameo against the light behind her, and
 
 THE BARRIER 93 
 
 as she spoke she involuntarily lifted her hand, as 
 if taking a vow. 
 
 "If you have anything to say to me, speak at 
 once while we are alone, and let there be only 
 truth between us/' she said. 
 
 "You will answer me with perfect sincerity?" 
 
 "Indeed I will." 
 
 "Marie, my cousin Marie, do you love me a 
 little?" 
 
 "I love you very much, Fe"licien, and always 
 have from childhood." 
 
 "Yes, I know and I believe you, but that is not 
 what I am asking for now. Do you love me 
 enough to be my wife? For my part I have long 
 since passed from a cousinly affection for you to 
 a deep and ardent love. I have compared you 
 with other girls and found you superior to them 
 all I can truly say it you so good, so loyal, 
 who pass through this stupid society in which 
 we all find ourselves, without resembling it in 
 your look, your speech, or your heart. You so 
 young 
 
 "So young! Oh, Fe"licien! I have sometimes 
 asked myself why you were no longer young." 
 
 "You have thought of me then? Even if it 
 were only to blame me, I thank you for giving me 
 a place in your thoughts. Had you guessed? 
 Did you know?" 
 
 "Yes, I sometimes thought so. But listen, I 
 could love with my whole heart only one who 
 gave me a love such as I have dreamed of." 
 
 "Ardent, enthusiastic, reverent, Marie? Mine 
 is all these."
 
 94 THE BARRIER 
 
 "I wish for more, far more." 
 
 "Pure then? You are questioning me as to 
 my past? You reproach me with infidelities to 
 you which have been few, I assure you." 
 
 "You are mistaken. I might perhaps pardon 
 all this to one who asked for pardon." 
 
 "Perhaps, you say?" 
 
 "Yes, for I am not yet called upon to make that 
 sacrifice. I do not know. But what I do ask for 
 above all, is that there should be no thought that 
 kept us apart; that we should have but one soul 
 between us." 
 
 "Ah! We have come to it at last. I have been 
 fearing, Marie, that you would ask me to be like 
 you." 
 
 "Have we the same faith? Are you a Chris- 
 tian still? Understand me: I know that you con- 
 tinue to go to mass and would accompany your 
 wife there. I see that through family tradition 
 you remain respectful to Catholic ideas, ceremo- 
 nies, and customs. But to be outwardly respectful, 
 mon ami, is not enough, it is not living by faith as I 
 wish to live. It pains me to speak to you like this. 
 I am being hard to myself. But it would be such a 
 disillusion if I found that my husband could not 
 pray with me was not inspired in all his acts 
 by that faith which is truly all of me. You think 
 me pretty and I am touched by that. But other 
 girls are pretty, too. Why have you chosen me? 
 What you love in me, I truly believe, is this inner 
 faith, F&icien." 
 
 "That may be, Marie; there has always been a 
 mystery about you."
 
 THE BARRIER 95 
 
 "No, only a sheltered youth. A will which 
 would be weak of itself, but has been fortified 
 from childhood and directed upward with admir- 
 able tenderness. I see so many wrecks about me! 
 I feel that with most men I should be imperilling 
 my soul and my happiness. I should like but 
 do not laugh at me." 
 
 "On the contrary. Speak and let me look 
 into the paradise of your soul. I promise you to 
 answer truly. What would you like?" 
 
 "That my marriage should have about it some- 
 thing of the eternal. I believe those to be poor 
 marriages which are not formed to last forever. 
 I think that the family one founds should have 
 echoes before and after. I should wish to be the 
 mother of a saintly race." 
 
 "You deserve to be, Marie. But that other, 
 where will you find him? I know a few men who 
 think like you and who live as you say they 
 are far better than I, but they do not love you. 
 They might pass near you without knowing all 
 you are worth. What nobler work, moreover, 
 than to bring back to God the man you have 
 chosen?" 
 
 "To-day that can no longer be done, Felicien. 
 I should have the whole world to struggle against. 
 I could not bring it to pass." 
 
 "And yet, little Marie, Christian virgins have 
 married pagans." 
 
 "They were forced to in those days. Besides, 
 those pagans had never known the true life." 
 
 "And we?" 
 
 "The pagans of to-day are Christians blighted.
 
 96 THE BARRIER 
 
 I am sure of it. They will not revive in pure 
 water like a drooping spray of lilac." 
 
 "But in tears they may," and he tried to laugh. 
 
 "Yes, perhaps in tears," and as she spoke the 
 tears sprang to his eyes. He did not attempt to 
 hide them, but bent his head and gazed at Marie 
 as if she were already far away. And not being 
 able to endure the sorrowful love expressed in his 
 gaze, Marie looked back at him for a moment, 
 then closed her eyes. Pity was growing within her. 
 
 "My poor Felicien! how I hurt you!" she cried. 
 
 "No, not you, not you, Marie. It is not your 
 fault. You make me suffer, but only by showing 
 me the gulf between us. The fault is in those who 
 are not like you. I am trying to defend myself, 
 you see, because I love you. The words you speak 
 I feel to be true; you are doubtless right, but I no 
 longer feel sure. That is the hardest thing I have 
 to own to you. I do not often think about the 
 faith that once was mine, lest I should find that 
 there is no vestige of it left." 
 
 "Do not say that, Felicien. You are surely 
 mistaken." 
 
 "I hope it may be so " 
 
 "Oh, yes! do not answer me at once. You 
 are not sure; take time to examine yourself." 
 
 "You did think better of me then, Marie. You 
 did not believe that I had so changed for the 
 worse. I bless you for suffering, too." 
 
 "See! you are using the words of our faith. 
 You say, I bless you." 
 
 ' ' That is what is left to me, alas ! Words, sounds, 
 regrets."
 
 THE BARRIER 97 
 
 "Cling to these regrets; they are the first steps 
 on the return path. Do not say any longer that 
 you do not believe. Do not accuse yourself; 
 study yourself." 
 
 She had bent forward and taken Felicien's 
 hand. She consoled him, she pitied him with 
 her whole young, tender soul which saw him weep 
 for love. 
 
 "Yes, I will try," he answered. "But can 
 you who have never changed, understand? I 
 admire this religion which I once loved, but I 
 no longer turn to it. I say, 'It is beautiful,' 
 but do not adhere to its precepts. My soul has 
 become inert, my will no longer obeys my intel- 
 ligence. I regret not believing but make no effort 
 to throw off this burden of doubt. There is a 
 force within me which is dead or sleeping, I do not 
 know which. And it is on the solution of this 
 problem that you make my fate depend!" 
 
 "How can it be so? You who went to a college 
 directed by Fathers. You brought up by them!" 
 
 "Yes, but not taught. That is a different 
 matter. They did what they could, or nearly so. 
 If their work had not been destroyed I might 
 have been the man you could love, Marie. Let 
 us not seek out who caused this ruin. Evidently 
 it was I. I in the first place, but we might dis- 
 cover those whom I refuse to name. That is an 
 abyss I dread to cross." 
 
 Marie rose with an imploring gesture, saying: 
 
 "Do not answer any farther now. I can be sure 
 that you will tell me the whole truth. Take time 
 to study yourself and you will find some delusions
 
 98 THE BARRIER 
 
 melt away which blind you as to your genuine 
 beliefs. Go Felicien, I have hope." 
 
 "Dear Marie, what an angel you are!" 
 
 " And while you are thinking, I will pray." He 
 stood dry-eyed before her now, as pale as she, but 
 not daring to look in the face he loved, lest he 
 should no longer be master of himself when once 
 he met these eyes so full of compassion. He 
 gazed downwards at her long, slender hands as 
 he said : 
 
 "Marie, we are the victims of the time. I am 
 like this society which is perishing amidst its 
 pleasures, while you are among the chosen few 
 reserved for a resurrection. I have never seen 
 as I do to-night what it is that has ceased to live 
 within me. I will do as you bid. I will try to 
 find myself amidst these ruins." 
 
 "If you see the evil, renounce it." 
 
 "Ah, Marie! how many see the evil but have 
 neither the will nor the grace to be cured." 
 
 "Not the grace, you mean." 
 
 "You cannot comprehend such poverty of soul, 
 you the ardent, the devoted." 
 
 "If my love could bind you to the faith again! 
 But no, it is not enough; strength must come 
 from above. I will pray for it." 
 
 "Tell me, Marie," he said imploringly, "when 
 shall we see each other again? You are so dear, 
 so despairingly dear to me." 
 
 "We shall meet at my aunt's to-morrow, but I 
 beg you to say nothing to me there. I beg you to 
 avoid speaking of this. Let days and days pass. 
 Do not condemn us too soon."
 
 THE BARRIER 99 
 
 "Us! ah, how good you are!" 
 
 "Adieu, Felicien." 
 
 "Pray for us both, Marie." And so they 
 clasped hands and parted, that rapid pressure of 
 the fingers expressing the mutual loyalty of their 
 young souls. 
 
 FeUicien had no desire to return home at once. 
 He was too agitated to meet his father's eyes, his 
 mind was too bitterly stirred. All his youth 
 rose up before him, all his past years brought 
 their testimony, saying to him: "What do you 
 believe? How can you be a man of faith? 
 During your whole childhood you were left to the 
 care of servants for whom you were merely a 
 small, crying creature whom they were forced 
 to tend at night in the absence of your parents. 
 What poor guardian angels! For one who joined 
 your hands and taught you to lisp a prayer, how 
 many hurried you to bed without a thought of 
 heaven, such as a child needs, to be wholly a child? 
 What study have you ever made of religion? 
 During your school days the thought of gradua- 
 tion usurped the place of all else. In college a 
 moderate place was allotted to religious instruc- 
 tion, sufficient, doubtless, when parents bear 
 their part or show its influence in their lives. 
 There were some zealous priests who tried to 
 pour something of the divine into these minds 
 absorbed with the world, steeped in its tumult, 
 assailed by all the influences of the streets, the 
 newspapers, the theatre, books, and their own pas- 
 sionate natures, and finding in their pursuits of 
 pleasure reason enough for doubt and denial.
 
 100 THE BARRIER 
 
 These priests, moved by Christian charity and wise 
 in the knowledge which fortifies the soul, won some 
 minds to the truth forever, others merely to an 
 outward respect which could not endure. You 
 were among these last ! How soon the teachings of 
 the Church were obscured by all you heard 
 uttered or implied at home or in society talk 
 which your mother half disapproved, but to 
 which she listened with a courteous smile, while 
 your father constantly affirmed that an honest 
 man could dispense with religion and philosophy, 
 without a thought of the young soul beside him 
 hearing all this and seeing how those about him 
 lived their lives with no regard for the creed they 
 repeated. Thus your youth was passed!" . 
 
 And as his retrospect continued, Felicien recalled 
 one unhappy date in particular. It was while he 
 was pursuing his law studies that a sense of his 
 utter unworthiness had led him to abstain from 
 the Easter communion, of which his mother had 
 partaken alone. On their return home no ex- 
 planation had followed, only a timid remon- 
 strance on her part, ignored by his father. 
 
 And now Marie had brought all this past to 
 life again and forced him to ask himself: "What 
 do you still believe? What promise can you 
 make to this pure soul? What sympathy can 
 there be between her and you? Descend deeper 
 into your conscience, suffer and perhaps in the in- 
 most depths you may find buried the germ of 
 some force which is still alive." 
 
 After wandering through the streets and ave- 
 nues of the Etoile quarter until the clock struck
 
 THE BARRIER 101 
 
 eight, Fe"licien finally turned homeward. His 
 mother, on hearing the vestibule door open, 
 stepped forward to meet him. 
 
 "How long you have been gone!" she cried. 
 "I have said nothing to your father. He is up- 
 stairs." 
 
 "Do not say anything to him now," Felicien 
 answered. 
 
 "I cannot for a moment believe that she has 
 refused you!" 
 
 "Do not question me, mother; let me reflect in 
 silence. I am in need of rest and thought before 
 giving the answer I have promised." 
 
 "Ah! so much the better, since the decision 
 rests with you." 
 
 "Yes " he began, then stopped with a sigh and 
 passed his hand gently over his mother's brow, 
 which he had never before seen so seamed with 
 care, saying: 
 
 "Do not be unhappy, mother the time has not 
 come yet. All I can say is that the happiness or 
 misery of my life lies in the word I shall have 
 to say to her, and you can do nothing noth- 
 ing." And in a lower tone he added, "Nothing 
 now I" 
 
 On the morning of Tuesday, the twenty-second 
 of June, Mme. Victor Limerel received a note from 
 her sister-in-law, to which she sent the following 
 reply: 
 
 "Certainly, dear Madeleine, I shall be charmed 
 to see your Englishman. He will meet a number
 
 102 THE BARRIER 
 
 of people here, for our friends all wish to celebrate 
 my son's success with us. And you will notice that 
 the date is well chosen, since we are on the eve of 
 St. Felix. 
 
 "Why do you not bring M. Breynolds to dinner, 
 so that he may get to know us a little before the 
 other guests arrive, and so find a few conversa- 
 tional islands in this ocean of strangers? And 
 besides, without him we shall be thirteen at table. 
 "Your sister and friend, 
 
 "POMMEAU VICTOR LlMEREL. 
 
 "P. S. Fe*licien, to whom I have just read this 
 note, jeers at my superstition. But I insist; bring 
 me the fourteenth. " 
 
 On the very day of his departure from Redhall, 
 Reginald had embarked for Ostend. He had 
 passed the first week or two of his voluntary exile 
 with friends in Belgium. Then, armed with let- 
 ters of introduction, he had taken the train for 
 Paris, drawn thither by a definite and deliberate 
 purpose. "I will see them at home," he thought. 
 "I will study these Catholics in their lives and 
 works. I will attend their gatherings and hear 
 them speak; and for this purpose I will go to 
 France where religion is the oldest, the most cre- 
 ative, the most apostolic, and the most bitterly 
 opposed. I shall not frequent theatres or galleries, 
 since I am bound on this one quest. I do not 
 care about those other things, they can come later." 
 For this reason, and one other, he had rejected the 
 idea which had occurred to him more than once,
 
 THE BARRIER 103 
 
 of paying a visit to the two French ladies who had 
 been witnesses of his recent experiences and guests 
 at his home. Some words he had himself spoken 
 also restrained him. He had said to his little 
 friend Dorothy, speaking of Marie: "I shall not 
 see her again." It was childish, no doubt, but 
 these words seemed binding to his tenacious na- 
 ture, so little used to reversing his decisions, even 
 in trifling matters. Nevertheless, one evening 
 as he was returning to his hotel somewhat lonely 
 and sad, he caught sight of the lighted windows 
 of Mme. LimerePs apartment, and a youthful long- 
 ing for one more glimpse of pretty Marie Limerel 
 carried the day. 
 
 Although Marie and her mother had welcomed 
 him with a cordial friendliness authorised by the 
 weeks spent at Westgate, he had appeared at 
 first cold and formal. They found him as dis- 
 tant as on the first evening when Lady Brey- 
 nolds had presented her son to the two French 
 ladies. It was evident that the sort of confidence 
 which had sprung up on English soil between 
 Reginald and Marie had not crossed the Channel, 
 and it hardly seemed as if the correct and silent 
 young man who replied to their questions only in 
 monosyllables could ever have walked and talked 
 with Marie in the park at home. 
 
 Mme. Limerel, who was equally surprised at this 
 perfunctory conversation broken by frequent 
 pauses, suddenly asked: 
 
 "You would, perhaps, like to make a few ac- 
 quaintances in Paris, Monsieur?" 
 
 "Thank you, no; I do not care to do so."
 
 104 THE BARRIER 
 
 "It is sight-seeing then that interests you?" 
 
 He had laughed as he answered: "Not espe- 
 cially." But they had caught an expression in his 
 eyes revealing that here was a soul on its guard. 
 
 "I do not mean, you understand, that you 
 should climb into one of those vans on the Place 
 de 1'Opera which carry your compatriots all over 
 Paris. But I thought that coming here for the 
 first time you might have laid out some plan of 
 study or amusement, and knowing you I feel quite 
 sure it would be study." 
 
 "Yes, some friends of mine in Belgium have 
 given me a few letters of introduction." And he 
 said no more on the subject of the use he was 
 making of his time in Paris. 
 
 Naturally no allusion was made to the discus- 
 sions which had led to Reginald's sudden de- 
 parture from Redhall, and which had caused so 
 much talk in the little Westgate circle. Mme. 
 Limerel inquired for Sir George and Lady Brey- 
 nolds as if quite unaware of the scenes that had 
 passed, even before her own eyes. 
 
 Reginald was touched by this reserve, and 
 though he gave no sign, he said within himself: 
 "These are thoroughly well-bred people, since 
 they appear the same at home in Paris as they did 
 in England." 
 
 For in his inmost thoughts he had entertained 
 a suspicion that English surroundings had acted 
 as a check upon a certain exuberance and frivol- 
 ity of mind and speech which he believed to be 
 French characteristics. 
 
 Accordingly when Mme. Limerel had suggested
 
 THE BARRIER 105 
 
 his accompanying them to her sister-in-law's on 
 the next evening but one, he accepted with an 
 eagerness which proved that he had been charmed 
 as well as surprised by his visit. 
 
 "I do not propose your coming for the society 
 you will meet there," she added, " since you have 
 admitted your unsociableness " 
 
 "And besides, it is not precisely our society," 
 interpolated Marie. 
 
 " but on account of the music, which will be 
 excellent." 
 
 Thus it was that on the evening of the twenty- 
 second, on the stroke of eight, Reginald Breynolds 
 was being presented to the guests of the Victor 
 Limerels. 
 
 These included first a young Pommeau couple, 
 relatives of Mme. LimereFs, the husband, a partner 
 in the automobile firm of Mohl & Gerq, being 
 commonly known as " Pommeau des automo- 
 biles," as in Rome they speak of Pietro dei Mas- 
 simi. Next came an old Councillor of State who 
 dined impartially in all sets and at all seasons, 
 invariably telling one good story after the Bur- 
 gundy to pay his scot and end the dinner jovial- 
 ly, then, after a cigar in the smoking-room where 
 he told a spicier story to the men, he departed 
 with a sense of duty accomplished. There were 
 also the banker Ploute and his wife. He was 
 the manager of several big companies, very 
 clever, and wealth incarnate; while she was wealth 
 incarnate and very dull. She was also exceedingly 
 blonde, and her sloping shoulders were more laden 
 with diamonds than those of any other woman in
 
 106 THE BARRIER 
 
 good society. Diplomacy was represented by a 
 young secretary of legation, who had wished to 
 pay the new attach^ the compliment of dining 
 with him elsewhere than at a ministerial func- 
 tion; he was a youth of mild and modest speech, 
 with a collection of terrible anecdotes against his 
 neighbour. Then came M. de Semoville, whose 
 wife had declined at the eleventh hour; an ama- 
 teur sculptor who attributed his lack of success 
 in the artistic world exclusively to his birth and 
 station, and made no secret of his envy of his 
 untitled rivals. Finally there were the cousins 
 Bourguilliere, a thick-set, sturdy couple the 
 wife with something of the imposing mien of a 
 Roman matron who ostensibly spent the entire 
 year in the country, absorbed in the management 
 of a great estate from which Madame derived 
 yearly profits of twenty-five thousand francs on 
 her dairy alone. Renowned as they were for 
 their rural, agricultural, equine, and bovine ex- 
 periences, this couple were to be met with in Paris 
 whenever they could snatch a moment from their 
 fields and flocks, in other words, incessantly. 
 
 This small, intimate dinner, as Mme. Limerel 
 called it, was actually made up of professional 
 diners-out who were in the habit of meeting reg- 
 ularly at the same table. It was noticeable for 
 the silent, rapid ease of the service, and for the 
 complete absence of originality in the conversa- 
 tion. At first the great mill-owner took the lead 
 as though he were presiding at a board meeting 
 evidently under the impression that he was 
 stimulating discussion and a free interchange
 
 THE BARRIER 107 
 
 of ideas. He did in fact draw out a variety of 
 contradictory opinions on a vast number of topics 
 grave and gay, but these themes were soon ex- 
 hausted, as the company in general knew very 
 little about them, and cared still less. 
 
 Regular habitues of society recognise this fact, 
 but Reginald, who had lived in various countries 
 but never in France, secretly admired the versa- 
 tality of these French people, their vivacity, the 
 appositeness of an occasional repartee, which may 
 have served before but which reappears from time 
 to time under a slight disguise. He was amused, 
 in short, by all he heard, having sufficient sense of 
 humour to appreciate the happy hits. He was 
 greatly entertained by M. de Semoville's experi- 
 ences at the art auctions, of which he was a regular 
 devotee; as well as by the councillor's piquant 
 anecdotes, one of which was pronounced by the 
 knowing M. Pommeau to be "fresh from the mint." 
 
 As he was communicating his impressions, 
 mostly in English, to Marie, who sat beside him, he 
 suddenly became aware that he was the person 
 expected to speak next, and say something entirely 
 new. For it is a law on such occasions, frequently 
 verified, that a guest who may be supposed to 
 have something worth saying, is not called upon 
 at once, but has his cue given him after the first 
 courses are over. 
 
 The habitue's naturally wish, before giving their 
 attention to new-comers, to display their own 
 little talents, to gossip awhile, and to make them- 
 selves agreeable to their partners. The saddle 
 of mutton had accordingly been served when M.
 
 108 THE BARRIER 
 
 Pommeau "of the automobiles," in replying to 
 some question of his neighbour's, remarked audi- 
 bly: "Oh, yes, we have Monsieur Breynolds 
 here, who knows India thoroughly." 
 
 "That is true!" exclaimed M. Limerel, in the 
 tones of a whipper-in sounding the rally. "Per- 
 fectly! He has held a command in the most 
 savage regions." 
 
 "Where was it, may I ask, Monsieur Breynolds? " 
 said the fair Mme. Ploute, whose complexion had 
 cost several millions and had won for her the heart 
 of M. Ploute, and who in speaking moved only her 
 pretty, rose-tinted lips, while the lines of her face 
 remained immovable and expressionless. 
 
 Reginald, embarrassed at being obliged to speak 
 French before the whole table, merely replied : 
 
 "Sixteenth Rajput regiment, stationed at 
 Manipur in Assam." 
 
 This cast a momentary chill over the company, 
 while every one was trying to locate Assam. The 
 first to recover was the secretary of legation, who 
 said: "Oh, yes, Assam, a province of British 
 India on the north-east frontier of China, very 
 savage in fact " 
 
 "Because I visited India on my wedding-trip," 
 resumed Mme. Ploute. "Do you think the Hin- 
 doo women so amazingly pretty, Monsieur?" 
 
 After that, the trigger having been pulled, each 
 took his turn at questioning Reginald. He de- 
 fended himself as well as he was able, replying 
 at first only in the briefest phrases. 
 
 Some one alluded to Sisowath and its dancers. 
 Mme. Ploute, who was more used to being looked at
 
 THE BARRIER 109 
 
 than listened to, keenly enjoyed the new sensa- 
 tion of leading the conversation, and turning her 
 fixed and sterilised smile upon Reginald, who held 
 himself at attention as if on parade, she poured 
 forth a torrent of amiable nonsense to which he 
 replied gravely, occasionally pausing for a mo- 
 ment's reflection. 
 
 Mme. Ploute thought him a charming young 
 man, and all eyes were turned upon him as he de- 
 scribed the uniform of the Sixteenth Rajput, 
 known as the Lucknow Regiment, which con- 
 sisted of a red tunic with white facings, and the 
 white Wolseley helmet with a pugaree or muslin 
 scarf twisted around the crown, or else of a khaki 
 suit of knickerbockers, with puttees bound about 
 the legs. 
 
 In imagination all pictured Reginald attired 
 in this fashion, either in scarlet or buff, and look- 
 ing extremely handsome. He was requested to 
 give a few traits of manners peculiar to the 
 Mishmi tribes among whom he had lived, and 
 gradually the halo that belongs to a hero, a 
 softened, tender glow, began to envelop him 
 in the eyes of Mme. Pommeau, who was unhap- 
 pily married, and of Mme. Ploute, who had once 
 dreamed of being adored by some splendid 
 warrior. Mme. Victor Limerel reflected grate- 
 fully that her dinner was going off well, while 
 Reginald, finding that his French was easily un- 
 derstood, hesitated less and grew more animated. 
 
 "Paris must strike you drolly after the Mishmis," 
 broke in the banker Ploute, who was a little bored 
 by India.
 
 110 THE BARRIER 
 
 "What have you seen in Paris during the week 
 you have spent here?" inquired M. Limerel, and 
 several women's voices chimed in: "Yes, yes, 
 tell us what you have seen in Paris, Monsieur 
 Breynolds." 
 
 "Other Mishrnis," murmured Felicien under 
 his breath. 
 
 All heads were now turned towards the English- 
 man, and the maitre d'hotel and his aides who were 
 passing the salad regarded with disfavour this 
 guest who obstructed the service. 
 
 "I?" returned Reginald quietly, "I have been 
 questioning priests and directors of institutions 
 in regard to the charities of Paris. I have visited 
 one of the last religious communities which has 
 been allowed to remain here, and the Training 
 School for Cripples of the Brothers of St. Jean 
 de Dieu. That seems to me a work surpassing 
 human powers." 
 
 "You were not doing this for pleasure?" 
 queried Mme. Ploute anxiously. "You doubt- 
 less have a mission from your government." 
 
 "No, I am not on any mission. I am doing it 
 of my own accord." 
 
 "How curious! Don't you think, chere amie," 
 said the handsome Mme. Ploute, addressing the 
 pretty Mme. Pommeau, "that it is very odd? 
 Monsieur Breynolds has not at all the air " 
 
 "Of what, machfre?" 
 
 "Why of that!" 
 
 "Then," resumed M. Limerel, "you must be 
 rewriting Maxime Du Camp's book for your own 
 benefit."
 
 THE BARRIER 111 
 
 "Precisely," said Reginald. "I have discovered 
 that the charities of Paris are a world in them- 
 selves, and an admirable one." 
 
 " You must have ah excellent ones at home." 
 
 " Doubtless we have prosperous institutions, if 
 you like, and yet there is a personal force here 
 which strikes me greatly." 
 
 There was a chorus of approbation, followed 
 by an immediate abandonment of the handsome 
 Indian officer. The men smiled at their neigh- 
 bours as if to say: "There, didn't I warn you?" 
 The ladies, the younger ones especially, smiled 
 back. "You were right, and yet he promised to 
 be interesting. He started off well." 
 
 Mme. Limerel decided that there was no time to 
 lose in getting off of charities and effecting some 
 sort of digression. 
 
 Marie noticed that Felicien did not share the 
 ironical attitude of M. Pommeau, M. de Semoville, 
 the secretary, or his father. 
 
 Dinner over, as she was returning to the salon 
 on Reginald's arm, M. Bourguilliere, who had not 
 uttered a word at table, approached them : 
 
 "Mr. Breynolds," he said, "allow me to tell you 
 that the opinions you have expressed are precisely 
 my own. There is no place in the world where the 
 original human material is nobler than with us," 
 and he bowed. Reginald was at once seized upon 
 by the diplomat, who had been silently preparing 
 a series of questions to propound to him, while 
 Felicien joined Marie where she was standing 
 relieved against a splendid background of Gobelins 
 tapestry which draped one end of the salon.
 
 112 THE BARRIER 
 
 "I cannot speak of myself," he began, "since 
 I have promised, but I have the right to ask what 
 this Englishman is doing here, who seems to know 
 you and your mother so well. What has he come 
 for? For you, perhaps? " 
 
 "No," she answered, "he has a much better 
 object." 
 
 "To write a book? What stuff!" 
 
 "No, to seek the truth." 
 
 "You cannot arouse my sympathy in him. I 
 distrust these researches, for I suspect a personal 
 object." 
 
 "How hard you are upon me, and how unjust 
 to him!" 
 
 "Never fear! I will undertake the education 
 of your Hindoo. I will soon cool his enthusiasm 
 by showing him what a reactionary salon is like." 
 
 "Why should you try to belittle us in his eyes, 
 Felicien?" 
 
 But he was already gone, in response to a sig- 
 nal from his father, who was conducting the men 
 into the smoking-room. On their return they 
 found the salons already invaded by a swarm of 
 evening guests whom an interminable line of au- 
 tomobiles had deposited at the door. 
 
 Obliged to welcome this throng, Felicien did 
 not find himself free again until the concert was 
 half over, when he sought out Reginald, whom he 
 found standing in a doorway leading from the 
 small blue salon into the larger one, gazing with 
 folded arms and observant eyes at the half- 
 circle of women, most of them young and in full 
 ball dress, who were clustered around the piano,
 
 THE BARRIER 113 
 
 while the men were drawn up in serried ranks 
 behind them. 
 
 As Felicien approached, he sought to divine the 
 thoughts of this Englishman, transported into a 
 society so new to him, but failing to perceive the 
 slightest change of expression cross his face, de- 
 cided that Reginald Breynolds was a typical 
 specimen of the phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon race. 
 
 In his morbid frame of mind this sight aroused 
 his jealousy. Without being distinctly conscious 
 of his own feelings, he experienced a vague dread 
 of the comparison which might be drawn in a 
 mind dear to him, between this stranger and him- 
 self, and he feared lest Reginald Breynolds should 
 carry away from this party an image of Marie 
 Limerel more bewitching than ever in the refined 
 elegance of its setting. He therefore resolved to 
 dissipate all illusions in regard at least to the set- 
 ting. In order to reach Reginald's side, he was 
 obliged to make a devour through the first salon, 
 which was almost deserted, and while he was on his 
 way the Englishman caught snatches of a tete-a-tete 
 which was going on near him, to an accompani- 
 ment of the tuning of violins and 'cellos, between 
 M. Pommeau, a black-headed young man with 
 flashing white teeth, and a very young woman 
 with the face of a Perugino angel and the figure 
 of a Renaissance statue draped in rose-tinted 
 satin. They were conversing in discreet under- 
 tones, as if used to such manoeuvres, with their 
 heads close together, but with their faces turned 
 towards the orchestra as if intent on what was 
 passing before them.
 
 114 THE BARRIER 
 
 He: I should like to know what is going on in 
 that little heart. 
 
 She: It is nothing so strange as you fancy. 
 
 He: The less reason for refusing to confess it to 
 me. 
 
 She: A droll confessor. 
 
 He: Why so? 
 
 She: You would be too indulgent. 
 
 He: Towards myself, yes but not towards oth- 
 ers. 
 
 She: Naturally, but I prefer to keep my own 
 secrets. 
 
 He: They are very naughty secrets, then? 
 
 She: You think me in need of repentance? 
 
 He: Repentance, no; you are too young for 
 that. 
 
 She: Be still/ Impertinent, some one might hear 
 you. 
 
 He: What matter if they do? 
 
 She: Oh, there are principles here 
 
 He: None to speak of, only fragments. Will 
 you have some? 
 
 She: Not this evening, thank you. 
 
 And with this they drifted apart. 
 
 "Who is that lady?" Reginald asked of Felicien 
 as he came up. 
 
 At that moment a rustic strain was being played 
 on the 'cello, an artless little melody upon which, 
 as it grew graver, the piano began to weave the 
 motif of a prayer. 
 
 "She is a 'flirt' of Monsieur Pommeau's, whose 
 husband, a fine, agreeable, intelligent fellow, 
 adores her. See! he is that tall, good-looking
 
 THE BARRIER 115 
 
 man over there, who is watching her with anxious 
 eyes. But they have very little money, and she 
 likes Pommeau's presents, which proves the truth 
 of Councillor BlumentePs epigram at dinner." 
 
 " Which one?" 
 
 "It's true, he indulged in several, but in such 
 low tones that one half of the table could only see 
 the other half laugh. Well, what he said was: 
 'Rarer than a love-marriage is a love-flirtation; 
 they are mostly de convenance. ' ' 
 
 The Englishman saw nothing droll in this re- 
 mark and did not even sketch a smile. The pas- 
 torale was over now and after a burst of applause 
 the women hastened to resume the buzz of conver- 
 sation so unfortunately interrupted by the music. 
 
 As the 'cellist, with his instrument in one hand 
 and his bow in the other, stood bowing to Mme. 
 Limerel, who was congratulating him, an old gen- 
 tleman passed by muttering : "What a bore! was 
 it not, Madame?" 
 
 "You see that bald young man, with a mono- 
 cle, beside the piano?" pursued Felicien. "That 
 is a very distinguished anarchist whom they are 
 thinking of for a professorship at the College de 
 France, or the Polytechnic. He can have his 
 choice, of course. There are no claims nowadays 
 that have a chance beside those of a demolisher. 
 My father invited him because he is a power to 
 be conciliated, perhaps on my account, certainly 
 on his own." 
 
 "Ah, indeed!" 
 
 "I shall not offer to introduce you, because in 
 your character of Englishman you will immedi-
 
 116 THE BARRIER 
 
 ately be called upon to give in your adherence to 
 the principle of universal brotherhood." 
 
 "Not really!" 
 
 "Certainly, Monsieur. You have no idea of the 
 tyranny of these diploma'd fools. Whether you 
 agree with a word he utters or not, he leaves 
 you convinced of your admiring allegiance. But I 
 can guess what your real opinions are on that 
 question. When all the nations of Europe have 
 agreed to be brothers, the last to hold out his 
 hand in this universal grasp will be the English- 
 man." 
 
 This time Reginald smiled and said: 
 
 "Very true that, very true!" 
 
 "You see that lady of uncertain age, with an 
 equine profile, in the front row not so far along 
 there you are! She is a very great lady indeed 
 who entertains so much and so graciously that 
 she considers herself exempt from the obligation 
 of ever returning visits." 
 
 "I see no harm in that if people keep on going 
 to her." 
 
 "That elderly man beside her is quite ruined, 
 but is clever enough to live in luxury on nothing 
 a year, and is greatly admired by the ladies." 
 
 "Who is that young lady in black tulle who has 
 been talking so long with those two men?" 
 
 "She must be begging for one of her charities." 
 
 "You are joking! I have been watching her 
 for twenty minutes by the clock, while she smiled 
 and argued, and cajoled." 
 
 "No, I assure you she is one of the women whom 
 gossip spares. It is the Countess de Soret, who
 
 THE BARRIER 117 
 
 has been a widow for ten years, and has con- 
 tinued to go into society in order to help on her 
 good causes. She has never paraded her grief, 
 but has been all virtue, sorrow, and brave en- 
 durance. No stranger could quite understand her. 
 That is the Parisian type of saint, and is a very 
 superior article, believe me, which cannot be pro- 
 duced elsewhere." 
 
 Reginald's polite gesture of doubt seemed to 
 say: Let us admit it, as I do not wish to contra- 
 dict you, though I do not, myself, believe in that 
 type. 
 
 M. Victor Limerel, who was circulating among 
 his guests with a smile which counteracted his 
 formidable chin, caught sight of Reginald and his 
 son: "Ah, here you are, Monsieur!" he exclaimed. 
 "I suppose my son is naming some of our guests to 
 you, and I hope you are beginning to feel at home 
 among us." 
 
 "I am praising them all impartially," said 
 Fe"licien, as his father pursued his way, and at the 
 same moment he remarked that Reginald's glance 
 was fixed on Marie. "In short," he exclaimed, 
 with increased bitterness, " there is no bond of 
 unity among these people except that of being in 
 the same salon. You may look in vain for con- 
 victions of any kind. Most of them have given 
 up having any because they found them trouble- 
 some. They have no fears for anything but their 
 pleasures, and when those are threatened they 
 call in the fire-brigade." 
 
 "You have one, then?" queried Reginald, with 
 an ironical gleam in his eyes.
 
 118 THE BARRIER 
 
 "Everything is convention here," Fe*licien went 
 on. "Society is like Chinese lacquer, made up of 
 successive coats of varnish concealing very poor 
 wood. There is plenty of wit among these peo- 
 ple, and skill in the minor arts by which I mean 
 finance, mechanics, politics, and literature but no 
 common sense, and their opinions are like reeds 
 in the wind." 
 
 "They lack religious principle," said Reginald. 
 
 "There is little enough of that left, my dear 
 sir." 
 
 "I beg your pardon, but I have met with it 
 since I came to Paris," Reginald replied with 
 quiet assurance. 
 
 At this moment most of the ladies rose, and 
 there was a general movement in the direction of 
 the supper-tables, which were set upon a raised 
 platform, at one end of the long salon, where the 
 band was usually stationed on the occasion of a 
 ball. Marie was among the last to enter; she had 
 with her a girl of her own age, smaller than herself 
 but equally pretty except for the inner glow which 
 irradiated Marie's face. She was evidently look- 
 ing for some one. With the same simplicity as 
 if it had been a small family gathering she was 
 trying to find Felicien, and to reassure him with 
 a glance which said: 
 
 "Take courage! Hope! Amidst this crowd of 
 pleasure-seekers, I am thinking only of you, and 
 of the ordeal I have imposed on you." He caught 
 her eyes and understood her. At the same moment 
 she noticed the man beside him and remembered 
 that he, too, had confided his inmost thoughts to
 
 THE BARRIER 119 
 
 her. His eyes also were fixed upon her and she 
 changed colour; then the proud head, so grace- 
 fully poised on the slender throat, was lost in the 
 throng, and as she vanished Reginald took ad- 
 vantage of the opportunity to take his leave. 
 
 "I hope to see you again," said Felicien. "We 
 two are so utterly unlike that we may learn some- 
 thing from one another. Where are you staying? 
 I shall drop in to call." 
 
 "At Power's Hotel," replied Reginald. 
 
 "Avenue d'Antin? That is odd!" 
 
 "Why so? I am not the first officer of my regi- 
 ment who has put up there." 
 
 "No, of course not. Good-bye, we shall meet 
 soon." 
 
 Reginald, having no inkling of Felicien's jeal- 
 ous suspicions, merely carried away the impres- 
 sion that he had to do with a very light-minded, 
 ill-balanced young fellow. 
 
 As Felicien re-entered the salon the company 
 were resuming their seats to listen to a troupe of 
 Russian singers. 
 
 He began now to judge himself severely and to 
 realise in a flash that in sneering at his father's 
 guests he had yielded to a base impulse, inspired 
 by an unworthy jealousy of Marie, and his dis- 
 tress of mind was heightened by this thought. 
 When, at the close of the evening, Mme. Limerel 
 and Marie withdrew, Felicien was not there to take 
 leave of them. He feared to meet those pure, 
 womanly eyes which so easily penetrate the turbid 
 current of a man's mind.
 
 Ill 
 
 IT was five o'clock in the afternoon when Regi- 
 nald Breynolds's cab stopped before the door 
 of a long, low building in the Crenelle quarter 
 standing in the midst of factories and waste lots 
 surrounded by high palings. He entered a deep 
 garden at the rear of which stood two large houses 
 connected by a glazed gallery. 
 
 A woman sat knitting beneath the lindens in this 
 quiet spot, and the silence that reigned there told 
 more plainly than guide-posts that it was well out- 
 side the Paris limits. This was the Calvary 
 Asylum, where poor women suffering from in- 
 curable cancerous maladies are received, nursed, 
 and tenderly cared for. 
 
 Reginald ascended the steps leading to the 
 glazed gallery, with a sense of such invincible 
 repugnance as caused him to stammer and half 
 forget his French when a lady, dressed in mourn- 
 ing and wearing a black cap, advanced to meet 
 him and inquired his errand. 
 
 While addressing this lady, who was one of the 
 ward nurses, and offering her his letter of intro- 
 duction, he experienced the sensation of draw- 
 ing in with every breath the germs of the terrible 
 disease floating in the atmosphere around him. 
 But her replies to his questions affected him as 
 
 120
 
 THE BARRIER 121 
 
 powerfully as these feelings of instinctive repul- 
 sion, though in a far different way. 
 
 She was a woman of about forty, whose bright 
 face was beaming with goodness and moral 
 health. She spoke well and concisely, like a 
 Parisian, and one who has little time to waste on 
 trifles, though ready to bestow it freely upon all 
 who need her help. 
 
 Her maternal tenderness towards her patients 
 could be divined in the very motions of her hands, 
 which seemed to be listening as well as her up- 
 turned head, while she clasped and unclasped them 
 compassionately. How small she looked beside 
 Reginald's tall figure, and yet how calm she ap- 
 peared in comparison with this man who found 
 himself powerless to maintain that impassibility 
 and self-control which had been the habit of a 
 lifetime ! 
 
 "How many patients have you?" he asked her. 
 
 "Three wards, each holding twenty-one beds." 
 
 "And are these beds always full?" 
 
 "Always. Death makes the only vacancies, 
 and indeed we need more room; it is so hard to 
 refuse any one." 
 
 "Are they all poor women whom you receive?" 
 
 "All working women of Paris, yes." 
 
 "And they pay nothing?" 
 
 "Nothing, Monsieur. We live upon the charity 
 of Paris, which is very great." 
 
 "Then you the nurses are not remunerated?" 
 
 "No, on the contrary, Monsieur, we pay our 
 own board. In order not to be a burden, you 
 understand."
 
 122 THE BARRIER 
 
 Reginald went on. 
 
 "Then you live here constantly? You pass 
 your life amidst these surroundings?" 
 
 ' ' Certainly, ' ' she answered. ' ' There are several 
 of us who live here always with our patients. 
 But we have other ladies who come in from out- 
 side to aid us. All widows like ourselves." 
 
 ' ' Yes, I understand. The greatest sorrow minis- 
 tering to the greatest anguish. That is very noble. 
 Will you allow me to see one of your wards?" 
 
 She glanced at her watch and said: 
 
 "It is nearly time for the nurses to make their 
 rounds. But you can glance in for a few mo- 
 ments." 
 
 And preceding him, she rapidly led the way 
 through the glazed gallery into a passage con- 
 nected with the building on the left. Then, all at 
 once, she slackened her steps, and as they ap- 
 proached the scene of suffering without respite, 
 she paused and said: 
 
 "You can look through this glass door. Our 
 friends from outside, the ladies who come to help 
 us, have just gone in." 
 
 He saw two rows of very white beds, with a 
 wide space of waxed floor between them. White 
 curtains were drawn back and wound about the 
 posts of each bed, and a small black crucifix was 
 suspended at the foot. The outline of motion- 
 less forms was visible beneath the coverlets, and 
 pale faces rested upon each pillow. No sound 
 was audible, but floods of light poured in on all 
 sides. A few women, clad in the nurse's uniform, 
 were kneeling motionless beside the beds.
 
 THE BARRIER 123 
 
 "They are praying?" murmured Reginald. 
 
 "Yes, they are praying that their care may be 
 acceptable and their hands very tender." 
 
 " And that their courage may not fail?" 
 
 "Yes, and for that, too," answered his guide; 
 "you can look in once more. You will see 
 that all the beds are turned to face the chapel, so 
 that our sick may look through the glazed par- 
 tition towards the altar. That is their chief con- 
 solation." 
 
 The kneeling women rose and bent over the 
 sufferers. Reginald heard faint moans and saw 
 hands holding lint and unrolling bandages. On a 
 bed near him he saw an old woman whose profile 
 was turned to the light, revealing the ravages of 
 the terrible malady. The volunteer nurse who was 
 ministering to her touched the poor, disfigured 
 face with a tenderness, a pity, which seemed to 
 draw her soul to her finger-tips with the touch, 
 timid but sure, of one who wills, who implores, 
 and who loves. 
 
 As the pure youthful profile of the nurse bent 
 close above the ravaged cheek of the sick woman, 
 Reginald drew back with a start of surprise and 
 horror. 
 
 "It is not possible!" he cried. "Who is that 
 lady?" 
 
 "A lady from the great world one of those of 
 whom I told you." 
 
 "I recognise her; it is the Comtesse de Soret, 
 is it not?" 
 
 "It is," assented his guide. 
 
 "A strange country!" he said to himself, as he
 
 124 THE BARRIER 
 
 took his departure, his soul stirred to its depths. 
 "Such deeds as these are the real foundations of 
 Paris, which sustain the whole edifice. An in- 
 comprehensible country until we discover who are 
 its perpetual redeemers. These sublime women! 
 and so simple with it all! What is it that carries 
 them to such victorious heights? Nothing exists 
 alone. From what underlying power does this 
 force proceed, surpassing mere human pity?" 
 And he recalled the windows looking towards the 
 altar, and saw again the eyes and hands of the 
 Comtesse de Soret. 
 
 On the following Thursday he ordered dinner 
 at half-past six, a proceeding which excited the 
 mirth of the landlord, and the exasperation of 
 the chef. But he pursued his way unmindful of 
 the laughter and the grumbling which are the in- 
 evitable accompaniment of our daily doings. 
 
 At seven he proceeded to the nearest Metro- 
 politan station on the Champs-Elysees, having 
 received minute instructions as to changing cars at 
 the fitoile station and again at the Place d'ltalie, 
 thence by tramway to Bicetre. This was the sort 
 of journey he liked, with no companion to whom 
 he must talk. He watched the Paris houses 
 gradually diminishing in height, and the suburbs 
 stretching out interminably, with their big fac- 
 tories and waste spaces, the streets assuming a 
 redder hue as tiles replaced slates; the huge ware- 
 houses stored with iron, coal, oil, and lumber, and 
 interspersed with little gardens stuck like tiny 
 green feathers between the brick walls, all re- 
 calling the suburbs of many another city.
 
 THE BARRIER 125 
 
 Beyond the fortifications, fields appeared where 
 the grass had air enough to live, and where the 
 roadsides were bordered by lines of waggons, un- 
 harnessed or without wheels, forming nomad 
 villages where thousands of human beings were 
 encamped. The tramway carried him out still 
 further to where these movable huts were replaced 
 again by decent houses, inhabited by the poorer 
 labourers and superannuated workmen. On 
 alighting at the spot indicated in his directions, 
 Reginald inquired of a stout, bare-headed matron 
 whom he met, the way to the church. 
 
 "With that accent you must have come a long 
 way," she said. "But as to the church, that is 
 another matter. You are right upon it, across the 
 road there." 
 
 Having crossed the road, Reginald found him- 
 self in front of a rough-cast stone wall, surmounted 
 by a green trellis; on the right was a rusty iron 
 door over which was the inscription, "figlise 
 paroissiale." 
 
 Several women were entering and Reginald, 
 passing in with them, crossed a narrow courtyard 
 on one side of which stood the Church of the 
 Kremlin, a long brick building with a sheet-iron 
 roof, resembling a bowling alley. 
 
 It was apparently a temporary structure, and 
 one of the women whom he questioned replied: 
 "Oh, yes, it was only opened in 1907. There was 
 a smaller one here formerly, but for a long time 
 we had no church. This is a poor quarter where 
 people merely lodge, just perch for the night, you 
 know, like a flock of sparrows, and are off to
 
 126 THE BARRIER 
 
 work by daybreak. But we were glad enough to 
 have a church of our own once more. They put 
 their seals on the little one the one we had before, 
 ah, ces cochons!" 
 
 Reginald had already entered the hall decorated 
 with stacks of tri-colored flags, when he heard 
 a parting shot from the woman behind him: 
 "They must be well scared to make them think of 
 us poor people ces cochonsl" And as she spoke 
 she dipped her fingers in the holy water. Half- 
 way across the church Reginald met a tall young 
 priest, with deep-set black eyes which looked out 
 from cavernous hollows like those of a death's 
 head, yet the eyes were alive and full of kindness. 
 
 Seeing that he was a stranger, the priest said to 
 him: "They come in such crowds that you cannot 
 stand here without taking some one's place, but if 
 you will come this way, Monsieur, I will show you 
 where you can see very well." And so saying he 
 led him to a vacant space in the choir where stood 
 a chair and a prie-dieu, doubtless the abba's own. 
 
 The building was now thronged, the women on 
 the gospel side and the men on the epistle side, 
 like human furrows poor clods of the same suf- 
 fering humanity, yet with souls full of good-will, 
 waiting for the Sower to scatter the seed, ready to 
 receive it and let it germinate within them. 
 Reginald stood gazing down upon them from 
 the slight elevation of the choir, whence he could 
 see mothers with babies cradled in the nest formed 
 by their arm and bosom, aged veterans wearing 
 the triumphant moustaches of the Empire, push- 
 ing before them curly-headed, neatly clad urchins
 
 THE BARRIER 127 
 
 of three or four, young workmen trooping in, gaunt 
 and lean, and flinging themselves into a chair with- 
 out kneeling, ignorant of the courtesies of the 
 place. Children were huddled around the com- 
 munion-table, crying and whimpering as though 
 in the nursery. On the steps of the altar and filling 
 the choir sat a group of young men with musical 
 instruments in their hands or on their knees. A 
 missionary mounted the pulpit, whereupon the 
 young abbe* with the deep-set eyes, who was sitting 
 beside Reginald, bent over him and said: 
 
 "That is the band from the Grand Montrouge 
 which comes all the way over here to lend beauty 
 to our services. See, they have hurried! It is a 
 long distance, and they came the moment they 
 could get away from the shops and factories." A 
 half-dozen of the musicians had risen and sud- 
 denly a fanfare burst forth, spirited, true, and 
 with a martial sound that thrilled the blood. 
 When the flourish was over the Englishman re- 
 marked by way of applause : 
 
 "They have good lungs for Frenchmen!" 
 
 " Thank you, yes. We have a few such left," 
 responded the abbe". 
 
 The missionary had begun his discourse; with- 
 out any graces of oratory he explained simply and 
 clearly to his ignorant auditors certain points of 
 doctrine; and in addressing these toil-worn work- 
 men, whose naturally quick wits were stimulated 
 rather than shocked by the humour of the fau- 
 bourgs, he did not disdain to mingle an occasional 
 pleasantry with words that appealed to their 
 hearts. From time to time another missionary
 
 128 THE BARRIER 
 
 rose and offered some argument to be refuted by 
 him. Reginald listened with attention, but gazed 
 still more attentively, now at the audience, now 
 at the priest who for weeks had been speaking daily 
 to these groping souls who were drawn together 
 by a mysterious attraction, like a flock of birds- 
 linnets, blackbirds, sparrows, and tiny finches with 
 outstretched bills fluttering about the charmer 
 who whistles to them through a folded ivy-leaf. 
 
 "The man of whatever social class," pondered 
 Reginald, "who gives up family life for the sake 
 of ministering to these poor creatures must be an 
 ardent and devoted soul, a sort of maiden-knight 
 who has given himself wholly to the service of hu- 
 manity. He is the real friend of the indifferent, 
 often hostile faubourg. What self-sacrifice! He 
 voluntarily becomes one of them, bringing to them 
 the riches of his faith and seeking to make them 
 sharers in his strength and hope " 
 
 As he mused thus, Reginald became more deeply 
 absorbed in studying the faces of these Paris work- 
 ingmen, and trying to understand them. 
 
 One tall young fellow, with dreamy eyes, es- 
 pecially attracted him. He felt, as he looked at 
 him, as if he were becoming the friend of this 
 unknown who seemed a stranger even to those 
 about him, and who showed plainly by the doubt, 
 astonishment, and emotion contending in his face 
 that he was listening for the first time to words 
 which reveal to the human soul its wretchedness 
 and its nobility. 
 
 "Where do you come from, poor boy?" he 
 thought. "He is at the age when the mere flut-
 
 THE BARRIER 129 
 
 tering of a woman's skirt as she passes, makes the 
 heart beat faster. All the life around him draws 
 him away from the church, seizes him and holds 
 him how has he escaped to come here? He 
 entered alone, he looked at no one as he took his 
 seat between a half-tipsy vagabond, evidently 
 one of the submerged, and that huge hulking 
 fellow, a sort of good-natured animal, as ready to 
 serve his Maker as the ox in the stall. But the 
 lad! that passionate, ardent youth! what power 
 is it that has moved him more strongly than 
 pleasure? How beautiful is the emotion in his 
 face! St. John, the disciple nearest to Christ's 
 heart, had eyes like his eyes which guided by 
 love look deeply into the invisible." 
 
 The violins and cornets began to play again. 
 "Is it still the Montrouge band?" he asked his 
 guide. "Yes," replied the abbe*. 
 
 "And who is that youth in the fourth row? I 
 have been watching him a long time. He has 
 grasped everything; he is half ill with emotion. 
 One can see that he has depth of soul." 
 
 "Such feeling is far from uncommon among the 
 youth of our faubourgs," replied the priest after 
 glancing at the young man, and Reginald saw that 
 his shadowy eyes were moist. "Yes, it is often 
 so, but his pallor comes from hunger, too. That 
 is ten o'clock striking now." 
 
 "And has he eaten nothing since noon?" Regi- 
 nald asked. 
 
 "No. Many of them come here fasting. They 
 have not had time to go home first, you see. 
 They come directly from the workshops to the
 
 130 THE BARRIER 
 
 church. I could easily point them out by their 
 pale cheeks." 
 
 "What good work you are doing among them! 
 This parish is new, is it not?" 
 
 "Yes, and the church is newer still. Thirteen 
 have been opened since the separation. Look, 
 your friend is leaving." 
 
 The pale young workingman had risen list- 
 lessly, and stretched his long arms. He had a 
 smile on his lips as he gazed around on the crowd 
 in which he was being swept along; and yet, 
 surely his brow and his heart were still bathed in 
 floods of divine love. 
 
 Calls, laughter, and good-nights were exchanged 
 amid the throng of men and women who now 
 congregated in the shadow of the doorway. The 
 evening air refreshed the faces weary from pro- 
 longed attention, and all opened their lungs to 
 breathe it in more fully. 
 
 "Look here, Leroux!" cried one, "aren't you 
 famished? I have had no dinner yet." 
 
 "Neither have I." 
 
 "Come along with me. I have got some 
 cherries." 
 
 "That's not enough." 
 
 "I've got some meat, too. Let us share it. We 
 are old chums, you know. Where are you living 
 now? I never see you any more." 
 
 "I live down this way," and the two drifted 
 off together. 
 
 The night was already dark when Reginald 
 found himself alone on the sidewalk, the tram- 
 car making a solitary island of light in the sur-
 
 THE BARRIER 131 
 
 rounding obscurity. Having alighted at the 
 Etoile station, he started on foot for his hotel in 
 the Avenue d'Antin. 
 
 His mind was filled with that diffused and ir- 
 radiating glow left within us by great thoughts 
 and inspiring spectacles. The beauty of the 
 night scenery of Paris, which he knew so well, 
 appeared to him as something new. He en- 
 joyed the sensation of being alone amidst the 
 throng of vehicles and foot-passengers, with the 
 emotions of the last few hours still possessing 
 him. 
 
 He felt thankful that he had come to this city, 
 and he found himself replying in spirit to the 
 arguments and sarcasms he had so often listened 
 to among his comrades, both in London and in 
 India, upon the corrupting influences of Paris. 
 "But you have not seen everything," he was 
 saying. "There is a higher life already existing 
 in this life, and those who are not privileged to 
 see it judge the world incompletely." 
 
 The joy of youth surged through his veins as 
 though he were drinking mountain-air, while the 
 exercise of walking made his blood tingle after the 
 stifling atmosphere of the cars and the crowded 
 church. 
 
 He left the Champs Elysees behind him reluc- 
 tantly, but as he turned into the Avenue d'Antin 
 he chose the left-hand side-walk, so that on looking 
 up he could see the lighted windows of a certain 
 third-floor apartment. He paused beneath them. 
 Behind one of these windows a young girl was still 
 awake, the only French girl he had ever really
 
 132 THE BARRIER 
 
 known. Was she not more than that to him? 
 Yes, she was the one woman to whom in an hour 
 of deep mental distress he had confided his inmost 
 thoughts and feelings. 
 
 She had never recalled, in the remotest way, 
 their interview in the woods of Redhall ; she had 
 shown herself worthy of the confidence he had 
 reposed in her. A feeling of tenderness, very pure 
 and warm, filled his heart. It was but for a mo- 
 ment and he instantly reproached himself for 
 allowing such thoughts to interfere with the 
 purpose upon which his whole soul was now con- 
 centrated. His respect for the aim he had set 
 himself and his instincts as a man of action alike 
 prompted him to keep to the path upon which he 
 had entered. He passed his hand across his brow, 
 as if to dispel such sweet dreams. A sentence 
 from the Psalms crossed his memory, for he had 
 been brought up in close familiarity with the 
 Scriptures: " Confirm a right spirit within me." 
 Yes, that was what he needed; to be confirmed 
 in the right spirit the royal spirit, And he turned 
 his thoughts once more to the sight he had wit- 
 nessed that evening in the poor church of the 
 Kremlin. 
 
 On the following Saturday, the twenty-sixth 
 of June, Fe*licien Limerel was returning by the 
 Champs Elys6es from a visit to one of his dip- 
 lomatic chiefs, who lived near the Bois de 
 Boulogne. His reception had been a flattering 
 one; the conversation had turned chiefly upon 
 the subject of his future, and had been filled 
 with those amiable predictions which do not
 
 THE BARRIER 133 
 
 commit the prophet to any special efforts for 
 bringing them to pass. 
 
 "You are the first among a brilliant set of 
 candidates," his chief had remarked. "The 
 minister to whom I was speaking this morning 
 of your success said this is strictly between us, 
 you understand 'A name without a flaw and the 
 manners of a gentleman. That is what we need 
 in a democracy. The old noblesse are valuable 
 to us, no doubt, but are not to be relied on, as they 
 do not owe everything to us. This young man 
 has impressed me most favourably.' '' 
 
 Sugared words, such as had served for many 
 others! But Felicien was still young and he 
 relished them. 
 
 Shortly after leaving the house, however, his 
 thoughts turned into other channels and re- 
 echoed other words, whose power far surpassed 
 that of these idle flatteries. Pangs of the heart 
 trembling for its threatened love came first, but 
 more torturing still was the self-questioning that 
 followed : 
 
 "Ought I to condemn myself? to decree my 
 own ruin? and doubly, too, since in renouncing 
 Marie I renounce at the same time the faith of 
 my fathers? Marie put me on my honour and I 
 gave her my promise. But what cruelty! To 
 force me to a self-examination before which, after 
 all, most men, older and wiser than myself, would 
 recoil. How many live on without ever drawing 
 up the account of their moral defeats or their re- 
 ligious backslidings! How many never think of 
 these things till they are on their death-beds, and
 
 134 THE BARRIER 
 
 some not even then! Why must I weigh myself 
 before the hour and confess that I am found want- 
 ing? And if I condemn myself I shall meet with no 
 pardon. Marie trusts to my sincerity and that 
 is the worst of all. Not to be able to deceive! 
 Not to know how! No, Marie, I will not lie to 
 you. But why has this question arisen so imperi- 
 ously between us? It is since her return from 
 London and the arrival of this Englishman. 
 What does he want here? I suspect him of being 
 in love with her, too. Ah, if I find him guilty of 
 that trick! Of playing the bigot and feigning 
 piety in order to ingratiate himself with Marie 
 and my aunt! What do they know about him, 
 after all? He and I are being silently compared, 
 I am sure of it. If he is not an actual rival, he is 
 the ideal hero, the model that I am far from being. 
 He is beginning to irritate me, that fellow, and 
 he appears to have no suspicion of it. But I 
 can soon show him. I have promised to call." 
 And as the young man turned into the Rue La 
 Boetie he said to himself: "I can easily find out 
 what he has in his mind and what he wants." 
 And he entered the Hotel Powers. The clerk 
 telephoned and received the answer that M. 
 Limerel might go up at once. As he entered the 
 little salon, Reginald came forward to meet his 
 guest with extended hand and no appearance 
 of surprise. 
 
 "I must beg you to excuse the disorder of 
 my rooms," he said, "as my man has not had 
 time to finish packing." And in fact a pile of 
 garments, neatly folded, was lying on a sofa.
 
 THE BARRIER 135 
 
 The young men entered into conversation at 
 once, but Reginald, remembering the Limerel din- 
 ner and the sarcastic reception accorded to his 
 account of his excursions among the charitable 
 institutions of Paris, replied to Felicien's ques- 
 tions with a studied reserve which would have 
 seemed scarcely civil if it had not been tempered 
 by look and manner. 
 
 At last Felicien asked impatiently: 
 
 "By the way, you saw my aunt yesterday?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Oh! The day before, then?" 
 
 "No. She is well, I hope. You have had no 
 bad news from her?" 
 
 "None whatever," replied Felicien, with rising 
 irritation. "And if there had been, you, being so 
 near a neighbour, would doubtless have heard it 
 first." 
 
 "Not unless the messenger mistook his way," 
 replied the Englishman calmly. 
 
 The directness and sincerity of his tone checked 
 Felicien, who began to realise that if this man 
 had a secret he would certainly not allow it to be 
 drawn from him by sarcasms and light skirmishing. 
 
 "Well," he remarked, changing his tactics with 
 the pliancy which was one of the charms as well 
 as dangers of his temperament, "I imagine that 
 you have brought your charitable investigations 
 to an end." 
 
 "Not at all," returned Reginald. 
 
 "What! Not yet? It must be a wager then. 
 At your age, to pass a fortnight in Paris visiting 
 nothing but churches and hospitals!"
 
 136 THE BARRIER 
 
 " Pardon me, but if I find more that appeals 
 to me and stirs my mind in such sights than in 
 museums and theatres, why not? We are not all 
 obliged to look at things in the same way. At 
 this moment these essential and vital subjects 
 occupy me exclusively. You are probably unin- 
 terested in religious speculations." 
 
 "You are mistaken." 
 
 The Englishman made a deprecating gesture 
 as if to say: "I do not insist. I should be sorry 
 to go too far. I merely meant to express a pos- 
 sible difference between us," and resumed with a 
 new accent of courteous interest: 
 
 "I am preparing to go to Montmartre this even- 
 ing, to spend the night in the Basilica." 
 
 "Can that be done?" asked Felicien. 
 
 A smile from across the Channel, a barely per- 
 ceptible movement at the corners of the smooth- 
 shaven lips which would not have been noticed 
 beneath a Frenchman's moustache, betrayed 
 Reginald's surprise, but he made no rejoinder. 
 Felicien, however, asked for no explanation; his 
 expression suddenly changed, and under the 
 sway of some influence which his interlocutor could 
 not divine, his irritation vanished for the time, as 
 he asked earnestly: 
 
 "Will you allow me to accompany you?" 
 
 "To Montmartre? Certainly. You can be my 
 guide there if you will. On our arrival I shall find 
 a person awaiting me to whom I have brought a 
 letter of introduction." 
 
 "I shall not be in your way, then?" 
 
 "Not in the least."
 
 THE BARRIER 137 
 
 F61icien added in a lower tone, as though speak- 
 ing to himself: 
 
 "It is strange enough. You are going out there 
 in search of a faith: I to find out if I still possess 
 one." 
 
 The Englishman inclined his head, inwardly 
 moved by this sort of moral resemblance, and 
 struck by the sudden gravity of Felicien's tone. 
 They did not pursue the subject further, but both 
 understood that this night's experience was to 
 have a decisive influence over their destiny. For 
 the next few hours they were to be united, in spite 
 of the dissimilarity of their natures, by a like 
 noble impulse, a religious inspiration, and this 
 was a motive for mutual esteem. 
 
 But Reginald abandoned himself far more 
 readily than F61icien to this influence, being free 
 from all jealousy, and his yearning after truth 
 unmixed with personal motives. 
 
 Felicien's mental suffering had other less ex- 
 alted causes, and was due not so much to his loss 
 of faith as to the possible consequences of avow- 
 ing it. The motives guiding his actions left him 
 a prey to perplexity without aspiration, sufficient 
 only to lead him for a few hours into the com- 
 pany of the saints where silent miracles of grace 
 might be looked for. Both men were trying a 
 spiritual experiment, but only one was seeking 
 the light for its own sake. 
 
 "It is agreed then," said the Englishman; "at 
 a quarter after eight you will find me in the 
 salon downstairs, and we will take a carriage at 
 
 once."
 
 138 THE BARRIER 
 
 "My father would laugh at me if I told him 
 where I am about to spend the night. He would 
 not believe me and it does, in fact, seem incredi- 
 ble so I cannot ask him to lend me his car, 
 though I often borrow it on less worthy pretexts. 
 This evening, then." 
 
 Felicien had another reason for not communi- 
 cating his plan to his father. M. Limerel, being 
 accustomed as a man of business to read men's 
 minds and detect their motives of self-interest, 
 would have suspected at the first word the con- 
 nection between Montmartre and Marie Limerel, 
 and have felt convinced that Reginald never 
 would have gone there except for her sake, and 
 probably at her instigation. 
 
 About nine o'clock, accordingly, the two young 
 men reached the foot of the stairs which ascend 
 the hill of Montmartre. It had been raining, and 
 a cold wind, the final gust of a retreating storm, 
 drove the clouds in tattered shreds towards the 
 south, while the white domes of the Basilica soared 
 into the pure azure above. 
 
 Before entering at the little door which opened 
 in the midst of scaffoldings, they both turned to 
 look back for a moment. Paris spread below 
 them like a rose-tinted plain, barred across its 
 whole extent by a scarf of soft mists, the farther 
 end of which rested upon the slopes of Belleville 
 and Menilmontant. And above this bank of fog 
 and smoke the sky was swept clear, a spotless 
 pathway for the young moon. On the heights 
 the last gleam of day was slowly fading, while 
 below, in that valley of hewn stones, lines of
 
 THE BARRIER 139 
 
 twinkling lights traced to the limits of the horizon 
 a prodigious network of streets and avenues. 
 
 On entering the precincts of the church, the 
 young men found a man awaiting them, who had 
 evidently been notified of the Englishman's visit-. 
 
 "I regret, gentlemen," he said, "that there is no 
 one to present me to you. I am Louis Proudon, 
 president of the society of Les Pauvres de 
 Montmartre." 
 
 "He is evidently a gentleman," thought Regi- 
 nald, as he gazed at him attentively for a moment. 
 He was a man of medium height, thin, and stoop- 
 ing slightly, whose delicate, bearded face, some- 
 what severe in outline, was lighted up by the 
 smile of one who voluntarily submits his will to 
 that of others the gentleness of the strong. 
 
 "I will guide you over the Basilica," he said. 
 "We will first attend the Adoration of the Poor, 
 then I will take you to the chapel where the gen- 
 eral service of adoration takes place. Whenever 
 you desire it you can go to the rooms reserved for 
 you and rest. You are young for a night of vigil. 
 One has to get used to it. You have never been 
 here before?" 
 
 "I have not, since the evening of my bacca- 
 laureate," replied Felicien. "And you, Monsieur, 
 do you not sleep at all during the night?" 
 
 The President of the Poor smiled. " Oh, no," he 
 replied. "It is necessary, you see, to have some 
 one awake whenever the hour strikes, to summon 
 each new party to take their turn in the service. 
 It is a little hard at first, but one gets used to it, 
 I assure you."
 
 140 THE BARRIER 
 
 He spoke simply, as he led his guests into the 
 dormitory, where several poor, dejected looking 
 men were seated, like soldiers, on the edge of their 
 camp-beds, awaiting the bowl of soup which was 
 soon brought to them, with a slice of white bread 
 and a glass of red wine. Felicien was inclined to 
 prolong this visit which distracted his mind from 
 what was to follow. But Reginald, who had not 
 the same apprehensions in regard to the silent 
 vigil in the church, hastened on. Happily the 
 ordeal did not begin at once. 
 
 Between the building they were now visiting 
 and the church itself stretched a sort of postern 
 path, damp and grass-grown, lined on each side by 
 the enormous piers which support the edifice, and 
 open to the sky overhead. Here Reginald said, 
 with a slight laugh, "Pardon me, but this will be 
 our last chance to smoke a cigarette," and drawing 
 from his pocket a silver case stamped with the 
 arms of Oxford, he offered it to each of his com- 
 panions in turn, and the smoke of three cigarettes 
 soon mingled with the night air. 
 
 At a little past nine, standing side by side in 
 the crypt, and leaning against the same pillar, 
 Reginald and Felicien were gazing upon a spec- 
 tacle equally new to them both. Reginald was 
 farther forward in the half-light, and Felicien 
 behind him in the shadow close by the stairway 
 leading from the subterranean church to the 
 upper nave. They were motionless, and scarcely 
 visible on the outskirts of the brightly lighted 
 space before the altar, encircled by low, heavy 
 pillars. In this luminous half-circle some forty
 
 THE BARRIER 141 
 
 men were kneeling. Their leader, the fraternal 
 Louis Proudon, standing close to the altar-rail, 
 was reading the evening prayers aloud to them 
 from a small book which he held in his hand, and 
 all at once they began uttering the responses 
 in rude, hoarse voices, strangely unlike his the 
 voice of the mob which shouts, sings, curses, 
 threatens, and which was now praying. 
 
 Then the men sang a hymn together, and kneel- 
 ing or seated, joined in worship with unspoken 
 words which they could not have originated, but 
 must have revived from far-off memories, or 
 received from Him to whom they now looked up. 
 What power had they to make prayers for them- 
 selves? What did they know beyond their pov- 
 erty and the needs of a heart that could still love? 
 
 They were rapt and attentive as those who 
 await the passing of a bridal procession beneath 
 the porch. Their eyelids were but partly raised, on 
 account of the dazzling light and their weariness. 
 
 Reginald and Felicien examined these counte- 
 nances which showed little change of expression, 
 except where some moving thought or memory 
 rose clearly from the depths of their obscure souls. 
 As they gazed, our young men understood more 
 clearly that these were not only the genuinely 
 poor, but the utterly wretched, those who excite 
 fear rather than pity, vagabonds with rough 
 beards torn by battling with the winds and worn 
 by the stones which had served as their pillow, 
 clothed in miserable rags, some with coarse 
 mufflers wound about their necks in spite of the 
 heat, because they were wearing all the clothing
 
 142 THE BARRIER 
 
 they owned. Doubtless the thieves of Calvary were 
 here; but chiefly the outcast, those destitute of 
 bread, of shelter, without families and without 
 hope, were watching at the feet of the Master 
 whom they had found. 
 
 Many of those sad eyes the eyes of the de- 
 spised, in which hate takes up its dwelling were 
 raised now and softened for a brief moment; 
 then the rusty door of their souls closed again. 
 
 Behind the two young men, the President of the 
 Poor had drawn near, and now murmured in a 
 scarcely audible voice but with a note of tender- 
 ness: 
 
 "You see' that man who is standing on the edge 
 of the circle, the dark, bald man, with a little 
 colour in his cheeks he is almost rich now. He 
 has often slept under the bridges and fed on the 
 leavings from the restaurants, but at present he 
 is a sort of aristocrat, having a small public em- 
 ployment. He makes a living by gluing, direct- 
 ing, and stamping newspaper wrappers an ex- 
 ceptional thing here. But he is good, he does not 
 forget us, and since he gave up begging he has 
 never failed to come here to pass every Saturday 
 night with his old street companions." 
 
 Some of the men were yawning now, without 
 disguise, and others were falling asleep. There 
 were wistful gleams here and there from beneath 
 the heavy eyelids. 
 
 Proudon resumed: " Those two with hollow 
 cheeks, side by side in the middle, look! one of 
 them has just dropped off, and it is only right 
 that he should, poor fellow! You would not
 
 THE BARRIER 143 
 
 believe what excellent men they are. They 
 are glass-blowers who work all night keeping up 
 the fires. Their only free night is Saturday, and 
 they spend it here. The older one came first and 
 said to the other on Sunday when he went back to 
 work: 'I have never rested so well as last night, 
 and yet I only slept by snatches in a chair. I will 
 take you along with me next Saturday. ' ' 
 
 As he spoke, Louis Proudon was already ascend- 
 ing the steps leading from the crypt into the 
 choir of the Basilica. The immense nave was in 
 shadow as he led them in the direction where all 
 the life of the place was centred the chapel of 
 the Virgin behind the high altar, where the sacra- 
 ment was exposed. He left them at the entrance, 
 saying: 
 
 " Your rooms are ready and you can go to them 
 when you like. You may depend upon me to call 
 you in the morning." 
 
 Felicien was standing nearest to the aisle, with 
 Reginald directly behind him, while before them 
 was gathered a throng of between two and three 
 hundred men. They were not singing, but stand- 
 ing silently, all these human souls, absorbed in 
 the contemplation of one object, to which the 
 attention of the new-comers was drawn as imperi- 
 ously by the force of their united thought as rays 
 of light are attracted towards their eternal source. 
 
 This mysterious force which emanates from a 
 deeply absorbed multitude sweeps all before it like 
 a mighty wind, thrilling the soul as it is borne 
 along. Felicien had less need than Reginald of 
 being swept away on this irresistible current.
 
 144 THE BARRIER 
 
 Early memories, mingled emotions of defiance and 
 regret, drew his eyes towards the monstrance and 
 the Host within. 
 
 He fixed his long unaccustomed gaze upon it, 
 asking nothing, simply yielding himself to the 
 old experience; and as he did so, he acquired the 
 conviction that nothing stirred within him. He 
 was grieved to find himself so unmoved except by 
 the one thought: 
 
 "Must I own to Marie that I cannot pray? 
 That I cannot weep except for her or, rather, 
 for myself? Must I tell her this? The very saints 
 themselves have had their moments of spiritual 
 lethargy." 
 
 He turned his eyes away, but thoughts no less 
 cruel assailed him. "I was not always like this; 
 a spring has dried up within me. Words once full 
 of meaning are empty now. I feel by the coldness 
 of my heart that all fraternity is dissolved be- 
 tween me and those who worship ; I am no longer 
 one of them. To-night is not the first time that I 
 have been conscious of this change, but what over- 
 powering evidence at last!" 
 
 He yearned to find that he was not the only in- 
 different one, and his eyes turned from one to 
 another of the men on their knees around him. 
 All were praying. There was one close beside him 
 whose lips did not move, but whose eyes were 
 raised to the altar and who never stirred. As 
 Fe'licien watched him, a mist seemed to pass 
 across his eyes like a cloud of incense, then they 
 resumed their limpid, deeply rapt gaze. Felicien 
 stole a glance at Reginald, who was standing mo-
 
 THE BARRIER 145 
 
 tionless with folded arms, and who, on his side, 
 was saying to himself: 
 
 "These men belong to all classes except the very 
 poorest. They come here without ambition or 
 any hope of human reward, and yet they receive 
 a compensation for the physical repose they sacri- 
 fice. Their souls find a support which is revealed 
 in their faces. They have found peace some- 
 thing at least of that peace which we all pursue, 
 and which flees before us. It is here, for them 
 at least. 
 
 "Yes, they are sincere. Every night men are 
 watching and praying on the mountain above 
 Paris; perhaps mysteriously protecting the city. 
 What a contrast to all the corruption below! 
 Such contrasts were absent from the old civiliza- 
 tions." 
 
 And he thought of all he had read of the cor- 
 ruptions of Babylon, the insolence, the lust, the 
 cruel barbarity which held such countless women, 
 rich and poor, in bondage, for whom there was no 
 true life, only a blighted spring without maturity 
 and an unendurable old age. He thought again: 
 
 "Can it be possible that through the prayers 
 of these worshippers other men may be redeemed 
 their kindred, their friends, their enemies 
 even? Are they like clouds carrying their grate- 
 ful moisture to the ends of the earth? What a 
 noble idea of power! What a dominion wider 
 than all earthly kingdoms!" 
 
 At this moment Fe*licien bent forward and 
 spoke to him: 
 
 "I am going. Will you come, too?"
 
 146 THE BARRIER 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "We will meet, then, at daybreak." 
 
 "Very well." 
 
 Felicien lingered a moment, thinking that 
 Reginald might decide to follow him; then he 
 passed out of the church, and his retreating step 
 echoed along the flag-stones outside. 
 
 Reginald's meditation continued: "They do not 
 doubt that they are in the presence of the Christ 
 transfigured by love of a divine presence min- 
 gling with the throng, close to all human misery. 
 That would indeed be the supreme consolation; 
 humanity calls for such a presence. It is lacking 
 to such as we a wider chasm separates us from 
 him than from these worshippers. Perhaps they 
 see him in vision, these men with the rapt faces! 
 Why these temples, if we cannot hold God within 
 them? There where Christ is nearest, truth must 
 be. To have Christ within us not merely grace, 
 but life!" 
 
 Words from the gospel come back to his memory, 
 from the old Bible whose binding had been worn 
 by generations of his family, seeking to compre- 
 hend what is meant for all. Memories of Red- 
 hall assailed him. How they wounded the heart 
 which yet did not try to turn away from them! 
 The forest, the pond, the ivy-covered walls, the 
 rhododendrons in bloom, the old castle, the faces 
 above all, passed before the young man as he stood 
 so long upright and motionless like one on guard 
 before his king on some grand levee day. The 
 images were so clear, the words interchanged be- 
 fore his departure retained so distinctly their very
 
 THE BARRIER 147 
 
 tone and sequence, that a great grief overpowered 
 him. 
 
 He was alone at night, in a church in France, 
 where none of the beings dearest to him could 
 follow him in thought, lost, forgotten, the only 
 stranger perhaps, certainly the only heretic, in 
 that throng. Why, he asked himself, did he re- 
 main there? and he would have been unable to 
 give a satisfying answer. 
 
 He gazed insistently on the sacred wafer amidst 
 its golden rays a sort of spell kept his eyes fixed 
 upon it. A secret and gentle will which he felt to 
 be perfectly reasonable, controlled him and kept 
 his heart and spirit open, like casements to the air 
 of spring. 
 
 Reginald experienced anew, amidst these Catho- 
 lic surroundings, the child's first consciousness 
 that he has a soul which he raises with reverence 
 to God, such a feeling as he had experienced 
 in his early childhood when his father was reading 
 the Book aloud at evening in the chapel at Red- 
 hall. But there mingled with it a new thrill of 
 emotion, an impulse towards something higher, 
 a splendid inspiration. 
 
 He thought: "This is the overthrow of rebel- 
 lious reason, but the triumph of the loftiest wis- 
 dom and love. What if He were here present, 
 impossible to recognise until he spoke, as hi the 
 garden of the sepulchre he appeared to Mary 
 Magdalen, who supposing him to be the gardener 
 cried: 'Have you seen him?' She saw him and 
 yet sought him still. Oh, to ask from him 
 strength, life, the w r ay!"
 
 148 THE BARRIER 
 
 He was not weary of standing, yet his knees 
 bent and he remained for a time kneeling, without 
 turning his eyes from the Host before which 
 his doubt prayed as did the faith of those others. 
 
 He rose at last. His companions had paid 
 no attention to his movements. Other men came 
 up as the clock struck, to take their hour of 
 watching. He left his place without another 
 glance, agitated by happy emotions, and sought 
 the chamber reserved for him in one of the build- 
 ings adjoining the Basilica. His bed was too 
 short and hard for sleep to come at once. He had 
 supposed that at this height above Paris he 
 should hear the intermittent roar of the city like 
 the murmur of the sea, and this fancy had not been 
 without its influence on his resolve to spend a 
 night at Montmartre. 
 
 But he was disappointed. Instead of a sound 
 like the rise and fall of the tide, absolute silence 
 reigned, broken only by the shriek of locomotives 
 from the Gare du Nord. Benumbed by fatigue, 
 Reginald fancied himself on a sailing-vessel, 
 perched aloft in the rigging, hearing orders 
 shouted back and forth on the decks below. At 
 times a deep thunderous sound rose from the 
 depths of the ocean, without his being able to 
 divine where the monstrous surge would break. 
 And that other cry, far off, despairing, was it not 
 the signal of a vessel in distress? Then all tumult 
 died away; the vision of the sea faded into deep 
 slumber. The wind subsided as it had risen, 
 and Montmartre, with the millions, waking or 
 sleeping, around it, was as silent as the tomb.
 
 THE BARRIER 149 
 
 Reginald was sleeping profoundly when M. 
 Louis Proudon knocked at his door, crying: 
 
 "It is a quarter after three, Monsieur the Eng- 
 lishman whose name I cannot recall! It is time 
 to rise." 
 
 Shortly afterwards the three men were ascend- 
 ing the flight of stone steps leading to the roof of 
 the Basilica, Felicien having joined them. He 
 was pale, and the flashing eyes which lent such 
 animation to his countenance were veiled by 
 fatigue, or some other cause. 
 
 "A glorious morning," exclaimed Reginald, 
 pointing to the horizon. 
 
 "A glacial morning," responded Felicien, "and 
 if it is the same to you, we will not linger here 
 long." 
 
 "Very well; as you please." 
 
 Felicien shook the hand which the Englishman 
 held out to him, but with so little cordiality that 
 the latter noticed it, filled as his mind was with 
 thronging impressions; but he merely said to him- 
 self: "It is the loss of sleep; his ill-humour will 
 soon pass." And deciding that Frenchmen had 
 very little endurance, he pursued his way a'ong 
 the gutters at the edge of the tiled roof. Their 
 guide next preceded them up an inner stairway 
 leading to the gallery which surrounds the central 
 dome above the great stained-glass windows. 
 Reginald, emerging first, called back: "M. Limerel, 
 come quickly! It is splendid, really splendid!" 
 
 Slowly he began to make the tour of that 
 lofty chemin de ronde, suspended in mid-air, and 
 paused to look out at each opening in the parapet.
 
 150 THE BARRIER 
 
 "It is indeed a rare morning," murmured 
 Reginald. "All Paris is visible as London never 
 is. Yes, the city is not so vast that one cannot see 
 the country beyond. What is that to the north?" 
 
 "The plain beyond St. Denis," replied M. 
 Proudon, "and those dark streaks far away to the 
 left are the forest of St. Germain." 
 
 "It is the last moment of the morning twilight," 
 resumed Reginald. "See! Paris has no artificial 
 lights now except at the railway stations, where 
 the signals are still burning. The city is khaki- 
 colour; it is like an immense flat ant-heap, or an 
 open stretch of ploughed land, sprinkled with tiny 
 pebbles which are buildings and green leaves which 
 are gardens. And what a sky above it!" Long 
 streamers of transparent mist floated above the 
 houses, partly dissolving in the breeze from the 
 west, but in the east they united to form a heavy 
 bank of violet fog which rested over Belleville. 
 There the summit of the fog-bank turned to rose- 
 colour at the spot where the sun was about to 
 pierce it, then to blood-red. Elsewhere the sky 
 was swept clear by a keen wind, and close to them 
 rose an aerial island, milky-white, formed by 
 the roofs with their lace-like pinnacles, and the 
 domes crowned with slender spires, of the Basilica 
 itself. 
 
 "We are above the zone of blackening smoke," 
 said Reginald, who was leaning over the parapet, 
 not far from Felicien. "How transparently white 
 this stone is. The church seems built of ala- 
 baster. It is blessing Paris in the splendour of 
 the daybreak. Ah, there is the sun!"
 
 THE BARRIER 151 
 
 "The sun," said Felicien. "Well, why do you 
 greet it like that?" 
 
 Reginald did not hear, absorbed in the spec- 
 tacle before him. The edges of the canopy rolled 
 up by the mist were turned to a vast pomegranate 
 flower, then to a marigold, and now, magnificent 
 and dazzling as it was, it had become as noth- 
 ing, for above it rose the full orb of day. A 
 moment, and it was completely free. A few of 
 the loftier edifices below them caught the light, 
 while the houses were still wrapt in shadow; 
 close at hand the summit of one of the smaller 
 domes seemed to blossom like a tuft of stone, 
 then turn to flame. 
 
 "You speak like a worshipper," said Felicien. 
 "You are growing lyrical." 
 
 His voice was harsher than its wont, and be- 
 trayed suffering. He had risen and was leaning 
 against one side of a pillared opening in the para- 
 pet, while Reginald stood on the opposite side. 
 His cheek was pale, even in the flush of dawn, 
 and his face was set and sad. 
 
 "You are becoming a Catholic!" he exclaimed 
 suddenly. 
 
 Reginald, who had made no reply to the first 
 attack, now responded quickly: 
 
 "I cannot let you assert what is not the fact. I 
 have been deeply moved, it is true. Such a morn- 
 ing following such a night ! But the other thing is 
 not true. Should you not be glad for me, however, 
 if it were?" 
 
 "Frankly, no." 
 
 "You surprise me!"
 
 152 THE BARRIER 
 
 "It is possible that I may surprise you, but it 
 is best that we should understand each other, 
 and indeed I wish it." 
 
 F61icien's tone had grown so vehement that 
 Reginald slowly turned to face him. In that nar- 
 row space, that cell of light into which the two 
 men had mounted to watch the sun rise over 
 Paris, they now fronted each other like ad- 
 versaries, Felicien resolved on demanding an 
 explanation, Reginald taken by surprise and 
 torn abruptly from his mood of enthusiasm. 
 
 "Yes, I wish you to know the depths of my 
 heart. You need not protest. I tell you that I 
 wish it. It is not perhaps so noble as yours, nor 
 so pure and sublime, and it is certainly less 
 happy, but it will interest you nevertheless. You 
 must know then that I have been wrestling all 
 night with the same problem which apparently 
 confronts you." 
 
 "Not apparently but actually," said Reginald. 
 
 "Well, for me no hope has dawned, no new 
 strength has come to my aid. On the contrary, 
 my doubts have increased. I have retraced the 
 course of my life with startling lucidity, and have 
 found myself much farther removed from my 
 devout youth than I had thought." 
 
 "I am sorry for you, Monsieur." 
 
 "You ought to rejoice." 
 
 "How could I, when I see you suffering?" 
 
 "Yes, but you also see me conquered already. 
 You may conclude that the advantage is with 
 you. I know your secret, and from the first day 
 we met I have seen through your schemes."
 
 THE BARRIER 153 
 
 "My schemes!" 
 
 "Your attentions to my cousin and your pious 
 excursions over the city. These are closely re- 
 lated terms, are they not?" 
 
 He drew nearer as he spoke, and bent forward. 
 The muscles of his jaw and the veins in his forehead 
 and temples stood out beneath the skin, heighten- 
 ing the look of anger in his face as he cried: "You 
 must be in haste to descend and to be alone with 
 your happiness. You are waited for. As soon 
 as it is broad daylight you will hasten to my aunt 
 Limerel's to give an account of your night-watch. 
 And you know how it will be received. Do not 
 deny it ! Yours is the devotion pleasing to my 
 cousin Marie." 
 
 Reginald had scarcely stirred, even when 
 Felicien touched him with his quivering finger- 
 tips. Standing very upright, with his back to the 
 wall and his face impassible, he had merely raised 
 his clenched hands towards his breast in case he 
 should be attacked. After the last words had 
 died away in silence, he replied deliberately: 
 
 "You are inventing all this." 
 
 "That is easy to say; prove it!" 
 
 "The proof is equally easy. I shall not see 
 Mme. Limerel, because I am leaving Paris this 
 morning." 
 
 "What do you say?" 
 
 "I say that I am leaving Paris this morning 
 by the eleven thirty-nine train." 
 
 Felicien gazed fixedly for a moment at the man 
 who thus briefly spurned any implication of treach- 
 ery. He divined he felt convinced that this
 
 154 THE BARRIER 
 
 rival who had crossed his path was an absolutely 
 loyal nature whom he had insulted with his unjust 
 suspicions. He turned pale and his eyes filled as 
 he held out his hand, saying: 
 
 "Pardon me. I have misjudged you. I am 
 bitterly unhappy." 
 
 Then, not wishing to break down utterly and 
 fearing that further words would betray his 
 emotion he turned back to the opening through 
 which the morning light streamed in. Reginald 
 did likewise, and both remained silent, the rays 
 of the sun forming an impalpable barrier between t 
 them. Louis Proudon, leaning on the balustrade 
 at a little distance off, had not heard their colloquy, 
 or at least had not understood it. His thoughts 
 were absorbed in his poor who would soon be com- 
 ing from the slums and the outskirts of Paris for 
 the eight o'clock mass and distribution of bread: 
 "I shall not have enough for a fine day like this," 
 he was saying to himself, "only two thousand 
 pounds of bread. The sunshine brings them all 
 out; they will gather as thick as ants." And he 
 rejoiced within himself as he pictured the flight of 
 steps to the eastward black with the ascending 
 throng. 
 
 The silence of the white dome, the breath of wind 
 which swept by without bringing any murmur of 
 voices to his ear, aroused him from his dream. 
 
 "Come this way, gentlemen, and let me show 
 you the forest of St. Germain. It looks from 
 here like a blue ribbon. You are in luck to have 
 been here this morning!" 
 
 The young men followed him, but as they
 
 THE BARRIER 155 
 
 showed little interest in his explanations and 
 asked no questions, he very soon conducted them 
 down the spiral staircase to the roofs and then into 
 the church, where he left them. 
 
 A few moments later Felicien and Reginald 
 stopped on the esplanade where the funicular 
 descends. They had not spoken a word to each 
 other since their violent altercation above. Regi- 
 nald paused for one more look over Paris with 
 the morning light upon it. Flicien stood a little 
 apart; he had recovered his self-possession, and 
 his delicate face and fine head, as he bent forward, 
 with his eyes fixed upon the far-off city, gave 
 him the aspect of a melancholy poet composing 
 a stanza. His lips moved as if rehearsing the 
 words he was about to utter, and at last he spoke, 
 without turning his eyes from the scene before 
 him, and with such genuine grief in his tones 
 that Reginald started: 
 
 "So many men mingle human interests with 
 their search after truth. You do not. I con- 
 gratulate you. Believe me, since we are about 
 to separate, you ought to see Marie again." 
 
 "But since " 
 
 "Yes, I assure you Not this morning to- 
 night you had better call on her. This morning 
 there will be a great change in her life, as in mine. 
 Oh! you are too proud. I see! I understand 
 and I was merely testing you. I owe her the 
 truth and I have promised to tell her everything, 
 that is all. It is a terrible thing, Monsieur, to 
 love a woman with a despairing love like mine. 
 Well, let us say good-bye."
 
 156 THE BARRIER 
 
 They shook hands hastily, and Reginald replied : 
 
 "I wish you happiness. Yes, very honestly." 
 
 Then each went his own way, and finding a 
 couple of stray cabs they were soon back in the 
 heart of Paris. 
 
 At eight in the morning Fe*licien rang the bell of 
 his aunt's house, and the concierge having as- 
 sured him that the ladies had gone to early mass 
 and would soon be at home, he went upstairs to 
 await them in the vestibule. The maid begged 
 him to enter, but he declined, saying: 
 
 "No, I have only a message to give and am 
 going on. I will wait here." 
 
 The truth was that he could not bear to enter 
 the salon where Marie's portrait hung, nor did he 
 wish to have her in sight a moment after the 
 words he had to say were uttered. He felt 
 already spent and exhausted. 
 
 As he stood there, he heard approaching foot- 
 steps and calm voices on the stairs; the key 
 turned in the door and Mme. Limerel entered, 
 followed by Marie. 
 
 They both spoke at once, but in different tones. 
 
 "Is that you, Felicien? so early!" exclaimed 
 Mme. Limerel, while Marie said: 
 
 "Ah! you are here. I understand. Come 
 quickly." 
 
 She drew him in the half-light, threw back her 
 veil, and on seeing Felicien's face recoiled, crying: 
 "No, no, do not come!" and escaped to the salon, 
 repeating, "No, not to-day. I cannot bear it." 
 
 As Fe"licien followed her to the door of the salon 
 she reiterated:
 
 THE BARRIER 157 
 
 "I do not want you to speak so soon! Mamma, 
 do not let him speak," and she retreated to the 
 farthest window, with her face buried in her 
 hands. 
 
 Mme. Limerel, standing before F61icien, tried to 
 hold him back, saying: "Do as she begs, Felicien. 
 Not to-day." 
 
 "I must," was all he answered. 
 
 "To-morrow, if you like, my dear boy. Wait 
 till to-morrow." 
 
 "No, to-morrow I should not have the 
 strength." 
 
 "You have not taken time enough. You do 
 not know what you will say to her." 
 
 "Alas! I do indeed. I shall tell her that no 
 one will ever love her as I do, since I can give her 
 up and acknowledge that I am not worthy of her." 
 
 "You will give her too much pain." 
 
 "The harm is done, since she has seen me. 
 Let me go to her." 
 
 Mine. Limerel had closed the door at the mo- 
 ment Felicien tried to enter; she now held it 
 closed while her nephew stood before her, his face 
 hollowed and drawn by a suffering more cruel 
 than physical pain; but on this grief-stamped 
 face, the will was still dominant. The mother 
 saw that his resolution was final, and that to 
 oppose him further was merely to struggle against 
 fate which had set its imprint on Felicien's coun- 
 tenance. She drew back saying, "Go to her then, 
 my poor boy!" 
 
 He entered the room and approached Marie
 
 158 THE BARRIER 
 
 where she stood by the window. He appeared 
 like one breathless from running as he leaned 
 back against the crimson hangings. Her hands 
 were still pressed across her eyes, and between the 
 parted wrists her lips could be seen to move. Was 
 she praying or was she still repeating in tones of 
 exhaustion, "Not to-day: I cannot bear it." 
 
 He was now close beside her, but the wretched- 
 ness of each sought a brief respite, the courage of 
 each strove to gather strength for further suffer- 
 ing. Felicien, at last, spoke very low: 
 
 "Marie, I am not worthy to love you as you 
 wish to be loved. I no longer believe." 
 
 She took her hands from her eyes slowly; she 
 was as white as he, and her lids were half closed. 
 
 "What proof have you? I implore you not to 
 deceive yourself," she said. 
 
 He replied hurriedly, nervously: 
 
 "I have reflected for a week, and last night I 
 watched all night, searching my very soul before 
 that sacrament which was once as holy to me as 
 to you." 
 
 "Oh, be silent!" she cried. "Say no more." 
 
 "Marie, I can pray only to you. I no longer 
 believe." 
 
 And they looked into each other's eyes, search- 
 ing each other's souls. He saw her grief; he saw, 
 also, the gulf between them. He saw the living 
 faith, the virgin soul, which answered, No. 
 
 Then suddenly turning away, he hastened from 
 the room and out of the house, while Mme. Limerel 
 entered and threw her arms around her daughter,
 
 THE BARRIER 159 
 
 who clung to her weeping and repeating between 
 her sobs: "Oh, mamma! it is terrible. It is too 
 cruel! Have I asked too much of him? Tell 
 me if I have not asked too much!" 
 
 M. Victor Limerel had just risen and was seated 
 at his writing-table in his morning costume, con- 
 sisting of a grey dressing-gown bordered with red. 
 The letters which he had already opened, having 
 been carefully classified, were lying in four piles 
 of unequal height, pending the arrival of one of 
 the secretaries of the Societe" Franchise. He was 
 glancing at one of the newspapers which had been 
 brought him with his early mail, when Fe"licien 
 entered the room. 
 
 "Well, my dear boy, is that you? Where are 
 you from?" 
 
 "That is what I came to tell you." 
 
 "Ah! I know from Montmartre your mother 
 told me last evening. It is not a bad place, but 
 you must admit that to spend the whole night 
 out there, away from your home, without any 
 reason Pray explain yourself." 
 
 "I had two reasons," Felicien replied, "which 
 are in fact but one. I went there to consider a 
 project of marriage." 
 
 His father, who up to this moment had con- 
 tinued, while talking, to glance at the news, laid 
 his paper aside and looked up at Felicien, whose 
 aspect was cold and decided and who looked 
 fully master of himself. 
 
 "A project?" he inquired. "Which do you 
 mean? The one ?" 
 
 "Yes, precisely, with my cousin Marie."
 
 160 THE BARRIER 
 
 "You know my decision. That marriage can- 
 not take place." 
 
 "It will not take place, father, because I have 
 given it up." 
 
 "Ah! so much the better. So much the better. 
 So you are becoming reasonable." 
 
 "No, I am becoming desperate, father, and I 
 have resolved to speak out." 
 
 His father was pleased, in spite of himself, to 
 recognise his own decision of attitude and frank- 
 ness of speech in his son. 
 
 "Of course it is natural that you should regret 
 it, my son," he said. "I have never understood 
 your fancy, and have opposed it. But so far as 
 sentiments go, you are free." 
 
 "You are right. I have just come from declar- 
 ing to my cousin that I shall love her always, 
 but that I cannot marry her." 
 
 "Parbleu! It was not she who refused you, 
 then? It would, in fact, have been great luck 
 for her." 
 
 "I realised that I was unworthy of her." 
 
 "What is that you are saying?" 
 
 "Yes, unworthy of her. I have been examin- 
 ing myself for the past week and that is the con- 
 clusion I have reached to-night. Unworthy, 
 because she has made up her mind to marry only 
 a believer, and I am no longer one." 
 
 "What do you expect me to do about it?" 
 
 "You can do nothing now, but it is you who 
 are responsible." 
 
 "What nonsense! I can make allowance for 
 your unhappiness ."
 
 THE BARRIER 161 
 
 "You are too kind." 
 
 " But I cannot permit you to utter offensive 
 words." 
 
 "To you who are responsible for my evil 
 training!" 
 
 "Felicien!" and M. Limerel struck the table 
 with his clenched fist, and sprang up, pushing back 
 his chair. "I order you to leave the room!" 
 
 "Not yet! Not till I have shown you the in- 
 jury you have done me. I have come for that. 
 I have come to avenge it ! Do you understand? " 
 
 "What ails you both, Victor, F&icien? What 
 is the meaning of this scene, these angry voices?" 
 cried Mme. Limerel, entering hastily from her own 
 room, and catching her son by the arm. "How 
 cold you are! How you are trembling! The poor 
 boy is ill." 
 
 "No," said the father stepping forward. "He 
 is insolent, and I have requested him to leave the 
 room." 
 
 "My Fe*licien! I do not understand." 
 
 "I should have preferred not to have you here, 
 mother," he said. "To you I would speak more 
 gently." 
 
 "He accuses us of having brought him up 
 badly," said his father. "Of being the cause of 
 his unhappiness." 
 
 "Oh! what can he mean?" she cried. 
 
 "He announced to me, my dear," M. Limerel 
 proceeded, "that he considers himself unworthy 
 of our pious niece Marie, that he feels he is not 
 a good enough Christian to marry her; and the 
 cause of his not being so, he lays at your door 
 and mine, Elsa."
 
 162 THE BARRIER 
 
 She dropped her son's hand and fell back, turn- 
 ing to her husband, whose anger always cowed 
 her, as she faltered: 
 
 "He is unhappy, and unjust in consequence; 
 that is but natural. Let him explain himself. 
 Since we have never done him any wrong, God 
 knows! it is better that the child should not keep 
 to himself the reproaches he thinks he has the 
 right to bring against us. Come, Felicien, we 
 are willing to listen to you, your father and I, but 
 on condition that you speak with proper respect. 
 How can you accuse us of not bringing you up 
 like a Christian? Remember the education we 
 have given you." 
 
 "Yes, Felicien," pursued M. Limerel, "your 
 mother is right. It would have been preferable, 
 on some accounts, considering my own interests, 
 to send you to a government school. I should 
 have secured, in that way, certain advantages 
 and a certain influence." 
 
 "The rosette in short," broke in Felicien. 
 "Why not call it by its name?" 
 
 "Let me answer for you, Victor. Yes, the 
 rosette. What can you find to blame, my son, 
 in your father's laudable ambitions? The rosette 
 is something, after all, and he is entitled to wear 
 it. He might have done like many other people 
 of stricter principles than we profess he might 
 have sent you to a lycee. But he gave up the 
 idea at my request. We chose for you an insti- 
 tution conducted by ecclesiastics. Is that what 
 you reproach us for?" 
 
 "No," he replied. "I had early Christian 
 training, I recognise it. I received more religious
 
 THE BARRIER 163 
 
 instruction and saw more examples of faith among 
 my masters than most of the men of my genera- 
 tion. That should have sufficed, and often has 
 done, to build up a sound faith, but on one condi- 
 tion. It is that the family life should be in har- 
 mony with these instructions." 
 
 ''Well what of ours?" 
 
 "I have seen at home too many examples which 
 did not agree with the lessons taught at school, 
 and I have learned to doubt." 
 
 "You have seen excellent people, F61icien." 
 
 "I have seen that you all placed many things 
 before religion." 
 
 "What, for instance? I beg you to tell me." 
 
 "The enumeration would be long, if I chose. 
 It includes the whole of life, or what is called by 
 that name: the whirl of amusement, luxury, 
 honours, the future yours and perhaps mine 
 also. I have seen that you failed to defend the 
 principles I had once been taught to venerate, the 
 men who had been held up to me as examples; 
 and that you allowed matters to be freely dis- 
 cussed, here in your house " 
 
 "Oh! a little freedom of conversation! A great 
 affair!" exclaimed M. Limerel. 
 
 "Let him finish, Victor." 
 
 "I saw, even, that you approved this language 
 which at first horrified me. The influences of your 
 salon were not always a training in virtue. Who 
 was ever concerned to practise these teachings? " 
 
 "That is too much! Did not your mother 
 preside over your first communion, and with what 
 affectionate solemnity ! "
 
 164 THE BARRIER 
 
 "But afterwards, in the years that followed, 
 who sustained me in my youthful aspirations? 
 Who ever tried to divine my doubts and to 
 answer them? Who ever interested themselves 
 in my reading? I read everything, without guid- 
 anc 
 
 In short, I have never understood from the 
 life here at home that religion was the law by 
 which we should be guided. That is what I re- 
 proach you with. If you are, after all, a believer 
 at heart, father - 
 
 M. Limerel, stunned by the violence of his son's 
 words, had protested but feebly, but now, at 
 last, hearing his faith doubted, he exclaimed 
 vehemently: 
 
 "Of course I am a believer!" 
 
 "Then you should have been one fundamentally, 
 and have made of my childish faith the law, the 
 light, the strength of my life. I have none of all 
 these neither law nor strength nor joy. If you 
 are a believer and if what you believe exists, 
 from what a heaven you banished me!" 
 
 "You are talking wildly, Felicien. You are 
 not such as you describe. Reflect upon the 
 harsh accusations you are bringing against me 
 and your mother." 
 
 He no longer spoke with irritation. He was 
 groping uncertainly and blindly in this unsus- 
 pected world which his son had opened before 
 him. 
 
 "I had noticed," he said, "that you had given 
 up all religious observances."
 
 THE BARRIER 165 
 
 "And you did not suffer on that account?" 
 
 "I did not tell you so. I attributed the change 
 to errors of conduct; I felt that I had no right to 
 be exacting in matters of piety, that I ought not 
 to restrain your liberty." 
 
 "That is what you call never coming to my 
 aid, never suspecting, never inquiring, never see- 
 ing that if I had a soul it was once yours and 
 was being destroyed " 
 
 "If we had understood," broke in his mother, 
 "we would have tried." 
 
 "Your mother says truly, that if we had 
 known " 
 
 They both approached to take his hand, but he 
 retreated towards the door. 
 
 "No, you would have changed nothing in your 
 lives," he said, "for you had not the will; you 
 could have changed nothing in mine, for it was 
 already too late. Now it is all over with my faith; 
 it is all over with the love that was in my heart; 
 and with you also, my father, my mother, it is all 
 over between us!" 
 
 "Do you mean to leave us, Felicien?" 
 
 Mme. Limerel sprang forward with arms ex- 
 tended. "No, it is not true!" she cried. "He 
 does not know what he is saying, this child; he 
 was pale a moment ago, now his face is scarlet; 
 he is beside himself." 
 
 "I shall not leave at once, but as soon as I 
 can. My presence will cause you more regret 
 than happiness. I shall be a constant reminder of 
 the wrong that has been done me here. Adieu!" 
 
 "Go!" said his father. "It is better so. I do
 
 166 THE BARRIER 
 
 not know how I have endured this so long. Now 
 go! Go at once!" 
 
 Felicien left the room with a deliberate step, 
 while his father and mother stood listening as he 
 passed down the corridor; then his mother called 
 after him: 
 
 "Come back, my child, come back!" 
 
 "No, let him go!" said his father. "Leave 
 him alone! I forbid you to call him back!" 
 
 They both listened, holding their breath un- 
 til his footsteps died away, then M. Limerel 
 added: 
 
 "I forbid you to follow him and to contrive 
 theatrical scenes which I, his father, am to accept 
 as sufficient expiation for all the insults I have 
 endured. It is I who will dictate terms of forgive- 
 ness. I do not propose to let your weak indul- 
 gence intervene. I have been seriously, odiously 
 insulted! Why do you not speak? Why do you 
 stare at me without a word?" 
 
 She was no longer, as was her custom, bending 
 before him in fear and admiration. The violence 
 of her distress had roused another woman within 
 her, no longer submissive to his will, but stirred 
 by thoughts of her own and a sort of exalted 
 courage. 
 
 "Mon ami, 1 ' she said, "he has judged us!" 
 
 "How dare you say such a thing? Judged 
 us, indeed!" 
 
 "And he is right, perhaps." 
 
 "What! Felicien right in his attitude towards 
 us? You have a singular fashion, which I am 
 familiar with, of defending your husband. You
 
 THE BARRIER 167 
 
 comprehend nothing, then? If I failed to stand 
 up more vigorously against him " 
 
 "It was because you felt as I did, that he was 
 partly in the right." 
 
 "Not at all! I allowed him to pour forth his 
 anger, because it will give me an advantage over 
 him later. When he talks of pretended wrongs 
 towards him I shall be able to reproach him with 
 his positive wrongs towards me. Yes, I hold him, 
 if you do not throw yourself between us with your 
 usual heedlessness. He will need money. Have 
 you thought of that? " 
 
 "You are mistaken. All the money you may 
 give or refuse him will not alter his judgment of 
 us. He does not respect us, he, our own son! He 
 has told us so, and we have endured it!" 
 
 She followed her husband, who, with a shrug of 
 the shoulders, had seated himself once more with 
 his letters and papers before him. She remained 
 standing beside him, and laid her hand on his 
 arm. 
 
 "I assure you, Victor, that we are greatly to 
 blame in this," she said. 
 
 "Nonsense!" 
 
 "Yes, I saw it all while Felicien was speaking 
 I said to myself that ours had been a religion 
 of mere outward show." 
 
 "Different from that of those bigots at the 
 Madeleine, happily. Yes, I admit it. What 
 next?" 
 
 With increasing energy Elsa Limerel pursued: 
 
 "We are not the Christians we profess to be. 
 When our whims are gratified, our ambitions
 
 168 THE BARRIER 
 
 fulfilled, our fortunes safe, what remains of the 
 religion we have sacrificed to these ends? What 
 truth is there indeed which has not been attacked 
 beneath our roof, and which we have ventured 
 to defend? It is a fine religion, ours, my poor 
 husband; it is the religion of respectability." 
 
 "It is the same as other people's. I have 
 worked, that has been my affair, and for you 
 who are reproaching me with it to-day!" 
 
 "A show religion," she went on. "A Sunday 
 religion which we hold cheap on week-days." 
 
 "How strait-laced you are turning all at once, 
 my dear!" 
 
 "Oh, no jesting, I beg, Victor. I tell you, 
 seriously, I believe that we have lost our son. 
 When I saw Felicien leaving us just now, my 
 heart cried out, 'we are punished!' As we grow 
 old we learn to see above the home the light from 
 heaven, or else darkness. I see us both con- 
 demned!" 
 
 "Enough, my dear; your whole catechism 
 seems coming back to you. I recommend you 
 to lower your voice, for I hear one of the maids 
 coming. Wipe your eyes, quickly!" 
 
 Some one was, in fact, approaching; the door 
 opened and Marie Limerel appeared on the 
 threshold. She had assured herself that Felicien 
 was not at home, and with her simple courage she 
 desired an understanding with his father and 
 mother, feeling that anything was better than a 
 silent quarrel. She paused before entering. "I 
 came to tell you," she said, "how unhappy 
 I am "
 
 THE BARRIER 169 
 
 M. Limerel, who had risen, pointed to his wife, 
 exclaiming : 
 
 "I can readily believe it. You can see, my poor 
 Marie, what misery you have caused." 
 
 "Come," said Mme. Limerel, taking the young 
 girl by the hand, and drawing her nearer. Then 
 pointing in her turn to the man who, for the first 
 time in his life, sought only to escape from her, 
 she cried: "Look at him well, for I want to tell 
 you to his face that you have done right, Marie. 
 You wish to marry only a sincere Christian, and 
 you are right. In such a marriage there is truth, 
 happiness, and a deep mutual understanding. 
 Do not weaken! Do not marry a half-believer. 
 You are weeping now, but it is only then that 
 you would know what real suffering is." 
 
 "You see, Marie," exclaimed M. Limerel, "that 
 she is quite out of her head," and so speaking 
 he left the room with a shrug, though his face 
 had flushed scarlet. 
 
 As the two women passed on into Mme. Lime- 
 rel's room, Marie spoke again: 
 
 "He was admirable in his loyalty. He would 
 not buy me at the cost of a falsehood. You 
 must tell him that I shall esteem him always for 
 having been victorious over himself." 
 
 His mother murmured: "While they are still 
 young, they have moments of nobility and cour- 
 age. Later they show themselves as they really 
 are." 
 
 "We shall see each other later," faltered Marie 
 in return, "but a long time hence. You will ex- 
 plain to him that I should fear not being brave
 
 170 THE BARRIER 
 
 enough now. It tortured me to make him suffer. 
 Oh, that I should be the one to cause so much 
 suffering!" 
 
 Mme. Limerel laid her hand caressingly on 
 Marie's heated brow. 
 
 "You are deeply grieved, my poor Marie," she 
 said. 
 
 "Oh, yes!" 
 
 "But, believe me, the greatest grief comes later; 
 that grief which is softened by no approving con- 
 science, no memories of courage." Then she 
 added: "You love him. You have loved him." 
 
 The girl did not answer but the look in her 
 eyes spoke for her. 
 
 "You love him, and I, his mother, feel that I 
 have no right to plead for him, to say: 'Go on 
 loving him.' No, I cannot say it, and this silence 
 is my condemnation. I am guilty." 
 
 They exchanged but a few words more, their 
 anxiety lest Felicien should return caused them 
 both to pause and listen, and at last with a more 
 affectionate embrace than ever before, Marie ~~ ; d : 
 
 "Dear aunt, I have never truly known youo-' 
 
 "My poor child, so many women are not their 
 true selves until it is late too late!"
 
 IV 
 
 "How fond I am growing of this Roman life, 
 Marie," Mme. Limerel was saying. 
 
 "You mean of life in Rome, mamma, as we 
 are living in a hotel and you really cannot call 
 that Roman life." 
 
 "That is nothing. I mean our delightful days 
 here, our pilgrimages to the churches, our rambles 
 through the city, now that we are no longer mere 
 tourists, collecting postcards and new to every- 
 thing. Do you not feel as I do ? It seems to me 
 that I have the very look of Rome stamped on 
 my heart now; not the superficial look which 
 one discovers at once, but the inner expression 
 that completes the image. Is it so with you? Ah, 
 cherie, what priceless hours!" 
 - "^o you think I do not prize them, too?" re- 
 tained Marie. 
 
 "They renew my soul." 
 
 "You are far younger than I, mamma." 
 
 "I am freer, perhaps, from hopes and expec- 
 tations. I surrender myself more fully and de- 
 mand less. That is sometimes the better way." 
 
 They were seated in the Pincian gardens, which 
 face the setting sun and crown the city so nobly. 
 Many times since their arrival in Rome, they had 
 spent the late afternoon hours there, reading to 
 
 171
 
 172 THE BARRIER 
 
 each other by turns in an undertone. The soft 
 air of the terrace, the sheltering trees which 
 frame the distant landscape, the glorious sunset 
 hour which seems so essential a part of Rome, 
 all combined for their enchantment. They had 
 even selected a special garden-bench, where they 
 usually sat, not in that part of the gardens ad- 
 joining the Villa Medici, but at the farther end, 
 beneath a group of ancient ilexes which arch 
 above the Piazza del Popolo. 
 
 The girl, who had ceased reading some mo- 
 ments before, but still held the book propped on 
 her knee ready to begin again, now let it fall and 
 laid her hand across the open pages. At the 
 same time she drew herself up and shook her 
 head several times as if about to protest, but 
 merely sighed without uttering a word. 
 
 Mme. Limerel softly patted the clasped hand 
 which unfolded in response to her caress. 
 
 "Marie," she said, "I wish I could see your 
 former courage and high spirits returning. You 
 have your bright days very bright, as yester- 
 day at Albano but there come sad ones, too. 
 When you are sad you are less pretty." 
 
 "Pretty! That is my last thought. And for 
 whom?" 
 
 "For me, dear, who need your joy to prove to 
 me that I have brought you up and loved you as I 
 ought, and made you strong against yourself." 
 
 "Oh, you need have no fear! I have not 
 changed. But I have been so strong against 
 myself and others, too, that I am sometimes 
 weary. There are moments when it seems to me
 
 THE BARRIER 173 
 
 that I could never do again what I have done, it 
 has cost me so dear. And yet I do not regret. 
 On the contrary, I see more and more clearly 
 that it was right " 
 
 "So much the better." 
 
 " That I have escaped, thanks to a sort of 
 ready response to duty, which you have taught 
 me or transmitted to me, from a life which would 
 have been very unhappy or very bad, possibly 
 both. No, my mind does not hesitate. But the 
 sorrow I have caused! Who will cure that?" 
 
 "Time, my child." 
 
 "And in my heart, who will cure it? Love in 
 us women is made up almost wholly of the desire 
 to give happiness and I have given only suffer- 
 ing. Do you understand? I have made another 
 suffer." 
 
 "Oh, it is a suffering that does not last, except 
 in books, and in a few very pure hearts. But 
 they are so rare! What is Felicien doing now? 
 Do you know?" 
 
 "Yes, dearest." 
 
 "He has written to you?" 
 
 "Yes; two letters which reached me in Bur- 
 gundy." 
 
 "And I knew nothing of it!" 
 
 "I even answered one of them. It was wrong 
 of me not to show them to you. Pray forgive me, 
 dearest. I see that I have given you pain." 
 
 "And this time it is pain which you may regret 
 causing, for I have not deserved it." 
 
 "It is true. I did wrong. You shall see them, 
 I promise you."
 
 174 THE BARRIER 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 "That I had cast him back forever upon his 
 doubts." 
 
 "You have merely refused to follow him." 
 
 "He said other sad things. The second time 
 I did not answer. All is over now." 
 
 Marie bent closer to her mother. "You see he 
 loved me. I had never been loved before the 
 power that word has over us dies slowly. Do you 
 not think so?" 
 
 "You are a true woman, Marie," said her mother, 
 embracing her. Then they both ceased speaking, 
 and in the silence their thoughts followed the 
 same path. They had spoken in hushed tones, 
 and their movements had changed so slightly the 
 grouping of light and shade cast by their figures, 
 that three women seated on another bench beneath 
 the same roof of ilex boughs a young mother, a 
 blooming nurse from the Campagna, in her lace 
 cap and bright ribbons, and a pale, indifferent 
 school-girl had not observed the presence of these 
 motionless and dreamy strangers. 
 
 The few passers-by in this remote nook of the 
 garden barely glanced at them, and already the 
 stream of promenaders was turning back towards 
 the city. 
 
 Some were strolling in the splendour of the 
 evening, beneath the overarching foliage which 
 autumn does not tinge, others along the wall 
 which encircles the hill in the full flood of golden 
 light. In the throng were women leading their 
 children by the hand, tired clerks who had 
 escaped from their desks, soldiers, students, and
 
 THE BARRIER 175 
 
 groups of seminarists, with their blue and scarlet 
 sashes, all drawn homeward at the summons of 
 the Ave Maria, that curfew which calls the people 
 as a shepherd his flock, and which at that season 
 rang before six o'clock. The level rays of the sun, 
 streaming across the city, bathed the tree-trunks 
 and fell on Marie's brow, while the sweetness of 
 those last gleams stole into her heart. 
 
 "You have escaped a danger which you see 
 clearly enough now," her mother was saying. 
 "In future you must not let unreasoning regrets 
 dim your sense of the splendid gift of life 
 nothing petty or unworthy of you." 
 
 "Why do you speak so of my regrets? Why 
 am I forbidden to cherish them? They can harm 
 no one." 
 
 "They impair your own strength. You are not 
 their prisoner as you believe. It is you who draw 
 them about you. You give to the slightest words, 
 to childish memories, a power they did not have 
 over your heart in those days. You do this, 
 Marie, to make your decision not to marry 
 Felicien seem harder than it really was, harsher 
 towards yourself." 
 
 "No, not towards me." 
 
 "Yes, to yourself first, and also more exceptional, 
 more heroic. You build up a half fanciful sorrow 
 and immure yourself within it. Oh, I can read 
 your heart. I know the poor human heart which 
 so often deceives itself. There is pride in your 
 pain." 
 
 "There is much pity, too, believe me." 
 
 "Well, keep your pity, dear, but in God's sight
 
 176 THE BARRIER 
 
 only, and drive away the rest all the echoes of 
 what might have been. Sacrifice the memory of 
 your love, since you have given up the love 
 itself." 
 
 By way of answer Marie took up the book which 
 lay in her lap, turned the first pages, and closed 
 it slowly. She did it mechanically, with no 
 thought of what her gesture symbolised. Then 
 in the penetrating tone which reveals the mind 
 wholly present in the words, she said : 
 
 "I will try. I believe you are right in every- 
 thing." 
 
 "You must rise higher, Marie. You must rise 
 to where you can find peace." 
 
 " Where is it found, dearest?" 
 
 " There, where we are not. Forget yourself," 
 and as she spoke Mme. Limerel rose, and pointing 
 through the branches to the setting sun, added 
 with a smile: 
 
 "Up yonder. Come, let us go and watch the 
 last gleams of daylight. We have been talking 
 so seriously that I feel the need of drawing a freer 
 breath. If the Romans who are taking their 
 passegiata here had heard our talk they would 
 resent such gravity in an hour like this." 
 
 Marie had already risen. "But I do not. Our 
 talk has done me so much good! But we really 
 have no time to lose. See! the sun is just sinking 
 behind the portico of St. Peter's. How the city 
 seems made to bask in sunlight! It lays in such 
 stores all day that by evening it becomes trans- 
 lucent for a moment. Look over there at the 
 quarter beyond the Tiber!"
 
 THE BARRIER 177 
 
 Mme. Limerel leaned over the balustrade while 
 Marie stood erect beside her, both wrapped about 
 in the glowing light and the soft breeze from the 
 west; both with their eyes full of the same won- 
 der and delight, both with minds open and eager, 
 and one of them giving thanks that the child, 
 the soul so dear to her, was growing strong 
 again. 
 
 From the heights of the Pincio, the city within 
 its encircling walls appeared slightly hollowed 
 at the centre, while to the south it rose in more 
 billowy curves, crowned with more domes, bel- 
 fries, and ruins, everywhere intense in colour and 
 warm to the eye. The flat, white-washed roofs, 
 the tiles, the reddish-yellow fa$ades, all that was 
 built to shelter man, was lighted now by re- 
 flection only. But these valleys of stone, closely 
 built and compressed as they were, seemed to 
 emit innumerable rays of light, for the air above 
 them quivered like a field of golden sheaves. 
 Then night stole rapidly over the scene, as 
 the first violet-blue shadows crept nearer and 
 nearer. 
 
 "The daylight is dying," said Mme. Limerel. 
 
 "No, the garden still catches the light. See, 
 mamma! those stone pines are like tufts of gold." 
 
 "They are fading now; it is all over. Only the 
 dome of St. Peter's sees the vanished sun." 
 
 "And that of Santa Maria Maggiore." 
 
 For a few moments longer they stood there in 
 silence until a breath of chill wind shook the 
 leaves on the terrace and died away, then a 
 second breath followed, laden with the dampness
 
 178 THE BARRIER 
 
 of the Campagna marshes. The church-bells, 
 voices of all the ages, chimed the Ave Maria. 
 The gardens were already deserted. 
 
 "The sky remains clear," said Mme. Limerel. 
 "Come, it will be a lovely evening." 
 
 They skirted the terrace, and near the Villa 
 Medici descended by a hollow road winding be- 
 tween walls and gardens and emerging on the 
 Piazza di Spagna. 
 
 "Here we are at home!" exclaimed Marie, "in 
 the yellowest corner of Rome, the region of the 
 pietra rossa. All these houses try, as they grow 
 old, to look like palaces. A charming coquetry, 
 is it not ? " 
 
 "Where shall we hear mass to-morrow?" 
 
 "Wherever you choose." 
 
 "Let it be at some church we have not yet 
 visited. What do you say to our neighbour, the 
 Trinita de' Monti, which is open only on Sunday 
 mornings?" 
 
 As she spoke they both turned instinctively to 
 look up the great stairway which they would 
 ascend in the morning. Then they skirted the 
 little parterre, with its five tall palms, and entered 
 the Hotel de Londres where they were staying. 
 
 It was the sixteenth of October, and they had 
 been a fortnight in Rome, finding there the di- 
 version they both needed, and enjoying a "soli- 
 tude a deux" which showed them how dear they 
 were to each other, and gave fresh power to the 
 words they exchanged, the emotions they shared, 
 and even their very silences. Mme. Limerel was 
 not mistaken in her belief that the influence of
 
 THE BARRIER 179 
 
 the past was gradually losing its hold over 
 Marie's heart. 
 
 On the day following the last interview be- 
 tween Marie and Fe"licien, M. Victor Limerel had 
 appeared in the Avenue d'Antin, very correct and 
 pompous, expressing no regrets, but imposing 
 his will, as usual. 
 
 " Madeleine," he said, "I have asked to see you 
 alone, because I do not wish to have a scene, and 
 it would be painful to me to utter any reproaches. 
 I foresaw beforehand what has taken place. I 
 was perfectly aware of all the reasons which 
 made a marriage between my son and your 
 daughter impossible. Your fault, or Marie's, or 
 that of you both, was in not understanding this 
 earlier. Your weakness has produced great un- 
 happiness, as you are aware. I have no confi- 
 dences to make you; but my son has shown 
 himself greatly wanting in his duty to us. He 
 talks of taking an apartment outside my house; 
 we have come to that. Such is the work of oh! 
 do not defend yourself. You know that with 
 me it is useless. I have told you what has already 
 taken place; it only remains for me to tell you 
 what is to be in future. One thing which will 
 never be permitted is this utterly irrational 
 marriage. You agree with me as to that? So 
 much the better. I desire to reaffirm to you 
 Felicien's decision, which my wife approves as I do. 
 Yes, my wife ! She may have differed from me at 
 first, but I have brought her to my point of view. 
 And in consequence, if it is agreeable to you, my 
 dear sister-in-law, we will meet less frequently
 
 180 THE BARRIER 
 
 in future. But there is no occasion that the 
 world should be made acquainted with our 
 family differences. I shall be silent on the sub- 
 ject, so will you. We shall exchange greetings, 
 of course, when we meet in our friends' houses, 
 but anything more we will postpone, shall we 
 not, to some future day ? " 
 
 Mme. Limerel had simply replied: "I am less 
 harsh than you. Our children are, henceforth, 
 irrevocably parted. It is a necessity, a fortunate 
 one, if you like. But I regret above all that the 
 suffering should be theirs while the fault was 
 yours. I regret what might have been. Adieu." 
 
 Shortly after this, at the beginning of July, she 
 had left Paris with her daughter. Two months 
 with relations in Burgundy had not restored 
 Marie's health and spirits, as her mother had 
 hoped. Marie's dear eyes those "tea-coloured" 
 eyes had not lost their charming habit of looking 
 straight into yours as she listened, of being limpid 
 and steadfast, and of softening as she spoke, but 
 dark shadows had gathered around them. The 
 lips, with their delicate curves, still smiled, but 
 slight though the effort was, it was perceptible, 
 and the wish to give pleasure could not replace 
 the spontaneous gaiety of youth. While peace 
 returned to her, her strength seemed to diminish, 
 and her mother was growing anxious. She felt 
 that she had been too hasty in accepting the in- 
 vitation of the 'cousins in Burgundy. Chateau 
 life, with its constant round of visits, sports and 
 excursions, the monotonous excitement of the 
 holidays, the exuberance of a flock of children,
 
 THE BARRIER 181 
 
 the eager attentions of an aunt and cousins, all 
 drawn to Marie by the hint of a love-secret, were 
 ill adapted to heal a proud and reserved nature. 
 The distractions of society avail little against a 
 cherished sorrow; they rather tend to drive the 
 mind back upon itself, to stimulate its regrets by 
 their futility, making its own pain seem nobler 
 and these diversions emptier than they really 
 are. 
 
 The mother understood this at last, and carried 
 her daughters away to a quiet valley in the canton 
 of Fribourg, and when the time came for the 
 younger girl to return to England, continued to 
 travel with Marie alone. Solitude gradually did 
 its work of healing, bringing back the whole past 
 to the girl's conscience. In the inner silence the 
 higher reasons which had led to her decision and 
 had thronged to her aid only to utter the word 
 " Refuse!" now spoke more fully, and those spirit- 
 ual powers which bring a hard-won peace said to 
 her sad heart: 
 
 "We have not deceived you. We were sta- 
 tioned about you to protect your weakness. See 
 how little you can rely on your own strength, since, 
 after obeying us, you can still doubt. Men judge 
 with a shallow judgment, and their shallowness is 
 cruel. They call that an ill-assorted marriage 
 where they see differences of education, of fortune 
 or family, while they overlook the infinite dispari- 
 ties, the misalliances of soul. Child, no human ten- 
 derness is worth the price you would have paid for 
 it. We are the primal compassion; the suffer- 
 ing we impose lasts but for a time."
 
 182 THE BARRIER 
 
 Marie listened and the eternal summits began 
 to grow clear. 
 
 On Sunday morning, a little before nine o'clock, 
 as Mme. Limerel issued from the hotel with her 
 daughter, they exclaimed with one voice : 
 
 "Oh, the beautiful morning!" and basking in 
 the joy of the sunlight, they traversed the short 
 distance between their door and the church. The 
 " yellowest corner of Rome" was more sparkling 
 than usual, the spray from the fountain on the 
 piazza caught a rainbow as it fell, and the famous 
 staircase opposite looked as though the white 
 cascade of stones had been built to hold the sun- 
 shine. There was no shadow on the travertine, 
 which gleamed everywhere like polished marble, 
 and as Marie laid her hand on the balustrade, she 
 found it warm to the touch. 
 
 People were flocking up and down this radiant 
 cleft in the hill, and at its base the flower-sell- 
 ers were displaying the flowers of the season 
 a few roses, carnations, chrysanthemums, and 
 sprays of Japanese anemone. Above, the Trinita 
 de' Monti raised its lofty fagade, with the twin 
 towers stained yellow long ago that their out- 
 line might be less harsh against the blue of the 
 sky. 
 
 The church was nearly full; one side of the 
 high grating which divides it being reserved for 
 the pupils of the Sacre* Coeur. Seated close to- 
 gether, with their white veils, a la vierge, falling 
 over their shoulders, they formed a patch of daz- 
 zling whiteness, framed by the black robes of the
 
 THE BARRIER 183 
 
 nuns. At the first sight Marie recognised France, 
 and became absorbed in recollections. She had 
 so often seen these veils worn by her friends in 
 the great convents of Paris, and a similar one was 
 now covering the far from nun-like head of her 
 little sister in England. 
 
 The lower half of the nave was filled by parents 
 of the pupils and residents of the quarter, with a 
 sprinkling of peasants such as are always to be 
 seen praying in the Roman churches, motionless 
 and with upturned eyes. 
 
 Marie and her mother rapidly traversed this 
 throng and found a place near the grating. The 
 officiating priest stood before the altar, which 
 was tastefully and lovingly adorned with fresh 
 flowers and foliage. 
 
 No man could fail to be reminded by this sight 
 of the pure hands which had decorated the altar, 
 and would have called up a vision of spotless 
 youth, a little insipid and resigned, perhaps, 
 thus proving his utter ignorance of convent life. 
 Marie, who knew it better and was formed to un- 
 derstand this city of the soul, thought on the con- 
 trary of the magnificent energy of which the least 
 of these women had given proof; how all had 
 struggled, all had suffered, and how before gather- 
 ing flowers and handling the linen upon the altar 
 they had seen the imperious light of duty and had 
 followed where it led. Then she turned to the 
 service for the XXth Sunday after Trinity, and 
 lingered over these words of the liturgy: "The 
 eyes of all wait upon thee, Lord, and Thou givest 
 them their meat in due season."
 
 184 THE BARRIER 
 
 How many words like these are scattered 
 through the Christian year, in order that poor 
 human hopes may not fail those hopes so nec- 
 essary to all, so trembling, unstable, and soon put 
 to flight! What a deep knowledge of human na- 
 ture had placed there for the ages the answer 
 which even happiness needs, since it craves con- 
 tinuance: "Thou givest them their meat," but 
 in due season only, when they have renounced the 
 thought of obtaining it from the earth alone and 
 from those who dwell upon it. 
 
 At the moment of the communion Marie and her 
 mother made their way to the choir, where they 
 knelt at the altar railing. At Marie's left a man 
 was kneeling. She did not see him until she rose 
 to regain her place. Then, low as her eyes were 
 bent, a vague, rapid image crossed them, and 
 vague though it was, a powerful emotion seized 
 her. He was there in Rome, he had embraced the 
 same faith as hers, he had received the same 
 communion, he was walking behind her now, in 
 her shadow. She resisted, from an instinct of 
 reverence, the thoughts which assailed her as 
 she returned to her place beside the grating and 
 knelt again, troubled and humiliated by the 
 throng of strange fancies which disturbed her 
 devotions. 
 
 Many of the worshippers had now left the 
 church, some were stopping to exchange greetings 
 upon the threshold and the sound of their voices 
 entered with the breeze blowing up the nave. 
 The little piazza outside was only astir on this one 
 day in the week.
 
 THE BARRIER 185 
 
 Marie rose from her knees before her mother 
 and turned to go; she was in haste to assure her- 
 self that she had not been mistaken. She looked 
 about her for a glimpse of the figure she had 
 half recognised, but saw only an Italian convers- 
 ing with two of the sisters, a few women still 
 seated, and some French tourists attempting to 
 see a fresco. 
 
 Her disappointment was keen as she passed out 
 in the midst of these Romans and foreigners, all 
 rejoicing in the sunshine. No one was there, no 
 one for her at least, since she did not find him for 
 whom she was looking. She had forgotten to 
 look beside her as she passed through the door- 
 way. At the moment she descended the first step 
 some one held out his hand, too deeply moved to 
 speak. She raised her eyes and saw his face, 
 transfigured by a joy beyond all earthly joys. 
 She was tempted to say: "Oh, Reginald! I re- 
 joice with you," but she kept silence, and they 
 descended the flight of steps without a word, but 
 with their heads raised high, their eyes fixed 
 above the crowd, and their hearts higher still. 
 Those who looked at them might have thought 
 them lovers, but something surpassing ordinary 
 tenderness enveloped them both, and their souls 
 raised the same hymn of thankfulness. 
 
 Marie was the first to welcome this new son of 
 the church, and he who had thought to go away 
 rejoicing but alone, had found a friendly hand, a 
 fraternal soul, and a memory full of his own past 
 struggles. In the Rome now slumbering beneath 
 the grasses, yonder along the Via Sacra in those
 
 186 THE BARRIER 
 
 earlier times when the noblest of the pagan 
 world had been attracted by the purity of the 
 Christian rites, such a pair may have aroused the 
 wonder and emotion of the faithful who saw 
 them emerging from the shadow of the churches 
 into open day: a virgin initiated from childhood 
 in sacred things, and beside her a young patrician 
 wearing upon his face the glory and happiness 
 of the new life. 
 
 At the foot of the steps Mme. Limerel rejoined 
 Marie, having only then caught sight of Reginald. 
 Did she look upon him with any other feeling than 
 the surprise mingled with sympathy which she 
 was too kindly not to feel at that moment? Did 
 she wish to prolong for an instant Marie's very 
 innocent dream? Whatever the reason, she paused 
 a little before saying: 
 
 "Monsieur Breynolds?" 
 
 Reginald and Marie turned towards her. Their 
 faces wore the same expression, the same radi- 
 ance, as of those who had talked long together and 
 reached a perfect sympathy, and yet they had not 
 spoken. Reginald greeted Mme. Limerel: 
 
 "I am like you, now," he said. "Wholly like 
 you." 
 
 She questioned him rapidly. 
 
 "Where are you from? How long have you 
 been here ? Had you already seen us? Explain 
 it all to me." 
 
 But as the crowd was dense about them where 
 they stood, they descended to the lower terrace 
 and turned into a sort of open loggia on one side. 
 The sun poured down upon this little stage of
 
 THE BARRIER 187 
 
 stone on which their moving figures cast light shad- 
 ows. "We are exceedingly happy to see you, my 
 mother and I," said Marie at last. "I cannot tell 
 you how moved I was when I recognised you 
 there." 
 
 "It is two weeks since I was received into the 
 church," he said. " There was no one there that 
 day no one, I mean, who had ever known me 
 before." 
 
 He spoke with a frank simplicity character- 
 istic of him, while at the same time he gazed 
 steadfastly at these two unexpected witnesses. 
 His eyes seemed to say: "You are my family 
 now. At the hour when so many others turn 
 from me, it is a joy to meet you." 
 
 "What a strange meeting!" resumed Marie. 
 "When I saw you last you were far from this in 
 every way." 
 
 "Not so far as you imagined. Paris had de- 
 cided me to come to Rome. I had seen marvels 
 there. I wished to see their source. The months 
 have passed very rapidly." 
 
 "You stayed in Rome through the height of 
 summer? " 
 
 "Yes. I shall have no winter of my own." 
 
 "That is true." 
 
 "I regret nothing of these months, not even 
 the heat," and a smile lighted up his face as he 
 added: "I have made the longest journey a man 
 can make. I have come to the truth." 
 
 "The hardest journey, perhaps," said Mme. 
 Limerel. 
 
 "No, it has not been hard. It is now that the
 
 188 THE BARRIER 
 
 ordeal will be a cruel one, for others as well as 
 myself." 
 
 Reginald turned his face towards the piazza as 
 he spoke, while his expression, and even the tones 
 of his voice, completely changed. Mme. Limerel 
 and Marie had before them once more the man of 
 the world, the officer in the Indian service. 
 
 "You are staying in this quarter?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, just below there, at the nearest hotel. 
 We look up at this staircase whenever we go in 
 or out." 
 
 "You wished to be near the house of Keats? 
 Was that the reason?" 
 
 "The house of Keats?" 
 
 "Yes, look! opposite us, the loggia with a 
 trellis. He came here to die, in that little corner 
 palace. I am very fond of the poet who said so 
 many moving things in so brief a time. Do you 
 remember " And he quoted the familiar line : 
 
 "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are 
 sweeter." 
 
 "Was it really for his sake that you chose this 
 quarter of Rome?" 
 
 "Oh, no ! do not fancy it. We came here partly 
 by chance, and partly because it is the French 
 quarter. Here are the Villa Medici and Trinita 
 de' Monti, both French institutions, and even this 
 stairway was built by Cardinal de Polignac, the 
 ambassador of Louis XV. Do you see?" And 
 Marie pointed out the tablet bearing an inscrip- 
 tion to that effect.
 
 THE BARRIER 189 
 
 The young people both smiled at these re- 
 minders of their several nationalities, but Regi- 
 nald instantly turned grave again as a sudden 
 recollection crossed his mind. 
 
 "I must take leave of you," he said to Mme. 
 Limerel. "I have an important matter to attend 
 to this very morning. Will you allow me to call 
 upon you as soon as I am free?" 
 
 "Gladly, Monsieur. We shall not go out before 
 two." 
 
 "I shall be at liberty before that. It takes so 
 little time to give pain." 
 
 "You are right," said Marie. "One word 
 only and sorrow comes." 
 
 He bowed and remounted the steps, while 
 Mme. Limerel and her daughter continued to 
 descend. At the foot they bought some flowers 
 and then went to take tea at one of the cafe's in 
 the Via Condotti. 
 
 "What a fine manly nature!" said Marie. "To 
 me he seems a sort of foreign brother, if one can 
 say so. To have been a witness of his doubts, 
 the honest doubts of one who wishes to believe, 
 who loves what he does not yet possess, and then 
 to be present at this act of perfect faith! That 
 is a thing which touches me, perhaps, more than 
 another." 
 
 "He has needed great courage." 
 
 "Yes, greater, certainly, than we can imag- 
 ine." 
 
 "Since that evening at Redhall we have heard 
 nothing of the Breynolds, or scarcely anything." 
 
 "Only what Dorothy has written."
 
 190 THE BARRIER 
 
 "His parents will probably never forgive him. 
 He must have been thinking of them just now. 
 He will tell you, perhaps." 
 
 "No, mamma, because he is English and a 
 man, and I am merely a woman. And be- 
 sides " 
 
 She hesitated and smiled to soften what might 
 be wounding in her words: 
 
 "And besides, you will be present, my dear 
 mamma. I foresee a classic reception, a blending 
 of comradeship and reserve, after which we shall 
 separate as we did in Paris." 
 
 Mme. LimereFs suite at the Hotel de Londres 
 consisted of a salon and two bedrooms on the first 
 floor, looking out on the piazza. It was in this 
 salon, furnished with heavy gilt chairs and sofas 
 covered with red satin, that they received Regi- 
 nald. He was grave and absent-minded, and re- 
 plied with a visible effort to Mme. LimereFs 
 friendly questionings. She had expected him to 
 talk readily of Rome, and was surprised at the 
 polite indifference he showed to the monuments, 
 pictures, ruins, and scenery which she enumerated 
 with the ardour of her French nature, and the 
 enthusiasm of a traveller who has but lately dis- 
 covered Italy. The names which enchanted her 
 and called up vivid pictures to her mind he 
 scarcely noticed the view of Rome from the 
 Janiculum, St. Paul's Without the Walls, the little 
 church of San Onofrio, the gardens, the Cam- 
 pagna, the wagoners from the Castelli Romani 
 sheltered beneath their gay awnings. Had this
 
 THE BARRIER 191 
 
 Englishman grasped nothing of the Rome where 
 he had been living for three months? 
 
 "How did you happen, Monsieur, to come to the 
 Trinita de' Monti this morning? You are lodging, 
 you say, in the Aventine quarter near the ruins?" 
 
 "It was simply that I had not yet seen it." 
 
 "Like ourselves." 
 
 "Oh, I am far from having seen everything! I 
 am not a traveller, interested above all in the 
 city itself. I must come again for that, in five 
 years or so, perhaps. I shall hope to find some of 
 my new friends here then." 
 
 He named one of his compatriots, a Benedictine 
 who had instructed, guided, and sustained him 
 through his period of study and doubt. 
 
 "He is a sort of Thomas Winne in a monk's 
 frock," he said, looking at Marie. "Not in ap- 
 pearance, but in his tenacity, his vigorous reason- 
 ing powers, and his friendship for me." 
 
 But on this subject neither Mme. Limerel nor 
 Marie wished to question him, and he spoke but 
 briefly. He lingered, however, and Marie, who 
 divined this soul at once so confiding and so re- 
 served, Marie the born consoler, with her intuitive 
 sense of the neighbourhood of trouble, suddenly 
 said: 
 
 "I am sure that you would like to take a walk 
 with us!" 
 
 "Yes, that is the very thing." 
 
 "And you did not dare to ask? Why? You 
 have some chosen nook in Rome that you would 
 like to show us, and see whether we share your 
 admiration? Have I guessed right?"
 
 192 THE BARRIER 
 
 "Very nearly." 
 
 "Only very nearly?" 
 
 Reginald's eyes were full of a single, overmaster- 
 ing thought in which all others were swallowed up 
 and lost. Thus had he looked on that day in the 
 park of Redhall when the son of the house had 
 asked counsel of the little foreigner whom he 
 thought never to see again. 
 
 Marie rose with a slight wave of her hand, 
 saying: "Wait for us, we will be ready in five 
 minutes." 
 
 Reginald gazed at her as one waking from a 
 dream, then hastened to say: 
 
 "No, I beg that it may be for to-morrow. That 
 will be my last day in Rome." 
 
 "You are leaving Rome?" 
 
 "Not only Rome, but Europe soon, and every- 
 thing." 
 
 He pronounced these last syllables with a sad- 
 ness which went to the heart, and without turning 
 his eyes from Marie. 
 
 Mme. Limerel, who was impulsive and easily 
 moved, approached him as if she had heard the 
 news of some sudden bereavement. He tried 
 to smile and thank her, and although he did not 
 resemble his father, he had at that moment the 
 expression of sorrowful irony, the attitude of de- 
 fying and commanding fate which at times made 
 Sir George's face so tragic. 
 
 "To-morrow," said Mme. Limerel, "I am not 
 quite free, as I am expecting an old friend." 
 
 "You can bring her, too, mamma; she will not 
 be in the way, poor Madame Villier ! Let us take
 
 THE BARRIER 193 
 
 this walk with Monsieur Breynolds, since you 
 see that he cares about it." 
 
 "So be it. We will go wherever you say. 
 Monsieur. To-morrow at three, if you like." 
 
 Reginald did not answer at once, but waited 
 till his face had obeyed the command of his 
 will and grown less stern and sad, then he said 
 with an attempt at cheerfulness which still ex- 
 cited pity: 
 
 "To-day I have something else to ask. You 
 will laugh at me, Madame." 
 
 "Oh, no, surely not!" 
 
 "We are sometimes rather superstitious in 
 England, and perhaps I am so still. You must 
 pardon some weaknesses in a new convert." 
 
 As he spoke he drew a letter from his pocket. 
 "I have been writing this letter, which has cost 
 me more than any I have ever written. No, I 
 cannot remember ever tracing words with such 
 pain. There are some cruel ones, you know. I 
 have asked a great favour, one which will be hard 
 to grant." And he held the letter out to Marie. 
 
 "I should like the purest of hands to mail it. I 
 feel as if the request I am making would thus have 
 more chance of not being refused by one who is 
 very hard, very stern. Will you do this for 
 me?" 
 
 "Go together," said Mme. Limerel. "You are 
 both young and both sad, and it will be a way of 
 helping one another. You know the letter-box, 
 Marie, across the piazza. Go!" 
 
 Marie took the letter and ran to put on her hat. 
 She then led the way down the stairs without a
 
 194 THE BARRIER 
 
 word, but distress and pity were in both their 
 hearts, and they felt life vibrating between them. 
 
 As they crossed the piazza Reginald said: 
 "Read the address." 
 
 Marie raised the letter in the sunlight and read: 
 
 "Sir George Breynolds, Bart., 
 
 "Eden Hotel, Pallanza." 
 
 "Your father is at Pallanza?" 
 
 "Yes, with Robert Hargreave. I count very 
 much on Hargreave, for he knows all. No, do not 
 drop the letter in yet. Listen! you have the right 
 to know what it contains, for it is the direct con- 
 sequence, the end of a painful conflict in which 
 you bore a part." 
 
 "Do you regret it?" 
 
 "No, I thank you for it all. Sorrow has come 
 from it, but a happiness too, surpassing all the 
 happiness of this morning, which will endure and 
 in the end will stifle the pain." 
 
 He spoke more freely now; his youth confiding 
 again in her who had been involved once before 
 in this unfinished drama, the counsellor of cour- 
 age, the loyal spirit who had kept silence and 
 asked for no return. 
 
 "Come this way into the shade," he said, and he 
 led Marie a few steps down the Via San Sebastiano, 
 which was sheltered from the sun. She wore again 
 the deeply thoughtful look of one who is appealed 
 to for help, and is conscious of being able to give 
 it, and yet fears to exercise a power which reaches 
 out into the unknown. 
 
 "I can repeat it by heart," he said. "Listen:
 
 THE BARRIER 195 
 
 "'Mr DEAR FATHER: Every word you said to 
 me on the day when, at your command, I left 
 Redhall is stamped on my memory. You spoke 
 in anger caused by me, but they were words you 
 believed to be true and for my good. I would not 
 reproach you for one of them. You were within 
 your rights as a father, and such as I never 
 doubted I should find you. I realise now that 
 you knew me better than I knew myself. It ap- 
 peared to you that my conduct in several in- 
 stances was dictated by a beginning of allegiance 
 to the Catholic faith, not by mere detachment 
 from my earlier beliefs. I suffered for that faith 
 even before being fully conscious that it was mine. 
 This very suffering must prove to you, my dear 
 father, that my adherence to the greatest church 
 has not been given without deep study, reflection, 
 and prayer. I am sure you will not believe for 
 a moment that I have been able to incur your 
 disapproval and cause you deep regret, without 
 being forced to do so by the supreme rule which 
 should guide a man in all things, and which you 
 have yourself taught me to follow devotion to the 
 truth. Father, the eucharist which I saw raised 
 upon the hills of England has become mine. For 
 a week I have participated in the sacraments of the 
 Roman Church. It was a Benedictine of our own 
 nation who gave me spiritual instruction. A week 
 ago when I was received into the church, several 
 English brothers were beside me. I would have 
 given my life to have all those who are dear to me 
 there also. I am about to return to Assam, my 
 dear father; it is a long journey, as you know. I
 
 196 THE BARRIER 
 
 wish from my heart not to undertake this journey 
 without seeing you again. I entreat you to re- 
 ceive me. You need not approve what I have 
 done because you receive me, but it will make my 
 sorrow a little less heavy yours too, perhaps if 
 we can see each other once more. I shall await 
 your answer Wednesday, at Pallanza. 
 
 '"And now I fulfil the promise I gave you. 
 Since you have decided that Redhall should be 
 taken from me, you can do as you see fit. 
 '"Your affectionate son, 
 
 '"REGINALD BREYNOLDS.' 
 
 "That is my letter. It was a very painful 
 one to write. I was almost moved to tears, I, 
 a man, at the thought of leaving without seeing 
 him again. But if you post the letter there will be 
 a blessing on it. He cannot refuse. There, drop 
 it in." 
 
 Marie's fingers tightly clasped the letter which 
 now seemed to her alive and speaking. In spite 
 of the dazzling sunshine, she saw the houses 
 across the piazza through a veil of mist. 
 
 "Redhall will not be yours, then?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 She would not allow herself to judge where 
 Reginald did not, but as she stood there pale, 
 proud, and trembling a little : 
 
 "You are very brave," she said. "I could not 
 have believed that such a fate hung upon this 
 letter. What you have told me now, and what 
 you said to me once before, I shall never for- 
 get."
 
 THE BARRIER 197 
 
 Then she stepped across the sunny space to the 
 box and dropped the letter slowly, listening to the 
 muffled sound it made as it fell, while Reginald 
 gazed after her until she rejoined him. 
 
 "To-morrow, then, I shall bid you good-by," 
 he said, as they walked away. "This time it 
 seems to me that we shall not meet again. I 
 wish you every joy in your engagement." 
 
 She turned her head away abruptly, saying: 
 "But I am not engaged." 
 
 "What! I thought you were to marry " 
 
 "No. We are not to be married. I, too, have 
 had a great sorrow. Au revoir!" 
 
 They had reached the hotel as she spoke, and 
 Marie entered quickly, leaving Reginald outside. 
 He thought he saw her from a distance wave him 
 a friendly farewell, yet he remained standing 
 before the door through which she had vanished, 
 half expecting her to return. 
 
 A carriage driving up, full of travellers, obliged 
 him to retreat, and he walked away towards the 
 centre of the city, his heart beating rapidly. His 
 mind was tossed and buffeted by the tempest 
 within him, by all the thronging troubles he had 
 already foreseen, and others rising before him. 
 He tried to make head against the howling pack. 
 He heard their cries: 
 
 "Your father has renounced you, your mother 
 is in tears, Redhall is lost to you ! Countless affec- 
 tions are wounded; there is nothing left you but 
 to flee! All the treasure of love built up for you 
 by your parents and friends, your old comrade- 
 ships, the ivy on the walls of home, the pond that
 
 198 THE BARRIER 
 
 will spread its blossoms for other eyes, all sacri- 
 ficed by you, all! Madman who have despised 
 that wealth of love which enriched your youth ! " 
 
 He kept repeating as he walked along the streets : 
 "I have done right. I will not count up my 
 griefs. God has counted them for me. Such 
 thoughts will weaken me. Away with them!" 
 
 Then another voice, a new one, powerful as all 
 the rest together, said: "Marie is free and you 
 never dreamed of it. Marie is free, free, free!" 
 
 How little he resembled the busy or idle prome- 
 naders he passed, or even himself of the day 
 before, or that very morning! On he went along 
 the Corso and the Piazza Venezia, through the 
 narrow streets around the Forum. Nothing 
 roused his interest, no vision penetrated through 
 his eyes to his brain. Dead was the city around 
 him; dead the memories which rise before us all 
 as we pass along its ways. He was cut off even 
 from the memories of his Roman summer, the 
 morning throng, the palaces, the fountains, all 
 the known and unknown which had enveloped 
 him, by this torrent of new emotions. She alone 
 occupied his heart. She was all his world. She 
 created and destroyed in an instant visions far 
 clearer and more real than those about him: a 
 whole past of tears, and Marie free, Marie by whom 
 he might have made himself loved, Marie indif- 
 ferent whom he must lose with all the rest! 
 
 He did not yield before these assaults. A sort 
 of anger animated him, the excitement of the tried 
 wrestler who will not be conquered, and who is not 
 at his first victory. He had walked so rapidly
 
 THE BARRIER 199 
 
 that his brow was hot and throbbing as he turned 
 into the shaded path between deep walls which 
 climbs the deserted slopes of the Aventine. He 
 stopped before the door of the Abbey of St. 
 Anselm, which is occupied by the college of the 
 Benedictine order. The porter recognised him at 
 once, and Reginald rejoiced, so in need was he 
 of sympathy, and recalled, as he did so, the old 
 gardener at home on the night he was exiled. 
 
 "Is Dom Austin Vivian here?" 
 
 "No, he is not." 
 
 "Ah, I am sorry to hear that. I wanted so 
 much to see him. I will come back a little while 
 before the Ave Maria." 
 
 "He is not in Rome," said the friar. "He was 
 called away several days ago. Here is a letter he 
 left for you." 
 
 The sunset was approaching its most golden 
 hour, and before leaving, Reginald wished to gaze 
 for the last time at the noble prospect which those 
 meditative souls have always spread out before 
 them. But he found that it no longer spoke 
 peace to his troubled heart. His last look was 
 at the door which had so often opened to him, 
 the door of carved chestnut most imperishable 
 of woods in a setting of white marble, with an 
 inscription over it which he read once more: "Pax 
 seterna ab seterno." Peace, that wealth which 
 no wealth can buy, which he had once possessed 
 and was seeking still, but as those who know 
 that they shall find it again, that it has with- 
 drawn a little way in order to be better loved, but 
 not too far to hear the dropping of our tears.
 
 200 THE BARRIER 
 
 He went away feeling that he was utterly alone 
 in life, but that on the morrow there would be 
 Marie. The footpaths were deserted, the walls on 
 either side re-echoed his hasty steps. He con- 
 tinued to ascend to the summit of the hill where 
 stood an inn surrounded by a small vineyard, where 
 he had hired a room looking down over Rome. 
 He entered, but did not approach his window 
 as was his wont every evening. He seated him- 
 self before the plain deal table and buried his 
 face in his hands. Cruel thoughts, tenacious 
 thoughts, still assailed him, but at moments he 
 felt a sense of succour as he murmured : 
 
 "Come to my help, God! to the help of one 
 who is very poor. All the beings upon whom 
 my heart has leaned have, one by one, withdrawn 
 from me. I am reduced to my own weakness and 
 Thy power. It is best so. My father banished 
 me, my friend was absent when I most needed 
 counsel, my new friend fails me to-day. They held 
 but for a moment the place I thought a lasting 
 one. And she whom I shall see to-morrow! How 
 will it be between us? Grant to me who am 
 timid and silent the courage to speak to Marie. 
 Grant that her answer may be according to Thy 
 will, Thou Dispenser of the supreme and prom- 
 ised peace!" 
 
 He had no sense of the flight of time. When he 
 rose and looked around at the dim walls of his 
 room, the stars were shining in at the window, and 
 far below, in the deep valley, gardens, huts, and ruins 
 slumbered and the calm, cold, silent night spread 
 over all, allaying the dust and tumult of the day.
 
 THE BARRIER 201 
 
 On the following afternoon, at three o'clock, 
 when Reginald entered the reading-room of the 
 Hotel de Londres he found there Mme. Limerel, 
 Marie, and an old lady dressed in black, to whom 
 he was presented, a tall, thin lady, comfortably 
 ensconced on the sofa, with a light silk scarf over 
 her shoulders which she was constantly redraping, 
 and who had the direct, serious, and at the same 
 time amused expression of those who have trav- 
 elled a great deal, and who instinctively weigh 
 and compare whatever they see landscapes, 
 jewels, accents, men's clothes, and the tones of 
 their voices. 
 
 "You remind me, Monsieur Breynolds," she 
 said, "of an Englishman I met on the Bosphorus, 
 who wore precisely the same sort of travelling 
 costume, with the blouse and knickerbockers of 
 brown or is it green? It must be very practi- 
 cal. Your tailors have never invented anything 
 better." 
 
 He bowed, and it was chiefly with this elder- 
 ly globe-trotter that he conversed while they 
 climbed the Spanish steps and wound around the 
 edge of the terraced gardens. Marie followed in 
 silence with her mother, knowing that this was but 
 a temporary diversion. The attention he lent to 
 the most commonplace questions was too elabo- 
 rate, he took too much pains to answer fully, while 
 at the same time turning aside from anything 
 which approached the personal, even avoiding the 
 vague expressions in which youth often veils an 
 insistent trouble in an unconscious appeal for 
 sympathy.
 
 202 THE BARRIER 
 
 Marie, meanwhile, pursued the dream which 
 had absorbed her the previous evening, and all 
 that morning. She understood that she should 
 again have this hidden soul opened to her, and that 
 the hour was approaching. At last Mme. Limerel 
 asked Reginald: 
 
 "Where are you taking us, Monsieur?" 
 
 They had walked half-way along the terrace, 
 skirting the Pincian hill. He cast a glance about 
 him, like one who has come a long distance with- 
 out being aware of it, and replied : 
 
 "I do not know. It is all quite the same to 
 me." 
 
 "You promised, you know, to show us one of 
 your favourite spots." 
 
 He thought for a moment: 
 
 "Have you been to the Piazza di Siena?" 
 
 "No, never." 
 
 "Let us go there, then." 
 
 The little party turned to the right and crossed 
 the garden between beds of withered flowers- 
 dahlias, roses, pinks, and sage, whose foliage was 
 already dead, but which still showed bright bits of 
 colour on the top of their elongated stalks. The 
 pathway led through a grove of tall cedars draped 
 with wild vine drooping languidly in the breath 
 of autumn. 
 
 Marie was now talking with Mme. Villier, while 
 Reginald walked ahead with Mme. Limerel and 
 described to her the long journey he must make 
 before reaching Assam. At the end of the garden 
 they crossed a bridge over a deep ravine and 
 entered the grounds of the Villa Borghese. The
 
 THE BARRIER 203 
 
 horizon widened, and the characteristic Roman 
 beauty showed itself in the bolder contours of the 
 landscape, and the soaring lines of the cypresses. 
 Reginald led the way through an ilex avenue, and 
 soon pointed out on the right hand an oval glade, 
 a sort of stadium for races and games, which had 
 been hollowed out in the midst of a grove of 
 lofty stone pines, and surrounded by tall hedges 
 of clipped box, above which a yew tree rose 
 here and there. The arena was framed by four 
 tiers of moss-grown stone steps, with strips of 
 sod between, forming seats for the absent spec- 
 tators. 
 
 " There is the Piazza di Siena," he said. "I 
 have often spent hours here. See what perfect 
 seclusion. How far we seem to be from the noise 
 of the streets." 
 
 "It is antique, evidently," said] the lady 
 traveller. 
 
 "Only a century old, Madame, but the Roman 
 air soon gives that look of grandeur." 
 
 A few figures could be seen straying along the 
 distant avenues, looking minute among the trees. 
 The twisted boughs of the pines on the embank- 
 ment were beginning to turn a rosy hue, but the 
 hollow of the circus was in shadow and the re- 
 cumbent stones wrapped in their clinging mosses 
 were pallid only from the intensity of shade about 
 them. 
 
 In order to rest and enjoy this solitude, the 
 ladies seated themselves on the upper row of 
 seats near the opening, and Reginald remained 
 standing on the knoll above them.
 
 204 THE BARRIER 
 
 An emotion too strong to be repressed had taken 
 possession of him; at last he approached Marie 
 where she sat beside her mother and said: 
 
 "Will you come a little way with me? It will 
 be our last walk together." 
 
 She rose at once, and side by side they walked 
 away over the carpet of pine needles, into the 
 shade of the grove. 
 
 "You allow it?" asked the friend, and Mme. 
 Limerel replied: 
 
 "He is an Englishman and he is leaving to- 
 morrow." 
 
 The last walk! What a throng of memories, 
 the slightest and the most remote, were awakened 
 by that cruel word; how they gathered about 
 these two, separating them at once from the whole 
 world! Reginald had already bent over Marie, 
 and was speaking to her in low tones. Stirred as 
 they were by different but dominating emotions, 
 they moved slowly, while every gesture and in- 
 flection of their voices was unstudied and spon- 
 taneous, the words they exchanged were stripped 
 of every vestige of the human comedy, and had 
 become the breath of two souls without dis- 
 guise. 
 
 For the first time Reginald said: "Mary," and 
 on hearing her name pronounced Marie was more 
 troubled than before. She understood now that 
 she bore no other name in his thoughts. 
 
 "Mary, I thank you for having come. You 
 have already played a great part in my life." 
 
 "I did not seek it." 
 
 "No, but it was a beneficent, a blessed part."
 
 THE BARRIER 205 
 
 "I should like to have it so." 
 
 "You have judged well in all things, Mary. 
 Thank you, once more." 
 
 " And yet all your troubles have come through 
 me," she said. 
 
 "They might be doubled, for I know their power 
 now. They cannot reach the heights of the soul." 
 
 ''That is most true." 
 
 "And then, when I see you once more, it seems 
 to me that all I have endured is over. You can- 
 not believe with what impatience I have waited 
 for the time when I could speak to you again." 
 
 "I, too, have longed for a chance to speak freely 
 with you," she replied. 
 
 "I thought of you all last evening." 
 
 "And I of you! I admired what you had done." 
 
 "How I wish our thoughts might have been 
 the same. You told me of something which has 
 cost you tears, regrets, and hopes. Do you re- 
 member your last words to me?" 
 
 "I remember." 
 
 "You told me you were no longer engaged. 
 For hours and hours I have thought over your 
 words, Mary, and I have resolved to speak to you 
 as I could not have spoken before." 
 
 "You are wrong, I fear." 
 
 "Do not stop me. Let me speak. I am soon 
 to be so far away from you. I have questioned my 
 heart, in great perplexity at first, afterwards with 
 a sort of calmness and hope. I thought I knew 
 myself, but I did not. You have been in my 
 heart much longer than I was conscious, and 
 doubtless from the first. Thank God I did not
 
 206 THE BARRIER 
 
 then know what might have turned me aside 
 from my great purpose! And yet you were never 
 to me like other girls. When you were a stranger, 
 a partner at tennis, almost unknown to me, I 
 turned to you in the greatest crisis of my life. 
 What inspired this wonderful confidence?" 
 
 "You have already told me," she answered. 
 "It was partly that you attributed to me a sound- 
 ness of judgment which I have not always for 
 myself, and still more because you thought that 
 we should never meet again." 
 
 "Yes, but we have met. Almost in spite of my- 
 self I saw you again; my well-weighed plans were 
 broken down, and why? What force drew me 
 up your mother's stairs when I had persisted for 
 days in staying away? Explain to me my obedi- 
 ence to your slightest word; my joy when I am 
 beside you; my deep trouble, as at this moment. 
 I never understood it until last night when think- 
 ing over these months which have changed every- 
 thing within me and around me. Mary, I am 
 sure that I have always loved you, at least a little, 
 but far less than now." 
 
 Marie slackened her steps and gazed at him 
 steadily and sadly. 
 
 "Reginald," she said, "do not speak to me of 
 a love I cannot share." 
 
 "You cannot share it?" 
 
 "No, my friend." 
 
 She spoke with so deep a pity for the pain she 
 was giving that neither of them could add another 
 word as they walked on, side by side, with bowed 
 heads, their shadows forming but one, which
 
 THE BARRIER 207 
 
 moved before them down the slope. For they 
 had reached the end of the row of pines, and were 
 passing beneath the ilexes which bound the ex- 
 tremity of the Piazza di Siena. Reginald spoke 
 first : 
 
 "I have deceived myself then. You are not the 
 woman I thought you." 
 
 His tone had grown harsh. He made no at- 
 tempt to curb his anger, which was only grief. 
 
 "You scorn one who has all the world against 
 him. Yesterday I might have been a man to in- 
 spire some interest. To-day I am a mere younger 
 son, a poor subaltern!" 
 
 "Ah, do not speak like that! You are ungen- 
 erous. You are not yourself at this moment! In 
 truth you might have the right to accuse me if I 
 had ever tried to make you love me, if I had 
 been a thoughtless coquette. But I have nothing 
 of the sort to reproach myself with, as you well 
 know." 
 
 "Yes, I know it. But why do you repulse me? 
 Why do you act like other women whom I have 
 not loved? You whom I believed so different! 
 Is it because you could not marry an English- 
 man? You are fiercely French. Is it that ? " 
 
 "I am tenderly so, which is a different thing. 
 If you wish to know my real feeling on the subject, 
 I will tell you : I should prefer to marry a French- 
 man, but I could love a foreigner. Do not doubt 
 it." 
 
 "But he would carry you too far away. You 
 are afraid?" 
 
 "Oh, no, not that."
 
 208 THE BARRIER 
 
 "I cannot offer you a brilliant position now. 
 All luxuries, all that makes an easy, attractive 
 life, I have renounced for the present. But I 
 shall at least inherit my father's title. I can ex- 
 change and return to England. I could 
 
 "Reginald, you misunderstand me wholly. I 
 have already answered you." 
 
 "It is myself then, my character, my disposi- 
 tion, or my person, that you cannot love? Ah, I 
 had hoped more of this last interview! I am 
 indeed alone since you abandon me!" 
 
 "Never! Listen to me!" 
 
 Marie spoke in the firm tones of a mother 
 reproving a wilful child. The sunshine cast a 
 golden gleam over her delicate profile. 
 
 "You will be able to understand me, you who 
 have a strong religious sense. You have told me 
 your secrets. I owe you mine. I loved Felicien, 
 who has been a friend from childhood. He had 
 admirable qualities, and talents, and inheritances 
 which attached me to him. We seemed destined 
 for each other. But I exacted one condition, 
 the greatest, the most essential for me that he 
 should share my faith, and he was forced to own 
 to me with tears that he could not fulfil it." 
 
 "I remember. We passed a night together 
 a night of vigil." 
 
 "So we parted, and I shall never marry him." 
 
 Reginald turned away his face. He hesitated 
 for a moment, but gene'rous youth and imperious 
 kindness carried the day. 
 
 "Mary, how could he abandon a faith like his 
 and a being like you? He is at the age when men
 
 THE BARRIER 209 
 
 have such splendid resources of energy and are 
 capable of such sudden changes." 
 
 "I had hoped for that. I have waited." 
 
 He saw that tears were trembling on her lashes, 
 and that she thanked him. In a warmer gleam of 
 sunlight they walked on side by side, and entered 
 the pine-grove on the further side of the arena. 
 They were returning now to their starting-point. 
 Far off they could see the two ladies, making a 
 patch of blackness on the stones and turf. 
 
 "Even after that, I tried once more," she said. 
 "I wrote to him. I have already learned how 
 slight the power of love is. Now, all is over, 
 only " 
 
 She stopped and leaned against a pine, with one 
 arm raised above her head, and Reginald stood 
 before her in order that he might look in her 
 face, and as if to prevent her escaping him. 
 
 " Only I have suffered, Reginald." 
 
 "I saw it. I compared your look now with 
 what it was formerly." 
 
 "I have changed, have I not?" 
 
 "That which gives added beauty is a change, 
 too." 
 
 "I have been so deeply shaken that I feel I 
 have no right now to accept the love of another. 
 These memories must be dispelled to allow me 
 even to listen. I should feel that I was profaning 
 the tenderness offered me, if a shadow within 
 me mingled with it." 
 
 "Sweet soul that you are!" 
 
 "I wish to be wholly strong against the past. I 
 wish that there should be no regrets, do you un-
 
 210 THE BARRIER 
 
 derstand? No dust of shattered affections in the 
 heart I give to him who shall come." 
 
 "He has come, Mary." 
 
 She made no answer. 
 
 "Tell me that I may love you. Then I shall no 
 longer be alone, and I can go away joyful." 
 
 Her outstretched arm clasped the tree for 
 support. 
 
 "Tell me that I may write to you from out 
 there, and that you will write to me." 
 
 She made a gesture of assent and Reginald 
 cried : 
 
 "Ah, then you will learn to love me. I am 
 sure of it!" 
 
 "I do not wish to know. Are we destined for 
 each other, Reginald, my friend Reginald? Do 
 not let us be carried away by words of weakness. 
 Let us control our hearts which have been sorely 
 tried, and are striving to find consolation. It is 
 for me to fortify and warn you. You are about 
 to leave me, keep yourself free to forget me." 
 
 "I do not wish to be free," he pleaded. 
 
 "It is not at this last moment that you can 
 speak the first word of love to me can ask for 
 my promise and pledge me yours. Reginald, we 
 have a nobler farewell to speak to each other- 
 stronger and more worthy of us both." 
 
 Marie, as she spoke, wore again the expression 
 she had worn in the woods of Redhall when he had 
 asked her counsels. Her sensitive face grew 
 stronger and finer with all the energy of her race, 
 her noble nature, her purity and power of sus- 
 taining others, her pity without weakness, her
 
 THE BARRIER 211 
 
 spirit of self-sacrifice and of challenge to life, 
 her courage in the hour of difficulty. The eyes 
 which had been filled with tears were now clear 
 and serious, no longer looking into Reginald's to 
 understand, to divine, to follow his thought, but to 
 command in the name of an authority ever present 
 and supreme. As one who through pity forgets 
 her own grief, she had conquered all perplexities, 
 and saw clearly for herself and for him. 
 
 "Let us not bid each other adieu under the 
 illusion of a rash tenderness, but in the certainty 
 of a perfect friendship." 
 
 And in his turn he made no reply. 
 
 "Let us part in mutual gratitude, because we 
 have helped each other to rise." 
 
 "You have indeed helped me," he said. 
 "But I?" 
 
 "You also. What examples of courage you 
 have given me! That letter last evening! All 
 night I thought of it and reproached myself for 
 my weakness. Truly, if I have the strength to 
 speak to you as I do, it is to you that I owe it! 
 You have led me back into the higher path. I 
 thank you. I shall think of you daily. Nothing 
 can spoil our memory of each other. We have 
 tried to do our duty to each other, and in doing 
 it I believe that we have fulfilled our destiny. 
 Go freely, Reginald, towards the future!" 
 
 With an affectionate gesture she took his hand. 
 
 "My brother Reginald, I will love you all my 
 life." 
 
 He pressed the valiant little hand and said in 
 a scarcely audible tone:
 
 212 THE BARRIER 
 
 "Yes, all our lives. You have a noble soul, 
 Mary, far nobler than I knew. You are right, for 
 the present at least. But leave me the future. 
 I obey you. I go without a murmur. Adieu." 
 
 He was trembling and quite pale. Marie re- 
 mained standing where he had left her, while he 
 stepped backwards, slowly, still gazing at her 
 through the pines. When he was a few paces 
 off he spoke again, striving to appear master of 
 himself. 
 
 "You look too much like her who shared my 
 victory on the day of the tournament Westgate 
 little Mary, adieu." 
 
 The ruddy sunlight again fell on the brown 
 hair of the colour of ripe chestnut burrs. Regi- 
 nald paused once more and his lips moved, but 
 his words no longer reached her across the dis- 
 tance that divided them. 
 
 Two days later Reginald landed on the blooming 
 quay of Pallanza. The boat was leaving the pier 
 to round the rocky cape and terraced gardens 
 which form one point of the Borromean Bay 
 and divide Lago Maggiore. He sought amidst 
 the crowd of tourists and Italian venders on the 
 pier the friend whom he was amazed not to find 
 awaiting him. The wind which was sweeping 
 down from the Alps reached even this sheltered 
 landing, and rose again in a whirlwind, car- 
 rying the dry leaves before it. 
 
 Reginald, who knew that the Eden Hotel 
 was situated on the extreme point of the cape, 
 crossed the piazza diagonally, passing the old
 
 THE BARRIER 213 
 
 houses built on arcades, and had begun climb- 
 ing the slope lined with villas, into which the 
 carriages from the pier were already turning, 
 when, suddenly, at the opening of the road, an 
 Englishman appeared, running and breathless, 
 waving his arms as he cried: 
 
 "How are you, Reginald? I am late, then." 
 
 "How are you, Hargreave?" 
 
 They gazed at each other intently. Hargreave, 
 taller, thinner, and more awkward than ever, 
 hesitated to appear his jovial self and restrained 
 the broad smile which was habitual with him. 
 
 "You look at me as anxiously as if I were re- 
 covering from an illness/' said Reginald. "My 
 dear fellow, do not worry about me. I am the 
 same man as ever, and am on my way back to 
 service. I sail this evening unless my father 
 keeps me; in that case I shall go to-morrow. 
 How is he?" 
 
 "Wonderfully well. This climate suits him." 
 
 "So much the better. He has not seemed too 
 much concerned?" 
 
 Fully restored to himself, Hargreave drew 
 Reginald rapidly along, and as they ascended the 
 hill, went on with increasing animation: 
 
 "He? His best friends, like myself, fail to 
 comprehend the complicated mechanism of his 
 mind. I know what he is doing, but I have no 
 idea what he is thinking, when he chooses to keep 
 it to himself ! I can only assure you that he is lead- 
 ing an active life, and one according to his tastes. 
 He has a little white boat rigged as a sloop, in 
 which we sail back and forth across the lake.
 
 214 THE BARRIER 
 
 She is a swift sailer, Reginald, and serves very 
 well for fishing. We fish for the char but your 
 father is particularly enthusiastic over the trout. 
 He considers them a thousand times prettier and 
 more delicious than those of Lago di Garda, 
 which are brown-scaled, as you know. Here 
 they flash in the water like sunbeams, and have 
 a very delicate flavour, especially when seasoned 
 with old Lesa wine. The mountains here offer 
 hundreds of excursions, but your father tires 
 more easily than formerly. He has joined the 
 skating club which owns an artificial pond 
 over yonder, behind the Crocetta estate. In 
 short, the place seems very favourable to your 
 father's health. But I have no notion as to his 
 state of mind concerning you, nor as to what 
 sort of a welcome you will receive." 
 
 "He got my letter?" 
 
 "Yes, the day before yesterday, while he was 
 taking his coffee on the terrace. The chasseur 
 brought only one, and I recognised your hand- 
 writing. Sir George tore it open and glanced at 
 the first line, then thrust it hastily into his vest 
 pocket, saying: 'I have received bad news, Har- 
 greave. You won't leave me this afternoon, will 
 you?' We took a long, a very long walk. He 
 seemed sad, and once or twice I thought he was 
 about to speak to me of you. But no, nothing! 
 And yet he said, 'You won't leave me?" 
 
 They followed the path, which was bordered 
 by tropical plants of every variety, while through 
 the branches of the trees they caught glimpses of 
 the blue mountains across the lake.
 
 THE BARRIER 215 
 
 "I will go on ahead and find him," said Har- 
 greave, "and tell him that you are here awaiting 
 his answer." 
 
 Reginald laid his hand on his old friend's arm, 
 saying: 
 
 "Be sure and add that I submit to his orders 
 and only ask for one thing: to see him, even 
 without exchanging a word, to see him if only for a 
 moment." 
 
 Hargreave's face expressed sympathy, mingled 
 with regret and reproach, such as one feels for 
 wasted heroism. 
 
 "Brave boy!" he said. " I don't understand 
 you, but I have a weakness for you, all the 
 same." 
 
 "Tell him, also, that my affection for him is un- 
 changed, that my respect has never wavered. 
 
 Hargreave went on alone, repeating to himself 
 like a refrain: 
 
 "Redhall! Redhall! The future lord of Red- 
 hall awaiting justice from his father!" 
 
 Sir George was sitting in the glazed gallery of 
 the hotel reading the newspaper, with his back to 
 the light. Contrary to his habit, he allowed 
 Hargreave to open the door and come in without 
 accosting him, without seeming aware of his 
 friend's presence. Hargreave approached, rais- 
 ing his shoulders and contracting the muscles of 
 his long neck, which, with him, was a sign of em- 
 barrassment. 
 
 "There is some one outside, my dear fellow, 
 who would like to see you, only to see you, even 
 without speaking a word."
 
 216 THE BARRIER 
 
 The hands holding the newspaper trembled so 
 violently that Sir George let it drop lest the 
 rattling of the sheet should be audible, -as he said: 
 
 "Ah, really! I suspected as much." 
 
 "He has come a long way." 
 
 "I did not invite him." 
 
 "He is waiting in the road. If you refuse to 
 see him, it will cause him great pain." 
 
 "He is younger than I to bear his pain!" 
 
 "And he will take the next boat " 
 
 "He is quite free to do so." 
 
 And with these words the old baronet sprang 
 to his feet, red with anger. 
 
 "Does he bring me excuses? No, I am sure 
 not. You cannot say that he offers any, and if 
 you did I should not believe you; he is my son. 
 Then why do you expect me to change? He knew 
 what he was doing. So do I ! You can bring him 
 in, Hargreave, but I shall not be here. If he 
 asks you where I am, you can say that I had a 
 rush of blood to the head, and needed to take 
 the air." 
 
 And with hasty steps Sir George crossed the 
 gallery and entered the adjoining salon, slamming 
 the door behind him. 
 
 Hargreave walked out of the hotel, bitterly re- 
 gretting that he had consented to be the bearer of 
 messages between these two. He followed the 
 little path bordered by palms and ferns until he 
 caught sight of Reginald, when feeling powerless 
 to speak to him, to comfort him, to be a witness 
 of his youthful sorrow, he made a despairing ges- 
 ture, saying with arms and head and eyes:
 
 THE BARRIER 217 
 
 "It is useless. I have done your errand badly. 
 I have not succeeded. Do not come!" 
 
 On the deck of the steamboat, half an hour later, 
 Reginald Breynolds was seeking for a spot whence 
 he could distinguish most clearly, and for the 
 longest time, the house where his father had re- 
 fused to receive him. He found at last a place in 
 the bow, outside the awning which was flapping 
 in the breeze. The whole surface of the lake from 
 north to south was furrowed by the wind, and 
 quivering with life and light; the sun was just 
 sinking behind the mountains. The boat sound- 
 ed her whistle and put off, rounding first the little 
 island of San Giovanni, which lies opposite Pal- 
 lanza, and then the cape, upon whose terraces 
 the foliage scarcely stirred. Next she headed 
 straight to windward a few hundred yards from 
 the shore, which here sent out a succession of long 
 spurs into the lake as far as the eye could dis- 
 tinguish them in the rising mist. Reginald 
 strove intently to make out which of the closed 
 windows in the great square building on the 
 height might hide the figure of Sir George, which 
 curtain might be lifted for a moment and then let 
 fall again. 
 
 He was no longer troubled; he had accepted 
 the ordeal and did not rebel. The Sempione was 
 making good speed; it would soon be difficult to 
 distinguish the outlines of a man's figure on the 
 hotel balconies. They had already passed the 
 cliffs of San Remigio, bright with geraniums, the 
 shores were growing flatter, the little town and
 
 218 THE BARRIER 
 
 beach of Intra were just coming in sight when 
 Reginald started, and with a rapid gesture raised 
 his hat from his head. From the shelter of a 
 rock a white skiff glided out and bore down on 
 the Sempione, carrying so much sail that she 
 careened before the wind. A man held the tiller, 
 an old man, sitting very upright. 
 
 All the passengers rose to see how close the 
 sloop would cross the track of the steamer. She 
 passed so near as to graze the hull. For an instant 
 Reginald saw the small blue eyes beneath their 
 white lashes fixed upon his ; then the sloop, caught 
 in a sudden gust, veered away from the steamship, 
 which was running straight for Locarno. She did 
 not turn again. But invisible, leaning half-way 
 across the gunwale, separated already by dis- 
 tance, by the light mist and the oncoming dark- 
 ness from the big boat, old Sir George still peered 
 out to catch her dim outline. Then as night de- 
 scended, he saw only one of her side-lights like a 
 little star skimming the surface of the water.
 
 Books by RENE BAZIN 
 
 PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 THIS, MY SON 
 
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 $1.25 
 
 This novel, which is one of the author's most 
 powerful and moving books, is nominally the 
 story of a certain Breton farmer and his sons 
 and daughters, but the main theme is really the 
 tragedy that results from the pull of the new life 
 of the town away from the old life of the peasant. 
 The descriptions of the farm and the family life 
 there, of the growth of the boy Pierre, of his 
 training for the priesthood, of his break with his 
 family, of his experiences as a journalist in Paris, 
 and of his love and of his ambition and their 
 result is told simply, powerfully, and with as- 
 tonishing vividness. There is no element of con- 
 troversy in the story, no presentation of any 
 quarrel of Church and State, but the striking 
 picture of the inevitable and perpetual struggle 
 of the old and the new, of every new genera- 
 tion against every old generation, reinforced 
 and accentuated by the modern motive of the 
 struggle of the country against the irresistible 
 call of the city.
 
 BOOKS BY RENE BAZIN 
 
 THE 
 COMING HARVEST 
 
 (LE BLE QUI LEVE) 
 $1.25 
 
 "He gives us the everyday life of the work- 
 ing men and women of France. . . . Rene 
 Bazin makes pictures on every page of this 
 story that ought to be inspiration for a thou- 
 sand painters." 
 
 New York Freeman s Journal. 
 
 "It is so far out of the ordinary run of books 
 published to-day that it causes a distinct sur- 
 prise. Bazin has indeed touched the heights 
 of human emotion and the depths of human 
 sorrow. On every page are the unmistakable 
 earmarks of greatness." 
 
 Louisville Evening Post. 
 
 "We shall not be the worse for such a book 
 as this. A novel well made and also (mirabile 
 dictu) well translated; a novel instinct with 
 human sympathy and withal a novel of ideas 
 and sentiment." Philadelphia Public Ledger.
 
 BOOKS BY RENE BAZIN 
 
 REDEMPTION 
 
 (DE TOUTE SON AME) 
 $1.25 
 
 "A fascinating story. Simple in construction, 
 commonplace in incident, it is a superb delinea- 
 tion of the glory of consecration and sacrifice 
 exemplified in the life of a young girl of the 
 people." Catholic World. 
 
 "There is a subtle descriptive power, imparting 
 a haunting quality which makes one feel in- 
 stead of see, which, together with his delicate 
 ability to unravel the skeins of simple souls, 
 goes far to account for Rene Bazin's wide- 
 spread popularity in France to-day." 
 
 Review and Expositor. 
 
 "The work is remarkable for its literary 
 beauty and strength. Once read it will never 
 be forgotten." Cleveland Plain Dealer.
 
 BOOKS BY RENE BAZIN 
 
 THE NUN 
 
 (L'ISOLEE) 
 
 $1.00 
 
 " It is the epic of the persecuted church, terrible 
 in its truth, terrible in its portent, terrible in its 
 indictment." The Monitor, 
 
 "The Nun is a book which no one who reads it 
 will ever forget." Westminster Gazette. 
 
 "This work eats into the heart, and lives in the 
 memory as do but few books from modern 
 authors." London Daily Telegraph. 
 
 " M. Bazin gives some beautiful pictures of 
 life in a convent, of the order, the discipline, 
 the labors and the sacrifice of the gentle women 
 of the Sisterhood." Philadelphia Record. 
 
 "Told simply yet with such power that one 
 cannot get away from the scenes he depicts nor 
 forget the portrait he draws." 
 
 Donahoes Magazine.
 
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